Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[0:01]
| Hello. Get this thingy. Here we go. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:09]
| By the way, you did not respond to my message about me coming to your area.
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Sam:
[0:16]
| That's right.
|
Ivan:
[0:18]
| Everybody else did except you.
|
Sam:
[0:21]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[0:22]
| Not everybody else. Emily has not either. But you did not.
|
Sam:
[0:25]
| You are correct, because I got it while I was out, and I meant to, once I got home and had my calendar in front of me, block off the time and then respond to you. But then by the time I got home, I completely forgot.
|
Ivan:
[0:40]
| Of course.
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Sam:
[0:42]
| But it's far enough out, and it's an important enough event.
|
Ivan:
[0:46]
| I figured.
|
Sam:
[0:46]
| I will.
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Ivan:
[0:47]
| I already booked a hotel near where you live.
|
Sam:
[0:50]
| I was going to respond on the Slack that I was shocked that there was any hotel establishment closer than Seattle that would meet your standards.
|
Ivan:
[1:01]
| I mean, well, I mean, it's not great, but there's a Delta hotel and like a courtyard. I mean, the courtyard actually looked horrible, but I went and I there is this relatively new Delta hotel that those hotels get decent reviews. It doesn't look too bad.
|
Sam:
[1:20]
| Okay, okay. Yes, anyway. Yes, it'll be good to see you here. We'll do a thing.
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Ivan:
[1:28]
| Yeah. So, I don't know. I am not convinced that my wife will come out that day simply because of the jet lag, because I know her. Right. So, you know...
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Sam:
[1:41]
| All good.
|
Ivan:
[1:42]
| Yeah, I mean, I know that I will be, you know, I'll arrive and do something, but, you know, I know my people. And I know last time I went to Seattle, the first thing she did when she got to the hotel was like climbing to bed and not leave for many hours. Yes, basically, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:59]
| Yes. Now, are you actually flying into Everett?
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Ivan:
[2:03]
| No, no, no. We're flying to Seattle.
|
Sam:
[2:05]
| Oh, man, you know, it's a cute little airport.
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Ivan:
[2:08]
| There aren't very many flights to there.
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Sam:
[2:12]
| No, I know. To go almost anywhere, you have to do multiple stops on the way.
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Ivan:
[2:18]
| There's no flights.
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Sam:
[2:22]
| You usually have to make multiple stops and pay more. But it's a nice little airport. Anyway, shall we go?
|
Ivan:
[2:31]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:33]
| Okay, here it goes. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, February 28th, 2026. It's just after 18 UTC as we're getting started. I am Sam Minter. Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[3:14]
| I heard a beep.
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Sam:
[3:16]
| Once again, a beep. It's been a long time since you've actually heard them. Like, it's not like they've stopped.
|
Ivan:
[3:23]
| Well, but I just heard it again. And I just, all of a sudden, just as you finished, all I heard is beep.
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Sam:
[3:29]
| You know, I added, I added to my.
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Ivan:
[3:32]
| You know what? You don't, you don't have a fucking day job right now. You're fucking like changing damn fucking battery.
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Sam:
[3:41]
| I have added to my probabilistic to-do list as a once a week priority one task, which means it'll probably actually come up on the agenda once every couple of months to identify and remove one beep from the house somewhere.
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Ivan:
[4:00]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[4:01]
| Now, I believe at the moment there are two beeps going on in the house.
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Ivan:
[4:07]
| Oh, fuck me.
|
Sam:
[4:09]
| I think one of them is a smoke alarm, and the other might be related to our alarm system. But I'm not actually sure. But I have noticed that there is a beep.
|
Ivan:
[4:25]
| Listen, I will be clear that if I was, if beeps had been going on that long and I couldn't, and they weren't fixed, at some point I would find a baseball bat or something and just beat whatever was doing it into submission for it to shut up.
|
Sam:
[4:47]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[4:50]
| That would be the solution. Here's the other thing. Look, my, well, the other, but it's not even me. Look, my wife has made me wake up from bed in the middle of the night because one of those has started and basically it's been, you got to stop that right now. And my son also. I imagine by the. It's not like even like, like option. It's not like I could like, ah, I'll be fine.
|
Sam:
[5:18]
| I imagine by the time I even notice there is a beep, it's probably already been going for months. And then when I notice it, it's like, I'm going up the stairs or something. And I'll notice there's a beep while I'm going up the stairs. I'm like, oh, there must be a smoke detector somewhere near here. Like someday I'll look at that. And then I won't notice when I'm in other parts of the house. so I have to be like walking by it when it makes the beep and like unless at that very moment I'm in like hey I'm going to take care of beeps mode then I'm not, I'll file it away as oh there's a beep and you know it's a very interesting.
|
Ivan:
[6:07]
| Mode I'm going to take care of beeps mode interesting, I'm going to take care of beeps.
|
Sam:
[6:17]
| Right. And like I said, I just added it to my list. And once every few months, it'll probably come up. And I'm sure there'll always be a beep somewhere in the house to find out. The other day, a task came up that I'd added to change. I had noticed one of, we've got like on the back porch, there's like two lights, you know, and one of the bulbs had gone out. So I added to my to-do list to change that light bulb that had gone out. And several months later when it came up and I went out to the back, I went to unscrew the bulb and I just touched it and it came back on. So I'm like, oh, it just needed to be screwed back in. And I was disappointed because I didn't actually get to change a light bulb. Now, there are other light bulbs out that I know about, but they haven't come up on my list yet.
|
Ivan:
[7:12]
| I, I, I look, if I go up to a light bulb and I managed to like fix it without changing the light bulb, I don't, I don't get disappointed.
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Sam:
[7:23]
| No, I was really excited because, because it was one of, it was one of these old fluorescent curly Q type of bulbs.
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Ivan:
[7:32]
| Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was going to replace it with an LED bulb. The old curly ones, yeah.
|
Sam:
[7:35]
| You know, but it turned back on. The old curly ones.
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Ivan:
[7:37]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[7:37]
| It turned back on when I tightened it. So I'm like, oh, oh, well, it gets to stay there another few years, maybe.
|
Ivan:
[7:44]
| There, there, you know, the, we had... Years ago, we did this, we did some remodeling, not planned. It was, we had this issue where we had this flood. Okay. And because we had to do a whole bunch of construction, the guy that came in to do the work said, hey, you want me to switch out all the hi-hats with LED lights? It's like, what the hell? You know, we're in the middle of it. What the hell? Do it. Okay. And that was when they were more expensive at that time. Because I think each fixture was like $50, $60 each.
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Sam:
[8:24]
| Now they're the norm.
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Ivan:
[8:26]
| Yeah, now, yeah. Now they're, you know.
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Sam:
[8:28]
| Now if you don't want LED, you have to go out of your way to get something else.
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Ivan:
[8:32]
| Right, right. But the one thing that happened with those LEDs that were original, a lot of those failed.
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Sam:
[8:40]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[8:40]
| They were a brand that.
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Sam:
[8:43]
| I mean, I remember.
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Ivan:
[8:45]
| Had a high failure rate.
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Sam:
[8:47]
| Yeah, no, I remember, like, specifically, like, they were, one of the benefits that was touted was these things will last a long time, and then it turned out a lot of them didn't, and some of them would.
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Ivan:
[8:59]
| They did last a long time.
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Sam:
[9:01]
| Some of them did.
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Ivan:
[9:01]
| But they didn't last as long as they should have, okay? Well, and part of it.
|
Sam:
[9:06]
| Like.
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Ivan:
[9:06]
| That brand, but.
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Sam:
[9:07]
| Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[9:08]
| But wait, let me finish, because I had two brands of LEDs that I had put in.
|
Sam:
[9:13]
| And one was better than me.
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Ivan:
[9:14]
| Not in those hi-hats. Yes, one was way better. The ones that were not the hi-hats, I bought a whole bunch of Philips light bulbs.
|
Sam:
[9:23]
| Now, remind us what's the hi-hat.
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Ivan:
[9:24]
| Those Philips, the hi-hat are the ones that are embedded on the ceiling, okay?
|
Sam:
[9:31]
| Right, right. That are kind of like flush.
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Ivan:
[9:32]
| Okay? They're inside the ceiling. And then the other ones that I bought, these bulbs that were bulbs to replace where there were regular bulbs to stick in bulbs, okay? In other places that were not in the ceiling. Okay. Dough. And that I bought were Phillips. And the Philips, look, I still have, they're 15 years old.
|
Sam:
[9:54]
| Well, one of the.
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Ivan:
[9:56]
| Most of them actually did not fail. I actually came that the fixture, in some cases, the fixtures that rusted and the bulbs are still working with the Philips. Okay. So I was replacing the rusted fixtures.
|
Sam:
[10:12]
| One of the problems with the first generation of LED bulbs was that they did badly in places that heated up. So like the ones that were actually in enclosures of one sort or another did worse than the ones that had more airflow. Now, and they fixed that subsequently. But that was one of the problems in the first generation of these things.
|
Ivan:
[10:34]
| And I think that, and that may be what happened with the ones in the ceiling itself. They did last eight years, eight, nine, ten years. Okay. But considering that, I had put in the Philips before and none of the Philips had failed. Okay. I mean, none of them.
|
Sam:
[10:52]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[10:52]
| Okay. I think maybe out of, I put in like 20 of those Philips bulbs, maybe more, one failed. Something like that.
|
Ivan:
[11:02]
| Philips knows how to manufacture a fucking bulb. Okay. I'll give them, I'll give them a hug. By the way, Philips is the one that, okay, because these bulbs were invented while I was at HP, okay, by the way. HP is the one that came up with this in HP Labs. The thing is that at some point, all of that was sold to Philips. And then Philips is the first one that actually made these work. Now, everybody else copied them afterwards, but Philips was the first one that made these. So the Philips ones were, they were really rock solid. They were really good, okay? And so the Philips bulbs were the best. Every other brand were cheap knockoffs and... Almost every other brand that I tried was shit except the Philips. And then I got these ones that were from Home Depot or built in. I had to, I think right now at this point I've, I had to replace all. No, I don't think I, I have replaced all of those that were put in, in 2014. So they lasted about 10 years, you know, now they're all replaced with the newer versions that, I'm going to guess that these will last a lot longer because, like you mentioned, they fix the issue with these. Right. That's just a lot of those in that situation where it's in the ceiling, not enough airflow, they heat, they died. Right.
|
Ivan:
[12:29]
| But yeah, no, I, but there was one time I went to replace one of them and started working again. I'm like, oh, wait, I was thrilled. I'm like, oh no, I don't have to do it. Good. But you were disappointed.
|
Sam:
[12:40]
| I was disappointed because I don't get to change light bulbs that often anymore. It was like, you know, okay. I was excited. I went out to the back porch. I, you know, and then, and then the old one just turned on. I mean, I could have replaced it anyway because I was out there, but no, I was like, no, it's still working.
|
Ivan:
[12:58]
| No, no, no, it's working. No, no, leave it, leave it, leave it.
|
Sam:
[13:01]
| Yeah, exactly. And also it's not like, it's, it's not one that, not that this would affect my decision, but it's, it's not like a, what I would call a key light bulb. I mean, it was probably out for a year before I even noticed it was out. You know, it's like, it's the backyard light. We don't use our backyard space very often. We turn on the light sometimes to look out to the backyard from inside. And there was still, there's like, you know, one bulb on each side of the door. And we noticed, and it was the one that was further away. And so, you know, unless you were looking from outside, you don't really notice. And we weren't looking from outside very often at that. So, but anyway. So with this fun, exciting talk about light bulbs. Yeah. We're going to do our usual, I guess, and do the... Less newsy stuff first. And then, you know, I got a couple of movies.
