One, two, cha-cha-cha. One, two, cha-cha-cha. One, two, cha-cha-cha. One, two, cha-cha-cha. On this episode of the Commercial Break. So call me back on your ring doorbell. It's so strange. Give me a ring back on the ring, and I'll talk to you later. I'll try again tomorrow. Bye-bye. The next episode of the Commercial Break starts now. Yeah, Katz and Gittons. Welcome back to the Commercial Break. I'm Brian Green. This is the Freak in the Sheets. Kristen Joy, Hodeley. Best to you, Chris and Joy. Holdenly, best to you, Chris. Best to you, Brian. And best to you out there in the podcast universe. Can someone For the love of all that's holy, please explain to me what is going on with the Kate Middleton photograph. Do you know?

Do I know?

Do you know?

I think the question is more like, do I care?

But- Well, I don't care either, but we do have a show where we got to talk about something. So let's talk about this.

Apparently, everybody was freaking out. They haven't seen her in months, and she had some planned surgery, which she was always supposed to be out of commission, out of the public eye, recovering. And I guess that's a little mysterious.

It's a little mysterious that she has surgery and she wants to recover? It seems a ridiculous thing to be concerned about.

I know, right?

It was Mother's Day in Britain, Okay.

The other day, in fact, Jeff and I were watching the Oscars, and some people were saying, Happy Mother's Day. And at one point, Jeff goes, Shit.

I thought the same thing when I read the story. I thought the same thing.

I was like, Oh, my God. I felt a panic, too. And I was like, No, no, no. Wait, wait. I know it's in May. It's in Anyway. Yeah. So we looked it up, and yes, it was the British version of Mother's Day, and they posted... She posted a picture with the- Children. Family, yeah. But I guess she did a little editing to it, a little photoshopping. I don't know what she did. Everybody changes photos that they post these days. For sure. Everybody. Yes. So she says she was just trying to play around with it, and people noticed that it was altered, and so now they're freaking out again. Okay.

About that. I got I went down the way too big of a rabbit hole here on the whole Kate Middleton thing. But first of all, who in the fuck is looking at a picture that closely? The picture looked fine to me until I actually started reading the comments about what was altered, and it took me a really long time to see that anything was wrong. I thought I was dumb there for a minute. I was like, Am I just not seeing this? I don't see what other people are seeing, that the kid has a cuff that makes her arm look weird or that Kate's stretched out her arms too far to wrap around all the children. I mean, honestly, do we not have anything better to do with our time? No, apparently not. Aren't children starving? Aren't people setting books on fire in libraries? Why do we give a shit if Kate Middleton doctored up her photo? Plus, she's got to be one of the most photographed women in the world. Isn't it okay if she just makes herself look a little bit better? Because we all fucking do it. I don't because I don't know how to work the filters on Instagram.

But once I figure it out, you better goddamn believe I will. I know. This is why I sit so far from the camera on the commercial break, so I don't get to scrutinize. I don't understand why Kate Middleton can't take a couple of months off to recover from a surgery. Why that's a big deal, number one. Number two, everybody altars photographs, and the AP goes out and they say it's against the rules, the United Nations of Photographs of Rules or whatever. It's like, come on, guys. You've never put out a doctored photo. I mean, I guess I know you're the AP and you got to uphold some standards, but you've never put out a doctored photo, ever. I call bullshit on that. First of all. Second of all, who really fucking cares? Kate's just putting out a picture. That is a controversy about who's taking the picture and whether or not they have lights.

I know. I mean, people were upset I'm obsessed with Nazi and her, then they see her. I know.

Then they see her, and then there's a grand conspiracy to change her daughter's hand. Why? Does she get her hand cut off in the surgery? I mean, that I could understand. If she got her hand cut off and then she's manipulating another hand onto in her hand. Who cares? The poor lady just had surgery. Leave her alone. I read this whole article about how this whole thing is a symbol of how the royal family is is treated.

Yeah, is treated, too.

Is treated and it's crumbling because Charles is dealing with his cancer. William's nowhere to be seen. Kate's nowhere to be seen. Harry and Megan are in LA- In California. At Reid Hastings house, which I would like an invitation to. Please, I don't care how I get it. Megan, what's up? We've had at least three comedians on that are on Netflix as a joke. We still haven't got invited to Reid's house for dinner.

I'll- We'll deal with this later.

I'll deal with this later. Thank you very much, Christie. That's exactly what I wanted to say. I'll take it on good faith that the invitation just got lost in the mail, quote, unquote.

Or is on the way.

It should be on the way. It should be on the way.

In the mail. Invites in the mail.

Invites in the mail. Receipts or it didn't happen. 50% off my Netflix account. That is the least you could You know what I'm saying? Okay, maybe I can't get an invitation to reads right now. Fifty % off my Netflix account.

Any little bit help.

It's $122 I would be saving every month. It's so stupid. But I just think, leave the poor lady alone. Did she really need additional scrutiny on her? She's just trying to take a nice photograph and show everybody that she's okay and the family's okay. She's essentially feeding the beast that was created by the same paparazzi I see tabloids and news outlets that need to see a picture of her so desperately because otherwise she's with space aliens. You know what I'm saying? It's like- Well, it all really hit the high mark with Diana, and look how that turned out. It didn't turn out well.

No, exactly. So I hear.

I haven't gone to that part of the Crown yet, but so I hear things didn't turn out so great for her.

Yeah, it's just this obsession. It is.

I mean, just- Insanity, actually, is what it is. Yeah.

It's insanity. That's why Harry and Megan, one of the reasons why they left.

