Are we alone in the Universe? That’s the question Astrobiologist Dr. Graham Lau is trying to answer. We talk the search for alien life, the planets with the most potential and why we might be early to the party. Then, it’s “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs. The Ultimate Warrior as we countdown the Top 5 Wrestling Names of All Time.
Dr. Graham Lau: 01:14
Pointless: 23:49
Top 5 Wrestling Names: 41:03
Interview with Astrobiologist Dr. Graham Lau
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick vinzant Coming up in this episode alien life and pro wrestling names
Dr. Graham Lau 0:21
we don't even know for sure if life started here on Earth. Maybe there are things alien life could be doing that is happening near us or around us and we're not seeing it, that could bring it and usher in a whole new evolution for our biosphere. It could be a whole new form of human that comes out of such a process through these new technologies and new ways of being.
Nick VinZant 0:41
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or review. We really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies a question that I think all of us have. Are we alone in the universe? This is astrobiologist Dr Graham Lau, do you think there's life on other planets?
Dr. Graham Lau 1:15
Yes, considering what we logically know right now, given that we have no evidence yet of alien life. We have to admit that we could be alone, and yet, just given the sheer number of worlds we know to exist in our galaxy alone and all the possible environments out there, it very much feels like we can't be alone, that there must be something else out there in the cosmos to back
Nick VinZant 1:38
up, to go forward, so to speak, what is it about Earth? Like, what elements, what conditions did we have that gave ride to us? Like, what? Why is Earth? Earth, so to speak,
Dr. Graham Lau 1:52
yeah, well, so I will say, first, we don't even know for sure if life started here on Earth. It seems very likely that it did. It seems like life has been here for roughly 4 billion years, given the best evidence we have right now, you know, because of the plate tectonics and the way that our Earth recycles rock, we don't have any evidence on earth of the most ancient signs of life. But we really aren't sure where and when life started on Earth, or if there was just one beginning. There might have been multiple attempts at chemistry to become biology, and maybe some of those temps attempts even merged together at some point and became the life as we know it.
Nick VinZant 2:27
Is that, how we kind of think that it started, is the sense that at some point, just a bunch of chemicals and minerals just combined, and then there it goes. Yeah, it
Dr. Graham Lau 2:37
seems like some something happens, some spark occurred, where you get into this process of selection for certain kinds of molecules and and chemical reactions can be catalyzed by certain things. And now there's a lot of people out there who are studying what those early things might have been. For instance, some mineral surfaces. So some surfaces of minerals inside of rocks are very reactive and act as catalysts. They can actually catalyze reactions and drive processes forward where organic molecules are forming, some other molecules that we think can form rather easily in a lot of abiotic or non living systems, things like, you know, some amino acids that can later be put together to make proteins, some things like RNA. We think RNA might have been one of the early precursors to DNA. RNA doesn't just store information the way DNA does. Some RNA molecules can also act as catalysts.
Nick VinZant 3:32
Man, that is my reaction to all of that. Man, but how come we can't figure it out? Because it seems like one of those things that like, okay, we can just backtrack this, like, what's the hurdle that we can't get over to say, oh, that's where it is.
Dr. Graham Lau 3:46
Yeah, I think myself and many others would say the hurdle is time. We haven't, we haven't been running these reactions in wet chemistry labs for more than, you know, years, decades at most, we haven't had a large system like the size of the Earth, where we can just throw a bunch of stuff together and then wait for millions of years, or 10s or hundreds of millions of years to see what happens.
Nick VinZant 4:07
How do you look for life on other planets?
Dr. Graham Lau 4:10
There's a lot of ways. I mean, so, yeah. So if it's like Independence Day and like the alien spacecraft comes down into our atmosphere tomorrow, then we can say, yeah, those are aliens. They're here. If we go to Mars and we see like a rock, like, get up on legs and walk in front of a camera, then sure that's that's an alien. But outside of that, it can be really difficult. So it's not like obvious, like a huge apparent thing, and it's not moving, it's not making itself, apparently, some living thing. It could be a little bit more challenging. And so that's where we go into the realm of bio signatures, signs of life, things that life creates, that are diagnostic of life being present, the same way that we can look, you know, if you're out, you know, with your children going for a walk in, like a park or a forest, and you you may look down and see some mud. Maybe you see some paw prints or animal tracks in the mud. Those are a biosignature. They're an indicator. That there was a living thing present at some point in the past. And if you know enough of your biology, you might even know what the living thing was. Maybe you can tell it was a squirrel or a rabbit or something. We do the same thing looking at the chemistry of life, so trying to look for a barrage of different kinds of things life might leave behind, and mineral signatures in the way that the rock is changed by life being present, and how it makes different layers of rock form together. We can look for things like the presence of amino acids in certain ratios, the presence of certain isotopes of various atoms that are present in the environment. There's a lot of these, like diagnostic signatures of life that we can look for on a place like Mars or the atmosphere of Venus or in the ocean of Europa. But then on top of that, there's also another realm called techno signatures. So within this realm of biosignatures, all these different signs of life, there's a smaller realm of the signs of technological activity. And so those are things like SETI, like looking for, looking for, like, listening for messages coming from space that are created by a technological civilization, or looking into an exoplanets atmosphere to see if there's like industrial gasses or like chlorofluorocarbons that we had created on earth. You know, like looking for some kind of sign of technology, which could include even maybe one day, finding an alien artifact in our solar system, or flying into our solar system. There's a lot of possibilities there
Nick VinZant 6:24
as well. Do we have a good definition of what life is?
