Wordle in Two

Today, Doug Pike discusses Wordle, an old sword, and fake snakes.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? Remember when social media was truly social?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
This show is all about you one. This is fifty
plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances, good health,
and what to do for fun. Fifty plus brought to
you by the UT Health Houston Institute on ag informed
Decisions for a healthier, happier life and Bronze Roofing repair

(00:44):
or replacement. Bronze roofing has you covered? And now fifty
plus with Doug Pike.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Friday, Holy cow, already Friday? What this week is just
flown by Will? How many days of the week were
you in here this week? Four? Counting today? This makes
two for me, So yeah, sorry about that, but it was.
It's not as nearly the burden on you that it
is when I'm here when I'm not right.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, I mean it's a little easier for a little
a little yeah, okay, I mean nice stuff. Have to
pick things out, I have to edit things down. There's
still a lot of a lot of production technical know
how that goes around this little studio.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I don't know how to do that, so it's a
good thing you're here, by the way, In case anybody's wondering,
Will and I both have completed the wordle for the day.
He braggadociously let me know. As I was casually walking
in here wondering how he'd done. He was first to
mention that he got the wordle in two, to which

(01:53):
I said, challenge accepted, and tell him how many times
it took me to get it. Will. Doug got it
into yeah, yeah, squired it up. And when I told
you that I was going to have to think like
you to get the right first word after you had
told me you got one green and one yellow. At
first I thought, I don't even know what that means.

(02:16):
I'll just go with my gut. And I went with
my gut, and I got two greens and one yellow.
And when I moved the yellow from the first position
to the fifth, there just weren't a whole lot of
options to make English words. So bam also in two.
That was pretty exciting. Well, it really was. It really

(02:38):
was the highlight of the week.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I mean, I was really hoping on your downfall there.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
That was more exciting than the ut game. Well, I
didn't watch it. I see if we were ever going
to get a phone call, that might be the one
that might be the one to spart. It was actually
a very good game, it really was. It was a
really good game, and it came down to the wire
and Texas goes on to the semifinals. Congratulations to them.

(03:06):
I do have options now, and if any of you,
like I said yesterday, I'll repeat myself and then we'll
move on. If any of you hear me say something
that makes you think, gosh, I'd like to ask him
a question about that, or gosh, I wish we could
we could find out more about that. You may calls

(03:26):
and will we'll pick up the phone quietly. I'll have
to speak quietly because it gets just that's the way
that the hardware is in here. But we can take
your calls in real time. You don't have to wait
for a break. So if you have a question, and
during some of my interviews, I think during medical interviews,

(03:48):
I will I will hesitate to take live phone calls
for fear that they might take us off of a
track that where we're trying to give you as much
information as possible about the subject matter. And I don't
want to derail a general discussion to focus on one
person's question. I would reserve that for And if you

(04:12):
want to send me a question afterward by email, that's
fine too, And then I can forward that on to
the people who know more about it and we'll we'll
get you an answer. I just don't want to do
those in real time. But if it's just me and Will,
and one of us says something that makes you want
to talk to us right away, that's okay. That phone
number is seven one three two one two five nine

(04:34):
five zero. It's like nine P fifty, just like our
our number on the dial, seven one three two one
two five nine five zero. So there, that's done. Will,
how about that? Actually not a bad looking day outside either,
even though we're sitting in here once again where we
can't see more than I guess if I got corner

(04:55):
to corner, you'd be about what eleven feet wall to wall.
You think you hate this studio, I'm sorry I do.
It's functional, there's no question about it. It's functional. But
it's so small. Will I love it? It's smaller than
a tiny house? Well, of course not, of course, there
are there I'm sure there's there. I've slept in smaller tents.

