Limited Appeal

For this episode, we revisit Inventions and Shit, our segment in which we present ideas of new inventions for free (mostly) in case any venture capitalists are listening. Warren's latest idea is a toilet water warmer, which, you may have guessed, warms the water in your toilet. There are several major benefits (or perhaps problems) depending on your anatomy, digestive physiology, and temperature p...

Having been stuck on Season 11 for a while, we skipped 12 and went straight to 13. Bad luck be damned! By the way, have you been eating salami wrong? Quite possibly. Anyway, this episode marks a return to our contest feature Nature Walk, Who's That Bird Non-Bird Edition, Round 5. How dramatic! For this contest, we have to listen to an audio clip of a nonbird, describe the nonbird or name it, descr...

I was going to write about Warren's introduction of a topic, and I guess I have. SPOILER ALERT: Warren mentions more than one thing not particularly central to the latest Predator movie that had (until our discussion) seemed unbelievable, but we resolve that for him. Then, for our segment "How About That?", Warren bring up the Pepto Bismol and Nyquil donut range for the Voodoo Donut shop in Oregon...

This episode starts with a Nature Walk, featuring Who's That Bird, non-bird edition, possibly round 4. T-Bone's dog previous success has him well ahead, maybe. Warren plays the sound of a nonbird, and each of us has to guess what the nonbird looks like, what it's trying to communicate, and provide the collective term for it. We each take a guess, which is as non-illuminating as usual. However, the...

This episode, Warren describes a situation in his work bathrooms that has been troubling him: one day the overseers at Warren's office replaced the paper towels with air dryers. However, some people must have complained, because at some point someone added a box containing so-called "door tissues". This way, people who had previously used paper towels to open the door had an extra paper towel that...

This episode involves a Nature Walk contest, "Who's That Non-Bird: Killer Edition". (We'll save the killer birds for another day.) The contest question is this: which non-birds are responsible for the most human deaths in the world per year? Warren asks the rest of us to guess the top 11. Here's a little foreshadowing: Warren will cite some stats for non-animal causes of death for contrast, and Jo...

Merry Tedmas everyone! In the spirit of the holidays, and just in case you have a collector in your Secret Santa exchange pool, in this episode we try to Name 5 Things that are Bad Ideas for collectible products. For example, Warren explains that cereal producers had tried to make cereal boxes collectible, which is a real thing (https://www.eater.com/2016/2/16/11008926/cereal-box-collections-histo...

This week we open the show uncertain about Carol Burnett's status. Turns out: still funny! Then we try to name five possible sport team names that are strange, yet somehow intimidating. Warren's suggested example is "The Long Starers". We come up with many suggestions, but most of them are perhaps more off-putting than intimidating. Anyway, our discussion naturally leads us to discussing how cerea...

This episode aims not to provoke. Consider yourself warned! We begin with a "How about that?" segment, in which Warren notes that both words tit and boob are palindromes. How about that? We discuss maintaining palindromiety for plurals of palindromes, but it's a bit controversial, and maybe even dangerously close to provocative. To avoid crossing a line, we try to name 5 things that you can stuff...

In this episode, we bring you a nice relaxing audio bath, because you deserve it. Warren presents Pooh Corner to start us off, by recounting an incident on a small plane in which the toilet contained no sink, but only hand sanitizer. Is this an adequate solution? What if (however it happened), you actually got poop on your hand? Would the sanitizer be sufficient, really? Are your hands food-safe?...

Recently the Supreme Court of Canada clarified what constitutes bestiality, and apparently it must involve penetration. But this raises a host of new questions, including the issue of the peanut butter loophole. Are you for or against it? On this week's Nature Walk, we resume our Who's That Bird non-bird edition contest with round 3. Feel free to play along, by trying to guess what the nonbird loo...

T-Bone brings up a recent episode on Vice featuring FMT: fecal matter transplants. Yup, it's that kind of episode. But before you flee in terror, this is a legitimate topic, honest. Turns out that for a subset of people, FMT is a real life-changer. And some animals (horses, rabbits, and assassin bugs) have their own version of FMT, but it usually involves eating instead of enemas. Is your neighbor...

