We love stuff, but the idea of going to a store for that stuff sounds insane. Today, Farz will talk through the history of Black Friday - why do we do Thanksgiving when we do? Why do we like sales so much? Would you murder someone for a PlayStation (say no)? Happy Franksgiving & Merry Christmas! If you want to get us a present just give us 5 stars on your podcast app! It's free!
We love stuff, but the idea of going to a store for that stuff sounds insane. Today, Farz will talk through the history of Black Friday - why do we do Thanksgiving when we do? Why do we like sales so much? Would you murder someone for a PlayStation (say no)?
Happy Franksgiving & Merry Christmas!
Taylor: Hello, fellow Americans. How are you doing today
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Hello. Hello, Taylor. Happy. Whatever today is. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good. How are you doing?
>> Farz: Pretty good. It's a little late over here, but.
>> Taylor: Thank you for giving me time. I had to wrap, like, I brought a bunch of Christmas presents today and did a bunch of that kind of stuff.
>> Farz: What a great day. And now you're going into the more chaos of the holidays. Yeah, the continued chaos.
>> Taylor: I have, like, several school things to do this week, and then we leave on Saturday for the east Coast. It was fun.
>> Farz: Okay. Maintain the energy. You got it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I know. I don't. I don't have it in me. I do. I did put in the kids calendar that the day we get to Baltimore. But we're gonna relax like a steric because my. My family relaxes, even though my husband's family wants to do stuff. So it'll be fun.
>> Farz: Yeah, it's an old saying. Who you mar what family you marry into. Do they go for turkey trot on Thanksgiving or do they sit at home in their pajamas all day?
>> Taylor: Honestly, thank Christ. They don't go on runs. They definitely go on, like 40 mile bike rides.
>> Farz: And I'm like, no, that 4,000 text.
Taylor: I hate Black Friday. I hate the fact that we call this pseudo holiday
>> Taylor: Cool.
>> Farz: Let me introduce.
>> Taylor: Introduce us. Yes. Hello. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. I'm Taylor, joined by Fars, and we bring you historical failures and disasters and fun stories. And today it's Fars turn, and I'm.
>> Farz: Going to bring one of the biggest failures, disasters, and disappointments in human history. I am, of course, talking about Black Friday.
>> Taylor: Well, how fun.
>> Farz: I hate the fact that we call this, like a pseudo holiday.
>> Taylor: I feel like I haven't stepped inside a store in a very long time. So I don't even know. I don't even know.
>> Farz: Tell me when you were a kid, you remember seeing, you know, the videos of people who were, like, camped out, intense outside of a Best Buy? You know, if this. Okay, I'm gonna get a lot more hate mail f my therapy thing when I say this next part. I feel the same way about Costco. I feel like at Costco, all these people just beating each other over the head to try and get something, and it's like, okay, so you save 15 cents on your ham.
>> Taylor: Like, I also don't feel like I need a Costco membership.
>> Farz: What's your piece worth?
>> Taylor: I want that much stuff. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I don't. I'M not into that. Did I? Oh, my sister and brother in law live in Valley Stream. Are you talking about that particular town?
>> Farz: Is that where that one kid got shot and killed?
>> Taylor: Someone died. It was on Long Island.
>> Farz: I will talk about that.
>> Taylor: But that was like their Walmart.
>> Farz: I'm going to go into details about that one.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I figured.
>> Farz: But it's a horrible, by my estimation a horrible holiday and I'm glad that it's kind of fading away in prominence.
>> Taylor: Stores start to collapse. I also, I'm curious for you to tell me like how much like I know that like the way that things are priced, you know, like corporations don't really care. Like they want the, they want as soon as they make their, their money back or what they wanted the profit to be, then they can, that's how things can go on sale, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah. It's also, it's also a byproduct of artificial inflation. So like if you say something that's.
>> Taylor: A hard way to say that.
>> Farz: So, so it's, I, I, I learned this, I listened to some Freakonomics episode about how J.C. penney. They're like, why does like why do stores like Dillard's and JCPenney and all these stores, I don't know if those are still around anymore. But why do they always have things on sale and they're like, because it's always marked up and so they always mark it down because they think who are so insane they'll just buy it because there's a different tag on it.
