Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Blue, blue, blue, blue. Are we ready?
|
Ivan:
[0:04]
| Sure.
|
Sam:
[0:06]
| Okay, here it comes. ♪♪, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, June 24th, 2023.
It's 311 UTC as we are starting to record.
As I've been telling people lately for that means that us time, it's actually still Friday night, June 23rd.
And for me on the West coast, it's just after 8 PM.
And for Yvonne on the East coast, it's just after 11 PM. So yeah, I'm saying mentoring Yvonne Bowe is here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[0:58]
| Uh, I am here. Hello.
|
Sam:
[1:01]
| So the agenda for today, we have predetermined an agenda. We are going to do our butt first, which means Yvonne's going to tell some incredibly boring story about cars or something else.
|
Ivan:
[1:14]
| Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[1:16]
| And then I'm going to talk about a movie that I watched a few months back.
And, uh, cause I'm doing that until I'm completely caught up on media.
And then we, we have two big stories, uh, this week. So we are going to do, um, one.
Uh, we had that whole thing with the submersible and ocean gate and the Titanic, um, some of you may remember, and I'll talk more about this.
When we get to that segment, we have talked about ocean gate on this show before on a couple of different occasions, because, uh, full disclosure board and talked a little bit about ocean gate.
|
Ivan:
[1:55]
| Okay. You know.
Let's be full.
|
Sam:
[1:59]
| One of our listeners used to work for them and he has talked about them on the show once when he started working from them and once right after he stopped working for them.
Well, we will talk more about wait, wait, wait, wait. We will talk about that when we get to the Ocean Gate segment.
|
Ivan:
[2:17]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:17]
| I will give more references. All right. Yes.
Blah, blah, blah. And people, you know, anyway, we will talk about Ocean Gate in the next segment after our but first.
And finally, breaking news right in the few hours before we're recording, there is apparently in progress, some sort of coup attempt in Russia, uh, and we will talk about whatever the hell we know.
And I'm actually putting it second or third as the case may be because things may change during the moments we're recording, let alone before you listen to this, like probably days later.
Um, so we will talk about that there, there, there've been other stuff.
Like there was a Hunter Biden is pleading guilty on stuff.
There's a whole bunch of developments on all the investigations into Donald Trump, the ones that are already indicted. Some are the ones that are coming.
There's some SCOTUS stuff, but other things, Trump, those Trump.
|
Ivan:
[3:19]
| Ha ha ha ha.
|
Sam:
[3:20]
| Okay. I know that's, that's why I make the big bucks.
|
Ivan:
[3:28]
| Yeah. So they pay you at work for comedy.
|
Sam:
[3:33]
| That's what they pay before at work. Yes, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[3:35]
| Wow.
|
Sam:
[3:35]
| Like, you know, today there was a five hour planning meeting that I was in.
This is not my butt first, but you know, I will say like every 15 minutes for a little additional levity, I put on my clown makeup.
I danced a little bit. I honked my horn, you know, like, you know, And it cheers everybody up, you know, that's how you go.
|
Ivan:
[3:56]
| Oh, that's right. You know, everybody needs that.
|
Sam:
[4:03]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[4:04]
| Ah, all right.
|
Sam:
[4:05]
| Okay, so you first. What's your butt first?
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Ivan:
[4:07]
| All right. Okay, since you're going to do a movie, I am going to do a movie.
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Sam:
[4:13]
| Oh my goodness. All right.
|
Ivan:
[4:16]
| And so I last what the heck day was it last week? I don't know.
|
Sam:
[4:24]
| You first mentioned it on the slack on the 17th. So I'm going to forget that the one that you put on the slack.
|
Ivan:
[4:31]
| Yes. So so yes, so that was last Saturday. OK, I I went and I think so.
The weather had been bad.
OK, we've really been, you know, look, the weather had been bad relative to where I live. OK, we've had a lot of rain, a lot of thunderstorms.
OK, I mean, you know, it's been we tried to go plane plane spotting.
The weather had been horrible. Um, you know, my my son's, he started taking tennis classes and they canceled tennis because it's outdoors and thunderstorms were around.
It's happened the second time in the last three weeks. You know, we're trying to do this outdoor construction project.
And and I mean, we've had so many stops because of the weather at this point.
And so so I'm stuck at home and I'm flipping through channels And I see Star Trek, the motion picture is on and you know what I say, well, I want to watch this, but I realized that I saw like, not that long ago that there was a.
Uh, Star Trek, the motion picture director's cut, and then it had been like re remastered in 4k and it was out and I had not seen this one.
Okay. Uh, I had seen the original. Yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[5:53]
| I rewatched Star Trek, the motion picture, not all that long ago, like within the last few years, I'm not talking months, but within the last year, but it was not this remaster. It was not. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[6:04]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[6:04]
| I remember reading a bunch of articles when this remaster came up and I'm like, you know, dammit, I just rewatched this, like not that long ago, but like people were talking about the things they've added that we're, we're trying to address some of the criticisms had about the pacing and the original movie and some things that didn't make sense and stuff like that. So what did you think?
|
Ivan:
[6:26]
| There is, well, let's explain. Okay. There were three versions that were out there of this movie. Okay. So the first one was the original one. Okay.
Which is the one that got the most complaints. One thing that I was reading about that is that the reason why the director look, the director at that moment was actually very pissed at that movie.
The reason was, even though they, they, they did a great job and the special effects sound the script that everything, uh, Paramount rushed them really, really bad on final editing to get it out in December.
I don't know if it was, I can't remember is for just for the holiday season, for the movies, for the Academy Awards, whatever the hell reason it was.
They really, you know, really curtailed their post-production time to get this film edited properly.
And the director had expressed that he was pissed since the day that this movie came out, because it wasn't really the way that he had expected it to come out. OK, OK.
You know, and he was unhappy about that. Then there was an ABC Bye. You, for TV, uh, special, right?
|
Sam:
[7:33]
| And it had a few live on TV.
|
Ivan:
[7:36]
| And what they did on that one was idiotic. They meet the special, the special long version or something like that. They called it.
|
Sam:
[7:44]
| And this was already long.
|
Ivan:
[7:46]
| Oh my God. They, in that, that, that was a disaster because they added a whole bunch of scenes that, that completely broke the continuity of the movie.
They had no rhyme or reason to be in the damn movie in the first place, right?
|
Sam:
[8:02]
| Like, it's a reason why they got it in and out like if I remember right in that version there was one that like Where Kirk addresses the staff in like the cafeteria or something?
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Ivan:
[8:14]
| Yeah, there is a scene where he addresses them and like it's not the cafeteria.
They had like a The auditorium.
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Sam:
[8:21]
| Yeah, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[8:22]
| It looked like a cafeteria There were no caf, there was no like, you know, waiters with like food hats on top or something. It's an auditorium.
There was a stage at the front. How the hell is that a cafeteria?
|
Sam:
[8:37]
| Maybe my cafeteria.
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Ivan:
[8:37]
| It's actually supposed to be the, it's actually, it was supposed to be the recreation area, by the way.
|
Sam:
[8:47]
| Yes, yes. Okay. Fine. Fine. Like, no, to be fair, when I was in grade school, the gym and the cafeteria and all these were combined. It was like one big room repurposed for different things.
|
Ivan:
[8:56]
| Okay. All right. Well, okay. So that's why to, you know, no.
And, and my schools, the ones I was, no, that was not the case.
There were separate places and go ahead.
So, so all right. So they, well, no, you were mentioning about this scene.
You were mentioned in complaining about that. Something about the continuity related to that scene in the cafeteria or the auditory, what, what was it that you were?
|
Sam:
[9:18]
| No, no. I was just saying that wasn't one of the examples of the things that was added in that version, right?
|
Ivan:
[9:23]
| Well, that scene existed on all three, but they, I remember, I think they, if I remember correctly, and in, in, um, in the longer version, they added, they, they, they did it, it was a longer, it was a longer clip because that's the part where it happened, all three movies where they get a video transmission.
He's briefing the crew. They get a live transmission from Epsilon nine, Epsilon nine is being attacked and then it disappears and then they, he sends the crew off to get ready to go. Okay. Okay.
|
Sam:
[9:55]
| So there was the original version, which everybody complained was a little long and a little boring. Then there was the TV version that apparently made it worse.
|
Ivan:
[10:03]
| Even more, even longer. Okay.
|
Sam:
[10:05]
| Now what did they do in the, the director's cut, which I have not seen. So I'm very eager. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[10:11]
| What they did is they tightened up. They really did tighten up the sequence in the movie.
So there wasn't a lot of it because there were a lot of just gaps in the original movie of scenes that were just.
Something was made two minutes that should have been 30 seconds, right? Of like just the ship moving through stuff.
|
Sam:
[10:38]
| There's like a half hour of the ship just like approaching Vigor.
|
Ivan:
[10:42]
| Exactly. And they tightened that up and they tightened that up and other in other scenes and so forth.
They they apparently had a lot of the. Okay.
