Sam: Greetings, Mr. Bo.
Ivan: Uh, salutations.
Sam: Back in your office, I see. Where were you last week anyway? I forgot to even ask.
Ivan: Uh, what the hell was I doing? I just, you had some work going on in the house,
Ivan: so I had to go find a quiet place that wasn't at the house.
Ivan: So, it was very noisy and vibrant and not conducive to stuff. Yeah, so.
Sam: I understand. Okay. Here we go.
Ivan: I don't think that you want a show with loud banging.
Sam: No, probably not.
Ivan: Probably not. So, yeah. So.
Sam: Okay. Shall we jump right in?
Ivan: Mm-hmm.
Sam: Okay. Here comes the thingy. Blah, blah, blah.
Break: We'll be right back.
Sam: Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for saturday may 10th 2025 it's just after two
Sam: utc i'm sam minter and Yvonne Bo is here with us again. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: I'm going to try to do this show, like just saying blah, blah,
Ivan: but not actually, like just saying, you know, instead of like,
Ivan: hi, Sam, how are you doing?
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Okay, it'll be a very entertaining show.
Ivan: Blah.
Sam: We could both do that. Blah.
Ivan: Blah. Blah.
Sam: Blah, blah, blah, blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Ivan: Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Sam: Okay i can't do this anymore this.
Ivan: Sounds like a terrible idea.
Sam: Okay so.
Ivan: Let's go back to the regular format okay all right good.
Sam: Yeah so regular format agenda but first we will do like less newsy stuff up
Sam: front and then we'll do a couple segments of news related stuff.
Sam: That's what we always do pretty much.
Ivan: It's a thing.
Sam: I mean every once in a while we switch it up but that's normal.
Ivan: Yeah we do.
Sam: You want to kick this sucker off?
Ivan: How do I kick this sucker off? Okay well yes I do have one item of note.
Sam: Item of note.
Ivan: You know, so I got a notice.
Ivan: Well, I didn't see the notice I got first.
Ivan: I didn't get the notice, but I saw on social media somewhere.
Ivan: Someone posting that Nest was discontinuing support for, well, Google.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Was discontinuing support for the app for first and second generation thermostats.
Sam: Now, just to.
Ivan: In October of this.
Sam: How old are first and second generation thermostats at this point?
Ivan: I'm going to guess they're at least 10 years old.
Sam: Okay. You know, for electronic device support, that's a long time.
Sam: For thermostat support, less so.
Sam: But like, you know, if it was a phone or something, you'd be like,
Sam: oh, yeah, that's way past.
Ivan: Now, but the thing is, it's, here's, here's what's happening.
Ivan: nest was not a google company right.
Sam: They were acquired.
Ivan: They were acquired as a matter of fact originally their
Ivan: whole goal was more integrating more into the apple mac environment because
Ivan: tony fidel who was the original designer of the ipod if i remember correctly
Ivan: of the wheel is the guy that decide this you know that decided to build a nest
Ivan: because he went one time was building this you know,
Ivan: this place, put in an AC, he looked at the thermostats and he said,
Ivan: this is all crap, which at that time he was absolutely accurate.
Ivan: All the thermostats that existed were awful, were awful.
Ivan: I had what passed as some kind of modern programmable thermostat with a remote sensor that, but,
Ivan: But it still sucked. It was kludgy, sucky, but it did what I wanted it to do.
Ivan: I, for example, was able to remotely control the temperature in my bedroom with
Ivan: this little remote control thingy. Okay.
Ivan: All right. That did that. And I was able to program dates and times,
Ivan: but programming this thing, you know, if you remember like programming an old alarm clock, you know.
Sam: Yeah, you had to like hold the one button and then push the other button.
Ivan: And then, you know, and then you could program day. So you got to go to the
Ivan: day, put the program for that day.
Ivan: It was an exercise in patience.
Sam: And there were some physical buttons and probably a little LCD screen with not
Sam: a big display. Just maybe a couple numbers.
Ivan: Yes, yes, yes. That's how this thing worked. This is not easy to manage, okay?
Ivan: But that was about the best thing I got. I remember that I had issues with temperature
Ivan: control and I wanted a remote temperature.
Sam: You wanted a sensor that would be somewhere else other than the unit.
Sam: So it can wear average out across your house or whatever.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Because like even now, like we have, we have a fancier one, whatever,
Sam: that we installed a few years ago.
Sam: I mostly use an iOS app to control it at this point.
Sam: Not even like the head unit because Alex broke the head unit.
Sam: but but but but anyway how.
Ivan: The hell do you break a service down on the wall.
Sam: You take it off the wall and you throw it over and over again that's
Sam: all do it so but anyway but
Sam: i i almost never used the actual one on the wall anyway
Sam: i always use the app but the point is that even
Sam: with that one it's still the one we have right
Sam: now i think there might be options but we only have the one sensor where
Sam: it's located whereas upstairs and
Sam: downstairs still have different differential temperatures because
Sam: heat rises and my daughter specifically always complains about the temperature
Sam: in her room because she's always got the door closed and it's all locked in
Sam: and so like if somebody does something like opens the doors or windows downstairs
Sam: because it's nice outside,
Sam: the automatic system will try to adjust to compensate.
Sam: And her room and her room only will become either super cold or super hot while
Sam: the rest of the house is comfortable.
Ivan: So, you know, as you bring that up, it reminds me the event that we had.
Ivan: I don't remember if you remember this.
Ivan: We're at Hampshire Hall, which of course you don't remember.
Ivan: Why would you? No, I remember this.
Sam: I remember Amtra Hall existed.
Ivan: Yeah, we lived at this building that was...
Ivan: I mean, a dump is actually, I mean, is a nice term because this place was just,
Ivan: you know, we lived there a year and I had a really good time living at this
Ivan: shithole. I lived there two years.
Sam: Didn't I?
Ivan: No. Oh yeah. You lived two. I lived one. You lived two. That's right.
Ivan: You lived the first two years. Yeah. You lived the first two years at CMU. Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Or maybe, was it three? No.
Ivan: No, no. At the third year we went to Amberson.
Sam: Well, I, I had, and then, and then I'm, and then I moved somewhere else, but yes, yes.
Ivan: But okay, we digress. Okay. So, so some guy went during the middle of winter,
Ivan: maintenance guy doing something, whatever, went downstairs and where the furnace was.
Ivan: And it was, the temperature was well below freezing.
Ivan: Okay. All right. At that time, they left the window open down the furnace room
Ivan: where the thermostat was a temperature, you know, uh, gauge was okay.
Ivan: And so this made the furnace blast so much heat into our rooms,
Ivan: okay, that literally there was paint melting in some places.
Sam: Well, because it was trying to heat the whole outdoors.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But in the meantime, it was heating the rooms that were already warm,
Sam: not the place where the window was open.
Ivan: Correct. Yes. This was just ridiculous. I still remember coming.
Ivan: I mean, the temperature in the, I mean, it had to be over 100 degrees.
Ivan: Like what I got to, to like what, like what the fuck is this? Okay.
Ivan: It's just insanity. So, so yeah.
Ivan: So I understand that. So leaving the windows open, like downstairs that leads
Ivan: to that kind of stuff in other places.
Ivan: And so, you know, look, the, the, the, the, you know, we have, I got these nests now.
Ivan: The thing is that,
Ivan: Google had bought Nest, and at first,
Ivan: they had built out stuff in the Nest application program interface because they
Ivan: actually had some integration.
Ivan: Third parties could connect to it and some stuff. So they had this entire,
Ivan: like, you know, setup for their thermostats to connect, for these security cameras,
Ivan: smoke detectors, all these things that they were selling.
Ivan: and for third parties to integrate as well.
Ivan: But the thing is that Google then later rolled out this whole Google Home thing.
Ivan: So Google Home isn't the Nest thing that they had, okay?
Sam: Okay, right.
Ivan: This is this whole other protocol which allowed other people to build light
Ivan: switches, things, and other things, and whatever.
Ivan: And they still, you know, for a while, it's like, I, I got this,
Ivan: I did put Google Home stuff in my house the last couple of years because I got,
Ivan: I, I did that to connect most of my devices, but, but the thermostats,
Ivan: the Nests were still set up in the Nest app.
Ivan: that Nest app talked to Google Home. Okay?
Ivan: So it was kludgy. And so Google decided that, you know what?
Ivan: We rolled out thermostats later that did not...
Ivan: Actually, they did go through the Nest app. They still do. But the main primary
Ivan: interface was to actually go to Google Home. Okay?
Ivan: And so they just didn't want to maintain that old, you know,
Ivan: infrastructure when they built out this Google Home stuff, so they're basically saying...
Ivan: You know, look, we're shutting that down. If you've got the thermostats that
Ivan: are first-gen, second-gen, which I guess right now, yeah, they are all over
Ivan: 10 years old at this point.
Sam: I understand.
Ivan: You know what? You will be able to use a thermostat as a thermostat at the wall.
Ivan: That won't die. But you remotely controlling the temperature and programming
Ivan: it and any of those things via the app, that will stop, cease functioning.
Sam: Well and you know look look you and
Sam: i you can understand that at 10 years old i
Sam: mean and this does bring up the dichotomy between like
Sam: the expectations of older devices
Sam: like you know you you've i mean
Sam: really in the olden days you would expect you set up a thermostat it's a freaking
Sam: thermostat it's going to be there for 50 years but basically yeah but with like
Sam: the with all of the tech integrations and smart devices and all that kind of stuff,
Sam: you're, you're fundamentally like, there's a, there's a tech refresh cycle that
Sam: is more like five years, 10 on a super outside.
Sam: And so like, if you get like the smart connected device, I think the thought
Sam: that it might be fully functional in 15 years is just not realistic.
Ivan: I think, but you know what? Look, I, man, I've already experienced this with
Ivan: like car infotainment systems. Okay.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know, I had my Audi, my A6 that came in with built in 3G connectivity. Okay.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Well, yeah. Well, 2014, that was like pretty, you know, state of the art to
Ivan: have a car with 3G and a hot spot.
Sam: But eventually, not only was 3G obsolete, they shut the thing off.
Ivan: They shut the whole, exactly. And what happened was that all of a sudden,
Ivan: you know, I had Google Earth Maps in that car, and that all was,
Ivan: you know, destined to stop working.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay? And so, but I really think that in this era right now,
Ivan: we're putting out that many devices that actually have that much of a longevity.
Ivan: Unfortunately, it's really causing more problems.
Ivan: OK, all right. And that the old like, well, five years, well,
Ivan: you're not going to, you know, I'm sorry, but you're not going to dump an entire
Ivan: car because of the, you know, the connectivity.
Sam: Well, I mean, the thing is, and, you know, first of all, the manufacturers would love you to.
Ivan: Obviously like but yeah but that's just i know i.
Sam: Know i know but the thing is the the way around that is modularity like.
Ivan: Right you.
Sam: You set it up so that you you can expect from the beginning.
Ivan: Well by the way they are doing that with some newer cars
Ivan: with telecommunication like controllers because
Ivan: right now cars have a network okay they they have a
Ivan: i mean it's it's it's a called a can bus
Ivan: the car whatever network but it's basically a tcp ip network in the freaking
Ivan: car i mean they just go and like decide okay fine you know we'll replace that
Ivan: you know we'll make that module that's replaceable we'll give a good plug in
Ivan: a new one we'll put a new one and that way you'll have connectivity or something yeah i mean well.