>> Taylor: Who lost a bunch of money because they stopped doing that. Like one of those stores was like, maybe one of those stores was like, okay, we're gonna have like every, maybe it's TJ Maxx. Like we're gonna have Everyday Low.
>> Farz: Yes, yes, yes. Every day. Yeah. They marked it down consistently. So they took the sale thing off and just kept the price the same. And people were like, I don't want that.
>> Taylor: That's not as fun. No. You want your cool cash. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Farz: You know what? I'm, you know I'm gonna go even one step further and get even more hate mail. I'm gonna put outlet stores in the same category.
>> Taylor: Yes, I agree. I, I was like, we have an outlet mall by me. And I also don't ever want to we going to do find junk.
>> Farz: It's all junk. It's all crap. Like none of it's as good as the real. There's one close to me that's like a Ralph Lauren store is the Only, like, Ralph Lauren store in the Austin area. But you go in, it's all. It's like the crappiest version of their nice stuff.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: What? Why do I want that? Like, whatever I get. I guess having a lot of junk for most people is better than having a little bit of a good thing. Yeah, maybe.
>> Taylor: I don't know, man.
We're going to talk about Black Friday, why we have it, and why
>> Farz: We're gonna talk about Black Friday, why we have it, and why it's terrible. Beyond. You know what? We actually covered a lot of why it's terrible. We're going to go into anecdotal story that Taylor referenced earlier into more detail about why it's terrible.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I agree with you. Agree to agree.
>> Farz: I learned something really interesting as part of this research. Actually, the whole thing's interesting. Keep listening. But the most interesting thing I learned is Thanksgiving wasn't always on the same day. Did you know that?
>> Taylor: It wasn't always the last Thursday of November.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Tell me more.
>> Farz: Okay, so Black Friday and how it relates to Thanksgiving. So in the 16 to 1700s, Thanksgiving was, like, celebrated on a different date based on what colony or state you were in. George Washington set The date in 1789 is November 26, but it was just for that year. And just for that date, from the 1790s till the 1860s, states just picked their own Thanksgiving Day, and there was, like, no national declaration on what day it was supposed to be on. It wasn't until 1863, when a National proclamation by Abraham Lincoln set the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving.
>> Taylor: Fun.
>> Farz: Yeah. Then FDR gets involved and commercial interests get involved, and that's when things got kind of interesting and wonky and political. Like, it's one thing I also learned as I researched. It was like, everything has been political always, since forever. It is not a modern time thing. We just see it more because of social media.
>> Taylor: And that's. I think that that is our, like, thesis statement for everything. Yeah. Like, everything's always been political. Everything's always been kind of awful. Let's just power.
>> Farz: Power through. Yeah. So FDR gets involved. And one thing that I saw was that apparently some years there's five Thursdays in November, which I guess kind of makes sense because every now and then, some weeks have five weeks in them, or some of us have five weeks in them. Traditionally, the day after Thanksgiving was known as, like, this kickoff, the holiday shopping season for Christmas.
>> Taylor: Mm.
>> Farz: And retailers hated when there was five Thursdays because it delayed the kickoff to the shopping season. And so in 1939, they approached FDR and was like, let's just change that and make it the fourth Thursday in November for everyone across the board. Okay, so that was not law. That was a proclamation. That's a presidential proclamation. And again, this caused a rift between Democrats and Republicans. Democratic states, they went with FDR's proclamation. The fourth Thursday was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in Republican states who were trying to stick with Lincoln, they would celebrate the last Thursday of November. And apparently, if you were in a. A Democratic state, it was called Frank's Giving, not Thanksgiving because of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
>> Taylor: I'm changing to that.
>> Farz: Going back to that Thanksgiving.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I'd rather talk about FGR than the Pilgrims.
>> Farz: Yeah, well, you got plenty. He did a lot. So. So it took another two years after all this political stuff was going on with the Franksgiving versus Thanksgiving fiasco, when Congress in 1941 finally passed a law that FDR signed into law that officially the fourth Thursday is the nationally observed date for Thanksgiving. Follow me?
>> Taylor: Yes, I'm following you.
