Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Yeah alex prepared something for us to use for our breaks three breaks so, we'll see how that is i have not listened to it once again but they're not like they're not like 30 minutes long this time they're like three minutes long each three to four minutes one of them shorter i think yeah uh three, three 39 four minutes and 40 seconds for the three breaks, Okay, here it goes. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, October 17th, 2026. It is just before 18 UTC as we are starting to record. You know, I almost said it was 2023. I'm lucky I didn't say 2003 or 1995, you know, but you're going to do the Conan O'Brien.
|
Ivan:
[1:18]
| And then, yeah, I don't have like three.
|
Sam:
[1:24]
| Flashlight she should get.
|
Ivan:
[1:26]
| My flashlight it's, a year 2000.
|
Sam:
[1:35]
| It's a year 2000 there you go 20.
|
Ivan:
[1:36]
| Almost 27 years ago.
|
Sam:
[1:40]
| Yes as we had those uh 25th anniversary of uh 9-11 things i was going to say celebrations but not celebrations, as we had those.
|
Ivan:
[1:50]
| As we had those.
|
Sam:
[1:51]
| Well maybe donald You know.
|
Ivan:
[1:53]
| If Donald would have been there, maybe he would have turned it into a celebration and started doing some of that stupid dancing that he does.
|
Sam:
[1:58]
| But, of course, that clearly points out, you know, there are 25-year-olds walking around who were born after that, you know, and...
|
Ivan:
[2:07]
| Fucking hell. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:11]
| Um, you know, and we've, we've talked before election wise, how, you know, there's this, you know, there's a whole generation of people that barely even remembers Obama.
|
Ivan:
[2:22]
| Look, there is this entire number of people that are over 40 that are 40. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:29]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:30]
| Well, I try to explain how we lived in fear of the cold war and nuclear annihilation. And they look at me like I'm some kind of crazy bastard.
|
Sam:
[2:41]
| Right. Ancient history.
|
Ivan:
[2:43]
| I mean, but seriously, Sam, they don't understand. What do you mean you guys were worried about a nuclear holocaust? Like, yes! Do you not understand this?
|
Sam:
[2:56]
| No, no. I mean, it's, you know, it was a worry that had receded by the time they were old enough to be forming memories of what was, going on outside their own households.
|
Ivan:
[3:08]
| Right? Truly a short destruction.
|
Sam:
[3:12]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[3:14]
| This is an alien concept to these people.
|
Sam:
[3:16]
| Well, what I worry about more than, you know, people not remembering, you know, stuff that happened when we were kids is the whole generation that their only experience of American political life is centered around Donald Trump. That's how it's always been, as far as they know. Like what what we have experienced in the two Donald Trump administrations with a brief interlude with Biden is just this is how things are. This is how things work. It's always you know, this is why the perception that, you know, everything is broken. We have to tear down the whole system because there is no memory of things working in a reasonable way for a whole generation of people at this point. Because all of so. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[4:07]
| Well, you have also the fact that this is something that you and I.
|
Sam:
[4:11]
| Not that it was all that great before, but it's so much worse since 2015 or so.
|
Ivan:
[4:18]
| Well.
|
Sam:
[4:19]
| I'm measuring to when he came down the escalator, right?
|
Ivan:
[4:21]
| Well, here's the thing. Not that this has changed, but we've known this for, we've discussed this many times, the issue of people not even... really understanding history and and number number one and.
|
Sam:
[4:37]
| Number two the fact that they don't.
|
Ivan:
[4:39]
| They don't even remember what the fuck happened 10 20 years ago.
|
Sam:
[4:42]
| Right not only history but also yeah yes definitely history that ties into what we've been talking but also just plain like, even if you came in with zero historical knowledge the basic like you know how, things work how things work how the branches of government are supposed to interact how you know the different levels of government what happens at states versus what happens at national oh god yeah all of this kind of stuff is like complete you know it's like i mean some of it, is just like hey people are stupid people were always stupid there's a significant portion of the people who are always ignorant but i think there is a significant part of this that like, we're just not teaching this stuff properly anymore to like.
|
Ivan:
[5:29]
| You know, as well. you're, you're, you're also romanticizing them. Listen, people didn't remember shit. I know. They're historic.
|
Sam:
[5:38]
| People have always been stupid.
|
Ivan:
[5:40]
| I mean, they've been ignorant of history.
|
Sam:
[5:43]
| Yes, that, that is always true. It is a, the percentage of, the percentage of people for both of the things we were talking about, just knowing how, how things work and having any sort of historical knowledge at all, It has always been a province of a small percentage that, you know, you can mark, okay, the elites or whatever. One marker of being the elites is that you have the time and energy and willingness to actually spend time on these things, understanding these stuff. Because the quote-unquote normal person doesn't care. They're too busy with their day-to-day lives.
|
Ivan:
[6:25]
| Yeah. So, you know, I don't know. I was briefing Sam about, so now since, you know, I had been avoiding talking about this on the podcast, not because I am like somehow ashamed or embarrassed about this in any way. There were practical reasons for it, okay? I got noticed about a month ago specifically that my employment with my employer, is ending in about a week.
|
Sam:
[7:05]
| A week from now, not a week from your notice.
|
Ivan:
[7:07]
| A week from now, yeah, and a week from today. In the typical modern fashion Except that, My direct manager Who happens to be a vice president Actually, didn't like that So he called me the day before Because he found out It wasn't even his decision And he decided Look, I'm not doing this to you I gotta call you Because this is ridiculous But you're gonna be getting an email Tomorrow at six in the morning That, you know, you will no longer, That, you know, that your employer We'll end with the company on, October 20-something, whatever the heck it is, 24th, I think it is, to be exact. Um, but the thing is I had been in the middle of interviews because a company had called me and one of the things that I was trying to do is, uh, uh, uh, negotiate with them in part of, you know, some money and stuff or whatever things that my, my pending, you know, if they do, I, well, when I started talking to them, this wasn't, you know, I was not, I was employed. Right. I, this was right.
|
Sam:
[8:12]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[8:13]
| So it didn't help me to divulge to any, the two suitors that were inner, that I was interviewing with to know that my, that, that I had a set end date in the future. Okay. Um, that, that really helped me, but it, as it happens to be my luck being, which, you know, uh, with two, you know, very heavily involved lengthy interviews. interview process. And I wound up not being the candidate chosen on both.
|
Sam:
[8:47]
| Oh yeah.
|
Ivan:
[8:48]
| I know. It was like fucking hell. i mean one of them i interviewed with all the top this was a very a senior executive job, i wound up interviewing with the entire executive staff of the company as a mid-sized company it's like you know it's like in the hundreds you know 500 million in revenue size not yet not multi-billion still you know we think 500 million like now nowadays we're talking about, trillion dollar companies like it's nothing listen people 500 million dollar companies are pretty big company okay you know so so um, you know so i interviewed with all the executives i did all the things tried to cross all the t's not all the i's and when i got back is no people had great feedback but they felt that this other candidate was better, okay and i'm just like fucking hell.
|
Ivan:
[9:41]
| Um so uh, you know uh a few people on the slack i had told the people on the slack a number of them have been have been helping helping me trying to identify some opportunities have been very helpful video getting some stuff, moving that way i've talked to a lot of people like i i i don't know i got a lot of i got a lot of uh hooks in the water like right now uh, but uh i mean, Because of things that have happened before, they did extend my date, like in a certain way that I was able to collect the stock that was vesting due to me. So instead of like, so, so, and I, you know, since I'm in sales, I'd sold a lot. So we're doing, you know, we should be fine for, we should be fine. Look, listen, we are perfectly fine.
|
Sam:
[10:39]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[10:40]
| There is no no impending like doom of any kind of like becoming to my family anytime soon. You know, and my wife actually is planned to start a full time job with the with the county with state with the elections. And so that will solve the issue of, like, health benefits.
|
Sam:
[11:01]
| Right. That's critically important. And that's critical because that was the one thing that had me. On the Slack, one of the things we talked about is that's one of the things in my situation I didn't have to worry about at the very beginning. My wife was employed, had insurance. We seamlessly moved over from my insurance to her insurance. There were, like, a couple minor differences. There were, like, a couple things that I had that weren't covered. And I'm like, okay, whatever. We'll deal with it. We'll adjust, you know. So but but.
|
Ivan:
[11:29]
| But we've talked but it was seamless because of these changes that that the Republican administration did eliminating a whole bunch of subsidies. How how premiums right now, especially for people like our age in the 50s, are are soared. OK, like right now, you know, they are just through the roof. And so it's one of those things where if I went out right now in the marketplace to try to get health coverage, it would it would cost a it would cost a fortune. And because probably even still into next year, even me unemployed, I will have significant taxable income. So I won't qualify anyway for most of the subsidies, especially because this state where I live is kind of fucked up in this. And that's so, um, so, you know, it's very, it's very expensive to be, uh, without healthcare in America.
|
Sam:
[12:25]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[12:26]
| From provide an employer. It's the, it's, it's, it's, it is one of the most ridiculous things. Uh, you know, amazing that Hillary tried to solve this, you know, in the nineties and got like attacked. Like she was a communist.
|
Sam:
[12:44]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[12:46]
| And the reality is that it's one of the things that has probably made life so, more difficult in America is the fact that, you know what? We should have fucking like gone all in on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on Hillary get her damn Hillary care through.
|
Sam:
[13:03]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[13:04]
| And America, Americans would be living a way, way, way, way, way, way better.
|
Sam:
[13:11]
| You see these graphs periodically comparing the U.S. to all these other countries in terms of health care results versus amounts spent on health care.
|
Ivan:
[13:22]
| Oh, yeah. Oh, Jesus.
|
Sam:
[13:23]
| And it's like, you know, it would be one thing if, you know, our system produced better results. But it doesn't. But it doesn't.
|
Ivan:
[13:32]
| No, not at all. No, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[13:35]
| No. It produces measurably worse results than any other health care system for, you know, a modern industrialized country. You know, exclude some countries that are clearly having other issues, you know. But if you compare to our cohort of basically rich nations, we're worse than all of them pretty much. Right? Am I remembering these charts right, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[14:03]
| You are remembering this correctly. Yes.
|
Sam:
[14:06]
| And, um, yeah. And so, I mean, it's, it's remarkable in the, in the end, when you look back at it, it's a, it's a shame Hillary didn't get something like what she wanted. It's remarkable that Obama got the ACA done and the Democrats paid a huge cost for it. But 10 years later, it started kicking in fully and, uh, it's made a difference.
|
Ivan:
[14:33]
| Well, a lot of people have, you know, have realized it. Because now when you ask people about Obamacare and its popularity, that has swung completely.
|
Sam:
[14:46]
| Well, even there, though, like there's a difference between asking about, like, you know, your local state plan that happens to actually be Obamacare versus if you actually use the words Obamacare. Right. Because people don't.
|
Ivan:
[15:00]
| No, no, no. But I think no. But I've seen surveys. So you ask them about— Even with the name. —with the word Obamacare.
|
Sam:
[15:07]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[15:09]
| They—right now— It's turned around some. Yes. It's turned around quite a lot, okay, from where it was right after passage, okay? Which is one of those things, like, right after passage, the things hadn't fully, been—hadn't been implemented yet. So they could talk about whatever, and it's one of those things that after they—oh, wait. oh so wait well there don't weren't like what was the the death panels remember, the death the death we're gonna have death panels yes death panels.
|
Sam:
[15:41]
| They're very active i'm.
|
Ivan:
[15:43]
| I'm very worried.
|
Sam:
[15:44]
| That they could come for me at any moment um yeah yeah i mean and.
|
Ivan:
[15:50]
| Obviously we still have.
|
Sam:
[15:51]
| A long way to go but.
|
Ivan:
[15:52]
| So look the one thing i i will it it uh, Nobody should have any pity for me for the fact that I lost my corporate job. Even without my corporate job economically, we are far better off than most.
