This episode kicks off with RJ sharing why he and Sue are founding season ticket holders for the Vancouver Rise FC, the city’s entry in the women’s professional soccer Northern Super League. KJ gives us a couple of Snappers to wrestle with, as well as another glimpse into the Wide World of Theater: from the thrill of landing a role in a new production of “West Side Story”, to the agony of a power outage on the opening night of “Burning Mom”. The antidote? RJ’s admiration of season 2 of The White Lotus. He also brings news of daughter Hannah’s efforts in a 3-minute thesis contest.

Links: Shed Dogs; the Vancouver Rise; diving in soccer; the White Lotus; the exit row; Roger Daltry going deaf and blind; Burning Mom trailer; West Side Story.

Theme music is Escaping like Indiana Jones by Komiku, by permission.

Special guest and originating visionary Hayley of Vancouver joins us in the Shed for our milestone 200th episode! We try to play it all very cool, even though (as we hear again in this episode) we have already caught the attention of various social media tool producers by our sheer longevity. Nothing spells success like people thinking they could make money from you, are we right? Still, even though on the inside we’re dancing around shouting and high-fiving each other, we coolly look at an unusually weak moneymaker, listen to Hayley’s deep disappointment over her middle name, hear another piece of Listener Mail, discuss baby names, hear about Rich’s planning for three foosball trips (one of which is anachronistic), and then…and then we slide into politics, as though against our will. Don’t worry, it’s grim. Your Shed Dogs have come to this. Stick with us, we’ll all get through it together.

Links: Shed Dogs; the award-winning Shambhala episode featuring Hayley of Vancouver; what RJ calls “bots”, at least the conversational ones like ChatGPT’s text mode, are actually Large Language Models (LLMs); Magic Mind (not an endorsement); Roderick on the Line (the buddy podcast RJ refers to); Michael Alig; the Canada Foosball Hall of Fame; fascism in the USA; Melania’s prenup; Ōura Ring.

Theme music is Escaping like Indiana Jones by Komiku, with permission.

Poised to jet off to the 2025 World Cup of Foosball in Spain, RJ delights with his experiences and observations at the 1st Annual North American Multitable Foosball Tournament in Trois Rivières, Quebec, including scary stories about crossing the border these days. KJ lets us hear about a short movie from his daughter Lucy that will go to Cannes, and PJ talks (okay complains) about translation apps. We wander by tidbits about Japanese recycling ideas and favourite viewing choices like Mr. Inbetween, and share whatever fragments our memories hold about Formula 1 racing we may have seen and heard. Or was it the Molson Indy? All in all, we start out with no particular destination and get there in fine style, as usual. Get on board?

Links: Shed Dogs; How Brief; Variety’s withering review of Never Ending Story III; “Travellers Who Do Not ‘Align’ with US Policies Risk Denial of Entry”; the Molson Indy; should travellers use translation apps?; Mr. Inbetween; seeds in Japan’s Mainichi newspaper; plastic recycling in BC.