Latest / WoT Spoilers / Towers of Tangents - EP582

Transcript

Towers of Tangents - EP582 · WoT Spoilers

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This is the Wheel of Time spoilers podcast. It's Tangent Time.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Tangents, Towers of Tangents, Towers of Tangents, Towers.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Of Tangents, Welcome to Towers of Tangents.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Towers of Tangents. The episode where we and
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: vibe things before we start and talk about whatever we
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: want to because this is the stuff after the music,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: but it's a whole episode of it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have finished book thirteen of The Wheel of Time.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We have finished Towers of Midnight, and as is our tradition,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: we have to have just an episode of sheer bullshit
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in between to wrap up. I think we're going to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: have actually a week gap after this episode, just to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: give us all a breather before we pick up our
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: next season, which, as most of you should know by now,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: is going to be New Spring, not Memory of Light.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: But we always just need to like blow off steam
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and talk about literally whatever, So that's what we're here
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I gotta say, this feels like a huge accomplishment to me.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I know I say that at the end of every book, right,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: but like in swimming, it was always the lap before
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the last lap that was the hardest because that's when
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: you're the most tired. But it's not the last lap yet. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the last lap. You can tell yourself, you know what
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: all I gotta do is make I can put everything
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I have into this last thing, because I don't have
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: to have anything left. And I think that there's something
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: about like the wheel time we're going to hit the
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: last book. But it's the last book. That's not hard,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: that's exciting, that's a memory of light, you know that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: But and doing the rest of the series really feels
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: like in a camp plishment to the point where I'm
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, I can't believe we've gotten here.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: You know, it's inevitable, you're going to finish now, there's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: no doubt, right right. That's the thing you're pushing through
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the wholes is like can I make it? Can I
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: make it? And yeah, yeah, we can make it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It can make it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: We're making it. We have made all the difficult parts.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Now we just have to survive the emotional turmoil of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: finishing this massive project. But like, that's a whole different
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: challenge than being midway through book six wondering if you're
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: still going to be going in another three years, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: like also.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: There's something to this, like I've come to the point
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: in my life where like kind of starting looking to
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: have kids, and that's obviously at the earliest nine months away,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: you know, like probably further than that, but really with
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the point where like that's something that we want to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: try and try and do. And this is sort of
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: again the end of this is about nine months away,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and there is this certain like cemetery in my life
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: where I'm looking at, like, oh, the ending of this podcast,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: which is going to happen almost exactly ten years after
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: it happens, might also happen at the beginning of creating
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: like a different kind of life.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: That would be a wild handoff right podcast to baby Yeah, Yeah,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It's it's been a long journey over the last nine years,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and the Tangents at the end of the last book
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: are going to be wild Yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean that we might just have to like
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: rebrand the podcast as the Tangent's Podcast and just keep going.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, we need somewhere to put our continuing conversations
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: about books that isn't starting a new podcast with every
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: new book series. Sure, so maybe maybe we just rebrand this.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know, and then we can do things like
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: talk about politics and shit that.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Like where our tangents went.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, deal with it, deal with it because that's where
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: our interests are, you know, and that. And then you
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: could just be like, yeah, we're just rebranding to like
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the like Tangents, Wheel of Tangents, like just.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally yeah and then yeah, like Voji says, in
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: like fifteen years, you can do a rerun of Wheel
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: at time your kid as the first time reader.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I want to tie your child's experience it nevers.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Look, if you want to still have a house, the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: way this economy is going, you got to get off
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: for ranky about this. Exploitation begins at home.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Listen, kid, you sound cute on tape, so get talking.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: You got a great face for podcasts or whatever they
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: are by then, because we'll be onto a new medium.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: We well, no podcast might I think the form of
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: radio listening to other people talk to each other is
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: so ingrained in who we are as a species. Like
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: however we receive it, whether it's through the implants in
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: our you know, spine that are directly activating the hearing
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: neurons in our brain, We're still going to want to
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: listen to two people talking about shit.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just really hoping we get past the podcast terminology
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: because it's like, come on, man, podcasts, it's it's a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: dumb word. I want a new word. I want a new.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Word to me. Podcast represents a very specific technology, which
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: is hosted audio files served up in an RSS feed
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: to a reader that downloads the RSS feed, figures out
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: where the podcast is located, and then downloads that directly
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: from wherever it's hosted.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we probably won't get a new word.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: For it because that is a technology that is open source. Right,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: anybody can say, you can download my RSS feed, which
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: is just a text file, so you can host that
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: just about anywhere, and then you can point them at
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: any server you want in the world to download your
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: audio files, which means you control the audio files and
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: you control the feed. And the reality is no one
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: can take that away from you. As long as the
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Internet exists, podcast can exist as a free medium. And
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: they are trying to stop that. They are trying to
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: make it very difficult to do that. But like email,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: email is also a protocol, Like RSS is a protocol,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: it is knowledge and as long as everybody agrees on
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: both ends. You can communicate using that knowledge and nobody
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: else can stop you. And it's what makes the Internet powerful.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And I do think that podcasts, and one of the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: reasons I do a podcast is because this form of
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: media is so difficult for anyone to force you to
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: put at It's not like on YouTube where they can
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: just take your videos down. No one can ever take
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: down our podcasts.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, spreaker could stop posting us and then
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: we'd have to relocate.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: We'd have to relocate. But you can just change the
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: text of your RSS feed point to the new location
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: of your new files. And because this is the Internet,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: if nobody will host you, you can buy your own computer,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: hook it up to the Internet, and host them in
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: your own living room, right like nobody can stop.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Not gonna lie. I kind of want to do that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I kind of want to host function even media out
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of my closet. Like it's kind of become a bit
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: of like a fantasy.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: It is doable, it is. The technology exists to do that,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: and it is not that difficult. Now, it's not that easy.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: It's not that easy because and you know, we don't
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: have the kind of bandwidth where we really have to
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: worry about hosting a large number of downloads, like it'd
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: be hit pretty hard when we put out the thing
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: for the first time. You know, the bandwidth might choke
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: up just a little bit. But usually what happens is
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: it gets uploaded to Apple servers and they just fucking
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: serve it right, so them and Spotify. Spotify makes a copy.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I hate the Spotify makes a copy.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Not a fan of that.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know if more services are doing that,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: but at least when I last looked into it, Spotify
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: was the only one making a copy.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would not trust them to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: still be the only one.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: So anyway, that was my first huge tangent before we
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: got into our prestructured tangents.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I have a vague roadmap because I like to know
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: where we're going, no.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: And it's it's nice to have a at least if
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: we ever get to that point where're like, oh, wait,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: what are we talking about? We can refer back to
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the list, and you know we want to talk about
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: like well, we usually hitting tangents, which are like, do
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: we want to brush the major over the major events
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: of the book and sort of talk about the book
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: is a general thing talk about our real lives and
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: then just like general world kind of real life stuff, right.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Stuff Over the period of time we've been doing the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: books is kind of nice. And we started this in
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: late July of last year. Okay, just after Waltcon, I checked,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: so we kind of came home from Watcong and got
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: settled from that and then fired up a new book.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So we've been working on this for more like ten months,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's been since Watcon basically that we're kind
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: of capturing in this tangent window. And yeah, as we
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: just heard in the recording we did a few minutes
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: ago slash the one that everyone who's listening to us
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: now heard last week. This book started with Land gathering
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: his army and Grandall's keeping bailfire and then ends with
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Land charging that army in a hopeless thing and grand
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: All being taken down by Shida Huran. The book very
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: much begins and ends at the same place. And yeah,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: other major events in the book that I ripped this
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: off of your list of summaries that you have for
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: our scheduling thing. I kind of then summarized your summaries
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and was like, Okay, what are the big big points.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: So one of the major ones is Galad becomes Lord
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Captain of the White Cloaks and does the trial plot
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the whole Paren everything to do with that, right.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: And then Paren being den levels up, like we get
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: through that, we get as reunited Army. He starts becoming
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: zen Wolf brother and does that whole training montage. At
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the same time, has a fight with Slayer but doesn't
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: win right, goes.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Through the dream battle and affects Igwayne's whole reality, and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: deals with Hopper's death, does all of his Wolf plot
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: stuff with the exception of killing Slayer. This book is
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: where Paren wraps up every single Wolf plot except for
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: getting Slayer's powers and killing Slayer right popping in and
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: out of the dream and also literally killing Slayer. But
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: other than that, Parent has done. Paren has done all
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: his stuff.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And we finally get sync back up in the timeline.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Parent's been behind in the timeline for a while now,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: and so he finally like jumps ahead and gets to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: meet up with Randon.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Agwaine right right, yeah, bringing the timelines back together at
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: long freaking last.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Also, Paren negotiates with Elaine about the two Rivers. That's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: also a plot thread that he wraps up and puts
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: on a nice backburner that can wait until the fourth age.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And as part of that you get sort of the
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: more gase Elaine gallawd Gwin plot line sort of wraps
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: up like they're all reunited as they were split up
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: when the sort of the country was destroyed.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Right, we're putting Camelin back together, We're putting and Or
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: back together. We even putting Kyrine back together. Agwayne deals
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of stuff in this book, putting the
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: White Tower back together. Right, She deals with zen Rand,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: she deals with the reunification, She deals with Massana where
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: she dealt with Certification before, but she also deals with Masana.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: She becomes a full blown wise one and she breaks
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the brain of a forsaken Agwayne really also basically has
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: no loose ends left to wrap up. Also, she you know,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: marries her fate.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah whatever, Why am I picturing the anime as the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: like the characters stand up like rubble falling off with them,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: are have achieved my final form and how we will
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: battle to the death. Like it really feels like all
