Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: I'm growing concerned. I'm growing concerned for our dear mail bot,
Speaker 1: Arnold Um. We haven't been calling him over a lot recently.
Speaker 1: We've we've we've our own schedules have been crazy. We've
Speaker 1: been covering some some topics that have gone a bit
Speaker 1: long here and there, and for for various reasons, he
Speaker 1: just remains over in his corner. The mail is piling
Speaker 1: up around him, and I'm beginning to notice some some
Speaker 1: unhealthy behavior in this secluded mechanoid. Are you talking about
Speaker 1: the droppings? Yeah, that's one thing that's happening, Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's resting a little bit, he is. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna take the oil can out today, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a little bit of listener mail that has
Speaker 1: has built up, and and we're gonna make Arnie feel
Speaker 1: a little bit better, I think in the so and
Speaker 1: and and as a byproduct, will also be able to
Speaker 1: catch up on some some great listener mail. We just
Speaker 1: leave so many great responses on Facebook through through our
Speaker 1: email address. Most of it is wonderful, and yet we're
Speaker 1: so busy, and there's so the time is so limited.
Speaker 1: We don't really get to respond as much as we'd like.
Speaker 1: We don't get to share as much on the podcast
Speaker 1: as we would like. So today's the day we are
Speaker 1: going to cover this listener mail and let's bring on
Speaker 1: over Arnie. Hey there, Arnie, what have you got for us? Uh?
Speaker 1: What have you got for us today? You got some
Speaker 1: good ones that you've been building up? All right? Fair enough?
Speaker 1: This first one comes to us from Facebook, and it
Speaker 1: comes from listener Justin. Justin says, Hey, Robert and Julie
Speaker 1: just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your Aura
Speaker 1: Boris podcast today. However, I'm extremely disappointed that a couple
Speaker 1: of fantasy nerds like you, or at least Robert seems
Speaker 1: to be, didn't mention Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard it, there are four teen books,
Speaker 1: about five hundred thousand pages each. So these books are
Speaker 1: a significant investment in time, but I couldn't recommend them more.
Speaker 1: The Aura Boris plays a strong role, being both the
Speaker 1: symbol of the Wheel of Time, which drives this fantasy
Speaker 1: world through repeating ages and the symbol of the main
Speaker 1: magic users throughout the novels. Again, the series is a
Speaker 1: major investment of your time, but the payoff is well
Speaker 1: worth it. If you guys haven't read them yet, I
Speaker 1: would highly recommend it. Thanks for the great podcast. You
Speaker 1: have no idea how much it helps my commute and
Speaker 1: the more mundane parts of my day justin so, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: The Wheel of Time. It's a book series I've I've
Speaker 1: long been aware of, but as time goes by, I
Speaker 1: feel like I have I'm I'm ever against the idea
Speaker 1: of engaging and yet another um long and or unfinished
Speaker 1: fantasy series. I didn't you feel like that. You've got
Speaker 1: so much stuff in the way of books or even
Speaker 1: um like television series or movies that are stacking up there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, I know it's great. I hear it's great,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that I have time in this
Speaker 1: lifetime for it. We'll see, maybe I'll maybe I'll catch
Speaker 1: a prison sentence at some point and then I can
Speaker 1: throw myself at Wheel of Time. Are you not wishing
Speaker 1: that upon yourself? I'm not wishing it, and myself. It's
Speaker 1: it's a consolation prize. It's like out somehow I wound
Speaker 1: up in prison. But at least there's wheel of time.
Speaker 1: Well okay, alright, so I don't I hope that you
Speaker 1: have some other way of obtaining time. But the r
Speaker 1: bars in case you guys out there did not catch
Speaker 1: that one that was about the uh snake biting its
Speaker 1: tail episode, and that was we covered the symbolic aspects
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, I was. That's one of those episodes
Speaker 1: where briefly into the research, we didn't think there was
Speaker 1: enough there to constitute a full episode, where like, maybe
Speaker 1: there's just not enough here. This is more of a
Speaker 1: a blog post. But then we then we we doubled down,
Speaker 1: we research some more, and we started finding all these
Speaker 1: crazy scientific or or philosophical aspects of the subject matter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even a robotic aspect of it as well. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: let's hear from Francis. She posted this on Facebook, says,
Speaker 1: I loved this episode. Though when I tried explaining the
Speaker 1: mother having her nephews to some friends that would get together,
Speaker 1: they thought I had been doped into some urban legend.
Speaker 1: Where can I get my hands on more evidence? So
Speaker 1: I can score my told just so moment. Well, Francis,
Speaker 1: thank you for for letting us know about that. Um.
