Subpar Talks

E60 - Phone No-nos and Where to Go in Texas (or not)

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Do you leave voicemails? Do you use speakerphone in public? Do you phub your friends or family? If you do these things, you have bad phone etiquette. Don’t sweat it, though, because we discuss the things you should and shouldn’t do with your phone. Also, the grammar police are back (that’s us), and Tripadvisor’s top 30 things to do in Texas (we have a different opinion).

 Hosted by Chris and Jeff


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Jeff:

This week, what not to do on your phone, don't get caught phubbing, the grammar Nazis are back, and the 30 best places to visit in Texas, or not. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.

Chris:

And I'm Chris.

Jeff:

Thank you again for joining us, and as always, before we get rolling here, it is our standard disclaimer, listener discretion is advised. We are gonna curse from time to time, perhaps a lot, and depending on the episode, we will touch on some mature subject matter, and we inject our humor into a lot of this stuff, so if that is not your thing, then perhaps this podcast is not for you, but for everybody else, settle in, because here we go with this week's topics. Aside from your work, your work duties, how often do you talk on the phone?

Chris:

Honestly, not very much. You know, it's kind of funny. We carry around these things called phones and then we hardly use them for that at all.

Jeff:

Right. Yeah, I'm the same way. I hardly ever talk on my phone. The reason I'm asking is because the Washington Post had An article, I thought this was interesting on phone etiquette and how phone etiquette has changed since the days of landlines. I mean, there's always been phone etiquette stuff you're supposed to do, not supposed to do while you're on the phone, but this is a new ballgame with, you know, cell phones, not, not landlines. So how do you handle a lot of this stuff? So they had, uh, I don't know what it is, like seven or eight different things that you should and should not do with your phone. So we're going to see how well behaved we are with, uh, with phones. All right. Number one. And I don't think these are in any particular order, like biggest offense to least offense or anything, so I'm just going. By the order that they had them in the article. Uh, it says, do not leave a voicemail. Do you ever leave a voicemail? Um, not as much as I used to, but see, that goes for who I talk to anyway. Um, you know, I, well, let's clarify a little bit here because talking on the phone by itself. Is a completely different experience. So even to say work wise, and I know we're not, I know we're talking more personally here, but in theory, I'm on the phone with customers and, and other business people. Every day, but I'm not literally on the phone. We're on, you know, meeting apps, whether it's web, Webex and go to meeting and zoom and teams and all of that. And that has kind of changed things by itself. True. But. Anyway, I, I say that because most of the time when I literally am talking on the phone, it's to like a close friend or family person where it's so casual anyway, that like, if I call, they're going to see I called, missed call, they'll probably call me back. And so I. Usually don't have the reason to leave a message. I am the same way. And honestly, I couldn't tell you the last time I left a voicemail. I just, it's not something I do. So that's

Chris:

now considered bad etiquette.

Jeff:

Yeah, that, that, and that's what I was going to get to. Like people don't want to listen to the voicemail. And it said they might not even be listening because now phones transcribe the, the voicemail, albeit inaccurately sometimes, but if they're just going to read what you have to say, then why not just text, like people don't want to mess with listening to voicemail. Although now with phones, I mean, it's so easy to listen to voicemail, whereas. Back a long time ago, you had to enter a code or whatever just to get to your voicemail and dial

Chris:

in.

Jeff:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here's another one. Uh, I do not do this, but again, I'm not talking on the phone that much. Maybe if I did. I would do it, but I have had people do this to me and I do appreciate it. When you're going to call somebody, do you text beforehand to say something like, Hey, do you have a second? Or can I call or something along those lines? Rarely,

Chris:

usually, usually only if I, if I know that that person is otherwise like engaged, if they're at work or something, then I might like, Hey, do you have a, are you able to talk right now? But otherwise, probably not.

Jeff:

Yeah, no, I've had people do that to me and I do appreciate it because I don't like, I don't like when my phone rings. First of all, fuck, who is it? What's going on? And then if it's somebody like, I know who this is. Uh, what the hell, what is this about? You know, do I answer, do I not, you know? Yeah, that's a good point. Uh, all right, here's the next one. And, uh, I have always thought this, even when we had landlines, you don't have to answer the phone. Well, I don't need anybody to tell me that. I don't have to answer the phone. It's my phone. It's like the door. If somebody's at the door, I don't have to answer it.

