Kids Today Could NOT Have Survived Our Childhood

From surviving a "free-range" childhood on sugary cereal to surviving the HBO hype machine, we’re breaking down why 90s kids were built different. We’re also diving into The Pitt and the new Game of Thrones spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, to see if they’re actually must-watch TV or just over-marketed filler.

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Transcript

Cold Open And Banter

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Whenever they were closing the hospital, they were like, there goes the sex furniture. I was like, really? She's like, oh yeah, doctors, nurses, everyone was just no one f with cinnamon toast crunch. Like it feels medieval, but then there's a little bit of like There's just a little fantasy kiss. When I kind of an incest. I enjoy that too because not the incest.

Gratitude And Subscribe Request

Show Setup And Today’s Themes

Special K Taste Test And Nutrition Debate

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Oh got him. Hey guys, real quick before we get into this episode, I wanted to take literally 10 seconds of your time to thank you so much for spending any moment of your life with me and the guys. We appreciate it so much. You following along on this platform or whatever other platform you're listening on means the world to us. We're working our hardest to make this the best podcast possible. All that we ask in return is that you hit that follow or subscribe button. It's the best way for us to grow this thing so that we can continue to do more of it and bring more value to you guys. Now let's get into the show. Welcome to another episode of the Slightly Above Average podcast, where we're basically just a real life group chat. This week we've got no sports for you, but we are jumping into some childhood nostalgia, some bad habits, and basically how these two think the adulthood of our future is cooked. Um, I myself, my name's John Maleki, and I'm super excited to have Mr. Sam Pula and Joe Minard with me today to bring nothing but joy and entertainment to you for as long as absolutely possible. But before we get into that, we've got Sam's segment where he always brings us a special treat. Sam, tell me you got something good for me today. It actually is good for you, arguably. Uh who's arguing us? Well I know about what brought you eat the deplorable things. I've got nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

So Joe had a great idea that uh we'd do uh do a cereal themed uh episode. She's okay, it is breakfast time. Brought one of my favorite cereals. Special K. What are you a 40-year-old woman in the 90s going on a diet? No, I will say this is one of those cereals. I like this one, and the one with the fruit and yogurt clusters. I don't know. To be honest, I feel like as I've gotten older, I mean I don't really eat cereal that often, but this one is a good late-night snack. It's it's of all cereals, it's it's probably like the the least bad cereal for you. I've got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

I used to get hungry after Sam and I, we've talked about this before. We both grew up on special K. What? And I used to have a bowl of special K after dinner if I didn't if I was still hungry, because I was always always thought in my head, I can't eat more of like the food that's there. I'm I'm gonna gain weight or it's gonna be like gain weight. Whatever. So I would eat a bowl of special K. Horrible thinking at the time when I was like, Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Okay, so first and foremost, the history of what special K is. Oh, I've got some facts. Oh my goodness. It is, it is, it it could, it's like it's brilliant marketing, but it is so sinister and not truthful at all. Like, there is nothing nutritious about this. Tastes nutritious. We're gonna find out because I've never put this dog food in my mouth before. What? You've never you've never had special. First off, I am an adamant. Like, before we get into any of this, don't eat cereal. Cereal, cereal's cooked, using the kids' terms. Cereal is bar none the worst thing you could probably put in your body in the morning. I'm gonna go out on that lane. There's nothing you should there's nothing your body needs when you're eating cereal that cereal gives you. Now, with that being said, we're looking at 200 calories for one cup of cereal. Okay. That's not bad. That's great. With nine grams of protein only if you use milk, three grams of protein if you don't, and uh, that is using a skim milk.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

I'm not using it to feel great or get bulky.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I'm using it the worst thing. It's better than having a donut. A hundred okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

It's not the worst. You said it's the worst thing you could have.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Poor me. Cereal just has no nutrition. I mean, goodness, guys.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

It's a good source of fiber.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

All right, the ingredients are sugar, free as dried strawberries, wheat bran, contains 2% or less of brown sugar syrup, salt, malt flavor. Give me it. It's it it's give it to you. I'm not I'm not saying it doesn't taste good, but I'm just saying that like eat a bowl of yogurt, put this on top, way better breakfast. Oh, well, there you go. So you you there's a way to make it a little better then. Yeah, but it's just complete bullshit. Which is the sad part. Like, I remember being a kid and Special K came out, and there was a couple other brands that were playing this like this like housewife healthy cereal vibe thing, right? You guys might have not been born for this. This was like a a craze. It was literally like it was like reading magazines in the 60s telling you to eat an egg and smoke a cigarette for breakfast. Like that's the kind of marketing that this core has. Dad, come on. That's better for you, right? Like your day, you should start doing your body with protein, not with this junk. Next week, egg and egg and cigarette.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

I will say though, but for kids, like sometimes it's probably hard for them to get them to eat certain things. Maybe the cereal's more appealing, right? Like when I was a kid, my mom would give me special K and I would I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Consider it's better than the stuff that I grew up with. If we're for if if we're just talking cereal to cereal, this is a better option than like Captain Crunch or whatever else is out there.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

What if I told you we have all of those cereals we're gonna be trying later on in a segment of this podcast? I can't wait. Can I just eat mine without milk? Joe, do you want to? I'll take yes. Give me that milk.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Because okay, so Joe, that's fantastic. I love that. We'll we'll get into some some cereal ranking here later. But but yeah, I mean, compared to like Captain Crunch or what did I say, like frosted flakes, like that type of stuff, like this is a better cereal option, 100%. So I will give you that, Joe. For getting a kid to eat something a little bit better for themselves, definitely a better option. Now, in general, give your kid a whole strawberry, right? Freeze-dried. And then like literally anything with protein in it, if you can for breakfast, and your kid's gonna feel way better. This is like the honestly, dude, our parents didn't know. Like, I'm not mad at my mom and dad, like they didn't know. Neither did yours. But if you look at it now, it's like this is why our generation's so up. It's because we had no clue what we were eating, and there was just so many aerials. No, no, no. I'm no it's because we're getting that millennials, there were so many things coming to market that just had such vague marketing for them that they were like healthy, healthy, healthy, right? It was like like I'm in the generation where they converted from white bread to wheat bread, and all they did was dye the frickin' uh flour. They didn't actually make it a wheat flour. And then we just were like, yeah, this is way healthier. I'll eat that every time. And there was just no nutritional difference in between. So, like, this is in that category for me.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

I I do agree with you on the health stuff, but I will say steer cereal's just such an American staple. You can't you can't knock it out.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

That's why we're the fattest and most unhealthy country in the world. You can't go to the city.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Someone say we're the biggest country. You may choose to say fattest, but biggest. I've got some interesting facts about Kellogg's.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Hey, cheers, Paul, before you cheers.

Kellogg’s History And Food Marketing Rants

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Thank you. Special case. Before uh I remember reading tasty. I will I mean I'll agree. Are you very familiar with the backstory with Kellogg's? The whole brand? Not in depth, but I've heard things. See, I heard things years ago. I had to uh research some some of it before this podcast. Let me eat the cereal so I don't crunch into the mic here. So, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was a doctor health reformer uh who ran the famous Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. Yep. Uh he invented cereal to stop people from having sex. Yep. Uh he believed that the sweet, spicy, or exciting foods cause sexual urges. So he pushed this bland, flavorless cornflake and hoped that it would it would quell some of these sexual desires. So you you wake up with I believe it did it start at an insane asylum. Yeah, the sanitarium. Yep, where he was trying to cleanse people of their sexual desires. Yeah, apparently he was also doing yogurt enemas here as well. Yeah, that's that's what I like to hear. That's like, let's go. Well, that's a benefit we didn't talk about this here, cereal. You have uh burning sexual desire, you need to quell your urges, you get yourself a bowl of this. Does that mean the other stuff will ramp them up?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Like the Yes, that's literally exactly it. Like, this is so poor for you, it makes you want to not do anything except your gut just struggles to digest it because it's it's not real food. I mean, such a blast from the past here. I mean, what so I well, I'm also gonna go out on a limit. That's sad that this is your childhood blast. Because I'm talking like Jeff and I would eat boxes, and I mean I'm talking bulk ordered Sam's Club purchased boxes of peanut butter Captain Crutch each a week. Like volumes. Because we didn't, like I said, we didn't know at the time that it wasn't good for you, and peanut butter was supposedly you know not that bad until we realize that peanut butter off the shelf is actually full of trash, right? And so, like, there's just so many things with food.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

I used to slam other cereal like cookie crisps, pops, some we're gonna try later. But like special K for some reason, it's just the most vivid memory in my head of just like. Probably. I mean, I don't know. I guess it was also like the thought that hey, this is healthier.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Oh, yeah, I'm with you there. You know, so you think it tastes better. The fruit was appealing as a kid because it was like, oh, it's freeze-dried food. Like that was a big thing. Like, remember they used to sell the astronaut ice cream and astronaut bananas where everything was freeze-dried? I feel like that was kind of a big selling point.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Like rice krispies, I used to like want to put bananas and stuff in it, but that was too much work. So if a cereal that I could just open and it already had fruit in it was just like, wow, like less work, more food, elite.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, I mean, sorry for your childhood. I had a great childhood. What do you mean? That's so sad. It's not sad. I had every other kids. It would be sad if Joe was like. I wanted a fruit. I was like, I wanted to put like my there was a point where I remember spoonfuls of sugar going on to our rice crispy treats. I wouldn't. Our rice krispies, excuse me. I would do that as well. It's not like I didn't do these other things. I wasn't craving bananas and strawberries. I wanted straight sugar because I was an insane child. This was, yeah, this would not have been a treat for me as a kid.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

It's not like this is like regular K bread. Do they still make regular K bread and it's just like special K with nothing? It's just the flakes, that's it. I don't know if they still make that. That would be sad.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

You know what I used to hate though, I will say, like my mom, she'd get the regular special K, and my father would always we don't let my dad go shopping ever, because he always will come back with stuff that you didn't ask for and stuff you didn't need. He would come back from Aldi's all the time with like this off-branded special K, and I hated it. He'd always be like, Joe, why aren't you eating this? You're not enjoying it, and I'm just like, no, Dad, I don't like the off-brand special K. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

So Yeah, I don't think my dad's ever been in a grocery store.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

