Stephen and Laura (00:00.)
alcohol content but you know what that's that I think they just like to challenge themselves and I respect it.
Jey (00:06.022)
No, it's a challenge like for sure. It's, it's super fun. It's it is, I think Laura, you're absolutely right where it's like the higher you up, the less you drink, the more they eat faster. It hits you. Cause I remember going drinking, not like drinking, drinking, but going out for a drink or having a drink when I was out at a restaurant or something like it, it hits like when my family would come and visit, like it, they weren't ready for like, I tried warning them. I'm like, if you need to go and grab a can of oxygen or you need, cause I worked at Walmart at the time I was an assistant store manager.
Stephen and Laura (00:19.354)
Hmm.
Stephen and Laura (00:28.252)
Thank you.
Jey (00:35.462)
If you need a can of oxygen, like let me know. Like we have a lot of those because we have a lot of people like during like camping season, we have people coming up from the valley. So up from like Phoenix area, which is 4 ,000 feet lower in elevation to us. So we literally order canned air for camping season, cans of oxygen for people to go and buy and have like the little triangle mask. So that you can just like kind of huff it and.
Stephen and Laura (00:40.794)
Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (00:45.54)
Mm.
Stephen and Laura (00:50.94)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (00:56.334)
Oh wow!
Stephen and Laura (01:01.082)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (01:05.35)
get the oxygen caught up and whatnot. So.
Stephen and Laura (01:08.412)
like level out your system. Yeah, yeah, because you just need that extra oxygen boost.
Jey (01:10.982)
pretty much.
100%. Well, Steven, Laura, thank you so much for joining me this week on the Young Dad podcast. I'm super excited to talk to you guys. While we were talking about oxygen elevation, I hit the record button because I thought, hey, this would be a fun conversation to bring us in with. So and I fired the live studio audience and made me mad. But you guys are cat parents, not human parents, which is OK. So a little bit of a different thing that we got going on today.
Stephen and Laura (01:32.666)
No.
Stephen and Laura (01:40.668)
Yeah.
Jey (01:42.582)
I love talking podcast crossovers, talking to new people, getting to know you guys. Steven, you are all over the place on threads. I love your threads engagement. That's how we connected. So Laura, you can thank Steven for that. You guys are the host, the couple hosts of Midday Musings podcast, a couples comedy podcast four times a week or 30 minutes of cozy conversational couples comedy four times a week.
Stephen and Laura (01:46.684)
Oh yeah.
Stephen and Laura (01:57.66)
I do regularly.
Jey (02:13.122)
And you guys, as I understand, I know, right? And you guys do that four times a week, but on your guys's lunch breaks, correct?
Stephen and Laura (02:13.82)
Such a mouthful.
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (02:21.116)
That is exactly right. Yes. Yeah.
Jey (02:23.302)
Okay, and you guys are married, correct?
Stephen and Laura (02:27.356)
Yeah, for close to a decade now. Yeah, almost a decade. You know, we like to say, it's kind of cheesy, but we like to say we're best friends that have been married for about 10 years, almost 10 years. And it's true. We were friends long before we actually even started dating. I just saw her, she saw me, we're like, hey, you're super cool. Do you want to hang out? And she's like, yeah. A couple years later, we were like, hey, there's a romantic connection here. And we've just been, honestly, like...
Jey (02:30.286)
Whoa.
Jey (02:37.958)
Love that.
Stephen and Laura (02:53.404)
good to best friends ever since. We've really just been hanging out for about 13 years. We've hanging out for quite a while. Yeah, so. Exactly. So we have a lot of fun in our personal life and we like to bring that fun into our podcast. You know, it's really just us hanging out talking. We like to we like to think we're the we're like the two cat.
Jey (02:58.042)
I love that. You just put a couple extra titles on it.
Love it.
Stephen and Laura (03:14.716)
parent household that you wanted growing up. You we don't have kids, but we have like, we just really cultivate like a loving cozy environment, both in our personal space and on the podcast. And that's really what we like to bring. We like to bring this sort of soothing. We like to think of our podcast as like the, the cure to internet overwhelm because everything is stressing you out on the internet. Everything is just making you kind of freak out. Cause it's like,
The 24 hour news cycle, everything is so intense and so elevated. So we're there to kind of take it down, lower the temperature a little bit and go, hey, come and hang out with us. We're going to chill. We're going to get cozy. We're going to talk about some fun stuff. We're talk about media. We're going to talk about some relationship stuff. We're going to talk about history. We're going to talk about a bunch of random other stuff too. Oh yeah, yeah. We're about the comfort listening. Yeah.
Jey (04:02.948)
100%. I love that. So, how did your guys' love story begin? Stephen, let's have you go first from your point of view, how it all started. And Laura, you can fill in the gaps and cut him off wherever he's misleading here.
Stephen and Laura (04:09.188)
I'm out.
Stephen and Laura (04:18.332)
Okay, so I think it all started well two places. Number one, I was playing StarCraft 2 and I noticed we were already connected on Battle .net and I noticed she was playing World of Warcraft and I was like, wait a second, you play WoW? And I haven't really played it, but I was like, respect. That's a very intense game, very in -depth game. And we just started talking on Battle .net as I was playing StarCraft and she was over -crafting on WarCraft.
And then it was that where we started our conversation really where we started really getting in depth into how we were connected, what we had in common. And secondly, and I think maybe even more so, her introducing me to Doctor Who. I had never seen it before, I had heard of it, but she's like, I love this show. I think you're really gonna love it. Just as a friend, check it out. And I saw it and I fell in love with that show. And I said, if this woman loves this show, if this is like her heart song show, I...
