0:00

You're listening to an Airwave Media

0:03

Podcast.

0:16

Hello, painstakingly patient

0:18

pacing patrons of paleobiology

0:21

while paying for paintballs. Welcome

0:24

to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and

0:26

offbeat trivia podcast. This is

0:29

episode 263 and of course I'm your

0:31

humble host, Karen, and we are your squishy

0:34

and squeezable squabbling squires

0:37

squaring away squiggles.

0:39

I'm Colin. And I'm Chris.

0:42

There's some commotion. There

0:44

has been a bit of a, let's call

0:46

it a snowball fight that

0:50

we've learned from our Lobetrotters

0:53

group. Colin, in the last episode,

0:55

one of your questions about

0:58

the world's tallest slash

1:00

biggest snow person.

1:02

Snow person. Yes, I,

1:05

I had scarcely just

1:07

finished telling you guys on the show

1:11

that Olympia in

1:13

Bethel Maine was the world's tallest

1:16

snowman. Two days later, Karen,

1:19

you said, Oh, Colin commotion from

1:21

Lobetrotters. And you pasted a link

1:23

to an article from the Lewis

1:25

and Son journal title of the article

1:27

is

1:28

Olympia no longer

1:30

the world's tallest snowman. And

1:32

I was like, what, dang it, what the heck

1:34

is going on? So I read

1:37

the article and it's talking about how

1:40

a team of snow builders

1:43

in Austria in 2020, apparently

1:47

built a giant snow person

1:49

named Risi, nearly 125

1:52

feet tall, which would make

1:56

it two feet and change taller

1:59

than Olympia. The snow.

1:59

So now I read the article

2:02

and and I was like, okay. All right, really?

2:04

I Want to see Guinness I want

2:06

to see that this is certified, right?

2:08

You sourced it from Guinness So

2:11

the very first thing I did I went back to the Guinness

2:13

website. I'm like, what the heck? Nope, the page

2:15

still says World Solid Snowperson.

2:18

Good old Olympia snowwoman Bethel.

2:20

So I was like, what's going on here? So I

2:23

entered into sort of a web

2:26

news Circularity

2:30

Situation where I found a lot of

2:32

articles sourcing each other But

2:35

I did not find any

2:37

kind of primary source and I

2:39

certainly did not find anything Official

2:42

from the Guinness Book of World Records

2:44

people on their website. Nothing I could find So

2:46

I was digging and digging and digging you can't hide

2:48

a giant snow person to

2:50

be clear I'm not suggesting that this thing was a figment

2:53

of someone's imagination or like a Hope

2:56

snow, I mean there are photos and I saw photos of

2:58

Reesey now. Okay. Yeah. I mean I have

3:00

to say in my opinion The

3:03

I just gonna say his hat was very tall.

3:06

I'm just gonna leave it at that I'm just gonna say

3:08

like, okay, you're going for the record like it's

3:10

it's it's tall snow person Not snow

3:13

person with tallest hat, right? You know what I'm saying? anyway

3:17

So the article you sent me quoted

3:20

MSN. I dug a little bit I could not find the

3:22

MSN article, but I found a lot of other articles

3:24

all sort of quoting each other I found a reddit

3:28

broad

3:29

Talking about Reesey holding

3:31

the record

3:32

for tallest snowman ever with

3:35

a pretty good picture every see So

3:38

III was not satisfied Eventually,

3:41

I ended up on an article

3:44

you found him

3:45

from the Bangalore

3:47

daily news from January

3:50

of this year Maine

3:53

Still holds the world record

3:55

for the tallest snowman.

3:57

What what happened to the other one?

4:00

Good question, Karen. All right. So in this

4:02

article by Emily Burnham goes

4:04

into great detail. I

4:06

will spare you recapping the

4:08

whole history of Olympia Snow Woman. Go listen

4:10

to the last episode. We covered it in some good detail.

4:13

The people in Austria

4:15

built this thing.

4:16

They did say

4:18

that they applied to Guinness

4:21

to have the record certified.

4:24

And at that point, it sort

4:26

of just got a life

4:28

of its own on the web. Like the stories

4:30

were kind of quoting something

4:33

that was not in fact official.

4:35

All right. According to the Bethel

4:38

Chamber of Commerce, the Guinness people

4:40

did not verify the record.

4:43

And they later said

4:45

that in fact, their attempt was disqualified.

4:48

As far as Guinness is concerned, Olympia

4:50

was is still the record

4:53

holder for world's tallest

4:55

snow person. I found a small article

4:58

on Bethel Maine.com

5:01

under Bethel Maine.com slash snow

5:03

people talking about how Bethel

5:06

Maine was home to the world's

5:08

tallest snowman in 1999, topped their own record in 2008. In February

5:14

of 2020, it was widely

5:16

reported that our record was beaten by

5:19

people in the town of Donnersbachwald,

5:21

Austria. Many news outlets

5:23

from around the world shared this information.

5:26

However, we learned later that year that

5:28

the Austrian record was disqualified.

5:31

We never learned the reason why.

5:33

We were simply told, quote,

5:36

if it's in the book, you still have the

5:38

record. It is impossible to

5:40

correct the entire internet. So

5:42

we'll just say it here, our record

5:44

still stands. So that is

5:47

the voice of Bethel Maine carrying

5:50

the torch for Olympia

5:52

Snowwoman, still world

5:54

record holder despite... Snow mic drop.

5:56

Yeah, snow mic drop. Yeah. I cannot

5:59

fault our diligent list... for being

6:01

led astray because there was quite

6:03

a bit of coverage on the internet. So we

6:06

just don't know why it was disqualified. It

6:08

could

6:08

be it could be they didn't get a

6:10

checker or auditor. It could be the hat.

6:12

Yeah those records might be sealed

6:15

right. I'm gonna keep on digging for sure.

6:17

If I if I if I uncover the dirt

6:19

here I will let you know precisely

6:21

why it was not certified. It

6:23

could be the hat. And

6:27

listeners I have one quick um

6:29

actually language changes. Last

6:32

episode I talked about kafir

6:35

lime leaves and

6:37

I was notified that

6:40

now people call it a makrut

6:43

lime. Makrut lime

6:45

leaf because kafir is

6:47

a not nice word in South

6:50

Africa.

6:51

Alright good to note that. Makrut lime

6:53

not kafir lime. Alright that

6:55

was a lot of ado.

6:57

Without further ado let's jump into

6:59

our first general trivia segment pop

7:01

quiz hotshot.

7:03

Here I have a random trivia question card.

7:05

It is pop culture too.

7:08

Okay you guys have your barnyard

7:10

buzzers.

7:11

Let's answer some questions.

7:14

Blue Edge for TV. What

7:17

reality show required host

7:20

Phil Keegan to fly

7:22

the equivalent of 10 laps around the earth

7:24

in a year?

7:27

Chris.

7:28

The Amazing Race. Correct!

7:30

Sorry if I pronounced his name wrong. Alright.

7:33

Pink wedge for fad. What libation

7:36

when mixed with rum and whipped cream

7:38

do Viennese call a

7:42

fee-fiacer? Oh no.