Yeah, they've done a good job of staying low-key since they got here to the United States of America.

That's true. At least it's on their terms.

Yeah, that's true. They're all gossiped out now. What else did they have to say? I don't know that that third or fourth Netflix special is going to be as interesting. I wasn't even interested by the first one, but that's just my personal opinion. But I say, Leave the poor lady alone. This is something we all do. It's a grand hypocrisy to then call out Kate for adjusting her pictures. I have seen people do the most... Our friends do the most ridiculous Oh, my God. With their photographs.

It's crazy. No, to the point of it looks like a completely different person. Jeff and I know someone that in person looks one way, and on their Facebook photo, or their Instagram photo, whatever, their profile picture, it looks like a completely different person.

It's not the same human. It's not the same human. But I don't fault them for it because that is the beast that we are feeding with social media right now. You have to look good, you have to look in shape, you have to look happy, you have to look self-aware, you've got to be meditating, you've got to be in Costa Rica saving the Whales or some bullshit like that. The truth is that we're all just miserable fucks because of social media. I don't know. We're playing the game, and I play it sometimes, too. It's a vicious cycle that can't be won. And poor Kate, she can't win no matter what. Now, I'm not defending the royals. I'm not British, so I don't have any stake in whether or not the royals, not royals. But you wish you were. I do wish I was. Yes. I would like to live that lifestyle just for a couple of weeks. You know what I'm saying? I mean, who wouldn't, honestly? I know. Isn't that like every kid's dream to be the Prince or the King or to be a princess or whatever it is? I would like to live that lap of luxury because now having watched the Crown, I know that they have a person whose job it is, only job it is, to fold napkins.

Yes. He's the great napkin keeper of the Royal Windsor or some bullshit like that.

I heard of that part where she was interviewing people to see where she could cut.

See where she was doing, yeah. See where she could cut. The great swan swadler.

Yeah. But it was one of those jobs that had been passed down from generation to generation. She ended up not being able to cut anybody because she felt bad.

She felt bad. Well, I don't think she felt bad for them. I think she understood that in some way... You know Disney, right? And they have these people. I've heard of it. You've heard of it? Small little company. Is that a startup? It is a startup. They're going for round B. They're financing, I hear. Disney has these folks, architects, designers, creators. They call them imagineers. The imagineers are the ones who bring these rides in their parks to life. They create them, they create the ambiance, they make sure that every little detail is taken care of. Up until recently, it was a generational hand down to the next person, the experiences that the original imaginers engineers had creating theme park rides. All the mistakes, all the things they got right, all the things they got wrong, that knowledge was passed on because someone would enter the company, and then for decades, they would work there. And by experiences and the people above them, the older folks, teaching them the wisdom that they had learned, then it was a generational, informational, direct connection to all of that experience. Recently, as of the last five or six years, they've started exiting a lot of the older imagineers.

The old guard. The old guard, leaving the imagineers, according to some people, in a shambles, because what they do now is they just hustle young people into there, work them to the bone, and then as soon as they start asking for more money, they kick them out and they hustle the next round in. Meaning there's no generational experience there. All of that is lost when the generation before them goes away. I think the queen saw it the same way. She was like, Yeah, okay, the A grand swan swadler, or whatever the fuck they called him, is not exactly... It's a little bloated that we have a grand swan swattler, but at the end of the day, who else has this information in their heads? Don't the swans need to be swaddled? They I mean, I don't know. I don't like swans. They seem fine to me, I guess. Who's going to learn to fold the napkins exactly the way that we need them? Who's going to take over that job? I'm not defending the royals. I think it's a bloated organization that makes a whole shitload of money, on the backs of people who could maybe or maybe not afford it.

But it seems like the people in Britain, at least the majority of them, like the fact that they have the royals and they want to keep them around. I understood it. But if you're going to do that and have this generational, pass it down from one to the next, don't crucify the people who you are adoring, like Kate Middleton, for putting a fucking picture and touching up her hand a little bit that maybe didn't look so great that day. I don't know. Sometimes my hands don't look great either. It's usually after I whack off. But listen, that's neither here nor there. I'm just saying to you, Chrissy, that I find this to be a grand hypocrisy that everyone's so upset about doctoring of photos when we all do it, every one of us. Well, not every one of us, but most of us.

Those of us who can. Do it.

Yes. Those of us who can, do. Those of us who can't, teach. Those of us who can't, start a podcast.

I can't start a podcast. I I don't do it either. I don't know how to do all of that stuff. I know people that can get on there and just go, they just know exactly how to do all of that. That's a skill.

We have a friend, a mutual friend, that's in the... What are we calling them now? I don't know. Party in the Woods family. All right. Yeah. New age hippies. Not generational information being passed down from crystal to crystal. All right? Crystal to crystal. I don't know how they do that.

By the full moon.

Yes, that's right.

Under the full moon.

Moon cycle to moon cycle, they pass it down. All right, so they're at a fire burn, like an alchemy, like a fire burn, right?

Sure, that's on trend. That's on trend. That's totally on brand.

That's on brand for those folks who don't have jobs but have Range Rovers. I know. It's like... Who sleep for a weekend in the woods and then are at the fucking Ritz Carlton Cabo San Lucas the next week. Yeah. Okay. You don't fool me one bit. I see what you're doing. You care about the carbon emissions on weekend X, but on weekend Y, you're taking your daddy's private jet down to Costa Rica for yet another party in the woods with other rich kids, I guess. Under the full moon. Yeah, of course. Bring your special K in your ayahuasca. Make sure you do that. I see her posting photographs of this party that she went to, and I'm like, Oh, okay, Fireburn. Cool. Let me look through it. It was obvious that a number of these pictures were digitally altered. But the mistake that she made was, and I think this is probably accidental, is that she put two photographs. There was, I don't know, 80 pictures in this one album. But she put two of those photographs, four of those photographs total. One, the unaltered and one the altered. She put the original and then the altered one.

