Ivan: Hello.
Sam: Hello. Get this thingy. Here we go. Okay.
Ivan: By the way, you did not respond to my message about me coming to your area.
Sam: That's right.
Ivan: Everybody else did except you.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Not everybody else. Emily has not either. But you did not.
Sam: You are correct, because I got it while I was out, and I meant to,
Sam: once I got home and had my calendar in front of me, block off the time and then respond to you.
Sam: But then by the time I got home, I completely forgot.
Ivan: Of course.
Sam: But it's far enough out, and it's an important enough event.
Ivan: I figured.
Sam: I will.
Ivan: I already booked a hotel near where you live.
Sam: I was going to respond on the Slack that I was shocked that there was any hotel
Sam: establishment closer than Seattle that would meet your standards.
Ivan: I mean, well, I mean, it's not great, but there's a Delta hotel and like a courtyard.
Ivan: I mean, the courtyard actually looked horrible, but I went and I there is this
Ivan: relatively new Delta hotel that those hotels get decent reviews. It doesn't look too bad.
Sam: Okay, okay. Yes, anyway. Yes, it'll be good to see you here. We'll do a thing.
Ivan: Yeah. So, I don't know. I am not convinced that my wife will come out that day
Ivan: simply because of the jet lag, because I know her. Right.
Ivan: So, you know...
Sam: All good.
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, I know that I will be, you know, I'll arrive and do something,
Ivan: but, you know, I know my people.
Ivan: And I know last time I went to Seattle, the first thing she did when she got
Ivan: to the hotel was like climbing to bed and not leave for many hours. Yes, basically, yeah.
Sam: Yes. Now, are you actually flying into Everett?
Ivan: No, no, no. We're flying to Seattle.
Sam: Oh, man, you know, it's a cute little airport.
Ivan: There aren't very many flights to there.
Sam: No, I know. To go almost anywhere, you have to do multiple stops on the way.
Ivan: There's no flights.
Sam: You usually have to make multiple stops and pay more. But it's a nice little airport.
Sam: Anyway, shall we go?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay, here it goes.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, February 28th, 2026.
Sam: It's just after 18 UTC as we're getting started. I am Sam Minter.
Sam: Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: I heard a beep.
Sam: Once again, a beep. It's been a long time since you've actually heard them.
Sam: Like, it's not like they've stopped.
Ivan: Well, but I just heard it again. And I just, all of a sudden,
Ivan: just as you finished, all I heard is beep.
Sam: You know, I added, I added to my.
Ivan: You know what? You don't, you don't have a fucking day job right now.
Ivan: You're fucking like changing damn fucking battery.
Sam: I have added to my probabilistic to-do list as a once a week priority one task,
Sam: which means it'll probably actually come up on the agenda once every couple
Sam: of months to identify and remove one beep from the house somewhere.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Now, I believe at the moment there are two beeps going on in the house.
Ivan: Oh, fuck me.
Sam: I think one of them is a smoke alarm, and the other might be related to our alarm system.
Sam: But I'm not actually sure. But I have noticed that there is a beep.
Ivan: Listen, I will be clear that if I was,
Ivan: if beeps had been going on that long and I couldn't,
Ivan: and they weren't fixed, at some point I would find a baseball bat or something
Ivan: and just beat whatever was doing it into submission for it to shut up.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: That would be the solution. Here's the other thing.
Ivan: Look, my, well, the other, but it's not even me.
Ivan: Look, my wife has made me wake up from bed in the middle of the night because
Ivan: one of those has started and basically it's been, you got to stop that right now.
Ivan: And my son also. I imagine by the. It's not like even like, like option.
Ivan: It's not like I could like, ah, I'll be fine.
Sam: I imagine by the time I even notice there is a beep, it's probably already been going for months.
Sam: And then when I notice it, it's like, I'm going up the stairs or something.
Sam: And I'll notice there's a beep while I'm going up the stairs.
Sam: I'm like, oh, there must be a smoke detector somewhere near here.
Sam: Like someday I'll look at that. And then I won't notice when I'm in other parts of the house.
Sam: so I have to be like walking by it when it makes the beep and like unless at
Sam: that very moment I'm in like hey I'm going to take care of beeps mode then I'm not,
Sam: I'll file it away as oh there's a beep and you know it's a very interesting.
Ivan: Mode I'm going to take care of beeps mode interesting,
Ivan: I'm going to take care of beeps.
Sam: Right. And like I said, I just added it to my list.
Sam: And once every few months, it'll probably come up. And I'm sure there'll always
Sam: be a beep somewhere in the house to find out.
Sam: The other day, a task came up that I'd added to change.
Sam: I had noticed one of, we've got like on the back porch, there's like two lights,
Sam: you know, and one of the bulbs had gone out.
Sam: So I added to my to-do list to change that light bulb that had gone out.
Sam: And several months later when it came up and I went out to the back,
Sam: I went to unscrew the bulb and I just touched it and it came back on.
Sam: So I'm like, oh, it just needed to be screwed back in. And I was disappointed
Sam: because I didn't actually get to change a light bulb.
Sam: Now, there are other light bulbs out that I know about, but they haven't come up on my list yet.
Ivan: I, I, I look, if I go up to a light bulb and I managed to like fix it without
Ivan: changing the light bulb, I don't, I don't get disappointed.
Sam: No, I was really excited because, because it was one of, it was one of these
Sam: old fluorescent curly Q type of bulbs.
Ivan: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was going to replace it with an LED bulb.
Ivan: The old curly ones, yeah.
Sam: You know, but it turned back on. The old curly ones.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: It turned back on when I tightened it. So I'm like, oh, oh, well,
Sam: it gets to stay there another few years, maybe.
Ivan: There, there, you know, the, we had...
Ivan: Years ago, we did this, we did some remodeling, not planned.
Ivan: It was, we had this issue where we had this flood.
Ivan: Okay. And because we had to do a whole bunch of construction,
Ivan: the guy that came in to do the work said, hey, you want me to switch out all
Ivan: the hi-hats with LED lights?
Ivan: It's like, what the hell? You know, we're in the middle of it. What the hell? Do it.
Ivan: Okay. And that was when they were more expensive at that time.
Ivan: Because I think each fixture was like $50, $60 each.
Sam: Now they're the norm.
Ivan: Yeah, now, yeah. Now they're, you know.
Sam: Now if you don't want LED, you have to go out of your way to get something else.
Ivan: Right, right. But the one thing
Ivan: that happened with those LEDs that were original, a lot of those failed.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: They were a brand that.
Sam: I mean, I remember.
Ivan: Had a high failure rate.
Sam: Yeah, no, I remember, like, specifically, like, they were, one of the benefits
Sam: that was touted was these things will last a long time, and then it turned out
Sam: a lot of them didn't, and some of them would.
Ivan: They did last a long time.
Sam: Some of them did.
Ivan: But they didn't last as long as they should have, okay? Well, and part of it.
Sam: Like.
Ivan: That brand, but.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: But wait, let me finish, because I had two brands of LEDs that I had put in.
Sam: And one was better than me.
Ivan: Not in those hi-hats. Yes, one was way better.
Ivan: The ones that were not the hi-hats, I bought a whole bunch of Philips light bulbs.
Sam: Now, remind us what's the hi-hat.
Ivan: Those Philips, the hi-hat are the ones that are embedded on the ceiling, okay?
Sam: Right, right. That are kind of like flush.
Ivan: Okay? They're inside the ceiling. And then the other ones that I bought,
Ivan: these bulbs that were bulbs to replace where there were regular bulbs to stick in bulbs, okay?
Ivan: In other places that were not in the ceiling. Okay.
Ivan: Dough. And that I bought were Phillips.
Ivan: And the Philips, look, I still have, they're 15 years old.
Sam: Well, one of the.
Ivan: Most of them actually did not fail.
Ivan: I actually came that the fixture, in some cases, the fixtures that rusted and
Ivan: the bulbs are still working with the Philips. Okay.
Ivan: So I was replacing the rusted fixtures.
Sam: One of the problems with the first generation of LED bulbs was that they did
Sam: badly in places that heated up.
Sam: So like the ones that were actually in enclosures of one sort or another did
Sam: worse than the ones that had more airflow.
Sam: Now, and they fixed that subsequently. But that was one of the problems in the
Sam: first generation of these things.
Ivan: And I think that, and that may be what happened with the ones in the ceiling
Ivan: itself. They did last eight years, eight, nine, ten years.
Ivan: Okay. But considering that, I had put in the Philips before and none of the
Ivan: Philips had failed. Okay. I mean, none of them.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay. I think maybe out of, I put in like 20 of those Philips bulbs,
Ivan: maybe more, one failed. Something like that.
Ivan: Philips knows how to manufacture a fucking bulb.
Ivan: Okay. I'll give them, I'll give them a hug. By the way, Philips is the one that,
Ivan: okay, because these bulbs were invented while I was at HP, okay, by the way.
Ivan: HP is the one that came up with this in HP Labs.
Ivan: The thing is that at some point, all of that was sold to Philips.
Ivan: And then Philips is the first one that actually made these work.
Ivan: Now, everybody else copied them afterwards, but Philips was the first one that
Ivan: made these. So the Philips ones were, they were really rock solid.
Ivan: They were really good, okay? And so the Philips bulbs were the best.
Ivan: Every other brand were cheap knockoffs and...
Ivan: Almost every other brand that I tried was shit except the Philips.
Ivan: And then I got these ones that were from Home Depot or built in.
Ivan: I had to, I think right now at this point I've, I had to replace all.
Ivan: No, I don't think I, I have replaced all of those that were put in, in 2014.
Ivan: So they lasted about 10 years, you know, now they're all replaced with the newer
Ivan: versions that, I'm going to guess that these will last a lot longer because,
Ivan: like you mentioned, they fix the issue with these.
Ivan: Right. That's just a lot of those in that situation where it's in the ceiling,
Ivan: not enough airflow, they heat, they died. Right.
Ivan: But yeah, no, I, but there was one time I went to replace one of them and started
Ivan: working again. I'm like, oh, wait, I was thrilled.
Ivan: I'm like, oh no, I don't have to do it. Good. But you were disappointed.
Sam: I was disappointed because I don't get to change light bulbs that often anymore.
Sam: It was like, you know, okay.
Sam: I was excited. I went out to the back porch. I, you know, and then,
Sam: and then the old one just turned on.
Sam: I mean, I could have replaced it anyway because I was out there,
Sam: but no, I was like, no, it's still working.
Ivan: No, no, no, it's working. No, no, leave it, leave it, leave it.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. And also it's not like, it's, it's not one that,
Sam: not that this would affect my decision, but it's, it's not like a,
Sam: what I would call a key light bulb.
Sam: I mean, it was probably out for a year before I even noticed it was out.
Sam: You know, it's like, it's the backyard light.
Sam: We don't use our backyard space very often.
Sam: We turn on the light sometimes to look out to the backyard from inside.
Sam: And there was still, there's like, you know, one bulb on each side of the door.
Sam: And we noticed, and it was the one that was further away.
Sam: And so, you know, unless you were looking from outside, you don't really notice.
Sam: And we weren't looking from outside very often at that. So, but anyway.
Sam: So with this fun, exciting talk about light bulbs.
Sam: Yeah. We're going to do our usual, I guess, and do the...
Sam: Less newsy stuff first. And then, you know, I got a couple of movies.
Ivan: There's no news.
Sam: Oh, you're going to do this thing again? Yeah.
Ivan: Did anything happen?
Sam: Yeah. This is Evod's little routine about how there's no news on weeks where there's clear news.
Ivan: I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Sam: No, nothing.
Ivan: I don't know why you're saying that I'm pretending about this.
Ivan: I don't know. There's news? There's news? What news? What are you talking about?