7:45

Colin.

7:47

Coffee. It is coffee. Oh

7:49

yeah. Viennese coffee.

7:52

Yellow Wedge Buzz. What

7:55

star of Desperado claims

7:57

she once told men who'd kidnapped

7:59

her

7:59

Kill me! I believe in reincarnation.

8:02

I'll just come back. Wow.

8:05

What a strange question. What a strange question.

8:08

Uh, Desperado. Starting Desperado.

8:11

Okay. Chris. Selma

8:13

Hayek. Yes! Oh!

8:17

Selma Hayek. It popped into my head and I'm like,

8:19

hmm, I think there's a reason that's there.

8:21

Purple Edge Music, what's Ozzy

8:24

Osbourne's given name?

8:26

Oh, sure. Yeah.

8:31

Does Sharon ever call him that on

8:33

the Osbournes? Does she ever, um... Colin.

8:39

Just first name. Oh, okay, yeah. Stewart.

8:42

That's a pretty good guess. No.

8:44

Aloysius. It is John.

8:46

Here we go. Green

8:48

Wedge for Movies. What Shrek 2

8:51

character coughed

8:53

up the most hairballs?

8:56

Uh... Chris.

8:59

It would have to be Puss in Boots. Yes,

9:01

correct. You're correct. It better be

9:03

Puss in Boots. Because he's a cat. Yeah.

9:06

Okay.

9:06

Last question.

9:08

Sports and Games. What Maxis

9:11

computer game lets you

9:13

build your own wild animal

9:15

park?

9:15

Ha ha! Oh!

9:19

That's a good question.

9:20

Colin. I'm

9:23

not going to overthink it. Is it

9:25

just SimCity? Incorrect. Okay.

9:27

So there's SimCity. There's SimFarm,

9:29

but it's not SimFarm. It's not Sim... I

9:33

don't think

9:33

it's SimZoo. I don't think there's

9:35

anything called SimZoo. Wild

9:37

Animal Park. Sim...

9:40

it's like a preserve. Safari?

9:42

Was there a SimZoo? SimSafari!

9:45

Really? Okay, all right. Good

9:47

guess. All right. Good job, brains.

9:50

Brave.

9:50

So today's episode. Weird topic.

9:53

Our topic, our theme is hard.

9:56

H-A-R-D, hard. What was

9:58

the inspiration? Well, listeners, you

10:01

will never know, but this season

10:03

I've done some, we've recorded some

10:06

quizzes that I have concocted

10:08

and it turns out they were too hard.

10:11

Hard

10:12

to a point where it's like listening to it is

10:15

like not really fun.

10:16

Punishing. This happens,

10:18

that's okay. So I was

10:20

like, oh, that'd be an interesting thing. Just things that are difficult

10:23

or things that are physically hard. So

10:25

this week, we're going on hard

10:27

mode.

10:39

All right, well, yeah. I mean, you know, Karen,

10:41

you said it. I mean, sometimes those quizzes

10:43

are too difficult. I

10:46

sometimes feel like maybe my quizzes

10:49

are too easy. And if this is the

10:51

hard mode episode, I decided to create

10:53

a very, very hard quiz.

10:59

This quiz is hard. It

11:01

is difficult. I really want to level things

11:03

up here on Good Job Brand. I'm

11:06

going to have some questions that are just absolutely

11:09

nails hard, difficult questions. And

11:12

if you guys can get these, I'll be very

11:15

impressed. Now there is a theme.

11:17

So maybe the theme will be able

11:20

to help you here, but you know, good

11:22

luck figuring it out. So here we go.

11:24

It's the hard quiz. It's a right down quiz.

11:26

All right, okay. Get your piece

11:28

of paper, 12 questions

11:31

in the quiz. Get ready for

11:33

some absolute

11:35

total stumper questions. You're

11:38

laughing, you're laughing, but I'm going

11:40

to destroy you with that. I'm nervous

11:42

now. I'm legitimately nervous. Yes,

11:45

and when you hear these questions

11:47

and you're like, I have no

11:49

idea, you know, don't worry. It's

11:52

a really hard quiz. Like don't rack your

11:54

brain about it. Just move on.

11:56

Maybe it'll come to you.

11:59

All right.

11:59

That's all. You know, maybe maybe it'll

12:02

come to you later, but probably not

12:04

because it's too difficult. Seems quiz

12:07

you're writing them down. Here we go. Question

12:09

number one. What was the

12:11

title of the allegorical play

12:14

written by Bulgarian playwright

12:16

Jordan Radikov in 1974?

12:22

What was the title of the allegorical

12:24

play written by Bulgarian playwright

12:26

Jordan Radikov in 1974? Jordan

12:31

Radikov. Oh my goodness.

12:33

Jordan, sort of like Jordan with a Y. Radikov,

12:36

like Radish, but with a D, K-O-V

12:38

at the end.

12:39

1974. So don't

12:41

put any of his allegorical plays that prior

12:44

to that. 1974. Winnowing

12:47

them down is the challenge.

12:53

Okay, well you're writing these down. So here's the thing.

12:55

I don't want to see it. You

12:58

just write it down basically because it is a theme

13:00

round. So write it down and

13:02

just keep it safe. And

13:04

then we'll see at the end who's doing what. So question number

13:07

two, assuming you already wrote down your

13:09

answers. Question number two.

13:11

What was the title on the seventh track

13:14

of indie rock band, the Apple Seed

13:16

cast's 2006 album,

13:19

Paragreen? So

13:21

just in case you didn't get that. Question number two.

13:24

This is trivia. This might come up one day. What

13:26

was the title of the seventh track

13:28

of indie rock band, the Apple Seed cast 2006

13:30

album, Paragreen? Okay,

13:33

write down your answers. Question number

13:35

three. Question three. What

13:37

was the town in England where gold

13:40

prospector William Billy

13:42

Barker was born? Is

13:46

the town in England where gold prospector

13:48

William Billy Barker

13:50

was born? Question number

13:52

four. What was the Finnish

13:55

metal band best known for

13:57

its 2008 studio? album,

14:00

Anthems for the Rejected. Finnish

14:05

metal band best known for its 2008 studio

14:08

album, Anthems for the Rejected. That's question four.

14:10

Question number five. What

14:13

island off the coast of Scotland boasts St.

14:15

Adrian's Chapel as well as sightings

14:18

of over 285 bird species?

14:22

Oh, name of island?

14:23

The name of the island. Island off the coast of

14:25

Scotland has St. Adrian's

14:28

Chapel as well as sightings of over 285 different

14:30

bird species. That's amazing, isn't it? That's

14:34

question five. Question six. I hope you're,

14:36

maybe you've got one or two of these, you know. I mean, half

14:38

of them, half of them for sure. Half of them for sure.

14:40

Question number six. Question six.

14:43

What mountain played host

14:45

to the ski and snowboard events of

14:47

the 2006 California winter games? Oh

14:51

my God. Just think back to watching the 2006 California

14:54

winter games on TV. It's the mountain.

