coffee table chess board

Collin has some questions about pets. Brandon has chess updates. We ponder controversies.

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coffee table chess board, pet trivia hour, route planning, pet business, Silicon Valley, technology company, chess controversy, exhibition match, live audience, standalone cheese, Kansas City zoo, sky tram, giraffes, composition notebook, writing utensils

SPEAKERS

Speaker 2, Speaker 1, Speaker 3, Speaker 5, Collin Funkhouser, Speaker 6, Collin, Brandon, Speaker 4

Speaker 1  00:04

Collin, welcome to Oh brother, a podcast where we try to figure it all out

00:11

with your host, Brandon and Collin on this week's show, coffee table, chess board, Ahoy, ahoy. How's it going?

00:22

I'm pretty good. How are you

Speaker 2  00:23

I'm doing? Well, nice. We like it. So two months ago, I went in, took cookies into a kind of high end apartment

00:36

complex in town,

Speaker 2  00:39

and I was like, hey, just want to stop by and say hi, if you ever need anything happy to you know, like, help out. And they're like, actually, we have been doing this, like, Friday thing, where we invite people in to talk. I mean, would you be interested in that? And I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 3  01:00

Like, I love talking. How did, you know,

Speaker 2  01:04

talking? And at first they were like, Okay, great. Yeah, it could be like, just like, a, you know, an informational thing or an instructional thing, whatever you want to do, cool, cool, great, great, great. And then, like, kind of out of the blue, they're like, Okay, what we'd really like you to do is to run like a, have fun, you know, like, like a, do a game hour, do like something fun for the people, that would be fun, you know, have a game.

01:31

I'm like, Well,

01:34

excuse you. So,

Speaker 2  01:39

yeah, that'd be great. Like, if you could, you know, come up with a game to do and, like, you know, bring some prizes, you know, that'd be great. I'm like, what?

Speaker 4  01:46

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? And so I put all that off and focused on a lot of other things. And then bear today was like, oh, yeah, that's tomorrow,

02:04

oh no, oh no.

02:09

What am I gonna

02:15

do? Yeah?

Speaker 2  02:18

So at like four o'clock today, I was like, hmm, guess I should probably put my thinking cap on about what I'm going to do tomorrow. So, yeah, what I have come up with is a pet trivia hour.

02:35

Oh, kind

Speaker 2  02:37

of like a trivia night. Yeah, about pets. Okay. Thing is, is that it's not going to be in a bar, so there's not food or alcohol to distract from anything. That's

Speaker 3  02:51

okay. I've been to trivia things at not bars, yes,

Speaker 2  02:56

additionally, I don't know if there's going to be one person there or four. Yeah, true, right? So I, like, can't get too excited. I can't do too much here. I can't like, like, it literally may be me and like, a, you know, like, Maybelline or whatever. Like, I don't know, like, you know, talking to each other, that's fine, whatever.

Collin Funkhouser  03:20

And so I have come up with four rounds. Tell me, if you think there's too much, have four rounds with 10 questions each about pet trivia.

03:32

I mean, that sounds is that relatively normal, that a lot? I don't know. I mean, I don't know,

Speaker 4  03:39

maybe kind of a lot, but you know that this is scalable, right? If not many people show up, you don't have to hit them with all four rounds, right? You just got to, you know, you do like two or three rounds. Okay, you have some in the bank, right? Yeah, so that's cool. So yes, so I have, I start, is one of them. What movie from 2000 is a mockumentary about dog owners and their dog show.

04:12

One of them that,

Speaker 2  04:13

no, no, I see that's the other thing. Of some of these are, like, really easy, and some of them are really hard. Like, I that's okay. You gotta

Speaker 4  04:28

have a balance, right? You don't have, like, only impossibly hard trivia. No one. No one likes that right now. So it's things like, you know, like, what kind of animal is babe from the 1990 movie five movie babe, like the pig, obviously.

Speaker 2  04:45

Okay, what's the name of the loyal German Shepherd in I Am Legend.

Speaker 3  04:52

Oh, you know, don't remember. I only saw it maybe once.

Speaker 2  04:57

That's the problem. So, like, I. Like, pop culture stuff, but I based it. Here's the other things. I know that the demographics of this place

Speaker 4  05:07

skew older. I mean, yeah, so,

Speaker 2  05:12

so that's fine. So so I'm like, Okay, well, I don't want to have anything from like yesterday. So most of my stuff is like, like 90s, early, 2000s reference, the best time, yes, perfectly, perfectly accessible. Then I have like, dog specific trivia, cat specific trivia. And then I had like a like the wild side, like other pets. And so, right, I don't know, like, how many

Speaker 3  05:40

answers to your question are homeward bound?

Speaker 1  05:44

I actually did remove that I had one in there because it was like, Oh well, because it was like,

05:50

the chance band

Speaker 2  05:52

in the movie, homeward bound. Name the three, you know, it was like, No, I'm can't, yeah, it's a little hard, right? So I spent all of like an hour coming up with random stuff and doing internet searches and coming up with these things and terms and things. So I also know that, like, during trivia, you're supposed to have like weird, like banter after each and like additional factoids about these, you know, like answers, yeah, that does happen. Yeah, right, where they're like, not only is it lasagna that Garfield likes, but the Jim Davis created it because he thought it was a comedy gold, you know, like you're supposed to say stuff like that,

06:37

yeah? Cuz, man,

Speaker 3  06:41

nothing funnier than baked noodles. Am I right? I'm still laughing,

06:47

right? Haha,

06:52

I don't know this is, this is where I find myself,

Speaker 2  06:57

like I am, I'm, I'm going down. I gotta do this. I got a Google Sheet. I printed off some answer

Speaker 3  07:05

sheets. I mean, if you got a Google Sheet, what else do you really need? You know, like, nothing, right? Anything else, it's

Speaker 2  07:16

absolutely so. I'm like, Okay, I guess we'll do this.