|
Ivan:
[14:03]
| There's no news.
|
Sam:
[14:05]
| Oh, you're going to do this thing again? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[14:08]
| Did anything happen?
|
Sam:
[14:09]
| Yeah. This is Evod's little routine about how there's no news on weeks where there's clear news.
|
Ivan:
[14:16]
| I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
|
Sam:
[14:18]
| No, nothing.
|
Ivan:
[14:19]
| I don't know why you're saying that I'm pretending about this. I don't know. There's news? There's news? What news? What are you talking about? something happened i'm.
|
Sam:
[14:28]
| Sure you're talking about the winter olympics.
|
Ivan:
[14:30]
| They had they had their closing ceremony since we last talked didn't they something do you realize that i did you know i i am not i used to watch the olympics i am no longer an olympics person right i i just i didn't i don't think i watched a single i did not tune into an olympics channel watch like voluntarily like a single second of the olympics okay yeah i'm finding myself actually.
|
Sam:
[15:02]
| I'm finding myself checking to.
|
Ivan:
[15:04]
| See did it actually end this week or not or was it like two weeks ago no no no it did no it was this week it was this week okay i mean i you know that's.
|
Sam:
[15:14]
| Clearly it that's clearly what you're talking about.
|
Ivan:
[15:17]
| No, I woke up and we're at war, Sam.
|
Sam:
[15:21]
| I was still awake when that happened. And, you know, so.
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Ivan:
[15:26]
| Well, I was sound asleep.
|
Sam:
[15:29]
| We got those extra West Coast hours over here.
|
Ivan:
[15:32]
| I had a long week, as I mentioned. I almost got myself killed. I came way too damn close to getting killed this week, Sam. I was not through. I was not.
|
Sam:
[15:40]
| You mentioned this on the Slack, but tell our listeners. What happened to you this week?
|
Ivan:
[15:45]
| I'll tell the short version, because I know we ran long on light bulbs. But look, very simple. When I travel in most big cities, if I'm in a walking distance of somewhere, I will walk there. I'm not going to take a car. There's no point. Usually the traffic is so bad in big cities that it doesn't make any sense. Okay. So, you know, I, I was, I've, I've walked back and forth to this place many times and, you know, in the Dominican Republic and in the Capitol and Santo Domingo, and it's just that. The traffic is just brutal over there. But the thing is, the cyclists, the motorcycle guys are nuts. And, I mean, they have a reputation for it. They're very, very, very just crazy on the streets.
|
Sam:
[16:39]
| Very, very.
|
Ivan:
[16:40]
| Gotcha. I mean, it's just, forget about just lane splitting, cutting, running red lights, whatever. They will do it all, okay? They just don't care. and at very high speeds.
|
Ivan:
[16:55]
| So, look, I was crossing the street in one place where traffic had stopped, crossing the streets over here. The cars aren't exactly like giving way anyway either, okay? They don't really like to give way. So the traffic had stopped, and I was on the phone talking to my wife, and I am at the middle of this intersection waiting for traffic to pass, and I see that the traffic had slowed down, but cars had stopped so I could weave through the cars. I said, I tell my wife, listen, hang on one second, because I didn't want to be on the phone talking as I'm crossing the street. I wanted to be paying attention to what I'm doing. And I'm like, just hang on one second. So I put the phone down like I had, like by my ear and I put it down like by my by by my waist. So so I'm not I'm not on the phone. I didn't want to hang up. So I'm I crossed the streets, three lanes. I crossed the first and the second one. I'm in front of a stopped car and cars were moving on the third one and a car over there stopped to let me through. OK, so there was a. big SUV behind me, and I looked to see if a motorcycle's coming, and I didn't see one, but this guy was coming up so fast that as I went across, this motorcycle was coming through, and I had walked in. I realized it's coming. I literally have this guy's cyclist face in front of me less than a few inches, and I did manage to jump back out and not get hit by the motorcycle.
|
Sam:
[18:18]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[18:18]
| That was too close for comfort.
|
Sam:
[18:21]
| I can imagine.
|
Ivan:
[18:23]
| Way too close for comfort.
|
Sam:
[18:26]
| If you remember, not a motorcycle, but in my family, there were at least two pedestrian versus car accidents over the last, I don't know. Oh, it's been a while now. But a few years back, a car, my dad was crossing the street and had just stepped off the curb and a car ran over his foot. out you know as it was you know turning around the corner where he i mean he was crossing at an intersection with you know the the walk light for pedestrians on and then um my mother-in-law just like two years ago was crossing the street at a crosswalk in front of her church and and a car just barreled right into her like you know she was she was in the hospital for like a while for that and recovering for months after that and and i don't i don't know what the story was with the guy who ran over my dad's foot but the guy who was who who hit my mother-in-law um was paying attention to a baseball game on the radio and not looking at what was in front of him and speeding as he passed by this church nice.
|
Ivan:
[19:49]
| Not bad no i i mean in my case i i walk very defensively which is why i don't i don't i'm not on.
|
Sam:
[19:59]
| My you know presumably the guy presumably the guy in the motorcycle was doing something wrong right he was he was going too fast the.
|
Ivan:
[20:06]
| Guy was like lane oh yeah the guy was like speeding and lane splitting and speeding at a very high I rate a speed, and if I remember correctly, he also ran a red light!
|
Sam:
[20:16]
| Oh, excellent, excellent. Was it a hit and run? Did he leave? Well, he didn't hit you. He almost hit you.
|
Ivan:
[20:22]
| He didn't hit me. Oh, he just kept going. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[20:25]
| Okay. Well, as I said on the curmudgeon's corner slack, I'm glad you're not dead.
|
Ivan:
[20:30]
| But like I said, one thing, look, all I said about that incident, the one thing that would have really made it way, way, way worse is, look, if my wife, if that guy hit me, right, my wife is listening to this as it's happening, right?
|
Sam:
[20:44]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[20:44]
| And she's a thousand miles away. I cannot imagine the ridiculously helpless feeling that she would have if that happened.
|
Sam:
[20:53]
| Right. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[20:55]
| I mean, if she doesn't hear it, it's not as bad. But I just thought this couldn't have been any worse if I got hit. Okay?
|
Sam:
[21:06]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[21:09]
| So, thank God that, you know, but that's the reason why I usually try to be very, like, I'm not, I don't, you know, she called me. I don't try to be walking and being on, when I'm walking streets like that, I'm not walking and being on the phone. Okay? I don't do that. I'll take a phone call like my wife called me, but I try usually not to even do that. Okay? But, you know, look, I'm traveling. You know, it's hit and miss when we can, like, you know, because she called me. I believe I called her because I had been in a meeting and she tried to call me a couple of hours earlier and I couldn't talk to her. So I was like calling her back.
|
Sam:
[21:43]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[21:44]
| You know, so it's one of those things. But but I but I usually try to like if I'm walking in the city streets like that, I'm like not on my phone. No, no. It's just you know, you have to be you have to be paying attention, especially in these cities where traffic is is crazy. You know, I mean, it's you know, it's crazier than here. And so, yeah. So, you know, you want to be mindful.
|
Sam:
[22:04]
| Well, speaking of close calls, traffic in cities, et cetera, this seems like a good opportunity to once again tell the story of when I first came to Seattle. like I've mentioned this before I'm sure but it was I think I'd already interviewed and I'd gotten a job here but I was going to be in temporary housing and so the bottom line was.
|
Sam:
[22:41]
| The, when I got my rental car, they were out of like regular old sedans or whatever. And they gave me like, I forget what it was, whether it was, I think it was in, in my head, it was a pickup truck, but it may have been like a, an SUV or something. Remember this was 20 some years ago, but whatever, it was a bigger vehicle than I was used to. Okay. And so I had found, like, my hotel or whatever, and it was brand new to the city, and, like, I'd found a place to park, whatever, and I was getting out of the truck in order to, you know, go check into my hotel or whatever. i i i had yeah and it was i'm trying to remember it if like it wasn't a it didn't have like a place to pull up to check in it was like a i don't know i parked across street or something or may i i forget the details anyway i had parked on the street and was getting out of the truck, and i was unused to the size of the truck so i went to step out of the truck Oh, boy. And the ground was not where I expected it to be.
|
Ivan:
[24:02]
| Ah, right.
|
Sam:
[24:04]
| Okay. So I basically fell out of the truck.
|
Ivan:
[24:07]
| You fell out of the truck. Okay.
|
Sam:
[24:09]
| And I stumbled forward several feet. Okay. And I missed getting squashed by a bus by less than five inches.
|
Ivan:
[24:19]
| Nice!
|
Sam:
[24:21]
| Like, I saw the bus go vroom right in front of my face, like an inch or two away from my face. And, like, you know, that would have been the end of my Seattle adventures if I had stumbled one or two inches further at that moment. It would have been all done. it would not have been survivable I would have been done lovely and I was of course extremely traumatized but completely unhurt but like it was, probably, the closest call in my life to a life ending traumatic event like that that's very sobering There might have been another health issue when I was a teenager, like I was in the hospital for some asthma stuff and apparently it was touch and go for a while, but I barely remember that. This was like, I fell out of a damn truck and was inches away from getting clobbered by a bus, you know, that was going at, you know, full city bus speed. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, going highway speeds or anything, but it was quite enough that I would not have survived that incident if it had just been a couple inches different. And so, yes, it was very sobering. It was like I was quite shaken for the rest of that evening.
|
Ivan:
[25:50]
| Well, you're here, so we both are here, so there you go. So we've managed to make it so far.
|
Sam:
[25:56]
| 20-plus years later, I'm still here.
|
Ivan:
[26:00]
| How shall we do your movies?
|
Sam:
[26:02]
| Well, let's do movies before we go to war. Well, we already went to war, but before we talk about going to war, the most recent war-like adventures from our wonderful president. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[26:16]
| War-like? War-like?
|
Sam:
[26:20]
| Well you know.
|
Ivan:
[26:21]
| I don't i don't i don't i don't see it as war like it's it's it's it's pretty it's pretty actual war not.
|
Sam:
[26:28]
| War like the thing is and we we can talk about this when we actually hit the subject but we have yet to see like to me there's we have it's unfortunate but we almost have to start making the distinction between the events that sort of last a few days or a week and then are done. Oh, I see what you're saying. Versus, you know.
|
Ivan:
[26:56]
| So how many days is it a skirmish versus a war? So Ukraine is a war. Ukraine is a war.
|
Sam:
[27:03]
| But like, did Venezuela turn out to be a war?
|
Ivan:
[27:07]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[27:07]
| I mean, it was basically over in a couple hours. No.
|
Ivan:
[27:10]
| Right. Venezuela's not a war. Yeah. It's a skirmish. Not a war. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[27:14]
| Now, was it an act of war, according to international law? Absolutely. But was it a war? But it's not a war.
|
Ivan:
[27:24]
| I mean, but not yet. Not yet. Not yet, Sam. I mean, you know. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[27:31]
| Anyway. Okay. Movies. First up, from 2002, Blade II.
