Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| A little bit more congested than usual I'm not sick.
|
Sam:
[0:06]
| I understand there's been something going.
|
Ivan:
[0:09]
| Around I'm.
|
Sam:
[0:10]
| A little congested too.
|
Ivan:
[0:14]
| I worked out and everything that was no big deal but I don't know I'm just feeling more run down, actually I don't feel run down more like allergies you know what It's such an idiot. It's probably because they're trimming the trees.
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Sam:
[0:33]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[0:34]
| I have a, there's a massive crew here right now trimming trees. That's probably what it is right now.
|
Sam:
[0:41]
| Yeah, no, Alex was out of school, you know, all, all week just with sort of unspecified. He clearly wasn't feeling himself, but like nothing that you could pin on specific like symptoms. and like the last half of the week i just had like a massive headache like my head was stuffy and i had a headache so i'm like i don't know what this is but like if it's the same thing he's feeling i understand why he's not really functional, and and then like and then and then towards the end of the week i've just been more congested and i've had like a persistent cough for like a month too more more than my usual but.
|
Ivan:
[1:18]
| You're always coughing.
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Sam:
[1:19]
| More than my usual cough it's sort of a.
|
Ivan:
[1:22]
| I mean you.
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Sam:
[1:23]
| Literally are.
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Ivan:
[1:23]
| Always coughing i mean it's like what the hell.
|
Sam:
[1:26]
| Yeah well anyway shall we shall we do this yeah okay here it goes, oh i can't click them i you know it confuses me i i still my muscle memory that was is still that like anywhere on the things.
|
Ivan:
[1:47]
| Made it very anticlimactic there.
|
Sam:
[1:50]
| Yeah, like I tried to click on the part that was not the button because you used to be able to click any. Anyway, here we go. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, October 24th, 2026. It's just after 1815 as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Minter, Yvonne Boaz here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:41]
| Hello. Hi.
|
Sam:
[2:43]
| How's it going? It's going. It's going okay. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, as we're starting, I'm thinking, you know, we don't have to do it, like, live on the show. But before next show, we're going to have to, like, have some scheduling conversations. Because next weekend...
|
Ivan:
[3:05]
| We get to have scheduling conversations. My time, our time right now is unusually, flexible in our lives, like, right now. So.
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Sam:
[3:19]
| Oh, well, and what I was going to mention is next Saturday is actually Halloween. And like we do some stuff for Halloween. And so like, you know, we may have to adjust the timing slightly so I can have time to do prep stuff. Or, you know, or there might be plenty of time anyway and it'll be fine. Also, I've been trying to get a straight answer from my wife on if we have election nights plans. And I was going to ask if you wanted to do a live stream again, if we didn't have plans like we did on, you know, for the presidential election, but for the midterms.
|
Ivan:
[3:56]
| I'm just look, I, I, I, I, we can figure out something that shouldn't be a problem. So my whole thing is that I have time. Well, I have time. Well, I've been very busy, but as I mentioned on the Slack yesterday, I didn't expect to get this emotional about the fact that yesterday was my last day officially.
|
Sam:
[4:26]
| Right. It hits you, huh? Like, I'll tell you when, when, when I was laid off last year. The day I got the notice, I felt some of that. But by the time we got to my official last day, which, to be fair, was a lot longer difference than you had.
|
Ivan:
[4:48]
| How long did you have?
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Sam:
[4:49]
| I had like three months.
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Ivan:
[4:51]
| Oh, yeah. Yeah, this was like a month up, a little over a month.
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Sam:
[4:55]
| Yeah, like I had 90 days. But by the time I got to the end of that, I barely even noticed passing that threshold. I mean, I was sort of like.
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Ivan:
[5:04]
| But I think that we came to this from two very different perspectives.
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Sam:
[5:09]
| Yes.
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Ivan:
[5:11]
| You despised that job.
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Sam:
[5:14]
| I had not been happy in a few years.
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Ivan:
[5:16]
| Yeah. You truly just hated that damn job.
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Sam:
[5:20]
| I wouldn't quite go so far as saying despised, but I felt.
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Ivan:
[5:25]
| Like— You dreaded going to that damn office.
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Sam:
[5:28]
| I hadn't felt—yes, I hated going to the office for sure. I thought that was a complete and total waste that anything I could do, I could do from home. But also just the stuff I was doing, I had not had something that I really felt, was rewarding and involving that I, that like I went to and was excited about like, hey, I'm doing something useful that I feel is a good use of my skills or interests for several years. that I mean I'm not saying I never had that at Amazon I did for significant chunks of the time I was there but the last few years no I really didn't and so I, my every moment I was there I sort of longed for, the other things I could be doing with my time on my personal side of things like my various personal projects spending time with the family doing whatever I felt like every minute that I was on the job was an imposition where I would rather be doing something else. And that's not how you felt at all.
|
Ivan:
[6:37]
| Not particularly, no. So, I'm not sure, the thing is, I'm not even sure what I am, why I have been sad, because that's it, really.
|
Sam:
[6:55]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[6:57]
| I mean, it's not because we're, I don't, I don't know. Well, I mean, look, I can say there's a couple of things. As I mentioned before, I really enjoyed my actual job.
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Sam:
[7:09]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[7:11]
| So this is something that I really, you know, truly enjoyed. So getting that taken, you know, getting something taken away from you, that is something that you really, truly enjoyed. so anyway I don't want to dwell on it the more it is what it is the, reality is that as you mentioned last week look you know mine may have been, only a month plus or whatever what not, versus your far more generous efforts which is by the way in part because you were there for 20 years Yes.
|
Sam:
[7:54]
| The one thing that I did note was that my actual 20 year anniversary was about like a week to a week and a half before my 90 days ran out. So officially I did make the 20 days to 20 years.
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Ivan:
[8:10]
| You did make the 20 years officially? officially.
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Sam:
[8:13]
| Even though i wasn't actually going to work anymore or allowed to like participate i.
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Ivan:
[8:18]
| Officially my last day was actually made the exact i i my last day came officially right on the day to my five years exactly okay, on the nose right okay so, i look i said i i i had And, you know, because one of the things that, thankfully, to get the time was to be able to collect our stock—, So, so that's not, that's not, how do I say that's not, it's nothing to sneeze at. Okay. I had a friend of mine this week that said that they got laid off at their workplace a day or two ago. They get, they get a note. They put together 50 people in a call at once. They all were like, go immediately. They were provided not a single day of pay severance, nothing. It was immediate, like right there.
|
Sam:
[9:18]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[9:19]
| Nothing. I mean, nothing. Nothing. I mean, nothing.
|
Sam:
[9:23]
| Yeah, that, that.
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Ivan:
[9:25]
| I mean, that day, their email got cut, you know, like that same day, and they received not one additional hour or day of pay. Nothing. But nothing.
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Sam:
[9:39]
| Yeah. Yeah, I could see that being significantly more traumatic than having some sort of runway.
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Ivan:
[9:49]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[9:49]
| Regardless.
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Ivan:
[9:50]
| You know, what I got is the equivalent of out of my base pay, like six months.
|
Sam:
[9:59]
| Okay. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[10:00]
| When it's all said and done, it's about the equivalent of six months of my base pay. So, I mean.
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Sam:
[10:07]
| That's about what I got, plus the 90 days where I was still officially on the job.
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Ivan:
[10:11]
| Right. So. I mean.
|
Sam:
[10:14]
| So, yeah. I mean, my. It was October. It was October. When I, you know, when I, end of October, so almost exactly one year ago, a few more days, or maybe it was almost, yeah, somewhere late, about a year. But it wasn't until July when I actually had to start acting like I had no incoming income from the job.
|
Ivan:
[10:41]
| Right.
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Sam:
[10:42]
| You know so that you know it was basically nine months before i had to like start actually dipping into.
|
Ivan:
[10:50]
| Any my funds you know and that's the one thing i was like uh i had in in thankfully in august and, i i i had earned a significant amount of commissions that were paid in august and september so you know commissions the one thing is the deals you know they sometimes they pile up So maybe out of your one year target of commissions, I got paid like almost like half of what was targeted for a full year over the month of August and September. So I basically got six months of commissions like right before I got that six months of my base pay, which is comprised of my stock that was earned. But still, that's the money they gave me. I mean, so, so, you know, in the end, it turns out to be very, you know, pretty generous at the end of the day. And then, you know, I look at it through the prism of this guy, you know, look, I mean, literally, Sam, you got him on a call. He terminated, not nothing, not one dollar, nothing. That's it. Today's your last day. Bye. See ya. Oh, we'll send you a, we'll send you a box. He said your laptop. This is fucking unreal.
|
Sam:
[12:04]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[12:06]
| But that's the thing of, like, working in... Because different states have different things. I know Puerto Rico has a generous severance law.
|
Sam:
[12:18]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[12:19]
| I mean, yeah. Puerto Rico does have one. Many countries have that. But we don't. We don't have any fucking worker protections. I mean, we really don't. There are some states that do. But I found out, for example, that right now, because of the great state of Florida, because unemployment is so low, which, you know, we talked about. Finally, some people said, I posted some of these, I don't know if you saw it, but some people are finally catching on to what I reported, what I've been reporting like over the last couple of months. About the numbers being manipulated.
|
Sam:
[12:54]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[12:55]
| Yeah. So finally, people are catching on. So, oh, well, because supposedly our unemployment rate is so low, you only get like three, four months of unemployment. That's it.
|
Sam:
[13:06]
| Here in Washington, the max is 22 weeks. And, you know, I mentioned last week, I think I've got two weeks left. Now, obviously, I couldn't actually start until my 90 days was up. And then I missed some time. I didn't submit it every week I could have. So I've got a couple more weeks left that I can submit. And then I'm out. But, you know, 22 weeks is not horrible.
|
Ivan:
[13:30]
| Yeah. Well, how much per week did they pay in Washington State?
|
Sam:
[13:34]
| Well, I'm not going to give my number. It depends on what your job was.
|
Ivan:
[13:37]
| Well, but you're obviously at the... Listen, it's a... Well, it's not... What's the maximum benefit in the state of Washington?
|
Sam:
[13:46]
| I don't know.
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Ivan:
[13:47]
| Weekly.
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Sam:
[13:48]
| I don't know. I'm guessing about it. You don't know?
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Ivan:
[13:52]
| I don't know. Oh, God. I can look... Well, okay. Never mind.
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Sam:
[13:54]
| You're going to ask Claude.
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Ivan:
[13:55]
| I'll look at... You're going to ask Claude. I'm going to Google it, okay? Because maximum weekly unemployment. Well, I'll tell you...
|
Sam:
[14:04]
| Compare Washington and Florida.
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Ivan:
[14:06]
| Yeah, no, well, I know off the top of my head how much. Florida is $220 a week is the maximum benefit.
|
Sam:
[14:14]
| Okay. I'll tell you, I was definitely getting more than that.