Dr. Graham Lau 6:27
Not at all? Yeah, we've tried there. There's over 300 attempted definitions of life, and one that you'll hear a lot like online. You know, if you go online and look it up, it's also something that's called the NASA definition. Even though it's never been made official by NASA, it's that life is a self contained chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. But
Nick VinZant 6:47
is there any chance that we have found something that would be life if we had a better definition of it? Yeah.
Dr. Graham Lau 6:54
So there's a very interesting kind of realm to think about. So viruses, for instance. You know, some people think viruses aren't alive, that they're just biological machinery. Others think they are alive because our current realm of defining life doesn't include viruses most of the time. Some some attempted definitions or trees of life do include viruses, though there's another realm called the shadow biosphere, that some semester, biologists and philosophers have proposed that maybe, due to the way that we look for signs of biology on the earth, maybe there's other forms of life that are part of life as we know it, that are here, but they're behaving a little differently, and then, because of that, we're not seeing them. It seems kind of like, you know, far out there to think about, maybe, like a fringe idea, but it is an intriguing idea that maybe there are things alien life could be doing that is happening near us or around us, and we're not seeing it. So like maybe there's some form of messaging or some form of advanced physics that they have where they can communicate through the universe in different ways, and we just don't have the way to see, hear or perceive that.
Nick VinZant 7:57
Yet, is there any kind of debate, slash controversy, in that regard, and that, like, we found this thing, and I think it's life, but you don't think it's life. Is there anything like that? We're like, well, maybe we did. We're just not defining it correctly.
Dr. Graham Lau 8:13
There have been a few examples where something kind of like that has happened. So like the Viking experiments on Mars back in the 1970s we had these two landers, the Viking landers. They had a series of instruments on board these biology experiments, and none of them turned up biology. They were very much looking for life as we know it on Mars, things that like photosynthesize or like us, that take in organic molecules and break them down and make carbon dioxide and breathe that out. They were looking very much for Earth life on Mars. But one of the experiments, called the labeled release experiment, was basically like feeding organic molecules that were labeled with a radioactive element to some of the soil with some water, and then looking to see if this, if anything in the soil, was like eating those molecules and then breathing out CO two, and they got a little whiff of what looked like a positive indicator of biology occurring. But the consensus with amongst the scientists who've you know over the decades, have reviewed that research over and over again, is that it doesn't appear to be a sign of life. It doesn't fit with anything else. None of the other instruments showed any support for it being a sign of life. And so they think it was actually a process of a salt in the soil reacting with some of the organics that we know are there in the process of adding this water. And that was what was releasing the CO two. And so we have a good non life wafer for us to have had that sign. But even the guy who ran the experiment, Gil Levin, he passed away a few years ago now, but up until the time he died, he honestly, very adamantly believed that he had found life on Mars because of that experiment. If
Nick VinZant 9:50
we do find life on another place, does that mean that life like us is inevitable, like, Okay, we found this here. Of. Eventually it's going to become us for that place. Or does it not really work like that?
Dr. Graham Lau 10:05
If we find signs of life from another world in our solar system or beyond, then if we find one other sign of life that alone tells us the universe is probably full of life. It should be everywhere. And if that's possible, and life is everywhere out there, which I personally think it most likely is there's, I think there's lots of little corners of our universe that are probably inhabited in some manner. Then, just given the sheer possibility there, there should be other worlds that have beings that won't look like us necessarily, but should be similar to us in a variety of ways. And if there are, you know, even a million worlds that are inhabited, or a billion worlds that are inhabited, that alone gives a lot of possibility for a lot of different kinds of life, including other things that are very similar to us. I don't
Nick VinZant 10:49
know if I'll ask this question well, but I think, I hope, you'll get the sense of it to have life like us. I'm thinking of in terms of like you can build a car in a lot of different ways, but ultimately, it looks like a car. Would life like us be similar to us? Is there like something fundamental, that if you're going to do this thing, you kind of got to do it this way?
Dr. Graham Lau 11:12
There's this process in evolution called Convergence, or convergent evolution, where there are some forms and functions and patterns and behaviors that life converges back to, no matter what flight is. A good example, you know, so, so bats evolved flight separate from birds and so, so bats and birds did not not evolve flight together. Insects that have flight capabilities, and there's lots of those, did not evolve flight in the same pathway, either, but flight is converged upon. And so I think we'll very likely, if there are animal like creatures, we'll find flying ones out there. It's very likely if there are plant like creatures, we'll find trees out there, alien trees that evolve from different backgrounds, but converged. Are
Nick VinZant 11:57
there certain fundamental things that life like us needs like, Okay, this planet has to have this, this, this, this.
Dr. Graham Lau 12:06
So for life as we know it, yes, we have the basic building blocks of life as we know it, the schnapps elements, for instance. So carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the most common elements in all of the bodies and all the life forms we have on Earth, but there's also a lot of trace metals and other things. So to form life on a planet, we might need to have planets that are evolved enough that when the star formed, there was enough metal, there was enough other elements besides hydrogen and helium, to not only form planets, but also to form planets that had metals at the surface where reaction chemistry could occur so, very early in the universe, the earliest stars that were forming right after the Big Bang would have been composed of solely hydrogen and helium, maybe small amounts of lithium, but mostly hydrogen, helium stars, then they would go through this process of fusing elements together As they're burning this energy inside of themselves, and that would create heavier elements. But it most likely took some billions of years before we got to the point where we could form earth like planets in our universe anyway, because you needed enough of a buildup of metals and other things to make planets like ours. Now, all of that said, in the future, we might be able to alter biology for life as we know it, or even augment life as we know it with artificial life to go out and settle other worlds and so going to like Mars or Europa or an exoplanet sometime in the future. And seeding life there might not mean that we're seeding it with our life. It might mean that we're genetically altering or augmenting the life that we choose to put there to better fit those worlds.