|
Sam:
[16:12]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[16:14]
| I mean, it changes what my plans on certain things are or whatever. Well, I don't, know. I think I'll land something. I'm pretty sure I will be able to land something else. I've been, you know, look, it's only been a month and I've been like close to landing something already twice. So I'm guessing that if I've been that active in that short about a period of time, I figured that something, will come up. I actually asked, like, for example, what are the jobs that I was like applying to? Like, I called my boss, well, who, by the way, told me that I still show up as reporting to him in the company. It's like, hey, you know, you're cool with the recommendation, right? He's like, are you kidding? He's like, yes. Who do you want me to write? Who do you want me to call? Just tell me. Okay. So that's the thing. I'm like, this is like my, my, my, my, all my former bosses have actually been. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'll recommend you blindly. I don't even have to think about this. So that's helpful. And I actually, I did talk, there is one right now. Look, I say this. There's actually one opportunity that I could take right away. But there's a series of things that I are like.
|
Sam:
[17:40]
| You're going to be a greeter at Walmart.
|
Ivan:
[17:43]
| Um, uh, no, no, but it involves one of my former.
|
Sam:
[17:48]
| Every time somebody comes into the store, you're like, fuck you leave. Why are you here? Go somewhere better.
|
Ivan:
[17:55]
| You know, that would, that would, that would be interesting. I like this idea, but no, that, not that, but it involves one of my former employers that I'm just kind of like a little bit like, I don't know. It, it, it, it.
|
Sam:
[18:11]
| It, I, I, it would feel like going backwards.
|
Ivan:
[18:14]
| Yes i understand yes and and i i'm just like nah nah i i mean it's, it it's a possibility but part of here here is the problem i will tell you this flat out the, the problem is right my wife has taken this job and it requires her to be on site five days a week if i'm gonna take a job that involves travel it needs to pay enough that she could quit her job right it can't be kind of in the middle, because it's it's kind of okay pay but it doesn't like really it, it's you we would need to have both jobs really in order to by the way that's actually just to make our my, our financial goals not to not to live okay but if i'm planning on like retirement how i want it structured it would be ideal to be at both but if i have to travel all the time, that makes her being able to do her job almost impossible.
|
Sam:
[19:15]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[19:17]
| So I, that's why I'm like, this is a, Well, yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, it's tricky.
|
Sam:
[19:25]
| This is like, you know, honestly, look, you know, we've talked before in my situation. I'm sort of I have settled into that. I am trying to make it work without going back to a corporate job. This is this is my plan right now. And I don't know if I'll be able to or not. I my my best guess is I probably need some sort of supplemental income, but I don't really need to go back to a job like I had. But I'll need something to make a gap because the stock market just has to do too well, an unrealistically high expectation of the stock market to be able to go with no additional income. But I probably don't need a full replace what I had before. I just need something to meet some sort of gap. And I don't really know exactly how big that gap is yet. But so far, like up until like a week or two ago, my balance was actually up from where I started, even though I've been living off selling stock since July.
|
Ivan:
[20:33]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[20:33]
| But not anymore, just based on moves in the last few weeks. I'm now down a little bit.
|
Ivan:
[20:40]
| But still, considering that, Sam, you're going to be out of work now. Next month will be a year.
|
Sam:
[20:47]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[20:47]
| And basically what you are is just what percentage down would you estimate from, like, if you went back a year, where are you now from one year ago?
|
Sam:
[20:58]
| Yeah, I will bring up the, let me do, I'm not going to say the numbers out loud, but I'm going to bring them up.
|
Ivan:
[21:07]
| I'm talking percentage.
|
Sam:
[21:07]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, compared to one year ago, I am just looking at what used to be my retirement account. Okay. I'm up 11% from a year ago.
|
Ivan:
[21:28]
| So you are up. Think about this. You haven't worked for a year, and you're up 11%.
|
Sam:
[21:34]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[21:36]
| Better than a poke in the eye with a stick.
|
Sam:
[21:39]
| Well, right. You know? Yeah. So that's a good way of, yeah, yeah. So I mean, but again, like I'm completely at the whims of the stock market, and particularly mostly by my old company's stock.
|
Ivan:
[21:54]
| So are most people in retirement. I mean, that's really a reality. You know? So, look, let's be clear. At this point, you're up 11%.
|
Sam:
[22:08]
| Now, there are a couple of important factors here.
|
Ivan:
[22:11]
| Yeah?
|
Sam:
[22:13]
| I've got two more weeks of unemployment, and then that source goes away.
|
Ivan:
[22:18]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[22:19]
| Okay? So, like, that is, you know, I have been getting... uh income from that most of the year right um so how will the balance change once that's gone okay that's one thing obviously how does the.
|
Ivan:
[22:35]
| Stock actually you know what i didn't factor in in my in my estimate, of my cash unemployment i i actually gotta i gotta have that calculation which i i know i've got it teed up to to apply but the reality is that if i add that money uh then actually yeah right.
|
Sam:
[22:56]
| So, so anyway, the, the, but what I was going to say that that's sort of a sideline to it. So I, you know, thank you for making me look year over year. I've actually only been counting like whether I'm up or down from the point I like rejiggered all my retirement to make part of it liquid. But anyway, the the, me not working completely like what I'm doing with Alex and his school would not work if I had a nine to five job, period. End of story. You know, I am because my days during the week are basically I drive him to school and I sit there near the school for a few hours and then I pick him up and take him home because he's out of school an hour from home. and he won't take other forms of transportation there other than one of us taking him. And so, like, I basically, you know, if I had a full-time job, I could not do that. He would not be able to do what he does for school because Brandy couldn't do it either because of her job.
|
Sam:
[24:00]
| So, like, if I were to get a full-time job tomorrow, we'd have to drastically change the... a whole lot of things about like what Alex is doing with his school and his life. And, you know, we have to figure out those kinds of things. So like, I don't know. And, you know, and I'm not, and I'm working on my little side projects. You guys all know about Robin letter and the other things, but even there, I'm not spending as much time on it as I would like to. I'm not making a full-time job out of those either because I've got the other stuff I'm doing, you know? So, so progress is slow on those kinds of things. And who knows if they'll ever make a dime, let alone like anything significant. Right now they cost money every month, this show included. You know, this show, Robin Letter, the other things I do, all of them cost money. They're hobbies. They are not income generating at this point. You know, thank you to those of you in the Slack, but like the 25 bucks a month does not make a huge difference to the annual budget.
|
Ivan:
[25:01]
| But don't cancel it.
|
Sam:
[25:03]
| But don't cancel it, right.
|
Ivan:
[25:05]
| Okay, we're not, You know, we're not, you know, we're not, you know, we're not saying no, no, no. Right now, 25 bucks is better than what we're making. Well, actually, I'm still getting paid by my employer.
|
Sam:
[25:18]
| For like two more weeks. Right.
|
Ivan:
[25:19]
| A week. A couple. Well, a little bit longer than that, actually. There's a severance and then there's COBRA.
|
Sam:
[25:29]
| There's stuff. There's stuff.
|
Ivan:
[25:30]
| There's stuff. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[25:31]
| Anyway, but it's an interesting time for this. And like you said, the health insurance is a big part of it. Like what my options would be and what I could or could not do would be entirely different. If my wife didn't have health insurance.
|
Ivan:
[25:50]
| I don't think it's a coincidence that we're both unemployed during the Trump economy.
|
Sam:
[25:55]
| No?
|
Ivan:
[25:56]
| No.
|
Sam:
[25:58]
| Go ahead and elaborate, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[26:00]
| Well, think about this. What has been the biggest thing that these assholes that are aligned with Trump for the most part, who are the people that they hate the most?
|
Sam:
[26:13]
| Educated elites from the coasts.
|
Ivan:
[26:17]
| Yeah, that are like the professional class like us. Yes. They despise us.
|
Sam:
[26:25]
| And you've got that extra Puerto Rican thing going, too.
|
Ivan:
[26:27]
| Oh, yeah, that doesn't help either.
|
Sam:
[26:30]
| I can't claim anything like that. I'm like.
|
Ivan:
[26:32]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[26:33]
| I'm pasty.
|
Ivan:
[26:34]
| No, no. Yeah, yeah, you're a pasty white boy.
|
Sam:
[26:40]
| Yeah, no. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[26:42]
| Speaking of which, I had a friend of mine.
|
Sam:
[26:45]
| Speaking of pasty white boys?
|
Ivan:
[26:46]
| Yeah, yeah. I was going to tell you. I had a friend of mine who decided to get a DNA test. Okay. Because they were like, well, I want to understand. you know i think i'm probably like 50 percent uh uh puerto rican 50 spain or whatever she gives a dna test, she's 80 irish okay and she's like what the fuck so she starts digging, she finds out her father passed away like some time ago not not not too long she found out that, She wasn't, she was, she was, her mom was her mom, but her dad wasn't her dad.
|
Sam:
[27:31]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[27:33]
| That, I guess that.
|
Sam:
[27:34]
| You know, people find out things like that a lot from DNA tests. You know, that or siblings they didn't know about, you know, things like that.
|
Ivan:
[27:42]
| And apparently her mom had, had a, had a fling with somebody and the guy didn't want the child. She, she kept it. She had the child. she met the guy who became a father and they married and he was like I'm adopting this girl but you know this guy was man, I had met her father like a few times man great guy such a great guy you know, and raised her and everything and that was like you know she was her baby and she realized now I'm like this, guy you know this happened like back in the 60s and 70s when there was a lot of stigma around like you know kids had a wet log especially right, but that but she realized that she didn't understand why the hell her body was like why she was like pasty white whatever and she realizes fuck i'm irish, this is why.
|
Sam:
[28:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[28:45]
| Well, it explains a lot.
|
Sam:
[28:47]
| Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Okay. I was going to say we should take our break soon. I haven't done any movies, but we had a fairly long conversation. I'll do like maybe the two minute version of each of these. Oh, also, I just want to say the 11% up year over year is great news. but also just just to be clear since i started taking money out i'm slightly down.
|
Ivan:
[29:16]
| Yeah yeah yeah but whatever you're cherry pick this is the whole thing about cherry picking time periods you know i don't cherry pick any fucking time period i come i'm up with a with this is what everybody oh over the over the last three years we were up 80 i'm like oh the last three years how about the last five oh we were down right oh.
|
Sam:
[29:35]
| Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, but there is a difference between when I was just letting the balance ride versus, okay, I'm now actually withdrawing from it.
|
Ivan:
[29:42]
| No, but my point, no, yeah, but the point is that from the moment that you really were told that you were going to be unemployed to now, you are not down. You're actually up. So therefore, you know, you're good.
|
Sam:
[29:55]
| Yeah, yeah, there you go. Okay, let me do the quick version of these movies, because I think that's probably all they deserve anyway. So I'll do two, because as we talked about last week, if I don't do two a week, we're never catching up to anything ever, ever again.
|
Ivan:
[30:11]
| Well, I mean, you know, we may have to start doing two podcasts a week at this point.
|
Sam:
[30:16]
| One will just be all movies.
|
Ivan:
[30:19]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[30:19]
| Yeah, no.
|
Ivan:
[30:20]
| Or it's not Siskel and Ebert. It's Minter and Bo.
|
Sam:
[30:24]
| Yeah, there you go. Or I can watch less movies. You know, that's also a possibility. Which partially the bumped up thing, the bumped up volume, by the way, at least two different causes. One, yes, I've been unemployed.
|
Ivan:
[30:43]
| I got more time!
|
Sam:
[30:44]
| I got more time. More stuff is being watched than was before. Second is actually the way we do our 10 shows. Like we have, every time Alex and I watch something, I roll a number from one to 10. Nine of those are TV shows. One is a movie. But the thing is, we went through a long period of months where some of those TV shows were done, but I hadn't replaced them on the list yet. So the chance of a movie being picked went up from 10% to significantly higher for a while. I finally have replaced a couple of those TV shows in the last couple of weeks. and there's still two empty slots, we'll fill them sometime but we were down to six there being a one in six chance of there being a movie instead of a one in ten now we're at a one in eight chance of a movie anyway, Whatever. Number one from 2003, Daredevil. Have you seen this movie?
