Is it summer already, or is that just our theme park budget melting in the sun? Either way, we’re kicking off the season with our annual guide to roller coasters, churros, and how not to hurl after one too many loops. Theme Park Insider’s Robert Niles returns to share the biggest news in amusement park land—from a new Disney park in Abu Dhabi (what?!) to Universal Orlando’s game-changing Epic Universe.
But what’s a summer kickoff without a good ol’ whiplash reminder that your brain can’t be trusted when it comes to investing? Joe Saul-Sehy and OG dive into Jason Zweig’s latest insights about how our market “memory banks” mess with decision-making, and why 2008 probably wasn’t as scarring as your gut tells you.
And yes, Doug’s trivia ties it all together—with corn dogs, naturally.
- How to actually save money at theme parks without having to sleep in a costume closet.
- The surprising reason a $1,400 day at Disney might be your own fault.
- Which new coasters (and old favorites) are worth the detour this year.
- Why your gut—and your “market memory”—could be sabotaging your investments.
- The last time the stock market went down multiple years in a row (hint: not 2008).
- What Robert’s favorite underrated U.S. parks are (spoiler: Dollywood shows up, again).
- How to strategically splurge or save at the parks—merch fans, avert your eyes.
🎢 This one has thrills, chills, and the occasional spreadsheet. Just how we like it.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Robert Niles
Big thanks to Robert Niles for joining us today. To learn more about Robert, visit Theme Park Insider. Grab yourself a copy of the book Book Name Here
Our Headline
- The Mistake You’re Making in Today’s Stock Market—Without Even Knowing It (Wall Street Journal)
Doug’s Trivia
- Since 1929, the stock market has been down SEVEN times over multiple consecutive calendar years. When was the LAST time?
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Other Mentions
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Tune in on Wednesday when we welcome the author behind one of our favorite books on money, the Simple Path to Wealth, JL Collins.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: The Happiness Debate (SB1683)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Happy Monday, gentlemen. Did you guys have a good weekend? [00:00:03] OG: I did, yeah. It was fantastic. Uh, wife went and played in a golf tournament. I got to hang out with the kids and [00:00:09] Doug: Awesome. It was good. I did some golfing and some fishing. [00:00:13] Joe: Wow. I went to the farmer’s markets, which is funny because, uh, Doug, you and I used to live close by each other in Michigan and we had the most bougie over the top farmer’s market, so [00:00:25] Doug: I know it.Everybody raves about it, and it, it is awesome. It’s just laughable. It’s, I don’t know. Oh, I
[00:00:31] Joe: thought it was awesome. With a guitar player. I actually bought a, a CD from the guitar players, you know, 20 years ago now. [00:00:36] Doug: There were like three farmer stands that actually had a bunch of vegetables, and the rest of it was just, it was like a flea market for rich people. [00:00:45] Joe: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. No, in the farmer’s markets, we have two. We, of course we can’t have one. We have. Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas. The prices are much more real person prices too. Like the cool thing about the one that you and I went to was if you wanted to pay four x the amount right of a carrot cost in a grocery store, go to the farmer’s market, you’ll feel good while this dude is just taking you to [00:01:10] Doug: town.It’s amazing how buying it direct from the producer raises the price Forex.
[00:01:14] Joe: And you know why it was the zip code we lived in? Yep. It’s a hundred percent the zip code, but this farmer’s market was, was really nice and really fun and can’t wait to have some baby carrots that we picked up. Some fresh tomatoes.Just fantastic. But you know what else is fantastic? You fantastic, Joe.
[00:01:31] OG: You’re fantastic. [00:01:36] Doug: Besides me for weeks, he’s been trying to bait us into that and we haven’t [00:01:41] Joe: bitten. And finally you say it on behalf of the men and women making podcast in mom’s basement and the men and women. At Navy Federal Credit Union who serve our troops and their families and our veterans. Here’s to the people keeping us safe Every weekend while we’re at the farmer’s market at a golf tournament hanging out with the kids, whatever.Here’s to you. Let’s go stack some Benjamins now, shall we?
[00:02:06] Doug: Cheers. Look, look at my great stacking Benjamin’s mug. It still hasn’t come. It hasn’t showed up yet. I dunno. I’ll check. Is it showed up or shown up? I, it’s funny you say that. That’s exactly what I, as the word came outta my mouth, I’m like, oh, he’s gonna roast me for this.’cause you’re right, it’s, it’s shown. I think
[00:02:23] Joe: it’s be shown up. Morby. [00:02:26] OG: Good evening, I’m Ron Burgundy and this is what’s happening in your world tonight. [00:02:36] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.I’m Joe’s moms neighbor, Doug, and let’s set aside the rollercoaster of the financial markets for a day and instead. Focus on rollercoasters here to help us officially usher in summer, as he does every year. We welcome the man behind the biggest theme park website, Robert Niles. You spend a lot of money on entertainment.
Robert will help you make sure every dollar is well spent in our headline segment. Are you messing up your portfolio without even knowing it? Yes. After Robert will head back to the thrill ride that is your stocks and help you turn your results into the tunnel of money. Love. That sounds weird. And just like that mind reader at the Carnival, I have the answer to that question.
I know you are asking. Doug, will you thrill us with some mind bending trivia? My answer? Of course I will. And now two guys who operate the money fun house on this property. It’s Joe and oh Ju ju G.
[00:03:58] Joe: Hey there, stackers. Welcome to the top of the hill. That is your work week. I’m Joe Saul Sea. Hi. It’s all downhill from here, everybody. It’s all downhill from here [00:04:08] OG: on a Monday. Doesn’t it feel like it’s at the bottom of the hill? Big rock in front of you. He just goes kind. Push that damn thing all the way up.There
[00:04:14] Joe: we’re supposed to be motivational, inspirational. Didn’t you get the memo? [00:04:17] OG: Oh, hoping optimism. Yes. My bad, my bad. [00:04:19] Joe: Absolutely. We won’t tell ’em what’s really coming on this horror ride. And you [00:04:22] OG: made it all the way to Monday. All high down downhill from here. Good for you. Yes. Actually kind of is though, isn’t this uh, I mean for some people kinda slide oh right into summer.Like this is kinda a, well it is a
[00:04:34] Joe: quieter week, you know, just, and for people who are new to stacking Benjamins, you know, much like, uh, the United States as Pxi Phil, which ushers in at some point summer is coming. The Stacking Benjamins community ushers in summer by saying Robert Niles is on the podcast. [00:04:52] Doug: Yeah. Meanwhile, down in the south, you guys have been in summer for like three months already and we’re still, we’re still looking at just this light mist of green in the trees up here and the ice is just breaking up on the lakes. [00:05:03] Joe: I was talking to, uh, Tina, the amazing Tina, who’s on our team, and she’s sick as a dog.I hope Tina feels better. But we were talking Doug, about how she has the change in the weather cold that you get each spring. Oh yeah, absolutely. Which is funny ’cause I had it eight weeks ago. Right? You can, you could see is that, that goes further north and north and north. Well, we got a great show. You know, it does cost a lot of money.
Doug, like you said so eloquently to take your family to a theme park man. If you’ve got the chance to take people and have a little bit of fun this summer. You wanna make sure it’s worth the money. So we kick off summer with the Robert Niles, who, uh, operates theme Park Insider, as you said. Also, Doug, the biggest website for theme parks on earth.
Robert comes here and tells us what’s going on in around the world of theme park. So I know he just got back from Abu Dhabi where Ferrari world is. Whoa, that’s still a thing. He’s been there two or three times. Well, that’s the fastest rollercoaster on earth that is.
[00:05:59] Doug: It still, I mean, years ago I remember seeing it, but it ev seems like every year somebody comes up with a new, yeah, new, faster, taller, whatever.Better.
[00:06:05] Joe: I think it still is. Uh, will ask him, [00:06:08] Doug: does it still lose every race like it does on in F1? They just still have a horrible pit crew at the start of the rollercoaster ferri world almost. [00:06:20] Joe: But they’re sexy damnit. They got an empty rollercoaster right next to you that runs just ahead of you. [00:06:25] OG: For the full experience. [00:06:28] Joe: That’s right. It says Red Bull on that one. Ferrari second. Well, lately it’s been, uh, McClaren. Yeah, you’re right, McClaren. Anyway, not to dive too far into Formula One, but we do got a great show and what’s cool is we are going to also have an extended, not just interview, but discussion over on stacking adventures.And for that, guess who’s gonna help me Interview them. It’s the one only the Crystal Hammond’s here.
[00:06:52] Crystal: Woo-hoo. [00:06:52] Joe: Yeah, [00:06:52] Crystal: when he said we, he wasn’t speaking French, he was speaking in Zip Lu Wewe. [00:06:58] Joe: It could be both Crystal. Z. Wewe. Z lre. In just a second, Mr. Theme, park Insider, as I introduced him earlier, is going to be with us.We have a couple of sponsors who make sure that this is free so you don’t have to pay a dime. Yeah. For any of this. Goodness. We’re gonna hear from them. And then Crystal, me and the official beginning of summer, we with Robert Niles. Chip. Chip, Cheerio.
I don’t think summer’s officially begun in the basement until he’s here. Robert Bows is back. How are you? Mr. Theme? Park Insider. Hey, I am getting over the jet lag and getting on with the summer. Okay, so for everybody that is hanging out with us, I’ll use Stackers. Here’s what happened, crystal. And I get this email back from Robert saying, can we reschedule this?
’cause I’m gonna be in Abu Dhabi Jealous. And we’re like, okay, that’s a flex. Just, you know, I’m going to Ferrari World or whatever Universal in Abu Dhabi, but nope, it turns out he goes, he goes, make sure you watch Theme Park Insider this week and, and Crystal, a couple weeks ago you and I saw some big news outta Abu Dhabi.
[00:08:06] Crystal: Tell us more. [00:08:07] Joe: Yeah, so Robert, there’s big news from this, uh, corporation affiliated with a mouse. [00:08:11] Robert: Yeah. Looks like we’ve got a Disney theme park coming to Abu Dhabi. Morral has caught. The, uh, white whale, it has been chasing for years and signed a deal to bring Disney to its YA Island Resort in Abu Dhabi.It’s gonna be Disney’s seventh theme Park Resort worldwide and first one in the Middle East. You couldn’t tell
[00:08:32] Joe: us at the time when we were setting this up, why you were in Abu Dhabi or why you were going. You have this, you know, this non-disclosure you designed, but how does that whole process work?Robert? When did you first find out that there might be a deal coming? Okay.