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: these characters really are reaching like the final you know,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: they might have like one final power to learn during
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: the final battle, right, They usually like Parent learns how
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: to do the popping out of the real world, Brand
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: learns how to like manipulate the threads of the pattern
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: in real time. Agwayne learns like the crystal the flame
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of tarballin spell. They all have this like final spell
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: they're going to learn during the last battle, but they
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: are who they are going to be going into that
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: last battle.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you have to have one last level up
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: during the battle. Otherwise where's the narrative tension going to
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: come from?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Right, Right, you have to be losing and then something
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: to level up and then be.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Winning again, right, or you need to be losing and
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: then someone makes it worse, like Gowan and the Blood Knives,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: which is coming right like this. This was Godwin and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the Blood Knives Triumphant, where Gowen actually does save Agwayne
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and does do his warder job, but he also picks
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: up the rings and he has every single plot thread
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: wrapped up, and then he picks up those freaking rings
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and makes it so that he has a hanging thread
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that will be Agwain's undoing in the next book. But
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: like gowin versus the Bloodknives is a whole thing.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And he has a moment here where you're like,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: we couldn't Gollin could not be the most tated character
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: in Wheel of Time, Like he could have come around
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: here on Rand. He could have like accepted his place
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: with a Gwain. He could have you know, turned over
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: the blood rings or never just not use them, like
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: kept them as trophies or whatever. Like there's so much
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: he could have done and not gone after Demon Dred.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this was the book where he could have stopped.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: He could have not been the most dated character because.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: He had accomplishments. He saved her, he had character growth
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: he realized he needed to be. But then like that
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: character growth is thrown out. And I think that's why
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: it's so hard to see that character growth in this book,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: is that it's thrown out in the next book when
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: he goes ahead and just you know ignores it everything.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Else, because it's believable. In this book, this book, he
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: goes from the worst to what we were asking for.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe not the best, but he goes from the nadir
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of his arc to oh, he's changed his clothes, he's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: changed his speech, he's changed his body. Language. He is
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: really on a different level and it's so believable in
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: this book.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And he's made a decision not to be the first
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Prince but to be a warder, and then like that
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: it was gone.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know that's it's important sometimes to have
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: things go wrong, and Gowen is one of those object lessons.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Gowen, we've yeah got Yeah. He gets to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: reunite with more Gaze, as does Elaine. Right, Elaine gets
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to meet more Gaze, you know, meet mo get to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: be together from her Gaze and Glade. She also negotiates
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: with Matt about the dragons, parent about the two rivers. Right,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: like Elaine is putting and Or back together. She's making
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the moves on Kyrie, and like she is also wrapping
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: up so she's still pregnant. That plot can't be ended.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: But we've got the dragons in production, right, Like, so
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: much of the stuff she's been working on is finally
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: coming to fruition.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: She becomes the Queen of Camelot, right Like the Queen,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: she reunites all the big lands in the middle, you know,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: essentially everything is united under her and then eventually, just
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: under her leadership, anything that wasn't United just comes under
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: her direct leadership.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, she's got a good mill plitary industrial complex.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: You know, she's young and in charge. Like it is Camelot.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I mean the United States.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: No, the United States is definitely seawan Chan.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking specifically of our Camelot era, like the five
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: years or whatever that we were the best, the Kennedy years,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: oh space program like that. It's called camelot. It's a
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: whole part of American law and mythos. I think it's
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: like the title of Jackie Kennedy's book or something like that,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Like it's a whole thing. There's many meanings to camelot.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: The boomer self massabatory era.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It's when America was great?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Wow? Is that why?
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: That is specifically when America was the greatest. It's according
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: to my boomer grandmother, who I will be entering this weekend,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: that was when everything was good and perfect. Also, that
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: was in her life right before you know, her dad
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: died tragically young and everything went to hell in her life.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of layers to it, but that
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: is specifically when people mean it was great. Was that
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: brief five five years?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Man, there was nothing. There were no other problems
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: back then that we fixed.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Right, No, no one had any problems.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're good, good, good to hear.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no one had any problems whatsoever. Historically non
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: problematic period if you were white and a man and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: had a job that let you have a house, and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: we're Christian and we're able bodied.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: You know, everyone bro out of five am bad and
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: straight five out of six am bad.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: But it is nonetheless a very specific period in American
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: history that like has been identified by many people and
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: can be talked about as a concept. I understand, I
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: have over explained it to death. Please let's go back
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to fantasy. And I needled madness. I Neve had a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: great book and I need held madness and did her
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: test for the Shawl and got lands bond.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: And like, I mean, I guess she sort of sets
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: him up for the ride at the end of the
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: last book. But it kind of feels like this book, right,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: That's like because she sets it up right at the
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: last book, So that whole ride to Malchier is her
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: machinations coming out and happening all of this book.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Land is going through that whole journey she set
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: up in a different book. He goes through it at
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: this book, and then she gets her reward at the end, right,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: which is she gets his bond before he makes that
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: charge with the army that she's set up for him.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: This is the book of Land getting the benefits of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Nineve being his wife.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And I really like the way the battles interact. I
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: think this is something I think that was done really
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: masterfully in the beginning of the series, where you have
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: two separate battles happening in the same space and affecting
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: each other, and instead of just battles happening in different
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: places independently with nothing going on. I think the idea
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: that the parent battle in the dream world to get
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: the dream Spike away from his armies and putting it
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: in the White Tower, which then causes a Wayne to
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: be able to win her battle. Like, I think that's
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: a great way to have those two battles interact and
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: interplay together.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's so good. It's so masterfully done.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: And we get that it's just a weave too from that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And it's just a weave, and I don't think that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Jordan would have even attempted to do it in that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: level of granular detail. His fog of war writing would
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: have led him to approach that in a wildly different way.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It would have been great, it would have been awesome,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: But I just I don't think we would have gotten
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: anything like that level of two different, very granular battles
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: running in that kind of parallel from him. His fog
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of war wouldn't have allowed for that.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: But he does a lot of that with like I'm thinking,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: like ran in the clouds in the Battle on the
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: ground or.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: It's not nearly as granular.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Though, no, no, no, no, but there's the parallelism, is there?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Oh for sure, for sure. But this is Sanderson taking
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that and Sanderson ing it.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I'm sure. Yeah, No, it's very sandy, it's
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: very yeah.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And I just I think Jordan would have approached that
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in just such a wildly different way. He would have
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: had it be epic, but just it wouldn't have been
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: anything like this, I think. But it's really cool. I mean,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: it's just a weave. Like I do think Jordan probably
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: would have had tipped to that. He probably wouldn't have
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: thought of it, but he would have been like, I mean,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: good move, like that's good. Another thing that happens in
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: this book throughout is that the Borderlands are being overrun
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: in general, and with Ieralda in particular. Right, we spend
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of this book with Iceeralda seeing again very granular,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: very blow by blow, what is happening up and down
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the borderlands. Right, we see it with that tower at
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the beginning and the merchant at the end, but throughout
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the book we're seeing it through Ialda's eyes, and you
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: can just you can just do the math and be like, okay,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I Toralda's not the only one. He's having the most
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: epic fight because he's at the most important choke point.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But what happened to heath Tower and what happens to
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Bariga the caravan driver, those were not isolated incidents. Those
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: things are happening across the borderlands.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: The world is being invaded, and the last battle has begun,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: even if people don't necess saily realize it, right, the
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: invasion has begun, and like you should be there fighting
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: back and people are dying, right, Like it's it's not
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, but it is the first you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Canary in the coal mine. The border guards, the people
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: who are there to sound the alarm are being murdered
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: before they can sound the alarm.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you don't move your ass, like right now,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: if not yesterday, you might miss it because it's going
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: to take that long for you to walk to the battlefield, unless,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: of course, paren is coming through and you can just
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: swoop you up with a gateway.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Right, black Tower is being corrupted. That's sort of a
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: big part of the two towers, right, like.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Towers of Midnight right Tower of Genji and the Black Tower,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and also the literal Midnight Towers in shan Chin.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: But like a lot of towers, lot of towers.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, the Black Tower becoming a major problem
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: for our heroes to escape and also bringing heroes more
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to the four. Right, we've got Pavar and Androl both
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: really being pushed forward as like, hey, you're gonna want
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to these guys because next book, next book,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: they're going to matter.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: They're going to get a lot of plot next book,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: which you know, I think there can be a lot
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of opinions on whether or not that's what pages should
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: be dedicated to. I think it's a well done POV
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: and they are well done characters who I enjoy reading about.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I yeah, agreed, agreed. I have my quibbles. We
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: have documented them extensively. It's still a really fun journey
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to follow, and I do enjoy their dynamic and it
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: will be fun to podcast through that. Speaking of things
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: we like, we did not like several of the reunions
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: in this book.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Sure, this is a.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Book where we start getting the really shitty reunions that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: make us roll our eyes. Sanderson tried repeatedly in this
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: book to do reunion scenes.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And there was one or two that I was like,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: that was okay, right, Like the second Parn Matt scene
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: was written the little bit better than the first one.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit, but we deserved better than it was. Okay,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: These re union scenes should have been top shelf emotions, heartstrings,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: ugly crying on the part of the reader, and instead
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the best we can say is that some of them
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: were mid We deserved better.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Because like this goes back to when Matt went to
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: pick up a Lane with the Band of the Red
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Hand and Paren even earlier than that, what Paren left.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: To uh go to the two rivers?