|
Ivan:
[27:38]
| Is that with what's his name the tax the tax uh tax guys snipes right yes yes why can't i remember his name i remember just about my head now it's he's always the tax guy and.
|
Sam:
[27:53]
| A while ago we talked about me watching blade the original this is the sequel.
|
Ivan:
[27:58]
| Well for for those that don't know okay because i call him the tax guy wesley snipes got this brilliant financial advisor that basically told, that basically convinced them that he should declare himself, I think, a sovereign citizen, basically that he didn't own any taxes. And so he filed to get a tax refund for all the taxes that he had filed in two years prior, tens of millions of dollars. The IRS did not take this lightly and basically went after him. And then he hadn't filed other taxes. So they went after him criminally and threw him in jail for tax evasion.
|
Sam:
[28:37]
| Okay. Yes. This is him.
|
Ivan:
[28:41]
| But it's the kind of stuff that doesn't happen to our president who does the same thing. But anyway.
|
Sam:
[28:45]
| Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[28:46]
| Only two black guys.
|
Sam:
[28:49]
| Now, Blade is technically a Marvel property, but this is.
|
Ivan:
[28:54]
| It is?
|
Sam:
[28:56]
| Yes, I believe that we had discussed this last time we talked about this.
|
Ivan:
[29:00]
| Fuck if I know that I don't know any of these things.
|
Sam:
[29:03]
| But this is not part of the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Blade was a Marvel Comics character. And I believe Alex and I were watching this as going systematically through Marvel-based movies, of which another was your favorite Howard the Duck. So, also Marvel.
|
Ivan:
[29:30]
| I still can't believe that's a horrible movie. Don't understand.
|
Sam:
[29:35]
| Also not MCU, though.
|
Ivan:
[29:37]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[29:38]
| Anyway, some of you may remember, I'm pretty sure I gave no better than a thumb sideways to the original movie and probably a thumbs down. These do not get better, I don't think, as you go along through the series.
|
Ivan:
[29:56]
| But they actually, didn't they do well at the box office?
|
Sam:
[30:00]
| They did fine, I think. Box office.
|
Ivan:
[30:04]
| Well, I mean, I know he did a couple of these. I'm looking it up. 57% Rotten Tomatoes.
|
Sam:
[30:10]
| This one made $80 million in the U.S.
|
Ivan:
[30:13]
| And Blade II.
|
Sam:
[30:15]
| That's not a huge amount, but it's, you know.
|
Ivan:
[30:17]
| Well, no, but a U.S. But look, here's the thing. It's a low-budget movie. Blade II, $54 million budget, which considering where budgets are for movies, it's pretty low budget. But 155 million total box office. Yeah, not that bad.
|
Sam:
[30:33]
| Yeah. Anyway, it's the kind of movie like, well, let me give the first couple paragraphs of the plot like I usually do. Again, from Wikipedia. In Prague, Blade searches for his mentor, Abraham Whistler, who is thought dead after being attacked by Deacon Frost, but was instead turned into a vampire and held prisoner by them for two years. After interrogating Vampire Rush on Whistler's whereabouts, Blade rescues Whistler and cures him of his vampirism. Whistler meets Scud, Blade's young, gifted new technician.
|
Ivan:
[31:12]
| Vampirism? Vampirism?
|
Sam:
[31:16]
| Vampirism, vampirism, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:19]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[31:20]
| A pandemic is turning vampires into reapers, primal mutant creatures with a ravenous thirst for blood.
|
Ivan:
[31:28]
| So that's how we got RFK.
|
Sam:
[31:32]
| And a highly infectious bite that transforms both humans and vampires alike. The original carrier of the reaper strain and cause of the pandemic is Jared Nomak, who bears hatred towards the vampire race.
|
Ivan:
[31:48]
| Are you sure this isn't a historical thing? If I use this to explain some of the shit we're going through, this explains a lot.
|
Sam:
[31:57]
| Uh-huh. To combat the Reapers, vampire overlord Eli Demeskinos sends his trusted servant Assad and his daughter Nissa to strike a truce with Blade. knowing humans will be the reaper's next target after vampires blade reluctantly allies himself with them and it continues look my basic complaint about this one and probably why it still did decently is the same thing that i believe we talked about last week on like the last allegiant one and it's like it's like 100 percent, Move from like one violent action fight scene to a few seconds of exposition to the next violent fight scene to, you know, and.
|
Ivan:
[32:49]
| The whole point of the movie is the violent, the violent scenes.
|
Sam:
[32:53]
| Yeah, I mean...
|
Ivan:
[32:55]
| It's not really the plot. Well, let's just... Listen, let's just... Let's just kind of, like, sprinkle some kind of semblance of a plot here, just for an excuse for a whole bunch of action scenes.
|
Sam:
[33:06]
| Yes. I mean, and look, it's not all violence. There's also chase scenes.
|
Ivan:
[33:11]
| Oh, and chase... Well, you gotta chase the person to get to the violence.
|
Sam:
[33:18]
| Yes, yes. And there's also... Okay, as I... As a former physics major, there was also, these are vampires who are sensitive, of course, to like sunlight and such. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[33:36]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[33:36]
| And so, but one of the things they had in this movie was basically sunlight grenades. Okay. These things would go off and it would basically produce a bright light.
|
Ivan:
[33:51]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[33:51]
| And then the vampires would die exposed to this bright light and the other creatures that were in this as well. The Reapers.
|
Ivan:
[34:01]
| Sunlight grenades.
|
Sam:
[34:03]
| But here's the thing.
|
Ivan:
[34:05]
| There's a thing.
|
Sam:
[34:07]
| The light from these grenades went around corners.
|
Ivan:
[34:14]
| Whoa! No!
|
Sam:
[34:16]
| And like, it's basically just a really bright flashlight.
|
Ivan:
[34:25]
| That manages to go around corners.
|
Sam:
[34:27]
| It goes around corners. I mean, it's like the light would explode, like a regular explosion, but it was just light. But light does not go around corners. Light goes straight. I mean, it'll bounce off mirrors and stuff, but that's not what was happening here. They were in the sewers under some Eastern European city, and they would set it off, and the light would expand out. By the way, not at the speed of light. It wouldn't be just like turning on a flashlight. It would go vroom and expand out from wherever this grenade went off and go around corners. And every time this was happening, I was pausing the movie and complaining to Alex about how light wouldn't behave that way. And all these are are bright flashlights. So why is it happening this way? And then they were like, you know, they had, I don't know. It bugged me. It bugged me. That was a thing in this movie. And no, it was. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[35:35]
| It does sound idiotic. Look, I love that this thing. Look, there's one thing. I was looking at Wikipedia page on this. I love this blurb. Okay. This is a fantastic blurb. There's a video game released on this.
|
Sam:
[35:48]
| Okay. Okay. All right.
|
Ivan:
[35:51]
| Here's the blurb. This is the best blurb. Okay. It's just, there's a single line about this in the Wikipedia review. Video game. A video game, Blade II, was released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox on September 3rd, 2002, period. Reviews were generally negative.
|
Sam:
[36:07]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[36:13]
| There you go you know yeah you know there is apparently a third this is about vampires so there's vampires third movie by the way yes.
|
Sam:
[36:24]
| I have not.
|
Ivan:
[36:24]
| Yet seen.
|
Sam:
[36:25]
| The third movie so don't spoil.
|
Ivan:
[36:26]
| It no I'm not no no no I'm not gonna go with spoilers I'm gonna go into revenue because you know what we talked about with Divergent how they started doing worse and worse each time yes they did increase the budget a little bit to 65 million but the box office was down like 20 million to 132 million but still, considering, you know, movies and how they go now and spend $300 million on a movie only to get $300 million in revenue, I would guess that for a studio, they're like, yeah, it's not bad. You know? Hey, this works. We can work with this. Exactly. They also made Blade the series. Man, I tell you what, I've never seen something more milked.
|
Sam:
[37:09]
| I'm guessing the TV series is toned down a little. This had, you know, in addition to lots of violence, and they made it graphic and gory violence in many cases, there's also, you know, lots of swearing. Basically, Wesley Snipes is being a badass and, you know, doing the thing. There's not, it's like, I was going to say sex stuff, but it's not like real sex. It's not like, it's not even rated R, right? This thing's rated PG-13, I think, probably.
|
Ivan:
[37:41]
| By the way, speaking of how movies going downwards.
|
Sam:
[37:44]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[37:46]
| The previous one had like Rotten Tomatoes. Blade 2 was like, I think it looked like 50, 60 Rotten Tomatoes approval. Okay. So I went to Blade, the third one, the Blade Trinity.
|
Sam:
[37:58]
| 57.
|
Ivan:
[37:59]
| 57. On the Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 24% approval rating. So this thing basically just, just like went off for number three. Yeah. For number three, it's just.
|
Sam:
[38:10]
| You know, I'm looking forward to that one then.
|
Ivan:
[38:14]
| It basically is just driving off a cliff in terms of, you know, this goes with a little bit of, like, how I know that he must have done it for the money, the guy that did the Bourne film. Well, he did it for the money, I'm sure. But it's the same thing as, like, with the Jason Bourne films, where, what's his name, that did the Bourne films. He said at one point, and I'm like, he declined at one point to do a movie, and somebody else did it instead of him. And he said, man, look, they came to me. Let's do another one of these. I was just like, man, what are we going to call it? The Bourne redundancy? I mean, what the hell? It's the same shit over and over. We keep milking this for, you know, to no end. Okay. You know, enough. Enough.
|
Sam:
[39:04]
| Okay. So. Thumb it down? Well, since we decided to be more graduated. Halfway between thumbs sideways and thumbs down. I'm not going to give it a straight up thumbs down.
|
Ivan:
[39:20]
| You're a thumb angled down, but not straight down.
|
Sam:
[39:24]
| Yes, exactly. And because like I'm reserving straight down for the worst of the worst. And this isn't quite that bad.
|
Ivan:
[39:35]
| This isn't quite that bad.
|
Sam:
[39:36]
| But I would certainly not recommend this movie unless what we have described here, like, is the kind of thing you like.
|
Ivan:
[39:47]
| You just want, like, some kind of, like, hey, I need my fix of graphic violence and some sexual innuendo on TV.
|
Sam:
[39:59]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[40:00]
| I'm bored. I can't find anything else. Where can I find this? Oh, Blade!
|
Sam:
[40:06]
| Too, exactly okay next up next up from 2025 which we actually saw in the theaters a Minecraft movie oh.
|
Ivan:
[40:22]
| I've watched this.
|
Sam:
[40:23]
| You've watched it okay okay yes so mine.
|
Ivan:
[40:27]
| Who likes Minecraft we went to see the movie yes.
|
Sam:
[40:29]
| So let's get your thoughts first then what did you think of it, Now, let me ask.
|
Ivan:
[40:36]
| Okay, I'll give the short, brief summary because it was a while back when I watched it.
|
Sam:
[40:40]
| Also, give, what is your experience with the game? Like, how much have you played yourself? I know Manu's played a little bit. How much have you played?
|
Ivan:
[40:50]
| I mean, I've played some, you know. I mean, I've played with them, you know.
|
Sam:
[40:55]
| But you're not, like, deeply familiar with the Minecraft lore and things like that.
|
Ivan:
[41:01]
| Lore itself lore well I know all the characters like all the little like creeper you know I know all the you know I recognize all the things that appeared in the movie I don't know about the lore itself probably not but you know let me.
