IAT s09e28

Fri, Jul 14, 2023 2:23PM • 21:44

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

pov, parakeets, enneagram, cowgirl, hat, content, people, apparently, coastal, sphere, love, great, wrote, monk, croissant, thought, molly, article, listeners, work

SPEAKERS

Tom Merritt, Molly Wood

Molly Wood  00:06

Hey everyone, I'm Molly wood.

Tom Merritt  00:07

And I'm Tom Merritt.

Molly Wood  00:08

Welcome to it's a thing weekly podcast supported by you where our mission is to work towards a cleaner podcast as a partner to our listeners, providing high quality analytical services and solutions by highly trained and dedicated hosts in the most cost effective and time efficient manner. Thanks for joining us,

Tom Merritt  00:27

new listeners should know that's not always what we say at the beginning of the show.

Molly Wood  00:33

Even though it sounds like it could be older listeners will

Tom Merritt  00:35

know that's us parodying a mission statement. What I bet none of the listeners have guessed is that this week's mission statement was found on a coffee mug

Molly Wood  00:52

but like in the wild,

Tom Merritt  00:54

yes, mission statement for compu Kim environmental corporation that Richard Stroffolino Our wonderful producer found on a coffee mug at grumpies cafe.

Molly Wood  01:05

That is incredible. He literally was like I found this mug. mission statement for the day.

Tom Merritt  01:10

I took a picture. Yeah, there we are. Now we got it.

Molly Wood  01:14

Ah, amazing. And the show is as they say on the road.

Tom Merritt  01:20

If you are on the road in Las Vegas, you might have noticed the MSG sphere has lit up. Do you know about the MSG sphere? Molly? I don't. Okay, it's it's not msgs in the it's Madison Square Garden.

01:37

I'm like Is it food related? It's gotta be

Tom Merritt  01:39

food related. Sadly, it is an arena for musical acts that is an actual sphere.

Molly Wood  01:47

So it did see this I didn't think it was actually real because it's so bananas.

Tom Merritt  01:51

It is totally bananas. I remember seeing it while it was being built thinking like what looks kind of unremarkable. It's just a it's just a small arena, don't they have a ton of those in Las Vegas, I didn't understand at the time that it is all LEDs on the outside and inside. So from the outside, you can turn it into anything, you could make it look like a basketball or the globe. And on the inside, you're can project anything behind the performers. So that they're it's basically like the same thing they do on the Mandalorian except you're in the crowd experiencing it along with the people performing.

Molly Wood  02:30

Wow. So it's fully like in the round.

Tom Merritt  02:34

Yeah, it's a complete it's one of the only spheres. In in, in existence like Like to me like an actual spherical structure. Right? It's not it's not an oval. It's not a Half Dome. It's a sphere.

Molly Wood  02:50

It's so weird. I mean, I really truly thought these were all photoshopped, like the lights and the lava go over it. And it looks like it's rolling across. I mean, this is some Yeah, this is like Vegas, basically trying to be like, Oh, Dubai is coming for us. Step it up.

Tom Merritt  03:05

It is become a meme of its own. So you may see things out there that aren't real because people are absolutely photoshopping it. But it's hard to tell because some of the real stuff doesn't look like it should be real.

Molly Wood  03:18

This is a really good one. This is a really good catch. Because I have in fact just you know, I've been traveling and so I haven't exactly been paying attention but I've just seen all these like bonkers visuals go by. And thank goodness you explained it because yeah,

Tom Merritt  03:33

yeah, the NBA everyone's talking about this because it just looks like there's a big ol basketball sitting on the horizon.

03:40

This is cool. So next

Tom Merritt  03:43

time you go to Vegas, keep an eye out for the sphere. Maybe you'll even see a show there. Oh, no.

Molly Wood  03:48

I want to see the sphere from the sky. Like I want to

Tom Merritt  03:53

like have it lit up showing something. Yeah.

