Pod Insights Distractible The Cursed Episode About this episode Wade continues to keep the spoopy season in gear by hosting a discussion about bald-chilling curses and legends.
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Transcript 11,792 words · 7 speakers
0:01 Speaker 00 Born from the intensity of a night in the Eternal City. Introducing, Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.
0:31 Speaker 01 What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple, like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive, or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting and completely delicious. Simply. Say yes to Simple.
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1:30 Speaker 03 This episode is presented to you by Battlefield 6. Rip through the skies in an aerial dogfight. Demolish your environment for strategic advantage.
1:38 Speaker 04 Harness complete control over every action and movement. Every aspect of Battlefield's core gameplay has been honed to feel more fluid, responsive and immersive than ever before.
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2:01 Speaker 06 Good evening, gentle listeners or watchers, and welcome to Distractible. This episode, Wendy Wade mentions EA and ghostly gambling, then delves into horrible hexes. Brief Bob picks on pedagogues, loves bonking, blowing off mowers, then brings up Bangles' bow, crashes, and Dutchman. Modest Mark drops an early F-bomb, vilifies veal nerve, but identifies aces and Limnic lakes. From trashy teaching to witch finder generals. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. It's time for the cursed episode.
2:44 Speaker 06 Now, sit back and prepare to be distracted and enjoy the show.
2:54 Speaker 03 Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Distractible. I'm today's host. He's gone. I guess I shouldn't have said those words. I upset Bob already. Why would you do that? I was just saying I was today's host. I was gonna say because I won the last one, but I- It just happened, man. He just got robbed. That was at least four or three days ago for everyone watching and or listening. Like, time has passed for everyone else.
3:21 Speaker 05 You know what? They say time is relative. Someone smart said that once. Hey, wait a minute.
3:25 Speaker 04 It took way longer than I thought it would. Sorry. I'm back.
3:27 Speaker 03 Hey, man. Welcome back. Um, yep, I should not have been hosting today, but I am. And, man, Bob should really have been the one sitting in this chair.
3:36 Speaker 05 It's a nice shirt.
3:38 Speaker 03 Whoa, it keeps getting better. It's a really good shirt. You're getting an eyeful.
3:43 Speaker 05 Oh. Uh, listeners, he's got a shirt on. Don't worry about it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
3:47 Speaker 03 It says, "Distract-able."
3:51 Speaker 05 Distract-able. They started teaching phonics again, I heard. They tried the whole word approach, and, you know, when kids couldn't read and not know what words were, I... Uh, you know, have you heard about that?
4:03 Speaker 04 Yes, actually, there's a really interesting podcast series about how we got to where we are in terms of teaching reading in America and why the current generation, the last couple of generations have had such worse reading outcomes.
4:16 Speaker 05 Do you know why they shifted? Cause they ruined element OP. That may not be it.
4:21 Speaker 04 The story, I don't, I listened to this a while ago. The story basically goes, there was a woman who was a teacher, but was not like a researcher and was like, I think I know a better way to teach kids and just sort of came up with their own system and everybody liked it and everybody got in line behind it. And the book publishers got in line behind it. And once the book publishers get lined up behind a certain pedagogy, that's the only thing that gets taught because they're like, buy these books. You have to buy these books. Everyone has to buy these books. Like this lady, I don't think it was malicious. I think she thought she had a better way to teach reading because I think what happened was she came up with a different system than phonics
5:01 Speaker 04 and she was getting good results, but she was teaching the kids who didn't learn very well from the phonics type of teaching, which obviously are kids who would benefit from an alternative teaching modality. Like, sure, that makes sense, but the kids, like the majority of kids were learning fine from the phonics thing and they steered completely away from that. And it turns out most people seem to prefer phonics and that this new way of teaching is really good for kids for whom that does not reach. And it's like, not like it's an illegitimate thing. It's just not the only way we should teach kids how to read. But there's a whole series of like, I don't know, this podcast kind of sensationalized it, right? There's a series of like, it's a conspiracy and they don't, the businesses were trying to kill the old ways of,
5:45 Speaker 04 because they were just trying to sell these new books and make money.
5:48 Speaker 05 I see.
5:49 Speaker 04 It's an interesting story. There's a lot to, there's like an eight part podcast thing. It's like, there's a bunch of different parts of it.
5:54 Speaker 05 I would love to listen to that at some point, but the whole thing is fascinating to me because the, what it boils down to, this is oversimplification, but kids, when they get to a certain point in their education journey and they're like sufficient in reading, they're, they're guessing what the word is sometimes, especially if it's complex where. They're looking at the shape of it and it could be calligraphy and they might say it's like cartography. You know, they might, they'll just guess what the word is and have no semblance of what the actual sounds of the letters make. And so they have to, and it blows my mind because I can't imagine thinking that way. No, I couldn't, I couldn't have learned anything like that.
6:34 Speaker 05 In some streamers, I've seen it when they're trying to like read and for me, I've done this so much in games where I'm reading the, the, the text in, in games and stuff like that. And I'll get comments sometimes that are just like, wow, how are you doing that? How are you reading these words? It's like, I've read a lot, number one, so I'm better at it. But it's also just like, I can sound out what they are. So even if it's a new word I've never seen before, I know how to pronounce it based on my ability to know the English language and know its pronunciation rules and like, I can extrapolate from different things to get to new words that I've never even heard before. And it's, I can't imagine not being able to do that. It's like being robbed of this ability.
7:15 Speaker 04 No, well, yeah, that's the thing. The new, the new style of teaching is give them a book that's at or above their reading level. Like give them something that's gonna be full of words they don't know or haven't seen before. And then use context clues and use, uh, and, and guess basically. And then you either are told, yes, that's right, or no, that's wrong. But you have no, there's no sounding it out tools involved in this teaching method. I agree with you. It sounds completely unhinged to me, but, but it works really well for some kids. Some kids really need that. I'm sure. I don't know if it has to do with, if you have like dyslexia or other sort of reading, you know, whatever differences, but it's wild.
7:54 Speaker 05 There are certain sound based pronunciation roots in words that even if you don't know what the word is, because if you sound it out, you might hear like graffiti or, you know, ommeter, you know, you might understand that it's a measuring device outside of the ommeter, like lettering, if you say it out loud that way, or someone corrects your pronunciation, you might know what it means just based on the sound because a lot of root words have similar sounds and like the Latin basics. I don't It's just, I feel like a lot of people, kids growing up, they're gonna get to this point where they're like, they'll catch up if they really want to read. I feel like it's not, learning doesn't only happen as a child and then you get, I got way better at reading after I started doing YouTube.
8:38 Speaker 05 Trust me, way better at it. But yeah, I just feel like people will feel robbed and that's unfair.
8:47 Speaker 03 Interesting, interesting.
8:50 Speaker 03 So, uh, the sentence was, someone will get better at reading?
8:54 Speaker 05 Everyone gets worse at reading?
8:57 Speaker 04 No, he said, people, people will feel robbed and that's unfair.
9:02 Speaker 03 People will feel robbed and that's unfair.
9:04 Speaker 05 Okay, so if this goes well, we change the whole learning system for everybody and we will, we will save everyone's reading ability. But if it's doubly unfair, no one can read, we'll rob everyone's ability.
9:18 Speaker 03 That sounds right to you, Bob? Either we fix the learning or else we ruin it for everyone?
9:22 Speaker 04 That sounds like the level of influence I expect us to have.
9:25 Speaker 03 Okay, this is really gonna move us up those podcast charts.
9:33 Speaker 04 Heads.
9:34 Speaker 05 Pals.
9:34 Speaker 03 Heads.
9:35 Speaker 05 Oh, damn it, well.
9:37 Speaker 03 Um, well, coins out of the way.