Ivan: something happened i'm.
Sam: Sure you're talking about the winter olympics.
Ivan: They had they had their closing ceremony
Ivan: since we last talked didn't they something do you realize
Ivan: that i did you know i i am not i used to
Ivan: watch the olympics i am no longer an
Ivan: olympics person right i
Ivan: i just i didn't i don't think i watched a single i did not tune into an olympics
Ivan: channel watch like voluntarily like a single second of the olympics okay yeah
Ivan: i'm finding myself actually.
Sam: I'm finding myself checking to.
Ivan: See did it actually end this week or not or was it like two weeks ago no no
Ivan: no it did no it was this week it was this week okay i mean i you know that's.
Sam: Clearly it that's clearly what you're talking about.
Ivan: No, I woke up and we're at war, Sam.
Sam: I was still awake when that happened. And, you know, so.
Ivan: Well, I was sound asleep.
Sam: We got those extra West Coast hours over here.
Ivan: I had a long week, as I mentioned. I almost got myself killed.
Ivan: I came way too damn close to getting killed this week, Sam. I was not through. I was not.
Sam: You mentioned this on the Slack, but tell our listeners. What happened to you this week?
Ivan: I'll tell the short version, because I know we ran long on light bulbs. But look, very simple.
Ivan: When I travel in most big cities, if I'm in a walking distance of somewhere,
Ivan: I will walk there. I'm not going to take a car. There's no point.
Ivan: Usually the traffic is so bad in big cities that it doesn't make any sense. Okay.
Ivan: So, you know, I, I was, I've, I've walked back and forth to this place many times and, you know,
Ivan: in the Dominican Republic and in the Capitol and Santo Domingo, and it's just that.
Ivan: The traffic is just brutal over there. But the thing is, the cyclists,
Ivan: the motorcycle guys are nuts.
Ivan: And, I mean, they have a reputation for it.
Ivan: They're very, very, very just crazy on the streets.
Sam: Very, very.
Ivan: Gotcha. I mean, it's just, forget about just lane splitting,
Ivan: cutting, running red lights, whatever.
Ivan: They will do it all, okay? They just don't care. and at very high speeds.
Ivan: So, look, I was crossing the street in one place where traffic had stopped,
Ivan: crossing the streets over here.
Ivan: The cars aren't exactly like giving way anyway either, okay?
Ivan: They don't really like to give way.
Ivan: So the traffic had stopped, and I was on the phone talking to my wife,
Ivan: and I am at the middle of this intersection waiting for traffic to pass,
Ivan: and I see that the traffic had slowed down, but cars had stopped so I could weave through the cars.
Ivan: I said, I tell my wife, listen, hang on one second, because I didn't want to
Ivan: be on the phone talking as I'm
Ivan: crossing the street. I wanted to be paying attention to what I'm doing.
Ivan: And I'm like, just hang on one second. So I put the phone down like I had,
Ivan: like by my ear and I put it down like by my by by my waist.
Ivan: So so I'm not I'm not on the phone. I didn't want to hang up.
Ivan: So I'm I crossed the streets, three lanes. I crossed the first and the second one.
Ivan: I'm in front of a stopped car and cars were moving on the third one and a car
Ivan: over there stopped to let me through.
Ivan: OK, so there was a. big SUV behind me, and I looked to see if a motorcycle's
Ivan: coming, and I didn't see one, but this guy was coming up so fast that as I went across,
Ivan: this motorcycle was coming through, and I had walked in. I realized it's coming.
Ivan: I literally have this guy's cyclist face in front of me less than a few inches,
Ivan: and I did manage to jump back out and not get hit by the motorcycle.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: That was too close for comfort.
Sam: I can imagine.
Ivan: Way too close for comfort.
Sam: If you remember, not a motorcycle, but in my family, there were at least two
Sam: pedestrian versus car accidents over the last, I don't know.
Sam: Oh, it's been a while now. But a few years back, a car, my dad was crossing
Sam: the street and had just stepped off the curb and a car ran over his foot.
Sam: out you know as it was you know turning around
Sam: the corner where he i mean he was crossing at an intersection
Sam: with you know the the walk light for
Sam: pedestrians on and then um my
Sam: mother-in-law just like two years ago was crossing
Sam: the street at a crosswalk in front
Sam: of her church and and a
Sam: car just barreled right into her like you know
Sam: she was she was in the hospital for like a while
Sam: for that and recovering for months after
Sam: that and and i don't i don't know
Sam: what the story was with the guy who ran over my dad's foot
Sam: but the guy who was who who hit my mother-in-law um was paying attention to
Sam: a baseball game on the radio and not looking at what was in front of him and
Sam: speeding as he passed by this church nice.
Ivan: Not bad no i i mean in my case i i walk very defensively which is why i don't i don't i'm not on.
Sam: My you know presumably the guy presumably the guy in the motorcycle was doing
Sam: something wrong right he was he was going too fast the.
Ivan: Guy was like lane oh yeah the guy was like speeding and lane splitting and speeding
Ivan: at a very high I rate a speed, and if I remember correctly, he also ran a red light!
Sam: Oh, excellent, excellent.
Sam: Was it a hit and run? Did he leave? Well, he didn't hit you. He almost hit you.
Ivan: He didn't hit me. Oh, he just kept going. Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Well, as I said on the curmudgeon's corner slack, I'm glad you're not dead.
Ivan: But like I said, one thing, look, all I said about that incident,
Ivan: the one thing that would have really made it way, way, way worse is,
Ivan: look, if my wife, if that guy hit me, right, my wife is listening to this as it's happening, right?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And she's a thousand miles away. I cannot imagine the ridiculously helpless
Ivan: feeling that she would have if that happened.
Sam: Right. Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, if she doesn't hear it, it's not as bad.
Ivan: But I just thought this couldn't have been any worse if I got hit. Okay?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, thank God that, you know, but that's the reason why I usually try to be
Ivan: very, like, I'm not, I don't, you know, she called me.
Ivan: I don't try to be walking and being on, when I'm walking streets like that,
Ivan: I'm not walking and being on the phone.
Ivan: Okay? I don't do that. I'll take a phone call like my wife called me,
Ivan: but I try usually not to even do that. Okay?
Ivan: But, you know, look, I'm traveling. You know, it's hit and miss when we can,
Ivan: like, you know, because she called me. I believe I called her because I had
Ivan: been in a meeting and she tried to call me a couple of hours earlier and I couldn't
Ivan: talk to her. So I was like calling her back.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know, so it's one of those things. But but I but I usually try to like if
Ivan: I'm walking in the city streets like that, I'm like not on my phone. No, no.
Ivan: It's just you know, you have to be you have to be paying attention,
Ivan: especially in these cities where traffic is is crazy.
Ivan: You know, I mean, it's you know, it's crazier than here.
Ivan: And so, yeah. So, you know, you want to be mindful.
Sam: Well, speaking of close calls, traffic in cities, et cetera,
Sam: this seems like a good opportunity to once again tell the story of when I first came to Seattle.
Sam: like I've mentioned
Sam: this before I'm sure but it was I think I'd already interviewed and I'd gotten
Sam: a job here but I was going to be in temporary housing and so the bottom line was.
Sam: The, when I got my rental car, they were out of like regular old sedans or whatever.
Sam: And they gave me like, I forget what it was, whether it was,
Sam: I think it was in, in my head, it was a pickup truck, but it may have been like a, an SUV or something.
Sam: Remember this was 20 some years ago, but whatever, it was a bigger vehicle than I was used to.
Sam: Okay. And so I had found, like, my hotel or whatever, and it was brand new to the city, and, like,
Sam: I'd found a place to park, whatever, and I was getting out of the truck in order
Sam: to, you know, go check into my hotel or whatever.
Sam: i i i had yeah and it was i'm trying to remember it if like it wasn't a it didn't
Sam: have like a place to pull up to check in it was like a i don't know i parked
Sam: across street or something or may i i forget the details anyway i had parked
Sam: on the street and was getting out of the truck,
Sam: and i was unused to the size of the truck so i went to step out of the truck Oh, boy.
Sam: And the ground was not where I expected it to be.
Ivan: Ah, right.
Sam: Okay. So I basically fell out of the truck.
Ivan: You fell out of the truck. Okay.
Sam: And I stumbled forward several feet. Okay.
Sam: And I missed getting squashed by a bus by less than five inches.
Ivan: Nice!
Sam: Like, I saw the bus go vroom right in front of my face, like an inch or two away from my face.
Sam: And, like, you know, that would have been the end of my Seattle adventures if
Sam: I had stumbled one or two inches further at that moment.
Sam: It would have been all done. it would not have been survivable I would have
Sam: been done lovely and I was of course extremely traumatized but completely unhurt but like it was,
Sam: probably,
Sam: the closest call in my life to a life ending traumatic event like that that's
Sam: very sobering There might have been another health issue when I was a teenager,
Sam: like I was in the hospital for some asthma stuff and apparently it was touch
Sam: and go for a while, but I barely remember that.
Sam: This was like, I fell out of a damn truck and was inches away from getting clobbered
Sam: by a bus, you know, that was going at, you know, full city bus speed.
Sam: I mean, it wasn't like, you know, going highway speeds or anything,
Sam: but it was quite enough that I would not have survived that incident if it had
Sam: just been a couple inches different.
Sam: And so, yes, it was very sobering. It was like I was quite shaken for the rest of that evening.
Ivan: Well, you're here, so we both are here, so there you go. So we've managed to make it so far.
Sam: 20-plus years later, I'm still here.
Ivan: How shall we do your movies?
Sam: Well, let's do movies before we go to war. Well, we already went to war,
Sam: but before we talk about going to war, the most recent war-like adventures from
Sam: our wonderful president. Okay.
Ivan: War-like? War-like?
Sam: Well you know.
Ivan: I don't i don't i don't i don't see it as war like it's it's it's it's pretty
Ivan: it's pretty actual war not.
Sam: War like the thing is and we
Sam: we can talk about this when we actually hit the subject but we
Sam: have yet to see like to me there's we have it's unfortunate but we almost have
Sam: to start making the distinction between the events that sort of last a few days
Sam: or a week and then are done.
Sam: Oh, I see what you're saying. Versus, you know.
Ivan: So how many days is it a skirmish versus a war? So Ukraine is a war. Ukraine is a war.
Sam: But like, did Venezuela turn out to be a war?
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: I mean, it was basically over in a couple hours. No.
Ivan: Right. Venezuela's not a war. Yeah. It's a skirmish. Not a war. Yeah.
Sam: Now, was it an act of war, according to international law? Absolutely.
Sam: But was it a war? But it's not a war.
Ivan: I mean, but not yet. Not yet. Not yet, Sam. I mean, you know. Anyway.
Sam: Anyway. Okay. Movies. First up, from 2002, Blade II.
Ivan: Is that with what's his name the tax the tax uh tax guys snipes right yes yes
Ivan: why can't i remember his name i remember just about my head now it's he's always the tax guy and.
Sam: A while ago we talked about me watching blade the original this is the sequel.
Ivan: Well for for those that don't know okay because i call him the tax guy wesley
Ivan: snipes got this brilliant financial advisor that basically told,
Ivan: that basically convinced them that he should declare himself,
Ivan: I think, a sovereign citizen,
Ivan: basically that he didn't own any taxes.
Ivan: And so he filed to get a tax refund for all the taxes that he had filed in two
Ivan: years prior, tens of millions of dollars.
Ivan: The IRS did not take this lightly and basically went after him.
Ivan: And then he hadn't filed other taxes.
Ivan: So they went after him criminally and threw him in jail for tax evasion.
Sam: Okay. Yes. This is him.
Ivan: But it's the kind of stuff that doesn't happen to our president who does the same thing. But anyway.