Again, think it was a mistake. Here's what she did. She made herself look skinnier, she made her boobs look bigger, and she made her eyes look bluer. Then in the next photograph, she did the same thing to her body. Fine, whatever. That's your choice. That's your choice. But there were televisions in the background of some of these campgrounds, and it looked like they were possible this is obviously a couple of months ago, possibly watching a football game on the back of them. She literally deleted the televisions from the thing. Because God forbid, the hippies are watching the Nebraska game while they're having some fun out in the woods taking special K. I mean, God damn, dude. That part really got me high. I was like, Okay, you want to make yourself a little trimmer, make your boobs a little bigger, make your eyes a little bluer? I get it. I understand. I'm not going to be the one to cast stones. But at the same time, you deleting televisions from the party in the woods, that is the grand hypocrisy right there. It's like, we're... They used to say this- It's like a Racing, I mean, rewriting history.

It is not in any meaningful way, but yes, it is. But we used to say this- Like family albums, for instance.

I'm sorry, we'll get to your... They used to say. But family albums, I've had some death in the family recently, and I've been going through a lot of family albums, old family albums, and those pictures were real.

They were real. Because you couldn't alter them.

Right. It makes me think, what about future generations of looking back on their parents or their grandparents, that thing.

It's all going to be manipulated. Yeah, it's a manipulated reality. It's an alternative reality. This is a break from reality. Now it is what it is. We're here where we're here. You can't blame somebody for getting caught up in it, I guess. But for me, when we used to go to those parties in the woods, there was a saying that would go around the camp sometimes, and it was, See you back in reality. People would leave and you wouldn't say goodbye. You'd be like, See you back in reality. When the reality is not the reality, it's like when you go somewhere to get away from the reality, but then you can't even pronounce that reality in a way that's real, it's fucked up, actually.

Yeah. Well, which made me think, too. I was thinking about this whole thing, too, earlier, and I was thinking about people dating on the dating apps. No wonder a lot of people aren't staying together or making it past the first date. I mean, you see pictures of somebody and you show up, they're totally different.

Completely different. Yeah. I have so many friends who have been through this When I was on Tinder, I know that at least one of the people that I met up with Real Life had put pictures that were not representative, but I didn't really give a shit, to be honest with you. I was like, okay, guilty, a little guilty. It was like, A little guilty. Guilty-ish of putting some younger photographs up. But whatever. She was a lovely person to talk to, at least on the chat. Then she ended up in a tree, and okay, it's fine. Right. Yeah, You just wonder, how can we move toward a common purpose as human beings if we can't even share a common reality? It's really scary, actually. I think that's why maybe we're in the place where we're at is because there's a lot of alternate... Remember the word alternate facts? It's like, alternate facts. No, facts are facts. They can't be alternate facts. They can't be an alternate truth. Remember when that was a big thing that was going around? Other people, other countries, nearduels, people who don't mean us any good, trolls, they're all injecting alternate facts, alternate realities into our reality.

It really makes me wonder, how much longer we got left on this little spinning ball because we are tearing ourselves apart and we can't even agree on shared reality. And that's why I am a pragmatic pragmatist, a father, a son, a mediocre lover. All right. Lots more to talk about. We'll be back in just a moment.

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This episode is sponsored by Better Health. If you've been listening to the show for the last 6-9 months, then you know Christie and I have both had life events that have been very difficult for us. But that's the way it goes. Sometimes life takes unexpected turns. Christie and I both use therapy as a way to learn coping skills for those big life events, but also for the day to day difficulties that we all experience. Therapy isn't just for people who've experienced major trauma. I found that it can help in the best of times, the worst of times, and everything in between. Therapy really is a part of my health routine. I actually look forward to therapy appointments now. But if you're like me also, you probably have a very busy schedule. Betterhelp is designed to make that process a little bit more flexible, a little bit more convenient, and suited to your schedule. It's entirely early online. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire, and then you get matched with a licensed therapist. And by the way, you can change therapists at any time, no additional cost. Learn to make time for what makes you happy with Betterhelp.

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It's after bedtime. The kids are asleep and the moms are out to play. We're Dina and Kristin, the duo behind the Instagram account, Big Little Feelings. I'm Dina. I'm a child therapist and mom of two who nerds out on all things neurobiology and psychology. And Kristin is a parent coach who wrangles three kids on a daily basis, here to give it to us like it is. We weren't meant to do this parenting thing alone. Consider After Bedtime, your village. Follow After Bedtime with big little feelings on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, I wanted to share with you a story that I read that they basically took a poll of the Gen Z and forward generations. And I think it was 68% said that they never turn on their phone ringer or notifications for any reason. They don't even have family members as people who can call and it would ring. It's do not disturb 24/7 is what they're doing. I thought that was very interesting. I mean, I turned on do not disturb when we're recording. When you don't want to be disturbed. Yeah, when I don't want to be disturbed, exactly. Well, I am disturbed, but I don't want to be disturbed by you. I don't want to be additionally disturbed, if you know what I mean. I thought this to be super fascinating. The reasons given were pretty, I think, self-explanatory. I don't want to be anxious about who's calling or texting me and what they're saying. It's procrastination at the highest level. I get this. I totally understand this. They don't want to be anxious. They don't want to answer the phone because they feel awkward talking on the phone, and they don't want to feel the obligation to respond to text messages on a different time.

