Shadowing Practice: The Star Wars Prequels Rant — Intentionally Blank Ep. 276 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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1
I'm eating something.
2
What are you eating?
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I'm eating a Tums.
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Did you pay for it?
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Yes.
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Oh, so it's not a food heist to start us off?
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No, it's not.
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Oh, dang.
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Is Tums food?
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I don't know. Is?
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This one has like a candy shell.
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Oh. And so.
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I think anything with a candy shell counts as food.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You can put a candy shell around a squirrel.
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So anytime I travel, this has happened to you.
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Tell me if it's TMI.
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Okay.
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But I get more acid, right?
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My stomach's like, you were eating at this time, I think is what it's saying.
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When you were on the trip, why aren't you eating now?
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Does that make sense?
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I get heartburn.
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So I only get heartburn if I travel and I just came back from Hawaii.
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So the week after I change time zones,
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my body is annoyed that I'm not eating at the same times that I did at the time zones.
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Does that happen at the start of a trip?
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Yeah.
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It happens at the end.
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It takes about a week after I get back.
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So it's really the only time that I get any heartburn is that.
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My digestion is always better on a trip than it is at home.
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Interesting.
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And I don't know what I eat at home that...
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ruins it.
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Mm -hmm.
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Um, and my current, my prevailing theory is cereal.
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Uh -huh.
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Because I love breakfast cereal, but I never eat it when I'm traveling
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because I've never been to a hotel or restaurant that has the milk at the temperature that I like.
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And that just kind of ruins the whole thing.
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What is the temperature that you like milk?
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It's supposed to be cold.
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Okay, good.
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I just...
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Appropriately cold.
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I, I, I really thought you might be like, straight from the udder.
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Yeah.
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Hot milk.
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I mean, you like your drinks lukewarm, normally, so.
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Hmm.
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Okay.
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No, but milk has to be cold.
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Milk has to be very cold.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Well, when I used to have cereal, I liked my milk very cold also.
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I haven't had it in, like, 30 years.
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Yeah.
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30 years?
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I remember when I was a kid reading Wrinkle in Time, and in the first chapter,
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she and her brother are making warm milk on a pan on the stove.
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And I'm like, who in their right mind would ever want warm milk?
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That doesn't make, it did not and still does not make sense to me.
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No. So Donald, I did eat cereal and stuff when I was young.
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And then I went to Korea when I was 19.
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And they eat real food for breakfast.
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They just have rice and kimchi and stuff.
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And I'm like, you can do that?
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I don't have to eat this gross breakfast food that everyone always eats, I can just like have a sandwich.
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And when I get back, I'm like, nah, I'm going to get up and eat something that I like.
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See, here's the thing.
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I rarely eat cereal for breakfast.
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It is breakfast cereal, but I eat it as a snack throughout the day.
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Okay.
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If I'm hungry mid -afternoon, cereal.
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That's interesting to me because there are no cereals that I just actively like.
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They're too sugary.
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I don't like sweet things.
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See, I don't like sweet things either.
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My favorite cereal in the world is Wheat Chex.
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Okay, I can see that.
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I feel like that has a really good flavor to it.
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Hmm.
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And it isn't sweetened.
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I don't think that I would like
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Wheat Chex because when I've eaten them, like, I like Chex mixed with lots of salt and stuff.
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Oh, okay.
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And so maybe then.
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But I imagine that I wouldn't like the Wheat Chex, say, on their own.
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But yeah, I just don't like, my family all thinks it's bizarre.
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Like, pancakes.
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Like, I don't really like pancakes.
96
What?
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Amen, brother.
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No!
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Oh, you're both insane.
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Like...
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And my wife loves pancakes.
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I'll have them...
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She makes them a lot.
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I'll have a pancake as a dessert.
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That's fair.
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After a meal.
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Like, it's a cake with sugar on it.
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No, no, no, that's totally fair.
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It's like eating a donut, right?
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Yeah.
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Again, another breakfast thing.
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I don't like stuff like that.
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Uh -huh.
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Like, donuts?
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Yeah, I'm lactose intolerant, and I don't like sugar.
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Why would I want to eat pancakes?
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So, pancakes don't really do it for me.
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Uh, eggs on toast get a thumbs up for me.
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Like an egg sandwich.
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But a lot of the stuff people eat for breakfast just isn't my thing.
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I like eggs.
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Eggs with rice more than toast.
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Anyway.
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In all fairness, yes.
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We over here in America have probably the most sugary breakfast ever.
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That said, I think the convenient breakfast over here is sugar.
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But when we lived in Germany, we would make American breakfast for friends and like the missionaries and stuff,
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and everyone loved it.
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I feel like the kind of classic, I don't know what you'd call it, farm breakfast in America.
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Eggs, bacon, potato.
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Eggs, bacon, hash browns, sausage, maybe some pancakes on the side, an omelet.
