293: The Great Bird Debate

In this episode, Professor Mouse, the Cosmologist, Teddy, and Munchie discuss milk, birds, Miyazaki, Squid Game, and Candela Obscura. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
It's like a clown. No, no, it's a little page.

Speaker 3 (00:02):
He's bagging boarding batman in the gutter like a maze.
Story tellers me some fellas, we some felons. Isn't amazing.
It's like appella bear sella because this shit is so contagious.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Mouths on the.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Summer Reason Pilot got the shells while the cycle spinning
knowledge on the getty like a pro beat the baby
be the rabbit. Don't step to the squad, we get
activic and hate. It's like a stepla parts. You don't
like fish talk?

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Do you hate?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a batl we.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
The cuttle fish killers tender Pools on the taping The
Greatest Spider Stars. If you cherish your life, Bucky barn
hit squad, spraying leg and your pipe.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another editions. It's just bad. It's
it's just bad.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
The best podcast you never heard of Her husband Wressor
Malsjrin is always better to say because milogt Teddy and
special guests Munchy.

Speaker 6 (00:43):
Yeah, Munchie just got the biggest grit that I was
hoping for a giggle.

Speaker 5 (00:51):
She she did giggle, but she also grabbed the microphone
at the same time.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
So I mean she doesn't. She doesn't. She's not quite
yet the broadcasters, the broadcaster that we are.

Speaker 6 (01:04):
It'll take her like another couple of months and then
she'll be exactly the broadcaster. I'm she'll get there.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
Yeah, so she's like eighteen bunds. She'll be as as good,
if not better than us.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
She'll start dropping some some sick sick ad reads.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
As soon as she realizes, as soon as she realizes
that she has to talk into the thing, then I
mean basically we have to retire.

Speaker 6 (01:32):
Yeah, and she just runs gott a milk campaign. I'll
pay for all of the microphone equipment you ever need.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
Does anybody know I remember Milk used to run ads
for herself. Does anybody know who's paying for that? Was
it like the United United?

Speaker 6 (01:50):
Yeah, was a dairy farmer's lobby.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
They they paid Edward Burnez's company to run that. And
the history behind that ad is actually weird.

Speaker 6 (02:09):
It was so weird that the lobby just like interfered,
they cut Teddy's telemetry.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
I'm back, Yes, fought off a.

Speaker 6 (02:21):
Cow like wrecking through your window.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
But yet behind the what they did was they paid
for back in the day they they ended up finding
like a couple of cheap chemists, and they paid for
a research study on vitamin D and calcium and ran
those about a year and a half in Scientific American

(02:50):
before they actually launched the got Milk campaign, so that
entire milk has this like it does technically have the
daily vitamins and all that, but all of the numbers
are really skewed. So what they ended up doing was
didn't actually start the big campaign until those articles had
come out and people started talking about it, but timed

(03:11):
it so then they started talking with like sport athletes
and actors and all of this. And that's why got
Milk existed. And the reason got Milk existed ended up
in schools is because it was cheaper than running Got
Milk ads and TV.

Speaker 6 (03:27):
My school libraries. I remember vividly a stone called Steve
Austin Austin with a milk mustache.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
It's such an interesting like I've talked about this book before,
but there's crystallizing public Public Opinion and the Public Relations Guide,
which were written in the twenties and the forties, and
it's just when you see it laid out and go, oh,

(03:57):
this is the playbook. I need to question everything about
my reality. It's it's wild that.

Speaker 5 (04:04):
But was was it a response to anything? Because I
feel like I grew up through a period of like
milk is is necessary, cornerstone of a diet, milk is bad,
milk is good, like.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
The shifting pendulum. But my.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
My parents always like milk, eggs, and bread were always
essentials at the grocery store.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Was there like a drop off in milk sales or
was it there?

Speaker 1 (04:36):
No, it was a there was a drop off of
milk sales. What was the thing? I think it was
one of the early not the mad cow epidemic in
the two thousand, in the late nineties, early two thousands,
but in the early eighties there was one and it
happened in I believe it was Canada and not the UK.

(04:57):
So there was like, oh, people just like had a
in milk sales and then they went, well, we can't
have that, and they also wanted more money, and that's
just sort of and I think there was also a
correlation with some of the baby formula from Nesley, the
one that was like synthetic milk, so they were just like, oh, well,

(05:20):
we need to do something else. But the main the
main driver was there was a small dip in sales,
and well not small, there was a dip in sales,
and they went, we need to do this, and literally
the it's it's They lobbied themselves as well as uh
just got a lot of science published, a lot of
scientific journals published about milk and development. And it was

(05:44):
just cheaper than running a bunch of ads on like
radio and network television.

Speaker 6 (05:49):
Yeah, and that was milk being part of the sort
of approved US school launch and little cartons and really
fed hand in hand and I you know, after discovering
I am not in fact black doesn't tolerant, become actually
much more pro cow milk. It's interesting because it's like
I think, like you said, the the nutrients come in

(06:13):
phases of popularity, and you think about like balanced diets,
and also thinking about historically, until very very recently, in
modern globalized culture, most people in the world having very
uh limited or the same diets, not a whole lot
of variety. You've got your your staples, and those staples

(06:35):
are defined by where you live in the world, and
that is usually rice and something. It's just interesting to
think about the very modern like uh intense effort to
have massive variety in your diet, and then certainly we're omnivores.

(06:56):
But I don't know, maybe I'm maybe I'm bare pilled
watching too much these guys only eating salmon and be like,
maybe I could just get by on a salmon only
buy it that looks pretty good.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
But also like milk now is I would imagine as
it's the least popular it's ever been, with the array
of like different milk substitutes that taste better than.

Speaker 6 (07:20):
Milk, which in turn, you know, have all kinds of
like the various environmental ramifications of which kind of milk
of you know, gonna boil up a whole forest for almonds,
dust to juice or whatever. I'm fond of oat milk myself,
just as like, but it's it's its own thing. I

(07:43):
think it's important to get away from like the tofurky
idea of no, it's totally a substitute, don't worry about it,
and like meat the food where it is, and understand
it for what it is and not try to like
be disappointed when it doesn't taste like the thing it's
pretending to be, and then you can have a much
more varied experience, which is fine, but yeah, I mean

(08:03):
with cow milk, the thing, of course is the FDA
getting gutted and you know, pasteurized versus ultra pasture eyes
versus you know, the insane like raw milk. Like have
you've seen a cow? Adorable? But you don't want to
drink directly from the cow. We figured this out already
in the seventeen Yeah, like we solved this already.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, that shit is nasty.

