October 17, 2013 • 31 mins
Listener Mail Roundup: The Stuff to Blow Your Mind mailbag grows and the mail-bot grows increasingly insane in its boredom. To remedy the situation, Robert and Julie devote an entire episode to catching up.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie Douglas. Julie,
I'm growing concerned. I'm growing concerned for our dear mail bot,
(00:23):
Arnold Um. We haven't been calling him over a lot recently.
We've we've we've our own schedules have been crazy. We've
been covering some some topics that have gone a bit
long here and there, and for for various reasons, he
just remains over in his corner. The mail is piling
up around him, and I'm beginning to notice some some
unhealthy behavior in this secluded mechanoid. Are you talking about
(00:49):
the droppings? Yeah, that's one thing that's happening, Yes, Yeah,
And he's resting a little bit, he is. Yeah. So
we're gonna take the oil can out today, and we're
gonna have a little bit of listener mail that has
has built up, and and we're gonna make Arnie feel
a little bit better, I think in the so and
and and as a byproduct, will also be able to
catch up on some some great listener mail. We just
(01:10):
leave so many great responses on Facebook through through our
email address. Most of it is wonderful, and yet we're
so busy, and there's so the time is so limited.
We don't really get to respond as much as we'd like.
We don't get to share as much on the podcast
as we would like. So today's the day we are
going to cover this listener mail and let's bring on
(01:30):
over Arnie. Hey there, Arnie, what have you got for us? Uh?
What have you got for us today? You got some
good ones that you've been building up? All right? Fair enough?
This first one comes to us from Facebook, and it
comes from listener Justin. Justin says, Hey, Robert and Julie
just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your Aura
Boris podcast today. However, I'm extremely disappointed that a couple
(01:53):
of fantasy nerds like you, or at least Robert seems
to be, didn't mention Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
If you haven't heard it, there are four teen books,
about five hundred thousand pages each. So these books are
a significant investment in time, but I couldn't recommend them more.
The Aura Boris plays a strong role, being both the
symbol of the Wheel of Time, which drives this fantasy
world through repeating ages and the symbol of the main
(02:15):
magic users throughout the novels. Again, the series is a
major investment of your time, but the payoff is well
worth it. If you guys haven't read them yet, I
would highly recommend it. Thanks for the great podcast. You
have no idea how much it helps my commute and
the more mundane parts of my day justin so, yeah, yeah, yeah,
The Wheel of Time. It's a book series I've I've
long been aware of, but as time goes by, I
(02:37):
feel like I have I'm I'm ever against the idea
of engaging and yet another um long and or unfinished
fantasy series. I didn't you feel like that. You've got
so much stuff in the way of books or even
um like television series or movies that are stacking up there. Yeah,
it's like, I know it's great. I hear it's great,
(02:58):
but I don't know that I have time in this
lifetime for it. We'll see, maybe I'll maybe I'll catch
a prison sentence at some point and then I can
throw myself at Wheel of Time. Are you not wishing
that upon yourself? I'm not wishing it, and myself. It's
it's a consolation prize. It's like out somehow I wound
up in prison. But at least there's wheel of time.
Well okay, alright, so I don't I hope that you
have some other way of obtaining time. But the r
(03:21):
bars in case you guys out there did not catch
that one that was about the uh snake biting its
tail episode, and that was we covered the symbolic aspects
of that. Yeah, I was. That's one of those episodes
where briefly into the research, we didn't think there was
enough there to constitute a full episode, where like, maybe
there's just not enough here. This is more of a
(03:42):
a blog post. But then we then we we doubled down,
we research some more, and we started finding all these
crazy scientific or or philosophical aspects of the subject matter. Yeah,
and even a robotic aspect of it as well. Yeah, alright,
let's hear from Francis. She posted this on Facebook, says,
I loved this episode. Though when I tried explaining the
(04:05):
mother having her nephews to some friends that would get together,
they thought I had been doped into some urban legend.
Where can I get my hands on more evidence? So
I can score my told just so moment. Well, Francis,
thank you for for letting us know about that. Um.
It is not an urban legend, but it has all
the elements of it. Right. You have this mother who
had three sons, two of which had been tested to
(04:28):
see if they might be a good donor uh for her,
and found that genetically they did not match. And so
it was found that she actually absorbed her twin, which
means that the twins cellular material was passed on to
two of her sons. So all right, there's a study
by Margot cresscoll and is called disputed Maternity leading to
(04:51):
identification of tetra comedic camerism. So anybody else out there
who pulled this went off at a cocktail party, and
you need some bad up. That is the name of
the study. There you go printed out pass around because
everybody wants to read a ten page paper at a
cocktail It's an instant conversation starter. And if you're looking
(05:13):
to you know, score some romance, no better way. Yeah,
and don't let anybody skip down to the summary. That's
just yeah. I also wanted to mention I mentioned this
in our last episode, the episode of micro Climira was
suggested by listener Shawna, and I wanted to thank her
again because I don't think that I mentioned this in
the actual episode, and she is the reason why we
can all sit back and think about these dastartly things
(05:36):
going on in a southernly whether or not maybe one
of the siblings cells are dwelling within us. So thank you, Shawna. Cool.
All right, well, Arnold, what else do you have for us? Yeah?
Oh yeah, well that sounds like a good one. Let
me see that one, Arnold. This one comes to us
from Camilla and uh. This is a response to our
(05:56):
episode on Staring and Camilla um works in China, which
which actually Camilla was actually a really helpful for me
right before my wife and I traveled to China on
our adoption trip, because I got to run a couple
of questions pastor about, you know, sort of cultural things
before we left. So Camilla writes in and she says,
(06:16):
great stuff on the Staring episode. I love I loved
Julie Stare down with a seven year old, mainly because
I'm guilty of that myself, as you know, living in
small town China, particularly small town with very few foreigners
I got a lot of stairs for being not Chinese.
Not only stairs, but pointing competing people nudging each other
and pointing out that there's a lawa on the bus.
(06:38):
I'm sure I completely butchered the Mandarin. Uh well, I'm
not even sure it's manner because I'm not sure what
part of China she's in, But I'm sure I butchered it,
she continues after After the novelty wears off, it can
get quite annoying. So one day on the bus, this
seven year old turns completely around and starts to stare
at me. We're not talking about a subtle here. She
was less than a foot away and was looking straight
(06:59):
at for at least two minutes, which seems like a
very long time when you're being stared at. Usually I
would just ignore it. They've probably never seen a foreigner before,
so let them soak it up. But that persistent stairs
just too innovating, So I decided to let her know
how it feels. I start staring back, and almost immediately
she backs down. I could see in her eyes how
uncomfortable she felt. And I go out on a limb
here and say that that's how most people feel like
(07:21):
when they're being stared at very uncomfortable, like your personal
space has been invaded, even from a distance. So there
you go. That's there's some some interesting insight into the
experience of staring. Um. I also feel better about about
staring star off with a seven year old, So thank
you Camilla, you know. And I knew from Camilla and
just from general reading of prior to our travel to China,
(07:45):
that there would be a lot of stairs, particularly when
we were in Ending where there there are certainly far
in a huge city seven million people, I believe, but
there are fewer foreigners, and so we we did receive
a lot of stairs there. And it's just sort of
culturally more okay to stare at strange giant westerners with
blonde hair. Uh. And at first it was it was okay,
(08:06):
you know, I kind of I knew why what was
going on. I knew culturally what the deal was. So
I'm like, all right, it's fine. I'm I'm an outsider.
