Wade Definitely Has A Topic

11:03Mark Fischbach:like i'm so close i'm like i'm there was your uncle like a fish or something you're like oh better get some water before i make my jump yeah i don't know i don't know what it is but it wasn't

11:13Ethan Nestor:working out for me i know it's not the same thing does the pool especially swimming down to the deep in does that trigger your like your like ocean fear reflex thing or is that literally like that's the ocean this is a pool that's really obviously not the same if i'm in a pool alone then yeah there are suddenly going to be sharks spawning in the pool when i'm not looking and i have to get out of it immediately uh but amy was there and you know so that that helped i won't

11:39Mark Fischbach:spend alone either it's not because of that it's because the are you afraid of the dark episode

11:43Ethan Nestor:So every time you came up, Amy just sees you go down, coming up almost to the surface and then dying a little bit. And it's just like. 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. It's fine.

12:23Yeah, pretty much. I mean, she was just filming me from the side, you know. She put up a good Instagram story of just me with like the snorkel, the snorkel that goes up over the front for some reason, but it's just me like doing pirouettes in it. I get the top under the water and...

12:42Mark Fischbach:Don't even think about it. Oh, God, you're so brave. Gagging on water to see if you can take it. I had this idea, though. Wouldn't you guys agree on a stream I talked about this? Because GoPro doesn't make this. I don't know if any camera maker make this. But they have... GoPro makes this thing that's a smaller version of it. It has built-in lights, right? Why don't they make a night vision, one of those? Where the light is an IR light, so that you have both a night vision camera and the built-in IR light, like the Sony camcorders that Ethan and I used for Unisonus all the time for the night videos.

13:11No one makes infrared cameras anymore. No one makes night vision cameras, but it's such a useful thing.

13:18Ethan Nestor:I don't know the physics of it, but like does infrared, because it's like a lower frequency light wave, does it not travel through water as well? Because clearly like light travels through water, light gets diffracted or whatever. It's different when it goes through water, right? it's darker quicker as opposed to air so like maybe infrared doesn't penetrate water adequately for that to be like a valuable thing oh interesting no you're totally right is there other like night vision technology other than infrared that could work as an underwater i mean maybe but it

13:52Mark Fischbach:probably costs like a fuck jillion dollars to really powerful flashlights i mean ultraviolet but i don't know if you could make a camera that does that because most cameras can capture ir naturally they actually have built-in IR filters to pull out the infrared. I don't know how many cameras can film ultraviolet. Get on that GoPro. Hey GoPro use code Mark Blair to buy your supplies. I think it'll still work. They're sitting at the desk like that's brilliant. That's brilliant. GoPro's just a bunch of cigars smoking. That's brilliant.

14:24Ethan Nestor:I know GoPro was what run by the epic rap battles of history guy. That's brilliant.

14:31Mark Fischbach:I hope you guys used our codes while they lasted. They're both gone now. Careful. You're right. Damn.

14:38Ethan Nestor:The CEO of GoPro sitting at home watching this episode like, How do they know? I've never got to call with them. You were done with your hospital nonsense. Well, now it's all hyped up. It's definitely... Anyway, it's not good. And I have an open wound on the bottom of my foot currently. And it's very open, which is not great. The bigger... Honestly, the wound, the cut, the whatever. the hole in me is not the big problem the big problem was that i got it got infected i had had this for a while and i was sort of taking care of it and just living with it but i wasn't taking particular care of it but it seemed fine i had been keeping it clean and just like trying to keep off of it but not aggressively and it got infected and it got infected so like Like on Thursday, I went to, oh, Thursday, two weeks ago now, but I went to an urgent care and they were like, oh, yeah, no, it doesn't look very good.

15:32Ethan Nestor:Okay. And they gave me some antibiotics. But then literally the next day on Friday, it got worse and worse and felt like my leg was going to explode. And like my whole leg from the knee down was like bright red. It was like, okay, well, we should probably go to the ER, I guess. I don't know if one pill a day of antibiotics is going to do. And I went and the doctor at the ER actually saw me very quickly. I was very impressed. It was very nice. We were in a room in the ER within like, I swear it was like half an hour, but the doctor was like, okay, take your socks off, whatever. And sort of looked down at my foot and just went, oh, I don't like that.

16:07Ethan Nestor:And like walked out of the room.

16:10Mark Fischbach:Oh no. Oh God. Okay. Wow. He handed in his medical license. It was like, I quit. I don't like this. I'm out.

16:18Ethan Nestor:But so I had an infection, was pretty unpleasant, slept in the hospital for, well, I didn't sleep the first night i didn't get i went to the hospital late at night on friday i didn't get into a room until 7 30 in the morning and i did not get to sleep for any of that so i was just like sitting up in waiting rooms in the hospital mostly waiting to to get somewhere where they could start giving me like medicine and shit i got to eat hospital food dude i don't know if we just have a fancy hospital and i haven't gotten the bill yet so i may regret this but it was like like room service and shit it wasn't just like oh here's your prison meal i had to call every meal breakfast lunch dinner i had to call and be like oh yeah i'd like some bacon and eggs you just order whatever the fuck you want it's like being on a cruise ship it's crazy it's like all all inclusive except i paid for it i think yeah all exclusive but like it wasn't bad the hospital food was pretty good and uh aside from being painfully boring i'm fine infection is fine but i do have My leg is wrapped up from the knee down and I have a huge puffy thing on my foot to try and alleviate the pressure because the problem is it's on the bottom of my foot.

17:23Ethan Nestor:So when I walk on it, it sort of prevents it from healing properly. I'm going to be fine, but there was definitely a couple of days where I was laying in the hospital bed by myself, just like bored out of my mind. Like, God, they're probably going to cut my foot off, I guess. Fuck. I don't know what to say. Like, it doesn't feel very good. It's fine. I'll be fine. I do feel like I was hospitalized. So Wade, if you can give me a couple pity points I feel like that's I feel like that's pretty fair Well, I'm writing something down And I'm not going to say I'll judge you as a person And our friendship will be affected if you choose not to give me a couple points for that So you're saying I have an out?

