What are ninja?

I'm gonna train ninja right? Yeah? This Uh, this encompassed generally sitting on top of a storage shed in my backyard quietly for hours on end, waiting for somebody to walk past, uh, so that we could find out whether or not they noticed us. Then that's where you started smoking because you were bored. Now, yet that came like a year or two later. Yeah, you did not adhere to the bushito. No, I don't know if smoking is is outlawed by the bushido. I just meant the way

of the ninja. No, that's the samurai. Well, no, the ninja though, shun the bushido, right, Okay, I got what you say on the same page, So, Chuck, I thought, you know, I kind of carried that with me my whole life. I'm sure i'd see a throwing star every once in a while and be like, I know how to throw that, you know? Did you have any of those, Tommy did? I've never had any of those? Are big in the eighties for little nerves to collect totally um. I found out though, when I read how Ninja's work,

I am nothing more than a dultant. Really, yeah, I was surprised to find that out. I believe you said ninja, so that is not correct, right, No, it is. It's ninja. It's like fish or deer. I know we've been drilling that into each other's head and I'm still saying Ninja's yeah, So if we slip up, then give us a break, So, Chuck, Josh. One of the first things I noticed from this article was that um Ninja, although Japanese in nature and origin,

actually can trace its roots back to the Chinese. Yes, very much, because of kind of what I was just talking about with the Bushido was the Samurai code, where you very respectfully would face one another, face your enemy one on one and do battle, and the Ninja subscribe more to the art of war school of thought right as espoused by Sun Zu, which was a little sneakier, right, and smarter if you ask me, it is smarter. And I mean that's how the American colonists won the War

for Independence. The British were all like, hey, we've got a bunch of Hessians here and they're ready to fight you on this field, and our guys were, yeah, jumping out of trees and bayoneting them. Yeah, very Ninja, asked very sun sue he wrote the Art of War back in the fourth or fifth century BC, and uh, yeah, it kind of went against the grain, as it were, Yeah,

big time where you could uh. I think there's a chapter, chapter thirteen, where he specifically said that you should use people to spread confusion in the ranks and paranoia, um, through sabotage, spying, spying, um yeah, espionage, that kind of stuff. Pretty cool, Yeah, just basically underhanded stuff. Disguise was okay, yeah, deception, I love it, right, So that is actually where it's That's pretty much the basis of ninja, isn't it. Yeah, from what I gather and and what is it? The

art of ninja, the art that ninja's practice. Yeah, ninjutsu and it is not a martial art, but it is an art of war, is what they call it. It sounds like a martial arts. Yeah, but it's not. Okay, that's because utsu sounds like jiu jitsu. Right, So, okay, we've got this first seed of the ninja planet by sun Su right, um and uh it takes a little

while to catch on. And actually, strangely enough, we can trace back um to some of the first ninja stories, right, right, some people who were thought to be among the first ninja in Japan. We've moved over to Japan now, by the way, yes, right, tell me about Prince Yamato. Yeah, Prince Yamato, Uh is in some halls called the first ninja because he was the first person that we know of to blatantly use deception and disguise by addressing as a woman and uh to attract. This is where it

gets sottlehinky to literally physically attract to barbarian chieftains. So apparently he was a good looker as a woman, or at the last he actually gained their confidence and uh lull them into a sense of security. A false sense of security and killed them. Yeah, then he withered them. Yeah yeah, uh that's um not a bad one. Frankly, I like that first Ninja story. I like yours though. The thirteen year old kid, yeah, Kuma Waka Yeah, he um was a little I guess, kind of a little shrimpy, right,

but he had some pretty good legs on him. He traveled a really far distance to visit his father who was ailing. Um, but his father was being held prisoner by a monk and his family. Apparently monks did that back then. I didn't know that what we do now, right, Um. So a little thirteen year old Kuma Waka um was turned away after traveling this long distance wanting to see his father who's dying. And before he gets a chance

to see him, his father dies. So the kids like, you know what, I swear vengeance right here and now, right, little thirteen year old vengeance? Right? So I think Um, possibly not so much that he'd read the Art of war, but just that being thirteen, you know, he wasn't aware of pitch battles or really didn't care about him. And he was like, you know what, I'm going to use a little bit of deception myself. He was doing't big enough to just fight them straight upright right he Um.

