E65 - Frivolous Spending w/Puzzled Minds : Verse 26:18 of the Alternative Scriptures

Mike is joined this week by Joon from the Puzzled Minds podcast to bracket off :

Personalized License Plates vs Skins in Games
Greeting Cards vs Entertainment Magazines

Championship

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Whack Brackets. We arethe podcast whose only fan page was banned
for having full frontal nudity. I'myour host, Mike, and on this
episode, I have a puzzled mind. I don't have both of the Puzzled
minds, but I have a guyfrom the Puzzled Minds podcast, and this
is June, and I want tothank you for being on. How you
doing, June, Thank you man, Thank you Mike. Yeah, I

(00:22):
feel like we just talked a fewminutes ago, a few days ago,
but hey man, it is whatit is. It could have been about
thirty minutes ago, so about twentyseconds ago. Yeah. Now, I'll
pull the curtain back. And weactually had another episode that will probably drop
before this one. We're rebracketed offcult leaders, and I think that was
a good one. Unfortunately, Tadwas in that episode and then he got
busy and had to go, sohe abandoned us for this one. But

(00:44):
we'll forgive him for his indiscretion here, if that's will forgive him. Yeah,
we'll forgive him. So since you'rehaving to carry his side of the
show, you will definitely have totell my folks here what you do over
at the Puzzle Minds podcast. Cool. So for anyone that doesn't know we
are the Puzzled Mind or I guessI am not. We I am the

(01:04):
one half of the Puzzle Minds podcastand we help piece together those two AM
thoughts and that's kind of our logoor slogan, whatever you want to call
it. And the whole point ofit is to have interesting conversations with people
that have interesting lives, experiences orwhatever it is. Sometimes we have,
you know, just topics that wewant to talk about. You know,

(01:25):
I'm trying to get this person thatwas in prison for twenty years to see
like what it's about, like,you know, process of the whole prison
system and stuff like that. Justany type of two AM conversation, you
know, just that's what we wantto have. So alrighty, Yeah,
these guys have a great podcast.It's a lot of fun. I've actually
been on an episode. And notonly that, they have stickers. So

(01:47):
if you want some Puzzled Mind stickers, I actually have about twenty or thirty
albums to reach out to me andI will send them to you. If
you live in the United States,I will send you a Puzzled Mind sticker
and a whack Bracket sticker for free. Just send me An E. May
On. I forgot to say thisin the last podcast. You can send
it to Mikey at whack brackets dotcom and I will send you stickers.
So with that said, I guesswe are ready to go on to said

(02:08):
whack bracketing. Let's do it allright, and on this episode of Whack
Brackets, we are going to whackbracket off frivolous spendings and we are going
to focus on the people who dosaid frivolous spendings. And the first bracket
is going to include people who buypersonalized license plates, and we're gonna pit

(02:30):
them off against people who buy skinsin video games. And my question to
you, John, is which oneof these two people is more likely to
refer to their crew as dogs dawgsfor those keeping track at home. So
okay, so when I think ofpeople who buy skins in video games,
I'm thinking of like ten year oldsin middle school just trying to, you

(02:53):
know, impress their friends at school, like hey man, I got this
like new Fortnite skin or whatever skinwhatever from what skin. But for whatever
reason, when I think of personalizedlike license plates. I'm thinking of maybe
high schoolers or maybe like CEOs ofcompanies that are just like uh, you
know, CEO, am z N, like Amazon and stuff like that.

