Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Mike.
And I'm Nate.
What are we smoking, Mike?
We are smoking the Gurkha Centurion.
This is another torpedo, double torpedo, and I'm excited.
The last one was really good.
The last one was, and this wrapper is a little bit darker, slightly, slightly darker than
the vintage 2001, not drastically so, not drastically darker, but just enough, just
enough darker.
So I too am interested.
Maybe we should talk about the double torpedo a little bit.
The double torpedo tapers at both ends and I don't really know how or why other than
when it's a double torpedo, it lights really easily because you have a smaller diameter
to light and then it kind of lights the rest, the full girth of it later.
Yes, it does.
And it seems to me, it keeps the smoke cooler, at least for the first quarter.
Because it's expanding, you know?
Yeah, maybe it's a way to get around the first few puffs, sourness or stankiness or whatever
that plagues so many other cigars.
It does.
It does, it does kind of taste not as creamy, a little darker, but still very smooth.
Yeah, it's a little bit more bite to this one.
Yes.
Not in a bad way.
Not in a bad way at all.
So I quite like it so far.
Last episode, we talked about your week.
My maladies.
Yes, your maladies.
So we're going to talk about my busy ass weekend.
Okay.
So last episode was Nate's maladies.
This episode is Mike's maladies.
And there aren't so much maladies.
It's just busy, just busy, busy, busy.
Okay, busy, busy.
Yes.
So Friday, I left work early and we actually went down to the metro and watched Jimmy Dore
because Jimmy Dore had a comedy two hour at, what the hell, it wasn't the Palace Theater.
It was a theater down there somewhere.
Come on now, I can't remember.
Doesn't matter.
He had it at a theater.
We do have some theaters down here.
Yeah.
So we went to the theater and we had a nice dinner and we didn't get home until 1.30 in
the morning and then we were up till 3.30 with the dog.
So I woke up at 7 in the morning, tired as shit.
And Sarah's mother is coming next weekend to the house.
So we have to do cleaning, right?
The basement in my house is a storage area and I had all my guns out because I rearranged
my work room.
So all my guns were laying out.
So I decided that I'm going to clean all the guns and re-lubricate them and do whatever
little finicky repairs that I was planning on.
So things like putting on new sites and do little shit like that.
So I did that all day yesterday and I woke up at 7 in the morning this morning.
I did it until 2 o'clock today and the house smells like a mixture of cat shit and petrochemicals.
It's horrible.
That's weird because you don't have cats.
You don't have any cats.
So where's the cat shit smell come from, Mike?
The cat shit smell does not come from cat shit.
It's the mixture of ops number nine and ballastol and dry lube that comes along and oh yeah,
blue loctite, you know?
Is it?
The chemical mixture.
So we already know I'm not good at pronouncing things that I haven't heard said from our
episode with our guest Simha.
But is it hops or is it hoppies?
I think it's hoppies.
Hoppies.
Okay.
I was just asking because I'm like, I don't know.
It could be hops, could be hoppies.
No, I think it's hoppies.
But I use the hoppies as well.
Yes.
I used to use the Rem Oil, but hoppies has a variant of that.
And the guy that I, not the guy that I bought it from, but like I was in the store getting
some more stuff.
One of the other shoppers, patrons of the store, I guess is what you would call them,
customers.
But if you're not, I don't know, some weird guy that calls people patrons, I was like,
why wouldn't you just go for the hoppies?
It's better quality than all the other stuff.
So I'm like, oh, okay.
Fair enough.
Sure.
I have Rem Oil as well.
I use it sometimes on specific things.
And I did use some this weekend.
I have one gun left to clean.
I like to do a little bit of lubricating stuff, the Rem Oil or whatever the hoppies one is
called, the number nine lubricator or something, or number 10 lubricator.
I don't know.
I don't know how they name all these things.
But I like to put that in the trigger guard, the springs and stuff to kind of keep that
moving.
Oh, see.
And I use dry lube for that.
I use dry lube on the trigger and I use dry lube on any sort of action that is an automatic
and I've been using it on my pumps too.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Any sort of moving parts I like to use dry lube on.
Okay.
Maybe I'll look into some dry lube.
Yeah.
It works a lot better in the wintertime.
I'll tell you that.
Okay.
I've had guns freeze because I use battle stall, which is thicker and it does get solid
when it's cold.
Okay.
And I'm sure the dry lube is probably better if you're hunting in dusty areas too.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Way better.
It's like a clear whitish coating.
You can see that it's on there when it dries.
Okay.
So probably like a bike chain lubricant almost.
Yeah.
I mean, if you buy- Where it's kind of like that graphite powder,
whatever.
Similar to graphite powder, but it's not graphite powder.
But yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Very similar to graphite powder.
Barry's trying to make an analogy.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And Remington makes it, but WD-40, I went to the store today to get more because I use
like four ounces of ballastol and my whole can of Remington dry lube because I took a
lot of guns this weekend.
And I looked and WD-40 makes a dry lube that's rated for 500 degrees.
Oh, okay.
And it's good for wood and rubber.
And I was like, well, you know, at half the price, I will try that.
Yup.
I'm guessing it'll be fine.
Probably.
But yeah, I still have one gun left.
Yeah.
I guess that kind of like harkens back to our flex tape or fusing tape conversation last
episode, you know, it was 500 degrees enough for a car exhaust, no, but I don't know like
how hot a gun explosion is.
I know the barrels can get pretty hot.
Well, it's not on the barrel.
It's on the moving parts in the mechanism.
So like the barrel itself.
Yeah.
I mean, I understand that.
I'm just trying to let this to the max temperature.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Right.
I've had been goose hunting where I've seen smoke come off the barrel and it's all the
gun oil burning off.
Okay.
It's burning and shooting and shooting and shooting.
Yeah.
And it's cold outside, obviously.
I guess I try and treat my guns like a cast iron pan or something where you don't want
it to be thickly oiled, but you want it to be just enough oiled.
You know what I mean?
Sure.
