yard work
Collin has leaves falling. Brandon is ready for Fall. We meet Mr. Porrott.
Raking leaves
6th grade wuote of the week:
“Mr. Funkhouser…I can just feel Christmas Spirit taking over me.”
Top golf
We meet Mr. Porrott
Haiku
My swing felt perfect
I watched my shot with such pride
Then it turned on me
Links
Check out our other episodes: ohbrotherpodcast.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI
Collin 0:05
Welcome to Oh Brother, the podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts Brandon and Collin on this week's show. Yard work. Ahoy!
Brandon 0:20
Ahoy! How's it
Collin 0:21
going?
Brandon 0:23
Pretty good, pretty good. How are you? It's
Collin 0:26
it's cold.
Brandon 0:27
I know. I can't believe it. Finally,
Collin 0:30
finally, it is here. I love it. Finally! Oh, now it did mean that my I still have, I have two very mature trees. I have a very mature sycamore in my front yard as well as my neighbor's tree. But in my yard, I have a sweet gum, and this is also yeah, and they both still have green leaves on them, and nothing has fallen. And so this, this is where we have caught some
Brandon 1:08
of the trees by surprise. It has indeed,
Collin 1:10
but it also this is why a reminder for those for those keen eared listeners who have really like dialed into the program, they will recall that the last time I did a count of the number of leaf bags that it takes to gilling up my yard is is on the order of 50 leaf bags when I own like basically like 40 square feet of yard and a tree. Does that mean it's just oh. but it's fine. It's fine. So I just I'm watching those. I step out in the morning, drinking coffee. I stare, I sigh. I go back inside. My gosh, preparing. Collin, look at his
Brandon 1:55
best Midwest dad life right here. Like just
Collin 1:58
whelp, whelp. Yeah, he Says whelp, not ready yet.
Brandon 2:03
Waves at a stray neighbor. Goes back inside.
Collin 2:08
Exactly. I mean, not not true.
Speaker 1 2:12
Yeah. See, I know.
Collin 2:13
Just to tip the cup to the to the neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. Golp. Nah. Go back inside. What are you gonna do? Pretty. I mean, that's just
Brandon 2:26
waiting.
Collin 2:27
93% of my interactions these days is me just staring at. I'm. I don't
Brandon 2:33
know, Collin, what you're planning on doing with the leaves because I think your son is just ready to take over already, right? He's been like waiting for you to just officially put him on leaf duty. Like he's waiting so much. Like, like come on, Dad, come on, please give me the break.
Collin 2:55
He he is the one who who when we pull up to the house, if he sees that there are leaves sticking out of the gutter, he's the one that's like, "Well, I gotta go get the ladder." What are you talking about? What egg? He's like, "I gotta clean. I gotta clean out the gutters." Like okay,
Brandon 3:22
like buddy, that's a leaf. Okay, just calm down. Hold on.
Collin 3:26
Yeah, he just kind of like it's like he slap his slaps his thigh. Well, okay, so he's yeah he he enjoys that. He's got
Brandon 3:35
to spend less time with our father. That's really a problem. Like this is not
Collin 3:41
really developing into something here. It's not going wrong in a hurry. The leaves are still the one thing about the leaves is that it is still a little overwhelming of a project when we start raking. Like it's one of those where a few rakes in and you're like, I, I have a mountain. No, no, he's gonna he's
Brandon 4:03
gonna like quadrant it off, right? I really feel like this is a thing that he would do. Like we're gonna like make like six quadrants, just like a grid, and then like all right today, grid number two,
Collin 4:17
right?
Brandon 4:17
All right, boom, like nailed it. Like we got
Collin 4:20
just chunk our way through. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, what we need to do, we have to do with that one. It's one of those. It's really tough because I, my desire would be just to like, I don't know, use our lawnmower to mulch these, you know, and stuff. However, you know I the lawnmower is not like a super duper gusto lawnmower. It's a little bat. It's you know it's battery powered. Yeah. So this time of year, you have to catch the leaves on the right day because if it's too humid or if they're a little damp, yeah, then it'll just like the mulch doesn't do anything. Just like slapping a wet paper towel, which does nothing. In case you were wondering, and and so you can't mulch them, right? That's all of a sudden now my one tool, so I have to rake them, and then that's whenever people, that's when I get abandoned by my family when I start going up to rake leave effectively. Oh, so that's we are we are focused we're focused lasered in ready to go nice yeah yeah nice yep but yeah we're breaking out the winter gear about you
Brandon 5:36
um well yeah it is quite wintry out uh so wintry that in fact I do have a sixth grade quote of the week for you because I don't want to forget this because it's absolutely the most hilarious thing of all time. Okay, so I had right like it's actually cold this week. Okay, we're feeling the vibes. We're feeling like fall. It's November now, so we can we can feel Thanksgiving around the corner, and I had this kid come up to me yesterday. This girl, and she goes, "mr. Funkhouser, I can just feel the Christmas spirit taking over me." I just like the way that this line was delivered, and the way she looked at me, I just about didn't survive because I was laughing so hard, and I was like,
Collin 6:29
"Susan approves this message." Like I was just like saying, "Yeah, this is Susan's like yes every day, every day I feel I feel this in my bones."
Brandon 6:41
Oh man, it was hilarious! Like just
Collin 6:47
phenomenal.
Brandon 6:48
Just the way that she said it was like dang, like
Collin 6:58
oh, Brandon, Brandon. Brendan, return.
Brandon 7:06
And this week has been very like sloggy. I don't really know why exactly.
Collin 7:16
Can you hear me? Can you hear me again? Okay, cool. I lost you for about yeah, my thing
Brandon 7:21
just like flashed at me and said my internet was doing weird things. Oh, but oh no, I don't know.
Collin 7:27
I heard I heard I heard a day week was sloggy. Yeah, our our mine too. It felt every day felt like it should have been a Thursday. I don't know. Like that's always a bad sign to me. Yeah,
Brandon 7:38
yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel that. Like, it's just like dragging. Part of it is I had like the afternoon class that I teach. My history class was doing like a project, so there's very little for me to do. I just sort of like stare at them, you know, while they attempt to follow the rubric, you know, and the thing happened that always happens, right, right. Because I told them Monday, hey, here's the intro of the assignment, here's the directions, here's some examples, blah blah blah. This is going to be due on Friday, right? And we some people are like, oh, Friday,
Collin 8:25
Friday's forever away, ages
Brandon 8:27
away.