Molly Wood  03:56

Would that be cool? No, totally. God that is bananas. Yeah, great. One great, great catch. For example, if I were flying over it, I could be I could make a tic tac and I could be like POV the sphere from above. Oh, is that is

Tom Merritt  04:12

now to say POV about yourself.

Molly Wood  04:17

In every video. Just constantly, like I just I see POV POV POV and it sort of means like I'm describing my actual POV right but not quite and it's almost I see people use it the way that they used to do that one that nobody could quite figure out where it was like nobody colon me. Right. So sometimes you just see like a caption that just says POV and then the person being like and then other times. That's a direct quote. Yeah. And then other times it's just you know literal POB but a lot of times, it's just sort of a caption on the thing that you're about to do. And it's, it's everywhere. And I didn't I thought it was kind of stupid. And I was like, I don't know if this is really worth bringing to it's a thing. And then I did a little mini research today. And there was literally an article about it in Parade magazine on June 12.

Tom Merritt  05:17

Yeah, no, you did the right thing. This This is excellent. And I have not encountered it yet. So you're doing me a total solid here. Oh, thank goodness. So people are using it like, like, like, in my opinion, like, some POV.

Molly Wood  05:31

Some are using it. Yeah, exactly. It's like it's like, just it's almost as if you mash your actual point of view together with your opinion. And then you get POV. And it's again, like so many things can be in this weird weird digital world. It's very strangely subtle.

Tom Merritt  05:52

Never doubt your ability to bring the best things POV Oh,

Molly Wood  05:59

yeah, just to complete social media slang and it's just like,

Tom Merritt  06:03

This is great. Yeah, it's Ray. Ray And Shannon are both back in yon this.

Molly Wood  06:08

Oh, good. That means it's real then. It can totally be quick synopsis of what's going on POV or small business owner doing this work thing it can be it can be sincere it can be not sincere. Joyce G are they using it? Says my younger coworkers use it all the time lately. I wonder if they're using it like in real life now. People are also saying that that would be bananas. But yeah, it's just

Tom Merritt  06:33

I'm going to lunch POV What? No.

Molly Wood  06:36

prb having my lunch at my desk because work is back.

Tom Merritt  06:40

Well, while you're eating your lunch at your desk, and people are like yeah, no, I can see you.

Molly Wood  06:44

Like I'm looking. I'm looking right at you. Yeah, you're looking at right at me POV I can't believe by the way that parade not only wrote this up, but has contents like a table of contents.

Tom Merritt  06:55

Let's break it down for you.

Molly Wood  06:57

What is a POV? What is a POV in real life?

Tom Merritt  07:00

Also Parade Magazine still a thing? Out of this conversation to

Molly Wood  07:06

welcome when they're doing the thing where they link every noun in their article, like videos. Wow. romantic.

Tom Merritt  07:15

Romantic is linked. I didn't notice that.

Molly Wood  07:18

It links to a story 125 romantic love quotes.

Tom Merritt  07:22

That's Hey, good. SEO apparently.

Molly Wood  07:25

Bravo parade. POV fascinated by Parade Magazine again.

Tom Merritt  07:33

All right. My other thing this week is parrots are the new pigeons. And this is based on me running into like a dozen articles about how monk parakeets have taken over Brooklyn. And then as I looked into it to see if like monk parakeets in Brooklyn were a thing because there's like a safari you can take to see the monk parakeet nests. Turns out parakeets have taken over 60 of, or I'm sorry, at least 60 of the world's 380 or so parrot species have a breeding population in a country outside their natural geographical range. And it's most often in cities, because the parakeets get let go by owners who are irresponsible and then are in the wild and breed and set up shop. Watch, there's just parakeets all over the place, apparently.

Molly Wood  08:25

I mean, this feels like something that happens in Costa Rica when you go on vacay. But not

Tom Merritt  08:29

Oh, no. Yeah. In their natural geographical range, but no, you're seeing them. Yeah, in Connecticut, in Brooklyn, in Tokyo, and places that they wouldn't normally be. But because monk parakeets in particular, they live in areas in South America that have varying climates like they are up in the mountains, they can survive in cooler weather. And so they have been

Molly Wood  08:55

this is fascinating. Apparently, as early as 1839. Charles Darwin described the monk parakeet species as a major agricultural pest in South America.