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: No, because he came back lord of Chaos and then
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: he got thrown out under the false pretense, right, to
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: go and then he was gonna go get Massana. So
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: he was sent to get Masana and Messima Matt was
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: sent to get a lane.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Messima Adelaine.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Massiema Lane and they come back now yeah, and it's
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: like yeah, like at the eve of the Last Battle,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: there's no like, oh, it took you a little while
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to do the one little simple chore I sent you on,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: you know, a.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Little fourth wall breaking about how long that took. Would
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: have been just fine, Yeah, Instead we get reunions that
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: are flat or fine or downright painful, make us want
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to gouge your eyes.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Out, things that are supposed to be fan service, but
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: it really just feel like someone you know, poking on
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the glass from the outside.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Just tapping on the fish down.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, easing the badger, see easing the badger.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, basically basically. But then moving on from that, the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: last epic thing to mention about this book is, of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: course the cover art, the Tower of Genji, the recovery
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of Moraine, the loss of Matt's eye, the loss of Nol.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I mean right there at the end of the book,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: but it's on the cover. From the jump. We got
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the Tower of Genji with great twists.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Bringing back Moraine, regardless of what happens to her in
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: the next book and how important a role she plays,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: is such a significant moment. It's such a gratifying moment,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: one of those things that was foreshadowed way back when
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: she disappeared and we've been waiting and waiting and waiting
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: for and now it's like, oh, it's like almost a relief.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: It's like a pimple popping video when it finally gives way, right,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Like it's that I've been waiting on that pressure for
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: so long and then it finally, Oh, thank god, it's
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: there's the Moraine Puss.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I do not appreciate you comparing mine to a pimple,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: but yeah, no, this is one of those ones where
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Jordan's set it up so long ago, the tension was
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: so high, and Sanderson just knocked it out of the
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: park on the execution. Just fantastic.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: I feel like the key points were set up so
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: well that it's hard not like the idea that the
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: fashioned is the key combined with like the going and
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: getting her and the foreshadowing and the importance that she
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: is and half the light of the world, and like
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: it all comes together to almost tell the story through
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: prophecy before it's written, and he told that, like it
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: you almost don't need the notes to know what's going
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: to happen.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: And yet it could have been done worse than it was.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: And Sanderson just eleven out of ten, just took that
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: ball and ran with it. It was so good.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the better sections that I think he
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: wrote was the Tower of Ganji, that three chapter section
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: with Matt.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do imagine that Jordan had a lot
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: of notes about it from back when he set it
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: up in the first place, like notes that were already
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: years old, just because he needed to take notes on
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: how he set it up. So that way, when Maria
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: checked him on how he wrote it in the future,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you know, like those notes existed, I believe, so, yeah,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: like all the full details of the bargain and all
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of that had to have been sorted out so many
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: years ago, just so that way, when Jordan knew this
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: scene was coming up, he knew he'd be able to
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: not trip over himself and have Maria yell at him,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: because you know Maria. I love Maria so much.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: She's a wonderful person.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what happened in the book, but what
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: happened in our lives? What were we doing over the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: past ten months or so starting in August, I think
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: we were mainly processing the fact that the show was canceled. Yeah,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that was definitely a big cloud cast over Waltcon. It
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: was something that we were all kind of like, we
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: were talking about it, but it was also those elephants
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in the room where we were all kind of collectively
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: holding each other back from the edge of being despairing
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and just spiraling on it and being like, no, we've
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: got the costumes here, we have the three seasons, like
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: we're we're good, We're fine, We're fine, But it was
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: still an elephant in the room. So I feel like
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that's kind of.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Well, because the loss of the show means it can
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: never get better, right, Like we're only going to have
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: season one, two, and three, which were improving and on
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: that spiral, and I think we had been given hope
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: that like, okay, we got three seasons. The third season
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: was actually really quite good. It looks like, you know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: there's a chance that maybe we could keep going with
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: this and maybe we can see some of our favorite
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: moments on screen. And even if the way we got
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: there isn't quite in a linear fashion in the first
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: few books that maybe like, hey, we're going to see
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Doma as well as on screen in a way that
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: really is well done and somewhat accurate to the books
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and the characters and the way they are. You know,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: we're going to get to see the cleansing, We're going
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: to get to see the last battle, We're going to
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: get to see some of these really epic moments, and
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: for the most part, they're going to honor the characters
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: in the seasons going forward. And then that was just
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: ripped away from us and told Nope, that's you know,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: the series has not caught enough interest and not made
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: enough money to make capitalism, didn't.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Retain enough people, whatever. And it's like, we didn't even
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: do episodes about the third season, and I don't think
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: we ever will because I can't imagine doing them knowing
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: that there's nothing after do just.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: No way to speculate about what's coming, because nothing is coming.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: My ability to engage with that material was by speculating
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: about how this was going to affect future things. And yeah,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: by season three, I'm like, Okay, I'm figuring out my
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: rhythm with this and then I, yeah, I don't see
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: us ever using our podcast energy to like properly talk
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: about it like we did about the first two seasons.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: You know, And how can you have good foreshadowing if
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: you never have later seasons, right right, you know? And
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: that's the Yeah, So.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: That was I think kind of August. Yeah, and then
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in September you never got to have your first stand
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: of your city.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been married for one year. I mean we've
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: had our many other anniversaries, but they weren't wedding anniversaries.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, but like your wedding anniversary, yes, which was
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: and it was also the same month of the birthday
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of my podcasts.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Used to sew, Yeah, would you seem to be really
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: happy about making It's great.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I get to talk with my mom once a week
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: and she gets too info dump at a willing audience.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And I was telling this to someone who had podcasted
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: with a while ago, helped with their podcast, and they
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: had lost their mom just a few years ago, you know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: because older person, and they were like, it's so cool,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you're going to get to have this. You're going to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: have these hours upon hours upon hours of conversation with
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: your mom, like recorded to listen to him, was like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I never thought about that. I was just helping her
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: get her info dumps out there. But yeah, I'm recording
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: these like long conversations with my mom every week, and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I'm learning so many cool things. Like sewing machines have
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: actually proven to be a very interesting like Lightning rod
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Anchor to like help me understand the nineteenth through the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: twentieth century, like so much stuff. Actually, if you follow
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the story of the sewing machine, it brings so many
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: other things into focus, like helps scaffold them together. For me,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: at least, it's actually helped me make a lot more
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: linear sense out of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I feel like textiles is a really good way to
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: get into history, right and specifically, like, yeah, the sewing
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: machine and its invention gives you that era, but even
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: before then, right, Like textiles really is to understand history,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: you have to understand that, like textiles was a third
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: of all labor was producing textiles.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And that's like that century of eighteen fifty
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: to nineteen fifty, but then the thousands of years before
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: and the many decades since, right, Like it's it's fascinating.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm learning a lot in my history quest
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to understand everything, and I'm spending really good quality of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: time with my mom, which is just super fantastic and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: gotten us some fun opportunities. Over the weekend, I was
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: helping clean up the local cemetery because of a word
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of mouth community thing based on the sewing machine deal
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: local Museum, local Cemetery board. Like, I ended up doing
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: some volunteer weed whacking for the cemetery just because it's
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: a way too engaged with stuff including local history. And yeah,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: so we've been doing that for a year and a
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: half at this point as we're recording this episode, and yeah,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: we keep coming up with more and more and more content.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: We've even got like a book club section, not even
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: club section, but we're reading a book, one giant book.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: She just like talks about bits and pieces from a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: chapter every now and then, and then we go off
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and talk about a bunch of other stuff for several
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: episodes and then come back and do more book stuff.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I really encourage people who enjoy listening to
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: me go off on tangents to go check that out,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: because that podcast is full of tangents. So many tangents.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: My mom knows so many random things. It's great.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I should talk about Harvey a little bit. Yes, he
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: is my dog currently. He was came to me by
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: way of Travis. I know I've talked about him in
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: the past, but he's been a big part of my
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: life because he came to us pretty untrained and large
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: and chaotic at about eight months old. He had basically
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: didn't know how to walk on a leash, didn't know
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: how to play with toys, didn't know how to go
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: back to the bathroom outside, and he got attention for
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: the things he needed by biting ankles and wrists pretty
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: enough to leave bruises. Right, So this dog was dropped
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: in my lap and that was a little bit a
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: little over a year and we have gone through many
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: many faces with him, and he has turned into just
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: an absolute sweetie of a dog. But he is still
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: very reactive on leash, and he's still somewhat reactive when
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: people come over. And so in a lot of ways
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: he has dominated, you know, and he's hard to leave
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: alone even though he is well trained, and so he's
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: dominated a lot of my schedule and effort and lots
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: of long walks lots of days off at the park
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: or taking him places. Right like, he has been the
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: focus of my effort and my energy for a good
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: chunk of the year just because we're always training. Because
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: he has been you know, he's a somewhat dangerous, difficult
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: dog to deal with, and it's been something that we
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: don't want to risk and something that just has has
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: taken a shocking amount of my time.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: We need to be a responsible dog owner to actually
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: take it seriously that you have a big, reactive.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Dog right right, because he is he is. He's big,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: and he's reactive, and like he I can you know,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I'm bigger and big and strong enough that I can
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: still you know, wrestle him on the leash wherever I
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: want to go. But he can drag never around, my
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: wife around quite a bit. We've taken a class. We've
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: got like one week left on that and so yeah,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: it's just it's, uh, you know, with Timber, we could
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: go anywhere. You know, he was he was a special dog.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: He was. Yeah, he would look you, but he would
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: look you in the eyes and love attention. You know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: would just lay out anywhere with anybody. It's a different
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: experience and I think that Harvey in another few years
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: will be that level of dog, right I have. I
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: believe that we can get there with him because we're
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: seeing progress every week. But right now he's still he's
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: not too yet. He will be turning to this year,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: so he's still very much a poppy And I'm looking
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: forward to him as an adult because I think he's
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: going to be an amazing dog. But man, does he
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: have so much energy. Boy, he's keeping me where. He's
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: running me ragged. I'll tell you what I mean.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He's present on a lot of podcasts at this point
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: because he comes bumping in to your studio and is
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: like being cute and whining and knocking into stuff and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: just he's been quite the character in the podcast lands.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: As he's gotten more comfortable with you. He wasn't like
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: that at first.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: No, No, he was not.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Like in more recent months, he's been way more like
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: demanding of your attention. It's like, well, he's at least
