King of the Friend Zone

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17:50Bob Muyskens:Buddy, you guys want to play a game? Yes. Yeah, you guys heard of Vane? New, like, zombie survival game? No. Sounds cool. Vain? Yeah. Is it V-A-I-N or V-E-I? I think, is it V-E-I-N? V-A-N-E. How pretty are these zombies? V-E-I-N, like a blood vein. I want to check it out. I've not got to play it yet. I want to check it out. Reminds me of GTFO. Ooh, that was a fun one. This is a thief simulator style zombie game, right? You got big into GTFO for a minute. I remember that. I did, yeah. I think it's been described as like a first person zomboid. Well, Project Zomboid is really fucking difficult.

18:30Ethan Nestor:So that's sounds like the kind of thing Mark might get into. I tried it. I did an episode where it ends when I died and I lasted about an hour.

18:38Bob Muyskens:That's not bad for a first attempt. I think it's supposed to be a hard game, right? I think people die pretty fast usually, don't they? I was destined to die like 10 minutes in, but it was a slow like withering away kind of death. And then I got chased down and eaten. Yeah, so did not go well.

18:55Ethan Nestor:Yeah, I'd like to play that. No, we're going to play my game, which is probably way worse than that, because I invented it. I was, the other day, was Mandy's dad's birthday, and we were going out to dinner, and we had to go and pick out a card, and by which I mean I let James run around and generally tried to keep him in an area that made sense and let him pick a card. Picked a card with dogs on it. It was very cute. said something like, you can teach an old dog new tricks or, you know, something like that. Greeting cards. Very generic, but the picture was cute. And I was like, man, there are a lot of cards here, but they're all for like the same three things.

19:32Ethan Nestor:There's like the birthday cards, there's like the whatever seasonal holiday cards, and then there's like get well soon cards. There are a lot of other occasions that you might want to send someone a card for. So today, I want you guys to help me come up with some ideas for Greeting cards that you could send for some of these occasions that I have Put down onto my list here. I'm just really just brainstorm and you know Okay, your idea your earns points or whatever. This is not birthdays and shit. This is like unusual ones But I think that they'll be useful potentially okay, and what I want to start with is is I want a card that you send someone when they start having their midlife crisis.

20:16Ethan Nestor:This is like a congratulations on your midlife crisis greeting card or something. It can be anything. We live in a world where I can take any picture I want or I can buy stock photography and get things printed. So the world is your oyster. Got it. Mark. On the front, right? Uh-huh. It's not so bald. You open it up. Packet of hair stapled inside. Like, you can have it as a keepsake. So it's like, and it can pop out at you too. Be like, here. It's on like a spring. You open it and the hair is just like, boing, boing. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's got a sound bite in there, but it's that guy from SpongeBob going, My eyes!

20:55Ethan Nestor:My eyes!

20:58Bob Muyskens:I don't even have to go bald in the midlife crisis. You can just be bald.

21:03Ethan Nestor:The crisis is not because of the bald, but that is, I feel like, a lot of people will like get hair transplants because they're having a midlife crisis and they're like, ah, I can't be bald. I can't stay like this. I don't think you have to do that. I think some people look really good with a fully shaved head. Yeah.

21:20Bob Muyskens:So I had a different idea. So you remember like the old Captain America. So you're having a midlife crisis. Sure. So it doesn't have Captain America, but it says, so you're having a midlife crisis and And it shows like, I don't know, a middle-aged guy, maybe full head of hair, but graying or bald. And then like, I don't know, like a strapping model in the front seat of like a Corvette convertible going down like a nice gold paved road. And then you open it up and the Corvettes crashed it on fire and there's bodies on the ground. It just says expectations versus reality. You're going to die. is that a threat or it's just as expectations versus reality it just has that that gives a

22:08Ethan Nestor:threatening aura to me yeah don't go through it don't do it don't get the hair transplants or maybe i see what you're going for little little ominous little threatening i you could kind of read that as opening it's like it's already over you know you might as well accept that you know the inevitability of your demise it could happen at any moment you know so why even try I was really dark. Why is it so dark? Hey, they're allowed to be dark. I'm looking for interesting, you know? I want the person who gets these cards to open them up and it's going to make them think. It's going to make them feel.

22:43Ethan Nestor:It's not just like, you know, because a lot of... I appreciate when people get you a card for an occasion, but a lot of times it's like, oh, and I got you a card. Oh, because there's a camel. Oh, thanks. And that's it. And it's like, I want this card to give a person pause. So dark is fine. Dark is allowed. I want to stop them dead in their tracks.