He started kind of I guess, staking out the monks home, and this kid was awesome. He he opened a window to the monk's bedroom and let a bunch of moths in, and they flocked to a lantern, blotting out all the light, whereupon he snuck into the room, got the monk's sword, and butchered him. Yes, have you noticed that most ninja stories end in butchery. Yeah, that's a good point. Um. The story is not over though, right, I don't think so. Well. You should also point out, though he was actually in

their home, he faked an illness. Remember that's how we got in there. That's right. He faked like he was sick, so they brought him in and took care of him, and he gained their trust, and then did the old moth trick, right, the old moth trick. That's that's like

Ninja one oh one right there. Um. So, after he butchers the monk, he flees and he's being pursued, so he climbs up a huge length of bamboo until it tips over a river and he jumps off the other side and he's gone into the annals of ninja history. That is serious ninja stealth right there. Yeah, a little thirteen year old, right, how many times can I say a little thirteen year old? I don't know. We could

go back and count. So yes, even though these are cool stories and they are thought of as maybe practicing the first ninja practices, they aren't really believed to be the first ninjas, right, No, I mean they're kind of legend exactly, and there's a lot of lore surrounding ninja. It's really tough, as the grabster who wrote this article

pointed out, to kind of separate fact from fiction. And in some cases, Japanese historians just have admitted ninja altogether because they're so secretive, right, or uh, you know, exaggerated and glorified it to the point that it's misinformation, right, which is part of the whole ninja lore as well, right, which apparently the ninja were perfectly fine with because it freaked people out. We'll get to that in a minute, right, the supernatural stuff. Yeah, okay, so Chuck, what was the

true birth of the ninja? Then? Well, they think that the regions of IgA and Coca or is it Egaga and coca. You know what, I think, I have no idea for those two. But you were getting good at the Japanese. And let me tell you you have what is called pura pura pura, which means you're very fluent. It's Japanese for that describes very fluent. The Japanese is a little easier to pronounce, I think than some because

it's usually just kind of pronounced like it reads. There's just a lot of letters sometimes yeah, and there's a lot of there's a lot of vowels together. It don't make any sense, but we're doing our best. Yeah, you're doing a great judge going with Ega and Koga, and they are considered to be the birthplace of ninja as a major force in warfare. And here's why. There was a bunch of clans in these two regions, and the guys Um who were members of the clans tended to

farm themselves out as mercenaries, which we've talked about before. Um, and they actually adopted a lot of the Ninja attitude, the Ninja, the Ninja tude, right nice Um. They they adopted a lot of it Um serving as spies, saboteurs, and assassins, right, love that word, by the way, saboteur. It's a pretty cool word. That's why a firefly was one of my favorite g I Joe's, which we'll get to.

It's all coming around. Yeah. So in Ega and Coca, right this basically this region, rather than um turning to brewing or um grain production, they turned to ninja production, you know, and they protected They were hired out by the daimio, which were what was another word for a lord, a feudal feudal lord, and basically like mercenaries, they would whoever had the most dough would get hired, so they

were not known as loyal. They would go where the money was no, which, as you said, is completely contrary to the Bushito code of the samurai. Who was I guess you could probably make a case was a rival faction in Japan at the time. If you wanted somebody who would be willing to die for you, you had your samurai. If you wanted somebody who you could pay to go do horrible things for you, but then may eventually come back and kill you through he was hired

for somebody else, you went with the ninja. Yeah, right, good point. So one of the cool things that the grabster mentioned was that the reason uh Ego and Koga were I guess these hotbeds of activity for ninja was that the the the art of ninja two yeah, was passed on from father to son, generation after generation after generation. Right,

And we're talking sneaking around. Uh. From what I gather from reading is that uh, the lowly ninja were the ones that were slinging the swords around and the true uh skilled ninja did not do a lot of face to face fighting. They were sneaking around, They were gathering information. Like you said, they were sabotaging, they were spying and

giving mis information. Right. And apparently since castles were they figured so largely into feudal japan Um, the ninja became especially a dept at um infiltrating castles and escaping from

castles that were undersea. There's the story of one ninja who was hired by a damio um who owned a castle that was under siege, and one night he slipped out, went to the enemy encampment, stole their flag, and then when they woke up the next morning they saw their flag like on the embattlements of the castle, which you can imagine you just like wa wa wa. We don't we have that sound effect? I think so? Or did they wake up and think, did we already capture this castle?

