2026-04-02 The Return of the Secret Garbage Bracket

Welcome to The Solid Verbal. The Solid Verbal. Come after me! I'm a man!

I'm 40! I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Eat a steak.

It's that whoop, whoop. And now, Dan and Ty. Dan Rubenstein, I have a fun fact for you about today's episode. I'm ready.

Did you know it has been just a shade over nine years since we last recorded this concept and put it out into the Verballerhood? Wow. So we're essentially bookending Cam McCormick's college football career. With the secret garbage bracket.

Yes, it is back. The secret garbage bracket is back. Yes, indeed. Quick disclaimer, this 99.

87% of the time is a college football broadcast. Today is an off-topic episode. There will be some college football seasoning. But this is not a college football episode we have recorded every week, twice a week, three times if you're a paying Patreon member, college football episodes all off season long we'll continue to do so.

But the secret garbage bracket is near and dear to our hearts. And Ty will take it away, explaining what that means if you were not with us nine years ago. Nine years ago, and I will link it up in the description. You had the idea, in effect, Of bracketing things that are universally liked, things that I think have a high Q rating, let's say.

But in reality, we agreed were secret garbage, i. e. , big time overrated. Yeah, so we put together a 16 thing bracket back on March the 17th, 2017.

I will again link that up. The winner of that tournament way back when was social media. Now, at the time when you and I did that episode. I remembered arguing with you tooth and nail about social media, not because I was any sort of influencer or had any visions of being one.

But I just didn't think it rose to the level of some of these other items that we had on our bracket. I'm looking at them now. I'm reading them off. We had Las Vegas.

We had Avatar, Chipotle, Camping, Chipotle, Voice activated technology. Yeah. New Year's Eve, bottle service, the NFL. We had a bunch of stuff on here.

Steakhouses, which is phenomenal in this tournament. And social media emerged out of the West region as our victor. Now, in hindsight Even though I argued against it, pretty good. Might have been a bit before our time.

Social media, kind of a disaster if you've been out there lately. So, if nothing more. Perhaps this is a bit prophetic. We'll see if we do this show nine years from now if any of these predictions come true, and if any of what we decide on today.

Ends up indeed being real garbage at some point in the not so distant future, Dan. So it's whether or not we are going to be Like frivolous Michael Burry, right? The investor from the big short. That's right.

Who is like, I'm shorting water, right? He always has something where I don't know. His investment instincts seem better than mine. So I'm fine with me to go with that.

But I'd like to think that we are frivolous buries, if that's okay of a phrase for you. It's it sure. Okay, thank you. We have 18 items that we have included in this year's tournament.

Some of those were sourced from our friends out at Verballers. com, where you can go if you want to support the show. Most of them, though, were from you and I both and I know for certain both of us have been keeping track of our own Items over the course of time. So, this wasn't hard to come up with these items.

In reality, it was hard to just narrow them down into A field of 18. I wanted it to be a field of 16, but I couldn't narrow it down any further. So instead, we now have two play-in games, just like we had in the real NCAA tournament. Before we get into it, I should also add, we are going to make this available for the Verballerhood to play on their own.

Yeah. Go to garbage.solidverbal.com.

If you are ever so inclined, you can fill out the bracket there. You can share it out. You can see how your picks compared to others in the Verballerhood. It is free.

You just got to enter your email address. It'll let you through. You could fill out your bracket. See how you did relative to the field.

Yeah. And let's, I want to be absolutely clear in how we are approaching this. We are approaching this by secret garbage. We are taking items out of life that people either like.

Are not super opinionated about, super opinionated about, or are, as a collective, seemingly neutral about this thing. It's not that we're taking things that people love. You know, as a society, or not things that people are like already piling on as being awful and just agreeing with them. We are doing our best to take things that are either Somewhat liked, people neutral on, or maybe, you know, to some degree loved.

And we are saying, hold on a second. Thought leaders like Dan Rubenstein and Ty Hildenbrandt have something to say. We actually think this thing secretly kind of garbage. That's exactly right.

And to the point. I approach this from the standpoint of this is a thing that I think people are into. I would say, for the most part, like but every time I hear them talk about it, they speak of it as if it's magic. I considered putting air fryers on this bracket Because I feel like everybody who has an air fryer can't wait to tell you about their air fryer.

It's interesting. Air fryers are the new Sous vide cookers. So that is my approach to this, but that's almost air fry owners. Yes.

Air fryer owners. It's very air fry adjacent. Yeah. But you get my point.

I have a bunch of those things on my list. I know you've got a bunch on yours that are sort of in the same vein. You and I come at this from very different perspectives. At some point, I may ask you To explain some of the ones that we did not include on this list, because I just need to understand your logic here.

I have so many items in my head. that are not fully deserving of being entries into our bracket, seeds in our bracket. But, like, are just on a half list of, like, man, I just, every time I see people doing this thing or making this thing or posting pictures of this thing. I'm like, why are we?

Like, I thought of like, hey, let's turn this food into something kind of wacky. Like, you like buffalo chicken. What about buffalo chickens? Muffinized, right?

In little muffin tins. Isn't that clever and kooky? I hate all that stuff. Yeah, and I thought, since I'm, I guess, the techie between the two of us.

About maybe putting down food blog websites because they all follow the same format. You have to scroll 75% of the way down to the topic. But you do have to jump, you have jump to recipe buttons on the top. I mean, not all of them.

The good ones do, but they all follow the same format. You got to get their life story before you get to the ingredients. You got to get three to four high-quality images of You know, the chicken curry before you get down to just tell me how to make the damn thing. I dig some of the descriptions because some of the people are talking about why they chose certain ingredients and their tests involved.

And I respect legwork, but at the same time, when you're looking for a recipe, sometimes or most of the time, you just want the recipe. I get it. We have 18 items here, as I said, sourced from you and I, mostly, but a few of our favorites from the Verballer Hood Dan. Shall we dive into this latest iteration, the secret garbage bracket twenty twenty six?

Let's roll. Our first matchup is a play-in game. The winner will go on to play our number one overall seed. This is a matchup between play-in team A skinny beverage cans and play in team B luxury watches.

Okay. These are both your entries. They are. Please explain.

Skinny beverage cans. I presented this to Solid Wife Kate and she said, ooh, but they're kind of sexy, aren't they? And I said, well, maybe. Maybe in some sense.

But my problem with skinny beverage cans is they don't fit into standard cup holders. Like they wiggle around because they don't occupy enough space. You can't put them in a car. You need almost an adapter to put them in the cup holder in a car.

And by the way, it's not just alcoholic drinks anymore that use the skinny beverage cans. They're energy drinks. I mean, they're not new. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cold brew will come in those skinny ones. Right. But I feel like they're on a bit of an upswing right now. I see more and more of them.

Secondly, if you are out at a tailgate and somebody has these things, and I know this because we put koozies out on our store. You have to make a separate one to fit the skinnier can. They don't fit in the standard 12-ounce soda can style. Do they make skinny koozies?

They do make skinny koozies. They do. And they're not necessarily any more or less, but they're harder to come by. Okay.

And so there's that side of it. And I just wonder why we have to be different. What is the purpose of being different here, if only for aesthetics? They're not doing much in the convenience realm.

Yeah, I don't know if it's a cost thing. I don't know if it's a look thing. How do you feel about it? Have you seen the like the express size soda cans?

Express size? No. Yeah. So instead, how many ounces are in a standard aluminum can?

I think 12. Okay, so they either make like six or eight ounce cans now. So that, I don't know if it's for kids or for people who wanted to have a little bit of soda, but don't feel like. Oh, the little, I've seen the minis.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've seen those. Sure.

Those are a little bit. Those are okay by you. Because I think they're closer in, what's the word I'm looking for? Diameter?

Yeah. I think they're closer in diameter than the skinny ones are. So you're talking about like a. I understand what you're talking about.

Okay. I don't find myself drinking cans all that much, so I don't have a strong opinion. But I understand the frustration when it comes to a cup holder, that it'll slide and slosh. I get that.

And then the luxury watches thing. I've just never gotten that. I've never gotten that. But does that make it secret trash?

That hasn't affected your life at all. It hasn't affected my life. But if you've done any bit of browsing out there on the interwebs, people love talking about their watches. And this could extend to.

The fancy ones that you see commercials for. This could even extend to things like Apple Watches, not a sponsor, probably won't be. Right. Okay, so just expensive watches in general.

I don't really get the appeal there. I think I get it, and it's not for me. I think that's the distinction I would draw. I think I understand that people appreciate the craftsmanship, right?

It's like very delicate craftsmanship that goes into And they would call it a timepiece time. Right. It has to be that goes into a timepiece. And then, look, there's, from what I know.

There are certain vintages, right? That it's a Rolex from this collection in 1968 because it's a Paul Newman Daytona. That's as far as I go. It's a diving watch from this You know, so there is like a vintage in the way that people appreciate guitars or wine or what have you, that there's just a limited run because they're older and more rare.

It looks nice on a wrist. I don't think you can argue that, right? That like a nice-looking watch looks nice. But who cares?

I'm not disagreeing. But I think much I think you are not honoring the spirit of this bracket, because this would be in the like, not for me bracket. I don't think there's anything that you can I don't think you can state a case for them being garbage. I mean, I don't, I just think they're a waste of money, is what I think.

Right. So that's the waste of money bracket. This is why it's a play-in game, right? This is why it's a play-in game.

Yeah. Yeah, I would hesitate to move this one forward. Well, it's only fair. It's only fair that you should pick the winner because these were two that I nominated.

So, once again, it's luxury watches and the skinny beverage cans. I guess the skinny cans, right? They feel superfluous. They inconvenience you.

How is the, and again, you would know better than I because you submitted this. How is the flow coming out of a skinny can as compared to a regular can? It's about the same. It's not too flow.

It's an equal size opening. Right. And the the thinness of the inside does not affect the speed, faster or slower, with which it comes out. Correct.

Okay. But It is, it's you're getting less face coverage with it. Correct. So it's sort of a daintier hold to your face.

Right. I think it's more weird than garbage, but I will advance it. We will advance it. All right.

So we've got our first advance. Yeah. Skinny Beverage Cans will go on and play the number one overall seat. I'll get to that in a second.

The second of two playing games is yours and one that came from the community. Okay. Yours was called Haircuts. Oh, yeah.

I don't understand this at all. You can explain it in a minute. I will. This one goes up against one that came in on Verballers.

Com from Jonathan. Podcasts on YouTube. Okay, so I guess this would be extended now to Netflix and what Apple's going to roll them out. They're all doing it, man.

Right. Spotify has video pods. So it's the idea of the accompanying video version of an audio show. Maybe people are watching this one right now doing the same thing.

So look, for the purists among us. A podcast on YouTube, or some people who just post the podcast to YouTube and nowhere else, that is actually not a podcast. A podcast is audio where I come from. We've been in this game for a long time.

Podcasts are audio. But over the course of time, if you actually want to grow a podcast, Because you can't grow it through the normal methods anymore, or at least the old methods. The only way it ever gets bigger is if you put it on YouTube now. Right.

Jonathan's explanation here Is, quote, I see enough zoomed-in middle-aged faces on Microsoft Teams during my workday. Just let me listen to a conversation, Sans video, while I'm doing the dishes. Thank you, Jonathan. I would also add, as a podcast publisher, it is a pain in the you-know-what to orchestrate the whole process.