Nick VinZant 13:47
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions. Love it. What planet do you look at right now and say, Okay, that's probably that's our best chance.
Dr. Graham Lau 13:57
Yeah. So people that love that question, I think it's actually a really hard one to answer for a few reasons. One, I think the best world beyond the Earth in our solar system to ever have had life was Venus, but only really long ago. So in the modern day, Venus has gone through a lot of geological and atmospheric change. It went through what appears to be like its entire surface melted sometime in the past, maybe 500 million or a billion years ago, its atmosphere has undergone a runaway greenhouse effect. If it did have oceans, which many of us think it most likely did, early on, it lost those oceans and never had a moon forming event to form a large moon like ours that would help stabilize its orbit and maybe even help drive plate tectonics. And so Venus underwent a lot of different processes than the Earth, but early on, Venus might have been the best bet. Now in the modern day, there are worlds like Europa and Enceladus that have these these subsurface oceans under their icy crusts that are begging for us, as scientists and explorers and people who want to know to go get into those oceans and see if there could be signs of life. Air for Enceladus, in particular, the water from its ocean is spewing out into into space, around the moon and forming one of the rings of Saturn, the E ring of Saturn. And so those could be really great places to look for life. But again, that also depends if life can start in oceans or not. And so right now, it seems like Mars, at least in our own solar system, is currently the best candidate. We can land humans there. We can land robots there. We can explore there really easily. We could bring samples back from Mars pretty easily and explore them and look for possible signs of life. Admittedly, for myself, I think if we find any signs of past or present life on Mars, it's going to be very, very deep in the subsurface, so deep that I don't think we've actually gotten that deep, like, not deep enough yet to actually look for those samples. Are
Nick VinZant 15:47
we early or late to the party? And I think what they mean by that, like, did we seem to develop our life early? Or are we? Like, no, actually, maybe everybody else is already way past us, if there is life in other places. Yeah,
Dr. Graham Lau 15:59
I love that question, and I think we're early. If I had to put money on it, I would, I would be willing to bet a good, a substantial amount. I bet I'd go on the long bets website and bet $10,000 right now that we are very early to the party. Because it seems like I said so. So in the evolution of the universe, at least in the first couple of billion years, it probably wasn't possible to form any other kind of life as we know it. So not only to have the elements of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, that took some time to build up, but to make phosphorus and the sulfur, and then to start forming enough iron and nickel and molybdenum and all these other things, you need a lot of evolution in stars. You need neutron star mergers and supernova explosions. You need stars to go through billions of years of evolution, and then they slough off their outer layers and blow parts of their planets out to space. There's a lot of universal cosmological evolution that probably had to happen to reshuffle all of the elements we needed to start building earth like planets. You know, four and a half billion years ago and our solar system formed, maybe one thing holding back a lot of life from becoming life like us, and having plants and animals and fungi and all these different kinds of modes of operation and stuff like that, is that most of the worlds haven't had enough time yet to get there. There have been some really interesting things that have happened to life on earth over time that have allowed us to form this way. From, you know, the creation of our moon to stabilize our orbit, through early evolution to the development of oxygen in our atmosphere, because of life, you know, life altered our planet, which then allowed for life as we know it, to come around to breathe oxygen and use that as an energy source. And so Earth went through a lot of key things that maybe just don't happen as often for some other worlds. There's an idea out there called the rare Earth hypothesis, that maybe some other planets just don't go through enough of the things that we've gone through to actually get to life like us. Personally, I don't really ascribe to that as much. I think we might find out that some of these things aren't necessary. Maybe having a big moon isn't necessary. Maybe having plate tectonics isn't necessary, but it definitely seems like it was helpful for life as
Nick VinZant 18:02
we know it. If alien life does come here, what do you think? Like? What do you think happens to us? Because I think we're dead.
Dr. Graham Lau 18:11
I mean, if it's like an alien virus or pathogen or or something that that that doesn't have intelligence, but can feed on life as we know it, and is better than life as we know it at competing for resources, they could very quickly, just, you know, destroy all of our ecosystems. There'd be great trophic collapses and the food web things would shut down pretty quick on our planet, in such a case, you know, like on Earth, you know, for most microbes, if you gave them unlimited resources and let them just grow and reproduce as much as they wanted to. You know, most of them can reproduce so fast they could, they could basically eat the entire Earth in like a day. If they had unlimited resources and access they don't, because there's competition. But say, an alien bug, an alien bacterium or something from space or an alien organism comes down and rains into our planet and starts eating resources and is much better than we are competing for them. It could very quickly just destroy all of our life and its own in the process. That said, say, like, say, it is Independence Day, you know. Say, like an alien spaceship, a mothership, comes down to the earth. There's two wildly different possible scenarios. One of them is very benevolent and caring. Maybe it could be a first contact scenario, like meeting the Vulcans, and they want to trade knowledge and information. Maybe they want to hear our stories and hear about our culture and our history, and in turn, they're willing to share technology and knowledge with us that could bring in and usher in a whole new evolution for our biosphere. It could be a whole new form of human that comes out of such a process, through these new technologies and new ways of being, there's the other side of it that they could want to destroy us for a variety of reasons. Now in science fiction, I'll say one thing that I hate in science. It really gets it gets my goat every time when aliens come to Earth for water or they're allergic to water, and we've seen both in science fiction now. So aliens who come to Earth for water are stupid, and I'll tell you why, because there is so much water beyond the Earth in our solar system, like Europa has more water in its ocean than all the water we have on Earth. Enceladus is full of water. Pluto is full of water. All of the icy moons of the outer solar system have oceans and oceans and oceans more water than the Earth has. And then, if you have a species who's allergic to water, who comes down to our planet and wants to fight us, that's also pretty dumb. They should be wearing, like really advanced spacesuits, because there is water everywhere. But one thing that terrifies me when it comes to thinking about what kind of resource aliens might want here on Earth, since there are all the elements we can think of, molecules we can think of are out there, except for our chemistry, it might be that maybe our chemistry for life as we know it is a very unique food source, maybe a delicacy for aliens, or maybe consciousness. Maybe there's something about the structures of our neurons and our brains and our intelligence and the kind of consciousness that we have that either seems like a threat or it seems like an interesting food source or a resource for some alien species to harvest, in which case I'd be terrified.