Really want to get to know her like much much better. So I think that's really what opened me up to oh, wow I think there is something like really potentially deep here. So I think that's for me. That's where it started What do you think Laura? I like that. It's a nice psychological seduction. Yeah, I mean it I think it was it was like here are some things I'm interested in Oh, you're also very interested in them. Awesome. Let's like explore this. Yeah, I
Jey (05:34.79)
Haha
Jey (05:40.516)
100%.
Stephen and Laura (05:42.396)
So our friendship started in like a darkened theater. We were both doing theater in college and got to know each other that way. But I think the romance for me started when I observed his attitude at length. He's just such a cheerful person and like a bright sunny addition to anyone's life and attitude so attractive, so very attractive. And ultimately we just kind of fell in with our shared interests and our...
our shared desire for self -development. And yeah, once we got together, it just sort of stuck.
Jey (06:23.622)
I love that. That's adorable. And you definitely, you definitely got him because when, I don't know if the guys are listening out there, not the single guys that are listening out there. If she sends you a show that she wants you to watch, you're in. Like you're in. Like that's, that's what my fiance did when we were like talking and stuff and like progressing. She would, we would start watching shows together, watching the same shows and whatnot. And once that started happening, like things like took off.
Stephen and Laura (06:26.35)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (06:38.844)
Thank you.
Jey (06:53.382)
And so guys, if she sends you a show, she wants it. She wants you. She likes you a little bit. So just saying. Go ahead, go ahead.
Stephen and Laura (06:54.222)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (06:58.428)
I feel like so much, oh sorry.
Oh, I feel like so much of relationship building is a game of show and tell. Yeah. It's just like, hello, I like you. Let me show you something I love. Yeah. And they tell you about it and make sure you watch that show. So if she sends you a show and she's like, I love the show, you should maybe check it out and you don't check it out. Oh, yeah. Like, that's a hard rejection. Yeah. You don't even have to like the show. Just go. I saw it. I thought about it. Here are my thoughts. Like you could even like connect over like a disconnect on a show I found.
Jey (07:25.048)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (07:34.172)
Like if, like, so for example, I also, I really like Lord of the Rings and Laura has mixed feelings about Lord of the Rings. She calls it bromance hike because there aren't really any. Because that's the accurate title, but yes, girl. Which is totally fair. There are like, there aren't really any like female leads. There are female supporting characters. So I totally, totally get that. That makes sense. But I hadn't thought about it, but I was like big Lord of the Rings fan. She was like, ah, it's actually bromance hike. It's just kinda, it's not as compelling to me. And that to me was also point of connection because we had like,
It was just, we had a point of conversation that we could have about a particular piece of media. It's the fact that we were able you're disagreeing, aggressively, that can still be connection. You're still connecting. Love, hate, but. Yeah, exactly. No, but I don't hate Lord of the Rings. I just, I notice that it is not a Bechdel test passing property. Yeah, that's totally fair.
Totally fair. I didn't mean to make anyone think you hate them. Oh no, no. People will come for me on the internet. Oh yeah, that's true. You can't be seen. Folks, she doesn't hate little things. She likes it. She just does. It doesn't pass the Bechdel test and I think we all can agree on that.
Jey (08:34.566)
They will, they will, they will come for her.
Jey (08:44.166)
So Laura, where do you fall with Star Wars then?
Stephen and Laura (08:48.732)
Ooh, I love Star Wars, but I desperately, desperately love Star Trek.
Jey (08:56.614)
Okay, that's okay, that's okay, I'll take that. What about...
Stephen and Laura (08:58.844)
We're like, I'll let it pass, I'll let it pass.
Jey (09:01.766)
Yeah, let's perhaps. What are your guys' favorite sitcoms? Like multi -season sitcoms that you guys absolutely love, like as individuals or as like a couple, since we're kind of on the topic here.
Stephen and Laura (09:12.892)
I love this question. It's a beautiful question. And the answer for me is 30 Rock. Yeah, like I rewatch it consistently as like a comfort show at night. Oh, same. Absolutely. Yeah. 30 Rock. You're in the same room. Yeah. 30 Rock is like that's that's kind of our go to honestly. Again, I think it's a show Laura introduced me to like some 10 years ago and I was like, this is this is amazing. I can just rewatch this over and over and over again. It has it has, I believe, the most jokes.
per minute of any known show at this point in time. Like it's got like five jokes every minute. It's insane. It's just, it's super funny. It has some fantastic actors like Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski. Yeah. It just, it has all these fantastic actors and just fantastic, right? And then Donald Glover is a writer on it, you know, from community. And that, that dude's amazing.
Jey (10:10.884)
Mm -hmm. He's so good.
Stephen and Laura (10:12.092)
Yeah, so I mean, I love community too. But I think 30 Rock definitely our go -to. We called out that in our podcast, 30 Rock is kind of required supplementary viewing. Oh yeah, there are references in almost every episode. It's almost alienating. That's what I was going to say. It is almost alienating. I hope it isn't, but for those who like 30 Rock, they'll probably love the podcast because we just sprinkle them in sometimes. We'll like reference random songs like Werewolf Bar Mitzvah or
muffin top and just kind of throw that out there to see if people catch it. Also special shout out to the Good Place. Oh my gosh, Good Place is freaking fantastic. What about you Jay? What are you watching?
Jey (10:50.598)
Some good shows, good shows. If you can't see the sign behind me, if you can't see that little sign behind me. Okay, that's fine. It says, and you'll know exactly where it's from right away. It says, would I rather be feared or loved? Easy, bow. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me. And then my little desk thing.
Stephen and Laura (10:58.748)
It's not completely clear.