Of doing what we do and also putting it in video form, it's going to be a total nightmare now that there is a whole Apple component that I'm guessing we're going to have to do at some point before what? So that's a whole other conversation. It is a pain in the neck. I get where he's coming from.

I don't mind it as much, but I certainly understand what he is speaking to here. Explain haircuts, Dan. I just don't get it. First of all, my view of the video podcast thing is I generally look at it as a positive thing.

And that's not just because I'm the sort of spearheading person behind the scenes here with the video elements of it. I like seeing faces if they're animated and back and forth and discussing something I'm interested in because There is a dimension you get. And I'm not even talking about if you have a guest. I'm not even talking if it's two famous people.

I just saw some clips of, I want to say, Steve Carell and Amy Poehler on Amy Poehler's show. And When you are able to put faces to voices, I think it adds dimension. And I feel like you're sucked in a little bit more. But I understand to whoever is forcing Jonathan to watch instead of listen, please stop.

He does not want to watch. No. And I get where he's coming from too, right? That some people like that, it's just like the personal experience and headphones, and that's your preference.

You want to hear something crazy, though? What? And I understand where he's coming from. And, you know, this could probably be its own episode completely, but no one wants to hear me drone on about this.

But among the people who prefer audio. Like Jonathan, there is a widely published study at the end of last year. I believe like 66% of the people who prefer audio still find all their new podcasts on YouTube. Yeah, whether it's shorts or yeah, yeah, yeah.

Love it or hate it. That is the primary discovery mechanism for what we do and what many other people do. So, even if you're not into it, Jonathan, it definitely serves a very valuable utility in the podcasting world. Anyway, Explain haircuts.

What is this? I am pro getting your hair cut. I am pro getting your hair cut and styled and shampooed or colored or however it is. That you prefer to have your hair done with whatever regularity you prefer.

I have a problem that in 2026, and this is the haircutting industry, I guess, if we're going to be more specific. about haircuts, about the barber, stylist, whatever kind of industry that you patronize. The Haircut Industrial Complex. The HIC, correct.

That I don't know qualifications. I don't know how long you've been cutting hair. When I'm slight, if I move somewhere, if I'm on the road somewhere, if The, you know, I've had instances where my barber moves away or goes to a different place to cut hair. That's like, yeah, I'd follow him if he were 11 minutes away, but 38 minutes away, I'm out, right?

And the barber has recommended people. I don't know what your preferred style of haircutting is, like if you are a barber or stylist. I don't know how much experience you have with different kinds of hair, different kinds of styles. I just, I want.

I want a recommendation engine, or I want to see more about you and your work than what an anonymous person on Yelp or Google Reviews can offer. Right? That I just because I see proof of your work on your website, I don't know how that's going to work out for me. And I don't know.

Like, I've had experiences with haircuts where, yeah, place has really good reviews, and I go see somebody and it says they cut dudes' hair or whatever. They do an awful job, and there's no attention to detail. I don't have any recourse. You just, I'm not going to go see that person again.

I just feel like the search for finding your person. Is too random and convoluted. And once you find that person, obviously people, you know, they're loyal and they're like, okay, he did a good job. She did a good job with my hair.

But I'm just out on how we approach this. I don't know. Does that make any sense to me? No.

No, it makes a ton of sense. It makes, it makes. Listen. You haven't had a bad haircut?

I've had many bad haircuts. So you wanted this to be haircuts, though. You labeled it haircuts in the bracket. But what you're describing is not haircuts.

What you're describing is the process of finding someone to cut your hair. Well, I mean, it's under the broader umbrella of haircuts. So that's why I put haircuts here. The haircutting industry, haircutting searching, like I've gotten a haircut where I've shown up on time, if not early, and the person cutting my hair hadn't arrived yet, and then they sped up my haircut to stay on schedule.

It's like, that's not my problem. But like, you've you've basically ruined my hair for at least three weeks because of your problem. Right? I mean, I've had a seedy haircut person, which we've talked about extensively on the show over the years.

And that wasn't fun. You liked the haircut from that person. I did like the haircut from that person. It was tough for me to stop going to him, but I did, and I'm glad I did.

I'm going to advance haircuts, okay? Because I think it rises more to the level, and I'm curious to see what it does against the two overall seed. Okay, who is haircuts against? Haircuts was against podcasts on YouTube.

Yeah, I think haircuts are better. Basically, what I'm saying is, what does everybody say with like NIL and transfer portal stuff? They're saying, Look, I don't mind that players are getting paid. I don't mind that the transfer portal exists, but we need, what's the word, Ty?

Guardrails. Guardrails. That's all I'm saying about the haircutting industry. I feel like it is due for regulation.

How about that? All right, haircuts moves through. Now let's get to the Sweet 16, as it were. Okay.

Your number one overall seed is cars. Oh, yeah. Cars against skinny beverage cans, I guessed not fitting neatly into car cup holders is an odd bit of symmetry that I certainly did not plan when I put this together. Cars was yours.

I can tell you that the seating committee here used a rather inexact science, but we did go out to the interwebs to see what we could find in terms of like Q ratings. Overwhelming acceptance, overwhelming positivity. And cars, interestingly enough, was what came back as number one, which is why it's the number one overall seat. Why did you put cars on here?

So it's number one in terms of people feel positively about cars? Of the items that we had here, yes. Oh my God. Where to begin, Ty?

Okay. You start with obtaining a car. It could not be a worse experience. We all already agree, right?

That's not secret garbage. That's out in the open garbage. That's regular garbage, yeah. And I'm talking used, I'm talking new, I'm talking.

However, it is that you are finding a car for yourself or someone else. There's nothing easy about it. I know some companies make it a little bit easier and they don't go haggling or whatever. I don't know, is that a Tesla thing out of Rivian?

One of those companies. You know, just like there's a standard price, and it is what it is. That's fine. But obtaining a car, terrible.

Sitting in a car. Also, pretty terrible. Just sitting in a car, sitting in traffic, not sitting in traffic. Like, I feel as if there's basically one type of driving that people like.

And it only exists in commercials when you're like kind of on a windy road full of leaves and there's nobody else on the road, right? That seems fun. Otherwise, Something's always going wrong, no matter how nice the car, no matter how not nice the car, something's going wrong. You got to keep track of stuff.

Going to a mechanic could not be a bigger pain. Everybody always feels like they're being ripped off. So that puts mechanics, good mechanics, in a bad situation, right? You're like, this is how much tires cost.

What do you want me to tell you? Right. And then in your head, you always think you're being ripped off, and you're like, I need a filter for what? Pass, right?

The whole experience of car ownership, car leasing, sitting in traffic. And I battle that against literally anything else, right? Taking a train, riding a bike, walking on your feet, however you want to roll. The car experience, no matter what Jon Hamm tries to tell us during these Mercedes commercials.

It's terrible. Airplay, terrible. All of these things designed to like make our life smoother in a car, I hate it. I hate sitting in a car.

There's no time where I'm happy I'm in my car. Is there a time you're thrilled to be in a car, Ty? The only time I'm happy to be in a car is if it's pouring rain outside. I'm happier to be inside my car than outside in the rain.

I am happy to be in my car because a couple times a week I need to go on a drive. But that is less about being in the car and more about being out of my house and having changing scenery. But what why can't you walk? Well, I was going to say, functionally, it's the same as a walk.

But most of the time, I will use that as an opportunity to go to the store and pick up a few odds and ends stuff that we need for here. Right. So that is less about the car and more about being not here. But what if the store were a half a mile away from you?

What a thrill it would be to just walk 10 stuff. I lived in the shadow of Wegmans. Right. So, and that was less than a half a mile away from me.

Right. And yeah, I enjoyed that experience. That was a lot of fun. And I would do that a couple times a week just to get out of the house.

So Functionally, for me, a car and a walk, I know they're not the same, but I use them almost interchangeably just to change the scenery here. I would also add: when I hear about people collecting cars, It turns my stomach. Like, it's my luxury watch. But it's like, you drive your car once a week?

You drive your like vanity convertible? When it's nice out three times a year and this takes up space? Like even forget about what car culture has done to America and what interstates have done to major cities. Forget all of that, which all of it's terrible.

Building your life around a car, and I understand some people live far away from things and they need to be in a car for a long time. Some of those are choices, to be clear. Oh my God. I am never thrilled to be in my car.

We probably should have also issued a disclaimer at the top of this episode that there will be some worldviews expressed in this episode that You may or may not agree with that's okay. That's why we're giving you the opportunity to fill out your own brack and tell us why you think we're wrong. But Cars has to go through over skinny beverages. Is there anything that you would push back on?

About cars. Like, I'm not talking about, yeah, I'm driving in a convertible along PCH with the Laker girls. I'm not talking about the absolute height of cardom. The pushback, I think, is pretty obvious.

And it is unless you are living in a major city where mass transit is a little bit more accessible, you have no other way to get around. Of course. Okay. And so I could see people out there saying, yeah, but What the hell do you want me to do if I have to get to work?

Right. That is just sort of the nature of our shared reality at this point. We all make choices, though. We all make choices.

I guess, but like, I'm. I'm living in suburbia over here. I know you are now too, but when you were in New York, it was a lot easier to hop on the train to walk to an office. I never really had that.

I would love that option. Oh, let's be clear, living here, but I never had that. So I had no choice but to get the car. My criticism isn't for people who need cars because they've been priced out of areas and have to go on long commutes where there's not public transportation.

My criticism is we have designed our country to be car forward. Wow, I'm with you on that one. transportation, public transportation forward or have walkable places or build up and I think that's it's a a lose lose for everybody involved, other than the car industry. My algorithm is very deep into The future of transit.

Weirdly enough, they just give that to me. I keep ingesting it whole. So I'm with you. Cars moves through over skinny beverage cans.

By the way, I used to see all the time. With regularity. And this is a name drop, but it's not a name drop to try to impress you. I used to work in Southern California, an area called Burbank, where all the major TV studios used to be.

Look at you. I saw that dude all the time just hopping around in his Duesenberg. And I was like, is there anything that is less impressive to me than making dozens upon dozens of at least of millions of dollars? And pouring it into old cars.

I know people love it, and I respect that there's like a nostalgic value to whatever kind of collecting you're doing. But like buying up warehouse space to store your weird old 1971 whatever. Oh my God. Just secret garbage to me.

That's all. Let's get to an 8-9 matchup. The winner takes on cars. These are two more from you.

These are two more that I also do not really understand. Okay? Okay. I'm ready.

The number eight seat is grocery stores. Oh, my God. The number nine seat is food delivery services. Yes.

Explain yourself. These are easy. Okay. Grocery stores are laid out in usually a nonsensical way, although I always do remember, I think it was Michigan great Tom Brady.

Saying you should only shop on the outside rim of grocery stores where the food is fresher, right? The produce section or maybe freshly baked whatever or the seafood counter. I never thought of it that way. That's a good point.

Yes. His thing, I think, maybe I'm misattributing, was like nothing that comes in a box or bag. Okay. Right.

And this is great, but like you're going to spend more money at a grocery store that way. The idea that I need to peruse 15 different kinds of tortillas or peanut butter, it's a waste of everybody's time. The layout never makes sense. Things change store to store, and even stores themselves change where things are all the time.

