Sam: Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hello.
Sam: Okay. So let me make sure the live stream's all going, going and stuff, stuff.
Sam: And here we go. That's going.
Sam: Now we'll check this thing.
Sam: Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo.
Ivan: La, la, la. No, it's.
Sam: Okay. Let's just take this one. And. Ah. Okay.
Sam: And actually this is here there we go blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Sam: okay ready yvonne ready to go ready to go i'm live here comes the intro,
Sam: welcome to curmudgeon's corner for saturday november 23rd 2024 it is just after
Sam: 1830 utc as we're starting to record i'm sam entry von boas here hello yvonne
Sam: hello 13 30 18 30 Didn't I say 18?
Ivan: It sounded like 13 for some reason, but okay. Yeah.
Sam: It's 18.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: It's 18.
Ivan: I, I, I, my ears are, I, anyway.
Sam: Need to start getting those little assistant things. You know,
Sam: you know, the, the Apple has now added.
Ivan: I know.
Sam: Earring aid features to the AirPods. And so, you know.
Ivan: Man, no, I mean, I may need to mow the hair and the ears or something like that. I don't know.
Sam: There you go. Now, now.
Ivan: That is one thing that I can't, you know, I, I don't actually get like,
Ivan: like, I, I know people that that that get really bushy
Ivan: in the ear hair thing
Ivan: and i'm one that look i had to start shaving when i was like 12 okay it was
Ivan: ridiculous okay i mean i i got i mean i had a really ridiculous beard but i
Ivan: don't get that much of it but what i do get i do remove i will say i i i i will
Ivan: i will get rid of that hair you're.
Sam: Talking ear hair.
Ivan: Yes yes ear hair you know yeah so i i do get rid of that and i'll clean my ears regularly good.
Sam: For you i guess yep.
Ivan: Well i mean with proper methodology.
Sam: You're not just.
Ivan: Showing proper method yeah yeah no no no with proper method well
Ivan: here's one thing i i realized especially wearing using like because i i use
Ivan: earbuds regularly right uh-huh look i mean you listen if you don't keep your
Ivan: ears clean i've sometimes you know when i haven't cleaned my ears i will pull
Ivan: them out they're like oh gosh that's disgusting i'm like no I,
Ivan: not not which doesn't happen regularly but it's happened where i've been like
Ivan: i mean i've been a little bit remiss on that department and all of a sudden i'm like uh you.
Sam: Right so now before we get any deeper into details
Sam: of yvonne's earwax um let me just say agenda wise we'll do our usual we'll do
Sam: a butt first and then you know we'll have a segment where yvonne picks what
Sam: we talk about and then we'll have a segment where i pick what we're talking
Sam: about but i was just mentioning to Yvonne right before the actual start of the show.
Ivan: We don't have a lot on the list.
Sam: We're kind of light. Like we had the election. We were burnt out by the election.
Sam: We did talk about election-related stuff anyway last week.
Sam: But at this point, it's like one of the topics on my potential list is everybody's
Sam: – lots of people are backing off from news and stuff. I'm not so much.
Ivan: But a lot of people. I know a lot of people are. Yeah, I mean,
Ivan: it's like, don't even, you know, I don't want to hear it.
Ivan: Just don't even, you know, mention it. Yeah, I know.
Ivan: That's a topic to discuss. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. So I don't know. So you want you want to start a but firsty kind of thing?
Ivan: Well, here's a but first thing that I will I will I will mention.
Ivan: So my wife and son were supposed to travel today for for a few days to visit
Ivan: family in Bogota because there's no school.
Ivan: But I still had work. And I was like, you know, I'm like, look,
Ivan: I'm going to go over there and I'm going to wind up because I've done this before when I've had work.
Ivan: I'm like, look, I'm going to wind up. You guys go do something.
Ivan: And I got to sit in front of the computer anyway because I got to deal with shit.
Ivan: So this doesn't make any sense. You guys go and I'll stay over here,
Ivan: work, and then I'll pick you guys up back at the airport.
Ivan: But the interesting thing that happened is that the date's approaching and we
Ivan: get news that they were going to stay at her aunt's house where also her aunt.
Ivan: Her cousin has been living there with his wife for a little bit.
Ivan: They actually have a very big house.
Ivan: So it's not like it's not for money reasons. It's like they,
Ivan: you know, they got married and they have a very big house and they're basically splitting it.
Ivan: My mom is, you know, divorced for a long time.
Ivan: So she's single. So they're like, well, you got one side of the house.
Ivan: I got side of the house. This works, you know, and that way,
Ivan: you know, you know, we're all here and they had pregnant. They had a baby. Okay.
Ivan: Not that long ago, less than a year old. And so my wife was going to stay over
Ivan: there because the house is quite big.
Ivan: And Manu went to the house. And the house is quite nice, to be honest.
Ivan: And Manu was like, no, no, I want to stay at that house. I don't want to stay there.
Ivan: No, no, where are you going to take me? No, you're not going to take me to some
Ivan: tiny apartment. No, no, no, that house is awesome. And the house is pretty cool.
Ivan: So all of a sudden, get a call a couple of days and say, hey,
Ivan: his cousins, my wife's cousin's wife's family had come to visit.
Ivan: They had been on a cruise and apparently they all came back sick.
Ivan: Not sure exactly with what.
Sam: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let, let me express my utter shock that people
Sam: went on a cruise and all came back sick.
Sam: This is a place where you are all together in a space for an extended period of time.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and people came home sick. Like, I am shocked beyond belief
Sam: that this might have happened.
Ivan: Yeah. And so they came back. A whole bunch of them came back sick.
Ivan: And the baby got sick. Okay. So they took the baby.
Ivan: And the baby got really badly sick. So they took him to the hospital.
Ivan: When they tested the baby, he came back positive for both the flu and COVID.
Sam: Nice. Together.
Ivan: Together.
Sam: Excellent.
Ivan: So, well, OK, so my wife's like, well, I guess we can't stay there.
Ivan: And then she she talking to her friend, which they were originally going to
Ivan: stay at her place. She's got the flu.
Ivan: And I'm like, OK, so then, well, how about you're going to stay at your aunt's
Ivan: house and her other aunt?
Ivan: OK, she doesn't have the flu, but her daughter is at the hospital and they don't
Ivan: know why she is feeling ill and they're not sure why.
Ivan: And so it was just like.
Sam: Everyone's sick or everyone else.
Ivan: Everyone is sick. And so the thing is, Manu was really, really,
Ivan: really, really, really, really excited about, you know, getting on,
Ivan: you know, he loves airplanes, but go get on the damn plane.
Ivan: And well, I had to break the news to him yesterday that I'm not going to be able to go today.
Ivan: So you know but i did what i
Ivan: what i did is like i i said look one thing
Ivan: is i'm telling him not to go on a plane and have no plan b
Ivan: is terrible because that's that's the thing that i've noticed with him that
Ivan: it's like you will get very upset if you're just telling him well it's canceled
Ivan: we got no no you know no plan b so then he will be very upset so i went i said no no no Look,
Ivan: and my wife's like, look, I can't just tell him I'm not going.
Ivan: I got to figure out what plan B is. I don't know yet what plan B is.
Ivan: So I sat down last night. I'm trying to look at what the plan Bs are.
Ivan: And the one that I finally settled on was, OK, look, let me look at the calendar.
Ivan: Because we had planned already on a trip during the holidays.
Ivan: So I was like, well, we can't move this airplane trip to the holidays.
Ivan: Actually, we haven't been, amazingly enough, Sam, we haven't been to Disney since June.
Sam: OK. I was about to say, let me guess, you're going to Disney?
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: I'm like, no, he's not going to mention he's going to Disney.
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: He goes to Disney all the time.
Ivan: No, no, no. But we haven't been to Disney since June, so we had already booked
Ivan: that for the holidays. That was already booked.
Ivan: And I'm like, well, we're not going to fly to Orlando, okay?
Ivan: All right? That makes no sense, okay?
Ivan: You know, so then I looked. I'm like, okay, but that was going to be after Christmas, okay?
Ivan: We're going to go for New Year's? No, no, no, no, no, no.
Ivan: What I did is I rebooked the airline tickets for them to go before Christmas,
Ivan: like to go from the 19th through the 23rd, because this is going to be a short
Ivan: trip anyway, for them to go over there and to go before Christmas to hang out for a few days.
Ivan: Then you come back, we spend Christmas here, and then we'll go.
Sam: So wait, where are you sending them for a few days?
Ivan: They're going to go back. They're going to go to Bogota because my wife had
Ivan: wanted to visit, but I changed the dates towards December 19 instead of flying now.
Ivan: I was able to find tickets,
Ivan: This stupid trip every time. This is the second time I've rebooked it.
Ivan: The tickets don't have penalties. However, the thing is that if there's a fair
Ivan: difference, you have to pay it.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Every time I've rebooked it, the price has gone up. And because that's a very
Ivan: busy time, I wound up having to pay a whole bunch of more money.
Ivan: I wound up paying more than the price that I originally paid for the tickets.
Ivan: For them to be able to fly on those damn days.
Ivan: And I'm like, you gotta be shitting me.
Ivan: This stupid trip, every fucking time they were supposed to go in September, something happened.
Ivan: Okay, we pushed it for Thanksgiving.
Ivan: Now, this weekend, everybody gets sick. No, we gotta push it again.
Ivan: And I'm like, damn it, back then I paid, I don't know how much money because
Ivan: the fare was higher because it was a busier time period. And now that one is
Ivan: even busier than this one.
Ivan: And so therefore, right now, basically the price of these tickets has doubled.
Ivan: Right. It's doubled since I originally bought the damn things.
Sam: Beautiful, beautiful.
Ivan: Like, I was like, what? Actually, no, wait, what am I talking? No, not doubled.
Ivan: No, no, more. It's more, it's tripled.
Ivan: Okay okay so anyway i i i this trip is i really hope they fly this time but are.
Sam: They doing anything else this week to.
Ivan: Substitute school are.
Sam: They just staying home or they are they gonna like fill.
Ivan: That week with.
Sam: Some sort of activity.
Ivan: We haven't figured that out yet okay but the thing is that yeah there's no school
Ivan: and so i don't know i don't know what the hell we're gonna do now,
Ivan: okay you know i i don't know well manu you
Ivan: know the the biggest thing was the flying on
Ivan: the plane right we're gonna get him to you know at least he knows that he's
Ivan: gonna fly on the plane on the 19th and when i told him that we changed the dates
Ivan: and everybody was sick he was like oh okay so i just gotta wait more days yeah
Ivan: it's fine and so he's like okay cool no problem so he's you know he took that
Ivan: he took that uh because i came up with a plan he took it well because when my wife at first,
Ivan: tried to tell him that we're not going.
Ivan: She started first with strategy. Oh, we're just not going to tell him that?
Ivan: Oh my god, that kid was breaking up in tears.
Ivan: I mean, he was just...
Ivan: I'm like, okay, okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm like, wait,
Ivan: wait, wait. Let me try to figure something out.
Ivan: Okay? Because the poor kid was just gonna...
Ivan: He was gonna cry like oh my god he was he was ready to explode crying so i i had to uh,
Ivan: sort something out so what are we going to do the next couple of days i don't
Ivan: know there's no school i don't know stay.
Sam: Home and watch tv and play video games that's fine right.