Chris:

I used to have to say that to people though, like they felt this obligation to, like, Oh, somebody's calling me. I have to answer. No, you

Jeff:

don't. Right. Yeah. OK, uh, this was just like a little clarification between when you should text and when you should call, and it involved, or involves, not sending the wrong message to somebody, not like the wrong message to a different person, but not conveying what you want So if you're concerned about conveying the wrong message to somebody, then just go ahead and call. Like, don't argue through text. Like, you know. Right. I think the little headline in the article was facts are for text, emotions are for voice. So you know, if you want to hash it out with somebody or you need to talk about something that might get a little heated, just go ahead and call. Don't mess with texting, which I can understand. That's a good

Chris:

way to clarify the facts and emotion. I like that.

Jeff:

Yeah, I do too. OK, I'm bad about this, but I'm bad about this only to my wife. But, unless it's an emergency, don't keep calling. So, I will call her. I know she's got her phone there. I call, she doesn't answer. Why didn't you answer? So I just called the camp. Maybe she'll finally pick up on the 12th ring. I don't know. Yeah. How's that go for you? Yeah. I need to ask her if she appreciates that. I doubt seriously that she does, but I'm sure I'm going to hear about it now. Oh,

Chris:

well, I would imagine she'd, she would have already told you. If it was that big of a problem,

Jeff:

maybe she did. I just blocked it out. I don't know. Okay. And I know that's hypocritical on my part. Like I just got through saying, you don't have to answer the phone. It's your phone. But then I'm calling her like, why aren't you answering the phone?

Chris:

Well, yeah, that's different when you're talking about. Spouse or even like a good friend. Yeah. You know, you should, I would say, you should answer the phone. If you can't answer the phone. It's not like, oh my God, he is calling me. Of course I'm not gonna answer it.

Jeff:

Right. Okay, next tip. Use video messaging sparingly. You ever use video messaging? I mean, it's FaceTime on iPhone, I don't know what it's called on Android.

Chris:

Oh, I didn't even know you could do that. Cause I don't have an iPhone. Yeah. Um, on Android there's Duo, Google Duo.

Jeff:

Oh, OK. But I don't

Chris:

use it frequently. I've used it to talk to my kids because they have iPhones. And so actually

Jeff:

now works for, you can do like

Chris:

with Google duo. Yeah, you can, you can have Google duo on both sides and you can do video calls with that. I've done video calls with them on that or on Facebook messenger, but that was before actually now, and I haven't done it with them. So yeah, now there's a way that you can do FaceTime with Android users. OK, so basically you have to send them a link and then that will connect them through FaceTime. I've never had them do that with me, but anyway, I didn't know that you could leave a message. I didn't know that you could leave a video message.

Jeff:

Well, OK, leave a message. Yeah, you can. I didn't, I didn't know that before this article. I've hardly ever used FaceTime. The only people I FaceTimed. Are my wife and kids. I've never done that with anybody else. I mean, why would I, you know, like, what's the point, but yeah, evidently people use it a lot, but they're telling. Readers here to calm down with it. Okay. I wonder if you encountered this with all your work calls and zoom and, and whatever else. Stay still on a video call. You ever have people moving all around?

Chris:

Yeah, I've seen, uh, there's, there's a guy that I've talked to recently. He gets himself all worked up. He's, his head is shaved and so he's always touching his head and rubbing and he's, he is like, I just, I don't know. I just don't know what to do. And he gets himself all worked up and he's fich fidgeting and twitching and all this kind of

Jeff:

stuff. Like, dude, settle down. That's distracting. That's distracting. Like if you're on a call with like 10 different people. And you got one person moving all around or whatever. Like it's just distracting. Yeah. This looks like they're having

Chris:

a spasm and makes you feel like you're going to too.

Jeff:

Yeah, it's no good. Uh, this one is quite obvious. This should be known to everybody. Don't use speakerphone in public. Oh, yeah, but like, come on, many

Chris:

people do. I know it. And even, and then there's people, they're not on speakerphone. They don't seem to understand that the phone captures sound and amplifies it. Like, they are yelling into the phone just because. Yeah. They're, they just are loud.

