[00:00:18] Speaker A: Welcome to Friendly Competition, a podcast to discover the best of all time. I'm Nick Carey alongside my co host and best friend, Cody Lena, to discuss various pop culture topics and narrow it down to truly the best of all time.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Or as we like to call it, the boat. Before he gets a foot on the boat, we put him into a sweet 16 style tournament. We argue each round. We decide a winner.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Nick, what criteria do we use?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: We decide to steps foot on the boat.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Whatever the hell we want. Cody, you want to tell them what we're talking about this season?
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. The biggest sporting event of the year besides Wrestlemania. The biggest event in tv history besides Wrestlemania. The one that gets the most people together watching the same sport, rooting for the same teams, trying to get the same winner. Except Wrestlemania, it's the big game. I can't say.
We should edit that out. Edit that out in post. We can't say it. It's against the law. But we're talking about snacks for said game. But you can apply it to any. Any.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Yeah, any of the big. Know, the Stanley cup, the women's US Open tennis tournament.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yep. The Forza Motorsports video game tournament.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Those are the biggest sports, right? It's the big one.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Well, then Stanley Cup, Lec, the European League of Legends championship as well.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Yep. Forza and big. I don't think. Because no one really does anything for the mean.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: We used and we used to celebrate counterstrike, but no one does that anymore.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: No, it kind of like when people are like, no, I'm still like one of the great counterstrike players. Just swap over to Cod, man. I get it. It feels like you're selling out, but your pride is all you're cashing out.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: You don't have the hands for it. But if you're going to watch any of these stuff or go back in time and watch counterstrike for some reason, you're going to need delicious treats. You're going to need snacks at the table.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what we're here to talk about, folks. What do you bring to the party? You're invited. Your friends are like, hey, come on over. Or maybe you're hosting and you're like, what am I going to make? What food am I going to have for my peoples at my big game party? And here we have folks in group a. We have the number one seed pizza going up against the 16 seed queso dip, salsa dip. Then we have the eight seed wings, chicken wings going up against the nine seed jalapeno poppers. Cody, where do you want to start?
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Let's start at the top. Pizza with the number one seed, salsa queso, dip. Nick, this is a battle of titans. If you go to a sport party of some kind where everyone's talking and watching the game, there has to be chips and dip. You have to have minimum chips and dip.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Right. And if you want it to be good, you got to have pizza.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: To qualify as a party, to be declared as a party, you do have to have chips and dip.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you want it to be a good party, you got to have pizza. So now we're torn between the fact that pizza ups the game from whatever chips and dip is doing, but if chips and dip ain't there, it hasn't even started yet.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Chips and dip, like I said, just implies, like, okay, so this is a bigger deal. When you were in college and the first time someone put out chips and dip, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Thought we were just getting fucked up here. Thought we were just drinking to get pissed drunk. No, wait.
We got over there a little bit of salsa.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Let's go, babe. Let's slow down the pace. Let's get this party rolling. Here's the thing I'm saying, though. If I show up to a. If we're watching the Super bowl together, it's just a few guys vibing and we get pizza. That's just guys watching the Super bowl and pizza. But if I show up to a place to watch the Super bowl and they got chips and dip, now they've opened the door, I can Jeff, pizza. We can party. I know that. I'm allowed to eat and walk. You've given me clues.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, but here's the thing is, man cannot live on chips and dip alone. You know what I'm saying?
You cannot just be on just that queso tip alone. It's nice, but you need a meal. You need some sustenance. We're going to be here for what? The super bowl is 7 hours long. Now, like, between all of the ceremonies that have to go on, you have your halftime show, which is about an hour long.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Got to have a flyover. You got to have all that stuff.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Got to have a flyover. Got to have that. Got to have them. People parachute in. Then you have to have people get rocket shot out.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Truth. I'm confused here, though, because if I show up to a party, you got pizza. Nick, where are you at this one? If I order pizza, I get toppers Domino's river for super bowl party. That's great. Everybody. Loves the pizza. They're involved. But if I'm making artisan flatbreads in my fire brick oven in the back of my house, is it too much for the super bowl? Are you allowed to go that far?