07:23

And Megan was like, I'm glad

Speaker 1  07:27

you're the one doing this. And I'm like, Yeah, because you just don't want to be embarrassed when there's when one person show up, shows up. Have to be talking with Dave, right? Or Carol, hi, ready for the pet trivia? Oh, yeah. Like, at that point, at that point, do I just hand them the first prize, the gift card, and let them

Speaker 3  07:46

walk? I think so, right? I think you wait a certain amount of time, and then you just, like, give it to him, and then he's like, run away, like,

08:01

flee the scene after that. So it's fine

Speaker 2  08:03

do so, yeah, so I'm driving down, like, originally I was, like, driving down just for that, and, oh, man, so I try to do more with my time out there.

08:19

Anyway, yeah. So that's what I was I realized,

08:21

like, eat lunch. Like, gonna go get some tacos, bro. Like, I'm gonna go.

Speaker 4  08:32

That's what I get to do, for sure. Oh, would it

Speaker 2  08:38

be Yeah, yeah. But today I also, I took a phone call with a technology company. Ah, cool. What they do, because AI is all the rage. So I hear, yeah, they have developed a technology to do all of the route planning and scheduling for pet businesses. And so I took their call, and here's what's so funny, is basically they are from, like, they're genuinely like Silicon Valley, like,

Speaker 3  09:17

I think Mapquest had this technology in like 1998 right? I feel,

Speaker 2  09:23

well, what's interesting is, one of the guys

Speaker 4  09:27

actually wrote the routing

Speaker 2  09:33

software that UPS uses for their trucks. Oh, nice. So, like, he's done this, yeah, like, and these are, like, Silicon Valley Tech bros, 1,000% and so it was very interesting to speak with them, because they came up with this.

Speaker 4  09:57

This the solution. And now are. Are in search of a problem. Ah, yes, right. Like the classic, I have put my cart

10:07

in front of the horse. What could go wrong? Horses push carts, right? That's how it

10:15

works, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2  10:17

And, and so they're basically like, Okay, well, what else can this do? And so they have, that's where they've gone. And they're like, Okay, we've got this thing. Where else could we apply this? And so they've, they've stumbled upon the pet business industry and are trying to do this. Here's the interesting part. They're not selling a software. They tell you they're selling

Speaker 3  10:39

a platform, because, oh, yeah, obviously, but it's a platform that's based in software.

Collin  10:46

Well, there's the system as or software as a service, like SAS, where it's like you made an ongoing fee to them. Oh, this is a they will build this for you one time, and then it's yours to you. And if you ever want anybody like they'll also service it. If you if down the line, you change, or you do something, they can come in and obviously, you know, for a

11:07

fee, change things and whatever. But

11:12

the it is a $10,000 price.

Speaker 4  11:17

I'm sorry, what I could have sworn you said $10,000 $10,000 and what it does, I

Speaker 3  11:27

mean, this is like when you start talking to compare software services to like Land Rover discoveries. I

Speaker 2  11:34

feel like maybe, let me tell you, but here's their pitch. You don't like scheduling or route planning for all of your very many visits. And, okay, great, okay, so, so leave, just leave out the destruction of humanity for just a minute, okay? And the downfall of society just for one moment,

11:58

because their pitch is basically

Speaker 2  12:00

you don't like doing this, and hiring a person to do this work is way too costly, and you don't have those in your margins, and you don't want to do that extra expense. So why not have a robot do it for you? So they'll log into your system and like, pull all this data, and then, like, route it, plan it, give you some alerts, and then you can you confirm it, or you can send it to auto confirm, and it just shoots it back out, moves everything on your schedule, and the team does it. And so besides the fact that it is literally taking people's jobs,

Speaker 4  12:32

because, yeah, like, there are, there are businesses who hire office teams to specifically and do route planning and scheduling, yeah, and they cost way more than 10 grand, you know, and so, I

Speaker 3  12:53

mean, over time, yes, I suppose that's true. But like,

Speaker 2  12:57

well, even in like, even if you just say if, even if you have, like, somebody who's working like, you know, yes. Like, if you're doing, even if you're doing 30 hours a week, and you're paying that person 18 bucks an hour to do this, like, yes, times 52 like, yeah, first year you've paid for this twice over. I mean, yeah, but in that perspective, but like, oh my gosh, it's a one time upfront. Like, no payment plans, because, remember, it's not a service, yeah, it's just a thing. And so it was very interesting to speak with them today and kind of learn about their lack of knowledge of the industry too. Of Yeah, again, because they're giving me free tips this time. Did you? No, I did. Okay, good. I did. But what I did ask was, like, because we we have a very specific way that we work, that we

13:53

do things, and

Speaker 2  13:57

asking, like, can it do this? And seeing their brains be like,

14:03

Why

Speaker 2  14:04

would you do that? I mean, yeah, well, like, here's very specific things, like, oh, and what we do is it route plans based off of the closest employee to that first visit. And so they started their house, and they go to the first visit, and then they go around, they come back to their home, and I'm like, Okay, we don't do that. I said, we have a service area. And he goes, Oh, yeah, awesome. Like, because we've got, we help people who, like, they've got a central location where they come by and pick up keys, or, like, get a van or something, and then just start there and then drive. And I go, I don't do that either. And just the breaks that were thrown in their brains of like, like, what other ways could you possibly and being like, I just have a service area and team members who are on call during set time blocks who just need to show up, and it's not. Based off proximity where they live, because some live outside of my service. Yeah?