17:58Depending on how this episode goes And the game, the way it is prepared goes I think my only strategy to win Is to land on witness protection Three times in a row I think that there's a possibility I think I still got a chance So really pulling for that

18:11Mark Fischbach:Based on the current score, I think you still have a chance. Oh, can I get a pity point for something? So I have these ergonomic bead wrist rests for my keyboard and stuff, and I bought another one. And I've been practicing Five Nights at Freddy's 2 1020 mode, so a lot of mouse movement, I need a new one. And I was like, oh, it came, it arrived, it's here. And I get the scissors to go open it and cut right into it. I cut straight into it. It just started falling out. I bought it and it was just like, oh my God. So yeah, that didn't.

18:44Ethan Nestor:Did you not see the small decal on the package that said no sharps? I have to use a big knife. With non sharps, Mark. With non sharps. Well, I just opened this with my bare hands and sharps. So I think I'm all right.

18:59Mark Fischbach:I've been buying a lot of Pokemon cards as I was talking about. And I've gotten some online like from eBay and stuff. And some of the way people seal cards is they tape it up in like bubble wrap. inside the bubble wrap are two pieces of cardboard taped on all four sides and then they'll tape the thing the card is in to the cardboard and then that is also taped closed and then once you get that open then there's the hard case that they tape over the top so the card doesn't slide out and some of this tape was made by god there is no you have to cut it like there's no other way and i've got this card you know it's worth whatever anywhere from 10 bucks to a couple hundred bucks whatever and it's like I've got my exacto that was some wild thunder I got my exacto knife and I'm like please don't cut this card I've spent an hour trying to open I'm going to have your experience with Pokemon card it's going to be very sad but if you do do that all the other cards in the world go up in value so it's like a public service watching people that like do card openings and then cut the cards in half or light them on fire or eat them after I own a copy of

19:59Ethan Nestor:the card those hurt me slightly less i can't say i've watched for any length of time but i have been my interest has been peaked in the pokemon stuff so i have been buying a couple packs because my target seems to always have packs of the completely unpopular sets just on the shelf at msrp uh but when i'm scrolling on socials and all those videos of people who open like 3 000 packs of pokemon cards a day and in their stream everything and they just have like a like a utility knife or like a razor blade and they just take they're just like flap flap flap new pack with the blade and i'm like god damn what if one of those is actually worth something like jesus the people who open them like it's a like it's a factory assembly lines i would i couldn't watch it stresses me out i know that the one pack i bought at target that they had is not gonna have a 50 000 card in it but i'm still like i tear it and i oh i hope this basic energy is not crumpled i hope i don't foul the corner of it and then there's just people online who would spend a thousand dollars a stream probably more probably five thousand dollars a stream on booster boxes and box and they're just yeah fucking fuck these guards god damn i i couldn't do that either i'm

21:11Mark Fischbach:very slow i open packs with molly we've just been kind of like opening them together because we both like to collect she's got a whole page of just like base set chancies when she sees a chancie for like a good price or whatever she's just like i'm like don't you have chance she's like i want more chancy so she's she really fucking likes chancy i get it if there are chancies in the world watch out like a whole wall of chancies just like from floor to ceiling i hope she does

21:36Ethan Nestor:not watch this because she probably would she wants to build a whole tent made out of laminated

21:42Mark Fischbach:pages of chancies this is really random there was a listing on ebay it was like the entire jungle set which is the second set of pokemon cards to ever come out in the 90s in this giant frame and the listing said this is for logan paul only so i guess i guess they made a listing hoping he would buy their framed jungle set for some reason no no it was a warning it was a warning if you buy it you will turn into logan paul it's a cursed set that's the thing body get better mind get worse

22:13Ethan Nestor:I could go for it. That's a crazy curse, man. But if you sell it to Logan Paul, you'll become Jake Paul. So you're always a Paul? Once a Paul, always a Paul, Wade. You know what they say. Well, that's an appalling decision. Like from that Jungle Book song. Something, something, prickly pear, something, use the paw, paw, paw, something, something. It's like that movie, It Paulos, where if you have sex with someone, you turn them into Jake Paul. It Paulos.

22:44Mark Fischbach:That's funny

22:46Ethan Nestor:But you have to point at camera or does it count That's funny

22:49Mark Fischbach:You want a paw paw or a prickly pear And you pick a raw paw, next time beware Don't pick a prickly pear by the paw If you pick a pear, try to use the claw But you don't need to use the claw when you pick a prickly pear Off the big paw paw

23:00Ethan Nestor:That's the song, yes, that's the one I was accurately quoting If I was judging, I would give that points

23:06Mark Fischbach:Dude, I can't remember A person I spent ten hours with Two days ago, like I don't remember their name But it's me, dude

23:16Mark Fischbach:Your name was Smirt Smirt It was Smirt I don't know My like shorts of memory Is terrible But like I can remember that I could still probably recite Most of the balcony scene From Romeo and Juliet Or the tomorrow tomorrow Tomorrow speech Was that Othello Like I can just pull that shit out Straight out of ninth grade I'm like yes I still know it But the shit I need to remember From like yesterday It's like it never happened It's I hate I hate the way my memory works Me too man Everybody does I started physical therapy. I don't know if I've given it because we didn't do the thing last week. So I'm not having surgery on my knee.

23:48Mark Fischbach:It's not a meniscus tear, no ligament damage. I have a cartilage defect on the cartilage right on my thigh bone under my kneecap. There's like a big glowy spot on the MRI. And there's just a lot of inflammation coming from that. So I'm taking an anti-inflammatory and doing like six weeks of physical therapy, trying to strengthen the muscle and joint or whatever. Hopefully I get to avoid surgery. I could maybe need laparoscopic to clean it up, but I'm hoping to avoid it. But nonetheless, it's nothing major. It's just a cartilage defect that was maybe already even there, and I just aggravated it.

24:18Mark Fischbach:I'm not sure. I don't know how those work, but I did find all of that out. I don't know if I'd give it a knee update. Bob's leg update reminded me that between the two of us, we have, like, two good legs.

24:27Ethan Nestor:It's true, and they're approximately the same length. Thank God it's you and me. Imagine if I had to donate each of you one of my legs.

24:35Mark Fischbach:We're just walking around like this. I apologize. You're going to have to do some leg lengthening after the fact. I'm coming for you.