So my dad's funny in grocery stores. I feel like he still acts like it's like the 70s. We were in there before a camping trip one time, and I was like, Let's grab like some seasoning uh for these wings. He's like, Hold on, and there's this poor woman just stalking the shelf. He's like, excuse me, miss, we're making some wings. Do you have a recommendation on the type of seasoning I could uh put on these? And she just gave him a blank stare and went back to stalking. I was like, So isn't that type of place? This is Walmart. Just let's let them do their thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

I'm not gonna answer your question. I was in Giant Eagle yesterday and I was trying to find rice cakes, right? And where would you think rice cakes would live? What aisle? Uh over by the chips. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Oh man, probably by the bread.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

So I I was with Sam. I thought they'd be by the chips or by like the in the cereal aisle, considering a rice cake is made from puffed rice, which is also cereal. Nope. It's it's by the near the bread aisle, but not in the bread aisle. It's at like it was on the opposite end of the bread aisle. Near like the nuts. For whatever I don't know. I was but I was refusing to ask for a single human being in there for help. I was like, I will go online and search and find an aisle before I will talk to a person in this store because I am I I hate it so much. So you get into these like and I know you're a huge fan of that. You're like, I love talking to people.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

No, there's certain stores I just go in and get out. Not all most of them. I like to talk to someone, but yeah, I'm with you on that.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah, so your dad like asking a random person for their opinion on like a spice rub. Like I would I would never do that. No, he loves to do it. Any store. You have to be like a 450-pound dude eating barbecue and smoking barbecue at the same time for me to ask you for your opinion on barbecue and it'd have to be specifically which like I need proof that you know what you're talking about for me to ask that question. What are you doing getting rice cakes? You like rice cakes? It's not about so I'm on a diet, Sam.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

We're on the Yeah, but you don't even get anything out of there. We used to have That's the point. I used to have a wrestling guy would hate and be like, just eat this because it'll make you feel full, but it's literally how dieting is.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Oh sorry you don't have to deal with that being a skinny man with great genetics. But I'm on uh we're I'm calling it Project 265. I'm on a journey to get down to 265. I haven't been there in a long time. Yeah um but I lost 13 pounds last month.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Oh, very nice.

Dyes, Kids, And Processed Food Concerns

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So I'm glad we're eating sugar-filled cereal this morning. I'm gonna go Viking purge myself and how much sugar's in the special case. Double check that one. I just I had a couple. I'll be alright, guys. I'm gonna survive. Probably like I didn't have the milk because I don't want to. 11 grams.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Isn't it crazy? Like you would think that's like less sugar, but there's probably some of these cereals.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Some of them we got tested. I mean, we see the boxes, they're probably like 30, 40 grams. Like Lucky Charms, I wonder what that's gonna be. But anyway, rice cakes are like a they're it's more just like a delivery mechanism. Yeah. Right. So what I do with them is if I'm like hungry, I'll just take the rice cake and I'll put PB fit, which is like the water dissolved peanut butter. Okay. And you mix it, it doesn't have any of the oils and has way less calories, but still tastes like it. Um or I'll literally mix like a little bit of water and protein powder and crunch it on so I get some texture. It's miserable.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

At least you get we used to get lectures about how lucky we are that they have the flavored ones. Like this coach, Coach Doug, he's like, Hey, got every flavor imaginable now. They were just plain when I was a kid. You enjoy yourself.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Joe might be into this. There's a big like uh bodybuilding hack with rice cakes. I don't know how he went down this rabbit hole, but you get the apple cinnamon flavored rice cake, and then you get uh non-fat um pie filling, like apple pie filling, and they'll just like gat throw it on them and just smack it down to get like that sweet like feeling if you want like I've never heard of that one. I was I was blown away.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

I was like, They have so many flavors of everything nowadays. Just for some background, when I bought all these cereals that we're gonna be testing later, each cereal nowadays has 10 different renditions. Yeah. Oatmeal squares. You guys ever had oatmeal squares? No. Is that a cereal? It's a cereal I had when I was a kid, whatever. But they have at least 15 different versions. You can get apple, you can get cinnamon, you can get this, you can get chocolate, you can get vanilla chocolate, you can it's just like the and they're not even off the shelves. No one's buying them. I'm just kind of like, what are they doing? Like, just nothing.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

They're all just they're all just at three and a half foot heights on the entire row. So little kids walk by, like my daughter just wants to buy all of them. I'm like, no, we don't actually have cereal in my house.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

You said you use that magic spoon, though, don't you? Or do you not use that anymore?

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Well, uh, I'll take that back. We do have magic spoon now that you say it. Um Sarah likes it and she'll like eat cereal from she's pregnant though. She can eat whatever she wants. I don't want to hear it when she talks about it.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

I didn't say anything.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

No, we all have magic spoon, but that's like that dude, now you're talking about$10 a box to get ingredients. It's like such a small space. No, to get ingredients that aren't just like terrible for you, you're like, that sucks, man. It's it's like it's like impossible to like eat well and and eat healthy.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

That's like the the cereal and like the uh uh or in Europe, they don't have as many of the the colors and the food dyes as are so they look like completely different. That's what I thought I just don't know they shouldn't. I I just don't understand why we don't at least take the the dyes and stuff out.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Dude, I mean it's honestly there's like there's bills in in the uh being proposed now to the pull a lot of that stuff out. Like I'm a hyper aware of the stuff because I have kids. And like the die the way they make dyes and process and all that stuff now is so much different than when I was a kid. Yeah. And so it's like I I literally this is sucks to say, but um, someone gave my daughters like Valentine's Day um lollipops last week, right? And I get home and they're eating them. And I mean it's like harmless, but it's but I'm looking at it and they're just like those red hearts. It was a completely harmless gift from a woman in her later years who has no clue, right? And they're eating them. And I literally looked at my wife and I was like, these kids aren't gonna go to sleep, they're gonna be absolute terrors tonight. And I kid you not, if my children eat anything that has red dye 40 in it, oh really, they go absolutely ape shit. Uh huh. We figured it out because my dad likes to give the kids sweets when he comes over, and he obviously is oblivious or was. And he was like bringing them those kind of things, or or like Swedish fish, licorice, yeah. Things that are just to the ghast with red dye. Yeah. And then I was like, stop giving them red dye, please. We looked into it. And it's because it's just however, I don't know, it really helps with kids now, and it's it's like super sad. Why can't we just pull that stuff out? Yeah. Right? So I I also am adamantly like, I do not eat processed stuff if I don't have to. Yeah. So that's why another one.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

You ever had black licorice?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yes, gross.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

My grandma used to fiend for black licorice. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Dude, I my grandparents are from Italy. They love anise. They put the anise, they like black licorice. It's something I like sambuka.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Sambuka. I've never like kombucha. What's sambuka? Sambuka.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

What? Never had sambuka?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

It's it's it sounds familiar. It's a dessert liqueur. Sambuka. It used to come out. Oh no, I don't like any sort of like I don't like Kalua, I don't like Bailey's, I'm not a leave leave the milk and alcohol. Oh, wait, no. This is milk.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

It's it's got black licorice vibes to it, though. Oh, maybe I would like that. Sam was yelling at me last week because we always talk, he always talks about how Polish he is, but then there's the Italian side, and then he doesn't, he's never had sambuka, so you're back to being only Polish. I'm fine with that. Polish game. Polish you probably like it. You've seen that. Yeah, you probably if you like black licorice. I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I've never uh tried it though. You're gonna be just drunk every weekend now. Make sure it's chilled. One of those like small lonely man's bottles of sambuka just carried around with me.

New TV: The Pit And Seven Kingdoms

Sambuca, Licorice, And Side Tangents

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Sam, you're not the same. Give me more sambuka. Anyway, what do we got, Joe? Uh moving into the first segment, figured we could kick it off with some new shows that have been out. Um we've been talking about them a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Um, one pissed me off this weekend. Probably not for a reason you guys are gonna agree with.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Uh new season of The Pit just came out. Uh, John and I have been watching that. Love that. And then also the night of the seven kingdoms just released a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Um, we've all been watching them, loving them. Thoughts? How are you guys feeling about each show? Um Have you been watching The Pit? I have not been watching.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

So we'll skim the pit quickly. Yeah. If you haven't seen The Pit, whatever you're doing with your time, more time deserves to be consuming the pit.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

It's a from what Joe told me about it, though, I don't know if it's my type of hospital show because it seems like very like real. And I'm not I'm not as about that. Like I you like the fake stuff? The fake stuff, like I really don't watch hospital shows. I remember when I was a kid, my mom watched Grey's Anatomy. It's not like that at all. I know, but that was like more fun because it'd be like, Dr. Shepard, there's a bomb strapped to this woman's chest, you need to remove it in surgeries. Like right right after I'm done having having sex with these nurses in the the coat closet here, I'll go do that. And it's like just so much fun. You enjoyed that. It keeps it exciting, kind of lighthearted. I don't want to see someone actually get like a terminal illness and die on TV. There's too much sadness in the world. I don't see that. You know, I watched like absolutely crazy shit happen in Knights of the Seven Kingdom yesterday, but I'm like, this is all fake. This is like medieval shit.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I don't need to watch someone with hours of your life watching garbage. I mean, bottom of the barrel garbage, my 600-pound life, the Kardashians, the Mormon wives, all just terrible television. And then you won't give a show that is based in actual science, not 100% real, but also filmed in Pittsburgh, which shines like, I think, a frickin' amazing beacon of love to our awesome city, and you won't watch it because it doesn't have enough frickin' coat closet sex. I mean Do they have Joe's there? Some some coat closet sex? There's a little bit going on behind the scenes, but nothing. There's a little like they're in an ER. There's no time for that.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

My mom worked in a hospital for like 30 years, and I asked her, I was like, This is all just drama, right? And she was like, No. She's like, whenever they got the the furniture out of some of the lounges, she's like, whenever they were closing the hospital, they were like, There goes the sex furniture. I was like, really? She's like, Oh yeah, doctors, nurses, everyone was just getting after it. Yeah, they're f a lot in the hospital.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So they should add some of that in the There's some there's some relationship stuff, but it's not like there's some flirting in action, yeah. Any bomb strapped to anyone's chest? Any so they they it's honestly You should watch. It's it's great television. What did it won some shit, right, Joe?

