Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:03]
| Where are we going, where are we going, where are we going?
I think we're going. Mine still says 0% uploading, but it's working on it. Hello, Ivan!
|
Ivan:
[0:12]
| ZERO PERCENT! ZERO PERCENT! ZERO!
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Sam:
[0:19]
| Zero is an exciting number.
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Ivan:
[0:22]
| Yeah, I'm at 0% uploading, too.
|
Sam:
[0:24]
| I presume it'll start at some point. We can talk about like what we're going to talk about before and there you go.
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Ivan:
[0:32]
| There we go.
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Sam:
[0:33]
| Yay. Woo. I don't know. I'm tired.
You're probably more tired. It's three hours later there.
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Ivan:
[0:45]
| I'm so tired. So fucking tired. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[0:49]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:50]
| So I'm about to do anything right now.
This is, you know, let's just start out. We got a what we got what?
Yeah, but I didn't even understand anything you said.
|
Sam:
[1:08]
| At this point, you mean what I just said, like a minute ago? I said stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:15]
| Oh, good. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:17]
| It's I was talking quantum mechanics.
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Ivan:
[1:20]
| Oh, that's great.
|
Sam:
[1:22]
| Dark matter.
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Ivan:
[1:24]
| Too, too bad my, uh, my, my sister-in-law sisters in here, she could talk about it very eloquently actually.
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Sam:
[1:31]
| There you go. There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:31]
| A hell of a lot better than you and I can actually.
|
Sam:
[1:34]
| Oh yeah, absolutely. Except I got a ball of it over in the corner of the dark matter.
|
Ivan:
[1:39]
| Listen, there was a, that discussion about dark matter specifically during, I mean, you know, somehow at the other side of the table, there was a deep discussion about dark matter.
I'm like what what's going on now?
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Sam:
[1:55]
| Right? OK, shall we just start and wing it?
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Ivan:
[1:59]
| Sure. OK, yeah, let's go.
|
Sam:
[2:05]
| OK, here it goes. Yeah. RAAAGH! RAAAGH!
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Ivan:
[2:09]
| Your shirt says red.
|
Sam:
[2:26]
| Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, August 26th, 2023.
It is just after 3 UTC as we're starting to record this, which means for Yvonne and I, it's actually Friday night, August 25th, just after 8 PM for me.
And just after 11 PM for Yvonne.
Very exciting. I have correctly stated the time and that's about the end of my mental ability today.
Uh, so thanks and good night, everyone.
|
Ivan:
[3:03]
| Good night, everybody. Yes.
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Sam:
[3:07]
| Yeah, no. So our plan, we're going to do our usual, but first Yvonne's going to say something then I'm going to say something and then, you know, as a, Oh, what is it?
Is this riffing? What is this? We do, it's just saying stuff and then we'll have a more serious thing, I guess. Yeah.
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Ivan:
[3:26]
| R riffing and we're not talking about the reduction in force type of riff.
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Sam:
[3:30]
| Oh, not, not that kind.
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Ivan:
[3:31]
| Not that kind of riffing.
|
Sam:
[3:33]
| Yeah. Bullshitting. I guess, you know?
Yeah. Anyway, then we will have a segment on sort of the, the political news of the week. Uh, we have of course, uh, Donald Trump getting arrested.
We have the Republican debate without Donald Trump.
We have. What all that means. Um, polling.
I don't know the political crap. Okay. And there we go.
|
Ivan:
[4:05]
| That's what we call the segment, the political crap, the political crap.
|
Sam:
[4:09]
| And then we will do one last segment, if both of us don't fall asleep, where we will each pick one other topic out of our asses. and we'll talk about that.
Sound good.
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Ivan:
[4:20]
| Great, great, great, great source of crap asses, you know, what material, you know, it's not kind of crap asses, you know, so forth and so on.
We're really bringing it today. Yes.
|
Sam:
[4:32]
| With all our energy, the high quality curmudgeon's corner content.
You have all come to expect.
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Ivan:
[4:38]
| Yes, indeed. I mean, I, you know, I totally high quality.
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Sam:
[4:44]
| I mean, yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[4:47]
| Yeah, we, we, you know, we're not, you know, I don't, I am under the influence of Canada dry at the moment. I'm under the influence of water.
|
Sam:
[4:58]
| Um, I had some tea earlier, some Earl gray tea with some milk in it.
|
Ivan:
[5:04]
| No, no, I don't drink alcohol as much as I used to anymore. And I never really liked getting drunk itself. I like drinking, not getting drunk, which to some people is like, huh? What? Because I, you know, I remember.
|
Sam:
[5:18]
| Well, is this your first?
|
Ivan:
[5:19]
| I guess. Yeah, there you go. Go for like, you know, growing up, how it seemed like to a lot of people, the actual act of getting completely plastered and like destroyed was the whole purpose of the drinking.
I think, you know, unfortunately, a comedian that should be back in jail.
Bill Cosby made a made a joke about this, that these people worked all week to basically, you know, be on their knees in front of a toilet vomiting on Friday.
And they said and they actually said that they had worked all week for this.
And no, I, you know, I'm not that that's not the reason why I drank.
I mean, I liked, you know, there are certain alcohols that I like, I still like, you know, But definitely in moderation.
I mean, there is a certain, um, uh, calming effect to them, but I don't really.
I don't like to take stuff to to access.
Well, not just to access, but sometimes it's like I don't.
I like to try to to minimize my intake of.
Medication to only as needed. OK, I mean, I take medication like I take daily asthma medication, you know, but that's because I tried every other method.
It really didn't work. And so therefore, I'm like, you know, OK, great. I have to take daily as medication.
There is no way around that. And so the thing is that with alcohol, this entire thing of like people just getting absolutely just just hammered that they're like physically ill, is it great?
OK, you know, I did not experience that.
I and I saw a lot of that. Uh, no, I, I like that one thing that because I don't drink as much.
One of the things also is that if I'm going to drink anything now, it really becomes an expensive endeavor because I really don't want to go buy something high quality that you feel like was worth.
Absolutely. Yes. If I'm going to drink something, then we're going to drink something worth, You know.
|
Sam:
[7:42]
| Doing okay, you're not going to go find the cheapest beer on the show.
|
Ivan:
[7:47]
| God no. So so like so we went on vacation. One of the things that did happen today, I will say that I did this a little bit inadvertently.
I didn't know that there was a.
I tried this before at my at my brother's house, and I knew of this scotch.
Well, I mean, if you saw I don't know if you saw the movie Lost in Translation.
Did you ever say that you need to add this one to the list?
|
Sam:
[8:13]
| It's probably on the list already, but I'll add it again. I'll add it again.
|
Ivan:
[8:16]
| I don't know what the hell. OK, so in loss of translation, one of the main things it is is that the probe is that Bill Murray went to Japan to film.
He was paying being paying millions of dollars to do commercials, TV commercials for Centauri whiskey.
OK, a Japanese whiskey. Now, I must say that I knew about Suntory.
I knew about the whiskey, but I hadn't tried it.
OK, you know, you know, I seen in a movie, I hadn't tried it.
But my brother went to Japan some years back and he brought some, you know, some aged each one of them.
He told me it was very expensive. I didn't really look at the price, so I knew about it, but I really had not delved into the pricing of this.
And I tried it and it was very good.
So when we were at this hotel on vacation about a month ago, I decided to, oh, look, I see they got what's the name of it's a story. Yeah.
Yamazaka, Yamakita, Yama, something, whatever it's called. OK, it's complicated.
So, oh, oh, oh, I have a double. OK.
|
Sam:
[9:25]
| Without checking the price.
|
Ivan:
[9:27]
| I was like, you know, actually, at that point, look, I kind of figured anything was expensive, but it was not on my tab anyway. It was on my brother's.
So I'm like, ah, fuck it. whatever he can bang, you know, get a double, whatever he hears.
And then the next day or another day later or at the bar and, you know, it was good. So I'm like, Now this was on.
It was my bar tab. And I'm like, I, I, I, I ordered one. And my brother came and he ordered a double. And I'm like, Well, just wait until you get the tab.
OK, so one glass, a double of Jesus Christ.
I'm going to have to look up the name. Yama.
Yama, Kaza, Yama, Yama, Yama, Zaki, Yama, Zaki, okay. Okay. Okay. Whiskey. Okay.
A double a hundred dollars for one glass. Now I'm talking about a very, very, very small serving.
We're only talking a couple of ounces.
The stuff, two or three ounces tops, you get the survey.
And so, yes, that was $100. Now we had had several glasses, so the tab was high.
Okay, for the bar, it was just, it was, it was really high.
Uh, but, but that's the thing. Like now, if I'm going to go, since I don't drink that much, I'm going to drink something.
I I'll wind up spending a dumb ass amount of money right now for.
Okay. But it doesn't happen often. Okay. So, you know, I mean, I'm like, you know, like in every Friday thing I had that a month ago, I'm sure I probably, I did promise my brothers coming in December, I was going to find a a bottle now, a bottle is only 200 bucks.
It's a lot cheaper to buy the bottle. So I will go and buy a bottle of it instead of going back to a bar to to do that. But right.
But I never understood this whole thing about drinking to get completely like.
Destroyed. And whenever I did feel like that, I did not like the sensation.
|
Sam:
[11:42]
| Well, my my history of this is, first of all, I didn't have my first drop of alcohol until I was legal, until I was over 21. Um, and then, you know, it was sort of the tail end of college and I quickly.
Got peer pressured into drinking more than I should. And I did get like, you know, I, I drank more than I should have. I basically did the binge drinking thing for a little while.
Um, and then in just in my twenties in general, I would, I would still, I would go out with people occasionally and I would drink and it was sometimes too much, usually not like, but it was, but over the course of my twenties, I sort of.
And, and I'm, I'm using rough decade boundaries, but the actual transitions weren't exactly at decades. I don't remember, but roughly speaking in my twenties, I was a social drinker.
I went out with people, I, I, I drank and sometimes I got drunk.
By the time I hit my thirties or roughly around that transition time, I was like.
This kind of sucks. I don't really enjoy it that much.
And so I, I started drinking very rarely and not very much when I did.
Um, and it was just like, okay, maybe I'll have like one, once every blue moon at a dinner or something, I would have a margarita or something, you know, but it wasn't anything more than that. And then by the time I hit 40, I was just done. done.
Like I haven't, I haven't had a drop since I turned 40, you know, and have no intention of doing it.
Like every once in a while, my wife is like, come on just a little bit, let's loosen you up so that you'll like, you know, because it does do that.
|
Ivan:
[13:32]
| I mean, that's the one thing, the effect that it does. Yeah.
You know, I mean, it is a relaxing.
Okay. So it does. I mean, one time, I'm okay with the amount of like to take to, to relax a little bit.
|
Sam:
[13:43]
| One of my, one of our very first dates that we ever did, she, she got me drunk enough that she got me to do karaoke.
|
Ivan:
[13:52]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[13:54]
| I have never done that since. And every once in a while, like she, she went to karaoke a couple of weekends ago and he's like, you want to come with me?
And I'm like, you know, I, no, I don't really want to come with you.
And, and, and I'm like, do you want me to like, sing again? Like I did before.
And she's like, would you?
I'm like, well, you'd have to get me under the influence again.
