WEBVTT 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:04.290 So I should warn you, I do have a cold, so I sound a little nasal and I've got 00:00:04.290 --> 00:00:06.770 this kind of Barry White voice thing going on. 00:00:06.910 --> 00:00:08.770 That's okay. Everybody will just think you're cool. 00:00:09.030 --> 00:00:16.390 Yeah. Something like that. Let me get the notes up here for show topics. 00:00:17.150 --> 00:00:21.990 Yeah. So I figure like we can do our two movies in the first segment. 00:00:22.370 --> 00:00:26.730 And then, like I said, I'll pretty much leave the rest of the agenda up to you. 00:00:26.730 --> 00:00:31.570 There's no, like, I know you want to avoid politics and there's nothing big this week anyway. 00:00:31.750 --> 00:00:34.550 Like there's nothing that I feel like super pressing about. 00:00:34.930 --> 00:00:40.330 So like pick what you want. Like the, you know, you can talk about your Shangri-La 00:00:40.330 --> 00:00:43.250 thing in Japan or whatever else you feel like. 00:00:43.390 --> 00:00:48.830 And you know, I, I haven't, I don't know what I'll know about those things, 00:00:48.910 --> 00:00:50.750 but I'll add what I can and we can chat. 00:00:50.910 --> 00:00:55.210 And that's the story of how Sam lost all his, all his listeners. 00:00:57.310 --> 00:01:02.350 Let's talk about video games, Sam. It'll be great. We'll talk about obsolete computer RPGs. 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:08.930 Okay, cool. Yeah. So, okay. Ready to start? Here we go. 00:01:09.990 --> 00:01:10.890 Here we go. 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:35.160 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, June 8th, 2024. 00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:38.200 It's just before 1930, UTC. 00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:43.200 And this is Sam Minter. And for the second week in a row, Yvonne Bowe is not 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:46.740 available to join us today. Last time he was in Guatemala. 00:01:47.100 --> 00:01:52.520 I'm not sure exactly what he was doing this weekend, but I saw some pictures 00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:55.380 from Disney on Facebook. So he might be at Disney yet again. 00:01:55.980 --> 00:02:02.140 So we have as a volunteer for a co-host this time, someone who is joining us for the first time. 00:02:02.220 --> 00:02:05.120 We've mentioned him on the show a couple of times because he's been contributing 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:09.100 on our Commodions Corner Slack for a while, but it's Pete. Hi, Pete. 00:02:09.600 --> 00:02:11.020 Hey, how are you doing, Sam? 00:02:11.300 --> 00:02:15.660 I'm doing great. And before we get started and talk about the agenda and actually 00:02:15.660 --> 00:02:20.160 dive into things, you want to give a quick introduction on who you are, 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:22.920 whatever you're comfortable with would say? 00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:30.120 Sure thing. I go by Peter B online. You could find me on Mastodon under that 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:34.680 name, Peter B at Mastodon.xyz. 00:02:34.940 --> 00:02:43.280 I have an old blog from back in 2004 called Tea Leaves, T-L-E-A-V-E-S.com that 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:47.420 I no longer write for because who writes blogs anymore? 00:02:47.540 --> 00:02:50.980 Instead, I have a YouTube channel called Tea Leaves Programming. 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:55.720 And it is partially about programming, partly about double entry accounting, 00:02:55.880 --> 00:03:00.320 and partly about old obsolete computers and video games. 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:05.200 And I have a cold today, so I do apologize if my voice is a little scratchy. 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:08.190 Yeah. It just makes you sound authoritative. 00:03:09.130 --> 00:03:13.710 I kind of like it. I might have to maintain this cold for, you know, my own recordings. 00:03:14.410 --> 00:03:18.130 Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I looking at your YouTube channel, 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:22.050 your most recent series is on wizardry. It looks like, yeah. 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:22.630 Yeah. 00:03:23.390 --> 00:03:25.950 You know, I've never played that. I've never played that game. 00:03:26.210 --> 00:03:27.310 You've never played it. 00:03:27.370 --> 00:03:31.170 I watched, I watched a few minutes of your videos, so I have an idea of what 00:03:31.170 --> 00:03:34.250 it is, but I never played it when it was, I've never played it. 00:03:34.250 --> 00:03:39.150 I mean, speaking honestly, my videos are probably intolerable unless you're 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:43.690 a certain type of nerd, but for me, it's largely an exercise in nostalgia. 00:03:43.950 --> 00:03:48.950 And so I'm kind of playing these games and messing with these computers that 00:03:48.950 --> 00:03:51.770 I used when I was, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old. 00:03:51.870 --> 00:03:54.950 And wizardry, of course, was very formative for me as a game. 00:03:55.070 --> 00:03:58.670 And so that's why I'm doing a series. And this particular wizardry that I'm 00:03:58.670 --> 00:04:02.770 doing right now is actually a distiff branch. 00:04:03.150 --> 00:04:07.350 So wizardry was somewhat popular in the US and then kind of faded out. 00:04:08.090 --> 00:04:13.890 It has always been incredibly popular in Japan and has never stopped being popular 00:04:13.890 --> 00:04:19.530 to the point where it's very influential on their anime, their manga, their TV shows. 00:04:19.530 --> 00:04:24.570 And so this is basically a Japanese wizardry game called The Five Ordeals that 00:04:24.570 --> 00:04:26.170 I'm playing a little bit of. 00:04:26.250 --> 00:04:30.610 But really, it's a very limited, it's a very niche audience, 00:04:30.710 --> 00:04:32.090 I would say, for my channel. 00:04:32.810 --> 00:04:38.130 Well, you had mentioned on Mastodon that, well, one of your previous series was on a fool's errand. 00:04:38.330 --> 00:04:43.890 And I never actually played a fool's errand, but I played the next game from that guy, 3-3. 00:04:44.710 --> 00:04:49.310 3-3 Classic. You had mentioned online that you were going to do 3-3. 00:04:49.530 --> 00:04:51.530 So I am waiting for your three and three series. 00:04:52.110 --> 00:04:56.270 Yeah, man, we could, we could talk. You were like right before the show began, 00:04:56.450 --> 00:04:59.270 you and I were kibitzing and you're like, well, what do you want to talk about? 00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:03.090 You were just waving the red flag in front of the bull. Cause I could talk about 00:05:03.090 --> 00:05:04.950 three and three for an hour. 00:05:04.970 --> 00:05:09.310 And my, my fear, I'll just, I'll say you can cut this out if it's boring. 00:05:09.910 --> 00:05:17.230 This is a, this is an old Mac game by the way, from like, you know, back in 1993, 94. 00:05:17.430 --> 00:05:18.790 Something like that is. 00:05:18.790 --> 00:05:23.570 Somewhere around there. And I remember like there, there is a series on, 00:05:23.670 --> 00:05:28.290 on my YouTube channel first that my son and I started on three and three. 00:05:28.430 --> 00:05:29.770 I watched some of it. 00:05:29.770 --> 00:05:34.850 And, you know, we, we, it was, it was full of like technical glitches. 00:05:34.850 --> 00:05:38.910 At one point we recorded the wrong window at one point. 00:05:39.150 --> 00:05:43.450 Like I didn't realize I had it on record the window mode, but didn't realize 00:05:43.450 --> 00:05:46.070 it was actually just locking onto a segment of the screen. 00:05:46.210 --> 00:05:53.210 So I moved the window there. And at the time I remember, and you're like, you can cut this out. 00:05:53.250 --> 00:05:56.450 Forget that way. People listen or not, you know, but like the, 00:05:56.510 --> 00:06:03.590 at one point we couldn't get the old Mac emulator we worked to save properly. 00:06:03.930 --> 00:06:08.870 Like it wouldn't save the game. And like 3 and 3 is the kind of game you don't do in one sitting. 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:14.150 And so it was really frustrating because we started it a couple of times and 00:06:14.150 --> 00:06:17.370 kept having to start over from the beginning and we're like, that's no good. 00:06:18.410 --> 00:06:19.590 And ended up, 00:06:20.290 --> 00:06:24.590 Yeah, we actually emailed the author of the game, and he wasn't sure. 00:06:25.410 --> 00:06:31.950 Eventually, I figured out on my own, there was a bug in the version of the emulator 00:06:31.950 --> 00:06:35.470 we were using, and there was an update that fixed it. Excellent. 00:06:35.770 --> 00:06:40.390 The problem was actually that what we had downloaded was a version of 3 and 00:06:40.390 --> 00:06:43.350 3 that bundled the emulator as well. 00:06:43.610 --> 00:06:47.350 And the bundled emulator was broken. 00:06:47.350 --> 00:06:51.890 Broken so we downloaded the emulator separately and then loaded the game into 00:06:51.890 --> 00:06:55.430 the emulator with the current version of the emulator and then everything worked 00:06:55.430 --> 00:06:59.650 and we we told the we told the developer about this and that he might want to 00:06:59.650 --> 00:07:02.970 change it on his website i don't know if he ever did or not he was very nice no. 00:07:02.970 --> 00:07:08.890 I don't think so i think these he's made so little money from these over the years i think. 00:07:08.890 --> 00:07:10.110 It's not worth the time aside. 00:07:10.110 --> 00:07:17.690 I i would love to do three and three as a as a let's play the problem with it if you remember the game. 00:07:17.690 --> 00:07:24.130 It's a it's it's a puzzle game and it's a lengthy puzzle game and length. 00:07:24.130 --> 00:07:29.750 Is really the problem in that he repeats the same puzzles again and again and 00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:34.270 some of them kind of in my personal opinion overstay their welcome. 00:07:34.270 --> 00:07:35.010 And so. 00:07:35.010 --> 00:07:40.450 Even though my audience is very niche i do like to have this idea that the video 00:07:40.450 --> 00:07:44.290 has to be interesting in some abstract sense right. 00:07:44.290 --> 00:07:44.930 Right like. 00:07:44.930 --> 00:07:50.010 I would have to want to watch it and i'm not sure i would want to watch me playing three. 00:07:50.010 --> 00:07:55.110 Well and the two things on this are well and when when we replayed it with my 00:07:55.110 --> 00:07:59.470 son like one of the problems was i started this game in college and i got like 00:07:59.470 --> 00:08:07.410 to the 99 level i think there was one or two puzzles left and i got stuck on one Oh yeah. 00:08:08.110 --> 00:08:13.950 And I never solved that puzzle from like 20 plus years ago, 30 years ago. 00:08:14.610 --> 00:08:18.470 This is before walkthroughs, before game facts. Yeah. 00:08:18.530 --> 00:08:23.390 You couldn't just look it up online and find the answer. And I wouldn't have wanted to anyway. 00:08:23.550 --> 00:08:27.190 I kind of wanted to solve the puzzle, but at a certain point you get so frustrated. 00:08:27.310 --> 00:08:30.870 You're like, I've tried everything I can think of. I don't know how to do this. 00:08:30.930 --> 00:08:35.030 So I was actually looking forward to doing it with my son to like get through 00:08:35.030 --> 00:08:36.550 it. But we, we didn't get that far. 00:08:36.650 --> 00:08:39.770 We didn't get anywhere near the part where I got stuck in college. 00:08:39.770 --> 00:08:45.370 And so like at some point i want to resume but i i what one of the reasons i 00:08:45.370 --> 00:08:48.610 would be interested if you did ever play this and maybe you edited and cut out 00:08:48.610 --> 00:08:53.050 some of the boring parts i don't know there are a couple of puzzles where i 00:08:53.050 --> 00:08:56.370 never actually figured them out i. 00:08:56.370 --> 00:08:57.390 Got i gotcha. 00:08:57.390 --> 00:09:03.590 I got past them by just clicking until i clicked a bunch until eventually you 00:09:03.590 --> 00:09:07.670 get out there yeah i'm talking there's ones where you change the level of little 00:09:07.670 --> 00:09:09.430 platforms that you have to jump across. 00:09:09.750 --> 00:09:13.710 And I'm sure there is an actual pattern, but on a whole bunch of them, 00:09:13.730 --> 00:09:16.930 I never figured it out. I just kept clicking until I won, you know? 00:09:17.150 --> 00:09:21.210 And, and then of course, I'd love to see you get past the part where I was stuck. 00:09:21.310 --> 00:09:25.110 But anyway, it's fun, you know, and this is the thing and you know, 00:09:25.130 --> 00:09:28.730 yes, old video games is one of our butt firsts. Here we go. 00:09:29.570 --> 00:09:35.030 You know, I, a lot of these classics from when we were young, 00:09:35.170 --> 00:09:38.630 like some of them don't hold up at all, but some of them do. 00:09:39.190 --> 00:09:45.050 And there's some that are exceptionally simple, but are still fun to play. 00:09:45.870 --> 00:09:52.010 I mean, I'm even remembering, like, there was an old CPM game that I played 00:09:52.010 --> 00:09:55.230 on a computer, one of my dad's computers, 00:09:55.570 --> 00:10:01.230 a K-Pro2, which was, you know, a class of computer that doesn't exist anymore. It's a luggable. 00:10:01.630 --> 00:10:06.210 It's basically, it's intended as a portable computer, but the damn thing weighs like 30 pounds. 00:10:06.410 --> 00:10:06.630 Right. 00:10:06.750 --> 00:10:12.090 So, you know, but, you know, I remember the game to this day, 00:10:12.130 --> 00:10:15.450 and I think I found it emulated online somewhere, but I haven't played it. 00:10:15.450 --> 00:10:18.630 Well what was it like what what was that game oh it it's 00:10:18.630 --> 00:10:21.590 basically it's a platformer basically 00:10:21.590 --> 00:10:25.190 but it's all text-based like because that well 00:10:25.190 --> 00:10:28.290 and by text-based i mean like there were no like graphic 00:10:28.290 --> 00:10:32.930 elements so your character was an at sign who ran around and jumped and stuff 00:10:32.930 --> 00:10:38.150 like that but basically it was you know each each level was a screen where you 00:10:38.150 --> 00:10:41.110 started at the bottom left-hand corner and had to make your way to the upper 00:10:41.110 --> 00:10:45.110 right-hand corner and you jump over things and And things are coming at your 00:10:45.110 --> 00:10:48.130 way and things try to kill you and you get from one side to the other. 00:10:48.610 --> 00:10:53.410 And, you know, it was fun. And I got, I forget when I was a kid how far I got. 00:10:53.590 --> 00:10:59.290 But, I mean, it's one of those, like, I have memories of it however many decades later. 00:10:59.730 --> 00:11:02.570 And I'm like, that would be fun to play again, you know? 00:11:03.370 --> 00:11:07.170 And some of these, like, you think about that, but a lot of it is nostalgia. 