14:56

It's the mountain that played host to the ski and

14:58

snowboard events. Okay, all right. Question

15:01

number seven. What is the gamer name,

15:03

the gamer handle of professional

15:05

Starcraft player Park Sung June?

15:10

That's question seven. What's the gamer name of professional

15:12

Starcraft player Park Sung June? All

15:15

right. I'm sure the theme is starting to emerge here as

15:18

you're writing down your answers. Question number

15:20

eight. Question number eight.

15:22

What 1986 Eric Clapton

15:25

album featured It's In The Way That

15:27

You Use It? What 1986 Eric

15:30

Clapton album featured It's In

15:32

The Way That You Use It? Yes.

15:35

Question eight. Eighty six Eric Clapton album featuring

15:37

It's In The Way That You Use It? Write down that answer.

15:40

Question number nine. What 1978 Earth,

15:43

Wind and Fire song was later added to

15:46

the Library of Congress's National Recording

15:48

Registry? Got it. Question

15:50

number nine. What 1978 Earth,

15:53

Wind and Fire song was later added to the Library

15:55

of Congress's National Recording Registry? Question

15:59

number ten.

16:01

What in 1917 revolution

16:03

put Lenin and the Bolsheviks into power

16:05

in Russia? Question

16:07

number 10 what in 1917

16:10

revolution put Lenin and the Bolsheviks

16:12

into power in Russia?

16:15

Question number 11, what is

16:17

the letter N in the NATO phonetic

16:19

alphabet? Question 11,

16:23

what is the letter N in the NATO

16:25

phonetic alphabet?

16:27

Yeah

16:28

Question number 12,

16:31

I know you're never gonna get all the questions in

16:33

my extremely hard quiz Question

16:36

number 12. This was the second of several

16:39

hit singles from the 1995

16:42

album by alternative rock group collective

16:44

soul

16:45

The

16:51

second of several hit singles from the 1995 album

16:53

by alternative ramp group collective

16:55

soul is question number 12 So

16:58

as I said, this is a really hard

17:01

quiz a lot of really hard questions Extremely

17:04

difficult trivia. There is a theme

17:06

so in about Five

17:09

more seconds. I'm gonna ask you to put your

17:12

answers up and We

17:15

will see how many points each of you

17:17

has gotten five

17:20

Four three

17:23

two one. All right answer

17:25

sheets up Let's see

17:30

Karen says question

17:32

one January February March April August

17:37

September November December Collins is the same

17:39

thing. Yes, absolutely January

17:44

Jordan Radik often 74 February

17:47

7th track at any rock band the Apple seed

17:49

cast March

17:54

No, absolutely not Free

17:59

town in English and we're Gold Prospector William

18:01

Billy Barker is born. That is the march. April

18:04

is the Finnish metal band Best Known for its 2008

18:06

studio album, Anthems for the Rejected.

18:11

Island of May off the coast of Scotland,

18:13

really famous. Over two, they've

18:15

seen over 285 puffins and

18:18

all kinds of stuff. They go

18:20

there to watch seabirds like all the time. They've

18:22

got video cameras set up on it because

18:25

so many different seabirds show up there.

18:28

June Mountain in California. June

18:30

Mountain, popular place

18:33

for skiing and snowboarding. Number seven, weirdly

18:35

enough, ironically enough, the name of the person

18:37

named June. Parksong

18:39

June, his game name is.

18:42

July. 86, Eric

18:45

Clapton album. August, August by

18:47

Eric Clapton 86. It's in the way that you

18:49

use it. Question number nine, may have been a bit

18:52

too easy looking back. Early in

18:54

the life of the dog. It was later to the library

18:57

of Congress's national recording registry

19:00

was September.

19:01

The October Revolution put Lennon and the Bolsheviks

19:03

into power in Russia. Letter N and the NATO

19:05

Finite Alphabet is November. And

19:07

the second of several hit singles from

19:10

the 95 album, By Collective Soul was

19:12

December. So you guys

19:15

somehow. Incredible. What a soul

19:17

quiz. My extremely hard quiz. The

19:20

light went on when I saw Karen's

19:22

light go on. Karen's light went on. And

19:25

for in September, when you had Earth Wind and Fire Karen's

19:28

light, oh, got it. And then I'm like, how

19:30

could she get it from, wait a minute. 12 questions.

19:36

And then it was good. And it was like, you had just

19:38

good level design there, Chris. Because

19:40

it was like, you had the inkling.

19:42

And then the very next question lets us confirm

19:44

that we have it correct. Like, OK, October

19:46

Revolution. That was great. That

19:49

was good.

19:51

I mean, not that this is a

19:52

work postmortem on

19:55

a project.

19:57

I would probably keep all of the

19:59

questions.

19:59

Super hard and obscure

20:02

and left September in very nice.

20:04

It was more of like I wonder what would

20:06

happen if I did this Yes

20:09

Not not me. I'm not saying

20:11

this is me but like honestly how many these

20:13

would be actually guessable questions

20:16

All right. I mean like September

20:18

yeah, you know October Revolution November

20:21

December, so I feel like those last four definitely

20:23

Eric Clapton. That's totally gettable You

20:27

could know the gamer. He

20:27

also didn't word the questions

20:30

in a regular trivia

20:32

No, usually would word right

20:34

there. We

20:35

put in clues or insinuate.

20:37

Oh, of course.

20:37

Oh, you are porous is like,

20:40

what

20:40

is this? 1974 obscure

20:43

play.

20:44

Yeah, I think like an eight would

20:46

be a very impressive just pure

20:48

trivia score Like if you had enough time to

20:50

yeah in a way because so many of these things are

20:53

like the absolute like well That's

20:55

the thing, you know, it does really go to show you that

20:57

there really is an art to writing a

20:59

trip. Oh, yeah, absolutely Really just asking

21:02

the question about something it's you

21:04

know, it should be it should be gettable There should

21:06

be clues in it that would lead

21:08

the average person to sort of be able to try

21:11

to figure it out

21:12

If they heard

21:13

it, you should never feel like we're just floundering

21:15

around. Yeah. No, that was great.

21:17

Thank you for yes Thank you for coming along on the on the

21:20

troll is it's hard to

21:22

in some ways articulate What makes a bad

21:24

question until you hear a bad question

21:27

and as you noted, you know at one point on early

21:29

show Chris like We could easily

21:32

Stump each other 10 out of 10 like

21:34

like each of us has such obscure knowledge

21:37

that we could if we wanted to just come in And just

21:39

stump each other, but that's not

21:41

fun for anybody involved You

21:44

know, yeah. Yeah. All right. Good

21:46

job. Thank you, Chris From

21:52

rage

21:54

All right, I'm gonna ask

21:56

pop another pop quiz

21:58

pop quiz hotshot for you guys

21:59

the dome

22:01

on the subject of world history.

22:04

What color do you associate

22:06

the British military with?

22:08

Red.

22:09

Red, yes, why Colin?