|
Ivan:
[31:41]
| Daredevil. What year?
|
Sam:
[31:45]
| 2003.
|
Ivan:
[31:46]
| Who's in it?
|
Sam:
[31:50]
| Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clark Duncan, Colin Farrell, Joe Pantolano, John Favreau, and David Keith.
|
Ivan:
[32:03]
| I mean, it's a lot of people I know. I got to think that I've watched this, but I don't remember the movie.
|
Sam:
[32:10]
| It's a superhero movie. It's a Marvel movie.
|
Ivan:
[32:13]
| Oh, then definitely I did not watch it.
|
Sam:
[32:14]
| But not part of the MCU proper.
|
Ivan:
[32:19]
| You know what? No, no, no. Now I kind of remember. Well, I didn't. Okay, this is one of those movies that I'm aware of because this was at the time of, you know, like linear TV mostly, right?
|
Sam:
[32:33]
| 2003.
|
Ivan:
[32:33]
| And I'm probably scrolled past it on one of the movie channels. And I saw some of it and I'm pretty sure that I thought, what the fuck is this shit?
|
Sam:
[32:42]
| Well, I will tell you, um, my.
|
Ivan:
[32:46]
| Is your, is your conclusion also after we're talking about what the fuck is this shit?
|
Sam:
[32:50]
| Well, basically, look, my conclusion is, look, when I brought this up and said, okay, this is the one on the list that I'm going to talk about today. I was like, I don't remember this at all.
|
Ivan:
[33:05]
| Fuck. I mean, look, we were at the same boat. I'm like, what the fuck is this?
|
Sam:
[33:10]
| So, I mean, I looked it up. I have the Wikipedia page. I mean, I knew it was a superhero movie, but I'm like, do I remember anything about the actual movie itself? Like, what was the plot?
|
Ivan:
[33:23]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[33:24]
| You know, what was my impression of it? And no. No. Like any, anything I am about to say about this movie is going to be, I'll read the first couple paragraphs of the plot or whatever, but I don't actually remember any of it, which.
|
Ivan:
[33:40]
| Yeah, I have no fucking, I mean, I'm telling you, I have some flash, flashing images of this in my head. Now that you mentioned that it's a superhero movie, and I kind of remember, the only thing I remember is how dumb I thought that Ben Affleck, who, by the way, has been in a lot of recent interviews that I've been hearing him talk about a whole bunch of things, is way smarter than I ever really gave him credit for. holy shit okay um i mean just really damn i mean wow i i i'm, just you know i'm so impressed with them okay uh but i thought that that and i like the number of ben aflack movies but that was not one of, them from what i remember i just was like yeah god okay let me watch something else, So what was your thought?
|
Sam:
[34:35]
| Well, look, you know, given my lack of memory of it, I think this fits firmly in thumb sideways territory because I can't say it was bad. I would remember it if it was bad.
|
Ivan:
[34:47]
| Right. It would be like, you know, because yeah, yeah, yeah. I get what you're saying. You would be like, shit, this thing sucked.
|
Sam:
[34:53]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[34:53]
| Fuck. But you're like, okay. Okay. It didn't. It wasn't like, oh, my God. I'll cherish this movie forever. But it wasn't like, oh, my God. The feeling of retching in my stomach isn't leaving me. When you hear it, go like, God, fucking piece of shit.
|
Sam:
[35:16]
| Exactly. And so, thumbs sideways. The first couple paragraphs of the plot. In 1982, young Matt Murdock is accidentally blinded by radioactive waste. This is shortly after he witnesses his father, washed-up boxer Jack the Devil Murdock, extorting money for local mob boss Eddie Fallon. Despite this, Matt's remaining senses are dramatically enhanced, giving him superhuman agility and sonar-like hearing. Feeling responsible for his son's accident, Jack is inspired to abandon his life of crime and recommit to his boxing career. This leads to a dramatic comeback. Later, after Fallon reveals that he enabled Jack's comeback by bribing his previous opponents to let him win, he attempts to bribe Jack to throw his next match, then has him murdered once he refuses.
|
Sam:
[36:05]
| Twenty years later, an adult Matt works as an attorney in Hell's Kitchen with his friend Franklin Foggy Nelson, providing legal representation pro bono to clients whom he believes are actually innocent. By night, he fights crime as the costumed vigilante daredevil. Ben Ehrlich, a New York Post reporter who chronicles daredevil's exploits, attracts attention for a series of articles on The Kingpin, a shadowy underworld figure who allegedly controls all of the city's organized crime. Unbeknownst to Uric, the Kingpin pin is actually Wilson Fisk, a brutal mobster who poses as a legitimate businessman. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. There's, you know, there's a love interest. There's, you know, other stuff. Anyway, thumb sideways. I mean, like I said, it left no impression on me at all. Like, so.
|
Ivan:
[36:59]
| Okay, very good.
|
Sam:
[37:01]
| Okay, next up. Ouija. Origin of Evil, a 2016 American supernatural horror film. Does that one excite you, Yvonne? This was the sequel to Ouija.
|
Ivan:
[37:23]
| Well, that cleared it up for me, Sam. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[37:25]
| Okay. Well, it was actually a prequel, to be clear.
|
Ivan:
[37:30]
| Oh, even better.
|
Sam:
[37:31]
| Because it's Origin of Evil. Ouija had these things happen.
|
Ivan:
[37:35]
| Right, right, right. Of course.
|
Sam:
[37:36]
| Ouija Origin of Evil goes back a generation to how the bad things that happened, happened that set up what happened in the first movie. I'll read the first couple paragraphs of the plot. In 1967 Los Angeles, a widow named Alice, Zander works out of her suburban home as a fake spiritual medium accompanied by her daughters, 15-year-old Paulina Linda and 9-year-old Doris. The family is reeling over the recent death of Roger, Alice's husband and the children's father. Alice incorporates a Ouija board into her readings and unknowingly contacts a spirit named Marcus that begins to possess Doris. After Alice receives notice of foreclosure on their home, Doris contacts the board for help, believing she is communicating with her dead father. The spirit leads Doris to a secret compartment in the basement wall containing a pouch of cash. When she gives her mother the money, the family has a Ouija session. When the board answers a question only Roger would know the answer to, A thrilled Alice begins believing that they are in contact with him. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. You can imagine things take a turn for the worse. The spirits they contacted are surprisingly not benevolent. And things happen. And that we know that this sets up the second movie. So, anyway.
|
Sam:
[39:04]
| I'm going to surprise myself. and give this slightly above a thumb sideways. Like, yeah, this is a stupid movie. It's a stupid horror movie. It's fairly like, you know, it has all the predictable beats of these kinds of things. But I actually do remember this a little bit and remember, like, basically enjoying it. It was not a great movie. It's not going to get a straight-up thumbs-up for me. But a little bit, you know, if I had to pick, are you going to see Ouija origin of evil again? Or are you going to see daredevil? I might pick Ouija origin of evil. It's not, you know, just, you know, it's not horrible. It's not great, but at least I remember it.
|
Sam:
[39:54]
| Yeah. And I'm sure like if, if you were making a movie poster for this, that would be the slogan you would want on it. At least I remember it. Right. I do. Yeah. Okay. so um yeah so, it it is it was okay maybe slightly better than okay not great it was just it, i mean it's probably a typical movie of this genre nothing special, uh but it was entertaining couple hours it was fun so there you go okay, So, I think we should move on, take a break, and then talk about newsy stuff. Since I'm about to play the thing Yvonne that Alex created, he's under my desk right now asleep because he's stayed up all night creating this, so I'm going to try to wake him up here. Alex, we're about to play your first break. Do you want to listen to, you've got the headphones on so you can hear Yvonne's reaction and whatever. So I have not heard this myself at all. This is three minutes and 39 seconds long. It is entitled, The Old Sam and Yvonne Dialogues, Episode 1. Are you prepared for this, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[41:11]
| Ah, sure.
|
Sam:
[41:13]
| Okay, here we go. Oh, my God.
|
SamClone:
[41:27]
| I'll see you, next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay, so we have, which appears to have been written by someone having a simultaneous argument with Japanese, English, and their keyboard.
|
IvanClone:
[41:43]
| What the f*** is this? Aburufunaf, Wilfunaf, Destorida, O, Eldu. Wait, wait, I see something!
|
SamClone:
[41:55]
| I think there are fragments buried in it. Storida could be the tail end of destroy the, and e is Japanese for picture or drawing.
|
IvanClone:
[42:04]
| Okay, so destoridao erudu. Jesus f***ing Christ. Is this somebody trying to type English while a Japanese IME is turned on?
|
SamClone:
[42:14]
| That would be my first theory. There are also these repeated LF chunks, which look less like intentional Japanese and more like keystrokes being interpreted incorrectly.
|
IvanClone:
[42:24]
| So we're not translating this. We're doing keyboard archaeology.
|
SamClone:
[42:28]
| Exactly. We have an artifact recovered from the ruins of someone's input method.
|
IvanClone:
[42:33]
| Aburufunaf, wirufunaf. I'm trying to sound it out, and it's making it worse. Aburufunaf, wirufunaf. This sounds like Cthulhu trying to order at a Wendy's.
|
SamClone:
[42:46]
| And then suddenly, storida. Actual, recognizable English emerges briefly from the wreckage.
|
IvanClone:
[42:52]
| Strida. The. Okay, I'm betting there was supposed to be something like destroy the in here. And then erudu. Could that mangled ending be world? Destroy the world?
|
SamClone:
[43:04]
| Maybe. That's plausible as a reconstruction, but I wouldn't claim it confidently. There isn't enough surviving information to uniquely reverse it. E being inserted where some keystrokes intended for English got converted to kanji could produce all kinds of weirdness.
|
IvanClone:
[43:19]
| So, our official translation is, unintelligible demonic keyboard noises possibly destroy the world.
|
SamClone:
[43:27]
| With a large asterisk.
|
IvanClone:
[43:29]
| A f***ing enormous asterisk. CC973.txt. Yeah, Sam, when the f*** did you learn Japanese?
|
SamClone:
[43:39]
| I didn't. I know just enough random stuff to confidently get myself into trouble.
|
IvanClone:
[43:43]
| You immediately went, ah yes, e means picture.
|
SamClone:
[43:47]
| Look, I have access to information.
|
IvanClone:
[43:49]
| That's not learning Japanese! That's cheating!
|
SamClone:
[43:52]
| I prefer using available resources.
|
IvanClone:
[43:55]
| Motherfucker pulls one kanji out of keyboard soup, and suddenly he's doing linguistic forensics!
|
SamClone:
[44:01]
| And you'll notice I still had absolutely no idea what the sentence said.
|
IvanClone:
[44:05]
| That part, I believed. Wait. Abulf-naf. Ugh. Oh, for f***s sake, Sam.
|
SamClone:
[44:14]
| Oh.
|
IvanClone:
[44:14]
| You were sitting there going, Abulf-naf. Mysterious keyboard noises. Abulf-naf!
|
SamClone:
[44:21]
| In my defense...
|
IvanClone:
[44:22]
| No! You don't get a defense! That's your own f***ing internet handle!
|
SamClone:
[44:26]
| Okay, yes. That should perhaps have occurred to me.
|
IvanClone:
[44:30]
| Cthulhu ordering at Wendy's. F***! It's you!
|
SamClone:
[44:34]
| This does substantially change the deciphering process.
|
IvanClone:
[44:38]
| You think?
|
Ivan:
[44:55]
| Okay that's just weird.
|
Sam:
[44:56]
| Okay that was episode one.
|
Ivan:
[44:59]
| That's just weird.
|
Sam:
[45:06]
| It's just it's just it's just right.
|
Ivan:
[45:10]
| Of course yeah that's exactly how how we talk right.
