We have a brand new contest for you this week: What Am I Eating, Business Name Edition. We forgot to record the explanation, but it doesn't matter – you'll figure it out. Even if you don't get it at first, you will eventually because we play multiple rounds of the first round from multiple rounds. Play along if you like! If you're from Des Moines and want to contest John's disparagement or the dietary symbolism of buzzards, send us an email ([email protected]). Theme music courtesy of ...
Jun 26, 2025•20 min
We started to record an intro for future rereleases (but not re-releases of future episodes). Then we got distracted. How did you rewind before tapes? How many fists big were these tubes? And where did you put all them? Also, John feels like generative AI is copying us: if you provide a completely made-up idiom, apparently AIs will make up a convincing backstory. But that's our gig, isn't it? That and serial re-dis-expectation meeting. Anyway, Gemini, we're onto you. Stay out of our lane! If you...
Jun 01, 2025•9 min
Warren mentioned that one of our most downloaded episodes was toilet-themed, and without meaning to, that led to yet-more on-theme discussion. Hurry up and buy some bran phlakes shares now! Also, the new Bill and Ted Movie is good, provided you're in the right demo, and like Louis Armstrong. Anyhoo, if you're in the market for bidets, or patio furniture, or hanging chairs, try Babas, or go back in time, Bill and Ted style, and visit Consumers Distributing just beside the Bonanza that burned down...
Mar 21, 2025•12 min
Welcome to welcome to the apolocalypse! It contains a potentially new segment called, "Am I wrong about this?" When faced with a Zombie apocalypse, shouldn't you aim for the achilles, or at least the leg? Maybe as a weapon-in-the-head lodging problem-avoidance. (SPOILER ALERT: we might give away a plot element from the first few minutes of pick whichever zombie franchise.) Or, how about many cans of expandable foam? With proper preparation, this could be a winning tactic. If you think your strat...
Oct 22, 2024•17 min
We are not the first podcast. OK? We start in Pooh Corner. Assume that half the world's population are going to disappear somehow. How could we adjust this event to make it as happy as possible? We should try to see such things in a positive light, after all. In case you are a magician or have an infinite glove or something similar, consider our advice. For example: we randomly alternate who is disappeared every day. There are implications, but we work out some of the logistics, including cateri...
May 03, 2024•15 min
We start after a long hiatus with an Urban Legend: sneezing while on the toilet increases poop removal volume by 30-60%, which can decrease the risk of bum and poop cancers. Aren't you glad you know this now? It's all about timing! We discuss what coarseness of pepper is best for provoking a bowel clearing sneeze. But what if you poop too much? Then we discover that Bing can manufacture a superficially impressive description of a hypothetical Limited Appeal podcast in the same style as your scri...
Mar 28, 2024•15 min
We hope you will enjoy listening to this episode! Back in the day, I guess. Nope, that doesn't really work, does it? T-Bone heard somewhere that birds can regenerate damaged hearing. It's not clear if we're talking about birds from rock concerts or those near other loud birds. But whatever the cause, it's quite cool they might give us clues for regenerative human hearing! Whether this leads to infinite numbers of heads remains unclear. If you think there's a topological difference between a wate...
Jan 26, 2024•12 min
We have a new contest! This is "Who's That Bird: Celebrity Edition", in which Warren will play the sound of a celebrity and the rest of us need to guess who it is. The celebrity is probably not a bird, and may not even be making bird noises, but you'll have to listen to be sure. Warren patiently explains this multiple times, and even so we're not very sure how this works. Spoiler alert: do you know your celebrity entomologists? Or is this a clever diversion to throw you off the piste? Ha! Haha. ...
Nov 10, 2023•9 min
In part 2 of our name 5 things series, we make slightly more progress in finding possible animal opponents that a human might be able to take on in a fight, assuming the opponent is human-sized. As noted in part 1, the question is fraught with complexity. You have to fight the organism in its own habitat, but you may be allowed time to put on boots. Despite these constraints, we do come up with a short list of candidates. Without basking too much in this achievement, we then move on to consider ...
Jul 14, 2023•15 min
After a whole episode of buildup (see Holy Straw, Batman), Warren finally gets the chance to introduce his new topic: name 5 animals, that if they were human-sized, you think you could take them. The rules of this strange fight club have you fighting in the organism's own habitat, so there are no freebies against whales even if you have three pillows and two buddies. We spend a lot of time considering the potential weakness of a long neck, and whether and how that might be counterbalanced by a g...