[00:08:44] Robert: Technically they didn’t tell me. Why I was going to Abu Dhabi. He just said, get on a plane. Uh, just get on a plane. I got an email from Morale’s Press Agency on April 30th inviting me to come out for a 15th anniversary event where they were gonna talk about what’s coming to the resort for the next five years ago.And they’ve got some cool stuff on the books coming out. They’ve announced a Harry Potter land and their Warner Brothers World Park. They’ve said that they’re gonna do a couple new rides in that Warner Brothers Park theme to DC mm-hmm. They’re talking about new rollercoaster at Ferrari World. So there’s interesting stuff happening, but the press event was like five days away.
It was ridiculous. That’s way too short a turnaround for an international press event. So I was a little suspicious and uh, I contacted some of my friends in the industry who I know cover the UAE and they were all a little suspicious as well. We put a bunch of clues together and we all suspected this is gonna be Disney.
But they didn’t tell us, uh, in fact, they did not tell us until we got in the room. The chairman of Morale, who’s like the minister of Culture for the UAE was um, just dropping all of these Disney hints, like, we’re gonna have a whole new world here. It’s a dream that come true. Oh my God, it’s all magic. But I can’t tell you, mark.
And the weird
[00:10:06] Joe: thing is Crystal, you don’t know this, but Robert’s also standing by this guy he met, named Bob, who he’s standing next to. And he, he just, he Bob, he had this talkative, chatty guy. I don’t know. [00:10:16] Robert: So finally, finally, he says, I’d like to introduce our new partner, the CEO of the Wal Disney Company, Robert a Iger.And he comes out onto the stage, and that’s when we officially knew what,
[00:10:25] Joe: how many people are in this room? [00:10:27] Robert: 50. [00:10:28] Joe: Is there like, uh, everybody breathes in at the same time, or, oh [00:10:31] Robert: yeah. There was audible gasp in the room. I’d say about half a dozen of us in the media actually knew that it was gonna be Disney.In fact, I had sent an email to one of my Disney contacts before I left saying, I don’t know, just, you know, I heard a rumor, does this have anything to do with you guys and nothing at all for a day or two. And then I get the, can I call you email, which is like, Hmm, I know what’s happening here. And they were still like, Nope, we’re not gonna confirm anything until you agree to the embargo.
And I’m like, yes, of course. I’m agreeing to the embargo. And then finally, I got a few details. Shortly before just basically logistical stuff at that point. So we had all the information about 30 minutes before the embargo lifted, and, uh, real rush to get all the stories in the video and everything up.
But that’s the sort of stuff that’s just fun in this industry is that when you’ve got that big scoop coming up and you know when you’re gonna be able to report it and you know that people are just gonna be wowed by it. Then that night they said they were gonna have like a little party to celebrate their 15th anniversary, which of course then became like the greatest Disney, nighttime spectacular I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
They’ve got, I can’t imagine long, long playing piano. A hundred member orchestra. A huge choir. They’re out on riser, set out into the bay. They’ve got fountains, they’ve got fireworks. They have 9,000 drones forming Disney castles in the sky. If they wanted to send the message that no expense will be spared for me to create the greatest Disney experience in the world, that show delivered that message.
Your job sucks, Robert. I know. I don’t know how you put up with all that. No, man. To be fair, as nice as it is, it’s still a 16 hour flight from la Yeah. To the UAE am back. Then it was an hour and a half in a car from, uh, Dubai over to Abu Dhabi because I wanted the nonstop.
[00:12:31] Joe: Did you actually get to ride a roller coaster though, while you were in Abu Dhabi?I mean, you got the what, fastest roller coaster on Earth still, right? I,
[00:12:36] Robert: yeah, yeah. Formula there. I did not get on Formula Rosa. I did not have the time to do that. The only ride I went on was, uh, Annie Mayhem. Which is the interactive shooter ride over in Warner Brothers World. That’s themed to the ACME Factory. [00:12:53] Joe: Hmm. The Bugs Bunny Acme factory. Yes. The [00:12:56] Robert: Wally Coyote Acme Factory. You’re going through with like a little scanner, scanning out all the packages that you’re sending to their best customer out in the American Southwest Desert. Uh, it is my. Absolute favorite interactive ride in the world. So I just speed run through that park to go over there.I had like literally 15 minutes to get over to that park, ride that ride and get back over to the hotel.
[00:13:19] Joe: Oh my. That is hilarious. I’m like, I’m doing anime. Am hell or high water, I’m gonna do that. [00:13:24] Robert: The cue is beautiful. They’ve got like this trophy case for Acme Corporation. It’s just cobwebs and broken glass.That’s
[00:13:32] Joe: fantastic. What, what, what details do you have on the Disney Park? Are there [00:13:36] Robert: any details at all released yet? Robert? Uh, absolutely zilch. They wouldn’t even tell us the location of it on Yaz Island, which a lot of us were curious about because that island’s pretty well developed. There were only two places that we could identify that they potentially had enough space to do this and one of them had been plotted out for residential development, we believe.So we’re kind of suspected that maybe the reason why they haven’t said where they’re putting it is they’ve still gotta clear out with baby some people who had bought in on some real estate in the past and. Buy some people out or something like that. Or it could be going to another place that we’ve identified, but that’s not technically on the island right now.
It’s adjacent to the island. So, yeah, I don’t know. Do they have a Yeah. Do they have a date? No date? Uh, my Disney contacts are all like, uh, remember the original email said they we’re gonna talk about things they’re doing five years out. And so some people have assumed that that means this is coming within five years.
But my Disney contacts are all like, we are not committing to a timeline at this point. And the concept art that they released for this is the most vague concept art I have ever seen for a Disney theme park. You can’t pick out anything. It’s like, that’s why I ask. ‘
[00:14:45] Joe: cause even the photos on, on [00:14:47] Robert: thi Park Insider, I’m like, I, I get nothing from this.I get absolutely not, I don’t even really know what the castle looks like. Now one of the questions we have is, is this gonna be every other park that they’ve developed on ya Island? It’s indoors. The only things outdoors are the rollercoaster tracks. So how much of this is gonna be indoors? Now Disney, they love the big spectacle.
They love the huge castle at the end of Main Street. They love all those visual weenies. They love big, big capacity. And if you go indoors, you’re necessarily limiting your capacity. So what we are all curious at this point is how much of this park is gonna be indoors? And if there’s stuff outside, how do you accommodate guest comfort in the Middle East where it gets roasting hot most of the year?
So there’s a lot of questions still in there. Now. They showed a sizzle reel showing like Zootopia, uh, the New world of Frozen that they’ve done some of the hot IP that they’ve got. I don’t know if that means that’s gonna end up in the Abu Dhabi park or not, but obviously Disney is not lacking for IP to put into a theme park.
It’s just a question of picking what they’re gonna go with.
[00:15:45] Joe: That’s such exciting news in theme Park world. So the news I was gonna talk to you about when we first scheduled, this was the obvious news, a hell of a lot closer to home. We got a new theme park opening in Orlando. Give us the preview. What’s going on.In Orlando
[00:16:00] Robert: Universal, Orlando’s new epic universe. And I don’t think it’s any surprise that Disney dropped the news about Abu Dhabi just before Epic Universe opened. Isn’t that weird? The pettiness between these two companies will never cease to amuse me. If one does one thing, the other has to one up them somehow.So, uh, we’ll see like how big an orchestra they can get for the Epic universe. So they’re probably furiously ordering drones. Right now. We need more than 9,000 drones.
[00:16:29] OG: Mm-hmm. [00:16:30] Robert: We need 9,000 at one Drones, whatever you do. Uh, but yeah, epic Universe officially opens May 22nd at the Universal Orlando Resort.It’s actually at this new south campus of the Universal Orlando Resort. If you’re familiar with Orlando, it’s down by the Orange County Convention Center, that huge convention center on South International Drive. Uh, so they’ve got new land down there. They’ve got three new hotels. They’ve got this new theme park and plans for plenty more to put down there.
But I got to, uh, check out. Epic universe during a press preview in April. Absolutely spectacular. One of the best theme parks in the world, a couple of amazing new attractions there. Universal for the first time is built an entire land based on its classic monsters, Frankenstein’s, monster, the Wolf Man, Dracula, all of those classic monsters.
There’s a wonderful new attraction there called Monsters Unchained that I think really is gonna set the standard for Dark Rides only surpassed by their new Harry Potter ride, which is set in the Ministry of Magic. You actually go through the flu network. You are in the queue. That is the ministry of Magic.
From the, the movies, a hundred percent accuracy. You feel like you’re right there and you go on this amazing new dark ride that they have. Where they have animatronics of people. I never thought they’d get an approval to do animatronics of, I won’t spoil what specific actors they are, but, uh, some of the actors from the Harry Potter of films have reprised their roles for this particular attraction, and it is absolutely wonderful.
Uptime has been a real challenge for that attraction. During the preview period when we got on, we were the very first people outside of Universal Creative that had been allowed on that. I’ve got the full queue video on the website at this point, but they didn’t allow us to take any on ride video.
That’s gonna be with the virtual queue only to get into that attraction. So that’s gonna be a little bit of a trick, but, uh, absolutely. Does that mean worth the effort? If you can get on it, you’re gonna have to go on the app and join a virtual queue in order to get in. So it’s a little bit of a lottery rather than just going into a regular queue and spending eight hours hoping that it stays up and that you get in.
[00:18:37] Joe: It still makes me feel bad, Robert, between that and the virtual cue stuff that Disney’s done. If you haven’t gone to theme Park Insider ahead of time or any site, if you’ve done no homework and you just pick up the kids and you go to the theme park, you’re kind of screwed. Like you, you really have to prep now before [00:18:53] Robert: you take the [00:18:53] Joe: family [00:18:54] Robert: to the park.That is the nature of the beast at these days, which I suppose is wonderful for me and other people who are doing, uh, this business of providing news about visiting theme parks. But yeah, if you do the advanced research, you have such a massive advantage over people who do not at this point. ’cause you need to know about things like virtual cues for top attractions.
