Happy New Year, everybody, here we go. You see what happened on the Cowboys game Saturday night? Are you asking me directly? I am? Or is that a rhetorical question? Both? Yes, I did. I watched the whole damn game, Kevin, the whole damn game. Well, we have a rules expert to lay down the law at nine o'clock. We're not just gonna sit around and be like every other person we've heard jo their idea about what happened. Who you don't, you're so encovered and reported No.
Nine o'clock NFL on Fox, Rules analyst Dean Blandino calls in to tell us what happened, Who's right, Who's wrong? Why does it better? Nine o'clock, eight thirty DINGUS Morning News. Wow, that's hard to get past the nine o'clock team. Thinker's Morning News to day thirty. It's back Japan News today. Now, man, there's some big changes that have gone down since yesterday in this great land of ours. And I want to see where our beautiful state of Texas stacks up against the other states in this great
nation of ours. And I'm talking about minimum wage. Minimum wage increases went into effect for a lot of States, was Texas one of them? Oh, and if it wasn't, what is our minimum wage? Do you even know? I don't find out then, and we'll find out exactly how would you be able to live city if you were making minimum wage, which we're not far from up here at the freak now real close to it. But thankfully our wonderful company pays us a little bit more than minimum wage. Witter
company is going to start offering maximum wage. That should be happening. Money is not real, it can be created. Well, you think that if you're saying that there is a minimum wage, you're kind of inferring that there is also a maximum wage. Right, There is no maximum wage, just as capitalist society bro it is. There's no such thing as a maximum wage, but there is a minimum wage. Yeah, that things can change in election years. Eight o'clock. I stayed up for MAVs Longhorns for Maths and
Longhorns. But the Longhorns game, which I defen knew it when they had seven forty five kickoff scheduled, I knew it. They do this every year eight o'clock, nine o'clock on the East coast. If you watch that game in the East coast wanted to see it to the end of you were up till one am all because the Rose Bowl, because we have to start the game at this time. We have the Rose Bolt break and those bad off Rose Bowl. Those damn Bowl games are eternal. They are. It's a
four hour investment. Yeah, especially if it's close. The other argument that I get about this is, well, if you like football, then like it's like longer, so who cares. I'm going no, that's not. We still have crap we gotta do in life. You know, there's twenty four hours in a day, and ideally four of those are not spent on a football game. Ideally four of those are spent listening to the downbeat ideality. But you know, coin Flip, we a little short handed today,
bro, Yeah, Mikey's sick. Yep, it's six season. I mean, we've got COVID and flu rates rising throughout the Metroplex, and he told us he was not feeling good. He took his test. He's not Uh, he's not Captain COVID today, which is nice. I told him, if he can up here with even the hint of a cough, he's gonna catch these hands. Because I don't want to get to see Okay, Yeah, he's been feeling like asked for the last forty eight and uh yeah,
bad like hacking, cough all night long. No fever though, which is good. And he took his little COVID test yesterday and that came back negative, so he claims he'll be back tomorrow. But I knew this was gonna happen, and I thought it was gonna happen to me because two nights ago or two mornings ago, I woke up thinking, uh, oh, well, this is gonna be a great look for me to be in bed with the flu. Yeah, when we're supposed to be all hands on deck on
jan second for what will be a short work week for us. Maybe maybe for a lot of folks. I'm sure, since yesterday was a holiday. Man, I was thinking, I'm gonna be sick and I'm gonna have to make that damn phone call to the boss and say, yeah, I know I've been off for two weeks, but guess what, I'm not going to be back on time. I did not have to make that phone call, but there's two people up here that did, yes, and it's not either
one of us. It's one of them's Mikey Sroy and I believe Skin might be missing today as well because he had big fever a couple days ago, apparently one seventeen celsius, which they don't It's not good. He said. He topped out at one zero four two days ago and it was much better back to like ninety nine yesterday, but still not good to come back. I don't know what the rule of thumb is, but I think it's twenty four hours fever free before you should return, yeah, to work and be
around people. Well, I don't know. Once it's not there, I feel like I'm good. But you know, this is the problem. If I get sick, I want to be knocked out for a day and just get it out of systems. I'll take a much more intense or harsh sickness than some lingering three four five day thing. And I think that's what we've kind of been seeing with with well. I mean that was I'm trying not to combine COVID and the flukes are two different things, but I feel like
flu season January. I saw a story on the news last night. It was kind of about that, why your cold and flu symptoms linger this time? Of year, and I was like, oh, I don't really remember why. You're getting a good answer why, But the point is, don't linger, get it to me and get me back to work. They linger because people don't take advice and do what they should do, which is nothing.