Sam: And the logistics of it are of course going to be complicated but you want like
Sam: any piece like that that you are going to expect will become obsolete faster than the whole car.
Ivan: You want to be able to be replaceable.
Sam: You want to be able to be.
Ivan: Replaceable you know what when you go back 30 40 years ago you know with some
Ivan: of these things it was kind of like that you know we replaced car stereos okay right there.
Sam: Was that you know you pull it out and you push.
Ivan: The new one in and put the new one in and voila we did but i'll.
Sam: Say this is not just cars right this is like dishwashers.
Ivan: Yes washer.
Sam: Dryers like with the whole tendency of all of these things to be connected and electronic.
Ivan: And whatever. I mean, you don't want to have to dump your damn refrigerator,
Ivan: you know, because it stopped connected to the fucking internet.
Sam: Right. Exactly.
Ivan: I mean, now the thermostat, I'll be, given that the thermostat is a module connected
Ivan: to the AC, you don't really have to dump the AC. Okay?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I mean, that's a little bit more pragmatic where it is that you can replace
Ivan: just that component and you're not having to get a completely new air conditioner.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: So, I mean, I can see that, But I do think that it's a little bit like,
Ivan: It's quite a pain in my ass. Okay. Still anyway. So I went and went now Google, I saw this online.
Sam: Yeah, let's get back to the next nest. We were moving.
Ivan: You know, I saw this online and I'm like, oh, Google is sending this thing out
Ivan: where they're sending a coupon for you to be able to purchase the new fourth
Ivan: generation thermostats at a significant discount.
Ivan: Okay. Which is over half, if I remember about half.
Sam: That's pretty generous.
Ivan: So that was very generous of them. Okay. So I went and I got two of them.
Ivan: So this was like, you know, shit.
Ivan: I mean, it was a big. So I went and I checked on my email and voila,
Ivan: lo and behold, I did have my offer from Google and with my discount certificate
Ivan: for about half off for me to be able to get the new thermostats.
Ivan: And I'm like, OK, well, you know, it's six months from now. It's not that far off.
Ivan: I've got the damn coupon.
Ivan: Let me go and like buy these damn things. OK, so I bought the thermostat.
Ivan: And I did, I replaced one right now, not both of them.
Ivan: The really annoying thing that they did, okay, is that, you know, if you,
Ivan: well, I guess, well, yeah, you know, you probably expected that a lot of people
Ivan: were going to be, if you're doing this thing, you're discontinuing support for that.
Ivan: You probably expect that a lot of people that are going to come in are going
Ivan: to be replacing their first and second generation Nest thermostats,
Ivan: okay? Especially when you're doing such a generous offer.
Ivan: So the annoying, the incredibly annoying thing that they did is that the Nest
Ivan: thermostats has a plate on the wall on which you affix the thermostat to.
Ivan: They did not make the plate the same size.
Ivan: And I'm just like, why the fuck?
Ivan: Would you change the square plate to an oval plate? Why? Why?
Ivan: What? What? What? What? Why?
Ivan: Why? There's no fucking reason.
Ivan: Why can't you just make the fucking plate the same size?
Ivan: So the really irritating thing to me, which I'm sure that nobody else really
Ivan: gives a shit, but many, well, I'm sure a lot of people will,
Ivan: but a lot of people are like, eh, whatever,
Ivan: is that when I had to take out the old plate, it ripped the paint, the paint, okay?
Ivan: I got an oval new plate versus the other one was square so now the whole paint
Ivan: is all fucked up around the stupid thermostat so now I gotta get fucking paint
Ivan: to go and paint all around this because these idiots just couldn't make the
Ivan: plate the same fucking shape,
Ivan: okay really irritating,
Ivan: I
Sam: Imagine there probably was some way you could have made like an adapter.
Ivan: I tried. I tried to see if I could retrofit using the old plate. It wouldn't.
Ivan: You know, even though everything was very similar, it wasn't the same in terms
Ivan: of the wall plate and the little thing where you connect the cables.
Sam: That's why I was saying some sort of adapter, like you could 3D print an adapter or something.
Ivan: Maybe I could have gone through all that trouble if I had a 3D printer and I
Ivan: was inclined with the time.
Ivan: But no, I realize that no, they don't have it. I'm like, fuckers.
Ivan: I'm like, just whatever. I just got to go get paint, like right now.
Ivan: But, okay, so I did connect this and I set it up.
Ivan: You know what? Google makes such shitty interfaces for software.
Ivan: okay yeah it's just the interface is just,
Ivan: and it does come it the display on it is nice it does come with an extra so
Ivan: the one thing is that this one comes with which is very cool that this part
Ivan: is cool it's got these little remote temperature sensors.
Ivan: Okay. They look like this. I'm showing to Sam on video. Okay.
Sam: It's a little circle shaped white thing.
Ivan: Yeah. And so there are, it has these little remote temperature sensors.
Ivan: And the thing is that if you have a couple of thermostats, you could also tell
Ivan: it to set the temperature in a way like, hey, come average out the temperature between the two.
Sam: That's nice. Like, yeah, I want that for our house.
Sam: I want that like and I haven't even looked into whether I can like with the
Sam: system we have extend it to do that.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But like, I think that would be nice. Like I said, we've got issues with,
Sam: like, if you optimize for one part of the house, there's another part of the
Sam: house that's too hot or too cold.
Sam: And it would be nice to just put, like, five sensors scattered throughout the
Sam: house and say, do the average.
Ivan: And so I got two ACs. And so when I set the other one up, I can see that I can
Ivan: have it, like, sense the temperature in the other room, in wherever.
Ivan: I could tell it to mix and match what you're averaging. Or, for example,
Ivan: right now, like right now I'm in the office in the living room AC and I got the sensor over here.
Ivan: I'm like, look, no, optimize for where the fuck I am right now.
Ivan: The hell with the hell with the rest of the living. I'm in the office. OK, right.
Ivan: Fuck that. And I and I noticed already and I knew this from before.
Ivan: There are sometimes significant temperature differentials between like the living
Ivan: room and my office. OK, right.
Sam: Because of where the sun is coming in, what equipment you have running.
Sam: hell even the heat from people in.
Ivan: The room.
Sam: You know all this kind of.
Ivan: Stuff it's like about four degrees temperature differential
Ivan: okay you know pretty significant place is
Ivan: not that big you know my condo is not that big so yeah so you've got so you
Ivan: you've got that so having that is a is a nice feature the instructions provided
Ivan: by google are shit okay you know i pretty much was able to connected because
Ivan: I remembered how the old one was connected,
Ivan: but not because of the anything of the instructions provided.
Ivan: As a matter of fact, the fucking instructions didn't actually say, you know,
Ivan: here's the idiotic thing. You open the box, there's a little paper sheet in there.
Ivan: It doesn't really say anything other to show you what the contents are.
Ivan: Then, when you, after I connected it, then it says, hey, go to the Google Home app for setup.
Ivan: Then when you launch the Google Home app, then you realize that that's,
Ivan: there are step-by-step instructions to install it on the wall in the fucking
Ivan: app, but you don't see that until after you fucking plug in the stupid thermostat!
Ivan: That prompt is on the display after it's powered up.
Sam: Right. Which you have to set up to get to that spot. Yes.
Ivan: Good Lord.
Sam: That's lovely.
Ivan: I mean, this is literally, it's
Ivan: like the old story of setting an installation tape to set up your VCR.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I mean.
Sam: So now that it's all set up, do you like it? Is it better than the old one or
Sam: is it just like, God damn it, they forced me to do this for no benefit?
Ivan: Is it better? Well, with Nest thermostats, this still has those features.
Ivan: You know, the AI features, whatever. Listen, Nest was a learning thermostat.
Ivan: It learned based on how you set the temperature, days, times.
Ivan: It learned your patterns.
Ivan: It did certain things. It had sensors to detect whether you're home, not home.
Ivan: It used certain other devices to figure out. you know i'll tell you all that sounds.
Sam: Cool to some degree but like all i want on mine is to set it at a temperature
Sam: and say this is where i want my house leave me alone.
Ivan: Okay now you can do that okay i'm sure you know that's sort of basic no well
Ivan: you're not no no no you you say that and that's not exactly listen the old nest
Ivan: thermostat did not have a temperature hold feature.
Ivan: And that was an annoying thing. Okay.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Ivan: You couldn't just say, you know, hold a temperature at this for how many days?
Ivan: And I had other thermostats that did allow that were programmable.
Ivan: And this one didn't.
Sam: I'll be honest. We got, we got ours and I basically set it at 70.
Sam: And the only times we ever touched that are like, if something's going on, like my,
Sam: when, when the person who comes in to help clean our house is in here and working
Sam: hard, she turns it down to like 60 while she's working. Cause she's gets all hot.
Ivan: So does our cleaning lady. Yeah.
Sam: And then, and then it goes back to 70 when she's done. And then otherwise, we leave it.
Ivan: No, but we're, okay, over here, we're all fighting about the temperature.
Sam: Well, and, you know, now.
Ivan: Okay, so as soon as I set it to 70, listen, don't give me that shit.
Ivan: Because my wife, I was sitting today, I was playing some game on the table,
Ivan: and she's, like, freezing, and I'm melting.
Sam: Well, there are a couple things here. One, I'm doing it less lately,
Sam: but there was a phase where I was constantly getting hot or cold and I was futzing with it. Okay.
Sam: And so I was like, you know, I know it's 70 and I'm 70, but I'm hot. I'm turning it to 68.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, or sometimes the other way, like, you know, it's 70,
Sam: I'm cold. I'm turning it to 72.
Sam: But lately I've been doing much less of that and keeping it 70.
Sam: But, you know, I mentioned...
Ivan: Also, you've been going to the office.
Sam: Well, true. But also, I was going to say, since the head unit has been broken,
Sam: I don't even know where it is anymore. It's not on the wall.
Sam: No, it is on the wall. It just doesn't work anymore. But...
Sam: But since then, where you have to use the app, I don't know that the other people
Sam: in the family bothered to set up the app.
Ivan: So that's the thing. You're in control.
Sam: I'm in control.
Ivan: Basically, you're in control. Okay.
Sam: If they're hot, they can't go to the wall and change it. That doesn't work anymore.
Ivan: The thing is that everybody here has the app. I've already had these situations
Ivan: with my wife where I'm like, I'm fucking hot.
Ivan: and then like two minutes later she's like fuck and i'm like why the hell is
Ivan: it and i look at the thing why the fuck i'm like fuck she turned it turn it the fuck back up well.
Sam: I i will tell you the one person i know does have the app is our cleaning person
Sam: i set her up with it so she could turn it down when she's working but i i don't
Sam: know if my wife or daughter ever bothered to set it up.
Ivan: Like they might.
Sam: Have i gave them the information but.
Ivan: So so yeah you know
Ivan: like right now i guess i mean i don't
Ivan: know i mean it's listen there i i
Ivan: guess here's the main thing while this thing like for example right now we're
Ivan: talking about the temperature differential it's saying that in the living room
Ivan: it's 72 okay but it's saying that in my office according to this it's 76 okay
Ivan: even though but i have the temperature set for it to cool okay so it's not But like, yeah, I have it.