Speaker 3  15:04

Because that wouldn't make Yeah, I think a lot of people do so that, you

Speaker 2  15:08

know, right? Like, like, you could tell that it was just like, oh, that's a problem set that

15:14

we were not prepared for. Yeah, conceivable

Speaker 4  15:17

to them. And this is one of the situations where, like, you know, there is the optimum solution and there is the best solution. And those are

Speaker 3  15:33

not mutually exclusive to each other, right? Like, there's like the the optimal way to do things, and then there's like, the best way to do and and those don't meet sometimes, right? And that's fine, but if you're programming a system and relying on automation to do the thing that does not take that exciting feature into account, right? And it's only going to go based off of like, the whatever the algorithm says it should do right, because that's how it's programmed to function, right? You have to program a set of rules into it. But if it is a more dynamic system, then you cannot just plug a rule set like, if then statement said in there and be like, oh, did it like, yeah, no, there's like, a lot of and especially a lot of like, especially a service industry is gonna be going off of nuances and like, all kinds of different things. Like, I imagine you might have situations where it's like, okay, based on this time, and like, what whoever employee is on call at this moment. Like, I think that this person should go to this house because they have the most experience with this pet, right? Yeah, and so they'll route there based on other criteria, not just who's nearby and what it's like. How do I provide the best service? And so you have to think about which employee is interacting with which in client as well, not just random persons, which, you know, they could do it obviously, but like, in order to provide the best thing for, like, you know, a certain like dog or cat or whatever, like this person

Speaker 4  17:12

knows this animal the best. So I would like them to go because

Speaker 3  17:17

they had the most experience with it. Is that true? Am I just making this up? This feels like a thing that you would do, so, right?

Speaker 2  17:23

Well, so it is a thing that some people do, yeah, because of how we staff, I actually can't do that in a lot of cases. I have to be able to so it does. I will say this, it limits the kind of so this is the other thing. It limits the kind of clients that we can take on, because they don't do a one for one, like, everybody has to be able to walk in and do all of our visits. So it really mellows out, like we're really hitting a bell curve of Collin. So again, like, what you're talking about, of,

17:57

of, like, okay,

Speaker 2  17:58

let's just, we'll, we'll prioritize the one with the most experience, who lives closest and who like, you know, you can set all these, these rules, but it's like, right? That only works if that is how you staff. And that's true like, or if

Speaker 3  18:13

that person even needs service at that time anyway, right, right, right.

Speaker 2  18:16

Because, you know, like and, and the other thing that was that came up was very apparent, is, in their experience, they work predominantly with dog walking companies, ah, and so dog walking companies, they give one team member, one route here is, here's a series of six dog walks. They're all within this route, and you do that, right? And if one cancels, or I can add one in there, that's what they're doing. You can tell this. That makes sense for that. Yeah, yes, yeah, that. And that's what a lot of people like. They're like, Okay, I'm going to train you up, and I'm going to hand off, and this is your route. You're the only one who sees these dogs on Tuesdays and Fridays. Like, that's who you do. And you could tell that that's who this company had been talking to a lot, because they're throwing things out of like, oh yeah, on routes, you know, you can just blah blah. And I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. Like, I'm a pet sitting company. I don't know what visits I'm doing on Thursday. I don't and so every day, I get more visits added, which means that it's kind of like, this exponential like, or like, oh, what's the word I'm thinking of my brain has completely blanked out. Like, it just becomes an infinite number of possible combinations of visits, yeah. Like, as you add one, it just you exponentially increase the number of possible combinations, you could put the puzzle back together

Speaker 3  19:44

on the old n plus one pet sitting.

19:47

Yeah, absolutely, that's what we're doing, right?

Speaker 2  19:53

And all of a sudden it's like, and now like, so that's where it gets really complicated. And. And each it's not as though I have one bucket for Dave, and I fill that bucket up, and then I just go over to Greg and I fill his bucket up. Yeah, we do. Except also, I brought in the fact of like, Oh, also, Dave has told me he only wants 10 hours of work a week. And so I can't, yeah, so I told him. I said, there are times where, because he only wants 10, I have to make, I have to create less optimized versions of a route, just so, like I am hitting hours now like this, yeah, and like this. You could tell like I wasn't giving away free advice, but what I was doing was describing a method of structure and operations that they had never encountered before. They were

Speaker 3  20:45

unfamiliar with the plan, like what is happening? I don't understand

Speaker 2  20:50

what you mean. You don't have set routes. Everybody has everybody?

Speaker 3  20:56

No, I do not. We have none of those here.

Speaker 2  21:02

Sorry, yeah, so that was, that was very, that was an interesting character. It was an hour of my life, Day of like, and I'm not spending 10 grand on this. Like, I they're probably listening, but like, I just can't, like, that's, I

Speaker 3  21:18

mean, that makes sense, right? No, that's no, you don't, you don't do that. No, I don't.

21:24

I don't that in my life. No,

Speaker 2  21:27

much rather, yeah, it's tough because it's like, at the same time everybody in the world that, like, we're going through right now is like, Oh, you've got to give your team members, you know, pathways in your company, so that they see value and they see a way forward

21:49

with you. And I'm like, Okay,

21:57

those aren't real words. What are you talking about?

Speaker 2  22:01

Route planning. No, like, yeah,

22:05

come on. What are you talking about?

22:10

Yeah, oh my goodness.

Speaker 2  22:12

So it's been that was very And, plus, like, at first it pops up and it's just, like one person and then, like, a second person pops up, and then a third person pops up on the call today, and I'm like, wow, people on the call,

22:28

you're gonna be sorely disappointed when I tell you no. Like,

Speaker 3  22:31

yeah, they were really, really looking forward to this. Great. Oh, well, it's fine, great.

Speaker 2  22:44

You caught me on auspicious day. I've started brand new notebook.

Speaker 4  22:48

Oh, a big date for you, no doubt.

