Peter: So I should warn you, I do have a cold, so I sound a little nasal and I've got
Peter: this kind of Barry White voice thing going on.
Sam: That's okay. Everybody will just think you're cool.
Peter: Yeah. Something like that. Let me get the notes up here for show topics.
Sam: Yeah. So I figure like we can do our two movies in the first segment.
Sam: And then, like I said, I'll pretty much leave the rest of the agenda up to you.
Sam: There's no, like, I know you want to avoid politics and there's nothing big this week anyway.
Sam: Like there's nothing that I feel like super pressing about.
Sam: So like pick what you want. Like the, you know, you can talk about your Shangri-La
Sam: thing in Japan or whatever else you feel like.
Sam: And you know, I, I haven't, I don't know what I'll know about those things,
Sam: but I'll add what I can and we can chat.
Peter: And that's the story of how Sam lost all his, all his listeners.
Peter: Let's talk about video games, Sam. It'll be great. We'll talk about obsolete computer RPGs.
Sam: Okay, cool. Yeah. So, okay. Ready to start? Here we go.
Break: Here we go.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, June 8th, 2024.
Sam: It's just before 1930, UTC.
Sam: And this is Sam Minter. And for the second week in a row, Yvonne Bowe is not
Sam: available to join us today. Last time he was in Guatemala.
Sam: I'm not sure exactly what he was doing this weekend, but I saw some pictures
Sam: from Disney on Facebook. So he might be at Disney yet again.
Sam: So we have as a volunteer for a co-host this time, someone who is joining us for the first time.
Sam: We've mentioned him on the show a couple of times because he's been contributing
Sam: on our Commodions Corner Slack for a while, but it's Pete. Hi, Pete.
Peter: Hey, how are you doing, Sam?
Sam: I'm doing great. And before we get started and talk about the agenda and actually
Sam: dive into things, you want to give a quick introduction on who you are,
Sam: whatever you're comfortable with would say?
Peter: Sure thing. I go by Peter B online. You could find me on Mastodon under that
Peter: name, Peter B at Mastodon.xyz.
Peter: I have an old blog from back in 2004 called Tea Leaves, T-L-E-A-V-E-S.com that
Peter: I no longer write for because who writes blogs anymore?
Peter: Instead, I have a YouTube channel called Tea Leaves Programming.
Peter: And it is partially about programming, partly about double entry accounting,
Peter: and partly about old obsolete computers and video games.
Peter: And I have a cold today, so I do apologize if my voice is a little scratchy.
Sam: Yeah. It just makes you sound authoritative.
Peter: I kind of like it. I might have to maintain this cold for, you know, my own recordings.
Sam: Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I looking at your YouTube channel,
Sam: your most recent series is on wizardry. It looks like, yeah.
Peter: Yeah.
Sam: You know, I've never played that. I've never played that game.
Peter: You've never played it.
Sam: I watched, I watched a few minutes of your videos, so I have an idea of what
Sam: it is, but I never played it when it was, I've never played it.
Peter: I mean, speaking honestly, my videos are probably intolerable unless you're
Peter: a certain type of nerd, but for me, it's largely an exercise in nostalgia.
Peter: And so I'm kind of playing these games and messing with these computers that
Peter: I used when I was, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old.
Peter: And wizardry, of course, was very formative for me as a game.
Peter: And so that's why I'm doing a series. And this particular wizardry that I'm
Peter: doing right now is actually a distiff branch.
Peter: So wizardry was somewhat popular in the US and then kind of faded out.
Peter: It has always been incredibly popular in Japan and has never stopped being popular
Peter: to the point where it's very influential on their anime, their manga, their TV shows.
Peter: And so this is basically a Japanese wizardry game called The Five Ordeals that
Peter: I'm playing a little bit of.
Peter: But really, it's a very limited, it's a very niche audience,
Peter: I would say, for my channel.
Sam: Well, you had mentioned on Mastodon that, well, one of your previous series was on a fool's errand.
Sam: And I never actually played a fool's errand, but I played the next game from that guy, 3-3.
Sam: 3-3 Classic. You had mentioned online that you were going to do 3-3.
Sam: So I am waiting for your three and three series.
Peter: Yeah, man, we could, we could talk. You were like right before the show began,
Peter: you and I were kibitzing and you're like, well, what do you want to talk about?
Peter: You were just waving the red flag in front of the bull. Cause I could talk about
Peter: three and three for an hour.
Peter: And my, my fear, I'll just, I'll say you can cut this out if it's boring.
Sam: This is a, this is an old Mac game by the way, from like, you know, back in 1993, 94.
Peter: Something like that is.
Sam: Somewhere around there. And I remember like there, there is a series on,
Sam: on my YouTube channel first that my son and I started on three and three.
Peter: I watched some of it.
Sam: And, you know, we, we, it was, it was full of like technical glitches.
Sam: At one point we recorded the wrong window at one point.
Sam: Like I didn't realize I had it on record the window mode, but didn't realize
Sam: it was actually just locking onto a segment of the screen.
Sam: So I moved the window there. And at the time I remember, and you're like, you can cut this out.
Sam: Forget that way. People listen or not, you know, but like the,
Sam: at one point we couldn't get the old Mac emulator we worked to save properly.
Sam: Like it wouldn't save the game. And like 3 and 3 is the kind of game you don't do in one sitting.
Sam: And so it was really frustrating because we started it a couple of times and
Sam: kept having to start over from the beginning and we're like, that's no good.
Sam: And ended up,
Sam: Yeah, we actually emailed the author of the game, and he wasn't sure.
Sam: Eventually, I figured out on my own, there was a bug in the version of the emulator
Sam: we were using, and there was an update that fixed it. Excellent.
Sam: The problem was actually that what we had downloaded was a version of 3 and
Sam: 3 that bundled the emulator as well.
Sam: And the bundled emulator was broken.
Sam: Broken so we downloaded the emulator separately and then loaded the game into
Sam: the emulator with the current version of the emulator and then everything worked
Sam: and we we told the we told the developer about this and that he might want to
Sam: change it on his website i don't know if he ever did or not he was very nice no.
Peter: I don't think so i think these he's made so little money from these over the years i think.
Sam: It's not worth the time aside.
Peter: 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.
Sam: It's a it's it's a puzzle game and it's a lengthy puzzle game and length.
Peter: Is really the problem in that he repeats the same puzzles again and again and
Peter: some of them kind of in my personal opinion overstay their welcome.
Sam: And so.
Peter: Even though my audience is very niche i do like to have this idea that the video
Peter: has to be interesting in some abstract sense right.
Sam: Right like.
Peter: I would have to want to watch it and i'm not sure i would want to watch me playing three.
Sam: Well and the two things on this are well and when when we replayed it with my
Sam: son like one of the problems was i started this game in college and i got like
Sam: to the 99 level i think there was one or two puzzles left and i got stuck on one Oh yeah.
Sam: And I never solved that puzzle from like 20 plus years ago, 30 years ago.
Peter: This is before walkthroughs, before game facts. Yeah.
Sam: You couldn't just look it up online and find the answer. And I wouldn't have wanted to anyway.
Sam: I kind of wanted to solve the puzzle, but at a certain point you get so frustrated.
Sam: You're like, I've tried everything I can think of. I don't know how to do this.
Sam: So I was actually looking forward to doing it with my son to like get through
Sam: it. But we, we didn't get that far.
Sam: We didn't get anywhere near the part where I got stuck in college.
Sam: And so like at some point i want to resume but i i what one of the reasons i
Sam: would be interested if you did ever play this and maybe you edited and cut out
Sam: some of the boring parts i don't know there are a couple of puzzles where i
Sam: never actually figured them out i.
Peter: Got i gotcha.
Sam: I got past them by just clicking until i clicked a bunch until eventually you
Sam: get out there yeah i'm talking there's ones where you change the level of little
Sam: platforms that you have to jump across.
Sam: And I'm sure there is an actual pattern, but on a whole bunch of them,
Sam: I never figured it out. I just kept clicking until I won, you know?
Sam: And, and then of course, I'd love to see you get past the part where I was stuck.
Sam: But anyway, it's fun, you know, and this is the thing and you know,
Sam: yes, old video games is one of our butt firsts. Here we go.
Sam: You know, I, a lot of these classics from when we were young,
Sam: like some of them don't hold up at all, but some of them do.
Sam: And there's some that are exceptionally simple, but are still fun to play.
Sam: I mean, I'm even remembering, like, there was an old CPM game that I played
Sam: on a computer, one of my dad's computers,
Sam: a K-Pro2, which was, you know, a class of computer that doesn't exist anymore. It's a luggable.
Sam: It's basically, it's intended as a portable computer, but the damn thing weighs like 30 pounds.
Peter: Right.
Sam: So, you know, but, you know, I remember the game to this day,
Sam: and I think I found it emulated online somewhere, but I haven't played it.
Sam: Well what was it like what what was that game oh it it's
Sam: basically it's a platformer basically
Sam: but it's all text-based like because that well
Sam: and by text-based i mean like there were no like graphic
Sam: elements so your character was an at sign who ran around and jumped and stuff
Sam: like that but basically it was you know each each level was a screen where you
Sam: started at the bottom left-hand corner and had to make your way to the upper
Sam: right-hand corner and you jump over things and And things are coming at your
Sam: way and things try to kill you and you get from one side to the other.
Sam: And, you know, it was fun. And I got, I forget when I was a kid how far I got.
Sam: But, I mean, it's one of those, like, I have memories of it however many decades later.
Sam: And I'm like, that would be fun to play again, you know?
Sam: And some of these, like, you think about that, but a lot of it is nostalgia.
Sam: And I know from the kind of things you do on your channel, sometimes,
Sam: like, if you actually go back and play it,
Sam: you're like, like wow this is kind of disappointing i have
Sam: these fond memories of it but now that
Sam: i actually go back to it it's not that great
Sam: it just was in comparison i guess to everything else that was available i don't
Sam: know but i don't know it's fun stuff like and i presume like people will have
Sam: the same kind of feelings about certain games that are brand new today like 30 years from now wow.
Peter: Whatever you play when you're 11 years old is like the thing you feel nostalgic
Peter: for right or whatever music you listen to at that age whatever books you read.