Collin 8:28
Yes,
Brandon 8:28
right, so far, and then every day, every day. All right, guys, welcome to Tuesday. Please remember this is due Friday. Yeah, you know, hey guys, you got Wednesday. Hey guys, three days left. We got today, tomorrow, and you can. It's due at the end of class Friday, right? This continues every week. And today, hey, what's this due? I was like, in 20 minutes, and they're like, what? I was like, what?
Collin 8:55
Never told
Brandon 8:56
us. Yeah, literally never heard that before my life. Like, or I had people at the beginning of class be like, "I'm done." I'm like, "Are you though?" They're like, "What's that mean?" I was like, "It's just a question. Are you done?
Collin 9:12
Are you done? Are
Brandon 9:13
you done?
Speaker 1 9:15
Did some
Brandon 9:19
of them were like, 'I'm totally done. And I looked at their project and went, "Okay,
Collin 9:28
bold move cotton. That is a
Brandon 9:31
yeah, that is a a statement that you can make." I was just like, "Oh, dude, just look at that, and look at the list of things on the board, and ask yourself, do I have all of those things?
Collin 9:43
Yeah. See, that's there's a key word here, folks. It's the all of these things. Yeah. Not not some. And and don't even say that you you think that you have these. Right. This is a all must be included.
Brandon 9:58
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like. No, like it's not how this works. So, so we'll see next week how it goes here. Because we just we Friday we put them up, boom, and then Monday we're gonna like show and tell them.
Collin 10:14
Sure, and
Brandon 10:14
then I'll start grading them. That will take a minute, but like it'll be a. Let's see how this goes.
Collin 10:23
Yeah, how is everyone
Brandon 10:25
doing? Yeah, yeah. What the? So yeah, it always happens, right? This is like the first like kind of long project like this that we've done. Like the other one that was like the presentation we did. Like they did a little bit better, but this one, for whatever reason, this week there was a lot of like, I'm just gonna not use my class time. And like Monday and Tuesday, I kind of like redirected them and told them. But then like when they still weren't doing it on Wednesday, I was like, okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1 10:58
it's fine. Okay, we'll see what happens, and then, yeah, yeah, not,
Speaker 2 11:07
not much, much. So,
Collin 11:11
yeah, we're people listen. They they don't listen. They don't. Well, no,
Brandon 11:19
especially children's. But like,
Speaker 3 11:21
yeah,
Brandon 11:22
you know, we have to start somewhere and see. Be like, okay, well, we'll see, we'll see how you think you did, right? And then, so Monday's assignment, reading assignment. So Monday's assignment will be no speaking because no, like we're trying to put in the chill vibe of okay, we're just gonna we can talk a little bit, we can do this because we're gonna see if you can like do that and work right, you know. Well, one of the groups, absolutely, right, like totally fine. Like one of my classes, like yeah, they can do whatever. They're chill. They can they can handle the. I can talk a little bit. My stuff is all completely done and fine, right? Another one of my classes is a bit in the middle. It depends on the day. Depends on how you know frisky we're feeling today. How how well we're going to handle this multitasking instructor, but the other class I have absolutely not. Like no way, no way, no how. So like in again, this is just you know in future. Nope, nope, you don't get the chill vibes. We can hang out. No, you get the get in your spot, get to work, and shush. Like you don't get to listen to the music. You don't get to because you can't deal, right? You rather like do what? Sorry, you just can't handle the like rains off a little bit. So nah, right?
Collin 12:57
Found the limit. Yeah, but one
Brandon 12:59
of the other groups like, yeah, whatever. You guys can. They handled it really well, and then one of the classes kind of somewhere in the middle. So sort of depending on the day, like all the rest of the week was fine. Today was a little bit like weird. So I don't know what was Friday was. We had weird things happening anyway. It's just great today. Oh no! But like, ah. Like we, yeah. There was other things happening, so we kind of they were whispering, and they thought I couldn't hear them. And you know, no, you know, it's fine. So I love it when they. I love it when they think that I'm dumb and I don't know things. I know all the things. Okay, I know everything.
Collin 13:42
Right, I am. I am not deaf. Yeah,
Brandon 13:47
yeah. Like they didn't because I was like sitting at my desk, like grading some stuff, and they're just like talking and like, oh, he can't hear us. First of all, buddy, like you don't know how whispering works at all. They whisper like Mimi, right? That's how. That's what it's like. Yeah, like that's what. So it's like, hmm, guys, stop. Like I don't know,
Collin 14:09
but no, really. Yeah, this is not.
Brandon 14:13
No, this is not working. So like, I don't.
Collin 14:17
Yeah, I don't know what you're expecting out of this, but it's not good.
Brandon 14:21
Yeah. Yeah. So well, yeah. So that was kind of funny. Um, like they. So yeah. So yeah. So it was. It was all right though. It was. But but again, this week just felt like unnecessarily long. It was just really weird and draggy, and I think part of it is like my afternoon. I didn't really have anything to do. I just kind of was observing and monitoring and like checking some stuff, and then like you know. But they were just supposed to be working, so I wasn't like directly teaching. There was no like direct instruction happening, so it's kind of like, where did we do sit down?
Collin 15:12
Don't have a whole lot to do, you know? Yeah, I we we were recovering from Halloween and the chaos. We went to we did more Halloweening this this year, and I think that's what threw us off. Honestly, like this is gonna sound really bad, but like just the amount of places that we stopped by on Halloween night, I was like, oh boy, this is this is a lot, and that kind of threw off because I realized my kids don't actually know when like Halloween is because we do trick or treating like days leading up before it, and like then there's like the day of, but even afterwards sometimes there'll be some in the in the area. Oh yeah, so it's just like all week, you know, just whatever. It's like the Halloween series of of things, and so that kind of threw us into into the week. We did watch we did watch Nightmare Before Christmas, so we we broke that one out this year. We were like, okay, and that was actually requested by the kids. So I was like, okay, let's let's do this. Everyone enjoyed it. I'm also trying to expose them to more stop motion animation films, right? Like, because just I really enjoy them, and so we did. You
Brandon 16:30
just want to watch more.