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Ivan:
[14:16]
| Oh, yeah, I know that for a fact. In Washington State, it's $1,208. Is that right? Yeah, that's what it says here.
|
Sam:
[14:29]
| That sounds about right, yes.
|
Ivan:
[14:30]
| We get $220. This is this is the shit that you get from Republican fucking government. OK. All right. Two hundred and twenty dollars is is is nothing in this economy. Nothing. And that benefit amount has been the same for a long time. You know? Mm-hmm. Well, actually, I digress. They did adjust it. It's $275.
|
Sam:
[15:02]
| Oh, okay. All right, $275.
|
Ivan:
[15:04]
| Oh, you know? Those 50 bucks really making the difference. I mean, I see. Let me put it this way. Washington State, the minimum benefit, the minimum, is higher than the maximum in Florida. The minimum!
|
Sam:
[15:24]
| You know, I'm glad I left your state.
|
Ivan:
[15:27]
| By the way, 26 weeks is the standard duration, okay?
|
Sam:
[15:30]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[15:31]
| For Florida, 12. So not only do you get nothing, they only give it to you for 12 weeks.
|
Sam:
[15:39]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[15:40]
| Total maximum payout, $3,300.
|
Sam:
[15:46]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[15:47]
| I mean, they really couldn't give a fuck about the worker in this state.
|
Sam:
[15:52]
| I was going to say, but look, Yvonne, in exchange, you guys don't have an income tax. But then I remembered we don't either. So there you go.
|
Ivan:
[15:59]
| That's exactly right. You guys don't either. So anyway.
|
Sam:
[16:06]
| Okay. So.
|
Ivan:
[16:08]
| We're unemployed, Sam. Both of us. At the same time.
|
Sam:
[16:12]
| Well, yeah. On one of my Robins right now, at this very moment, somebody replied, like, we have got a conversation going on in somebody's response on robinletter.com. Check it out if you haven't already. But like talking about one of the other people who's also semi-retired, who's just as a low-stress thing that he finds enjoyable and useful, you know, doing the substitute teacher thing at his local schools. And it's like, and I'm like, well, yeah, is that, presumably it's more than calling up the school and saying, hey, I'm up for some shifts. And he replies, actually, no, that's just about it.
|
Ivan:
[16:52]
| That's it?
|
Sam:
[16:53]
| That's just about it. I mean, I presume this varies by school and school district, but, you know, and apparently you have to like, there are a couple other preliminaries. They do a background check to make sure you're not a sex offender or something. I think I could pass that test. You know, you probably can't have like certain types of other criminal records as well, you know, because you're going to be like with kids.
|
Ivan:
[17:15]
| You used to visit those nudist colonies.
|
Sam:
[17:17]
| I did that a couple of times.
|
Ivan:
[17:19]
| Doesn't that qualify?
|
Sam:
[17:20]
| In my 20s.
|
Ivan:
[17:22]
| And what about the OnlyFans? Maybe that's what I should do. I should start at OnlyFans.
|
Sam:
[17:26]
| I'm not going to subscribe, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[17:29]
| God. Thank God.
|
Sam:
[17:32]
| But you know, there are possibilities here.
|
Ivan:
[17:37]
| I am not dissing OnlyFans, by the way, all right? Let's be clear. But I don't think people would pay to see me on OnlyFans.
|
Sam:
[17:45]
| You know, I'm sure there are people for which you are their type.
|
Ivan:
[17:49]
| Probably, yes, but just not enough to make a profit.
|
Sam:
[17:53]
| They'd probably mostly be gay. That wouldn't bother you, would you?
|
Ivan:
[17:57]
| Not really, no, as long as they're paying. Not particularly. Not one bit. No.
|
Sam:
[18:04]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[18:05]
| None. None. No. As long as they're paying, I'm like, good. Green is good.
|
Sam:
[18:11]
| Green is good. As long as it's green.
|
Ivan:
[18:12]
| As long as it's green and it's not illegal.
|
Sam:
[18:15]
| I'm fine. There you go. Anyway. So, I don't know. Like, yeah, that's the kind of thing, too. Like, you know, when I think about, like, okay, I really don't want to go back full-time to things. But if I need something to close that gap, like we talked about last week, you know, something part time, you know, is fine. And I'm not sure substitute teachers the right thing, because I'm not sure how great like my memory of substitute teachers when I was in school was, you know, they weren't treated particularly well by the students. Not particularly.
|
Ivan:
[18:51]
| No, no. They usually, you know, at our school, let me tell you something. We abused the substitute teachers.
|
Sam:
[18:58]
| Yeah. Although I could see like it being relatively low stress. You just sort of go in there and you pass on this. Well, the one thing I did do this week.
|
Ivan:
[19:05]
| I didn't mention, is that I did meet with Florida Atlantic University, okay, to see if there were opportunities to be an adjunct professor in the business school. Okay. So I did have that meeting him because I have a master's degree, Sam.
|
Sam:
[19:19]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[19:19]
| As you know, I'm really just rubbing it in your face right now. Yes, because I don't. Yes. Because you don't. I can teach at the university. person so so i did i did have a meeting with specifically with the business in the business school because one of the things that i have had, i i wanted to do has been to teach about sales specifically because sales is something that is treated like a bastard child in business schools okay very few of them have a curriculum on it but but there was actually look somebody that was a co-worker of mine, that uh that we were you know i'm not going to say great friends we were friends okay when they left HP they created, they actually established what is a one of the, better known programs in sales instruction at florida international university okay, and i had always been interested by that because he took me he's a full professor he's a director of the program and so forth and man for a whole bunch of time i was like man i would really like to go down there and participate with him on that but i was always too busy with work you know.
|
Ivan:
[20:23]
| And so it happens to be that nicolo passed away a few months back in march got cancer he was not He was in the 60s, but he got cancer and he passed away. So when I went to meet with a school over here, there's this person that is now leading a sales program here at the school, who, by the way, is from Pittsburgh and went to Carnegie Mellon. Okay. All right. um but good way i i met with him and we were discussing this and i mentioned about the program and i said well i i was going to go visit because i've heard that they they kept telling me i need to go visit the program it's great and i said well who did you talk to nicolo and she said she realized, she had traded emails with him, but she had gotten like sidetracked with him but didn't realize she followed him she realized she didn't know he had passed away, okay so i'm the one that had to break a turd.
|
Ivan:
[21:14]
| There is another co-chair of the program who's there, but I don't know that person specifically. But yeah, it's something I've been interested in and I had been looking into. And I had actually years ago, fucking lucky. What am I, killing people? Listen, I was talking to this guy at Lynn University five years ago when I was, between jobs at Kodak to do that at Lynn University. And the guy I was talking to, he passed away. So I didn't, I don't, and I left me really so, you know, he was such a great guy. He actually worked in the Kennedy administration, okay, for a while. This guy was like, I mean, all the things that he did, he was like, this guy was great. I was so, I started going, meeting, whatever. I left a meeting on Friday. I couldn't reach him by Monday, Tuesday. I called the school. I found out he died over the weekend. It's just suddenly out of the booth. Nothing expected. Yeah. And I'm like, well, obviously I was more sad by that than upset about the teaching. But it's just like, you know.
|
Sam:
[22:23]
| Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, that's something, honestly, like, you know, I'm not sure I would want to do anything full time, but like some kind, like I could see myself doing like, you know, being an algebra or physics tutor or something.
|
Ivan:
[22:36]
| Well, what I do want to start is, and I had this question, is that, you know, because they're teaching a sales course and there's a lot of things that I was discussing with her. She realized that shit, you know, about a whole bunch of portions of this. Yeah, that I'm not even averse. averse so so to ask me to speak in class about certain of the subjects to start off there and look maybe you know because i had, i have had a hankering for a long time to teach at business school i've wanted i've been thinking about this for 20 years to be honest but it's one of the things that i would have liked to be like to be doing so if i just start like right now in terms of participating with the business school helping with the sales lab helping with the sales club, going there or whatever, maybe you can develop into a full-time position at the school. So therefore, I'm like, you know what? Let me just, you know what? I had put it off. It's something I've always wanted to do. So right now, I had the conversations. I actually, they asked for my resume on Friday from the school. So I said to them, at least if maybe there's a course I could teach, be a Natshung professor, start off with that. You know, why not? What the heck? I want to do it. You know, I really want to do it.
|
Sam:
[23:45]
| So, no, this is exactly the kind of thing that, like, let's put it, people at our ages can start considering things like this, that, like, you know, it's potentially, like, can you contribute in a way, that, you know, is sort of helpful and perhaps rewarding in ways that, you know, being in the straight up corporate world is not. Right. And, you know, and usually these things, you know, I mean, they usually pay crap compared to, like, anything properly corporate. Well, actually, actually, actually.
|
Ivan:
[24:24]
| Actually, let me correct you about this. Business school teachers actually get paid pretty well.
|
Sam:
[24:29]
| Okay, fine.
|
Ivan:
[24:30]
| At the university level. Yeah, no, no, no. Those are the humanities teachers. Actually, business school teachers get paid well. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[24:38]
| Okay. Well, I, you know, I was even thinking like, you know, I remember back before I was in the corporate world, I briefly like, you know, like when I was first graduated, like I went to a like job fair or whatever at the school district I actually went to high school in. i think and i remember them passing out like here here's the pay rates because first of all is completely like, you know standardized yeah there was no individual anything it was like here's how much you get if you're in your first year your second year third year and it was like all predefined nothing was based on performance at all right there was a little you got a little bit of bonus if you got extra like degrees and certificates.
|
Ivan:
[25:27]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But for regular teachers to do school district.
|
Sam:
[25:30]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course the numbers were tiny.
|
Ivan:
[25:33]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that's, it hasn't gotten better with, you know, it's gotten better in some states, not here in Florida.
|
Sam:
[25:41]
| Yeah, but yeah, but anyway, but like I said, I don't know if I'd want to do full-time anywhere, but I'm like, you know, those little pop-up, not pop-up, but you know, those strip mall math tutoring shops, I'm like, maybe I could do that.
|
Ivan:
[25:55]
| Mathnasium.
|
Sam:
[25:56]
| There are a whole bunch of them. That's one of the brands.
|
Ivan:
[25:58]
| Yeah, that's the one that comes to mind.
|
Sam:
[26:00]
| Yeah, there's a whole bunch of them. I'm like, maybe I could do that part-time or something. That might be fun.
|
Ivan:
[26:05]
| Hey, listen, you're not so bad. Thanks to your assistance, I was able to pass calculus. Look, if it wasn't for Sam's help, I don't know what the fuck I was going to do.
|
Sam:
[26:22]
| Of course, I barely remember that stuff anymore now, but I'm sure I can pick it up again.
