Recapping our side quests in Sydney before SXSW and Surplus because therapy is expensive but podding is free.

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☆ Hotel lobbies are elite and Airbnb's are just lonely

☆ How the TikTok party blew out the timeline

☆ SMiZE & DREAM is a circus and we are all clowns

☆ Frowny faces and the Freo footy team

If you're lucky, you'll remember the little moments, like the 2025 AFL season, that were good.

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☆ Slow-burn romance: how we fell for our new TCL TV

☆ Foreshadowing our pilgrimage to Lexus of Blackburn

☆ Our Lions vs Magpies rivalry and the return of the Fan WAG mane

A timestamp before the US election, when we were suffering from meme burnout and deemed all of politics "boring", when prime minister Albo let his Specsavers slip to do the most boomer thing ever (buy a house), when Pesto the Penguin still wore fur, and the Laneway Festival lineup dropped in time to save summer retail by sending jean shorts and ribbon sales skyrocketing.

We returned to Sydney for the SXSW 2024 conference, a Midsummer-esque celebration where industry folk dance around Darling Harbour in vibrant lanyards, hoping to meet their future co-founder, investor, mentor, team, employer or trauma-bonded-friend.

Our last dance around the maypole ended in a decadent and debaucherous 5-night fling at the Abercrombie, so we approached the 'Capitalism Playground' differently this year, exercising our brains at panel talks and putting our bodies on the line for branded activations.

Night time, our time, was reserved for matters of the musical heart, but we'll save those stories for another time.

[ TOPICS ]

(00:00:00) Sxsw Overview - Capo Playground fly through, The year of AI, More than music, Overall improvements and an air of confidence

(00:05:45) Black T-Shirts Pod Live with Adam Ferrier and Brent Smart: marketing chatter and the bain-marie buffet

(00:16:45) On & Off the Court ft. Nick Kyrgios & Friends

(00:25:22) How to invest like Buffett and create generational wealth ft. Nick Nicolaides, Queenie Tan, Ben Nash & Vince Scully

(00:33:19) Retirees are obsessed with their pensions

(00:36:47) Adventures with Aria from Bazaa: Tech Expo, Why Startups Fail with Michael Batko of Startmate

(00:38:42) New Playing Field: Opportunities to Monetise Athlete IP and Expand Sport Globally ft. David Gallop, Tilly Kearns, Nicholas Saady & David Warner

(00:44:21) Go out and be good: a way forward for hospitality ft. Ben Shewry & Hamish Blake

(00:51:32) Teeth rot at Amazon Primeville Sweet Spot

(01:09:56) Tim Tam Won SXSW Sydney

As a new dabbler in the dark arts of sportsmanship, I graciously handed over the AFL premiership bragging rights to the pod's resident Brisbane Lions supporter precisely one month ago (sans hissy fit).

The flag hasn't got to Harry's head, so it's now safe to release our post-win recount of watching the big dance at The Royal Derby, attending the pep rally at Brunswick Street Oval (spiritual home to the Lions aka the Roys), and learning a bittersweet lesson in letting go with retiree and Letterboxd lord, Big Joe Daniher. RAWR XD.

Now that the Lions have secured the flag, we can throw it back to the beginning of the finals, when BELIEVE was a mantra and not a prophecy when Joe Daniher still played footy, when two tragics headed north amidst crucial games to attend Bigsound but not the Gabba.

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(00:00:00) AFL Fan Wags & The Fan Wagon

(00:18:05) Recap: Autograph Hunting at the Brisbane Lions Open Training & Captains Run

(00:31:19) Recap: Bigsound – In The Valley (But Not The Gabba), Hype Vs Career Building For Artists, Proof Of Concept: Armlock, Dust, Bel Air Lip Bombs, Vetta Borne

You're all bleeding heart and morally elite until that one robbery, the canon event that fundamentally changes you, be it a pickpocket on Euro Summer or a dryer pincher at your local laundromat. We unpack the conundrum of consumption and charity in an age of excess of everything except for the footy.

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(00:00:00) Not In My Laundromat (The Moral Conundrum Of Stolen Sheets)

(00:21:17) Temu And Rampant Individualism

(00:28:13) Avon Doesn’t Die, It Reinvents Itself

(00:35:36) Footy Finals Tipping

We're reporting from the pit of Olympic Gooch Week (the sunken place between the end of Patriot Prime Time and the start of the Paralympics) as our brains recover from the rot of hyper-fixation on sports we only care about every four years. Gold medal counts were muddled when a Karenesque plot unravelled beside a novelty-sized boom box, where an unlikely protagonist called 'Dr. Ray Gun' left the world questioning: is the sports world elite or simply elitist?

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(00:00:00) Wide World Of Sports We Only Care About Every 4 Years

(00:07:50) Basketball & How The Boomers Let Us Down

(00:13:03) Tradition VS Modernity: Skateboarding, Breaking & Future Codes

(00:20:55) Cease & Desist: Paris 2024 Creative Direction (Down With Turquoise & The Bob Lady Logo)

(00:22:21) Dr. Ray Gun: Inventor Of Karenesque Theory