This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty The Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. We'll be getting into all your latest tech news coming up later this hour. The Nintendo Switch too, making all the headlines this week. Is it worth it? We talked a little bit about it yesterday. Four forty nine for the base what would you call it? The base cons the base console, and then five hundred for the one that comes with Mario Kart World.
Is that correct?
Yep.
Keana is a fan of the Nintendo Switch, says that she wants a new one because of the screen.
And it's a bigger screen, nicer screen. That's all that.
It's basic and I think that you're not alone in that. I think that that is acceptable. Mark Saltzman will be along with us to talk about is it worth it? He has tried all this stuff out, played with the new screen, the new controllers, all the bits, So we'll.
Get into that. In the meantime.
A lot going on in Washington, busy week for President Trump is where we kick off swamp Watch.
I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar. And when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops.
Here we got the real problem is that our leaders are done.
The other side never quits. So what I'm not going anywhere? So that how you train the swap, I can imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been. You know, Americans have always been gone at President. They're not stupid.
A political flunder is when a politician actually tells the truth.
Have the people voted for you with no swamp watch? They're all counter on.
Well, you heard Deborah Mark and her news talk about Wall Street. We don't need to revisit that. The tariffs continue to get reaction across the globe markets globally, we saw the reaction begin last night. The US stop markets have taken the brunt of it. As you can imagine, what the conversation is moved to is how will other countries retaliate? How will they respond? And if you ask Trump in his circle, well there's not much for them to do because they've been screwing us over for so long.
And if that is the case, why have they been allowed to screw us over for so long?
Why are we in the United States paying more tariffs than they would pay if the things were if the goods were reversed, if we were sending them, why would we pay more. It's a fair question, And like we talked about yesterday, it's quite the move for this president to make because it is such a long term move. If it's successful, hell, yes, he gets credit for it, but by the time that happens, he could be dead.
I'm not trying to be rude, but he's seventy nine years old next month, and this is one of those policies that will take a long time to come to fruition. If the United States gets a good end of it, and I'm not arguing that it wouldn't. I think that it would. I think it is good for this country in the long term. In the long term. In the short term, it's political suicide. And what is it mean for all of the race that down the ballot races in terms of what it means. You know, you saw
the fallout. Ran Paul talked about it at length. You saw the fallout when this has been done before, when it comes to Republicans not gaining.
The foot of power for years after a move like this is made. So we'll just have to see.
And then there's also the idea that if the Republicans do not want to continue, say they keep the White House and they don't want to continue with this, then it was all for not and then you're the president plunged us further into inflation.
So I don't know.
I don't think he's playing the long game when it comes to sticking sticking to these tariffs the way that they've been presented right out of the gate. If they're not going to get the negotiations they want, if the deals aren't going to be made expeditiously that they want to have made with other countries, then I think there's got to be some pull back because you just politically can't withstand that as a party. Well, the big news today is that the President has moved to fire several
White House national security officials. This apparently happened after Laura Lumer went to the Oval Office. She apparently went in with binders full of people that are not loyal into the Oval Office. Laura Lumer, she's the one who's he spent a lot of time with on the campaign trail. She's been described as a far right activist. She has claimed publicly that nine to eleven was an inside job. I do believe she's part of the camp that believes
the Haitian or eat Haitians are eating the animals. If you can remember that, we all have a friend like Laura Lumer, don't we?
I do.
We all have a couple friends where they've got their theories, they've got their they've got their ideas.
We still love them that we may not always agree.
They may be kind of crazy, but once in a while they'll get to you and you're like, you have a point, You got a point there? Well, she seems to have given this squirrel a bit of a nut. Today she has made a case for the firings of National Security Council officials.
And who else was in the meeting? Oh? Boy, is it telling jd Vance? Was there?
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who they say is the puppet master, Move out of here, Steve Bannon. Susie Wiles is the new dragon lady. And uh, make no mistake, this was done with the blessing of Susie Wiles. If Laura Lumer did not have Susie wiles blessing, then she wouldn't even be in the oval.
