Speaker 1: This week on the Happy Half Hour, Augusta and I
Speaker 1: can create a good podcast, we can write a good story,
Speaker 1: we can keep up to date information on the website.
Speaker 1: I can't fix oh in five, So I'm gonna clean
Speaker 1: up my yard. And I think that's what everybody downstairs
Speaker 1: is trying to do, is filter out some of that
Speaker 1: noise and some of that fake problems and keep the
Speaker 1: focus on the real stuff instead. It's time for the
Speaker 1: Happy half Hour with your friends Kristin Balboni, Augusta Stone,
Speaker 1: and Darren Gannon. Welcome for the Happy half Hour. And
Speaker 1: it's still called the Happy half Hour even though the
Speaker 1: football team's ZHO and five, because we have no control
Speaker 1: of that and we already felt that Happy half Hour
Speaker 1: was a good name for a podcast and it took
Speaker 1: too much time to change it.
Speaker 2: We can be happy about some things, you can.
Speaker 3: I was gonna, you know, you always like go back
Speaker 3: to the weather, but it is raining today in Charlotte,
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like, dang, I got.
Speaker 1: Football team Zone five. It's raining outside in Charlotte.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it's it's tough.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, maybe you have a nice cup
Speaker 3: of coffee or you know, a diet coke. I'm a
Speaker 3: big diet coke girl. Get yourself a nice little drink
Speaker 3: or a snack. Find joy in the what you're consuming.
Speaker 3: I always like to lean into food of things that
Speaker 3: make me happy.
Speaker 2: TV shows What is.
Speaker 1: The food that makes AUGUSTA Stone happy? Oh, my gosh's
Speaker 1: on a rainy day in October?
Speaker 2: There's so many.
Speaker 3: Probably my favorite is So I grew up rural northwest Georgia.
Speaker 2: My mama is what I call my grandmother on my
Speaker 2: dad's side.
Speaker 1: She no woman from the city has ever been known
Speaker 1: as Mama.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's Mama.
Speaker 3: And she has this beautiful vegetable garden every summer and
Speaker 3: she cans her own vegetable soup.
Speaker 2: It is delicious.
Speaker 3: I have tons of it because she has so much,
Speaker 3: and every time I get to go visit her, she
Speaker 3: like leaves me.
Speaker 2: It's so funny trying to get back up because I.
Speaker 3: Have all these jars, so I probably have about five
Speaker 3: or six and I've been eaten all the time. But
Speaker 3: anytime it's a cold day, I try to heat that up.
Speaker 3: You know, you throw some vegetablele in it and maybe
Speaker 3: have a side of a sandwich of some sort.
Speaker 2: But that is my favorite comfort food.
Speaker 3: I have it when I'm sick, when it's rainy, when
Speaker 3: it's cold, and it reminds me of home. So I
Speaker 3: will probably do that when I get home later, get some.
Speaker 3: We call it Mama soup. It's literally just tomato based
Speaker 3: vegetable soup and it is amazing.
Speaker 1: That does sound pretty good. And the traditional sandwich that
Speaker 1: would go with Mama's vegetable soup I would think for
Speaker 1: a lot of people would be a grilled cheese. You, however,
Speaker 1: being a vegan, as we may have mentioned a time
Speaker 1: or two, are not eating a grilled cheese on the
Speaker 1: side with Mama's vegetable soup. What is the sandwich of
Speaker 1: preference there?
Speaker 2: Hey, I make a vegan grilled cheese. I can't lie.
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 3: There's specific brands that I like that I won't shout
Speaker 3: out because I've seen our cart talks long enough to
Speaker 3: know that certain brands will get axed. So but I
Speaker 3: like my vegan cheese. Some of it melt, some of
Speaker 3: it doesn't. It all tastes good enough to me. I
Speaker 3: have had cheese in like three years, so I've kind
Speaker 3: of forgotten what it's supposed to taste like.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so I will.
Speaker 3: I'll make my own little phony grilled cheese and I
Speaker 3: will add hot sauce to it.