Jeff:

Drives me nuts. It's horrible. OK, and the last one here, Start Screening Calls. Now, this is, OK, we know what screening calls is because we grew up with answering machines. So, and we didn't have caller ID, uh, when I was growing up, but we had an answering machine. So if I didn't want to answer the phone, you just see if somebody's going to start leaving a message and that person starts talking. And if you want to talk to them, you just pick up the phone. Well, evidently people don't really get that, who didn't grow up with answering machines. And so they kind of had to explain it here. In the article, but Apple has just come out with a feature for the latest, whatever they call their iOS, you know, whatever number it is, they've just come out with a feature where it will transcribe voicemails in real time. So evidently you can access that and... You realize, OK, Hey, I want to talk to those persons. So you just answer the phone, which is a cool feature, but it's so new. They didn't really have anything to report about it.

Chris:

Um, yeah, that is cool to be able to pick up on it. Cause of course then that goes back and encounters. Whatever one of your first things was about not leaving a voicemail, so you'd have to be leaving a voicemail to screen it.

Jeff:

Good point. Uh, that reminds me of Seinfeld when, uh, Kramer kept faxing Elaine even though she didn't have a fax machine. She walks in, she has like 50 messages on her answering machine. So she hits play and it's the fax sound, hits another one, it's the fax sound, and then the third one is a message. Saying, uh, Hey, this is George. Listen. And then she just goes to the next message.

Chris:

Yes.

Jeff:

That's awesome. I love that. Anyway, I guess I'm doing okay on phone etiquette. I could be doing a lot worse.

Chris:

Yeah, I think I'm doing okay. So going back to one of the things that you said about texting before calling to see if someone's available. I came across this as far as work calls recently, and it said something about a person being irritated because a colleague was cold calling them. And I thought, what does that even mean? Because I think of cold calling as in... You're getting a call from an unknown person like sales. Yeah. And what they meant is someone calling them through teams or on the phone. It could be on the phone, but calling them without checking with them first to see, is it okay to talk? And I'm working. And the phone just rings like, what the fuck are you calling me for without seeing if

Jeff:

I can talk? It feels invasive. Yes, it

Chris:

does. And more often than not, you know, coworkers, they do say, Hey, are you available? Can you talk right now? Hey, I got a quick question. Can you talk? And, and that, I mean, sometimes I'm annoyed by that too, because I go, all right, well, somebody's going to interrupt me, but, but that's still better. It's better when somebody says, Hey, are you available to talk as opposed to your phone just ringing?

Jeff:

How about when somebody comes to your door? No, that's not okay. Ever. No. We finally got a sign. We haven't put it up yet. We finally got a sign that says no soliciting and then it's got other stuff. No soliciting, religion, politics, whatever. I don't want to buy what you're trying to sell. Oh, it covers it all? Covers it all, yes. I don't want to buy what you're trying to sell. Uh, I don't want to go to your church, whatever. Don't care about your political candidate. Just stop. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I gotta put that up. Cause damn it. I hate that. Somebody's selling something. I do too.

Chris:

I'm, I'm in an apartment, so I, I don't get it as much. I'm sure. I say that I've, I've had people leave stuff at the door, particularly.

Jeff:

Oh, that's also on the sign, so like, no flyers. Oh, no flyers. Okay.

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. I have had religious people come by once or twice when I was here and, you know, the people is all you need for that. It's like, Nope, not answering that. Um, but then I've come home and there's been stuff on the door. Like somebody came by. That's more rare, but I don't really get salespeople so much. Um, but yeah, that's annoying. No, I figure if somebody's coming to my door unexpected, something better be wrong.

Jeff:

Right. Yeah. And

Chris:

then I probably don't want to answer it either. So. In keeping with your story about phone etiquette, I came across something about, I would say phone etiquette as well, but it's, it's a completely different take on all of this. So, are you familiar with the term thubbing?

Jeff:

Fobbing. Yeah, no. It sounds like something you should do behind closed doors,

Chris:

Well, according to the article, you pretty much shouldn't do it at all.

Jeff:

Oh, what? It's that taboo, huh?

Chris:

It's that taboo So, I've seen it one other time, and I had already forgotten what it was. I had to read the article to see, but it is short for phone snubbing, and it's talking about having your smartphone and essentially paying more attention to the phone than the people that are around

Jeff:

you. Oh, OK.