What were you doing here? That's what I would think we already captured because their flag was flying, But apparently it was a mocking thing and right, yeah, take the wind out of their sales. And there was also another story legend, Ninja lore of a group of Ninja's actually a group of Ninja sorry um that captured the uh I guess the badge of paper lantern badge which identified like it identified with the castle and a damio Okay,

I'm gonna knock your socks off right here, chuck. So they stole this lantern and reproduced it, reproduced the badge, put him on other lanterns, and then just walked right into the castle, right, butchered everybody like they do, yeah, and then walked back out. And when everybody woke up the next morning and found the people who were not butchered, found uh you know what was going on? Um? They they had created uh paranoia, right, which, as we said,

is another thing that Ninja liked to do, absolutely disruption. Yes, uh, they were very skilled. Are your socks knocked off. These are actually new socks and they are still on. You know, uh, did you know that George Hamilton's once said that he wore a new pair of socks every day. He never wore the same pair of socks. I can see him

doing that. My good friend Andrew told me that once moving on the ninja, Josh, you know what their their main deal was you when they were best at assassination, Yes, sneaking in and the dead of night and killing you in your sleep sometimes. And my favorite story was, and this one is not verified, but the the legend of the ninja who hid beneath the outhouse and you know

what goes on beneath the outhouse? Yeah, he hit in the pit, hit in the pit, and then the the daimio came in obviously sat down on the john and then then just struck from below with the sword. But which is just that's not a comfort. My favorite part of the story though it says, uh, it's probably not true because historical record show that the daimio in question

probably died of a stroke or brain aneurysm. But I think maybe if you had a sword stuck up your butt, then maybe you might have a stroke or brain and I would have a stroke for sure, so maybe that did happen. Plus also I could see his family trying to keep that hush hush. Yeah, I would say so, you know, but it made made the Daimio very paranoid, right yeah. And actually they took a lot of measures to protect against these ninja'sassiens that they always figured we're

coming for them. Like, um, there was one clan where at their castle everyone had to wear long um I guess, bell bottoms basically that made noise whenever you walked, So anyone who was in the castle had to wear these kind of corduroy bell bottoms pretty much. And I can only imagine that they had an ample supply for visitors if everybody had to use them, you know, and not everyone was walking around with bell bottoms. I imagine they had them for you, right, like drop your keys in

the bowl and put on these bell pots. I'm gonna stay here right. Uh. The other one, a cool one was in Kyoto. They had a the Nie Joe Castle had what they called nightingale floors, and they were purposefully squeaky the way they made these wooden floors, so the people counterbalance, right, so anyone walking on them, even in Ninja could be heard. Yes, And also the Daimio would spend more and more time away from their home at what they called Secret Springs, basically a little hidden resorts

at natural Springs. So it sounds like out of Ninja the vacation resort, bell bottom jeans and squeaky floors were born. Nice, pretty cool. You wrap that up very nicely, So chuck um the whole Um. I guess Samurai soared up the bottom story that that it was probably a legend because the guy probably died of an aneurism or stroke. Right. Um, that kind of reveals that lower that has surrounded Ninja forever and one of the things that um, they've been

attributed with or bestowed with their like supernatural powers. Right of course that's not true, No, but it's fun and like you said, earlier than Ninja loved it. They were like, yeah, we're seven feet tall, and we can fly and become invisible. Those are three. They could also walk through walls, which I imagine it would would really come in handy for a Ninja, you know. But I mean, if you think about it, if you're penetrating a castle that no one

else can get through. It probably seems a lot like you can walk through walls. And then of course there's the real basic go to one that there ghosts, yeah, shape shifters. Did you ever read Um Commando comics? No? There there was like they were from the seventies. I think they were like just black and white comics set in World War Two? Uh. And in one of them that was this guy had to fight Ninja's in Burma, Ninja and Burma and uh, it was pretty cool. Did you ever say I was a little whiss boy with

the comics. I was like, I was into Archie and Ritchie Rich what I know what awful and then stuff like the Star Wars comics and stuff like that. But I don't try to cool it up now it's awful. What it was a big Archie guy. I was a little Baptist boy and Richie Rich. Yeah, Ritchie Rich was great. Yeah, I like the cartoon. You never read the comic. Oh yeah, I was a little wiss. Yeah, you were into ninja's and stuff smoking cigarettes that I was reading Archie in

the Bible. Good for you. But here we are years later, I know the same. We're both as twisted, alright, I've been trying to get better, You've been trying to get worse. Yes, and we met in the middle. Where are we now? With their gear, I would say we're writting inja gear and Chuck, I should say, Chuck has a several large print outs of pictures of ninja gear that are just bitching. Yeah,