Speaker 2: That usually helps.
Speaker 1: All Right, Mimo to the Mark and Sponsorship department, get
Speaker 1: on the official vegan cheese substitute product of the Carolina Panthers. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: people have spoken, this is the thing we need, and
Speaker 1: people want to know what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have suggestions.
Speaker 1: People want to know what brand they should be consuming.
Speaker 1: I think we're in a safe space here in terms
Speaker 1: of vegan you know, vegan food substitute products. I don't
Speaker 1: think you're going to be competing with anybody in this place.
Speaker 1: So is what's the thing is is a vegan grilled
Speaker 1: cheese sandwich supposed to be like, is it supposed to
Speaker 1: taste like cheese or just have the consistency of cheese.
Speaker 2: It's always the taste.
Speaker 3: The consistency is where cheese is lacking in vegan circles.
Speaker 2: Melting. Some brands do it, most of them don't. So
Speaker 2: you're really.
Speaker 3: Looking for that kind of flavor profile, and most of
Speaker 3: them do do a decent job. I would say there's
Speaker 3: some if you get like specific like if you're looking
Speaker 3: for like American cheese, you're not gonna get it.
Speaker 2: But maybe you know a smoked gooda.
Speaker 3: Comp I think you can. You can get that smoky
Speaker 3: flavor pretty easily without it being meat, because you can.
Speaker 3: I have liquid smoke like in my cabinet. I use
Speaker 3: it all the time for things I'm trying to make
Speaker 3: taste like smoky bacon or smoky this.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 3: Technology science has really come a long way, even in
Speaker 3: the past like five years, with like this vegan cheese situation,
Speaker 3: but no consistency.
Speaker 2: I would say that with most vegan foods.
Speaker 3: If you're looking, if you're a textures person, don't don't
Speaker 3: be vegan, just don't.
Speaker 1: All right, See when it's raining and I'm going soup,
Speaker 1: I go pretty much the opposite of vegan. My kids
Speaker 1: know that after cooking, you know, I have a problem
Speaker 1: cooking for one person or two people. I tend to
Speaker 1: cook for eight, whether there's three people in my house
Speaker 1: or two or four or twelve a lot of times.
Speaker 1: So I will make a pot roast or something on
Speaker 1: a Monday, and then by Thursday that becomes vegetable soup.
Speaker 1: So you don't waste anything. You use the whole buffalo.
Speaker 1: That's the way I was raised and you know, when
Speaker 1: you're dealing with vegetable soup like that, you know, to me,
Speaker 1: the counterpart, I'll go grin cheese, sometimes grilled pimento cheese.
Speaker 1: It is the move. And I don't even want to
Speaker 1: think about what vegan pimeno cheese might be like. It
Speaker 1: just feels like lump of oil that has been turned
Speaker 1: orange or something. So that's fun.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that about you, about your cooking.
Speaker 3: I love finding out things that like maybe you wouldn't
Speaker 3: know about your coworker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have problems with portion control. I mean, or
Speaker 1: I think really what I want when I cook for
Speaker 1: eight to twelve people, or if I make two pans
Speaker 1: of zed at the same time. My wife's like, who
Speaker 1: did you think was coming over? Well? I was hoping
Speaker 1: people would just drop by when I was when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, my grandmother, who's the God rest her soul,
Speaker 1: whose name was Willy Gant, she always had food going
Speaker 1: on the stove. So, I mean, the running joke would
Speaker 1: be if escape convicts came to Willie Gant's house at
Speaker 1: four in the morning, she'd be standing there cooking, say
Speaker 1: sit down and eat, you know, And so I keep
Speaker 1: waiting whether it's the escape convicts, or for my kids
Speaker 1: to come home from college, or or for friends to
Speaker 1: just show up on the porch. I keep waiting for
Speaker 1: people to just show up so I can feed them.