|
Sam:
[45:16]
| You know that there's there's a another one of his dialogues that i wanted to do this with and i just hadn't had time yet that was, longer uh related to the stuff we talked about last week um but uh, um but yeah he picked this one as the first one so um and there's there's more coming apparently uh two two more for this episode um great, i can't wait.
|
Sam:
[45:46]
| You know, and I, I, I asked him, yeah, I knew he was going to do something with dialogues between you and me. I asked him if we could unbleep your swearing and he said, no. So your swearing is bleeped in, uh, in his, his, his dialogues. but he he apparently and he has a recurring set of these he hasn't done the voice cloning before um and i i let him get a six dollar a month subscription to 11 labs to do the voice cloning um, but uh the um but he has been, yeah he's been having these dialogues generated and then having a single voice read both parts with like Yvonne colon thing, Sam colon thing to me for months and months now. So he's got an ongoing thing where he's got a version of Claude that he feeds the transcripts of Curmudgeon's Corner to, and tells it to simulate Yvonne and Sam discussing whatever topic he wants them to discuss.
|
Ivan:
[46:55]
| It's okay. Sure.
|
Sam:
[47:00]
| Anyway, and by the way, he did this audio only. There are ways to do this video as well, but they're obviously more expensive. But, you know, doing audio is like, you know, you can do this trivially now. I think he did have to click a checkbox that swore he was only uploading his own voices.
|
Ivan:
[47:26]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:26]
| Yeah, and he wasn't simulating anyone else without their permission. you know i i allowed it anyway.
|
Ivan:
[47:35]
| Um i mean, okay.
|
Sam:
[47:39]
| You're speechless yeah okay so we'll have more later in the show uh news related stuff where do you want to start uh, i i i added a couple additional things to the list at the last minute because i actually haven't added very much yet Well.
|
Ivan:
[47:56]
| I'm going to start with half a mooch.
|
Sam:
[48:00]
| Half a mooch, yes.
|
Ivan:
[48:02]
| Sam, we had a press secretary, and they didn't last the entirety of the gap between our last show and this one.
|
Sam:
[48:12]
| I believe they were on the job Monday through Friday, and that was it. They started Monday, they were fired Friday. Okay. Why was she fired, Yvonne? What was wrong with this person? She seemed like she would fit in perfectly with the Trump administration, to be honest.
|
Ivan:
[48:28]
| Look, I mean, well, look, she got picked.
|
Sam:
[48:32]
| What was her name? What was her name? I've already forgotten her name.
|
Ivan:
[48:35]
| Who the fuck cares?
|
Sam:
[48:36]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[48:37]
| I'll agree with that. You know, I mean, you know, she got picked for her obvious attributes.
|
Sam:
[48:47]
| Katie Zacharia. I looked up the name.
|
Ivan:
[48:50]
| Yeah, okay. uh zakaria zakaria whatever who gives a fuck anyway um uh, the i mean the i think that the epic fail to me was apparently i saw that she was like i guess reading from some some script she had for her first thing, and it and one of the things is that the script had like you know when you're, when you're doing something like say in a play or something or whatever, it will tell you hey use a voice like uh use emphasis say it cheerfully and i think that she read that as she was she she read the part that was like instructing her how to say it read it out loud.
|
Sam:
[49:35]
| Yes i i did note that you know i didn't actually listen to her at all like.
|
Ivan:
[49:41]
| I haven't heard i haven't even heard like five.
|
Sam:
[49:44]
| Seconds of her audio.
|
Ivan:
[49:45]
| I've heard people talk about it. I think, well, I, you know, I basically heard about as much as you did. But it is patently clear that, well, You know, this administration says it's a very low bar for competence, and she couldn't even clear that. I mean, seriously. You talk about an administration that has a really, really low bar for competence, and she couldn't even clear that bar.
|
Sam:
[50:20]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[50:23]
| And she couldn't pass the bar either.
|
Sam:
[50:24]
| Well okay yes she also you know apparently has been telling people she was a lawyer forever but wasn't really you know.
|
Ivan:
[50:33]
| I mean which is par for the course for these people about lying about their qualifications better than anything or whatever so yeah so that's just you know standard.
|
Sam:
[50:40]
| No yeah and she was like well but i i don't need to be a lawyer for this job, and people were still unhappy for some reason i don't know but i think that the honestly like you say there's a low bar for competence yes but i think the one which is absolutely true but the one thing that trump doesn't like, is he doesn't feel to be he doesn't like to be embarrassed and she said right and she had one like session doing the the press briefing and it was just embarrassingly bad.
|
Ivan:
[51:14]
| It was bad i I mean, it was just, you know, holy shit. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[51:19]
| I mean, and so, I mean, and again, the thing is, he doesn't mind, like, okay, if you're the press briefer, if you are press secretary or whatever, lying is good. You know, that's not a disqualification at all.
|
Ivan:
[51:36]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's expected.
|
Sam:
[51:40]
| But you have to do it, you know, somewhat convincingly and with vigor and with whatever. And she just...
|
Ivan:
[51:48]
| Looked like an idiot.
|
Sam:
[51:49]
| Looked like an idiot. Yes. And... There you go. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[51:59]
| Well, the thing about this, it's not surprising. It's just the pattern. It just keeps... And it just sinks deeper and deeper. It's just... I mean, it's not like the quality of the people they're bringing in is going up as time goes by. It was bad originally, and it's worse now.
|
Sam:
[52:27]
| Well, and there are rumors that this is about to get even worse, that Trump is apparently freaking out because in the wake of an expected Democratic wave next month, it is next month now, it's only a couple weeks away.
|
Ivan:
[52:48]
| Yeah, I mean, it's less than a month away.
|
Sam:
[52:52]
| Yeah, less than three weeks away. Anyway, it's expected that a bunch of people are going to leave. And the question is what Donald Trump is going to do about that, who he's going to bring in next. But also, there are rumors that he's about to fire his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, because he blames her for how badly things are going right now. Just a hint, Donald, it's not her.
|
Ivan:
[53:18]
| It's not her.
|
Sam:
[53:19]
| It's not her.
|
Ivan:
[53:19]
| It's you. It's all you. I mean, literally, it's all you.
|
Sam:
[53:23]
| Right. But, you know, so he's thinking about firing Susie Wiles because he thinks everything's her fault. But, like, if he fires a few people and a few more people quit, you know, it's just going to be him and Natalie running the government.
|
Ivan:
[53:40]
| Fuck me.
|
Sam:
[53:40]
| Fuck me.
|
Ivan:
[53:43]
| Look, I, he is not doing well. Somebody was showing a video. Look, I saw this video a couple of times. I was trying to understand what the hell was going on. It seemed like he was trying to walk to his car and he got confused and he kept walking.
|
Sam:
[54:01]
| That's actually happened a few times over the last few months.
|
Ivan:
[54:05]
| And the Secret Service had to like go, sir, sir, where are you going? The car's over there. And these motherfuckers will 25th Amendment. This guy is like completely off the rails. Okay. At a point where, I mean, listen, I don't like J.D. Vance, but I would feel more comfortable, not that much, but a little bit, having him as president than this idiot.
|
Sam:
[54:37]
| Hey, Yvonne, he still, to this day, clearly runs circles around anything Joe Biden was able to do. I mean, you know, Joe Biden was the doddering old man who didn't know where he was. You know, Trumpkin is much better than that, right, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[54:58]
| Yeah, right.
|
Sam:
[55:00]
| Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the talk, you know, you remember a few months ago, the talk about Donald Trump's health, both mental and physical, was all over the place, seemingly all the time. People were talking about like, oh, the bruises on his hands. Oh, he's been missing for a couple of days. Oh, this, oh, that. And it was like almost all the time there was speculation about how bad he was doing. That actually kind of died down a bit, but I think it's more because people got bored of it. And like, you know, he hasn't died yet. Are we just going to keep saying he looks bad? You know, as opposed to it actually getting any better. Yeah, it's not bad.
|
Ivan:
[55:42]
| No. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[55:42]
| No, it's not bad. And also, I think there's the, we got to keep in mind, like there's, you know, people try, there may be specific diagnoses at play or there may not be, but. It may just be, okay, this is the way he in particular is aging. Different people go deteriorate at different paces in different ways. And, there are people 10 years older than him that are still doing great and wonderfully and are sharp as a tack and physically fit. Hell, there are people that are almost 100 that you can apply that to. But then there's Donald.
|
Ivan:
[56:23]
| There's this announcer on TV that some people complain about, but I think Al Michaels, he's 81 years old. He announces the, he's announced football for, Jesus Christ, before we were born, okay? He's doing the Thursday night football game. Some people are complaining about what he's saying. The guy sounds, if you took a recording of him right now, and you put a recording from 20 years ago to 30 years ago, you'd have a tough time telling the difference, okay? You'd have a tough time telling the difference, okay? That's how good he still is. And he's 81. And so this is not, no, you take a recording of Donald Trump like 20 years ago to now, and the difference is, is stark. Okay.
|
Sam:
[57:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[57:01]
| That's, that's the reality of this guy. So.
|
Sam:
[57:05]
| And I, and I think you could argue, hell, forget 20 years. If you compare them to six months or a year ago, I feel like you can see some deterioration.
|
Ivan:
[57:17]
| Oh, yeah. No, no, no, totally.
|
Sam:
[57:19]
| You know, and, you know, is there a level of, yeah, and, you know, we can't speak to the clinical stuff. We don't have the detailed, like, you know, hands-on, I don't want hands-on experience of Donald Trump. Let me rephrase that. um but yeah you know we haven't directly examined him but i think even as an outside observer it's clear that he's not in great shape and he's deteriorating further does that mean he's gonna die tomorrow not necessarily, you know like he could.
|
Ivan:
[57:56]
| But he could he could go on another 15 years what i would what i would love, is to have one of these like um, what's his name uh who's a senate guy who was out like for months now oh mcconnell mitch yeah i would love to see if we could have a mcconnell moment with him, that that would be that would be fantastic you know or he's just like there it just just you know but not there.
|
Sam:
[58:24]
| Right or i mean i was gonna say or talk starts talking gibberish but have you listened to him.
|
Ivan:
[58:31]
| Yeah that's no him talk no that's the no i mean that's that's just.
|
Sam:
[58:35]
| He's been like that for decades.
|
Ivan:
[58:37]
| Right nobody nobody's cared about that, He's talking gibberish. This entire presidency, nobody gives a shit about that.
|
Sam:
[58:46]
| Yeah? No.
|
Ivan:
[58:47]
| I don't know. What the fuck? He was talking the other day. He was like something about, he was complaining about, oh, oh, he was trying to tell people how beef prices are low. Okay? Because that's the new, his winning strategy right now is decided, he is going back to just simply lie, you know, which is his, I mean, going back. It's always been his strategy. You know, he thinks it's going to work by just simply telling people that stuff is cheap. You're all just imagining shit.
|
Sam:
[59:16]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[59:16]
| So he was talking about how, he's talking about beef and trying to say how when it's expensive, it's biff.
|
Sam:
[59:24]
| Biff?
|
Ivan:
[59:25]
| Yeah, something like that. I think he was trying to say something about how when it's French, it's expensive. I don't know. It's just the whole thing He was trying to say it And it was just It was pathetic It was pathetic, It's just, I, and this guy is president, of course.
|
Sam:
[59:47]
| Yeah. Well, and, and this is, you know, I think we've speculated on the show before, like if they were going to 25th amendment him or something, the time to do it is after January 20th. If they were going to actually commit a coup, they want to do it after January 20th so that Vance could actually have two and a half terms rather than just, you know, one and a half.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:13]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:00:14]
| So if anybody wants to coup him, and I think it, you know, anything against his will would have, you know, you're not going to, I pointed out before, like, 25th Amendment, if the person in question doesn't agree with it, is actually harder than removing a president through impeachment. you need two-thirds of both houses of congress to override the president saying no actually i'm fine you know and there's a whole process that lasts a couple months that that they do that because so if you.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:47]
| Do the 25th amendment yes you still need two-thirds of both houses to concur.