Speaker 2  22:54

Streak recently of just using just composition notebooks.

22:59

I don't know if we've talked about this before, but,

Speaker 3  23:01

no, not recently. Haven't talked about your notebooks for a long time.

23:07

No, I

23:09

used to get like, you know,

Speaker 2  23:11

moleskin or other different kinds of things like turn one. I've got a all sorts of ones around here that I still do use and I enjoy using. But for my like, I've just been grabbing composition notebooks for the last couple months.

23:34

I like, like, first off

Speaker 2  23:37

the they're just, I love the big floppy pages. They're my favorite. Like, now, of I don't feel like I have to be nice, nice and neat in the in these notebooks when I'm writing, for some reason, whenever I having, like, a moleskin, or am I pronouncing that right? Let's turn, Luke turn. I think it's like turn, but I don't know, yeah, I've got one of those. Like, my writing becomes like, really, like, like,

Speaker 3  24:05

because they're like, fancier, right? Yeah, they're costly, and the composition notebook is like, 95 cents still, and he's like, just, whatever.

24:13

It's, just,

24:16

it's and I think that I'm

Speaker 2  24:18

in this, like, kind of, like, hurried and harried part of my life right now where it's like, I'm am needing to, like, scroll? Yes, and these are perfect for scrolling. Like, do I care if I really don't maximize and optimize all of the space on a particular page,

24:42

no, because

Speaker 3  24:44

big enough that it's really nice to have room

Speaker 4  24:47

too, you know what I mean? Yeah, and like, again, if I fill it up, I'm gonna only be out 95 cent. So again, yeah, I don't care. Plus,

Speaker 2  24:58

they're also robust in. Enough that they are surviving me throughout, like, hucking them into my backpack, and like, surviving that as well. And I don't know, I've just been true, they are

Speaker 3  25:11

designed to live in a backpack, yeah. So they're, you know,

Speaker 2  25:15

they're kind of been well optimized for that. It's not like they have to be all and the other thing is, like they don't have to be all dainty and protected on a desk and like never go out into the world.

Speaker 4  25:24

Yeah, exactly like I have

Speaker 2  25:27

been. So yeah, I finished a yellow one, and then I just grabbed a black one off of my shelf a few moments ago and started getting it prepped. Because you gotta, gotta prep it before you use it.

Speaker 3  25:40

Yeah, I've heard this. I've heard this is the rumor. They have to, there's a, there's a process here you have to go through. So you gotta,

Speaker 1  25:47

I presented on that process at one of the conferences that I went to last, last month. Oh, How was that received

Speaker 3  25:55

by the community at large? Like, you know, were there a bunch of, like, what is he talking about what's happening?

26:02

Why not on more medication?

Speaker 2  26:08

No, it was very nice. I talked it was just a portion of of my talk about like, utilizing your time well. And one of those is like getting just, like getting ideas and stuff out of your head, stop trying to store them. And the ways that I do that with a physical notebook of writing, the nothing just go in here than the first pages were found so that you can just focus on other stuff and not feel guilty or bad about them, or question or critique the idea, like because first time to think about your ideas, right, whenever you've come up with it, like, just get it down and come back to it, sure, yeah, it was very Ignite. I then went to that second conference, like, two weeks later, and many people came up to me on the first day, and they showed me their notebook that they had brought to the conference, and they had written, nothing doesn't go in here on the front. And I was like,

27:02

oh, man, you notebook influencer, look at that.

Speaker 2  27:12

Oh, but I've also fallen in love. I've been using, I just a standard

Speaker 4  27:19

Bic rollerball for

27:23

now, you lost me. I can't.

Speaker 2  27:25

I'm sorry. Sorry. I know, I know you're, you're a pilot. What? G7 g2 seven. I

Speaker 3  27:29

just use, no, I have a what I've, what I have done. It might at work is I bought random, like, I can't from a website, right? I just bought like, a random assortment of pins in blue, and that's just what I use all the time. There's some little thing I just use as all of them, right? There's like a pilot in there. There's like, a whole bunch of just random things, and I just, that's what I use. I just use random things in blue, right? Now, I'm a blue pin guy. Now, apparently it's thing that I do, but I like the, like, the big, like the crystal big, because they were talking about, like, the, yeah, I don't know, the plastic bothers me, right?

Speaker 4  28:17

I didn't think like I have, I don't know, like, we these were in dad's house, like, all over the place growing up, because they come in a bag, like 20,

Speaker 2  28:31

and I kind of, I just eschewed them. I was like, No, I will not use those. Those aren't my thing. But I bought, I bought a bag, like, couple months ago, and they are, they've stuck. I They're now what I'm reaching for, it's, I've got a pilot g2 here. I've got the crystal one. I've also picked up

Speaker 4  28:54

this Sharpie, S gel pen to click pen and, Oh, nice. Yeah, is that what the one that's like, I think I have one of those at work that I got, like, in an office, like, it was one of, like, those beginning of the year things like, here's a marker, here's a pen. And I was like, I'm keeping that pen for sure.

Speaker 2  29:14

Like, I this one, this one has really been increasing in usage recently, of like, yeah, there's, it's got, like, a, it's a click pen, and they come in a couple different colors, but, like, I have a white one. Like, oh, I wasn't expecting, like, you so much nice.

Speaker 3  29:37

So, yeah, that's a very satisfying click. If it's someone thinking of to

Speaker 4  29:41

that makes it even better, yes, which is, which is bad, which is,

Speaker 3  29:46

well, which is, I mean, that's true. I do yeah. I get, like, all the time

29:49

office, because Megan would be shoving this pin down, because I just be able to go,

29:58

yes. So I have.