I don't like the organization of it. I actually kind of like the self-checkout revolution. I don't know how you feel about that. I'm into it, yeah.

I'm into it. I'm okay with it, though. I think if you have to use the biggest cart available. Maybe that's not the area for you.

They should regulate that part of it, yeah. Between layout and like the enormous amount of selection and variety I don't love. Produce seemingly has gotten worse every year. I don't know what it's like where you are.

But it seems like in everything I read, like they're bred for color and size rather than flavor. There's nothing like produce has gotten to be terrible. I don't know if you've noticed that. I don't know if you care.

I don't know if you're a fresh fruit and vegetable guy. But I just the grocery store industrial complex to me, I love finding good food. I love cooking good food. I love eating good food.

I try to give my kids as much nutrition as humanly possible that they're able to not yell at me about. But going to the grocery store and trying to find things grocery stores that I go to weekly, I just I hate all of it. I just wish there were like a fifth of the options with every single product. So basically, I can tell you something that I'm learning about you.

Please. That just occurred to me as you were going through. That description? Have you had a modern Berry?

Trash! It's occurring to me as you were describing all these things that if we put out A subsequent secret treasure bracket, your number one overall seed might be living off the grid. No. I have a bunch of secret treasures, but it's not living off the grid, though that is part of my algorithm.

I was going to say it's not part of mine, but I was just. Anyway, off-grid curious, but not off-grid gung-ho. Grocery stores, I okay. And listen to me.

I love to peruse. I love to learn about certain products, but like you know instantly, like, okay, I have to wade through eight garbage. Oh, the marshmallow fluff company is making peanut butter cool. Thanks for showing me that.

Or like, I'm so happy that Fruity Pebbles and Frosted Flakes are doing a collab. I'm so glad that Mr. Beast is trying to sell me turkey. Great.

I don't care about any of the garbage stuff there. And, like, it just, I don't know. It's infuriating what you have to wade through to get hopefully good stuff. What's your stance on coupons?

You know what? It's another good question. I don't clip coupons. I don't use coupons.

I have I'm like signed up for the rewards. So, you know, there's like a reward sale price. But now there's only like you'll see it advertised when you go to a grocery store, the digital coupon. So like they want your data in a very aggressive way in order for you to get cheaper avocados.

And I don't know if I'm willing to go that far. I feel like this off-grid thing is something we should explore further on a show, just separately as friends, whatever you're into. But because I like. I like a lot of conveniences of this parts of society I like.

That's the eighth seat. The nine seed is food delivery services. So there's potential here for an upset. I do have an upset sound.

If we have one, this wouldn't be a big one. Typically, these aren't very big upsets. For what it's worth. At time of recording, we're doing this a week before, I guess, six days before it goes live.

Iowa just knocked off Nebraska. To go to the Elite Eight, and they are a ninth seed. So there's real potential here for our ninth seed, which is food delivery services. I happen to like food delivery services, and I need you to maybe narrow this down a little bit further.

And you don't need to use specific company names because This is a for-profit entity after all. We don't want to. I'll use whoever I want. You can do whatever you want.

It's your show. It's free country. But food delivery services, explain why. Okay.

Here's who I think food delivery services benefit in a genuine way. People who perhaps have a physical reason why they can't Cook all the time or are unable to go out and pick up food. I think the convenience of somebody bringing you your food, if there's some sort of Legitimate physical or medical reason that you can't do it, even if it's temporary, right? You break your leg and you live alone, and it's much easier to get your kung pow chicken or your sausage pizza or whatever because somebody's delivering it.

Great, cool. I'm okay with that. But you are, I've seen you, Ty. You're in good shape.

You're of sound mind. You can see most colors with your eyes. You're in a pretty good position. What food what the modern food delivery companies do is they establish themselves as bad for restaurants bad for the people who deliver it, and they deliver lukewarm, like borderline stale versions of the food to the people who pay for a premium price.

So as far as I can tell, they're bad for pretty much everybody involved, except for them, and except for the supremely lazy. Right? Wow, supremely. I do this once a week.

I'm sure you do. How far away is where you get your Thai food? I don't usually use it for the Thai food. Okay.

How far away is it? Whatever you're getting. Yeah. I mean, it fifteen, twenty minutes away.

Okay, so it's a 40-minute round trip. So maybe get some closer food. Maybe learn to cook that up. I like this place.

Okay, so go eat there. I can't go eat there. Why not? I can't go eat there.

It's not as convenient. There's a convenience factor here with a delivery service. And I would go, I would layer something on top of it because I know you have used a delivery service to get food from a grocery store. So, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth here, Daniel.

Oh, not anymore. I've stopped that a long time ago. I hated it. They got everything wrong.

Didn't you just do this like a week ago? No, we were talking about this. Yes, you did. What grocery did I get delivery?

I don't know what store, but you were waiting for it. No? No, not grocery delivery. I don't order food delivery.

I don't order grocery delivery. My wife does. I' Back to the control her. But in terms of what I can control, in terms of my consumption, I do grocery store deliveries.

I do food deliveries. So I'm on both sides of this, Dan. Yeah. I understand what you're saying.

And I will say, in terms of The predatory nature of it. The food delivery thing. There's much more out there about the food delivery thing. and the impact that it has had on, as you said, restaurants.

Sure. And specifically the controversies that I have read about have been about The tips not going to the people who deliver the food, the people who deliver the food not being paid properly. More recently, there's been some stuff out there about how they use some algorithmic tools to determine who is willing to pay a little bit of a higher price without you even knowing it. And so for that reason, I am inclined to put food delivery services through over grocery stores.

I couldn't be more thrilled to push food delivery services through. It's also, here's the other thing, Ty, and you might not have a problem with this. I have a problem with it because I work from home. If I am specifically cutting off chances to interact with society For the convenience of I care about it, man.

I need to get out. I need to get out. I was talking about cars. I know four cars, which is not something I normally would do.

Like, you run into people at the store, you run into people picking up takeout food. I don't know. There is still something about Rejoining society after your day of work at home that I appreciate. And having people just bring things to you, I think further isolates you.

Like, I was thinking about figuring out a way to put in your house or your apartment or your condo. We did have somebody suggest home ownership for what it's worth. Well, no, I'm not talking about ownership. I'm talking about spending time at home.

Like, I think it's bad. I think it's isolating, and I think it's bad. I think it's anti-society. Let me add something to this, though.

I'm also talking out of both sides of my mouth. Please. I'm going to admit this here publicly. Okay.

I haven't actually gone to and shopped at a grocery store over the last couple of years more than 20% of the time. Okay. So I use the grocery store delivery service a lot. A lot.

I don't think it's oh, but what you were what you were talking about was Instacart was what I was waiting on. Not gross. So I use Instacart and it's not for a grocery situation in the way that it's not like for my weekly groceries. It's for my the the only place I can get it uh is it's for my uh tomatoes, for my pizza.

And the only real way I can get it is through Instacart. And I leave an enormous tip. I always leave an enormous tip when I do it. Yeah.

Brag much. I have a tip on delivery services through. Yeah. I'm going to stick with that.

I could probably make a case for either, but that is the very nature of an 8-9 matchup, is it not? You can pick one or the other. It's sort of an even field. I agree.

But what you do for a living is perfect for somebody to just go to the grocery store. I know it is. I know. Listen, it was a COVID thing, Dan.

It was a COVID thing because I know that was you get in the habit of doing that. We we did got in the habit during COVID of having delivery services bring the groceries to you. And we just sort of Became those people. And that's and there are many different ways to do it.

It's not just through apps and stuff like that. I mean, some grocery chains offer that as part of their own subscription thing. Yeah. So it's not all under one big umbrella, but we kind of got in the habit of doing that.

Rejoin society, Ty get out there. The people miss you. No. I'm good with this.

But I will go with food delivery services because I think you make a strong case for it. And I think grocery hermit is what you think. There is a more predatory nature to it that makes it more garbage than grocery stores. Okay.

Fair enough. Next. 512 matchup, Dan. 512 matchup.

These are two more of yours. I promise there are a bunch of mine that are coming on the bottom end of this bracket. And listeners, yeah. This is also going to be a long episode.

If you need to take a break at some point, Dan, just let me know. Yeah, hope people are listening to this at the grocery store. The five seed is streaming services. Oh man, this is great.

The twelve seed is carry-on luggage. This is a wonderful matchup. Thank you very much. A wonderful matchup of two things that otherwise would be viewed as conveniences in modern society.

Streaming services, obviously, you can watch anything anywhere. Download it. If you are going on the plane with your carry-on luggage, you can just watch it on your phone, on your laptop, on your iPad. Carry-on luggage.

I need to get the case against carry-on luggage because I got to be honest with you, I can make a pretty strong one that streaming services are secret garbage. I don't know if I can do that for carry-on luggage. I think I know where you're going with this, but you're going to need to spell it out for me. Okay.

Streaming services are easy. It's. algorithmic, it's not that fun to just sit and peruse. Again, there's so much actual garbage, especially on Netflix now.

Right, that like, and this is not a matter of Netflix as a company because they do make some good stuff, but I again, I don't know if this is an algorithmic thing because of what I've watched on there, what my wife has watched on there. but you see what's popular and you see what's served up to you and you see what seems to multiply. And it's original content centered around nothing. It's just like Here are the richest people in Charleston.

And then you want to know who's evil? Tyra Banks. You want to know who's evil? These four top 400, like child molesters.

You ready for a seven-part series? Like, it's so much just like listy garbage, and I just like quality movies and T V shows and stuff like that, that it it's just this bright, shiny, hey, here are the best townhouses in Toronto And you're just like, God, again, it's the waiting and the variety, waiting with a D. You have to wade through so much trash and what they feature. And it all just seems like.

Built to be cliffhangery, true crime-y. It feels like the algorithm is conspiring against me rather than for me. I think you're missing the best reason to say that streaming services are secret garbage. Which is?

It's not a content thing. It's not a content thing. Okay, continue. It is an a la carte thing.

And I almost feel sacrilegious talking about this because If you go back 10 years, I was the biggest advocate for cutting the cord. I thought it was ridiculous the way that everything was bundled together, the cost associated with it. It just seemed far more convenient to me. And I still would.

Think it's more convenient to be able to just like watch TV on your phone. I like that. I like that we can do that. And certainly for what we do, it lends itself well to having to watch a million college football games a week.

Yeah. But the fact that everything is separate has definitely now added to the inconvenience with everybody trying to spin up their own thing. With having a million different subscriptions, this isn't to say it costs any more than it did before. Honestly, if you get all the services, it probably costs about the same.

But the fact that there is this degree of separation between all the services that makes it hard to find what you want sometimes, especially if you're a sports fan. Agree. That part of it makes things Really, really confusing. And I would add, just as an aside, if you've ever had to explain to an older parent how to watch a Notre Dame game on Peacock, it's great experience.

Okay. So that side of it to me, streaming services, I think in their early iteration were sold to us as being a more convenient way To not only watch the content but pay for only the stuff that we wanted. And now, let's say a decade into it, it's actually inconvenient. in a sense, because you've got so many things that are separated, so many disparate services that you need to keep track of that, that makes it hard.

So, in that sense, I would agree. And the other side of this that I alluded to in our bonus episode last week. Forgetting that you're subscribed to a streaming service. There's a whole cottage industry now around trying to manage your subscriptions.