Sam: Anyway.
Ivan: Only two black guys.
Sam: Now, Blade is technically a Marvel property, but this is.
Ivan: It is?
Sam: Yes, I believe that we had discussed this last time we talked about this.
Ivan: Fuck if I know that I don't know any of these things.
Sam: But this is not part of the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Sam: But Blade was a Marvel Comics character.
Sam: And I believe Alex and I were watching this as going systematically through
Sam: Marvel-based movies, of which another was your favorite Howard the Duck.
Sam: So, also Marvel.
Ivan: I still can't believe that's a horrible movie. Don't understand.
Sam: Also not MCU, though.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Anyway, some of you may remember, I'm pretty sure I gave no better than a thumb
Sam: sideways to the original movie and probably a thumbs down.
Sam: These do not get better, I don't think, as you go along through the series.
Ivan: But they actually, didn't they do well at the box office?
Sam: They did fine, I think. Box office.
Ivan: Well, I mean, I know he did a couple of these. I'm looking it up. 57% Rotten Tomatoes.
Sam: This one made $80 million in the U.S.
Ivan: And Blade II.
Sam: That's not a huge amount, but it's, you know.
Ivan: Well, no, but a U.S. But look, here's the thing. It's a low-budget movie.
Ivan: Blade II, $54 million budget, which considering where budgets are for movies,
Ivan: it's pretty low budget. But 155 million total box office. Yeah, not that bad.
Sam: Yeah. Anyway, it's the kind of movie like, well, let me give the first couple
Sam: paragraphs of the plot like I usually do.
Sam: Again, from Wikipedia. In Prague,
Sam: Blade searches for his mentor, Abraham Whistler, who is thought dead after being
Sam: attacked by Deacon Frost, but
Sam: was instead turned into a vampire and held prisoner by them for two years.
Sam: After interrogating Vampire Rush on Whistler's whereabouts, Blade rescues Whistler
Sam: and cures him of his vampirism.
Sam: Whistler meets Scud, Blade's young, gifted new technician.
Ivan: Vampirism? Vampirism?
Sam: Vampirism, vampirism, yeah.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: A pandemic is turning vampires into reapers, primal mutant creatures with a
Sam: ravenous thirst for blood.
Ivan: So that's how we got RFK.
Sam: And a highly infectious bite that transforms both humans and vampires alike.
Sam: The original carrier of the reaper strain and cause of the pandemic is Jared
Sam: Nomak, who bears hatred towards the vampire race.
Ivan: Are you sure this isn't a historical thing? If I use this to explain some of
Ivan: the shit we're going through, this explains a lot.
Sam: Uh-huh. To combat the Reapers, vampire overlord Eli Demeskinos sends his trusted
Sam: servant Assad and his daughter Nissa to strike a truce with Blade.
Sam: knowing humans will be the reaper's next target after
Sam: vampires blade reluctantly allies himself with them and it continues look my
Sam: basic complaint about this one and probably why it still did decently is the
Sam: same thing that i believe we talked about last week on like the last allegiant
Sam: one and it's like it's like 100 percent,
Sam: Move from like one violent action fight scene to a few seconds of exposition
Sam: to the next violent fight scene to, you know, and.
Ivan: The whole point of the movie is the violent, the violent scenes.
Sam: Yeah, I mean...
Ivan: It's not really the plot. Well, let's just... Listen, let's just...
Ivan: Let's just kind of, like, sprinkle some kind of semblance of a plot here,
Ivan: just for an excuse for a whole bunch of action scenes.
Sam: Yes. I mean, and look, it's not all violence. There's also chase scenes.
Ivan: Oh, and chase... Well, you gotta chase the person to get to the violence.
Sam: Yes, yes. And there's also... Okay, as I...
Sam: As a former physics major, there was also, these are vampires who are sensitive,
Sam: of course, to like sunlight and such. Yeah.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And so, but one of the things they had in this movie was basically sunlight grenades.
Sam: Okay. These things would go off and it would basically produce a bright light.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And then the vampires would die exposed to this bright light and the other creatures
Sam: that were in this as well. The Reapers.
Ivan: Sunlight grenades.
Sam: But here's the thing.
Ivan: There's a thing.
Sam: The light from these grenades went around corners.
Ivan: Whoa! No!
Sam: And like, it's basically just a really bright flashlight.
Ivan: That manages to go around corners.
Sam: It goes around corners. I mean, it's like the light would explode,
Sam: like a regular explosion, but it was just light.
Sam: But light does not go around corners. Light goes straight.
Sam: I mean, it'll bounce off mirrors and stuff, but that's not what was happening here.
Sam: They were in the sewers under some Eastern European city, and they would set
Sam: it off, and the light would expand out.
Sam: By the way, not at the speed of light. It wouldn't be just like turning on a flashlight.
Sam: It would go vroom and expand out from wherever this grenade went off and go around corners.
Sam: And every time this was happening, I was pausing the movie and complaining to
Sam: Alex about how light wouldn't behave that way.
Sam: And all these are are bright flashlights. So why is it happening this way?
Sam: And then they were like, you know, they had, I don't know.
Sam: It bugged me. It bugged me. That was a thing in this movie.
Sam: And no, it was. Anyway.
Ivan: It does sound idiotic. Look, I love that this thing.
Ivan: Look, there's one thing. I was looking at Wikipedia page on this.
Ivan: I love this blurb. Okay. This is a fantastic blurb.
Ivan: There's a video game released on this.
Sam: Okay. Okay. All right.
Ivan: Here's the blurb. This is the best blurb. Okay. It's just, there's a single
Ivan: line about this in the Wikipedia review. Video game.
Ivan: A video game, Blade II, was released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox on September 3rd, 2002, period.
Ivan: Reviews were generally negative.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: There you go you know yeah you know there is apparently a third this is about
Ivan: vampires so there's vampires third movie by the way yes.
Sam: I have not.
Ivan: Yet seen.
Sam: The third movie so don't spoil.
Ivan: It no I'm not no no no I'm not gonna go with spoilers I'm gonna go into revenue
Ivan: because you know what we talked about with Divergent how they started doing
Ivan: worse and worse each time yes they did increase the budget a little bit to 65
Ivan: million but the box office was down like 20 million to 132 million but still,
Ivan: considering, you know,
Ivan: movies and how they go now and spend $300 million on a movie only to get $300
Ivan: million in revenue, I would guess that for a studio, they're like, yeah,
Ivan: it's not bad. You know?
Ivan: Hey, this works. We can work with this. Exactly.
Ivan: They also made Blade the series.
Ivan: Man, I tell you what, I've never seen something more milked.
Sam: I'm guessing the TV series is toned down a little. This had,
Sam: you know, in addition to lots of violence, and they made it graphic and gory
Sam: violence in many cases, there's also, you know, lots of swearing.
Sam: Basically, Wesley Snipes is being a badass and, you know, doing the thing.
Sam: There's not, it's like, I was going to say sex stuff, but it's not like real sex.
Sam: It's not like, it's not even rated R, right? This thing's rated PG-13, I think, probably.
Ivan: By the way, speaking of how movies going downwards.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: The previous one had like Rotten Tomatoes. Blade 2 was like,
Ivan: I think it looked like 50, 60 Rotten Tomatoes approval.
Ivan: Okay. So I went to Blade, the third one, the Blade Trinity.
Sam: 57.
Ivan: 57. On the Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 24% approval rating.
Ivan: So this thing basically just, just like went off for number three.
Ivan: Yeah. For number three, it's just.
Sam: You know, I'm looking forward to that one then.
Ivan: It basically is just driving off a cliff in terms of, you know,
Ivan: this goes with a little bit of, like, how I know that he must have done it for
Ivan: the money, the guy that did the Bourne film.
Ivan: Well, he did it for the money, I'm sure. But it's the same thing as,
Ivan: like, with the Jason Bourne films, where, what's his name, that did the Bourne films.
Ivan: He said at one point, and I'm like, he declined at one point to do a movie,
Ivan: and somebody else did it instead of him. And he said, man, look,
Ivan: they came to me. Let's do another one of these.
Ivan: I was just like, man, what are we going to call it? The Bourne redundancy?
Ivan: I mean, what the hell? It's the same shit over and over.
Ivan: We keep milking this for, you know, to no end. Okay.
Ivan: You know, enough. Enough.
Sam: Okay. So.
Sam: Thumb it down? Well, since we decided to be more graduated.
Sam: Halfway between thumbs sideways and thumbs down. I'm not going to give it a
Sam: straight up thumbs down.
Ivan: You're a thumb angled down, but not straight down.
Sam: Yes, exactly. And because like I'm reserving straight down for the worst of the worst.
Sam: And this isn't quite that bad.
Ivan: This isn't quite that bad.
Sam: But I would certainly not recommend this movie unless what we have described
Sam: here, like, is the kind of thing you like.
Ivan: You just want, like, some kind of, like, hey, I need my fix of graphic violence
Ivan: and some sexual innuendo on TV.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I'm bored. I can't find anything else. Where can I find this? Oh, Blade!
Sam: Too,
Sam: exactly okay next up next up from 2025 which we actually saw in the theaters a Minecraft movie oh.
Ivan: I've watched this.
Sam: You've watched it okay okay yes so mine.
Ivan: Who likes Minecraft we went to see the movie yes.
Sam: So let's get your thoughts first then what did you think of it,
Sam: Now, let me ask.
Ivan: Okay, I'll give the short, brief summary because it was a while back when I watched it.
Sam: Also, give, what is your experience with the game?
Sam: Like, how much have you played yourself? I know Manu's played a little bit.
Sam: How much have you played?
Ivan: I mean, I've played some, you know. I mean, I've played with them, you know.
Sam: But you're not, like, deeply familiar with the Minecraft lore and things like that.
Ivan: Lore itself lore well I know all the characters like all the little like creeper
Ivan: you know I know all the you know I recognize all the things that appeared in
Ivan: the movie I don't know about the lore itself probably not but you know let me.
Sam: Get a basic like level set did you understand what was happening when they had
Sam: the Technoblade cameo or did you recognize DanTDM when he was on the screen?
Ivan: No.
Sam: Okay. See? So you're not deeply enough.
Ivan: I'm familiar. No, no, I'm familiar.
Sam: This is two YouTubers who, like, one was referenced and one made a cameo.
Ivan: No, no, no. And there were some others. Like I said, I'm, like,
Ivan: familiar with it, but I'm not. No, I'm not. No.
Ivan: Not even close. But, look, I found a movie.
Ivan: Me, personally, I'll give the
Ivan: preview. because you just saw it more recently. I liked it. It was fun.
Sam: Well, I saw it when it was in the theaters. So like, you know,
Sam: I couldn't have seen it that much more recently than you.
Ivan: Well, I thought it was, you know what? It was a fun movie. I liked it.
Sam: I'm going to agree. Thumbs up from me as well. And I am like, it wasn't.
Ivan: I was surprised. I thought it was going to suck. I thought it was a terrible idea.
Ivan: How the hell are they going to make a whole fucking movie about Minecraft was what I was thinking.
Ivan: And I came out, and maybe that helped, but I came out very pleasantly surprised.
Ivan: I said, hey, this was fun.
Sam: Mine would like it too. And I wasn't surprised about making a movie out of Minecraft
Sam: because I've watched many an animated thing on YouTube that's in Minecraft, you know, fully.
Sam: What I was dubious about was the fact that this mixes real life and Minecraft.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: As opposed to really being an animated thing completely within the world of Minecraft.
Sam: Instead, it, you know, it starts out in the human world and then they move into
Sam: Minecraft and, you know, and it's sort of a weird hybrid and they sort of acknowledge
Sam: the gaminess of it as well. Yes.
