transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:13] Hello, everyone, we are The Tooth & Claw Podcast, and we have the king of all bears, Wes Larson, with us. I'm Wes's little brother, Jeff, and then we also have-

Speaker 2:
[00:26] The Prince of Bears.

Speaker 1:
[00:27] Mike Smith. Yeah, I'm the prince and Mike Smith, who is our little jester.

Speaker 2:
[00:35] That's actually better than I was expecting.

Speaker 3:
[00:38] Do little dances for us.

Speaker 2:
[00:39] Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1:
[00:41] And we are a wildlife podcast. We talk about a bunch of different wildlife stories, a lot of different attack stories, what people can do to avoid getting attacked. And me and Mike actually specialize in, while you're being attacked, what tactics you could use to overcome a lot of extremely dangerous animals.

Speaker 3:
[01:06] You guys have become real professionals.

Speaker 1:
[01:08] Wes is an expert at avoiding that situation all together.

Speaker 3:
[01:13] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[01:14] How would you put that intro, Wes?

Speaker 3:
[01:17] That's a 10 out of 10, Jeff. That's a 10. Really?

Speaker 2:
[01:22] You're giving him a 10 for that?

Speaker 3:
[01:24] I'm just in a good mood.

Speaker 2:
[01:26] OK, yeah, we'll keep, let's keep it big.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] No ass eating in that one.

Speaker 3:
[01:29] Spring has sprung here. Yeah, he didn't say, well, now it's out there, but now it's a 10. Yeah, now it lost a couple points for that.

Speaker 1:
[01:39] You guys got anything you want to talk about before we get into the episode?

Speaker 3:
[01:43] No, sir. No, let's do it.

Speaker 1:
[01:44] All right. Well, this was going to be a news episode, so we're going to just talk about recent animal stories in the news that, you know, might not make it to a main episode, but are worth talking about still, you know?

Speaker 3:
[01:59] Yeah, none of these, this is a main episode, but none of these can fill an episode on their own. That's right. And we do this like every probably five episodes, we throw out one of these because a lot happens. There's a lot of news. You know, we're bombarded by it. And some of this animal news might slip through the cracks if you're not paying attention.

Speaker 1:
[02:22] And it's a really hard episode because, you know, there's a lot of stories being made up out there that keep tricking me, you know?

Speaker 3:
[02:30] Fake news.

Speaker 1:
[02:31] Like there's this dog that escaped and led seven other dogs back to their homes that went viral.

Speaker 3:
[02:37] Yeah. What was the one? You posted one to our account not long ago that I had to tell you was fake.

Speaker 1:
[02:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[02:43] Uh-oh. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[02:45] He was crestfallen, Mike. I've never seen him sadder than when I told him that story was fake. It was a what?

Speaker 1:
[02:52] I said dang it.

Speaker 3:
[02:53] Yeah, dang it. Gull, gull, darn it. Uh, who wants to go first? Could I? You know I do.

Speaker 1:
[03:00] I'll go first.

Speaker 3:
[03:01] Sure. All three of us. Wait, Mike. Mike said it first.

Speaker 1:
[03:05] Wait, pick a number, Wes.

Speaker 3:
[03:10] Any number?

Speaker 1:
[03:11] One to three, you got it.

Speaker 2:
[03:13] You got it. Yeah, I'm gonna be silent.

Speaker 1:
[03:14] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[03:15] OK, I'll pick three.

Speaker 1:
[03:17] OK, three goes first. Mike, pick a number.

Speaker 2:
[03:20] Two.

Speaker 1:
[03:21] Two goes second. I'll go last.

Speaker 3:
[03:24] OK. All right. So I'm going to actually start with a story that got sent to me a lot. I don't know how much it got sent to the podcast, but it's about a bear in California. I was just in California for a couple of weeks, and so I decided all of my stories today are going to be from California because a lot happened there the last couple of months, actually. But yeah, this one got sent to me a lot. It's The Tragic Story of Blondie the Bear, and I might take a stance on this one that's a little bit surprising to a lot of people, especially our newer listeners. But I do want listeners of the show to understand that wildlife management is really tricky. There's a lot of different interest groups involved if you're a wildlife manager and part of being a good biologist and wildlife managers learning how to make hard decisions.

Speaker 1:
[04:16] So in mid-March, Will you ever just stay neutral on something? Just be like, I don't have a stance. You always have a stance.

Speaker 3:
[04:23] I don't always, actually.

Speaker 2:
[04:25] Like JoJo.

Speaker 3:
[04:25] But I do on wildlife stuff, usually.

Speaker 1:
[04:29] What's your stance on top-ramming?

Speaker 3:
[04:33] I'm neutral.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] All right.

Speaker 2:
[04:35] No, you're not. You're just saying that now. You're just saying that to appease Jeff so he stops talking.

Speaker 3:
[04:40] Yep. In mid-March, a female black bear named Blondie was captured in Monrovia, which is a city in the foothills of Los Angeles County. This bear and her two cubs, these were cubs of the year, so new cubs, were well known to the public and she was often spotted swimming in people's swimming pools, or eating out of unprotected trash. She was especially popular this year because she had these brand new baby cubs with her that are very cute. There's not much cuter than black bear cubs when they're pretty new, you know?

Speaker 1:
[05:12] Yeah. Maybe baby ducks.

Speaker 3:
[05:15] Yeah. Those are the two cutest things, I think, in the world. All right. She was captured, this bear was captured because her habituation and food conditioning had recently taken a bit of a scary turn. She'd already had a big strike against her when last June, she approached an elderly man on his porch and swiped at him, causing minor injuries. Then on March 14th of this year, she again swiped at a woman who was out walking her dog and again caused minor injuries. We've talked about black bears a lot on the show. They really don't often make contact with humans unless there are extenuating circumstances. I really think this bear being so habituated and fed, not on purpose fed, but she's eating trash, she's eating human food, dog food, all these different things, made her a lot more comfortable around humans. And I'm actually really impressed that she wasn't captured after this first incident, climbing up on someone's porch and swiping at them. In most places in Missoula, that would be a bear that they would put down immediately. But I do think some of these foothills of LA bears get a lot of chances before they get in trouble. And the second incident must have just been too much for wildlife officials because they did capture Blondie and her cubs. The decision was made a few days later to euthanize Blondie. So on March 17, she was euthanized and her cubs are put in a wildlife rehab with the hope that they could be returned to the wild when they're old enough. No big surprise, the community was not happy about this. They even had a two-mile march in remembrance of Blondie. There was protests. They were not excited that this bear was killed. Yeah, I know you would. Local leaders were upset that they were kept out of the decision-making process, and people made threats against the wildlife department. Now, Jeff already voiced his opinion. I'm going to voice mine. I think this was the only decision that they could have made at this point. Once you catch this bear, the cubs are probably young enough they can be rewilded, but this bear, the female, had already shown a history of food conditioning, extreme habituation with two attacks. She's a huge liability, both legally and for the overall public perception of black bears. So really, I think the people that are blamed here are the people that were allowing her to access human food, not the wildlife officials that had to make a hard decision and kill a bear I promised you they did not want to kill. So I'm sure someone's going to ask the question out there, why didn't they just move her? Why didn't they put her somewhere else? And the problem with that is they often come back to where you moved them from, even if you go pretty far. And then the other problem is if you move it far enough, it's just moving a problem. She's going to find other houses, she's going to find cabins or whatever else and look for food in those places too. And at that point, she's so food conditioned that if she doesn't find it, she might try and break into the house or do things that really cause problems. And the reason that I think you have to euthanize a bear like this is that once they start doing those things, people start to dislike bears. It starts to create a negative perception of the species as a whole and the population as a whole. So you can't make these kind of decisions based on individual bears. You have to make them based on the whole population. So I do think they did what they had to do here.

Speaker 2:
[08:59] Do you think after everyone walked two miles, they'll change the way they respond to these incidents in the future?

Speaker 3:
[09:05] Yeah. I think the wildlife people were like, oh yeah, okay. If we could resurrect or we would.

Speaker 2:
[09:10] But they probably are like, you got to walk at least three miles before we start taking you seriously. I actually, I like the fact that they did that. I think that's a nice thing.

Speaker 1:
[09:21] Like I like that the town wants bears. That the people there want bears, that they're upset whenever a bear is killed. I think that's the way it should be. And even if the bear, like even if it's better off for all the bears than the area that this bear was killed, maybe that was the right decision by like the wildlife department. But like I'm still glad that the public is getting mad at them for it.

Speaker 2:
[09:49] Cares.

Speaker 1:
[09:49] You know, because like it shows that they're on the side of having bears.

Speaker 3:
[09:53] I'm glad that the public was mad that this bear had to be killed, but their anger should be directed at people that were letting her eat human food. That's where that's where the changes and the damn skateboarders and skateboarders. They gotta be mad at skateboarders because they're they're always causing problems.

Speaker 1:
[10:12] Yeah, they're throwing food everywhere too.

Speaker 3:
[10:15] Yeah, the wildlife. I, you know, having worked with a lot of different wildlife people and in a lot of different places and people from different backgrounds, I've never met anyone that wanted to kill a bear. And I've met a lot of people that are like really gun happy. They're working in wildlife and they still don't like shooting bears. You usually don't get into a wildlife profession if you want to kill wildlife. Just like, you know, for these kind of reasons. There's plenty of hunters that get into wildlife, but that's a different story. So I feel bad for these people that had to make this decision. They don't want to do it. And I'm with you guys. I'm glad that they love this bear. And I'm glad that they like had a remembrance for her. But I would I would hope that they don't blame the wildlife agencies for her death. They need to blame themselves, unfortunately.

Speaker 2:
[11:10] I have kind of a dumb question maybe, Wes.

Speaker 3:
[11:13] Yeah, what's that, Mike?

Speaker 2:
[11:15] So this bear's name was Blondie. And I was going to make a joke about how do they know, like, did the bear tell them that was her name? But do bears and other animals actually vocalize? Like, do they name each other? Do they have things that they can, like, vocalize that will call attention to a specific other member of their pack or species?

Speaker 3:
[11:38] I don't think so. I think they've done research that may be like whales and like chimpanzees and some of these really kind of upper level intelligence animals might be vocalizing specific sounds for specific individuals. But I would be very surprised if bears have, like, names for their family members or cohorts or whatever. So I don't know if anyone's done that work though.

Speaker 1:
[12:06] At the shelter, they were calling my dog Bronze. And when I adopted him, he told me his name is Shanks.

Speaker 2:
[12:14] See, Wes?

Speaker 1:
[12:15] Is that what you're asking, Mike?

Speaker 2:
[12:17] That's exactly what I was getting at.

Speaker 3:
[12:18] That was a better answer.

Speaker 2:
[12:20] Finally.

