TDZ's "Stories of the Year" Tournament of Champions 2024, Pt. 1

Hello the Internet, and welcome to the first annual inaugural year Tournament of Stories of the Year, Tournament of Champions. And that is the full name Year Tournament Stories of the Year, Tournament of Champion of Champions. My name is Jack O'Brien. I am joined, of course, by my esteemed colleague co commissioner of this league of story competitors, mister.

This thought came to us in the middle of the night, and we're like, what if we pit all our fun stories against each other and proclaim one the champion of the year.

And we've got some fun ones, Like we.

Got the election, we had to take some. We definitely wanted to take some out because let's be real, we we get that part. So maybe let's look back at the fun goofy shit this year.

Yeah, so that's this first episode is going to be us selecting the field, maybe doing some seeding of the field for the ultimate tournament. We're looking at a sixteen team tournament, a sweet sixteen of the top sixteen stories of the year. We greatly appreciate the nominations from Zeitgang on Blue Sky and in the discord. Yeah, there were some. There are a couple that we didn't have, and we will do our best to shut you out on the on the ones where you reminded.

Us blind spots.

How cool it is that Mark Robinson was the normally from cheers of a little weird windowless porn Hut Miles. We're thrilled to be joined by a couple esteemed guests. First up, one person who was responsible for bringing a lot of these stories to our attention, helping us work through them mentally, spiritually. One of our writers on the show. It is mister jam McNab coming from the Great White North.

That's right, yeah up here in Canada. We yeah, am I allowed to participate in this league? If is it like Intercontinental?

It's like, jam, dude, jam, let's talk about these stories. And they're like, no, shut shut up? Wait, what the are you?

Why is there a Canadian talking on this ship?

Yeah?

Tests and yeah we did.

That's just for our kink said, speaking of kinky motherfucker. Now, we're thrilled to be joined by one of the very producers who makes this show possible. Uh. He went back through all the show docs from this year after I texted him this morning, and UH went back pulled all the so that we could remember what the fuck furry hackers meant?

He is mister Victor right, thank you guys who uses my king politics as Mike kink. I want to apologize because I sent you guys a seventy page document like an hour ago, and I was like, hey, can you go through all of this because these are all the stories that we.

Have, asshole.

Yeah, and some of these I didn't understand that Jack ro I didn't know what gymnast Nerd was. Yeah, so things were quite difficult for me this morning. But happy to be here.

Hey, what were we saying about gymnast Nerd again?

Yeah, I googled it. As Victor knows, the rule is no questions around clarification for Jacky. Jack will freak out if you ask him questions for clarification before he's had his coffee.

Yeah, especially when you pointed out You're like, I don't know if that's your the best handle you could have on Blue Sky and.

Brother. Anyways, So here should we just read we have twenty four stories competing for the sixteen spots here. Yeah, I want to just go through the stories.

Yeah, so this is phase one. Let's let's get familiar with what we were thinking about yeah, and then the next episodes will be the fight to the.

Actual fight, but we're just gonna refamiliarize ourselves. The first one coming straight down the middle, a big old meat ball of a story. And I don't know if anybody remembers this, but you have remember Drake, Yeah, guy from Degrassi used to be a big oh yeah j rap star. Yeah yeah, so that he had a real beef with Kendrick kung Fu Kenny himself.

So that was a.

Big story at the beginning of this year. That feels like it has to be on the list. It was giving us life.

I feel like, oh, that's that Like those what like two weeks in May or early May when all that shit came together, I don't know. That was that was hip hop Christmas. Like every time Kendrick was dropping another fucking disc track, I was like, oh my god, what is happening?

I had its interesting to look back at our notes from that time, and I was like, the six sixteen in LA is definitely the one that's gonna hit the most. They're not like us is okay, but totally correct.

Well, that's like the spiking of the football as a track for me and I think. Yeah, I mean, I think we were all kind of like lyrically. The thing that was, I mean, Meet the Grahams was a haunted house of a track that only made people shudder when they listened to it. Six sixteen felt super dope, and you know, there was a whole you know era of you tube analysis videos that helped us understand it even further, which made me love the song even more.

But yeah, all right, we've got Olympic pole vaulter aka guy who lost at the Olympics but won the gold medal in having a dick for sure, like no doubt this guy. You get just from the the sheer spraying of it that was on evidence. This man had a dick. There's no doubt about it.

This man had a dick.