Speaker 5 (08:30):
Speaking of milk, got Ponyo, Yeah, Ponyo had some milk
in it, didn't There there's milk and Ponyo by Hyo Miyazaki.

Speaker 6 (08:43):
Okay, I have not.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Seen a walk amazing.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
I mean it's about like cooking and shit, is it
not like a blobfish creature?

Speaker 2 (08:54):
I don't really understand it is. There's a lot of
food in it. From my recollection, that's cool.

Speaker 6 (09:00):
Yeah, Miyazaki move. Those movies are so interesting to me
because they skew in one of two directions. So I'm
preparing for an anime convention and so I've been watching
some some more Miyazaki and we went very much two
different directions. Watched Kiki's Delivery Service, which I was afraid
was going to be skew too juvenile. Frankly, I loved it.

(09:21):
It was so cute. And what I love about Miyazaki
movies at that level are there are very much like
old school coming of age stories. They've got difficult topics.
They're trying to, you know, talk through individualism and trying
to grow up, and it's not clean, but it is

(09:44):
affirming and it's very cute, and they have really realistic
senses of these kids dealing with their issues. So I
thought Kiki was just adorable. We have Grave of the
Fireflyers on our list, like on the absolute other direction,
which I'm a little trepidacious to get into, but I
love the wind also rises. And then I saw Boy

(10:08):
and the Heron, and I gotta tell you not a
fan Boy and the Heron reminded me kind of of
his dark materials, but not in a flattering way. I
think I might just be like burned out on multiverses
at this point.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
So it was.

Speaker 6 (10:30):
Pretty, but there was way too much bird poop throughout
the whole movie for my taste, and it just kind
of got gross. And it was the longest two and
a half hours or whatever. How did you feel about
Boy and the Heron big fan, only watching it in
English for Japanese.

Speaker 5 (10:49):
I have something to say before we move on to that.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Out of pure just like, was that a good segue?

Speaker 5 (10:57):
I googled Ponyo milk and there was there's an entire
like TikTok community dedicated to replicating the honeymilk that they
make in Ponyo.

Speaker 6 (11:12):
That's awesome, all right, I guess probably just next on
my list.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Is so cute, and it's it's going to not exactly
answering your question about boring the Heron, but when it
comes to the idea of experiential filmmaking versus the idea
of a film as you're watching it for entertainment versus

(11:40):
a thing that you are experiencing, Miyazaki's like food in Miyazaki,
weather in Miyazaki. It gives it activates those parts of
your brain a lot more.

Speaker 6 (11:55):
Yeah, public transit in Yazaki, just like that kind of
He talks interview about these sort of empty spaces that
make his movies feel much more realistic and much more
lived in.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Of just the concept of ma right, yes.

Speaker 6 (12:11):
Yes, exactly, the pause between which is something that modern
Western filmmaking, especially animation, it's constant movement, like there's no pause,
there's no break, there's no breath, there's no opportunity to
really appreciate what you're looking at, which makes sense if
the VFX artists are you know, shoddy or not given

(12:31):
enough time and it's just you know, move, move, move,
too many frames. But yeah, that MA means a lot
and I think helps with that for sure. So have
you seen both Kiki and Boy in the Heron, Diddy?

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yes, In terms of I think Boy in the Heron
was it was not as strong. I don't think I
had as negative as a reaction as you all did,
but I watching it in both Japanese and in English,
it was very At least the English dub was interesting

(13:11):
to allow for people to flex kind of their their
ranges to bring a lot of the emotion that they
would be in. But I definitely agree with you in
terms of Kiki's Delivery Service just kind of exceeding expectations
when you're like, oh, this isn't a kid's movie. This
is a really brilliantly nuanced story. Talking about kind of

(13:36):
looking at what you were saying. I love how Kiki's
Delivery Service nobody exactly acts like a nobody's two dimensional
in a a punny sense, like every character has their
internal world and they yet they serve the story and

(13:56):
move things forward, but no one is just the antagonist,
you know.

Speaker 6 (14:03):
Yes, yes, they're all just full people and dealing with
this poor girl at her just like teenage depressive cycle
basically like losing confidence and having to figure out how
to find meaning in her life and work. Again, it's
really yeah, it feels very real. Yeah, yeah, exactly, little

(14:28):
which or maybe.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
We're maybe we're projecting a little bit.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
It might be.

Speaker 6 (14:35):
That's a fair point.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
And I will say in terms of, well, while we're comparing,
like every Miyazaki film has something to say in some ways,
like Nausica in the Valley of the Wind is very
much an environmental storytelling, Totoro and the the Spirit uh

(14:59):
not enter this spirit, Oh my goodness, my brain die
spirit away. Those are also an examination on like intergenerational
workings and kind of the childlike the childhood view of
some very complex topics, and you can kind of say

(15:20):
the same thing for everything. Boy and the Heron was
more a commentary on specifically being like a young boy
and in a I mean just maybe of course, me
being the subject mattered excerpt. But because that has been

(15:44):
shown in media so many times. For me, that's one
of the reasons why I was like, oh, it wasn't
necessarily as novel or refreshing a take, because we we
kind of just saw these evolutions going through.

Speaker 6 (15:57):
But that's a great point, like the like the beginning
of the movie and the very interesting you know mom
dies in the fire, these like almost Edward you know,
the scream looking weird uh animation sneers that they do
to represent that trauma are beautiful and that you know,

(16:20):
like little depressed kid, weird bird. There's there's some interesting
stuff starting there. And then you're right, I think we
get like, okay, another sad kid, and then Miyazaki's like
self insert, I am my wizardry is failing. I am
not long for this world. Uh do you decide how

(16:40):
you're going to to treat to keep up with it?
I just feel like he's he's had, he's treated those
subject matter in other films better. Uh, And it doesn't
it doesn't fit together in a way for me. And again,
like some another one of those movies that I think
works really well is up Set of Tumbler gifts. There's
some really interesting image pieces. But yeah, it was just

(17:04):
so long, which was odd because the runtime isn't actually
that long, so maybe the double edged sort of ma.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah, and it's also one of those famous examples of
and who knows if it's true or not, of like
the director calling their shot on the last movie, of
him being like this is my last kind of like
statement or will and testament to like art. And I mean,

(17:36):
it was interesting. I think that the it was it
was super well received, made a lot of money, and
I think it was largely because just out of a
sense of deference. It was almost like people were reviewing
his entire career sort of holistically as a culmination to
The Boy in the Hair, and which I.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Mean, I do remember when it came out in all
this sort of like.