[00:04:46] Speaker A: That's a fantastic question. And I think as we look at this, I do think we need to look at it from both sides of the table, right? Are you hosting the party, and what are you doing? Because now you have home field advantage versus the ease of, just like, if you're that friend, that when your friends are like, hey, we're all going to get together. Everyone makes something. Like, all your friends are chefs, dog. I'm just going to. But no one is mad for it's one of the best lazy hacks is like, hey, I'm just going to order, like, four domino's pizzas.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Here's what you do. If you have friends who are fucking chefs and they're always making you feel bad, they're always like, oh, yeah, bring whatever you want. Oh, you brought chips. That's so cute. It's fine, fine. No, I made a tiramisu and whatever. Fuck them. Here's what you do. This is how you flex on them. I want you to just get raw dough, balls of raw dough, because you don't need to go any further than this. You get the balls of raw dough, and you show up, and you're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to make some pizzas. Where's your wood fire oven? And then I don't have a wood fire oven. You're like, oh, I thought you were, like, a foodie. I thought you were into food. And then when they don't have it, you storm out.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Now you win, and now you get to watch by yourself.
But you got them. You showed them.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Make a big deal about it and leave.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Oh, I thought Mr. Big shot over here, Mr. Can cook, have. You don't have an artisan wood fire stove, then, like, one of your friends, but then make sure you know your friends, or you might have that friend that's like, well, actually, I do have some terracotta pots that are clean and we haven't used. And I saw, like, a TikTok where if we just soak some coals on a slate rock and put this pot over it, we'll get pretty close. And then you're like, oh, I didn't.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Bring any of the other stuff.
You got to do your research. Also, this is your last attempt to hang out with these people, so make sure you know you're going out with a bang on this. Yeah. I think this is not hard. Salsa, chips, and dip are great, but it's pizza, dude. Pizza is one of the fundamental building blocks of a good party.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
As much who doesn't love a queso dip? And you're never going to be upset about a queso dip, but you got to go pizza. You got to have the pizza in there.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: I think you also need the chips and dip on the side because I need to know that I can get food and walk around, and that's what, mobility.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah, but see, that's where pizza. I know it doesn't always seem like most mobile food, but you cut it into little squares instead of long triangles. Little squares is portable.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: That's true. And you can just, like, stuff five of those in your mouth and you're good to go. Don't even need a plate.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Exactly.
All right, we're going to move pizza on. Also, can we just talk about the bracketologist? Once again, we make the list, but then we send it to our bracketologist to look at, and then they kick it back to us in a random order. Number one seed pizza. Is there more? Deserved.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: This is how I know that the bracketologists aren't doing shit. Random.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: This is legitimately ranked.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: These are experts in the field, the best in the world at what they do.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah, pizza. They saw pizza. Like, well, obviously number one. What's the tournament about again? What are we talking about? Sorry, I just saw pizza. I figured it's number one. All right, next up, we got chicken wings going up against jalapeno poppers.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: This is another good one because this is where you, as the friend, you're showing off a little bit. Now. If you're saying I'm going to bring chicken wings and I'm going to bring jalapeno poppers, you know, you kind of want to flex on your friends.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: You want to show up, got something locked in the chamber, you have a.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Move and maybe you're trying to win. Right. We've talked about this in previous brackets before, but anytime there's a potluck situation, there's winners and losers. Right. And it's demonstrated by democracy itself, the popular vote. What plate got clean. Right. But here's the thing. I mean, wings.
These, to me, though, do almost feel a little more like home field advantage. Jalapeno poppers can carry better.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah, wings are not great for carrying. They're going to get soggy and stuff.
I think wings have more room to play around. There's so many flavors. So many sauces that are ready to go. You just get some wings, air fry them, fry them, sauce them. You're got. You got to know how to make a popper, man, because those frozen poppers, I can tell right away, and it's impossible for you to win.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Would you not even entertain if you could tell someone just went to Trader Joe's, any other grocery store? That's where I get my jalapeno poppers from. Now that I'm realizing it. And just toss them into. They're like the breaded ones.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah. If you just put those in, I'll eat the shit out of them. The problem is not that the problem. I will eat them, everybody will eat them, and we will enjoy them and we will thank you for bringing them. But you can't win.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Oh, no, you're not going to win off those.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: No, you're not going to win. If you want to win with the jalapeno popper, you got to go big. And they're hard. They're hard to make on your own without period of execution is just hard on these bad boys.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: That's the thing, too, because you also got to think, too.