Mar 28, 2023•19 min
Warren has a perfect comeback topic to get back into the swing of things after a long hiatus, but first a warm-up question: how many holes does a straw have? Are you sure? What about a donut? What about a person? As usual – wait, can we say as usual when we record every year or so? Yeah, whatever, as usual, we do a bit of rambling while counting holes, and our conversation veers through considerations of semantics, anatomy, topology, cloacas, and explosive hydrostatic penises. If you want to opi...
Dec 06, 2022•15 min
Ballpark Talk is back, due to its overwhelming previous success! Snorkelling vs. being a peeping tom. Same ballpark? Perspective matters here: who is peeping on whom? Warren makes a compelling case that some situations involve teammates. It probably makes sense, maybe? I don't know. We somehow end up discussing whether curtains should maybe be on the outside of the house. Is it defensible to be a shy snorkeler? How about at a public pool? Let us know what you think about underwater viewing in an...
Apr 08, 2022•13 min
Normally, podcasts will edit out the part of a recording where the hosts decide what to do. But we roll a different way from normal podcasts, so you get a short and not terribly interesting behind-the-scenes look at Warren introducing the possibilities. Anyway, we start a new version of the 'Who's that bird?' contest, but in this case Warren will name a bird and describe it, and its circumstances, and the rest of us need to attempt to produce the sound that Warren is describing. Warren will then...
Nov 09, 2021•9 min
We accidentally create a new segment to start this episode because we got caught up in whether our DJ was dead or his estate needed to spin the tunes. What is an estate? Do you need to have anything? What if you're dead? Does real estate imply you have an estate? What if the teddybear you get buried with was bequeathed to someone else? What if none of this is interesting to anyone at all? Hmph. On a related note, if someone says your singing voice is very distinctive, is that a compliment? How w...
Aug 18, 2021•20 min
Spotify wants us to have a trailer, so here you go. This is a shortened episode featuring a brand new segment, called "Ballpark Talk", in which the premise is to decide whether two things are in the same ballpark or different ones. Today's inaugural topic: cannibalism versus eating a pet. Enjoy! Theme music courtesy of General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners and Ipecac Recordings.
Mar 04, 2021•6 min
We have a new segment, called "Ballpark Talk", in which the premise is to decide whether two things are in the same ballpark or different ones. Today's inaugural topic: cannibalism versus eating a pet. As usual, we explore many of the philosophical nuances here. What if it's a pet you know, versus a person you don't? What if the person died accidentally and humourously in a food preparation context? What if it's a person who is a pet? Does the relative deliciousness matter? We do not want to hea...
Mar 04, 2021•10 min
This podcast was a rare occasion when most of us were in the same room. This means that the audio is generally exquisite since we are using T-Bone's studio, but also somewhat annoying because Warren insists on giving listeners cues of our eating and drinking. Do judges have their own gavels, or is one provided in the courtroom? What if someone breaks the gavel, is there a spare? John is on hand to answer, even though he insists he hasn't spent much time in a courtroom. You be the judge of what h...
Jan 30, 2021•13 min
An oft-discussed but not previously resolved question: is Die Hard a Christmas movie? We settle the matter, I guess, provided you don't care very much about the matter in the first place. Turns out the whole question turns on the secret, possibly offscreen shenanigans between Bruce and the security guard. If you can read between the scenes to imagine some help-shtooping, then you have yourself a holiday classic. Take that, Julie Andrews! Our handy rule turns out to illuminate the question for ma...
Dec 22, 2020•16 min
Welcome back! Have you washed your hands? Either way, keep your soggy end out of the dip. Warren asks whether Timmy was right in suggesting that George from Seinfeld put his whole mouth in the tip. Remember the before-time, when this might have been a question? It's hard to imagine now, but at one stage it was somewhat defensible to dip near someone else, and maybe even do so twice, depending on rotation and the number of chip protuberances. If you know can clarify the benefits of tube-shaped ch...
May 02, 2020•12 min
The coronavirus lockdown worldwide has everyone adjusting to a new reality, including us. There are a lot of pressing issues, and we're not qualified to talk about any of those, so we thought we would solve some less-pressing problems. We start somewhat mysteriously with T-Bone mentioning how he recently entertained some higher-ups for a super-secret contract (details have been censored to protect T-Bones client from the defamation that would otherwise arise). Warren suggested he should have tak...