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I like that stuff.
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We do that really well.
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We do.
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That is a spectacular breakfast.
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That's a lot of work.
137
Yes.
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So you rarely have it at home.
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Anyways, that's not what we're here for.
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We're here because, audience, we haven't done a Q &A in forever.
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So we are going to do a Q &A because I have lots of questions from Times. So, yeah.
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If you can possibly remind us which episode it came from.
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I will do my best from all the airheads.
144
Because we so stay on topic.
145
Indeed.
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all righty um well how apt
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that we have this uh this it comes from naren 25 i don't have the episode
148
but he says hello americans what do dan and brandon mean
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when they say biscuits i'm in england
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and what we call biscuits cannot be purchased from chicken shops yes thanks oh okay yeah yeah that is
151
that is a legitimate question totally yeah uh an american biscuit is kind of like what in the UK
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you would call a scone.
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Yeah.
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But it's usually saltier.
155
Yeah.
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Not sweet.
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Not sweets.
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You don't put, people do put jam on biscuits.
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You do put jam on them.
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You put honey on them.
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But the basic bread itself is kind of dry, kind of crumbly, savory.
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Lots of butter buttery.
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Yeah, so you would eat them.
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They're a lot more common in the South than they are here where we live, but we still make them a lot.
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My wife has a fantastic biscuit recipe.
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Biscuits and gravy are kind of a Southern meal that is really tasty.
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It's very bad for you.
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You should try it when you come to America,
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particularly if you can get to the South to one of the good restaurants that'll do stuff like that.
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Yeah, there's several YouTube channels that do this,
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but there's one I watch where they will take American foods over to a British high school and give them American foods.
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And the episode where they gave them biscuits and gravy was amazing
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because they thought it sounded ludicrous because they think of biscuits as sweet cookies.
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Yep.
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And then when they saw biscuits and gravy, you know, it just looks like somebody threw up on some old rolls.
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But then when they tasted it, it was the best thing they ever had in their lives.
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I mean, the British and their gravy are a thing.
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So I would expect that they would like it.
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Just they have to know what American biscuit is.
180
Yeah.
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Well, and the sausage gravy you get in biscuits and gravy doesn't look like a British gravy at all.
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No, it doesn't.
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It's a white gravy with sausage in it.
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It's very tasty.
185
Yeah.
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It is a breakfast food sometimes.
187
Yes, it is.
188
There you go.
189
Segways.
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I've had this.
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Does it count as a segue if we come back around to the first thing we already finished talking about?
192
Sure?
193
We make the rules.
194
It's a callback.
195
Ah, that's better.
196
Alrighty.
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It's a reprise.
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Reprise.
199
This comes from an old episode.
200
I've had this written down for a while ago.
201
But from DMI 5664, they said, you really just blew by Dan saying he'd love to mash two unrelated shows together,
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but didn't come up with any examples.
203
That might be a fun topic.
204
Dan, do you have two unrelated shows that you would just to smash together and see what happens?
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Unrelated shows that I want to smash together and see what happens.
206
Like The Godfather and Little House on the Prairie?
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Movies?
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Oh, that's a movie, you're right.
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Or TV shows?
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Breaking Bad and The Little House on the Prairie.
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I mean, Breaking Bad and The Little House on the Prairie sounds phenomenal.
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I would watch every episode and the After Hours podcast.
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That was the one I thought of.
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Somebody cooking cocaine because they didn't have meth back then, and getting all the cowboys hooked.
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And it's just, that's, that's.
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Yeah.
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Snake oil salesman goes around from town to town.
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But sells cocaine.
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Selling his tinctures.
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He gets people addicted.
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Yeah, that sounds really good.
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That's what I'd watch.
223
So that's my answer.
224
Thanks for answering for me.
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No way.
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There's a new
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Little House on the Prairie series on Netflix.
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There is?
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And I watched the first episode with my 10 -year -old.
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And we were fairly meh on it.
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So what I would like to do is smash up
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Ted Lasso with an actual sports show
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So you actually have a sports team doing a thing while they're doing all the drama and stuff
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Rather than it being kind of like this
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Like Ted Lasso and Friday Night Lights Yeah Where it's small town football but everyone's nice and happy
236
Well I just want
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Ted Lasso to actually have a storyline across the season
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Giving him a storyline feels like it's completely anathema to seasons two and three.
239
Right.
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Then season one had it.
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I know.
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And it was the good season.
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And so if they were trying to actually do something with the sports team
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and learn a lesson and have an actual underdog sports story alongside all of the great drama.
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Yeah.
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then the season would have been, seasons two and three would have been good.
247
Yeah, I know.
248
Rather than season two having some good episodes and then us not even wanting to watch season three.
249
Yeah, I'm so glad that you share my distaste for seasons two
250
and three because our listeners are going to hate me for it, but this time they have to hate you for it with me.