Collin 16:31
I just really want to watch more Wall Street dramas. Okay, okay, there we go. And when they go to the moon, right? I gotta watch. We gotta watch that when they go to get the cheese from the moon. So there's like, well, this is more claymation, but look how they're doing this, and then and then we have more, we have other ones that we're gonna work up to to work through that. So that's been that's been fun this week. But what else is on the
Speaker 1 16:52
list?
Collin 16:52
Oh, oh, you know, oh, top five.
Speaker 1 16:57
Oh, okay, okay, okay. Pin,
Brandon 17:00
pin. Sorry, in
Collin 17:01
that because we've got a trajectory here. Okay, okay, I see, I
Brandon 17:06
see what's happening. All right, pause. Anyway, Collin, what else did you do? I
Collin 17:12
don't know. Then, then today, this is all I'm going to say on this. Oh, we met, we met with a in a service area. I met with a sitter, and I brought. I had bad vibes meeting with these people. I don't like. Okay, so people can be weird, and I don't. Is this
Brandon 17:34
a competitor or a?
Collin 17:36
Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, this is a competitor, like a so-called quote competitor. There's no such thing as competition. We're community BS. Whatever.
Brandon 17:47
That's not how capitalism works. But okay, that's fine.
Collin 17:50
So I, you know, was like, because here's what here's what happened. What happened was, somebody on Facebook was like, "Hey, I I need a pet sitter." This former or this this person commented and said, "Hey, I can't do it, but you should use this company." And then they deleted their comment and said, "I didn't know it had been sold. Never mind. And I was like,
Brandon 18:25
Oh, I see. Okay. Oh, I'm
Collin 18:28
sorry. What? This. Okay, I got you. So, like, and I get it, right? Things change hands. People are like, Well, I don't know the new owners. We're gonna all that stuff. So I'm like, Okay, that's fine, but like, you're not even gonna give me like, can you even talk to me? Like, we're just, we're just, we're just no, like that we're just, we're just done. So I commented on it, and we were like, yeah, it has, and we've got all this experience, and blah blah blah. We're excited to be here. Would love to meet up sometime, you know, and get to know you, and did that publicly, right? Because I wanted, I wanted this to be public, because that's because I'm petty. Totally not
Brandon 19:09
passive aggressive at all. No,
Collin 19:11
it's not. This is my my love language. So you know, they were as brother
Brandon 19:18
can't confirm. Yeah, they're like, I'm gonna,
Collin 19:20
I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, and I was, and so we we met up and come in and they actually
Brandon 19:27
met with you
Collin 19:28
is actually staggering,
Speaker 1 19:30
right? This is like the
Brandon 19:31
most shocking piece of information online. Somebody said a thing on the internet and then agreed to see your face, like IRL. Like this is the this is crazy.
Collin 19:44
This was this so credit square credits too. Want to show up, but before I showed up, we showed up. Um, they texted yesterday, and they were like, "Things I want to know," and it was this long. We just
Brandon 20:01
meet up on like a bridge, like outside of town. Like this is sounding very. I know. Like what in the Jason Bourne is happening right now? Like what?
Collin 20:09
They sent this big long list of basically like demands of like you say you use employees. Like like what's that?
Brandon 20:19
Yes, I do pay people.
Collin 20:21
Yeah, right. Like, what's their training? What What are they from? Like all the. I'm like, Did you just
Brandon 20:26
like see the website?
Collin 20:28
Well, no, I didn't answer last night because I was like, I'm meeting you. I'm meeting. No, no, no, no. I mean, you know, I should have said, Yeah, look at my website that you don't have. We come in, okay, and the person, okay, so it's Megan and I and our kids, and we're sitting at a table in Panera, talking to another. We turn. Why did I
Brandon 20:51
know this was going to be at Panera?
Collin 20:53
Nothing good happens at Panera. Why
Brandon 20:55
did I know this was going to happen?
Collin 20:56
And this was bringing the
Brandon 20:58
broccoli bowl into this. I know.
Collin 21:00
No, we did this first thing this morning. I mean, 930 this morning. I had to leave my house at eight. Right? Yeah. So we we pull, and this is this is all I'm going to say about this because this should tell you everything you need to know about what how I view this person and my feelings around this. Oh, if I known there were kids, I would have put a mask on for me.
Speaker 1 21:28
What? What
Brandon 21:30
does that mean?
Collin 21:31
The person saw children and said, "Ew, gross! I don't want to be around kids because they're full of germs, and yes, I should perfect. I'm like, you said that out loud. Do you know you said that out loud to us? They
Brandon 21:52
don't know that either. They
Speaker 1 21:54
don't. They don't. They don't. They weren't
Brandon 21:55
paying attention.
Collin 21:56
They don't. Like what? I'm sorry. What? And the reason I know that's what she meant is because then she said kids always get me sick, and so I'm going to need to sit at a different table and talk to you from across the way. Um, fuck. Oh, hum,
Speaker 1 22:25
hum.
Collin 22:26
Anyway, good day, sir. You know, yeah. Just like, well, this is going to be a fun conversation. Just all like happy Patty over here enjoying their time. Like, good to holy schmoly, man! It's like ridiculous. No, like, good morning. No, like, so nice to meet you. Like, thanks for meeting me. First things out of their words, out of her mouth, were basically like, "Ew, your kids are gross." I'm sitting at a different table.
Brandon 22:55
Yeah, good grief. Oh, okay,
Collin 22:59
okay, okay. So we we did the conversation, then we went and played Top Golf for two hours. Nice. Nice. And and really enjoyed that. And it was one of those where it was 40 degrees out because, but because it's Top Golf, they have the heaters, you know, who are outside. I'm gonna take your
Brandon 23:18
word for it. Sure. Okay. Sure.
Collin 23:20
Well, all of the second time that I played Top Golf, you know, I mean, that's two more times
Brandon 23:25
than I played Top Golf. You, I have played the golfing mini game in Yakuza. Pretty, pretty close. Got that. Pretty close. Know what that is? See, yeah.