Ivan: That's that that's basically what what i've got on on the agenda now here's
Ivan: one thing that this doesn't convenience me i had planned to do a number a certain
Ivan: to take care of a certain number of things like the next couple of days because
Ivan: there were going to be a way and.
Sam: That'll be hard.
Ivan: And now all of a sudden, well, I'm going to have to still, well,
Ivan: one of them involves me getting, going to, to get a, a chest CT scan.
Sam: Oh, that's fun. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. Woo. Yeah. I know. It's like exciting. Yeah. I scheduled all this exciting
Ivan: stuff to do while they were gone. Yeah.
Ivan: No, it like I'm getting a chest CT and shit like that, whatever.
Ivan: And I'm like, okay, well at least, you know, I don't have to worry about other stuff.
Ivan: I've got like right now, because I was in the hospital last month because some
Ivan: other tests or whatever i have like right now scheduled three different medical
Ivan: tests over the next month,
Ivan: that's exciting i got one that involves me you know drinking this barium thing
Ivan: in order to get contrast ct they tell me it tastes terrible i've never had to do that before you.
Sam: Know we clearly live up to our curmudgeons title when we talk about our our
Sam: health issues and maladies.
Ivan: Well this is the kind of shit here's the thing this is
Ivan: the kind of shit that happens as you know
Ivan: as we are getting into our curmudgeonly years and
Ivan: i gotta tell you something it's gonna get worse i'm sure yeah you know there
Ivan: was like i still always remember this the scene from uh city slickers with uh
Ivan: billy crystal where he went he go they had brought him in you know there's one
Ivan: of these days a career day i guess and he was supposed to talk to the to the little kids about,
Ivan: his work or whatever and his work was boring and there was this one line,
Ivan: you know, he was talking about getting old and he said you know,
Ivan: as we grow old, one thing has happened, it's like, you know,
Ivan: we go and get sent to the hospital and we get an,
Ivan: operation, but in order not to make it sound so bad, we call it a procedure,
Ivan: You know, so, you know, well, you know, that, that's where to step with.
Ivan: We are at that. We are at the procedure step right now.
Sam: I understand. So is it my turn?
Ivan: Yes, it's your turn.
Sam: Okay. Now I'll, I'll just say this upfront. Like I've got, I know we have sort
Sam: of the butt first and then the more newsy things, but honestly,
Sam: most of the things on my list at this point are, and this ties to what we were
Sam: saying about people being sick of news.
Sam: I'm still like religiously following news, but most of the things I have on
Sam: my list are not particularly newsy so here's a spider story yeah yes yeah.
Ivan: I i see that there i i don't remember talking about the spider.
Sam: Story i i have not said anything to you guys on the slack about the spider story
Sam: it is it is not it is not something i saw in the news it is something that happened to me so uh people.
Ivan: Ditching x for blue sky.
Sam: Blue sky that's another.
Ivan: One i i i i have to admit that for just because i'm just i mean how many fucking
Ivan: apps do i really want to be.
Sam: Okay okay let's let's i i am going to pick for my butt first here all right
Sam: i'm gonna do the spider story.
Ivan: Okay the spider.
Sam: Story because i feel like this is spider so here's the thing and i know me and
Sam: my family will appall certain people by this,
Sam: But we are kindly to the wildlife, including spiders, okay?
Sam: We basically leave the bee.
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, I am somewhat kindly to the wildlife, but I got some lines.
Sam: So spiders in particular are good. They are helpful creatures.
Ivan: No, no. They're good outside.
Sam: Inside not in here unless you've got like poisonous spiders or something which
Sam: we really don't have in this area i.
Ivan: Know how do i know how the hell do you know what do you got a little fucking decoder card.
Sam: Well so the thing is like yes in in this part of the world like spiders that
Sam: are dangerous to humans are rare we don't live in australia it would be in a
Sam: different story in australia okay but spiders that are how do.
Ivan: You know some asshole didn't bring one like you know from Australia, as far as you know.
Ivan: You know, the Everglades right now is overrun with pythons.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: They're not native here because a whole bunch of assholes fucking like,
Ivan: oh, well, I bought a python and had it home. Well, oh shit, it was such a bad
Ivan: idea to have a python at home.
Ivan: Let me just dump it in the Everglades. And they multiply worse than rabbits.
Sam: So anyway, the point of this is there are a variety of places in our living
Sam: spaces where we cohabitate with the spiders and are fine with them.
Sam: Like we intentionally don't mess with them. We let them be.
Sam: So I am looking in the corner of my office. There are webs right there. Okay?
Sam: And I'm like, that's fine. They can be there.
Sam: There's like some webs in the – there's a spider that lives in my shower.
Sam: And, you know, I leave it alone. It leaves me alone. There's no worries there.
Sam: But – because, you know, they're nice little creatures. They are our friends. You know?
Ivan: They can be my friend outside.
Sam: Now, my daughter is scared of spiders.
Sam: But, you know, in my spaces and whatever, I, I'm not going to interfere with
Sam: the spiders and they're not going to interfere with me.
Sam: So more specifically, there was one particular spider that for the last,
Sam: I don't know how many months, but definitely months was living in my car. Okay.
Ivan: Oh, fuck this. The hell with that shit. Oh, my God.
Sam: So let me know.
Ivan: No, I mean, listen, fuck it. The car.
Ivan: Fuck you. No, no, no, no, no.
Ivan: I'm like, even like, you know, it's in the corner over there in the office.
Ivan: I'm like, whatever. I'm like, I am probably like, OK, in the fucking car. No way. No.
Sam: So like, look, it would it usually lived around the around the driver's seat,
Sam: you know, in that general area.
Sam: So like while I was driving, I would see it like on the mirror and stuff.
Sam: Sometimes it would like come down in front of my face. There was one time recently
Sam: where it was on the headrest and Alex was like, be really careful.
Sam: Don't put your head back because you might squish the spider.
Sam: And so, you know, for months and months, like Alex and I would pay attention to where the spider was.
Sam: We'd talk to the spider. We'd say hello to the spider. we'd be like if the spider
Sam: was in a dangerous place we'd make sure we paid attention and whatever and so
Sam: like again the spider was our friend,
Sam: Okay. Now you'll notice I have used the past tense because something horrible happened.
Ivan: You crushed it accidentally.
Sam: I did not crush it. I was, I was picking up some fast food for Alex at a McDonald's.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And you know, it is one of these curbside pickup things. So like, okay.
Sam: The, the, you know, you, you pull up to the spot and they come out and bring you your food.
Sam: I rolled down the window. The
Sam: guy starts handing me my food and then he's like, oh, you have a spider.
Ivan: Boom.
Sam: Exactly. Like he smacked the spider and, and I was like stunned. I was like.
Ivan: That's the normal reaction.
Sam: I, I, I was not. And he's like, oh, don't worry. I got it for you.
Sam: And and meanwhile like i i wanted i wanted to scream no but it was too late
Sam: he'd already smacked the spider so i just and.
Ivan: I and i'm guessing at some point you realized oh shit that's the normal thing to do i.
Sam: Can't no he was actually.
Ivan: He was actually trying to be nice but did you realize that that was the opposite.
Sam: So like yeah i i i you froze i froze i wanted to say something but i froze yeah
Sam: he and he sort of was like you know you want a napkin it sort of fell down and
Sam: i'm like no no and to myself i'm thinking god damn it you've done enough,
Sam: asshole but like i.
Ivan: Said nothing he was but he i know he he
Ivan: would okay let's be clear he was i i know it was a mistake but because for 99.999
Ivan: percent of the people that would have been a nice thing to do he did what he
Ivan: thought would have been unfortunately i.
Sam: Hear you like so i just sort of was like nope nope i'm good and i closed the
Sam: window he went back in i sat there in the car and cried for several minutes before.
Ivan: By the way i do understand i i understand so i i will say that i i look i'm
Ivan: not like that with spiders but you know we get like uh and.
Sam: Then i had to break the news to alex because he cared.
Ivan: About spider too we get these little we get these
Ivan: geckos like around that are actually harmless and they're actually good especially
Ivan: because they had a lot of cockroaches they actually they they will they will
Ivan: they will eat the cockroaches yes so the little geckos i'm actually fine and
Ivan: that's what the spiders do.
Sam: Too they they eat other bugs.
Ivan: Yeah but but you know i i don't like the fucking spiders anyway but but you
Ivan: know i don't like the fucking cobwebs i don't like walking into the fucking
Ivan: cobwebs that they that they do and then I get them all, anyway, no, no,
Ivan: no, no, they're, they're too, too, but the geckos are harmless,
Ivan: they don't build webs, they don't leave shit, they don't do whatever it needs, so, so, you know,
Ivan: like, I think a lot of people are scared of them, too, but I'm,
Ivan: like, usually, like, we find one, we're, like,
Ivan: you know, we'll try to leave it alone, or, you know, because I know that they
Ivan: can't be inside all the, all the time, I'll try to, like, you know, grab it, and, like,
Ivan: get it outside so it could be, you know, that way because they want water and
Ivan: they need, they need to be outside. Okay. Also, they can't just be stuck inside all the time.
Ivan: Yeah. So I, I mean, I accidentally once like with a door, it got in,
Ivan: it got wedged in the door jam.
Ivan: Man, close the door. Flatten the poor gecko.
Ivan: I was very upset when that happened. So, so I understand why you were like,
Ivan: I was like, it's been a couple of weeks now.
Sam: So I'm able to laugh and joke about this a little bit now, but like for like
Sam: a couple days, I was like, every time I thought about it, I was upset.
Sam: You know, I'm like, I should have done something. I could have like, I don't know.
Ivan: You know, this reminds me. There's a movie that I actually I have to look to
Ivan: to watch this movie again, because I looked up that it does have a lot of good
Ivan: reviews, but it's not a very.
Ivan: As a matter of fact, I know I just looked up the box office it had was one hundred
Ivan: thousand dollars. That's how little play it got.
Ivan: It's a movie with Kevin Bacon. It was called The Big Picture. Okay.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So The Big Picture was a movie about Kevin Bacon being a promising new kid from
Ivan: film school that all of a sudden got hired and they gave him a contract to do a movie in Hollywood.
Ivan: But then he wanted to do a black and white movie like the old school and whatever.
Ivan: And then, you know, he started sitting down with all these people at the commercial
Ivan: Hollywood studio and it wind up turning into some movie with bikini girls on
Ivan: a beach and pop music and,
Ivan: you know, just just some generic thing that had nothing to do with the with
Ivan: the art, right, art, art, art,
Ivan: artistic type of movie he wanted to make.
Ivan: So one day he's sitting at a bar this is why this reminds me of you he's sitting
Ivan: at a bar and he's watching they have a tv and they have an older tube tv i don't
Ivan: know if you've ever noticed some older tv sometimes like that and i've seen
Ivan: this before i mean sometimes yeah a little off and.
Sam: You smack them to get them.
Ivan: Yeah and and sometimes like for example you smack them
Ivan: and sometimes they would be in black and white and smack them
Ivan: and come into color okay so he had been wanting to
Ivan: do the movie in black and white and he's
Ivan: sitting there and the tv is showing this movie that looks in
Ivan: black and white and so the bartender sees this
Ivan: and is annoyed by it and smacks the tv and it puts it and i think it was a colorized
Ivan: version of a black and white movie that's what it was and so the movie is showing
Ivan: him black and white he's like oh look at this movie in the original black and
Ivan: white and the bartender smacks the tv and it goes into color he's like wow that's
Ivan: much better and he's like,
Ivan: asshole. You don't understand. So that's kind of like what happened to you.
