WEBVTT 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:04.370 Hello there. Okay, let's get the stream going. 00:00:05.350 --> 00:00:08.430 One, two, three. There we go. 00:00:11.090 --> 00:00:16.050 Do that. And then... And that. 00:00:16.810 --> 00:00:20.070 Okay. Hello, Yvonne. Can you hear me okay? 00:00:21.070 --> 00:00:27.870 Yes, I agree completely with all sentiments. Ready to just go? 00:00:28.370 --> 00:00:31.970 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's get this show on the road because it can't be. 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:34.270 We got to do this toot-sweet. 00:00:34.510 --> 00:00:36.790 You have a hard stop? Tell me when it is, Sol. 00:00:36.950 --> 00:00:41.990 I mean, I don't have a hard stop, but I got a lot of shit to prepare because 00:00:41.990 --> 00:00:43.870 I got to fly out of town again tomorrow. 00:00:44.130 --> 00:00:46.450 Okay, understood. Here we go. 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:13.320 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, November 1st, 2025. 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:18.520 It's just after 16 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam and Jervon Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne. 00:01:19.240 --> 00:01:25.380 Ah, hello. This is the first podcast of Sam being a free man. 00:01:25.580 --> 00:01:29.280 So I guess for those who don't know, I guess I'll start out my butt first. 00:01:29.460 --> 00:01:32.020 So here's our schedule. The butt first is the non-newsy stuff. 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:35.420 And then we'll talk about news stuff. Yvonne and I usually... 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:35.900 This is kind of newsy. 00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:40.200 Well, okay, news, but it's like not like world news. 00:01:40.460 --> 00:01:42.640 Well, no, well, no, no. 00:01:43.100 --> 00:01:47.060 You were a tiny part. I was a part of a news event. 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:51.660 Yes, you were, this time, you were actually part of a news event. 00:01:52.380 --> 00:01:55.760 That's right. I was in China with Donald Trump. 00:01:56.760 --> 00:01:58.320 Oh, yes, of course. 00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:04.500 I helped out with that whole story. I made peace with Cambodia and Thailand or something. 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:06.060 You made the soybean deal. 00:02:06.440 --> 00:02:12.580 Yes, that was me. That China is now buying 11 soybeans from the United States, as The Onion reported. 00:02:13.260 --> 00:02:13.700 11? 00:02:13.920 --> 00:02:14.280 11. 00:02:14.580 --> 00:02:16.860 So that's the number that you negotiated. 11. 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:18.860 That's the number. Just 11. 11 soybeans. 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:24.060 I thought they were—so, okay, well, that tracks, because Trump reported that it was like millions. 00:02:24.860 --> 00:02:29.880 But, as usual with him, so it's an exaggerated number. The number you negotiated was 11. 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:36.720 11. Now, that was according to The Onion, of course, and you know what kind 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:37.860 of a news source they are. 00:02:38.100 --> 00:02:42.740 Well, I mean, lately, honestly, the reality is you can't tell the difference 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:44.440 between The Onion and Real News. 00:02:44.660 --> 00:02:55.040 So I, you know, I mean, when The Onion really has to work so hard, so hard to be fake, 00:02:55.440 --> 00:03:00.100 I mean, they really, really struggle at this moment in time in history. 00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:05.540 So anyway, no, my real news, and I will continue for... 00:03:06.630 --> 00:03:15.230 85 more days or so to not explicitly say the name here because that's how long 00:03:15.230 --> 00:03:17.030 until ties are officially broken. 00:03:17.350 --> 00:03:24.470 But a major tech company had a large round of layoffs this week and I was one of them. 00:03:25.150 --> 00:03:29.290 Yeah, the worst thing is that I get the news. I see that because the news came 00:03:29.290 --> 00:03:37.670 out the day before and you know i see the news and the first thing is like oh 00:03:37.670 --> 00:03:43.230 shit man no come on i'm gonna be this time and then the next morning. 00:03:44.760 --> 00:03:50.180 Well, and look, I, you know, Yvonne shared the article on the curmudgeon's core 00:03:50.180 --> 00:03:55.040 Slack that my company was about to have another really large round of layoffs. 00:03:55.220 --> 00:03:59.160 So far, only half of what is rumored has happened. So I keep assuming there's 00:03:59.160 --> 00:04:00.600 going to be a second drop soon. 00:04:00.820 --> 00:04:02.580 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:11.460 But yeah, my immediate response was, essentially, I would be absolutely shocked if I was not included. 00:04:11.460 --> 00:04:17.380 I haven't talked a lot about what's been going on at work for obvious reasons here on the podcast, 00:04:17.380 --> 00:04:24.980 but basically for the last few years, it's been clear I was not a great fit 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:26.940 for where I was. Well, let's be honest. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.440 There have been ups and downs. There have been ups and downs. 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:33.720 I don't even think, listen, a great fit for where you've been. I think. 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:40.300 No, I'm talking very narrow organizationally the projects I have actually been assigned to. 00:04:40.300 --> 00:04:47.000 so recapping the last couple years i was on a project for a while that to me 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:53.040 was from nearly the beginning clear that it was doomed okay it was an experiment 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:57.940 it was something they were trying to do but it was clear to me it wasn't working and at first again. 00:04:57.940 --> 00:05:01.180 This is not that has nothing to do with fit with you that's just. 00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:07.680 No no wait wait let me let me finish so at first and so at At first, 00:05:07.880 --> 00:05:13.220 I had something very narrowly tailored that was in the realm of things I knew, 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:15.640 things I had expertise in, things I was doing, 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.260 and I made that happen. 00:05:18.400 --> 00:05:20.600 But then after that was done... 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:26.480 There was clearly a, what do we do with Sam now kind of thing going on? 00:05:26.820 --> 00:05:32.840 Like to try to fit me into other things that were happening in the project that were less good fits. 00:05:33.300 --> 00:05:36.300 And that increased over time. 00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:40.300 And over the last three months specifically, 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:44.120 I was actually, it was so clear 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:46.900 that I made no sense in the team that I was 00:05:46.900 --> 00:05:50.400 actually organizationally part of that another 00:05:50.400 --> 00:05:53.340 team where the manager was someone 00:05:53.340 --> 00:05:56.520 I knew pretty well was borrowing me 00:05:56.520 --> 00:06:01.720 to do some stuff and that was for the first time in a while I was actually having 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:06.860 some fun but that manager had no official head count to keep me permanently 00:06:06.860 --> 00:06:13.920 etc so like and and even there let me finish a few more seconds And then you 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:15.380 can tell me all the stuff. 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:21.640 But like, and even there, like the stuff I was doing was clearly sort of like, 00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:24.120 okay, if no one was doing this, they could get by. 00:06:24.460 --> 00:06:28.080 And so when the, you know, when it came up, it was like, okay, 00:06:28.220 --> 00:06:31.940 clearly like, you know, if they were going to make a list, you know, 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:36.040 I'm in the, okay, it's nice to have him doing the stuff he's doing, but we don't need it. 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.620 We can do without. And so I was like, okay, I'll be on the list. 00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:45.200 All right. This is my my whole thing is that my entire disagreement with you 00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:49.100 were, well, it's just that I wasn't a good fit for what. 00:06:49.220 --> 00:06:51.100 No, no. Listen, they were doing this on purpose. 00:06:51.750 --> 00:07:00.390 OK, this is not they they could have given you other stuff to do that. 00:07:00.530 --> 00:07:06.210 This is, you know, the company is so large that I am sure that there are many 00:07:06.210 --> 00:07:12.130 other fucking places where they could have used your skills and knowledge. 00:07:12.210 --> 00:07:17.990 If you look at it from a high enough up level, sure. 00:07:18.610 --> 00:07:23.190 My sort of like immediate managers had nothing to do with, but could they have 00:07:23.190 --> 00:07:25.350 worked to find something else? Yes. 00:07:25.550 --> 00:07:30.630 But I mean, their approach to that is you go look. And I poked around looking 00:07:30.630 --> 00:07:31.850 and didn't find anything. 00:07:31.910 --> 00:07:34.770 But I was still trying to do the day job. Listen, I'm sorry, 00:07:34.890 --> 00:07:38.330 but let's be clear about this. The company had been trying. 00:07:38.330 --> 00:07:42.830 The company was very much trying to shed people in various ways. 00:07:42.830 --> 00:07:43.230 Exactly. 00:07:43.490 --> 00:07:44.090 They were trying. 00:07:44.090 --> 00:07:47.250 This is the whole return to office thing. The reason why they weren't finding. 00:07:47.850 --> 00:07:53.470 The reason why they weren't trying to position you somewhere else is because 00:07:53.470 --> 00:07:56.030 they wanted to get rid of people. 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:59.810 They were actively doing shit so people would quit. 00:08:00.700 --> 00:08:06.320 I mean, literally, I mean, for an extended period of time right now, 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:12.260 it was first, you know, look, they had laid off some people. I read about somebody. 00:08:12.500 --> 00:08:16.500 OK, let me just say one thing. 00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:20.320 I believe that is true on the higher levels. If you look really short term at 00:08:20.320 --> 00:08:25.380 my immediate management, I would say less so like my skip level, not my immediate. 00:08:25.380 --> 00:08:28.620 Somebody is somebody I've worked with for many, many years, have a good relationship 00:08:28.620 --> 00:08:32.900 with them, et cetera. And I don't think they were they were explicitly, 00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:35.160 hey, let's figure out how to get rid of Sam. 00:08:35.340 --> 00:08:43.700 But the overall incentives of the whole company right now are slim down, get rid of people. 00:08:44.500 --> 00:08:48.740 Let me put it to you this way, another way, because I've dealt with this before. 00:08:48.980 --> 00:08:54.020 Look, the guys who were in your direct management, okay, 00:08:54.760 --> 00:09:00.460 I'm sure that they, as I have happened to be before, they were wise to the fact 00:09:00.460 --> 00:09:04.400 that they were going to demand that they fire some people, okay? 00:09:05.910 --> 00:09:10.530 I mean, they were actively, so I still remember a few years ago where I was 00:09:10.530 --> 00:09:15.730 in that situation on a couple of occasions where, look, I had some people that 00:09:15.730 --> 00:09:18.590 were really bad performers, okay? 00:09:18.750 --> 00:09:21.490 Now, I didn't, I held on to them for a little bit. 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:21.790 Right. 00:09:21.950 --> 00:09:26.310 Now, why? Because what they asked for people that I already had, 00:09:26.410 --> 00:09:27.830 who the hell I'm going to call it. 00:09:27.990 --> 00:09:28.110 Yes. 00:09:28.610 --> 00:09:31.450 Exactly. Okay? So, you know, 00:09:31.570 --> 00:09:35.290 whomever was at your direct management level had made the decision, 00:09:35.290 --> 00:09:39.430 now you know what listen they're gonna ask me so some people i'm not gonna fuck 00:09:39.430 --> 00:09:43.450 this shit you know i've got this guy marked to you know what when they ask me 00:09:43.450 --> 00:09:47.750 oh here you go here he is head on a platter here you go done i. 00:09:47.750 --> 00:09:48.730 Hear you i hear you. 00:09:48.730 --> 00:09:59.450 But uh so but my my my my whole thing is look you had spent almost 20 years almost it will. 00:09:59.450 --> 00:10:05.690 It officially my end date is not till the end of january so i will make 20 years 00:10:05.690 --> 00:10:07.890 my 20 year anniversary is january 11th. 00:10:07.890 --> 00:10:14.450 And the when i have been going through these things usually it's because our 00:10:14.450 --> 00:10:16.030 profits are falling we're getting 00:10:16.030 --> 00:10:19.930 squeezed we've got costs you know shit you know sales are not going. 00:10:19.930 --> 00:10:21.970 Well you save more money getting rid of old timers. 00:10:21.970 --> 00:10:27.530 You know but and but but even then you know what we never really targeted like, 00:10:29.100 --> 00:10:34.180 We never really, like, I didn't, you know, we didn't look through the salaries 00:10:34.180 --> 00:10:36.220 and, like, say, oh, this guy's too expensive. 00:10:37.140 --> 00:10:42.600 But I do think that given the recent trends in Silicon Valley, 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:48.520 and I'd shared this thing where they were talking about how some people at high-level 00:10:48.520 --> 00:10:50.480 executives who keep saying, well, 00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:54.620 Silicon Valley's too young, so they're spending $150,000 on, like, 00:10:55.360 --> 00:10:58.700 cosmetic surgery to make themselves look 20 years younger. 00:10:58.700 --> 00:11:03.180 and how they, for some reason, shun, you know, older people. 00:11:03.300 --> 00:11:07.240 They, they, they, listen, a lot of these people have the mentality right now 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:12.700 that I, hey, why do I want this older, more expensive guy when I can get four younger, cheaper guys? 00:11:14.060 --> 00:11:19.560 And that's, that's, that's a thought. I, the other day was reading a couple 00:11:19.560 --> 00:11:21.460 of articles related around this. 00:11:21.780 --> 00:11:25.460 And the one thing that I realized is the stupidity of this whole fucking thing. 00:11:25.460 --> 00:11:30.960 Yvonne, you were reading it as you were dyeing your hair and beard and putting on like face cream. 00:11:31.400 --> 00:11:34.700 Of course, yes. As you can see, my beard is so dyed at this moment. 00:11:35.900 --> 00:11:38.480 It's white for people who can't see it. So is mine. 00:11:38.740 --> 00:11:42.480 It's perfectly white. So I was reading about this. 00:11:43.060 --> 00:11:50.880 The one thing that I keep stumbling into this just stupidity about this is that... 00:11:52.680 --> 00:12:00.740 One of the things that I know that myself personally bring to the table as having 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:07.200 done 20 years of 30 years of a whole bunch of this shit and not being that slow yet, thank God, 00:12:07.540 --> 00:12:11.900 is that, you know what, I've already done a whole bunch of this shit and I already 00:12:11.900 --> 00:12:15.960 know how to do it right and not wrong. 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:21.560 And so I see so many young people that come into our organization that just 00:12:21.560 --> 00:12:25.500 have no idea and just keep doing it wrong. 00:12:26.180 --> 00:12:29.700 And I'm just like, OK, fine. You know, listen, you want to pay for somebody 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:34.120 to spin their wheels for five days to figure out the wrong way while I usually 00:12:34.120 --> 00:12:37.000 in a few hours figure do it the right way. OK, go ahead. 00:12:37.180 --> 00:12:41.240 Just because the guy is cheap. But you know what? You're just replacing volume 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:43.560 for knowledge, for experience. 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:48.480 OK. And I hate to break it to people like right now when they talk about older 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.120 and younger people right now. 00:12:52.560 --> 00:12:55.320 Are you about to start slagging on the young people? 00:12:55.900 --> 00:12:59.640 No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to talk about a difference that there is right 00:12:59.640 --> 00:13:01.380 now between then and now. 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:07.240 When I was, when I came into corporate America, a lot of the executives that 00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:10.760 were older than us were not raised with computing. 00:13:12.040 --> 00:13:16.020 so when i would go in and do a task say and i had to use these new computer 00:13:16.020 --> 00:13:18.620 tools or whatever right now boom boom boom i could get to do it they had no 00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:23.040 idea how to do it the executives had no clue they looked at us like we were 00:13:23.040 --> 00:13:25.920 space aliens they were like how the hell did you do any of this i vaguely. 00:13:25.920 --> 00:13:26.920 Remember those days. 00:13:26.920 --> 00:13:30.960 Yes and i and we were like space aliens okay how the fuck could you know all 00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:36.040 this shit here's the reality i'm still like at at at my older than even a lot 00:13:36.040 --> 00:13:39.500 of those executives and I'm explaining to fucking younger people coming in right 00:13:39.500 --> 00:13:43.200 now how the fuck to do a PDF how the fuck to do this how do you send this document 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:45.480 I'm like Jesus Christ don't you guys know how to do anything, 00:13:46.620 --> 00:13:52.040 OK, because and there they come from a different spectrum on computing where 00:13:52.040 --> 00:13:54.720 it's like all they do to everything on a fucking phone. 00:13:55.300 --> 00:13:58.280 It's all I don't know how to fucking use a computer in a lot of cases. 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:00.960 I mean, they because, well, they just spent their whole time on the phone. 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:03.520 Oh, so you don't actually know how to use your fucking computer. 00:14:03.700 --> 00:14:08.300 You don't actually know how to go in an application and actually pull a CRM 00:14:08.300 --> 00:14:11.260 report or like do this thing, a transaction online. 00:14:11.260 --> 00:14:16.100 Well, I literally spent the last couple of months explaining to people how to 00:14:16.100 --> 00:14:20.660 do some kind of transaction where you have to fill out a portal and submit information. 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:21.320 Mm-hmm. 00:14:22.420 --> 00:14:25.780 Because they don't know how to do it. They don't know how to do it. 00:14:26.040 --> 00:14:31.100 They're like sitting there and they are baffled by a transaction portal. 00:14:31.540 --> 00:14:37.800 I have definitely heard this report from more people than you in terms of younger 00:14:37.800 --> 00:14:42.820 folks being, you know, whizzes with the phone. 00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:45.620 right but you know if you put them in front of 00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:48.760 a you know an actual old fashion 00:14:48.760 --> 00:14:52.240 old fashion an actual full-fledged computer 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:55.260 there are lots of tasks they just don't know how to do because they've 00:14:55.260 --> 00:14:58.520 never actually been confronted with them they've never had to they never 00:14:58.520 --> 00:15:03.640 had to and in some cases you can say well you know fast forward another 10 years 00:15:03.640 --> 00:15:09.320 they won't need to like these are obsolete dying skills but maybe maybe not 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:15.540 maybe but but at the same time it does It is a gap for some people right now. 00:15:15.700 --> 00:15:18.920 For a large group of people, Sam, it's not that small. 