Exactly. Is the reverse Ghostbusters his name Anthony Amarati. Let's all right, we've got a suite of Olympics stories that I don't think it. I don't think they should be consolidated. Personally, there's two categories like this, There's Olympics, there's RFK. Right, so the Olympics stories we have guy lost the Olympics but won the gold medal and having a dick. Raban who lost the Olympics but won the gold medal of I don't know mody the existence of her event.

She's an academic. You don't put a fucking ancient historian in like the colisseum and tell them to fight, right, It doesn't make any sense for her to have gone to the Olympics in the first place.

Because that was there and she deserved to be there, that's true. Sorry, gymnast Nerd was one the victor needed to refresh her one. Yeah. Yeah, this is a guy who was just like the pole vaulter expert, the pole vaulter.

Or not.

Sniper. Yeah, yeah, I don't This is where you find out. I don't know what the Olympics are. Dude.

He just beat the ship out of that horse. Huh just like what.

Yeah, pommel horse specialist who had glasses and everyone was like, this guy is a.

Fucking dork, just an athlete with glasses.

Yeah, that's the super guy.

Yeah, we have the Olympic shooters. I think my underrated fave from the Olympics. Uh, which another Olympic athlete with glasses. But the guy who just casually shot with like one of his hands in his pocket and was going through a divorce that I think actually like years after the divorce but was like still struggling with it. Yusuf dickitch. Yeah, I do this because my wife took my dog and I want my dog back.

Yeah. I love the help. There was so much, uh like, so many theories about this guy, because you see takes like this guy doesn't even have one eye closed. It's like this guy might be some kind of military operator, hit man or something like I don't know, or he's just like one of these people who just has a freakish talent for shooting a pistol.

Yeah, they just apparently Yeah, he looked, and that is actually a good sign. We learn four shooters h all right, all right, and then we should probably talk.

About the Korean the Korean shooters too.

The Korean shooters also really cool.

Yea.

So Olympic shooters kind of captured our hearts, our minds, our attention, our fashion. I started dressing like the guy with the you know, just one hand, rolled out of bed, just extremely divorced. Clive Owen is kind of what he uh, the vibe he was giving me. We got our FK stories, we got our FK whalehead, we got our FK Heidi Bear. We got our FK brainworm, we got our FK affair, which one probably don't need all four of those.

Okay, so should we pair this down now?

I would vote let's just fucking get rid of the affair. I don't yeah, I don't care about that, Like that's just and it's between Yeah. I feel like it was a popular story with people who like knew that journalist, and they were like, oh, I don't work there. I don't know why. I can't care about this at all.

Well, that's what's so impressive about all those stories you mentioned is the fact that like having an affair with a reporter, which traditionally would be a huge scandal, doesn't even like, you know, crack the list of.

The most spacious wild.

Involved with Because there's the brain worm, which he that came out because he used that as an excuse in his divorce. It was like, you're not not a brain work, You're like, wait what and ate.

Half his brain or something?

Right?

It was like eating inside a thing?

Was it didn't he say like, oh it, you know it's living inside your it's a parasite. And he interpreted that as part of my brain is missing. Because a worm made it.

Yeah, it's like that's not even how the brain works. But yeah, great, we love that.

I do.

I do think that. I remember reading some stories that were like, I don't know, it could have been a thing. It's like a thing that happens. And also I remember there being a lot of people being like it was around the time that his entire personality completely changed. So I don't know. Race is he's just obsessed with fame, and fame is the worst thing that can happen to a human brain.

Yeah, but I don't know.

He's been famous since he was young. He hadn't had since he was young.

Isn't that the worm is in charge now? And you know, just like did he start asking to be referred to as you know whatever the worm's name was?

Right?

Name?

Just a sound?

Yeah, I don't know. It's what I hear in my brain. It's like three Latin words backwards. So we have three RFK stories. Yeah, whalehead worm. I think those all need to be in the Does everybody agree those need to be in the turn?

I think so. Yeah.

It just basically the three headed monster servers.

Have three heads.

It doesn't matter.

Sorry, sorry to be sorry. To bring my mythology brain into this, dude, because I don't have a brain worm. I'm just thinking about mythology.

I wish you had a brain worm, dude.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I don't know. Uh, but so those and the Olympics, I feel like, are in categories where they could be one story, but I think they need to be all broken out into individual stories. Oh we nearly did them, I do think so. Yeah.

I think the bear head or the bear hide can fit into the whalehead story because those wad Yeah, those are very similar, right, they're both. I mean the art title article here is RFK Junior faces call for investigation and to claim he Shane saw a whale's head off, which is the kind of ship that got me into the news and politics in the first place.