It's on a Sunday and it's a little bit later, but it's also kind of middle of the day. So if you're going to prep this beforehand, right, jalapeno popper has a high level of prep.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Because you got to procure all your items. You have to cut your jalapenos in half. You got to deseed them, you got to get your cream cheese in there. Now, are we going to wrap bacon around them? Of course, because we should be. And if we're not, what the fuck are we doing this economy?
[00:10:07] Speaker B: What are we even doing over here.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: If we're not wrapping these in bacon? I don't know, what was the point of anything?
So now you got to do that step right now you got to put a toothpick through so the bacon stays on. You've got a lot of things that we got to get through. And now are you running late? Are the kids ready to go?
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is all working. You can't do the night up before. You can't prepare them the night before that. They're just going to sit in the fridge and get all.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: They're going to get gross.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Sad. They're going to get sad.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Definitely can't do that.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: The wings. Yeah, but you can prepare wings kind of the night before. Let them brine overnight. Who gives a shit?
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the thing here is if you're making them. Because I make wings all the time when I'm hosting. If it's at my house. I think I've said it before, but you just set your air fryer to 400, toss them in for eight minutes, flip them, season them another eight minutes. Done. Best wings you're ever going to have. Best wings. Okay. But I don't know how to travel. I guess maybe if I just kept them, maybe like a slow cooker, just to keep the heat going.
You could probably get away with that, right? Yeah.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: I think you would do that. Nick. Here's an important question we have to figure out. You are at the food table. You're standing next to either the wings or the jalapeno poppers. If a home invasion happens, right now I'm talking. They kick in the doors, they're coming through the windows. It's extreme. What's one of those is a better weapon? What are we going to use to really protect ourselves in this situation?
And I think we got to go wings on this one. And people are like, oh, it doesn't hurt to get hit with a wing. No, but that hot sauce in the eyes. Hot sauce in the eyes.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Well, and you have to think that a drum. We have flats and drums, but a drum has a little handle. I can at least get a good whip on that.
I got a little better chance of just trying to make sure.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Put yourself in the perspective. You are breaking into this home to take all their gold during. Because that's when people bring their gold out to show it off. You're like, we're going to get their gold. This is the big tuna, right? You kick the door in. You come in, a guy looks at you, he's got a jalapeno popper in each hand. That's nothing. Fuck that guy. But you turn and the guy next to him, covered in buffalo sauce, screaming, I am the sauce king. I am the sauce king. You will never get me.
What are you going to do?
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. Make sure you get your hands nice and saucy because that's going to be when they get too close. Now that's your second line of defense.
Because now when they get on you, now we're going for the face. Now we're trying to get this nice hot sauce somewhere in their nostrils, trying to get around their eyes, in their ears. We're trying to make sure. Touch it if you can't. Hey, you have to do everything to save your life. Put your hand down their pants. Get it on their genitals, get some hot sauce.
I promise you, that's one person out.
You didn't kill them. But they're like, hey, I'm out of the fight, guys.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: I see when you see me at the Super bowl party, hands, mouth, covered in buffalo sauce, just know that I'm prepared, I'm ready. I'm protecting you.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Not because I'm a massive slob or anything.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: It's because I'm definitely not making up this wild situation to hide the fact that me and Nick are disgusting pig.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Boys when we eat and don't know how to handle wings. Oh, that brings up a great wings. I think I want to go wings. I do. I think wings wins. But the sauce mess factor.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Sauce mess factor is high. And if I see you eating wings with a fork, straight to jail.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: What are we doing here? Yeah. And I will say, and I'm not here to sit here and be like, boneless wings. Don't count those chicken nuggets. I don't care. This world is way too short. Life is way too short to fight over that. But in my head, I'm talking bone in wings.
If I'm bringing you wings, and especially if I got to, like, transfer if I'm bringing them, and I am keeping them in a crock pot to keep them kind of warm and hopefully still a little bit nice and saucy and crispy, I'm not bringing you boneless wings. I'm bringing real wings to the party.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Pizza versus wings.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Oh, you're going to move wings on?
