Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| This is working. I hope. Hello, hello, hello?
|
Sam:
[0:04]
| I can hear you, but your voice and video aren't synced with each other.
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Ivan:
[0:09]
| I don't know.
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Sam:
[0:10]
| Are mine? Do I sound okay?
|
Ivan:
[0:13]
| Yeah, but hang on. Let me leave.
|
Sam:
[0:14]
| Wait, wait. It's coming back. Okay, talk.
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Ivan:
[0:22]
| I am talking.
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Sam:
[0:24]
| Okay, that's better. It was starting to come back together right before you hung up, but it's fine now.
|
Ivan:
[0:29]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[0:30]
| Let me make sure the streaming's going and all that oh wait i had this and get that in boom okay, yes our streaming is going and by the way youtube added a feature to automatically do, a portrait version as well like simultaneously, but i i should i should send you a picture of this sometime it, it right now it's got you and me next to each other side by side in full you know with full 16 by 9 aspect ratio, but then when it crops to make the portrait version, it has the it has the middle between our two heads that just has like that chair behind you and the stuff beside me and the black line and you can't see either of our heads.
|
Ivan:
[1:29]
| Oh it's wonderful excellent work.
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Sam:
[1:31]
| You two.
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Ivan:
[1:32]
| You guys your AI is just spot on I mean look I mean nobody wants to see us anyway so what the fuck anyway so okay I guess it makes sense.
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Sam:
[1:42]
| Exactly okay I can see my internet's a little slow let's get this show on the road yeah yes here we go let's do this so we only got 90 minutes so here we go blah blah blah go blah blah, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, August 29th, 2026. I'm Sam and Terri Von Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:24]
| How?
|
Sam:
[2:26]
| Are you going to do that again? How are we here? Oh, how? How? Not the greeting, the stereotypical greeting thing that we've been over before. I don't know. I'm in Ohio right now, instead of where I usually am.
|
Ivan:
[2:42]
| The only thing, I always, every time somebody says the word Ohio, all I keep remembering is this joke, which I don't know the entire joke. It was something in Looney Tunes. And I think Elmer Fudd says, round in the, high in the middle and round in both ends, Ohio. But I don't really even know what the, I can't remember the joke.
|
Sam:
[3:03]
| Well, that was so funny as it was. So, you know, you heard me completely losing control and laughter.
|
Ivan:
[3:13]
| Well, now, of course, we've got the Acme versus whatever. Coyote versus Acme movie out. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[3:24]
| Did you go see it? I figured it's right up your alley.
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Ivan:
[3:26]
| I have not gone to see it.
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Sam:
[3:28]
| Because you're like a big Looney Tunes fan.
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Ivan:
[3:31]
| I am a big Looney Tunes fan, yes. I realize that I really still enjoy Looney Tunes now. So I do plan on seeing it. I don't know if I'm going to see it in the theater, but I do plan on seeing it.
|
Sam:
[3:44]
| Okay. Yeah. It is on my infinite list as well.
|
Ivan:
[3:49]
| Milo does like the Roadrunner cartoons.
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Sam:
[3:53]
| Okay. I mean, they serve. I mean, those kinds of cartoons are tiny.
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Ivan:
[4:00]
| The gags are funny. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[4:03]
| I mean, I've read a few times about how a lot of the references in Looney Tunes, go over the head of modern audiences that would have been, like, at the time they originally came out, were pop culture references to movies and short-time stars and all that kind of stuff.
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Ivan:
[4:24]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
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Sam:
[4:25]
| And now, like, in many cases, the Looney Tunes version... is what people remember. Like Bugs Bunny going, what's up, Doc, was not an original Bugs Bunny. He was imitating somebody from a movie that was popular at the time, that at the time, everybody would have gotten that reference, but now that's just Bugs Bunny. That's the thing Bugs Bunny does.
|
Ivan:
[4:49]
| Right, that's just Bugs Bunny. That's right, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[4:52]
| Yeah, so anyway, we've only got 90 minutes for the show today because I got to go catch a plane back to the West Coast. And also I'm noticing my internet connection kind of sucks here so we'll see how that works out, but yeah so we're going to do short show this time and it'll have to be a short show it's not going to be one of these times where i say it's going to be a short show and then we go four hours no because i actually have to like pack up and go to the airport you know so um, let's say i mean pack up.
|
Ivan:
[5:21]
| I mean i assume that your your suitcase in terms of your clothes and all that stuff is already packed it'd be just taken your computer and stuff.
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Sam:
[5:30]
| You you would think no no actually you you you are correct actually i i i had to check out of the room i was staying in this morning so yes i packed everything up, i took the computer out in order to do this so i have to put it back and that's about the extent of the packing up i have to do but i have to pack up and say goodbye to my dad and then, and then my stepmom's going to take me to the airport and all that kind of stuff but we're still going to try to a short show and still a little bit of, you know, non-newsy stuff at the beginning and then newsy stuff at the end. So what's your non-newsy stuff?
|
Ivan:
[6:04]
| Okay. My non-newsy thing is just something that happened yesterday. My wife has been very busy this last month, and it's meant that I've had about 15 days really of this last month that I've been the single dad, okay, doing this, okay? And, I mean, literally, I just have not—I mean, she's right now—she's not in town, okay? This is part of the whole thing, but, you know, she's not here, okay? So that's why I couldn't even, like, ask her to take care of Manu. And so anyway, so yesterday I was coming back from—I think it was picking him up from school. But, yeah, that's right. I was driving back from picking my son from school. and there is this place where you in order to get to our house or the road.
|
Ivan:
[6:54]
| They do this funky thing where it it's two lanes you move to the two towards the left a little bit but then it splits into four lanes the two right lanes are right turning lanes okay okay and then there's two lanes that that go straight, actually it splits into five lanes what am i saying no no no it's Four lanes. Right, right, right. Two lanes that go straight, right? Two lanes that are right-turn lanes, okay? So as we come up, and there's a red light up there. There's a right-turn red light as well. And it says, there's a sign there that says, hey, right-turn only from right lane, okay, on red. Okay, you cannot, on red, you can't go from the left lane. You can only go from the right lane on red, okay? So, I'm there.
|
Sam:
[7:44]
| Before you continue, before you continue, as soon as you started talking about traffic, my immediate reaction is, is this story once again going to be Yvonne, like, verbally assaulting and swearing at some other driver who did something stupid?
|
Ivan:
[8:00]
| No. No. Wait. Whoa.
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Sam:
[8:02]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[8:02]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[8:03]
| It's going to be you doing something stupid.
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Ivan:
[8:05]
| No. Neither. Okay? Okay. You'll be surprised. This is why I'm bringing it up, because this was totally, you know, not. So I get there, and usually on that light, I usually get on the right lane in order to turn right. Okay? On red. Because a lot of times there'll be gaps, you know, and I'll make. But there was a lot of cars that were on my right, so I couldn't actually make myself towards the right lane. So I'm like, okay, fine. I'll stay on the left lane, and, you know, it'll be red. And if I got to wait, I'll wait. It's going to, they're red. I wait. I'll wait and whatever. So the light is red. Okay. I get, I stay on the left lane. I am, I am the first one at the light. Okay. There's, there's a line of cars on my right. Some lady, this blonde white lady on a, in a Hyundai Santa Fe SUV. gets behind me and starts wailing on the horn, like yelling for me to turn.
|
Sam:
[9:07]
| Because she wants to turn right.
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Ivan:
[9:08]
| On the right.
|
Sam:
[9:09]
| Yeah. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[9:10]
| Right. But the light is red.
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Sam:
[9:12]
| And the signage.
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Ivan:
[9:12]
| On the left.
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Sam:
[9:14]
| And it's very clear that you are not supposed to turn on red there from that light.
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Ivan:
[9:18]
| Correct.
