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Green Renovation and Construction · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W.
0:19
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. Dressed like me today, all right? You can
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Speaker 1: even get like a little food stained right there, just like, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm wearing like a plaid collar shirt with a sweater
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Speaker 1: over it. And Josh came up and it's like, what's
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Speaker 1: up with that? You're stealing my look? And you are,
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Speaker 1: but you wear it well, Chuck. Well, if you came
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Speaker 1: in with a T shirt with a hole in it
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Speaker 1: and a half beard and a baseball cap, you would
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Speaker 1: yell at me too, flip flops. I would say the
0:44
Speaker 1: same thing. You get out the car radio antenna again,
0:47
Speaker 1: wouldn't you? Yeah, all right, what's your set up here? Well? Okay,
0:53
Speaker 1: you ready for my set up? This is all business,
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Speaker 1: isn't it. Let's do it all right, Chuck? You're heard
0:59
Speaker 1: of J. B. McKinnon. No, have you ever heard of
1:02
Speaker 1: the hundred Mile Food Movement? Yes? Okay, so J. B.
1:07
Speaker 1: McKinnon and uh I think his girlfriend were the people
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Speaker 1: who originated this and wrote that book. Plenty that's the
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Speaker 1: idea that you try to not eat any food that's
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Speaker 1: more than a hundred miles from your home, right, right,
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Speaker 1: And that kind of lends itself to seasonal leading. Yeah, um,
1:23
Speaker 1: he said, apparently good luck finding a beer that was
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Speaker 1: produced within a hundred miles like grown produced all within
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Speaker 1: a hundred miles. Right. But yea, it's the local basis
1:34
Speaker 1: of the local war movement, or at least the mouthpiece
1:37
Speaker 1: of it. Right. So he's become kind of this boy
1:39
Speaker 1: wonder and environmentalism as a whole since that book was released,
1:46
Speaker 1: people look to him for advice and he puts on
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Speaker 1: his glasses and clears his throat and gives it to
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Speaker 1: him sometimes. Um. But McKinnon uh had this pretty awesome
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Speaker 1: article um that was republished in the October September October
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Speaker 1: e Reader Uh and it was about basically not getting
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Speaker 1: paralyzed by having so many problems presented to us like
2:10
Speaker 1: we do, right, And he cites the sociologists paralyzed into
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Speaker 1: not taking action there's nothing I can do, or into
2:18
Speaker 1: taking too much action, which is equally problematic. Right. Um.
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Speaker 1: There's a uh famous sociologist named Stanley Cohen, and Cohen
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Speaker 1: that j b. McKinnon sites this isn't me, I'm just
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Speaker 1: a fan. Um. McKinnon cites Cohen's book States of Denial,
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Speaker 1: and basically in it, Cohen's like he talks about how
2:40
Speaker 1: we delude ourselves into inaction right largely because it's just
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Speaker 1: too much or you know, we're trying to do too much.
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Speaker 1: And he says, you know, there's only so much we
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Speaker 1: can do, and we can't waste our energy on every
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Speaker 1: single problem that we face. So what mckinnons McKinnon suggests
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Speaker 1: is um called vertical agitation, where you pick one topic
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Speaker 1: and you give it everything you've got. If you want
3:06
Speaker 1: to save the dolphins, you save those dolphins, you know,
3:10
Speaker 1: if you want to um, make sure every single person
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Speaker 1: in America follows through on this compact fluorescent bulb thing.
3:18
Speaker 1: That's your thing to make that your movement. If you
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Speaker 1: are interested in reducing the waste stream, that's your thing.
3:30
Speaker 1: And this is your podcast. Thanks straight, this is your podcast.
3:34
Speaker 1: I think I like the outtake better. Nope, Okay, well,
3:38
Speaker 1: let's plug ahead, chuckers Chuck. Specifically, we're gonna start out
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Speaker 1: with the problem that well, let's talk about this one
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Speaker 1: of the biggest sectors of municipal waste. That waste stream huge. Right.
3:54
Speaker 1: One of the big way, one of the big areas
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Speaker 1: of thought today is figuring out how to reduce to
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Speaker 1: the wast stream. And there's all sorts of ideas. There's
4:05
Speaker 1: a carpet company and I can't remember what it's called,
4:08
Speaker 1: but it's headed by this great idealist visionary um and
4:14
Speaker 1: they least carpeting. You never own the carpeting in your house.
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Speaker 1: You lease it, which is you're paying all the same
4:21
Speaker 1: price or whatever. But you when you have it taken out,
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Speaker 1: you can't take it to dump because it's not yours.
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Speaker 1: That company takes it back and they recycle it it is,
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Speaker 1: so it's being diverted from the waste stream, right. So uh.