Speaker 5 (17:57):
You know, at that point have still been film twitter,
but like the film discourse, everybody was like very celebratory
about it, which would squander if and Miyazaki is very
kind of eccentric if he did another movie just.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
Like yeah, it just did feel so obviously like this
is my last movie. Here's this wizard with the tumbling
blocks and like the world falling apart and like choose. Like, Okay,
I have seen The Tempest, I'm familiar with the character
of Prospero, and I'm don't really need to see it
from you. Sorry, but yeah, cool art. I just the

(18:37):
the The birds felt very early final fantasy to me.
Also like the almost chievy parakeets with weapons like which
was interesting, but I could do without all of the
constant bird poop.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
It's not doing it.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Yeah, birds not good. I hate birds and movies. I
hate bird based media. I'm like, in this house, we're
like very anti bird. My wife is the same way.
We don't like birds. Birds are fucking stupid, They're useless.
Everyone says they're smart, they're dumbest ship they're always dead

(19:21):
on the sidewalk like birds suck and so that movie
is hard to watch. Wow, get this piece. Get this
fucking piece of ship off my screen.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Every time I see that bird.

Speaker 5 (19:36):
Okay, what's good about birds?

Speaker 1 (19:39):
There's about dinosaurs. They're dope.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
Yeah, that's that's that makes dinoscapes worse dinosaurs. When you
see a crow and you go, that's it, that's what
we have left of dinosaur.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
That crow. Friends are dope. They are very smart. Actually,
they can figure out puzzles that some people cannot. Yeah,
I think you can talk to them. They have regional dialects.
Crows are very cool. Like crows will also hold grudges
and they will talk like to other crows being like, hey,
this human being is terrible, and they will like gang

(20:16):
up on people when they're like, oh, this person like
wronged me, they will go after you. Incredibly cool.

Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah, Corvids, I think you know all birds. It's not
all birds. This feels like a very blanket statement.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's all birds.

Speaker 6 (20:30):
Not a parakeet fan, But yes, I think corvid's good. Exception,
Owls esthetically very cool, way dumber than they would then
their press and pr would would make them appear there's
really nothing going on in there. But they're very cool looking.

(20:51):
So yeah, I think I understand where you're coming from.
I'm not gonna put a stamp on all birds bad,
but in this movie especially did not like the Mussolini bird.
Did not like the style of all that.

Speaker 5 (21:06):
Birds are bad. Let me convince you what's better. Birds
are bats?

Speaker 6 (21:11):
I mean bats are better.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Of course bats are better. Flying shit that it rules
is different than birds.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
I think they feel very different. I think they feel
very different things. You know, bats are very mammal, cuddly friends.
Sometimes they drink blood, but for the most part they
just they just cute, flappy guys. And then bird birds
be going around. They eat other bugs in the area.

(21:41):
They take stuff out, they carrying clear out some of
the roadkill that you were talking about. If we can't
rely on local government to clean up, you know what
we can rely on vultures. Vultures, And I will say
vultures are why old looking? The the no thank you, flesh,

(22:05):
flesh things hanging. No, no, that not great. But ostriches
they're pretty dope. EMUs. We're able to defeat people in
a war. And I'm like, okay, birds, get it. You
got this lock in.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Here's where I'll concede.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
And then I immediately then have to unconcede. The best,
the best bird by far. I saw one of these
close up when I was a kid, and I was like, damn,
that is a fucking regal, majestic creature. Is the bald eagle.
The bald eagle is an incredible bird. And then the

(22:43):
United States co opted in for empire and so it
became a bad bird. But that bird is crazy looking.
If you see one up close. They're fucking savage, looking
like they'll kill you. I guess like a condor similar.
They're like enormous birds. But like the ones that were
find you have a dinosaur. Maybe I can see some
territory in that. An Ostrich is a goofy motherfucker I've seen.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
I've seen.

Speaker 5 (23:06):
I've seen an ostrich trip one time at the zoo,
like an ostriches.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Ostrich is not good.

Speaker 6 (23:14):
Maybe pro cassowary like those those things will absolutely rip
you apart and are you will would at a castawery
and like, oh yeah, I get how that's a dinosaur.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
I don't know if this will make you land on
pro or not pro bird. But I was I was
looking at exotic animals for you know, having pet companion,
and I was on this rabbit hole of like, let
me look at this animal. No, not a not a
good idea, Like I was like, okay, maybe reptile. And

(23:49):
I started finding like all of these really depressing animal facts.
One of them parrots and certain parrots species and some
parakeet species. They live a really long time and like
people will pass them down in their wills and take
care of and Paris and there's documented cases like not
just one or two, but a thing that Vets will

(24:10):
tell you of, like, yo, if you vibe with this
bird a lot, they have favorites and they will die
of heartbreak. Literally, they will just stretch them if they
realize their owner has either given them away or like
their companion has left them, or in some fashion they
their actual circulatory system is affected by I think the

(24:33):
actual thing is quartersoup level spike and then they get
heart attacks. But they literally die. So I'm just like
burbs come on.

Speaker 5 (24:41):
Verbs bird hate a side. I will say they make
for really awful indoor companions because for children don't get
them at all. Because there's a thing in sort of
warm weather climates Puerto Rico, Florida, you have like the

(25:03):
the like mesh screened enclosed backs, and so a lot
of especially older people like my godparents who were technically
now my godparents. There were my dad's godparents who then
inherited me. How that works, That's how they told me

(25:24):
it worked. But apparently I had something to do with
God in the church. Yeah, but I called them my
godparents growing up, and they had one of those enclosed
basis and they had like twenty birds, and I swear
it was. We used to have to stay there over
the night, didn't get a wink asleep because birds just

(25:46):
fucking make noise And this is not I can see,
caused a glint and causes eye like this is the
the center of your bird hatred. I hated birds before
that as well. I didn't like a pigeon walking to school.
I didn't like birds wake you up in the morning.
But then that that as like, as far as pets go,

(26:10):
it was like anybody who gets a bird as a pet,
it it must have the most amount of patience and
the most amount of time of anybody on earth because
they require so much upkeep. I remember my godmother used
to be back there dealing with the birds all the

(26:30):
fucking time.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
And it's just like that's insane.

Speaker 6 (26:34):
Yeah, they're so loud, they're so gross. Yes, as like
ornamental objects and you know, bird watching, I understand, but
as a as a pet, incredibly high maintenance wild to consider.

Speaker 5 (26:47):
Yeah, and they ship so much. They ship while they're shitting.

Speaker 6 (26:51):
They're like, I mean, they do not have sphincters. There's
there's just no control valve there.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
They have cloacas, so every everything is happen. Everything is
coming out of the same place, and that's nasty.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Also, like bird herd in my one. Well so in
the maybe not having a bird as a companion, but
bird poop will give human beings terrible respiratory problems. So
like if you do have a bird, please clean your thing, like,
please clean that cage like a lot.