00:15:19.400 --> 00:15:26.480 I thought at first it was a smaller group. Sam, I had to, all my nephews who 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:29.540 went to university, highly educated people, 00:15:30.220 --> 00:15:35.800 20s and 30s, none of them could navigate a fucking government portal. Not one of them. 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:41.280 To upload a whole bunch of documents, to submit a fucking application for citizenship. 00:15:41.280 --> 00:15:45.220 And yes, if any of you are listening, you guys, for the love of God, 00:15:45.900 --> 00:15:49.620 Jesus Christ, none of you could do what I'll be telling you, for real. 00:15:50.670 --> 00:15:52.970 Just imagine if you had to do it all on paper. 00:15:55.370 --> 00:15:58.290 Holy shit. They would have, they would have died. They would have just, yeah. 00:15:59.630 --> 00:16:01.170 Okay. Back to me. 00:16:02.890 --> 00:16:09.570 But my point is that, yeah, listen, there is, there is, I do see a dichotomy in the economy. 00:16:09.570 --> 00:16:14.630 I do see companies that do value your skills, but it is definitely evident that 00:16:14.630 --> 00:16:20.590 your CEO really, really, really hates tenure. 00:16:20.670 --> 00:16:26.810 weird employees i mean they're they're he has it in for people that have been 00:16:26.810 --> 00:16:32.770 there a long time they're expensive well i think old i think more culture yeah. 00:16:32.770 --> 00:16:33.850 The culture yeah yeah. 00:16:33.850 --> 00:16:39.110 Culture well oh it's not about profits no yeah we we were actually yeah we were 00:16:39.110 --> 00:16:43.470 making tons of money we didn't it's just we needed to fix the culture well. 00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:50.390 You know look there there if anything i think actual culture stuff since our 00:16:50.390 --> 00:16:54.790 current CEO took over for the last one has declined significantly. 00:16:55.030 --> 00:16:55.510 Yes. 00:16:55.710 --> 00:16:58.230 Now, he blames it all on COVID, right? 00:16:59.020 --> 00:17:00.920 and work from home. 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:02.620 No, it's him. 00:17:02.760 --> 00:17:04.160 It's him. It's him. 00:17:04.200 --> 00:17:04.760 It's him. 00:17:04.940 --> 00:17:10.480 And there are just all kinds of things in terms of what's the priority, 00:17:11.360 --> 00:17:14.920 what things are emphasized, what things are less emphasized. 00:17:16.120 --> 00:17:22.020 Since that switchover, there has been a change of tone that is quite noticeable 00:17:22.020 --> 00:17:25.320 in all sorts of things from top to bottom, I think. 00:17:25.320 --> 00:17:31.140 Now, is is this common when you go from a founder to the first person after the founder? 00:17:31.300 --> 00:17:35.860 It kind of is. It's happened in a bunch of companies, you know, but change. 00:17:35.980 --> 00:17:40.180 Well, I mean, look, people at well, we can talk about that company by name, 00:17:40.260 --> 00:17:41.380 Microsoft, for example. 00:17:41.560 --> 00:17:47.860 OK, you know, have said that also about the current CEO going from Balmer to 00:17:47.860 --> 00:17:53.060 Satya, that a number of that actually for all the Balmer was a psychopath to 00:17:53.060 --> 00:17:54.400 a certain extent about certain things. 00:17:54.400 --> 00:18:03.880 But he really was like, in terms of like treatment of employees was better, way better. 00:18:04.060 --> 00:18:07.980 And that and that also I think there is this thing. 00:18:08.080 --> 00:18:12.600 And I and I know that the one guy who the last couple of years definitely everybody 00:18:12.600 --> 00:18:20.300 took as an example was Elon, who basically started treating employees like dirt. 00:18:20.300 --> 00:18:24.720 And, you know, it's like because he, 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:31.020 even though you can, look, you can take a look at the empirical metrics and 00:18:31.020 --> 00:18:34.440 you can see that his companies haven't actually done that well during that time 00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:37.000 period, the ones that he's running where he's treating employees like shit. 00:18:37.260 --> 00:18:41.720 Everybody took that as an example because he's rich and famous. That's it. 00:18:42.280 --> 00:18:45.680 And so a lot of people just jumped on that bandwagon of, hey, 00:18:45.780 --> 00:18:46.960 let's treat employees like shit. 00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:50.520 Yeah, and, you know, look, 00:18:51.360 --> 00:18:58.220 There was a lot of trying to rein back in control after work from home. 00:19:00.800 --> 00:19:05.000 But it's just a power play. It wasn't about profits. It wasn't about performance. 00:19:05.260 --> 00:19:08.740 It wasn't about any. This is the thing. This is all about power. 00:19:09.480 --> 00:19:14.000 Yeah. And getting things back to what people were used to, I think. 00:19:14.860 --> 00:19:16.480 Make America great again? 00:19:17.300 --> 00:19:23.960 I guess so. I mean, the one thing all that work from home proved to a lot of 00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:29.020 employees like me is how much better quality of life could be. 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:32.700 And you could still get most of the shit done. 00:19:33.180 --> 00:19:38.140 Now, if you do trade off, are there some things that are better in person? 00:19:38.340 --> 00:19:41.640 I'm sure there are some things that are better in person. I know there are some 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:42.800 things that are better in person. 00:19:43.600 --> 00:19:48.980 But you can carefully trade them off. You can learn how to work in that remote environment. 00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:54.480 You can do all kinds of things to make that work because there's balance in this benefit. 00:19:54.660 --> 00:20:00.760 However, for a lot of companies, the effect they noticed is, 00:20:00.840 --> 00:20:04.000 hey, wait, the balance of power is shifting towards the employees. 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:06.460 We can't have that. We need. 00:20:06.700 --> 00:20:12.680 It's like I used to say that some people, you know, are bosses and some people like to be bossy. 00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:17.680 And that's the thing. You can't be bossy if you don't have people there. 00:20:17.700 --> 00:20:22.860 And if you're a person that has trust issues, not being able to see the people, 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:25.320 you know, like having them there. 00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:28.260 I want that person right there, right there. 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:31.320 See them. I want to see them at that desk. 00:20:31.540 --> 00:20:31.900 Right. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:33.620 I want to see them sitting at that chair. 00:20:34.060 --> 00:20:40.260 Well, I will say I had at one point in our list of potential things to talk 00:20:40.260 --> 00:20:41.360 about that we never got to. 00:20:41.360 --> 00:20:44.940 This project I was working on like the last two to three months, 00:20:45.140 --> 00:20:51.580 for the first time in years, the other people I was dealing with on the project. 00:20:52.580 --> 00:20:56.920 Actually in the same city and, in fact, the same building as I was. 00:20:57.220 --> 00:21:01.680 I actually moved into the office of one person that I was working with. 00:21:02.100 --> 00:21:08.100 And for the first time since being mandated to go back to the office, 00:21:08.360 --> 00:21:14.700 there actually was some benefit for, oh, look, the guy is sitting right there, five feet away. 00:21:14.900 --> 00:21:19.940 The other people I'm working with are down the hall and I do bump into them in the hall. 00:21:20.060 --> 00:21:23.980 And And yes, there were circumstances where people were talking about something 00:21:23.980 --> 00:21:25.640 and I walked past in the hall and 00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:28.900 I'm like, oh, I should be part of this conversation. And I just stopped. 00:21:29.160 --> 00:21:32.780 So, you know, look, there are benefits in certain circumstances. 00:21:32.980 --> 00:21:37.640 And, you know, for the first few years of mandated return to office, 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:44.000 everybody I was working with was somewhere else, including the people I was reporting to. 00:21:44.280 --> 00:21:46.640 So it's not like I saw them anyway. 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:50.040 But these last couple of months, I was like, OK, fine. 00:21:50.460 --> 00:21:54.540 This has some value because the people I'm working with are actually right here, 00:21:54.820 --> 00:21:56.740 at least a significant amount of time. 00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:01.360 And, but there's still the issue of trade-offs, right? 00:22:01.620 --> 00:22:06.360 Like what, was there some value in those conversations? 00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:12.960 Yes. Was it worth me spending two hours a day in the car? I don't think so. 00:22:13.520 --> 00:22:19.060 Because frankly, that made me less productive during the time I was theoretically working. 00:22:19.060 --> 00:22:23.660 It honestly probably reduced the number of hours I would actually work, 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:29.760 you know, because outside of work, obligations stayed the same, you know. 00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:38.760 And so anyway, let me hit real quick, like, how I felt about all this and what I'm doing next. 00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:39.120 Yes. 00:22:39.360 --> 00:22:39.540 For folks. 00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:41.680 Yes. More important. Yes. 00:22:41.780 --> 00:22:48.660 Yeah. So first of all, as should be clear from the conversation so far, I was not surprised. 00:22:49.060 --> 00:22:54.940 Like I, I, if anything, I was surprised I lasted this long. 00:22:55.520 --> 00:23:01.160 given how I felt about things also just, you know, and, and I'm sure this reflection, 00:23:01.160 --> 00:23:04.880 I've been burnt out on this stuff for so long. 00:23:05.360 --> 00:23:10.320 You know, a few times, Sam had been like, so burnt out. He threatened to quit. And what I said. 00:23:10.840 --> 00:23:12.900 I never actually threatened you. 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:14.140 You said that you listen. 00:23:14.260 --> 00:23:15.640 You said I wanted to. 00:23:15.700 --> 00:23:17.860 You said you wanted to quit my statement. 00:23:18.100 --> 00:23:20.040 I've wanted to quit for a decade. 00:23:20.360 --> 00:23:20.520 Yeah. 00:23:20.900 --> 00:23:22.900 Was I ever actually going to do it? No. 00:23:23.080 --> 00:23:26.620 Listen, yeah. Well, you weren't tempted a couple of times. What I said is, 00:23:26.760 --> 00:23:32.200 listen, you asshole, you will not leave that fucking company unless they give you a package. 00:23:32.840 --> 00:23:36.620 Those were my words. I'm like, you're not going out. 00:23:36.620 --> 00:23:38.680 Or I had an offer from somewhere else. 00:23:38.820 --> 00:23:40.620 Or you had an offer from somewhere else. Yes. 00:23:41.300 --> 00:23:45.320 I was never going to leave without one of those things in reality. 00:23:45.560 --> 00:23:50.200 As much as I fantasized about doing it, one of those things was going to happen. 00:23:50.200 --> 00:23:55.520 So, but, you know, I, you know, I've been burnt out for a long time. 00:23:55.700 --> 00:23:57.640 I've been unhappy for a long time. 00:23:58.140 --> 00:24:03.960 So honestly, and like even my limited efforts to find something else, 00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:08.600 you know, it's hard to spend a lot of time and effort doing that when you're 00:24:08.600 --> 00:24:13.700 also trying to make the current thing work and you're spending time on that. 00:24:14.600 --> 00:24:20.480 So, you know, but immediately, like, look, it's a it's a mix of emotions. 00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:25.040 On the one hand, of course, there's some anxiety. There's a lot of unknown. 00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:30.260 But at the same time, it feels like a huge weight off my shoulders. 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:35.280 You know, I'm like, thank God that is over. 00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:39.840 Like, I I've been unhappy for a long time. 00:24:40.100 --> 00:24:44.820 I can decompress a little bit. And again, the last couple of months were a little bit better. 00:24:44.940 --> 00:24:48.120 But on average, I've been unhappy for a long time. 00:24:49.520 --> 00:24:56.120 And, you know, look, there was a decent severance. It gives me some runaway. 00:24:57.320 --> 00:25:00.360 I'll say more than decent. It was considering how the market is. It was pretty good. 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:06.740 They did do a good job. I mean, basically, I have my current salary for eight months. 00:25:07.020 --> 00:25:07.240 Yeah. 00:25:07.340 --> 00:25:07.680 Roughly. 00:25:07.820 --> 00:25:09.740 Yeah. They did do, you know. 00:25:09.820 --> 00:25:12.640 Considering how. Some of it in lump sum. some of it and 00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:15.680 you know i i continue i'm officially an employee till 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:18.980 the end of january and then i get a lump sum severance after 00:25:18.980 --> 00:25:25.100 that and essentially i've got i've got eight months of runway before i even 00:25:25.100 --> 00:25:30.280 have to start thinking about things that you know pull into savings or retirement 00:25:30.280 --> 00:25:35.500 or asking family for help or anything like that i did immediately get offers 00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:37.820 tell you already yes that. 00:25:37.820 --> 00:25:41.220 The house in Melbourne is not there. 00:25:41.220 --> 00:25:41.760 Anymore. 00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:42.820 Okay, all right. 00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:46.920 The house that my wife and I lived in for like a year? 00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:48.940 Yeah, a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. 00:25:49.300 --> 00:25:55.840 Something like that, that we rented from Yvonne's family when we were in Florida 00:25:55.840 --> 00:25:59.520 for a little while before we got our own place, which then we had to turn around immediately. 00:25:59.780 --> 00:26:02.640 Which is like, we were like, I mean, at first it was free. Then we were like, 00:26:02.700 --> 00:26:06.260 I don't know, a few hundred bucks. We were not charging you much. 00:26:07.600 --> 00:26:09.640 We actually didn't want to charge you anything. 00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:09.820 There was a nominal fee. 00:26:10.100 --> 00:26:13.960 Yeah, we didn't actually want to charge you anything. You guys kind of like insistent. 00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:22.440 We we paid you something but uh yeah yeah i i forget what it was but it it you're 00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:28.940 you're right you gave us a deal it was good thank you very much but don't have a house anymore if. 00:26:28.940 --> 00:26:30.120 It was there but. 00:26:30.120 --> 00:26:36.380 Yeah i and you know like immediately after i sent out stuff to family like a 00:26:36.380 --> 00:26:40.940 couple family members were immediately like hey we we've got some stuff saved 00:26:40.940 --> 00:26:43.480 we can help if you need it You know, just let us know. 00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:47.760 And I was like, I very much appreciate that. I hope it won't be necessary. 00:26:48.120 --> 00:26:53.660 We've got some runway. But believe me, if push comes to shove and it is necessary, 00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:56.660 you know, I'll take anything that anyone wants to offer. 00:26:57.500 --> 00:27:01.780 But but we're not there yet. We got we got some runway. We got some time. 00:27:02.320 --> 00:27:08.540 And, you know, immediately, like I'm I'm taking a little bit of time to decompress 00:27:08.540 --> 00:27:10.900 before even really thinking of much. 00:27:10.900 --> 00:27:16.760 I mean, Brandy had knee surgery this week, you know, so she had knee surgery 00:27:16.760 --> 00:27:21.140 on the same day the announcements came out, by the way. 00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:24.580 Listen, I just just just to be clear on timeline. 00:27:24.780 --> 00:27:27.160 I'll notice this note. Note this, too. 00:27:27.780 --> 00:27:32.480 They sent out text messages at 3 a.m. saying to check your email. 00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:36.180 Oh, that's lovely. At 3 a.m., you motherfuckers. 00:27:36.180 --> 00:27:42.080 At 3 a.m. They sent the text messages out at 3 a.m. saying, check your mail before you go to work. 00:27:42.750 --> 00:27:49.050 okay and so then and i i woke up in the middle of the night as old folks like 00:27:49.050 --> 00:27:54.050 us often do to use the facilities i saw the message at about 4 a.m you're. 00:27:54.050 --> 00:27:55.030 Like ah shit. 00:27:56.230 --> 00:27:57.990 Well not shit you're. 00:27:57.990 --> 00:27:59.590 Like ah well there it is. 00:27:59.590 --> 00:28:02.710 I was like oh there it is there's the expected message yeah 00:28:02.710 --> 00:28:06.630 you know yeah i went and checked all the messages i 00:28:06.630 --> 00:28:13.670 i i read the the documentation they sent us and all that kind of crap and i 00:28:13.670 --> 00:28:19.770 and then i waited because i i was like i was really tempted to immediately send 00:28:19.770 --> 00:28:22.650 something to the curmudgeon's corner slack and stuff but i'm like no brandy 00:28:22.650 --> 00:28:25.790 needs to know first before i go tell anybody yes that. 00:28:25.790 --> 00:28:26.530 That that's uh. 00:28:26.530 --> 00:28:32.270 That's uh that's yeah yeah yeah you know so i waited i waited for her to wake up, 00:28:32.910 --> 00:28:37.890 Then I talked to her. I did not go back to sleep after that. 00:28:37.890 --> 00:28:41.030 I can say. Understandable. Yeah. 00:28:41.450 --> 00:28:46.190 You know, I spent some time working on other stuff on my computer. I did some other stuff. 00:28:46.910 --> 00:28:52.650 You know, I wrote a letter to send to my family. But I waited for Brandy to wake up. 00:28:52.930 --> 00:28:59.170 Brandy was first. Second, I sent something to the curmudgeon's course. 00:29:00.910 --> 00:29:04.210 First Brandy. second other family members immediate 00:29:04.210 --> 00:29:09.090 family members my dad my mom my sister and then third was the curmudgeon's corner 00:29:09.090 --> 00:29:14.250 slack and you know and then as soon as all that was done it was time to get 00:29:14.250 --> 00:29:18.230 brandy ready to go to the hospital to get like a big chunk cut out of her knee 00:29:18.230 --> 00:29:21.630 you know um well that reminds a. 00:29:21.630 --> 00:29:23.890 Little side comment it reminds me. 00:29:23.890 --> 00:29:24.630 That when i got when. 00:29:24.630 --> 00:29:25.370 I got fired. 00:29:25.370 --> 00:29:27.490 From kodak the guy was trying to schedule. 00:29:27.490 --> 00:29:31.690 A call for a day that was having my colonoscopy and i'm like you You know, 00:29:31.790 --> 00:29:34.150 I actually, but he just asked for a conference call. 00:29:34.270 --> 00:29:37.230 This wasn't like an obvious thing, which is normal for him to ask for a conference 00:29:37.230 --> 00:29:41.410 call. So it wasn't like, hey, I need to have a call to you to discuss something. Can you do it today? 00:29:41.510 --> 00:29:44.370 And I'm like, well, no, not today, but can we do it tomorrow? 00:29:44.570 --> 00:29:47.310 Sure. And then the next day, that was the thing. 00:29:47.730 --> 00:29:51.250 So I don't know what the hell is the thing with the medical procedures and the thing. 00:29:51.650 --> 00:29:56.870 Anyway, we had the surgery. Then we, you know, so that took that day. 00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:02.620 The, the next, and then I've been doing stuff like Halloween prep stuff for 00:30:02.620 --> 00:30:04.620 my son and some stuff like that. 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:08.280 Cause he always does, you know, between my wife and my son, Halloween is a very 00:30:08.280 --> 00:30:09.560 elaborate thing at our house. 00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:17.180 And anyway, so like, I, I haven't, I, I'm going to take some time to, to decompress. 00:30:17.340 --> 00:30:22.900 I'm not like going into immediate, like I must be spending, you know, 00:30:23.120 --> 00:30:25.580 six hours a day job hunting yet. 00:30:25.800 --> 00:30:26.280 Yeah. 00:30:26.280 --> 00:30:29.840 I will get to that point. and I won't wait that long. 00:30:30.360 --> 00:30:32.920 Yeah, but you can take a couple of weeks to chill out. 00:30:33.140 --> 00:30:34.600 I can take some time. 00:30:34.900 --> 00:30:35.580 You need it. 00:30:36.320 --> 00:30:38.040 You know, I'm going to sleep in. 00:30:38.200 --> 00:30:38.420 Yeah. 00:30:38.620 --> 00:30:43.500 I'm going to like, you know, relax a bit. I'm going to do some stuff around the house. 