Tom Merritt  09:04

Yeah. And there's some cities who were like, we need to do something about these these parakeets. They're like building because they build these group nests. That can become a nuisance because they're huge,

09:15

right? Oh my god. They're so cool, though. I want to see one.

Molly Wood  09:21

I am Connecticut.

Tom Merritt  09:22

I had no idea I had seen parakeets in my old neighborhood in LA before I moved here. And just thought like, Oh, is that somebody's pet? That got out? No. Well, baby at some point, but now it's probably just wild wild parakeets.

Molly Wood  09:37

Red masked parakeets live on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, Rosie bass lovebirds decorative palm trees up and that's amazing. That's a great one all around the world. Parents are taking over and you know, everybody noticed because I've read into frickin burning.

Tom Merritt  09:50

And by the way, I didn't see anyone in the stories I read saying parents of the new pigeons. So I felt it had to be said,

Molly Wood  09:58

nailed it. You Oh Um, that that is your thing.

Tom Merritt  10:01

It's a thing trademark.

Molly Wood  10:03

You have a stamp on that thing. Parents are the

Tom Merritt  10:07

new agents tell them where you heard it is the next bunch of monk Berg. Which you will now

Molly Wood  10:13

which apparently you will, because there's a lot of them. Oh, I want to go there and then they have meanwhile then they have the owl in Central Park to New York is going off with content. It's a jungle out there. Hey, oh. Oh, so I'm really embarrassed. I just called it bird content instead of just birds, bird. Birds

Tom Merritt  10:37

POV bird's

Molly Wood  10:39

POV when you refer to real life things as content.

Tom Merritt  10:44

Yep, yep.

Molly Wood  10:47

Oh, oh, I'm gonna do I'm gonna live in a different branch of the multiverse. Good Lord. Well, I almost didn't do this one. But then it just made me laugh so hard about how we're now just mashing things up in whatever possible way we can. Because apparently the hot trend of hot girl summer is coastal cow girl.

Tom Merritt  11:08

Oh, nice. So we

Molly Wood  11:11

had coastal grandma. Right. Right. And then we and then we had Yahoo agenda. Uh huh. And there was remember there were a lot more cowgirl button cowboy vibes. Yep. Yep. And now we've just gone ahead and mash them together. I'm shocked that core has not been incorporated at some point but it probably will.

Tom Merritt  11:29

Oh, coastal cowgirl core must be just around the corner. Right? Like I think it's coastal California or core.

Molly Wood  11:40

But yes, coastal cowgirl, is the trend of summer and luckily refinery 29 is here to show us how to take it into fall

Tom Merritt  11:49

huh good we don't have to leave it in the summer. No, we

Molly Wood  11:53

can still we can still rock it with the chain belts and the cow cowgirl hats and turquoise

Tom Merritt  12:00

there's like what would you say separates coastal cow girl from just cow girl girl?

Molly Wood  12:07

It seems to be a preponderance of swimsuits

Tom Merritt  12:10

Hmm, that makes sense because you might want to jump in the ocean right off your horse

Molly Wood  12:15

I guess Yeah. And then it's it's not so instead of wearing like, you know heavy jeans and like jodhpurs and boots or something you're wearing more like a flowy dress. Yeah, it would be appropriate for the beach or could be a swimsuit cover up and then you got your like cowgirl hat and maybe some boots. And then you have gold and turquoise jewelry always.

Tom Merritt  12:35

Oh, she had a jetty nailed it Newport Beach line dancing bar

Molly Wood  12:41

Oh my god. That is magical. Yeah, it is so specific and incredible. I love this

Tom Merritt  12:47

cow core right there

Molly Wood  12:49

that's cow core. Wow Newport Beach line dancing bar I both want to go there and also want to burn it down.