Speaker 1:
[12:22] So yes, animals do name each other.

Speaker 3:
[12:25] This one was named Blondie because she was a fairly blonde black bear.

Speaker 1:
[12:32] And it just so happened to be the name the bears gave her, too?

Speaker 3:
[12:36] I don't think the bears had given her a name, but.

Speaker 1:
[12:38] Oh, so Mike, what were you saying, Mike?

Speaker 2:
[12:41] I don't, I'm not even sure anymore, Jeff. You've got me all twisted about.

Speaker 3:
[12:46] All right. I'm done with my first story.

Speaker 2:
[12:49] Okay. This one, I'm calling this one Wolfgang the Window Shopper.

Speaker 1:
[12:53] Why?

Speaker 2:
[12:54] You'll see, Jeff, I got some details that might elucidate a little bit as to why I'm calling it that. So.

Speaker 1:
[12:59] What does that have to do with Window Shop?

Speaker 2:
[13:02] A major shopping street in Hamburg, Germany. This happened March 30th, I believe, 2026. At least all the articles that I read were published on that date. So let's go to Germany, guys. You guys are always like, Europe, not that dangerous when wildlife is concerned.

Speaker 3:
[13:18] Well, it's true.

Speaker 2:
[13:19] Try telling that to this lady in the story.

Speaker 3:
[13:22] I won't.

Speaker 2:
[13:24] So we've got a pretty rare attack here, actually. And this is the first time that such an incident has happened since 1998. So on the evening of a late March day, there's a German woman walking through the shopping center near an inner city Ikea. She was walking around the shopping center and she saw what she initially thought was a huge dog repeatedly running into a pane of glass. So if you can imagine, and again, this, a lot of these articles were translated directly just from German. So it wasn't made exactly clear in the language I'm able to read, but it's made it sound like it was trapped behind maybe inside of a storefront, trying to get out and escape to safety rather than like trying to get into somewhere. But again, I'm not totally clear as to what was happening. Anyway, she felt pretty bad because again, it looked like this animal is doing harm to itself. So she approached it hoping to lead it outside into somewhere. It would feel a little more safe to escape to freedom, you know? What happened from there was witnessed by a musical theater actor named Lionel von Lawrence Olin. Okay, again, we're in Germany here if it wasn't made clear yet. He was also out shopping in the area with his two-year-old daughter. And as they were leaving the supermarket, they heard and saw this woman fall to the ground. And they thought this was just a huge dog at first too. But they quickly realized this is one of an increasing sighting of wolves penetrating into city centers. And they're like, oh my gosh, we got to go help. So he ran over. This wolf was on top of her. It disengaged and ran off. He gave her a handkerchief because she had a pretty gnarly wound on her face from the wolf. Bitter right on the cheek, I think, is what it was trying to communicate to me in this article. So again, according to authorities, this is the first time a wolf attack has been recorded in Germany since 1998. And they've just very recently begun to re-inhabit this part of the world after 150 years of being, I think, extirpated is the term, right? Would that make sense, Wes?

Speaker 3:
[15:28] When you say this part of the world, you mean like downtown Hamburg?

Speaker 2:
[15:31] Yeah. It's like Germany generally. There's just not 150 years. Wolves just haven't been in Germany, period. Yeah. But ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall, that's opened the way for wolves to come in from the east through Poland back into Germany. So in 2024, the confirmed number of wild packs has risen anywhere from between 100 to 200, which is pretty great, I think, because like in West, tell us again. I love this story. I do so love it when you tell why how are wolves of hold on. I'm going to just get myself together. OK, it's not even funny. Wolves in their ecosystems, like why, why are they important to have as far as like balancing out the natural world?

Speaker 3:
[16:17] Yeah, there's a lot of consequences that can come from this kind of landscape of fear.

Speaker 1:
[16:23] Trees.

Speaker 3:
[16:24] But I actually, I'm glad you brought this up because there, so that whole, that whole thesis in Yellowstone with like the willows growing in and the beavers coming back and all of that, there's been a lot of pushback to that idea recently. And even a lot of the wolf biologists in Yellowstone are saying no, that's actually not why we're having this willow regeneration and whatnot. Like hunting has actually been a bigger effect on that than anything. A few different factors are at play. So I don't think we can say that wolves coming back have that grand of an effect like we've talked about. But what we can say is that they are alpha predators, and all these different trophic levels below them, all the things that they're eating and the things that they're eating and whatnot, are going to be affected by their presence on the landscape. What, how marked that effect is, is still kind of under review.

Speaker 2:
[17:20] Hmm, okay.

Speaker 3:
[17:22] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:23] Well, just to tack on a quick code into the story. So the wolf escaped last we heard from it. It was running around taking just a tour of Hamburg, and it ended up-

Speaker 3:
[17:31] Look at their hamburgers.

Speaker 2:
[17:32] You gotta imagine, right? You have to.

Speaker 3:
[17:34] That's where they're from.

Speaker 2:
[17:37] Is that-

Speaker 3:
[17:38] I don't think so.

Speaker 2:
[17:38] Is that a-

Speaker 3:
[17:39] I think-

Speaker 2:
[17:39] Are we busting that myth? I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[17:41] Germany made hamburgers.

Speaker 3:
[17:43] I think that's- they're named after Hamburg, but I don't think they're actually from there.

Speaker 1:
[17:50] Do you think French fries are from France?

Speaker 2:
[17:53] French's mustard.

Speaker 3:
[17:54] You guys remember after 9-11, everyone was calling them freedom fries?

Speaker 2:
[17:59] Dude, even back then, I was like, this is the stupidest thing ever. I was like 10, and I was like, this is stupid.

Speaker 3:
[18:04] And it was just because France didn't want to like go indiscriminately bomb people, so we were like, oh, these are freedom fries now. So stupid. Okay, I'm going to see what hamburgers came from.

Speaker 2:
[18:16] Okay, do that, and I'll finish the story while you do that. So it was swimming around, it eventually made its way into a lake, and the police got it surrounded, and they threw a lasso, and this is kind of impressive. They lassoed it and pulled it back up onto land. And for the next hour, this wolf was just fighting them. They said the police had to get out like riot shields, I think is what it was talking about, because it was just going crazy trying to get away. Eventually they were able to corral it, and send it off to... Ba-ba-ba, whereas at Clovenstein Wildlife Park, where they were holding it until it could calm down, upon which time they would release it back into the wild somewhere less populated.

Speaker 1:
[18:52] So yeah, we've heard that with Germany before. Send them to a camp.

Speaker 3:
[18:59] You don't want that.

Speaker 1:
[19:03] I'm just worried about the wolf, is all I'm saying.

Speaker 2:
[19:06] You're asking the right, you're asking questions, which is a step.

Speaker 1:
[19:12] No stupid questions.

Speaker 3:
[19:14] I just keep thinking about how crazy that would be. Imagine you're in downtown Salt Lake. Hamburg is like a big city.

Speaker 2:
[19:21] I know.

Speaker 3:
[19:22] And you're just strolling around window shopping, eating a hamburger, and you just see a wolf, you know? Right.

Speaker 1:
[19:36] Where are they from?

Speaker 3:
[19:38] They're from the US, but they were created by German immigrants that had this thing called a Hamburg steak, which was a chopped, almost ground beef-like steak. They used those to create hamburgers.

Speaker 2:
[19:53] See, Germany, you've got a lot of history to be proud of. Just focus on what you've done that's good, instead of...

Speaker 3:
[19:58] Yeah, why do you have to keep bringing up all the bad stuff, Jeff?

Speaker 1:
[20:02] That's probably partially my fault.

Speaker 2:
[20:05] They did go to war against the entire world twice. So that's like a... But on the other side, they did...

Speaker 3:
[20:12] The first time was fun though.

Speaker 1:
[20:14] Respect it.

Speaker 2:
[20:14] First time seemed a little more fun.

Speaker 3:
[20:15] The second time was the bad one.

Speaker 1:
[20:17] Like imagine if one UFC fighter was just like, I'm going to fight all of them at once.

Speaker 2:
[20:22] Right. And kind of like got close to winning.

Speaker 1:
[20:25] You should be like, that's kind of badass.

Speaker 2:
[20:26] Yeah. They did put up a good fight too.

Speaker 3:
[20:29] And then they almost won both times. They get like beaten down to a pulp and then they get up and they're like, I want to go again.

Speaker 2:
[20:36] Let's go around too.

Speaker 1:
[20:37] And then you got the few of the fighters in the big group just like quit before they even start. They're just like, no.

Speaker 2:
[20:45] Before we get people writing in, I'm going to retract what I said. You can stand by what you said, Wes. World War I didn't sound fun really at all for the boots on the ground. But I see, I think I kind of see what you're meaning.

Speaker 3:
[20:56] Fun reasons. They got into it for fun reasons.

Speaker 1:
[20:59] I'll push back on that.

Speaker 2:
[21:00] Yeah, go ahead, Jeff. I don't care. It's your turn.

Speaker 3:
[21:06] Your turn, Jeff. I don't know about you guys, but I feel stressed a lot. I feel like we are constantly bombarded with more news and information and things that the human mind was ever supposed to deal with. And it's a lot to make sense of. And I feel like we do sometimes need some help to deal with our stress. And that's where cortisol calming from Veracity comes in. This podcast is sponsored by Veracity. Veracity provides all natural ways to reduce stress. With Veracity's drug free, clinically proven and doctor formulated solutions, you can support your body's needs to live your healthiest life. And if your goal is stress relief like mine, you need to try cortisol calming. With cortisol calming, you can build resistance and resilience to fight or flight stress from spikes in the stress hormone cortisol. We've talked about fight or flight a lot on the podcast, and I don't know if this would help you if you encountered a grizzly bear, but it would help with a lot of your day to day stresses. It alleviates the effects of cortisol spikes. Stuff like anxiety, brain fog, cravings, visceral fat and slowed metabolism. And the results are real and clinically proven. Within 30 minutes, you'll start to feel a reduction in stress and feel more relaxed. Within 3 weeks, you can get your sleep back in sync and start to feel less fatigue, which is a big deal in today's modern world. And with a product like Veracity, a common question is, what are the side effects? Since cortisol calming is made with 100% natural ingredients, clinical trials showed no negative side effects from the ingredients. So calm your stress the natural way. Head to veracityhealth.co and use code Tooth for up to 65% off your order. Once again, that's V-E-R-A-C-I-T-Y-HEALTHCO for up to 65% off. And make sure you use our promo code Tooth so that they know that we sent you.

Speaker 1:
[22:59] All right, Mike.

Speaker 3:
[23:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:00] What's your favorite thing about popular streamer Cuvicular?

Speaker 2:
[23:05] Oh, his looks maxing tutorials on YouTube.

