Ragu or Walgu?

Show open: Monday nights now

The hosts open by noting the show's new time slot: Monday nights, after previously airing Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. One host admits he had trouble getting up at 4:30 for the old slot and is glad for the move.

Walmart self-checkout rant

A host recounts a Walmart trip and a long riff on self-checkout lanes: users who buy age-restricted items they cannot clear themselves, weight sensors that demand everything be bagged, and door sensors that only certain items carry. Another host pushes back, arguing the Menards self-checkout is a con where the customer does the cashier's work for the same price. The riff extends to store-specific barcodes, a daughter's billfold that beeped at Hy-Vee for six weeks, and whether eating an apple while shopping and handing over the sticker counts as paying.

Energy drinks and packaging that sells

• Are there products where the packaging alone convinces you it is premium?

After a sponsor joke about Red Bull, a host describes failing an acidity test at his wife's chiropractor office and trying to cut back on soda. He and another host describe a rocket-ship-shaped energy drink that tasted like shoe with pomegranate. This launches a discussion of products whose packaging sells them: cold Fuji water, fancy spaghetti-sauce jars versus cheap-looking Ragu, milk in glass bottles, and expensive crackling oat bran in a plain box.

From Ragu to Walprofen: labels and generics

• How long after a drug is patented can a generic version be made?

The sauce-label talk continues with a Bill Cosby spaghetti-sauce episode reference, a store-brand soda called Hee-haw, and the redesigned Pepsi logo, plus a joke about being banned from American Samoa over a hand gesture. The conversation turns to Walmart-style generic names like Walprofen for ibuprofen, whether generics are literally the same thing, a 300-dollar-a-pill heart medicine with no generic, and how long a patent lasts before generics appear -- the chat answers ten years. One host complains his insurance now only covers Claritin instead of the Allegra D that actually works for his allergies.

Sauce brand loyalty and politics

The chat weighs in on spaghetti sauce: Sonia Lasagna uses Wagyu, Grace's Mimi defends Ragu, and the hosts poll Hunts, Bertolli, Prego, and Newman's Own. Paul Newman's death and politics come up -- one host avoids Newman's Own over Newman's liberalism until the chat notes he gave all profits to charity. The politics riff extends to Whoopi Goldberg movies, Democrats, John Kerry and Teresa Heinz, and ketchup.

Restaurant deceits and fast food

Restaurant deceits: ketchup bottles with red-painted interiors that look perpetually full, and the recorded automatic greetings at drive-thrus that nobody likes. The hosts riff on self-checkout fast food and a Subway drive-thru in Lawrence, Kansas, where you cannot watch them make your sandwich and the tomato cores stay on.

Ben Foost and the KFC double-down

A host jokingly introduces himself on-air as 'Ben Foost' and declares his love of fast food, pitching an on-air sponsorship where he eats a sponsor's food between 10 p.m. and midnight. He tells the story of driving to KFC for the new chicken-bun sandwich he saw on the news, asking for 'the chicken sandwich' and getting a normal one, then learning the real one arrives Sunday.

Salad-bar sticker shock

Overpriced salad bars: nine dollars at the work cafeteria and a twenty-dollar tub of potato salad at Hy-Vee for a kid's birthday party. The host describes the moral dilemma of ditching the twenty-dollar salad after the price was already written on it. The chat votes that it was actually his wife who bought it.

Peanut butter inventions and home-sales parties

An invention pitch: a peanut butter jar with a deodorant-style twist bottom so you never get peanut-butter knuckles, protected by a 'poor man's copyright' of mailing it to yourself. Spin-off ideas include a peanut-butter stamp and peanut-butter cheese slices, compared against Uncrustables and a Pampered Chef sandwich stamp. This leads to Pampered Chef party pressure, Christmas Around the World sales (one host sold them and bought his first TV), a recurring joke about Dan's high opera-lady voice, a rose-colored JCPenney shirt, and a rule that dark underwear lasts three days.

Cars, parking, and Mike's crash

Why there are no guy-oriented home party sales, a joke about what backing into a parking spot means after dark at a Des Moines park, and the state of the hosts' cars: Mike's has no taillights and a headlight out after someone crashed it on the way to the station at 5 a.m., bending the steering knuckle and killing the ABS sensor.

First-show saga: Beelzebo vs. two cars

• How much influence can Satan have in a person's life?

The story of the show's first broadcast: the Friday training run killed the transmission in the family's main vehicle, and on Saturday morning in a freak February snow, a host crashed Mike's car into a curb on an icy hill, so they 'stole' his nine-months-pregnant wife's car to get on air. The hosts joke that 'the old Beelzebo was trying to keep us off the air,' which opens the question of how much influence Satan can really have in a person's life.

Satan's limits, Job, and over-spiritualizing

• What is the purpose of reading the Bible?

The hosts discuss Satan's limits: he is crafty but not all-knowing or all-powerful, illustrated by the story of Job, where God sets how far Satan may go. They warn against over-spiritualizing everything -- one host says seeing God in too much once drove him away from faith for five years after praying about traffic at sixteen. He concludes the purpose of reading the Bible is to understand the character of God, especially through the Old Testament, so you can tell what is and is not of Him.