Those are relatively rare at this point, but that is certainly an issue. If you want to get on the best ride at Epic Universe, you’re gonna have to navigate what they call the virtual line in order to do that. And then just with early entry. That exists. If you just roll up, when Epic Universe opens, you’re gonna notice there’s a whole bunch of people in the park already, because the people who stay on Universal Orlando’s hotels are gonna get into the park early and they’re gonna get to go Super Nintendo World and the new Stardust racers rollercoasters before anyone else.
[00:19:42] Joe: You told me in the past that staying on site, universal is mathematically great, and the theming of these hotels is really good. Is that value still around in 2025? A lot of [00:19:54] Robert: that value is still around. They are not doing the same universal express, unlimited perk inside Epic universe just yet, but everyone expects that to happen sometime relatively soon.But the early entry is certainly worth it. The convenience of being right there, certainly worth it. They have a new Helios Grand Hotel that’s actually within Epic Universe. So you step out of the hotel and you are in the park already, and in fact you’re in the side of the park, the complete opposite side from the public entrance.
Mm-hmm. So if you wanna get to Harry Potter or Monsters Unchained first, you have a huge advantage. ’cause they’re right next to the Helios Grand Hotel. Your pictures of that hotel, by the way, Robert makes that hotel’s beautiful too. It’s absolutely stunning. I think it might be the best hotel that they’ve ever done.
So yeah, universal and universal. Consistently way underpriced compared to Walt Disney world’s, onside hotels. I know a lot of people who do Disney World Vacations and they stay at Universal Orlando. ’cause if you’re gonna do both of those parks in one go. The better value for the hotel very often is at Universal Orlando.
Now, the situation at Walt Disney World is so structured around Disney Vacation Club at this point. Uh, they really wanna get people into that timeshare program. And for people who have bought into that, particularly if you bought into it years ago, great value there, absolutely great value. But if you’re coming in just as a hotel guest that you’re not bought into the DVC program or you’re not renting points from someone in the DVC program, a lot of the times just as a regular hotel guest, you’re gonna get better value for your money going to Universal Orlando, which does not have a timeshare component onto it.
So that’s not influencing the pricing and the demand for those hotels.
[00:21:37] Joe: Let’s dive into that for a second, because there’s a piece I saw just a couple days ago at, uh, the New York Post mm-hmm. Which was about a father of a family of four who said that he, he spent all included just less than $1,400 on food and part tickets for a day.A day. And he felt like Robert, he really felt ripped off. Okay. He totally felt like he was ripped off.
[00:22:04] Robert: Here’s the problem. Nobody should ever contemplate a one day visit to Walt Disney World. I. Just the way that park is priced is to encourage you to spend at least four days there. They actively price it to discourage one day visit.If you wanna do a one day visit to a Disney theme park, go to Disneyland in California or go to any of the other Disney theme parks around the world. Go to Hong Kong, go to Paris, go to Tokyo. Actually, Tokyo so good. You wanna spend at least two days there. Mm-hmm. But no way should anyone ever even contemplate a one day visit to the Walt Disney World Resort.
It’s just simply the economics of that visit don’t work as we saw in that article because you’re paying a huge upfront price for a ticket there ticket, and then they start discounting that second and third and fourth and fifth day. By the time you get to like the sixth or seventh day, they’re practically throwing it in for free at that point because they really want you to be spending close to the whole week at Walt Disney World and they price it to encourage that.
One day visits are absolutely crazy.
[00:23:08] Joe: Regardless of the amount we spend, whether we’re going to one of your favorite places, holiday world in Indiana, Cedar Point, which my sister and I went back to again last year, had so much fun after talking to you, I was even more geek last year to go back to the the point.How do we make it worth the money? Is there a certain time we should arrive? Are there days of the week we should go? Like, what types of things can really help our stackers make this a good use of whatever amount of money we end up spending?
[00:23:34] Robert: You really have to think about, are you interested in going more than once?Are you interested in something? This is you’re gonna do on a regular basis. At that point, you wanna be looking into things like annual passes. If you’re really into Disney and going all the time, hey, really consider buying into DVC. It can be a great deal if you’re buying Disney in bulk. They will sell it to you in bulk like that.
But if you’re just a casual visitor, you like going a lot of different places and you just wanna drop into a theme park to ride, if you roller coasters or something like that, great. Uh, obviously always get the tickets in advance. We’ve got discount tickets on theme park, insider.com. All of the parks have discount advanced purchase tickets on their own websites.
Uh, go purchase your tickets in advance for that for
[00:24:12] Joe: Cedar Point last year, Robert. Mm-hmm. I believe we bought tickets, my sister and I bought tickets. In February or March to go in July after we spoke with you last year, and I think I got like a 40% discount. Yeah, by buying during the winter. So [00:24:26] Robert: yeah, huge, huge savings, huge discount.Just there. If you can go on weekdays, that’s always the best. Weekdays during the school year when the park is open is the absolute best time to go. But if you go get there early, consider the onsite hotel if they offer them. I know Cedar Point does all the Disney parks do. Universal does a lot of the Six Flags parks do not, but if they have an onsite hotel, there’s usually some type of early entry benefit which allows you to get on a couple of the top rides early before there’s any big queues on that, that might be worth the extra money.
Plus the convenience of being right there at the park. If you wanna like take a little break in the afternoon when the lines are ridiculous, you’re right there. You’ve got a hotel that’s worth looking at. If it’s not in your budget, fine. There’s always lots of budget price, hotels near theme parks. Little shorter drive away.
Getting there first thing, uh, and trying to get on whatever you can first thing in the morning. If you’ve got the stamina to stick around until late in the day, the very last hour of the park. Things get easy to get on as well. Parks also sell, skip the line type of passes. They all have different brand names for them.
Now it’s Universal Express at Universal Lightning Lane at Disney Flash Pass at the Six Flags Parks Quick queue. I think at SeaWorld Bush Gardens, that might be worth your budget. If you’ve got a one day visit, you’re not gonna be around again for a while. You really wanna get on these attractions. If it looks like it’s kind of crowded, maybe it’s worth your time to spend a little extra money and get that line skipping pass.
Uh, so there are lots of different ways that parks make it so that it can be easy and convenient and fun to see everything in the park. But again, always a little advanced research. Looking at what your options are, looking at the products that are available, and deciding which ones are the right ones for you are gonna increase your chances of having the best possible day at the park.
[00:26:11] Joe: Man, I know I learned from you to go early and that pay dividends ever since then, the past few years, and even from your community, Robert, which ride you ride first. Like, what’s that line that’s gonna, it might not be your favorite ride, but what’s the line that’s gonna be huge later on? You know, at the Magic Kingdom as an example, Peter Pan, first ride of the day, get that.’cause otherwise you’re gonna be in
[00:26:31] Robert: hell. The the insider’s secret here is it’s not about the popularity of the ride, it’s about the capacity of the ride versus its popularity. So something like Peter Pan is a pretty low capacity ride. It’s got moderate demand, but because that moderate demand is hitting something with very low supply, that’s how you end up with the Big Q.You can have attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean. More people wanna go on Pirates of the Caribbean than wanna go on Peter Pan. Pirates of the Caribbean is a people eater. I mean, you can put a couple thousand people an hour through that attraction. It’s never gonna have the big line that Peter Pan has simply because of the capacity.
And that’s the insider information that you need to know in order to pick which ride you’re gonna go to first in the morning.
[00:27:15] Joe: Crystal, you were excited about, uh, technology and some of the technology around the country that’s at or around the world even that’s happening? [00:27:21] Crystal: Well, yeah. ’cause people talk about, you know, like the, the lines are, they’re getting longer and longer.Like back in our day we had our imagination while we were standing in these long lines. So as we’re coming to you, our professor and getting our PhD in theme parks, what are, like, what ways have they used tech to make our experiences
[00:27:40] Robert: more enjoyable? The main thing, everybody, everyone’s got an app at this point and everyone’s app has live wait times.Now there’s a debate on how accurate those live wait times are, but that’s your number one tool to use technology to your advantage so that you know what the current wait times are around the park. It used to be you had to go walk up to the queue and see what they’d posted at the entrance to the queue.
Okay, 30 minute wait, 60 minute wait. Now you’ve got that in the palm of your hand through the park’s official app. You’ve got that information. Uh, they also may allow you through the app in order to book, uh, one of those. Line skipping experiences for an upcharge or a, a virtual line if they’re using that for their attraction.
Also to know what attractions are up and down. I mean, if something goes down Yeah. And then you see in the app, oh, this just reopened to get over there right now. ’cause they dumped the whole queue when the ride was closed. It’s like
[00:28:32] Crystal: rope [00:28:33] Robert: drop at the beginning of the day. All of a sudden it’s a redo. Uh, there’s no one in that queue.This is your chance to get into it. But also within the queues themselves, and Disney and Universal are great at this. It’s no longer just that switchback back and forth walking on concrete through metal poles and stuff. They’ve made cues part of the experience. I mean, if you think about something like, um, I love Secret Life of Pets at Universal Studios Hollywood.
You’re walking through this New York, this, this stylized fantasy, uh, you know, illumination entertainment version of a New York apartment complex, which is themed the secret life of pets. They’re little animatronic pets. There’s videos of, you know, pets going through the heating ducks and stuff like that.
It’s all part of the show. From the moment you walk into that attraction, you’re supposedly in the queue waiting for the ride. But it’s all show right there. And there’s a lot of technology and set dressing and production design that goes into all of that. So parks are finding ways to make sure that you are not lacking for entertainment for any time that you’re in that park.
The minute you walk in that gate, they’re doing something to entertain you, even if you’re waiting in line. Ooh,
[00:29:41] Joe: what’s the hidden gem? I mean, you just mentioned, uh, universal Hollywood. What’s the hidden Gem Park? If we’re taking a trip to Southern California that people might not think about when they’re first planning, but they might [00:29:51] Robert: wanna consider if you’ve got kids who are in elementary school, Legoland.No matter where you are in the country or the world, uh, if you’ve got elementary age kids, Legoland should be your top priority even ahead of Disney because it’s specifically designed for families with kids in that age range. They’re doing a lot of like Lego Festival stuff right now. They just are doing a lot of really great work on stuff that is scaled for, aimed designed for.