|
Sam:
[41:21]
| Get a basic like level set did you understand what was happening when they had the Technoblade cameo or did you recognize DanTDM when he was on the screen?
|
Ivan:
[41:35]
| No.
|
Sam:
[41:36]
| Okay. See? So you're not deeply enough.
|
Ivan:
[41:40]
| I'm familiar. No, no, I'm familiar.
|
Sam:
[41:42]
| This is two YouTubers who, like, one was referenced and one made a cameo.
|
Ivan:
[41:48]
| No, no, no. And there were some others. Like I said, I'm, like, familiar with it, but I'm not. No, I'm not. No. Not even close. But, look, I found a movie. Me, personally, I'll give the preview. because you just saw it more recently. I liked it. It was fun.
|
Sam:
[42:04]
| Well, I saw it when it was in the theaters. So like, you know, I couldn't have seen it that much more recently than you.
|
Ivan:
[42:09]
| Well, I thought it was, you know what? It was a fun movie. I liked it.
|
Sam:
[42:14]
| I'm going to agree. Thumbs up from me as well. And I am like, it wasn't.
|
Ivan:
[42:19]
| I was surprised. I thought it was going to suck. I thought it was a terrible idea. How the hell are they going to make a whole fucking movie about Minecraft was what I was thinking. And I came out, and maybe that helped, but I came out very pleasantly surprised. I said, hey, this was fun.
|
Sam:
[42:37]
| Mine would like it too. And I wasn't surprised about making a movie out of Minecraft because I've watched many an animated thing on YouTube that's in Minecraft, you know, fully. What I was dubious about was the fact that this mixes real life and Minecraft.
|
Ivan:
[42:56]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[42:56]
| As opposed to really being an animated thing completely within the world of Minecraft. Instead, it, you know, it starts out in the human world and then they move into Minecraft and, you know, and it's sort of a weird hybrid and they sort of acknowledge the gaminess of it as well. Yes. And so it doesn't take itself super seriously.
|
Sam:
[43:17]
| No, no. I haven't given the actual plot, so let me read the first couple paragraphs there, too. Struggling doorknob salesman Steve breaks into a mine to fulfill a childhood dream, where he discovers the orb of dominance and the Earth crystal. When combined, they create a portal that transports him to the overworld, a world where the terrain is made of easily manipulated cubes. He builds his own paradise and later stumbles across a porter to a hellish world called the Nether. He is imprisoned by Malgosha, the gold-obsessed piglin ruler of the Nether who gravely discourages creativity. Because the orb would allow her to control the overworld, Steve has his dog Dennis escape with the orb and crystal and hide them under his bed in the real world. Some time later, 1980s video game champion Garrett the Garbage Man Garrison owns a failing video game store in Chuglas, Idaho. He heads to a storage auction to acquire items to sell for cash, ultimately winning the contents of Steve's old house. While searching through the items, particularly hoping to find an Atari Cosmos, he instead finds Steve's old belongings, including the orb and crystal, dot, dot, dot. But anyway, a couple kids and that guy end up, you know, also following into the overworld, into the world of Minecraft and having adventures, rescuing Steve, etc. Sorry, spoilers.
|
Sam:
[44:44]
| And anyway I agree it surprised me for being a lot of fun was it perfect? No there were things I could quibble with as someone who has followed some of the Minecraft stuff I liked the cameos I haven't watched all the like there are a whole bunch of, YouTubers that were did cameos let me.
|
Sam:
[45:13]
| There we go. So cameos are of YouTubers. DanTDM, who I mentioned, who Alex watched tons of DanTDM when he was younger. Not anymore, really, but I'll occasionally put it on because I miss DanTDM. I watched it, too, because Alex was watching it. Apmow, who I don't know. MumboJumbo, who we watched a bunch of as well. mumbo jumbo is a a minecraft redstone youtuber he made makes all kinds of contraptions out of out of redstone in minecraft and does some other things too and apparently he didn't make a, i guess he he did make a cameo but he also helped design some of the the redstone mechanisms in the game to make sure that in the movie to make sure they were match the game ld shadow lady i didn't really watch a lot of her, but I would recognize her. And one of the developers of Minecraft, who's one of their spokespeople when they have events, announcing new features and stuff, made a cameo as well. And I mentioned Technoblade. Technoblade was a YouTuber who died. Died very young of cancer. He was a Minecraft YouTuber. Very big Minecraft YouTuber. And they included a cameo of his character. Walking across the street and made a little Just made a little statement to him. And like, I caught all those references.
|
Ivan:
[46:42]
| And so I don't know. I'm not. Right. I'm not that, you know.
|
Sam:
[46:46]
| And so, like, I recognize the people. I was like, oh, there's Dan. And oh, that's the Technoblade reference. I never really watched Technoblade channel, but I knew who he was and I knew the reference and I knew it was coming, etc. And so I appreciated all that because I mentioned they didn't take themselves seriously at all, but they also treated it with some respect. So that if you played the game a lot and had all this background, you would appreciate it and not be like, oh man, they're completely messing it all up. They didn't mess it all up. They did it fairly well. and so yeah I enjoyed it I think there's I think there's going to be a sequel yep talks for a potential sequel began a few days after release looks like the release date of the sequel is going to be in 2027 so yeah I'll you know it was fun I liked it thumbs up even more thumbs up if you have sort of followed YouTube followed Minecraft on YouTube specifically and watched like, you know, some of, you know, I mean, there's everything from Minecraft music videos to whole stories that were done animated in Minecraft and all this kind of stuff. And if you followed like some of the long running sort of adventure series where people are playing the game, but sort of acting out an adventure within it on YouTube.
|
Sam:
[48:14]
| You appreciate it even more, I think, if you followed some of that stuff. But even if you haven't, I think it was, it was just a fun little movie. So there you go. Thumbs up to a Minecraft movie.
|
Sam:
[48:24]
| Yeah okay so all right ready for break and then i guess we can talk war and destruction and you know i only had two aside from movies and tv that i added to the list this week the only two other things on our list were the violence in mexico and iran oh fuck that's the only two things that got.
|
Ivan:
[48:47]
| Because of course, you know, to hell, Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[48:52]
| Yes. Okay. But we'll, we'll be back after, uh, after this one.
|
Sam:
[49:38]
| Okay. So, Iran or Mexico? Where do you want to start? Or do you want to throw a curveball and talk about something else entirely? Let's talk about Iran. And then save those for the next segment. Okay. So, as we are, I'm going to caveat like I often do with breaking news events. We are recording this Saturday. And Saturday, February 28th, as I mentioned at the beginning. This is an ongoing news event as we are, right, speaking. There are still attacks going on. Iraq. Iran is counterattacking. Things are happening. The events of the day are going to overtake us. By the time you listen to this, things will have changed since, you know, midday Saturday U.S. time. It's in the afternoon for Ivan. It's right before noon for weeks.
|
Ivan:
[50:33]
| Why are we doing this again, Sam? For me here on the West Coast.
|
Sam:
[50:36]
| I ran bad, Alex. No, you're not Alex. i i get you you you all confused all the time i get the dog confused i you know luckily my family doesn't mind when i accidentally call them by the dog's name they get amused when i call the dog we need to you.
|
Ivan:
[50:59]
| Know we need to send you out to pasture you know you know just like we did with biden because you you keep getting names confused.
|
Sam:
[51:05]
| Once i'm in that pasture with the cows i am sure Or I will call one of them Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[51:12]
| Probably. So why are we doing this again? No, look. What the fuck? Sam, what the fuck are we doing? Listen, this is just another.
|
Sam:
[51:25]
| It looks fairly clear that what Trump and or the people behind Trump that have been pushing for this.
|
Ivan:
[51:35]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[51:36]
| They're straight up after regime change. Like, this is not...
|
Ivan:
[51:42]
| Oh, come on. Look.
|
Sam:
[51:44]
| Now, whether or not they succeed is another question.
|
Ivan:
[51:46]
| No, no, no, no, no, no. No.
|
Sam:
[51:48]
| You think it's all just distraction from Epstein or whatever?
|
Ivan:
[51:51]
| Are you fucking kidding me? I literally said on the Slack two weeks ago, literally asked, when are we attacking Iran?
|
Sam:
[52:01]
| Well, the talk of us attacking Iran has been going on for months anyway.
|
Ivan:
[52:05]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[52:06]
| And Israel's been pushing it. Well, okay.
|
Ivan:
[52:10]
| Listen, listen.
|
Sam:
[52:12]
| The specific timing may be influenced.
|
Ivan:
[52:15]
| One thing you just said is the biggest one. Israel, obviously, has been goading Trump to attack Iran. They have, this has been, I mean, Bibi has wanted this. But also, by the way, why does Bibi want to attack Iran? What's the primary reason?
|
Sam:
[52:35]
| Oh, is he also trying to stay in office?
|
Ivan:
[52:38]
| No! And stay out of jail? No, you got, don't say, Sam!
|
Sam:
[52:42]
| No, but I don't want to listen. Wait, wait. I don't like saying these words myself either. But to be fair to Bibi, he's wanted to go after I ran for decades.
|
Ivan:
[52:54]
| True, true, true. But but also as an extra motivation that this is that that is that does help.
|
Sam:
[53:05]
| Yeah. Oh, yeah. None of this hurts. I'm sure the timing was probably influenced by stuff we need.
|
Ivan:
[53:12]
| I think that's the main thing. It's the whole timing. Why now? And I think it has to do more with trying to divert and distract from all the other shit going on, both in Israel and the United States, than anything else. Because we're in the middle of negotiations with Iran. When we're talking, we're doing a whatever. And you know what? We just go, ah, fuck it. We're bombing them.
|
Sam:
[53:36]
| Well, I'm not sure how much of those negotiations was ever really in good faith anyway.
|
Ivan:
[53:43]
| Well, Sam, how could they be in good faith in the first place? Listen, this entire thing has been a charade from the beginning. Look, like Tim Kaine I just said, we had a deal with these guys. and we broke it.
|
Sam:
[54:00]
| Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and look, in terms of what, you know, I said that the sort of nominal, all the language they're using is more aligned with regime change than anything else. But in terms of like what's actually likely to happen, I feel like, you know, maybe they'll get lucky and do something like they did in Venezuela. Sam, let me ask a question. But I think it's more. Wait, wait, wait.
|
Ivan:
[54:30]
| Let me finish the thought. Let me finish the thought.
|
Sam:
[54:31]
| Let me finish the thought.
|
Ivan:
[54:32]
| For you about the regime change thing.
|
Sam:
[54:33]
| Okay, okay, okay.
|
Ivan:
[54:33]
| When you say regime change, what do you think it means for them?
|
Sam:
[54:39]
| I really don't think they think any further than let's get rid of the one or two people at the top.
|
Ivan:
[54:46]
| So it's just, hey, let's just topple it and then whatever happens, happens. Okay.
|
Sam:
[54:54]
| Pretty much.
|
Ivan:
[54:55]
| Sounds like a brilliant plan.
|
Sam:
[54:56]
| Sam. I honestly don't think they think multiple steps ahead in terms of this kind of stuff. It doesn't seem like they did in Venezuela. No. I don't think they would here, too. I mean, when experts are talking about, like, what happens in Iran, like, they're like, hey, let's say they succeeded and they killed the Ayatollah today.
