Tech Thursday with Marsha Collier & LA Comic-Con with Heather Brooker

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Of course it's tech Thursday, so that means Marcia Calier joins us.

Marsha, how you doing this evening?

I'm just doing great, you know. And Mo, I have to tell you your listeners are so loyal. I actually got fan mail after last week's show.

Look, there's nothing wrong with that fan mail, hate mail. As long as they keep on listening, that's all I want.

That's right.

Absolutely.

You remember earlier this week, I want to say it was Monday, at the beginning of the week, you had that huge Verizon outage. Customers across the US reported problems accessing the company's wireless network. I assume it was a hack or data breach of some sort.

Look, we can always speculate.

But what do we know. There's a problem with that. It's a real problem. Tens of thousands of people in the area. I mean from Chicago, Indianapolis, all the way down to Phoenix, Nebraska, Omaha, they did not have service. These are the people who need service. And sos appeared in the status bars of iPhones if the device is not connected to a cellular network, So and supposedly it can still make calls, but no, not on the Verizon network.

What about the idea of like an emergency backup system which is used for situations just like this, where it may not accommodate anything as far as Internet, but it will accommodate people making calls for the purpose of an emergency.

I mean, this is a thing week as Hurricane Helene.

This is disaster. This is a complete disaster. One of the things that I do, and it's important to me, is I keep an older phone. I have it connected to Wi Fi and I can text. I can make calls through WhatsApp, which is an excellent, excellent app, or Google Voice. What do you use any alternates?

Yes, I use Google Voice, and like you, I have backup phones plural that hook up to any Wi Fi. And for those who don't know, text messages take up less bandwidth. It's easier for those to slip through in an emergency situation. Remember we discussed this last week about what to do if you're stranded in some remote area. Well, people are now stranded in their own houses seemingly.

Have you ever been in a hurricane?

No, that's why I live in California. I actually talked about that on the show last Friday. I said, you know, with great respect to the people who are dealing with the hurricane. Part of the reason why I never moved from California is there are certain things I did want to deal with. I did want to deal with in clement weather. I did not want to deal with tornadoes.

I mean, I felt so horrible for the people. Their houses were in sticks. Literally, Yes, it was horrible. I grew up on Miami Beach, so I know a lot about hurricanes, and all of Miami Beach would flood. I worked at the Miami Herald, and it would be flooded up to three blocks away from the newspaper. And when your car gave up the ghost, it couldn't drive any deeper.

I was always aware of the fact that alligators are everywhere in Florida, and when you have that massive flooding, that means the alligators are going everywhere as well, so the water can be very dangerous.

Oh yeah, but you know, I never saw an alligator in Miami Beach, But then that that's Miami Beach.

It's kind of we.

Don't let alligators on Miami Beach. There are a cross on the city side in the lagoons. But you know, this is a terrifying thing. And the thing is the news always whoops it up worse than it could possibly be and totally terrifies people.

The only problem with that is, with all due respect, we also know they can be very dangerous after the hurricane.

Absolutely, and they can't prepare for having their house blown over, right, they can't prepare for their roof being blown off and the entire house saturated with rainstorm. I've known people who's had to replace carpeting and god knows what in their house. It's a horrible thing. But earthquakes, we kind of get a little beep on the phone.

Now, yeah, a whole three seconds of notice. But going back to the story, this highlights how important and essential our phone communication can be for moments just like these.

Well, I think most importantly is, like you said, have a backup. Absolutely, have a backup. I mean in our emergency kit with the earthquake, because I had such a horrible time in the north Ridge earthquake. I even have a radio where you can broadcast. So you have to have these things. We need to make our homes emergency safe.

We just have to going back to the Verizon down period and again we'll get more information, I'm sure, regardless of whatever the first report is, we'll get more information in the coming weeks about what happened, why, how extensive. But my question to you, Marcia Carlier, is does this signify that our infrastructure is exceptionally vulnerable and fragile or is it something else?

Well, just think about our electricity. I mean, honestly, not DWP and Los Angeles, but the other one further north of us. They've been having outages on and off and on and off. That's not just fragile, that's a fail. And for how many years have we been paying taxes to rebuild our infrastructure? I mean it always says that, you know and like our problems with the schools. Oh yeah, a lot of used to feed the schools. Uh huh where does all that money go?

Oh you're waiting for me to answer, because I couldn't tell you.

All I know is that more money has been pumped in and less output and less reliability in.

Response, which is why we as citizens need to be unfortunately more responsible for our own safety, just like buying new tires on a car.

The takeaway is make sure you have backup devices, you have your emergency kits, that you are prepared for any eventuality as best you can, because you don't know when disaster might strike, even if they tell you that it's coming in the form of a hurricane or some sort of major storm in the next week. When we come back, let's get into this merger of Direct TV and Dish. When this story broke also earlier this week, it blew my mind because once again.