Sam: And so it doesn't take itself super seriously.
Sam: No, no. I haven't given the actual plot, so let me read the first couple paragraphs there, too.
Sam: Struggling doorknob salesman Steve breaks into a mine to fulfill a childhood
Sam: dream, where he discovers the orb of dominance and the Earth crystal.
Sam: When combined, they create a portal that transports him to the overworld,
Sam: a world where the terrain is made of easily manipulated cubes.
Sam: He builds his own paradise and later stumbles across a porter to a hellish world
Sam: called the Nether. He is imprisoned by Malgosha, the gold-obsessed piglin ruler
Sam: of the Nether who gravely discourages creativity.
Sam: Because the orb would allow her to control the overworld, Steve has his dog
Sam: Dennis escape with the orb and crystal and hide them under his bed in the real world.
Sam: Some time later, 1980s video game champion Garrett the Garbage Man Garrison
Sam: owns a failing video game store in Chuglas, Idaho.
Sam: He heads to a storage auction to acquire items to sell for cash,
Sam: ultimately winning the contents of Steve's old house.
Sam: While searching through the items, particularly hoping to find an Atari Cosmos,
Sam: he instead finds Steve's old belongings, including the orb and crystal, dot, dot, dot.
Sam: But anyway, a couple kids and that guy end up, you know, also following into
Sam: the overworld, into the world of Minecraft and having adventures,
Sam: rescuing Steve, etc. Sorry, spoilers.
Sam: And anyway I agree it surprised me for being a lot of fun was it perfect?
Sam: No there were things I could quibble with as someone who has followed some of
Sam: the Minecraft stuff I liked the cameos I haven't watched all the like there are a whole bunch of,
Sam: YouTubers that were did cameos let me.
Sam: There we go. So cameos are of YouTubers.
Sam: DanTDM, who I mentioned, who Alex watched tons of DanTDM when he was younger.
Sam: Not anymore, really, but I'll occasionally put it on because I miss DanTDM.
Sam: I watched it, too, because Alex was watching it.
Sam: Apmow, who I don't know. MumboJumbo, who we watched a bunch of as well.
Sam: mumbo jumbo is a a minecraft redstone youtuber he made makes all kinds of contraptions
Sam: out of out of redstone in minecraft and does some other things too and apparently he didn't make a,
Sam: i guess he he did make a cameo but he also helped design some of the the redstone
Sam: mechanisms in the game to make sure that in the movie to make sure they were
Sam: match the game ld shadow lady i didn't really watch a lot of her,
Sam: but I would recognize her.
Sam: And one of the developers of Minecraft, who's one of their spokespeople when
Sam: they have events, announcing new features and stuff, made a cameo as well.
Sam: And I mentioned Technoblade. Technoblade was a YouTuber who died.
Sam: Died very young of cancer. He was a Minecraft YouTuber. Very big Minecraft YouTuber.
Sam: And they included a cameo of his character.
Sam: Walking across the street and made a little Just made a little statement to
Sam: him. And like, I caught all those references.
Ivan: And so I don't know. I'm not. Right. I'm not that, you know.
Sam: And so, like, I recognize the people. I was like, oh, there's Dan.
Sam: And oh, that's the Technoblade reference. I never really watched Technoblade
Sam: channel, but I knew who he was and I knew the reference and I knew it was coming, etc.
Sam: And so I appreciated all that because I mentioned they didn't take themselves
Sam: seriously at all, but they also treated it with some respect.
Sam: So that if you played the game a lot and had all this background,
Sam: you would appreciate it and not be like, oh man, they're completely messing it all up.
Sam: They didn't mess it all up. They did it fairly well.
Sam: and so yeah I enjoyed it I think there's I
Sam: think there's going to be a sequel yep talks for
Sam: a potential sequel began a few days after release looks
Sam: like the release date of the sequel is going to be in 2027 so yeah I'll you
Sam: know it was fun I liked it thumbs up even more thumbs up if you have sort of
Sam: followed YouTube followed Minecraft on YouTube specifically and watched like,
Sam: you know, some of, you know,
Sam: I mean, there's everything from Minecraft music videos to whole stories that
Sam: were done animated in Minecraft and all this kind of stuff.
Sam: And if you followed like some of the long running sort of adventure series where
Sam: people are playing the game, but sort of acting out an adventure within it on YouTube.
Sam: You appreciate it even more, I think, if you followed some of that stuff.
Sam: But even if you haven't, I think it was, it was just a fun little movie.
Sam: So there you go. Thumbs up to a Minecraft movie.
Sam: Yeah okay so all right
Sam: ready for break and then i guess we can talk war
Sam: and destruction and you know i only had two aside from movies and tv that i
Sam: added to the list this week the only two other things on our list were the violence
Sam: in mexico and iran oh fuck that's the only two things that got.
Ivan: Because of course, you know, to hell, Jesus Christ.
Sam: Yes. Okay. But we'll, we'll be back after, uh,
Sam: after this one.
Sam: Okay. So, Iran or Mexico?
Sam: Where do you want to start? Or do you want to throw a curveball and talk about
Sam: something else entirely? Let's talk about Iran. And then save those for the next segment. Okay.
Sam: So, as we are, I'm going to caveat like I often do with breaking news events.
Sam: We are recording this Saturday.
Sam: And Saturday, February 28th, as I mentioned at the beginning.
Sam: This is an ongoing news event as we are, right, speaking.
Sam: There are still attacks going on. Iraq.
Sam: Iran is counterattacking. Things are happening.
Sam: The events of the day are going to overtake us.
Sam: By the time you listen to this, things will have changed since,
Sam: you know, midday Saturday U.S. time.
Sam: It's in the afternoon for Ivan. It's right before noon for weeks.
Ivan: Why are we doing this again, Sam? For me here on the West Coast.
Sam: I ran bad, Alex. No, you're not Alex.
Sam: i i get you you you all confused all the time i get the dog confused i you know
Sam: luckily my family doesn't mind when i accidentally call them by the dog's name
Sam: they get amused when i call the dog we need to you.
Ivan: Know we need to send you out to pasture you know you know just like we did with
Ivan: biden because you you keep getting names confused.
Sam: Once i'm in that pasture with the cows i am sure Or I will call one of them Yvonne.
Ivan: Probably. So why are we doing this again?
Ivan: No, look. What the fuck?
Ivan: Sam, what the fuck are we doing? Listen, this is just another.
Sam: It looks fairly clear that what Trump and or the people behind Trump that have been pushing for this.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: They're straight up after regime change. Like, this is not...
Ivan: Oh, come on. Look.
Sam: Now, whether or not they succeed is another question.
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no, no.
Ivan: No.
Sam: You think it's all just distraction from Epstein or whatever?
Ivan: Are you fucking kidding me? I literally said on the Slack two weeks ago,
Ivan: literally asked, when are we attacking Iran?
Sam: Well, the talk of us attacking Iran has been going on for months anyway.
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: And Israel's been pushing it. Well, okay.
Ivan: Listen, listen.
Sam: The specific timing may be influenced.
Ivan: One thing you just said is the biggest one. Israel, obviously,
Ivan: has been goading Trump to attack Iran.
Ivan: They have, this has been, I mean, Bibi has wanted this.
Ivan: But also, by the way, why does Bibi want to attack Iran? What's the primary reason?
Sam: Oh, is he also trying to stay in office?
Ivan: No! And stay out of jail? No, you got, don't say, Sam!
Sam: No, but I don't want to listen. Wait, wait.
Sam: I don't like saying these words myself either. But to be fair to Bibi,
Sam: he's wanted to go after I ran for decades.
Ivan: True, true, true. But but also as an extra motivation that this is that that is that does help.
Sam: Yeah. Oh, yeah. None of this hurts. I'm sure the timing was probably influenced by stuff we need.
Ivan: I think that's the main thing. It's the whole timing.
Ivan: Why now? And I think it has to do more with trying to divert and distract from
Ivan: all the other shit going on, both in Israel and the United States,
Ivan: than anything else. Because we're in the middle of negotiations with Iran.
Ivan: When we're talking, we're doing a whatever.
Ivan: And you know what? We just go, ah, fuck it. We're bombing them.
Sam: Well, I'm not sure how much of those negotiations was ever really in good faith anyway.
Ivan: Well, Sam, how could they be in good faith in the first place?
Ivan: Listen, this entire thing has been a charade from the beginning.
Ivan: Look, like Tim Kaine I just said, we had a deal with these guys. and we broke it.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and look, in terms of what, you know, I said that the sort
Sam: of nominal, all the language they're using is more aligned with regime change than anything else.
Sam: But in terms of like what's actually likely to happen, I feel like,
Sam: you know, maybe they'll get lucky and do something like they did in Venezuela.
Sam: Sam, let me ask a question. But I think it's more. Wait, wait, wait.
Ivan: Let me finish the thought. Let me finish the thought.
Sam: Let me finish the thought.
Ivan: For you about the regime change thing.
Sam: Okay, okay, okay.
Ivan: When you say regime change, what do you think it means for them?
Sam: I really don't think they think any further than let's get rid of the one or two people at the top.
Ivan: So it's just, hey, let's just topple it and then whatever happens, happens. Okay.
Sam: Pretty much.
Ivan: Sounds like a brilliant plan.
Sam: Sam. I honestly don't think they think multiple steps ahead in terms of this kind of stuff.
Sam: It doesn't seem like they did in Venezuela. No. I don't think they would here, too.
Sam: I mean, when experts are talking about, like, what happens in Iran,
Sam: like, they're like, hey, let's say they succeeded and they killed the Ayatollah today.
Ivan: Uh-huh.
Sam: And what is the most likely result of that?
Sam: It is not, oh, wow, suddenly a democracy springs up tomorrow that's friendly to the West.
Sam: No, most likely you get years of chaos.
Ivan: By the way, I just opened an article in the New York Times talking about this.
Ivan: Let me read this sentence here.
Ivan: This is from an article that says, Netanyahu takes a shot at regime change in Iran.
Ivan: I'll give you this line. Nothing would burnish the legacy of Mr.
Ivan: Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, more than toppling the Islamic
Ivan: Republic, which he has likened to Hitler's Germany and ending its nuclear program for good.
Ivan: How about that?
Sam: Well, and look, and honestly, if he succeeded, he might be right.
Sam: I mean, and this is the thing, too. Like, and this is the same kind of argument
Sam: we were having about Venezuela as well.
Sam: Let's assume, like, well, let's not assume.
Sam: Well, OK, for the sake of argument, let's say everything about this goes perfectly for Donald Trump.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. You know, we have limited to no American casualties.
Sam: Civilian casualties aren't that big, although I've seen some unconfirmed reports
Sam: that we may have hit a school by mistake.
Sam: You know, I don't know if it's true or not.
Sam: Fog of war kind of stuff. We'll know more eventually.
Sam: But let's assume limited American casualties, limited civilian casualties.
Sam: We decapitate the iranian government it falls
Sam: and we get a good friendly government that is good on human rights and likes
Sam: the west and blah blah blah i mean we're talking about like the the heir of
Sam: the shah coming back he's one of the people that's been agitating lately in
Sam: in iran well i mean the shah was.
Ivan: Another dictator and a brutal dictator anyway i mean what the hell man it's
Ivan: not exactly like, you know, like, the Shah was like this benevolent guy.
Sam: What can I tell you? Anyway, so...
Sam: Assume everything goes well. Then, yes, Donald Trump will get some accolades
Sam: for doing something that ended up turning out positively.
Sam: Now, it may not, but let's assume it does.
Sam: It is still completely and totally illegal for him to have done it.
Ivan: It is? Oh, so the checks and balances will now come into play, right?
Sam: There, yeah, there's been no, Congress has not authorized this in any way,
Sam: let alone an actual declaration of war.