Speaker 3: That's the thing I would love to pull out. Maybe
Speaker 3: you can make me a vegan mill sometimes. I love that,
Speaker 3: though it's also another mama thing. She would always feed
Speaker 3: a lot or make a lot of food, and she
Speaker 3: was feeding four to six miles on a good day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can always freeze it, you can always repurpose it,
Speaker 1: you can always you can always do more. But you
Speaker 1: can't get by with less unless you're working some kind
Speaker 1: of miracle or something. I don't know. And we'll get
Speaker 1: into we'll get into fishes and loaves in another episode
Speaker 1: of The Happy Half Hour. But I think we've killed
Speaker 1: enough time. And we are contractually obligated, even though we
Speaker 1: don't have a vegan cheese substitute sponsor here at the
Speaker 1: Carolina Panthers, we are contractually obligated to talk about Carolina
Speaker 1: Panthers football from time to time. And hey, here's what's
Speaker 1: going on that football team zero and five right now?
Speaker 1: Not great, Bob. It was a trip to Detroit that
Speaker 1: reminded me an awful lot of the trip to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I've told Augusta before and probably said on this podcast,
Speaker 1: sometimes explaining the results of ballgames is complicated. Some days,
Speaker 1: it's real easy. In Atlanta. You turn it two times,
Speaker 1: turn it over two times on the road in the
Speaker 1: opener with a brand new coach and a brand new quarterback,
Speaker 1: You're probably gonna lose. You go to Detroit, a team
Speaker 1: that's probably better than you by every empirical measure, and
Speaker 1: turn it over three times in the first half, and
Speaker 1: they turn it into three touchdowns. Guess what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You are going to lose. So I think you can't
Speaker 1: you can't dismiss that kind of stuff. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can call it happy half hour. I don't feel compelled
Speaker 1: to be happy about everything that's happening around me all
Speaker 1: the time anyway. But I think when you and admittedly
Speaker 1: this is a very other than that Missus Lincoln kind
Speaker 1: of perspective, but I think you can dwell on those
Speaker 1: three turnovers, you can dwell on the lost young dwell
Speaker 1: all on nine five. I think if you're trying to
Speaker 1: look at what this season's actually about, it's deciding what
Speaker 1: you've got in quarterback and figuring out what Bryce is
Speaker 1: good at, what Bryce is able to do. And I
Speaker 1: think if you, if you really wanted to just kind
Speaker 1: of isolate on that second half of football and watch
Speaker 1: the way Bryce was moving the ball around. You know,
Speaker 1: they get three touchdown passes out of the deal. There
Speaker 1: were some things. You know, again, I understand nobody wants
Speaker 1: to hear about progress and individual scores, and listen, I
Speaker 1: am not naive. The Detroit Lions were not playing for
Speaker 1: blood in the fourth quarter of that game. When Bryce
Speaker 1: was moving the ball around and doing some things, they
Speaker 1: were playing at a different pitch than they had been
Speaker 1: earlier in the game. I get that. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think when you think about the things that are
Speaker 1: going on, Bryce in his progress remains the most important
Speaker 1: thing about this football season.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and the game of Detroit also. He wrote about
Speaker 3: it a lot postgame. Thankfully it hasn't become more of
Speaker 3: a story because he's doing all right, but Chandlers of all,
Speaker 3: his injury was extremely jarring. At least you could tell
Speaker 3: from the field in the press box, a lot of
Speaker 3: you know, confusion, just wanting to make sure he was
Speaker 3: all right. A lot of people were talking about it
Speaker 3: on Monday in the locker room, and I mean, he's
Speaker 3: come out really really like, you know, he's able to
Speaker 3: fly back on the plane and moving around.
Speaker 2: Seeing his teammates, and I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: It's a good sign. And I mean for those seven
Speaker 3: minutes that we wrote about and Darren wrote a really
Speaker 3: good quick kind of update letting everybody know what happened
Speaker 3: that was posted to the website very quickly, which was
Speaker 3: awesome information for our readers. But I mean those seven
Speaker 3: minutes were tough. We didn't know what was going on up.