[00:13:57] Speaker B: I'm moving wings. You are?
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: I think the jalapeno popper's got a higher ceiling, but the floor is just way too low.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
I will say you are more likely to win with a jalapeno popper for sure. Especially the secret, folks. Wrap it in bacon before you wrap it in bacon. You got that jalapeno in there? Just a little bit raspberry jelly, raspberry preserve, just a little thin line of it. It's going to change the game for everyone. Promise. Then wrap that shit in bacon. All right, next. All right, so we'll go pizza versus wings here.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: This is hard. Titans of the game. Here's the thing. I walk into a situation. First of all, pizza, not great. They're going to get you to not.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: A great defensive food. Not a great defensive food.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Too soft. It's just not.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Doesn't make for a good shield.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: You can use the pizza to entice some turtles into your house. Maybe they know karate. Who knows when I see pizza, though. I don't think this is the big game. This is why Tom Brady came out of retirement.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Right. If this is just football Sunday, there are 17 weeks that you watch football, that football happens on. You could have pizza on any one of those, and that's fine. And that's a great way to bring your. If you got some friends together, it's like, why don't we just chip in to get a.
The big. This is the big game party. This is the women's Us Open finals. Right?
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: And you're not going to respect the work that these people are doing, right?
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: You're not going to put in a little bit of effort on your own and make wings? Like, bring something.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. This party is so also sports places based their whole existence off wings. You never roll into a buffalo. Wild wings. And like, yeah, we got pizza. What are you even saying right now?
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Right? There aren't many sports bars based around just pizza. Like, you can go to pizza place and they'll be like, there's a tv that plays, sure, but no, if you're going to build an establishment that's like, here's where sports happens. Number one, food. You have to know. You're like, well, we're making wings, obviously.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Do you think it's because we need to know exactly how many animals died for us to enjoy this event?
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Just count out, like, two. Little drummer.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: That's one, motherfucker. Throw it down.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: There you go. I beat you.
Dominant.
There is something primal about looking down at your collection of bones at the end of.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: I'm covered in sauce. I've been mumbling under my breath, I'm the sauce king. I'm the sauce king. You will never get me. And then when I look down, I see that I've vanquished four and a half chicken already. Yeah, pretty good feeling.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: And there's just a part of you that's like, I want to make this into a necklace. I want to wear this around my neck as the sauce.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: The sauce king desires carnage. What?
[00:16:36] Speaker A: I get it. It's pretty metal. It's pretty metal to eat bones. Here, I just had this thought, Cody.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Pretty metal to eat bones, Nick.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Okay. When you're thinking pizza, though, Cody, I'm really thinking, I'm like, the only acceptable pizza really does feel like it has to be a delivery. Like, I really. If someone was like, hey, I made homemade pizza. Unless you do have the actual pizza oven in the back. But if we're just rolling out some Pillsbury, dough and we're going to sauce them up with our own and put cheat. I'm like, you are not a qualified Pizza chef. I don't want your weak ass. Like, if someone were to make a homemade pizza that was just like, just like that, I'd be like, this is not pizza.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: This is not. I think a homemade nice pizza is also too good for this.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Why'd you put this effort in? You could have put effort into anything else. You could have called in a pizza.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: These men are bludgeoning each other to death. Let's just eat some garbage food and judged it. I don't understand.
I'm too busy over here anyway.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Why'd you take the time to chop up individual ingredients?
Come on now. But then also, you can't just. If you said you were bringing pizza, right as a Fred and you just showed up with a jack's frozen pizza, not the same. You're like, that doesn't count. You know that, right? Like, so the window is. It is delivery. But that makes for the interesting problem that delivery is the hardest on the big game day.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: That's true. I love it though, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I love when the big game party becomes the food party and everyone goes above and beyond. If someone shows up alone and they've had a homemade pizza and everyone else just got stuff, that sucks. But if there's homemade pizza, homemade fucking cookies, homemade wings and jalapeno poppers dips. Now it's an experience that I want to be a part of, right? But do you think the homemade wings steal the show from that?