Chris:

So you are snubbing the people around you by being on your phone. Mm hmm. And... This really goes into, first of all, it's saying it's, it's a very common thing. And we know this because you see people on their phones all the time, especially in the presence of other people. Um, but it's one of the things that it's really talking about is people that are in, I think it says romantic relationships. I would just say close relationships. It could even just be friends, but talking about the resentment that comes up from that. Is like, I'm going to pay more attention to my phone than I am to you by being buried in it and that it's not only the problem when the one person's doing it, but even if the other person is doing it too. Subpar Talks, LGBT, subpartalks. com, www. independentjeff. com, www. independentjeff. com, www. independentjeff. com, Like ring true to me, cause I've seen this happen or felt this at times is the resentment that can come from it is like, yeah, am I not important enough? But, and, and it's fine. Like if, if you're off doing your own thing, you know, you're over here, relaxing on the couch. Whatever. And you're on your phone. That's different,

Jeff:

right? But if you're out,

Chris:

if you're out, yeah, out for one thing, or, or maybe you're on the couch and you could be talking, but you're not, and I'm not saying you should never be on your phone. I'm talking about. The, like when that just becomes a norm like that. Yeah. So I know Jerry Seinfeld did a bit about this quite some time ago. Now it was, you know, sometime after the iPhone had come out, we had one or two versions of smartphones before that, but it was obviously the iPhone and then Android, when those came out that around. You know, by 2010, 2012, it was a much more common thing. And he was talking about, you know, you're having a conversation with somebody and then you just all of a sudden see their eyes start going down. It's like, they're just almost looks like they're passing out, but their eyes are just going down to their phone and they're, they're all glued into that. Well, I've experienced something else. Subpar Talks, LGBT, subpartalks, IMDb. They're looking at their watch. They're coming up looking at like, I know you're not checking the time. You're looking at it. And then you just keep your wrist there. And then your finger goes to the watch and starts scrolling. Like what the fuck is

Jeff:

happening here? See, that's just, to me, that's bad manners, like just, if somebody's talking to you, at least be mannerly and look at them, or at least pretend like you're interested in what they're talking about. Yes. Wow. I've seen that, like, we'll be out to eat, and you see a couple, clearly married, but they're each looking at their phone, like, why are you even here? Like, why are you out spending money on food? You could be doing what you're doing right here at home, just scrolling through your phone. Yeah. Fubbing.

Chris:

Yeah, fubbing. Found that interesting, and it's not the first time I've come across that, so. Just another piece of phone etiquette for you.

Jeff:

So you've been fubbed. Oh, I have.

Chris:

Yeah. And see, it shouldn't have ever happened at all.

Jeff:

We have talked in the past at least a couple of times about how we're sticklers for good grammar. I mean, We'll let some things slide, but some stuff should just never be uttered by anybody or written by anybody. And this has been, I've, I've noticed this for a long time. It seems to be more common now, but it drives me crazy is when people are talking about two of something and they use couple, but they don't say of after. Oh. If you had, like, uh, jelly beans, I would say, do you mind if I have a couple of those? A couple of those. People, so many times, don't put the of there and they say, can I have a couple of those? That makes no sense whatsoever. And don't, like, I have no idea, we need an English teacher here to explain why you need of after couple, I don't know, you know, it's parts of speech, whatever. But you gotta have of after that. On top of that, you sound like an idiot. If you say couple and you don't have of, what... Right? God, it just gets under my skin. No, that's horrible. Yeah,

Chris:

I can't stand that either. You know, something else that I've come across, and this is... Well, this goes to the difference of what you, how you sound, you know, what you say versus how you write something. We contract things when we're talking. We'll say it faster, whatever, although there is a true contraction of this. If you say, I could've done something, I should've done something, I would've, whatever, it is a contraction of could, should, would, have. The word is have. And people too often when they're writing put of. I could've done it. Oh, that drives me insane.

Jeff:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

And I see that in, I see that in work emails, like professional people, like you should know better. Uh, I feel like when I see stuff like that, it just, um, what's the word? It, I lose, they lose credibility. That's what I want to say. They just lose credibility. Like, OK, you don't even know how to say this, so I don't know if the rest of what you're saying is worth

Jeff:

reading. That's amazing. And I want to, I wouldn't do this, but I want to go to those people and say, when, like, at some point you learn contractions. And you learned what some common contractions are. How did you go from that to what you're doing now? Yeah. Like, how did you go from should have, oh, you can shorten that to should've, and now you're writing something totally different. You could say the same thing about your and your, you know, or their, their, their. Just I don't, I don't get it. I don't either. I have also seen this and I, you know, I'll get messages from students and, and they'll do this kind of thing. Where they don't write because mm-hmm. and it gets back to your thing, how people are, you know, they're, they're writing like they talk, which could be incorrect. And it is, in this case, they'll write just the word. Cause like, I can't come to class today because my dog is sick, or, you know, whatever. It's just like they, they don't put because, oh man.'cause that's how they talk, you know? Yeah. Cause this, cause that, whatever. Ugh, and I don't correct them. I don't want to be an asshole, you know. You don't? They're

Chris:

putting that in a paper?