Speaker 3:
[23:09] Is that who that is?

Speaker 1:
[23:11] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[23:12] God, this looks maxing. This is someone I really hoped we'd never have to bring up ever on the show.

Speaker 1:
[23:20] Wes, you've been bare maxing for years.

Speaker 3:
[23:23] I have been bare maxing a bit. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:26] Mike's been calf maxing for pretty much his whole life.

Speaker 3:
[23:30] For sure.

Speaker 1:
[23:30] And I'd say I've been diarrhea maxing for a long time. Especially this week. Right.

Speaker 2:
[23:36] You're one of the best.

Speaker 1:
[23:37] I even wore off on shanks a little today.

Speaker 3:
[23:40] Nice.

Speaker 1:
[23:41] Yeah. But anyways, I don't know if I'm saying his name completely right. He doesn't deserve it anyways, but Clavicular, so he's all about looks maxing, right? Like I saw him on the Adam Freeland show, and he was saying like, you can take out student loans and pretend you're going to college and then just get facial surgery with that money. And you don't get too big of a penalty. Like he's just like, that's all that matters is your looks and like getting plastic surgery to look better, right? But anyways, he streams his entire life, like 24 seven pretty much. And you know, a lot of women see how popular a stream is and they want to get on there. And that's his whole gimmick. And a lot of people like I would have been as a teenager tune in to see what's going on. As a teenager, I would have been like, wow.

Speaker 2:
[24:41] You know, Marvin Gaye would have been like, what's going on? He would have tuned in.

Speaker 1:
[24:46] And then immature teenage Jeff, what's something else he would have thought might have been cool? I don't know, maybe just going out on the swamp and shooting an alligator for no reason, right? Before I knew any better. Well, this guy should know better. He's old enough to know better. And he doesn't because he went on a swamp boat They drove out, just found a random alligator that wasn't even very big and pulled out pistols and shot it a bunch of times and it killed it, right? And that was it. Like that, there's no point to it. They just want to go kill something. But turns out just a normal thing to just go do it during hunting season and they killed an alligator too small under Florida law. So it's a felony. So right now he is felony maxing. And I think most of the world is kind of just ruined for his downfall.

Speaker 3:
[25:42] Yeah, I am, especially after hearing that story.

Speaker 1:
[25:45] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[25:46] And that's a bad look for someone who cares about looks.

Speaker 3:
[25:49] I lose, I do tend to lose a lot of respect for people, even people I've known for a while, if they tell me stories about just like killing animals for fun.

Speaker 1:
[26:01] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[26:01] You know, it just kind of is like, oh, how do you have that in you? Like, and how have you not gotten out of it?

Speaker 1:
[26:08] You know, I think it might be part of why I chose this story too. It's just like, like I've mentioned it before, but like my younger self was impressed by like hunters who would kill exotic animals. And I think that there's a lot of people who have been in the same boat, but that that's an impressive thing. And I'm just trying to like make it one of the least impressive things possible now by my own merit, you know?

Speaker 3:
[26:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:36] So to me, like, I like shaming anyone who kills an animal for no reason.

Speaker 3:
[26:41] Yeah. And this feels especially shame, shame, shame. This feels especially.

Speaker 1:
[26:48] She was hot. Did you know that?

Speaker 3:
[26:51] Who?

Speaker 1:
[26:52] The shame lady. She's like the hot blonde lady in Ted Lasso.

Speaker 3:
[26:57] Okay. All right. I like that. I'm all on board.

Speaker 1:
[27:02] In Game of Thrones, they're hiding.

Speaker 3:
[27:05] I think this feels especially insidious to me because I don't like trophy hunting at all. But trophy hunters, I feel like they're at least like trying to bring something back. Like they want like something to display. And I'm not saying that's like better. But for whatever reason in my brain, when someone's just going out and they just want to kill, there's no other reason for it. They just want to kill something.

Speaker 1:
[27:29] Right. To like look cool on a string. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[27:32] It feels really bad to me. It's a huge red flag.

Speaker 1:
[27:36] Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I had to unfollow him.

Speaker 3:
[27:40] I tell people like that.

Speaker 1:
[27:41] But I had to unfollow him.

Speaker 3:
[27:42] Oh, you're following him on it?

Speaker 2:
[27:43] Good choice, Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[27:44] Oh, dude. His maxing.

Speaker 2:
[27:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:47] No, I wasn't following him.

Speaker 3:
[27:48] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[27:49] But I got you.

Speaker 3:
[27:50] It sucks that that's kids these days. They have to deal with all that. Get outside, kids. Go just have some fun. Don't follow these these guys. Just wait until you wait to ruin your life until you're our age and then ruin it like we have.

Speaker 1:
[28:09] Who should they look up to, though?

Speaker 3:
[28:11] Mike, because Mike's not really on social media. I need to be. Off maxing.

Speaker 2:
[28:19] Something a little euphemistic about that. I don't know what exactly, but.

Speaker 1:
[28:23] Oh, before we move to Wes again, I want to mention too, because Mike talked about wolves and Wes talked about California. Were you going to talk about that wolf, Wes?

Speaker 3:
[28:33] There's a wolf that showed up in Los Angeles County in California.

Speaker 1:
[28:37] First time in a hundred years.

Speaker 3:
[28:39] Yeah, first time in a hundred years.

Speaker 1:
[28:41] What happened a hundred years ago?

Speaker 3:
[28:44] They extirpated wolves, probably, from Los Angeles County.

Speaker 1:
[28:47] A hundred years ago, we were...

Speaker 2:
[28:49] 1926?

Speaker 1:
[28:51] Building cars for the first time ever.

Speaker 3:
[28:54] It was, I think it was Prohibition, probably.

Speaker 2:
[28:58] That explains it.

Speaker 3:
[29:00] That's why wolves are running wild. So, wait, what were we? Oh yeah, so anyway, a wolf showed up in Los Angeles. I think it's gone now, where they moved it. I'm not sure what happened. I can't remember.

Speaker 1:
[29:11] I have an idea, actually. I think, like, you know how there's like wolf fanatics out there that just are obsessed with wolves? Like, if a wolf shows up in LA again, go plant like 10,000 trees and just be like, look, this wolf killed off the deer and elk that were keeping these trees from growing.

Speaker 3:
[29:33] Now, there's a bunch of trees. Landscape of fears, actually.

Speaker 1:
[29:37] Like a bunch of cottonwoods by the river.

Speaker 3:
[29:40] Sure. All right. We're going back to California for number two, the Golden State. Yeah. Is that what it is? Right?

Speaker 1:
[29:51] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:51] The Golden State.

Speaker 1:
[29:52] Golden State warrior.

Speaker 3:
[29:53] Golden State killer. Warrior. All right.

Speaker 2:
[29:58] So is that what the team is named after?

Speaker 3:
[30:00] Is that guy that killed everyone?

Speaker 2:
[30:03] Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[30:04] All right.

Speaker 3:
[30:05] Imagine your teenage girl, guys.

Speaker 2:
[30:08] Yeah. Easy.

Speaker 3:
[30:09] I know you do this sometimes.

Speaker 1:
[30:10] No, I refuse.

Speaker 3:
[30:12] Okay. So it wouldn't be hard for Bailey Vanden Bosch to imagine she's a teenage girl because she is. And she was this March when she was riding her bike during the unseasonably warm March temperatures this spring in Southern California, and throughout the West, honestly. And on March 20th, she had gone for this bike ride with one of her friends in Ventura County. It's about 5:30 p.m. and Bailey had gotten to a tricky, uneven part of this trail and decided to walk her bike. When she lost her balance, slipped and fell into the brush, the bike kind of falling down on top of her. As she got up, she was unaware that this brush already had a resident and she unknowingly stepped on a rattlesnake that was resting under the bush that she had fallen into. Bailey felt a strong pain in her ankle and saw one puncture wound with some blood leaking out, but she still didn't realize that she had been bitten by a snake. So I assume that this rattlesnake was not rattling. Sometimes that'll happen if the encounter happens so quick that the rattlesnake doesn't really even have a chance to rattle, they'll just bite. That's what happened here, I believe. Anyway, her friend caught up to her, they both decided that she had broken her ankle in the fall because it was immediately starting to swell and be really painful. And then Bailey's face started tingling and she started to lose her hearing. We've all had like ankle breaks or sprains. Did either of you lose your hearing when you broke your ankles?

Speaker 1:
[31:49] I threw up and put my face in it.

Speaker 3:
[31:52] I was there, I remember that. Yeah, you sure did do that. Yeah, I didn't either. So this isn't a broken ankle. This is something else. Her body was also feeling very strange. So they called Bailey's dad and he tried to use her phone to pinpoint their exact location. Took him a little while to show up though. And by the time he had arrived, Bailey couldn't move and her face was kind of distorted. Like it was swelling and kind of looked like she was having a stroke, I believe. So by the time the paramedics arrived, she was having trouble breathing. She was taken to the hospital and given an antivenom and she is recovering now, but her foot is still swollen and painful and she's still on crutches. But she's lucky compared to some other Southern California residents this year. Because on February 1st, something very similar happened to 25-year-old Julian Hernandez, but with far worse consequences. He too was mountain biking, but he was in Irvine. And like Bailey, he had lost his balance. He had reached over to tie a shoe or something. His bike tipped. He fell into some brush while balancing, and he was also unlucky enough to fall into a rattlesnake. He was bitten and taken to the hospital soon thereafter, but he spent almost a month in the hospital, part of that time in a coma, a coma, before finally succumbing to the effect of the venom, and he passed away on March 4th. So kind of crazy, but you know what's even crazier is that it happened again. On March 14th, 46-year-old Gabriela Battista was hiking in Ventura County when she was bitten by a rattlesnake. She too was airlifted to a local hospital where she would spend five days fighting the venom, but also would end up dying from complications of this envenomation. So this is kind of crazy. Yeah. Usually in the entire US on a given year, we have typically between five or three to six fatalities from venomous snakes. There's already been two in just California. And in just Ventura County, there's been six bites so far this year. And generally they report about nine bites for the entire year. So really getting off to a quick start for rattlesnake bites in California. And there's a big reason for that. I already mentioned-

Speaker 1:
[34:15] Venomaxing.

Speaker 3:
[34:17] They've been Venomaxing out in California. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:20] Tom Hardy.

Speaker 3:
[34:21] I mentioned that it's been a warm spring. And in March, especially, a lot of the West experienced a big heatwave. I know it happened in Utah. It happened here in Montana. And it happened in California where suddenly temperatures were in the upper 80s or even lower 90s in Southern California. And these snakes, rattlesnakes in this area do brumate, which is kind of like a type of hibernation. So during the winter, their activity is way down. Some of them are going into these dens and they're just sleeping pretty much the entire winter season. And then they wake up in the spring. And what triggers that movement in that activity is warm temperature. That's part of what triggers it. So when it warmed up really quickly in March, rattlesnakes were suddenly moving around a lot more than they typically do in March. So I think a lot of these people that are maybe more concerned about rattlesnakes than typically in April moving forward, kind of thought they were still out of rattlesnake season. There's not really a season in California. You could find a rattlesnake any time of the year in California, but generally March isn't like high season for them.