I, well, as you know, I have enough to where I want to coat the piss out of them so that
they can sit in the, sit in the safe and not be touched for another like three, four years.
Yeah.
So I have so many shotguns.
I can't possibly fire them all.
Yeah.
They were clean before I cleaned them.
You know what I mean?
One of those kinds of things.
Yeah.
Well, and that's the interesting thing.
And I don't know if we talked about this.
I'm sure we did.
It's tough.
I mean, we're, we're in season two.
This is episode, what, 17 or something, I think.
My notes say season two, episode one, because I'm looking right at it.
Oh, yep.
Nope.
This is episode 17.
I'm not too bad on naming my naming conventions.
But this is 17, episode 17 of season two.
And we had what, over 30 episodes in the first season.
And I know that you and I went and did some shooting together.
We shot a couple of pistols and I had my grandfather's stub-nosed 357 Magnum.
And there was a literal spider web in one of the cylinders on the revolver chamber.
And it was fairly embarrassing, but I was not the last person to shoot it after my grandfather
passed and it found its way to me through all of that stuff.
So I, I did clean it after we shot it, because of course you always want to clean it after
you shoot it.
But it's probably a good, good thing if you don't do a whole lot of shooting like I don't
right now, clean them every once in a while.
And this has nothing to do with what you're talking about.
And I'm not trying to hijack this.
Oh, I don't know.
I did just.
Hijack away.
Okay.
I was going to make a joke about, about that, but I'm going to let that one, let that one
slide.
Anyway, we have a, we have a stereo system out in the garage here and I've got two external
speakers or outdoor speakers outside for our patio area.
And it's the receiver has enough to run two more speaker, two more speakers, right?
So it's got two speaker groups.
You can play one or the other or both.
And so I'm going to put two more speakers in the garage.
I got these speakers from my mom's husband and didn't do anything other than set them
up.
And so it's been like the volume knob has been, you know, when you have like those old
like analog knobs and everything and you're trying to get the volume and you, you go to
like this one volume and only one speaker works.
And then you like go a little further and then both speakers work.
And then you go a little too far and only one speaker works again.
And that's all cause like the dust and the dirt and the grime in there.
And so I have this like, it's like a, you don't have to wipe.
It's electronic cleaner spray.
And so I just, just recently took those, both the receiver and the tuner down and opened
them up and just sprayed the ever loving shit out of them with this cleaner, let them dry
for a day, put them back up and they're working great.
So I mean, cleaning anything is good.
I mean, it's maintaining what you have, right?
Right.
Absolutely.
I was also a very naughty boy and I didn't clean any of my guns after last hunting season.
So some of them were pretty dirty.
Yeah.
That's why I still have one shotgun left.
It's that one's okay.
Dirty.
Yeah.
I always got to remember to go down and check my, uh, I bought one of those dehumidifier
things that you plug into recharge and it's been working fantastic, but I need to remind
myself to go and check it every once in a while.
It's not so big or so important over the winter time when everything's just dry.
But now that we're getting into spring and summer, it'll be more important to check.
Yeah.
I need, I have the little bake in the oven things and, uh, yeah, those are pain in the
ass.
They are pain.
13 bucks.
You can get one that plugs in so much nicer.
I thought about doing it.
I also coat my guns and ballast all I did.
I had to remount a scope and I had all kinds of gun related shit.
And like I say, my, uh, I still have one left.
That's probably the dirtiest one.
I did the dirtiest one for last.
My nephew used one of mine for the season and I know that he had to have dropped it
because he's, he's a clumsy, you know what I mean?
Okay.
So I'm guessing that he dropped it.
Do you want to hear a funny hunting story?
Sure.
Okay.
So I'm not saying this was my cousin, but, uh, one year my dad and I and my brothers,
we all went out hunting and my cousin was there or maybe not.
He wasn't, I don't know.
No, it was him.
Anyway, they, uh, they're more city people, so like he was born in Canada and, uh, my
uncle, uh, was a percussionist for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for a very long time.
And so they always lived either out in Vancouver or, you know, Washington or what have you.
So kind of like city people and, um, my uncle and his wife who passed were very socially
oriented, meaning wine parties and things.
My cousin wasn't so much an outdoorsy type, which is fine.
You don't have to be.
And he wanted to go hunting.
And so my, my dad, uh, loaned him one of his hunting rifles and said, here you go.
It's all sighted in.
You just, you know, you put the scope on the, on the shoulder right here or wherever, you
know, like just behind the shoulder blade and you're good to go.
And uh, you know, end of the, end of the season, whatever we, you know, wiped the guns down
and if they weren't shot, he didn't shoot anything, uh, at all.
And, uh, and then the next, the next, uh, summer, you know, like end of the summer,
we would typically bring our rifles out or shotguns out or whatever, and we'd cite them
in, you know, just shoot them and check.
And he's like, ah, you know, I might as well shoot this one.
And he shot it and he wasn't hitting paper at like 50 feet or 50 yards.
Sorry.
Uh, he wasn't hitting paper.
And, uh, and so it took him forever to have resite this thing back in.
And what we figured out happened was, uh, on a scope, they've got a screw on the top,
like a screw cap on top and a screw cap on side.
And it controls the vertical and horizontal, uh, aiming, uh, crosshairs, right?
The axes.
And what we figured is he got bored on stand because, and everybody deer hunts a little
differently.
And we are the type that hunt on public lands.
So we bring out like a tree seat.
So it's a seat with a rope and you cinch it onto the tree and you just sit there and you
sit there all day.
And then you come back in and you go to bed and then you go back out and haul your seat
in and out because you can't leave up a permanent structure on public land.
And so, you know, you just, you sit on a tree like all day.
So it's, it can be painfully boring if you don't have like enough red squirrels or something
to entertain you.
What we figured happened was he was sitting there and bored out of his mind.
He's like bored out of his mind.
And so he like unscrews these things and he sees these little dials in there and he's
just like clicking around with them because they click, you know, like click, click, click.
And then he would do the other one and click, click.