let's go ahead and talk about some of these um ninja. Well, first, let's talk about their clothes, their uniform, the ninja yori, your roy your roy roy. It is also called ninja armor, and it's like the black jacket, black trousers, hooted cowl, and light sandals. Not a lot of protection with that the right word. Well, they said some of them were light armor under that, right, but it's not much trust me, No,

it's cloth. Well, because they wanted to be sneaky and not make a lot of noise, so armor probably wasn't the best way to get around. And traditionally the your roy was um black, although apparently there is some historical evidence that they wore all white your roy which is pretty cool too in the snow if it were snowy. Yeah, sure, they're like, oh, it's know, you gotta put on the white Euroy today and go kill people. However, Josh, most

of this is uh fanciful lore. Although they did have these costumes, what they mainly wore they wanted to blend in, so they mainly just dressed like you and I. Yeah, that's an excellent point too, Like if you're going to be an assassin um and you're in a public place, if you're dressed like a ninja, people are going to be like, look out for that ninja. Right. So yeah, a lot of times they they they were apparently masters

at um hiding in plain sight. Yeah, disguised as priests and merchants and farmers, which is you know, makes sense to me because what was it that Henry Hill said? He said, when you get killed, it's it's somebody who's coming at you with a smile. Who's your friend? That's who kills you? Sure? Yeah, Henry Hill, he comes up a lot. It's funny. Yeah. I never thought he would come up in a ninja podcast. Uh. What else did they use, Josh, the ninja to was the short sword.

Then they were back, which is pretty cool. Yeah, used to butcher people. And then here's what I have the pictures of the shook go is this cool little claw hand it's like claws on your palm you would wear as a glove. And it says you can use to fight or to climb trees with. Tell me, tell me rope her head one of those. Really Huh. He tried to climb trees once in a while to us ever success. Really he could when he didn't have those on, like he could just climb a tree, but just climbing like that,

it didn't work. Uh. And this is the tiger claw. Those are cool. Yeah, that looks like Freddy Krueger wolverine or something. That's exactly what it looks like. And it would butcher you if put to your jugular. And what are these? And this is my favorite? These are the cow trops and these were they look sort of like little metal sharp origami razor things. I was just about to say orgamy they do. You got to leave it

to the Japanese. They have great design with everything. Yeah, they're beautiful, including little tags meant to puncture your feet and soles of your feet. Yeah, that's what you would do. You would throw these on the floor, uh, for your enemy to step on. And they apparently wore like the sandals and the thin shoes, so that worked. And I wish this were a video podcast because Chuck gave Jerry and I had demonstration and what that would look like

when people were chasing the ninja. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They also used smoke bombs and what else. The coolest thing small one person boats that were collapsible, so they were highly portable, so ninja would just be running away from people. He's thrown his tax whatever, the tax call again? Uh? The cow drops, right, He's thrown his cow drops and they didn't work. A couple of guys got around and he's reached a river. There's no bamboo and site. He just whips out of his little boat and sails across

like so long, chumps. Pretty cool. I'll be back to kill you when you're sleeping. Uh. The other thing that has been refuted by the MythBusters I read was the Mizzou gumo and they were wooden shoes to walk on water with. They kind of look like snow shoes, actually big round things and your foot goes in the middle to disperse the water. Those MythBusters guys said, yeah, this doesn't work. Did they try it out themselves? Yeah, of course they did. It doesn't disprove anything that they should

be too fat. We should call that show the fun Killers instead of the Mythbuss. Yeah, all they do is destroy fun. But they said they could work on marsh is what they said, Like, we'll give him something. Yeah, of course there's the throwing star a k a. The sugar ken. Yeah, and I didn't know this. I thought that you know, when you see in the movies they clearly always fling knees and right into somebody's forehead right

between the eyes. Yeah, that's really not true, was it. No, Apparently they were just kind of a distracting weapon, like it was meant to look like it was about to hit you right between the eyes, but the chances of it actually hitting its target are pretty low. So they would turn around when being chased, throw a star at them to distract them, and then drop some cow trops on the floor in a smoke bomb maybe, And then he's a grappling hook and a rope ladder to escape.

That's what they call the Schenectady Shuffle and Ninja lore that combo right there. Really Yeah, so Chuck, there's the grappling hook right which you can't leave out. Basically, if you have all this stuff. You are a little white kid in suburban America trying to be in ninja, because if you're a stealthy guy and you're infiltrating a castle, you're not going to have all this stuff except maybe your collapse will boat your colchrops and your little sword. Right.