So this is a strong five seed. Right now, I lean heavily streaming services over carry on luggage because I like carry on luggage. Okay. So the other part of the streaming service thing Is also, and you can, we can talk about Netflix or Peacock or Yohulu or any of these places.

If you have to or want to subscribe to a sports specific or team specific streaming service in order to watch games or matches, whatever. If you go tennis channel, if you go the marquee network here for the Cubs, right? There's a streaming service, Marquee Network, for people who don't get carried on their whatever cable service. Yeah.

About once every two weeks, they're like, hmm, we don't recognize you. You want to sign in with your TV provider? Well, go to this website and go to and then put in PL14ZD. And then once you're there, you got to put in your Spectrum password.

It's things it this has been high times for services like Roku. that do a pretty good job, a pretty good job. It's not perfect, but a pretty good job in collecting all of your services, giving you one panel and trying to put some order to it. It is not an easy task.

I feel like it's gotten harder. We have definitely gotten to the point where, and we see this in other industries where things unbundle and then rebundle. I do wonder if we are approaching some sort of tipping point where people want to put things back together. I know YouTube is doing the skinny sports package for people who are interested in sports and trying to collect some of these things.

In a more streamlined way. But it's yes, it's definitely we've seen some unintended consequences. Even YouTube TV, which what you said, they're doing a skinny sports bundle? They are.

Yeah. If you go down on YouTube TV, like the conceit of it was. We're going to find these popular channels. We're going to bulk them all together, bundle them all together, and that's going to be your new thing.

When you start scrolling down YouTube TV, there are channels you've never heard of. There are channels that you will see down there. And then the next time you use YouTube TV, you're like, what is this? Like, you don't even remember time to time.

So, like, they're turning into cable. Yeah. We're both subscribers. Yeah.

Okay. I'm not necessarily arguing against that service. I think that is a good service, but I would say streaming service culture, the move. It's awful.

Full bore into streaming everything has definitely added some complexity. And the login thing that you mentioned. The login's the worst, man. Listen, this is not necessarily Me having an axe to grind with ESPN or Disney or any of you know any of those things, they have redesigned ESPN and Disney a thousand times.

The login still does not work. I still have no idea. Oh, every time without log out. I have no idea how to log back in.

Terrible. I have no idea. This is God's honest truth. I'm not currently using that subscription.

Okay. There's nothing on there that I'm currently interested in watching on Disney Plus. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to unsubscribe from it. I don't know how to do it.

I am knee deep in every technology that is currently available. I play with everything. I cannot figure out how to unsubscribe. I'm going to have to call the credit card and tell them to just bounce it.

I don't know how to do it. They've made it so complicated, it's frustrating. So I understand where you're coming from with this one. Explain carry-on luggage, though.

Oh, I just think it's a horrible experience to okay, as airports seemingly get bigger and bigger and they're adding terminals or gates or you got to ride a tram or something like that. You're towing along your clothes and your toothpaste or whatever for a half a mile, however long you are walking, right? You're packing it, you're bringing it in your car. You're bringing it in.

Maybe you're checking some and carrying on others. So you're toting it around with you in various lines, security situations, restaurants, bars, Hudson News, where you run into Clay Helton. You're like, who are you? And Then you are at your gate and you have this thing.

Then you have to board a plane. Hopefully, you board a plane and you're in a group where there's still room to store. A suitcase full of things that you will not open, not broach, not whatever, all because you want to save eleven minutes to get to a What, a courtyard by a Marriott a little bit faster, or you know, whatever. How, like, nobody's really in a rush for the most part once they land.

They just don't like waiting at the carousel, you know, the baggage claim for bags. There is nothing that makes me happier. Than checking a bag and walking through an airport unencumbered by suitcases for no reason. And you deal with like People dealing with the overhead bin.

It takes longer to board, longer to deplane, because people are jamming suitcases in. People are removing it. That was the angle that I was expecting because I'm. I'm a full evangelist for carrying on, if possible.

Oh, I hate it. Not over the top. Well, you used to be. You used to be into it, and then you had kids.

And now you're like, ah, well, maybe we'll just check the bags. Look, I've traveled with kids with Carry-On, without kids with Carry-On. I can't tell you, it just makes the experience so much better. To be unencumbered by suitcases.

I'm also a forgetful person. It's another thing for me to forget. All fair points. The thing that I thought you were going to bring up that drives me nuts is when you do carry on the two Parts of the process.

A, they have that little thing before you go onto the plane where you're supposed to put the bag in to see if it's the size. You know what I mean? And it's, it, it like. Nothing is really that size.

Some is, some are, but, but a lot isn't, but they still let it through. So it's kind of a sliding scale. That's one thing it always gives me a The second thing, though, is if you're on a plane that's particularly crowded, you always run the risk of going on the plane with your suitcase. And suddenly there's no room for the suitcase.

So then you have to back out. You know, you have to like inconvenience the people behind you. That part of the process is broken. They need to fix that.

I mean, but how often are you on a plane? Where you see somebody like, oh, I'm so glad I brought my carry-on because there's a thing I can't fit into my purse or backpack That has to be stored in a carry-on piece of luggage. Like, no, if you have medication, if you want a light jacket, all of that fits on your person. I hear that.

Back in the day, Mama H had luggage stolen from the baggage carousel. Okay. Well, that's anecdotal. It's anecdotal.

We can't all inconvenience ourselves. I have scar tissue with the luggage carousel. Oh my God, Ty, grow up. Come on.

I'm just showing about honesty. I understand, Ty. No one's listening anyway at this point. I'm just saying this is where I'm at.

Let's put the screw. Can we push streaming services through? Secret garbage. Yeah, that's fine.

The five over the twelve. Let's do one more, then we're going to take a break, okay? Okay. The number four seed is Chat GPT.

Okay. The number thirteen seed is greeting cards. This is the first real matchup, first real first round matchup between one of mine and one of yours. For what it's worth, I think greeting cards is a fabulous 13 seat.

Thank you very much. Roger Sherman would have this 13 seed on his YouTube video. Thank you very much. The UC Irvine of this bracket.

Greeting cards are a racket unlike any other. It could have been a two-seat, honestly. We have advanced in society in many ways. A lot of them good, some of them not.

We've never advanced beyond the greeting card industry and the need for the greeting card. You get the greeting card. The greeting card is obviously a nice gesture. In many cases, it's a vehicle to put the gift card inside.

And I would say, in what, 90% of the instances, It just goes in the trash anyway. With a greeting card, the cool thing is you could buy a greeting card or you could just give your gift recipient $4 of cash and say, here, throw this away. It's your choice. Same exact idea.

Isn't that the same concept, though, of like gift wrap or gift bags? Okay, so there is a show. To a reveal of a gift. That doesn't exist, especially when people give a gift card.

If we want to go into the gift card portion of this matchup now The whole show is like, okay, you either buy a blanked gift card, and most people write something minimal in there. Happy birthday. Love you.

Dan. Right? Or congratulations, Uncle Ty. And that's kind of it.

Most of the time. Or There's like the goof card where there's something funny on the front, and then there's a punchline in the middle, and then it's happy birthday, Uncle Ty. And then it's thrown away. Right?

I don't understand why anybody should be wasting their time going to a store. Anybody should be paying money for these greeting cards I know that there are sometimes funny like, oh, that speaks to me and my relationship with my brother or with my dad or with my grandmother or something like that. And you buy it from a website and it's like so custom and like interesting and the artwork is cool. Even then, I'm like, okay, fine, but still, whatever.

The greeting card idea. to me is something that we should all just move past. And I would even posit Ty. Writing a letter by hand.

Let's say you're going for Valentine's Day, you're getting chocolates or flowers or whatever you're getting for Valentine's Day, maybe a DoorDash delivery because it's you. Writing a letter, even if it's just on a legal pad, writing one page to Solid Wife Kate and been like, hey, I know this year has been, you know. Has had its ups and downs, but you're my constant, you're my love, blah blah. That seems so much more human than buying something at a store.

That you're just writing two sentences in, because that's all the room there is inside the card. I I don't know. I'm just so out on the idea of making greeting cards part of any of our lives. That it just feels like throwing out four $1 bills.

That brings us to ChatGPT. Chat GPT. Make your case. My headline is: this doesn't feel like neutral or overwhelming positivity as is.

In general, the. Acceptance of these technologies is a really interesting thing to discuss. They're teaching prompting in schools now. I know somebody who is an AP English teacher.

Who has to incorporate chat GPT into their curriculum? Cool. it's made things really interesting, right? Because a lot of these models are trained on the books themselves.

You can ask the model to tell you what you need to know about the book. And so in her case, she's had to get really creative. About how do I incorporate this, but also still teach the book and what the book is trying to convey. And it's certainly not how you and I were raised.

Okay. Yeah. The reason that I put this out here is because, A, it's everywhere. Whether you like it, whether you love it, it's everywhere and there's sort of no avoiding it.

As a follow on to that, everyone is incorporating these technologies into what they're already building. It doesn't matter if you're using a streaming service. It doesn't matter if you're using a food delivery service. It doesn't matter if you're using a grocery Restore.

It's everywhere whether you know it or not. In most cases, it's already there in some way, shape, or form. And the other thing that I would add, and more to the point of having to incorporate it into curriculums, I mentioned this earlier, but it is one of those things that is on some level accepted. and on many other levels viewed as magic.

And I just could not be further from that point of view. As the relative techie between the two of us, I have played with all of these services, every single one of them. I regret to inform people that ChatGPT is the worst one. Oh, okay.

Also, I regret to inform people that dorks like me can always tell when it's being used, 100% of the time. Can tell when it's being used. And it is like any other tool that you would have in a toolbox. You can use it really well for some things and really not well for others.

You don't use. A hammer to drive in a screw. You could, that doesn't mean you should. That doesn't mean that that is the proper way to use it.

And so there is just an overwhelming thing going on right now in society where people are using Chat GPT, which was positioned as a consumer product that can help you with your life. They're overusing this to do everything. It can help with some things, but it should certainly not be used for everything. I have a real problem with that.

That bothers me to no end because I've played with all of them. I know what it's good at. I know what it isn't. And I feel like it is being overused and over-promoted in a way that it should not be.

You told me, and I don't know what the actual number is, I don't know how to quantify this, but something like AI has an approval rating of like 26%. In general, yeah, it's really. So we already, as a people. Like, there are people who use it.

There are people who are like, you know what's better than writing a cover letter? Having a computer write your cover letter for you. I think, but here's the thing, okay? I think this is, there's a little bit of politics that go on with this.

And you see this a lot with like elections, right? Well, they'll ask, they'll poll on any two candidates, let's say. And they'll ask them in a poll, what do you think of so-and-so? This is anonymous.

And they will give one answer. And then when it comes to vote, they will go with the other thing. There is a little bit of saving face, I think, when it comes to this. Whereas much like you see with elections, where you'll say one thing.

If somebody is asking you on a telephone call or asking you face-to-face, but then you'll do something else behind the scenes. And I feel like that is what goes on with these services. There is a little bit of a taboo thing. With using a GPT, with using any of them, depending on what you're into, where you might not want to admit it, but then when it comes Time to actually do something, there are some ways that it can help you and it can do things quickly.