They remastered the audio. They had audio that had not been inserted in terms of effects, sounds, certain things that they remastered back into it.
|
Sam:
[11:03]
| Um, did they redo any of the, uh, the visual effects too?
|
Ivan:
[11:08]
| Or a few of them. Okay. They did. And the way that they did it, damn it. They did it really well.
|
Sam:
[11:15]
| Because it didn't look obvious. It didn't, it wasn't joint.
|
Ivan:
[11:19]
| No, it was like, I get irritated with like star Wars. They did some of these effects that they added to the newer versus, uh, uh, to, to the, uh, redone versus a star Wars that I don't, I think the track from the movie.
|
Sam:
[11:31]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[11:32]
| In my opinion.
|
Sam:
[11:33]
| Yeah, I, I agree with that. And even like when they, when they redid Star Trek, the, the original 60s TV series, uh, for modern day Blu-ray streaming, et cetera, they redid a lot of the effects, but frankly, like some of it takes away from the charm because it's jarring because like it's all like 1960s stuff in the live action and then they cut to the spaceship and it's like clearly pretty modern CGI and it's like this doesn't mesh.
|
Ivan:
[12:07]
| No, and the thing is that Star Trek, the motion picture had really good effects.
The original one that cannot be disputed. The original.
I mean, effects that they did in the movie, the original sci-fi computer, everything was really well done. OK, and so what you have to do, they they fix the scene, for example, that I always found annoying.
There was a scene where Veger is trying to communicate with with the Enterprise and Veger first attacks the ship.
And they repel that attack with their shields and screens. And then Veeger is going to attack again.
And the effect that they used when that attack was repelled basically by Spock sending communication in the right way for him to understand it.
OK, which, by the way, they clarified there. Some of that stuff, there was a whole bunch of muddled dialogue in the original one that apparently they had better dialogue.
They inserted back back in that actually, I was like, Whoa, this now there was a whole bunch of stuff. This makes sense. Now I'm like, what the hell?
Why did they leave this in the gutter room? This now makes sense. Okay.
And so they, they fixed that and they added this effect where instead of what they showed was on the screen, all of a sudden, this really bad effect of the little like white thing that attacks the ship, whatever the thing is just, just, just like disappearing.
They actually had a cool shot of the outside of the enterprise, the way that it looks and and all the other scenes, but with, with, with that stopping in there and they inserted that just very fluidly into it, it did not, it, that it looked like, like that was made for that originally.
Okay. Because they had a whole bunch of other effects like that for when VJ attacked the Klingons and it hit that one or whatever they just, for some reason, didn't do that one properly. Okay. And so they fixed that one.
Um, and they fixed a lot of continuity during the movie.
Um, look, it looks spectacular.
It fucking looks a day. They really whoever preserved these prints, I've seen a lot of these that have been like remastered and brought to four K where, you know, you look at the original studio prints and they they didn't seem like they were kept in very good shape.
Not this, not these. These were fantastic.
I mean, this was just superb.
OK, what they did, it looks incredible. they also Did some stuff where they When they approached VJ They did some stuff there where they they they modified the effects just a little bit of what was there Nothing really noticeable.
Nothing don't You know, they just you know, they just fix those to to look better and Look, I gotta tell you the movie flows Way better than the original one way better than that stupid other one.
It flows really well The sound that listen the the image quality the sound quality shit the sound quality was fantastic Holy smokes, they really you know the visual effects that they added the whole damn thing look I Give this damn thing two thumbs up I you know, and maybe I liked the original movie, but I agreed with some of the criticism about.
The continuity and some of the stuff that it was there was a little spacing was slow But I was a guy didn't like Star Trek.
So maybe I was just a little bit partial to it But you know, I thought it was good.
I thought it could be better, but I thought it was good.
But this damn I Mean I was just Wow so I By my review Star Trek the motion picture the director's cut dammit, you know I've seen so many of these that have been botched and They did this right?
I They did this totally right I kudos to.
The team that worked on this because they, they really, they really did a great job with this.
|
Sam:
[16:26]
| So what you're saying is I should put this on my list to watch this.
|
Ivan:
[16:31]
| Hell yes. Yep.
|
Sam:
[16:32]
| Okay. Okay. I get it. Cool. I mean, it, it, it, it sounds good.
I mean, when it, when this version of it came out, I did read a whole bunch of articles about the fact that it it was coming out.
|
Ivan:
[16:46]
| Um, but, uh, yeah, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, and everybody at all the articles, you know, everybody that talked about it also, you know, had really positive things to say about it.
I only looked at the articles later when I was looking at it, wait a minute. I I'm like, wait, which version of the, is this a, now I remember, oh, that's right.
That's that version. Okay. And I remember reading about it, but I didn't go to watch it immediately moment because I remembered that about the director's cut.
I just realized that it was on TV and reminded me and I went and I decided, wait, I don't want to watch this one. That's on seven 20 P and I don't, and it was not the director's cut. And I'm like, I remember the, about that. So I, that, I pulled it up and watched it and I am so glad I did.
|
Sam:
[17:26]
| Okay. So I guess it's my turn for my movie for this. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[17:31]
| Um, and that's just like, are we like Cisco and Ebert? What the hell are Cisco and Ebert?
|
Sam:
[17:35]
| I mean, I'm doing thumbs up, thumbs down. They never did a thumb sideways. I don't think.
|
Ivan:
[17:39]
| I don't think so. No.
|
Sam:
[17:41]
| So, you know, and I don't know exactly where I should stick this thumb, but, you know.
|
Ivan:
[17:49]
| Don't need to stick it anywhere.
|
Sam:
[17:51]
| Okay, no sticking the thumb?
|
Ivan:
[17:53]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[17:54]
| Okay. So anyway, we are now going through movies I watched in March. This one was mid-March.
And it was The Dark Knight from 2008.
|
Ivan:
[18:10]
| Oh, this is okay. Yeah. All right.
|
Sam:
[18:13]
| This is the second movie in the dark night trilogy, which was the Batman reboot trilogy for that era.
|
Ivan:
[18:25]
| For you actually watched these movies. I, I am, I'm pretty sure I only watched like the first one and it was because it was put in front of my face.
|
Sam:
[18:34]
| Batman begins.
|
Ivan:
[18:36]
| I think so. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[18:37]
| And I, it's the one, the Batman begins is the one where he went to like some monastery on a mountain, that kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[18:44]
| No, no, no. I watched a dark night. No.
|
Sam:
[18:47]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[18:47]
| Okay. Yeah. That's it. And, but I, I have to say, I mean, I really had no interest in these movies.
Whatsoever. Uh, but that was just my personal thing. I just, I'm like, I don't give a fuck about Batman.
|
Sam:
[19:06]
| Yeah, you know, I, the, the first one of these, the Batman begins one, I think was one of the ones I gave a thumb sideways to, like, I wasn't like super into it.
It didn't really work for me. It was like, okay, as a superhero movie, I actually kind of liked the dark night.
Um, you know, it was more back. It wasn't trying to do the origin story in a slightly different way and blah, blah, blah.
It was just a regular old, you know, that Batman against a couple of the usual Batman villains, including the Joker.
|
Ivan:
[19:41]
| And I don't remember just liking it, but I just, I, I, I, I, but I, I, I just, you know, there are certain movies that I've watched and I I'm like, I want to watch again, this one is like, okay, I watched it. All right.
|
Sam:
[19:58]
| I'm done. I mean, like, the superhero movies in general, I find, are sort of...
Are all in that category. Hey, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[20:09]
| OK, so you're going to say both as I am about the you know, like I had fun.
|
Sam:
[20:13]
| I enjoyed the movie. I liked it better than the first one in the series.
Ah, is it high art? Of course not. It's a fucking superhero movie, you know.
And but it was a decent superhero movie.
|
Ivan:
[20:27]
| This one was let's see, Batman. All right. I'm looking at the list of Batman films.
Jesus Christ, there's a lot of these.
|
Sam:
[20:36]
| Oh, yeah, because they started like in the 40s or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[20:39]
| Yeah, there was a Batman in 19. There was a 1943. I no idea.
OK, there was one in 49. It was on in 66. Let's see.
|
Sam:
[20:46]
| And you are, of course, the one that was related to the 1960s TV series. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[20:55]
| It has Adam West.
|
Sam:
[20:57]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[20:57]
| Yeah. Um, let's see. Um, uh, I'm there.
A lot of bad, let's say, holy shit, the Joker Joker fully. So there was Batman Begins. OK, yes.
And then then there was the Dark Knight.
|
Sam:
[21:14]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[21:15]
| And this is the OK.
|
Sam:
[21:17]
| And this is the Dark Knight is the one I'm talking about. I have not seen. Right.
|
Ivan:
[21:20]
| You're talking about the Dark Knight.
|
Sam:
[21:21]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[21:23]
| Right. Not the Dark Knight Rises, which is the one afterwards.
|
Sam:
[21:26]
| Right. Correct.
|
Ivan:
[21:28]
| OK.
|
Sam:
[21:29]
| Um, so sure.
|
Ivan:
[21:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[21:33]
| You know, and like I said, I mean, it's a superhero movie, but there's some superhero movies that are worse than some that are better. I like, uh, what, what was the, what was the Superman one? I watched not that long ago.
Oh, you did watch that? I hated it. Like the, um, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[21:54]
| Uh, I just saw the, I just saw the, the, the, the trailers for it.
|
Sam:
[21:59]
| I was like, this was an old Superman one.
|
Ivan:
[22:02]
| Like, not like a recent, Oh, the old one.
|
Sam:
[22:08]
| Well, not the 70s ones I liked or the first 70, first two 70s ones I liked.