251
I mean, I don't know if this is a controversial opinion, right?
252
Like, Ted Lasso, season two, is really well acted.
253
There's some really great episodes.
254
I love that they delved into panic attacks with him and some of the, you know, like, but it floundered.
255
It just, it didn't know what it was about.
256
It didn't know what it was about.
257
And plus, I just cannot get behind a story about the owner of the sports team
258
and the young player having a romance.
259
It's a power imbalance that, like, they did it as well as you possibly could.
260
But if those genders were reversed, everyone would have the ick and I had the ick the whole time.
261
I'm like, you show this powerful woman and she's got a great arc in season one.
262
Why can't she find someone that she belongs with that isn't monetarily beholden to her?
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Yeah, that isn't her employee and half her age.
264
They spent so much time on that.
265
It was as well as it was acted.
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Both actors did a great job.
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I was bothered by it the whole time.
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And they didn't deal with the parts of it that bothered me.
269
It just, yeah.
270
Okay, so here's my pitch.
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All of the Ted Lasso main characters as the bridge crew of a starship.
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Oh, yes.
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Star Trek Ted Lasso.
274
Oh, yeah.
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He's the captain.
276
No, he's not the captain.
277
He's the first officer.
278
No, I think he's the captain.
279
And Rebecca is like the diplomat or something.
280
No, she's the admiral that's on the ship that you have to cater to.
281
So she could overrule you at any time.
282
Yeah.
283
All right.
284
What's Keeley?
285
Keeley has to be communications.
286
Communications.
287
Right.
288
I suppose that makes sense. Or doctor.
289
Keeley as the doctor, I would love.
290
Yeah.
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Roy?
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Roy, security officer, obviously.
293
Yeah.
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Jamie Tartt as the helmsman.
295
Yeah, sure.
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That makes sense.
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That makes perfect sense.
298
This actually all makes a lot of sense.
299
Yeah.
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Yeah.
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First officer would be Beard.
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Yeah.
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And then what's his name?
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Rebecca's assistant.
305
Is he engineering?
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Engineering is Nate the Great.
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Nate the Great. Is engineering.
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Yes.
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Oh, I love this.
310
Okay.
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This is what I want to see.
312
Yeah.
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That could be a lot of fun.
314
Yeah.
315
That's a good show right there.
316
Transpose them.
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Just want to watch it.
318
right now.
319
All right, make it happen, Dan.
320
Okay.
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Make it so.
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We have the power to waive our full point.
323
I might commission art of that.
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Because I want to see all the Ted Lasso characters in Starfleet uniforms.
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That'd be awesome.
326
That would be great.
327
With, you know, the soccer logo just kind of delicately worked into the uniform somehow.
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There you are.
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Yep, I'm on board.
330
That's fan art.
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Send it to Dan.
332
There you go.
333
But not AI art.
334
No. No. We don't want that.
335
All right.
336
Next question.
337
Next question.
338
From JSwag Audio, what would Emily's wish have been, Brandon?
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This context is from the newlywed game question.
340
Brandon gets one true wish.
341
No monkey paw involved.
342
What do you wish for?
343
You were like, oh, I know what Emily would wish for.
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We never circle back around.
345
Oh, yeah.
346
She would wish for all guns to vanish and no one would be able to make any more.
347
No, I'm not even joking.
348
Really?
349
She's mentioned that multiple times.
350
She just, the violence in the world bothers her.
351
And she doesn't want to take away people's free will.
352
But if she could take away the weapons that they used to make so much damage,
353
that there were no guns or anything, you know, gun -like.
354
Right.
355
If you had to go back to stabbing a dude, she feels like maybe there would be less of it.
356
I'm reminded of an Einstein quote.
357
That delights me.
358
Yeah, yeah, World War III will be with sticks and stones.
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I don't know what
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World War III will be fought with, but I know that
361
World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
362
That's it, yeah.
363
That's a good quote.
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So, that was Emily's wish.
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She's expressed that to me somewhat jokingly, somewhat realistically.
366
She whispers it to me because she doesn't want
367
Scar to hear because he would not like all the guns vanishing.
368
You know what I would do?
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I have this list in my head of if I were in charge. of America.
370
Okay.
371
Which is a good reason that I should not be in charge of America.
372
Okay.
373
If I were, day one, giant trucks, completely illegal.
374
If your pickup truck, if the hood of your pickup truck is above like four feet, no longer street legal.
375
Day two, no golf courses.
376
No golf courses?
377
Every golf course becomes a public park.
378
Why do you hate golf courses?
379
Well, because golf is dumb.
380
and also because it bothers me that there's all this wonderful green space
381
that is limited to use for a very narrow window of people.
382
You know that a lot of, like, there are a lot of very rich person golf courses, but the majority of them are not.
383
Oh, I know that.
384
Yeah.