Speaker 6 (27:26):
Yeah, it's just it's a losing battle. So yeah, that
makes sense. But of course, yeah, our distinguished mouse here
not a big fan of birds. We'll try to lean
in for the flying rodent instead. It makes sense the
I love bats.

Speaker 5 (27:44):
Also, maybe this had more to do with it.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
It was the propaganda of a.

Speaker 5 (27:50):
Book series that I read when I was a kid,
but this Canadian.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Author called silver Wing. It was a silver Wing.

Speaker 5 (27:57):
Series, yeah, and it was remember that it was a
bat named Shade who was the runt of his litter
and the author, Kenneth Appel, was like a Canadian children's
author went on to write like a very steampunky like

(28:17):
blimp series called Airborne, which I think was optioned by
Steven Spielberg at one time.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Like it's like a.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
Pretty big deal among like children's authors, and Shade or
silver Wing was turned into a series on I think
Cartoon Network. But in that book, it was this weird
thing where it was like your kid's introduction into world
building because all of like the various winged species interacted

(28:48):
in some way, and so there were like the bats,
and within the bats there was a hierarchy of like
vampire bats versus like regular bats versus bird birds, and
owls were different than eagles, were different than like regular
sort of like woodland birds, and so it was this

(29:09):
thing where to causes this point earlier. They made owls
in that in that series like the smartest birds, and
they're fucking dumbest shit.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
It's like very distant.

Speaker 5 (29:23):
It was like very disillusioning when I learned that owls
are super dumb.

Speaker 6 (29:28):
Yeah, absolutely, Western culture's best kept secrets and owls are stupid.
But yeah, I remember that. I think I remember the
cover of those series, and also Stella Luna and their
children's book, like I remember that one and the little
like stuffed animal with the bat and the baby bat,

(29:48):
and so yeah, I think we're all bat fans here.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
At least we can agree on bats are so fucking small.
One time I saw a bunch of bats, uh, like escape.

Speaker 5 (30:02):
Or not escape, but they just all flew out at
nighttime in Philadelphia and I remember seeing this like quart
of bats.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
And having no idea what the fuck it was. And
then I asked my cousin and she was like, those are.

Speaker 5 (30:16):
Bats And I'm like that that happens every day, and
she was like, yeah, happens every day.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's like, wow, it's crazy.

Speaker 6 (30:23):
Yeah, that's awesome, hyper dramatic. Yeah, I will say National
Park Service, who runs then explored out or who runs
the bear cams? I got a bunch of other cameras,
including like a bat cave camera. I don't recommend that one.
It's a little freaky because bats do the like medieval
walled city thing, like smashing themselves into way too close

(30:46):
quarters and they are gross, and you know they share
and are communal, but they'll also very easily get get
each other sick because like birds, they just are shitting
all the time.

Speaker 5 (31:03):
God. Yeah, that's nuts.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
There's no great segue to squid Game from Birds? Were
there birds in that show?

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I speak? Oh, here we go. I got a lock
for you. Uh. You know, the albatross is able to
lock its wings long distances over oceans, much like where
the squid Games take place that the best I can
do it. It was an albatross around the show's neck

(31:43):
when it turned out that one guy was it was
it was evil. Was evil.

Speaker 6 (31:49):
The bald eagle would absolutely eat a squid if you
give it the opportunity.

Speaker 5 (31:53):
Yeah, I was trying to do something with squid of like,
there's a bird that eats squids.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
I bet a pelic could.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Pelicans would Yeah, that would look eldrich as all get out,
just tentacles coming out of a pelican's mouth.

Speaker 5 (32:12):
The so, yeah, squid Game just kind of wrapped, uh
season three. So like the the creator Squid Game was
very much cashing in on an opportunity to do something
that would allow him.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
To set up future projects that weren't squid Kid.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
So he made Squid Game, didn't get paid for it,
and then it began with the biggest show on Netflix,
and then Netflix was like, we want more, and so
they wanted several more seasons and he said, I'll give
you two, and then he just gave them one and
split in half.

Speaker 6 (32:49):
Basically they read yeah, an interview, but him like losing
teeth and like be so stressed out by this and
also to your point, not actually making any money on
season one, and so I try to actually live off
of this. So I like the idea of, like, you're
gonna force me to do this thing I don't want
to do. Cut it in half, you get two halves

(33:10):
of a season, pay me finally.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
The so just to provide some context, and I'm not
gonna do spoilers because spoilers aren't necessary to make the
point that I want to make. But so this is
the context. So in season one there's one squid Game tournament.
Between seasons two and three there's one squid Game tournament,

(33:35):
and season three picks up where literally the moment where
season two ends, which is also the convention between episodes
in every season, right, so it literally is just cutting half.
They were shot at the same time. So he just
delivered thirteen episodes, which is the standard episode length for

(33:58):
a season, to Netflix and said here, here's two seasons
of television. This is why I think the show works
and why it's worth watching the second season aka seasons
two and three. What I think the director knew and

(34:21):
leaned into was what people enjoyed about the show, which
is the format of the show. The format of the
show is you get four hundred and fifty six people
who are in debilitating debt and desperate.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
You put them into this game.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
They have the realization that they're in a game in
which they can potentially die, and then progressively that transforms
them as they play a series of children's games.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
And that is a cool.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
Concept, cool idea work the first time captured people's imaginations,
and so it is seductive to be like, well, how
can we ratchet it up in the second season, How
can we show a different dimension or a different angle
of this? And that thought, whether or not it crossed

(35:17):
his mind or didn't, was not intrusive enough to ruin
his show, because what he did was he figured out
a way to get.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Who won the previous.

Speaker 5 (35:31):
Tournament of squid Game back into squid Game, and then
structured all thirteen episodes around one tournament of squid Game
as they're trying to basically destroy the game or like
rise up against the game masters through various different dimensions,

(35:53):
and so through the guards, through the players themselves.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Or people on the outside trying to find the island,
and stuff like.

Speaker 5 (35:58):
That reminded me as I was going through it, there's
something that happens towards the middle of everything where you're like, oh, okay,
so now the games are over, and.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
They have a very elegant way of.

Speaker 5 (36:19):
Leading us into the next game, and so you're like, oh,
thank god, the games are not over. There's still games,
and the games are all interesting. They do like different
versions of jump Rope. They do different versions, a different
version like different meaning deadly, deadly version of jump Rope,
deadly version of Hide and Seek, deadly version of several

(36:40):
I think Korea specific games that were also fun to
see that.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
I had never even heard of.

