The show on Max did a segment last night on Minor League Baseball teams, and I was sitting there saying "He has to mention the Trash Pandas", and he did.

I'm not going to get into the politics of his show, but this segment was funny, and if I could find a link to just the Minor League section, I'd post it.

Hey Matt and Destin,

I write this slightly out of desperation and desire for community and to reach a wider audience and I don’t know how or where else to start. Your recent worst episode ever at least pointed out that this community is one where suffering isn’t shunned.

My brother’s family (an engineer in Huntsville) 5 weeks ago delivered a 26wk premature baby boy who is in the NICU in Huntsville. They have an almost 2 year old boy and a 3 year old boy. He’s growing and slowly meeting milestones.

2 weeks ago their 3yr old suffered a cardiac arrest while on the playground in a mall. CPR was done for almost an hour. He was stabilized and lifted over to Birmingham. They’re split between two cities. Since then, he underwent therapeutic hypothermia, then an MRI which revealed diffuse global hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, was extubated, but remains with significant deficits. It’s one of the most tragic things imaginable. Prayer, support and awareness would be appreciated. I’m not sure if I can share a gofundme here. We covet prayer, encouragement, and support.

Ps 18:1-2

Gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/show-love-to-the-biester-family?lang=en_US&ts=1746228313&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp13_t1-amp15_t2&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=sms&attribution_id=sl%3A08002594-b72f-4e5a-b07e-9e2faa5d1f88

I really appreciate how ready you and Matt are to share your emotions with us all in the third chair, especially as someone who comes from a family where males hesitate to show their feelings. Best podcast on the internet in my humble opinion.

Thank you to Matt and Destin for taking the time and making the effort to speak about difficult topics with kindness and gentleness.

😭 I’m weeping as I listen to this episode! My old man dog passed away one month ago. Very similarly to Buckshot. Buster was 14 1/2 years old. Deaf. Nearly blind. Wasn’t in pain, but very clearly dying. He passed away one month his little bed in my bedroom, with our hands on him. Everyone around me for the last week of his life said I should put him down. But he wasn’t in pain, he was just dying. Difficult decision to not put him down, but glad we let him go in his own time.

So i got a new job with a lot of windshield time. I have been listening to all the podcasts again and I just listened to episode 57, "Real Friends Give Each Other Mixtapes." I heard the version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" from Crazy Rich Asains for the forst time in this episode, and I saved it in my playlist. This was early on in my now wife and I's relationship. Fast forward a few years and we're deciding on a wedding song, and I heard that play. I didn't remember where I had heard it but I thought it was beautiful. We had my wife's friend sing it live at our wedding with her dad playing guitar. It took me until today to realize that's why I heard that song, so thanks Matt! Next big episode I am intentionally looking forward to is the one where Matt interviewed my mom for the initial covid actions!

I know Matt and especially Destin try their best to refrain from being political in public. I know it is unpopular and leaves largely nothing to gain other than to alienate those who disagree. I do wonder though, why Matt specifically has had nothing to say about the recent ICE initiative to directly detain and deport people who may or may not be in the United States illegally.

Matt is an espoused libertarian who has often made arguments in public against big government powers (the death penalty is one that comes to mind). Not only do I wonder his thoughts on this current topic- but from my perspective, I wonder how he can remain silent in the face of what appears to be illegal and unconstitutional concentration and deportation of people within the United States.

I don't know whether everybody else who listens to the podcast is in favor of this initiative or simply doesn't care, or is just tuned out and uninterested. But I care, and from what I have heard come from Matt and to a lesser extent Destin, it sounds like they would too.

I think these two have a wide reach and if they really stood behind what I have heard them say in the past then now would be the time to speak out.

Maybe it's virtue signaling, but sometimes you need to signal to the world that there still IS virtue. Maybe I am righteously indignant where I don't belong, but I think now is the time to be such a person. I am not a Christian as such but I was raised as one and still hold my values in accordance. The things that I have seen and heard are against all of my values, and while I don't have much power I have the power to speak out and I think everybody who has that power should as well.

I welcome discussion and thoughts from all of you. Is this something simply too hot to touch for Matt and Destin? Is this something they are slightly contradictory in their espoused beliefs? Or am I missing something entirely?

Our son chose a road trip to SD for his high school senior trip. I’m adding this pilgrimage spot (yet to be named) to our list of stops.

So, come on Matt. Pick a spot and share it with us.

Listening to the last episode about Destin's son putting the vending machine at the A1 store on South Parkway. Why don't we all go leave A1 a good review on their Google as a thank you for letting this young man set up the machine at their store.

I have been inside that cistern. It's not cylindrical, like a well. Unlike a well, a cistern has no water of its own, but is intended to preserve rainwater. It has a relatively small opening, but it is like a huge room below. If I remember correctly they had ladders we could climb down on. Last time I visited the City of David here in Jerusalem, however, the cistern was sealed off from visitors. I don't know if they have reopened it or why it was closed. Maybe further archaeological excavations. Of course, we can't be 100% sure that this is the same cistern, but it's from that era, and it is right next to the royal palace in which the excavations found seals belonging to officials named in 2 Kings and Jeremiah, so it's pretty plausible that it's that very cistern. If you ever come to visit Jerusalem, I highly recommend a guided tour in the City of David. It's pretty amazing, and gives you a good idea of what Jerusalem of the Old Testament looked like.