(03:15):
You know, there's like a levelof somewhat sophistication with like personalized license plates.
But I don't know, it's justbecause the ones that I've seen aren't
really as trashy, you know.So I'm thinking that, like people who
buy skins are more likely to saydog dawg. All right, well,

(03:37):
I'm actually going to make this agame right out the shoot because I'm going
to disagree, though you're right withlicense plates. The thing is about license
plates is you span across the gambitof people. You have husbands who are
neutered and are trying to suck upto their wives. You have people that
don't have their sports team on there, or like an abbreviation for their neighborhood,

(03:58):
or they'll be like fast r TUor something and try to just try
to be clever. But there arealways people who just feel more self important
than what they are to me.Whereas people that buy skins in games,
again, like you said that,it's usually on the young side, but
they're flashier, etc. They're tryingto get attention to them. But here's

(04:20):
where it draws the line for meand why I'm going to go with license
plates. I think if you haveskins in games, you can't just buy
one skin because it will get oldfast. Usually you buy a skin and
then a few weeks later it's deprecatedand then people are making funny so you
have to buy another skin and anotherskin. Now. First off, my

(04:41):
thinking is is that those people arealready pretty self aware of how they look
and how they act, and ifyou have a person that is using the
incorrect term to refer to their crew, then they're going to get made fun
of them for that. So ifthey refer to you as a dog the
first time, you're like, okay, I'm his dog, and then they're
still calling you his dog in abouta week or a month, You're like,

(05:03):
dude, that terms dated. Yougotta get a new term or license
plates, Like you said, it'ssome chuckle fuck CEO, And he's all
like, hey man, these aremy dogs. You know he said,
Hooters getting loaded up after okay,after a big merger. So I'm thinking,
at least that's why I think thatI think it's a date thing.
I think that people that have personalizedlicense plates because they last longer and people

(05:27):
are more likely to try to keepthem year to year. They just they
get in their groove and they justgo with it, where the people with
the skins are definitely trying to changeit up. So yeah, I can
see that because like the longevity ofof having a license plate, you know,
you people see that, people knowyou, like, that's my dog
that has that car versus. Likesomeone who buys a skin, He's just
like, oh, that's that thatkid with that new skin, Like there's

(05:50):
not really you know one like Iwouldn't say, like my dogs they got
that new skin like that, youknow, So you sick it with the
skins in are you gonna switch overto the license plates with me? You
know what, I'm gonna have togo with you, man. I think
this is the personalized a license plate. I think that's what it is.

(06:10):
Okay, Yeah, sometimes that happens. I think you talked me off something
last whack bracket. So if youput up a good argument, I'm willing
to change. So I'm glad tosee that we have a guest that is
willing to do so as well.And not just fight for the sake of
fighting, though that's fun too.No no, no, no, I'm
not married to my ideas, especiallywith these. Okay, good, but
I have to mention this, especiallysince Tad's not here, and I'm going

(06:32):
to drag the episode out a littlelonger. When I was, I guess
about twenty five years ago. Betweentwenty and twenty five years ago, I
had a blue Jeep, which isirrelevant to the story, but I had
a license plate that was not personalized. But people used to ask me all
the time if it was personalized andyou had three numbers and three letters on
Kentucky license plates, and I shit, you not. My jeep license plate

(06:54):
was eight sixty nine Amy, eightsixty nine Amy. And people used to
be like, oh, that's realfunny. And I never even noticed.
They're like, good, how's Amydoing. I'm like, I have no
idea, what the fuck you're talkingabout the license plate dog. It's like
they're like, oh, I'm like, son of a bitch. So I
got to the point, Yeah,it was nice because Jeeps are a car

(07:15):
that are relatively common. So ifI was in a parking lot or something
and somebody drove by and they wouldjust call me like, hey, man,
I'm gonna stop by and say hey, I see you're a BW three's
or whatever. So I'm like okay, because they would just see my license
plate instantly knows me. I actuallyhave a question now, I wonder if
for any of your listeners, Um, so, when you're when you have
a license plate, you know,it's it's usually like what seven characters?