Ivan: So there is a significant temperature differential.
Sam: I hear you. I mean, I'll tell you right now, at 76, I would be melting.
Sam: And I'd be like, oh my God, this is so hot. And I would.
Ivan: And, you know, so it's...
Ivan: While the features are nice, okay, you know, this is cool with the extra temperature
Ivan: sensors and the balancing the temperature ship and whatever.
Ivan: But the reality is that I wasn't really looking at getting a new thermostat.
Ivan: And I would not have gotten.
Sam: You were fine.
Ivan: I was perfectly happy with the functionality I had before.
Ivan: And I had no real, like, desire to really go and, like, buy new thermostats.
Ivan: And it's only the fact that I was going to lose, I knew that I was going to
Ivan: lose the functionality in, you know, less than six months.
Ivan: That basically just drove me to make the decision.
Ivan: And I did go and like look at other thermostats.
Ivan: But the main problem I've got is, and I knew this from a long time,
Ivan: is that most other thermostats require a power cable for the thermostat to the location,
Ivan: while the Nest ones do not require that.
Ivan: And, and because of that, I have stuck with a nest.
Ivan: Ecobee requires it, which is the one that I mostly considered.
Ivan: It really does require it. And so I would have to get an electrician or somebody
Ivan: to go and like, and spend a ton of money rewiring that shit.
Ivan: And I'm like, nah, I'm not.
Ivan: Aside from the fact that I didn't want to change the fucking thermostat in the
Ivan: first place. Now I'm going to go fucking spend money in a damn electrician. No, fuck that.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: No, no. I'm like, you know, I didn't want to do it in the first place.
Sam: Shall we move on? Yes. Okay.
Sam: So I, I, I have, I have my usual movie and I'm not going to skip my movie because I'm so far behind.
Sam: If I skip movie and at some point I'm going to have to do multiple movies,
Sam: but, but I did want to mention one other thing.
Sam: Cause it's sort of the completion of a saga I've mentioned on the show before.
Sam: And that is, well, there, there was, there was Something happening.
Sam: You know, I mentioned all kinds of crap at work, but like I had a significant
Sam: end point of stuff that was stressing me out at work.
Sam: And I decided to reward myself with something.
Ivan: With a movie marathon.
Sam: With a movie marathon. No, with something I've talked about before that I was
Sam: like, I wonder, do I want that? I got an iPad.
Ivan: IPad!
Sam: And specifically, like I've talked about on the show, I got a mid-range.
Sam: This is an iPad Air. not an iPad Pro.
Sam: I didn't go bottom end with the iPad iPad.
Sam: I didn't go top end with the iPad Pro. I got an iPad Air.
Sam: And like we talked about on the show before, I didn't like splurge on a whole bunch of memory either.
Sam: Like I didn't go to, I didn't go to the absolute bottom. I got 256 instead like
Sam: that. The bottom of the iPad Air is 128.
Sam: I like my other devices like have, I think my phone has 512 or something,
Sam: but I looked at what my phone was using and I was using less than half of.
Sam: Now i usually when i buy a device i like
Sam: take what i'm using on my current device and double
Sam: it and say i want at least that much headroom because if
Sam: i keep this a few years maybe i'll want more but as
Sam: per like you know what we talked about it's
Sam: it's like so much is in the cloud these days yeah like
Sam: and i'm using less than 256 on my phone right
Sam: now i'm like you know i'll just get to 256
Sam: six like and so anyway i've
Sam: only had this a few days it's it's i i
Sam: the the judgment has yet to be made of
Sam: well whether i will consistently use
Sam: this long term because this is another
Sam: reason why i didn't get it want to get like an ipad pro or
Sam: something is like i'm like i don't i i've
Sam: had this like i want i think i want an ipad again
Sam: notion in my head for a while because i
Sam: had an ipad a long long time ago and then it died and i never
Sam: replaced it because i was like with the max size phones
Sam: you know i've got a pretty big screen here
Sam: it's doing everything i wanted to do but i kind of wanted one
Sam: and but i wasn't sure exactly what
Sam: i'd end up using it for and so far
Sam: like i said i've only had a few days so it's sort of like i am using it a lot
Sam: right now but i don't know how much of that is the novelty of having a new device
Sam: and being like oh i'll use the ipad oh i'll use the ipad as opposed to habits
Sam: that i'll build on a long-term basis i gotta.
Ivan: Tell you that i've had this ipad for six months and i am at the i i am using
Ivan: it so much more than i have been using my old ipad and that has remained the.
Sam: You have a pro right case.
Ivan: Yeah i do have a pro but the but but Remember, my other iPad was, Jesus, nine years old.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: It wasn't exactly, you know, the latest, the greatest one. Okay. So, you know.
Ivan: But that iPad, it was the original, one of the original pro iPads.
Ivan: I must admit that, look, Apple did support the hell out of that iPad.
Ivan: It got software updates up until
Ivan: like last year. Okay? We're talking about supporting old devices. Okay?
Ivan: I mean, that one got software updates up until like last year.
Ivan: I mean, it got eight, nine years of fucking software updates. That's shit.
Ivan: I mean, that's way more than average.
Sam: Okay, no.
Ivan: So I was using it, but because it wasn't as fast and, you know,
Ivan: I used to have a keyboard for it and the keyboard was kludgy.
Ivan: And so I didn't have the keyboard. I didn't use it as much.
Ivan: However, now with the iPad Pro and I got the new keyboard that has a little
Ivan: trackpad and everything on it.
Ivan: I, yeah, I'm using that thing, you know, constantly.
Sam: So I did not get a keyboard. I did not get a pencil. I'm like,
Sam: I have a laptop. I'm going to use this as a tablet when I use it. I did get a pencil.
Ivan: And by the way, I don't think, I've used it to play around that I've never actually used it.
Sam: I actually used it. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, like used it for real? No.
Sam: Yeah, and I'm like, I haven't felt tempted really to like have a keyboard on it and stuff.
Sam: I don't know. Like I want to use this as a tablet. I figure I've got plenty of keyboard devices.
Sam: i don't know maybe i'll play with that at some point but for the most part like i found like
Sam: it's just nice to have the bigger screen for certain browsing and certain social
Sam: media stuff even and and and like even like tiktok it's nice to have the bigger
Sam: screen you know i don't know i've usually the.
Ivan: One thing that i do a lot with it.
Sam: I've watched a little bit of tv on it a little bit of you go to the.
Ivan: Office don't you take with you to the office.
Sam: Well that's one thing i don't take my laptop to
Sam: meet with me to a laptop listen i don't take my laptop my personal laptop with
Sam: me to the office but i have been taking the ipad with me yeah there you go and
Sam: so like when i'm at lunch or whatever and i want to just scroll my media instead
Sam: of doing my phone i've been doing it on the ipad exactly it was a lot.
Ivan: Bigger it's like you know you can read a lot.
Sam: And i've found also like I've been heavily resistant to even looking at my personal email on my phone.
Sam: Like I've done it a few times, but it's like, it's kind of a pain.
Sam: I found I'm a little bit more willing to do that on the iPad than I am on the phone.
Sam: So I've been trying to keep up a little bit more. I mean, we've talked about
Sam: my email issues before, but like, I don't know.
Sam: It's good so far. Like I said, we'll see how it plays out over time.
Sam: But, you know, like several days in, I'm enjoying it. And oh, and I got blue.
Sam: blue i got the wow blue color you
Sam: got blue like and honestly this is the first time
Sam: i've gotten a color separate from
Sam: i always get like whatever the gray is some sometimes black but like you know
Sam: i've never gotten the colored apple stuff before so this is my first venture
Sam: into that and it's fine i do have a blue phone it's very subtly blue but yeah yeah.
Ivan: It's like i do have a blue phone that i did my last phone i think a lot yeah
Ivan: this phone is blue i don't remember what the hell the last phone before this
Ivan: one i had i used to get a lot of the white i i got the really bright white ones
Ivan: uh but this ipad i got is black but.
Sam: Yeah you know well the pros come in less colors they save
Sam: the colors for the lower end models to sort of make up
Sam: for the fact that you don't get the performance or whatever i guess
Sam: you get to say like oh it's blue it's blue it's blue you know so anyway anyway
Sam: enough of that i did want to not skip my movie the movie the movie for this
Sam: time is from 1984 the karate kid oh.
Ivan: My god well timely.
Sam: Oh because there's new karate kid yes yes well there's there's been a bunch
Sam: of new karate kid stuff there was actually a the the Cobra Kai TV series and some other stuff.
Sam: You know, and Karate Kid is one of those that I'm pretty sure I hit.
Sam: I'm pretty sure over the years I had seen pretty much all of it,
Sam: but I'm not sure I'd ever seen it beginning to end straight through.
Ivan: Interesting.
Sam: Like, you know, but it's one of the movies that, you know, came on TV a lot
Sam: and you'd see bits and pieces of it and you'd stop.
Sam: And so I, you know, and they're famous scenes like the sweep the leg,
Sam: sweep the leg. There's the paintbrush thing.
Sam: And yeah, all the wax on wax off. Yeah.
Sam: There's all that sort of famous stuff. I, I,
Sam: You know, to me, this did not, like, stun me. I'm going to give it a thumb sideways.
Sam: Because I hadn't, like, been a fan of it and watched it a lot when I was younger,
Sam: I don't have the big nostalgic connection to it, like, that some people might have.
Sam: Like, oh, The Karate Kid, it's, like, big nostalgia, whatever.
Sam: I didn't have that because I didn't really watch it at that point.
Sam: Like I said, I, I feel like I knew all the bits and pieces, but not because
Sam: I, I, I was a fan or I watched it straight through.
Sam: It was sort of like by osmosis because it existed in the culture.
Sam: and you know it was fine but
Sam: i wasn't like blown away thumb sideways that
Sam: that's where i am but it is like it is
Sam: one of those classic gen x cultural films that like i guess was part of the
Sam: zeitgeist of our generation at least and so i guess it's if you haven't seen
Sam: it and you're roughly in Thank you.
Sam: Our generation gen x ish then you
Sam: probably should or even even if you saw it
Sam: decades ago maybe it's time to revisit again it had
Sam: a few sequel movies and like i said there's been more recent
Sam: sequel tv shows and there's a new sequel movie coming
Sam: out and there's all there's a whole
Sam: franchise now let me let me look at the franchise now
Sam: we had for films we had
Sam: the karate kid in 1984 karate kid part
Sam: 2 in 86 karate kid part 3 in 89 then
Sam: the next karate kid in 1994 then
Sam: a new the karate kid in 2010 and
Sam: the one that's coming out this month is karate
Sam: kid legends legends i was going to
Sam: say legends and then there were two tv series a karate kid tv series in 1989
Sam: and then cobra kai that went from
Sam: that went from 2018 to 2025 and i don't know if it's over i i am pretty.
Ivan: Sure i did not see anything beyond karate kid part three.
Sam: Okay and i i.
Ivan: Do remember for.
Sam: Some reason multiple video games too.
Ivan: Oh well i did not play any of those but i i do remember that i took as one of my first dates with this.
Sam: Girlfriend that.