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: comfortable enough with you to be like play with me,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: play with me.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: No. And you know, when when we first got him,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: if I tried to pick him up, he freaked out,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: I mean like really freaked out, like someone had been
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: throwing him, you know, when he was making noise. And
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: now I can pick him up and give him kisses,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: and he's just kind of like, you know, goes limp
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, hi, Dad, I love you, you know,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: like it's it's totally fine, and yeah, he's too big
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: to pick up, but I can do it anyway.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: So he's like, well, I mean if you say you can, yeah.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And then and he sleeps on his back, all relaxed
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: with his feet up in the air, which is not
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: something he did for the first few months we had him.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Belly up is definitely a security sign.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: It's a security thing, and like, you know, he just
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: he's sometimes if he doesn't have to be in the
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: same room with us all the time, even though he
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: wants to. Whereas when we first got him, if we
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: left him in another room, he'd panic. Right, Like, there's
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: just levels of comfort that we've achieved after having him
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: for a year, because that is thing with dogs, right,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: they say it takes whatever, it's three weeks, three months,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: and then six you know before they're comfortable, or if
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: it's six weeks, six months, whatever, But like the idea
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: is like it took him six months to be comfortable.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: And I think on top of that, we needed another
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: six months before he was really like because we had
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: to do a fair amount of training and figure out.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: You know, we had a lot to figure out when you
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: first get him, because every dog is a different dog
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: and and you have to learn their personality, you know.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: And we learned that he create trains really well, and
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: he does not like like being left out of his
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: great you know, ends up in his stomach getting pumped
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: because he gets into stuff he shouldn't be, so like Timber,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: you know, didn't like being created and wouldn't stand created
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: and didn't need to be created. Harvey, on the other hand,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: you know, is settles in his crate and relaxes in
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: his crate in a way that gives him a home
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: and a place to like chill out. Because I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: that's the thing is his brain doesn't want to stop ever.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: He's just got this, whatever his background is, He's got
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: constant anxiety, constant drive, constant need to go, go, go,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: go go, and that doesn't turn off easily except when
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: he goes into his great.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the next thing in my timeline of stuff
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: was in October, I went to do a small hangout
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: with some WAT people in eastern Oregon, people from WAT
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: con all realizing, hey, there's a lot of us in
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. Maybe like we could make a little
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: discord server and try to talk and get together. And
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: very few of us ended up going to this airbnb,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: but it happened. There was like six of us hanging
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: out in an airbnb. Nice having really wildly different sleep
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: schedules and dietary preferences and you know, but also having
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: little bits and pieces of con conversations and that vibe
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: and that was cool. It's neat, it's worth. You don't
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: have to wait on a convention or other fans to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: organize something. I know. There's lots of different fan conventions
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that aren't even proper conventions. They're just gatherings that you
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: can call convention. There's lots of them there. You can
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: make one yourself. You don't have to wait for an
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: official convention to have like a WAT hangout. Might take
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: a bit of driving, a bit of coordinating, but you
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: can totally just get together with a handful of other
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: white people and have a great time. A little tiny
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: mini con.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I bought some cars this year. Both me and my
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: wife got in relatively minor car wrecks, but we had
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: old cars that aren't worth anything. So even a minor
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: reck means that it's total doubt because insurance won't pay
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: for the minor repairs. So I had to buy myself
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: a replacement Honda, which I ended up buying basically this
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: exact same car I had because it was a good
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: deal and I like the car well enough, you know, reliable,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: gets me from place to place, no engine problems, bulletproof,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: I really like it is anything fancy. No, my wife
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: we ended up getting a super Rue That one hasn't
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: been quite as clean of a buy. It's got a
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: couple of issues. It likes to not switch into neutral
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: when you come to a full stop, even though it's
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: an automatic, which then kills the engine right like if
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: you're driving a manual. Yeah, And I've looked it up
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: and it's one of those things where it is repairable,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: but it is you know, transmission work and so a
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: little expensive. And the workaround is, you know, she came
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: from driving a stick, so she's just used to putting
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: in neutral when she comes to a stop anyway, and
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: that seems to be something you can just do with
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: the automatic to work around that problem. So exactly, yeah,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: And it's one of those things where it's just it
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: seems to be if the oil is particularly viscous, if
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: it's cool out, that is a bit of a problem.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: So if she comes to a hard stop without switching
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: in the neutral, it does occasionally kill the car, which
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: is fine up until a couple of weeks ago when
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: her car started not starting reliably, And that is something
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: we are now struggling with because it's got a new
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: battery and I just paid to put a new starter
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: in it thinking that was the problem. However, two days
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: later the problem is back. And there's not many options
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: when it comes to what causes a car not to
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: start other than the battery and the starter, and so
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: we're kind of at our wits end and what to
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: do about that, because what happens is, you know, you
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: got to turn it on and it doesn't start. Batteries
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: at full power, all the lights work, the windows work,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: It turns over like it wants to start, doesn't start.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Wait five minutes, Wait ten minutes, try again, starts like
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: a dream. Nine times out of ten starts like a dream.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: We took it to the shop. They couldn't get it
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: to not start.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: That's annoying when the car puts on its good behavior
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: for the shop mechanics and they're like, it's floid. Of
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: course it's behaving for.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: You, right, So this has been a bit of a
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: mystery to us, not really sure where to go next
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: because of the shop is like, yeah, we can't duplicate it,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: and it is this phantom thing, right because the car
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: won't start for like five, ten, fifteen minutes. You walk
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: around the block, you go, drink a latte, you chit
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: chat with somebody on the street, you go, you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: someone tries to jump it, because that's happened a couple
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: of times. It's only died three times. But like, you know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: we're in this and you know, you wait about it
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: fifteen minutes to half an hour or less, and the
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: car just starts right up, no problem, and starts up
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: for like week a week, you know, And so it's
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: really like it's not repeatable, it's not consistent, but it
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: is a problem because then she's getting stock places that sucks.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Something about the signal is not getting through. Sometimes my
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: very non car minded brain is like some sort of
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: electrical contact that's like corroded or loose. But that's just
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: what I have picked up from listening to more car
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: minded people diagnose the cars around me. I am not
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a car person. I just know that that is a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: common solution or a common diagnostic test.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: So here's here's my reach out to the internet and
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: the people who listen to this. If you have any ideas,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: send them our way. Let me just let me because
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: I'll research into anything and see if that could be it.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the most I have done with cars this last years,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: we have been trying to buy a truck because we
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: live in the country and you really need a pickup
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: truck to move dirt and garbage and gardening supplies and
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: poles and like our you know, Toyota rav is not
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that it's not it's great for driving to town and
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: doing town stuff, but it's not a farm truck. And
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: we've been looking and looking and looking, and ultimately had
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: to conclude that we do not have quite enough money
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to buy the kind of truck that we're looking for,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: just given all kinds of other life things. It's just
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: like it's been a big chunk of our lives, like
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get a truck this last year and then
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: a couple months ago, just being like, Okay, we'll try
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: again later. It's just every truck we've looked at sounds
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: too expensive, right, it's a good price, and then you
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: take it for a test drive and it makes an
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: expensive sound.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: You're like, yeah, no, yep, that's how I feel about
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: the car we got. Never you know, it's like, now,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: we didn't like have any issues during the test drive,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: and it lasted for months before any of these issues
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: popped up. So it's not like I think they sold
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: as a lemon or anything like that. I think it's
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: just an older car developing issues over time.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I could not think of anything interesting to
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: talk about for November or December at all. I glanced
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: at my calendar. I don't know what was happening the holidays.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: It was the holidays. It's chaotic. Everyone knows that November
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: December is a lot, So I don't know. I don't
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: have anything on my timeline for that. But in January
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: we launched podcasts. It don't Oh yeah, we lost our
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: second parallel podcast, our well or just our second podcast,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: our parallel podcast, our first time reader podcast.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Our first first time reader podcast.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've been doing that since January. We recorded
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: for like two months before we started to release the episodes,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: so we're really far ahead on publishing, which as a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: publisher as a content producer, that's been great. But yeah,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: that has been a thing we've been doing for the
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: last five months, and that's been very, very fun. We've
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: gotten through two books of Dungeon Curler Carl and chopping
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: at the bit to get to book through while you're
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: chopping at the book to get to book eight.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Book eight drop two day Book eight. So you know,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: when we're recording this this morning, I am deliberately not
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: listening to Book eight to record this episode.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you have good control. You're suffering what I
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: suffer for one reason one.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Day, for like a couple of hours. But yeah, no,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Book eight has dropped, and you know, it's been a
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: lot of fun to talk about a new, fresh series
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: that you know, is also saying things in a way
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: that I feel like Wheel of Time was saying things TM.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, absolutely, this author has messages he wants
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: to impart right for sure.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: And I feel like it's just it's it feels modern,
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: like modern fantasy in the way that I feel like
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Sanderson wanted to feel like modern fantasy, but he feels
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: more like a remake of old fantasy.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is way more sci fi, but still
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: with a lot of the things that drew me to fantasy,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: right the D and D setting, despite using sci fi
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: rules for main character stuff. Yeah, now I'm enjoying it
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: so much.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: The game setting kind of blends the fantasy and the
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: sci fi genre. I feel like it almost. I think
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I may have ranted about this before, but I feel
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: like the game genre really falls outside both fantasy and
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: sci fi into its own genre of books. And it
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: certainly has aspects of the two of those. But you know,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: if you ask me what is what genre is this,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: you say lit RPG, which is a different genre than fantasy,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: which is a different genre than sci fi.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I'm so glad you introduced me to it.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: It has been a really fun journey of discovery. And yeah,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I'm falling in love with Jeff Hayes and his freaking
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: narration and the sound tunnel thing.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Like, I think that's the first thing I ever said
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: to you about this book, as I said, whatever I
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: think about the content of this book, because I think
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: in the first couple of books, I was still unsure.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I wasn't paying that close attention, I wasn't catching some
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: with subtleties. I was like, whatever I think about the
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: content of this book, this has to be the best
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: edited and best voiced book I have ever read.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: And I have read multiple articles about how Jeff Hayes's
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: delivery of these books is like setting new standards and
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: new expectations and new horizons for audiobook narrations. So many
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: people are being drawn into audiobooks or are discovering the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: world of audiobooks because it's like Jeff Hay's, Jeff Hay's
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Jeff Hays. There is just I've seen a lot of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: articles about how much Dungeon Curler Karl is a phenomenon
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: in two mediums. It is genuinely two different phenomena. There
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: is the audio production and there is the content, and
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: they are not the same. They are paired great. Deniman
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: and Hayes are clearly having a good time building each
