Jakob Lazzaro, David Deloso and Sophia Lo Can't Let Go of cycling and a chain pizza mystery, Kanye west and dropping classes, and superhero movies with a side of bagel elitism. Stories featured in this episode hail from Reply All, Pitchfork and Vox. Transcript below.

[Music: Little Lily Swing]

Jakob Lazzaro: Hello, and welcome back to Can't Let Go, the NBN podcast where we discuss the news stories and the personal stories from the past few weeks that we can just not get out of our heads. I'm your host, , as always, Jakob Lazzaro, and today I’ve got two returning guests. On my left I have David Deloso, and on my right Sophia Lo. Guys, do you want to introduce yourselves?

David Deloso: Hi, I’m David. I’ve been on this before, and I’m excited to do it again.

Sophia Lo: Hi, I’m Sophia. I’ve also been on this before, and I’m also excited.

David: So people who know me might know I’m a big fan of the music of Kanye West.

Jakob: Oh, god. What did he do now?

David: Nothing controversial, actually. And people who know me might also know that I was very excited for Kanye West’s Sunday service performance at Coachella. But what I didn’t expect to happen a few hours before that was that Kid Cudi would bring Kanye West out to perform some songs during his mainstage performance the night before. So I woke up very excited to see Kanye perform his Sunday service because there’s been a lot of buildup around that, and then the first article I see is that Kid Cudi brought him out the night before! And I was really, really mad because as a Kanye stan, I missed a performance. And it was good! He performed some of my favorite songs, and I just think that’s the kind of thing I really needed to be more dedicated about, and I would have liked to experience that through live stream and not via a news article. So I was kinda sad that that’s how that happened.

Jakob: I have no thoughts on this because I do not care about Kanye West, like, at all.

Sophia: Same here.

David: You know, I can talk a lot about him as a person and how I disagree with a lot of the thing’s he has done, which should be kind of a given, but musically, he’s definitely up there. I would go as far as to say he’s my favorite musical artist of all time.

Jakob: Really? He’s your number one musical artist.

David: Yeah. His albums have changed the game in ways that it’s very hard to cram into the span of this short podcast, but I could talk for a very long time.

Jakob: So my news story is in a different vein. As I’ve mentioned on this show before, I’m a big fan of podcasts as I’m sure all of you are aware. One of the podcasts I listen to frequently because I follow it, it’s a great show, is Reply All from Gimlet Media. Basically, it’s a show about the internet, technology, that sort of thing. And they had an episode come out called “Adam Pisces and the $2 Coke.” And basically, the premise was that apparently at random Domino’s, like the pizza place. Domino’s across America, they’ll randomly like once a week or something get an order pop up in their system from a guy called Adam Pisces, and all he orders is a $2 20-ounce Coke for pickup in the store, but then this Adam Pisces never comes to pick up the Coke. So the whole episode was like basically, what the fuck. Why is this happening? Is it like a glitch? Is it like system testing? We don’t know. So then the Reply All people, who are great, spent like 45 minutes digging into this mystery. I encourage anyone to go listen to this on their own, but basically the conclusion was that… there were a few theories floated. Theory one was that this was people using Domino’s online ordering as a test for stolen credit card numbers, but that theory ended up getting shot down due to some other stuff that happened. The theory that ended up being the one people thought was most likely was that there had been some sort of Domino’s online account breach, and these people were testing the Domino’s system for vulnerabilities so they could maybe in the future steal Domino’s credit card data or something. We don’t know. But the reason the guys concluded that was because at the end of the episode, they got a statement from Domino’s corporate finally, after trying to talk to them for forever. It was basically like, we are aware of the Adam Pisces incidents. Our security team has been monitoring it closely for several years. That’s all it said, which is like, wow.

David: For some reason, that reminds me of the meme where a guy ordered a pizza online and his order was “no meat, left beef.” Or no, it was…

[Laughter]

David: A none pizza with left beef! And it was just like a crust, and it had beef on the left side.

Jakob: But it was just like a bad beef job, right? I haven’t seen the image for a few years, but wasn’t the beef not really left? I mean, it was mostly left. There were a few right beefs.

David: Well, it depends on how you position it.

Jakob: Well, I suppose.

David: They’re normally putting the beef in the sauce, so it’s easier to get it to stick.

Sophia: The real mystery is why would you go to Domino’s?

David: Domino’s is fine. Domino’s is fine.

Sophia: Well, I’m from New Jersey. I have that pizza place I like...

Jakob: Ah yes, the rural part of New Jersey five minutes outside Trenton.

Sophia: Hey!