|
Ivan:
[55:21]
| Uh-huh.
|
Sam:
[55:21]
| And what is the most likely result of that? It is not, oh, wow, suddenly a democracy springs up tomorrow that's friendly to the West. No, most likely you get years of chaos.
|
Ivan:
[55:36]
| By the way, I just opened an article in the New York Times talking about this. Let me read this sentence here. This is from an article that says, Netanyahu takes a shot at regime change in Iran. I'll give you this line. Nothing would burnish the legacy of Mr. Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, more than toppling the Islamic Republic, which he has likened to Hitler's Germany and ending its nuclear program for good. How about that?
|
Sam:
[56:10]
| Well, and look, and honestly, if he succeeded, he might be right. I mean, and this is the thing, too. Like, and this is the same kind of argument we were having about Venezuela as well. Let's assume, like, well, let's not assume. Well, OK, for the sake of argument, let's say everything about this goes perfectly for Donald Trump. Yeah. Okay. You know, we have limited to no American casualties. Civilian casualties aren't that big, although I've seen some unconfirmed reports that we may have hit a school by mistake. You know, I don't know if it's true or not. Fog of war kind of stuff. We'll know more eventually. But let's assume limited American casualties, limited civilian casualties. We decapitate the iranian government it falls and we get a good friendly government that is good on human rights and likes the west and blah blah blah i mean we're talking about like the the heir of the shah coming back he's one of the people that's been agitating lately in in iran well i mean the shah was.
|
Ivan:
[57:25]
| Another dictator and a brutal dictator anyway i mean what the hell man it's not exactly like, you know, like, the Shah was like this benevolent guy.
|
Sam:
[57:37]
| What can I tell you? Anyway, so... Assume everything goes well. Then, yes, Donald Trump will get some accolades for doing something that ended up turning out positively. Now, it may not, but let's assume it does. It is still completely and totally illegal for him to have done it.
|
Ivan:
[58:01]
| It is? Oh, so the checks and balances will now come into play, right?
|
Sam:
[58:08]
| There, yeah, there's been no, Congress has not authorized this in any way, let alone an actual declaration of war. He hasn't done any selling of this. I mean, he had the State of the Union a few days ago and did not talk about, he did not make a case for doing something against Iran at the State of the Union. I think he may have mentioned it, but not extensively. It wasn't like a major theme. If you poll the American public, support for us taking this kind of action is incredibly low. But he's doing it anyway. And that's just domestic stuff. Internationally, it also does not meet any of the requirements for a legal action as far as international law is concerned. Of course, we don't give even the slightest crap about that.
|
Sam:
[58:58]
| But nevertheless, this is the kind of thing where, I mean, remember how conflicted, you know, when we talked about Venezuela, you're like, yes, Sam, he's doing it illegally, but somebody needed to do this. And there are a lot of people who are going to feel the same way about Iran. Yeah. whether or not like this goes into, I mentioned the positive scenario. Of course, the worst case negative scenario is an ongoing Middle East war that spirals out of control and consumes multiple countries. But I think the most likely scenario is neither of those. The most likely scenario is, you know, they've said this campaign is going to last days, not hours. I've heard like four or five days of intensive bombing and such of the country. We're going to do that. We're going to kill a few high-profile people. I saw there were initial reports that maybe we got the Supreme Leader, but it seems like, no, we probably didn't. He was evacuated. He's fine, probably. But we did get a couple of high-ranking people, and we'll probably get more before we're done. But we've done that before. And you remember, it was just a few months ago where we supposedly completely eliminated their nuclear capability anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:21]
| Yeah, what happened?
|
Sam:
[1:00:21]
| I mean, Donald Trump said so.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:23]
| Did they go with the day? Wow, they're so good, Sam. They managed to, after we completely, completely wiped out their nuclear capability, Sam, they managed to rebuild it in just a few months. They're incredible.
|
Sam:
[1:00:36]
| Well, somebody in the Trump administration did an interview where he once again said they were one week away from making weapons. Which, of course, wait, but I thought we completely destroyed all their capabilities and made it so they couldn't even think of rebuilding anything for decades.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:55]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:00:56]
| But apparently a few months later, we're one week away again. And so and look, bottom line is there's no trustworthy narrator here. So, you know, what's the real situation on the ground? Fucked if I know, you know, because you certainly can't trust. anything the Trump administration is saying. You certainly can't say anything. You can't trust anything Netanyahu is saying. You can't trust anything the Iranians are saying either. So who the hell knows?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:27]
| Who the hell knows?
|
Sam:
[1:01:28]
| You know, but at the same time, yeah, I feel like the most likely scenario is once again, we engage in a military campaign. It lasts a few days. There's some damage. But basically, we end up not really changing substantially the facts on the ground. That's the most likely scenario. And I don't know, we repeat this again in another six months? I don't know. I mean, it could go the way that everything goes Donald Trump's way and we have a completely changed Iran in a few months, or it could go the way where we have the regional war that drags on for years. Either of those could happen, too. But I feel like the most likely is just we bomb them for a few days and then a week or two from now, we're not even talking about it anymore. Just like we're not talking about Venezuela much anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:21]
| You know, about the... The only positive thing that I could say about the Trump administration for the first Trump administration was that they never got us into any major conflict like this. OK. And and and and and and and look, look now, look, look at this shit. I mean, look now. It's just I mean.
|
Sam:
[1:02:43]
| I just to be clear, having having previewed the next three years, this is absolutely nothing compared. to the land war in Greenland coming up soon.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:55]
| Listen, yeah, well, of course. So what are we finding? Fighting polar bears, I guess. I mean, you know, is that what we're doing? I'm like, you know, it's, He's got now this taste for bombs, if you haven't noticed. He likes just unleashing his bombs and the airplanes and showing them off. So this is going to escalate, unfortunately. He's going to be doing this more and more.
|
Sam:
[1:03:34]
| Well, frankly, it's just like tariffs. Once he finds a toy that he figures out the levers to play with it. And he knows if I do this, I can drive the news cycle. I can get attention. I can get this.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:49]
| I can get that.
|
Sam:
[1:03:51]
| I can use this as leverage.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:56]
| This will drive the news cycle the direction I wanted to be driven in. This has nothing else to do with anything else, Sam. Nothing. Not regime change, not nothing. It's how can I drive the news cycle to pay attention to something else, what I want attention to be paid to. And that is the only, you know, the worst thing is this is the only thing that motivates him.
|
Sam:
[1:04:22]
| Yeah, I mean, like, he gave that little speech last night about, like, now's your chance, Iranians, rise up.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:29]
| Like he could give two flying fucks about the Iranian people.
|
Sam:
[1:04:35]
| Exactly. Isn't he deporting Iranian refugees who are here? I mean, come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:42]
| Come on. Give me a fuck about it.
|
Sam:
[1:04:44]
| There are people who have fled the regime there that we are trying to send back.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:04:53]
| And, you know, not just Iran, of course. Like, we're doing the same thing with Afghanistan, with all these places.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:59]
| Everybody, yeah. He doesn't give a fuck about any of them.
|
Sam:
[1:05:03]
| No, no. Yeah. If he cared about any of that stuff, he'd be actively supporting the people who had fled the regime and all this kind of stuff. No, no, no, not. I'm sure there is some covert support for some internal Iranian opposition because, of course, we're doing that. I'd be shocked if we weren't. But it's not the same thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:32]
| It's not with the—it's the entire goal, once again, is disruption.
|
Sam:
[1:05:36]
| It's not with their best interest action in mind.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:37]
| Exactly. The entire goal is disruption, not any, you know—, positive direction for Iran. I think that's the key thing.
|
Sam:
[1:05:50]
| Yes. Anything that is done by Trump and his administration anywhere in the world is certainly, like, you would think, like, at least you could argue, okay, he's worried about the interests of the U.S., not the interests of that country. And you'd be like, okay, that's normal. That's like every administration. Of course, they're looking out for the interests of the U.S. But in Donald Trump's case, he's not even doing that. It's only his own interests.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:22]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:06:22]
| It's only his own personal interests.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:24]
| It's only his own personal interests.
|
Sam:
[1:06:26]
| But frankly, one difference, even of previous administrations, that some have been more naked about, like, look, we only care about U.S. and we'll screw anybody else and we don't give a shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:39]
| But he cares. They care about what they believe is the good thing for the U.S. This is only about what is good for him.
|
Sam:
[1:06:53]
| Right. But I was also going to say, even compared to that, we have had some administrations where they actually recognize that sometimes the best way to benefit the U.S. is to benefit the other countries as well. because there's a such thing as a win-win relationship. And when we, when we.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:15]
| In his, in his mind, there is no such thing as a win-win. Those don't exist. Ever. Ever. Those don't exist at all.
|
Sam:
[1:07:26]
| And the whole concept of soft power where you end up benefiting this country by providing a good example and making people like you.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:39]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:07:41]
| Oh, they like you because you helped them when they were in need and provided a good example and blah, blah, blah. You know, now, the U.S. has a very mixed record of that kind of stuff, to be completely honest. However, at least, like, some administrations actually believed in that and tried to do that and, you know, and had some decent success over the last hundred years.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:05]
| Maybe they didn't do it to every country consistently, okay? All right? And they did it in some ways that it was bad. But the reality is that in many cases, they actively tried to do that and did that with some countries. With others, they didn't do it that well.
|
Sam:
[1:08:18]
| Concept of USAID, which of course you eliminated.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:21]
| Yes, but of course we eliminated.
|
Sam:
[1:08:23]
| Yes. I mean, is that we can use our extreme wealth to help out all over the world in ways that, really, in the grand scheme of things, did not cost us a lot of money. But helped a lot of people and left them feeling good about, hey, they helped us.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:43]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:08:44]
| And, you know, as we've both said, we haven't always been consistent about this. We've often done it badly. We've often taken advantage of people.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:56]
| But Sam, there was a general intention, direction in terms of advancing American interest and in many cases helping some of these countries, even when we sometimes we didn't do it positively. OK, many times, sometimes a failure of vision, many times it was a failure of us understanding the country, you know, for the for the most part, the president wasn't actively trying. You know, they they they they thought that they were advancing the interests of the United States. And sometimes they said, well, the interest of the U.S. is more important than others. We don't we don't care about it. But it was even in their misguided way, it was still the interest of the United States that they were thinking in the first place. This is completely different. This has nothing to do with this. Any action that Trump does, that is not even remotely a thought.
|
Sam:
[1:09:47]
| Yep. It's all about what's in it for me. How is this going to help me in my personal situation right now?
|
Ivan:
[1:09:55]
| Right now.
|
Sam:
[1:09:55]
| Whether it's distraction from other news that he doesn't want, or whether it's a monetary thing, or whether it's just attention. He does just like attention.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:06]
| Too. The guy is an attention whore. Everything is about attention to him, and everything is about a positive attention to him. And this, obviously, is much better positive attention than the Epstein files. or inflation or I lost at SCOTUS with the tariffs, etc., etc., or the polls are bad, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:10:28]
| And this is one of those things that you can almost count on. Most news coverage, including at outlets that are usually critical of Donald Trump, when you are at, like, a war footing, tend to be very deferential. To like, oh, yeah, we're doing this and here's why and blah, blah, blah, as opposed to, you know, just saying flat out over and over and over again, hey, this is an illegal action.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:01]
| I don't know what's going on on the ground. I was like, look, I was on the front page of the New York Times, like right now, my editorial board first article is basically saying that look at the articles, for example, one over here. For Trump, the Iraq Iran attack was the alt is the ultimate war of choice. That's one of the top top stories about this opinion editorial board. Number one opinion. Trump's attack on Iran is reckless. This is not like deferring to Trump and his action in any way, shape or form. I just saw MS now putting Tim Kaine like I said that this was completely idiotic. That was the main thing on there. OK, number one, you know, there, you know, look, opinions, Washington Post. There is no reason to think this war with Iran is necessary. The first fucking opinion under the editorial board. All of these are. Listen, there is nothing.