Ivan: I had that you met in Pittsburgh that I met in Puerto Rico. I took her to that movie.
Ivan: She actually came to visit me while I was in Hampshire. So I remember that movie.
Sam: I remember the girl. Vaguely.
Ivan: At least you remember Sabina. So I went and that was like one of the,
Ivan: I think the first movie as a date that,
Ivan: I took her to was karate kid part three for some reason i remember that okay
Ivan: i remember a whole bunch of other things why the fuck i don't know.
Sam: So, you remember the date, but do you remember, did you like the movie?
Ivan: I remember that I thought the movie was kind of like...
Sam: Well, you're talking about part three, but...
Ivan: Yeah, well, I do remember that the movie was kind of like...
Sam: What did you think of the first one?
Ivan: I remember that I liked the first one when I saw it back then.
Ivan: I don't know if I, re-watching it now, would like it as much as back then.
Ivan: But I do remember that when I watched it back then, I did watch the first one.
Ivan: Enough that I did go and watch Karate Kid Part 2 and Part 3, for God's sakes.
Ivan: Now, look, I, now, now, wait, no, let's be clear about this.
Ivan: Back then, it's not like you had that many choices in terms of, like, entertainment.
Ivan: So that was, like, the big summer release. And so if we're going to go on a
Ivan: date and it's, like, the biggest movie opening, it's not like you're going to go and, like, watch.
Ivan: there's not that many other choices to go watch so well honestly i am sure that
Ivan: i went to watch it not because i was like oh my god you know i'm so into karate
Ivan: kid part part three it's like well this is the only movie uh well honestly.
Sam: Even now if you're actually going to go to the theater as opposed to everything
Sam: you can get online you know the you know most multiplexes Maybe if you're lucky,
Sam: you got 10 or 12 movies playing at any given time, and most of them are probably less.
Ivan: Well, but here's the thing. This was in Puerto Rico.
Ivan: So, okay, we didn't really have really big multiplexes yet in Puerto Rico versus over here.
Ivan: So when you went to the theater, at that theater in San Juan,
Ivan: there were basically two big theaters.
Ivan: but the one thing that was really strange about these is these were very massive
Ivan: theaters right so you had this movie house that probably could fit,
Ivan: a couple of thousand people inside. Okay. The screen was massive. Okay.
Ivan: But it was not like the smaller multiplex one.
Ivan: So, and then there was like, there was another place where they had like four, it was four theaters.
Ivan: So you didn't have like the 20 theater, like, like, like complexes.
Ivan: You really had this place where this was the biggest theater there.
Ivan: And they had these two, now these two big houses.
Ivan: Now, by the way, this was actually very cool because the screens i remember
Ivan: coming to pittsburgh afterwards and i'd been up to the u.s a few times before
Ivan: i've been to a multiplex where the screens are very small yeah it was like realizing holy shit the.
Sam: Screen yeah there was a period of time where they were packing more and more
Sam: theaters in and getting smaller and smaller screens i think that trend is reversed
Sam: now and we're back to bigger screens and bigger but you know there was a time
Sam: period where you'd get the theater with 12 screens, but every screen,
Sam: like practically the screens were the size that you have at home these days.
Ivan: Not quite, but not that much different, to be honest with you.
Ivan: Not like back then where this thing was, I mean, it's just the side of a fucking
Ivan: building where you were looking at this movie. Okay, literally.
Ivan: Okay. So, yeah. So, anyway.
Ivan: Karate Kid, original.
Sam: Thumb sideways. Thumb sideways for me.
Ivan: Okay. Yeah. All right. So.
Sam: And that's it. Shall we take a break and then start hitting our more serious thingy bops thingy?
Ivan: Slapping it.
Sam: Slapping what, Yvonne? What are you doing? You know.
Ivan: The subjects.
Sam: Oh, slapping it. Okay. I was going to say you really should do that in private. But okay.
Ivan: We should try to slap it.
Sam: Okay, we will be back right after this.
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Ivan: Um yeah okay um i know we didn't put this on the subject line but i'm okay well it's your it's.
Sam: Your turn to pick go for it.
Ivan: Well all right it's breaking news at the moment you know and i know you you
Ivan: had talked about this earlier in the week that you saw that nobody else was
Ivan: covering this except the BBC.
Sam: Oh, India, Pakistan?
Ivan: Yeah, Pakistan accuses India of firing missiles at three of its air bases.
Ivan: Pakistan military says some Indian missiles got through defense systems.
Ivan: Pakistan is launching a retaliatory action against India. This is the last couple of hours.
Sam: So just to be clear.
Ivan: It's not that it's yet identified Shake Hotel.
Sam: All okay airspace.
Ivan: In pakistan closest temporarily is india shuts airports india shut all there's
Ivan: a airport shutdown in india right now because of the.
Sam: So let me let me clarify what
Sam: you said it's not that no place else was covering it at all it's just that when
Sam: this started bbc was the only place that was doing sort of wall-to-wall coverage
Sam: of it like everybody else would like sort of mention it in passing and then
Sam: move on and start talking about Donald Trump or the Pope or something.
Sam: But when this, when the, when, like, let's hit, first of all,
Sam: there was a terrorist attack on some tourists a few weeks ago in Kashmir,
Sam: in the disputed territory of Kashmir, in the Indian controlled part of it.
Sam: And that got almost no attention. Like I saw a couple news alerts on it,
Sam: but like it, it didn't hit any of the normal sort of,
Sam: American news programs that I consume on a regular basis, not even a mention.
Sam: You know, of course, there was an article in the New York Times.
Sam: There were a few other places that had something, but it wasn't at the top of the news.
Sam: Then a couple of weeks later, the Indian retaliation happened.
Sam: And that's when I was sort of noting, I often watch the four-up display on my,
Sam: you know, YouTube TV lets you watch a four-up display of news channels.
Sam: So it's got Fox in the upper left, CNN in the upper right, MSNBC in the bottom
Sam: left, and BBC World News in the bottom right.
Sam: And that's where I was noticing all the others were talking about whatever.
Sam: CNN briefly mentioned India, but then moved on to something else.
Sam: BBC was treating it like, oh, end of the world breaking news,
Sam: we're doing nonstop coverage of this.
Sam: even they eventually switched over to pope stuff but
Sam: i guess today there's been more back and forth and
Sam: there was also a comment was it jd vance today who said uh when asked about
Sam: america's opinion on on this conflict basically said it's none of our business
Sam: they can do whatever they want whereas like some people were hoping that the
Sam: u.s would actually try to intervene and not militarily or anything,
Sam: but try to help with the, like, hey, let's calm this down.
Sam: Can we come to some sort of arrangement, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: There was a various international organizations have said things like that.
Sam: Let's try to calm it down and see what we can do.
Sam: But I guess it's been escalating anyway.
Sam: What are, you know, I've been busy the last few hours.
Sam: I mean, you just rattled off a whole bunch of new developments.
Ivan: Well, I, listen, I, what I, I went and I was looking at my social media and
Ivan: somebody was saying that they were scared about this, but it seems that,
Ivan: okay, so these are the breaking news from last,
Ivan: A couple of hours. It started with Pakistan accuses India of firing missiles
Ivan: at three of its Arab bases.
Ivan: A spokesman for Pakistan's military says India has fired missiles at three Pakistani military bases.
Ivan: India has not commented on the claims. And a live TV broadcast aired by state
Ivan: television Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhary warned India that it should
Ivan: wait for a response. Okay.
Ivan: Then the Pakistani said that some missiles got through defense systems.
Ivan: And then Pakistan said it's launching a retaliatory action against India.
Ivan: Then this is from reporting from Sringar, Indian Administrator Kashmir.
Ivan: This is an Indian territory in Kashmir blast as yet unidentified Sheikh Hotel.
Ivan: There's a reporter there. I was woken up by two massive explosions in Sringar at 545 a.m.
Ivan: local time. About 20 minutes later, three more blasts occurred.
Ivan: The first two blasts shook our hotel. there's a
Ivan: complete blackout in the city and there's no clarity yet on what
Ivan: what the what are these sounds this was half an
Ivan: hour ago airspace in pakistan no an
Ivan: hour and a half ago airspace in pakistan closes temporarily
Ivan: as india shuts airport shortly after reported strikes
Ivan: which pakistan glades were indian and hit three of its air bases pakistan air
Ivan: force authority closed the country's airspace to all traffic until midday local
Ivan: time in the last few moments airports authority in india has announced it's
Ivan: closing 32 airports across the north and west of the country until the morning
Ivan: of the 15th of May, basically for six days.
Ivan: This is, you know, Jesus, okay? That's a long time. Eyewitnesses report hearing
Ivan: explosions near Srinagar Airport.
Ivan: So, so yeah, it seems like India launched missiles at its air bases,
Ivan: and Pakistan is doing a retaliatory strike on them right now as we speak.
Sam: Well, and look, here, here's the there's a couple different thoughts on this.
Sam: One, of course, is that it's not like India and Pakistan have been at peace for decades.
Sam: There have been periodic conflicts between these two countries going back since
Sam: these two countries existed.
Sam: So on the one hand, you can be like, oh, okay, here they go again.
Sam: They'll have a little mini war, they'll exchange some missiles,
Sam: and then it'll calm down and cross your fingers.
Sam: Hope that's what happens. But on the other hand,
Sam: both these countries have nukes. And if it is escalating rather than calming
Sam: down, it is a matter of concern.
Sam: Now, they've gone to war before since they both were nuclear powers and it has
Sam: not escalated to the use of nuclear weapons.
Sam: So you've got to hope that leadership in both countries knows not to go there,
Sam: knows that it's in either one of their benefits to move to an all-out war,
Sam: they instead, you know, do some tit-for-tat over the border and then call it
Sam: done for a while. And, you know...
Ivan: But we hope.
Sam: So we hope. Yes. But...
Sam: And look, I'm not even going to pretend that I know a lot about what the hell
Sam: is going on there and the details of the conflict between them.
Ivan: Well, look, here's... I think, you know, it's a territorial dispute.
Ivan: It's been ongoing for decades.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. I mean, but I don't know all the details of that.
Ivan: But the one thing is, has everything happened with any of these?
Ivan: Well, I mean, this is, well, I mean, the details. Look, this goes back to how
Ivan: the partition. It goes back to the partition.
Sam: Yes, it goes. And where the line was drawn. And this particular province has
Sam: a greater Muslim population than the rest of India.
Sam: And so Pakistan thinks they should have it. Yes.
Ivan: I mean, that's basically it's the same dispute. Now, the one thing that,
Ivan: of course, is a flare up, but it's a flare up.
Ivan: You know, why is this like now something?
Ivan: It's because of something that history has shown is the kind of shit that starts
Ivan: wars. You know, there's a terror attack.
Ivan: It was an attack, unidentified, it's not Indian territory.
Sam: Well, here's the thing. This is another one where there is an organization that
Sam: claimed responsibility for it, but the Indian government says,
Sam: no, no, the Pakistani government was behind it.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: The Pakistani government says, no, we weren't, we had nothing to do with it.
Sam: The Indians made an attack that they said went after the training bases of the
Sam: organization that carried out the attacks, But the Pakistanis are like,
Sam: no, you hit a bunch of civilians, including children, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so it continues, you know?