Interactive enough that it actually feels like active play. It doesn’t feel like you’re just going, waiting in line, sitting on something, watching something happen, that you’re actually in there playing on something. It’s such a great experience for families there around other parts of the country. The stuff I’m recommending right now, you mentioned Holiday World earlier, which is still a great park that I recommend for people who are out in the Midwest, but also two parks that Herand runs that I absolutely adore.
Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and uh, Dollywood, pigeon of Forge, Tennessee. Mm-hmm. I think those are a couple of the best run parks in America at this point. Uh, in terms of quality that I think is on the Disney level, the decoration that’s on that level. The attractions, maybe they’re a little bit simpler, but the customer service is unparalleled.
The food’s great. Uh, the atmosphere is wonderful and the price is way less than you’ll be paying in Orlando or Southern California. So if you can get to one of those two parts of the country, Dollywood and Silver Dollar City I think are well worth your attention.
[00:31:20] Crystal: So then what are you splurging on at the parks and what are you skimping on? [00:31:24] Robert: Oh, great question. For me, I am all about the attractions, the experiences that design there that are unique to the park. So if I get in and I see this park is pretty crowded, the thing I’ll splurge on is that front of line pass because I wanna make sure I’m getting on the attractions that I wanna experience when I’m there.The thing I’m probably skimping on, honestly, at most parks is food. Most parks, the food experience is pretty bland. So unless it’s a park that’s really known for food and then I will splurge on the specific food items that they’re known for. Like I just said, silver Dollar City, if I go there, I’m getting a loaf of cinnamon bread no matter what.
But in terms of, you know, other things in the parks, you know, maybe I can get by on a few snacks here and there ’cause I would rather, you know, get by on a snack and get in on that ride. I really want to get than have an overpriced sit down mall food meal and miss out on a great attraction. So another thing I skimp on, honestly, I’m not a merchandise type of guy.
Some people love coming in and shopping for the souvenirs. To me it’s more about the experience than the physical product itself. So I’m not somebody who’s going big in on merchandise, but other people I. Like I said, they’ve got so many different ways to appeal to so many different people. Whatever your jam is, they’ll have it for you there.
If you want the merchandise, go do that. If you don’t care about the ride so much, don’t spend the money on the front of line Pass. So it’s just really all comes down to personal. But for me, those are where my priorities lie. What about the Carnival games? Guess your weight, Robert. We guess your weight. No way.
Actually, a long time ago, and we probably need to revisit this, we actually had an article about how to win all of the carnival games on feedback insider.com. That’s one of our great articles back in the archives. Okay. I’d dig that up and put it on the discussion board. So there’s definitely a way to win all of those.
Most people don’t know that. Most people don’t do it and you’re pretty much throwing the money away and, and even if you do win. I know you lose the amount. I’ve been to the big IPA convention in, this is the big industry convention in Orlando every November, and you’ve got all the people down there who are selling all of the plush toys that they’re giving away for prizes.
And I know what they’re paying wholesale for those prizes. Even if every single person who put down their couple of bucks or whatever to play one, they’d still be money ahead based on how much they paid for those prize.
[00:33:53] Joe: I saw somebody carrying around like one of those big, uh, minions from Despicable Me and I couldn’t imagine winning that 11:00 AM and now I gotta carry it around the park or rent a locker, take it back to my car, uh, whatever that, whatever that might be.Some people,
[00:34:06] Robert: some people love that. That’s why they’re there. That’s the experience for them. True. Bless you. I mean, go for it. I’m happy you’re having a great time. That ain’t me though. [00:34:16] Joe: A year ago you and I were talking about Six Flags. Mm-hmm. The name everybody knows and Cedar Point. Parent company, Cedar Fair merging.And your comment then was that you thought they’d keep the Six Flags name, which they did, and that Cedar Fair’s Management would run the place. And you thought that, that might be good for consumers. I noticed that if you’re somebody in the Northeast though, you’ve now, you know, have, uh, six Flags America, that goes bye-bye at the end of this year.
Mm-hmm. Are there other parks around the country that you’re seeing six flags Close?
[00:34:48] Robert: Uh, well, the, uh. California’s Great America Park in the Bay Area, which was a former legacy, Cedar Fair Park. Cedar Fair had already done a deal to sell the land under that park. They had a 10 up to 10 year lease to keep it open, but at some point that Park is gonna close that and Six Flags America, which are in Maryland, suburban dc Yeah, those are the two that we know are going away at some point with America going away at the end of this season, six Flags Management has said, which is the old Cedar Fair Management, as you mentioned, has said they don’t have any current plans to close anymore parks, but they have said that their analysis of their assets is ongoing.So even though they don’t have a plan right now to close a park, that doesn’t mean they won’t have a plan at some point in the future. It’s really gonna come down to what kind of money are they making on these parks and where does the real estate market go. I know that right now for a variety of.
Macroeconomic factors development in this country is getting, building is getting to be a little bit tough. It is certainly tough. I mean, I’m in Southern California just down the road. Oh man. From all to Dena. You can’t get anybody to build anything right now because there is such demand for people trying to rebuild up there.
That’s kind of cooled down a little bit of the real estate, commercial real estate market in some markets. ’cause if you buy it, you can’t really do anything with it. So that might keep some of the parks open a little bit longer. I would be surprised if that’s all we see close or. Get sold in the Six Flags market.
I think they might be in the market to sell some parks to independent operators or other chains that are looking to expand or get into this business. And frankly, I would love to see more independent operators in this business. Some of the smaller chains, some of the family owned parks, these are some of the best park run parks in the country.
I mean, I love it when you’ve got like a family running one park, like Holiday World as opposed to this is part of a 30 park portfolio chain. You get so much more personal attention from management at that point. It can be a wonderful thing. We’ll see what happens with it, but I don’t think that everything is finished in terms of changes at Six Flags at this stage.
[00:36:56] Joe: Is it worth it to make a special trip this year if you’re on the East Coast or in the Bay Area to say goodbye to either one of these parks, [00:37:05] Robert: uh, bay Area? I think we’ve probably got another couple of years with that park. Uh, six Flags America, if it’s a park you’ve been to before that you have some nostalgia for.Certainly, uh, if not the big attractions there I think are gonna end up getting moved to other Six Flags parts. That’s a way that they can save money on attraction development. Like they just did a refurb of one of their lands last year where they added a few new flat rides to that. We’re gonna be seeing those move to other Six Flags park around the country.
But if this is something that you’ve been to before, you’ve got some nostalgia for absolutely go and, and have that opportunity to say goodbye. If you’ve never been to the park before, I think maybe you might be able to find a better experience at other parks around the country than going to this one that’s on its final season.
But, uh, hey, you, do you.
[00:37:49] Joe: Yeah. Crystal, have you been that? That’s in your backyard? Have you [00:37:51] Crystal: been there? No. I’ve been to Bush Gardens though. I was like, I’m a Bush Gardens kind of gal. Oh, Williamsburg. Yeah. Great Park. That’s [00:37:57] Robert: another one of Robert’s favorites. I love that park. Ah, thank, in fact, they’ve got a new, uh, big bad wolf wolf’s revenge, family rollercoaster that’s opening up on I think May 23rd.Oh, so the big bad
[00:38:07] Joe: wolf is back. [00:38:09] Robert: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not the same big bad wolf as it was before. It’s a different big bad wolf, but it’s also a suspended coaster and it’s one that’s really designed for family. It’s very similar to a coaster called Phoenix Rising that opened at Bush Gardens Tampa Bay, their sister park in Florida last year.Okay. They bought two from the same manufacturer and now Williamsburg is getting its installed and they decided to name it after the old big bad wolf ride that they used to have there. That was replaced ultimately by the verboten rollercoaster as we go into rollercoaster geekiness here in the basement.
[00:38:39] Joe: Well, and that is the last thing you know, we got stackers yelling at their device to like ask, ’cause you know, most years we haven’t had this much news. Robert, you and I are going around the country talking about all the roller coasters. What’s the rollercoaster, the hot new thing before all this news? Is there anything in a regional theme park that’s a hot new coaster? [00:38:55] Robert: A lot of us are looking forward to sirens curse at, uh, Cedar Point this year. You know, they just brought back Top Thrill two, which only ran for like two days last year and has already exceeded that this year. So Top Thrill two is back there at Cedar Point this year. So that’s basically a new coaster for everyone.Plus they’re adding sirens, curse, which is a tilt coaster, uh, where you go out. The track is just straight and then. Tilts down 90 degrees and drops you. Oh, okay. Oh Lord. Um, that’s coming sometime this summer. If you wanna go north of the border up into Canada, they’ve got a new coaster at Canada’s Wonderland called Alpen Fury.
That’s opening, supposed to have the most inversions of any coaster in North America. It looks absolutely spectacular. I’m hoping to get up there for that in terms of, that looks
[00:39:35] Joe: like a neat park in general, Robert. Just what I’ve seen in that. That is a [00:39:38] Robert: great, fun, fun park. I highly recommend that one. It’s all around this thing.It’s called Wonder Mountain. This big mountain right in the middle of the park and Alpine Fury is gonna be going up and around that, but they’ve got like seven attractions in or around that mountain, plus all of the extra land around that as well, right next to Toronto. So it’s a super easy, so again, if you’re just kind of doing a visit and you’re visiting Toronto and you just wanna throw a theme park, visit into that Canada’s Wonderland, absolutely wonderful.
Worth doing. Uh, so that’s a great coaster. Honestly, I think my favorite coaster of the US this year though, might be a epic universe that Stardust racers coaster. I did that. Okay. I was screaming the entire time. There was one point where I realized. I need to close my mouth because my body is getting so dry from air blowing in at 65 miles an hour into my open screaming mouth.
I’m just like, Ooh, okay. Just chug a liter of water after that one. Uh, great, great new coaster.