Speaker 1: It is not an urban legend, but it has all
Speaker 1: the elements of it. Right. You have this mother who
Speaker 1: had three sons, two of which had been tested to
Speaker 1: see if they might be a good donor uh for her,
Speaker 1: and found that genetically they did not match. And so
Speaker 1: it was found that she actually absorbed her twin, which
Speaker 1: means that the twins cellular material was passed on to
Speaker 1: two of her sons. So all right, there's a study
Speaker 1: by Margot cresscoll and is called disputed Maternity leading to
Speaker 1: identification of tetra comedic camerism. So anybody else out there
Speaker 1: who pulled this went off at a cocktail party, and
Speaker 1: you need some bad up. That is the name of
Speaker 1: the study. There you go printed out pass around because
Speaker 1: everybody wants to read a ten page paper at a
Speaker 1: cocktail It's an instant conversation starter. And if you're looking
Speaker 1: to you know, score some romance, no better way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and don't let anybody skip down to the summary. That's
Speaker 1: just yeah. I also wanted to mention I mentioned this
Speaker 1: in our last episode, the episode of micro Climira was
Speaker 1: suggested by listener Shawna, and I wanted to thank her
Speaker 1: again because I don't think that I mentioned this in
Speaker 1: the actual episode, and she is the reason why we
Speaker 1: can all sit back and think about these dastartly things
Speaker 1: going on in a southernly whether or not maybe one
Speaker 1: of the siblings cells are dwelling within us. So thank you, Shawna. Cool.
Speaker 1: All right, well, Arnold, what else do you have for us? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well that sounds like a good one. Let
Speaker 1: me see that one, Arnold. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Camilla and uh. This is a response to our
Speaker 1: episode on Staring and Camilla um works in China, which
Speaker 1: which actually Camilla was actually a really helpful for me
Speaker 1: right before my wife and I traveled to China on
Speaker 1: our adoption trip, because I got to run a couple
Speaker 1: of questions pastor about, you know, sort of cultural things
Speaker 1: before we left. So Camilla writes in and she says,
Speaker 1: great stuff on the Staring episode. I love I loved
Speaker 1: Julie Stare down with a seven year old, mainly because
Speaker 1: I'm guilty of that myself, as you know, living in
Speaker 1: small town China, particularly small town with very few foreigners
Speaker 1: I got a lot of stairs for being not Chinese.
Speaker 1: Not only stairs, but pointing competing people nudging each other
Speaker 1: and pointing out that there's a lawa on the bus.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I completely butchered the Mandarin. Uh well, I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure it's manner because I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: part of China she's in, But I'm sure I butchered it,
Speaker 1: she continues after After the novelty wears off, it can
Speaker 1: get quite annoying. So one day on the bus, this
Speaker 1: seven year old turns completely around and starts to stare
Speaker 1: at me. We're not talking about a subtle here. She
Speaker 1: was less than a foot away and was looking straight
Speaker 1: at for at least two minutes, which seems like a
Speaker 1: very long time when you're being stared at. Usually I
Speaker 1: would just ignore it. They've probably never seen a foreigner before,
Speaker 1: so let them soak it up. But that persistent stairs
Speaker 1: just too innovating, So I decided to let her know
Speaker 1: how it feels. I start staring back, and almost immediately
Speaker 1: she backs down. I could see in her eyes how
Speaker 1: uncomfortable she felt. And I go out on a limb
Speaker 1: here and say that that's how most people feel like
Speaker 1: when they're being stared at very uncomfortable, like your personal
Speaker 1: space has been invaded, even from a distance. So there
Speaker 1: you go. That's there's some some interesting insight into the
Speaker 1: experience of staring. Um. I also feel better about about
Speaker 1: staring star off with a seven year old, So thank
Speaker 1: you Camilla, you know. And I knew from Camilla and
Speaker 1: just from general reading of prior to our travel to China,
Speaker 1: that there would be a lot of stairs, particularly when
Speaker 1: we were in Ending where there there are certainly far
Speaker 1: in a huge city seven million people, I believe, but
Speaker 1: there are fewer foreigners, and so we we did receive
Speaker 1: a lot of stairs there. And it's just sort of
Speaker 1: culturally more okay to stare at strange giant westerners with
Speaker 1: blonde hair. Uh. And at first it was it was okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of I knew why what was
Speaker 1: going on. I knew culturally what the deal was. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, it's fine. I'm I'm an outsider.