Have you had enough of the Mongolians? I bet you haven't, and we're here to help. We start this week's episode with some technical insight into sound production for Bollywood films. It turns out that Bollywood is doing some things regarding audio recording inefficiently, and losing ambience and texture in sounds as it does it. (We briefly get sidetracked by ewoks and cricket, but soon return to th...

We begin this week by discussing the many sporting achievements of famous Mongolians. By many, we mean really 3, which is not to insult Mongolia but rather to reflect our quickly performed poor research on a Wikipedia page, which, incidentally, actually only named 2/3 of the athletes we discuss. Then most of the episode is devoted to another edition of Foody Goody, in which we continue our ongoing...

After an unexpected but somehow still predictable delay, welcome to Season 11! Wow. We start with Foody Goody, but trust me, you won't want to be eating yourself while you listen. At least not at the start. Yuck. Anyway, feel free to skip ahead to 02:40, and you'll hear us conduct round 3 of "What am I eating and what am I drinking and toasting to?" This time, T-Bone will do the eating and drinkin...

While adjusting T-Bone's audio, we accidentally start to consider the many ways in which humans like donuts. You may be surprised to hear some of them! Inevitably, that discussion leads us to flatworms, of course. If you're not aware of hypodermic insemination, or haven't thought about how it might affect a lonely worm, you are in for a real treat. And, in a strange departure from most of our cont...

After another transparent attempt at generating internet traffic, Warren explains his admiration for the Coors shotgun can, which persists in spite of his dislike for the beer itself. Find out how Warren does physiotherapy on himself to get ready for hockey, and the danger with three syllable words. You never know what's gonna happen! At least sometimes. Anyway, without much by way of transitional...

In this special Tedmas edition of Foody Goody, this year we establish the "burger" as "traditional holiday food". But how do we define a burger? If you think this is straightforward, you haven't thought about it enough. Does it need toppings? What are acceptable patty constituents? What shape should the patty take? Hot? Cold? Cooking method? So many problems! Never fear, though, T-bone comes up wi...

Welcome to another edition of Inventions and Shit! John starts the segment with a suggestion for a new food product based on a geometry pun, and that somehow leads us to the pedagogical consequences of improper mathematical terms by fast food franchises. Obviously. The we resume our contest �Who's that bird?� contest (non-bird edition) with round two. As always, we encourage you to play along. See...

We present for your consideration a new social problem: Warren was reaching for a food item from the top shelf at the grocery store, and some guy on a mobility scooter offered to help him reach. How do you think Warren handled this? Yup, you're right. It was awkward for a number of reasons that have to do with both the situation and Warren's reaction to it. This leads us naturally into a Name Five...

We had some technical difficulties this week, which required Luc to type most of his contributions (but the laughing seems to work, most of the time). See if you can tell the difference, huh? In the episode, we start a new contest: Who's That Bird? (Non Bird Edition). Warren awards three points per round: one point for describing the non-bird's appearance, another point for identifying what the no...

We start out this episode with great difficulty refining the title, but we get there eventually... sort of. Then we ponder what would happen if everybody lost the ability or capability to hiccup. This leads to an interesting discussion about drinking water upside, thumps, and horse magazines. And we also get side-tracked by famous Italian cartoon star, Mr. Hiccup - although he should probably be c...

In this episode's Nature Walk (with a dramatic echo), Warren describes a recent study of cockroaches (cool!) in which the studied shelter choice in cockroaches. (Ame et al., 2006, PNAS) Thanks for the science, folks! In their study, the authors released 50 cockroaches into a cage containing three enclosures that could contain 40 cockroaches each. The cockroaches split evenly to occupy two of the t...

Are you ready for a pineapple show? Well, if not, don't worry. This whole show is designed to get you ready for the pineapple show, I guess. Somehow we start the hype by talking about our guest DJ, Jacco Macacco. If you haven't yet heard about Jacco, you're in for a (somewhat horrifying) treat! The late 1790s were apparently full of spectacles that far surpass anything in modern sport, provided yo...

In this week's edition of Name 5 Things, we try to name five phobias that are probably too specific to be an actual concern. For example, the fear of peeing your pants in a colour other than yellow while being covered from head to toe in processed cheese. Turns out the processed cheese bit is essential to making this particular phobia too specific no matter what kind of pants you are wearing. Anyw...