Office. Who else was there? Mike Walls, National Security Advisor. What is this? What does this tell me?
Well, my uh, in my conspiracy theory mind, this tells me that Mike Walls is trying to save his ass. Mike Wallas is the guy who organized that signal chat that was the embarrassment of the administration last week, the signal chat that was leaked to the journalist and about the hoothies and the attack on the hoo thies and the where and the whens and the whys and the emojis and oh goodness, and everyone expected somebody's had to roll, Mike Walls being a name that was constantly talked about.
But here he is today in the Oval Office with the President, Susie Wiles, jd Vance, and Laura Lomer talking about all the people underneath him who are not loyal. And if there's something this president doesn't like, it's disloyalty to him. He demands it. We have seen it every turn of his turn and power. And that is where you cannot go wrong with President Trump. And that's why heads maybe did not roll last week, because Mike Walls did not show disloyalty to the president. He showed stupidity,
but he maintained his loyalty. And today he goes into the Oval office with a list of names of people who they say are not loyal. That's enough blood to say to this president. I think, in terms of the whole signal debate, puts kind of a bow on it.
So there you have it. That is the latest.
All right, when we come back, We've got fun stuff this hour, not only on Nintendo, Switch to and is it worth it? Although does it really matter? Like you're going to buy it if you want it. We're still going to talk about it with Mark Saltzman. Is it worth it?
But you know this, if you want it, you're going to buy it. You're not.
If Mark Saltzman comes on, He's like, guys, it's not really worth it. Might even make you want to buy it more quicker. Get on that wait list. Also, grandma hobbies? Are they the secret to good mental health? To better mental health? Grandma hobbies? And space sex. We've talked about space bathroom time, but space sex. There's an article in Slate from somebody who used to work at NASA who's spilling all of the secrets when it comes to SpaceX Devra.
That's for you, by the way, Thank you, Shannon.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
It is poetic, isn't it.
So much about baseball is and that's why there's so many great baseball movies. When we talked about that recently, there's just a poetry that exists in baseball that football is well, but baseball lends itself to poetry because there's time to breathe.
Football not a lot of time to breathe, which is what I like.
I like the fast pace, I like the physical, the punch in the face type of a vibe.
But baseball you.
Can breathe, you can tell stories. There's time for poetry. There's time for those moments to have oxygen. It's why Vin Scully would allow the crowd to tell the story at some of those most magical moments, right of just letting the fans tell the story with the way that
they're cheering everybody on it. Anyway, last night, with it being showhy a Tawi Bobblehead night and the Dodger struggling for the first time this season, going on unpresented by the Way to be eight and Oh after winning winning the World Series and show Hey Atani with a walk off home run on his bobblehead night just incredible. Tomorrow the Dodgers take on the Phillies there in Philadelphia, with
the first pitch at three forty five. Listen to every Dodgers game on AM five seventy LA Sports Live from the gallupin Motors Broadcast Booth, and stream all games NHD on the iHeartRadio app. Keyword AM five seventy LA Sports. Grandma hobbies. I have been long attracted to grandma hobbies. I have tried to knit on numerous occasions. I think I first tried to knit when I was giving up smoking, because you want something to do with your hands.
That's part of the problem.
If you've ever tried to give up smoking, something to do idle hands, right, And I can't knit to save my life. I got videos years ago, you know, DVDs or what have you.
Books.
I got the needles and the knitting stuff, the yarn as they call it in the biz. And I really did the yeoman's effort of trying, and then I would just get I'd make a mistake and then to hell with it. Right the counting, the counting, the losing your place the did I go over?
Did I go under?
The focus it requires when it's not second nature. I've long considered and been embarrassed of the failure of mine over this. It's not just you know, it's bingo. It's the grandma life to It speaks to me. I love the Golden Girls as a youth. I continue to love the Golden Girls, love the idea of a cheesecake and the middle of the night, all of this bird watching. I've gotten into that now in the winter of my life. I love a bird watching gardening. My husband's a gardener.