24:42Ethan Nestor:What a weirdly specific but evocative way to demonstrate the height difference between us and mark look look what I look like with one mark leg

24:53Mark Fischbach:We told you I had this weird thing that they were looked in the mirror and I was trying to decide if I'm well Proportioned or if I'm too torso we it's like do I have short legs and a giant torso. It's not your torso It's because you have a huge ass. Oh So when I look in the mirror in the front all I see is my back at my front ass Normally people's asses bridge a small zone between their legs and their torso Yours actually goes from mid-thigh to like lower back

25:18Ethan Nestor:I like to call your build the snowman Your three ball snowman

25:23Mark Fischbach:Nice, I'm a tripod You got torso, ass, and legs Explains why I never have any back pain Because it's just ass, there's no back You're like Aunt Fanny from Robots I've never actually seen Robots You haven't?

25:37Ethan Nestor:It's actually very good I've heard and I know all the memes And it's like got that song You know that song fucking slap Plus you like Here Come the Mummies I would say that song is not Unrelated to the vibe that Here Come the Mummies gives I recently showed that to James for the first time And I hadn't watched it in like forever And I was just sitting there with him like Oh I love this movie I've never seen Robots Great performance from Ron Williams, great cast, great movie Love it, the visuals are awesome Did you know that fanny in the UK is slang for vagina?

26:13Mark Fischbach:Yes, because I remember saying fanny pack and people were like, I was like, what? I think fanny packs are kind of weird, too. And they were like, I was like, you know how the UK people have classic, classic British

26:26Ethan Nestor:laugh. Yes. And thongs or sandals? That one's less crazy. We call them thong sandals. Like in America, you could have, I think we just say sandals a lot, but like Americans distinguish between like those are slide sandals or slides and those are like thong sandals. I feel like that's a thing here.

26:41Mark Fischbach:I get it, but aren't those kind of small to cover their whole foot? It's just like a band with a... Aren't thongs kind of small to cover your whole ass and genitals region?

26:49Ethan Nestor:I think that's the idea. I think that's the notion.

26:51Mark Fischbach:Wow, he's blew my mind. The whole point was Aunt Fanny is a phrase my grandparents used. We used to do like little seances at the house where like my grandpa would get like he would set up a thing where he'd like have like invisible string connected to like plates and cups and stuff we would do a seance and he'd be like spirit if you're in the room and like he would pull a string and a cup would like come sliding down toward us and his kids it blew my mind but the spirit we always tried to contact was named aunt fanny that's the only

27:17Ethan Nestor:time i'd ever heard that name it just blew straight through the craziest part of that whole scenario insane way just happened set up seances with fucking fishing wire and bullshit you're like yeah and her name was aunt fanny can you believe that your families didn't hold on

27:38Mark Fischbach:your families didn't do like fun little seance things no i thought that was kind of like common place i just assumed it's family they're all in a circle chanting and they start floating off the

27:49Ethan Nestor:floor baby mark and i are wrong subreddit i will come look at you if you all put it out there is Is it normal to have family seance time with Grampy and Grandpa?

28:00Mark Fischbach:Okay, this happened like three times in my life. It wasn't like we got together once a week. Three's a lot.

28:06Ethan Nestor:That is an infinite amount of times more than it has ever happened in my life.

28:11Mark Fischbach:Yeah, we would, I'm trying to remember if they'd like, my grandma always had tons of candles because she liked candles. So I feel like we probably lit some candles. We would just sit around like the kitchen table while we were playing. My grandpa would set up this thing. Yeah, where you'd have like little wires and stuff set up where you could like make things happen. it was i was always like oh the cup would slide from the cabinet to the table and it was it would just blow our minds as kids like oh my god aunt fanny's talking to us now that i have a three-year-old

28:34Ethan Nestor:i'm like yeah i think james would probably think that was pretty fucking awesome i think he would go crazy for that but as a person who has never experienced such a thing the fact that you thought

28:44Mark Fischbach:that was just like normal is awesome it was just one of those things we did as a kid that you know

28:49Ethan Nestor:you take for granted i guess i don't know sure sure i wonder how many things i did that i was

28:53Mark Fischbach:yeah everyone probably does this that like no one does was this the only ritual that occurred or were there other things with knives and blood how many goats did you sacrifice a year was your average uh six probably low we only sacrificed goats i think twice it was about six times each

29:11Ethan Nestor:six sacrifices each what the fuck's going on with these goats yeah six sacrifices per goat

29:18Mark Fischbach:We'd slaughter them, we'd stitch them back together CPR, slaughter them again, you know It's infinite food glitch It's really weird, you know I don't know, the seance is probably one of the weirder ones But I don't know the Aunt Fanny thing triggered it Because I was like, I never even met Aunt Fanny Why are we trying to talk to her? But my grandparents were always like, no, we're contacting Aunt Fanny I was just like, okay, I don't know who she is But you guys must, maybe she died a long time ago Maybe I just never met her It all makes sense when you say it all together And wait, what year was this when this occurred?

29:46Mark Fischbach:It was the 90s, I don't know Like you were like a little-ish kid 1890s? Wait, which century? No, 19 1990s, I was probably like 6 and 10, so What's the guy's name from 30 Rock? Who's an immortal being? Brendan Fraser, that's not it Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth You know Kenneth, right? Kenneth I think I saw one episode of 30 Rock Ever and it was probably when I was 10. No, he's canonically an Immortal being in the show I didn't know that. Yeah, he's actually been around forever like legitimate let's not exaggeration like there's like an end of the series episode where he's doing an episode from the year like a thousand years in the future and he's still there and somehow 30 Rock is still there anyway I was thinking third rock from the sun I never saw 30 Rock I never always I never saw a lot of it but you know did I okay I was like wait 2006 that doesn't sound right third rock from the sun's what I'm thinking of with John Lithgow I was thinking of John Lithgow wait who is it who is the kid in that show

30:46Ethan Nestor:Was that Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Joseph Gordon-Levitt, yes. He was in it. Yeah. He was like the young guy in that show, right? Yep. What are we talking about?

30:53Mark Fischbach:Is this an episode of a podcast? It was, well, there's a whole thing I had prepared, but we didn't do any small talk for Mark's perfectest crime, so we've just been kind of catching up.