You think that you have a choice, but you really don't.

It's all, Yeah, I have Dish TV, so and so, now you have direct TV as well. Yeah, it's Later with Mo Kelly, CAFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

It's Later with Mo Kelly and Marshall Callier. We're both live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. And you know by now a huge, huge telecom deal came down DirecTV Dish, I would say, two of the preeminent cable providers in the country are now coming together to form one super telecommunications company. What it means for you, what it means for me, It remains to be seen because even if you have a streaming platform, most likely they are a

Well, first of all, I have Dish. I like Dish, the only reason I keep Dish is because their technology is really good, believe it or not. But more and more people, you know, we have broken the cable and we have a lot of over the air content at our house. But this is something that is a big deal because remember DirecTV is owned by EchoStar. Now, EchoStar is worth a lot of money, and they have thirty billion dollars in wireless spectrum investments, and then that means

Yeah, that's all I'm saying.

You know, yes, Sling originally is a division of Dish, and so I was wondering we were going to be folded in.

So yes, we are bingo.

Now, supposedly this is going to happen in the second half of twenty twenty five.

Here's the question, and most likely the deal will go through.

But we do know the federal government, at least this administration has been more strict than others when it comes to at least perceived antitrust monopoly mergers. They've broken up a few, they've prevented a few. So I'm not going to say that there's a foregone conclusion.

Go ahead.

You were saying, though, well, these are the only satellite providers. I think that's the difference. Now you've got Starlink. If Ellan ever decided to bounce TV off of Starlink, which would seem to be a natural progression, eventually agreed, he could wipe everybody out. But you have cable. You know, your frontier, your spectrum, all that, and cable is great and reliable, but so is satellite, and satellite really is the future. I mean even airlines now are switching to

Yeah, there's a calculation that's being made because if the deal's not supposed to be consummated until early twenty twenty five, we will have a new president, a new administration, and I'm sure and sure, but it's still I mean, even if Kamala Harris wins, it's still a different administration, so it still figures into the calculations of when they want to finish this deal exactly.

And I think everybody will benefit from it because it will make it a stronger network. And like I said, dishes technology, I love it. The one thing I love about Dish technology is I can stop a show in one room, pick it up in another room of the house the DVR. But then again, I have DVR from Tableau which works with a little antenna in the window, and I can get local news and things like that. And that's another thing we have to consider. We were

Not including kf I AM six forty one of those very important outlets for breaking news during an emergency.

So you know, just have to.

Fill I actually have. I am sounding like such a crazy person. I actually have one of those radios that you can crank to church and the battery.

AI do I am so old school?

Yes, well that isn't old school. That is, when there's no electricity. We also have a giant Goal zero battery, a giant one that when we did have a power outage, has rolled out the refrigerator, plugged it into the Goal zero and we would have had power for three days for just the refrigerator.

Well, we still have a generator. We'll probably upgrade to a battery soon. Well.

The cool thing about the battery thing is we have solar panels that you can plug into it and put outside and it'll charge while it's discharging. So in other words, you can charge something and charge it at the same time. I love technology, especially if it helps people and we're given the right to use it at a reasonable price. Because our electric grid, we're talking about everything here on the electric grid. Look around you.

Well, if our infrastructure is not where it needs to be the next five years or so, we're going to have a bunch more problems that we're not ready for.

Oh well, we're busy with a whole lot of other problems that we're not going to go to politics. But it seems to me that's not at the top.

Of the list. Ructure never is, Unfortunately.

Marsha, I got a run, and I know you're probably going to be doing some traveling sometime soon.

But hopefully we'll be able to do this again in person.

I will be over in England and I will download all the apps that I can't download here. I'm bringing three funds and updating apps and we'll talk more about the differences between the EU and the US when I get back.

Look forward to it.

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

KFI AM sixty into the later with Mo Kelly, and we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Kfi's own Heather Brooker is not only a news anchor for the station, she's a resident nerd like the rest of us here on the show. So much so that this weekend she's serving as our official nerd correspondent covering La Comic Con, which returns this weekend to the La Convention Center.

And with that, Heather take it away.

He La Comic Con returns to the La Convention Center in downtown LA this weekend and if you're a fan of characters, comics, or cosplay, then this is the event for you. Joining me now to talk about the star setate event this weekend is La Comic Con CEO Chris de Mulin. I am absolutely thrilled to talk to you this year because you have some huge stars coming to La Comic this year.

Well, I mean, you know, every year when we finished the show, we always do a survey of the fans and say, you know, who haven't we brought in yet that you'd love to see?

And there are a couple of names that we're always in.

That top five, and Ewan and Hayden Christiansend and Michael J.

Fox.

We're always in that top five, and this just.