But other than that, it seems like this was more the arsenal that no ninja at any one time had all these things on them, right. Yeah, But in the movies, of course, that's how it's portrayed, because it's more fun movies like Enter the Ninja, maybe the Ninja American Ninja? Did you see that one? Did you watch ninja movies as a kid? And now where were you, Chuck? I told you I was reading Archie. American Ninja was awesome. I was watching, Uh, Escape from Which Mountain? And Archie?

That was a creepy movie that wasn't Escape from Which Mountain? Well it did? It didn't age? Well you should go watch it now and not the cruddy remake? Uh isn't isn't like the rock In then? Of course that's Dwayne Johnson, do you, buddy? What was the first movie? Though Josh credited as being the first movie with the Ninja. Uh you only lived twice. The James Bond movie it uh it. And when the movie came out in nineteen seven, Ninja

just exploded in Western culture. Of course, because people that go to see go to see the James Bond movies are looking for any cool new thing anyway, So imagine when they saw the Ninja, they were like, oh my gosh, that's the coolest mercenary I've ever seen in my life. They're like, click, those guys butchering everybody. Teenage mutant ninja turtles. Of course I never got into them neither. And then chuck, of course, Um, you probably haven't heard of this, but

there's this thing called g I Joe. I know, the early g I Joe. We've been over this, the twelve inch g I Joe with the kung fu grip, not the tiny ones. They're not dolls, are action figures. What you played with their dolls like, you can hug them and cuddle them. You can't cuddle an action figure. And they had bendable elbows and stuff like that. Did your twelve Ventures have kung fu grip? Because a little acts figures it too? Did they really? Huh? Yeah. Yeah, that's

where it started, buddy. Okay. Well, um. In the two series, a little ninja was introduced known as Snake Eyes, who worked on the good side. Oh really, I thought Snake Eyes was bad. No, you're thinking of storm Shadow. Storm Shadow is a cobra ninja. And actually I was looking on Yo Joe dot com today. Have you ever told that site? Oh my god, it's like nostalgia central, right, I did see that new movie though, the Joe movie. Is it out? It's out on video now. Was it

any good? No? Not really? Okay, and I love the cartoon though I don't think any uh animation had more of an impact on the development of my personality and the car. Yeah, every time it came on, I was just like, thank you God, thank you for letting me be alive and at an age where I can fully appreciate the g I Joe cartoon. See, I said the same thing about Tom and Jerry. So that's where we were so well again, let me let me go back to uh Snake Eyes and storm Shadow. Storm Shadow is

clearly a ninja. Snake Eyes is listed on his file card on the back of the package as a commando, although he is proficient in bladed weapons and uh martial arts, several martial arts. Right, so I'm thinking, why why would he be called the commando? Is he not a ninja? And I was gonna totally throw the smack down on the Grabster for calling Snake Eyes a ninja in this article.

I did a little more digging. It turns out that snow Job and Snake Eyes were once brothers in arms for the same clan, and actually Snake Eyes is a trained ninja, although he's also a commando. Yeah, and then they went their separate ways. Uh, there was a little bit of a falling out. They went their separate ways. Uh, Storm Shadow of the Cobra Ninja actually went to work for Cobra as a disguise to find who who killed

the clan leader. Well yeah, and um, once he did find out he was actually um brainwashed, he was discovered as a as a spy. Uh, he was discovered brainwashed and then actually did start working for Cobra. Snake Eyes he always was on Joe Sigh. Dude, I did not know that there was that much real information out there about g I Joe. So this is all in the history. Someone's actually written that. Yeah, well there's like there's again there's a comic series you're probably not aware of. Uh

and and yeah it's pretty storied. See. I was confused when I watched the movie. I kept waiting for Joe, kept waiting for Franco Harris to come out, you know with a beard who Joe always look like Franco Harris to me, the Pittsburgh Steeler running back. Wait a minute, I'm trying to think of who you're thinking of. Duke was the closest to the well there was that was

the collective name of him. Yeah, I see. That just confuses me because back in the day, back in the day, Gi Joe was a dude, a single dude, right, But then they just kind of said that sucks. Let's go with the better version here, let's go with action figures, Let's make the collective thing. Right. Did you see that link to the stop action um Vietnam movie full link Vietnam movie that I did you see my reply to that? Yeah,

you made a movie I did. My brother and I when we were six and nine years old, respectively, made a stop motion Super eight movie with g I Joe dolls and had a little plot and everything. What was the plot. Um, we had this little shiny button and the button represented like uh, micro film disc and they you know, it got stolen and Joe had to go retrieve it from the bad guys. We shot it in the woods near our house and it was pretty cool. Do you have thereon now? There were no explosions. I

think we might have lit something on fire. I don't know if it still exists. It's got to be somewhere, but I don't want to see it. So, Scott, if you're listening, if you have that, we would love to see that, agreed Scott, But I don't think he has it. We should probably get Path to Ninja, right, Is there anything else there? There are a couple of things. Of course, Ninja exploded in popular culture recently. It's a kind of rival Pirates and Chuck Norris, right, well, that's what I hear.