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Sam:
[9:19]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[9:20]
| And she starts wailing, wailing, wailing on the horn like a psychopath. And I'm like, I'm like, look, I'm not one to be intimidated by anybody doing this. I'm like, fuck you. No. Listen, she comes around, lowers her window, proceeds to scream at me. There is a car also on the right lane that she gets behind. That car is actually going to turn right on red, but I think is doing it a little bit because they're intimidated by the psychopathic women. But look, when they start going, there are cars coming. The person has to stop, okay, in order not to hit the oncoming cars, okay, that are coming. Well, this lady swerves around her. Almost slams into the outcoming cars, which they all have to break for this lady to continue. And I'm just like, man, what the hell?
|
Sam:
[10:10]
| But you did not swear at her.
|
Ivan:
[10:14]
| I lowered my window to... because she was yelling. I could hear her yelling in the car. She was yelling so loud. Okay? I lowered my window to go tell her to go fuck herself. But I didn't have a chance.
|
Sam:
[10:29]
| Oh, okay. So it's, it's.
|
Ivan:
[10:32]
| It's not so fast that I didn't get a chance.
|
Sam:
[10:35]
| It's not from lack of desire. You would have liked to swear at her.
|
Ivan:
[10:39]
| But I did want to, she didn't give me a chance.
|
Sam:
[10:43]
| Oh, what a shame. What a shame.
|
Ivan:
[10:45]
| I know she did deserve to get to, I mean, listen, she almost called the, she almost caused like a five car car accident. Okay.
|
Sam:
[10:53]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[10:54]
| Because she's such an idiot. I, I.
|
Sam:
[10:59]
| Okay, so I'll do mine real quick. I'm going to really, I will only do one movie, and we will do it quickly, and it is one of your favorites in terms of, your favorite genre, Yvonne, of making fun of it. Although it's not, it's the one with fewer, not the one with more. This is the 2002 Spider-Man.
|
Ivan:
[11:23]
| Oh, okay.
|
Sam:
[11:25]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[11:25]
| Well, like I said, I actually, you know what? I have watched a couple of the Spider-Man movies and I'm going to put that and I watched the last one and I liked it and I'm going on the side of, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with Spider-Man.
|
Sam:
[11:43]
| Okay yeah this is the the the 2002 one is the first one with toby mcguire it's got william.
|
Ivan:
[11:50]
| Defoe and kirsten dunst yeah which i saw i i i i remember seeing that movie, i you know is it me or is william defoe always just creepy looking well he's a give you the creeps.
|
Sam:
[12:05]
| He's a character actor and he plays creepy characters yeah that's like that's his thing.
|
Ivan:
[12:10]
| So that's so so okay yeah I mean, yeah, and he always plays this really sinister, creepy guy, you know?
|
Sam:
[12:18]
| I have no idea what he's like in person, but yeah, those are the characters he plays for sure.
|
Ivan:
[12:23]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was this one that he was on the—I mean, this is a terrible movie, but I watched it. Speed 2, where he was this madman that wanted to—he hijacked—I mean, this is just the plot's so ridiculous to hijack a cruise ship. Anyway, but, you know, and then the guy is using, like, leeches to cure himself or something on the— Okay.
|
Sam:
[12:48]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[12:48]
| I mean, who the hell—and he had, like, all these leeches in his, like, room, in his cabin on the ship. It's just always, like, really does that kind of creepy shit.
|
Sam:
[13:04]
| You you don't have leeches in your room.
|
Ivan:
[13:07]
| Yvonne i i do not no i do not have a leech collection in my in my in my room no i do not.
|
Sam:
[13:15]
| Hey we have a title for the episode leech collection.
|
Ivan:
[13:18]
| Yeah there you go here are my leeches.
|
Sam:
[13:21]
| Oh no that's that's not a leech.
|
Ivan:
[13:23]
| No that's that's not well thank god it's not.
|
Sam:
[13:28]
| You know, leeches get a bad rap. You know, they are used medicinally for real. They have some anticoagulation properties that can be used in certain situations. Now, the people who used leeches to bleed people a couple centuries ago, like, didn't know what they were doing and killed people by removing blood that those people needed. But there are actually medical situations where applying a leech is better than current high-tech solutions. So, you know.
|
Ivan:
[14:04]
| You know, I... Give me the technology.
|
Sam:
[14:09]
| You want the robo-leech?
|
Ivan:
[14:12]
| Yeah. Just give me the techy stuff. I don't want a leech. If we can solve my health problem while avoiding a leech, I want that.
|
Sam:
[14:26]
| Okay. Okay. You know. Yeah. So you're going to give up the best possible medical treatment to avoid the leech.
|
Ivan:
[14:37]
| I probably won't.
|
Sam:
[14:39]
| If you were in a situation where the leech was actually best.
|
Ivan:
[14:43]
| I will grudgingly accept it, but I won't like it.
|
Sam:
[14:47]
| Okay, that's fair. That is fair. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[14:52]
| I will grudgingly accept it, but I'm not going to be like, woohoo, look, I'm getting the leech. Yay. No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[15:01]
| Okay, that is fine. That is lovely. Back to the movie real quick. The plot from Wikipedia as usual. On a high school field trip, Peter Parker visits a Columbia University genetics laboratory with his best friend Harry Osborne and his love interest Mary Jane Watson. There he is bitten by a genetically engineered spider and falls ill upon returning home. Meanwhile, Harry's father Norman tests a performance-enhancing chemical on himself in an attempt to secure a military contract for Oscorp, the company he founded. The chemical gives him superhuman strength, but causes him to go insane and kill one of his scientists. The next day, Peter develops spider-like abilities, including enhanced strength, senses, agility, and speed, organic webbing in his wrists, and the ability to cling to walls. Hoping to buy a car to impress Mary Jane, Peter enters an underground wrestling event and wins his match, but is swindled out of his earnings. Soon after, Peter's uncle Ben is killed by a thief who robbed the event, and whom Peter let escape. Peter pursues the thief who eventually falls to his death. Meanwhile, a crazed Norman sabotages a product tested by an Oscorp rival and kills several people, dot, dot, dot. It all continues.
|
Ivan:
[16:17]
| As you could tell— There is one thing about this. I don't understand why they picked Oscorp. It sounds like to me— What was that store called Osco? Wasn't it a pharmacy?
|
Sam:
[16:28]
| Probably, that sounds right.
|
Ivan:
[16:29]
| Every time— Yeah, all I kept thinking when I kept the— I'm like, why do you have to pick a pharmacy for this?
|
Sam:
[16:38]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:39]
| Osco drugs. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[16:42]
| As is obvious from what I read, this is one that started with the Spider-Man origin story. This is like, of the last three Spider-Men, the first two started with the origin story. The third one decided to skip it. They're like, people know. People know about Spider-Man's origin. We don't need to do that. We can start, like, his presence in the—he showed up in another MCU movie first, but, like, then in his own—we can start. he's already spider-man he's already been spider-man for a while we don't have to show how all that began you know um, yeah and you know whenever they do these super superhero reboots they tend to always like retell the origin story so i think it was good when they did it this time or in the most recent one not this 2002 one i'm talking about but the most recent one just skip it people know it's it may be every once in a while it's okay to retell the origin but like usually you don't have to people know all these stories, or and in many cases it doesn't matter it's like okay they've got superpowers okay now throw us into the adventure you know anyway the 2002 one did do the origin story and uh yeah, i'll give it a little bit between thumbs sideways and thumbs up it was fine it was a superhero movie yeah that was.
|
Ivan:
[17:59]
| Just fine i didn't hate that movie but it wasn't like, wow, I want to watch this again.
|
Sam:
[18:05]
| Yeah. I mean, I think it was a little cheesy, like a little over the top in some areas. I mean, it's a superhero movie. Of course it is. But some of them have different vibes. Some of them go more over the top campy and some of them try to be more gritty and realistic. And, you know, there's a spectrum. Anyway, it was fine. And that's all I got to say about that. Next week, I'll talk about a Godzilla movie. exactly next week is godzilla raids again from 1955 i'll talk about that next time but i think i'm done shall we go ahead and take a break and then jump into, the thingies of the like actually in the news thingies, sure sure okay here we go the break, yeah blah blah blah blah break, I want to be on top.