Sam: He hasn't done any selling of this.
Sam: I mean, he had the State of the Union a few days ago and did not talk about,
Sam: he did not make a case for doing something against Iran at the State of the Union.
Sam: I think he may have mentioned it, but not extensively. It wasn't like a major theme.
Sam: If you poll the American public, support for us taking this kind of action is
Sam: incredibly low. But he's doing it anyway.
Sam: And that's just domestic stuff. Internationally, it also does not meet any of
Sam: the requirements for a legal action as far as international law is concerned.
Sam: Of course, we don't give even the slightest crap about that.
Sam: But nevertheless, this is the kind of thing where, I mean, remember how conflicted,
Sam: you know, when we talked about Venezuela, you're like, yes, Sam,
Sam: he's doing it illegally, but somebody needed to do this.
Sam: And there are a lot of people who are going to feel the same way about Iran. Yeah.
Sam: whether or not like this goes into, I mentioned the positive scenario.
Sam: Of course, the worst case negative scenario is an ongoing Middle East war that
Sam: spirals out of control and consumes multiple countries. But I think the most
Sam: likely scenario is neither of those.
Sam: The most likely scenario is, you know, they've said this campaign is going to last days, not hours.
Sam: I've heard like four or five days of intensive bombing and such of the country. We're going to do that.
Sam: We're going to kill a few high-profile people. I saw there were initial reports
Sam: that maybe we got the Supreme Leader, but it seems like, no,
Sam: we probably didn't. He was evacuated. He's fine, probably.
Sam: But we did get a couple of high-ranking people, and we'll probably get more
Sam: before we're done. But we've done that before.
Sam: And you remember, it was just a few months ago where we supposedly completely
Sam: eliminated their nuclear capability anyway.
Ivan: Yeah, what happened?
Sam: I mean, Donald Trump said so.
Ivan: Did they go with the day? Wow, they're so good, Sam.
Ivan: They managed to, after we completely, completely wiped out their nuclear capability,
Ivan: Sam, they managed to rebuild it in just a few months. They're incredible.
Sam: Well, somebody in the Trump administration did an interview where he once again
Sam: said they were one week away from making weapons.
Sam: Which, of course, wait, but I thought we completely destroyed all their capabilities
Sam: and made it so they couldn't even think of rebuilding anything for decades.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But apparently a few months later, we're one week away again.
Sam: And so and look, bottom line is there's no trustworthy narrator here.
Sam: So, you know, what's the real situation on the ground?
Sam: Fucked if I know, you know, because you certainly can't trust.
Sam: anything the Trump administration is saying.
Sam: You certainly can't say anything. You can't trust anything Netanyahu is saying.
Sam: You can't trust anything the Iranians are saying either.
Sam: So who the hell knows?
Ivan: Who the hell knows?
Sam: You know, but at the same time, yeah, I feel like the most likely scenario is
Sam: once again, we engage in a military campaign. It lasts a few days. There's some damage.
Sam: But basically, we end up not really changing substantially the facts on the ground.
Sam: That's the most likely scenario. And I don't know, we repeat this again in another six months?
Sam: I don't know. I mean, it could go the way that everything goes Donald Trump's
Sam: way and we have a completely changed Iran in a few months,
Sam: or it could go the way where we have the regional war that drags on for years.
Sam: Either of those could happen, too. But I feel like the most likely is just we
Sam: bomb them for a few days and then a week or two from now, we're not even talking about it anymore.
Sam: Just like we're not talking about Venezuela much anymore.
Ivan: You know, about the... The only positive thing that I could say about the Trump
Ivan: administration for the first Trump administration was that they never got us
Ivan: into any major conflict like this. OK.
Ivan: And and and and and and and look, look now, look, look at this shit.
Ivan: I mean, look now. It's just I mean.
Sam: I just to be clear, having having previewed the next three years,
Sam: this is absolutely nothing compared.
Sam: to the land war in Greenland coming up soon.
Ivan: Listen, yeah, well, of course. So what are we finding? Fighting polar bears, I guess.
Ivan: I mean, you know, is that what we're doing? I'm like, you know, it's,
Ivan: He's got now this taste for bombs, if you haven't noticed.
Ivan: He likes just unleashing his bombs and the airplanes and showing them off.
Ivan: So this is going to escalate, unfortunately.
Ivan: He's going to be doing this more and more.
Sam: Well, frankly, it's just like tariffs. Once he finds a toy that he figures out
Sam: the levers to play with it.
Sam: And he knows if I do this, I can drive the news cycle. I can get attention. I can get this.
Ivan: I can get that.
Sam: I can use this as leverage.
Ivan: This will drive the news cycle the direction I wanted to be driven in.
Ivan: This has nothing else to do with anything else, Sam.
Ivan: Nothing. Not regime change, not nothing. It's how can I drive the news cycle
Ivan: to pay attention to something else, what I want attention to be paid to.
Ivan: And that is the only, you know, the worst thing is this is the only thing that motivates him.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, like, he gave that little speech last night about,
Sam: like, now's your chance, Iranians, rise up.
Ivan: Like he could give two flying fucks about the Iranian people.
Sam: Exactly. Isn't he deporting Iranian refugees who are here? I mean, come on.
Ivan: Come on. Give me a fuck about it.
Sam: There are people who have fled the regime there that we are trying to send back.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And, you know, not just Iran, of course. Like, we're doing the same thing with
Sam: Afghanistan, with all these places.
Ivan: Everybody, yeah. He doesn't give a fuck about any of them.
Sam: No, no. Yeah. If he cared about any of that stuff, he'd be actively supporting
Sam: the people who had fled the regime and all this kind of stuff. No, no, no, not.
Sam: I'm sure there is some covert support for some internal Iranian opposition because,
Sam: of course, we're doing that. I'd be shocked if we weren't.
Sam: But it's not the same thing.
Ivan: It's not with the—it's the entire goal, once again, is disruption.
Sam: It's not with their best interest action in mind.
Ivan: Exactly. The entire goal is disruption, not any, you know—,
Ivan: positive direction for Iran. I think that's the key thing.
Sam: Yes. Anything that is done by Trump and his administration anywhere in the world is certainly,
Sam: like, you would think, like, at least you could argue, okay,
Sam: he's worried about the interests of the U.S., not the interests of that country.
Sam: And you'd be like, okay, that's normal. That's like every administration.
Sam: Of course, they're looking out for the interests of the U.S.
Sam: But in Donald Trump's case, he's not even doing that. It's only his own interests.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: It's only his own personal interests.
Ivan: It's only his own personal interests.
Sam: But frankly, one difference, even of previous administrations,
Sam: that some have been more naked about, like, look, we only care about U.S.
Sam: and we'll screw anybody else and we don't give a shit.
Ivan: But he cares. They care about what they believe is the good thing for the U.S.
Ivan: This is only about what is good for him.
Sam: Right. But I was also going to say, even compared to that, we have had some
Sam: administrations where they actually recognize that sometimes the best way to benefit the U.S.
Sam: is to benefit the other countries as well. because there's a such thing as a win-win relationship.
Sam: And when we, when we.
Ivan: In his, in his mind, there is no such thing as a win-win. Those don't exist. Ever.
Ivan: Ever. Those don't exist at all.
Sam: And the whole concept of soft power where you end up benefiting this country
Sam: by providing a good example and making people like you.
Ivan: No.
Sam: Oh, they like you because you helped them when they were in need and provided
Sam: a good example and blah, blah, blah. You know, now, the U.S.
Sam: has a very mixed record of that kind of stuff, to be completely honest.
Sam: However, at least, like, some administrations actually believed in that and
Sam: tried to do that and, you know, and had some decent success over the last hundred years.
Ivan: Maybe they didn't do it to every country consistently, okay?
Ivan: All right? And they did it in some ways that it was bad. But the reality is
Ivan: that in many cases, they actively tried to do that and did that with some countries.
Ivan: With others, they didn't do it that well.
Sam: Concept of USAID, which of course you eliminated.
Ivan: Yes, but of course we eliminated.
Sam: Yes. I mean, is that we can use our extreme wealth to help out all over the world in ways that,
Sam: really, in the grand scheme of things, did not cost us a lot of money.
Sam: But helped a lot of people and left them feeling good about, hey, they helped us.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: And, you know, as we've both said, we haven't always been consistent about this.
Sam: We've often done it badly.
Sam: We've often taken advantage of people.
Ivan: But Sam, there was a general intention, direction in terms of advancing American
Ivan: interest and in many cases helping some of these countries, even when we sometimes
Ivan: we didn't do it positively.
Ivan: OK, many times, sometimes a failure of vision, many times it was a failure of
Ivan: us understanding the country, you know, for the for the most part,
Ivan: the president wasn't actively trying.
Ivan: You know, they they they they thought that they were advancing the interests of the United States.
Ivan: And sometimes they said, well, the interest of the U.S. is more important than others.
Ivan: We don't we don't care about it. But it was even in their misguided way,
Ivan: it was still the interest of the United States that they were thinking in the first place.
Ivan: This is completely different. This has nothing to do with this.
Ivan: Any action that Trump does, that is not even remotely a thought.
Sam: Yep.
Sam: It's all about what's in it for me. How is this going to help me in my personal situation right now?
Ivan: Right now.
Sam: Whether it's distraction from other news that he doesn't want,
Sam: or whether it's a monetary thing, or whether it's just attention.
Sam: He does just like attention.
Ivan: Too. The guy is an attention whore. Everything is about attention to him,
Ivan: and everything is about a positive attention to him.
Ivan: And this, obviously, is much better positive attention than the Epstein files.
Ivan: or inflation or I lost at SCOTUS with the tariffs, etc., etc.,
Ivan: or the polls are bad, whatever.
Sam: And this is one of those things that you can almost count on.
Sam: Most news coverage, including at outlets that are usually critical of Donald
Sam: Trump, when you are at, like, a war footing, tend to be very deferential.
Sam: To like, oh, yeah, we're doing this and here's why and blah,
Sam: blah, blah, as opposed to, you know, just saying flat out over and over and
Sam: over again, hey, this is an illegal action.
Ivan: I don't know what's going on on the ground. I was like, look,
Ivan: I was on the front page of the New York Times, like right now,
Ivan: my editorial board first article is basically saying that look at the articles,
Ivan: for example, one over here.
Ivan: For Trump, the Iraq Iran attack was the alt is the ultimate war of choice.
Ivan: That's one of the top top stories about this opinion editorial board.
Ivan: Number one opinion. Trump's attack on Iran is reckless.
Ivan: This is not like deferring to Trump and his action in any way, shape or form.
Ivan: I just saw MS now putting Tim Kaine like I said that this was completely idiotic.
Ivan: That was the main thing on there. OK, number one, you know, there,
Ivan: you know, look, opinions, Washington Post.
Ivan: There is no reason to think this war with Iran is necessary.
Ivan: The first fucking opinion under the editorial board.
Ivan: All of these are. Listen, there is nothing.
Sam: Maybe it's shifting quickly. Like before I went to bed, before I went to sleep
Sam: last night when this was already ongoing, a lot of the initial coverage was
Sam: saying things like, you know, it. Thank you.
Sam: was repeating without a lot of questioning, like, Israel says this is preemptive, for instance.
Sam: Now later, a few hours later, I started seeing criticism of that.
Sam: But the initial wave of coverage was basically just like, Israel says this, the U.S.
Sam: says this, without much of what you're talking about now.
Sam: Maybe even just a few hours later, the tide is turning.
Sam: Because once again, I woke up again right before we started recording,
Sam: after watching a few hours of this coverage last night.
Sam: So we shall see. I mean, again, polling on this before it happened was universally negative.