31:02Ethan Nestor:I feel like every time this happens, I believe less and less that you actually had an episode prepared. Oh, I do, right? You come in and you're like, I'll just get them really going in small talk. And then after about half an hour, I'll be like, oh, I had a really great episode. I had a whole thing written out and I had all this stuff.

31:17Mark Fischbach:I could not plan for Mark to drown himself, betray GoPro. I didn't plan on you going to the hospital or breaking your foot. That was like, my thing was like three minutes. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. Subreddit, how many times has this exact scenario occurred? Thanks, Subreddit. Here's what I was going to talk about. We're over halfway now through 2026. Good. This year's had some ups, had some downs, But overall, it's been a kind of frustrating year for me, at least. But I have a list here of some things that I thought were good and bad from 2026. And I didn't know if you guys had anything particularly you want to talk about for the year.

31:55Mark Fischbach:But otherwise, I was going to go through. We were going to try to solve some of the bad. Not all of it's 2026 specific, like, but I think it's been what I'm looking for. It's gotten worse this year or it's like a bigger thing. The good stuff is all, I think, mostly this year. At least it's still true as of this year. So I'll just go through. Getting into Pokemon card collecting, I've had a couple of different scam things happen where people, one of them was expertly done where I got scammed and was just impressed with how thoroughly they did their job. The big problem with Pokemon card collecting right now, and probably a lot of things, is scalping.

32:28Mark Fischbach:The scalping, people buying shit and just buying tons of it and then immediately relisting it for 10 times the price online is just the fucking worst. my original intent was for us to go through and we're just going to solve scalping but um we don't have time i just want to talk about it do you guys have things like you try to collect where scalping is a problem i know sports tickets and pokemon cars are two things i've encountered it heavily

32:49Ethan Nestor:in i don't do them actively i don't like collect particular if i do collect stuff it's old enough and niche enough that like no one's fighting me for it like i'm very proud of my collection of Top Gear DVDs and Blu-rays because I think I literally own every episode and the mini-series or whatever, the special episode. I think I own everything that you can own of Top Gear. I don't think anyone's fighting me over that in the aisle at Target. I do think the sporting events and concert ticket situation is out of hand, and I think it's I only do that very rarely, but it always sucks because it's like, why do you even have prices on the website?

33:28Ethan Nestor:What are we doing here? Because the tickets go on sale for a game a concert in a specific location whatever they're gone in an instant and then they're three times the price it feels like i don't know what the exact numbers are but this is a known problem but then like there was a whole thing there was a whole like lawsuit there were there was stuff done and everyone in like government of the people the authorities were like, all right, guys, we solved scalping. So that's fixed now. So just go back to buying tickets and going and enjoying your concerts and your football games and stuff. And it's not nothing like it.

34:06Ethan Nestor:Maybe it changed the dynamic of how it is to be a scalper, but didn't fix shit. I don't understand why it's so hard. Like, technically, I understand it's hard to prevent people, especially if they're buying stuff online, to be like, well, you're clearly the same person, even though you have a different IP, a different account. a different credit card, whatever. Like, I get that it's hard to discern that, maybe, for the company selling stuff. Why can't we deal with this? What needs to happen? Because it is awful. I want to go to, like, one concert or football game a year, maybe. And every time I think about it, I'm like, God, I don't fucking want to deal with, like, buying tickets and being worried I'm going to get, like, scammed and they're not actually selling tickets or pangs.

34:44Like, I just won't go.

34:46Ethan Nestor:Like, I don't care that much. I have the solution. As always, Markiplier is coming in with the big fix. Everyone's going to have solved their problems of scalping solved. First, we create a national registry of all online users. They submit their ID, their birth certificate, their passport, and all of their necessary residential financial information. And we house them in a ticket master only accessible database so that they run the gambit of everybody. We can trust them, right? We can draw something. So they have everyone's ID, right? They know everyone's age. They know who they are, and they can see how many people are in your family.

35:27So they know the limit. They'll customize the limit based on you and your extended family. Not that extended. Let's say firstcousinsonly.com.

35:38Mark Fischbach:Wait, what are we selling? Sorry, I got distracted. Man, what a callback. I just remembered cousinsonly.com. Whoa, I'll get the callback point. There we go. Was that a three peens callback? That's an old callback. That is a long time ago. See, if they know who everyone is, then they will not be able to sell it to someone who's undeserving of that ticket. Right? Scalpers will all get exposed. And I think the only publicly accessible information will be those who have scalps. So it'll identify anyone who in the past have bought more than 10 tickets or whatever of their extended family god help them if they had more kids later in life but bought a bunch before they're done for right so it'll it'll i think public executions would be very fashionable in this uh they already have the stadiums for it we can sell tickets to the public and no scalpels will go there because if anyone tries to scalp them right on stage the immediate sentence immediate

36:39Ethan Nestor:execution. Yes, I think we should put the judicial branch into Ticketmaster. I believe that they are trustworthy enough to make those decisions.

36:49Mark Fischbach:Or just limiting accounts to where they can only sell a certain thing like two times a year or something. Because if someone buys tickets to a sporting event and something comes up and you have to cancel and you're like, well, I've got these five tickets I'm not going to use. I guess I'll resell. That'd be fine. But if you have that happen more than two to three times in a year, then like... maybe like limiting things like that where it's like okay well it's less profitable for scalpers to do it because they really only limited how much they can do i don't know why with cards that would be the case like well i bought this pokemon etb now i don't want it so i'll resell it for three times the price maybe you do that like once a year this might be controversial but number one

37:24Ethan Nestor:i like mark's idea the best and i have i have a follow-up on that yes number two i'm certainly not in favor of people who scalp pokemon cards or other collectibles and ruin it but i do think there's kind of a difference between concert tickets or sporting event tickets and collectibles, sort of the purpose of which is maybe to collect it for personal value, like you just like something, you collect it. But also, I think a large proportion of people who collect any sort of collectible track the value of what they have, right? I don't

37:57Mark Fischbach:mind individual cards. I'm about the sealed products.