22:12

Red coats. Red

22:14

coats. Yeah, going

22:17

way back to our nation's fierce

22:20

revolution. For a really long time, the

22:22

British military

22:23

used to wear red as part

22:26

of their military uniform. It was obviously

22:28

it was phased out by the 20th century.

22:30

Like they changed into khakis, which was way

22:33

more,

22:34

makes way more sense.

22:36

And now, you know, British military is

22:38

in camo. It's kind of similar to all

22:40

of the militaries all over the world because it's

22:42

effective. The British infantrymen

22:44

and most military

22:45

wore these iconic red

22:48

coats between 16th

22:50

and 19th century. So it had a good run.

22:53

For today's topic on hard, initially

22:55

I wanted to do something about shells.

22:58

I talk about lobsters a lot. I was thinking about like

23:01

seashells, you know, having a hard exterior,

23:04

maybe animals that have shells

23:06

like tortoises or like exoskeleton,

23:09

like insects in creatures with their

23:12

skeletons on the outside exoskeleton.

23:14

So

23:15

I'm going to talk about the

23:17

cochineal. Cochineal. You've probably heard of

23:19

this before. It's a beetle. Yeah. And it's a pretty

23:30

popular kind of fun

23:32

fact that shows up on the internet or

23:34

shows up on TV, especially when we talk

23:36

about weird food ingredients. Right.

23:39

Right. Before the time of synthetic dyes,

23:42

people relied on natural sources

23:45

for coloring, for dyes, for

23:47

pigments. And so cochineal is a beetle that they

23:50

grind up the female beetles and then

23:52

they mix it with other chemicals

23:53

to produce dye, also

23:55

known as parmine. Right.

23:57

So red dye, this is what we currently

23:59

call natural red four.

24:02

Natural red four is made

24:05

up of processed ground

24:07

up cochineal beetles,

24:09

their shells, their

24:10

bodies mixed up with other chemicals.

24:12

I know

24:15

it makes sense but yeah when I see natural

24:17

I think you know oh it's from plants or

24:19

something like that I don't I don't think it's from beetles.

24:21

Oh yeah it's like oh yeah it is berries.

24:23

That is natural yeah.

24:25

Natural red four is used to it

24:27

used in a lot of different ways cosmetics but mostly

24:30

it's used to color meat to

24:32

add a bit of a

24:33

little bit of a pop

24:36

to product especially like salami

24:38

or cured meats to have that like

24:41

vibrant maroon

24:41

red and it's thermally

24:44

stable which is why people use

24:46

it because it doesn't really change that much it's

24:48

not volatile and when we

24:50

hear about about the carmine

24:52

beetle or the cochineal beetle it stops

24:55

there like oh did you know your food has

24:57

ground up beetle how gross and

24:59

like the trivia stops there but I've

25:01

discovered a story so fascinating I just had to

25:03

share

25:04

so the

25:05

female cochineal beetle they're

25:07

not like Roman around everywhere

25:09

in anywhere right like yeah

25:11

yeah like they specifically only

25:16

feed on prickly

25:19

pear cactus

25:21

prickly pear cactus they're kind of like the

25:23

flat upside down teardrop shaped cactus

25:25

growing on top

25:26

of each other they only feed

25:29

on prickly pear cactus which means

25:31

cochineal beetles only live

25:34

where prickly cactus cacti

25:36

live and this is South America

25:40

Central America in the southwest region

25:43

of the United States in

25:45

the late 1700s Spain

25:47

and Portugal had a monopoly

25:50

on cochineal red dye

25:53

because they had colonized most

25:55

of South America yay

25:58

not yay

26:01

And so of course, Spain, Portugal,

26:03

controlling the regions that have this cactus,

26:06

thus controlling the Cacenil beetle.

26:10

And of course, the Brits, the British rule

26:12

was like, hey, we want to control

26:14

our own red dye source too.

26:17

Our military coats are red. We need this

26:19

red dye. We need our

26:21

own source of red dye. And

26:23

so the Brits tried to start their

26:26

own Carmine red dye industry.

26:28

And so they looked around, they're like, all right, what

26:31

we got? Okay, what countries do we have? Australia.

26:34

Oh, great. Australia, kind of like a desert,

26:37

has desert like conditions.

26:38

Yeah, it's hot. It's

26:40

hot. It's dry. Let's make that

26:42

our HQ for farming these beetles. Let's grow a bunch

26:44

of cactus there. What's the worst that could

26:47

happen? So Mr.

26:49

Captain Arthur Phillip traveled

26:51

to Brazil, collected some

26:53

beetles, collected some beetle

26:56

infested cactus and sailed on

26:58

over to Australia.

27:01

This plan epically failed

27:04

because first of all, the

27:06

bugs just all died. Second

27:11

of all, they were right.

27:13

The prickly pear cactus

27:15

loved the conditions.

27:18

They

27:19

thrived in the conditions.

27:22

The cactus loved their new Australian

27:24

digs so much that it

27:26

started to take over. Oh, no. Fields

27:29

of this cactus. You

27:32

can't even, you can't get anywhere. It

27:35

took over a hundred thousand

27:37

square miles, almost the size

27:39

of New Zealand in Australia. It's

27:42

from the Queensland government. And I quote,

27:45

acknowledged as one of the greatest

27:47

biological invasions of modern

27:50

times. Oh my goodness. The reduction in

27:52

subsequent spread of prickly pear

27:54

into Queensland and New South Wales had

27:57

infested millions of hectares of rural

27:59

land. rendering it useless,

28:02

completely useless, so useless

28:04

that people just abandoned their

28:07

land. I can't imagine doing

28:09

it now.

28:09

The prickly pears have it now. It's too

28:11

late. Yeah.

28:12

Well, what do you do? So

28:15

clearly the solution is, let's

28:18

introduce another

28:20

bug that eats the

28:23

cactus.

28:23

Yes.

28:26

And I know it's so funny because I feel

28:28

like Australia, so many times

28:30

throughout the 10 years of the show, Australia

28:32

always has these,

28:33

the frog eats the fly, the cat

28:36

eats the frog, and the dog eats the cat. Yeah,

28:38

what is it with Australia?

28:40

Yeah. They introduce this

28:42

moth called, this is the scientific

28:45

name,

28:46

Cactoblastus.

28:49

To blast some cactus, Cactoblastus

28:53

moth introduced in 1926. So

28:56

this moth, it's not native

28:58

to Australia. They had to get this

29:01

moth from Argentina. They introduced

29:03

at first 3,000 moth eggs. In

29:06

the next generation, there

29:08

was two and a half million

29:10

eggs.

29:11

And they were distributed, and

29:13

they ate the cactus into

29:16

pulpy mess. Wow.

29:17

And brought it under

29:19

control. However, life finds a way.

29:21

However, they needed Jeff

29:23

Goldblum to tell them not

29:26

do any of this. Yeah.

29:28

Now they're finding new cactus varieties

29:31

that aren't very attractive to

29:33

the moths anymore. And so,

29:35

yeah, so this is just like, this really

29:37

is the nature's game of

29:38

the old lady who swallowed a fly. Yes. Yes. Yes.