Sam: Like when people were asked, should we be getting?
Sam: Yeah. I mean, you even even amongst Trump voters, if you remember one of the
Sam: things that repeatedly was said during Trump's campaigns, both in 2016 and...
Ivan: The Democrats are warmongers! They're going out to go get us into war!
Ivan: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: Look, here's one from Gavin Newsom's governor's press office.
Ivan: Donald Trump's old tweet. Now that Obama's poll numbers are in a tailspin,
Ivan: watch him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.
Ivan: As usual, everything is a motherfucking projection! Everything.
Sam: Yes. As Yvonne blows out the microphone, screaming into it. Yes,
Sam: yes. Everything is projection.
Sam: And, like, we've seen this, especially with Donald Trump, but frankly,
Sam: the whole fucking Republican Party for years now.
Sam: And this goes for the Epstein, like, sex scandal stuff, too.
Sam: The whole Epstein thing.
Ivan: The whole pediophilia thing. The whole fucking, like, listen,
Ivan: the whole massive homophobia thing.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: For God's sakes!
Sam: Like almost everything that they accuse the Democrats of, if you look at it
Sam: in detail, the Democrats aren't doing it, but they are.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: It's like, you know, and, you know, trying to mess with elections.
Sam: Come on, who's doing that?
Sam: You know, all of it, all of it over and over and over and over again.
Sam: It's, it's just like, Like, you want to know what nefarious things the Republicans might be up to?
Sam: Look at what they're accusing the Democrats of. You get a nearly 100% hit rate.
Ivan: Yeah. Damn. Okay.
Sam: Again, my prediction is that like our previous strikes on Iran,
Sam: this one may be a bit bigger,
Sam: but a few days, the immediate strike will be over. Things will calm down.
Sam: And I don't know about next week, but two weeks from now, we may not even be
Sam: talking about Iran on the show.
Ivan: Here, I'm wondering, you know, because everything to him is driven by attention,
Ivan: phone numbers or whatever.
Ivan: If he starts getting a lot of negative publicity, right? Is that how this drives us real quickly?
Ivan: Where all of a sudden he's getting, you know, it starts like,
Ivan: you know, it being negative because he's getting shit from all his MAGA folks
Ivan: and everybody, whatever.
Ivan: Then all of a sudden he completely turns around and changes.
Ivan: By the way, here's one that I saw. Tulsi Garbert was in the Situation Room with
Ivan: Vance watching this launch.
Ivan: There's a tweet also that Gavin Newsom press office just shared from Tulsi.
Ivan: What do you think it says?
Sam: Oh, she was very big against attacks on Iran for years.
Ivan: No more with Iran!
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: You know what? Fuck you, Tulsi, 2.4. I forget, you know, which is my usual. I need to remember.
Ivan: Oh, by the way, before I give out my fuck yous for the week.
Ivan: Oh, fuck Jill Stein as well, too. this week.
Ivan: Wolves apparently crawled out of her cave early.
Sam: Yes, she has surfaced. Yeah, it's like the groundhog.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: When she pops up, you know. No, look, I think it's almost simpler than like,
Sam: oh, there's negative backlash, so he backs off.
Sam: I think it's almost no matter what's happening, good, bad, indifferent.
Sam: Once we are done with the initial set of strikes that were planned,
Sam: he's going to declare victory and call it done.
Ivan: I mean, that's the MO, right?
Sam: Yeah. It doesn't matter what the actual results are.
Ivan: And if you think about it, it's almost like every battle. Like,
Ivan: you know, I'm not talking about battle war, just in general,
Ivan: okay? I'm talking about, hey, the healthcare debate.
Ivan: Hey, this, the thing, whatever. You know, how he goes and he says,
Ivan: you know, there's a whole bunch of arguing and blah, blah, blah,
Ivan: negotiating, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: Then he goes and he says, no, well, I'm going to have a solution in two weeks.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden, the two weeks pass and we forget about it and we're on to something else.
Sam: Whatever new outrageous thing is going on. Now, I will say the one possible
Sam: exception is... Well, even...
Sam: We got Maduro and he declared victory, but like that still disappeared off the
Sam: headlines in a couple of weeks.
Sam: I feel like even I was about to say the one exception might be if they actually
Sam: kill the Supreme Leader.
Sam: But even if they did that, we're probably moved on to something else. And in a few weeks.
Ivan: There was this there was this gorgeous there was a headline.
Ivan: I remember this one that somebody reposted from like 2016, which I remember
Ivan: that I believe I wanted to fucking like punch a screen or something when I read this.
Ivan: It's an article by Maureen Dowd who talked about Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk.
Ivan: And I still fucking remember. Somebody reposted that headline.
Ivan: And that's one where I want to fucking find Maureen Dowd right now and beat the shit out of her.
Ivan: Grab a fucking copy of it and fucking like rub it in her face.
Sam: Well, like you said, in his first term, he mostly stayed out of things.
Sam: Now, I say mostly. He actually did dramatically increase the drone program from what Obama was doing.
Sam: He was quieter about it.
Sam: But there were more drone hits on more countries during Trump's first term than
Sam: Obama had been doing. So he increased that.
Sam: But he didn't outright start messing with additional countries.
Sam: The second term, he absolutely has.
Sam: He's all over the place. You know? I mean, hell, we did a military attack on
Sam: Nigeria at the end of last year.
Ivan: Right, I forgot about that.
Sam: Does anybody even remember that?
Ivan: Fuck no. Jesus Christ, we've had... Sam, Sam, it's like every fucking day,
Ivan: there's so much shit going on.
Ivan: I mean, if we went and we made a list of all the stupid shit that we've had.
Ivan: We've had Americans murdered on the streets by ice. We've had an invasion of
Ivan: Minnesota by our own federal government. Thank you.
Ivan: I mean, we had, listen, we were attacking, listen, we helped an attack in Mexico.
Ivan: We murdered this fucking cartel leader and unleashed complete chaos in Mexico.
Sam: Well, with that, why don't we take a break and then talk about that?
Sam: Ah, yes. Okay. This next one should be an Apple dream, but I didn't prepare it.
Sam: So we'll have an Apple dream next week. And in the meantime,
Sam: this break, and then we'll talk about Mexico and whatever else we end up talking about. Here we go.
Sam: Okay, we're back. So, Yvonne, you were starting to describe what happened in
Sam: Mexico last week, and then I said, let's take a break.
Sam: So, continue where you left off. What the hell happened? We killed some drug lord?
Sam: Or Mexico killed some drug lord with our alp?
Ivan: OK, so apparently it did involve the U.S.
Ivan: Not sure exactly the extent, but but but the U.S.
Ivan: was involved in this where the the chief of the Holisco drug cartel.
Ivan: OK, that was he used to be part of the Sinaloa cartel that got kept getting
Ivan: mentioned a lot in the U.S.
Ivan: he was murdered okay and the
Ivan: reaction by the members of the cartel was
Ivan: to unleash violence across significant
Ivan: parts of mexico okay in response to
Ivan: that i mean there was i mean you know i i've been to jalisco many times i've
Ivan: been to the city of guadalajara many times or or is the late uh what what's
Ivan: the name most of the most of the late wait wait wait i need to let me as a late
Ivan: The late Lou Dobbs on TV once called it Farfula,
Ivan: in which he was trying to pronounce the name of the city. You know...
Ivan: Guadalajara is the second, I would say the second most important city in Mexico.
Ivan: It is a tech and industrial hub.
Ivan: Most major U.S. companies have tech companies have operations in the city.
Ivan: So this is a very developed area of the country.
Ivan: I said, you know, Mexico is very developed, but one of the most developed areas in the country.
Ivan: So all of a sudden, the airport was under siege. OK, I mean, people had to run out.
Ivan: This is an airport that I've been to many times. OK, so this is particularly
Ivan: like very disturbing to me.
Ivan: OK, people wound up on the tarmac because the airport was under attack.
Ivan: The airport in Fort Ovalarta was also under attack.
Ivan: There were burning trucks. There were blocking roads. They were shooting.
Ivan: They burned down the Costco and Costco's. They burned out.
Ivan: It was just a massive just, you know, eruption of violence across the state.
Ivan: and in other parts of the country.
Ivan: It didn't affect the Capitol, okay?
Ivan: But the thing is that this was something that some of the people locally were telling me,
Ivan: that they didn't want to do this in large part because they feared what the
Ivan: reaction was going to be by doing this.
Ivan: But the president was forced by the Trump administration to pursue this action.
Ivan: This was not something that they were targeting, but that the Trump administration forced upon.
Sam: Let me ask one question about the violence, because most of the coverage—,
Sam: I have seen in U.S. media has sort of concentrated on the tourists.
Sam: What's the actual balance in terms of where the violence was targeted?
Sam: Is it specifically targeted against tourists or is it actually against everybody
Sam: and tourists were just caught up in it?
Ivan: Yes. Tourists were just caught up in it.
Sam: It was against everybody.
Ivan: No, it was against everybody.
Sam: But of course, our coverage is about the tourists because they're more important
Sam: than the locals apparently.
Ivan: Correct. Yes. No, no, no. But this is against everybody. Yeah,
Ivan: yeah, yeah. This is not targeting tourists at all. This is against everybody.
Ivan: Now, yeah, this is not targeted against the tourists in any way.
Ivan: They just happen to get caught up.
Ivan: Flights canceled and shit, and airports closed all of a sudden, you know?
Ivan: I mean, Mexico gets so many U.S. tourists. I mean, it's crazy.
Ivan: So it is, you know, it is a massive amount of Americas that go to Mexico for tourism.
Ivan: And so, yeah, I mean, it was very visible to the tourists.
Ivan: But, yeah, it was, the impact was local. I mean, there were,
Ivan: you know, the local residents were petrified.
Ivan: They were staying at home. They weren't going anywhere in Jalisco.
Ivan: I will say that I spoke to my friends in Mexico City, and they weren't really,
Ivan: you know, they know that it was going on.
Ivan: But they were somewhat concerned, but nothing happened in Mexico City.
Ivan: So this was really going to say, too.
Sam: Now, was there a big spike that's calmed down? Yes.
Ivan: Or is this ongoing still? No, it's calmed down. It's calmed down.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Yes. but but the one thing is is people were mentioning to me this was not look the current,
Ivan: the current president the party itself more i will say more the entire party,
Ivan: a lot of talk has gone over the years how they are they have this uneasy alliance
Ivan: with the cartels in some way, okay?
Ivan: So, to them, going against them isn't exactly in their best interests, okay?
Ivan: Because this was really forced upon them by the United States,
Ivan: which is why the reaction by them was so visible and violent right away.
Ivan: I think more as a warning to the president that they don't have control of the
Ivan: country, that they can control the country if they want.
Ivan: And that's, I think, the biggest signal that they wanted to send.
Ivan: And I also find that the way that the administration wanted to do this It seemed
Ivan: really like, once again, we were targeting an execution instead of like actually
Ivan: capturing as we have done with others in the past. They just wanted them killed.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They didn't want to capture them.
Sam: Well, and also, I think this is just the fact that there was this backlash.
Sam: I just can't view it any other way that this is just another example of where they don't think ahead.
Ivan: No!
Sam: They only think of the very next action they want to take.
Ivan: And what the repercussions or what the long-term strategy is and what doing that gets us.
Sam: There is nothing long-term. No, no. I mean, for years, people were talking about
Sam: how, hey, it's not really that they're stupid.
Sam: They're playing five-dimensional chess.
Sam: They're thinking so many steps ahead. And they're, no, no, no, none of that.
Sam: They are, at best, thinking about the very next step they want to take.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And figuring they'll deal with what happens after after.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, there's no thought.
Ivan: Well, they don't think, wait, wait, no, it's not even, they don't even think
Ivan: there's going to be an after after. They don't even get there.