Collin 23:34
So they have these outdoor bays that, and it's like you get this one lane, and you can just hit, and it has an automatic ball feeder, and it basically has a table behind it, so you can order food. We did end up having some lunch there, and you hit the the balls, and and whoever like some people who create things are fantastic because they took what is ostensibly extremely boring of you you just hit a ball straight, you know. So golf, golf. Yes, yeah. I wasn't gonna say it. I
Brandon 24:10
mean, I will. I have a long documented loathing for the sport because it's not a sport. So what they
Collin 24:17
did though is they said, "What if?" Because that's boring. No one's going to do that for hours. What if? What if instead we have lasers and ray tracing on the ball that you hit? So like
Brandon 24:29
the video game, such that
Collin 24:31
when you hit the ball, you turn and look at a screen, and something happens on the screen. Maybe what if actually what you were playing was Angry Birds with golf? Oh, and well,
Brandon 24:47
okay, and
Collin 24:48
that was one of the games. Was you come in and you can choose to play Angry Birds, and you have to hit the ball, and it would you know do the the flight path of the ball would be the bird and the force and and all of. And so we had to knock down the castles and things like that, and we played in turns, and it was to see who could get the you know the highest score and destroy the most with the Angry Birds. And I was like, "This is phenomenal! Nice! I would actually watch this on TV if this was what PG Tour was." Hold
Speaker 1 25:19
on, hold on. That's that's maybe going a little too far. I don't I don't know about
Collin 25:25
okay don't know about that. Like
Brandon 25:27
I'm you know
Collin 25:30
television. I mean, and then they had other ones like there was a go fish one where you had to hit certain areas to get kind of fish, and then they had the more oh here's the challenges of you have to get closest to the pin for certain things using different clubs right so there were some people who were playing that I we did not play that game at all that was like this time right but the guys next to us they're
Brandon 25:58
closest to the pin one is what the mini game is on video games. There's also a bingo, which is like really annoying. But interesting,
Collin 26:06
yeah. So this was this was fun. This was very nice, and it was cold, but because of the heaters, it was that where was like, oh, this is actually very comfortable. Yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1 26:18
so bad. I wouldn't
Collin 26:19
actually want to be this warm if the heaters weren't on, but because the warmth is coming from heaters and not outside, it's oh, it's chilly just beyond the veil, but it just just nice over here. That's what I'm saying.
Brandon 26:38
Nice
Collin 26:39
out there, out there in the wilderness, here tucked in close, eating my hamburger. It's fine. I am happy. Yes. So that.
Brandon 26:50
But all right.
Collin 26:51
Anyway, so that was that's what we did today, and we came back, and then I took a two hour. I took. I want to take a two hour nap. I only took like a 15 minute nap, but it's fine. So yes, did not feel as rested as I had hoped, but well, it is. It is. You know,
Speaker 1 27:09
sometimes it's hard to snap, especially after so much golf excitement.
Collin 27:15
Yes, yes. You know, should we should we transition to the next? I think so. I was going to say, you know what else is exciting?
Speaker 1 27:24
Murder. Yes. Dun dun dun.
Brandon 27:30
Brandon, what did you think of the first three chapters? I think information dump central. Right. However, however, I like the way that it was done, right? So there is. I felt like I did feel like I needed a bit of a notebook because I got quick fired like 20,000 characters. Not 20, but there are like 10 characters now that I have to know who they are and their relationships to each other. And I was like, my head was spinning a little bit as they were just like, and so I was like, "Oh, holy cow!" But the way, so like, the way that it was done was very interesting.
Collin 28:13
Yeah,
Brandon 28:13
right. I thought it was interesting. Okay, so first of all, I think it's interesting that our narrator is just like a random dude.
Collin 28:20
I love this.
Brandon 28:21
Right, so we have Doctor Shepherd. Is that right? Is that his name? Yeah, yeah,
Collin 28:26
Doctor Shepherd. Yes,
Brandon 28:27
and so he is the narrator of this book, right? And so he is like the town doctor, um, and he is very interesting, right? So it James, yes, James Shepherd, right? And he lives with his sister Caroline Shepherd. I
Collin 28:49
love. First off, I immediately believe that these are brothers and sisters. This is brothers. Absolutely, 100%.
Collin 28:55
Far in the way, just was just like the band, like his snide comments to himself, or like the abject like snark back to her that she completely misses. I'm like, or
Brandon 29:06
just like completely ignores because she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of, and that's okay. And so this is also interesting because like, is it she? Because like, it's important to know that Caroline is the town gossip.
Collin 29:22
Oh yes, right.
Brandon 29:23
And so the doctor even says that the pastime of this town that they're in is gossiping, right? King's Abbott, the village of King's Abbot, a small village, right? And like the the main occupation of everybody is gossip, and Caroline is the gossip queen, right? And so, like, he gets home. The first chapter, chapter one, we have an excellent opening line, by the way. Oh yes. Oh.
Collin 30:10
Oh, Brandon!
Brandon 30:12
Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sorry.
Collin 30:13
You said you said I heard excellent opening line, and then you cut out. I'm so sorry. Oh Oh no!
Brandon 30:22
Yes, you're back now.
Collin 30:23
Okay, sorry. I heard has an excellent opening line, and then it disappeared.
Brandon 30:30
Okay, hold on. I'm gonna go reset my thing. Okay,
Collin 30:36
cool. I'll be. Can I do that? Yeah. I'm gonna
Brandon 30:38
turn this off, and I'm gonna go like reset my deal and see if that helps.
Collin 30:42
Sounds good.
Brandon 30:43
Okay, I'll be back and then we'll start.
Collin 30:48
Okay. Hello.
Brandon 30:49
Okay, I'm back. I mean, I never left. We'll see if that works. I reset the router. All right. Anyway, so we were talking about Caroline, right? Yes. And we have this like banger opening line here in the book, right? mrs. mrs. Ferrers died on the night of the 16th of September, a Thursday.
Collin 31:12
There you have it, folks. Whack, right? Like,
Brandon 31:17
bam, and this is relevant for a couple reasons. Number one, our doctor friend is the one that went over, and you know, did all the stuff. But then he gets home and he's like, "Oh yes, Caroline." She's like, and he's like, "Oh yeah, I had to go to Miss Ferry's house because she died." And his sister's like, "Yeah, I know.
Collin 31:37
Yeah, I know." And she's like, "Wait, what? What do you mean you know?
Brandon 31:40
Like I
Collin 31:41
just left there. How do you know? And she's like, the milkman told me. It's phenomenal. Yep.