That's so weird that that's how you got in. That's exactly.

Yeah.

No, but like they've just been waiting, You're like, finally, finally, this is my time the sidelines.

But like, the whalehead and the bear hide are basically the same story that just happened to different animals.

You know, it's just the desecration of a dead animal exactly.

I mean, the bear one does have some pretty great details though. Yeah, like he tried. He didn't just you know, desecrate a bear. He's like he like made it turn it into a prop like he tried to like turned into like.

A bad political cartoon. Yeah. Yeah, okay, So let's put a pin in it. Let's leave them separate now, okay, okay, and then we can eliminate later. Also, we're not picking the winner right now. We're picking the list of sixteen. We're down to twenty four actually, because I just remembered that, I do want to talk about jay Leno's weird face thing, even if we don't put it on the list. I know we said beforehand we weren't going to put on the list. I still want to talk about why it's not going on.

It's taken up. I think it's one of those things too. We have to acknowledge how much a story takes up oxygen off mic when we're not recording the Yeah. Yeah, and that's certainly taking up a lot of energy from us right now.

All right, we got some election stories here. Do you guys remember the US presidential election happened earlier this month, I guess. And so we've got a couple of those that I get. I guess these could all be like categories. They could all be like varying categories. The first one we have on here that I think is actually a pretty good candidate to be the first one cut is Laura Lumer.

Yeah. Yeah, this was a bellige.

There's something about this story that did capture I think what we're about to see, because like early in the year, there were articles where people are like, I spent some time with Laura Lumer. She exists like in this weird universe where all she does all day is like check in on Trump's availability and like hope to spend time with Trump and like tell people about how much access she has to Trump and then get like ditched and

Yeah, yeah, but then she was saying the most racist off the wall shit too, and they're like, yo, is this your girl?

And she's great, we love her, but like just the whole like royal court of it all felt very appropriate at the same time doesn't bring me any joy. It doesn't spark joy, and I feel like that is what we need to exactly be thinking here.

So it's like we're decluttering this bractic we are.

We are, it doesn't spark joy, It's gone and move on. I think it's easy. I don't think by just checking the spark joy. No, Okay, there we are.

Next we have JD. Vance couch fuck. I think that is that.

It stays.

Yeah, it stays. Next, we have the election in all cats.

Oh yeah, that's it. That's it. The election. I mean it was, it's obviously the most consequential story of our time.

But does it spark joy?

No? By the election.

By the election, and for that reason, you have been vaporized peace just only the fun stuff around it. It's like the elections like the crust and we're like, no, it's not like the bread part where it's JD. Vance couch fucking or this next guy.

Yeah yeah, So the next thing, I'm gonna move this one down to the bottom.

Uh.

The next thing we have is Mark Robinson porn chop reg So a lot of just wild, racist, horrifying things being said by Mark Robinson. We found out that his wife and he like would buy girl Scout cookies and like stiff them for money, just like one unimaginable political scandal after another. But the highlight for us, I think was when we found out that he was like part of this group of people who would always meet up at a porn shop to like jack Off next to.

Each other, but he would bring pizzas with him.

Yeah, he would bring pizza. He was like a beloved like it gave eighty sitcom vibe, you know, vibes. It really felt like cheers. But at porn shop, like they were like, yeah, Mark was actually like pretty funny guy. Yeah, nothing against him. He just owes me forty dollars, So I'm burning his political career down right.

This kind of sums up though, this kind of the elections kind of stories, Like obviously he was a gubernatorial candidate who was like, I'm a black Nazi as a Holocaust Deniron said, like Martin Luther King's he had the he was just like the worst fucking guy. But we're like no, no, no, But the part he brings pizzas to the jack Off video store, now now that's a story.

Now.

Also, the the Nazi thing was a comment on a porn site.

He stuck with the VHS.

Yeah, yeah, you know, And that's what we yeah, the way that Russia keeps things off of the Internet, and like when they're doing spycraft, they like send things via a carrier pigeon. That's how you should keep your jacking off digital or whatever the opposite of digital.

Keep it on.

Homing pigeon.

Yes, keep jacking off with homing pigeons. Right.

He was buying Also, he was buying bootleg porno tapes at the store that one of the guys named Louis Money was selling to him on the side. That was the other detail about this was that he find and he stiffed the guy twenty five bucks, and I think that's why he was like, yeah, I got something to say about Mark Robinson.

Yeah, he's only five dollars.