37:59Ethan Nestor:I mean, that's true, but I do I just feel like there's some level of difference where it's like, well, it is sort of meant to be bought and then sold at a higher price potentially right that's sort of the deal it still sucks but i think mark is right and i'm going to put on my conspiracy theory hat which is invisible and just say mark is talking about like we should implement a new system can we just be so for real and say there definitely already are profiles of basically anyone who uses the internet for anything that the companies trade behind the scenes like little real person trading cards.

38:33Ethan Nestor:They know who we are. I'm confident that these big companies with access to all of the metadata on a specific user's internet activity can look at a transaction and be like, oh, Gary's buying 30 more Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets. Man, that guy sucks. They know. If you're going to keep records like that on us anyway, use them for good. Use that shit to shut scalpers down and be like look we know this is you we know you've bought a hundred tickets in the last three years you can hear there's a limit now you may buy two tickets you're welcome like fuck if they're gonna keep those stupid fucking secret profiles no matter how careful you are with your data if you buy things online if you use social media they totally know they know they just do they have like a profile on every single person who's ever touched the internet everyone everyone knows this is something that they do.

39:26And like Facebook denied it for years, but then it was basically admitted that they are listening in on conversations. They're turning on the phone's microphones. They know all that stuff. I Googled a new stove, right? Which is something that I've never really done because ours was like our burners kind of like going out a bit. So I was like, oh, Google a new stove. And then we're watching TV later and we're watching on an app where we have some ads never have i had a stove ad in my fucking life i've never had a stove ad ever every ad in the ad break was a stove ad different brands too but you want a stove oh

40:04Mark Fischbach:get this stove dude i'm getting that like facebook i see pokemon cards and stuff because i've been looking yeah i've you know it's crazy i know that like for legal reasons they're not going to admit

40:14Ethan Nestor:this the corporations are never because they would potentially get in some sort of trouble but i think it would buy more goodwill for corporations don't don't put shit on sale that you've already artificially jacked the prices up don't lie to us if they were just like look you guys know in your heart of hearts we do we have that those those things you think we have we have those so as a as a form of repayment we're going to use these online profiles we keep uh basically without your consent you know or without your knowing consent we're going to shut down scalpers no one's gonna be able to scalp shit like i if if a company did that one i would not be surprised because i'm like clearly i've bought into that conspiracy or whatever you call it like i'm pretty sure that's what's happening if they were just honest and we're like and you know we're gonna use that information to just do you a solid i'd be like fuck well if i have to engage with you know heartless evil corporations i guess you're at the top of the list at least you guys are honest And I appreciate that you're like, we're going to fuck you, but also we'll give you a little something like fine.

41:16Ethan Nestor:Great.

41:16Mark Fischbach:My one pushback to anything you've said is the collectibles thing. Pokemon cards for adults are definitely like that. But like there was a value as a kid and getting Pokemon cards and just getting to fuck around with them. Put one in like your bike spokes or actually like I played with them. I would like lay them face down and pretend I was like Ash and I was going around finding wild Pokemon. I didn't counter one. And then like I'd have my evolution cards like, oh, my God, I get to evolve my Charmander because we won three battles. I'm like, I fucked around with it. Nowadays, I feel like if you see a kid with Pokemon cards doing that, you're like, oh, God, that could have been a PSA 10.

41:46Mark Fischbach:We're$30. Oh, these cards were$100 a pack. Why are you playing with them? Put them in sleeves. Look at them. For collectors, it's good. But like, I don't know, Pokemon cards for kids should still be a thing.

41:58Ethan Nestor:This is why kids need to buy. Kids need to get this shit and play with it aggressively. Don't let there be PSA 10s. have every charizard in existence be all crumpled up and folded and torn from that one time your your little sibling stole your binder fuck do shit come on kids i know you listen to this go play with your toys ruin them i'm gonna do that friend that thing a lot of our friends like

42:19Mark Fischbach:so i've been hanging out with uh cat and logan our friends here in cincinnati and going to like some of these pokemon things we went to a card show uh at eastgate mall which is not far from where we went to school in milford and logan bought this ancient mew card i think overall It's like a hundred dollar card, but he got it for one dollar because it's in such bad condition. And he was super excited. He's like, I'm going to send this in for grading and I hope I get a one out of 10. He's hoping for the lowest possible grade on this real shitty card. So one of the vendors was like, I'll run it over for you if you want.

42:47Mark Fischbach:Like people were like trying to help him ruin the card to make it worse. Because some people out there, they want nines or tens or they want ones like nothing in between. The ones have a value that it drops down and then it like eight and a half, nine that like goes up again or something. So he's like, I really want this shitty card to be a one. And everyone's like, I'll help you make it a one. It was some spit. Like, I don't know. It was just really funny. He spent a dollar on this card. Was super excited about it. So fucking terrible. It's all crinkled and awful. Oh God, it hurts my soul to look at it.

43:16Mark Fischbach:But that sounds great. I love that. Let me jump over to one of the positives of the year. I thought so the World Cup's over FIFA World Cup's over, right? I never really paid attention to the World Cup my entire life. This year, I kind of did. I didn't watch the games, but like I checked on the scores of the different games. I knew who was like in the gold boot competition, like who was scoring points. I was looking at people talking about like, oh, which teams are favorite? How's the U.S. doing and stuff? I know we hosted it in the U.S., so maybe there was just more press coverage because of that this year.

43:45Mark Fischbach:But I thought at least in the United States, a lot of people were at least tangentially aware or talking about the World Cup compared to my recollection of years past. and seeing people come to the U.S. I think we talked about this on the show. People like, dude, this city in Alabama is really cool. Oh my God, I love the U.S. I went to this place. It's not as bad as I thought here in random town in Illinois or whatever. I don't know. Maybe it's, again, biased because it was here and there was a lot more coverage of it, but I felt like there was a lot more positive vibes coming from the tournament and from just people's experience with soccer and with, I don't know, the event and the places it was held and stuff.