|
Sam:
[1:00:52]
| Well if the president objects see because the whole thing is the which right right.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:59]
| Because it's not It's not like he's in a coma.
|
Sam:
[1:01:01]
| It's not like he's in a coma. So the vice president plus half the cabinet would submit that they were removing him due to incapacity. And then all the president has to do is submit a letter to Congress saying, no, actually, I'm just fine. And he's president again until Congress overrides that. And then there's a whole process. I think they have to actually, it has to go back and forth and they have to do it twice. There's a whole process. There's a whole process gets initiated when the president says, no, actually, I'm fine. And, you know, Donald Trump would say, no, actually, I'm fine. i mean he.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:41]
| Says it now every day every moment.
|
Sam:
[1:01:43]
| Yeah so there really is a difference like if you know if he's in a coma completely different scenario, you know but in the situation where he's actually up and around and doing stuff, and we just think he's insane, it's actually a lot harder, And so you really need.
|
Sam:
[1:02:08]
| Impeachment would be easier at that point than the 25th. So the only way anything like that happens is either if he actually is so incapacitated that he can't even object to proceedings going on around him or. where things turn so bad that you literally have... To get two-thirds of the Congress, even if you get the Democrats sweeping in November, you need a significant chunk of the Republicans on board with whatever you're doing. So it would take a lot. A lot. And so, you know, we're actually, you remember the other scenario that I brought up, you know, when we were talking about crazy scenarios, the quicker way would be J.D. Vance murders Donald Trump in the Oval Office and then immediately pardons himself. Not that I'm suggesting this as, you know, a desired outcome or anything, just to be clear.
|
Sam:
[1:03:19]
| But like, you know, because there would be federal assassination charges for killing a president. Now there'd be, but because it's in D.C.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:27]
| But wait.
|
Sam:
[1:03:28]
| Yes. There's no local.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:30]
| Of course now, but with, I mean, right now, I mean, isn't he just going to like, you know, well, he pardons himself. And then, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:03:42]
| If it wasn't in D.C., you could say there were state and local issues as well. But he's in D.C., which is a federal area. So I think he could probably pardon himself.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:52]
| I think he can get away with it. I think he can get away with it.
|
Sam:
[1:03:54]
| Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:58]
| You know, speaking of this, we went into this, of course, because of the disaster of.
|
Sam:
[1:04:05]
| The press conference. We've got to stray. We've got to stray.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:09]
| Well, but this whole thing is a whole symptom of the situation that they're in right now. Because one of the issues that you have in an administration whose popularity is plummeting, okay, like a rock as this one is, is the fact that very few people want to join.
|
Sam:
[1:04:26]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:28]
| Nobody wants to get on a sinking ship and so and this goes to the the polling numbers and how they have deteriorated even worse like right now heading into this midterm, making you know states that we thought were impossible possible a whole bunch of things now of course we don't look we've seen some of this before and that it's never been as good as it looks but I don't think Like, but this is, man, this is so epically bad in so many ways.
|
Sam:
[1:05:01]
| I just want to play out the J.D. Vance murders Trump for one more second. He could pardon himself, but then if the Democrats had taken over, they could impeach him. before Congress approves a new vice president, and you might have enough Republicans against J.D. Vance because, hey, he murdered somebody in the White House.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:24]
| Right, he murdered Trump. Well, maybe that would make him popular, actually, with some of them.
|
Sam:
[1:05:29]
| Well, maybe, maybe. But if you could pull off an impeachment for J.D. Vance for murdering Donald Trump in the Oval Office...
|
Ivan:
[1:05:37]
| Then you'd have President Jeffries?
|
Sam:
[1:05:39]
| Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:41]
| I don't really want President Jeffries. I would much prefer like president like right now.
|
Sam:
[1:05:50]
| That would probably actually stop the Republicans from going along with impeachment of J.D. Vance, even though he was a murderer, because you would get Hakeem Jeffries as president if you did that. So we have to not impeach him. So he would get to continue to be president for the rest of the time. I'm sorry. You are moving on to other things. I just these kinds of scenarios.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:09]
| The point is that all these scenarios that we are like, you know, we are, you know, coming up with is a byproduct of the fact that this administration, you know, they, you know, this all started because a press secretary that was like, just not even like borderline competent. I mean, she was like, she's a completely incompetent person who just happened to be blonde. Okay. You know. She's Donald's type. Donald's type, yep. Got put into the job, you know, completely made a fool of themselves. And it's a byproduct of the fact that nobody wants to join Trump. A sinking ship. I mean, it's so, I mean, who the hell wants to get on this? The popularity of this administration is so bad right now, across the board, including even Republicans. There are all these polls right now that are showing that even Republicans are like just completely turning against this entire administration. They go and like, they may not be saying, the thing that I saw is just, they're like, hey, maybe they're not yet at 80%, you know, against Donald Trump or anything, but where they're still, oh, maybe the majority are still for Donald Trump as Republicans. But when you ask them, hey, are you happy with how things are running?
|
Sam:
[1:07:31]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:33]
| They're like, fuck. They're like 70% saying this sucks.
|
Sam:
[1:07:41]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:42]
| And I mean, it's just, that is the current situation. And Donald is not making anything to make it better, I mean, for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[1:07:56]
| No, we spent like a whole segment last time talking about he's actually making it worse. But yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:03]
| Well, I did some analysis of this whole stupid Russian diesel deal, which by the way, I did.
|
Sam:
[1:08:10]
| You talked a little bit about that last week, but you've done more since then.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:14]
| But I did. I did a whole bunch of analysis on it. I published it on my sub stack. I linked to it if I don't know if I can't remember how to help.
|
Sam:
[1:08:21]
| Give the name of it again so people can find me.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:23]
| It's not fuck me.
|
Sam:
[1:08:24]
| Fuckme.substack.com.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:27]
| You know what I should change it to that because that actually is probably a better name than I would always remember but it's not it's data plainly right yeah data plainly hang on hang on hang on ugh, here oh god, fuck it come on yeah data plainly okay substack, Um, it's so the, the, the whole thing, look, this diesel deal is so stupid. It's just, and it, and it starts just, it starts even from the premise of what the problem is, which the thing is that Trump is acting like the problem is, decided that it's Ukraine's fault that they're, they're bombing the Russian refineries. And no, no, Donald.
|
Sam:
[1:09:20]
| That's not it.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:21]
| No, that's not it at all. OK, the fucking price of diesel skyrocketed when you attacked Iran, period. End the story. OK.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:36]
| The reality is that two thirds of exported diesel that we're missing right now comes through there. And the fact that you won't that there is no end to it is why diesel is at the price it is. And this whole damn thing, Sam, you know, that's why I pulled the fingers because I kind of like off the top of my head, I said, what the fuck? This is not a lot of diesel and we make a lot of diesel, but I didn't have the fingers in front of me, but I pulled the fingers. especially like since the since this attack on the gulf, look we have been a top exporter of diesel before that okay but right now we are the the united states is the number one exporter of diesel we're not short on diesel in the u.s but we're actually exporting diesel at a, record rate okay right it's not that we're short on diesel and the amount of diesel that he agreed to in like, with Putin and that's if he can produce it, which by the way I'm pretty confident that based on the losses that they had and the fact that they had to put a diesel export ban, he doesn't even have the diesel he promised. He just said it as a propaganda win that would come back and like bolster him in front of everybody. Look at me. I'm saving America from their diesel crisis.
|
Sam:
[1:11:00]
| Fuck you!
|
Ivan:
[1:11:01]
| We got more diesel than you! ever does.
|
Sam:
[1:11:04]
| Is he actually going to get cash though? Like, are we actually paying him? Because, you know, I don't mind. Yeah, that's what I mean.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:11]
| Like, I mean, Donald might. I mean, I wouldn't doubt that Donald would.
|
Sam:
[1:11:15]
| I know Donald wants to pay him regardless of whether we get anything back.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:20]
| But just because, you know, he's an idiot.
|
Sam:
[1:11:23]
| There's a question of like whether they're like legal ways to stop that from actually happening or not. But, you know, there's a lot of speculation that, you know, hell, this this isn't. Yes, Donald Trump is trying to use it to make the propaganda point about, hey, I'm actually doing something to improve your diesel thing, because just like everything else is performative. The percentage effect it has doesn't matter to Donald Trump. What matters to Donald Trump is he can go out and say he fixed the problem. You know, whether or not it's true.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:56]
| But this is about shifting the blame from himself to Ukraine about the peace. He did it.
|
Sam:
[1:12:07]
| It's shifting the blame. It's taking the credit. And then it's also, hey, we can give Putin some money.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:14]
| Exactly. He loves Putin. He wants some money. And by the way, this is also that Putin, as usual, always fucking knows how to bamboozle him. So he offered him, oh, I will help you. These are the problem. I will provide you a diesel and you will get it. And you I will make whatever, knowing that, you know, and he probably flattered him along the way. Oh, no. And I will I will help you. You know, then he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at that. Look, I got help from our friend Putin. And Zelensky is an asshole. And we need him removed because he's caught. Oh, Zelensky is causing your diesel to skyrocket.
|
Sam:
[1:12:52]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:53]
| Not me. No, never me. No, it's Zelensky. That guy. I told you, you see, he's bad guy.
|
Sam:
[1:13:00]
| They tried saying it was Biden's fault first.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:02]
| Oh, yeah, they tried that.
|
Sam:
[1:13:03]
| Too. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:05]
| They've tried that. That doesn't work. So now it's Zelensky's fault. So here's the thing. Because of the minute amount of diesel that we're talking about, and the fact that actually physically there is no real way for us to get, well, listen, there is no point on us getting this diesel. Sam, the United States is the number one exporter of diesel. What the fuck are we doing? Why would I want to bring in this thimble? because it truly is this simple of Russian diesel over here physically to do what with it exactly? What am I doing with this ship? Probably not even low sulfur, probably not one the trucks can use, or whatever. We'd have to fucking like just ship it back out somewhere else.
|
Sam:
[1:13:52]
| Well, I was going to say, we probably will resell it. We're not actually going to- Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:56]
| That's the only thing that we can do with it. We're going to have to resell the damn thing.
|
Sam:
[1:13:59]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:01]
| It's just, and yeah, and by the way, Because as far as I can tell, it had no impact on diesel prices whatsoever.
|
Sam:
[1:14:09]
| No?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:09]
| Because, nope, because apparently the market's not that stupid.
|
Sam:
[1:14:16]
| Well, there was a blip on day of, wasn't there?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:21]
| It didn't get under $6.
|
Sam:
[1:14:23]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:23]
| It didn't, you know, it didn't, you know, it didn't. Whatever move there was, not a significant move. Okay. It's just not a significant move in any way. So it's, you know, I mean, he's just trying everything in his playbook. but.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:49]
| None of it is doing anything because the biggest thing is people go to the pump. What do they see? They don't see a difference. This is the thing about this. This is one of these things that, you know, where so many times facts don't matter, facts don't matter, facts don't matter, right? The problem with this one is, this one is one that every day to most Americans, they go, they have to get gas once a week for the most part. you know and they go over there and he could say whatever the fuck he wants and it's still the same shit so just saying it doesn't work, By the way, I'm looking at this chart also. Which chart? There's a chart that I have here that Trump's average pump price is set to overtake Biden's. Now, there is this thing about, this has been only in a short amount of time, but here's the thing about this. Average versus median. If you actually looked at the median fuel price under, Trump than Biden, His median fuel price is way higher.
|
Sam:
[1:16:00]
| Huh, that's interesting.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:03]
| Because there was a period where it's just been, the period of time under Trump that it's been over $4 has been far just longer. It's been almost the same amount of days in less than two years than Biden had in four.
|
Sam:
[1:16:23]
| Hmm. OK.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:25]
| And it's been persistently higher. OK. And the one thing is that under Biden, it peaked like at around five dollars, did one blip. But when it peaked at five, it plummeted. OK. Really quickly back under four. OK. Whereas with Trump, it was up. It went back down a little bit. It went back up over four. And it's not going down. And he hasn't done anything to make it go down. There isn't any reason to go down. one of the things about what's going on right now with why they can't even try to make it go down, is because they've burned through all the stockpiles of of stuff that was like spr this or whatever right anything that they had that they could use in order to to bring bring fuel prices down they're already burned through.