|
Ivan:
[26:26]
| I'm sure you're like riding a bike. But, you know, it's one of those things where I am like very good with finance. OK, like when it involves for whatever reason, the math involves money. I am very good at that shit. OK, all right. I'm just it's just like it quickly in my head. It makes sense in two seconds. People are like, you know, wait, but what do you mean? No, yeah, you know, you do this But wait, how did you, I don't know In my head, Sam was like The same way, like back when we were At Carnegie Mellon with Calculus Where to me, I was like, what? What? We're doing what? What? I don't fucking... Anyway, but thanks to his assistance, I was able to pass calculus. Thank God. Jesus. I don't know. I'm sure that there are probably...
|
Ivan:
[27:19]
| Carnegie Mellon, I realized later when I went to Purdue Business School, we were far more intense in terms of what they took as statistics versus what we did as statistics. I mean over there it was like stats for like, it was like I don't know it's like taking like the stats that you would do from a real textbook into like you know the little kids book, type where you're like got a little pop ups or whatever that's how it felt how simple they did it at Purdue versus how we did it at, Carnegie Mellon because they really simplified it for the MBA students for some reason and I'm like what the fuck i'm like over there worried about doing the micro economics i'm doing these regression equations and all this shit and like with econometrics and i'm running all these, you know doing all this shit and over here it's almost like two plus two equals four i'm like i'm like i'm like what, But yeah, we overdid it at CMU with that shit. Well, it's probably a good reason.
|
Sam:
[28:31]
| Yes, I was going to say, it depends what you're going to do with it afterwards. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of places where, like, if you're going to become, the type of economist who is in the running for a Nobel Prize, you may be using that stuff in a way that the MBA student at Purdue does not.
|
Ivan:
[28:50]
| Well, correct. Yes, that is true. And that's the big difference. Yes.
|
Sam:
[28:55]
| Okay. Anything else? I should run through my two movies.
|
Ivan:
[29:01]
| Do the two movies. Okay.
|
Sam:
[29:02]
| Do the two movies. Okay. First up, as I get disoriented as to what screen to look at. And by the way, we are in things that I watched in mid-November 2025. so we're racing to prevent me falling more than a year behind on the movies, and i don't think i'm gonna make it because, you know as we talked about last time my rate of movie watching just went through the roof after i was laid off, and so like you know we met i mentioned like on average i was doing about two movies a week in 2025 but like, in november i was doing like one every day almost you know not not quite not quite maybe one every other day but it like.
|
Ivan:
[29:55]
| Don't break your back.
|
Sam:
[29:56]
| Work and say.
|
Ivan:
[29:57]
| You know try to you know.
|
Sam:
[29:58]
| Sam, Yeah, anyway. Okay, number one, Psych 3. This is Gus. Now, I believe we've talked about this before. There were three follow-up movies to the television show Psych, and this is the third of the follow-up movies. And I think I'm going to give about the same rating as I've done the other follow-up movies, which is sort of the sort of thumbs up between sideways and up now that I've started doing the diagonals. First of all, only if you've watched the TV show. Like there's no point in watching Psych 3, this is Gus, unless you have watched the TV show and probably the two made-for-TV movies that came before it. It's because it really is just like a continuation of the TV show. But I will say the same thing I said about some of those. Oh, I should say, I believe when we've talked about this before, you've said you've never watched the show. You know, you haven't watched Psych.
|
Ivan:
[31:13]
| No.
|
Sam:
[31:14]
| Okay. So the basic premise of the show Psych is that there's this guy who's got, he's basically got a photographic memory and remembers everything he sees, etc. That's what photographic memory is, I guess. And he uses this to pretend to be a psychic. He's not really a psychic. He's just really good at noticing things. And so he uses this to pretend to be a psychic. And then he ends up helping the local police department solve crimes by being this pretend psychic detective. Okay. He opens up a little psychic detective agency, and the police go to him for help sometimes. okay and it's it's you know and the first few seasons lean really hard on he's pretending to be a psychic and but he's not really as it goes on it more just sort of recognizes okay.
|
Sam:
[32:13]
| He just is good at noticing things you know and so he helps out the police you know but, and and it's a it's one of these dramedies where you know it's it leans high into comedy so there's lots of like witty repartee and, and things like that. And, and, and it's got some, you know, some physical gags and stuff like that too, but mostly it's like wordplay and, and, and, you know, that kind of thing. And, and so it's funny. And I really liked the, I liked the TV show, but as the TV show got into its later seasons, and I would say even more so for the, for the movies. In the original TV shows, like, the characters were, like, in their late 20s, maybe 30. I'm guesstimating. I could look it up, but I'm guesstimating. And even then, it was sort of, they act kind of juvenile, okay? So it's like the way they behave is silly enough that, okay, you can buy it from somebody in their 20s. But by the time you're in the movies, they're like in their 40s. Okay? And it's like, come on, guys, it's time to grow up. You know?
|
Ivan:
[33:36]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[33:37]
| It's like the stuff that's kind of funny when they're doing it as sort of, you know, relatively young adults. You know, by the time it's like, you know, an older person, you're like, oh, just get over yourself. Like, grow up a little. And so it's somehow less funny. It's the same characters, but it's like, it's been 15 years. Haven't you evolved at all? You know, haven't you grown? And, you know, I don't know. So that's my main criticism of the later seasons. It's just like, it doesn't hit as well when the characters are older, because you would have thought they would have grown up a little bit.
|
Sam:
[34:19]
| But, you know, it was a fine sort of addition to the series. The quick plot description, following the events of Psych 2, Lassie Goes Home, Gus and Selene's baby is almost due, but they haven't gotten married yet. Gus is planning the wedding down to the last detail, but they don't have a date because Selene is still married to her ex. Sean wants to step in and track down the ex-husband, but Gus says Selene is handling her divorce and doesn't want them to get involved. Ignoring Gus's wishes, Sean tries to get Jules to help him, but she trusts Selene and doesn't want to jeopardize her chance to be a godmother, especially since she and Sean have decided they aren't going to have kids of their own. Sean gets Chief Vic to let him use the police database and discovers that Selene Gilmore does not exist. Dut, dut, dut, and hijinks ensue. And it's kind of funny, and again, between Thumbs Sideways and Thumbs Up, the two caveats being...
|
Sam:
[35:17]
| It really only is useful if you like the TV series and have watched the whole TV series, you've got to watch the three movies, too. But if you don't watch the TV show or if you tried the TV show and you don't like it, then this is not going to be for you. And then also, this is one of those series which starts out the first few seasons really strong and good concept. and just sort of by the time you get to the end of all of this, it sort of gets old because they keep essentially repeat the same gags and the same things over and over and over again. And it's like, okay, I kind of, I got this in the first few seasons. You're just repeating yourself now. That kind of thing. And they haven't grown up.
|
Ivan:
[36:02]
| And so, I guess, you're going.
|
Sam:
[36:06]
| You don't have to run out and see this.
|
Ivan:
[36:08]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[36:08]
| Now, I would say, like, it's probably worth, like, checking out, like, season one of Psyche as a TV show.
|
Ivan:
[36:16]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[36:17]
| Okay. And then if you like it and end up watching the show, then maybe you'd see this movie at the end. But anyway. Okay, next up. Watched on the same day as Psyche 3, this is Gus. Star Trek 3, I was going to say The Wrath of Spock.
|
Ivan:
[36:36]
| The Wrath of Khan? The Wrath of Spock? That would have been an interesting one. The Wrath of Spock. Think about that one.
|
Sam:
[36:47]
| No, it's Star Trek III, The Search for Spock.
|
Ivan:
[36:51]
| Ah, The Search for Spock.
|
Sam:
[36:53]
| The Search for Spock. It's kind of, you know, and we've talked about the Star Trek movies before. This one's kind of a, it feels like an interlude between Star Trek II and Star Trek IV, to be honest. And people have talked about II, III, and IV as a trilogy that sort of go together. There's an arc, because each one starts immediately when the one before ends.
|
Ivan:
[37:17]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[37:18]
| You know, which, you know, if you move on to, like, Star Trek V or whatever, it's completely independent. Star Trek VI, completely independent. But two, three, four, like, continue one story, sort of. Although they each have a very different tone. The quick plot, for those who don't remember. The Federation Starship Enterprise limp-specked Earth following a battle with the superhuman Khan Noonien Singh, who tried to destroy the Enterprise by detonating an experimental terraforming device known as Genesis. The casualties of the fight include Admiral James T. Kirk's Vulcan friend Spock, whose casket has unexpectedly landed onto the surface of the planet created by the Genesis device. Upon arriving at Earth's space dock, Dr. Leonard McCoy begins to act strangely and is arrested. Starfleet Admiral Morrow visits Enterprise and informs the crew the ship is to be decommissioned. The crew is ordered not to speak about Genesis due to political fallout over the device.
|
Sam:
[38:18]
| David Marcus, Kirk's son, a key scientist in Genesis' development, and the Vulcan Savik are investigating the Genesis planet from the science vessel USS Grissom. Discovering an unexpected life form on the surface, Marcus and Savik transport to the planet. They find that the Genesis device has resurrected Spock in the form of a child, although his mind is not present. Marcus, pressed by Savik, admits that he used unstable protomatter in constructing the Genesis device, meaning that Spock is rapidly aging, and the planet will be destroyed within hours. Meanwhile, Commander Kruger, a member of the alien Klingon race, intercepts information about Genesis. Believing the device to be a potent weapon, he takes his cloak ship to the Genesis planet, destroys Grissom, and captures Marcus, Savick, and Spock. Dot, dot, dot. Things happen. You know, and my memory, you know, before re-watching it, my memory was that Star Trek 3, was, like I said, it's an interlude between 2 and 4, and I felt like it was mostly forgettable, and 2 and, you know, they used to say back in the day that, the even-numbered Star Trek movies were the only good ones, and you could ignore the odd-numbered movies.
|
Sam:
[39:36]
| You know and I would say the even number 2 and 4 were better than 1, 3, 5 and 6 is probably you know 2, 4, 6 are probably better than 1.
|
Ivan:
[39:50]
| 3, 5 yeah I mean 5 being the the worst of the worst I mean 5 being just I mean 5 should be somehow.
|
Sam:
[40:05]
| Scrummed from existence.
|
Ivan:
[40:06]
| Yeah, basically. Yeah, I mean, Five should somehow, somebody should figure out a way to go to the Paramount archives and delete it.
|
Sam:
[40:15]
| Yes, anyway.
|
Ivan:
[40:16]
| And like all of a sudden, oh, we don't know what happened. I don't know.
|
Sam:
[40:21]
| I'm sure I will eventually get to Five where, you know, Kirk goes on a mission to meet God. I tried to be watching it.
|
Ivan:
[40:27]
| Like, you know, it came on TV or somehow, I don't know how I stumbled into it recently. yeah it's anyway i but back to three it's back to three we're talking about three right now okay so so five okay three, three you know uh in re-watching it it wasn't that bad, well that was i was gonna say that was my experience the last time i watched three i actually, i think kind of like around the same time that that i watched five i i got to see three and you know what we gave it a hard i i thought the same thing as you i think we gave this movie a hard time this is not that bad.