(07:38):
Is that what it is? Ithink it changes depending on your low state.
Okay, So in my particular state, I have seven characters, and
for whatever reason, I always haveto find a way to like remember it
because I you know, it's notI'm not gonna remember like a random letter
and random random number. Right.So one of my cars that I had,
it was VBH. I'd remember thisbecause of this this thing. I'm

(07:58):
gonna say bb H twenty six eighteen, and uh, I used to think,
you know, vaginas be Harry versetwenty six eighteen or something at twenty
eight sixteen, something like that.And I'm wondering if if any of your
listeners do something like that too,they kind of like try to find a
quirky way to remember it. Butso, yeah, you said verse twenty

(08:18):
six eighteen, or were quoting fromthe Vagina Bible here or what that's what
I think it is. Yeah,I think it was, yeah, twenty
six eighteen. Yeah, yeah,I remember that for whatever reason like that.
That's the only reason I don't evenknow my own one now, like
the one that I the last placethat I have now, because I haven't
really thought of anything yet, butthat one stands out. So I'm wondering
if your listeners do something like thattoo. I don't know. I know

(08:39):
I don't, at least not forlicense plates. I do that for other
terms. I can't think of anythingoff the top of my head, but
but I do that sporadically where I'lltry to remember things and use numonics to
do so. So so yeah,it's I'll definitely float that out there.
Yeah, that's curious. Yeah,throw that out there. If I forget
to post it, would in thisepisode dry and ask people because I am

(09:01):
curious as well. I got you. I'll see if anyone reached from the
Vagina Bible as well. Twenty sixeighteen, and on the seventh day,
John Resteth by his big Harry Vagina. There you go, you go.
Oh my goodness, that with offtrack quick, but license plates are going
to advance to the next round againstthe person who does this. People who

(09:26):
buy greeting cards versus people who buyentertainment magazines, and I'm thinking particularly in
line at your grocery store, butit could be any entertainment magazine which one
of these two sets of people aremore likely to cry watching the television show
This is US. So I'll takethis one first. So entertainment magazines,

(09:48):
I don't see people I see themusing at in terms of like they like
gossip. I'm thinking of like tabloids, you know, and entertainments that kind
of is like I guess it dependson whatever I want to want it to
be. But I'm thinking, like, you know, like music magazines or
whatever type of magazine that you liketo do. But greeting cards, and

(10:09):
I don't know, this is justa personal thing. Like people that I
know they really really like greeting cards. I think it's just the sentimental thing
of of people. You know,it's it's it's the fact that you've thought
of them and you know, likeyou wanted to make them feel good.
And so there's like a sentimental valuewith greeting cards. And so because of
that. I think that's you cantransition that thing to someone who would most

(10:31):
likely cry at this as us,Like there's like some type of like emotional
connection with greeting cards with entertainment magazines, Like even like Playboy, you just
wink it out and then you're done, Like there's no emotional thing to it,
you know. Yeah, I neverreally thought of Playboy as an entertainment

(10:52):
magazine, but I guess in itsprime form that's exactly what it is anything.
So yeah, with that said,I do agree with you personally.
I hate greeting cards, and mywife hates greeting cards, and I hate
spending the money on the greeting cards. What I'll do sporadically is my wife

(11:13):
is relatively crafty, so if Iwant to say something or whatever, we'll
just kind of throw it, throwit in a photoshop or whatever and print
it out and give it to thepeople. Because greeting cards are fucking expensive.
Yeah. I don't even want togo off on that because I have
a very very big grip about greeningcards, but yeah, they're like nagging
rain from anywhere from like three dollarsthree nine nine to like six nine nine.