And so like, even if a deer would have come out, there's no way he ever would have hit
it because he like fucked up his scope by not knowing, you know?
And it's like, and somebody who is like wood savvy or outdoor savvy or gun savvy wouldn't
necessarily think to have to tell somebody, now look, don't unscrew this and play with
all the buttons in here or the dials in here.
Like that's just not something like I would have to tell to you or you would have to say
to me, right?
No, no, no, never.
And so it's like, you're just fidgeting.
You're out there fidgeting, but you're fidgeting with your sights, your scope.
Oh my God.
Oh, that's, that's painful.
I mean, there was no damage done.
It was just, it took longer for my dad to site it back in, but it took, it took us a
while to figure out what happened because he's like, I don't think I dropped it.
Like I'm, it's way off.
Like it's not even close.
So that's hilarious.
That is yeah.
Special.
Yeah.
Anyway, earlier today, so I'm now I'm cleaning guns, right?
And it smells horrible.
Yeah.
Just terrible.
Um, because Hoppies nine is, it's got a very pungent pungent smell.
Awful.
And a ballast all smells like Yagmeister.
Uh, it's very strong.
Anise smell.
Some people do like the, uh, the Hoppies smell though.
It's the same people that love the smell of gasoline when you're pumping it.
Yeah.
It's not a pleasant smell.
It's fucking horrible.
Um, yeah, I don't like it.
There's people that like to smell a ballast all too, and I don't get it.
And it smells rubbish.
And then of course I'm dry lubing all these mechanisms and the dry lube has a chemical
smell, you know, and turmoil is a different, so it's all these chemical smells.
The guy who, uh,
Well, it doesn't have a too bad of a smell though.
I don't think.
No, it's not terrible, but it's you, you blended in mixed with two or three other things.
Yeah.
And, uh, so the guy who farms my field stopped by to see, you know, what the deal was and
blah, blah, blah.
We made ourselves a little arrangement.
What the smell was.
Yeah.
And, uh, he, he like opened the door and he's like, Oh my God, am I interrupting something?
Yeah.
The wife's tied up downstairs.
Yeah.
Oh, it smelled, I'm sure walking in, it had to have smelled like death.
It's awful.
And I had a part, uh, part of a gas mechanism on a shotgun that I was cleaning in my hand
talking to him.
Cause of course I took apart the gas mechanism and cleaned all the rods and all that shit.
But yeah, had to have, had to have been awful.
So we went to a Nicole shoe shop on Friday and that's always fun.
Okay.
I like going to Nicole's.
It's always a joy.
I didn't get anything, but Sarah, Sarah got some stuff and then I used a gift card to
buy Sarah's mother a present.
So, okay, there we go.
I can't believe you're down in my neck of the woods and he didn't think to yourself,
why shoot, he'd probably like a drink or something.
Oh, uh, Sarah and I talked about it.
We thought that you guys were going to be here last weekend, sir.
Oh, we would have been, but, uh, the reason is, is my sir has taken a stained glass class
up until, up until our son is born basically.
So every Saturday we're, we're going to be down here.
Yes.
No, we, uh, we talked about it and it was like, ah, such short notice now.
Um, we kind of both forgot that we were going to go to this show.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And the show was from, uh, seven until like 10 30 at night.
We went to the, a pretty fancy restaurant too.
So that cost me 150 swanky.
Jesus.
So it was expensive weekend, but it was a lot of fun.
And Jimmy door was good.
Sarah hated it, but that's to be expected.
Yup.
It's not good.
I mean, it's nice to go out and you know, even though it's like, oh, how expensive was
this night?
Uh, it's still good to go and have a date night or something every once in a while.
Oh, right.
I mean, between, uh, you know, the store and the dinner and the tickets and the gas, that
was easily a $400 a day.
Yup.
But what are you going to do every once in a while?
You know, yeah, you gotta have fun.
I mean, you know, you can work and work and work and then die or you can work and work
and work and have some fun and then die.
So right.
Exactly.
I had a corporate America.
Pills.
Pills is great.
Yeah.
And it was really good too.
So, uh, this is funny.
We had, we had three days of 80 degree weather down here and, uh, one of those days, uh,
Dev and his son and I took a bike ride and we, uh, we rode to Oudepil's cause it's only
like, I don't know, five and a half miles from our house.
Oh, okay.
I'm not going to tell you what direction you'll never find us, um, by a bike trail.
It's not that far, but we, it was our first bike ride of the season.
So going on like a 12 mile bike ride almost killed us, but, uh, we rode, we bike road
down there and had a beer too, and then came back up.
So it was, uh, it was fun times, but yeah, they've got a lot of good beers.
Yeah.
I was really impressed.
And fuck you by the way, there's still snow on the ground here.
It's awful.
Yeah.
I heard you guys got quite a bit.
We did.
Wherever you may be still a shit ton of snow wherever I am in Northern Minnesota.
Yes.
We have no snow here, but it's been, it's been like, you know, thirties and low forties
after the three days of 80.
And it's like, well, I would have much rather fifties and sixties after the three days of
80, but at least I guess there's no snow.
So yeah, can't complain too much.
I went out to the garage, uh, maybe 10 o'clock, the frozen solid, everything was freezing
cold.
I couldn't believe it.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm going to freeze something like that according to the car, you know,
whatever that's worth.
And the car never lies.
No, never, never.
So here's the kicker.
Yes.
My weekend.
I was waiting.
I've been waiting for it.
This horrible chemical smell and cleaning guns and taking care of the things I probably
should have taken care of once ago.
Uh, putting parts on guns that I bought over a year ago.
Straight piping guns.
Yeah, straight piping guns.
I put a couple of new sites on, you know, some guns and blah, blah, blah.
I checked out why am I, I have a model 19 or 1894 that's misfiring.
So I took a look at that and you know, blah, blah, blah, all these things.
But Sarah decides she's going to put together a fireplace entertainment center that we found
in the back of the barn.
I don't even know what that means.
We found these boxes at the back of our barn.
And no, I know what the back of the barn is.