|
Sam:
[19:24]
| You know, before we start the next segment, I just want to note, I mentioned this to Alex in text a little bit ago, but when I logged into Riverside to do our recording today, I noticed they'd once again revamped their interface for creators. I don't know if it was different from your side as a guest, but there's all kinds of new options. And among it, They have launched host cloning. So both video and audio, apparently I can train it on the podcast we've already recorded and then say, I want the Yvonne clone to say this and make it happen.
|
Ivan:
[20:04]
| Okay. You want to try it?
|
Sam:
[20:06]
| You know, I thought about not telling you so that I could surprise you with it on a future episode. But, you know, it's not a do it live while you're recording thing. It's sort of a pre-prepare thing. like i could have you do a little promo for the show using a script i make up without actually asking you to record it, you know so i i may try this in a future episode and see what we'll get but okay and, and it's curious that you know it it has the it has the audio version for just a voice clone but apparently it also has a video version because we're we're feeding it video so So, we can get the fake video Yvonne doing something. Or fake video me, but, you know, it'll be more entertaining to make you do something crazy. So might as well.
|
Ivan:
[20:57]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[20:58]
| Anyway, Yvonne, let's get started with newsy stuff. What's the first newsy thing you want to put on the agenda for today?
|
Ivan:
[21:08]
| The first newsy thing. I don't even know what the hell's going on.
|
Sam:
[21:13]
| You know, I've been traveling. i'm in ohio i i i haven't paid as much attention myself either i went right before the show, and went to google news and just wrote down a couple things that were in the headlines but like i hadn't been accumulating a list throughout the week because i've been busy, you know so let me see.
|
Ivan:
[21:33]
| I'm looking at some of the stuff. Hmm.
|
Sam:
[21:37]
| We have the bond stuff left over from last week, too. Like, you weren't here, so I wasn't about to talk about it.
|
Ivan:
[21:43]
| Which stuff? The what?
|
Sam:
[21:46]
| Oh, like, there was all this talk about bond yields and all that stuff. You don't have to pick that topic.
|
Ivan:
[21:50]
| Though. I'm just saying.
|
Sam:
[21:51]
| There was left over.
|
Ivan:
[21:52]
| Okay, no. No, no, no. Well, we can talk about that because there was also the Fed meetings this week in Jackson Hole. So, once a year, they do this retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Not sure why. You know, I've never, I've been curious as to why it is at Jackson Hole, but I've never actually.
|
Sam:
[22:11]
| Like, done stuff. I mean, it's like a resort town, right?
|
Ivan:
[22:14]
| I mean, yeah, it is. But, you know, it's like, there's a lot of resort towns. Right. You know, why Jackson Hole specifically? So, they did that. But one of the things is, and I've noticed that Trump hasn't complained about this, that, look, basically, from the messaging that was there, this Fed is saying that they're going to raise rates, which is totally the opposite reason why. Totally the opposite of what Trump has been wanting. But, look, inflation is not under control, and they can't lower rates. And, apparently, the new Fed chair has been... Less communicative than previous Fed shares.
|
Sam:
[23:10]
| Okay. Okay. I have an answer. Which the markets have not taken well. You got to stop for a second because there's something more important than whatever you're going to say, which is I now have the answer to why Jackson Hole.
|
Ivan:
[23:21]
| Okay. All right. Why Jackson Hole?
|
Sam:
[23:24]
| I went and asked Claude, of course.
|
Ivan:
[23:27]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[23:27]
| I said, why was Jackson Hole specifically chosen for regular Federal Reserve annual meetings? The one-line answer, and then there's more detail. It was chosen to lure Paul Volcker with trout. And it continues.
|
Ivan:
[23:42]
| Get out of here.
|
Sam:
[23:44]
| The Kansas City Fed had been running an annual symposium since 1978, but the early ones were on agricultural topics and drew modest attention. Organizers wanted the Fed chairman to show up, and they knew Volcker was a serious fly fisherman. So for the 1982 conference, they scouted locations within their own district. The 10th District covers Wyoming, along with Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, and parts of New Mexico and Missouri, and settled on Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, where the fishing in late August is excellent and the weather is cool. Volcker came, the format worked, and the location simply stuck. The practical virtues turned out to be as important as the fishing. It's remote enough to discourage hangers-on.
|
Ivan:
[24:32]
| Yeah, that is one thing. I know that that was one reason.
|
Sam:
[24:36]
| That's small enough that central bankers and academics can't avoid each other between sessions, and the Lodge is isolated in a way that makes the whole thing feel like a retreat rather than a conference. The symposium has been held there every year since. There you go. There's your answer.
|
Ivan:
[24:53]
| So basically, they wanted Paul Volcker to show up, and they picked a place where he could fish.
|
Sam:
[25:00]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[25:00]
| Because apparently he liked fly fish. He liked fish. Interesting.
|
Sam:
[25:03]
| Yes, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[25:04]
| By the way, the other reason that they have stayed there, is good because it is remote where you don't get, it's not like they are that accessible. They're not going to get a lot of people trying to interfere with the meetings or being there. Only a few reporters and some people go to show up. So anyway. Look, I was go back. Inflation is looking like shit. There's just and obviously every policy that this idiot administration keeps doing keeps making it worse. Then they tried to, Scott Bissett tried to go into the bond market and use treasury funds, not Fed funds, okay, which treasury funds are a lot more limited, okay, to try to steer interest rates, okay, by lowering, you know, pushing up bond prices and lowering yields. Well, look, almost every case of a treasury around the world trying to do that, for the most part, it's basically like just, you know, it's pissing in the wind. It's not going to, you don't have the strength or force to go against that. And so very immediately, the reverse effect happened.
|
Ivan:
[26:28]
| And while he got a brief rise in bond prices, it quickly relented. But the main thing here is that Trump is not getting from this Fed what he wanted anyway. But I haven't heard him bitching. Right. But I haven't heard him bitch and moan about it.
|
Sam:
[26:51]
| You know, it's a double-edged sword for him. I mean, the last guy was appointed by him, too, but it had been a while. Like, if he starts complaining about the new one, like, right after he comes on board, it's going to look bad for him immediately. So even if he's unhappy, it probably serves him to be quiet about his unhappiness for a little while. I mean, eventually he won't be able to help himself.
|
Ivan:
[27:20]
| I mean, eventually, but...
|
Sam:
[27:21]
| The alternative... This Fed is not going to do what... I just want to put this out there. They're not doing what he wants them to do. Well, the alternative, as unlikely as it may be, and I just want to put this out there so you could laugh at it, is someone actually explained the economics to Donald Trump and he understood. And so he changed his mind.
|
Ivan:
[27:47]
| Oh, my God. What are you trying to do, man? Come on. You're trying to give me a heart attack over here by laughing? What the hell are you doing? No. No, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[28:00]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[28:03]
| I think that it's a big part is just what you said. This is just the guy that I just hired. And now I'm going to go and start bitching about the guy that I just hired. So he's not going to do that. And so, and he's got a lot of other problems on his hands right now that he's fighting in the press about. I mean, I don't know. Now he's, he's, he's fighting Canada and Iran and, and we're stealing Venezuela's oil and we're trying to anyway.
|
Sam:
[28:39]
| Come on, Ivan. Now you're going to make me laugh. He's not thinking about any of that stuff. He's thinking about the ballroom. He's thinking about the F1 race.
|
Ivan:
[28:47]
| Well, that's true.
|
Sam:
[28:48]
| He's thinking about the gold statues and the arch.
|
Ivan:
[28:51]
| That was not an F1 race. Whatever.
|
Sam:
[28:54]
| Whatever it was.
|
Ivan:
[28:58]
| No, it's not an F1 race. Stop. No. It's an Indy car race. It's not an F1 race.
|
Sam:
[29:03]
| Indy car race. Okay, whatever it was. It's all the fucking same. I don't care. I know the distinction that you care about, but it's a fucking car. It's a fucking funny looking car instead of like, instead of like one you can buy. So that's like the two kinds, right? It's the kind you can buy off the street and the kind that are specially designed. And that's it. That's as far as the complexity goes, right?