I look weird. I'm only fall outsider with I don't
know were they blewe e eyes green green green, and
then kind of blonde his hair. So yeah, so in
and you know, my wife too, we both got a
lot of stairs. But early on were you know, it
(08:28):
was fine. We you know, we realized what was happening.
But as the trip progressed, I found that it kind
of grated on me more and more. Not that I
was like actively getting angry about it, like stopped staring
at me or anything, but I just I felt more
and more like I wanted to hide somewhere or go
somewhere where people wouldn't be staring. Even though it's not
like I didn't feel safe. I felt safe the entire
(08:48):
time I was in China, but I I it was,
it just kind of begins to irritate you more and more.
Not even irritate you, just make you feel did you
feel objectifying, like sort of like us than human or no,
it's just well maybe in a sense like in a
in a in an unconscious sense, like you just reached
the point where you just don't want to be stared
(09:09):
at anymore, Like for for just non formulated reasons. You're
just like, I just want to be me and be
privately me somewhere and and not looked at as an outsider.
So when you got back to the States, though, did
you were you so used to being stared at We're like, hey,
what what's going on? I'm right here, guys, I don't
I guess it's it was in a way it's nice
(09:30):
to be on Marta and just be ignored. I don't know,
it's just nice to be ignored. But it was a
great experience too, and to realize, to help realize what
it's like for people who get stares everywhere, people who
you know, how either say unnaturally tall, unnaturally short, or
there's something about them, you know, maybe they're just you know,
the racially the racial inversion of my situation where they
(09:50):
you know, they find themselves, you know, surrounded by a
bunch of you know, tall, pale white people and it's
and and they are the outsider. It feels weird. So
so it was great experience in that it does give
me more insight, I feel, into into what it's like
to be the other. Yeah. But as Camilla suggested my
my my wife a few different times said that she
would just stare back. It's someone who's staring at and
(10:12):
she's like, well, if they're staring at me, it gives
me full license to stare at them. But I was
always too awkward to do that. It's like like that,
because I know they don't. They don't actually want to
be stared at, So I'm not gonna give them what
I'm feeling, you know, And then you have to engage
in their souls if you do that. Yeah, I don't
want to make eye contact with anyone anyway. So all right.
We got another email on staring. This is from Vic
(10:33):
and he said, I enjoyed the recent podcasts in the
Science of Staring. As a poker player, you can imagine
that there's quite a bit of staring as a group
of guys sit around a small table playing cards for
hours on end, many of these guys posturing to be
the alpha mail at the table. After yeah, after either
having made a bet or perhaps facing a bet, players
exhibit a variety of stairs. Some stare blankly at the
(10:55):
cards in the middle of the table, trying not to
give away any tells, while others choose to stare down
their opponent while their conscious minds try to determine if
they're beat or being bluffed. Their unconscious emotional minds are
always on the lookout for hints as well. After listening
to your podcast, I tried this little experiment. I had
a particularly strong hand and on the river. Once all
(11:17):
the cards had been dealt, I raised my opponent. He
had the most chips at the table and was embracing
the alpha male roll at the table that afternoon, while
deciding whether to call my rays or fold, he stared
at me. I was looking at the center of the table,
trying not to give off any signals that might help him.
But I decided that I would stare back at him,
but only for a second or two, and then only
(11:38):
very meekly. I looked into his stare, looked away, and
then back and quickly back at the center of the table. Certainly,
in alpha male would not want to be bluffed out
of a sizeable pot. He may have, in fact logically
come to the correct conclusion that he was beat, but
not wanting to back down from what may have appeared
as a weaker stare from his opponent, he called. He
(12:00):
called his hand, I suppose right. What I found most
interesting was that as he was pushing his chips into
the pot, he actually said, I know I'm beat, but
I just have to call. I showed him my hand
and he quietly folded his cards. I may continue to
use the staring tactic from time to time when facing
who I perceive as the alpha male at the poker table,
(12:20):
when I'm holding what I think is the winning cand
Thanks to stuff to blow the mind for this valuable
bit of science. By the way, I vote no to
abbreviating the as t H. Keep up the great work.
I love it. See you listen to the podcast and
it improves your gambling and your ability well and and
on a more a less you know, hilarious sense, it
(12:42):
helps you better navigate the world because you're a little
more aware about what's going on. I love that he
was like, I'm identifying the alpha male. I'm going to
trick him into this sort of weak stare. I'm gonna
take all this money. The the alpha male stare thing
is weird and is and is the worst. Like I would,
I far prefer the outsider stare than the alpha mail stair.
(13:03):
I certainly didn't get any weird alpha mair mail stare
stuff going on when I was in China. As a
side note, I recently saw that there was a study
that said that men with wider faces appear to be
more aggressive. But I wonder if that's a staring thing,
Like if it's staring just seems more pronounced anyway, it's
something that's uh I shall check into. All Right, we're
(13:24):
gonna take a quick break and we come back. We're
gonna have some more listener mail here with our robot friend.
All Right, we're back. Um, what else do you have
for us, Arnold? I know you have a you have
a lot of mail there. Do you have some some
other tantalizing bits of correspondence to share? Oh, here's one.
(13:47):
This one comes to us from Jesse. Uh. Jesse's responding
to um some of our Hell related content that has
come out over the years, and we've done quite a
bit of it, a lot of that's my fault, but
we've we've talked about the science of Hell, we've talked
about the problem of Hell from more of a philosophical
sociological standpoint, and of course we did that whole series
(14:07):
on the Seven Deadly Sins. So Hell pops up frequently.
And Uh, I also been talking about Dante. So Jesse
writes in from Sitney, Australian, says, hey, guys, longtime listener,
first time emailer. I really enjoyed the recent episodes in
Hell and was reminded of this fantastic song by a
new Jersey metal band, iced Earth. The song is about
fourteen minutes long and it's full of melody, complexity, and
(14:28):
well metal. It conveys a sense of journey and mystery,
and I challenge you to listen to it without headbanging.
I hope you enjoyed as much as I have now
over a decade. Include a YouTube link, but again, you
can just search for iced Earth and uh hopefully find
uh this this particular track. So it was interesting because uh,
(14:48):
I love any kind of uh uh situation where a
topic that we've covered uh collides with music in any
shape or form Alright, so you got your your hell on? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and uh and I think maybe I was headbanging a little,
you know, I thought I saw you your desk doing that. Yeah,
I was pretty sure I have. I've taught the toddler
to a head bang a little bit. Yeah, how's that going?
(15:10):
Pretty good? He'll do it in the car, you know.
He all that the booty dancing came naturally to him,
and it's like it always does, but that I had
to sort of show him that this is what you
do if we're playing Black Sabbath in the car, that
you're supposed to move your head and he seems to
catch on. See, maybe we should do an episode on
the science of headbanging? What is that about? Mash pits?
What's that about? There's a whole like world of metal,
(15:33):
uh you know in face melting that it needs to
be you know, research and you know how about the
hair the physics of the hair? Yeah? Yeah, yeah? And
what and how is the headbanging different between the long
hair and the shaved head, Like those are the two extremes.