Brandon 31:50
Oh my gosh, this this hits. This is a sixth grade classroom, right? That's what's happening right now. Is this a little insane? Um, like,
Collin 31:58
yeah. What is what is being shown here is the fact that she has her little web, and she very much prides herself with being in the know because it's already like she just takes advantage of just I'm just talking right I'm just asking questions that's all she's doing.
Brandon 32:18
Yeah, but she's also like flexing that she knows, right? And already, right? We have a interesting thing happening because you know. Oh
Collin 32:35
no! No! A barbiturate, apparently, right? And, uh, oh my gosh! You said apparently, and then it was it was a long pause.
Brandon 33:02
Well, it stopped like I don't know what I was just checking to see if my internet was still working because it's like doing weird thing here. Okay, but anyway, it's like a barbiturate, and the it was used to be prescribed as a sleeping aid, you know, back in the Wild West of medicine days when they were like, "Oh, have some heroin, you're fine." Yeah, and so like this, she overdosed on this, and he is like, "Oh well, you know, she overdosed on this drug." And the sister is like, "Nah, she committed suicide because she feels guilty about murdering her husband." And he's like, "What? So it's just Ridiculous! Makes me so happy. Oh boy! So yeah, we we get this big thing about like he apparently died, uh, of you know six months or so ago. Yeah, and we have like a a thing because the this guy, Doctor Shepherd, is the one that pronounced him his cause of death as gastritis.
Collin 34:10
Yes,
Brandon 34:11
but he quietly admits to himself that the symptoms of gastritis and the symptoms of arsenic poisoning are similar, right? And so,
Collin 34:21
kind of hard to tell. For being honest, yeah. So
Brandon 34:23
he's like, "Crap, I don't know."
Collin 34:29
Oh my god! Not looking good. Yes,
Brandon 34:31
not looking good at all. And so we already have this like interesting thing developing here, where like, and this this definitely plays out in the next two chapters. Is so I'm imagining this is a theme for the the whole book, right? Like we have information and we have truth, right? And as we'll see, Caroline likes to. Make her own conclusions, sometimes with little to no evidence.
Collin 35:04
Yeah, she and our doctor
Brandon 35:06
friend is like you know, Doctor Shepherd wants the bases everything on evidence, which I'm sure our other character that we're going to meet soon also does, right? So like this, like push and pull between these two things, like what is true and what is like fact. Those are not necessarily the same thing, you know. So we'll see.
Collin 35:38
Yes, and sorry, I was going to say the it is. it is. I I really enjoy how this is. I know we were talking about this. How this is set up of from the point of view. I was not expecting this, having not read any of these novels. Yeah, I
Brandon 35:55
wasn't either. I thought it was very interesting. Like I was very
Collin 35:58
much expecting this to be of uh our detective friend, our of our protagonist, that he was going to be the one that we're going to be following, but to have this be from a secondary character who's not even directly like involved with many things, and I think what this what I like how this is going to set this up is there is going to be a lot of like you said. There's going to be a lot of things said, and then there is a truth. And so this is basically representing, you know, here here we are now, kind of like we're going to be learning things, hearing hearsay, but then like there is fact out there that we're going to need to find at some point.
Brandon 36:43
Oh, excuse me. Yeah, like I think that it does set up this very well, right? That you have to definitely you're gonna have to like hunt for what's really happening here, right? It's gonna be tricky. That brings us to chapter two, I guess, which is the it's called Who's Who in King's Abbott, and he the um this this chapter did lead me to a bit of a question of like why is because the like our Doctor James Shepherd is the one narrating the book, but like it's also like he's writing down what happened because he does say before I proceed further with what I said to Caroline and what Caroline said to me, it might be as well to give you some idea of what I should describe as our local geography, and so he starts giving you the who's who, and all these important names and places of the thing, right? And so, like, I do wonder, like, what, like, why did he write that? Like, is he writing this like after the fact, like, or is he writing this contemporaneously with the events? Like, is this like a diary, or is it like I? I don't really know.
Collin 38:02
Right.
Brandon 38:03
So I did have some questions about that. Um, but anyway, so he gives you this like big rundown of all of this stuff, right? We get introduced to like lots of characters, lots of things. We talk about who was this mrs. Ferrier's person, who was her husband that died, who is Roger Ackroyd, the other house prominence.
Collin 38:25
Yes,
Brandon 38:26
yeah. So there's like two major like estates. One is the Pharaoh's estate, and the other one was Ackroyd. But like we get their relationship together as the two prominent players. Like some people thought that they would like be together, right? But like he has like apparently a housekeeper who you know keeps him busy. He had his first wife with like died a long time ago of drinking, and he has like a son or stepson with that person, and then there's like another lady that he was with. Like I don't know, and so we just get we get bombarded with all these people, right? But the interesting thing about this is we get set up, we we we hear about this Roger Act board, we meet him, like the characters talk to him, he we get introduced to his group, the people around him. We get this idea of like what their relationship is and how they're aligned with each other and like all this stuff, and the title of the book is "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." So, like, we know,
Collin 39:46
we know, right? He's going to be killed soon at some point,
Brandon 39:52
right? Yes, and so we're getting like we're seeing. It gives you the reader this interesting kind of thing because of. Title of the book that you okay. I've met this guy. I see he has this like weird son, stepson, and then like his relationship with this other family, and then like this person, and like all this stuff. And he's gonna die. So like already before he's even dead, you have suspects, right? Like it's very interesting.
Collin 40:21
Yeah, it's great. I again, I love this. Of we're, it's not a, it's not a, you know, Dan Aykroyd, Roger Ackroyd. I almost said that like 50 times while I was saying that. It's not mr. Ackroyd dot. night of blah blah. We start with a completely different, different person, and we start, but we're going to start tying them together here. Already, we are seeing a tie, and I'm like, oh man, like this is going to be good.
Brandon 40:58
Yes, and so like it's very, it's very crazy, and like we overhear the big thing that we overhear in this chapter that Caroline overhears, I should say, is that the son Ralph is in town, but Roger maybe doesn't know that he's in town.
Collin 41:17
Yes,
Brandon 41:18
so he's in town for secret reasons, and
Collin 41:22
as we will come to,
Brandon 41:25
and like you know, and then there's suspicion of like who he is like courting in the town, right? Which comes in our next chapter. So we jump to that one then. The man who grew vegetable marrows, and I had to look up what that meant. Apparently, that's a squash. A
Collin 41:46
squash. Yes, I did the same thing because I was like, "I'm sorry, I'm a little. What is going on right now?" Yeah, these are these are words that I don't know what's happening.