|
Sam:
[1:17:09]
| I saw i.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:09]
| Saw one.
|
Sam:
[1:17:10]
| Chart that somebody posted uh lately that showed the the spr being.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:14]
| The lowest.
|
Sam:
[1:17:14]
| It's been since 1982.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:16]
| But then i looked.
|
Sam:
[1:17:17]
| At the graph and noted it's not lowest since 1982 because it was at this level in 1982 it's lowest level since 1992 since because the graph didn't go back farther right you know i don't know when the actual, time it was this level was at least not from.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:34]
| That post.
|
Sam:
[1:17:34]
| I don't know if you know but like the the the the.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:38]
| Bottom line it doesn't matter if they burn through all the stockpiles okay we burn through all the stockpiles the stockpiles of diesel one of the reasons you know diesel in the U.S. I mean, our stockpiles are relatively low, but that's because we're exporting the shit out of it. It's not because, you know, we've broken records on diesel exports in the United States.
|
Sam:
[1:18:00]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:02]
| Look, this year, it's been every fucking bullshit that he said now about this, hasn't happened anything. We had the whole Venezuela thing where we're taking over the oil. And then he's trying to get the oil companies to go in and get the oil out. Like getting that back out is just, you know, going and flipping a switch. That's not the way this works. You know, you've had an entire exploration system and exploitation system and, you know, fuel transport system. The entire infrastructure for that in Venezuela has been destroyed over the last 30 years. Something that took many decades to build that's been obliterated. It's not there. They can't make the oil they used to make. Their oil output is down like 80% from their peak. And it's not because of reserves. It's not because of the band. It's because they basically left everything go to shit. Because they took the money and they squandered it, spent it, stole it. And so, their system, you know, their entire PDVSA, the entire core company is just a shell of its former self. There's just nothing left.
|
Sam:
[1:19:10]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:12]
| And nobody can rebuild that and, like, snap their fingers.
|
Sam:
[1:19:16]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:17]
| And a lot of the money for that has gone, instead of to Venezuela, it's going to nearby Guyana. because they're not worried about issues like politics and the stuff that they're worried about in Venezuela. By the way, 80% of the Venezuelan people are against the oil deal that was struck with the United States. So at some point, that thing is going to be obliterated. So if you're an oil company, do you really want to go invest somewhere where you're pretty sure that at some point they're going to just take away the contract and the concession that he got? No, you're not going to put your money there. You want to put it somewhere where you think that your investment, you're going to be able to get it over a decade or two.
|
Sam:
[1:20:00]
| Right. Okay, let's take a break and then we'll come back with, I have a couple of things, I want to bring up and talk about real quick. You know, actually, well, some of them are newsy, some of them aren't. Whatever. Whatever. I have on my list. So we're, for the second break, this is the old Sam and Yvonne Dialogues again, episode two.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:27]
| Oh, fuck me.
|
Sam:
[1:20:28]
| I will say, like, the one that I'm really looking forward to, like, last week I mentioned the dead arachnid petting zoo. The dialogue on that was hilarious. I was cracking up. He has not made it with voice clones. It was just like reading it straight up. But it's also really long. So maybe I'll add it. If he ever makes the voice clone version of that, maybe I'll add it at the end of the show one time. But he said he wanted to start with really short ones And he can work his way up because that one was long But anyway, here is episode 2 Back after this, this one's about 4 minutes long Back after this.
|
SamClone:
[1:21:24]
| Okay, so, before we get to anything else, I have an update.
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:29]
| Ugh, oh god.
|
SamClone:
[1:21:30]
| I've been doing Duolingo!
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:32]
| Ugh, Jesus f***ing Christ. Okay, what are you learning?
|
SamClone:
[1:21:37]
| Well, Latin.
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:38]
| Of course.
|
SamClone:
[1:21:39]
| Music.
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:40]
| Wait, music?
|
SamClone:
[1:21:42]
| Yes, they have music now.
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:44]
| Okay.
|
SamClone:
[1:21:45]
| And Japanese.
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:46]
| Japanese?!
|
SamClone:
[1:21:47]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:21:48]
| Motherf***! So last week, when you looked at Aburufnaf and failed to recognize A-B-U-L-F-N-A-F, but somehow knew what E meant...
|
SamClone:
[1:21:58]
| I had started learning Japanese.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:00]
| You left that part out!
|
SamClone:
[1:22:01]
| Well, I hadn't gotten very far.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:04]
| How far are you now?
|
SamClone:
[1:22:05]
| Not very far.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:06]
| Okay, say something in Japanese.
|
SamClone:
[1:22:08]
| Uh...
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:09]
| Come on! You've been studying for a week!
|
SamClone:
[1:22:12]
| Sushi.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:13]
| F*** you.
|
SamClone:
[1:22:14]
| Sushi.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:15]
| Yes, Sam. I knew sushi before Duolingo.
|
SamClone:
[1:22:18]
| I can recognize some hiragana now.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:20]
| Okay. What's... What's boot?
|
SamClone:
[1:22:23]
| Boot.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:24]
| What's L-F-N-A-F?
|
SamClone:
[1:22:26]
| That's not Japanese.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:27]
| It's you, Sam!
|
SamClone:
[1:22:29]
| Yes, we've established this.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:31]
| Have you learned enough Japanese yet to decipher the f***ing message?
|
SamClone:
[1:22:34]
| No, but I have learned enough that I can be more confidently confused by it.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:39]
| Excellent. Progress.
|
SamClone:
[1:22:41]
| Also, I'm considering buying a duo plushie.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:44]
| The f***ing owl?
|
SamClone:
[1:22:45]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:46]
| Why?
|
SamClone:
[1:22:47]
| I don't know. I kind of want one.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:49]
| This is how they get you! First it's, I'll spend five minutes learning hiragana. Then the owl is physically inside your house watching you.
|
SamClone:
[1:22:56]
| I think it would look nice on the shelf.
|
IvanClone:
[1:22:58]
| No! You're going to wake up at three in the morning and that f***ing owl is going to be sitting at the end of your bed going, Sam, you haven't practiced Latin today.
|
SamClone:
[1:23:07]
| Latin or you're splatin.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:10]
| Jesus f***ing, censor that!
|
SamClone:
[1:23:12]
| Latin or you're f***ing.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:14]
| That's worse!
|
SamClone:
[1:23:15]
| The following message is not in Croatian. I'm going to become a J-pop star.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:20]
| No.
|
SamClone:
[1:23:21]
| Hot buns cross, cross buns hot.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:24]
| What the f*** are you singing?
|
SamClone:
[1:23:26]
| That's that me, Ocha.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:28]
| Ocha?
|
SamClone:
[1:23:29]
| On top of the tree.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:32]
| Stop! You have combined the Duolingo music course, Japanese, Sabrina Carpenter, and a f***ing children's song into one catastrophic event.
|
SamClone:
[1:23:41]
| Tree.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:44]
| You have been studying Japanese for one week. Did Duolingo actually teach you that?
|
SamClone:
[1:23:51]
| No.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:52]
| Of course it f***ing didn't.
|
SamClone:
[1:23:54]
| But the important thing is that I'm branching out artistically.
|
IvanClone:
[1:23:57]
| You played hot cross buns, changed the f***ing word order, said ocha, and then started singing about a tree.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:04]
| It's experimental J-pop.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:06]
| It's an international incident.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:08]
| I think Duo would be proud.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:10]
| By the plushie, Sam, you deserve each other.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:13]
| That's a good question. Ivan, when did you learn about Sabrina Carpenter?
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:18]
| Okay, f*** you.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:20]
| Because I'm pretty sure five minutes ago you would have said, who the f*** is Sabrina Carpenter?
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:25]
| I know who Sabrina Carpenter is.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:27]
| Name three songs.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:28]
| F***.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:29]
| Name two.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:30]
| I know the espresso one.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:32]
| Espresso.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:33]
| Yes, that one.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:34]
| And presumably you learned about her approximately 30 seconds ago when I started singing whatever the hell I was singing.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:41]
| Look, I have the internet. Things penetrate the bubble occasionally.
|
SamClone:
[1:24:45]
| Apparently, my Japanese studies have somehow made you more knowledgeable about contemporary pop music.
|
IvanClone:
[1:24:51]
| This whole conversation is falling apart.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:09]
| You know, what this exactly sounds like is like a cartoon version of us.
|
Sam:
[1:25:14]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:14]
| It's like if they did an exact cartoon version of you and me, animated.
|
Sam:
[1:25:19]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:20]
| This is the, you know, when you look at the Star Trek animated series, this is like the animated, this is the Curmudgeon's Corner animated series, is what it should be called.
|
Sam:
[1:25:29]
| There you go. There you go. Now you can see how the expansion of Curmudgeon's Corner into a TV empire that we talked about last week.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:39]
| Okay well he did only audio what he needs to do is some kind of like a couple of cartoon avatars of us actually on video having that conversation.
|
Sam:
[1:25:50]
| Well the one that's easy to do uh it just costs a few bucks is uh is having it but with like video avatar versions of us not cartoon but that actually look like us no.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:03]
| No no no no no no.
|
Sam:
[1:26:05]
| It's you want a cartoon doesn't.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:06]
| Work yes it needs to look like a cartoon.
|
Sam:
[1:26:09]
| Okay because it sounds like a cartoon it does therefore.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:12]
| It it totally sounds like a fucking cartoon and so therefore it should be a cartoon version.
|
Sam:
[1:26:18]
| I could see that i could see that uh i'll pass along the instructions uh, to to to for what's next here and uh we'll see we'll see if we can develop that okay i got a couple things like one that i i'm surprised we never talked about, uh given that it's a couple weeks old now but we always tend to talk about big things like this um, the fly dubai incident yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:46]
| Oh fuck well i think it's because.
|
Sam:
[1:26:49]
| You were out right yeah you were out that week.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:53]
| Well they the the airline hired a pilot that had been barred from flying, okay, because of, basically, they feared that he would do this, and Fly Dubai hired him, right, and they put him in the cockpit, and then he proceeded to do exactly why he had been barred from flying in the first place.
|
Sam:
[1:27:13]
| So to remind people, he attacked the pilot, apparently, with the safety axe that's in the cockpit.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:22]
| He severely injured the pilot, was in the process of taking over the plane and putting it into a steep dive. Apparently, his plan was... Yeah, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:32]
| Well, the plane did go into a steep dive.
|
Sam:
[1:27:34]
| No, no, I know, I know. But I'm a little bit confused because I thought they said his plan was to actually crash the plane in Tel Aviv or something. But then why did he put it into a steep dive immediately? Shouldn't he have, like, continued on and then put it in a steep dive when he was ready to crash the plane? Because they were still, like, at the Saudi-Jordan border when all this started happening. And then apparently a little girl who was in the bathroom at the front of the plane heard the scuffle in the cockpit and alerted her mom that something weird was going on. And then the disabled pilot managed to, before he like passed out or whatever, to open the cockpit door.
|
Sam:
[1:28:21]
| And then some passengers were able to like rush the cockpit and take out the pilot. And then some guy who was not a pilot, but who said he was a fan of your favorite air disasters TV show, Yvonne, got into the seat and pulled the plane out of the dive. And then some off-duty pilots who were in the back of the plane came and actually took over for the rest of the flight. But it was random passengers who, you know, took out the hijacker, who was the co-pilot originally, and pulled the plane out of a dive and saved the whole thing. Otherwise, you know, they would have been a splash in the desert.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:06]
| Well, the plane was a MAX, I think it was a MAX 8, if I remember correctly. uh one of the things that uh you know we've complained a lot about, uh well i mean yes i mean everybody's complaining about the you know the issues that the max has had in development the defects and so forth but one thing is that that son bitch exceeded the maximum limits for like the airframe yeah there.