You don't see a lot of headbanging in the realms,
you don't. I mean, how much momentum does that hair create? Anyway? Yeah?
Which is better? And is that? What are the long
(15:55):
term health effects? There's something there and I bet you
anyway that there's a study. All right, here we have
another one. Uh Wehen when we were talking about Hell,
we brought up the the Buddhist Hell theme park in Singapore,
And since our listeners are based all over and travel
all over, inevitably we had a couple of different listeners
(16:19):
right in about it. We heard from a Chin and
we heard from young about the theme park, and they
both sent us a bunch of pictures. Uh here just
a couple of quick excerpts gen Wright sentences. Hi, I'm
a listener from Singapore. I recently became a huge fan
of the show thanks to Neptina, my girlfriend. Recently, while
I was sandwiched between sad disgruntled office workers on my
(16:40):
way to work, I was listening to the episode called
Symbols on the Brain, and being from Singapore, you're mentioning
of the health theme park caught my attention immediately. That
is not to say I paid no attention to the
rest of the podcast. I remember visiting of hop har
Villa when I was about seven years old. Boy did
it lead and leave an impression. The Ten Courts of
Hell was and continues to be the main attraction the
(17:00):
now defunct theme park. As a kid, I wrongfully assumed
that I was going to see animatronic dragons at this
part of the part, since the Ten Courts of Hell
attraction was located inside a sixty ft long dragon. Back then,
after coming out of the place, I had bed wedding
nightmares for two weeks straight. So the Ten Courts of
Hell work something like that. The first Court of Hell
is basically the courtroom, and it is believed that you
(17:23):
go there When you die, they're a judge called King
Quinn Young will conduct a preliminary trial based on your
past deeds. The good people get to go get to
pass onto the new life on the bad people will
be assigned to different courts of Hell. In subsequent courts,
things get a little interesting. For example, robbers are thrown
into a volcanic pit, Prostitutes are thrown into a pool
of blood and drowned and ungrateful people have their hearts
(17:45):
torn out. Drug addicts and tomb raiders, on the other hand,
get tied to a red hot copper pillar and burned alive.
Other forms of punishments include being thrown onto a hill
of knives, sawed in half, thrown into a pot of
boiling oil, dismemberment, crushed under boulders, etcetera. In ha Parvilla itself,
you will see every court of Hell in detail, complete
with miniature clay figurines being tortured or for your or
(18:08):
lack of better words, viewing pleasure. Of course, ha par
Villa is way more than that. Hap Prvilla was built
in the nineteen thirties by Ah boon Ha, a wealthy
businessman who loved his younger brother very much. Boon Ha
grew up a firm believer of Eastern ideologies and values,
while his younger brother learned always leaned always to the West.
(18:29):
To remind his younger brother of his roots, Boon Hall
built a theme park filled with Chinese mythologies, stories, and symbols.
The Ten Courts of Hell is merely one of the
many attractions in this theme park. There you will also
see traditional Chinese mythologies brought to life via statues. In fact,
speaking of symbols, the entire park has a lot of
circular motifs built right into the architecture. From the top,
(18:49):
you will see that the park is circular, which is
supposed to symbolize harmony and the importance of family, a
point at which the elder brother wanted the younger brother
to remember. Ha Parvilla gained a rather unsavory reputation of
the years due to the grotesque nature of his exhibits
and the fact that the statues uh were never crafted
very well in the first place. Still, even though not
very many people bother to visit it these days, it's
(19:11):
one of those places. It's so bad it's good. You
just have to see it to believe it anyway, you
guys are one of the very few podcasts I listened to.
Keep up the great work. I love your show. Wow,
we got an inside tour of that. It is so
I mean, that's what my appetite for it even more. Yeah,
And I like how he you know, he drew out
that there's a there's a lot more to it than
just you know, the pictures that that makes falter through
(19:32):
to to to Western viewers. Um. I mean, if if
I ever get the chance to be in the same
vicinity of it, I would obviously I would go, oh yeah,
it's a new brainer. Yeah, alright, whether what other fresh
hell do you have for us? We also heard from
another listener again, this one came from Young talking about
the Buddhist hell and and he just wanted to mention
(19:54):
that it was created by the founders of Tiger Bomb
and uh and then when when it was when it
was built in and it was originally called Tiger Bomb
Gardens but was changed to his current name in night
by the Tourism board says it's free to enter for
anyone and there's even a subway station in front of it. Uh.
It must have run out of funds or something. Because
when I visited it was in a state of disrepair,
(20:15):
which might actually have helped enhance the creepy nature of
the place. The area show different levels or areas of
hell and how centers are public punished in various graphic
and gory ways. It's an interesting place to go for
anyone visiting Singapore, if not for the creepy abandoned theme
park experience, then for the educational value um. And then
he includes a number of images which were all fabulous.
(20:35):
I love how he mentioned that the rundown aspect of
it made it all the more creepy because as a
as an Atlanta resident, reminds me of the old What
what was the ride at six Flags Plantation Mountain Plantation
one of my favorite rides. Yeah, and I understand they've
redone it and it's probably they probably ruined it in
(20:55):
the process, to my opinion, because it used to be
awesome in the fact that it was falling apart and
then there's this musty stench in the air, and and
there was when you go through Monster Plantation or the
Southern Gothic set up by the way, which is already
a little weird, and there's a plantation where there are monsters,
and the first part of it is happy, and then
there's like a scary part and then you're a yeah,
(21:17):
and you're on a little boat with you know, undrinkable
water around you. And the scary part isn't really scary,
but the happy party is like super creepy, or was
super creepy because of the beings are animatronic, they're falling
apart sometimes their metal skeletons are are showing through, and
there is just a creepy, uncanny experience. It's like an
(21:38):
old southern lady and an antebellum gown animatronic. And then
you go into the scary part and there was a
big old sheriff like it's very much like Dukes of
hazard kind of and he's like, no, go down. It's
good stuff. So there's something I would like to hear
for any of our local or Atlanta based listeners or
anyone who's traveled there. Let me know what it's like now,
(22:00):
because I don't actually want to go. I just want yeah,
I know, alright, um, let me see here, Arnie, do
you have something from me? Oh? Thank you? All right.
We had a good amount of emails without word of
version because everybody had an opinion about it. Either they
didn't have a word of version or they did and
(22:20):
they shared it with us, and it was really interesting.
This was the episode that you and Alison Ladermilk did
while I was away, and I have to say it
was a great episode and it was interesting for me
to get to listen to stuff to blow your mind
and not know what was going to happen right right,
because you didn't have any sort of like, oh, I
don't have an outline on this. Yeah, I didn't have
an outline with those crazy kids are going to cover.
(22:42):
So it's so it was a really cool episode. Thanks well,
thank you very much. Well this one is from Nando
and Nana says, I've been a listener for a while.