Nick VinZant 21:27
Yeah? Well, that's a new nightmare that I hadn't thought of before. I'll sleep on that one tonight. Right now, it makes sense, though, right? Like anything else that Earth has is available and more abundance throughout the universe, except for us, so they probably just want us, yeah, which probably isn't very good for us.
Unknown Speaker 21:44
It seems pretty awful.
Nick VinZant 21:46
Could alien life already be here, not in the UFO sense, in the sense that, like, what is it panspermia? Like, is there anything that we think that from life on Earth that, like, Oh, we're not entirely sure that's from Earth, yeah, not
Dr. Graham Lau 21:59
at all. Um, there have been some people who've, like, suggested that octopuses are alien, and they seem bizarre, but they're also, you know, they're beautiful creatures, but there's nothing about an octopus that is alien like they have DNA, they have RNA, they have proteins. There is no evidence whatsoever so far that panspermia has happened since the origins of life here and the long term evolution of life. I
Nick VinZant 22:22
know we're pretty much out of time, but tell me about, like, kind of what's coming up for next for you, who's next on the show, that kind of stuff.
Dr. Graham Lau 22:27
Yeah. So, I mean, so yeah, I host the show for NASA Astrobiology called Ask an astrobiologist. It's a lot of fun. I get to talk with really cool researchers. We're trying to get ADA Limon, the the national poet laureate, on the show, to talk about her poem that's going to Europa here soon, on the Europa Clipper spacecraft. Natalie Cabral, I'd love to have on the show. She's a researcher at the SETI Institute. She has a new book out. There's a bunch of great people out there doing incredible research who I want to talk to and ask questions of, and have my audience ask questions. And then for myself, I'm transitioning my research a little bit right now, more into less of the realm of what is life, and how do we look for life on other planets, and more into the realm of what is consciousness, and how do we look for other conscious experiences out there in the universe? And can we look for them? Can we understand anything more about it? And does the realm of astrobiology help us to better understand what it means to be human?
Nick VinZant 23:20
I want to thank Dr Lau so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information along with a link to his show. Ask an astrobiologist in the episode description, and if you want to see more of this interview, the YouTube version will be live on October 10 at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. What do you think you have a harder time doing, letting go of something old or starting something new,
John Shull 24:01
I would say I have a harder time starting something new, but not necessarily doing it, but staying with it.
Nick VinZant 24:08
Oh, like you have a difficulty kind of establishing a new habit, like a new pattern in your life.
John Shull 24:14
Yeah, I have no problem throwing away, like old things. Actually, I would prefer it. There's very few things from my past that I have.
Nick VinZant 24:25
I tend to keep things and get attached to things just because that's what I like, and they usually stop making the things that I like. So like, I kept my first truck for 18 years, all I mean, not because I didn't this, because it's like, that's the truck that I liked. They didn't have another one that I wanted. I
John Shull 24:47
mean, How long haven't you had that motorcycle? For 20 years? I've had my
Nick VinZant 24:51
motorcycle since 2006 and I haven't ridden it in five years, and it's just sitting back behind my house. Someday, someday.
John Shull 25:03
Alright, let's give some shout outs here. Let's see. We'll start with Andy, February, Angelina, tarkoma, Lynn co you're I do say it kind of very robotically. I'm going to never seen
Nick VinZant 25:20
the word before, but she'd like, you're trying to enunciate, man, I get it. I get it.
John Shull 25:27
Christopher Brewer, Johnny India, is that better? Not really. I can do it like a like an announcer. Bob Amadeus, and now starting in shortstop, Ayub, a Louie, was that really
Nick VinZant 25:46
somebody's name? I like that name. Ayuba, Louie. I like that uh,
John Shull 25:50
yucas, pelicir, Jamie, Phelan, Alexander Roberto, and we're going to end here with Connie Smith,
Nick VinZant 26:03
we don't see a lot of Connie's.
John Shull 26:05
Uh, not much of a name. No, no,
Nick VinZant 26:07
that's a name that immediately dates you. Like, oh, that's not a young person. I would be surprised if Connie's under the age of 30.
John Shull 26:17
Uh, well, that's fair. I actually work with a Connie and I've worked with other Connie's. I actually know quite a bit of Connie's or constances. I
Nick VinZant 26:26
don't know if I know a single Connie Connie Cola, that name is familiar to me, and I have no idea why.
John Shull 26:32
It's clearly not a real name. So
Nick VinZant 26:38
Connie, oh, it was somebody I did. Used to work with somebody named Connie cola. That's the only Connie I know.
John Shull 26:46
All right, well, let's I want you to solve this debate, because, for whatever reason, I've had this debate so this conversation with probably six people in the last week. What is the best style of pizza?