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Yeah, they won a bunch of Emmys. I think a bunch of Emmys. Both, I mean, this year they've been winning more. The new season just came out, but it's very different the style of show. It's like episodes, but it's all in the same day. So they structure it by like um eight o'clock, uh, nine a.m., ten a.m., eleven a.m., twelve p.m. and it goes through the whole entire day to kind of show like what it's like for a PR doctor coming in a hospital. They cover some dark scenarios though. I think that's more so my like I feel like because that's like real shit that like people actually go through and like I would say you shouldn't stray away from it just because I mean that is real stuff people in the medical field have to deal with experience and getting a little under the curtain of what they'd have to deal with. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

I mean, those dudes yeah, a hundred percent different for

SPEAKER_00 22:00

But why are you willing to watch like the Mormon wives of the water? Well, that's a great show. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah, Joe also has watched the Mormon wives. Well, why were you were you willing to watch that and not the other? At least Joe's willing to give both a shot. I mean, I'm still willing to give it a shot. I'm just saying it's not my typical jazz. But uh the Mormon wives and the trash TV. It's just it's just nice entertainment. It's just something to like, okay, there's I guess it's like our entertainment, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

It's like escapism. It's like modern days. Yeah, see, I don't even watch the I see, I just feel I hate that. I hate all of it. Jerry Springer, I think that see, how could you not respect it from like a content perspective? Because I think all it does is it um it it it holds up the shittiest versions of people. And then it gives them a spotlight to allow others to think they can act that way.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Well, I I don't think you should try to emulate these people. What? I don't think you should try to emulate these people. But like you like Jackass, for example, I I I wouldn't recommend trying to act like Johnny Knoxville, but is it entertaining to watch them do some wild shit? Absolutely. Yeah. There's no doubt.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

And it it I will say the craziest part about Mormon wives is that these people were rich. They started a reality TV show, they got even more rich, and they're just a content gold mine. Yeah. They're crushing brand deals, they're crushing partnerships, they're crushing TV together.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I I'm it's just it just out there that are just working their freaking asses off to build ma to build as m as much good positivity in the world as possible. And then between between shit like that, OnlyFans, garbage that's out there, I'm just like very anti all of this like propagating the easiest method to get fame as possible.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Well, we're not gonna defend the Mormon wives here, but at the same time, it's like they do a lot of positive stuff inside the show. Like they're going to events, they're doing a lot of social work, they're they're doing a lot of stuff that's for the community. I mean, they're not it's not all negative. It the drama drama stuff is, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

But they're only on TV for like I mean, all the clips I so I refuse to give a minute of my my entertainment to it. Any clips I get are from these guys sending it. And it's all just like the most whorish shit. It's like slept with this person's husband's kids, uncles, daughters in front of them in a house, living with all of them. What the hell's going on here?

SPEAKER_03 24:25

You don't have to agree with any of that, but it's the parts after that which drive the show, like the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Yeah. See, I feel like and what I agree with most of what you're saying, but I feel like that's inescapable in any form of medium, or any form of media. It's on TV, it's on YouTube, you know. There's evil, there's musical artists that they're like, you know, it's like, wow, is this person so famous for doing this song? Like it just it's it's inescapable, you know. So you may as well you can enjoy it though.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Still, no, you can't no, so hold a higher standard. Anyway, the pit is great. I love what it's doing for the city of Pittsburgh. I think it shines a really cool light. It's also got a really deep story and good character development, I think, and it's very well rounded. It's also like it's kind of like action-packed. Yeah. So I'd I'd check it out. If you haven't watched it, I'd check it out. Now we're gonna get bitched out because it's on HBO, which is a paid service, right? But it's like, I get it, that's how you gotta watch TV these days. But um, it's a great husband-wife show. Like you can watch it. Like Sarah obviously doesn't love Game of Thrones, right? Like I I guess a lot of women do, but like my wife doesn't. So watching that together is not like a thing, but watching, we can watch, we watch the pit together.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Yeah, Chris Kristen does. She just doesn't like the gore. Did you watch the episode of uh Knights of the Seven Kingdoms last night? No.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

I I've watched episodes ones and two. Oh, there's a graphic screen. It comes out at 10 o'clock, Sam. I've been in bed.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Well. I was actually I was coding, but you could've you could have had it on this morning when you were doing your workout, dude on the TV screen. Reading a book. Read listen to it while you watch the show with subtitles and workout. No, I was reading a book. That is a crazy thing. You can consume two forms of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

I got a buddy that that does that. He's like constantly telling me to watch. He he's a really high performer too. But he's constantly he travels a lot, so he gets to like watch shows when he's like traveling. And um, he's like, You gotta watch this show on each it's called like I don't know, Dirt or something. He's like, it's actually it's what it's what Stranger Things Should Be. He's like, But it's super confusing and like difficult, but it's really good. He's like, watch it while you're on the treadmill. I'm like, no, I'm locked in. I'm literally like trying to figure things out in my life. I'm fine. When do you watch these shows then? Because you watched episodes one and two. Yeah, we'll grab uh my kids go down between 7 30 and 8 o'clock, and then it's usually like I shower, clean up my entire house. My wife, if she needs time to like decompress, she does it then. And then from like 8 45 till 9 45, we'll watch a show and then go to sleep. One or two. Episodes are getting shorter, which I'm not gonna do. That is what I wanted, I was gonna get at night's 33 minutes. Oh, I think. What the f HBO? What the fing f you. You know we love it.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

The audience is gonna hate that one right there. I should have turned it down a little bit.

Runtime Frustrations And Character Development

SPEAKER_00 27:03

33 minutes? I was so pissed. What's the whole thing? And then I looked at it and every episode. How many years for this for a damn good spin-off and you're giving me 30-minute episodes? We went hour runs out of episode.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

You know one thing I will say though, I like I do wish it was longer, but then when I think back at like the last season of Game of Thrones where they gave us some of our longest episodes, they just waste 40 minutes to like it'd be like, oh, let's go walk in the dark for 20 minutes. Uh that was fun. Let's walk back in the dark for another 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

This show is different. They're it's a they're committed to character development, and I love that about it. They did a good job. And then think about how much, even if they let another 10-15 minutes breathe in that show, yeah, getting into like Egggy's backstory at all. Yeah. Right? Or like they could have done a literal flashback. They talk about episode two. You seen it?

SPEAKER_03 27:53

No.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Okay, so spoiler alert, you know, they give like kind of like who Egggy is. Eggie's a ball kid.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Um, and in episode two. In episode two, and who he is, and there's like a a little bit of conflict in in the scenario. And they could have just breathed a little bit more life into it, but instead they just were like, ha! Back to back to dunk.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

I hate the middle ground shows are playing. Instead of it being long enough to be a movie, they don't cut it down enough for it to just be all one movie. Instead, it's a bunch of cut-ups that aren't long enough of episodes. There's like this weird area in shows right now. I feel like no one's doing it right. Game of Thrones was a little disappointing, I think. They were all long, but it was still lacks it, lacking so much context.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

I feel like the last great season of Game of Thrones, whatever season Battle of the Bastards was, that one, I feel I felt like there were so many episodes where it's like this feels like a mini cinematic movie.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

I think that is like the highest-rated season of television ever.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Did I say Game of Thrones? I meant Stranger Things. I meant Stranger Things. You guys told me it was awful. You gotta finish it just.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

You gotta ruin it. No, you guys were like, it's awful. I was like, I'm I believe I believe my boys, I'm not going out.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

I'm not wasting the time. So bad too. They they released a documentary, all this stuff came out. Like the Duffer brothers are like, we're filming this episode right now. We haven't finished it yet. We don't like we have a general outline of it.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

You could definitely, I feel like, yeah, going back to that show, I feel like that was a constant theme for me. Like, I have no idea what direction this is going in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

They don't even know that's the issue, John. They don't they didn't even know. Literally, they were filming and they're like, we don't have a full film. The behind the scenes they released of it. You should watch that over the actual show because I'm good. If you watch I didn't even like that show anyway. I watched the first 10 minutes, and it's them in a writing room just arguing over like they don't know which direction to go for the last episode or how to conclude it.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

I heard a conspiracy theory that the one Duffer brothers wife was a big part of the earlier seasons, and they got a divorce like before this, and everyone's like, I feel like she was the brains behind a lot of this because it's Oh shit, my dude lost his golden goose.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

I think that this is uh incredible.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Season eight of Game of Thrones, all these run times.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yeah, like it's pull up the ratings on Game of Thrones as uh season eight or overall, just overall. I think that season you're talking about was like the highest rated season.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah, which one was look up which one was Battle of the Bastards? I think it was season six or two.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

But okay, so but here's where I'll go to with the short runtimes. It's like I don't care if it's a short runtime if the episode's like jam-packed, but when you have a lot of this like character development conversational, they're going through like mental strife and like struggle. You have to let that develop enough that where you're like the cliffhanger at the end of the episode was I was just pissed. And it wasn't because I wanted to watch more, I was pissed because it didn't need to be a cliffhanger.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Season eight, their last season had a 55%.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, it was awful. But I think there's one season where like seven of the nine episodes are all rated like nine.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

We're bangers, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

I think that was um But uh when so like if you read fantasy, the one thing you realize is that none of them are short for reasons. Like you have to have like all of that stuff in between in order to make sure you're understanding everything from like how a character walks, they look, what their facial expressions like in certain comments, and like in order to really grasp the depth of that character compared to the other characters in the story. Yeah, and it happens across all good fantasy writing when you try to put it on the this big screen, that's when like that's why Game of Thrones was so good, is because we didn't know, but we were being conditioned to all of these like character flaws and traits and like personality cues and stuff because of the length they went to. It's like we all knew Joffrey was what evil, a little dick, right? Yeah, why? Well, because I gave him enough time to develop as a little dick. Yeah, right? When you do these short episodes, it's like we don't know if Aggie's like an antagonist, we don't know if he's like this like you know, lost little boy. Like, we don't know what's going on because they don't give it any time. Yeah, and then they're hyper focused on one person. I think it could hurt the series.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