23:02Bob Muyskens:See, I'm the kind of card shopper who either doesn't do it at all, or if it's not in the first five cards I picked, I pick one of those cards anyway.

23:09Ethan Nestor:So you're saying you're a thoughtful card buyer?

23:11Bob Muyskens:No. Hate gifts, hate cards.

23:14Ethan Nestor:All right. Well, I have another one. This one maybe is not so specific as the example I want to give, but like a card with this vibe. Congrats on deleting your ex's Netflix profile. Right? Like, it doesn't have to specifically be Netflix, but that thing, right? Like, yeah, you deleted your ex's user profile off your whatever thing, right? Like, that sort of... I want a card for that vibe. Because I feel like in a modern world, that's kind of a step, right? And when you're going through the process of a breakup, if you were close enough with a person that they have profiles on your whatever, deleting those, big deal.

23:55Ethan Nestor:I've got it. Can be a whole thing. Oh, boy.

23:58Bob Muyskens:All right. so you know the meme of like the guy walking with the girl is looking over his shoulder at the other girl passing sure it's that but the the person who's like turned looking around has like a name tag it's like hi my name is but it's blank so you can fill it in so that way when whoever your ex is you can write their name on that like the person looking at the other person and you open it up and it's the girl who was like mad that the dude was looking at the other guy looking at like a Netflix account and has that name on the name tag, you write it in again, and it shows them going to delete profile with like a bucket of popcorn and smiling.

24:35Ethan Nestor:It's convoluted, but it's memes, which I like. And I feel like it does deliver the message, which I appreciate. I thought it was going to get way worse. I think you built it up like there was going to be more threats of violence or death or something.

24:50Bob Muyskens:No, no. Not everything could be violent on fire.

24:53Ethan Nestor:I'm just a little off balance, but like, I like that. That's good. That works. Midlife crisis full of flames. Midlife crisis basically dead soon. Breakups casual.

25:05Bob Muyskens:They happen. They happen. Okay. I'm going to combine mine with the midlife crisis as well. Sure. Sure. That can happen. It happened. So on the front is like Netflix and chill. Overrated, right? You open up. How about Netflix and bills that you still have to pay? Netflix and Hills, which you're already over Netflix and Pills, which you now have to take, and Netflix and Thrills, which you'll never have again Congrats Man, Mark just Netflix said, killed the vibe Netflix and lost your will to live

25:45Ethan Nestor:I feel like, yeah, I feel like that's one, there is a situation for that, but maybe that's someone that you're trying to sort of send a message You're trying to get them to delete your profile Yeah, okay, yeah Or uninstall, you know, Netflix Like, stop using my account We're never gonna get back together I think those are both usable Don't tell Mandy, that was one of my categories I am not secretly considering breaking up with her I just, you like to have stuff in the back pocket You know, so

26:12Bob Muyskens:We're all married now, so this is all theoretical A lot of relationships end at like the end of the honeymoon phase Is your midlife crisis just the end of your life's honeymoon phase?

26:21Ethan Nestor:Maybe I don't know I haven't thought about a lot but it always struck me as like the point where you realize like as you approach your midlife crisis in your like late 30s whatever 40s whenever it hits usually that's the point where you're you start to sort of like your knees start to hurt and like your back or your back hurts or like right you're you're like getting old enough that you're like oh my body is starting to fail me right so I thought I was associated with like you've realized you're going to die now you're coping with mortality by freaking the fuck out and buying a sports car or whatever but it could be it could be more connected to like the honeymoon phase because I don't know as millennials we've had a lot of shit happen already pretty early in our lives but maybe it's not supposed to be like that for other generations who knows honestly like there's no way to actually ever know

27:15Bob Muyskens:tell us about your midlife crises in the comments

27:17Ethan Nestor:yeah if you're having a midlife crisis I want to hear about it let me know what cool stuff you got going on I'll be there soon I assume maybe we're already there this one is sort of the last in a series of events for which you might want to send a card but I feel like this one is one it's hard to find for and I want a card for happy last day under house arrest or like happy conclusion of your court mandated house arrest something uh something to go for that right it's like you send you send like you know a gift card to top golf and a card that says congrats you can go to top golf now you know something cool i got it okay so this is niche this is if you i know it could be anybody anybody gives it to you but you just got free the bracelets off You get this car is like, congrats on finally being free.

28:14You open it. It says now no one is watching you, but you hear that little air tag chirp. It's got a sound there. So you hear the air tag go off.