I was listening to the Word of Version episode and
even though I do not have a word of version,
I do have a word that I love saying. Because
we also talked about words that we are attracted to,
and that word being the word mulch, mulch. I don't
(23:03):
go around all days saying it, but I do enjoy
it a lot. It is not only fun to hear it,
but it also feels good in my mouth. We talked
about that in the podcast to like there's certain sort
of satisfaction of its almost like kind of Marble's mulch
in your mouth. Um. I think that it's the sound
that makes it so appealing to me. Anyway, love the show,
Keep up the good work. Alright, And this one is
(23:26):
from Chris says, Hey, Robert and Julie finally caught up
on all the podcasts. Just want to say that the
Alison episode on word version was excellent and that she
and Julie did a great joble Robert's way, my weird
word aversion. Comic kaze a good word, but I thought
it was pronounced differently as a kid, and when I
found out the correct way, I became annoyed. To this day,
I tend to cringe whenever I see it. Oh, it
(23:47):
haunts me. Keep up the awesome work. Sorry for using
awesome when we talked about that, is that one of
the words that kept landing on the list, because awesome
is like the word love is far overused and when
we actually encounter something or imagine something that is awe
inspiring that is awesome in a in a grander sense,
(24:08):
the word fails to don't Yeah, you're like that, I
can't use that word. That's really the appropriate word, but
now it's been watered down, and I have nothing like
an Angel of the Lord like steps out of a
UFO and starts handing out twinkies and then splits the
earth in half. Like that's an awesome sight. But you
can't say it's awesome because you already said that a
cup of coffee you had earlier in the day was awesome,
(24:28):
and and now that you've had this paranormal twinkie episode,
you just can't put the two in the same category.
I can definitely relate with her about the whole pronunciation thing,
because there have been words in in the past where
like I grew up saying I'm weird or or even
like for a very brief time, like when I first
read Jurassic Park, I didn't know it was pronounced a velociraptor,
(24:51):
and I think I said velisa raptor and uh, and
then it was corrected on it, and it's like, I
don't know, it's like in junior high or not even
quite junior high, but still the word velociraptor, I'll remember,
like that, the pain of having to be corrected on
its pronunciation. Yeah, I'm still angry at detritus. I want
it to be Detritus just feels like it should be.
(25:12):
But I'm very annoyed with the word as well. UM.
Got one more word of version. This is from Francis.
I was so surprised to see your word of version
podcast today. I had no idea there were others like me.
There are. I never bring word version up and conversation
because of the natural follow up question what words? And
I don't want to say them. They are, for the
most part, completely normal, everyday words that don't describe body
(25:34):
parts or anything disgusting. But when I hear someone use one,
it stops me completely. I have to digest what I
just heard, consider the word. It takes me a while
to recover. The most mild one that I'm willing to
write down is purse. Even that gave me a chill,
And that is the most mild of all the words
that I don't say. I wish I could do the
(25:54):
sentence thing this was. We invited people to create their
own sentences of words that we're we're reverse of um,
but it would take me a long time to recover.
I appreciated your sentence in the show, though some of
the words, one in particular is on my list, and
so it made me shiver to hear it. This whole
word thing is so ridiculous. My husband thinks I'm crazy,
but it's very real, and I can't seem to flip
that switch off. So in the meantime I just speak
(26:16):
in awkward sentences to avoid saying the bad words, sometimes
very awkward sentences things. For the great show, I listened intently,
was really interested in learning more about this word a
version thing. Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Francis
that I mean, I sort of understand that there are
certain trigger words and you don't want to say it,
and so there are certain words that sometimes they're just
(26:38):
trepidacious about and I end up having some sort of
word salad coming out of my mouth. So I can
sort of understand from a from a limited perspective speaking
which trepidacious great word? Yeah, it's a nice one. I
also like, there are a lot of great words I like,
But what's your most favorite? I don't know, Like I
was just thinking gargantulan is a great word, yeah, galgatha
(26:58):
like anything like which, remembering that one stem from the
other one, like any kind of word that has a
kind of a rolling cadence to it. I really like,
I really like coalyptiancalyptian, that's pretty good. That's mainly because
it means well formed buttocks. What other word could could
express such a sentiment? Reminds me cyclopean. I really like, yeah, um.
(27:21):
I mean there's so many, but I don't know if
it's really a word aversion or just an aversion to um.
Often are reluctance or inability to fully describe smells. And
I've mentioned this before. I tend to dislike people saying
something stinks, especially in reference to food, reference to cheeses
(27:42):
that stink quote unquote stink. If they say a stinky
cheese like that tends to get to me because I
feel like that's you're describing food, you're describing something that doesn't.
I mean, stink is just such a it's a broadly
applied word that doesn't actually convey any meaning. Like an.
I think we should use a we should have a
better vocabulary for for smells, and and if and if
(28:05):
we're going to talk about cheeses, especially in their children
around and you you know, you want to foster an
idea that that all foods should at least be tried.
Then maybe that cheese is not so much stinky as
it is, uh, you know, aromatic or pungent. Okay, you
need a team up with the odor artist. Setil told
us first of all, yeah, she's very much of the
same mindset. So second, you're pinning down a usage thing.
(28:29):
But is there one word that just chills you to
the marrow? Oh? Okay, what about vomit? I tend to
like vomit um. How could you love vomit? And on
all the lists, I don't. I mean, I don't like
vomiting and I don't like the substance of vomit. But
it's a v word and uh, and it rhymes with comet.
(28:52):
It has a very like it does have the plose
of consonants going for it. One of my favorite name
fictional names is there's a Brian mcnaton's book Throne of Bones.
There's a character, it's the King of the Ghoules and
his name is vomcron Noxus, which so I love that
name because it's taking a vomit and it's taking noxious
(29:12):
and it's kind of twisting the words around and creating
this new word rawn for chronos in it as well. Yeah,
there's a sense of that as well. You know, that's
sort of an ancient and godly uh statue to it.
So I tend to really like fake words and fake
names in fantasy and science fiction when they're well crafted,
not when they're just sort of you know, mindless dungeons
(29:33):
and dragons, sort of word salad where you just call
you know, some sort of vaguely tolken esque, uh, you know,
elf name or something. But I really have a hard
time thinking of any word that I dislike just for
the sake of the word. Maybe if I, if I
think about it, I'll share it in a future podcast
episode with Moist. It's not my go to word, and
(29:56):
I know that it annoys enough people that I would
probably not use it, Like, it's not really in my
satchel of words, but it's it doesn't bother me. All right, Well,
we should probably wrap up because I need to go
attend to this Moist crevice. Nothing. Well, I know that
you're using words you just like in a sentence, so
(30:17):
I thought I saw you WinCE. Yeah, well maybe a
little bit, but still it's not a not a strong,
not a like a you know, a visceral reaction. So
I'm gonna have to think, I'm I'm just gonna have
to be aware of myself listen and find that word that.
In the meantime, I'll try to drop as many drop
as many drop the whole list at me, you know,
in one sentence, if possible, I know what I'm doing
(30:37):
this week. All right, Well, there there you go, Arnold.
Do you feel better? Yeah, you feel a little more
more balanced, a little more healthy. Well that's great. We
will have to do this more often and maybe even
at the end of of podcast episodes. And if for
the rest of you, if you want to get in
touch with us as well, you can find us online.
It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the
(30:58):
mother ship. That's where everything can be found from our
podcasts and our videos and our blog posts. Two links
to our various social media accounts such as uh, Facebook, Twitter,
and Tumbler. We also we're on YouTube is Mind Stuff
Show and Julie. If they want to send us a
good old fashioned email, how do they go about that? Well,
it's very easy. All you have to do is compose
an email and then in the two areas the two
(31:20):
field You just put in stuff to blow your mind
at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Does it, How stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie Douglas. Julie,
I'm growing concerned. I'm growing concerned for our dear mail bot,
(00:23):
Arnold Um. We haven't been calling him over a lot recently.