Ivan: Yeah. But what I was saying is that, you know, my thing is if you look in history
Ivan: and like, you know, how...
Ivan: many conflicts have started. I mean, look at the Spanish-American War,
Ivan: World War I, you know, shit.
Ivan: I mean, the Gulf of Tonkin, something. This is the kind of like an event that— But.
Sam: Let me look. I looked up the Wikipedia page on Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts.
Sam: So there was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 to 48, the Indo-Pakistani War of
Sam: 1965, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971,
Sam: the Cargill War of 1999, and then we had smaller conflicts,
Sam: the Kutch Conflict in 1965, the Saichen Conflict from 1984 to 2003,
Sam: and then they have a list of skirmishes, which are smaller.
Sam: They've got one from 1986 to 87, one in 1999, one from 2001 to 2002,
Sam: one in 2008, one in 2011, 2013, 2014 through 2015, 2016 through 2018,
Sam: 2019, 2020 through 2021, and now what they're calling the 2025 India-Pakistan
Sam: standoff that began on April 23rd, 2025.
Sam: My point in that list is just that it's a long list.
Ivan: It's a long list. It's a long list. Yeah. I mean, no doubt about it. It's a long list.
Ivan: But, you know, so I do think, you know, always, you know, these guys escalating
Ivan: always gives you a little bit of hard work.
Sam: Well, yes. I mean, and this is the same thing where we were talking about, you know.
Sam: Could the situation in Israel-Gaza escalate to something that encompasses the entire Middle East?
Sam: Could the situation in Ukraine escalate to something that ends up being a superpower
Sam: battle between the U.S. and Russia with direct conflict?
Sam: And here we have— Superpower battle?
Ivan: Who's the other superpower?
Sam: Yeah, I hear you. Well, China.
Ivan: Oh, okay. All right.
Sam: No, and then here we have, like, you know, could this blow up into,
Sam: you know, a full— Do they start using nukes on each other, you know,
Sam: and all of these things have the potential of escalation.
Sam: And that's what, look, we should be concerned anyway, even if they don't escalate.
Sam: Wars are wars. Wars are bad.
Sam: Like there are people dying that don't need to be dying.
Sam: But the, the worry of escalation is always the big worry.
Sam: Like what if this turns into not just some skirmishes, but something huge?
Ivan: Look, I will say that I always, I had a lot of, I'm sure it included nightmares
Ivan: as well, but a lot of like residual angst from watching this damn movie many years ago, time of,
Ivan: of, of what's the name of, of, of, of, it was Karate in the wrong time.
Ivan: No, the, the dead zone.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Ivan: The dead zone was this movie where what's his name martin sheen plays a guy that became is a,
Ivan: political guy and christopher walken was a guy that could see the future and
Ivan: one of the scenes that he sees the future is that martin machine becomes president and,
Ivan: And there is some incident that happens internationally that's unclear in the
Ivan: movie and that there's a negotiation and that the president decides to launch a nuclear attack.
Ivan: And that he basically the I think the secretary of defense or whoever was the
Ivan: second in command is trying to talk him out of it.
Ivan: And he he's talking like unfortunately, like some of the leaders we have like
Ivan: now, like a complete lunatic.
Ivan: and he's like and he threatens him
Ivan: that either you put your hand there to do the authorization
Ivan: i'll cut off your hand and he goes and he authorizes the nuclear nuclear attack
Ivan: and then he lets reporters and others come up and they say hey we we we and
Ivan: and some people that are on his staff hey we we think we have a way of resolving
Ivan: the situation and he goes and he says the missiles are flying. Hallelujah.
Ivan: I always fear a psychopath like that. Okay.
Ivan: I think that is more my, the thing that scares me is some crazy bastard that
Ivan: is in charge of a country with nuclear weapons decides to do that.
Ivan: I guess that is like my worst fear.
Sam: This was the Dead Zone from 1983?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: With, let's see.
Ivan: Christopher Walken.
Sam: Christopher Walken. Martin Sheen. martin sheen anthony michael hall yeah and
Sam: it was based on a novel from stephen king stephen king yes and a few other folks yeah okay yeah.
Ivan: So i don't know that always gave me the creeps just that thought of a president
Ivan: just going nuts and launching a nuclear attack.
Sam: Well it's not you know but we have a history of,
Sam: electing exceptionally stable, smart, rational presidents who are calm and collected
Sam: and know what to do in a crisis.
Sam: I don't know what could possibly worry you, Yvonne.
Ivan: What could possibly go wrong?
Sam: Yes. Well, you know, under the circumstances, I'm not sure J.D.
Sam: Vance's it's none of our business we're keeping out of it is the worst possible answer here.
Ivan: It's not. It's just, The thing is that, you know, these guys are so glib.
Ivan: Everything is just, everything is for fucking like, you know,
Ivan: being on Twitter and, you know, getting clicks.
Ivan: No thought put into anything.
Sam: I mean, to be serious for a minute, like, especially with the current administration,
Sam: but even otherwise, the U.S.
Sam: does not have a really stellar record of coming into conflicts elsewhere in
Sam: the world and helping them resolve peacefully.
Sam: I mean, we have succeeded a couple points. There's, like, Ireland,
Sam: you know, Bill Clinton did a good job there.
Ivan: Hey, wait a second. World War II?
Sam: Well, I'm talking resolving peacefully. I'm saying where there's a dispute between
Sam: two other people and we come in as the mediator and generate peace,
Sam: not we come in as a combatant and win the war. That's different.
Ivan: I mean, well, I mean, look, for what it's worth.
Sam: Yugoslavia and Ireland are the two I can pick off the top of my head.
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, Yugoslavia and Ireland are two pretty big ones.
Sam: They're pretty good examples.
Ivan: And you know what? But we got fucking close. Clinton got fucking close.
Sam: On Israel-Palestine?
Ivan: Yes! But I was about so fucking close.
Sam: I was about to bring that up as an example where we've been trying for decades
Sam: and decades and decades without success. But you're right. We did get close.
Ivan: Fucking close.
Sam: Yes. The whole world would be so much different if.
Ivan: Can you imagine?
Sam: If Arafat had said yes and they didn't assassinate what's his name in Israel?
Ivan: Rabin.
Sam: Rabin.
Ivan: Rabin.
Sam: Yeah. So.
Ivan: Yeah. That fucking close.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, I mean,
Sam: the, the U S has a tendency to not, I mean, American media in general,
Sam: like international stuff doesn't tend to get a lot of our attention in less
Sam: we are directly involved.
Sam: I'd say this is one of the ones where it deserves a little attention.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: It deserves a little attention and you may have to like go a little out of your
Sam: way to, to like keep up to date on it.
Ivan: Like, you know, BBC news is basically their wall to wall on it right now again.
Ivan: So they're, they're, they're on it.
Sam: Like, right. Yeah. Let me, uh, let me do at this very second,
Sam: let me bring up my four up and yeah. So what we got is let's see,
Sam: Fox is talking about the Newark mayor.
Sam: We, and so is CNN.
Sam: MSNBC is talking about tariffs and BBC News is talking about India-Pakistan.
Sam: so that's where we are and and i brought that up on my ipad you see very very
Sam: excited i know admittedly at this very moment alex took my phone and who knows where it is but well.
Ivan: But you see.
Sam: This is one of the reasons by the way this is i have a backup device right takes
Sam: one of them i can do something on the other one right so there you go now he
Sam: has his own phone but he's constantly stealing mine or my wife like matters.
Ivan: My my son also i'll find him he'll have my phone my wife's phone his phone his
Ivan: ipad the other i i mean he's got he'll sit there with five devices.
Sam: Yes yeah anyway shall
Sam: we take another uh breaky break thing
Sam: thing so i will say where where
Sam: did i put that where'd my window go hold on
Sam: there we go i so the
Sam: next thing is a wiki of the
Sam: day and i will mention it
Sam: is about let me make sure i'm i'm correct here it is a different border conflict
Sam: so first of all the current popular wiki of the day is still a day old because
Sam: and it was the 2025 India-Pakistan strikes.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: But there should be a new one on the new Pope by now.
Sam: But in addition to my rule of Wiki of the Day can't repeat more than once every
Sam: 100 days, which of course is, you know, this is new Pope.
Sam: They weren't in the last 100 days. I have another rule to avoid the situation where,
Sam: there's, you know, defacement or graffiti on a Wikipedia page.
Sam: I won't, if, if the Wikipedia page has been edited in less than the last half
Sam: hour, then I wait until there's a half hour gap between edits.
Sam: And since Pope Leo, the 14th was picked as what would be the popular wiki of the day for Friday.
Ivan: It was that it was, edited very, you know.
Sam: Within the time. There has not yet been a moment where there has been a full
Sam: half hour go by without edits to this page.
Sam: Like at this very second, it has been two minutes since the last edit to that page.
Ivan: Ah.
Sam: So that's not there. But no, this is a featured wiki of the day instead.
Sam: And it is not India-Pakistan, but it is on the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Ivan: That's one that I'm sure J.D. Vance is really more worried about.
Sam: Sorry, no, it's not featured wiki of the day. It's from random wiki of the day.
Sam: Anyway, here you go. Enjoy and learn.
Break: Do, do, do. Hello, this is Long Form Danielle.
Break: I'm here to let you know about Sam the Curmudgeon's other podcasts,
Break: the Wiki of the Day podcasts.
Break: Wiki of the Day comes in three varieties, popular, random, and featured.
Break: Each highlights a new Wikipedia article each day, they just pick the articles differently.
Break: This week on Random Wiki of the Day,
Break: you would have heard this summary for Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict.
Break: The Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict was a violent standoff and a proxy conflict
Break: between Eritrea and Ethiopia lasting from 1998 to 2018.
Break: It consisted of a series of incidents along the then-disputed border,
Break: including the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 1998-2000 and the subsequent second Afar insurgency.
Break: It included multiple clashes with numerous casualties, including the Battle of Girona in 2016.
Break: Ethiopia stated in 2018 that it would cede Baden to Eritrea.
Break: This led to the Eritrea-Ethiopia Summit on July 9, 2018, where an agreement
Break: was signed which demarcated the border and agreed a resumption of diplomatic relations.
Break: That's it. See? Fun, entertaining, and educational, right?
Break: Okay, now look for and subscribe to the Wiki of the Day family of podcasts on
Break: your podcast playing software of choice, or just go to wikioftheday.com to check out our archives.
Break: Now back to Curmudgeon's Corner.
Sam: Okay.
Break: Do-do-do.
Sam: Oh, oh.
Ivan: Do-do-do.
Sam: I didn't wait for the do-do-do. My bad. Anyway.
Ivan: You should know that!
Sam: I should know that.
Ivan: I know about the do-do-do. The do-do-do. The da-da-da.
Ivan: It's a song, and I can't remember the rest of the lyrics, but it's good. That's okay.
Sam: That's nice. So anyway, what shall I talk about?
Sam: Look, we have immigration stuff going on with the arrest of the mayor in Newark.
Sam: We've got the release of one of the grad students who are actually a couple
Sam: of them have been released, of the grad students who were locked up by ICE.
Sam: We've got more legal stuff on that.