9:39 Speaker 04 Well, everyone still can't read or whatever.
9:41 Speaker 03 So, um, yeah, the learning system is what it is.
9:44 Speaker 04 Gee, I hope nothing unfair happens the rest of the episode.
9:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:49 Speaker 05 The host has free reign. What have we done?
9:51 Speaker 03 That's right, I do. I'm guessing we're into small talk. Mark, you brought up the reading, was that right?
9:57 Speaker 05 No, well, I mean, I mentioned it. Bob had more input on it, I'd say. I mean, yes, that was all me.
10:03 Speaker 04 Mark gets credit, yes.
10:05 Speaker 03 Oh, you both just got some points, that's fine. Uh, okay, well, we'll open it up to small talk and, uh, before I throw it over to you, because it's absolutely fair for me to have small talk as the host. You guys hear about EA, uh, selling?
10:18 Speaker 04 I have heard about that.
10:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, fifty-five billion dollars if it goes through.
10:22 Speaker 04 Is it approved? I heard we were trying to get that approved.
10:25 Speaker 03 No, it, it, it has to go through approval, which I think will go into like June of next year and then
10:30 Speaker 04 Right.
10:31 Speaker 03 If that happens, then early 2027, the sale would actually be finalized. Some group in Saudi Arabia, I forget the name of the group, but in Saudi Public Investment Funds, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, agreed to a fifty-five billion dollar purchase of EA. Which means.
10:47 Speaker 04 That's pretty crazy.
10:48 Speaker 03 It'll be out of public market and maybe that means that games could be made to be good rather than made for investors to be happy.
10:55 Speaker 04 If there's anything I've learned in modern society, it's that private capital always fixes the problems that ail businesses. Every business that's ever been bought up by private capital has turned right around and become absolute paragons of their industries and nothing bad will happen.
11:14 Speaker 03 So the, the curve is individual or small group makes great thing. People love it. Companies goes public, people can buy stocks and all of a sudden they've got pressures. They gotta make money to make the investors happy. Game goes. And then private company swoops in, buys it. And then where's it go? Better, worse, same?
11:35 Speaker 05 It depends. The only scenario I've seen where things go better is when the original group or person reinvests and brings it private. That is the only time I've seen these things turn around. I'm sure there are outliers. I'm not an encyclopedia on all the business dealings that's ever, ever happened, but usually if you as a consumer want a better experience, the original inventor of the said good product needs to be the person that goes back into it.
12:03 Speaker 03 So do you think Saudi Arabia, Saudi Public Investment Funds, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners equal Trip Hawkins?
12:12 Speaker 04 Maybe he's in there.
12:13 Speaker 05 Maybe, yeah, maybe he's in there. I can't say Trip Hawkins.
12:18 Speaker 04 I don't know where Trip's at these days.
12:20 Speaker 05 Trip, oh, look at this guy. Look at that smile. Yeah, he's definitely.
12:24 Speaker 03 I didn't know EA was founded in like the early eighties.
12:27 Speaker 05 Was it?
12:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, I didn't know that either.
12:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, apparently EA was founded 1982.
12:33 Speaker 05 Whoa.
12:33 Speaker 04 That seems pretty early.
12:35 Speaker 05 He was, oh, Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple Computer. They have all the, it's, I feel like all these big companies have the same like 20 people that were in all of the companies doing all the things all at once. And they all just jumped around and did everything. Not like today where we only have like five people that are the heads of all these other companies.
12:54 Speaker 04 Well, no one cares now because they're all actually just owned by one large ultra mega corporation. So it's all the same. What are we talking about?
13:02 Speaker 05 Games.
13:03 Speaker 03 EA, the big sale of EA and whether or not would make.
13:06 Speaker 05 Get in the game or whatever it is.
13:07 Speaker 04 Get in the game.
13:09 Speaker 05 Get in the game.
13:10 Speaker 03 EA Sports. It's in the game.
13:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, I hope it works out for the best because, uh, I mean, some EA games like, you know, some of the battlefields and stuff are fun. I'm looking forward to, but, uh, and like games like Madden and even the new college football just aren't nearly as, maybe it's nostalgia, but like, I remember really enjoying them when I was younger and then I tried to play them in recent years. I'm like, eh, kind of buggy and whatever. And everyone loved the new Battlefront when it first came out. Maybe they like it more now, but boy, oh, boy. Whenever you had to pay money to be Darth Vader or whatever it was, loot boxes to unlock characters. People loved that.
13:46 Speaker 04 Sure, sure.
13:47 Speaker 03 So that's my small talk. Just wanted to bring up EA. Figured you guys probably had heard about it if I heard about it, but.
13:52 Speaker 04 I guess I'm jaded because my main take is, can it get worse?
13:56 Speaker 03 Maybe.
13:57 Speaker 05 Always, pretty much.
13:59 Speaker 04 We'll find out, I guess.
14:00 Speaker 05 But they can't force me to buy anything that they make. So like.
14:03 Speaker 03 If you've bought an EA product in the last 30 years, you are obligated to buy every EA product for the next 20.
14:09 Speaker 05 I guarantee you, there was some board meeting with like, what if we put in some like mind control images that make people want to buy more, like forcing people? What if we tie people in chairs, take their credit cards and put it into the game? What if we make their account name, the credit card number and the password is the, the secret code plus the brand name?
14:29 Speaker 03 It's like, you know. Subliminal messaging every like 60 frames you see. I'm having fun. This is fun.
14:36 Speaker 04 Anyone who's ever played an EA game is now a sleeper agent and anytime you hear the word ultimate team, you're just like, gotta buy more Madden packs.
14:44 Speaker 03 You don't even play Madden.
14:45 Speaker 04 I know. I love the packs.
14:47 Speaker 05 I will tell you about the game that I've been playing that I have been enjoying. I love Hades and Hades 2 came out and it is every bit as fun as the original. It is so goddamn good. The story is so tightly in there. I don't even care what's going on. It's, it's just like, ah, man, it's such a tight, fun, specific type of fun where you got the randomness, you get the rogue light-ish nature of it, the repetition. It's easy to jump in, do one round. I'm like, I'm just gonna do one. You continually making progress. It's super fun.
15:26 Speaker 05 God, it's good.
15:27 Speaker 03 I've heard good thing. I've heard a couple of gripes about like how it ends or something like that. A couple of people have like minor gripes, but overall I've heard mostly great things.
15:36 Speaker 05 Well, don't spoil anything for me.
15:38 Speaker 03 I don't know anything about it. It just people are, you know, people that can be happy. Maybe they're right. Cause I don't know, but maybe they're wrong.
15:44 Speaker 04 Those are the two ways.
15:46 Speaker 05 And it's made by a small team. Supergiant Games is a developer and they self publish. They only have 25 employees, you know, um, but for a 25 employee studio, this was like such a beautifully polished, clean like experience. I've, I've only experienced like two bugs in the entire thing. Um, and they weren't even game breaking bugs. Like it's just like, oh, it's just so good.
16:08 Speaker 04 Yeah. No, super giant, super giant kills it. Have you played, um, their other stuff?
16:13 Speaker 05 I have not. I, I remember transistor when it came out and I looked at it and be like, ah, it might be fun. I think I.
16:18 Speaker 04 Transistor was, was good.
16:20 Speaker 05 It's, that's very much like Hades, right?
16:22 Speaker 04 It's very similar. Yeah.
16:23 Speaker 05 Top down kind of.
16:24 Speaker 04 Yeah. I, I, well, and Bastion, I would say too, you should check out if you really like Hades, both transistor and Bastion.
16:30 Speaker 05 Oh yeah, that's definitely like, yeah. So they've really mastered that type of game. And I heard about transistor. I heard great things, but I just never got into it. But when Hades came out, like, I think I played that just before COVID and it was, oh, it was so good. I just remember slinging it every day and every night I play this.