We've we've we've our own schedules have been crazy. We've
been covering some some topics that have gone a bit
long here and there, and for for various reasons, he
just remains over in his corner. The mail is piling
up around him, and I'm beginning to notice some some
unhealthy behavior in this secluded mechanoid. Are you talking about
(00:49):
the droppings? Yeah, that's one thing that's happening, Yes, Yeah,
And he's resting a little bit, he is. Yeah. So
we're gonna take the oil can out today, and we're
gonna have a little bit of listener mail that has
has built up, and and we're gonna make Arnie feel
a little bit better, I think in the so and
and and as a byproduct, will also be able to
catch up on some some great listener mail. We just
(01:10):
leave so many great responses on Facebook through through our
email address. Most of it is wonderful, and yet we're
so busy, and there's so the time is so limited.
We don't really get to respond as much as we'd like.
We don't get to share as much on the podcast
as we would like. So today's the day we are
going to cover this listener mail and let's bring on
(01:30):
over Arnie. Hey there, Arnie, what have you got for us? Uh?
What have you got for us today? You got some
good ones that you've been building up? All right? Fair enough?
This first one comes to us from Facebook, and it
comes from listener Justin. Justin says, Hey, Robert and Julie
just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your Aura
Boris podcast today. However, I'm extremely disappointed that a couple
(01:53):
of fantasy nerds like you, or at least Robert seems
to be, didn't mention Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
If you haven't heard it, there are four teen books,
about five hundred thousand pages each. So these books are
a significant investment in time, but I couldn't recommend them more.
The Aura Boris plays a strong role, being both the
symbol of the Wheel of Time, which drives this fantasy
world through repeating ages and the symbol of the main
(02:15):
magic users throughout the novels. Again, the series is a
major investment of your time, but the payoff is well
worth it. If you guys haven't read them yet, I
would highly recommend it. Thanks for the great podcast. You
have no idea how much it helps my commute and
the more mundane parts of my day justin so, yeah, yeah, yeah,
The Wheel of Time. It's a book series I've I've
long been aware of, but as time goes by, I
(02:37):
feel like I have I'm I'm ever against the idea
of engaging and yet another um long and or unfinished
fantasy series. I didn't you feel like that. You've got
so much stuff in the way of books or even
um like television series or movies that are stacking up there. Yeah,
it's like, I know it's great. I hear it's great,
(02:58):
but I don't know that I have time in this
lifetime for it. We'll see, maybe I'll maybe I'll catch
a prison sentence at some point and then I can
throw myself at Wheel of Time. Are you not wishing
that upon yourself? I'm not wishing it, and myself. It's
it's a consolation prize. It's like out somehow I wound
up in prison. But at least there's wheel of time.
Well okay, alright, so I don't I hope that you
have some other way of obtaining time. But the r
(03:21):
bars in case you guys out there did not catch
that one that was about the uh snake biting its
tail episode, and that was we covered the symbolic aspects
of that. Yeah, I was. That's one of those episodes
where briefly into the research, we didn't think there was
enough there to constitute a full episode, where like, maybe
there's just not enough here. This is more of a
(03:42):
a blog post. But then we then we we doubled down,
we research some more, and we started finding all these
crazy scientific or or philosophical aspects of the subject matter. Yeah,
and even a robotic aspect of it as well. Yeah, alright,
let's hear from Francis. She posted this on Facebook, says,
I loved this episode. Though when I tried explaining the
(04:05):
mother having her nephews to some friends that would get together,
they thought I had been doped into some urban legend.
Where can I get my hands on more evidence? So
I can score my told just so moment. Well, Francis,
thank you for for letting us know about that. Um.
It is not an urban legend, but it has all
the elements of it. Right. You have this mother who
had three sons, two of which had been tested to
(04:28):
see if they might be a good donor uh for her,
and found that genetically they did not match. And so
it was found that she actually absorbed her twin, which
means that the twins cellular material was passed on to
two of her sons. So all right, there's a study
by Margot cresscoll and is called disputed Maternity leading to
(04:51):
identification of tetra comedic camerism. So anybody else out there
who pulled this went off at a cocktail party, and
you need some bad up. That is the name of
the study. There you go printed out pass around because
everybody wants to read a ten page paper at a
cocktail It's an instant conversation starter. And if you're looking
(05:13):
to you know, score some romance, no better way. Yeah,
and don't let anybody skip down to the summary. That's
just yeah. I also wanted to mention I mentioned this
in our last episode, the episode of micro Climira was
suggested by listener Shawna, and I wanted to thank her
again because I don't think that I mentioned this in
the actual episode, and she is the reason why we
can all sit back and think about these dastartly things
(05:36):
going on in a southernly whether or not maybe one
of the siblings cells are dwelling within us. So thank you, Shawna. Cool.
All right, well, Arnold, what else do you have for us? Yeah?
Oh yeah, well that sounds like a good one. Let
me see that one, Arnold. This one comes to us
from Camilla and uh. This is a response to our
(05:56):
episode on Staring and Camilla um works in China, which
which actually Camilla was actually a really helpful for me
right before my wife and I traveled to China on
our adoption trip, because I got to run a couple
of questions pastor about, you know, sort of cultural things
before we left. So Camilla writes in and she says,
(06:16):
great stuff on the Staring episode. I love I loved
Julie Stare down with a seven year old, mainly because
I'm guilty of that myself, as you know, living in
small town China, particularly small town with very few foreigners
I got a lot of stairs for being not Chinese.
Not only stairs, but pointing competing people nudging each other
and pointing out that there's a lawa on the bus.
(06:38):
I'm sure I completely butchered the Mandarin. Uh well, I'm
not even sure it's manner because I'm not sure what
part of China she's in, But I'm sure I butchered it,
she continues after After the novelty wears off, it can
get quite annoying. So one day on the bus, this
seven year old turns completely around and starts to stare
at me. We're not talking about a subtle here. She
was less than a foot away and was looking straight
(06:59):
at for at least two minutes, which seems like a
very long time when you're being stared at. Usually I
would just ignore it. They've probably never seen a foreigner before,
so let them soak it up. But that persistent stairs
just too innovating, So I decided to let her know
how it feels. I start staring back, and almost immediately
she backs down. I could see in her eyes how
uncomfortable she felt. And I go out on a limb
here and say that that's how most people feel like
(07:21):
when they're being stared at very uncomfortable, like your personal
space has been invaded, even from a distance. So there
you go. That's there's some some interesting insight into the
experience of staring. Um. I also feel better about about
staring star off with a seven year old, So thank
you Camilla, you know. And I knew from Camilla and
just from general reading of prior to our travel to China,
(07:45):
that there would be a lot of stairs, particularly when
we were in Ending where there there are certainly far
in a huge city seven million people, I believe, but
there are fewer foreigners, and so we we did receive
a lot of stairs there. And it's just sort of
culturally more okay to stare at strange giant westerners with
blonde hair. Uh. And at first it was it was okay,
(08:06):
you know, I kind of I knew why what was
going on. I knew culturally what the deal was. So
I'm like, all right, it's fine. I'm I'm an outsider.