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Speaker 1: One of the biggest um, one of the biggest sectors
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Speaker 1: of municipal waste that accounts for I think are accounting
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Speaker 1: for of all the waste generated and taken to the
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Speaker 1: dumps in the United States is called construction and demolition waste.
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Speaker 1: One big way of converting or diverting i'm sorry, waste
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Speaker 1: from this waste stream away from the municipal dump and
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Speaker 1: back into reuse is demolition over recyc remodeling, I'm sorry
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Speaker 1: over full demolition, right, if you're renovating your your old home, yes,
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Speaker 1: tearing it down starting over. The problem is is with
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Speaker 1: with being green. I'm making air quotes. It's gonna I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna do that every time I say that word. Okay, okay,
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Speaker 1: it's been so co opted. But being green is a
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Speaker 1: matter of details and context, right, right, So like recycling,
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Speaker 1: recycling is good, right, just just putting your bottles and
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Speaker 1: cans out by the curb. That's just a good idea,
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Speaker 1: isn't it not in every case? Buddy? Like what, Well,
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Speaker 1: wouldn't you be better off simply reusing a bottle rather
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Speaker 1: than throwing it out and and having it picked up
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Speaker 1: by what is actually a garbage truck, is just taking
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Speaker 1: it to a different place. Well yeah, I mean that's
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Speaker 1: and we mentioned this before. I can't remember which one
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Speaker 1: it was in, but we need to point out again
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Speaker 1: that's why the reduce, reuse, recycle, it's in an order
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Speaker 1: for a reason. Reduces the best thing you can do.
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Speaker 1: Don't even use that bottle, use your little aluminum bottle
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Speaker 1: to get your water. Fill it up with your little
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Speaker 1: filtered water at home, and just use that reuse if
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Speaker 1: you happen to have a bottle, and we do a
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Speaker 1: lot of this. Just keep filling that thing up, and
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Speaker 1: then at PCB and then at the very last resort
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Speaker 1: you can recycle. And if you're not doing any of
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Speaker 1: those three things, then you're just a jerk pretty much.
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Speaker 1: That's what I say. Yeah, recycle, you're right there. I mean,
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Speaker 1: you gotta have those big trucks that smashing anything together
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Speaker 1: and deliver it to places and plants, and there's a
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Speaker 1: lot of a lot of greenhouse gases admitted when you
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Speaker 1: do that, there's a lot of waste, there's a lot
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Speaker 1: of fuel spent. Yes, and the recycling process the same.
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Speaker 1: But recycling generally is good. The same thing can be
6:48
Speaker 1: said for renovating. Renovating is generally better than demolition, but
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Speaker 1: it is on a case by case basis, and it
6:55
Speaker 1: has to do with how you do it. There's actually, like,
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Speaker 1: you know, a green our way to to renovate. But
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Speaker 1: if you're looking at a house, an old house, and
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Speaker 1: you say, I'm either gonna tear this down or I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna totally remodel it, but I want to go green,
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Speaker 1: which when should I do? The rule of thumb generally
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Speaker 1: is to renovate simply because it produces less less waste, yes, right,
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Speaker 1: and plus all the materials it takes to build something
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Speaker 1: from the ground up is obviously going to be more.
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Speaker 1: Even if you took the house down to the foundation
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Speaker 1: and the studs, right, You're still gonna be saving on
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Speaker 1: the foundation and the studs as far as buying new
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Speaker 1: and manufacturing new materials. You've got a stat here, josh,
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Speaker 1: um about a hundred and thirty six million tons of
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Speaker 1: waste every year, which is about of what's filling up
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Speaker 1: our city dumps is construction, demolition waste. Now I have
7:46
Speaker 1: something surprising for you. I have. I've got a little
7:48
Speaker 1: surprised chuck. Oh good, that was two thousand seven, man,
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Speaker 1: what's it now in two ten if a hundred and
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Speaker 1: forty two million tons were generated, which they were, And
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Speaker 1: this is all construction and demolition, which includes highway construction
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Speaker 1: and repair, which accounts for a lot of it. Um,
8:08
Speaker 1: guess how much is estimated to be recycled this year?
8:13
Speaker 1: To be recycled, I don't know. Out of a hundred
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Speaker 1: forty two million tons recycled, that's fantastic. So a lot
8:23
Speaker 1: of this is it's being diverted away from it. Right,
8:27
Speaker 1: So there's success. Right. People are fine, are learning how
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Speaker 1: to do this, and that's a big part of it
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Speaker 1: is is not just um, not demolishing your house, but
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Speaker 1: even if you do demolish it, recycling the parts that
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Speaker 1: are demolished, reusing parts. Like you mentioned the Seattle based
8:44
Speaker 1: store restore, they got one this here in Atlanta to
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Speaker 1: do they Yeah, it's great. Man. Is there a restore
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Speaker 1: store like officially restore? I think it's called a restore.