I didn't know about that though. So there's like that site I just showed you real Ultimate Power about how ninjas flip out and kill everybody. They're awesome and by awesome, mommy, and totally sweet. It tells a It tells the story of one ninja who was eating in a diner and some guy dropped his spoon and then Ninja flipped out and killed the whole town. Yeah, just stuff like that. It's the great pirate versus a Ninja thing because someone wrote in about that that one. I don't know. I

just I know that Asking Ninja took on. Uh. Asking Ninja dot com is another site you can ask Ninja Ninja practical questions like how to work a new iPhone app and stuff like that. But he does actually take on the pirates on Pirate talk like a Pirate Day, which we mentioned as well. So apparently there's some bad blood between pirates and Ninja. My money is on the Ninja. Well, sure, because they gets sneaking onto a pirate ship pretty easily.

I would. Pirates are all brash and Ninja just comes up, puts the blade at the base of your skull, inserts it into your brain, scrambles it dead. Pirates the pie it's are all drunk on ram and Ninja. I don't think they drank. No, they might hit the saki every once in a while, but that's about it. And then one last thing. If you're a true Ninja lover, there's one place you have to be the first week of April and that is in IgA at the Haku Hojoe

White Phoenix Castle known as the Ninja Museum. Yeah, they've embraced I I guys really embraced their ninja roots and they try to capitalize on that obviously. Yeah for money, Well why not. It's the root of all ninja. Yeah. I went to that website. Museum website is pretty cool, is it? But they have they have a festival and Ninja festival every year, including in Ninja parade. I want to see that. I can see ninja like driving around

in a little shriner's car. Yeah, so that's ninja. That's it. Yeah. Great, we covered just about everything. But if you want to see some boss picks of ninja hiding in trees and ninja weapons and stuff like that, you can type in ninja and the handy search bar at how stuff Works dot com. And uh, I guess now it's time for listener mail. Huh. Yes, josh I got a short one. I want to call this our Influence on the World. Nice, this is pretty cool. You're gonna, I don't know if

you read this one or not, you're gonna love it. It It just came in today, Chuck and josh I am a geologist in Columbus, Ohio go buck Eyes, and I often stumble across geo Is it cache? I always say cations catch. I think you can say either one, and I often stumble across geo cashes when I'm out in the field during research. I always follow all of the geo cashing rules and signed the log book along with usually leaving something behind for others to find. This time, however,

I was a little different. It was a little different because when I opened the sealed plastic container, I found a key chain, a deck of cards, bottle caps into Carlos Santana c d's. So so awesome. I thought this is a little odd until I remembered your podcast on geo cashing caching from last year when YouTube joked about putting Santana c d's. So wait, we put a should we go to should we go back and listen to

one part? Sure? So, like, if your average hiker happens upon this box full of Santana c d's and they're thinking, wow, I can just take d c d someone left these, this is awesome. So there it is. And apparently, uh, and that wasn't the only time we mentioned Santana c D several times several times, and j D from Columbus says, I thought I would let you know that at least two Geo catching fans in Columbus listen to your podcast and it was awesome to sort of meet one of them.

That's cool. I don't think that's coincidence to you. I don't see how it could be a Santanas c D and a Geo cash Are you joking? Yeah? Yeah, I think that was our influence directly. I agree. Pretty cool. You know, we've had another um another influence on somebody in I believe Slovakia. Not sure, I think so. Uh, there's a guy who wrote in and he founded a site called weird Worm and actually started a podcast and it's pretty good. You should listen to it, and he

attributes it directly to being inspired by us. Very cool. Yeah, so you should check out weird worm dot com and their accompanying podcast to watch. They're going to overtake us in the ratings immediately. Yeah, sorry, thanks a lot. At least there's people out there trading San Santa ce ds. That'll be our legacy each other. Right, Well, if you have any story about how Chuck and I have impacted your life, influenced you in any way, or got you to do something really really bad. We want to hear

about it in an email, which you can send. A stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand, twelve k Emory. It's ready, are you