Episode 218 – The One Where We Welcome You To 2019 With Extra Digression!

In This Week’s Show, episode 218, we’re back, it’s a new year and a new show, stick around to find out if it’ll be the same ol’bullshit. Spoiler alert, it’s a story show so…

Episode 218 – The One Where We Welcome You To 2019 With Extra Digression!
Episode 218 – The One Where We Welcome You To 2019 With Extra Digression!

In This Week’s Show, episode 218, we’re back, it’s a new year and a new show, stick around to find out if it’ll be the same ol’bullshit. Spoiler alert, it’s a story show so…

Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Shekhina (the original mother goddess of Judaism) hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying her patience!

Shea’s Life Lesson

This week I learned that, even though we take it for granted, a single dorito has more extreme nacho flavor than peasants in the 1400’s would get in their whole life time.

Jenn’s Actual Lesson

Did you know that, at its conception, Judaism had a goddess counterpart to Yahweh? Shekhina was the compassionate, loving, visible and protective spiritual presence who defended humanity from the harsh and angry male Jehovah God.

But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer!

This Week’s Beer

Two-Hearted Ale – Bell’s Brewery Steve E.

Donated By: Steve E. (Thank you DodSno for verifying that for us on the last 4MBS)

  • BA Link: http://bit.ly/2BM96cH
    BA Rating: 4.27
  • Style: American IPA
  • ABV: 7%
  • Aaron: 7
  • Jenn: 8
  • Shea: 9
  • Steve: 6

Bonus Beer

Loney Wyoming’s Crowler

Atlantic City Gold – Lander Brewing Co.

  • BA Link: http://bit.ly/2D3GKfR
  • BA Rating: 3.36/5
  • Style:  German Kölsch
  • ABV: 4.6%
  • Seems to have an off flavor…

This Week’s Show

A Very Special Round Table Discussion

Happy 2019!

Patrons

  • Newest beer club member Lorraine!
  • And new patron Gwyneira Brahma! (good luck with that one, Aaron)
  • And a big ‘welcome back’ to patron Rex Tuesday.
  • Correction vm from George about Michigan State & Larry Nasshole, thanks George!
  • Christmas vm from Dav and Reb
  • Drunk dial from Phil

And now presents!!

First Half

Hotshots

Funny X-mas story by Boston Guy.

Shea will love this… I say we just let him speak for himself.

http://bit.ly/2D3GKMT

What Does 2019 Have In Store For Us?

Jemima Packington, the world’s foremost … and only … Asparamancer has again used her gifts to benefit us all by revealing what 2019 has in store. In the past, she’s “correctly” according to Express.co.uk, Brexit, the Trump administration, some football match victories, and even managed to foresee a few losers in Big Brother Britain. When asked about her gifts, she said “when I cast the asparagus, it creates patterns and it is the patterns I interpret” concluding “I take what I do seriously but I never take myself seriously.” Which is good, because her business cards say “Asparamancer.” She says she’s mostly right “I go through my predictions each year and think: ‘Yep, that’s happened, yep, that’s happened. ”I am usually about 80-90 percent accurate with my predictions.” So what does the asparagus see in our future? Apparently, Brexit won’t be a big deal… making her previous prediction a tease I guess? Also, there’s going to be a recession in America because of the trade war with China. Some British bands will break up, we don’t know which ones though. Maybe it’s the Beatles. They’re British. And England will win the 2019 Rugby World Cup. So that’s nice. Finally, 2019 might just be the year this woman’s family gets her the help she clearly needs…

http://bit.ly/2D3GLAr

Second Half

Story

Life goals are stupid and I’m done with them.

http://bit.ly/2D1Q583

Did anyone here make any New Year’s Resolutions?

[chatter]

Well too bad! According to science by the 12th we’ll all be as fat and lazy as ever.

According to Strava, which isn’t a sweetener but a social network for athletes and totes-mcgoats a good source of information, “Sticking to resolutions is hard and we all know there’s a lot of talk and pressure in January about getting fitter and being healthier,” Gareth Mills. Gareth works there or something, we don’t really find out what they do, but they’re talking to The Independent so they must be well informed.

“A key factor in success is motivation and analyzing millions of activity uploads, we’ve been able to pinpoint the day your motivation is most likely to waver.”

According to a study that FOX says is from the University of Scranton, but links to 2015 story from USNews.com who in turn links to fucking nothing at all, just 8% of people achieve their new goals, while 80% fail miserably… and I guess the remaining 12% just die. I dunno, 80 + 8 isn’t 100 FOX… you assholes.

Apparently, from the same study… or site… again, who fucking knows, 55% of new years resolutions are health-related. But being healthy is stupid and hurts way more than eating a bag of Doritos. So much so that even the data from… probably… this social healthy people App which one would figure has mostly health-minded users, ends in terrible, greasy, defeat.

Fortunately, there is hope. Like most things in life it’s about managed expectations. According to Dr. Carly Moores, associate lecturer at Flinders U, and a registered nutritionist, “Start with small changes and continue to build on these or try to tackle one change at a time, try to set yourself goals, reflect on your progress towards these, acknowledge that changes can be hard, and results won’t happen overnight … or even in the first two weeks of the new year.” Which, again, is apparently when most people just say fuck it.

Dr. Marcelo Campos of Harvard Medical School says the best way to stick to your goals is the write them down and then follow 5 simple rules the article doesn’t include. So that’s for that FOX, now my ever-expanding equator is your fault.

Apparently needing to hear the latest Citation Needed about Calendars, Dr. Campos suggests you just restart your year whenever you fail “January 1st is just a day in the calendar. You can reset your calendar every day for a fresh start. Go back to the beginning and revisit that first question to remind yourself of the rewards of making the change.”