He's also promoting his band, I think.

Right, yeah, yeah, they had a fun I forget what the end of the band was, but anyways, this is I think this one's in. This is like one of the one. Yeah. This is like somebody wins the SEC tournament or something, you know, like it's like, yeah, you're automatically in congratulations, I'm winning the Big East Tournament. Mark Robinson, porn shop regular, you are in the tournament. Uh, let's take a quick break and we'll be back to continue narrowing down the field of competitors.

And we're back.

We're back up.

Next, we have furry hackers. This was one I did not remember from when it happened, but this was a group of hackers who hacked the people behind Project twenty twenty five and threatened to reveal their names and the names of all the people who were funding them, the Heritage Foundation. Uh, and ultimately like didn't do that. One of the Heritage Foundation people in response quoted eminem uh like I am whatever you say, I am dog damn.

This whole thing was like being like, yeah, come at me, motherfuckers, I ain't scared of you, and then like, go ahead publish our interactions about how I'm not scared to you. And then they did, and that's when he was like okay, in a homophobe before k So he's hitting you with like I.

Sit back with this back back, and you're like very.

Normal response, thank you for that.

Yeah, I'd like to see you try and post that, and he posts it, Mom spaghetti vomiting. What this one?

I think.

It's a bubble for me. Yeah, it's a bubble.

It's a bubble story.

Yeah, because I was thinking, because I went through all this this morning, and the article itself is funny, or the article title is funny, where it's like furry hackers attack Herridge Foundation and shit like that, but the actual essence just isn't there for me, So I'd be fine with getting rid of it.

Yeah, And I think the funniest part is this dude responding with an eminem lyric more than anything like shout out to the hackers for exposing this hateful organization. The funny part isn't necessarily that like this is a furry hacker hacker collective. It's the guy who just says, hey, I'm being homophobic. Live is a defense or some ship. So yeah, I don't know if.

It's I'm gonna leave it on the bubble for now, all right, all right with a gymnast nerd. I feel like those two are on the bubble right now, and we'll put Whalehead on the bubble because Whalehead might be combined with Hedy Bear. Okay, although I don't know that might be might make it too strong. That might be if Michigan State in Michigan, we just let the teams combine, like what the fuck? All right? Up next we have JD.

I mean, if we're doing if you put the two JD. Van stories next to each other, you got to take couch.

Over the couch fuck probably that I think. I think we were getting down to a place where we're gonna be able to be eliminating some of these. Actually, no, it's pretty strong from here on. It uh the one that I think we can eliminate yet again. This year, Havana syndrome was solved, and the mainstream media refused to

No person who had determined whether or not a havana syndrome true joy? So I in the way of that process.

Yeah, I barely have a bone right now, so I'm gonna delete it.

I will say that sixty Minutes piece is very funny to watch because it's like they just do things that even I know, like, well, that's a ridiculous thing to do, Like they h I was reading over the notes again because it's been a while, but like there was one part where a woman that said she suffered from havana syndrome thought she saw like a suspicious car parked outside of her house, and so the sixty minutes reporter just like pulled out just one photograph of like the like

And she was like yes, Oh.

Dude, you're not gonna fucking believe this. You know who that is?

Guy who poisoned that guy who's face melted off.

It was Jay Leno then crashed the media.

A lot of people don't see the aftermath of that TMZ interview where they're talking to Jay Leno. The sixty Minutes guy comes up with that same picture and was like, Jay, Yeah, anyways, I don't know should we bubble it? Let's bubble it. I deleted it and then JM brought it back for me.

Just you thought you were out Havana syndrome.

I got a fever.

I know that it's psychostomatic because every time I wrote one of those things I started getting headaches.

Yeah, way too much.

And hearing high pitch ringing.

Yeah. So a lot of things came together in this next story, uh, the private equity shrimp story. There's a big story about how Red Lobster, you know what A dealed themselves out of business by like doing endless shrimp bowls, and it turned out it was just like private equity fucking them the way they fucked Basically, Toys r us J Crew many a recognizable brand. I guess it does spark joy sparks.

Yeah, Well, I would say a lot of listeners reached out and like when asking about this in DMS and like on Blue Ski and stuff, we're like, like, people really liked the private equity episode we did with Brendan Belou who was working at the DJ.

Yeah, a number one episode, I believe.