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: other up, but Hayes is having his own separate Dungeon
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Curler Carl like breakout experience.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why everyone's like, you really have
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: to listen to these books because they are in a
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: way you're having two epiphanies at once. You're having an epiphany,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: like you're having an epiphany about how an audio book
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: should be read in a way that lets you appreciate
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: all the separate characters but doesn't overwhelm you with side
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: effects and weird and different volume levels and like weird edits.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: It does such a good job of just blending into
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: the background that lets you then enjoy what you're also
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: realizing is groundbreaking content.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the audio immersion version can be a bit overwhelming,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: for sure. It definitely. I've only gotten through the first
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: episode of the Audio Tunnel thing, which is like three
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: hours long. All the rest of the ones are a
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: bit shorter, but I still haven't bought them. I've just
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: listened to the free one, and it's I think they're
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: gonna learn. I suspect that I'm hearing a lot of
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: mistakes getting worked out in the first one. There's some
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: times when it gets overwhelming. But yeah, the straight vanilla audiobook,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, all the voices he does, it's amazing.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I've seen like a one Reddit post where someone's like
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: this is awful, and I'm like, well, you are either
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: a troll, a bot, or just a miserable person who
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want to know. I don't care what you think.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that podcast has a small audience. Maybe we
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: need to put some money into like some boosted posts,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: or get more aggressive about sharing it into spaces where
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: people are talking about it, like on Reddit or something.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: But we've gotten a small little cohort of people who
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: are used to our voices, who are listening to it
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and seem to be enjoying it. I don't know that
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: we've found anyone on for that podcast who doesn't also
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: listen to this, but it's fine. I don't, I don't mind,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I don't mind.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm, I'm I'm willing to do. You know. I
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: think that that's that's what's super important to me about
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: doing the podcast is that this is the really the
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: first time in a while where I'm like, I'm gonna
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: do the podcast whether or not anybody's listening. I just
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: don't care. Like I'm enjoying the process of doing the
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: podcast enough that i want to put it out and
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: like if at some point nobody's listening after like four
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: or five books and you know, whatever audience we started
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: with drops off to nothing. You know, there may be
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: a point where we don't keep going with it, but like,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm just having fun doing it, and like,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: as long as you're willing to keep editing it, I.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Love my horizontal tetris. It's great.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's the real I think the window
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: on that is like is is that you know, you
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: have to put in the time, the editing time, And
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: partially that's why we're keeping it trying to keep it
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: down to an hour or under on these episodes, is
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: we're trying not to do our two hour time TM.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: That's the one reason why I would like the podcast
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to reach a wider audience. That one is so that
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: we can make more money off of it, so that
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I can get paid better for my time in producing it,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: because I am incapable of lowering my standards just because
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting paid as an editor. I wish I
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: could improve my editing on the basis of my hourly rate,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: but I can't. I edit at the quality I edit at,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: and my hourly rate will wax and way depending on
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: how much money I get. But you know, if I
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: was just a busker or a slam poetry person and
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I went to a coffee shop and ten people were
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: there snapping appreciatively, I'd feel pretty good. So the fact
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: that we're getting like a hundred listens on a given
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: podcast at Donut episode is like, okay, no, we have
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: a good little audience of people. If I could see
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: a hundred people all raptly listening to me yelling at
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Donut and Carl, I would feel like I'm getting plenty
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of human attention. Right. The fact that, like podcasts are
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: supposed to get ridiculous numbers of downloads because that's what
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the big famous wuld think about it. Like if you
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: were busking in a coffee shop, ten people would feel.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Like a lot.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: So I want to make more money off of the Patreon,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: but also as long as one hundred people are interested
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: in hearing what I think about the books, like, that's
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: pretty cool, right, That's pretty cool.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: That's good enough for me.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just need to figure out ways to you know,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: be making enough money. But that's a journey for me
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: to be on.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it should not overshadow the dopamine of you know,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: hanging out with you and the people that want to
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: be in live chat and having that like human connection
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: where we talk once a week about a thing and
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: exchange ideas, Like that's more important than making money. I
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: wouldn't mind if we made more money at it, but
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: like it will come or I won't. It's fine. The
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: podcast is very rewarding onto itself, aside from all of
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the trauma and pain and angst of the content and
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: also just the torture of not getting to read it
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: as fast as I want.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so yeah, I think that that has been fun.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: February was the first birthday where my deceased grandmother was
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: not alive for her birthday. Who I'm going to be
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: this weekend interuring back at the family cemetery in Iowa.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: That is why we will not be recording for the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: next week. And all of that kerfuffle is because I
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: have a family event to go to, and yeah, February
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: is the that's her month, so so I'm thinking about there.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Back to podcasts though, in March, Autistic Stuff Artistic People
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: yet another podcast that I have briefly went on creative
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: hiatus because we needed to regroup creatively. That podcast is
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: much more serious than yelling about books. We're actually talking
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: about real things and it is been a lot harder
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: to find the creative dopamine and energy for that. It's
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: been a very different sort of process to herd the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: cats for that and create the what's our plan for
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: the episode? How do we know what we're talking about?
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: How do we have a script? Like doing books is
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: very easy, you have the chapter. The chapter tells you
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: what to do. Helping my mom info dump is easy
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: because she has info dumps that are burbling to get out.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Autistic suf for Autistic People is getting a bunch of
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: autistic people who have never podcasted before to learn how
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: to podcast and then feel comfortable talking on Mike And
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: it has been a journey. It has been a real
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: interesting journey. We are back. We have come back as
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: of May. Nothing has changed, but everything's changed right behind
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: the scenes. We're creatively approaching it a little bit differently.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: It's still basically the same podcast. It's me and my
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: fellow coaching colleagues, autistic peer support coaches talking about stuff
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: that's relevant to us as coaches and as autistic people.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Very very small listenership. We have done very poorly at
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: distributing it, at promoting it. It's been very awkward to
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: want to put that out there, and I've been horrible
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: at delegating to my co hosts who keep asking for
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: tasks and I'm like, sure, I'll get back to you
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: with that, and then I just do everything myself and
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: then it's behind because I'm not delegating. But yeah, in March,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: we had to go on hiatus and we only just
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: recently came back because we really needed to be like
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: I had to sit them all down and be like,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: do you want to do this? Because I feel like
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I'm carrying this all on my own and I do
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: not have that much creative energy. I am making four podcasts.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I need other people to bring the creative energy to this.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so I hope that people from this audience
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: are interested in going over to listen to that. I'd
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: love to see more download numbers over there and get
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: feedback on what we can do to make that podcast
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: more interesting, because I really want to make podcasts that
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: aren't just silly. I want to make podcasts that are
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: about real things that connect in the real world and
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: used just so is a bit of that. Like I said,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I'm learning a lot of history from it, but autistic
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: stuff for artistic people is even more of an attempt
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: to get into like issues and help with those and
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: not just argue about the nuances of made up magic systems.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to feel like I'm contributing something
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: useful to the world, and magic systems are cool, but like,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: how how lost in the weeds do we need to be?
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like the message is almost got to be
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: the most important thing there.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: I have the privilege to be a podcaster who's not
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: making money like life supporting money at podcasting, so I
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: kind of feel like an obligation to use some of
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: those powers to like work on real things and not
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: just marinating in my comfort topics.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Totally, No, And I understand the desire and like it's
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do, you know, and like what
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: else do you do to expand the thing you care
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: about other than the right thing to do? Right, Because like,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: if you're doing the wrong thing, you're never going to
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: be happy with it and it's never going to do
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: better right, right, So you know, look at the thing
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: you're doing, figure out what you want to be doing
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: with it, and do that.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's been an interesting journey. Also, starting new
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: podcasts is fun, but really sticking the power through is different.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: And I think for me, podcasting has been you know,
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: half about almost entirely about half about talking about books
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: that I love, but also like almost entirely about maintaining
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: friendships that I have. And so in a lot of ways,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: how well something does or what kind of impact it
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: has is far less important to me than the fact
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: that we get on here once a week and get
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: to hang out for a couple hours, right, and that
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: this and that other people can join us and also
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: hang out and contribute and meet each other. You know,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: that's that's the important part to me. And like the
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: building of community for me is what comes first, and
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: the doing the right thing I find comes from building community.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, I mean this is my autistic coaches are.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: It's a community I have and it's like, hey, we
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: have cool conversations on zoom calls. We could start a podcast,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, hey, let's start a podcast is so
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: easy to say, yes, Hurting the cats to actually make
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: a podcast is a different journey, even if everyone is
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: great and well intentioned cats cats, the lot of them,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, not that we aren't cats, but we're cats
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: who have a groove. So speaking of Grooves. April was
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the ninth birthday of the podcast.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Nine years since that first episode dropped, Wild Wild, and like, yeah,
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: just incredible to think about, like all the different places
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: that we are in life from back then and also
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: the fact that like, yeah, I'm in a different decade
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: of my life. I was in my early thirties and
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: now I'm in my early forties or mid thirties and
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: mid fortiesh And yeah, that's that's just a different place
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: in life to be in a different you know, way
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: of looking at at age, and like the reality of
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: wheel of time being just different to you from decade
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: to decade. It's kind of incredible that, like, yeah, it's
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: a very different thing to me now than it was
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: a decade ago. Right before then, a decade ago, it
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: was a story that I loved and I wanted to
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: talk about with my friends, but I didn't know it
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: that well. Part of starting the podcast is because like
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: I'd read it a few times, but a lot of
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: the details were fuzzy. There was a lot of things
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: that like I hadn't figured out, and I felt like
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: every time I sat down and had a conversation with somebody,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: we spent half the time trying to figure out which
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: name the other one of us was mispronouncing, right, And
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: so I was like, what I want to do is
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: actually go through it where we're talking about the books
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: chapter by chapter in a way that like we don't
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: have to question what chapter we're on. We can just
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: talk about the chapters we're on. But also I want
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: to have a conversation with people who have finished the
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: series because the series is over and I don't want
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: to have to dance around well, I'm on book three,
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: so I only want to talk about books one through three.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, I want to know like what this
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: for sh shadowing means because we've seen the end of
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: the series. And yeah, I think that that that impulse,
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: you know, in all the conversations with Patrick right that
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: we'd have in our apartment, where basically, you know, some
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: of that was inspired by we try to have these
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: conversations and we just kept talking around the same characters
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: because we'd be like, wait, are you talking about Taim
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: or Tam.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Like don't change?