Um, but like, okay, I'm going to find out when I saw this, uh, with the stupid Super thing people people people computer computer.
Yes, Peter be boop Um because there you go. babababa. babababababababababa.
Bababa. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad boy.
Man of Steel from 2013. There it is Man of Steel from 2013. I hated that one.
|
Ivan:
[22:42]
| I Didn't watch it.
|
Sam:
[22:44]
| I thought it was awful. It was um, it was Like covering the same ground as these as Superman and Superman 2 from the 70s Early 80s whenever the hell that, was to me More badly like, you know My problem is, and I will say, is that, you know, to me, if I look at Superman, it's not Christopher Reeve, you know, the rest of the base.
|
Ivan:
[23:09]
| I'm like, this is bullshit.
|
Sam:
[23:10]
| Yeah. Well, like for some modern Superman movies, I could see getting over that, except this one in particular, man of steel covered some of the same grounds as the, as as the Christopher Reeve movies.
So the direct comparison was in front of me at almost every moment.
And in almost every case, the original did it better.
You know? But anyway, but I'm not talking about Superman today.
|
Ivan:
[23:41]
| No, we're not, no, no. We're off, we're off.
|
Sam:
[23:42]
| I'm talking about Batman Begins. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[23:47]
| Off on another tangent, Chris.
|
Sam:
[23:49]
| What, us? No, no, never. Never, never, never, never, never. But, uh, Batman began, uh, no, not Batman begins the dark night.
Um, you know, it basically just, you know, it's, it's Batman versus the Joker and two face, uh, you know, the, the origin of two face and I guess spoilers at the end of two face are all within the, uh, the confines of this movie.
And, you know, I, I liked it. It was fun. I liked the Joker version.
I liked the Batman version.
There were, you know, some good moments here and there.
There were a few others where it was just like, OK, typical.
Superhero set piece, people fighting. Like, I think this is part of my problem is like.
On all of these movies, I kind of tune out the parts that are the big action sequences.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Finish the action. Get back to the story.
|
Ivan:
[24:50]
| Mm hmm.
|
Sam:
[24:52]
| And like some of them are just nothing but the action sequences.
And then I get really bored.
Like, I want to like actually care about the people and what happens to them, and if they pay attention to that, I can enjoy it.
If they don't pay attention to that, and are just like, let's have a bunch of, like, magic people fighting, then I'm like, okay, I don't care. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[25:21]
| JAMES Okay.
|
Sam:
[25:21]
| CURTIS So anyway, I will give The Dark Knight a thumbs up within the context of the genre.
You know, it's good for a superhero movie, You know, but you know, it, it, like I said, let's put it this way. I will never seek it out again.
|
Ivan:
[25:40]
| Exactly. You'll never seek it out again.
|
Sam:
[25:43]
| If, if however, I am somewhere where it comes on and I'm bored and have nothing else to do, would I watch it again?
Maybe, but I'm never going to seek it out and say, okay, let's go watch the dark knight again.
You know, unless someone else I was with was like asking for it or we were systematically doing, you know, rewatches of old things or something like that.
But I wouldn't be like, oh.
Yeah, let's go do that.
|
Ivan:
[26:15]
| Like, but see, but that's not much fast Batman versus Superman.
|
Sam:
[26:20]
| Yeah, I haven't seen that one, but I am not. I, it is, it is going to come up on my list eventually, but I'm not looking forward to it because I know bad things.
|
Ivan:
[26:28]
| Christ.
|
Sam:
[26:29]
| Um, but, but here's the thing that the rewatch criteria isn't necessarily a good way to judge things for me because I tend to avoid rewatches most of the time because I would rather I would rather come up to something new with a handful of like sort of classic exceptions that of like or something that I I liked when I was young and I want to watch with Alex or something like that but otherwise like if I'm gonna sit down for a couple hours I'd rather watch something I haven't seen before, you know.
|
Ivan:
[27:12]
| OK, well, I, I, I, I got it. I'm terrible at this right now.
I am mostly for the most part watching like old stuff. I guess I should put on the list that I recently watched.
And we get to review that next week. I watched this old Bond movie.
Which one? Never say never again, which was a Sean Connery movie that was done out of the production sphere of Eon.
|
Sam:
[27:40]
| Oh, yeah, this was like the rogue one.
|
Ivan:
[27:43]
| This was the rogue bond. Yes. Right. And I watched it recently again.
OK, save it for next week. I'll save it for next time.
I got it. I actually have to put it down. I forgot to put it down because I watched a movie. But yes, in keeping with my tendency lately, I'm not watching anything new, except they are disasters.
|
Sam:
[28:07]
| Now, yeah, I'll say like new to me because most of the movies I watch are old movies.
Like they're not like it's very rare that I see like the hot new movie that came out this year in a timely fashion.
Um, although I did see, uh, I did see one in the theaters recently, which will eventually come up on my list.
|
Ivan:
[28:31]
| I did see a movie recently in the theatres. I forgot about that, too.
|
Sam:
[28:35]
| I think I added it.
|
Ivan:
[28:36]
| Which one was it when you mentioned it?
|
Sam:
[28:38]
| It was the… I don't know.
It was Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, which is also the one I saw in the theater, so when we talk about it we can talk about it together.
|
Ivan:
[28:50]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[28:51]
| Alright. Okay. Right. Okay. So anyway, we're going on a long time.
Let's take a break and then we'll do the sub next.
|
Ivan:
[29:04]
| It's not a sub.
|
Sam:
[29:05]
| Well, it is a sub. It's a submersible, not a submarine. They both start with sub. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[29:12]
| Good point. Good point.
|
Sam:
[29:14]
| You could even say they're both sub.
|
Ivan:
[29:15]
| Um, okay, sure.
|
Sam:
[29:19]
| Okay. Uh, we will, we will be back and we'll talk about that and we'll save Russia for last because like, even while we've been doing this movie segment, I've been seeing updates of more stuff.
So we will be back after this.
Oh, this is the, um. This is the random wiki of the day from June 7th.
I, you know, I should add the date into the curmudgeon's corner version, because this isn't actually a random wiki of the day as it exists on the, on the random wiki of the day podcast, because I put in a little thing at the beginning and a little thing at the end and and don't have the full.
Yeah, and they're different from the things at the beginning and the end of the actual one on the podcast.
But one of the things that is not included in the curmudgeon's corner version of it is the date that it happened.
So this was, uh, from random wiki of the day for June 17th, uh, which was a little while ago now, but you know, whatever, here you go.
Do do do. Hello. This is Matthew standard. I'm here to let you, to check out our archives. Now back to curmudgeon's corner. Doo doo doo.
You know, the other thing is it always says like fun, entertaining, and I've already forgotten what it actually says in that end bit.
|
Ivan:
[32:46]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[32:46]
| But every time it says that, in my head, my head says, fun, entertaining, and moist.
|
Ivan:
[32:53]
| Ah, yes! Moist, of course!
|
Sam:
[32:55]
| It's not actually moist. It's a podcast. Well, it could be. I guess it could be.
So, uh, anyway, as we are chewy, chewy, chewy, moist and chewy, moist and chewy.
Yeah, that could be, I, that would, you know, that would be a significant, like technological development.
If I could make a podcast, moist and chewy, like, you know, if you need some nourishment, listen to curmudgeon's corner. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[33:29]
| It's very moist and chewy, moist and chewy.
|
Sam:
[33:31]
| Yes, indeed. Okay. So, before we get into the details on this, we mentioned earlier that one of our regular substitute co-hosts, when Yvonne can't be here, and listener, Bruce was on the show a couple of times and talked about OceanGate both times.
Let me give you the references. You know, I often say, at the end of every show, I point to curmudgeons-corner.com, and say that there, you can listen to our archives and most of the time it's like, why would you go and look for an old episode of a current events podcast and listen to it?
It's like ancient news, et cetera. This is one of the few exceptions.
I went back and listened to these two episodes, at least the ocean gate part of them.
Uh, the first, uh, was our January 24th, um, 2020 episode, uh, titled shouldn't be impressed.
It was episode 659, and this was kind of short.
We talked about Ocean Gate from about three minutes into the show to about nine minutes in. I'm giving you the time mark so that you can just jump to that part if you want.
And then again, Bruce was on for a much longer appearance about this.
On our October 22nd, 2021 show, which was, let's see, it's episode 750 called See All About It.
And in this one, we talked about Ocean Gate from the six minute mark through to the 40 minute mark.
And this one has actually the, you know, it's a lot longer, it's more meat to it.
And specifically in light of the things happened this week, it's really interesting to listen back to because Bruce does tell a few stories about incidents that happened.
He calls one an Apollo 13 moment where they had an issue with getting rid of the ballast so that they could go back up. They solved it.
No one was hurt or died that time, but there was an issue.
And there was another issue later on that he also talked about in terms of the front dome and how it was secured in a situation where it wasn't.
It was above water at the time that incident happened, but it's another thing that happened.
And just general, some of the comments, and we talked about like what would happen in an emergency.
And so all of that was very interesting. So, we.