I look weird. I'm only fall outsider with I don't
know were they blewe e eyes green green green, and
then kind of blonde his hair. So yeah, so in
and you know, my wife too, we both got a
lot of stairs. But early on were you know, it
(08:28):
was fine. We you know, we realized what was happening.
But as the trip progressed, I found that it kind
of grated on me more and more. Not that I
was like actively getting angry about it, like stopped staring
at me or anything, but I just I felt more
and more like I wanted to hide somewhere or go
somewhere where people wouldn't be staring. Even though it's not
like I didn't feel safe. I felt safe the entire
(08:48):
time I was in China, but I I it was,
it just kind of begins to irritate you more and more.
Not even irritate you, just make you feel did you
feel objectifying, like sort of like us than human or no,
it's just well maybe in a sense like in a
in a in an unconscious sense, like you just reached
the point where you just don't want to be stared
(09:09):
at anymore, Like for for just non formulated reasons. You're
just like, I just want to be me and be
privately me somewhere and and not looked at as an outsider.
So when you got back to the States, though, did
you were you so used to being stared at We're like, hey,
what what's going on? I'm right here, guys, I don't
I guess it's it was in a way it's nice
(09:30):
to be on Marta and just be ignored. I don't know,
it's just nice to be ignored. But it was a
great experience too, and to realize, to help realize what
it's like for people who get stares everywhere, people who
you know, how either say unnaturally tall, unnaturally short, or
there's something about them, you know, maybe they're just you know,
the racially the racial inversion of my situation where they
(09:50):
you know, they find themselves, you know, surrounded by a
bunch of you know, tall, pale white people and it's
and and they are the outsider. It feels weird. So
so it was great experience in that it does give
me more insight, I feel, into into what it's like
to be the other. Yeah. But as Camilla suggested my
my my wife a few different times said that she
would just stare back. It's someone who's staring at and
(10:12):
she's like, well, if they're staring at me, it gives
me full license to stare at them. But I was
always too awkward to do that. It's like like that,
because I know they don't. They don't actually want to
be stared at, So I'm not gonna give them what
I'm feeling, you know, And then you have to engage
in their souls if you do that. Yeah, I don't
want to make eye contact with anyone anyway. So all right.
We got another email on staring. This is from Vic
(10:33):
and he said, I enjoyed the recent podcasts in the
Science of Staring. As a poker player, you can imagine
that there's quite a bit of staring as a group
of guys sit around a small table playing cards for
hours on end, many of these guys posturing to be
the alpha mail at the table. After yeah, after either
having made a bet or perhaps facing a bet, players
exhibit a variety of stairs. Some stare blankly at the
(10:55):
cards in the middle of the table, trying not to
give away any tells, while others choose to stare down
their opponent while their conscious minds try to determine if
they're beat or being bluffed. Their unconscious emotional minds are
always on the lookout for hints as well. After listening
to your podcast, I tried this little experiment. I had
a particularly strong hand and on the river. Once all
(11:17):
the cards had been dealt, I raised my opponent. He
had the most chips at the table and was embracing
the alpha male roll at the table that afternoon, while
deciding whether to call my rays or fold, he stared
at me. I was looking at the center of the table,
trying not to give off any signals that might help him.
But I decided that I would stare back at him,
but only for a second or two, and then only
(11:38):
very meekly. I looked into his stare, looked away, and
then back and quickly back at the center of the table. Certainly,
in alpha male would not want to be bluffed out
of a sizeable pot. He may have, in fact logically
come to the correct conclusion that he was beat, but
not wanting to back down from what may have appeared
as a weaker stare from his opponent, he called. He
(12:00):
called his hand, I suppose right. What I found most
interesting was that as he was pushing his chips into
the pot, he actually said, I know I'm beat, but
I just have to call. I showed him my hand
and he quietly folded his cards. I may continue to
use the staring tactic from time to time when facing
who I perceive as the alpha male at the poker table,
(12:20):
when I'm holding what I think is the winning cand
Thanks to stuff to blow the mind for this valuable
bit of science. By the way, I vote no to
abbreviating the as t H. Keep up the great work.
I love it. See you listen to the podcast and
it improves your gambling and your ability well and and
on a more a less you know, hilarious sense, it
(12:42):
helps you better navigate the world because you're a little
more aware about what's going on. I love that he
was like, I'm identifying the alpha male. I'm going to
trick him into this sort of weak stare. I'm gonna
take all this money. The the alpha male stare thing
is weird and is and is the worst. Like I would,
I far prefer the outsider stare than the alpha mail stair.
(13:03):
I certainly didn't get any weird alpha mair mail stare
stuff going on when I was in China. As a
side note, I recently saw that there was a study
that said that men with wider faces appear to be
more aggressive. But I wonder if that's a staring thing,
Like if it's staring just seems more pronounced anyway, it's
something that's uh I shall check into. All Right, we're
(13:24):
gonna take a quick break and we come back. We're
gonna have some more listener mail here with our robot friend.
All Right, we're back. Um, what else do you have
for us, Arnold? I know you have a you have
a lot of mail there. Do you have some some
other tantalizing bits of correspondence to share? Oh, here's one.
(13:47):
This one comes to us from Jesse. Uh. Jesse's responding
to um some of our Hell related content that has
come out over the years, and we've done quite a
bit of it, a lot of that's my fault, but
we've we've talked about the science of Hell, we've talked
about the problem of Hell from more of a philosophical
sociological standpoint, and of course we did that whole series
(14:07):
on the Seven Deadly Sins. So Hell pops up frequently.
And Uh, I also been talking about Dante. So Jesse
writes in from Sitney, Australian, says, hey, guys, longtime listener,
first time emailer. I really enjoyed the recent episodes in
Hell and was reminded of this fantastic song by a
new Jersey metal band, iced Earth. The song is about
fourteen minutes long and it's full of melody, complexity, and
(14:28):
well metal. It conveys a sense of journey and mystery,
and I challenge you to listen to it without headbanging.
I hope you enjoyed as much as I have now
over a decade. Include a YouTube link, but again, you
can just search for iced Earth and uh hopefully find
uh this this particular track. So it was interesting because uh,
(14:48):
I love any kind of uh uh situation where a
topic that we've covered uh collides with music in any
shape or form Alright, so you got your your hell on? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and uh and I think maybe I was headbanging a little,
you know, I thought I saw you your desk doing that. Yeah,
I was pretty sure I have. I've taught the toddler
to a head bang a little bit. Yeah, how's that going?
(15:10):
Pretty good? He'll do it in the car, you know.
He all that the booty dancing came naturally to him,
and it's like it always does, but that I had
to sort of show him that this is what you
do if we're playing Black Sabbath in the car, that
you're supposed to move your head and he seems to
catch on. See, maybe we should do an episode on
the science of headbanging? What is that about? Mash pits?
What's that about? There's a whole like world of metal,
(15:33):
uh you know in face melting that it needs to
be you know, research and you know how about the
hair the physics of the hair? Yeah? Yeah, yeah? And
what and how is the headbanging different between the long
hair and the shaved head, Like those are the two extremes.