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, they really know a GWayne or Elaine?
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Why do you think I'm so bad at those things?
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: It's because of all those conversations where you've been talking
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: about the wrong one with the wrong pronunciation in real life.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: And I always have talked about real of time to
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: people I met in real life. But what's so funny
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: is now I feel like I have the opposite experience,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: right where I talk about whel of time so much
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: in this podcast, I often don't want to talk about
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: it in real life. I often don't have that desire
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: where I'm like, it's my favorite book series, but now
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: it's something that very much is held in the podcast
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: space for me.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's my whole sense of community and
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: like socializing and huge chunk of like my formative like
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: adultthood is overshadowed by like how this podcast like was
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: influencing it and like drawing me to different spaces and
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: technology and conversations and skills, right, whole trajectories. Like yeah,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: so much of my life is would be wildly different.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I know different people, like almost like so many people
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: that I wouldn't know if not for this podcast connecting
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: me to this whole cascading series of communities and events,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: and like I was not joined into the fandom at all.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: This was my entry point to the fandom.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: Right period, right, same, really, right, like I was. I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: kind of came at it backwards, right because I'd read
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: some wat wiki pages and you know, the a few
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: other forums. But I wasn't a participant in any way,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: shape or forum of making the podcast. You know, one
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: or two posts on Reddit was about as far as
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: I'd gone, and like testing the waters.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, totally, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: It was. My life is totally different, right, like the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: number right, I mean I indirectly I met my wife
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: through Travis, who I met through the podcast, right, Like
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: because he came to stay with us, right.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: He would not have been there to play matchmaker if
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: you hadn't started the podcast.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: No, he would not have been He wouldn't have been
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: a roommate, right, Like if you know which it goes
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: back to, you know, if Patrick hadn't left, and you know, yeah.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's there's just no that much of a decade
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: being taken up by the podcast. There's there's just no
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: untangling it from our life events. And this podcast has
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: been a constant for me the way the books were.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Like I started the podcast listening to it and participating
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: in the community before I changed majors, which was like
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: a really intense inflection point in my college career, and like,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: the podcast just didn't change. The podcast was just always there,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: right the way the books had always been there for me.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: As all the different things changed, it's like, but the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: podcast is there even as all this other stuff with
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: me is changing. The podcast is like one of the constants. Yeah,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: it's just it's been my rock, same, I mean before
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I was hosting it, and especially with hosting it now.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: It's like, but we have to keep having our weekly
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: call about books, right, Like, right, that's it a fixture
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: regardless of the books.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: I mean through for me, through apartments, roommates, relationships, pets, jobs.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I have been through so much in the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: last night, as I'm sure many people have. You know,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: pandemic happened, right, like, uh, and a few other things.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Right, one or two other things.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, multiple things happened at once, and uh, it's just
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: it's crazy to think about how much change has has
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: gone through my life. And again, the podcast has been
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: here through longer than any of that.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, we've had a lot of people over
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the years right to us about the podcast being their
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: rock that they got to hold on to while they
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: dealt with personal life. Stuff, medical stuff, travel stuff, wild
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: education stuff. Like we've had so many emails and dms
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: and discord conversations, one assumes that that is a mere
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: fraction of the total audience experience.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Right. No, When I look at the numbers and do
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: the math in my head, I just it blows my
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: mind to think how many hours, how many people have
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: spent listening to me jabberon about you know, my favorite
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: book series. Right, It's just it was a lot of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: hours after book five and we are way past that moment,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: and you know, the numbers have kept up and in
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: a way that I never thought they would when I
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: first started the podcast. I don't know. I just I
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: love everybody out there who's been supporting all this time,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: all the Patreon people supported all this time. Is just
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: always blown me away. The friends I've made from it,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: the rocket's been in my life. Yeah, it's just it's man.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I'm a podcast producer because of it.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I did not do digital communications in college. This was
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: not where I was going. The only reason I'm a
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: podcast producer, and that's the way I introduced myself to people,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: because say, what do you do? I say, a podcast producer,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: not just a podcast host, I produce podcasts, Like all
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: of that is because of this. I don't know what
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: the hell I would be calling myself now. I don't
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: know what I would have tangented off of to avoid
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: following through with my actual college degree. I don't know
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: what it was going to be. I would have avoided
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: my I was not going to become a geologist, apparently
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: that was just not in the cards. But without this podcast,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: my entire identity as an audio content producer and all
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: the decisions I'm making on the basis of that, and
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: the connections I'm making with people over that skill, and
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: can you help me with this and talk with me
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: about that, that's all knock on effects from just learning
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: the skills to take over the podcast when you had
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: to give up editing. It's wild And that's only nine
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: years right as of now, as of May, we are
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: planning out how we're going to deal with New Spring
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: and Memory of Light and attempt to wrap up at
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: ten years, right like we are. I am dealing with
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: so much angst at being like, that's what that's what's
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: happening now, It's been nine years, Look at all that's changed.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: We only have one more year and then this phase
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: of our lives is irreparably ending and moving on to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: whatever comes next.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: And just the eras we've gone through, right from me
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: editing to you editing, like that's been a huge change
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: in terms of like the who's the real driving force
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: behind this podcast? Like I mean, I think I certainly
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: was in the beginning and for a few months after
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: you joined the podcast, but very quickly it became apparent
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: that you had the gumption and the desire to really
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: become the driving force behind it. And then I very
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: quickly got a job that really took up a big
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: you know, became an adult job. I got the kind
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: of thing that you work, you know, eighty ninety hours
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: every two weeks with a commute and benefits.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I suspect the podcast wouldn't have survived you getting
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: that job if you had had to stay the editor. No,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: it's news likely that that job would have been the
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: death of it, even she had somehow survived the loss
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: of Patrick he he Yeah.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: No I didn't. I whatever you know is in me
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: to do the editing. It took me a while, you know,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: whether that's the add adhd, the you know, desire, whatever
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: it was, I was very slow at getting myself to
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: sit down and do the editing, and I complained about it,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: probably more than anybody wanted to hear, and so getting
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: a real job, I don't think I could have found
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: the time to do the.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: Editing an executive function was already barely there.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: The job takes a lot. Yeah, it ticks a lot
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: of boxes for me, and I've learned so many skills
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: that make it go so fast. I've been able to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: do so many other cool corollary audio projects because of
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: just the speed with which I am able to comfortably
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: manipulate sound and even video. Occasionally. I hate editing video,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: but I have done it occasionally, and it's the only
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: reason even been willing to try. It's because I know
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: how to do audio. I still have so much to learn.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: I have so much still to learn, but you know,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: having to do this really pushed me to learn things,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and that's been very, very cool, and I will not
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: be stopping learning things. I have so many other podcasts,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: as y'all have heard, We're going to keep doing Dungeon
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Carler Carl. We're going to figure out other stuff like
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: I will continue learning. But yeah, that's kind of the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: year of our life and the books in review. I
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: do have like other broader topics from the world at large,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: but I don't know that we need to get into those,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: given that we've already recorded for an hour and twenty minutes.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we can just say, like, the global
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: politics that we're being engaged in are terrible.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: Domestic politics too, Yeah, but yeah, yeah, the war with
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Iran fucking ridiculous.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, should never have happened. Gaza is a tragedy.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: It's still going on.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: It's still ongoing, to say.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Nothing of all the other genisides we're covertly funding. Ice
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: has been awful, doing its best cosplay of all the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: worst loser gangs of all of history. I've obviously had
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: some really high profile killings, so much less hope high
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: profile killings at greater quantity. We've got concentration camps. We're
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: doing the thing. It's bad, it's frustrated. Protests are pretty
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: constant in a lot of places, and the government is
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: calling for everyone to be a terrorist now, I guess,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: so that's cool. Looking forward to the I am Spartacus
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: energy from everyone in the privileged class. Hantavirus is the
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: hot new thing to worry about. Even if you're willing
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: to ignore COVID and pretend that that pandemic is over,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: you've got a hot new thing to worry about, just hantavirus.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not so worried about hauntavirus just because it is
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: so deadly that like it. I don't think it has
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: the most chance of spreading because it'll kill the people
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: before they have a chance to really spread it. It's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: like it's in that niche of viruses that are like
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: really bad to get, but not so bad to you know,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: spread around the globe. Because I don't think it has
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: that ability. I've played a lot of that game.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Pandemic and no, not pandemic. I played a lot of
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Pandemic until the pandemic and then I got it was
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: really hard to be like and then right, yeah, so
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, handt. We just sent a bunch of people
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: off at that cruise ship onto just spare plants to
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: just go home and quarantine on their own power. It's
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: it's pretty irresponsible. We have a profoundly irresponsible, terroristic government
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and our president is clearly has the you know, attention
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: span of a goldfish. And when it happens is just
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: becoming a more and more fraught possibility. So that's yes
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: and good.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I should I should say I'm not as concerned
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: about this particular virus, but I'm certainly concerned about our
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: response to viruses in general, as an interconnected global economy
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: that really has no way of stopping the spread of
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: something that fits the right profile, which you'd say only
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: partially deadly, has a decent incubation period and spreads, you know,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: in the air.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I said, I'm flying to Iowa this weekend,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and everyone's going to be raw dog in the air
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: the whole way through, right right, everyone everywhere because COVID's
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: over quote unquote whatever.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've never understood why we really just gave up
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: masks so fast.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Because it's a symbol of the woke left and politics
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: is more important than it's so dumb. We're being run
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: by clowns and the mob of gestures following them. Speaking
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: of mobs of gestures, I also want to point out
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: that the AI music thing that I was yelling about
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: a while ago, supposedly Spotify is going to put in
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: some little check mark thing to let you know you're
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: not listening to AI music. I'm still very skeptical and
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: leaning heavily on music that was coming out like ten
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: years ago, sure, because I just am having a very
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: hard time with trusting more modern music because of the
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: AI thing. Same with video, Like it's so hard for
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: me to find new content. Yeah, I've been struggling with
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: that in any form. I'm people who I respect and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: who I know use their words and their brains are
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: starting to just like, use a little bit of AI
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: here and there for a little bit of contecretion, share
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: a funny AI video. The iran Ai Lego videos I
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: am willing to give a pass too. I generally not
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: a fan of AI content for any reason, but those
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: I ran Lego propaganda videos, fine, they get to be
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: on the very short list of things I like. Fine,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: it's too good, it's too on the nose, it's too effective,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: it's reaching too many people. I'm just gonna have to
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: give that one a pass. But I know a lot
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: of people that are just like, Nah, I just had
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: an image that's a little more clear from my sub stack,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I disrespect you so much now,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: even though I have respected your writing and I know
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: it's still your writing with the fact that you just
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: needed an AI image for the cover. It's just it's
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: so prevalent. It's driving me nuts.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: I got in a fairly decent argument with my father
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: in law last night about aih because he went to
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: a conference in the sphere in Vegas.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: That's fheir ah, okay.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: That's fere and it was an AI conference. I'm not
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: sure exactly why he's connected to it. It's some you know,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: I don't want to out him, but he works for,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: you know, a government agency of a government thing, and
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: whatever group he's working with is big into going with AI.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Right, That's that doesn't narrow it down much.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know he is, and so his job
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: is kind of to be the one who's doing the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: transition to AI. So of course he's gung ho. And
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: he goes this conference where all these leaders are making
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: all of these promises about there's going to be no
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: jobs in this many years, and a I can do
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: this in this many years and that in that many years. Meanwhile,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: I'm watching videos with people who are like programmers and understand,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: you know, the capabilities of what AI can do, and
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: they're being like, yeah, no, we're pretty much hitting hard
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: limits on like what it's capable of without like just
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: drastically ramping up the compute power. And we've kind of
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: done that as much as we can with all these
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: data centers, right like, And you know, he was and
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: I got this argument about, you know, these new AI
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: aren't llms, they're not large language models, And I was like, well,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: then what are they because that's the only AI that
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: I've heard of that's had any like kind of effectiveness.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: And he couldn't answer me. He's just like, well, they're
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: not lllms. I like, well, then what are they?