|
Sam:
[41:09]
| No it was it wasn't bad at all like i.
|
Ivan:
[41:12]
| I think the problem is compared to con yes it just wasn't like two, yeah i think that it standing on its own it's good but it's just two was so good right okay that it suffered in comparison i i think that's the biggest that's the problem.
|
Sam:
[41:30]
| And four was very different but i'd also say four was better so it's sort of like.
|
Ivan:
[41:34]
| Yeah if you.
|
Sam:
[41:35]
| Go two three four three is the weakest of the three and so sort of got that forgotten interlude kind of memory to it.
|
Ivan:
[41:45]
| Right but it really isn't that bad it really is a decent movie it is i'm gonna give it.
|
Sam:
[41:50]
| A thumbs up.
|
Ivan:
[41:52]
| I agree with you i think it deserves a thumbs up i i do think so yeah i think it's just it's just one of those things where it was just, it's just it came in you know after two and it's just you know two is so fucking good, it's two still holds up now i watched it recently, yeah i i think i went through i i guess i must have been on uh let's just watch the star trek movies recently and i i and and damn it man just two is so damn good still to this day yeah.
|
Sam:
[42:28]
| You know, speaking of two, and this is a complete tangent and then we'll close up. One of the substitute shows, like, you know, my whole TV thing. And I mentioned last week, I finally replaced a couple of shows that had been missing slots for a long time. But one of the replacements that Alex and I have just started watching is the original 1968 Hawaii Five-0.
|
Ivan:
[42:53]
| Oh, you know what? I really loved watching that show with my dad.
|
Sam:
[42:59]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[43:01]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[43:01]
| I had never seen it before.
|
Ivan:
[43:03]
| No way. My dad loved that show.
|
Sam:
[43:06]
| I, of course, knew about its existence.
|
Ivan:
[43:08]
| But I'd never watched it. My dad loved that show. And when I was little, I would always watch that show with my dad.
|
Sam:
[43:16]
| And so, like, we just started it. We're, like, six episodes in or something to season one. but such a great, such a.
|
Ivan:
[43:29]
| Such a great you know tune for.
|
Sam:
[43:32]
| And of course there was a 2010s remake yeah that one yeah but anyway, but we're we're watching it and the the reason, the star trek connection is like episode four so i forget which episode but it's got ricardo montalban in it ah as you know a, a young guy a relatively young guy a because it was 1968 so well before con and stuff like that well before fantasy island etc, but the thing is, You know, Ricardo Montalban is, of course, Mexican. I had to look that up to see, was he from Spain? Was he from Mexico? He's Mexican.
|
Ivan:
[44:18]
| Yeah, he is Mexican, actually. I just saw something. Yeah, no, no. I was going to say he's Mexican, but for some reason, I don't know what the hell. All of a sudden, I logged into a page and said something about Venezuela. What? I'm like, Venezuela? What the fuck is this talking about? No, no, he's Mexican. Yes.
|
Sam:
[44:33]
| He's Mexican.
|
Ivan:
[44:33]
| And that was what I remembered, yes.
|
Sam:
[44:35]
| But in this episode of Hawaii Five-0, they had him made up to try to look Japanese. So like the equivalent of blackface, but for Japanese. So it's like coming off kind of racist.
|
Ivan:
[44:50]
| But it's a Mexican guy.
|
Sam:
[44:53]
| And if he was attempting to do like a Japanese accent or something, he utterly failed. He just, he sounded exactly like Mr. Rourke or Cumb, you know? So like, and it was like, what is, what is happening here? Why is, you know, and like, cause you've got this sort of, this, they clearly did something to his eyes to try to like make him look Asian. and it's and like they i think they tinted his skin as well i'm like what the fuck is this and then meanwhile i mean i guess it actually would have been worse, if he was trying to do a bad japanese accent, but it was just the regular ricardo mantelbon accent and, And it was just like.
|
Ivan:
[45:51]
| What, what, what the fuck else you want me to do? Ricardo Montal, but this is, you know, I don't do accents.
|
Sam:
[45:57]
| Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[45:58]
| He's not like, you know, Hugh Lowry, who's like, I mean, unreal how he, he, every time I've watched Hugh Lowry for years on the TV show house doing an incredible American accent.
|
Sam:
[46:10]
| And then you realize he's actually British. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[46:13]
| Yeah. And then I, well, I, and I realized it's like a long time ago, but you see an interview with him and you're like whoa the fuck the.
|
Sam:
[46:20]
| Hell exactly.
|
Ivan:
[46:21]
| What is that where'd that accent come from.
|
Sam:
[46:25]
| Yes exactly anyway like anyway so we've started we've started it and you know it and one piece of trivia about hawaii 50, it it it lasted from 1968 to 1980 and apparently it was the i'm not sure if I got this 100% right, but close. It was like the last primetime television show that started in the 1960s to still be on the air.
|
Ivan:
[46:56]
| Wait, wait, wait. Say that again? Which show?
|
Sam:
[47:00]
| Apparently, Hawaii Five-0 was the last primetime network show, That started in the 1960s to still be on the air. It went off the air in 1980.
|
Ivan:
[47:15]
| Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's why I was able to watch it, of course. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:19]
| Right. So anyway. That's cool. Okay. Let's take a break. Let's get out of here. Let's be done. For the last few shows, I am supposed to have included an Apple Dream, but I haven't prepared it. So here's, you know, and this time. Well, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[47:38]
| Last week, you had the cartoon version of us, which I said it would be great.
|
Sam:
[47:46]
| Make a cartoon to go with it.
|
Ivan:
[47:47]
| Yeah. Just, you know, animated, you know, the animated version of us. Yes. There's a whole bunch of things like shows like Star Trek, all these that have animated. We just need the animated version of us. Yes.
|
Sam:
[48:02]
| I have. I passed along that feedback to Alex and I will repeat it. He may be able to do this. I mean, at this point with the tools that exist, you practically have to give an AI two pictures of us, the audio he already generated.
|
Ivan:
[48:18]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[48:19]
| And say, make a cartoon to go along with this.
|
Ivan:
[48:22]
| Make them a cartoon version. My brother just sent me a freaking, cartoon version of a picture of us that we took like 16 years ago. And I'm like, oh, okay. Look at that. There you go.
|
Sam:
[48:34]
| Yeah. Well, and I remember when I was first playing around with some of these AI tools a couple of years ago, and they've gotten better since, I made a version of the Curmudgeon's Corner logo with us as Muppets. Oh, that's right. That came out good like two years ago.
|
Ivan:
[48:49]
| Yeah. And the tools are way better now.
|
Sam:
[48:51]
| Yeah, exactly. So anyway, so I think he's still working on refining the mechanisms he used. Oh. Since you mentioned that, I'll tell you, the other night, it was like two nights ago, in the middle of the night, it was like three in the morning. Yeah, of course, Alex is still awake. And he comes to me, and we were doing something else, but then he sets this up to start. He has trained, both ChatGPT and Claude with transcripts of our shows. Okay. So he put Claude on my phone, ChatGPT on his phone.
|
Ivan:
[49:33]
| To talk to each other?
|
Sam:
[49:34]
| And told one of them to be you and one of them to be me and said, do Curmudgeon's Corner. And just started them going with a prompt of like maybe a topic that they were going to talk about. And so it did like a mini five-minute episode of Curmudgeon's Corner. starting from the intro welcome to curmudgeon's corner on such and such day and it did it exactly like i usually do it and then they talk about some random thing and then they're like now it's time for news and they talk about news for a little bit and then at the end it's got me going, curmudgeon -corner.com slack transcripts blah blah blah you know what what's a highlight from the slack Yvonne and has you give some random crap from the from the slack and and it's it's like it I, it it does not quite capture the real episodes, but it was kind of funny and if you added the cartoon to it you say that I'm saying I could see that little five minute cartoon curmudgeons corner episodes that are basically parodies of us yes yes.
|
Ivan:
[50:45]
| It's great I love that Yeah, I mean, what the hell? Hey, you know, for whatever reason, we enjoyed far more any negative feedback we got than positive. So what the hell, man? Go and, like, make fun of us. Yes. Absolutely.
|
Sam:
[51:00]
| Okay. Yeah, we'll have to get them. And actually, the ones where Claude and ChatGPT were trying to talk to each other were also just amusing because you've got the two AIs. I mean, we literally just put the two phones next to each other and had them talk to each other.
|
Ivan:
[51:14]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[51:15]
| But both of them had been given the mission of being one of us and doing a fake Curmudgeon's Corner episode. So it is kind of interesting just listening to them because they're making it up in real time as they go. Anyway, fun stuff. Okay, time for a break. And when we come back, we will talk about newsy stuff. We've already gone nearly an hour. Oh, wow. That's fine. That's fine. It's fine. Here we go.
|
Sam:
[52:32]
| And we're back. So, Yvonne, news, stuff that's happened this week. We're, yo, I don't know. I've got a list of things. We're, like, surprisingly close to midterms. But, you know, we've talked about that a lot. And then there are a few things that have happened this week. Where do you want to start?
|
Ivan:
[52:53]
| Let me see. Hmm. Um. Hmm. Where do we start? Where do we start? I'm thinking, I'm thinking. I guess, look, I think the best place to start is the Ramaswamy fucking tasteless ad shit. I think that's the best place.
|
Sam:
[53:17]
| Give the background. What was this?
|
Ivan:
[53:20]
| So, let me see if I can properly describe this. Let's see. The mom of the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio. Amy Acton, right? Okay. Yeah, Acton. She had been raped by her father when she was young. And her mom had basically sided with her dad.
|
Sam:
[53:47]
| I think it was a stepdad to be technical.
|
Ivan:
[53:48]
| A stepdad or, okay, whichever it was.
|
Sam:
[53:51]
| Close enough.
|
Ivan:
[53:51]
| Okay, close enough. Okay, it was, you know. But her, let's be clear, her biological.
|
Sam:
[53:59]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[54:00]
| Sided with the rapist. Okay.
|
Sam:
[54:02]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[54:03]
| And did so. And they had been estranged, and I think that there was some legal stuff that also happened. In fact, if I remember correctly, where, you know, they had just not, you know, she just had no relationship with her mom. So the Ramaswamy.
|
Sam:
[54:16]
| Campaign— They had been—the kids had been removed from the family for obvious reasons.
|
Ivan:
[54:21]
| Yeah, gee, I wonder why. And so apparently the Ramaswamy campaign went and got her mom to go and talk and basically shit on her daughter. Okay. In an ad that has been found so grotesquely distasteful that I think this single handedly has. I mean, he was at low odds of winning this. basically i think is the the the the the final torpedo in the ramaswami campaign, that's what it looks like to me right now what do you think.
|
Sam:
[55:05]
| I i mean i've seen charts showing that since this came out, his already bad polls have gotten worse yeah like way worse but like they and look the thing is he's also doubled down on it he hasn't Right.