You don't see a lot of headbanging in the realms,
you don't. I mean, how much momentum does that hair create? Anyway? Yeah?
Which is better? And is that? What are the long
(15:55):
term health effects? There's something there and I bet you
anyway that there's a study. All right, here we have
another one. Uh Wehen when we were talking about Hell,
we brought up the the Buddhist Hell theme park in Singapore,
And since our listeners are based all over and travel
all over, inevitably we had a couple of different listeners
(16:19):
right in about it. We heard from a Chin and
we heard from young about the theme park, and they
both sent us a bunch of pictures. Uh here just
a couple of quick excerpts gen Wright sentences. Hi, I'm
a listener from Singapore. I recently became a huge fan
of the show thanks to Neptina, my girlfriend. Recently, while
I was sandwiched between sad disgruntled office workers on my
(16:40):
way to work, I was listening to the episode called
Symbols on the Brain, and being from Singapore, you're mentioning
of the health theme park caught my attention immediately. That
is not to say I paid no attention to the
rest of the podcast. I remember visiting of hop har
Villa when I was about seven years old. Boy did
it lead and leave an impression. The Ten Courts of
Hell was and continues to be the main attraction the
(17:00):
now defunct theme park. As a kid, I wrongfully assumed
that I was going to see animatronic dragons at this
part of the part, since the Ten Courts of Hell
attraction was located inside a sixty ft long dragon. Back then,
after coming out of the place, I had bed wedding
nightmares for two weeks straight. So the Ten Courts of
Hell work something like that. The first Court of Hell
is basically the courtroom, and it is believed that you
(17:23):
go there When you die, they're a judge called King
Quinn Young will conduct a preliminary trial based on your
past deeds. The good people get to go get to
pass onto the new life on the bad people will
be assigned to different courts of Hell. In subsequent courts,
things get a little interesting. For example, robbers are thrown
into a volcanic pit, Prostitutes are thrown into a pool
of blood and drowned and ungrateful people have their hearts
(17:45):
torn out. Drug addicts and tomb raiders, on the other hand,
get tied to a red hot copper pillar and burned alive.
Other forms of punishments include being thrown onto a hill
of knives, sawed in half, thrown into a pot of
boiling oil, dismemberment, crushed under boulders, etcetera. In ha Parvilla itself,
you will see every court of Hell in detail, complete
with miniature clay figurines being tortured or for your or
(18:08):
lack of better words, viewing pleasure. Of course, ha par
Villa is way more than that. Hap Prvilla was built
in the nineteen thirties by Ah boon Ha, a wealthy
businessman who loved his younger brother very much. Boon Ha
grew up a firm believer of Eastern ideologies and values,
while his younger brother learned always leaned always to the West.
(18:29):
To remind his younger brother of his roots, Boon Hall
built a theme park filled with Chinese mythologies, stories, and symbols.
The Ten Courts of Hell is merely one of the
many attractions in this theme park. There you will also
see traditional Chinese mythologies brought to life via statues. In fact,
speaking of symbols, the entire park has a lot of
circular motifs built right into the architecture. From the top,
(18:49):
you will see that the park is circular, which is
supposed to symbolize harmony and the importance of family, a
point at which the elder brother wanted the younger brother
to remember. Ha Parvilla gained a rather unsavory reputation of
the years due to the grotesque nature of his exhibits
and the fact that the statues uh were never crafted
very well in the first place. Still, even though not
very many people bother to visit it these days, it's
(19:11):
one of those places. It's so bad it's good. You
just have to see it to believe it anyway, you
guys are one of the very few podcasts I listened to.
Keep up the great work. I love your show. Wow,
we got an inside tour of that. It is so
I mean, that's what my appetite for it even more. Yeah,
And I like how he you know, he drew out
that there's a there's a lot more to it than
just you know, the pictures that that makes falter through
(19:32):
to to to Western viewers. Um. I mean, if if
I ever get the chance to be in the same
vicinity of it, I would obviously I would go, oh yeah,
it's a new brainer. Yeah, alright, whether what other fresh
hell do you have for us? We also heard from
another listener again, this one came from Young talking about
the Buddhist hell and and he just wanted to mention
(19:54):
that it was created by the founders of Tiger Bomb
and uh and then when when it was when it
was built in and it was originally called Tiger Bomb
Gardens but was changed to his current name in night
by the Tourism board says it's free to enter for
anyone and there's even a subway station in front of it. Uh.
It must have run out of funds or something. Because
when I visited it was in a state of disrepair,
(20:15):
which might actually have helped enhance the creepy nature of
the place. The area show different levels or areas of
hell and how centers are public punished in various graphic
and gory ways. It's an interesting place to go for
anyone visiting Singapore, if not for the creepy abandoned theme
park experience, then for the educational value um. And then
he includes a number of images which were all fabulous.
(20:35):
I love how he mentioned that the rundown aspect of
it made it all the more creepy because as a
as an Atlanta resident, reminds me of the old What
what was the ride at six Flags Plantation Mountain Plantation
one of my favorite rides. Yeah, and I understand they've
redone it and it's probably they probably ruined it in
(20:55):
the process, to my opinion, because it used to be
awesome in the fact that it was falling apart and
then there's this musty stench in the air, and and
there was when you go through Monster Plantation or the
Southern Gothic set up by the way, which is already
a little weird, and there's a plantation where there are monsters,
and the first part of it is happy, and then
there's like a scary part and then you're a yeah,
(21:17):
and you're on a little boat with you know, undrinkable
water around you. And the scary part isn't really scary,
but the happy party is like super creepy, or was
super creepy because of the beings are animatronic, they're falling
apart sometimes their metal skeletons are are showing through, and
there is just a creepy, uncanny experience. It's like an
(21:38):
old southern lady and an antebellum gown animatronic. And then
you go into the scary part and there was a
big old sheriff like it's very much like Dukes of
hazard kind of and he's like, no, go down. It's
good stuff. So there's something I would like to hear
for any of our local or Atlanta based listeners or
anyone who's traveled there. Let me know what it's like now,
(22:00):
because I don't actually want to go. I just want yeah,
I know, alright, um, let me see here, Arnie, do
you have something from me? Oh? Thank you? All right.
We had a good amount of emails without word of
version because everybody had an opinion about it. Either they
didn't have a word of version or they did and
(22:20):
they shared it with us, and it was really interesting.
This was the episode that you and Alison Ladermilk did
while I was away, and I have to say it
was a great episode and it was interesting for me
to get to listen to stuff to blow your mind
and not know what was going to happen right right,
because you didn't have any sort of like, oh, I
don't have an outline on this. Yeah, I didn't have
an outline with those crazy kids are going to cover.
(22:42):
So it's so it was a really cool episode. Thanks well,
thank you very much. Well this one is from Nando
and Nana says, I've been a listener for a while.