|
Sam:
[1:11:58]
| Maybe it's shifting quickly. Like before I went to bed, before I went to sleep last night when this was already ongoing, a lot of the initial coverage was saying things like, you know, it. Thank you. was repeating without a lot of questioning, like, Israel says this is preemptive, for instance. Now later, a few hours later, I started seeing criticism of that. But the initial wave of coverage was basically just like, Israel says this, the U.S. says this, without much of what you're talking about now. Maybe even just a few hours later, the tide is turning. Because once again, I woke up again right before we started recording, after watching a few hours of this coverage last night. So we shall see. I mean, again, polling on this before it happened was universally negative. Like when people were asked, should we be getting? Yeah. I mean, you even even amongst Trump voters, if you remember one of the things that repeatedly was said during Trump's campaigns, both in 2016 and...
|
Ivan:
[1:13:09]
| The Democrats are warmongers! They're going out to go get us into war! Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, here's one from Gavin Newsom's governor's press office. Donald Trump's old tweet. Now that Obama's poll numbers are in a tailspin, watch him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate. As usual, everything is a motherfucking projection! Everything.
|
Sam:
[1:13:35]
| Yes. As Yvonne blows out the microphone, screaming into it. Yes, yes. Everything is projection. And, like, we've seen this, especially with Donald Trump, but frankly, the whole fucking Republican Party for years now. And this goes for the Epstein, like, sex scandal stuff, too. The whole Epstein thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:56]
| The whole pediophilia thing. The whole fucking, like, listen, the whole massive homophobia thing.
|
Sam:
[1:14:02]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:04]
| For God's sakes!
|
Sam:
[1:14:08]
| Like almost everything that they accuse the Democrats of, if you look at it in detail, the Democrats aren't doing it, but they are.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:18]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:14:20]
| It's like, you know, and, you know, trying to mess with elections. Come on, who's doing that? You know, all of it, all of it over and over and over and over again. It's, it's just like, Like, you want to know what nefarious things the Republicans might be up to? Look at what they're accusing the Democrats of. You get a nearly 100% hit rate.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:49]
| Yeah. Damn. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:14:54]
| Again, my prediction is that like our previous strikes on Iran, this one may be a bit bigger, but a few days, the immediate strike will be over. Things will calm down. And I don't know about next week, but two weeks from now, we may not even be talking about Iran on the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:18]
| Here, I'm wondering, you know, because everything to him is driven by attention, phone numbers or whatever. If he starts getting a lot of negative publicity, right? Is that how this drives us real quickly? Where all of a sudden he's getting, you know, it starts like, you know, it being negative because he's getting shit from all his MAGA folks and everybody, whatever. Then all of a sudden he completely turns around and changes. By the way, here's one that I saw. Tulsi Garbert was in the Situation Room with Vance watching this launch. There's a tweet also that Gavin Newsom press office just shared from Tulsi. What do you think it says?
|
Sam:
[1:15:58]
| Oh, she was very big against attacks on Iran for years.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:02]
| No more with Iran!
|
Sam:
[1:16:05]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:06]
| You know what? Fuck you, Tulsi, 2.4. I forget, you know, which is my usual. I need to remember. Oh, by the way, before I give out my fuck yous for the week. Oh, fuck Jill Stein as well, too. this week. Wolves apparently crawled out of her cave early.
|
Sam:
[1:16:22]
| Yes, she has surfaced. Yeah, it's like the groundhog.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:28]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:16:28]
| When she pops up, you know. No, look, I think it's almost simpler than like, oh, there's negative backlash, so he backs off. I think it's almost no matter what's happening, good, bad, indifferent. Once we are done with the initial set of strikes that were planned, he's going to declare victory and call it done.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:49]
| I mean, that's the MO, right?
|
Sam:
[1:16:52]
| Yeah. It doesn't matter what the actual results are.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:55]
| And if you think about it, it's almost like every battle. Like, you know, I'm not talking about battle war, just in general, okay? I'm talking about, hey, the healthcare debate. Hey, this, the thing, whatever. You know, how he goes and he says, you know, there's a whole bunch of arguing and blah, blah, blah, negotiating, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then he goes and he says, no, well, I'm going to have a solution in two weeks. And then all of a sudden, the two weeks pass and we forget about it and we're on to something else.
|
Sam:
[1:17:21]
| Whatever new outrageous thing is going on. Now, I will say the one possible exception is... Well, even... We got Maduro and he declared victory, but like that still disappeared off the headlines in a couple of weeks. I feel like even I was about to say the one exception might be if they actually kill the Supreme Leader. But even if they did that, we're probably moved on to something else. And in a few weeks.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:48]
| There was this there was this gorgeous there was a headline. I remember this one that somebody reposted from like 2016, which I remember that I believe I wanted to fucking like punch a screen or something when I read this. It's an article by Maureen Dowd who talked about Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk. And I still fucking remember. Somebody reposted that headline. And that's one where I want to fucking find Maureen Dowd right now and beat the shit out of her. Grab a fucking copy of it and fucking like rub it in her face.
|
Sam:
[1:18:19]
| Well, like you said, in his first term, he mostly stayed out of things. Now, I say mostly. He actually did dramatically increase the drone program from what Obama was doing. He was quieter about it. But there were more drone hits on more countries during Trump's first term than Obama had been doing. So he increased that. But he didn't outright start messing with additional countries. The second term, he absolutely has. He's all over the place. You know? I mean, hell, we did a military attack on Nigeria at the end of last year.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:02]
| Right, I forgot about that.
|
Sam:
[1:19:03]
| Does anybody even remember that?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:05]
| Fuck no. Jesus Christ, we've had... Sam, Sam, it's like every fucking day, there's so much shit going on. I mean, if we went and we made a list of all the stupid shit that we've had. We've had Americans murdered on the streets by ice. We've had an invasion of Minnesota by our own federal government. Thank you. I mean, we had, listen, we were attacking, listen, we helped an attack in Mexico. We murdered this fucking cartel leader and unleashed complete chaos in Mexico.
|
Sam:
[1:19:38]
| Well, with that, why don't we take a break and then talk about that? Ah, yes. Okay. This next one should be an Apple dream, but I didn't prepare it. So we'll have an Apple dream next week. And in the meantime, this break, and then we'll talk about Mexico and whatever else we end up talking about. Here we go.
|
Sam:
[1:21:00]
| Okay, we're back. So, Yvonne, you were starting to describe what happened in Mexico last week, and then I said, let's take a break. So, continue where you left off. What the hell happened? We killed some drug lord? Or Mexico killed some drug lord with our alp?
|
Ivan:
[1:21:16]
| OK, so apparently it did involve the U.S. Not sure exactly the extent, but but but the U.S. was involved in this where the the chief of the Holisco drug cartel. OK, that was he used to be part of the Sinaloa cartel that got kept getting mentioned a lot in the U.S. he was murdered okay and the reaction by the members of the cartel was to unleash violence across significant parts of mexico okay in response to that i mean there was i mean you know i i've been to jalisco many times i've been to the city of guadalajara many times or or is the late uh what what's the name most of the most of the late wait wait wait i need to let me as a late The late Lou Dobbs on TV once called it Farfula, in which he was trying to pronounce the name of the city. You know...
|
Ivan:
[1:22:14]
| Guadalajara is the second, I would say the second most important city in Mexico. It is a tech and industrial hub.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:23]
| Most major U.S. companies have tech companies have operations in the city. So this is a very developed area of the country. I said, you know, Mexico is very developed, but one of the most developed areas in the country. So all of a sudden, the airport was under siege. OK, I mean, people had to run out. This is an airport that I've been to many times. OK, so this is particularly like very disturbing to me. OK, people wound up on the tarmac because the airport was under attack. The airport in Fort Ovalarta was also under attack. There were burning trucks. There were blocking roads. They were shooting. They burned down the Costco and Costco's. They burned out. It was just a massive just, you know, eruption of violence across the state. and in other parts of the country. It didn't affect the Capitol, okay? But the thing is that this was something that some of the people locally were telling me, that they didn't want to do this in large part because they feared what the reaction was going to be by doing this. But the president was forced by the Trump administration to pursue this action. This was not something that they were targeting, but that the Trump administration forced upon.
|
Sam:
[1:23:46]
| Let me ask one question about the violence, because most of the coverage—, I have seen in U.S. media has sort of concentrated on the tourists. What's the actual balance in terms of where the violence was targeted? Is it specifically targeted against tourists or is it actually against everybody and tourists were just caught up in it?
|
Ivan:
[1:24:10]
| Yes. Tourists were just caught up in it.
|
Sam:
[1:24:12]
| It was against everybody.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:13]
| No, it was against everybody.
|
Sam:
[1:24:14]
| But of course, our coverage is about the tourists because they're more important than the locals apparently.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:18]
| Correct. Yes. No, no, no. But this is against everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not targeting tourists at all. This is against everybody. Now, yeah, this is not targeted against the tourists in any way. They just happen to get caught up. Flights canceled and shit, and airports closed all of a sudden, you know? I mean, Mexico gets so many U.S. tourists. I mean, it's crazy. So it is, you know, it is a massive amount of Americas that go to Mexico for tourism. And so, yeah, I mean, it was very visible to the tourists. But, yeah, it was, the impact was local. I mean, there were, you know, the local residents were petrified. They were staying at home. They weren't going anywhere in Jalisco. I will say that I spoke to my friends in Mexico City, and they weren't really, you know, they know that it was going on. But they were somewhat concerned, but nothing happened in Mexico City. So this was really going to say, too.
|
Sam:
[1:25:10]
| Now, was there a big spike that's calmed down? Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:15]
| Or is this ongoing still? No, it's calmed down. It's calmed down.
|
Sam:
[1:25:18]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:18]
| Yes. but but the one thing is is people were mentioning to me this was not look the current, the current president the party itself more i will say more the entire party, a lot of talk has gone over the years how they are they have this uneasy alliance with the cartels in some way, okay? So, to them, going against them isn't exactly in their best interests, okay? Because this was really forced upon them by the United States, which is why the reaction by them was so visible and violent right away. I think more as a warning to the president that they don't have control of the country, that they can control the country if they want. And that's, I think, the biggest signal that they wanted to send. And I also find that the way that the administration wanted to do this It seemed really like, once again, we were targeting an execution instead of like actually capturing as we have done with others in the past. They just wanted them killed.
|
Sam:
[1:26:32]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:33]
| They didn't want to capture them.
|
Sam:
[1:26:35]
| Well, and also, I think this is just the fact that there was this backlash. I just can't view it any other way that this is just another example of where they don't think ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:51]
| No!
|
Sam:
[1:26:52]
| They only think of the very next action they want to take.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:57]
| And what the repercussions or what the long-term strategy is and what doing that gets us.