Yeah that that definitely like opened up our brains to begin to look at these kinds of like stories where they're like, this beloved company is going out of business, what the fuck happened? And always realizing like, let's always assume it's private equity. And this was one of those times I remember where this was like in like, uh, I think in March is when the stories first started coming out, they're like, oh, they're in trouble due to Endless Shrimp, and then we're like, let's just do a

So gang Busters, Yeah, I don't. I mean I feel good. I love the story. Uh, and I think we're going to keep it.

It sounds like the closest to being for real, like a real story, yeah, without totally joking.

And I think also that's all you can eat shrimp involved with it, so that it does.

And it also makes me feel like, you know, we're we're much smarter than we are because we talked about blue that one time and then yeah, private it's my new thing.

It'll be one where like I can uh send my parents the time stamps of this episode where we talk about that and be like, yeah, yeah, just check out this part this five minutes. Ignore the part where I keep saying that the guy won the gold medal and having a dick just focused on.

Major in philosophy.

Honey, Oh man, you think they you think they thought that was a good idea. Anyways, Uh, Private Equity Shrip, you're in the tournament, Welcome got nominated by people. This was like a very minor story.

Right, yeah, but apparently stuck out to people.

I'll fight for it because it's so fucking weird. It's just they included these cotton candy and in the middle was Skittles and Eminem's or something with a lot.

Of chocolate with a lot of Skittles like it was, which I don't know, like, is that violating any sort of law for you guys, because you know, there's the dirt cup that is a favorite with chocolate pudding and the gummy worms.

The dirt cup.

They love the dirt cup. The dirt cup is an American class.

This is an an abomination to me.

Yeah, maybe could we could we lump this together with the election and just put it under like an umbrella decisions all around.

Cotton candy burrito election. I mean, there was a portion of the election where I kept comparing Trump's brain to cotton candy that someone had dumped a diet coke on top of. So there is all right, cotton candy burrito slash election. You're on the bubble. Okay, you're you're a strong bubble contender.

Because this was again I think just for the backstory, this was something the Arizona Cardinals were doing at their stadium.

And yeah, that's how because I was going to say more sports stadiums are trying to do like upgraded food options and instead of like just the normal hot dog and nachos. And this is what they fucking came up with.

Hot dog fight this year.

Remember that with the dollar hot Dog Night where there was like a massive hot dog fight.

Was that I had there was something that was one that apparently happened when I was either out or not properly storing memory is due to fugue state, But I don't remember that anyways, Ktton Candy Burrito slashed the election. You are in Kamala fashion Week party? You are I've got to say, this is in Yeah.

Yeah, this is like this is one of those bitter pill ones. I mean, obviously election itself is a fucking bitter pill, but I think this is one of those ones too, where like realizing after the election, because I like I only caught wind of it after the election, but in the build up that this fashion Week party had happened, is in this weird way? Is this like really tragic summation manifestation of what the Harris campaign was?

And yeah, yeah, this was what needed to be like the main story of the election as it was happening. Uh, and you found out too late about it. But it's my it's the most important story. I think of the election as this fashion Week party. It explains everything. This is a this is a not not only in for me, it's a strong feed.

Yeah, I think, yeah, it's everything wrong that happened into like what one minute video.

Right, it's like being really leaning into like the meme aspect of the election, being super flippant about people's human civil rights yea, and jengifying them, distilling sexual assault into a claw grabber game. It all felt very like, I don't know, these are like propa. I think we can make jokes about this and then that'll help people get excited about our campaign that we're not even taking any of it seriously.

Yeah.

So yeah, yeah, that's your staying. You're going to Hollywood, as they say.

In American Fashion Week party, You're going to Hollywood to the video that we had because and you can actually go see this on our YouTube channel. It was the episode we I think Chelsea Chelsea Weber's Smith Smith. Yeah, go go check out that episode and you can see the video. It's narrated by French guy who was just.

Like wow, He's like, this is so distubi bro accent. It HiT's way harder when you say it like that.

All right, this next one, as far as I'm concerned, not going anywhere. This is this is in the Turn. Yeah, Elmo versus Big Bird. We totally forgot about this one until the moment before we started recording. But did somebody recommend it over.

On Blue Ski. Yes, someone did mention it and it was Queen Try or Queen Tree on Blue Sky. Remember, yeah, suggest shout out to you, Queen for that one. But yeah, because I do. It started off as a story talking about how Elmo just innocently like Elmo has everybody doing on Twitter, and then it just became trauma dump.

Emotional, like fucking good Elmo, I'm fucking dying Elmo.

And then I think it just took a tangent because I think that episode was called Big Bird Versus Elmo. Who you got.