Sam: Oh absolutely it it's like yeah
Sam: basically from age 10 11 through to the end of your teen years that's the stuff
Sam: that sort of gets stuck in your head as like this is the good stuff this is
Sam: the nostalgic stuff and And people go back to it. And so, yeah, I mean...
Sam: Minecraft's is like what 15 years old now
Sam: something like that and you know they're
Sam: going to be people like in 20 30 years going back to sort of classic versions
Sam: of minecraft absolutely not even whatever is the current version then because
Sam: it'll probably still come around in some way shape or form but like going back
Sam: to like oh let's go back to the original right right before they added all this
Sam: other crap you know i think that's true i.
Peter: Think that's true.
Sam: Yeah and and people like you know the music from the stupid game will come up
Sam: like in a club or something and people will go wild so.
Peter: I mean this actually connects to a very human behavior that i see play out in
Peter: politics i see play out in religion i see play out in culture which is we have this myth
Peter: the idea and the one sentence description would be things were better when i was a kid.
Sam: And i and i and i've i've seen memes where people like pull out like quotes
Sam: from writings saying people things were better when i was a kid and all all
Sam: the young people are foolish and don't know what they're doing and.
Peter: It's from like ancient rome.
Sam: Yes going back literally as far back as the ancient Greeks and probably even further.
Sam: And every hundred years since then, it's a recurring theme in human history.
Sam: Nobody, nobody ever likes what the kids these days are doing.
Peter: That's right. The you kids with your loud rock and roll music.
Peter: So, so I try to be aware of this. I don't feel that things were better politically.
Peter: You, you, there's no amount of money you could give me to say like,
Peter: would you go back before antibiotics were invented and, and live a life then
Peter: in a mansion? Like, absolutely not.
Peter: Right. But I do have this affinity for these games.
Peter: And I just try and repeat to myself, I just try and be conscious that like,
Peter: this is a thing that I like, right?
Peter: Because of my personal damage, because of my personal history,
Peter: but that doesn't mean it's better in any kind of objective sense.
Peter: It's not that the games today are
Peter: worse. It's just, this is what I was imprinted on like a baby duckling.
Sam: Yeah. And they're different. And that's another thing that like,
Sam: like you said, recurring theme,
Sam: I get irritated all the time at these sort of moral panics about what the kids
Sam: are doing, including things like screen time and all this kind of stuff.
Sam: Stuff and you know and they're like well we've had all these studies that show
Sam: that it does affect your brain and there's this and this and this that are different
Sam: and i'm like okay different.
Sam: But you're implying it's bad show me that it's bad that that's that's different
Sam: and like this and and sometimes for some new things i'm sure you can find data
Sam: that actually shows things are objectively worse in some way,
Sam: but almost always these things just point out a difference without pointing out actual harm.
Sam: And I'm like, okay, yeah. Okay. Maybe, maybe attention spans are shorter.
Sam: Is that really bad? It sounds like a good adaptation to modern society to me,
Sam: you know, things like that.
Sam: And I don't know, it's just like the automatic assumption that if things are
Sam: different than what they were 20, 30 years ago, that's bad.
Sam: It seems to be sort of built in to so much of this conversation.
Sam: And I think you just need to separate difference from harm because they're not
Sam: the same. Sometimes they are aligned.
Sam: I think there is evidence that people talk about the effect of social media
Sam: on teens and people being like their mental health is being...
Sam: Degraded by people, you know, having unrealistic expectations of like body image
Sam: and all these kinds of things. Okay.
Sam: That might be real harm, but you got to separate these two things, difference from harm.
Sam: And I think oftentimes people just assume different as bad.
Peter: Well, I won't try to out your age, but surely, surely you are just barely old
Peter: enough to remember the experience of needing to write a book report in junior high or middle school.
Peter: And the way you did it was, you know, you'd go to the library,
Peter: you would maybe look through the card catalog or maybe browse the shelves and
Peter: whatever you happen to find, that's, that's the sources you're using. And that's it.
Peter: And I compare that to what people today have available.
Peter: You know, anyone could sit down in Google and type a question and then the brave,
Peter: brave new AI future, you know, maybe they They can type a question and get a
Peter: three-paragraph wrong answer about it rather than just a bunch of links.
Peter: That experience is very different. And I think your point that you can't really
Peter: be sure a priori whether it's better or worse.
Peter: But you can be sure that it's different. The amount of data is different.
Peter: And I got in an argument with a relative of mine about this very topic where
Peter: they were very much, how can you not go to the library and browse and,
Peter: you know, kind of go deeply.
Peter: And, and my reaction is that searching is an adaptation to the volume of information
Peter: being beyond what you could read in your lifetime.
Peter: If, if you or I were locked in our local, I don't know where you grew up,
Peter: but if you were locked in your local library, assuming it wasn't like New York
Peter: city, you could imagine the sci-fi premise that you would read every book in
Peter: that library. might take you.
Sam: A long time.
Peter: But it you could have done it.
Sam: For a small library anyway yeah for.
Peter: A small library that's what i mean but on the internet not possible and it would never be possible.
Sam: No not even close not even and
Sam: yeah there are a lot of things that are just yeah it's different it's not necessarily
Sam: good or bad you you have to you can't just assume that oh we we found a difference
Sam: in like how people react or,
Sam: you know, even in things like grades or how people respond in school or,
Sam: you know, one of the examples I've used on this show before is people saying that, you know, the,
Sam: the YouTube generation attention span is less.
Sam: And so they're, they're having a hard time learning by sitting in a classroom,
Sam: listening to a lecture for an hour.
Sam: And I'm like, well, because they've learned there's something better.
Peter: Yeah.
Sam: Like they can do, they have access anytime they want to more engaging,
Sam: more directed, more whatever than that method of learning.
Sam: So the response to that isn't, oh, there's a problem with our kids because they're bored at lecture.
Sam: The problem is, okay, if you want to teach them, you need to figure out a way
Sam: to do better. you need to figure out where you can actually compete with the
Sam: other ways of learning that are now available also.
Peter: We were bored at lectures 40 years ago also.
Sam: Yeah we just didn't have a choice that's
Sam: right you know but now you do i mean
Sam: one of the things that you know we've had
Sam: a whole series of problems with getting my kid to school the last few months
Sam: because and if there are a number of issues involved in there but one of them
Sam: is that for years now he has been trying to convince us that school is absolutely
Sam: useless for him, you know, because,
Sam: and he will give us like chat GPT generated essays arguing this point,
Sam: but the,
Sam: basically his arguments are around,
Sam: look, I, anything I want to learn, I can find it and I can find it in a way
Sam: that's It's accessible to me and I can learn it.
Sam: And I, and he proves it all the time, learning things and moving forward on
Sam: his personal projects, like well beyond any level of knowledge I have that he's
Sam: found on his own using internet resources.
Sam: And, and in, in some cases now, like using things like chat GPT to help them
Sam: along the line, but he's, he's clearly learning the stuff.
Sam: He's not just copying and pasting out of chat GPT.
Sam: He's using it as a tool. and he's using other internet resources as a tool.
Sam: He finds stuff he needs everywhere.
Sam: Reddit, everywhere on the internet. It's a wide, wide open thing.
Sam: Now, of course, is he learning the things that they want him to learn in school? Maybe, maybe not.
Sam: But he's diving down and doing self-directed learning. Now, this is not going to work for all kids.
Sam: There are kids who, given that choice, would sit down in front of the TV and never learn anything.
Peter: I think you're kind of backing into this topic that I've been reading about
Peter: lately of unschooling, right?
Sam: I've been looking at that too because I'm like, you know, like –,
Sam: literally like we should explain what we should.
Peter: Explain what unschooling is if you're gonna.
Sam: Talk about it yeah sure we might as well and maybe we skip the movies i don't
Sam: know we've got some good topics going on but uh like let me just say like as
Sam: as background my son is finally like he is now bigger than i am and he is no
Sam: longer at the point and he has realized this where
Sam: we cannot get him to go somewhere without his
Sam: cooperation right and he has
Sam: basically for the last two months decided he
Sam: is done with school period right like to
Sam: the point like we just found out the other day school has officially unenrolled
Sam: him because he hasn't been there in long enough wow because we spent we were
Sam: for a while going to the point where we were spending multiple hours every morning
Sam: trying to get him to school. And every once in a while we would get him in.
Sam: But then once he fully realized, yeah, I, if I just don't get up and don't move,
Sam: they can't like when he was little, you just pick him up and put them in the car and go pick him up.
Peter: Yeah.
Sam: But when he's big, like you can't do that anymore.
Sam: And so he's sort of realized that and has been vetoing. And now we've got meetings
Sam: with the school to try to figure out what the hell to do for For next year and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And, you know, cause looking for alternatives that, that are legal.
Sam: Cause he can't officially, like he could probably take, take the GED like tomorrow
Sam: and pass it to be honest, but he's not allowed to till he's 16.
Sam: You know and so we we
Sam: have no idea what the hell we're doing we're trying to figure that out now
Sam: trying to get because like he's also like i've mentioned
Sam: on the show before he he's autistic as i
Sam: probably am too and he's got a fairly severe social anxiety issues and so a
Sam: big part of this is he hates and is very uncomfortable with the actual prospect
Sam: of going into a big crowded school with lots of kids. Right.
Sam: You know? And so we're trying to look at, do we have solutions where we can
Sam: get them into some sort of more smaller group settings or something or,
Sam: and like we've tried online stuff,
Sam: but he hasn't participated generally with online stuff because he's almost entirely
Sam: nonverbal at this point.
Sam: He used to be very chattery at home. You've heard him on the podcast.
Sam: It's been a year since he's spoken to anybody at this point.
Peter: Wow.
Sam: But you know, So we're trying to figure all this out, but one of the things,
Sam: to get back to what you suggested,
Sam: that I've looked at is there is this unschooling movement,
Sam: which is basically, to describe it at a very high level, and maybe you know
Sam: more because I've only skimmed the surface looking at this, it's basically a
Sam: variant of homeschooling where you also essentially throw the curriculum out the window.
Sam: Cause normal, normal homeschooling is okay. You're going to work with the kid at home.
Sam: You're going to be their primary teacher. Maybe you have some local resources
Sam: where they meet up with other kids and you know, you co-op share with other
Sam: parents so that you split the load, something like that.