29:42

And you end up with super moth resistant

29:44

cactus, all just because the British wanted

29:47

more red coats.

29:48

How crazy is that? Thanks,

29:51

England.

29:53

Thanks for throwing

29:55

a wrench into the ecosystem

29:57

of Australia. Wow.

30:00

Just kidding, I love you, England. We're gonna take a

30:02

quick break and we'll be right back.

30:06

The holidays start here at Kroger with a

30:08

variety of options to celebrate traditions,

30:11

old and new. You could do a classic

30:13

herb roasted turkey or spice it up

30:15

and make turkey tacos. Serve up a go-to

30:18

shrimp cocktail or use simple truth

30:20

wild caught shrimp for your first Cajun

30:22

risotto. Make creamy mac and cheese

30:25

or a spinach artichoke fondue from our

30:27

selection of Murray's cheese. No matter how

30:29

you shop, Kroger has all the freshest

30:31

ingredients to embrace all your holiday traditions.

30:34

Kroger, fresh for everyone.

30:37

Maruchan superfans

30:38

are everywhere. From the busy moms

30:40

who wanna deliver maximum flavor in a flash

30:43

to dorm room diners who wanna put some slurp

30:45

in their stuff. There are a ton of copycats

30:47

you could use, but if you wanna blast

30:50

your bowl, there's only one true Maruchan.

30:53

Whether you choose instant lunch, ramen bowls,

30:55

yakisoba or restaurant quality gold.

30:58

Maruchan is the only ramen worth of fussing

31:00

over.

31:00

Smile for all Maruchan. Send

31:03

out a ramen hyphen

31:04

about at maruchan.com.

31:12

You're listening to Good

31:14

Job Brain. Smooth

31:17

puzzle, smart trivia.

31:21

Good job brain. And

31:27

we're back.

31:28

Today,

31:30

we're

31:31

talking about things that are hard,

31:33

physically or mentally or maybe

31:36

emotionally.

31:37

This has been a tough show. Those

31:39

are not mutually exclusive. I'm

31:41

feeling a little tender right now, yeah. I

31:44

think talking about what makes a good trivia

31:47

question is a good segue into

31:49

what I wanna chat about. In

31:52

prepping for the show, I was really fixated

31:55

on the idea of hard puzzles.

31:59

Right. And you know, not

32:02

to get too philosophical, but we're gonna

32:04

get a little philosophical. What does it mean

32:06

when we say a game or

32:08

a puzzle? Like what do we mean? We say it's hard.

32:11

It's one of those words. It seems so intuitive.

32:13

Oh, that was really hard. Well, what do you mean?

32:16

What do you mean it was hard? It's like, Oh,

32:18

Colin, I know you don't use

32:19

Facebook, but me and Chris are on Facebook.

32:22

And they're in the in the lobe charters

32:24

discussion. There was a

32:26

very interesting connections puzzle

32:29

the other day. And people in the group

32:31

are talking about it. And it's so divisive.

32:34

I'm in the camp where I was like, that was

32:36

so hard. I got it. But

32:38

I was sweating.

32:39

Yeah. There are some people like,

32:41

oh, I got it right

32:42

away. And I think that that sweat,

32:44

the sweating. I don't know how to how

32:47

to describe that. But I need that sweating

32:49

aspect

32:50

to make a puzzle feel hard.

32:52

Oh, like I got that little skin flush. Okay,

32:54

it's interesting. But I mean, I think

32:56

it's also interesting that you contrasted it with

32:59

people say, Oh, I got it right away. Like I feel

33:01

like however we want to add

33:03

the middle steps, it comes down to time.

33:06

When we say a puzzle is hard, on

33:09

some level, to be a little

33:11

reductive, we mean it took a long time,

33:13

you know, like it's, it's,

33:16

it's almost as simple as that. And that

33:18

can take a lot of forms, meaning I had

33:20

to think about it for a long time, or

33:23

it was very physically precise

33:25

and a jigsaw puzzle. I've seen these

33:27

you guys probably have, you know, the

33:30

hundreds of pieces and they're all one color, it's

33:32

kind of tedious, but it's solvable.

33:35

It's just you got to kind of work your way through it. That's

33:37

hard. Even if it's not taxing

33:39

your brain. Yeah, so I was

33:41

kind of going with the angle of puzzle

33:44

in some sense is harder the longer

33:47

it takes to solve. Then I

33:49

remembered back to a story

33:51

that I first came across

33:54

about a year ago, maybe a little bit more. I want

33:57

to tell you about a puzzle that was

34:00

commissioned, really, by a man

34:02

named A.J. Jacobs. And

34:05

you might recognize his name, it might sound

34:07

familiar. He's the writer for Esquire, right? He

34:10

also has written a lot for Mental Floss,

34:12

among other places. So, before we get

34:14

to exactly what his puzzle is, have you

34:16

heard the term of a generation

34:19

puzzle? Have you heard this term before in

34:22

the puzzling world? Do you remember when we were

34:24

at Sporclicon some weeks ago? The

34:26

three of us, we got into a conversation with

34:28

someone else about Rubik's tubes

34:31

and speed cubing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You

34:33

know, like, I'm not even going to say what the world record

34:35

is. I think the last time I mentioned it on the show was broken

34:37

the very next day. Even if you're a speedcuber,

34:40

you know your path forward. It's, it's, it's,

34:43

you're just working, it's algorithmic. You're just

34:45

working your way through it. So, all right.

34:47

So, a Rubik's tube is three by three, right? So,

34:49

imagine if you had a nine by nine cube,

34:52

okay? There's still an algorithm to solve

34:54

it, but it's just more steps,

34:56

okay? So, you're still following

34:58

a process, but the nine by nine cube

35:00

is by some definitions. It's harder

35:03

because it takes you longer, all right? So,

35:05

you can kind of see where I'm going here. So, imagine,

35:08

let's stick with Rubik's tubes for a minute here. Imagine

35:10

a 100 by 100 side cube, right? Or

35:14

a thousand by a thousand, you know, let's, let's leave

35:16

aside the physical manufacturer's concerns,

35:18

right? It's going to take you longer

35:21

and longer and longer and longer to solve this. And eventually,

35:24

even if you're following the checklist,

35:26

you're going to reach a Rubik's tube that is longer

35:29

than a human lifespan. So,

35:33

we're starting to get sort of a rough

35:36

analogy of the idea of a generation

35:38

puzzle. So, there is a class of

35:40

puzzle makers and puzzle

35:43

solvers who, in

35:45

recent years, it's gotten more popular, but

35:47

it's an old concept of a puzzle

35:49

that might take a very, very, very

35:52

long time to solve, such that you might

35:54

pass it down to your children. You might start

35:57

working on this generation puzzle and,

35:59

you know, know what, my time's up.

36:01

It's I got part of the way through it. Here we go.

36:04

Yeah, but you just don't have closure. You

36:07

and lies not for everybody, Karen.

36:09

I know that you were the kind of person I know

36:12

that you're the kind of person who wants to see it through to

36:14

the end. There are some very,

36:16

very fun, artisan level,

36:19

well made puzzles for sale that

36:21

fall into this category. Kubia games,

36:24

for one example, they sell a puzzle called

36:26

the this is the name of the puzzle.