What's a fireplace entertainment center?
It's like an entertainment center, like the little wooden thing that you put your TV on
and it's got an electric fireplace in it.
And my parents bought this monstrosity and never opened it up and never put it together.
And they shoved it into the back of the barn and I found it.
So I brought it up to the house, which was a trudge, you know, that was horrible.
Yeah.
So she brings it downstairs.
She just rip and open the boxes and somebody had put it together partially and ripped it
apart.
And she damaged it beyond repair.
Okay.
She tried to put it together.
So we got missing parts and there's holes in it and all this shit.
So I had to run to town yesterday and today to get parts for this entertainment center
that is Sarah's project.
Should we?
I think we should call it the fire attainment center.
The fire attainment center.
So today I wake up at seven in the morning, bright and early.
Sarah sleeps in.
She doesn't get down there till 10, maybe 11.
She was so angry about her project that she got mad at me because I wasn't in a bad mood.
She literally got angry at me because I wasn't angry about her project going poorly.
You want to hear something funny?
I mean, and I don't want to rehash the last episode because we already did the last episode
so you can go back and listen to it, but everybody I've told about my catalytic converter being
stolen has been a lot more angry about the whole thing than I have been.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not thrilled.
I'm not thrilled about the whole thing, but like a lot of people have been like, I'm so
angry that that happened.
And I'm like, okay.
You know, I guess it's kind of like, you know, I can't change what happened and my catalytic
converter was bad anyway.
And it kind of runs better now than it did beforehand.
And yeah, it sucked to have to like fix it and be without a car for a couple of days
while I was waiting to fix it and get it fixed.
And you know, but like I couldn't, you know, like it happened.
It's done.
I can't, you know, I could, I suppose I could choose to be angry about it, but yeah, I don't
know.
Maybe I'm too, too lax about it.
You've been stealing catalytic converters from your neighborhood for a while.
Yeah, since I think it was on this like real late, real late on the seventh day.
That invented the catalytic converter.
And then right after that, he invented meth.
And that's a that's correlation.
It's not causation.
So I don't know.
So interesting.
Yeah.
Home projects are always fun.
Fun times.
Oh yeah.
I thought it was hilarious.
Like I said, I even called her out on it later when she calmed down.
I was like, you were angry at me.
Wise man.
Angry.
I waited for her to be in a good mood.
I just bought her new work clothes and new hiking shoes and a lot of stuff.
We found a lot of stuff at one of the local retailers that was a very good price.
I couldn't say no.
And you know, going to get in dry lube and Sarah finds herself new hiking shoes and car
hearts.
But yeah, as women do.
But I was like, you were so mad that you were mad at me because I wasn't mad.
Yeah.
Oh, dumb.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's kind of a, this isn't against your Sarah at all because she's a
sweetheart and everything.
But it is interesting that a lot of our discourse in our country has to do with one side versus
the other side for no other reason than the perceived difference between the two sides,
which usually isn't that vast.
And a lot of times it's also the perceived indifference of certain people where it's
like, well, you're not upset about your carbon footprint or you're not upset about a Brittany
Greiner not being released from a Russian prison and you're not upset about whatever.
And it's like, well, I guess I'd be upset all the time if I chose to be upset about
every little thing that came along.
And you know, I think we do a fairly decent job not to break our arms patting ourselves
on the back here, but I think we do a fairly decent job of kind of like on the show anyway,
like not being upset about everything because I don't want to be a bitch cast or, you know,
like a bitching podcast or a complaining podcast or upset podcast.
And I don't think we have been.
If you think we have been and you want to complain about it, that's your, that's your
thing.
We won't read it.
We won't see it.
So best of luck.
I guess.
Yeah, it's, it's all hunky dory.
It's all hunky dory.
So like Mike has said time and time again, all we want to do is smoke and drink and chat.
So right.
That's the, that's the whole point.
So if we don't get any listeners, that's perfectly fine with me.
I still want the super yacht.
You promise me Mike that we can cruise around on and podcasts from and smoke cigars from
and I want to know that stuff.
Green super yacht.
That's what I really want.
So you want the, the, you want the yacht with the 200 oarsman.
Yes.
Working for a fair wage, of course, and benefits and 401k and oh yeah.
Well, oh, uh, health care.
They got great health care.
Good Deadpool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You want to States rights yacht.
Oh, that's a great euphemism.
I love that.
Oh man.
That's perfect.
Brought to you by Amazon.
Yes.
By Jeff Bezos personally.
Yes.
Oh geez.
Not, not a sponsor, not a sponsor.
Did you finish the Mandalorian?
Yes.
Okay.
We should talk about it real quick.
Let's do it.
I mean, I've got episode about it.
No, I don't.
I mean, we've done so many of star wars episodes this season that anyone who's a listener
that's a source fan is going to be like, what, you're not going to do a full episode on the
Mandalorian.
And anybody who's not a source fan is going to be like, thank God they're not doing a
full episode on the Mandalorian.
So exactly.
We're kind of, we're kind of cutting, cutting down the middle here.
Yes.
Uh, we finished it.
Uh, I thought it was a good final episode.
I'm not sure whether or not the season was as strong as the second season.
See that's what I thought.
The first two seasons were very strong, but the first two seasons were united by an overwhelming
driving force, a driving plot point where, uh, didn't wanted or needed to, or wanted
to get Grogu to his own people, whether that be, you know, the Yoda, whatever species it
is, uh, people or the Jedi people or what have you, somebody where he belonged.
And that was kind of the driving factor.
And yes, he took on different jobs throughout, uh, until he kind of got to the point where
he was like, Nope, my sole mission now is to get Grogu to his people.
Uh, but for a while it was, I've got this little like frog creature thing and I will
be bringing him along in my bounty missions.
And then like season three, there's not really, there really is kind of felt more like he's
been kind of drifting in the wind.
And I don't think, I don't know if it's, if it's the writing or if it's just that he's
not as purposefully focused as he was in the first two seasons.
Uh, it just felt a little uneven.