(05:17):
Might as well just put us on the roof at a
pup tent.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Be kind of fun, it would be. You ever thought
about doing your outdoors show outside? I have actually in
a tent, not in a tent, but outdoors. I have
at golf courses. I've been outside doing the show live.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
One of the best interviews I ever had on a
casare and stam down at a golf course in Florida.
We did outside, just at a table put up outside,
had wires running from the office out there. I can't
remember whether it was Al Farbe or Michael Connor who
was producing for me on that one, or may have

(05:56):
been Mike, might have been Mike Mezvinsky as well. Uh,
whoever it was. I saw that she was there, and
I asked to see if we could get her on
the air, and lo and behold Saturday morning, when I
was out there, long before she probably even woke up.
She was coming there to do a kid's clinic, and

(06:17):
for whatever reasons, she showed up early and walked straight
up to the table and had a seat, said Hey,
what do you want to talk about? And she sat
with me through I don't know, two or three segments
one of the one of the best interviews I've ever had.
It was really I had a few questions put together
just in case she showed up, but at one point
it became just a friendly conversation about the game and

(06:40):
about where it was headed. And she's a brilliant woman
in the golf world who also happened to be one
of the best players of the game it's ever seen.
So anyway, enough of that. More importantly around here, if
you've seen this year's upcoming four forecast next few days

(07:01):
or so, you know that there is our first bout
of the year with truly cold weather that'll come Monday night,
at least, according to the forecast, when Houston's low temperature
drops to thirty one degrees. That's one inside freezing, which
means I can call it cold. Everything else is just
cool or chili or really cool. Monday night thirty one,

(07:24):
and there's a chance that any one of the next
four or five nights after Sunday could drop that far
and maybe beyond. And then there I've seen somewhat whimsical
reports that gee, we may see snow around here, don't maybe,

(07:45):
But it's a really big maybe, and it's a lot
more of a probably not. Snow is rare around here anyway,
and this system, this system has about the right temperatures
for it and the right conditions for it. But after
living here as many years as I have, you're gonna
have to show me snow on the ground before I'm

(08:06):
gonna believe it's snowing or even going to snow. I
want to see it down. I want to see it
all the way to the ground and sticking to the ground.
I guess to be to have any fun with it,
might have to go out and make a snowball and
throw it at something. Not sure you want to come
jog down my street if it snows, will and I'll
throw snowballs at you. No, I'm okay, you good, yeah man.

(08:31):
And by the way, all this cold weather and chili
weather just true to South Texas form Southeast Texas form anyway.
That comes behind Sundays high of seventy five seventy five,
and then down we go into the chilly slash potentially
cold abyss for a few four or five six days.

(08:53):
I don't know whether the high temperatures wanting to get
above forty we got to take a break. On the
way out, I'll tell you about the Houston Autovotive Show,
the Houston Auto Boative Show, which is exactly what it
sounds like. It is a combination. It's an about time combination.
It's been going on for several years now where the
Houston Boat Show and the Houston Auto Show, both typically

(09:16):
held around this time of year, have joined forces to
make one giant, unbelievable, fun filled, activity filled amazing things
to see phild day over there at NRG Center. That's
January twenty ninth through February second, and you will see
all the new cars, all the new boats, all the

(09:38):
accessories for all of that. There's stuff for the kids,
there's stuff for the whole family. Their food in there,
you name it, it's there at the Autobotive Show. There
are discount tickets online too, by the way, if you
go looking for them, you'll find them. Go to autobotiveshow
dot com. It's just like it sounds, auto Botive show

(10:00):
dot com.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Dougpike. I

(10:28):
just saw it.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Probably a clickbait thing, says Lincoln Wheatpenny. Valued at five
hundred and forty dollars still in circulation. I might have
one of those wheatpennies at the house. I don't know.
I have a bunch, and there are a lot of
them that I haven't dated. My son was briefly into
coin collecting. It never amounted to anything. He found it

(10:51):
far more fun to spend money than to collect it
and so, which is normal for a kid that age.
So there's not a lot of it hanging around there.
But maybe who knows. Like winning the lottery, or at
least half of a big lottery. It was one person
in California won the one point two billion dollar lottery

(11:14):
a couple of nights ago. Good for them, Good for them.
Back to the weather forecast, I neglected to let everybody no,
of course, that it was brought to us by Texas
Indoor air Quality specialists, who will continue to present the
weather as as long as as nobody else steps up
and wants to take a look at it. And that's fun.