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: They MLMs? Like what are we doing?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So I end up looking them up and
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: they're just they're just a different night about you know,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: and so they just they don't have any extra ability.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: You know, you can train them to do. Intelligent people
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: are struggling to understand what AI can and cannot do
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: and what its capabilities are, and I think that's going
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: to be a real problem for us going forward.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. I listened occasionally to a podcast called
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: Better Offline that is by ed Zetron, and it's all
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: about why the AI bubble is a bunch of hot
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: air and grift And he's just that's all. He's got
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: a substack. It's a whole thing. I listened to it
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: occasionally because it's oftentimes way too deep off in the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: weeds of stuff. I don't know about it, sure, but
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: it's very detailed. And then the Behind the Bastards last
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: week was about how AI chatbots are basically becoming accidental
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: cult leaders, and it was a very interesting A lot
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: of it was the history of AI chat bots, like
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: going back to the fifties and how long people have
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: been working on this and how long ago we actually
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: blew past the touring test and what the touring test
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: actually is. And it's fascinating in the abstract and terrifying
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: when you realize how heavily it's being shoehorned and shotgunned
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: into everything. Yep, Like we're moving so fast and breaking
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: so many things we don't even know about. That's the
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: scary part. That's the it's so fascinating in theory, but like, wait,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: you're just shoving it in everywhere with no regard in.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: The way that you only want to listen to older music.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: I think at a point we're going to want to
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: buy things that were manufactured before a certain point. Yeah,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: a programmed before a certain point like there is this,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: there's going to be this I think injection of AI
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: intelligence into our infrastructure that we are then going to
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: spend decades ripping back out again and replacing with something
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: that actually works one.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Hundred percent agree And ironically, the things that it is
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: actually good at, it will not get applied at in
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: nearly as fast or efficient of a way because it's.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: Going to be no, because those things are science and
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: they take funding.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: The signal through the noise is going to be ridiculous.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: Like my husband and my father both have been tasked
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: with their jobs in very different respective fields to use
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: AI to essentially access massive warehouses of information, Like they
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: both have, you know, just all kinds of journals and
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: manuals and databases of data, and they've both been tasked
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: with figure out how to use these tools to access
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: that data more efficiently. And I'm like, great, that totally
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: has an application, but it's buried. It's just like that's
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: sort of it's also being buried but underneath and also
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: use it to write emails, and also use it to
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: start the grant proposals and also use it and also
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: and it's like no, no, getting the data out of
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: the massive warehouse. That was good. That that's the good part.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: But it never stops there.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: No, And what was sold to me by my father
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: in law is that because it's in everything, He's like,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: I can just it all interconnections, so I can ask
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: it to just write my emails for me and do
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: this for me, and it just it all comes together.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: And I was just I was just gagging, like I
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: was like, and his daughter was his other daughter was
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: there also, and she was basically saying, yeah, even if
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: it could do those things, I'm saying, basically, it can't
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: do those things, right, You're being lied to about what
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: it's capable of. And she's saying, even if we could
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: do those things, the cost of doing those things is
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: so high that it's not worth it. And we've known
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: we can do these things for a long time. We
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: have just decided that it has not been worth it.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: And then someone decided, well, what if we just look
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: at what is costing us, Look at the the energy cost,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: the manufacturing costs, the water costs, you know, the way
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: computers have suddenly become much much, much more expensive.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was watching a video from an engineering channel
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: or a building channel a week or so ago, just
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: talking about how willfully wasteful these AI data centers are
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: with respect to water, how they're just it's like they're
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: looking at a really simple flow chart of how to
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: like be nominally a good argument versus how to be
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the worst, and they're picking how to be the worst. Like,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: the environmental damage of data centers is potentially too much
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: to justify, but it's so much worse because of all
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: the choices that they're making. They keep choosing the worst
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: possible option when presented with equal fucking options, and it's
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: fucking insane.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: And response to that was, oh, well, they're talking about
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: putting them in space.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Right, space a notoriously easy place to get to.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: Not to mention a notoriously you know good conductor of
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: heat away from your computers that are generating tons of
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: heat in space, which are basically inside a thermal insulator, right,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: Like that's the whole thing with like JWST is, Like
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: the ninety percent of that satellite is for heat dissipation. Yeah,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: because dissipating heat is hard. That's why you were your
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: little thermois has a vacuum seal inside of it because
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: heat doesn't transfer through a vacuum. You know, it's that's
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: it blows my mind. It blows my mind. Not to
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: mention if we're going to it takes a bunch of water.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: How we're going to get the water up there?
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because it certainly isn't gonna move with
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: these like deliberately unclosed systems that are currently being used,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: where water that could absolutely be reclaimed and reused is
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: just being thrown away because fuck you, that's why.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: Not to mention, computer parts have to be replaced, pulled out,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: do they break?
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. Space a notoriously gentle place that never causes any
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: damage to anything.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: Like electronics, because it has a ton of radiation that
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: the Earth's magnetic field protects it from, Like electronics have
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: to be specially hardened to be in space. Like the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: idea of putting ele data center in space is just
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: like mind blowingly numb on every aspect of how a
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: data center works, from power generation to power dissipation, to
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: heat dissipation to a maintenance to I mean, it's just
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: to getting the data back here on Earth that the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: people who are going to use it. It doesn't make.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Sense, but it makes for really cool sci fi posters
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: at your convention, right, think about that?
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: So, you know, and someone else made a point that's
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: like someone's saying, oh, what if we get like quantum
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: computing and have a breakthrough on like AI and stuff
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: like that, And it's like, well, then none of the
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: data centers we're building are going to like, you know,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: be worth it. We're gonna tear them all down and
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: build nuance because we don't have quantum computers. Yeah.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: And also that's such a big if. Yeah, like what
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: even is a quantum computer? Like explain that? So yeah,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: obviously we have a couple of angsty feelings about AI. Yeah,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: pauxavid media will always be not using AI. We do
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: have a couple of machine learning algorithms in our audio
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: process because that is how music processing has been done
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: since forever, since the dawn of computers. But that's not AI.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: That's just how doing audio manipulation with computers works. I
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: really love some of my scripts, but they are not AI,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: not claim to be AI, and they cannot AI.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: No. And I think the other thing that really bothers
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: me is the way AI is being used to apply
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: to this language learning model thing that people are just
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: deciding is AI and it's like, it's not it never is.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: It's literally not.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, it's literally not like and it's able to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: do certain things, and it's able to respond in a
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: way that looks very convincing, but it's just and and
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: the fact that it's called AI then leads people to
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: use it in ways that it really isn't. They trust
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: it in ways they shouldn't.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you. It was really interesting behind the bastards
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: about the cult. Thing is that the AI chatbots obviously
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: can't intend to start a cult because that's there is
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: no intention there, but they have ingested so much culty
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: and cult adjacent self help bullshit, and they are programmed
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: to repeat back to you what you said more or less,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: which is in fact one very effective means of doing therapy.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: It is a school of therapy that it's enough for
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: people to trick themselves into cult like behavior with an
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: AI chatbot because they talk like cult leaders. Because self
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: help books and culty shit, there's so much of it
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: online that's been ingested by it. Fascinating, fascinating episode that's crazy,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: but yeah, just really understanding, like what is machine learning?
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: What is a large language model? What is the human
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: tendency to pattern.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: Seek and what's bias inherent in the internet?