We talked a little bit to Bruce, and because of everything going on, he's not going to come talk to us this week. He said maybe someday, when it feels like it's okay, he'll be able to...
|
Ivan:
[36:29]
| Well, I also... We talked about this. I didn't think, at this point...
|
Sam:
[36:34]
| Look, at this point... It's not a good idea. There are going to be lawsuits.
And those two episodes may well be evidence.
He may be asked to talk and give evidence, whatever, just because they are going to be pouring over everything about the history of this vehicle.
|
Ivan:
[36:55]
| I mean, I worked for the company for several years and public information, and this was discussed on the show.
So I'm not going to give him any of the stuff. He was involved in the design of the electrical systems on it.
|
Sam:
[37:11]
| So anyway, my point was just like, it was actually really interesting to go back to listen to these two old episodes. So this is one of the few circumstances where I can say, going back to find our archive on curmudgeon-corner.com is actually kind of interesting.
These two episodes are old enough.
You can only get to like the last hundred episodes or so in your podcast player.
And I guess the more recent of the two will still be there, but the older one won't be.
But they're all on the website.
Very interesting stuff.
And also just our condolences to Bruce. He knew one of the people who died.
Maybe more. But I saw he made a Facebook post about one of them in particular.
And yeah. Very, very tough.
|
Ivan:
[38:03]
| Yeah, this is very close to us, we were, this is the.
Yeah, usually the news is very distant. This was not. At all. To us.
|
Sam:
[38:17]
| And I mean, we're still a couple steps removed, but.
|
Ivan:
[38:21]
| Well, yeah, but well, a couple of one. I mean, you know, Bruce.
Yeah, we thought that's not that many. I mean, let's put it to you this way.
Very few people were covering the submersible two, three years ago.
We actually, you know, did stuff about it.
|
Sam:
[38:46]
| So let's go over the more recent incident, and then we can talk about some of the history.
And as we talk about this, it will be completely obvious why Bruce could not join us to talk about the same thing, given his position as a former employee of the company.
But basically this thing has been going for a couple of years.
It's a, the company Ocean Gate has been, it has been worked on this submersible.
And for the last few years they've been doing trips down to the Titanic, basically with paying customers.
And one of the things that was talked about on our previous show are like, they're not technically passengers.
They pay to be like mission specialists or whatever because there's weird legal gray areas.
But they were tanking down paying customers for about a quarter of a million dollars each to go down and see the Titanic.
And this time, you know, it took a while for things to come together, but it looks like A couple hours in, um, to going down, uh, there was a catastrophic implosion and, uh, everybody on board was killed instantly.
And then, you know, what followed was several days of a, rescue slash recovery effort that eventually confirmed sort of the worst case scenario that everyone was gone. I guess it's not actually the worst case scenario because it was the instant implosion scenario.
The worst case scenario would have been that they were trapped and alive for several days while they ran out of air.
That would be worse, but because there just wasn't time.
If If you'd been in that scenario, there was not time to rescue them, and they would have died anyway, pretty much. Unless they got very lucky.
|
Ivan:
[40:52]
| I mean, there could have been a series of different failures.
|
Sam:
[40:55]
| There are a number of scenarios.
|
Ivan:
[40:58]
| That it could have been possible to have rescued.
|
Sam:
[41:01]
| If it had popped to the surface, if it was stuck in the middle, or even they could have extended the heir if several of them died and you'd have more heir for the ones that were left. But, you know, but none of that.
|
Ivan:
[41:13]
| But the reality is that, you know, when they lost contact.
It, you know, all information now points to that, whatever happened, happened quickly and suddenly.
|
Sam:
[41:30]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[41:30]
| Um, and, um, you know, the Navy said this, you know, that, that they went back through their, uh, you know, information, you know, recordings under it wasn't, it wasn't even, yeah, it wasn't even so much going back.
|
Sam:
[41:47]
| I mean, I mean, they detected it when it happened. And as soon as they heard that there was missing, they did go back to isolate the bit.
But they notified the Coast Guard and everybody else immediately.
But the Navy was like, it's consistent with an implosion, but we can't guarantee you 100%. There are all kinds of noises.
So the Coast Guard and all the authorities had to continue acting in a search and rescue capability until they were able to confirm, um, one of the people talking about this, um, that I do consider very knowledgeable, um, was James Cameron.
|
Ivan:
[42:28]
| Um, so it was like, well, what the hell is a movie director know about?
Well, you know, James Cameron actually built a submersible that has the record right now, uh, for, for, you know, for this kind of stuff. Um, so, yes, exactly.
So, so he's a very, you know, he's been doing this for a long time.
So he is very knowledgeable about this.
He also mentioned that he the moment that it happened, he he had called not sure who he was in contact with, but that the information that he got was basically, oh, yeah, this this thing imploded immediately.
There's you know, he knew right away because of the way it happened.
That that it had to be gone, that there was no, um, you know, that there was nothing that could be done. He said, uh, the quote here is, uh, from him.
And I'm quoting here felt like a prolonged and nightmarish charade.
People are, were running around talking about banging noises and talking about oxygen and all this other stuff. We knew instantly that it was game over.
Uh, Cameron told ABC, so you must have, you know, for the people that you talked about, they must have known about that.
Um, uh, you know, about, about what the Navy had detected. Um, but, um, you know, unfortunately, um, he was, he spoke about what the difference was between what Ocean Gate was doing and everybody else.
And it comes down to the fact that they were what what his and his analysis and what a lot of I heard other people agree with this is that Ocean Gate had been experimenting with doing this with carbon fiber, carbon fiber, but you know, carbon fiber is a type of God.
What the hell is the name? I'm getting old. Um, you know, it's not a single type of material. Okay. Composite.
It's a composite. That's the Jesus Christ. The hell I'm getting old.
It's a composite. It's not, you know, it's not steel. It's not titanium. It's not ceramic.
And, you know, one of the things that he was saying is that, uh, one day he had, he had been experimenting with different materials was the composites were not, We're not good for this because.
Yeah, they will resist the first few dives, but they they don't.
They don't really, you know, handle well, compression and decompression, the pressure and coming off and then and that when it will fail, it will fail like, you know, it'll fail immediately. There will be no warning.
|
Sam:
[45:28]
| Well, one of the things specifically, it's it's the cycling.
And this this is true of all kinds of stuff, right?
|
Ivan:
[45:35]
| It's like with airplanes as well.
|
Sam:
[45:36]
| Exactly. I was going to bring up the airplane example. Every time they go up and down, it expands and contracts a little bit, adds a little bit of fatigue and age to the materials. And this happens with metal too.
But apparently with the carbon fiber, the way in which it does it is, like you said, it's harder to detect beforehand.
Now, apparently there were a number of mechanisms they had in place to try to detect problems in advance. Uh, but apparently they weren't good enough.
|
Ivan:
[46:09]
| No. Um, and I guess that was, um, that, that, that was the thing, uh, that it's just, uh, Yeah, they, they tried a very different method and it worked a few times.
|
Sam:
[46:22]
| I'll add, I think we need to add this, this point. They're, the exact mechanism is not yet known and may or may not ever be known, depending on how much they can retrieve and bring back.
I mean, we know there was a, you know, a sudden implosion due to, you know, a whole failure of some sort, but we don't know exactly which piece of the mechanism was, like maybe it was the carbon composite, maybe it was the connection between that and the dome.
There are all kinds of potential triggering events and we just don't know, but we, but it is, it does seem clear that, you know, seems clear, obviously something catastrophic happened.
Um, and what people are bringing up over and over again is like, basically the whole modus operandi of this company me was we're going to take the risks.
We're going to experiment with new things. We are going to, uh, not put it through the paces of all of the testing that everybody says you need, because, you know, that's just going to slow us down.
So we're going to take calculated risks because we believe in risk.
|
Ivan:
[47:43]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:46]
| I mean, there, there's so many videos of the CEO who was one of the people who died, um, talking about how safety regulations are bullshit and they just stop people and you can't be completely safe. So.
|
Ivan:
[48:01]
| Look, I, I, and I get that to certain people that to a certain degree, you know, I understand that sometimes in something experimental like this, I understand that you want to like move faster than that, but I think the one thing is that, um, when you wind up basically testing it with you as the, guy inside, uh, you know, it fails, then unfortunately it's catastrophic.
And I mean, unfortunately, yeah, he, the founder of the company, no, he, he died along, unfortunately with some other, with some other people, Unfortunately, um, and it's one of the things about, you know, you talked earlier that there were mission specialists and so forth, right?
|
Sam:
[48:48]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[48:48]
| Yeah. It reminds me about, you know, the rules related. I I'm pretty sure it's, it's has to be related. It's similar to an aviation where, um, I had my pilot's license, but I did not have.
Or you know i did not have the proper licensing in order to engage in carrying passengers for pay okay i i couldn't do that um you know i i could not do that and and i think that's a similar you know because there are certain regulations and restrictions around you know and training requirements for you to be able to carry passengers for pay Um, and so it's the same thing is what you were talking about with this, where, because this was not a vessel that was like tested and certified, uh, then.
It, I'm sure probably for insurance purposes, another purpose, they were like, you can't be just carrying passengers for pay, um, you know, um, that we just, that that's just not, not, not, not, not allowed.
And and that was, you know, how they were trying to get around it.