44:20Mark Fischbach:I don't know. I thought that was a nice, positive, heartwarming 2026 thing. It was nice. Yeah. I mean, I saw a bunch of videos like that too. Just really, really nice. I usually, you know, it makes our soft, our hardened hearts go a little bit soft in terms of like, yeah, America, America could be great. It is. But I won't say that phrase, you know, it could be great. And period. And that's it. Like, what are you talking? Oh. but uh yeah no it's fun to see i totally agree with you did you guys keep up i don't think any of us went into any games would you guys keep up with it at all or watch any games a little bit i

45:00Ethan Nestor:knew who was playing in the final i didn't watch a whole game the whole time uh and can i just say this is not exclusive to soccer but and it's probably because i'm an outsider the acting that goes into the fouls and the whole like economy within the game of pretending you got hurt holding your knee writhing around the whole like discourse i don't know what you call it the whole culture of it in soccer looks so silly to me it's like that in all sports it's like that in the nba it's like that in the nhl a fair amount got like it's like that in all professional sports this is not a soccer only thing but it's like it's just in soccer something about it reads as extra hilarious to me because it'll be like two guys who run casually near each other and clearly don't touch and one guy just like does a front flip and it's like go fight is holding his knee like he got shot and then the ref will come over and be like don't play on and he stands up and is like fuck i tried god and runs away it's like oh that that like ruins sports for me when that shit happens in any sport i'm immediately like god i fucking hate those kids like i hate that player that did that i understand it's part of the game but the soccer ones are because in hockey it's like at least you're pretending he hit you in the face with a hard wooden stick or even in the nba there's a lot of flopping and bullshit but it's like you're pretending you just got elbowed in the face which would definitely hurt in soccer it's like what are you pretending you're pretending he bumped into you harder than it seemed like he did oh no i know i know i'm under selling it i'm not a soccer fan so this is all bullshit but like it just whatever that happens in sports it ruins it completely for me and every moment i watched soccer i'd watch for like five minutes and then some crazy bullshit would happen and i'd immediately be like okay that's enough sports this episode is brought to you by chat gpt hey it's bill simmons from the bill simmons podcast have you guys heard about chat GPT work?

46:59It's the new way to use chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give chat GPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chat GPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.

47:21Mark Fischbach:The one that drives me the most crazy is actually in basketball. And I don't know if this still counts as a foul. I think it does. If someone goes to the three-point line and they fake a shot and the other guy jumps, you then jump into the guy that jumped and the foul is on the guy in the air. It's like, oh, you shouldn't have jumped. You shouldn't have tried to go for the block. This guy then jumped into you, which means you fouled him. That pisses me off so much. It's like, why can't he jump? Go around him. He's in the air. Your opportunity is to move around now. Why is jumping into him the thing that basketball is like?

47:54Mark Fischbach:Brilliant, Jerry! Jump into him We'll get the call I don't know why I'm turning into like Seinfeld That wasn't the Jerry I was really going for You gotta go for the epic rap battles guy a bit more He actually has his fingers in everything Epic basketball fouls of history

48:06Ethan Nestor:But yeah like a lot of the rest of the world cup Was really great And it was fun to see Flopping's annoying It's annoying in every sport I agree with you It's in all sports And it always pisses me off But it's not That's not a soccer thing

48:19Mark Fischbach:It's weird because like a lot of the times You'll see like the foul That's definitely not a foul And then you'll see someone get absolutely fucking clobbered and no one does anything about it someone's like tripped knocked down stomped on punched in the face they're like ah play on play on and then someone brushes past someone like you said someone goes flying back like they just got hit by thanos and it's like definitely a foul that's how real human physics works red card get out yeah no there's so many i

48:45Ethan Nestor:know they're all one-offs so there's so many examples of that where there's like a player there's clips of soccer players getting just fucking pummeled like there's a guy who tackles him there's a guy who like grabs it there's a he goes to like four dudes and he's getting just beaten the whole time and then he goes and keeps going and scores a goal anyway and it's like none of that none of that counted but okay i mean he scored a goal so good he did really well i guess but soccer bringing us all together as we can tell i mean maybe maybe i'm under i feel like most sports fans probably fall in that camp is there anyone subreddit answer my questions today is there anyone out there who watches sports and is like oh that was a great dive he really earned that penalty for the team i'm glad this is part of the sport i enjoy i feel like every sports fan is like just fucking just play just stand just don't fall down just keep playing come on guys

49:32Mark Fischbach:maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm crazy but uh another bad okay playstation announced they were doing away with physical game copies in like two years physical game copies i still like i still have like two boxes of dvds in the other room i never watch them but i'm glad i own them and i feel like console players especially like one of the things about console is you got a disc or a cartridge or something and i don't know there's something fun about that i get they take up space but also like if you ever want to put game it now the there's a whole thing to be said about like you must connect to online services or else you can't play a game that's annoying but at least owning a physical game i don't know feels good giving taking away that choice and knowing that a lot of companies are like hey by the way all those games you owned on ps3 well ps3 service is gone So where's your game library?

50:20Mark Fischbach:That's fucking bullshit, man. And the whole like, do you actually own something if it can just be snapped away? You do not.

50:27Ethan Nestor:You do not. No. It depends in what sense you want to talk about it, because yeah, legally you do own a thing. What you own is the right to a license as long as they permit it. That's just not a valuable thing. And you pay the same amount for that, at least when it was an option. And you pay the same amount for that as you did when you bought a physical disc that you physically had in your possession that you still didn't really own. Because they could probably remotely disable your ability to play their game if you had a disc on the modern consoles. But at least you own something that has, like, shit.

50:58Ethan Nestor:It's physical matter. I guarantee the PlayStation move is one of those two steps forward, one step back thing. Or one step forward, two steps back. Whatever way you want to look at it. Where they say, we're going to discontinue all discs. And then the outrage builds. stuff. And they're going to like, okay, all right, well, it's expensive. So we're going to charge more for discs. And boom, suddenly it's commonplace because of course they want more money. And of course there's going to be collector's editions. And of course it's going to be an option because if people, they know, they know they're not stupid.