Speaker 3  30:00

The, yeah, I have the one that, my random assortment that I got, it also has different sizes, right? So they're like, point oh three, like, ooh, pin size. Like, it's really fine point. Or, like, a point, like, oh seven, which is dope, which is like,

Speaker 4  30:15

like, yes. So I have that. I use those. I just use, I decided that, like, it worked especially, and I just use blue, right? Because shows up good. You can read it on stuff. Can write on everything with it.

Speaker 3  30:35

And also the lawyer reason, like, if you make a copy of something, you can tell which one's original immediately, because it's got blue on it, right? It's not the yes, there's that and yes. So I have this big thing, and it's just blue pens, and I use green highlighters. Ooh, no real reason. I just like the green, right? So a lot of things that I grade, I grade with my green highlighters, like, I just, that's what I grade my papers in. But it shows up real good. You can see it really nice. Yeah, nice.

Collin  31:07

It's a different and unique enough color. It's not like you're grading and, like, I don't know, like fuchsia or blue, I think, yeah, again, I know you're writing a blue, but like, highlighter, it's hard to do the highlighter blue is not, yeah, nice, no. And I have some. I have the one. I have a couple that are awesome. They're like,

Speaker 3  31:26

one side has the big highlighter tip, but the other side has the fine point pin marker, so it's like a two in one highlighter. Those are the best ones. Those are, I like those a lot. I need more of those. I need to figure out what brand that is and get more, because they were really I also bought, like, a random assortment of seven highlighters too. It was like a just like, hey, it's gonna go for this.

Speaker 4  31:56

They're really great. I like, yeah, I have to look and see what they are, because I don't really remember off the top of my head. Some of them are really nice. And I just like them. I like the different sizes of

Speaker 3  32:13

the the point, it's very handy for different tasks, right? Like, Oh, I'm going to make this small list on this post. It note, bang. Fine Point thing, like, fit it along there. But other times I'm like, oh, I need to write on this big paper.

32:27

Oh, yeah, I'm gonna use this one. So,

Speaker 2  32:32

yes, this, this brought into sharp con. I don't know resolution for me, when I've been I've been traveling recently, going to conferences, knowing I'm going to have a big notebook, but I also carry a small pocket notebook, little field notes thing, and writing in, you know, point oh, seven is not easy to do in a little, tiny notebook. So that's like, Okay, well, I need my, need my scrawling writing utensils, and then I do need to find writing utensil to fit everything in here,

33:11

to make sure that I'm not going

Speaker 3  33:13

I don't look that's true. I mean, sometimes that's why you have the pencil, right? Yes, sometimes a pocket notebook, you go pencil or mechanical pencil, right? And then you have the pin for other things. So it's that way. It doesn't feel weird. You're carrying two pins, right? It's more a dynamic pin, pencil combo action, right?

Speaker 4  33:35

Yes, yes, indeed, indeed, I did travel with pen, pencil combo, Yes, over there, which my travel of choice, my conferences was my Pentel, P 207, in I mean,

Speaker 3  33:50

obviously, what is there really another choice? Oh, here's one right here in point seven. Oh, this is the p 205, the point seven is over there. I can see it, though.

Speaker 4  34:01

And then I traveled with my pick crystal one because and then my pilot d2 in nice There you go. Yes, it's been, been all top detervy, but fresh notebook start, pencils,

Speaker 2  34:26

yeah, that's my man. I've caught you up on so many like, that's good. This is good stuff, right?

Speaker 3  34:35

I have an update for you, right? I know I said that maybe a person should not learn to play chess in 2025 but I may have fallen down a small rabbit hole. Oh, no, right? There may be a chess board on my coffee table currently. May have been playing chess with Susan this whole entire week may have been a thing that happened.

34:58

So.

Speaker 3  34:59

Cool, that's a thing. They go that's okay.

Speaker 2  35:05

What was it that tipped into that's a pretty big like difference from like, let me play online to I have a physical chess board on my coffee table.

Speaker 3  35:16

The long and short of it is, my wife said we should play chess together. Okay, okay, so that's

Speaker 1  35:22

we're blaming, blaming her. I like, obviously, right? Obviously, yes, blaming the, wow, perfect. Always works out. Okay.

Speaker 3  35:35

So, yeah, we did that, still practicing a little bit. It's not, you know, it's whatever, but

35:41

it's fine, trying to not suck, that's the goal.

Speaker 3  35:46

Try to not suck at chess. That's the that's the path now, right? I've, I've, I've come to terms the fact that I am bad at this, right?

35:55

And so now it is how to not suck,

Speaker 3  35:59

like does playing online chess against random people still suck Absolutely because they're trash and they they don't. It's really annoying when you're, like, trying to learn about, like, proper moves and like a move order and like stuff, and then they're just like, Ah, here's a really random move that should never happen. And you're

Speaker 4  36:18

like, what? I know that's wrong, but I don't know how to make it not I don't

Speaker 3  36:24

know how to punish them for this. Like, I am right, where I am my journey currently, like, as some of them, I'm like, oh yeah. There have been a few games that are very satisfying because it's like, like, general chess principles are things like, don't bring your queen out immediately, right? These are, like, the except for, like, a very few instances we like, leave it in there, right? Wait, do minor P, like, do like knights first, right? That's how he works, right? Knights, pawns, bishops, blah, and then bring out whatever. But there are some strategies that people will try to employ, like the well known, like, four move, checkmate from there's been, like a chess move for like, 300 years, right? But people are like, Aha, I will do this on the random online game so that I can win. But there was one guy that I played, and in three moves, I took his queen and he resigned. He just like, quit

37:19

what he

Speaker 3  37:21

clearly had no other plan, right? His only, his only repertoire is, like, apparently, was, like, this random thing where I'm gonna harass you with my queen and, like, no other pieces. And so when I took it from him, because he'd, like, moved it right in front of my bishop, and I just

37:41

snapped it up, he just quit immediately. And so that was relatively satisfying.

