The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. But the action on the pitch still pales in comparison to the business going on behind the scenes.
Sports Economist Dr. Victor Matheson has studied the economic impact of the World Cup for more than thirty years. In this episode of Profoundly Pointless we talk the business behind the World Cup, the corruption inside FIFA and if any of the money generated by the World Cup will trickle down to you.
Then, in the Pointless part of the show, we unveil a new Candle of the Month and countdown the Top 5 Summer Foods.
00:00 Introducing Dr. Victor Matheson
01:38 The Economic Impact of the World Cup
03:59 FIFA and Corruption
06:36 Will the World Cup Benefit Host Cities
16:17 World Cup Host Cities that Will Lose Money
17:50 How the United States’ Reputation is Hurting the World Cup
24:09 Pointless
40:26 Candle of the Month
49:17 Top 5 Summer Foods
Interview with Sports Economist Dr. Victor Matheson
Speaker 1 0:00
Nick,
Nick VinZant 0:11
welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode, World Cup business and summer foods. So
Dr. Victor Matheson 0:21
FIFA has a reputation and a well earned reputation of being wildly corrupt because of the money that was coming in. World Cup is spectacular for FIFA for everyone else, it's a much, much closer question about whether this is a good event for you. Several cities that well, Edmonton, in Canada and in Chicago, actually, both walked away from from the World Cup, saying, Look, we don't want these events because we think it's going to be more hassle than it's worth.
Nick VinZant 0:50
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. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies something that I think is fascinating. I'm not a huge sports fan. I like it, I enjoy it, but I'm not a huge sports fan. What does fascinate me, though, is the business of sports and how things like the World Cup can mean billions of dollars, and everything from uplifting cities, bringing them down, bribes, corruption, all of that that goes along with that amount of money. Our first guest is sports business expert, Victor Matheson, business wise, how big is the World Cup?
Dr. Victor Matheson 1:40
So it's one of the two biggest sporting events on the planet, Summer Olympics and World Cup. These are the two granddaddies of all mega events. The audience for the World Cup final that will be something like five to 10 times the size of the world of the audience for the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl is by far the largest American sporting event, so we're talking about an order of magnitude bigger than the event that's by far the biggest American sporting event.
Nick VinZant 2:14
How much money are we talking about?
Dr. Victor Matheson 2:16
So for FIFA, FIFA stands to make somewhere between 10 and $11 billion on this event. They're gonna make a couple billion dollars selling tickets. We've probably heard about those sky high ticket prices. We they're gonna make several billion more on meteorites. And by several, I mean closer to, you know, five, $10 billion on media rights, plus other stuff, like, you know, Jersey sales, paraphernalia, sponsorship money, all of that sort of stuff.
Nick VinZant 2:44
Where does all that money go? Like, who's getting all this money?
Dr. Victor Matheson 2:49
Oh, there's one organization, one organization only, who's getting that money. And that's and that's FIFA.
Nick VinZant 2:54
So is FIFA a business? Is it an organization? Like, how does this kind of
Dr. Victor Matheson 3:00
So, basically, it's an organization that is designed to organize and promote and develop soccer in the world. Officially, it's a nonprofit that can grade on some people. Again, there's a nonprofit making $11 billion a year with extremely high paid executives, but the money that they generate, that which is not going to, you know, gold plated toilets in in Switzerland, at their at their world headquarters, it goes to a couple places. So it's going to go to pay the players. The players and the teams involved get very, very high payments associated with their participation. Some of it goes to actually organizing the event and paying for at least some of the costs associated with the event, and then the rest of it FIFA collects and then distributes to about 230 different national soccer associations across the world.
Nick VinZant 3:59
Is this on the up and up that this really kind of gets spread around. It really operates like a nonprofit. Or is it a little bit like, here you get this, you get this, I get all of this.
Dr. Victor Matheson 4:11
So FIFA has a reputation and a well earned reputation of being wildly corrupt because of the money that was coming in would would trickle down to these national associations, but the people who are in charge of those national associations again, wildly corrupt. We have large numbers of people who were jailed at times. We have we have significant scandals associated with bribery, associated with who is going to be awarded World Cups, who's going to be awarded media contracts to broadcast games? So yeah, soccer is very, very dirty historically, and there's a question about whether it remains, though I
Nick VinZant 4:55
kind of put everything in numbers categories on a scale of like one to 10. So if 10. Is the most corrupt that you can be, and one is you are an angel with no problems. FIFA used to kind of be what they're now, what
Dr. Victor Matheson 5:09
so FIFA used to be a an eight or nine. I will hold back what I think they are now. I will say most of FIFA is not engaged in active FBI investigations like they were as recently as five years ago. I don't
Nick VinZant 5:28
think I'm going to ask this question very well, so give me some leeway on this. Is there something about soccer, about the World Cup, that makes it so uniquely profitable. Or if, and if the NBA was this big, it would do the same thing. Or a football was this big, American football was this big, it would do the same thing. So is it the size, or is it the nature of the sport that contributes something special?
Dr. Victor Matheson 5:56
Yeah, so it's the nature of the sport. And what, what the nature of the sport is, is that that soccer has been adopted as basically the number one sport that people follow in roughly three quarters of the planet. There really are, legitimately 150 countries where people care and people care a lot, and even the United States, where it's not our number one sport, we still have 30 or 40 million people, including myself, who consider soccer their number one sport to watch. So that's what's great about it, you know when? And the other great thing is, there's lots of countries that are good at it, right?
Nick VinZant 6:36
Is the way that they're doing it, having games in 16 different cities. Is that going to make it more profitable, or would that take it away if you just had it in one place? So this
Dr. Victor Matheson 6:47
is actually going to make it a lot more profitable, and the reason for that is because you now have 16 times as much tourist infrastructure to host people coming in, and it also makes the cost lower, because you don't have to build new stadiums, right? So if we wanted to do like, for example, the entire world cup in Connecticut, right? We would have to build 14 new stadiums. And of course, that's exactly what happened in Qatar. I happen to be wearing a Qatar national national team jersey right now, but that's what happened in Qatar. Qatar had no available space. They're roughly the same size as Connecticut, but with half the number of people and about a 10th the amount of infrastructure. And so that cost them, like $300 billion in preparation costs, building all the tourist infrastructure, the transportation, the security, and, of course, the stadiums themselves. In the United States, we can spread this across 11 United States cities, three Mexican cities, two Canadian cities. You don't need to build new airports in any of these places, because, yeah, you might not be able to handle all of the World Cup traffic, but you can handle 1/16 of the World Cup traffic. You might not be able to handle all the tourists, but you can handle 1/16 of those tourists, which means that you can accommodate a lot more people. So it's a much better event from potential economic impact than, for example, the Olympics, that are much more expensive and are much more limited in the number of people who can actually go to the games, because there's only so many people who can come to Paris or LA but the number of people can come to the United States, Canada, Mexico, combined, is much, much higher.