Ivan: This guy thought, oh yeah, I'm doing you a favor.
Ivan: I'm like going to put it in color and like, you know, so he killed the spider.
Ivan: But unfortunately, uh, no, it's, uh, no.
Sam: Well, and my, my wife, one of the things she did, one of the things she said
Sam: to try to make me feel better, which you'll love is like, well,
Sam: maybe if you're really lucky before it was killed,
Sam: it laid eggs and then you'll have
Sam: lots of little baby spiders in a little while so far
Sam: it's been it's been like three weeks no no sign of no
Sam: sign of baby spiders no sign of baby spiders yet no side sign of a replacement
Sam: spider of any sort you know so i don't know but yeah so it's still sad but yeah
Sam: i thought you would appreciate that story and my general attitude towards spiders in the house i.
Ivan: I i do appreciate how I do.
Sam: Not.
Ivan: I am not in the camp of like the attitude you guys have against the spiders.
Ivan: However, I do totally empathize with the fact that, you know,
Ivan: you had been protecting this damn spider for so long.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden somebody trying to be nice.
Sam: Now I will say, I will say a few days before the spider went away.
Sam: We did find another creature in the car
Sam: that we did help outside there was
Sam: a snail there was a snail in the car yeah okay
Sam: and and we're like the spider clearly was thriving in the car it was fine it
Sam: was doing yeah but not the snail the snail was like the snail is just going
Sam: to die if it stays here so we very carefully we looked up the proper instructions
Sam: because like if you just yank a snail off somewhere,
Sam: you can injure it through the process of trying to pull it off.
Sam: So we properly looked up the instructions of how to get it to gently let go.
Sam: And we got the snail to let go. And we took the snail and we put it out into
Sam: the yard and blah, blah, blah, you know, in a place that hopefully it'll be fine.
Sam: But yeah, so the snail was not allowed to live there.
Sam: You know, the rats who have a couple of times destroyed the interior of the
Sam: car and other electronics, they are not welcome.
Sam: Now, I still like would prefer not to kill the little creature.
Sam: But, you know, if you've done thousands of dollars of damage to my car,
Sam: I have a little bit less sympathy for you than to the spider.
Ivan: You know, I am also trying to be careful with snails. I will tell you that the
Ivan: one thing that always like, oh, my God, just breaks my heart is that sometimes
Ivan: we have a lot of snails around.
Ivan: And look, if I see one walking around, I'll try to avoid it,
Ivan: make sure I don't hurt it or whatever.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: But I will tell you the one that always like just that it's happened to me a
Ivan: couple of times and always like that, that, that hits me stepping on a snail accidentally.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Ah, fuck. A couple of, you know, they're just, you know, not doing anything
Ivan: bad. And all of a sudden I just walked along. I didn't see it.
Sam: A couple of years ago a couple of years
Sam: ago we were out with my wife and
Sam: the person she hired as a campaign manager this was several campaigns ago and
Sam: we were putting up signs and blah blah and we were putting up one like big sign
Sam: that required like you know it wasn't just the little signs you stick in with
Sam: wires like yeah big wood frame several feet across blah blah blah,
Sam: and you know while we were doing this you know near where we were setting up the sign,
Sam: my wife brandy notices a snail on the ground and she tells the campaign manager
Sam: oh watch out watch out we're gonna we're you know whatever and then like not
Sam: less than 15 seconds later he steps on it directly and crushes it yeah and it's
Sam: like oh come on she just told you to watch out yeah but maybe she.
Ivan: Didn't see or didn't see where I was. So you're like, sometimes you're like,
Ivan: I listen, I've had, she should watch out, watch out.
Ivan: We're all of a sudden you're looking, you didn't see it. And then you move and you're like, ow.
Ivan: Yeah. So yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. Anyway. All right. So, okay. Okay.
Sam: So shall we, shall we take a break? And then I don't know, maybe,
Sam: maybe instead of like a you segment and me segment, we just keep alternating. I don't know, whatever.
Sam: We'll figure it out. But next here, here comes our break.
Sam: It's the ray lynch one here you go if it works let's try again click hold on
Sam: hold on computer buffering i don't know what it's doing here we go let me try again,
Sam: okay we are back yvonne so why don't you pick next let me guess you want to
Sam: talk 100 all about donald trump's cabinet picks and how all that's gone and
Sam: matt gates and no names matt right no no no this is not your pick no.
Ivan: I'm gonna actually what i'm gonna talk about is more
Ivan: specifically around the business the business reaction
Ivan: to to the trump election like what i've noticed is there is quite a lot of enthusiasm
Ivan: in the business community related to to the election there's been some ceos
Ivan: that have been heard saying certain things and and and look.
Sam: Well let me ask some of the appointments for example before you get deeper like
Sam: it seemed just looking at it like i don't pay as much attention to this stuff
Sam: as you do But it kind of seemed to me like immediately after the election,
Sam: like the stock market had a big pop.
Sam: Everything was going up. It seemed like everybody was super excited about exactly
Sam: what you're talking about.
Sam: Like this means regulations are dead. We can go full steam ahead and nobody's
Sam: going to bug us, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And then that sort of started going in the opposite direction.
Ivan: Well, listen, there's two things. what the markets are, how the markets are
Ivan: moving, which is one reaction versus what executives think that they can do strategically. Okay.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Because one of the big concerns that came up when first the stock market did that massive move up,
Ivan: the biggest issue that economists and investors have had with the Trump administration
Ivan: is that almost every proposal that they have had on the table is inflationary.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And so one of the key drivers in terms of Fed policy to cut rates is,
Ivan: hey, inflation is coming down, so we can cut rates.
Ivan: But one of the key indicators for mortgage rates, well, the key indicator for
Ivan: mortgage rates to be precise is a 10-year bond.
Ivan: And yields on the 10-year bond as soon as the election was over have been going the wrong way.
Ivan: Way in terms of rates coming down, which is why mortgage rates have,
Ivan: even though with already a three quarter point cut by the Fed,
Ivan: mortgage rates haven't budged.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: They're not going down. And so lending costs are not going down.
Ivan: And so the market, the money itself is telling you that for whatever the hell
Ivan: Trump spoke about inflation and all this shit.
Ivan: The analysis by, I would say, about 80% of the economists of anything that Trump
Ivan: has talked about policy-wise tells you that none of that is actually very good for the economy.
Ivan: I mean, there isn't, I, the tariffs, not good for the economy.
Ivan: The illegal immigrants thing, not so good for the economy.
Ivan: But in specifically those two because
Ivan: those two are his the ones that he has been
Ivan: talking about the loudest right and and and
Ivan: then the other issue tax cuts right look
Ivan: the united states already has the lowest tax burden of any of the developed
Ivan: nation okay and all these people are complaining about the budget deficits okay
Ivan: which you know under biden once again have started to come down as they have
Ivan: over Democrats during all the last administrations.
Ivan: But look, if you do a whole bunch of tax cuts, you're going to drive up the
Ivan: deficit, which by the way means usually they'll drive up interest rates.
Ivan: And so you've got, you know, people are hearing the rhetoric,
Ivan: but yet when you, everything that you're proposing is that way.
Ivan: But that's not really helpful towards
Ivan: the stated goals that that you have
Ivan: set out and so but but here's
Ivan: the for here's a flip side okay here's the other thing okay for example you
Ivan: know for all this talk about man of the people you know certainly quite a lot
Ivan: of picks that are definitely like all wall street billionaire types especially
Ivan: the treasury guy who's a hedge fund manager that each is named.
Ivan: So these picks are not, how do I say, consumer-friendly, okay?
Ivan: Or, for example, the issue with, on another side, why businesses are salivating
Ivan: in terms of, okay, great, now we've got a Department of Justice that is in our side.
Ivan: And what does the other side mean? They won't block mergers.
Ivan: They won't try to keep,
Ivan: you know, certain regulatory actions in terms of companies.
Ivan: So that will reduce that. But one
Ivan: of the reasons why this administration and the Justice Department has been reviewing
Ivan: businesses and business combinations and concentrations of certain power in
Ivan: certain companies is because all of those are inflationary. It stifles competition.
Ivan: And so therefore it winds up with, you know, the consumers wind up being the losers in the end.
Ivan: Right. And so if you get a department that like right now, for example,
Ivan: I know airline airlines were salivating at this because there have been several
Ivan: alliances and mergers that had been blocked by the Justice Department of this administration. Okay.
Ivan: American Airlines had tried to do a combination with JetBlue for an alliance that got blocked.
Ivan: It was a merger between Spirit and JetBlue that got blocked.
Ivan: There's just been a number of those that have happened.
Ivan: And so all of a sudden, airline executives are like, oh, wait, you know what? Yeah.
Ivan: That's all going out the window. The hell with that shit.
Ivan: Now we can do whatever the fuck we want, but that's going to wind up being leading to higher prices.
Ivan: It's not, it's not going to, that's not cutting prices for anybody. Okay.
Ivan: In any way. So that's, so, you know.
Sam: There's also an uncertainty factor. Like one of the things that people were
Sam: talking about after the election in the stock market and such was,
Sam: you know, you can expect to pop almost no matter what the result is because
Sam: you're replacing uncertain.
Ivan: Replacing uncertainty, correct.
Sam: However,
Sam: with Donald Trump, there's still lots of uncertainty because he's just a chaos agent, right?
Sam: Like even you mentioned the tariffs, right? There's still lots of debate here.
Sam: I'm like, okay, well, but what is he actually going to do?
Sam: Like, because yes, he's saying all these crazy things with huge numbers about
Sam: tariffs on absolutely everybody in the world.
Sam: But is he actually just going to do it? Or is it a negotiating gambit where
Sam: he's going to try to use the threat of that as leverage in some way?
Sam: And then he's not actually going to do it.
Sam: He's going to extract concessions out of person A or B or C in exchange.
Sam: And so we have no idea what's really going to happen.
Sam: And or, you know, he's going to want to do this.
Sam: And people who actually know what the hell is going on about the economy are
Sam: going to be like, no, don't do that. And some people still think he'll listen to that kind of thing.
Sam: Although I think there's lots of evidence that he won't, but you know,
Sam: because, because as we said, like his, his whole thing is like,
Sam: he was frustrated by the first term in terms of people telling him no,
Sam: and he doesn't want that this time.
Ivan: Well, one thing about that is that I don't know what he, well,
Ivan: we still don't exactly know yet what the hell he'll do. I'll say one thing, though.
Ivan: Look, the main driver for Trump, what is it?
Sam: Number one. Number one has to be whatever benefits himself personally.
Ivan: Correct. That's right. So one thing that we've established that because of our
Ivan: new how we are right now, in terms of presidential immunity,
Ivan: no giving giving a shit about emoluments, money, whatever.
Ivan: You got a sitting president that has a publicly traded company out there that
Ivan: people could just inflate the value of that fucking company in order to basically
Ivan: make them richer at their whim.
Ivan: So right now, there is an entire gaggle.
Sam: Just along those lines specifically, one person was commenting,
Sam: when you're looking at the whole tariff thing, don't look at the headline of
Sam: the tariff. Look at what the exceptions are.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: Because that's where the gifts are being given up.
Ivan: Ah, ah, because right now, for example, there is an entire,
Ivan: entire gaggle of people lining up right now and meeting with him to just go
Ivan: and like get their damn exemptions. OK, all right.