Jeff:

Well, OK, and if it's a, if it's a paper and they're doing that stuff, then yeah, I'm gonna, you know, come down on them for that. But if they're just sending me a message with that in it, then yeah, that's whatever. Yeah,

Chris:

got it. Yeah, yeah, I see. I thought you were saying, like, in a paper, you

Jeff:

wouldn't either. You know, I've had students do that, though, in, in a paper. They will, and I don't see it as much anymore, but. Spelling the word through t h R U. Oh yeah. Or I've seen this a couple of times. Instead of U Y O U, they just put u the, the letter u

Chris:

in an email. Uh, is

Jeff:

that when you're seeing it? Well, I've seen that in email a couple of times. I've seen that in a paper, like they actually turned in a paper. Oh my gosh. Instead of using the word you, it's just you. Yeah. That's terrible. It is. I say it's been a long time, and I think because texting is so much easier now. You know, we used to shorten so many things with text because we didn't have the... The regular keyboard on our phones. So, but you don't see that much any now, uh, much anymore. Now somebody putting just the letter U instead of U Right. You know, we spell things out more. Yeah. So I think that's why I'm not seeing that as much Now

Chris:

when I get texts from my daughter though, there's kids are still into that. They really shorten everything. Yeah, she'll say IDK for I don't know, or OMW on my way, and I have to, it takes me twice as long to read it than if she had just written it out, so I'm like, I gotta translate everything.

Jeff:

OK. I came across this right before we started recording and, uh, I want to see what you think about it. Uh, I got this on msn. com. It is, according to TripAdvisor, the top 30 things to do in Texas. 30? Yeah. They came

Chris:

up with that many?

Jeff:

Believe it or not. All right. Believe it or not. Well, this should be interesting. Yeah, it should. Do you ever go to TripAdvisor? Yeah. Uh,

Chris:

no,

Jeff:

not usually. I don't a lot. Uh, I've been there a few times and every once in a while I find something that's helpful, but a lot of times it's just people bitching about this or that, complaining about, yeah, different restaurants or sites or whatever. Okay. Number 30. We're going to see how many of these we've done. The Buddy Holly Center. No,

Chris:

I was okay. That's in

Jeff:

Lubbock, right? Yeah. Uh, well, I'm guessing. Yeah. I don't know. I'm guessing it is.

Chris:

No, never done that. I forgot about it. I remember having come across it.

Jeff:

If I, I've been to Lubbock once, uh, but that was just passing through. I think if I were there for, I don't know, uh, more than a day, I'd probably do it, cause... Uh, he was a pioneer.

Chris:

No, I could see doing it with, with the time to

Jeff:

do it. Right. Number 29. What the hell? Grapevine historic main district, main street district.

Chris:

So I don't think I've actually been on the street. I've been in the area. But it was kind of by accident.

Jeff:

I think that's the only way I would go by accident. What, what the hell is it? For those of you who don't know, Grapevine is one of the many, many, many suburbs of the whole goddamn Metroplex. It's on the West side. It's more of a suburb of Fort Worth.

Chris:

Yeah. What the hell? Just North of DFW airport. And I think that's, I think that's part of why I was driving through there was I was meandering to or from the airport. But anyway, yeah, I don't really know anything about

Jeff:

it. Yeah, I don't either. I don't even care that much to read up on it. Number 28. What the hell? Fort Worth water gardens. What is that?

Chris:

I don't think I knew they had that. It's like a botanical gardens,

Jeff:

I guess. No, I'm looking at a picture of it and it's just a bunch of like concrete steps and there's little water fountains and there are people there walking around. I have no clue. And that's worthy of it on this show. We're, we're from Dallas. We grew up in Dallas. And we hardly ever, ever went to Fort Worth and I know that we're not alone in that. Like, why would you go to Fort Worth? Like, what's the point? So it's no surprise. I have no idea what this is and you don't either. No,

Chris:

Fort Worth always seemed like it was off the end of the earth. Yeah.

Jeff:

From Dallas, 30 miles away. Yeah. It's a different world. Uh, number 27, top 30 things to do in Texas, uh, cowgirls and cowboys in the West.