The iPod testimony

A host testifies about wanting an iPod for a long time, then feeling uneasy when his wife tried to buy him a red one at the mall with their large tax refund -- so he put it back. Since then he feels God has blessed their finances in unrelated ways: a job promotion, a student-loan letter saying stop paying, and a random hundred-dollar Quest refund. The lesson: material things are not important, and saying no to yourself is rare in a credit-card culture -- though he jokes about 'tens of thousands of iPods in heaven.'

The aquarium lesson and Pants, sugar daddy of the green van

A host's failed parenting lesson: his youngest daughter Shanna saved twenty dollars toward an aquarium on a savings grid, then he caved and just bought it, ruining the lesson. He thanks God his wife restrains his spending since he has 'no regard for money.' Pants is jokingly called 'the sugar daddy of the green van' before the mid-show break.

Music break

The mid-show break plays a produced music bed with male vocals over the stream. No artist or title is identified on-air. The lyrics touch on faded dreams, reaching for Jehovah, and giving 'all I can give.'

Kingpin names: Cortez vs. Starin

Back from break with a Pathway Church invitation -- Sundays at 10 a.m. at Wallace Elementary in Johnston -- plus chat business about stolen Easter candy. A comedy bit about the ideal name for a drug kingpin: Cortez versus Starin versus Max, with a riff on authorities' untouchable top-ten lists.

The John H. Starrin rabbit hole

The hosts Google the fictional kingpin name 'John Starin' and find a real October 14, 1884 article, 'John H. Starrin's protest,' over the Staten Island and Bay Ridge Ferry franchise, plus a Wikipedia page noting his mausoleum in Fultonville Cemetery. He allegedly looks like F. Murray Abraham, prompting a debate about Finding Forrester and Sean Connery. The segment drifts into aging: three-inch ear hairs, eyebrow hedges, nose clippers received as a 40th-birthday joke, and iPhone apps.

Geocaching, tax apps, and mobile deposits

Tech riffs: geocaching dismissed as organized littering, a new iPhone app where you photograph a handwritten tax return and strangers file it for you, and banks letting you deposit checks by photo. A host recounts a fight with his bank over a ten-dollar debit-card replacement fee when they tried to confiscate his old card on the spot.

Candy delivery anxiety and concealed carry

A host describes delivering candy at a college at age 27 and being irrationally afraid the students will rough him up for it, rehearsing sassy lines in his head. The crew jokes about lending him a .357 Magnum, concealed-carry permits, and the chat's verdict that a cane to the legs or a stern scowl would make him hand over the candy. A segue: a football player who brought a loaded gun on an airplane.

News desk: insurance agent pulls a gun on his client

Zach's news desk: an Essex, Iowa insurance agent, Mark Rowe, pulled a gun on a client and forced him to drive to a Shenandoah bank to withdraw money -- leaving behind a business card with his photo and later hitching a ride back. The hosts mock his mugshot with a Gone in 60 Seconds comparison. This leads to respect for police officers and a story about a tiny, non-intimidating female officer at a hospital.

News desk: Good Friday vs. 'celebration of spring'

• Would you rather have someone offended by Christianity or indifferent to it?
• How do you celebrate Kwanzaa?

Zach's second story, via MSNBC: Davenport's 'Iowa City says Good Friday is still Good Friday' -- a leaked plan to rename it 'celebration of spring' turned out to be false. The hosts debate political correctness: corporations afraid to say Christmas, whether it is better for someone to be offended by Christianity than indifferent, and a joke about how one celebrates Kwanzaa.

Workplace groups and protest culture

A host's workplace has diversity network groups -- Asian, women's, African American, Latino -- but no white-male group, prompting jokes about a 'dude maintenance' party. The hosts vent about pushy protesters and full-time activists, agree the Petland sidewalk protest was reasonable awareness rather than intrusion, and recall pro- and anti-gay-marriage rallies at the Capitol.

LifeLock's CEO gets his identity stolen

A news-desk side note: a LifeLock identity-theft ad features a CEO who published his Social Security number as a challenge -- and got his identity stolen. The hosts admire the cocky advertising while noting he staked his whole reputation on it.

Evangelism, offense, and church hurt

A host reflects on being disappointed that people of other faiths so rarely approach him, respecting Mormon door-knockers for at least caring enough to show up, and quoting 'you've never met a mere mortal.' The crew admits fear of being the obnoxious in-your-face evangelist. Stories of church hurt follow: a vegetarian told God hates vegetarians, and a grieving couple told by a self-described Christian that their baby died because they were 'living in sin' -- the kind of damage Pathway Church was designed to undo.

Outro: on-air introductions and the Pathway invite

The outro invites listeners to Pathway Church, Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. at Wallace Elementary in Johnston, Iowa. The on-screen lineup is introduced by name: Ben in the red shirt, Mike Foost, Zach Houck, and Dan Hudson, pastor of Pathway Church. The show returns next Monday night at 10 on Des MoinesAmplified.com.