00:11:07.370 --> 00:11:10.410 And I know from the kind of things you do on your channel, sometimes, 00:11:10.510 --> 00:11:12.350 like, if you actually go back and play it, 00:11:12.390 --> 00:11:15.090 you're like, like wow this is kind of disappointing i have 00:11:15.090 --> 00:11:18.190 these fond memories of it but now that 00:11:18.190 --> 00:11:21.310 i actually go back to it it's not that great 00:11:21.310 --> 00:11:26.350 it just was in comparison i guess to everything else that was available i don't 00:11:26.350 --> 00:11:32.550 know but i don't know it's fun stuff like and i presume like people will have 00:11:32.550 --> 00:11:39.690 the same kind of feelings about certain games that are brand new today like 30 years from now wow. 00:11:39.690 --> 00:11:44.070 Whatever you play when you're 11 years old is like the thing you feel nostalgic 00:11:44.070 --> 00:11:48.850 for right or whatever music you listen to at that age whatever books you read. 00:11:48.850 --> 00:11:52.590 Oh absolutely it it's like yeah 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:59.830 basically from age 10 11 through to the end of your teen years that's the stuff 00:11:59.830 --> 00:12:04.970 that sort of gets stuck in your head as like this is the good stuff this is 00:12:04.970 --> 00:12:09.750 the nostalgic stuff and And people go back to it. And so, yeah, I mean... 00:12:11.230 --> 00:12:14.090 Minecraft's is like what 15 years old now 00:12:14.090 --> 00:12:17.150 something like that and you know they're 00:12:17.150 --> 00:12:22.670 going to be people like in 20 30 years going back to sort of classic versions 00:12:22.670 --> 00:12:27.930 of minecraft absolutely not even whatever is the current version then because 00:12:27.930 --> 00:12:32.110 it'll probably still come around in some way shape or form but like going back 00:12:32.110 --> 00:12:36.630 to like oh let's go back to the original right right before they added all this 00:12:36.670 --> 00:12:39.250 other crap you know i think that's true i. 00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:40.350 Think that's true. 00:12:40.350 --> 00:12:45.630 Yeah and and people like you know the music from the stupid game will come up 00:12:45.630 --> 00:12:49.210 like in a club or something and people will go wild so. 00:12:49.210 --> 00:12:56.310 I mean this actually connects to a very human behavior that i see play out in 00:12:56.310 --> 00:13:03.550 politics i see play out in religion i see play out in culture which is we have this myth 00:13:03.810 --> 00:13:09.570 the idea and the one sentence description would be things were better when i was a kid. 00:13:11.050 --> 00:13:18.010 And i and i and i've i've seen memes where people like pull out like quotes 00:13:18.010 --> 00:13:24.310 from writings saying people things were better when i was a kid and all all 00:13:24.310 --> 00:13:28.370 the young people are foolish and don't know what they're doing and. 00:13:28.370 --> 00:13:29.450 It's from like ancient rome. 00:13:29.450 --> 00:13:35.970 Yes going back literally as far back as the ancient Greeks and probably even further. 00:13:36.190 --> 00:13:40.430 And every hundred years since then, it's a recurring theme in human history. 00:13:40.830 --> 00:13:44.290 Nobody, nobody ever likes what the kids these days are doing. 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:47.470 That's right. The you kids with your loud rock and roll music. 00:13:47.630 --> 00:13:53.470 So, so I try to be aware of this. I don't feel that things were better politically. 00:13:53.710 --> 00:13:57.250 You, you, there's no amount of money you could give me to say like, 00:13:57.290 --> 00:14:01.490 would you go back before antibiotics were invented and, and live a life then 00:14:01.490 --> 00:14:03.610 in a mansion? Like, absolutely not. 00:14:04.010 --> 00:14:08.470 Right. But I do have this affinity for these games. 00:14:08.730 --> 00:14:12.230 And I just try and repeat to myself, I just try and be conscious that like, 00:14:12.270 --> 00:14:14.530 this is a thing that I like, right? 00:14:15.170 --> 00:14:17.750 Because of my personal damage, because of my personal history, 00:14:17.910 --> 00:14:21.790 but that doesn't mean it's better in any kind of objective sense. 00:14:21.990 --> 00:14:23.610 It's not that the games today are 00:14:23.610 --> 00:14:27.510 worse. It's just, this is what I was imprinted on like a baby duckling. 00:14:27.930 --> 00:14:31.730 Yeah. And they're different. And that's another thing that like, 00:14:31.770 --> 00:14:34.330 like you said, recurring theme, 00:14:34.470 --> 00:14:40.630 I get irritated all the time at these sort of moral panics about what the kids 00:14:40.630 --> 00:14:43.610 are doing, including things like screen time and all this kind of stuff. 00:14:43.610 --> 00:14:47.690 Stuff and you know and they're like well we've had all these studies that show 00:14:47.690 --> 00:14:51.010 that it does affect your brain and there's this and this and this that are different 00:14:51.010 --> 00:14:53.850 and i'm like okay different. 00:14:54.690 --> 00:15:01.170 But you're implying it's bad show me that it's bad that that's that's different 00:15:01.170 --> 00:15:05.930 and like this and and sometimes for some new things i'm sure you can find data 00:15:05.930 --> 00:15:09.310 that actually shows things are objectively worse in some way, 00:15:09.370 --> 00:15:17.810 but almost always these things just point out a difference without pointing out actual harm. 00:15:18.050 --> 00:15:22.310 And I'm like, okay, yeah. Okay. Maybe, maybe attention spans are shorter. 00:15:22.770 --> 00:15:26.910 Is that really bad? It sounds like a good adaptation to modern society to me, 00:15:27.010 --> 00:15:28.050 you know, things like that. 00:15:28.310 --> 00:15:32.970 And I don't know, it's just like the automatic assumption that if things are 00:15:32.970 --> 00:15:36.590 different than what they were 20, 30 years ago, that's bad. 00:15:36.750 --> 00:15:41.610 It seems to be sort of built in to so much of this conversation. 00:15:42.010 --> 00:15:47.510 And I think you just need to separate difference from harm because they're not 00:15:47.510 --> 00:15:49.550 the same. Sometimes they are aligned. 00:15:49.830 --> 00:15:54.750 I think there is evidence that people talk about the effect of social media 00:15:54.750 --> 00:15:59.410 on teens and people being like their mental health is being... 00:16:00.310 --> 00:16:06.810 Degraded by people, you know, having unrealistic expectations of like body image 00:16:06.810 --> 00:16:07.970 and all these kinds of things. Okay. 00:16:08.010 --> 00:16:12.910 That might be real harm, but you got to separate these two things, difference from harm. 00:16:13.030 --> 00:16:16.390 And I think oftentimes people just assume different as bad. 00:16:16.570 --> 00:16:22.390 Well, I won't try to out your age, but surely, surely you are just barely old 00:16:22.390 --> 00:16:28.290 enough to remember the experience of needing to write a book report in junior high or middle school. 00:16:28.430 --> 00:16:31.330 And the way you did it was, you know, you'd go to the library, 00:16:31.590 --> 00:16:37.970 you would maybe look through the card catalog or maybe browse the shelves and 00:16:37.970 --> 00:16:43.330 whatever you happen to find, that's, that's the sources you're using. And that's it. 00:16:43.690 --> 00:16:48.090 And I compare that to what people today have available. 00:16:48.250 --> 00:16:52.210 You know, anyone could sit down in Google and type a question and then the brave, 00:16:52.210 --> 00:16:56.790 brave new AI future, you know, maybe they They can type a question and get a 00:16:56.790 --> 00:17:00.510 three-paragraph wrong answer about it rather than just a bunch of links. 00:17:00.810 --> 00:17:05.910 That experience is very different. And I think your point that you can't really 00:17:05.910 --> 00:17:08.690 be sure a priori whether it's better or worse. 00:17:09.210 --> 00:17:13.910 But you can be sure that it's different. The amount of data is different. 00:17:14.050 --> 00:17:17.890 And I got in an argument with a relative of mine about this very topic where 00:17:17.890 --> 00:17:22.690 they were very much, how can you not go to the library and browse and, 00:17:22.690 --> 00:17:24.450 you know, kind of go deeply. 00:17:24.450 --> 00:17:34.130 And, and my reaction is that searching is an adaptation to the volume of information 00:17:34.130 --> 00:17:38.130 being beyond what you could read in your lifetime. 00:17:38.250 --> 00:17:42.750 If, if you or I were locked in our local, I don't know where you grew up, 00:17:42.790 --> 00:17:46.570 but if you were locked in your local library, assuming it wasn't like New York 00:17:46.570 --> 00:17:51.090 city, you could imagine the sci-fi premise that you would read every book in 00:17:51.090 --> 00:17:52.970 that library. might take you. 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:53.550 A long time. 00:17:53.550 --> 00:17:55.590 But it you could have done it. 00:17:55.590 --> 00:17:57.950 For a small library anyway yeah for. 00:17:57.950 --> 00:18:02.670 A small library that's what i mean but on the internet not possible and it would never be possible. 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:05.990 No not even close not even and 00:18:05.990 --> 00:18:14.690 yeah there are a lot of things that are just yeah it's different it's not necessarily 00:18:14.690 --> 00:18:20.590 good or bad you you have to you can't just assume that oh we we found a difference 00:18:20.590 --> 00:18:22.690 in like how people react or, 00:18:22.710 --> 00:18:29.290 you know, even in things like grades or how people respond in school or, 00:18:29.310 --> 00:18:35.070 you know, one of the examples I've used on this show before is people saying that, you know, the, 00:18:35.230 --> 00:18:39.330 the YouTube generation attention span is less. 00:18:39.350 --> 00:18:44.870 And so they're, they're having a hard time learning by sitting in a classroom, 00:18:45.010 --> 00:18:46.810 listening to a lecture for an hour. 00:18:47.630 --> 00:18:51.850 And I'm like, well, because they've learned there's something better. 00:18:52.170 --> 00:18:52.730 Yeah. 00:18:52.830 --> 00:19:00.370 Like they can do, they have access anytime they want to more engaging, 00:19:00.530 --> 00:19:05.550 more directed, more whatever than that method of learning. 00:19:05.750 --> 00:19:11.010 So the response to that isn't, oh, there's a problem with our kids because they're bored at lecture. 00:19:11.350 --> 00:19:16.310 The problem is, okay, if you want to teach them, you need to figure out a way 00:19:16.310 --> 00:19:19.710 to do better. you need to figure out where you can actually compete with the 00:19:19.710 --> 00:19:22.250 other ways of learning that are now available also. 00:19:22.250 --> 00:19:25.030 We were bored at lectures 40 years ago also. 00:19:25.030 --> 00:19:28.130 Yeah we just didn't have a choice that's 00:19:28.130 --> 00:19:30.950 right you know but now you do i mean 00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:33.690 one of the things that you know we've had 00:19:33.690 --> 00:19:38.010 a whole series of problems with getting my kid to school the last few months 00:19:38.010 --> 00:19:42.630 because and if there are a number of issues involved in there but one of them 00:19:42.630 --> 00:19:48.970 is that for years now he has been trying to convince us that school is absolutely 00:19:48.970 --> 00:19:51.330 useless for him, you know, because, 00:19:51.430 --> 00:19:58.730 and he will give us like chat GPT generated essays arguing this point, 00:19:58.830 --> 00:20:03.430 but the, 00:20:03.610 --> 00:20:06.550 basically his arguments are around, 00:20:06.750 --> 00:20:13.770 look, I, anything I want to learn, I can find it and I can find it in a way 00:20:13.770 --> 00:20:15.870 that's It's accessible to me and I can learn it. 00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:21.470 And I, and he proves it all the time, learning things and moving forward on 00:20:21.470 --> 00:20:26.470 his personal projects, like well beyond any level of knowledge I have that he's 00:20:26.470 --> 00:20:29.370 found on his own using internet resources. 00:20:30.350 --> 00:20:35.910 And, and in, in some cases now, like using things like chat GPT to help them 00:20:35.910 --> 00:20:38.510 along the line, but he's, he's clearly learning the stuff. 00:20:38.570 --> 00:20:41.210 He's not just copying and pasting out of chat GPT. 00:20:41.290 --> 00:20:45.410 He's using it as a tool. and he's using other internet resources as a tool. 00:20:45.530 --> 00:20:49.170 He finds stuff he needs everywhere. 00:20:49.370 --> 00:20:53.330 Reddit, everywhere on the internet. It's a wide, wide open thing. 00:20:53.450 --> 00:20:58.570 Now, of course, is he learning the things that they want him to learn in school? Maybe, maybe not. 00:20:59.250 --> 00:21:05.710 But he's diving down and doing self-directed learning. Now, this is not going to work for all kids. 00:21:07.030 --> 00:21:12.390 There are kids who, given that choice, would sit down in front of the TV and never learn anything. 00:21:12.710 --> 00:21:16.590 I think you're kind of backing into this topic that I've been reading about 00:21:16.590 --> 00:21:19.330 lately of unschooling, right? 00:21:19.410 --> 00:21:24.290 I've been looking at that too because I'm like, you know, like –, 00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:28.100 literally like we should explain what we should. 00:21:28.100 --> 00:21:30.040 Explain what unschooling is if you're gonna. 00:21:30.040 --> 00:21:34.500 Talk about it yeah sure we might as well and maybe we skip the movies i don't 00:21:34.500 --> 00:21:38.840 know we've got some good topics going on but uh like let me just say like as 00:21:38.840 --> 00:21:45.980 as background my son is finally like he is now bigger than i am and he is no 00:21:45.980 --> 00:21:49.860 longer at the point and he has realized this where 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:53.520 we cannot get him to go somewhere without his 00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:56.240 cooperation right and he has 00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:59.680 basically for the last two months decided he 00:21:59.680 --> 00:22:03.680 is done with school period right like to 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:08.840 the point like we just found out the other day school has officially unenrolled 00:22:08.840 --> 00:22:16.040 him because he hasn't been there in long enough wow because we spent we were 00:22:16.040 --> 00:22:19.800 for a while going to the point where we were spending multiple hours every morning 00:22:19.800 --> 00:22:23.360 trying to get him to school. And every once in a while we would get him in. 00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:31.500 But then once he fully realized, yeah, I, if I just don't get up and don't move, 00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:37.060 they can't like when he was little, you just pick him up and put them in the car and go pick him up. 00:22:37.140 --> 00:22:37.340 Yeah. 00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:40.780 But when he's big, like you can't do that anymore. 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:45.120 And so he's sort of realized that and has been vetoing. And now we've got meetings 00:22:45.120 --> 00:22:48.720 with the school to try to figure out what the hell to do for For next year and blah, blah, blah. 00:22:49.520 --> 00:22:54.240 And, you know, cause looking for alternatives that, that are legal. 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:59.220 Cause he can't officially, like he could probably take, take the GED like tomorrow 00:22:59.220 --> 00:23:03.760 and pass it to be honest, but he's not allowed to till he's 16. 00:23:04.500 --> 00:23:08.000 You know and so we we 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.740 have no idea what the hell we're doing we're trying to figure that out now 00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:13.780 trying to get because like he's also like i've mentioned 00:23:13.780 --> 00:23:16.900 on the show before he he's autistic as i 00:23:16.900 --> 00:23:25.780 probably am too and he's got a fairly severe social anxiety issues and so a 00:23:25.780 --> 00:23:31.880 big part of this is he hates and is very uncomfortable with the actual prospect 00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:35.360 of going into a big crowded school with lots of kids. Right. 00:23:35.660 --> 00:23:39.380 You know? And so we're trying to look at, do we have solutions where we can 00:23:39.380 --> 00:23:44.560 get them into some sort of more smaller group settings or something or, 00:23:44.600 --> 00:23:47.120 and like we've tried online stuff, 00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:53.320 but he hasn't participated generally with online stuff because he's almost entirely 00:23:53.320 --> 00:23:54.560 nonverbal at this point. 00:23:54.580 --> 00:23:57.400 He used to be very chattery at home. You've heard him on the podcast. 00:23:58.080 --> 00:24:01.080 It's been a year since he's spoken to anybody at this point. 00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:01.360 Wow. 00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:07.400 But you know, So we're trying to figure all this out, but one of the things, 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:08.960 to get back to what you suggested, 00:24:09.100 --> 00:24:12.620 that I've looked at is there is this unschooling movement, 00:24:12.740 --> 00:24:17.420 which is basically, to describe it at a very high level, and maybe you know 00:24:17.420 --> 00:24:21.700 more because I've only skimmed the surface looking at this, it's basically a 00:24:21.700 --> 00:24:27.340 variant of homeschooling where you also essentially throw the curriculum out the window. 