Sam: And we've got Steve Miller. Is it Steve Miller?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Anyway, he's talking about how the administration is discussing suspending habeas
Sam: corpus because courts keep telling them that they have to give people habeas
Sam: corpus rights, and they're like, screw that, we don't want to.
Sam: They apparently haven't made that decision yet, but they're talking about it.
Sam: All this stuff But I think what I'll go with Oh and we got the new Pope We got
Sam: a new Pope American Pope The one thing I'll say about the American Pope Is the
Sam: interviews with his brother are really fun,
Sam: Like his brother's talking about him and like, he's like, you know,
Sam: when's the last time you talked to him?
Sam: Oh, I talked to him right before all this happened. And we, we played Wordle and words with friends.
Sam: And, oh, by the way, he's a white socks fan, not a Cubs fan and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: His, his brother's a character at one point, like some TV network was interviewing
Sam: his brother and he got a phone call from the new Pope while he was talking.
Sam: And it was like, oh, hey, good to talk to you.
Sam: By the way, you're being recorded right now.
Sam: So I guess they didn't have a full conversation. Anyway, it's kind of amusing.
Sam: But no, I think I'll go with what I said last week I didn't want to talk about,
Sam: which is an update on the whole trade and tariffs and all this kind of situation.
Sam: And specifically what people have been talking a lot more about in the last
Sam: week is the The reduction in the volume of shipping coming into American ports, that is,
Sam: you know, the appropriate amount of delay after the tariffs were initially announced and how, like,
Sam: this a few weeks from now is likely to lead to supply issues.
Ivan: Well, we had a surge. Okay.
Sam: We had a surge of people trying to get ahead of it.
Ivan: In March, we had a record-breaking trade deficit. Okay.
Sam: We had a record low trade deficit, right?
Ivan: No. No.
Sam: In terms of like, oh, no, no, you're right. You're right. Sorry.
Sam: I'm confused. We imported way, way more than usual.
Ivan: Way, way, way, way, way more than usual.
Sam: Because everybody was trying to get ahead of the tariffs.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: And now.
Ivan: And look, I'll tell you some stories about crazy shit that I've seen with this kind of stuff.
Ivan: Okay. I remember 30 years ago, I had a friend of mine that had a factory that
Ivan: made certain latex products.
Ivan: And there was a certain category of latex products that was going to be all
Ivan: of a sudden banned from import.
Ivan: No, it wasn't. It was gloves. It was gloves.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: If I remember correctly, it was gloves. And so the thing is that in order to get ahead of that ban,
Ivan: The factories in Asia that made them, like, imported enough supply to last,
Ivan: like, two to three years.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And what that meant was that anybody before that manufactured locally in the U.S.
Ivan: got crushed by this massive inventory of low-cost ones that were imported to
Ivan: beat the damn headlight.
Ivan: It was going to take years to work off that inventory. And so,
Ivan: therefore, if you were trying to make gloves in the U.S.
Ivan: and sell them, you basically were completely shit out of luck because there
Ivan: was such a massive supply of cheap ones that came in and gutted that.
Ivan: Now, they had a lot of advance warning that that was happening.
Ivan: So, therefore, they had enough time to build enough inventory for that.
Ivan: But it's one of the crazy supply disruptions that happens.
Ivan: Now, they didn't have that much time to go and, like, ship, like,
Ivan: years of maybe certain products, okay?
Ivan: But what many manufacturers did, including Apple, for example,
Ivan: and other large ones, is that they said, look, we're going to right now try
Ivan: to get as much product as we can for the short term in order to do it.
Ivan: To try to beat these tariffs. And so there was a surge in that.
Ivan: And so now comes the lull.
Ivan: And, you know, people are saying, ah, it's this bullshit or whatever.
Ivan: Well, the guy who heads the port of Los Angeles was on an interview on Bloomberg.
Ivan: He's been on TV a lot. I'm telling you, listen, there is a massive drop of ships coming in.
Ivan: Don't, listen, I'm telling you, I've been charging this fucking port and we
Ivan: don't have fucking ships coming.
Ivan: We don't have a lot of ships scheduled to come in right now. Okay? So.
Sam: And I've heard this guy talking, too. Like, they have his dashboards and stuff
Sam: include, like, who's leaving Asia.
Ivan: Asia.
Sam: And so they have, basically, they know several weeks in advance based on the.
Ivan: 30, 60 days. Depends on the.
Sam: Yeah. Like, a month to two months. I think he actually said 45 days.
Sam: They have a 45-day view that they usually look at.
Ivan: Well, that's actually, if I would have said 45 days ordered right.
Ivan: I said 60 days, exactly fucking 45 days. Okay, yes.
Sam: Yeah, so he has a 45-day view that he's always looking at, and he's like,
Sam: look, I knew right after the tariffs were announced that there was a drop because
Sam: we started to see that drop right away.
Sam: And, of course, it takes those 45 days for that to start showing on this side of the ocean.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And that's where we are now. And oh, by the way, even if everything was reversed
Sam: tomorrow, that means you've got at least that long a delay, probably more before
Sam: things start reversing.
Ivan: Look, this is the same shit as the supply shock, you know, the supply shocks
Ivan: and demand shocks that we had with a pandemic.
Ivan: It's the same fucking dynamic. Okay.
Ivan: It's exactly the same. And, you know, like I saw from certain,
Ivan: the ones specifically auto parts manufacturers, okay?
Ivan: I was seeing some, this is one guy that was talking about how the last shipment
Ivan: that he cleared customs, he had to pay such a huge amount of tariffs in order to clear it.
Ivan: And that basically he didn't have another order in place. and that at some point
Ivan: he was going to start running out of of these parts because we just can't afford
Ivan: to buy them right right now and so yeah,
Ivan: This is the supply shock that he's put in place. Fucking president moron.
Ivan: No, just, just say the other day, did you hear what he said?
Ivan: Well, I hear what he said, what the, well, yeah.
Sam: Well, what I, what I.
Ivan: Sorry.
Sam: Oh, this, this, this is exactly what I was going to say.
Sam: Donald Trump was asked about like the fact that the ports are empty and all
Sam: this kind of stuff. And is, is he worried about this? And he's like,
Sam: look, no, because before we were losing trillions of dollars.
Sam: Now we're not doing business. So we're not losing trillions of dollars anymore.
Sam: This is good because, and here's the fundamental thing you have to remember with this is twofold.
Sam: One, Donald Trump believes that paying for something is always a loss. Always.
Sam: He doesn't pay his contractors. He doesn't pay his staff.
Sam: None of this. He believes that if you pay somebody something, it's out and out a loss.
Sam: You are losing money in that transaction, and that's all that matters.
Sam: He doesn't recognize that, oh, and you're getting value in exchange that you
Sam: think is worth more than the money, which is why it's a good trade.
Sam: He doesn't get that part.
Sam: All he gets is you're losing money because you bought something.
Sam: And in this case, he believes the country is losing money because we're buying
Sam: Chinese stuff and we're buying things from other countries.
Sam: And the whole strategy he has around tariffs starts to make more sense if you
Sam: realize that fundamentally,
Sam: he thinks buying things from other countries is out and out bad.
Sam: And a fundamental goal of his policy is that we should not be buying stuff from
Sam: foreigners. Period. End of story.
Sam: And anything that can make us buy less stuff is good.
Ivan: Look, the harsh reality of this stupidity is going to be presented itself to
Ivan: the American public in a not-too-distant future,
Ivan: okay, where we are going to be experiencing, once again,
Ivan: shortages, delays, things.
Sam: Higher prices.
Ivan: Much higher prices. It is just utterly fucking moronic.
Ivan: And by the way, they had, they said that they finally got one trade deal.
Sam: Not really.
Ivan: But not really.
Sam: But I heard both Trump and the UK Prime Minister, Starmer, Starmer, Starmer, Starmer.
Sam: Both of them said this is wonderful and amazing and a great deal.
Sam: So what are you talking about, Yvonne? Are you disparaging this amazing deal?
Ivan: Well, I'm disparaging the amazing deal, first of all, from the fact that this isn't even a deal.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: This is an agreement to negotiate a deal, not even a real deal.
Ivan: Okay. Start off with that fact.
Sam: And then even the things they agreed to negotiate aren't- Are terrible. Yeah.
Ivan: They're terrible.
Sam: And one thing, by the way, that Donald Trump seems to have made clear over the
Sam: last few days is the 10% global tariff on everybody is not negotiable.
Sam: Like even if some of these reciprocal tariffs get reduced, probably not eliminated,
Sam: but reduced, that 10% on everybody global worldwide, he's not budging on that.
Ivan: I mean, I, I, but.
Sam: And for China, by the way, for China, by the way.
Ivan: China. Oh, oh, he's got us. Oh, he, he, he, he, he had a revelation, I guess.
Sam: Well, no, the latest was that he, he's like, we may be able to,
Sam: we feel like negotiating down from 140% or whatever the hell it is right now,
Sam: down to 80 would be reasonable. 80 would be.
Ivan: That was a short relation. He said something along the lines of like,
Ivan: you know, I'm starting to like 80.
Sam: Right. Right.
Ivan: Yeah, like 80%. What the fuck?
Ivan: Listen, this lunacy will not end until Congress goes and pulls the fucking authority from it.
Ivan: That is the only way this is ending.
Ivan: But Congress will not act until this is a complete shit show.
Ivan: That's the reality that you've got. They will not have sufficient pressure on
Ivan: top of them from people being pissed off until this shit show hits the American people.
Sam: Well, and even then, I wonder. But there is a level of pain that will do that. There is a level.
Ivan: The American public has shown almost zero level of tolerance for economic pain.
Sam: Well, yeah. Well, the thing, and we've talked about this before,
Sam: is that I still feel that before Congress would get to the point where they
Sam: would actually do something like that,
Sam: Donald Trump himself will declare victory and back off on his own.
Sam: Like, he would not want the embarrassment of having Congress actually slap him down. Republicans.
Ivan: Well, he'll have, yeah, but it'll have to get to the step of,
Ivan: like, them having to go and, like, go do the motions. in order of doing that.
Ivan: So, so, so he will somehow declare one of these fucking victories that he loves declaring, you know?
Sam: But it might be that, that, that he does that at a point where that pressure is still private,
Sam: but, but it has to be at the point where like, if he sees no way out,
Sam: if he sees like they, you know, my own party is going to slap me down if I don't
Sam: do something that's, he will back off before they actually have to do it.
Sam: But he will back off in a face-saving way. He will not say he's backing off.
Sam: He will declare victory.
Ivan: No, no, he'll declare victory.
Sam: Well, just like this UK thing, and I'm sorry, I sort of tangent,
Sam: I took you on a tangent, but you were talking about how the UK thing was really
Sam: nothing, and maybe you can talk more about why it's nothing.
Sam: But nevertheless, this is a case where Donald Trump is declaring it the greatest
Sam: thing ever, and they've reduced tariffs a certain amount, and blah,
Sam: blah, blah. ah, this is his M.O.
Sam: Like, create the crisis, then have nominal concessions that don't really matter
Sam: that much and declare it as the hugest victory in the world and then back off
Sam: from the crisis you created.
Ivan: The reason I said it's just not a victory, I mean, they're still applying tariffs
Ivan: on vehicles, they're still applying tariffs on products, they really,
Ivan: you know, the U.K., which had almost the lowest level of tariffs on our fucking
Ivan: products, they're still getting hammered with the U.S.