|
Sam:
[1:29:32]
| Are pictures of the the back rudder or.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:34]
| Whatever the rudder the rudder Yeah, the runner was like, yeah. But that plane exceeded the airframe limits by a lot and still actually stayed together. So I know that we've, you know, for good reason, Boeing has gotten a lot of shit for stuff that's happened in the last few years. But that damn thing actually held together after it way went over what the limits of a plane should have been. Okay, you know, people would have expected the plane would have broken up.
|
Sam:
[1:30:04]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:05]
| But it actually held together and was able to land.
|
Sam:
[1:30:09]
| And also, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:10]
| You got to. With only, like you mentioned, only a tiny piece of a rudder left, by the way.
|
Sam:
[1:30:15]
| Right. Um, and you got to think though, like how close this came to being very close. I mean, if the pilot hadn't been able to open the door, if the little girl hadn't heard that there was a scuffle in the, in the cockpit, uh, through, through the bulkhead while she was going to the bathroom. If they hadn't been, if when they tried to overcome the pilot that had the plane in the dive, he'd just been able to put it into a steeper dive. and before they were able to take control or whatever. There's so many steps of this process that could have resulted in everybody on board dying. But somehow, no. I mean, the pilot survived. The co-pilot who did this survived and is in custody. There were a few minor injuries, I gather, just from like, well, obviously the guy who was stabbed and stuff was a serious injury. but for the passengers there were a few minor injuries but nothing like serious and they flew them on to their intended destination later that day where they were greeted by uh netanyahu and you know all that so um, i don't know like what you gotta think like this guy had been flagged what the hell was wrong here.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:38]
| This guy should not have been in a cockpit and the.
|
Sam:
[1:31:41]
| Steps he probably They shouldn't have even been on the plane as a passenger, for God's sake.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:44]
| As a passenger either. Exactly. Um... for some reason fly to buy skipped all the checks that normally should have gone into this and they put that guy on the cockpit crazy insane.
|
Sam:
[1:31:59]
| Yeah okay um okay moving moving on from that i'm just picking up a few topics from the uh that we didn't get to talk about also the week you were gone i think um, that botched execution oh jesus um so, this is first of all this is a woman who like apparently with her friends like murdered somebody in the woods like it really was really heinous etc etc um, but as we mentioned in in in another context we're not neither one of us is for the death penalty at all. But in this case, they, you know, they strapped her down, tried to do lethal injection, botched it, gave her double the prescribed dose or prescribed, double the dose they were supposed to do because the first dose wasn't working. So they give her another one and she didn't die. And they ended up taking her to the hospital. And at first it was reported she was in a coma and not expected to ever recover. It was reported she was brain dead, but she woke up a few hours later.
|
Sam:
[1:33:11]
| And the governor has paused any proceedings to try to execute her again for the moment. He hasn't actually officially commuted her sentence or anything. Uh, so, so technically she could be re-executed if that's a word. Um, but, uh, they've got it paused while they're investigating what went wrong. But fundamentally, like a big part of this is like, you know, uh, they typically don't have people who are medically qualified and know what they're doing, doing these procedures anyway. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:33:51]
| Um, you know, because most doctors refuse to participate in these kinds of things. Most nurses do too. Um, and so you get somebody who like reads a, uh, you know, a five minute pamphlet on how to do an injection or whatever, uh, and does it wrong. Um, and apparently, you know, her, her, her veins were difficult to get to. There were issues like that as well, but that, that, and, and so they basically, you know, tortured this woman, uh potentially caused uh permanent brain damage uh i think that's that hasn't been reported one way or another for certain yet, uh you know that we do know she was awake again and out and you know was talking she asked where was she and why uh when she woke up again and uh look the the.
|
Sam:
[1:34:45]
| This is just one of many reasons like the death penalty is not a right solution to anything ever. This is just one of them. Like, oh, and by the way, Donald Trump has apparently backed off and said they will not live stream that other execution. They still intend to do it by firing squad. But apparently we're not going to live stream it after all, because even though Hegseth wanted to and Donald Trump said yes at first, when people started getting upset about this, including a lot of Republicans who said this was ridiculous, don't do it, Donald Trump backed off and canceled the live stream.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:26]
| I mean, I'm surprised that they backed off at doing something that was usually unpopular.
|
Sam:
[1:35:30]
| By the way, Donald Trump reportedly also was additionally upset when he found out that the person they're going to execute this way in December is in a wheelchair. at this point, too. So, that makes a difference, I guess.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:46]
| I just, you know, they keep figuring out how to do things, like, even in a more barbarian ways possible, you know? I just, you know, I mean, these are the same people that were just firing on boats without having any idea what the fuck, you know, So, but just because there were boats in the water, like near a country they didn't like, you know, we just bombed, you know, we went to war, you know, without any idea. I'm surprised they backed off. I figured that they were going to put a stage up on the White House, you know, like for the UFC fight.
|
Sam:
[1:36:30]
| Ah, yes. Okay, two more quick things, then the last break, and then we'll close out the show. Yvonne, I need, I heard a couple things on the Curmudgeon Square Slack. You made a couple comments, but I need to hear live your reaction to Elon's flying car. You want one, right? You're going to buy it next week, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:36:55]
| Stupid fucking stunt. you.
|
Sam:
[1:36:59]
| Know describe what it was first for people who.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:02]
| Don't alright so they Elon went and supposedly demoed, the Roadster which he has promised now for 8 or 9 years and so he did this thing where the supposed car went up this just like, I don't know what to call it it looks like something a piece out of one of these like Hot Wheels tracks.
|
Sam:
[1:37:27]
| Yeah, where they do the little loop.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:28]
| So it goes up, do the loop, and so once it was at the top of the loop, the car detached, you know, and went off the end, flipped over, and then landed.
|
Sam:
[1:37:40]
| Just going up the loop, by the way, it's not like, you know, you've had cars do loops before going fast. This was just slowly driving up the loop, going up and over, because apparently it has suction underneath, which apparently has been done before, by the way, but he put anyway, and then, like you said, it lets go, and then you see thrusters firing all over the place, flip the car over, stabilize it, and it lands.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:05]
| And then land it. I know that that's obviously.
|
Sam:
[1:38:09]
| A feature that has been done before for some stunt cars before as well. But he put it all together.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:17]
| The whole thing is that I have been, the last couple of years, Chinese auto manufacturers have been doing these idiotic party tricks for their cars to supposedly show how great they are. And there are just silly tricks. the drone launch pad.
|
Sam:
[1:38:36]
| On the top things like that.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:39]
| The drone launch pad some stuff with the suspension when the car goes and dances and does things and whatever blah blah blah and i'm like listen, i'm like what the fuck didn't you guys see the cars like in la that the chicanos like did for the postcard they went like jumped up and down, yeah they've been doing that for 30 40 years i don't know now the chinese think that they oh wow look at this the car will like lift Race itself up and down. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Yes, it's been around for like forever. No. Or active suspension. Oh, super active suspension. Yes, active suspension has been around for 30, 40 years. A lot of the reasons why manufacturers don't go into that full-blown, as active as some of the demos that the Chinese did is because, you know what, they tend to break. Because, you know, it's a lot of moving parts. It's, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:32]
| Yeah, air ride suspensions always tend to, like, wind up costing a ton of money to fix because they eventually fail, you know. There's just a lot of reasons why. But all this shit has been around. But here's the thing. This wasn't even a real fucking car. This wasn't a car. It was a shell. There was nobody driving it. It was some shelves of a mock-up of the Roadster, you know, there doing this. This isn't a fucking car. And then they talked about all these specs of how it's going to go, like, faster than a top-fuel dragster and this and that or whatever. Here's the thing. There was no fucking car again, still, to be sold. It was just some fucking dumb stunt in order to just fleece more people out of money at the stock market. And if we had a functioning damn SEC and government, they would be fucking going and, like, suing the shit out of them for this.
|
Sam:
[1:40:36]
| Right. Right. And also just thinking about the concept for a while, like even and I understand all the reasons why this is vaporware and we'll probably never see the light of day in a real vehicle. But let's imagine for a second it was real. OK, you've got these compressed air tanks that act as thrusters. First of all.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:00]
| I want people on the highway on I-95 with a fucking car they can launch in the air. That's really going to help, you know, shit be better at this point. Yeah. Oh, this is something I'm really looking forward to.
|
Sam:
[1:41:14]
| Well, I was going to get to that. But before that, I was going to say this. He says it'll regenerate itself. Like with air pumps, it re-pumps up so it can do it again. But, like, there's no way compressed air tanks that would fit in that vehicle doing those kinds of maneuvers could last more than a few seconds.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:33]
| And the batteries and the passengers.
|
Sam:
[1:41:36]
| Well, right.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:36]
| Oh, yeah. You know, I could just imagine, hey, you know, you better not be holding a drink, you know, in that car with somebody that wants to fuck around. Because all of a sudden, you know, you're just going to have a swing of something. And I was like, woohoo!
|
Sam:
[1:41:50]
| No, but like, you're, you're not going to be like flying around with this thing. It's probably got like a six second flight time or something max. And, and so like, and what, what exactly are you going to do with that other than, Hey, watch me flip, watch me jump up into the air and flip, which is like a couple of the demos they did. Or are you actually going to like, oh, you know, I've got this like Hot Wheels track loop in my backyard. I'm going to like every afternoon, I'm going to go drive my car upside down and flip over. What, what, you know, what, and this, this is all assuming you can actually make it. And of course, like this is going to be street legal. Really?
|
Ivan:
[1:42:31]
| Yeah. You're, you're, you're trying to get, try to get this fucking car insured.
|
Sam:
[1:42:38]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:38]
| It's funny to me which insurance company is gonna fucking like insure this damn thing.
|
Sam:
[1:42:42]
| Or or or what what like state government is gonna license the vehicle that can like jump 40 feet in the air when it feels like it you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:54]
| You know i guess i guess they watch too much night rider.
|
Sam:
[1:42:59]
| Indeed. Okay. Well, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:02]
| It was just a fucking epithet. Yeah. You know, this guy.
|
Sam:
[1:43:07]
| Wait, you mentioned Knight Rider, but like, this is not a joke. Like, Elon is trying to make Kit.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:13]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:43:14]
| 100%. Like, you've got Grok talking in the car.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:18]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:43:18]
| You've got the self-driving.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:20]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:43:21]
| Now you've got the rocket thrusters and being able to fly and go upside down and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:27]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:43:27]
| Yeah, I am shocked to make kit. I'm shocked that this thing didn't have the little lights on the front. Yeah, exactly. You know, so, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:40]
| Listen, there is this guy, the guy from out of spec reviews.
|
Sam:
[1:43:44]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:44]
| Who, who, who does do some good information on EV cars, but it's just a fucking Tesla fan. Just, he's such a Tesla fan boy. And it's just, he cannot be objective about it I mean, the guy went and bought one of the first Cybertrucks It was so, so bad that Tesla bought it back from him Because it was so defective.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:09]
| And he went out recently and showed off how he bought another one. Let me tell you something. I've gotten lemon cars from companies. The last thing I'm doing is going and buying another one after I had basically gotten the worst experience ever. Because he documented how bad it was and how bad the service was and how complicated it was. And actually, they actually, because they knew that he's a reviewer on video, they actually went through extra hoops to try to make him happy. And the car was still a fucking nightmare. Bad enough that they had to buy it back from him. The son of a bitch goes back to buy another car. And he's like, I actually just, I couldn't even watch the video. I saw he started like just swooning around this event about the Roadster. I'm just like, get the fuck out of here, dude. Get the fuck out of here. This ain't even a real car. There's no car. There's no car car. I mean, eight years later, I actually expected at this event that there was going to be a car that somebody could sit down and drive in.
|
Sam:
[1:45:18]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:19]
| And out of all the shit that happened in an event, that's the one thing that wasn't there. A fucking car that somebody could sit down and drive.