Ivan: Oh, but, you know, wait, you know, everybody is lining up to influence him.
Ivan: And right now, one thing that we know, the spigots are open to basically pay
Ivan: off this man in any way possible.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: There is no fucking, this is the first president that we are ever really getting in history.
Ivan: That can be bought openly.
Sam: I mean, just as a simple example to make it concrete, you know,
Sam: you could be like, hey, so you don't want the price of iPhones to double overnight?
Sam: What are you going to give me? Right.
Sam: Right. And, you know, you got to see if you're like Tim Cook or something,
Sam: you have to, like, have that conversation.
Sam: It's not an option to ignore it.
Ivan: That's right. so.
Sam: It's like what what is the trade-off that.
Ivan: Who's gonna impeach him who's gonna prosecute him
Ivan: who's gonna go after him yeah nobody's gonna do a damn thing he can go right
Ivan: now openly and ask for as much fucking money to do anything that he wants and
Ivan: there is absolutely no stopping him in any way, shape, or form.
Sam: Right. That's the bottom line. And as you said, there's so many sort of open venues.
Sam: You can buy goddamn truth social stock.
Sam: Right now during this transition period, the Trump transition has completely
Sam: refused to sign any of the documents about transparency in the transition process.
Sam: And so there's all kinds of things you can donate to to help with the inauguration
Sam: or whatever that are completely unmonitored, unregulated, whatever.
Sam: And because he's not cooperating with any of that stuff and who's going to make him?
Ivan: Nobody.
Sam: And, and, and like he had to sell the damn hotel, but there's plenty of other venues.
Ivan: Well, he had to sell. Sam, Sam, he made a killing.
Sam: Oh, I know. I know. I know. Cause it was bought for way more than it was.
Ivan: I mean, the hotel was already shortly after the guys that bought it were in trouble financially.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: With a fucking hotel. I mean, he completely.
Sam: We're talking about the Washington DC.
Ivan: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, he made a killing in that hotel is crazy. It was so overpaid.
Ivan: It's like that house that some
Ivan: Russian bought overpaid in Palm Beach that they bought for 20 million.
Ivan: They gave him a hundred million dollars for.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I mean, all you got to do is say, oh, oh, there's a resort up in Scotland.
Ivan: Oh, so, oh, we'll give you two billion dollars for it.
Sam: Or even absent that, I mean, you know, he can, he can ramp up the prices for
Sam: just people to stay there and they can book rooms.
Ivan: Well, that's what they were doing at the hotel.
Sam: That's what they were doing at the hotel. And, you know, and in his last presidency,
Sam: like doubled or tripled the price of a membership at Mar-a-Lago.
Sam: You're sure he's going to do that again.
Ivan: Oh yeah, totally. And, uh, and, and, and at the hotel, listen,
Ivan: there was, listen, There was certain countries had been blocking and buying
Ivan: blocks of rooms that remained empty.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Just, you know, oh, we'll take a couple of floors.
Sam: Yes. And this is one of those things, one of many things that once the Biden
Sam: administration came in, they decided not to pursue aggressively.
Sam: Where, you know, but oh, well, water under the bridge.
Ivan: You know so now one thing also there is in terms of,
Ivan: Policy predictability, right?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: The problem with this is also that this makes whatever the fuck policy is going
Ivan: to do also very unpredictable.
Ivan: Because, hey, if somebody offers you a billion dollars to do this,
Ivan: but then the other guy offers you three billion to do the other thing,
Ivan: then all of a sudden you'll wind up flip-flopping in two seconds and fuck the other guy.
Sam: An actual example from the last couple of years. Well, two actual examples, actually.
Sam: Now he wasn't president, but he was running for president and he did one eighties
Sam: on his position of a tick tock ban and B crypto both directly in response to
Sam: money flowing into his campaign.
Ivan: Exactly. Absolutely.
Sam: And like 180 degree change in his position on both of those.
Sam: So it's not even subtle. It's not a slight adjustment. It's a, you know, this is bad.
Sam: Like in TikTok, he was like all four banning TikTok.
Sam: Suddenly a major investor in TikTok was donating to campaign.
Sam: Oh no, let's leave TikTok alone.
Ivan: TikTok is great. Oh no, no, no, great.
Sam: And same thing with crypto. He was on the record talking about how crypto was
Sam: a scam and it should be regulated and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: The crypto bros came in and full fledged support, including Elon Musk.
Sam: And now he's all about crypto. He's starting his own damn crypto.
Sam: You know, his family is. So yeah. So I think that is part of the unpredictability
Sam: as well, for sure. It's like, yeah.
Sam: And the other way of putting it and is that even when like most of it is,
Sam: you know, when people talk about him being transactional,
Sam: a lot of it is certainly like the personally transactional, like do it, do something for me.
Sam: But even when it's not, it's still transactional in terms of like he doesn't
Sam: care from some sort of ideological position.
Sam: So like even when he's talking about things like how NATO sucks or whatever
Sam: if all the European countries in NATO want to just.
Ivan: Pay some more.
Sam: Buy him off he would suddenly be happy with nato.
Ivan: Nato's great you know it's awesome.
Sam: It's just 100 like.
Ivan: Get the european get the you get the defense companies you know all of them
Ivan: you know that that would be like that that would be i would say you know defense
Ivan: companies have not had problems in the past that bribing like officials okay
Ivan: let's be clear all right not Not exactly, not exactly off their game.
Ivan: So what the hell, man? I mean, come on, you know, the biggest payday.
Sam: Yeah, this is also something he was known for last time around in term and with
Sam: varying levels of success. But he kept wanting to, for instance,
Sam: for making deals like he didn't want to deal with the EU.
Sam: He wanted to deal with each of the countries individually.
Sam: And he kept trying to push them in that direction. And for the most part,
Sam: they sort of stuck together and said, no, no, we're negotiating as a bloc.
Sam: But that's clearly his direction. He wants everything as a one-on-one,
Sam: person-to-person, let's make a deal. Let's make a handshake deal.
Sam: You do this for me, I'll do that for you. There's no sort of thought of,
Sam: hey, there's this abstract long-term goal where we have a mutual benefit,
Sam: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: He doesn't believe in that at all. it's all about like how how can we make a
Sam: deal that i get something out of you and he does not care about a mutually beneficial
Sam: deal by the way he would much rather it be a deal where you get screwed but like so.
Ivan: So my point is that this is why businesses are salivating at this administration
Ivan: and they have been openly salivating about it because they pretty much figure
Ivan: yeah whatever the fuck we want from this damn administration.
Ivan: All we got to do, if we put up enough money, we'll get whatever the fuck we
Ivan: want. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 100%.
Ivan: So, you know, and by the way, the thing about it is, how does that help the little guy, Sam?
Ivan: Yeah, you got any idea? Do you think that helps the little guy?
Sam: Oh, no.
Ivan: You think that helps them with the price of eggs?
Sam: Yes, the price of eggs. Yeah, that'll be coming right down immediately.
Sam: Not that it wasn't already down, by the way. But yeah, I'm sure it'll fix that problem immediately.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just, you know, it's just one of these things
Ivan: where you get this guy who is showing up in his, has his jet with his name on it,
Ivan: with golden toilets and shit, and telling,
Ivan: and he convinces the average Joe that he is there for the little guy.
Ivan: And I'm just like, are you fucking kidding me? Oh, I don't know.
Ivan: I mean, but, but there is there, I see, I was thinking about this today in terms
Ivan: of like the people that Trump admires. Right.
Ivan: And I remember remembering like when my, when I went to Moscow a few years back
Ivan: and I realized that, you know,
Ivan: that this is one of the guys that he admires the most, which is,
Ivan: which is Putin and how, how that works there. Right.
Ivan: Which for whatever reason, look, Putin does have a lot of support with the people.
Ivan: It's not just that he isn't just there where 80% of the people hate him and
Ivan: he's just there by force.
Ivan: I mean even though he has crushed all the opposition
Ivan: okay the reality is that he does have
Ivan: a lot of support a lot of people there see that after
Ivan: the collapse of the soviet union and the country
Ivan: was a disaster and a mess hyperinflation blah blah blah he's brought stability
Ivan: okay all right and he's brought russia back to be you know a proud country respected
Ivan: that whatever all this bullshit okay honor ah yes and and you know i i still remember because.
Ivan: Vladimir the way that he's run the country is that he has these business favorites
Ivan: that sometimes you know when they fall out of favor with them he'll fucking
Ivan: throw them in jail and you know whatever but he he is the one that really picks
Ivan: the winners and losers in the economy and who you know all these people that
Ivan: have money and one of the things that that that struck me about Moscow was,
Ivan: I mean, the wealth displayed was, you know, it was very prominent.
Ivan: It was a very, very...
Ivan: You saw wealth being flaunted in a very open way.
Ivan: And I think that the funny thing is that they're in Moscow now,
Ivan: but you go into the smaller villages and other places, whatever,
Ivan: that are in Russia, many of them are struggling and they can't afford even the basics, okay?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: But for whatever reason, I think that the people in those small towns see Moscow
Ivan: and see it wealthy. And it's like, oh, look, you see how we are big and proud of whatever.
Ivan: And I sometimes wind up thinking that a whole bunch of people that are voting
Ivan: for Trump, they kind of think the same thing.
Ivan: They see the wealthy guy and whatever.
Ivan: And he comes into, you know, kind of bumfuck whatever town that he goes to.
Ivan: And these people look at him as like, look, these America, that's the America
Ivan: I want. It's like, that's who I want to be.
Ivan: And so it's, you know, because they want to be like him.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They literally want to be like him. And, you know, it's like why Berlusconi
Ivan: stayed in power in Italy for so many years.
Ivan: This guy, you know, it's, he follows, he wants, that's what he wants.
Ivan: He wants and he's gotten a lot of adulation by a whole bunch of people that are living shit life.
Ivan: And they think for some reason that voting for him is going to rub off on them in some fucking way.
Ivan: I don't understand why, but, you know, but that that's just seems to be what it is.
Ivan: So anyway, so bottom line, businesses are flat out super excited about this administration.
Ivan: And everybody is getting their trucks of money ready to go in order to pay them off.
Sam: Okay, before we take a break and move on to something from me,
Sam: just one last question on this.
Sam: Given you've got all of these, you know, big wigs and major companies and stuff,
Sam: like, trying to figure out the right angle to make all kinds of money off this,
Sam: what's the right angle as a fairly small, like, person here?
Sam: If you just pour lots of money into SPY and did the S&P 500 index or something,
Sam: are we going to see all the big companies make money and the stock market go crazy? What's the deal?
Sam: Like, surely there must be some angle.
Ivan: I am not sure yet what the angle is on this right now. And one of the...
Sam: Apparently, crypto has been doing really well the last couple of weeks.
Ivan: Well, one thing is short term, short term trends, which, you know,
Ivan: the stock market and other things have been going off short term.
Ivan: I'm trying to think more over.
Sam: What's what's the four or five year play.
Ivan: Yeah. And I got to be honest, I think until the you see what the economic plan
Ivan: is going to be and how they're going to do it, I just don't know.
Ivan: I think the one thing like like you mentioned, it's very unpredictable and it
Ivan: really depends who gets into his pocket or not.
Ivan: Here's a here's an example of something. All right. I know he he has been barking.
Ivan: And talking about and even Elon Musk has been saying, oh, let's get rid of the
Ivan: incentives for energy. Let's get rid of the seventy five hundred.