385
Normal people, lots of people going and enjoying them.
386
There's a golf course right by my house, and it bothers me every time I drive through it.
387
Okay.
388
I'm seeing some of the bias here.
389
Giant trucks, gone.
390
Okay.
391
Golf courses, gone.
392
What's day three?
393
You've only gotten that far?
394
I think I should stop at day two.
395
Okay.
396
People already hate me enough.
397
We'll let people get over the giant trucks and golf courses.
398
Cats?
399
You're just going to kill all the cats.
400
There's no way you could kill all the cats.
401
They are nature's perfect urban predator.
402
They will outlast us all.
403
They will outlast us all.
404
I hope Adam does not kill you after this episode.
405
I know.
406
He's going to be sad.
407
And Adam being sad is like the one reason that I would slightly hesitate to nuke all the golf courses.
408
Fair enough.
409
All righty.
410
So this is from a whole bunch of humans.
411
I saw this consistently commented.
412
Orcs and goblins are separate beings.
413
They have evolved into two different things.
414
Oh, my gosh. Do we?
415
Are these people complaining because we talked about Tolkien's original definition that had them as essentially identical,
416
and then D &D has split them into different things, and so somebody's complaining because they think D &D is real?
417
Like, you guys know that orcs and goblins are made up, right?
418
Telling us that I'm wrong about them is laughable.
419
What are they actually mad about?
420
So finish I love me finish yes, so most of them when we were doing the Dark Lord episode where Brandon you know Sarah tipsy
421
Lee said you know they're the same thing we made a call Uruk -hai same thing a lot of people
422
Had taken the position that they are not the same thing
423
and that they are different and they want in D &D They aren't but in the real world.
424
They are the same thing I I I Yes I've talked to Saruman Many of Brandon's Best friends are orcs
425
Yes No Servants Servants They are minions
426
It's worse Yeah Ugh Alright To answer the question Lackeys Lackeys is best
427
There you go
428
There we go
429
Okay So the position has not changed
430
No the position has not changed
431
Like in D &D Yeah they're different things
432
Yeah like You could come up with Ten different fantasy properties
433
That have orcs and goblins in them and they'll all treat orcs and goblins in a different way from each other.
434
But if you go to the historical source in Professor Tolkien's research, he talks about the fact that they are the same.
435
And he is the leading authority.
436
The leading authority.
437
Okay.
438
There you go, everyone.
439
Speaking of lackeys, David Fryer, 435, says, I think you guys are underestimating slimes.
440
Slimes are very powerful, but they're cheap and they set and forget.
441
Putting out slimes is like putting up a chain link fence, but without the setup, and it's even cheaper
442
They don't stop people who are determined, but they keep out nosy people.
443
Has this convinced you at all?
444
Yeah, it's a good argument.
445
I'll bump them up a slot based on your argument
446
Very well reasoned.
447
There you go.
448
I want a t -shirt
449
That says I think you guys are underestimating slimes
450
That's my new idea.
451
Yeah, I'll give it to you.
452
Here's my counter -argument to you.
453
I know a lot of really annoying heroes that could not defeat most of the other minions,
454
but then because they're slimes that they can go practice on, they end up becoming an actual pain.
455
If there were no slimes, if you just started with the direwolves, these people would all be eaten,
456
and then they wouldn't be a problem in the future.
457
But I will bump them up.
458
They're F tier, then they go to D tier.
459
They go to D tier.
460
Okay.
461
Can you have dire slimes?
462
Is that a thing?
463
Slimes come in all kinds of varieties.
464
The problem is some of the varieties, like some for some reason, drop like a full bar of gold.
465
I know.
466
It's ludicrous.
467
It is ludicrous.
468
Like I didn't pay them that bar of gold.
469
Where did it come from?
470
They don't give it to me.
471
Then the stupid hero gets a bar of gold and he learns that killing slimes sometimes gives him a bar of gold.
472
It's aggravating.
473
Maybe they create it like.. pearls.
474
Yeah, they probably do.
475
I don't pay enough attention to slimes, obviously.
476
Is gold bars just slime excrement?
477
Maybe.
478
If that's the case, I'd put them up to sea at that point.
479
They'd become a very useful income source.
480
No, no, you can't.
481
The Darkler doesn't get that income.
482
That's not income we get.
483
You're mistaking.
484
That's non -taxable income?
485
Yeah, for some reason when the minions get killed, they sometimes have awesome stuff on them that they weren't using that I didn't give them.
486
Yeah.
487
Right? this doesn't make any sense if i kill a thousand lackeys i get nothing but this
488
doofus walks in and suddenly there is a vorpal sword on the on
489
that knoll yeah and it's like i didn't give him a vorpal sword
490
if i did he would have killed you no
491
it's just a vorpal sword just there just i haven't figured
492
it out yet ridiculous yeah all right what's next what is next we have from
493
lost there it is TK mate 14 but what would the Muppets cast be for wake up dead man
494
oh my gosh
495
wake up dead man uh huh all right this is from the dead man episode if you couldn't tell yeah so
496
what's his name Thanos who's in it right he's the dead body so he's the the priest who's the old priest
497
The old priest.