Brandon 41:58
I was also very confused, and so so anyway, we start the chapter. They're still talking about this Ralph Patton person, and you know he's in town. But Roger Ackroy told Doctor Shepherd that he was in London, and does he know he's back, or is he back in secret? Is he doing these things while he's seeing a woman, but who is this woman? And she has suspicions about who this woman is, right? And then, and then a vegetable comes flying over the garden.
Collin 42:31
What I love now is that at this point, I'm sorry. At this point, had they had she Caroline had said what she thought his profession was.
Brandon 42:42
No, she just said that there was a neighbor, but she hadn't really seen him very much, right?
Collin 42:48
Yes, yeah, because they were trying to figure out. Yeah, because I, I love that they were like,
Brandon 42:55
we have a mysterious new neighbor. Nobody knows what he is, and it's really upsetting her that she can't get information on the neighbor. Yes, yeah, because yeah, she said
Collin 43:04
no. That's just it. He went out to meet. Oh, sorry. Um, wait, we're in chapter three. I'm sorry. Yeah, I I think I may have skipped something because yeah, she's she's already a little bit of upset that she doesn't know some things because before this, he's like, you know, was he meeting one of the barmaids? No, he went out to meet. I don't know who she is. Again, the whole like sibling thing in parentheses it says bitter for Caroline to have to admit such a thing. Yeah, that's right at the beginning of the chapter. Yeah, yeah. So we're
Brandon 43:35
discussing who Ralph was meeting. Like, was it the barmaid? Was it this person? Was it his? Was it cousin or whatever? Like this step sister or like? But they're not like actually related, you know. But they're like, do they like? Is it that person, right? This Flora person, right? Yes.
Brandon 43:53
Um, who's like the daughter of Roger's like second wife, like whatever. So was it her? Like, and then and then a vegetable sails over the garden wall.
Collin 44:04
Yes, and
Brandon 44:05
like we've heard about this mysterious neighbor. She's mad that she doesn't know about who he is either, because like she mentioned earlier, that like nobody knows who he is because like if he she says something like if he eats meat or vegetables or whatever, like nobody would know because he hasn't been seen out buying things. Well,
Collin 44:26
and I think part of that too was of like apparently, you know, her usual web of people who she can get to of yeah of the of the the butcher of the milkman of these people. He's not. They're not getting anything either. They're she. They're so she's completely in the dark on this, and and they do have the suspicion that she thinks that he's a hairdresser because his hair because of
Brandon 44:53
the way he is groomed, right? They also are mispronouncing his name.
Collin 44:58
Apparently, yes. Right? They're
Brandon 44:59
not pronouncing. Named correctly, because right at the beginning of the chapter, she's talking about the neighbor, right, and then she leaves the house, and then he shows up, right. So we have this comedic timing of like the one person who really wanted to know about him is gone, and so he shows himself. But was that?
Collin 45:18
I looked up angrily. Did he
Brandon 45:20
believe? I think he did it on purpose.
Collin 45:23
Maybe
Brandon 45:23
from what I know about our intrepid protagonist here,
Collin 45:26
I think I think maybe that there's some reason for this to be taking place, right?
Brandon 45:32
But yeah, they do they do kind of think that he is a hairdresser because of his mustache, right? They say because they think he's retired. Because he says he keeps he says things like in my former profession, and you know, he also has one of those new vacuum cleaners. Gasp, gasp.
Collin 45:57
She's just yeah. Everything about this man is serious. Also, apparently, she asked him if he was French, and he said no. And now, but in his speech, he's saying monsieur and yeah, monsieur, right? Like right.
Brandon 46:12
So like he speaks French, but he's not French.
Collin 46:15
Uh huh.
Brandon 46:16
And he has double mustaches, right? And so whenever he does pop his head over to talk to Doctor Shepherd, he's looking at him and he's like, "Oh, what is your profession?" And he just says, "I study human nature," and he's like, "Ah, clearly a hairdresser. Clearly a hairdresser. This makes sense." Who else knows the secrets of human nature better than a hairdresser? I mean, fair, but like, so he just like he like won't tell people what he does, what his profession was. You know, it's not important right now. You know, so again, we have this like, because we we know what he does just from context of like we know the character from other things, but like so we have this like dichotomy of like information and truth, right? We have given been given limited information, and then we have deduced these other very untrue things about our character, right? Like clearly a hairdresser,
Collin 47:23
clearly, obviously, and the conversation between our good doctor here and Perot, or whatever, you know, whatever, yeah, is Perot. Well, I mean that's
Brandon 47:42
how they spell it, but he's like they don't. But he like again they are mispronouncing his name, and he is not correcting them.
Collin 47:48
No, because he mentions he so doesn't want to be noticed that he's just like yeah yeah whatever whatever yeah however, and he's like this conversation is weird like they talk about prospecting in South South America, or you know, or yeah, Australia, Australia, and the oil fields, and he's like, "Oh, I had wanted to go there too," and he gets him talking, and then he was the end, like he's just getting him to tell more about the background that has no reason to be, you know,
Brandon 48:20
yeah, and he's like, "Oh yeah, well, he's like, you know, Miss Jackford." He's like, "Oh yes, he knew me in London when I was working there."
Collin 48:26
Yes, that's all he said. So like, well, and then and then from that, the doctor's like, "Wait a minute, I don't think." Oh, because because Poro says, like he he knew some information about Ackroyd that was very personal, like very hush hush. Then the doctor's like the doctor's like, no, wait a minute, he wouldn't trust that to just a hairdresser. Yeah. So clearly, this
Brandon 48:56
person is more important than that, right? Yes. So yes, and he does like he does ask like, oh yes, I was wondering about this reckless man with his handsome face, and he's like, oh, that would be Ralph Patton. He's like, oh yes, of course, I should have known, but like, you know, he's like prodding, you know, like he's trying to get the information out of them, but not giving any information up himself.
Speaker 4 49:26
No, right?
Brandon 49:26
Like, like I, I think it's funny, and I, I imagine it's not by accident that Perot is living next to the biggest source of information in the entire town, right?