See, I was gonna say the opposite similar to what you're saying, but in like a different regard. Uh I almost kind of wish like I feel like it was very apparent from the first episode that it's like, okay, this this little kid's a Targaryen. I wish they were able to kind of mask that more where it was more of a reveal. Like, I don't know. That's why I don't mind uh like not knowing if he's a protagonist or an antagonist yet, because it's like at least there's some mystery.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Literally, even any character though, like you could go with uh the head of house Baratheon. You could go with the whores that were sitting outside of the tents that they like for some reason he hung out with. An episode's 30 minutes. He hung out with the whores for five minutes, right? You're like, that's a large percentage of uh of a of the of this episode, right? It's it's 10% of the episode. And then they're just gone. You're like, why did you waste that on those characters? Yeah. But like, so bring them they you should have that's one thing about like fantasy in general, is there's always multiple storylines being woven together. And I feel like by condensing the episode to being so short, they're kind of just like letting shit die. And I think that's what hurt the actual Game of Thrones series. If you go back and look, they get torn to pieces because Game of Thrones left so many open storylines. Like we've talked about.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Well, maybe, but that maybe that's one benefit of having the short episodes. Yeah, exactly. Because if I think back if you want them though, if you go back and watch like the early seasons of Game of Thrones, there's so many things where it's like we never touched on that again. Like uh what was there was like that lady with the mask that was in the desert that was talking to Khaleesi and she's like a soothsayer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

We we never saw her again. Nothing. They like just leave them open. So yeah, yeah, that's what I was saying. That was early. Season two.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

Season two and four were pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Two to four were actually sorry, one to four were great. Yeah, but six had those nine point twos, nine point. I think that was the one I was talking about. Probably.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Three had the nine point two as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

It was it was that or it was the um the Red Wedding. The Red Wedding was. I remember I was reading the book, I was on a plane, I was flying to Houston to go party with my NFL buddies, and uh it was like six o'clock in the morning. I read that chapter, I literally vocalized out loud how pissed off I was at the Red Wedding. Um that one threw me.

Reality TV, Content Ethics, And Culture

SPEAKER_03 33:55

I never I didn't I didn't read the books, so when I watched that live, I was just kind of like same thing as shit as the book. What is happening? You saw none of it coming. Like they're gonna make it out alive, right? And they all just get slaughtered.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Saw none of it coming. But like, I mean, I don't know. I I guess I'm also like conditioned to the world of Thrones, like the world of George R. R. Martin, and I want that more deeper, involved character development. Yeah, like that's what pissed me off about the about the length of the episodes. But I will say so far I like it. It's done a good job. Like, I'm invested in the characters, the story. Yeah, it's pretty good. I think it's pretty good. There's not a not a ton going on the first two episodes, like episode three.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Which I don't mind because I I mean like I I I always forget like the first season of Game of Thrones. That's just a lot of build-up.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

There's a lot of but you did have the massive, like, I guess, I mean, Ned gets his head cut off. At the very end, you were like, you don't see it coming.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

But that's what makes it so powerful. Is you're kind of like following along, like, what's this, what's the point of this, what's this building up to? It's like, yo, and then once that happens, it's just kicked off. So I'm hoping this show has some of that.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I will say the acting was really good in Game of Thrones too, compared to like a lot of just one-off fantasy things. It's like you usually get some real shitty idea.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Well, I think that's what made Game of Thrones so like palatable for so many people is that it's fantasy, but it's not like true. It's not like Lord of the Rings, it's not like fantasy fantasy. It's kind of like Bro, what the f are we talking about? There's f dragons. Yeah, but you don't even get to see the fing dragon until like you know, seasons in where I'm saying, like, like what all I'm saying is like Game of Thrones will like gradually bring you into the fantasy world. Like, you could watch a bunch of episodes and it's like, oh, it's just medieval times where like Lord of the Rings, it's like boom, there's hobbits, there's golems, there's magic rings, like flying.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

So there's uh there's this is actually a thing now. I was I I read a uh an uh headline or something recently that's like m uh George R.R. Martin actually says he's like modern fantasy is uh is closer to reality, it's like reality-based fantasy compared to high fantasy, which is much more Tolkien style. Yeah, exactly. Where you got elves, you've got different like you know, gremlins and all kinds of shit in high fantasy. Um that come from like mythology. Yeah a lot more. So alright, I I I see I I agree with you there. I kind of that's what makes thrones, I think, so much more like tangible. Yeah, and I think it feels medieval, but then there's a little bit of like there's just a little fantasy kiss.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Well, I kind of I enjoy that too because not the incest. It's recorded the fantasy with the fantasy kick, like all right, thank you. Yeah, but whenever they have like those elements, like even the dragons, it was exciting to see because it was only once in a while, or if something magical happened, it was like, whoa, that's out of out of pocket. Where like if you're desensitized to it, like it's happening every single scene, it's not as like Yeah, you're just not into that. Well, no, I'm into it, but I think it makes it more profound when it's like speckled throughout rather than like every other scene.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Gotcha. Gotcha. So I guess those are the two big shows. What else? You got anything else besides this bullshit you guys like to watch on the out there that you're recommending?

SPEAKER_03 36:54

Those are two have been consuming as of late, unless you guys have anything else.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I haven't seen any. Yeah, I don't think I've watched anything else new recently.

Viewer Recs: Fallout And Livestream Notes

Nostalgia: Signs Of The “Cool House”

SPEAKER_00 37:02

There's some weird shit out there now. I'm I'm we're you guys said it, we're cooked. Like, there's TV is oh man. It's not dying, it's only getting bigger. It's getting weirder. It is unnecessary. Yeah. Like very I'm not even gonna go into it because we're on a podcast, but it's it's upsetting me. Truthfully. With that being said, if you guys are watching something and you're loving it, oh, it was recommended on our so um if you guys didn't know, we actually live stream from the Builder Bunker and we do publish early episodes this episode and every episode early every single week. And last week we were live streaming from the shop, and a couple of our uh members we were chatting it up with them, and they had a couple shows. What was the one uh Fallout? A lot of people are loving. Yeah, right. So that that was one that like I wasn't I never played the game. Did you guys play the game? Only Fallout 3. No, I never played the game, so I never got into it, but I heard the show's really good, right? And then there was uh I think there was another one in there, but um whether you guys want to join the builder bunker and hang out with us and and live stream and get the episode early, or you've got a suggestion, um, you know, let us know what shows are out right now that you guys are digging, you're loving because because we are uh we are consumers of content as we make content. We'd love to know what you guys are all about. Joe, what you got next for us?

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Next, uh moving into a nostalgia segment. Um growing up, what were signs uh you had the cool house as kids amongst your friends? Cool house? I don't know if I had the cool house. There's always one person's house you always want to go to. So it could be someone else's house. Yeah, yeah, someone else's. Not your childhood are we talking about?

SPEAKER_00 38:44

I'd say maybe like young young or like six to seventeen, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Bro, that's that is a very wide wide wide range.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

I don't know. Well, let's keep it fourteen and under because I think it's a good thing. Yeah, fourteen and under isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 39:00

All right, all right. The fun at 14, the fun over 16 was different fun than the fun under 16. You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

You know something that was a sign that it was gonna be a like a cool or a chill house. Not even that we would get to use it or anything, but I'm like, these are probably some pretty chill parents. If they had a tanning bed in their house. What? I think that like how many people do you know with a tanning bed? I didn't know anyone with a tanning bed. Oh, I knew too. Really? Yeah, yeah. And I feel like if if how cooked are they? Yeah, I don't know. I if any I are the tanning bed still a thing? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I feel like if you're like an adult that is willing to spend like a hefty sum of money on a bed just to darken your skin, you're probably gonna be pretty laid back with your kids. There's probably not gonna be too many rules.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

It's like it's like being a cigarette smoker. You're like, I know this is gonna kill me, but I'm gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Yeah, I don't I don't get the tanning bed. I don't know. I'm not a not an advocate of the tanning beds.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

No, I I never had a friend with a tanning. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

I feel like oh that's so surprising because like I feel like the early 2000s they were tanning beds were just popping off.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

My mom had a hair salon and they had a tanning bed and two tanning beds in the salon because like but that's a salon. But you like still go there. Yeah. It wasn't their house. Yeah. How much that's insane. I've never meanwhile, I'm like, I need a sauna, a cold plunge, a red light therapy bed. I want all these to be as optimal as possible. Um, for me, it's probably it's between hot tub and swimming pool. I think I'm gonna lean more hot tub that it's gonna be like a cool house, that it's like fun. Because like for some reason I just thought a hot tub was like so much luxury, right? When I was a I was a kid and I had a front we had a we had an above-ground pool we used to do like just I don't know how any of us are alive. Just like be drowning each other wrestling, literally come up for breath, down head up through my buddy Shane like over like 30 feet off of a trampoline over the deck into the pool. The pool's three feet deep. Like how he's not broken. Yeah, so probably hot tub, like hot tubs, like the more chill fun house.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Hot tub's a good one. I I had a buddy, I remember I went over one time, they were getting their hot tub removed. It was in the summertime. I was like, why are you guys taking get rid of your hot tub? They're like, Dad got too drunk in there a couple weeks ago, his muscles atrophied. He's like almost drowned in there. My mom made him get rid of it. What? He's like, Oh wow. So yeah, I'd be like, Yeah, you have the hot tub, you're having a good old time.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah. I think it's funny. Uh Arnold Schwarzenegger's like a big hot tub guy, you guys remember from he's like just every day, stogie and hot tub. I'm like, and that dude's big chilling, so it's like hot tubs, yeah. That's for me. What would you what do you what about you, Joe?