Big Bird was also trying something at that time, wasn't he jam I remember you think you wrote this one up?

I think it was.

Yeah.

I think it was like part of some kind of coordinated effort where they're trying to get the Sesame Street muppets to like open up a conversation about mental health or something.

But yeah, it just immediately took a turn like wasn't.

Big Bird missing or something or Big Bird like trunk down to normal size or something. There there was something with yea, yeah, so.

Big Bird's account he'd been posting about how he quote randomly shrunk to the size of an insect and is no longer big.

It was like coughcus metamorphosis, but with yeah exactly, and mister like and snuffleophagous like was even tweeting it's like.

All avoid there, bird, so don't trample you to death.

Yeah that's a great buffalo bill.

Thank you, big old fat bird snuffle uffalo bill.

Yeah.

But then but then it was about is he shrinking? Is he getting big? And then we were thinking that I guess technically Elmo's a monster.

Yeah, so yeah, I think somehow it came up that we were like, who you got between these two, because like I think we were suspecting, like, it's gotta be frustrating Big birds like put together this well coordinated with special effects like social media thing where it's like and then I'll look small and you know, just a some real try hard shit from Big Bird and then Elmo's like, hey, how's everyone doing, and everyone just like Elmo is the

Got them I'm sorry, you know, because got him. Big Bird has like he's top heavy, right, so all Almo has to do is push him over and then start kicking him and that's it. Big Bird's done.

Canonically, Big Bird is six Elmos three and a half yeah, okay, a three and a half year old red monster.

Though, yeah, big Bird is a giant dinosaur. You know, dinosaurs had feathers with eyes that are very close together, suggesting predation, you know, whereas Elmo's eyes are just like kind of going any which way, so probably you know, more of a prey.

Squarely have those eyes just right dead center.

When Big Bird's eyes are locked on your ass. Big Bird approaching you from behind in the forest like as he's like hi, and the I'm like, you know, you hear a twig break behind you, and that's the last thing you ever hear.

This was also because this happened, Elmo asked how everyone was doing in January. January twenty ninth of this year.

Yeah, so this was he kicked off this.

This definitely kicked off the year, and I was like.

Fuck do you think we're doing?

Yeah, there's a fucking genocide happening. Everyone's lonely. We got an election coming. What do you fucking want?

I think that one's pretty strong contender. Yeah, all right, speaking of strong contenders, this is probably the one we got the most votes for. It was the first one that we put on the list YEP, which is Willy Wonka Glasgow aka. Just thank you Victor for going back and finding I think Jam's original story or no, I think Miles you maybe wrote this one up. Yeah, but it was called Willie's Chocolate Experience, off brand ass naming.

This was a story that kept going to throughout the year. We would get bizarre fucking updates.

We just had an update on this one because the mastermind behind this was convicted as a sex krim y. Yeah, sexual career.

Just sending a ton of was like, was he sending bunch of nude pics or something? Just harassing a woman over to.

Basically sexual messaging, and then blamed the stress of being the number one story of the year for his behavior.

I think the other part too, though, that was made it really stick out, was the use of AI in all the promotional materials, Like they were chumming the waters with this like fantastic nonsense AI art, and then when you got there, they were in a barren warehouse with again, remember there was like just shitty like posters you could take a picture of. There was the the Umpah lumpa bartender who looked like she was just in the midst

Who was Wonka's enemy. I don't remember Wanka ever having an enemy That.

Was AI too, was because they wrote a whole backstory narrative that was written by AI.

They like actually created lore as part of this, and the lore sucked shit because it was from AI. It also made up words like cat gacading, uh hear chie tons instead of catchy tunes, Disasser's de dre lollipops.

I love how to use Easier to use AI than it is to like read a children's book or watching eighty minutes movie.

Just regurgitate what you just saw.

Yeah, yeah, anyway, the strong Ones siege, Welcome to the tournament. Up next, we have kind of again like this could be part of the same story, but a fake Bridgerton that happened in Atlanta. Yeah, oh no, Detroit, sorry Detroit, that's right, and it did not go well. It was kind of gave us some of the Glasgow Wonka energy at a time when we desperately needed it. What do we think?

I think it's out, it's it's I think it's it's hanging on the coattails of Willy Wonka and Glasgow, Scotland, Glasgow.

I gotta argue for this one though. I'm sorry because like the Willy Wonka AI experience felt like one guy being a piece of ship. But then the fake Bridgerton one had multiple people, like the queen was handing out her business cards.