Collin 49:43
Yes.
Brandon 49:44
Like, like I feel like this is important.
Collin 49:50
Absolutely, and not a coincidence. Yeah, bro. It's living next to the doctor and like and the gossip, right? Like,
Brandon 49:58
who are going to know everything? The whole entire town, and he's there, um, and he like tells them different things. He's like, oh, because they're like, oh, you know, earlier Caroline was like, oh, you know, mr. Ackroyd doesn't like that Ralph and Flora are seeing each other, and Perot's version is like, oh yeah, mr. Ackery told me he thinks it's cool.
Collin 50:22
Yeah, yeah. Like
Brandon 50:23
we don't know if this is like a misdirect, or like like we have already we have so much conflicting information already in three chapters. Yes.
Collin 50:32
Yeah, and it's that it is that kind of oh man, where you just and and also from from Perros here, he's going. I can you can imagine where he's seeding this information, so he knows now where if that pops back up or like how things go. Like you just can tell like this this conflict of information between the people. Well, yeah, I mean,
Brandon 51:05
yeah, it could be. I mean, we don't know why on earth he would be doing that, but he could be attempting to spread misinformation. And where better to plant that seed? Yes, with Caroline Shepherd.
Collin 51:17
Yes,
Brandon 51:17
right. Like, drop it there. Everyone's gonna know tomorrow, right? Maybe later today, actually. Like, and it's go ahead. Oh
Collin 51:31
no, no, it's it's just all all all coming together. That's sure, you know. But then, how does this how does this end this conversation? I forget. So he like
Brandon 51:41
he just like leaves, right? He's just like, oh, okay. And I don't know if it's like, you know, he just leaves. Um, and then Caroline comes back, and so I don't know if it's like, you know, he's just like, okay, bye, and then like Caroline comes back up, and she said she's been. He's like, "Where have you been?" It's like, "Oh, I've been walking through the wood," and he's like, "No, that's well, you were following somebody, obviously." And she's like, "Okay, I was following somebody."
Collin 52:15
So she's lying,
Brandon 52:18
and
Collin 52:20
oh, I love how when she said he says uh she said that I went to tell Ralph and Flora are engaged and he goes I knew that too who told you our new neighbor Caroline visibly wavered for a second much as if a roulette bottle might coyly up her near two numbers then she declined the tempting red herring like you can tell she's like whoa whoa
Brandon 52:39
yeah she's like you did more on that. She was like, "I'll get you back." But yeah, he she followed Ralph through the wood, right, and then she was like eavesdropping on their conversation, and she says, "You know, I simply couldn't help overhearing, You know, and it said what she overheard was, "Don't you realize that it is quite on the cards that the old man will cut me off with a shilling?" Right? He's been pretty fed up with me the past few years. A little more would do it, and we need the dibs, my dear. I shall be a very rich man when the old fellow pops off, he's mean as they make him, but he's rolling in money. Really, I don't want him to go altering his will. You leave it to me, and don't worry.
Collin 53:32
Don't worry, exact words. But
Brandon 53:33
they don't know. She doesn't know who it was because she did the old step on a twig, and they like started. They kept walking, and she's like, "I couldn't very well go running after them." And the brother responds, "Ah, yes, that must have been most vexing for you." Yes, yes, yes. And so they're like, "Well, who was it?" And he goes, "She, it wasn't a barmaid." We
Collin 54:00
know that,
Brandon 54:01
right? It doesn't seem to be this floor person, so it's maybe a third woman, right? Yeah.
Collin 54:13
Yes.
Brandon 54:14
So,
Collin 54:16
and then his sister rapidly went over a list of maidens living in the neighborhood with reasons for or against them, yes,
Brandon 54:23
she just whipped out the list, and so he is like so caught up in this. He's like, "I'm gonna go see if he's at Three Boars, and I'm gonna go just you know accidentally run into him." And he does this like on the way out to go somewhere else. He has to go on another call, but he like you know stops by to see if he's there, and he's like, "Oh, bro, what are what are you doing here?
Collin 54:45
How crazy! Yeah,
Speaker 1 54:47
wow!
Collin 54:49
Who would have guessed? Yes.
Brandon 54:51
And so they have a bit of a talk, and he Ralph sort of lets on. He's like distressed.
Collin 55:03
Yes,
Brandon 55:04
right. He's like, I can't see my way ahead. Uh, and he's like, well, if there's anything I could do to help, and he's like, nah, doc, right? I can't let you in on this. I've got to play a lone hand. Yeah, I've got to play a lone hand.
Collin 55:22
Weird.
Brandon 55:23
That is, yeah, yeah. So he's like been, he's like been sitting in there, like thinking about stuff, you know. And then like the shepherd comes in, and he's like, oh hey, and so he's like been interrupted, but like that's where we we leave at chapter three, right? We get this like, there's many things afoot,
Collin 55:43
and no
Brandon 55:44
doubt a few red herrings.
Collin 55:47
No doubt, right?
Brandon 55:48
Because we do have this like wild. We we have Caroline like wildly speculating just with like everything.
Collin 55:54
Yeah, and her brother even calls her. He's like, "Don't you think it's harmful to share about these things indiscriminately?" And she's like, "It's my duty to tell people; they'll find out sooner or later."
Brandon 56:06
Yeah, but like she, like whenever, like back to the first chapter, whenever she says that the the lady committed suicide, right? She's like, "He's like, how would you possibly think that?" And she's like, "I feel it because of this," and he's like, you can't just like speculate. Like she's just like speculating.