Ivan: They don't even get there.
Sam: They're just, oh, we're going to win.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: That's it. That's it. Yeah. We're going to get what we want.
Sam: We're going to win. That's the whole story.
Sam: And part of this is also just this complete disdain for expertise as well.
Sam: Like, do you think anybody in the Trump administration consulted with people
Sam: who actually had extensive local
Sam: knowledge of what was going on in either Iran or Mexico or Venezuela?
Ivan: Come on.
Sam: Or any of Ukraine, for that matter?
Ivan: Well, not that he would listen or consider it, you know, because,
Ivan: I mean, Marco Rubio, even though he is a complete dickhead and sellout,
Ivan: is not dumb. So he does understand a lot of the repercussions of these things, okay?
Ivan: And probably things further. But it's not like he knows that nobody gives a shit. Exactly.
Ivan: It's not like anybody gives a shit about that. So he's not going to be, you know, doing that.
Ivan: He's just playing his game. That's it.
Sam: It's fun.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, fun. More fun.
Ivan: Fun in Mexico. Fun in the Middle East.
Ivan: I got a friend of mine who told me that their son was traveling with a group
Ivan: that was about to travel through Doha today.
Ivan: And that all their flights got canceled. And they got stuck in Africa right
Ivan: now because of this. because all air traffic right now is stopped, you know, through.
Sam: So let me ask, given the current state, is now the perfect time to finally get
Sam: around to my random trip to the southern Yucatan?
Ivan: Actually, the Yucatan is.
Sam: I know it's the other side of the country from where most of this was going on.
Ivan: It's a very big country at it. I would say, well, maybe not the perfect time,
Ivan: But I don't think that you're, if you went, there would be not, no, no, no.
Sam: And we're not talking about Cozumel or either. We're talking about a fairly
Sam: rural area near the Belize border.
Ivan: It's, it's, it's, yeah, but it's near the Belize border. There's nothing going
Ivan: on over there. You should be fine.
Sam: Okay. Okay. So after you visit Seattle, we'll just get on a plane and go straight there.
Ivan: Okay. You got to tell my wife.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: You got, you got to tell my wife about this.
Sam: You, you, you can dump your wife at that retreat and we can go.
Ivan: That's what we're gonna do we dump her into the retreat and we just fucking
Ivan: like what are we charter a jet how are we doing this oh yeah drive oh,
Ivan: Well, I am grabbing a rental car. So basically, okay, so this is the thing.
Ivan: You get in the car with me. We drop her off at Long Beach.
Ivan: And then we go for the border in a rental car. Drive all the way to Yucatan.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And then we try to make it back in five days. Basically, I had to do that round
Ivan: trip in five days. So then I could pick her up.
Ivan: We get back to Seattle. We take our flight and we go home.
Sam: There you go. Perfect.
Ivan: I am tentative by this idea.
Sam: Okay, I'm not going to lie.
Ivan: Okay, all right.
Sam: Now, to get to the Yucatan by car from here.
Ivan: It's not a problem.
Sam: It's drivable. Would we have to go through some more dangerous areas than the
Sam: Yucatan itself? Not really.
Ivan: There's some, you know, Mexico has major highways. We could make it probably
Ivan: pretty close to where the hell we're going to go through the highways. Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It's not that big a deal.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: I may have to change.
Sam: Yeah, we have a plan.
Ivan: Jesus Christ. Okay, so let me see. Long Beach.
Ivan: Long Beach, Washington. Okay, great. Let me see. Directions to. Okay, from.
Sam: You got to get the actual name of the town. Hold on.
Ivan: Yeah, give me the name of the town. Hold on so I can see the driving directions. Hang on.
Sam: It is Chachoban, C-H-A-C-C-H-O-B-E-N.
Ivan: Wait, wait.
Sam: In Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Ivan: Say C-H-O-B?
Sam: C-H-A-C-C-H-O-B-E-N.
Ivan: Okay. Man, this is tough to prep. Chachoban. Okay, here we go.
Ivan: All right, let's see. Come on. Give me the driving directions.
Ivan: Two days and ten hours.
Ivan: 3,619 miles tolls required but I'll tell you what it's a pretty straight shot
Ivan: through highways all the way there from up there to,
Ivan: yeah but I got straight out directions we gotta go, actually we'll go through
Ivan: yeah, because we'll go through very close to where my brother lives in Texas
Ivan: okay, cross the border through,
Ivan: Monterey, Mexico which is one of the other big cities in Mexico.
Ivan: We're Victoria, Tampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa.
Ivan: And then we get all the way there. Very close to, yeah.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: It's actually doable.
Sam: Well, that's two and a half days of straight driving.
Ivan: Right?
Sam: Yes. Okay. Eight hour shifts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, yeah.
Ivan: We basically, yeah. It's, you know, yeah. So, you know, let's see.
Sam: No stops on the way, just straight out.
Ivan: I mean, it's basically, yeah, we're just, this is a mad dash all the way down there, basically, yes.
Sam: And then all the way back.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay, enough of that. All right. Anything else on Mexico?
Ivan: Not at the moment, Tom.
Sam: Are there any other topics you want to make sure to cover before we close things up?
Sam: I know we're still a little bit short of our normal time, but.
Ivan: There was one thing, and I posted news, but I didn't put into topics. Sam?
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Guess what? About inflation. Do you know what was reported?
Sam: About inflation.
Ivan: Yeah. Do you know what was reported earlier this week about inflation?
Sam: Well, I remember one of you guys posting a link about Boebert trying to define inflation.
Ivan: Well, yes. How did she do? Did you watch it?
Sam: I think she said it was when prices were bad because of Biden.
Ivan: Something along those lines. Yes.
Sam: Yeah.
Sam: Anyway, was it revisions in the bad direction or something like that?
Sam: What was the actual news?
Ivan: The producer price index was announced this week, okay?
Ivan: And it showed that hotter than expected increases, 0.5 for the month,
Ivan: and that the annual inflation rate was at 2.9% for producer prices.
Ivan: So think about this. This is the prices that manufacturers eventually have to
Ivan: pass on to consumers, okay?
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So their prices are up and it's hotter than expected.
Ivan: And also there were revisions to earlier months that showed that it was hotter
Ivan: than expected. Sam, take a look at that.
Sam: Okay. Interesting. I thought all economic indicators were going well.
Ivan: Yeah. And inflation was down. Under control.
Sam: Yes. Inflation is down. Jobs are good. Housing is good.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: Everything's operating on all cylinders. Everything's going great.
Ivan: By the way, in terms of goods, it was down, but simply because it was impacted
Ivan: by energy prices, which are down.
Ivan: Okay. Some energy prices are down. But that's, you know, energy prices are very
Ivan: volatile up and down, whatever.
Ivan: So, you know, there was a 5.5% decrease in gasoline prices. But, you know, but that's...
Sam: Bottom line, Yvonne, your prediction
Sam: is still the economy is going to hell before it gets better again.
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, there's just no...
Ivan: All the economic indicators suck. Except the ones that Trump can manipulate.
Sam: Right.
Sam: Okay, one update. While we've been talking here the last few minutes,
Sam: Bob shared on our Curmudgeons Corner Slack an update.
Sam: Netanyahu has apparently been on Israeli TV claiming that they did in fact get Ayatollah Khomeini.
Sam: I always forget and do the earlier name, but the Supreme Leader of Iran,
Sam: Netanyahu, is saying all indications show he's no longer with us.
Sam: Now, a couple hours ago, I was hearing that he was scheduled to give an address
Sam: to the Iranian people. I guess maybe he hasn't yet.
Sam: Again, fog of war. By the time you listen to this, you'll know more.
Sam: But maybe, maybe they got the supreme leader, which is one of the scenarios
Sam: I mentioned that would result in more substantial changes than just,
Sam: hey, let's bomb them for a few days and then things continue on exactly as they were.
Sam: if they actually got the supreme leader and a few other you know top five top
Sam: ten people in iran that's going
Sam: to lead to some volatility because who the hell knows what comes next.
Ivan: I'm sure this will be fine it'll all break out in jeffersonian democracy tomorrow
Ivan: there's going to be like this this entire like just just you know but but i'm
Ivan: talking about it more in terms of like the
Ivan: myths where it will just all be it'll all be wonderful and happy roses on the
Ivan: streets and happiness and hugs and.
Sam: Well, the one thing I will say about Iran, along the lines of,
Sam: is that actually possible, is that
Sam: the younger population, which is a significant majority at this point,
Sam: has been, over the last couple years,
Sam: getting increasingly vocal and agitated about wanting an opening of society,
Sam: wanting real democracy, wanting that change.
Sam: There were massive demonstrations in Iran just a month or two ago that were
Sam: put down like they usually did.
Sam: But if they are given an opportunity by a decapitation of the leadership,
Sam: there is a non-zero chance that just like the revolution in the 70s that caused
Sam: the hostage crisis and everything else, the Iranian youth actually do take over the country.
Sam: It's not impossible. I mean, it could turn out good for whom?
Sam: Well, it could be a net positive for the Iranian people. It's possible.
Sam: I'm not predicting that, but I'm saying it is within the realm of possibility
Sam: that the Israelis and U.S.
Sam: decapitate the Iranian government and that Iranian reformers take advantage
Sam: of it and we get a good outcome.
Ivan: But it's possible, but it's one of those things that, again,
Ivan: it happens by accident, not necessarily by any plan, because I'm sure that we
Ivan: didn't lay any groundwork in order to be able to support that.
Sam: Right. It's kind of like, if you remember the Kurds in Iraq during the first
Sam: George Bush administration.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Where we gave a lot of noise about like, you know, hey, we're liberating Kuwait.
Sam: Now's your time. You may want to rebel too.
Sam: It would be a good time. And they did. And we backed them up with zero.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: We'll let them get slaughtered. Yeah. Exactly.
Sam: You know, and that's another possible outcome here.
Sam: But the key is, and I think this is a standard of Donald Trump and his administration as well.
Sam: And frankly, it's a reason why a lot of people like him, is he's willing to
Sam: take huge bets where there may be a massive downside possibility.
Sam: but there's also a massive upside possibility.
Sam: And he's just willing to roll the dice.
Ivan: Basically, it's not even a roll of the dice, Sam. It's like putting all your
Ivan: money on one number on the roulette table. Okay.
Ivan: You know, there's 40 fucking numbers. The likelihood that you will succeed is stupidly low.
Ivan: It's not, this isn't the grand plan.
Ivan: I mean, if it happens, it's just pure luck. Yeah.
Ivan: It's dumb luck! Pure dumb luck! Period. End of story.
Sam: Unfortunately, this man has had a lot of pure dumb luck and had things that
Sam: should have landed him in jail decades ago,
Sam: and instead, he's president of the fucking United States for the second time.
Ivan: Ah, for the love of fucking God. Yeah. Okay, so on that note, shit.
Ivan: Fuck me. Yeah. Shit. Yeah. You're right. Son of a bitch.
Sam: Anyway. Yeah. Let's close it up.
Ivan: Yeah, let's close it up.
Sam: Okay, everybody. You know, I almost said electiongraphs.com,
Sam: but there's nothing happening there yet. Soon. Soon. We'll set up for 2028.
Sam: But curmudgeons-corner.com. You can go there. You can find all our old shows,
Sam: transcripts, all the ways to contact us, all that kind of fun stuff.
Sam: and of course you can find our Patreon so you can give us money at various levels we will send you a,
Sam: we'll mention you on the show we'll ring a bell we'll send you
Sam: a postcard we'll send you a mug all that kind of fun stuff at $2
Sam: a month or more or if you just ask us we will invite you to the Curmudgeon's
Sam: Corner Slack where Yvonne and I and all kinds of other folks are chatting throughout
Sam: the week sharing links talking about the news talking about other stuff and
Sam: we would love to have you the more the merrier so Yvonne, what's a highlight,
Sam: from the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack that we have not mentioned on the show yet okay.