|
Ivan:
[55:21]
| That's even worse. The motherfucker goes and doubles down on it. Okay? Even though a whole bunch of people on his own party have just said, are you fucking nuts?
|
Sam:
[55:34]
| Right. And of course, Acton, you know, She has talked about her past before. So it's not like this was surfacing a secret that she'd kept hidden. But it has resurfaced that. And so she's talked about her experiences as a survivor. And basically that, look, here's what this woman is like. And you're trying to use her against me? What the hell? And so... I don't want to, I want to be careful on my wording. It's not that the original situation was a positive for Acton. Obviously not. But the fact that Ramaswamy tried this is completely backfiring on him. And the fact that he doubles down on it more is making it worse. And, you know, and other, you know, Trump got into the mix and he's like, I don't see what's wrong with it.
|
Ivan:
[56:37]
| You know, I mean, yeah, I mean, Trump has been like, oh, yeah, he's been Trump has been very out there really helping the campaign by admiring for some reason men's asses. What the fuck?
|
Sam:
[56:55]
| And other attributes and other attributes.
|
Ivan:
[56:57]
| What in fucking hell is going the fuck on in that brain of his?
|
Sam:
[57:04]
| Wow. His inhibitions are falling, and he is realizing that, you know, that— He likes men.
|
Ivan:
[57:14]
| I guess.
|
Sam:
[57:15]
| And all of his bad treatment of women over the decades was just compensation for the fact that he really prefers men.
|
Ivan:
[57:23]
| I mean, honestly, to a certain extent, it seems like this is what is going on.
|
Sam:
[57:27]
| I mean, you know.
|
Ivan:
[57:29]
| I obviously— Seriously. Honestly, it tracks.
|
Sam:
[57:35]
| I'm not, you know, I'm not, you know, I said it, but I'm not like, I wouldn't try to make a diagnosis. But on the other hand, yeah, absolutely. It tracks.
|
Ivan:
[57:44]
| On the other hand, it's not implausible. You know, you connected the dots. Honestly, you know, it's one of those things that that's one way that the dots actually connect.
|
Sam:
[57:53]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[57:54]
| And a pretty plausible one, to be honest with you. because, plausible because history has shown that this is how men behave when faced with this.
|
Sam:
[58:06]
| It's not implausible.
|
Ivan:
[58:07]
| It's not implausible.
|
Sam:
[58:10]
| And, you know, how.
|
Ivan:
[58:12]
| He's a combination pedophile. What's the fuck his daughter? So he, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[58:18]
| I actually even forgot to put on our list the Lindsey Graham thing from this week.
|
Ivan:
[58:24]
| No, he's dead.
|
Sam:
[58:25]
| He's dead.
|
Ivan:
[58:27]
| And let's be clear, this had been suspected widely before.
|
Sam:
[58:34]
| And people had even come out before and said, yeah, I was one of the people, but nobody really. But this week, somebody was really hyping. There's going to be a big revelation about a senator paying for gay sex and blah, blah. And one of them was underage and blah, blah, blah. And then it turns out to be Lindsey Graham.
|
Ivan:
[58:49]
| Which, again, we're all like, OK, we all knew about it and he's dead. So, you know, OK. All right. Film at 11.
|
Sam:
[58:56]
| But again, this ties to, you know, and people have speculated for a long time that how much of the Republican hostility to LGBTQ, is because there's so many of them that are closeted themselves.
|
Ivan:
[59:15]
| Dude, I mean, come on. It's not a question. It's a fact. We know this. Look, this whole damn thing, that why the hell in every one of these goddamn right-wing Christian conservative conventions fucking grinder traffic into whatever, town it's in goes through the roof that basically crashes the damn site?
|
Sam:
[59:38]
| Right. And it's like, how much healthier could society as a whole be if these goddamn men could just be honest with themselves, and be their true selves from the beginning. Because there's so much psychological damage that appears to be happening here, just because of people trying to deny that part of themselves.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:07]
| Deny their successuality, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:00:09]
| And, So, I don't know. But what were we talking about?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:17]
| Well, we were talking about going back to the Ramaswamy campaign. and how Trump loaded onto it and Trump went out to help the Republicans out there by having some basically gay, thoughts publicly expressed while admiring the, men and fawning over their asses, their muscles, their dicks. They're every, I'm just going and I'm like, you know, saying this at a large rally in public and you're like, what the fuck is going on?
|
Sam:
[1:00:57]
| And this, of course, ties to the larger conversations we've had over and over again about his potentially declining mental state, reduced him inhibitions as part of that. But, you know, and also people have like posted videos of him recently, like making random gagging noises in the middle of his speech, having long pauses, you know. He's always been semi-incoherent, but it's getting worse.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:26]
| Also, some injuries in his face and other places were becoming a little bit more prominent that they seem they're covered up with makeup, you know, because he has extensively used makeup, as we are well aware. So, yeah, I mean, you know, but the bottom line is we were talking about this. I was bringing this up in the context of how the Republicans are doing heading into the midterms. The reality is that, the Ramaswamy episode is just another one of these things that they have done that has not been a positive for any of these campaigns. I mean, look, obviously the polls are not closed.
|
Sam:
[1:02:13]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:14]
| We don't know the final result. But, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:02:17]
| I'll repeat what I say every time that even though we're seeing like on the Senate races, like Democrats sweeping all of the close states and even grabbing some that were never expected. We.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:30]
| Just don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:02:32]
| If you a three point poll miss is typical. If you subtract three percent from all of these states, then it's a toss up still.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:44]
| Well, a number of them are a toss-up still, but there's a number of them.
|
Sam:
[1:02:47]
| Well, no, but what I mean is control of the Senate is a toss-up still.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:50]
| Control of the Senate is a toss-up. Yes, no, agreed. But it's just... This is a party that has, I think it goes to like the way that, I still remember like when Elon Musk took over Twitter and he kept like shutting down and like pulling systems and saying, ah, you see, that didn't break this. Ah, you see, that didn't break this. Ah, you see, that didn't break it. Until it does.
|
Sam:
[1:03:16]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:17]
| You know, it's just these things where they just don't, you know, they kept like, just let's just keep doing all sorts of shit that we know is detrimental because, aha, you see, nothing happened until it eventually does. Because inevitably, you can't keep, you know, basically tempting fate by doing everything that all the data show you is detrimental to the campaign. And, you know, because you spent a long period of time where you would do anything, like as Trump famously said, that I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't drop in the polls. And for a while, that kept holding up until it doesn't anymore.
|
Sam:
[1:04:10]
| Well, and yes, but what we're seeing, I think, is a combination of things. It's a combination of things, but unfortunately, a big part of it is once again, sort of the empathy problem with a whole bunch of people who don't change their minds until it affects them personally.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:28]
| Yeah. Oh, totally. Oh, yeah. That is a big thing. Yes. all of these people all of a sudden have changed their mind because all of a sudden you know the leopards finally ate their face right, I mean that's it I mean that's really 100% it nothing else as long as the leopards weren't eating their face they were like oh yeah yeah yeah no this is great oh this is wonderful whatever until finally you know, You know, the guys that, you know, you start with talking about what I was talking about, the unemployment numbers, where they basically just, 2025, they faked the job numbers the whole fucking year. The whole fucking year, they faked the job numbers. Okay. Sam, we had an administration for the first time ever in tracking, tracking employment data that faked the entire data set for a year. The whole fucking data set.
|
Sam:
[1:05:21]
| Now, to be clear, repeating what you've said, like, a couple months ago when we talked about it on the show, what they're faking is the initial report, and then they revise that to the real numbers later.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:37]
| Right, because the initial reports.
|
Sam:
[1:05:38]
| As I've said— But by then, the impact has happened.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:40]
| Yeah, exactly. And it had the impact that they wanted because everybody always focuses on that damn initial report. Because in the past, if there were revisions, it was like a lot of times they were up or they were minor, they were up. It wasn't significant. But last year, 90% of the jobs initially reported were gone. 90%. 90!
|
Sam:
[1:06:12]
| Well, that's just a trivial correction, Yvonne. You know, it's negligible.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:16]
| As my analysis showed, it had never happened. Not even close. Never, ever in the history of tracking these numbers. Ever.
|
Sam:
[1:06:30]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:32]
| And the thing is that I still see financial reporters talking about how we have a strong economy when that is the reality of our job creation. OK, because, again, because they focused on the initial fucking numbers. And it pisses me off to no end that they keep talking, well, you know, the economies are silly. No, no, you know, we're not creating jobs.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:00]
| The average consumer is getting killed in earnings, okay? Earnings are negative. Costs are skyrocketing in things. It's like, well, it only increased 3%, 4%. Listen, the problem is that then the things that the prices are rising, are things that middle to lower income consumers take a much larger piece of their income than people in the higher end so those people are getting, killed that's the and this is the shit that they're not seeing that that consumer is getting absolutely slaughtered and by the way and it's the only damn fucking reason that a lot of these assholes that fucking voted for him are finally realizing why they're that why they're getting screwed because they're seeing it every day at the pump at the grocery store at every damn store they're finally just getting what they, they're finally getting what the fuck they voted for.
|
Sam:
[1:08:06]
| Yep of course they would say that's not what we voted for he's doing something completely different.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:12]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:08:13]
| He promised us low prices.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:16]
| Yes. He promised you low prices. Yes. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:08:19]
| And no wars.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:21]
| Yeah. And no wars. No.
|
Sam:
[1:08:24]
| One more quick note on the empathy thing, because it's not just the voters, obviously. Like, you look at the Ramaswamy situation. Putting this ad out in the first place is an empathy issue, right? It's like they couldn't imagine that this would have a negative effect. They're like, well, this is great. Her mother is slamming her. And then when Ramaswamy was asked about, like, well, you know, her experience with whatever, his answer was something along the lines of, well, I understand she might have had, like, you know, a negative situation in her childhood. You know, completely dismissing and minimizing, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:09:10]
| And it's in all of this. And even when you get to, like, we've talked so many times about Donald Trump and these others, you know, assuming—, that the Democrats operate in the same way they do through projection. It's because the whole idea of putting yourself in someone's shoes and imagining that somebody might have motivations that are different than your own is alien to so many of these people. It's like, well, of course everybody's going to be transactional. That's how I am. That's the only way to be. You know, anyone who's not is just stupid, but I can't really imagine that anyone really isn't. It's just an act. If they say they're doing something because it's the right thing to do or because it helps people, well, they're obviously just lying about their motivations. They are really, of course, in it for themselves because that's how I am, you know, and this permeates everything. And, you know, I saw another survey. I didn't share it because it was on a Blue Sky post that was restricted so that it could only be seen by logged in Blue Sky users. But it was a survey of like, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:10:29]
| Of self-identified Christians. And, you know, specifically, you know, we're talking right wing Christians, obviously. But apparently it has been an increasing trend over the last few years that, you know, empathy is just wrong and evil. And it's, you know, it's like a sign of the devil. And you have to fight against empathy because that's how they get you or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:54]
| And literally the number one most important thing that Jesus Christ fucking taught. And they have somehow fucking twisted themselves into a pretzel to saying that it's evil.