8:53
Speaker 1: And Emily and I are renovating a house very slowly. Yeah.
8:57
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, are you still doing that? When
8:59
Speaker 1: I first met you, You're like, yeah, I renovate every weekend. Yeah,
9:03
Speaker 1: that's not every weekend now, it's it's very slowly. What's
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Speaker 1: the last thing you did? Uh? We did some yards stuff,
9:13
Speaker 1: yard stuff like fences and stairs and things like that.
9:17
Speaker 1: You're still squatting, huh. It's it's slow. Yeah, we're squatting. Um.
9:21
Speaker 1: So far, so good. Um. But restore is awesome because
9:26
Speaker 1: instead of going too like your big box retailer to
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Speaker 1: buy your new door, go to one of these restore
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Speaker 1: places and they'll have like sixty doors that have been
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Speaker 1: taken from houses and in great shape and maybe even
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Speaker 1: cooler and more you know, a period looking than than
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Speaker 1: the ones you can get at the big box place.
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Speaker 1: So and they have not only that, I mean it's
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Speaker 1: not just doors. They have like windows and window frames,
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Speaker 1: they have would they have all kinds of things that
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Speaker 1: have been removed from houses for re sale. So that's
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Speaker 1: a very good way to go if you're restoring your home.
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Speaker 1: It is and restore in any outfit like this. They
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Speaker 1: tend to be nonprofit, is right. They get their their
10:02
Speaker 1: supplies by people bringing them in and selling them to them,
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Speaker 1: and then they mark it up YadA YadA, or else
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Speaker 1: they donate it and sell it. Right, it's donated to restore,
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Speaker 1: or at least in Seattle, Restore will actually undertake demolition projects,
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Speaker 1: so they'll charge you to demolish your house, but they
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Speaker 1: do it by hand. They keep the nails, like down
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Speaker 1: to the nails. Everything is recycled. Everything that could possibly
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Speaker 1: be recycled is recycled. One of the cool things is
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Speaker 1: um since they're nonprofit and since they're taking the stuff
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Speaker 1: that can be salvage to resell in their store, you
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Speaker 1: get a tax deduction. So it may be slightly more
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Speaker 1: than like what the guy with the bulldozers going to
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Speaker 1: charge you, But ultimately, with the tax deduction, it may
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Speaker 1: it may come out to be less and you get
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Speaker 1: that good conscience thing, good karma come in your way. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: well you mentioned the projects they do by hand. Um
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Speaker 1: the e p A rated four of these um from
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Speaker 1: restore and they rated between seventy and nine reuse ratings.
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Speaker 1: That's amazing reuse and one of the other big benefits
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Speaker 1: of um demolishing your house by hand. I mean it's slow,
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Speaker 1: it's way way slower, but um, you know, the trees
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Speaker 1: in your yard have roots, and a bulldozer with tracks,
11:20
Speaker 1: even a bobcat can conceivably do it. Depending on how
11:23
Speaker 1: shallow the roots system is. Running over it can kill
11:26
Speaker 1: your tree. It's not good. It's a lot worse than
11:29
Speaker 1: running over your foot. And you've all I've heard of
11:31
Speaker 1: nightmares from friends of mine where you know, accidents happen
11:34
Speaker 1: when you get those big machines in there, like oops,
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Speaker 1: I accidentally dug into your sewer line or oops, I
11:41
Speaker 1: accidentally cracked your gas line. I mean, these things are
11:44
Speaker 1: supposed to be well marked, but you got a hundred
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Speaker 1: in your house. You never know what's going on underground
11:48
Speaker 1: and so and then once that happens, it's not only
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Speaker 1: more money, but it's not good for what's going on
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Speaker 1: in your environment local environment. If you are demolishing your
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Speaker 1: house and you are not paying to you resorted do it.
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Speaker 1: Let's say you're doing it yourself. You've got some time,
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Speaker 1: just feel like beating the tar out of some drywall
12:05
Speaker 1: with a sledge hammer. Um, there is there. You can
12:09
Speaker 1: put your stuff on Craigslist. Um. In addition to not
12:15
Speaker 1: having to pay to dump it, people will actually at
12:18
Speaker 1: the very least come take it away for free for
12:20
Speaker 1: their own use. Yeah. Right, So you can say, hey,
12:22
Speaker 1: I've got a really great door, here's a picture of it.
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Speaker 1: Who wants it? You can get away with getting rid
12:27
Speaker 1: of anything on Craigslist and this is the free section.
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Speaker 1: Like troll it any day and you will see I've
12:32
Speaker 1: got a pile of bricks. I got a pile of this,
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Speaker 1: And people will come and get it because they need
12:38
Speaker 1: that pile of bricks, because bricks ain't cheap. That's right.