So there ya go. New Year’s Resolutions are a fool’s errand that won’t survive your second paycheck of the month… or the Chinese food it buys. Remember kids, goals are stupid and the best way to avoid failure is to never try.

Now, someone get me some bacon fat to dip my Cheetos in, I have arteries to punish.

Jenn’s Story: Her Ultimate Nightmare

http://bit.ly/2D1Q5oz

If you were also a child of the 80s and a teen of the 90s you also probably find monkeys creepy, possibly evil and deeply unsettling. Who screamed to the Nazi-linked villains that Marian was hiding in the big basket? Monkey. What terrorized the poor wheelchair-bound man who made the mistake of NOT getting a dog service animal? Monkey. And what tried to destroy all of mankind and made poor Rene Russo have to kiss Dustin Hoffman? MONKEY MONKEY MONKEY!!!

So yes, it’s established that monkeys are terrifying on film, but surely not in real life, right? RIGHT?! Nope. And we have Florida to thank for my own personal nightmare coming true.

There’s a state park in central Florida called Silver Springs, which just happens to be home to a population of about 200 (ugh) feral monkeys. To be specific, they are rhesus macaques, the scariest of the monkeys.

So, first off, WHY are there monkeys in Florida? Well, because humans are and have always been morons, in the 1930s a troop were released in the State Park as a tourist attraction. They were released on a small island there, but of course they escaped and now roam throughout the park and have been spotted throughout central Florida.

If that doesn’t conjure up enough of a mental horror movie for you, that’s not all. About a quarter of the little creatures carry macacine herpesvirus 1 (McHV-1), also called monkey B virus or herpes B. Now before you dismiss this as monkey mouth sores, NOT SO FAST! Per the CDC, this is not the type of herpes we hairless ape like to share back and to (that’s HSV-1 and HSV-2). Nope, but humans can contact the monkey B virus strain if they are bitten or scratched by an infected monkey or through transmitting other forms of bodily fluids with one of the infected primates. The virus can be fatal to humans, in fact, causing a flu-like illness that causes neurological issues and sometimes death.

According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, “There have been about 50 cases of McHV-1 spreading to humans since 1932, but all of those cases came from captive monkeys, not feral ones like the Florida population. However, 21 of the 50 recorded cases were fatal, and the study said the brain disease associated with McHV-1 in humans is fatal about 70 percent of the time.”

If that’s not awful enough, University of Florida professor Steve Johnson says they are breeding like monkey-rabbits and by 2022 the population may double if not addressed.

Next Week’s Beer

Beer – Blacksmith from Village Brewing

Donated: DodSno

  • BA Link: http://bit.ly/2QSFvbS
  • BA Rating: 3.55
  • Style: American Black Ale
  • ABV: 5.4

Faith In Humanity Restored

http://bit.ly/2D1Q6c7

http://bit.ly/2D1Q7wH

As everyone already is surely aware, the derpy American version of He Who Shall Not Be Named is throwing the biggest boy tantrum bc he has been refused a pointless billion dollar structure. But this is Faith, so I’m not here to talk about the cascading negative effects of this insanity. Or at least, I am talking about an effect but also how people are coming together to try to make it better.

You may have seen pictures of National Parks and monuments during this shutdown covered in trash and waste (sometimes human) as thousands of employees are not there to maintain order. Since there’s been no one manning booths to take entry fees people have just been driving into Parks and being monsters. Some places are getting hit with this worse than others (RIP Yosemite splendor), but happily, in my favorite place on Earth there are groups of local people and businesses chipping in to help maintain the pristine wilderness of Yellowstone.

About 10 members of local community Gardiner, MT (just outside of Mammoth and the NE gate of Yellowstone) have gotten together over the past couple of weeks to clear up trash and, most impressively, clean up public restrooms. From the Bozeman Chronicle: As the sun rose over the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, Linda Carney bent over a toilet, windshield scraper in hand.

“It’s the plumber’s daughter in me,” she joked, having used the scraper to remove frozen human waste from the side of the toilet.

Mike Skelton, owner of Yellowstone Wonders, a company that offers tours of the park, said he and others noticed trash was starting to pile up while doing tours recently. So he and a few other Gardiner and Emigrant residents gathered a group to hit the northern part of the park, between Gardiner and the Pebble Creek area in the northeastern part of the park.

Volunteers cleaned rest areas from Tower Junction to Pebble Creek Saturday. They’ll go from Tower Junction to Gardiner Sunday, eating pizza courtesy of K-Bar Pizza afterward. Conoco also donated gas cards to volunteers, and Yellowstone Forever donated some garbage bags. Many volunteers also paid for supplies out of pocket.

Trash around Yellowstone hadn’t piled up as much as they expected, volunteers said, though many bathrooms weren’t a pretty sight. One bathroom at the Hitching Post stop had human excrement all over the floor and a broken toilet seat. The other had puke and blood splattered all over the toilet and floor.

On the western side of the Park, the town of West Yellowstone is famous in the winter for snowmobile and snowcoach tours into Old Faithful. With the shutdown, the Park has not been grooming the snow on the roads to make them smooth enough for travel to be possible.

So, during the shutdown, private businesses that operate inside the park are picking up the tab — about $7,500 dollars a day to groom Yellowstone’s 300-plus miles of snow-covered roads, and to keep one paved road open to cars. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs the only hotels operating inside the park in winter, is paying most of that — paying park service employees to perform the same grooming duties they do under normal circumstances.

The guiding services who operate in the Park (13 at this time) have all been chipping in to help pay, as well.

For all of the work, time and money donated, nothing will be reimbursed once this ridiculous game of federal chicken ends. And everyone committing any of the above

is going into know this, but seem happy to give in order to help their home and community.

Good people in Montana.

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