|
Ivan:
[29:31]
| Okay. Yes. Yes, of course. Right. That's it. Yes. That's it. Yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. He's focused. Well, the one thing that he was so laser-focused on this week was the grout. Something about the grout around the White House.
|
Sam:
[29:48]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[29:49]
| That, oh, my God, you see, I'm fixing the grout. It hadn't been fixed in 60 years. Sam, the grout hadn't been fixed in 60 years.
|
Sam:
[30:00]
| It might have needed some touching up.
|
Ivan:
[30:02]
| It might have needed some touching up. And I don't know, and I guess that now they're going to demolish to Kennedy Center now?
|
Sam:
[30:10]
| Well, yeah. Like, if you can't put his name on it.
|
Ivan:
[30:13]
| Then it's useless.
|
Sam:
[30:15]
| Well, they did say something along those lines in a court file, and...
|
Ivan:
[30:21]
| Listen, let me just say this, that between putting his name up or demolishing it, demolish it, then we'll build a better one when he's gone.
|
Sam:
[30:31]
| You know, this is one of those things. I was actually surprised they put it into court filing because we know from the East Wing scenario, the way we're supposed to find out this stuff is when the bulldozers show up in the morning. You know, we're not supposed to know about it beforehand.
|
Ivan:
[30:48]
| In advance. Right.
|
Sam:
[30:50]
| Because that gets.
|
Ivan:
[30:50]
| So somebody could file injunction or something.
|
Sam:
[30:53]
| Right. Yeah. So I don't know what he's doing there. His lawyers are losing their touch or something. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[31:01]
| Ah, his lawyers. Yes. His gaggle of genius lawyers.
|
Sam:
[31:04]
| So wait, bottom line on this bond stuff, like, and just more generally economy stuff.
|
Ivan:
[31:09]
| Bottom line is that right now, look, the Fed came out, they had the meetings, interest rates are stubbornly high. The reality is that interest rates are high because inflation is high. So the Fed knows that you cannot lower rates by lowering short-term rates. It doesn't work. It won't, because that doesn't do anything about long-term rates.
|
Sam:
[31:37]
| You can't lower long-term by short-term.
|
Ivan:
[31:39]
| Correct. Yes, you can't lower long-term rates by just offering lower short-term rates. The only way to get long-term rates down is by lowering inflation. That's it. There's no other way. The problem is, of course, that by raising interest rates further, what they are going to do is make the economy for the, you know, the average American, the median American. Let me be correct, because the average is such a average doesn't work in this environment where we have such dichotomy of income right now. The median American is getting fucked. OK, right now in this economy. and that is going to make it worse for them. We have bad affordability. You've got expensive gas. You've got a very difficult job market. Okay. I mean, everything is really shit for the median American at this moment.
|
Sam:
[32:45]
| So that's the technical words.
|
Ivan:
[32:48]
| Yeah, that's my technical description. So this is going to make it worse. Now, he doesn't seem to care about his poll numbers, but look, I really believe that even with all his attempts at manipulating this upcoming election, they're going to get crushed because of this.
|
Sam:
[33:14]
| And I guess we can transition into the electoral stuff a little bit. As we all know, you have to be careful interpreting polls. But we still keep—it seems like every week the polls are better for the Democrats than the week before.
|
Ivan:
[33:32]
| And Trump's approval keeps plumbing new depths. It keeps dropping and dropping and dropping. There is no end in sight to his drop.
|
Sam:
[33:43]
| But just as an example, like one of the things, like when El Saeed won in Michigan, right? It was Michigan?
|
Ivan:
[33:50]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[33:50]
| People were like, well, that's what the Democratic base wants, but he's doing weaker. You know, he was showing up behind the Republican in polls. And so was this a gamble because he's weaker against the Republican? And all the latest polls have him winning nicely.
|
Ivan:
[34:08]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[34:08]
| You know, I mean, still close. It's not like a 60-40 blowout or something, but, it has him ahead. It has competitive races all over the country in states that were not expected to be competitive even just a few months ago. You know, so the path, the potential paths to the Democrats taking the Senate, not just the House, seem to be expanding by the week.
|
Ivan:
[34:39]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[34:40]
| I mean, you know, I think I mentioned somewhere, I even saw a poll recently in Arkansas showing the Democrat close. No one was expecting the Democrat to even come remotely close in Arkansas. you know and and no and still just to be clear no one's predicting they're going to win in arkansas right now either but, closer than anyone thought would be even possible um we've got lindsey graham's sister you know getting the getting the republican nomination after two rounds but, not by an impressive margin at all not and it's like no wait and it's like wait is south Carolina going to be close too? You're not expecting South Carolina to be close. These are supposed to be safe, safe, safe Republican seats. And look, I want to be absolutely clear, the Republicans are still favored in those states. But the fact that it's even like a question of like, why are we even fucking talking about these states at all? And even if the end result is It's just the Democrats make it closer than it usually would be. That's still a headline, you know, even if they still lose.
|
Ivan:
[36:03]
| And here's the other thing that the Republicans have made, you know, as they have in the past done a mess of like picking of of candidates. And, you know, and this got them into trouble in like races like in Georgia, for example. They went in Florida, they put this guy Byron Donalds at the top of the ticket for the governor, And recent polls, there's a number of the latest polls that there are has a lot of polling on this on this race. OK, the Democrat and Republican candidate. But the reality is that right now it's a toss up. And this is one that they had won comfortably. OK, so the fact that it's a toss up. OK, and this was in the last cycle, this was never a toss up.
|
Sam:
[36:55]
| That's like the situation in Texas, too. I mean, they picked Paxton, who's got all kinds of problems. I mean, shit. If they'd picked, you know, any, I mean, whoever, I forget the guy who's running against Paxton.
|
Ivan:
[37:12]
| For God's sakes. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[37:14]
| Yeah. It wouldn't even be a question.
|
Ivan:
[37:17]
| Exactly. Yeah. But they put Paxton up, who's been impeached by his own fucking party.
|
Sam:
[37:24]
| Right. I don't see why that's a problem, Yvonne. What are you implying?
|
Ivan:
[37:31]
| Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I mean, this is, you know, look, I actually, I'm looking at some of these polls here that you've got for some of these races in Florida. I saw that. That was close. You mentioned Texas, for example. What's another state where we've got, well, Ohio, for example. Shit.
|
Sam:
[37:55]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[37:56]
| I mean, that's looking like, you know, they're going to lose that seat in Ohio. That's very likely. You know, even the governor's race as well, because they've got, they put up Ramaswamy. You know, one of the things that I, the thing about, the thing about putting a Ramaswamy and putting a Byron Donalds in the race is this simple issue that Republicans are so fucking racist that, voting for the black dude or the indian guy there's a there's enough of them that will, can't do so that it sabotages their own it sabotages themselves which is great my book.
|
Sam:
[38:41]
| So i met i mentioned south carolina there is a two-day-old poll from south carolina now, With the Democrat, there is Anne Andrews against Darlene Graham, who, by the way, is now going by Graham. She had another name due to marriage, but she's going by Graham because that's her brother.
|
Ivan:
[39:02]
| The name you know.
|
Sam:
[39:05]
| Anyway, Andrews 41%, Graham 41% in South Carolina.
|
Ivan:
[39:12]
| You know.
|
Sam:
[39:12]
| With another independent candidate at 5%.
|
Ivan:
[39:16]
| Listen, there is precedent for this kind of shit happening where the party loses a seat like this, like in South Carolina. Think about what happened with Massachusetts when Ted Kennedy died. Okay. And how we wound up for a while with a fucking Republican senator.
|
Sam:
[39:37]
| In Massachusetts, which is considered like a dark blue state, you know?
|
Ivan:
[39:42]
| Right. Because of how polling should be.
|
Sam:
[39:45]
| And we had the Democrat in Mississippi, was it? Alabama. Or Alabama.
|
Ivan:
[39:51]
| Alabama.
|
Sam:
[39:53]
| One of those where, you know, well, the Republicans decided to nominate a pedophile who is currently being investigated.