Happened to be a year where we, you know, reached out really early to Ewan's agent and he was free and we booked him. And we were talking to Hayden's agent about somebody else and he said, hey, I heard that you guys got you and you know Hayden could be free that weekend. We're like, yeah, absolutely, and then we the Michael J. Fox thing worked out in a similar way. And then when Christopher Lloyd came in for that, we had been talking to Christina reach she separately.

In one of our meetings.

Somebody said, oh, wouldn't it be fun if we get Angelica Houston to come and do an Adam's family reunion?

And she doesn't really.

Do cons, but we reached out to her agent, and because she's local, she's like, sure, that sounds like fun.

Let's talk about some of the big panels and reunions that people can look forward to seeing.

Well, I mean, I think I think the Adams Family one will be super fun and big and unexpected and the kind of thing that you know you may never see anywhere else again. Just because you know, Angelica is not a frequent condoor, although who knows, she may love it decide that she wants to join the circuit.

But I also think, you.

Know, we love, as you said, leaning sort of leaning into the Star Wars thing, having you and Emily Swallow for Obi Wan, having gian Carlo and Paul to do Mandalorian, and then kind of the what I think of as the old fashioned La Comic Con kind of pedalt like the voice cast of Avatar and the voice cast of New X Men ninety seven.

Let's talk about what you guys are doing for the gamers this year. My daughter loves video games. She jokingly calls herself a gamer at the ripe old age of eleven years old. What can your video gamers expect to experience this year?

Well, your daughter will be thrilled because you know, in the in the gaming hall on Saturday from one till six is the finals of a Fortnite tournament that's for female gamers only. It's being sponsored by Gonna Need Milk. It's called the Milk Cup, and it has a two

The early rounds were online.

So that would be really fun because ninety nine of the best female gamers in the world, many of whom are closer in age to your daughter than than.

To any of us.

You know, we'll be fighting it out for five hours across three rounds to accumulate the points to win.

Yeah, I love that.

Well.

You know, one of our favorite things to do every year when we go is we love to watch all of the cosplay. We love to see people dressed up, really embracing their fandom. And I think it's so special that we have this wonderful event here in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, where people get to really invest in their cosplay, in their costumes. Tell me a little bit about what kind of what kind of things the cosplay community can expl this year.

We're just a great place to come in your costplay and have a good time. I think a lot of the families that come it's a great opportunity for their kids to this year get their Halloween costumes early and come out and have some fun in them. We of course have the Costplay National Championships that are Saturday night, and this is the I think the eighth or ninth

For the semifinals and finals live at the show.

We always have a Kids Costplay contest on Sunday, which is you know, it's a little more fun for the kids to come and costume and you know, for a couple of hundred gets a chance to get up.

On stage and wave a mom and dad and get the picture taken.

So I think, you know, about a third, We think between thirty and thirty five percent of the people who come to our show come in some version of cosplay.

And now, of course it wouldn't be Comic Con without the artists and the writers who create the comic books. And you're going to have over a thousand artists and vendors there.

Tell me a little bit about that we do.

I mean, we have the largest artist alley this year we've ever had. It's almost six hundred artists. It's so big that we split it.

We're gonna have a big artist alliy in South Hall, but we're gonna have another one hundred and one hundred and fifty artists that are in West Hall.

And we've tried to work.

With the artists to get those artists whose art style and sort of taste is a little more anime and game, you know, graphic driven, so we can get those artists over in that hall and the general artists over here.

The engine of this town is creation.

It's the creators, and so whether we're celebrating them in Artist's Alley, we're celebrating them in the in the mix, which is where the young developers are, or in some of the panels that we have because you know, we have the main stage panels, but we have another one hundred and fifty one hundred and sixty panels with all sorts of creators that are you know, happening upstairs in the panel rooms during the course of the whole weekend.

Right.

We're a creative town, were and we're kind of the ultimate mashup of creativity across every genre gaming and streaming and TV and movies and music, and so we want to make sure that there's a you know, an avenue for those folks to come and express their creativity.

Okay, so are there any tickets left? Can we still go?

Is it too late?

There?

I want to just say there are always tickets left.

We cannot wait to go.

It's such a great event for the whole family and especially people who are into pop culture and this fandom. So Krista Mulin, thank you so much as always for your time and congrats on another exciting and successful LA Comic Con.

Well, thank you, Heather, It's always a pleasure to see you ticket.

Thank you for that, Heather.

It's later with Mo Kelly on the other side of the break will remind you of the most exclusive, the coolest and spookiest party in the history of KFI which is on the horizon, the Later with Mo Kelly pre Halloween soiree, and how you might be able to get tickets.

You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

And I've heard from some of you who've hit me on social media at Later with mo Kelly on Instagram, or you've hit me on threads at mister Mokelly. You've wondered like, Hey, mo, I'm hearing about this party, but I'm not seeing it anywhere online. I went to the KFIM six forty dot com website, didn't see anything there, didn't see anything on your social media.