Ivan: I will mention this I shared this on a random channel and this is something
Ivan: that I that I dearly love and there is this there was this article about,
Ivan: it was called the title is Inside the Cutthroat Competition for the best baguette in Paris. Okay?
Ivan: Bread is God in Paris. Enter the Baguette Grand Prix.
Ivan: There is this entire competition where all the bakeries in France go and,
Ivan: like, submit these baguettes to be judged for the best baguettes.
Ivan: in Paris, okay? And there is this entire process of evaluating,
Ivan: looking at them, tasting them, judging them in order to arrive at the best baguette.
Ivan: And my fucking God, I would give anything to be a judge on this fucking competition
Ivan: because I sure fucking love a baguette. Oh my God.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: You gotta look at the picture. It looks so delicious.
Sam: Do you eat it straight or with butter? or with some other topping?
Ivan: How do you consume it? I know with butter is my preferred, obviously, yes.
Ivan: You know, with a nice, just, you know, a nice baguette warm with just a little bit of butter.
Ivan: You know, it's just excellent. There is this French butter brand that I like
Ivan: that's just, it's so expensive, which is why I don't normally buy it,
Ivan: but it's so good whenever I get it. Oh my gosh.
Sam: Now you have me wanting one of these.
Ivan: Oh my God, it's, it's.
Sam: Or at least some kind of breakfast.
Ivan: It's glorious, man. I'm telling you. I had to find the brand of the butter.
Ivan: I will tell you that out of all my butters, near my top are the European butter
Ivan: is usually like Lurepak or Irish butter.
Ivan: Those are really good. But there is this one specific butter that I'm pulling
Ivan: up the name like over here, which is it's not easy to find.
Ivan: And it's also stupidly expensive, which is why I will admit that it's just so expensive.
Ivan: You can't have this on a regular basis.
Ivan: It's called Eschire, okay?
Sam: And you don't want to waste it on normal crappy bread. No, no.
Ivan: It's Eschire. It's from France. it's just,
Ivan: if you let me see if I last time
Ivan: I looked it up it was just so stupidly expensive it's it's
Ivan: but but it's it's absolutely delicious it see it one little container of SRA
Ivan: okay all right a little container is sixteen dollars okay if you buy I see where
Ivan: they sell it like in a package okay if you get like a,
Ivan: You know how you would get like four bricks of butter for like $10,
Ivan: $15, $20 at Costco? The same amount for this, $240.
Sam: Yeah, okay.
Ivan: This is why I don't buy this butter. I'm not going to, I mean.
Sam: I'll stick with some land of lakes or something, you know.
Ivan: Yeah, but, I mean, and the problem is that, yeah, you want to because you'll
Ivan: try it and then you'll be like.
Sam: You know, Brandy occasionally gets some fancy Irish butter.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: And, you know, and I'm like, okay, whatever. Like, I'll be honest,
Sam: I can barely tell the difference, but I can recognize it's a little bit better.
Sam: But, you know, I can see occasionally blurred.
Ivan: This one is, it's stupid. It's over and above the norm of how good it is. Okay, all right.
Ivan: I mean, literally, it's just stupidly good.
Ivan: I'm going to try to see if I find a place that has it cheaper than, like, at that.
Ivan: But almost all the places that I've seen it, when I've gone to buy it,
Ivan: it's been like, oh, it's $80.
Ivan: Oh, it's $200. I'm like, oh, fuck me. No, no. I can't start eating,
Ivan: you know, butter that costs, you know, $80, like, you know, for just something
Ivan: that costs, like, $15 on the other one.
Ivan: It seems like, on a daily basis, it seems extravagant. Extravagant.
Sam: Right. Yeah. I mean, I can see splurging every once in a while as a treat,
Sam: but that's different than making this your everyday butter.
Ivan: Yeah. No, it's just, it's too much.
Sam: Okay. One last thing. I'm going to do my Robin letter promo again.
Sam: Just as stats for everybody, we're up to 37 users at the moment who have made, where's my number here?
Sam: 47 updates so far between those 37 users across seven Robins.
Sam: By the way, as you mentioned on the Slack.
Ivan: My thing about creating a pitch deck to sell it was only half in jest. It's not completely.
Ivan: I did it first kind of like jokingly, but I realized later, maybe this isn't
Ivan: a complete joke. After I started putting everything together.
Ivan: So we do need to discuss this at some point. Maybe not as much money as I put
Ivan: it there, but then I thought about it.
Sam: Yvonne's joking about getting us $50 million in funding for this thing.
Ivan: But here's the thing, Sam. Look at all the stupid shit that's gotten a lot more money than this.
Ivan: And it's a lot dumber. And more expensive.
Sam: Yeah yeah yeah i mean and you know
Sam: as i've as i said on the curmudgeon's course
Sam: slack about no i didn't say it on the sock i said it in one of
Sam: the robins ah yes you know there there are
Sam: potential issues with venture funding and how it matches and expectations and
Sam: maybe there are ways to get money organically but i don't know i don't know
Sam: i'm i'm willing to talk i'm willing to talk if if anybody wants to like buy
Sam: me out for a few million dollars i'd have to at least think about it, you know,
Sam: but anyway.
Sam: Anyway, it's actually a lot of fun and people have been, it varies Robin to Robin.
Sam: Like I have one that I tried to start up for like people I knew from the Seattle
Sam: area that's starting very, very slowly.
Sam: Only a couple of people have accepted their invitations, even after I solicited
Sam: and said, would you be willing to do this?
Sam: And they said, yeah, sign me up. And then they haven't actually followed up.
Sam: So that, that one's going really slowly, but like my, the one for the curmudgeons
Sam: corner Slack has with a bunch of people who are on our Slack,
Sam: people have been giving like heartfelt updates about their lives.
Sam: And for the ones that I've started with my cousins on the two sides of my family,
Sam: I've, they're real updates from people where they've written about what's going
Sam: on with them and their kids and stuff. And so it's, it's actually pretty.
Sam: doing its intended purpose, you know, but it's still all people I know.
Sam: So we need to get past that. And I need to build out a couple more features
Sam: before it's like really fully baked.
Sam: I would say like it's got most of the key functionality, but like,
Sam: I know there's some things missing.
Sam: You need to be able to upload pictures. People want to do that.
Sam: You need to be able to comment on posts when it's not your turn.
Sam: The more I've actually played with this, the more I've wanted to do that myself.
Sam: So, you know, I've got a few, I've got work to do.
Sam: But, but yeah, I don't know. We'll, we'll, we'll talk, Yvonne.
Sam: We'll talk, Yvonne. Maybe we can do something. But anyway, my point was.
Ivan: My whole thing is, look, why not take a stab at it? You have a product.
Ivan: I, I, I, I think there's some potential.
Ivan: Okay. So I think we need to seriously discuss.
Sam: Okay. Like we, we said we were going to talk last week and then we didn't.
Sam: We'll, we'll, we'll make sure it happens.
Ivan: Almost getting killed and shit. Okay.
Sam: You know, well, it was also me. Like I, I, I said, let's talk about it tomorrow.
Ivan: I'm sure it's on your task list. So it will at some point. Yeah.
Sam: Like at some point I'll, I'll randomly pick, talk to Yvonne and then I'll text
Sam: you and you'll, you will have gotten run over by a motorcycle and you won't be available.
Sam: So that could be, you know, anyway, Anyway, my point was, I got 37 users now. I want more.
Sam: So if you are listening to this and you have not yet been invited and actually
Sam: joined one of these Robins.
Sam: Oh, and by the way, I have, there are still how many people who have not accepted?
Sam: I still have 20 open invites from invites that have gone out,
Sam: but the people haven't accepted yet, in addition to the 37 that are already online.
Sam: so if you are interested
Sam: at all willing at all even if you're not super interested if
Sam: you're willing to give it a shot contact me feedback at
Sam: robinletter.com and i'll get you an invite anyway and then you can go from there
Sam: that's it that's it i am done for real now thanks everybody for joining us yet
Sam: again and after yvonne talked about all that bread i think i need to go find
Sam: some breakfast soon i'm hungry i'm all i'm also tired because i mentioned i woke up just
Sam: before the show, but I'd only been asleep like two and a half hours at that point.
Sam: Cause I, I, I, I was, I was doing some stuff like we.
Sam: I don't want to get into the whole story, but we replaced our projector that
Sam: we use in our living room.
Sam: The old one died, got a new one. I installed it, mounted it on the ceiling.
Sam: Alex helped me mount it at first, but we had some problems. So,
Sam: like, at, like, one in the morning, I realized I had to fix some shit because
Sam: the way we'd done it the first time was not going to stay. Okay?
Ivan: It's kind of like the fucking scale that, you know, you guys are not experts
Ivan: at hanging anything on the fucking ceiling is what I'm realizing.
Sam: We haven't told that story on the thing. My son bought a hanging scale to weigh
Sam: the dog and mounted it from the ceiling and stuff like that. Anyway.
Ivan: And apparently on the first attempt, apparently, you know, I'm like,
Ivan: I went, I stupidly asked what he said.
Ivan: Oh, wow. He found the stud on the first try. That's amazing.
Ivan: And then Sam was like, oh, no, he actually didn't. And it came crashing down. Oh, of course.
Sam: He found it on the second try.
Ivan: Of course.
Sam: I asked him when I first came upstairs, I'm like, you remember to put that in
Sam: a stud, right? And he's like, stud?
Ivan: He's like, stud?
Sam: And then so he tried it and it, of course, came out. Like, it wasn't like a
Sam: big crash and burn type thing, but it came out.
Ivan: It was just, yeah, well, it just slid out. Yeah. Well, thank God it wasn't more
Ivan: damaged. Yeah. Okay, good.
Sam: Yeah. And so he put it back up and he did it the right way. And then when we
Sam: mounted the projector, it was in fact a similar issue.
Sam: And then I, like 1.30 in the morning, I'm like, okay, we're going to fix this. And he was tired.
Sam: He fell asleep. But I kept working on it. I remounted everything properly.
Sam: I had to readjust how some of the wiring was because it wasn't exactly in the
Sam: same position as the old one.
Sam: And there was one screw that in the mounting hardware that got broken in the process.
Sam: And I had to figure out a way to make it all work anyway.
Sam: Anyway, and by the way, while all this was going on, we were going to war.
Sam: And so even once I got it all mounted, even once it got all mounted,
Sam: I turned on my four up news channels and sat there watching news for a couple more hours.
Sam: And yeah, so I've had less than three hours sleep.
Sam: So I have competing impulses in me right now. I am hungry and I am tired.
Sam: And Alex is still asleep. So the question is, do I get food or do I take a nap
Sam: or do I actually try to do something productive or some combination of the three?
Sam: Like I could drive somewhere to get food and on the way sleep in the car and
Sam: then shove food into my mouth while I'm asleep as well and choke on it.
Sam: Does that sound like a plan?
Ivan: Perfect.
Sam: And I've got Robin Letter work to do. I rolled Robin Letter,
Sam: more stuff on Robin Letter. I'm fixing some bugs right now.
Sam: I have a list of bugs and things to look at before I go adding new features. So I got to do that too.
Sam: And other stuff that needs to be done. So anyway, I was saying goodbye.
Sam: Bye. Goodbye, everybody. Have a great week. Stay safe. Have fun.
Sam: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And we'll talk again next week. Goodbye. Bye.
Sam: Okay. That's it. Hit and stop, Ivan. Have a good rest of your weekend.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Bye.