|
Sam:
[1:45:27]
| Right. Okay. One last thing, then the break, then close up. um the iphone duo went out on sale yesterday as we're recording this and sold out almost instantly you'd talked a little bit about you might be wanting one did you order one.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:44]
| I'm not a no i'm not buying any i'm not making any major purchases right now no.
|
Sam:
[1:45:52]
| Would you have if you were still employed yes okay i.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:57]
| I i at this point you know look as much as I want a new phone. My phone works fine. Works perfectly fine.
|
Sam:
[1:46:05]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:07]
| So it may be three years old or whatever, but it's working perfectly fine. There are no issues with the phone. It's got Apple care as well.
|
Sam:
[1:46:13]
| Right. My wife's phone is...
|
Ivan:
[1:46:19]
| If I needed a phone that was broken.
|
Sam:
[1:46:22]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:24]
| Yeah, I'll go buy one. But not right now.
|
Sam:
[1:46:27]
| My wife's phone is decently old and has had some issues. It's not like broken, broken, but enough that she was considering it, taking it to Apple, to Apple, to do an Apple care replacement or warranty or whatever, fix what's wrong with it. Right. But I encouraged her a couple of weeks ago, said, look, the new ones are coming out in September. At least wait and see. Now, she is interested in the duo, but I actually suggested to her, you know, don't try to like buy it the moment it's available for pre-orders. wait until it's like actually wait until a their hands-on reviews from people who've actually had it for an extended period of time not just be able to touch it for a few minutes at a demo at the apple store and b wait until you can actually go and play with it yourself in an apple store, because like you've got you know you've got the multiple form factors and a lot a lot of it is actually going to depend on, well, when you actually put it in your hands and feel it and play with it, do you like it? Do you feel like this is something you could live with for a couple years and enjoy? And so like being able to actually like try it seems important to that. Like, I mean, I understand they're first adopters who order things like the moment they come on sale. And look, if it's the.
|
Sam:
[1:47:51]
| IPhone 18 replacing the iPhone 17 and the iPhone 16, and it's basically spec upgrades in a few areas. So you know what an iPhone 17 is like. Okay. Yeah. Sight unseen. I want the new one. That makes sense to me. But when it's something completely new like this, I'm like, I want to, I want to touch it before I make any kind of decision like that. You know, I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's at least where I am. So like I, you know, I've encouraged her to hold off until she can actually play with all of the potential options to replace her phone in person and see what she actually likes. I mean, even looking at the colors and stuff, you don't really know from a picture online. You know, you look at it in person and you see it's different. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:44]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:48:46]
| So that's my thoughts okay one last break this one's only 40 seconds this is the old Sam and Yvonne mini-sodes episode 1, and then we'll do our usual wrap up stuff including a highlight from the slack after this.
|
SamClone:
[1:49:09]
| But ruby red is bluer than normal red ergo.
|
IvanClone:
[1:49:13]
| Alaska is Blue.
|
SamClone:
[1:49:15]
| Precisely.
|
IvanClone:
[1:49:17]
| Sam, that is not how the political color metaphor works.
|
SamClone:
[1:49:20]
| I'm merely observing that if ruby red has more blue in it...
|
IvanClone:
[1:49:24]
| Then you are attempting to derive Alaska's voting behavior from the RGB values of a gemstone.
|
SamClone:
[1:49:30]
| And?
|
IvanClone:
[1:49:31]
| And I think we've found the most curmudgeons corner way possible to discuss American politics.
|
Sam:
[1:49:44]
| Okay. That was it. So this was in response to somebody pointing out, I think, I think we were having a discussion in the car or something, but like, people talk about a state being ruby red when it's really, really red, but apparently actually ruby red is more blue than regular red.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:05]
| Yeah. I tend to agree.
|
Sam:
[1:50:08]
| Yeah there you go okay uh thank you for listening to another episode of curmudgeons corner as usual go to curmudgeons-corner.com to see all the ways to contact us please contact us send us stuff send feedback, uh drop reviews on your favorite you know podcast site we haven't said that in a while we haven't looked for reviews in a long time you know just leave reviews especially if they're good but But if they're bad and entertaining, that's fine, too. And you can see, you can look at all our old episodes. Listen to all our old episodes. To look at them, you go to YouTube. We have live streams there. But you can listen to all our...
|
Ivan:
[1:50:48]
| I guess you can look at them, I guess.
|
Sam:
[1:50:50]
| You could look at them. You could just stare at the listing on the screen.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:54]
| No, you can stare at the listing on the screen, and you could actually, like, you know, go get, like, something, like, show you the binary code.
|
Sam:
[1:51:01]
| Oh, right. You could get one of those old, like, hex dumps. programs.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:05]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:51:05]
| And like, you could view the MP3.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:09]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:51:10]
| Yes. There you go. That's the right way to consume. Of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:14]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:51:16]
| View the MP3 in a hex dump program and just look at it.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:22]
| Look at it.
|
Sam:
[1:51:22]
| Just look at it.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:24]
| Yeah, there you go.
|
Sam:
[1:51:24]
| Anyway, you could read our transcripts and stuff, too, for the last few years of episodes. And yeah, and also, of course, our Patreon, where you can give us cash money. As Yvonne said at the beginning, don't cancel... Your existing Patreons.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:41]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:51:42]
| With both of us unemployed, we need that $25 a month. Between Yvonne and I splitting it, it makes a huge difference. Makes a huge difference. Give more. But we appreciate the $25 a month. Or approximately, I'm rounding. I don't know. I haven't looked exactly at the recent amount. But somewhere around there. and at various levels of contribution we will do various things like we will mention you on the show we will ring a bell we will send you a postcard we will send you a mug, and importantly at $2 a month or more or if you ask us and we feel like it and we're in a generous mood we will invite you to the curmudgeon's corner slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of other folks are sharing links and chatting throughout the week so Yvonne, what is a highlight from the slack this week that we have not talked about on the show at all in.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:36]
| In more of the, uh, the GOP doesn't know how to, or not, not doesn't know there. It's, they're having a hard time, uh, hiring, uh, competent people. GOP ad buyer mixes up Portland. Spence buddy meant to help, uh, made Senator Susan Collins, uh, you know, So, wait, Susan Collins in Oregon, an outside group mistakenly spent nearly $25,000 to boost Collins in Portland, Oregon, rather than Portland, Maine. The buyer admitted to the error and refunded the pack.
|
Sam:
[1:53:15]
| Yeah. So, like, the things that, like, it's funny enough as it was, but, like. Why couldn't it have been more? You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:53:26]
| Yes, I know what I mean. It would have been great. It would have been.
|
Sam:
[1:53:29]
| And if it wasn't refunded, because it was like.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:30]
| If it wasn't refunded, it would have been a multi-million dollar ad buy. That would have been like just the best. Like all of a sudden the people at Port Laura are going to wake up and they're like just just like flooded and like Susan Collins, like fucking billboards and shit and whatever. They're like, what the fuck is going on? The hell? Why are we? You know, why are we?
|
Sam:
[1:53:53]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:53]
| Oh, God. On another hilarious note, Elon Musk gives worst financial advice ever. OK, his advice was that if you want to buy shit, this is what you should do to buy stuff. You just take a picture of your credit card, drop it in the chat and grok at bot. Well, scour the Internet for the best deal of the item you want and order it. You know, this has to be about the worst, worst. You know, we've been talking about making sure, like, how we put, like, your AI agency. Make sure, hey, don't do this. Don't do that. Make sure you forget. No, no, no. Let me just give them my fucking credit card, and tell them to go shop on my behalf. I'm sure that that will eventually end up well. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:54:41]
| Lots of people are doing that. Lots of people are doing that right now. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:46]
| Well. Well, you know, and I'm going to see how when the credit card companies start going and just say, oh, wait, you did what? Oh, no. Fuck you. We're not we're not we're not refunding the charges.
|
Sam:
[1:54:59]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:02]
| Because at some point it's going to, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:55:04]
| Well, this is one of the things that is going to have to that is definitely going to work its way through the courts for all of these AI agent things. The question of, like, who is liable when the thing screws up?
|
Ivan:
[1:55:16]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:55:16]
| Because there are at least three candidates. Like in the case that you mentioned, like, okay, the vendor that you bought it from, maybe they should have known. Probably not. Then you've got, okay, the person who themselves told the chatbot to go do whatever. Even if it did it wrong, they're the ones who initiated the action. Should they be liable? or if what the chatbot did clearly isn't what the user intended is the creator and maintainer of the chatbot itself liable. And all of this applies not just to, okay, chatbot's purchasing things for me. It applies to all the self-driving stuff. It applies to basically any time an AI gets put in charge of something real and gets to take actions. Where does liability lie if it goes and fucks that up and causes significant damages in one way or another, either financial damages or personal damages or health damages, whatever. The other thing along those lines, by the way, that I shared on the conventions course Slack last night is a story that I don't know whether it's real or not. But apparently it's been going around in Silicon Valley circles that one way that AI researchers are proving to each other that they actually believe in AI is they are taking up smoking.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:41]
| Oh, they're smoking.
|
Sam:
[1:56:42]
| They're taking up smoking because, of course, AI is going to cure cancer. So to show their faith in the AI, they should smoke like a chimney.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:52]
| I, by the way, I do hope that maybe AI can find a cure for cancer.
|
Sam:
[1:56:57]
| You know, actually, I'm optimistic that it will help in certain of these areas. There are already some health areas it's potentially doing good things on.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:05]
| I hope so, but that's just stupid.
|
Sam:
[1:57:09]
| Yes, that's just.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:11]
| That's just fucking stupid. And it doesn't inspire me much confidence in the people actually doing this, that they're that dumb.
|
Sam:
[1:57:19]
| Okay. One last comment, going back to the first segment that I thought of and just for completeness have to say, in my whole analysis of how my balance is changing during my unemployment period, the one thing I have not taken into account yet, which will produce an additional downward pressure, is the fact that I will eventually have to sell more stock to cover the capital gains taxes on the stock I sold this year.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:48]
| Uh... But isn't this in a 401k?
|
Sam:
[1:57:53]
| No. It's in a regular investment account. I did this whole, like, financial transaction.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:59]
| Oh, you did that transaction? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:58:02]
| So it's just regular stock and a regular investment account now. So, like, every time I sell this capital gains tax on that, that next April, I'm going to have to pay.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:14]
| Well, the good news is the capital gains taxes are lower then.
|
Sam:
[1:58:17]
| Income tax, which was one of the reasons why doing this reshuffle made sense. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:22]
| Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:58:24]
| Okay. So the additional downward pressure on the numbers I said earlier. Anyway, that's it. Thank you for joining us for yet another Curmudgeon's Corner. You know, stay happy, stay healthy. Don't wait. That's Dr. Mike. Dr. Mike says that in his videos. I shouldn't say that. Like, have fun, but not too much fun. and like, that that like i i don't know what that did to me ivan watching you do that it like i, i feel weird things you're tingling i tingling i i don't understand, i i am having an existential crisis of like uh you know ivan did some sort of whooping thing and for for those of you who can't see he was jiggling himself in weird ways while he did it i i just.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:19]
| I i was in it i was trying to and very poorly uh uh imitating shakira's uh uh shoulder moves but i i'm not yeah i can't do that.
|
Sam:
[1:59:28]
| My wife can though you are not shakira.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:31]
| Yvonne i'm not shakira my wife is not shakira but she's.
|
Sam:
[1:59:34]
| The moves don't do the same thing for you as they do for her.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:38]
| My wife my wife is is pretty good-looking. She's Colombian as well. And, oh, get the thumbs up. Make fun. And she can do that shoulder shake that she does. She can do it. Which I'm always like.
|
Sam:
[1:59:55]
| Okay. Well, with that, goodbye, everyone. We'll talk to you next week. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:01]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[2:00:32]
| Okay, I'm out of here. Have a good weekend, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:35]
| Okay, bye.
|
Sam:
[2:00:36]
| Bye.
| |
|