Yeah, that's a problem is we have to work. You know, most people don't have They're not afforded the luxury of taking the necessary week off to recuperate, and they go back early and that stuff just lingers lingers, and you can relapse and end up right back where you started where. Look, man, I get it, and we have that kind of pressure job where if you're not here, it's pretty known and it's not looked upon favorably
to just knock off a week from work because you don't feel good. I mean date, after five days, I was like, I'm ready to go back to work. And I wouldn't have had two weeks off at Christmas except they switched their shows in July, so these vacation days, I was like, I can't take them now with the new show in July. So we're sitting here kind of like I mean, having two weeks uf at Christmas is nice, especially if you have to travel or anything. Sure, after a
week, I was like, I'm good to go back. I'm recharged, I'm ready. Yeah, I felt bad. Mikey was texting us last night saying, I feel terrible about leaving you guys and not being there for the first day back. I'm like, man, look, he's a young man. He's forty six, forty seven. But still you start getting passed like thirty thirty five, forty and you got to take these things a little bit more serious before. I know you don't, but you will. And look,
get the rest. No one's gonna fault you for not coming in because you are sick. If he came in sick, he was gonna be feeling worse than he feels now at home because he was gonna catch these hands. Yeah, you said that earlier and I thought it was silly, and you said it again, and it's even more silly because you decided to repeat it. Oh, a duke outa turner, Mikey's gonna catch hands. We're gonna get some New Year's stuff here in a second. You know, that's a
big story we're tracking this morning. Danny. If you saw in Japan a passenger plane got hit by a Coastguard plane and engulfed in flames on the runway. That'll be the most important thing in the world. At six thirty five. It's the big story this morning. Not only that they're they're having to
fight through earthquakes too. I mean, what a man. Start to twenty two twenty four for Japan, and that's the most important thing in the world here in DFW uh obviously support to seven, we'll dive into the Cowboys game because there's a million different angles and it was a crazy night that was all fueled by Jimmy Johnson going into the Ring of Honor so much, so much to unpack. Does the unpacking never stops? You tired of that one? By the way, I kind of I kind of don't like that one.
Do you have your phrases for twenty twenty four that we need to get rid of? Dude? I need to round them up because I've got plenty. Yeah, and also some verbal crutches of mine that I just want to stop going with. But that's one of them here. Big story, Well, all right, well get to it then open your suitcase. Bro, mav sucked last night. We'll get to that at eight. I do have an
opportunity for our listeners though. If you go to at ninety seven to one the Freak on Instagram or on Twitter, I've given you two opportunities to win a pair of MAVs tickets. Follow the rules on the post, very simple, and then the final segment today we'll try to announce the winners and give you a pair of tickets to see the MAVs and the Grizzlies next Tuesday night, a week from today. I saw this post when I woke up this morning, and I engaged with it. Kevin, Oh, did you tag
someone? I didn't tag anybody because I'm not eligible to win, but I did retweet it. So yeah, check out our Twitter page, our Instagram page, and you can win some kick ass seats to upcoming MAVs game. Damn real easy, straight, very easy, very easy rules here. You know, spread the word to go ahead and give it a repost or whatever. We're trying to get more out there, as you may know. Also over we're talking about Skin maybe being out. I think it's in all likelihood.