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing I'm most excited about. No matter what, the only time I'm really not going to want wings is if you did get them from a pizza place. Ironically enough, I'm like, those are the one. Wings. I'm like, that. You didn't actually get wings. You ordered wings from a pizza. This doesn't count. You can't.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: It counts for me. I'll still eat those motherfuckers.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: I mean, I'll eat them, but that's where pizza would win for me. But in all other situations, because I didn't even think about that. You could just call up your local buffalo wild wings before game day and be like, hey, make me a hundred wings. Want a hundred saucy bad boy wings. And then come to the party with a platter of buffalo wild wings. I'm not going to be upset by you.
Let's party. Dude, if you're just trying to take the easy way out. But I'm trying to compare. Like, someone brings buffalo wild wings, and then someone brings toppers pizza. I'm going to that. Buffalo wild wings.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah. First things first. I think as the sauce king, I think I have to lock in wings. Yeah, I don't think you have a choice.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: I think I got to.
There's something special.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Like you said, pizza is a founding member of the tribunal of food.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Right? But wings is when, you know, it's a party.
When wings shows up to the party, everyone stops and goes.
Everyone's excited. Pizza has to be there. Pizza throwing the party.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: I'm worried about pizza, actually. Dude, every night this guy's out at these parties.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: She parties every night. He hasn't stopped. Right? Like, go home. You have a family.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, they miss you.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Go see your kids. Go see lasagna. Go see spaghetti. Go see the kids.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Pizza is out here fucking with pineapple. He's got other shit going on.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Now, I thought that was disrespectful. I thought to his family, don't get me wrong, I like it.
I fuck with pineapple and pizza. But when I went out with them, I thought it was disrespectful to do that, knowing that your family's at home.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I agree with you there, but I totally fuck with it.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: I was like, it's fine with me.
You got to explain this to pepperoni. You got to explain this to Sazage. You know what I'm saying?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not my job. My job is not to explain it. My job is just to ride the wave when I'm with them.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: I'm just here to party. Yeah, I'm here to party with you. But after I left, I did look at my wife, and I was like, that was uncomfortable, right? It was a little crazy that he just brought pineapple out with the rest of us when we know he has a family back home.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Doesn't matter, dude. I'm not going to. Wings. Pizza is a dirty fuck.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah, fuck you, pizza.
Bailey's just waiting for you. Go home. Go home. Sit this big game out, pizza, and just spend it with your family. Show them you care about something more than partying. I don't think he know. I don't know if he can. And that is it, folks. Wings, the group a champion, where it will eventually go up against champions. We'll get to do our research.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Oh, no, we have to eat delicious food.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Oh, I hate when we do these brackets. Cody.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Fuck.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Damn it. Why can't we just do best Beethoven? Something I'd really like to do is dive in and hear those.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: We'll have to get to it at some point. When the people write it in, when they send it in, we'll do it.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah, send us best Beethoven, whatever that means to you.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: The dog.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah, the dog. It's mostly the dog stuff. It's what we're really here to talk about. All right. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of friendly competition. If you want about your boys, a few things that you can do, as always, share with a friend, tell a friend, wherever you're listening to this, make sure you hit that like that. Follow that, subscribe and give us those five stars. Wherever you can.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. Follow us on all of our social media. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook.
Just look at that friendly comp pod. If you have an idea of a whole 16 deem turn we'd like to see us do, email us to us at
[email protected]. Nick, I'm running out of ways to say x, so I don't know what to do anymore.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: You can say it as many times you want. I'm really not on it.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: I know. I just got to keep.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Are we there? Yeah, we are. Are we actively there?
And I'll tell you, it's for those good reasons that all the other people are off of it. Definitely not. Oh, man. I just never got the hang of it. And then eventually it became bad enough where it's like, well, everyone's leaving this anyway, we got to the party real late on that one, big guy. Let's dip out before we look lame.
Shout out to you know who isn't lame. Charizard, who makes our intro outro music. Go check them out. Bandcamp. Type in Charizard and replace the vowels with sixes. That is going to be it for us. Group B coming out on Wednesday. But until then, I've been Nick Carey.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: And I'm Cody. Lena. See you in the boat.