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Either a finished basement with a pool table. Oh people have poll tables were a big thing, and then um just it being finished. We were real into like hoop basketball. You hanging on a door, and that was a big thing when I was a kid. Between that and an in-ground pool, not an above-ground. If you had an in-ground pool, we would flock to your house. It was just something about it that was just the whole vibe. They had a hot tub too.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

And I had one, but so like my childhood was like I'm I'm over a decade older than Joe and a little bit older than Sam. My childhood was a little different, but I did have a buddy with an abut an in-ground pool. Yeah. And his parents would let us come over whenever we went. He just lived like we had pretty our school district, uh, square footage wise, uh square miles wise, excuse me, was pretty big. He lived like 15 miles away. Wow. And this is before cell phones. Yeah. So we would literally get on our bicycles in the summer. We'd go to football practice in the morning, and then get on our bicycles, and we would drive down the highway. Like, and pick up guys coming, like be like coming out of their neighborhoods. It was literally like a movie to go to Tort's house, and then we would beat the living shit out of each other in the pool. I mean, I'm talking like there was times where we had to call my dad, I remember one time we had to call my dad because on the way there, we had such we had like a seven bike pile up that my buddy fell off the front of his bike, smashed his head on the ground, like ripped his face to pieces, like had like literally just had like road rash. Because we're going like 50 and he just slammed his brakes, right? It wasn't 50, it was kids 50. Um, like this stuff would happen. I'll threw a dude out of the pool, broke his leg, like smashed face on the side of it because they had a basketball hoop and stuff would get completely out of hand. But he also had older brothers that like we'd get into it. Like when we were like 10, 11, 12, they were like 16. And I'm talking just straight fist fighting. That's like that's where like it was like gladiatorial earning of your manhood in that swimming pool. So the I'm I'm with you 100% on the in-ground pool. I think that was our only friend with the in-ground pool.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

Everyone else was I think we had one or two people of all my buddies that had an in ground pool. It was very rare an in ground pool. A lot of people had community pools. That was another thing.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Franklin had two. I feel like the in ground pool's nice too, because when you're a kid, there's no rules. But I remember going over to like several people's uh homes as a kid, and you'd like, oh, let's do a whirlpool in the above ground pool. That was dad catches sight of that. You're gonna compromise the structural integrity of that pool. I'm still paying it off. Like everyone out, just get out of it. Just get out of the pool.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Like, but not in the in ground. You can do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Start going against the wave. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

The pool table, too. That's I was in, I'm with you. I feel like we didn't appreciate the pool table until I was like 14 plus, though. When we were super young, we just did what you were saying. Like we just beat the crap out of each other and like rolled.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

I always thought pool was like gimmicky and just not fun. It's an old person's game and all this stuff. As I've gotten older, it's like pool's actually pretty fun. Pool rolls. Having some drinks. It's like a fun game you can just play with your boys and hang out.

Strict Parents And 90s Freedom

SPEAKER_00 44:34

It's we used to so this was I was that's why I was saying it 16 plus, we thought we were pool sharks. We had a couple because I had like four or five buddies that all had pool tables. You'll put the quarters in the machines and right? No, these were just not on the machines, you put on the table. And then it right, and then you would just like that that's how you marked if you were playing next, and you'd go in, and we had a couple friends that were like lived with the guys that lived with the tables were considerably better than the guys that didn't. Yes. But then you just start gambling the little bit of money that we all had against one another, and it would get so heated. And so and yeah, we had a couple friends that did it. So we would all we I mean, there was a point where we were all buying our own pool cues. Like we would just go hard at stuff. Poker when I was a kid, it was a was a thing too. That's it. I feel like we're just learning this about you. You've never brought that up ever before.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

When would I?

SPEAKER_00 45:18

I don't know. I I did enjoy myself before I became an adult. Um, I enjoy myself now.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

Well, that leads me to my next point, uh, our next topic in the same vein. What were signs you had strict parents growing up? I feel like we our parents or either other people's parents you knew had very strict parents. What were some of the signs that yes, they have very strict parents? I can't do X, Y, and Z with them.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

I mean, we lived in an era where there was no I when I was a kid, there was no cell phone. So there was no like recording of a dad screaming at his son on the pitcher's mount until he was crying. Now you get recorded for that and like reported. But back in the day you just sat there and you listened in pure fear.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Not allowed to watch certain shows, couldn't go over to friends' house on weeknights, I mean that kind of stuff, anything.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

I had a no, I mean I think because I had the strict parents. I mean, like, I was never allowed to go to I we weren't Jeffrey was never allowed to sleep over anywhere because he was liable to just like burn half the city down. So he was never allowed to leave our house. I wasn't allowed till I could drive. So before I could drive, we were never allowed to like literally go sleep over pretty much anywhere. Um which is like a different thing now. But the there was that and then the strict parents. I only knew my only all my friends I played sports with, so we knew their parents. And so that if they were strict, they were usually like a yeller, right? Or like they would just be on top of their kid.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Um and then just like if if they effed up, you were hearing it, everyone would hear it. So you just like feared them, right? And and uh I didn't really have any buddies though that had like overbearing strict parents. I did have now like the girls that I was friends with, their parents are way more strict. Like they weren't allowed to watch certain things, wear certain things, go in certain places, couldn't do this, couldn't do that. And I I feel like now that I have three little girls, I'm like, that makes a lot of sense. I was like, boys go out there, like godspeed. Daughters protect them at all costs. So that yeah, I I don't know. I don't have I don't have much more than the yelling.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

Yeah, I would say primarily the yelling. I didn't uh know uh well no, I knew some strict parents, but it was pretty much that the no sleepovers, or like limits on cell phone, be like seven o'clock, give me that phone. Like nothing good happens on the phone after seven. My dad would be strict about really weird things. Like like he'd be totally fine. I'd be like 14 years old, like, I'm gonna go into the woods and shoot like a rifle for a few hours. Like, have fun. Like, I'll see you when you get back. Like, you know how to be safe. But God forbid, I would tell him, like, hey, me and a couple buddies are going to the wave pool. He's like, the what? Like the wave pool. He's like, Oh great, now I gotta worry about you drowning all day. And I'm like, it was the weirdest. Anytime there's water involved, he always thought I was gonna go out in the drowning drowning scenario. It never happened though, but uh, thank God.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

I grew up in a day and age where like we would leave the house when the sun was up, and then we would listen for a whistle to come home. Yeah, like my mom would walk out the back door, shh, and Jeffrey and I would only be in like a three-mile reader.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Someone needs to make a TV show about surviving the 90s as kids.

unknown 48:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Dude, I mean, I was literally able to ride my bicycle wherever I wanted to go and not worry about like being abducted, not worrying about like getting into trouble, not worrying about car, like it was just a different thing. Well, you didn't have to worry about it, but I feel like we could even look at our parents grew up in an era where like there was no seat belts.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

I feel like a lot of people did have to deal with that stuff and you just never heard about it. True. You know, that's just the world wasn't as connected. Yeah, you never heard about when someone got abducted or something happened to someone they got killed, and you just never never knew.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

You notice that a lot when you watch those documentaries about like serial killers in the 70s, and they they talk about how things were so different, but it's it's crazy some of the things that I feel like were able to happen because of that. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

The 90s were wild. I mean, you were just like you could get dropped off at the mall. No care in the world. Yeah, yeah. Pick you up, pick you up later. Now I see kids at the mall, and I'm like sprinting through there holding my daughter, like all three of them at them like don't touch anything, don't look at anyone, like don't go. They all have selfies now.

SPEAKER_03 49:19

Communications easy. Yeah. Strict parents though, but my parents weren't, I was the youngest, so never really. I got it really easy. They had two shots to figure it out. They're like my friend's parents, two things come to mind. One, if they had a gaming console in a centralized area, not in like the basement or room. If it was in like their living room, and you know, they were just very they were monitoring what you were playing, how long you were playing. I had a few buddies, we hated going to their house. We ever we did now and then, but like we'd be playing, you know, NBA 2K in their living room. We can only play for like an hour and then have to get off and go outside. And you know, it's going out, it's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, but yeah, it's just very limiting.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

Yeah, I feel the consoles. I feel like every parent had different philosophies with consoles. Like I know at my house it was like this thing cannot go in your room, and it would like it would always be like second to whatever someone wanted to put on TV, where it's like, alright, take this shit off. I want to watch TV. It's like, alright. I would always get threatened to be like, I'm gonna throw that f thing over the hill. Never made it over the hill, but it was always like the console? Yeah. Get off that thing for throw it over the f hill. All right. I mean, how much shit do you throw over this hill?

Overrated Or Underrated: Kid Classics

SPEAKER_00 50:26

See, I think Jeff and I both had consoles in our room. We had TVs in our room. Yeah. Are my parents by the time video games became possible to be in a room? Like, we weren't little little. We were like 12, right? Yeah. So it was a little bit older, but um, I think they were at the point that it was like anything that I don't have now that I'm a parent, it's like anything I don't have to take care of you, I'm fine with it. Lock yourself in your room out there, what you do in thereafter, right? Your probability of dying, it's it's like only like 20%. Yeah. Everything else, don't care. And I get it, it's like raising kids is hard. Yeah. But I I yeah, the uh we didn't have any any of our consoles on like the the family TV, so we never dealt with that. As well as like it was rare. All of my buddies had it was in the basement, or it was some, it was like the parents were just like, go do whatever you want, get out of our hair, like get out of here, go outside, do whatever you want, go to the basement, go do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

TV for a certain amount of time, could only be outside for 30 minutes and down a rabbit hole. But off of that, he's we've talked about it before. The second one I'd say is the kind of snacks they had. I think we talked about it a couple episodes ago, but you go over to someone's house, and at the time they had you know healthier snacks. As a kid, I wasn't hearing that shit. I didn't want that. Like I wouldn't eat it or I would and I would just hate it.

SPEAKER_04 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

But you looking back, you're like, they were actually doing us a favor, giving us some healthier stuff. But in the moment, you don't think like that. You're good.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

The only one I remember that was so awful, I still regret to this day. Uh a friend of mine had real maple syrup, like none of the sweeteners or anything. Like, try that, it was like unsweetened maple syrup, it was foul, it was so bad. What? Yeah, and I love I but I love like natural sweetened, like I've got like Vermont maple syrup, but we had fans bring some up. I love that, but this stuff was like in a can and it was bitter as shit. It was terrible. Really?

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Yeah, it was horrible. Oh. Yeah, I I we were uh I don't even see I my memory sucks, but I I remember we'd be like starving when we would want it wasn't ever snacks, it was full meals. Like these poor parents, if the boys showed up at your place, just eat you out of house and home. Now I lived across the street from the high school in the middle school and elementary school, like the the the school. So I walked to school my whole life. And so literally, like, we'd be right like, all right, boys, see ya, and like Jeff and I were just out the door, like into the world, like bye. But that meant when um I moved up from when I was in uh seventh grade, you had to wait for ninth grade, which was in the high school, to get out of school, and then you could start uh then football practice started. So you had like 45 minutes to an hour to burn, and we're in seventh grade, so it's we didn't have cars, we there was nowhere to eat and go. We could go down the hill and go buy something and come back up. It was a massive hill. So we would just walk to my house and I bring like 10 kids over every day. My poor parents, they would just we would just eat them out of house and home. And I just remember distinctly, like my parents were always into it because they knew that it was like good for like the nucleus of us to like not be at the school like lighting dumpsters on fire, right? And then my all my dad was home because he worked night shifts. Um, but he would I'm he just came down so many times just pissed, and we were just like ripping through it. I mean, every snack, and it was all in bulk. Like, like I'm talking five-gallon buckets of cheese balls, like entire like pounds of cheese and meat. Like we were growing up like primarily Italian, it was always like make a sandwich, was like if you're snacking, you make a sandwich. We didn't have like a lot of snacks, we had potato chips.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

Well, I was gonna ask you, did you grow up in a time where it was a lot of whenever you went places or had people over, it was home cooked meals, or was it a lot of takeout?