Um, I thought it was uneven and I thought they wasted a lot of time with these side
projects like, uh, the doctor and the lady off of Moff Gideon's ship never paid off really.
I didn't pay off, didn't pay off in this season.
I think it'll pay off later because Dave Filoni has one of the three Star Wars movies announced
and I've heard it's going to be a epic finale, even though Mandalorian is going to continue
as long as people like it.
Uh, kind of like the John Wick franchise, right?
John Favreau said he'll keep doing it as long as he enjoys it and people enjoy it.
Uh, but it's going to tie up the skeleton crew, the bad batch, uh, Mandalorian, Book
of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, uh, it's going to tie all these things up into an epic conclusion,
uh, for most of the storylines.
And of course, like Mandalorian will continue on after the, after the fact, but so we're
going to be seeing all of these people together in live action in movie form.
So I know they're building towards that and that's probably why this one kind of felt
a little uneven.
And I, and I do kind of want to talk or blame, even though I enjoyed it mostly, I want to
kind of blame Book of Boba Fett because like you and I said, and even, um, with our guest
Simha, we were talking about how Book of Boba Fett was kind of like Mandalorian 2.5 season
2.5 because there were like two full episodes devoted to, uh, Din and Grogu.
Yeah.
And that could easily been in the Mandalorian season.
That should have been episode one and two of season three.
And you could have a 10 episode or, you know, still make an eight episode and cut a lot
of the stuff.
But I think they're trying to do the long setup of this woman who brain fucked the
doctor in the Mandalorian.
And I thought it was going to pay off in the last two episodes of this season, but it really
didn't because it was just Moff Gideon and she wasn't really anywhere to be found.
And but they did set up this big council thing.
And so that was fine and kind of vaguely interesting.
But then, and I love Jack Black and I don't understand why they gave Lizzo so many lines.
I mean, I understand why, right?
Like I get it.
Like I'm not an idiot.
I know why they gave Lizzo so many lines, but they should have given, I don't know,
an actual actor, Jack Black or heaven forbid, Christopher Lloyd, more lines.
You know what I mean?
You have two actors.
Let's put it this way.
I thought that after the first scene she had too many lines.
And by the end of the episode, Sarah went from defending it to being like, why was she
even in this?
Why wasn't it somebody else?
We all know why.
She talked way too much.
We all know why.
No, I don't know why because I didn't even know who the fuck she was before I watched
the episode.
No idea.
I don't know why she was there ever.
It doesn't know.
Listen, you don't have to have heard of her.
Look at what Kathleen Kennedy has been doing with the sequel trilogy.
The Force is Female.
Now look at Lizzo, done and done.
It doesn't matter if she is or isn't a musician.
The fact is she's not an actress.
She's not an actor.
You know, they could have got the precious actress.
They could have got Missy Elliot.
You know, they could have got Queen Latifah.
I can name how many fat black women in Hollywood are there that are decent actresses?
Oprah?
Oh, exactly.
People that could have done this.
I was saying like she's she's not a she's not an actress.
She was so wooden and stiff in her delivery that it was it was it jarred me out of the
whole thing.
And here you have like Jack Black.
And so what is everybody expecting?
Fucking Jack Black like quirky Jack Black.
You got Christopher Lloyd and he does some quirky roles.
And and then you've got the most wooden person ever reading all the lines like directly off
of like the teleprompter.
He was like watching the community theater version of A Christmas Carol.
And the kid is the director's or Tiny Tim is the director's kid.
And that's why they're.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then Tiny Tim is like awkward, you know.
I feel like they could have gotten George Bush and he would have given a more believable
performance from the teleprompter.
Oh, what's her name?
Kamala Harris.
Yeah, why not?
Why not?
And the scene in the scene that was so forced that really took me out of it was she was
Lizzo was like, I want to hold, you know, Grogu.
And Dan is like, no, no, no, he doesn't want to be held.
And she's like, well, here's a snack.
And and it's like, OK, so maybe she probably stipulated like I'll only come and like be
a terrible actress if I can hold baby Grogu, you know, like it felt like complete like
contract fulfillment service that it wasn't even it wasn't even a scene worth filming.
You know what I mean?
Like I guess kudos for her to being able to hold Grogu and, you know, be part of the Star
Wars universe.
Yada yada.
But I didn't that that whole thing.
And then it's like and every episode kind of felt different.
Like that one felt like CSI Star Wars.
Like what?
He's investigating the robots.
Like what the fuck?
That was a good episode, though, other than Lizzo.
It was good.
The robots were stimulating, especially because like Sarah was shocked that they had personalities
and desires.
But she has.
I mean.
Oh, go ahead.
Oh, no, I was going to say, like, I liked I liked the interactions with the robots and
the robots being able to fill their storyline out a bit, you know, like they're not just
mindless drones.
But I don't like why would you there was not really a reason to get like Dan and Bo Katan
there to do like investigating?
Really?
I thought it was a thrill for a season in a lot of ways because maybe back to like bounty
hunterish style.
Like we're on an adventure to get you know what I mean?
Like we have to do this bullshit to get to this bullshit.
I enjoyed it.
Yeah, I guess.
I mean, I guess where they had the doctor and the lady from Moff Gideon ship was interesting,
but it didn't go anywhere.
And it took a part.
It was interesting.
I wanted to watch.
I know because they had these phenomenal dogfight scenes.
And then they're like, here's a here's a drama.
And you're like, man, you just teased me with this dogfight with Bo Katan and Dan's new
ship and all these like Thai interceptors and Thai bombers and all this stuff.
And now I'm watching a drama like I want more dogfight.
I want more aerial battles.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I guess like it was fine.
I didn't really get I didn't get the motivation, though.
Like that's where I struggled with the the robot one is they were kind of like, well,
we're the only like free planet left, kind of, I guess.
We don't really have an alliance and we'll totally like support the Mandalorians if you
do this for us.
And it was kind of like it felt like they're kind of like trying to spread too little butter
on too much toast.
Like it just it didn't there wasn't enough.