I've never been able to do that. I do like to bake things like that. But now science is telling you that grandma hobbies are where it's at when it comes to mental health. And it makes sense because you do feel a sense of pride when you make something or you build something.
Gary and I have.
Talked about how cool it must be to have a real job to drive by a building or something, and you know, whether you're a plumber or you're in a field where you build, you know, you build things up, you build buildings. You can drive by and be like, I built I did that building right there? Kids I mean, that's that's really cool. It's something to be proud of. I've tried to do that with with Ikea furniture and my brother always has to unbuild it rebuild it. For me,
I've never been able to really make anything. I can stand back and be like I did that. That's pretty cool. So knitting kind of it's one of those things that they that they say provides amazing benefits when it comes to not just exercising new muscles in your brain, but also that sense of pride. When one immerses themselves in a hobby, they find an escape from daily pressures. It's a calming space they can unwind, recharge. You're not gonna
feel anxious. This according to Patricia Dixon, who's a licensed clinical psychologist in Florida. She says, you experience a boost and self confidence. If if it's a challenge, like so many hobbies are, i e. Knitting, then you're gonna you're gonna get that pride social interactions. If you're part of a knitting group, you get those enhanced feelings of belonging
in connection. And here's the thing that they're saying, you don't need to be a grandma to do it, especially this day and age, Like we're just talking about Keana. Is it helps with concentration and attention? What has gone by the wayside with our addiction to smartphones? Oh, I don't know. Concentration and attention. And the people in the no say, that's really affecting your cognitive function and your memory.
It's affecting your real brain stuff, the stuff that you use to interact with people to just day to day operate. That that's being compromised because of the lack of concentration and attention. So here are some of the things that they say you could do to help with all that.
The bird watching. Here are the benefits.
Twenty twenty study published in Scientific Reports notes that seeing and hearing birds every day offers significant mental health benefits in people with depression and in people without.
My alarm every morning is birds chirping. I like that. That's beautiful. It really is annoying alarm to get up and go to work. Yeah.
I mean sometimes another if I'm going to take a nap or something, I'll set an alarm and it's that and I wake up and I'm like, God, that's awful, Like what an awful way to wake up?
Or to start the day. But I can't figure out how to make.
The birds on all my alarms because I'm a grandma. I would like that if these are just the birds for every freaking notification.
Clay art, they say.
Different studies have found that clay art therapy good for trading depression and were reducing anxiety in college students and adults. Crochet relatively low cost, you can take it anywhere, They say that promotes positive well being. In a study published in perspect Public Health, drawing even ten minutes of drawing per day can boost your mood, and the benefits compound
if the artist does it for at least a month. Gardening, according to Princeton, gave people the same level of happiness and well being as biking or walking or dining out home. Gardening among the top fine five activities in terms of how meaningful in activity felt to people while engaging it.
So there you go.
You want to you wanna hobby, you want to feel better about yourself, Look no further than grandma. She's very wise.
All right.
When we come back, Mark Saltzman will join us for Tech Talk. Nintendo switch to a lot of Money, Is it worth it? And does it matter.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI AM six forty.
Today.
Of course, the tariffs effect on the markets, the new regime there in Washington, reversing a decade's long glo global trend of lower trade barriers. They are expecting this to raise prices for US consumers, threatened to slow the economy this year, barely digging out of inflation as it is.
White House gambling that other countries are going to suffer enough pain that they will come to the table open up their economies to more American exports, or that more companies will bring more production to the United States.
So we will see, we will all see together.
At this time on Thursdays, we like to talk tech, and this week it is all about the Nintendo Switch too. We welcome in Mark Saltzman. I'm gonna play the little thing, you know, the little thing.
That's all right. We don't need to do it, Mark, Okay, Nintendo Switch too. If you are a DVO, I can do it.
I can do it.
Okay, I'm doing the dance. So we've got a cover.
All right.
Well, if you're a devote of Nintendo Switch, you're probably going to get a Nintendo Switched too, right. I mean, I know there's an article, you've played with it, you've checked it out.