Speaker 1: I look weird. I'm only fall outsider with I don't
Speaker 1: know were they blewe e eyes green green green, and
Speaker 1: then kind of blonde his hair. So yeah, so in
Speaker 1: and you know, my wife too, we both got a
Speaker 1: lot of stairs. But early on were you know, it
Speaker 1: was fine. We you know, we realized what was happening.
Speaker 1: But as the trip progressed, I found that it kind
Speaker 1: of grated on me more and more. Not that I
Speaker 1: was like actively getting angry about it, like stopped staring
Speaker 1: at me or anything, but I just I felt more
Speaker 1: and more like I wanted to hide somewhere or go
Speaker 1: somewhere where people wouldn't be staring. Even though it's not
Speaker 1: like I didn't feel safe. I felt safe the entire
Speaker 1: time I was in China, but I I it was,
Speaker 1: it just kind of begins to irritate you more and more.
Speaker 1: Not even irritate you, just make you feel did you
Speaker 1: feel objectifying, like sort of like us than human or no,
Speaker 1: it's just well maybe in a sense like in a
Speaker 1: in a in an unconscious sense, like you just reached
Speaker 1: the point where you just don't want to be stared
Speaker 1: at anymore, Like for for just non formulated reasons. You're
Speaker 1: just like, I just want to be me and be
Speaker 1: privately me somewhere and and not looked at as an outsider.
Speaker 1: So when you got back to the States, though, did
Speaker 1: you were you so used to being stared at We're like, hey,
Speaker 1: what what's going on? I'm right here, guys, I don't
Speaker 1: I guess it's it was in a way it's nice
Speaker 1: to be on Marta and just be ignored. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just nice to be ignored. But it was a
Speaker 1: great experience too, and to realize, to help realize what
Speaker 1: it's like for people who get stares everywhere, people who
Speaker 1: you know, how either say unnaturally tall, unnaturally short, or
Speaker 1: there's something about them, you know, maybe they're just you know,
Speaker 1: the racially the racial inversion of my situation where they
Speaker 1: you know, they find themselves, you know, surrounded by a
Speaker 1: bunch of you know, tall, pale white people and it's
Speaker 1: and and they are the outsider. It feels weird. So
Speaker 1: so it was great experience in that it does give
Speaker 1: me more insight, I feel, into into what it's like
Speaker 1: to be the other. Yeah. But as Camilla suggested my
Speaker 1: my my wife a few different times said that she
Speaker 1: would just stare back. It's someone who's staring at and
Speaker 1: she's like, well, if they're staring at me, it gives
Speaker 1: me full license to stare at them. But I was
Speaker 1: always too awkward to do that. It's like like that,
Speaker 1: because I know they don't. They don't actually want to
Speaker 1: be stared at, So I'm not gonna give them what
Speaker 1: I'm feeling, you know, And then you have to engage
Speaker 1: in their souls if you do that. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: want to make eye contact with anyone anyway. So all right.
Speaker 1: We got another email on staring. This is from Vic
Speaker 1: and he said, I enjoyed the recent podcasts in the
Speaker 1: Science of Staring. As a poker player, you can imagine
Speaker 1: that there's quite a bit of staring as a group
Speaker 1: of guys sit around a small table playing cards for
Speaker 1: hours on end, many of these guys posturing to be
Speaker 1: the alpha mail at the table. After yeah, after either
Speaker 1: having made a bet or perhaps facing a bet, players
Speaker 1: exhibit a variety of stairs. Some stare blankly at the
Speaker 1: cards in the middle of the table, trying not to
Speaker 1: give away any tells, while others choose to stare down
Speaker 1: their opponent while their conscious minds try to determine if
Speaker 1: they're beat or being bluffed. Their unconscious emotional minds are
Speaker 1: always on the lookout for hints as well. After listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast, I tried this little experiment. I had
Speaker 1: a particularly strong hand and on the river. Once all
Speaker 1: the cards had been dealt, I raised my opponent. He
Speaker 1: had the most chips at the table and was embracing
Speaker 1: the alpha male roll at the table that afternoon, while
Speaker 1: deciding whether to call my rays or fold, he stared
Speaker 1: at me. I was looking at the center of the table,
Speaker 1: trying not to give off any signals that might help him.