Nick VinZant 8:26
Like, can this trickle down, right? So obviously, the players are getting paid, the FIFA people are getting paid. Does the hot dog vendor outside of, I live in Seattle, outside of the stadium? Like, is this good for them too? Can this trickle down to everybody?
Dr. Victor Matheson 8:40
Okay, so this is where we get into the grander social numbers here. So let's be very clear, World Cup is spectacular for FIFA, for everyone else, it's a much, much closer question about whether this is a good event for you. So certainly you bring a bunch of new people into town, but you have to worry about three things when you're talking about economic impact. Thing number one is what's known as the substitution effect. And what the substitution effect is is if a person in Seattle where you are, or Boston where I am, buys a World Cup ticket, that's That's an expensive ticket, right? This is you're starting at three or $400 and it's going up from there. That's money that's not available for you in Seattle to go spend on the mariners, because we've all got kind of a fixed entertainment budget, and FIFA is. Your FIFA tickets gonna use up a lot of that. So that's number one. Number two is crowding out. Seattle is a lovely place to be in June and July anyway, and your hotels would normally be full, and having the World Cup in town means that you're crowding out some of the economic activity that would normally happen the tourists, your regular tourists, who come to Seattle for the salmon, beer and coffee are going to be crowded out by tourists are coming to Seattle for. For the soccer so you can't say all these soccer fans are good without also saying, well, but what about the activity that's not coming? What about the regular tourist? And then the last thing is a leakage. And a leakage happens when money gets spent in Seattle but doesn't stick. So FIFA, that $400 ticket you're buying, none of that sticking in Seattle, right? If I was a regular tourist and went down to Pike Street Market, Pike Place Market, I would that all those folks are local, and so all the money I spend there is going to stick, it's going to get spent and re spent in the local economy. If I spend that money on World Cup tickets, that money immediately leaves the economy and never has a chance to benefit anyone in the city. So put all those together, and it's a much closer question about whether Seattle benefits in a huge way from the World Cup or not.
Nick VinZant 10:46
Yeah. And then when you have like, okay, you've got traffic concerns, you've got to have police officers that are there. You have to have the infrastructure to support like, who pays for that stuff? Is FIFA paying for that? Or is like, no, no, Seattle, you're on the hook for that.
Dr. Victor Matheson 10:59
Oh, oh oh, my sweet summer child, right? No, of course, of course. FIFA wants to pass that o on to other folks, right? So they want to be able to collect all of the money associated with the event and bring that to themselves, and then put the cost of hosting the event on other folks, things like transportation, things like security. And this has been, this has been a lots of concern, lots of debate about this. So for example, here in Boston, the stadium, this is Gillette Stadium, although during the World Cup, it's not Gillette Stadium, it's Boston soccer stadium, because FIFA does not want someone who has not paid FIFA licensing and sponsorship rights to get any sort of, you know, sponsorship boost from this. So it is not a Gillette Stadium, because that is that would support a non FIFA sponsor. So at the Boston soccer stadium, which actually isn't in Boston, it's in Foxboro, that's a that's a suburb about 25 miles southwest of downtown Boston, tiny town. It's about 20,000 people in it. They said, well, it's on you guys for for security, which is about an $8 million bill, they figured. And they said, Look, we're a 20,000 person town. This is, this would be, like, 35% of our total town budget for the year. We're not paying and we're not going to let you have games here. We're not going to issue the license for you to have an event in town, unless we see the money. And this was actually tiny town council in a little, tiny town face down FIFA. And did it successfully, a lot more successfully than mayors of places like LA and New York have done. And got FIFA to cough up the Security money. But in places like Boston, in New York, FIFA is not paying anything for transportation, which has led the cities to charge outrageous prices for transportation to stadiums. But this has been, this has been a concern and and rightly so. I think most taxpayers say, look, you're making 10, $11 billion on this part of that. You know, cost of doing business should be paying for the things you need to do business, like getting your customers to the to the event, and making sure they're safe while they're there.
Nick VinZant 13:15
How is FIFA kind of gotten away with that in the past? Are they just such a big dog that they can just come in and this is what we want, and you're giving it to us.
Dr. Victor Matheson 13:23
Well, right? So that's exactly right. They've got one, they've got this one very unique thing, right? Like, you know, a target could never get away with this, right? And say, Hey, do this for us, or we're not coming to town. And then the and then the town says, Fine, we'll get a Walmart instead. I also think that FIFA is better at driving a hard bargain than individual cities who who don't have World Cups in town every four years. So FIFA is much better at figuring out what kind of contract to stick folks with. But again, several American cities, several cities that will Edmonton and Canada and and Chicago actually both walked away from from the World Cup, saying, Look, we don't want these events because we think it's going to be more hassle than it's worth.
Nick VinZant 14:05
Is there, though, and kind of intangible slash effect that you can't calculate in the sense of, like, okay, yeah, the numbers add up to this. But you're forgetting about the global recognition that Kansas City receives, or Seattle receives from these events.
Dr. Victor Matheson 14:23
Here's the problem is number one, if I just go visit London, right? And I say, Oh, it was great. And I tell my friends when I get back, I'm like, Oh, I saw the crown jewels, and I saw a couple soccer games when I was there, and the museums were super and went on a cruise on the Thames. Everything was lovely, right? And then people want to go to, want to go to London in the future. On the other hand, if I go to the London Olympics, what I say is like, Oh, it was awesome. I was I went to one of the soccer matches, and it was like, five to four was the greatest match I ever saw. And then. When we were going home from that we actually met the Dutch handball team, and we got autographs with all them. And then then we went to the basketball final, and we were actually there for the gold medal gymnastics. It was, it was fantastic. And when you go back and tell your friends, they say, oh, that sounds awesome, but they don't say, I want to go to London. They don't say why. I want to go to Paris. They say, I want to go to Paris. They say I want to go to the Olympics. And so the the tourism effect doesn't help the city like Seattle or Kansas City. It makes people want to go to the next Olympics in LA or the next World Cup in Spain or Portugal. So your legacy tends to be a World Cup legacy, rather than a tourism legacy for the folks there.
Nick VinZant 15:43
Yeah, I used to be a news reporter in Orlando, and Disney World is obviously there. And they would always say, like, no, people aren't coming to Orlando. They're going to Disney World.