Speaker 5 (36:48):
And it reminded me why West World stopped working is
that the creators of that show believe that people cared
about the characters and the philosophy of the show rather

(37:08):
than the format of the show. And I think we
cared about the characters and the philosophy of the show,
but we didn't care about it beyond the format of
the show. And so as the first two seasons are
like perfect television, and they all take place in the park.
As soon as they escape the park and then we
see what's happening up in the real world, then it

(37:31):
becomes a show about like tech billionaires and bullshit like that,
and you start to lose interest slowly until you get
to the finale, which we covered every episode of the
last season, which apparently wasn't even supposed to be the
last season, and were beyond which just like watching just

(37:56):
watching a different show. We were just watching an entirely
different show. And yeah, Squid Game is like was like
one of the biggest shows ever. And this dude basically
was like, let me this is like, this is weird.
Though this is just headcanon. I don't think you thought this,
but it was a weird parallel to the show, like,

(38:17):
this is my Hollywood debt, and my Hollywood debt is.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
To deliver the show. Let me not overthink this.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
Let's run it back, and let's run it back, and
let's make season one all the things it couldn't be
because the budget was so limited. And then seasons two
and three really are like Squid Game on steroids. It
was really fascinating because it's like, where do you take

(38:47):
the biggest show in the world, How do you continue
the story without ruining everything?

Speaker 2 (38:53):
I think you did a perfect job.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
It was really really really interesting to watch, and it
also has all that like broad acting that that really
shakes you up from your stupor of like or not stupor,
but like, you know, I'm watching White Lotus, I'm watching
The Bear, I'm watching The Gilded Age, and all these
people are like acting really grounded ways. To watch squid

(39:16):
Game and to see people like like gesticulate with their
hands and like be like.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Bob, I'm so mad that shit.

Speaker 5 (39:24):
That was a breadth of fresh air to just be
like watching really broad acting and really contrived scenarios and
really intensely high stakes and these like peaks and valleys
of emotion. And then it hits you the most when
the fucking American and British billionaires like the VIPs enter

(39:46):
into the show and they're acting in English and you
hear that kind of acting and people are like, well,
I wonder who's gonna die next, and it's just like
cartoonishly evil. I was like, damn, this shit is like
this is the wavelength I needed to be.

Speaker 6 (40:04):
That's awesome. About halfway through it, you were saying like, wow,
this reminds me of West World, and you went exactly
where I was thinking, because when West World like briefly
redeems itself in the later seasons is when they have
the little like gangster world of yeah, the prohibition era world, like, oh,
finally we're back in the park. You're so so right about.

(40:29):
Don't overthink it, don't get too precious with your characters
where you think people care beyond the If you've got
a good format that is a really important ingredient, don't
mess it up. So that's funny that him just running
it back prevented him from overthinking and outgrowing what made

(40:50):
it work good for him.

Speaker 5 (40:51):
If they could wreckcon Westworld and then take us into
all the parks they teased in season two.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
I'd watch that.

Speaker 5 (40:59):
But I think Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are under
the impression that we care so much about what they
think about the world versus how like the fact that
they can make good television. That's what I care about
from their output. And I think a lot of like
creators fall into that, Like the fucking the next show

(41:23):
they did with Chloe.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Grace Moretz, The Peripheral.

Speaker 5 (41:26):
Yeah, I watched an episode of that and I was like,
this is just kind of West World, but like in
a different package, and it's kind of communicating the same thing,
and the tone is too similar, and I've already given
them you know whatever, forty hours of my life listening

(41:47):
to them talk about the relationship between people and technology,
Like I don't There's no way I'm gonna do that again.

Speaker 6 (41:57):
All right, titty thinking about the relationship between people and
technology gaming?

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Ooh nice. So this is posing a question to you all,
and it's a piece of discourse that I started running into,
and I've seen it in a couple of different ways,
so I wanted and to tie it all together, ask
you all about your feelings when it comes to what

(42:24):
you're looking for within media generally and more broadly gaming.
So what I ran into I was looking at various
game systems, just exploring what's out there, and I recognize
it when it comes to video games, tabletop games, these
are all it's the best tool for the job. So

(42:48):
D and D came out of war gaming. It is not.
It is a combat simulator, but it's also a vehicle
for improv and acting. But again it's a combat simulator
versus you know, other types of gaming. The particular one
I saw was on a system called Candela Obscurra. It's

(43:11):
a game setting called Candela Obscurra. And the general like
what they what the discourse was is Oh the company
that put it out, Derrington Press, critical role folks, uh
their gaming company. The Some of the reactions to the

(43:33):
system is, oh, this is a this system is a scam.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
It.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
They were sitting there saying, Oh, it's so heavy on
the types of rules where it talks about how to
make your players feel comfortable, how to trying to separate
itself out from the Cuthulhu miss those of making sure
that while it's horror and eldritz, it's not necessarily able
list when it comes to mental health, that sort of thing,

(43:59):
and they say it spends time on that, and there
are other games that have more rules, are more crunchy.
This is a scam.

Speaker 6 (44:11):
Hum.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
And as I started like that, that seemed like a
weird argument to me. But then I started looking at
various games and ways that not just critics but sometimes
fans will respond two games when it comes to this
game doesn't do X, Y and Z, therefore it is
a waste of my money, or therefore it is a

(44:34):
waste of everyone's time and money. And it seems like
it's itching at something deeper than it's just not for you.
But I'm trying to so the question I want to
pose to you all when it comes to video games,
when it comes to D and D, when it comes
to table tip like board games in general, is there

(44:57):
a experience that you're going for that if a game
doesn't fulfill it then it's just not like for you?
Or are there various games that you get different things
out of?