(11:37):
Yeah, and then you throw themaway, right if you're going to
give me a gift card, fuckthe greeting card with the gift card,
and it just hadd five more dollarsin my gift card exactly. No,
I'm one hundred percent with you onthis. And I will say though that
I do keep all my wife's cards. I do keep those, but everyone
else's. You guys are dolls inthe trash. I'm just gonna tell you
that right now. Everyone else's.Yeah, I keep all my wife's cards,

(11:58):
but I share the same sentiment ofmost people. They throw them away.
I don't know many people that keeptheir greeting cards like I. Maybe
a few, But I used toactually like print out E gift card,
not E gift cards, but Ecards. Yeah, you know, like
where they would be like you wouldfold it. I don't know how old
people are, but it would befolded into like a like a four sheet

(12:20):
piece of paper, like an actualcard. That's what I would give people
because I just I thought that giftcards are greeting cards were oh fucking waste
of money. Yeah, they're justa scam. Yeah, So to me,
it's probably older people. My mom, for instance, still loves to
send cards and I'll let her know. I'm like, don't send the card,
but she just can't help herself.She's just old and she loves to

(12:41):
send cards. And I think that'sthe thing is I do think it is
a sentiment thing. I think it'speople feel like it's more important. I
love when people say, oh,I didn't care about the gift card,
or I didn't given care about thegift card in the middle, but your
card meant so much to me.I'm like, don't be that fucking nobody.
Give me that monetary item that you'regonna give me, like a gift

(13:03):
card that I want. Yeah,that's yeah, and it really wanted.
And you know what I would rather. I would rather you just call me
and say whatever, Mike, Andthat to me means more to me than
sending me a gift card. It'skind of like when people like I don't
normally like telling people happy birthday.If I can one text, if you
can tell me in person, I'drather you tell me that than a text

(13:24):
message that means nothing to me.Yeah, and we're gonna go off on
this because now you've you've pulled athread that I want to talk about for
at least a second. I hatedon fucking Facebook when I accidentally had my
birthday public. And I don't usethe facebooks too often, and next thing
I would know, I would startgetting all kinds of private messages or whatever

(13:46):
alerts, and then it'd be likehappy birthday, Mike, Happy birthday,
Mike, Happy birthday Mike. Sothen I have to go through and I
try to respond to everybody, andthen I got to try to remember and
look at their birthday and try toremember to wish them a happy birthday.
When you get my age. Firstoff, birthdays don't mean any Birthdays are
the most worthless thing to begin with. It's just a day. Everybody has

(14:07):
them. There's nothing special about thefucking day at all, just having to
be born on a random day.Fucking Let me ask you a question real
quick. Did not not to sighthandthis, but what is your what is
your opinion on gifts? Do youdo you like giving gifts? I like
giving more than receiving. Yeah,okay. The only reason why I ask
that is because like that whole youhad mentioned that, you know, when

(14:28):
when someone wishes you a happy birthday, you have to kind of like wish
them having Birthday's kind of like alike a like an unset agreement, you
know what I'm saying. Yeah,And so I kind of I'm gonna probably
sound like a fucking grinch saying this, but I kind of feel the same
way with like gift giving. It'slike kind of like an in like an
for like an eternal back and forththing until someone dies and then you don't

(14:48):
have to repay them. You know. It's like, Hey, I gave
you a gift this year, youbetter give me one this year, and
then this can this dance continues untilwe until one of us dies. Right.
But don't get me wrong, though, I do love a gift,
but I just won't give you oneback. Yeah, I appreciate a gift.
I won't to say I love it. I appreciate it. Yeah,

(15:09):
But yeah, generally there's only oneperson I get gifts from that I look
forward to every year. He's oneof my best friends, and we give
each other gifts, but they're literallyjust stupid gifts every year, so it's
almost a it's almost just a clowntowntrying to figure out who's going to give
the most ridiculous gift. I thinkI gave him a t shirt this year
and had a Puma on it andhe said, I'm gonna PuO my pants.

(15:31):
That's what it was. Yeah,And he gave me, and this
is irrelevant, but he gave metwo OJ Santiago football cards, which sounds
completely ridiculous. But I beat himwith OJ Santiago. And if you're a
sports guy, you know he wasn'ta very good tight end for very long,
but I had him as a backuptied end. And I played my
friend Bob in fantasy football and Ihad to play that guy that week.