Dr. Victor Matheson 15:52
So that's right. And so when we actually, so funny you bring up Orlando, we actually looked at economic impact of the 1994 World Cup. We actually could not identify any, any identifiable benefits from hosting World Cup games back in 1994 despite the fact this was the most successful World Cup in history.
Nick VinZant 16:12
Are you ready for some harder slash? Listener submitted questions.
Dr. Victor Matheson 16:15
Fire away.
Nick VinZant 16:17
What city do you think is going to benefit the most? What city do you think is going to take a bath on this?
Dr. Victor Matheson 16:22
Certainly, the potential for benefiting a lot are cities like New York and LA, they could benefit a lot for a couple reasons. Number one, they have some of the real premier events, right? We got the final in New York. We got semifinals in LA. So those are the sort of things I think semifinals in LA, those. So those are very premier games. Plus both of those cities are so large that you can accommodate a crush of World Cup fans, while also allowing your regular tourists to show up. Right? So in New York, New York has well over 120,000 hotel rooms, right kind of in, you know, Central New York, that's enough to accommodate, you know, 30 or 40,000 hotel rooms going potentially to World Cup fans, while Broadway fans and Statue of Liberty fans and just cool restaurant fans are still able to come into The City at the same time, so you get all the benefits without a lot of the crowding out. So that's one that you might expect there. It's It's tempting to put Kansas City on the other side of that, saying, Look, this is really all in company conferencing. It's the smallest of the American World Cup sites, and it's a site where, really, the World Cup is going to kind of take over the city, which means that all of the regular activity that was normally going to take place there is going to disappear.
Nick VinZant 17:50
Like, how do you think the current global environment and perception of the United States is going to affect this?
Dr. Victor Matheson 17:56
Yeah, so it's terrible, right? So really, the world, the way you make money from a mega event is by bringing people to your your location who would not have otherwise been there. So that's how you make the money, right? A local going to an event is just spending money one place rather than another. That's that substitution effect I talked about, but where you can actually make money. And what classifies something as a mega event is drawing people from outside the community in to spend their money. I think you should never feel bad for FIFA, but I do feel bad for them a little bit. They've just had an event in Qatar which was plagued with all sorts of problems associated with human rights issues, associated with LGBTQ issues for fans that went over they couldn't even sell beer at the stadiums, despite the fact that Budweiser is an official sponsor of the of the World Cup. So and the one before that was in Russia, which was awarded to them before they had invaded Ukraine for the first time. So I think they were really excited about finally going to a conflict and controversy free country, and then we get what is not at all a conflict or controversy free country, right? So, by making the United States less pleasant place to come, you reduce the number of people who are likely to be here, which you reduce the number of foreigners coming and depositing a bunch of money here. So we've flat up banned folks from places like Haiti and Iran, even countries like Cape Verde, they're in the World Cup for the first time. To come as a tourist from Cape Verde for the World Cup, you can get a visa, no problem, but to bring your family of four, you have to put down a $60,000 returnable bond to come visit the World Cup. Can you imagine going on vacation, for example, to Cancun, and you say, hey, please come visit Cancun. But we want to make sure when your vacation is over that you leave. So to come for your Cancun vacation, you have to come up with 60. $1,000 of cash that we will hold on to, and we promise to release to you in the end when you go back home, you know that would make Cancun a very undesirable place to travel, even if it has the best beaches or the best soccer so this is, this is wildly problematic. I don't think it's bad for the individual host cities, because I think what will happen is, at least in part, fans from other parts of the United States will come in and take the those places that were going to be filled by international guests. So I think the host cities individually will be fine, but the United States as a whole is definitely going to lose out by the fact that I'm expecting a much, much lower number of international tourists for this than you might have expected a couple years ago.
Nick VinZant 20:52
If I held your kind of feet to the fire, could you put a percentage on it in terms of like I was going to be down 10% 25% 50%
Dr. Victor Matheson 20:59
or whatever. I would not be surprised at all to see numbers 20 to 40% below what we would have expected otherwise.
Nick VinZant 21:08
Do you think, like, with some cities kind of rebelling against this, you mentioned Chicago and Edmonton? Do you think that we'll ever get to the point where cities are just saying, like, we're not going to do this, we're not hosting the Olympics. We're not hosting the World Cup. We're not going to do
Speaker 1 21:23
it.
Dr. Victor Matheson 21:23
Yeah, so that's actually already happened in the Olympics, the in the bidding for the 2022 and 2024 Winter and Summer Olympics, both of those events started out with about seven or eight serious bidders by the time they actually got done with the bidding, everyone had dropped out, except for two cases in each in the Winter Olympics that eventually went to Beijing. Mind you, a country that does not do winter sports has never been a winter sports power did not have a ski run anywhere close to the city. Doesn't really have a lot of snow in the winter. Even the reason Beijing got is because the only other country that was left in the bidding was Almaty in Kazakhstan. When it came to 2024 same thing happened. Boston dropped out, Hamburg dropped out, Madrid dropped out, Bucharest dropped out again, city after city dropped out, until only Paris and Los Angeles were remaining, and so they awarded 2024 to Paris. And at the same time, they did something they've never, ever done. They flat out gave the 2028 Olympics to LA, without ever putting it out for bid, because they were worried that if they did, they might not get anyone to come up. And they basically said, Hey, LA, you're already here. What would you say that we're leaning towards Paris, but would you be okay if we gave you 2028 just right now? And La said, Yes, but again, never went up to bid because they were worried they weren't going to get enough bidders, or the bidders they were going to get were going to be like Dubai are going to be Saudi Arabia, places that they are uncomfortable making it so that you can only host the Olympics in places that taxpayers can't revolt about it. Because, of course, you know, taxpayers don't really have a say in in Beijing, in Moscow in in Riyadh.
Nick VinZant 23:23
What is the old saying? Though? Right? You privatize profits, socialize losses.
Dr. Victor Matheson 23:27
That's been my last my that's been my life for the last 25 years. We've seen this in stadium economics. We've seen this in mega event economics all the time. I will say that we do have some good economic evidence that hosting these events really is fun. It is a big party. People will enjoy it. So we do have some evidence that mega events like the World Cup make us happy. We just don't have a lot of evidence that they make us rich.
Nick VinZant 23:53
I want to thank Victor so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. Were profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information in the episode description. Okay, now let's bring in John Shull and get to the pointless part of the show. Would you rather eat food with your fingers or with a utensil?
John Shull 24:19
Probably utensils saves the mess.
Nick VinZant 24:22
I like foods that you eat with your hands way better than I like foods that you eat with utensils. I don't think it's even close for me.