Nick VinZant 27:00
What do you mean style of pizza? Like,
John Shull 27:03
if, if you could have any, so you could have one slice of any kind of pizza. What are you going with? New York, Detroit, Chicago,
Nick VinZant 27:13
oh, Costco, whatever kind of pizza Costco makes. I don't know about all these types like New York, Chicago, blah, blah, blah, just give me pizza man. What is Papa John's make? Or what does Pizza Hut make? That kind I like a slightly thick crust, the regular pizza. The best kind of pizza is regular pizza. That's the kind of pizza that I like, all right. And
John Shull 27:37
this week's R, A, P, which
Nick VinZant 27:39
one are you? Which one are you? Can
John Shull 27:40
we give a shout out?
Nick VinZant 27:44
What's your pizza? What's your favorite?
John Shull 27:47
I mean, I'm gonna give a bullshit answer. I mean, I I can go. I have a favorite place for each I have been eating a lot of New York style lately, which is unlike me, but Detroit and Chicago just there. It's really bready man. And as I get older, I don't want to eat 700 calories in one slice.
Nick VinZant 28:06
There's no such thing as Detroit style pizza. Okay, let's see. There isn't. There's New York in there, Chicago, Detroit is not in this conversation. I know that you guys want to try to butt your way into it. No, Detroit style. It's really good. No, it's not okay. It's not nobody, nobody. Nobody outside of Detroit has ever heard of Detroit style pizza.
Unknown Speaker 28:27
Oh, that's fine. Does it
Nick VinZant 28:28
come with getting shot? You get a pizza and they shoot you in the leg. Is that Detroit style pizza? No one cares about Detroit style pizza, but except for people in Detroit,
John Shull 28:38
you better be careful there, Mr. Seattle,
Nick VinZant 28:40
there's no, we're not trying to class it up.
John Shull 28:47
You're right. You're not, you're not at all, um,
Nick VinZant 28:51
it's Seattle style. What is it? It's exactly the same. We just because it's in Seattle, we call it Seattle style.
John Shull 28:57
I don't think Seattle is known for anything,
Nick VinZant 29:01
fish like a specific kind of food. I don't think there's a Seattle dog,
John Shull 29:07
but what is a Seattle dog?
Nick VinZant 29:11
I don't know. I haven't had it. I will tell you this. I've lived in a number of different cities. That sounds like a really DB thing to say, but I've lived in a number of different cities, and the one that had the best food was Tucson, Arizona, by far. Not even a competition. What are you doing over there?
John Shull 29:26
I can't get my camera to focus on my stop moving around. I'm he just came to jittery. Man. I my i came across these energy drink things I'm drinking, like five of them a day, and I just can't stop moving.
Nick VinZant 29:41
What kind of energy drinks are you drinking? You got it right there? Please tell me you have it right there.
John Shull 29:47
Yeah. Can I, can I do like ad placement? Or is that Sure? Sure it's zoas the rock, the rocks company, Oh, God.
Nick VinZant 29:55
How many milligrams of caffeine is in that sucker? Well, that's
John Shull 29:58
the problem. It doesn't say, and I haven't looked up. How many
Nick VinZant 30:02
you want me to Sure? Okay, I'll look it up while you go on to the next thing.
John Shull 30:09
No, I was, I just wanted to give a shout out to in memorandum or memorandum,
Nick VinZant 30:15
that's a lot, dude. How many of you had a day.
John Shull 30:20
I mean, this is my fourth one today. Oh,
Nick VinZant 30:23
my God, they've got 200 milligrams of caffeine. 800 milli you've had 800 milligrams of caffeine today. I i Look at mine like I have three sodas a day, morning, midday and towards the evening, and they have about 40 milligrams of caffeine in them each. So that's 120 for me for the day, and you're rocking 800 plus. Did you have a coffee? No,
John Shull 30:51
no, I've Well, I'm trying to get off coffee. It's
Nick VinZant 30:55
not working by going harder. That's like trying to get off of weed by doing heroin, yeah, not gonna work,
John Shull 31:03
yeah? Well, I didn't. Maybe that's why they don't put it on the can. I don't know. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 31:08
that's Yeah, dude, if they're not labeling something, that means there's a lot or none
John Shull 31:14
you ever seen. What's that Wolf of Wall Street? Boom, boom, boom, boom. Heart's doing. I can just, yeah, I can just feel it, man. It's just a man,
Nick VinZant 31:23
since I usually only have like, a soda, which is about, like I said, 30 to 40, we have a coffee machine at work. And I just tried, like, this one thing, and I didn't realize how much caffeine was in coffee, and I was just walking around like I was a hummingbird just floating through the office.
John Shull 31:46
Are you like the old man now at your work? Oh, the coffee machine.
Nick VinZant 31:50
I am no, if there's a kind, if there's any, if look, if I could, do you ever see those, like, freestyle soda machines, where you can get, like, all kinds of different soda. You press the button, it changes. And they've got like, 400 different varieties. I would be there all day trying every single one,
John Shull 32:10
just to see what what tickles your fancy,
Nick VinZant 32:13
just to see what it is, right? Like I'm going to try, yeah, I'll try 15 different flavors of Fanta.
John Shull 32:20
Yeah, I'll try it. Um,
Nick VinZant 32:22
never know, man, could be delicious. Anyways, what
John Shull 32:24
were we talking about? I feel like this episode is it's a little bit odd. What did I what I have written down here? Oh, missy, Missy Houston, or sissy Houston, who died today? I don't even know who that is, Whitney's mother,
Nick VinZant 32:39
sissy. So,
John Shull 32:42
I mean, I'm sorry, sorry you don't have,
Nick VinZant 32:43
like, Was I supposed to know about that? Is she famous?