Mar 31, 2020•17 min
For this episode, we revisit Inventions and Shit, our segment in which we present ideas of new inventions for free (mostly) in case any venture capitalists are listening. Warren's latest idea is a toilet water warmer, which, you may have guessed, warms the water in your toilet. There are several major benefits (or perhaps problems) depending on your anatomy, digestive physiology, and temperature preference. And maybe the country of origin of your dog. If you are a robot (preferably not a racist ...
Aug 19, 2019•12 min
Having been stuck on Season 11 for a while, we skipped 12 and went straight to 13. Bad luck be damned! By the way, have you been eating salami wrong? Quite possibly. Anyway, this episode marks a return to our contest feature Nature Walk, Who's That Bird Non-Bird Edition, Round 5. How dramatic! For this contest, we have to listen to an audio clip of a nonbird, describe the nonbird or name it, describe what the nonbird is thinking, or what it is trying to achieve with the sound, and then provide a...
Jun 20, 2019•22 min
I was going to write about Warren's introduction of a topic, and I guess I have. SPOILER ALERT: Warren mentions more than one thing not particularly central to the latest Predator movie that had (until our discussion) seemed unbelievable, but we resolve that for him. Then, for our segment "How About That?", Warren bring up the Pepto Bismol and Nyquil donut range for the Voodoo Donut shop in Oregon, not to mention the Cock and Balls donut. Somehow their range is not as variable as it could be, es...
Feb 08, 2019•14 min
This episode starts with a Nature Walk, featuring Who's That Bird, non-bird edition, possibly round 4. T-Bone's dog previous success has him well ahead, maybe. Warren plays the sound of a nonbird, and each of us has to guess what the nonbird looks like, what it's trying to communicate, and provide the collective term for it. We each take a guess, which is as non-illuminating as usual. However, the correct answer sets off a real flood of interest in the water economy of the animals in question. T...
Jun 29, 2018•19 min
This episode, Warren describes a situation in his work bathrooms that has been troubling him: one day the overseers at Warren's office replaced the paper towels with air dryers. However, some people must have complained, because at some point someone added a box containing so-called "door tissues". This way, people who had previously used paper towels to open the door had an extra paper towel that they could use to open the door after air drying their hands. Then the problem became what to do wi...
May 15, 2018•18 min
This episode involves a Nature Walk contest, "Who's That Non-Bird: Killer Edition". (We'll save the killer birds for another day.) The contest question is this: which non-birds are responsible for the most human deaths in the world per year? Warren asks the rest of us to guess the top 11. Here's a little foreshadowing: Warren will cite some stats for non-animal causes of death for contrast, and John will contest them furiously. This contest is only one episode, but it's still surprisingly long, ...
Feb 09, 2018•24 min
Merry Tedmas everyone! In the spirit of the holidays, and just in case you have a collector in your Secret Santa exchange pool, in this episode we try to Name 5 Things that are Bad Ideas for collectible products. For example, Warren explains that cereal producers had tried to make cereal boxes collectible, which is a real thing (https://www.eater.com/2016/2/16/11008926/cereal-box-collections-history). Oh Ted help us. Anyway, Warren asks us to name five other things that would be a bad idea to ma...
Dec 12, 2017•16 min
This week we open the show uncertain about Carol Burnett's status. Turns out: still funny! Then we try to name five possible sport team names that are strange, yet somehow intimidating. Warren's suggested example is "The Long Starers". We come up with many suggestions, but most of them are perhaps more off-putting than intimidating. Anyway, our discussion naturally leads us to discussing how cereal prevents masturbation. You'll want to stay away from all those sexy, sexy foods, like vinegar, and...
Oct 12, 2017•12 min
This episode aims not to provoke. Consider yourself warned! We begin with a "How about that?" segment, in which Warren notes that both words tit and boob are palindromes. How about that? We discuss maintaining palindromiety for plurals of palindromes, but it's a bit controversial, and maybe even dangerously close to provocative. To avoid crossing a line, we try to name 5 things that you can stuff into other things to invent a new food item. For a simple example, Warren suggests putting a carrot ...
Jul 06, 2017•20 min
In this episode, we bring you a nice relaxing audio bath, because you deserve it. Warren presents Pooh Corner to start us off, by recounting an incident on a small plane in which the toilet contained no sink, but only hand sanitizer. Is this an adequate solution? What if (however it happened), you actually got poop on your hand? Would the sanitizer be sufficient, really? Are your hands food-safe? Does the answer depend on the provision of towels? Or does it depend primarily on your diet (think a...
Apr 07, 2017•17 min