Speaker 1: But I decided that I would stare back at him,
Speaker 1: but only for a second or two, and then only
Speaker 1: very meekly. I looked into his stare, looked away, and
Speaker 1: then back and quickly back at the center of the table. Certainly,
Speaker 1: in alpha male would not want to be bluffed out
Speaker 1: of a sizeable pot. He may have, in fact logically
Speaker 1: come to the correct conclusion that he was beat, but
Speaker 1: not wanting to back down from what may have appeared
Speaker 1: as a weaker stare from his opponent, he called. He
Speaker 1: called his hand, I suppose right. What I found most
Speaker 1: interesting was that as he was pushing his chips into
Speaker 1: the pot, he actually said, I know I'm beat, but
Speaker 1: I just have to call. I showed him my hand
Speaker 1: and he quietly folded his cards. I may continue to
Speaker 1: use the staring tactic from time to time when facing
Speaker 1: who I perceive as the alpha male at the poker table,
Speaker 1: when I'm holding what I think is the winning cand
Speaker 1: Thanks to stuff to blow the mind for this valuable
Speaker 1: bit of science. By the way, I vote no to
Speaker 1: abbreviating the as t H. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: I love it. See you listen to the podcast and
Speaker 1: it improves your gambling and your ability well and and
Speaker 1: on a more a less you know, hilarious sense, it
Speaker 1: helps you better navigate the world because you're a little
Speaker 1: more aware about what's going on. I love that he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm identifying the alpha male. I'm going to
Speaker 1: trick him into this sort of weak stare. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take all this money. The the alpha male stare thing
Speaker 1: is weird and is and is the worst. Like I would,
Speaker 1: I far prefer the outsider stare than the alpha mail stair.
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't get any weird alpha mair mail stare
Speaker 1: stuff going on when I was in China. As a
Speaker 1: side note, I recently saw that there was a study
Speaker 1: that said that men with wider faces appear to be
Speaker 1: more aggressive. But I wonder if that's a staring thing,
Speaker 1: Like if it's staring just seems more pronounced anyway, it's
Speaker 1: something that's uh I shall check into. All Right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and we come back. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have some more listener mail here with our robot friend.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're back. Um, what else do you have
Speaker 1: for us, Arnold? I know you have a you have
Speaker 1: a lot of mail there. Do you have some some
Speaker 1: other tantalizing bits of correspondence to share? Oh, here's one.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Jesse. Uh. Jesse's responding
Speaker 1: to um some of our Hell related content that has
Speaker 1: come out over the years, and we've done quite a
Speaker 1: bit of it, a lot of that's my fault, but
Speaker 1: we've we've talked about the science of Hell, we've talked
Speaker 1: about the problem of Hell from more of a philosophical
Speaker 1: sociological standpoint, and of course we did that whole series
Speaker 1: on the Seven Deadly Sins. So Hell pops up frequently.
Speaker 1: And Uh, I also been talking about Dante. So Jesse
Speaker 1: writes in from Sitney, Australian, says, hey, guys, longtime listener,
Speaker 1: first time emailer. I really enjoyed the recent episodes in
Speaker 1: Hell and was reminded of this fantastic song by a
Speaker 1: new Jersey metal band, iced Earth. The song is about
Speaker 1: fourteen minutes long and it's full of melody, complexity, and
Speaker 1: well metal. It conveys a sense of journey and mystery,
Speaker 1: and I challenge you to listen to it without headbanging.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed as much as I have now
Speaker 1: over a decade. Include a YouTube link, but again, you
Speaker 1: can just search for iced Earth and uh hopefully find
Speaker 1: uh this this particular track. So it was interesting because uh,
Speaker 1: I love any kind of uh uh situation where a
Speaker 1: topic that we've covered uh collides with music in any
Speaker 1: shape or form Alright, so you got your your hell on? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and I think maybe I was headbanging a little,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought I saw you your desk doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was pretty sure I have. I've taught the toddler
Speaker 1: to a head bang a little bit. Yeah, how's that going?
Speaker 1: Pretty good? He'll do it in the car, you know.
Speaker 1: He all that the booty dancing came naturally to him,
Speaker 1: and it's like it always does, but that I had
Speaker 1: to sort of show him that this is what you
Speaker 1: do if we're playing Black Sabbath in the car, that
Speaker 1: you're supposed to move your head and he seems to
Speaker 1: catch on. See, maybe we should do an episode on
Speaker 1: the science of headbanging? What is that about? Mash pits?
Speaker 1: What's that about? There's a whole like world of metal,
Speaker 1: uh you know in face melting that it needs to
Speaker 1: be you know, research and you know how about the
Speaker 1: hair the physics of the hair? Yeah? Yeah, yeah? And
Speaker 1: what and how is the headbanging different between the long
Speaker 1: hair and the shaved head, Like those are the two extremes.