16:47 Speaker 04 Well, and I even, I have played their other one too. Pyre. I forgot. I have played that. Also very good. Hades is really their like breakout, like everyone loves Hades, but their whole catalog is like, if you really like Hades, that's what they do.
17:01 Speaker 05 It's awesome. They're also good. Which is why games like, you know, video game developer simulator don't make any sense because it's like they're always one, it's the same game as before. It's like, I don't care if it's the same type of game, if it's as good, if it's as fun. Cause whenever I get done with those games is like, I just want the same with new maps and new enemies and new fun characters and, but just do this, don't change it that much. And that's basically what they've done so far with some fun additions on top of it. It's like, oh, that's delightful. Every time I come up on one of the surprises, like I'm playing the same core gameplay that I like, whereas like with Diablo. Three and Diablo four. A lot of people were like, wow, it's way slower, you know, and they got used to that fast speed. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's like, it is very different
17:46 Speaker 05 feel of it. But these all feel the same. It's like snap, snap, snap, snap. Oh, so good. God, it's so good. I haven't enjoyed a game in a long time. So I've been very happy about this.
17:54 Speaker 03 So it's a great feeling when you like, listen, you guys have heard me talk about like blueprints. So you know, whatever the game is, I find that I'm in love with.
18:01 Speaker 05 Well, we like good games.
18:02 Speaker 03 Okay.
18:05 Speaker 05 I mean, I should declare unfair on what I just said, but I can't, you know, it's
18:10 Speaker 04 Oh, no. Wow. Unbelievable.
18:14 Speaker 05 Oh, man, there's a, I, I, I know it's, it's easy to like this character in Hades two, but there's Narcissus, which is exactly what it sounds like. That character is every time I come across Narcissus in that game, I laugh every time. God, I'm not going to spoil any more of it, but very fun. It's probably an easy character for people to like, but very fun one.
18:34 Speaker 03 Do you close the door when you run into Aphrodite?
18:38 Speaker 03 Bob, what's new with you?
18:40 Speaker 04 Uh, same, same feeling and experience for me, but with Mega Bonk so far.
18:44 Speaker 05 Mega Bonk. I've heard about this. Mega Bonk, right?
18:47 Speaker 04 New top down rogue light thing. Wade has more hours in it than I do. It's real good. Uh, you definitely do.
18:54 Speaker 05 Oh, we talked about this, uh, previous episode. Yeah, it looks really cool.
18:58 Speaker 04 Same, same, but I'm really into Mega Bonk and literally I just like just unlocked something that has been on my mind all day today. I'm like, man, I can't wait to get back to that and play that new thing I unlocked.
19:09 Speaker 05 Yeah. Wade, wrap up this episode. We got a game to play.
19:12 Speaker 03 Okay.
19:13 Speaker 04 Uh, no, guys, I'm excited. I'm, I'm making a commitment. I'm buying a riding lawnmower. Yes, I am a Midwest dad living out his childhood fantasies. We currently, we have people who cut the grass and like, that's very convenient, but I've always felt kind of like a lazy piece of shit about that. Like growing up, my dad always cut the grass and I, when I was old enough, he had me do it. And like, it's probably not that bad. And we have a big enough yard that that's like totally legit to have a riding mower. I'm so excited. I have to go, I have to do some shopping. I have to do some research. I don't want a zero turn. I want a tractor style. I don't know how I gotta make sure the deck's not too wide to get through the sized gate we have in our fence. All this fun like I'm excited about it.
19:57 Speaker 03 Are you gonna like do something with the grass? You're just gonna like spit out and sit on top of the old grass? You're gonna collect it and like?
20:03 Speaker 04 Uh, unless I have to bag it, uh, if I let it get too long, but like, I'll just, I'm just gonna mulch, mulch it and put it back out and blow off edge, edge the edges and then blow off the sidewalks and stuff.
20:16 Speaker 05 He's gonna edge the edges, blow off the sidewalk?
20:17 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:18 Speaker 05 Hell yeah.
20:19 Speaker 04 God, it's like a party. It's like a constant party over here, but I am excited to cruise around the neighborhood with a beer on my riding lawnmower. So that'll be pretty cool. I think everyone will respect me more after they see that.
20:29 Speaker 05 I respect you more.
20:30 Speaker 04 You haven't even seen it. Just wait.
20:31 Speaker 05 I haven't seen it. Yeah.
20:33 Speaker 03 Hey, listen, mega bonk and doing stuff. Those are two good things. Eighties. I need to play both to compare, but in my brain, I'm like, oh man, do I have time for more than one rogue light at the moment? Probably not, but I'll do it anyway. Maybe.
20:46 Speaker 04 You will.
20:48 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, you will. I also want to play Dead Zone Rogue and Jump Space. I've only gotten to play like very limited amounts of those games. And then there's a new, um, game. I might even stream it today in the past for everyone. Uh, you guys heard of Clover Pit?
21:02 Speaker 04 Yes.
21:02 Speaker 05 No.
21:03 Speaker 04 Isn't that like gambling or slots or something? What is it? Something?
21:07 Speaker 03 It's like a spooky gambling game.
21:10 Speaker 05 Oh, hell yeah.
21:11 Speaker 03 I think it's kind of like, I don't want to say Bellatro meets gambling, but, um, what's the game with like the, the creepy face dude and you have the gun and you load the bullet?
21:20 Speaker 04 Shotgun roulette?
21:22 Speaker 03 Shotgun roulette. It's kind of like a shotgun roulette meets a slot machine ish kind of thing. I don't know. That's kind of the vibe I got from it.
21:29 Speaker 05 Clover Pit. All right. I'll, I'll get it. You sold me.
21:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:33 Speaker 05 It actually has a bunch of bundles. It's got a inscription bundle. It's got a, uh,
21:38 Speaker 03 Is it by the same people who did inscription? It kind of has that feel to it.
21:41 Speaker 05 And it also has buckshot roulette as a bundle, but it might be.
21:44 Speaker 03 It has a very similar feel to those style of games. Not scary, but like horror setting. And if you screw up, you die or something.
21:53 Speaker 05 Oh, maybe not. Maybe the bundles are just steam packaged. Things that it thinks are similar together. That might be it.
21:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm not sure because I've not done it yet, but I've just I've seen a little bit of gameplay of it and I've heard people talk about it. I'm like, okay, I'll just give it a shot.
22:04 Speaker 05 I'm doing it.
22:04 Speaker 03 Good time for games. We've had, we've had a pretty good year for games.
22:08 Speaker 05 I have heard that there is many contenders for game of the year this year, and I think Hades two is up there, but I, I'm like, I'm hoping that there's other ones.
22:17 Speaker 03 Blueprints won't be, it came out too early and was kind of niche, but man, it would never be. Should be.
22:22 Speaker 05 Never.
22:23 Speaker 03 It's because you didn't play it right.
22:26 Speaker 05 It's because your controller was broken. It's because you, you, you, you don't know.
22:34 Speaker 00 Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma fragrances by Valentino.
22:43 Speaker 00 Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.
23:04 Speaker 01 What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple, like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive, or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting and completely delicious. Simply, say yes to simple.
23:34 Speaker 03 This episode is brought to you by Uber. You know that feeling when someone shows up for you when you need it most? Yeah, we all need that sometimes and Uber knows that. Uber isn't just a ride or a meal delivered. It's showing up no matter what.
23:46 Speaker 05 I think that might be them knocking on the door and because they're, you know, Uber's really good about getting them right to where you are.
23:52 Speaker 03 To them or the FBI, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
23:55 Speaker 05 Yep.