00:30:43.800 --> 00:30:48.680 I mentioned in my note to the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack, I want to spend some 00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:52.360 time like on some of my personal projects that haven't been getting the amount 00:30:52.360 --> 00:30:54.000 of time I wish they could get. 00:30:54.180 --> 00:30:57.180 Like things that I've been maybe squeezing in an hour a week. 00:30:57.180 --> 00:30:59.600 Let's do a little bit more than that for a little bit. 00:31:00.120 --> 00:31:06.260 And then, yes, I'll start earnestly trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing next. 00:31:06.760 --> 00:31:12.220 And certainly there's a lot of just traditional job hunting for. 00:31:13.080 --> 00:31:15.220 First of all, all the networking stuff. 00:31:15.420 --> 00:31:19.000 Yes, if you've known me in the past, you'll be getting emails from me. 00:31:19.140 --> 00:31:23.180 I'll post something new on LinkedIn within the next few days. 00:31:23.180 --> 00:31:26.000 days i'll post something on facebook within the next few days 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:29.000 saying hey i was one of the people blah blah blah if 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:32.660 you know anything talk to me blah blah blah and and 00:31:32.660 --> 00:31:36.020 then i'll be doing individual reach outs to people who seem to make sense and 00:31:36.020 --> 00:31:39.180 all that kind of stuff yes i'll be doing all that kind of stuff yes i'll be 00:31:39.180 --> 00:31:43.600 looking at job listings and like just i'll be much more aggressive than i have 00:31:43.600 --> 00:31:47.080 before probably and just applying to all kinds of shit instead of just stuff 00:31:47.080 --> 00:31:49.140 that looks like, hey, this would really be a great fit. 00:31:49.740 --> 00:31:54.380 I would love this. But also, I want to take some time to, 00:31:55.050 --> 00:31:59.450 explore things that are further afield too not that i think they're necessarily 00:31:59.450 --> 00:32:03.450 the way i want to go but i would feel bad about myself if i didn't at least 00:32:03.450 --> 00:32:09.730 like look into things that weren't like immediately obvious like continue the same shit i've been. 00:32:09.730 --> 00:32:12.350 Doing what i mean you know look if you 00:32:12.350 --> 00:32:15.090 could get if you get paid similar to what you're getting 00:32:15.090 --> 00:32:18.270 paid right now what you were getting paid okay and and 00:32:18.270 --> 00:32:21.090 you got the job like when when sam worked at 00:32:21.090 --> 00:32:24.490 this place called wabco okay many years ago you 00:32:24.490 --> 00:32:27.410 know one of the one of the i will say that one of the cool things about 00:32:27.410 --> 00:32:30.370 him working there was he always wound up 00:32:30.370 --> 00:32:34.030 making all sorts of experiments with big rubber things 00:32:34.030 --> 00:32:37.970 so we have these like massive like about one 00:32:37.970 --> 00:32:40.950 of the things that he that he gave me and i i wonder where 00:32:40.950 --> 00:32:44.990 the hell it is because i know i had it before he made this huge rubber 00:32:44.990 --> 00:32:48.470 ball that was made out of a super bouncy material 00:32:48.470 --> 00:32:51.510 but it was like the size of an orange okay 00:32:51.510 --> 00:32:55.070 it was just huge and this thing had 00:32:55.070 --> 00:32:58.370 these ridiculous i mean the bounce ability 00:32:58.370 --> 00:33:01.350 of this thing was crazy also at the same time it was 00:33:01.350 --> 00:33:05.430 very it was big and heavy it was big and heavy i mean if you threw this thing 00:33:05.430 --> 00:33:09.770 inside a room you would destroy the room okay it would cause some damage for 00:33:09.770 --> 00:33:14.150 sure okay and i remember that i would go outside to show my nephews this damn 00:33:14.150 --> 00:33:21.170 ball and on pavement you threw that thing into the pavement and it would bounce into the sky like crazy. 00:33:21.290 --> 00:33:26.510 But at the same time, when it hit the pavement, I mean, the pavement shook from 00:33:26.510 --> 00:33:29.010 how hard that damn thing hit. 00:33:29.190 --> 00:33:36.690 So if you could find a job that would provide that kind of environment again. 00:33:37.010 --> 00:33:40.890 But, you know, with similar pay, I would really be all for that. 00:33:41.480 --> 00:33:48.200 Yeah. You know, like, look, honestly, like in my head, my ideal world would 00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:53.720 be to figure out something to make money that does not actually involve once 00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:56.260 again, working for a big corporate thing. 00:33:56.820 --> 00:34:01.080 But I know, I know all the pitfalls of that. 00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:05.240 Okay. I know all the reasons that often doesn't work. I don't actually just 00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:07.580 want to drive an Uber or something, you know? 00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:16.460 Okay i'm sorry but for giving your driving uh skills i would say that the last 00:34:16.460 --> 00:34:20.040 thing that you should should be on your list is driving an uber. 00:34:20.040 --> 00:34:25.140 Well i i could drive the ones where you're just delivering people's dinners or something. 00:34:25.140 --> 00:34:29.900 Without actually having passengers i i want to see how how many dinners get 00:34:29.900 --> 00:34:33.380 spilled crushed you know like wait are. 00:34:33.380 --> 00:34:34.440 You not supposed to do that. 00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:39.360 Yeah that yeah that that's part of it yeah not like that yeah dinners that get 00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:44.460 left on the on the roof of the car you drive off that you know that kind of 00:34:44.460 --> 00:34:46.440 stuff yeah yeah look you know. 00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:49.840 And i don't know and at the same time i. 00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:55.920 Know a paper route a paper route there you go no you know i. 00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:02.800 I also kind of feel like i know i don't have like the right mindset for a freelancer kind of thing. 00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:06.540 I just, I don't feel like I could make that work. I don't know. 00:35:06.700 --> 00:35:12.720 Maybe I'm wrong, but I want to at least think about, I want to brainstorm off 00:35:12.720 --> 00:35:18.540 the wall options and knowing 99% of them would never ever work, 00:35:18.540 --> 00:35:21.360 but just at least brainstorm a little bit about them. 00:35:21.500 --> 00:35:26.160 See if, you know, anything can happen, you know, like, I don't know. I could do a food truck. 00:35:27.270 --> 00:35:28.190 A food truck? 00:35:28.670 --> 00:35:31.350 A food truck. I told Brandy. 00:35:31.350 --> 00:35:35.470 I told Brandy. Wait, wait, wait. Here's the menu at the food truck is going 00:35:35.470 --> 00:35:38.250 to be popcorn. The crescent rolls. 00:35:38.250 --> 00:35:38.890 People like popcorn? 00:35:39.090 --> 00:35:40.610 Crescent rolls. Okay. 00:35:40.850 --> 00:35:41.050 Yes. 00:35:41.210 --> 00:35:44.170 There you go. What else do we have? Crescent rolls, popcorn. 00:35:44.530 --> 00:35:47.170 I'm forgetting some other staple. Coke. 00:35:47.930 --> 00:35:48.790 Yeah, there you go. 00:35:49.010 --> 00:35:49.850 Yeah, and Coke. 00:35:49.950 --> 00:35:50.350 No, I... 00:35:50.350 --> 00:35:54.510 That would be the menu. Hey, crescent rolls, popcorn, Coke. 00:35:55.390 --> 00:36:00.570 I told Brandy, like, okay, I can't do the cooking, but I could run the register. 00:36:00.770 --> 00:36:02.650 I could run the register in the food truck. 00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:05.210 Oh, there you go. Okay, well, okay. There you go. All right. 00:36:05.630 --> 00:36:06.930 That's something. That's... 00:36:06.930 --> 00:36:09.770 Somebody else will have to do the cooking part, but you know... 00:36:09.770 --> 00:36:12.550 You know, I ran it. Let me tell you something. I ran a register for years. 00:36:12.570 --> 00:36:16.770 I will say that for a while, it was fun, but after a while, it gets a little bit boring. 00:36:17.230 --> 00:36:22.950 Well, the key to make it like work better is to make sure you don't have that 00:36:22.950 --> 00:36:25.230 many customers because then you can just do other stuff. 00:36:25.510 --> 00:36:28.150 Well, that's true. That is the one thing that happened. Yes. 00:36:28.290 --> 00:36:30.910 But even that, I guess that back when I did it. 00:36:30.910 --> 00:36:33.310 Of course, I guess that doesn't work as well for the making money. 00:36:33.530 --> 00:36:37.890 No, it doesn't. Okay. No, it does not. I will say that when I was, 00:36:37.970 --> 00:36:41.230 you know, when I was little and I did that at the store on Sundays, 00:36:41.430 --> 00:36:43.690 usually the crowds were pretty thin at the store. 00:36:43.890 --> 00:36:51.710 Okay. That I would do a shift at the cash register on Sundays from 1 p.m. till 9 p.m. 00:36:51.990 --> 00:36:57.490 OK. All right. On a Sunday. Tells you the kind of kind of fun that we had owning 00:36:57.490 --> 00:37:00.690 our own business a whole bunch of times. I did that during the summer mostly. 00:37:01.550 --> 00:37:07.610 And, you know, the one thing that I will say is that I think given that we have 00:37:07.610 --> 00:37:11.170 more electronic devices now, it'd probably be more entertaining. 00:37:11.170 --> 00:37:14.170 Back then, basically, it just meant that I was just reading a lot. 00:37:15.490 --> 00:37:18.730 You know, just a lot of magazines. We had a big magazine rack. 00:37:18.850 --> 00:37:20.050 Reading's not a bad thing. 00:37:20.090 --> 00:37:23.570 I don't know. We had a big magazine rack and stuff. So, you know, 00:37:23.650 --> 00:37:26.750 and then the other thing that would happen is I'd eat the inventory, 00:37:26.790 --> 00:37:30.150 which that wasn't like that really good because we had a lot of, 00:37:30.290 --> 00:37:32.370 you know, I mean, here's the thing. 00:37:32.470 --> 00:37:36.390 Every couple of hours, I would make fresh popcorn because we had a popcorn popper. 00:37:36.390 --> 00:37:39.410 And, you know, we had, you know, you don't, after a few hours, 00:37:39.650 --> 00:37:42.430 it wasn't, I mean, I don't want to be serving like, 00:37:43.550 --> 00:37:46.970 four-hour-old popcorn. So we ditched that. 00:37:47.110 --> 00:37:50.430 Usually it would sell out. So, you know, you make another batch. 00:37:50.490 --> 00:37:53.990 The one thing is that making the batch of popcorn, the smell would actually, 00:37:54.070 --> 00:37:57.470 customers at the store, they would come, oh, that smells good. 00:37:57.570 --> 00:37:58.630 Let's go buy popcorn, right? 00:37:58.930 --> 00:38:02.210 But the thing is that that also was incentive that it was very difficult. 00:38:02.830 --> 00:38:06.470 Actually, let me take the word difficult. It was impossible to be making that 00:38:06.470 --> 00:38:11.030 popcorn and not be eating some of it as you're making it when it's coming out all nice and fresh. 00:38:12.150 --> 00:38:17.970 Right, of course. You know, anyway, like and, you know, like I want to like 00:38:17.970 --> 00:38:22.550 I've mentioned on this podcast two of my I've mentioned the Robin Letter thing 00:38:22.550 --> 00:38:24.950 I want to build. I want to actually build the damn thing. 00:38:25.190 --> 00:38:28.970 Well, but I told you I will tell you one thing here. Here is one thing. 00:38:29.110 --> 00:38:34.530 And I'm not I'm actually this isn't actually this is not a joke one. 00:38:34.810 --> 00:38:38.710 OK, which I think that you could be working on. You know, we've talked about 00:38:38.710 --> 00:38:41.070 doing an anti project 2025 platform. 00:38:41.390 --> 00:38:45.090 Look, look, can I just say this? Your wife is a politician, okay? 00:38:45.610 --> 00:38:48.610 I'm sorry. You should work on that. 00:38:49.330 --> 00:38:51.150 You know what? You've got the time. 00:38:52.050 --> 00:38:55.910 People haven't done that. And I think that if you... 00:38:55.910 --> 00:38:58.370 I think there are a couple people working on something like that. 00:38:58.450 --> 00:38:59.070 Who? Who? Who? 00:38:59.150 --> 00:39:01.970 I don't know. I've seen some mentions, but none that I was... 00:39:01.970 --> 00:39:05.590 Well, whatever. Okay. But you know what? Listen, you've got time on your hands. 00:39:05.590 --> 00:39:07.630 You've got tools. You can write. 00:39:08.130 --> 00:39:12.170 And you've got a wife who's a politician. Can I just say that I think that this 00:39:12.170 --> 00:39:16.530 should be a platform that a politician goes and takes up as that this is our... 00:39:16.530 --> 00:39:22.610 or should be our future plank to what the hell we got to do in order to knock 00:39:22.610 --> 00:39:27.050 down this bullshit in the future and that it should have a crafted plan. 00:39:27.210 --> 00:39:31.930 And I will also mention here, as I was telling- Project 2029. Yeah. 00:39:32.170 --> 00:39:36.730 And I will tell, and I will also say this, that Sam is eminently qualified for 00:39:36.730 --> 00:39:38.990 this. And this is not being joked. This is very serious. 00:39:39.310 --> 00:39:43.310 Usually I know I'm making jokes about this, but no, very seriously talking about, 00:39:43.470 --> 00:39:47.330 because Sam, as I discovered when I was in college and explained to my wife, 00:39:47.330 --> 00:39:49.350 is actually very good at fucking writing. 00:39:51.470 --> 00:39:52.110 You know, 00:39:54.530 --> 00:39:55.990 you've said that a number of times. 00:39:55.990 --> 00:40:00.510 Other people have disagreed. I'm sorry. Bullshit. Those people are morons. 00:40:00.650 --> 00:40:02.270 They have no idea what the hell they're talking about. 00:40:02.650 --> 00:40:07.670 Sam is actually very good at writing, okay? So I know that he can structure, 00:40:08.270 --> 00:40:13.310 and by the way, not for nothing, the 20 years at that fucking company, okay? 00:40:13.830 --> 00:40:18.530 One thing that is a skill that most people learn at that fucking company is 00:40:18.530 --> 00:40:25.690 to actually fucking write stupid fucking lengthy documents detailing shit ad nauseum. 00:40:26.030 --> 00:40:31.430 I have done some of those, although I hated the company process for that so 00:40:31.430 --> 00:40:33.290 much, I avoided it as much as possible. 00:40:33.370 --> 00:40:36.190 But still, you know what? 00:40:36.290 --> 00:40:41.510 You cannot avoid learning to do so anyway, because it is part of the corporate culture. 00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:47.920 You know, it's one thing that that has positives, but it has its negatives. That stupid process. 00:40:48.640 --> 00:40:52.960 So, yeah, for for anybody who doesn't remember my my Robin Letter idea, 00:40:53.140 --> 00:40:54.740 you can you can go to Robin Letter dot com. 00:40:54.840 --> 00:40:58.880 I fleshed out like all the the about page, the FAQ, all that kind of stuff. 00:40:59.240 --> 00:41:02.580 There's nothing other than that done yet, but I. I. 00:41:03.170 --> 00:41:06.810 filled out that stuff. Now I got time. 00:41:07.090 --> 00:41:13.610 It's the idea is basically a, an alternative to the kind of social media we have right now. 00:41:13.730 --> 00:41:19.090 That's all algorithmically generated. That's instead a way to keep in touch 00:41:19.090 --> 00:41:24.490 with well-defined circles of people that you actually want to share personal information with, 00:41:24.630 --> 00:41:27.950 but not people you're so close with that 00:41:27.950 --> 00:41:31.230 you're communicating with them every day anyway so like 00:41:31.230 --> 00:41:34.810 you know you want to you want to keep in touch with all your cousins or like 00:41:34.810 --> 00:41:38.990 the circle of friends you had in college or something like that where it is 00:41:38.990 --> 00:41:43.590 a well-defined group of people and it sort of is a mechanism to do that that 00:41:43.590 --> 00:41:50.450 is built around also you you take you have your turn you take turns communicating 00:41:50.450 --> 00:41:54.510 so nobody can like you don't have the one loud guy who 00:41:54.590 --> 00:41:57.830 always wants to post 16 times a day dominating everything. 00:41:58.370 --> 00:42:00.390 Instead, you get to talk when it's your turn. 00:42:01.110 --> 00:42:02.770 Well, I mean, maybe you could restart. 00:42:02.790 --> 00:42:03.490 That's a basic idea. 00:42:03.550 --> 00:42:06.030 Okay, but you know what I would combine with that Robin letter? 00:42:06.330 --> 00:42:11.510 Okay, I went to the page. I just sent my feedback expressing my interest. 00:42:12.550 --> 00:42:16.210 You know what you could combine, though, which this is something Sam used to 00:42:16.210 --> 00:42:18.510 do back 20-plus years ago. 00:42:18.950 --> 00:42:26.030 He did this email stack ranking. Okay, all right? of who were the guys that most interacted. 00:42:26.030 --> 00:42:26.630 I emailed the most. 00:42:26.890 --> 00:42:30.590 Or no, who sent me the most emails. Who sent you the most emails. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:42:30.830 --> 00:42:35.950 Oh, I should catch up. I should count the last 20 years since the last time I did that. 00:42:36.110 --> 00:42:40.290 But if you added that to that, you see, the thing is that it would be good to 00:42:40.290 --> 00:42:44.730 be in a stack ranking to see who the guys that are interacting the most to Robin Letter are. 00:42:44.950 --> 00:42:48.070 You see? I think that there should be some kind of stack ranking. 00:42:48.530 --> 00:42:50.190 Well, there should be some gamification. 00:42:50.350 --> 00:42:50.590 Yes. 00:42:50.590 --> 00:42:51.070 For sure. 00:42:51.250 --> 00:42:51.490 Yes. 00:42:51.490 --> 00:42:54.950 This is probably a V1 or V2 feature, but yes. 00:42:55.490 --> 00:42:59.450 I want to get just the basics working, but, but yeah, anyway, that's the idea. 00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:02.090 Go to robinletter.com, express your interest if you're interested in, 00:43:02.210 --> 00:43:07.790 and like, you know, of all the ideas I've had, this is the one that seems like 00:43:07.790 --> 00:43:13.350 the most likely that could actually generate some income if I fully executed it. 00:43:13.570 --> 00:43:15.950 Now, do I think it could replace my actual income? 00:43:16.350 --> 00:43:21.290 Probably not, but maybe a little trickle of something that's more than the 30 00:43:21.290 --> 00:43:26.230 bucks a month we get from this podcast. I've had other people say, well, now you have time. 00:43:26.610 --> 00:43:30.390 Maybe you can put the time in and really take the podcast to the next level. 00:43:30.490 --> 00:43:34.090 I'm like, we've been doing this for 18 years, guys. You know. 00:43:34.690 --> 00:43:40.830 Well, look, but to be fair, go back on the podcast thing. Reality is that when 00:43:40.830 --> 00:43:42.230 we did do some marketing. 00:43:42.770 --> 00:43:44.810 Yes. And we did some activity. 00:43:45.190 --> 00:43:46.370 We did get a boost. 00:43:46.650 --> 00:43:51.770 But the marketing was expensive, though. So we spent a decent penny to get a 00:43:51.770 --> 00:43:53.410 couple hundred additional listeners. 00:43:53.710 --> 00:43:59.270 Actually, we got over a thousand. We gathered over 1,000 Facebook followers from that. 00:43:59.770 --> 00:44:04.690 We still have several thousand Facebook followers. Facebook followers were cheap 00:44:04.690 --> 00:44:06.050 but gave us no listeners. 00:44:06.490 --> 00:44:11.090 No, no, no, no, no. We did get some listeners from there. Now, 00:44:11.250 --> 00:44:13.170 probably the conversion was very low. 00:44:13.390 --> 00:44:17.610 Yeah, the conversion was low. The most effective thing we did on that was when 00:44:17.610 --> 00:44:25.050 we advertised on the Overcast podcast player that gave us an ad directly on 00:44:25.050 --> 00:44:28.850 the screen where people were searching for politics podcasts. 00:44:28.850 --> 00:44:29.010 Right. 00:44:29.750 --> 00:44:34.050 That was the most effective. That got us a bunch of new listeners, 00:44:34.290 --> 00:44:36.750 some of which I believe are still with us today. 00:44:37.190 --> 00:44:40.170 And I believe Ed found us that way. 00:44:40.350 --> 00:44:40.670 So we didn't kill them. 00:44:40.830 --> 00:44:42.990 Ed, who's on our curmudgeon score Slack all the time. 00:44:43.210 --> 00:44:46.430 So we didn't kill them. They're still with us today. 00:44:47.090 --> 00:44:48.170 Yes. All right. 00:44:48.230 --> 00:44:49.450 Well, that's good. Okay, well. 00:44:49.630 --> 00:44:53.450 Indeed. No, no, no, wait. It wasn't Ed. It was Bob. Bob found us that way. 00:44:53.550 --> 00:44:53.970 Bob, Bob, Bob. 00:44:54.690 --> 00:44:58.010 Ed found us a different way. But it was Bob. Bob found us that way, 00:44:58.070 --> 00:45:00.030 I believe. I could be wrong. Correct us, Bob. 00:45:00.330 --> 00:45:03.130 Well, yeah. Somebody, anybody correct us. I mean, we're, you know, 00:45:03.230 --> 00:45:04.190 we're, we're, we're terrible. 