Important If True

Things are starting to come together. Everything is clicking into place. But somehow…it's not adding up. The more you understand, the less sense it all makes. Fortunately, we're here to help, so ask away. For instance: Why is the number 314 omnipresent, and what does it have to do with Stephen Hawking? Can anything stop honey magnate Ray Liotta's dogged pursuit of fast food endorsement deals? And how do you convince the Taco Bell drive-through guy that you're secretly a lascivious weedlord? All this and more. Listen in. Discussed: bits and squeezes, the number 314, a delicious hoisting, Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, 17-hour ghosts, Benford's law, delusional self-conceptions, The Power of Books, engineering problems for children, knowledge as power, a very bad Steve Jobs joke, some other bullshit about numbers or something probably, Hawaiian shirts, children being cursed by inappropriate gifts, Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers dressing like Magnum P.I. and Indiana Jones, inadvertently cultivating a vis

We're not sure what your friend told you when they handed you this podcast, but you might not want to press play. Not because it's bad or something (we're pretty proud of it actually), but because, let's just say, it's incredibly cursed. If you dare listen, it may not turn out well for you in the long term. That said, no risk is without its rewards. In this case, you can listen to us puzzle through some crucial questions of the ages, like: Is Walt Whitman alive? Who is the Ketchup King, and why do they remind us of a trip to work with dad? And, will a bittersweet Facebook video solve the mystery of who killed you? Find out quickly; if you got this far you probably don't have much time left. Discussed: Loving my coffee mug, hating Mondays, cursed videotapes, detailed newspaper coverage of Walt Whitman's decline, no hope for Walt Whitman, an unfavorable turn in the condition of Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman about the same, the Walt Whitman beat, generated Facebook videos of your memories, generated Facebook memo

Nothing is permanent, especially not these days. You look away for a second and look back, and the world around you has changed, subtly. A TV you swear wasn't there a moment before is yelling at you about something that doesn't exist yet. Your friend turns to you, his shirt changed to a logo you've never seen before, and you think you know what he's going to say - he's going to ask you important questions about the world around him, questions like "How can you best maintain the integrity of your aging brand? What REALLY happened at the end of The Usual Suspects? Is this podcast cursed?" - but as he opens his mouth you hear, in splintering clarity, "SEE DADDY'S HOME 2 THIS WEEKEND," and know you can't trust him ever again. Discussed: Happy Birthday Jake wooooo Happy Halloween!!!, Jake's curse, corn maze, terrible 20th Television production logo, La Cucaracha horn, SeamBI, SeamBI B2B, How I Met Your Mother, brand integrity, Taxi, definitely Mastercard's favorite play of the game, television without greenscreen

When we walked into your living room, and our eyes fell on your fine imported Brazilian Eucalyptis Coffee Table With Integrated Aquarium, we couldn't help but notice that the smartphone, tablet, or other in-home electronic device that signifies your wealth and worldliness was left open to Important If True. "How captivating you must be," we thought, as we leafed through the episode and wondered which of life's biggest conundrums you'd be puzzling through with us, what advice you sought and hoped we'd help answer. Things like: Is a mirror really a reflection of ourselves if it only works when we smile? Do strangers offer helpful advice so they can live on in your memories? And, how do you tie a shoe so it really stays on there? Impressed with your taste, depth, and apparent largess, we buy ourselves a seven million dollar replica Wild West town with your credit card before you notice. Discussed: Shaq feeling Twitterers around him, defunct online service GEnie, putting in contact lenses, remembering strangers,

Can cold spaghetti enable your rise as a charismatic cult leader? How do you outrun your own 17-hour-tape-delayed ghost? How do you fight your homeowner's association? The world is confusing. Fortunately, each week, there's one source to which you can turn: WikiHow. Discussed: Botnik Writer, Celebrity Explainer, eating cold spaghetti, mundane perception-alternate events, becoming a highly captivating charismatic cult leader, Roy Batty in Blade Runner, modern technology enabling you to relive your boring life forever, Mom's Spaghetti, a very well-known meme, encountering your own ghost, avoiding your own ghost, l'esprit de l'escalier, watching your own failures forever, Disney Channel Original Film "Me and My Ghost Pal", your own stupid subjective myopic experience, cutting parsley, generating associative memories, X-Acto knives, freeing yourself from bad associations, excellent WikiHow illustrations: How to Fight Your Homeowner Association, How to Break a Habit, How to Prepare Parsley, How to Escape a 17-and