00:24:27.340 --> 00:24:32.740 Cause normal, normal homeschooling is okay. You're going to work with the kid at home. 00:24:33.100 --> 00:24:36.820 You're going to be their primary teacher. Maybe you have some local resources 00:24:36.820 --> 00:24:41.800 where they meet up with other kids and you know, you co-op share with other 00:24:41.800 --> 00:24:44.600 parents so that you split the load, something like that. 00:24:45.100 --> 00:24:49.280 But basically you're doing the same curriculum they would do at a regular school. 00:24:49.360 --> 00:24:51.400 You're just doing it mostly from home. 00:24:52.580 --> 00:24:56.160 Um, unschooling says, yeah, that's nice. Yes. 00:24:56.570 --> 00:25:01.370 And we recognize maybe there are some required state tests that they have to take at some point. 00:25:01.430 --> 00:25:07.690 But basically, let the kid follow their interests and learn the things they 00:25:07.690 --> 00:25:14.150 want to learn and ignore the things they want to ignore and just let them do that. 00:25:14.350 --> 00:25:22.610 I think that's a fair description. And homeschooling can have more or less structure. 00:25:22.610 --> 00:25:29.630 Depending on how the – This is essentially a very extreme form of homeschooling 00:25:29.630 --> 00:25:32.670 that puts a lot of control for the kid. 00:25:32.870 --> 00:25:38.030 I mean, is it even homeschooling at that point? If you're not helping them decide 00:25:38.030 --> 00:25:42.530 what it is they should be learning, it's literally if the kid wants to learn geometry, 00:25:42.830 --> 00:25:48.670 wait for them to express an interest in geometry, and then they'll go figure it out. 00:25:48.790 --> 00:25:52.630 I mean, I'm very skeptical of this because have you met people? 00:25:52.630 --> 00:25:57.830 People, people are just like, if I was unschooled, I'd be, I'd be majoring in Atari. 00:25:58.170 --> 00:25:58.610 Right? 00:25:58.710 --> 00:26:01.390 Like that would be what I would do 24 hours a day. 00:26:01.710 --> 00:26:05.870 Oh, absolutely. And I think this is one of the main criticism of it. 00:26:05.950 --> 00:26:10.070 And I've like, there's one person on Tik TOK who like has been coming up on my feed. 00:26:10.130 --> 00:26:14.430 Who was unschooled as a kid and is now talking about it as an adult. 00:26:14.850 --> 00:26:19.950 And this is one of the main things. I think like the key to this is every kid is different. 00:26:20.580 --> 00:26:28.480 You know, and there are certainly kids that with that kind of structure would do absolutely nothing. 00:26:29.100 --> 00:26:34.200 There are other kids who would do exactly what you hope they would and like 00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.280 research a whole bunch of stuff and learn a bunch of. 00:26:37.320 --> 00:26:40.140 I don't believe that. I don't believe that even a little bit. 00:26:40.280 --> 00:26:45.800 But what I was going to say is almost the vast majority of people, 00:26:45.860 --> 00:26:48.260 this would not work for at all. 00:26:48.260 --> 00:26:51.420 Well then there's a group that would just deep dive 00:26:51.420 --> 00:26:54.800 into whatever their interest was 00:26:54.800 --> 00:26:59.980 and learn anything that's directly related to that and have huge gaps in their 00:26:59.980 --> 00:27:04.260 knowledge and i think that's where most if most people who even were able to 00:27:04.260 --> 00:27:09.440 succeed at this a little bit would still end up in that trap and like you said 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:12.840 maybe it doesn't exist at all i'm sort of acknowledging that maybe Maybe there's, 00:27:12.840 --> 00:27:17.520 you know, one in a hundred thousand who would actually like do something more general. 00:27:17.660 --> 00:27:21.340 But I think, I think you have to be specific though, right? 00:27:21.760 --> 00:27:25.640 Someone the age of your son, maybe that works. 00:27:25.820 --> 00:27:30.220 You've got someone who is, you know, 14, 15, they, they've kind of gone through 00:27:30.220 --> 00:27:31.880 the basic basics. It works. 00:27:32.120 --> 00:27:34.100 It's not going to work with a six year old. 00:27:34.540 --> 00:27:37.800 But when people are talking about unschooling, my impression, 00:27:37.860 --> 00:27:42.800 and I've not unschooled, I've not been unschooled. My impression is they're 00:27:42.800 --> 00:27:44.480 talking about like five-year-olds. 00:27:44.520 --> 00:27:45.340 Right? Yeah. 00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:50.140 And that is not going to work ever for anyone in the history of mankind. 00:27:50.700 --> 00:27:57.900 Yeah. Yeah. I see this concept working a lot better the older the kid is, to be honest. 00:27:58.020 --> 00:27:58.180 Sure. 00:27:58.320 --> 00:28:04.000 Absolutely. And even then, only for a very, very slim subset of kids. 00:28:04.120 --> 00:28:07.400 Like I don't – like I'm mentioning my kid. That's essentially what he's been 00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:11.420 doing lately. but I'm not sure it actually works for everything it needs to 00:28:11.420 --> 00:28:17.240 work because again, he's diving into very narrow areas where his interests take him. 00:28:17.520 --> 00:28:20.000 And part of the point of school is, 00:28:20.540 --> 00:28:27.480 is to give you a wide ranging, well-rounded background, even in the things you don't care about. 00:28:27.780 --> 00:28:33.480 And to force you to do, let's see, how much cursing do I want to roll out here? None. 00:28:34.080 --> 00:28:40.460 To force you to do the dumb things you don't want to do, like be able to have 00:28:40.460 --> 00:28:44.160 a conversation with another human being, which is gruesome. 00:28:44.220 --> 00:28:48.700 In junior high school, in high school, I was miserable all the time. 00:28:48.740 --> 00:28:55.140 You know, I, I, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but I kind of still had to do it. 00:28:55.160 --> 00:28:55.420 Yeah. 00:28:55.660 --> 00:29:00.080 Obviously there are exceptions and, and, and particularly amongst special needs kids. 00:29:00.140 --> 00:29:03.660 That's just not, that may not be in the cards or on the table at all, 00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:05.820 but for kind of the average kid, yeah. 00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:10.360 Learning, you know, what a deadline is. And then sometimes you have to finish 00:29:10.360 --> 00:29:12.720 something on time, even if you don't want to. 00:29:12.920 --> 00:29:16.560 Yeah. It's a, it's a very important point that applies both for, 00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:23.300 for primary school, but also for secondary and college is, yeah, 00:29:23.320 --> 00:29:27.020 it's not just about the academics. It's also about the life skills. 00:29:27.580 --> 00:29:31.380 And if you don't have that environment to learn them in, you're going to have 00:29:31.380 --> 00:29:33.060 to learn a lot of these skills somewhere else. 00:29:33.380 --> 00:29:37.220 You're going to have to learn at a certain point, self-sufficiency and being 00:29:37.220 --> 00:29:42.320 able to do the unpleasant tasks that you need to do, but don't want to do. 00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:47.240 And you're going to have to learn the interacting with people and And like you 00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:50.820 said, that this, this sort of social interactions and, you know, 00:29:50.820 --> 00:29:53.240 I, I, I still suck at this stuff. 00:29:53.280 --> 00:29:56.900 I definitely sucked in grade school and high school. Sure. 00:29:57.040 --> 00:30:00.820 You know, and you were pretty good by college though. I mean, I thought you were okay. 00:30:01.500 --> 00:30:04.440 I don't know. I was still pretty sucky in college. 00:30:04.600 --> 00:30:08.660 Like I was still very much like the only times I interacted with people in college, 00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:14.700 the only time I interact with people today is when I'm pulled into it by other people. 00:30:14.820 --> 00:30:18.800 I do not initiate that kind of stuff. If you left me to my own devices, 00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:22.400 I would stay at home and never interact with anybody ever again. 00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:24.300 Oh, it sounds so good. Doesn't it? 00:30:24.300 --> 00:30:28.920 That sounds so good. Love it. Yeah. 00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:31.620 Be the change you want to see in the world, Sam. 00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:35.460 Exactly. Like I've said before, I was thrilled during the pandemic. 00:30:35.580 --> 00:30:40.280 I got, I got to stay, stay at home and not have to interact with people. It was awesome. 00:30:40.360 --> 00:30:44.440 Like I know all kinds of people were like upset by that and felt like they were 00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:47.660 going stir crazy. And I was like, this is great. Yep. 00:30:49.360 --> 00:30:53.780 I would imagine that you're, you're, I know somewhere up in the Northern wilds 00:30:53.780 --> 00:30:58.740 of Washington. I mean, I have to imagine my prejudice is that that's got to 00:30:58.740 --> 00:31:00.500 be in a hotbed of unschooling. 00:31:00.760 --> 00:31:04.080 I don't know why I think that. Is that true? 00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:09.380 I don't know. It's, it's sort of, yeah, parts of the area are like hip. 00:31:09.480 --> 00:31:12.960 It's also a very hippie dippy kind of thing. And so you're likely to see it 00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:15.600 more in, in more liberal states. 00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:19.440 And I, Washington state's definitely got some of that, at least in Western Washington. 00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:23.760 Whereas you know in large parts of the country you talk homeschooling you're 00:31:23.760 --> 00:31:27.720 talking about christian nut jobs who just want to indoctrinate their kids with 00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:30.680 and that's a whole different kind of homeschooling you. 00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:32.840 Got to cross the border to idaho for that. 00:31:32.840 --> 00:31:38.200 Yeah but yeah i imagine there's some of that out there and honestly one of the 00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:43.440 things that we're looking into or we will be looking into for next year is you 00:31:43.440 --> 00:31:46.780 know do we have some yeah or is there some sort of, 00:31:47.840 --> 00:31:49.660 homeschooling group that we could join. 00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:52.260 Like we've always rejected homeschooling for two reasons. 00:31:52.620 --> 00:31:55.660 One, neither myself nor my wife have time. 00:31:55.980 --> 00:32:02.760 And two, like he is much more will, he has historically been much more willing 00:32:02.760 --> 00:32:06.980 to do things for teachers at school than he is to do things for us. 00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:11.380 And so like when we have tried to get him to do schoolwork at home, 00:32:11.460 --> 00:32:16.480 we have almost invariably failed or when we've tried it's been like incredibly 00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:21.880 painful just to get a small amount out of him so i don't know we'll we'll we'll 00:32:21.880 --> 00:32:26.460 figure it all out but like that and this is why like when i saw the unschooling 00:32:26.460 --> 00:32:29.540 stuff start coming up on my tiktok feed i was like huh, 00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:35.180 maybe we should consider something like this maybe. 00:32:35.180 --> 00:32:38.460 They're listening to you and and are proposing it. 00:32:39.190 --> 00:32:44.130 Yeah, probably. And it's just sort of like, yeah, it's essentially what's happening 00:32:44.130 --> 00:32:46.650 anyway, whether we like it or not. 00:32:46.870 --> 00:32:50.890 And so do we just lean into it and try to figure out the best we can do of it? 00:32:51.090 --> 00:32:55.470 Because honestly, like, like I said, like, you know, he's not eligible to take 00:32:55.470 --> 00:32:57.370 the GED for another year and a half. 00:32:57.370 --> 00:33:02.490 But unless we can figure out something where he's happy or comfortable enough, 00:33:02.730 --> 00:33:07.870 like we honestly would consider just saying, okay, you don't want to go to high 00:33:07.870 --> 00:33:13.850 school, pass out of it, do it right now as, and we'll stop, we'll stop bugging you about it. 00:33:13.890 --> 00:33:19.010 If you actually, you know, pass out of it and get your GED and, 00:33:19.110 --> 00:33:25.750 and then we'll see what's up next, you know, but, oh, well, so that was a couple 00:33:25.750 --> 00:33:26.710 of interesting tangents. 00:33:27.370 --> 00:33:34.210 Yeah, I enjoyed that conversation. But I also know that being that we just established 00:33:34.210 --> 00:33:36.110 that you might be on the spectrum. 00:33:36.310 --> 00:33:42.890 Yeah. I'm acutely conscious that stopping you from covering the movie you wanted 00:33:42.890 --> 00:33:44.990 to cover might be a problem. 00:33:45.130 --> 00:33:49.430 So I would feel better if you actually did your movie butt first. 00:33:49.650 --> 00:33:56.610 Well, let's do this. Honestly, I have learned to be more flexible over time. 00:33:56.610 --> 00:34:01.570 I, I, I, you know, it is a skill that I've worked on developing, 00:34:01.690 --> 00:34:04.070 but no, no, let's do this. 00:34:04.170 --> 00:34:09.530 I never actually said the agenda for the show. Oh, the, the normal agenda is 00:34:09.530 --> 00:34:13.150 we do a, but first, and we usually do a couple of movies and then we do a couple 00:34:13.150 --> 00:34:14.350 of segments on other stuff. 00:34:15.010 --> 00:34:20.430 One of the things I was going to mention is Pete here does not want to be canceled. 00:34:20.850 --> 00:34:21.470 It's true. 00:34:21.950 --> 00:34:28.230 And so he, He would like to avoid a little of the politics that we often talk about. And honestly... 00:34:29.150 --> 00:34:32.410 Like I'm okay with having a politics like light show this week, 00:34:32.430 --> 00:34:36.650 a news light week show. Cause it was kind of a slow week for once. 00:34:36.870 --> 00:34:37.990 They knew I was coming. 00:34:38.190 --> 00:34:40.990 Like, yeah, yeah. There was some Hunter Biden stuff going on. 00:34:41.050 --> 00:34:45.050 There's some other stuff. You know, there was nothing like, I felt really compelled. 00:34:45.190 --> 00:34:48.170 Like, oh my God, we have to talk about that. You know, do we. 00:34:48.170 --> 00:34:50.330 Do we get a voice memo from Yvonne this week? 00:34:50.470 --> 00:34:52.130 Well, he has not prepared. No. 00:34:52.390 --> 00:34:54.490 So I think that means there's nothing going on. 00:34:54.570 --> 00:34:59.370 There's nothing going on. Nothing going on in the whole world. obviously 00:34:59.370 --> 00:35:02.310 there is but you know there was nothing i really felt 00:35:02.310 --> 00:35:05.650 like talking about so i'm fine doing a politics light show and we 00:35:05.650 --> 00:35:09.070 were gonna do a couple movies in the first segment and then we were gonna have 00:35:09.070 --> 00:35:15.430 two other segments on some pete here just got back from a trip to japan so there 00:35:15.430 --> 00:35:20.350 was what shangri-la dialogue what is this some sort of international conference 00:35:20.350 --> 00:35:23.270 did you actually she attended or was it just going on while you were there? 00:35:23.450 --> 00:35:30.330 No, gosh, no, no, no. I think that the one thing that happened is when I started 00:35:30.330 --> 00:35:36.110 using my phone in Japan, you suddenly start getting news articles that are more 00:35:36.110 --> 00:35:37.730 relevant to your position. 00:35:37.910 --> 00:35:40.850 So this conference was going on while I was there. 00:35:40.910 --> 00:35:47.930 It's kind of a defense conference with generals and admirals and secretaries of state. 