(11:35):
I like. I like the guy who owns the company.
I like what he does. It's it's a duck cleaning
company that does it in a very special way that
we'll leave all of your duck work squeaky clean. For
years to come go to Texas iaq dot net to
take a look at what they do and let them
come out and help you out as well. Uh going,

(11:55):
and first, by the way, the highs and lows, I've
set it aside. I think I added up all the
scores Will gave me during twenty twenty four and was
quite disappointed and dissatisfied with the average. So out it goes.
I'll steal credit text you so like a five point four? Really? Yeah,
it was horrible, Will, like two hundred scores and they

(12:20):
were all just tragic, tragic. I just I just couldn't
continue getting my hopes up and then being crushed by
the weight of Will's disapproval. Well, so don't find something else?
Perhaps word we could have a wordle off in here,
all right? That wouldn't take long. What do you mean?

(12:42):
We would just have to go back and forth, kind
of like a chess game with a clock.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
All right, okay, so mean timing who gets the word quickest?

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Or yeah, we could do that. We would have to
do it during a break though and then just recount
it during the program. I don't want anybody to have
to see there and just listen to the two of
us trying to think up words, because if we gave
away the words and their results to each other live,
then that would quite make it go faster. We'll figure

(13:13):
out a way, figure out a way to incorporate world.
It's a fun game, it really is. Moving to the markets.
Everything indicator wise was coming up roses this morning, and
at noteworthy levels. For a change, Gold down a few clicks.
That wasn't a big deal though. Really, Oil a disappointing
rise and rising still toward a dreadful seventy four dollars

(13:34):
a barrel. I don't know exactly what it is now,
but I'm tired of it being anywhere north of seventy
dollars in the sixties. Okay, that we can deal with it.
The oil companies can make money, but not we don't
need oil at seventy four dollars a barrel in this
country when we're sitting on some of the biggest reserves

(13:54):
in the on the entire planet. That's just unnecessary. Thank you,
Houston Gold Exchange Dot Come for helping me pick that up.
Also worth notting from the financial sector, this I found
very interesting. Toyota, Ford and GM also or all not

(14:17):
also all posted increased sales in twenty twenty four. Now,
you would think that with some of the the economy
the way it was, you wouldn't have seen that. But
I think that people throughout the pandemic weren't able to
even get cars. And I think this is the result

(14:39):
of inventories coming back up and availability coming back up,
and prices coming down back toward reality. The used car
prices are down as well, so that just made made
it a friendlier, a buyer friendly atmosphere rather than a

(15:01):
seller friendly atmosphere. In the news, New Orleans and Las
Vegas terror attacks continue to dominate the whole news scape,
if you will, and probably should until we learn exactly
what happened to trigger each of these events, and much
more importantly, what our nation security systems are doing to
prevent more, potentially larger attacks. For the past four years,

(15:27):
we've dealt with an administration that allowed god knows how
many evil people, and I mean evil with a capital
evil to enter this country alongside the millions of people
who probably actually do have a legitimate desire to be
here with good intention to contribute to American society. But

(15:49):
you can't leave the whole gate open and expect not
to get any not to get any ugly in here,
and we've got a bunch of it. We have got
a bunch of it, because no matter how many of
those wealth many meaning people there may have been, there
were gonna be criminals coming in, and the countries that
are sending them here are as much to blame, and

(16:12):
our administration hadn't done anything about that. Nothing. We either
are a nation of laws or we're not. And if
we're not, we're headed in an irreversible and tragic direction.
First things first, though, for incoming President Trump and his
incoming borders are Tom Homan, who came right out and
said it. He came right out and said it. I

(16:34):
think it was yesterday, maybe early this morning, and I quote,
this country is in grave danger. We need to secure
that border. And despite what happened in the last two
days in Las Vegas and New Orleans, this administration is
not stopping. They are still releasing thousands of people every
week without vetting end quote. That's frightening. Anybody who believes

(17:01):
otherwise is tragically mistaken. I have more and more difficult
time believing that some are all of these releases, which
most definitely include violent criminals. In some cases, this can't
be dismissed as accidental or unintentional. And for that, I
think our exiting president and everybody who's served under him

(17:22):
will be recalled by history as willing participants, probably in
what someday will be accurately determined to be a deliberate
attempt to just turn our whole country inside out. I
hope I'm wrong, but the evidence continues to stack up,
and the truth will come out at some point. When

(17:44):
is it will that the Kennedy assassination records are supposed
to be released? You recall it had something to do
with after pretty much everybody alive then had died, when
there were just no more direct connections. And I don't know,
can you look that up? Do you have time? You're