Chris:

Never heard of that.

Jeff:

I haven't either, but top 30 things to do? I don't want to do a cowboy. We could talk about the cowgirls, but the cowboys is a non starter. Okay, I gotta look this up. A non starter. Yeah. Uh, let's see. Cowgirls and Cowboys in the West. It is, uh, in Amarillo. Should I go on? No. You've heard enough. It's like trail rides and shit. Historic Route 66. Nah, I'm out. Couldn't care less. Amarillo stinks. God, it stinks. Smells like a mixture of cow manure and oil. Right. OK, um, number 26, uh, the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. I've been there. Yeah, been there. Yeah, it's good if you're into, you know, plants and flowers and whatever else. It's nice to walk around on a not ball scorching hot day, so... Right. Fall. Pick when you go. Fall or early spring. Yeah. Uh, number 25, you ever been here? Padre Island? Have not. No. I went there when I was a kid. I don't remember much about it. It's a beach. I don't, I think of like spring break when I think of Padre. Yeah,

Chris:

exactly. I've only been to, uh, Galveston area as a beach place in Texas.

Jeff:

Yeah. Uh, number 24, Fort Worth Stockyards. Been there once. Yeah, I've been there once or twice.

Chris:

It was a long time ago and I really don't remember much about it. People really go on about it though. Yeah, I

Jeff:

don't really know why, like, there, there are a bunch of restaurants there, there's, you know, live music, but other than that, like, I, I don't know, uh, again, it's Fort Worth, it's a different world. Uh, number 23. Never been here. Port Aransas Beach. That's way the fuck down. I think that's even south of Padre. Like you're getting toward Mexico. I think so. Yeah. Number 22. This is also in Fort Worth. Sundance Square.

Chris:

Yeah, I've been there a few times. It was all right. It's I mean, it's the downtown area, so it's, it's lively for downtown area, you know, compared to what we have in Dallas. That's the other thing. Dallas doesn't have a whole lot of activity downtown. Right. More than they used to, but not like that.

Jeff:

True. Uh, number 21, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. I didn't know that was a thing. Well, it's the law enforcement agency. It's not the baseball team. Oh, okay. San Hall of Fame. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It throws you off. That's probably why they do it. Where the hell is this? Oh, it's in Waco. I've never been, I mean, I've driven on I 35 through Waco countless times, but I've never been to Waco. Why would I go to Waco? Yeah. I haven't either. Number 20, AT& T stadium. Have you been to the stadium? Been there.

Chris:

Yeah. That's, that's a cool

Jeff:

stadium for sure. Yeah, it is. It is cool. Have you been there? Yeah, I've been there, uh, a few times, it's, uh, all for Cowboy Games, I've never been for anything else, and Cowboy Tickets are, are just, we've talked about ticket prices for stuff, they're just outrageous, I mean, my family of four, if we're gonna go, we're plunking down at least 500 bucks just for the tickets, it's the nosebleeds. Right. Yep. Uh, but yeah, cool stadium. It's huge. Uh, number 19 is Barton Springs Pool. I think that's somewhere around Austin. It's like a natural spring. Don't know anything about it. No, I don't either. Number 18. What the hell? Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail. It's in Austin. I've heard of that, but

Chris:

I don't know anything about it.

Jeff:

Come sweat your balls off while you hike and bike around the lake in Austin. That's what I think of when I think of Austin. It's just hot. Hot as fuck. Same with San Antonio. Hey, I wonder if the Alamo's gonna be on here. Well,

Chris:

San Antonio's rough

Jeff:

for heat. Yeah. Uh, number 17, Scenic Overlook in El Paso.

Chris:

OK, you look at Mexico.

Jeff:

I guess, they got a picture here, I'm looking at it. Yeah. Yeah, what am I gonna be looking at? Cause it just looks like a bunch of houses and other buildings, cars. I don't know. I've never been to El Paso. Have you? I haven't either. No. Um, number 16, the Green Historic District. I went there when I was a kid because my parents wanted to go. It's, it's one of those German towns in central Texas around Fredericksburg. I don't know what makes it historic, I have no clue. Number 15, Sea Turtle Incorporated, some sea turtle thing in Corpus Christi.

Chris:

Never heard of that, but I've never been to Corpus, so.

Jeff:

Yeah, again, I might have gone there when I was a kid. I went to Corpus when I was a kid, but I don't remember, remember much about it. Number 14, the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco. Why the hell is Waco on here? It's two things in Waco.