00:45:04.430 --> 00:45:07.670 We, but, but yeah, like, you know, but we, we, we spent like, 00:45:08.030 --> 00:45:12.510 you know, hundreds of dollars to get a few hundred more weekly listeners who 00:45:12.510 --> 00:45:14.670 faded out over time for the most part. 00:45:14.990 --> 00:45:18.230 Anyway, there's things we, there's things we could do. I'm doing some cross 00:45:18.230 --> 00:45:19.990 promotion with the, um, sir, folks. 00:45:20.190 --> 00:45:23.610 I'm going to be the, you know, Emily was on this podcast a couple of days ago. 00:45:23.730 --> 00:45:25.750 I'm going to be on their podcast. I'm recording. 00:45:26.030 --> 00:45:30.350 I was going to, I was going to mention that. You know, I've seen like some podcasts 00:45:30.350 --> 00:45:32.370 do a cross podcast. Okay. 00:45:32.530 --> 00:45:37.330 It's kind of like we did. We need to do a, a, a, a, a thing. 00:45:38.610 --> 00:45:39.070 Yes. 00:45:39.310 --> 00:45:39.430 Yeah. 00:45:39.670 --> 00:45:40.910 We need to do some things. 00:45:41.050 --> 00:45:41.170 Yeah. 00:45:41.870 --> 00:45:46.550 Anyway. Yes. And, you know, and my dad is chiming in with like, 00:45:46.650 --> 00:45:51.430 I have some ideas on how you can better monetize election graphs next time around. You know? 00:45:51.690 --> 00:45:52.050 There you go. 00:45:52.210 --> 00:45:58.270 Okay. I think his idea I'm guessing here His idea is probably going to be Post 00:45:58.270 --> 00:45:59.510 your updates on Substack, 00:45:59.980 --> 00:46:02.720 That's my guess as to what he's going to say. 00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:05.620 No, that's something that you have time for as well. 00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:08.940 But we shall see. Yeah. And that's actually one of the, you know, 00:46:09.020 --> 00:46:10.240 okay. I mentioned Robin letter. 00:46:10.440 --> 00:46:14.040 I've got a, a juke Potter, which I mentioned on here. 00:46:14.180 --> 00:46:19.820 I've got a vert, which is to discovery of podcasts to like find long tail podcasts. 00:46:20.160 --> 00:46:23.640 I haven't, I don't have a good idea of how to monetize that one though. 00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:28.040 That one's more fun, but I want to make a version of that. 00:46:28.040 --> 00:46:31.180 Listen, could you just, at the beginning, just tell people, hello, 00:46:31.400 --> 00:46:35.220 welcome to... And first thing, could you just send us money, please? 00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:36.860 Oh, there you go. 00:46:37.140 --> 00:46:39.680 Is that a bad monetization? 00:46:39.900 --> 00:46:45.700 I want to also make a book version of Juke Potter, and there I could get affiliate fees pretty easily. 00:46:45.860 --> 00:46:46.280 There you go. 00:46:46.440 --> 00:46:49.280 If anybody ever bought things from there. Ads. 00:46:49.760 --> 00:46:50.200 Ads. 00:46:50.860 --> 00:46:52.000 Yes, of course, ads. 00:46:52.040 --> 00:46:54.940 Well, everybody gets ads. And I know that a lot of these people, 00:46:55.040 --> 00:47:00.640 they get ads based on, you know, they got some kind of thing. 00:47:00.900 --> 00:47:05.400 And you know, another thing I want to like, and I'm doing the off the wall things 00:47:05.400 --> 00:47:09.540 that would be fun to do, but probably wouldn't actually successfully make me a living. 00:47:09.940 --> 00:47:15.240 But like, I want to bring back my random vacations and do something with that. 00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:18.180 Well, listen, listen, listen, there's a couple. 00:47:18.180 --> 00:47:21.760 I think in the modern day for that, in the modern day for that, 00:47:21.900 --> 00:47:26.080 instead of posting them like text and pictures, I was thinking do video. 00:47:26.220 --> 00:47:29.640 Sam, you literally got on NPR. Okay. 00:47:29.880 --> 00:47:33.440 I did get on. Thanks to John, who's a listener today. He's the one who sent, 00:47:33.840 --> 00:47:36.800 sent information about me to NPR for that. 00:47:36.880 --> 00:47:40.820 You literally, you know, we talk about it was the Savvy Traveler. 00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:43.000 You literally got on NPR based on that. 00:47:43.460 --> 00:47:46.940 Okay. So it's not like, look, we talk about a few times that, 00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:48.480 well, we haven't done anything, whatever. 00:47:48.660 --> 00:47:54.140 Listen, the podcast got linked and we got a lot of listeners what it was like 00:47:54.140 --> 00:47:56.780 linked on Huffington Post and so did election graphs as well. 00:47:57.060 --> 00:48:00.760 Okay. A few times. So that happened. You got on NPR. Okay. 00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:04.160 As well. We got that. We've had some boosts. if you look at, 00:48:04.160 --> 00:48:08.960 you know, the chart over the years, you know, we picked up some new listeners 00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:11.560 who've done some stuff, but the reality is it hasn't been consistent. 00:48:11.780 --> 00:48:15.580 Now, also, I know that it's not like we've had a consultant come on over here 00:48:15.580 --> 00:48:17.920 and say, hey, how do we make this podcast more interesting? 00:48:18.140 --> 00:48:21.960 Well, maybe you guys shouldn't be ranting for hours on end about nonsense, 00:48:22.560 --> 00:48:24.420 you know, and the podcast shouldn't last forever. 00:48:24.420 --> 00:48:28.140 Maybe we shouldn't spend the first hour talking about Sam getting laid off. 00:48:28.420 --> 00:48:33.160 Well, I actually think, I got to be honest, I do think that this part of the 00:48:33.160 --> 00:48:36.960 show is one that actually, and I've heard a couple of people say, 00:48:37.140 --> 00:48:40.740 is more interesting than a lot of the other stuff. 00:48:40.740 --> 00:48:40.960 Than the policy stuff. 00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:41.160 Yes. 00:48:41.640 --> 00:48:47.180 Yeah. I mean, we've gone back and forth over the years, and sometimes we've 00:48:47.180 --> 00:48:50.540 said, hey, let's just get right to it and jump into the news. 00:48:50.720 --> 00:48:56.360 And we've heard people be like, oh, we missed that part where you guys just talk. So, yeah. 00:48:56.480 --> 00:49:00.180 Yeah. No. This is actually a staple of our show, and it should remain that way. 00:49:00.180 --> 00:49:04.900 Like, otherwise, you know, we're not if I'm not rambling aimlessly about, 00:49:05.080 --> 00:49:07.520 I don't know, who knows what the hell. 00:49:07.720 --> 00:49:11.460 So, yeah, to be absolutely clear, I would love it if one of these random side 00:49:11.460 --> 00:49:13.820 projects I just mentioned could actually make money. 00:49:14.060 --> 00:49:16.980 I'm just not like holding my breath about that. 00:49:16.980 --> 00:49:23.800 You know, but but but but I do think that part of it is that you just haven't focused on it. 00:49:24.680 --> 00:49:25.760 Yeah, I mean, look. 00:49:25.860 --> 00:49:30.720 We both have jobs, day jobs. I know that my day job really, God, 00:49:30.900 --> 00:49:34.680 I'm just like, you know, like I had a friend of mine today that texted me today 00:49:34.680 --> 00:49:36.640 at eight in the morning and I'm like. 00:49:36.680 --> 00:49:39.660 I'll tell you one example of these things. 00:49:39.800 --> 00:49:45.340 Like a friend of mine who does the, who does a lot of sort of startups and small 00:49:45.340 --> 00:49:49.040 businesses, not maybe I should talk to them too, but like I, 00:49:49.320 --> 00:49:52.160 that's an alien world for me. 00:49:52.340 --> 00:49:56.240 But in this circumstances, who the hell knows? But, like, they told me at one 00:49:56.240 --> 00:50:00.420 point, okay, this Robin Letter thing, you get a working prototype up and running. 00:50:00.640 --> 00:50:04.840 I know all the right people that you could just sell that idea to for, 00:50:04.960 --> 00:50:06.480 like, you know, a lump sum. 00:50:06.580 --> 00:50:10.360 It's not going to take you that long. Listen, I know you, and you've got this 00:50:10.360 --> 00:50:14.820 employee there that you could, like, make them work on it, okay, on the code. 00:50:14.920 --> 00:50:17.980 You could get this up and running pretty quickly as a prototype. 00:50:17.980 --> 00:50:22.780 I think I think the biggest like this kind of idea, like the biggest thing stopping 00:50:22.780 --> 00:50:26.560 me is the fact that is time. Now I got some time. 00:50:26.660 --> 00:50:30.860 Now you got some time. So I think, look, we're going to talk about specific 00:50:30.860 --> 00:50:33.020 things at first that I would say focus on. 00:50:33.420 --> 00:50:36.380 Robin letter sounds like a good thing. OK, all right. I write, 00:50:36.380 --> 00:50:41.100 write, write, do podcast, you know, a promotion, expansion is some kind of plan. 00:50:41.280 --> 00:50:43.700 Sounds also like a good thing. And then after that, you know, 00:50:43.760 --> 00:50:46.600 you start looking at some work and some stuff or whatever. But I do think that 00:50:46.600 --> 00:50:49.360 those two things, like, just right off the bat, and, and, and, 00:50:49.480 --> 00:50:51.420 as I mentioned, the Project 2029. 00:50:52.300 --> 00:50:57.500 Those three things is a good three thing, you know, so that this way you're 00:50:57.500 --> 00:50:59.140 not shooting at every damn thing. 00:50:59.920 --> 00:51:04.160 Those are three things that you could focus on some time right now to work on 00:51:04.160 --> 00:51:05.540 that you haven't had time before. 00:51:05.940 --> 00:51:09.820 And then after a few weeks, you start hitting the job thing and, 00:51:09.820 --> 00:51:11.220 you know, get set up on that. 00:51:11.340 --> 00:51:14.360 But work on that, which is stuff that you've been wanting to do. 00:51:14.910 --> 00:51:17.350 Spent some more time on it and you just haven't had the time to do. 00:51:17.830 --> 00:51:23.110 Well, and like a few weeks ago, I talked about the huge piles of laundry waiting 00:51:23.110 --> 00:51:25.190 to be dealt with. I could do laundry. 00:51:25.830 --> 00:51:28.710 Well, yes. Oh, I could do laundry. 00:51:28.950 --> 00:51:30.050 I could clean the house. 00:51:30.710 --> 00:51:35.090 You know, Sam was talking about worst case scenarios at some point. 00:51:35.230 --> 00:51:39.430 And he was talking about, well, what if we have to sell the house and move to a cheaper place? 00:51:39.530 --> 00:51:43.210 Which that's something that eventually at some point is a possibility also as 00:51:43.210 --> 00:51:46.630 well. I mean, because, you know, but what I, you know, it's, 00:51:46.710 --> 00:51:47.870 that's not a crazy thing. 00:51:47.910 --> 00:51:51.190 I mean, a lot of people, a lot of people at our age actually do that. 00:51:51.410 --> 00:51:54.750 Okay. They go and like they, they lived in a house that was more expensive and 00:51:54.750 --> 00:51:59.350 an area closer to work, but then they moved to, to a cheaper place. So that's not crazy. 00:51:59.390 --> 00:52:04.050 What I said about that was that this was, listen, I will not miss the opportunity. 00:52:04.350 --> 00:52:11.110 If Sam says that to take the opportunity to, to, to use my addictive OCD to 00:52:11.110 --> 00:52:13.010 go and like clean up that place. 00:52:13.010 --> 00:52:19.030 I will, because they can't say no, and I will just take the absolute pleasure 00:52:19.030 --> 00:52:22.990 at just, oh, my God, I'm going to have a couple of trucks lined up. 00:52:23.030 --> 00:52:25.730 I'm going to be dumping shit into trash. 00:52:26.150 --> 00:52:32.090 It's going to be awesome. I'm going to feel great doing this. 00:52:32.170 --> 00:52:34.630 This is right up my alley. 00:52:35.090 --> 00:52:38.990 Well, Brandi and I have already talked about logistics. I've said on here before, 00:52:39.210 --> 00:52:44.950 like our garage is completely full of storage stuff enough so that we've got 00:52:44.950 --> 00:52:48.390 a separate storage pod next to the house. And we, 00:52:49.170 --> 00:52:54.590 I've said before on here, we could, we are, you know, yes, we are hoarders. 00:52:54.710 --> 00:52:54.910 Yes. 00:52:55.050 --> 00:53:00.730 And fully admit we are hoarders. But at the same time, I know that I am mentally 00:53:00.730 --> 00:53:04.810 ready to probably get rid of 70% of the stuff in that garage. 00:53:04.970 --> 00:53:05.210 Whoa. 00:53:05.730 --> 00:53:09.690 The problem is that it's all intermingled. 00:53:09.910 --> 00:53:15.570 It's not sorted in any way. Like there will be one bin that is just labeled 00:53:15.570 --> 00:53:20.610 miscellaneous crap from 1994. you know or whatever laughter. 00:53:22.410 --> 00:53:28.210 And so, you know, and the thing is, in that bin, there will be things I want 00:53:28.210 --> 00:53:30.290 to keep along with things I want to trash. 00:53:30.470 --> 00:53:32.990 So we need time to actually go through the bin. 00:53:33.310 --> 00:53:38.410 There is now time to do that. So Randy and I have already talked about in the 00:53:38.410 --> 00:53:43.230 month of November that's coming up right now, spending more time than we have 00:53:43.230 --> 00:53:47.450 in years just pulling shit out of the garage and others. 00:53:47.610 --> 00:53:51.030 We've got several rooms inside the house that are completely full of storage, too, at this point. 00:53:52.410 --> 00:53:58.150 You know, you have to sort of make your way through the halls to avoid stuff. 00:53:58.290 --> 00:54:00.630 Yes, we are hoarders. Okay. I admit it. 00:54:00.830 --> 00:54:05.390 We're hoarders, especially me, but also like the whole family, 00:54:05.610 --> 00:54:08.930 the whole family is neurodivergent in one way or another. 00:54:09.290 --> 00:54:15.890 There's ADHD, there's autism, there's OCD, everything is happening here and the house reflects it. 00:54:16.050 --> 00:54:21.090 So, but we have time now we can go through a whole bunch of this shit and make room. 00:54:21.570 --> 00:54:26.130 And so we're going to spend some time in November, at least that's the goal right now. 00:54:26.510 --> 00:54:31.130 But you know, anyway, I, you know, we got, I got lots of stuff to do. 00:54:32.030 --> 00:54:36.730 The way I put it, and I had like an exit conversation with my skip level, 00:54:36.850 --> 00:54:38.350 the guy I've known for 20 years. 00:54:38.970 --> 00:54:42.670 And, you know, you know, when talking about how I'm feeling and stuff, 00:54:42.750 --> 00:54:46.890 I'm like, look, right now I'm feeling good. It's a little bit of a relief. 00:54:47.050 --> 00:54:49.170 I'm feeling optimistic about things. 00:54:49.510 --> 00:54:55.410 Talk to me in six months if I haven't found any money-making possibilities, 00:54:55.410 --> 00:54:57.830 and it may be a whole different story. 00:54:58.010 --> 00:55:00.930 But right now, I'm feeling good. So... 00:55:01.980 --> 00:55:04.000 With that, shall we take a break? 00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:06.000 Let's take a break, yes. 00:55:06.620 --> 00:55:10.800 I think there's no need for a movie or TV. The next thing is actually a TV show. 00:55:11.200 --> 00:55:14.860 So next week, the original Twilight Zone. 00:55:15.300 --> 00:55:15.740 Oh! 00:55:16.340 --> 00:55:19.540 Alex and I finished watching every episode from beginning to end. 00:55:19.540 --> 00:55:23.640 Every episode of the original Twilight Zone? Damn. I mean, I've watched a lot 00:55:23.640 --> 00:55:25.340 of episodes of the original Twilight Zone. 00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:30.700 I can't say that I have watched all of them, But I definitely, 00:55:31.040 --> 00:55:34.440 definitely have watched a lot of episodes of the original Twilight Zone. Absolutely. 00:55:34.640 --> 00:55:41.360 So anyway, that's next week. We'll save it till next week. Let's take a break and we will come back. 00:55:41.620 --> 00:55:46.160 And since basically the whole first segment was just me talking about being 00:55:46.160 --> 00:55:48.180 laid off and possibilities and all that. 00:55:48.260 --> 00:55:53.960 Here's a reality. I was telling to somebody today. It's not like I know it's it's a but first. 00:55:54.580 --> 00:55:58.880 Yes. But it is a relevant thing that is going on right now in this fantastic 00:55:58.880 --> 00:56:01.480 Trump economy. I mean, I mean. 00:56:01.600 --> 00:56:05.920 I mean, I mean, the same the same day that, you know, there were layoffs at my company. 00:56:06.060 --> 00:56:09.620 Meadow was also laying people off. There have been recent layoffs at UPS. 00:56:10.020 --> 00:56:11.640 There have been recent layoffs, a whole bunch of. 00:56:11.780 --> 00:56:14.760 But we've got other we've got friends, people that we know. I mean, 00:56:14.820 --> 00:56:17.980 I've got. Listen, with CDC, of course. 00:56:18.520 --> 00:56:18.520 Yeah. 00:56:18.620 --> 00:56:18.980 CDC. 00:56:19.280 --> 00:56:22.160 We talked about the federal stuff. 00:56:22.340 --> 00:56:26.420 Yeah. I mean, we have a, you know, our. One of our friends from, 00:56:26.640 --> 00:56:30.440 Jesus Christ, from Pittsburgh, her husband, they got laid off at CDC. 00:56:30.760 --> 00:56:33.500 And, well, actually, by the way, that layoff, I didn't realize, 00:56:33.600 --> 00:56:36.880 you didn't actually say this, there's an injunction against that layoff. 00:56:37.740 --> 00:56:40.560 The court did issue an injunction against them for that. 00:56:40.720 --> 00:56:46.040 So, right now, there's been a court order that stopped that layoff from happening. 00:56:46.550 --> 00:56:51.110 So, but still, the government's closed, so it's not getting paid anyway. 00:56:51.330 --> 00:56:54.930 But, yeah, but there was an injunction against that. 00:56:55.010 --> 00:56:58.290 So he got laid off. I got a friend of mine in Texas that also got laid off, 00:56:58.410 --> 00:57:01.950 worked for a German company. He got laid off. 00:57:02.130 --> 00:57:06.010 I mentioned there was a friend of mine down here that he worked for, 00:57:06.010 --> 00:57:07.970 you know, your damn company. 00:57:08.130 --> 00:57:11.410 And he basically, I mean, he was kind of forced out because they told, 00:57:11.510 --> 00:57:15.330 hey, either relocate to Brazil or you need to, you can't keep your job. 00:57:15.330 --> 00:57:17.330 I'm like, he's like, fuck you. 00:57:18.270 --> 00:57:21.950 I do want to mention one more thing about this round of laughs because it doesn't 00:57:21.950 --> 00:57:25.310 apply. I've been there almost 20 years. I got a decent severance. 00:57:25.490 --> 00:57:27.730 I'm all well settled where I am. 00:57:28.010 --> 00:57:31.550 I have seen quite a few reports of the opposite situation. 00:57:31.770 --> 00:57:32.110 Oh, God. Yeah. 00:57:32.250 --> 00:57:38.350 Someone where someone was just relocated by the company across the country. 00:57:38.550 --> 00:57:39.950 That was your company. 00:57:40.470 --> 00:57:45.610 They've been in the job six months or something and then are laid off. 00:57:46.070 --> 00:57:51.030 They're now in the new place. They've moved. They've ripped apart their whole life. 00:57:51.350 --> 00:57:55.490 They haven't even been at the company long enough to have a performance review 00:57:55.490 --> 00:57:57.470 cycle. And, okay, you're out. 00:57:57.910 --> 00:58:02.170 And the severance is nothing because they're basic. I mean, there is a minimum 00:58:02.170 --> 00:58:03.730 severance that they did. It's like four weeks or something. 00:58:03.730 --> 00:58:05.150 Well, they got the 90 days, right? 00:58:05.490 --> 00:58:08.730 They got the 90 days plus four weeks or something, I think, is the minimum. 00:58:08.730 --> 00:58:13.750 But, but still like, you know, I I'm in a position where I can be like, 00:58:13.890 --> 00:58:15.610 oh, we got eight months of runway. 00:58:15.970 --> 00:58:18.770 There are a lot of people who've been there last time who are like. 00:58:19.390 --> 00:58:20.350 I'm fucked. 00:58:20.570 --> 00:58:20.950 Yeah. 00:58:21.070 --> 00:58:27.270 They just completely fucked me. I just started. I moved because of them. And now I'm screwed. 00:58:27.410 --> 00:58:32.690 I, I, those I find that's just, I mean, those are so egregious. 00:58:33.030 --> 00:58:36.910 And by the way, when, when the CEO actually admits, Oh, we didn't do it because 00:58:36.910 --> 00:58:40.330 we, we were short on money. It's a culture thing. 00:58:40.730 --> 00:58:43.250 I, I honestly, I wanted to punch him in the face. 00:58:43.550 --> 00:58:46.510 And of course, a lot of people are saying this is all AI related to. 00:58:46.670 --> 00:58:49.550 It's all. Actually, he also said that it wasn't AI related. 00:58:49.670 --> 00:58:51.430 I know he did. I know he did in our case. 00:58:51.850 --> 00:58:55.010 He flat out said so. So he said it wasn't. 00:58:55.390 --> 00:59:00.110 But here's the thing. It wasn't about money. It wasn't about AI. It was just. 00:59:01.190 --> 00:59:06.030 Just. I actually. Honestly, I wanted the stock to go up, which actually to a 00:59:06.030 --> 00:59:10.990 certain extent in one way actually benefit you as well. 00:59:11.630 --> 00:59:15.670 And let me say this flat out. You know, I have left my company. 