What's going on? And I said, that's correct.

You are not going to find out about this party online, not not yet at least, because it is for our people's twala Am I wrong?

Is it just for us or is it just for us? It's literally just for us.

And if anyone listening has been paying attention, We've told you how you're gonna be getting in. We have something we do every Friday night, like Clockwork, one of the most popular segments on all of KFI, and that's how we.

Are giving these tickets away.

And if you're wondering, well, how long are you going to be doing this, Well, we're doing this up until the date of the party, which is October thirtieth, the day before Halloween. Obviously it's a pre Halloween soire. We're bringing you to the Honda Studios. Here at iHeart Meta. What do you mean the Honda Studios. Well, here at the station, we have a special performance room. Sometimes the

Did I forget anything tea? No, Actually love the costume part.

And with costumes, I think we have to have some prizes for those costumes.

We just got in some new swag too, that's right.

We will be giving away T shirts, we will be giving away key chains, there will be some coffee mugs for winners.

We have all sorts of cool stuff.

You've probably seen it online and we did not have a lot to give away prior to this moment, but we will have plenty to give away to you because you are our family.

You are special listeners.

You have rolled with us since the beginning, and we want to make sure that this is made available for the people who have been most supportive over these almost two years.

Now.

Now you may hear about this from other people, but the only way you're going to get to go to this party is to keep on listening and participating in some game show that we should do every seas and good week here.

Should we have a theme tomorrow Tawala? What do you think?

You know? It's it's the beginnings of October. This is a Halloween themed party. Costumes galore. Maybe we should set it off with some type of Halloween theme for tomorrow night.

I think that would be a great idea.

So those who listen to Later with Mo Kelly every single week know exactly what we're talking about, when we're talking about it, and why we are talking about it. So if you need any more hints than shame on you. The theme will be Halloween movies tomorrow at the appointed time, And that's the only way you're gonna get in this party.

I'm telling you.

We've had people who work at the station that's like, oh, you guys are throwing a party. I even heard from the folk reporter yesterday and he didn't know, and he went wild when I told him about it, because this is going to be the hottest ticket in town because you can't get it anywhere. You can't get it everywhere. I can't wait. I'm excited, and I already know what I'm gonna do, what I'm gonna be.

I know that I'm gonna be at the party. Look, you've already got your You've already got your theme together.

I'm pretty sure I'm deciding between one or two things.

See, I'm really really digging into my mental Halloween recesses to think of something so original, so stellar that every single person walking into our exclusive pre Halloween kickoff is just floored.

And I know they're gonna be some mad people because they're gonna say, wait a minute, I've always liked you, Mo, but you got to keep listening consistently. Well, I've listened to you since the mo Kelly show.

That's nice. We appreciate that, don't get me wrong. We love all the support.

But this is all about Later with mo Kelly, the people who've been listening to us, the people who have been actively supporting us on social.

Media, who join in every single.

Let's say Friday night to play a game or something like that. It's specifically for those individuals. So do not look for this at KFIAM six forty dot com. Do not look for this on maybe my social media at mister mo'kelly. Do not look for this on the show social media at Later with mo Kelly because you will

You're not gonna find it anywhere.

You just could have to know because I'm telling you, because Tuwalla's telling you. And if you should happen to run into Mark Ronner, he's looking to be strange. Yes, Mark, you can tell people too, Stefan. He may tell you, but it has to come from someone who's actually connected to the show because we haven't really even divulged this to all the other on air staff here. I haven't had a chance to talk about it with Bill. He

But it's going to be a time.

He's going to be a grand old time, and it's on you to make sure that you're part of the festivities. We will make announcements as confirmations come in about who else is going to be in the house, but a lot of it we're going to hold back because it is a surprise, it is exclud and we want people who come here to know that they are entering a very very special place that they're going to find out things before other people do.

And it's and you know what, I don't know, Tawala. Should we live stream this?

Should we give everyone the opportunity or only for the people in the house and just make everyone mad and say, see, you should have been there.

You know what, I'm not mad at the idea of the concept of live streaming because of all the constules, because of all the people dressed up, And I think everyone listening needs to be able to see how fly this is.

So that way they know next year when we do it again, they know for sure they better join in.

Well, you may not want to miss the first one, because nothing's like the first time.

So that's all we can say.

You have been forewarned, and now you have been prepared to get ready for next month's pre Halloween soire courtesy of Later with Mokelly at the Honda Studios. Here at iHeartMedia, It's not gonna be in the little studio where you see on.

The Instagram live. No no, no, no, no, it's a it's it's a it's a big to do.

It's a big room with a lot of food, a lot of drink, a lot of costumes. And now all we need is a lot of you k if I am six forty we are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

Common Sense left California a long time ago. We're bringing it back.

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