There's no other way, but no. So I, I did, I did not.
|
Ivan:
[14:23]
| They see that. Oh, that, that would be worth it. I have to say, uh, you know, just to hear me singing. Yes, absolutely. Hell yes.
|
Sam:
[14:31]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[14:32]
| I'll get you some nice, like, uh, you know, I mean, look, there are certain alcoholic drinks, you know, I mean, especially so once they make now that fucking like tastes like, I mean, Jesus, you know, they taste like.
I mean, they taste like fruit punches, whatever. I don't know.
Probably, you know, get you like.
|
Sam:
[14:51]
| Yeah, you could slip me something that I didn't even know was alcohol.
|
Ivan:
[14:55]
| Basically, yes. OK, you would maybe suspect it, but you're not sure.
And then you're like, all of a sudden, oh, boy, what the hell am I doing?
|
Sam:
[15:02]
| And suddenly I'm up on stage belting out some song.
|
Ivan:
[15:05]
| Yes, yes, yes. Now, I will say that, you know, contrary. So so with alcohol, I enjoyed that. Look, the few the only.
The I, I smoked pot twice total in my life, and it was that I've I mean, I was older and I was older.
I mean, I was shit. I was in my late 20s.
OK, and I must admit, I hated it. I didn't like it. And I was like, OK, I'm never doing this again.
That that I was just like, you know, I tried it. OK, I did it.
I've done never happening.
|
Sam:
[15:38]
| I have been present when other people were doing it. And so I got a little bit of second hand, but I've never directly done it myself. And the times I was exposed to second hand, I was very uncomfortable and got out of there as soon as I could.
|
Ivan:
[15:50]
| I, I, I, it's just, you know, yeah. So that's not my that's my thing.
|
Sam:
[15:56]
| But, you know, like, I mean, look, there are, you know, for me, the thing The thing is at this point, and the thing is at this point, and it has been for a long time.
I mean, and yes, I realize some of the purpose of like why you do these is specifically to lose inhibitions, but I like being in control.
Like I don't like the feeling of not having all my faculties about me.
So I don't understand why I would.
|
Ivan:
[16:24]
| There are two different things that we're talking about. One is which should loosen you up a little bit.
Another one, another one is to not have control of your faculties, which are two different, very different things.
Yeah. Okay. You know, um, so let's be clear about that.
I, I don't, you know, yeah, I don't disagree with you to lose control of your faculties. You know, like I found these guys that all of a sudden, like I found this one guy when I was in high school that literally vomited all over himself.
Well, I don't, I don't eat big and I'm just like, you know, and shit the bed, literally shit the bed. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[16:57]
| I don't, I don't even, I don't even mean that I mean, I even mean like impaired judgment, you know, like making decisions that I would not make while sober, like, I don't like look, karaoke is not like you're going out to commit murder. Okay. All right.
|
Ivan:
[17:11]
| You know, let's be clear about this. Well, we're talking about the fine line between you getting up on a, on a stage and singing and not, well, I'm like, okay, I'm okay with that.
That's that line is, you know, that line's okay. We're not, you know, we're not, you know, we're, you know, we're not gonna. You know, you're not going to have.
Commit crimes or any of that, you know, that kind of stuff, you know, it's okay.
You know, you're not going to, you know, we're not getting you to the point that you're going to start like sexually assaulting people or something or whatever or any of that stuff. Now, one would hope we just well, we hope we're just we're just trying to get you to say karaoke a little bit.
|
Sam:
[17:51]
| You know, yes, I will. I will admit one one of those times I was just going to admit an embarrassing incident.
One of those times in my 20s when I was significantly under the influence, I did grab someone inappropriately and got slapped in a bar.
It was someone I worked with. I grabbed them. They slapped me.
I completely deserved it. Did not happen again.
|
Ivan:
[18:15]
| Well, you earned it.
|
Sam:
[18:17]
| But yeah, I earned it. I earned it.
|
Ivan:
[18:18]
| It was- Okay, there you go.
|
Sam:
[18:19]
| You know, and they, they, you know, they made fun of me for it.
They weren't upset by it.
|
Ivan:
[18:25]
| There you go. Okay, that's fine. You know, it's OK.
You know, they made fun of you for the rest of your life. Good. OK, exactly.
And you deserve it. So now I was going to mention that.
The one thing that I think that I that I that I do enjoy is I mean, because like I mentioned about drinking very, you know, very specific things, very, very connoisseur things, you know, because there are I mean, there are certain wines specifically that I've had, which we're talking, bottles of wine that are it.
Look, they some are super expensive.
Some aren't as expensive, but they are rare and they're unique and they're difficult to get there. They're old. Like, you know, my father had bought these bottles of the Spanish wine.
That were 30 plus, they were close to 30 years old. You know, I had no idea how much they were worth. I was sure they had to be worth a ton of money. I looked them up later. The prices of these things are ridiculous right now on the collector's market.
And I remember that, you know, one time we're, you know, my father is having one of his birthdays and we said, Look, we got to open some of these.
These are getting old. OK, all right.
You know, and beyond a certain amount of time, they start going bad. OK, I can't be there.
|
Sam:
[19:36]
| It doesn't last forever.
|
Ivan:
[19:37]
| No, it doesn't last forever. So we opened, uh, we opened a couple of these and with the right, Oh God, cheese and the right bread and the whole, you know, thing like together.
This thing, I still remember, you know, I tried this wide with this, this, this is like just one of the most delicious damn things that I've ever consumed in my life. Okay.
It was just, I'm like, Oh my God. Okay.
Anybody's looking up the kind of wine it's, it's a Vega, it's a Spanish one.
It's Vegas, Sicilia. OK. Unico. All right.
Somewhere from the 1970s. OK. 1980s. Right. It was I think it was 1970s.
They are very difficult to find. You know, these are ones that are just, you know, I say that to people, it's like, you know, people that go and like buy these wines that everybody recognizes that are expensive.
This is the kind of stuff that I like.
It's like, look, it's it's great. But, you know, nobody has any clue what that a lot of most people don't have any clue what it is, but I'm looking up one of those like right now. What's up for sale?
There are a few bottles up for sale in one place that I just saw the range of price.
Holy crap. Holy shit.
From there, from five hundred and ninety two, ninety one at the cheapest one. Thank you.
To four thousand eight hundred ninety three fifty six for the most expensive one right now.
Shit, I should have saved that fucking one.
Could have saved it for a resale value. Holy shit. Good Lord.
I know we didn't pay that much. We bought them like I think.
Yeah, but but because they've become so rare over time.
Yeah. And it's one of those things that, you know, you know, they talk about, Well, something God's never going to worth the money to open it, whatever.
I'll tell you what I opened that thing. And to me, but it's, it's one of those things, the acquired taste to me, that was like, Oh my God, this is incredible. You know, that was an experience.
I don't, I mean, it's probably like 10 years ago and I still remember. So how good that was.
|
Sam:
[21:50]
| Now, there have there have been some like blind taste test kinds of things that say that most people blind and can't actually tell the difference.
And if, and if they, and if they put the same thing in multiple bottles, but put different price tags on them, you think the more expensive ones are better.
|
Ivan:
[22:10]
| Listen, listen, listen, those people are dumb asses.
Look, I, I've gone to bars and I've ordered stuff where they have served me the cheaper, something cheaper.
And immediately I've had one sip and I'm like, you fucking serve me the cheap, you fucking serve me whatever the hell, what not. I'm like, that's not what I bought. It's not what I pay for. I'm sorry, sir.
I'm like, yeah, no, that's OK. Here's the thing.
For those people, obviously.
That's not worth for you to pay extra money for something like that.
|
Sam:
[22:41]
| Well, some some of these tests they've done with like professional wine people like I do, I do think that there are in certain cases.
|
Ivan:
[22:49]
| OK, well, here there's also a whole bunch of professional wine people who are full of shit. They're exactly.
|
Sam:
[22:56]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[22:56]
| All right. So let's, let's, let's be clear about that.
But you know, like I go and like, for example, I, because I, I like Scotch and I get sampled different things.
That's why I like that Yama Zaki one. For example, I've gone to a bar at, you know, but this has happened to me many times to go to other things they do at the bar is that also, you know, I order a much more expensive one and all of a sudden they try to fucking, you know, serve me this really cheap stuff.
And all of a sudden I go and I take one sip and I put it back down.
I was like, what the fuck are you serving me? Then you serve me black, you serve me fucking black label.
I asked for fucking expensive scotch. You know, I asked for McCallan, what the fuck you give me black label?
Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. You know, a bottle that's worth 25% of what I ordered.
And they expect that most people won't notice a difference. Right. And I'm like, look!
But that's the thing I say, if you don't notice a difference, don't buy the expensive stuff, buy the cheap shit. It's good. It's OK.
I have a problem. I noticed the damn thing. And I'm like, fuck, man, shit. I, you know, it's, a curse. I mean, really, fuck, I think it would be better if I didn't notice the fucking difference, but I do. So, oh, well, yes.
|
Sam:
[24:06]
| Yeah, there are a lot of things that apply. Like I am I have a fairly unsophisticated palette, let's say.
You know, I don't know there's certain things where I actually notice very minor differences And I'm like what the hell but they're not necessarily the same things as other people like one that you know I have I have a cup of tea right in front of me.
Well, yeah, it's old and cold now But you know that that's one of those things where like some people are very very particular It has to be made in an exact specific way The type of, and brand makes a huge difference. The flavor makes a huge difference.
How long you steep, it makes a difference. How much milk you add.
|
Ivan:
[24:49]
| Yes, absolutely. And I'm like, and I'm with, I'm with you kind of with tea where I'm like, yeah, like I don't, I played around with different stuff and like for the most part, I'm like, whatever it's tea.
|
Sam:
[25:01]
| Like, I don't care.
|
Ivan:
[25:02]
| It's tea.
|
Sam:
[25:02]
| Like, you know, people have been like, are you left the tea bag into bat too long? It's going to be awful. I'm like, I don't care.
|
Ivan:
[25:08]
| It tastes the same to me, you know, with coffee, for example, look, I, I, I, there to me, you know, I mean, I do notice the differences with coffee, but I don't go with coffee, I'm not as demanding.
Okay. Right. Um, you know, I, because I have somebody that, that, that, that I know that, oh my God, the water has to be at this specific temperature and it has to be with this specific purity and this other shit and this whatever.
Otherwise, I'm like, oh, God, please, for the love of God, look, I'm just like, I, you know, I, they will never drink a Starbucks espresso.
Look, I'm like, I know the Starbucks espresso isn't the the the best, but I could drink it. It's OK. I can live with that. OK, I don't really, you know, to me.
Yes, I you know, the coffee that he this guy roasts coffee himself.
And I've tried his coffee. Yeah, it's better. But, you know...
It's not a difference you care about.
It's, it's not a difference that it makes me like go and spit out the other coffee. Right. That's what I'm saying.
|
Sam:
[26:26]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[26:26]
| It's you, you can tell, I'm like, I'm not going to this garbage, you know?
|
Sam:
[26:31]
| Right. And, and, and, or, and you're probably not like, if you just want some caffeine in the morning, you're not going to go out of your way for the quote unquote better one.
|
Ivan:
[26:42]
| Well, I, I do. Well, well, let's not go crazy here.
OK, I will try to to go a little bit out of my way for it. But but I will tolerate.
You know, look, if I get on an airplane, I have to drink a fucking airplane cup of coffee.
I will drink the coffee, the damn coffee airplane. I won't like it, but I'll you know, but it's OK.
It's not my favorite, but I'll you know, I'll I'll swing it, you know, but but but yeah, I mean, versus I think that the thing is that for, for the liquor, because I don't, it's just, to me, it's just an exquisite experience.