SPEAKER_00 53:56

So we didn't do a ton of takeout. Like we our takeout was primarily pizza, Chinese from time to time.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

Pizza, Costco pizza, or no, we didn't have a Costco.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

No. Well, that sucks.

SPEAKER_03 54:07

You missed out on a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

No, we uh we've gone over the pizza. We had like our smaller mom and paw pizza joints around where I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Yeah, there are some other ones.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

But I uh yeah, so like the snacks, but most of my friends are the same way. Like you go, you go over their house, like mom's making full meals for snacks for these like just ravenous, like savage boys. It was it was wild. I think about it now, and then like that's how Sarah and I entertain my wife when we have people over. Like, I'm not buying shit, I'm cooking all of it from scratch, like so much labor, and I have no idea why, but we both feel like we have to put that much effort in when we entertain, which goes back to like you know, the uh probably like the culture we were we were raised in. I was uh I was a fan though, I had a neighbor whose mom was a baker, and their after school snacks were just all sugar, just they're just elite homemade cookies and like all this like amazing stuff. We would just beg to go over there, and or my mom literally wouldn't let us. She'd be like, You're not going over there, all they do is eat sugar. And then we'd because we'd come home and Jeffrey would be just running through walls. Yeah. That kid smelled sugar within like a mile of him. He was unleashed, he was an unleashed hyena. See where Queen gets it from then. Jeff is a kid, man. Like, he he should have been studied. Like he was he was insane. He was insane.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

Well, continuing off with the childhood, uh, I would love to play a game called Overrated or Underrated Childhood Edition, where I'm gonna give you guys a laundry list of things from our childhoods, primarily your childhoods, and you're gonna tell me overrated or underrated. Okay. Just give me a quick decision. If you guys disagree, then we're gonna debate.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Okay. Up first. Overrated or underrated? Capri Sons. Overrated.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Properly rated, in my opinion. They were fire. Um and they they hit the spot every time back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

Lunchables. Overrated. I was never a lunchables kid. I was disappointed even as a kid when I'd eat the things. I just felt like, what is this?

SPEAKER_00 56:09

It did I feel like I'd see this is where I feel like the nine-year difference and an eight-year difference in our age group. Like you probably caught when lunchables were on the downhill. Because when they came out, I was like peak kid. And I want to say they were properly rated. We would eat them like maybe once a quarter. Jeffrey and I.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

I just say underrated or something.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Jeffrey and I would have to beg for them. We didn't eat them a ton, but I do think it's why millennials love charcuterie. That's why I'm giving it a proper rating. Um Chuck E. Cheese. Overrated? I don't know. I've never been to one. Overrated. It was wasn't my thing. Sleepovers with the boys. Underrated. Very underrated. Dude, those it's you know what sucks to think. We'll never do that again.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

Never.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

Adult sleepovers aren't. We gotta go on a trip. I'm in. But bring back, like normalize. My buddy says it all the time. He's like, normalize sleepovers with the bros. Normalize it as adults. If you go on a trip, I guess it's acceptable.

SPEAKER_02 57:09

It'd be weird if it's like, honey, my four guys are over. We're gonna go in in the basement.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

We're all just so old now. See boys tomorrow, get a good night sleep, no kittens in the house.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

Um Saturday morning cartoons.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

Underrated, I remember. I I got Fox Kids, that was so good. Fox Kids is the best.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Massively overrated, in my opinion. I would dude, I didn't I never sat down on a single Saturday morning and watched cartoons.

The Great Cereal Ranking Gauntlet

SPEAKER_02 57:34

But see, this is where I feel like my age kind of like I feel like your age, you got a lot of like the sort of like fodder cartoons where they were just making them to make them, like like Transformers, uh uh He-Man, like that sort of stuff. Like I had like Batman the Animated Series, Justice League Unlimited, pretty pretty much anything Bruce Stim touched, it was just gold, uh static shock.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

That wasn't for us. If there was a morning rated on a Saturday, my mom was my mom worked Saturdays, my dad didn't. Get your ass outside. That was it. Wake up, eat something, go outside. Yeah, but this is I've never sat there and watched it.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

I I also had snow or shine. I had similar rules, but that's like the news for kids. So you'd be sitting there sipping your not coffee, being like, hold on, let me see what Superman's up to, and then I'll get outside. Overrated. The Scholastic Book Fair. Massively underrated. I don't even know what that is. What?

SPEAKER_03 58:29

You had to have had that when you were in school. That's been around forever. The book fair.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

They do once every nine weeks. You go get books, they do it before Christmas, they'd always have Christmas gifts for chicken. Some like novelty shit there, too. Properly rated. Didn't really it didn't do it.

SPEAKER_03 58:42

That's so underrated.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

Oh man. What do you mean? There'd be one kid that shows up with 20 bucks and does nothing but buy like smellable pencils. It's like, oh you lucky bastard. How did you have everything you can do? Meanwhile, you have to buy a cookbook. I don't remember any of that.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Wow. That hurts to hear.

SPEAKER_02 58:58

Summer vacation. I was gonna say overrated to that. That's clearly underrated. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

Definitely underrated. Okay. Recess football. Underrated. Yeah, I guess underrated. That's the furnace, bro. That's where it's built.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

That's all I have.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Yeah, I mean, I think I think looking back on it, like there was just so many, like lunchables nowadays, like they don't like parents aren't buying that shit like they used to, right? Same with like Caprice. Like a lot of the stuff is just like it's not as much a thing, man. I feel like it doesn't even make sense. My kid gets a Capri Son now. I slap that shit out of her hand and throw it in the trash. Like, get that out of here, get the red dye out, I don't know what's in there.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

I feel like lunchables don't even make that much sense anymore, like from a financial perspective. Because what are they like five bucks a pop? No idea.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

You know? I don't even know what they cost. 25 bucks for uh they don't even eat those anymore. They eat the feastable stuff. The lunch leaves. The lunch leaves.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

That's that's the craze nowadays. Overrated or underrated, that wraps that. The last thing I have for us today, I went out to the store and I purchased some of the most famous cereals from the 90s and 2000s. We're ranking them? We're gonna rank them. We can go through, I'll give you box by box.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

So as much shit as I talked on cereal, it is massively nostalgic for me. I just understand that like I wish cereal didn't have all the junk in it so that it was still good for people to consume.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

Now it's literally just sugar and processed stuff, chemicals.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

I could see in the next five years there being some sort of a transition where they try to revamp it, make it a little healthier. Because I feel like that's more of like a widely uh accepted opinion now, is that it's not the healthiest thing for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Okay, up first, I'm gonna toss you guys these boxes. You can put it up in the middle and then we'll go down the order. Up first, we have the classic pops.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Oh, this was huge. D. That's D?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

Get the f.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

I would I'd give that a solid B. I'd say B solid B. Solid B. Have you ever That was so big whenever I was growing up. Everybody loved Pops.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

That doesn't that's not how this works. Was it actually good though? Oh, it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

Hell yeah, it looks great. Look at these. That's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

What the five five boxes are two-thirds full.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

Oh, we gotta leave some.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

And this box, by the way, these boxes are so small. Remember how big those suckers used to be? They still make them bigger, but just so you know, 220 calories with three-quarters cups of skim milk, the same as your Kellogg's. Or your special cat. Yeah, but the sugar is probably. We're going B dear. That has to be a B.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:40

No way! Oh yeah, that sugar is. It would live in a two to one. Not the average, it has to go B. I said D, so it's gotta be C. Two of us say B though. I mean, they're it's just like a sweet puff of junk. Exactly. It's elite. No, man. Oh, God, you guys. Pops were phenomenal. I was preferring Wheaties with the biggest. We'll put them C. We'll put them C. Up next, we have the classic frosted flakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Now, if we're going pure nostalgia. If we're going pure nostalgia, for me, A tier all day. I would give this an A tier as well. Tony, 200 calories.

unknown 1:02:24

Tony.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

I would argue they could be S tier just based off their commercials. Their marketing was stupendous.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

I the only reason I put it on an A tier, not an S tier, is just because I personally preferred two other cereals.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:42

There's another one I'd say is S tier.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

It is fire though. I mean, it's just sugar. They're sugar flakes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

I remember the old commercials, they would just have like athletes performing at like their most intense moments, and they're like, they polish us off with some frosting flakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

I think they made Tony the like epitome of like an inspirational character to children.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:59

You know who has the same marketing strategy as Frosted Flakes? Micelobe Ultra. Yeah. So just got done swimming six miles. Give me a Mickey.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

Market to children directly. Get them while they're young. They taste phenomenal too. Yeah, definitely. They're fine tier. Yeah. Wow. What do we got next?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

Um, up next, uh we have the one and only Lucky Charms. The forbidden fruit.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

Cannot comprehend how small these boxes are.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

Nowadays they're really tiny. You could get just the marshmallows now, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

This is S-tier for me. This is because of the marshmallows.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

Yeah, Lucky Charms was an S-tier cereal.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

Lucky Charms. We didn't get it often.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

Neither did I. We weren't allowed.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:43

Look at see. Look at it. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

I feel like they're skimping on the marshmallows in there, though. They always do. The difference. Those marshmallows are still fire. By fire, I mean you probably the way that they taste like they shouldn't be in your body. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

I I feel like how you eat this could be like a personality test. I remember whenever I used to eat this as a kid, I would deliberately eat all the cereal chunks first and save the marshmallows. So I just have a bowl of marshmallows and milk at the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