John Shull 32:48
I mean, yes. And she also gave birth to one of the greatest musicians ever. Her name is sissy, yeah, well, I mean, that's what she goes by, e, i, s, s, y,
Nick VinZant 33:02
sissy, Houston, that's gonna that'd be a hard name if you were a guy. Do you imagine if you were a guy and your nickname was sissy? Like, what's your name? Sissy? Show, high school is not gonna be easy for you. The alliteration
John Shull 33:15
itself would probably not be the greatest. So, what? I don't know if this is new, but I've never had it before, but I was at a restaurant and I was served by a robot.
Nick VinZant 33:32
What do you mean? You were served by like, like, an actual robot came out, yeah,
John Shull 33:37
like, came over, awesome, said hello, gave us menus. We picked our food, brought us our food, even came back once and asked us if we wanted refills on our drinks.
Nick VinZant 33:50
Was it okay? But how was the robot service? What did you say it's better or worse than a human?
John Shull 33:56
Um, I mean, obviously there was no personality there. My kids loved it. There was no personality there. But, yeah, it was, it's fine. I mean, if that's the future, I mean, obviously it isn't, because you can't put all the service industry out of work. But man, it was okay. Well, I'm not against it. I
Nick VinZant 34:16
do find it really interesting that just within our lifetimes, I've gone from not really wanting to trust the computer or machines to I would rather trust a computer or a machine, 1520, years ago. If somebody was like, let the computer do it, I'd be like, I don't trust those things. Now, people were like, let the computer do it. I'd be like, no, no, let the computer do it. I don't trust the people.
John Shull 34:40
Um, this is just a random question i i have for you. Kind of that heartburn, dude. Oh, it's terrible. And drinking four energy drinks a day, it's just tearing
Nick VinZant 34:52
that under control. Man, you kind of like,
John Shull 34:55
Oh my gosh. So no one cares, and people probably don't realize it. But I tore my calf muscle back in May.
Nick VinZant 35:02
No, and I just bring it up every episode, I just started
John Shull 35:06
going back to the gym, and I did a half an hour of cardio, just did the elliptical, and I got off, and I'm gonna have to take a picture next time I do it. It was like a mountain. The swelling from my calf like went and just stopped at my ankle and it was like, there was a shelf. It was insane. I've never seen anything like it,
Nick VinZant 35:24
yeah, dude, like, you don't just go from zero to 60. You probably should have done like, five minutes seeing how that went. Then maybe tried 10. Not just, like, you know, what's my first day back in the gym. Let's go ahead and do max bench press, and I'm just gonna sprint across the room like you gotta warm my invention 405. No, not many people. Are not many people out of these days. Uh, do you have anything else?
John Shull 35:53
Uh, yeah. So have you ever gone to, have you ever gone to court, to to, like, challenge a ticket. No,
Nick VinZant 36:03
no, I have not. Are you gonna go? I
John Shull 36:06
will let you know it's still, it's still a little ways out. It's about two weeks out, but I will let you know how that goes for me. Well, okay.
Nick VinZant 36:12
Well, give us the situation. What happened? What'd you get the ticket for? Why are you challenging it?
John Shull 36:18
Uh, I got, I got, I got,
Nick VinZant 36:20
oh, let me be the judge. Let's, let's do this. I'm the judge. You're making your case. Okay, let's practice. I'm the judge you're making your case. I'm gonna be hard on you. I'm gonna come after
John Shull 36:33
you. I apologize for everyone that's listening to this. Well, Your Honor. I was pulled over for apparently doing a California roll through a stop sign. Though I had enough time to look at the officer in the eyes and then keep going, so clearly I had stopped a little bit. Oh, by the way, he was parked out in front of a good buddy of mine's house, of which I have doorbell camera video that shows that I did pretty much come to a stop, and then pretty much,
Nick VinZant 37:02
or did, because pretty much he's not, did. So did you come to a stop? Or did you not? Because when I look at this video, am I going to see that you pretty much came to a stop, or am I going to see that you did come to a stop? It
John Shull 37:14
so by Michigan law, and I'm not sure that you would even agree with this, oh,
Nick VinZant 37:18
you're insulting the judge. You're insulting the judge because he doesn't know Michigan law. That's what you're saying. Right now you're going to tell the judge how you know Michigan law better than he does or she does it
John Shull 37:28
some to a complete stop for two seconds.
Nick VinZant 37:31
Okay, did you do that?
John Shull 37:33
I did not come to a complete stop for two seconds, but I stopped. Dismissed. Right to
Nick VinZant 37:37
pay the ticket. You just admitted that you did it. You just admitted that you did it,
John Shull 37:43
Sir or Ma'am, can I? Can I just keep Can we just go on to the second part? No, I
Nick VinZant 37:48
have about 15,000 more of these cases today. You just said that you did not go ahead and come to a complete stop. There's video evidence that you talk about. The video evidence you don't really seem to stop. So this case is gonna go ahead and be thrown out. Oh, I fucked. Are you gonna try to bring in video evidence that shows you kind of doing something? No, I see that I stopped. You didn't know. I slow like you lost. Don't fight the ticket. It's over for you. The reason
John Shull 38:15
why I'm actually taking its court is I'm not I'm not gonna dispute that. Whatever I did that I deserve that ticket, but then I got wrote up for having an expired license plate, but it's because I My birthday was, like, four days, you know, after my plate expired, but you have a month in Michigan to renew your tags, so it's a legal plate, and the cop still wrote me a ticket. So that's why, that's why I'm going to go fight that, because it's more expensive than the rolling through the stop sign ticket.