There was a while I don't, I don't want to wait. I don't want to spoil it anymore.
I don't do it all the time. I don't want it spoiled. Hmm.
|
Sam:
[27:28]
| Yeah. See for, and for me, for the, well, I don't, I don't do the drinking thing at all anymore for the coffee.
It's like, I don't, basically when I'm doing coffee or tea or whatever, all I I actually care about as is, am I injecting myself with some caffeine?
I don't actually want to taste the coffee. I don't want to taste the tea.
I usually have something with lots of milk in it, some sugar.
So that's what I'm tasting. I just want some caffeine in, you know, put into me in a quick fashion. And that's about it.
|
Ivan:
[28:00]
| Like, you know, I do make a better coffee at more at home. I do.
I am because it does taste better. I do buy Italian coffee, okay, that I normally use, but it's not even that much more expensive than the other one.
It's just, it is more, but it's not, you know, it's not crazy more, but in my coffee machine is better, makes better coffee. But, you know, like I said, I think the thing is, the...
I'm drinking it every day. So if I got one day, you know, I, I tolerate the other one. It's okay. Tomorrow. Okay.
|
Sam:
[28:37]
| Okay. It's fine. And we've got, we've gone on about this long enough.
Let, let, let me do my stuff. I just have one story that I want to relate that happened to me this week at work.
|
Ivan:
[28:49]
| Oh boy.
|
Sam:
[28:50]
| And it, you know, it is not a, you know, obviously I'm not going to talk about work specific things, but this is, there was a new person starting on our team this week. Okay.
And so we actually, I actually win it.
Yeah, I'm doing the in-person thing, blah, blah, blah. But we had a welcome dinner for them on Tuesday. Okay.
And, and so there, there are a couple of things that are relevant.
There's a couple of things under dinner and then a later thing that came up later in the week.
And on both of these, there is a common theme that you will see.
And I mentioned one of them on the convergence corner Slack.
So those of you who are on there had a preview, um, at this dinner, you know, we are sort of like, we're getting to know the new person.
Everybody's sort of asking stupid questions of each other to like, you know, uh, just, just have sort of some non work chat. That's like, yeah, this, these kinds of things.
And, you know, it came up, you know, I I've been there longer than anybody else at the table. I I've been at our company. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[30:01]
| 17 and a half longer there. We established the other day. You've been longer there than 99.9% of the employees right now.
|
Sam:
[30:12]
| No, I'm at 99.87. I checked earlier today.
|
Ivan:
[30:14]
| Well, okay. I'm sorry. I was off by three tenths.
|
Sam:
[30:19]
| I am. I am eagerly checking periodically to see when I get that third nine to go to 99 nine. Uh, but yes, worldwide, I have been at my current company.
They've got a little tool that shows you a bunch of stats like this.
Um, and, and so, yeah, I've been there a long time. I've been there 17 and a half years.
Uh, so yeah, one of the people there started asking me about, well, one person asked me about like, well, what have you done?
It, you know, one of, what have you done before your current role?
And I'm like, okay, this is a long story, settle in.
And I started to go through all the various things I've done because I've been at the company 17 and a half years, but I haven't done the same damn thing for 17 and a half years.
Every few years I've shifted what I do there.
And so I sort of went through these stories and in the process, like I'm revealing like, You know, the person who hired me is now my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss.
So like five levels up, if I remember right. And, uh, the, the, another person on the interview loop is now four levels up for me and there, you know, whatever.
And, and they're like, Oh, you knew them at the very beginning. What was that like?
And blah, blah, blah. You know, basically, and like some of the systems I worked on are now like huge teams, like, you know, for a short time, I was a software developer, a software development manager, which I sucked at.
It was not a good fit for me, but at that time I had six developers working for me and six projects that I owned.
Eat like some of those are gone and dead now, but a couple of those things still exist and are huge teams now.
You know, and it's like, it was one, one person on my team worked on that thing, you know, um, and they were, you know, asking me for tales of the old times.
Cause like, you know, I was there when the company was young.
And like, I'm like, yes, yes, uh, I, I, what, you know, I was there when most of the company was still in one building and we just had a couple other sat smaller satellite buildings and the CEO would come into the cafeteria, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And you guys know who this Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bezos would walk into the freaking cafeteria and sit down a few tables over and eat his lunch. You know, that still happened back then.
|
Ivan:
[32:47]
| You know, he doesn't call you to go to St. Bart's on his yacht still.
|
Sam:
[32:50]
| No, he doesn't. Like, you know, I have no stories directly of him other than, you know, I occasionally saw him in the cafeteria.
I did tell the story about how, when I was getting interviewed.
Like, the lunch interview, you know, you go through and get your food and then you sit down and you have sort of an informal chat of not as serious questions as you have during the rest of the interview.
But I tried to buy one of the fake plastic oranges that was decorating the place.
|
Ivan:
[33:22]
| The fake plastic what that was decorating the place?
|
Sam:
[33:25]
| Oranges. Oranges. They had like fake fruit up above the display or whatever.
I didn't know I tried to buy one and like you like it's like no no don't you can't buy that hey that's not food sorry that's not food yeah so it was just interesting being there cuz like you know yes I I've been there a while and I you know it's like okay yep yep I'm old yep and like some of the other people at the table were approximately the same age as I am actually there there were some youngsters there, but there were older folks as well.
But none of them had been at the company that length of time.
So I had like these stories of ancient days gone by that are nothing like today.
And it was just like, okay, yep, yep.
Definitely feeling a little bit decrepit. But then the second half of my story from later in the week, they sent out like a little announcement email the new person that we'd taken to dinner.
And the announcement had a little bio of them, blah, blah, blah.
And the bio mentioned that they went to CMU, where Yvonne and I were.
|
Ivan:
[34:43]
| Get out of here.
|
Sam:
[34:44]
| Yeah, they were a Carnegie Mellon. Looked like they went for grad school, not for undergrad. But they went to CMU.
And I'm like, oh, so I replied back like, Hey, CMU. Wow. I went to CMU too long time ago. I went to CMU physics.
I was like physics 1993 and they reply back. Wow. I was born in 1993.
|
Ivan:
[35:11]
| Oh, come on.
Oh, fuck you.
That would have been my reply.
|
Sam:
[35:24]
| I suspected. I almost didn't say it because like I almost didn't send the email because I I was I would have just said as I was Writing the email and go go yourself putting physics 1993.
I was like, you know 93 they probably weren't even born in 1993 And they weren't they weren't they were born in 1993, but yeah, so go fuck themselves themselves.
DEVILLE So, yeah, the fun stuff of being our age in corporate America today.
|
Ivan:
[36:00]
| JUSTIN Oh man, you know, that is a thing, I have to say, that I'm bumping into, you know, repeatedly.
|
Sam:
[36:17]
| But apparently, I will say that I spoke- I'm, I'm lucky that it was 1993.
I mean, there, there are people around that I work with that were born in the two thousands, so fuck Jesus Christ.
I mean, you know, someone who was born in the year 2000 is what? 23 now.
|
Ivan:
[36:37]
| Well, I will say I felt a little better this week because as I, I was exiting my, uh, I don't know if I mentioned that I went to Guatemala this week.
|
Sam:
[36:47]
| I gathered that from something you said on the slack, but otherwise I don't think I had no idea. I was like, Oh, okay, fine.
|
Ivan:
[36:53]
| I did go to Guatemala for less for about 24 hours. I literally was checking in for my return flight as I was boarding my outbound flight. Okay.
Um, I did, I did a couple of meetings that went very well then came back on, but the one thing I wanted to mention, by the way, Guatemala is a lot nicer than, uh, than I expected. I think in part because I think it's gotten quite a bad rap.
Okay, here that was actually I was way nicer than I expected. Okay.
The city is very nice. And it was the weather was wonderful.
70s during the day. High altitude. Okay. So so anyway, yes, anybody scared to go to Guatemala? Don't be. It's fantastic. It's really nice. Okay. And cheap.
So anyway, I was getting off the flight. This this dude that was pretty young actually It goes and says, hey.
I know you. And I'm like, um, God, God, the fuck do I know this guy from?
Um, oh, I worked at Rico for about 12 years ago or something.
And I'm like, holy shit, this guy worked. I'm like, I don't know.
Look, back then we had turnover rates for some of the entry level account executive roles that were close to 200% annually. Okay. All right.
So we went through a revolving door people. I don't remember all these damn people. They didn't work for, for, for like, they They didn't work for me.
If I were to work for me, I would have remembered.
|
Sam:
[38:17]
| OK, hey, I can't remember people I worked with two years ago if I'm no longer working with them actively. My mind just erases them. Right.
|
Ivan:
[38:25]
| So so so they you know, they said hi and whatnot. And you know, whatever. And I was like, you don't realize how long ago it was, because apparently it was, you know, so it was like 12 years ago.
And I was like, oh, shit, it's been that long.
But the one thing that they said made me feel good. It's like, shit, you look just the same son of a bitch.
|
Sam:
[38:41]
| I'm like, oh, I'm like, thank you. Nice.
|
Ivan:
[38:44]
| I'm like, fuck, you know, so I was like, so that that that was a ego boost that I that I got that apparently, you know, I was in a suit and everything and shaved and everything.
I mean, I'd gone straight from the business meetings that was in straight to the airplane and, you know, I wasn't going to.
There are these people that will actually change at the airport or stop the change again or whatever.
And I'm like, I I don't think it's worth the hassle. If I I got up in the morning, I'm wearing a suit. I mean, I'm not fucking changing again. It's it's staying on until I get home.
You know, it is what it is. But I but but but I I had bosses that literally would go to an airport bathroom to go and change out of it to to put on jeans and stuff and whatever.
And I'm like, I will say that I get my suits tailored enough that they're more comfortable, usually than the jeans. So therefore, I'm not I'm not I'm not rushing to go and like go to the gym.
Get more comfortable, it's okay. So anyway. All right. So let's we let's move on, you know, before we, you know, we lost everybody at this point, like right now.
|
Sam:
[39:45]
| I'm sure.
|
Ivan:
[39:47]
| Um, so and so this is wearing a shirt that says red on it.
|
Sam:
[39:50]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[39:50]
| Some reason is it like red alert, like for Star Trek or something?
|
Sam:
[39:54]
| I don't know. It was a free shirt somewhere. I pick, you know, someone was giving away free excess swag T shirts. And I took one.
I have no idea what it refers to.
|
Ivan:
[40:04]
| I absolutely refuse those free swag. I absolutely usually just refuse to wear any of those free fucking shirts.
|
Sam:
[40:12]
| I'm like a shirt.
|
Ivan:
[40:13]
| I go. No, I go and I fucking send them to Goodwill or something here.
Somebody will wear it because it's not going on me. I know I have a thing. It's just.
|
Sam:
[40:23]
| Well, you know, sometimes if it's obvious advertising for a company I disapprove of, I won't even take the shirt.
|
Ivan:
[40:29]
| But like Fox News t shirts, is that you? whole, you know, there you go. That's what I should do.
Hey, Tucker Carlson, you know, you know, tonight, you know, shirts, some old ones. I'm sure they have some that, you know, didn't sell that haven't sold right now. There you go.
|
Sam:
[40:44]
| Yeah. But meanwhile, this shirt, I have no freaking idea. I have no idea at all.
|
Ivan:
[40:49]
| First of all, it does look good by the way. Don't get me wrong.