Speaker 4  37:48

Now, a question on on that to quit? Do those

Speaker 2  37:54

like, I don't know, because I know some people play for like, rank and stuff. Do those count against you in there, yeah,

Speaker 4  38:00

if you quit, you lose rating points, yeah, if you resign, it counts as a loss and you lose points. Okay, okay, that makes sense, yeah,

Speaker 3  38:14

so that's where I am. Other Other important chess news for you, though, right? You may not have heard about and potential chess controversy. Controversy, are you ready for chess controversy? Collin, yes, ready for this controversy. All right, so last it was last week, last weekend, maybe last week, there was, like, actually a very large live exhibition chess match, right? These are not normal words that you hear in a sentence, right? No, like, like, live exhibition chess in front of audience, okay, right. So there's this big event that happened in Arlington, actually, at, like the big eSports arena they have, yeah, this was the USA versus India round one chess match. Right, five on five. There's like a team, USA team, India, like five person team, right round one in front of like 1000 fans, like live audience. The fans were encouraged to be, like cheering and like loud and stuff. So this is like the exact opposite of World Championship classical chess, where, like, talking is illegal,

39:38

and like games take forever.

Speaker 3  39:43

Right? Like with 1984 that that match took like months,

Speaker 4  39:49

yeah, right. So this was a rapid time control tournament, so 10 minute rounds, right? You 10 Minute chess clock, you know? So.

Speaker 3  40:00

Know, Team USA versus Team India. And so it was kind of cool because it's, this is just round one. So this round one took place in Arlington, where, so USA was, like, the home team or whatever, and then in a few months, they're going to do round two in India. Ooh, yeah, with, like, the live audience and stuff. So it's pretty sweet, right? And it's really cool, because, like, the current world champion is an Indian guy. He was there at the thing. He was playing on the tee, yeah, I was, he was playing on the team, and he was playing against, like, one of the guys who is, like, trying to qualify for the World Championships to beat him, like, he's trying to qualify and, like, face him in the actual classical world championship. So it was like, kind of cool. That was like, good. Then this format, like, it's a little bit

40:53

different. It was cool. So the

Speaker 3  40:54

USA won, 500, bang. Now this is slightly misleading, because, because Team USA was home team, they all had, they all played with white, which, as you know, gives you a slight advantage in just anyway, because you go first, right? So there's that, there's that to asterisk here. And when they do the round two in India, Team India will start with all white the whole time, okay? But yeah, sweep, the sweep was on. That's pretty good. The format was pretty crazy, though, because it was like, All right, so you could not this form, this tournament, because it's just an exhibition, just for fun, right? Nothing, you know, whatever. There was a you cannot resign clause. So you had to play to checkmate, even if you know, because usually they're like, Okay, look, there is no hope. I'm just gonna resign, move on to the next match, whatever, right? Because in a bit, in classical chess, you're gonna play multiple you got to win like 12k right? And so you just play a billion times until you get a certain, you know, so, you know, with whatever.

Speaker 4  42:08

But you could draw, right? So if you drew, then you would have to set the board back up. You start again immediately, this time five minute clock. Yeah, and if you drew again in a second game, one minute bullet chess.

Speaker 2  42:35

Now, how? How is okay? So, how is bullet chess specifically like, really different

Speaker 3  42:42

than I think, I think it's just, it's well, because the time control is like, it's

Speaker 4  42:46

like a one minute game. And so there are, like,

Speaker 3  42:51

I think the strategies are a little bit less advanced, right? It's more just like hammer, right? Just like, I'm just gonna smash into things and just try to checkmate as fast as possible. So it's a little, I mean, there is still obviously

Speaker 4  43:06

strategy involved, you know, but I think some,

Speaker 3  43:11

like classical strategies and like certain like openings and stuff that, like, we're not worrying about that right now. We're just going, we're just going for it and seeing what

Speaker 4  43:20

happens. That happened in the final of the the tournament.

Speaker 3  43:31

The very last game went down to a bullet match, and it was kind of nuts. So I watched it live. I watched on YouTube. I watched it live.

43:38

I just watched the crazy No, no, no.

Speaker 3  43:41

I can skip all the random stuff in the middle. Yeah. So, boom. Contra, so again, controversy time, right? So last match that they were the all the players were told by the organizers, you know, you should, like, really interact with the crowd, because we're trying to get people into it. We're trying to get people, you know, excited and blah blah. We want them to be cheering. We want they were like, chanting the whole time. It was pretty nuts. It was really weird to watch,

44:12

right? But they

Speaker 3  44:14

were like, interact with the crowd. Do you know, crazy stuff, and then you win. They wanted to do something dramatic, like, knock the opponent's king down. Like, really, you know, like, well, like, in a movie, right? Like, bang. Like, like that, you know. And so one of the guys, one of the American guys, was like, yeah, if I win, I'm gonna throw the king. And they were like, okay, yeah, cool, do that. And like, the guy, he was playing the world champion guy, gukesh, he's, like, a really, like, very

Speaker 4  44:41

calm, reserved, Chill dude. He's like, very

Speaker 3  44:47

polite and nice. And he was like, I don't want to do that. They're like, that's fine, you have to and he's like, oh, right, that's basically in the interview I saw. That's kind of what happened. But when the American guy won, he like, grabbed the king and. Like, flung it into the audience.

45:02

Oh,

Speaker 3  45:04

and, and the trolls on the internet erupted, and we're like, that's so disrespectful. I can't believe he would do that. That's so racist to Indians. And they were like, Wait, yeah, exactly what? Wait, hold on, what? Like?