And I and I and I get that they were trying to get through progress.
But I think the one thing that James Cameron was saying, look, I get they're trying to get to solutions or something.
But a lot of people had raised the alarms regarding the use of composites on this because because the risks, the risk of what happened.
Apparently, it was amongst these guys like James Cameron, who built, I don't know, I think 30 or 40 submersibles.
I was reading something like that. Some, some, some very large amount.
He said, look, we, we can't use that material. We know what the risk is.
Did I mean, it's just not, it's just not safe to use.
Uh, apparently, uh, Stockton had offered James Cameron to write on the, on, on the submersible he's he flat out said, no, not doing right. All right.
|
Sam:
[50:59]
| So, um, so anyway, um, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, and I will add like, you know, people have been making fun of, oh, he's controlling it with a video game controller.
Oh God. And just off the shelf lights and that, like there are many things to complain about here, but not that.
|
Ivan:
[51:21]
| That's got nothing, you know, it's got nothing to do with nothing.
|
Sam:
[51:25]
| Yeah, exactly. Like people are like, it's so Jakey's using a controller.
You know, look, people have pointed out that even U.S. military subs are now using, like, video game controllers for the Parascopes and stuff.
Yes, yes, it's ridiculous.
|
Ivan:
[51:37]
| Yes, of course.
|
Sam:
[51:38]
| Because if you can use off-the-shelf equipment and it makes sense...
|
Ivan:
[51:43]
| And it's durable, and people know how to use it, you know, it's easier to do.
|
Sam:
[51:48]
| And they had multiple backups in case one of them went bad or fiddly or whatever, and of that, you know, it's like, there are so many things to actually criticize here. It's just like people obsessing over that stuff is like annoying.
|
Ivan:
[52:02]
| Because the problem was, was not any of that at all. Yes.
|
Sam:
[52:06]
| It's like, oh, they didn't die because they had a video game control.
|
Ivan:
[52:10]
| No. Or some parts were off the shelf. I mean, who the hell doesn't use off the shelf?
|
Sam:
[52:14]
| They were even complaining about, you're like, you're using construction pipes as your ballast.
|
Ivan:
[52:19]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[52:21]
| You just need something heavy.
|
Ivan:
[52:23]
| Who cares?
|
Sam:
[52:25]
| You know?
Um, so yeah, so now the other thing people are saying is like, Hey, look, everybody who went on board, this thing knew the risks.
They were told about all the risks. They S you know, they signed a waiver.
The waiver thing, I think is also stupid. Like you fucking sign a waiver for practically any physical activity you go do anywhere. Right.
Um, so like, you know, I, I, I, I took, uh, I took my son and his friend to one of these damn trampoline parks a couple months ago.
Guess what? You sign a whole bunch of waivers that say like, this is dangerous. they might die or be injured.
|
Ivan:
[53:07]
| You know, well, listen, let me, let me put it this way.
I had years ago studied opening a trampoline park. Okay. You know, um, well, because I got a friend of mine who opened a number of trampoline parks and we were, we're going to go an open one. Okay. You know, they actually were very profitable for me.
I mean, I think the, the, the, the, the, the timing of that is now past.
He sold them, but, but, you know, we were like, and just the insurance alone a year.
Before that place, I'd be sure. Oh, it was 400 to $600,000 a year for just one location. Okay. Because of the expected risks, you know, with people getting hurt. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[53:49]
| Cause like, you know, okay. People dying there is probably relatively rare, but I'm sure like people getting hurt probably happens every fucking week all the time.
|
Ivan:
[53:58]
| Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So they had like, I mean, the, the, the, the, the insurance coverage price was bonkers.
|
Sam:
[54:06]
| But anyway, my point was like people talk about the waivers.
I think whatever, you know, everybody signs waivers for everything, but they do did make the point that like everybody was told like here, like the 50 ways this thing can fail.
This is a very risky thing. Do you think that changes anything at all?
Like they all knew what they were getting into.
|
Ivan:
[54:29]
| I mean, I think Thank you.
Oh, uh, does it change it? I don't think any of them went in there thinking they were going to die.
|
Sam:
[54:42]
| Well, no, but they all knew it was risky, right? But I presume, though, the guy was saying, yeah, it's risky because all of these experimental things are risky.
|
Ivan:
[54:51]
| Exactly.
|
Sam:
[54:51]
| But he probably wasn't going in there saying, hey, you know, we use this composite material and it's probably shit.
|
Ivan:
[54:57]
| Right now. No, no, no, not at all. And so I, I think that's the, that's the thing.
|
Sam:
[55:04]
| And to be fair, he obviously felt like it was worth the risk.
He'd been down multiple times.
|
Ivan:
[55:08]
| Right. You know, and they had put certain safeguards on it in order to, uh, that they thought were enough to protect, you know, people from it.
But, you know, obviously, unfortunately that, that, that wasn't the case.
So, you know, but, I mean, I, I think that right now, uh, I was reading that, not sure if they're going to be able to recover.
|
Sam:
[55:42]
| Or, you know, the company has closed quote unquote indefinitely at this point, but I can't imagine them.
|
Ivan:
[55:48]
| I mean, what are, what's, you know, how do you go, go do what business?
|
Sam:
[55:52]
| I mean, this was like a small company. It was like 25 people or something.
The CEO and major force behind this thing, even existing is dead. Right.
|
Ivan:
[56:03]
| Um, I, I would be shocked if they, I don't know, for insurance investigative purposes, because they were talking about, um, Um, you know, the Navy, whether they would go and recover it, but.
|
Sam:
[56:19]
| But I, you know, they are certainly the ROVs that are out there at the very least are going to do an incredibly detailed mapping of the debris field.
Take thousands and thousands of pictures that people will, you know, try to reconstruct the exact details of the failure as best they can.
Um, will they actually bring up some parts?
Apparently some of the equipment they have on site, um, has done those kinds of recoveries before we had was involved in recovery of like some fighter jet that, uh, crashed in deep water before.
Um, and you know, they don't necessarily lift it directly, but they can take, you know, essentially long ropes from the surface and attach them in the key places or whatever, and be able to bring some stuff up that way.
Um, so they might try like some of the equipment they have on site is capable of it.
|
Ivan:
[57:16]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[57:17]
| Um, or, but at the very least, they're going to completely document everything they possibly can there. They may make the choice to just leave it all.
|
Ivan:
[57:26]
| I will say that, um, I, I was very sad about this whole thing.
I, you know, there are a lot of people making jokes about it all week and stuff.
And I really felt it was in, in poor taste.
Um, but you know, people are free to do what they want, you know, Hey, we killed a few billionaires.
Ha ha ha. Um, you know, and, uh, look, I mean, starting with the fact that Bruce, I know spent a few years working there and new to people and, um, you know, it's something that he put a lot of work into.
And I knew that he, he is close to those, you know, he knew those people well, and that been involved and are there.
And so I, I, I, I, I, to, uh, this was, you know, yeah. Uh, I, I, I, I, I, when I, you know, one day officially announced it, I, I, that, you know, I, I kind of was figuring it was the case that.
|
Sam:
[58:28]
| And to me, it seemed like the only question was not if they were dead, but how they died.
Um, I mean, I suppose there was at least some hope that, like when people were talking about there was banging and stuff like that, I was like, okay, maybe there's some chance, but it still always seemed like a slim chance, right?
|
Ivan:
[58:51]
| Yeah. So yeah, that was...
|
Sam:
[58:54]
| So the other thing I'll mention that people have repeatedly talked about is just the comparison, and the fact that I'm even mentioning this means that people have been talking about it, obviously, but the comparison in coverage versus that ship that went down off of Greece with like 700 migrants on it, of which hundreds died.
And basically saying that these five people on the sub got a lot more attention and care and rescue activity and everything else than these hundreds of people on that boat in the Mediterranean got.
|
Ivan:
[59:35]
| Well, I mean, you know, unfortunately, you know, those people are treated as disposable.
I mean, I was actually watching a lot about what happened with these rescues, uh, in, in, in the Mediterranean.
Uh, I had shared, uh, there, there is this, uh, really, I, I shared a video earlier this week, uh, uh, from one of these YouTube channels that I follow on, on, it's called super yacht news, but they cover stuff that's a maritime aside from interesting stuff about super yachts.
I've been covering a lot stuff about, uh, the, the, the Russians trying to hide their mega yachts and stuff, but they, they talked about this because, um, you know, uh, one, one mega yacht rescued a lot of people in one of the ships that, uh, that get that capsized.
Um, and yeah, and it's like, um, uh, yeah, one of the, one of the sickening things about this was that, um, I, it seemed like the Greek, the, the, the Greek, uh, whether it's a coast guard, Navy, whatever the heck it was basically was like, I mean, almost like let them like drown.
I mean, they just didn't give a shit. It was just ridiculous.
I just, yeah, when usually our Navy intercepts or Coast guard intercepts ships like this in transit to, I'd say it's usually their stop.
They pick up the people, whatever. They don't usually just let them, you know, you know, just die out there.
|
Sam:
[1:01:12]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:14]
| I mean, I just find this up and it's ridiculous and nobody gives a shit, you know, yeah, I w I was definitely following this, you know, week, but yeah. people.
|
Sam:
[1:01:24]
| And I'll admit, I was sort of noticing the stories, but I wasn't reading in depth about it.