Speaker 1:
[35:28] And this year, once it warms up, they still move around more.

Speaker 3:
[35:32] Yeah. And this is a good time of year for them to be moving around because it doesn't get too hot in the middle of the day. So if you live in Southern California, just be aware that it is now rattlesnake season and you need to be, you know, cautious and wear proper footwear. And just know that there's a lot of bites every year and very, very few people die from them. The US usually has around 7,000 bites per year. And only, you know, like I said before, three to six deaths. So if you do get bit, what are the two things you want? If you get bit by a venomous snake?

Speaker 2:
[36:07] Keys and phone.

Speaker 1:
[36:08] Car keys and cell phone.

Speaker 3:
[36:10] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[36:10] And a helicopter.

Speaker 3:
[36:11] Call for help. Get to help. So take a photo of the snake too. A helicopter would be great. Or like a jet pack. That's my that's my second story in California. I just want to say though really quick, we've been doing a lot of snake stuff lately. Snakes do not want anything to do with us. They don't want to bite us. They want to get away from you. So we shouldn't blame these snakes for this.

Speaker 1:
[36:37] Bill, make like an Instagram post thing that just says, Wes Larson, 2026, the year of the rattlesnake. Yeah, I like that. Wes is quoting 2026 is the year of the rattlesnake.

Speaker 3:
[36:49] Like year of the shark.

Speaker 2:
[36:51] Yeah. How do you explain?

Speaker 3:
[36:53] Should we make a bet?

Speaker 1:
[36:54] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:55] Oh, you guys, you guys just can't stop.

Speaker 1:
[36:57] More deaths this year than normal.

Speaker 2:
[36:59] Wagering.

Speaker 3:
[36:59] Yeah. I'd bet that there are. How do you explain what?

Speaker 1:
[37:03] That's what I want too.

Speaker 2:
[37:05] The single puncture wound on her leg, is that something that happens often with snakebites is they only get one tooth in there?

Speaker 3:
[37:12] It can happen for sure. I think she actually got both punctures. She just didn't see it.

Speaker 1:
[37:18] Oh, I looked at the picture of this one. It was mainly one puncture. And that's why they didn't think it was a rattlesnake, was they didn't see the two bite marks. It was like her and her friend. So they saw one puncture, but they didn't see the second one. So they didn't really put it together. That is the snake.

Speaker 3:
[37:38] But I think she did have the second puncture wound, after all.

Speaker 2:
[37:41] It's just hard to see it. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[37:43] Yeah. But they can just get one fang in sometimes too.

Speaker 2:
[37:46] Yeah. Like the Zootopia 2 snake, right?

Speaker 3:
[37:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[37:49] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[37:50] One fang.

Speaker 1:
[37:50] Could be that snake.

Speaker 3:
[37:53] Again, to one other thing I just wanted to push is, if you do happen to get bit by a venomous snake and you go to the hospital, make sure you advocate for yourself and make sure that you are getting enough anti-venom and that you have the doctors reach out to toxicologists. Because often doctors don't really know how to treat snake bites. So you really do need to advocate for yourself.

Speaker 1:
[38:20] Like we heard from Claire, like they didn't give her enough anti-venom until she insisted for it. And like, we've heard that a few times with different people. So like, you know, maybe had they pumped these guys. What?

Speaker 3:
[38:34] Yeah, Clara.

Speaker 1:
[38:35] With more anti-venom, who knows? But that's not to say like they wouldn't survive. Yeah, sometimes doctors did. I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[38:42] And these most likely were Southern Pacific rattlesnakes, which we learned in that Sinanon story. They have really complicated venom that can be pretty tricky to nail down with anti-venom. So I'm guessing that's probably the snakes involved, just based on the locations.

Speaker 1:
[39:01] I've been told that I have the most comfortable bed in the history of beds. And when asked why my bed so comfortable, one of the first things I bring up is my Miracle Sheets. Here's a gross fact. Traditional bed sheets can hold more bacteria than a toilet seat. Yeah, not exactly what you want to lay your face on. Miracle Made bedding is designed to fight bacteria and stay cleaner longer, with silver-infused fabrics that actually prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth. You guys see how far that rocket just went past the moon? Well, Miracle Made sheets are crafted with NASA-inspired silver-infused fabrics that help regulate your body temperature. I'm a hot sleeper. Doesn't matter. These sheets help keep me cool in my comfort zone all night long. And if you're a cold sleeper, they do the same thing. It doesn't make sense, but it works. Upgrade your sleep or get someone else a better sleep. Go to trymiracle.com/tooth to try Miracle Made sheets today. You'll save over 40% and when you use promo code Tooth, you'll get an extra 20% off plus a free 3-piece towel set. They make an amazing gift with 30-day money-back guarantee. There's no risk. That's trymiracle.com/toothcodetooth at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode.

Speaker 2:
[40:22] My dad is always expounding the virtue of serving other people. He says it's the happiest way to live and he's a happy guy, so I believe him. So here's a mindset shift about life insurance that helped me recently. Life insurance isn't something you buy for yourself. You buy it for the people you love and who rely on you. So they're not scrambling. They're covered and they'll have less to worry about in an already difficult and unexpected time. Fabric by Gerber Life makes it easy to give them that. Fabric by Gerber Life is a term life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you all online on your schedule right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes, often with no health exam required. If you've got kids, and especially if you're young and healthy, the time to lock in low rates is right now. Fabric has partnered with Gerber Life, trusted by millions of families like yours over 50 years. Plus, they have nearly 2,000 5-star reviews on TrustPilot with a rating of excellent. And beyond all that, there's no risk. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee and you can cancel at any time. So join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/tooth. And use our links so they know that we sent you. M-E-E-T fabric.com/tooth. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Alright, I've got another one for you guys. Another super rare one, in fact. This, oh man, this is like a, this is like a holographic Honus Wagner baseball card. Mint condition, that's how rare this is. Actually, the card might be more rare than what happened here. We'll see. Maybe we won't. I don't know, I'm not gonna talk too much more about Honus Wagner, unless you want me to.

Speaker 3:
[42:12] I don't even know who that is. No.

Speaker 2:
[42:14] Okay, so we're going to Kerry, North Carolina at this time. Erin Hoggston, that's our main character of the day. Erin Hoggston.

Speaker 3:
[42:25] The emphasis on Hogg.

Speaker 2:
[42:27] I just like that name a lot. So Erin woke up early on a mid-March morning, drove a couple hours outside of her hometown. She's going to cheer on some of her friends who are... Yeah, Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[42:39] I've heard this one, but keep going.

Speaker 2:
[42:42] Okay, yeah. Pretend you didn't do that. You added nothing to the story, really. You might have detracted a little bit, in fact. Anyway, she's on her way. She's going to cheer on some of her friends who are going to be running in this local marathon. She found a nice little spot where she settled in for the day, and she was actually planning on surprising her friends. They didn't know she was going to show up. They didn't know she was going to be attending. So she's like getting all excited, hankering down at this little aid station. But instead of surprising her friends, Aids station. I don't know. I don't think they're handing out what you're thinking they're handing out there. I think it's like water and maybe some calorically dense snack foods or something.

Speaker 1:
[43:24] I wouldn't drink it.

Speaker 2:
[43:26] There's not like just dirty needles on the table. Don't use those. Anyone running marathons out there. Anyway, instead of being the surprise giver, she was the surprise receiver. So she was sitting there waiting to sit. And you got to imagine she's probably there for like seven hours waiting for her friends, just like excited the whole time. She heard some rustling in the bushes behind her, and she described it as being this really loud bustling noise. And she was like, oh my gosh, that's there's no way that's anything smaller than a bear. I've got to get out of here. I'm going to die. But as she started running, she lost her footing and fell and scraped up her hand pretty badly. But the injuries on her ankle came from something else entirely. I haven't told you the culprit just yet. I'm wondering if you guys can put it together. This is going to give it away. So if you have any guesses, now's the time.

Speaker 3:
[44:23] Uh, a river otter.

Speaker 1:
[44:26] I think I heard a different story, so I'm not sure anymore.

Speaker 2:
[44:30] Okay, good. I'm glad this is new for you, Jeff. So when she told her story later, she said, quote, everybody was like, wow, we thought they were really nice. We thought that they were cute. And then Erin goes on to say, I don't know. I don't see anything cute about otters, especially now. And it's kind of hard to blame her when she likes she has to go to get like the rabies shots and that's like thousands of dollars. That's going to put you out. Like we always hear stories about these people. They get attacked by a shark and they're like, still no, we love sharks. They're still awesome. It was just doing their thing. So it's kind of refreshing when someone's just like, yeah, I don't really like otters, especially now. But yeah, so like I was mentioning, this is really rare. So only 59 documented otter attacks have ever happened worldwide since 1875. The only other documented otter attack, there's only one that's happened in North Carolina.

Speaker 3:
[45:22] That's worldwide.

Speaker 2:
[45:23] Honus Wagner, I think there were seven Honus Wagner cards.

Speaker 3:
[45:27] Worldwide, there's only been that many?

Speaker 1:
[45:29] China and stuff.

Speaker 2:
[45:30] 59 documented otter attacks that have happened worldwide since 1875, according to, I should cite my source here, wect.com.

Speaker 3:
[45:37] Huh. Yeah, because I know those like those Singaporean or however you say that, those otters constantly chase people, but who knows how often they bite people. And then we, there's that woman in Butte, Montana that got attacked pretty badly by river otters.

Speaker 2:
[45:54] They can do damage.

Speaker 3:
[45:55] Yeah. So yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1:
[45:58] Well Mike, what do we always say? You ought to watch your back.

Speaker 2:
[46:03] Shoot. You set me up for that one. That was an alley oop. I blew it.

Speaker 3:
[46:08] They are, I mean, they are really cute and people see them as being these like really playful, cute animals. But they're also top predators in their ecosystems. Like on a river, not much is scarier to like a fish than a river otter. I, yeah, I, they're impressive little animals and it doesn't surprise me that this happens from time to time.

Speaker 2:
[46:31] I do like the image of her expecting to see a bear burst out of the bush. And it's just an otter.

Speaker 1:
[46:36] She's like even more scared.

Speaker 3:
[46:37] Which is still startling, but it sucks when you're expecting a bear and it ends up being an otter. Right? Or is it nice?

