Burnt Toast · Edison Shen and Nathan Xie

Are NASCAR Cars a Thing? :/

June 7, 2020·41 min·4 clips

Timothy argues kids in Africa starve 'because there's not enough food' in a philosophical debate.

The episode opens with guest Ada accidentally introducing herself as the host, which the group laughs off before restarting. The initial topic is ducks, with the hosts asking Ada why she likes them and debating whether ducks are the best animal. Ada notes ducks can fly, swim, and walk, and shares that ducks eat small stones to aid digestion since they lack teeth. She traces her duck interest to a sixth-grade story she wrote that her teacher called interesting but strange. The conversation is repeatedly interrupted by loud race car or motorcycle noises outside Ada's home. This triggers the episode's central debate: is the phrase 'NASCAR car' correct or redundant? One host argues NASCAR is a competition, not a car manufacturer, so calling a car a NASCAR car is like naming a car after its race series. The other insists that a car specifically built to race in NASCAR is, by definition, a NASCAR car. The argument escalates with both sides looking up the term online, one declaring victory when search results seem to validate the phrase. Ada is brought in as a tiebreaker and reluctantly agrees it could be a thing, though she finds it sounds weird. The hosts also debate whether everything happens for a reason, touching briefly on children starving in Africa as a philosophical test case before dropping the topic. A segment on nasal versus mouth breathing emerges when one host reads from a website explaining that nasal breathing allows lungs more time to absorb oxygen due to slower exhalation. The group concludes they mostly breathe through their mouths and joke that their PE teacher gave them bad advice. There is extended banter about math competitions including AOPS and ARML, with each host accusing the others of being nerds. The hosts argue about podcast revenue sharing, with one claiming he proposed a 60-40 split in the other's favor. Brief references are made to protests and Black rights, with one host stating support before quickly moving on. The episode also includes a debate about pronouncing salmon, a discussion of Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird, and jokes about cereal versus milk order. The episode closes with a nonsensical rap outro referencing baldness, nerds, and a fictional fundraising URL.

As heard by us

A duck joke, a NASCAR tangent, and an unserious fight about reasons.

Burnt Toast runs on momentum more than polish, and that is the point. Ada and the hosts bounce from ducks to NASCAR wording to Boo Radley to Minecraft trash talk, then turn a simple reason question into a running fight.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a duck debate to spiral into chaos.

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