36:29

It's a puzzle lock comes in the shape of like

36:31

a padlock. All right, and your your task is

36:33

to open it. It is called the 341 million 718,750 move

36:43

generation puzzle lock

36:46

sells for over $400. It is not a cheap toy.

36:49

It is a work of art as well as a generation

36:51

puzzle. This is their own description. If

36:53

you're buying this, be warned, there

36:56

are a minimum of 341 million

36:58

etc moves required to open

37:02

this lock. And it involves sliding,

37:05

you know, little knobs basically, and

37:07

the just the correct sequence. As

37:10

the name implies, it might take a generation

37:12

or two to open the lock, assuming

37:14

you work around the clock, 24 hours

37:17

a day, 365

37:19

days a year,

37:21

and average two seconds

37:23

per move,

37:24

the puzzle will still take you more

37:27

than 21 years to solve. No,

37:30

get out of here. Yeah,

37:32

yeah, I can't, I cannot. Some people

37:34

would say

37:34

like, Oh, this is beautiful. It's not

37:36

like, I mean, I will fess up that

37:38

like as a kid, I certainly took the stickers

37:40

off a Rubik's cube and kind of solved it the cheap

37:43

way when I would get frustrated. You know, there's no

37:45

there's no equivalent here on the 341

37:48

million and change move generation

37:50

puzzle lock, you got to just work the

37:52

process, you got to just do it. And

37:55

you do it until you're tired, and then someone else

37:57

in your family maybe takes over the next shift

37:59

and it's

37:59

It's almost

38:01

more a kind of

38:04

meditation

38:05

exercise on what does it mean

38:08

to solve a puzzle. What does it mean to work

38:10

through a puzzle knowing that you'll

38:12

never see the end of it? Would you classify

38:14

this as hard though?

38:16

That's a really good question. That's

38:18

a really good question. It sounds like it's

38:20

a lot of busy work. On some

38:23

level, isn't that where

38:25

anything

38:25

crosses over from being

38:27

easy to, you know, like Chris, for example,

38:30

you know, in the world

38:32

of level builders, games

38:35

that have custom level builders, as you well

38:37

know, there is a whole community,

38:39

many communities of people, their goal

38:42

is to make just the most grief-inducing,

38:45

punishing level possible.

38:48

And what is solving one of those

38:50

other than just memorizing the correct sequence,

38:52

right? It's just trial and error

38:55

until you get the correct sequence down and then you punch

38:57

it. And then you're often very mad when you finish

38:59

and you're like, thank God, I did it. I never have to do

39:01

it again. That's hard. That's a

39:04

kind of hard, right? So, yeah,

39:06

I mean, I will leave it up to you to decide

39:09

if you think that a puzzle that takes 40 years

39:11

to solve is hard just by virtue of taking 40

39:13

years, even if there's a way through to

39:15

the end, as opposed to you having

39:18

to figure something out as

39:20

opposed to just go through the steps. So

39:23

back to A.J. A.J.

39:26

Jacobs decided that

39:29

as sort of an extension of his love of puzzling,

39:33

writing about puzzles extensively, sharing

39:35

them with the world, he was going to commission

39:37

a puzzle for himself and his family that

39:40

was the hardest

39:43

or the longest to

39:45

solve puzzle ever created. There

39:47

was some coverage of this in 2022. There's

39:51

an article on The Atlantic that called it the puzzle

39:54

that will outlast the world. And

39:56

that is not being hyperbolic.

40:00

So, AJ Jacobs partnered

40:02

with a well-known puzzle designer

40:05

named Oscar van Deventer.

40:08

Basically Jacobs gave him the challenge of, I

40:10

want you to create something

40:12

that is on another

40:15

level compared to these generation puzzles.

40:17

21 years, come on, 50 years, I

40:20

want something that is astronomical.

40:23

What Oscar van Deventer came up

40:25

with is called Jacob's Ladder. All

40:28

right, it's a pun on Jacob's, AJ Jacobs.

40:30

Yeah, it's clever, it's good. And

40:33

the puzzle itself is a, it's made of

40:35

wood and it's kind of a square-ish

40:38

tower. It's tall

40:39

and it sort of has lattice-like

40:42

structure around the edges. The

40:44

goal of Jacob's Ladder is essentially

40:48

to turn wooden pegs,

40:50

there are many wooden pegs along the sides, in

40:52

the right sequence to release

40:55

the center structure. Okay. The

40:58

thing to take away here is that it is

41:00

a very elaborate, mathematically-based

41:04

puzzle that you turn

41:06

a knob, you try and open

41:08

up the corkscrew-shaped rod inside,

41:11

you solved it. The only problem is how many

41:13

turns it takes to get there. According to

41:16

Jacobs and his puzzle designer,

41:18

there are 1.3 decillion

41:19

turns required

41:22

to

41:22

solve

41:26

this puzzle. Okay. That is the

41:29

number one,

41:30

followed by 33 numbers. Okay.

41:33

If you, if you twisted

41:36

one peg per second, nonstop,

41:39

it would take you about 40

41:41

septillion

41:43

years to solve the puzzle. By

41:45

the time, this

41:47

is longer than the sun is

41:50

expected to last. Like our, the

41:52

sun will have burned

41:54

out our planet. We will not be here.

41:56

Our planet will not be here. It is heat

41:59

death of the universe.

41:59

type time stills that we're

42:02

talking about. Not only that, I

42:04

read, if you rubbed off a

42:06

single atom due

42:08

to friction with every turn,

42:11

the puzzle would have eroded

42:13

before you could even get to the end

42:15

because it does not even have 1.3 decillion

42:21

atoms in the puzzle. So it

42:23

is, unless you break it, it

42:25

is literally

42:28

unsolvable. It is not

42:30

conceivable that as

42:33

a human race, even, we will

42:35

ever see the end of Jacob's ladder.

42:38

So it's basically the tootsie roll

42:39

pop of puzzles. How

42:42

many turns until you just crack the thing open? It's

42:44

more like an installation piece. Yeah!

42:47

You know, Jacob's has basically said

42:49

this is, it's something that he does with his family.

42:52

You know, he knows that no one in

42:54

his family is gonna see it end. It's meditative.

42:56

You know that

42:57

when you're done, you're closer to the end

42:59

than the beginning. Okay,

43:00

Colin, I have a question. Yeah, yeah.

43:02

In your research, have we heard reports

43:05

where people have completed a generation

43:08

puzzle?