Yeah, yeah, good details in there.

There was there were a lot of details that separated it, right, Yeah, this is the whole answer.

They were promised like a ball like scenes from Bridgerton, and it was just like one lone pole Dancer and like dodgy stream music in a conference room eventsace. Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's not a strong seed, but I think it's just enough to edge it out, you know, right.

Like it would be a sixteen seed type.

Can we combine that with the election?

The election?

Candy Cotton, Candy Burrito, fake Bridgerton, Ridon, all right, they are on the bubble as a single story. Just call it America, that's right, Yeah, call it all America. All right. We got jay Leno one that I wanted to bring back and talk about. And now, because this is the third recording we're doing today, I don't remember why, so any we could cut it well.

I think the reason we bring it up is because we've talked about it so much off Mike trying to understand, I mean, you've heard us, you know, sort of try and parse through the details and come to some kind of conclusion as to what the fuck is going on with jay Leno. It could be I don't know, I don't know. I mean, some things are better left not in podcast form maybe sometimes because it feels like it doesn't feel like we have fun. Either way, it's like, is he in trouble with the mob? Is he trying

Yeah, like a thrill thrill seeking freak shit. I guess that one's kind of fun.

That this is just his kink and his like ocean Gate and Submarine basically, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean we could put a pin in it and see if he gets it's like attacked by a shark or something before the final vote.

Yeah all right, I mean the final vote is in probably thirty to forty five seconds. So okay, let me check. We're going to put a pin in that. Jam's going to go check if Jaylen has been attacked by a shark. Order worka another story that's a whole there's a whole genre of stories that felt like they happened this year. Work Is Attacking Yachts that was actually mid Latin mid twenty twenty three. Covenant Eyes happened in twenty twenty three.

Yeah, but it been kind of like mainstay stories in the news cycles.

The other one that I think is entering as a one seed without a doubt in my mind. Yes, is the Food and Wine article about punkin spice latte flavored Eminem's that broke Miles brain, broke the show.

I we fucking hate this story. Yeah, and by that I mean it consumed. It's still I'm like so angry just thinking about it again. Like you said, they were introducing fall flavors to Eminem's very early. This is the part that killed me. Okay, this is the part where, because this is all part of an ai anger genre of story, where this part, this specific fucking paragraph in this Food and Wine story quote, the preseasonal launch of the milk chocolate pumpkin pie Eminem's is a strategic move

Are you talking about? Well in eight weeks from Memorial Days the forces? Anyway, it's it's a number one seed with a bullet. This one was not.

Can I just say that it's not it's not six point eight weeks. I don't know if it's not. Where six twenty weeks comes from? Who even even describes time in like fucking fractions of a week?

Maybe decimals with yeah, oh.

Yeah, six point eight weeks, Yeah, eight tenths.

Of the spam six point eight weeks. Eminem's maybe for my health.

We don't talk about it like I feel like my fucking blood.

Yeah, so that one's in for sure. Going to Hollywood, You're going to Hollywood food and wine AI article. It feels like an illustration of the Van Vaught thing that I kept seeing the it's no big secret why Van Vaught doesn't work in Hollywood anymore, And it's a picture of Vince Vaughan. But this was one that we just encountered, like in an article that like we would be talking

That's what this show is basically, right.

Yeah, So we're gonna we got through the stories that are nominees for the tournament. We're going to take one final break and then we're gonna come back and make the final selection, maybe even do some seating. We'll be right back and we're back.

We're back.

So let me see the green stories we have highlight it's Kendrick Drake guy won the gold medal, having a Dick ray Gun, Olympic Shooters, Yeah, RFK, Heidi Bear RFK, Brainworm, Jadie Vance, Couch fuck, Mark Robinson, porn Shop, Private Equity, Shrimp, Kamala Fashion Week Party, Elmo, the Big Bird, Wanka Glasgow

That I've been checking so far, now, so.

Far, Now, all right, we're gonna cut jay Leno. We don't know where that story is exactly going. It's not a complete story. So we're down to nineteen stories.

Any election, Brito election fake Bridgerton I think.

Is in is in?

Oh?

Yeah, I highlight that. Yeah, all right, that one's in JD Van's donut shop. Do we want to cut?

What was I don't even the gymnast nerd. Was it just that he wore glasses or was his dick out too? What was the deal with that?

He was a sensation? I remember everyone was obsessed because he was so calm and then helped deliver a medal for the US men's gymnastics team, and it.