You know what I you know what's an awesome thing now? So there's a um uh it's like I guess I kind of like call it a bakery, right? She got super famous. It's called Milk Bar. I'm a big fan. I we try to buy I buy it every year for um not every year. I've I bought them a lot. The cakes and the pies and stuff, but they make ice cream and she put it on the map where she would like soak um cereal and then extract the milk to get the flavor out of the cereal and then make the ice cream with that. She did it with cornflakes, and then that that put her on the map. She's you gotta be in the restaurants, but like the um her name's uh I think Chelsea, Kelsey, something like that. She's got a book, she's super famous now in the food world. It's really good. And that's what like eating those, the marshmallow water after, that's what it reminds me of.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:01

So ignore the label. They didn't have rice crispies, they had frosted crispies.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

What do you mean you don't have rice crispies?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:09

They only had the chocolate ones. And so I just the little pops? Uh no, they have the chocolate rice crispies. Cocoa rice crispies. Yeah, cocoa rice crispies.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

That one would be.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:18

I just wanted a box that was blue and said snap crackle pop, but we're not rating frosted crispies. Um next up, rice krispies. I'm going B tier.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

It's a solid, good performer. Can't let it get too doggy, gotta eat. You could add fruit, whatever you wanted inside of it. Yeah, but this was Joe. No kid was adding fruit to their cereal.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:40

I don't know. Yeah, you didn't live.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

We didn't have fruit in our house, I don't think. We were just savages, eating nothing but. I bet there's more people that put stuff in the floor. Yeah, those are probably terrible. Not terrible, they're very sugary.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

No, I will say though, I don't know about you guys, but when I would eat rice krispies, I'd always have to spoon some sugar on it. This gets it done right out of the box.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Rice Krispies were for me literally just sh like the one cereal where I would eat multiple bowls. I would I I want them crispy. They hit that milk. Hit the milk. I could smack a box. You just gotta do like a real shit. But they're still they weren't like great. They were just like, give me the get inside my body.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

Yeah. Next up we have Golden Grams. I don't know what this one is.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

D maybe F.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

I'd probably I don't know if I've ever eaten them. I don't think I've ever eaten them. I actually know I lied. I have eaten these. I just years ago. Golden gram. They look like shitty cinnamon toast crunch. Maybe I'm thinking of cinnamon toast crunch.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

Yeah, it's like cinnamon toast crunch, but a lot more graham crackery.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

So probably an F then based off of them copying.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

Yeah, bury them, Joe. Tastes like some cardboard. That's a great idea in an adding.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

What? Hold on now. Up next, this is one of my personal favorites. A lot of nostalgia in this one. We have cookie crisps. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

F. These are Whoa, no, come on. Get the fuck out of here. Dude, I'm telling you, these are bottom of the barrel. Yeah, give it a B. There's no reason for a cookie. We're going B cereal.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

What? You guys like these? Yes. That was a big deal. That was arguably more forbidden than the uh the lucky charms. 100%. Dude, we never, everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

I think that one was one of those ones where you knew it was unhealthy, so.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Yeah, it's a damn cookie. Just eat cookies if you're gonna eat. Like, I don't need I'm I'm good. I'm not even gonna try to convince my.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

How do they even make that? Look at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

How do they make it? You don't want to see how that's made. You would question a lot of life decisions. You see how that's made.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

I gotta be honest though, the taste isn't there. They're awesome. I kind of want to drop it down one after trying it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:53

Maybe, maybe we do give it a seat. I'll put it next to Pops. Up next, we have Captain Crunch. Captain.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

The original. So Captain Crunch for me is all about peanut butter. Like we were just crushed a peanut butter. That's probably a C. But you didn't like peanut butter MMs? No, I like peanut butter. I don't like regular MMs. I like peanut MMs. Gotcha. He doesn't like peanut M's.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

No, I like I don't like yeah, peanut butter MM's I like, not the peanut MMs. Why do you make no sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

So these are these are probably C tier for me. I don't even remember. Sweet corn and oat. It's crazy how they get them all down to 200 some calories per serving with milk. But it's always skin milk, and who the hell uses skin milk? We even got lactose free milk so I could have some. I feel like though, looking at these, they're s they're smaller. Probably are. Are they smaller?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

That's how big they were whenever I used to get. I was never a huge fan of Captain Crunch.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

We never got Captain Crunch. My one aunt always had it. I'd crush it at her house.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

Jeff and I did damage on the peanut peanut butter.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:57

What, a D tier? C tier?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

I had it at C. If it's not doing it. C. I'm fine with C tum. I'm not upset with D. Yeah, I wouldn't. It's just like a it's if that's there wasn't this much selection back in the day.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

Alright, we have a heavy heavy hitter up next. We have the one, the only cinnamon toast crunch. S tier. I'd say it's an S tier as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

Hands down, I I don't even know how you could argue it's not. I mean, this is the only one where I would literally probably eat a bowl knowing it's gonna tear my insides to pieces. I'm gonna feel awful. I'm getting no nutritional value out of it, and I'd be fine with it now as an adult. This would be if you would have busted this out for your surprise, if I can talk about it earlier, I'd I'd have smacked, I'd have smacked the bowl, throwing it on my macro counter.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Counted it. It's gonna have a toast. Crunch would never do anything negative to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:45

Oh, it's so good. So elite. Poor Joe's over there not getting the taste any of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

We don't give that back to him. He deserves it. It's mostly because Joe knows that the audio side of this stuff. Everyone hates the chewing. Sorry, guys. That it's probably been 20 years since I've had that taste in my mouth.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

Probably 10 for myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

Even dry, it's just it's wonderful. Yeah, it's just sugary, cinnamony deliciousness.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

That is phenomenal. And up next, we have cocoa puffs. It's a B tier for me. I'd say it's I don't I don't think it was the greatest thing ever. It also wasn't as bad as some of the other ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

It's it's yeah, I'm giving it a B because mostly the way I ate them. I'm not a huge chocolate guy. Like Sam, I think you're much more of a chocolate person than a fruity fruity stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:32

Yeah, I used to like uh cocoa puffs. I uh the taste wasn't amazing though. I'd I'd be fine with B tier.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

I like how you're doing it right in the microphone.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

Sorry. Sorry. I preferred the milk that came along with the cocoa puff over the cocoa puff.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:50

That's one of those ones where you finish the milk after.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

I finish milk every time. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

Every single cereal ever.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

I don't disagree with that, but I mean you made sure you finished it. Yeah, they're not doing it. With the nutritional facts, don't do it, Sam. There's just nothing there. Yeah, it's not worth it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

Okay, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

Next up, we have another chocolate one. The classic Reese's puffs. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

These are an A tier for me. I'd say A tier. When these came out, like these didn't, like, these were birthed. Can we look up the birth year of the Reese Puff? Because I'm pretty sure they were birthed when I was a young man, uh when I was a kid. They weren't like a cereal that was around before I was born.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:29

May 1992.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

So I was six. Like, I was eating other cereals, and then these came out. So I prefer these. These are A for me. Not quite S.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:41

I'm good at A. I think they're not as good as the other two, but they were elite.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:46

Now I would just eat these straight out of the box. Yeah, I'd be willing to get an S tier on these guys. They had the best commercials. Do you remember the Reese's puff commercials?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

These don't taste like I remembered them.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

Maybe because I never ate them dry.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:57

It's like I'm ruining your childhood right now in a lot of assets.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:00

I was assuming stuff was going to taste different because there's so many regulations now and non-regulations then.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:05

Probably should just let some stuff live in your childhood as you remembered it compared to what it actually was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

Like Allsport? I brought Allsport up to these guys the other day. I don't know if we were on the pod. But like they've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:17

Blew my mind. Still never heard of it. Up next, we have Fruit Loops. I will say, just before you even say anything, I wasn't a big fan of Fruit Loops. Really? Yeah, I wasn't a big Fruit Loop person.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

So Fruit Loop for us was uh was a staple. Like we always had Fruit Loops. I'm going A tier personally because it was just it is my my childhood is Fruit Loops and peanut butter. I don't know why. It was probably because my mom and dad probably liked them and then they would only buy stuff they liked and then gave it to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:52

All these cereals are really really big on advertising their fiber.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

That's the only thing I know. They're so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:59

I love a fruity. Where are you putting them for? He says, what do you say, A tier?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:05

I'd go to A tier. Yeah, A or B.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:08

I'd say B.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

Yeah, yeah, I'd probably be a B.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:13

Should be in a D. D? You gave it a B! I I know. I said it should be a D, but I'm gonna concede on it. I just personally don't like that. I know a lot of other people love Fruit Loops. You like cookie crisp. Okay. It's a great, great cereal. A lot of other people like them. We have the one, the only cereal to wrap this segment up. Honey nut Cheerios. Not the regular kind, honey nut. S tier. S tier. I'm there with Sam. Come on. It was an air.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:43

Staple.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:44

And my grandma had bags of it. Me too. Why didn't grandpas love these things?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

Black licorice or honey nut Cheerios. I had to pick. They said that this is heart healthy. Look, it still says it on the box. Well, actually, it doesn't. It can help.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:56

I didn't say it will. It says it could. The cholesterol stuff, it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily help, but it doesn't hurt your cholesterol. You know, it doesn't hurt it? Not eating that. Well.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:06

Yeah, but they're delicious. A good source of calcium. I was going D.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:10

Good fiber. D. Are you out of your mind?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:12

This is not a child's, it's not a children's cereal. You're out of your mind. We'll put it at A T.

unknown 1:14:17

Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:17

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:18

It's going at understanding on cereal that adults and children could enjoy together. It brought people to you how many bonding relationships have occurred after that cereal? Yeah, that's fine, but they weren't as good as these. Yeah, the honey nuts where it's at.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:33

Like you my grandma had regular Cheerios, and I hated every second of eating the plain Cheerios. But when she had honey nut Cheerios.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:41

I'm a simple man.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:42

Literally anyone at any age, babies love this, and elderly people love it.