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Speaker 1: And you might even be able to charge them if
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Speaker 1: you're a savvy demolisher for taking away your stuff. Yes,
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Speaker 1: there's also I wish I knew the name of the company,
12:48
Speaker 1: but I saw one of the home rena shows a
12:51
Speaker 1: few years ago. Right, what home reno show is that? Really?
12:55
Speaker 1: Are you going like an abbreviated name basis home renovation
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Speaker 1: television program? Am Uh, This company will come out and
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Speaker 1: take all of your demolition let's say you are demolishing it.
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Speaker 1: They will take your demolition waste on site, put it
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Speaker 1: into this machine that pulverizes it into little bits of
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Speaker 1: nothingness and separates the nails at the same time, like
13:18
Speaker 1: you see it shaking, the nails are coming out the side.
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Speaker 1: And then what they do then is they've got like
13:23
Speaker 1: half of your house and little pebble sized chunks, and
13:28
Speaker 1: then they'll lay it under your driveway and then pave
13:31
Speaker 1: on top of that. So right there, it's all on site,
13:36
Speaker 1: and it's probably not the cheapest thing in the world,
13:38
Speaker 1: but you get to have a clear conscience that you
13:39
Speaker 1: didn't go to the city dump and put your house
13:42
Speaker 1: on it. Essentially, this is what you're doing. We should
13:46
Speaker 1: probably also say that if you are going to save
13:48
Speaker 1: a few bucks, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ten
13:51
Speaker 1: grand and demolish your house yourself, Um, you should watch
13:55
Speaker 1: some videos on it, talk to some people who have
13:57
Speaker 1: done it before. It can actually be kind of dangerous.
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Speaker 1: You're deconstructing your house and it could fall on top
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Speaker 1: of you. Demolition is very dangerous. You need to know
14:05
Speaker 1: what you're doing. You need to have the right gear.
14:07
Speaker 1: Don't be a dummy. Don't be a dummy. You want
14:09
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about green building. Yeah,
14:11
Speaker 1: So let's say you've gutted your house and you're in
14:14
Speaker 1: the market to maybe make some greener improvements, right, right,
14:19
Speaker 1: So let's talk green building. Dude. Well, there's green materials.
14:23
Speaker 1: And you may not know this, but pretty much any
14:26
Speaker 1: material that you need to build your house, you can
14:29
Speaker 1: find a recycled version of that if you look hard enough.
14:32
Speaker 1: So that's where you should start. Well, you're looking at well,
14:35
Speaker 1: there's two different ways that something can come to be
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Speaker 1: recycled post industrial, so like um fly ash in your
14:43
Speaker 1: concrete could be recycled. It could be captured from you know,
14:47
Speaker 1: an industrial as industrial waste um and that's actually good.
14:52
Speaker 1: I think fly ashes is particularly bad to just bury.
14:56
Speaker 1: It's good to use it up from what I understand,
14:59
Speaker 1: Or it could be post in sumer, meaning like somebody
15:02
Speaker 1: took their toilet paper roll, put it in the recycling stream,
15:07
Speaker 1: and now it's part of your wood floor. Because that
15:10
Speaker 1: does happen sometimes. The laminate floors you can get is
15:13
Speaker 1: recycled things pressed together with a wood vineer on top. Right,
15:17
Speaker 1: easy to install, cheap, cheap, cheap. Yes. And if you
15:21
Speaker 1: have a playground, have you been to the Piedmont Park playground? No?
15:26
Speaker 1: But does it have one of those rubber floors? It
15:29
Speaker 1: is so much fun to walk on, Josh. Another thing too,
15:32
Speaker 1: is you can they have this wood now quote unquote
15:35
Speaker 1: wood that you can use for decking. That's not wood,
15:38
Speaker 1: it's actually recycled bottles. Yeah, but it looks like wood
15:42
Speaker 1: pet bottles, not glass bottles. Yeah. And then speaking of
15:48
Speaker 1: quote unquote wood, bamboo flooring is huge. It's actually a
15:52
Speaker 1: grass draw of bamboo. Is that it grows back in
15:55
Speaker 1: five to six years, like takes a twenty years, I
16:00
Speaker 1: think to to mature filly again. You know you know
16:02
Speaker 1: what that's called? Then a sustainable product. Really, that's what
16:06
Speaker 1: sustainable means. I have not heard that phrase before. Uh,
16:10
Speaker 1: you can recycle steel, you can melt it down, reform it,
16:13
Speaker 1: reshape it. The World Trade Center was largely recycled. I
16:16
Speaker 1: don't know if you knew that I did, And in fact,
16:18
Speaker 1: there was a big breuhaha afterward because a lot of
16:21
Speaker 1: the families of victims from the Twin Towers following said
16:25
Speaker 1: that's evidence. You should study it. And then Bloomberg, who
16:29
Speaker 1: was an engineer, another engineer, said, you know, it's should
16:31
Speaker 1: be recycled. There's not a lot you can learn about
16:33
Speaker 1: the structural integrity of the building from actually looking at
16:36
Speaker 1: the collapse steel. You need to look at like computer
16:39
Speaker 1: programs that show how it was built. So we appreciate
16:42
Speaker 1: you saying that, but we're going to recycle it. Bloomberg
16:44
Speaker 1: was an engineer. I don't know, I said that, so
16:47
Speaker 1: I hope so I thought. I thought I read that
16:50
Speaker 1: he was an engineer at one point. He's a sharp
16:52
Speaker 1: attack maybe not. Cork floor is another um option if
16:56
Speaker 1: you want to go green. Besides, it's sustainable as well. Yeah,
16:59
Speaker 1: because bamboo a crly um. It's susceptible the spottiness from
17:03
Speaker 1: exposure to UV well both oh corcus to corcus too.