I wanted I wanted to share what I do when it comes to communications like this. First of all, I only check emails once or twice every month, at the beginning of the month, at the end of the month. If you're trying to get a hold of me, that's why I'm not responding.

I've noticed this.

I'm not as quick to respond to text messages as I used to be. In other words, if there's something else that I feel I need to be present for, I just put the phone away. Even if I see the text message, I'm like, Okay, I can respond later. It's not an emergency. If you call me, there is a high likelihood that you will not get me to answer the phone because the phone has made it so easy for everyone to get a hold of everybody else. If you don't answer in one second, then you're being a dick or you're being dismissive or you're not doing what I ask you to do.

Yes, you just go ahead and set the standard.

I set the standard. At my last job, I turned off the slack. That's fucking slack. That fucking, fucking slack. I know so many people who agree with this. That fucking slack is awful.

I've never really used it.

It's a messaging platform.

Yeah, I know it is.

Where you can build teams and all this other stuff. Christie, let me tell you something. Slack is the devil at work. How do you get anything done if you're constantly being slacked? Because there's a constant chatter. I don't want to get slacked. I want to slack off. That's what I want to do. The only way I want to slack is when I'm slacking off. That's my natural position in life. That's what I want to do. I just want to relax. And I don't want to answer your fucking question for the 10th time today. It's crazy. It's crazy. That's why the Commercial Break has now got a slack channel you can join. If someone wants to be the moderator, I'll hand it to you. No problem.

You did start the Discord.

I did start a Discord channel for the Commercial Break called commercial break, original as it may seem. You can join that Discord server if you would like to. We actually tried this about three years ago.

I know. When I went to go download it to my phone, it just redownloaded it, and it said I had joined 2021. I didn't remember that.

I didn't think we needed to remember that the audience was vastly different than it is now. I'm not sure any of those people are still hanging around, and if they are, they never join the Slack channel. I think we had four people that joined the Slack channel, two of which were family members. You mean Discord? Discord, sorry.

You could slack on your way.

I'm not installing slack on my phone. I actually, way back in the day, when I started working at an internet marketing company, right after Google came online, the first three years after Google came online, it was this whole cottage industry.

The beginning of the internet.

The beginning of time, yes. The beginning of time. There's probably people listening right now and going, There was a beginning of Google? It's not always been around? No, it hasn't. I actually remember AT&T being Baby Bell. That's what I remember. Southern Company, the Southern Bell. No, Southern Bell. Remember that? Yeah, that's where I got my first cell phone service from Southern Bell or singular, cricket wireless, whatever. The company had installed on all of the company computers, had installed this similar type of messaging service, though it was very rudimentary. I remember how anxious that system made me because the message would just pop up in the corner of your computer. But we were all in an office that was probably no bigger than two of these studios put together. There were just desks and there was 10 of us, and we could all see each other and talk to each other in the same room. You could literally ask me the question, and I could hear it. You didn't even have to raise your voice. But people, they'd message you and they'd be like, Did you get that report yet? And I'd be like, Motherfucker, I'm working on the goddamn report right now.

And I'd speak while they would channel me, whatever it was called. One day I got a phone, I got a message. Can you please come into the The only person who had an office was the CEO of the business, right? And so I walk in, Close the door, Brian.

This is how we call it. Oh, good. That's always a good sign. Close the door.

He had this fake deep voice. He was like, Close the door, Brian. He made his voice deeper, I think, for effect. Close the door, Brian. And his name... Okay, anyway, I don't want to say his name. But okay, so I close the door and, Sit down for a second. We've all noticed your unwillingness to use the messaging system to respond here inside of the office. I was like, Honestly, dude, we got nine people working for us. We're all in the same 10 square feet. We can't just talk to each other. Is that to be a secret? Sometimes we need communications to be private, and we don't want to disrupt other people's working. If you wouldn't mind adhering to the messaging policy. I'm like, The messaging policy? What is that? Kindly respond within five minutes if you're inside of the office. But I refused because it just... Sid your ground. I was young, I was dumb, I I was full of dumb. I was young, I had come, and I was full of dumb. Okay? And so I just refused. I don't know why, but I just refused to do this. And this was like an ongoing tit for tat, a tot, a taunt, if you will, between me and the CEO of the business.

But the whole office started getting in arguments about it because now there were other people who agreed with me and some that didn't. Somebody would message me, and I'd respond with using my voice. They'd come across, it'd be like, Hey, do you have that proposal together? Yeah, I'm working on it right now. And I get a message instantaneously, Use the messaging. I can hear you. Use the messaging. And I'd be like, No. I just say it out loud. I'd be like, No. You're not adhering to company policy. Is nine people in an office really a company? Or is it just a couple of friends hanging out doing some work together? I mean, come on, let's get it together. And then when you get inside of a bigger organization, fucking forget about it. There's a thousand messages coming at you at the same I know people out there right now are listening that I just hate slack, and they just have refused to say it. I think a slack off is what we should do. Just like, let's encourage a national slack off where everybody just turns off that slack For various reasons. It's got to raise your anxiety level 30 times when you're inside of an office or a corporate environment, and everybody can get a hold of you at every second, and they all demand an answer right fucking then.

How do you get anything I know.

I feel like I used to get annoyed with the emails that would come through when you're in. But at least with the emails- You felt no obligation to get to it quickly.