I just think there is a deluge still of anti-AI sentiment that almost disqualifies this as Everything you said is valid. But I think there's enough of that sentiment out there in the way that there isn't for grocery stores or Cars or streaming services. I mean, I'm sure there are people that are like, yeah, streaming services are terrible. I'm sure there are.

But I think people are left with very little choice when it comes to where you get your food or where you watch TV shows and stuff. Whereas You can live your life without using generative AI. You can. And you can live a whole life.

You can. It is getting increasingly more difficult, though. And I just don't think people realize. How baked into everything, but many things like this are already.

My inclination is to put greeting cards through. Okay. I'm not necessarily arguing that GPT should go through. Yeah.

But It came in in a few different forms when we put it out there. Okay. And I was already thinking along these lines. I think in terms of secret garbage, though, which is the very spirit of this bracket.

Greeting cards. The slippers do. Yeah, baby. We have our first big upset.

We had a nine over an eight. Yeah. Wasn't much of an upset. It was a pick'em in Vegas.

But greeting cards over GPT, I think, is a really, really good play. It's a big upset. Roger Sherman definitely had this one on the bingo card. Love to hear it.

Why don't we take a quick break? We'll do the bottom half of the bracket when we get back. Let's attack the bottom half of this bracket and let's find a garbage champion. Okay.

Your next two items: number six: the future. Well, speaking of Dan going off the grid, continue. This one came in via ballers. com.

I'll read off the quote in a second. It's a fabulous suggestion. The number six seed is the future. The number 11 seat is Dog Parks, Dan.

That's going to be an uphill battle for Dog Parks. Continue. This one comes into us from DT, The Future. Hear me out.

But as an old man aged thirty-two, the speed of technology makes me pine for the ability to slow down and go back to manual. Did you ever see a line of people and they're all on their phones? What are we missing out on by doing that, Dan? Agree.

The future. My case for dog parks is just that A, you don't know which dogs are friendly and which aren't. B, you don't know which dogs have shots and which don't. C, every dog trainer, pretty much every vet I have ever taken my dogs to have overwhelmingly said, don't go to dog parks if you can avoid it.

They're just not the safest, healthiest places for Dogs to go and play, even though I'm sure they have a ton of fun. Many cases, it's just a social situation for the humans to go and meet other dog owners and chat. So there's definitely value in it. I don't know what you're supposed to do if you live in a big city.

Like, I'm fortunate here. I have a yard. The dogs can go run around the yard. They can play with each other.

But If you're listening to this in New York City, like one of our biggest markets, I certainly understand where you're coming from. If you say, you know what, Ty, F you. We need the dog park, the dog needs the dog park. It is the only way we can get some of that energy.

I understand the logic. You don't need to explain yourself. I just don't think that they're good for the dogs based on everything professional dog people have told me. That being said, a really tough draw for dog parks here, Dan.

Really tough draw. Now, the only thing I would add for dog parks, I've never had a dog. I've never gone to a dog park, I don't think, or that I've known of. It feels like that's likely where you're going to meet your second wife, right?

In some sort of raw situation to humans. It's a social thing for the humans, and I get that. Yeah, I haven't considered this much. I know there's dog beaches.

Are they any better because they're more wide open or no? I don't. I've never been. I don't know.

Okay. I didn't even know that was a thing. A dog beach? Oh, yeah.

There are dog beaches out there. I've seen that. Maybe it's a dog-friendly beach, right? That it's not only free with dogs, but dogs are allowed in this section of the beach, stuff like that.

But what about the future? This is a great one. This is I thought maybe we could make this like a one or a two seed. It's that good.

So much of what we came up with here is a well-defined thing. or a well-defined concept, but the future is abstract, the future is changing, the future is relative. You could look at public polling. I don't know if people are all that excited about the future.

The question is whether or not it is secret garbage. I say yes. Why do you say yes? I say there is less and less to be optimistic about.

But does that make it secret garbage? I think so because I don't think people talk about it that much. And you wouldn't know that because you're not in these grocery store conversations, Ty. Apparently not.

But that's the buzz by the Rutabagas. I think why the future fits in with this is just because you know we're getting more of the bad stuff. You know, we're getting more of the things that people don't like about technology and politics and society, right? You know that.

There is no evidence that we are in the midst of becoming a more human, empathetic society, right? There's no like Apple is going to keep releasing things that go over your eyes or wrists, that they're going to claim make your life better. There are going to be more social media networks that are going to claim to bring people together, and then there are going to be new unforeseen circumstances because of the introduction of those things. And yes, the futurists among us will point to the medical advances, will the scientific advancements.

The outer space advancements, whatever those have been lately. And I think those are all valid. And we will continue to make those strides. I just think on a day-to-day level, That look like what my life is going to like.

Let's, okay, I'm in my what, late 30s, early 40s ty? Sure. So, best case scenario, I've got 50-ish years left. Now, maybe that'll increase with scientific advancements, and I'll look the same for the next 55 years.

You got to sleep in one of those chambers with the red light or whatever. Sure. Yeah. Exactly.

But thinking about like what my kids are going to have to explain to me in the same way that you are explaining to your mom about watching Notre Dame Toledo on Peacock. It's kind of depressing to think about the like holographic, and like, I'm going to have to be the 71-year-old. Like, again, this is going to be my future. Where I'm going to say in my day, and I'm going to be the most boring, tedious 71-year-old.

Because I'm sure people listening to this, like, he's boring and tedious in his late 30s, early 40s. Imagine what he's going to be when he's 71. But it's kind of a bummer to think about as we are just trending in a less human direction with all of this. Did you ever see there was an interview?

And this is In a short form media clip, which I think we're getting to. Forget the short form. There was an interview that a woman did in, like, I'm going to make this up. Let's call it 1973.

And she was born in 1866. Okay. And the interview was like, hey, so what's like changed in your lifetime? And she had.

The craziest look on her face and was like, Everything, literally everything, has completely chipped. Like, she was born right after the Civil War. I think it was a British woman. But she was born in that time.

Yeah. And so you're talking about like the industrial age happening well into her life and what her life has seen. And so there is something that like. The inevitability of dramatic change freaks me out.

There's a Motion City soundtrack song called, by the way, The Future. People hate change. Overwhelming. And change would never be on the secret garbage bracket.

Never. People hate change. Which is why. What I'm trying to do for both myself and my kids, because change is inevitable, and the more you fight it, the worse it gets.

But I want to arm myself. Not the way you're thinking. I want to arm myself and my kids with as many human skills as possible as a revolt, or at least as a way when things go wrong and we're off the grid. That they can fend for themselves as a person, socially, physically, whatever, because I think that's going to be in shorter and shorter supply.

And maybe that sets them apart in a positive way. I did get my off-grid radios working, by the way. I heard. I don't know if I told you.

Look, one of my core beliefs is that the concept of the quote unquote good old days is bullshit. Of course. I could not believe that that is any further from the truth. There is no such thing.

It speaks to people's Fear of change, and I just think things overwhelmingly are better. But I will admit, when I saw this one, I was like, that almost needs to be the winner. Yeah. It is such first off, Kate and I laughed out loud when we saw this.

This is an incredible nominee for this bracket. There is definitely, I think. Only on the technology side, I'll speak to that. I certainly don't want to speak to the political and the the geopolitical side of things.

Okay, that's There are plenty of other podcasts for that. I will speak to it just within the narrow view of technology and where things are going. I have always been somebody who has been very optimistic about the future, and that's not to say I am not. But as I have gotten older, as I have seen the different directions that tech is going, both in consumer products and enterprise products.

Yeah. I definitely feel a little bit more along the lines of, not sure this is going the way we hoped. The good news is there's no more RAM, right? There's no more RAM.

That doesn't exist. And you need RAM for video cards. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. So. At least there's that. Oh, by the way, the other part of the future that I always think about, and this is a kid's thing, is how many more years of new slang am I going to have to decipher?

Right? I mean, it's not just a tech thing, right? It's not a tech thing. It's not even a political thing, but just the abstract concept of the future being secret garbage is funny as hell.

It is funny as hell, man. I've got to go through over dog parks. I think it would do me good, and I think it would do everybody good. If, as they grow older, instead of looking down upon younger generations, they try to understand that Every younger generation is different and does new things and has new ways of doing things and evolves and change because that's what the passage of time means.

That said, again, having 50-ish years, if I'm lucky, of learning what every year's 6'7 is. And like having my kids come home five and seven years old to say, like, oh, I cooked them. I was like, oh my God. At horse?

You cooked Will at horse that I'm going to have to, you know, to sort of endure that over the years is not something I'm looking forward to. But I do want to be the person who has empathy for younger generations, you know, as I, as I get older. I have a lot of hope for younger generations. I do.

I mean, honestly. I really truly do. But. My overwhelming optimism for the future, my entire life, has definitely dampened a little bit because of some of the Tech stuff out there.

I agree. I totally agree. I'm a techie, Dan. You know this.

I mean, I'm playing with all these tech gadgets all the time. That's what I'm into. You never watched the Sopranos, did you? No.

Oh, my God. Time. I mean, here and there, but not no. There's just a really good, there's a good Tony Soprano quote that is like, that says, remember when is the lowest form of conversation.

And when you were talking about like the good old days, it reminded me of that. Continue. I hate, I don't think the good old days are real. I think as I'm going to bring up like Bobby Abreu, there's a difference between that and naming guys and honoring their accomplishments.

There's a difference between nostalgia. And looking back fondly on the things that we experienced, and in this case, baseball players that we admired. Look, we are, again, we are honoring their contributions to baseball. I'm not talking about the times, I'm just saying.

Like Andy Van Slyke like, worthwhile. Next bracket. We're putting the future through, right? Yes, absolutely.

The future goes through. Number three seed is beach vacations. Number fourteen seed is wireless charging. This is another one that low-key could have been on Roger Sherman's list here.

I would have beach vacations through. I just don't charge wirelessly. There's nothing that I own that requires me to charge wirelessly. I've opted out of charging wirelessly.

Well, here's the thing: okay, here's the thing about wireless charging. Wireless charging was sold to us in all of our devices as this thing that was crazy convenient. Okay. It's not really, though.

It isn't. And it's something that all of the tech companies will put First and foremost, at least they used to, right? I remember when I got holding my phone up now, I remember when this was wireless. You can charge it wirelessly now.

It's you don't need the cord. Well, you don't need the cord, but you still need a cord. It's not like you can put it in your pocket and it just magically charges through the air. That's not how any of these things work.

You still need a charging mat. I'm holding up for the video now. I have one of these right by my desk, right? It's convenient in that it props it up, but look, oh, it's plugged into a cord.

Right. So it's yes, technically can be charged wirelessly, but it has never advanced to the point I know they've tried where you can just sort of put it somewhere in a room and you can be completely untethered. It's not there. So, it's what is really the difference between putting something on a charging mat and plugging something into a charging cable?

I agree. And does it do it like 15 times faster? I mean, I have no idea. Sometimes it can, but again, you need the right charging protocol.

You need the right tech in order to do it. That part of it, I think, is a little complicated. And again, I'm deep in all of the weeds with this stuff. I don't really know what the big deal is with this.

Sometimes it's a magnet that you put on. It's wireless, but it's not really wireless. So it's a lot of marketing. Beach vacations is interesting.