23:57 Speaker 03 When it really matters, whatever it is, you show up or there's a will, we're on our way. Uber, on our way. Download the app today.
24:07 Speaker 03 All right. Well, I've got some time for an episode. So I guess unless you all have anything else, I'm going to do an episode. And by episode, I mean you guys are doing all the work, kind of.
24:16 Speaker 05 Sounds right to me. What else is new?
24:18 Speaker 03 It's October still, and I think we need to buckle down into the scary.
24:23 Speaker 05 Into the scary.
24:25 Speaker 03 You guys believe in?
24:28 Speaker 05 Curses.
24:31 Speaker 03 No curse words? Oh, no curses.
24:35 Speaker 05 I cast fuck you.
24:38 Speaker 03 No. Curses, like the curse of Tippecanoe, the curse of the bambino, the Kennedy curse, tootin' common. Uh, maybe? The curse of Tippecanoe came into play. I'm not sure exactly when the curse was like, mentioned. Every 20 years, a president elected to office died. That was starting in 1840 through JFK in 1960. Every 20 years, a US president elected to office, died in office. The curse of the bambino was when the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
25:19 Speaker 03 And then they went 86 years without winning a World Series. And it was attributed to trading to like their most hated rival. That'll show them. And then the Kennedy curse is just a lot of bad things happened to the Kennedy family. A lot of deaths, a lot of death. Tootin' commons tomb, I've not looked into extensively as far as the specifics of what happened. But people who came in and disturbed the tomb typically had a lot of misfortune afterward.
25:43 Speaker 05 And it was I've heard, I don't know how true this is. I've heard with that specific one that there was a type of fungus in the tomb that obviously when people went into it, they breathed in the fungus and the spores and things like that. And it caused illnesses, fungal born illnesses in the people that went into the tomb. Therefore, they went in the tube, they got sick, they went out and died. I don't know if that's true. It might just be a theory of how that happened, but I could totally believe that happening because you're in a tomb in a dark, I don't know how damp it is in there, but even some funguses can live in drier environments. And you know, it's just, uh, it's totally possible. Well, yes. Are we looking up curses?
26:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, just either ones I've mentioned, other ones, but we're gonna talk about curses. I'm looking at the Tutankhamun's tomb one. Toxic mold theory is mentioned, but um, the primary figure associated with the curse, Lord Carn- Carnarvon, uh, apparently died from an infected mosquito bite shortly after opening the tomb.
26:40 Speaker 05 Infected mosquito bite, wow.
26:42 Speaker 03 But some of the other people who died was attributed to natural causes or accidents, but the toxic mold theory is mentioned.
26:49 Speaker 05 All right. Are we taking turns on this?
26:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, sure. And that's fine.
26:52 Speaker 05 This is, this is a list of curses to say to other people. And they're not. Man, let's find funny hex curses is the thread, and I'm not showing shade on this, but unsalted pretzel, you're as sharp as a marble, mother hugger. For someone who is 70% water, you don't look very refreshing.
27:12 Speaker 04 Damn.
27:13 Speaker 05 May all your exes meet over tea and share gossip about you. If you get to heaven, tell my grandma I said hi and that she made the best cookies. That's not a curse. May you always have a broken sheet. These are, uh, good, pass.
27:24 Speaker 04 May your blade chip and shatter.
27:26 Speaker 05 Listen, Alghaib. That is a good one. I love the way Javier Bardem just owned that whole role. The rest of it, like, okay, I like Villanova, Villanova. Villanova, Villanova.
27:39 Speaker 03 The college Villanova?
27:41 Speaker 04 Nova, Nova.
27:42 Speaker 05 Vill- Vill- Villavonavu, right?
27:45 Speaker 04 I don't know, sure.
27:46 Speaker 05 Cinematographer, incredible shot composition. There's no doubt about the art of the shots that, that come into that. However, a movie can be entirely pretty shots, and there is some story there and some good storytelling, but it's just like, there's a theme that goes through a lot of his movies where it's just like, barna- music sting, big, big, beautiful shot, a lot of slow mo, a lot of, it's like a particular vibe, and I, I get very tired of things very quickly. I, this is, this is stupid of me. I mean, this is not the point. Pass. I said pass. I said pass.
28:22 Speaker 03 No, no, keep going.
28:24 Speaker 05 All I, all I'm finding are curse, curses to say to other people. May you bite into a big chunk of garlic so your mouth feels funny for the next few days. That doesn't happen. What are they talking about? I don't know. Pass.
28:38 Speaker 04 Okay, go on.
28:39 Speaker 03 Is it, I'm sorry, it might be unfair that I'm not letting you pass, but you can't declare it.
28:43 Speaker 05 All right, that's, that's all right. Okay, okay, fine.
28:46 Speaker 04 I know a curse. Fuck. Anyway, no, Cincinnati has a sports curse. It's not our fault that we can't win sports games. The Reds are cursed because umpire Johnny McSherry died during a game on the field in 1996. I actually don't know if it was on the field, but I did not know that that happened. That is a terrible story and I get why that might make a team feel cursed if it literally an umpire dies mid game during your game. That is not ideal. Also, there's the Bo Jackson curse. 1991 playoff game Bengals Bo Jackson career ending injury during the playoff game cursed ever since.
29:30 Speaker 03 But we did finally beat the Raiders in a playoff game, which maybe was the end of that particular curse and then we probably have a start of a new one. The Reds one, I will say the Reds unrelated to the reasoning that you'd mentioned, they kind of deserve to be cursed. Wasn't it just a few years ago that people were complaining about the product and the Reds owner was like, oh, there's no other game in town and we don't have to do anything because you have no choice but to watch us. So deal with it. Something like that, which is why whenever we go to Reds things Molly wears her Minnesota Twins gear because she's like, yeah, fuck the Reds.
30:03 Speaker 04 I.
30:07 Speaker 04 Go ahead.
30:10 Speaker 03 Cincinnati curse. Okay, Mark.
30:11 Speaker 05 All right. So this one's a famous one. A lot of people know it, but dead man's hand. Do you know about dead man's hand?
30:17 Speaker 04 Specific hand in poker or something?
30:19 Speaker 05 It is, it is. So there was a gunfighter by the name of Wild Bill Hickok, which great nickname. We should bring back these kinds of nicknames. I want, actually, I don't know if I want the suburb.
30:30 Speaker 04 Wild Mark Fishback.
30:32 Speaker 05 Come, actually don't, you know, don't come up with nicknames for me. I don't want that at all.
30:37 Speaker 04 All right. So Brennan, I'm looking forward to that thread.
30:40 Speaker 05 A book was published in 1926. The earliest reference to this was 1886 where the dead man's hand was originally considered a full house with Jackson 10s. Uh, but then it Jackson red sevens was called dead hand man's hand by 1903. And then 1907 it became Jackson eights. But while Bill Hickok's hand in 1876, which was apparently before all this was eights and aces, all black cards, and then the fifth card could be whatever. But it's eights and aces, black cards is dead man's hand. Now, I don't know if this has ever happened again afterwards.
31:25 Speaker 05 It seems like he got killed with that hand and therefore it became the dead man's hand.
31:31 Speaker 04 Yeah. So what hand do I not want to have right now?
31:34 Speaker 05 If, if you get that, if you get aces and eights, all black cards, ace and aces, aces and eights, you're gonna die or something like that.
31:42 Speaker 04 Is it aces full of eights or eights full of aces?
31:44 Speaker 05 Eights in between aces.
31:46 Speaker 04 Okay.
31:46 Speaker 05 It's an ace eight sandwich.
31:48 Speaker 04 So three aces, two eights, all black. You know, that's why people are afraid of aces. Cause ace, eight, nine.
31:55 Speaker 05 Pass.
31:58 Speaker 05 I have more, I have more.