|
Ivan:
[40:02]
| Right. Okay.
|
Sam:
[40:04]
| You know, and so the Democrats snuck in there.
|
Ivan:
[40:07]
| Right. So, you know, this thing in South Carolina could well backfire.
|
Sam:
[40:13]
| Democrat is also ahead in Iowa.
|
Ivan:
[40:16]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[40:16]
| Rob Sand in Iowa is running a couple points ahead of the Republican there. There's a potential independent running neck and neck with the Republican in Nebraska. You know, so they're, you know, look, they're the ones that we've been talking about forever of like, Like, hey, Democrats have to run the table on these to win. And that's like a real stretch.
|
Ivan:
[40:38]
| Well, the Republicans are trying to make it, trying to make that possible by clearly just, you have a president that doesn't give a flying fuck about, anything but his ballroom, his Nobel Peace Prize, this whole Iran war. there's only one reason why we had the Iran war there's the primary reason why we have the Iran war because he wanted to one up Obama.
|
Sam:
[41:16]
| He wanted to one up Obama he also though.
|
Ivan:
[41:19]
| Netanyahu was going anyway and it was looking good for Netanyahu he thought it looked cool but he thought he could one up Obama on dealing with Iran I'm going to make a better deal. That was his whole thing. And look where we are.
|
Sam:
[41:38]
| It's going well.
|
Ivan:
[41:39]
| It's going great.
|
Sam:
[41:42]
| You know, I wonder if in his deal-making with Iran, he has tried offering, you know, in exchange for them giving up nuclear weapons or whatever, they can be the ones to build the ballroom. LAUGHTER.
|
Ivan:
[42:01]
| I mean, we got a Qatari plane, right? So what the hell? Now we got an Iranian ballroom. I mean, why not? You know? I wouldn't put it past them. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure.
|
Sam:
[42:14]
| The finest Persian rugs.
|
Ivan:
[42:16]
| The finest Persian rugs. You know, we had Persian rugs at my house in Puerto Rico. I think I have a closet. Dad went, I don't know, he went over there sometime in the 70s. He brought back a whole bunch of Persian rugs.
|
Sam:
[42:29]
| Nice.
|
Ivan:
[42:30]
| They can be cool looking yeah they are kind of cool looking yeah I mean you know I don't know they don't fit my decor but yeah you know they're there, it's a very interesting thing they're very heavy I'll tell you one thing about those Persian rugs they're very heavy.
|
Sam:
[42:46]
| Yes so anyway okay where were we are we are we ready to.
|
Ivan:
[42:54]
| Move on to something else we wound up in the election because we're talking about the results of the, current economic policies and how the Fed basically went and like, you know, basically is doing everything counter to what Trump wants, not because they not because they, not because that's what they want to do, but it's just because they really don't have a choice. Trump, with all his policies, has backed him into a corner where you've got this inflationary situation in between the tax cuts and the war and the tariffs. You know, that's another.
|
Sam:
[43:33]
| He has reduced the beef tariffs.
|
Ivan:
[43:36]
| That takes care of everything. Hey, are, the cattlemen happy about this?
|
Sam:
[43:45]
| Mostly men. They're thrilled. They're thrilled.
|
Ivan:
[43:47]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[43:48]
| Right?
|
Ivan:
[43:48]
| Right? That he wanted to be bought. He was buying cheap foreign beef and then trying to flood the market with it.
|
Sam:
[43:57]
| I don't see why this would be a problem. And weirdly enough, though, you have to understand, like Donald Trump does in his infinite wisdom, how raising tariffs does not increase prices at all. But lowering tariffs will lower prices.
|
Ivan:
[44:25]
| Oh, I see.
|
Sam:
[44:27]
| Oh, that's how that works. Only in specific scenarios, of course.
|
Ivan:
[44:32]
| Ah, I see. I see. Okay, so that's how that works. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. You know, I'm looking at some of his approval ratings on this, like Trump's net approval rating on the issues. He is. OK, I mean, this is so, I mean, ghastly. His net approval rating on inflation, negative forty five point nine percent. i mean yes fuck, i mean he is underwater on all of these like you know immigration negative 12.7 by the way which this whole inflation thing immigration thing is also inflationary by the way, which is which is you know it's it's bad it's it's it's it it is hindering economic growth, it's inflationary at the same time it's you know trade minus 24.1% economy minus 27.8% but really the killer is inflation negative 45.9% I mean it's just you know.
|
Ivan:
[45:39]
| It is so bad. And still some of these guys, I mean, are just like all so like, gung-ho about him still. Some of them. I'm just like, but he's basically. Now, I do love the videos of the guys that have realized how they have voted for this guy three times. and how now they are totally coming down to the realization that he has fucked them so bad. Those videos are great.
|
Sam:
[46:12]
| Yeah. I mean, there's a whole genre of them. We've been seeing them in one shape or form all the way back to 2017. But I think the difference, I feel like finally, finally, sort of a dam has been broken. Oh, yeah. And, you know, the percentage of Trump voters who feel this way is finally, like, getting to be large. So before, there was always a sliver. You could always find some Trump voters who regretted their vote. But I think at this point, I mean, the 30%, you know, approval rating overall shows it right there. You know, there's at least we're getting close to half of all Trump voters who are like, what the fuck was I thinking?
|
Ivan:
[47:05]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[47:06]
| You know, now you're not at 90% or anything. No, no. It's hard to get there. But, you know, I think you're getting close to half, you know. Yeah. So, I don't know. Now, does that mean they're ready to vote for a Democrat? Not necessarily. In some cases, yes. No, but— I have heard interviews with some of these people. But I think more to the point, this goes to the whole enthusiasm thing. This goes to, you know, I'm just going to stay the fuck home. Like, I voted for Trump. It didn't work out. I'm just going to stay the fuck home. You know, that's more likely.
|
Ivan:
[47:45]
| Let's be clear about this. It's not just that it didn't work out, Sam. In most cases, they got exactly the opposite of what they wanted in many things. A lot of these guys, I still remember one time at the airport, hearing some guy explaining, like this was like right around the this the recent history election okay, um they were talking about oh how he's a genius and he's gonna fix the economy and with the cutting up the taxes there's gonna be this boom and we're gonna more money and prices are coming down i heard this guy at the airport saying and i'm like what the fuck are you thinking how could you be so stupid i would love to find that guy now, and ask him, hey, dumbass, how did that work out? Huh?
|
Sam:
[48:31]
| Right. And, you know, not to rehash what we rehash all the time, but there's a whole lot of this, like, oh, I thought he was going to screw over the other people.
|
Ivan:
[48:44]
| Them. Them.
|
Sam:
[48:46]
| Yeah, them.
|
Ivan:
[48:47]
| Them.
|
Sam:
[48:48]
| You know, I didn't think it would affect me in any way. Which reminds me, of course, Milo got picked up by Ice. How do you say his name? Yannababababa.
|
Ivan:
[49:02]
| Yeah, no lipolist. Whatever the fuck. Is it Milo or Milo?
|
Sam:
[49:07]
| Famous right... Milo? It's probably Milo. I don't know. Anyway, he's a famous right-wing agitator. He was really big a few years back, but then he got into some trouble, and even the right-wing tended to drop him mostly. Apparently, he's a UK citizen, and he overstayed his visa, and he was picked up, and he's being deported.
|
Ivan:
[49:30]
| Aww.
|
Sam:
[49:35]
| Anyway, shall we take a break, and then I'll pick something else to wrap this thing up with?
|
Ivan:
[49:42]
| Here's one case where I hope that he experiences a lengthy detention term at somewhere like, you know, Florida Alcatraz or something. I'm all for him being stuck there for about a year.
|
Sam:
[49:58]
| Yeah, they lost his paperwork. They'll figure it out eventually. And then, oh, sorry, you want to go back to UK? Sorry, you're going to Seacott.
|
Ivan:
[50:09]
| We're going to deport you to Uganda. Whatever. You would love that. Just pick a random country that he would hate.