Jakob: This is a side note here, but a while ago Sophia was like I’m from the country, guys. And then we were like, oh really, where? And she was like I’m from this town in New Jersey. When you pull it up on Google Maps, it’s like a five minute drive from Trenton.

Sophia: Hey, it’s not five minutes!

Jakob: And a 30 minute train ride from Philadelphia.

David: Yeah.

Sophia: Okay. I just really like cities.

Jakob: “The country”

[Laughter]

Sophia: I don’t think I ever said “the country.” Did I say rural?

Jakob: I’m pretty sure you said rural.

David: Yeah, you said rural.

Sophia: Well, it’s also considered rural…

David: No, it’s not.

Jakob: Yeah.

Sophia: By Kalen, who lives closer to New York.

David: As someone who’s actually from a rural area and had to live with the pizza options available to me, Domino’s was one of the only palatable pizza places. There was like one local place that was pretty good, but then they left because the town is so garbage.

Jakob: Sucks.

David: No offense to my people back home, but like. You don’t have the best pizza. We had Domino’s.

Sophia: But yeah. My news story is that Avengers: Endgame happened and Game of Thrones – the Battle of Winterfell is going to happen. I’m very excited. There was a Vox article, that this is the best time ever for geekdom. I don’t really have anything else, because all I’ve been doing is reading articles about Endgame and the Battle of Winterfell. I missed a lot of poll questions in my philosophy class because I was too busy reading fan theories.

Jakob: Well, let me ask this then. You said Vox wrote an article that this is the best time for geekdom. Explain to me why Endgame plus Game of Thrones is the best time for geekdom?

Sophia: Basically, this is kind of the peak for both of the series. This is the finale of the MCU, at least this chapter, and then also you have them fighting Thanos, they have to get all their friends who were dusted away, everything’s there.

Jakob: They collect the five artifacts.

Sophia: Six stones.

Jakob: Collect the six rocks, put them in the glove.

David: Six macguffins.

Jakob: Do the snap [snap]. Yeah, that’s the basic plot, right? I’m sure there’s a lot of [snapping].

Sophia: And it’s also this pinnacle for Game of Thrones too, with the Battle of Winterfell a bunch of people are going to die. The Night King is coming. It’s just a climax. The article was saying so many people are into these things right now because they’re such high stakes. It’s kind of similar to now with all this doomsday stuff like climate change. We’re all gonna die.

Jakob: Well, that is true. We are all going to die. Well, that was true before but now it’s going to be worse. But that’s kind of a sad note to end on. I’ll poll the room, if you will, this – if this is the peakdom for geekdom, are we gonna have a decline of quote-unquote geeky popular media after this? Is this the end of the superhero blockbuster.

Sophia: I don’t think the MCU or Game of Thrones is done, because the MCU is just going to have another chapter.

David: But this is the point where people start to get tired of it. My thing is like, as someone who has been into comics for a very long time, whenever a movie would come out when I was younger I always expected it to be this crazy comic book shit. And then it never was, but now they’re finally getting to the point where I watch these movies and it’s exactly what I wanted out of a comic book movie for the longest time.

[Music: Little Lily Swing]

Jakob: Now it’s time for our personal stories. David, once again – we’re sensing a theme here – you would like to go first. So David, what was the defining personal moment of your life this week?

David: Well, this has actually been unfolding since last quarter-ish. Those of you who know me may know that since the middle of winter quarter, I’ve been a declared international studies major.

Jakob: Woah.

David: Which I declared having taken no classes. Pretty much the only reason I did it is because I’m like, wow. This is a major that fits into my Medill credits chart pretty nicely. I signed up for two international studies classes, which were both in the poli sci department. One was introduction to international relations, which is a 200-level class, and one of which was U.S. foreign policy, which is a 300-level class. Sidenote – the only poli sci class that I had ever taken before was like a really easy 200-level. First week of class, I got into a really good computer science class that I had been trying to get off the waitlist for, so I dropped international relations in favour of that. As time went on, I realized that wow. This 300-level poli sci class is difficult, and it is way beyond what I can do, and this is a lot of reading. So finally, a week or two ago, I dropped it. And now I’m taking three classes, which is not what I wanted, but it’s so nice for now.

Jakob: Ah, I see you’ve discovered the danger.

David: Oh, I’ve discovered the danger.

Jakob: Of the three class strategy.

David: And now that I’m most likely not going forward with this whole international relations thing, maybe I’ll actually take classes that I want to take and not classes that just fit neatly on a chart.