Chris:

It's on the way to other places. Yeah. Austin, San Antonio, Dallas on the other end. Right. That's probably it. Well, and Baylor's there. Baylor

Jeff:

University. True. Yeah. Uh, number 13, Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. Again, no clue. Is it that we just don't care enough about this stuff, or what is it? Like, we've never, we've lived in this state for however many years and never been in this stuff. Well, so

Chris:

what I said in the beginning, I think matters here is that Texas is so fucking massive. True. I mean, if it were anything else, it could easily be three or four states and the way it could be divided up and each one of those states could still be a decent size. So then it's the equivalent of saying, have you been to this place, you know, two or three states away. It's just so far. If you go from Dallas down to what, Corpus or, uh, Potwell Padre, especially, you're looking at eight to 10

Jeff:

hours. Yeah. I was going to say 10 hours, probably. So, uh, I tell my students this when I teach Texas government and it blows their mind a lot of times. So if you. We're to draw this, this has a name, it's called the urban triangle. But if you draw a triangle from the Metroplex down to San Antonio, over to Houston and back up over 80 percent of Texans live in that area right there. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, what's 80 percent of 30 million, whatever that is. I mean, that is a whole lot of people. Yup. In that one area. Sure

Chris:

is. I didn't know it was that many percentage wise.

Jeff:

You want to hear something that blew my mind? I just saw this last week. Atlanta is the same distance to Miami as it is to Canada. Really? Yeah. That blew my mind and I had to check it out. But it's true. That's a long way. I know. Because Miami is so way the fuck far down in Florida. Yeah, it sure is. Man. To

Chris:

Canada. That's crazy. I know it. Well, and talking about how big Texas is now, you know, It's closer, you are closer to L. A. when you are in El Paso than you are to Texarkana

Jeff:

in Texas. I know. Just nuts. Yeah. Yeah, there's some sign, uh, I guess, would this be I 10 in, uh, Beaumont? And, uh, I've only seen pictures of this because I've never been to Beaumont again. Why would I go there? But it says like El Paso, 700 something miles, cause it's on the same freeway. So it's not amazing. Okay. Number 12, God damn it. Here's Waco again. Waco suspension bridge. What is that?

Chris:

Really? I don't know. I wouldn't go to see it, though.

Jeff:

No. Well, sounds like we just need

Chris:

to go to Waco and knock out several things all at once. Correct.

Jeff:

The zoo, the bridge, the distance, the longing, the distance. Waco Suspension Bridge is the oldest suspension bridge still standing in Texas. Built in 1870, it was the first bridge across the Brazos River.

Chris:

The old is still standing. Well, that doesn't sound good. What about the, what about the one right before that?

Jeff:

Right, what happened to the one right before that? Is it supposed to still be standing or what?

Chris:

Yeah, people went to see it and that was the last thing they saw.

Jeff:

Is this, uh, so I know on I 35 when you're going... South, there's like stuff off to the right. I think it's around Baylor. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maybe that's what I've been seeing, but I didn't think it was anything special. Maybe special. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Right over the Brazos River. Yeah. Well, whatever. All right. Uh, number 11 is the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. Why is that in Texas? So, I think, I think, uh, Admiral Nimitz, I don't even know his first name, but there's a, there's a USS, there's a USS Nimitz Uh, you know, like a ship, a battleship or whatever. I think he's, or was, from Fredericksburg, so maybe that's why that's there. I don't know. I could click on TripAdvisor and tell us all about it, but it'd be boring, or probably, so whatever. Number 10, Jesus Christ, Lake Texoma. What the hell? That's not... That's

Chris:

still the lake. It's a big one, but it's a lake.

Jeff:

Yep. Yeah. You know, we have only one natural lake in this whole goddamn state.

Chris:

Oh yeah. I know. Isn't that

Jeff:

crazy? Yeah. It's Caddo Lake in East Texas. So all this other shit's man made. But Lake Texoma, yeah, it's a, it's a lake. So what? Yeah. Brain

Chris:

eating amoebas, maybe sharks.

Jeff:

Right. Sharks. Yeah. Number nine, USS Lexington Museum and Corpus. No clue. There's a big aircraft carrier picture. OK. I'm not a big fan of this list. Number 8, God Almighty, Waco Mammoth National Monument. No clue. I think there's some kind of trip advisor, uh... Collusion with the Waco Board of Tourism or whatever the hell to drum up support, because there's way too much shit from Waco on this. Yeah, maybe they did. Number seven, the Fort Worth Zoo. I have been to the Fort Worth Zoo. It's good.