Sam: But basically you're doing the same curriculum they would do at a regular school.
Sam: You're just doing it mostly from home.
Sam: Um, unschooling says, yeah, that's nice. Yes.
Sam: And we recognize maybe there are some required state tests that they have to take at some point.
Sam: But basically, let the kid follow their interests and learn the things they
Sam: want to learn and ignore the things they want to ignore and just let them do that.
Peter: I think that's a fair description. And homeschooling can have more or less structure.
Sam: Depending on how the – This is essentially a very extreme form of homeschooling
Sam: that puts a lot of control for the kid.
Peter: I mean, is it even homeschooling at that point? If you're not helping them decide
Peter: what it is they should be learning, it's literally if the kid wants to learn geometry,
Peter: wait for them to express an interest in geometry, and then they'll go figure it out.
Peter: I mean, I'm very skeptical of this because have you met people?
Peter: People, people are just like, if I was unschooled, I'd be, I'd be majoring in Atari.
Sam: Right?
Peter: Like that would be what I would do 24 hours a day.
Sam: Oh, absolutely. And I think this is one of the main criticism of it.
Sam: And I've like, there's one person on Tik TOK who like has been coming up on my feed.
Sam: Who was unschooled as a kid and is now talking about it as an adult.
Sam: And this is one of the main things. I think like the key to this is every kid is different.
Sam: You know, and there are certainly kids that with that kind of structure would do absolutely nothing.
Sam: There are other kids who would do exactly what you hope they would and like
Sam: research a whole bunch of stuff and learn a bunch of.
Peter: I don't believe that. I don't believe that even a little bit.
Sam: But what I was going to say is almost the vast majority of people,
Sam: this would not work for at all.
Sam: Well then there's a group that would just deep dive
Sam: into whatever their interest was
Sam: and learn anything that's directly related to that and have huge gaps in their
Sam: knowledge and i think that's where most if most people who even were able to
Sam: succeed at this a little bit would still end up in that trap and like you said
Sam: maybe it doesn't exist at all i'm sort of acknowledging that maybe Maybe there's,
Sam: you know, one in a hundred thousand who would actually like do something more general.
Peter: But I think, I think you have to be specific though, right?
Peter: Someone the age of your son, maybe that works.
Peter: You've got someone who is, you know, 14, 15, they, they've kind of gone through
Peter: the basic basics. It works.
Sam: It's not going to work with a six year old.
Peter: But when people are talking about unschooling, my impression,
Peter: and I've not unschooled, I've not been unschooled. My impression is they're
Peter: talking about like five-year-olds.
Sam: Right? Yeah.
Peter: And that is not going to work ever for anyone in the history of mankind.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. I see this concept working a lot better the older the kid is, to be honest.
Peter: Sure.
Sam: Absolutely. And even then, only for a very, very slim subset of kids.
Sam: Like I don't – like I'm mentioning my kid. That's essentially what he's been
Sam: doing lately. but I'm not sure it actually works for everything it needs to
Sam: work because again, he's diving into very narrow areas where his interests take him.
Sam: And part of the point of school is,
Sam: is to give you a wide ranging, well-rounded background, even in the things you don't care about.
Peter: And to force you to do, let's see, how much cursing do I want to roll out here? None.
Peter: To force you to do the dumb things you don't want to do, like be able to have
Peter: a conversation with another human being, which is gruesome.
Peter: In junior high school, in high school, I was miserable all the time.
Peter: You know, I, I, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but I kind of still had to do it.
Sam: Yeah.
Peter: Obviously there are exceptions and, and, and particularly amongst special needs kids.
Peter: That's just not, that may not be in the cards or on the table at all,
Peter: but for kind of the average kid, yeah.
Peter: Learning, you know, what a deadline is. And then sometimes you have to finish
Peter: something on time, even if you don't want to.
Sam: Yeah. It's a, it's a very important point that applies both for,
Sam: for primary school, but also for secondary and college is, yeah,
Sam: it's not just about the academics. It's also about the life skills.
Sam: And if you don't have that environment to learn them in, you're going to have
Sam: to learn a lot of these skills somewhere else.
Sam: You're going to have to learn at a certain point, self-sufficiency and being
Sam: able to do the unpleasant tasks that you need to do, but don't want to do.
Sam: And you're going to have to learn the interacting with people and And like you
Sam: said, that this, this sort of social interactions and, you know,
Sam: I, I, I still suck at this stuff.
Sam: I definitely sucked in grade school and high school. Sure.
Peter: You know, and you were pretty good by college though. I mean, I thought you were okay.
Sam: I don't know. I was still pretty sucky in college.
Sam: Like I was still very much like the only times I interacted with people in college,
Sam: the only time I interact with people today is when I'm pulled into it by other people.
Sam: I do not initiate that kind of stuff. If you left me to my own devices,
Sam: I would stay at home and never interact with anybody ever again.
Peter: Oh, it sounds so good. Doesn't it?
Sam: That sounds so good. Love it. Yeah.
Peter: Be the change you want to see in the world, Sam.
Sam: Exactly. Like I've said before, I was thrilled during the pandemic.
Sam: I got, I got to stay, stay at home and not have to interact with people. It was awesome.
Sam: Like I know all kinds of people were like upset by that and felt like they were
Sam: going stir crazy. And I was like, this is great. Yep.
Peter: I would imagine that you're, you're, I know somewhere up in the Northern wilds
Peter: of Washington. I mean, I have to imagine my prejudice is that that's got to
Peter: be in a hotbed of unschooling.
Peter: I don't know why I think that. Is that true?
Sam: I don't know. It's, it's sort of, yeah, parts of the area are like hip.
Sam: It's also a very hippie dippy kind of thing. And so you're likely to see it
Sam: more in, in more liberal states.
Sam: And I, Washington state's definitely got some of that, at least in Western Washington.
Sam: Whereas you know in large parts of the country you talk homeschooling you're
Sam: talking about christian nut jobs who just want to indoctrinate their kids with
Sam: and that's a whole different kind of homeschooling you.
Peter: Got to cross the border to idaho for that.
Sam: Yeah but yeah i imagine there's some of that out there and honestly one of the
Sam: things that we're looking into or we will be looking into for next year is you
Sam: know do we have some yeah or is there some sort of,
Sam: homeschooling group that we could join.
Sam: Like we've always rejected homeschooling for two reasons.
Sam: One, neither myself nor my wife have time.
Sam: And two, like he is much more will, he has historically been much more willing
Sam: to do things for teachers at school than he is to do things for us.
Sam: And so like when we have tried to get him to do schoolwork at home,
Sam: we have almost invariably failed or when we've tried it's been like incredibly
Sam: painful just to get a small amount out of him so i don't know we'll we'll we'll
Sam: figure it all out but like that and this is why like when i saw the unschooling
Sam: stuff start coming up on my tiktok feed i was like huh,
Sam: maybe we should consider something like this maybe.
Peter: They're listening to you and and are proposing it.
Sam: Yeah, probably. And it's just sort of like, yeah, it's essentially what's happening
Sam: anyway, whether we like it or not.
Sam: And so do we just lean into it and try to figure out the best we can do of it?
Sam: Because honestly, like, like I said, like, you know, he's not eligible to take
Sam: the GED for another year and a half.
Sam: But unless we can figure out something where he's happy or comfortable enough,
Sam: like we honestly would consider just saying, okay, you don't want to go to high
Sam: school, pass out of it, do it right now as, and we'll stop, we'll stop bugging you about it.
Sam: If you actually, you know, pass out of it and get your GED and,
Sam: and then we'll see what's up next, you know, but, oh, well, so that was a couple
Sam: of interesting tangents.
Peter: Yeah, I enjoyed that conversation. But I also know that being that we just established
Peter: that you might be on the spectrum.
Peter: Yeah. I'm acutely conscious that stopping you from covering the movie you wanted
Peter: to cover might be a problem.
Peter: So I would feel better if you actually did your movie butt first.
Sam: Well, let's do this. Honestly, I have learned to be more flexible over time.
Sam: I, I, I, you know, it is a skill that I've worked on developing,
Sam: but no, no, let's do this.
Sam: I never actually said the agenda for the show. Oh, the, the normal agenda is
Sam: we do a, but first, and we usually do a couple of movies and then we do a couple
Sam: of segments on other stuff.
Sam: One of the things I was going to mention is Pete here does not want to be canceled.
Peter: It's true.
Sam: And so he, He would like to avoid a little of the politics that we often talk about. And honestly...
Sam: Like I'm okay with having a politics like light show this week,
Sam: a news light week show. Cause it was kind of a slow week for once.
Peter: They knew I was coming.
Sam: Like, yeah, yeah. There was some Hunter Biden stuff going on.
Sam: There's some other stuff. You know, there was nothing like, I felt really compelled.
Sam: Like, oh my God, we have to talk about that. You know, do we.
Peter: Do we get a voice memo from Yvonne this week?
Sam: Well, he has not prepared. No.
Peter: So I think that means there's nothing going on.
Sam: There's nothing going on. Nothing going on in the whole world. obviously
Sam: there is but you know there was nothing i really felt
Sam: like talking about so i'm fine doing a politics light show and we
Sam: were gonna do a couple movies in the first segment and then we were gonna have
Sam: two other segments on some pete here just got back from a trip to japan so there
Sam: was what shangri-la dialogue what is this some sort of international conference
Sam: did you actually she attended or was it just going on while you were there?
Peter: No, gosh, no, no, no. I think that the one thing that happened is when I started
Peter: using my phone in Japan, you suddenly start getting news articles that are more
Peter: relevant to your position.
Peter: So this conference was going on while I was there.
Peter: It's kind of a defense conference with generals and admirals and secretaries of state.
Sam: So we'll talk about this in a minute. So we're going to talk about that conference
Sam: and otherwise Pete's experiences in Japan recently.
Sam: And we're going to do two segments out of those. I suggest at this point we
Sam: take a break and then we come back and we do movies anyway.
Peter: All right.
Sam: Pete had a movie. I had a movie. We'll do that as a segment.
Sam: Then we'll take a break and then we'll do all the Japan stuff,
Sam: including the conference and anything else Pete wants to say about Japan.
Sam: And then that'll be a show.
Peter: Love it.
Sam: So that's what we're going to do. And so here comes the first break.