Speaker 4  45:22

First of all, all the people in the audience, I mean, from the sounds

Speaker 3  45:27

and stuff I saw afterwards, all the people that were actually live at the place thought it was awesome, including half of the stadium that was wearing teen Indian jerseys. So like, I don't know,

Speaker 4  45:41

I really know how you came to this conclusion, right? If you don't like it as, like, a chess thing, okay, it makes sense, right? I understand. You know, that's one thing, but like, come on, like, you can just, you can just say, I don't like fun, that's fine. You can say that and it's okay to not like fun. It's fine, right? But at least just be honest

Speaker 3  46:09

and say I don't like fun. Now, we're a bunch of these accounts posting these things, probably Russian bots. Yes, let's be real, right? Obviously, it was just a Russian bot farm,

Speaker 4  46:21

like, stirring up stuff, you know, whatever. But, like, that's the big

Speaker 3  46:27

controversy. And then now you're now caught up on all the, all the chess controversy in the last week, in the know, yeah, right. Isn't exciting? You

Speaker 1  46:44

Yeah, well, and I think, well, I can see traditional folks being upset about the showmanship and things like that, because that's not how we did it, but they're kind of missing the point in the context of like, right? And that's not the point of this exhibition match,

Speaker 3  47:03

yeah? Because this isn't a tournament. This is, like, this was, like a proof of concept of that, like, you can do chess in a

Speaker 4  47:09

live audience format, yeah, right. Like, you know

Speaker 3  47:15

what I mean? Like, it's a possible thing, and people will come and watch it,

Speaker 4  47:20

right, you know, I think that's fine, yeah. And if you want to grow your sport or whatever, then, like, that's a thing that you

Speaker 3  47:28

need, like, you do still need, like, the official classical world championship style thing pray, because that's a, that's a very prestigious lineage, you know? And I was watching this thing of the day, like, actually, they're in the history, since they've started doing, like, the world chess championships stuff, there's only actually been like, 17 different people that have been

Speaker 5  47:52

the world chess champion. That's crazy. So that's a very small number

47:57

of people, right? Because several people have won it, like,

48:00

more than once, right? And so for like, several years, you know? Several years, you

Speaker 4  48:03

know what I mean. But like, so for the past, like, I can't remember a long time it's there's 17 people.

Speaker 3  48:12

So this is a very important lineage and a thing to be, like, respected stuff, but that's like, a different kind of

48:19

thing, right? You can have that,

Speaker 3  48:23

and you can have this other slightly more insane fun thing that life. People want to show up and watch a person, right? You can

Speaker 4  48:31

have both of them at the same time, and you can like both of them. That's allowed, right? There's different environments. It's okay. Calm down, yeah, well, and I think like you saying, like you can,

Speaker 2  48:51

yeah, having different ways of playing something or doing something is good. That means it attracts different people with different abilities and different desires and strength to the sport, which is ultimately what you should want, right? Like, yeah, you should want there to be more interest in something, because if they get hooked on one aspect of it, you know that what a wonderful way to educate and talk about other ways of playing the sport that you might not have known about. And so it's, it is it is hard because, again, it's not a traditional way

Speaker 4  49:28

of doing it. However. It's different times. And so you can attract different people and do that, right? Yeah, so I don't know, but there you go.

Speaker 6  49:42

That's That's it. Caught up on chess news for this week.

Speaker 3  49:51

Oh, yes. Also, the other important thing I need to talk to you about, yes, Collin, can I interest you in a patented over the top five list? Absolutely. Was okay, let's do this

Speaker 4  50:01

all right. So here's my proposal, yes, for two reasons, right? Actually have reasons to back this up.

Speaker 3  50:12

They're good, but, like, I have a plan, kind of, sort of, maybe a little

Speaker 1  50:17

bit listeners. This is the most intentional, the most digital we've ever been about. Hey,

Speaker 3  50:23

every once in a while we have reasons, like with the Olympics,

50:26

right? And then we have other things,

50:33

yeah, etc.

Speaker 4  50:37

So it is about to be fall, maybe

50:43

if the temperatures go below 80 anytime soon,

50:47

right? So this is a,

Brandon  50:49

you know, refer to colloquially as, of course, cozy season, right? So how this is a, I think this is the thing that embodies coziness, right? And you know who would agree with me, Collin, and that is

51:06

Ben Gunn, because he loves this more, especially because

Speaker 3  51:12

he's been separated for a bit for nigh on three years. Collin, I want to

51:17

know your top five favorite cheeses. I Oh, my goodness. We

Speaker 3  51:25

think about this list. How you feel about this official over the top five cheese list?

Speaker 1  51:29

Yes, yeah, this is good. Now, listeners may be very concerned, because, I mean, they as they ought to be,

51:40

they're gonna go, Oh,

Speaker 1  51:42

wonderful. Tell me. Tell me the varieties of cheddar, the people for the Midwest.

Speaker 4  51:49

That's rude. But I, I am very much liking this. Yes, okay. Now this is, ooh, this is

52:01

hard. This is this, is this actually?

Speaker 3  52:03

Oh, yeah. Now I did want to this. The reason I want to talk to you about this right now is I need we, we might need a clarification statement,

Speaker 4  52:11

right? Does this include only standalone cheese, or does this? Do we allow dishes featuring cheese? Well, that's what I want to know. We got to think about that too.

Collin Funkhouser  52:31

Yeah, I think that, since this is Top Five cheeses, it has to be standalone. Okay, you can't and, and what is also hard about this is like, like, just as an example, okay, I like, here's, here's what's going to come up. Like, okay, Swiss cheese. But do you like eating Swiss cheese straight? Or do you like Swiss cheese when it's on a sandwich? Like, that's true. Or does it get points for versatility, if it can do both, both, right?