28:27And then once you open it, it will always go off until the battery dies. Always one of those. Yeah. Yeah. It'll stay on. Even if you close it again, it won't stop.

28:37Ethan Nestor:That's true. They have to be really spread out though. Like there has to be a delay on the first chirp even. Threatening. I like that.

28:44Bob Muyskens:Similar vibe on the front as far as like you have a person like sitting in a dark room on a chair with like maybe like the TV light flashing on their face just looking like sad and not clean shaven or whatever have you. And it just says you fucked up. And when you go to open it, there's like a handcuff holding the two parts of the card together connected by a magnet. So when you open it, it breaks the magnet and the cuffs are like separated. And then it says on the inside, but you paid the price. Congrats on freedom. But you paid the price. And then it's the guy like the picture on the inside is the guy like opening the door and seeing sunlight for the first time and looking like blinded by it.

29:25Ethan Nestor:Sure, sure. That one's that was strangely optimistic. It sounded like it was going to be mean, but I actually like that. and also you can put the air tag chirp in that one so that when they file that card away somewhere it just starts doing that at a later date I'll just sell that as an add on to any card that could go in anything congrats on getting married beep beep beep beep beep you guys do this actually total sidebar real distractible moment here you guys share your locations constantly with your spouses no I don't think I ever have well it's like an on or off thing right my location has been shared constantly for years now i'm not even sure when uh it started but it's always been on and i i remember every once in a while like man my battery life sucks on my phone why is this because the gps is always on with that but i i just do that all the time anyway and i know that people probably have very strong opinions about that but this is it's always been a no-brainer because if i'm coming back from somewhere you can see if i suddenly stop you know and there's no traffic there like that might be something i'm not opposed to it i just have

30:31Bob Muyskens:never set it up and so knowing me i never will so if it comes on by default that's fine honestly

30:36Ethan Nestor:i had never thought i'm kind of like you mark i had never really thought about it i think i had been because i on like ios or whatever mandy and i were spouses or family or however it works but then since we've had james it really helps because like if one of us takes him somewhere like take to the park or whatever then it's like we uh he has like his own air tag thing and it's just like an extra layer of like if if one of us has him out we're potentially way too busy to like send a quick text or whatever like if he's being completely crazy but the other one can be like i wonder what they're doing ah they're in the car on the way home or like oh they're over at this part whatever just like for the that reason we've we keep that up and running yeah so it's just like Always been a thing that I do.

31:23Ethan Nestor:It's a little stalkery. I definitely have had times where I looked and I was like, it's weird that I'm looking right now. I don't need to know where Mandy is, but I'll look anyway. I actually never looked. Well, I mean, I should, but I don't know. We work from home, so where do we go?

31:41Bob Muyskens:Yeah, I would have the most boring tracker ever. It was like, Wade's in the house. There he's still. Yep, that's how it goes.

31:47Ethan Nestor:30-day streak. Speaking of all of our self-imposed house arrests, One more. And I feel like this, again, is maybe not one that we're going to use necessarily, but this is more like a public service one. I feel like it'd be valuable. I want a card for the friendzone-iversary. There are infinite number of cards for anniversaries, for dating anniversaries, for wedding anniversaries, for your parents' anniversary, whatever. I think it would be polite if you have someone who is you've you have seriously friend zoned and maybe they don't know maybe it's unclear but like you know that they're just send a card hey happy friend zonediversary you know what we're good i appreciate you i friend zoned you and i acknowledge that and here's a card and maybe a starbucks gift card or something like you know got it have a coffee

32:37Bob Muyskens:you guys have all seen uh robin hood men in tights yep so we're going straight for the the opening of the card is the chastity belt. And there's a ring of, like, keys to open up the card, but none of them work. And all it says on the card is you tried. Denied. Ah, fuck. That's so good. Can't open the card. Damn it. That's so good. Every now and then a good idea pops up in here. I don't think I could get one better than that. I was working on a loose idea, but all my confidence got deflated out of me. I'm sorry. I just, I had a great idea and I had to share it. I just I've never been friendzoned so I don't know what this is like.

33:19Oh, yeah. I don't have any experience to pull from here. So, I don't know.