Sam: I want this one.
Sam: And we will be back right after this.
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Sam: Okay we are back and so uh pete why don't we start with you you you mentioned
Sam: you had a movie and i have one from my big list that i'm catching up on so what's
Sam: the movie you want to highlight it's.
Peter: A long tradition of watching whatever is on the airplane entertainment system.
Peter: And this is a movie that I had heard about on NPR called American fiction.
Peter: And it is the movie version of a book that I've completely forgotten the name of.
Peter: Oh, the book was erasure, a 2001 novel named erasure.
Sam: I'm of course looking at the Wikipedia page. Cause I have not seen this movie.
Peter: But you were more prepared than I was because you already had it up.
Peter: Excellent. Really? I, I want to avoid just, Oh, it's really great.
Peter: But the, the premise of the movie is that the protagonist is a black author of a,
Peter: very classical. I don't know if they were, I actually don't remember in the
Peter: book if it was fiction or if it was like academic works about,
Peter: it seemed to be mostly ancient Greek themed.
Peter: He teaches at a college.
Peter: He's from a fairly wealthy family. His mom, I think, was like a psychotherapist or something.
Peter: Most of his family is very well off. They have a beach house.
Peter: So, So very kind of upper middle class to rich lifestyle.
Peter: And he goes through a series of reversals. This is a minor spoiler,
Peter: but I think it's really the premise of the movie.
Sam: Okay.
Peter: Where he's having trouble getting published. He's having trouble getting his new book published.
Peter: And he attends some sort of conference where there is another black author who
Peter: is having just huge success with a book that is written in African-American
Peter: vernacular English and just very what he views, the character views,
Peter: as taking every stereotype of the white perception of the black experience and profiting on it.
Peter: And so one day in a fit of pique, he kind of dashes off a novel in this same style.
Peter: He's kind of trying to parody it. And he gives it to his agent with a pen name Stag R. Lee.
Peter: And lo and behold, white New York publishing editors love it,
Peter: love the authenticity of it.
Peter: And he very quickly starts living this double life where he's publicizing the
Peter: book under the guise of being this ex-con who's written this tough from the
Peter: streets novel when that isn't who he is at all.
Peter: And in fact, he kind of despises that. He views that as a white projection onto the black experience.
Peter: Just really fascinating movie. I can't say enough good about it.
Peter: It's obviously, I mean, I think that I have a little bit of trepidation talking
Peter: about it because I don't know.
Peter: Whether uh how legit it is for me to have opinions about some of this stuff
Peter: but from a strictly from a strictly entertainment.
Sam: Standpoint just for anybody amazingly enjoy it because you're white yeah because
Sam: i'm white yeah because people can't yeah yeah you you're a white guy i'm a white guy i would.
Peter: Say i'd be cautious you know.
Sam: Well and that's absolutely fair like for
Sam: things that are trying to experience show the experiences of some group if you're
Sam: not part of a group it's sort of like the right way to approach it is to try
Sam: to listen and learn not try to sort of explain it from your own mindset because
Sam: your own mindset is wrong right.
Peter: Jeffrey wright plays the the protagonist
Peter: there's some really standout performances notably leslie uggams.
Sam: Plays i haven't heard that name in a long time yeah.
Peter: She was in deadpool and a couple other things i believe or one of the deadpool
Peter: movies and she plays a mom the mom who is kind of suffering from dementia at
Peter: one point in the movie uh just some really great performances and i i can't
Peter: recommend it strongly enough so that's my that's my movie that's my butt first.
Sam: Yeah okay i will of course
Sam: add it to my list of thousands of movies to eventually
Sam: maybe think of looking at but uh
Sam: no so so sounds good mine is
Sam: let's see when did i watch this we're back
Sam: in december now so i am slowly catching up
Sam: on these things this watch this right before
Sam: the new year at the end of december and this is
Sam: making our way through the harry potter series to
Sam: be honest um this was harry potter and
Sam: the goblet of fire which i guess is number
Sam: four now when these
Sam: first came out i'd seen most of
Sam: the series in the theater i think we actually never
Sam: saw the last two in the theater so i've never seen the
Sam: last two but like like almost everybody
Sam: else at the time where you know it was a
Sam: big thing everybody was harry potter
Sam: was huge for like a long time like
Sam: people joke even now that like there's a whole generation
Sam: of people who like whenever they're
Sam: making comparisons or metaphors to things in real life somehow it's
Sam: always a comparison to harry potter and you know so we slowly have been working
Sam: our way through it it's my son's first time seeing these it's my first time
Sam: seeing them in forever and honestly the last couple i've been a little hesitant
Sam: because like jk rowling has been increasingly.
Sam: Problematic over the last decade or so, uh, specifically with a lot of anti-trans
Sam: stuff as she's been very vocal on.
Sam: And it's like, you know, and no compromise, just sort of.
Sam: But anyway, she's been increasingly problematic.
Sam: And so it's sort of like, you really want to support that?
Sam: And you know, the way I justify it, I do the thing where I'm like,
Sam: I'm sorry, like if you don't watch any media where the creators are problematic,
Sam: you eliminate almost all of media, like in one way or another.
Sam: Other like the same thing has been like you know back in the day i i watched
Sam: buffy like josh whedon has also been outed as being very problematic there's
Sam: other things like you know there and and
Sam: especially with okay she was potentially the sole author of the books i'm sure
Sam: their editors and other people that helped blah blah blah but like with a movie
Sam: like this they're literally thousands of people involved in making that movie as well as her.
Sam: So I don't know. I find myself like, I'm okay watching it. It's a cultural touchstone.
Sam: It's an important part of history.
Sam: And I can separate that out from not approving of what J.K. Rowling is doing these days.
Sam: And even the cast has all distanced herself from her at this point.
Sam: But I don't know, A lot of people find that kind of stuff problematic and will
Sam: not go back and revisit even content they loved if they find out that the creators
Sam: have significant issues.
Sam: I don't know. That's just where I come down on that.
Sam: Before I talk about the actual movie, any thoughts on that, Peter?
Peter: Well, as a...
Peter: Jewish-American guy who likes classical music, the example that always comes up is Wagner.
Sam: Right?
Peter: Who, of course, was used heavily by the Nazis in their propaganda.
Peter: And, of course, himself was a truly kind of vile anti-Semite in kind of the
Peter: most self-interested way.
Peter: He was always competing with other composers.
Peter: And in the case was cases when those composers were Jewish, you know,
Peter: he would, he wrote, he wrote a terrible essay kind of basically saying that,
Peter: you know, Jews can't write music, that sort of thing.
Sam: Lovely.
Peter: But unfortunately, the son of a gun wrote some really beautiful music.
Peter: And so you have to kind of decide, you know, yeah, are you, are you okay with it? Are you not?
Peter: My mom, you can't listen to Wagner, you know, and like, she's not interested.
Peter: And for her, it really is kind of that political question. It's very cut and dry for her.
Peter: For me, I listen to it. I don't view my enjoying that music as either an endorsement of his views.
Peter: And I don't fear that I'm going to be, I don't fear that the music somehow carries the idea with it.
Sam: Well, is it different for somebody like Wagner, who is no longer around and
Sam: hasn't been for a long time?
Sam: Part of the concern that people have on something like Harry Potter is if you
Sam: buy the Blu-rays, or even if you stream it, or whatever, you're potentially
Sam: putting money in her pocket right now.
Peter: Yeah, and I think this comes down to personal...
Peter: Personal opinion. And I would not mock or make fun or argue with anyone who
Peter: said that to me, anyone who said, I don't care how good or bad the book is.
Peter: I'm not giving this person who I despise my money, you know, sensible argument.
Peter: Again, it wouldn't stop me because I, I am desperate for entertainment in this cursed world.
Peter: And, you know, as long as it's not a directly, As long as the work itself is
Peter: not directly despicable in a, in certain ways that,
Peter: that is kind of where I draw my line is that if the content itself is problematic, then.
Sam: Yeah, I definitely see that.
Sam: I mean, in some cases, I could see myself wanting to read something with despicable
Sam: content for the purpose of educating myself on what it was and what people were
Sam: talking about or whatever.
Peter: But you'd pirate it.
Sam: Or even modern works where there's some really obnoxious conservative authors
Sam: right now who I might consider reading some of their recent writings to be like,
Sam: okay, let me really understand what the hell they're going on about so I can
Sam: criticize it intelligently.
Sam: But i that would be
Sam: i imagine that would be less fun and frustrating for me
Sam: as well like if i'm reading like i
Sam: might do it because i feel like i need
Sam: to to be able to speak intelligently or something but like i could see myself
Sam: getting so frustrated if i was reading something where on every single page
Sam: i was like oh my god this is horrible this is awful these views are despicable
Sam: and they're stupid. They're not like,
Sam: making sense. I could see that as being a painful exercise, but I could see
Sam: some scenarios where I would do it, but that's kind of, that's a little bit
Sam: different than the, okay, I'm going to watch Harry Potter, even though JK Rowling is a transphobe.
Peter: Right. You're, you're not re you're not watching Harry Potter to,
Peter: to debunk it. You're watching it to enjoy it.
Sam: Although there are lines there. I mean, except that first.
Peter: That first Chris Columbus movie, which was terrible and nobody should like that movie.
Sam: Well well i was gonna say you know you
Sam: bring up the anti-semitism people point out that they're
Sam: stupid goblins that run the banks at
Sam: gringotts who are very clearly jewish caricatures
Sam: in harry potter and there are
Sam: other similar things in terms of how like they they
Sam: sort of retroactively adjusted some of this stuff after
Sam: the initial publication but like every all
Sam: the the main characters are white like you know they sort of retroactively made
Sam: oh yeah dumbledore's gay but like it's not actually clear from the original
Sam: you know so there are problematic things even within these if you think about
Sam: it a little bit i don't know poor.
Peter: I don't know i think that that she wrote a wave because i remember when these
Peter: books first came out and And I had friends who had kids who kind of basically
Peter: forced the books on me and said, you have to read this.
Peter: This is back around the time of the first two or three books.
Sam: Yeah.
Peter: And it was clear to me, particularly in that first book, that this was a children's story.
Sam: Yes.
Peter: Like firmly, like this was a very lightweight, it was almost one step up from a pamphlet.