|
Sam:
[1:11:10]
| Yes. And just empathy is like the thing they use to get at you to help destroy society.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:20]
| Uh-huh. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:11:23]
| It kills me every time. And it's like, you know, and I've talked about like, before, and I know I'm being repetitive. I apologize. Things that I've learned since 2015 when Donald Trump went down the staircase. One is the percentage of people without empathy. Two is the percentage of people who are just stupid. Three is the percentage of people who are outright racists or sexists or anti-LGBTQ. Like, I fully admit, I was living in a little bubble where I thought all of those things were sort of, you know, most people are generally good and empathetic. Most people are relatively smart. Most people, you know, all of the art. Most people aren't racist. Most people aren't sexist. These are remnants of like, yes, of course, there are people who are all those things, but they're on the downside. They're like a smaller portion of the population that's getting smaller every year. And nope. I mean, maybe the long term trend is still downward on those things.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:38]
| There is a younger generation of assholes that is being brought up as we speak. I mean, look at what the hell. What was the name of the not, you know, that idiot that didn't last a Scaramucci?
|
Sam:
[1:12:51]
| Oh, yeah, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:52]
| Whatever her fucking name is, whatever. Who cares? Dressed like, I don't know. Dressed like a sail. I mean, I don't know. She was just like, I don't know, somebody like she was a steward on a ship or something or whatever. When she talked about it, I don't even know what the fuck she was trying to do. Who couldn't even read it?
|
Sam:
[1:13:06]
| Speaking of ships, another person on one of those episodes of Hawaii Five-0 was Captain Steubing from The Loveless.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:13]
| Ah!
|
Sam:
[1:13:16]
| Much younger and playing a drug dealer, but you know, whatever drug dealer. Yes. Okay, go ahead. Continue. Sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:26]
| Drive dealer!
|
Sam:
[1:13:28]
| You mentioned a ship, and so, of course, I immediately went to Love Boat. And, you know, anyway. Okay, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:40]
| Well, anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:13:43]
| I completely took you off.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:44]
| No, it's just that you wouldn't even know what I was talking about. Look at all these young people that the administration has attracted to do all this shit, like from the Steve Millers to, you know, I don't know, who the fuck was the other press secretary? You know, we've had this procession of like younger press secretaries. I didn't realize Sean Spicer is like our age, for example. I mean, you think about it, like eight years ago, he's in his 40s as well, for example. I mean, come on. You know, you got this entire all the Doge boys and, you know, all these fucking people that that that that have been brought into this, into this administration it's just i i you know they they they have definitely bred, a young generation of assholes that that that is up and coming who also i i've read numerous times on articles how they find it hard to date, once people, you know, they are shocked that women, most, you know, educated women, young educated women don't want to date them.
|
Sam:
[1:14:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:54]
| Can you imagine that?
|
Sam:
[1:14:56]
| No idea why. No, but I also saw a chart this week as well on shifts in opinion, political opinion, from 2024 to 2026. Because famously in 2024, while most people in the youngest cohort of voters still voted Democratic, like the youngest voters were still overwhelmingly Democratic. But the proportion that went Republican was much, much higher than it had been at any time recently. There was a big shift from 2020, 2022, 2024. Right, right.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:36]
| It was a big, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:15:38]
| And it showed like by generation, what are the shifts from 2024 to 2026? And the biggest, most dramatic move back in the Democratic direction was those young voters. Oh, really? Because apparently that apparently what happened?
|
Ivan:
[1:15:58]
| Oh, what did they what did these morons figure out?
|
Sam:
[1:16:03]
| Because apparently the thought process in 2024 was we don't believe what anyone's told us about Donald Trump because we don't we don't really remember his first term all that well. So we'll give him a shot because he says low prices and no wars. And then a few months later, or a couple years later as we are now, oh wait, he lied.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:27]
| I want to fuck these fucking people, I swear to God. These motherfuckers, these stupid motherfuckers, I swear to God. I swear to God.
|
Sam:
[1:16:37]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:38]
| I'm just, I, they're all, they're such fucking stupid fucks.
|
Sam:
[1:16:47]
| Yes. Okay. Moving on. Oh, and they're all shocked by the corruption, too.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:52]
| Oh, really?
|
Sam:
[1:16:54]
| No, no idea. What do you mean that's real? What do you mean? What do you mean?
|
Ivan:
[1:16:59]
| What do you mean?
|
Sam:
[1:17:04]
| Okay. I wouldn't deceive you from a clip from that movie that I haven't seen. Anyway, moving on, other election-related stuff, though. You know, we've talked before about we anticipate all kinds of shenanigans potentially in the wake of midterms, and many of them have already started. But the latest is the DOJ has sued Alaska to try to preemptively get them to say that if the Democrat wins, by enough so that, remember, folks, Alaska has one of these things. They have the ranked choice thing. Well, not ranked choice, but we've got the fake Dan Sullivan as well as the real Dan Sullivan on the ballot. So there's the Dan Sullivan, who is the incumbent senator from Alaska. And then we've got some other random Dan Sullivan who decided to run and came in high enough. So he's on the ranked choice ballot. And so Donald Trump is suing Alaska to say if the Democrat wins, but by a margin where the fake Dan Sullivan's votes would have made the difference to not certify the election, because presumably it's just people being confused and voting for the wrong Dan Sullivan. And so therefore, the senator, Dan Sullivan, should have won in those situations.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:29]
| Gotta love these assholes. You know, can I just say that you do realize, right, that the odds of that getting anywhere are about the same odds as I have as, you know, Cameron Diaz showing up right now over here and inviting me to a sex party.
|
Sam:
[1:18:51]
| That wasn't already your plan for the afternoon, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:18:54]
| Yeah. You know, I'm waiting over here. As a matter of fact, I'm looking at my calendar and like, you know. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:18:59]
| Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:00]
| My wife gave it the thumbs up and everything. So that's like, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:19:03]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:04]
| Also another shit, you know. Maybe it's Cameron Diaz. Maybe she would say yes. Basically, she'd figure out, I don't know, right now, someone employed. I'm like, are we going to make money somehow with this?
|
Sam:
[1:19:15]
| That's who's paying for your OnlyFans. Cameron Diaz.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:18]
| Yes. Exactly. You're just sending, just plowing the checks through. Yes, absolutely.
|
Sam:
[1:19:26]
| Anyway, no, apparently, legal folks who've looked at this lawsuit say absolutely what you've just said. This is complete nonsense. First of all, they're claiming authority under a law where the only thing in the law that has anything to do with it is a sentence in the preamble that says the purpose of the law is to help the DOJ, help the states with election integrity. That's it. That's the only part of it. And apparently the rest of it, in typical fashion now for the DOJ who's been hollowed out of anybody who's actually there because they know what they're doing.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:09]
| They know the law.
|
Sam:
[1:20:10]
| Yeah, apparently the main text is just riddled with errors, riddled with inconsistencies, you know, and just misstatements of the law. And the whole thing contradicts all sorts of history.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:25]
| I'm guessing that here's the thing. These guys tried to use like Claude or Chet GPT to do it.
|
Sam:
[1:20:30]
| Oh, I'm sure.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:31]
| No, no, no. But here's what happened. The thing is that it kept rejecting whatever they said because, no, that's not the law. No, that's not what it says. No, it kept arguing back with them about it. So they wound up having to discard whatever the AI gave them because the AI was like, you know, trying to do the law. Right. And they wound up having to write it themselves, which is why it looks like shit.
|
Sam:
[1:20:56]
| Yeah. Anyway, no, but all of the people have looked at it. I shouldn't say all. I'm sure you could find somebody. But all of the reputable people.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:06]
| All the reputable people that have looked at it.
|
Sam:
[1:21:07]
| I've said this is absolute nonsense. It is likely to be tossed out almost immediately. Right. You know, Donald Trump claimed credit for it and said they filed it because he told them to.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:21]
| So, yeah, that's that's so helpful, Don. That's always helpful.
|
Sam:
[1:21:29]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:31]
| It sounds like the typical filing that Donald has done. I think he's a frustrated lawyer.
|
Sam:
[1:21:39]
| Yes well there there there are clearly lots of the donald trump legal filings that clearly had, sections that were dictated by donald trump himself yes you know that where, because the president is so wonderful and everyone loves him it is clear that this is important and blah blah Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:01]
| Speaking of the president, so apparently Ron DeSantis received Donald Trump like here and they had or no. Well, I saw he gave him some fake gold coin, OK, that had like a picture of Donald Trump giving the finger to, you know, with the two fingers, something about that, a miss or something or whatever. then he went to Ohio and they had this certificate for him, saying person of the century or something it's like one of these certificates that it looks like you don't remember the old days when we used like print shop or something like that where they would just make this little certificate like for class people.
|
Sam:
[1:22:42]
| Have learned this is how you get what you want out of.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:44]
| Donald apparently yeah so they had this little I mean we've got the FIFA.
|
Sam:
[1:22:48]
| Peace Prize remember.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:49]
| The FIFA Peace Prize You know, Rolex gave him that, that, that, that, that watch. Apple gave him that gold thing.
|
Sam:
[1:22:58]
| Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:59]
| I mean, that's the thing. You got to show up with some kind of trinket like, like that. Yeah. For him. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:23:05]
| It works. Apparently.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:07]
| Apparently. Well, I had somebody over here threaten me to, uh, that they wanted to throw me in jail, but I actually do know a person that is a member of Mar-a-Lago. Okay. All right. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:23:19]
| All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:20]
| So they are, they, they, they are friends from Purdue. They are a member over there. So my, I said that my ace in the hole right now is trying to get me in jail as I'll call him up.
|
Sam:
[1:23:33]
| Got a visit.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:35]
| Well, not maybe get a visit. I don't even have to go over there. He could, look, all they got to do over there is like flatter him and just tell him, hey, you know, whatever, get me off the hook. So I should start planning crimes.
|
Sam:
[1:23:47]
| Right. Okay. I see what you mean. I thought you were going to say that your crime was you get your friend to let you into Mar-a-Lago. No, no, no. And then you end up seeing Stephen Miller or something and an assault happens.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:59]
| I would, I mean, that's a problem. You see, that's one reason why I shouldn't go anywhere near Mar-a-Lago. because if I do see Stimler, I'm going to wind up, yes, I'm going to wind up probably arrested, yes. I'm sure a lot of people will contribute to my legal defense if they find out, oh, he's the guy that sucker punched Steve Miller? Oh my God, yes, how much money do you need?
|
Sam:
[1:24:20]
| Oh, like that guy who dressed up as Spider-Man a little while ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:24]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:24:27]
| Punch the Nazi.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:28]
| Yeah, there you go.
|
Sam:
[1:24:30]
| Yeah. Okay. Anything non-midterms, like before we start wrapping up?