Speaker 3: They didn't know what was going on down, and that
Speaker 3: was a lot to come back and you know, kind
Speaker 3: of refocus, and I thought you did a really cool
Speaker 3: job after the game kind of talking about how well,
Speaker 3: the only thing they can do is keep playing, but
Speaker 3: you know, you have that in the back of your
Speaker 3: mind through all of it.
Speaker 2: And again, thankfully he's all right.
Speaker 3: But I think even postgame, it almost felt like, you know,
Speaker 3: the game happened, it was important. It's very important now,
Speaker 3: but at that moment you were focused on Chandler making
Speaker 3: sure he was all right. And then thankfully he was
Speaker 3: able to come home with us in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: And I think there was a lot of doubt. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I was talking to Icky, who is as close
Speaker 1: to Chandler as anybody on this roster because he started
Speaker 1: next to him, dn'ca state. Those two are old friends
Speaker 1: and have a lot of background together, and even standing
Speaker 1: in the locker room talking to Icky about it, he
Speaker 1: hadn't heard from They had a general sense. At halftime,
Speaker 1: players got an update. Okay, he's got movement in all
Speaker 1: his extremities, he's awake, he's alert, all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: But they didn't know what that meant until really until
Speaker 1: they get to the airport. Unfortunately, Chandler was able to
Speaker 1: catch a ride to the airport that got him to
Speaker 1: Detroit Wayne International and met us and he was able
Speaker 1: to come home with the team, And just seeing him
Speaker 1: there on the tarmac I think was that moment of
Speaker 1: relief for a lot of guys. So one of the
Speaker 1: things I think I try to be cognizant of. We
Speaker 1: say things casually, and I've done this series of stories
Speaker 1: about Austin Corbett and you say, oh, he's got a
Speaker 1: torn acl that's an a month's recovery without really experiencing
Speaker 1: that nine months or knowing what that entails. I think
Speaker 1: when people hear Frank say all really bad stinger, they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I smashed my shin against the bed from this morning
Speaker 1: or something, or I stubbed my toe, they don't really
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened to Chandler's valla. The essence of
Speaker 1: a stinger is it's like a nerve contusion almost, and
Speaker 1: so you take a shot at a certain place, you know,
Speaker 1: you get hit in a certain way or get turned
Speaker 1: in a certain direction, and all of a sudden, there's
Speaker 1: weakness on the side of your body. And so when
Speaker 1: you see Zavalla on the ground, that's kind of what's
Speaker 1: going on. I mean, he wasn't able because of that
Speaker 1: nerve issue immediately to kind of move everything. He was
Speaker 1: eventually able to move, So that's what That's what led
Speaker 1: to a scary moment there on the field and everything.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. He did not practice yesterday. I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily expecting to see Chandler on the field this week,
Speaker 1: but there you know, it's kind of a day to
Speaker 1: day thing with that. But it's the good news is
Speaker 1: Chandler's mostly okay and is walking around. He's in good
Speaker 1: shape and just working on coming back from that. But
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely when something like that happens, it makes
Speaker 1: a Week five game against the Detroit line seem like
Speaker 1: not the most important thing in the world, exactly.