Stephen and Laura (11:10.364)
Hahaha
Stephen and Laura (11:18.816)
Perfect. Perfect. Nice.
Jey (11:21.334)
So if that doesn't say it, then that should say it. On my desk at work, I have a Stanley mug. It's just a picture of Stanley's face from the office that says, do I look like I'm kidding? So it's a Stanley mug. It's pretty, it's a top of the line Stanley mug. I don't even know how I came across it. It was random. Like I wasn't even looking for it. It found me.
Stephen and Laura (11:30.714)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (11:37.372)
Laughter
Stephen and Laura (11:44.676)
Excellent.
Stephen and Laura (11:48.828)
Mm -hmm. That's it.
Jey (11:49.83)
That's how much the office loves me and I love the office. I was at Ross and I was shopping at Ross. I think I was getting some clothes or something, or maybe I was getting a present for, I don't remember why I was there, but as I'm going to check out waiting in the absurd line that is the Ross checkout line every single time you go, there was, it was in one of those like random like bins of like essential like clothing, like socks or something random.
Stephen and Laura (12:06.524)
Oh yeah.
Jey (12:15.684)
And it was just there and I saw it. I'm like, I have to have this this just found me and so I put it in my car I think it was like six dollars never looked back
Stephen and Laura (12:20.636)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (12:25.532)
That's a beautiful love story. Beats are my model.
Jey (12:28.198)
Yeah, so The Office is by far my top favorite sitcom. Love community. I love... I'm a big How I Met Your Mother fan, even though that one's a little out there.
Stephen and Laura (12:35.548)
Thank you.
Jey (12:44.07)
I'm trying to think of what else. I love scrubs. I love psych.
Stephen and Laura (12:48.188)
Dude, Scrubs is great. I haven't seen it in a ton of years, but it is still really good going back and looking at it. It still holds up. Oh yeah, keep television.
Jey (12:56.262)
So good. Yeah. When I went to a Comic Con, maybe like five, no, that's more than five years ago now. Six, no. Holy crap. Seven, eight years ago now? Holy crap, I'm getting old. When I went to a Comic Con, the panel people were the two main actors from Psych. And that was super exciting.
Stephen and Laura (13:11.196)
there.
Jey (13:20.614)
So I love me some Psych, I love me some Scrubs, I love me some How I Met Your Mother, love, love, love me some Office. I love that it's on Peacock, I use Peacock way too much.
Stephen and Laura (13:28.956)
Dude, yes. Yeah.
Jey (13:32.134)
Peacock has some solid shows. Paramount Plus also has some really, I love Paramount Plus for my kids, because it has all the Nick cartoons and like the old Nick cartoons, like the 90s Nick cartoons, like Rugrats and Rocket Power, Catdog, Rocko's Modern Life, it has...
Stephen and Laura (13:38.18)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (13:43.324)
Yeah!
Jey (13:51.522)
Rump or something in Stimpy, Rumpy and Stimpy or something. Red and Stimpy, thank you, thank you. So it has all those like old 90s, early 2000s Nickelodeon cartoons on there, full length. It has all the old SpongeBob, it has new SpongeBob, it has some really cool like...
Stephen and Laura (13:56.508)
Oh, red skippy! Red skippy! Old Duane was beautiful.
Jey (14:15.958)
live TV or some like some live shows that are going on. So that's one thing I actually do like about Peacock and Paramount is that if you see a commercial for something is likely going to be on Peacock or Paramount so you can actually watch like the new shows. Just you just have to wait a day. So.
Stephen and Laura (14:33.436)
Oh yeah, like I think we saw, we've seen a number of movies that are actually out in theaters released simultaneously on Peacock. For example, I think Five Nights at Freddy's, we watched the day after it released in theaters on Peacock. We watched it on Peacock. And then we did a podcast about it, because that's what we do. You talk up, you see something, you talk about everything's content now, Jay, you know how it is.
Jey (14:44.23)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (14:57.766)
True, true. I saw, we watched Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey on Peacock during... It was... Oh my gosh, I was... We watched both, because there's two of them on there. I think there's two Blood and Honey's. I want to see there's two... Maybe we watched something else then. Oh no, we watched Blood and Honey and then we watched...
Stephen and Laura (15:03.972)
Oh my You saw that too! What did you think about it? Tell me.
Yeah.
There's two? There's two Winnie the Pooh blood and honey?
Stephen and Laura (15:19.612)
Oh, that's, that's ridiculous.
Jey (15:26.694)
the animal like graveyard one with the, I don't remember what that was called. But blood and honey, it was.
I don't know. It was kind of dumb. It was kind of dumb. Like it definitely portrayed those poor girls as complete idiots. Like it made them all look like the dumbest group of girls ever. And I mean, like they had no common sense. They didn't think they didn't get in their car and just drive away. They didn't just leave like.
Stephen and Laura (15:39.01)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (15:47.768)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (15:54.652)
Yeah, nobody was using it.
Stephen and Laura (16:03.74)
Um.
Jey (16:07.782)
They let the one girl go out to the hot tub by herself and then she went to investigate and then that ended up bad for her. It's like, if you hear that, no one's there, like go inside or go and call for someone, not go back to taking like half nudes kind of thing. Like it was so, it was just so weird. It was interesting. It was weird. It was dumb. It was really gory. Like it was incredibly gory, which was kind of surprising, like how gory it got.
Stephen and Laura (16:13.816)
Yeah
Stephen and Laura (16:21.146)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (16:25.658)
That's good.
Stephen and Laura (16:30.844)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jey (16:37.334)
But it definitely put Winnie the Pooh in like, I think a more realistic light for like if Winnie the Pooh was real and he went through all that stuff, like that was just like kind of, it was kind of depicting like full blown mental illness for him and Piglet really. And I think Piglet was interesting too, because if you research anything about pigs in the wild to where they go from, you know,
Stephen and Laura (16:46.948)
Bye bye.