John Shull 24:32
I'm like a like a Dissector when I eat, like, if I get us like a sub sandwich, like, I'll eat the bread and then the meat, or the meat than the bread or something,
Nick VinZant 24:42
but then you don't get to taste like what it all tastes like together. I don't understand the point. So wait, if you're going to make a sandwich, you will make the sandwich and then take it all apart,
John Shull 24:54
like, for instance, let's say I'm eating like an Italian sub, right? I'll eat, you know, I'm. Take a bite or two of it together, but by the end of it, I'm eating the bread and then maybe the innards, you know, like the tomatoes and lettuce and onion mixture, and then I'm eating the Italian meat last because that's what I want the most.
Nick VinZant 25:12
Okay, but my thing is, like, what I don't understand is, then, why make the sandwich in the first place? Like, why put it all together? If you're just going to take it apart?
John Shull 25:21
It doesn't make sense. I don't know. Probably know, probably because I feel like, if I roll up to dinner with a stack of sandwich meat buns and just, you know, a mixture of lettuce, tomato and onions on the side, like, what? That doesn't make any sense either. I get it. I know it doesn't make sense, and I don't this is why I don't eat in public. Actually, I don't like to eat in front of people for this very reason, because I'm a, I'm a, I don't know. I'm a weird eater. I don't know what the right word is. It doesn't make
Nick VinZant 25:52
it. I I understand the not eating in public. I also do not like to eat in public. I don't like to eat in front of people. Like, whenever somebody says, like, Hey, you want to come over for dinner? You want to have dinner? Like, no, I want to eat dinner by myself at my house at the end of the day.
John Shull 26:09
But also, then I'll have, like a Capri se I'll have like a Capri se sandwich, but I'll eat that as the sandwich. You know, it's just, it's, it's weird, it's, I don't know how to just, I don't know how
Nick VinZant 26:19
I don't know what a I don't know what a Capri se sandwich is.
John Shull 26:23
That's the one with, like mozzarella, tomato pesto. I've never even
Nick VinZant 26:33
heard of it. You also can't say Capri say or however you say it, and then say sand wedge. You can't, like, say something fancy and then mispronounce the word sandwich.
John Shull 26:48
That's fair. That's, I don't even know I'm doing it. So from now on, I'll make sure to enunciate in my itches. So sandwich,
Nick VinZant 26:56
thank you. It's like saying, like, I would like to have a filet mignon. Give me the filet mignon. You can't, you can't have it both ways. This is what I'm getting on to you about, is that I don't understand how you try to have things both ways. If you want to have the sandwich deconstructed, that's perfectly fine, but why make the sandwich in the first place? You like that. You can't let them get to you like that. You got to stand up against the peer pressure. You're almost 40 years old. You should be able to be more confident about who you are as a person. I think this all comes down to you're not confident of who you are as a person, and you need to just be okay with it like you know what? I'm not having a sandwich. I'm just having all the parts of the sandwich separately. This
John Shull 27:38
is what I'm going to do, because if I wanted just meat. I would just eat the meat, but I make the sandwich, thinking, man, a sandwich sounds good. And then, like I said, I have a bite or two, and then I end up just dissecting it most times. So this is what it is, pizza. Like I, you know, pizza, if I'm eating it at my house, like, not in a social setting, I will use a fork and a knife, and I will create, like, little dipping stations. I'll have like, you know, olive oil or red pepper flakes or whatever, and I'll just dip it in those and enjoy it.
Nick VinZant 28:10
But you don't need to. You can dip it with your hands. Yeah, you can just not put your fingers in the dip. Listen, it's an inefficiency, and I don't understand the inefficiency. I can respect your choices, but I can't respect your inefficiency.
John Shull 28:25
I mean, I think it's, I think I am being efficient because I'm not getting myself dirty.
Nick VinZant 28:31
No, not
John Shull 28:31
getting my fingers.
Nick VinZant 28:32
You cannot get your you can still, you should also, no matter how you're eating, you should wash your hands after dinner, because you're still going to get some, a little bit of a residue on there, I think no matter what you're doing, so you're still going to have to wash your hands, but then you've got to wash the utensils as well. It's the inefficiency that I can't I can't agree with the inefficiency. I just can't. But I polled the audience about this. It's not even close. So I polled the audience, 73% say utensil food, only. 23% only, oh, sorry, 27% say finger food. I really thought that finger food would win easily, but I not.
John Shull 29:16
I mean, I think there's only, like I said, I think there's a few things that 100% you can only eat with your fingers, but everything else you it kind of goes into that blurred category.
Nick VinZant 29:28
What are you gonna well, okay, what foods are you gonna really question if somebody's eating that with utensils, hot dog, somebody's eating a hot dog with utensils.
John Shull 29:40
Hot dog for sure, hamburger like, you can use a knife to cut it, but I think it's a little weird if you're cutting up a hamburger to eat it, like, what the bun? I mean, gosh, maybe that's, I mean, some fruits, like watermelon. Calling. Like,
Nick VinZant 30:02
don't even, I have a big problem with people eating hand food with utensils. Anything with a bun should be eaten with your hands. Fruits should be eaten with your hands. You can get them a little bit dirty. I can't even think of a fruit that I would say, like, you know what? That's fine to go ahead and eat that with utensils. Can't think of a single
Speaker 1 30:24
one
John Shull 30:25
strawberries,
Nick VinZant 30:26
no,
John Shull 30:29
wow, that was a pineapple.
Nick VinZant 30:32
They basically come with a holder. Pineapple. Just pick it up. Well, actually, okay, maybe pineapple, because pineapple doesn't always come in, like, a very easy form. You don't know. You don't know exactly how you're going to get pineapple served to you.
John Shull 30:51
I mean, I'd say a lot of it for me, and I think a lot of it for other people. It's just, you just don't want the mess. You do make a good point, though, like, either way you're getting a fork or a spoon or something dirty. So it kind of offsets itself. But I think just in the moment, you know, you don't want to get sticky or dirty or, you know, slimy, any of that stuff,
Nick VinZant 31:14
yeah, I would just say my thing would be like, just learn how to do things without making a mess.
John Shull 31:20
Sorry, this person that you know,
Nick VinZant 31:24
well, yeah, I mean, I just learned how to not make a mess when I eat stuff. It's not real hard, like you've seen me, okay, all right, I eat like a Neanderthal, okay. How? How many? Okay, out of 10 meals, how many times are you going to get something
Speaker 1 31:41
on
Nick VinZant 31:45
your shirt? Oh, it's high, man, how many? Why? Many times? Why? How many times out of 10 Are you going to how many times out of 10 Are you going to get something on your shirt when eating? I
John Shull 31:57
mean, I'm probably 50% I'm probably five out of 10 times.