That's a free shirt. It looks good.
|
Sam:
[40:54]
| Okay. All right. It's a black shirt that says it has the word red and sort of stylized.
|
Ivan:
[41:00]
| It's nicely like written in there. I don't know. It looks like important.
|
Sam:
[41:04]
| Yeah, I have no idea. I have zero, zero clue what this represents.
|
Ivan:
[41:08]
| I will say that I'm exaggerating about not wearing those free shirts for some reason. Once I got an entire box of a free T-shirts from CompuServe.
I have no idea why.
I don't know, because maybe I think it was in the mid 90s where maybe I was one of the only psychopaths that paid for the service at some point.
They sent me a whole bunch of free swag.
|
Sam:
[41:28]
| Gotcha.
|
Ivan:
[41:29]
| I did wear those. So there you go.
|
Sam:
[41:32]
| That that's wonderful.
|
Ivan:
[41:34]
| I, all right, before we lose, before somebody offs themselves, we should take a break.
|
Sam:
[41:39]
| Okay. Here's our break. And then we'll come back and do all the politics stuff.
And then who knows? We might be done after that. We'll see.
|
Ivan:
[41:46]
| We might be, we might be dead. We might be wearing more free swag.
I don't know. Who knows exactly.
|
Sam:
[41:52]
| Okay, here we go!
Okay, we are back.
So, um, I guess we got two major things this week.
We've got, uh, Trump and all his co-conspirators in Georgia turning themselves in, getting mugshots, their various legal maneuverings.
And we had, uh, the rest of the Republicans, uh, doing their little debate thing and whatever all this means for the politics of the Republican race.
So where do you want to start Yvonne fun stuff, fun.
|
Ivan:
[44:27]
| Let's start with the debate. Okay. And, uh, look, I did not watch it.
Didn't know. No, no, I will not subject myself to that.
|
Sam:
[44:39]
| I tried to watch it, but like there were other things going on.
My son was telling me about some Minecraft command block programming thing he was doing and there was other stuff going on.
So I was kind of in and out listening and more listening to the tone than the actual words Which is what people usually do anyway, but and then there I saw lots of clips and people talking about it afterwards I mean, I I did read a lot about what happened in the bait But one thing I think let's start off.
|
Ivan:
[45:11]
| I think that the most important thing Donald Trump at was attempting to seize the spotlight from the debate to himself by doing this interview you.
With, uh, Tucker or Carl's and it got no attention at all.
I mean, it got no attention at all to the point that I have no idea what happened on it. Nobody covered it. Nobody.
|
Sam:
[45:32]
| So I mean, nobody, I, I thought, yeah, I got some coverage of it that I saw.
Here's a couple of things. First of all, uh, the, the one, the most common piece of coverage was actually about how the numbers that are being claimed for how many people watched it are complete nonsense because of the way they, the way they count and fluff it up, uh, is like, you know, basically if you drop in and out of it a couple of times, you count two or three times, right.
|
Ivan:
[46:03]
| Depending on, you know, like if, if usually one of those things about all of these, that the most accurate one is the actual minutes listened.
Okay. You know, uh, or viewed. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:16]
| What they were reporting was something like, you know, 200 million people, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[46:20]
| I have some absolutely ridiculous number that, yeah, like two thirds of America tuned away from everything else to watch Donald Trump to Tucker Carlson. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:32]
| I don't remember the exact number, but whatever it was, it was ridiculously high.
And the experts who came in to talk about it were like, well, that's because the way they do this for like social media and things like that is anybody who watches for more than two seconds counts as a view, you know, and this kind of thing. And so it was just absurd.
It's just absurd. So who knows how many people really watched it.
|
Ivan:
[46:56]
| The other thing that I heard people, the fact that I saw so few mentions of it anywhere really shows that very few people watch.
|
Sam:
[47:06]
| Mentions I heard of it basically say Donald Trump went.
Once again, into like complete conspiracy loon town talking about complete nonsense and even more so than usual and was joined in by Tucker at all the right moments.
And it's just a rambling nonsense.
|
Ivan:
[47:26]
| By the way, we know he doesn't believe any of it. Okay. But this, he's such a grifter that he decided, well, I'm just going to do this anyway.
Which I have in written writing said that I don't believe any of it.
|
Sam:
[47:40]
| Yes. So in any case, like a fucking douchebag.
Meanwhile, the ratings for the debate were higher than anybody was expecting.
So apparently lots of people were tuning into the bait, including not just Republicans, but also Democrats too, wanting to like, hate, watch it like I was essentially, um, you know, and, uh, yeah.
Um, now having said that there were, There were a few key moments of the debate itself.
And maybe we'll talk about a few of them. But let me start with sort of the top line.
Nothing that happened in that debate in any way threatens Donald Trump's leading position in this primary.
|
Ivan:
[48:27]
| If Donald Trump- Not in the short term, no.
|
Sam:
[48:33]
| If Donald Trump isn't the nominee, It's not going to be because one of these opponents does amazing.
It's going to be because Donald Trump self sabotages and destroys himself, uh, through what's happening.
It's not going to be because, Oh my God. Uh, yo Vivek are, however you say his last name, a combination.
|
Ivan:
[48:57]
| You need a common.
|
Sam:
[48:58]
| Well, the thing is like, you need, you need to have in order for anybody have even the slightest chance of taking over from Donald Trump absent like some major health event or something like that.
Um, one of these other guys or the woman have to like really stand out and be like, oh my God, they look great and have like Republicans respond to them.
Well, and not not great to me, by the way, but great to go to the Republican, you know, primary primary voter. Yeah. Right.
|
Ivan:
[49:33]
| And it's a very specific subset. Okay.
|
Sam:
[49:35]
| Yeah. It's not even a regular Republican and Republican primary voters at this point are like the, they, they are not, they're not going to vote for normal people. Let's just put it.
|
Ivan:
[49:50]
| Look, I, I, I gotta say, look, one thing I have no, I really have no idea what the fuck they're going to vote for.
One thing is, that's very clear at this point, is that, look, the guy that won the debate, Because I think it's clear that what's the name of Rama Rama Rama Rama.
OK, let me see. Rama Swami.
|
Sam:
[50:17]
| Let's promise Rama Swami. Let's get it right. Vivek Rama Swami.
|
Ivan:
[50:22]
| Rama Swami. OK, won the night. OK, he definitely did.
I think as far as I read from everybody, everybody is basically, you know, from what I've seen, he won the night and the big loser was Ron DeSantis.
Yeah. Who, you know, this is, you know, I think to a lot of people it was a surprise, but to me it never was.
It's one of the reasons why I was like, oh God, if the GOP puts up DeSantis versus Biden, okay? I mean, DeSantis is such a terrible, terrible candidate.
I mean, he won this state just because this state is loopy.
I mean, there's just no other fucking explanation. I mean, He he won, you know, the his his first election. OK, he won by like less than point one percent. OK, of the fucking vote. OK.
It was just so narrow a victory. And the and the Democrats, they had so many people that the the field, you know, was split up.
And we wound up with, oh, God, what's his name? Uh the dude, uh, christy.
|
Sam:
[51:35]
| Oh, no, no new jersey.
|
Ivan:
[51:39]
| No, right. No, no, no No, no, that was like 2022. I'm talking when he first won the election 20.
Oh gillam 18 gillam gillam Who you know had a lot of you know Had a lot of strange things that people were talking about that people kind of just walked all over But there were a whole bunch of other candidates a lot with a lot of money and recognition And because the field was so partitioned, he wound up being the winner.
And it was just one of those things that the Santas won that first time around with that.
This second time around, he really won Florida on the coattails of Trump.
I will say, because the coattails, Florida, Trump, not that it was during the general election, because of election, off your election, but Trump had done very well in Florida. And he had sold, he had pushed, you know, he had really helped Republicans.
You know, excel in Florida recently because Trump really played Florida politics better than shit I've seen anybody in the national stage ever do.
Okay. And he did that.
And DeSantis was the big winner from that. Okay. I that that's my my thought.
But the thing is that when you when it came out to him really going out there and presenting himself and speaking, I mean, that's who he is. He sucks.
It's terrible. He's just.
|
Sam:
[53:05]
| Yeah. I will. I will say in in in sort of general election matchups right now, the Santas does better against Biden than Trump does.
But I think it's because people don't really know him yet.
|
Ivan:
[53:21]
| That's like, that's exactly right.
|
Sam:
[53:24]
| People are doing that as, oh, you know, guy, new guy, Republican, who's not Trump.
So like he doesn't have all the baggage that Trump does. So yeah, like the people who are like the people who are basically Republican, but are sick of Trump and are willing to sit it out or go Biden when they see the new name to Santas on there.
They're like, oh, okay. Well, I feel safe voting Republican again with DeSantis, but it's still a get to know the board.
|
Ivan:
[53:53]
| I'll hate him.
|
Sam:
[53:54]
| It's it's essentially still a generic name. So I don't trust that yet.
Um, but you know, the, the, the thing is though, yeah, I think the other person I've heard people say, like, I didn't notice this as much when I was watching, to be honest, but a lot of people have talked up Nikki Haley and said that she did well as well.
I heard that as well, but, and, and I'm like, okay, she, she did fine.
She had a couple of moments.
|
Ivan:
[54:19]
| I didn't think any of them really stood out, but you know, the problem that they have, But I just say this, listen, in that field, the Republican side.
Between the embedded misogyny and racism that the republicans have okay, which is now their The their standard flag.
|
Sam:
[54:38]
| Yeah, it's their brand.
|
Ivan:
[54:40]
| I see no shot for a minority or woman a woman minority too because she's of you don't keep forgetting nikki haley. Isn't she uh, She's indian descent Right.
There is no way that those racist bastards would put an Indian at the top of the ticket. Now, she's very not, not, not any time in the current GOP is considered constituted today.
|
Sam:
[55:07]
| She's very Americanized, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[55:10]
| Yeah, but no, but come on.
They're not. Listen, she may be Americanized, but what you think, you know, you think they don't know these guys know the from it that somebody in the opposite, somebody throws at them Indian, they're going to be like, Oh wait, wait, let's start with a fact. I'm sorry. She may be Americanized.
She's still a woman. They're a bunch of misogynist assholes.
|
Sam:
[55:32]
| Yes. I mean, I definitely think you are right.
|
Ivan:
[55:37]
| Women should be in the kitchen at home, not running for president.
|
Sam:
[55:41]
| I think she's at a disadvantage in the Republican party due to that.
It might, if she was a Democrat, it might be an advantage.
|
Ivan:
[55:48]
| Yes, absolutely.
|
Sam:
[55:50]
| But as a Republican, it's something she has to work against.
And I think the same thing is true for the other minorities on the stage.
Ramaswami. Ramaswami, right? CB. Oh, fuck.
|
Ivan:
[56:00]
| Whatever.
|
Sam:
[56:01]
| Oh, fuck. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.
|
Ivan:
[56:03]
| RM.
|
Sam:
[56:04]
| It's a disadvantage for Ramaswami. It's a disadvantage for Scott.
But both of them, at the same time, I can see a certain segment of the Republican... CB.
|
Ivan:
[56:15]
| By the way, I heard Pence did well, too.
|
Sam:
[56:17]
| Yeah, Pence did okay. Pence did okay, actually. But let me finish this thought.
Like, I can see a certain segment of Republicans.