00:35:48.630 --> 00:35:53.390 So we'll talk about this in a minute. So we're going to talk about that conference 00:35:53.390 --> 00:35:56.350 and otherwise Pete's experiences in Japan recently. 00:35:57.090 --> 00:36:01.690 And we're going to do two segments out of those. I suggest at this point we 00:36:01.690 --> 00:36:04.730 take a break and then we come back and we do movies anyway. 00:36:05.050 --> 00:36:05.410 All right. 00:36:05.670 --> 00:36:08.850 Pete had a movie. I had a movie. We'll do that as a segment. 00:36:08.890 --> 00:36:11.250 Then we'll take a break and then we'll do all the Japan stuff, 00:36:11.370 --> 00:36:14.230 including the conference and anything else Pete wants to say about Japan. 00:36:14.810 --> 00:36:16.170 And then that'll be a show. 00:36:16.630 --> 00:36:17.150 Love it. 00:36:17.230 --> 00:36:24.310 So that's what we're going to do. And so here comes the first break. 00:36:24.450 --> 00:36:25.950 I want this one. 00:36:26.110 --> 00:36:29.670 And we will be back right after this. 00:36:30.470 --> 00:36:39.610 Do do do! This podcast is sponsored by alexemzilla.com. 00:36:40.010 --> 00:36:48.830 Alex Emzilla is great. It's on YouTube and it has lots of fun videos. 00:36:49.410 --> 00:36:53.250 Alex Emzilla is awesome and great. 00:36:53.590 --> 00:36:58.790 I love his videos and they are obviously better than Curmudgeon's Corner. 00:36:58.790 --> 00:37:02.150 Well, they're funnier. They're more interesting. 00:37:02.550 --> 00:37:08.630 And frankly, he seems at least a little smarter than either of the hosts of Curmudgeon's Corner. 00:37:09.050 --> 00:37:18.570 Honestly, it's ridiculous how endlessly talented and phenomenal Alex Emsula is. 00:37:19.130 --> 00:37:33.230 That's how great his YouTube channel is. is a l e x m x e l a dot com yes do do do. 00:37:33.230 --> 00:37:39.630 Okay we are back and so uh pete why don't we start with you you you mentioned 00:37:39.630 --> 00:37:45.490 you had a movie and i have one from my big list that i'm catching up on so what's 00:37:45.490 --> 00:37:47.530 the movie you want to highlight it's. 00:37:47.530 --> 00:37:53.830 A long tradition of watching whatever is on the airplane entertainment system. 00:37:53.950 --> 00:37:59.330 And this is a movie that I had heard about on NPR called American fiction. 00:38:00.290 --> 00:38:06.010 And it is the movie version of a book that I've completely forgotten the name of. 00:38:06.050 --> 00:38:09.650 Oh, the book was erasure, a 2001 novel named erasure. 00:38:09.970 --> 00:38:13.270 I'm of course looking at the Wikipedia page. Cause I have not seen this movie. 00:38:13.370 --> 00:38:16.430 But you were more prepared than I was because you already had it up. 00:38:17.270 --> 00:38:21.750 Excellent. Really? I, I want to avoid just, Oh, it's really great. 00:38:21.850 --> 00:38:30.190 But the, the premise of the movie is that the protagonist is a black author of a, 00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:34.480 very classical. I don't know if they were, I actually don't remember in the 00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:38.800 book if it was fiction or if it was like academic works about, 00:38:38.900 --> 00:38:41.720 it seemed to be mostly ancient Greek themed. 00:38:42.120 --> 00:38:43.820 He teaches at a college. 00:38:44.340 --> 00:38:49.840 He's from a fairly wealthy family. His mom, I think, was like a psychotherapist or something. 00:38:50.420 --> 00:38:53.580 Most of his family is very well off. They have a beach house. 00:38:53.940 --> 00:38:59.500 So, So very kind of upper middle class to rich lifestyle. 00:39:00.680 --> 00:39:06.920 And he goes through a series of reversals. This is a minor spoiler, 00:39:07.100 --> 00:39:09.020 but I think it's really the premise of the movie. 00:39:09.060 --> 00:39:09.220 Okay. 00:39:09.260 --> 00:39:13.580 Where he's having trouble getting published. He's having trouble getting his new book published. 00:39:13.580 --> 00:39:19.420 And he attends some sort of conference where there is another black author who 00:39:19.420 --> 00:39:27.980 is having just huge success with a book that is written in African-American 00:39:27.980 --> 00:39:33.340 vernacular English and just very what he views, the character views, 00:39:33.660 --> 00:39:42.540 as taking every stereotype of the white perception of the black experience and profiting on it. 00:39:42.540 --> 00:39:51.560 And so one day in a fit of pique, he kind of dashes off a novel in this same style. 00:39:51.780 --> 00:39:58.760 He's kind of trying to parody it. And he gives it to his agent with a pen name Stag R. Lee. 00:39:59.860 --> 00:40:06.740 And lo and behold, white New York publishing editors love it, 00:40:06.760 --> 00:40:08.820 love the authenticity of it. 00:40:08.820 --> 00:40:13.980 And he very quickly starts living this double life where he's publicizing the 00:40:13.980 --> 00:40:19.940 book under the guise of being this ex-con who's written this tough from the 00:40:19.940 --> 00:40:23.280 streets novel when that isn't who he is at all. 00:40:23.400 --> 00:40:31.200 And in fact, he kind of despises that. He views that as a white projection onto the black experience. 00:40:32.120 --> 00:40:36.360 Just really fascinating movie. I can't say enough good about it. 00:40:36.360 --> 00:40:40.920 It's obviously, I mean, I think that I have a little bit of trepidation talking 00:40:40.920 --> 00:40:42.300 about it because I don't know. 00:40:43.400 --> 00:40:47.500 Whether uh how legit it is for me to have opinions about some of this stuff 00:40:47.500 --> 00:40:50.160 but from a strictly from a strictly entertainment. 00:40:50.160 --> 00:40:55.160 Standpoint just for anybody amazingly enjoy it because you're white yeah because 00:40:55.160 --> 00:41:00.940 i'm white yeah because people can't yeah yeah you you're a white guy i'm a white guy i would. 00:41:00.940 --> 00:41:02.280 Say i'd be cautious you know. 00:41:02.280 --> 00:41:05.580 Well and that's absolutely fair like for 00:41:05.580 --> 00:41:11.540 things that are trying to experience show the experiences of some group if you're 00:41:11.540 --> 00:41:17.460 not part of a group it's sort of like the right way to approach it is to try 00:41:17.460 --> 00:41:22.900 to listen and learn not try to sort of explain it from your own mindset because 00:41:22.900 --> 00:41:25.500 your own mindset is wrong right. 00:41:25.500 --> 00:41:28.720 Jeffrey wright plays the the protagonist 00:41:28.720 --> 00:41:33.260 there's some really standout performances notably leslie uggams. 00:41:33.260 --> 00:41:36.580 Plays i haven't heard that name in a long time yeah. 00:41:36.580 --> 00:41:40.360 She was in deadpool and a couple other things i believe or one of the deadpool 00:41:40.360 --> 00:41:46.900 movies and she plays a mom the mom who is kind of suffering from dementia at 00:41:46.900 --> 00:41:52.080 one point in the movie uh just some really great performances and i i can't 00:41:52.080 --> 00:41:56.540 recommend it strongly enough so that's my that's my movie that's my butt first. 00:41:56.540 --> 00:41:59.380 Yeah okay i will of course 00:41:59.380 --> 00:42:02.340 add it to my list of thousands of movies to eventually 00:42:02.340 --> 00:42:05.620 maybe think of looking at but uh 00:42:05.620 --> 00:42:09.700 no so so sounds good mine is 00:42:09.700 --> 00:42:12.740 let's see when did i watch this we're back 00:42:12.740 --> 00:42:15.860 in december now so i am slowly catching up 00:42:15.860 --> 00:42:18.940 on these things this watch this right before 00:42:18.940 --> 00:42:21.740 the new year at the end of december and this is 00:42:21.740 --> 00:42:24.860 making our way through the harry potter series to 00:42:24.860 --> 00:42:28.040 be honest um this was harry potter and 00:42:28.040 --> 00:42:31.200 the goblet of fire which i guess is number 00:42:31.200 --> 00:42:34.100 four now when these 00:42:34.100 --> 00:42:37.380 first came out i'd seen most of 00:42:37.380 --> 00:42:40.460 the series in the theater i think we actually never 00:42:40.460 --> 00:42:43.260 saw the last two in the theater so i've never seen the 00:42:43.260 --> 00:42:46.220 last two but like like almost everybody 00:42:46.220 --> 00:42:48.900 else at the time where you know it was a 00:42:48.900 --> 00:42:51.920 big thing everybody was harry potter 00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:55.360 was huge for like a long time like 00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:59.080 people joke even now that like there's a whole generation 00:42:59.080 --> 00:43:02.800 of people who like whenever they're 00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:05.720 making comparisons or metaphors to things in real life somehow it's 00:43:05.720 --> 00:43:11.980 always a comparison to harry potter and you know so we slowly have been working 00:43:11.980 --> 00:43:16.800 our way through it it's my son's first time seeing these it's my first time 00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:20.820 seeing them in forever and honestly the last couple i've been a little hesitant 00:43:20.820 --> 00:43:23.940 because like jk rowling has been increasingly. 00:43:24.180 --> 00:43:29.760 Problematic over the last decade or so, uh, specifically with a lot of anti-trans 00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:32.320 stuff as she's been very vocal on. 00:43:32.500 --> 00:43:37.980 And it's like, you know, and no compromise, just sort of. 00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:42.200 But anyway, she's been increasingly problematic. 00:43:42.640 --> 00:43:46.400 And so it's sort of like, you really want to support that? 00:43:46.460 --> 00:43:50.300 And you know, the way I justify it, I do the thing where I'm like, 00:43:50.380 --> 00:43:58.140 I'm sorry, like if you don't watch any media where the creators are problematic, 00:43:58.500 --> 00:44:02.980 you eliminate almost all of media, like in one way or another. 00:44:02.980 --> 00:44:08.140 Other like the same thing has been like you know back in the day i i watched 00:44:08.140 --> 00:44:14.560 buffy like josh whedon has also been outed as being very problematic there's 00:44:14.560 --> 00:44:17.340 other things like you know there and and 00:44:17.500 --> 00:44:21.960 especially with okay she was potentially the sole author of the books i'm sure 00:44:21.960 --> 00:44:25.660 their editors and other people that helped blah blah blah but like with a movie 00:44:25.660 --> 00:44:31.700 like this they're literally thousands of people involved in making that movie as well as her. 00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:38.060 So I don't know. I find myself like, I'm okay watching it. It's a cultural touchstone. 00:44:38.180 --> 00:44:39.620 It's an important part of history. 00:44:39.740 --> 00:44:47.740 And I can separate that out from not approving of what J.K. Rowling is doing these days. 00:44:48.180 --> 00:44:52.740 And even the cast has all distanced herself from her at this point. 00:44:53.020 --> 00:44:57.300 But I don't know, A lot of people find that kind of stuff problematic and will 00:44:57.300 --> 00:45:02.500 not go back and revisit even content they loved if they find out that the creators 00:45:02.500 --> 00:45:04.040 have significant issues. 00:45:04.300 --> 00:45:06.880 I don't know. That's just where I come down on that. 00:45:07.300 --> 00:45:10.040 Before I talk about the actual movie, any thoughts on that, Peter? 00:45:10.460 --> 00:45:12.200 Well, as a... 00:45:13.490 --> 00:45:20.550 Jewish-American guy who likes classical music, the example that always comes up is Wagner. 00:45:20.730 --> 00:45:21.330 Right? 00:45:21.410 --> 00:45:28.510 Who, of course, was used heavily by the Nazis in their propaganda. 00:45:29.370 --> 00:45:34.830 And, of course, himself was a truly kind of vile anti-Semite in kind of the 00:45:34.830 --> 00:45:36.190 most self-interested way. 00:45:36.530 --> 00:45:40.270 He was always competing with other composers. 00:45:40.270 --> 00:45:44.210 And in the case was cases when those composers were Jewish, you know, 00:45:44.250 --> 00:45:49.170 he would, he wrote, he wrote a terrible essay kind of basically saying that, 00:45:49.190 --> 00:45:51.650 you know, Jews can't write music, that sort of thing. 00:45:51.750 --> 00:45:52.190 Lovely. 00:45:52.430 --> 00:45:57.830 But unfortunately, the son of a gun wrote some really beautiful music. 00:45:57.870 --> 00:46:03.610 And so you have to kind of decide, you know, yeah, are you, are you okay with it? Are you not? 00:46:03.710 --> 00:46:09.370 My mom, you can't listen to Wagner, you know, and like, she's not interested. 00:46:09.370 --> 00:46:14.810 And for her, it really is kind of that political question. It's very cut and dry for her. 00:46:14.930 --> 00:46:23.290 For me, I listen to it. I don't view my enjoying that music as either an endorsement of his views. 00:46:23.510 --> 00:46:30.430 And I don't fear that I'm going to be, I don't fear that the music somehow carries the idea with it. 00:46:30.430 --> 00:46:36.230 Well, is it different for somebody like Wagner, who is no longer around and 00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:37.350 hasn't been for a long time? 00:46:37.490 --> 00:46:42.990 Part of the concern that people have on something like Harry Potter is if you 00:46:42.990 --> 00:46:49.230 buy the Blu-rays, or even if you stream it, or whatever, you're potentially 00:46:49.230 --> 00:46:51.070 putting money in her pocket right now. 00:46:51.550 --> 00:46:55.790 Yeah, and I think this comes down to personal... 00:46:57.180 --> 00:47:03.620 Personal opinion. And I would not mock or make fun or argue with anyone who 00:47:03.620 --> 00:47:08.040 said that to me, anyone who said, I don't care how good or bad the book is. 00:47:08.240 --> 00:47:14.160 I'm not giving this person who I despise my money, you know, sensible argument. 00:47:14.960 --> 00:47:22.200 Again, it wouldn't stop me because I, I am desperate for entertainment in this cursed world. 00:47:22.380 --> 00:47:27.700 And, you know, as long as it's not a directly, As long as the work itself is 00:47:27.700 --> 00:47:32.580 not directly despicable in a, in certain ways that, 00:47:32.680 --> 00:47:38.300 that is kind of where I draw my line is that if the content itself is problematic, then. 00:47:38.300 --> 00:47:41.540 Yeah, I definitely see that. 00:47:41.660 --> 00:47:49.720 I mean, in some cases, I could see myself wanting to read something with despicable 00:47:49.720 --> 00:47:56.900 content for the purpose of educating myself on what it was and what people were 00:47:56.900 --> 00:47:58.120 talking about or whatever. 00:47:58.120 --> 00:47:59.320 But you'd pirate it. 00:48:28.120 --> 00:48:37.520 Or even modern works where there's some really obnoxious conservative authors 00:48:37.520 --> 00:48:43.700 right now who I might consider reading some of their recent writings to be like, 00:48:43.800 --> 00:48:48.460 okay, let me really understand what the hell they're going on about so I can 00:48:48.460 --> 00:48:49.980 criticize it intelligently. 00:48:51.260 --> 00:48:54.500 But i that would be 00:48:54.500 --> 00:48:57.520 i imagine that would be less fun and frustrating for me 00:48:57.520 --> 00:49:00.220 as well like if i'm reading like i 00:49:00.220 --> 00:49:03.480 might do it because i feel like i need 00:49:03.480 --> 00:49:08.220 to to be able to speak intelligently or something but like i could see myself 00:49:08.220 --> 00:49:13.980 getting so frustrated if i was reading something where on every single page 00:49:13.980 --> 00:49:19.720 i was like oh my god this is horrible this is awful these views are despicable 00:49:19.720 --> 00:49:22.440 and they're stupid. They're not like, 00:49:23.220 --> 00:49:27.840 making sense. I could see that as being a painful exercise, but I could see 00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:31.400 some scenarios where I would do it, but that's kind of, that's a little bit 00:49:31.400 --> 00:49:36.780 different than the, okay, I'm going to watch Harry Potter, even though JK Rowling is a transphobe. 00:49:37.320 --> 00:49:40.420 Right. You're, you're not re you're not watching Harry Potter to, 00:49:41.620 --> 00:49:44.000 to debunk it. You're watching it to enjoy it. 00:49:45.300 --> 00:49:48.440 Although there are lines there. I mean, except that first. 00:49:48.440 --> 00:49:52.800 That first Chris Columbus movie, which was terrible and nobody should like that movie. 