Speaker 6 (45:11):
This is a fascinating question because I think you're absolutely
right about like it's a scam. Poses presupposes that there
is some specific, correct thing or correct return on my
investment that I'm supposed to be getting from this, And
I would say that those various kinds of gaming genres

(45:33):
you mentioned are four very different things. The perspective that
I have Mall a friend of the show, enemy of
the show. Perhaps I don't know, doesn't not a big
gamer be in like the tabletop way because those games

(45:56):
are something very specific? And I think she gives me
a really useful perspective on this because in other ways,
Mall is a huge gamer, has you know, poured lots
of hours into very immersive role playing games Skyrim, Assassin's Creed,
those kinds of immersive experiences, and so at one level,

(46:17):
you know, I think some people might try to get
into something like D and D for an immersive experience,
and I don't think that's what that's for. The way
I look at D and D is like it's a
rule system to facilitate playing pretend with your friends. And
one of the reasons I think Mal doesn't like it

(46:39):
is she doesn't really care for the value of if
I'm just gonna go play protect with my friends, let's
just go do that, you know, the rule system and
the like dice tell stories. I think you know, for
some people that interferes, and for some people it's incredible

(47:00):
important of it's the it's kind of the social lubricant
of like I don't have to make all of these decisions.
I'm not entirely left to my own devices. I'm forced
to react to the dice, and I find it in
turns interesting as in like an improv experiment and incredibly

(47:21):
frustrating that like I have a story in mind and
I cannot tell it because I've you know, gnat onon
so that, but those feel to me like creative expression,
and the cruntrier they are the closer they get to
war gaming simulation, you know, the sort of military roots

(47:42):
of D and D. So I think It matters a
lot if you're trying to do like it's essentially a
party game, like how many steps above werewolf or among
us is this? If that's your goal, then something like
the candel Obscure absolutely not a scam, like that's what
it's there for. It's to have fun with your fat
ends versus I want to get real crunchy about what

(48:03):
it would be like to, you know, to hulk all
of this stuff out of this dungeon and worry about
weight limits because I'm in essentially a military simulation. Then
if that's your goal, you're gonna hearn in an entirely
different perspective that feels like basically to almost not overlapping audiences.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
What do you think they they, Oh, well a mouse
you were gonna say, sorry, no, no you you go
for it? Oh sor so I it's one of the
things that it can bridge both. It just seems like
it depends on as you were saying, maybe it maybe
it's that social aspect that is tripping me up, because

(48:45):
it there are definitely satisfying moments when you've gone I've
looked at these rules. I'm familiar enough with the flow
the action economy and flow where I made a big number,
go bigger, like I just continue to roll and it's
just oh, I rolled seventy six and because I rolled

(49:06):
this many times, it gave me this chance to quit.
So now I've like done this incredible amount of damage
for like the crunchiness aspect. And yet there are still
those moments where we can talk about the memories of
our past games because they happened, but they didn't happen,
and that's ethereal exercise. Like you mouse, you are not

(49:32):
a cat. Just still, you did not stab a dude.
You did not fight a warlock ballerina, but you did.
That is a thing that you can point to.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
He was a ballerina.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
No, the other the warlock lady, the shadow. No, no,
the ballerino was the baller you know. But you know
what I'm saying is like we have these like it
contains multitudes, So maybe it just it's that social aspect

(50:12):
of it really depends on what you're getting out of
what what you all have agreed to get out of
the thing. But it's just the conversation there and kind
of the discourse of what do we play these games
for and what they do and how does that diminish

(50:32):
or not diminish or not even diminished. How does that
affect the value of other games overall? And maybe it
doesn't because you're like, you're trying to use a fork
for a screwdriver.

Speaker 5 (50:46):
But can I weigh in on this just because I
have a very specific example of where because it is
kind of I've seen the discourse on Kindles career as
well of people being like, this is a game system
that limits player agency in ways that H D and D,

(51:08):
particularly five E does not, and specifically the new rules
of five E, which empower players, or at least that's
what the conversations are. Player agency is an interesting thing
because sometimes that's just code for I want to say
fucked up racist shit at the table, or like I

(51:30):
want I want to be I want to be able
to have the agency to engage in my conquest fantasies
with my brows, like in a very sort of fucked
up way. But then there's also this other version of
player agency where it's like how much do we get

(51:51):
to do within the game system. So I was playing
Settlers of Catan and Settlers of Catan sucks, and the
reason that I hate the game is because it is
seemingly so kind of limitless and what you can do
and what you can barter, but then there are hard
and fast rules about stuff. And so I'm playing this

(52:13):
game for the first time with a group of people
who are our varying levels of like the person who
for instance, brought it had like the expansion pack and
it's played it a billion times and and loves the game.
It was my first time playing it. It was like
the third time for another person. Another person was was

(52:36):
very much a rules lawyer, and three of the people
I was playing with were actual lawyers, including the rules lawyer.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
So so play or playing the game, and.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
Somebody is about and somebody's about to win, and there
is this mechanic of like who has the biggest army
that'll give you this amount of points, And there were
two players, and I noticed that had an amount of
nights in between them that together would overtake the other

(53:13):
person and prevent them from winning.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
And I go, you guys should just combine armies.

Speaker 5 (53:18):
And then immediately they go, that's not allowed, and I go,
why the fuck not?

Speaker 2 (53:24):
I just traded. I just traded two sheep for fucking
or that shouldn't be allowed that's a shitty trade.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
Like also, what does sheep have to do with any
which is beyond the point, But it was like it
was that moment of like it was my D and
D brain of like if if we don't want the
game to end, and nobody wanted the game to end,
I was like, the game doesn't have to end.

Speaker 6 (53:45):
We can actually team up.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
You could just.

Speaker 5 (53:48):
Team up and then we could do a different like
we could do a different game. We could do our
own rules. And I think that version of player agency
is fun. And I got shot shut down and it
didn't end up happening. But when it's like when a
rule system allows for that level of I think flexibility,
it's it's it's that I think that people are bumping
up against with candle obscura, where a lot of it

(54:10):
is limiting even within the context of like TTRPG, which is,
you know, hard to compare to a board game. But
when I'm playing board games or when I'm playing a
TTRPG and there's a hard and fast no, that's when
my brain goes to assess, like, is this a valid no,

(54:34):
what's the what's the issue, what's the issue here, what's
the problem of combining the armies so that we can
play for another couple of rounds, Like what's the snowball effect?
Then people are gonna then combine roads. Well that's how
fucking colonization works.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Like and they do that in Cotent, And I guess
there are certain things of oh, some things might be
game breaking and some things won't be. But as I
get one hundred percent see where you're talking about when
it comes to that the limit of player agency, and
I mean after looking at the Candela Obscure rules, there

(55:10):
isn't it leans more to your first example. A lot
of it is a dramatic improvisation, Like you sit there
and you're like, hey, we're going to talk a little
bit about body horror. We're going to talk a little
bit about Eldrich horror. Here are the factions. Here are
the way these abilities work, and here are the ways

(55:33):
the die rolls work. And in that it's a very
like I feel like, oh, that allows for a lot
of flexibility and a lot of different types of stories
that could be tell told. Now again, these are this
is coming from a you're creating a story with your
friends perspective, not a but I want the dice, I

(55:56):
want the dice number to go up a lot because
in dice light games like Powered by the Apocalypse, the
Fate System, those sort of things where you have like
a range like, oh, if you roll this, you have
if you have between these numbers, it's a failure. These
numbers are mixed to success, these numbers a full success,

(56:18):
and then you as the GM and the player dictate
what that looks like. That sounds like infinite Again, that's
one of the huge amounts of huge amount of player agency.
But just light on, there's a specific book with this

(56:38):
specific page that says this specific situation has been arbited before.