Yeah, it's sick. I was wondering if if it was because he was on Epstein's list. We'll find out at seven thirty. Oh my god, go ahead, Danny. Uh, when's the last time you were a jack in the box? I thought you said when was the last time I eat jack in the box? It's pretty well, but yeah, there's one close to me though, so I have getten the hankering for the quick. Let me just run through and see. You know, I've got the one
that is. I could walk to it within probably four minutes, four or five minutes from my house, drive by it every day coming to We're going, you know, a couple of a couple of talkies sound pretty good right now, but I typically pass once every couple of months. I'll get hungry.
Yeah, I'm go an blow through here real quick. I haven't done it in probably seven or eight months, maybe since uh when Mike Reiner did the Jack in the Box Taco challenge if you remember that, where he had to exist one day where every meal was a Jack in the box taco and I think he ate like eight of them, and he said, we didn't have any gastro intestinal ramifications. He's far number one. He's a known liar,
okay. And I was in the room with him for four hours that not only that day, but the next and maybe there wasn't any audio evidence of him having gastro intestine issues, but the aroma is unforgettable. Yeah, yeah, so yes, he can't yeh, you can't escape that. Well. They have unrolled their latest culinary brainchild, and it's called the smash Jack. Okay, and apparently the new greeting. Like when and I've worked in fast not fast food, but I've worked at pizza places and one of them
was a corporate corporate spot back in my twenties. And you know, there's these directives that come down and when when you unveil a new item, there's like these copy points that you have to adhere to in ways that you have to serve the blizzard upside down, and there's this lingo that you've got to get going to engage your your customers and whatnot. Well, Jack and there's Jack in the box. There's no exception for the the unveiling of their smash
Jack because they're new greeting. When you pull up to the drive through sans clown. You're probably too young to remember the clown and you would go to the drive through and the big box with the menu and the speaker. There's this big ass clown that was on top of it, and I think sometime in the eighties they blew him up animated. No, dude, this is
an actual guy. No, not a no, an inflatable no, no, no no. It was part of like a metal contraption that was just a clown that was on top and the jack, big head clown like a Jack in the box. Yeah, it pops open and there's it was the reveal, you know, yeah, when the jack comes out of the box anyway, stupid. I think they blew him up in the eighties and that was a big marketing campaign. We're blowing up the clown. Well, when you pull up to the drive through and then you place your order, you
know, you're typically greeted by an employee. Their new greeting when you pull up to the drive through is hey want to get smashed, and it's kind of going viral and employees at Jack in the Box you're like, really, I gotta say this, because you know what three in the three in the morning, when you're ordering food at a drive through. Everybody's real mature, and especially with the crowd day market too right and takes things real seriously,
so they're they're not gonna they're not gonna make fun of that. What a beating though, if you're what a beating for employees that have to take on these exactly, but these directives from these marketing folks and corporate folks that think this is going to be a great campaign and it's key, And the next thing, you know, you get these employees are like, really, I have to do this. And there's a girl, Hey, welcome to Jack in the Box. I want to get smashed? Hell yeah, hell yeah,
hell yeah. Is the guy already had it in his hand while ordering? I ever heard it Jack in the Bux. I'm telling right now you guys. You know I can take my talents over to Taco Bueno at any point. Yeah, just so you know, dude, on fast Food on the Fast Food Mixed Master where I live, you just walk ten feet and there's another one. Yeah, no it's not it's and I don't know.