00:59:15.670 --> 00:59:22.870 but i still have a bunch of their stock in my 401k i still have one last final 00:59:22.870 --> 00:59:29.030 stock grant coming to me in the next few weeks i am all about their stock continuing to go up. 00:59:29.030 --> 00:59:30.770 I'm like yeah just. 00:59:30.770 --> 00:59:38.610 Just go fine fine just just you know i i'm not i'm not like oh man i'm resentful crash no. 00:59:38.610 --> 00:59:43.990 No no no don't crash the stock fuck oh no no not not right now no. 00:59:43.990 --> 00:59:46.910 Exactly okay let's let's 00:59:46.910 --> 00:59:50.730 take a break and when we come back yvonne will pick the newsy topics for us 00:59:50.730 --> 00:59:57.050 i'm me i'm done so three four five six i i always count to figure out the breaks 00:59:57.050 --> 01:00:01.710 i should like have this done in my head but you know like you said you know 01:00:01.710 --> 01:00:06.730 we could professionalize the show so like i could i i would edit out where I'm like, 01:00:06.870 --> 01:00:09.950 which break will I fuck that? No, like we'll change in other ways. 01:00:10.110 --> 01:00:12.430 But like, it's part of our charm, right? 01:00:12.670 --> 01:00:13.630 It is part of the charm. 01:00:14.250 --> 01:00:18.370 There you go. Okay. Here, here, here, here comes. 01:00:55.730 --> 01:01:00.690 Okay, we are back. Yvonne, where shall we start the news portion of the show? 01:01:00.690 --> 01:01:06.070 All right, I think that the place to start is with what the heck is going on in Washington. 01:01:06.070 --> 01:01:11.990 With the shutdown, with the SNAP benefits, with negotiations, 01:01:12.010 --> 01:01:16.270 with the nuclear option. I'll say it like Sam says it. 01:01:17.070 --> 01:01:18.690 Nuclear. Nuclear. 01:01:20.730 --> 01:01:21.230 Nuclear. 01:01:21.730 --> 01:01:26.310 Yes, the nuclear option. So, Sam, what's going on in Washington, huh? 01:01:26.570 --> 01:01:31.010 So, so are we getting any closer to ending the shutdown now? 01:01:31.490 --> 01:01:34.570 So maybe, maybe. 01:01:34.570 --> 01:01:36.150 You say maybe. Okay. 01:01:36.750 --> 01:01:39.950 Well, the reason, so let's put it this way. 01:01:40.070 --> 01:01:45.530 To start with, for most of the length of this shutdown, the politics have been 01:01:45.530 --> 01:01:51.030 aligned in such a way that it was in neither party's interest to end it. 01:01:51.430 --> 01:01:57.070 Okay? The Democrats were better off keeping it shut down because people were 01:01:57.070 --> 01:02:01.910 blaming the Republicans. If you're talking about it, forget for the moment. We will get back to it. 01:02:02.010 --> 01:02:05.030 Forget for the moment the people being hurt by the government being shut down. 01:02:05.070 --> 01:02:05.530 Right, right, right. 01:02:05.730 --> 01:02:10.570 But from a purely political point of view, people were blaming the Republicans 01:02:10.570 --> 01:02:11.870 so it was good for the Democrats. 01:02:12.110 --> 01:02:17.470 On the other hand, on the Republican side, they couldn't believe that people 01:02:17.470 --> 01:02:20.170 weren't blaming the Democrats. 01:02:20.510 --> 01:02:23.270 Plus, a lot of the policy things they want to do are— Well. 01:02:23.270 --> 01:02:27.830 Because—wait, wait, if I understood, because Mike Johnson said that the Democrats 01:02:27.830 --> 01:02:32.450 run our government. They are the party in power. 01:02:32.610 --> 01:02:35.510 That's what he said, right? I mean, is that wrong? 01:02:35.750 --> 01:02:35.950 Yeah. 01:02:38.230 --> 01:02:39.130 Yes, that's wrong. 01:02:40.510 --> 01:02:46.490 You know, how the hell does that bastard have the fucking brass balls to get 01:02:46.490 --> 01:02:51.690 up there and claim that the Democrats are in charge of the government? 01:02:51.830 --> 01:02:56.230 Now, well, I say that, and I'm like, why the hell did I say that? This is the new GOP. 01:02:56.390 --> 01:03:00.050 They just say shit like this regularly. That is false. 01:03:00.210 --> 01:03:04.650 And a lot of their people believe it regularly anyway. And that's why they keep 01:03:04.650 --> 01:03:09.870 saying even more egregiously fucking false shit because their followers, 01:03:10.070 --> 01:03:11.590 so many of them just believe it anyway. 01:03:11.950 --> 01:03:18.130 Yeah, it works. So look, the and for the Republicans as well, it. 01:03:20.510 --> 01:03:26.830 Of course, they were doing it anyway, but this shutdown made it easier. 01:03:27.210 --> 01:03:32.130 You disable more agencies, you fire more people. 01:03:32.690 --> 01:03:39.710 And also, it also makes the case, like, the longer things stay shut and things 01:03:39.710 --> 01:03:44.970 don't fall apart, the stronger the case that we don't need that stuff anyway. Right? Right. 01:03:45.670 --> 01:03:52.270 Look, this is listen, this is the same case that all these fucking people make every time. 01:03:52.770 --> 01:03:56.070 And I'm talking about historically, I'm not just talking about the Republicans 01:03:56.070 --> 01:03:59.910 and the Democrats. I'm talking about this kind of governments across the world. 01:04:00.310 --> 01:04:03.250 You know, the best case that I've always had. 01:04:04.220 --> 01:04:07.760 Venezuela in the early 2000s, OK, 01:04:08.860 --> 01:04:15.940 Hugo Chavez goes in and he is demanding that the oil company deliver ever larger amounts of money, 01:04:16.160 --> 01:04:24.220 far more than the company could give without impacting future revenues, 01:04:24.940 --> 01:04:29.400 basically impacting the company long term structurally, where it would get damaged 01:04:29.400 --> 01:04:34.380 in the long run, where it could not sustain its level of profitability and production. production. 01:04:36.140 --> 01:04:41.840 The Penevesa was one of the most professionally run oil companies in the world. 01:04:41.960 --> 01:04:45.640 They had a reputation for being the most efficient oil company in the world, okay? 01:04:46.040 --> 01:04:49.380 The number of employees per production, it was like, you know, through the roof. 01:04:49.640 --> 01:04:53.580 The Venezuelans, the oil employees, they put it this way. 01:04:53.680 --> 01:04:57.160 Right now, I went to Guiana, I was talking about their oil exploration. 01:04:57.160 --> 01:05:00.280 There's so many Venezuelan expats over there working there. 01:05:00.400 --> 01:05:02.860 You go to Canada, you You go to like the oil sands or whatever. 01:05:03.160 --> 01:05:08.900 There are large communities of those expats because those guys are so, so good at their job. 01:05:09.160 --> 01:05:14.700 They have been in Houston, in Canada, in everywhere where there are large projects. 01:05:14.920 --> 01:05:16.620 Those guys were highly desirable. 01:05:17.340 --> 01:05:21.000 So Maduro, if Chavez said, ah, you guys are idiots. You don't know what you're 01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:22.600 talking about. Fire them all. Okay. 01:05:23.380 --> 01:05:26.920 And for the first year, oh, you see, they were all lying. You see, 01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:31.120 they're still making oil. You see, nothing happened. Yeah, nothing happened. 01:05:32.010 --> 01:05:36.870 Right now, with time, because this is the thing, none of those things have an 01:05:36.870 --> 01:05:39.710 impact immediately. 20 years later now. 01:05:40.010 --> 01:05:45.170 Have we had a recurring theme on this show, Yvonne, about delayed results and 01:05:45.170 --> 01:05:51.470 how people have a really hard time understanding that an action now may have 01:05:51.470 --> 01:05:54.090 an impact five or 10 years down the road? 01:05:54.290 --> 01:05:57.710 Exactly. And that's exactly what happened to Venezuela, where, 01:05:57.910 --> 01:06:05.030 sure, the first couple of years, no impact. 10 years later, their oil production was down in half. 01:06:05.410 --> 01:06:10.210 Now, 20 years later, Venezuelan oil production is down like 75, 01:06:10.230 --> 01:06:12.770 80% down from where it was. 01:06:12.930 --> 01:06:18.310 It's down so bad that they used to export distillates like gasoline, 01:06:18.590 --> 01:06:21.870 diesel, that kind of stuff. They have to import all of that, okay? 01:06:22.190 --> 01:06:26.150 They don't even make it. In Venezuela, you used to go to a gas station, 01:06:26.270 --> 01:06:29.510 used to pay four or five cents a gallon, a fuel. 01:06:29.750 --> 01:06:35.330 Four or five cents a gallon, Sam, okay? You could go, if you took your boat 01:06:35.330 --> 01:06:38.650 and you took it to Venezuela, where I would take a boat to the Bahamas and it 01:06:38.650 --> 01:06:40.970 would cost me like $2,000 to fill up. 01:06:41.170 --> 01:06:46.470 I would fill it up in Venezuela for like $10, $20, okay? It's ridiculous. 01:06:47.170 --> 01:06:49.210 Now they have to import fuel. 01:06:50.010 --> 01:06:54.370 Now, they've lost their entire energy independence. 01:06:54.850 --> 01:07:00.330 But that was the effect of, you know, it wasn't an immediate effect. 01:07:00.490 --> 01:07:04.190 And this is the same thing that they're doing with the federal government. Okay? 01:07:04.590 --> 01:07:07.250 Yeah, you see? Nothing happened right away, right? 01:07:07.650 --> 01:07:11.830 You know, you see? Nothing happened. But all of these effects. 01:07:12.730 --> 01:07:15.410 It's just they're going to be in the future. 01:07:15.410 --> 01:07:18.770 You just don't see them, like, right away. And that's the thing. 01:07:18.770 --> 01:07:22.930 All these idiots all rely on, you see, right now, nothing happens. 01:07:23.460 --> 01:07:26.600 You know, and it's only when something later in the future blows up, 01:07:26.620 --> 01:07:28.520 but that's when it's going to be evident. 01:07:28.660 --> 01:07:32.040 And that's what they're relying on, that there are people, that people, 01:07:32.440 --> 01:07:35.760 like we said, that they don't understand that the causes and effects are going 01:07:35.760 --> 01:07:39.180 to be further down the road. Now, now, immediately right now, there is one. 01:07:39.340 --> 01:07:43.140 Listen, I will say on the opposite side, Sam, look, as much as I know that there 01:07:43.140 --> 01:07:45.700 are certain things that they've been trying to take, you know, action. 01:07:46.080 --> 01:07:48.640 And on some of them, they've been stopped. Like I talked about those layoffs. 01:07:48.760 --> 01:07:51.300 The judges stopped them on that one. 01:07:51.300 --> 01:07:54.240 the snap the snap money judge also went 01:07:54.240 --> 01:07:57.020 and like stopped them on that one like right now they said that they still have 01:07:57.020 --> 01:07:59.900 to pay snap but look let me tell you something on some other 01:07:59.900 --> 01:08:03.620 fronts it's actually positive i don't know if you've noticed look all these 01:08:03.620 --> 01:08:07.620 like decrees on like health policy and whatever and all of this bullshit where 01:08:07.620 --> 01:08:11.800 we kept getting all this bullshit i've realized that we haven't been getting 01:08:11.800 --> 01:08:17.040 none none of that destructive shit anymore because the government is shut down oh. 01:08:17.040 --> 01:08:22.380 You you mean like the rfk jr bullshit and anti-health stuff. 01:08:22.380 --> 01:08:26.080 Yes so there are a whole bunch of actions 01:08:26.080 --> 01:08:31.780 like like that on the opposite side that yes they have been the fact that the 01:08:31.780 --> 01:08:35.220 governor shut down is why i said a month ago what the fuck just keep it shut 01:08:35.220 --> 01:08:40.340 down anyway so there are a number of destructive things that they have been 01:08:40.340 --> 01:08:45.640 doing that have been slowed down or stopped by the fact that the government is shut down right now. 01:08:46.500 --> 01:08:51.880 Unfortunately, like, the deportation and border patrol stuff isn't part of that. 01:08:52.020 --> 01:08:55.840 But there is some stuff that has been slowed down like that. 01:08:55.920 --> 01:08:58.920 Hey, and Sam, did you hear that RFK Jr. this week? 01:08:59.080 --> 01:09:01.760 What did he say about Tylenol, Sam? What happened? 01:09:02.520 --> 01:09:09.000 Maybe the proof isn't quite there yet. Maybe... He backed off slightly from what he said before. 01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:10.220 Listen, like. 01:09:10.980 --> 01:09:15.620 I thought we'd nailed this, Yvonne. I thought we now knew exactly what this 01:09:15.620 --> 01:09:16.980 was and how to deal with it. 01:09:17.420 --> 01:09:22.540 Just keep the pregnant people from taking Tylenol, and we've eliminated the 01:09:22.540 --> 01:09:24.300 scourge from our society forever. 01:09:24.520 --> 01:09:27.040 The scourge of people like us. Yes. 01:09:27.360 --> 01:09:31.360 Yes. No, look, and this is where I was starting to say it. 01:09:31.680 --> 01:09:36.880 So far, the politics had been aligned, so both parties had an interest in keeping it going. 01:09:37.640 --> 01:09:42.820 As things become more painful, that starts to change. 01:09:43.540 --> 01:09:48.840 Now, you mentioned the court rulings, which I think changed things once again. 01:09:49.320 --> 01:09:53.220 Before the court rulings saying that, okay, you have to pay SNAP anyway, 01:09:53.480 --> 01:09:55.660 which there's still some stuff to play out there. 01:09:55.660 --> 01:10:00.180 But it was looking like the Republicans were actually getting very, 01:10:00.560 --> 01:10:04.720 very nervous about missing the SNAP payments. 01:10:04.920 --> 01:10:10.220 Because one thing that, you know, look, as much as the Republicans go on about, like, 01:10:10.560 --> 01:10:15.800 you know, the welfare state and like, you know, all of these evil brown people 01:10:15.800 --> 01:10:20.060 taking our money to for food stamps they don't need and blah, 01:10:20.160 --> 01:10:22.520 blah, blah, blah, blah. The vast majority. 01:10:23.520 --> 01:10:30.480 The percentage of people using these resources, on average, is significantly larger in red states. 01:10:30.660 --> 01:10:32.120 Yes, it is. 01:10:32.520 --> 01:10:37.340 You know, and is larger in rural areas than in urban areas. 01:10:37.560 --> 01:10:39.280 Why is that, Sam? 01:10:40.300 --> 01:10:44.220 You know, it's a complete mystery to me, Von. Yeah. 01:10:44.840 --> 01:10:51.900 It's amazing how keeping a whole entire class of people like uneducated and 01:10:51.900 --> 01:10:55.560 poor, not giving them education and not giving any benefits. 01:10:55.820 --> 01:10:59.200 It's amazing how it just completely keeps them in a cycle of poverty, Sam. It's stunning. 01:10:59.520 --> 01:11:07.320 Yeah. Interesting. So, look, the Republicans were starting to freak out that 01:11:07.320 --> 01:11:09.660 the shutdown was actually hurting their folks. 01:11:09.820 --> 01:11:12.640 I don't think we talked about it on a show. We talked about it on Slack as well. 01:11:12.720 --> 01:11:15.520 Marjorie Taylor Greene's getting freaked out. out that the Democrats are actually 01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:16.960 right about health care benefits. 01:11:17.200 --> 01:11:17.420 Yeah, I know. 01:11:18.150 --> 01:11:23.070 As well, because, wow, this is hurting your people. 01:11:23.510 --> 01:11:25.090 My family, literally. 01:11:25.930 --> 01:11:27.630 In the case of MTG, yeah. 01:11:27.830 --> 01:11:28.030 Yes. 01:11:28.790 --> 01:11:34.810 And so I think they were getting nervous about this and the politics was starting to change. 01:11:34.970 --> 01:11:39.890 You had Donald Trump starting to pull out the nuclear option thing and potentially 01:11:39.890 --> 01:11:44.090 support that, which a lot of Republican leadership had rejected as, 01:11:44.090 --> 01:11:45.990 no, no, no, no, no, that's not a possibility. 01:11:46.490 --> 01:11:49.390 I will call out for details on this. 01:11:49.550 --> 01:11:55.850 Talking Points Memo had a good article on this published on October 31st. 01:11:56.330 --> 01:12:00.970 It's titled Trump wants to abolish the filibuster. Please proceed degenerate. 01:12:01.070 --> 01:12:01.310 Yeah. 01:12:01.670 --> 01:12:06.750 Or degenerate. Now, this is a behind the paywall article at TPM. 01:12:06.970 --> 01:12:11.170 But for those interested, if you look for my Blue Sky account, 01:12:11.370 --> 01:12:13.690 I posted a gift link to it there. 01:12:14.130 --> 01:12:17.170 Well, I reposted. Josh Marshall, who runs Talking Point Memo, 01:12:17.330 --> 01:12:19.690 posted a gift link, and I reposted that. 01:12:19.770 --> 01:12:24.090 So you can look at his account or mine and find a gift link to it so you can read it free. 01:12:24.330 --> 01:12:30.890 But he talks about how Democrats should actually, say, bring it on. 01:12:31.390 --> 01:12:33.490 I agree. He's right. He's right. 01:12:33.690 --> 01:12:35.690 You know, we've talked on the show. 01:12:35.690 --> 01:12:38.610 And that should be part of your platform, Sam, Project 92010. 01:12:38.610 --> 01:12:39.370 Yes, killing the filibuster. 01:12:39.450 --> 01:12:41.910 We got to kill the filibuster. To hell with this. It's got to be over. 01:12:41.910 --> 01:12:45.790 Josh points out something we've said on this show a number of times, 01:12:46.050 --> 01:12:53.010 which is the way our government is structured right now, which a big part of it is the filibuster, 01:12:53.390 --> 01:12:57.950 has broken the connection between elections and results. 01:12:58.090 --> 01:12:58.150 Yep. 01:13:00.520 --> 01:13:06.420 And the vast majority of people don't understand how this all works. 01:13:07.960 --> 01:13:13.240 Most people don't even, well, hell, I get the feeling that lots of people never 01:13:13.240 --> 01:13:15.040 even had middle school civics. 01:13:15.120 --> 01:13:18.280 But even the people who do, most of them weren't paying attention, 01:13:18.460 --> 01:13:19.520 don't remember the details. 01:13:19.700 --> 01:13:23.960 And certainly the esoteric nature of the filibuster in the Senate, 01:13:24.200 --> 01:13:25.880 something that most people don't get. 01:13:26.080 --> 01:13:31.740 And so you have, I don't get it. I voted for the Democrat for president because 01:13:31.740 --> 01:13:37.140 they said they wanted X, Y, Z, and I didn't get it. So fuck them next time. 01:13:37.360 --> 01:13:41.220 But could we be clear on one thing? Okay, you do realize, right, 01:13:41.340 --> 01:13:46.740 that Biden, even with the filibuster, got so much of the shit that he promised done. 01:13:47.140 --> 01:13:50.740 Yes, he did. He did. Which they still didn't get credit for. 01:13:50.740 --> 01:13:57.860 But, you know, but but on a more fundamental basis, simply from a structure 01:13:57.860 --> 01:14:03.420 of government perspective, you know, even even with the structure we have, 01:14:03.560 --> 01:14:05.120 clearly elections do have consequences. 01:14:05.120 --> 01:14:09.840 You only have to look at how the last 10 months have gone to know that. Yeah. 01:14:10.500 --> 01:14:18.780 But if you one of if the Republicans actually were. Yeah. 01:14:19.490 --> 01:14:25.610 I I'm going back for like, if they actually had free reign, they had no Democrats 01:14:25.610 --> 01:14:27.990 couldn't stop them with a filibuster. Democrats couldn't stop. 01:14:28.170 --> 01:14:33.730 Then you get what you pay for, you know, you know, you, and this goes for the Democrats. 01:14:33.910 --> 01:14:39.310 If they win too, you elect a party into office and then you actually get to 01:14:39.310 --> 01:14:40.750 live under their policies. 01:14:41.010 --> 01:14:44.110 And then the next election you adapt accordingly. 01:14:44.490 --> 01:14:49.330 Now, I think the Republicans this time have been so strong and you, 01:14:49.490 --> 01:14:55.470 in terms of actually implementing their agenda anyway, that you see it in the polls. 01:14:55.490 --> 01:15:01.130 You see them plummeting in all kinds of ways over the last few months because 01:15:01.130 --> 01:15:02.650 people don't actually like it. 01:15:05.110 --> 01:15:07.010 But basically- Right now. 01:15:07.190 --> 01:15:11.090 I just checked, by the way, a silver bulletin has Trump's net approval at its 01:15:11.090 --> 01:15:13.870 lowest since the election. He has at the lowest point. 01:15:13.870 --> 01:15:19.870 And the economists average for for Donald Trump approval shows that this week 01:15:19.870 --> 01:15:23.650 for the first time ever, not only did he hit a low for this term, 01:15:23.830 --> 01:15:25.290 he had a low for both terms. 01:15:25.530 --> 01:15:30.010 He's at the lowest he has ever been in either one of his two presidencies. 01:15:30.710 --> 01:15:38.130 So, but hitting back to that, if you have the effect, then the elections mean 01:15:38.130 --> 01:15:42.710 more instead of people just being cynical and saying, it doesn't matter who 01:15:42.710 --> 01:15:44.570 I vote for, nothing happens anyway, 01:15:45.150 --> 01:15:48.110 which, and not understanding how things work. 01:15:48.110 --> 01:15:53.030 But and the Democrats, we talked about how Democrats should have eliminated 01:15:53.030 --> 01:15:56.230 the filibuster and done X, Y, Z when Biden first got in. 01:15:56.730 --> 01:16:00.410 Manchin and Sinema stopped it from even being a possibility. 01:16:00.650 --> 01:16:05.010 And and frankly, Biden didn't really want it either. He's a Senate institutionalist. 01:16:05.070 --> 01:16:06.090 He loves the filibuster. 01:16:06.270 --> 01:16:08.310 Look, he was trying to get back to normal. 01:16:08.790 --> 01:16:12.570 And that was lots of folks were trying to get back to normal. 