[00:40:35] Joe: Oh, that’s it. Every time Robert’s here, crystal, I just wanna spend a bajillion dollars and just go around the country. If only there were a website online where we could get like the latest news. If only, if only, yes.But wait a minute. Yes. Tell the new people why we love theme Park Insider so much. Robert,
[00:40:51] Robert: uh, theme Park Insider. It’s a consumer’s guide to the world’s best theme parks. When I talk about consumers, I’m talking about everybody else. We do an annual poll where people rate and review attractions. We’ve got, uh, put it up in one page.Consumer guides that we’ve got for I think, 47 theme parks around the world. All the Disney, all the universal, the major Six Flags, parks, SeaWorld, all of them are there. It’ll give you that insider information about what’s the first ride that you go to in the morning, where do you get your tickets, how do you get the discounts all linked there with the rating of the attractions.
Plus we’ve got news on our front page every single day of the year, uh, multiple posts about what’s happening, such as, hey, they’re gonna have a big. Disney theme park in Abu Dhabi, and we had that first and then stuff that’s on our discussion forum where people are sharing trip reports, answering questions that other readers have.
I love
[00:41:37] Joe: the discussion forum too. People ask great questions. People are so nice and [00:41:42] Robert: their time. We worked very hard to keep this as a very civil community. I think a lot of people are nostalgic for what they web was 10, 15, 20 years ago. It’s like what happened to all of the fun discussion forms and websites?It still [email protected], so come on by. We’d be happy to have you. It totally does. Robert, thank you so
[00:42:01] Joe: much for mentoring us on summer Fun. Always. My [00:42:05] Robert: pleasure. [00:42:05] Joe: It’s finally summertime because Robert’s been to the basement. Yes. [00:42:09] Robert: Always great to be here. [00:42:15] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and I love it when Robert Niles talks theme parks, all those coasters and spinners and loop de loops. It can make your head spin much like the stock market, huh? One minute. People think it’s all gloom and doom, and the next they’re soaring high again.Let’s ask a stock market question, huh? Since 1929, the stock market has been down seven times over multiple consecutive calendar years. So like at the end of the year when they add it all up, it’s negative for two years in a row at least. So when was the last time that happened? I’ll be back right after I go tell Joe’s mom that a ravioli is better than a Cedar Point corn dog.
That’s a compliment for the ages.
Hey there, stackers. I’m corn dog lover and guy who’s just a little slightly misunderstood. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Apparently Joe’s mom doesn’t think that comparing her ravioli to a Cedar Point corn dog isn’t all a compliment. I mean, come on. Who doesn’t think that taking a hot dog. Put it on a stick, slathering it in breading, and then frying.
It isn’t anything other than delicious. Well, no accounting for taste. Next thing you know, she’ll think fried Oreos are a Texas state fair fad. Here’s something that’s not a fad though. The great trivia answer. The question was this, while the stock market has dropped seven times for consecutive years, when was the last time while you may remember the horror show?
That was 2007, 2008. Believe it or not, the market only dropped for one of those years. The last time was actually back in 2000 to 2002, and now here comes two guys who still think of 2000 as Y 2K. Yeah, that’s how old they are. Joe and og.
[00:44:18] Joe: It’s funny, you think, oh, oh, you’re talking about Y two. Remember how bad Doug, the Y 2K thing was? [00:44:23] Doug: Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, I worked for a company at the time, seminars that, [00:44:26] Joe: tons of tons of seminars. [00:44:27] Doug: Oh yeah. I worked for a company at the time that frankly got huge because they had the one solution, at least on the mainframe side, they had the one solution that would do the conversion would, would prevent you from, from the world, from crashing as it switched from 99 to 2000, and wouldn’t think that you were going back in time to 1900.Yeah.
[00:44:46] Joe: For all of our, uh, younger stackers. What Y 2K was, oh God, tell us grandpa. Yes. Computers that used two digits for the, uh, year. Well, [00:44:58] OG: this is what they thought was gonna happen. Instead [00:44:59] Joe: of four digits, they thought it would recycle back to 1900. Right. So yeah. So these computers would all of a sudden shut down and we were, we were hearing all these things about the grid was gonna shut down, that the, you know, the phone systems might shut down, the internet might blow to this [00:45:13] Doug: day.Water systems to this day, we have about. 15 or 20 jugs of water in our basement. ’cause do you remember we were all filling up our bathtubs? Yeah. And we were filling up jugs of water because we thought the water system, like municipal water systems were gonna go down. I may still have a photo I took. You
[00:45:31] OG: still have that water in your basement.You’ve carted it around all these years. There are some over
[00:45:34] Doug: time. It the, the jugs start collapsing because the water is like somehow evaporating through the plastic or through the ca. I don’t know how, ’cause it’s not leaking on the floor microplastics. But these jugs are like caved in. [00:45:44] Joe: He can’t believe og just how big bacteria can get when you let it sit long enough.It’s totally safe though, right? Yes. Its name is Sparky. He pets It feeds it. Wonderful bacteria in that, in that water. This idea of consecutive annual decreases og just show how rare it is. For a market that doesn’t spring back over a fair amount of time. I mean, the reason I love this trivia, Doug, that you brought up, is because of the fact that as I’m in online forums and people are going, should I go to gold?
Basically what they’re saying is, should I decrease my standard deviation? Right? Should I go to Bond? Should I go to gold? Should I go to, I’m still seeing all this stuff. It looks, oh, I read again that there’s now a 90% chance that we’re going into a recession. So, uh, I’m thinking I need to decrease my risk.
So I hold onto everything. I mean, seven times since 1928, we’ve had more than one calendar year. And clearly og I don’t think we want to, well, what’s the phrase, catch a IGN knife. I don’t think we wanna do that, but I think this idea that, uh, we’ve got a multi-year thing is far more of a black swan event unicorn than we think that it is.
[00:46:53] OG: Well, I, I mean, I think when it comes to evaluating stock market returns over a short period of time, you know, that’s a fool’s game to begin with. But if you insist on doing it, you have to live in kind of where the reality is, which is, you know, the average enter a year decline is 14%. So you shouldn’t get stressed out until there’s a minus 14 or greater.That’s just, you’re not even to average yet if you’re at 14. And then this fact about having two bad years in a row is exceedingly rare. And then on top of that, just look at like how long. So, you know, the question of course is like, are we headed toward a recession and is the market is gonna respond before and before?
Before we’re in the recession and before we’re out of the recession. If you’re waiting for some government entity to go, oh, uh, by the way, it’s a recession. And you go, oh geez, I gotta do something with my money. It’s already happened, right? It’s looking in the rear view mirror and then you’re waiting for somebody to say, oh, we’re outta the recession.
It’s already happened. You know, we’re already on the other side of it by then. It’s just not a game that’s worth trying to time and play, because you’re gonna be wrong more times than you’re right. It’s like me and vodka.
[00:47:57] Doug: You’re wrong more. You’re right. [00:48:00] OG: Didn’t see that coming after a while. You just have to learn your lesson.Just stick to Michelob Ultras and red wine.
[00:48:05] Joe: How can something that looks like water be bad for you? [00:48:08] OG: Come on. Exactly. And then you just mix it with a little bit of, you know, Concord grape juice, maybe some ginger beer and some lime, and got yourself a little transfusion and you go, wow, how can this be bad?It’s got fruit juice. You know, it’s, uh, fantastic.
[00:48:20] Doug: It’s like me and heroin. What? [00:48:24] Joe: Wow. Yeah. That is great. That got real in a hurry. I, well, I don’t wanna expand that argument, Doug, but I do wanna expand this discussion because I think a lot of people are surprised. It was in 2007, 2008, that was a downturn that, you know, we all, yeah. [00:48:37] OG: Seven was an almost an all time eye. Uh, late October. Yeah. We all remember it is just, and then nine, 2009 was positive, right? Just horrible. Let’s expand this, uh, with today’s headline. [00:48:46] headlines: Hello Darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin’s headlines [00:48:53] Joe: in our headline on this similar topic.Jason’s week, OG out with a, just another piece of brilliance for the Wall Street Journal. If you’ve never read Jason’s column, highly, highly recommend it, but we’re gonna take you through a little bit of it today. Jason writes The mistake you’re making in today’s stock market without even knowing it, did you read this one, OG?
I
[00:49:14] OG: did not. No, [00:49:15] Joe: this is absolutely super. He wrote this on April 25th. Jason says, with the turmoil over tariffs jolting the market day after day, the most significant question for investors is this. What’s in your memory bank? If you’re young, you know stocks and Bitcoin can lose money at lightning speed.Just think of March, 2020 or 2022, but your experience also tells you they’ll bounce back even faster and go on to new highs. If you’re a middle aged bond investor, you lived through almost nothing but falling interest rates and bountiful return from 81 through early 2022. In an earlier generation, the stock market crash of 1929 haunted many investors who shun stocks for decades after.
What’s amazing, OG is he, he goes on to talk about the science of your brain and your experience teaching you things that. May not be true in the future just because you live through X amount of stuff and you missed out on y stuff, you, you are gonna have either a version two or attractiveness to an asset class, and we gotta watch out for that.
He says Peter Bernstein, a financial historian, investment strategist who died in 2009, like to say that investors have memory banks. The market returns collectively earned by people of similar age and experience shapes expectations. The problem is your memory bank can deceive you in dangerous ways.
[00:50:43] OG: I mean, your brain has no ability to discern between vivid imagination and reality and the.Perfect way to explain this. If you find that a little hard to believe is if you’re in a relationship, if you’re married or you have a significant other,
[00:50:56] Joe: that’s a lucid of J. [00:50:59] OG: It’s a, it’s not real, it’s all, um, we’re just here to tell you it’s all fake. Where I’m going with this is, and I know you guys have had this happen, I’ve had it happen where you might have a dream about your spouse, where she does something that, you know, kind of pees you off right in your dream, and you wake up and you’re angry and you can’t figure out why you’re angry with your spouse for half the day, and then you go.Wait, why am I like, that was a dream. I can’t be, I can’t hold. That wasn’t a dream. You know? Or maybe it’s happened to you where you’re going, like, why are you so mad at me? It’s like, in my dream you did this. Like, what? Why am I, why am I being punished for what’s in your dream?
