1 00:00:00,540 --> 00:00:05,000 The comedy4cast Network. Let's dog ear that for now. 2 00:00:07,660 --> 00:00:13,740 Hi, Clinton here. Welcome to the Dog Days of Pumpkin Spice Season. 3 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:20,440 Yes, August got away from me because life. So this is my unofficial extension of Dog Days. 4 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:25,160 For more information on that, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com. 5 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:30,020 I always use Dog Days to give you 31 episodes full of some interesting, 6 00:00:30,300 --> 00:00:32,799 yet totally useless, odd news. 7 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:37,100 And this year, to celebrate the Platinum Anniversary of comedy4cast, 8 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:42,920 or PAC for short, I'll end each Dog Days episode with part of a classic comedy4cast 9 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:46,720 episode. So, let's get started with... 10 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:48,740 Odd News, PAC! 11 00:00:49,860 --> 00:00:55,060 When it comes to traffic violations, they say there's never a cop around when you need one. 12 00:00:55,240 --> 00:00:59,960 Of course, the exception to that rule is when you happen to make a slight mistake 13 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:05,220 at a yield sign and then suddenly there's an entire fleet of squad cars parked right across the way. 14 00:01:05,380 --> 00:01:07,540 And everyone saw what you did. 15 00:01:09,260 --> 00:01:13,980 It's a fair cop. But here's a story that flips all of that onto its head. 16 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:18,920 Recently, in San Bruno, California, a police... What's that? 17 00:01:19,700 --> 00:01:24,660 Well, I just thought since the... We're not allowed to talk about San Bruno? 18 00:01:26,099 --> 00:01:30,800 No? No, I'll just make up a name then. How about that? San Skrit. 19 00:01:32,020 --> 00:01:37,400 San Disk. San D'wich. Okay, I'm getting to the story. 20 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:43,860 Sheesh. Recently, in San Ity, California, police officers pulled over a vehicle 21 00:01:43,940 --> 00:01:50,120 that had made an illegal U-turn and did it right in front of two officers. Easiest ticket ever! 22 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:56,360 Or was it? Because when the officers pulled the car over and went to talk to the driver... 23 00:01:56,860 --> 00:02:03,340 There wasn't one. Had the driver's operator abandoned the car over this minor violation? 24 00:02:03,620 --> 00:02:06,080 Gone on the lam to avoid the $200 fine? 25 00:02:06,380 --> 00:02:10,440 Was there a high-stakes foot pursuit? An APB? A nationwide alert? 26 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:13,220 Were special news reports graphics created? 27 00:02:13,780 --> 00:02:18,520 No. In fact, the driver had actually never left the vehicle. 28 00:02:18,820 --> 00:02:23,540 Oh, they had hidden in the back seat, under the dashboard, in the glove box? 29 00:02:23,620 --> 00:02:27,300 No, no, and why am I asking myself questions? 30 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:33,020 The driver had never left the vehicle because this was a Waymo self-driving car. 31 00:02:33,260 --> 00:02:37,740 I guess the officers didn't notice the huge spinning LiDAR sensor on the roof 32 00:02:37,820 --> 00:02:39,580 of the custom Jaguar I-PACE. 33 00:02:39,660 --> 00:02:42,600 Or the 29 cameras mounted all over the vehicle. 34 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:46,699 Or maybe they just thought it was a Google Street View car and they could get themselves on the map. 35 00:02:47,060 --> 00:02:50,400 Well, whatever the reason, the officers did have a problem. 36 00:02:50,919 --> 00:02:54,740 Despite the flagrant violation, there was no one to issue a ticket to. 37 00:02:55,139 --> 00:03:00,880 See? That's why these things should have robot drivers, like the Johnny Cabs in Total Recall. 38 00:03:01,020 --> 00:03:04,680 That way, you could have handed the ticket to animatronic Robert Picardo. 39 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:08,220 But, to their frustration, the drivers had to let the car go. 40 00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:14,000 There truly was nothing to see here. The San Bruna, uh, San Ity Police Department 41 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:16,980 said they had spoken to Waymo about this problem. 42 00:03:17,060 --> 00:03:22,520 And for its part, Waymo says it is looking into the situation and that its autonomous 43 00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:25,760 driving system has been designed to obey the rules. 44 00:03:26,100 --> 00:03:30,940 Well, let's be honest. One of the unspoken rules of the road is do what you 45 00:03:31,020 --> 00:03:32,740 can to get out of a traffic ticket. 