Speaker 3: And not to get ahead of ourselves too much, because
Speaker 3: we do have a trip to Miami this weekend and
Speaker 3: that's a preview. But right after that we have the
Speaker 3: bye week, which is good for a multitude of reasons,
Speaker 3: and a lot of its health. I mean, we saw
Speaker 3: the injury report yesterday. It was a little lengthy, nothing
Speaker 3: too serious from all of them, but it wasn't you know,
Speaker 3: the slimmest list in the world. And that's the kind
Speaker 3: of thing that a week off would would help. I mean,
Speaker 3: Corbett's you know, activated off, pupp cut back going, and
Speaker 3: you know there's some other guys that you could potentially
Speaker 3: see after the after goodbye JC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's pretty good. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to create a situation where here comes
Speaker 1: the Cavalry they are coming in and week week eight,
Speaker 1: but uh, exactly, you are looking at the possibility of
Speaker 1: going into the Houston game and seeing Xavier Woods again
Speaker 1: seeing JC Horn again, seeing Austin Corbett on the field
Speaker 1: for the first time this season, and all that stuff
Speaker 1: matters deeply and I and I think it's just at
Speaker 1: the point now well, regardless how this game against Miami
Speaker 1: goes this weekend, I think the culmination of everything that's
Speaker 1: happened so far this season, you can kind of tell
Speaker 1: when everybody around you just needs a minute, just needs
Speaker 1: a break. I think, you know, it's obviously a tense
Speaker 1: situation and hasn't gone the way everybody wants it to go,
Speaker 1: But just the little little things that wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: problem at all when you're five and zero, or even
Speaker 1: if you were three and two or two and three
Speaker 1: or whatever, become bigger deals. You Know, the food doesn't
Speaker 1: taste as good. You know, the TV's turned up too loud,
Speaker 1: and why doesn't some jerk hit mute before they leave
Speaker 1: the room or something. You know, all those little things
Speaker 1: that are inconsequential on a normal day get magnified in
Speaker 1: the situation like this, And that's why I think it's
Speaker 1: important to just stay normal and to keep focused on
Speaker 1: the stuff that's actually real. You know, Augusta and I
Speaker 1: can create a good podcast. We can write a good story,
Speaker 1: we can keep up to date information on the website.
Speaker 1: I can't fix oh in five, So I'm gonna clean
Speaker 1: up my yard. I'm gonna do what I can do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what everybody downstairs is trying to do,
Speaker 1: is filter out some of that noise and some of
Speaker 1: that fake, you know, fake problems, and keep the focus
Speaker 1: on the real stuff instead.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And now that I've jumped too far ahead, I
Speaker 3: want to jump kind of back a little bit because
Speaker 3: you had a cool conversation yesterday in the locker room
Speaker 3: with a guy that was brought up to the fifty
Speaker 3: three help out in the secondary DiCaprio Boodle. He's been
Speaker 3: elevated and doing a lot of special teams reps. Wondering
Speaker 3: what it was like to get to know the DiCaprio Boodle.
Speaker 3: Tell me about that name, and I'm just it was it.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating. And I don't want to give away
Speaker 1: too much stuff that'll appear later this week on Panthers
Speaker 1: dot Com shameless tease read it please, uh, but DiCaprio
Speaker 1: is an interesting cat, and I mean it's the one
Speaker 1: thing I will share is that everybody gets a nickname
Speaker 1: in this room when it comes to special Teams coach
Speaker 1: Chris Taber, I mean he's going to call you something
Speaker 1: one way or another, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1: And DiCaprio, Boodle has become bottle Cap. It's real good
Speaker 1: for reasons.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of it's ballpark. Yeah, I get it,
Speaker 1: it's bootle bottle sure, but yeah, so it's Taber has
Speaker 1: deemed him bottle Cap, and he's you know, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff you end up with at a
Speaker 1: point in the season like this, when guys are hurt
Speaker 1: and you're all of a sudden dragging people in. The
Speaker 1: one thing I was talking to him about is he
Speaker 1: basically comes here with very little stuff. He packed a
Speaker 1: suitcase with about a week's worth of clothes in it
Speaker 1: that he could wear. But a lot of times guys
Speaker 1: and I'm just this is one of my pet things.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by it. When guys come to town, they
Speaker 1: don't really know anybody, they don't know where they're going,
Speaker 1: They have no idea where the Midtown target is and
Speaker 1: how to get there. They a lot of times don't
Speaker 1: have their cars. Uh, so they're they're moving to a
Speaker 1: new place on short notice, and it's like, Okay, figure
Speaker 1: out a brand new job, figure out all new coworkers,
Speaker 1: figure out where to secure food and shelter, and do
Speaker 1: it fast because you've got an important job. And Boodle
Speaker 1: was saying, I mean, he kind of laughed. He said,
Speaker 1: I knew a couple of guys just around the building,
Speaker 1: he said, but I kind of came here with a
Speaker 1: suitcase and what I had. And he keeps sending out
Speaker 1: for more stuff. He's buying some new clothes, stuff like
Speaker 1: that a little bit at a time. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a thrown together lifestyle. When you're somebody who comes to
Speaker 1: a team cold in the middle of the season exactly.