Sam: By the way, I believe the UK was one of the countries that we actually had a surplus with.
Ivan: Yes, probably. I'm sure it was. And so they were getting completely fucked. Okay.
Ivan: And the reality is that they went and it isn't really a deal anyway. All they did was agree.
Ivan: They laid out. It's, you know, I call this.
Ivan: We do these memorandums of understanding, you know, which is just.
Ivan: Oh, OK, so we agree to do these things and we agree to negotiate and arrive
Ivan: at a contract at a later time.
Ivan: But as I've been told many times in my in sales, if I arrive with a fucking
Ivan: listen, I don't even try to write an MOU anymore because I cannot book a sale
Ivan: with a fucking memo memorandum of understanding.
Ivan: That's just, you know, that's just a fucking sales boilerplate bullshit.
Ivan: And that's what we got today. It's not a deal.
Ivan: It's just a document that says, okay, we kind of agree that we're going to negotiate
Ivan: on these things under these parameters.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And then we're going to negotiate a deal. But it's a shitty deal.
Ivan: I mean, listen, Keir Starmer has been under pressure because his administration
Ivan: has not been very effective at doing anything. Just like every recent...
Ivan: british administration regardless of party at this point i guess and so he was
Ivan: under pressure to like try to provide some kind of victory and i think he wanted
Ivan: to declare a victory even though honestly they got fucked well.
Sam: The other the other thing that people.
Ivan: Well or let me extract any but let me let me change that they didn't extract anything from this well.
Sam: Let me let me say this because this this is another part of the how you look
Sam: at it and starmer actually said something along these lines because at his press
Sam: conference, the British press was pushing him on this because, you know,
Sam: yes, potentially the terms are better than they were a couple days ago.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But they weren't good. They're still much worse than they were pre-Trump, right?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: So it's like, you know, on a scale of zero to a hundred of how bad it was,
Sam: let's say we start at zero.
Sam: Trump took you to a hundred. You managed to negotiate back down to 80 or something.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, so yes, it's better than it was a few seconds ago,
Sam: but it's still horrible and it's still worse than it was a few months ago.
Sam: And I'm not sure you can get to better than you started as long as Trump is around.
Sam: And as long as his ultimate objective is we don't want to import stuff.
Sam: I mean, fundamentally, that's his ultimate objective. We don't want to import stuff.
Sam: Although apparently he was like, Rolls Royces are okay. We can import.
Ivan: Oh yeah. The rollers are good. Yes. That that's, you know, Hey,
Ivan: we need, yeah, we, we want those.
Ivan: I'm like, Oh, the fuck. You know, my bank seems to think, speaking of British
Ivan: cars that I'm, I, I, I definitely, I, I am like a lot, you know, well,
Ivan: Quite a lot wealthier than I see myself as because it gave me this thing where
Ivan: I'm in my my Chase Bank account.
Ivan: It says, hey, you know, are you interested in a McLaren?
Ivan: You know, a McLaren is, you know, ridiculously expensive. Like,
Ivan: you know, we've got these programs to help you buy.
Ivan: Oh, my God. I'm like, what the fuck? What are you studying? You fucking,
Ivan: you know, McLaren? Really?
Ivan: The hell? You know, I'm like. So, yeah, but I guess now with Trump's tariff
Ivan: deal, I can get a better deal now, Sam, than I could a week ago,
Ivan: but not better than the one that I could get while I was under bite. Right?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Okay, that sounds awful.
Sam: Yeah, so I keep hearing different things about how far away before we really
Sam: feel the pain of all this stuff.
Ivan: Here, hold on.
Sam: I was just going to say, it seems like for over a month now,
Sam: people have been saying a couple more weeks, and then you'll really feel it.
Sam: Where are we really on this at this point before there are obvious effects that
Sam: average person shopping would notice?
Sam: I mean, I know some prices have already gone up.
Ivan: I mean, it's going to be about 90 days really before this is.
Ivan: It's going to be like summer. Listen, we're going to get hammered.
Sam: Another 90 days, yeah. Because I literally keep hearing people say like with
Sam: before the end of May, we'll start seeing empty shelves and higher prices.
Ivan: I think you'll start seeing some. But what I'm going to say is that the brunt
Ivan: of the effect is going to be really hit in late June, July. Like, right for the summer.
Ivan: Which is going to be great. Everybody's going to have a fantastic summer.
Ivan: Like, Ford already announced that car prices are good. They're going to have
Ivan: to, you know... They at first said, hey, we're cutting prices,
Ivan: blah, blah, blah. And I think they were trying to do that to agree with Trump.
Ivan: They realized it didn't work. And so now they already quietly announced,
Ivan: we have to raise prices on July 1st.
Ivan: already so it's that kind of stuff
Ivan: that's going on like right now and so more of
Ivan: that will be percolating like right now as it goes on i think we'll have the
Ivan: full because of you know you talked about the transit time for ships and how
Ivan: long and how long does inventory stay you know that you can sell and most people
Ivan: will sell the inventory that they got based on the previous cost not on a new price.
Ivan: For the most part, not necessarily that, because some people will raise prices
Ivan: based on what the last inventory they got, even if they haven't sold out the last stock. Okay?
Ivan: But because of how they front-loaded some of the stuff, they're working off
Ivan: of that inventory and how ships have stopped coming, and the lead time that
Ivan: you've got, the 45 days, it really should be summer.
Ivan: It's really like, you know, when summer starts, you know, June,
Ivan: July around there is when you're really going to start seeing the full really shitstorm starting to.
Sam: What area, like for the average consumer, what area will they notice it in first?
Ivan: It's going to be, man, the cars are going to be the most visible one.
Sam: Okay. How about for things that people buy like every month?
Sam: Like a car is a rare purchase, right? Like, but there's certain staples that
Sam: people buy all the time. what's going to hit there?
Ivan: Auto repair, car services, anything that has to do with like fixing your car,
Ivan: for example, any of those.
Ivan: Look, you go to any, listen, how about clothes?
Sam: That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Clothes or electronics or those kinds of things.
Ivan: Electronics. Small appliances.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: You know, all of this shit, okay, is getting, is getting hit,
Ivan: you know, you're going to go shopping for just about anything.
Ivan: You're going to start seeing the impacts of this.
Sam: So, I mean, because the bottom line is, I mean, the whole thing that Trump says
Sam: he's trying to address is that manufacturing largely moved out of the U.S.
Sam: for lots of these things.
Sam: And so basically, yeah, like, I mean, people have said like,
Sam: like Walmart's whole business model was about getting cheap, cheap shit from China.
Sam: Right. So are you going to.
Ivan: Cheap shit, period. and from wherever, but it wound up being a lot, mostly from China.
Sam: So are you going to walk into a Walmart and the whole damn place is going to
Sam: be empty and or prices double what they used to be?
Ivan: I mean, yeah. In many cases. Yeah. You're looking at toys.
Ivan: Think about all the categories that the Chinese dominate.
Sam: Oh, Yvonne, Yvonne.
Ivan: Toys.
Sam: Toys. You know, Trump has explained to us that we only need two dolls, not 30.
Ivan: Ah, well, let's. any electronic any electric or electronic products okay I mean
Ivan: think about it I mean the vast majority of them are all made in China and the
Ivan: electric component even if they're not,
Ivan: final assembled in China their components are so many of them from China anyway it's just and.
Sam: Even the ones that are from other countries it's not like these other countries
Sam: are getting off scot-free it's just the.
Ivan: Increase of less yeah where.
Sam: Do they make Lego? Is it actually made in Denmark? Probably somewhere in Asia, right?
Ivan: Oh, God. Beats me. I don't know, but I'm going to guess it probably is made
Ivan: somewhere that they're getting nailed with a big-ass tariff.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Okay, I'm checking. Where are they made? Where are Lego bricks made?
Ivan: Molding is done in Denmark, Hungary, Monterey, Mexico, and China.
Sam: Okay, there you go.
Ivan: Buy.
Sam: Your buy your Legos now.
Ivan: Yeah but I just you know it's,
Ivan: I'm going to give the sarcasm that the economists wrote about wrote about the
Ivan: tariff negotiations after they finished with you know with the message next
Ivan: up America's great rival negotiators travel to Switzerland this weekend for
Ivan: talks with their Chinese counterparts,
Ivan: You know, so I'm just, you know,
Ivan: if, let me put it in, if Britain's vaunted special relationship managed to secure
Ivan: only the slimmest of concessions, Communist Party Congress should not get their hopes up.
Ivan: I mean, they basically got, you know, like right now they've got, they got nothing.
Ivan: So lovely.
Sam: So, yeah. So if you're planning on that, so is it good advice that if you're
Sam: planning on thinking about buying something significant over the summer that
Sam: you might want to consider doing it early?
Ivan: Well, that's why I bought those tires.
Sam: Yeah, I know.
Ivan: Told you. I went, I'm like, I didn't want to wait, you know,
Ivan: on the, because of that, I was, I mean, those for sure were going to get hit with, with, with that.
Ivan: I do think that definitely, if you've got something significant that you really
Ivan: need that is due to be purchased, you need it like now, don't wait.
Ivan: Just don't wait.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You need to pull the trigger as soon as you can.
Sam: But Yvonne, buying anything, spending money is bad. It's just a loss. You shouldn't do that.
Ivan: So you just don't buy stuff, right?
Sam: Just don't buy stuff.
Ivan: You just steal it.
Sam: Well, that's what Donald does.
Ivan: Well, that's what Donald does, I know.
Sam: He gets people to give it to him and then sometimes by promising to pay them. But, you know.
Ivan: He does promise to pay and just doesn't actually pay.
Ivan: I'm actually checking to see if the price on my tires already went up by any chance.
Ivan: Let's see. Let's see, because I know that... Let me see. let's see if this is
Ivan: the case alright filter filter filter alright let's see,
Ivan: uh shit yes a little bit but I don't think it's got the full weight of it but yes it's already up okay,
Ivan: There you go.
Sam: There you go. Okay. With that, shall we wrap things up?
Ivan: I guess. Let's, uh, we don't got anything else we didn't mention.
Sam: We're a little shorter than we usually are, so if there's something else that's
Sam: really hot on your mind, let's do it.
Ivan: Well, no. We'll wrap it up.
Sam: We got Newark Mayor. We got Habeas Corpus. We got Stagflation.
Ivan: We got— Well, they did release the Newark Major, you know, finally.
Ivan: I saw that after like five hours.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I don't know, man. I still said the one thing that I said about the New York
Ivan: mayor thing, they arrested him and then they released these assholes just for
Ivan: intimidation purposes.
Ivan: I said that if I were, listen, if I'm New York mayor and the sheriff reports
Ivan: to me, I'm showing up at that fucking place with an entire battalion of sheriffs
Ivan: and I'm fucking arrest, starting to arrest the fuck out.
Ivan: I would, I'd show up with the entire battalion.
Ivan: I'm like, oh, we're all arresting all of it. Listen, every employee I see,
Ivan: you, you're under arrest. Oh, why?
Ivan: False imprisonment. Charge all these people. Charge them all. Fuck it.
Ivan: Drag everyone, drag every single one to fucking court. Drag them,
Ivan: you know, shackle them, drag them all.