Sam: Listen, for EV cars.
Ivan: Yeah, for EV cars. I know that Elon says that, but I guarantee you that the
Ivan: moment he finishes that if he listens to a CFO, a Tesla, he's got to be saying,
Ivan: are you out of your fucking mind?
Ivan: More than half our profits come from that fucking damn incentive.
Ivan: What the fuck are you doing?
Ivan: Why are you saying this? And by the way, I don't put it past Elon to be saying
Ivan: that publicly just to get like publicity and then go and turn around.
Ivan: Oh, no. But now we're because the only eligible car makers are Tesla.
Ivan: You know what I'm saying?
Sam: He'll work the exemption.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so come on, I'm like, man, I don't know, no,
Ivan: you know, I see the populist thing that he's saying, but I don't see anybody
Ivan: in their right mind that would go and sacrifice more than 50% of their profits
Ivan: and boost competitiveness of his competitors overseas for,
Ivan: for any good logical reason that I can think of.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I don't. I mean, it's I mean, now now Elon has done incredibly dumb shit that loses money already.
Ivan: I mean, because this will forget about his net worth, like whatever the fuck it is right now.
Ivan: The reality is that the profits at the companies that he has been running,
Ivan: you know, the two the the two public, you know, the one that was Twitter.
Ivan: Yeah, it is. Revenue is down 90 percent. He's well, that's OK.
Ivan: Yeah, but Tesla, Tesla, Tesla is, is growth has been obliterated. Okay.
Ivan: They're losing market share and their growth has been obliterated. Okay.
Ivan: They're not growing and they don't seem to be able to figure out a way to grow right now. Okay.
Ivan: And so, and by the way, SpaceX lives on fucking government money.
Sam: Right. Well, look, look, here's, here's the thing on some of this.
Sam: Like for instance, you, you, you mentioned the Twitter slash X one.
Sam: There's been lots of commentary at this point that hey it's clear at this point
Sam: like he didn't expect like it to necessarily do great he just wanted a mouthpiece
Sam: and he wanted to have something that he could use to influence politics and
Sam: he got exactly what he wanted out of it i i will.
Ivan: Say this i think he wanted the mouthpiece but i don't think he thought he was
Ivan: gonna lose listen he tried to back out.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Don't tell me this shit. He tried to back out. He wound up backing into this
Ivan: because he wound up having to fork over to $40 billion.
Ivan: But let's be clear. He tried to back out.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Well, and like, tell me about the 4D chess bullshit, whatever,
Ivan: because he desperately wanted to back out.
Ivan: It was only because the court forced them to buy it that he wound up owning it.
Sam: Right but i guess the question is like at this point does he care at this point
Sam: it's like a rounding error.
Ivan: At this point well at this point i mean he's written
Ivan: i mean he's written it off i mean basically is everybody's written it off i
Ivan: mean he's he's he's lost the money it cost him 40 billion dollars so he's getting
Ivan: so now he's getting the worth of it from this but not yet but my point is it's
Ivan: a business move i mean my point is it's a right you also.
Sam: Mentioned spacex though i mean and this is why he's sucking up to donald trump too right like.
Ivan: Right but but my point is that you can't i mean listen those government subsidies
Ivan: are fucking critical for the profitability of his company yeah.
Sam: Yeah no but my point though is like he's he's got this doge thing that has been
Sam: set up for him to recommend government cuts he's not going to recommend cutting
Sam: spacex he's going to recommend cutting blue.
Ivan: Origin keep spacex well but sam But he's been openly saying to completely kill the EV credit.
Ivan: I mean, which I know the company that that worst gets hurt by that is Tesla.
Sam: Yeah, but but but because you're OK.
Ivan: So because think about this, right? You want to talk about stupid strategy, right?
Ivan: OK. All right. So Donald says, well, fuck it.
Ivan: Drill, drill, drill, baby oil burning car, you know, gas gas burning cars or whatever.
Ivan: Does Tesla have any gasoline cars no right who has the fucking gasoline cars,
Ivan: GM for all his fucking competitors okay
Ivan: so go you know he thinks well I'm gonna hurt them no you're not if you get rid
Ivan: of the regulations and you do that fuck you're bailing them out from starting
Ivan: to build the fucking EVs that have been losing money say oh fuck that I'll just
Ivan: build more you know built more gas-closing cars and fuck you!
Ivan: I mean, that is one of the things that I am just like.
Sam: I mean, literally like one possibility here is he's like, I'm rich enough.
Sam: I don't give a fuck anymore.
Sam: I'm going to do what I like. I really don't believe in government subsidies.
Sam: I'm going to want to say kill all of them, even if it hurts my bottom line.
Ivan: Here's the problem with this, right? Okay. Tesla's valuation is hyperinflated, okay?
Ivan: So if you collapse the profits, there's no way it can stay up there.
Ivan: I mean, you're doing everything actively to try to see how much does it take
Ivan: to finally fucking pop that bubble, okay?
Ivan: And here's the other thing, okay, that's also important.
Ivan: At some point right elon must right
Ivan: now getting so rich right now with how the stocks have moved whatever
Ivan: because of how close he's to trump how long
Ivan: is it until donald trump says well why the why the fuck am i making this guy
Ivan: rich this should be my money but yeah because remember what he did with the
Ivan: people at uh at at whatchamacallit the truth social he basically tried to screw
Ivan: them all you know he's like fuck you you guys don't deserve any of this money
Ivan: it's mine how long does it take for him to say that.
Sam: Well, and also, yes, absolutely.
Ivan: I made you that money. That's not you.
Sam: No, absolutely about the money, but also about the attention.
Sam: If you remember, there have been multiple situations over the years where somebody
Sam: who works for Donald Trump has started getting all the attention for whatever
Sam: reason, and they get the knife in the back immediately.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Because you're distracting. And already, Trump was at Mar-a-Lago joking about
Sam: how he couldn't get rid of elon and you know he's just he's like he's following
Sam: me everywhere and he won't leave so okay break all.
Ivan: Right yep break.
Sam: Okay and when we come back i don't
Sam: know i'll figure out something to talk about back after you see i had.
Ivan: Something to talk about.
Sam: Oh yeah you did so like yeah we'll do a normal like you you your your segment
Sam: and then my segment and then we'll be out so here we go blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Ivan: Blah blah blah blah.
Sam: Except i once again have to stop and start this thing hold on brip brip brip.
Sam: Okay, we're back. And since I teased it a little bit in a beginning segment,
Sam: and we almost started to talk about it, but didn't quite, I think I'll do the
Sam: disconnecting from news thing.
Sam: Because I know on our Curmudgeon's Corner Slack,
Sam: several people have talked about how they are so discouraged and stressed out
Sam: or whatever that they are actively avoiding news that they used to pay attention
Sam: to. And that includes you, I believe, Yvonne.
Sam: And also, there have been reports about cable news channels,
Sam: like ratings dropping in half since the election, you know, and now honestly,
Sam: there's, there's a couple of different things there.
Sam: One, it may be, there's a certain portion of it. I'm sure that's like people
Sam: like, you know, I'm just burnt out.
Sam: I don't want to talk about news right now, but also just to keep in mind that
Sam: always happens after elections, elections are one of the big sources of ratings for the,
Sam: News organizations in general, TV, print, print, who does print anymore?
Sam: But like, there's still print.
Sam: I know there's still some print, but like, you know, the traditional media,
Sam: New York Times, Washington Post, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: All of these things traditionally see a drop after elections,
Sam: but maybe it's more than that this time.
Sam: There seems to be a lot of people, especially on the left, who are just like,
Sam: hey, you know, I really invested myself into this for the last few years.
Sam: We lost, I can't, I don't want to pay attention to whatever nonsense Donald Trump is doing.
Sam: I need to take care of me and my family and, and not think about this for a while.
Sam: I'll tell you, I'm still, I'm an addict to this stuff.
Sam: So I've still got like news feeds everywhere around me all the time.
Sam: I'm checking that kind I'm not
Sam: avoiding it. But even so, in run-up to the election, I had the four up,
Sam: four news channels, live feed, almost always in the background,
Sam: just to see, was there some new development I should pay attention to?
Sam: I would have it muted or whatever, but it was always there.
Sam: I haven't had that up since the election. I have all my other sources,
Sam: but I've watched less live than I did before.
Sam: I still have sort of, it's my default, my default rotations of podcasts I listen
Sam: to are just, you know, news shows.
Sam: But I definitely have heard a lot of people talking about that pullback.
Ivan: Look, I will say from me personally, and this started a few weeks before the election.
Ivan: You know, I'm one that likes it.
Ivan: Bloomberg in the mornings. I always watch it in the morning.
Ivan: I've talked about this here.
Ivan: I have not watched them in about a month.
Sam: Wow.
Ivan: And I've tried a couple of times and I can't do it. The problem is that every
Ivan: time they talk about Trump, it's very triggering.
Ivan: And I realize that I start getting really pissed off.
Ivan: And I just don't want to, I'm like, okay, I don't want to fucking listen to this.
Ivan: I don't want to, I don't want to listen. The other day I tried to watch again
Ivan: and, and I was like, it was because Nvidia had talked to, you know, come out with earnings.
Ivan: I was hoping, well, let me don't talk about earnings, but then they had some
Ivan: guy from the fucking previous Trump administration on talking about what they
Ivan: did when they came to office in 2016.
Ivan: And the thing is that, as usual with these people, they twist everything and lie about everything.
Ivan: And I'm like, he was talking about, well, we came in in 2016 because we had to fix the economy.
Ivan: I mean, he started off with this shit, okay?
Ivan: And how important it was for us to cut the taxes in order to alleviate the burden.
Ivan: Again, this country has the lowest tax burden of any fucking developed nation.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I mean, every time these guys talk about sky-high taxes, I am like,
Ivan: what the fuck are you talking about?
Ivan: It's just, you know, it's another made-up straw man.
Ivan: And so I hear this and I hear that, and I just, like I said, I can't watch this.
Ivan: I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't watch. And the problem is that,
Ivan: of course, they're bringing some of these people in from the Trump circle because
Ivan: they're trying to understand what the fuck he's going to be doing, whatever.
Ivan: And I'm like, you know what? I don't fucking care.
Ivan: And why do I not fucking care? Because it's all going to be chaos. It's all bullshit.
Ivan: All of these people are going to be speculating one thing or another.
Ivan: We just talked about it earlier. It's transactional.
Ivan: It's going to be whatever the fuck, you know, he thinks is going to be gainful
Ivan: at that moment. He has no convictions.
Ivan: You know, other than, hey, let me burnish my image. Let me make myself money.
Ivan: Those are the only fucking convictions. Let me be a crook.
Ivan: And let me do it the crooked way, not the right way. I just want to do it like
Ivan: in some transactional way where I'm like, you know.
Ivan: And the transactional part is important for him because it's like,
Ivan: I win, you lose. Because he thinks that every transaction he's going to get.
Ivan: That's the thing. I beat you on the transaction.
Sam: Right. Like I said in the last segment, he's not looking for a win-win.
Ivan: No, that doesn't exist. In his world, it's a zero-sum game.
Sam: Right. And in terms of like a media drop-off, you also have like the whole,
Sam: there was a Morning Joe fluffle because Joe and Mika from Morning Joe on MSNBC.
Ivan: By the way, same reason why they went down there is because, you know what?
Ivan: And I actually understand why because I'm like, well, if we're going to be finding
Ivan: out what the fuck is going on, we got to be talking to these people.