Is it worth it?
But I was kind of opining before I had you on Mark that, like, if you love the Nintendo Switch, is it does.
It matter if it's worth it? You want the new one, don't you?
Yeah? You know they're Nintendo's they know how to create It's like their secret sauces is very thought after by many other game companies. They know how to make games that are super fun. You often can't put your finger on it. It's often family friendly content, not always, but they just they they've got that Jena Sekua. They just know how to make a game system that makes it so desirable. You probably grew up things Nintendo. I mean long before the Wei and all that.
You probably played.
My first foray into addiction was Super Mario Brothers for sure.
Yeah, yeah, me too, me too.
So yesterday in New York, Nintendo hosted an event for media to officially launch the Nintendo Switch to or at least announce the launch date of June fifth.
And yeah, I mean, look, it's it's very similar.
To what made the Nintendo Switch popular in twenty seventeen and to this day, which is primarily the fact that it's a versatile console.
You can play it on the go.
It has a screen, so to help, you know, reduce the are we there yet from the backseat if you will, on a road trip, But then you can dock it and play it on a big screen TV. For most of the Nintendo Switch models, not all of them, but most of them.
So they haven't changed that.
That formula remains the same, but they've made it better in virtually every other way. For one, the screen that you play on is instead of a six point two inch, it's nearly eight inches, and it's a better quality screen and with not just with better resolution, twice the pixels or dots that make up the image compared to the last model, which just means the games just look so
much more vibrant. But they've also up the refresh rate, so it's a lot for those geeks listening, it's one hundred and twenty hertz refresh rates, which it's double the sixty frames per second that most game systems play at. And so this is just incredibly you know, fluid gameplay. So the new Mario Kart World, which is the launch title. It can support up to thirty two players, and you know it's going to be really silky smooth when you
play that. They've also added a seed button Shannon in the bottom right corner of the Nintendo Switch and C stands for Chat. Before, believe it or not, they really didn't have an intuitive way to chat with other players while you are gaming. You can attach an external microphone, but it was clumsy. But now you just press that button.
It's got a noise canceling microphone built into the Nintendo Switch too, so you can chat in real time with friends around the world over Wi Fi, and the option to add a camera if you want, for video calling and so not just for in gameplay as well. Like if I'm stuck in a level in the game that I know Shannon you finished, or Gary, I can call you through my Nintendo switch too, and you can say and I can share my.
Screen and you can say, oh, I know exactly where you are. Mark, this is what you need to do.
Go over here and look for the Princess Peach whatever you get done. Yet, there's also yeah, there's also a better kickstand. That was a pain point with the existing Nintendo Switch is kind of flimsy in the backs. When you prop it up on a table or desk, it might fall, you know. So they just added a bunch of new technologies to it to just enhance the experience.
But at its core, it's very similar to the original Nintendo Switch, just better and virtually every every other, every way, all the features.
Mario Kart World too, has the open world to race through this time. I mean we've seen it in Burnout Paradise or and for the Horizon, but it's the first for the Mario Kart series.
Yeah, look at you.
Hey, I did my homework.
Okay, but yeah, they it is open and it's going to add to the replayability because you can there's so many different modes. One of them is called free rome at which means even if you want to.
Oh no he's cutting out, not know to hell, free Roman. We don't know, try again, try it.
I love that this is a segment called tech Talk and the technology right.
Now, try again free rom What does that mean?
Y't you don't play on a particular circuit, like you're not actually racing. You can free rome the environments in this game and even stop and get out of your car, your cart and take pictures with your friends within the game, and that's very really fun. Yeah, lots of different environments, desert and like you know, mountains, and it's that that was a real hit during the demo yesterday. Just the
idea that you can just play however you like. And yeah, it's going to get and then for those who do like to race, there's more modes, more competitions, more trophies.
Yeah. I think Nintendo fans are going to love it.