Speaker 2: That's that's always interesting to me.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's been guys that I've talked to you
Speaker 3: that have kind of come in they're not even coming from,
Speaker 3: you know, where they live because they were on the
Speaker 3: road and then they were signed, and the whole aspect
Speaker 3: of the lifestyle and everything it can be over it
Speaker 3: sounds a little overwhelming, but thankfully we do have a
Speaker 3: good department for that here. Kevin Winston and Jay Kwanjeris
Speaker 3: shout out. They do a great job and they help
Speaker 3: them out.
Speaker 1: Don and Donnie Toner and the guys in the equipment
Speaker 1: room or life savers a lot of times because they've
Speaker 1: got what players need to survive. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: you know, I've told the story before. Former offensive coordinator
Speaker 1: Dan Henning lived in the residence ind near the stadium
Speaker 1: for five years, not for a week at a time,
Speaker 1: for five years. For five years, Dan Henning lived in
Speaker 1: that hotel. I asked Dan once, how many Marriott points
Speaker 1: do you have? He said, all of them. You can
Speaker 1: live your life in a stadium if you need to.
Speaker 1: You can shower and change clothes because there's clothes here
Speaker 1: for those guys. Donnie's got toothbrushes and toothpaste and shaving
Speaker 1: equipment and all the toiletries that a man would need
Speaker 1: to get by. They feed them here for you know.
Speaker 1: And there's usually a deal when a guy comes in
Speaker 1: short time, there is a hotel for them in the
Speaker 1: short term until they can find them a place here
Speaker 1: in town. But yeah, it's there's a ton of people
Speaker 1: trying to make sure these guys have everything they need
Speaker 1: when they come to town. But right now, all those
Speaker 1: extra defensive bodies are are in need because, as you mentioned, Hey,
Speaker 1: the Miami Dolphins are coming to town. Actually we're going
Speaker 1: to their town.
Speaker 2: We've been on the road so much it feels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think when you get out there a
Speaker 1: couple weeks at a time, it starts to feel like
Speaker 1: what is home anymore? But yeah, Miami this week to
Speaker 1: face the number one offense in the NFL and frankly,
Speaker 1: the one of the highest octane offenses we've seen in
Speaker 1: a couple of years in the NFL. They're kind of
Speaker 1: running at Patrick Mahomes Kansas City Chiefs level there for
Speaker 1: a little bit, and they're doing it on the ground,
Speaker 1: they're doing it in the air. They lead the league
Speaker 1: in total yards, passing yards, rushing yards, and points. So
Speaker 1: stopping those guys it's gonna be a little bit of
Speaker 1: a challenge. And I don't know that you stop them,
Speaker 1: You've just got to slow them down enough to try
Speaker 1: to hope to catch a couple of breaks. And I mean,
Speaker 1: the Panthers are once again in that situation. If they
Speaker 1: turn it over in Miami, it's probably not going to
Speaker 1: go well for them. So they've got to tighten things
Speaker 1: up offensively and hope for the best on defense. Because
Speaker 1: I really don't think there's a lot you can do
Speaker 1: to blow these guys down. A Shane. They're running back
Speaker 1: the rookie from Texas A and m is. He is
Speaker 1: out this week. He's on injured reserve. So I guess
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a silver lining on a gray,
Speaker 1: rainy day in which Augusta is making vegan grilled cheese
Speaker 1: substitute sandwiches, you can point to that. But A Shane's
Speaker 1: been amazing. He's like the only guy in league history
Speaker 1: average in one hundred yards a game and ten yards
Speaker 1: of carry in his first three games. And blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: You know what Devana Shane does not have in his life.