Nick VinZant 38:41
So, oh, but that's the kind of thing that, like, the cops should know the law on that, like, maybe you messed that up. And I'm not just don't realize it. I'm not
John Shull 38:53
going to say what city it is. And listen, I respect all law enforcement. Don't take it that way. You know, I didn't give him a fit then, and I won't give him a fight if he shows up in court. But you know, it's an expensive ticket when, you know,
Unknown Speaker 39:06
like, how much is it? I
John Shull 39:07
have a month, about 200 bucks.
Nick VinZant 39:12
Okay, do you have to take off work to go do it?
John Shull 39:14
No, I have the I have the first appointment, or whatever, at 8am in the morning, so the judge is going to be real happy.
Nick VinZant 39:22
What day of the week is it
John Shull 39:25
a Thursday? I
Nick VinZant 39:26
think it might be more lenient on a Thursday, Monday. He ate Monday. They're not taking anything. And they not. They don't want any of your mess. Man, by Thursday, they're like,
John Shull 39:37
it's, it is what it is. It's not a big deal. But, you know, I just, you know, it's a lot of money to pay for power,
Nick VinZant 39:46
man, yeah, not even about any money. It's about the principle of it, that you're right. You need to fight the power, but also don't come in there and be like, Did you stop? Well, kind of did. Well, kind of isn't knowing it. So you lost that. See the problem?
John Shull 39:59
Things. I work in the media, so I have relationships with, like the court clerk. So when I called her and was like, Hey, she's like, Oh yeah, you're probably not getting out of that one. But if you know, if you are saying what you say you're saying, you might have a chance at the the license plate one. So I'm like, Oh, thanks. Well, sure,
Nick VinZant 40:15
okay, alright. Well, I mean, fight the power, man. I'll
John Shull 40:20
give you all an update in a few weeks, let you know how, how I lost so make
Nick VinZant 40:24
sure you drink at least, like five, have like five energy drinks and go in there. Just,
John Shull 40:29
do I do I dress up? Do I do I wear a suit? Do I wear just blue jeans? Like go
Nick VinZant 40:34
half and half suit top, shorts in the bottom?
John Shull 40:38
Yeah, cuz I won't get me a then
Nick VinZant 40:39
show up and say, you thought it was a zoom. They thought it was zoom.
John Shull 40:45
Speaking of, do you remember during, uh, during the pandemic with the the attorney with the cat eyes, he loved, yeah, cat filter, yeah,
Nick VinZant 40:52
I do remember that I am not a cat. Like, well, thanks for clarifying that. I mean, that was one of those things that, like all of society, just needs to laugh about, because that was pretty funny. Are you ready for our top five, or do you got something else there?
John Shull 41:05
No, I'm ready. I don't. I need to get into a good place for this. So
Nick VinZant 41:12
for people who don't aware of this, John is a casual bandwagon wrestling fan. Oh, my God, He that attends to know false occasionally I will text him about wrestling things, and he never seen he's very excited. He never really wants to talk about it. So John is a casual wrestling fan. Don't expect too much of him. I'm not even sure if he knows much about wrestling. Um, but we are doing the top five wrestling names of all time. Could you think of were you able to come up with five wrestlers? Casual fan, John, first off, casual wrestling fan,
John Shull 41:47
I don't respond back to you because you usually text me like midnight, because we have a three hour time difference, and all you're trying to do is poke the bear. So that's why I don't respond to anyone who's wondering,
Nick VinZant 41:57
not a wrestling fan.
John Shull 42:00
And yes, I have, it's hard to narrow it down to five, but yes, I have a list, alright,
Nick VinZant 42:06
so top five wrestling names of all time. Who's your number five?
John Shull 42:12
Bam, bam, Bigelow. Oh,
Nick VinZant 42:14
okay, alright. I like bam, bam, Bigelow. I don't I can see it, I can see it. I can see it.
Unknown Speaker 42:24
Okay, what's what's your?
Nick VinZant 42:27
Brutus the barber beefcake. You can't go wrong with Brutus the barber beefcake. I have no idea what Brutus the barber beef beefcake does. I don't know what Brutus the barber beefcake looks like, but I know the name of Brutus the barber beefcake.
John Shull 42:44
I mean, he was kind of a jobber, but definitely walked around with shears. And, yeah, he was, he was around for quite a while.
Nick VinZant 42:52
He was a big time name. He was a big name, Buddhist. You can't go wrong, Brutus the barber beefcake. Like, yeah, that's a great name. What's your number four? Uh,
John Shull 43:02
Greg the hammer Valentine.
Nick VinZant 43:08
It's all right,
John Shull 43:10
the hammer called the hammer. That's amazing.
Nick VinZant 43:13
There's a lot of people. It's not better than Brutus the barber beefcake,
John Shull 43:18
just because, like you said, you don't know what the hell that means. Nobody does. It's
Nick VinZant 43:23
such a good wrestling name, though, like the hammer, the anvil, even like the rock, like it's okay. I want more I want more creativity, like Coco beware, which is my number four. Coco beware is an amazing name. You got a problem with Coco beware? No, I
John Shull 43:45
just that's not one of the best names ever, but whatever Coco beware
Nick VinZant 43:48
is a great name.
John Shull 43:50
I gotta tell you, my my list doesn't get more exciting, because if you're a real wrestling fan, you know why my top five is what it is, but I'm excited to see what you're right,
Nick VinZant 44:00
if you're a real wrestling fan, you like names like Jared, Jared Carmichael, I think that's like an actual famous person, but like Jared Smith, great wrestling name that's exciting.
John Shull 44:13
Anyways, uh, my number three, Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Nick VinZant 44:20
That's a pretty good one. That's the only kind of like real name that I could go with, like Steve. He made Steve cool. That's hard to do.