00:49:54.220 --> 00:49:56.940 Well well i was gonna say you know you 00:49:56.940 --> 00:50:00.360 bring up the anti-semitism people point out that they're 00:50:00.360 --> 00:50:03.540 stupid goblins that run the banks at 00:50:03.540 --> 00:50:06.700 gringotts who are very clearly jewish caricatures 00:50:06.700 --> 00:50:09.680 in harry potter and there are 00:50:09.680 --> 00:50:12.700 other similar things in terms of how like they they 00:50:12.700 --> 00:50:15.900 sort of retroactively adjusted some of this stuff after 00:50:15.900 --> 00:50:18.920 the initial publication but like every all 00:50:18.920 --> 00:50:23.680 the the main characters are white like you know they sort of retroactively made 00:50:23.680 --> 00:50:28.240 oh yeah dumbledore's gay but like it's not actually clear from the original 00:50:28.240 --> 00:50:34.120 you know so there are problematic things even within these if you think about 00:50:34.120 --> 00:50:36.080 it a little bit i don't know poor. 00:50:36.080 --> 00:50:44.240 I don't know i think that that she wrote a wave because i remember when these 00:50:44.240 --> 00:50:48.540 books first came out and And I had friends who had kids who kind of basically 00:50:48.540 --> 00:50:52.360 forced the books on me and said, you have to read this. 00:50:52.800 --> 00:50:55.420 This is back around the time of the first two or three books. 00:50:55.560 --> 00:50:55.740 Yeah. 00:50:56.260 --> 00:51:02.260 And it was clear to me, particularly in that first book, that this was a children's story. 00:51:02.360 --> 00:51:02.680 Yes. 00:51:02.740 --> 00:51:09.100 Like firmly, like this was a very lightweight, it was almost one step up from a pamphlet. 00:51:09.220 --> 00:51:09.640 Very. 00:51:09.640 --> 00:51:09.960 Yeah. 00:51:10.040 --> 00:51:16.960 The first one was very much. Yes, exactly. There was not much substance behind it. 00:51:17.140 --> 00:51:21.000 And so I feel like some of the content criticisms I think are valid. 00:51:21.300 --> 00:51:27.280 Some of them I think are, you know, this is someone who is writing a pamphlet and it got away from her. 00:51:27.960 --> 00:51:32.420 You know, you find yourself in this world where you've basically written yourself 00:51:32.420 --> 00:51:35.280 in a corner. I'm not trying to make excuses for her in any way. 00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:40.680 But I do think that that explains a lot about the aesthetic of, 00:51:41.110 --> 00:51:42.110 of harry potter. 00:51:42.110 --> 00:51:43.510 Particularly in. 00:51:43.510 --> 00:51:46.490 The later books you know the later books grew out of 00:51:46.490 --> 00:51:54.530 these first books which were very much this british just so you know myth the 00:51:54.530 --> 00:51:59.170 story of i had a miserable life and i went away to public school right like 00:51:59.170 --> 00:52:04.550 that's the story forget about all the wizards and stuff that's a very well trod path. 00:52:04.550 --> 00:52:05.410 Yeah in. 00:52:05.410 --> 00:52:07.790 British young adult fiction. 00:52:07.790 --> 00:52:11.050 Right and and you know they they do try 00:52:11.050 --> 00:52:14.570 like i guess the initial conceit of 00:52:14.570 --> 00:52:17.410 what she was doing is to try to age the books as 00:52:17.410 --> 00:52:20.550 you go through the series so that as the characters 00:52:20.550 --> 00:52:23.450 age the writing is also a little bit deeper and 00:52:23.450 --> 00:52:28.190 blah blah blah i don't think it ever gets that deep to be honest but you know 00:52:28.190 --> 00:52:35.070 whatever anyway the movie this is it originally came out in 2005 and this is 00:52:35.070 --> 00:52:41.050 as a basic plot harry potter gets That's interred against his will. 00:52:41.110 --> 00:52:45.270 He didn't intend to be, but it's some tournament that, of course, 00:52:45.290 --> 00:52:49.630 as you are going to do if you are taking school children and having a friendly 00:52:49.630 --> 00:52:54.490 competition that can be deadly and dangerous along the way, because, of course, why not? 00:52:55.150 --> 00:52:59.170 And it has a bunch of challenges, and the schools are competing each other, and blah, blah, blah. 00:52:59.350 --> 00:53:06.050 And as usual in the Harry Potter universe, this is being manipulated by the forces of evil. 00:53:06.050 --> 00:53:12.090 You mentioned multiple schools. As long as we're talking about stereotypes, right? 00:53:12.170 --> 00:53:19.030 We've got one school from France, which is entirely composed of beautiful ballet dancers. 00:53:19.310 --> 00:53:22.390 And we've got another school from France. 00:53:23.090 --> 00:53:29.370 Some undefined place in Eastern Europe. Let's say Prussia. It's definitely in Prussia, right? 00:53:29.370 --> 00:53:30.750 Yeah, something like that. Yeah. 00:53:30.870 --> 00:53:33.730 And they might be Russian. They might be German. I don't think J.K. 00:53:33.730 --> 00:53:38.630 Rowling knows, but they're definitely they all have very ominous names and wear 00:53:38.630 --> 00:53:41.710 jackboots and like goose step into the place. 00:53:41.770 --> 00:53:46.090 So right there, we've got some great, great shorthand going on. 00:53:46.250 --> 00:53:51.150 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, as usual, the forces of evil are out there trying to 00:53:51.150 --> 00:53:53.150 get Harry Potter and trying to manipulate things. 00:53:53.330 --> 00:54:03.250 And they're trying to bring the bad guy, he who shall not be named, 00:54:03.330 --> 00:54:04.610 which I will name, Voldemort. 00:54:07.490 --> 00:54:08.710 He's going to show up now. 00:54:09.230 --> 00:54:13.870 I know. I know. Shocking. Anyway, they're trying to bring him back and hilarity 00:54:13.870 --> 00:54:14.950 ensues and blah, blah, blah. 00:54:15.710 --> 00:54:22.750 I'm going to give it a thumb sideways. It's fine. It's an entertaining way to spend a couple hours. 00:54:23.590 --> 00:54:29.890 I had to read the Wikipedia page to remind myself of what really happened in 00:54:29.890 --> 00:54:32.010 this because, honestly, 00:54:32.170 --> 00:54:38.430 I watched it in December and my memory had already faded of what's really happening, 00:54:38.610 --> 00:54:40.510 what was the main plot, what was whatever. 00:54:41.390 --> 00:54:44.730 You know so i realize 00:54:44.730 --> 00:54:52.090 again these were sort of a a cultural touchstone of that decade were first the 00:54:52.090 --> 00:54:59.170 books then the movies and they were really huge they were everywhere but they're 00:54:59.170 --> 00:55:02.470 okay they're not like i i i, 00:55:03.250 --> 00:55:07.670 At least for this one, like you said, the first one kind of sucked for this 00:55:07.670 --> 00:55:10.430 one. I would just sort of say, eh, it's fine. It's entertaining. 00:55:10.690 --> 00:55:14.570 It's not gonna, I have no feeling of like, 00:55:14.770 --> 00:55:24.190 oh my God, this was something that I was changed by touched by want to like 00:55:24.190 --> 00:55:26.130 go revisit on a regular basis. 00:55:26.250 --> 00:55:29.590 It was just sort of, yeah, it is what it is. It's a, it's entertaining couple 00:55:29.590 --> 00:55:31.910 hours, but beyond that, whatever. 00:55:32.830 --> 00:55:36.690 One thing that I think is legitimately great about those movies, 00:55:36.790 --> 00:55:45.710 completely separate from the content is that you have this massive intellectual property, 00:55:45.870 --> 00:55:51.070 which because Warner brothers is the worst studio on the planet, 00:55:51.850 --> 00:55:56.610 doesn't have a consistent, any kind of consistency across its run. 00:55:56.690 --> 00:56:00.650 Right. In particular, they've changed the director. director i think there were 00:56:00.650 --> 00:56:05.870 four directors for the entire series out of seven so seven movies four directors and. 00:56:05.870 --> 00:56:07.170 The style changes completely. 00:56:07.170 --> 00:56:10.270 Yes and i what i remember is 00:56:10.270 --> 00:56:14.690 that prisoner of azkaban which was the movie before the one you're talking about 00:56:14.690 --> 00:56:21.930 was directed by alfonso cuarón and that one had a very distinctive feel and 00:56:21.930 --> 00:56:28.170 and then they they go in this completely different And I think the first two are just execrable, 00:56:28.290 --> 00:56:34.150 if that's an English word, directed by the guy who did the Home Alone movies, and it feels like it. 00:56:34.150 --> 00:56:38.330 It's all like reaction shots of the kids clapping in glee. 00:56:38.470 --> 00:56:41.770 It's just, I can't stomach them. But, 00:56:41.870 --> 00:56:48.650 but just this, this idea of it really shows you the impact of a director on 00:56:48.650 --> 00:56:52.950 a movie, since these are ostensibly all the same kind of universe, 00:56:53.030 --> 00:56:55.070 all the same kind of production design, 00:56:55.330 --> 00:56:57.290 but they all have very different feels. 00:56:58.030 --> 00:57:02.010 Yeah. Well, and I think they, I mean, it wasn't an accident. 00:57:02.090 --> 00:57:05.150 Like if they'd wanted to do some consistency, they could have, 00:57:05.210 --> 00:57:10.350 they, they explicitly chose, Hey, we're going to change up the style every couple of years. 00:57:10.710 --> 00:57:16.930 And part of it, I think, is to try to go along with this notion that as you 00:57:16.930 --> 00:57:22.630 move through the series, you move from a kid series to a more not adult series, 00:57:22.790 --> 00:57:27.170 but something for older children or even teenagers. 00:57:27.170 --> 00:57:31.350 Because, you know, you are trying to, you know, when they start, 00:57:31.530 --> 00:57:35.350 like these kids are like, what, eight, nine years old, something like that. 00:57:35.430 --> 00:57:39.570 And when we end, you know, the books don't cook quite as fast as their real ages. 00:57:39.710 --> 00:57:45.010 But, you know, they're in story, they're graduating high school at the end of these. 00:57:45.010 --> 00:57:52.390 And so i think part of the thought process was you want to reflect that growth 00:57:52.390 --> 00:57:58.410 and that change in both the characters and the audience i don't know how how well executed it is i. 00:57:58.410 --> 00:58:00.910 Think you're giving these guys way. 00:58:00.910 --> 00:58:02.430 Too much credit i think this. 00:58:02.430 --> 00:58:07.030 Is you know someone wanted another zero on their paycheck and they said no we'll 00:58:07.030 --> 00:58:11.030 find a new director this is this is warner brothers the idea that there's any 00:58:11.030 --> 00:58:13.150 kind of like cogent thought or. 00:58:13.150 --> 00:58:14.990 Planning done is like. 00:58:14.990 --> 00:58:16.830 Not not well supported. 00:58:16.830 --> 00:58:24.510 Okay okay i'm you know i'm trying to fit a theory to it that matches a little bit but maybe right. 00:58:24.510 --> 00:58:25.510 Maybe right maybe. 00:58:25.510 --> 00:58:31.270 You know but yeah so thumb sideways for harry potter and you gave a big thumbs 00:58:31.270 --> 00:58:36.410 up for american fiction and yeah i think that's that's enough for media for 00:58:36.410 --> 00:58:39.190 this week and And unless you have something else you want to add real quick, 00:58:39.210 --> 00:58:41.590 any other things that you've seen recently that. 00:58:41.850 --> 00:58:46.390 No, I have seen things, but I don't think they warrant their own segment. 00:58:46.450 --> 00:58:48.070 So I'm, I'm happy to move on. 00:58:48.490 --> 00:58:48.870 Okay. 00:58:49.510 --> 00:58:50.970 I'll save them for next time. 00:58:51.630 --> 00:58:57.270 Yeah. And Yvonne seems to be like missing shows more and more, 00:58:57.350 --> 00:59:00.410 like, you know, one thing or another, he's sick, he's traveling, he's whatever. 00:59:00.490 --> 00:59:03.550 So there'll probably be more opportunities sooner rather than later. 00:59:03.970 --> 00:59:08.390 Well, based on, based on Yvonne's voice memo, I mean, I think he's probably 00:59:08.390 --> 00:59:13.330 on a celebration bender, you know, he's out somewhere just six sheets to the 00:59:13.330 --> 00:59:17.150 wind, extremely happy about the political developments. 00:59:19.150 --> 00:59:27.650 Would not be surprising okay so although he has said he drinks a lot less now than he used to i. 00:59:27.650 --> 00:59:34.050 Find that that's true for me as well getting getting old getting old just like makes it less fun. 00:59:34.050 --> 00:59:38.630 In ivan's case his wife quit drinking completely and they don't have alcohol 00:59:38.630 --> 00:59:42.510 in the house anymore so he only occasionally drinks when he's out whereas it 00:59:42.510 --> 00:59:43.770 used to be a more regular thing. 00:59:43.990 --> 00:59:50.110 In my case, I didn't drink at all until I was over 21. I was legal before I 00:59:50.110 --> 00:59:51.830 had my very first drink of anything. 00:59:52.170 --> 00:59:59.430 And through my twenties, I probably did, you know, I, I drank to excess on a few occasions. 00:59:59.490 --> 01:00:02.370 I never really drank like with dinner or anything. 01:00:02.470 --> 01:00:07.010 I only drank when I was like out with friends for the purpose of drinking. 01:00:07.250 --> 01:00:11.510 And then in my thirties, I cut that way, way, way back. 01:00:11.730 --> 01:00:16.750 Cause I realized I was like, this is, I'm, I don't actually enjoy this process. 01:00:16.810 --> 01:00:20.530 I don't like it that much. So I cut way, way back and would only occasionally 01:00:20.530 --> 01:00:22.850 drink a very small amount. 01:00:22.930 --> 01:00:27.210 Like, like maybe I'd have a margarita once in a while at a Mexican restaurant, 01:00:27.350 --> 01:00:28.770 like once or twice a year. 01:00:28.990 --> 01:00:32.890 And then when I hit 40, I was like, basically I'm done. I haven't had a drink since. 01:00:33.620 --> 01:00:35.960 So Sam, I have a new topic. 01:00:36.400 --> 01:00:36.760 Okay. 01:00:36.940 --> 01:00:40.860 Would you like me to introduce this topic? Are we, were you going to do a break? 01:00:40.940 --> 01:00:45.640 I was going to do a break. Let's go ahead and take the break and we can do your new topic before. 01:00:45.880 --> 01:00:49.640 This topic, this topic is based on the one that you're talking about. 01:00:49.700 --> 01:00:50.020 Okay. 01:00:50.280 --> 01:00:54.200 That's all. Just, I'll just say the words and you can take the break and we come back. 01:00:54.240 --> 01:00:54.460 Okay. 01:00:54.520 --> 01:00:55.800 If we could talk about it. 01:00:55.800 --> 01:00:56.240 That's cool. 01:00:56.240 --> 01:01:04.580 The rise of very drinkable, zero alcohol cocktails and drinks. 01:01:04.760 --> 01:01:05.320 Ah, okay. 01:01:05.320 --> 01:01:05.860 That's my topic. 01:01:06.140 --> 01:01:06.580 Okay. 01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:07.660 Because I think it's relevant. 01:01:08.040 --> 01:01:09.640 There you go. Back after this. 01:01:12.720 --> 01:01:20.500 You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No! Do you want to support the show? No! 01:01:21.600 --> 01:01:26.060 Well, after you have subscribed to the show, followed us on Facebook, 01:01:26.160 --> 01:01:32.760 and told all your friends they should be listening to, what else can you do? I won't subscribe! 01:01:33.920 --> 01:01:40.180 You can help fund our Patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner. 01:01:40.540 --> 01:01:45.660 Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show. 01:01:45.660 --> 01:01:50.680 You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the 01:01:50.680 --> 01:01:55.660 show, and maybe every once in a while some much-needed sedatives for Yvonne. 01:01:56.380 --> 01:02:00.000 At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show, 01:02:00.180 --> 01:02:04.540 our Curmudgeon's Corner postcard, or even a Curmudgeon's Corner mug. 01:02:04.840 --> 01:02:06.960 Fun stuff. Not fun. 01:02:07.620 --> 01:02:12.440 In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the 01:02:12.440 --> 01:02:15.820 show. I really, really hate Commodion's Corner. 01:02:16.420 --> 01:02:18.400 Are we worth a buck a month? 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So before we get to Japan, and I don't want to squeeze out 01:02:57.610 --> 01:03:00.830 Japan entirely because you had a whole bunch of stuff you wanted to talk about there. 