51:34They're not that stupid. They're stupid sometimes. A lot of these companies are stupid, but they're not that stupid because they know that human psychology is like, you just have to show them something outrageous that they'll definitely reject and then pull it back quote unquote but you've moved the goalpost and now instead of it just being about like no yeah no there's no disc it's like okay well at least we have some disc i'd be willing to pay however many dollars more for the disc edition and it's just like it's just it's a bunch of bullshit it it actually isn't ea is doing something similar

52:05Mark Fischbach:with um microtransactions in the madden 20 or ncaa football i think it was mad madden 27 there's like a so you can play like their card collecting edition where you go you buy online packs and you get cards for their ultimate team and that was always like you could spend real money to do but then they've had like online on offline dynasty and then road to glory where you make like a single player and you only play as that player on the thing in 27 they added micro transactions for those where you can speed up progress or you can make it to where you earn more experience features that were actually just deep by default in the game last year and years prior yeah weren't those just settings previously in large part now that now you can slow it down or make it normal but in order to speed it up you have to pay for their micro transactions so a lot of the the football content creators have like united and they're all like making videos about how they're protesting they won't work with ea directly anymore they're refusing sponsorships and stuff because they're pissed off about that yeah because they feel like they were misled and then apparently ea let out a statement like hey we're rolling this back we're gonna take it out of the game and then i think i think that that was also apparently a mislead where they were like well we're gonna change it but it's still there's still gonna be some transactions the whole thing seems like a fucking nightmare but it's one other one of those things like mark was saying with the we're gonna make it outrageous and then whenever we actually get to what we really want you guys are gonna accept it because it feels like a good compromise until we get to the point where people can push a button and materialize whatever they want like star trek you know i don't think we're ever going to get away from corporate greed.

53:31Ethan Nestor:It turns out it's really hard to make infinitely increasing profits without somebody really getting fucked. It also turns out that the ones who are responsible for making the infinitely increasing profits get to choose who that is. Almost like there's a flaw inherent to that setup. Just wait till they discover this concept where money isn't actually a real thing and value is inherent to how much it's worth and it only works when it circulates. So all these goddamn gold hoarding dragons are actually hurting everything by not having the money flow back into the fight. The only way it works, the three stooges things, you owe me 10, I was 10, you owe me 10, 10.

54:10That's how it works. That's the actual fundamental value of how it works. Everyone made money. Everyone paid everyone back. That is how the system works. But if there's just a money trap occurring at the bottom of it, it doesn't fucking work. The system will break.

54:25Mark Fischbach:It's getting a little rickety. Alright, let's move into a couple quick positives, then we'll all wrap up. Have you guys heard of Spogomi? Nope. This better be a Chef Boyardee new invention, or I'm out of here. I want to eat Spogomis so bad. I already have it in my head. Apparently there was, I don't remember where this took place at, the city was called Loughborough. L-O-U-G-H-B-O-R-O-U-G-H. Oh my god, wait, no, hold on. Wait, pause. I've got the visual. Please don't ruin this for me. It's like little raviolis, but they look like cannolis with a little sausage inside and a little roll. And it's a can full of just like Chef Boyardee Spogomis.

55:01Mark Fischbach:I'm going to ruin this for you in just a moment. Oh, no, no, no. Dude, I can't wait for the Super Mario Spogomis to come out. There was a competition for different groups in Loughborough. I think it's pronounced Loughborough to collect litter. So I think Gomi, I'm not sure what language, but Gomi is like litter and it's Spoh is sport. So it's sport litter. so different groups went around like collecting litter in this town and whoever collected the most won and that was like the competition and i think the winning team collected like 28 kilograms of litter but overall in one afternoon 281 kilograms of litter were just cleared from this place i don't know what the prizes and stuff were but apparently like it was good it was enjoyable it was really good for the environment and stuff and so that might be like a thing that's spreading around is these like spagomi competition type thing but like i'm seeing that this is

55:48Ethan Nestor:Japanese that the word the word for trash in Japanese is gomi and spo is like sport I'm not

55:55Mark Fischbach:sure where loft bro is I don't think that's in Japan loft bro sounds more like what I'm seeing

55:58Ethan Nestor:is that this has been taking off and they have a spagomi world cup held in Japan that has qualifying

56:06Mark Fischbach:teams from around the world so yeah I saw the one in loft bro and that's where I came up with it but uh I did see that it was like apparently becoming more popular and kind of going global I didn't see their exact origin but that's the one i heard about i thought that was a positive 2026 people getting rid of more litter seems like a good thing yeah well as long as this isn't a thing

56:23Ethan Nestor:where it's like okay we put out litter so that it's a fair playing field so we we covered this whole area in equally spread out completely fair this is not a mr beast video i hope i dropped 10

56:36Mark Fischbach:tons of litter now watch as 500 contestants compete for 10 million dollars to clean it up

56:42Ethan Nestor:We bought 50 sea turtles and 100 tons of plastics last sea turtle standing wins three million dollars and this Ford Fiesta like the turkey pardoning.

56:56Mark Fischbach:But Mr. Beast sea turtle of it allegedly. Allegedly. This video doesn't exist. I hope we're not giving him an idea. Oh, yeah. He watches this podcast. Where is inspiration? Another one. I think this was this year. Artemis 2 was this year. right? Going like further than humans had ever gone in space. It was, I don't, I'm not an expert,

57:17Ethan Nestor:but I believe the whole, once, once they were done with their launch and corrections, I believe they had no, no thrust input. It was a fully gravity maneuver to get all the way out around the moon and back, which is pretty sick. I'm sure that any rocket scientist is like, it's not that sick. It's pretty easy. Actually, it's just new calculations, but it's very cool. I know Mark,

57:38Mark Fischbach:you're not a big fan of the moon, but like overall I think you like space. Maybe they flicked it off when they went by.

57:42Ethan Nestor:I love the moon, guys. Wait, we jumped timelines. Wait, it's all different here. No, I've always liked the moon. No, no, no, no, no! I've always liked the moon, and I like not having ownership of the moon. But no one should own the moon! No one owns the moon! No one owns the moon!

57:58Mark Fischbach:I can't do that. I'll break my audio setup. I'd pound with you, but I can't.

58:01Ethan Nestor:I'm sorry. I have a strict no chanting rule, just in general. There's like the fifth chant. No one's joined me on the chant. No one owns the moon. Fifth chant today? Just in a row, you know, for Andy. Alright, here we go. I'll count it down, guys. Three, two, one. No one owns the

58:27Mark Fischbach:moon. Is that what you wanted? I had a bit more here, but we are getting a little low on time because we do have a thing we gotta do. So, I'm going to wrap there. I'll do points, and we'll do the wheels. I got through some of my topics. That was good. I had a topic for today. I had a topic. Sure, sure, yeah. You guys think Wade just knows Spagomi? I didn't know Spagomi. I had to look up Spagomi. I am kind of with Mark. I'm a little disappointed it's not a thing I could eat. As of right now, Mark, you lost the point for being mean about me getting a sponsor. You got a point for we all GoPro. You got a point for breathing water reflex.