33:27I I'm drawing a real blank here. That's fine. You know what? If I just start talking, something will happen. It always works out. Always works. Alright, card. Color? It's color. There is color. Cosmic latte Cosmic latte Stars Shooting stars No Squash it A line Uh huh Brilliant Let it flow Wait It's a line of people And it says on the front there's an arrow pointed To some guy way back here And it's a line that goes and then you open the card it's the whole globe and it's like and then it's me like you know to to girl or whatever on the other side of the earth and the whole line is like i know you'd wait in line forever for me thanks for being my friend

34:33Nailed it

34:38Ethan Nestor:Never fails It always works You just start talking

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35:58Ethan Nestor:Well, I think those are really useful. And look, I'm not greedy. Watchers, listeners, if you like any of these ideas, these absolute gems that we've come up with today, you're welcome to use them. Go on one of those websites where you can use your own images and stuff. You can tweak it. You can apply it directly to your own situation. Maybe you had shared Hulu accounts instead of Netflix. Who knows? Customize it any way you might need. But I think that's where we're going to leave it. We don't want to let too much genius out all in one big rush. It'll disrupt the balance of the universe. So in no particular order, Wad, you got points for Snow drawing us accurately, bringing up Bitcoin mining, your expectation versus reality card.

36:48Ethan Nestor:your but you paid the price card and the chastity belt you tried denied none of the keys open none of the keys open it yeah beautiful mark you earned points for saying hi boys i got two right oh that's where you got two points for that it was yeah you got a double fair point uh you got a render farm point you got a not so bald point you got a netflix and pills point you got the air tag torture point you got a point for a line and also thanks for being my friend with friend heavily emphasized uh leaving the final score today at a cheek clenchingly tight eight to seven in favor of mark oh mark is up eight to seven that double fair point really really eked it out for you a little bit it's fair it's so fair it's so it's painfully fair it's very painfully fair it's unbelievably fair it's so it's a good thing mark baited you into doing that

37:56Bob Muyskens:we just had to know how fair it was it felt so fair to both of us we had to share it anyway uh we'll spin i'm feeling a nice one i'm predicting it i win by tie three 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 we split the difference we're both wrong hooray uh and i have to add a bonus

38:23Ethan Nestor:point to the thingy fairness amplifier if something has been made doubly fair it shall be once again Made doubly fair Oh fuck it doubles the double Well so should it be an amplifier Or should it be a fairness inversion We have an inversion I believe we do Wait do we? We have something with the fairness coin I know on the Thing already Free parking oh free parking Oh wait was the monkey's paw Going to the free parking no when we Spin the same thing when we re-spin We're supposed to put ones in the fair parking I think Oh is that it? I forgot about that Free parking Fair parking Free parking

39:06Bob Muyskens:I don't remember how I know free parking gets points But I don't remember how It's supposed to get points We should write down

39:11Ethan Nestor:What these mean Lie points doubled Minus one to current loser No point fuck you Add two spins Oh I forgot that was in there That's fun Oh here's the add 10 % chance To one man show That's it's own thing Okay

39:27Bob Muyskens:Add 10 lose 7 No God we have so many That have never landed Oh

39:32Ethan Nestor:I know, we're so many. Worst luck is one, but that's the... The coin has not been flipped. Flip and apply to the last contentious thing. Okay. I think that's the one we have. I don't remember there being one for... I love the doubling the doubler, because that could be positive or negative, because if someone gets true...

39:50Bob Muyskens:Yeah, fairness amplifier. That's a good one. Fairness amplifier. Now we're going to see this in like a year, be like, what the hell's fairness amplifier? You can put parentheses doubles if it happened, I guess. It would be double no matter what, because double zero, zero, double negative, double positive.

40:06Ethan Nestor:Yeah, doubles coin flip results is what I'll put on here. Because it makes it doubly doubly doubly fair or doubly doubly unfair. Either way, it will amplify it. Or doubles nothing.

40:19Bob Muyskens:Then we don't have to re-spin, we just take the doubles nothing.

40:21Ethan Nestor:So we got two spins, and we got the fairness amplifier in play. All right. Can't wait to see point for listeners. Wade is up. Nope. Mark is up by one. Eight to seven. Mark is winning. Come on. Hold on to it, baby. Spin number one.

40:41Ethan Nestor:Sung the most. Did any of us sing? I definitely didn't sing because I was just thinking, man, my voice is a little tired from all the impressions we did. I don't think we sang. I wish I could say I sang. We could have. That could have come up in the greeting card stuff, but I don't think it did. Yeah, I rhymed. I don't think that counts. I'm gonna say re-spin.

41:02Bob Muyskens:Yeah, I can't think of a song.