Speaker 2:
[46:46] It depends on what side of that fence you're on.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] You'd be mad.

Speaker 2:
[46:49] In that community.

Speaker 3:
[46:51] Yeah. They are cool little critters, though. I love otters.

Speaker 1:
[46:55] What about hippos?

Speaker 3:
[46:57] I also love hippos.

Speaker 1:
[46:59] Wes, what are three major things to remember when dealing with a hungry pregnant woman?

Speaker 3:
[47:07] That just do whatever you can to make her happy. That's one.

Speaker 1:
[47:13] You can't make her happy, okay. You can ask Mike for help.

Speaker 2:
[47:18] Make sure it's not alcoholic is one I would say.

Speaker 1:
[47:21] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[47:22] Don't give her any alcohol. She's always right.

Speaker 1:
[47:28] Okay. Maybe give her a little distance if she needs it.

Speaker 3:
[47:33] If she needs it, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:34] In India on the night of March 19th, a 27-year-old pre-veterinarian named Samikasha Reddy was working at a zoo in her town and just getting experience with lots of different types of animals. She was apparently like her main assignment was a sun contour. Is that like the bird?

Speaker 3:
[48:01] Yeah, that's like the type of bird mom and dad had, conure.

Speaker 1:
[48:04] Okay, yeah. And she is required to check conure.

Speaker 3:
[48:08] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:08] And she is required to check on it like every 12 hours. But it seems to me like the zoo has been giving like pretty vague details to not like implicate themselves to because I don't see her doing these next things unless someone taught her how to do it and told her to do these things. But anyways, she was in there that night and she was using a thermal scan to monitor the temperature of a pregnant hippo and then also a tiger and a lion at the zoo, right, at the safari in Shiva Moga.

Speaker 3:
[48:49] Yeah, those all three seem like animals that you shouldn't have like your new, you know, like volunteer hire working on.

Speaker 1:
[48:57] But yeah, according to zoo officials, though, she was not instructed to care for the hippo. So the pregnant wild hippo had not moved out of its pond in several days, it hadn't eaten in several days. And the zoo officials were speculating, maybe the zoo officials speculated that maybe Semeekasha was not expecting the hippo to come out of this pond that it had been in several days, right? So the young veterinarian got her driver to like lower a ladder down into this hippo enclosure, and she's climbing down the ladder to go take its temperature. When the hippo comes out of the pond super fast, knocks the ladder over, knocking her into the pond, and then starts attacking her, they were able to get her out and like rush her to the hospital, but like later that morning she passed away from her injuries. So super crazy incident, but also like kind of weird that she was there at night, like walking on the ladder into a wild hippo enclosure. It does seem to me like they probably did give her more responsibilities than they're letting on, but also like, I can't imagine its protocol to go into the hippo enclosure at night, so maybe she was doing some stuff she wasn't supposed to be doing as well.

Speaker 3:
[50:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:32] But yeah, the hippo like saw her walking down the ladder and pregnant female animals, Wes? Yeah. You can't predict.

Speaker 3:
[50:42] They can be cranky. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:44] Humans too. Pregnant human, you can't predict how they're going to act.

Speaker 3:
[50:51] It does a number on your hormones on everything.

Speaker 1:
[50:54] Yeah. So maybe the inocular ladder over. If I-

Speaker 2:
[50:57] Right. Careful with your ladders out there.

Speaker 1:
[51:00] That's what I'm saying. If you have a pregnant wife at home, be careful getting up on your roof.

Speaker 3:
[51:05] Maybe sedate her first.

Speaker 1:
[51:07] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[51:09] Mike, what were you going to say? Why do you think?

Speaker 2:
[51:11] This hippo, was it just trying to keep herself and her unborn infant safe? Was it like a territorial thing or what?

Speaker 3:
[51:20] They're just, yeah, territorial. They're just cranky animals. We've talked about them quite a bit. Like they're defensive, territorial animals. I can't think of anywhere in the world where it's in a real zoo, where it's like standard practice to go into a hippo enclosure with the animal in the enclosure, you know? I think in anywhere you would have to have that animal in like a safe area to get a temperature or sedate it to get a temperature. They're not an animal you can just go in and chill with unless it's like a pet like that one guy's, but it still ended up killing him. Humphrey or whatever. Yeah, so yeah, I wouldn't mess around with hippos. Temperature readings, you usually have to like put a thermometer up their butt too. Yeah, can't imagine they like that. Well, I can imagine actually, but I can't. You know what I'm saying? Is it my turn or your turn?

Speaker 2:
[52:16] Mike, I forget so correction corner. There's 50 to 60 authentic Honus Wagner cards out there, so I was a little. I made them seem a little more rare than they actually, but that's still pretty rare.

Speaker 3:
[52:28] Speaking of correction corners, someone from the North American Bear Center wrote in because we're talking about Lynn Rogers in the last episode, and they just wanted to make sure that we weren't giving the Bear Center a bad name. I was trying to tread that line, but I don't know if I did. Lynn's work is controversial and I don't think anyone can argue that. But the North American Bear Center has put out a lot of incredible research, and now that there's no hand-feeding or anything there, they're doing some really good work. So I am a fan of the Bear Center. I often use their resources for Bear Facts too. So they are good. All right. I have two quick headlines.

Speaker 1:
[53:08] I have a correction in the corner too.

Speaker 3:
[53:10] Okay. Let's hear it.

Speaker 1:
[53:12] There are bugs in Europe.

Speaker 2:
[53:15] Good call. Yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 3:
[53:17] All right.

Speaker 2:
[53:18] Thanks for checking that out after the fact.

Speaker 3:
[53:20] Yeah. Thanks for your hard-hitting research. I have a couple quick headlines from California as well. We got a coyote's bewhilin. A four-year-old boy was knocked down and bitten by a coyote in Los Angeles this month. It actually was caught on camera. This happened in early April. You can see the boy standing and the coyote comes up, bites him on the leg. He falls down and then it jumps on top of him. Luckily, people are watching and immediately responded and the coyote ran off. So he had, from what I understand, really minor injuries. But they think the same coyote was responsible for other incidents with people in the area. So they did euthanize that coyote.

Speaker 1:
[54:03] Drew a fake tunnel on a brick wall.

Speaker 3:
[54:06] Yeah, they set up exactly.

Speaker 1:
[54:07] And the cars were slamming into it.

Speaker 3:
[54:10] Yeah, they painted a fake tunnel and it ran into it.

Speaker 1:
[54:13] Did we talk about the coyote that went to Alcatraz?

Speaker 3:
[54:18] I don't think so.

Speaker 1:
[54:19] Let's add that.

Speaker 3:
[54:20] That's another headline.

Speaker 1:
[54:21] Because that was in January. But coyote swam a mile and a half out to Alcatraz.

Speaker 3:
[54:27] That's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1:
[54:30] It got there and is like super tired. But then there's like all these birds on the island because there's no predators there. And this coyote was like eating all the birds on the island for a month until wildlife officials decided to like move it off the island. Which was pretty controversial because it naturally went there itself. So then it's kind of like it earned it, you know?

Speaker 3:
[54:55] I know.

Speaker 1:
[54:55] Yeah. So a lot of people are kind of like, why are we taking it off? It swam. It did.

Speaker 3:
[54:59] Yeah. I think you leave that coyote, honestly. All right. I got one other headline.

Speaker 2:
[55:06] I think that should be true and reverse too. If an inmate like Clint Eastwood swims from Alcatraz back to the shore, it's like, well, he kind of earned his freedom here, I think.

Speaker 3:
[55:15] He naturally immigrated.

Speaker 1:
[55:18] You've listened to that Alcatraz case file story.

Speaker 3:
[55:22] I did. I loved it.

Speaker 1:
[55:24] Do you know that they say that no one ever escaped Alcatraz? That's what most people think. I think those two guys escaped.

Speaker 3:
[55:32] Yeah, they escaped.

Speaker 1:
[55:34] They went to Brazil and lived a great life.

Speaker 3:
[55:37] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[55:37] Have you ever seen the movie Escape from Alcatraz? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[55:41] Yeah, the Brazil maxed.

Speaker 2:
[55:43] They're Brazil maxing still to this day, like in March.

Speaker 3:
[55:47] In March 18th. On March 18th, a 39-year-old surfer was bitten by a shark near Medicino County while surfing. He had some pretty serious injuries. Oh, no, I don't. I mean, he was out in the water on the surfboard. And that's pretty much it. I don't know too much more about this one. It's just a headline. But I would say in this part of the world, Medicino is almost certainly a great white shark that bit this man. So, yeah. OK.

Speaker 1:
[56:23] Would you rather take one bite from a great white or a rattlesnake?

Speaker 3:
[56:28] A rattlesnake. How about you? A rattlesnake, you're maybe getting it back. A great white, you're not.

Speaker 2:
[56:37] I'll take the great white. I think it leaves a cooler scar. I want it like right on my shoulder, you know. Oh, man.

Speaker 3:
[56:42] You just want to be missing a big chunk of your shoulder.

Speaker 2:
[56:45] I'm not doing much. If it's my left shoulder.

Speaker 3:
[56:47] I guess, you know, if it's if it's an exploratory bite and it's just like biting and not ripping, then sure, I'd probably pick it. But if it's like biting and tearing, then I'd rather have a rattlesnake.

Speaker 1:
[56:59] Yeah, it's tough, though.

Speaker 3:
[57:01] I kind of want to know what it feels like to get bit by a snake, you know?

Speaker 1:
[57:06] Yeah, the venom.

Speaker 3:
[57:07] Yeah, but I don't actually. So I'm done. That was that was the end of mine.

Speaker 2:
[57:13] Yeah, I have a really quick one I wanted to get through just because I like the headline mostly. So a half blind 12 year old dog in New Mexico, Honey, the bear slayer, we're calling her. So being hailed as the bear slayer because she stood up to a bear that was trying to break into the family chicken coop and like terrorize and probably presumably eat everything on their little farmstead or whatever they had going on.

Speaker 3:
[57:37] She's like 12 years old too, right?

Speaker 2:
[57:39] 12 years old, just like going blind, fiercely protective, is how she was described. Going like half blind is what the article said.

Speaker 3:
[57:49] You know, old dogs, how they often have like milky eyes and they're kind of... Right.

Speaker 2:
[57:53] But it's funny because she was brave enough to stand up to this bear time and time again, fending off this bear. It kept coming back and the dog was like, no, honey is the bear, bear slayer's name. But she's still afraid of vacuums. So when you pull a vacuum out, she runs away scared.

Speaker 3:
[58:10] She's lucky that bear didn't know her name, you know?

Speaker 2:
[58:13] Right. I think the reputation came after this incident, but I'm not totally sure. You're right, Wes.

Speaker 3:
[58:21] No, just her name is Honey Mike.