Jakob: So my personal story involves going outside. To go back in time to last weekend when it was beautiful and sunny, I recently bought a bike. And I’ve been biking places. One of my Chicago warm weather things that I love to do is to bike on the lakefront trail, and I’ve had a Divvy membership for a while so I used to do that with Divvy. But that kinda sucks. You have to dock the bike – it’s a huge hassle. And last Sunday, when it was 70 degrees and sunny beautiful out, I was like this is the time to do it. So, I got up at 10 a.m. I didn’t shower, I just hopped on my bike and biked all the way from Evanston to Navy Pier. There’s a little park there by the Jardine Water Filtration Plant that has a nice view. I hung out there for like 20 minutes, and then I biked back to Evanston. Went to Edzo’s and had a burger for lunch, because I deserved it after biking a thirty mile round trip. But it was worth it, and I honestly recommend everybody bikes the lakefront trail.

Sophia: But 10 a.m. is too early.

Jakob: Yeah, but I mean I had NBN meetings so I wanted to be professional. I was still late to photo and video, though, because I thought I should take a shower, which was probably a good idea.

David: Oh, that’s why you were late.

Jakob: Yeah, that is why I was late. I was showering.

David: I bought a very nice bike to campus. And I had it outfitted with, like, a basket and all sorts of cool stuff. And then the first day of classes fall quarter, it was stolen. I never saw it again.

Jakob: Did you have a u-lock?

David: I had a twisty lock.

Jakob: See, that’s the negative. Apparently some types, the thinnest twisty locks… First of all, twisty locks are garbage. Get a u-lock. Second of all, the thinnest twisty locks can be apparently cut with nail clippers if you know what you’re doing.

David: For real?

Jakob: Yeah.

David: That makes sense.

Sophia: Good to know.

David: But still, I don’t have a bike.

Jakob: You should achieve your revenge by buying a bike.

David: No, I don’t want to… I miss my bike.

[Laughter]

David: I miss my bike.

Sophia: Sad boy hours with DJ M Deloso. My personal story is about food.

Jakob: Wow. This is on brand for you, especially because you want a snack right now.

Sophia: It is on brand for me. I found this new place on campus, it’s north campus though so kinda far, which is sad. Do you guys know Pâtisserie Coralie? It’s in Evanston.

Jakob: Oh, I do. They’re great.

Sophia: There’s a Cafe Coralie in Panco. They take dining dollars, which is amazing. So now I can get French baked goods and pastries for zero real dollars.

Jakob: My one comment is this makes me feel old because when I was a freshman, that was the Pancoe Einsteins. And it was an institution. When I went to Hong Kong it was still bagels, when I came back it was a French bakery which is different. I was sad.

Sophia: Yeah, and it’s better. I got a rose tart, I’d rather get that then a bagel.

Jakob: That does sound very good, it just makes me feel old.

Sophia: Also, David cut his bagel one time St. Louis style, and it was the worst.

Jakob: Booooo!

David: Can I explain?

Sophia: No, No!

Jakob: Boooo! No, we are all aware of the travesty that is quote-unquote St. Louis style of bagels. Let’s just take a bagel, and the benefit of a bagel is you slice it horizontally so you can have a nice wide spread area, and just cut it into lots of little pieces.

David: Okay, okay. So, one – I’ve never seen anyone in St. Louis slice a bagel that way. And I’ve talked to several people from St. Louis and no one’s seen anyone do it like that.

Jakob: Then why are you defending St. Louis style?

David: Because I tried it and it was really nice!

Sophia: No, but you can’t make it into a sandwich! What if you want lox in it?

David: Yes you can!

Sophia: What if you want like a breakfast sandwich?

David: Because you don’t cut! Okay. The way I did it was I didn’t cut all the way through. There were two intact halves that had slices on the top so you could put things in those crevices as well as…

Sophia: That’s just wrong!

David: As well as in the slices!

Jakob: That’s just more complicated! Just cut the fucking thing lengthwise.

David: You can add more cream cheese, more whatever.

Sophia: That ruins the ratio! You don’t need to stuff your bagel with that much cream cheese.

[Music: Little Lily Swing]

Justin: That’s going to wrap things up for this week. This and all other NBN podcasts can be found on the iTunes and on the Google Play Store and on Spotify, go subscribe to all of them, blah, blah, blah notification. Our show’s theme is “Little Lily Swing” by Tri-Tachyon, which we use under a Creative Commons Attribution License. I'm your host, Jakob Lazzaro.

David: I'm David Deloso.

Sophia: I’m Sophia Lo.

Jakob: And this is NBN Audio.

[Music: Little Lily Swing]

Jakob: Her entire news story is I loved America’s ass!

[Laughter]

David: That’s not her news story.