Speaker 1: You don't see a lot of headbanging in the realms,
Speaker 1: you don't. I mean, how much momentum does that hair create? Anyway? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Which is better? And is that? What are the long
Speaker 1: term health effects? There's something there and I bet you
Speaker 1: anyway that there's a study. All right, here we have
Speaker 1: another one. Uh Wehen when we were talking about Hell,
Speaker 1: we brought up the the Buddhist Hell theme park in Singapore,
Speaker 1: And since our listeners are based all over and travel
Speaker 1: all over, inevitably we had a couple of different listeners
Speaker 1: right in about it. We heard from a Chin and
Speaker 1: we heard from young about the theme park, and they
Speaker 1: both sent us a bunch of pictures. Uh here just
Speaker 1: a couple of quick excerpts gen Wright sentences. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: a listener from Singapore. I recently became a huge fan
Speaker 1: of the show thanks to Neptina, my girlfriend. Recently, while
Speaker 1: I was sandwiched between sad disgruntled office workers on my
Speaker 1: way to work, I was listening to the episode called
Speaker 1: Symbols on the Brain, and being from Singapore, you're mentioning
Speaker 1: of the health theme park caught my attention immediately. That
Speaker 1: is not to say I paid no attention to the
Speaker 1: rest of the podcast. I remember visiting of hop har
Speaker 1: Villa when I was about seven years old. Boy did
Speaker 1: it lead and leave an impression. The Ten Courts of
Speaker 1: Hell was and continues to be the main attraction the
Speaker 1: now defunct theme park. As a kid, I wrongfully assumed
Speaker 1: that I was going to see animatronic dragons at this
Speaker 1: part of the part, since the Ten Courts of Hell
Speaker 1: attraction was located inside a sixty ft long dragon. Back then,
Speaker 1: after coming out of the place, I had bed wedding
Speaker 1: nightmares for two weeks straight. So the Ten Courts of
Speaker 1: Hell work something like that. The first Court of Hell
Speaker 1: is basically the courtroom, and it is believed that you
Speaker 1: go there When you die, they're a judge called King
Speaker 1: Quinn Young will conduct a preliminary trial based on your
Speaker 1: past deeds. The good people get to go get to
Speaker 1: pass onto the new life on the bad people will
Speaker 1: be assigned to different courts of Hell. In subsequent courts,
Speaker 1: things get a little interesting. For example, robbers are thrown
Speaker 1: into a volcanic pit, Prostitutes are thrown into a pool
Speaker 1: of blood and drowned and ungrateful people have their hearts
Speaker 1: torn out. Drug addicts and tomb raiders, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: get tied to a red hot copper pillar and burned alive.
Speaker 1: Other forms of punishments include being thrown onto a hill
Speaker 1: of knives, sawed in half, thrown into a pot of
Speaker 1: boiling oil, dismemberment, crushed under boulders, etcetera. In ha Parvilla itself,
Speaker 1: you will see every court of Hell in detail, complete
Speaker 1: with miniature clay figurines being tortured or for your or
Speaker 1: lack of better words, viewing pleasure. Of course, ha par
Speaker 1: Villa is way more than that. Hap Prvilla was built
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties by Ah boon Ha, a wealthy
Speaker 1: businessman who loved his younger brother very much. Boon Ha
Speaker 1: grew up a firm believer of Eastern ideologies and values,
Speaker 1: while his younger brother learned always leaned always to the West.
Speaker 1: To remind his younger brother of his roots, Boon Hall
Speaker 1: built a theme park filled with Chinese mythologies, stories, and symbols.
Speaker 1: The Ten Courts of Hell is merely one of the
Speaker 1: many attractions in this theme park. There you will also
Speaker 1: see traditional Chinese mythologies brought to life via statues. In fact,
Speaker 1: speaking of symbols, the entire park has a lot of
Speaker 1: circular motifs built right into the architecture. From the top,
Speaker 1: you will see that the park is circular, which is
Speaker 1: supposed to symbolize harmony and the importance of family, a
Speaker 1: point at which the elder brother wanted the younger brother
Speaker 1: to remember. Ha Parvilla gained a rather unsavory reputation of
Speaker 1: the years due to the grotesque nature of his exhibits
Speaker 1: and the fact that the statues uh were never crafted
Speaker 1: very well in the first place. Still, even though not
Speaker 1: very many people bother to visit it these days, it's
Speaker 1: one of those places. It's so bad it's good. You
Speaker 1: just have to see it to believe it anyway, you
Speaker 1: guys are one of the very few podcasts I listened to.