It's what's wild about when you moved to a new place, So you get tired of it after about a year, but it's kind of exciting when you move to a new spot and you're like, hey, look at all my spots. I can go to the spots that I have at my major intersection. I think I could eat fast food every day for two weeks and not have a repeat. I don't think I'm kidding. You got enough? Yeah, well you don't want it again either though. So for me, after
I've had a place, I won't go to that for three months. But just on one side of the highway, if you look left to right, there was a Denny's, there was a Jack in the Box, a McDonald's, and a waffle house. Now when you get to the other side, the south side, the good stuff, so much stuff. There's a freaking Grande's next to a Grand capon D's. It's like nineteen eighty two, that
ridiculous all over again. Up in Jim Miller in thirty Broke. Captain Yeah, I know that area though, Oh yeah, yeah, that's a while the Captain d still exists. Oh yeah, Captain D's, Burger King, and then across from that you have Wendy's, Taco Bell, Popeyes, KFC. I mean, I'm not kidding, Kevin. Then you have like Taco Lane, Ye, Taco Lane, Chicken Lane, Burger Lane, everything, and then you get a little bit south and then it's unlimited Takoias. So
many. That's when you get your reggio and some of the more independent ones. But it's great. Yeah, if you like that the moss over there, Uh no, no, that's that's I don't have a taco zy moss right by that on they going off Ross and Dallas, of course is the you know, if you like fast food, be my neighbor. Yeah, I complete, won't you be my neighbor. We want to remind you that you can call her text in at anytime two one four or eight one seven
seven eight seven one nine seven one. We've got J. J. Jackson in their patrol and that for us of course. Mikey uh gone, he'll be back next week. It was a rough week for the Dolphins too, so maybe that's what made him sick, as they gave up about sixty points. Danny, before we get into the most important thing in the world in about ten minutes, what did uh? How was your New Year's situation?
I hang out? Yeah, yeah. I kept a little Malki overnight because his mom had a thing with her family, and I just said, you know what, give me that baby, and we were asleep before before the New Year rang in. I did. I did get a text from my mom on the East coast right at eleven o'clock my time, and uh wishing wishing me a happy New Year. I thought that was very nice, Like, Mom, why are you still up? You go to bed at like eight. We didn't go out or anything. In fact, we actually uh
by we me and rock. She went to her family's thing and they stay up all night, and I went home to hang out with my parents, like my mom's birthday weekend too. So I hung out with my parents in Olney, a couple hours away. And uh, you know, my brother's got three little girls under the age of six, so but they all made it. But did you see what was airing on? Like because you have your traditional it's weird as a Sunday night too, say, like Sunday night
football is on. We're Packers fans, so watch the Packers game. It was like Dick Clark's New Year's Rock and Eve with Ryan Seacrest, which made me go when Ryan Seacrest dies, it's gonna be Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest New Year's Rock and Eve with Bad Buddy, It'll always be Dick Clark's rocking New Year's Eve with the predecessor yeah, because he was the first one. It makes sense even though they wronged him that one time when they made him
go out into the countdown. When the predecessor, that's the person that came before you, whoever comes after Ryan Seacrest, it'll still I think they'll still retain the Dick Clark name, right, I think so. I don't think it really matters. I don't think anybody cares to be I mean, Kevin, I'm surprised you brought it up, i Okaye. I shouldn't have, honestly, but his whole show wronged him that year that they made him do the countdown when he after he'd had a stroke. That was the most shocking
thing. He sounded like me after a great joke. He can barely get words out while he was counting backwards from ten. We should make you do that when you tell a good joke, just start counting down. The New Year five is known as the famous one where they heeded the countdown. I don't want to play it. We don't need to play it. Who's the here? Let me let me say something while you while you play again.