Yeah. Beach vacations is actually one of the things that was submitted to us via Patreon and was also on your list. Yes. Tyler says, quote, beaches are cool, but I find it wild that people plan entire vacations around them.

They're hot. The sand is uncomfortable. And it gets boring after like three or four hours. I think there's so much more to vacations than just lying around on a beach chair.

Do anything else but sleep in a beach chair for a week. Now I said this to Solid Wife. Kate, she looked at me like I had two heads. Kate loves the beach vacation.

I love the beach. But I can also sympathize with what Tyler is saying here. Yeah. Because I get bored very quickly.

And sitting around on a beach, on a hot beach all day long, I I like it. I love the ocean. I love the shore. I get bored out of my mind if I'm there for an overwhelming period of time.

I'm not the kind of person who just likes to sit there and like, let's read a good book. Let's sit under an umbrella. That's not. Not necessarily my idea.

Fun, I'd rather go golfing at a beach course. Yeah, sure. So there is definitely a secret garbage caliber to this that I think warrants further discussion. Well, it depends on the beach.

It depends on the travel needed with carry-on or not carry-on suitcases to get to said beach. It depends on what you prefer to do on the beach. In general, and it's personal to everybody, but in general. I love a beach, but I love the beach as like part of the broader thing, right?

A hike, a bike ride, playing tennis, going to a new city, doing new activities near the beach, on the beach, whatever, going in the ocean. The idea of it, I've had friends who do this, right? They travel to faraway places and they like use, they save up all their points or whatever for two years and they go, what is it, the Maldives? Yeah, yeah.

Where you're flying 16 hours, 18 hours, connecting flights, and you're staying in one of those huts that's over the water, right? It's like a pier hut kind of thing. You have some thoughts on that. As like a I think it's crazy.

Okay. Yeah. I think of all of the options you have traveling to far-flung places. Doing that in an area with very little in the way of activity options to sit and read.

And also, it's not that fun to read on a beach sometimes, right? If it's windy, there's sand, like The glare, I don't know. Like, Sam gets in your stuff. I just, I'm not into the stationary aspect of a beach.

And also, I have little kids. So, I can't really relax on a beach because I always have the threat of them wandering off, or like, oh, do I need to reapply sunscreen on them against their will? Do they go in the water with a parent or a friend, like somebody who can supervise them? But now they are far away and they don't know how to get back to the beach area that we're in.

There's just complicating factors that make the beach less at least for me less fun than it used to be. Now, when I was 19 and I was living in California and I would just go with buddies for three hours, that was great. But I would drive back home after I was done with the beach, right? That wasn't a vacation.

That was a day trip. It was right. You're using the beach as just like a fun thing. That was great.

But yeah, going somewhere with the express goal of we are going to sit We're going to drink out of a coconut and we are going to do not much else. I understand the appeal if you are Like Giannis Antetokounmpo, and you've been running up and down a basketball court for five months, and you're just like, I'm exhausted, and I don't want to go find cool places in a city. That's all I do with my life. But for those of us who are not seven-foot Greek gods, yeah, I think it's more worthwhile to go places that you can enjoy some beach time.

But like sitting around for days of preference. This is preference, though, right? It is preference. We talked about this earlier, and I forget which one, but you were calling me out.

Like, it's It's not necessarily secret garbage, it's just a preference. Now, I tend to agree with you on this front. The question is: which one of these two is more Secret garbage. Perhaps more so than any of the other matchups that we have discussed so far.

So this is beach vacations against what? Wireless charging. I would say beach vacations. And there's another thing to it that makes some secret garbage.

A lot of these beach destinations are somewhere tropical. What happens in tropical places, Ty? It rains. So, if you've booked a vacation with the express goal of sitting around in warm weather with a little breeze, with the sound of waves, and then it starts raining, you're just in a hotel room.

But it's still a vacation. It's still a vacation. But if you go somewhere where there's not much to do other than lay around and you can no longer lay around, you're blowing at least a full day. But you're on vacation.

You're still on vacation. You're still away from the world. You're not working. Hopefully, you're not working if you're on a vacation.

You're trying to Figure out the hotel's streaming services. You're trying to charge your phone wirelessly. Your carry-on baggage is all messed up. That's terrible.

Because you have to check it. Yeah. Continue. I say beach vacations.

I think it's celebrated in such a you look at every single Corona commercial. Yeah. It's like, this is the life. I don't know, man.

I love the beach though. I love the beach. I love the beach. But I love beach and.

I love beach adjacent. I do like beach adjacent. Yeah. You want to if you were to go where did you go on your honeymoon?

Jamaica? Yeah. Do you play golf in Jamaica? No.

Well, that's your have you been to Hawaii before? I've been to Hawaii. Okay. I love Hawaii.

There's stuff to do. I would move to Hawaii in a second if it were feasible. Right. You play some golf.

You go for a hike. You go take a tour of like a. Of a coffee situation, right? They have the farms that you can take tours of.

You can go to the Dole Pineapple Farm. There's stuff to do. Take a surfing lesson. You don't just have to sit around.

I did paddleboarding out in the Pacific. That was awesome. That's great. I just don't think people are wandering around saying like, how great is wireless charging?

It's the way of the I will reluctantly put beach vacations through. Good. That's big of you. 710.

Let's bring this home, okay? This is a long episode. That's great. Longer than usual, but listen, we told you at the top this is going to be different.

So bear with us. Number seven, the Miami metro area. This is great. Number ten, thought leadership.

This is a wonderful matchup. Okay. Now listen, Miami comes to us from Raul. You put it best when we put out the call for submissions on the Patreon.

Raul responded with a list of four or five things. Raul was on a heater when he put these things. Got this was like a 96 bulls run for Raul. Who is always very thoughtful?

You've heard Raul's name before when we do various QA's. Here is what Raul Says about Miami, quote, It looks incredible on Instagram, but it is spiritually exhausting in real life. People talk about moving there like they're joining the future another entrant in the bracket but a lot of the place runs on humidity, traffic, flex culture, and fraud. I grew up there.

It is a beautiful place to visit, but a deranged place to try and build a normal life. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

So I've traveled to Miami many times. I've spent time in South Florida visiting family, spending time with family and visiting Miami. Like they didn't live in Miami. My time in Miami has been for other reasons.

I'm a crypto scammer. Did I not say that at the time? I don't think we caught that. No.

There are parts of Miami that I think are. Insanely fun and really cool. And I've enjoyed a lot of people I've met in Miami. I've enjoyed going to neighborhoods in Miami.

I've enjoyed sampling local food in Miami. It's an intense place. It's an intense, intense place. And it's sort of like talking about Vegas and only talking about the strip.

Right. Or it's sort of talking about LA and talking about Rodeo Drive. Like Miami is not just South Beach. It's just not.

It's a lot much larger place. But I also feel as if Miami got too popular too quickly, and the infrastructure has a lot to be desired. Leaves a lot to be desired. The traffic is always god-awful.

Again, not terribly different from the places like Austin and LA now that are just congested like crazy. I've just every time I'm there, I'm like, I like it here. I would never live here. Living here seems like a nightmare.

I like visiting and I like leaving and it's a fun place for a specific amount of time, but It gets weird quickly. I was there a couple of times. The traffic is horrible. Can't confirm.

Can't confirm. But travel is terrible a lot of Atlanta, Houston, lots of places. So the other side of this is thought leadership. Yeah.

We went with social media last time. Okay. And so I couldn't say LinkedIn. That would be, I think, violating the spirit of this, and we're trying to come up with new things.

There's a lot of this out on the web right now. There's a lot of this. Sometimes it's podcast form, sometimes it's on YouTube. It basically is the entirety of LinkedIn.

And it is always dressed up as something that will change your life. Somebody with ideas, TED talks, right? TED Talks are sort of in this vein as well. Something that will change your life, something that will inspire.

Oftentimes, it does inspire. This one little trick. This one life hack. A lot of life hacks.

Yeah, a lot of life hacks. Yeah. Under this umbrella. This one thing that will change your life.

And there is sort of a cottage industry around this. I suspect it's always been there, but it's very prevalent now in the era of. platforms, vehicles through which they can just give you this constantly via algorithms. So thought leadership.

There's even now like, I forget what service does it. But one of the online translator websites will do a corporate jargon translator where you type in something in plain English and it will turn it into LinkedIn speak. It is hysterical. Yeah.

So thought leadership, I think, is dressed up as something that can inspire and help you change for the better and give you ideas for how better to live your life. But I think secretly, it's a lot of people just farming for engagement. Of course. So, it may not be that secret of garbage, depending on who you're listening to, but I think pretty much across the board, it is very, very garbage.

Yeah, there's a lot of the content that gets splayed out in front of all of us. It's a lot of like, here's my morning routine. Yes, a lot of morning routines, right? It's a lot of like here is my hack for learning.

Here are the rules with which I live my life. Once I did this thing, I made so much more money, right? There's just a lot of passive income included in this general species. A lot of videos that start with like, technically you don't need to pay income taxes.

And then the good thing about those is like all the comments are like, don't listen to this guy. Don't listen to this guy. That, yeah, there's a lot of like, here's my like, I wake up at 3 a. m.

I dunk my face in ice water, I do a cold soak, I do a sauna, I eat raw beef, I rub beef tallow in my ears. you know, there's that sort of direction that people go with this. Um yeah, it's a lot of it's Just trash. A lot of it is it's posed as sort of intellectual, and you're like, this is a successful person.

Let's see what they do. And then you actually watch it and you're just like, sorry, you flip baseball cards all day? And I'm inspired by this? Like, I just, yeah.

I don't know how it fits in with this bracket because I'm on the same page with you. It receives a lot of positive attention, or at least attention. I don't think any of it is worthwhile. Like, I don't know, drink water, go for a walk, get some sleep.

You'll be in pretty good shape. When I was contemplating whether or not to leave the mysterious day job and work on this. I watched every video like this on the internet. I'm sure.

I was searching. And you kept getting served more and more. Yeah, I mean, it's like pet and a cat, right? Like, they just give you more of it.

And I watched any number of these videos I could find to try and like help me through it. I don't know if any of it actually did, you know, but it was a vulnerable moment in my life. where I needed some support, some sort of guidance. Ultimately, the answer could not come from Gary Vee on YouTube.

It came from within. But there was no shortage of stuff out there and people out there trying to tell you what to do. And so I just feel like it's very prevalent. And you're influenced by follower counts.

You're influenced by how many views something has. People tend to look at that, whether they intend on it or not, they tend to look at that as validation that this is somebody who knows actually what they're talking about. Right. In reality, I don't think that's the case.

Right, of course. So I hear you. I'm kind of inclined to put this one through over Miami. I am too.

I just just because of how prevalent it is. And I also don't know how secret garbage my intro is. Right. Like, I just don't know the spirit of the game.

Yeah. Like, I've kind of always thought this about Miami, you know? I'm up with Miami throat, but it's look, you're in control. You're the bracketeer.

Well, what do you think? I don't think, I just, I don't think people, okay, you know what? It is popular. Like, thought leadership is popular.

I mean, this, it's also like it mixes in with influencers and stuff like that. And I think people have. Generally, a negative view of like if you were at one of your Ritzy parties that you go to and you met somebody and you're like, oh, what do you do? You're like, well, I'm a content creator.