17:09
Speaker 1: But you need to know this going in. If you don't, uh,
17:13
Speaker 1: if you live in a house where you have a
17:14
Speaker 1: room that's not like the sun beating down on it
17:17
Speaker 1: at all times. Maybe that's a good option. Like bathroom, Yeah, exactly,
17:20
Speaker 1: the bathroom that's windowless. You know that doctor's office we
17:23
Speaker 1: went to the day was bamboo before. Had you seen that? Unmistakable?
17:27
Speaker 1: You can tell people you have grass floor, you can
17:31
Speaker 1: you can tell people you have a grass floor. Bamboo
17:34
Speaker 1: is grass? Yeah, okay, I don't. I don't know. Um.
17:39
Speaker 1: Tankless water heaters obviously, I think we might have talked
17:41
Speaker 1: about this before. Do you have one? Are you just
17:44
Speaker 1: a fan? No, I'm just a fan. It's called on
17:46
Speaker 1: demand heating. And the idea here is if you don't
17:48
Speaker 1: know about these, is that your your water heater in
17:51
Speaker 1: your basement. If it's a tank, water heater is just
17:53
Speaker 1: a big tank full of water and it's always being
17:57
Speaker 1: kept hot. So if if you need a shower or
18:00
Speaker 1: it's gonna be hot. If you're out of town for
18:01
Speaker 1: a week, you know, they say turn it down, but
18:03
Speaker 1: if you don't, it's still gonna be eating that water
18:05
Speaker 1: for nothing. On demand heating means they heat the water
18:09
Speaker 1: at the source, then it flows into your faucet and
18:14
Speaker 1: uh is hot upon demand instead of keeping it all
18:16
Speaker 1: hot you can. You can have one for the whole house,
18:20
Speaker 1: or if you just want to have one by like
18:22
Speaker 1: just for your dishwasher, you can do that, have like
18:24
Speaker 1: a smaller one, and they're a little bit more expensive,
18:26
Speaker 1: but you get that money back. You'll save it eventually,
18:28
Speaker 1: so they will pay for themselves. Yeah. Well, most of
18:30
Speaker 1: the stuff like solar heating and all that kind of thing,
18:33
Speaker 1: and wind energy, that's all. You know, there's a payoff eventually.
18:37
Speaker 1: So you just gotta look at how long you're gonna
18:39
Speaker 1: be living there, how much the investment is, what kind
18:42
Speaker 1: of tax breaks you're gonna get, and figure out if
18:45
Speaker 1: it makes sense for you, or if you've just got
18:48
Speaker 1: the dough and you want to do a really green thing,
18:50
Speaker 1: then just do it anyway. That's what I say. Insulation, Yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: I like this one. Go ahead. Then, so you've got
18:59
Speaker 1: I think heating and cooling is about thirty of your
19:03
Speaker 1: the average bill, right, average utility. I don't know, while
19:07
Speaker 1: insulation can save fifteen, right, but you're heating and cooling
19:11
Speaker 1: is about thirty percent of like all the money you
19:13
Speaker 1: put out a month on the utilities, So you proper
19:17
Speaker 1: insulations save fift That not too shabby. The problem is
19:22
Speaker 1: this fiberglass, and fiberglass can be well, not so good
19:26
Speaker 1: for the lungs. This is a kid from Liby Owen's
19:31
Speaker 1: corning Forward right down. They've gotten better with it, but
19:35
Speaker 1: you still when you see the dudes come in, they've
19:37
Speaker 1: got on like the hazmat suit, and you think, what
19:41
Speaker 1: am I lining my home with? If these guys can't
19:43
Speaker 1: touch it or breathe it, how about this line your
19:46
Speaker 1: home instead with old jeans, old blue jeans and newspaper. Yeah,
19:52
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. And they spray this stuff in. They've
19:54
Speaker 1: you ever seen it? I have, and it's fascinating it.