|
Sam:
[50:16]
| Yes, yes, exactly. Okay, let's take a break.
|
Ivan:
[50:19]
| I'm sure the Ugandan people are very lovely, by the way, okay, just to make sure. I'm not saying it because of that. I'm just saying it because he would hate it.
|
Sam:
[50:27]
| Right, right. Okay, back after this. Okay, we are back.
|
Ivan:
[51:35]
| Let's just say that you need to keep your day, well, you don't have a day job right now, what am I saying? But let's just say that your next career path should not be voiceover work. What I mean is voice impressions. Yes.
|
Sam:
[51:51]
| You don't think I made a good version of my daughter? You weren't fooled?
|
Ivan:
[51:57]
| No.
|
Sam:
[51:57]
| You weren't fooled at all? No. I'm sure I could do some. No, no, I couldn't. I'm not an impressionist.
|
Ivan:
[52:10]
| I'm terrible at it, too. I can't do it.
|
Sam:
[52:12]
| I've failed. Every time I've tried, it just sounds like me. My son, when he, you know, sometimes we've, he's given up on this, but sometimes when I would read to him, he'd be like, you got to use different voices for the different characters, dad. I'm like, what do you mean? I am. You can't tell? Or, or, or I'm not even trying or I'm not even trying. Cause like, yeah, I'll read the damn words. You know, I'm not going to be like trying to embody characters. Okay, I was having trouble deciding what to talk about, but since you mentioned voice acting, I've got a line item here for, like, celebrity deaths this week. And one of the celebrity deaths this week was Peter Cullen, who was the voice of Optimus Prime, along with dozens of other animated characters. He was also the voice of Eeyore in the Disney movies and a whole bunch of others. He died this week. and so it's like you know along with of course you know dolly parton also died and who was the other one the one from rocky horror picture show um oh uh.
|
Ivan:
[53:28]
| God tim curry.
|
Sam:
[53:30]
| Tim curry yeah so those were the big three celebrity deaths this week and you know i i've been you.
|
Ivan:
[53:38]
| Know and several of them were actors that were home alone too, and unfortunately, none of them were the one that we really were hoping for.
|
Sam:
[53:47]
| Ha ha ha ha! Yeah, like, someone with clear health issues could, like, you know, have them get worse at any time. But instead, you know, Dolly Parton, you know? Yeah, I mean, fuck. I've been watching all these tributes to her and all the charity work she's done. And, you know, first of all, like, the musical influences and the long career and all the really important famous songs. Both that she did herself and that she wrote and other people performed and all of this kind of stuff. Plus, like, you know, apparently she died worth about half a billion dollars. And almost all of it is going to charity. And even while she was alive, I mean, she gave a significant amount of money to to kickstart the research that ended up being the Moderna COVID vaccine. She had literacy programs where she gave free free books to, you know, to to preschool kids. And apparently she was known for also just, doing sort of the silent charity where, you know, she'd find out about some random person in need and just anonymously take care of them.
|
Ivan:
[55:12]
| And not get on Twitter and call them a pedophile?
|
Sam:
[55:15]
| Yeah. But not even, like, sit there and take credit for it and be like, look how good I am. I'm helping these people. She'd do it anonymously and silently.
|
Ivan:
[55:26]
| No, but she didn't go in public and, like, you know, just insult random people for no reason, huh?
|
Sam:
[55:33]
| No, no, no. That wasn't part of her gig.
|
Ivan:
[55:37]
| That's part of her thing. Damn. Oh, well. How could she be famous? Look, I will say that the way that my introduction to Dolly Parton was the movie 9 to 5. Okay.
|
Sam:
[55:51]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[55:51]
| Which came out in 1980. Okay, it was... It made... I mean, it really poked, well, it showed how really sexist and shitty the workplace was in America. And it was a hilarious movie where the three women went and hijacked their boss, who was a sexist pig, and locked them up and then changed the company. And then the one thing that happened was that they made these changes where they eliminated all these policies that were just absolutely sexist and whatever, and productivity soared. And then the chairman of the board of the company came down and like sent Dattie Coleman to Brazil for some reason to a project in the Amazon where he got abducted. So, but anyway, but the movie was hilarious. Okay. She was great in the movie, along with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. If you haven't watched the movie, you got to watch the movie. It's hilarious.
|
Sam:
[56:47]
| You know, I haven't. I have just re-added it to my list again. And I've seen clips and I've, of course, heard the song, but I don't think I've actually seen the movie.
|
Ivan:
[56:57]
| So it is not it is 74th on the AFI Institute list of 100 funniest movies. OK, yeah, so so, yeah, so it's the line with a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot. That was Daphne Coleman's role in the movie. you know so yeah uh and she did great on it but so that's how i learned about her, i listened to some of her songs and just knew knew about her from there so it's just that was my introduction to to to her that was like i mean 1980, so i was like what nine why but listen yeah here's one thing i watched a lot of movies i don't think that was not for kids but i watched all these movies that were not meant for kids anyway at that age anyway so whatever yeah yeah i don't know, but yeah but uh i saw some good clips of.
|
Sam:
[57:50]
| Her and johnny carson over the last couple days too since she died.
|
Ivan:
[57:54]
| Yeah yeah.
|
Sam:
[57:55]
| You know yeah they were hilarious together she was funny.
|
Ivan:
[57:59]
| He's funny and.
|
Sam:
[58:00]
| They fed off each other you know.
|
Ivan:
[58:02]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[58:03]
| Anyway i haven't been like the biggest dolly parton fan in the world but just watching all the tributes coming in i've been like oh man she's pretty cool.
|
Ivan:
[58:12]
| I like I mean I must have said that to me since that because I watched that movie when I was very young I was like very much I liked her very much so because I just found the movie so hilarious so any other celebrity.
|
Sam:
[58:27]
| Deaths you want to bring up before I try to like pick some other topic to round out the show.
|
Ivan:
[58:32]
| Now let's now let's let's go and like yeah let's not talk about more dead people because I mean we don't have the news that we want on the dead people famous front Yeah, but at some point, hopefully we can get the news we're looking for.
|
Sam:
[58:46]
| You're talking about David Attenborough, of course.
|
Ivan:
[58:48]
| Of course, yes. Absolutely.
|
Sam:
[58:50]
| Yeah, that's who you're rooting for at any moment. Yeah. Okay, he just turned 100 a couple months ago. Okay, let me just lightning round through the rest of these things I have on the list, because I don't have a lot. I mentioned my Ohio trip. We mentioned Bonds. We got Lake America, Yvonne. We got Lake America, you know.
|
Ivan:
[59:10]
| Lake what?
|
Sam:
[59:11]
| Not much to say. Lake America.
|
Ivan:
[59:14]
| Lake what? how's the.
|
Sam:
[59:16]
| How's that gulf of america thing going is everybody actually calling it that now.
|
Ivan:
[59:20]
| Not that i know of i realize that i don't even say it listen i i i i still call twitter twitter, right i don't yeah i and i noticed oh did you see that in that i i shared this that apparently elon had let his trademark on on the twitter name lapse and that somebody is yes launched Tell us more.
|
Sam:
[59:43]
| I did see that that you shared on.
|
Ivan:
[59:45]
| Well, look, listen, there is this thing where in order to keep a trademark, you have to use it. OK, on an on a brand. It seems that Elon went and has not done so. And, well, somebody has launched basically a Twitter successor called Twitter. Elon's trying to stop them, but I know for a fact that this has been a recurring issue. I remember that at HP, when we bought Compaq, we kept reusing the Compaq name in some way, shape, or form in order not to lose. Yeah, in order, well, not to keep it alive so much, so somebody else couldn't take it, okay? Right, right. And if you look at American Airlines, for example, the airlines that they have bought, okay, in the past, okay, they have subsidiaries that, use the names of those airlines to try to ensure that nobody else can use those brands to launch an airline but say the name US Air, for example, or stuff like that. So they used those brands.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:58]
| It's looking like Elon, being Elon, didn't protect that brand like he should have. And now it seems that somebody's like wised up and saw that they let that lapse. And they are claiming it. And they've launched a new Twitter thing. It'll be hilarious to see if it starts becoming, if it starts taking off in some way.