You're like, I know, but what like what? He's like, I just like, I don't know, recommend sweaters. That's it. You're like, well, it's not that different from.

Issuing college football thoughts for a living. But I don't feel like the there's that positive an influencer appreciation. So I don't know how well this fits in. Whereas I think Miami is more generally considered like a pretty good thing.

I don't know. I understand where you're coming from. In honor of the Miami Hurricanes making it to the national championship, let's put thought leadership through. Let's give Miami a little bit of a break.

It's another option. Slipper Steel Fitz. And finally, in the first round, we're going to make these next rounds go quicker, I promise. The number two seed is short form content going up against your haircuts from earlier.

Can we just agree that short form content goes through? We haven't even talked about short-form content. Can we just agree that this goes through? I don't know, man.

This is everywhere. All the time. It has consumed media the way that we knew of it previously. Everything is even further reduced down into a thirty second clip that requires seventy percent of the people to watch the first three seconds in order for the algorithm to boost it out to a wider audience.

Yeah. So, nuance and deeper context for the news, for the world, is cast aside in favor of something that gets people watching the hook and hitting the like button. Yeah. And so, even though I think a lot of us know it's bait, as many of the stories out there and studies have been published about how this can be harmful, how this can be addictive, even though we know.

All of this stuff when we watch our feeds, you can't avoid it. You can't avoid it. Even ESPN and their renewed application that still doesn't let you log in. Has a short thing, a vertz, I think they call it, at the very bottom.

Because they're playing into this. Everybody is playing into this. And there is simply no avoiding it. And I think, unfortunately, though it is sometimes beneficial, and I don't necessarily hate some of like the comedy clips that I get.

In short form content, I would say overwhelmingly it is a drag on our understanding of our ability to understand society, our ability to understand the world. I totally agree. I think most people who consume it are like, yeah, this is terrible. I'm going to go watch some more of it.

Right. That it's highly addictive, the infinite scrollness of it all. Again, social media has received a ton of negative attention in no small part because of the infotainment. I mean, this is.

I think a big part of what social media is now, for sure. Of course. But it is not now limited to that. And I thought about this when I nominated it because social media won last time.

But this is a broader format. It is a format. It is not just a platform or a group of platforms. This is where things have gone now.

All I'm saying is. I think there's too much agreement over the garbage nature of it. That the secretive nature of it being garbage is not so secretive. I just don't get the haircuts thing.

I think haircuts is lucky to be in this tournament. I stand by the haircuts. I think we're going to get a lot of pro-haircut seats. Short form is going through.

We're at the elite eight. All right. Is there a specific kind of short form content that especially riles you up? Other than the thought leadership?

Oh my God, there is short-form thought leadership. And they're going against each other next. Maybe we can talk about that. I mean, they're kind of one in the same, true.

They kind of are. They're not the same. Yeah. Between those two.

So we got a two and we have a ten. Short form versus thought leadership, which goes through. I think short form easily. We'll put short form through.

You think about the different ways that people's minds have been warped by TikTok or YouTube shorts or whatever. And time has been completely taken. Yeah. I mean, I think the kind of the short form content that bothers me the most is And you know, I know why they do it.

I know it's a an engagement trick. But the desire to distill a very complicated news story or complicated concept that has a lot of nuance and requires a lot of context and probably requires a lot of learning. On the front end, when that is reduced down into like a 42-second clip. Sure.

It's pretty cool. Again, I understand it. Yeah. But I just think that's a problem, right?

Yeah. No, it's a problem when that's how we're sort of consuming these like really complicated things that people should understand. And I'm guilty of it too. You know, I'm guilty of it.

Oh. Oh, mine's less serious, the ones I don't like. And it's much more like because I get served because I'm looking up recipes, I'm looking up restaurants and stuff. The food influencers are.

100% terrible? 99. 3%? It's just, it's a lot of people.

And there's like, there are occasional helpful things where it's like Yeah, these are the best three burritos you get in San Diego. I'm like, okay, I'll investigate further. Those look pretty good, but there's a lot of like, uh Everybody is saying this Rick sandwiches are the best, but every sandwich is $1, and I don't know if it's worth it. So I'm going to go and check it out.

And they go, it's good, but I don't know if it's worth $1. And that's the whole video. Short form goes through. Okay.

Yeah. I'll put short form through. Let's go up to cars versus food delivery services. Very thematic here.

You can't, that's true. In most cases, do the delivery without the car. I think the secret garbageness of cars is more ubiquitous than the food delivery. Cars goes through.

You can opt out of food delivery. You can't, unless you live in a very specific place, opt out of the misery that comes with driving sometimes. Streaming services versus greeting cards. Hmm.

Greeting cards are more secret. Greeting cards are incredible. That is incredible. Entry here in this Torah.

Yes, it's a matter of taste. What's more important, the garbageness of it or the secretive nature of them being garbage? And streaming services, I think, overwhelmingly viewed as convenient in a sense But there are plenty of secret elements to them that also make them garbage. We didn't even mention with streaming services Like, Ty refuses to go see other dog owners, to go shop for his own food in person, and now he refuses to go see movies in person outside of his home.

I don't refuse. I don't prefer it. Streaming services hurt the movie industry, which admittedly is not great right now in terms of what they're churning out. And even the good movies are on streaming services, so you can't even enjoy them in a theater.

And so they're hurting the social aspect of movie going. I think I put streaming services through. Okay, but how much of a social aspect really is there with MovieGoing? Other than being in a room with other people, you're not talking during the movie, I hope.

Sounds like somebody who's never made out during a movie. Even that's not talking. That's necking. That's different.

It depends what kind of maker outer you are, Ty. Whisper in some sweet nothings. You know what movie I definitely it's just very memorable in high school. Here's a little brag much moment, right?

I made out during What was it? I'm trying to remember the post-colon. What was the second Austin Powers colon? That's a weird movie to make out to.

What was that called? What was Austin Powers show called? I don't know. The spy who shagged me.

The spy who shagged me. Oh, there you go. Okay. 1999.

I looked it up. So like Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Seth Green in full THX, Dolby, whatever. So that's social, Ty. That's formative.

I kind of think greeting cards are more garbage, secretly. I think they're more secretive. I don't think the heaping pile of garbageness matches where streaming services are. That's just me.

All right. These are your two. So I'm going to say streaming services. All right.

Streaming services go through. Yep. That brings us to the future versus beach vacations. A six versus a three.

I think the future. I think the future is incredible. Yeah. I think it is incredible.

Uh, let's put the future into the final four. We have a one, we have a five, we have a six, and we have a two as our final four. I like that. Continue: cars versus streaming services.

This is tough. This is really difficult. We have cars versus streaming services. We have the future versus short form content.

Why don't we stick with the future versus short form content? Okay. Let's go there first. The future is also, I guess, an umbrella.

For short form content. Like short form content is contained within. Sure. I don't necessarily like that future.

As evidenced by the fact that short form content is in my final four. Well, and short form content is molding minds that will make the future worse. It is making the future worse. Yeah.

So this is a master versus apprentice type of situation here. Yeah, this is true. And look, saying the future is the most or one of the most bits of pronounced secret garbage means that the the general vibe of this selection is we are rooting ourselves pretty steeply in pessimism. I know.

And I don't, I'm not a pessimistic person. Okay. I'm not. I'm really.

I'm not trying not to be. I'm not. I'm just not. Anybody who knows me knows That I am very much not Right.

And I'm most of the time not a cynical person either. Yeah. And both of these things are not necessarily secretive, right? There's a lot of people who are like, what kind of future are we creating for our children?

That kind of stuff, right? Yeah. And in short form content, a lot of people are. I mean, there was just what?

There was a. A meta YouTube type lawsuit that was $6 million for the addictive nature. Yeah, yeah. So it's out there.

So these are both not necessarily secretive. I see less upside with short form video than I do the future. Like there's still a worthwhile gamble on future generations. to make life better, whereas I don't think there's positivity to be salvaged out of short form content.

So this is you saying you think the future is more secret garbage? No. Okay. You think short form content?

I think short form content has more pronounced garbage qualities. So I'm going short form content. Let's push short-form content through. Yeah.

The vaguest line on that one, though, was about short-form content minus one and a half. That was a tight one. Yeah. Just like who just I think it was Purdue just beat Texas on a tip in?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that moment.

Yep. Continue. Cars versus streaming services, Dan. These are your two.

Okay, so now let full disclosure here. We put separate lists together. We each had about eight to ten things. We narrowed those down.

I only picked maybe the top. Six or seven from both of ours. And cars was number one for you. Yeah.

Cars was the very top one. Now, I think I could go either way on which one is more secret. I think I would give that nod to cars. Just garbage.

People will speak to streaming services as being a good thing where they find new content that they can talk about with their friends. You don't have to go that deep in the discussion before you get to like the annoyances of it. Oh, the internet was out. Oh, it didn't load.

Oh, it's still buffering. Oh, I have all these streaming subscriptions. I need to figure out which ones I can cancel. Oh, it's expensive.

Yeah. So that you know, you don't got to go that deep beneath the surface to get there. Cars is it I think cars are just overwhelmingly assumed as a thing that we need. And so you're willing to deal with the secret garbage qualities of it.

But that doesn't mean there aren't secret garbage qualities to it. You know what I mean? I agree. I'm trying to think of the car positivity I have.

I'm always super impressed when people can fix their own cars. Oh, yeah. That's a for a moment in time. I thought I would maybe get into detailing my own car.

Okay, I appreciate that. Any DIY nature of car ownership, I appreciate. Whether it's detailing, whether it's fixing, re-upholstering, if that's your thing, that's always cool by me. Which do you think?

Cars or streaming services? Which is more secretly garbage? I think cars. Cars goes through.

I think cars. This means cars versus short form video content. Cars versus short form content. Now, let me add something else here.

Maybe this makes you feel a little bit differently about short form. This is our one versus our two seed, by the way. Yeah. Short form content is not just short form video.

That's true. There's a lot of short form other content out there. Snackable content? Yeah.

Short form content is now being promoted on the Internet. as a way to make your web pages because that stuff is ingested more easily by AI, which we mentioned earlier Ties to everything here. I do worry a little bit with this selection, as I did when I nominated it, that it's flying a little too close to the social media sun, i. e.

, what we had as our last winner about 10 years ago. Yeah. So I'm a little bit worried about that. But I still think it's a strong entrant.

That's why it is in our final here. Cars at this point, I think we have pretty much documented why we feel cars are Our secret garbage. Should also mention, Ty. You've told me about this a thousand times.

You're big on making out in Carson. Oh, huge. Yeah. That's positive, right?

Right? I'm just trying to balance things out here. There are positive, like I've enjoyed car scenes in movies. I've enjoyed car races.

The smell of a new car? Yes and no. I don't know. It's fleeting.

The satisfaction of getting a new car is wrong. I'm never satisfied. I'm relieved when that process is done. The process sucks, but the new car experience, I think, is kind of fun.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm just like I'm really hung up on if you've tried to or have inquired about buying a new SUV. Right, but like, you know how expensive they are now? Well, but that's much more, okay, that's car industry.

And that's much more everybody agrees already that buying a car is a terrible experience. So that's not secret. No. I'm saying more broadly.

The car experience, especially because most of us use cars not for pleasure, other than time, making out all the time in cars. Yeah. Exclusively. You're not using a car is just a it's a utility.