Missing Staples And Frosted Mini-Wheats Love

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

There's a banger on here that you you miss. Like Kicks? Kicks was awful. Yeah, I didn't know. No, there's a there's a banger. So what do you guys think's left off? Right? Applejacks, that was a good one. Apple ja, yes. There's one. That's not on here. Is it on the is it in the board? No, there's a bunch of garbage up there. Fruity pebbles. Honeycombs. Fruity pebbles was one. I don't know what you grew up on. Honeycombs. Fruity pebbles was one. We didn't eat them a lot because it just they got the mush too quickly.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

Man, once you get into your Mormon housewives, more Fruity Pebbles takes on a whole new meaning. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:26

Why'd you have to bring for a okay? So one, to not have Wheaties on there isn't is insane. Right? You talk about nostalgia from the 90s. Wheaties were everywhere. My high school went undefeated and beat Woodland Hills when they had like Steve Breston and like um who's the who's the defensive end for the uh he was coaching Miami in the in the national championship. Well Jason Taylor. Like they beat them, they were on the cover of Cheerios, or excuse me, of the Wheaties or some shit. It was wild. Um Wheaties were huge. Now, I'm not saying they were great cereal, but they were literally every that was one you were spooning sugar on. But the one that's missing that was just I loved, that's probably awful. I think I know. You're gonna say frosted mini weeds. I love frosted mini weeds. Frosted mini weeds. That layer of icing on the mini wheat, right? Oh my god. That was that was my other S tier. It was going ham. I can't believe you put honey nut cherry on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:28

That was one I didn't even mind if it would get soggy. It was soggy. No, never mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

It could it dry, barely wet, soaking wet, sogging, frosted mini weeds, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:36

I and they had great marketing too. I remember I love the little mascot guy, the little talking mini wheat. He just seemed like a very solid dude.

Is It Normal: Habits, Movies, And Manners

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

That was a huge one. Huge one for us. So if you guys got a cereal you were eating as a kid, or in the 90s and 2000s, or still to this day, let us know. We'd be very interested to see if one we can find it and try it too. What you guys love. Um that, Joe, that's a wrap, huh?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:59

Uh we have to finish our classic segment, Everybody Loves. Is it normal?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:03

Is it normal? We gotta we do gotta figure out.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:05

We have some themed questions today based off of everything you experienced and some other ones. But boy. Let's start off strong. Is it normal to eat cereal after dinner because you're still hungry?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

Absolutely. I do that constantly. I think it's normal.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

No. There's never been a moment in my life where I did that. Never. Never. No. I mean, I I might maybe hours later, if I'm like hungry and in the fridge. Or excuse me, in the kitchen, but like not immediately after dinner where I'm like, I need my I also lived in a house, was very blessed that like there was never I never was hungry. If if I like ate a two-pound box of pasta and I wanted more, it was being made to be given to me. Like there wasn't. I was never hungry.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:51

My palate might get a little burnt out from what I had for dinner. It's like I need to refresh. Yeah, we see I didn't have that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:55

We didn't grow up in a house where I had options and ate what was put in front of me.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:00

Oh dude, we don't have I couldn't eat that cereal right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:04

Not this, but the K, Joe. You couldn't eat the K right now. I could eat it. Yeah, because I see I couldn't see.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:10

There's this protein, it's like a it's like a protein snack that you can eat as a cereal called Catalina Crunch. I'll grab a little bit of that. It's uh it's got a lot more protein in it than that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:20

The name of it alone sounds like it's outside of my tax bracket. Give me a box of that Catalina Crunch. Soda cost of bulk? Dude, what do you mean? No, I believe it because that's even worse. You gotta have a different name there.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

No, you gotta get three times the volume. Exactly. Unfair, guys. Unfair. Is it normal to start a movie and never finish it?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:42

Depending on the movie, yes. I mean, you're sick and twisted in the head if you don't finish it. It's you if it's a you've you've done it before. Uh if it's a movie you don't like, you're like I mean that I'm oh okay. I thought you were saying like you get like too tired halfway through a movie you do like and you turn it off. Yeah. If you're 10 minutes into something, it sucks. Change that shit. Yeah. Like wicked. It sucks.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:05

Okay, ten minutes in is reasonable, but you've made it, there's 30 minutes left, and you're just tired of watching it. Yeah, that is not normal. Might as well just finish it, even if it is terrible. Yeah, finish a job.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:16

I don't know. I think it's fine to stop it if you're not having sometimes I've made it like you are you a non- Oh, you don't when you read, do you ever just not finish a book? There's been books I haven't finished.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:27

Especially in college, I feel like I had to read a lot of books. Some of them you'd really connect with, others, it's like, this isn't for me. Yeah, I think I might just I'm a completion, like I have to finish what I start.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:37

Is it normal to not know how to do basic home repairs? Yeah, it's super normal. Do I agree with it?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:43

Absolutely not. Figure out how to fix your shit and take care of your stuff, people.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:46

Yeah, I guess I probably same uh same sentiment.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:51

Um is it normal to hate loud restaurants? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:55

No, depending on the restaurant. There's some loud restaurants that aren't bad. Like what? Like you ever go to a Texas Roadhouse. Actually, a pre a pre-COVID Texas Roadhouse, peanuts all over the floor, just someone getting carried onto.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:08

Someone's birthday, they're on the they're on the saddle. Yep. Yeah, it would be an oversized cowboy hat. I could agree with that one. Um is it normal to judge people by their grocery carts when you're shopping?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:18

Yeah, sometimes I attribute entire personalities to people based on their grocery carts. Sometimes I judge my own grocery cart and I look at you, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:26

I'm 100% with Sam on this one. You you got some crazy shit in there. I'm wondering what the hell's going on. You got you got you got a stack of the cereals we just ate in your cart. I'm asking some really deep questions.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:36

Yeah, like what was what are the looks you got getting all this cereal? You probably had to do a lot of it too. I bought all this cereal and all the fruit for an unscrewed video, and then water. This old lady was just looking at me like, what is he doing with all questioning your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:51

Yeah, because I had all the cereal checkout first, and then three pineapples, a bag of oranges, and three large melons. I don't even know what they are. It was a wild assortment of just what is he doing? Um oh, then the gallon of the gallon of two percent milk.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:09

That's a guest on the show right now. He's just hanging out on the couch with a plate in front of him. My plate of chicken.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:15

Didn't even talk to him today. I mean, I'm a two percent guy. If I when I was a when I thought it was normal to drink milk as in it as a grown-up, yeah, it was always two percent.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:23

Uh see, my my grandma used to only get two percent. My mom did as an adult. I only want whole milk because I'm just trying to get like any calories I can. It doesn't make a difference, but none of the calories.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:35

Nothing that's in milk in my body.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:36

Is it normal to save hoodies you'll never wear?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:39

Yeah. Thousand percent. Yeah, I got a vacuum sealed bag of memory hoodies from like high school sports and stuff like that. Same. I got a tuple hoodie.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:47

I still have a bunch of them. I need to throw them out or if I said that, but I just keep it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:50

Vacuum bags, man, it'll take up this much space.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:52

It's actually a great idea for those. Uh last but not least, is it normal to keep score of who reaches out first in a friendship between the bros?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:01

No. Well, I I guess do people do it? Yes. Is it aggravating? Yeah. I think just make it easy. Don't don't keep score or try to try to hold that over someone's head.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:13

I think it's more normal than you would than you would hope. Um because I think people are looking for excuses nowadays to like, instead of just I'll just be honest, I'll purge you for my life. I give a f. Like I'll tell you too, like, we're done. Um, friend breakup. Right, no, no shit, because that's the person where you're you're they'll they'll come at you when you see them in public and they're like, why when you call her blah blah blah, and you're like, uh, and you're trying to make an excuse. I'm like, bro, I just straight up don't want to see you anymore or talk to you like you suck. Um sorry. But the uh, not sorry, the the keeping score though is normal. I had a buddy tell me recently, he's like, This is we're not keeping score in friendship, Bodo. I was like, okay. Because I was like feeling like guilty. I was like, I'm sorry I never come see you guys, I'm sorry I don't call that often. Because I'm like, I hate phone calls, I'm busy with the kids, I'm busy with the business. I don't I don't I got friends with no kids, you know, they don't own businesses, I don't see them, I feel bad. And they're like, We're not keeping score. And I was like, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:10

I feel like that went away like after I got out of college. Like, I feel like once you're like kind of out in the world and stuff, it's not as important.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:16

But I feel like college and down, people are more likely to do that shit where it's like you bailed like two times on the like the value you put on that relationship and how much like percentage of your capacity to care it takes up when you're younger. As you get older, you start caring about other things, and you're like, if we're friends, we're friends. I'll we don't need to play this like back and forth, like keep the tabs game kind of thing. Yeah. Um, I do I will I think it's a dude thing though. It's like I feel like dudes can just pick up. I I talked to Kristen about this.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:46

Yeah. I feel like girls they need to be like interacting like once every couple days, but I've got friends that I could literally go like two years without seeing and then see them and just immediately like just pick right back up. And there's never a thought in either of our minds like he stole my friend, is he stole this or that? But girls, it's I don't envy that. That's a that's a whole different world. Yeah, that would be tough. A lot of a lot of mental maintenance there. Yeah, a lot of little parties for just random things. Yeah, I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:12

Yeah, no, dudes are like it goes back to the jokes you see. It's like, oh, so how was your weekend away with the guys? Like, how's so-and-so doing? You have not a single conversation about anything. He's gonna divorce or something, that'll be except there's shit that's happening in the moment or stuff that happened 15 years ago. There's no gap. No gap in any of it. So do you think it's normal, Joe?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:34

Yeah, I think it's normal.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:36

Joe's getting it. Joe's over here with a fan.

Friendship Scorekeeping And Adult Life

SPEAKER_03 1:24:40

I agree exactly what Sam said. You should be able to pick up, pick back up with your buddies after a certain while, and it shouldn't affect anything. And plus, I think where scores are kept is when you both probably aren't doing much in your life or communicating it to each other. If you then are you really good good enough friends at that point?

SPEAKER_04 1:24:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:57

You know, like some of my best friends, uh, you know, I don't talk to them every day, but yeah, we both know we're both busy, and when we pick back up, we'll pick back up.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:05

Yep. And that's I agree with you there. No need to keep scoring friendship. But there is a need to keep scoring the Super Bowl, which is next week, which will be an interesting topic of conversation here once we get through it. So if you want to check out anything coming from the pod, make sure you're subscribed on whatever platform you're on. Please share it with a friend or someone you hate. We don't care. We're we share with all. Um, and lastly, if you would like to get early access to the podcast, make sure you're checking it out inside of the Builder Bunker. With that, we wish you all a happy and wonderful rest of your life. And we'll see you soon. Peace.