Stephen and Laura (16:54.588)
Yeah.
Jey (17:05.098)
domesticated pigs on like a farm to where they're that pink color and they don't they're not really hairy and they're fat and all these things versus to when you let them out to the wild this is like for your typical pigs even like in our in real life not just blood and honey is that when you release them to the wild it'll take them about three to six months to grow tusks to grow the brown and white and black fur yeah so they will physically adapt.
Stephen and Laura (17:28.956)
Really?
Jey (17:34.822)
I want to say it's anywhere from three months to a year of being in that environment, their biological makeup will change to adapt them to that new situation with tusks and the fur and everything. So.
Stephen and Laura (17:47.54)
Who knew? Blood and Honey's part documentary. Yeah.
Jey (17:51.558)
Yeah, so it's interesting to see Piglet with like the tusks and everything. I just wish the CGI was better because you could definitely tell they look like felt costumes. They didn't really kind of. Yeah, you could tell they were masks, so maybe they were actually people underneath the mask. And they all just played dress up or something. I don't know, but.
Stephen and Laura (18:02.588)
Yeah. Yeah, that little mask.
Stephen and Laura (18:08.73)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (18:13.884)
Yeah, that was my read.
Jey (18:18.598)
I wish they would have just spent a little bit more CGI to smooth those surfaces out, come out, make it look so obvious. Cause I'm pretty sure you can see the mask lines of piglet and poo. Now we're really critiquing it, but it was 1 .75 stars out of five.
Stephen and Laura (18:33.628)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (18:39.228)
Yeah, yeah, that's that's lacking. That's fair. I appreciate that they gave it a go because honestly, like, I loved Winnie the Pooh as a kid a Melanie fantastic dude. It's the thing about it is it was campy, but it almost wasn't self aware of its campiness. I feel like if they had doubled down into the campiness and even
I even give the CGI a pass because in a campy movie, you can have bad CGI. You can just like lean into it. Like there's a movie called VelociPastor, which has terrible CGI. I don't even think like it's about a pastor that turns into a dinosaur because he's cursed in some distant land and he fights crime with like a nun who's also a prostitute. Anyway, it's, it's, oh yeah, there's this famous, I don't know if it's a famous scene. It's famous in my mind.
Jey (19:07.684)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (19:13.114)
I've of it.
Jey (19:26.566)
Seems legit. Seems legit.
Stephen and Laura (19:31.676)
Uh, where something is on fire, a car specifically, the camera pans over to an empty space and there's just a line that says VFX car on fire. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, excellent. This is going into the final. And that was it. They, they doubled down on the campiness. They accepted this is campy. This is ridiculous. We're not going to optimize our VFX. We're just gonna, we're just gonna let you know.
this is like tongue in cheek campy humor. And I feel like if they'd done that with Blood and Honey and just really doubled down into it and let some things be intentionally and like notably terrible, but like, hey, wink, wink, we know it's terrible. That's kind of the point. I think it could have been hilarious. It was funny. I enjoyed it. I just like, ah, just, just, you could have gone a little further and it could, I would have given it like a four. Yeah, that was the problem. It wasn't going farther, far enough. It should have gone funnier and campier and less, less bloody.
Like a little Dude, are you haunted by like the honey dripping from every surface? Oh Yeah. A bit, yeah.
Jey (20:28.984)
There's
Jey (20:33.19)
They're trying to, so I don't know when this is from, but I'm seeing an article from Kickstarter .com that they're trying to raise funds for the Velocipastor 2 as of December, 2023.
Stephen and Laura (20:39.972)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (20:47.804)
I really hope they do that because that's like my guilty pleasure can be terrible movie. Can the culture withstand another chapter of this brilliance? I don't know. I don't know.
Jey (20:59.6)
It's in production. It's in production according to IMDb. So I guess we'll just wait and see on this one. So for all you Velocipastr, for you friends out there, I guess here you go. But yeah, if you go on IMDb and you search Velocipastr 2, there's like a whole storyline, everything like posted on there. There's...
Stephen and Laura (21:12.09)
Yeah.
I'm
Stephen and Laura (21:19.644)
Hahaha!
Jey (21:29.722)
some teaser trailers from 2022 that are on YouTube and TikTok from the official Velocipastor handle as well. So.
Stephen and Laura (21:42.524)
Oh, so the same production team will be bringing it to life. Oh man. It can only improve. I'm excited. What a fun gift.
Jey (21:50.598)
It sounds like... It's interesting, if you look at it on IMBD, you'll see that it's 5 .1 out of 10. But you go to like the Google reviews where it's out of 5. It has a 4 .7 review average on 1 ,272 ratings. The review that pops up on Google is a 5 -star review saying, I'm currently crying so hard right now. This is seriously the most beautiful, well -put -together story ever.
Stephen and Laura (22:02.65)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (22:18.854)
I can't believe how magical it was at 1 minute and 12 seconds. That part truly made me shed a tear and especially at 6 .34 that part was so truly heart touching words cannot describe.
Stephen and Laura (22:33.916)
The fans have spoken.
Jey (22:34.342)
So I think, fans have spoken, we need a Velocitaster too, I guess.
Stephen and Laura (22:38.968)
We totally do. He's the voice of a nation. I love... Oh, go ahead, go ahead. I was gonna say, I love...
Jey (22:42.214)
Pretty much. I guess we're gonna go ahead.