>> Farz: Retailers themselves hated the name Black Friday because historically, when you denote it anything as black, like, think about, like, Black Monday, the stock market crash, Black Tuesday, the other stock black plague. Like, it just denotes like, things like aren't going. Right. Yeah, there's also. There's so many of these. Actually learned that in Australia, they. They didn't call it Black Friday until pretty. Because there was another Black Friday, which was the biggest wildfire in the history of Victoria that just killed a ton of people. And so calling anything Black Friday was supposed like it was verboten.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, that. That one makes more sense to call it that.
>> Farz: Yeah. So the retailers try to pivot the meaning of the name by referring to the balance sheet. So when the balance sheet is negative, you're not making enough money, it's in the red. When it's positive, you're in the black. And so that's what they were trying to associate this holiday with.
>> Taylor: But why did they. Why did they call that in the first place?
>> Farz: I'll tell you when you get to that.
The percentage of actual retail sales on Black Friday are crazy low
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Farz: The way they got the term Black Friday was in 1951, there was a publication that was called Factory Management and Maintenance. It was for commerce people. It was a trade magazine for commercial goods and sales and stuff like that. And they referred to the Friday after Thanksgiving as Black Friday because that's when everybody called in sick to work and nobody would show up for their jobs.
>> Taylor: I mean, that. That.
>> Farz: Yes, that does track, right?
>> Taylor: That tracks, yes. I don't. I also don't want to go to work that Thanksgiving.
>> Farz: 100%. 100%. But that was the starting point of it. That's why it got that name to begin with. They published that in 1951, and then people started kind of catching onto it.
>> Taylor: Got it.
>> Farz: And the attempt to pivot obviously hasn't worked. I also think, generally speaking, as of today, like, the. The whole concept of Black Friday kind of has, like, fallen out of favor with the public. Now. You have like, sales all the time. You have Cyber Monday. You have Cyber Week now with E commerce sales from Monday onwards. Also, I just don't care about sales anymore. Like, I just.
>> Taylor: And it's all made up. Yes. No, exactly what you're saying.
>> Farz: Nobody's losing money on this. Like, it's not a. Like, how much of a sale can it be if they're still making a ton of money off it? Yeah, I don't think I'm getting something of outsized value for my money when sales are happening.
>> Taylor: No.
>> Farz: Also, one thing I learned is that the percentage of actual retail sales on Black Friday are like, crazy low.
>> Taylor: Like the actual, like, objects gone or the.
>> Farz: The percentage of revenue generated from Black Friday. Yeah. So like in the 1990s, which is when Black Friday was like, kind of a big deal, you know, when we were kids, it only accounted for half a percent or so of retail sales.
>> Taylor: Really? That's so surprising.
>> Farz: Yeah, it was really low. Mostly the concept, though, was to draw people into stores. So if you have like a grocery store, for example, they put all the stuff you really, really need and want out of the way. Like, eggs are in the back of the store, milk is in the back of the store.
>> Taylor: Like you have to walk through the store.
>> Farz: Yeah, they're trying to make it. So they would do this as a way to kind of get you in so that you could just. Okay, sure, you're going to get some craz price on a TV. That TV is going to break in 15 minutes. Doesn't matter. You're going to turn around and you're going to buy something else for the cables are going to cost a lot and all that stuff. And so that's how they would kind of get you. And back then, some of these deals were somewhat decent, actually. So you had DVD players going for sale for $13 yet. TVs that were being sold for hundreds of dollars off PlayStations back in the day would be like half off. And people would lose their absolute marbles at PlayStation deals. Like, that's when a lot of violent stuff ended up happening.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally can imagine that.
>> Farz: Or just gaming things in General. But those were kind of. Again, there were edge cases. Draw people into the stores to buy other stuff. And Black Friday got progressively shittier as time went on with retailers having door busters, remember? And they would actually start opening the stores on Thanksgiving Day itself. Like, how do we all revolt against this? Like, why are you taking people away from their families to.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: It's so gross.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's gross.
>> Farz: Which actually is one of the blessings that Covid gave us. Because retailers were discouraged from having large, large congregations of people. It. It discouraged them to have these door buster Black Friday deals where people just lose their minds and infect each other and probably kill each other and trample each other for no reason.
>> Taylor: I also kind of like, there's stuff that my kids want for Christmas, but I'm also, like, not raising a******* where I have to, like, get in a physical fight with someone to get them something.