And I certainly like was more engrossed on the submersible coverage than I was on the migrant boat.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:42]
| Well, in part because there was not that much coverage about it. It's not like, you know, I mean, literally we were getting like alerts, you know, like from everybody about what they'll what's going on.
We definitely didn't get a lot of, um, updates on that. I did see a number, but not, not like this now. Um, right.
|
Sam:
[1:02:07]
| And I, and I think it's fair criticism.
Like, I mean, I agree, you know, in, in an ideal world, you would sort of, You know, if you have hundreds of people here and five people here, the hundreds of people should get more coverage, agreed, you know, but I, yeah, at the same time I understand sort of the, Ooh, it was a cool, like experimental submersible, Ooh, it was billionaires.
Ooh, it was, you know, and, but at the same time, the flip side of that is, oh, they're only a bunch of brown migrants trying to sneak into Europe, you know, and that's not the right way to think about any of this.
And, you know, and we're not going to, we're not going to do a whole segment on the, what's happening there either, but it's, it's also like everything that leads to the situation where those people are trying to come over on these super overcrowded vessels anyway, you know, anyway.
Um, do we have anything else to say for now?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:17]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:03:18]
| Um, so the one thing I I'll mention again is, uh, we may at some point in the future, maybe hear more from Bruce on this.
Um, he said that when he feels like he's able to talk, he would love to talk to us more about it.
But I don't know, that may be years, so, yeah, I, I, you know, I am completely on on board, the fact that this is not the, uh, uh, best moment to, uh, no, no, it is not like, like there, there is no way this goes on without like all kinds of lawsuits, like whatever waivers they signed aside, you know, they're going to to be, there's going to be legal action.
There's no way you get out of this without legal action now.
And now, and so who knows?
Um, but, uh, yeah.
Condolences again, Bruce, uh, to, since you knew some of these folks, uh, awful situation anyway.
Uh, we will take a break and, uh, we'll come back with whatever hell is going on?
|
Ivan:
[1:04:33]
| A more happy subject?
|
Sam:
[1:04:34]
| Yeah. Okay. Um, back after this.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:07]
| Nothing Above My Shoulders But The Evening.
|
Sam:
[1:06:36]
| You usually find music.
Okay, we are back. Um, so, uh, let, let me start with, because it is with, with a timestamp again, I know I said this at the beginning, but this is really actively breaking rapidly changing news, so I'll say it again.
We are recording this on Friday night, US time, June 23rd.
A lot of what we're gonna talk about is breaking news, fog of war crap.
I am seeing contradictory reports every few minutes. Some saying this is happening, some saying, no, that thing that you just heard about, that's not really happening. This is something else.
And so there is a lot going on that is very unclear as of the time we were recording this.
And even if it was clear, it's a rapidly moving and rapidly changing situation, which means by the time you listen to this, things may have changed entirely. So with that caveat out of the way, Let me attempt a quick summary before we talk about it.
The Wagner, is it Wagner? The Wagner group. I don't know. Or is it Wagner?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:02]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:08:03]
| Should I say Wagner? I'll go with Wagner.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:04]
| I think it's more likely Wagner.
|
Sam:
[1:08:06]
| Who knows? Anyway. The Wagner group is a group of mercenaries that, is, you know, was founded by this, um, per goes in general and general progress and not even generally not a general.
Um, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name, right? Prig goes in or go, whatever.
Pregosian. Anyway, here, here's the thing.
It's a mercenary group. It's been operating in Ukraine, but it's operated all over the world, but there's a little bit of additional history to put here.
Uh, Pregozen has a long personal history with Vladimir Putin.
He was known as Putin's cook for a long time because at some point he ran a catering company, but he got close to Putin.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:54]
| Pluton chef.
|
Sam:
[1:08:56]
| I've heard both. Uh, but yes. Um, and.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:00]
| I'm just reading Wikipedia that said chef, not cook.
|
Sam:
[1:09:03]
| So whatever. Cook, chef, whatever, whatever. Probably really some word in Russian, you know, but yeah, whatever.
It's just translating. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:12]
| It says here, it's as he owns restaurants and catering companies that provide services for the Kremlin.
|
Sam:
[1:09:17]
| Yes. But he got in close with Putin, and he was known as Putin's enforcer in a bunch of areas.
One of the things that he did as Putin's enforcer was to be able to set up this alternate military force that Putin could use for various things when he didn't want the Russian population to get upset about people dying.
So it was like, you know, some retired military folks, some prisoners, some foreigners, some whatever.
It was a ragtag – well, I shouldn't say ragtag – it was a group of military people pulled from all kinds of places, paid in a mercenary fashion to do whatever was done.
And so this is one of the things Pergozan, if Pergozan. Whatever.
Whatever. It's one of the things he did was set up this force.
Another, by the way, is apparently this guy was one of the masterminds of the 2016 election interference plot.
He's one of the people indicted by Muller, um, uh, and, and people working for him.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:36]
| I believe I should, I'm sure that it was people working for him.
I'm sure he was not the guy in the computer.
|
Sam:
[1:10:43]
| Well, I know, but was he indicted? Was he one of the ones indicted?
You're on his Wikipedia page. Hang on control F.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:50]
| Mowbray. Hang on. Jesus. I'm looking through it. There's a lot of shit in here. Um...
U.S. criminal charges. Yes. On 16 February, 2018, Bregosian, the I.R.A., not the not the one that we thought about, Concord Management and other contact Russian individuals were indicted by a U.S. grand jury. So, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:11:15]
| OK, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:15]
| So he is under criminal charges in the United States.
|
Sam:
[1:11:18]
| Yeah. And and specifically coming out of the Mueller investigation.
So this is one of the things he did. All of the stuff that we spent time talking about for years, he was one of the Russians who masterminded that whole damn thing.
And now in terms of Ukraine specifically, the Wagner group has been one of the major elements on the Russian side in Ukraine from the very beginning of that invasion.
They were basically treated as if they were another part of the Russian military, but with a little bit of a different command structure and a little bit different missions.
There's a lot of talk about how they were responsible for a lot of the atrocities, actually, and how efficient they were and how vicious they were, blah, blah, blah.
But not that the other parts of the Russian military were innocent of those things. I'm just saying that they were participants, just like all the rest, I guess. and.
Purgoshin himself had, for a good part of the invasion, been criticizing the Russian military and even Putin himself, to some degree, for not being aggressive enough in Ukraine and not throwing enough of their resources at it and basically saying they were pulling their punches.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:53]
| Not brutal enough.
|
Sam:
[1:12:54]
| They were not brutal enough. They were not putting enough resources in it.
They were relying on his group and not bringing the support that was needed.
And so he was, he was doing a lot of criticism, essentially, you know, from the right, quote unquote, of the action in Ukraine, saying that it wasn't enough and they should be doing more.
I mentioned he sometimes would criticize Putin himself, but for the most part, he's tried to make a careful distinction.
He has criticized the Russian defense ministry a lot, a lot more, and the people in charge of that, rather than criticizing Putin directly, most of the time.
But in the last couple months, his criticism was starting to change.
Um, up until like within the last few days, even he's gotten to the point where he's essentially completely flipped.
He is now saying that the whole invasion was not justified, that the Russian military was lying to everybody about the cause and that the things that they had told them in order to have them go in there were not true, and that basically flipping to the side of this whole invasion of Ukraine was bullshit and we never should have done it in the first place.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:28]
| Um, that, and that's just, uh, that's a big, big, big, big shift.
|
Sam:
[1:14:33]
| Okay. Yes. And like, it's sort of, it happens slowly and then quickly, you know, like there, there were hints of this and he was getting more and more dissatisfied with what was going on over the course of the last few months, but apparently in the last few days, it just went all out.
And then apparently, and they were already, the, this group was already sort of pulling back from certain areas in Ukraine.
Um, but the triggering event, at least according to per goes in and I'll state again, like not only is it like fog of war, all this stuff, but we don't necessarily have any reliable narrators here, like we should not trust what per goes in says any more than we trust.
What Putin says any more than we trust. What?
|
Ivan:
[1:15:25]
| You know, all of these, you know, so he's not like a source of like eternal, like, you know, truth. Yeah. No.
|
Sam:
[1:15:39]
| And so like everybody involved, I can't believe this.
Everybody involved here has their own interest to promote and it's in their interest to spin things in certain ways, and there are very few sort of impartial...
Reporters or anything else on the ground anywhere that can give us, you know, insight that's independent there, you know, over time, some will leak out and we'll get like social media posts from random civilians and stuff like this.
Yeah. And we'll piece together what's going on. But per goes and says that the Russian military attacked one of the encampments where his people were with air power.
And that because the Russians directly attacked him, he's now going to take revenge.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:41]
| Revenge!
|
Sam:
[1:16:44]
| And he has ordered the entire Wagner group, Wagner, Wagner, out of Ukraine.
And they're marching on Moscow.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:54]
| Sounds great.
|
Sam:
[1:16:55]
| Via some places on the way.
So over the last couple hours before we were recording, there've been a lot of reports that basically the Wagner group walked into the city of Rostov on Don.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:11]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:17:15]
| Which apparently is like the 11th biggest city in Russia.