Right. Until they started doing read receipts and all that stuff. I see that you read my email. I'll fuck off, honestly. Then I don't know who these dumb-dums are. We still have their read receipts on the iMessage, but every once in a blue moon, I catch it. Now I'm like, That's stupid. Because then I know that they're purposely ignoring me for hours on end. You read my message. That's the dumbest thing. That's the first thing I do when I get a new iPhone is turn off those damn fucking read receipts. That's awful. That's why sometimes I don't even like using WhatsApp is because you get read receipts on WhatsApp. You could turn them off, but it's natural default. You have the two little blue check marks that come up that say someone has seen it. I guess that doesn't mean they've read it, but they've seen it. They've opened it up. They know that it's there. Now you're purposely ignoring them. But at least with an email, you got a little bit of a grace period. You know you do. I call it four to five days for me. You know what I'm saying? If you send me an email, I'll get back to you in four to twelve business days.

Because I can't concentrate on what I really need to get done.

No, with the constant distraction.

I know. It's like having an extra child, having to check my email all the time. Having slack is like having five extra children. It's like they're always tugging at your coattails for stupid little things, but your fire does not constitute my emergency. And that is a terrible way to go about your working. How do you even accomplish anything?

I don't know. I see at the high level that it can be a useful tool, but it's gone off the rails.

Yeah, it's all gone off the rails. That's also why flip phones are becoming a very popular thing right now. That is right. Because they only do two things: call and text. That's it. Can't get on the internet, can't get email, can't get instant message, can't get none of that shit. I am this to joining that parade of flip phones because I think I do want to go back to a simpler time in life because I can remember it, a simpler time in life when you weren't inundated with notifications about every single thing.

I turn off my notifications on everything. Not the do not disturb part, but I was getting so many notifications. The New York Times, my Ring doorbell, my this, that, the other. I finally was like, I've had it. And with the watch, it goes to your watch, too.

Oh, ding, ding, bing, bing.

Yeah.

I was trying to put my baby together to bed the other day, and I did ding, ding, ding, ding, ding I know. It's insane. When do you think this... I think this all started with Blackberries, if I'm going to be honest. That's true. Because Blackberry, BBM, made it possible to get a hold of someone instantly and to be able to tell that they were online, to tell that they had read your stuff. I think that's the second that that fucking radio communications company, the one that we worked for, Clear channel, the second they gave me a Blackberry, I was so excited. It became a temple of doom within three months.

Oh, my God. I remember going on, going to actually see clients. I know there's the time you said you were going to see clients and you weren't. You were going home to take a nap because you were hung up from the night before. But there were other times when you actually did go. Yes, on occasion. And a lot of times, too, you would take a manager, maybe. Yeah. And they, I just remember me driving and them just being just head down constantly.

Because that's essentially what a corporate job is these days, is responding to incredibly dumb emails. Do you know what I'm saying? All-hands staff. It comes to our attention that some people have been late to the by daily sales meeting. So now everybody is remanded to the sales room at 08:00 AM sharp, or you will get a demerit or whatever it is. Please respond if you understand. And then some shithead has to write a six-page paragraph. Why everybody needs to be on time and you're wasting your time. Reply all. It's just like, Fuck, man. Fuck. Really? Can we just ignore this email because it's not important? No, you can't. You have to respond to it. It's the dumbest thing. I feel like sometimes people get in their email and they think they have a little bit of a bully pulpit. You know what I'm saying? They want to push you around by writing you little cutting little emails, poke at your fucking belly all the time. Bing, bang, bang. When are you going to pay your phone bill? You're 70 days late on that invoice. Fuck you. Is that really important? I could say the same thing about you.

You're 70 days late taking my payment. How's that? Turn it back on you.

A little annoyance.

Verizon wants to get paid again this month. Oh, fuck you, Verizon. Yeah. I have to be honest. A long time ago, I instituted a policy, generally, check emails in the morning, check emails in the night. That's the only thing that I do. I check them the first day in the morning, first thing in the morning, so I know I'm going to have a miserable day. Then I check them at night, so I know I'm not going to get any sleep. That's how I do it.

I have so many emails now. I mean, I just have to do a quick scan now and just be like, Is there anything that's super important? No? Okay, maybe not. To get out of this email app.

I show Patrick, my little brother, my phone, sometimes he looks at it and he goes fucking crazy. I have 16,294 emails that are unread. You know what? It's going to keep growing because I don't give a shit. If it's not important and I'm not reading.

Somebody else said that to me, too. Then I think I just turned off all where you can't see. Where you can't see it? Maybe I just don't.

I just put read all. Sometimes I just go read all. Whatever. Who cares? Then I don't even know it all gets lost. But I do that as a form of self-preservation and a form of rebellion a little bit. I don't want to be managed by anybody else. That's why I got this job. That's why I created this job for myself. So I can answer to nobody about nothing. You know what I'm saying?

And say you're going to do things and don't do them, and it's okay.

Listen, do you know how many things we've said on this commercial break? Let's go back to the original conversation about Discord. We've actually had a Discord for three years. We made mention of it once. No one joined it, and so we just never touched it again until I logged on last night and I was like, Oh, Discord server. That sounds like a good idea. Let's try that again. So you can join the Discord server now live.

We're kicking around the idea, which means it probably won't happen, but of watching the Mike Tyson.

Yes, live and doing commentary. So if you're interested in that, text us or join the Discord server. Let us know that you'd like to hear that.

If we don't show up in the first 10 minutes, we're not coming.