Speaker 1: Keep up the great work. I love your show. Wow,
Speaker 1: we got an inside tour of that. It is so
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what my appetite for it even more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I like how he you know, he drew out
Speaker 1: that there's a there's a lot more to it than
Speaker 1: just you know, the pictures that that makes falter through
Speaker 1: to to to Western viewers. Um. I mean, if if
Speaker 1: I ever get the chance to be in the same
Speaker 1: vicinity of it, I would obviously I would go, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a new brainer. Yeah, alright, whether what other fresh
Speaker 1: hell do you have for us? We also heard from
Speaker 1: another listener again, this one came from Young talking about
Speaker 1: the Buddhist hell and and he just wanted to mention
Speaker 1: that it was created by the founders of Tiger Bomb
Speaker 1: and uh and then when when it was when it
Speaker 1: was built in and it was originally called Tiger Bomb
Speaker 1: Gardens but was changed to his current name in night
Speaker 1: by the Tourism board says it's free to enter for
Speaker 1: anyone and there's even a subway station in front of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: It must have run out of funds or something. Because
Speaker 1: when I visited it was in a state of disrepair,
Speaker 1: which might actually have helped enhance the creepy nature of
Speaker 1: the place. The area show different levels or areas of
Speaker 1: hell and how centers are public punished in various graphic
Speaker 1: and gory ways. It's an interesting place to go for
Speaker 1: anyone visiting Singapore, if not for the creepy abandoned theme
Speaker 1: park experience, then for the educational value um. And then
Speaker 1: he includes a number of images which were all fabulous.
Speaker 1: I love how he mentioned that the rundown aspect of
Speaker 1: it made it all the more creepy because as a
Speaker 1: as an Atlanta resident, reminds me of the old What
Speaker 1: what was the ride at six Flags Plantation Mountain Plantation
Speaker 1: one of my favorite rides. Yeah, and I understand they've
Speaker 1: redone it and it's probably they probably ruined it in
Speaker 1: the process, to my opinion, because it used to be
Speaker 1: awesome in the fact that it was falling apart and
Speaker 1: then there's this musty stench in the air, and and
Speaker 1: there was when you go through Monster Plantation or the
Speaker 1: Southern Gothic set up by the way, which is already
Speaker 1: a little weird, and there's a plantation where there are monsters,
Speaker 1: and the first part of it is happy, and then
Speaker 1: there's like a scary part and then you're a yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're on a little boat with you know, undrinkable
Speaker 1: water around you. And the scary part isn't really scary,
Speaker 1: but the happy party is like super creepy, or was
Speaker 1: super creepy because of the beings are animatronic, they're falling
Speaker 1: apart sometimes their metal skeletons are are showing through, and
Speaker 1: there is just a creepy, uncanny experience. It's like an
Speaker 1: old southern lady and an antebellum gown animatronic. And then
Speaker 1: you go into the scary part and there was a
Speaker 1: big old sheriff like it's very much like Dukes of
Speaker 1: hazard kind of and he's like, no, go down. It's
Speaker 1: good stuff. So there's something I would like to hear
Speaker 1: for any of our local or Atlanta based listeners or
Speaker 1: anyone who's traveled there. Let me know what it's like now,
Speaker 1: because I don't actually want to go. I just want yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, alright, um, let me see here, Arnie, do
Speaker 1: you have something from me? Oh? Thank you? All right.
Speaker 1: We had a good amount of emails without word of
Speaker 1: version because everybody had an opinion about it. Either they
Speaker 1: didn't have a word of version or they did and
Speaker 1: they shared it with us, and it was really interesting.
Speaker 1: This was the episode that you and Alison Ladermilk did
Speaker 1: while I was away, and I have to say it
Speaker 1: was a great episode and it was interesting for me
Speaker 1: to get to listen to stuff to blow your mind
Speaker 1: and not know what was going to happen right right,
Speaker 1: because you didn't have any sort of like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't have an outline on this. Yeah, I didn't have
Speaker 1: an outline with those crazy kids are going to cover.