I was listening to the Word of Version episode and
even though I do not have a word of version,
I do have a word that I love saying. Because
we also talked about words that we are attracted to,
and that word being the word mulch, mulch. I don't
(23:03):
go around all days saying it, but I do enjoy
it a lot. It is not only fun to hear it,
but it also feels good in my mouth. We talked
about that in the podcast to like there's certain sort
of satisfaction of its almost like kind of Marble's mulch
in your mouth. Um. I think that it's the sound
that makes it so appealing to me. Anyway, love the show,
Keep up the good work. Alright, And this one is
(23:26):
from Chris says, Hey, Robert and Julie finally caught up
on all the podcasts. Just want to say that the
Alison episode on word version was excellent and that she
and Julie did a great joble Robert's way, my weird
word aversion. Comic kaze a good word, but I thought
it was pronounced differently as a kid, and when I
found out the correct way, I became annoyed. To this day,
I tend to cringe whenever I see it. Oh, it
(23:47):
haunts me. Keep up the awesome work. Sorry for using
awesome when we talked about that, is that one of
the words that kept landing on the list, because awesome
is like the word love is far overused and when
we actually encounter something or imagine something that is awe
inspiring that is awesome in a in a grander sense,
(24:08):
the word fails to don't Yeah, you're like that, I
can't use that word. That's really the appropriate word, but
now it's been watered down, and I have nothing like
an Angel of the Lord like steps out of a
UFO and starts handing out twinkies and then splits the
earth in half. Like that's an awesome sight. But you
can't say it's awesome because you already said that a
cup of coffee you had earlier in the day was awesome,
(24:28):
and and now that you've had this paranormal twinkie episode,
you just can't put the two in the same category.
I can definitely relate with her about the whole pronunciation thing,
because there have been words in in the past where
like I grew up saying I'm weird or or even
like for a very brief time, like when I first
read Jurassic Park, I didn't know it was pronounced a velociraptor,
(24:51):
and I think I said velisa raptor and uh, and
then it was corrected on it, and it's like, I
don't know, it's like in junior high or not even
quite junior high, but still the word velociraptor, I'll remember,
like that, the pain of having to be corrected on
its pronunciation. Yeah, I'm still angry at detritus. I want
it to be Detritus just feels like it should be.
(25:12):
But I'm very annoyed with the word as well. UM.
Got one more word of version. This is from Francis.
I was so surprised to see your word of version
podcast today. I had no idea there were others like me.
There are. I never bring word version up and conversation
because of the natural follow up question what words? And
I don't want to say them. They are, for the
most part, completely normal, everyday words that don't describe body
(25:34):
parts or anything disgusting. But when I hear someone use one,
it stops me completely. I have to digest what I
just heard, consider the word. It takes me a while
to recover. The most mild one that I'm willing to
write down is purse. Even that gave me a chill,
And that is the most mild of all the words
that I don't say. I wish I could do the
(25:54):
sentence thing this was. We invited people to create their
own sentences of words that we're we're reverse of um,
but it would take me a long time to recover.
I appreciated your sentence in the show, though some of
the words, one in particular is on my list, and
so it made me shiver to hear it. This whole
word thing is so ridiculous. My husband thinks I'm crazy,
but it's very real, and I can't seem to flip
that switch off. So in the meantime I just speak
(26:16):
in awkward sentences to avoid saying the bad words, sometimes
very awkward sentences things. For the great show, I listened intently,
was really interested in learning more about this word a
version thing. Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Francis
that I mean, I sort of understand that there are
certain trigger words and you don't want to say it,
and so there are certain words that sometimes they're just
(26:38):
trepidacious about and I end up having some sort of
word salad coming out of my mouth. So I can
sort of understand from a from a limited perspective speaking
which trepidacious great word? Yeah, it's a nice one. I
also like, there are a lot of great words I like,
But what's your most favorite? I don't know, Like I
was just thinking gargantulan is a great word, yeah, galgatha
(26:58):
like anything like which, remembering that one stem from the
other one, like any kind of word that has a
kind of a rolling cadence to it. I really like,
I really like coalyptiancalyptian, that's pretty good. That's mainly because
it means well formed buttocks. What other word could could
express such a sentiment? Reminds me cyclopean. I really like, yeah, um.
(27:21):
I mean there's so many, but I don't know if
it's really a word aversion or just an aversion to um.
Often are reluctance or inability to fully describe smells. And
I've mentioned this before. I tend to dislike people saying
something stinks, especially in reference to food, reference to cheeses
(27:42):
that stink quote unquote stink. If they say a stinky
cheese like that tends to get to me because I
feel like that's you're describing food, you're describing something that doesn't.
I mean, stink is just such a it's a broadly
applied word that doesn't actually convey any meaning. Like an.
I think we should use a we should have a
better vocabulary for for smells, and and if and if
(28:05):
we're going to talk about cheeses, especially in their children
around and you you know, you want to foster an
idea that that all foods should at least be tried.
Then maybe that cheese is not so much stinky as
it is, uh, you know, aromatic or pungent. Okay, you
need a team up with the odor artist. Setil told
us first of all, yeah, she's very much of the
same mindset. So second, you're pinning down a usage thing.
(28:29):
But is there one word that just chills you to
the marrow? Oh? Okay, what about vomit? I tend to
like vomit um. How could you love vomit? And on
all the lists, I don't. I mean, I don't like
vomiting and I don't like the substance of vomit. But
it's a v word and uh, and it rhymes with comet.
(28:52):
It has a very like it does have the plose
of consonants going for it. One of my favorite name
fictional names is there's a Brian mcnaton's book Throne of Bones.
There's a character, it's the King of the Ghoules and
his name is vomcron Noxus, which so I love that
name because it's taking a vomit and it's taking noxious
(29:12):
and it's kind of twisting the words around and creating
this new word rawn for chronos in it as well. Yeah,
there's a sense of that as well. You know, that's
sort of an ancient and godly uh statue to it.
So I tend to really like fake words and fake
names in fantasy and science fiction when they're well crafted,
not when they're just sort of you know, mindless dungeons
(29:33):
and dragons, sort of word salad where you just call
you know, some sort of vaguely tolken esque, uh, you know,
elf name or something. But I really have a hard
time thinking of any word that I dislike just for
the sake of the word. Maybe if I, if I
think about it, I'll share it in a future podcast
episode with Moist. It's not my go to word, and
(29:56):
I know that it annoys enough people that I would
probably not use it, Like, it's not really in my
satchel of words, but it's it doesn't bother me. All right, Well,
we should probably wrap up because I need to go
attend to this Moist crevice. Nothing. Well, I know that
you're using words you just like in a sentence, so
(30:17):
I thought I saw you WinCE. Yeah, well maybe a
little bit, but still it's not a not a strong,
not a like a you know, a visceral reaction. So
I'm gonna have to think, I'm I'm just gonna have
to be aware of myself listen and find that word that.
In the meantime, I'll try to drop as many drop
as many drop the whole list at me, you know,
in one sentence, if possible, I know what I'm doing
(30:37):
this week. All right, Well, there there you go, Arnold.
Do you feel better? Yeah, you feel a little more
more balanced, a little more healthy. Well that's great. We
will have to do this more often and maybe even
at the end of of podcast episodes. And if for
the rest of you, if you want to get in
touch with us as well, you can find us online.
It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the
(30:58):
mother ship. That's where everything can be found from our
podcasts and our videos and our blog posts. Two links
to our various social media accounts such as uh, Facebook, Twitter,
and Tumbler. We also we're on YouTube is Mind Stuff
Show and Julie. If they want to send us a
good old fashioned email, how do they go about that? Well,
it's very easy. All you have to do is compose
an email and then in the two areas the two
(31:20):
field You just put in stuff to blow your mind
at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands
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