01:03:00.830 --> 01:03:04.610 But what's the deal with the non-alcoholic cocktails 01:03:04.610 --> 01:03:07.530 and i will admit like i just said like 01:03:07.530 --> 01:03:11.030 i haven't had an alcoholic drink since i turned 40 which is a long time now 01:03:11.030 --> 01:03:16.410 but like i certainly haven't even had like mocktails either like i haven't felt 01:03:16.410 --> 01:03:21.730 like oh my god i really want that like alcoholic drink taste but without the 01:03:21.730 --> 01:03:25.110 alcohol it hasn't even i haven't even thought of The. 01:03:25.110 --> 01:03:31.570 Deal is that they exist now. So for many, many years, there have been non-alcoholic 01:03:31.570 --> 01:03:36.870 beers and non-alcoholic wines, and they have been uniformly terrible. 01:03:37.010 --> 01:03:40.570 When you and I were high school students, I think there was a beer, 01:03:40.710 --> 01:03:44.250 a non-alcoholic beer called Moosey that you could get. 01:03:44.310 --> 01:03:48.110 Okay. It tasted like the worst stale Budweiser you've ever had. 01:03:48.570 --> 01:03:52.250 Really, you know, practically undrinkable. It tasted like barf. 01:03:54.270 --> 01:03:58.750 Now i i always thought even when i drank it i thought all beer tasted like barf 01:03:58.750 --> 01:04:02.970 because i just never i never actually liked it but okay kind. 01:04:02.970 --> 01:04:06.010 Of did i mean back then back then. 01:04:07.220 --> 01:04:11.820 As I've gotten older, my alcohol tolerance has just gone down and down and down. 01:04:12.440 --> 01:04:18.400 I drank a lot in my 20s. I drank moderately in my 30s. And that acclimated me to the taste. 01:04:18.620 --> 01:04:22.820 So you get to a point where I would like to drink a whiskey. 01:04:22.940 --> 01:04:26.920 I would like to drink a glass of wine. And I want to drink it not because I 01:04:26.920 --> 01:04:32.020 want to get a buzz, not because I want to get drunk, but because I would like the taste. 01:04:32.020 --> 01:04:35.620 Taste but one drink nowadays is 01:04:35.620 --> 01:04:38.720 enough to make me feel like garbage in the next morning which 01:04:38.720 --> 01:04:41.740 is just was not true 30 years ago it's true today 01:04:41.740 --> 01:04:46.060 right if you give me a full glass of wine out you know even if i'm drinking 01:04:46.060 --> 01:04:49.100 it with dinner the next morning i'm gonna have a headache a little hangover 01:04:49.100 --> 01:04:53.440 so i want the taste but i don't want the alcohol the thing that has shocked 01:04:53.440 --> 01:05:00.060 me is i feel I feel like this decade is where the producers have cracked the code. 01:05:00.600 --> 01:05:05.900 You can get non-alcoholic IPAs. I know you said you don't drink beer, 01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:08.360 but you can get non-alcoholic Guinness. 01:05:08.500 --> 01:05:11.680 They have fewer calories than the full alcohol version. 01:05:11.940 --> 01:05:17.860 Listen, I had a non-alcoholic Guinness the other week from a can, right? 01:05:17.940 --> 01:05:23.260 So you're not getting the draft experience. It tasted to my taste buds, 01:05:23.420 --> 01:05:27.120 pretty much identical to Guinness in a can with alcohol. 01:05:27.760 --> 01:05:34.360 And the other thing that has happened is there's been an explosion of non-alcoholic spirits. 01:05:34.940 --> 01:05:38.200 Now what it means for something to be a spirit. 01:05:38.900 --> 01:05:42.080 That doesn't have alcohol, it's 01:05:42.080 --> 01:05:45.700 a little confusing to me. I don't fully understand it, but they exist. 01:05:45.880 --> 01:05:50.960 I've had mocktails made with them, and they're in the ballpark. 01:05:51.100 --> 01:05:55.180 So that's my pitch is if you have not tried, 01:05:56.000 --> 01:06:00.540 particularly the non-alcoholic beers are superb now, but if you haven't tried 01:06:00.540 --> 01:06:02.560 these and you have the urge, 01:06:02.840 --> 01:06:07.180 it's worth checking in again if the last time you tasted one was 20 years ago 01:06:07.180 --> 01:06:12.420 Because the technology, like the technology for meatless meat, 01:06:12.580 --> 01:06:15.480 has improved massively over the past few years. 01:06:15.920 --> 01:06:20.400 So go try the non-alcoholic cocktails if you're somewhere that offers them. 01:06:21.020 --> 01:06:21.580 Absolutely. 01:06:21.840 --> 01:06:26.280 Are they offered all over the place now? Like if you go to a random bar, 01:06:26.480 --> 01:06:28.560 are you going to be able to find these? 01:06:28.940 --> 01:06:34.000 If it's a beer bar, if it's so specifically for the beers, if the bar has a 01:06:34.000 --> 01:06:36.980 good selection of bottles, it's almost certain. 01:06:37.180 --> 01:06:41.300 That they're going to have at least one NA bottle somewhere because people go 01:06:41.300 --> 01:06:44.240 and really want to drink with their friends or they're the designated driver. 01:06:44.680 --> 01:06:47.180 How about the cocktails? You mentioned this on. 01:06:47.180 --> 01:06:51.980 The- The cocktails are harder to find. I've had to go, there are specialty stores 01:06:51.980 --> 01:06:57.880 that sell these bottles and you can mail order them or there happens to be a 01:06:57.880 --> 01:07:02.140 specialty store in my town in Pennsylvania where I can get them or get some of them. 01:07:02.340 --> 01:07:06.860 So those are a little rarer. most places you go you get a mocktail you're really 01:07:06.860 --> 01:07:09.940 getting a you know fruit juice and and stuff. 01:07:10.880 --> 01:07:16.240 Before we move on to the japan stuff just along those lines uh you mentioned 01:07:16.240 --> 01:07:20.560 the technology has improved i think another part of this is the market is changing 01:07:20.560 --> 01:07:27.000 too i've seen a few reports that you know just amongst younger people the just 01:07:27.000 --> 01:07:30.660 the amount of alcohol consumed is dropping 01:07:30.960 --> 01:07:36.780 at a fairly good clip, you know, and it's not, I'm not saying that young people 01:07:36.780 --> 01:07:38.220 don't still consume alcohol. 01:07:38.460 --> 01:07:43.960 They do, but the amounts at which they are doing so seem to be dropping quite a bit. 01:07:44.160 --> 01:07:48.620 There's a lot more consciousness about being responsible with it and making 01:07:48.620 --> 01:07:52.580 sure that, you know, you're, you're not just getting blasted out of your mind 01:07:52.580 --> 01:07:56.460 all the time and certainly not going, doing that and driving or whatever. 01:07:56.880 --> 01:08:01.680 Also, honestly, there's other legal alternatives now in many places. 01:08:01.740 --> 01:08:05.020 People are doing the legal marijuana instead. 01:08:05.280 --> 01:08:12.880 So there's more competition for even the mind-altering stuff and some other 01:08:12.880 --> 01:08:14.740 drugs that aren't legal but are, 01:08:15.610 --> 01:08:18.330 not people don't have as much concern about them so 01:08:18.330 --> 01:08:22.270 there's there's a bunch of competition out there for the 01:08:22.270 --> 01:08:28.190 slot that alcohol had and and not just other drugs but also like competition 01:08:28.190 --> 01:08:33.730 from just being sober there's a lot more people who are out there who are just 01:08:33.730 --> 01:08:40.010 like yeah i don't need that i don't want that and from the very beginning also. 01:08:40.010 --> 01:08:42.950 People drinking less soda people drinking you know. 01:08:42.950 --> 01:08:47.590 Yeah. Oh yeah. As well. Like the drink manufacturers in general are like, 01:08:47.610 --> 01:08:52.790 you know, have scrambling to figure out like what to do to, to, 01:08:52.830 --> 01:08:55.510 to make their money because tastes are changing. 01:08:55.790 --> 01:09:01.750 Like alcohol is less in favor than it was, at least here in the U S I've heard 01:09:01.750 --> 01:09:08.190 different from some other countries, but highly sweetened stuff is going out of style. 01:09:08.190 --> 01:09:12.410 Meanwhile of course these energy drinks that are just pumped full of caffeine 01:09:12.410 --> 01:09:18.090 they they exist in a way that didn't when we were younger as well so like it's just a, 01:09:19.030 --> 01:09:24.410 different yeah like again not saying better or worse but there's definitely differences, 01:09:25.070 --> 01:09:32.150 and honestly from my point of view i think the the what it's still not like 01:09:32.150 --> 01:09:35.050 a majority or anything but the fact that, 01:09:36.870 --> 01:09:41.150 consumption of some of the, of things like alcohol is going down. 01:09:41.250 --> 01:09:43.170 I think that's actually a good thing overall. 01:09:43.550 --> 01:09:48.250 Like, and you know, we, a couple of weeks ago when Matt was on the show, 01:09:48.310 --> 01:09:51.610 we talked about rescheduling of marijuana and how like, 01:09:51.730 --> 01:09:56.490 like I'd probably prefer personally if people didn't use either, 01:09:56.570 --> 01:10:01.430 but in terms of danger to yourself and people around you, 01:10:02.230 --> 01:10:03.790 marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. 01:10:03.870 --> 01:10:08.370 If you have to pick one, you know, I'm not sure the alcohol is the one that 01:10:08.370 --> 01:10:10.650 I would want people to be taking. So. 01:10:11.210 --> 01:10:16.710 No, very true. Very true. Although I do wish in places where people are using 01:10:16.710 --> 01:10:19.930 legalized marijuana, I am begging you. 01:10:20.070 --> 01:10:24.090 Can't you take, eat a brownie? You don't have to smoke it. 01:10:24.110 --> 01:10:24.430 Please. 01:10:24.670 --> 01:10:28.890 Like, especially around my house. Like just, I don't want to smell it. 01:10:28.910 --> 01:10:34.910 Oh yeah. Like brownie, gummies, whatever. Yeah. I, I, I am sensitive to all 01:10:34.910 --> 01:10:37.210 smells and always have been my whole life. 01:10:37.550 --> 01:10:42.570 Like somebody can be smoking tobacco like 30 feet away and I'm like, 01:10:42.610 --> 01:10:44.510 Oh my God, I have to walk a different direction. 01:10:44.810 --> 01:10:49.850 And there are certain parts of Seattle or any public event. You go to a damn 01:10:49.850 --> 01:10:52.170 concert or whatever. The smell is everywhere. 01:10:52.590 --> 01:10:57.650 Like whether you want it or not, you can't avoid it. And it's like, yes. 01:10:57.830 --> 01:11:00.890 Like, and even like, even where it's legal, legal 01:11:00.890 --> 01:11:03.930 typically it's legal for use inside your 01:11:03.930 --> 01:11:06.970 private home it's not actually legal to 01:11:06.970 --> 01:11:10.910 use in the public venue on the streets or whatever but people do anyway and 01:11:10.910 --> 01:11:15.250 the smell is all over the place and yeah so i agree with you fully like you 01:11:15.250 --> 01:11:21.670 know do do this in a way that does not affect others like you know we finally 01:11:21.670 --> 01:11:26.490 mostly seem to have gotten rid of secondhand smoke from tobacco In most places, 01:11:26.830 --> 01:11:32.710 like, like I, I have a neighbor who goes out to their front porch to smoke. 01:11:32.910 --> 01:11:37.570 And so sometimes I can smell that when I walk out of my driveway and every time 01:11:37.570 --> 01:11:41.110 I'm like, oh, you know, I don't want to smell it. 01:11:42.290 --> 01:11:45.890 Like, and I understand your wife probably kicked you out to keep you because 01:11:45.890 --> 01:11:47.210 you're not allowed to do it in the house. 01:11:47.250 --> 01:11:55.390 So you do it on the porch, but that like it propagates, it's not just where you are, but anyway, so. 01:11:55.470 --> 01:12:03.770 A conversation I've had with younger, I guess, zoomers is what growing up in the 1970s was like. 01:12:03.770 --> 01:12:10.430 So I, I, I'm not going to say this was universal, but certainly in my family 01:12:10.430 --> 01:12:15.850 and where I grew up, my experience was that everyone had a relative who smoked. 01:12:15.990 --> 01:12:16.890 Right? 01:12:16.990 --> 01:12:22.910 Probably multiple relatives who smoked. Yeah. And the consequence of this, right? 01:12:23.030 --> 01:12:26.610 People are smoking in your house. Even if your parent, my parents did not smoke, 01:12:26.770 --> 01:12:30.430 they had ashtrays because people would come over and they have to smoke. 01:12:31.770 --> 01:12:38.210 Everything smelled like smoke all the time forever your hair smelled like smoke 01:12:38.210 --> 01:12:44.070 your clothes smelled like smoke your car in my case god forbid my grandpa's 01:12:44.070 --> 01:12:46.070 car that guy smoked cigars, 01:12:46.850 --> 01:12:50.870 everything smelled like smoke all the time and i just want to if you're younger 01:12:50.870 --> 01:12:55.750 i just want you to like take a moment out of your day take a deep breath and 01:12:55.750 --> 01:13:00.830 like really appreciate how lucky you You are in this one particular way. 01:13:00.890 --> 01:13:04.470 Was that, was that your 1970s experience, Sam, or am I unique? 01:13:05.510 --> 01:13:10.470 I don't think you were unique at all. It, it was less so for me, 01:13:10.550 --> 01:13:16.070 like neither of my parents smoked and nobody came over and smoked in our house. 01:13:16.090 --> 01:13:21.270 Like, you know, so, but the fact that cigarettes were everywhere, 01:13:21.350 --> 01:13:24.810 like every public space had ashtrays. 01:13:25.510 --> 01:13:28.790 Airplanes airplanes smoked in airplanes there 01:13:28.790 --> 01:13:32.050 there were smoking sections and airplanes but it 01:13:32.050 --> 01:13:35.190 made like smoke traveled anyway 01:13:35.190 --> 01:13:39.710 and i know people talk about well the ventilation is left to right and so like 01:13:39.710 --> 01:13:45.330 it's no no it did not stay in the smoking section i am sorry restaurants had 01:13:45.330 --> 01:13:51.310 smoking sections uh every place you could not like you couldn't and you know 01:13:51.310 --> 01:13:52.810 i was talking about marijuana smell. 01:13:52.870 --> 01:13:59.170 The same thing would be true of cigarette smoke smell practically everywhere you went. 01:14:00.030 --> 01:14:06.790 Even when I was in my 20s and starting in the professional world, 01:14:07.350 --> 01:14:14.270 a huge portion of the people at work would take smoke breaks. 01:14:14.490 --> 01:14:19.610 If you went by any of the entrances, it would be crowded by smokers having their 01:14:19.610 --> 01:14:24.950 smoke break and you'd have to walk through that in order to get in and out exhaling. 01:14:24.950 --> 01:14:26.970 Right beneath the air intake right. 01:14:26.970 --> 01:14:32.710 Yeah and now like i mean now where i am in washington state i don't know about 01:14:32.710 --> 01:14:36.150 other places but there are laws around you you can't smoke within a certain 01:14:36.150 --> 01:14:42.630 amount of distance of the front entrance at this point and and there you there are 01:14:42.650 --> 01:14:45.730 certainly people who still smoke and take smoke breaks and 01:14:45.730 --> 01:14:49.130 stuff like that but it's much less visible than 01:14:49.130 --> 01:14:52.210 it was you know a couple decades ago even 01:14:52.210 --> 01:14:57.290 and the percentage of people who smoke actively has been dropping and dropping 01:14:57.290 --> 01:15:04.830 and dropping because like young kids like i mean if they if they pick up something 01:15:04.830 --> 01:15:09.770 now it's likely to be vaping which of course has like some of the the same problems 01:15:09.770 --> 01:15:12.110 health-wise if you're vaping nicotine, 01:15:12.310 --> 01:15:17.210 but it, some of these other things are less of a problem. 01:15:17.270 --> 01:15:21.470 And the, the, the smell for other people is less of a problem. 01:15:21.530 --> 01:15:26.150 It doesn't go away completely, but it's, and so it's different. And again, like. 01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:30.840 You definitely see a lot less of it than you did. And, and this, 01:15:30.860 --> 01:15:34.280 this shows also, like I've, I've done the comparison before people talk about, 01:15:34.320 --> 01:15:38.460 like, you know, I've done a comparison to the gun debate, right. 01:15:38.540 --> 01:15:43.600 About like, you know, does out, you know, just even if we didn't have a second 01:15:43.600 --> 01:15:46.680 amendment, do like strict gun laws, would they do what you wanted to? 01:15:46.920 --> 01:15:50.920 And the answer is no. If people want something, they're going to have it. 01:15:50.980 --> 01:15:56.920 But what happened with smoking was not like, Like people learned from the prohibition of alcohol. 01:15:57.140 --> 01:15:59.740 It was not let's outlaw cigarettes. 01:16:00.380 --> 01:16:05.340 It was let's make it more inconvenient and a little more expensive and a little 01:16:05.340 --> 01:16:06.300 more socially unacceptable. 