|
Sam:
[1:01:25]
| Taking off.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:26]
| So.
|
Sam:
[1:01:26]
| Yeah, I don't think their chances are good. But still, I applaud the effort.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:31]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:01:32]
| And also, speaking of Elon, I meant to mention this before, you know, tying it back to my, you know, the Spider-Man movie. I am actually, at this point, surprised that we don't find Elon dressed up in a goblin costume trying to fly around New York City on some sort of glider. I mean, it would be perfectly in character. Like, I mean, he is, like... you know, a comic book supervillain. I mean, really? Come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:08]
| I hope he doesn't because that would be one easy way for him to suffer a very terrible accident.
|
Sam:
[1:02:14]
| Oh, right. Well, speaking of comic book superheroes, there was a neo-Nazi rally in some city, I forget which one, where they were having a little protest or whatever and doing their fascist little signs and stuff. And some guy dressed as Spider-Man jumped on them and started punching the guy out.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:37]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:02:38]
| That was very nice. It was hilarious. And there are all kinds of pictures of him in heroic Spider-Man poses right before and after he punched this dude. And he was arrested. I believe there's a GoFundMe for his legal defense and all that kind of stuff. but it's like you get an actual news story headline and it's like some guy being punched by Spider-Man what the hell, but we need the guy being punched by Spider-Man I mean it's fine that he punched this like neo-nazi asshole whoever he was I'd never heard of him before but, you know it could be Elon dressed up in a goblin costume come on, let's have like an actual like Like, have the, you know, rich supervillain, you know, because look, you know, Elon's clearly like Norman Osborn or whatever. And, you know, especially since he shaved his head, you know, Jeff Bezos is definitely Lex Luthor. Oh, God, yes. So let's just get them.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:47]
| God, he looks exactly like Lex Luthor. What the hell?
|
Sam:
[1:03:50]
| So let's get the appropriate superheroes. Let's put them together. Let's pay-per-view those fights. Come on. okay uh okay next up what's this about uh the u.s taking over half of all venezuelan oil as the result of the whole venezuela thing earlier this year but.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:12]
| Now that is what he claims i already seen certain people undercutting his you know it's one of those usual things where he's claiming something where he's just.
|
Sam:
[1:04:20]
| Full of bullshit like he always.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:21]
| Is yeah because there's look i did see that one thing, there is an issue. Nobody legally in Venezuela has the right to do so. The current constitution actually prohibits it. So there is no legal mechanism right now under which they can do what Trump is claiming that he did.
|
Sam:
[1:04:43]
| So when has that stopped them before?
|
Ivan:
[1:04:48]
| You know, well, when has that stopped him from claiming something and then not being able to do it? Yes. I mean, it's also, you know, in a lot of cases, you know, he keeps claiming victories that don't exist.
|
Sam:
[1:05:04]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:05]
| Yeah. So there's so many cases. How many times does he claim victory in a run?
|
Sam:
[1:05:12]
| There used to be someone running a count. I think they gave up because the number got too high.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:16]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:05:17]
| And so last I heard it was in the 30s.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:21]
| Yeah. The economist, listen, the economist story on this is clearly like it encapsulates the usual Trump BS. OK, it was it says it was a typically Trumpian announcement. On August 28th, the American president declared what he called the biggest oil deal in world history, an agreement that he said would give America majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude around one-fifth of the country's vast marine reserves. Details were conspicuously absent.
|
Sam:
[1:05:54]
| I, of course, joked on the curmudgeon's corner slack that since, you know, the big problem with all these, well, there are many, many problems. But let's assume for the moment that there actually is a deal and the U.S. has gotten rights to half of Venezuela's oil, etc. Well, Donald Trump runs all this stuff as if this is a personal deal with him. But if it actually is a deal with the United States, at some point, Donald Trump will be gone. And it's looking more and more like, you know, the Democrats have the advantage going into the next presidential election.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:32]
| So I joked, you know, Pete Buttigieg or whoever, President Buttigieg, should immediately put Hunter Biden in charge of our Venezuelan oil.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:41]
| I love it.
|
Sam:
[1:06:42]
| Just because.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:43]
| Yeah, I love it. Yes. Yes. I love this plan.
|
Sam:
[1:06:46]
| You know, they thought there was an issue with Burisma or whatever in Ukraine.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:50]
| Fuck it. No, no, no, no. Give him Venezuela. We'll give him the Venezuelan oil reserves. Yes. I like this plan. Sounds like a great plan.
|
Sam:
[1:06:58]
| Yeah. And, you know, just for another detour, I mean, every single fucking time I've seen Hunter Biden in the last six months, he seems more impressive and more like on the spot and like just nailing things. Because at this point, he has nothing to lose. He's just saying what he thinks. Yeah. He's actually, well, look, he is, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm not saying he should necessarily run for president.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:27]
| Listen, for all his personal failings, okay, one thing that you cannot deny is that he is incredibly articulate and incisive on what is going on.
|
Sam:
[1:07:39]
| Yeah. And, and at the moment, I mean, until we hear otherwise, he is in recovery. You know, the addict, and he owns all the issues he had. He's like, yes, I was a drug addict. Yes, I was an asshole. Yes, I did these things wrong and I did those things wrong. And I was a horrible human being. But I'm working on it. I recognize it. I'm, you know, moving past those things. I'll always be an addict because you are a recovering addict, but you're not cured.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:16]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:08:16]
| And you have to be vigilant the rest of your life and all that kind of stuff. No, he's pretty damn impressive. And more and more, he's reminding me of his father when his father was younger as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:29]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:08:31]
| They look similar. And, of course, they're father-son. But they look similar. They sound similar.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:36]
| Yeah, but there are father-son that don't. I mean, look at which one.
|
Sam:
[1:08:39]
| I know. There are. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:41]
| Eric Trump doesn't look anything like fucking Donald. I mean, you know, or Donald Jr. or one of those. I know his kids. I mean, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:08:50]
| Eric looks less than, you know, yeah, but anyway, but yes, they're, he's looking pretty impressive. And, you know, like I said, I'm not saying he should run for president next week or anything like that. But I think he has a place in the public debate. And I don't mind him being visible and involved, and maybe running for some office sometime, you know, I wouldn't mind, you know? yeah um and and it wouldn't be like all the stuff coming out later like graham platner in maine it would be like oh yeah we know all the shit you did right so, it's all out there already yeah yeah unless he starts doing new shit of course but.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:34]
| Right right right one other thing that uh is very clear from this too yeah which man joe is such a good dad.
|
Sam:
[1:09:46]
| Yeah still yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:48]
| I mean i i, I got to say, I truly, I think one big motivation that why Hunter is out there speaking also is because he knows his dad got a lot of shit for his personal foibles.
|
Sam:
[1:10:03]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:04]
| And he wants to set people straight on how good a dad his father was. Because, you know, look, you can be the best dad ever. And, you know, your son, you know, your father may have been the best dad ever, say. But, you know, you may, you know, you don't, you fail in certain things. You don't do certain things the way that you hoped you did. Even like, you know, we're not, nobody's perfect. But you can tell that, you know, that even through all of that, and we knew this. I mean, don't you remember that some of the text messages that Joe sent Hunter encouraging him, in kind words and stuff that the republicans were trying to use those to kind of like supposedly try to shame, joe biden because he sent encouraging words to his son and and loving words and and we were like here on the on the podcast we're going wait this is supposed to be bad, what because he's not like donald trump who goes and just shit all his shits all over his kids or tries to fuck him.
|
Sam:
[1:11:14]
| Anyway. Uh-huh. Okay. One last thing just to mention, and then we need to start wrapping this sucker up. The Nepal floods. I mean, I've seen a few videos of them. Yo, it's just like...
|
Ivan:
[1:11:27]
| That is just...
|
Sam:
[1:11:28]
| There's walls...
|
Ivan:
[1:11:29]
| Oh, my God. That was just...