Ivan: Okay? They want to fuck like this. If it were me, that's what I would start doing.
Ivan: Because that's the only way to get these people to, oh, you think this is a joke?
Ivan: We'll start dragging your asses to jail. Okay?
Sam: Yeah i don't know that need.
Ivan: To start with that attitude you know.
Sam: I mean i said this some very people need to.
Ivan: Start with that attitude to fuck this shit okay.
Sam: Well some very like if we actually had like
Sam: i mean this is sort of first shots fired like a the feds arresting a local official
Sam: and they harass some congress people too if you start getting local people arresting
Sam: feds you're going to have like some crazy stuff working out in the courts as that works through.
Sam: But yeah, but yeah, I mean, like, like you said, it's sort of like the,
Sam: That's the kind of thing people want to see. Like, we want to see you fighting.
Sam: And yes, that means doing unorthodox stuff that's going to cause conflict,
Sam: that's going to cause issues in the courts. You may win, you may lose, who knows.
Sam: But they want to see you pushing to the limits, not just politely saying,
Sam: oh, this is unacceptable.
Ivan: Exactly. Right. By the way, the mayor of Newark was actually pushing that to a certain extent.
Ivan: He was saying that they didn't have a certificate of occupancy.
Ivan: He was trying to, were there to tell them that they need to shut down the place.
Ivan: So that was part of the whole reason why he was there.
Ivan: And what I'm saying is, hey, if that's the whole reason, escalate.
Sam: Then shut them down.
Ivan: Then shut them down. Drag them, arrest them, shut them down, shut the place down.
Ivan: Fucking like, you know, it said this place is unlawful. It cannot be occupied.
Ivan: Throw them all the fuck out. And by the way, the people that are that did the
Ivan: false imprisonment arrest them all.
Sam: Well, and here's the key, like, though, like, I'm all for the exact aggressive tactics.
Sam: Like, go up to the limit of everything you can possibly legally justify.
Sam: But don't do what they're doing
Sam: in terms of do things that are blatantly illegal and wait to be stopped.
Ivan: Exactly. No, you go like you find what you know, you look at how you know,
Ivan: how much can I push the law on this right now? let's push it all the way.
Sam: Right so and then let the court stop you but like exactly go up to that line
Sam: don't go up don't go blatantly over exactly you know right yeah like like i
Sam: wouldn't suggest that the newark police just come in guns a-blazing and shoot all the ice agents.
Ivan: That would be, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not advocating for that, but.
Sam: Well, I said, I would not recommend that.
Ivan: But, but arresting them for false imprisonment, I would go over there right
Ivan: now, fucking, you know, because they have no legal right whatsoever to have arrested the mayor.
Ivan: Okay. As far as I can tell, none. I would go over there right now.
Ivan: I'm charged, hey, charge them all with false imprisonment, arrest them the fuck
Ivan: all. Drag them out to jail.
Sam: Well, honestly, I thought you were going further with that and say the false
Sam: imprisonment was the immigrants they were rounding up.
Ivan: Well, I'll take that too. Yes. Add that too. Absolutely.
Sam: You know, now in some cases they may have legal authority to do so, but it seems clear.
Sam: But it seems clear that lots of the cases they don't.
Ivan: Right. So.
Sam: Sorry, at least a few.
Ivan: That's the kind of shit. That's the kind of shit that they need to start doing.
Ivan: Fuck this. You know, you can't be timid with these people.
Ivan: You got to start punching them in the mouth. You know, it's just, you know.
Sam: There we go.
Ivan: All right so.
Sam: Okay let's wrap it up curmudgeons-corner.com because
Sam: nobody bought us the three thousand dollar curmudgeonscorner.com without
Sam: life i know anyway curmudgeons-corner.com
Sam: you can find our archives you can find transcripts you can find all the ways
Sam: to contact us you can find links to our youtube i still haven't added one to
Sam: tiktok i'm still behind on posting tiktok whatever whatever they're not getting
Sam: a lot of views lately so i'm not super motivated so i'm you know.
Ivan: Behind, you know, doesn't like us.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, looking real quick, like of the three videos that I posted from
Sam: last week's, the one with the most views got 14 views.
Sam: You know, whereas like a couple months ago, they were getting hundreds.
Sam: And so I don't know if TikTok changed their algorithm or their algorithm just decided that we suck.
Sam: Either way, the question is, you know, how are we?
Ivan: We've been shadow banned, Sam.
Sam: We've been shadow banned. Oh, my God.
Ivan: We've been shadow banned.
Sam: You're right. It is because we're anti-Trump. They're going after us. They are censoring us.
Ivan: They're censoring us.
Sam: They're censoring us. That's it.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Yeah. Anyway, you can find all that stuff.
Sam: And of course you can find a link to our Patreon where you can give us money
Sam: at various levels. We will mention you on the show.
Sam: We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug, et cetera.
Sam: I sent Ed his mug, but I still have not sent the cards to Yvonne to then send
Sam: to Pete and Greg maybe this weekend.
Sam: I have filled out the cards though.
Ivan: Maybe next time you adjust the air conditioner, you're on my part.
Sam: Exactly yeah exactly next time i do stuff i don't know anyway in addition at
Sam: two dollars a month or more or if you just ask us we'll invite you to the curmudgeon's
Sam: corner slack where yvonne and i and a bunch of listeners are chatting and sharing
Sam: links and all that kind of stuff what do you got for us this week yvonne from the slack oh.
Ivan: This is a great story i i got boy accidentally ordered 70,000 lollipops on Amazon. Okay, panic ensues.
Ivan: Oliva Favre said he was eventually refunded to $4,200 for her eight-year-old
Ivan: son's order of Dum Dum's candy.
Ivan: And the picture of the merchandise being delivered is just absolutely hilarious.
Ivan: This is on the New York Times.
Ivan: Just all these boxes at the entrance of their house, box after box of fucking
Ivan: lollipops just stacked outside their house in Kentucky. It's fantastic.
Ivan: I was like, this is great.
Ivan: Mom, my suckers are here. Said our son Liam would go outside to ride his scooter.
Ivan: I panicked. And then she was hysterical. She was like, what the hell?
Ivan: You know, you ordered a few. I was mentioning that my wife the other day, I will admit that.
Ivan: She went and she saw, I asked her to order me some shaving cream and there was
Ivan: some offer on the brand that I use Barbasol that was like quite cheap. Okay.
Ivan: It's like $6. It said like, I don't know how many can't, you know,
Ivan: some number or whatever. And I'm like, okay, $6. It seems good.
Ivan: Listen, I think my son right now, I don't know what the deal was,
Ivan: why those were so cheap, but it's very likely that in my will,
Ivan: I will have to leave myself.
Ivan: son, Barbasol, okay, given the amount that we received.
Ivan: I think I have to give away some of this or something because it's just crazy.
Ivan: So that was the one. The other one that I had that I love sharing was,
Ivan: so I was sharing this back in, I guess this was the bin, this was in the 90s.
Ivan: Yeah, Windows Me, right, was in the 90s.
Ivan: Okay. There was a picture of a case of an eMachines computer that had to stick
Ivan: that I always loved that I thought was so stupid.
Ivan: This computer is never obsolete, Sam. Sam, never.
Sam: Never.
Ivan: The eMachine's computer will never be obsolete.
Sam: Now, I will note, if you look carefully on the sticker on that,
Sam: the piece that makes it that is that they were having an offer that you could
Sam: upgrade the machine annually for like $99 a year.
Sam: And that's probably what they meant for that. But I
Sam: am fairly sure that at some point that offer expired and you would not have
Sam: successfully upgraded all the way from then to now at $99 a year and actually
Sam: have a modern computer today.
Ivan: Sam, it's never obsolete. What are you talking about?
Ivan: Is a computer, is that company, I mean, they're out of business,
Ivan: right? I was acquired by Gateway in 2004.
Sam: Well, and Gateway is going strong right now to this day, as we know, right?
Ivan: I mean, they're, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're really good.
Ivan: They weren't really killing it.
Sam: Okay, what happened to Gateway next?
Ivan: I think it got bought by Acer. I think I'm looking at it here.
Ivan: Purchased by Acer. Yeah, Acer in 2007, yes.
Ivan: For basically less money than Apple sells in one day. $700 million.
Sam: But they still maintain the brand? I'm going to gatewayusa.com and you can still buy.
Ivan: Yeah, Acer was still making some stuff.
Sam: A couple laptops, an Android tablet.
Ivan: It never obsolete sam never i
Ivan: mean you know it's like fast reliable
Ivan: internet access powered by mci uu net
Ivan: of course the world's richest internet content provided by netscape surf email
Ivan: invest shop chat travel and more this thing had an intel celeron processor with 32 megabytes of,
Ivan: ram and a 10 gigabyte
Ivan: hard drive and a 40 times speed
Ivan: cd-rom because that was you know that you don't remember how
Ivan: that multiplier on the speed of the cd-rom was always like
Ivan: so oh it's 40 times 80 times 80 times what yeah i know it's standard speed of
Ivan: the original cd whatever yes yes okay i know i get that but you know it's like
Ivan: 3d graph agp graphics sam we tell you i mean listen this thing.
Ivan: State of the art. Let me tell you.
Sam: Never obsolete.
Ivan: Never obsolete.
Sam: Are we done?
Ivan: We're done.
Sam: You should get one of those machines.
Ivan: Try to find like a fully working one to see, you know.
Sam: Next week's podcast will record. You will use that machine.
Ivan: On Netscape, you know, what the hell, version 3.0 or something, whatever.
Sam: Something.
Ivan: Windows Me. As far as I remember, that was not remembered as a great operating system.
Sam: I believe your memory is correct.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: It was one of the ones that was regarded as a mistake, right?
Ivan: Basically, yes.
Sam: Like where people were warning, don't upgrade to this.
Sam: No. Stick with what's older or wait for the next one. This sucks.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Wasn't Windows 98 or something? Didn't that one have like Bob.
Ivan: Which was the one that had like Bob or the assistant?
Sam: I thought Bob was its own thing.
Ivan: Bob was its own thing? We've got the assistant. We've got Clippy.
Ivan: We've got Bob. I actually like Clippy.
Sam: Well, now everything's Clippy, right? Basically. They're sticking Clippy in everything. Yeah.
Sam: Basically, that's what chat GPT is, right?
Ivan: Basically, yeah, I know.
Sam: It's basically Clippy. So, anyway.
Ivan: Anyway. All right, we're done.
Sam: We're done. Thank you, everybody. Have a great week. Stay safe.
Sam: Have fun. Blah, blah, blah. All of the things I say.
Sam: thanks to the one person who's watching us live right now.
Ivan: It's not me.
Sam: It's not you. They just started like 15 minutes ago, 13 minutes ago. We appreciate you.
Sam: The actual podcast will be out later this weekend.
Sam: Goodbye. Here's the music.
Ivan: Music.
Sam: The one person who was watching us live stopped watching right after I mentioned it. And I started that.
Ivan: You, you, you, you, I mean, you intimidate.
Sam: I chased them away. Yeah. is like I see you I see you're watching and they're like ah I.
Ivan: See well what do you mean you're like oh shit.
Sam: Okay hitting stop bye Yvonne bye.