Sam: Very.
Peter: Yeah.
Sam: The first one was very much. Yes, exactly. There was not much substance behind it.
Peter: And so I feel like some of the content criticisms I think are valid.
Peter: Some of them I think are, you know, this is someone who is writing a pamphlet and it got away from her.
Peter: You know, you find yourself in this world where you've basically written yourself
Peter: in a corner. I'm not trying to make excuses for her in any way.
Peter: But I do think that that explains a lot about the aesthetic of,
Peter: of harry potter.
Sam: Particularly in.
Peter: The later books you know the later books grew out of
Peter: these first books which were very much this british just so you know myth the
Peter: story of i had a miserable life and i went away to public school right like
Peter: that's the story forget about all the wizards and stuff that's a very well trod path.
Sam: Yeah in.
Peter: British young adult fiction.
Sam: Right and and you know they they do try
Sam: like i guess the initial conceit of
Sam: what she was doing is to try to age the books as
Sam: you go through the series so that as the characters
Sam: age the writing is also a little bit deeper and
Sam: blah blah blah i don't think it ever gets that deep to be honest but you know
Sam: whatever anyway the movie this is it originally came out in 2005 and this is
Sam: as a basic plot harry potter gets That's interred against his will.
Sam: He didn't intend to be, but it's some tournament that, of course,
Sam: as you are going to do if you are taking school children and having a friendly
Sam: competition that can be deadly and dangerous along the way, because, of course, why not?
Sam: And it has a bunch of challenges, and the schools are competing each other, and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And as usual in the Harry Potter universe, this is being manipulated by the forces of evil.
Peter: You mentioned multiple schools. As long as we're talking about stereotypes, right?
Peter: We've got one school from France, which is entirely composed of beautiful ballet dancers.
Peter: And we've got another school from France.
Peter: Some undefined place in Eastern Europe. Let's say Prussia. It's definitely in Prussia, right?
Sam: Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Peter: And they might be Russian. They might be German. I don't think J.K.
Peter: Rowling knows, but they're definitely they all have very ominous names and wear
Peter: jackboots and like goose step into the place.
Peter: So right there, we've got some great, great shorthand going on.
Sam: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, as usual, the forces of evil are out there trying to
Sam: get Harry Potter and trying to manipulate things.
Sam: And they're trying to bring the bad guy, he who shall not be named,
Sam: which I will name, Voldemort.
Peter: He's going to show up now.
Sam: I know. I know. Shocking. Anyway, they're trying to bring him back and hilarity
Sam: ensues and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: I'm going to give it a thumb sideways. It's fine. It's an entertaining way to spend a couple hours.
Sam: I had to read the Wikipedia page to remind myself of what really happened in
Sam: this because, honestly,
Sam: I watched it in December and my memory had already faded of what's really happening,
Sam: what was the main plot, what was whatever.
Sam: You know so i realize
Sam: again these were sort of a a cultural touchstone of that decade were first the
Sam: books then the movies and they were really huge they were everywhere but they're
Sam: okay they're not like i i i,
Sam: At least for this one, like you said, the first one kind of sucked for this
Sam: one. I would just sort of say, eh, it's fine. It's entertaining.
Sam: It's not gonna, I have no feeling of like,
Sam: oh my God, this was something that I was changed by touched by want to like
Sam: go revisit on a regular basis.
Sam: It was just sort of, yeah, it is what it is. It's a, it's entertaining couple
Sam: hours, but beyond that, whatever.
Peter: One thing that I think is legitimately great about those movies,
Peter: completely separate from the content is that you have this massive intellectual property,
Peter: which because Warner brothers is the worst studio on the planet,
Peter: doesn't have a consistent, any kind of consistency across its run.
Peter: Right. In particular, they've changed the director. director i think there were
Peter: four directors for the entire series out of seven so seven movies four directors and.
Sam: The style changes completely.
Peter: Yes and i what i remember is
Peter: that prisoner of azkaban which was the movie before the one you're talking about
Peter: was directed by alfonso cuarón and that one had a very distinctive feel and
Peter: and then they they go in this completely different And I think the first two are just execrable,
Peter: if that's an English word, directed by the guy who did the Home Alone movies, and it feels like it.
Peter: It's all like reaction shots of the kids clapping in glee.
Peter: It's just, I can't stomach them. But,
Peter: but just this, this idea of it really shows you the impact of a director on
Peter: a movie, since these are ostensibly all the same kind of universe,
Peter: all the same kind of production design,
Peter: but they all have very different feels.
Sam: Yeah. Well, and I think they, I mean, it wasn't an accident.
Sam: Like if they'd wanted to do some consistency, they could have,
Sam: they, they explicitly chose, Hey, we're going to change up the style every couple of years.
Sam: And part of it, I think, is to try to go along with this notion that as you
Sam: move through the series, you move from a kid series to a more not adult series,
Sam: but something for older children or even teenagers.
Sam: Because, you know, you are trying to, you know, when they start,
Sam: like these kids are like, what, eight, nine years old, something like that.
Sam: And when we end, you know, the books don't cook quite as fast as their real ages.
Sam: But, you know, they're in story, they're graduating high school at the end of these.
Sam: And so i think part of the thought process was you want to reflect that growth
Sam: and that change in both the characters and the audience i don't know how how well executed it is i.
Peter: Think you're giving these guys way.
Sam: Too much credit i think this.
Peter: Is you know someone wanted another zero on their paycheck and they said no we'll
Peter: find a new director this is this is warner brothers the idea that there's any
Peter: kind of like cogent thought or.
Sam: Planning done is like.
Peter: Not not well supported.
Sam: Okay okay i'm you know i'm trying to fit a theory to it that matches a little bit but maybe right.
Peter: Maybe right maybe.
Sam: You know but yeah so thumb sideways for harry potter and you gave a big thumbs
Sam: up for american fiction and yeah i think that's that's enough for media for
Sam: this week and And unless you have something else you want to add real quick,
Sam: any other things that you've seen recently that.
Peter: No, I have seen things, but I don't think they warrant their own segment.
Peter: So I'm, I'm happy to move on.
Sam: Okay.
Peter: I'll save them for next time.
Sam: Yeah. And Yvonne seems to be like missing shows more and more,
Sam: like, you know, one thing or another, he's sick, he's traveling, he's whatever.
Sam: So there'll probably be more opportunities sooner rather than later.
Peter: Well, based on, based on Yvonne's voice memo, I mean, I think he's probably
Peter: on a celebration bender, you know, he's out somewhere just six sheets to the
Peter: wind, extremely happy about the political developments.
Sam: Would not be surprising okay so although he has said he drinks a lot less now than he used to i.
Peter: Find that that's true for me as well getting getting old getting old just like makes it less fun.
Sam: In ivan's case his wife quit drinking completely and they don't have alcohol
Sam: in the house anymore so he only occasionally drinks when he's out whereas it
Sam: used to be a more regular thing.
Sam: In my case, I didn't drink at all until I was over 21. I was legal before I
Sam: had my very first drink of anything.
Sam: And through my twenties, I probably did, you know, I, I drank to excess on a few occasions.
Sam: I never really drank like with dinner or anything.
Sam: I only drank when I was like out with friends for the purpose of drinking.
Sam: And then in my thirties, I cut that way, way, way back.
Sam: Cause I realized I was like, this is, I'm, I don't actually enjoy this process.
Sam: I don't like it that much. So I cut way, way back and would only occasionally
Sam: drink a very small amount.
Sam: Like, like maybe I'd have a margarita once in a while at a Mexican restaurant,
Sam: like once or twice a year.
Sam: And then when I hit 40, I was like, basically I'm done. I haven't had a drink since.
Peter: So Sam, I have a new topic.
Sam: Okay.
Peter: Would you like me to introduce this topic? Are we, were you going to do a break?
Sam: I was going to do a break. Let's go ahead and take the break and we can do your new topic before.
Peter: This topic, this topic is based on the one that you're talking about.
Sam: Okay.
Peter: That's all. Just, I'll just say the words and you can take the break and we come back.
Sam: Okay.
Peter: If we could talk about it.
Sam: That's cool.
Peter: The rise of very drinkable, zero alcohol cocktails and drinks.
Sam: Ah, okay.
Peter: That's my topic.
Sam: Okay.
Peter: Because I think it's relevant.
Sam: There you go. Back after this.
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Sam: Okay, we are back. So before we get to Japan, and I don't want to squeeze out
Sam: Japan entirely because you had a whole bunch of stuff you wanted to talk about there.
Sam: But what's the deal with the non-alcoholic cocktails
Sam: and i will admit like i just said like
Sam: i haven't had an alcoholic drink since i turned 40 which is a long time now
Sam: but like i certainly haven't even had like mocktails either like i haven't felt
Sam: like oh my god i really want that like alcoholic drink taste but without the
Sam: alcohol it hasn't even i haven't even thought of The.
Peter: Deal is that they exist now. So for many, many years, there have been non-alcoholic
Peter: beers and non-alcoholic wines, and they have been uniformly terrible.
Peter: When you and I were high school students, I think there was a beer,
Peter: a non-alcoholic beer called Moosey that you could get.
Peter: Okay. It tasted like the worst stale Budweiser you've ever had.
Peter: Really, you know, practically undrinkable. It tasted like barf.
Sam: Now i i always thought even when i drank it i thought all beer tasted like barf
Sam: because i just never i never actually liked it but okay kind.
Peter: Of did i mean back then back then.
Peter: As I've gotten older, my alcohol tolerance has just gone down and down and down.
Peter: I drank a lot in my 20s. I drank moderately in my 30s. And that acclimated me to the taste.
Peter: So you get to a point where I would like to drink a whiskey.
Peter: I would like to drink a glass of wine. And I want to drink it not because I
Peter: want to get a buzz, not because I want to get drunk, but because I would like the taste.
Peter: Taste but one drink nowadays is
Peter: enough to make me feel like garbage in the next morning which
Peter: is just was not true 30 years ago it's true today
Peter: right if you give me a full glass of wine out you know even if i'm drinking
Peter: it with dinner the next morning i'm gonna have a headache a little hangover
Peter: so i want the taste but i don't want the alcohol the thing that has shocked
Peter: me is i feel I feel like this decade is where the producers have cracked the code.