Tom Merritt  12:55

Do you want to go there and then burn it down after

Molly Wood  12:57

you've got a tough one? Yeah, exactly like I want to have a really fun night there and then burn it down the hat the hat that is on Amazon and will soon be at it's a thing shop that apparently is one of the you know have once in a while Amazon has some sort of an apparel sensation. This hat is the most want to be ish I have ever seen. It's got like a big turquoise bead in the front and then it's that string bone necklace that used to wear as a choker when you were coming up and then yeah, he's all around it. I mean, this hat is like ah, that hat almost embarrassed for

Tom Merritt  13:39

that is that hat has my sister underneath it in like 1978 I feel Yeah, yeah,

Molly Wood  13:45

totally. That choker was around my neck for sure. For most of the early 90s Yeah. Yeah. That's like like the one with the red bead though. Yeah, I mean, I'm so mad about this entire thing. And I'm probably getting it this hat, coastal cow

Tom Merritt  14:01

girl,

Molly Wood  14:02

coastal cow girl coastal cowgirls awesome but I don't want that with the turquoise that's too much that's too wannabe. Let's try hard

Tom Merritt  14:09

to try hard to try hard but then again full thing

Molly Wood  14:13

I want if you're gonna do it, I do all of my content lately like this is I don't think I think this is just a me thing. But like, my, my cute animal watching content has migrated over the months from Huskies. And where it was exclusively Huskies to other cute animals mostly like interspecies cuteness, like, oh my god, turtles best friends with a puppy. That kind of thing. But now it's just now it's all horse content. Oh, I don't know if that's a broader thing. Like I

Tom Merritt  14:45

don't know. It's like a summer like, like, we'd be like, Oh yeah, it's summer time to jump on the horse and go ride and kinda, maybe well, now that it's warm.

Molly Wood  14:56

Yeah, I mean, if coastal cowgirl is a thing, I guess. Yeah, not it's just a short hop to lay In full on, you know horse girl foot in the stirrup anyway, now you know just go for it, go for it. Get the stupid hat.

Tom Merritt  15:11

Go go. Basically supermodel. That's amazing. Let's get to your super things feedback and it's the thing that made Carlene wrote in on spoons and croissant. The Spoon Theory is big in my circle says Carlene, and it's great when talking to friends to see what mental health levels we are at to support each other. Another apt analogy, the geek in me loves is the same concept as DND spell slots. So you have a number of slots to keep your spells. So apparently my brother and I both in our 40s are ahead of the game. We would flatten Pillsbury croissants and apply butter and honey back in the 80s it's the only way to eat them. You were you were way ahead. Well, Doug Carlene love all that you do. I remember fangirling over both Tom and Malia web 2.0 circa 2008. Oh, wow. Oh my

Molly Wood  16:01

goodness. That's amazing. I was sent a photo the other day of a pizza. Like a DiGiorno. Like a freezer pizza. Yeah, the croissant crust. Oh, wow. Yeah, dude, the croissant thing is really spreading to incredible.

Tom Merritt  16:18

Literally spreading hate. Oh, dB.

Molly Wood  16:22

Spreading and smashing. Davey wrote in with some top thoughts. Hey, Tommy, Molly. I just heard you discussing a trend towards simple comfortable foods, specifically, tater tots. And I wondered has anyone introduced you to to the delicious breakfast potato treat known as the taught waffle?

16:39

Oh, no.

Molly Wood  16:42

Taught so apparently. This originated in a video that was going around during the lockdown days of the pandemic. Sidenote, when everybody got weird about food. The recipe consists of one simple bag of frozen tater tots and one waffle iron. Oh, that's why one to the other until the potatoes are crispy. Then garnish if you want to be traditional with maple ketchup. Yeah, it's just what you're imagining.

Tom Merritt  17:06

Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I might have to buy some tater tots.