[00:51:31] Joe: Well, even think about in the moment when you watch a scary movie, og, you know? [00:51:34] OG: Yeah. I don’t do that. That’s [00:51:35] Joe: no, yeah. [00:51:36] OG: No scary movies. But yes, it’s a great example, right? Kind of willing suspension of disbelief. So it’s like if you have an experience, whether you imagine the experience or it’s an actual experience, it’s the same thing in your, in your psyche. And so if you spend a lot of energy and you make the sensation of a market decline, let’s just take that as an example, right?The market’s going down and you start spending a lot of mental energy on that. Oh my gosh, the market’s going down. That might mean I have to work a little bit longer. That, you know, you start getting kind of like, I’m gonna be die penniless, and you know, all that energy your brain is going, we need to do something.
We need to get outta the fight or flight, right? We need to get out of this, this chaos. I don’t wanna be a part of this. And that motivates you to take action, which you know, sometimes is not the right decision, versus understanding how this works and verse and, and understanding how different buckets of money help you.
Right? Here’s my short term money. Here’s my one to three years of cash. Here’s my five to seven years of market money. Here’s my 10 plus years of market. As you start thinking about that, you go, oh, well my cat, you know, three years. And using like Doug’s trivia today, it’s like, well, what’s the likelihood of there being two bad years in a row?
I saw a chart the other day on Reddit, which i, I, I just absolutely hate. And it’s so used for situations like we’re kind of in right now with a lot of volatility. It’s like, you know, if you lose, uh, 50% of your money, it takes a hundred percent return to get back to it, you know, as if to say like, when was the last time you saw a hundred percent return on a stock?
While mathematically. That’s true. It’s a little, you know, it’s bs.
[00:53:18] Joe: Well, I think what you don’t like is it’s teaching an uneducated investor to do the wrong thing. It’s pointing you toward do the wrong thing. [00:53:26] OG: If the market’s down 66%, you know, you need to earn a 200% return to get back to it. When was the last time you saw the market go up 200%?Like, okay, settle down. When was the last time you saw it go down? 66%. That’s what
[00:53:38] Doug: I was just gonna say that, yeah. [00:53:39] OG: If you look at what really goes on and you understand the stuff Doug talked about in his trivia, you understand average market declines in a year. How long recessions last? How many there have been?There’s only been nine of ’em since World War ii. My grandparents aren’t even alive anymore. Who served in World War ii? There’s a lot of grandparents who are aren’t alive. Yeah. I mean that’s, that’s how long ago that was. Right? Like nine. Nine recessions. Oh, come on. That’s not a lot. And a few more market declines.
But at the end of the day. That’s why I think if you program that into your psyche, if you go, here’s what’s my expectations are, people make bad investment decisions when expectations do not meet reality. And it works both directions. Right now we’re seeing bad investment decisions on things like, I didn’t know I could go down 15% in four days.
I’m gonna make a bad decision. Right? And we make it the other way too. We don’t see, we’re not doing it right now. But the other side of it is like, wait, Bitcoin can go up a hundred percent in four days. I want some of that because our expectations are aligned, not aligned with what reality is
[00:54:45] Doug: or what’s being screamed at us.And this is a little bit redundant of what you just said, but I mean, a few weeks ago, I think it ended on, uh, early May, like in the, the, the, the sixth or something like that, the s and p 500, not the nasdaq, the s and p 500, kind of the nice stable, boring index, right? It had the longest winning streak. It had had since 2004.
Over 20 years. Right. But we weren’t really hearing that. We were hearing all about volatility to our point in the open, the intro when we were talking about the rollercoaster. And it’s just so easy to make rash decisions based on the vibe that’s being screamed at you from social media instead of just sticking to your plan.
[00:55:26] Joe: Well, there’s also a reason for that, Doug, and I think it’s because we all want to, you know, we’re all looking for the tea leaves. We’re looking for the weather report, not about the great years we have behind us, but what’s it gonna do tomorrow? And if I made good money, I wanna hold onto that money. Like it’s like it’s made.Yeah. People going, Hey, okay, all of this negativity in the media, I’m gonna lose all this money that I made. I wanna hold onto it, so I’m gonna go do something stupid.
[00:55:49] Doug: Yeah. Let’s go do something stupid. Right? Don’t forget, fear sells a lot more newspapers and Yes, it’s a, it just, it sells more newspapers than positivity does.Well, even that
[00:56:00] Joe: statistic that OG talked about, you know, it’s gotta go up a hundred percent. Yeah. That also tricks our brain into going, oh, I just gotta make sure I don’t lose 50. Mm-hmm. So that I, and, and we’re already down 10. Mm-hmm. I’m one fifth of the way there. He, he goes through several of these investing beliefs that our memory banks often hold, depending on what age you are and how they might not be true.The first one is growth crushes value. He said, for most of the past decade and a half value stocks, companies with lower share prices relative to their earnings and assets have limped along far behind higher price growth. Stocks like Apple, Nvidia, Tesla so far this year though, and this is remember written at the end of April, so a few weeks ago, Warren Buffett’s, Berkshire Hathaway, the standard bearer for bargain hunting in the stock market, gained 17.3% in the technology laid in NASDAQ Composite Index at that time was down 10.9.
You can’t say growth is always gonna crush value, OG.
[00:57:01] OG: I would never say that because that’s not what the data supports. Yeah. I mean it supports it recently and, and I think that’s his point of this whole article, is that what your experience has been? I mean, when Covid happened and the market went down a whole bunch, there were investors and professionals who had been working for 10 or 12 years that hadn’t had a market decline of any sizable amount ever in their life.That influences your decision making for sure.
[00:57:30] Joe: Rob Anot, who’s been on this podcast, he’s chairman of investment firm research affiliates, uh, Rob is quoted, is saying, no matter how much the chaos over trade policy, the global economy, the underpinnings of value will still matter. Value stocks should be less vulnerable to the market turmoil than growth stocks.History shows during times of turbulence, value beats growth. There’s always a place, not always, but in a lot of portfolios, there’s a place for value stocks.
[00:57:54] Doug: I can’t trust that guy. I can’t trust anything that guy says. Why is [00:57:57] Joe: that? Because he is been on [00:57:58] Doug: our show. Because he can’t decide if he’s rob or not.Why are we listening to him?
[00:58:05] Joe: Is he rob or not? Yeah. Come on Rob or not. Wait a minute. The the US uh, next up in Jason Zweig’s list of these assumptions that we have in our memory bank. Next is the US is the only place to be. We fought this battle early this year before all this turmoil started, which I’m just gonna keep pointing to.’cause we were right, like anytime I could just go back and go see, we called it like Nostradamus and we’ve done that a few times. But in this one, you didn’t have to be Nostradamus. It’s just, come on when everybody’s saying that, should I sell my international, international sucks. I need to get rid of my international.
How you feeling now? Jason says, for most of the past two decades, international markets ate US dust as the dollar strength in American technology companies boomed. Well, that was then, this is now in 2025. The M-S-C-I-A-C-W-I-X-U-S-A index. Wow. That’s a mouthful. What the Yes. This very specific index, they missed a few international side, the, the USA, which tracks markets outside the US that was beating the s and p 500 by more than 14 percentage points when it was written.
But if you’re a younger investor, your memory banks won’t tell you that international markets ex have excelled for much of the past half century. Before that, from 71 through 1990, the international index that developed international markets outperformed the s and p 500 by an average of 4.2 points per year according to t Rowe Price.
I mean, that’s, that’s not a little bit,
[00:59:33] OG: just about then is when everybody went, oh, that whole like China, Japanese, uh, investing thing sounds like a great idea. Let’s dump all our money in it. And then what happened? [00:59:41] Joe: Yeah. The second we thought we knew for the next 20 [00:59:43] OG: years. [00:59:44] Joe: Next up is 30 years by the dips and time will bail you out.The 1994 book Stocks for the Long Run by finance professor Jeremy Siegel from Wharton argued there’s rarely been a period of at least 20 years when stocks didn’t beat bonds after inflation. But recent research by Edward McQueary, business Business Professor emeritus at Santa Clara University shows that simply isn’t true.
After spending years meticulously correcting the historical record of US asset returns back to 1793, Macquarie found numerous 20 year periods in which bonds beat stocks after inflation. It is interesting that bonds beat stocks, but it’s not the norm OG, but it can happen. Sometimes it can happen. So buying the dip, not necessarily gonna be, you know, it’s why I think you and I roll our eyes when we hear back the truck up.
[01:00:31] OG: I do it for a different reason. I think it’s silly because. If you believe, as I believe that in 20 years from now, the market will be ever higher and the economies of the world will continue to develop and strengthen and new products and innovation will continue as long as there’s people around I. Then you’re not gonna know or care whether or not you bought the s and p at five thousand nine hundred fifty six thousand one hundred twelve or 5,517.Like it’s, it’s such an immaterial rounding error. You know, you look at that chart over a 30 year time horizon and what does it do? It just goes like that. It’s like, no, no. I got, see, see that little, that little, eh, right, that’s where I bought. It’s like, okay, whatever. You know what I mean? That’s what the sucker I am.
Yeah. I mean, it just, it’s such a, it you, we expanded out for 30 years. It doesn’t matter. I was doing a, uh, and I would challenge everybody to do this ’cause it’s really kinda an interesting learning on compounding. Pick a number. It doesn’t matter what your number is. Million dollars, $2 million, $10 million, a hundred million dollars.
Don’t care. And figure out how much money you need to save over a 10 year period to reach that goal. So maybe your goal is half a million dollars, right? So you can plug that into a calculator. Now, save that number. So you go, okay, it’s gonna take me 10 years to get to half a million. How long does it take to get to a million?
Well, if it takes 10 to get to half a million, it must take 20 to get to a million, right? No, it’s less. And then go, well if I got to a million in 15 years, how long does it take to get to 2 million? Well, it must take 30, right? No, it’s less. And the rate of the increase of the compounding is so funny as you get out there, like, ’cause you look at these, for some reason, we think in like 10 and 20 year increments.
Like, oh, I, you know, I’m 30, I, I, you know, my 50, or I’m 50 or 70. Start thinking in 40 and 50 year increments. Just like it’s, it’s mind-boggling. I’m 47, I’ll be 48 this year. And I was doing this and I was saying, you know, like there’s a chance I see 50 years from now, right? Like 98. My grandfather was 97 when he died.
So there’s a really good chance that I see 97, 98, that’s 50 years from now. I don’t have to save a lot of money for my kids and grandkids to have. An insane amount of assets in 59. I don’t get to have it, but I can take care of, I can take care of the people behind me. It’s really, it’s really quite profound.