|
Ivan:
[1:24:39]
| Well, what is the biggest surprise for you right now at these midterms? That's a question. You're looking at this across the board. What would you say is, man, that one never saw that coming?
|
Sam:
[1:24:54]
| Well, look, there's a bunch of these. I mean, it's all of these deep red states that are suddenly like look like they're winnable, at least close. Maybe the Democrats not going to win, but it looks like they're closer than anybody ever imagined. I mean, you know, everybody's been talking about, you know, Texas, of course, and on the edges, things like Mississippi. But, you know, we've had some reports of Arkansas being closer than normal. Montana apparently could—, There's an independent who's doing really well that if the Democrat had just fucking dropped out, they might have had a shot at beating the Republican. But the Democrat, who's like a distant third, insisted on staying in. And it's like the independent is more like a Romney Republican. But if you have a choice between a MAGA Republican and a Romney Republican.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:58]
| I'm like kiss the feet of the Romney Republican right now, for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[1:26:03]
| Exactly. But apparently, even there, even with the Democrats still in, it's kind of close. And it's like, really? And so you've got a whole bunch of these. And I think the fact that so many, are in that category, I think, is the biggest shock. because, you kind of expect close states are going to be close and they're going to be competitive but the surprise here is how many states that nobody had on their radar at all, are having significant Democratic surges, or to be precise in this case, many of these are not Democratic surges. They are the Republicans falling apart and the Democrats taking advantage of that, which is one thing that I've said before, and I'll say again, if the Democrats have a massive blue wave this time around, they need to be really careful about how they interpret that. And it's not necessarily because they love you. It's because they hate the other guy.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:20]
| And I think, look, I think I, I, I disagree. I think that there are certain cases where it is that they love the guy. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:27:28]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:29]
| I, I, I do think that there are. Okay. Now you can't take in a way that that's at every case okay right that i will agree but there is a number of cases where it's just that the that the other guy was where you also have.
|
Sam:
[1:27:42]
| A really charismatic good dynamic.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:45]
| Democrat exactly like um exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:27:48]
| What what's his name michigan.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:50]
| Yeah al i know we always look up his name yeah i i as i i do it like right now and now now el say it el say el.
|
Sam:
[1:28:00]
| El-Sayed and even the Ossoff in Georgia.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:04]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:28:04]
| Like, he's kicking some ass by being charismatic. And you've got a contrast in these two. Like, Ossoff is much more of a centrist Democrat than El-Sayed. But they've both got the charisma stuff going.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:19]
| They've got both the charisma.
|
Sam:
[1:28:21]
| They've got both charisma and willingness to go on the attack and not pull punches.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:27]
| Exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:28:28]
| They're not trying to, like... thread the needle and try to, let's not offend middle of the road people, and let's try, no, they're like, both of them are willing to like fully attack the other side aggressively. And, you know, Ossoff was out there basically calling out his opponent for hiring Nazis. He's, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:57]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:28:58]
| And he's considered a middle-of-the-road Democrat, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:02]
| But it's the reality of what's going on. It's the attitude.
|
Sam:
[1:29:05]
| It's the freaking attitude. It's just the state of like...
|
Ivan:
[1:29:08]
| And the ability to communicate well. You know, look. It used to be that everybody said that the people calling a lot of these guys Nazis were exaggerated. And, motherfucker, man. If they haven't shown you now that that was not an exaggeration at all, I don't know what the fuck more evidence you need. I mean, fucking Secretary of Defense. OK, I'm not going to call it whatever they want to call that, you know, that secretary, because officially it still is the Defense Department. OK, I don't give a shit what the fuck they say.
|
Sam:
[1:29:41]
| Oh, and going back to the other thing, if there's another person who's like comments, make it sound like a closeted gay guy. Oh, God.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:48]
| Headset. Jesus fucking Christ. Another guy. But the son of a bitch went and stood in front of a podium.
|
Sam:
[1:29:54]
| Everything's about how manly everybody has to be.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:56]
| A fucking podium that he created that looked like a kid came straight out of Nazi Germany, for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[1:30:02]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:04]
| And you're like, are you fucking kidding me?
|
Sam:
[1:30:08]
| Anyway. Yeah. So what's your biggest surprise? Is it the same thing? Or you got another one?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:15]
| Uh, no.
|
Sam:
[1:30:16]
| And I guess another thing like that, Do we expect, we can talk, we got next week still to talk about final thoughts before the midterms, but do you think there'll actually be any, like, do you think any of these deep red states will actually have the Democrat win? That, like, would be surprising. I'm not talking Texas, where, like.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:39]
| No, no, no. I do think that, say, like, Kansas and Iowa, one of these is going to fall. I think, look, it's just the, Sam, the mood is so bad. I mean, look at the approved polls. Look at those numbers. And they haven't done a damn thing to help any of it at all. At all. And the people are not showing up to vote either based on the numbers you're looking at. They're really motivated. And let me tell you something. This whole thing that they also did with pulling in some places where they did things that are making it more difficult to vote by mail. Okay? That... That plays against the demotivated voter.
|
Sam:
[1:31:23]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:24]
| I mean, it's plain and simple. If the demotivator was the motivator and he had the ballot right there, then he would go. But the reality is that Republicans heavily, extensively use mail-in votes. I have no idea why they keep going and harping on the thing that this somehow was helping Democrats when even Donald Trump himself voted by mail.
|
Sam:
[1:31:48]
| Because 2020 was an outlier. And in 2020, more Democrats, because of being COVID conscious— But that was because of COVID! That's it! And so Donald Trump, and through him, all kinds of others, indexed on vote for mail helps Democrats. Where the historical pattern in like every year other than 2020— Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:13]
| So they really, I really do think that they really, really did themselves in with that move. I think that that is going to massively backfire on them.
|
Sam:
[1:32:27]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:28]
| Just because that's the data, because as you said, historically, it's been that has been a Republican movement.
|
Sam:
[1:32:36]
| Well, if nothing else, just it benefits older folks who are less mobile.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:43]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:32:43]
| And that tends to be a Republican demographic.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:45]
| Exactly right.
|
Sam:
[1:32:46]
| You know. Okay. I have one thing I want to make a few comments on, but any of these other stories we want to hit before we start wrapping?
|
Ivan:
[1:32:58]
| I don't have anything else to cover. I think I'm— Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:33:02]
| So I just want to, then still election related, I wanted to give an update on where I am for election graphs. So I am not going to launch this thing immediately after midterms, like that's in a week and a half. I'm not going to make it, sorry. But I looked up the last couple cycles, I didn't actually launch until March after midterms. So if I get it done before March, I'm still ahead of the game for the last two cycles. Okay. But I did spend a really intense, like the last, I spent eight and a half days where almost all of my, you know, time that was not spent doing family stuff was election graphs and, made a significant amount of progress in the 2028 setup. I made all AI assisted, of course, bow down to the AIs that make everything easier than anything I could have imagined. So I started out the eight days doing things that, dramatically improved performance and took things that four years ago, I was doing really inefficient ways to calculate things and required a lot of, pre-calculation and caching and like all kinds of stuff and, sped those things up.
|
Sam:
[1:34:32]
| Amazingly dramatically. So like processes that would take hours before take minutes, things that would take minutes before like take a fraction of a second. Simply like in one case, it was just like, it turns out I could, I could have, there was a much better way to do the math and come out with the same answer. So like I was doing Monte Carlo simulations and running things millions of times and doing stats on it. Turns out there was an exact mathematical way I could do it with a formula. So flip that, boom, everything's faster.
|
Sam:
[1:35:04]
| Fixed up a bunch of other stuff that was just like, you know, found all kinds of like edge case bugs and things like that, that have been ironed out and fixed. But then five of the eight days, I spent just doing a deep dive analysis into methodology and.
|
Sam:
[1:35:23]
| Like how I do averages, how I do, you know, the probability curves, you know, are there ways I could do better? Could I smooth out some of the rough edges? You know, are there better math things? One of the big ones was, you know, instead of having my two independent states versus uniform swing, where uniform swing was definitely better. But, you know, I had both of these two. could I come up with a merged model in between in an empirical good way? The answer is yes. And I figured out how to do that and get it set up. So there'll be a sort of one model. The one question that, and then I spent a couple days analyzing, like the whole conceit is like you can look at previous elections and use the previous election trend and say, hey, polls have underestimated the Republicans three elections in a row. So should we assume that more likely than not, polls are going to underestimate the Republicans or not? And the answer to that is interesting when you look into it. So if you look at the entire history of Poland, going back to Truman.
|
Sam:
[1:36:39]
| On average, the errors completely cancel out. Some years it favors one, some years it favors the other, and it's completely unpredictable year to year. But we've never before this cycle, we've never before Donald Trump had three cycles in a row underestimating the same side. So the question is, is that an anomaly specifically because of Donald Trump, and things go back Is it back to normal next time, or is it like some sort of structural difference in how polling— Look.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:18]
| Sam, I do think that one thing that's happened, which has been breaking, is, you know, we've talked about, how his approval and his support had been basically immune to anything. Yeah. It didn't until finally this year. Right. It's broken. And I think that this I think that that that was an influence. in those results in the past. That group was basically just...
|
Sam:
[1:37:42]
| We've talked about the hidden Trump voter who wouldn't answer polls or who were initially ashamed of their Trump leaning or something. So there are all kinds of things that have been posited about potential explanations. Anyway, instead of having independent states, versus uniform swing, instead, I'm going to have two models. One that says, what happens if polling error this next time, is roughly similar to the average of what we've seen the last five cycles? Or what happens if we assume the magnitude of the error, but not the direction? So I'll have both of those on there. And so I've got all of the plans are now worked out.
|
Sam:
[1:38:29]
| I have some redesigns to do because how it's physically going to be laid out on the screen will change. Also made some improvements that apparently like, you know, I, for one thing, I'd been assuming a normal distribution, if you use a T distribution instead, which has longer tails, you get a better match to reality, like in terms of calibrating. So when I say something is like a 95% chance it's within these bounds, it's really 95% instead of something else. So all kinds of improvements teed up. Basically, this last day, I've done lots, last day, last eight days, I've done lots and lots and lots of planning, as well as those initial bug fixes and performance improvements. And so next time I pick up election graphs, which probably won't be for a few weeks, I'll actually be like building out a lot of this stuff. So, you know, I now I'm not going to launch on the day after midterms, but I'm still hoping for like December, maybe, maybe January. I don't I don't think I'll be as late as March, which it's been the last couple of cycles, like I mentioned. But I'm working on it. Progress is being made. Of course, the fact that I spent eight days straight on election graphs means I haven't done anything on Robin Letter. I haven't done anything on any of my other projects and I need to catch up on them too. There's a bunch of stuff I want to do on those.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:51]
| Can I just say it?
|
Sam:
[1:39:52]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:52]
| Well, anyway. Well, catch up on election graphs. We need to figure out a way to monetize election graphs.