That I don't know. I think it removes humanity from our lives somewhat, right? You're just like, I'm driving to the grocery store, again, unless you're Thai. I'm driving to do errands.

I'm driving to commute. And you just find yourself in this thing. Alone all the time. Is this to imply then that like self-driving Waymo cars are your absolute nightmare?

Oh, I have no interest whatsoever. Zero interest. I think if you were to s if the question here would be, if your options were walking or taking a Waymo, what is that distance that you are willing to walk instead? Yeah.

I think I would try it once. I don't think I would trust it. You ever see the video of Jimmy Kimmel putting his aunt in a Waymo? Oh, yeah.

It was great. Continue. I was all in. 10, 15 years ago, when I was told that the future would be you could rent or I guess subscribe to a service that involved a self-driving car that would come and pick you up and take you wherever you want.

You didn't need to own it, but it would come and it would take you where you needed to go. and then quickly turned on that vision when it was apparent to pretty much everybody who cared to look that it didn't actually work or it wasn't close enough to working reliably to make that a real thing that you could do safely. And that was a huge letdown, to be honest with you. And I would also add, as somebody who lives in the Lehigh Valley of eastern Pennsylvania.

The fact that we can't easily hop on mass transportation over to New York or down to Philly is a huge bummer. Yeah. And so if I had the option To hop on a train or whatever. Yeah, like the equivalent of Metro North.

Yeah. If I could hop on one of those and get to one of those two spots, like that's a big attraction in this area. That's a big part of why people live here. Totally.

Because it's cheaper than both and it's close enough to both. The fact that you can't get there any other way than like a motor vehicle is a huge bummer. And furthermore, the conversation, at least in this area, about trying to build a train that could get us there has been maddening. It's been going on my entire life.

I'm now in my late 30s, as you know. The fact that that conversation has been ongoing and they've never made any advancements. It's just a head scratcher, especially now as more people are moving here from both of those places. Yes.

In some cases, they still work in those places. They just live here because it's a little bit cheaper. So, all of that stuff to me has contributed to the whole car thing. I don't mind driving into the city, but I'm not going to act like it's convenient.

And so the experience of being in the car, parking the car, paying for the car, paying for the fuel to put in the car. I'm doing Cars as my champ. Sidebar, enjoyed the movie Cars, Pixar. Cars is great.

Yeah, I like that. Lightning McQueen is great. Of course. I'm going cars.

Feeling good. The winner of your 2026 secret garbage bracket is our number one overall seed. Maybe it wasn't a surprise to you. Maybe it was.

We had a few upsets along the way. What a Journey. Maybe you can put. A one-shining moment together at some point, Dan.

But as we have renewed this now, nine years after the fact, number one overall seed, Cars is going to be entered into the Hall of Champions. With great power comes great responsibility, and I do not think cars have come through. So cars are my champ. Secret garbage item of the year.

Go out and sell your car tomorrow, Dam. You don't need it. Oh, man, I wish. I wish.

I wonder how many of the people listening to this at home are nodding along. I wonder how many people are throwing up their hands. Maybe in the middle of the house. Oh, we've lost listeners.

We've lost listeners because of this. 100%. That's okay. You got to put yourself out there, Ty, your true self.

But look, here's the deal, okay? Do you own a bike, by the way? I do own a bike, yeah. It's great.

Here's the deal, though. We are giving you an opportunity to speak out against us if you feel differently or to agree with us. Of course, you can email solidverbal@gmail.com.

That always stands. Doesn't matter if we're talking about college football or non-college football. I am in the process, as we are recording this a few days before it goes live. I am in the process of putting together an actual bracket that you can go and fill out and see how you compare to the Verballerhood.

It is free. You just got to enter your email. I promise you, we will not sell the email. We will not do anything crazy with it.

There will be a box there. We have to. We have to at least give you the option to sign up for our wonderful newsletter, which is written by Tyler, who submitted beach vacations. Great submission.

This is just one thing that we do, but you can uncheck the box, okay? If you don't want it, you don't, whatever. It's fine. We just want to get your feedback.

So go to the garbage. solidverbal.com. Enter your email address.

Check the box or don't check the box. That's fine, either way. I won't even have it pre-selected, okay? I won't do that to you.

Then fill out the bracket, then see how you compare to others. We'll flash the screen up there so you can see. Where are the Verballerhood at with all these? 18 really good submissions.

These are okay, so I have a couple also receiving votes. We don't need to discuss them. I just want to put them out there for discussion for other people. Okay.

So, of the ones that I did not or you did not put through, I had my number nine out of 14, federal holiday time off. I don't get this one at all. We need more of this, in my opinion. Disagree.

What what I couldn't, in good faith, put this one in. I was fearful that if I put it in, people would be like, why am I listening to these guys again? I think the idea of holidays is great. The idea of having a holiday honoring presidents, Martin Luther King, Labor Day, take your pick, Memorial Day.

I think we should honor important things in our society. But people are basically just using holidays not to honor those things, but to put on like an American flag themed thong and eat cake and grill out. Like that's not really honoring. You're conflating several things into here.

So let's just you need more time to like fully let this idea come. I'm good with days off. I'm good with holiday day off. If there's a specific activity You know, Christmas or Thanksgiving or something that's tied to what we are doing on this day off.

Not doing, not taking time off, but not really honoring the reason. That's what I'm saying. This is strange. All right.

Girl Scout cookies was another one you had. That one easily could have gone through here. Yeah, that's parents selling Girl Scout cookies online. It's an insane thing.

The cookies are not nearly as good as they used to be before. If you're going to eat cookies, eat good cookies. I don't think girls got cookies. If you had put this one higher on your list, and remember, I gave you preference.

If you had put this one higher on your list, this would have easily been in. So, this one could be, if we do this again at some point in the near future, which we might after this. Girl Scout cookies is, I think, are very strong. And no disrespect to the fine Girl Scouts of America.

Yeah. Its process and the product is not good. But I appreciate selling, especially like learning the social skills of selling in person. Bachelor and Bachelorette parties, logistical nightmares.

Yeah, that's not even secret garbage, but that's birthday parties. You have non-child birthday parties. Adult birthday parties. Yeah.

Let's just plan a dinner for when it's convenient for all of us to plan a dinner. We don't need to send it around you turning 37, Sarah. It doesn't do anything for us. Let's just all figure out when.

Birthday, that's insane to honor somebody's birthday. I have shared plates down here. I hate a shared plate. I cannot stand a shared plate at a restaurant.

I don't know if you know, but we do things a little bit differently here. We recommend like five to six. You think of like a tapas situation? No.

No. This is just a thing everywhere now. Nobody's just ha nobody just has dishes to order. I will have the penne rigate, whatever, the penne vodka, I'll have a a mushroom and onion pizza.

Everything is shared, everything is built smaller. And then you have to do food math, where it's just like, I feel like I've already had one and a half meatballs. Should I have more? Like, there are the weird considerations you now have to make.

You're like, well, I didn't have a lot of those noodles, so I feel like I'm entitled to more of the ravioli. No, I just. I don't like the calculus involved with shared plates. And then I have down here anything after 9 p.

M. That's probably specific to the old that's a damn thing. All right, we had some other ones that came in, many that came in via the Verballer hood. One that I almost put in, popcorn.

I didn't love the reasons why, but I appreciated the attempt. The attempt was one of the great scams in snacking. On its own, it tastes like edible packing material if I'm going in empty calorie mode. Give me tortilla chips or Cape Cod chips.

Let's be honest about it. I don't think popcorn is caloric, though. I don't think it is either. No.

Yeah. I like popcorn, so I couldn't, in good faith, put this. I like popcorn too. No.

I had 3D movies. I didn't think it was. Controversial enough to be included in this. I don't think it's a thing anymore either.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. We talked about this in the bonus episode. I left it out because of that discussion.

One of the other things on my cutting room floor was five blade razors. See, I don't use a you don't use it. I'm just like I know it's been sold to the male population as something that gives you a cleaner shave in one pass so that it doesn't irritate the skin. I have yet to actually see any scientific data showing me that it actually improves the shaving experience in marketing.

Have you used any razor that you're happy with? Where you're like, this is the Rolls-Royce of straight razors? Or are you just out on the the claims and promises of the I use a three-blade razor I can go three. Three is the limit, though.

Anything more than three is marketing, and they charge more for it. Yeah, fair enough. Anything else? We had a bunch of other ones that came through via the Verballer Hood.

Some of them were good. Some of them definitely rose to the level of, I think, being considered as part of this. What about every Instagram advertised product as being secret garbage? We set out to make the perfect hoodie.

Like, okay. Yeah, we had dating apps were thrown in here. That's a good one. A couple thoughts for Costco.

You're not going to get sympathy from me. I love a good Costco. Watching a game at a sports bar? That's a good one.

I appreciate that. The TV show Succession. I actually really like that one from Jacob. Succession.

Yeah. Bravo as a TV network. The band Journey, not bad. Not bad.

Any Michael Schur show. This one's interesting. I like a lot of his shows, though, but I'm willing to listen. New music here from Dan.

That's an extreme old man take. We had birthday cake, another one from Raul, who was on January. That's a no-brainer. I think that's a great secret garbage entrant.

Avocado toast. Oh, I love avocado toast. I just don't pay for it. I just pay for it.

Regional fast food chains. Yeah. And one that I know you'll agree with from Michael: Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, but I would say that's most Thanksgiving dinners because most people are not great at making turkey.

But I think a lot of those items are delicious. Aaron also said rental scooters, which cracked me up. I don't know if they are or aren't, but that one just got me. They are.

And people are terrible at riding them. That's a good secret garbage entrant. But I also feel like we're now in an anti-scooter time. So I don't know how secretive it is.

I think a lot of people realize that. Public opinion has swung back against rentals. I I agree. The birds and limes and so But maybe not now that we've got cars as our winner of the secret garbage bracket.

That's true. All right. Well, you know the drill. This is a longer-than-usual episode.

Many different topics. We hope we didn't lose you along the way. We hope you enjoyed the weekend. Yeah.

As I said, the final four is this weekend. It's a holiday weekend for many. Whatever it is you are out there doing, hopefully, this gave you some content to help pass the time. Maybe you're in the grocery store, maybe you're in the car, maybe you're at a beach vacation, Lord only knows. Yeah. Wherever you may be, though, solidverbal@gmail.com is where you can go if you want to give us your thoughts on this. Garbage.solidverbal.com. I promise you, the bracket will be out there. If you want to fill yours out and send it on in, we would love to see it. Yep.

Love to see what you have to say. And if you made it this far and have yet to do so, A, God bless you. B, hit follow or subscribe so that you do not miss any of our college football episodes. Many have argued, by the way, that this Should be the show, not college football.

We're better at this. Yeah. Maybe you feel that way, maybe you don't. I don't know.

Solidverbal.com, of course, is the website. Indeed. Dan Rubenstein, we got to heal up the pipes.

You're going to be away as we record this the Friday before it goes live. So enjoy your time away from the studio. When you come back, we'll do it all over again. Done.

Can't wait. For that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubenstein, for myself, Ty Hildenbrandt. This is usually a college football podcast, though not today. Enjoy your weekend.

We'll catch you on the flip side. As always, stay solid. Peace.