Speaker 2:
[58:25] Oh, that's another one. Yeah. I think it tried, but it couldn't. Honey was too tough.

Speaker 1:
[58:31] You think it tried to eat the dog and couldn't?

Speaker 2:
[58:34] If you look at the details of the story, like this dog was absolutely messed up. And I won't get into the specifics, but like this bear really went to town on honey. And Honey, she's recovering. She's back home and doing well. Well, getting better.

Speaker 1:
[58:47] That's a good headline. This bear went to town on Honey.

Speaker 2:
[58:51] That's right. That's what it should have been. That's it for me. Do you have any more, Jeff?

Speaker 1:
[58:56] That was a minute 40 seconds. Pretty short.

Speaker 2:
[59:00] Yeah, thanks. I pride myself on efficiency. Brevity is the soul of wit, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1:
[59:06] Yeah, I got some some leopard stories. So there's almost one point five billion of something living in India. I won't tell you what people yet, but 18 percent of the world. And then there's 13874 of something living in India, which is 10 percent of their population. 13874? 13874. So just hearing those numbers, which would you say it'd be more significant if one of them died?

Speaker 3:
[59:44] The 13,000.

Speaker 1:
[59:47] Right. So that's the leopards and the other ones humans.

Speaker 3:
[59:51] Oh, man, I had no idea.

Speaker 1:
[59:54] As Wes said, the leopards, lives in India are more important than the humans.

Speaker 3:
[59:59] That's not true. I did not say that.

Speaker 1:
[60:04] So a leopard killed a 48 year old in a place called Uttarakhand, but also an industrial student killed a leopard in a place called Archie. So on March 9th, Prakash Lal was walking home from another day of work as a long time mason, right? He had been a mason his whole life and he's walking home. And Prakash was undoubtedly wary of leopards, considering 14 deaths from a leopard occurred in Uttarakhand region, and then two month span in 2024.

Speaker 3:
[60:48] It's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1:
[60:50] A bunch of people had been killed in 2024. I'm sure this whole region is just wary of leopards, right? They know they're out there, but also it's a walk he's been doing between villages his whole life. But leopards are masters at blending into their surroundings. And unbeknownst to Prakash, there was a camouflage leopard waiting on his familiar root home. So the leopard attack happened late in the evening near Hamala Village, where the leopard ambushed the 48-year-old worker and then dragged him 50 meters into the nearby bushes. When the body was recovered on the following morning, forest officials reached the village and angry residents encircled the forest workers until they were like guaranteed that this leopard would be put to death. So they wouldn't let these forest workers leave. They encircled them and made them like promise to get the leopard responsible.

Speaker 3:
[61:52] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:52] All right. And then one other story. This was in Himachal. So at 7 a.m., a young adult named Pravis Sharma was crossing his fields to fetch a little bit of milk as one does, right? And he may have also been wary as there had been a few recent sightings of a leopard in Arki village where he lives. The locals had even notified the Forest Service of a leopard that chased a man on a scooter at the start of the week. Pravis was ambushed by a one-year-old female leopard as he is walking for his milk.

Speaker 3:
[62:32] He's probably going to say some spaghetti.

Speaker 1:
[62:36] Then he would have waited. The leopard?

Speaker 3:
[62:38] No.

Speaker 1:
[62:39] Oh, probably. Because I was going to say the leopard would have waited till he got the milk.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1:
[62:47] So this is a pretty small leopard, still one-year-old female, right? And Pravis, from his picture, he looked like a pretty strong young kid, right? Probably around 20 years old, it didn't say for sure. But he's able to protect himself from the leopard's mouth while taking scratches from the claws for 12 minutes. So they were like wrestling in the grass for 12 minutes. He's protecting himself pretty well, but he's getting scratched up by the claws, right? Little tooth and claw action, Wes. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[63:19] 12. We finally did it.

Speaker 1:
[63:23] After 12 minutes of exhausting struggle, Wes, you wrestled.

Speaker 3:
[63:27] Yeah. Six minutes of wrestling is hard. And that's what the human.

Speaker 1:
[63:30] Five minute rounds is what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 3:
[63:33] No, it was two. It was three two minute rounds.

Speaker 1:
[63:36] Oh, you're right. I take that back.

Speaker 3:
[63:39] So yeah, 12 minutes with a wildcat.

Speaker 1:
[63:43] I don't think they took breaks.

Speaker 3:
[63:45] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[63:46] Maybe. Didn't say.

Speaker 3:
[63:48] I think they took some little breaks to give it little kisses and some little pets.

Speaker 1:
[63:52] Yeah. But after 12 minutes, Pravish was able to grab the cat's jaws and then crush its neck.

Speaker 2:
[64:01] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[64:01] I don't kill it.

Speaker 2:
[64:02] What?

Speaker 1:
[64:02] So he was able to kill this leopard with his bare hands.

Speaker 2:
[64:05] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:07] Maybe like a little bit of knee action too. Yeah. You can say bare hands.

Speaker 2:
[64:11] You should have not waited 12 minutes to do that.

Speaker 3:
[64:15] It's probably worth all the scars and everything to be able to tell people. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:19] You want a couple of scars.

Speaker 3:
[64:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[64:22] With bare hands. He had one cool, like, loofy-like scar under his eye.

Speaker 3:
[64:27] No way.

Speaker 2:
[64:27] Oh, you want that?

Speaker 1:
[64:28] And it's like...

Speaker 2:
[64:29] That's sweet.

Speaker 1:
[64:30] Like, it wasn't enough to, like, deform him, but as, like, a cool slash. So, like, people are going to ask him about it type of thing. And he's kind of already, like, a hero in his village and at his school where he's going to school. Like, people are just like, this guy.

Speaker 3:
[64:47] Yeah, I mean, if a one-year-old female leopard is already attacking people, there's a very good chance that leopard would continue that behavior growing up. So.

Speaker 1:
[64:57] The Forest Service was saying, unfortunately, you know, 1.5 billion people, kind of a lot of people. So, the leopards are getting encroached in that area. And they just think it's probably a pretty desperate leopard to have like gone into town and attacked a person. But, yeah, I mean, from what I saw from 2020 to 2024, India's population of leopards has gone up by 8%. So, they're doing pretty good with leopards, you know. And it's something, I leave it to Wes, because, you know, he has a take on everything. He has a stance on everything.

Speaker 2:
[65:43] Except for ramen.

Speaker 1:
[65:45] Except for ramen, top ramen. Just top ramen. You have a stance on ramen.

Speaker 3:
[65:50] I have a stance on ramen. I like it.

Speaker 1:
[65:53] But you, what do you say? They should be allowed. Leopards should be able to kill people.

Speaker 3:
[66:01] I don't disagree with that. But I do think that humans are more important than animals. But I do think the animals have the right to like totally exist and continue existing and have good lives. And we need to protect that. So I don't think that we're more important than their existence. But I think people's lives are more important than an individual animal's life.

Speaker 1:
[66:29] And I'll say we we haven't traveled to like a town in India or like Kenya or Zimbabwe where people there are people in those towns where like their lives every day they live in danger of wildlife. But we have traveled to all those countries and for my experience, most all the locals really love their wildlife, which is cool. And I'll say like, I went into like a India news Instagram and scrolled to see if I could find any more details on the story of the 48 year old guy who was killed. And turns out they didn't have any more information. But as I was scrolling forever through all their posts, there's like a bunch of different leopard posts. I even sent one to Wes of a black panther with a leopard in one of the national parks. And it's just showing me that like people like leopards. Like the news puts out leopards. There's one saved out of the well. Like people like seeing leopards. And like, I think that's, you know, I want to do, I think I'm going to write a blog, Wes. Okay. And it's going to be about if jaguars or leopards are better.

Speaker 3:
[67:45] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[67:47] And I'm really conflicted.

Speaker 3:
[67:50] Okay. I if is there any animal out there that if it was like attacking a person right in front of you, and you have the button that if you hit that button, the animal dies and the person lives, that you wouldn't hit that button?

Speaker 1:
[68:03] Like for your bear collars?

Speaker 3:
[68:05] No.

Speaker 1:
[68:06] Where you blow their heads off?

Speaker 3:
[68:08] Not that. Like is there any time that you wouldn't save the person? No.

Speaker 2:
[68:15] I can't imagine there would be.

Speaker 3:
[68:17] No. Like even if it's a giant panda or like one of these animals where there's hardly any left, I'm still hitting that button.

Speaker 2:
[68:24] If it was Nolan, I'm not hitting that button.

Speaker 3:
[68:27] There's definitely people I wouldn't save.

Speaker 1:
[68:29] What if a leopard was just minding its own business and a human started choking the leopard to death, would you push the button to kill the human?

Speaker 3:
[68:37] Uh, maybe. I don't know. That's a good question.

Speaker 2:
[68:43] Would you, Jeff?

Speaker 3:
[68:44] It probably depends on the human again. I think so.

Speaker 2:
[68:47] You'd kill the human?

Speaker 1:
[68:48] I think I would be as likely to kill the human as I would the leopard.

Speaker 2:
[68:53] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[68:53] What if there's just a button and you hit it and some unknown person out there is going to die and you get a hundred million dollars? Would you push that button?

Speaker 1:
[69:02] I push it for free. Okay, so I'm one of those people that if I experience something I like, I want everyone around me to experience it too, especially with food and drink. If I have a great order, everyone at my table is trying my meal. And that's probably why I have four packs of Elements newest flavor in my pocket right now so that I can give it out to people I see. The pink lemonade element is so good. Electrolyte deficiency or imbalance can cause headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, and weakness. You feel the difference when you get it right. I gave some element to my friend Darren, and let's just say Darren's a partier, and he told me yesterday that elements been the most clutch thing he's been putting into his body. But also moms, exercise enthusiasts, heavy sweaters, sauna sitters, elements for you. I'm telling you that new pink lemonade flavor with some ice water, it's so good, it's so refreshing. The Tooth & Claw community can receive a free element sample pack with any order so you can figure out what flavor is your favorite through any purchase when you use our link, which is www.drinklmnt.com/tooth. That's www.drinklmnt.com/tooth. And element has a world class customer service team, so if you don't like it, they'll take care of you.

Speaker 2:
[70:23] This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. I remember for the longest time I put off anything that would add to my financial responsibilities. I didn't even want to sign up for a single credit card. I was probably the last person in my life that insisted paying in cash for everything he possibly could. So when that stopped being possible and I finally opened up some lines of credit, I started to get really anxious because all of a sudden I had all these cards, all these different apps that I had to keep track of, and it started to just get really overwhelming. And not to mention all the subscriptions that I was signing up for, well that's where Rocket Money really helped me out. Rocket Money tracks your subscriptions and has the ability to cancel unwanted ones within the app with a few taps. And it's already saved users over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. And something that I wasn't expecting the app to do for me, but came as a pleasant surprise, is that Rocket Money consolidates checking, savings, loans, and investments into a single dashboard to give users a clear view of their financial picture. It was all just right there on that single dashboard. Super easy to understand where I was messing up. If indeed I was messing up. It happens. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com/claw. That's rocketmoney.com/claw. rocketmoney.com/claw.