|
Sam:
[1:11:31]
| You want to describe some of it? I mean, it's just huge walls of water coming down.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:35]
| Look, I mean, I think the main thing is just the first video of it. The first video that I saw was this train station where people, you see them running, where apparently they can see that the floodwaters are coming. And then all of a sudden, just this wall hits them, and they have no chance. It just obliterated everything right in front of your eyes. And it did so. Also, there was another one where they're showing what looked like a bus station or something, some buildings. Some buildings, same thing. Just the people are running. As hard as they can, and then this flood just comes through and just destroys everything in front of you. And by the way, it's very, looking now, digging more into what the cause of this is, that it's definitely glaziers that melted, that collapsed.
|
Sam:
[1:12:25]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:27]
| That caused this. Somebody was also mentioning that apparently the Trump administration dismantled the system that we had in order to help monitor those.
|
Sam:
[1:12:35]
| Because climate change isn't real, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:37]
| Correct. Yes. yeah isn't that great.
|
Sam:
[1:12:40]
| No and i mean there's not much to say other than you know my oh my god it was horrible uh but but yeah it seemed like worth noting.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:50]
| And uh and.
|
Sam:
[1:12:51]
| And okay right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:52]
| The death toll is gonna be much worse than what we know like right now there's just it is.
|
Sam:
[1:12:57]
| Oh yeah like hundreds and hundreds missing yeah yeah so okay shall we wrap things up yvonne yes i think we should I gotta get to the airport. And I was saying, you know, my connection's not that great. The live stream is blurry. And the upload of the high-quality version, which normally when we're recording is pegged at like 99, 100% the whole time, is at like 15% right now. So after I hit stop, it's going to still like need 20 minutes to upload my damn video. So anyway, we'll wrap it up.
|
Sam:
[1:13:36]
| And then I got to go to the airport and fly home. curmudgeons-corner.com go to our website look at our stuff you can see all our old episodes transcripts of the last couple years of episodes but, the archive all the way back to episode 1 in 2007 if you want to listen to old stuff all the ways to contact us so you can get in touch with myself Yvonne or both, and of course our Patreon where you can give us a little cash money at various levels we will mention you on the show we will ring a bell well, we will send you a postcard, we'll send you a mug, and importantly, at $2 a month or more, or, if you ask nicely and we feel like it, we will invite you to the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of others are sharing links throughout the week and chatting about one thing or another and all of this kind of stuff. And so, Yvonne, what is an enticing thing that was shared or discussed on the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack that would make people really feel bad that they're not in there and want to be in there that we have not talked about on the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:43]
| Ah, let me see. Let me see. Well, I did share that apparently they shut down this alleged necrophilia brothel in rural Missouri.
|
Sam:
[1:14:58]
| Did you ever confirm this was real?
|
Ivan:
[1:15:01]
| They took some story and kind of twisted it, and it's not really real. But it appears to have been based on something related to a place that handled dead people that wasn't handling it the right way. but they they kind of uh exaggerated it.
|
Sam:
[1:15:22]
| They weren't they weren't actually selling access for.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:25]
| People to have sex with the dead bodies here's the reality what would have surprised you if that actually was happening would you have been like, i mean it was believable i told you somewhere in the world that is happening right now you know you you did not discard it immediately as that, you know, you didn't hear it and you say, oh, that's bullshit. That's ridiculous. That's unreal. You have to be, hmm, wow.
|
Sam:
[1:15:52]
| Well, to be fair, the very first response on the curmudgeon's corner slack, I forget who said it first, but was like, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:59]
| Is that real? That can't be real. Can it? So understand, it wasn't completely discarding it. It was, there were doubts. But that's where we are at right now.
|
Sam:
[1:16:13]
| Okay. Okay. Okay. That is fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:18]
| That is exciting. Sam was cleaning up apparently his, He was helping his dad. I mean, you were helping your dad sort your apartment, which I wish, like, there's something that you're doing at somebody else's place. Sort his stuff. Not you won't do it with yours. You'll do it at somebody else's place. No, no. You know, yeah. Yours? Fuck no, right?
|
Sam:
[1:16:40]
| Yeah, of course. Yeah, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:43]
| I don't have time for that shit. But apparently, you found a very useful zip drive.
|
Sam:
[1:16:45]
| I'm here. I'm visiting.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:46]
| Zip drive. Huh?
|
Sam:
[1:16:48]
| Oh, to be clear, in case I didn't say, the reason I'm in Ohio, I'm visiting my dad. I'm visiting my stepmom. My aunt was here too. My sister was here. My sister's husband. My sister's kid. They were all here. We were all here at the same time. So it was like a little mini family reunion for about a week. A little under a week. But yeah. So I was helping him go through his stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:12]
| And what did I find.
|
Sam:
[1:17:13]
| Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:13]
| A zip drive. A parallel port zip drive. Okay. No, no, no. The instruction guy.
|
Sam:
[1:17:19]
| No, no, no, no, no, no. We did not find the zip drive. The instruction manual to the zip drive. Now, he was not ready to part with the instruction manual because he thinks the zip drive itself may possibly still be at his apartment in D.C. And so he'll look for it next time he's there.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:37]
| Or it's a parallel port.
|
Sam:
[1:17:39]
| Because he's probably got some zip. Because he's probably got some zip.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:43]
| Does he have a computer that could connect to a parallel port?
|
Sam:
[1:17:45]
| That has things on it that he might want to read. You'd probably need some adapters.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:49]
| You think?
|
Sam:
[1:17:51]
| I'm sure it's possible. I'm sure it's possible.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:53]
| Might be easier to be fine, but there were SCSI zip drives. It might be easier to get, like, you know, get one, you know, not a parallel board.
|
Sam:
[1:18:03]
| I have seen pictures of, like, people who have constructed, like, USB-C, to parallel through, like, chaining, like, six different adapters going through different older and older technologies. And they say it works.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:21]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:18:21]
| Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:23]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:18:23]
| You know, so... Now, some of those older adapters may be harder to find these days. But, you know, we've got the Internet. I'm sure you can find, like, you may have to go to eBay for something really obscure. But I'm sure it's findable. Now, you know, but, no, that was cool. Now, I'm sure somewhere in my garage I probably actually do have a zip drive as well. Because I do think I had one at some point in time.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:50]
| Did I ever buy a zip drive? You know what? I think I did not buy a zip drive because I bought a jazz drive, which was...
|
Sam:
[1:19:02]
| Oh, which is also from iOmega, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:06]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:06]
| They were both iOmega. It was like the next level up.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:09]
| Right, which had like 10 times the storage. And it kind of like worked at the speed of a hard drive. Yeah. The zip drives were slower.
|
Sam:
[1:19:16]
| Well, it came out later. They came out with zip drive first, and then a couple years later, the jazz drives were the successors. We're old, Yvonne. We're old. The fact that we can say ZipDrive and know what the fuck it is by itself indicates our age. Now, obviously, I'm here with my dad. My dad is older than I am. But for any, like, younger person coming up, ZipDrive?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:44]
| What are we?
|
Sam:
[1:19:44]
| What the fuck are you talking about?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:46]
| Like, what was the comment? Like, this was a true comment. Somebody is like, huh, look, you've got, like, a little physical representation of the little save icon. What is that?
|
Sam:
[1:19:57]
| Yeah, why did you 3D print the save icon?
|
Ivan:
[1:20:01]
| Yeah, anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:20:03]
| Yeah, okay. I think we're done, Yvonne. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. We'll see you next week if all goes well. As I said last week, Yvonne, we'll see you next week unless my plane crashes. And then I can't promise anything. Yeah, so anyway, hopefully there won't be any issues there. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week. stay safe, have fun, all of the stuff I usually say, and we'll be on again next week.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:33]
| Bye!
|
Sam:
[1:20:34]
| Goodbye! Okay, I'm going to hit stop, Yvonne. You can go once you hit 100%, but I'm at 15%, so it's probably going to take me like 20 minutes, 30 minutes to upload the damn video. We'll see you later. Have a great week. Okay, bye. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
| |
|