59:01Mark Fischbach:I found that funny. You got a point for us turning into Pauls. We're all Pauls, apparently. The Jake Paul, Logan Paul thing. Uh, oh, privacy gone scalpers two point uh bob said you were right at one point but multiple times bob said you were right so you got a point for that he was very right today you like the moon point and the moon chant point you got one two three four five six seven eight points minus one so you got seven points right now bob you got a point for your foot being bad oh you got three hospital pity points all right that might that's gonna i forgot that there were three points right yeah yeah uh you got a point for being my pokemon boy because you're also collecting like me that made me happy.

59:38Mark Fischbach:I don't get to relate to you guys very often with the different hobbies we have so it's exciting that I got one. I got one. It's a little guppy. I got one. You don't even like Ryobi Days? I feel like you were also appreciative of Ryobi Days. Ryobi Days is what's up. I love Ryobi Days. I enjoyed your guys' love of Ryobi Days. I've never bought a Ryobi Days thing.

59:57Ethan Nestor:Wait, wait, wait. Are you invested in a battery system as far as power tools go or are you still on the market? Are you still like a free agent kind of thing? Are you asking me?

1:00:07Mark Fischbach:yes i know mark has i i have like a screwdriver and a hammer okay so you're open you're open

1:00:15Ethan Nestor:so he's you so you need to get ryobi then you need to be a one plus boy it is still ryobi days right now you still can get ryobi days there aren't many days where i find that i need a power tool the more power tools you have the more times you'll find that you need them i guarantee it i gotta replace a couple lights i guess like but do i need a tool for that i just yeah

1:00:37Mark Fischbach:Why do it by hand?

1:00:38Ethan Nestor:Even if you're not going to use it just bring it and sit it next to you And it'll make everything go a little more smoothly. You got a point for too much ass

1:00:45Mark Fischbach:Concert game no because the scalpers you got the companies use data for good point Sports flopping bad point talking about how we own temporary licenses and explaining how that worked versus owning real games and actual copies point and explaining the science behind Artemis point. So you got a total of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, plus two more for the hospital pity. So you have ten points right now. So it's ten to seven. Alright. Alright, come on, witness protection. Come on, three witness protection points.

1:01:17Ethan Nestor:We need number of wheel spins. Today will be the day it will give us one spin because, of course it will. Oh, damn. Alright, two spins. You got two shots to find some magic. It's certainly not off the table. Wade what are we adding

1:01:33Mark Fischbach:This is going to be the Oprah Winfrey point You don't have to write Oprah Winfrey but this is the everybody gets a point If you currently have a score You get a point Interesting but only if they have a score Only if you already have a score on here This way everybody in the world doesn't get a point Because that would make the spreadsheet very hard Yeah if you're on the list You get a point Everyone who currently has any points gets a point So be careful if we talk about like Hitler Don't accidentally give like Hitler negative points for sucking Because this might give him a point And then reverse golf rules and stuff It'd be like, ah, that'd be awkward A posthumous Hitler win would be Crazy for this podcast That would be shocking We would blow up on social media If like, Hitler just won a podcast episode You guys were to distract me

1:02:19Ethan Nestor:There's 117 things Even maximized on my monitor It's hard to read these damn slices I have it on a huge monitor and I still can't really read it Stuff Stuff GoPro. Why couldn't I think of things I know so many things Mark likes I was trying and I was like wait I'm not

1:02:36Mark Fischbach:competing I'm not this is not for me to compete for once it took me a second to even realize that was something that was quick

1:02:43Ethan Nestor:I over committed and could not remember chicken and dumplings that's what I was trying to get out and my brain was like dumpling potstickers soup dumplings. My luck I would have said something that first came to mind it would have been something I don't like but thankfully you had time to think of something you like as long as Mark doesn't get like more than two points nothing bad can happen to me we'll find out hey tallest that would be me even with my messed up foot

1:03:17Mark Fischbach:Bob you win would you like to give us a winner speech

1:03:19Ethan Nestor:uh yeah it feels like it's been a minute since I won but because I know how many times I have won so far this season. I know that's really not true. It's just because we only do one a week now. So there's just more time in between, you know? So it's good. It feels good to win. Always does. I do it a lot. I've been here before, so I'm going to act like I've been here before. Mark put up a good fight, and I basically cheated by getting hospitalized and having an infection that threatened both my life and my foot. I'm not going to not take points for that. So, you know.

1:03:53Mark Fischbach:I think trips to the hospital do typically earn points. So I lived. Mark, you get the silver medal today. I was really banking on that witness protection thing. I put all of my eggs in that basket. I set up this entire new area just so I could have that. You can even see the dolly still there with things loaded on there that haven't even. I might as well just pack it all up. And I think it's best if I just announce my retirement from the podcast at this point. In shame. How do you, with prejudice, which way is it?

1:04:24Ethan Nestor:Disgracefully discharged.

1:04:26Mark Fischbach:Yeah, yeah, disgracefully discharged. All right, well, congrats on that. And I look forward to you being gone, I guess. Can't wait. Okay, I get it. Be really awkward whenever there's one host and one competitor. I don't know how that's going to work. But, you know, as they say, the show must go on. But contractually, I'll have to see you next week. Because I think you're here for at least the next 10 lifetimes according to our deal. That we don't get paid for. Just our deal, our group deal.

1:04:50Ethan Nestor:this is more like our deal with the devil type deal not our like business deal it's different

1:04:55Mark Fischbach:all right well congrats again bob bubble host next week uh where i'm sure something will happen probably that's the way these episodes work in the meantime go follow these guys market market player bob it i almost said bob a player bob at my skirm minion 777 or lord minion 777 i should have been bob a player you're right keep adding to the bounties which all three of us are equally participating and working on and we'll see you next time until then podcast out

1:05:24This 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.