It's going to be four fifty when it comes out on June fifth. There'll be some bundles as well where you can also get that Mario Kart World game with it, and then other bundles, So yeah, people are looking forward to it, I think overall, and it's going to be backward compatible for those who are wondering World Grade. I just spent you know, a couple thousand dollars on games over the years. It will play your previous games and in some cases you can pay a small feed.
They didn't disclose how much.
But it'll upgrade the older games with even more features and better graphics and all that to play on your Nintendo Switch to if you want.
Okay, and then a final question, what is Knockout Mode.
Knockout Mode is a highly competitive racing mode within the game where you go from country to country and it's like, it's like, what do you what do you call it? Like sudden like deathmatch where sudden deaths where if you if you're out, you lose and then there's no going back. You got to start from the beginning. And so it's going to be of those who are hardcore gamers that
if you lose a race, that's it. So it's you're knocked out of that of that course and you have to find another way to get back in.
But it's like the heartless way.
I think a lot of the hardcore gamers are really excited about that mode.
I did.
I did play a bit of that in New York yesterday at this Nintendo event.
Yeah, it's fierce.
I think the thing that's cool and I don't know because I'm not a Nintendo switched person, but the fact that every single lap on every single course is unique on this game, I think that's fascinating.
Yeahs that takes.
A little bit.
Yeah, they do such a good job. Sorry to cut you off. They do such a good job with the course design. And then they add things like whether that will impact you know, your you know your performance. You have to keep that all in mind. When you're drifting, for example, and it's raining, you have to compensate. And so yeah, I mean again, Nintendo knows how.
To make great games.
There's a new Donkey Kong called Donkey Kong Bonanza that we played yesterday with a fully destructible environment. Instead of like running up a hill and around it or go around it, you can actually punch your way through the mountain like. It's all interactive, And yeah, that was fun. There's gonna be some Legend of Zelda updates. So part of Nintendo success is their exclusive iconic mascot based games like Princess Peach like link from Legendzelda. That will all continue.
So yeah, Circle the fifth of June four forty nine. It's more than what the Nintendo Switch was when it came out, but hey, that's inflation. I don't know if triffs are also playing a role there, but it's a lot of fun from what I what I could tell with my day of playing yesterday.
Yeah, tough gig, I know, all.
Right, And it's worth it's worth buying the five hundred dollars. One that comes with Mario Kart World, right, because it's seventy or eighty if you're going to buy the game of so you're going to buy the game.
Yeah, there's been some, yeah, some negative coverage on X from gamers who present digital games being eighty dollars. It is ten dollars more than other digital games for Nintendo Switch too, and then the physical game could be as much as ninety dollars. So yeah, before you know it, they'll one hundred dollars video games. But if you can play for a couple of years, you might be able
to justify it. If it's a game that you can finish in five hours, then no, right, But Nintendo games, Nintendo games tend to have legs long.
That's the good thing about being bad at video games is it's just a lifelong fun For me. I will never beat the game in five hours. Mark, thank you so much, appreciate it. Always enjoy talking to you.
Likewise, Shannon, thank you, Mark Saltzman.
There follow him Mark underscore Saltzman on the X always a good follow A lot of great content of there coming up next. I've talked about the underwear at the Space Station and it turns out people are darker than me. They want to know about the NASA sex that goes on in the space station. This had never occurred to me. I had never thought that these people were having sex
up there. Well, there is a woman who used to work for NASA who is laying out all of the details, everything from the people in the know.
We'll tell you about it when we come back.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
There is a woman who used to work at NASA and she writes for Slate. Her name's Laura fey Tenenbaum, great name. And she says she was having lunch with a friend, a NASA colleague who happens to be a program scientist for the International Space Station, and they were having lunch and her friend says to her, we hear almost everything. She was explaining how part of her job is to monitor astronauts' health, their psychological state, overall comfort.