Speaker 1: So it's so it was a really cool episode. Thanks well,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Well this one is from Nando
Speaker 1: and Nana says, I've been a listener for a while.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Word of Version episode and
Speaker 1: even though I do not have a word of version,
Speaker 1: I do have a word that I love saying. Because
Speaker 1: we also talked about words that we are attracted to,
Speaker 1: and that word being the word mulch, mulch. I don't
Speaker 1: go around all days saying it, but I do enjoy
Speaker 1: it a lot. It is not only fun to hear it,
Speaker 1: but it also feels good in my mouth. We talked
Speaker 1: about that in the podcast to like there's certain sort
Speaker 1: of satisfaction of its almost like kind of Marble's mulch
Speaker 1: in your mouth. Um. I think that it's the sound
Speaker 1: that makes it so appealing to me. Anyway, love the show,
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work. Alright, And this one is
Speaker 1: from Chris says, Hey, Robert and Julie finally caught up
Speaker 1: on all the podcasts. Just want to say that the
Speaker 1: Alison episode on word version was excellent and that she
Speaker 1: and Julie did a great joble Robert's way, my weird
Speaker 1: word aversion. Comic kaze a good word, but I thought
Speaker 1: it was pronounced differently as a kid, and when I
Speaker 1: found out the correct way, I became annoyed. To this day,
Speaker 1: I tend to cringe whenever I see it. Oh, it
Speaker 1: haunts me. Keep up the awesome work. Sorry for using
Speaker 1: awesome when we talked about that, is that one of
Speaker 1: the words that kept landing on the list, because awesome
Speaker 1: is like the word love is far overused and when
Speaker 1: we actually encounter something or imagine something that is awe
Speaker 1: inspiring that is awesome in a in a grander sense,
Speaker 1: the word fails to don't Yeah, you're like that, I
Speaker 1: can't use that word. That's really the appropriate word, but
Speaker 1: now it's been watered down, and I have nothing like
Speaker 1: an Angel of the Lord like steps out of a
Speaker 1: UFO and starts handing out twinkies and then splits the
Speaker 1: earth in half. Like that's an awesome sight. But you
Speaker 1: can't say it's awesome because you already said that a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee you had earlier in the day was awesome,
Speaker 1: and and now that you've had this paranormal twinkie episode,
Speaker 1: you just can't put the two in the same category.
Speaker 1: I can definitely relate with her about the whole pronunciation thing,
Speaker 1: because there have been words in in the past where
Speaker 1: like I grew up saying I'm weird or or even
Speaker 1: like for a very brief time, like when I first
Speaker 1: read Jurassic Park, I didn't know it was pronounced a velociraptor,
Speaker 1: and I think I said velisa raptor and uh, and
Speaker 1: then it was corrected on it, and it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's like in junior high or not even
Speaker 1: quite junior high, but still the word velociraptor, I'll remember,
Speaker 1: like that, the pain of having to be corrected on
Speaker 1: its pronunciation. Yeah, I'm still angry at detritus. I want
Speaker 1: it to be Detritus just feels like it should be.
Speaker 1: But I'm very annoyed with the word as well. UM.
Speaker 1: Got one more word of version. This is from Francis.
Speaker 1: I was so surprised to see your word of version
Speaker 1: podcast today. I had no idea there were others like me.
Speaker 1: There are. I never bring word version up and conversation
Speaker 1: because of the natural follow up question what words? And
Speaker 1: I don't want to say them. They are, for the
Speaker 1: most part, completely normal, everyday words that don't describe body
Speaker 1: parts or anything disgusting. But when I hear someone use one,
Speaker 1: it stops me completely. I have to digest what I
Speaker 1: just heard, consider the word. It takes me a while
Speaker 1: to recover. The most mild one that I'm willing to
Speaker 1: write down is purse. Even that gave me a chill,
Speaker 1: And that is the most mild of all the words
Speaker 1: that I don't say. I wish I could do the
Speaker 1: sentence thing this was. We invited people to create their
Speaker 1: own sentences of words that we're we're reverse of um,
Speaker 1: but it would take me a long time to recover.
Speaker 1: I appreciated your sentence in the show, though some of
Speaker 1: the words, one in particular is on my list, and
Speaker 1: so it made me shiver to hear it. This whole
Speaker 1: word thing is so ridiculous. My husband thinks I'm crazy,
Speaker 1: but it's very real, and I can't seem to flip
Speaker 1: that switch off. So in the meantime I just speak
Speaker 1: in awkward sentences to avoid saying the bad words, sometimes
Speaker 1: very awkward sentences things. For the great show, I listened intently,
Speaker 1: was really interested in learning more about this word a
Speaker 1: version thing. Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Francis
Speaker 1: that I mean, I sort of understand that there are
Speaker 1: certain trigger words and you don't want to say it,
Speaker 1: and so there are certain words that sometimes they're just
Speaker 1: trepidacious about and I end up having some sort of
Speaker 1: word salad coming out of my mouth. So I can
Speaker 1: sort of understand from a from a limited perspective speaking
Speaker 1: which trepidacious great word? Yeah, it's a nice one. I
Speaker 1: also like, there are a lot of great words I like,
Speaker 1: But what's your most favorite? I don't know, Like I
Speaker 1: was just thinking gargantulan is a great word, yeah, galgatha
Speaker 1: like anything like which, remembering that one stem from the
Speaker 1: other one, like any kind of word that has a
Speaker 1: kind of a rolling cadence to it. I really like,
Speaker 1: I really like coalyptiancalyptian, that's pretty good. That's mainly because
Speaker 1: it means well formed buttocks. What other word could could
Speaker 1: express such a sentiment? Reminds me cyclopean. I really like, yeah, um.