Nick VinZant 32:02
I think that's a little high. I think you can be I think acceptable is two to 320, 5% of the times you can get a little bit of a mess on yourself eating something. Otherwise, you should really be able to do this. That's too high. If you're batting 50% for making a mess on your shirt when eating, you need to you need to reevaluate what you're doing. Okay, you know, it's
John Shull 32:26
funny. It's funny. We're talking about food because I almost sent you a text this morning, because for those of you that might have listened this podcast many years ago, Nick said for breakfast he would always have a breakfast burrito,
Nick VinZant 32:40
and I had breakfast burrito, delicious.
John Shull 32:42
I had a now, what is $1.29 cent breakfast burrito? And I thought to myself, how the hell did he eat these? Or he said he ate these every day for breakfast, because they are terrible.
Nick VinZant 32:55
Well, they're delicious. I've had many good breakfast burritos. I love a good breakfast burrito. I think the burrito is one of the greatest things that's ever been invented. I would actually put the burrito above this sandwich.
John Shull 33:10
I mean, that's blasphemy, but okay,
Nick VinZant 33:14
I don't know. I think the burrito can be I think it's easier to make a really good burrito than it is to make a really good sandwich. That's just my opinion. It's right, but that's just my opinion. You ready? You ready to move on, and you want to
Speaker 1 33:27
talk
John Shull 33:28
about it? That's just my opinion, but I'm right, yeah, let's give some shout outs. All right, we're gonna start here with I
Nick VinZant 33:37
accidentally clicked something on my phone. I mean, like you don't have to react to noise, like it was just a bomb that went off in my house. It was my house. It was a slight other noise. It wasn't that big of a deal. You don't have to like, oh god, what's that? It's just, it's just just just a slight noise. Don't worry about
Speaker 1 33:52
it.
John Shull 33:52
You might have never but all right. Jordan, Grant, Alexis, Martin Lee, Baxter, Leslie, Fox, Terry George, Aaron Soto, Sydney, Leonard, Ashley Solomon, Marley, Steele and river Fletcher. Appreciate all
Speaker 1 34:13
of you this week.
Nick VinZant 34:14
Okay, so if you know of somebody named Jordan, are you thinking girl or boy?
John Shull 34:20
It's a great question. Um, I think I've known the same amount of Jordans that are both boys and girls. So yeah, I'm gonna go straight. I'm not gonna give you an answer. I'm gonna say straight down the middle
Speaker 1 34:30
on this
Nick VinZant 34:31
one. Okay, I would generally think I'd go 6040, 6040. Is going to be a girl. 40% chance is going to be a guy. I think I've known more female Jordans than I have male Jordans.
John Shull 34:46
I still think it's pretty evenly split. For me, I've known a lot of male and female Jordans. I've also known a bunch of rivers that I don't think River is a very common name. I. But yeah, no, you ever known a river?
Nick VinZant 35:04
No, no. I don't really know many people with uncommon names. I would say that's actually maybe a lifestyle choice of mine that I don't know a lot of people with uncommon names. I can't actually think of anybody with that I know, with probably the only person that I know with the most uncommon name, it would be you with Euclid fucking geometry over there.
John Shull 35:30
Wow. And you know who he, who he was the
Nick VinZant 35:33
course I do.
Speaker 1 35:35
I
Nick VinZant 35:36
don't know if he does. That's mathematics, by the way. It's not history.
John Shull 35:41
You Euclidean geometry, but
Nick VinZant 35:44
not
John Shull 35:45
gonna even pretend to be smart. I just know that from a little bit, the tiny bit of research I've done on on the name
Nick VinZant 35:53
you have not done any research on Euclidean geometry,
John Shull 35:57
no on the name Euclid and it led me to, you know, the philosopher, mathematician, Euclid, obviously.
Nick VinZant 36:04
Okay,
John Shull 36:06
yeah, I don't know anything about I took one math class in college, and it was called basic math. Basic Mathematics, okay,
Speaker 1 36:14
basic
Nick VinZant 36:14
math. I never got past basic math. I mean, in college, once you get to basic math, it's not like, it's five plus five in college. Like, what is this? Is how you divide six divided by two. It's a little bit
Speaker 1 36:28
I
John Shull 36:28
also realized I had to get my college transcripts for a for a job that I'm that I'm going for, and I haven't done that in 20 years. And thought I was a way better student in college than I was. That was, that was kind of an eye opener. When I looked at my college transcripts and saw what my final GPA was after four years.
Nick VinZant 36:51
What
Speaker 1 36:51
was it?
John Shull 36:53
I was a 3.2
Nick VinZant 36:55
that's pretty good. What's wrong with a 3.2 that's a B.
John Shull 36:59
I thought I was like, at a three seven, I thought I graduated with honors. Apparently I didn't, because that's not an honor graduation.
Nick VinZant 37:08
I still have a recurring dream that one day it's going to be found out that I didn't actually graduate college, because whenever I looked at my credits, I remember this from a long time ago. Is like, is this all add up and I never, I've still feel like, someday they're gonna come back and be like, You know what? You didn't actually
Speaker 1 37:25
graduate.
John Shull 37:28
Me, what's it gonna matter? I mean, you've already, you've been a professional for what, 25 years now, like, What's it matter?
Nick VinZant 37:34
First of all, no. Like, no, almost not even 20 years. So check your tone there. Euclid go back to play geometry.
John Shull 37:46
Yeah. Well, like I said, I don't, I mean, I know basic math, but that's it. Yeah. Anyways, you should do that. We should compare college transcripts. People would really love that. See the bullshit we took, like I took yoga for two years.
Nick VinZant 38:01
You took yoga for two years? Oh, god, yeah. I mean, I took, like, first of all, I went to K State, one of the greatest history universities in the entire world, and graduated with a history degree. But I'm not going to go ahead and throw those as I'm sitting here with the University of Washington
John Shull 38:17
sweatshirt. That's okay, it's where you live.
Nick VinZant 38:20
Yeah, exactly.
John Shull 38:22
I'm wearing a Detroit Lions sweater, so,
Nick VinZant 38:25
wow, God, see that's
Speaker 1 38:28
brought
John Shull 38:28
the room down there, huh?
Nick VinZant 38:30
Yeah. I mean, you guys said that we've gone over this before. This is why you're not a champion. This is why the city of Detroit is not a champion. Is because you guys tolerate crap. You tolerate losing other places. Don't tolerate it, right? Like, if I had a team that hasn't been to playoffs and won a game, and I don't know what, six centuries since the game was invented, if I had lived in a city that hadn't won any championships and has a long history of choking in just about every single sport that they play in, I would not support those teams anyway. I would demand better. And that's what you guys aren't doing. Like, should you buy that sweatshirt? Absolutely not. You're supporting them. Like, why would they want to do well, when you're just going to come up and like, Hey, here's my $100 give me the sweatshirt. You're part of the problem. You're part of the problem. Demand better.