498
Who's cantacarous and disagreeable.
499
Is the eagle.
500
Sam the eagle.
501
Right?
502
Okay.
503
Could be Fozzie Bear.
504
What about Sweetums?
505
No, because he's articulate.
506
He has to deliver these lines.
507
And some of them are crude.
508
And Sam the eagle delivering them might be funny.
509
Yeah.
510
But Sam is not a crude person.
511
He's not.
512
I can't see him saying those lines.
513
But can you see any of the Muppets?
514
Can I see any of the Muppets?
515
animal, but he doesn't...
516
I mean, obviously Pepe the Prawn would say all of that dialogue.
517
Oh, he would.
518
Okay.
519
And he wouldn't feel bad about it.
520
Alright, Pepe the Prawn is cast as Thanos.
521
Young Priest is our human, right?
522
Yep, Young Priest is our human.
523
Okay.
524
Miss Piggy as the the matron who kind of runs the church?
525
That is the casting, yeah.
526
Yeah?
527
Uh -huh.
528
Alright, who's Benoit Blanc?
529
Kermit?
530
Benoit Blanc.
531
No, he's the Swedish chef.
532
You just can't understand him.
533
That would be so great.
534
He comes in.
535
I don't understand what you're saying.
536
I know you're a brilliant detective.
537
What are you saying?
538
I would also love Benoit Blanc as Dr. Teeth.
539
Yeah.
540
Gonzo would make a good Benoit Blanc also.
541
Doing the accent.
542
Mm -hmm.
543
Uh -huh.
544
Yeah.
545
That's actually the most funny, because the Swedish stuff gets old after one scene.
546
Mm -hmm.
547
But Gonzo doing a Benoit Block accent with his chickens, trying to solve the crime, is...
548
That works really well.
549
That works the whole movie. So, yeah.
550
There you go.
551
There's some.
552
Oh, then Kermit.
553
Yeah, where do you put Kermit?
554
Kermit...
555
Kermit isn't in this movie.
556
Really?
557
You hear Kermit's voice on the phone.
558
Yeah.
559
He's the the person he is the gender swapped woman that runs the yeah
560
Construction equipment rental yeah, you know there you go.
561
We weren't we aren't forcing Kermit to deal with this
562
Yeah, the new Kermit voice is not great either.
563
So we're just gonna leave him out.
564
Okay.
565
Okay fair enough
566
You got a good Kermit voice.
567
You do have a good Kermit voice.
568
There you go.
569
All righty from X6402.
570
Am I the only person who has watched these and thought
571
Ben was quiet and in the room for every episode?
572
A lot of people, I don't think, know who Ben is.
573
We talk about him a lot.
574
For the new viewers, who is Ben?
575
Who is Ben?
576
First of all, I love this question because it is a correct usage of am I the only person who?
577
Because so often when you see this online, it's someone saying the most obvious thing that's ever occurred to anyone.
578
Whereas this is a genuinely wonderful question and I think is kind of niche.
579
Ben is our former roommate.
580
Brandon and I have never been roommates, but we have both been roommates with Ben.
581
Yep.
582
He is a computer programmer.
583
And he is a little bit the Sam the Eagle of our whole group, meaning he had a normal job.
584
He had a normal major.
585
Yeah.
586
And then all of his friends, for some reason, are all these weirdos who are fantasy nerds who want to become authors.
587
And he's a big fantasy nerd too, but he's not an artist.
588
And he has a real job.
589
And he dresses nicely.
590
He knew how to comb his hair to look not just combed, but classy.
591
And so the reason we reference
592
Ben a lot is, number one, he's our friend.
593
When Dan and I were in college, we started a writing group together and Ben was in it just because Ben's around.
594
He doesn't write, but we put him in our writing group.
595
He was in the Dave Wolverton class with us.
596
I think that some of the only writing he's done.
597
He has composed music.
598
He used to write music all the time on a little MIDI player in our dorm room.
599
But he is the guy that we like to joke with.
600
You know how you'll have a friend group and there will be one that's a little more serious.
601
And that is the person that's fun to poke.
602
Ben is fun to poke.
603
And getting Ben to just look at you and shake his head is an achievement.
604
Achievement, any day that you do that is a brighter day when Ben is tired of putting up with you.
605
There are lots of people who know us both really well.
606
Ben is the only one who created a chat group with the three of us to complain about stuff
607
we say on this show.
608
Yes.
609
And that is why we started saying, how's that been?
610
Because we knew he was listening and we knew he was going to complain to us.