There wasn't enough there to really get me to.
I like I enjoyed the episode, right?
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it.
I just if you're looking back on it and watching it, I just kind of felt like it was there
was just a couple of things keeping it from being like a really great episode and Lizzo
being one of them.
We kind of like the plot motivations.
That was the weakest link on that one.
Yeah, I couldn't get over it.
And then secondly, like, oh, we're going to vouch for you Mandalorians.
You know, I don't know.
I didn't if they would have done more work setting up the Mandalorians needing Jack Black's
and Lizzo's like vouch, then it would have paid off better.
But they wasted a whole episode on the doctor thing.
So if they would have set up more like, hey, if we can get like 13 votes on the council,
then we can have our planet back or something.
Like if they would have set up some kind of like reason why they needed anybody ever to
vouch for them.
Yeah, they're Mandalorians.
They don't need anybody.
You wouldn't think, yeah, especially to take back Mandalore.
Yeah, which they ended up doing anyway.
I thought for sure Grogu was going to commit some war crimes when he was in that room with
the the Imperial guards or the Royal guards or whatever they were.
I thought for sure because like he didn't have enough time with Luke to know that like
force crushing a human was dark side shit.
So I just thought like Din was going to open the door and there'd be like splattered guards
everywhere and then everybody well, I don't know.
Did he?
Yeah.
Did Grogu just commit a war crime?
I don't know.
I'm not a Jedi.
So I can't.
These guys ripped in half or something with his robot body.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, like rip his arm off.
Yeah.
Well, like and Luke could have given Grogu Yoda's lightsaber for fuck's sake.
Like who cares?
Like it's too small for Luke to use.
What nobody's going to use that.
Give it to Grogu.
Come on.
Next season.
You know, there's always a next season.
There is.
I did.
I agree with you.
I felt like it was very, very uneven, whereas I enjoyed most of the episodes.
Right.
But it lacked the cohesiveness of season one and two for sure.
Oh, for sure.
I also thought and this is a I don't it's not a criticism, but understanding what's
going on is really dependent on watching previous shows again.
They're creating a Marvel type universe because I had to pause a couple of the episodes.
Sarah asked questions about why this and that she didn't understand a lot of the connective
tissue because she hasn't seen the Clone Wars yet.
And we're on season two of the Clone Wars now.
So we're going to watch.
Yeah, yeah.
But a lot of the connective tissue is based on that show.
Yeah.
And I love seeing them.
Oh, yeah, it was great.
That was great.
And then Bad Batch, they do two episodes on Hera, which is phenomenal.
So I'm excited.
I'm excited season a bad batch because I think they're going to tie it all.
I think he's going to I think in his movie, man, I think it's going to be the conclusion
to Rebels we always wanted and tied into everything else.
And that'd be really cool.
That's my guess.
I'm guessing in the movie, Ezra is going to be back.
That'd be great.
But are they going to allow Ray to be not the center?
No, because no, because because Ray has her own movie.
And I think Dave, I think I think Dave Filoni and Jean Favreau have been trying as hard
as they can to stay outside of Kathleen Kennedy's sphere of influence in their shows.
Got it.
Yeah.
Because they're working.
They're working in the cracks is what they're doing.
Right.
Because Mandalorian had Luke Skywalker.
Right.
And Book of Boba Fett had Luke Skywalker.
And that's a OG, you know, IP character.
But he was in there so little that it his role in the shows didn't confirm or deny the
sequel trilogy.
And that's the big kicker.
Right.
Yeah.
Because if you can if you can have if you can have Luke be benign in yours, your fans
can then pretend the sequels didn't happen.
And Kathleen Kennedy can pretend that you're still being faithful to the sequels.
Right.
That's an interesting theory.
I like it, though.
And then of course, like a Soca was created by Dave Filoni.
So he can do whatever he wants with the Soca.
Right.
And that makes sense, too, because she is not a mainline movie character.
So no, and she's in the cracks and she only exists in the Clone Wars.
Right.
She doesn't exist in any of the mainstream movies.
So that's you know, that's a crack character like a gap character, whatever you call it.
You know, not a not mainline, but woven in the fabric, but at a lower level.
Yeah.
And she's not she's not to be noticed by the majority of Star Wars fans, you know, who
are only watching the movies.
I am so excited because I heard the Soca series is a Soca hunting down Thrawn.
And that is going to be bad ass.
Should be.
And they set it up in the finale of season three Mandalorian because Moff Gideon was
going Where's Thrawn?
You've promised us Thrawn.
Where is Thrawn?
Well, we're going to find out in the Soca.
And that could also be a negative because now to understand Mandalorian season four,
you're going to have to fucking watch a Soca.
You know what I mean?
So maybe a Soca is going to be three point five Mandalorian.
I don't know.
Who knows?
It very well could be, which would be not very good.
I know Sarah was really sour about Boba Fett, but she was also pretty excited to see Boba
Fett in Clone Wars.
So oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think if you see everything, it's going to be fine, but I agree with you that I don't
and we've talked about this.
I don't like the modern, the current Marvel stuff where you have to see the 15 other movies
to understand what's going on.
It's trash.
And the concert reminders in the movie that you're watching about the other 15 movies,
even if you have seen them, like I don't want to think about the other movies.
I want to watch this one movie.
Right.
I went over to my buddy's place today and Sarah was looking at some furniture potentially
to refurbish and his son pulled out a toy and I was like, oh, that's Thanos's hand.
It's like, no, it's not.
It's Iron Man's hand.
And I'm like, it's got all these stones on it.
I thought those stupid stones were part of Thanos's thing.
He's like, no, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, well, I didn't know any of this extra Iron Man Thanos magic stone stuff.
I haven't watched enough of the movies, I guess.
Yeah.
I thought Iron Man, that's how he died in Endgame or whatever.
I guess so.
Because he took the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos.
So Infinity War and Endgame are fine to watch.
And the good thing is you don't necessarily have to watch all the other movies up to that
point, but every movie since those two movies, you have to watch everything else because
then they reference those two movies and then they reference all the movies that happened
after those two movies.