Was like, why is this guy here? He has glasses on? And then he then so like the question was posed just in his very presence. I think there was probably one of those packages before where it's like, I know, this guy looks like a fucking dork, but here he is back at home. You know, getting the call that he gets to be in the Olympics even though he

Yeah, so one of them comes out of that of that quadrant.

Okay, yeah, I.

Think we cut furry hackers and Havana syndrome, so.

Then that leaves RFK, whalehead and the donut shop. Yeah.

The donut shop.

Is like, as much as I don't want to think about, I mean whatever, we already have to think about his love of the couch, so we might as well just talk about how absolutely awkward and robotic he is around normal world.

We got a lot of nominations from listeners because it al says the whale juice, it's a whale juice.

The daughter's anecdote about it that does a lot of.

That half Deck is involved. It was. I think in many ways the culmination like it, even though like with the Kendrick songs, even though you know I happened to when I first heard it, like you know, the one that he only dropped on Instagram better uh not like us was the favorite, was the one that hit the hardest, And I feel like Whalehead was the one that hit the hardest.

So it's not like a Brainworm is like like that the dis track from Future Metro booming okay, and then Heidi Bear is like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Whalehead is not like us Doughnut Chop I think can go okay, And that goes to us there.

Because Whalehead and Heidie Bear, we're confirming are just two separate stories now, I think they have.

To stand on their Then do we also cluster RFK stories in their own quadrant too, so one emerges or do we make them do the battle to the death there?

I think we cluster them in the our own bracket with Kendrick Drake, I don't know why, or maybe with the Elmo Big Bird, I don't know, or Mark Robinson I guess like colorful characters from the election would be maybe.

Okay, yeah, so how do we want to We're we gonna see them now.

So here's what I think we should do. Because this has already been a long episode. We've reviewed the stories that are going to be facing off with one another. I think we should between now and tomorrow when we're recording the kind of determinative yeah, yeah, the other sode where we like figure out who wins what is the

That sounds fair, sounds good.

I'll do my rankings. I'll bring my rankings to the next class, and we will begin the act with.

The understanding that the Olympics ones are all gonna be clustered together. But yeah, but it makes sense maybe well I don't know.

Yeah, that's that's where we'll talk about it. I think that's that's the important thing is we can well, we'll think about how we get there because you don't want you don't want to get those huge matchups early on in the tournament, you know.

Yeah, you certainly don't else. No, but yeah, I think I think we're gonna end up with like four really strong one seeds as everybody chooses their favorite stories, and uh, we're going to get for the sake of science, We're going to get the top Daily Zeitgeist story of the Year. Twenty twenty four inaugural episode.

I exactly that.

My only shame in doing this episode is that it took us this long to figure out that we should be doing this every year.

Yeah, yeah, hey, but look, look we got a look, we got a lot of tables. Man, as Janine Garoppolo says and famously in The Cable Guy at Medieval Time.

We should we should all do a tournament of just our most over used pop culture, right, Yeah, I think I say we got a lot of tables, or I got a lot of tables.

Or anything that's a word that ends in t I O N becomes an ash.

Where there's a less another one too from Ziking just Zeitgeistism's Battle of the Seistism this.

Year, taking a little vacation to them for my vacatione all right, Jay McNab, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?

I don't even know anymore?

Cool.

I guess, yeah, I'm on Twitter, but then you know I don't do anything on that anymore. I guess I'm on Blue Sky, but I don't remember what the thing is, so I'm around.

All right, there you go, Victor. Where can people find you?

Don't I'm also like JM. I don't have I never do anything Instagram or Twitter.

So don't leave me alone. Please? Thank you? All right, great Miles don't Okay you can when this is jack ob One on Blue Sky. Oh jacko Bone jack Obone, jack Obi the number one. Okay, yeah you already know you already everybody, y'all already? No, all right, this was fun. Thank you so much. Thank you as always to Brian the editor who's gonna have to cut this shit together.

Yeah. Also shout out to everybody else who couldn't make it obviously. Producer by E. P.

Catherine Justin y we.

All love you, but Anna, we'll be in another episode that may have aired by the time you hear this. But anyway, the whole gang is getting back.

You might even hear from.

Becca, okay, getting the whole gang back together.

Raw, right, I was gonna do it. I hope everybody's having a great end to their year, and we'll talk to y'all tomorrow with the exciting conclusion of the daily Zeitke Guy Stories of the Year, Tournament of champions or however I said at the beginning story Tournament Year

Stories of the Year, Tournament of Championship, the boom