Thinking about it as they think we're racist. Well, fuck them.
|
Ivan:
[56:30]
| We're going to nominate the black guy You're you're absolutely out of your mind You're not going to do it and then and then and then but this is the problem And but then to see the thing is that the moment they're going to do that Then the racism will kick back in and say fuck is wrong with you Well, here's the thing too.
|
Sam:
[56:49]
| Of course, this would only really matter if Trump wasn't there there.
The fact is Trump or Trump dies.
|
Ivan:
[56:56]
| But well, yeah, yeah, no, no.
|
Sam:
[56:58]
| If Trump dies, everything changes. If Trump has a major heart attack and is out of commission, everything changes.
According to the polls we talked about a few weeks ago, if he's convicted of something, maybe things will change, but that'll probably happen too late for the nomination.
|
Ivan:
[57:15]
| You know, if it wasn't, I will say this, that I I'm going to look flat out.
The only people that I think, and I'm just going to overly simplify this.
The only people that have any chances in that group are the old fat white guys.
Okay. That's pretty much it. Look, I don't see it and, you know, it's like a Pence and, and as much as, you know, as much as we, you know, we poo poo that like right now, it's either a Pence or a DeSantis.
Okay. Now DeSantis looked like shit.
So Advantage Pence, like right now at this moment, okay, but those are the only two guys that have any kind of shot, okay, outside of Trump, you know, taking the nomination.
|
Sam:
[58:02]
| Now, yeah, like, look, this is, absent something happening to Trump, this is some kind of implosion that Trump would do.
|
Ivan:
[58:10]
| Yeah, yeah. I don't know. You know, the one thing is that we're saying that, and I'm like, look, somehow, there's so many candidates implode.
|
Sam:
[58:19]
| We have. Okay. we started to discuss on the convergence corner slack and let's do it now is Trump's support in the not, if you look at the national nomination polls, or if you look at Iowa or New Hampshire, Trump is solidly in the lead and has been the whole time.
However, however, there are lots of signs that that support is soft, right?
You know, like it has not started to drop. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Let's not even predict that necessarily.
But there are these polls from people saying, well, if he's convicted, I won't vote for him.
There are these poll, there's just, We haven't talked about the turning himself in and all that stuff yet, but, He is multiple times now at every one of these indictments called for his people to come out and protest and nobody shows up That's right So that shows that his level of enthusiasm and even when he used to have is not so much low and even when she's even when?
He's doing rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire and going around the country doing the thing which he has started to do Attendance is low Um, you know, and the coverage, listen, coverage is the one thing.
|
Ivan:
[59:33]
| Remember what happened like the, the, the, the, you know, 2006, every time he did one of these rallies, he was getting wall to wall coverage everywhere. Nobody cares anymore.
|
Sam:
[59:42]
| Nobody, not even Fox, not even, not even Fox.
|
Ivan:
[59:45]
| Nobody cares.
|
Sam:
[59:46]
| Right. And so he may still be at all at the top of all these polls, but it seems like one of the dynamics that I think is out there, and I've even heard a few people People interviewed that say this, like Republican Trumpy type folks.
Nobody wants to be on their, you know, in these red super mega areas, nobody wants to be the first one on their block to be like, I'm not voting for Trump exactly to, to, to dump Trump, to take the sign off their lawn.
Nobody wants to be the first.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:25]
| These guys are lemmings. Fucking lemmings. They're such idiots.
|
Sam:
[1:00:31]
| It feels like this is the kind of thing that will either stay solid the whole damn time, at some point will reach a tipping point and he'll collapse almost overnight.
You know, with everybody saying, okay, fuck, we're done, you know?
And the problem is like you and then you've got this menagerie crowd to pick from if he's out. There are a couple of rumors of more people jumping in who haven't jumped in yet, like young and from Virginia. Who knows?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:03]
| But and then all we in, I think those guys that really feel like they have potential are not going to burn themselves right now.
|
Sam:
[1:01:11]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:11]
| Cycle with Trump over there, like Georgia's Kemp, Yunkin, those guys are like, nah, nah, nah, nah, fuck that. You know what?
Wait until this whole thing just, you know, gets flushed down the toilet.
|
Sam:
[1:01:25]
| They got time. They can go in 20, 20. Yeah, yeah. Or or if things truly do melt down in time, this time they can jump in as a savior candidate, like, you know, whatever.
You know, because because, you know, it's about that time, Yvonne, we should start talking about brokered conventions again.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:42]
| Fuck. No, it's not that time yet. We're still in August. No, no, no, no. Not yet. Not yet.
|
Sam:
[1:01:49]
| Because what if Trump gets a whole bunch of delegates and then he gets convicted before the convention and then at the convention, they are like, oh, what do we do? And it goes crazy.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:00]
| But he gets thrown in jail by the convention.
|
Sam:
[1:02:03]
| He's not going to get thrown in jail. But even I know you said the other day, sometimes with these kinds of crimes, if you're convicted, you go straight in.
I see no chance of that happen, he's going to, he's going to, even assuming he gets convicted in time.
They're going to let him be out on his own until all the appeals are done, which is going to take fucking years.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:28]
| Maybe, maybe, but I'm not, maybe I'm going to say maybe, but you know, look, I, I'm going to say this, the chance of him, the chance of him being in jail by the conventions is, is, is not zero.
Okay. It's, it's, it's, It's very low, but it's not it's not a 0% chance.
|
Sam:
[1:02:49]
| I, you know, the, and the chance I said the other week, the biggest chance of that is not him being convicted.
The biggest chance of that is him not being able to keep his fucking mouth shut and a judge like escalating on him and he still can't keep his mouth shut.
And then they put him in the slammer to shut him up because he's like trying to intimidate witnesses and all this shit, Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:12]
| But there's but but here's another thing that I wanted to mention, because we're talking about the rallies and this other stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:03:20]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:20]
| Whatever. And we're we're we're Trump's mindset is because this interview went sideways.
You know, look, it didn't get the attention that he thought it would get or whatever. So what did he do?
|
Sam:
[1:03:31]
| All of a sudden, he went to get arrested the next day.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:36]
| No, no, no, no. And then after he got arrested, What did he do?
|
Sam:
[1:03:39]
| Oh, he went back on Twitter. Oh, on Axe. On Axe. I'm sorry. There is no Twitter anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:46]
| Yes. He posted. He made a post.
|
Sam:
[1:03:50]
| He zeded.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:52]
| He shitted. Yes. Okay. He shitted. And you know, because it's shit.
Okay. Because this post is so dumb.
I mean, it's his mugshot and it says election interference never surrender. Yes. And I'm like.
|
Sam:
[1:04:12]
| With the picture of him surrendering.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:14]
| Correct. Donald J. Trump dot com.
But or what do I take? Election interference never surrender.
So yes, you are going to keep interfering.
So my crimes will continue. Exactly. What the hell? Dumb ass post is this.
|
Sam:
[1:04:34]
| Yeah, well, you know, the thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:36]
| But but my point is that why would he post that? And I have my what I I believe is the reason, OK, is look, that interview was a disaster.
He's not getting the like you said about the rallies. His rallies aren't getting the people. The people aren't coming out to protest.
This is him desperate for attention. Mm-hmm. A man who lives for it's the only reason he did that and it shows how desperate he's becoming That he wound up doing that.
|
Sam:
[1:05:09]
| I think there is a sense of desperation and everything. He's doing right now Yeah, and you know what I said about like him like Continuing to violate what judges say and getting thrown in jail The one thing is right now since they made the bond deal for Georgia earlier this week he has been calmer on his social media than he was before, even including that post, in terms of who he's talking bad things to.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:36]
| CB1 Well, yeah, I mean, that was an inflammatory or whatever.
He was just stupid. CB2 Right, right.
|
Sam:
[1:05:40]
| And now who knows if that'll last. But at some point, I think you've got competing strands here.
One is he feels like he wants the attention, He wants to act out the only way he knows how to deal with people is aggression So he wants to yell at the prosecutor.
He wants to yell at the judge He wants to yell at the juries blah blah blah.
He wants he's yelling right now as we're recording Yeah, probably he wants to go off about how the election was stolen and keep saying that over and over again again.
I'm the guy with the mic. It's good to be here. It's good to be here. I'm the guy with the mic.
And on the other hand, I think he's actually fucking petrified of going to jail.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:25]
| Oh, he has to be. Yeah. At this point, he has to be.
I mean, I think that, you know, I'm sure that some of the lawyers have finally have had to come up to him and say, dude, dude, you've got listen, you've got four major cases against you.
The odds of you winning all of them are almost zero.
|
Sam:
[1:06:48]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:49]
| Okay. And.
|
Sam:
[1:06:51]
| And it only takes one, one, one count out of 92.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:57]
| And it only takes one. And, and, and, and, and you know what?
Listen, he may have the appeals like right now, whatever, but look, he's behind the eight ball.
Reality is whatever the fucking polls say, the incumbent always has the advantage period.
Look, it is shown where fucking Trump, even with a goddamn Goddamn pandemic on his ass that basically killed millions and the economy torn to shreds He still didn't do that badly right you think about it I mean a guy doing that badly should have gotten destroyed he should it should have been a landslide It was still a close race.
|
Sam:
[1:07:34]
| I mean it was still a close race He lost all of his all of his bullshit was complete bullshit, but but it was close It was actually closer than 2016.
If you go by how many votes have to switch? Absolutely Absolutely.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:49]
| And so my whole point is that you know what that the incumbency I mean that shows the power of the damn Incumbency, okay of being president of the United States.
And so therefore he is it That it he is truly behind the eight ball for this.
Okay history has shown it Okay, that this is not a layup to do this.
Everything has to go, you know, the reason why HW Bush didn't get a second term, Ross perot. Mm-hmm. If Ross perot had not run probably bill clinton would not have been president Okay Simple as that.
I truly believe that because It's just it really sucked so many votes out of him.
Oh, absolutely absolutely Now we may have Cornel West and Joe Manchin Running as well as third and fourth parties Well, if there was one stat that we shared on the curmudgeon's corner slack, there was this research showing the voting patterns from like the previous elections and how people in the last election cycle finally got it in through their thick fat skulls.
That voting third party was moronic in 2016. That it really just was handing it to the other party.
|
Sam:
[1:09:12]
| Hmm. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:16]
| I don't expect that, you know, come on, mansion or whatever.
You know what? Listen, listen, I'll, I'll, I'll take a, I'll, I'll go outside, go to the ball, take a poll.
Hey, do you know who Joe mansion is?
What do you think? My hit ratio is on people knowing who Joe Manchin is.
|
Sam:
[1:09:44]
| Are you going to a nice upscale mall or a more downscale mall?
Where are you going? I'll go to an upscale.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:49]
| I'll go to the upscale mall. 20%.
|
Sam:
[1:09:51]
| Yeah, I'd say.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:51]
| Yeah. be like who?
From where I'll put a, I'll put a photo array, pick out Joe Banshee.
What are the odds of them? You know, I'll put eight pictures up white guys in suits.
I guarantee you that I mean, basically no better than anybody just shooting darts at it.
|
Sam:
[1:10:15]
| Yeah. So anyway, back to a real quick, uh, just back to debate for a second, Uh, in terms of what this will actually do on the, uh, national Republican polling, I think as usual debates have very little effect, but I think what you will see is Donald Trump will stay about the same.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:38]
| Um, help raising for some of these people.
|
Sam:
[1:10:39]
| Yeah, it might. DeSantis was on the way down. I think his downward trend continues.