Ivan: We can't act like they don't exist. He's going to be the fucking president.
Sam: Right. The whole thing there was people are really upset that like they've spent
Sam: the last four years, actually more than four years, practically since the moment
Sam: he was elected eight years ago, talking about how bad Donald Trump is.
Sam: Now, people in part gave them some credit for getting him elected in the first place.
Sam: But and then they sort of are like, well, he won. We're going to go talk to him.
Sam: You know, we're going to do this. Some people have talked about that they may
Sam: have been like afraid to some degree of not doing that.
Ivan: And I understand that, too.
Sam: And you're right. Like the whole media ecosystem.
Sam: The reality is, and there are probably a few exceptions here and there,
Sam: but like the whole commercial media ecosystem, at least,
Sam: has a very heavy incentive to make sure you have connections to whoever is in power.
Ivan: To know what the fuck is going on.
Sam: Yeah, to know what is fucking on, to know what is going on, to have the inside
Sam: sources and scoops so that you get the news story and not somebody else.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, people complained all along about, what was it, Maggie Haberman at
Sam: the New York Times and how she was like all cozy with Donald Trump.
Sam: You know, you're going to.
Ivan: Well, that's how she was able to report and all that shit.
Sam: Right. And Woodward, for that matter, all of these folks.
Sam: You know and and you're of course you're
Sam: gonna see all the same stuff again and and people complain about
Sam: normalization but at the same time for like
Sam: maybe somebody like maybe non-profits like pro publica can get away with it
Sam: but like all of your corporate owned media it's like no you you have to be like
Sam: you have to take them seriously you have to like oh yes this is the secretary
Sam: of the treasury let's talk about what they're doing but listen.
Ivan: Even if you're npr If you're going to be reporting on Treasury policy and you're
Ivan: not going to interview the Secretary of Treasury that Trump nominates,
Ivan: how are you going to do your job?
Sam: Well, NPR is a different story. They rely a lot on government funding as well.
Ivan: Not a lot.
Sam: Some, some, some. Yeah, they've got.
Ivan: Yeah, a lot. It's a 3% of the budget. Not exactly really, you know.
Sam: They're still not eager to get rid of that 3%, though, if you know what I mean.
Ivan: Yeah, but still. I mean, but okay. Okay, but say whoever, okay?
Sam: Yes, yeah.
Ivan: Look, if you really want to report on what's going on and you're not going to
Ivan: talk to any of them, even though they are going to be in charge,
Ivan: I don't know how you do your job.
Ivan: Now, the flip side, but the flip side is, do I really want to know what the
Ivan: fuck is going on in my new detail right now? No.
Ivan: What I'm doing is like right now, listen, it's not like I am totally disconnected.
Ivan: I know what's going on, but I've just really limited how much I consume every day of it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay. So, yeah, I am reading it, and I know what the hell is going on.
Ivan: I just shut off. You know, one thing, and this is something that I was pretty
Ivan: good about in the past, and I must admit that I have been remiss.
Ivan: And this reminded me of this, what happened with Trump.
Ivan: I used to very much limit my notifications regularly of what the hell I got notified about.
Ivan: And the thing is, with so many apps and so many things that I subscribe to,
Ivan: that number of notifications about shit going on had multiplied.
Ivan: And I was like, very, for years, very like, no, I don't want these notifications.
Ivan: No, I don't want these notifications.
Ivan: No, I don't want these notifications. When I go and sit down to check.
Ivan: I'll check, but the number of notifications I got, it's not like I didn't get
Ivan: any, but I significantly limited it, okay, in order to make sure that I wasn't
Ivan: bombarded with shit all the time.
Ivan: And I had let that get out of hand. And so what I did was I did not cut off
Ivan: myself from completely from news, but I definitely.
Sam: Limited- Turned off a lot of them.
Ivan: Turned off a lot of notifications from a lot of stuff because I'm like,
Ivan: look, I don't want to, I don't need to be notified about every fucking thing.
Sam: You'll find out eventually. You don't need to know the second it happens.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: You know, like the important things will find you. You'll see them in a once a day scan.
Sam: You don't have to be interrupted in real time to know that, you know,
Sam: Donald Trump's latest appointment to I could be irritated.
Ivan: Like at one time, like at seven o'clock, you know, like later,
Ivan: whatever, about all this stuff. instead of constantly being irritated all day
Ivan: long about all this shit.
Ivan: You know what I'm saying? That's it. That's all I'm trying to do.
Ivan: I'm just not trying to be like, you know, because there is, you know,
Ivan: people are like, oh, we're trying to normalize this. And I keep going back, look.
Ivan: No, that's not what it is. The problem is that right now, I can have all the
Ivan: outrage in the world that you want me to have right now. And what is it going
Ivan: to do? Is it going to change anything?
Ivan: Is it going to do one bit of a difference? As a matter of fact,
Ivan: I think that there is an argument for the fact that in the past,
Ivan: we did do all the protesting,
Ivan: all the outrage that we want, and probably emboldened Trump to do more because
Ivan: he got, it was kind of like, he fed off the attention.
Sam: Yeah. All attention is good attention.
Ivan: All attention is good attention. So if you, if you actually don't pay,
Ivan: if you're not outraged about every fucking thing he does every day,
Ivan: it probably motivates him not to do it. It probably either.
Ivan: You might, you know, you're not feeding all, you're not feeding him that.
Sam: Right you know and i've seen a
Sam: lot of and i've seen a lot of people online with that kind of attitude too
Sam: of like look yeah i i'm cutting
Sam: out trumpies for my life but at the same time like if they're trumpies that
Sam: are trying to get me aggravated i'm just like i hope you get everything you
Sam: want out of this and just walking away leaving it at that you know yeah there's
Sam: no And I wanted to mention,
Sam: this reminded me, we did have a piece of feedback that I'll share here.
Sam: Actually, there was more than one person who has told me explicitly about this
Sam: podcast that, for instance, they could not bring themselves to listen to our
Sam: election night episode.
Ivan: Yeah, I know.
Sam: Here's one, and this is from our loyal listener, Matt.
Sam: I was talking to him about some other stuff, but he says, As an aside,
Sam: I started listening to the podcast episode from election night during a walk I was taking last week.
Sam: Since, of course, I knew the end result and my walk was supposed to be for relaxing
Sam: and de-stressing, I actually had to stop the podcast about 15 minutes into it.
Sam: I was just getting so upset all over again, almost like a PTSD episode.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I just couldn't go through living through all that again.
Sam: And he goes on to say, the election definitely hit me and his wife,
Sam: but actually had a much more significant effect on my two older daughters.
Sam: They've been really engaged both before and after the election.
Sam: Dinner conversation frequently turned into political commentary,
Sam: which has been kind of cool to be able to talk with the kids about that kind of adult stuff.
Sam: But on the other hand, the first few days after the election were bad for them.
Sam: They started ditching people on socials, blocking people, and started getting
Sam: vocal with their friends and acquaintances about not wanting to spend time with
Sam: someone who can blindly be ignorant of reality and or blindly do what their uninformed parents do.
Sam: And he finally says, and I kid you not, a lot of the times his wife will turn
Sam: to me and ask, did Sam say anything about that? What does he and Yvonne think about blah?
Sam: So anyway, a little bit of feedback.
Ivan: Well, by the way, well, one thing I will say, man—,
Ivan: You're really, really, really impressed
Ivan: with the level of smarts of your daughters. Okay, let me tell you.
Ivan: I'm like, that's, man, I'm proud of those girls.
Sam: Age 21 and 18, by the way.
Ivan: Be proud of those girls. They're fantastic. I'll tell you what.
Ivan: That's great. I love that. You know, I really love that.
Ivan: And well, you know, I get it. Listen, I get it, man.
Ivan: I mean, it's like I said, you know, you talk about, yeah, listening to that podcast triggering.
Ivan: The same thing with me what i mean i i can't i
Ivan: i could listen the the regular news program
Ivan: that i watch in the morning which is mostly business focused even just some
Ivan: stray mentions of what the fuck is going on had me going so bad that i'm like
Ivan: i basically i don't watch it anymore i am now watching get up on espn one of
Ivan: the great things i will say about about that that espn And, you know,
Ivan: for better or worse, and I know that it impacted certain certain people negatively.
Ivan: And I follow some of those people outside of ESPN.
Ivan: But look, a few years ago, CEO of ESPN said during the Trump administration,
Ivan: and they had a whole bunch of skirmishes with them, said, OK,
Ivan: listen, people, we are not talking about anything politics on this fucking network.
Ivan: Not one fucking thing. Nothing.
Ivan: They don't exist. We're not talking about it. Not one word.
Ivan: It's like that shit doesn't happen we are people come here and honestly they're
Ivan: coming here because they don't want to be listening to that shit.
Ivan: So we're not we're going to act like it doesn't exist
Ivan: we're talking about sports that's it
Ivan: so when you turn it to ESPN it's
Ivan: like the day after the election it's like the election didn't
Ivan: happen nothing not even a stray mention
Ivan: nothing not one and you
Ivan: know what i realized i like this
Ivan: i don't want to hear about it let's just talk endlessly about the benching of
Ivan: daniel jones and the new york giants who the fuck gives it which is one of the
Ivan: most inane stories ever and like completely insignificant and you know what
Ivan: at least because we're talking about bullshit it doesn't remind me anything
Ivan: about this fucking election,
Ivan: Great.
Sam: Right. And, and look, even here, I mean, we've, we've been talking about avoiding
Sam: politics, which is still politics.
Sam: We've been talking about economics, but we did not specifically talk about all
Sam: the ins and outs of what was happening with Matt Gaetz and all of the other,
Sam: and, and, and, and, and like my list of things to talk about was the damn spider
Sam: was about blue sky was about, hey, should I be thinking about upgrading my iPhone?
Sam: It's a little bit old right now.
Sam: You know, I've got a thing that I may still mention before we close it out about more use of AI.
Sam: Like I was doing some, Alex wants me to do game programming and I was doing
Sam: a bunch of AI stuff last night and I was really excited about it last night actually.
Sam: And the stupid AI screwed me at one point and caused me a lot of extra work.
Sam: And so there was that I, I, I, I, I'm revising my resume.
Sam: I, I used AI to help with that and their pros and cons to that.
Sam: And, you know, but the point is not those things. I don't want to talk about
Sam: necessarily any of those things right now, but like bullet point,
Sam: bullet point, bullet point, bullet point.
Sam: Like I was putting down things this week that were not related to news and stuff.
Ivan: AI. Speaking of AI, I got my, I got recently got Manu a new,
Ivan: new, new MacBook pro. okay and so you know as we dive.
Sam: Into the tangent go ahead.
Ivan: Well yeah no well well yeah it's so the one thing is that you know i actually
Ivan: i was playing around with it i you know i don't the map comes with a chess program
Ivan: yep yeah i hadn't played chess in like forever and i'm like okay well and the
Ivan: one thing is that i had it like reading out the the moves okay and so manu liked
Ivan: hearing the moves read out,
Ivan: I've never been a good chess player, but let me tell you something.
Ivan: And, but it used to be like the old, old programs.
Ivan: If you set it at the dumbest setting, I could at least like occasionally win
Ivan: a match against the computer.
Sam: Okay. All right.
Ivan: Dude, I have not been even remotely close, even at the dumbest fucking setting
Ivan: at beating this damn computer.