Speaker 1: What a win against Appalachian State. Really, it's right, the
Speaker 1: Texas A and M rookie was a part of that
Speaker 1: tragic loss to the beloved Mountaineers last year when I
Speaker 1: think we held him to about sixty two yards on
Speaker 1: the ground. So it's and I'll say we about Appalachian
Speaker 1: State without any sense of shame. So anyway, we got
Speaker 1: that going for us. So Miami, it is what's the
Speaker 1: see that's the thing. And I know you don't miss
Speaker 1: anything being the it's a lifestyle, but man, When I
Speaker 1: go to Miami, I eat seafood, and I eat a
Speaker 1: lot of it usually, So anything that comes I feel
Speaker 1: pretty good about things that come out of the sea.
Speaker 1: It's like asserting my dominance over and illment. I have
Speaker 1: no control over it. Bring me a fish and I
Speaker 1: will eat it. I am not getting in the sea. However,
Speaker 1: that's a road game.
Speaker 2: That's what I was just about to say.
Speaker 3: I have recently, in my adulthood, grown a new fear.
Speaker 3: Darren's going to be surprised to hear this, because I
Speaker 3: am a little fearful, but of the ocean. When I
Speaker 3: was in middle school, high school a kid, my dad
Speaker 3: was a big ocean guy. You know, we'd get out,
Speaker 3: we'd wade and swim and float and have a good
Speaker 3: old time. And the older I get, the more I
Speaker 3: look back and I'm like, oh my goodness, because a
Speaker 3: lot of there were a bunch of headlines over this summer,
Speaker 3: in particular in the spring that I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: we had the submersible disaster and all that.
Speaker 2: Stuff going on in the ocean.
Speaker 3: So there was a lot of like think pieces on
Speaker 3: the ocean and how big it is and how unexplored
Speaker 3: it is, and how deep it is, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to like get anywhere close to
Speaker 2: it anymore.
Speaker 3: Like I know we're flying over it at some point
Speaker 3: on Saturday and Sunday, and I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 3: hopefully I'll be asleep by then. Because the ocean is
Speaker 3: now a new fear of mind that I did not
Speaker 3: have until like about this summer when I did. There's
Speaker 3: there's a point where you can do too much research
Speaker 3: about something.
Speaker 2: That's how I feel about the ocean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you might need to get off the internet for
Speaker 1: a while. I don't. I don't know what's going on
Speaker 1: too big now it is reasonable to be fearful of
Speaker 1: the ocean. I am not gonna lie. I got no
Speaker 1: business there. That's a road game I am. I am
Speaker 1: a decided underdog anytime I go in the sea. That's
Speaker 1: why I do not do it. I want my seafood
Speaker 1: brought to me. I do not care to go and
Speaker 1: harvest it myself. I you know, the idea of being
Speaker 1: on a boat out in the middle of the big water, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, Uh it is. Yeah, that is not for me.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the products of it, but I do not
Speaker 1: want to participate in that process myself.
Speaker 3: For the fans going down to Miami, anybody down there
Speaker 3: going to the game. Darren Gant, what is Miami seafood
Speaker 3: highlight for you?
Speaker 1: Man? Stone crabs are great and stone crabs are great.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of effort. It takes a little
Speaker 1: work to get into them, but I you know, I
Speaker 1: dig it. I like any kind of crabs. No, crabs
Speaker 1: are great. You can get those at your area Heristeeter
Speaker 1: and they are a proud sponsor of the Carolina Panthers,
Speaker 1: so I don't feel bad about that one. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a big anytime you can get your hands
Speaker 1: on stone crabs. It's a good thing because it's kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It's one. I don't eat stone crabs in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I don't like. If I'm in Ohio,
Speaker 1: I very seldom order crab leg So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of a know your place kind of thing. And when
Speaker 1: I'm there, I'm probably gonna find some seafood. There will
Speaker 1: likely be stone crabs in my future at some point
Speaker 1: on Saturday, so we'll see. It's it's always an interesting
Speaker 1: trip down there. It's a it's a interesting environment. I mean,
Speaker 1: Miami's on a roll right now suddenly, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of curious to me. That's one of the other things
Speaker 1: I was taught kind of boodle about because he grew
Speaker 1: up in Miami and he was kind of a Hurricanes
Speaker 1: guy more so than a Dolphins guy growing up. I
Speaker 1: mean he talked about, you know, seeing Sean Taylor play
Speaker 1: when he was young and wanted to be like Sean Taylor.