Uh, Vivek Ramaswamy was on his way up. I think he will probably pass DeSantis for the number two slot sometime next week.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:54]
| LIAM The only reason I'm happy is because it means DeSantis is losing, and that's just anytime I hear about DeSantis losing it just makes me happy.
|
Sam:
[1:11:00]
| CURTIS Yeah, Vivec was very rapidly gaining on DeSantis anyway.
I think he will catch him.
But I think his bump from this will be short-lived. I don't think he's going to be in that number two slot for long. And then we're going to have...
I mean, all of these people are bumping along the bottom, right?
Like, so it's, I don't know who's going to be next after that.
And it almost doesn't matter because they're so far behind Donald, uh, in Tolar, unless like we said, something implodes with Donald, the, the other thing is, uh, I do have to mention sort of the, the suicide candidates like, uh, like Christie and Hutchinson.
Those are the only two who are actually anti-Trump and are actually going after Trump and saying Trump is bad.
They're, they're trying to make a statement, but there is no place for them in today's Republican Party.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:59]
| Oh, to win? No. But I think that the one thing that they're, but they're not going anywhere.
|
Sam:
[1:12:03]
| No, because they want to make the statement. They will. They will.
They will probably stick it out all the way to the fucking convention, even if they are getting totally crushed at every moment, just so that they can make the statement of you You guys got to be out of your mind. Donald Trump sucks.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:21]
| Look, as much as I dislike Christie about a whole bunch of things, I will say that I will give him some credit for actually doing this because I, I, I, I mean, it's not a political winner for him.
No, I mean, you really have to have certain conviction that you need to do this in some way to take this many hits that he's taking. Yeah. So yeah, I will give him credit for that, because that's not...
People say, ah, whatever, whatever, listen, this is, bam, this is a brutal thing to decide to do. you're going to get.
Just so many slings at you. So no.
|
Sam:
[1:13:07]
| Yeah. Um, the, the other Donald Trump trial related things, I want to make sure get in that are kind of interesting.
First of all, um, we've, we've got, well, everybody turned themselves in. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:22]
| We didn't get, we, we didn't get somebody.
|
Sam:
[1:13:24]
| There were no runners.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:25]
| Who was the guy who, who was the guy that was saying he wasn't going to show up.
|
Sam:
[1:13:30]
| Both Meadows and Clark tried to get courts to say that they didn't have to show up when everybody else showed up because, uh, in Meadows case, he was like, look, I'm trying to get this moved to federal court.
So why don't we say, I don't have to be arrested until that's decided one way or another.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:53]
| Um, absurd thing.
|
Sam:
[1:13:54]
| Uh, and the judge saw that and said, well, actually the statute explicitly says that even while you were, that while you were in the process of petitioning to move the case to federal court, the state process continues.
So no, you have to turn yourself in and Clark, Clark's excuse.
He was the state department guy who Trump wanted to make a head of the DOJ attorney general.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:19]
| Oh, that's right. I forgot about this guy.
|
Sam:
[1:14:22]
| His excuse was not even like that. He was like, I don't, I don't want to be pressured to make last minute travel arrangements to get to Atlanta.
And Foddy Willis is basically like, I gave you assholes two weeks.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:43]
| I mean, you could have fucking like, are you going to take it a bicycle?
You got into Atlanta, I had those two weeks for God's sakes, you know, literally. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:51]
| And given actual like plane plates, somebody was pointing out like.
You know, Atlanta is the fucking biggest hub in the country for like, you know, Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world. It's like, okay, you can get to Atlanta easier than practically anywhere else in the world.
You know, basically, yes. And like, you know, certainly from anywhere in the US, you could pick up the phone with no notice at all and be in Atlanta the same fucking day.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:26]
| Oh, absolutely. No doubt about it. You, you could just, you know, yep.
|
Sam:
[1:15:29]
| Yeah. Maybe it would be slightly higher. Maybe it would take you slightly longer.
If you were in, if at the moment you got the call, you were in the middle of trying to summit Mount Everest or something, or you were, what was that town that they had to evacuate from the fire in Nova, uh, in, uh, in Northern Canada. Yellow knife.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:50]
| Yellow knife. If you are in yellow knife, then maybe, okay.
|
Sam:
[1:15:53]
| Well, no, even then, two weeks would be fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:56]
| Even then, two, it may have been more difficult, but yeah, but you would have made it. Yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:15:59]
| Indeed. So those were both ridiculous. And we now have several, I've lost count, it's three or four now of the 19, have petitioned to have their cases moved from state courts to federal courts.
Now, there are a couple of important things there.
One is that, um, it, it's still, even if they move it to federal courts, it's still about state law, not federal law.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:32]
| Correct. Because I've had, okay. Yeah. Because I, I forget that, um, I had a case that, that was moved to, uh, federal court.
Um, because it was related to some state law years back, but, but.
The reason was because the contract was in between an entity outside of the state and in the state.
So it had to do with interstate commerce. And so therefore, that's why that case wound up like in this case.
|
Sam:
[1:17:10]
| The particular question is if if the people were acting while they were in a federal role, then there's a case to move it to federal.
Now, from what I've been reading about this, of all of the people who've done this, the only one who has even a plausible case is Mark Meadows, claiming that whatever he did, he was doing as White House Chief of Staff.
Now, all the rest, like there are people who are claiming this because they were a fake elector, an elector as a federal office, I'm sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:48]
| Sorry. No, you got no shot.
|
Sam:
[1:17:50]
| You got no shot whatsoever. Meadows apparently might have a shot.
Like there, I've been reading up on it and like reading commentary on it.
Nobody's saying he's got a slam dunk case, but people are saying unlike the others, everybody else who's trying to do this so far.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:10]
| And Trump has a sliver of a chance.
|
Sam:
[1:18:12]
| He has a chance. Everybody else is like, oh, come on, you gotta be fucking kidding me. That's ridiculous.
Now, it's kind of expected that Trump might try to do this, too. He hasn't done it yet.
He may also have a potential case.
But also it's it's like I think the default is that we think the judges would say no to this.
But for maybe Trump and Meadows, it's not an automatic.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:37]
| The only times I have usually seen something like this happen, it goes back to interstate commerce.
|
Sam:
[1:18:44]
| Yeah, that is not that is not what they are petitioning on this one.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:48]
| For the no, no, no, I get that. And they're there. They would.
They're you know, I know. But that's the only, I mean, you don't see like...
I mean, it's I'm trying to figure out if anybody has ever been successful at this and how because I don't really people have been successful at this.
|
Sam:
[1:19:11]
| And apparently the particular things that Meadows has to show, I'm looking at a post on this right now. There's two prongs to the relevant law.
He has to show one that he was acting quote under under color unquote of a federal office.
Now that doesn't mean that what he was doing was legal or even an official.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:33]
| Right. No, no, no, no. It was just because it, right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:36]
| He's under color of federal office. And so his argument is that everything he was doing, he was doing because he was White House chief of staff and he was helping Donald Trump do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:46]
| Bullshit. He was, this is a private citizen trying to get a guy elected to the federal office. I mean, that's the thing. There is nothing there.
There's nothing in what they were doing that was related to their… Well, this is part of the argument.
|
Sam:
[1:20:01]
| His statement is like, well, what I did was I set up the meeting.
Part of my job is setting up meetings for the president.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:10]
| Oh yeah, you're just an innocent bystander, just setting up meetings.
And oh my god, look, this happened.
|
Sam:
[1:20:14]
| And anyway, he points out that apparently during the 2000 thing, Al Gore had his chief of staff staff do set up a few meetings.
So anyway, and, and, and plot and prong prong prong number two is he has some plausible defense. It doesn't mean it's a fence defense that wins.
It just means it's not laughable though.
And that's all he has to do. And apparently it's a pretty low bar.
So maybe meta, but Meadows is the only one of these people who has the slightest shot. But the important thing is even if it does it, it's the same, same laws, it's not switching to federal laws. It's still the state laws.
It is still Fannie Willis, who will do the prosecution.
It's just it would be in front of a federal judge with a jury chosen from the federal jury pool instead, which apparently would be, in this particular case, would be slightly more likely to have more Republicans on it.
And so we'll see. And that's likely to be decided within the next week as well.
And meanwhile, in the DC case, the hearing for when is the date of the actual freaking trial going to be is apparently, I think it's Monday, the 28th.
And so we probably, by the time we do our next show, we will have a target date for the DC one.
And to remind everybody, that's the ones where the DOJ asked for January 2nd and Donald Trump asked for April 2026. And so we'll probably have a decision on that early this coming week.
And then the one other thing to mention before we shut up on this topic is that now two of the 19 people on the Georgia case have availed themselves of the right to demand a speedy trial.
And that would be, um, what's his name? Ed's.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:17]
| You know, yes. Uh, yeah, yeah. Who, who was it that did it? I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:22:22]
| I, I was just trying to remember the names. Hold on. Give me, give me, give me a second. It's that guy and that other lady.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:30]
| Does that, is that well, uh, Sidney Powell and, um, some cheese guy.
|
Sam:
[1:22:36]
| Oh yeah. Cheese, bro. Cheese, bro. Or, or Chesbro, right? Something, something. Anyway, the two of them have asked for a speedy trial.
Chesbrough did so first.
And Fannie Willis came back and said, Okay, October 23, let's go.
And the judge said, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:55]
| Okay, listen, this is insane. You know, well, here's a crazy thing about this.
|
Sam:
[1:23:00]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:01]
| The odds are he'll lose. So he gets convicted first. So what the hell happens?
These guys, if they go, if they go to this guy goes to trial and loses straight and, you know, gets get get get loses and Sydney loses. What are these guys going to do afterwards?
They see, oh, shit. Now what?
|
Sam:
[1:23:21]
| Well, there are a couple things here. First of all, officially, while the judge did say yes to Chesborough, the cases are not yet officially severed.
Now, he did say that these deadlines only apply to Chesborough for now.
Sidney Powell is submitting hers, but it hasn't gotten an answer yet.
But the cases have yet to officially be severed from each other.
For that, additional petitions have to go through. But obviously, they can't let Chesborough go in October and not make the rest go in October without severing the cases.
Now, Fannie Willis has said, I'm ready for all 19. Let's go.
I'm ready. October. Let's do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:13]
| Do it.
|
Sam:
[1:24:15]
| Do it. Chances are what's going to happen is these two that want to go early will be severed.
One, one of the interesting things about this and people have said, you know, they're, they're, they're trying to do something sneaky here because when they demand a speedy trial, If they end up not making that date, and I believe it's 90 days from the indictment is the official speedy trial date or something like that. Maybe it's 70 days, I forget. Something like that. like that.
If they don't actually start the trial in that time frame? It's dismissed.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:52]
| Yeah, but if that's what they're gambling on, I really think that's just idiotic.
With all the resources that they've got to bear, Fannie, I'm sure that they're...
|
Sam:
[1:25:01]
| Fannie Willis would not have dropped the indictments if she wasn't ready to go. Exactly. She could probably start in court tomorrow.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:10]
| Right now. Yeah, let's go tomorrow. The hell? You wanna go? Let's go.
You know, I try this shit.
|
Sam:
[1:25:18]
| Now meanwhile, apparently, up until the last moment, these folks who've petitioned for a speedy trial can put in a new petition saying, oh, never mind.
It's it. You know, I could wait after all. It's OK.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:33]
| I, you know, I wasn't really in a hurry. You know, come on. You took that seriously?