(18:05):
looking it up now? And oh boy, I like that
nodding head like a bobblehead on the other side of
that monitor way up there. Yeah, I'd be curious to
know exactly when that's supposed to be. Enough of that though,
Enough of that, Okay, So even I can't stand to
spend more than brief time dealing with things over which

(18:26):
I have absolutely no control. Beyond the voting booth anyway. Quickly, though,
before we move on, I would stop to emphasize that
the acts committed by those two men on New Year's
Day are in no way connected to their nationalities, or
their heritage, or anything other than just broken minds and
broken spirits. It's pretty clear now that neither of them

(18:48):
intended to live through that day, and what they did
is on them, not any large group of rational people.
There are big terror groups around the world, make no mistake,
I recognize that, But the groups of people from those regions,
or the groups of people who who share a particular
religion or faith or whatever, they don't as a rule

(19:12):
condone violence. There are far more people who don't take
that road than do, and coming down on any race
or ethnicity of people for the actions of only one
person just worsens the problem. Don't do that. Even that
New Orleans attackers' family members were shocked by what he did.
They the guy was clearly troubled, very deeply. He had

(19:35):
a lot of he had a lot of skeletons in
the closet. He was he was broken, he really was,
and I guess he figured this was his way of
making a splash on his way out and it's horrific
what he did. But it's not his family's fault, it's
not his friend's fault, it's not his ethnicity or anything

(19:57):
else's fault. That's on him. All right, moving on, we
have Oh goodness, we got to take a break. Yep,
all right, we'll take a break. Then I'm gonna come
back with some good news, which I'm trying to do
more and more of in twenty twenty five. And hopefully
now that we're past the presidential election and all the
chaos and crazy that went with that, I'll be able

(20:21):
to locate more news on the good side and distribute
it as warranted. Ut Health Institute on Aging be a
good place to start looking for good news if you're
a senior and you'd like to feel better for some reason.
Every time I have a birthday, I can count something
else that's seen it hurts a little bit, or it

(20:41):
looks kind of weird. I just made a dermatologist appointment
this morning, so I can go get a couple of
things looked at and figure out what's going on there
before they get any bigger or weirder or worse. And
UTA Hell's Institute on Aging is loaded with medical professionals
who are specially trained along with whatever education they got

(21:04):
to get the diploma on the wall, especially trained in
how that knowledge can be applied to seniors. And they
work all over town. They're mostly in the medical center,
as you might guess of such highly skilled people, but
they do take trips regularly, have regular office hours all
around town all of the outlying areas. If there's a

(21:26):
big hospital or a big clinic, or maybe even just
a smaller doctor's office somewhere out there near you, chances
are you're going to be able to find one of
UT's Institute on Aging members there and they'll help you out.
Go to the website. Check out all the resources that
they have for us, no charge. It's just all there

(21:48):
to help us live longer, better, happier, healthier, more robust,
more enthusiastic lives. Uth dot edu slash aging, ut dot
e slash aging.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
All right, welcome back fifty plus. It is on KPRC.
Thanks for listening. If you have a question. If you
want to ask me something, feel free to call us
seven one three two one two five nine five zero.
I know we're not gonna get a lot of calls
on this program because I know a lot of you
are just kind of chilling and laying back and listening,
or maybe you're in the middle of lunch somewhere, got

(22:46):
your earbuds in around the table with all the other seniors.
Hopefully they're all tuned into this show as well, turning
it up a little bit so that you can hear
it without your hearing aids. I'm gonna have to be
looking at those pretty soon, will I'm afraid my hearing
is just not what it used to be, and I'm
I'm interested. I'm interested in making a little easier for

(23:09):
my wife, who's got just hyper sensitive hearing, to be
anywhere near where I am if I'm watching TV. Either
that or I'm gonna have to buy a new TV
and that might be cheaper actually, and just get something
where I can use wireless air air EarPods, AirPods what
are they called, Yeah, the EarPods or airpops. Their AirPods

(23:32):
aren't the AirPods? Are the apple? Yeah? That's the apple on.
Everything else is an ear bud or an ear pod,
a wireless headphone. That's what I need. I don't want
another head I wear headphones enough. I sometimes I have
to wear them at my desk over here on the
other side of the office, uh, so that I don't
disturb people with what I'm listening to in show preparation,

(23:56):
little news articles and whatnot. And then and sometimes always
I have to wear them in the studio when we're
on the air, and I don't want to have to
wear them around the house.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Do you ever watch TV with subtitles?

