#0433 - May Love Rest Gently In Your Broken Heart - 10/07/2026

Wednesday, October 7, 2026, begins with the kind of information that should probably make everyone immediately abandon civilization: apparently, today is the day Chris Bledsoe’s allegedly misunderstood UFO prophecy is supposed to happen, with thousands of glowing UFO-like orbs supposedly rising from the world’s oceans while Regulus turns red in the gaze of the Sphinx. Easter came and went without the promised aquatic alien invasion, but apparently that was everyone else’s fault because Bledsoe insists he never said Easter in the first place. So now the entire planet is apparently on UFO-orb watch, waiting to discover whether the ocean suddenly starts vomiting glowing alien marbles into the sky. Viktor wonders what time this is supposed to happen, whether the breaking news will hit Facebook first, and whether the aliens have any idea that they picked a Wednesday. In the middle of all this extraterrestrial prophecy nonsense, Idaho’s bizarre ballot gets dragged into the conversation, including the extremely Idaho possibility of declaring a state gun and the suggestion that the potato gun should obviously win.

Then the show abruptly crashes back into the mundane horror of having a job that starts before normal humans should be conscious. After roughly a dozen years of working early mornings, Viktor firmly rejects the idea that you “get used to it.” Apparently, you do not get used to waking up at an ungodly hour; you simply become increasingly offended by the existence of mornings. His proposed solution is to go to bed earlier, which sounds fantastic in theory and apparently works for other people, but remains an elusive mythical achievement in Viktor’s household. The one thing keeping him spiritually alive is the arrival of a new Stephen King book completing the Talisman/Black House/Dark Tower connections. Unfortunately, purchasing that book at Target triggers the ancient retail spell known as BUY TWO, GET ONE FREE, resulting in Viktor purchasing a collector’s edition of a book he already owns, a three-book set of the first Dune novels he hasn’t read, and additional books for Becca. Payday, meanwhile, has evolved from the exciting childhood promise of money into an elaborate adult ceremony where your paycheck arrives, briefly makes eye contact with you, and immediately gets consumed by bills.

The program then enters the School Bus Cinematic Universe after Viktor discovers that a local bus route serving Bonneville High School and Rocky Mountain Middle School has been canceled because multiple drivers refuse to deal with the students’ behavior. Paper throwing, water fights, spitballs, ignoring instructions, pushing, shoving—the children have apparently transformed the school bus into a traveling demolition derby operated by people who still need permission slips. Viktor jokingly nominates Becca for the job, imagines a Chris Farley/Billy Madison-style disciplinary rampage, and envisions a driver reaching the point where the only available solution is essentially, “Get off the bus. Call your parents. You live here now.” A caller even joins the conversation to point out the obvious Chris Farley connection. The job listing remains available, but Viktor is unwilling to sacrifice his remaining sanity by voluntarily entering a moving metal tube packed with dozens of sugar-powered teenagers.

The record-collecting portion of the show follows, and Viktor discovers that Record Store Day continues to treat Idaho Falls, Pocatello, and Rexburg as if they are invisible locations on a map. Somehow Wallace, Idaho—the self-proclaimed Center of the Universe—gets a participating store, while East Idaho apparently gets nothing. Bozeman, Twin Falls, Salt Lake City, Boise, Billings, and other locations become potential pilgrimage destinations for collectors hunting special releases from artists ranging from King Crimson and Motörhead to Mötley Crüe, Poppy, Power Trip, Staind, and Thrice. Record Store Day is apparently coming around Black Friday, giving everyone plenty of time to plan a vinyl road trip and potentially spend money they absolutely do not have while pretending this is an investment. The specter of Grand Theft Auto 6 also looms over the future, because apparently humanity has reached a point where an international vinyl pilgrimage must compete with an enormous video game for our remaining free time.

Then comes the raccoon. On the way into work, Viktor spots what initially appears to be a bag or jacket sitting in a parking lot. Then the object moves. Is it a dog? A cat? No. It is an enormous raccoon staring directly into his soul before fleeing before Viktor can get video. This leads into a warning about potentially rabid raccoons, because apparently the adorable little trash pandas have joined orcas on the list of animals that have collectively decided humans are getting on their nerves. From there, the show takes a detour into Alberta’s Gopher Hole Museum, a roadside attraction containing an army of dead, stuffed gophers dressed in human clothing and arranged into elaborate scenes, including religious figures, married couples, and other deeply unsettling tiny rodent tableaux. The museum has closed because its buildings need to be replaced, meaning humanity is temporarily losing one of its most aggressively Canadian collections of taxidermied weirdness. Viktor admits he would probably visit, but Canada has already traumatized him enough through travel-related complications that he is keeping his distance.

Naturally, the episode cannot discuss bad decisions without reaching the story of a drunk driver doing donuts on the lawn of a courthouse. The lesson is extremely simple: do not drive drunk, and perhaps especially do not take your intoxicated vehicle onto government property and start performing automotive figure skating. Then, somehow, the conversation gets even more important: the alleged hottest toy of the year is apparently Buttface, a talking, dancing butt with eyes and headphones that makes fart noises. Viktor immediately recognizes the cultural significance of this object while simultaneously questioning why anyone would want to spend approximately $25–$30 to stare at a butt with a face. Naturally, the obvious next step is discussing fart machines and whether the farts are sufficiently loud. Civilization continues marching forward.

The show briefly approaches a darker TikTok story before wisely abandoning it, then pivots into one of the episode’s biggest existential technological questions: should artificial intelligence be allowed to diagnose people and prescribe medication without direct human oversight? Utah is apparently moving toward AI-assisted medical care, beginning with something relatively limited: acne. Patients can use an app, scan their face, have AI assess acne severity, and receive treatment recommendations. Viktor is surprisingly comfortable with the idea of AI looking at your face and saying, essentially, “Yeah, buddy, you have some zits. Here’s what you need,” but draws the line at allowing a robot to start poking around inside his organs. That eventually leads to the broader idea of AI doctors, AI taking human jobs, and—somewhat unexpectedly—AI politicians. Viktor argues that a hypothetical unbiased machine politician might actually be preferable to many humans because it could theoretically analyze facts, calculate solutions, and stop wasting time “farting around” with political issues.

Then the show takes a hard left turn into a bizarre story about a woman allegedly kidnapped as a child and raised around capuchin monkeys in the Colombian jungle. Her first encounter with her own reflection reportedly horrified her because she had spent so much of her life surrounded by monkeys that she apparently didn't understand why her face look...