>> Farz: I never wanted anything that bad in my life.
>> Taylor: Never. Never. And, like, yeah, I feel like there's, like, stupid that people were, like, the kids, like, really want. If they don't get it, the kid's gonna lose their mind. Then, like, I don't know. Revisit your kid.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, There's. There's so many stories I can go through here, but, like, yeah, there's so many of those with Tickle Me Elmos, where parents were literally getting into fist fights with people to give their kid a Tickle Me Elmo. It's like, raise your kid better. Give him a book. Like, give him a membership to Barnes and Noble or something.
>> Taylor: A thousand percent. And I can say that as a parent, like, my kids have never had that happen.
>> Farz: Yeah. Good parenting.
>> Taylor: Thank you.
>> Farz: Glad that you had to hear that from me. But still.
Only 17 deaths directly related to Black Friday have been reported
Yeah, there's a fun thing I found called the. Called Black Friday death count.com, which actually tracks every injury and death from 2006 till today. Oddly enough, there's only been 17 deaths directly related to Black Friday, which is probably still more than there should be.
>> Taylor: For just that is 17 too many.
>> Farz: 120 injuries were related to Black Friday. And I will say a lot of those injuries are gunshots. So, like, they weren't trivial. Like, people just like, broken arm or.
>> Taylor: Something, like, from other shoppers.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Christ, you guys.
>> Farz: The story you're referring to was out of New York in 2008, and it was at a Walmart and involved this guy. Man, I'm so. I'm gonna actually butcher the pronunciation. It's. It's a hard pronunciation. There's a lot of Consonants back to back with his name, which I should be better at given my. My ethnicity. But still, this guy was 6 foot 5 and 270 pounds. He was being used to kind of a door guy to try and control the Black Friday crowd. He ended up getting trampled to death when the doors actually opened and they put a sign in front of the store, like, their genius marketing team put a sign outside the store that said, quote, blitz line starts here. So they're riling people up. They're getting them going. One of the things that Walmart apparently did back in the day was they would have, like, the pallets of, like, the stuff people really want, like the Xboxes and stuff, like.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: And they would have, like, you know, BF on them, like Black Friday. So you knew that was a Black Friday thing.
>> Taylor: Right? You knew it was coming.
>> Farz: And you. In theory, you weren't supposed to be able to, like, check out with it until midnight, but people just, like, grab them and start running out of. Out of the store. They're like, lose their minds trying to get this thing for anybody else would.
>> Taylor: Man, that's dumb.
>> Farz: And so apparently in that situation, even after police arrived and announcements were made that somebody had been killed, like an employee was dead and the store was a crime scene, people kept shopping and they wouldn't leave the store. Like, that's how gross things were.
>> Taylor: Like, that's so gross.
>> Farz: Yeah, that.
>> Taylor: I hate that so much.
>> Farz: Yeah. One report I read stated that the deals that people were competing for was a TV that had a regular price of 798 that was discounted to 750.
>> Taylor: Ew.
>> Farz: Is that insane?
>> Taylor: You kill someone for that.
>> Farz: So, so bad. I read Another report in 2010, a woman at a Toys R Us, she wanted. She cut in line in front of other people waiting outside for the store to open and ended up pulling a gun on the people behind her who started complaining about it that she cut them off.
>> Taylor: You're gonna have a record. I mean, maybe I don't know if she had one before, but, like, what do you.
>> Farz: You almost certainly already had a record if you pull the gun on someone.
>> Taylor: That's true. That that lady had, like, good stuff happening, but still, you least started a.
>> Farz: Dollar General and then worked.
>> Taylor: Oh, my God. Wow.
>> Farz: And then there was Another one in 2011, I read of a Los Angeles Walmart where a woman pepper sprayed 20 people in line to try and give her an advantage when the doors open to run in to get a discounted Xbox. There's so many of these stories.
>> Taylor: It's so wild. That is so dumb.
>> Farz: It's so interesting.
>> Taylor: Don't even know how dumb it is.
>> Farz: I know when you think about, like, how as a culture, we're absolutely doomed. Like, I think this was a starting point.