32:00 Speaker 04 Oh, apparently the only curses I actually do know anything about are all sports curses. So do you know the Andretti curse? And or do you know the Andretti family? I've never met them. No. We don't ever talk, I'm a, I'm kind of a motorsport fan and we don't ever talk about that. As far as I know, you guys are not big motorsports fans, but Mario Andretti is an incredibly decorated, race car driver. He won the Daytona 500, he won the Indianapolis 500 in the sixties. And his family, his sons and successive generations have basically all gone on to, I don't know about all, many of them have gone on to be very successful, very good race car drivers.
32:42 Speaker 04 Uh, but Mario's Indy 500 win in 1969 would be the family's last, uh, ever. As far as I know, they, since 1969, every Andretti who's ever, uh, raced in the Indy 500 has had breakdowns, has had, uh, crashes, crashed out, has, well, there was one really dramatic heartbreaking loss.
33:06 Speaker 04 That happened, but they cannot win the Indy 500, which is not a particularly meaningful race in terms of what it represents. It's not like some grand championship or anything, but it's an iconic race. Brickyard in Indianapolis. It's like, at least for American motorsports, it's like the Daytona 500, the Indy 500 might be the only two races a person who doesn't otherwise know anything about race cars would have heard of because those are the two big iconic. Anyway, the Andretti's legendary racing family, literally in several different branches of motorsport at the core of the best family of drivers possibly that's ever lived, having one another, Indy 500 can't do it. Curse forever. Take that.
33:48 Speaker 05 Damn, I've got a curse. What if you've lived in a city that just suddenly started burning? And it didn't stop burning for 60 years?
33:59 Speaker 04 Cleveland? Oh, 60 years.
34:02 Speaker 05 Yeah, Cleveland's on fire, baby.
34:04 Speaker 04 Take that, Cleveland. Ha.
34:06 Speaker 05 No, I'm talking about the coal fire in Pennsylvania.
34:12 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, yeah.
34:13 Speaker 05 There's a town of Centralia in Pennsylvania that since 1962 has started burning. And it's just because there's a large coal vein underneath the town and coal, when it burns, it will ignite all the other coal around it. If coal vein ignites, there's really, really not many ways to put it out until the fuel runs out. Now imagine this was a town in like before common era times or even early common era times where you have a town that just suddenly erupts in flames for no particular reason, because they didn't know that the rocks nearby would light on fire or something like that. And it just kept burning. And then that city became a cursed
34:55 Speaker 05 city because it doesn't, it's, it's not exactly good air when coal is gushing out flames everywhere in the city. There's also like other chemicals and gas, not chemicals, really like other compounds that could burn and release. Imagine the world's largest vape down there and you're huffing that. And then, uh, yeah, so that could be considered a curse, both in this time now where this town is, you know, cursed forever to burn and then in the past. There might be other towns that have burned just like this.
35:25 Speaker 03 So for this particular one, I've not looked into it extensively. The coal was exposed, which is why it's been able to burn. Cause wouldn't if you just closed it up, if it was underground, you closed it up, wouldn't it smother? Cause it would run out of oxygen. Like how, how did it burn for so long?
35:38 Speaker 05 Uh, I'm not a hundred percent sure of the chemistry of it. When you have coal like this, uh, depending on the arrangement with underground caves and stuff, it could technically pull in air from a completely separate area. If there's any underground cave connections that connect to where the coal vein is, and then it will, the gases it creates will push vents through the soil. And so I think that's what happens a lot. You'll get a lot of sudden outcroppings of like smoke and plumes of fire will like appear here and appear here. Because it's, it's a self sustaining reaction where the heat it generates causes air movement to be pulled in and upward, pushed upwards, which draws it in from any lower terrain area.
36:22 Speaker 05 And it'll, it'll become a chimney basically and, and create its own. It's so large, the, the area that's burning, that even if it were to stop having oxygen, the heat alone would erode the dirt and stuff around it to the point where it could, you know, if you have like coal or you put wood in a tin box and deprived of oxygen, it will turn into charcoal, right? From the heat alone, and that is just more ignitable material. So that the moment any oxygen gets in there, it'll ignite again and keep going. It's just such a large fire. And I may be saying some things wrong there. In this podcast, we only ever say things that we think we know. We don't, we don't know fully. I'm probably not getting it exactly right, but that's what I've heard.
37:03 Speaker 03 Correct us.
37:04 Speaker 04 Make sure you go to the subreddit and tell Mark exactly what he said. That's semantically incorrect or minutely wrong.
37:11 Speaker 03 And what his new nickname is.
37:13 Speaker 04 He wants to learn.
37:14 Speaker 03 The fiery Markiplieri.
37:16 Speaker 05 I'll take it. Actually, that's pretty good.
37:18 Speaker 03 Thank you.
37:19 Speaker 04 Give yourself a point.
37:20 Speaker 03 Okay, you talked me into it. Better hope for no golf rules.
37:23 Speaker 04 My turn?
37:24 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
37:25 Speaker 04 Cause I want to talk about the legend of the lost Dutchman's gold mine and the curse of the superstition mountains. This one's actually just one of those old school goofy ass things. So this dude, what was his name? Waltz, something Waltz. Jacob Waltz, German dude, Dutchman, Deutsch, German, was, this is out in Arizona. There's just a mountain range called the superstition mountains that's located in the superstition wilderness. And the, the, the mountain at the heart of it is called superstition mountain. So this is just an area. I don't know why you named something that goofy ass name, but that's what it's called. And this dude, Jacob Waltz supposedly
38:09 Speaker 04 was out there and found an absolute motherload, found a mine and had his own secret mine that nobody knew the location of. That was just a ridiculous motherload. He was finding gold and gold and gold and more gold. And on his deathbed in 1891, legend is that he revealed the location to the boarding house owner who had been taking care of him and who owned the place where he died. Then everyone has been searching for the lost Dutchman's gold mine ever since. The actual story, people seem, people seem to think it's pretty likely that he actually just worked in a different mine called the vulture mine, which is an established mine with lots of, he just was a miner for company. And he was just stealing gold from them and then was like, oh, I have a secret mine.
38:55 Speaker 04 This is, this gold is from my super secret, nobody knows but me. Uh, he was probably just stealing from his company. But, uh, the curse is that apparently this legend made it, made the rounds and a bunch of people were like, I'm going to find his secret mine. Rich and people went out into the superstition wilderness and some of them turned up dead. Some of them are said to have gone mad hunting endlessly for the lost Dutchman's gold. So it's the curse of the superstition mountains.
39:27 Speaker 05 Damn.
39:28 Speaker 04 Don't whoever names like lots of stuff, basically everything's named at this point. Who the fuck named something like, oh, the yeah, superstition mountain. That's good. This is the superstition wilderness. It's like, this is the extra scary forest.
39:43 Speaker 05 Was it originally a different name, a translation, translated in English, possibly?
39:47 Speaker 04 It was originally, I think, a native name. There was a name for it in Yavapai, which is in language spoken by the Yavapai people in central and western Arizona. There are four dialects. Apparently, I don't know if this is a translation or an incorrect translation or just a new name. But even still, even if it was in another language, naming something the superstition wilderness. It's just setting it up for bad. That's just a bad place now. You could, if it was named the happy fun wilderness, it would have a totally different vibe. That's just a really fucked up thing to do.
40:19 Speaker 05 Then you could do the opposite naming where you say happy tree friends and it's really horrible, you know?
40:24 Speaker 03 Uh, before you go, Mark, I have breaking news that will be dated by the time this episode airs. Bob, I think I have to give you a point for this because you've been doing all the sports and Cincinnati curses.
40:35 Speaker 04 Is Joe Burrow dead?
40:37 Speaker 03 The Bengals just made a trade for a quarterback.