No, I didn't say this October. I meant the next October. What are you talking about?
Man, I read that notice wrong. I thought it said 2024, 2020. Oh God, I'm sorry.
Some of the experts have been saying that basically like, look, yo, I think this puts the defense on a big disadvantage. You have very little time to prepare.
The prosecutors had a couple of years to prepare.
They've got everything lined up to put this guy in a slammer.
This guy wants to go quick. They will have zero time to prepare.
They will not be able to go through everything and they're, you know, it's, it's, it's honestly, it's idiotic. I mean, as far as I can tell, I mean, I don't see how this plays to any advantage was towards it's totally the opposite. It's why.
Look at least one smart thing that, that, that Trump did his lawyers on the other cases.
No, we need time for discovery and this and that, and we need more time.
We need more time. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as a defense, you need more time to prepare.
You know, the prosecutor was preparing for a long time. You didn't know it was coming.
|
Sam:
[1:26:51]
| Right.
Now, we shall see. I think we will get more insight into dates this coming week, but even then, they can move around.
There are all sorts of things that can move around.
We've got four of these cases all trying to figure out how they're going to interact with each other, which goes first, second, third, blah, blah, blah.
And apparently, Apparently we may not be done by the way. I just want to throw this out here.
So Arizona, the DC invest, the DC investigation is still ongoing even before we get to Arizona.
Like the, uh, Jack Smith is not done.
He's still digging into some things. Apparently amongst other things, he's looking into this pack that's funding all the defense for Donald Trump and everything and how it was funded and whether it was wire fraud because Donald Trump was saying things that were not true in order to get donations.
Now, who knows if he'll do anything or not with that, but he's investigating it and he might.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:58]
| You know, the one guy that went to jail for this kind of shit that also ran for president from jail. There is one guy that we, that, you know, do you remember the name?
|
Sam:
[1:28:07]
| Debs?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:09]
| Uh, no, but the big guy that was scamming money went to jail for, Oh, you're talking about what's his name?
|
Sam:
[1:28:14]
| Yeah. Eugene Debs also ran for president from, uh, as, as a socialist, but that was in the 1920s.
You're talking about the crazy dude. Um, um, um, oh man, there were side LaRouche. That's right. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:30]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:28:32]
| Yes. You know, it's been a long time since I've seen like his supporters on street corners with signs that used to be something you saw.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:42]
| Oh, you know, that guy even scammed my dad's Amex.
Nice, you know nailed it for about a thousand bucks. I remember open the statement.
I'm like, what the fuck is this a thousand dollars?
LaRouche what the hell dad would I have no idea?
I'm like, what the fuck he you know He was running a complete credit card scam.
He was there was skimming credit cards I mean this guy was borrowed to the Donald he was just lying to get the money No, they actually had a credit card skimming operation where they were like doing fake credit card billings So anyway, the DC investigation is not over yet.
|
Sam:
[1:29:20]
| Apparently the Florida one is the Florida one is closed down apparently now but also There's news that Arizona is digging into whether they should be doing charges similar to what Georgia is doing That's right over there faked electors and actually pretty much all of the states that had fake electors are doing some form of investigation.
Some have already charged the actual fake electors, but apparently all of them are still looking at, well, is there somebody further up the chain we should be looking at too? So we might have more state charges before we're done.
Well, I mean, at this point they have to get, maybe they would be in 2026 because they're going to have to wait so long in line.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:01]
| Yeah, basically. But by the way, one more tidbit that I have to mention.
|
Sam:
[1:30:05]
| One more tidbit. I have to mention.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:09]
| Yes. Trump checked in to the, got his mugshot, uh, declared six foot three, 210 pounds, 215, 215 to 200 to 15.
I mean, look, I mean, this guy cannot even say the truth about his weight.
|
Sam:
[1:30:32]
| I mean, I'm actually, I was actually surprised that they didn't actually like measure and weigh him.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:38]
| I mean, well, there's this other guy that went in who apparently he was the head of the Georgia GOP, David Schaefer, who is my height, five, five. And I don't know if you've seen his picture.
|
Sam:
[1:30:54]
| OK, I saw you share it, but I didn't pay attention.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:57]
| He little fan. He declared he weighs 150 pounds. And I'm like 150 pounds.
You weigh what I weighed in college with that, with that, with that round face.
OK, you got the Cahotes to tell me you wear you weigh 150 pounds.
Yeah, not in my life.
OK, you know, the whole point of me bringing this up is the man.
They can't even say the truth about their fucking weight, man. I mean, literally.
|
Sam:
[1:31:27]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:28]
| NOT EVEN ABOUT THAT!
We have to lie about everything and then lie about the lying as well.
|
Sam:
[1:31:37]
| You know, honestly, that's hard for me to conceive. You know, I may, I may have a few more pounds than I wish I had, but if I'm asked, I'm going to, I'm going to tell you the last reading I actually had. Basically.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:52]
| Me too.
|
Sam:
[1:31:52]
| I mean, you know, when I took a shower this morning, I was 194. There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:58]
| Well, when I, I think I weighed, uh, before a shower yesterday, I'm a two 30. Right. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:32:03]
| So, yeah, there you go. I mean, I can't even imagine what would bring me to like, Oh, let me say I'm one.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:12]
| So I, by the way, I'm five, five, I'm two 30 and I don't have a big, as, as big a belly as fucking Donald Trump.
Now I know I exercise a hell of a lot more to Donald Trump does other than just stuffing himself with Big Macs on whatever, whatnot that he does and Diet coax.
But yeah, but you know, come on, give me a fucking break.
|
Sam:
[1:32:29]
| Anyway, anyway. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:32]
| I really hope he's stopping himself with more big backs. I really do.
|
Sam:
[1:32:36]
| I would, you know, we should do I want him to I want him to be alive at the end of the appeal process for this stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:46]
| You know what, I would, you know, a favorable outcome would be that the whole stress of this gives him a fucking heart attack.
I think we all win.
|
Sam:
[1:32:59]
| You know, I would rather him actually get convicted, lose all his appeals and actually go to jail and then he can have his heart attack in jail. Yeah. In jail.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:14]
| I feel bad even saying this. I don't want to wish somebody to die.
I know I feel bad about it. No, I, I, I, I, I'm sorry. I said that, even if it's that asshole, but, but I, you know, I can't, this man could not be president again.
|
Sam:
[1:33:31]
| No, no, that would be horrible. Okay. Okay. Yvonne important question.
Yeah. Very critical question.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:43]
| Critical.
|
Sam:
[1:33:45]
| Do I hit a break and we talk about more stuff or even though this is relatively short show, we just say, fuck it, we're done.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:56]
| No, we got we got two more things that we need to talk about.
OK, we got at least one thing that we need to talk about at least one thing.
|
Sam:
[1:34:02]
| OK, well, then we're going into a break and we will be back with one or two more things. We'll see how it goes. Back after this!
Okay, we're back back, you know if I out if I knew how to actually make songs That would have like some sort of actual ending to it rather than being the same thing repeated twice and then just stops But you know, whatever.
Hey, that's not really bad actually Okay Okay, so you said you have two more things you actually want to talk about. So what are they?
|
Ivan:
[1:35:20]
| Okay Let's start with the fact that in Russia.
|
Sam:
[1:35:25]
| Oh, yes, Russia. How could I forget? not. So your two things are Russia and China, right? Russia and China. Okay. Let's just do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:33]
| Yes. Let's start with Russia. Look, do we have in Russia where we have people falling out of windows on a regular basis?
And, and now, you know, we've taken that to a whole new level where, you know, they made a fall out from 30,000 feet in the air.
|
Sam:
[1:35:53]
| Yup.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:54]
| Dot. Yep. You know, so, so shocked.
|
Sam:
[1:35:58]
| I don't know what you're talking.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:59]
| Sam, Sam shocked, right? Totally.
|
Sam:
[1:36:02]
| I am unbelievable. I'm stunned that, you know, they just don't do maintenance the way they used to on those planes.
You know, some, you never know when, when a wing is going to fall off, just fall off.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:18]
| Yeah. It just happens. You're just going to plummet straight to the ground.
|
Sam:
[1:36:23]
| Uh, yes, exactly. And, and, and on the exact two month anniversary of the little rebellion thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:29]
| Oh my God. I mean, I mean, that's just a coincidence. I mean, I know.
|
Sam:
[1:36:36]
| So now, of course, everybody assumes that Putin ordered this look now, wait, wait, no, no, Yvonne Putin gave his sincere condolences on the death of his friend.
And I heard a Russian government spokesman say that it was a complete lie that there's no way that it's a guy I did see, yes, that's true.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:59]
| I heard it. I said it was a complete lie.
|
Sam:
[1:37:01]
| Yes, yes. There's no way they were involved.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:05]
| Right now. No way.
|
Sam:
[1:37:07]
| The one scenario that I could see just to play devil's advocate for a second.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:11]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:12]
| That if it was not Putin, um, per goes on very specifically, even when he was driving the convoy up to Russia, up to Moscow, up to Moscow said that he was not going after his friend Putin.
He was going after people in the defense ministry.
So maybe he and Putin did have a deal, but the folks in the defense ministry did not approve of this deal.
Now, if that scenario was true, that's bad news for Putin because it means he's not in control.
But I'm stretching here, I'm just trying to give another plausible scenario.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:56]
| No, no, no, no, I don't. I get it. But man, no fucking way in hell, man.
Look, this seems so scripted to perfection.
You know, the way that, you know, you see it, how it happened.
It's just like, I mean, a fucking plane, 30,000 feet, just, just left Moscow.
Boom. They don't even acknowledge it. They don't say anything.
I mean, that I mean, they actually know they immediately said, at all, you may have been on board, yeah.
Yeah, too bad.
Um, I mean, the second anniversary, you know, I was reading on what the hell corrosion.
|
Sam:
[1:38:45]
| Yeah, yeah. And and I was from Anno, which is annual. So it's not an anniversary.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:49]
| Yeah, no. Yeah, I know.
|
Sam:
[1:38:50]
| Like a month of nursery or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:52]
| Yeah, it's not that. Yeah, the month of whatever. Yeah, it's just, you know, yeah.
I've been reading on what What Perosian had been doing the last couple of months? Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:39:02]
| He's been flying all over between Moscow and St.
Petersburg. He's gone to Africa. Africa. He's been, you know, one of the things that people have said is like part of what they think, I think he was a dead man walking from the very beginning, but some people have said, look, part of the deal he made with Putin was to pull back the Wagner group from all stuff in Africa.
And instead he was doubling down on it. And so then not only did you do the rebellion, but you didn't even keep to the deal.
You are out of here. Um, we'll see, but like, I mean, he was, they had that summit with Putin and a whole bunch of African leaders and per goes and showed up to it and met with all of them, like in the hotel across the street, not in the same room, but like he met with a bunch of the same African leaders on the the same day, you got to know that got to piss off Putin, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:40:02]
| I look, I think that, I mean, I have to think he knew he was going to get hit.
He was trying to what it seemed like it was. He was trying to figure out a way to salvage something right for himself.
I heard that in one of the trips to Africa, he had insisted on payment for some stuff and he got a whole bunch of gold bars.
And then when the ones that they gave him weren't enough, he asked for more.
Uh, and that apparently one of the things is that he, he was, his method of payment, uh, was very primitive. He was getting paid all in cash.
Right. Okay. He was avoiding all the banks and stuff.