Chris:

I've been there, I think just once, but I've been there. Yeah,

Jeff:

it was good. Yeah. Uh, number six is Galveston. So you mentioned that a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. Galveston's cool. I've told people it's a cool place to go, but if you're expecting like, uh, clear water and white sands, uh, white sand on the beach, then that's not what you're going to get. So lower your expectations a little bit and you'll have a good time. Um, number five, Natural Bridge Caverns. So we were talking about the cave guy last week. Is that, that's the caverns we were thinking of that are... That's the one

Chris:

on the way to San Antonio.

Jeff:

Yeah. So Natural Bridge Caverns. All right. So

Chris:

that's cool. That

Jeff:

was cool to see. Number four, the Sixth Floor Museum.

Chris:

I've

Jeff:

never been there. You should

Chris:

go. It's good. Yeah. Wanted to go. I need to do that.

Jeff:

Mm hmm. Uh, number three, the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I went there once. I don't remember, like, how is it any different from any other, like, natural history museum or whatever. Right. Uh, OK, we're up to number two here. San Antonio Riverwalk. You like the Riverwalk? Uh, Riverwalk

Chris:

is nice, but then it's the whole... Most of my experience in San Antonio has been when it's hot. Yeah. And so I think about the unpleasant aspect of it. Yeah. The Riverwalk area and everything is nice, but yeah, the weather has tainted it.

Jeff:

I was going to say my whole experience with the Riverwalk is tainted because. Yeah. Yeah. Just sweating nonstop every time I've been there. OK, number one. You want to guess? Have any idea? I

Chris:

have no idea.

Jeff:

I would not put this number one, but it's the Texas State Capitol. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you can get past the fact that it's filled with idiots, then it's a cool place to go. Yeah. It's

Chris:

cool to see, but yeah, putting it number one, I don't know. You know, what's interesting that didn't make it is the state

Jeff:

fair. That is surprising. Yeah. Yeah. And this is way overrated. We've talked about that, but the Alamo, I figured the Alamo would be on there. You would think. Yeah.

Chris:

Just for the hype of both of them. Well, and the state fair is the largest state fair in the country. And it gets a lot of publicity for that.

Jeff:

So anyway, according to TripAdvisor, not me or you, those are the 30 best things that you should do in Texas. So you

Chris:

need to go down to the coast. And he could hit what? Probably three or four of them need to go to Waco. You can probably hit three or four of them on the way you could go to the caverns, San Antonio, there's stuff happening down there, but I've done some of it and it's kind of like once you've done it.

Jeff:

That's enough. And I just can't, I can't underscore this enough. Don't come in the summer. If you're going to do this shit, come in March or April and April. You're, you're pushing it late April. You're pushing it. If you don't like to be hot, just watch out. Or then, uh, you know, October, mid, late October. October, November, December, you should be good. All right, there you go. That is another episode. If you like this kind of stuff, then you should absolutely, without a doubt, positively follow us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on, because that way you're going to get new episodes delivered to you automatically every single Tuesday when they drop. And... While you are there, we would really appreciate it if you would rate us, and of course we'd really like it if you'd give us five stars. We have a website, you can pay that a visit, that is subpartalks. com. There you can email us, you can leave us a voicemail if you want. If you want to leave suggestions for topics we should cover on future episodes, please do that as well. We are on social media on X. We are at Subpar Talks on Facebook. We are Subpar Talks. If you want to follow our personal X accounts, you can do that as well on there. I am at Independent Jeff.

Chris:

And I am at Chris Bradford TX.

Jeff:

And we have some other social media links on our website. You can check those out. And last but never ever least, share Subpar Talks on social media. Get the word out to your family, friends, colleagues, whoever you encounter on a regular or semi regular basis because the more people we have listening to our show, that makes it easier on us to get this content to you every single week. And so there you go. You know, go and do that list. I said I wasn't a big fan of it, but I don't think I read anything on there that I'm like, Ooh, yeah, I think I want to go do that. Like to make a trip to go do that. No. Right.

Chris:

Yeah. It's more like if you're kind of, like I said, if you're on the way to something else. Right. Like, stop off and do that while you're doing it, but, yeah.

Jeff:

OK, that is an episode wrap, and we will be back next week. Until then, so long. Subpartalks. com

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