01:16:07.400 --> 01:16:11.300 Yes. And culturally put a stigma on it. Make it culturally unacceptable. 01:16:11.800 --> 01:16:16.060 Make it more expensive. Make it more inconvenient. All of those things you said. 01:16:16.320 --> 01:16:21.580 And over the course of a few decades, usage dropped precipitously. 01:16:22.360 --> 01:16:22.980 Now it's not zero. 01:16:22.980 --> 01:16:25.860 I think that's so good. I think it's so good. 01:16:26.060 --> 01:16:29.900 You know, this is a personal topic for me. My dad passed away a few years ago 01:16:29.900 --> 01:16:32.900 and he passed away of lung cancer. 01:16:32.980 --> 01:16:38.540 And the thing that I want to, you know, that I think about is that this guy 01:16:38.540 --> 01:16:40.580 did not smoke a day in his life. 01:16:40.940 --> 01:16:44.060 He never lit a cigarette, never lit a pipe, never lit a cigar, 01:16:44.200 --> 01:16:45.980 but his brother smoked a pipe. 01:16:46.080 --> 01:16:49.940 His other brother smoked cigars and his mom smoked cigarettes and his aunt smoked 01:16:49.940 --> 01:16:55.820 cigarettes. So he grew up in a house with four smokers and he's the guy who 01:16:55.820 --> 01:16:57.060 got lung cancer from that. 01:16:57.240 --> 01:17:01.600 And, you know, I absolutely, you know, you can't know why, why someone comes 01:17:01.600 --> 01:17:04.500 down with something, but I absolutely ascribe it to that. 01:17:04.920 --> 01:17:09.780 So, you know, if, if you're, if you're a smoker, I mean, I don't know, 01:17:09.820 --> 01:17:13.320 it's not my place to lecture people, but it's not just you that you're affecting. 01:17:13.480 --> 01:17:16.880 You're also affecting the people around you. So I urge, 01:17:17.160 --> 01:17:22.920 I I'm very glad that smoking is dropping and I've heard disturbing statistics 01:17:22.920 --> 01:17:27.960 about the rise of vaping, but hopefully, hopefully it's less bad and hopefully 01:17:27.960 --> 01:17:30.460 it's less just simply in numbers than it was. 01:17:30.460 --> 01:17:34.820 Yeah, and I think less bad is the right thing. It's not not bad. 01:17:35.820 --> 01:17:41.080 And honestly, same thing with marijuana and other things. It's like none of 01:17:41.080 --> 01:17:42.220 these things are harmless. 01:17:43.020 --> 01:17:49.500 There are negative effects, but shifting from something that is more harmful 01:17:49.500 --> 01:17:52.360 to something that is less harmful is still beneficial. 01:17:53.640 --> 01:17:59.380 You know, and it's sort of the notion of harm reduction as a strategy. 01:17:59.520 --> 01:18:05.440 Telling people, no, you can't go do something that they find fun is a losing strategy. 01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:11.620 Yeah. It just plain is you can't say same thing with, you know, 01:18:11.640 --> 01:18:13.440 abstinence only sex education. 01:18:13.660 --> 01:18:18.260 I mean, come on, you know, you, you can't just say, don't do it. 01:18:18.360 --> 01:18:21.660 People do. People do say it doesn't work. 01:18:21.660 --> 01:18:27.380 I know people do, but it's so – you've actually had people show that that kind 01:18:27.380 --> 01:18:31.620 of stuff is actually counterproductive because you make it more appealing to 01:18:31.620 --> 01:18:34.060 the people who want to be rebellious and stuff like that. 01:18:34.940 --> 01:18:40.360 And so, yeah, instead, you can educate. 01:18:40.760 --> 01:18:45.440 You can make sure that when people do do things, they do it in the safest way possible. 01:18:45.600 --> 01:18:48.960 You give them resources to stop if they want to stop. 01:18:49.360 --> 01:18:53.280 All of this kind of stuff. It's just so much more healthy to think about things 01:18:53.280 --> 01:18:54.800 from a harm reduction point of view. 01:18:54.820 --> 01:18:59.060 And from the point of view of, you know, maybe redirect them a little bit, 01:18:59.080 --> 01:19:03.160 but don't just be like, no, you can't, it does not work. 01:19:03.980 --> 01:19:06.780 Prohibition does not work in almost any category. 01:19:07.440 --> 01:19:13.120 Now pivoting topics. I did walk a few clouds of cigarette smoke in my recent trip to Japan. 01:19:13.560 --> 01:19:16.780 Oh, time for Japan. Finally, let's not miss it. 01:19:17.820 --> 01:19:22.360 I'm gonna i'm gonna pivot because i i'm very conscious that i have spent an 01:19:22.360 --> 01:19:27.720 hour taking you down all of it i'm it sam i see something shiny i see something 01:19:27.720 --> 01:19:29.860 shiny and i just i gotta go no. 01:19:29.860 --> 01:19:34.120 No this is good this is fun this is a good conversation go ahead but it's time for. 01:19:34.120 --> 01:19:40.320 Japan went on a two-week vacation to japan i was in tokyo and a town called 01:19:40.320 --> 01:19:46.200 matsumoto and a town Well, Kyoto, which is kind of ground zero for the tourist 01:19:46.200 --> 01:19:49.060 explosion in Japan right now. 01:19:50.800 --> 01:19:53.480 Now, were you solo or were you with other people? 01:19:53.720 --> 01:19:57.940 I was with some friends. Okay. We'd planned this trip for a while. 01:19:59.020 --> 01:20:02.160 And I got to tell you, I'm ready to go back. It is. 01:20:02.160 --> 01:20:03.360 Was it your first time in Japan? 01:20:03.820 --> 01:20:05.120 Yeah. It was amazing. 01:20:05.640 --> 01:20:07.000 I've never been. So. 01:20:07.440 --> 01:20:11.720 You should go. That's my comment to everyone. And I think, I think to just see 01:20:11.720 --> 01:20:15.820 what is possible in a high trust society, um, 01:20:16.260 --> 01:20:25.360 and you know, there are, there are pluses and minuses, I think to the Japanese 01:20:25.360 --> 01:20:28.640 affect, I'll call it the, the kind of public affect. 01:20:29.740 --> 01:20:34.960 But I think the thing that really encapsulates it for me, and it's very silly, um, 01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:39.720 One of the things, people will talk about this, it's not a shocking thing, 01:20:39.840 --> 01:20:46.040 is after the Sarin terrorist attack in, I believe, the late 1980s. 01:20:46.060 --> 01:20:50.140 There was a case where there was a terrorist attack where someone brought a 01:20:50.140 --> 01:20:53.520 chemical weapon onto a subway. 01:20:53.880 --> 01:20:58.840 And part of the consequence of that is they tightened up security. 01:20:59.020 --> 01:21:04.920 And one of the decisions was, we're mostly getting rid of trash bins. 01:21:06.000 --> 01:21:10.460 It's not a hundred percent like, you know, stores will still have trash cans. 01:21:10.600 --> 01:21:14.680 And sometimes you'll see a, if you have a vending machine selling bottles, 01:21:14.900 --> 01:21:18.720 you know, sometimes there'll be a little trash can next to the vending machine for the bottles. 01:21:18.820 --> 01:21:23.920 But in terms of like random trash bins out in the city, you don't have them. 01:21:24.000 --> 01:21:25.360 They're, they're just not there. 01:21:25.480 --> 01:21:29.740 If you, the protocol is if, if you're out somewhere and you generate trash, 01:21:29.980 --> 01:21:32.440 you put it in your pocket and you take it home. 01:21:33.060 --> 01:21:37.020 Coupled with this, they're very, very strict rules about how you're supposed 01:21:37.020 --> 01:21:40.880 to put your garbage out, what days it's okay, which types go out. 01:21:42.420 --> 01:21:50.800 And if I said to you, hey, Sam, new rule, Seattle needs to get rid of 90% of 01:21:50.800 --> 01:21:53.280 its trash cans, what would your expectation be? 01:21:54.720 --> 01:21:58.880 There would be so much mass resistance, including for me. I'd be like, 01:21:59.000 --> 01:22:02.120 what the hell do you mean? What am I supposed to do with my trash? 01:22:02.800 --> 01:22:04.600 But even apart from people's feelings. 01:22:04.960 --> 01:22:05.360 Yes. 01:22:05.440 --> 01:22:10.380 My expectation, if you did that in Pennsylvania, my expectation would be that 01:22:10.380 --> 01:22:13.060 people would just leave their trash. They would just throw it on the ground. 01:22:13.480 --> 01:22:17.320 Oh, yeah. Like, if you don't give them a place to put the trash, 01:22:17.540 --> 01:22:20.900 they will just say, well, I have to put it somewhere. I'm just throwing it over there. 01:22:21.240 --> 01:22:26.160 Yes. And this does not happen there. Or it did not happen in the three cities 01:22:26.160 --> 01:22:29.380 that I was in. Everywhere is trash. 01:22:30.430 --> 01:22:36.350 Clean to an almost disturbing level. The, the, the story that I'll tell is on 01:22:36.350 --> 01:22:38.710 the second from last day of the trip, 01:22:38.830 --> 01:22:45.570 I was walking to place to send my luggage onward and I was walking past train tracks. 01:22:45.790 --> 01:22:50.770 And so there was a gate, a fence, and then the train tracks are behind the fence. 01:22:50.850 --> 01:22:55.630 And then leaning against the train track was one piece of paper. 01:22:55.710 --> 01:22:58.770 And I swear to God, I had the reaction. 01:22:58.930 --> 01:23:01.770 I literally said it out loud. Oh, thank God. 01:23:02.010 --> 01:23:05.370 Like, thank God I finally seen a piece of trash. 01:23:05.510 --> 01:23:10.210 Where I am in this town, the roads are just filthy. 01:23:10.570 --> 01:23:15.270 You'll be driving down the highway and you will see someone just like throw 01:23:15.270 --> 01:23:17.410 a McDonald's bag out of their window. 01:23:17.510 --> 01:23:21.050 I haven't seen that myself in a long time. But yeah. 01:23:21.410 --> 01:23:24.290 But I still see the trash. trash but i remember 01:23:24.290 --> 01:23:27.130 when i was younger i would actually see the people 01:23:27.130 --> 01:23:32.650 throw it out the window while driving now it is still trash along the side that 01:23:32.650 --> 01:23:39.730 you see but i i feel like there's enough shame to it now that i don't actually 01:23:39.730 --> 01:23:43.550 see the people like if somebody's going to do it i feel like they look behind 01:23:43.550 --> 01:23:45.510 them to make sure there's no one who can see them do it. 01:23:45.510 --> 01:23:48.330 I mean i assume this has to be the power of 01:23:48.330 --> 01:23:51.090 cultural norms yes similar to what we were just 01:23:51.090 --> 01:23:55.050 talking about in terms of smoking they've managed 01:23:55.050 --> 01:23:59.310 to make being a litter bug socially unacceptable 01:23:59.310 --> 01:24:02.810 to more or less everyone yeah 01:24:02.810 --> 01:24:07.650 again caveat if there's some town in japan that is covered in garbage you know 01:24:07.650 --> 01:24:12.270 i wasn't there and didn't see it feel free to you know i guess mention it on 01:24:12.270 --> 01:24:17.170 the slack and tell me where it is i'll do a pilgrimage or something but that 01:24:17.170 --> 01:24:22.730 to me was really striking the food was excellent and you I don't want to give a travelogue, 01:24:22.790 --> 01:24:25.270 but there were basically two things that I noted. 01:24:27.240 --> 01:24:30.060 So that's the two things I wanted to call out about this trip, 01:24:30.140 --> 01:24:34.540 because I don't want to turn it into Pete's travelogue, because that's not what 01:24:34.540 --> 01:24:39.860 Commerciants Corner is about, are the two cultural differences that I found 01:24:39.860 --> 01:24:41.660 striking. So one is the trash thing. 01:24:41.860 --> 01:24:49.140 The other is specifically in Tokyo. I've heard that it's different elsewhere. 01:24:49.980 --> 01:24:56.540 There's a norm that one does not speak on the subway, on the Metro. 01:24:56.900 --> 01:24:59.740 You don't have loud conversations on the Metro. 01:24:59.900 --> 01:25:02.340 Occasionally you'll see someone lean over and, you know, murmur something, 01:25:02.480 --> 01:25:11.200 but even that is really not done. And I saw a poster, a Hello Kitty poster kind of giving these rules. 01:25:11.320 --> 01:25:14.200 And, you know, I've heard someone say, what is it? 01:25:14.600 --> 01:25:17.480 The subway is a place of quiet contemplation. 01:25:18.040 --> 01:25:22.980 Whether that's literally true or if this is just a cultural norm that people 01:25:22.980 --> 01:25:24.380 have adopted, I'm not sure. 01:25:24.780 --> 01:25:27.520 But I really liked it. 01:25:27.640 --> 01:25:30.980 I found it, you know, maybe that's my inner introvert speaking. 01:25:30.980 --> 01:25:37.400 But I liked, like, I'm not encountering, you know, people arguing with each 01:25:37.400 --> 01:25:38.760 other or having loud conversations. 01:25:39.020 --> 01:25:49.000 And in fact, we had one incident in Kyoto where there was an American family 01:25:49.000 --> 01:25:51.600 visiting that was having just 01:25:51.600 --> 01:25:55.600 this hugely loud conversation about what their next travel plans were. 01:25:56.280 --> 01:26:00.480 And it was really disturbing and everyone around them was disturbed. 01:26:00.620 --> 01:26:05.080 And I was disturbed because I'd gotten used to it for two weeks of not experiencing. 01:26:05.140 --> 01:26:08.980 So that's, those are the two things from the Japan trip that I wanted to pull out. 01:26:09.160 --> 01:26:12.800 Well, like you said, uh, well, culturally, you mentioned like even within the 01:26:12.800 --> 01:26:17.320 U S and even within families and like introvert extrovert kind of thing. 01:26:17.560 --> 01:26:22.940 Like I find this is one of the things where I personally am not comfortable 01:26:22.940 --> 01:26:29.140 speaking I'm speaking in a public space where I know that others are able to hear, you know? 01:26:29.140 --> 01:26:33.800 So like, and, and this is completely opposite from my wife. 01:26:34.340 --> 01:26:39.540 So like, if like, I will not like, if I'm on the phone with her, 01:26:39.620 --> 01:26:43.780 but I need to go into the grocery store or something, I will hang up with her 01:26:43.780 --> 01:26:45.120 before I go into the store. 01:26:45.240 --> 01:26:49.820 I will like, cause I'm like, I, or at best I'll be like, I can't like, 01:26:49.940 --> 01:26:53.620 I will listen to you, but I'm not going to speak anymore because I'm now in public. 01:26:54.520 --> 01:26:59.520 Whereas she like feels completely comfortable having a conversation as you're 01:26:59.520 --> 01:27:03.600 walking through the grocery store, being on the phone with somebody while you're 01:27:03.600 --> 01:27:04.840 going through the grocery store. 01:27:04.920 --> 01:27:07.180 And I'm like, I just can't do that. 01:27:07.320 --> 01:27:08.100 Right. Right. 01:27:08.420 --> 01:27:12.740 Like, and, you know, it's like, and even there, I feel self-conscious, 01:27:12.760 --> 01:27:17.620 like in, if, if she's on, if, if she's on the phone with her mother, 01:27:17.720 --> 01:27:21.540 I don't feel like, even though I know she doesn't mind, 01:27:21.660 --> 01:27:24.020 I feel like I should go to the other room. that. 01:27:24.020 --> 01:27:26.880 Feels yeah that feels very extreme to me like. 01:27:26.880 --> 01:27:29.940 Yeah she's well because she's fit 01:27:29.940 --> 01:27:33.860 she's having a conversation with her mother i'm like that's not if i'm part 01:27:33.860 --> 01:27:36.780 of the conversation that's a whole other thing but like i'm gonna go elsewhere 01:27:36.780 --> 01:27:43.640 and like when i call my dad i for the most part don't like i i will go and do 01:27:43.640 --> 01:27:47.260 a walk around the block while i talk to him rather than, 01:27:47.820 --> 01:27:52.500 you know like i i just can't do it like i can't have that conversation in the 01:27:52.500 --> 01:27:54.840 living room with my family around. 01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:58.380 Cause I'm like, I'm having a conversation with my dad. If it was, 01:27:58.380 --> 01:28:01.420 I'm having, if, if it was like the whole family is going to have a conversation 01:28:01.420 --> 01:28:03.220 with my dad, whole different story. 01:28:03.520 --> 01:28:07.140 But, and I know I, like you said, that's maybe that's a bit extreme, 01:28:07.240 --> 01:28:14.540 but like, again, that's where like, I feel, I don't feel comfortable having the conversation, 01:28:15.120 --> 01:28:18.860 around people other than the people I'm having the conversation with. 01:28:19.640 --> 01:28:24.180 Whereas on the other hand, lots of people, absolutely no problem. 01:28:24.320 --> 01:28:29.180 You know, unless, and unless, and unless you're talking about something especially 01:28:29.180 --> 01:28:35.300 sensitive now, that's a different story, but just for normal routine conversation, like, yeah, yeah. 01:28:35.360 --> 01:28:40.420 I see people all the time talking, you know, talking, uh, on the street, 01:28:40.420 --> 01:28:42.620 in the grocery store, whatever. 