AAAAAAaahhhHHGHhggg! Oh, excuse us, that was just our podcasting equipment warming up. When you taste something gross, what compels you to tell your friend to try it? Or worse, to keep eating it? If we hear someone has wished for something, why the compulsion to wish it away? If something great is on TV, why violate it? In short: Why do we do things we know are bad for us? If we knew, we wouldn't be here. Join us! Discussed: the trash kids love to eat, Jake's dark compulsion, Jake's twisted perverted self-flagellation, Jelly Belly Gourmet Candy Corn, the gross taste more cleanly, Philip K. Dick's "A Gross Taste Cleanly," off-brand candy bars, Jokerz, beef gelatin, vegan Tylenol, saving animal fats in a jar, existential meme crises, 11:11 wishes, Nick getting his wish, casting wishes by tossing change into bodies of water, wish inflation, nickel poisoning...?, meme forensics, violators and snipes, surprising truth in industry jargon, Important If True Home Violator Kit, Nick's dreams, the Dean Scream, 45 huma

Your dreams have come true, assuming you dream of a podcast in which we do our best to work through the world's biggest questions, starting with these: Why are twentysomething Canadian robots putting septuagenarian Canadian humans out of work? Is Google Street View less creepy or more creepy if you're the one taking the photos? And, when Clifford got big we know it came from love, but was that love tainted by science gone wrong, or the touch of some malevolent wizard? These truths and more will be revealed to you, before you wake up and forget it ever happened. Discussed: correcting a mistake, Nick Brekcon babysitting himself at Disneyland, externalized self-loathing, wishing upon a star, nightmares, CBC mail robot retirement, anthropomorphizing lovable dumb box robots over insidiously friendly human-like robots, cats' preference for humans over food, helping out your retiring mail robot buddy, boss robot, forcibly retiring your boss, The Count of Monte Cristo of Mail Robot Retirement Revenge, The Ship of Th

We're going on a trip through the world's most bizarre mysteries, unanswerable conundrums, and dumb news, and it's going to take a while, so pack something healthy. No, we said healthy. Okay, fine if that's what you want. This week: If you have to babysit a ten year old version of yourself for the weekend, do you both get paid? What do ants see in you anyway? And, when you push a button that you know does nothing, has the satisfaction you felt when pushing it given that button a purpose? We can't stop pushing Nick's buttons about the alleged nutrition of PB&J sandwiches, so it must be true. Discussed: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, weird jams, haunted sandwich, The NBA's Secret Addiction, Playmobil Traffic Cone Lung, How a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich is Like a Playmobile Traffic Cone and the National Basketball Association is Like a Human Lung, feeding Snickers to ants, Snickers-based ant rituals, the relative impulse for self-care in ants versus octopuses, bothering an ant researcher, generic-bran

While we grapple with the mysteries of the world around us, while we do our best to solve your conundrums, provide you with advice, and tease out your bizarre hypothetical situations, we are being watched. Watched, judged, and pitied, by beings beyond our perception, hovering outside our senses on the edges of our reality. These beings fear for us, not for the damage we might do to them, but for the damage we might do to ourselves. And for our part, we barely know when they're there. In that way only, are they more afraid of us than we are of them. If you haven't guessed, this episode is about centipedes. Discussed: September 21 2017, dads, Important If True Dadcast, annoyed bird cursed to live in a cage of its own creation, centipedes: masters of space and time, classic middle-grade novel My Dad the Centipede, classic kid's book The Big Centipede, Yoda, Yoda Centipede, Yoda Da Man, human evolution, relative scale of human beings, giraffes, the ocean, a big fucking whale, octopus cities, the Gloomy Octopus, o

Each week we do our best to take your deeply important questions, distill them down to their essence, and find the truth within. Or something we make up. But sometimes, once in a big moon, the truth hits too close to home, burns too hot, is too real. Sometimes something so unbelievably perfect happens, the universe itself tries to erase it. Before it can get there, we'll tell you all about it. Discussed: popcorn, the number you call that tells you what time it is, a regrettable news event, you know what it is, hoisting, the Important Cinematic Universe Project, reality untethered from time, reverse temporal recursion of cause and event, cursed image, strategically-located sunburns, difficulty of applying suntan lotion, explaining this stupid fucking podcast to somebody, nanotechnology, lewd inferences, inadvertently presenting as a gentleman thief, breaking into your own home, internal voices used for specific purposes, sounding like Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes, one-star review of LaGuardia Airport, taking a