|
Sam:
[1:27:03]
| There is nothing long-term. No, no. I mean, for years, people were talking about how, hey, it's not really that they're stupid. They're playing five-dimensional chess. They're thinking so many steps ahead. And they're, no, no, no, none of that. They are, at best, thinking about the very next step they want to take.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:29]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:30]
| And figuring they'll deal with what happens after after.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:33]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:34]
| You know, there's no thought.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:36]
| Well, they don't think, wait, wait, no, it's not even, they don't even think there's going to be an after after. They don't even get there. They don't even get there.
|
Sam:
[1:27:43]
| They're just, oh, we're going to win.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:45]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:27:47]
| That's it. That's it. Yeah. We're going to get what we want. We're going to win. That's the whole story. And part of this is also just this complete disdain for expertise as well. Like, do you think anybody in the Trump administration consulted with people who actually had extensive local knowledge of what was going on in either Iran or Mexico or Venezuela?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:17]
| Come on.
|
Sam:
[1:28:18]
| Or any of Ukraine, for that matter?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:21]
| Well, not that he would listen or consider it, you know, because, I mean, Marco Rubio, even though he is a complete dickhead and sellout, is not dumb. So he does understand a lot of the repercussions of these things, okay? And probably things further. But it's not like he knows that nobody gives a shit. Exactly. It's not like anybody gives a shit about that. So he's not going to be, you know, doing that. He's just playing his game. That's it.
|
Sam:
[1:28:49]
| It's fun.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:51]
| Oh, yeah, fun. More fun. Fun in Mexico. Fun in the Middle East. I got a friend of mine who told me that their son was traveling with a group that was about to travel through Doha today. And that all their flights got canceled. And they got stuck in Africa right now because of this. because all air traffic right now is stopped, you know, through.
|
Sam:
[1:29:20]
| So let me ask, given the current state, is now the perfect time to finally get around to my random trip to the southern Yucatan?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:33]
| Actually, the Yucatan is.
|
Sam:
[1:29:35]
| I know it's the other side of the country from where most of this was going on.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:40]
| It's a very big country at it. I would say, well, maybe not the perfect time, But I don't think that you're, if you went, there would be not, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:29:48]
| And we're not talking about Cozumel or either. We're talking about a fairly rural area near the Belize border.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:54]
| It's, it's, it's, yeah, but it's near the Belize border. There's nothing going on over there. You should be fine.
|
Sam:
[1:29:58]
| Okay. Okay. So after you visit Seattle, we'll just get on a plane and go straight there.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:05]
| Okay. You got to tell my wife.
|
Sam:
[1:30:07]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:07]
| You got, you got to tell my wife about this.
|
Sam:
[1:30:10]
| You, you, you can dump your wife at that retreat and we can go.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:14]
| That's what we're gonna do we dump her into the retreat and we just fucking like what are we charter a jet how are we doing this oh yeah drive oh, Well, I am grabbing a rental car. So basically, okay, so this is the thing. You get in the car with me. We drop her off at Long Beach. And then we go for the border in a rental car. Drive all the way to Yucatan.
|
Sam:
[1:30:39]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:40]
| And then we try to make it back in five days. Basically, I had to do that round trip in five days. So then I could pick her up. We get back to Seattle. We take our flight and we go home.
|
Sam:
[1:30:51]
| There you go. Perfect.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:56]
| I am tentative by this idea.
|
Sam:
[1:30:59]
| Okay, I'm not going to lie.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:01]
| Okay, all right.
|
Sam:
[1:31:05]
| Now, to get to the Yucatan by car from here.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:10]
| It's not a problem.
|
Sam:
[1:31:12]
| It's drivable. Would we have to go through some more dangerous areas than the Yucatan itself? Not really.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:18]
| There's some, you know, Mexico has major highways. We could make it probably pretty close to where the hell we're going to go through the highways. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:26]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:27]
| It's not that big a deal.
|
Sam:
[1:31:32]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:32]
| I may have to change.
|
Sam:
[1:31:33]
| Yeah, we have a plan.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:34]
| Jesus Christ. Okay, so let me see. Long Beach. Long Beach, Washington. Okay, great. Let me see. Directions to. Okay, from.
|
Sam:
[1:31:47]
| You got to get the actual name of the town. Hold on.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:49]
| Yeah, give me the name of the town. Hold on so I can see the driving directions. Hang on.
|
Sam:
[1:31:55]
| It is Chachoban, C-H-A-C-C-H-O-B-E-N.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:02]
| Wait, wait.
|
Sam:
[1:32:03]
| In Quintana Roo, Mexico.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:04]
| Say C-H-O-B?
|
Sam:
[1:32:06]
| C-H-A-C-C-H-O-B-E-N.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:13]
| Okay. Man, this is tough to prep. Chachoban. Okay, here we go. All right, let's see. Come on. Give me the driving directions. Two days and ten hours. 3,619 miles tolls required but I'll tell you what it's a pretty straight shot through highways all the way there from up there to, yeah but I got straight out directions we gotta go, actually we'll go through yeah, because we'll go through very close to where my brother lives in Texas okay, cross the border through, Monterey, Mexico which is one of the other big cities in Mexico. We're Victoria, Tampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa. And then we get all the way there. Very close to, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:33:04]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:04]
| It's actually doable.
|
Sam:
[1:33:08]
| Well, that's two and a half days of straight driving.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:11]
| Right?
|
Sam:
[1:33:12]
| Yes. Okay. Eight hour shifts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:17]
| We basically, yeah. It's, you know, yeah. So, you know, let's see.
|
Sam:
[1:33:22]
| No stops on the way, just straight out.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:25]
| I mean, it's basically, yeah, we're just, this is a mad dash all the way down there, basically, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:33:30]
| And then all the way back.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:31]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:33:35]
| Okay, enough of that. All right. Anything else on Mexico?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:39]
| Not at the moment, Tom.
|
Sam:
[1:33:40]
| Are there any other topics you want to make sure to cover before we close things up? I know we're still a little bit short of our normal time, but.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:49]
| There was one thing, and I posted news, but I didn't put into topics. Sam?
|
Sam:
[1:33:55]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:58]
| Guess what? About inflation. Do you know what was reported?
|
Sam:
[1:34:02]
| About inflation.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:03]
| Yeah. Do you know what was reported earlier this week about inflation?
|
Sam:
[1:34:07]
| Well, I remember one of you guys posting a link about Boebert trying to define inflation.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:14]
| Well, yes. How did she do? Did you watch it?
|
Sam:
[1:34:18]
| I think she said it was when prices were bad because of Biden.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:24]
| Something along those lines. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:34:27]
| Yeah. Anyway, was it revisions in the bad direction or something like that? What was the actual news?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:37]
| The producer price index was announced this week, okay? And it showed that hotter than expected increases, 0.5 for the month, and that the annual inflation rate was at 2.9% for producer prices. So think about this. This is the prices that manufacturers eventually have to pass on to consumers, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:35:06]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:07]
| So their prices are up and it's hotter than expected. And also there were revisions to earlier months that showed that it was hotter than expected. Sam, take a look at that.
|
Sam:
[1:35:19]
| Okay. Interesting. I thought all economic indicators were going well.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:25]
| Yeah. And inflation was down. Under control.
|
Sam:
[1:35:29]
| Yes. Inflation is down. Jobs are good. Housing is good.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:34]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:35:35]
| Everything's operating on all cylinders. Everything's going great.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:39]
| By the way, in terms of goods, it was down, but simply because it was impacted by energy prices, which are down. Okay. Some energy prices are down. But that's, you know, energy prices are very volatile up and down, whatever. So, you know, there was a 5.5% decrease in gasoline prices. But, you know, but that's...
|
Sam:
[1:36:00]
| Bottom line, Yvonne, your prediction is still the economy is going to hell before it gets better again.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:05]
| Yeah, I mean, there's just no... All the economic indicators suck. Except the ones that Trump can manipulate.
|
Sam:
[1:36:16]
| Right. Okay, one update. While we've been talking here the last few minutes, Bob shared on our Curmudgeons Corner Slack an update. Netanyahu has apparently been on Israeli TV claiming that they did in fact get Ayatollah Khomeini. I always forget and do the earlier name, but the Supreme Leader of Iran, Netanyahu, is saying all indications show he's no longer with us. Now, a couple hours ago, I was hearing that he was scheduled to give an address to the Iranian people. I guess maybe he hasn't yet. Again, fog of war. By the time you listen to this, you'll know more. But maybe, maybe they got the supreme leader, which is one of the scenarios I mentioned that would result in more substantial changes than just, hey, let's bomb them for a few days and then things continue on exactly as they were. if they actually got the supreme leader and a few other you know top five top ten people in iran that's going to lead to some volatility because who the hell knows what comes next.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:22]
| I'm sure this will be fine it'll all break out in jeffersonian democracy tomorrow there's going to be like this this entire like just just you know but but i'm talking about it more in terms of like the myths where it will just all be it'll all be wonderful and happy roses on the streets and happiness and hugs and.
|
Sam:
[1:37:50]
| Well, the one thing I will say about Iran, along the lines of, is that actually possible, is that the younger population, which is a significant majority at this point, has been, over the last couple years, getting increasingly vocal and agitated about wanting an opening of society, wanting real democracy, wanting that change. There were massive demonstrations in Iran just a month or two ago that were put down like they usually did. But if they are given an opportunity by a decapitation of the leadership, there is a non-zero chance that just like the revolution in the 70s that caused the hostage crisis and everything else, the Iranian youth actually do take over the country. It's not impossible. I mean, it could turn out good for whom? Well, it could be a net positive for the Iranian people. It's possible. I'm not predicting that, but I'm saying it is within the realm of possibility that the Israelis and U.S. decapitate the Iranian government and that Iranian reformers take advantage of it and we get a good outcome.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:12]
| But it's possible, but it's one of those things that, again, it happens by accident, not necessarily by any plan, because I'm sure that we didn't lay any groundwork in order to be able to support that.
|
Sam:
[1:39:28]
| Right. It's kind of like, if you remember the Kurds in Iraq during the first George Bush administration.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:36]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:39:37]
| Where we gave a lot of noise about like, you know, hey, we're liberating Kuwait. Now's your time. You may want to rebel too. It would be a good time. And they did. And we backed them up with zero.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:51]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:39:52]
| Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:53]
| We'll let them get slaughtered. Yeah. Exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:39:55]
| You know, and that's another possible outcome here. But the key is, and I think this is a standard of Donald Trump and his administration as well. And frankly, it's a reason why a lot of people like him, is he's willing to take huge bets where there may be a massive downside possibility. but there's also a massive upside possibility. And he's just willing to roll the dice.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:27]
| Basically, it's not even a roll of the dice, Sam. It's like putting all your money on one number on the roulette table. Okay. You know, there's 40 fucking numbers. The likelihood that you will succeed is stupidly low. It's not, this isn't the grand plan. I mean, if it happens, it's just pure luck. Yeah. It's dumb luck! Pure dumb luck! Period. End of story.
|
Sam:
[1:40:54]
| Unfortunately, this man has had a lot of pure dumb luck and had things that should have landed him in jail decades ago, and instead, he's president of the fucking United States for the second time.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:10]
| Ah, for the love of fucking God. Yeah. Okay, so on that note, shit. Fuck me. Yeah. Shit. Yeah. You're right. Son of a bitch.