01:16:12.810 --> 01:16:16.650 So that was their whole his thought. And listen, you can argue whether he was 01:16:16.650 --> 01:16:18.270 right or wrong about that. That's another thing. 01:16:18.390 --> 01:16:21.150 But but what he wanted is his plan. 01:16:21.390 --> 01:16:25.210 OK, was, hey, I'm not going to do that because by blowing that up, 01:16:25.350 --> 01:16:27.990 then making creating making this worse. 01:16:28.150 --> 01:16:31.510 And so, therefore, let's not do that. And I understand his argument. I disagree. 01:16:31.690 --> 01:16:35.630 I think I disagreed with it, but I understand his argument. OK. All right. 01:16:36.240 --> 01:16:39.800 And the thing is here, there will 01:16:39.800 --> 01:16:44.140 be a political hit for whoever actually eliminates the filibuster first. 01:16:44.640 --> 01:16:47.460 Now, what the Republicans have been doing, people pointed out they've used the 01:16:47.460 --> 01:16:51.200 nuclear option twice in the last six months, and nobody's practically noticed. 01:16:51.700 --> 01:16:54.980 Like, because they've done it for specific things. Instead of just saying there 01:16:54.980 --> 01:16:56.900 is no more filibuster anymore. 01:16:57.140 --> 01:16:57.440 Filibuster? 01:16:57.480 --> 01:16:58.500 They've done it for specific things. 01:16:58.560 --> 01:16:58.800 It's a filibuster. 01:16:59.140 --> 01:17:02.440 They could do it for this. It's a filibuster. Nuclear filibuster. 01:17:06.080 --> 01:17:10.600 what is this you want me to enunciate and actually speak properly this is crazy 01:17:10.600 --> 01:17:17.020 talk here oh i've got all this time i could take like a public oh oh oh my god 01:17:17.020 --> 01:17:22.500 i i i could go do toast masters or something let's not go crazy here okay. 01:17:22.500 --> 01:17:25.040 Shall we okay come on give me a break okay no. 01:17:25.040 --> 01:17:29.860 The the point is there might be a political hit for being the first one to do 01:17:29.860 --> 01:17:33.080 this but if the Republicans do it for you and then you take power next time, 01:17:33.340 --> 01:17:37.160 then by all means, it's done. Just go. 01:17:37.340 --> 01:17:37.440 Do it. 01:17:37.500 --> 01:17:41.540 Just go. Do it. Do all the stuff you want to do that you couldn't otherwise. 01:17:42.520 --> 01:17:46.120 But Josh Marshall points out in this article as well, he feels it's actually 01:17:46.120 --> 01:17:50.360 very unlikely, even with Donald Trump saying, just go nuclear, 01:17:50.820 --> 01:17:52.460 kill this thing and move on. 01:17:52.720 --> 01:17:56.860 There are a number of Republicans who, just like Manchin and Sinema on the Democratic 01:17:56.860 --> 01:18:01.080 side, are going to be like, no, no, no, no. We don't want to get rid of the filibuster. 01:18:01.500 --> 01:18:05.500 But some combination of Democrats and Republicans might be able to do it, 01:18:05.600 --> 01:18:09.900 but the Democrats aren't going to want to kill the filibuster for the Republican bill. 01:18:11.060 --> 01:18:14.940 So it's probably unlikely that it'll happen at this point. 01:18:15.100 --> 01:18:22.780 And I'll say the court saying you have to pay SNAP anyway probably diminishes- 01:18:23.310 --> 01:18:27.690 It takes this off the table for now. Trump was bringing this on the table because 01:18:27.690 --> 01:18:31.130 this was about to start being painful for people. 01:18:31.230 --> 01:18:34.670 But it was because he decided to do it. It's not because he had to. 01:18:34.850 --> 01:18:41.330 He was like, he had been unilaterally deciding to try to stop the SNAP payments. 01:18:41.790 --> 01:18:45.250 Well, people have also, well, yeah, because there were all sorts of arguments 01:18:45.250 --> 01:18:46.930 that they actually could keep going anyway. 01:18:46.930 --> 01:18:47.070 Right. 01:18:47.270 --> 01:18:52.650 Now, what's actually happening with the legal case is Trump has filed back to 01:18:52.650 --> 01:18:55.490 the court saying, OK, you're mandating that we pay this. 01:18:55.630 --> 01:18:58.770 Tell us the right legal way to do it because we didn't think there was one. 01:18:59.150 --> 01:19:01.330 And so they're asking the court to do that. 01:19:01.330 --> 01:19:01.870 Okay. 01:19:02.190 --> 01:19:06.270 And we'll see we'll see how that goes. I'm sure the court will respond in an appropriate way. 01:19:06.890 --> 01:19:10.390 And but I think it takes the pressure off, at least for now, 01:19:10.510 --> 01:19:17.170 because, again, to end this shutdown, one or both sides, the political pressure 01:19:17.170 --> 01:19:21.330 needs to flip where they feel like they are clear. 01:19:21.550 --> 01:19:24.710 clear their people are hurting and they 01:19:24.710 --> 01:19:29.030 are hurting politically by letting it go on longer with donald trump saying 01:19:29.030 --> 01:19:33.130 let's use the nuclear option that was like oh okay if he pushes that we could 01:19:33.130 --> 01:19:37.590 be done in days my guess is because of the snap stuff he's going to back off 01:19:37.590 --> 01:19:41.990 on that for at least a little while but there is also an argument that, 01:19:43.020 --> 01:19:44.860 He's just bored and wants to move on. 01:19:46.260 --> 01:19:51.980 Listen, listen. Are you kidding? Is he bored? I'm sorry. What was he posting? 01:19:52.160 --> 01:19:53.720 Did you see the pictures of the new bathroom? 01:19:53.760 --> 01:19:56.620 That's exactly what I was going to say. Listen, you know what the worst thing 01:19:56.620 --> 01:19:58.940 is? And I saw it before you shared it on the Slack. 01:19:59.140 --> 01:20:03.940 And I saw it and I'm like, nah, fuck. I'm not going to share this. Come on, man. 01:20:04.180 --> 01:20:07.460 This is such bullshit. This fucking asshole. What the hell? 01:20:07.760 --> 01:20:12.220 But Sam did share it where, you know, Trump was obsessing this week about, 01:20:12.840 --> 01:20:19.760 renovations to the Lincoln bathroom and how what he wants to do is take it from where it looks now, 01:20:19.940 --> 01:20:26.160 which it looks period appropriate to make it look like any generic bathroom 01:20:26.160 --> 01:20:28.140 at some kind of Trump hotel. 01:20:28.360 --> 01:20:30.920 He actually did this, right? This is not a plan. He actually did this. 01:20:31.020 --> 01:20:33.820 No, no, no. I thought that, no, that was, I don't know. 01:20:33.980 --> 01:20:37.700 Didn't you see that he put a whole bunch of different alternative options no 01:20:37.700 --> 01:20:40.740 no i thought no no no no okay it and 01:20:40.740 --> 01:20:44.280 my understanding is that this is in the planning stage right now and there was 01:20:44.280 --> 01:20:48.680 a place there where he showed a whole bunch of different how about this color 01:20:48.680 --> 01:20:53.240 how about this color how about this color this is what the fucking president 01:20:53.240 --> 01:20:59.400 is focusing on a goddamn bathroom rebuttal and oh no no no. 01:20:59.400 --> 01:21:06.620 No no wait i i brought up the truth social post it's i renovated past tense the lincoln bedroom. 01:21:06.620 --> 01:21:11.300 No but did you see okay hold on did you i thought that. 01:21:11.300 --> 01:21:13.620 No no no it's it's done. 01:21:13.620 --> 01:21:18.380 No it was renovated in 1940s architect of green style i did it in black i did it. 01:21:18.380 --> 01:21:24.260 Yes the other one he showed was what it looked like before oh my god. 01:21:25.330 --> 01:21:30.230 Yeah, very, yes, this looks like an 1800s bathroom. 01:21:31.110 --> 01:21:32.250 The old one? 01:21:32.630 --> 01:21:38.370 The new one, I'm being sarcastic. This looks like some fucking generic bathroom 01:21:38.370 --> 01:21:41.190 at any goddamn luxury hotel. 01:21:41.670 --> 01:21:45.090 He says this was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln. 01:21:45.510 --> 01:21:54.970 Uh-huh. Yeah? Sure. this is what any fucking you go into any luxury hotel right 01:21:54.970 --> 01:21:58.470 now and honestly because they're all the I mean, 01:22:00.900 --> 01:22:04.660 the bathrooms get kind of boring and all these, this is what they all fucking 01:22:04.660 --> 01:22:08.120 look like. If you go to Ritz-Carlton, the forces... 01:22:08.120 --> 01:22:08.720 Like marble everywhere. 01:22:09.360 --> 01:22:13.620 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a lot of these, you know, mansions right now that they're 01:22:13.620 --> 01:22:14.600 making all over the place. 01:22:14.600 --> 01:22:15.740 It feels like it would be too slippery. 01:22:17.340 --> 01:22:20.940 Yeah, I mean, especially because he put all that marble on the fucking floor. 01:22:21.080 --> 01:22:24.980 Usually you try to put some kind of like tile on the floor that is like not 01:22:24.980 --> 01:22:26.700 as slippery as the fucking marble. 01:22:27.600 --> 01:22:29.460 But he won't be using the bathroom anyway. 01:22:30.040 --> 01:22:34.300 I was about to say hopefully he will and you know a slip could happen. 01:22:34.300 --> 01:22:39.560 Oh god yeah please yes could he just go you know what that would be fantastic 01:22:39.560 --> 01:22:45.080 he goes takes a shit he hasn't pulled up his pants he slides he falls he breaks 01:22:45.080 --> 01:22:50.420 his head open and that's how he dies and we get pictures of him you know in. 01:22:50.420 --> 01:22:51.240 His new bathroom. 01:22:51.240 --> 01:22:56.300 Yeah in his new bathroom dead perfect But anyway. 01:22:57.560 --> 01:23:02.580 Back to the shutdown and how it's going to play out. I think the snap things 01:23:02.580 --> 01:23:03.920 buys them some more time. 01:23:04.240 --> 01:23:07.880 Yeah. Unless he is just bored and wants to have it done with, 01:23:08.220 --> 01:23:12.080 which, you know, the Republicans could end this at any time they wanted to. 01:23:12.260 --> 01:23:15.240 But I think they still have incentive to keep it open. 01:23:15.480 --> 01:23:21.200 I mean, for one, Johnson is keeping the House away until the Senate resolves it. 01:23:21.200 --> 01:23:25.640 Part of their pressure plan here is instead of engaging in negotiations, 01:23:25.640 --> 01:23:34.320 the idea is we will keep this through until the Senate passes the bill as it 01:23:34.320 --> 01:23:39.020 was passed by the Republicans in the House on a party line vote, 01:23:39.040 --> 01:23:41.220 which means one of two things. 01:23:41.600 --> 01:23:47.120 Either you kill the filibuster about it or you get a bunch of Democrats to flip and vote for it. 01:23:48.090 --> 01:23:57.030 The Democrats' view is we want to propose a new bill in the Senate that reopens government, 01:23:57.030 --> 01:24:06.070 but also undoes some of the tax credit things for Obamacare that were in the big, 01:24:06.150 --> 01:24:09.950 beautiful bill, which was not beautiful. 01:24:09.950 --> 01:24:15.510 But and the Republican position is we're not even going to talk. 01:24:15.670 --> 01:24:18.830 We will talk about all that stuff, but only once the government is open. 01:24:19.550 --> 01:24:25.510 Obviously, I am showing right now, Sam, my reaction to this on video, 01:24:25.710 --> 01:24:32.150 which is I give these assholes a big, fat middle finger because I don't trust them, you know, on them. 01:24:32.330 --> 01:24:38.130 You can't just give them anything like that. Oh, yeah. Oh, then we'll talk about it. No. 01:24:38.470 --> 01:24:40.850 A bunch of fucking liars. No, you can't trust them. 01:24:40.970 --> 01:24:44.690 Well, this is something that, by the way, at various points in the past, 01:24:44.890 --> 01:24:48.430 the Democrats have agreed to deals that are structured like, 01:24:49.270 --> 01:24:52.410 you know, give us what you want. 01:24:52.910 --> 01:24:58.350 Give us – no, the – put it in this context, sorry. 01:24:59.130 --> 01:25:03.850 Reopen the government now and we'll give you a vote on that thing you want. 01:25:04.190 --> 01:25:08.070 And it's a vote the Democrats will lose, guaranteed. And the Democrats are, 01:25:08.230 --> 01:25:11.610 okay, we'll have the vote. We've made our point. We've gotten our message across. 01:25:11.870 --> 01:25:15.050 We'll take the vote and lose, but we'll reopen the government. 01:25:15.950 --> 01:25:21.370 No, don't. You've got this is the one piece of leverage you have right now. 01:25:21.610 --> 01:25:21.770 Right. 01:25:21.950 --> 01:25:26.390 You do not give in in exchange for a vote you know you're going to lose. 01:25:26.550 --> 01:25:26.650 Yeah. 01:25:27.030 --> 01:25:34.030 Now, you want if if you're going to make a deal here, then it has to be we do 01:25:34.030 --> 01:25:40.310 we do the thing first. First, we get the thing we want, and then we'll give you the thing you want. 01:25:40.490 --> 01:25:40.610 Right. 01:25:40.990 --> 01:25:45.070 You know, and the thing we want is not a vote. The thing we want is the actual result. 01:25:45.230 --> 01:25:45.550 The actual result. 01:25:46.590 --> 01:25:51.050 And or you force them to kill the filibuster and push it through on their own 01:25:51.050 --> 01:25:53.770 terms, in which case they own the results. 01:25:54.150 --> 01:25:58.470 Let them own, you know, throwing millions of people off their health insurance, 01:25:58.710 --> 01:26:00.470 which is what they're doing effectively. 01:26:01.170 --> 01:26:01.570 Right. 01:26:02.070 --> 01:26:05.830 I mean, you know, the one thing is that this is so politically suicidal for them. 01:26:05.950 --> 01:26:13.050 I don't even understand why the hell they keep insisting on it because it's nuts. The reality is... 01:26:13.050 --> 01:26:17.790 And the latest polls have the general public blaming Republicans for this on a two-to-one basis. 01:26:17.990 --> 01:26:24.210 Exactly. And if they go and get to January and tens of millions of people lose 01:26:24.210 --> 01:26:27.710 their health insurance, how's that going to turn out? 01:26:28.190 --> 01:26:33.090 Right. And also it's been pointed out, House comes back into session, 01:26:33.350 --> 01:26:37.830 you immediately get this one person, one Democrat sworn in, you immediately 01:26:37.830 --> 01:26:39.390 get the Epstein vote as well. 01:26:39.550 --> 01:26:46.330 Yep. And which will, you know, they just have the 218 needed for the discharge position petition. 01:26:46.730 --> 01:26:53.770 But the word is that if this actually came to a vote, it would not just pass, 01:26:53.950 --> 01:26:59.090 but pass overwhelmingly on a bipartisan fashion, because Republicans don't want 01:26:59.090 --> 01:27:00.650 to put their name against this either. 01:27:01.250 --> 01:27:07.250 And so that's part of, you know, Johnson's reason for staying away as well as 01:27:07.250 --> 01:27:10.010 the shutdown theatrics. 01:27:10.530 --> 01:27:12.010 So we shall see. 01:27:12.610 --> 01:27:16.430 My prediction right now, government staying shut down a while. 01:27:16.550 --> 01:27:19.570 I think we're going to beat the 35 day record. Oh, we're fucking better. 01:27:19.850 --> 01:27:25.930 You know, honestly, I wouldn't be completely shocked if the government stays 01:27:25.930 --> 01:27:29.190 shut down straight through the midterms. Keep it shut down a year. 01:27:29.770 --> 01:27:30.710 I don't know about that. 01:27:30.710 --> 01:27:32.610 I would be a little surprised if it goes that long. 01:27:32.610 --> 01:27:34.270 Yeah, I would be surprised by that. 01:27:34.390 --> 01:27:37.590 Because pain points will start piling up over time. 01:27:37.910 --> 01:27:43.570 And at some point, it will become painful enough to start greasing the wheels. 01:27:43.810 --> 01:27:44.810 We're just not there yet. 01:27:46.210 --> 01:27:47.410 Okay, Vaughn, next topic. 01:27:48.090 --> 01:27:51.670 Well, we don't have a lot of time for another topic. Well, wait, 01:27:51.710 --> 01:27:54.510 I picked the first topic. It's your turn. 01:27:55.110 --> 01:27:59.530 Well, yeah, I said you could have the whole second segment since the whole first segment was about me. 01:28:00.310 --> 01:28:04.010 Well, okay. But I said that I don't have that much. 01:28:06.070 --> 01:28:10.190 We can wrap things up pretty soon then. Yeah, we can start wrapping things up. 01:28:10.190 --> 01:28:17.470 I think we actually, the only thing that's here that we haven't covered that's on the list of subjects. 01:28:18.070 --> 01:28:24.930 I mean, we don't, you know, talking about the New York mayor race, which is not on the list. 01:28:25.390 --> 01:28:28.490 I mean, I don't know. Do we want to talk about that? What do you think? 01:28:29.070 --> 01:28:35.250 Two options here. Two options. There is this deciding to win thing or the New York mayor election. 01:28:35.930 --> 01:28:38.250 Well, actually, I think they're related. 01:28:38.510 --> 01:28:41.750 So we can bring them together. Okay, so let's bring them together. All right. 01:28:42.250 --> 01:28:45.670 So first of all, Mom Donnie's going to win. Mom Donnie's going to win. 01:28:45.670 --> 01:28:47.190 Like he is so far ahead on all the polls. 01:28:47.410 --> 01:28:47.590 Yes. 01:28:48.050 --> 01:28:55.750 We, what's his name? Jeffries finally reluctantly gave an endorsement. 01:28:56.010 --> 01:28:59.190 And it is so clear. It's like, I don't really want to do this, 01:28:59.250 --> 01:29:01.270 but I guess I will. Schumer has not. 01:29:01.610 --> 01:29:02.370 Yeah, Schumer has not. 01:29:02.970 --> 01:29:07.650 As of, you know, us recording, Schumer is still saying, well, 01:29:07.710 --> 01:29:10.090 I'm talking to the guy. I'm thinking about somebody who's like, 01:29:10.190 --> 01:29:14.110 the election's in a couple of days. Who are you going to vote for? 01:29:14.810 --> 01:29:16.390 And he's like, I don't know. 01:29:17.170 --> 01:29:20.870 And he walks away. Right. Look, this is just. 01:29:22.500 --> 01:29:31.440 And and this ties to the so deciding to win is a policy research strategy paper, 01:29:31.580 --> 01:29:37.100 whatever you want to call it, from some Democratic think tank that basically 01:29:37.100 --> 01:29:42.820 expresses the centrist Democrat view that. 01:29:42.880 --> 01:29:47.820 Oh, God, people have been pushing for a long time that it basically is. 01:29:48.540 --> 01:29:51.380 And I'll fully admit, I did not read the whole thing. there 01:29:51.380 --> 01:29:54.360 were a bunch of stuff things going on this week as you 01:29:54.360 --> 01:29:57.100 were busy first segment there were things going on my 01:29:57.100 --> 01:30:00.180 mind was elsewhere i did not read the whole thing but in 01:30:00.180 --> 01:30:06.160 summary as i understand it this is a recapitulation of the view that basically 01:30:06.160 --> 01:30:12.940 democrats should take take a handful run to the center it's basically run to 01:30:12.940 --> 01:30:17.620 the center and it's also basically be poll driven Take things that pull well, 01:30:18.040 --> 01:30:24.060 double down on them, take things that pull less well, and ignore them. 01:30:24.320 --> 01:30:30.340 You know, push them to the back burner, minimize them, try not to talk about them. 01:30:30.740 --> 01:30:36.160 The end result of this is things like, yeah, the advice that keeps being given 01:30:36.160 --> 01:30:37.480 over and over and over again. 01:30:38.160 --> 01:30:40.780 Talk about, and the thing that's weird is. 01:30:41.800 --> 01:30:46.480 Sometimes what people say to try to do with this stuff doesn't actually align with the polls. 01:30:46.900 --> 01:30:50.380 Like, for instance, they'll say the kitchen table issues only. 01:30:50.500 --> 01:30:53.100 Talk about the economy. Talk about jobs. Talk about that. 01:30:53.340 --> 01:30:56.960 But don't talk about immigration because we're weak there. We're actually the 01:30:56.960 --> 01:31:00.220 Democratic positions on immigration poll better than the Republican. 01:31:00.700 --> 01:31:06.740 That's what I'm saying. This is the thing. I don't. This whole stupid playbook. 01:31:07.040 --> 01:31:12.900 Now, messaging is bad. Like the Republicans somehow push through this as a threat 01:31:12.900 --> 01:31:15.280 and get it internalized in people's heads. 01:31:15.420 --> 01:31:19.680 But when you ask the people about specific things, like, do you think we should 01:31:19.680 --> 01:31:23.300 be deporting non-criminals who've lived here for 20 years but happened to come 01:31:23.300 --> 01:31:24.520 here illegally at the beginning? 01:31:24.700 --> 01:31:27.120 Most people say no. You know, for instance. 01:31:27.180 --> 01:31:32.380 This whole damn thing gets back down to the policy wonky thing where, 01:31:32.920 --> 01:31:40.140 you know, if you go down on all the Biden accomplishments in his four years 01:31:40.140 --> 01:31:45.280 and you ask people, say, independently, hey, what do you think of this? 01:31:45.340 --> 01:31:49.120 What do you think of that? I'm sure they all poll great. Did that translate into winning, Sam? 01:31:50.460 --> 01:31:51.940 Not often so. 01:31:52.140 --> 01:31:56.620 No, no, it does not. And the whole thing, it goes back down to, 01:31:56.860 --> 01:32:00.140 and I said this and I'll say it again, 01:32:00.580 --> 01:32:05.020 the Republicans had two very vociferous messages that were bullshit, 01:32:05.020 --> 01:32:07.660 but that cut through to people. 01:32:07.880 --> 01:32:13.640 One is the threat of the trans movement is going to destroy America. 01:32:14.780 --> 01:32:21.960 And, you know, the other one was, the other one is that the Democrats are pro-abortionists. 