Peter: You can get non-alcoholic IPAs. I know you said you don't drink beer,
Peter: but you can get non-alcoholic Guinness.
Peter: They have fewer calories than the full alcohol version.
Peter: Listen, I had a non-alcoholic Guinness the other week from a can, right?
Peter: So you're not getting the draft experience. It tasted to my taste buds,
Peter: pretty much identical to Guinness in a can with alcohol.
Peter: And the other thing that has happened is there's been an explosion of non-alcoholic spirits.
Peter: Now what it means for something to be a spirit.
Peter: That doesn't have alcohol, it's
Peter: a little confusing to me. I don't fully understand it, but they exist.
Peter: I've had mocktails made with them, and they're in the ballpark.
Peter: So that's my pitch is if you have not tried,
Peter: particularly the non-alcoholic beers are superb now, but if you haven't tried
Peter: these and you have the urge,
Peter: it's worth checking in again if the last time you tasted one was 20 years ago
Peter: Because the technology, like the technology for meatless meat,
Peter: has improved massively over the past few years.
Sam: So go try the non-alcoholic cocktails if you're somewhere that offers them.
Peter: Absolutely.
Sam: Are they offered all over the place now? Like if you go to a random bar,
Sam: are you going to be able to find these?
Peter: If it's a beer bar, if it's so specifically for the beers, if the bar has a
Peter: good selection of bottles, it's almost certain.
Peter: That they're going to have at least one NA bottle somewhere because people go
Peter: and really want to drink with their friends or they're the designated driver.
Sam: How about the cocktails? You mentioned this on.
Peter: The- The cocktails are harder to find. I've had to go, there are specialty stores
Peter: that sell these bottles and you can mail order them or there happens to be a
Peter: specialty store in my town in Pennsylvania where I can get them or get some of them.
Peter: So those are a little rarer. most places you go you get a mocktail you're really
Peter: getting a you know fruit juice and and stuff.
Sam: Before we move on to the japan stuff just along those lines uh you mentioned
Sam: the technology has improved i think another part of this is the market is changing
Sam: too i've seen a few reports that you know just amongst younger people the just
Sam: the amount of alcohol consumed is dropping
Sam: at a fairly good clip, you know, and it's not, I'm not saying that young people
Sam: don't still consume alcohol.
Sam: They do, but the amounts at which they are doing so seem to be dropping quite a bit.
Sam: There's a lot more consciousness about being responsible with it and making
Sam: sure that, you know, you're, you're not just getting blasted out of your mind
Sam: all the time and certainly not going, doing that and driving or whatever.
Sam: Also, honestly, there's other legal alternatives now in many places.
Sam: People are doing the legal marijuana instead.
Sam: So there's more competition for even the mind-altering stuff and some other
Sam: drugs that aren't legal but are,
Sam: not people don't have as much concern about them so
Sam: there's there's a bunch of competition out there for the
Sam: slot that alcohol had and and not just other drugs but also like competition
Sam: from just being sober there's a lot more people who are out there who are just
Sam: like yeah i don't need that i don't want that and from the very beginning also.
Peter: People drinking less soda people drinking you know.
Sam: Yeah. Oh yeah. As well. Like the drink manufacturers in general are like,
Sam: you know, have scrambling to figure out like what to do to, to,
Sam: to make their money because tastes are changing.
Sam: Like alcohol is less in favor than it was, at least here in the U S I've heard
Sam: different from some other countries, but highly sweetened stuff is going out of style.
Sam: Meanwhile of course these energy drinks that are just pumped full of caffeine
Sam: they they exist in a way that didn't when we were younger as well so like it's just a,
Sam: different yeah like again not saying better or worse but there's definitely differences,
Sam: and honestly from my point of view i think the the what it's still not like
Sam: a majority or anything but the fact that,
Sam: consumption of some of the, of things like alcohol is going down.
Sam: I think that's actually a good thing overall.
Sam: Like, and you know, we, a couple of weeks ago when Matt was on the show,
Sam: we talked about rescheduling of marijuana and how like,
Sam: like I'd probably prefer personally if people didn't use either,
Sam: but in terms of danger to yourself and people around you,
Sam: marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol.
Sam: If you have to pick one, you know, I'm not sure the alcohol is the one that
Sam: I would want people to be taking. So.
Peter: No, very true. Very true. Although I do wish in places where people are using
Peter: legalized marijuana, I am begging you.
Peter: Can't you take, eat a brownie? You don't have to smoke it.
Sam: Please.
Peter: Like, especially around my house. Like just, I don't want to smell it.
Sam: Oh yeah. Like brownie, gummies, whatever. Yeah. I, I, I am sensitive to all
Sam: smells and always have been my whole life.
Sam: Like somebody can be smoking tobacco like 30 feet away and I'm like,
Sam: Oh my God, I have to walk a different direction.
Sam: And there are certain parts of Seattle or any public event. You go to a damn
Sam: concert or whatever. The smell is everywhere.
Sam: Like whether you want it or not, you can't avoid it. And it's like, yes.
Sam: Like, and even like, even where it's legal, legal
Sam: typically it's legal for use inside your
Sam: private home it's not actually legal to
Sam: use in the public venue on the streets or whatever but people do anyway and
Sam: the smell is all over the place and yeah so i agree with you fully like you
Sam: know do do this in a way that does not affect others like you know we finally
Sam: mostly seem to have gotten rid of secondhand smoke from tobacco In most places,
Sam: like, like I, I have a neighbor who goes out to their front porch to smoke.
Sam: And so sometimes I can smell that when I walk out of my driveway and every time
Sam: I'm like, oh, you know, I don't want to smell it.
Sam: Like, and I understand your wife probably kicked you out to keep you because
Sam: you're not allowed to do it in the house.
Sam: So you do it on the porch, but that like it propagates, it's not just where you are, but anyway, so.
Peter: A conversation I've had with younger, I guess, zoomers is what growing up in the 1970s was like.
Peter: So I, I, I'm not going to say this was universal, but certainly in my family
Peter: and where I grew up, my experience was that everyone had a relative who smoked.
Sam: Right?
Peter: Probably multiple relatives who smoked. Yeah. And the consequence of this, right?
Peter: People are smoking in your house. Even if your parent, my parents did not smoke,
Peter: they had ashtrays because people would come over and they have to smoke.
Peter: Everything smelled like smoke all the time forever your hair smelled like smoke
Peter: your clothes smelled like smoke your car in my case god forbid my grandpa's
Peter: car that guy smoked cigars,
Peter: everything smelled like smoke all the time and i just want to if you're younger
Peter: i just want you to like take a moment out of your day take a deep breath and
Peter: like really appreciate how lucky you You are in this one particular way.
Peter: Was that, was that your 1970s experience, Sam, or am I unique?
Sam: I don't think you were unique at all. It, it was less so for me,
Sam: like neither of my parents smoked and nobody came over and smoked in our house.
Sam: Like, you know, so, but the fact that cigarettes were everywhere,
Sam: like every public space had ashtrays.
Sam: Airplanes airplanes smoked in airplanes there
Sam: there were smoking sections and airplanes but it
Sam: made like smoke traveled anyway
Sam: and i know people talk about well the ventilation is left to right and so like
Sam: it's no no it did not stay in the smoking section i am sorry restaurants had
Sam: smoking sections uh every place you could not like you couldn't and you know
Sam: i was talking about marijuana smell.
Sam: The same thing would be true of cigarette smoke smell practically everywhere you went.
Sam: Even when I was in my 20s and starting in the professional world,
Sam: a huge portion of the people at work would take smoke breaks.
Sam: If you went by any of the entrances, it would be crowded by smokers having their
Sam: smoke break and you'd have to walk through that in order to get in and out exhaling.
Peter: Right beneath the air intake right.
Sam: Yeah and now like i mean now where i am in washington state i don't know about
Sam: other places but there are laws around you you can't smoke within a certain
Sam: amount of distance of the front entrance at this point and and there you there are
Sam: certainly people who still smoke and take smoke breaks and
Sam: stuff like that but it's much less visible than
Sam: it was you know a couple decades ago even
Sam: and the percentage of people who smoke actively has been dropping and dropping
Sam: and dropping because like young kids like i mean if they if they pick up something
Sam: now it's likely to be vaping which of course has like some of the the same problems
Sam: health-wise if you're vaping nicotine,
Sam: but it, some of these other things are less of a problem.
Sam: And the, the, the smell for other people is less of a problem.
Sam: It doesn't go away completely, but it's, and so it's different. And again, like.
Sam: You definitely see a lot less of it than you did. And, and this,
Sam: this shows also, like I've, I've done the comparison before people talk about,
Sam: like, you know, I've done a comparison to the gun debate, right.
Sam: About like, you know, does out, you know, just even if we didn't have a second
Sam: amendment, do like strict gun laws, would they do what you wanted to?
Sam: And the answer is no. If people want something, they're going to have it.
Sam: But what happened with smoking was not like, Like people learned from the prohibition of alcohol.
Sam: It was not let's outlaw cigarettes.
Peter: It was let's make it more inconvenient and a little more expensive and a little
Peter: more socially unacceptable.
Sam: Yes. And culturally put a stigma on it. Make it culturally unacceptable.
Sam: Make it more expensive. Make it more inconvenient. All of those things you said.
Sam: And over the course of a few decades, usage dropped precipitously.
Sam: Now it's not zero.
Peter: I think that's so good. I think it's so good.
Peter: You know, this is a personal topic for me. My dad passed away a few years ago
Peter: and he passed away of lung cancer.
Peter: And the thing that I want to, you know, that I think about is that this guy
Peter: did not smoke a day in his life.
Peter: He never lit a cigarette, never lit a pipe, never lit a cigar,
Peter: but his brother smoked a pipe.
Peter: His other brother smoked cigars and his mom smoked cigarettes and his aunt smoked
Peter: cigarettes. So he grew up in a house with four smokers and he's the guy who
Peter: got lung cancer from that.
Peter: And, you know, I absolutely, you know, you can't know why, why someone comes
Peter: down with something, but I absolutely ascribe it to that.
Peter: So, you know, if, if you're, if you're a smoker, I mean, I don't know,
Peter: it's not my place to lecture people, but it's not just you that you're affecting.