Speaker 1: I mean there's so many, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's really a word aversion or just an aversion to um.
Speaker 1: Often are reluctance or inability to fully describe smells. And
Speaker 1: I've mentioned this before. I tend to dislike people saying
Speaker 1: something stinks, especially in reference to food, reference to cheeses
Speaker 1: that stink quote unquote stink. If they say a stinky
Speaker 1: cheese like that tends to get to me because I
Speaker 1: feel like that's you're describing food, you're describing something that doesn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, stink is just such a it's a broadly
Speaker 1: applied word that doesn't actually convey any meaning. Like an.
Speaker 1: I think we should use a we should have a
Speaker 1: better vocabulary for for smells, and and if and if
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about cheeses, especially in their children
Speaker 1: around and you you know, you want to foster an
Speaker 1: idea that that all foods should at least be tried.
Speaker 1: Then maybe that cheese is not so much stinky as
Speaker 1: it is, uh, you know, aromatic or pungent. Okay, you
Speaker 1: need a team up with the odor artist. Setil told
Speaker 1: us first of all, yeah, she's very much of the
Speaker 1: same mindset. So second, you're pinning down a usage thing.
Speaker 1: But is there one word that just chills you to
Speaker 1: the marrow? Oh? Okay, what about vomit? I tend to
Speaker 1: like vomit um. How could you love vomit? And on
Speaker 1: all the lists, I don't. I mean, I don't like
Speaker 1: vomiting and I don't like the substance of vomit. But
Speaker 1: it's a v word and uh, and it rhymes with comet.
Speaker 1: It has a very like it does have the plose
Speaker 1: of consonants going for it. One of my favorite name
Speaker 1: fictional names is there's a Brian mcnaton's book Throne of Bones.
Speaker 1: There's a character, it's the King of the Ghoules and
Speaker 1: his name is vomcron Noxus, which so I love that
Speaker 1: name because it's taking a vomit and it's taking noxious
Speaker 1: and it's kind of twisting the words around and creating
Speaker 1: this new word rawn for chronos in it as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a sense of that as well. You know, that's
Speaker 1: sort of an ancient and godly uh statue to it.
Speaker 1: So I tend to really like fake words and fake
Speaker 1: names in fantasy and science fiction when they're well crafted,
Speaker 1: not when they're just sort of you know, mindless dungeons
Speaker 1: and dragons, sort of word salad where you just call
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of vaguely tolken esque, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: elf name or something. But I really have a hard
Speaker 1: time thinking of any word that I dislike just for
Speaker 1: the sake of the word. Maybe if I, if I
Speaker 1: think about it, I'll share it in a future podcast
Speaker 1: episode with Moist. It's not my go to word, and
Speaker 1: I know that it annoys enough people that I would
Speaker 1: probably not use it, Like, it's not really in my
Speaker 1: satchel of words, but it's it doesn't bother me. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we should probably wrap up because I need to go
Speaker 1: attend to this Moist crevice. Nothing. Well, I know that
Speaker 1: you're using words you just like in a sentence, so
Speaker 1: I thought I saw you WinCE. Yeah, well maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit, but still it's not a not a strong,
Speaker 1: not a like a you know, a visceral reaction. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to think, I'm I'm just gonna have
Speaker 1: to be aware of myself listen and find that word that.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I'll try to drop as many drop
Speaker 1: as many drop the whole list at me, you know,
Speaker 1: in one sentence, if possible, I know what I'm doing
Speaker 1: this week. All right, Well, there there you go, Arnold.
Speaker 1: Do you feel better? Yeah, you feel a little more
Speaker 1: more balanced, a little more healthy. Well that's great. We
Speaker 1: will have to do this more often and maybe even
Speaker 1: at the end of of podcast episodes. And if for
Speaker 1: the rest of you, if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us as well, you can find us online.
Speaker 1: It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the
Speaker 1: mother ship. That's where everything can be found from our
Speaker 1: podcasts and our videos and our blog posts. Two links
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Speaker 1: Show and Julie. If they want to send us a
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Speaker 1: it's very easy. All you have to do is compose
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