>> Taylor: I mean, it's all something that's, like, none of this stuff is necessary. Does that make sense? Like, it's not something you need for your life. And, like. Yeah.
>> Farz: I will also go so far as to say, like, I. I'm not. I don't think I'm. I don't think we're the same in this way. Like, I'm pretty. I'm, like, into consumer culture. Like, I think it's great that people have money to buy things that they can, then other people can sell to them, and they can use that to send their kids to school and do whatever they want. But, like, there's a level to it, and I don't think I would kill anybody to, say, $48 on a TV. I think. I think I cut it off at that level.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Look, I like. Like, I don't mind, like, targeted ads on the Internet. I'm like, don't give me an advert. I don't want. You know, I'm influenced on Instagram all the time. Like, I'm always. You know, they know what I want, and they, like, give me. Suffer it. Like. Yes.
>> Farz: Is that where you got your Chaos Goblin sweater you're wearing right now?
>> Taylor: It is. I'm wearing something that says Chaos Goblin. But this is from this. It is from. It's from Instagram, but it's for a good cause.
So the next Black Friday, feel free to advertise on this show
So there's a woman who I just am obsessed with. Her name is Taryn. What is her last name? Yeah, Taryn Delaney Smith. And she used to be, like, Miss New York for, like, Miss America. She does. She's really funny and she has, like. She's like, a really funny bit where she's like, receptionist in heaven. And, like, it's hilarious. She wears, like, a towel on her head and, like, a bathrobe as, like, her, like, angel outfit and just look really cute. But anyway, she has. She sold some stuff. And this proceeds from these Chaos Goblin sweatshirts went to the food bank in New York. So that's great.
>> Farz: That's right. But that's.
>> Taylor: But yes, all my. All my s***'s from Instagram.
>> Farz: I also want to use this as an opportunity to. If. If anybody at Walmart's marketing department is listening, we will put your advertisements on this show.
>> Taylor: So, like, 10,000%.
>> Farz: Don't let all the negative Stuff.
>> Taylor: I'm not saying that I won't take your money because. Yes, yes, absolutely.
>> Farz: So the next Black Friday, feel free to advertise.
>> Taylor: Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate. I appreciate you taking that thing. Man. What a s*** way to die. Or a s*** way to like, I don't know, do something. I have a. Oh, you can see my. All the presents I wrapped today. I guess that was totally on brand for your story.
>> Farz: Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, I like read off like 1/50 of the amount of people who are like, trampled to death outside of a Walmart or Best Buy. There's a lot more of those.
>> Taylor: And if you want to know what to do in a crowd crush, listen to. Listen to our other episode. Yeah, the Hillsborough disaster, because that was a crowd crush. Yeah, it sucks.
>> Farz: Yeah. Just order your stuff on Amazon. Like, be normal.
>> Taylor: For real. Like even like, Like I feel like I don't do anything. I don't do. I do very little. Like chasing a sale. Even like Amazon prime day. Like, I don't. It's not like, stuff I need. You know what I mean? It's just like, maybe something s***** will be on sale and I'll buy it. But like, it's never like the things on my list.
>> Farz: Yeah. Like this fidget thing I use. It was a deal day thing that was on Amazon. I wasn't looking for it, but it was there and whatever. It's like, it says it's cheaper now that it's made out of paper. I don't know how much cheaper could have gotten.
>> Taylor: But still, I like those things. I. It's like the Even like going to the mall, like with like no purpose. So weird to be like, oh, I need like a new. I need a new shirt. Like, I need a new going out top because it's 20, 2010 to go to the mall.
>> Farz: I don't know. I think, you know, one of the stories I didn't read off was the murder of this one kid. And it was, it was a mall thing where two groups got into an argument, people had guns, cops showed up, shot someone, killed them. It's all within, it sounds like it's still within contention of like whether they even shot someone that they should have been trying to shoot or not. Like it turned into a whole thing. But it also reminded me when I was a kid of like the mall that was by my house growing up. Like, there was always a shooting there. And I know. Yeah. And when I read it, read about this kid, I was like, I was like, oh, yeah. I remember when I stopped going to malls. Like, our parents, like, malls aren't safe places anymore. We're not gonna go anymore.
>> Taylor: I mean, you know what was so interesting?