Peter: You're also affecting the people around you. So I urge,
Peter: I I'm very glad that smoking is dropping and I've heard disturbing statistics
Peter: about the rise of vaping, but hopefully, hopefully it's less bad and hopefully
Peter: it's less just simply in numbers than it was.
Sam: Yeah, and I think less bad is the right thing. It's not not bad.
Sam: And honestly, same thing with marijuana and other things. It's like none of
Sam: these things are harmless.
Sam: There are negative effects, but shifting from something that is more harmful
Sam: to something that is less harmful is still beneficial.
Sam: You know, and it's sort of the notion of harm reduction as a strategy.
Sam: Telling people, no, you can't go do something that they find fun is a losing strategy.
Sam: Yeah. It just plain is you can't say same thing with, you know,
Sam: abstinence only sex education.
Sam: I mean, come on, you know, you, you can't just say, don't do it.
Peter: People do. People do say it doesn't work.
Sam: I know people do, but it's so – you've actually had people show that that kind
Sam: of stuff is actually counterproductive because you make it more appealing to
Sam: the people who want to be rebellious and stuff like that.
Sam: And so, yeah, instead, you can educate.
Sam: You can make sure that when people do do things, they do it in the safest way possible.
Sam: You give them resources to stop if they want to stop.
Sam: All of this kind of stuff. It's just so much more healthy to think about things
Sam: from a harm reduction point of view.
Sam: And from the point of view of, you know, maybe redirect them a little bit,
Sam: but don't just be like, no, you can't, it does not work.
Sam: Prohibition does not work in almost any category.
Peter: Now pivoting topics. I did walk a few clouds of cigarette smoke in my recent trip to Japan.
Sam: Oh, time for Japan. Finally, let's not miss it.
Peter: I'm gonna i'm gonna pivot because i i'm very conscious that i have spent an
Peter: hour taking you down all of it i'm it sam i see something shiny i see something
Peter: shiny and i just i gotta go no.
Sam: No this is good this is fun this is a good conversation go ahead but it's time for.
Peter: Japan went on a two-week vacation to japan i was in tokyo and a town called
Peter: matsumoto and a town Well, Kyoto, which is kind of ground zero for the tourist
Peter: explosion in Japan right now.
Sam: Now, were you solo or were you with other people?
Peter: I was with some friends. Okay. We'd planned this trip for a while.
Peter: And I got to tell you, I'm ready to go back. It is.
Sam: Was it your first time in Japan?
Peter: Yeah. It was amazing.
Sam: I've never been. So.
Peter: You should go. That's my comment to everyone. And I think, I think to just see
Peter: what is possible in a high trust society, um,
Peter: and you know, there are, there are pluses and minuses, I think to the Japanese
Peter: affect, I'll call it the, the kind of public affect.
Peter: But I think the thing that really encapsulates it for me, and it's very silly, um,
Peter: One of the things, people will talk about this, it's not a shocking thing,
Peter: is after the Sarin terrorist attack in, I believe, the late 1980s.
Peter: There was a case where there was a terrorist attack where someone brought a
Peter: chemical weapon onto a subway.
Peter: And part of the consequence of that is they tightened up security.
Peter: And one of the decisions was, we're mostly getting rid of trash bins.
Peter: It's not a hundred percent like, you know, stores will still have trash cans.
Peter: And sometimes you'll see a, if you have a vending machine selling bottles,
Peter: you know, sometimes there'll be a little trash can next to the vending machine for the bottles.
Peter: But in terms of like random trash bins out in the city, you don't have them.
Peter: They're, they're just not there.
Peter: If you, the protocol is if, if you're out somewhere and you generate trash,
Peter: you put it in your pocket and you take it home.
Peter: Coupled with this, they're very, very strict rules about how you're supposed
Peter: to put your garbage out, what days it's okay, which types go out.
Peter: And if I said to you, hey, Sam, new rule, Seattle needs to get rid of 90% of
Peter: its trash cans, what would your expectation be?
Sam: There would be so much mass resistance, including for me. I'd be like,
Sam: what the hell do you mean? What am I supposed to do with my trash?
Peter: But even apart from people's feelings.
Sam: Yes.
Peter: My expectation, if you did that in Pennsylvania, my expectation would be that
Peter: people would just leave their trash. They would just throw it on the ground.
Sam: Oh, yeah. Like, if you don't give them a place to put the trash,
Sam: they will just say, well, I have to put it somewhere. I'm just throwing it over there.
Peter: Yes. And this does not happen there. Or it did not happen in the three cities
Peter: that I was in. Everywhere is trash.
Peter: Clean to an almost disturbing level. The, the, the story that I'll tell is on
Peter: the second from last day of the trip,
Peter: I was walking to place to send my luggage onward and I was walking past train tracks.
Peter: And so there was a gate, a fence, and then the train tracks are behind the fence.
Peter: And then leaning against the train track was one piece of paper.
Peter: And I swear to God, I had the reaction.
Peter: I literally said it out loud. Oh, thank God.
Peter: Like, thank God I finally seen a piece of trash.
Peter: Where I am in this town, the roads are just filthy.
Peter: You'll be driving down the highway and you will see someone just like throw
Peter: a McDonald's bag out of their window.
Sam: I haven't seen that myself in a long time. But yeah.
Sam: But I still see the trash. trash but i remember
Sam: when i was younger i would actually see the people
Sam: throw it out the window while driving now it is still trash along the side that
Sam: you see but i i feel like there's enough shame to it now that i don't actually
Sam: see the people like if somebody's going to do it i feel like they look behind
Sam: them to make sure there's no one who can see them do it.
Peter: I mean i assume this has to be the power of
Peter: cultural norms yes similar to what we were just
Peter: talking about in terms of smoking they've managed
Peter: to make being a litter bug socially unacceptable
Peter: to more or less everyone yeah
Peter: again caveat if there's some town in japan that is covered in garbage you know
Peter: i wasn't there and didn't see it feel free to you know i guess mention it on
Peter: the slack and tell me where it is i'll do a pilgrimage or something but that
Peter: to me was really striking the food was excellent and you I don't want to give a travelogue,
Peter: but there were basically two things that I noted.
Peter: So that's the two things I wanted to call out about this trip,
Peter: because I don't want to turn it into Pete's travelogue, because that's not what
Peter: Commerciants Corner is about, are the two cultural differences that I found
Peter: striking. So one is the trash thing.
Peter: The other is specifically in Tokyo. I've heard that it's different elsewhere.
Peter: There's a norm that one does not speak on the subway, on the Metro.
Peter: You don't have loud conversations on the Metro.
Peter: Occasionally you'll see someone lean over and, you know, murmur something,
Peter: but even that is really not done. And I saw a poster, a Hello Kitty poster kind of giving these rules.
Peter: And, you know, I've heard someone say, what is it?
Peter: The subway is a place of quiet contemplation.
Peter: Whether that's literally true or if this is just a cultural norm that people
Peter: have adopted, I'm not sure.
Peter: But I really liked it.
Peter: I found it, you know, maybe that's my inner introvert speaking.
Peter: But I liked, like, I'm not encountering, you know, people arguing with each
Peter: other or having loud conversations.
Peter: And in fact, we had one incident in Kyoto where there was an American family
Peter: visiting that was having just
Peter: this hugely loud conversation about what their next travel plans were.
Peter: And it was really disturbing and everyone around them was disturbed.
Peter: And I was disturbed because I'd gotten used to it for two weeks of not experiencing.
Peter: So that's, those are the two things from the Japan trip that I wanted to pull out.
Sam: Well, like you said, uh, well, culturally, you mentioned like even within the
Sam: U S and even within families and like introvert extrovert kind of thing.
Sam: Like I find this is one of the things where I personally am not comfortable
Sam: speaking I'm speaking in a public space where I know that others are able to hear, you know?
Sam: So like, and, and this is completely opposite from my wife.
Sam: So like, if like, I will not like, if I'm on the phone with her,
Sam: but I need to go into the grocery store or something, I will hang up with her
Sam: before I go into the store.
Sam: I will like, cause I'm like, I, or at best I'll be like, I can't like,
Sam: I will listen to you, but I'm not going to speak anymore because I'm now in public.
Sam: Whereas she like feels completely comfortable having a conversation as you're
Sam: walking through the grocery store, being on the phone with somebody while you're
Sam: going through the grocery store.
Sam: And I'm like, I just can't do that.
Peter: Right. Right.
Sam: Like, and, you know, it's like, and even there, I feel self-conscious,
Sam: like in, if, if she's on, if, if she's on the phone with her mother,
Sam: I don't feel like, even though I know she doesn't mind,
Sam: I feel like I should go to the other room. that.
Peter: Feels yeah that feels very extreme to me like.
Sam: Yeah she's well because she's fit
Sam: she's having a conversation with her mother i'm like that's not if i'm part
Sam: of the conversation that's a whole other thing but like i'm gonna go elsewhere
Sam: and like when i call my dad i for the most part don't like i i will go and do
Sam: a walk around the block while i talk to him rather than,
Sam: you know like i i just can't do it like i can't have that conversation in the
Sam: living room with my family around.
Sam: Cause I'm like, I'm having a conversation with my dad. If it was,
Sam: I'm having, if, if it was like the whole family is going to have a conversation
Sam: with my dad, whole different story.
Sam: But, and I know I, like you said, that's maybe that's a bit extreme,
Sam: but like, again, that's where like, I feel, I don't feel comfortable having the conversation,
Sam: around people other than the people I'm having the conversation with.
Sam: Whereas on the other hand, lots of people, absolutely no problem.
Sam: You know, unless, and unless, and unless you're talking about something especially
Sam: sensitive now, that's a different story, but just for normal routine conversation, like, yeah, yeah.
Sam: I see people all the time talking, you know, talking, uh, on the street,
Sam: in the grocery store, whatever.
Sam: Now, funnily enough though, like,
Sam: If I'm at a booth in a restaurant, I don't longer feel this,
Sam: even though theoretically the people in the next booth over can hear me just fine.
Peter: So it's the physical separation of the booth that gives it to you.
Peter: The physical separation of the booth is enough for you to feel like it's your
Peter: space and you're allowed to talk.
Peter: What about a table? If you're at a table in the middle of the room, is that okay?
Sam: I feel a little bit more exposed in that scenario, but I will still talk.