40:40 Speaker 04 Aaron Rodgers.
40:41 Speaker 03 Not Aaron Rodgers.
40:42 Speaker 04 Joe Flacco.
40:43 Speaker 03 Yes.
40:44 Speaker 04 No, no, no, no, no.
40:47 Speaker 03 They traded.
40:48 Speaker 04 He's available because the Browns benched him. No.
40:52 Speaker 03 The Browns got Joe Flacco, who was a Baltimore Raven for his whole career. He's like 80 years old. The Browns, who haven't been able to successfully run the quarterback position at all, other than Baker Mayfield had like a good year or two.
41:05 Speaker 04 And now he's killing it down in Tampa. Now Baker Mayfield's killing it.
41:08 Speaker 03 For like 30 years, benched their quarterback and the Bengals just traded a fifth round pick for him. They get a sixth rounder back, but we gave a fifth rounder for Joe Flacco, who just got benched.
41:20 Speaker 04 Just got benched by the Browns because he wasn't good enough for Cleveland, who aren't even.
41:25 Speaker 05 I've, I've looking him up. You know what's funny? You said he was like 80 years old, right?
41:28 Speaker 04 It's like 42 or something, isn't he?
41:30 Speaker 05 He was born in 85. I don't think any of us can say that.
41:34 Speaker 04 It's like a thousand years old.
41:36 Speaker 03 For a quarterback, that makes him a thousand years old.
41:39 Speaker 05 For sure, for sure, for sure. I just want to point out.
41:43 Speaker 04 All right. So Joe Flacco, a man who's basically the same age as us almost, but looks like a grandfather, is probably starting for the Bengals this coming weekend is what you're saying because Browning can't throw less than three interceptions per game.
41:56 Speaker 03 By the time this airs, I wonder if he'll be playing or not still.
42:01 Speaker 04 I'm gonna call it right now. Joe Flacco is leading us to the playoffs. Getting benched in Cleveland was exactly the wake up call he needed. He's gonna, he's gonna remember to take his medicine in the morning and he's gonna show up in Cincinnati bright eyed and ready to kick some ass. And if he can throw one interception or less per game, he's definitely an improvement over where we are right now. So.
42:24 Speaker 05 I mean, if, if it's any consolation, I think we do have a chance to get to playoffs. And this is me actually talking about sports a little bit, which is shocking. I know you guys. Isn't it just because the Ravens and Browns are also doing so unbelievably terribly?
42:35 Speaker 04 Oh, they stink. Our division is stinky, stinky so far this year.
42:38 Speaker 05 Yeah. So, uh, there's a real good shot. So.
42:41 Speaker 04 It's possible. I, when this, this is either gonna be the most dead on ridiculously hot, hot take, or I'm gonna look like an idiot, but either way it'll be funny in the future. Yeah. You in the future, look it up. Maybe I'm right. Maybe the Bengals are two and seven.
42:55 Speaker 05 I have a passage and I actually have to say this passage is a little disturbing for people at home.
43:01 Speaker 04 Ooh.
43:01 Speaker 05 But this is true. Absolutely true. A firsthand account of a real life curse. I could not speak. I became unconscious. I could not open my mouth because then I smelled something terrible. I heard my daughter snoring in a terrible way, very abnormal. When crossing to my daughter's bed, I collapsed and fell. I was there until nine o'clock in the morning of Friday the next day. Until a friend of mine came and knocked at my door. I was surprised to see that my trousers were red, had some stains like honey. I saw some starchy mess on my body. My arms had some wounds. I didn't really know how I got these wounds. I opened the door. I wanted to speak.
43:44 Speaker 05 My breath would not come out. My daughter was already dead. I went into my daughter's bed, thinking that she was sleeping. I slept till it was 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday that same day. Then I managed to go over to my neighbors' houses. They were all dead. I decided to leave because most of my family was in Wum. That's the name of the city. I'm probably not pronouncing it right. I got my motorcycle. A friend whose father had died left with me for Wum. As I rode through Neos, I didn't see any sign of any living thing. When I got to Wum, I was unable to walk, even to talk. My body was completely weak. This is a real quote.
44:29 Speaker 05 This is not story. This is something that actually happened. The survivor's name is Joseph N'Quane from Sabum. And he described what happened after a CO2 eruption from the local lake of this city. So what that means is occasionally there are pockets of gas beneath the earth, much like the coal fire. There are pockets of gas beneath the earth. They're not just always natural gas. There can be natural occurrences of carbon dioxide accumulating at certain places. And when it gets to a point where it has so much buoyancy that it might push through the soil, go up through a lake, or go out through any kind of outcropping. Because CO2 is heavier than oxygen,
45:12 Speaker 05 it will create a blanket of just carbon dioxide flowing through the landscape. It will asphyxiate almost anything there because they just, there is no oxygen. This happens a lot in caves too. So cave explorers need to be very careful. And if they bring fire, they can tell because like they'll have a torch and they dip it just below the cave, completely invisible. Torch will go out immediately just because there's no oxygen there because of the layer of carbon dioxide is so thick. This is something that actually happened. But once again, if you bring it back to a time when science cannot explain it, there are probably times in history where an entire town just wiped out, everyone dead for no apparent reason, CO2. Explosion, real life curse.
45:56 Speaker 04 What year was this in?
45:57 Speaker 05 This happened in, uh, 1986 is when this event occurred. So this was, uh, fairly recent. The, uh, they called a Limnic eruption at Lake Neos in northwestern Cameroon. It killed, whoa, it killed 1,746 people and 3,500 lives.
46:19 Speaker 04 Shock. Amazingly, even anyone survived. How the hell did Joseph survive?
46:23 Speaker 05 I mean, it's stunning. I mean, it's probably just because the way his house was shaped in one way or another, it just kept a little oxygen in the building. Um, and then that's, that's it. Yeah.
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47:38 Speaker 04 Any more curses, Bob? The Hope Diamond is cursed. You guys know that one? That's a classic. I've heard of the Hope Diamond. I don't know about the curse. Uh, its previous owners have met with bankruptcy, gone insane, and some of them also were brutally killed. King Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette, uh, once owned this diamond. They were famously executed during the French Revolution. It just, it sits in the, I've seen it in person in the Smithsonian. It sits in the rare gemstone collection or whatever at the Natural History Museum, I think. So the Smithsonian is gonna die? You know what? If it's in the Smithsonian, does that mean that our country owns it? That might explain some stuff.
48:16 Speaker 03 Who owns the Smithsonian Institution? Cause they are currently the owners. What's it worth? What's the value of the Hope Diamond? Two hundred to three hundred and fifty million dollars. All right, forget movie theaters. I think what we need to do is acquire the Hope Diamond.
48:31 Speaker 04 I've heard that large diamonds are very profitable. What's works curse? Oh.
48:37 Speaker 05 Another depressing one. I want to show you guys a picture. Right, okay. You want a picture? All you listeners, I'm gonna describe it. You're gonna describe it for them. You got this, guys. Okay.
48:47 Speaker 03 Oh, only, wait.
48:48 Speaker 04 It appears to be a building, possibly a church or a barn.
48:54 Speaker 03 Church or a barn?
48:55 Speaker 04 Yeah. In the middle of a bunch of trees that appear to be completely dead. It looks like maybe fire came through.
49:03 Speaker 05 Not fire.
49:04 Speaker 03 One of the trees is curved over in a complete arch.
49:08 Speaker 05 Yeah, not ash. Yeah, the trees are deformed, sagging. It looks like a cursed wood, right?
49:16 Speaker 04 Sure, yeah.
49:17 Speaker 05 Like just a, so wrong landscape like in World of Warcraft.
49:20 Speaker 03 Looks like a lot of the bark is even peeled off of them.
49:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, so you go into this zone and you're like, oh, this is the bad place.
49:27 Speaker 03 No grass, no vegetation. There's like leaves in the background, but nothing in the immediate vicinity has any life to it, it looks like.
49:35 Speaker 05 Yeah, so, uh, Bob, you were partially correct by this. This was caused by an eruption, but it wasn't the actual eruption itself. There's a place called Mammoth Mountain, right? It's a dormant volcano in the Sierra Nevada region of California and is underlaid by shallow, acidic dome that releases cold and dry CO2-rich gases through fumarole vents and fractures located in the flanks of the mountain. So, there was a portion where this picture is taken that a vent opened up higher up in the dormant volcano and just created.
50:11 Speaker 05 A constant river flow of this toxic gas. And so that's why you see living trees just beyond the picture because it was literally a narrow channel of gas flowed out of this for probably a long time. I don't know how much, how long it was, but the gases came out at about 1,200 tons of gas per day that were flowing down this mountain to cover an area of 100 hectares. How much is a hectare?
50:41 Speaker 03 It's a heckin' lot of acres.
50:43 Speaker 05 So if you ever want to, if you ever want to know curses, like whether you're like curses or magic or curses like the earth objecting to you living in a space, I feel like is the ultimate manifestation of a curse. Uh, and I don't know if anyone died in this. Uh, it wasn't a town that was here. There's like a couple of buildings, but it on that picture, it's funny cause like the paint is stripped from some of the, the stain of the, or the wood is either stained or like paint is stripped as something has happened to that building. Um, and those trees, the way they're just all limped out. It's really freaky.
51:16 Speaker 03 Weird.
51:17 Speaker 05 Yeah, that is a cursed location. I don't think it's still going through that area. It probably stopped, but could happen at any moment.
51:24 Speaker 03 And the term was a heck, a hectare?
51:27 Speaker 05 A hectare is a, yeah, it's some unit of.
51:30 Speaker 04 It's 10 errors. It's metric. It's larger than an acre, a similar type of.
51:36 Speaker 05 Oh.
51:36 Speaker 04 Unit of measure of area.
51:38 Speaker 05 It's the metric of an acre. Okay. I see.
51:40 Speaker 03 Okay. And so that means like in the rest of the world, when they watch Looney Tunes, it was Acme hectares, but Acme acres.
51:55 Speaker 03 Any more curses or should I wrap this bad boy up? Did you guys see, I guess before you, you answer, uh, did you guys see Busby stoop chair?
52:03 Speaker 04 No.
52:04 Speaker 03 What is this? This was a guy who was getting executed and the story differs as to, uh, what exactly happened. Either he was drunk in his chair and just cursing, or on the way to his execution, he put a curse on the chair he was executed in. This was in, let me see, what was it? The early seventies. 1900s, I think. And for some reason, after he was executed in this chair, other people that weren't meant to be executed sat in it for whatever reason, uh, including like an entire group of airmen, never returning from a mission, other like weird fatal accidents. I don't know. The chair at one point was hung in a museum, so nobody could sit in it. I don't know where it's at now. Maybe it's still hanging somewhere, but anyone who sat in this chair after Busby's execution, Thomas Busby, Buseby?
52:48 Speaker 03 How do I pronounce it? They died after he cursed this chair. Bob, you got one more?
52:53 Speaker 04 Honestly, I didn't have any other ones that I really liked. Uh, this is not a curse, but Cincinnati Music Hall is haunted. It's kind of a curse. It said that there are like ghostly figures that you could see. Uh, and also things will just sort of move themselves around. It's a beautiful old building. It's a very cool building. It was renovated oh, like a decade ago, but it's still very historic and cool and, uh, supposed to be haunted. That's kind of like a curse.
53:19 Speaker 03 Kind of like a curse. Hauntings and curses are related.
53:23 Speaker 05 I got a legit curse. Beware, beware, beware, the cursing stone of Carlisle. I have arrived in the Scottish Borders on a clear morning to see if I can bring an end to the accursedness, which by all accounts has been going on for far too long. The prologue was almost five centuries ago when in 1525, the Archbishop of Glasgow, Glasgow, editors, pronounce it correctly.
53:50 Speaker 03 Weren't we in Glasgow?
53:51 Speaker 05 Gavin Dunbar brought a whopping 1,069, nice word curse on the Reaver people who were pillaging the district. I cursed their head and all the hairs of their head. I cursed their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth. May the thunder and lightning which rain down upon Sodom and Gomorrah rain down upon them. This led to widespread destruction in the area. And then it slept for hundreds of years until in 2001, as part of a millennium celebration, the Council asked a person named Gordon Young, a local artist and descendant of Reaver,
54:36 Speaker 05 descendant of the cursed people from the original to carve a new set of curses. Three hundred and eighty-three words of the original curse onto a stone and place it as an art installation in the town. Since then, it was placed in a gloomy underpass between Carlisle Castle and the Thule House Museum. And then, if you believe Carlisle fell victim to the curse once more. There has been a cacophony of misfortune, foot and mouth disease, floods, fire at Rathbones Bakery, job losses. Uh, at Cavagan and Gray, which makes coleslaw for Marcus and Spencer's, and the footballing relegation of Carlisle United. So they hired a witch finder, the witch finder general.
55:19 Speaker 03 The witch finder general?
55:21 Speaker 05 I didn't know that was a job. Oh, his name's Jim Toodle, the witch finder general, uh, who represents the castle ward where the stone sits. He demanded the destruction of the stone or its removal from the city. In a council motion that was debated, uh, the night, last night, whenever this was written in two thousand and five. Uh, in order to establish scale, uh, since the millennium product, there have been several disasters reaching biblical proportions, yada, yada, yada. But now, I think the stone is still there because they couldn't decide whether if destroying it would bring about more curses? Or fix it? Yeah. I'm afraid of it, says Stephen, a local boy. Just look at it. It's evil. Why take the chance?
56:02 Speaker 05 The main issue in this town is not the ancient curse. It's the future of Carlisle United and traffic gridlock.
56:10 Speaker 05 Anyway, it's still there, I think. Why did they do that? I don't know, man. Dumped in curses, you know? That's, uh, that's no, that's no, that's not good.
56:18 Speaker 03 I guess they were like, this is a cool part of history. Let's like, display it.
56:22 Speaker 05 Let's tempt fate. Uh huh, yeah. I think you, whenever, yeah, definitely inscribing these horrible curses onto a stone and placing in the middle of your town with, uh, by the person who was originally descended from the cursed people. Yeah, I think that would, that would carry the curse on, yeah. That kinda seems like they did it to themselves.
56:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
56:42 Speaker 03 Well, uh, let me wrap it there. That was, there was a lot. We found a lot of curses there. Uh, let me go through the points here. Bob, I'll start with you. You got a point for super giant good reading podcast. Mark said that you had a lot of knowledge about reading. So you got a point for via Mark there. Uh, you got a riding mower, mega bonk, edge blow, edge and blow.
57:08 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
57:09 Speaker 03 Edge and blow.
57:10 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
57:10 Speaker 03 Uh, the lost Dutchman's gold mines, Cincinnati curse, the Andretti curse. You got a point for Flacco coming to Cincinnati because it happened right after you mentioned Cincinnati sports being cursed. Uh, the hope diamond, uh, was right ish about the eruption in Mark's tale.
57:30 Speaker 04 Oh, sure.
57:31 Speaker 03 Mark kept saying you were right about things. So I had to give you points when Mark said you were right.
57:34 Speaker 04 Fair.