19:58
Speaker 1: And not only that, so it's a double doozy. So
20:00
Speaker 1: not only are you getting they say it rates better
20:02
Speaker 1: as insulation, you're not using the harmful, potentially toxic fiberglass,
20:08
Speaker 1: and you're taking all this newspaper and blue jeans and
20:11
Speaker 1: saving it from the landfill. So it's like a triple
20:13
Speaker 1: whammy right there. So what else do we have? Chuck?
20:19
Speaker 1: You got countertops, recycled paper and glass, and aluminum concrete
20:24
Speaker 1: is really popular these days. Don't forget to use that
20:26
Speaker 1: post industrial fly ash concrete. That's right, But that's all
20:29
Speaker 1: the rage very trendy, and of course the compact fluorescent
20:33
Speaker 1: light bulb controversial. Yeah, it's it's become a source of um. Well,
20:39
Speaker 1: it's become a poster boy for cynics of um the
20:44
Speaker 1: ability of one person to make any kind of change
20:47
Speaker 1: all they can you want to stat Yeah, well, a
20:50
Speaker 1: lot of people don't use them because they complain that
20:53
Speaker 1: it's not a warm uh bulb and it's very cold. Yeah,
20:58
Speaker 1: they've gotten a little bit better, they've gotten warmer. But
21:01
Speaker 1: let's say you're not a fan of it, don't necessarily
21:04
Speaker 1: think that you have to go all or nothing. If
21:06
Speaker 1: everyone in the country, if every household swapped out one
21:10
Speaker 1: bulb in their home, that would save enough energy to
21:13
Speaker 1: power three million homes for a year, prevent nine billion
21:18
Speaker 1: pounds of greenhouse gasses, which is the equivalent of eight
21:21
Speaker 1: hundred thousand cars running for a full year. If everyone
21:25
Speaker 1: did one one one bulbs alright, not bad, and they
21:30
Speaker 1: last a lot longer. They cost a little bit more,
21:33
Speaker 1: but you save about forty dollars per bulb over its
21:36
Speaker 1: lifetime because they last ten thousand hours compared to about
21:40
Speaker 1: eight hundred two thousand hours. And like I said, if
21:44
Speaker 1: you don't like the the white hue of the compact fluorescent.
21:47
Speaker 1: Just put one in a place in your house that
21:49
Speaker 1: you don't spend a ton of time in and pat
21:52
Speaker 1: yourself on the back that you did a little bit
21:53
Speaker 1: of good. Can you imagine being the poor sap West
21:56
Speaker 1: to stand there in time the fluorescent bulb? See how
22:00
Speaker 1: long it lasts? And for quality assurance, we're in a
22:04
Speaker 1: lab coach just staring at your watch for ten thousand
22:06
Speaker 1: straight hours? I wonder how ten hours? What does that
22:09
Speaker 1: break down to? How many days is that? Several? Several days?
22:14
Speaker 1: So that's all I got. It's greener to to renovate,
22:17
Speaker 1: it seems, as a rule, but within that there are
22:21
Speaker 1: things you can do to be even greener. Yeah, Or
22:23
Speaker 1: if you're gonna build from the ground up, there are
22:25
Speaker 1: ways to go about that to make it greener as well.
22:28
Speaker 1: Because again, technically, if you demolish your house and recycle
22:32
Speaker 1: all of it, yeah, or if or if you renovate
22:36
Speaker 1: and don't recycle anything, demolishing was a better choice. There
22:40
Speaker 1: was greener Chuck, what else you got? I got nothing?
22:43
Speaker 1: I got nothing either. Um diverting waste of the landfill. Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 1: we don't do the green thing alive. It's been a while.
22:50
Speaker 1: We like to touch these every now and then, and
22:52
Speaker 1: so we just touched it. It's been touched, and it
22:55
Speaker 1: touched us right there. If you want to learn more
22:57
Speaker 1: about all things green, Um, how stuff works had a
23:00
Speaker 1: an entire channel dedicated to green. It's a sub channel
23:04
Speaker 1: under science. Right, darn skippy. You can just type green
23:07
Speaker 1: into the handy search bar and that will bring up
23:09
Speaker 1: about fifteen thousand returns. Right since I said search far,
23:15
Speaker 1: it's time now for listener mail. Alright, listener mail, Josh.
23:20
Speaker 1: I got a couple of things here. I want a
23:22
Speaker 1: quick listener mail, and then another list of movies that
23:27
Speaker 1: you called for, um, little known or underappreciated movies. Yeah,
23:31
Speaker 1: some were quite as little known as yeah. I got
23:33
Speaker 1: a problem with a few of these. But first from
23:36
Speaker 1: Rachel um Hi, Chuck, Josh, and Jerry huge fan. You
23:39
Speaker 1: mentioned the snuggy inventor, and I wanted to share a
23:42
Speaker 1: little gossip. This is good. Actually, are you gonna read this? Really?