|
Sam:
[1:41:23]
| Anyway. Yeah. Let's close it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:26]
| Yeah, let's close it up.
|
Sam:
[1:41:28]
| Okay, everybody. You know, I almost said electiongraphs.com, but there's nothing happening there yet. Soon. Soon. We'll set up for 2028. But curmudgeons-corner.com. You can go there. You can find all our old shows, transcripts, all the ways to contact us, all that kind of fun stuff. and of course you can find our Patreon so you can give us money at various levels we will send you a, we'll mention you on the show we'll ring a bell we'll send you a postcard we'll send you a mug all that kind of fun stuff at $2 a month or more or if you just ask us we will invite you to the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack where Yvonne and I and all kinds of other folks are chatting throughout the week sharing links talking about the news talking about other stuff and we would love to have you the more the merrier so Yvonne, what's a highlight, from the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack that we have not mentioned on the show yet okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:26]
| I will mention this I shared this on a random channel and this is something that I that I dearly love and there is this there was this article about, it was called the title is Inside the Cutthroat Competition for the best baguette in Paris. Okay? Bread is God in Paris. Enter the Baguette Grand Prix. There is this entire competition where all the bakeries in France go and, like, submit these baguettes to be judged for the best baguettes. in Paris, okay? And there is this entire process of evaluating, looking at them, tasting them, judging them in order to arrive at the best baguette. And my fucking God, I would give anything to be a judge on this fucking competition because I sure fucking love a baguette. Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[1:43:25]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:26]
| You gotta look at the picture. It looks so delicious.
|
Sam:
[1:43:30]
| Do you eat it straight or with butter? or with some other topping?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:34]
| How do you consume it? I know with butter is my preferred, obviously, yes. You know, with a nice, just, you know, a nice baguette warm with just a little bit of butter. You know, it's just excellent. There is this French butter brand that I like that's just, it's so expensive, which is why I don't normally buy it, but it's so good whenever I get it. Oh my gosh.
|
Sam:
[1:43:55]
| Now you have me wanting one of these.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:57]
| Oh my God, it's, it's.
|
Sam:
[1:44:00]
| Or at least some kind of breakfast.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:01]
| It's glorious, man. I'm telling you. I had to find the brand of the butter. I will tell you that out of all my butters, near my top are the European butter is usually like Lurepak or Irish butter. Those are really good. But there is this one specific butter that I'm pulling up the name like over here, which is it's not easy to find. And it's also stupidly expensive, which is why I will admit that it's just so expensive. You can't have this on a regular basis. It's called Eschire, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:44:51]
| And you don't want to waste it on normal crappy bread. No, no.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:56]
| It's Eschire. It's from France. it's just, if you let me see if I last time I looked it up it was just so stupidly expensive it's it's but but it's it's absolutely delicious it see it one little container of SRA okay all right a little container is sixteen dollars okay if you buy I see where they sell it like in a package okay if you get like a, You know how you would get like four bricks of butter for like $10, $15, $20 at Costco? The same amount for this, $240.
|
Sam:
[1:45:35]
| Yeah, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:37]
| This is why I don't buy this butter. I'm not going to, I mean.
|
Sam:
[1:45:41]
| I'll stick with some land of lakes or something, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:43]
| Yeah, but, I mean, and the problem is that, yeah, you want to because you'll try it and then you'll be like.
|
Sam:
[1:45:49]
| You know, Brandy occasionally gets some fancy Irish butter.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:55]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:45:56]
| And, you know, and I'm like, okay, whatever. Like, I'll be honest, I can barely tell the difference, but I can recognize it's a little bit better. But, you know, I can see occasionally blurred.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:10]
| This one is, it's stupid. It's over and above the norm of how good it is. Okay, all right. I mean, literally, it's just stupidly good. I'm going to try to see if I find a place that has it cheaper than, like, at that. But almost all the places that I've seen it, when I've gone to buy it, it's been like, oh, it's $80. Oh, it's $200. I'm like, oh, fuck me. No, no. I can't start eating, you know, butter that costs, you know, $80, like, you know, for just something that costs, like, $15 on the other one. It seems like, on a daily basis, it seems extravagant. Extravagant.
|
Sam:
[1:46:52]
| Right. Yeah. I mean, I can see splurging every once in a while as a treat, but that's different than making this your everyday butter.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:59]
| Yeah. No, it's just, it's too much.
|
Sam:
[1:47:03]
| Okay. One last thing. I'm going to do my Robin letter promo again. Just as stats for everybody, we're up to 37 users at the moment who have made, where's my number here? 47 updates so far between those 37 users across seven Robins. By the way, as you mentioned on the Slack.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:30]
| My thing about creating a pitch deck to sell it was only half in jest. It's not completely. I did it first kind of like jokingly, but I realized later, maybe this isn't a complete joke. After I started putting everything together. So we do need to discuss this at some point. Maybe not as much money as I put it there, but then I thought about it.
|
Sam:
[1:47:55]
| Yvonne's joking about getting us $50 million in funding for this thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:59]
| But here's the thing, Sam. Look at all the stupid shit that's gotten a lot more money than this. And it's a lot dumber. And more expensive.
|
Sam:
[1:48:09]
| Yeah yeah yeah i mean and you know as i've as i said on the curmudgeon's course slack about no i didn't say it on the sock i said it in one of the robins ah yes you know there there are potential issues with venture funding and how it matches and expectations and maybe there are ways to get money organically but i don't know i don't know i'm i'm willing to talk i'm willing to talk if if anybody wants to like buy me out for a few million dollars i'd have to at least think about it, you know, but anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:48:42]
| Anyway, it's actually a lot of fun and people have been, it varies Robin to Robin. Like I have one that I tried to start up for like people I knew from the Seattle area that's starting very, very slowly. Only a couple of people have accepted their invitations, even after I solicited and said, would you be willing to do this? And they said, yeah, sign me up. And then they haven't actually followed up. So that, that one's going really slowly, but like my, the one for the curmudgeons corner Slack has with a bunch of people who are on our Slack, people have been giving like heartfelt updates about their lives. And for the ones that I've started with my cousins on the two sides of my family, I've, they're real updates from people where they've written about what's going on with them and their kids and stuff. And so it's, it's actually pretty. doing its intended purpose, you know, but it's still all people I know. So we need to get past that. And I need to build out a couple more features before it's like really fully baked. I would say like it's got most of the key functionality, but like, I know there's some things missing. You need to be able to upload pictures. People want to do that. You need to be able to comment on posts when it's not your turn. The more I've actually played with this, the more I've wanted to do that myself. So, you know, I've got a few, I've got work to do.
|
Sam:
[1:50:05]
| But, but yeah, I don't know. We'll, we'll, we'll talk, Yvonne. We'll talk, Yvonne. Maybe we can do something. But anyway, my point was.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:14]
| My whole thing is, look, why not take a stab at it? You have a product. I, I, I, I think there's some potential. Okay. So I think we need to seriously discuss.
|
Sam:
[1:50:23]
| Okay. Like we, we said we were going to talk last week and then we didn't. We'll, we'll, we'll make sure it happens.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:28]
| Almost getting killed and shit. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:50:31]
| You know, well, it was also me. Like I, I, I said, let's talk about it tomorrow.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:37]
| I'm sure it's on your task list. So it will at some point. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:50:41]
| Like at some point I'll, I'll randomly pick, talk to Yvonne and then I'll text you and you'll, you will have gotten run over by a motorcycle and you won't be available. So that could be, you know, anyway, Anyway, my point was, I got 37 users now. I want more. So if you are listening to this and you have not yet been invited and actually joined one of these Robins. Oh, and by the way, I have, there are still how many people who have not accepted? I still have 20 open invites from invites that have gone out, but the people haven't accepted yet, in addition to the 37 that are already online. so if you are interested at all willing at all even if you're not super interested if you're willing to give it a shot contact me feedback at robinletter.com and i'll get you an invite anyway and then you can go from there that's it that's it i am done for real now thanks everybody for joining us yet again and after yvonne talked about all that bread i think i need to go find some breakfast soon i'm hungry i'm all i'm also tired because i mentioned i woke up just before the show, but I'd only been asleep like two and a half hours at that point. Cause I, I, I, I was, I was doing some stuff like we.
|
Sam:
[1:52:03]
| I don't want to get into the whole story, but we replaced our projector that we use in our living room. The old one died, got a new one. I installed it, mounted it on the ceiling. Alex helped me mount it at first, but we had some problems. So, like, at, like, one in the morning, I realized I had to fix some shit because the way we'd done it the first time was not going to stay. Okay?
|
Ivan:
[1:52:24]
| It's kind of like the fucking scale that, you know, you guys are not experts at hanging anything on the fucking ceiling is what I'm realizing.
|
Sam:
[1:52:34]
| We haven't told that story on the thing. My son bought a hanging scale to weigh the dog and mounted it from the ceiling and stuff like that. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:43]
| And apparently on the first attempt, apparently, you know, I'm like, I went, I stupidly asked what he said. Oh, wow. He found the stud on the first try. That's amazing. And then Sam was like, oh, no, he actually didn't. And it came crashing down. Oh, of course.
|
Sam:
[1:52:57]
| He found it on the second try.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:59]
| Of course.
|
Sam:
[1:53:01]
| I asked him when I first came upstairs, I'm like, you remember to put that in a stud, right? And he's like, stud?
|
Ivan:
[1:53:07]
| He's like, stud?
|
Sam:
[1:53:10]
| And then so he tried it and it, of course, came out. Like, it wasn't like a big crash and burn type thing, but it came out.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:16]
| It was just, yeah, well, it just slid out. Yeah. Well, thank God it wasn't more damaged. Yeah. Okay, good.
|
Sam:
[1:53:22]
| Yeah. And so he put it back up and he did it the right way. And then when we mounted the projector, it was in fact a similar issue.
|
Sam:
[1:53:31]
| And then I, like 1.30 in the morning, I'm like, okay, we're going to fix this. And he was tired. He fell asleep. But I kept working on it. I remounted everything properly. I had to readjust how some of the wiring was because it wasn't exactly in the same position as the old one. And there was one screw that in the mounting hardware that got broken in the process. And I had to figure out a way to make it all work anyway. Anyway, and by the way, while all this was going on, we were going to war. And so even once I got it all mounted, even once it got all mounted, I turned on my four up news channels and sat there watching news for a couple more hours. And yeah, so I've had less than three hours sleep. So I have competing impulses in me right now. I am hungry and I am tired. And Alex is still asleep. So the question is, do I get food or do I take a nap or do I actually try to do something productive or some combination of the three? Like I could drive somewhere to get food and on the way sleep in the car and then shove food into my mouth while I'm asleep as well and choke on it. Does that sound like a plan?
|
Ivan:
[1:54:58]
| Perfect.
|
Sam:
[1:55:00]
| And I've got Robin Letter work to do. I rolled Robin Letter, more stuff on Robin Letter. I'm fixing some bugs right now. I have a list of bugs and things to look at before I go adding new features. So I got to do that too. And other stuff that needs to be done. So anyway, I was saying goodbye. Bye. Goodbye, everybody. Have a great week. Stay safe. Have fun. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we'll talk again next week. Goodbye. Bye. Okay. That's it. Hit and stop, Ivan. Have a good rest of your weekend.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:05]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:56:06]
| Bye.
| |
|