Every single store in downtown LA has an armed security guard
So I was in downtown LA this week, and you know how. How we feel about it. Everyone knows. I, like, sent a picture of me cleaning my shoes to everyone. I went with. I was like, don't forget to wash your shoes. Like, you know how I feel about downtown la. But we were at the intercontinental, which is like a expensive, nice, fancy hotel. And the. All of the shops, like, in that neighborhood, which is like one of the nicer neighborhoods of downtown, had an armed security guard. Like the Chick Fil? A, the Starbucks, the California Pizza Kitchen, the Uniqlo. Like, every single store has an armed guard. You're like, that is bad. Downtown la. Like, that's really bad. I don't know. I don't feel safer. I feel much less safe knowing that every store has to have an arm guard. Right?
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. It's not good. It's not good.
>> Taylor: It's not good.
>> Farz: And you. I don't know. I thought about this a lot because you text me earlier about that shooting that happened at that. That.
>> Taylor: In Australia.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Hanukkah celebration.
>> Farz: Yeah. And. And man, I felt myself going the direction of maybe we should be arming teachers and babies at schools. Like, I, like, even Australia is having mass shootings. Like, I thought they solved it.
>> Taylor: They didn't solve it. But I mean, in the past years, since the. What was it called? The. The one.
>> Farz: Yeah. I can't remember the name now. That you did on this. Yeah.
>> Taylor: So in the years since Port Arthur massacre. Yes. There's been like 50 shootings. Like, people have, like 50 people have died of mass shootings in Australia. And in the United states, it's been about 4, 000 people, you know, so they didn't solve it forever, but they sure made a big dent in it, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Like, so that I think is good. I do think that this one that happened today. Today is the, the. The 16th. And there, there was that shooting in.
>> Farz: Australia or 14th yeller, whatever.
>> Taylor: The 14th, someone tackled the gunman, which I've never heard anyone doing in America. So good on that guy.
>> Farz: You hear people are shooting, shooting back, which, like, also made me think that.
>> Taylor: Like, I've never heard anyone shooting back. Have you really? Yeah, Maybe there's just so many that I just don't know. But I've never heard a good guy with a gun story.
>> Farz: We'll. We'll track some down and, and do a, do an anthology to this. But my theory of this also was, like, people here in Texas tend to not be unreasonable dicks to each other because I think everybody's afraid that the other guy has a gun on them.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I don't, I don't love that as a solution. There's an Onion. There's an Onion article that was like, texas makes it legal to be able to hold your gun out at arm's length when you're at the grocery store. And it was just people, like, putting on stage at the grocery store.
>> Farz: That could be fun.
>> Taylor: That doesn't make me feel better. Just. I don't know, but maybe that's me.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, sorry we took a weird. But you know what? It actually isn't a weirdo side because we're talking about Shopping Intercontinental. We're talking about Black Friday. So it all kind of ties in together. So good for us.
>> Taylor: No, totally. Yeah.
There's a shooting at Brown University this weekend
This week on cnn right now. There's. There's a shooting at Brown University this weekend. This big shooting there. I mean, it's bad.
>> Farz: You stay away from crowds to stay home and build a bunker. All of a sudden the cycle starts again.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I don't know. There's no, there's no place safe. Merry Christmas.
>> Farz: I don't know where you live. Like, come on.
>> Taylor: No, what do you mean? Even? Like, like last year we were woken up to gunshots because someone was like, on the tear across the mountain for me.
>> Farz: Oh, yeah, that's right. You did have, you know, steal a car and take cops on a high speed chase up the canyon.
>> Taylor: So it's not. I mean, it's not nothing. Then. Then, like, another guy who lived in 29 Palms went to Palm Springs to blow up a fertility clinic because he was like the kind of guy who thinks that no one should be born because life is suffering. So, I mean, the crazies are out there.
>> Farz: Very nihilist of him.
>> Taylor: That's everyone else's problem.
>> Farz: Well, fun, fun way to end it.
Taylor: I'm not willing to choose between Thanksgiving and Franksgiving
>> Taylor: Cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's a lot of stuff that I didn't know. And I am going to be calling it Franksgiving. Franksgiving from now on. What are you doing next Thanksgiving? Come over.