Stephen and Laura (22:48.252)
I love looking at movies that have controversial reviews because so often you'll have a movie that has like a five out of 10 on one forum, like on Rotten Tomatoes, it's like 34%. But then if you look at Google reviews, like you said, it's like 4 .9 out of five. And those are the ones that intrigue me, the ones that get skewed reviews. Some people love it, the critics hate it, or the critics love it and the people hate it because that means you got something there, you know? And rubber is another one. I don't want to tangent this too much, but rubber is another one.
movie that's like have you have you heard of it?
Jey (23:20.966)
Mm -mm. Called rubber?
Stephen and Laura (23:22.266)
Okay, so, okay, so rubber, it's, I actually fell asleep during the second half of it. But boy, what a, what a crazy ride during the first half. But that's just because I was under slept at the time. It's about a murderous tire, an actual tire that kills people. Like it starts out silently and it's just a tire on the side of the road. And it just kind of starts shaking a bit.
completely silently at the very beginning of the movie and then it just pops up and then it just starts rolling and it just starts rolling and starts killing people. Yeah, it has awakened and all it knows is rage. Yeah, there's no explanation for why this tire has become sentient or why it's killing people but that's exactly it but that's all it wants. Yeah. Yep. And it's it's it's insane and I really enjoy it.
Jey (24:01.35)
Is this the movie?
Jey (24:11.238)
This is the one right here.
Jey (24:17.894)
Huh, interesting. I will have to check this one out. This is weird. A murderous tire. But back to the Blood and Honey 2. So there is a Blood and Honey 2 coming out. March 26, 2024. There's a second one coming out.
Stephen and Laura (24:25.276)
Yeah. Yes.
Stephen and Laura (24:34.81)
Oh man.
Jey (24:43.568)
And I guess the plot behind it is, if you see the first one, Christopher Robin escapes. He goes and exposes the thousand acre wood or hundred acre wood and he exposes all of it. And then he has to basically try to heal and survive the trauma because. Yeah, it's go and watch the first one. Oh, you've seen the first one. So he basically exposes them for what they are. And then now I guess they're after him or something. I don't know. There's.
It's coming out. There's a blood and honey too. So that should be interesting to say the least. So.
Stephen and Laura (25:19.228)
Yeah, a little more than a month away. The saga of Christopher Robin and two of his friends goes on. Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey 2. More bloodier, more honey -er. They say the worst enemies that you have were once your close friends, because they know.
Jey (25:22.35)
Yeah.
Jey (25:31.174)
love that.
Wait, they don't know, because it's only Poo. Poo's the only one left because they killed Piglet.
Stephen and Laura (25:39.1)
Oh, I'd forgotten. Yes. You know, maybe they'll get since they have the first one done, maybe they'll have better budget for CGI. Maybe maybe they'll they'll improve the writing a little bit. I think I think it has potential promise, I believe, in its possibility to get to get better. I think there's a lot of pathos there between you and Christopher Robin. It could be explored. Yeah. Delbright in.
Jey (25:42.918)
So it's just poo.
Jey (25:54.022)
I think there's, yeah, true.
Jey (26:02.214)
Yeah, no, I think there's some good stuff there. I just... I can't remember. Did all the other ones get killed off by Poo and Piglet?
Stephen and Laura (26:10.652)
I know that they ate Eeyore, but I can't remember the fate of the rest of them. Yeah. Ooh, maybe one of the other ones comes back and fights them. Maybe like Owl or Rabbit comes back.
Jey (26:13.702)
Yeah, I know that they ate Eeyore.
I want to say they left.
I think they left.
I think so, like, ow, because that's what it says on Google, it says like, ow, what happened to ow, what happened to rabbit, what happened to tigger, like, there's like questions about it. So I, there's probably a pretty deep subreddit about this somewhere out there.
Stephen and Laura (26:39.996)
Yeah, I'm sure.
Jey (26:41.548)
But, all right, let's jump in here. For you guys being together forever, basically, 13 years, more or less, what kind of things have you found successful when it comes to, I guess, balancing your guys' relationship together? One thing you guys had mentioned in the questionnaire is establishing boundaries. So how have you guys established those boundaries within your relationship, outside of your relationship, and what are some of those boundaries that...
Stephen and Laura (26:50.254)
I'm sorry.
Jey (27:11.302)
What do those boundaries look like for yourselves as individuals and within your relationships?
Stephen and Laura (27:20.614)
Let's see, boundaries, boundaries. Do you wanna start? Oh, yeah. My biggest boundary area that we had to develop was around alone time. I need it. I need it to survive. And Steven's a lot more extroverted, so he is down to clown at any hour of the day, at any level of intensity. And I, being a little bit more introverted, just need to like...
ground, particularly because I talk to a lot of people in the day. So you got to defrag from that experience. And I remember being sort of scared to ask for alone time because of my own internalized misogyny over what is expected of a female partner. The idea that one should always be available exists in my brain.
And I had to like get around feelings of guilt for asking for things for myself. So that's, that's my major area of boundaries that I had to learn and develop. And on my side, so boundaries were, were not something that I was familiar with growing up.
because again, kind of raised an environment where we sort of, a lot of people live together. So everyone was just sort of co -mingling all the time. There wasn't really a lone time or personal space. It was group space. Everyone's together. Everyone's kind of pulling together and working on stuff, you know? And also, you know, to be perfectly candid, I do have some...
some slight abandonment issues from childhood stuff. And so not only am I extroverted, I also have abandonment issues. And so there are times when I see people pulling away and I'm like, wait, are you mad at me? Like, why don't you love me? And I'm like, well, hold on, hold on. It's not that. I have to like...