Speaker 6 (56:45):
Yeah, that's a great point I'm thinking about. So, like
it really is how much freedom do you want? How
and what's your goal? Because the same things of like
not getting super rules lawyer, or not caring about the
rules that some people should about a role playing game,
tabletop roleplaying games, then you know go and like go

(57:07):
for one hundred percent achievement in the Assassin's Creed, you know,
and get all the collectibles and like try to min
max the various armors and the so it I think
that I think the breakdown is truly the social aspect
of like what am I here to have fun with
my friends? Am I here to like rules lawyer with
my friends? And some people derive enjoyment from different things
they're thinking about, like as a counter example, or related magic,

(57:30):
the gathering. You know, very complicated rules, very small game.
You know, it's and part of what's as as it's
evolved in as formats of now multiplayer games, which the
original game was not designed to accommodate, and multiplayer that
commander format has become the main way that most people
interact with the so now they're developing differently for that.

(57:54):
And then for a while I was really into reading
the fiction, oh, the narrative of the various sets, and
realize those are extremely limited by the nature of the game.
It is, by itsary nature adversarial, combatative. It's got five colors,
it needs factions, it needs a certain number of kinds

(58:15):
of things in the world in order to make the
rules work, and that warps the kinds of stories that
can be told in that world. And you know, when
you need into novels, they're able to like go a
little farther afield. But if you want the I mean,
like Warhammer fiction, it's in a very esoteric marketing scheme

(58:36):
at the end of the day, like to get you
involved in the game pieces. But then what those kinds
of stories you can tell are very much affected by
the rules that underlie them, and that I think is
a reasonable comp to what kind of RPG rule system
are you playing with and how does that affect or
limit the kind of stories you want to tell? And

(58:58):
are you breaking the rules? Are fighting against the rules
for allowing them to work for you?

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Yeah? Interesting? So j I guess the question of the
show is that just bad If.

Speaker 6 (59:14):
You are playing the wrong game, it's going to be
a miserable experience. If you find the rules system that
aligns with your goals, then it's gonna be great.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:26):
The discourse I've seen, and I have not gotten into
Candle Obscura because I'm still I'm still.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Honing five y.

Speaker 5 (59:37):
So I've only seen reviews of it is that the
game mechanics, and I can imagine that this would be
hard to do, so it's like, not a critique of
the critical role people, but the game mechanics are not
equipped to accomplish what the goal of the game is
stated to be, which I feel like is when you're

(59:59):
designing a game what you're trying to do, and also
is the hardest part of designing a game of like
of like, this is the goal of this game, and
here are the tools that you have to do with.
And if you don't have like a hammer and nails,
and the fucking goal of the game is to build
a house, it's gonna be fucking hard.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
So like, if if it's.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
That, if it's that level of like mechanical fuck up,
I can understand the critique because that would also piss
me off. Of like, oh, I've been hamstrung from the start.
You've you've You've outlined this amazing thing for me and
a great goal, and I don't have any of the
tools to make this happen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
I have a water gun or some shit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
I will say that critic, Well, uh, I'll send you
some of the mechanics, like the the intro sheet I
have that maybe I'm missing something, but it seemed like
the game. I don't want to come too hard as
the defender of it because I have not played this
game yet, but like now it seems like the mechanics

(01:01:05):
very much support what the game is supposed to be.

Speaker 5 (01:01:09):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I believe you, and I also believe,
particularly in the people who made this that this doesn't
make sense to me. But if that critique is true,
then I can understand why people would be upset the Yeah,
it's also I think something about actual play too, where

(01:01:32):
it's so hard to pierce the market, because the D
and D five E was such a massive triumph in
that space where it's like you're trying to replace Kleenex,
you're trying to replace Oreo, You're trying to replace something
that everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Is just used to.

Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
And that is such a hard fucking thing to do. Yeah,
it's so hard to do. And I've seen other actual
plays and stuff like that, even on like they don't
do five y all the time on Dimension twenty. Sometimes
they use kids on bikes, kids on brooms. Never Stop
Blowing Up all that shit. I remember towards the end

(01:02:10):
of the season of Never Stopped Blowing Up, which was
a designed in like like a like a home brewed
system where the there were game breaking mechanics that we
were able to lend themselves to the goal the stated
goal of that season, which was to create the most
chaotic action movie of all time. But like if you

(01:02:33):
were trying to play it like they have like this
turbotoken system where it's like I somehow I just fucked
around and got seventy two turbo tookens. I can do
anything I want. And it was just like totally random.
There's math that was taking place where it was like, oh,
we did not think this through.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
So yeah, it's like one of the hardest things ever.
I mean five e it took five different versions of it,
I guess us five editions, and like three of them
like hardcore suck to the point where they're like infamously bad.
So yeah, I don't I don't know, but I would
be interested. I don't know, Like, let's run a fucking
one shot Teddy. Let's let's run a one shot of

(01:03:14):
candle obsecurity and be like, is this just bad?

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Okay, we can we can make that happen.

Speaker 5 (01:03:22):
But not but not but not anything like not anything
in our world or anything like that. Like let's do
if we want to judge it a module from the
book that's like and this is how you do it,
and these are the and these are the sheets, and
then we'll just do it and then.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Yeah and then no.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Prep, no prep, okay, no prep we can do the thing.
What what Well, what we can do is make that
our What do you think about making that the horror
or the Halloween spoopy one shot?

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
Oh yeah, because it's a it's a horror system. Yeah system.

Speaker 6 (01:04:00):
All right, Yeah, it'd be cool. I'm so curious to
see a Cuthulhu inspired world that is not racist. That's
interesting to me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
What a novel, what a novel idea?

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
I will say, I've run I've run a couple of
Call of Cthulhu games where you can make you do
have to work a little.

Speaker 6 (01:04:27):
Bit, sure, and that work is interesting. I mean, you know,
Lovecraft Country was interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
Uh yeah, all right, well oh sorry, yeah, I was
about to uh get us wrecked.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
But if you want to, if you want to wrap
on this and then we can get wrecked.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Sure. Yeah. I was going to say. The other issue
with Call of Cthulhu is the which is a whole
other podcast. We I don't know if there is time
to deconstruct all of the possible ableism things that is
baked into Cala Cthulhu. But I just said, yeah, let's
do the thing. I'm looking forward to doing more games

(01:05:09):
with you all.