Speaker 2 (24:10):
No? Oh gosh, I saw something. I'm scared to even
say it, but it's pretty funny. This is a joke.
This is a disclaimer for Will and for me that
this is just a joke. I saw on Facebook yesterday.
This guy's wife is standing in the room with his wife.
She's kind of in the background, and he said, do
you know why women watch television with the subtitles on?

(24:34):
Are you ready? Will? Maybe? I know, I'm scared. I'm
kind of scared. Okay, I didn't write this. I don't
believe it. It's just a joke, and I could take
jokes against guys just as much as I don't know.
Will I'm scared big chicken. No, I'll say it. It's

(24:55):
because they don't listen. Oh you're laughing too, Okay, good,
I don't think that value and laughing hilariously. No, I
wasn't everybody Joe, Yeah, and they're all gonna good. I
don't don't get mad at me. Don't get mad at me.
Not a good joke. I'd be willing to tell that,

(25:17):
all right, in any event. In any event, well, let's
move on, shall we a new condition or a new
treatment for just common types of skin inflammation. He's being
tested now and holds promise for people who suffer from
everything from exzema and roseation, all sorts of and sources
of annoying itching. Doctors and clinicians at the University of

(25:42):
Pittsburgh quite optimistic that their discovery is gonna help millions
of people worldwide. It's there's still much testing to do,
as there is with all of these things we talk about,
but nonetheless, if if that can maybe who knows it ain't,
therapy could help people who are mildly allergic to mosquito

(26:04):
bites or ant bites or something like that. Would just
make you want to just scratch your skin all the time.
You stop that, you also start a reduction in infections
caused by scratching wounds like that with dirty fingernails. So
back and sticking with medicine. I was going to go
to something else, but I won't. I'll stick with medicine.

(26:25):
Another breakthrough in Alzheimer's disease research from the City University
of New York, where I read this morning of not
just a new strategy to slow the onset and progression,
but a potential shot at reversing the development of Alzheimer's.
Scientists there looking at these tiny little cells visible only

(26:45):
with electron microscopy from the brains of deceased patients, and
you want to donate your body to science. Future generations
will be happy that you did so. Just these tiny
little cells. And they're finding specific things in diseased brains

(27:06):
with this one particular. It's got a couple of letters
and a bunch of numbers behind it. I don't know
what it means, but anyway, they find that in the
disease brains, but not in the healthy brains. So at
least now they know that is tied to Alzheimer's and
what they'll do now is figure out how to shut
off those and the rest of us just way past

(27:28):
my pay grade. But anything that could either help or
stop or slow at all more this awful condition is
worthy of praise and continued research. And there you go
in archaeological news, because you know, if you've listened to
this show long enough, I love history, I really do.
I get that from my father. A sword dating back

(27:51):
to the sixth century was found recently in a British
cemetery that was reserved many many years ago for high
status people. This particular sword is so valuable, in fact,
that its location is being kept secret from the public.
There are pictures, and the engraving on that sword is frankly,

(28:15):
just incredible. It's remarkable. It's a beautiful piece. And it
just the handle relative to the sword itself, the handle
is normal hand size, Okay, I mean that sword is
a good at least three feet long and possibly a
little longer, and appears to be it clearly is pretty wide,

(28:38):
and it appears to be pretty thick and therefore heavy.
And I just can't imagine trying to fight a battle
swinging up what twelve to fifteen pounds sword for it,
it would have to weigh at least seven or eight pounds.
I can't imagine it weighing less, and probably weighs more.