Stephen and Laura (29:17.5)
like calm my inner child down and remind them that it's not that this person hates me because they need alone time. It's not that Laura is like done with me and like wants a divorce and doesn't want to like talk to me ever again. It's that she just needs some time to herself. And I had to, I had to train myself. I had to get used to that because I wasn't used to being alone as a kid. I wasn't used to like having that time to just think about myself, my thoughts, and you know, really just even meditate, you know, quiet time wasn't a thing that was.
available in my house. And so it was very weird. And I actually associated like quiet and like distance and that with danger, you know, growing up in with certain.
like older male people in my household, like a stepfather that I had, he was just, he would just get like emotionally, he would say things that I know he didn't mean, but it usually happened after he was very quiet for a period of time. Point is, Laura was very clear about the fact that she needed boundaries, that she needed time to defrag and just.
get used to, you know, get her energy back. And I got used to it and I started to trust it too. And as she started asking for more alone time, I also started realizing I needed alone time too, because when she would go off and have time by herself, I would go off and play tears of the kingdom or play a game or go and go running or whatever, or call a friend or call my brother or whatever. And it would be cathartic. It would be...
moment of just for me, Steven time, you know, and that's something that I didn't, I guess I didn't really seek as much when I was younger. But now we all we both just kind of have a good understanding of, hey, I get an idea of when she's starting to need alone time, I'll leave an offer like, like, what girl you need like some time yourself. And she's like, maybe maybe tomorrow. Like, okay, cool. So tomorrow, that's a Laura day, I'm gonna go do my thing. I'll see you on Sunday. And like, we're pretty good about it. But
Stephen and Laura (31:20.868)
You know, I realized it's something that you're not really taught growing up, at least I wasn't. So we kind of had to learn it on the fly after we Yeah, it was the work of like half a decade. Yeah, yeah. But I think we have a pretty good cadence about it now. Like I can tell when something is like, oh, she's mad about me, about XYZ, or oh, I think she just needs to recharge. And nine times out of 10, it's just that she needs to recharge and I need to stop being so, I want to talk to people five.
Like I want to talk to people like every single minute of every single day. So that's, um, but that's what threads is actually really good for that. It gives you a bit of a social, um, like low grade social boost over time. That's why you always see me on there, Jay. I'm just, I live on threads.
Jey (32:02.982)
I know you shouted me out yesterday on another podcast. Funny enough, I actually had been messaging that podcast host that you tagged me yesterday. So we were been messaging on Instagram. She's super slow to reply. She just like hearts stuff and then like doesn't respond. I'm like, cool. I think.
Stephen and Laura (32:11.898)
Oh, nice!
Stephen and Laura (32:20.644)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (32:25.34)
You're like, thanks.
Jey (32:28.646)
Yeah, that's my like least favorite thing. Like I've vented about it on threads before. Um, where I had a guest a few weeks ago, not even a few weeks ago. Like I've had guests over the last, I guess this last week, like I had, I could tell you right now that I've had, let's see the past Thursday, I was supposed to have one. No show didn't happen. Um, I understood that one though. Tuesday got, um,
What happened on Tuesday? Tuesday, we ended up going a little bit later, so that one worked out. And then we had this one on, I had one on Saturday morning that ended up rescheduling, canceling pretty early on. And then this one happened. So two out of three that I was supposed to have this last week.
ended up falling through, which is super disappointing. Especially when they fall through like last minute, I'm just like, oh crap. And so I invented on threads where all my message people on Instagram all the time, cause I'm always trying to connect with new people, especially if I like their concept, I like what they do, like you guys like, or if they're like, I can tell like they're extroverted or they're cool. Like they're down, like they're down to clown kind of thing. Um, famous words of Laura. Um, and so.
Stephen and Laura (33:34.492)
Yeah.
Jey (33:56.678)
I try to connect people, but it drives me crazy when I'm messaging the same person like three, four times over, no response, but they're seeing the messages. It's like, just tell me, like I do the same thing. I don't do that. Like I tell you, I'll get back to you on this. I'll follow up with you on this. Like, I'll let you know on this. Like, cause I get 20 DMs a day over on Instagram. So many DMs. I get added in a bunch of random stuff on threads, Twitter, Facebook, all the places, right?
It's all over the place. There's so many places where I get added or tagged or something happens. I get a notification for something random. Um, and so, but it's frustrating. It's like, I try to respond to all those. I understand like we're busy and stuff, but you don't want to do it or now is not a good time to say now is not a good time. Um, I'm not looking to explore this right now. Like I don't want to be chasing you. Like I'll, I'll try to message you three times. I try to send messages no more than once a week to people.
Um, like on weekends when I can actually sit down, I have my double screens up, um, and going through like all the people moving messages around from primary to general, from general to deleted kind of thing. So I know kind of who I've talked to, who I'm going to talk to and stuff. So I know who I need to follow up on or who's not even worth it. I mean, not who's not worth it, but who's, who's kind of a dead lead kind of thing. It goes back to like my sales days. It's like where this leads kind of dead.
I don't see anything going with it. Um, so I'm just gonna kind of give this one up. Like if you want to reach back out, you go through, you clean up your DMS and you're like, Hey, sorry, wanted to reach out. Cool. Great. I'm more than happy about that, but I'm not going to keep trying to chase you and bother you. If you don't, you're very obviously telling me you're not interested by ghosting me or whatever, but it's like just a lot of these are men. And so it's like, just be a man and tell me.
Stephen and Laura (35:34.554)
Yeah.
Jey (35:52.262)
kind of thing. Like you don't want to, I'm not your vibe, I'm not your cup of tea. Like that's cool. Like I get it. I'm not going to be your cup of tea. Maybe I'm not for everyone. I understand that 100%. I talk a lot about a lot of things on my podcast. A lot of those things are really uncomfortable. You know, I dive into mental health, behavioral health, emotional health. I dive into stories about, you know, divorce and all the things that a dad might go through today.