611
Well, and he specifically called out, we don't have an intro or an outro.
612
And he's like, you guys need an outro.
613
And so the new outro was, how's that been?
614
And I'm sorry, I just said that and half of you turned off because you thought it was over, but it's not over yet.
615
Not over yet.
616
So that is Ben.
617
Ben is that friend that is fun to poke.
618
Yeah.
619
And so he's right now listening to this and being aggravated at us.
620
One of my favorite things that
621
Ben would do is back when we all played D &D together.
622
I remember there was one night when I was going to be able to join D &D,
623
which I wasn't often able to do because I had little kids before everyone else did.
624
Dan got married when the rest of us were bachelors, and it was this weird thing where, like, Dan has a family.
625
Dan has a wife and kids.
626
So there was one week when I was going to be able to be there, and Ben was like, great, we're going to get pizza.
627
And then you and all your roommates made plans, and you all had pizza, and then I had to cancel last minute,
628
and Ben was like, well, then we're not going to get pizza.
629
Because the rest of you all still wanted it, but Ben was like, Dan's not coming.
630
No pizza.
631
All right.
632
He is weird himself.
633
He's just a different genre of weird than us.
634
I think you just described like half the human race, Brandon.
635
So one of the, I think the episode that just went up two days ago at time of recording
636
is the you and I newlywed game.
637
Correct.
638
Yes.
639
In which we said that my favorite book was Dune.
640
Yes.
641
And he texted us.
642
Both of us.
643
Both of us to say, I thought your favorite book was Les Miserables and that is absolutely one of my favorite books.
644
But Dune does edge it out.
645
There you go.
646
All righty.
647
Other questions.
648
From Keegan Green, sorry if I'm saying it wrong, 1694, I want the hour -long rant about the, adding this, Star Wars prequels.
649
As a millennial prequel lover, I want to hear that speech.
650
We do not have an hour, but do you have a small version of the rant?
651
That's how our podcast started.
652
Goodness.
653
Are you serious?
654
Yeah.
655
Like, you do not need to come to us to get a rant about the prequels.
656
Nobody our age liked them.
657
They are still bad.
658
They are still bad.
659
They have had a resurgence of popularity as people grew up with them.
660
Yeah.
661
But you can find reasons the prequels are bad anywhere on the internet.
662
Like, that's not a minority opinion.
663
Now, I'm way more aggravated by the sequels being bad than the prequels.
664
Yeah.
665
Because the prequels we watched were like, these are kind of bad.
666
It destroyed our illusion of George Lucas as this great storyteller, but we kind of already knew.
667
It had been years.
668
We'd watched George Lucas do his thing.
669
And while all the prequels really did to us was make us say, okay, George has good ideas.
670
He doesn't know how to execute on them.
671
He doesn't have the team that will let him execute on them anymore.
672
You can still watch these and appreciate the narrative, but the movie making is just bad.
673
Yeah.
674
The sequels aggravate me because the filmmaking is good and the storytelling is bad.
675
Yes.
676
And the couplet that I always use is that the prequels are a really good story,
677
poorly told, and the sequels are a terrible story, really well told.
678
Except for the third one.
679
Except for the third one where everything about it was bad.
680
Yeah.
681
So they kind of aggravate me because I feel like when you've got George Lucas,
682
who's just like his own weirdo dude who's going to make his thing, he's like, all right, this is the art you made.
683
I don't think you did a really good job with some of these things, but you know what?
684
You made your art.
685
It's yours.
686
It's Star Wars.
687
I'll appreciate what I can of it.
688
Yeah.
689
Yeah.
690
Final closing note on this topic.
691
They were so poorly directed.
692
Yeah.
693
Everyone in that, it is a murderer's row of fantastic actors.
694
And they all, to a person, come across wooden and awkward?
695
One transcends it, and that is Obi -Wan.
696
Obi -Wan manages to pull it off.
697
He manages to transcend it.
698
He's the only actor that manages to take that material.
699
Even Sam Jackson is so wooden.
700
Natalie Portman.
701
Natalie Portman.
702
Hayden Christensen.
703
Watch something else that Hayden Christensen is in.
704
He is a really good actor.
705
There's nothing.
706
They were directed very poorly in the prequels.
707
And so many scenes of just people walking and standing in a room
708
and talking instead of actually doing something and having a space adventure.
709
Yeah.
710
We can go on forever, but you can just watch that online.
711
There are people who've done seven -hour videos on the prequels and things.
712
I find the sequels more tragic and more interesting in their tragedy.
713
and more aggravating in the tragedy.
714
So Robert Jackson Bennett, friend of mine and wonderful author, his pitch to fix the prequels,
715
and everyone has their pitch to fix the prequels, and obviously there's a lot of things that need to be done.