Speaker 3  53:05

Like that's part of the thinking and justification of your answers, I suppose. But I do think that there should be at least some sort of standalone

Speaker 4  53:13

element. I think that's kind of important, right, as a celebratory event of said cheese. Yes. Yeah. So I definitely think this needs to be standalone or shape, all right, and we

Speaker 3  53:33

can mention if it does go good, other things, right? That's just like a bonus like, it's like a bonus feature, I suppose, right? Like, Oh, it's good, but, and then you can also do this,

53:42

and then it's like, better, right?

Speaker 3  53:44

Because you're right that that automatically does knock off some Right? Like, I feel like, I feel like, Ben and his like, love of just eating straight up Parmesan, that's, yeah, I don't you know that that's not,

Speaker 4  53:58

that's tough, that's a little tough, right? Like, he's just bite off a little hunk of that. And so, you know, it's fine, but, like, I there's better, you know, there's better. Sorry, Ben, but we're tell you what those are. We will later, and

Speaker 1  54:17

we'll get the added benefit of butchering some rather difficult to pronounce. Oh yeah. Also, our European friends are gonna love

54:27

this. That's what they got. Came and Bert. What is this? Oh, no, they all stopped losing right

Speaker 5  54:38

now, I'm I'm

54:45

but the French are gonna be mad again. Oh, no,

Speaker 4  54:50

they're always mad. Fine, totally fine. So yes, we will do this and be ready to go. I. Next week. All right, sounds good? Yes, that is totally okay, good. Glad you're on board with this plan. I'm excited now let's go. Yes, be good, excited for sure. Okay, wonderful, we'll do that. I I have a I have a haiku. All right, okay, so this week, we also

Speaker 2  55:27

took a trip to the Kansas City zoo because, oh, on Monday, we went and we spent, turns out, Kansas city zoo only opened for six and a half hours during the day, only ever. Oh, also weird, because it is it is 205 acres. Rather difficult to cover all that in as fair, yeah, like eating so

55:51

but one of my

Speaker 2  55:53

two, several cool things about the zoo. One, there's a train, classic train, that takes you around, basically through all of the areas, so that you get little glimpses of things

Speaker 4  56:06

through the zoo. So you can see nice, like a little thing in the zoo from a little train, yeah, like a little preview of some of

56:16

the stuff, right? This is nice. The other thing that you can take is they have

Speaker 2  56:22

a whole African portion that you can walk to and through. But I don't know when they installed this. It's a sky tram and takes you over the grassy plains of Africa, where you can look down and see IBEX

56:42

and Oryx the savannah

Speaker 2  56:45

right, like you can see them as you go over them. You can also see all the ostrich that are below you, or like the rhinos that are below you, and like zebras are out below you and you're flying over them. Feel like David Attenborough, like, yeah,

Speaker 4  57:01

and this is far and away my favorite part of Kansas City, because you get to go there now. I mean, clearly, like, what if you are other people in my household who are from a different planet state? Oh, you are. You are loathe to remind us every time we go that well the St Louis, it was free.

Speaker 2  57:31

But that is that this, so does it cost to get in? Yeah, does it cost extra to ride skytram? Also, yes, but well worth it. This is great. However, there was a travesty this time.

57:46

One, well,

57:47

one, I don't like heights. I don't know if

Speaker 3  57:50

you know this. I have heard this rumor, yes, for many a year, I have

Speaker 1  57:55

you're this skytram. It's not like, Oh, you're just like 15 feet above the ground. No, you're like, 30 or 40 feet. Are

58:03

we like ski lift height? Like, way

Speaker 4  58:04

lift, okay, heights above the above the plane, the Savannah, and so it's not my favorite thing to be that high. And this time, also one

Speaker 1  58:19

you're going and it's like, a long ride, like, if you're on this thing for like, several minutes, like, going all the way over, like, it takes a long time, we're going all of a sudden, it just, like, it starts slowing down while I'm over at ostrich, and I'm like, this is fine. And then, like, stops, no. And I'm like, this is no longer fine. Oh no. It's, it's, this is how, like people get forgotten appear at like this is that I'm going to be on the news of with a ladder or crane coming up to me with like a gazelle running, a man stranded

Speaker 3  58:53

in Kansas City zoo overnight after Park closed and workers did not see him on the tram, exactly.

Speaker 1  59:03

Yes, right? Like, all of a sudden this turns into an episode of Survivor man, like, alone the Savannah. Yeah, above the savannah on a full moon. Like, what are the what's gonna happen here? Now, thankfully, it was all stopped for like, all of like, 42 seconds. So we kept going, made it. But the other and I will add, like, we wrote this thing three times. Like, that's how much, like, we love doing this so. But travesty, above all, travesty, the giraffes are off display because they are building them a new little compound area. So the best part about this is you get to fly over giraffe. Yes, there were no giraffe.

Speaker 3  59:50

Oh, no tram sands, giraffes. What a tragedy.

Speaker 1  59:56

And thus my Haiku. I tram hums above. No giraffes in sight today. Still, the wind feels wild.

Speaker 3  1:00:10

Nice, very nice

1:00:16

there, but you know

Speaker 3  1:00:17

what? It's the it captured the moment, and that, as we know, is the most important part,

1:00:25

clearly. So

1:00:26

I think it's beautiful.

Speaker 1  1:00:30

So that is and I will start doing some dig deep on this, on this cheese thing. I know it's gonna be show up for this. Yeah, and

Speaker 3  1:00:43

maybe hard, difficult. Number one, I know that that's tough already. I'm thinking just brainstorming slightly like, ooh,

1:00:53

ooh, that's that's tough, right?

Speaker 1  1:00:55

Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, lots of work to put into this. Yeah,

Speaker 1  1:01:06

and we will see what we come up with. Time, no rise. Very good. Love you. Love you. Bye. You. You