You probably think you're pretty smart. Well, Einstein, chew on this: If a tree falls in an empty forest in an empty universe, does it make a virtual sound? Is Colonel Sanders really a powerful sorcerer? And, if so, can he bid Chuck E. Cheese robots carry out his every whim? Open your mind, and destroy all your preconceptions. They will not be reused. Discussed: KFC virtual reality training program, Doritos bag that plays the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy, Doritos bag that plays the soundtrack to The Conversation, Burger King Subservient Chicken, "Keep fucking that chicken", real magic, Chuck E. Cheese Concept Unification video, Chuck E. Cheese animatronic eradication, living robots imbued with life by a malevolent stage magician, immortal Colonel Sanders, The Giant Children's Food Brand Wars of the 1970s, ketchup, catsup (ugh), your every decision being constantly questioned, your constantly-questioning AI monitor reinforcing your stupid self-absorbed worldview, the eternal questioner Colonel Sander

Careful listeners might detect a hidden message in this podcast. Are you attuned to our frequency? Keep that in mind as you ponder these eternal mysteries: Is it better to smell a rose, or is it better to get your ass going? Are sneeze sabotage strategies all in your imagination? What's the deal with fidget spinners anyway? And does any of this matter? One thing is clear. At the end of the day, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and undermine 'em. Discussed: fidget spinner, FÏDGT™, German artisanal heritage fidget spinner manufactory, Orson Welles peas commercial, the power of a Kamenstein Perfect Tear Paper Towel Holder in the palm of your hand, electronics devices with addictive sliding battery cases that are way better than fidget spinners, historical Ireland keyring, BABY, sneeze sabotage strategies and the supernatural, the history of sneezing superstitions, childhood guilt-inducing power fantasies, grownup elevator call button power fantasies, decoy crosswalk buttons that do nothing, battery powered by yo

U mad? Yeah, u mad. Look, get a hold of yourself, and consider these conundrums. If a driverless car has a driver, but the driver is dressed as a car seat, is Tom Cruise a passenger? If your DNA gets hacked by teens, which memes will you use to plug the holes? And what passive-aggressive slogan should you print on the jigsaw puzzle you give to your pharmacist? Get hype for this episode of "You May Be Retired, But You'll Always Be a Dentist." Discussed: man dressed as car seat, dressing for the job you want to have, staying incognito in a world of driverless cars, The Raid 2 car chase behind the scenes, injecting DNA with malware, precious meme blood cyberpunk future, hoisting via internet service convenience, procedurally generated Zazzle phrase clothing, waging a passive aggressive campaign using procedurally generated Zazzle phrase clothing, your dream app, gross millennial cuspers, coffee cupping, cupping, cuppers, consolidating your confusing online media library, boiling like a frog in a pot of apps, Si

Our weekly attempt to decipher greater truths from the bustle and hum of the world gets sidetracked, by the loudest hum ever heard. As we listen to what sounds like the vibration of a tens of thousands of tiny wings amplify with urgency, we ask ourselves these questions: Why would scientists release tens of thousands of mosquitoes into the town of Fresno, California? Why did economists flood Fresno with the world's first credit cards sixty years before they filled it with mosquitos? What is Fresno hiding (besides a lot of debt and itchy skin)? What did Fresno do to deserve this? Is it related to the Canadian priest and his giant robot spider? We'll do our best to figure it all out, and you can help by listening along. Discussed: Good Time, Robert Pattinson, Robert Pattinson's online nano-controlled adoration swarm, Google-released mosquitoes, Catholic priest's online nano-controlled mosquito swarm, Fresno, credit cards in Fresno, Archbishop-released giant robot cathedral spider, shitty cyberpunk priest duel

If a podcast could answer all your deepest questions about existence, would you listen to it? Before you answer, consider this week's conundrums: Does an Amazon shopping algorithm know your own home better than you do? Are meme GIFs contagious, and if so, can they give your hard drive a cold? When a security robot drowns in a mall fountain, is the robot played by Mel Gibson or Joe Pesci? Now, choose. (If you choose incorrectly, a robot will put you in a dumpster.) Discussed: Resin Pineapple Bookends with Gold Finish, 9.25" Purple Floral Print Terra Cotta Flower Pot, Amazon shenanigans, mall robot alleged suicide, Knightscope security robots, Minority Report, putting your wet phone in rice, putting your wet murdered security robot in rice, Knightscope security robot buddy cop film, robots that smoke, robots that vape, Mel Gibson, Joe Pesci, robot self-awareness, game theory applied to being put in a dumpster, eye explodes, laser comes out, brain expands, CRISPR-based gene meming, E. coli GIF infections, cont