If you send me an email about me being late to the Mike Tyson fight, I might get reminded that that night is the Mike Tyson fight. Seriously. No, but we are kicking around the idea of doing the Mike Tyson fight live, like commentary, live while we all watch it on Netflix. Flix, and then Christie and I will do the commentary live as we watch Jake Paul, hopefully, get his ass kicked. If you're interested in that, do text us at 422-212-4333-TCB, or jump on the Discord server or send us an email at info@tcppodcast because I don't answer them, so everybody else does. Esther goes into the email sometimes and she's like, When's the last time you check this? And I'm like, October of '22? It's just like the 62 voicemails that we had because I couldn't figure out how to get the voicemail. And then I was terribly disappointed that none of them were all that interesting. It was like, Hey, Brian, great show. I'm like, Okay, thanks.

Can you promote my book?

Yeah. Can you promote my book? That I'll do. But you got to go through the right channels there. I can't just... Listen, that's cool. We have people that sometimes will contact us and they'll be like, Hey, I got a book or I got a service or I got a product. Can you do some promotion for that? I say, Sure. You just have to pay us an actual US American dollar and we'll be happy to do that. Because there is a taunté-taunt going on here between us and the sponsors. We got to make sure that we make the money. How would the sponsors who usually don't pay on time for us to run their ads, how would they feel if all of a sudden we were just giving out free air time? How would they feel?

Did you email them about that payment?

I did email them about that payment, and I got the same response I give to them, which is crickets. Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp. I think I used to have a cricket. You did. Did I have a cricket noise in here?

You did have a...

There it is. Yup. Hey, how's that payment coming? Mr. Network? Okay, just check it in. Same answer as last time. Just check it in. Oh, my God. We're terrible. All right, let's take a break. We'll be back. I'm going to tell you about another thing that annoys me in my life. Another notification. I'm looking forward to it. Ring doorbells. We'll be back.

What? Oh, hi. It's Christina again, here to remind you to go to tcbpodcast. Com for all things audio, video, and T-C-B-D-O. Give us a follow on Instagram at the Commercial Break and on TikTok at T-C-B podcast. And guess what? We have a new phone number. I know what you're thinking, but I promise this is the last T-C-B phone number you will ever have to remember. So call us and leave us a voicemail or text us at 212-433-3 TCB. Once more for the people in the back, that's 212-433-3-TCB. Oh, and check out our YouTube channel at youtube. Com/thecommercialbreak. That's all for now. Let's listen to our sponsors and get back to the show.

All right, so I'm hanging out of the house yesterday, and we got a ring doorbell camera like everybody has a ring doorbell camera. On a side note, did I tell you how when we went to Spain and we were staying at the short term rental house, is how a lot of them had cameras inside? Yes. And that really unnerved me. I felt like that's a little weird. Why do they have cameras? And not cameras you couldn't see, like hidden cameras. That I wouldn't have been bothered by because I wouldn't have known they're there. But the actual kind you can see hanging on the wall. Someone told me that they mandated that by law in case there's something happening inside the house, the police can turn on the camera. That turned out to not true. Spain does not have a law where you actually have to have cameras inside the house.

So they were just spying on you?

They were just spying on us. They were watching me change, which probably they took the cameras down right after that. They were like, Well, this is terrible. Look at those DD canters. Those things are dragging across the floor. That's highly disturbing. Is he in some circus or something? He should be. What are those? Is that two bowling balls in a hammock? What's going on there? I don't understand. But what it was, what it ended up being was they would give you a discount on security services or something like that, apparently. Whatever. Okay. I don't want to misspeak. That's the story. But I heard one thing from one Spaniard, I heard another thing from another Spaniard.

Well, I just thought, too, that Airbnb was...

That's what I was going to share.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah, they banned all indoor cameras. I'm I think this is a fantastic move. I mean, I understand the need and want to watch yourself and your house and your things. But if you're not in that game, then don't allow people into your house in the first place on short-term rentals. You just got to trust that it's going to happen. Listen, I've worked with Airbnb before, and something goes wrong, they're usually good about figuring out what the next steps are.

They also have a thing I noticed that said for outside cameras, they can't be pointed at the sauna.

Oh, they can't be pointed at the sauna? Like the Jacuzzi. Fuck that. I was like, Oh.

I didn't even think about them having a camera on the Jacuzzi before.

I didn't think about that either.

It makes me think about specific times.

Yeah, it makes me think about specific times, too. I think you were at the cabin one time. I'm not sure you have anything to worry about, but me, on the other hand, I might have a lot to worry about.

I think Jeff and I might have some things to worry about.

Let me be proof that I have children than the ones that are running around this house.

So ring doorbells, doorbell cameras in general, are another necessity but annoyance of life.

There used to be a time when you would just ring the doorbell, You felt comfortable that you could go answer it, and it probably wasn't going to be a surprise unless you were wanted by the law or something like that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Waiting to be served in a lawsuit or something. But now we have ring doorbell cameras. I got to admit, when they first came out, I felt a certain affinity for them. I was like, Oh, this is a great idea. You can now see who's at your front door. You can talk back to them if you're not home. You can monitor the general comings and goings of what's going on at your particular location. It seemed like a great idea.

Well, there is a level of security it provides. I agree.

But...

And to that- Speaking of notifications, I had to turn my notifications off for that. The wind would blow and- You know you can turn the sensitivity down, right?

Oh, you guys turned it down? Yes, I had it down. Oh, okay. Still.

I'm like, Where's the move? What's happening?