23:45
Speaker 1: I asked her, and she said go ahead, yeah, But
23:47
Speaker 1: are you gonna ask the snuggy inventor? I'm gonna say,
23:49
Speaker 1: allegedly through the whole thing, allegedly last weekend, my friend
23:53
Speaker 1: catered the Snuggy inventor's daughters bought mitzvah. Allegedly it was
23:57
Speaker 1: it some Trump country club, and Vanna was there, allegedly allegedly,
24:02
Speaker 1: it wasn't an Avana look alike. It was paid to
24:05
Speaker 1: be there. That's right. The event was Broadway themed and
24:07
Speaker 1: the daughter's face was photoshopped onto a bunch of Broadway
24:11
Speaker 1: banners like cats and Billy Elliott. I've been to a
24:14
Speaker 1: New York Broadway theme. Bought mitzvah before two really people
24:18
Speaker 1: with some dough Sure? Yeah, my friend worked to the
24:21
Speaker 1: martini bar and allegedly did not get a single tip.
24:25
Speaker 1: And that's the scoop from Rachel allegedly. And now little
24:32
Speaker 1: known movies are underappreciated movies. What was the exact call
24:35
Speaker 1: for overlooked, overlooked um attack Attack the gas station as
24:41
Speaker 1: a Korean film? I have not seen that. You have
24:43
Speaker 1: not seen that. We had like three or four people
24:46
Speaker 1: sending the movie being there, which I've heard it sounds familiar.
24:52
Speaker 1: Oh it's great, Peter Seller's how ask But it was
24:55
Speaker 1: not overlooked because it made thirty million dollars in nineteen
24:59
Speaker 1: seventy nine just pretty, and it was nominated for two
25:02
Speaker 1: Academy Awards, one of which one Best Supporting Actor. Maybe
25:05
Speaker 1: they mean like by the average person. I think that
25:08
Speaker 1: they kind of. I was specifically asking for movie suggestions
25:11
Speaker 1: for me, well being there. I saw Capturing the Freedman's
25:14
Speaker 1: Last Night. Have you seen that? Ye Oh my god,
25:17
Speaker 1: that movie. Man. The whole time, I was like, they
25:20
Speaker 1: did it, they didn't do it, they did it, they
25:21
Speaker 1: didn't do it. I just kicked back and watched and
25:24
Speaker 1: it was like, Wow, this is crazy. What do you
25:27
Speaker 1: think at the end? Did you think they did it
25:28
Speaker 1: or didn't do it? I don't think the Sun did it.
25:31
Speaker 1: I don't think either of them did it. I don't
25:33
Speaker 1: need I think the dad had. We should probably not
25:36
Speaker 1: spoil it for people. Yeah, I think the dad had
25:39
Speaker 1: definite issues, and he admitted as such. But I don't
25:41
Speaker 1: think he did it. And that he got caught for
25:43
Speaker 1: stuff you didn't get caught for. I meant he got
25:46
Speaker 1: what a great movie that? Yeah? It was documentary. UM
25:50
Speaker 1: one nice lady sent in the movie office space, not
25:53
Speaker 1: too terribly overlooked. It depends on the crowd you run with.
25:57
Speaker 1: I would imagine if you hang out, um, with both
26:00
Speaker 1: who play shuff shuffle board regularly. Yes, office Space may
26:05
Speaker 1: have been overlooked. It was overlooked in the theaters. It
26:07
Speaker 1: became a big hit on video, so you know what
26:10
Speaker 1: was overlooked at the in the theater. So um, that
26:13
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been looked at. It was Extract, his third movie. Yeah,
26:17
Speaker 1: that wasn't very good, terrible, but Idiocracy was awesome. I
26:20
Speaker 1: thought it was okay. It started to get a little
26:22
Speaker 1: old to me, didn't. Yeah, the premise sort of was like,
26:25
Speaker 1: all right, it's a one joke premise, and it got old. No,
26:27
Speaker 1: I thought he did well with a one joke premise.
26:30
Speaker 1: One thumbs up, one thumbs medium. The Last Waltz. Someone
26:35
Speaker 1: sent that in the excellent Martin Scorsese film about the
26:37
Speaker 1: band's last performance, which, how dare you? I've seen it
26:42
Speaker 1: like a hundred times. Um Alien Apocalypse starring the great
26:45
Speaker 1: great Bruce Campbell. Yeah, I've never heard of this one
26:48
Speaker 1: quack ser Fortune has a cousin in the Bronx. I
26:51
Speaker 1: looked this up and it sounds pretty good. Gene Wilder,
26:53
Speaker 1: Gene Wilder, you can't go wrong, Never can go Jean
26:56
Speaker 1: wild in nineteen seventy have you seen the Original Producers.