She says, we're playing a tension all the time for safety. She says, we hear all sorts of stuff, stupid stuff, burps, farts, hiccups, diarrhea. She says, I mean human stuff, right, And the author of the story says, as long as I've worked in science communication at NASA, people have always asked the same
two questions about human spaceflight. First, they want to know about the bathroom stuff, but after that they want to know about the sex, to which I was like, what, I've never This has never occurred to me, She writes. People have been interested in space sex since nineteen ninety two, when the first and only married astronaut couple joined the fiftieth Space Shuttle mission and cohabited in space together. After that, concerns about the physics of erections and hormone levels in
microgravity began to percolate, leading to more curiosity. It has been re energized for Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who recently returned to Earth because they were stuck there for ten months together. They are not in a relationship, there's no evidence they were intimate, but apparently there's still been speculation, so much so now.
When this author.
Responded to a question about space travel on TikTok the other day about sex.
It went viral.
More than nine thousand people commented, desperate to know about sex in space. She says she too has been fascinated, she says. As a science writer who specializes in this, I want to know, She says, I've learned about bone density loss, muscle wasting, found out that an astronaut's fingernails can fall off, their retinas thickened.
But what about the extracurriculars.
Astronauts spends somewhere between five and sixteen days in orbit during the Space Shuttle program a tiple length A typical length of stay on the space station about six months.
Some stay as long as three hundred days or more.
That's a long time to go without, she writes, especially considering over sixty percent of adults have how to workplace romance. She says, there's got to be some sort of chemistry up there, And so she asks her friend, the one who hears everything, So, what about the sex rumors?
The astronauts have to be hooking up.
You've heard them having sex, right, there's audio, You've heard the other stuff, she says. Her friend paused for a bite, then looked at her sandwich to avoid eye contact with her. The writer says, come on and tell me, and her friend says, I don't have the authority to disclose that information.
And she's smiling.
Yeah, she's smiling as she says this, and then she turns away and starts giggling like a maniac. The writer says she said it without saying it. Yes, sex happens, and yes NASA can hear them and know they'll never admit it. She goes on to write this and it sounds like Carrie Bradshaw out of A Sex and a Sex and the City up pisod. She writes, why was sex and space one of those nudge nudge, wink wink NASA legends that everybody knew about, but no one would.
Disclose or admit.
I'd always thought that a more open NASA would be good for the agency and good for science. She says she saw the cover ups firsthand when in twenty seventeen, when she was at South at By Southwest, she presented and NASA Center a list of talking points that included instructions to pivot away from the subject of the question, to give the reporter a related NASA positive that that is what they're supposed to do. They say, by the bye that NASA, the Americans, I guess I should say,
are particularly prude. That it's maybe some of the other countries that might be getting down that the Russians have vodka up there. The Italians have a specifically designed espresso machine, but our astronauts just get the orange flavored powdered drink mix. They said, that tells you everything you need to know about the difference between the space programs. I'd have to
be in the vodka or espresso camp, she says. Aside from a few male astronauts who have opened up about things like space erections, the whole culture at NASA is prude. In fact, one space agency one report by NASA suggested the missions to Mars should be all female to avoid austronauts having sex. And then somebody raise their hands, as it's twenty twenty five, females are having sex with each
other all the time. But anyway, they say, as far as logistics go, missionary position would not exist in the microgravity environment.
This is crazy. Two people pushing against each other could float away.
That means that sexy time and space would most likely need to occur inside an astronaut's quarters, which are phone booth size private cabins with sleeping bags strapped to the wall.
Wow, that's fun. Somebody needs to videotape this and show it to you. Shannon me, Yeah, you're so into this story.
My job.
You're the one who's piped in. You were sad you only had three minutes it a little bit.
I want to hear more about the sleeping bags strapped to the wall. She goes on to say, astronauts could squeeze into one of the small sleeping bags or strap themselves together.
It's a lot of work. Well, I think the mood would be gone.
Or push against each other, she writes, by bracing their arms and legs against the sides of their cabin.
Huh. Let's see.
There is a film that explores this. It's called the I'm not kidding here. I'm not trying to be you know, I'm not even gonna say it. I'm not even to say. It's called the Uranus Experiment. We'll talk trending when we come back to Gary and Shannon.
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio AP