It's that case. It almost sounds like that case of when the person is wearing a headset and they're in a stadium where there's an echo and they and they always sound drunk like they they sound stroky, but his was real stroke. It's his show, and he had had a stroke recently. Why did they up for this? Because four is known as the last time that he did the countdown pre stroke. Then O five he had the stroke at some point and his producers on his show and ABC made him do the countdown at
five and he king, you creak me up here? You seven? Six? That's not the one he said, It sounds perfect. That must have been the year before. Oh my gosh, never mind, it's not worth it. And also right, rest in peace? Uh rest p eleven years ago. So that's on. So that's happening, and I'm like interesting. Flipped it over to the other channels. CBS went all in on Blake Shelton. They had Nashville New Year's Eve. Hell yeah, Fox, I don't
know what that foxes doing. So I'm just kind of waiting looking the Eastern thing. Yeah, they should as the most popular show. Get ready for season twelve of that coming up in February day, What dumbass game do you want us to play? With that, I think we should have a mass singer draft. Oh my god, tried to draft who would be the mystery se less celebrities that they put on? That I think can be fun. Can we just transfer all of my SNL picks and just yea them, have
them fill those holes. I'm okay with that. Okay, So then I go to a channel five, NBC five because they usually the last few years had done Lone Star New Year's Eve at Texas Live now Big d n Y was a great tradition here down you know by the American Airline Center. The stars would play as they did this year and got a big eight to one
victory and the Stars just murdered them. That's a good tradition. New Year's Eve stars play and then you come out there some concert and a big party down there, a mess, but a party, and that just has gone away now and the last few years it was like Texas Live. Well, this year they did lone Star New Year's Eve and they did a huge fireworks thing out of Reunion Tower yep, okay, which they is common to do
fireworks off Reunion Tower. Was that every year, but they kind of had a set up there comboed that up with some drones with the Drone Show and the Drug Show was ridiculous. Dude, they're out of this world. It was incredible. And these are I mean, look the Drone Show slash replacing the fireworks by all metrics. People love it better. They're just so incredibly well executed and perfectly coordinated. And we're pretty young into the advent of this
technology. Yeah, can you imagine what these are gonna look like in ten years? Okay, Well, this is the thing there was and I would never question, like like nitpick something like this, but there was a small like there was a bit of a gaff at the end. But their Drone Show they said had five hundred drones, okay, and the way did it worked, I thought it was a thousand, the fact that it was five hundred. But they did decade by decade, and they changed the music by
each decade. So it started in like the forties or fifties. Okay, fifties, it was like some Elvis and stuff. They went to the sixties. They well, tricky history here. They played some Chuck Berry and apparently he used to fart on hookers. That's just a thing. Thanks for that. Nugget and they moved to the seventies. Music changes to the eighties is kind of fun to guess what song are they gonna play? Good thing? There was no farting on hookers in the seventies, thank god. And then
the nineties. I was like, I said, there going, We're just I guess what nineties on they might play Nirvana, maybe maybe, maybe that's a grunge. They played Can't Touch This by my mc hammer. That was
in the nineties. I thought it was late eighties personally, but you know it was in the transition because the drones there's a few drones set to the side that are changing the number nineteen eighty and they switch around to go to ninety, but they form mc hammer and they make a platform and he's doing the dance back and forth, you know, the mc hammer pants dance.
That was incredible. And you were watching this on television, watching this on television while also they're throwing it back and forth to a pre recorded concert at the factory of bowling for Soup and our good friends the Vandaliers. What yes on TV? Yes on TV channel eight It would have been Channel five MBC five, but it was airing in wichital Falls where I was. I was getting it on Channel three in wichital Falls. Well that was a good thing
about wichitaff Falls as you got all the Dallas feed. They don't anymore, they don't they only but oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, we never got anything from Dallas. Out in near Abilene. We and which the falls, and we had a couple years remember when we got Channel five and Channel eight, you know Fox for all of them, we all, but not anymore. We got weird affiliates. That's wild man. The vandals are on TV. Yeah, the vandalers are and look those aren't good
friends. I thought that was neat, but that was just uh, that's how I watched it right there. And you know, they had the cool thing where if you're at home, you send in the tweet and you hosh tugget and they'll put your tweet up on the Did you do the TV? Did you do it? Absolutely? I tried to, but I didn't take any pictures with any of the cute babies or dogs around me. Yeah,
you gotta do that otherwise. So you know who's New Year's Well. When MAVs tickets win maps tickets, follow our Twitter and Instagram account at ninety seven won of the freak instructions are clear. Coming up. Next most important thing in the world. Tragedy in Japan