(28:59):
And that just just so almost barbaric to think of
that going on. But it did. Countries' fortunes were won
and lost on battlefields where it was just a bloody mess, unbelievable.
Back to the sword anyway, So this thing dates back
several thousand years, and that Great Britain actually has an

(29:20):
entire television show devoted to its historical artifacts and stories,
which I think is fascinating. And then there's another show
that I actually watched pretty regularly that shares just the
innumerable treasures hidden beneath the sand and pyramids of Egypt
for thousands of years and China as well. I just
between breaks earlier, I came across the story of an

(29:44):
ancient underground giant tomb that dates back several thousand years
in a particular region of China, and it has all
kinds of artifacts in it from regions that were hundreds,
if not thousands of miles away from where they were found.
It's pretty fascinating. And then here we said North America

(30:06):
as a continent, our history is pretty rich, but as
a nation we are just we're in infancy. We're still
in diapers as a nation compared to some of the
other parts of the world. I've got education news, but
I'll save it for later. On the way out here.
Braun's Roofing been in business thirty plus years. That's Skeeter Broun,

(30:28):
it's his name. In fact, I need to give him
a call this afternoon. I got some business to talk
with him. He built this business over three decades decades
ago on the one simple promise he made to himself
and every client he's ever had, quality work at a
fair price. If you want to get your roof inspected,
which I think is a great idea this time of year,

(30:50):
while the roofing companies aren't terribly busy and they're able
to get to you quickly, Skeeter bron will have somebody
out next day. In most cases, unless there's a torrential
downpour or the roads are closed or whatever. He's gonna
have somebody on your roof the very next day after
you call or get on the website and set up

(31:10):
an appointment, and they'll walk that roof back to back
front to side everywhere, and if they find anything, when
they come down from the ladder, they'll tell you what
they found. They'll show you pictures, they will tell you
how they would go about fixing it. They would tell
you whether they have the materials to fix it on
the truck, which they probably will for little things, and

(31:30):
then they'll tell you how long it'll take and how
much it's gonna cost. My strong recommendation mendation is and
always has been, that you just say get started, or
you can waste a bunch of time and risk a
rainstorm that makes your roof worse while you're making phone
calls and trying to get four or five more people
out there to give you cheaper offers to not do

(31:52):
as good a work because they can't do better work
with the same materials for any less money than Skeeter
Brown's gonna offer you roofing dot com b R A
U N S bronzeroofing dot com, or give them a
call and put this number in your phone so you
have it when you need it. Two eight one four
eight zero ninety nine hundred two eight one four eight

(32:13):
zero ninety nine hundred.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Old guys rule, and of course women never get old
if you want to avoid sleeping on the couch. Okay,
I think that sounds like a good plan. Fifty plus continues.
Here's more with Doug.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Twelve forty nine on AM nine fifty KPRC. Thank you
for listening. I really do appreciate that. As does will
keeps us employed. Will is what it does, and that's
a good thing. I'm gonna give you, Will Melbourne the
opportunity to pick from these titles minimum wage news, wildfire

(33:02):
news combined with AI news, and an oddball conversation starter.
An oddball conversation starter. This is Sky in New Zealand,
and he studied for a full year a full year
before entering a scrabble contest and actually won that world

(33:25):
title in Spain playing scrabble in Spanish, despite the fact
that he doesn't speak the language at all. He just
learned all the allowed Spanish words to be played with
the tiles in the box. How's that for dedication? And

(33:51):
what do you think Will? Is that impressive or no?
It's fine? Okay, Well let's up the end. Then he's
got a lot of time on his head. It's clearly
to trust fund baby or something. I don't know. It
turns out he is a five time world record holder
in English scrabble, and I think it was his second
time to win the Spanish one actually, And in twenty

(34:15):
fifteen he won a French language scrabble title and probably
can't speak French. But there he is. There, he is
in the basement looking up words online now because he
doesn't need to use a book or an encyclopedia. I'm

(34:35):
gonna go back to you one more time, will Serpent
News Random Chance or back to minimum wage News? Serpent News?
Why are you dodging the others? You just have a
habit of that. But I'm gonna stick with your choice.
It's a good one. Police in Massachusetts responded to a

(34:58):
call about a snake in somebody's house. They get there
expecting to find a snake and take it out of
the house somehow, only to find that it was a
fake snake placed as a prank. I that there's got
to be that's got to be against the law to

(35:18):
call the police out for that, unless somebody put the
snake in there as a prank and wasn't around, and
the person who called was legitimately scared that it was
a real snake. You ever been scared by a fake snake.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
I don't think I've been scared in my entire life.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
For some reason, I believe that there's a prank that
has been perpetrated on a lot of golfers in the
last few years until now everybody kind of knows about it,
where a rubber snake is tied to monofilament fishing line,
which is hard to see if you use light enough
line it's very hard to see the line there. And