(15:54):
And on the last play of thegame, OJ Santiago got a touch that
and beat Bob. And I thinkit may have kept him out of the
playoffs because I had this shy.I didn't even make the playoffs. Yeah,
yeah, just knocked him out,which is even better. Yeah,
and it's yeah, O J Santiago, terrible player. But he gave me
a couple of football cards. Yeah. We do this every year. Just
try to give each other something soupidand see see what we can do.

(16:14):
That's the only gift I look forwardto other than that. Fucking Even my
wife and I were very much antigift giving to one another because yeah,
hell, we're full ask grown people. If I want something, I usually
just go by, yeah, exactly. The last thing I have about gifts
is I'm more of a utility person, Like, if you're gonna e a
gift, give me something that I'mgonna use. And I use the same
sentiment with like with other people too. I'll be like, you know,
I'm not gonna give you some somegifts. I'm gonna give you something that

(16:37):
you can use and so, youknow, I one of the examples,
I gave someone like a cookbook,and I was like, you're probably not
gonna read it, but you know, at least you can use it to
like cook something Like I'm you know, I don't want to give you like
a like a rainbow colored dildo.Hey, I could use that, you
never know. Well, hey,look, whenever your birthday is, I
got you. But dude, it'sawesome. I'll let you know what I'm

(16:57):
saying. Well, I guess youknow what, in that case, you
could use it as utility as food. So well, I don't know,
man, I didn't think about that. So just keep that one in there.
Yeah, we'll just keep it inthere. But yeah, I haven't
even touched on entertainment magazines. Butlike you said, I think I'm one
hundred percent in agreement. Yeah,we went on the greeting card, right,
and I think we agree that theseare sappy people with sappy feelings and

(17:19):
they're the ones that are gonna bebawling at This is Us. We're yeah
that the entertainment magazine is more like, oh look it's Prince William. Oh
he's he and Kate are having trouble, or oh who's who's getting the rose
on the fucking bachelorette or something?Fuck all that. You know, I
don't give a shit and those peopleI won't rant on them because that's irrelevant,

(17:40):
but yeah, I don't think theyreally give a shit about This is
Us. And yeah, they're watchingit because somebody told them too. They're
like, oh, well, Thisis Us is one of those popular shows,
and they're like, I like tobe popular and up on my entertainment,
so I want to watch this show. So those people agree, So
we're going to let those people goon or not. Those people are gonna
let those people go and we aregoing to let the greeting cards purchasers go

(18:03):
on, and they are going togo against the personalized license plate purchasers,
with the final wag bracket question beingwhich one of these two sets of people
is more likely to get thrown outof your Applebee's. So I think if
we're going based off that whole thing, with the CEO being kind of like
the personalized license plate being the douche, like he has the money, he's

(18:25):
gonna just you know, pay foreveryone's drinks and all that. Like he's
going to be the one that's like, hey, everyone gets shots, shots
on me buying all these wings andeveryone's getting fucked up, and you know,
they're enjoying their time versus someone whowatches this is us unless well,
you know anything while there's no Ifthey are watching this is us in the
Applebee's and they're crying to the pointwhere they need to be kicked out,

(18:48):
I can see that. Yeah,I don't know if they would show it
this is us at Applebee's, butif they did, I'm gonna go with
this is us. These people,I'm not going with them, but I'm
saying with this is I feel likethey would have maybe at most four people
maybe with you at Applebee's, butperson with a license plates they got their
dogs with them, you know whatI'm saying. That's right. They got

(19:11):
their dogs, They got their dogs, and so more people, more possibility
to get kicked out. So I'mgoing with personalized license plate. Yeah,
I think I'm gonna have to dothis as well. We kind of set
this question up with our back cataloghere because the greeting cards, people are
probably a little more sentimental. Theymay be bawling, but usually you can