43:09

Oh, yeah, interesting,

43:11

interesting. Well, none of the sort of modern

43:14

ones that that I saw. You

43:16

know, they say that this

43:19

is really simplifying a little bit, but you

43:21

guys are maybe familiar with, like, at this point,

43:24

the Seven Rings puzzle or the Chinese

43:27

Rings puzzle. There are

43:29

a lot of variations on this puzzle that it

43:31

sometimes is not even rings anymore,

43:33

but it's basically sort of a binary,

43:36

you know, type puzzle, right? It's you and if you manipulate

43:38

something in just the right order, you can pull

43:41

the rod out of the rings or you can slide

43:43

the thing out of the thing. And

43:45

it's usually a set of seven, you know, turns

43:47

or something like that. Those games are

43:50

sort of I mean, they seem simpler now, but

43:52

those are in the family of what were once

43:54

considered generation games. Yeah, that like,

43:56

if you didn't know the pattern, it might take

43:59

you a year. or longer to

44:01

solve the Chinese Rings puzzle once upon

44:03

a time, you know? It is hard if hard means

44:05

takes a long time.

44:07

At Arizona State University, we're committed

44:09

to our students' success. That's why we've designed

44:12

our online courses to utilize adaptive technology

44:14

for enhanced learning. Explore more than 300 programs

44:17

online from the nation's most innovative university.

44:20

Visit asuonline.asu.edu.

44:23

All right, I have one last segment.

44:26

It's a bit of a story, some

44:28

trivia, we got some questions in here,

44:30

so bear with me. This is

44:32

one of my unfinished story rants

44:35

of my life. So in my long

44:37

list of extracurricular activities, I

44:40

also used to admin a

44:43

single dating group for

44:45

people who

44:46

run Disney Marathons. I did

44:49

not know that. How do I not

44:51

know that? Wow.

44:52

They used to call me Mama Bear.

44:55

It was like a social matchmaking

44:57

group for Disney fans and runners,

45:00

marathoners. And because of that

45:02

group, I got

45:04

invited to several weddings

45:06

due to successful

45:08

pairings. Yes,

45:11

yes. So a lot of people did

45:13

find love. And so in 2018,

45:17

I flew to Orlando to my friend's Mike

45:19

and Candice's wedding. And on the day

45:21

before the big event, it was really cute. They organized a little

45:24

5K around the hotel ground

45:26

because we all met running. And

45:28

afterwards, they had a casual party for all

45:30

the wedding guests. It

45:32

was at this party, which was

45:34

just at someone's hotel room, where

45:37

Mike, the groom, handed

45:40

me a can of something I have never

45:43

seen or even heard of before at this

45:45

point. So

45:47

this was 2018. This was

45:50

my first time ever seeing, then

45:52

tasting, a

45:53

white claw. Where

45:57

were you when you had

45:59

your...

45:59

first white claw. You know what

46:02

I can tell you exactly where I was. It was

46:05

like a company picnic or something like that. Someone

46:08

opened up a case and they were all just oh

46:10

yeah I got the white and I was like oh

46:12

what is this I never had one before. It was 2019

46:15

I can tell you exactly what I was. Wow!

46:18

It was summer. Karen I think I was at

46:21

your house. I feel like I

46:23

had a party and like there

46:26

were white claws.

46:27

Oh for those who are minors

46:29

or those who live outside of the United States

46:31

a white claw is what you call a hard

46:34

seltzer. It is club

46:36

soda or flavored just carbonated

46:38

water with

46:39

alcohol.

46:40

Oh is that why we're talking about this?

46:43

It's hard seltzer yes

46:45

and very briefly

46:46

historically a drink is hard

46:49

if it has alcohol and soft

46:51

if it doesn't which is why we have soft

46:54

drinks. Hard not

46:56

all the time but hard can also

46:58

denote that the alcohol

47:00

is from distilled alcohol

47:02

versus fermented alcohol.

47:05

Hard liquor. The beer or wine. Hard liquor

47:07

right back to this wedding trip I remember

47:09

this moment so clearly because a it

47:12

tasted very refreshing because

47:14

it was just bubble water with with alcohol

47:17

and two what a genius

47:20

idea. Yeah it blew

47:23

me away. It's not sweet there's

47:25

no added sugar the alcohol

47:27

is like malt and

47:30

so it was just at this time I was

47:32

like this is right when

47:34

the big LaCroix boom. Colin

47:36

you had a whole segment in our underdog

47:38

episode about the fascinating kind

47:40

of mind-blowing history of LaCroix and

47:43

hey people love drinking flavored bubble water

47:46

let's make it alcoholic. It just

47:48

seemed like a really simple concept and I can't believe

47:50

it took so long to get

47:52

us here

47:53

or did it.

47:55

So

47:55

a lot of historical things had to happen

47:58

to set white claw. and

48:00

hard shelters up for success like something

48:03

had to walk in order

48:05

for white claw

48:05

to run

48:09

that something is the butt

48:11

of 90s jokes

48:13

oh I was hoping I was hoping

48:15

we were gonna have an appearance known

48:18

as of course Zima

48:20

Z-I-M-A

48:21

for all you

48:24

babies out there who don't know Zima

48:26

so trivia question time

48:29

what company made Zima Oh

48:31

was it Miller it was

48:33

course the course made Zima

48:34

follow-up

48:45

question where

48:46

does the name Zima come from yeah

48:48

I was gonna say

48:51

just like a very

48:54

very 90s or like it's or the beginning

48:56

of word like Z Z mantic

48:59

acid or so I don't know something like that yeah

49:02

they like their X's and Z's

49:04

and

49:04

like weird you know you know high-value

49:07

letters in the 90s Zima means winter

49:09

in

49:10

a

49:14

lot of like Slavic languages it

49:18

also sounds like SEMA S-I-M-A

49:21

which is a mead mead alcoholic

49:23

beverage that traditionally the Finnish people

49:26

drink

49:26

Zima

49:27

S-I-M-A I can tell you exactly where I was

49:30

when I had my first Zima too I

49:34

was a child it's one of those things I

49:36

wanted to like it I was in my college dorm

49:39

room we had heard just kind

49:41

of like through the scene we

49:43

had heard that there was this product being test

49:46

marketed in Sacramento

49:48

all right now this is like at college in Berkeley

49:51

and so I swear I swear this is what

49:54

happened not me but my roommate

49:57

and and his buddies they had heard

49:59

about this

49:59

They drove. No! They

50:02

did. They did, I swear. Like after

50:04

class on a Friday, they got one of them,

50:06

they drove from Berkeley to Sacramento.

50:09

But so somehow they got their hands

50:11

in Sacramento on a case of

50:14

Zima and brought it back

50:16

to Berkeley. Wow, what heroes. And

50:19

they were like, it was like this

50:21

big unveiling. It was just this whole like,

50:23

ever like we're all cramping it around,

50:26

like we had all heard. It's like

50:28

beer, but it doesn't taste like beer and it's

50:29

clear. And it's like, oh, okay.

50:32

I'm like, who's this for? Like

50:34

who, what? What is this? Anybody

50:37

in this room have a problem

50:40

with beer? In

50:42

the most 90s way possible,

50:45

man. Like everything

50:45

had to be clear. Everything had

50:47

to be a new take. It had just very, this

50:50

angular kind of designy

50:51

bottle had fluting on it. I

50:53

remember I can feel it in my hand. I can like,

50:55

I can feel it in my hand still. And

51:00

I probably finished it, but I don't think

51:02

I enjoyed it. It just had a taste. How would you

51:04

describe the taste

51:04

and the flavor and the drinking experience? I

51:07

would

51:07

describe it as, as it was kind

51:09

of cloyingly sweet in my

51:11

memory. It tasted alcoholic.