If you’re 20 and you’re going like, ah, a hundred bucks a month doesn’t do anything the hell. It doesn’t, you just need 30 years, not 20 or 40 years, not 30. It’s, it’s pretty wild.
[01:02:56] Joe: At a talk I was giving recently, we were talking about just if you cancel an online streaming subscription, uh, which people see as a rounding error.Let’s say it’s 25 bucks a month and there’s a lot of families going on. It’s 25 bucks now. 25 bucks. Yeah.
[01:03:09] OG: It’s only 25 [01:03:10] Joe: isn’t nothing, but the point that I made to this group, OG, is you cancel that, you put that money in the right place for your goal, you end up saving an additional. $300 a year, that’s $3,000 over 10 years for the average family.That might be two nice vacations that you didn’t take over a 10 year period and adding two vacations, just two more experiences to your life every 10 years that you didn’t have with a rounding error. You know, these little things totally can add up. So love that point. But the point that scares out on me, Doug, is when he said that he’s gonna live to be 95 because how does he get crab here than he’s today?
Oh my God. Can, can you imagine? I mean, get off my lawn. It’s lawn is not anywhere close.
[01:03:54] Doug: It’s gonna be Get off my planet by the time he’s 70. [01:03:59] Joe: Oh gee, if you, you ever seen the movie Grand Torino? Because that character is you in the future, [01:04:06] OG: interestingly enough, that character, I would, I would argue if you knew him, I would say that that character is my father.Is he? Yes.
[01:04:14] Doug: Wow. So combine that. Little factoid, little hereditary window that we just got with him. Also saying that the waitress from hell or high water who says, what don’t you want? But that’s his grandmother. You get a pretty good idea of what shaped I would. I would argue, oh, G’S a, it’s a miracle. He can crack a smile.The OG family
[01:04:37] Joe: tree. Yeah, it does. It explains a lot. I mean, this is not him by choice. This is him by nature. They talk about nature nurture. This is just nature [01:04:47] Doug: answering the eons. Long question, nature versus nurture. There’s a few [01:04:50] Joe: more on here on the, and the gold always glitters. If you’ve recently invested in gold, you know it shines during times of crisis.Your memory bank though, might not include gold’s historically dull performance over rapid peaks in its price. Gold didn’t surpass its 1980 record closing price. So 1980 og it hit $834 1980. It didn’t get back to that number until. Nearly 28 years later. Mm, almost 28 years to get back to where it was in, took a suck of that Len, but, but imagine it’s 1980 and you’re like, gold gold’s going places.
I gotta buy this, honey. We’re loading up our gold. Like there’s gonna
[01:05:28] OG: be just tons of Gold’s Ex. That’s expectations and. And, uh, yeah. And then in [01:05:33] Joe: 1990, that same person’s going, no, it’s ba it’s due. It’s due. Buy the dip. And then it’s 2000. Yeah. And his spouse is trust the [01:05:43] OG: dip. Trust me. Coming back [01:05:44] Joe: who bought it?Wonderful stuff from Jason’s week. Again, I love the idea of don’t trust your memory bank. You know, testing the validity, what’s in your memory bank won’t prevent you from becoming guided by your investment experience rights. It might prevent you from being its prisoner. Love that. And to this piece, we’ll link to it on our show notes at Stacky Benjamins.
Of course, we’re gonna dive into all things related to this in the 2 0 1 newsletter. Stacky benjamins.com/ 2 0 1 gets you to our deeper dives and curated research into this area. We got just one more thing. We’re gonna wander out here on the back porch to see what’s going on. The stacker community, Doug.
And we’ve got a guy named Brian that we need to shine a light on here.
[01:06:25] Doug: Well, before we get to that, yeah, we do. We definitely gonna do that. But I just, we have another review. I’m gonna save it until our Wednesday show. We have another review from Spider-Man himself. I mean, how often, so stick around kids or come back kids on Wednesday with superheroes show, start reviewing your show.I think now we’re break Is that, is that I’m gonna lose like four of my five fans with this. Is that Marvel? Is that, oh my God.
[01:06:52] Joe: Go away. [01:06:53] Doug: Just go away, [01:06:53] Joe: right? [01:06:53] Doug: Yes. Who continue? Let’s talk about, let’s talk about [01:06:56] Joe: Brian [01:06:56] Doug: today. Yeah. But so our basement group on Facebook is just lighting up lately. So many great questions and contributions on there.I mean, at this point they’re looking to me like I’m Google Maps or something. I got people asking me directions for their trips
[01:07:16] Joe: on our basement group. Jen was asking you, do I, I’m going to Wisconsin from the East coast. Do I go through Michigan and the Upper Peninsula? Yeah. Or do I go through Chicago? I mean, [01:07:26] Doug: I just love that I’ve become the trusted source for information of all sorts.It’s a scary day. And I would absolutely go through Michigan on at least there or back, but make sure it’s not on a Friday or a Sunday because everybody, it’s just like everybody in Boston goes out to the Cape and there’s one road to get there and you know, if you don’t hit it at 6:00 AM plan on sitting and waiting I 75 parking
[01:07:50] Joe: lot. [01:07:51] Doug: Yeah. Either, you know, on Friday going up or Sunday coming back. But other than that, absolutely skip Chicago on one of those two legs and, and go through Michigan. I mean, to be able to say you went over the Mackinac Bridge at one time, Duluth. [01:08:04] Joe: Right? They were trying to go to Duluth. [01:08:06] Doug: Well, west of Duluth.It’s a little, a little west. Yeah, west and north. It’s an island she’s going to. But anyway, so I love that. I mean, keep your questions coming in the basement, but a couple of weeks ago. We had maybe one of the best reviews that have been submitted about the show. The problem is Brian submitted this on the basement and not in Apple or Spotify.
So we can’t give him a t-shirt for this.
[01:08:27] Joe: Brian, you gotta finish the job. He’s 90% of the way there. ’cause this is an amazing review. Yeah. [01:08:34] Doug: And he, it’s a five star review here. Here it is. Brian says, after hearing Doug’s description of what he needs to see in an online review, here’s my five star review for the podcast.You gonna do it? You gonna do it up? Doug? Doug. Doug, Doug. Dug, dug, dug, dug, dug, dug.
Oh my God. Yeah. Brian, you freaking nailed it, man. I was riding on cloud 11. When you sit, when you put that in the basement in early May. I’m back, baby. I’m on cloud 12 right now. Oh. Just getting to just do
[01:09:15] Joe: the whole chant. Oh gee. We shouldn’t even brought it up again. Just No, no. Nice job Brian. Way to do that.Uh, with the guy that loves corn dogs. Guy can eat corn dogs for breakfast. Oh my God. Yes. Could you imagine? Corn dog ravioli, by the way, you open up the ravioli and inside there’s a corn dog. Oh, delicious. If you made it to this point of the show, if he got through Doug’s amazing self glorification. Uh, I
[01:09:41] Doug: wasn’t me, it was Brian. [01:09:44] Joe: I’m gonna be in Boston tomorrow. Tomorrow night. Aston Yes. Uh, idle Hands Craft Brewing in Malden and can’t wait to meet you there. Stacky benjamins.com/meetup and come hang out with me and other like-minded stackers my daughter, autumn, who would’ve graduated the day before with her master’s degree.That’s why we’re headed there. Congratulations to Autumn. We’re gonna be partying with the stackers, celebrating Autumn’s graduation and all, all things back. Lemme help all those
[01:10:12] Doug: chowder heads. Find it, Joe. It’s just around the corner from donkey’s, just north of Charles Street. And everybody who lives there is like, there’s 36 of those in the Boston area.You know how many Charles streets there are and how many donkeys there are. Be driving around till 1:00 AM Doug didn’t even look at a map. Didn’t even, didn’t even look at a map. Actually, I did. I’m looking at a map right now. I’m looking at the, at the satellite view of idle hands. And it truly is just north of Charles Street, around the corner from a donkeys.
I’m like, this is perfect. I gotta
[01:10:46] Joe: say this. Yeah, we called them. There’s gonna be a, uh, running club, but they’re normally outside. So I’ve been told that unless it’s raining, we’re gonna have our own little area. Uh, otherwise it, we might be, uh, mixing it up with a runner so you guys could go for little, uh, three mile run, little jog.Yeah. With the local running group. It’s gonna be fun.
[01:11:02] Doug: Come back and have 700 calories of beer. Not if you drink. Ultras. There you go. OG iss talking to me the other day about how, you know, oh, ultra 95 calories. It’s 4.2% alcohol. It’s real beer. I don’t know. I didn’t say it was real beer. It’s only 95 calories.Then he walks me through how many beers He’s, he has in a round of golf. It’s 10 or 11. Oh, stop it. It’s a thousand calories of beer. 10 or only 95 calories a piece. All right, on that note, uh,
[01:11:30] OG: it’s like, that sounds like Doug’s fish tails fantasy. [01:11:33] Joe: Yeah. [01:11:33] OG: Of how many, uh, all, all of his, uh, fishing exploits. [01:11:37] Joe: Remember we were talking about waking up and all that stuff was in a dream. Doug wakes up so excited. [01:11:42] OG: Doug’s like [01:11:43] Joe: 10 or 11. Mick. Mickey. Alright, let’s get outta here. We got, uh, three takeaways. We got a lot more takeaways than that, but, uh, three big takeaways from this show. Doug, what do you think they are? [01:11:55] Doug: Well, Joe, here’s what we should have learned today. First, take some advice from Robert Niles. While theme parks might not offer huge deals or discounts, spending a little time planning your day can go a long way, as does showing up early. Second, your memory about the market, it might lead you a stray. Try and forget your lessons about investing and stick to the fundamentals.Your gut is often wrong, especially after eating a bunch of corn dogs. But the big lesson, okay, it appears Joe’s mom has changed her mind and we’re having corn dogs for dinner. Time for me to wrap this up so I can head down to the corner store for some Tums. If my gut’s wrong on this one, I don’t wanna be right.
Thanks to Robert Niles for helping us Usher in summer this year. You’ll find Robert’s theme Park [email protected]. This show is the property of SB podcast LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sea. Hi, Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome [email protected], along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots.
Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
[01:14:23] Joe: Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn’t exist. If you’re here for money talk. Um, we did that already. Time to just have some fun. [01:14:33] OG: Did you guys, um, you guys know who Mr. Beast is, right? We we [01:14:36] Joe: do, yeah. Yeah. Great burgers, [01:14:38] Doug: huh? What you don’t know about Mr. Beast and his burgers? [01:14:42] Joe: I don’t, I don’t, Mr.Beast market’s a burger up. This is
[01:14:45] Doug: not a joke set. Yeah, you don’t, this is not a joke set up. He tried to, uh, I think he’s given up on it, but pretty early on after he got really big, he tried to convert his brand into food and he has like burger places and malls you can go to. I think you can buy ’em online and they’re just so average that they failed miserably.Just so
[01:15:02] Joe: average. So you were being a hundred percent facetious when you said great burgers. [01:15:07] Doug: Yeah. [01:15:08] OG: Well anyways, uh, you know, he does all these challenges. I dunno if you guys saw this or not, but there was a challenge that went wildly wrong. Did you hear about this one? No. [01:15:16] bit: Nope. Men versus a single adult rule.The highly anticipated event organized by YouTuber, Mr. Beast ended in tragedy today. We had a whole plan. Gary made a PowerPoint. Authorities are calling the incident a gross lapse in judgment. Mr. Beast, however, referred to it as a banger. He went through 87 of us with ease. He’s like the Bonnie Blue of Gorillas.
The event dubbed Haram Bay’s revenge started as a simple internet debate. Someone on the internet said, gorillas get tired fast. Guess what? He didn’t. He didn’t even yawn. The rules were simple. No weapons, no armor and victory declared only if the gorilla was fully subdued. At one point, someone yelled, form a circle.
He spun through us like a bay blade. Dude activated a super smash. Brothers finisher. Mr. Beast claimed this was his most epic challenge yet with contestants reportedly offered $10,000 or a Tesla. They said he’d be intimidated. Nope. He made direct eye contact with me and smiled like a dentist. At one point, he looked bored.
Witnesses say the first casualty occurred within eight seconds of the starting whistle. We lost wave three pretty early. We thought we could all just pile on bro war like a backpack. It was like squid games except only four Asian guys died. Selections were based entirely on online applications and Reddit up votes.
We just, we didn’t account for the part where you could punch through a man’s sternum like a Capri Sun. No, I wasn’t in the power 100 men versus a single adult guru.
[01:16:51] OG: The very bottom of it, it said up next 50 men against a hippo [01:16:54] Joe: who will win. Oh God. Is that an onion piece? [01:16:59] Doug: Uh, I don’t know where I saw it. I saw it on Reddit.Yeah, it sounds like it. I saw it on Reddit. That is the kind of stuff that Mr. Beast does, right? Yeah. I mean, crazy stuff like that. Those are
[01:17:06] Joe: crazy that he, you might not be seeing that, that one soon. Speaking of challenges, by the way, Doug, when we were in our planning meeting, you were talking about this challenge that you saw during a baseball game.’cause I’ve finally made it to, uh, angel Stadium, which was awesome, by the way. I loved Angel Stadium. I thought it was cool. Clearly Angels fans are gonna get mad, but everybody knows it. There’s, they’re clearly the number two team though, in, uh, in Oh, in LA in Los Angeles,
[01:17:31] Doug: yeah. Yes. I think they’re the number four team and there’s only two teams in LA [01:17:36] Joe: I thought the stadium was, was really neat.It was a 70 style kind of bowl stadium. I went with Mr. Penso and the honeybee, his awesome spouse, and we had a great time. But the 70 style stadium, much like Comiskey Park or whatever it’s called today, I have no idea what Kaminsky’s Park is called. I
[01:17:52] Doug: know it’s always gonna be that. It’s just like the Sears Tower is the God Sears Tower.Don’t try to tell me that. It’s whatever’s always changed. Name
[01:18:00] Joe: once, isn’t it, to Will. Its, it’s, I think that one’s only, but I think Kaminsky Parks changed names. It was US Cellular for a while, but it’s not US Cellular anymore now [01:18:08] Doug: it’s now it, it was guaranteed rate field with a down arrow. You’re like, what?What? That sounds negative. I think the down arrow is even like red or orange and now it’s just rate field, but it’s um, like a mortgage company. Oh, well they want rates. Lower naming rights. I know you get, I mean, but you have to think about it. Like, I don’t wanna just look at a negative red arrow going down and think that’s good.
[01:18:29] Joe: Well, maybe, maybe that explains some of the White Sox problems on the, oh my [01:18:32] Doug: god. Thank God for the Colorado Rockies this year because the, I mean, the White Sox fans love the Rockies. It’s the only thing making them look good. But uh, yeah, so the challenge, the challenge I heard about, and this is, it’s funny, I think all of you listening probably are gonna have the same reaction that almost everybody I tell this challenge to says, the challenge is you go to a baseball game, it’s nine hot dogs and nine beers over nine innings. [01:18:57] Joe: Number one. Number one, before we even get to the alcohol consumption and the food, you gotta refinance your house, right? For that at a baseball, are [01:19:06] Doug: you kidding me? For just $572, you can participate in this challenge in the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. But every time I say that, like I said it to you two guys and you’re both like, oh God, nine hotdog.No way. This is me
[01:19:19] Joe: and Doc G who were in on this meeting [01:19:22] Doug: and I said it to OG in, you know, separately, and he had the same answer. He says, God, hot nine hotdog. And the my first thought is, Ooh, nine hot dogs. The guy just, I would love nine hot. Have you ever done a [01:19:33] Joe: hotdog challenge? I think it’s, is it Memorial Day that the Nathan’s challenge is It’s 4th of July.4th of July, that’s right. Yeah. The speed method. I’ve never tried it like super fast, but I, I did this when I was like 14 when I was a human, uh, calorie burning furnace. Right? You know how many I could do? Five? Yes. Five. Yeah. And the fifth one was horrible. And then I felt so bad the rest of the day. Right?
Like I couldn’t go over five.
[01:19:59] Doug: But you were trying to like do it super fast, right? [01:20:02] Joe: No, no. I was just trying to eat as many hot dogs as I could. [01:20:05] Doug: Oh. ’cause I mean, I really, I really think I could get through the nine hot, hot dog and inning is like, it didn’t even happen. It’s not a blip on my radar screen. Oh gee, there’s no [01:20:15] Joe: way. [01:20:15] Doug: It’s the beers hot that are gonna cause me an issue. [01:20:18] OG: No way could Doug do that. Oh, but [01:20:19] Doug: the beers too, I mean, no, I’m saying I would challenge with the beers because the beers just go in you and start inflating your torso like a balloon. That’s the part I would struggle with. [01:20:30] Joe: I feel so drunk and so tired between the food in my gut and the alcohol just, oh my.By the fourth inning, I’m a wreck.
[01:20:40] Doug: I didn’t, you guys, you told a great story. I think you guys tried this inadvertently or unintentionally when you guys went to a Rangers game or something, didn’t you? [01:20:49] Joe: We had a fair amount of beer that night. That was the horrible game. And we had a blast. OG got his seats, uh, that he had gotten at a nice charity auction.I. Was nice enough to take me. We sat in the second row behind home play. It was flipping awesome. Of course the game sucked, but it didn’t matter ’cause we just sat there and
[01:21:08] OG: the only reason the game sucked was because, I mean, we won. It was like 11 to nothing in the first inning. [01:21:13] Joe: In the first inning. Yeah, [01:21:13] OG: it was, yeah.And about three weeks later, I was like, Joe, why does the corporate card have $17 of charges every 11 minutes for four hours? What?
[01:21:24] Joe: Keep ’em coming? What is that about? Keep them coming. That was, it was a fun, it was a fun, fun day, by the way. I don’t wanna let this go. You know, stacky Benjamin’s fans may like management simulations career stuff.I gotta tell you, uh, I don’t know if you guys have played it, but the, the combo management simulation and what Robert Niles does, rollercoaster Tycoon, I take this now on airplanes with me, not, not the newer ones that have all the fancy graphics, but that original one where it is very much just you’re managing a theme park and trying to grow a theme park.
It’s a super fun little management sim Doug, I would imagine you may have played this.
[01:22:02] Doug: No. Uh, zoo Tycoon is. Zoo Tycoon [01:22:05] Joe: was good as well. [01:22:06] Doug: I loved it. I mean, we got that probably on your recommendation when the kids were small. I had a great time with, they recommended it to a friend of mine. ’cause when they’re, when they’re, I don’t know, remember how old they were, but maybe six or SE seven, probably my oldest was when we, when you recommended that, such a great way to teach basic money concepts when you’ve got to please your customers, you gotta have a way to make revenue.Where do you place those souvenir stands and the food stands and all of that. It was just a great way to do that to these abstract concepts to help them learn that. But then they go to bed. And I complete my own zoo. I, I could create my own zoo and I’m up till like 3:00 AM I swear to God this happened.
I’m up till 3:00 AM and I got a buddy of mine and we’re like competing. Our zoos are competing against each other. We just can’t go to sleep. It’s just like it, it’s turned into the modern day. Doom scroll when you’re laying in bed, just scrolling. Yes. You know, social on your phone. But back then we didn’t have that.
So I’m just sitting there at the computer, just that. Oh, I just put a trash can here. Oh, I need, I need one more exhibit. It was funny when my son was,
[01:23:11] Joe: that was on Rollercoaster Tecu when my son was figuring out that putting the hot dog stand next to the loop to loop rollercoaster and it monitors the, uh, and it gives you ratings on the thrill factor and the centrifugal force and all these things.Oh. He had to A, decouple those two things, or B, put a permanent worker right outside of there. ’cause so many people are getting off the rollercoaster, throwing up.
[01:23:35] Doug: They actually have that in the game. People are barfing. Oh. And they have the voice. They have a [01:23:39] Joe: kid go. And it’s, it is, I don’t know. It’s, it’s a fun management sim.I’m taking it with me on my next trip and, and, but not, not expensive really. Uh, now that, that game is so old that game’s gotta be 25 years old. You play it on
[01:23:56] Doug: your phone. [01:23:56] Joe: iPad. [01:23:57] Doug: Yeah. [01:23:58] Joe: Yeah. iPad. Good stuff. I.
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