Stephen and Laura (36:15.482)
Yeah.
Jey (36:20.016)
co -parenting, all the things. I share my story, I invite them to share their story, we share stories, experiences and whatnot. Maybe I have too many coaches on, so there's too much rah rah in your ear, in your ear balls. Which, I mean, maybe there's too much religion, because I'll talk about whatever I want on my podcast, it's my podcast. If I'm religious, I'm gonna talk about religion, I'm gonna talk about what I want. So if it's not your cup of tea, it's not your cup of tea, cool. But...
Stephen and Laura (36:32.316)
Yeah.
Jey (36:45.286)
I think I'm a little bit of something for everyone because I was that kid, maybe Stephen like you back in school and whatnot, where it's like I hung out with everybody. Everybody knew who I was. I was cool with the theater kids. I was cool. I was a theater kid. I was also a jock. I was also a nerd. I was also, you know, invited to parties, never went because the parties I went to, I'd rather go and play games with the boys at one of their houses till godly hours of the night with
Stephen and Laura (36:53.564)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (37:07.992)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (37:12.838)
All the energy drinks, caffeine, Gatorade, mixing suicidal cautions with drinks and whatnot. Like I'd rather do that than go to the mainstream party where everyone else is at. Um, cause that was more fun. I'd rather go and do that nerd stuff than hang out with jock friends or hang out with theater people. But I'm still going to be friends with you by day at school kind of thing. Like we're going to be cool no matter where I'm at kind of thing. So it's one of my like many gifts is like, you'll end up liking me eventually because we'll find something to like each other about.
Stephen and Laura (37:13.268)
Relatable.
Oh man.
Stephen and Laura (37:23.452)
Mm -hmm.
Stephen and Laura (37:36.516)
Yeah.
Jey (37:42.534)
even if that something is not. So everyone is, you're going to end up liking me one way or another. We're going to end up working through whatever we got to work through to get to a copacetic place and just just buckle up because you're in for it now. So.
Stephen and Laura (37:56.508)
Yeah, that is the power of being a generalist. It sounds like you're a general generalist, as in you have a ton of interests. You have a ton of things you know about. I'm a generalist, too. You know, I specialize in right. Like we're all generalists. And that means you can talk to literally anyone because you know a little bit about politics. You know a little bit about religion. You know a little bit about media. You know a bit about theater. You know, we're both theater kids, too. I was I guess I was kind of a jock in high school. I ran in I ran track in high school. I run a bunch. Well,
I've been running until I had a knee thing recently, but Laura does a ton of yoga and a ton of cycling. Oh yeah, and big nerds. And big nerds. Big nerds. Yeah, and on top of that, we do borderlands marathons and Minecraft marathons and you know. You know, the odd D &D group. And the odd D &D group. We did a Marvel marathon. I'm talking a Marvel Cinematic Universe marathon last year or a couple years ago. Oh my gosh.
Jey (38:48.326)
I love those. Those are so fun. Those are so fun.
Stephen and Laura (38:52.124)
I can't believe we got through every single movie in the Marvel Universe during this marathon. It was something else. I don't know how we got through it. There were so many movies. It took a year, but we did it.
Jey (38:59.942)
Oh my goodness.
Can I tell you guys a story about when I was doing my movie marathon, Marvel movie marathon? This is a good one. So at the time, my ex -wife and I had just moved to Washington. So we were staying at her parents. We were living downstairs. And I was like caught up because I didn't have anything else to do. So I'm just watching Marvel movies. I'm watching them in order, you know, how you're supposed to. And I want to say I was on Avengers.
Stephen and Laura (39:08.188)
Absolutely.
Please.
Jey (39:32.614)
I want to say it's end game. I want to say it was end game. But I was also experiencing like a lot of pain. And so we went to the cannabis store. I'm not a cannabis user regularly. I don't really do that. But I had gotten a drink, a lemonade that was infused. They're delicious. I haven't used one since. I don't really use those kinds of things on a day to day basis, but...
Stephen and Laura (39:41.958)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (40:00.166)
And I don't judge you if you do, that's cool to each of their own. It's just not for me. So I got this drink, right? It was a Huckleberry lemonade. It was so good. So I sat down, I'm watching Endgame. I drank the whole lemonade. Unbeknownst to myself, I was only supposed to drink like a quarter to half of it. I drank the whole thing. Let me tell you, Endgame hits different.
Stephen and Laura (40:15.674)
Oh my!
Stephen and Laura (40:20.252)
Oh boy.
Stephen and Laura (40:26.652)
I'm just imagining like your emotional... of the portals opening. Your heart rate increasing.
Jey (40:33.606)
No, I just remember sitting there on the couch today.
Like I could see all the colors. Like it was so amazing. Like I was dumbfounded. So that's my personal relating.
Stephen and Laura (40:40.546)
Thank you.
Stephen and Laura (40:44.166)
Captain America, Captain America grabs the picks up Mjolnir in that moment that everyone loses their mind in the theaters and you're like, like you must have been just out of your mind. Like with the, yeah. Yeah.
Jey (40:58.342)
Yeah, I was just at home. I was at home watching it on the couch. I don't remember anything that went on around me that day. The last thing I remember seeing is just, I just remember seeing lots of colors. My Marvel movie marathon ended after that one. I did not continue going after that.
Stephen and Laura (41:05.404)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (41:13.724)
That's when we ended ours too, because they continue to go. There are more and more of them. But that was really the milestone, our capstone on the Marvel movie marathon, because we said, we've done 25 movies. We've done it over the course of a year. We're going to take a break. We've watched some other Marvel stuff since then, but that was our last let's watch all 25 movies. But.