Speaker 7 (01:05:10):
Oh, spooky games. Indeed, whoo so for spoopy for the
spooky definitely. So do you have a wreck teddy?

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
I do, uh teddy? Getting back on the cook and bullshit,
I wreck a I wanted to wreck a South Asian dish.
It is called kri and it is It's one of
those dishes that even if you are not a seventy

(01:05:47):
year old South Asian grandma, you can probably put together.

Speaker 6 (01:05:51):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
It is lentils, rice and various spices and you can
also add your proteins on top. The key to this
is cook your spices. What I mean by that is
KICHERI is traditionally use traditionally uses clarified butter or geek.
I would recommend, if you are one of our vegan,

(01:06:15):
well product non animal product friends, that you use a
low smoke point, high fat oil, so avocado oil or
coconut if you aren't allergic, just adding one of those.
He is. You add in turmeric for color, adding a

(01:06:37):
stick of cinnamon. I know weird, but add in a
little bit of salt, and you add in a little
bit of coriander. Let those cook up. Then once you
cook those up, reserve a little bit of the liquid
and add your spices. Your protein in. Next as doing that,

(01:07:00):
wash your rice and let your doll soak. You need
to have the doll soak for at least I like
to do it for at least three hours, but you
can do it a little bit less. The boiling process
and par cooking will be big. Once you do that,
you actually end up boiling. You cook the rice and

(01:07:20):
the lentil, and when you cook them together, you start
releasing some of the starch and the rice along with
the really nice thickener that comes out of the lentils
or doll. And as you put it together, you then
add in your spiced proteins to the top. Once you

(01:07:45):
put it all, you instead of finishing cooking it on
the stove, you put it in the oven and slow
cook it for a while. I like to cover it
with a with foil instead of a regular pot top,
just to release make sure it doesn't get too watery.

(01:08:05):
But you can do a lot of steaming in there.
Once you cook it, it creates an inner convection effect,
so you're not just doing the oven but on the
inside of the pot. It cooks it up really nicely.
It's an incredibly fluffy and kind of sticky rice. Along
with the cooked protein on top. It's a again Beeryani

(01:08:28):
style keacherie, and I highly recommend it is a long cook,
so make sure that you are doing this for like
a morning or an afternoon. So that's my wreck.

Speaker 6 (01:08:41):
That sounds fantastic. I love savory cinnamon as a as
a move, and we've been cooking a lot with tumerk
just the color and the flavor, you know, So that's
that sounds just like it. But the whole kitchen's gonna
smell fantastic all day. Yeah, very cool.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Yeah, it's got a lot of like uh like medicinal
qualities as well.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Yep, the turmeric and the bay leaf do a lot
of the medicinal heavy lifting. They recommend generally doing it
when it's cold or rainy outside. Uh, it's a little
hot for it, but you know what, go with your
heart eat what do you want?

Speaker 6 (01:09:23):
Do you want to wreck?

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Mouse? Do I want to wreck? I can take it
right first?

Speaker 6 (01:09:33):
Okay, fair enough, So this is a good combo. Uh
this film. I finally got around to watching volverair by
Pedro Maldiva from two thousand and six. A lot of food, absolutely, no, ma,
this is just a movie that Goes, Goes, goes the
entire time with the exquisite penelmic cruise gets no breaks

(01:09:54):
and uh is kind of spooky. It's a fascinating film
because it kind of a ghost story, and I won't
spoil it is it is absolutely worth watching, but feels
to me ghosts as metaphors. Obviously I'm a big fan
of metaphors of family trauma, big not a big fan

(01:10:15):
of family trauma, but very interested in stories. I represent
that and so interesting Something Was in the Water in
two thousand and six. It feels it's got some similar
ingredients to supernatural, beautiful cinematography, beautiful people, really clever plotting
and yeah I mean pedro al multivars known for color

(01:10:40):
of course, the color of the fashion and the food
and the everything in it. It's just it is a
visually sumptuous film to experience and clever. So without giving
any of it away beyond like kind of a ghost story,
I can't recommend it enough. Really really great.

Speaker 5 (01:11:05):
Yeah that movie rules Munchie would like to recommend her.
Uh fake iPad that has the alphabet on it and
then when you press a it goes apple.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Uh, because because I went to change her diaper and
I took it away from her and she.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
Screamed at me, and hopefully that that was captured on
the recording because she because I'm gonna play back for
her in eighteen years and be like, remember this, remember uh.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
Uh Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:11:46):
The only thing that I've been watching a squid game,
which is very hard to do as a parent. My
my wife's a ways, I'm watching my child by myself.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
And I don't know Korean.

Speaker 5 (01:12:01):
So I fucked up, and I chose to show that
I could not look away from for a moment.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
While having to constantly watch a kid. So the episode
ended up being.

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
Like extremely long, longer than even they were, So I
would I would recommend it if you're watching it with
your partner, who My partner is currently dropping out of
a lot of shows and then subsequently being like, I
wish I had watched that squid.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
Game is one of them.

Speaker 5 (01:12:35):
She dropped out of the Bear, dropped out of the
Gilded Age, she dropped out of like a lot of
shows of like I don't have the brain space, I
don't have the capacity.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
And then she sees me watching it and she's like,
I want to watch that.

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
Show, so I mean, we'll we'll see, but yeah that
I'd recommend that, and that's the only thing that I've seen.
And it's really really really really really fun, especially if
you liked the the just the basic format of that
show of like children's games with like crazy consequences and

(01:13:12):
the broadness of the of the acting that is like
at once delightful and uh, you know, depending on what's
going on, also like earth shattering and like fucking absolutely crazy.
There's some things in the season with children which are
very affecting or very affecting to me, uh in ways

(01:13:34):
it probably they would not have been uh before that
I had a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
So yeah, watch all that stuff while you're waiting for your.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
Dish to finish, because you gotta stew that bad boy
for a fucking long ass time. And that'll do it
for this episode of Is this just bad? We'll see
on the next one.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
Bye, it's just an ad.

Speaker 8 (01:14:08):
It's like, Oh, pirates Port your brain, Robin Nled's no
choking opened in your mind with the probots as you
woken hitting hydra halen hairs had for a time for
head of reasons for more than with the soldiers with
them and for all seasons Listen closely while we share
our expertias and Catholic comments culture Deane Street tuition to
the multiversity as it's like we're teaching perfect balance when
we snap in fine Jens into your ears, does the
shoulders when we speak. Purple members use of beach for

(01:14:30):
Randy Savage Dandals with their immortal technique