Yeah, what's happening? My dog barks now when she hears the notifications on Astrid's phone. She barks because she knows what's going on, but she barks at everything. I can't say that's directly connected. But the other day, we get this weird email from the city that we live in, and it's like, Dear ring customer, we would like to put you as a part of our security blanket, or whatever they're calling it, and use your camera and- Security blanket? Security blanket. So the police can now tap in directly into my ring doorbell camera. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, no. Fuck, no. Fuck, no. As a way to monitor, like a street camera that they would put up. But now they're using people's ring doorbells to do that. Now, I'm not sure with... They could get a warrant and probably look at anything that they wanted to look at, but this seemed way creepy to me. I was like, No, I'm not going to be a part of your big brother scenario. No. Even though I got this device I'm carrying around all the time that's listening to me. The monitors your location. Yeah, monitors my And listens to me.

But I draw the line at my front door. Even though you could see within three feet where I am in my house, if you were to connect to my phone, I draw the line at my front door. I'm protecting the stranger. She's an Amazon delivery guy shows up in my door three times a fucking day with his oversize boxes. I'm sitting here in the studio and I'm doing some work, and then I hear the dog barking. But barking in a certain way where I know somebody is close to the house. Even though we have taped up all the windows- You did. To make sure that Blue cannot see outside so she won't bark, she still knows. Somehow, she hears it or she smells it or whatever. Anyway, she starts barking, and then the doorbell rings. I have the window open here, and there's a line of sight. If the person was to back up from my door a little bit, they could see inside this room. I run, I jump on the floor, stop, drop, roll. There's somebody at the door. I did. I swear to God, I jumped on the floor and I crawled out of the room.

Then I crawled down the hallway because there's other windows open in the house. I crawl and then I go into a closet where I know I can just peek just a little bit and see what's going on. I see a car out front, I don't recognize it. Then I turn on the ring camera so that I could see what's going on. I see somebody there. I do not recognize this human being. I I have no idea who she is or why she's at my door. She's an older lady, I can tell that much. She looks not necessarily threatening, but she's trying to get me to sign up to vote. Does she have a poll she wants me to do? She's selling some brownie that's going to make me sick for her daughter's vacation to Washington, DC. Whatever. I don't want to be a part of it. I'm not interested. I've long since stopped answering the phone and the door, just to let you know. My Slack, my email, everything, anything where I can get notifications, I long since stop answering. Yes. I don't say anything. I'm just looking at the door. She rings it a total.

A total, there's two knocks and a total of three rings on the doorbell. It's way too much. She's there for seven and a half minutes.

Yeah, she's looking in the window, too.

Yeah, she's peering in the window, trying to see what's going on. Of course, I have my window open, so you can hear the TV blasting. I've got hot food in direct eyesight. She can see that my stew is still steaming. If she's a detective, she clearly knows someone's in that. But then this starts happening. I'm going to play her voice because I don't know who she is, and I'm sure she's not listening to the commercial break, but I'm going to let you listen to what this lady said to the ring doorbell, not even to the ring doorbell camera. She was just talking out loud.

She was. I know. She showed us to me.

So weird. Okay. Let me see here. I'm going to have to... I'll have to...

And doesn't she in the beginning to say, Oh, yes.

Hello. Yes. Hello. I'm going to bleep out that because she says the address, so I'm going to bleep that out, obviously. Oh, wait, hold on one second. Why did it do that? And that's the other thing is You know, anytime you turn the... Here she comes. Wait, hold on. This is a technically- I was in the neighborhood, literally, some business to take care of, and I found myself on a bus, and I thought about you and just thought I would drop by and just say hello.

But I wish you the best and I hope you're really doing well and taking care of yourself.

Okay, so that's what she said out loud to no one in particular. She said that. Now, the lady that she is referring to died 12 years ago before we even got into this house. She passed away. I wasn't going to be the one to break the information. She to her. No. I wasn't going to answer the door and be like, Hey, your friend died. First of all, second of all, I'm protecting the dead woman because it doesn't sound like they were friends in the first place. If you show up in some dead woman's house 12 years later and say, I was thinking about you. I really hope you're doing well. That sounds like a fight that went sideways, and now she's making amends 12 years later. Like she got sober and she's going through the 12 steps. I wanted to talk to you about that time. I fucked your husband. We had children. I know I'm your sister, but I just was in the area, and I thought I'd come by and say hello. I mean, how strange is it- It's very strange. To show up at a house a decade plus later and then expect that anyone is going to still be living at that house.

Yeah, because obviously she has not spoken to the woman since she died.

I know. Twelve years ago. She doesn't know. She has no idea.

She's had no communication with this other woman, but she just shows up at the house.

She shows up at the house. She obviously doesn't have a phone number for her. I know of the lady she speaks because she lived at this house 12 years ago, and the neighbors have said she was a little bit of a recluse, but she was nice enough, and she got older and she got sick and she passed. I know this, but of course, I'm not going to say anything to this lady, but just the audacity to show up at my fucking front door and start blabbing about it. By the way, we've renovated this house four times since we've lived in it. It looks nothing like the house it was 12 years ago. Nothing like it. You would maybe take a clue from the fact that you're showing up at a house that looks nothing like it did 12 years ago. There's no cars in the driveway that you can see. Why would you just show up and start blabbing off? I would never do that. No. I wouldn't even show up at someone's front door.

She was like leaving a message. I know.

It was like, Yeah. Hey, it's me, your sister. I know it's been about 26 years since I stopped by, but I was down on the road, so I thought I'd show up and talk to myself. Look in your windows, stare at your dog. Just generally creep everybody out like I used to do when I was on crack. But I done since sobered up. I just got out of the treatment center. Twenty-six years in the treatment center. I'm feeling much better now. So get a chance, call me on that pay phone I used to have. Oh, one more thing. You know, dad, he died. I forgot to call you. But we'll get in touch. Next time I'm down here on this road, I'll swing by and leave you another message. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye, honey.

It's like she was leaving a message, but in person.