(35:59):
then at the other end is a little like a
little small chip clip or a hair clip. And what
the perpetrators do is put someone in front of that
of the prank e and strike up a conversation about
how to swing the golf club or where do you
think you're gonna hit it? And somebody sneaks up behind

(36:19):
them and attaches that clip chip to the hem of
their shorts and then walks away. And so now behind them,
six or eight feet on the ground is this rubber snake.
And the person who struck up the conversation goes, oh,
my god, snake and looks over the poor guy's shoulder.
He turns around, he sees a snake. He runs off,

(36:42):
hopping and jumping and skipping and scared to death of snakes.
The place where I play golf most often, I have
actually come across a number of snakes, and it's just
routine that they're out there. This is a fairly remote area,
and especially a lot of places on the golf course,
they butt up next to some undeveloped land along a

(37:03):
creek and there are snakes there. It's not a big deal, really.
I'd see them all the time, venomous and non venomous snakes.
The most recent one, though, was probably the most scary
encounter I've ever had out there. And I've seen a
lot of cotton mouse. I've seen a lot of copperheads
out there, a lot of rat snakes, a lot of
water snakes. There was one I still haven't identified. It

(37:24):
was the biggest one I've ever seen out there, and
may it had to have been some sort of a
gray phase of some other snake that I'm just not
familiar with. But the bottom line is I was walking
down what is this, I'll call them back. I was
walking down this little embankment to see if I could

(37:46):
see something i'd seen the day before where the water
was coming over a little spillway, and as I got
near the bottom of it, I was looking out over
there and not paying attention to what was at my feet,
and I stepped within a foot a foot of a
grown up cotton mouth, within a foot of a grown
up cotton mouth, and luckily for me, nothing happened. Very

(38:11):
luckily for me. It was as scared of me as
I was of him or her. But the bottom line
is that I have not gone three steps down there
around the edge of the water lately without paying attention
to where I was walking. I don't. I'm not scared
in the rough. I'm not scared on the fairways, obviously,
but once I go into the woods, I do pay

(38:31):
attention now. And the irony with with copperheads is they
are tremendously able to camouflage themselves in leaves. They look
quite a bit like just a broken limb off a
tree in a lot of cases, and if you're not
really paying attention, they'll get you cotton mouse or not

(38:52):
cotton mouse. But but copperheads love to climb trees, by
the way, in case you're wondering, All right, that's enough
of that, enough serpent news. I'm gonna go back over
here to the minimum wage thing, because I find it
somewhat interesting restaurant in Seattle after minimum wage jumped in
that state over there, all of Oregon. I believe, maybe

(39:14):
it was just Seattle, I don't know. Minimum wage jumped
up to twenty dollars in seventy six cents an hour
on New Year's Day and this little that's a five
point fifty rays over the previous minimum. Okay, and that
raise has already caused the be Bop Waffle Shop to close.

(39:37):
The owner of that establishment been there ten and a
half years, okay, ten and a half years in business.
Karina Lukenbach is her name, and she just did the
math and realized that the change was gonna cost her
thirty two thousand dollars more a year in wages, which
not sustainable. It's just not. You can count on more

(39:59):
of the closures coming up to in places like that,
as more dis space for rent signs go up. And
as the story continued, it wasn't it wasn't former President
Trump that put them in that situation. It was leftist
politics to just take from the rich and give to
the poor. Well, if you take too much from the rich,

(40:20):
you can you make them poor, or at least poor
enough that they know when to cut their losses. And
that's what happened there a New York piece of reo owner.
I saw that too. They only had a fifty cent
raise in their minimum wage. But this guy who owns
this piece of ria said he's gonna have trouble covering
the new sixteen to fifty minimum wage in that state.

(40:43):
Every time prices go up, or labor goes up, or
insurance goes up, prices have to go up as well.
And that's a threat to any business. It's sad, it
really is. Are we done? Oh, we're done, aren't we?
Holy cow? That'll do it for the first week back.
I've got a lot of good stuff coming up next week.
Thanks for joining us. Do it again next week. We'll
see you then, Audios.