John Shull 44:32
He did. He sure did that
Nick VinZant 44:34
that is not a name that Steve is not a name that anybody expects to see like a real cool guy, right? Do you know anybody who's like a real cool guy named Steve? Like, always, a little nerdy, a little dorky, that's a Steve? No, I don't. Right, sorry, all, Steve, there's not like Nick's a great one. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying like every, every Steve I know is like a little nerdy and dorky.
John Shull 45:07
I mean, it's better than Steve. So how
Nick VinZant 45:10
do you feel? Do you think Steven is better than Steve? Who do you like more? Steve or Steven? Steve? Yeah, like Steve more than Steven, too, right? Because Steven is a Steve that takes his name too seriously. Uh, my number three is big papa pump. Scott Steiner, oh, big papa pump. No. Good name. You need a name like, uh, Brock, Brock,
Unknown Speaker 45:38
even though his last name, what
Nick VinZant 45:40
is it? Brock Lesnar. Like, that's a great wrestling name you're gonna have. Who are you more excited to see? Brock Lesnar, or big papa pump?
John Shull 45:49
I mean, yes, big papa pump.
Nick VinZant 45:50
Big Papa pump wasn't his brother, also named the dog face Gremlin.
John Shull 45:56
Yes. He was Rick's Rick Steiner,
Nick VinZant 46:00
yeah, I know he was. I'm a real wrestling fan, not a casual like you. Have you heard of WrestleMania?
John Shull 46:06
I heard you so much. My My number two is a tie guys from the same era, the Nature Boy and macho man.
Nick VinZant 46:19
Oh, okay, okay, my number two is gorilla monsoon. That's amazing. You don't like gorilla monsoon? No,
John Shull 46:31
I do. I love gorilla monsoon. He was amazing for the business, but, oh,
Nick VinZant 46:36
I love gorilla monsoon. I think that's an incredible name. What's your number one?
John Shull 46:44
Man? I mean, this was, I mean, it was so hard. But I'm going with a personal favorite of mine, Jake the Snake. Roberts,
Nick VinZant 46:52
uh, it's pretty good, yeah,
John Shull 46:55
because it transcends wrestling. How many times have you been like, Jake the Snake, or Jake from State Farm, or, you know, like, it just, it's good. Like, it just goes,
Nick VinZant 47:05
Yeah, none. I've never done that, but I don't really, I don't really like snakes. So maybe that's my thing. My number one, I think, is really the best professional wrestling name of all time, which is Macho Man, Randy Savage. Macho Man is the best. It's the best wrestling name in my I mean,
John Shull 47:22
it's really number one. Could have been 15 different names. I
Nick VinZant 47:27
really thought about putting gorilla monsoon is number one. That's a great name. My I
John Shull 47:32
mean, my honor, I'll mention is insane. I don't even want to go through all of them, all right. Well, just
Nick VinZant 47:37
give me the Give me 10 of them. Then
John Shull 47:41
the Dynamite Kid, dime diamond, Dallas Page, little bit better. Uh, rowdy. Roddy Piper, yeah, Kamala the Ugandan giant, yeah,
Nick VinZant 47:54
that's pretty good. It has to be descriptive so, you know, like, what that person looks like, like, you know, Brutus the barber beefcake is going to be somebody that's ripped out and probably a little crazy, yeah,
John Shull 48:05
just crazy, the big boss, man, yes, good one, the Ultimate Warrior, yeah, Andre the Giant. And I'll end man like I just have. So I'm trying to pick out, like, my favorite from the list that I had written down. So I'll end here on haystacks, Calhoun.
Nick VinZant 48:30
That's pretty good. I like that one. You know what? One that really we should have put in there, that I just now thought of, is Sergeant slaughter.
John Shull 48:37
That is a good one. That's
Nick VinZant 48:38
a good one. I forgot entirely about Sergeant slaughter. Yeah,
John Shull 48:43
that's a pretty good one. I mean, you could put the iron cheek in there.
Nick VinZant 48:46
That's a good one too.
John Shull 48:48
I mean, The Undertaker, yeah,
Nick VinZant 48:51
the undertaker. The other ones that I have on there are Mr. Perfect.
John Shull 48:58
Ooh, that's rip good one. Good one. Oh,
Nick VinZant 49:01
he's dead. Yeah, he
John Shull 49:03
died, like, 20 years ago. Oh, I
Nick VinZant 49:05
didn't know that. Oh, the this guy, like, it was a good name, I think that he was pretty much been documented as quite the terrible person. But Jimmy Superfly snooker,
John Shull 49:18
I mean, if anyone knows anything about wrestling. Vince McMahon, they're all pretty terrible people. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 49:24
they do seem to be all that. That documentary is like, Oh, wait, they're all kind of terrible. Or at least the promoters all seem like they're a little bit terrible. Um, who else did I have? No, that was it. That was it. I don't I thought about Ultimate Warrior, but then it like, oh yeah, that's okay. Brett the hitman. Heart's pretty good too.
John Shull 49:49
Yeah. I mean, it's you gotta separate the character from the name. That's what makes a great name, like Coco. Beware, sure, because no. One remembers him unless you're a real wrestling fan, which you are,
Nick VinZant 50:03
right? I mean, I knew who Coco beware was. You probably don't even know. But did you know that, not only do they have Wrestlemania, they also have SummerSlam. Have you heard about SummerSlam? You
John Shull 50:14
want me to rage quit because I'm getting pretty close?
Nick VinZant 50:16
Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of profoundly pointless, I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. Really helps out the show. We really appreciate it. We also have our Patreon page that I always update but occasionally forget, to remind people that it's out there and let us know what you think is the best pro wrestling name. There's really so many of them, and I think you can make a good argument for a lot.