So it's, it's not a small place. It's a, it's a big, major area.
Someone, um, uh, uh, they're on freaking Twitter. Uh, but, uh, it was retweet. It was a picture of it was posted on Mastodon compared that that's like.
Equivalent in the U S to like the 11th biggest city is like San Diego.
Okay. And so like, imagine, like, Yeah, a dis like here, here's the post from Eric Toler.
Um, hard to understate how insane this is.
Rostov has over a million people, Russia's 11th, most populated city and a military hub.
It's like disgruntled Blackwater vets seizing San Diego against battle.
No resistance. You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:18:08]
| Yeah. Yeah. Like 50,000.
|
Sam:
[1:18:11]
| And so, you know, and so there were all kinds of reports. This is one of the things where I think there's contradictory reports. There are all kinds of reports that, you know, they had basically walked into the city, met no resistance.
They're taken over a significant military heads, quarters building.
And, uh, you know, and some of the local military are joining in, blah, blah, blah.
Um, I saw another post from somebody who's like, look, we, we looked at some of the pictures and video that are coming out of this, the, what you're seeing are not actually Wagner group people.
This is the military putting up defenses or whatever. And I don't know.
But I've seen other pictures and video of like these people heading down the highway towards Moscow. So, let's get started.
I, I don't know that we have reliable on the ground information as of the time we're recording, but it seems like there is at least a possibility that this fairly large military grouping, uh, is just rolling through Southwestern Russia on the way to Moscow, encountering not that much resistance.
Although I have also seen reports that there are battles at various points along this path that are going on at this point.
Um, and that's where we are as of right now. So Yvonne, what do you think?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:45]
| I, I think that this all starts with, um, Putin's misjudgment at making a mercenary group so powerful.
And then stocking it mostly not with military veterans, which tend to be more loyal, even if they are in a mercenary group, but with a lot of people who were prisoners people you put in jail that, you know, hate your guts, you put them in jail for whatever the hell damn reason.
And he told him that the only reason it could be free is, Oh, you know, go to war.
And this bullshit war that I, um, I put together and then, yeah, you know, um, then you could be free, you know, if you offer to die for me or, you know, to put your life at risk.
So, um, I mean, it's just stupid.
The whole thing was stupid, um, from go. And so now, I mean, it's, it's, uh, you know, backfiring on them spectacularly in this way.
I don't know if they're going to.
You know, they're going to go into Moscow and they're going to Knock it.
|
Sam:
[1:21:09]
| Moscow has been put on high alert. There are pictures of military vehicles all over there.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:14]
| They're Moscow Let's be clear Poor zing is poor chickens, whatever the hell his damn name is.
It's no saint either It's not exactly like look this is not like, you know You know, he's coming in for democracy or something.
No, this guy is probably more brutal than Putin, maybe.
|
Sam:
[1:21:40]
| Well, in a lot of reports, he is.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:43]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:21:44]
| Now, I've seen people talking about Ukraine specifically, and the fact that his recent statements sort of indicate, like, he may be a bastard, but Ukraine's not his war.
So if he actually succeeds, it may be good for Ukraine.
But at the same time, no, this is not like some guy we're going to be like, excited he's there.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:07]
| JS Let's be clear about this. We're still talking about Russia, which is still a country that has a massive nuclear arsenal under their control.
And look, it's unnerving, okay?
This is happening to a certain extent.
|
Sam:
[1:22:28]
| One of the reports, again, who knows the truth of this, is that the Wagner Group has taken over the headquarters of the Southern Military District.
And I've seen some, actually one of the Vindman brothers, who was known for their testimony at the, around the first Donald Trump impeachment, was talking about how, you know, very sensitive things were in that building, including some of their strategic assets and stuff.
Now, maybe they've taken over that building, maybe they haven't.
But it's certainly, there is potential for lots and lots of chaos.
Nobody should be thinking, ooh, civil war in Russia, that's gonna be great.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:21]
| Yay!
|
Sam:
[1:23:22]
| You know, and, and yeah, um, And another thing I just saw fly by is that general whose name I will not try to pronounce again or chef or whatever the fuck he is, is saying that by his estimate, half of Russia's military is ready to come over to his side.
Now, if that's true, then oh my God.
Now on the other hand, what the hell else is he going to say?
Like is he going to go up and say nobody's on my side?
|
Ivan:
[1:23:58]
| I'm looking at I'm looking at telegram, you know, what the hell's going on and there is more smoking military movements in Russia's for Whatever fuck region Unclear what's happening?
Okay, but yeah, you know, you can see that there's all public events in Russia's Rostov-on-Don have been canceled governor says Yeah, and there's a rollout of Oh, there you go, soldiers apparently part of Wagner taking positions on Rostov-on-Don.
This is nice.
|
Sam:
[1:24:38]
| Jesus Christ.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:39]
| Yeah. Describe it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is so.
|
Sam:
[1:24:45]
| Tell me what you're seeing, you're just reacting to it, I don't know what you're seeing.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:49]
| It's what I said, soldiers with military vehicles basically taking positions around the city in order to basically just take over the city.
|
Sam:
[1:24:59]
| Yes. Yeah, like the alerts that are coming out within the last couple minutes are that Prezogin has arrived at the Wagner occupied Southern Military District headquarters.
And so, yeah, so this looks real in some way.
Now does Putin have a much, even with all the problems we've talked about the Russian military in the past, which the Wagner group was kind of lumped in with that as we talked about those things, but is much bigger than the Wagner group.
The Wagner group is the smaller group of mercenaries, but like, you know, what?
Does Putin come out now with the Air Force and start bombing the hell out of these people?
|
Ivan:
[1:25:52]
| Maybe.
|
Sam:
[1:25:53]
| I mean, that seems like it would be the natural next step, but, you know, or if we really have a significant portion of the military going over, we've got your classic coup attempt happening and what is or is not under Putin's control may be very much in flux.
We just don't know right now. And that's one of the hazards of like, hey, I'm going to say it again. We are talking about this in the very early stages of breaking news.
There is a lot going on that will turn out. There's a lot we're hearing now that will turn out not to be true.
And there were our very, very rapid developments.
So we almost shouldn't bother, but oh my God, how can we not this stuff going on?
|
Ivan:
[1:26:43]
| It's crazy. It was just crazy. This shit going on is nuts.
I mean, this is just I mean, I was going to say, you know, I guess people didn't expect this to happen right now, but honestly, it's the kind of shit that historically has happened to these type of dictatorships.
Yeah, this is the kind of shit that's happened. Eventually, at some point, some of the, you know, the military He just gets fed up and says, that's it. We're done with your bullshit. We're done.
|
Sam:
[1:27:21]
| So one post I just saw in this from Joshua Holland, the best that I can glean from a number of expert but equally confused sources is that far fewer than 25,000 Wagner troops are standing around aiming guns at the big Ministry of Defense base in Rostov, and a bunch of territorial defense troops are kind of standing around on the other side.
Nobody's shooting and the locals appear to be going about their business.
What Nazareth a guess about what comes next? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:53]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:54]
| I mean, the closest thing that this reminds me of is when there was that coup attempt against Gorbachev and we had the whole drama, the parliament with Yeltsin standing on the tank and all this kind of stuff happening. It reminds me of that scenario.
Um, one person who, uh, oh, here we go. Uh, another mastodon post from, uh, T N L N Y C from Tristan Lewis. I guess you have to say where he's from and stuff.
Um, that resonated with me too. It's at times like this that I miss the CNN of old.
No, they had reporters on the ground, giving you live pictures of what was happening, not talking heads, a pining from the safety of studios far away from the conflict.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:41]
| Well, I mean, let's, you know, I, I have not tuned into CNN today about this, but look, when the Ukraine war started, they did do a pretty good job of that.
Um, yeah, there's some degree.
|
Sam:
[1:28:53]
| I, I, I watched a little bit of CNN, a little bit of MSNBC. I was mainly at work. I mentioned I had a five hour fucking planning meeting.
Um, I didn't really dress up as a clown, though, sorry to disappoint, but, um, I should have Maybe next time.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:09]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:29:11]
| But the thing is, I was actually frustrated because I specifically tuned in as soon as I got out of my meeting, because I was seeing some of these updates on my phone.
And as soon as I got out of my meeting, I'm like, I'm going to turn on the news network and see what's up.
And they were talking about the Trump investigations.
And I'm like, you know, normally I would be really into that And I want to hear all the new developments of the Trump thing, but right now, you've got like a, maybe a civil war in Russia.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:45]
| Yeah. Yeah, like.
|
Sam:
[1:29:48]
| I, you know, the Trump stuff could wait, you know, and they were having trouble getting on there, like their international experts and stuff.
And there certainly weren't weren't like, oh, and now we go to our Moscow correspondent because they don't fucking have one anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:04]
| Well, I believe they got thrown out.
|
Sam:
[1:30:06]
| Well, yes, I know.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:09]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:30:09]
| So, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:10]
| So, that's not a cutback.
|
Sam:
[1:30:12]
| I know. I know. Yes, I know. I know all the Americans had to evacuate a while ago, but, and they did have someone in Keeve. Okay, fine.