Collin 56:26
Yes,
Brandon 56:26
right. Whereas like there's like maybe one little piece of evidence, but then she like wildly extrapolates to something else like weird. And so this is the excuse me the like really weird thing between the two of them, right? That he is more factually based, but he's clearly not immune to the gossip mill, where she's just like, you know, the driving the wagons of the gossip train here. He's more
Collin 56:57
than happy. Yeah, yeah, she's yeah, she she's driving and he's following along from behind, for sure. Yeah,
Brandon 57:03
he's like, "Oh no, stop!" Anyway, what? Like,
Collin 57:08
right? So
Brandon 57:10
he, yeah, and and so again, I think this is very interesting. Like, already we have like a lot. There's a lot of information. There's a lot of players here that are related to this Roger person, and we know that he will be killed, and so there are some motives that have been put forward. So we can probably guarantee that those will not be the actual motives in the story, like gonna be probably misdirected here, but like
Collin 57:45
probably a couple times. Yeah,
Brandon 57:47
yeah, because it's never that easy, right? It can't be like, oh, yeah, it was that guy. So we'll see. But like, I thought that was interesting that we have a lot of information already. We potentially have misinformation that we don't know is wrong, but it's because it came from Caroline through who knows where, right? Like we have unreliable sources. We have this like interesting dichotomy between like what is true and what is fact, right? Like what is just what is just facts and what is the actual truth? Like how do we choose to interpret these facts? Right? How do we put them together? You know, where we'll have you know the doctor putting them together in one way, and then Caroline putting them together in another way, and then I'm sure eventually our mysterious neighbor putting them together in some way as well, right? We don't know that yet, obviously, but like you know, his name's on the back of the book. So, so there we go. It is interesting to me that this. I think this book is the fourth novel to feature him, Mister Perot. Oh, interesting!
Brandon 59:08
I think this is the fourth one, and he's already retired. So that was a really jumped the gun there. Like I know.
Collin 59:18
Sorry. Have a nice long career and retirement ahead of him. I'm sure.
Brandon 59:34
Lots of misinformation. So I'm very curious to see how this goes so far. So what did what did you think so far of the first bit here?
Collin 59:43
Oh, I um, I think it's fantastic. I I like being thrown. It's it's being thrown into the middle of something, but it's also, but it's not right. It's it's being thrown just before the calamity. And like, yeah,
Collin 1:00:03
backing up just enough to get the characters because you can imagine writing this when Akroyd is already dead, and then having to have some way of how things came about, right? And and learning some of this this pre you know story, and I think that starting before the main subject is dead, leading up into it, and I don't know how long it's going to take to actually get there. You know, it doesn't matter. Yeah, that
Brandon 1:00:34
is true. Like, when
Collin 1:00:36
does this actually happen, and how much of it will we be aware of before it gets there, but I I just like the the walking up to something that you know is going to happen that feels very different, right? It's yeah, it is some
Brandon 1:00:53
like dramatic irony type stuff. Yes,
Collin 1:00:56
yeah, I I that's what I'm I'm enjoying already. Three chapters in yeah of I know something that nobody else in this book knows, but I have no. That's all I know. It happens. Everything else around it is what I'm going to be discovering. So that's very nice.
Brandon 1:01:15
Yeah, it is interesting. It is interesting plot device, right? Like, yeah, the title of the book gives away what's going to happen, right? So it's like it's like a true whodunit, right? Because you already know who's going to be killed. Yeah. That's the interesting bit here.
Collin 1:01:47
Yeah, and I think that's the part that I'm interested in of how all that gets woven together. Yeah, for sure, for sure. So, so we'll see. How did you find the three chapter reading? I thought it was good. I was a little surprised because they started out kind of short, and then I was like, "Oh, they got real. They got long." So, uh, at least on mine, it seemed
Brandon 1:02:09
mine as well, right? Like,
Collin 1:02:11
so
Brandon 1:02:12
on the version I have, it's kind of like, "Oh, I I don't know if it's gonna like jump back and forth." Like, I was trying to look at like I don't want to like look at the table of contents too much, like spoil the chapter names or whatever, but like
Collin 1:02:22
okay,
Brandon 1:02:23
there are some beefy ones in here. Yeah, so
Collin 1:02:28
I think the three is fine. I think that that's a good pace. Okay, at least for now. Yeah, I think that's that'll be good for now for sure. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1 1:02:35
all right.
Collin 1:02:36
So that's all. Yeah, so we'll keep moving forward here and see what happens to our good friend to Roger to Roger. Oh yes,
Brandon 1:02:47
what is gonna happen? Well, we know what's gonna happen. We know, but how is gonna happen? To how and
Collin 1:02:52
who, who and how? That's for sure. Yes, and it's
Brandon 1:02:55
also it's also interesting that like there's already been a lot of talk of like poison and stuff. Yeah. So like you're already thinking like, is he gonna be poisoned? Is it gonna be made to look like an accident, or is it gonna be like blatant poisoning? Like because of all the talk of like people that have died from drinking and people that have died from poisoning potentially, and like all this, like there's been a lot of talk of poisons and other ways of death already, and so like it is also making you ask questions like, how is this going to happen?
Collin 1:03:30
Yep, yep. So so we'll see. We'll and and I and I'm also just trying to. I'm interested to see how quickly this happens. That's the other part that I'm going. Okay, like he's not. I mean, surely it's going to
Brandon 1:03:43
happen. Surely it will happen by next time.
Collin 1:03:46
I think so. That's my feeling. If we
Brandon 1:03:48
like wait the whole book and he dies like the second to last chapter, that would be super lame. So like I'm imagining it's going to be next time. We'll know that it has happened. That's my prediction. Bold prediction that the murder guy will die in the beginning of the book. So, like, I don't. Who knows? Who knows? We'll know next week.
Collin 1:04:11
Next week, we will indeed. Oh, well, to tide us over with that, I have a haiku for you. Guess.
Brandon 1:04:21
Let's go.
Collin 1:04:21
Guess win during the week. I wrote this.
Brandon 1:04:25
Okay. Okay.
Collin 1:04:28
My swing felt perfect. I watched my shot with such pride. Then it turned on me. Ah! Just
Speaker 5 1:04:41
yes.
Collin 1:04:42
Who knows when?
Brandon 1:04:44
Oh yeah, you know, just probably at Panera, right? I'm guessing, like at absolutely or on the front porch sign. Porch.
Collin 1:04:51
Yes. Oh, right. Just think, think you get it, and then it's just like that ball went nowhere that I was expecting. Like this is genuinely a random generation machine of like it means
Brandon 1:05:06
you'll have to go back to improve collin better.
Collin 1:05:08
Go do, gotta go top. Top coffin. We'll see if I can survive that. Okay. Well, we will do this again. All right.
Brandon 1:05:20
Hopefully with more stable internet. Sorry,
Collin 1:05:22
start working on that as well. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Until then. Yeah. Love you.
Brandon 1:05:27
Love you.
Collin 1:05:28
Bye.
Speaker 1 1:05:29
Bye.