51:14

It did not taste like, you know, like

51:17

the advanced was like, oh, it doesn't, it just tastes like

51:19

you're drinking a soda. And I was like, no, it did not

51:21

just taste like I was drinking a soda. Yeah. I

51:23

feel like I remember having Zima, but

51:25

then it's like, am I just remembering

51:27

Crystal Pepsi? I'm not really

51:30

sure which one, but it does. It

51:33

does. When you say it, it just seemed like, like

51:35

overly sweet and sticky.

51:38

Like that's sort of, yeah, that sounds about right.

51:39

So, so yes, Zima is clear.

51:42

First of all, Zima is carbonated. Zima

51:45

is sugary, sweet. And

51:47

Zima is lemon lime.

51:49

You

51:51

are correct. This is what is

51:53

called the clear craze. Our

51:56

electronics were clear. We

51:58

had a clear Game Boy. with clear phones,

52:01

we had clear inflatable furniture

52:03

for some reason. Like it was just such

52:05

a Y2K 90s effect now,

52:07

but like for food to be clear, it meant

52:10

that we didn't add anything to it. That

52:13

was kind of the visual, you know, shorthand

52:15

to be like, oh, we didn't treat it like

52:18

tired of beer and it's yellow color

52:20

that we added. Try

52:22

this clear thing.

52:24

If there was anything bad in here, you'd be able

52:26

to see it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

52:29

You can see right through it. So trivia

52:31

question about this.

52:32

So obviously the biggest publicity and marketing

52:34

campaign for clear products is belongs

52:37

to crystal Pepsi.

52:38

A clear Pepsi. Wow.

52:40

Pepsi's arch nemesis Coca-Cola

52:43

also had a rival colorless

52:46

soda. What was it called?

52:50

A colorless cola.

52:52

Yeah. Colorless cola.

52:55

Right. Cause it wasn't, uh, It's

52:57

not like Sprite. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Coca-Cola

53:00

had a colorless cola in the what, in

53:02

the nineties. Do you think they had the

53:04

company did? Yes. Did they? Yeah.

53:06

I was gonna say, did they have the confidence to call it

53:08

Coke or was it like diamond Fanta

53:11

or something like that? Orbits? Was it orbits?

53:14

Oh, I've left orbits. Uh,

53:16

tab clear.

53:18

Oh, so

53:22

not under the Coca-Cola moniker

53:24

tab was Coca-Cola diet

53:26

soda. Right. Right.

53:28

It's a separate brand called tab. This is before

53:30

diet Coke tab had tab clear.

53:32

So it was, it was their diet cola,

53:34

but clear.

53:35

I think I vaguely remember

53:37

that. That's funny.

53:39

So back to Zima, Zima failed.

53:41

There are tons of reasons why Zima failed,

53:43

but to Zima's credit,

53:45

they

53:46

did put malt alcoholic

53:48

beverages on the map,

53:50

the public consumer

53:52

awareness

53:53

map. It helped create this category

53:56

of drinks, which is sometimes called malternative.

54:00

alternative alcoholic soda or

54:03

alco pop. alternative has

54:05

become its own beverage category

54:07

trivia question.

54:09

Around

54:10

the 2000s,

54:12

what was the name of

54:14

the viral prank that involved

54:17

kneeling and chugging a

54:19

particular malt beverage?

54:21

Icing. Icing, yes.

54:24

Oh man, I have not thought about that in several

54:26

years. Smearing off ice, right?

54:28

Is that what it was? Okay. Smearing off

54:31

ice, another alternative.

54:34

How do I even explain the rules

54:36

of this? If a bottle of

54:38

Smear Off Ice is in your line

54:40

of sight, you have to kneel

54:42

down

54:43

and then chug

54:45

the bottle of Smear Off Ice.

54:47

I don't know why we did this. I

54:49

think it was an

54:50

elaborate construct so that people

54:54

could drink these things and pretend

54:56

they were doing it ironically when they really just wanted

54:58

to drink Smear Off Ice. Yeah.

55:02

And one of the things that led to the decline of

55:04

these hard malt sugary

55:06

soda drinks was the problem

55:08

of underage drinking. And so

55:11

even California, California try to raise

55:13

the taxes on what they call

55:15

alco pops. Right. Right. It

55:17

could be that, but it also could be people

55:20

were just becoming more conscious about sugar

55:23

intake, carb intake at

55:25

that time. Keto was on the rise.

55:28

Gluten allergy was starting to

55:30

get more awareness and the popularity

55:33

of LaCroix. All of those things kind of help

55:35

make white claw happen.

55:39

And thanks to the massive success

55:41

of hard

55:41

seltzer, now we're seeing

55:44

all these other brands trying

55:46

to make

55:48

regular drinks

55:48

hard. There's

55:51

hard kombucha. Yes. There's hard

55:53

iced tea. Yes. There's hard Mountain

55:56

Dew. Horritos. The Mexican

55:58

soda. There's hard Horritos.

55:59

I didn't see that one. There

56:02

is Dunkin' spiked

56:04

iced coffee. I've seen these.

56:07

I've seen the spiked iced coffees. Yeah.

56:09

Yeah. And where does like, uh,

56:13

uh, was, was Mike's Hard Lemonade was another one

56:15

of these two, right? Yes. They were

56:17

pretty early in that scene, I feel like. No

56:19

surprise. Mike's Hard Lemonade,

56:21

their company also made white cloth.

56:23

Ah. Aha.

56:24

So they dip their toes already

56:26

in this, uh...

56:27

Very smart. In this category.

56:30

Yeah. And it's really about, it's

56:32

about the sugar, right? I mean, it's, it's, people

56:34

are, are drinking a lot fewer

56:37

sugar to drink. So they're like just looking for

56:39

something that's like, what can get me drunk with

56:41

it? Yeah. I still want to get drunk. Don't get me

56:43

wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

56:45

Yeah. Uh...

56:48

And

56:48

that's our show. We've completed

56:50

Hard Mode. Whoo!

56:53

Wasn't that hard. Wasn't that hard. Well, thank you

56:55

for joining me and thank you all listeners

56:58

for listening in. Hope you learned stuff about generation

57:00

puzzles, hard puzzles, about Beatles

57:03

shells, about Chris's troll

57:05

quiz. Whoo! Ha ha ha ha

57:07

ha ha ha ha. You can

57:09

find this on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,

57:11

Spotify, and on all podcast

57:13

apps. And on our website, goodjobbrain.com.

57:16

This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast

57:18

Network. Visit airwavemedia.com

57:21

to listen and subscribe to other shows like The

57:23

History of Everything. The movies

57:25

that made us. And Who

57:27

Arted? We'll see you

57:29

next week. Bye. Bye.

57:47

This

57:54

is more like when you drive less saved with

57:56

the USAA annual mileage discount.

57:58

USAA...

57:59

today.