Molly Wood  17:11

I mean, that sounds kind of awesome. Actually. Yeah.

Tom Merritt  17:14

My sister's coming into town. She'll need breakfast tomorrow.

Molly Wood  17:18

Oh, get hot waffles and then get some like cheese curds and gravy. Oh, we got like a waffle tight like a breakfast routine types of charging. Oh, dude. Oh, yeah, she's eating good in the neighborhood.

Tom Merritt  17:33

David wrote in on a place he saw any of Graham's taking off. Hi, Tom. And Molly just wanted to write in about the Enneagram. So I find it interesting that you all are seeing this right now. Right as the pandemic was raging the mega church I was working at as a systems admin here in Peoria, Arizona, started using the Enneagram as a way to know how employees will react to each other and help staff to understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. This has been making the rounds in church going circles for the last couple of years. Maybe it's one of those things that got restarted in the church. And then people talk outside of the church and it started blowing up. He links to an article from 2021 Christian magazine relevant magazine.com This is the book that I think got it all started in the churches, the road back to you an Enneagram journey to self discovery. Great work as always. Thank you, David. Yeah, this seems plausible, right.

Molly Wood  18:23

That's amazing. It definitely does. And that's a deep dive. I love it. And I

Tom Merritt  18:27

could absolutely see this becoming a thing. I can absolutely see Enneagram as being useful in a church situation to like, help everybody get along. And you know, somebody's saying, okay, yes, this is, this is a good, wholesome way to do this. And then, of course, it takes off because then people start talking to other people outside the church circles and like, you heard about the Enneagram thing. Yeah, that totally makes sense.

Molly Wood  18:48

You really wonder that's amazing. Oh, wow. I love it. Oh, this also, this article is so interesting. Like, one of the great benefits of the Enneagram is that it helps us not to put people in boxes, but to view them with greater compassion.

Tom Merritt  18:58

Oh, yeah. See? That's a good thing. All right, good.

Molly Wood  19:01

Fascinating. Honestly, we could not we know we could not do this without you because you contribute so much to the show week after week in the form of your incredible emails and insights. And also, sometimes you know, your cash money. So, just to those of you who support us at patreon.com/, it's a thing. Some of you are kind enough to support us at the shout out level. And that is where this content comes in, if you will, your shout outs which are custom crafted week by week by producer which dropped Fellini and this week. The shout outs are based on a promotion poster for the Atari game. Thunder jaw.

Tom Merritt  19:42

Jaw was

19:45

so happy.

Tom Merritt  19:48

I loved this guy. This is amazing. All right. All right. How do we break this up? Do it all start to take ticks. All right, perfect. Here we go. Promotion poster. For thunder Jaws shout out when it's not safe for Kevin SIL to go into the water, and Andrew Bradley can't wait to dive in.

Molly Wood  20:10

If one Laura Abel lurking in the waters can become a smash hit imagine the feeding frenzy when you have a giant cybernetic Benjamin Boris and mutants Mike Aikens bionic Joe wood and lizard Luisita more,

Tom Merritt  20:27

there are just a few of the menacing valeur trucks starring in Thunder Morris Jones, the latest greatest undersea adventure from AJ ventrella. It's Gabrielle Cohen is spellbinding. It's Eric Duncan sizzling it's Jake Woods stunning. In short, it's everything you expect from the premier manufacturer of James C. Smith entertainment.

Molly Wood  20:51

Dive in before you get flooded with Lee price.

21:01

Giant cybernetics Benjamin, I want to play

Tom Merritt  21:05

sunder Morris Joe.

Molly Wood  21:09

Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody for listening to it's a thing from becoming a member of it's a thing@patreon.com slash it's a thing we could not do this without you.

Tom Merritt  21:18

And Dave, you can support the show by buying that hat or affiliate. Look for that in the show notes and all kinds of stuff at our shopping page. It's a thing.me/shop and don't get keep emailing us feedback and it's the thing that may keep those eating things coming

Molly Wood  21:34

up for you next week.