716
But he said, if Anakin starts off as a slave, why not keep him locked in a box so
717
that he is always trapped inside this thing where he can't really move
718
and he can't really see and he has to breathe through a ventilator
719
and they let him out to do work but then he goes back in the box.
720
And then the arc of the first three movies is him gaining his freedom
721
and through his own hubris ending up back in a box again.
722
I love that idea.
723
That is clever.
724
That wouldn't fix them though.
725
It wouldn't fix everything but it is, I think, a fun starting place.
726
I think the way that you fix is you don't start him off as a little kid.
727
They find him as a cocky space fighter, like, you know, who is on this planet, a group of freedom fighters.
728
And the tragedy is that he becomes the thing the freedom fighters have to fight against.
729
And he's charismatic and interesting and kind of knows the force
730
and is too old to take the training but does it anyway.
731
And, you know, Jake Lloyd did a great job as a child actor.
732
Yeah.
733
But you don't need a child actor.
734
you need a charismatic interesting character who doesn't fit as a Jedi
735
hmm okay there you go that's the mini rant version I suspect we got four minutes left
736
we'll do these last ones then we did the trilogy of trilogies
737
episodes and a couple people left a few trilogies they were surprised we never ranked that's good good job
738
What are they?
739
So, first one, the Deadpool movies.
740
Have we seen all three Deadpool movies?
741
Oh, yeah.
742
I have seen all three Deadpool movies.
743
We did a whole episode about the three Deadpool movies.
744
Yes.
745
And I do think that it was a big miss for us to not include them.
746
Yeah, because they are an excellent trilogy.
747
They are.
748
Yeah.
749
They hold together as a trilogy pretty well.
750
I don't think that it ends as well.
751
The third one is strong.
752
I really like the third one, but it doesn't feel like an entry in the same trilogy like one and two do.
753
and that's really not their fault because Fox got bought
754
and they had to find some way to to deal with
755
that and it's an excellent movie
756
but two is the pinnacle yeah one is really good I'll give it a tier
757
because it's a trilogy the third one doesn't feel like it belongs even though it's a really good film
758
I will knock it down to a B
759
or maybe even a C okay because the wonderful supporting cast of 1 and 2 doesn't carry over at all into 3.
760
Yeah, well, except for a cameo by it.
761
Yeah, brief cameo, but yeah.
762
Anyway.
763
Yeah, very good supporting cast.
764
And it's what makes 3 feel, it's weird because it is really fun.
765
It's really fun, but it doesn't have the heart to it that 1 and 2 do.
766
It does for Wolverine, just not for Deadpool.
767
And I'm okay with that.
768
But it feels like its own.
769
If we get an actual Deadpool 3, that's what I want.
770
An actual Deadpool 3 with Deadpool and Wolverine being a side story, then we have a true trilogy.
771
Maybe it could be up to us.
772
That could be awesome.
773
Okay.
774
There you go for that one.
775
Kung Fu Panda was one I saw commonly requested.
776
Do you guys have seen all three?
777
I've seen all three.
778
I don't think I've seen three.
779
Now there's four.
780
The original three.
781
They were meant to be a trilogy.
782
See, I never think of it as a trilogy.
783
Because that one always feels to me like one movie that they spent years on and it's amazing.
784
And then, oh no, this is really popular.
785
Let's throw some other ones together.
786
Two was okay?
787
They're not thrown together, but they're not as good.
788
So as a series, number one is great.
789
Number one is fantastic.
790
But as a trilogy, B.
791
Okay, that's fair.
792
Any others?
793
Yes, we can go through them.
794
Hunger Games, if it counts.
795
It is four movies.
796
I have never seen a Hunger Games movie.
797
Really?
798
Or read the books.
799
Wow, okay.
800
And I've only seen and read the first.
801
Okay.
802
There you go.
803
We can skip past Hunger Games.
804
People should read the Hunger Games because they're fantastic books.
805
Yeah.
806
If we count this one, another one.
807
Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, Voyage Home.
808
Cheating.
809
Nonsense.
810
You can't say 2, 3, and 4 are a trilogy.
811
They are a sub -story, but yeah.
812
Cheating.
813
The Tom Holland Spider -Mans.
814
That was one that was also requested oh um
815
another one where the third one feels very odd compared to the other two yeah um
816
yeah that's actually a really good comparison to Deadpool
817
and Wolverine cause it's here's you know a really good personal story a follow up good personal story
818
and let's blow the budget on three and make it so big that it doesn't
819
doesn't feel like it's part of a piece anymore though I
820
really like three all three of them are good A tier same reasons as Deadpool.
821
I think in general, this might be controversial, the Deadpool movies consistently are just a tad better.
822
They just do more interesting things.
823
They are.
824
But the Spider -Man movies are solid.
825
So A tier, maybe top of the B tier.
826
I really like 2.
827
I understand a lot of people don't like 2 as much, but I'm also the weirdo who thought 3 was way too long and slow.