John Shull 39:20
Are you done?
Nick VinZant 39:21
Don't think that. I won't mention that you canceled soccer practice just because it was raining. A little bit. Was a little rain? No, get out. The world doesn't stop
John Shull 39:32
speak. The National Basketball Association team, the Detroit Pistons are in the second round of the playoffs. Okay.
Nick VinZant 39:39
Wow,
John Shull 39:40
does Seattle have a team? No, it got taken. It went to Oklahoma City.
Nick VinZant 39:44
And you know why? Because we said, You know what, we're not worried about basketball. We want to win at football. And ever since we lost the Seattle SuperSonics, which are probably coming back in the next couple of years, we've won multiple Super Bowls. How many Super Bowls Have you been to? Oh. Okay,
John Shull 40:00
you know, you know the
Nick VinZant 40:01
exactly, because we
John Shull 40:02
demand, not excellent sport in America.
Nick VinZant 40:05
It's the only sport that matters, and you know it. You've got a Detroit Lions sweatshirt on there. Don't try to tackle. You know what? Guys though, we're doing really good with our badminton League. Great. Go far enough down the line, eventually you'll be able to win at something. Okay. Are you ready to move on? Because I think that there's no reason to discuss this anymore.
John Shull 40:26
Yeah. Can we just I'm, you know what? I'm gonna go to something that makes me happy, and you know what that is, because you know what time it is.
Nick VinZant 40:34
Oh, is it candle of the month?
John Shull 40:37
Yeah, it's the first episode of the month.
Nick VinZant 40:40
I forgot. I forgot. Okay, so let me do the thing. It's time the outlaw candle connoisseur, trademark, pending Rides Again, candle of the month.
John Shull 40:57
I got a great one. I mean, this one is, this might be top three, actually, of all time.
Nick VinZant 41:04
Okay, okay, my only problem with you saying that is, when have you ever come forward and be like, You know what? I got some crap to the candle of the month is terrible. It's like when people say I'm gonna be honest with you. Were you lying to me the whole time before?
John Shull 41:18
Yeah, you know what? I don't say that anymore, because years ago, you called me out for it, and now I'm too conscious to say it. I don't ever say that anymore.
Nick VinZant 41:27
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 41:27
What
John Shull 41:28
am I supposed to say then, hey, this candle kind of sucks, but maybe you should buy it or check it out.
Nick VinZant 41:35
No, what you're supposed to do is put in enough effort to candle of the month so that you're not putting forward anything that could be lower value. You should scour the Earth to find the very best candles. There should be nothing but the best candle,
John Shull 41:49
don't you don't know what's going on in the candle forums. Okay, don't come at me. I don't know what's
Nick VinZant 41:55
going on in the candle world, right?
John Shull 41:57
Okay? Because that's the phrase. That's the phrase of the last month has been candle integrity. Okay?
Nick VinZant 42:05
What is God? What? What is candle integrity? Is there some kind of controversy that like, Oh, God, the wax isn't good. This year they're importing wax from Azerbaijan, and it's not as good as the wax that we usually get, I don't know even, let's
John Shull 42:24
just say that there are some doomsdayers on these forums, like there are everywhere. And obviously, given the events that are occurring around the world and everywhere, there's some people who are, you know, questioning other candle companies, connoisseurs Wow, about where they do get their products from, or who they sell to, or, you know, just like any business, some of the smaller mom and pop Shop candle companies are selling off to larger companies. And Jen, I forget the rest of her screen name, But Jen, something, wrote this whole novel on candle integrity. Okay, have some candle integrity. Nick,
Nick VinZant 43:16
I cannot, I cannot believe that this exists. I just cannot believe that. Number one, this exists. Number two, people are actively, like, really, getting kind of motivated by this and having real conversations about candle integrity. And number three, that you're reading it. And number four, that you know the person's screen name and memorize you didn't write it down. I know I'd see you didn't look down to see what it was. You just know what it is. Yeah, she
Speaker 1 43:39
a problem. Is she a problem?
Nick VinZant 43:41
Is she a problem? Is she a problem? Causer in the candle form? Oh yeah,
John Shull 43:45
no,
Speaker 1 43:47
oh
John Shull 43:47
no. But she's, she's not, not that this truly matters. But she's not American either. She's great. She's British. So the Brits probably really fiery.
Nick VinZant 44:01
This is an international candle connoisseur discussion then, huh? The international community is weighing in on the state of candle integrity. All right. Oh, wow.
John Shull 44:12
I mean, let's just say that her novel might have even included a candle company's boat being stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, so I don't think that's accurate, but I don't know.
Nick VinZant 44:25
When you read it, did you tell your wife about it? Like, did you see this post in the candle forum and be like, Honey, guess what's happening in the candle forums today? Did you say something? Did you like, I gotta tell somebody.
John Shull 44:40
I did say something just about, you know, and forgive me, don't take this the wrong way. Everybody out there I did might have called her crazy. And I mean, this thing had to have been 1500 words. I mean, it was long she and she went off and off.
Nick VinZant 45:00
Did you read the whole thing?
John Shull 45:03
If I did, will you think less of me?
Nick VinZant 45:05
Oh, I mean, it'd be hard to at this point.
John Shull 45:09
That's fair. Yes, I did.
Nick VinZant 45:12
Okay. Did you ever refer back to other parts of the diatribe? Did you like read it and then refer back to it later? Or did you just read it and be like, that's done with that.
John Shull 45:23
I mean, I did Google candle, you know, candle ship straight over, straight up, her moves to see if she was correct. But I couldn't find any, obviously. So
Nick VinZant 45:36
probably handle conspiracy. Series are starting
John Shull 45:40
anyways,
Nick VinZant 45:40
okay,
John Shull 45:41
people don't care about this, or maybe they do. Candle the month, this month is from Goose Creek. It is a three wick candle, because that's all we do here on my reviews. And it's the maple butter three wick candle, and it's, it looks very cool, burns for a while. You're obviously it's maple butter, so you're gonna get spiced vanilla, warm maple syrup, melted butter. It's like having a pancake on a spring day before the for the temps get too hot, you know, having a nice breakfast before you go work out on your farm or something, you know.
Nick VinZant 46:14
Okay, so, wow.
John Shull 46:17
Butter, three wick candle checked right before we came on here, it's on sale right now, it has almost 3600 star or star reviews, which is pretty good for one candle. So check it
Nick VinZant 46:31
out and
John Shull 46:31
worth your time.