Sam: And it's so, so let me, let me tell you one of the things like,
Sam: I also have never been good at chess although i wish i was and always every
Sam: once in a while i would like try playing,
Sam: if you go looking for chess programs now one
Sam: of the things to explicitly look out for now
Sam: is their dumb levels especially if
Sam: you're people like me like get one that specifically has really really really
Sam: dumb levels because the one thing is remember you know i i attended some of
Sam: the Kasparov deep blue matches where like one of my first dates with my goddamn
Sam: wife was attending one of those blue matches.
Sam: But like the second round, I think with her and I had done some a few years earlier with the.
Ivan: I'm pretty sure that the stupid computer at the dumb level, I got a smart at
Ivan: the fucking smart at fucking deep blue.
Sam: Well, what I was going to say, not necessarily the dumb level there,
Sam: but every single iPhone chess game,
Sam: has levels at this point that can beat the world champion.
Sam: The current world champion today cannot beat the highest levels on a program that runs on your phone.
Ivan: Exactly. It's ridiculous. It's fucking ridiculous.
Ivan: And so, yeah, I can't set that damn thing to a dumb enough level where I can win one fucking game.
Sam: Well, just to be clear, there are chess programs you can get that are dumber.
Ivan: Well, I said that. No, no, no. I know, but that one, I can't set it dumb enough for me to win.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: It's fucking ridiculous.
Sam: To be fair, Yvonne, it probably has to be pretty dumb for you to beat it. But, you know.
Ivan: I agree. I'm not arguing that.
Sam: But, I mean, literally, some of the programs have levels that just make random
Sam: moves. Completely random moves.
Ivan: Well, here's the thing. But that's what a lot of average humans would do.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Okay? And that's the problem. I can't set this one. This one will always do a fucking smart move.
Ivan: You know, it's not going to do a stupid move. Even at the dollar,
Ivan: it's going to do a fucking smart move. It won't make a fucking mistake.
Ivan: Humans, especially the average player, will make some dumb mistake.
Ivan: Not notice that you put a piece in jeopardy and like, ah, fuck.
Ivan: You know, shit. Yeah. So, but yeah, so I cannot, I have not been able to beat that computer.
Ivan: Not even, I've got like, maybe like 25, 30 moves deep, but no,
Ivan: no, still can't win. Doesn't matter. No.
Sam: Right. So my, my point, my point was just, even as we're thinking about topics
Sam: for the show, the shift towards non newsy topics has been real.
Sam: Like at least this week, like here's, I expect at a certain point,
Sam: like there's the temptation to do that right now.
Sam: At a certain point, it will once again become unavoidable because Trump will
Sam: actually be in office. He will actually be doing damaging things.
Ivan: We still got a couple of months to go. we.
Sam: Still got a couple of months to go so we.
Ivan: We can talk about other stuff and you know i
Ivan: mean there will be a lot of dumb stuff i mean i can i you know
Ivan: one dumb thing that i didn't mention i was going to mention earlier go ahead
Ivan: you did you did touch on it a little bit uh about how they weren't signed they
Ivan: didn't want to sign any of the ndas or anything whatever look here here's the
Ivan: idiotic thing you know they're already starting off from from just some of what
Ivan: doing one of the dumbest things that you could do during the transition.
Sam: Which is not talk to the people who are there now.
Ivan: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that doesn't help them at all. They think that somehow,
Ivan: whoa, we're doing a, I heard a word, we're doing a hostile takeover. Well, listen, clown.
Ivan: You know, you're like trying to take over an aircraft carrier that you've never run before.
Ivan: And you're trying, you're saying that you don't want any of the people running
Ivan: it to tell you where the fuck stuff is.
Ivan: You know what? You're going to be, you, I mean,
Ivan: Maybe these people have run ships before, but, you know, you're going to be
Ivan: just, you're making it far more difficult to probably get control of it faster.
Ivan: What they're doing is counter to their goal.
Sam: Well, also, just to be just.
Ivan: You want to, you want them to show you where everything is just to be clear.
Sam: Just to be clear. Their explicit plan also includes on day one going in and
Sam: firing all kinds of people.
Sam: So it's not only they're not going to talk to them now,
Sam: the supposedly career people who are not political, they're going to go in and
Sam: at least the plan, we'll see if they actually do it, is to decimate that group
Sam: right when they first start.
Sam: So they're going to damage that even further when they get in.
Sam: Now their take on that is all those people will just be there to stop us from
Sam: doing what we want to do anyway so they're you know there's no point in talking
Sam: to them there's no point in keeping them we're just going to immediately get
Sam: rid of it and we'll do what we want to do.
Ivan: I i now i'm pretty sure that that will happen at some agencies and certain things
Ivan: but i'll tell you one thing i'm,
Ivan: As much as I loathe Marco Rubio, probably won't do that.
Ivan: And like the guy that they named at Treasury probably won't do that.
Ivan: But I'm sure that at certain agencies, they will.
Ivan: But again, the problem is that you're going to get rid of everybody that knows where anything is.
Sam: Well, remember, whatever the hell you're going to do. For many of these agencies,
Sam: the explicit goal is to cripple the agency and make sure it can't do anything.
Ivan: And that, okay. And I'm not sure how that's going to help them accomplish anything, but okay.
Sam: Well, it'll accomplish crippling the agency and keeping it from doing anything.
Sam: You know, it's one thing if you want the agency to do something different than it does today.
Sam: But if you want it to stop working, then it's much easier to break things than to fix them.
Ivan: It really depends on how agencies are structured or what they do, right?
Ivan: Okay. Because let me give you an example. OK, somebody was talking about what
Ivan: CEOs do on a day to day basis.
Ivan: Right. And how some companies can can operate without a CEO being there.
Ivan: One of the things is that stuff like down when you've got a agency that has
Ivan: 100000 employees and departments and agencies and sub offices and whatever, whatnot. Right.
Ivan: Well, everybody's just doing their job every day. They're not getting instructions
Ivan: from from the from the from the chief executive or like whatever in order to
Ivan: do their job on a daily basis.
Ivan: OK, they need to probably receive most of the time, you know,
Ivan: they need to receive instructions in order for something to change.
Ivan: OK, and, you know, and so and this reminds me of the experience I had with when
Ivan: Carly Fiorina came into to HP where she had the same mindset.
Ivan: OK, she didn't understand why things didn't change. And I'm like,
Ivan: well, you got 150,000 employees.
Ivan: And if you want to change, it has to percolate all the way down to like the
Ivan: people that are actually doing the work.
Ivan: And if you don't really, and any change like that takes time because there's 150,000 employees.
Ivan: So if you basically cut off all communication to, to management,
Ivan: I've had, I've been in situations where my boss has been non-existent.
Ivan: What are you going to do every day?
Ivan: Well, if they happen to fire you over there, whatever, it's just going to keep
Ivan: doing whatever the hell you were doing before.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And so I, I, I don't, I don't understand this, this entire thinking that they've got. Okay.
Ivan: It's just really it may
Ivan: change like strategy in the long run well they're not going
Ivan: to get some stuff or whatever whatnot but it's very difficult to you know you're
Ivan: not getting people to stop every day unless you're just going to fire everybody
Ivan: at the you know just everybody all the way down just fire everybody shut down
Ivan: the department right so I and then you know it's.
Ivan: There is a lot of in this what I see naivety and wish casting rather than any
Ivan: smart, methodical way of how to execute this.
Ivan: Because I've always thought that the first thing that you do is that if you
Ivan: want to take over something and be effective at changing what it is,
Ivan: you probably can find some allies in that group. Okay?
Ivan: And some people that are willing to share the information. So you talk to them,
Ivan: you figure out who your allies are, they'll tell you where the fuck
Ivan: everything is and then you start you start you know
Ivan: doing whatever the fuck it is and then you start firing people if you're
Ivan: going in if you're going in and not even like do that it's going to make whatever
Ivan: the hell you're going to try to do a hell of a lot a lot harder but but look
Ivan: we're expecting a mess and i expect a mess and i expect a broad mess from a
Ivan: lot of places which is why i don't know what the fuck is going to happen,
Ivan: i just don't know and i think that that's the uncertainty that the markets and
Ivan: everybody is having right now after the first little boost of whatever went
Ivan: out there it's just like who the fuck knows what they're gonna do right and.
Sam: And there's yeah but i think the spectrum goes from oh my god really really
Sam: like country destroying bad to,
Sam: bad along the same lines as the first term, which was still pretty bad.
Sam: To be clear, there are lots of people minimizing how bad the first term was,
Sam: but it was pretty damn bad.
Sam: But you've got that whole spectrum. I don't think there's any possibility that
Sam: it's better than the first term was.
Ivan: No, no. I'll tell you an example, for example, of things that got really bad,
Ivan: like people just applying for a visa to come to the US,
Ivan: people that you would never turn away okay you
Ivan: know people who even they want to come in right they decimated that process
Ivan: so bad that some people in places were raiding years to get appointments that
Ivan: normally took you know got got handled pretty quickly and so it's that kind
Ivan: of stuff where you're even impeding the shit that you want like to happen,
Ivan: So, I don't know. Okay. We'll just, all right, well, we're done.
Ivan: Let's get the fuck out of here.
Sam: Let's wrap this sucker up.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: One other thing I am going to say out loud here that I mentioned in passing,
Sam: I was updating my resume.
Sam: And by the way on the ai part of that the only
Sam: warning is you know ai can be useful for things
Sam: like shortening and blah blah blah and re reflow
Sam: this in another way reformat blah blah blah but you
Sam: gotta watch that shit like a hawk because like
Sam: you know i i was working on updating it and making sure like it included the
Sam: last few years of stuff i had done and and and shortening it and like blah blah
Sam: blah get get getting rid of some of the really old stuff blah blah blah but
Sam: like stupid thing kept trying to add completely made up shit that doesn't exist,
Sam: it's like and i i had to i have to make sure to go through you.
Ivan: Weren't a president and ceo of this company for seven years sam you didn't know this ai knows.
Sam: Not quite that bad but i had to like over and over and over again every time
Sam: like i would ask it for something simple like you know hey this is too long
Sam: can we shorten it whatever you know and and but i had to go over
Sam: every single line line by line reading every fucking word because it would be
Sam: like it would change it into something unrecognizable and i'm like i didn't
Sam: do that what are you what are you talking about like i can can you listen i.
Ivan: I i i told i i mentioned i think earlier that i had tried to get ai to help me write a letter okay.
Sam: Specifically and.
Ivan: The thing is that when it when i i asked it to check the letter that i wrote
Ivan: and the one thing that i i wound up almost taking every edit out because it
Ivan: didn't sound like me anymore.
Ivan: It made it sound like some generic person talking.
Ivan: It took language that I normally would use, which I sometimes use very,
Ivan: idiosyncratic you know yes exactly things that are just that sound like me took
Ivan: them all out and sounded like some bland fucking like thing and i'm like no
Ivan: that's that's that's you took out my me-isms and made it sound like totally
Ivan: bland no that's not what i want yeah.
Sam: No absolutely but like i and and you know that i was just concerned about accuracy
Sam: i was concerned about two things One, don't say shit that's not true. Okay.
Sam: Number one. And two, it has to be recognizable so that like,
Sam: if somebody asks me about this bullet point, I know what the hell it was talking about.
Sam: And so, cause like, even if it like, sometimes it was reworded to such a generic
Sam: way that I'm like, okay, maybe, but I don't even remember.