And it's all like, well, now I just have to watch everything, I guess, but I won't because
I don't want to.
And superhero movies have never been my favorite anyway.
Maybe that's why I don't like Marvel because I haven't watched those two movies.
I'm sure that's it.
That's the only reason that you don't like Marvel, I guess.
No, I'm just kidding.
I think, well, we talked about it.
It gets so laborious, I think, as a writer, because now any Marvel movie has to somehow
reference those or tie into all these other things because everything's so interconnected
that if you don't, it doesn't make sense if you have seen everything.
But then if you haven't seen everything, it also doesn't make sense because it's kind
of a lose-lose.
Like you're putting your writers in a lose-lose situation by having this giant interconnected
multiverse thing.
Yes.
Well, it's like...
And the same could be true for the Star Wars.
It slowly is becoming true.
Slowly.
I like that they bring characters in that are backdrop characters, but if you make it
too much of the story, then people will get lost.
They don't quite get it.
I think how they did Zeb in Mandalorian, he had one or two lines of dialogue just in the
background.
And if you had never seen Rebels, you would just think, okay, cool background character,
whatever, move along.
But I was like, holy shit, is that Zeb?
And Sarah's like, I think that's Zeb.
And then of course we had to look it up and he was Billed as Zeb and is the same voice
actor who did Zeb.
And we're like, holy shit.
But it was like what?
I don't know, five, 10 seconds, and that was it.
That's the right way to do it, to do fan service, because you don't have to know Zeb's whole
backstory to get that episode of Mandalorian.
You know what I mean?
That's the right way to do it.
Well, when they brought back Cad Bane, that was perfect.
Oh, that was badass.
Yeah, you didn't need to know who that was to understand what was going on in the episode.
And they explained he's a badass bounty hunter.
And then that's all you need to know.
Right.
You don't need to know that much more, but it is cool.
No.
But when they were doing a lot of stuff with Bo-Katan and shit like that, and Mandalorian,
having watched the cool wars, it made a lot more sense to me.
Why all this Mandalorian, getting into Mandalorian politics in the show.
It's like not having background in that probably makes it a little confusing.
Confused Sarah, at least.
Yeah.
And I guess they could have done a little recap portion, which even for me, it would
have been fine because it's been a little bit since I've watched Clone Wars and even
Rebels now.
It's been a year or two years.
But they didn't really recap much of anything other than if you're really paying attention.
They're like, well, you had the dark saber and then you lost the dark saber.
So you're no longer the leader of Mandalore.
But now you have the dark saber and a technicality.
So now I guess you are the leader of Mandalore.
But then Moff Gideon crunched the dark saber.
So is she or is she not still now the leader of Mandalorian or not?
Or I don't, you know, like, who knows?
I don't know.
And I don't know how I feel about that.
Like how many other lightsabers have been crushed or snapped in half?
Is that even a thing?
I don't recall.
But I don't recall.
Maybe it has happened.
I don't know.
I mean, I know Darth Maul's could split into to be two or to be the one double bladed.
But other than that, I don't know how many lightsabers have actually been.
Because like Rey is still using Luke's or Anakin's like original lightsaber that killed
all those kids.
You know, so I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
But then is the dark saber like a true lightsaber?
And that's where it's like it would have been nice for them to have kind of like done a
little thing on the importance of the dark saber, because I know they did that in Clone
Wars, but I can't quite remember all the specifics on the ultimate importance of the dark saber.
Yeah, either do why we haven't got there yet in the rewatch.
So yeah, I mean, it doesn't hurt to do a little recap, especially if you're going to be tying
all this stuff together in a motion picture later.
So right.
They made some references to Death Watch.
Now like that, I didn't think it was overly.
Yeah, you could easily go over the top of it and not like you didn't really have to
understand.
Well, you don't have to know anything other than it's a different faction.
Like they kind of briefly touch on Dan Jaren as part of a religious cult, you know, and
Mandalore split into all these different factions.
So Death Watch was one of the factions.
You don't necessarily need to know more than that.
No, no, you don't.
Sarah was a little confused about that, too, because she's like, I thought that Mandalorian
said to wear their helmets.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, they're cult people.
That's like saying Catholics have to abuse children.
They don't have to.
That's a cult.
All of our Catholic listeners going to get angry.
Well they should be angry because their their their priests have been abusing kids and you
need to call that out.
And I don't care if Catholicism is not a mandatory reporting entity.
That doesn't mean you as a citizen aren't right.
Like we're not blaming you for their for their for their failings.
We're just saying if you see their failings, let's call it out.
Let's bring these people to justice.
Right.
I haven't talked to a serious Catholic in a long time.
I thought serious Catholics were fantastical beasts or something in this region.
They are.
Yeah.
There's not a whole lot of true believers.
Yeah.
A lot of forgive me, Father.
It's been 37 years since my last confession.
Do do the Catholics in our area go to confession?
I mean, I suppose.
Yeah, they do.
Of course.
But they're not like, you know, most of the Catholics that I know and talk to don't believe
that the pope is infallible.
Yeah, that's good.
Then that's really good.
Yeah.
Which is Catholic dogma.
They definitely are supposed to believe that.
OK.
Most of the Catholics I know don't believe in transubstantiation either, which is like
that's a big no no.
You're supposed to believe in transubstantiation.
And for those of us that aren't Catholic, what's transubstantiation?
That is that during the Eucharist, when you take the bread and the wine.
Oh, it's the literal.
The literal.
The literal body and blood of Christ.
Yeah.
When you when you take your communion or whatever.
Yeah, I think I had a good debate about that maybe in college or shortly after college
about how that wasn't cannibalism.
Like I was arguing that it would that it would be cannibalism.
Like if you legitimately believe you're eating somebody's body, like, is that not cannibalism?
But I also believe.
Oh, go on.
Oh, go ahead.
I was going to say and this is going to be another thing.
People are going to be flipping their tables or careening their cars off the road when
I say this next thing.