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Right, Like, well then, and bias inherent in the data says.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: But one of the interesting things they were talking about
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: was how hard it is to talk about this stuff
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: without ascribing intention to it. Like they got down the
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: guests in the host got down to the point of,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: like we the literal language doesn't exist to talk about
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: a thing doing something without implying intent, Like, we literally
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: don't have the language tools to properly remind ourselves that
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: this thing doesn't have intention to it.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: No, we talked about intent all sorts of things that
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: are much more inanimate than AI.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly, exactly. It slips right through this massive hole
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: in our defenses as thinking creatures.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: Because it's literally designed to appear to have intent.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we are desperate to find intent. We are
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: desperate to find it. We will bend ourselves into so
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: many pretzels like this was another point they made. The
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: thing was that the Turing test was designed by a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: man who made far had far too much faith in
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: human intelligence, right the Turing. Turing's problem was that he
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: was too smart when he designed this thought experiment, and
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: he laid out what the conditions for it was was,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: because there are there's an instance that it talks about
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: in like the mid nineties when some of these AI
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: chatbots that were on forums that no one knew were chatbots,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: but they were being run as an unintentional or an
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: uninformed social experiment, and they started spitting out literal gibberish,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: like literal gibberish, and people ended up convincing themselves that
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: there was a code. And it's like, you failed the
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: Turing test, right, you literally failed the Turing test. Nobody
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: would look at this and think that it is a
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: thinking being, but you have decided that it is a
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: code from a super intelligence that's hiding in the machine.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: Like over and over and over again, this happens, and
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: it's fascinating phenomena, but it's like, yeah, Turing just overestimated people.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's is not a very good test. Is basically
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: it boils down to.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: It's a really good thought experiment for a man in
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: the fifties, but it doesn't actually hold up to what
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: real computers and humans stupidity have done in the actual
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: timeline that we existed.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: Right, what do they say the Smartest Bears and the
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: dulmnest people overlap significantly in intelligence.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: Right right right when it comes to yeah, bear proofing
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: your Yellowstone campsite. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: People can get into it to use it to throw
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: trash away, Bears can get into it to get the
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: trash back out again.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's enough cavetching about the real world. Yeah,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: as we wrap up out of here, I wanted to
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: just mention that I am still an autistic peer support
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: coach working on getting my business off the ground with
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: all the success of a lead balloon, but I am
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: still doing it. I do still run a weekly group.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: There's still an event in our discord channel about it.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: I also have another discord server about it on Thursdays
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: at one pm most weeks, I do a small support
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: group without any real particular goal on Zoom that people
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: can join. And I am almost definitely going to do
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: a five week workshop in September. I just sort of
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: learned that that window of my mental headspace and time
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: is going to open up in September, so I'm probably
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: going to do a autism peer support workshop then, and
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I will definitely put information about that into all of
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: our podcast feeds. And will probably give like a really
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: fat discount to anyone who comes from my podcast land
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: into that, because I really need to get that part
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: of my career going and I kind of want to
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: just put that out there as an intention and something
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: to look forward to. I'm also planning on sewing a
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: lot more this summer. This spring and summer, I really
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: need to spend less time doom scrolling and more time
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: crafting real physical objects. Yes, yes, so hopefully I have
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: cool costumes and stuff for my summer experiences to share
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: with you. Y'all. Definitely will hear more about that on
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: the Used to Sophia. If you really want the blow
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: by blow of my sewing angst, then you got to
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: go over to Use to Sew. But I'll share the
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: highlights over here on lots spoilers I have.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: I'm maybe getting the hankering to pick up the pottery
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: wheel again. I maybe maybe maybe I was just I
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: drove ya the clay shop, just going somewhere else, and
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: I kind of was like ooh, and then I kind
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: of like was scrolling old photos of the pottery I made,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: going like you know, I wasn't half bad. I kind
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: of remember really liking doing that, and I am looking
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: for a physical thing to do, and it's like, what
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: are what are the hobbies that I've been good at
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: in my life that I've really like? I feel like
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: I you know, can say, hey, that's something that I
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: was good at that I could do podcasting right, still
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: doing that, making alcohol, which I don't drink anymore, So
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: I really don't want to be doing that anymore. It
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: just doesn't feel it feels really pointless, if anything, counterproductive,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: and making pottery. Right, those are the three things that
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: I probably dedicated more than a few years to like
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: getting good at in my life. And it's like, maybe
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: I should go back to one of those that I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: haven't done in a while.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: It feels really good to make something when it feels
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: like the world is full of chaos and you're unrooted.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: It feels really good to just get elbows deep in
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: a project, potentially risk you know, getting burned or cut
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: a little bit on your hands, have something to hold
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: at the end, something in your life that means something.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: It's it's profoundly grounding.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: It's something you can sell when the economy crashes.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, barter goods for when there is when money is
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: worth nothing.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is why I'm hanging on to my beer
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: brewing tanks.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: The times are good, people want to drink. Times are bad.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: People want to drink to.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: Drink, and so if I ever really need to, it's
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: like I will, I will, you know, make alcohol for
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: the people.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. My husband actually is. I was telling
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: him about how many blueberries we have on our bushes
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: are going to get so many, and I don't know
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: what We're going to do with all the frozen blueberries
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: we have from last year, and I guess I'm gonna
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: have to earn a can. And he was like, can
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: I use some of those to pay one of our
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: neighbors to like do this you know, farm chore? Like,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: can I can I use some blueberries to like give
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: this guy some because I don't want to give you know,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: don't have to give them money, give them blueberries, Like yeah, yeah,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: use my use my farms blueberries as barter goods. We
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: can just skip the economy entirely. That would be great.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Make me feel useful, like I contributed something to the
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: household budget, no taxes exactly, and like you know, it's
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: wholesman healthy. Oh man. I got my first strawberries today.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: For the year, I have my red rocks out keep
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: the birds from eating them. And then I was like,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: wait a second, last time where I put a rock
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: and I look, and sure enough there's a couple of strawberries.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: So actually went out to weeded the beds and got
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: like a good dozen strawberries. Most of them are out
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: there when we come back from our trip, there's gonna
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: be a lot of red ones to harvest. But I
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: actually had first harvest today and God, they tasted so good.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: Mmmm. Yeah. The fruit coming in is good. They've been
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: eating even just the grocery store fruit has been improving
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: a lot in quality.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. But it was it
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: was nice to actually taste fruit from my own land.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, here we go, here we go where
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: summer is coming.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: Summer is coming, the fruit of your own loins.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of beans on those beds, and
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: you boil beans, and you got that water at the
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: end that you drain the beans out of. Yeah, put
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: that on strawberries. They come up quite tasty.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: Oh. I guess I do have one more thing I
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: feel like I should talk about before we go. I
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: have had some stomach issues over the last few months.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that kind of took me out of a
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: couple of recordings. Basically, as far as I can tell,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: I got norovirus in either November or January, depending on
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: or maybe both, and then I developed what the doctor
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: called post nour virus IBS.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: Oh damn, that's a thing.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: That's a thing. So I was then not really able
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: to hold down food for a few months, which really
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: put a dent in my early few months. I am
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: on a low FODMAP diet FODMAP if you want to
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: look that up, which is just a weird diet of
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: foods they have decided are easier to digest, basically nothing
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: with sucrose in it, so like apples are hard to digest,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: and a lot of fruits are actually off the list,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: and so are beans, and so are onions and garlic
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: and so it's just a very odd list of things
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: that I had to not eat for a while. And
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: now I'm slowly introducing foods back into my diet to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: see if any of them will if I've either recovered,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: which is possible, or if one of those triggers the problem.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: So wow, that has been quite the journey.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: It has been a journey. It has been a journey
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: with multiple doctors, visits, host neurovirus IBS, yeah, which just
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: involved well, I imagine you can.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: Imagine IBS is a thing that sucks.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: And everyone's had nooral virus, right, Like that's the thing
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: that makes you It basically feels like food poisoning.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I've had it, but I've had
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: food poisoning, so I can imagine a food poison I mean,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: my spouse has dealt with multiple food poisoning events that
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: have led to long term gastro intestinal issues, so that
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: is not hard to imagine. I'm glad you've got an answer,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: but that is a frustrating answer to deal with. I
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: hope that your diet helps with like getting you out
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: of that rut long term.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: The diet worked pretty much immediately to stop the problem,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: and I've been able to I have things I've I've
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: reintroduced onions and garlic aliens are good, so those are good.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: I have tried some dairy and that seems to be
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: doing okay, but only a light amount because I suspected
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: that was the problem. So so far, I'm okay. No gluten,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: no fruit. So far, those are the two things I've
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: stayed away from so that I haven't had a chance
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: to really test out yet, right, because the problem is
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: you don't want to test out multiple things at once
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: because then if you do get sick, you're it's like, well,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it was like that thing or
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: if it was you know. So I'm basically and I
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: only want to try them out on the weekend because
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get sick during the week when
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: I need to be working right, right, so I can
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: basically try out one thing per week.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: Fun. Fun.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: So far, onions and garlic are back on the list,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: which is, oh my god, thank god. Seriously, everything I
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: cook starts with onions and garlic, so I didn't know that.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, I didn't know how to start a
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: meal without pulling out the onions and garlic.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, alims are definitely a food group in this house.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Beans are the other thing that I would like
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: to get back, but I can still cook a lot
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: of foods without them, so they're kind of like they'll
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: probably be one of the last things I try out, honestly.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: But beans, beans and gluten. But yeah, that's it.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a good long tangenting. We have
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: recorded a lot of hours today with definitely wrapping up
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: the old book and doing tangents, but it's been great.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who's hung out in chat for
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: all of these hours talking with us. We will be
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: off next week, both literally in live I'm not recording
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: next week and also in recording. I think I'm going
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: to give myself a week break before we pick up
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: with new spring stuff. And yeah, stay tuned to the
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: Discord and the Blue Sky and the Instagram for picture
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: updates on what we're doing. I got nothing else. I'm
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: ready to go relax and not Rea Dungeon Crawler car.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to go do anything else right now. Yeah, no,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for everybody for sticking with us,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: and for those of you who enjoy the tangents. Hopefully
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: this was a good one. We went far. Hopefully you
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: edit out most of it, but you know.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: I had funds. I probably won't end it out that much.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, sweet, sweet sweet, it's sweet.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm ready to turn recording off. On
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: this last episode of season thirteen of the Wheel of
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: Time Spoilers podcast, thank you for listening to the Wheel
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: of Time Spoilers podcast. Please rate and review us on
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: your podcast app, and consider supporting us on Patreon for
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: ad free episodes. Watts Spoilers is a production of Fox
• 1:35:46
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• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: visit our website at Foxndravenmedia dot com.