46 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:39,460 And now let's celebrate 20 years of comedy4cast with this classic clip. 47 00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:46,000 This clip is from episode 59, released in March of 2006. Just like these days, 48 00:03:46,140 --> 00:03:48,360 sometimes I don't have time to do a podcast. 49 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,360 But here, I get into more details. 50 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:53,680 Too many things going on. 51 00:03:54,180 --> 00:03:58,300 And I'm tired. I've been trying to figure out why I keep waking up at three 52 00:03:58,380 --> 00:04:01,000 o'clock in the morning, night after night. 53 00:04:01,420 --> 00:04:05,520 It's horrible. And I tell you, it doesn't help that the alarm clock is going 54 00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:07,200 off every time it happens. 55 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:12,640 And I keep thinking about that legend where they say, if you die in your dreams, you really die. 56 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:17,740 And I can't figure out how they know that. You're asleep. It's like that ancient riddle. 57 00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:22,420 If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? 58 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,560 Well, yes, it does. it says most boring forest ever. 59 00:04:26,820 --> 00:04:29,839 And I don't know how I know that either. Like I said, too much going on. 60 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:31,640 I can't stay. I only have a minute. 61 00:04:31,820 --> 00:04:35,699 I'm working on a product idea over there. You know, I hate those clear plastic 62 00:04:35,779 --> 00:04:38,020 shopping bags that all the stores are using now. 63 00:04:38,180 --> 00:04:40,920 I don't want people to see my stuff. That's my stuff. 64 00:04:41,220 --> 00:04:43,220 Don't look at my stuff. Shh. 65 00:04:43,620 --> 00:04:50,100 That's my stuff. So I'm developing an opaque plastic sleeve that you can slide 66 00:04:50,180 --> 00:04:52,520 over the clear plastic shopping bag. 67 00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:55,940 And if you don't want the opaque sleeve to get all scratched up, 68 00:04:56,120 --> 00:05:02,020 you can slide that inside the optional cloth bag, which you can keep clean by 69 00:05:02,100 --> 00:05:05,560 putting it inside this custom clear plastic bag. 70 00:05:05,740 --> 00:05:09,860 So far, I'm up to about 15 layers and there's no end in sight. Brilliant! 71 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:14,100 But that's just one more thing. There's far too much going on. My mind is racing. 72 00:05:14,399 --> 00:05:18,819 All this talk about sleeves made me think about Netflix, about how you just 73 00:05:18,899 --> 00:05:21,880 send back your DVD rental in that postage paid envelope. 74 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:27,140 So I'm wondering, why can't you do that for other rentals? Like apartments. 75 00:05:27,620 --> 00:05:32,460 See, I wish I had time for a podcast, but there's so much to do in so little 76 00:05:32,540 --> 00:05:34,660 time. I'm thinking about words. 77 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:39,300 For instance, what if junk email had a name other than spam? 78 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:43,279 I mean, spam is a great name for it. Spam. 79 00:05:43,930 --> 00:05:48,450 What if it was fluffy clouds or fuzzy bunnies? 80 00:05:48,750 --> 00:05:54,750 Would it sound as bad if you said your email was full of fuzzy bunnies? Or chocolate? 81 00:05:55,110 --> 00:05:59,029 Oh no, not more chocolate. Make it stop. 82 00:05:59,330 --> 00:06:03,030 Look, I really wish I had time to do a show, but there are too many things to 83 00:06:03,110 --> 00:06:05,029 do, too many mysteries to solve. 84 00:06:05,210 --> 00:06:07,850 So I'll leave you with one final thought. 85 00:06:08,070 --> 00:06:11,830 When you come across one of those displays that says, take one, 86 00:06:11,910 --> 00:06:16,250 How do you know someone hasn't already beat you to it? I gotta go. 87 00:06:19,029 --> 00:06:22,170 That about wraps it up for today's Odd News PAC. 88 00:06:22,390 --> 00:06:26,030 But first, a shout out to the comedy4cast Patreon patrons, 89 00:06:26,350 --> 00:06:31,030 including our producer-level patrons, Paul Barrie from the A Window to the Magic 90 00:06:31,110 --> 00:06:36,290 podcast and Kirby Bartlett-Sloan from the 20-megabyte Doctor Who podcast. 91 00:06:36,630 --> 00:06:38,430 You too can support comedy4cast 92 00:06:39,010 --> 00:06:43,590 and get episodes before everyone else for as little as $2 a month. 93 00:06:43,830 --> 00:06:50,030 Just search for comedy4cast, all one word with the number 4, on Patreon.com. 94 00:06:50,490 --> 00:06:56,070 Script, voices, and original music by me, Clinton Alvord. Copyright 2025. 95 00:06:56,690 --> 00:07:00,850 All rights reserved. Talk to you again next time. But for now, 96 00:07:01,130 --> 00:07:04,010 that's it. We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye-bye. 97 00:07:11,250 --> 00:07:11,550 You.