So if you're driving and you're going to be easily upset by the next profound thing, Nate
is going to say, please pull over, put your hazards on your flashers, whatever you call
them in your region.
And I'll give you just a couple more seconds here.
I also believe the women that drink or eat or somehow consume their own placenta.
I believe that's also cannibalism.
I don't know anybody who's done that.
That's pretty weird.
It's fucking gross and it's cannibalistic.
People claim that there's health benefits and I'm going to be firmly on that.
It's cannibalism and I don't want to hear about it.
If you if you grind it up in capsule form, you grind it up in a smoothie.
Like get that away from me.
I don't want any part of that.
Please don't talk to me about that.
I am gagging now.
You do what you want to do in your life.
I don't want to hear about it.
If you legitimately believe you're eating a thousands years old body or blood or whatever,
that's fucked up.
Like that's fucked up in the head and that should probably not continue.
But you do what you want to do.
It's been going on a long time because the Roman authorities attacked the early Christians
with by saying that they were cannibals and they weren't wrong.
That's why they also said they were atheists.
Interestingly enough, because atheists have always been the naughty ones.
Can confirm as an atheist.
I mean, I can confirm that we're naughty.
Every religious group hates the atheists, seemingly.
And why not?
They're easy to hate.
Yeah, we just don't understand.
We don't understand anything.
My favorite argument is when like the evangelicals like this one that atheists know the truth.
They just deny it.
They know there's a God.
They just deny it.
I've always enjoyed that one.
So ridiculous.
You could win so many like debate clubs.
Like if that was a legitimate form of debate.
Well, the opposing side knows we're right.
They're just denying it.
That's I mean, that's that's debate.
They're supposed to deny it.
They're supposed to have a differing opinion than you.
I'm coming very close to the end on mine.
I'm starting to get I am burning my fingers on this.
I've got maybe like three quarters of an inch left.
This one doesn't this one doesn't taste as peppery, I don't think, at the end at the
finish.
I'm getting pepper, but not as much.
Not as much.
It's a little more mellow.
Yeah, this one was darker and more full bodied throughout than the last one.
Yeah, then the vintage.
But very good.
I like this one.
What one would you say you enjoyed more?
I don't want to sound lame, but I think I enjoyed them both equally.
But they were two different types of cigars.
Yes, they're both very good and creamier.
And this one's a little bit darker and has a more bite to it.
Yeah.
I liked both.
I guess I can't really pick which one is my favorite.
I liked the the finish of the vintage 2001 more than I like the finish of this one.
But I feel just my my taste preferences enjoyed the rest of this one slightly more than the
vintage 2001, but only by a small, tiny fraction.
Sure.
Yeah, this one was just it was different.
So if you like that more of that bite and the darker flavor, then this is the ticket.
But yeah, I liked them both.
Both.
Very good.
And you were saying you've the Gurkhas have been a little hit or miss for you.
Yeah.
Yep.
I think so.
Yeah.
So I've had oh, I don't know, 10, 15 different Gurkhas.
I know I've had at least 12 minimum, but I've had a few different sticks.
And there's been some real good ones and some real bad ones.
OK, so it's a black autumn or black kind of like the beauty.
Yeah, I didn't think it was bad.
It just wasn't like something I want again.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think like a lot of the sticks that were like, hey, it's not if we're not saying
it's like straight out bad.
Like it's not it's not bad.
It's just for the for the price range, you could get something that has a little bit
more flavor, a little bit more complexity or what have you.
You know, it's not that we would ever we wouldn't turn down those ones necessarily.
I call if they're if they're mad, I would turn that one down all day long.
Turn it down.
I would turn I would turn that I would.
Oh, go ahead.
I was going to say I would turn down the cult blood red moon like I would turn down a placenta
smoothie.
Oh, boy.
Get that thing away from me.
I would turn down a quorum.
I don't think we've had that on the show yet, but no, we haven't.
I would turn that down.
OK.
Yeah, we're going to have one, I'm sure, on the show.
But it was not OK.
I'm so excited for that.
Can't we had one last time you were here, didn't we smoke one?
I thought we we did the tequila, though we did.
And we could put in more tequila on it.
Yeah.
OK, so I think that was the one we tried.
You asked me when I was there, we did one episode in person and then we just smoke and
drink.
And then at the quorum, you said, do you want to try this as a tequila?
I said I've never had one.
So let's try it normal.
And I took like one or two puffs and I said, give me the tequila.
Yep, that's exactly what happened.
And I kept on putting tequila on it because it was just not enough.
Yeah, we kept we kept basting it or brushing it.
Yeah, I'm still smoking this one.
Now I have a little over a half an inch.
I mean, it's like coming to the end of its life, but it's good.
Yeah.
I'm burning my fingers and I and I put it out.
So I think the overwhelming thing of these two Gurkas, the Vintage 2001 and the Centurion
is Mike and I both smoke this till it was legitimately burning our fingers.
So both very, very good.
Yes, do recommend.
And if you haven't watched it, watch the Mandalorian.
It was not as good as one and two, but yeah.
Yeah, it's uneven.
It's not as cohesive of a story.
Each episode is good, I think.
There wasn't really an episode that I disliked.
There were some that I liked less than other episodes for sure, but there are still good
episodes.
It just they weren't as cohesive as season one and two.
So right, you know, if you're prepared for that, it's fine.
It's all good.
I still have faith in, you know, Jon Favreau and Dave Thelony, and it's all going to tie
together somehow, some way.
They've been very good stewards of the franchise from what I've seen that they've done.
So yes.
So yeah, recommend recommendations all around, guys.
Yeah.
Everybody has a good week.
Yep.
Clean your guns, clean your electronics, clean everything you can.
Summer's coming, baby.
Catch us next week for probably another Gurka.
I don't know.
What do you think, Mike?
Yeah, we have two more on deck, so we could do next or we could switch it up.
Let's finish out the Gurka run and then we'll move on to something else.
Perfect.
Be safe, have fun.
Catch you next week.