57:35 Speaker 03 Uh, and then I gave you half a point for the haunting of the Cincinnati music, Cincinnati music hall. Is that what it was? Cause it was a haunting, not a curse. So I give you half a point. Mark, you got points for being the best reader. Uh, reading, cause I think you brought it up. Can't pass, but wanna pass eighties two, dead man's hand, villa, no, lots of poker hands. You named a lot of different poker hands and I was trying to keep up with the different amounts of poker hands. I couldn't keep up with the aces over jacks and the eights and aces and the, the all blacks and you know, you lost me a little bit. Uh, you had the pass callback, Joseph Neman, whatever his name was, CO2 eruption.
58:14 Speaker 03 Uh, Pennsylvania coal fire, earth is cursed. Cause it made me laugh when you said earth is cursed. And I was like, eh, earth is cursed. It was kind of a, I made myself laugh with what you said. So you got a point.
58:27 Speaker 04 So who's what was in your head? I'll take it. You know, I'll take it. Why can't I make you laugh at yourself about my stuff?
58:34 Speaker 03 You made me sad with Cincinnati curse. Be glad I didn't take away points. You brought Joe Flacco here. Cursing stone of Carlisle and Mammoth mountain gas flow. However, you did lose one point, Mark, for insulting my love of blueprints. That's fair. Uh, right now that brings the total Bob 12 and a half points, 13 for Mark, 13 and 12 and a half. So very close game. Hmm. I have one point. Well done, man.
59:02 Speaker 04 Wheel time?
59:03 Speaker 03 Wheel time.
59:04 Speaker 04 How many spins will there be? It looks like it's gonna be.
59:08 Speaker 03 Oh, no.
59:10 Speaker 04 All right.
59:11 Speaker 03 Okay, three pointer. What do we add, Wade? Let's do one point to the most cursed, which can be left to interpretation. Most cursed contribution or whoever is the most cursed. Like Bob with bad luck or, you know, some real life events, just one point to the most cursed.
59:27 Speaker 04 Feels like it's pretty heavily in my corner on that one, but uh. Spin number one.
59:31 Speaker 03 Unless it's house troubles, because I've been pretty cursed with that. All right, first spin.
59:39 Speaker 04 Drop the most items.
59:40 Speaker 03 Did anybody drop anything?
59:42 Speaker 04 I don't think I did. It's usually me.
59:44 Speaker 03 I don't remember hearing anything clang or seeing anything drop.
59:46 Speaker 04 Nah, I wasn't like fidgeting with anything today. Re-spin?
59:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, re-spin.
59:52 Speaker 04 Spin number one again.
59:58 Speaker 04 Mentioned their significant other the most.
1:00:00 Speaker 03 Literally, I think only Mark, no, that was last episode because Mark came up with the last episode. Did any of us mention our significant other?
1:00:11 Speaker 04 In the episode? No, I don't think so.
1:00:15 Speaker 03 Oh, I should shout out, um, Molly for helping me get this episode because she, uh, was talking to me about like hauntings and different things to talk about, which led me down the rabbit hole that led me here. So. Well, that's not gonna get you any points. No, no, I don't want points for it, but I do.
1:00:26 Speaker 04 All right, spin number one again. That's gonna be a lot of spins today.
1:00:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:00:33 Speaker 04 Oh.
1:00:34 Speaker 03 The best comeback.
1:00:36 Speaker 04 Joe Flacco has a pretty good comeback because he's gonna come to Cincinnati and lead us to the Super Bowl.
1:00:42 Speaker 03 You know what, Bob? Sure, I'll give that one to you.
1:00:45 Speaker 04 All right.
1:00:46 Speaker 03 Hey. But if you're wrong and we reconvene.
1:00:49 Speaker 04 I lose that point retroactively? Yeah, okay.
1:00:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, if we reconvene, Mark gets a point retroactively as long as one of us remembers.
1:00:56 Speaker 04 Fair enough. Spin number two somehow.
1:01:06 Speaker 04 Witness protection.
1:01:07 Speaker 03 Aw, man.
1:01:08 Speaker 04 I think.
1:01:08 Speaker 03 We're all in our normal location.
1:01:10 Speaker 04 Alright.
1:01:11 Speaker 03 Re-spin two again.
1:01:12 Speaker 04 Spin number two, which is actually spin number five.
1:01:15 Speaker 03 It's pretty niche.
1:01:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, some of them are.
1:01:19 Speaker 04 We don't always get that.
1:01:20 Speaker 03 Mark lost most points.
1:01:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, he did lose points, didn't he?
1:01:24 Speaker 03 Okay, so right now it's fourteen to thirteen and a half. Half point to Bob would make this a tie. Wouldn't that be fun?
1:01:31 Speaker 04 Spin number three, which is actually spin number six or seven.
1:01:39 Speaker 04 Oh, most angry.
1:01:41 Speaker 03 Bob might have been the most angry.
1:01:43 Speaker 04 I was worked up about something.
1:01:46 Speaker 03 I don't remember Mark being worked up, but you were.
1:01:49 Speaker 05 Oh, you were both angry about football. That's what it was.
1:01:52 Speaker 03 Is Bob the most angry at this?
1:01:54 Speaker 05 I wasn't angry at all, so I guess technically he would be more angry than me.
1:01:59 Speaker 03 I mean, if you, alright, if you concede that, yeah, sure.
1:02:02 Speaker 05 It's the only thing that I could say because bringing up the football, you both were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think even after my story about the lake that killed so many people, we were like, I'm still pissed about that. So I think, yeah.
1:02:13 Speaker 04 Goddamn Joe Flacco.
1:02:15 Speaker 03 He might be great.
1:02:17 Speaker 04 Ah, I think he's gonna be great. Goddamn him.
1:02:19 Speaker 05 Goddamn Joe Flacco.
1:02:22 Speaker 03 Man, we had really concise amounts of spins there. Bob, you eked out the victory. However, my title of this episode was just curses, so there's nothing weird going on. You win, Bob.
1:02:33 Speaker 03 Almost got him, almost got him.
1:02:35 Speaker 04 They had me in the first half.
1:02:37 Speaker 03 Winner's speech.
1:02:38 Speaker 04 This, this one, this one turned out pretty good. When you said curses originally, I was like, oh, no, but then I realized there's lots of sports curses and I know some of those. Although we got to witness a curse manifesting in real life, in real time. As we were sitting here recording, the news came out that once again, the Bengals have done something that doesn't make any sense and is not going to help us win football games more than likely.
1:03:06 Speaker 03 So, hooray. We're cursed. But I win, so I did it. Go me. I'm not cursed. Unless this win puts a curse on you for winning after bringing Flaco to the Bengals. I didn't bring Flaco to the Bengals. I feel like it happened right at... There's no way the talks were happening and the trade was being worked on behind the scenes. It all came to fruition in the 30 seconds after you mentioned Cincinnati Sports. Ah, that must be.
1:03:32 Speaker 05 Mark loser's speech. Curse from the start. I'm my own worst enemy, but that also got me a point, so I guess it wouldn't have mattered either way. Uh, I frankly, just showing up was my downfall. Uh, I blame everybody but myself, and I can't wait to go with my new nickname to do things with that nickname.
1:03:50 Speaker 03 You know what? That's fair. Maybe you cursed yourself by saying unfair in the intro.
1:03:55 Speaker 05 I think I did, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
1:03:57 Speaker 03 Well, uh, if you guys haven't already, go follow these guys. Mark at Mark Applier, or soon to be known as Fiery Mark Appliery, or whatever you come up with. Tal Mark. Bob at My Skirm, or me at Minion777, or LordMinion777. We have, or we had, or we will once again have merch at distractible.shop, so check it out. Bob will host the next one. We'll see. This is his first time hosting since we did the Couch episode. That's accurate. Wasn't that my host? Doesn't feel very good either, does it? Until then, I've cast out.
1:04:30 Speaker 06 Watch new episodes on Spotify.
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