But you know what I mean?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:23]
| They, they, you know, well, but right now, yeah, they're not doing a very good job of any of that whatsoever.
|
Sam:
[1:30:29]
| Right. I mean, they weren't like, they were trying their best to like, get on a few experts to say like, what the hell is going on, but again, in between they were like, okay, we're going to spend, you know, 40 minutes of this hour on the Trump scandals, and we'll give you an update on what's going on in Russia in the last 20 minutes.
And it's like, that's the wrong balance. If, if events of this sort are going on, that's the wrong balance.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:55]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:30:57]
| Um, so I guess like if, if I don't know how, by, by the time we put out the show, let alone by the time we do the next show, I mean, I guess we have the full range of bed or we have the full range of possibilities from Putin immediately crushes this insurrection and it's done, it's over to Putin's gone.
Right. And suddenly Russia is under the control of this guy or in between we have an all out fucking civil war going on in Russia.
Any of the above. It sounds grand.
Um, and, and, you know, uh, of course, like if it's these guys got go walking in with very little resistance, that's one scenario.
Or if they're fighting all the way, you know, then, you know, lots of people are going to die and that's not good.
You know, civilians are going to get caught in a crossfire, et cetera.
But I don't know. It's just, it's, it's one of those like, wow.
What, you know, major potential historical events happening again.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:23]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:32:23]
| So.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:24]
| Got anything else that we haven't covered on this?
|
Sam:
[1:32:26]
| I I'm just looking to see if this new breaking news, but of course the problem with that is by the time anybody hears this, it won't be breaking news anymore. It'll be old news.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:34]
| Oh, it won't be. Yeah. It'll be, it will be breaking. That's broken.
|
Sam:
[1:32:37]
| Yeah. Very broken. Um, okay.
So one more thing I want to say about per goes in before I forget, before we finish that off, is that he is stating over and over again, I mentioned that he rarely has directly criticized Putin and instead is criticizing the Ministry of Defense.
Even now, as he's supposedly going up the road heading to Moscow, he is saying he has no intention of doing anything against Putin.
He just wants to take over and fix the Ministry of Defense.
But I don't see how people- How does that work? Yeah. Um, I don't see how that would work.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:24]
| I am not going to do a coup against Biden, but we're gonna attack the Pentagon! Exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:33:37]
| I don't know. Anyway, we'll see! Yeah. Okay, so I guess we should wrap it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:44]
| Hmm.
|
Sam:
[1:33:46]
| Okay.
So then, uh, I will once again, tell people to go to curmudgeon's hyphen corner.com.
And, uh, there you can find our archives and, and like I mentioned earlier, I'll give the references again.
I highly recommend going back and listening to the two shows where we talked about ocean gate.
Uh, it's episode 659, uh, from January, 2020, you can find it in our archives, um, and episode 750 from October, 2021.
Uh, good conversations in both of those, uh, that is relevant to today.
Um, take a listen. Um, in addition, of course, there are all the ways to contact us. You can find our Facebook, our mastodon, our email, all of this kind of stuff. We would love to hear from you further.
And we also have our Patreon, if you want to give us a little cash.
And at various levels, we will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell.
We will send a postcard. we will send a mug.
There's the bell. There's the bell.
Um, and, um, at $2 a month or more, we will invite you to our curmudgeon's corner slack, our curmudgeon's corner slack, where Yvonne and I and various of our listeners are hanging out, sharing news, whatever, uh, throughout the week.
Um, and I'll let you do your usual thing.
We, from the, the thing that we haven't talked about on the show, But I will also say, yeah, and anybody who is not on the slack this week, you also would have missed some, some additional insights from Bruce that, that, uh, about this ocean gate thing that you would not have gotten elsewhere.
And uh, yeah, can't promise that every week, but, uh, uh, it was interesting to have that there.
You, Bruce, for sharing what you did share there. And, yeah.
So, Ivan, something else. Something else from the Slack that we have not talked about on the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:02]
| Uh, I will go with, uh, uh, Two, I will, I will do two things. One, because two things extra bonus.
Yes. But what what was just more comedic?
There was some guy at an airport, and I realized that they put the weather channel a lot at airports and a guy put a post on Facebook, because unfortunately, the weather channel, like other TV channels, MTV and whatever, you know, yeah, many times now they're putting programming, not actual weather.
Okay. Of course. And for some reason, one of the programs that they put is the Canadian version, which is the original version of the show.
My favorite show air disasters, which is Mayday. And they broadcast it on the weather channel. So there's this guy waiting for a flight to go and it's looking up at the TV and they're showing air disasters.
And he is not abused at this beautiful. Okay. Yes.
A second one, second story is an analysis of that barely a third of Americans still have landlines.
Who are they? Okay. The Washington Post mentioned it actually one, one big takeaway from this was that it's in the Northeast. Okay.
Where the highest proportion of people that keep landlines are, and they dug through the data to try to figure out what's Was it demographic? Was it this? Was it that?
And actually, um, it wasn't any of those. The main reason why a lot of people, uh, uh, I've kept them there is because Verizon is the predominant local carrier in that area.
And Verizon was the first and one of the biggest companies at offering a triple play with bios, Which was fiber, TV, and you know, fiber, TV over fiber, internet, and phone.
And the reality is that the the bundle includes your phone service, you know, through that at a very cheap rate.
That's not the other one. And because of that bundle, consumers in the Northeast have the highest rate of retention of landlines than any other area in the United States.
And it's basically because I mean, Fios was, I don't know why it doesn't get more credit. It was groundbreaking.
They were the first people that basically decided, you know what?
This is 20 years ago, screw this. We're putting fiber to the damn houses.
They're going to get the services. That's what the future is.
And, you know, they did it. And yeah, so that's.
|
Sam:
[1:38:42]
| And I'll mention, uh, I, in response to this, I said, yeah, at this point, the only immediate person I know who has like a regular landline that they use all the time, uh, is my dad.
And, uh, and as you're mentioning this, I realize, of course he has Verizon files or did before his most recent move.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:05]
| So, yeah, but yeah, but there you go.
|
Sam:
[1:39:08]
| And like, you know, we, this is, I think we, we convinced my mom to go wireless only like last time she moved.
So he's the only one left. And, and, and I've said this before on the show and I said it on the Slack this week.
His is the only phone number that I actually reliably remember by heart at this point is for calling, for calling anybody else.
Like I pushed their name on the damn phone.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:39]
| Like, you know, I must say I born, I know a lot more numbers than that.
|
Sam:
[1:39:43]
| And so, and the only reason I know my dad's is because he's had the same phone number since I was 10 years old.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:50]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:39:51]
| You know, but everybody else, like, I mean, I struggle with my wife's phone number. I might get it after time.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:58]
| You know, you should know my cell phone. It's been the same cell phone for 25 years. Of course, you don't call it, but I don't call you.
|
Sam:
[1:40:06]
| We talk like this over like text, right? Or text or whatever, email or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:11]
| Not the phone. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:40:12]
| And even if I was going to call you, I would push your name on my phone.
I would not look at the goddamn number.
You know, I have no idea. I don't know. I barely know my own. All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:25]
| I do know by the way, you spoke about your family who has landlines.
Uh, uh, uh, right now, uh, my sister out of my four siblings, three of us still have landlines.
Uh, and my father also has a landline.
|
Sam:
[1:40:40]
| You mentioned you have one, but it's for a very specific purpose.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:43]
| It's not one you use for normal. Yeah, but actually like my sister also has a gate and actually all, all, all, all my sister, my dad and me, we all live in gated communities And we have a phone for the gate, but that phone, it's just, it's just, if you're at the house, it's just easier, you know, for that thing to be ringing.
|
Sam:
[1:41:03]
| But do you use it for anything else?
|
Ivan:
[1:41:06]
| Rarely um i have used it sometimes for for making some calls for some reason because my phone has been on hold on something else and i'm needed to do something and i got the phone right there something something like that but i rarely rarely use it for anything else at this point i you know i back when i first.
Moved to VoIP on that line because I've been on a VoIP service for over a decade.
My conferences were actual like dial-in conferences for the most part.
People weren't using Zoom audio or Teams audio or I used to use a lot of Join.me.
Nobody was using the digital audio portion of any of those screen sharing services.
We would go on there and we would dial for the conference numbers.
And so I would use that phone a lot for, for the audio portion of conferencing because people didn't use it.
But I don't know, I guess it's been like since the mid 2010s or something or whatever that people stopped doing that.
And they started using the that audio service because they're more reliable and basically that use went away.
And so once that use went away, then basically they did that.
The most of the use that I ever used of that phone, like went down to just basically, uh, an emergency call and, uh, the gate, that's it.
Right now. And so my parents, you know, so yeah, um, my brother doesn't have a gate, but I guess he still has the phone, um, in his house because he's kind of a curmudgeon. Like we are.
|
Sam:
[1:42:49]
| And with that, I think we are done with the show we've on.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:52]
| So, uh, it's done with us or we're done with it or something, everything.
|
Sam:
[1:42:56]
| Yeah. And we'll be back next week and talk about whatever the hell is going on.
You know, at this point, who the hell knows?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:05]
| Uh, who the hell knows?
|
Sam:
[1:43:06]
| Okay. Everybody stay safe. Have a great week. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.
Bye. Go to Beadaholique.com.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:11]
| For all of your beading supply needs!
| |
|