Nick VinZant 46:32
Do you write candle reviews?
John Shull 46:36
Oh, yes, but not, not, not the way that you think I'm writing a
Nick VinZant 46:45
different language. Like, what do you write it in? Like,
John Shull 46:48
no,
Speaker 1 46:49
we know,
John Shull 46:49
like, I kind of, like a, like, a grading system, and I'll, like, you know, like, scent, physical, you know, appearance, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll just put numbers, and that's the way that I rate. So,
Nick VinZant 47:02
okay, alright,
John Shull 47:03
anyway,
Nick VinZant 47:03
cool. This is the, this is the part of the man, what is going on over here. This is the part of the show when John is John is talking about the candle connoisseur, that I would like to remind people that he has, in fact, had sex with a woman at least twice possibly more,
John Shull 47:22
yeah, well, maybe never know, up there. All right. You ready for the top five?
Nick VinZant 47:28
Yep, so our top five is top five summer foods, hydrate. Jesus,
John Shull 47:33
what
Nick VinZant 47:36
God like? Take a breath.
John Shull 47:38
We've got a physical coming up. I'm trying to hydrate.
Nick VinZant 47:41
It's, you know what? Look you have a physical coming up. Okay, that's good that you're trying to change your health and you're trying to be a healthier person. But like trying to get healthy a day before it is not going to change it. You just can't drink like, five cups of water. Think you're going to walk in there and be like, Great, perfect, perfect test results, all because of that five glasses of water I had right before I took the test.
John Shull 48:04
I think, you know, it doesn't matter. Are you a are you a tap water guy or a filtered water guy?
Nick VinZant 48:12
I may drink whatever is in front of me. Guy, I don't care, like, like, where it's coming from. Like, I drank out of a hose this morning. I don't have any problem with it. If you're not drinking out of a hose, that's why you've got to go to the doctor and get all these physicals and get all these tests while I'm out there just drinking hose water, because hose water will make you
John Shull 48:34
strong. I don't know if anyone else would care, and maybe you can tell me we're done recording. I'm just curious to know why you were drinking out of a hose. Oh,
Nick VinZant 48:43
because I was doing something outside, and I was thirsty, and there was the hose right there, and I was like, You know what? I could go inside and get me a cup of water that I'm going to have to wash out later, or I could just drink out of this hose.
John Shull 48:57
It's just, I don't recall the last time I heard someone go or say to me, you know, I drink out of the hose this morning. So,
Nick VinZant 49:06
right, there was nothing wrong with it. Drink out. Get you some hose water. Man, need a little bit of, you know what? Something I don't know what's
John Shull 49:14
No. Man, you okay? You, do you? Man,
Nick VinZant 49:17
did I already say what our top five is? Top five summer foods, yeah. Okay, so our top five is top five summer foods to number five.
John Shull 49:27
So we kind of mentioned earlier, but my number five is simple. It's just good old, crispy cold watermelon.
Nick VinZant 49:36
That should be way higher. I think that that should be way higher on the list.
John Shull 49:41
I don't know. My list is pretty good,
Nick VinZant 49:43
a fresh prosciutto mixed with some kind of Arabian greens, cooked souffle. I don't know. I don't even know. I don't even know the words to make fun of you. My number five is shaved ice. I think, okay, shaved ice is criminally underrated in how good shaved ice is. You sleep on it, but it's delicious.
John Shull 50:13
Shaved ice is good. I do think it's actually, I said this to my kids the other day. I think it's overrated, but that's
Nick VinZant 50:20
my haven't had really good shape. You haven't had really good shaved ice, though, if you have really good shaved ice, it will completely change your opinion on shaved ice. It'll raise it several notches from whatever you have. You got to get really good stuff, not like stuff you get at the carnival,
John Shull 50:37
not the Kona ice truck that's at soccer games on Saturday and Sundays. Oh,
Speaker 1 50:42
I'm
Nick VinZant 50:42
surprised you even went. It wasn't a little too hot outside, wasn't a little rainy outside, oh, the wind was blowing too hard. Oh, guys, it's over five mile an hour. It's gusting today. Cancel the game.
John Shull 50:56
Sorry. Are you done? My number four is pasta salad.
Nick VinZant 51:01
Oh, I'm against any kind of salads that aren't just salad, macaroni salad, pasta salad, any kind of salads that isn't salad, I'm again it.
John Shull 51:13
I mean, I they're fantastic. And if they're cold, like, Oh, it's so good, fantastic. Summer Food, pasta salad.
Nick VinZant 51:23
Macaroni salad, because I just don't really know what I'm eating. Like, I don't know really what's in that.
John Shull 51:31
Why would you bother to ask or look at the ingredients?
Nick VinZant 51:35
Because, like, number one, I don't think that people really know what's in it. Half the time. I just don't trust it. I don't trust I don't trust any kind of pasta, macaroni salads. I don't trust them. I don't know what's in there. It just looks like goop. Somebody could have easily spit in that, and you wouldn't even know
John Shull 51:55
who traumatized you as a child.
Speaker 1 51:59
It
Nick VinZant 51:59
just looks like you don't know what somebody did to that. And I'm not going to go out just like some barbecue and just see food that I don't know what's in there and trust that everybody's just like, not been messing with that. I don't trust him. I don't trust salads. All
John Shull 52:15
right, my number four is core. My
Nick VinZant 52:17
number four is corn on the cob.
John Shull 52:21
Okay, that's, that's one of the few ones I put on my honorable mention. I like corn on the cob. I do, but I feel like you can eat that all year round,
Nick VinZant 52:30
yeah, but I, I would, I think that there's a little something special about it. In summer. Do you cut it off the cob? Are you okay just to eat it with your hands? Can you do that? Or is it a little too warm for you? If it's above room temperature, like, Oh, it's too hot. Does anyone have any corn on the cob holders? Do you own corn on the cob holders? I bet you do.
John Shull 52:50
I was gonna say I don't have to worry about burning my hands because I use corn on the cob holders.
Nick VinZant 52:57
Do you have multiple different kinds of corn on the
Speaker 1 53:00
cob
Nick VinZant 53:00
holders? Do you have more than the necessary amount of corn on the cob holders?
John Shull 53:06
I think I have eight. They have eight pairs
Nick VinZant 53:10
you. So you do because you have four people in your family, you only need four pairs, just two, two forks together. You're wasting money over there. Man, get two forks.
John Shull 53:23
All right,
Nick VinZant 53:23
one fork,
John Shull 53:26
I'm cutting this off. My number three are hot dogs.