She was? Yeah. Hey, I forgot to RSVP to your oldest daughter's wedding in 1989. I just wanted to drop by and let you know we weren't able to make it. Hope you're well. We had something to do. Hope everything turned out good. All right, then. Nice dog you have. I like what you've done with the place. I'll talk to you later. All right, then. Bye-bye. Got to get in my car and go home now.

Yeah, I mean, I can't believe she, first of all, had not made person to person contact in some way in all of these years. In 12 years. Or talk to someone.

Yeah, who talked to her. Yeah, obviously, they weren't friends. Like, the only person that I would do that with is if I thought there was an emergency that needed immediate care and concern. Like, if I hadn't heard from you for three days, I'd be like, All right, I better go by, hold these house and see that everything's okay. I mean, we have friends like this, too, right? But we know it's time to go over there and knock on the door. But you don't do that. Hey, it's me. I just was in the area, in the general Atlanta area. I live in Utah, but I was just in the general Atlanta area for a business meeting. I thought I'd swing by and see how those old bones were doing of yours. I remember you had real bad emphyzma.

I hope you recover nicely.

I hope you stopped smoking cigarettes. That's what she said.

I have a card of a call, something. She obviously knew the address. I think I would have lettered it first.

I think I would have dropped something in the mailbox. Hey, it's me, Susie. Sorry about that fight we had. Hey, it's me. I done got a cell phone. Remember we talked about that two decades ago. So call me back on your ring doorbell. It's so strange. Give me a ring back on the ring, and I'll talk to you later. I'll try again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Oh, my God. Hey, it's me, Susie. Best friend. Sorry we lost touch after you couldn't buy actual telephones anymore to install in your house, but I just wanted to stop by. I happened to be in the general Georgia vicinity. Thought I'd take a 14-hour detour to come say hello. Sure am glad you're doing well. I see the TV on. What are you watching? 90 Day Fiancé? I sure do like that. My 600 pound life. Well, that's why I was checking in on you. I wanted to see if Dr. Nozard could help you, but I guess not. You're not home right now. So all right, ring me back on the ring. Why don't you swing by my place and leave me a message when you get a chance? Bye-bye now.

I think I just peed a little bit. I'm sorry. We need to take a break. Oh my God. Stop by my house, please.

I'm happy.

Hey, it's me. I just got your message on my ring doorbell. I thought I'd come by, leave you a message on your horse. It's so good to hear your voice. All right, then. I guess I'll be talking to you later. Swing by anytime. Leave a message with the doorbell. What the fuck?

Honestly.

She'll have to voicemail my ring doorbell. She did. And then, scooted out of here just as quickly as she came. She didn't even leave a name. I don't know. How do I get a hold of her? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. That is the funniest thing in a long time.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, lady.

Yeah, thank you, lady. For a show.

Whoever you are. Providing 30 minutes of high entertainment.

High class. That's comedy. It's me, Brian Christie, just wanted to stop by and thank you for leaving us such a nice voicemail on our ring doorbell. All right. Talk to you later. Oh, my God. I'm going to start just walking by random houses with ring doorbells and leaving them a voice message. We should do that. I was just in the neighborhood. Yeah, I was just in the neighborhood.

I thought I'd stop.

We should I'm going to start leaving random- Hope you're well. Hope you're doing good. I see you got a dead possum out front. I'm going to cook it. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. Hope you don't mind, took the dead possum out of your yard. That's a good eating right there. Oh, my God. I'm going to start leaving random phone messages with people. Hey, it's me. I was by our house earlier, but you The ring doorbell didn't have any more room for a message, so I thought I'd call. I'm just going to make it nondiscreet. Hey, just wanted to call and see that you're doing okay. All right. Talk to you soon. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.

Yes, you have to.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to record them. People around the country are going to get nice messages from some random podcast host. Oh, my God. Would you like to come on our ring doorbell? Leave us a text message, and we'll tell you how to get to the ring.

We might check, we might not.

We might check, and we might not. 1, 2, 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, 3, TCB. That's 2, 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, 3, TCB. If you want to be on the show for an Ask DCB, you got a story to tell, you want to introduce yourself, or you just want to say hello to our ring doorbell. Feel free to text us. Stop on by. Yeah. Leave us a message first, then stop on by and leave us a ring doorbell message. Then you can text us and we'll text you back. It's a bit non-complicated. We want to make it as easy as possible. Or email us and we'll check it in 2027. Info@tcbpodcast. You can leave us an email there, too. If you want to come on the show, We're going to start doing that, and we'd love you to be a part of the commercial break. So come on, come on, come on. Let's do it. Let's do it together. Also, you can go to tcbpodcast. Com. That's where you find out more information about the show. You can watch all the video, listen to all the audio, all there from one location, tcbpodcast. Com.

Also, get your free Piggy front and sticker by hitting the Contact Us button on the website. Drop down menu says, I want my free sticker. Give us your physical address. We will send it right to you.

And we might stop by.

Yeah, we I thought you had a Rick message. Rick message. Hey, you never know. You never know. I would honestly start doing that if I didn't fear getting shot. Right.

Yeah.

People are getting killed for a lot less than that. So go to the website, get your free Piggy front of the sticker, @thecommercialbreak on Instagram, T-C-B podcast on TikTok, and youtube. Com/thecommercialbreak. So dial us up, please do. We'd love to hear from you. All right, Christie, I guess that's all I can do for today.

I think so.

But I'll tell you that I love you. I love you. I'll say best to you. Best to you. And best to you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, Christie and I do say, we will say and we must say, goodbye.

I got to get some cocaine. I'm going to be crazy.