(19:32):
go to the bathroom and compose yourselfand you can get back to the table.
I don't think I've ever seen anyoneget thrown out of a restaurant for
crying, and they can usually resolveit themselves. Whereas there's always a dick
that's too drunk, especially at theApplebee's Bar, and it's probably the CEO
and his dog, his doge's Iguess we should dog his doge. And

(19:56):
he's spend them way too much moneyand being a dick, probably hit on
the waitress, you know her.You want to come check out my Mercedes
with a personalized plate assistant, it'sthis hot boy on it and he's like
he's like forty eight, he's aboutmy age, but he's still trying to
hit on like twenty one year oldwaitresses, and thing is he's probably married

(20:17):
to, like some twenty four yearold that she won't give him the time
of day anymore because she's out bangingthe fitness instructor, so it doesn't matter
anymore. Yeah, I'm giving thisguy whole a whole terrible backstory. But
yeah, regardless of that, Ithink he's the one more likely to get
thrown out of the Applebee's, wouldbe my guest. So yeah, I
think we're gonna agree that that.Yeah, personalized license plate guys more likely

(20:40):
get thrown out of an Applebees.Yeah, I think that's it, man.
I think unfortunately the CEOs win thisone. Yeah, I think you're
right. Yeah, I think Iaccidentally hit the pause button there for second,
people, so I made June repeatthat you probably won't hear it,
but hey, hopefully hopefully it's nottoo bad. So that's said, I
think the personalized license plate guys winagain. Thank you, June, and

(21:00):
tell Tad would miss having a mom, but we'll get him on a full
episode next time. But with allthat said, why don't you tell the
people how to reach out to you? And Tad? On the Puzzle Minds
podcast on the social media platforms.Cool. Well, first off, thank
you Mike for having us. It'salways a pleasure and always fun to have
these these conversations. Uh these Iguess these quote two am conversations. You

(21:22):
know. Yeah, we did alot more of that than just bracketing.
This has been a fun episode.Hey, look, yeah, sometimes we
gotta experiment, collaborate, you know, so totally agree. Uh yeah.
If you can find us on Instagram, puzzle Minds Podcast, Twitter's puzzle Minds
Pod, and you can find uson all major streaming platforms, Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, anything like that. Ifyou have an interesting experience that you

(21:47):
would like to you know, youthink it would be really interesting to share
with the world, let us know. Gmail is Puzzle Minds Podcast at gmail
dot com. And I guess bythe time this episode is out, the
t shirts that I almost last timeshould be live, so um, I
will send Mike the link for allthat, but you know, check them

(22:10):
out. It's Corgy stuff. Ifyou like Corgis, you don't like Corgy
steel, they're Corgis, So yeah, you can have a whole Corgy hater
site too, where it's like hasthe same picture or whatever, which is
a big red circle. Yeah Ilike it. Yeah, Hey look man,
we gotta we gotta make it.That's right. You can't just you
can't just appeal to corgy lovers.You have to appeal to corgy haters too.

(22:30):
Oh see, there you got.This's the two sides to the coin.
It's get all that scratch man.So again, thank you guys for
being or now of you guys,Thank you for being on. Thank Tad
for being on both shows, orthe first show, Thank Tad for being
on the first show, thank youfor being on the second show. I'll
get it right one day. Butyou can reach out to me on any
of the social media platforms I amat whack brackets on the twitters and the

(22:53):
Instagrams and the facebooks. Or youcan send me an email anything at whack
brackets dot com. You can sendit, of course to mikey at wack
brackets dot com. You can sendit to this is us blows ass atwackbrackets
dot com. I'll get that.You can send it to drunk ceo grabbing
a waitress as assid wackbrackets dot com. I will get that. I will
literally get any of those. Ikid you not try it, you might

(23:15):
be surprised. So one more time, John Puzzled Minds, thank you for
being a guest buddy, and we'llget you on again eventually. But until
then, I would like you tolead everyone out of this episode so we'll
see it. Hi. Everyone,stay puzzled.