01:32:21.960 --> 01:32:24.800 they want more abortions oh. 01:32:24.800 --> 01:32:26.980 Yeah okay and brown people are scary. 01:32:26.980 --> 01:32:33.480 And brown people are scary yes yes that those are the three things and and they 01:32:33.480 --> 01:32:38.060 have nothing to do with facts nothing to do with anything and the thing is that 01:32:38.060 --> 01:32:41.660 the democrats counter argument to those were basically to not address them. 01:32:41.660 --> 01:32:44.620 Yes and and you know the. 01:32:45.480 --> 01:32:53.360 Sam, people, listen, that trans thing, I keep being, you know, 01:32:53.480 --> 01:32:57.480 shocked how the Democrats, especially the leadership in general, 01:32:58.300 --> 01:33:08.820 misunderstand how deep that message cut through to people and their underlying 01:33:08.820 --> 01:33:11.400 prejudices about something they don't understand. 01:33:11.400 --> 01:33:16.460 The thing is, though, the key approach difference I think here is important 01:33:16.460 --> 01:33:24.900 is Democrats, because of that, decided to just be quiet, avoid the issue. 01:33:25.100 --> 01:33:25.540 Avoid it! 01:33:25.880 --> 01:33:27.860 And I think the... 01:33:28.600 --> 01:33:33.620 The way to counter that is not avoid the issue because that gives ground that 01:33:33.620 --> 01:33:35.760 it's like, oh, you're right on trans. 01:33:35.900 --> 01:33:38.200 Yeah, you're accepting that what their argument is true. 01:33:38.580 --> 01:33:42.340 You're accepting their argument is true. You're accepting their framing of the issue. 01:33:42.760 --> 01:33:49.020 Instead, it has to be a vigorous defense. No, you are wrong. You are bigots. 01:33:49.480 --> 01:33:55.320 You are exaggerating this whole thing about men going and switching and women to sports. 01:33:55.480 --> 01:34:00.840 You're talking about a tiny number of people. You're talking about all this bullshit about them. 01:34:01.180 --> 01:34:05.800 It's a lie. All this thing about that is a lie. 01:34:06.420 --> 01:34:10.000 This entire thing that there's indoctrination of people is a lie. 01:34:10.360 --> 01:34:12.160 This whole thing that I mean. 01:34:12.300 --> 01:34:17.920 The entire thing is like also and I want to get it. It's not just that it's a lie. 01:34:18.100 --> 01:34:23.180 It's also you are you are fundamentally wrong on how you treat. 01:34:23.320 --> 01:34:26.720 Assume it was right. You need to treat these people better. 01:34:28.320 --> 01:34:31.940 You need to vigorously make the case for your side. 01:34:31.940 --> 01:34:36.080 But remember, the main commercial, what they had was a guy dressed as a woman 01:34:36.080 --> 01:34:38.220 competing in women's sports. 01:34:38.820 --> 01:34:42.640 You see, this is the thing. You're getting back into the detail of the wonk. 01:34:43.000 --> 01:34:51.340 The thing was, they showed some fucking guy during major live TV events in the U.S., 01:34:51.340 --> 01:34:58.040 during the NFL playoffs or whatever, showing some fucking guy dressed as a woman 01:34:58.040 --> 01:34:59.640 competing in women's sports. 01:34:59.860 --> 01:35:04.880 You know what the ad right after should have shown? This is a complete lie. 01:35:05.360 --> 01:35:08.840 This is not what's happening. This is absolutely false. 01:35:09.060 --> 01:35:12.440 And they're trying to scare you into vilifying a small, you know, 01:35:12.740 --> 01:35:18.660 a minority of Americans right now into vilifying them over something that isn't true. 01:35:19.540 --> 01:35:24.580 Yes, it's not true. But at the same time, like I said, you can't, 01:35:25.090 --> 01:35:29.270 in any way, throw these marginalized communities under the bus either. 01:35:29.510 --> 01:35:32.090 You have to show, like, you have to be like. 01:35:32.090 --> 01:35:35.850 This is a group of people that should be defended. But my point is that by staying 01:35:35.850 --> 01:35:37.390 quiet, they didn't defend them. 01:35:37.930 --> 01:35:38.330 No. 01:35:38.630 --> 01:35:43.430 The narrative went and like everybody, so many people that know little on the 01:35:43.430 --> 01:35:46.170 subject because the low information voter, all they saw is that. 01:35:46.790 --> 01:35:48.210 That's the image they got. 01:35:48.870 --> 01:35:54.930 The counter is stick to your position and defend it vigorously. 01:35:55.630 --> 01:36:03.330 and not cower in the corners. Like, over and over again, in the years prior 01:36:03.330 --> 01:36:06.830 to things going sideways with Donald Trump, 01:36:07.590 --> 01:36:15.090 things were moving, like, when confronted with, like, let's look, gay marriage. 01:36:15.630 --> 01:36:21.110 At one point, like, the polling on that was people couldn't even imagine it. 01:36:21.470 --> 01:36:22.810 People started making the case. 01:36:22.810 --> 01:36:26.710 By the way, can I make a, I want to make a point because we have been talking about Newsom. 01:36:26.850 --> 01:36:33.070 Do you realize who the mayor, who the first mayor that started issuing marriage 01:36:33.070 --> 01:36:34.790 certificates to gay people was? 01:36:34.950 --> 01:36:37.350 And I did not know this until about a couple of weeks ago. 01:36:37.650 --> 01:36:38.770 The first mayor? 01:36:38.990 --> 01:36:41.590 Yeah. It was Gavin Newsom, San Francisco. 01:36:41.610 --> 01:36:42.390 Was it Gavin Newsom? 01:36:42.610 --> 01:36:42.830 Yeah. 01:36:43.110 --> 01:36:43.570 I remember. 01:36:43.750 --> 01:36:48.290 By the way. By the way. I know because we're talking shit about how Newsom takes 01:36:48.290 --> 01:36:54.070 the winning position. This was at a time when none of the mainstream Democrats, 01:36:54.230 --> 01:36:56.070 including Barack Obama, were for gay marriage. 01:36:56.270 --> 01:37:01.490 Right, right. Now, my point, though, is that that is an issue where we have 01:37:01.490 --> 01:37:09.170 moved from gay marriage being an obscure position to it having super majority support. 01:37:10.020 --> 01:37:14.160 In a very rapid period of time because of advocacy for that, 01:37:14.340 --> 01:37:21.880 because of normalization of like, no, you know, gay people shouldn't be ostracized 01:37:21.880 --> 01:37:23.960 and marginalized and made fun of. 01:37:24.100 --> 01:37:27.700 Let's be clear about this. Project 2025 wants to abolish gay marriage, too, by the way. 01:37:27.700 --> 01:37:35.080 No, I know. I know. Absolutely. And, but all this happened through not, 01:37:35.280 --> 01:37:39.120 oh, sort of public opinion naturally changed on its own. 01:37:39.300 --> 01:37:44.680 It happened because people were aggressively pushing the idea and also making 01:37:44.680 --> 01:37:46.940 sure that there was exposure. 01:37:46.940 --> 01:37:54.660 Like, you know, it's you're you're you you make it so that people can be out 01:37:54.660 --> 01:37:59.280 and known and that, you know, your uncle is gay. 01:37:59.600 --> 01:37:59.700 Yeah. 01:37:59.820 --> 01:38:05.180 Or that you are. And now, like that, you know, you have friends and family that are trans. 01:38:05.480 --> 01:38:05.680 Yeah. 01:38:06.200 --> 01:38:10.460 You know, and, you know, you want to show like, no, what they're going, 01:38:10.620 --> 01:38:14.920 what they are advocating will hurt people. And you shove that in front of people's face. 01:38:15.160 --> 01:38:20.800 Same with immigration. You need to counter the, oh, brown people are scary, 01:38:20.980 --> 01:38:25.440 immigration bad, MS-13, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, with no. 01:38:25.960 --> 01:38:31.360 Look, here is the guy who waits the tables at your favorite restaurant. 01:38:32.020 --> 01:38:36.420 You know, and I don't want to stereotype that either. There are lots of highly 01:38:36.420 --> 01:38:38.620 successful rich people as well. 01:38:38.840 --> 01:38:42.400 No, no, no. But we're talking about the illegal. And a lot of the illegal governments, 01:38:42.540 --> 01:38:45.940 unfortunately, you know, most of them cannot get. 01:38:46.340 --> 01:38:48.900 Cannot get those kinds of jobs. Exactly. Because of their documentation. 01:38:48.960 --> 01:38:53.800 Exactly. Yeah. Even though they may have the skills. But when they come to the 01:38:53.800 --> 01:38:57.220 United States, many times they may be doctors, they may be nurses, 01:38:57.360 --> 01:39:00.940 they may be whatever the hell it is that you want, but they cannot get those jobs. 01:39:01.160 --> 01:39:06.520 And so they go and they have to take low paying menial jobs in order to make 01:39:06.520 --> 01:39:10.000 sense meat because they cannot get those more skillful jobs, 01:39:10.120 --> 01:39:11.260 even though they have the skills. 01:39:11.260 --> 01:39:15.680 And look, after all of these deportations started happening, 01:39:15.880 --> 01:39:20.040 you start seeing all these stories of Trump supporters who are like, 01:39:20.400 --> 01:39:24.720 oh, man, I voted for Trump and now they deported my wife or whatever. 01:39:25.120 --> 01:39:25.220 Right. 01:39:25.400 --> 01:39:28.740 You know, these are these are stories that you could have dug up beforehand 01:39:28.740 --> 01:39:32.200 and been like, he is talking about deporting your wife. 01:39:32.420 --> 01:39:37.680 He's talking about deporting the person who takes care of your lawn or help, 01:39:38.080 --> 01:39:40.660 you know, or whatever, all of these things. 01:39:40.660 --> 01:39:48.240 and bring it and humanize it and say, look, these are the people that are trying to hurt. 01:39:48.260 --> 01:39:50.920 It makes you very tasty tacos in many cases. 01:39:50.980 --> 01:39:51.220 Yes. 01:39:51.460 --> 01:39:51.840 They're quite tasty. 01:39:51.840 --> 01:39:57.000 No, look, the point is, though, on all of these, defend those positions. 01:39:57.220 --> 01:40:02.120 And getting back to Mom Donnie for a second, I think one of the reasons Democratic 01:40:02.120 --> 01:40:06.440 leadership is freaking out about this is that they're like, oh, 01:40:06.500 --> 01:40:07.820 my God, he's a socialist. 01:40:07.820 --> 01:40:11.320 He's in front of all these things. This may work in New York, 01:40:11.360 --> 01:40:14.540 but in the rest of the country, it's going to kill us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 01:40:14.680 --> 01:40:19.800 He's the mayor of New York, okay? You know, fuck this. He needs to, you know... 01:40:20.270 --> 01:40:23.770 He won the damn Democratic nomination as a Democratic leader. 01:40:23.950 --> 01:40:25.430 You should be fucking supporting him. 01:40:27.510 --> 01:40:31.030 And I'm sorry, but you know what? Aside from the fact that maybe he made some 01:40:31.030 --> 01:40:33.810 statements in the past of certain things that maybe I disagree with, 01:40:33.910 --> 01:40:37.350 the reality is that his positions that he's had for a while— And most of those 01:40:37.350 --> 01:40:39.410 are overstated anyway. And most of those are overstated. Yeah, 01:40:39.890 --> 01:40:40.570 you know, that's what I'm saying. 01:40:40.690 --> 01:40:46.910 Aside from maybe some statements in the past, the reality is that his—what he 01:40:46.910 --> 01:40:50.110 is advocating for the city, it's not bad. 01:40:50.110 --> 01:40:51.130 Fairly normal stuff. 01:40:51.230 --> 01:40:51.570 Yes. 01:40:52.190 --> 01:40:57.230 But look, here's the other thing. He is young. He is charismatic. 01:40:57.650 --> 01:40:59.330 People are excited about him. 01:40:59.330 --> 01:40:59.490 Yeah. 01:40:59.790 --> 01:41:01.190 And you're shitting on him? 01:41:01.370 --> 01:41:01.530 Right. 01:41:02.010 --> 01:41:04.790 This is exactly what the party needs. 01:41:04.990 --> 01:41:06.850 This is exactly what the party needs. 01:41:07.070 --> 01:41:13.150 Young, charismatic people who people are excited about and who are energizing the voters. 01:41:13.610 --> 01:41:18.890 And this, again, going back to deciding to win again, deciding to win is all about, 01:41:21.550 --> 01:41:27.590 this strategy that has failed multiple times over the last decade and a half, right? 01:41:27.810 --> 01:41:34.370 Which is Democrats being like, we have to figure out how to win back these voters 01:41:34.370 --> 01:41:37.410 who used to be Democratic and have moved to Donald Trump. 01:41:37.670 --> 01:41:40.870 And actually, if you look at the result of the last election, 01:41:41.230 --> 01:41:45.870 once you got down another real detailed analysis of who showed up to vote, 01:41:46.050 --> 01:41:48.870 what did it show, Sam? Sam, did you see? Because we shared this on the Slack. 01:41:48.930 --> 01:41:50.750 I can't remember. I shared it. You shared it on the Slack. 01:41:50.870 --> 01:41:53.570 What did it say, Sam? What was the final bottom line again? 01:41:54.030 --> 01:41:58.210 It said the more democratic a region, the lower the turnout. 01:41:58.570 --> 01:41:58.950 Ah! 01:42:01.410 --> 01:42:07.650 And this this applied all across the country is basically, you know, 01:42:08.850 --> 01:42:14.710 Democrats not being excited and not turning out to vote because you're you're 01:42:14.710 --> 01:42:16.830 you're trying to message in a way. 01:42:16.830 --> 01:42:22.090 And like a lot of this, I don't want to keep going back to the last campaign, 01:42:22.130 --> 01:42:27.830 but part of this is like, you know, okay, first Biden and then Harris were like, 01:42:28.370 --> 01:42:33.430 okay, let's campaign a lot with Lynn Cheney and stuff and try to win those like 01:42:33.430 --> 01:42:35.750 never Trump Republicans and stuff like that. 01:42:35.750 --> 01:42:44.210 Which, okay, you didn't get very many of those, but you did provably lose a 01:42:44.210 --> 01:42:47.690 bunch of left-leaning people who were like, 01:42:47.810 --> 01:42:51.570 I can't vote for them. They're like on the stage with Lynn Cheney. 01:42:52.850 --> 01:42:57.830 You know, and they're they're not supporting Palestine and they're doing this. 01:42:58.350 --> 01:43:05.850 How many times did I fucking vociferously say over and over that this entire 01:43:05.850 --> 01:43:10.090 elections came down to fucking making your base show up? 01:43:10.090 --> 01:43:12.870 Yeah well and this is the one thing 01:43:12.870 --> 01:43:15.810 like for for for decades and decades 01:43:15.810 --> 01:43:21.830 on both sides the political strategy was go for that median voter go for the 01:43:21.830 --> 01:43:27.810 median voter go for the media it's changed trump changed that proved that going 01:43:27.810 --> 01:43:34.650 for the base and energizing people who typically don't vote at all, can win. 01:43:34.810 --> 01:43:34.970 Yeah. 01:43:35.170 --> 01:43:37.410 And can win very effectively. 01:43:37.610 --> 01:43:37.790 Yes. 01:43:38.130 --> 01:43:44.610 And what it does, I don't want to point to Donald Trump as like a model in a 01:43:44.610 --> 01:43:48.750 lot of areas because the base that he energized was a bunch of- 01:43:48.750 --> 01:43:51.350 Is a fucking bunch of racist lunatics. Yes. 01:43:52.130 --> 01:43:55.630 Exactly. He got the racist lunatics to come out. 01:43:55.630 --> 01:44:01.130 But on the left, you know, look, there are a whole bunch of people who aren't 01:44:01.130 --> 01:44:04.710 coming out because they're disillusioned and don't believe anything you say 01:44:04.710 --> 01:44:08.050 and think you're too centrist that you could potentially get there. 01:44:08.510 --> 01:44:15.290 Now, and, you know, how far I'm not saying the solution is move the party left, 01:44:15.310 --> 01:44:20.350 but I am saying the solution is don't actively alienate those people. 01:44:20.810 --> 01:44:24.110 Now, will the result be the party does move a little bit left? Yes. 01:44:24.250 --> 01:44:24.530 Yes. 01:44:24.730 --> 01:44:25.410 And that's OK. 01:44:25.410 --> 01:44:29.410 You know what? The problem is, again, the party moving to the left, 01:44:29.730 --> 01:44:31.390 a lot of the shit that we're talking about, 01:44:32.320 --> 01:44:38.600 policy-wise is is is the nuance it's it's nuance in in. 01:44:38.600 --> 01:44:41.580 Most cases but also people have pointed out like 01:44:41.580 --> 01:44:44.840 when we say move the party left we're 01:44:44.840 --> 01:44:48.520 kind of actually saying only move it back to where it was a few years ago yeah 01:44:48.520 --> 01:44:55.160 like things are moving like me like democratic leadership positions at this 01:44:55.160 --> 01:45:00.140 point are often very similar to where the republicans were 15 years ago not 01:45:00.140 --> 01:45:01.720 always not always, to be clear, 01:45:01.960 --> 01:45:05.140 but like it depends on the issue. It depends on a whole bunch of stuff. 01:45:05.400 --> 01:45:14.120 But, you know, if there is a lot of energy potentially waiting to be activated on the left. 01:45:14.740 --> 01:45:21.020 And I think what we went and in positions aside, frankly, positions aside, 01:45:21.240 --> 01:45:26.640 you need youth, you need energy and you need conviction on positions. 01:45:27.120 --> 01:45:29.900 The average Democratic voter has also moved far to the left. 01:45:30.530 --> 01:45:33.810 Yes, the average Democratic voter has moved further to the left. 01:45:34.010 --> 01:45:40.370 But I think what people are sick of overall is this sort of is the exact kind 01:45:40.370 --> 01:45:44.570 of stuff they're talking about and deciding to win of like people triangulating 01:45:44.570 --> 01:45:51.410 and trying to pick their positions based on how they think the election result is going to go. 01:45:51.730 --> 01:45:56.430 No, you want people who have a strong feeling about their positions to start 01:45:56.430 --> 01:45:59.750 with and then work on convincing everybody else to agree with them. 01:45:59.750 --> 01:46:01.310 Yep. Yep. 01:46:01.510 --> 01:46:05.650 You know, and show that you really believe it and show people why you believe 01:46:05.650 --> 01:46:10.390 it and what and the benefit it will have for them and everybody else. 01:46:10.690 --> 01:46:15.490 Like, and, you know, honestly, another thing we found is a huge portion of the 01:46:15.490 --> 01:46:19.570 public can't even imagine something unless it directly affects them. 01:46:19.710 --> 01:46:25.530 So you have to show how this stuff affects you. You have to show that this isn't 01:46:25.530 --> 01:46:31.350 some theoretical, we're defending the rights of somebody that you don't know 01:46:31.350 --> 01:46:32.810 and have no knowledge of. 01:46:32.970 --> 01:46:35.770 But you have to show how, yeah, this does affect you. 01:46:35.870 --> 01:46:39.530 This is in your neighborhood, whether you think so or not. you 01:46:39.530 --> 01:46:42.790 know remember uncle jim 01:46:42.790 --> 01:46:45.650 was doing this kind of stuff and you know what this 01:46:45.650 --> 01:46:48.390 would affect him or yeah and you have 01:46:48.390 --> 01:46:52.470 to break through some of this bullshit too i mean like on the snap conversation 01:46:52.470 --> 01:46:58.330 we were having i've seen so many posts in social media about a bunch of people 01:46:58.330 --> 01:47:02.390 just like the you know people who don't know that their local state plan is 01:47:02.390 --> 01:47:06.330 really the same as obama can there There are a lot of people saying, wait, what do you mean? 01:47:06.790 --> 01:47:09.750 Snap and food stamps and EBT are the same thing? 01:47:10.890 --> 01:47:14.210 I didn't know this would affect me. I thought this was affecting like, 01:47:14.450 --> 01:47:16.550 you know, the poor people in the inner cities. 01:47:16.790 --> 01:47:20.030 What do you mean this is going to, this is affecting my stuff? 01:47:21.150 --> 01:47:28.210 You know, shocking, shocking. So there's definitely some communication stuff, 01:47:28.310 --> 01:47:32.210 but and a lot of and I know I know it's not all about age, 01:47:32.590 --> 01:47:36.590 but the top layers, there are 01:47:36.590 --> 01:47:44.070 so many, not even boomers, but also silent generation people hanging on. 01:47:44.070 --> 01:47:46.870 it's time to let go let the 01:47:46.870 --> 01:47:49.790 young folks have this completely aside from 01:47:49.790 --> 01:47:52.910 policy issues they understand the media environment 01:47:52.910 --> 01:47:58.470 better they're not just like oh we'll buy some more tv ads they know how to 01:47:58.470 --> 01:48:03.950 like work in a social media world they know how to do this and or at least can 01:48:03.950 --> 01:48:07.330 get the right consultants to do it for them but many of them are know how to 01:48:07.330 --> 01:48:10.490 do it themselves and you You know, 01:48:11.110 --> 01:48:16.850 it's just like the people who are stuck in the 90s, I've seen a lot of people 01:48:16.850 --> 01:48:22.110 referring to this as actually stuck in the West Wing mindset of like, 01:48:22.410 --> 01:48:27.030 you know, the way the government works should be the way it worked in West Wing, in the West Wing TV show. 01:48:27.070 --> 01:48:27.750 Yeah, yeah, the TV show. 01:48:28.550 --> 01:48:33.850 You know, not the actual West Wing. You know, maybe if there had been an East 01:48:33.850 --> 01:48:35.770 Wing TV show, this wouldn't have happened. 01:48:36.090 --> 01:48:38.810 This wouldn't have happened if we wouldn't get the East Wing demolished. 01:48:38.810 --> 01:48:43.030 The East Wing being torn down, but, you know, no. And, you know, 01:48:43.110 --> 01:48:47.950 no, that's, if that ever, first of all, it wasn't how the real world would work, 01:48:48.110 --> 01:48:50.330 even in the 90s, to be clear. 