>> Farz: You got to choose your. Whose side you're on. If you're on Lincoln's side, it's Thanksgiving. It's fdr. It's.
>> Taylor: How dare you.
>> Farz: That's literally what the battle was over.
>> Taylor: How dare. But I just don't feel like I'm willing to choose. I'm not willing to choose between those two. But I am willing to choose between talking about the Pilgrims and talking about fdr.
>> Farz: Call it Taylor giving. I mean, yeah.
>> Taylor: I mean, everything's made up.
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: I think I feel like. Well, because I think I've maybe said this before, but the way I feel about the Elf on the Shelf is I feel like the way that single people feel about Valentine's Day when I'm like this corporate holiday day.
>> Farz: I mean, even non single, I don't think Valentine's Day should be a thing.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna. I, I like New Year's Eve. That one's real. But that's just math and I don't know. I don't know any others.
>> Farz: Yeah, we don't need to celebrate a lot of stuff. We celebrate. But yeah, it's fun. It gives you a reason to get decorate things and wear different colors.
>> Taylor: That's true. I don't hate it. I mean, we have a Christmas trip. I like it.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know.
Taylor says his gums are bleeding and he tasted copper
>> Farz: Well, do you have any listener mail?
>> Taylor: I do. I have one for you.
>> Farz: I mean.
>> Taylor: No, it's not mean, it's funny. I was talking to my friend Nicole. We had lunch yesterday and she was listening to our like Gypsy Rose episode from forever ago. And in it you said that your gums are bleeding, you tasted copper and she wanted to know if you were okay. And I said, I assume he's fine, but our. You okay, did you get that checked out?
>> Farz: I. I don't know why that started, but I know that it stopped.
>> Taylor: And so, okay, then you're fine.
>> Farz: I think it was just a phase of my adult development where I just tasted copper and blood all the time. And now it's luckily gone away. But thank you for following up, Nicole.
>> Taylor: Great, Great. I was like, I don't know. That was a couple years ago. I know if he wasn't fine, but.
>> Farz: I don't know, I laugh and just.
>> Taylor: Blood splatter goes on the like, I'm fine. Gums are like gushing blood. I'm gonna call and call your mom. Yeah, that's it. Thanks, Nicole. Thank you for your concern.
>> Farz: Thank you very much. We're probably, probably okay. But please write to us more things@dunafellpondgmail.com, find us on the socials, let us know if you have ever killed someone to save 7% on a TV.
>> Taylor: You know what, what's been worth it for you to get into a physical fight with someone or like at least wake up at like 4 in the morning and get it because, like, I do get like. I'm sorry, I know, I know where at the end. But I do get like. We used to remember my husband made a movie about people who played like World of Warcraft and it's called Second Skin. It was like from 2008 and. But those guys would like go and get like the special expansion of World of Warcraft at like midnight, you know, which I think fun because you get to go home and play it and like meet your friends in like the new world or like, whatever. But they didn't like get in fights over it, but they were like, they would. They would wait in line for it, but it felt a little bit different because it was like a timing thing, not like a sale thing, you know?
>> Farz: Well, that would. That's also an affinity thing. You're in there with a bunch of other nerds. You're not like, you know, remind me. Do you remember when. When it was somewhere in Florida where they hosted a thing where they were going to give away some like, rare, like thousand dollars boa constrictor, but the person had to win it. And the way to win it was they held like a cockroach eating challenge and someone died because apparently there's a specific bacteria and cockroaches that on at scale will just like shut down your entire neurological. Neurological system. Remember that?
>> Taylor: Yeah, I think so.
>> Farz: Like for a thousand bucks, right?
>> Taylor: I know there's like a guy who just. Who just died this year, I think, but he ate like a lizard or something as a dare and in his frat and he was like totally incapacitated for like 10 years before he died. It like he was like a vegetable.
>> Farz: Geez, you know what? I did that with my roommate in college where I bet him if he would eat this like June bug that was on my windowsill, I would pay for Texas roadhouse steaks. And he actually ate it. He's a doctor now. Wow, good times.
>> Taylor: So I don't know how we got there, but that's gross.
>> Farz: Story time, I guess.
>> Taylor: All right, cool. Thank you.
>> Farz: Thank you. We'll go ahead and cut off there. Thanks, Taylor.