Jey (41:40.454)
for sure.
Stephen and Laura (41:41.948)
We've been talking about going back and watching the Spider -Mans with a friend of ours because I actually - Oh yeah, more Marvel movies have come out since. You always have to be watching Marvel movies to keep up. You
Jey (41:52.838)
Yeah, but when you guys do the Spider -Man, are you going to do all the Spider -Mans like the Toby, the Andrew, the Tom? Are you and you also are you going to do Spider -Verse in there as well? Because the into the Spider -Verse movies are next level, they are the best.
Stephen and Laura (41:59.132)
Oh, like from 2003?
Stephen and Laura (42:07.548)
Well, I mean...
Stephen and Laura (42:11.684)
Aren't they though? Dude, I feel you. Like they, those are my favorite. The music, the art. Oh, like they're - The story. So good.
Jey (42:18.636)
They're amazing. They are the best Spider -Man movies. They are the best Spider -Man movies by far.
Stephen and Laura (42:24.476)
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just the upside down. The song where he's upside down and he's falling and everything is just flipped on its head. I will never forget how I felt the first time I saw that scene into the Spider -Verse and I heard that song. It just hit.
So good. You feel like you are falling. You feel like you are falling. You feel the adrenaline of the song, of the glass crashing. You are Miles Morales in that moment and it is transcendent.
Jey (42:49.414)
Mm -hmm.
Jey (42:53.944)
Yes.
Stephen and Laura (42:56.508)
So yeah, if we do, if and when we do the Spider -Man marathon, I think we do have to go back and watch the OG ones. And I'm actually looking forward to watching Spider -Man 2 because of the evil Spider -Man dance. Oh, isn't that, isn't that Spider -Man 3 when he gets Venom? Oh, I think it might be 3. But I would like to interject that we should also be playing the Spider -Man PS4 game. Oh my gosh, we absolutely need to. To complete the Spider -Verse. You're on my level.
Jey (43:15.27)
I think it's three.
Jey (43:21.462)
Yes, yes, yes, you gotta go all the spider. You guys are on here, you guys are on here. Well, this was fun, this was real, this is a fun thing. This was real, this was fun, but it hasn't been real fun, just kidding. It has been real fun. It's been super fun getting to know you guys. I appreciate some of your relationship wisdom. I think it's important for...
Stephen and Laura (43:27.26)
You
Stephen and Laura (43:38.362)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, agree.
Jey (43:49.784)
everyone to get different tips and tricks from different walks of life to understand different ways to go about their relationships. And honestly, I think for you guys, you guys just have a ton of fun together. You guys have so much fun together. You guys vibe, you guys nerd out about the same things, enjoy the same things, find those mutual things. I'm sure there are things where Laura, you're like, oh, yeah, I'll get into it for you, or Steven, vice versa. You're like, yeah, I can.
Stephen and Laura (44:03.522)
Thank you.
Jey (44:13.894)
I can give that a try for you kind of thing and then it ends up coming into something whether it could even turn into a debate and that's okay where it's like well that's pretty mid and Laura you could absolutely love it be like it is not mid in the slightest. Me and my fiancee do that we'll watch the show and she'll like love it she's like that's so good I'm like it was there it was there. It was okay. It was alright. Right.
Stephen and Laura (44:23.132)
Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (44:32.508)
I feel like I have notes. Yeah, some follow up notes on this. Yeah, yeah. Jay, thank you so much for having us. It has been an absolute pleasure. Jay, this has been fantastic. Thank you for talking to us. Love being on your podcast here. And yeah, thanks again for all the support. We'll continue supporting you as well. You're a great man. Yeah. And apropos of nothing, that hat not made at all. Oh yeah, that hat is fire. Peak.
Jey (44:39.174)
Exactly.
Jey (44:43.942)
It has been fun.
Jey (44:55.046)
100%.
Jey (45:01.822)
As there was a $10 find at Lids on the clearance rack so Can't go wrong can't go wrong, but tell the people where they can find more you guys before we head on out here
Stephen and Laura (45:06.012)
Nice.
Stephen and Laura (45:13.372)
Yeah, you can find more of us on our link tree, which we can link to in the notes. But yeah, on our link tree, you can find us on specifically there. You can figure out how you can subscribe to us. You can find us specifically on Apple Podcasts, via that link tree, Spotify. We're on all of the major streaming platforms, y 'all. Also, just look for us on threads. I'm always on threads at Steven Does Stuff.
and midday musings pod on Instagram. So yes, our podcast is midday musings available on all podcast platforms and aggregators. Yeah.
Jey (45:53.154)
I'm doing it on Spotify. I'm mad at Spotify right now still. I'm still debauchling with Spotify. Yeah.
Stephen and Laura (45:56.892)
Yeah. Apple then ignore Spotify. Apple podcasts. We won't say, we won't say the word Spotify.
Jey (46:03.206)
Yeah, we're upset with Spotify right now. So fun fact, just before we end here, I'll give you guys an update, an exclusive update on that because I haven't posted it yet. So they removed my show off of Spotify, completely took down my Spotify for podcasters, everything took it down because I violated terms of service in some way, shape or form. I don't know how I messaged them. They escalated it to the escalations teams. Yesterday morning, I got an email saying your show has been reinstated. Here's your account back. All the things. Then minutes later.
Stephen and Laura (46:16.572)
now.
Jey (46:31.878)
They removed it again.
Stephen and Laura (46:34.684)
What? No! What the heck?
Jey (46:36.806)
They removed it again.