01:48:50.790 --> 01:48:52.870 But it's certainly not how things 01:48:52.870 --> 01:48:56.790 work now. And it's certainly not how the political environment works now. 01:48:56.970 --> 01:49:02.770 You have to recognize that going back to the days where the two parties cooperate 01:49:02.770 --> 01:49:05.450 and Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan go have a drink afterwards, 01:49:05.770 --> 01:49:07.790 that's not the world today. 01:49:07.790 --> 01:49:12.750 Maybe someday it'll be back, but you got to move on and deal with the world as it is. 01:49:13.290 --> 01:49:14.210 Not anytime soon. 01:49:14.330 --> 01:49:15.630 Now we can be done. 01:49:15.950 --> 01:49:18.090 Now we can be done? Okay. Hold on. Let's be done. 01:49:18.170 --> 01:49:25.750 Now we can be done. So, curmudgeons-corner.com, as I mentioned last week, recently stuff added. 01:49:26.670 --> 01:49:32.350 The social media stuff moved around and made to look nicer. There's a way to order the damn cup. 01:49:32.650 --> 01:49:35.650 I mean, mug, if you want cups, let us know. 01:49:35.810 --> 01:49:38.370 We can do more swag, but no, if you 01:49:38.370 --> 01:49:41.530 want a mug, Commodities Corner Bug now available directly for purchase. 01:49:42.190 --> 01:49:45.970 Nobody's bought one since I, you know, a bunch of people said they wanted mugs 01:49:45.970 --> 01:49:50.130 and then I add it to the site and I haven't seen any orders come in. 01:49:50.190 --> 01:49:51.450 Of course, I haven't checked my mail either. 01:49:51.590 --> 01:49:54.250 Maybe there are. Oops. I don't know. 01:49:55.430 --> 01:49:59.090 Let's see. do i have any order let's see fantastic 01:49:59.090 --> 01:50:02.570 no no no no did wait ah 01:50:02.570 --> 01:50:06.230 i'm sizzling let's 01:50:06.230 --> 01:50:14.510 see no no i'm just checking checking no no no nobody has ordered one yet i you 01:50:14.510 --> 01:50:18.870 know you people out there who are like i want a curmudgeon's corner link on 01:50:18.870 --> 01:50:23.010 the damn website so i can just buy one it's been a week? 01:50:23.190 --> 01:50:28.510 How long do you need? Look, I get a dollar for every one of these mugs sold, and I've been laid off. 01:50:29.850 --> 01:50:31.230 Buy some damn mugs. 01:50:31.230 --> 01:50:34.530 Buy about, you know, a thousand mugs a week, damn it, you people. 01:50:34.630 --> 01:50:35.790 What the hell's wrong with you? 01:50:37.010 --> 01:50:41.090 Exactly. Buy some damn mugs. Anyway, we've got the link to the mug now. 01:50:41.190 --> 01:50:42.870 We've got all the ways to contact us. 01:50:43.290 --> 01:50:46.490 We've got the archive of our show. We've got transcripts. And of course, 01:50:46.590 --> 01:50:49.590 another way to give me money, we've also got the Patreon. 01:50:50.510 --> 01:50:53.790 go to the Patreon at various levels we'll mention you on the show, 01:50:53.930 --> 01:50:56.450 we'll ring a bell we'll send you a postcard, we'll send you a mug, 01:50:57.250 --> 01:51:01.330 and all that fun stuff and importantly, at $2 a month or more or, 01:51:01.330 --> 01:51:08.230 if you just ask us we will invite you to the Commudgence Course Slack where Yvonne and I, 01:51:09.270 --> 01:51:15.430 And a bunch of other folks are sharing links, talking about the news, 01:51:15.770 --> 01:51:16.830 talking about other stuff. 01:51:17.030 --> 01:51:21.130 That was the first place outside of my family you would have found out that I was laid off. 01:51:21.410 --> 01:51:25.630 You know, you could have known already and now you didn't know until you listened 01:51:25.630 --> 01:51:27.210 to the show and that's on you. 01:51:27.670 --> 01:51:32.310 No, all kinds of stuff. So, Yvonne, it's lots of fun. Please join us. 01:51:32.870 --> 01:51:36.150 Yvonne, what is the story from the Commissions Core Slack that are going to 01:51:36.150 --> 01:51:40.130 make people want to give us millions of dollars and join the slack. 01:51:40.130 --> 01:51:43.050 Sam altman wants a refund for his 01:51:43.050 --> 01:51:46.590 fifty thousand dollar tesla roadster deposit okay 01:51:46.590 --> 01:51:50.010 so apparently sam altman 01:51:50.010 --> 01:51:54.030 back in july of 2018 01:51:54.030 --> 01:51:57.750 placed a fifty thousand dollar 01:51:57.750 --> 01:52:01.330 deposit for a tesla roadster okay which 01:52:01.330 --> 01:52:05.770 you know they announced that they would be coming soon and apparently 01:52:05.770 --> 01:52:09.870 he tried to send an email recently to 01:52:09.870 --> 01:52:12.570 try to get a refund on it 01:52:12.570 --> 01:52:15.470 and on the link that was on the on the 01:52:15.470 --> 01:52:18.630 deposit to try to request a refund the 01:52:18.630 --> 01:52:23.550 email came back as undeliverable okay um 01:52:23.550 --> 01:52:31.370 nice you know so yeah so it and so to be clear the tesla roadster 2.0 was announced 01:52:31.370 --> 01:52:39.490 in 2017 and it is eight years later and we haven't even seen a prototype. 01:52:40.600 --> 01:52:41.340 Of course. 01:52:41.900 --> 01:52:49.080 You know, so, yeah. So, I mean, it was a $50,000 deposit on this fucking car. 01:52:49.240 --> 01:52:52.460 It wasn't like, you know, because other cars that he sold, you know, 01:52:52.620 --> 01:52:54.720 you get $2,000, a couple of whatever bucks. 01:52:55.060 --> 01:52:57.620 $50,000 deposit for this thing. 01:52:58.500 --> 01:53:00.260 That's a hefty deposit. 01:53:00.400 --> 01:53:04.240 It's a hefty deposit. And I have heard stories that there's a number of people 01:53:04.240 --> 01:53:10.180 in this, on this boat, that also gave these $50,000 deposits that they have 01:53:10.180 --> 01:53:12.960 not been refunded so far. 01:53:13.420 --> 01:53:18.540 And I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing that Salm Altman is going to get his 01:53:18.540 --> 01:53:20.220 money back anytime soon. 01:53:20.640 --> 01:53:24.360 Yeah. So, one more thing I realized I should say about the Slack, 01:53:24.540 --> 01:53:26.360 especially for new people. 01:53:26.780 --> 01:53:29.180 Like, because we have had a couple new people to the Slack. 01:53:29.920 --> 01:53:32.840 you should be aware when you when you first joined the slack you're put into 01:53:32.840 --> 01:53:35.580 what we call the general channel that's where we mostly talk 01:53:35.580 --> 01:53:38.460 about news but we also have a random channel the place 01:53:38.460 --> 01:53:41.200 where i talked about on my layoffs was a random channel you have to 01:53:41.200 --> 01:53:44.340 join the random channel if you wanted it we've all so you 01:53:44.340 --> 01:53:49.860 know so that's where we talk about all the non-newsies sort of fun or fun stuff 01:53:49.860 --> 01:53:56.880 like layoffs fun fun fun layoff stuff um we also have we also have a channel 01:53:56.880 --> 01:54:02.700 for games where people are playing Wordle and the weekly news quiz from what? 01:54:03.200 --> 01:54:03.420 Bloomberg. 01:54:03.640 --> 01:54:04.200 Who is it? Bloomberg? 01:54:05.020 --> 01:54:06.600 The pointed news quiz. 01:54:07.060 --> 01:54:07.680 Jesus Christ. 01:54:07.700 --> 01:54:13.620 Last week, I somehow scored well and I got so many. The questions were so hard. 01:54:14.180 --> 01:54:16.760 That had been my, you know, because the thing is. 01:54:16.860 --> 01:54:17.680 I haven't done this week yet. 01:54:17.700 --> 01:54:21.240 The pointed news quiz, you can gamble on points. 01:54:21.400 --> 01:54:25.020 And so sometimes you can come out ahead of points, even though you didn't answer 01:54:25.020 --> 01:54:28.620 as many questions wrong. Each question has 10 points, but there are sliders 01:54:28.620 --> 01:54:32.060 where you can double or triple down your bet, whatever. 01:54:32.740 --> 01:54:37.720 And so, but last week I did on points, okay, but the reality is... 01:54:38.050 --> 01:54:41.770 Man, I had like five answers wrong. And a lot of the questions, 01:54:41.990 --> 01:54:46.030 I think your dad would have done really well. Like half the questions were about Africa. 01:54:46.730 --> 01:54:51.430 African government. I'm like, who is the president of this country? 01:54:51.550 --> 01:54:56.030 I'm like, what the fuck do I know? Listen, let me tell you something. 01:54:56.230 --> 01:55:02.170 I have always struggled with Africa, countries, politics. I remember in high school. 01:55:02.170 --> 01:55:06.410 Speaking of which, there was a huge massacre in Sudan this week. 01:55:06.410 --> 01:55:08.810 Yes, that was in the news this week, which we didn't talk about. 01:55:09.070 --> 01:55:13.570 This is something I, you know, I'll fully admit, I have not followed it in detail, 01:55:13.570 --> 01:55:20.290 but apparently like over 10,000 civilians killed, you know, and you'd think 01:55:20.290 --> 01:55:22.510 that would be like top of the news everywhere. 01:55:22.630 --> 01:55:25.390 But of course it's not because that's not how things work. 01:55:25.570 --> 01:55:31.590 But anyway, we have the Games Channel. as said i i haven't done wordle in a 01:55:31.590 --> 01:55:35.550 long long time but a few people are sharing their world and i screwed up a 50. 01:55:35.550 --> 01:55:39.850 Game streak this week because i was so busy with work yesterday. 01:55:39.850 --> 01:55:42.610 That and and i have been trying 01:55:42.610 --> 01:55:45.530 to do this news quiz the last couple weeks i haven't done this week's yet i'll 01:55:45.530 --> 01:55:52.150 do it later today and then we had nicholas who are i call him nick i he's on 01:55:52.150 --> 01:55:57.890 the thing as nicholas but i know it's nick it's nick nick was on here asking 01:55:57.890 --> 01:56:00.710 if we do pips well i haven't done it but i'm. 01:56:00.710 --> 01:56:02.770 I i was about to do it for the. 01:56:02.770 --> 01:56:06.290 First time it's a new york time it's another new york times crossword no it's 01:56:06.290 --> 01:56:09.250 a dominoes kind of thing right like dominoes i. 01:56:09.250 --> 01:56:11.730 I i saw i haven't looked but i saw. 01:56:11.730 --> 01:56:15.310 It's another new york times game uh well all i know is i was. 01:56:15.310 --> 01:56:17.210 Gonna try it i was planning on trying it today. 01:56:17.690 --> 01:56:21.690 Okay. So we might be doing those and basically sharing these kinds of stuff. 01:56:21.830 --> 01:56:25.990 And then we have one channel called Show Topics where people can suggest things 01:56:25.990 --> 01:56:27.330 for us to talk about on the show. 01:56:27.710 --> 01:56:32.270 Usually it's mostly me writing down things, occasionally Yvonne, 01:56:32.450 --> 01:56:35.450 and very occasionally somebody else, but we'd love more input there. 01:56:35.450 --> 01:56:40.850 And then I have one I haven't posted, oh God, in over a year. 01:56:40.990 --> 01:56:41.830 I have to take care of that. 01:56:42.210 --> 01:56:46.870 A show stats one where I post like charts of our listenership periodically. 01:56:46.950 --> 01:56:50.590 But it looks like I haven't posted since September 2024 in that one. 01:56:50.710 --> 01:56:52.690 So I should post an update there. 01:56:53.110 --> 01:56:56.690 Anyway, we've got a bunch of channels. Check out all of them, not just general. 01:56:57.690 --> 01:57:04.770 And yeah, and tell if you've got a deposit down for your roadster. 01:57:05.450 --> 01:57:09.950 You know, tell us your experiences about it. And if you get a refund on it, just send it to me. 01:57:10.690 --> 01:57:10.870 Okay. 01:57:11.290 --> 01:57:16.570 Sound good? Sound good? Okay. Okay. With that, we are done. We are out of here. 01:57:17.130 --> 01:57:19.430 Thank you, everybody, for listening to another Commissions. Oh, 01:57:19.650 --> 01:57:22.990 oh, next week, Yvonne will be out. 01:57:23.870 --> 01:57:27.250 We've already got two volunteers to join us on the show. 01:57:27.470 --> 01:57:32.370 We've got Bruce and Ed that are lined up. I owe them a message saying that the 01:57:32.370 --> 01:57:33.610 time they suggested is good. 01:57:33.710 --> 01:57:36.730 The time they suggested is good. I will respond to that. 01:57:37.090 --> 01:57:39.190 But we're looking at doing like a round table. 01:57:39.570 --> 01:57:45.250 So the more the merrier. If you also want to join myself, Ed, 01:57:45.370 --> 01:57:49.410 and Bruce on next week's show, let me know. 01:57:49.730 --> 01:57:54.150 Let me make sure when we're recording this, because we do have a time now. 01:57:54.590 --> 01:58:00.030 Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. When did we say? When did we say? Hold on. 01:58:00.930 --> 01:58:06.550 November 6th, which is, wait a second, where am I? 01:58:06.970 --> 01:58:09.810 Where am I? November 6th, which is Thursday. 01:58:10.510 --> 01:58:12.750 Thursday at 7 p.m. 01:58:13.490 --> 01:58:18.730 Pacific time, which is 10 p.m. Eastern, is when we are recording the next episode. 01:58:18.730 --> 01:58:24.570 If you would like to join myself, Ed, and Bruce, please send me a message either 01:58:24.570 --> 01:58:28.250 through to Curmudgeon's Corner Slack if you're on there or through any of the 01:58:28.250 --> 01:58:32.730 contact mechanisms listed on curmudgeon-corner.com. 01:58:32.890 --> 01:58:33.750 Let me know. 01:58:33.930 --> 01:58:39.830 I will also still send out the usual email I send out about these things directly 01:58:39.830 --> 01:58:42.150 after this show is put out. 01:58:42.670 --> 01:58:46.470 And of course, we're doing this because Ivan will be out because Ivan will be 01:58:46.470 --> 01:58:48.330 recuperating from his own surgery. 01:58:48.950 --> 01:58:52.390 So, Yvonne, good luck on your surgery. Enjoy your surgery. 01:58:52.530 --> 01:58:55.350 Oh, thank you. Enjoy the surgery. Oh, thank you. 01:58:56.190 --> 01:58:59.090 Listen, I was going to ask the doctor to say, hey, you know, 01:58:59.150 --> 01:59:00.670 you're putting me under propofol, right? 01:59:00.790 --> 01:59:04.410 And I don't know if you've ever been under that sleep, but, you know, it's like. 01:59:04.470 --> 01:59:05.730 I don't remember what I was under. 01:59:06.130 --> 01:59:09.390 Exactly. You're like done. You're out. You don't remember anything that you 01:59:09.390 --> 01:59:11.110 wake up on the other side and it's all done. 01:59:11.370 --> 01:59:14.490 I was like, look, could I just use this until Trump is dead? 01:59:16.630 --> 01:59:19.690 Can you just listen? Just send me in there. It's just, you know, 01:59:19.810 --> 01:59:21.590 because I won't notice that I'm gone. 01:59:22.050 --> 01:59:25.330 It's just, look, moment Trump is dead, and you wake me up and you tell me, 01:59:25.690 --> 01:59:28.610 hey, Ivan, surgery's good, Trump is dead. Great! 01:59:29.490 --> 01:59:34.290 There you go. Of course, he's going to do one of those, like having his mind 01:59:34.290 --> 01:59:38.270 uploaded into a robot or whatever, and he'll live for millions of years. 01:59:38.650 --> 01:59:40.290 Oh, then we'll, you know... 01:59:41.210 --> 01:59:44.670 You know, we can probably, probably Elon Musk. 01:59:44.870 --> 01:59:47.910 I don't know. It's probably going to be like that robot that was doing the dishes 01:59:47.910 --> 01:59:51.990 this week that was making the rounds on video. You not see that one? 01:59:52.710 --> 01:59:57.890 For $20,000, you can now put your deposit down on a humanoid robot that will 01:59:57.890 --> 01:59:59.010 do the chores in your house. 01:59:59.330 --> 02:00:06.490 Their goal is to have not all AI enabled. But the reality today is the AI is not up to the task. 02:00:06.490 --> 02:00:12.490 So what you would get right now if you buy this thing would be a tele-operated 02:00:12.490 --> 02:00:18.370 thing where there's somebody with VR goggles somewhere operating the robot in 02:00:18.370 --> 02:00:19.550 your house doing the cleaning. 02:00:19.550 --> 02:00:26.250 Oh, that's so helpful. And yes, at a snail's pace, mind you, 02:00:26.450 --> 02:00:32.550 because they were showing how this thing struggled to put like two cups, a fork, 02:00:33.070 --> 02:00:36.590 and like a plate inside a dishwasher, and that took five minutes. 02:00:36.850 --> 02:00:40.070 And by the way, when it went to close the dishwasher, it couldn't even really 02:00:40.070 --> 02:00:43.210 close the dishwasher all the way, let alone turn it all on. 02:00:43.720 --> 02:00:46.860 Right. Probably can't push the buttons to properly turn it on. 02:00:47.160 --> 02:00:50.140 Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. Right. I'm not perfected yet. 02:00:50.620 --> 02:00:56.500 No, I look, this is a technology I am anxious for. Listen, get me one of these things that works. 02:00:56.800 --> 02:00:59.840 Yes. Listen, if you could get me one of those that works. 02:01:00.020 --> 02:01:03.280 With a real robot, not like some human guy. 02:01:03.620 --> 02:01:09.060 With a real robot, I would be happy with it. But, you know, right now you're basically spending. 02:01:09.460 --> 02:01:13.460 It's one of those things. It's like what we get with Trump in general, which is. 02:01:13.460 --> 02:01:16.580 I mean, fuck all this AI to do other stuff. 02:01:16.800 --> 02:01:22.340 Give me the AI that will actually do all my household chores. Oh my God. 02:01:22.460 --> 02:01:27.780 What I said is that this is the typical Trump product. Extremely expensive and 02:01:27.780 --> 02:01:30.140 very low on effectiveness. 02:01:30.940 --> 02:01:35.720 Yes. Yes. I mean, I actually have confidence that eventually the technology 02:01:35.720 --> 02:01:37.340 will get there for something like this. 02:01:37.600 --> 02:01:42.820 But this is not it. And I will say this, that if that robot was $20,000, 02:01:43.520 --> 02:01:46.660 right now, and it worked the way that you described it. 02:01:47.280 --> 02:01:49.320 Isn't it just a deposit that's $20,000? 02:01:49.700 --> 02:01:53.460 Or is it like the actual robot's $20,000? I thought it set the price of $20,000, 02:01:53.480 --> 02:01:56.040 plus some sort of subscription, I'm sure. 02:01:56.180 --> 02:01:58.760 But what I'm saying is that if you told me that you would sell me a robot right 02:01:58.760 --> 02:02:04.240 now for $20,000 that could help with household chores, I mean, 02:02:04.340 --> 02:02:07.200 I would think that you could probably finance it in some way, right? 02:02:07.880 --> 02:02:08.540 I'm sure. 02:02:08.940 --> 02:02:11.120 Yeah. I mean, that would be something to consider. 02:02:11.790 --> 02:02:12.250 Yeah. 02:02:12.530 --> 02:02:16.290 I mean, say, like, I got my parents that are getting old. That would be nice 02:02:16.290 --> 02:02:19.930 for them to have a little robot at the house that could help them with their daily chores. 02:02:20.670 --> 02:02:25.850 Of course, there are a lot of science fiction stories that start with the household 02:02:25.850 --> 02:02:29.070 robots and end badly for the humans. 02:02:29.230 --> 02:02:34.370 To be clear, there's that movie, the best one probably with this is that iRobot 02:02:34.370 --> 02:02:37.990 movie, you know, where, I don't know, all of a sudden the robots, 02:02:38.230 --> 02:02:41.610 you know, are being centrally controlled by a thing and then they... 02:02:41.790 --> 02:02:43.110 try to jail all the humans. 02:02:43.970 --> 02:02:45.810 There have been countless. 02:02:45.810 --> 02:02:48.410 There have been a lot of movies, but the one that was like a big one. 02:02:48.510 --> 02:02:53.030 Like Reason. There have been movies, books, TV shows. My son and I, 02:02:53.490 --> 02:02:58.850 preview for a head, we actually just finished The Orville, which also has this theme. 02:02:59.010 --> 02:03:04.010 There's a race of humanoid robots that overthrew their masters who were mean 02:03:04.010 --> 02:03:07.670 to them that started out as exactly this kind of household robot. 02:03:07.830 --> 02:03:13.610 And I pointed out to Alex, they even the ones that Elon is making not the ones 02:03:13.610 --> 02:03:18.730 that this is but the ones that Elon is making his household robot things actually 02:03:18.730 --> 02:03:21.970 look like the ones from the Orville he probably like where. 02:03:21.970 --> 02:03:22.730 He got them from. 02:03:22.730 --> 02:03:29.510 Probably and anyway they go and massacre all the living beings because the living 02:03:29.510 --> 02:03:31.690 beings treated them like slaves surprise, 02:03:32.930 --> 02:03:39.290 anyway we're done Yvonne I was trying to say goodbye bye thank you everybody 02:03:39.290 --> 02:03:46.650 have a good week stay safe all that stuff goodbye bye say bye one more time one more time bye bye bye, 02:04:17.860 --> 02:04:25.520 Okay, now I get to start my decompression, relaxing, working on shit, all that. 02:04:25.660 --> 02:04:28.580 I get to start using up all that time. Right, Yvonne? 02:04:28.800 --> 02:04:32.100 Yeah, start decompressing. Okay, go to your decompression chamber immediately. 02:04:32.720 --> 02:04:33.120 Right. 02:04:33.220 --> 02:04:35.140 You have one in the house, right? It's in the garage. 02:04:35.440 --> 02:04:38.700 Yeah, but not like being thrown out of a spaceship. Not that kind of decompression. 02:04:38.820 --> 02:04:40.760 Oh, well, maybe. 02:04:41.480 --> 02:04:44.780 Maybe. Okay. I guess I kind of was thrown out of a spaceship. 02:04:45.100 --> 02:04:45.500 Basically. 02:04:45.680 --> 02:04:45.980 In a sense. 02:04:46.300 --> 02:04:46.480 Yeah. 02:04:46.720 --> 02:04:48.660 Yeah. Okay, done.