41:05Ethan Nestor:Spin number one, take two. Most cursed. Well, I guess Wade lost. I don't know if that counts. Yeah, you lost the coin flip. That's bad luck. Bad luck. Wade's expectation versus reality card idea was kind of cursed. I'm not gonna argue against my point. Yeah, I can't see it going my way And I can see it leaning Wade Yeah, me too Yeah, I think it leans Wade It does lean Plus, generally, Wade has a much higher average level of cursedness

41:36Bob Muyskens:You know, graying first, balding first No car for four years Car fell in the ocean All of it was worth it for this point

41:44Ethan Nestor:Alright, second spin We're all tied up at eight Please, God, give one of them a point Hosted previous episodes Wait, is that technically the listeners? No, no, you hosted You just weren't the winner It doesn't say winner, it says hosted

42:02Bob Muyskens:Alright, thank you Technicalities

42:05Ethan Nestor:Thank god it didn't fucking involve the fact that I let The listeners win an episode Of course we would get the one thing That would bring that back up Again Anyway, as per usual, the wheels Had some impact, you could say some some may have affected the outcome uh mark you end up with eight points and wade if i'm counting correctly wade ends up with a total of nine points that sounds incredibly fair and if you listen to the title of the episode which i said at the very beginning uh no there's no surprise golf rules thank you jesus No, Wade just wins. Congratulations, Wade. Honestly, Mark, I thought you had it.

42:54Ethan Nestor:That was some rough luck with the wheel. That was rough spins. Rough spins. You know what? We got some that hadn't come up before. I didn't care for them. I feel like maybe on the next constitutional one, we should get a thing where if something comes up and we hate it, we could just delete it. And just be like, fuck that. Because there are definitely some that are like, it's funny. yeah there should be some way to delete them maybe not so much as a whim but something should or like if it comes up twice in a row like or twice in the same set of spins it gets deleted or something because that also has happened yeah that could happen I don't know we can't do anything right now

43:37Bob Muyskens:I won once because of three half points I kind of like those

43:40Ethan Nestor:but yeah anyway Mark loser speech well Well, you know, I cannot even say that this is fair or unfair, because that's already been said, and it's already been won. I had a crazy good tactic in the beginning, playing off of my opponent's weaknesses, but it turns out that even if luck wasn't on his side in the beginning, it was somehow on his side in the end, and everything balances out in the end, I guess. But he still didn't win last episode, so technically he's only up one more win over this, even though he's hosting twice. So honestly, he has to do twice the work for one of the wins. So I'm okay with that.

44:18Ethan Nestor:He's a sucker really. I think so yeah Yeah, I have to play them for a full universe. I know that there's a plan here.

44:25Bob Muyskens:Wade Winner speech Listen boys. It was well fought. I was really down on my luck at the start as mentioned But this win is my win this counts. This is a win and even though taking it away was what you guys were trying to do. You tried. Denied. We didn't try to do anything.

44:46Ethan Nestor:The coins are fair. We didn't try to take it away. The coins determined what was fair. We didn't do nothing.

44:51Bob Muyskens:You just... Nice win. You just... You both just tried to diminish my wins. We did diminish your win very successfully. No, your win is half of the normal win.

45:03Ethan Nestor:But you still have a win.

45:05Bob Muyskens:You tried. Denied. You're all six seven and about it

45:10Ethan Nestor:This this win is prorated with your previous hosting so you basically had two half wins because of how math works

45:17Bob Muyskens:It's not very on fleek boys. I win.

45:20Ethan Nestor:I don't have to do anything to make you look bad on that one Thank you for your winner speech Wade look forward everyone to Wade hosting another one and hopefully it will not be a listener focused episode because Yuck

45:32Bob Muyskens:voice impressions take two

45:34Ethan Nestor:oh yay hooray I mean I was baiting you you got reverse psychology it'll be physical impressions

45:41Bob Muyskens:now you have to sing while doing the impressions two sentence impression songs

45:47Ethan Nestor:and Dan the piano man comes out of the shadows behind us to start playing music that we have to sing to we get music Bob gets to rap yay rapping my favorite I'm good at rapping anyway thank you so much for listening. Thank you even more for watching. Make sure you follow the podcast so you know when the episodes come out, even though it's the same time every week. Some of you still forget. Follow Mark, Wade, and myself on our channels. Mark Plyer, Lord Minion 777, Minion 777, and MySkerm. That's it. Thanks so much for being here. Come back for the next one, or I'm sure Wade will not torture us at all.

46:23Ethan Nestor:Ball donk, coming at ya. Until that joyous day, podcast out.

46:31Watch new episodes on Spotify.

46:38Ethan Nestor:Brussels clean up nicely at Sweetgreen. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweetgreen's fall harvest is back on the menu, and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweetgreen app.

46:56Bob Muyskens:This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.