Sam: I think part of it is it really is socially accepted that what people do at
Sam: restaurants is they talk to each other.
Sam: So it would be kind of weird if I sat there silently eating.
Sam: So I don't know. But okay, I know where we are rapidly running out of time.
Sam: You've talked about generally your Japan experience and the two experiences
Sam: and the two cultural things.
Sam: You did have something about a conference you were at.
Peter: No, I was not at the conference.
Sam: Oh, right. You just heard about it in news. That's right. That's right.
Peter: So one effect is if you travel internationally, of course, everyone is trying
Peter: to show you the right ads, which means they're trying to show you the right
Peter: content, which means you tend to get local news stories.
Peter: And going to Asia, I started getting all these Asia-specific news stories.
Peter: And the big news in Asia when I arrived in Japan was this conference called
Peter: the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore,
Peter: which seems like national security types from the U.S., from what they call the ASEAN countries,
Peter: Southeast Asia, Australia, and China was there.
Peter: And I really want to recommend that people look up some of these video clips
Peter: because they are very striking. the extent to which mainland China is comfortable.
Peter: Being publicly aggressive about specifically Taiwan independence,
Peter: but also just, you know, their desire and their plan to dominate the region.
Peter: There is a really fascinating back and forth between, I believe his name was
Peter: Admiral Dong Jun and a US admiral named Paparo,
Peter: who, you know, kind of directly kind of answered this Chinese admiral's kind
Peter: of statement about the US being kind of preparing for war.
Peter: You know, the vibe was that they're being somewhat warmongery.
Peter: And, you know, he kind of gave a very politic answer that he personally is in
Peter: favor of peace, but the entire point of a deterrence is that you're,
Peter: you know, you're trying to deter aggression,
Peter: that being the philosophy of the way you're going to guarantee peace is by being
Peter: essentially in a posture where you can respond if something happens.
Peter: Really striking and really interesting to me that you would have,
Peter: Non-politicians. Now, you could argue about whether an admiral at that level,
Peter: you're kind of a politician, but you're certainly not like a secretary of state or something.
Sam: Right.
Peter: The extent to which these dudes were willing to have that conversation in public
Peter: on a stage, I found just fascinating.
Peter: And so, Shangri-La dialogue, and I do recommend you seek out some of the clips in the news.
Peter: I hesitate to talk about them in more detail. tell, even though I put it on
Peter: the show topics because I'm not an Asia expert and I'm not a military expert,
Peter: you know, but as a lay person, I thought it was a fascinating thing to be exposed to.
Sam: And it's interesting. I was just looking up the Wikipedia page for this.
Sam: They, first of all, it's actually, you know, you're in Japan and talking about
Sam: it as local, it's regional.
Sam: This is actually held in Singapore. So it's not, wasn't actually in Japan where this was happening.
Peter: Yes, correct.
Sam: Stuff there is available online if you want to check it out okay well with that
Sam: 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.
Peter: Right stuff at the end let's get to it let's do it.
Sam: Let's get to it let's do it first of all go to curmudgeons corner.com,
Sam: You can find all the stuff, how to get in touch with us.
Sam: So Facebook, Mastodon, email is all there.
Sam: Hey, Peter, do you want people to go via us or do you want to give your own
Sam: contact info out there and plug your YouTube again?
Peter: You can find me at PeterB at Mastodon, M-A-T-H-S-T-O-D-O-N dot X-Y-Z.
Peter: And you could find me on YouTube at the channel Tea Leaves Programming.
Sam: And that's T-E-A, right?
Peter: In that case, it's T-E-A, correct.
Sam: Because your blog was just the T.
Peter: I know. It's very poor branding. What can I do? Someone took it.
Peter: Someone squatted it. So I changed the branding.
Sam: Well, that's why I have curmudgeons-corner.com because somebody had curmudgeons-corner.com without the hyphen.
Peter: Well, it is liberating to not have any viewers because it means that the consequence
Peter: for it is very low if people get it wrong.
Sam: Well, I've seen you have a few views. Yeah, it's okay. You're,
Sam: you're, you're no Dan TDM or anything, but.
Peter: You were watching and that, that really is heartwarming to me.
Peter: Knowing that you were watching Sam, that's all I need.
Sam: There you go. Uh, and I, I will, and once you get that three and three video
Sam: out, I will, I'll be sure to watch intent.
Peter: All right.
Sam: Sold. Okay. So aside from that, we, oh, we of course have the archives of the
Sam: show, including for about the last year transcripts because of Peter.
Sam: Peter is the one who demanded transcripts and got it in my ad.
Peter: You're welcome, sweet America.
Sam: Now, and of course, I'm sure that means you read them every week, right?
Peter: I do not use the transcripts every week. I do use them when I don't have time to listen to the show.
Sam: Ah, interesting.
Peter: I have searched for things, for topics on previous shows that I haven't learned.
Peter: And I make heavy, heavy use of your chapter markers.
Sam: Okay. And what I, and I, in just last week's show, I adjusted my,
Sam: I've said in the past, I don't like chapters, but I, the, it was sort of automatically
Sam: doing them because of the way I made descriptions.
Sam: And I just last week adjusted the way that I use the descriptions to make those
Sam: chapters come out looking a little bit better.
Sam: Cause I used to have time start time end for each segment, which the way it
Sam: got interpreted, it identified the time starts.
Sam: And then the name of each chapter was not just the name of my segment,
Sam: but was the time end and the name. So I just,
Sam: killed the time end so it only has the start times so
Sam: i i've adjusted that and at the moment
Sam: transcripts are only on the website there is
Sam: new podcast 2.0 or whatever it is functionality that can let you embed the transcript
Sam: in the podcast metadata itself so that you can have it like show on your screen
Sam: on your podcast player while you are listening i have not done i have not done that yet.
Sam: I've not figured out what's involved someday.
Sam: I may have time to do that. But again, that's one of those things where like
Sam: you have to figure it out.
Sam: I think, I think this, I think I can do it. I think I have the tools necessary,
Sam: but I don't necessarily have the time necessary to get it set up.
Peter: This is a brave new world. You're marching boldly towards Sam. I'm excited.
Sam: Yes, I know. I know.
Peter: I really want to see how I need to go back and check the transcripts to see
Peter: how they handle Ivan when he gets to the,
Peter: you know, where he makes himself so mad that he kind of loses the power of speech
Peter: and just like, this guy with the, I really want to see how those turn out.
Sam: Yes, absolutely. Anyway, we also, of course, have a link to our Patreon where
Sam: you can give us money. We always like money.
Sam: And at various levels, we will mention you on the show.
Sam: We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug. and by the way Pete,
Sam: For actually being a co-host, if you want a mug, just send me your offline,
Sam: send me your address and stuff, and we'll get a mug off to you.
Peter: This is the most exciting thing that's happened to me this year. So I love it. Thank you.
Sam: And so, in any case, at various levels, we'll do all those things.
Sam: And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to our
Sam: Commodions Chorus Slack, where Yvonne and I and lately Peter and a whole bunch
Sam: of other listeners. Well, not a whole bunch.
Sam: A few other listeners are chatting throughout the week and sharing links and
Sam: all of that kind of thing as we go through stuff.
Sam: So it's a lot of fun. The more the merrier. We would love to have you join us.
Sam: So, Pete, do you have something you want to highlight from the Slack or should
Sam: I pick something real quick?
Peter: I am completely unprepared for this question. because.
Sam: We want to give people a highlight that illustrates why they might want to be
Sam: on the slack and why there's fun stuff there.
Peter: Well i mean you know i i just picked something and you said then you said fun stuff i was gonna well.
Sam: It does it can be serious stuff too it doesn't have to be the jokey stuff.
Peter: It was it was yvonne's link to william the tragic death of william anders There's
Peter: the Apollo 8 astronaut who recently was in a terrible air crash and just his life.
Sam: Yeah, he's right here in the Seattle area, not that far from where I am off the coast.
Sam: And here's the thing. 90 years old, solo piloting a plane, doing stunts from what I understand.
Peter: Yeah, it looked like he stalled. It looked like he either stalled out or maybe
Peter: there was some sort of car. he might have been dead before the plane hit the ground.
Sam: He might have been like in that kind of scenario i mean
Sam: we don't know at this point it just happened like yesterday as
Sam: we're recording this so they haven't done all the but
Sam: at 90 years old it wouldn't be shocking if you had a medical event while flying
Sam: and i and also at 90 years old it wouldn't be shocking if it just had a lapse
Sam: in skills like i don't know there's all kinds of things that could happen or
Sam: there could have have been a mechanical failure or something else entirely.
Sam: We just don't know yet. But I, I sort of, when I saw that, I'm like, wait a second.
Sam: He was 90 years old, solo piloting a plane doing like, not, not just like,
Sam: flying from a to b but like doing performance things with the plane apparently
Sam: at least that's what i read i don't know did i get that wrong pete no.
Peter: I think that's exactly right.
Sam: Yeah so i'm like was that really wise should he have been but on the other hand
Sam: he was 90 doing that stuff that's pretty good i.
Peter: Think when you've flown around the moon you know the normal rules may not apply to you.
Sam: You could do whatever the hell you want and he undoubtedly knew the risks and
Sam: everything like Like, and you know, tragic that it ended that way,
Sam: but on the other hand, good long life.
Sam: And so, yeah, he's the one who took the famous earth rise picture.
Sam: I don't know if you mentioned that or not, but.
Peter: No, I did not. Thank you.
Sam: But so he was well known for that. And yeah.
Sam: So with that, thank you very much for joining us, Pete, for your first time
Sam: co-hosting the show. I hope you had fun.
Peter: I had a blast. Thank you so much for having me on.
Sam: So as I said, Yvonne's been missing a lot of shows lately, so there may be more opportunities.
Sam: But it was very great to have you. It was a lot of fun for me,
Sam: too. And sort of a different flavor of show than when Yvonne's here, but that's okay.
Peter: That's okay. All right, Sam. Thank you so much. We'll see you around.
Sam: So thanks, everybody. Everybody have a great week. Stay safe.
Sam: All of that kind of stuff. I always say goodbye.
Sam: Say goodbye, Pete, out loud.
Peter: Goodbye oh right it's an audio show isn't it yes.
Sam: It is goodbye.
Peter: Goodbye.