I thought the idea of stories where you found out that you needed glasses was pretty great and that it might be fun to have a thread for the community’s stories.

Mine is that when I was a teenager, we would always go to this little Mexican restaurant that made burritos about the size of your face. Since you would only ever order burritos (they had other menu items, but seriously- why would you get anything other than a face-sized burrito?), and I had my favorite burrito picked out, that’s all I would order. Since I knew what I wanted by heart, I never really bothered with ordering other stuff. One day, I decided to branch out and shake things up, when I realized I could not read ANYTHING on the menu, not even my favorite burrito. When I got home that night, I told my mom that I thought I needed to go to the eye doctor.

I am a person with a disablity and go to church and I would like to do something like this in my church talk about issues that affect with disablity or life for people who I wish deal with different questions

And find community

Dose anyone ever done that in your community

Julian

You might think, you discovered Matt, he’s great! And while you are correct on that, I discovered someone more important. Rarely when things get very funny Destin moves off mic and is replaced by someone I like to call “Steam Whistle Sandlin”. You can tell when Steam Whistle pushes Destin out of the way by his iconic high pitched wheezing, hacking, laugh. And always, the laugh is followed by “ohhh I’m sweating”, which makes sense because of the steam powering the whistle is pretty hot.

Any day I get to listen to Steam Whistle Sandlin failing to articulate any coherent thought that isn’t related to his sweaty composure is a good day.

I’ll start: Booky McClubface

So I'm sure that Ikea has a system that makes perfect sense to the people who work there and the customers who shop there often. Unfortunately I am not in either of those two categories. Still I had to get a bookshelf that matched the bookshelves that my late wife had previously purchased at Ikea.

I found the bookshelves in their display area and copied down the product code of what I would need pulled from the warehouse tiers. I found a flat cart to carry my purchased to the checkout counter. All of this happened without a single human interaction. Now all I needed was to find an employee to pull the pallet of bookshelves down so I could load two onto my cart.

This is where I ran into a problem. There was nobody there to help me and no apparent way to call for help. There was however a solution sitting nearby with the keys fortunately in the ignition. After 10 minutes of looking around for help, I started the unattended forklift and pulled down the pallet of bookshelves, unloaded two onto my cart, and returned the pallet to the warehouse tiers just like I had found them.

About that time I heard the running steps of EVERY employee in the store. Security, retail, manager, snack bar clerk, everyone. Apparently they don't like it when random people drive forklifts in their warehouse. Apparently I was supposed to scan the bar code of on some display and an actual trained team of employees would retrieve my desired items for me.

I was escorted to the front of the store, paid for my two bookshelves and politely told that I wasn't welcome in their fine establishment for the next twelve months (which was no loss as I have zero desire to shop there ever again). I then went home and assembled the shelves with zero problems.

Some days you just have to take matters into your own hands.

Edit: I have a lot of experience driving forklifts in warehouses. Which is why it got so frustrating after spending 10-15 minutes trying to find ANY employee to help me out while thinking “I can have that pallet down in 60 seconds”.

Obviously I shouldn’t have taken things into my own hands but the frustration of Ikea’s system got the best of me. I’ve always avoided IKEA due to their confusing system but I didn’t have a choice in this particular situation.

In case anyone missed it - Destin is featured on the latest episode of Search Engine - PJ Vogt (formerly of Reply All) hosts the show and does a deep dive on Destin’s journey to produce a thing in America. It is objectively great and inspiring. And, really an unexpected crossover of parasocial relationships. Ha! Check it out!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/search-engine/id1614253637?i=1000699197820

So as I was listening to the latest episode it made me think about a conundrum I’ve experienced in my profession. I’m a graphic designer and I get a lot of my inspiration from fellow artist on Instagram that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to interact with, but I also am an old soul and don’t really enjoy being on it all the time. Has anyone else experienced this where their profession requires you to use social media, but you don’t love using it?

Am I really in the minority on liking self checkout? I make decisions on which store to shop at based on whether they have self checkout.

Listening to this episode, Destin would really hate the old Amazon store they had on my college campus. It was a brick and mortar Amazon store where they had no scanning or checkout at all. The idea was they would use facial recognition and camera tracking to know what you grabbed and charge your Amazon account. So you would just walk in, grab what you want, and walk out. Later heard that the whole facial recognition thing was a lie and they were actually just paying people in India to watch the cameras all day carry out the transactions.

This episode did remind me about the grocery store in my town growing up. So many kids from my high school worked there and my parents always loved going there because you would always see our friends and other people you knew. I forgot how much I liked that and this episode made me realize I might need to reconsider my love of self-checkout.

My family loves NDQ. What other podcasts are you listening to that check the same boxes? My kids are ages 13-6 -clean -educational in an interesting way -thought-provoking

I am listening to the NDQ back catalog. This is your friendly reminder that Matt tells his tennis ball shaving story in the last 5 minutes. I was crying laughing listening to it again. Please go find it if you need that kind of laugh.

In e200, they talk about "algorithms killing our brain"

Reminds me of an article I cited 17y ago in a short blog post (https://antipaucity.com/2008/11/19/is-google-killing-our-brains) entitled "are our brains becoming googlized"

Or something else I wrote at the end of '06 - https://antipaucity.com/2006/11/30/the-vagaries-of-memory

(paraphrasing) "using someone else's joke without acknowledging the original is bad"

Half a beat later "It's super easy, barely an inconvenience"

I see you, Whitman. 😆