828
But I do, there's the question for me.
829
Do I think the Sam Raimi trilogy is better than the Tom Holland trilogy.
830
I am on record as saying I think
831
Tom Holland is a better Spider -Man.
832
Even though people love Tobey.
833
The villains are better in the Sam Raimi one.
834
Not surprising with Sam Raimi being so good with that side of storytelling.
835
So the villains are better.
836
Tom Holland's a better Spider -Man.
837
Vulture's not bad, though, as a villain.
838
Vulture's a pretty good villain.
839
Mysterio does a decent job.
840
It's not like they have terrible villains.
841
But, you know, Spider -Man 2 with Doc Ock.
842
Yeah.
843
It's a great village.
844
It's like a top three all -time superhero movie.
845
Yeah.
846
It's just, it's so hard for me to get over how bad MJ is cast in those.
847
Which is weird because Kirsten Dunst is so good in so many things, but she doesn't really work as MJ.
848
She really doesn't.
849
And something about Tobey, I love Tobey.
850
He just doesn't feel like
851
Spider -Man to me. and so
852
I'm gonna give it to the Sam Raimi trilogy I think I put it in B
853
and I think I said it was a tragedy at the time I think it is better
854
so I can't I may have to bump
855
it up to an A it's just the third one is super weak the third one is super weak
856
so I don't know has there been a really good
857
Mary Jane on film like Zendaya's character wonderful she's a fantastic actor yeah but she's not MJ She's an alternate universe MJ, which is fine.
858
And Kirsten Dunst, again, fantastic actor.
859
Didn't really work as MJ.
860
The Garfield series didn't even try.
861
They used Gwen Stacy instead.
862
I don't know if we've ever gotten a good live action Mary Jane.
863
None that come to mind, no. All right.
864
Last but not least, just a quick Brandon shoulder check.
865
How are you feeling?
866
Pretty good.
867
So my range of motion is completely back.
868
It aches if I do signings.
869
And I can't quite get reached behind my back the way I used to.
870
So that one I'm still doing exercises on.
871
But you can see I can go all the way back like I used to.
872
And so I call it recovered except for an occasional ache and that one, like this motion, is hard for me.
873
I don't know if you noticed, but when you started stretching your shoulder, Ollie and I both immediately started stretching our shoulders.
874
That seems very natural.
875
The question is, at home, did Ben stretch?
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Star Wars Prequels Rant — Intentionally Blank Ep. 276”. This video has 875 sentences and 6769 words to shadow. The speech runs for 39:59. The speaker talks at a natural 169 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| trilogy noun | /ˈtɹɪləd͡ʒi/ | A set of three connected works—usually dramas, literary pieces, films, or musical compositions—all related by theme, characters, or setting. |
| cereal noun | /ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/ | A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains. |
| tier noun | /ˈtɪɚ/ | A row or range, especially one at a higher or lower level than another. |
| bother verb | /ˈbɑðɚ/ | To annoy, to disturb, to irritate; to be troublesome to, to make trouble for. |
| priest noun | /ˈpɹiːst/ | A religious clergyman (clergywoman, clergyperson) who is trained to perform services or sacrifices at a church or temple. |
| villain noun | /ˈvɪl.ən/ | A vile, wicked person. |
| pizza noun | /ˈpi.tsə/ | A baked Italian dish of a thinly rolled bread crust typically topped before baking with tomato sauce, cheese, and other ingredients such as meat or vegetables. |
| complain verb | /kəmˈpleɪn/ | To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment. |
| tragedy noun | /ˈtɹæd͡ʒ.ɪ.di/ | A drama or similar work, in which the main character is brought to ruin or otherwise suffers the extreme consequences of some tragic flaw or weakness of… |
| eagle noun | /ˈiːɡəl/ | Any of several large carnivorous and carrion-eating birds in the family Accipitridae, having a powerful hooked bill and keen vision. |
| sequel noun | /ˈsiːkwəl/ | A narrative that is written after another narrative set in the same universe, especially a narrative that is chronologically set after its predecessors, or… |
| rant verb | /ɹænt/ | To speak or shout at length in uncontrollable anger. |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| pitch noun | /pɪt͡ʃ/ | A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand. |
| shell noun | /ʃɛl/ | The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Did you pay for it?
- When you were on the trip, why aren't you eating now?
- What is the temperature that you like milk?
- Why would I want to eat pancakes?
- You've only gotten that far?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to have · used to make · used to write |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If that's the case, I'd put |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has happened · I've never been · haven't had |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | isn't sweetened · cannot be purchased · were reversed |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 171 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, breathe /bɹiːð/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shell /ʃɛl/, smash /smæʃ/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: consistently /kənˈsɪstəntli/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/, underestimate /ʌndɚˈɛs.tɪ.meɪt/, ridiculous /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like trilogy, cereal, tier.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.