01:28:42.700 --> 01:28:45.700 Now, funnily enough though, like, 01:28:46.340 --> 01:28:50.280 If I'm at a booth in a restaurant, I don't longer feel this, 01:28:50.400 --> 01:28:54.380 even though theoretically the people in the next booth over can hear me just fine. 01:28:54.720 --> 01:28:58.260 So it's the physical separation of the booth that gives it to you. 01:28:58.300 --> 01:29:02.380 The physical separation of the booth is enough for you to feel like it's your 01:29:02.380 --> 01:29:04.700 space and you're allowed to talk. 01:29:05.220 --> 01:29:08.540 What about a table? If you're at a table in the middle of the room, is that okay? 01:29:08.880 --> 01:29:12.380 I feel a little bit more exposed in that scenario, but I will still talk. 01:29:12.380 --> 01:29:18.460 I think part of it is it really is socially accepted that what people do at 01:29:18.460 --> 01:29:20.200 restaurants is they talk to each other. 01:29:20.380 --> 01:29:23.300 So it would be kind of weird if I sat there silently eating. 01:29:23.820 --> 01:29:29.640 So I don't know. But okay, I know where we are rapidly running out of time. 01:29:29.900 --> 01:29:33.800 You've talked about generally your Japan experience and the two experiences 01:29:33.800 --> 01:29:36.180 and the two cultural things. 01:29:36.300 --> 01:29:40.360 You did have something about a conference you were at. 01:29:41.060 --> 01:29:42.900 No, I was not at the conference. 01:29:43.440 --> 01:29:46.200 Oh, right. You just heard about it in news. That's right. That's right. 01:29:46.520 --> 01:29:51.800 So one effect is if you travel internationally, of course, everyone is trying 01:29:51.800 --> 01:29:55.680 to show you the right ads, which means they're trying to show you the right 01:29:55.680 --> 01:29:59.240 content, which means you tend to get local news stories. 01:29:59.400 --> 01:30:04.180 And going to Asia, I started getting all these Asia-specific news stories. 01:30:04.180 --> 01:30:08.880 And the big news in Asia when I arrived in Japan was this conference called 01:30:08.880 --> 01:30:11.400 the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, 01:30:11.620 --> 01:30:20.260 which seems like national security types from the U.S., from what they call the ASEAN countries, 01:30:20.960 --> 01:30:24.480 Southeast Asia, Australia, and China was there. 01:30:24.900 --> 01:30:31.220 And I really want to recommend that people look up some of these video clips 01:30:31.220 --> 01:30:37.540 because they are very striking. the extent to which mainland China is comfortable. 01:30:38.460 --> 01:30:43.640 Being publicly aggressive about specifically Taiwan independence, 01:30:44.160 --> 01:30:52.240 but also just, you know, their desire and their plan to dominate the region. 01:30:52.240 --> 01:31:00.040 There is a really fascinating back and forth between, I believe his name was 01:31:00.040 --> 01:31:06.860 Admiral Dong Jun and a US admiral named Paparo, 01:31:07.140 --> 01:31:16.040 who, you know, kind of directly kind of answered this Chinese admiral's kind 01:31:16.040 --> 01:31:20.500 of statement about the US being kind of preparing for war. 01:31:20.500 --> 01:31:24.700 You know, the vibe was that they're being somewhat warmongery. 01:31:25.620 --> 01:31:31.100 And, you know, he kind of gave a very politic answer that he personally is in 01:31:31.100 --> 01:31:34.820 favor of peace, but the entire point of a deterrence is that you're, 01:31:34.820 --> 01:31:37.840 you know, you're trying to deter aggression, 01:31:38.040 --> 01:31:43.440 that being the philosophy of the way you're going to guarantee peace is by being 01:31:43.440 --> 01:31:47.800 essentially in a posture where you can respond if something happens. 01:31:47.800 --> 01:31:51.960 Really striking and really interesting to me that you would have, 01:31:52.930 --> 01:31:58.110 Non-politicians. Now, you could argue about whether an admiral at that level, 01:31:58.150 --> 01:32:02.710 you're kind of a politician, but you're certainly not like a secretary of state or something. 01:32:02.970 --> 01:32:03.310 Right. 01:32:03.550 --> 01:32:08.670 The extent to which these dudes were willing to have that conversation in public 01:32:08.670 --> 01:32:11.410 on a stage, I found just fascinating. 01:32:11.730 --> 01:32:18.930 And so, Shangri-La dialogue, and I do recommend you seek out some of the clips in the news. 01:32:19.970 --> 01:32:23.970 I hesitate to talk about them in more detail. tell, even though I put it on 01:32:23.970 --> 01:32:28.770 the show topics because I'm not an Asia expert and I'm not a military expert, 01:32:28.870 --> 01:32:33.910 you know, but as a lay person, I thought it was a fascinating thing to be exposed to. 01:32:33.970 --> 01:32:37.190 And it's interesting. I was just looking up the Wikipedia page for this. 01:32:37.450 --> 01:32:42.010 They, first of all, it's actually, you know, you're in Japan and talking about 01:32:42.010 --> 01:32:43.330 it as local, it's regional. 01:32:43.470 --> 01:32:48.250 This is actually held in Singapore. So it's not, wasn't actually in Japan where this was happening. 01:32:48.250 --> 01:32:49.410 Yes, correct. 01:33:19.010 --> 01:33:24.290 Stuff there is available online if you want to check it out okay well with that 01:33:24.290 --> 01:33:31.230 uh let's wrap this up peter i i know you need to go but it's time for all the stuff at the end all. 01:33:31.230 --> 01:33:33.770 Right stuff at the end let's get to it let's do it. 01:33:33.770 --> 01:33:39.110 Let's get to it let's do it first of all go to curmudgeons corner.com, 01:33:39.750 --> 01:33:43.530 You can find all the stuff, how to get in touch with us. 01:33:43.650 --> 01:33:48.910 So Facebook, Mastodon, email is all there. 01:33:49.030 --> 01:33:52.770 Hey, Peter, do you want people to go via us or do you want to give your own 01:33:52.770 --> 01:33:55.430 contact info out there and plug your YouTube again? 01:33:55.610 --> 01:34:02.750 You can find me at PeterB at Mastodon, M-A-T-H-S-T-O-D-O-N dot X-Y-Z. 01:34:03.090 --> 01:34:07.690 And you could find me on YouTube at the channel Tea Leaves Programming. 01:34:07.810 --> 01:34:09.470 And that's T-E-A, right? 01:34:09.750 --> 01:34:11.690 In that case, it's T-E-A, correct. 01:34:12.150 --> 01:34:14.510 Because your blog was just the T. 01:34:15.130 --> 01:34:19.290 I know. It's very poor branding. What can I do? Someone took it. 01:34:19.350 --> 01:34:21.850 Someone squatted it. So I changed the branding. 01:34:22.170 --> 01:34:29.090 Well, that's why I have curmudgeons-corner.com because somebody had curmudgeons-corner.com without the hyphen. 01:34:29.230 --> 01:34:33.530 Well, it is liberating to not have any viewers because it means that the consequence 01:34:33.530 --> 01:34:35.790 for it is very low if people get it wrong. 01:34:37.150 --> 01:34:41.150 Well, I've seen you have a few views. Yeah, it's okay. You're, 01:34:41.150 --> 01:34:43.850 you're, you're no Dan TDM or anything, but. 01:34:44.510 --> 01:34:47.670 You were watching and that, that really is heartwarming to me. 01:34:47.730 --> 01:34:50.550 Knowing that you were watching Sam, that's all I need. 01:34:50.750 --> 01:34:55.090 There you go. Uh, and I, I will, and once you get that three and three video 01:34:55.090 --> 01:34:57.310 out, I will, I'll be sure to watch intent. 01:34:57.870 --> 01:34:58.530 All right. 01:34:58.910 --> 01:35:04.390 Sold. Okay. So aside from that, we, oh, we of course have the archives of the 01:35:04.390 --> 01:35:08.290 show, including for about the last year transcripts because of Peter. 01:35:08.290 --> 01:35:12.410 Peter is the one who demanded transcripts and got it in my ad. 01:35:13.130 --> 01:35:14.510 You're welcome, sweet America. 01:35:16.050 --> 01:35:20.750 Now, and of course, I'm sure that means you read them every week, right? 01:35:21.130 --> 01:35:29.050 I do not use the transcripts every week. I do use them when I don't have time to listen to the show. 01:35:29.150 --> 01:35:29.730 Ah, interesting. 01:35:30.050 --> 01:35:34.470 I have searched for things, for topics on previous shows that I haven't learned. 01:35:34.470 --> 01:35:40.110 And I make heavy, heavy use of your chapter markers. 01:35:40.770 --> 01:35:45.970 Okay. And what I, and I, in just last week's show, I adjusted my, 01:35:46.030 --> 01:35:50.290 I've said in the past, I don't like chapters, but I, the, it was sort of automatically 01:35:50.290 --> 01:35:52.870 doing them because of the way I made descriptions. 01:35:53.290 --> 01:35:58.610 And I just last week adjusted the way that I use the descriptions to make those 01:35:58.610 --> 01:36:00.450 chapters come out looking a little bit better. 01:36:00.450 --> 01:36:06.070 Cause I used to have time start time end for each segment, which the way it 01:36:06.070 --> 01:36:09.470 got interpreted, it identified the time starts. 01:36:09.510 --> 01:36:14.070 And then the name of each chapter was not just the name of my segment, 01:36:14.090 --> 01:36:16.770 but was the time end and the name. So I just, 01:36:17.160 --> 01:36:20.300 killed the time end so it only has the start times so 01:36:20.300 --> 01:36:23.160 i i've adjusted that and at the moment 01:36:23.160 --> 01:36:26.300 transcripts are only on the website there is 01:36:26.300 --> 01:36:33.640 new podcast 2.0 or whatever it is functionality that can let you embed the transcript 01:36:33.640 --> 01:36:40.640 in the podcast metadata itself so that you can have it like show on your screen 01:36:40.640 --> 01:36:46.260 on your podcast player while you are listening i have not done i have not done that yet. 01:36:46.320 --> 01:36:48.760 I've not figured out what's involved someday. 01:36:48.900 --> 01:36:52.280 I may have time to do that. But again, that's one of those things where like 01:36:52.280 --> 01:36:53.220 you have to figure it out. 01:36:53.280 --> 01:36:58.240 I think, I think this, I think I can do it. I think I have the tools necessary, 01:36:58.440 --> 01:37:02.100 but I don't necessarily have the time necessary to get it set up. 01:37:02.360 --> 01:37:06.480 This is a brave new world. You're marching boldly towards Sam. I'm excited. 01:37:07.040 --> 01:37:08.380 Yes, I know. I know. 01:37:08.980 --> 01:37:14.300 I really want to see how I need to go back and check the transcripts to see 01:37:14.300 --> 01:37:17.600 how they handle Ivan when he gets to the, 01:37:17.740 --> 01:37:21.740 you know, where he makes himself so mad that he kind of loses the power of speech 01:37:21.740 --> 01:37:27.680 and just like, this guy with the, I really want to see how those turn out. 01:37:28.080 --> 01:37:32.620 Yes, absolutely. Anyway, we also, of course, have a link to our Patreon where 01:37:32.620 --> 01:37:34.860 you can give us money. We always like money. 01:37:35.240 --> 01:37:38.380 And at various levels, we will mention you on the show. 01:37:38.460 --> 01:37:43.480 We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug. and by the way Pete, 01:37:44.050 --> 01:37:49.870 For actually being a co-host, if you want a mug, just send me your offline, 01:37:50.070 --> 01:37:52.910 send me your address and stuff, and we'll get a mug off to you. 01:37:52.990 --> 01:37:58.430 This is the most exciting thing that's happened to me this year. So I love it. Thank you. 01:37:59.310 --> 01:38:03.790 And so, in any case, at various levels, we'll do all those things. 01:38:03.990 --> 01:38:07.910 And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to our 01:38:07.910 --> 01:38:12.870 Commodions Chorus Slack, where Yvonne and I and lately Peter and a whole bunch 01:38:12.870 --> 01:38:14.730 of other listeners. Well, not a whole bunch. 01:38:14.770 --> 01:38:20.010 A few other listeners are chatting throughout the week and sharing links and 01:38:20.010 --> 01:38:25.470 all of that kind of thing as we go through stuff. 01:38:25.930 --> 01:38:30.110 So it's a lot of fun. The more the merrier. We would love to have you join us. 01:38:30.670 --> 01:38:33.870 So, Pete, do you have something you want to highlight from the Slack or should 01:38:33.870 --> 01:38:34.930 I pick something real quick? 01:38:35.890 --> 01:38:40.250 I am completely unprepared for this question. because. 01:38:40.250 --> 01:38:45.170 We want to give people a highlight that illustrates why they might want to be 01:38:45.170 --> 01:38:47.890 on the slack and why there's fun stuff there. 01:38:47.890 --> 01:38:56.110 Well i mean you know i i just picked something and you said then you said fun stuff i was gonna well. 01:38:56.110 --> 01:38:59.870 It does it can be serious stuff too it doesn't have to be the jokey stuff. 01:38:59.870 --> 01:39:05.570 It was it was yvonne's link to william the tragic death of william anders There's 01:39:05.570 --> 01:39:12.030 the Apollo 8 astronaut who recently was in a terrible air crash and just his life. 01:39:12.390 --> 01:39:17.630 Yeah, he's right here in the Seattle area, not that far from where I am off the coast. 01:39:18.150 --> 01:39:28.370 And here's the thing. 90 years old, solo piloting a plane, doing stunts from what I understand. 01:39:28.990 --> 01:39:32.990 Yeah, it looked like he stalled. It looked like he either stalled out or maybe 01:39:32.990 --> 01:39:36.170 there was some sort of car. he might have been dead before the plane hit the ground. 01:39:36.170 --> 01:39:38.990 He might have been like in that kind of scenario i mean 01:39:38.990 --> 01:39:42.270 we don't know at this point it just happened like yesterday as 01:39:42.270 --> 01:39:45.530 we're recording this so they haven't done all the but 01:39:45.530 --> 01:39:50.370 at 90 years old it wouldn't be shocking if you had a medical event while flying 01:39:50.370 --> 01:39:56.610 and i and also at 90 years old it wouldn't be shocking if it just had a lapse 01:39:56.610 --> 01:40:00.470 in skills like i don't know there's all kinds of things that could happen or 01:40:00.470 --> 01:40:02.770 there could have have been a mechanical failure or something else entirely. 01:40:03.170 --> 01:40:07.770 We just don't know yet. But I, I sort of, when I saw that, I'm like, wait a second. 01:40:07.810 --> 01:40:14.990 He was 90 years old, solo piloting a plane doing like, not, not just like, 01:40:15.780 --> 01:40:20.700 flying from a to b but like doing performance things with the plane apparently 01:40:20.700 --> 01:40:24.440 at least that's what i read i don't know did i get that wrong pete no. 01:40:24.440 --> 01:40:25.760 I think that's exactly right. 01:40:25.760 --> 01:40:31.240 Yeah so i'm like was that really wise should he have been but on the other hand 01:40:31.240 --> 01:40:34.760 he was 90 doing that stuff that's pretty good i. 01:40:34.760 --> 01:40:39.120 Think when you've flown around the moon you know the normal rules may not apply to you. 01:40:39.120 --> 01:40:43.560 You could do whatever the hell you want and he undoubtedly knew the risks and 01:40:43.560 --> 01:40:47.260 everything like Like, and you know, tragic that it ended that way, 01:40:47.340 --> 01:40:48.920 but on the other hand, good long life. 01:40:49.060 --> 01:40:52.720 And so, yeah, he's the one who took the famous earth rise picture. 01:40:52.840 --> 01:40:55.180 I don't know if you mentioned that or not, but. 01:40:55.300 --> 01:40:56.560 No, I did not. Thank you. 01:40:56.720 --> 01:41:00.380 But so he was well known for that. And yeah. 01:41:01.400 --> 01:41:06.240 So with that, thank you very much for joining us, Pete, for your first time 01:41:06.240 --> 01:41:08.240 co-hosting the show. I hope you had fun. 01:41:08.680 --> 01:41:11.220 I had a blast. Thank you so much for having me on. 01:41:11.220 --> 01:41:17.760 So as I said, Yvonne's been missing a lot of shows lately, so there may be more opportunities. 01:41:17.920 --> 01:41:21.020 But it was very great to have you. It was a lot of fun for me, 01:41:21.060 --> 01:41:25.600 too. And sort of a different flavor of show than when Yvonne's here, but that's okay. 01:41:26.000 --> 01:41:30.220 That's okay. All right, Sam. Thank you so much. We'll see you around. 01:41:31.060 --> 01:41:34.820 So thanks, everybody. Everybody have a great week. Stay safe. 01:41:34.880 --> 01:41:37.940 All of that kind of stuff. I always say goodbye. 01:41:38.860 --> 01:41:40.340 Say goodbye, Pete, out loud. 01:41:40.340 --> 01:41:44.900 Goodbye oh right it's an audio show isn't it yes. 01:41:44.900 --> 01:41:46.440 It is goodbye. 01:41:46.440 --> 01:41:47.580 Goodbye.