Speaker 1: And I always think it's fascinating because Miami is one
Speaker 1: of those markets that it swings wildly. When they're in
Speaker 1: on the Dolphins. They're all in on the Dolphins, but
Speaker 1: if the Dolphins are down, it's almost like they don't exist,
Speaker 1: and everybody's looking at the Hurricane. So I think right now,
Speaker 1: Mario Christobal is probably thankful that the city of Miami
Speaker 1: is looking at the Dolphins and not his particular end
Speaker 1: game decision making, because not taking a knee and running
Speaker 1: out the clock the other night went to led to
Speaker 1: bad things for the Canes.
Speaker 3: So he probably really likes that fact because I was
Speaker 3: very lucked on that game as an alumnus of the
Speaker 3: University of Georgia because Georgia Tech is, you know, our
Speaker 3: sworn rival we like to beat up on, even though
Speaker 3: you know there's a talent discrepancy there. But I was
Speaker 3: watching that and I was like, huh, how did you
Speaker 3: let Georgia Tech do that? And then I was like, huh,
Speaker 3: your own decisions. But there's a lot of controversial calls
Speaker 3: on that too. We don't have to get into that.
Speaker 3: There was like was it actually a fumble? Was it
Speaker 3: actually a touchdown? Like there's been like think pieces about that, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, at the end of the day, you should
Speaker 3: have never put yourself in a situation take the knee.
Speaker 1: However, just what I know, it was definitely a bonehead decision.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But but then you could get
Speaker 3: all like in the weeds of it. And it's been
Speaker 3: funny to watch the platform formerly known as Twitter kind.
Speaker 2: Of explode about that.
Speaker 3: But I watched that live actually from our Detroit hotel room,
Speaker 3: and I was like, wow.
Speaker 1: And we could do a whole podcast about this. But
Speaker 1: that platform formerly known as Twitter, which is all I'm
Speaker 1: ever gonna call it, by the way, I am. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling liberated by spending less and less time on that
Speaker 1: platform with every passing day. I mean, it's just I
Speaker 1: think it's getting worse and worse. I tend to tune
Speaker 1: out a lot of the noise. And again, going back
Speaker 1: to what we were talking about at the top of
Speaker 1: this podcast, there's a difference between actual problems and fake problems,
Speaker 1: and yelling at people on Twitter feels like the fakest
Speaker 1: problem of all right now, given everything that's going on
Speaker 1: in the world and the football team and everything else,
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is the time when you focus
Speaker 1: on what's real and not what's fake. So spending less
Speaker 1: time there has been good for me. I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 3: I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you.
Speaker 3: I I've been again. We talked about it. But if
Speaker 3: you look at my app breakdown, if it's not slack
Speaker 3: or you know, so far, like honestly, I do a
Speaker 3: lot of like work, research and stuff.
Speaker 2: But if it's nothing like that is the New York
Speaker 2: Times games app. I'm addicted to crosswords. I've done so many.
Speaker 3: I hit a new personal best yesterday. I finished a
Speaker 3: I finished a Monday crossword in seven minutes. I was
Speaker 3: really proud of myself for that. So I'm having I'm
Speaker 3: having some good strides in my personal life. I'll smile
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 2: On the Happy half hour. You got crossword prowess.
Speaker 1: We can go crosswords, we can go wordle we can
Speaker 1: go connections, we can go we can go spelling bee.
Speaker 1: I'm a big spelling guy. You're not completely hooked on
Speaker 1: that yet. But I've got a pretty good streak of
Speaker 1: genius going, which is the only place in my life
Speaker 1: where I have a streak of genius going. So I'm
Speaker 1: taking it for what it is, finding the positives where
Speaker 1: I can, and we'll declare a happy half hour on
Speaker 1: that note.