So I, I, I, I mean, look, I just think that for whatever reason, Putin wanted to just not do it immediately.
|
Sam:
[1:40:58]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:58]
| And he just chose his time.
|
Sam:
[1:40:59]
| Yeah. And I don't know, I guess he got, I would hope he sort of, it sounds like from what you were saying, even he sort of was putting stuff in order knowing he'd be gone soon, you know, you would have to escape or something or whatever, which the other, the other thought, and some people, by the way, are saying he's not really dead. Hey, it was a body double something.
He escaped. It was all part of the plan. Blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:29]
| Now us intelligence believes that he was on the plane.
|
Sam:
[1:41:32]
| So, uh, I think most people believe is probably on the plane.
I'm sure that they were keeping tabs on, but there are, there are a few people who are doing the, like, Oh, he's, he's a wily one.
Apparently he, he did that like, uh, like a decade or so ago, there was a plane crash where he was believed killed.
And he showed up like a few weeks later, somewhere.
So, okay, you know, who knows? It's possible.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:00]
| It's possible.
|
Sam:
[1:42:01]
| But anyway, I guess the other question is...
Are we worried about the other people in the Wagner group now doing something in reaction to this? Or is it just dead?
Like is it like look I I and I guess worried. I don't even know what that means.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:24]
| I mean like this guy signed a decree basically stating that he was demanding all of them to be loyal and everything in the Wagner group was supposed to go into the Ministry of Defense, he's basically not he's he's it's like the WAC, the Wagner, VAC, whatever the fuck it's called, Wagner.
They're they're they're they're continuing. But they they basically, you know, the the guys in the.
Defense Ministry one, they took over. I mean, and the reason why he was in Africa was because the Defense Ministry had been sending people down there to tell him, hey, you guys now work for us. And he was trying to go down there and say, No, no, no, no, no, no. You still work for me.
|
Sam:
[1:43:05]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:06]
| And so, uh, look, I mean.
Look, they went and they took him out. They took his main lieutenant out.
|
Sam:
[1:43:16]
| You know, they was also on the plane.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:19]
| He was also on the plane. I think the message is crystal clear.
You want to fuck with me? You're you're all dead.
|
Sam:
[1:43:25]
| Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is I mean, we talked about it when the little rebellion happen in the first place.
Like, of course, Putin is going to fucking crack down and crush this.
He has no other choice. Uh, and this is also where people were being like, why the hell did he turn around? Like, once you start going to Moscow, your only way out is to win. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:50]
| You know, that's what I thought. I was like, that was the craziest thing. I'm like, dude.
I, yeah, yeah, no other choice.
|
Sam:
[1:43:59]
| Yeah. I mean, what, what's the phrase? Uh, you, you, you come at the King, you best not miss.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:06]
| That's right.
|
Sam:
[1:44:07]
| You know? Uh, and I mean, people at the time speculated, maybe Putin had his family or something like that made him turn around because of that.
I don't think anybody really knows it's just speculation, but, uh, yeah, There was the whole interim period between when that happened and now was kind of weird.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:28]
| Most bizarre fucking 60 days.
|
Sam:
[1:44:30]
| Cause it's like, why isn't he dead? Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:34]
| Why is he getting to just go around in his private plane?
|
Sam:
[1:44:37]
| Yeah. Um, and, and so now it's sort of more, okay, this is normal.
This is what we would actually expect.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:46]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:44:47]
| And, and yeah, it's because this is Putin.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:54]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:44:54]
| You know, he's known for this shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:57]
| Yeah. That this is, I mean, this is his MO.
|
Sam:
[1:45:01]
| You know, there is a trail of bodies. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:05]
| I was just reading that trail today. Just so many crazy all over the place. My God.
|
Sam:
[1:45:14]
| Yeah. Opposing him is not a position that's healthy.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:18]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:45:20]
| Okay. China?
|
Ivan:
[1:45:24]
| Now we're done.
|
Sam:
[1:45:25]
| Now we're done.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:26]
| We had to, but we had to get, we had to.
|
Sam:
[1:45:28]
| Okay. You don't want to talk about China. Save that for later.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:32]
| It's not a big deal. This was a big deal. The China thing. Wait.
|
Sam:
[1:45:35]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:36]
| But, but definitely Suddenly, precautions, you know, fall out of a very high place, merited discussion.
|
Sam:
[1:45:47]
| Merited a little discussion. Now, technically speaking, that was your topic and I should pick one, but I agree, we can be done. It's okay. It's okay. I'm fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:54]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:45:54]
| You know, uh, what else did I have on my list anyway?
|
Ivan:
[1:45:59]
| Like, uh, uh, is there anything you want to talk about?
|
Sam:
[1:46:02]
| I don't think so. We had, uh, I'll just bullet point a few things to say that we're not talking about them all the time. And if people really want us to at some other point, like give us feedback and we will.
We got, um, we got more Hunter Biden developments.
Uh, we had, uh, SBF jailed.
Uh, we, we do have some serious lawyers talking on both the right and the left questioning Trump's even a V eligibility to run for office under the 14th amendment.
There have been some lawsuits started to be filed in some states to declare that he can't be on the ballot.
Um, uh, because of that, we'll see where they go. If, you know, if they go anywhere, they'll probably go to the Supreme court.
Um, uh, we, uh, we had hurricane Hillary that turned into tropical storm Hillary that hit California.
You know, that doesn't happen very often.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:00]
| That day was just very unfortunate. Can I be honest? All I kept thinking was of Hillary.
|
Sam:
[1:47:04]
| Well, there were all these memes of Hillary Clinton doing it and apparently I did not see the B. Oh, there were lots of memes with like the weather map, but with Hillary Clinton's face where the thing was and all kinds of stuff like that.
And apparently at one point there were some Fox news anchors who actually blamed it on Hillary Clinton.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:22]
| Um, oh, well, of course, of course.
|
Sam:
[1:47:27]
| Um, uh, oh, I got, I finally, I got an invite to blue sky. So I've logged into blue sky a couple of times, but I have nothing real to say about it yet.
I don't know. Did you, did you get your invite?
I did not ask for the invite because a friend of ours offered me one and said, if Yvonne wants one too, he just has to ask.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:46]
| So I have to ask, I know, and I thought about asking, I sent the pictures that of, uh, yeah, uh, of us that I, that came up as a memory from eight years ago, but I did not, I thought about asking her blue sky. I was like, eh, it's okay.
|
Sam:
[1:47:59]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:01]
| So I mean, is there any, is there anybody there at blue sky?
|
Sam:
[1:48:04]
| Yeah. There are a few people. It's like a different, it's, it's, it's blue sky threads.
Threads, Mastodon, all have sort of different clumps of people on them.
But just like for me, like you've spent more time on, you've spent more time on threads than I have.
I haven't given threads enough attention to really give a good evaluation and same thing with blue sky. I've been in there a handful of times for a few minutes at a time and you know, whatever.
Anyway, we're done. If anybody wants more on any of those bullet points that I mentioned, uh, and maybe we'll talk about it or maybe we'll blow you off.
Cause we don't care. You know, one of those things.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:47]
| We're good at blowing off people.
|
Sam:
[1:48:50]
| Anyway, that means it's time for the stuff at the end. Uh, you can go to curmudgeon's hyphen corner.com to find all the ways to contact myself and Yvonne and the show and blah, blah, blah.
So if you do want those bullet points, that's where you go. Curmudgeon's hyphen corner.com look at our Facebook or email or mastodons and get, you know, say hi and ask for whatever.
Um, and also you can find there are archives and recent shows have transcripts to your, you should be reading those transcripts religiously, uh, while you listen to the show reading and making notes and, and, and like take, print them out and just take yellow highlighter and go over, you know, highlight the important thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:34]
| Yes. A lot of yellow highlighter.
|
Sam:
[1:49:36]
| Lots of yellow highlighter. That's very important.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:39]
| And, and if you get a printed up on green bar paper, you know, that kind of stuff, probably better.
|
Sam:
[1:49:45]
| Oh yes. That. And, and, and there will be a quiz later.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:50]
| There will be a quiz.
|
Sam:
[1:49:51]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:52]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:49:52]
| Um, anyway, also there is a link to our Patreon. If you want to give us cash money, we always like cash money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell.
That was a rather weak bell that time, Yvonne.
Anyway, we will, I'll be done in just a minute. I see what you're texting me. Capsule playground.
Oh, I'm supposed to tell people that. Oh yes. Oh, Alex has just reminded me that for $8 a month or more, you also get a preview edition of the game he's working on capsule playground. There you go.
And also, um, you can get a mug, you can get a postcard, you can get all that stuff.
And very importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you ask nicely or ask rudely or whatever, we will invite you to our curmudgeon's corner slack where Yvonne and I and other listeners are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, all that stuff.
So Yvonne, one thing from the curmudgeon's corner slack this week that we have not talked about on the show go, um, apparently the Russians for some reason, sent some probe to the moon and I guess they're not very good at that either.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:18]
| They just crashed it.
|
Sam:
[1:51:19]
| They, they tried to land on the moon. Uh, no humans, just to be clear, a robot as far as we know, they tried to land on the moon and they crashed.
Yes, they crashed. Uh, they did not make it.
But India successfully landed one a few days later.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:37]
| Correct. So it shows that the Indians and smarter than the Russians, I guess.
|
Sam:
[1:51:41]
| Is that what it shows? It is hard by the way, landing things on other planetary bodies is not easy.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:49]
| You know, so there, you failures, you know, like we've said before, a whole bunch of guys, like over 50 years ago with a computing power of what, of a fucking guy, HP calculator, you know, basically we're able to do it.
|
Sam:
[1:52:05]
| That's true. That's true.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:06]
| More than once.
|
Sam:
[1:52:07]
| Yes. Um, anyway, and the, the Indian one, the Indian probe that landed, had a little Rover that has successfully now been wandering around.
So, uh, uh, cool stuff, cool stuff happening in space by countries that aren't us.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:23]
| Hey, we sent him a Jeep. We sent a Jeep up the, we sent the car, they drove around the moon.
|
Sam:
[1:52:30]
| Oh yes. That thing back 50 years ago. Yeah, yes, we did.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:34]
| We even sent a fucking jeep.
|
Sam:
[1:52:36]
| Was it, was it actually a jeep? It was a moon buggy.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:39]
| It was a moon buggy. I mean, it looked like a jeep, but yeah, we sent a fucking buggy to the moon 50 years ago, for God's sakes.
I, what the hell now? We're talking 50 years later. We're having trouble landing a fucking robot. Give me a fucking break.
|
Sam:
[1:52:52]
| Yeah. Well, you know, our, our little helicopter is still flying around Mars.
We lost track of it for like a month, but then reconnected.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:59]
| So there you go. We got, we got a chopper flying Mars. I mean, look at that.
|
Sam:
[1:53:03]
| Yeah. Anyway, we, I think we're done here. We're done. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:07]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:53:07]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:08]
| We're done.
|
Sam:
[1:53:08]
| Okay. Uh, so, um, everybody stay safe. Have a good week. We should be here next week. We hope so.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:17]
| We hope definitely by, uh, and many more weeks and many more and many more, many, many, many more.
|
Sam:
[1:53:24]
| See, there you go. You got the karaoke. Sort of.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:28]
| No, we need more than that.
|
Sam:
[1:53:32]
| OK, we're out of here. Goodbye, everyone.
Bye! Okay, I think we're done. I'm going to hit stop.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:09]
| Stop right there.
| |
|