Nick VinZant 53:30
Oh, what are you gonna have way up at the top? Because the stuff that I think is the best you have kind of low. I think I certainly agree with hot dogs and watermelon. I just don't agree with the pricing.
Speaker 1 53:41
So, I
John Shull 53:42
mean, I I'd be surprised if my number one isn't your number one. I feel like number one is unanimous this week, but apparently not so.
Nick VinZant 53:52
Oh no, no, no. My number three is just various desserts that you don't usually think of, like jello, pudding, popsicles, summertime desserts, is how I would categorize it, stuff that you're not going to have. You're not generally eating a lot of popsicles in the wintertime. It's a summertime.
John Shull 54:12
My number two was similar, like, I put banana pudding, but, like, it's really any cold desserts, like anything that is cold as my number two desserty
Nick VinZant 54:25
wise, cold summertime desserts, my number two is hot dogs. There's nothing about a hot dog in summer. It's better.
John Shull 54:36
Nothing like having a little meat on a warm day to cool you down.
Nick VinZant 54:39
Man, once summertime hits, I can't get enough meat in my mouth. I'm just shoving meat. All kinds of meat. Doesn't matter what kind it is. I'm just shoving meat my mouth. Bigger the better.
John Shull 54:51
I agree. Blood sausage, sausage links, anything, any kind of sausage, hot dogs. Shove it right in.
Nick VinZant 55:00
Or any kind of stuff right there. Like, I don't sometimes, like, I'll take way, you know, I'll take a lot. I'll take a lot. I'll take a lot of my mouth. Yeah, right,
John Shull 55:09
I, I've, I've seen it. It's, yeah, you, you can put down a dog, that's for sure,
Speaker 1 55:13
you
Nick VinZant 55:13
know. And if they've got some good toppings on it, I'm not afraid to lick it. I'm not afraid to take a nice, long lick, and then really put it down there.
John Shull 55:29
The hot dog. It's better, yeah,
Speaker 1 55:33
still
Nick VinZant 55:33
ridiculous to me. This is another thing that just brings up your inefficiencies, the fact that you have to go up and down stairs to get all your various appliances that you have like, Oh, I'm gonna cook hot dogs. Time to go downstairs and bring this back up.
John Shull 55:46
Don't listen. Don't you talk bad about the hot dog roller.
Nick VinZant 55:52
You can cook hot dogs like so many other ways. There's no way that you're going to tell me that the hot dog roller somehow makes an actual difference that you could do a blind taste test of foods that were cooked either boiling the hot dogs, microwaving the hot dogs, grilling the hot dogs, toaster oven, the hot dogs, deep fry, the hot dogs versus the hot dog roller. To be like, yep, this one, that's the best, because it's been on a hot dog roller, and I can tell,
John Shull 56:19
yeah, I think I could, I for sure, could discern a hot dog, rolled hot dog, from a boiled hot dog 100%
Nick VinZant 56:30
without the skin, if they cut it so that, like the skin wasn't on it, and you were just tasting the meat, you think you could still tell like that's been cooked on a hot dog roller.
John Shull 56:42
I mean, I don't know maybe. I mean, it's like cutting oranges here, all right, my number one is ice cream.
Nick VinZant 56:53
Oh, I can't, I can't agree with that at all. I wouldn't even put that on my honorable mention.
John Shull 57:01
That's the number one summer food. Like it's a hot day, what do you want? You want to go have some ice cream?
Nick VinZant 57:08
Oh, but I just think that ice cream is good all year round. Like it's always good, like it's never too cold and it's never too cold for ice cream. Have you ever been offered ice cream, even if it was, like, negative 40 degrees outside, and be like, No, you know, like, No, you know, it's too cold for
Speaker 1 57:24
ice cream.
John Shull 57:26
I mean, I've never been offered it when it's that cold, but, yeah, we don't, we don't eat a lot of ice cream in my house, definitely not in the winter.
Nick VinZant 57:33
Okay, I guess that's weird. I mean, to me, some like, ice cream is just, yeah, it's a year round thing. I can't agree with you on that one. My number one is watermelon. I would actually put all the summer fruits really high up on the list, blueberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, all those other ones. But watermelon is, I think, the best summer food. It's just it is this staple of summer.
John Shull 57:56
Didn't you once do a whole episode where you were basically just talking about you are the best, like, you can hand pick the best watermelon out of the bunch.
Nick VinZant 58:05
Yes, I would say my one true skill in life is picking out a watermelon. Like I know how to pick out a really good watermelon. My wife gets a watermelon. Comes home, I look at it, and just, Oh, why would you get that one
John Shull 58:23
that's Crusher dreams.
Nick VinZant 58:26
She's not even allowed to pick them out for us. Like, if we're getting watermelon, she's not allowed to pick and I've tried to teach her, you probably knock and think that's the way to do it, don't you? You're probably like, Oh, that's a good one.
John Shull 58:40
I actually, I don't even knock I just usually pick one up and put in my shopping basket.
Nick VinZant 58:47
You just grab any watermelon that you see and think, like, that's good enough. As much of a food snob as you are, you're just going to take a look at watermelon where you have all of these different choices, and you can clearly see the differences between the fruits. And you're just going to be going like, Oh, that one's closest. I'll grab
Speaker 1 59:00
that one. You
John Shull 59:01
Ma'am, you're still going for size. So if I see like a medium sized watermelon that I know will feed my family, like I usually go, I usually go for size. Then whatever tricks you're you do,
Nick VinZant 59:17
well you look to see the uniform you want a fairly uniform roundness, except for on the bottom, where you want to see a little bit of yellow, where the watermelon has been laying on the ground. You want it to be green. You want that circular shape, like I mentioned. And then you're going to go ahead and for a knock. Now you don't you want it to be hollow, but you don't want it to sound like thick, hollow. You want it to sound like, oh, that's just a hollow watermelon. Not that it just has a thick rind, that it's just straight up hollow, and then you go with it, but you need to look for, like the yellowness on the bottom, and you want the bottom to be a little bit flat. People just knock and move on. Like, that's not how you do that.
John Shull 59:57
So just putting this out there, that. I think you need to start your own watermelon forum. I
Nick VinZant 1:00:05
don't think that I'm going to go on watermelon. I'm certainly not going to read a 1500 page or 1500 word rant about candles. Do you have anything else in your honorable mention? I have things to
Speaker 1 1:00:17
do
John Shull 1:00:18
not that I haven't mentioned already. No,
Nick VinZant 1:00:22
okay, well, let's just go ahead and stop it then, 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. We really appreciate. It really helps us out and let us know what you think are the best summer foods. I just can't see ice cream, because ice cream is just always good. It's not specifically summer. Watermelon, to me, is specifically summer.