|
Sam:
[1:40:00]
| Yes. Well, you know, I probably, in the plan.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:06]
| Ads. We're out. Ads. Pop-up ads everywhere. Every time you click on something, another ad will come up. ads.
|
Sam:
[1:40:15]
| Yes. Ads.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:17]
| Lots of ads. Wall-to-wall ads.
|
Sam:
[1:40:20]
| Ads for like nonsense medical supplements.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:23]
| Like the background is going to be an ad.
|
Sam:
[1:40:25]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:26]
| You know.
|
Sam:
[1:40:28]
| Every once in a while I'll accidentally end up at some website without my ad blockers. I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? This is impossible.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:39]
| They all need to be porn ads. I think that should be the theme. to your only fan yes steer everybody to my only fans the only way we're gonna make money anyway that's right for electric grabs so i i just gotta like you know steer everybody to my only fans.
|
Sam:
[1:40:58]
| Yeah no i i on the list is republishing any blog posts i do on sub stack as well which of course has a monetization mechanism. Yeah, we'll see. But anyway, all good. I just wanted to say, I... For those who are eagerly waiting for my initial election graph stuff, that's a status. Our friend Chad, on one of my Robins, on Robin Letter, asked recently, what is my initial thoughts for 2028, given what is already out there? Pain. Yes, of course, pain. I honestly said, look, there are polls that already exist. I haven't actually entered them into my system yet because I'm doing all this prep work yet, but there are some polls already out there. But the only honest answer at this point is still it's too soon. You could make some guesses. You could say, look, given everything we're talking about, about midterms. Is there a – I mean.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:54]
| There has been generic polling on presidential preference, I mean, right?
|
Sam:
[1:41:59]
| Oh, no. There's been polling on a bunch of – There's always – yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:02]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:42:02]
| There's been national polling on a bunch of candidate pairs. There's been state polling on some others.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:07]
| I wouldn't even know who the – problem is – and this is the problem with – I mean, I would say that asking people, well, hey, would you vote for a Democrat or a Republican? It's probably a better equation because I have no idea who the hell the candidate is going to be. I mean, in the past, we've known who the Democratic frontrunner has been, right?
|
Sam:
[1:42:26]
| We've basically got an open primary again on both sides, which we haven't had in a few cycles. I guess, what, 2016 was the last one, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:42:38]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:42:39]
| Yeah. So, and where's, I just had, my dad actually forwarded me an article from, I believe, the New York Times from this morning about potential candidates. I'll let you bring it up. Here we go. This is from the New York Times with Nate Cohn, polling on top choices on the Republican side. And these are national polls. And the, no, no, God. J.D. Vance at number one. Number two. For the Republicans. For the Republicans. Republican nominees. J.D. Vance, number one. Marco Rubio, number two. Number three, people hoping that Donald Trump actually runs for a third term. And number four, Ron DeSantis is current polling.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:27]
| Now, anybody's done any polling if Obama runs against Trump if he tries to run for a third term?
|
Sam:
[1:43:32]
| Hold on. I will mention, though, I say number four, but Ron DeSantis at number four is at three percent. So we have J.D. Vance, 33 percent, Marco Rubio, 23 percent, 8 percent want Donald Trump to run again, and then 3 percent run DeSantis. And that leaves, by the way, 6 percent another candidate and 26 percent don't know on the Republican side.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:54]
| I guess this is really for showing that this has been Marco Rubio's long play the entire way. This is sell his entire soul to beat a candidate in the next election.
|
Sam:
[1:44:04]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:05]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:44:06]
| And he's still coming in second, of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:07]
| And he's still coming in second, which is hilarious.
|
Sam:
[1:44:10]
| But we'll see how that plays out.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:11]
| Basically, you sold your soul now and in the future, and you're still coming in second.
|
Sam:
[1:44:16]
| On the Democratic side, it's much more spread out. Nobody's over 15%. Kamala Harris at 12%. Gavin Newsom, 9%. Buttigieg, 7%.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:32]
| I'd be happy with any of those three.
|
Sam:
[1:44:34]
| AOC at 6%. Or four. John Ossoff, 4%. Mark Kelly, 3%.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:40]
| You see, I would be happy with that entire list of candidates just read to me. I'd vote for any of them without thinking much.
|
Sam:
[1:44:48]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:50]
| You know?
|
Sam:
[1:44:51]
| Well, that's just because you don't think much at all, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:54]
| That's normally what I do. Hey, what about, has anybody done any theoretical polling, Trump versus Obama?
|
Sam:
[1:45:02]
| I have not seen that yet. But I haven't been looking for it. Go check.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:08]
| I'm going to go look right now. Because I'm like, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:45:13]
| Yeah, because, again, if Trump can run for a third term, no reason Obama can't.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:18]
| We're drafting him. Okay. Let me see. Come on. Tell him. Talk to me. Talk to him. Let's see. Yes!
|
Sam:
[1:45:30]
| What's the answer? And when was this?
|
Ivan:
[1:45:32]
| Hold on. Hold on.
|
Sam:
[1:45:33]
| And who did it?
|
Ivan:
[1:45:34]
| It's just January 13th through 15th, 2026. Okay. Okay. The results. Obama led Trump by double digits.
|
Sam:
[1:45:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:46]
| By double digits. You see, the thing is, honestly, if we could have a shot at Obama humiliating Trump in a general election, that would be, oh my God. Especially if he beats him by double digits.
|
Sam:
[1:46:06]
| Of course, on the other hand, all of this is Obama's fault for humiliating him at that press dinner anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:12]
| No, this is all the fault of the fact that Democrats were idiots during that campaign and Comey.
|
Sam:
[1:46:24]
| And Comey. Yes, yes. But what I'm saying is there's a decent shot. If Obama hadn't done that, Trump wouldn't even run.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:33]
| Yeah, but let's face it. Hillary should have won easily. The reality is that the Democrats, we spent the circular firing squad over the entire year over her emails, where we treated her, like a criminal because of her emails, which it was just so ridiculous.
|
Sam:
[1:46:56]
| And of course, the Trump administration has been so much better with IT security.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:01]
| Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They use only approved channels like with top security, of course. Yes. None of them would ever get hacked.
|
Sam:
[1:47:12]
| Oh, I didn't even have on the list, Kushner.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:15]
| A Kushner hack?
|
Sam:
[1:47:16]
| Yes. We're not going to get all into it, but the short thing is apparently the Russians hacked Kushner's phone a long time ago, like in Trump's first administration.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:31]
| Oh, look at that security.
|
Sam:
[1:47:33]
| Then intelligence from the Netherlands was able to hack into the Russians' hack, so they also could see what was going on with Kushner's phone. And specifically, they weren't able to control the phone or turn it into a live bug or recording device, but they were, basically able to watch in real time his phone screen whenever he was using it for, like, years. And part of what they discovered was huge cash transfers into bank accounts that Kushner controlled, from the Saudis and the UAE that were timed in ways that were suspiciously related to some of his diplomatic activities.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:21]
| No. Really? No. You know, I didn't need to hack his phone to figure that out. If that's all they got, really, what a waste of fucking time.
|
Sam:
[1:48:37]
| Yes, well, anyway. And, of course, what's he doing even this freaking week? Like, he's trying to negotiate deals with the Russians to, okay, if we can get the Ukrainians to surrender, In exchange, the Russians will make business deals with American companies that I benefit from personally, by the way.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:01]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:49:02]
| Yes. How's that sound for a way to resolve this conflict?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:05]
| Yeah, there you go. Hey, I make money and, you know, everybody should be happy. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:49:12]
| Okay. Let's wrap this sucker up. If I had handy... One of the recordings of the fake curmudgeons corner session, which did get recorded, but I didn't, I didn't bring it up. I would let the fake us's close out the show, but I don't have that answer.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:31]
| Yeah, there you go.
|
Sam:
[1:49:32]
| You know? So, I will say the fake me is much more concise at this, like, closing statement. So, let me try to do it the way that the fake one did. curmissions-corner.com transcripts, ways to contact us Slack. Okay, Vaughn what's the Slack? What's the highlight from the Slack?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:55]
| Well, one thing, congratulations to Greg, our listener, who went to his first CrossFit competition and took first place in his category. He did highlight also that he could have you could also say it would have been last place, because apparently he was the only participant. But, you know, from his category, okay? Let's be clear. Not at the event, but his category. But, the fact that he took he partook in the event, in and of itself, is a huge accomplishment. So, congratulations to Greg, okay, for that. That was in the Slack, so I just wanted to make sure of that. That was important. Let me see what else we had. Well, you know, all the all these people wanted to get rid of all the immigrants, right?
|
Sam:
[1:50:46]
| You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:50:48]
| Apparently, Springfield, Ohio, has found out that, oh, let's get rid of the Haitians. Now, all of a sudden, their economy is in the tank because guess what? There are no people. Who knew?
|
Sam:
[1:51:03]
| You know, some of those cities in Ohio had specifically been recruiting to bring in some of these immigrants to revitalize their towns.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:14]
| Yeah, and so Trump decided to get rid of them, so he's torpedoed, you know, the city's economy is taking a hit as Asian immigrants sequester their homes or leave after Trump administration can't serve their TPS. Winning.
|
Sam:
[1:51:29]
| Buddy Vaughn.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:30]
| We're winning. But they're not eating the cats and dogs anymore.
|
Sam:
[1:51:34]
| They're not eating the cats and dogs. We have a more ethnically cleansed town.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:40]
| Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:51:41]
| Et cetera. You know, that's another nomenclature thing. When some of these people start talking about, like, what do they call demigration or whatever term they're using, these people clearly, they just want ethnic cleansing. That's what they want, which is, by the way, considered an international crime. You know, it's it's, it's it's ridiculous. It's anyway. Yes. And they and they're they're short. You're hurting the economies of these towns anyway. It is everybody.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:26]
| Immigration is that this is one of the inflation drivers that we've been having.
|
Sam:
[1:52:31]
| Immigration is actually something that is revitalizing and positive. if not in the short term certainly in the long term and all of this nonsense is is just harmful it's just harmful across the board to everything, and i realize that we've got this huge backlash right now because demographically, you know the the u.s is browning, it is you know every once while you see these charts of like the percentage of the U.S. population that was white decades ago and now it's declining and apparently will drop below 50% with current trends within the next 15-20 years, if that. And, And people who are uncomfortable with change are panicking about that. And so hopefully all of what we're seeing this last decade is sort of the final death throes of the people panicking about these kinds of things. And we can get past it. I hope. Cross our fingers.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:42]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:53:44]
| Okay. That's it. Thanks for joining us. The fake me also just says, have fun, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because apparently I say blah, blah, blah at this end point long enough that the AI trained on the conversation emphasizes the blah, blah, blah over anything else. So have a good week, everybody. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:09]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:54:38]
| Thank you. Okay, thanks, Yvonne. Have a good week. Talk to you later.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:43]
| Bye. All right, let's see.
| |
|