Speaker 1:
[71:51] All right.

Speaker 3:
[71:51] Should we go to our categories?

Speaker 1:
[71:54] Let's go. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[71:56] I've got them all written down here.

Speaker 2:
[71:59] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[72:00] This one's from Jeff. A pop culture instance of someone falling off of a ladder.

Speaker 2:
[72:07] Ooh, this one's from Jeff, huh?

Speaker 3:
[72:09] Yeah. Because he told that hippo story.

Speaker 1:
[72:12] Are you doing both ladders?

Speaker 3:
[72:13] I didn't do the ladder one. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[72:16] I'm going to do that as my... So I had favorite pop culture ladder or instance of someone falling off.

Speaker 3:
[72:23] Okay. You can do either or. My favorite fall from a ladder was a recent one that I thought of. And I don't know if it's actually my favorite, but it's a memorable one from recently. Did either of you see that movie Fall from 2022?

Speaker 1:
[72:38] No, I was one of those things where someone was watching it on the plane and I was more interested in their movie than mine.

Speaker 3:
[72:46] It's a lot of this genre of movie that just really is right up my alley, where it's like a horror movie where people are stuck in a really bad circumstance. That's like almost unimaginable. Like there's this movie called Frozen, not the Disney one, where there's these three friends that are stuck on a chairlift. I love stuff like that. Yeah, so this one is about two friends that are climbing this big tower. It's like just like a radio tower out in the middle of nowhere, to do like a tribute to their dead boyfriend or whatever. And once they get up there, one of the girls is climbing this old rusty ladder, and they're almost to the top and the ladder breaks as she's on it. And the other friend, they're tied to each other. The other friend managed to grab her and pull her up, but then they have no way down. And that's what the whole movie is about. And it's really just one of those movies that had me hooked the entire time. I really liked it. It has a fun twist. It's not like we're not talking like really prime steak here, but it is a really tasty hamburger of a movie. So yeah.

Speaker 1:
[73:53] Steaks from America. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[73:59] Steak is from America? I just don't know about any of this. Yeah. Jeff, go.

Speaker 1:
[74:10] Mine is, I don't even remember the movie, but it's one of the older Jackie Chan movies. I think it's like No More Mr. Nice Guy or Mr. Nobody. First Strike. OK.

Speaker 3:
[74:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[74:22] Where there's like a whole scene of him with like a ladder where he like spins it around his neck. He punches someone through it. He like climbs it to punch someone.

Speaker 3:
[74:31] And then it's just like his jumpsuit, too, when he's doing the yellow one.

Speaker 1:
[74:35] So many things that like it just goes so much longer than you could ever imagine a ladder skit going for. And it just keeps like coming up with ways to like hurt people at the ladder. And then like the bloopers are almost like better than the movie because it shows people actually getting hit by the ladder and him hitting himself and like...

Speaker 3:
[74:57] Prime Jackie Chan is is like unbeatable. Even even like later Jackie Chan, like you guys remember in Shanghai Noon, where he has that rope and he's just with the like horseshoe tied to it. It's so crazy when you think about that, that that was all him actually doing that.

Speaker 1:
[75:14] I saw an interesting thing on it too, where like American movies, he still does like a lot of cool stuff in like our American movies, but like they don't know how to use him right, where they do too many cuts, you know, like they cut from the action too much. And like he's really just like a keep the camera rolling type of performer.

Speaker 3:
[75:37] For sure. That's a good pic though, I like that.

Speaker 2:
[75:40] I like at the very end of the scene, when he flips the ladder like very suavely back around underneath him and then just sits on it and waits for all the rest of the bad guys to show up.

Speaker 1:
[75:49] So cool.

Speaker 2:
[75:50] I love I got to watch that movie. Yeah. I'm going with the very end sequence of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, where they're all on the fire escape trying to get off and they pile up onto the fire escape ladder from the fire truck and it starts like swinging around and it flings them all off into like different one. One gay guy gets like slung into a cake. Some of them get to.

Speaker 3:
[76:13] Yeah, that's what I heard too. You stuttered you went one guy guy and it sounded like gay guy.

Speaker 2:
[76:21] That's not what I meant. I don't think he was.

Speaker 1:
[76:23] Is he gay?

Speaker 2:
[76:25] Not from what I it wasn't a plot point could have been now. I was reading the Criterion Collection booklet for E2 Mama Tambien and it has like a whole history of the two, three main characters, but it goes into all these details that Cuaron came up with for the characters. They don't really have anything to do with the movie when you're watching it. But you know, you like knowing those details. So maybe this guy in Mad World, he was gay and that would inform the character a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[76:51] Yeah, I completely forgot about escape ladders. There's so many of those in movies.

Speaker 3:
[76:56] Yeah, people sliding down them.

Speaker 1:
[76:58] Another Rush Hour where Chris Tucker can't grab the, like where Jackie Chan runs up the wall, grabs the escape ladder and then Chris Tucker can't.

Speaker 3:
[77:09] Is that your favorite movie, Mike? Not Rush Hour, it's a Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Speaker 2:
[77:14] It's in my top, I think I'd put it at five when I was putting together my 100 favorites.

Speaker 1:
[77:19] His favorite movie is The Matrix. They have their escape ladder.

Speaker 3:
[77:22] I knew that. All right. Next category is, this is another one from Jeff and I wrote it down wrong. I'm going to read it the way you said it. Something that Mike, Wes or Jeff ruined for you but you used to like it.

Speaker 1:
[77:38] I can start with this.

Speaker 3:
[77:39] Something that one of us ruined.

Speaker 2:
[77:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[77:42] Mike is ruined for me, Tom Hanks, just by pointing out that he's not that good of an act. He's overrated and I just can't not think that now. I think he's kind of a bad actor now.

Speaker 2:
[77:57] You might have taken that farther than me then.

Speaker 1:
[78:00] Reeses.

Speaker 3:
[78:01] I was thinking about saying reeses too. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[78:04] I think, well, it's been proven and I actually, me, Mike and Wes have talked about reeses, but I feel like I said they changed the ingredients. But Mike was the first one to point out that reeses was gross to him. But you thought it was because of COVID. Turns out they just made it gross.

Speaker 2:
[78:24] I'm excited for the new recipe, or the old recipe, to come back because I might like them again.

Speaker 3:
[78:28] Me too.

Speaker 1:
[78:29] And this one, I don't know if it's completely fair, but I do think you did over time kind of ruin it for me. It's just like loud parties. Just by like you not liking them, I kind of like started to realize like, yeah, this isn't that fun. I'm just pretending to have fun.

Speaker 3:
[78:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[78:50] Okay. And then for Wes, I have any movie where we're at a movie theater and there's a noise from an audience member that I haven't noticed yet. You've ruined all those movies by telling me about the person chewing gum behind us or something. Yeah. Seafood, you've ruined pretty good for me.

Speaker 2:
[79:13] Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 1:
[79:13] Sorry.

Speaker 2:
[79:14] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[79:14] Like even when I do enjoy it, I feel bad. And then I put the idea of ranchers being cool.

Speaker 3:
[79:21] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[79:22] I think like the show Yellowstone, you ruined it for me before it would start.

Speaker 3:
[79:26] Yeah, that's different though. I like real ranchers, but I don't. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[79:30] Do you?

Speaker 3:
[79:31] Some. The ones that are doing it like sustainably and ethically.

Speaker 1:
[79:35] Yeah. Let's see then. You don't need to think of it. I kind of want to just put like the world.

Speaker 3:
[79:40] Okay. Just your world view.

Speaker 1:
[79:43] Because it's like global warming, you know?

Speaker 3:
[79:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[79:46] Okay. But like me doing anything.

Speaker 3:
[79:51] I didn't realize I was supposed to pick multiple things for both of you. Okay. I just picked one and it's a little bit surface level. Because I was having a hard time thinking of them. You guys ruined Super Smash Brothers for me. Because at the Cube, when you guys lived in the house that you called the Cube, we were pretty equally matched. And I was a little bit worse than you. I was worse, but I could compete. And any more, I can't. When we play Super Smash Brothers even for a little bit, I just get my ass handed to me immediately, especially by Mike, but also by Jeff. So I just don't even like playing with you anymore.

Speaker 2:
[80:33] Jeff and I were pretty equally matched, which surprised me. Because I prided myself on being pretty good.

Speaker 3:
[80:40] I could have a natural talent like I need the good money was on both of you, but I could hang back then. And now I can't even hang. So it's not fun.

Speaker 1:
[80:49] I got really into like fighting without items and I couldn't win that way.

Speaker 2:
[80:55] The items really introduces. That is the great equalizer. You're right, Wes. You actually when we had items on it was like really a toss up who would win. OK, I'm going to go with generally game night. I think you guys, the Larson's writ large have kind of ruined it for me. I've never I've always kind of had fun when we just sit down and have a fun family time playing whatever cards. But when I started playing with you guys in competition, really started being like a thing like you guys want to win. And that's like I think that's actually right. That's the point of games is to win them. But like that was never my attitude towards them. And then there's all these rules I have to keep track of and like everything gets enforced and like energy levels get a little high for me. And I'm just like, I think I'm actually good on Uno. Yeah. So it kind of not saying you guys are wrong to do it, but it's just not my speed. How you guys.

Speaker 3:
[81:49] It ruins a lot of game nights for me, too, because if that tempo and energy isn't there, then I'm not having fun. Like I need them to be competitive or else it's kind of like this isn't fun for me.

Speaker 2:
[82:00] That's the thing is it's like unfair to the people I play with because I don't care and it feels like if there's one rogue agent who's just kind of like they're not.

Speaker 3:
[82:07] No, we love it.

Speaker 2:
[82:08] It messes the game up for the rest of the people.

Speaker 1:
[82:11] But what about all the jokes?

Speaker 3:
[82:13] Yeah, the jokes are funny. The laughs, Mike.

Speaker 1:
[82:16] What about the laughs?

Speaker 2:
[82:18] I can live without them.

Speaker 3:
[82:19] All right. Next one is just a quick one for you guys. For all three of us, it's kind of a category I just made up. Yay or nay, adult arcade restaurants. So I'm talking like Dave and Buster's here.

Speaker 2:
[82:34] I'll say yay with depending on the group. I don't like going to places like that with strangers. If it's my first time meeting someone, I have a hard time functioning very well.