Sam: Like, so anyway, the point is like these tools can be helpful sometimes in some scenarios.
Ivan: But you got to be careful.
Sam: You have to be super, don't like never, ever, ever just take the output of one
Sam: of these things and send it sight unseen.
Sam: You have to check every damn line, every word, make sure it's what you actually want to be saying.
Sam: And that, frankly, in some cases, that means you'd be better off just not using
Sam: it at all and just writing the stuff.
Ivan: So the resume was inaccurate when it said you were an expert in bondage and BDS and other things?
Ivan: You're like, wait, what? What? What?
Sam: Yeah. But yet, it was fine when it said I was an astronaut.
Ivan: That's good.
Sam: That's just yeah that's part of my record part of my history you know you.
Ivan: Know they say that you were part of the first first group to land on mars or something like.
Sam: I was gonna say it said i was on the challenger but that
Sam: would be something yeah anyway no so the thing i wanted to say is i'm not going
Sam: to get into details of how or why i am still at my current position but I am
Sam: actively paying attention and looking at alternatives and blah,
Sam: blah, blah. So just for any of you out there,
Sam: If you have any leads for me, contact me. If you're already a LinkedIn contact,
Sam: LinkedIn is completely up to date.
Sam: That resume I talked about has an HTML version at ablesmay.com slash resume.
Sam: Take a look. Basically, I'm a program manager slash product manager kind of
Sam: thing with a specialty in sort of anti-abuse content related stuff.
Sam: So if anybody's got any leads, ping me.
Sam: We'll give all the contacts and yeah i mean i'm exploring let's put it that
Sam: way i'm exploring i'm looking for options and so if anybody's got any leads
Sam: let me know especially if you're a fan of this show i'd love to hear from you
Sam: anyway but yeah um okay with that one.
Ivan: More thing one more so so i got my.
Sam: Oh you got one more thing go go well i.
Ivan: Got that well i have the thing from our Slack.
Sam: Okay, well, then let me do the website. So yeah, go to curmudgeons-corner.com.
Sam: You'll find all the ways to contact us. You will find our archives.
Sam: You will find links to our YouTube where we live stream these things.
Sam: We had one person in and out on today's show. Thank you, whoever that was.
Sam: Oh, that was me. That was you. Okay, well, thank you, Yvonne.
Ivan: Well, I was just trying to see if anybody commented on anything on the thing.
Sam: Well, I appreciate you watching the show, Yvonne.
Ivan: Watching ourselves? Oh, yeah. You're welcome.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway, I have seen these get some views after the fact as well. So I appreciate that.
Sam: There are links to all that kind of stuff on the website on curmudgeons-corner.com.
Sam: I have not linked to TikTok yet, but I am posting stuff on TikTok.
Sam: We have gotten actually a decent amount of engagement on the TikTok.
Sam: Like, you know, basically, like if you look at the views of,
Sam: I posted four clips from last week's show. Okay.
Sam: Let me, let me check where we are right now. Last week's show at the moment.
Sam: Had 38 downloads of the audio podcast, of the, of the audio podcast,
Sam: the regular way, the tick talk, each one of the four clips that I posted had more than 700 views.
Ivan: Wow.
Sam: Now, now, if you look at the stats, most of those views were only one second
Sam: long, but you know, Hey, but we, we, we got, we got a few likes, we got a few comments.
Sam: There was one person specifically complaining about my audio
Sam: quality last week and i admit it there well
Sam: there was a problem i it was a real problem my my audio
Sam: was blown out i tried to fix it a little bit in post but i couldn't really fix
Sam: it completely so it sounded just my my voice was not great on last week's show
Sam: and in fact i'm for next week i will have a new one of these the pro The problem was, unlike Yvonne,
Sam: I listen to myself in the headphones.
Sam: And the port where I can plug the headphones in on my Yeti mic is broken.
Sam: So I have ordered a new mic. This week, I am using my wife's mic instead that's sitting on my desk.
Sam: But I ordered a new one for me. It's the new model they have.
Sam: So it's got some upgrades i
Sam: could have gone with a completely different brand but i didn't anyway that doesn't
Sam: matter but the point was there's lots of engagement there was a commentary there
Sam: have been people going back and forth etc like lots of likes from people i don't
Sam: recognize now has it translated into actual listeners on the main show no i
Sam: can't see that yet we don't know we don't know we've had.
Ivan: A drop off also from here here's the thing i don't know i'm sure we've had a
Ivan: mix of people coming in and out, especially because we had a lot of people that,
Ivan: after the election, just don't want to listen to this shit right now.
Sam: Yeah. But you know, the thing is...
Sam: The Riverside, which we use to record, automatically generates these clips.
Sam: It generates like a dozen of them.
Sam: And I watch them and most of them suck. And I pick a couple ones that suck a
Sam: little bit less and I post them. It's not much work.
Sam: So I figure, why not? And if some of those people like the clips and eventually
Sam: listen to the whole podcast, great.
Sam: If not, oh, well, didn't cost that much in terms of time or anything.
Sam: Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: One of the links on curmudgeon-corner.com is a link to our Patreon,
Sam: where you can give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show.
Sam: We'll send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug, blah, blah,
Sam: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And very importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask,
Sam: we will invite you to the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack where Yvonne and I and a
Sam: bunch of listeners are hanging out, sharing links and chatting throughout the week.
Sam: And Yvonne has a highlight of something from the Slack that we have not talked about on the show.
Ivan: There were all these power outages in Washington State. I was talking about
Ivan: generating electricity and whatnot or whatever.
Ivan: And I was like, I was looking around and there was somebody that,
Ivan: that is posting like, and they're trying to get this thing like funded and built.
Ivan: Powering your home with a fridge sized nuclear reactor.
Ivan: So you get this, this little like mini nuke in your house that,
Ivan: that is the size of a fridge that, you know, that can power your house.
Sam: Well, and look, these are, it may be a little while out yet till you can really
Sam: do this in a way that makes sense at the household level, but this is very much
Sam: being talked about at the corporate level right now.
Sam: Yes. We're sort of powering data centers or other places where instead of your
Sam: regular grid connection, you basically get a, you know, a standard shipping container size.
Sam: And I'm talking about the big ones they put on trucks or trains or boats.
Sam: You know, you get one of those that's a self-contained nuclear reactor and you
Sam: just plug it in and you power your thing, you know?
Ivan: And it'll work for 30 years or something, whatever, something very long amount of time.
Sam: And, you know, people's immediate reaction to anything nuclear is, oh, my God, safety.
Sam: Is it going to explode like a bomb? Is there going to be nuclear waste?
Sam: Is there this? Is there that?
Sam: Honestly, a lot of those issues that were bigger issues like 40 years ago,
Sam: the technology has improved a lot.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: They're a lot less concerning today than they were and are traded off against everything else.
Sam: Like you know against the the big changes
Sam: of course everybody is much more aware of the damage that burning
Sam: carbon costs right you know so it's not like you can say like nuke you know
Sam: people always had the oh my god the nuclear stuff is dangerous without really
Sam: considering the danger of the old of yeah of the carbon base sources which has
Sam: actually caused a huge amount of damage over the years.
Sam: And so, you know, I've said for a long time, you know, the, the,
Sam: The decline in nuclear was actually one of the biggest mistakes that was made over the last 50 years.
Ivan: Oh, I agree.
Sam: I agree.
Ivan: I mean, nuclear had problems that needed to be addressed.
Ivan: What we needed to do was address the problems, not have nuclear decline, period.
Ivan: And look, there is a reason.
Ivan: We had some very big disasters between the really big ones because Three Mile
Ivan: Island didn't, although it was a disaster. in terms of nuclear radiation.
Sam: But in terms of Chernobyl and the one in...
Ivan: But Chernobyl and Fukushima. Fukushima, yeah. I mean, those were,
Ivan: you know, really terrible disasters.
Ivan: But at the same time, look, instead of, like, just ditching it,
Ivan: one of the things is that those two reactors that those three we're talking
Ivan: about were extremely ordered designs.
Ivan: There's so much newer technology that addresses the reasons why those were risky
Ivan: and cause a problem that instead of like, you know, we need to look at that
Ivan: again and, and, and adopt some of that.
Ivan: If we really want to accelerate our move towards, you know, carbon neutrality.
Ivan: I mean, there's just, you know, because Ivan.
Sam: Ivan back to the current news, we've elected somebody. It's all about drill,
Sam: baby drill. All of these alternative sources are bullshit.
Sam: No more solar, no more electric, no more wind.
Sam: All of those are bullshit. No more nuclear.
Sam: Hey, he might like nuclear a little bit, but you know, but basically.
Sam: Drill baby drill yeah sure okay anyway line up sign up to get the personal nuke
Sam: for your home yes um you know and and if they take too long to build it you
Sam: know you can i'm sure you can look up a guide online and just make it yourself.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I like that movie Manhattan project.
Sam: Really? I don't know. I didn't have never seen that. I have to look that up too.
Ivan: But, uh, wait, is it, is it called a Manhattan? Wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Sam: There was a guy that like got in trouble, like for, like a high school science
Sam: project actually did get like 99% of the way to.
Ivan: Well, this was, uh, this was, uh, a movie about that.
Ivan: Yeah. A high school prodigy built an atomic bomb with stolen plutonium to win
Ivan: the 45th national science fair.
Ivan: An explosive nuclear weapons lab yeah the movie is called the manhattan project
Ivan: with john lithgow and a couple of other people that are oh.
Sam: I've added it to my list but but there there was a real life case of that as
Sam: well they did not actually have stolen plutonium but they they built like a
Sam: breeder reactor in their garage or whatever and you know eventually they look at listen at.
Ivan: Code listen i i recently you know found out recently for some reason and i think
Ivan: this may be part of a reason why my ex-employer kodak has not been able to sell
Ivan: that one of their buildings.
Sam: Uh there's.
Ivan: A nuclear reactor somewhere in a fucking kodak building.
Sam: Yeah in rochester if you
Sam: remember and here we are on a tangent again one of
Sam: the important like little stories about the manhattan project is that kodak
Sam: was unintentionally very involved because the secret nuclear tests were messing
Sam: up film because they were exposing film.
Sam: And Kodak actually had to do a variety of things to make film that was less
Sam: sensitive to what was happening in the Nevada tests and also keeps secret all
Sam: of the stuff that was going on here because it's just their...
Sam: They were sensitive to what was happening.
Sam: So even when they weren't like officially brought into the loop,
Sam: it was like, oh, look, something's happening.
Sam: Right. And there's a whole story. I don't remember the details.
Sam: There's some YouTube videos about it. you can go look it up about Kodak's involvement
Sam: in the Manhattan project and how this,
Sam: the, the, the photo sensitivity of film in terms of detecting radiation from
Sam: tests was a big deal and they had to deal with it anyway.
Ivan: Yeah, I can believe that. Yeah. So, all right.
Sam: I think, I think we're done.
Ivan: We're done.
Sam: Okay. Thanks everybody for joining us once again, you know, all the stuff stay safe.
Sam: I got, I, you know, they'll probably complain to me about sound again.
Sam: Cause I've got like a little bit of echo going. Wow. Sound good.
Ivan: You sound good on my end.
Sam: So, well, no, I hear myself coming back through you. I don't know.
Sam: Anyway, whatever, whatever.
Sam: Stay safe. Have a good week. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Okay there it goes i'm gonna hit stop later yvonne bye Thank you.