26:59
Speaker 1: I've only seemed like the first twenty minutes and it's hilarious. Yeah,
27:03
Speaker 1: it's great. Gene Wilder was the man the Proposition, which
27:06
Speaker 1: was an awesome, gritty western written by Nick Cave. Did
27:09
Speaker 1: you see that? Yeah? I did. That's the that's this
27:12
Speaker 1: one and only right the Guy Piers. Yeah, it's pretty
27:16
Speaker 1: Australian western. Yeah. I don't know if awesome is the
27:19
Speaker 1: right word. Like, it's pretty good. I liked it too,
27:23
Speaker 1: but I mean I was expecting more from it. I
27:25
Speaker 1: must say. Well, and since we're on the western thing,
27:27
Speaker 1: I'm gonna recommend um the the Jesse James movie that
27:31
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt was in The Assassination. Just yes, I have
27:34
Speaker 1: not seen that. Man, it is awesome. Um my western pick, Yes, ravenous. Yeah,
27:45
Speaker 1: Rabbins was great. Yeah, it was another Guy Piers movie.
27:48
Speaker 1: Jerry's like, hey, guys are going on and um, people
27:51
Speaker 1: like to hear this though. Um, someone recommended the movie
27:54
Speaker 1: Senecto Key, New York's Connectady. Yeah it's senecto key. Jerry said, true. Oh, well,
28:01
Speaker 1: it's a Greek word and it means I can't remember
28:04
Speaker 1: what it means, but it has to do with the
28:06
Speaker 1: play on the words Schenectady. So the Greek word means
28:10
Speaker 1: a play on words. Now, but I was gonna say that.
28:13
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what it means. But it's a really,
28:16
Speaker 1: really weird movie by Charlie Kaufman. And I thought it
28:19
Speaker 1: was Schenectady, okay. And Philip si Moore Hoffman, the great
28:25
Speaker 1: Phil Hoffman. Yeah, I saw him beside me in a
28:27
Speaker 1: car one time in l A. I think you've told
28:29
Speaker 1: that story. I don't have it. Well, let's hear that one.
28:33
Speaker 1: I just saw him at the car next meeting Christ
28:35
Speaker 1: little le Baron. You have told that story. No, I
28:38
Speaker 1: told the story about seeing uh John c Riley. Oh,
28:42
Speaker 1: and I'm confusing John Voight because of the Christ wrestle there. Um.
28:47
Speaker 1: Someone recommended Danny Boyle's sci fi movie Sunshine with that
28:51
Speaker 1: was awesome until it fell apart. Ah my god, I've
28:55
Speaker 1: never seen a movie unraveled more decidedly than that, And
28:58
Speaker 1: I've never been more disappointed and like into a movie
29:01
Speaker 1: and then disappointed by how it ended, because it was
29:04
Speaker 1: really great up to a point. Um. And then a
29:07
Speaker 1: movie called forty four inch Chest with the great Ray
29:11
Speaker 1: Winstone and the greater Ian McShane who was swear Engine
29:17
Speaker 1: on Deadwood and actually see the owner of the hotel.
29:22
Speaker 1: McShane was like the just the big dog in town
29:26
Speaker 1: or swearr Engine was. But Ray Winstone and McShane were
29:28
Speaker 1: also in Sexy Beast, which was yeah, yeah, and so
29:34
Speaker 1: when also sent in and I didn't write this down,
29:35
Speaker 1: but I'm glad I thought of it in Bruges with
29:38
Speaker 1: Colin Ferrell, Colin Farrell and Ray Winstone, which is an awesome,
29:43
Speaker 1: awesome movie. And then finally this was at the last minute,
29:47
Speaker 1: like right before we recorded a German film called Downfall,
29:50
Speaker 1: and I don't know anything about it, so I can't
29:52
Speaker 1: not recommend nor dissuade you from seeing that. You know
29:57
Speaker 1: what I want to see as soon as the Human
29:58
Speaker 1: Sun apede I've not seen. I've heard I saw a
30:01
Speaker 1: trailer for it. I really want to see it. It's
30:04
Speaker 1: awful And I guess, uh, if you have never seen
30:09
Speaker 1: Cats Live, go go all right, Chuck, that's it. Huh. Yeah,
30:16
Speaker 1: I mean that was a good ten minutes of movie.
30:19
Speaker 1: If you want to say hi to me and chuck
30:21
Speaker 1: it tell us to shut up, send us an email
30:24
Speaker 1: at Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. For
30:31
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
30:34
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
30:37
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
30:39
Speaker 1: of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
30:43
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