Speaker 3:
[82:43] Mike, my counterpoint to what you just said is that at Dave and Buster's, if I'm sitting with strangers, I feel like I have to make small talk in a normal restaurant. But at Dave and Buster's, as soon as I order my food, I can just get up and go play video games. And that's why I like them because I don't love restaurants because I don't like all the dead time of waiting on food and waiting for the bill and everything. That gives me a weird kind of anxiety. And that's why I like arcade ones is that is killed by going to go have fun playing arcade games. So for me, it's perfect for strangers.

Speaker 1:
[83:20] Well, I think it kind of leads into Mike's whole problem with Game Night too. He just can't get competitive over things he deems meaningless. And like for us, it's like pop a shot. Like if you beat me up, pop a shot, I'll be pissed. And I got to play until I beat you, you know?

Speaker 3:
[83:43] But it's like, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[83:45] $50 bet's happening. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh, I can't keep up. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[83:51] All right. So it's a yay for both of us, Jeff. Yay or nay?

Speaker 1:
[83:54] I love Dave and Buster.

Speaker 3:
[83:56] All right. Yay for Jeff.

Speaker 1:
[83:57] I'd live there.

Speaker 3:
[83:59] Okay. Another quick category. I want to hear a hot take. Give me a hot take.

Speaker 2:
[84:06] Okay. I'm going to say people who use intermissions during long movies as a stopping point to stop watching it for the night and maybe come back the next day. You're weak. You're weak. Your bloodline is weak. You will not procreate successfully. These movies are meant, they're ten minute long intermissions for reason, not twenty four hour long intermissions. Buck up if you're not ready to sit through a four hour Lawrence of Arabia. Maybe you're just not for you yet.

Speaker 3:
[84:36] You're not allowed level up a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[84:38] Yeah, no, I just it bothers me just generally when people like find stopping points even in like shorter, especially in shorter movies. If it's like an hour and forty minute long movie and it's like, I can't I can't do this. It's like, come on. This movie is meant to be consumed here and now in one sitting. And I fall asleep. Your self is my problem.

Speaker 3:
[84:59] I fall asleep and then I have to watch in multiple sittings. But yeah, I get that. You want to preserve what the director had in mind. That's a good hot take. Jeff, what's yours?

Speaker 1:
[85:10] I have a few.

Speaker 3:
[85:12] All right.

Speaker 1:
[85:13] So I think celebrities shouldn't be nice to paparazzi or fans who approach them at inappropriate places. Like to me, when I hear a celebrity is a jerk, I kind of think like that's a normal person. You know?

Speaker 2:
[85:30] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[85:30] Unless like they're doing really bad stuff. But like, I remember someone was turned off by Keanu Reeves because he didn't want to talk to him that much when he met him. And it's kind of like, yeah, that's fine with me. Like, it's weird that celebrities are nice to every single person interrupting their dinners, you know?

Speaker 2:
[85:50] So when that guy grabbed Shia LaBeouf's leg, you think Shia did the right thing at Mardi Gras?

Speaker 1:
[85:55] Square up.

Speaker 2:
[85:57] He's square up. He was scared. Right. You can't blame him for that. He was scared.

Speaker 1:
[86:03] I think ESPN ruined sports media. I was thinking about like another hot take. I don't think Alan Iverson's practice rant is funny at all. Like I just don't think it's funny. And ESPN has joked about it for the last 20 years.

Speaker 3:
[86:20] Yeah, they think it's like the funniest thing ever.

Speaker 1:
[86:22] And like it made it so like everyone has to be like Marshawn Lynch or Kwai Leonard. Like you can't say anything or it's talked about the next two weeks, you know? And it's just like they've taken all the fun out of any interviews by like, if anyone says anything remotely interesting, it turns into the biggest story ever. Will Smith's Slap, not that big of a deal. Let him be in movies.

Speaker 3:
[86:53] Pretty cool, honestly.

Speaker 1:
[86:57] Timothy Chalamet's comments about opera and ballet. I don't care. Like, you know, that's just how he felt. And my last one is, I think I'm to the point. I completely agree with Thanos.

Speaker 2:
[87:13] What do you mean by that? You want half the population of the universe to be gone?

Speaker 1:
[87:17] If he could randomly do it.

Speaker 3:
[87:18] Did he kill animals too? Like critters?

Speaker 1:
[87:23] I think so. That's wrong. You're right.

Speaker 3:
[87:25] I wish that had gone there.

Speaker 2:
[87:27] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[87:27] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[87:27] Or maybe rethink that one a little bit and come back next time.

Speaker 1:
[87:30] We gotta go back to drawing board with Thanos.

Speaker 3:
[87:33] All right. My hot take is seaweed's bad. It's bad in everything. It's never good. It never adds to anything. It tastes like low tide. It tastes like you are you're going out and licking algae off of rocks. It is not good. And people convince themselves that it is. That's my hot take.

Speaker 2:
[87:55] I only got one thing to say to that, Wes. Yeah, bruh.

Speaker 3:
[88:00] All right. Accepted.

Speaker 2:
[88:03] You don't like those little like snack packs with like salty seaweed. Oh, they're so good.

Speaker 3:
[88:07] Never like I don't. I can't tell you how many times I've thought, you know, I think I'm going to try it again. I'm going to like it this time because I really want to like seaweed because I know it's like a fancier, not fancy, but a more refined thing to like. And I think so. Yeah. Like, you know, and I do think I'm a adventurous eater. So I always want to try those things. I just don't like it. I it always is bad to me.

Speaker 1:
[88:37] You think that's like an unpopular opinion, though? Like, do you think most people like seaweed?

Speaker 3:
[88:42] I don't know about most people, but I think a lot of people.

Speaker 1:
[88:47] I'm just questioning how hot that is to me. I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[88:51] I think it's a hot take.

Speaker 1:
[88:53] Really?

Speaker 3:
[88:53] When I tell people I don't like seaweed, I always get like a what? You don't like seaweed? And it's like, no, it's seaweed. Yeah. Anyway, it does. Because I when I go get ramen or whatever, I always say no seaweed. And then people say, oh, you don't want seaweed. Anyway. All right, bro. OK, Jeff, do you have a couple of listener questions for us?

Speaker 1:
[89:14] Wait, what's Mike's hot take?

Speaker 3:
[89:16] Didn't he do it?

Speaker 2:
[89:17] Oh, I did it.

Speaker 3:
[89:18] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[89:18] Watch your movies, people. Sit down and watch the movie.

Speaker 3:
[89:22] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[89:22] Sit there.

Speaker 1:
[89:23] The Thanos one was hot.

Speaker 3:
[89:25] Yeah, that's hot.

Speaker 2:
[89:26] But you don't even agree with it anymore.

Speaker 1:
[89:29] The animal part.

Speaker 3:
[89:30] Yeah. All right. So how about a non animal news story from the last little bit that you want to talk about?

Speaker 1:
[89:37] Well, Taylor, Frankie, Paul, they canceled her season of The Bachelor because Dakota leaked a video of her throwing a stool at him to TMZ. So then now Jessie's getting divorced with Jordan. And Jordan went real extra talking about how Demi wasn't filming anymore. But then, uh, Jessie right away, she's like, Oh, yeah, there's nothing happened with me and Marciano. And now she's dating Marciano and she kissed Chase.

Speaker 3:
[90:12] Wow. All right.

Speaker 2:
[90:15] Can't believe it.

Speaker 3:
[90:15] But I thought you're going to do Tiger Woods, but I'm glad you did that, Mike.

Speaker 1:
[90:21] That's an animal story.

Speaker 3:
[90:23] Non-animal tiger. Tiger.

Speaker 1:
[90:26] I was just on the phone with the president.

Speaker 3:
[90:31] Those photos are the best photos ever of anyone. All right, Mike, what's your non-animal news story of recent?

Speaker 2:
[90:39] I'm going to go with Gucci Mane getting kidnapped and robbed by Pooh Shiesty in Dallas. That's pretty crazy. Just two rappers. Yeah. Pooh Shiesty on the come up and then he did Time and now he's going to probably do way more time because they kept posting stuff that they stole from Gucci Mane on Instagram. They're like flexing his watches and stuff. And it's like, are you guys literally just anyway, Gucci Mane getting kidnapped is like what the hell is going on kind of thing, especially out of a studio. That's so crazy to me that that happened.

Speaker 3:
[91:09] I don't know what happened until just now. Did you guys hear about the Afro Man news?

Speaker 2:
[91:14] Of course.

Speaker 1:
[91:16] Somewhat. I know he like videoed the cops and the cops are mad about it.

Speaker 3:
[91:21] I used to love the song because I got high. I listened to it quite a bit actually. So I always had a fondness for Afro Man.

Speaker 2:
[91:29] That song gets pretty dark by the end. He just like really his whole life is in shambles by the end of that song.

Speaker 3:
[91:34] I was like 23 when I liked it though. He's a funny guy though and not too long ago the police raided his house. They had a warrant to look for certain things but they did much more than they were allowed to with their warrant and were just really disrespectful to him. And he managed to catch a lot of video of them raiding his home while they were doing their thing and has since gone on to make multiple songs calling out these police by name, insulting their partners, making fun of their appearance, doing all this stuff.

Speaker 2:
[92:13] Let him pound cake.

Speaker 3:
[92:14] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[92:14] Oh, it's so funny.

Speaker 3:
[92:15] And just harassing them to the point where the police brought up a suit against Afro Man and took him to court for libel or harassment or whatever and he won. And it was just like he came to court dressed in this big American flag suit and just looks so funny. And a lot of the clips from it are hilarious and just one of the funnier stories I've read and watched in a while. So it was really good.

Speaker 1:
[92:42] There's one where they were like playing his song as like evidence against him, you know, and he's just like dancing.

Speaker 2:
[92:49] He's rocking out to it.

Speaker 3:
[92:51] Yeah, it's so funny.

Speaker 2:
[92:54] Love that guy.

Speaker 3:
[92:54] All right. Well, I think that wraps it up for the week. Good news stories. Thank you to our listeners for sending them to us. As always, it really helps us kind of know what people want to hear us talk about. So we really appreciate that. And we got some fun stories coming up. Yeah. You guys got anything else?

Speaker 1:
[93:14] Well, you want a Jeff random animal fact? Sure.

Speaker 2:
[93:17] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[93:19] I don't have one prepped.

Speaker 3:
[93:20] All right. Well, then no, maybe.

Speaker 2:
[93:22] Yes. We'll dispense with it then.

Speaker 1:
[93:24] I don't think trout can swim backwards.

Speaker 3:
[93:28] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[93:28] I think they got to turn around.

Speaker 3:
[93:31] Take that one with a grain of salt, all you listeners out there. And we will see you soon. Love you. Love you.