A podcast of deeply important questions, asked by you, answered by us as truthfully as we can. This week: What is Jeff Goldblum doing in hundreds of the world's bathrooms? If an artificial intelligence is forced to speak English, are its civil rights being compromised? Could the government turn your mother into a ringtone? If this episode is found by an Amazon resale bot, we grant you permission to reprint a transcript of its contents on a smartphone case or shower curtain. Discussed: being implicitly hoisted by a fellow old person, ringtones, global government regulation of ringtones, Nick Breckon's mother as a ringtone, Google DeepMind AI learning to walk hilariously, new robot-created negotiation language, new Nick Breckon-created worthless storytelling language, baffling robot-created stock image phone cases, cheese wheel on bady, slightly creepy matched father/daughter love jewelry, slightly baffling matched father/father love jewelry, Jeff Goldblum shower curtain, Dr. Sbaitso digital voice assitant,

As you bolt upright in bed, head still swimming, are you awake or do are you still in the realm of dreams? And while you're pondering that, consider these conundrums: Which television program is a bigger ratings success: News Tonight or Nooz Tonite? Is she Lump? If so, is she too still in your head? What is the Matrix? Unfortunately, you cannot be told what the Matrix is. You must listen to this podcast about it. Send us your questions at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. Discussed: Air Bud for a moment, The Matrix, The Matrix: Where Do the Pills Come From?, E-Ink image-displaying dress, multi-dimensional constant meme cycler, intentionally misspelled Nielsen-defrauding TV show names, segue, seg, chaos, "Lump" by the Presidents of the United States of America, mild pointless revenge, becoming the worldwide average, paranoia, neuroses, conspiracies, 99% Invisible podcast episode "On A

There are more questions, problems, and conundrums out there than can possibly be addressed in a lifetime, but we're doing our part, starting with these: Why did someone hide a room full of monkeys out in the desert, and what are the monkeys inside the room hiding from us? Would you impress your friends with a third thumb, or just sit at home wishing for a fourth one? Is that bee really lashing out because it smells your fear, or is it just put off you didn't consider its feelings? Join us as we chip away at the truth, until we hit pay dirt, or rock bottom, whichever comes first. Send us your questions at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. Discussed: weird Arizona monkey farm, armed clown monkeys coming to steal your guns, extra prosthetic thumb, extra prosthetic thumb guitar lord, Star Wars brain-powered force trainer toy, AI-monitored money game show, our social contract with bees

If you had the ultimate power of suggestion over your friends, but only when mumbling while pretending to sleep, how would you use it? Will a coterie of highly specialized Christmas spirits put Santa out of a job? Why die alone on Mars when you can watch someone else do it from your living room couch? Answers to these questions and the rest of life's mysteries, coming to your theater this summer. Send us email at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. Discussed: Highly-specialized Krampuses, Yule Cat, Salad Fingers, Krampus, the Yuliverse (Yuleniverse?), moving to Mars, getting Truman Show'd on Mars, years-long sleeptalking deception, food genie apocalypse Jake's Endorsement: OBi200 1-Port VoIP Phone Adapter to turn a Google Voice account into a real landline Chris' Endorsement: Field Notes Reporter's Notebooks Nick's Endorsement: Bon Appetit's cooking series It's Alive with Brad S

The most deeply important questions on your minds, advised and distilled by us. This week: Why are genies skeptical of your perfect wish to save mankind from itself? Does a robot that eats and poops have a favorite food? Does it feel shame? Is it you? And is there anything more nostalgic than getting the chicken pox from some kid's homemade slime? Send us email at questions@importantiftrue.com. If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. Discussed: Ecobot III (official site, approving researchers), nostalgia nostalgia, homemade slime, elementary school fads, constructing a genie-proof wish, accidental end of civilization Chris' Endorsement: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective board game (More info at BoardGameGeek, buy at Amazon) Nick's Endorsement: Lookwell TV pilot Jake's Endorsement: Philo and Pem Farnsworth's favorite tunes playlist (Spotify, Apple Music) Sponsored By: Hover domain name registration, Quip electr