054: Swift To The Max

Saves all sorts of time if you just move yourself. Ellen prefers it that way. So I figured from one of those blue checkmark wannabes, you're low end. Welcome to Unrelenting Episode number 54, December 16, 2022. I am Darren O'Neil. Yeah, the blue checkmark want to be in across this big virtual desk. Is a guy that has a thousand different names and probably 5000 different passports. What are we going back to today, Jean, to see Just simply Jean. It's always been the same, I don't know, checkmark.

It's like Cher. I'm just Jean. Uh huh. I see everything in the beautiful state of Texas this morning. It's. It's pretty good. It's cooling off a little bit. Echo, What's the weather? Let's find out how cool that is. 47 degrees. I kind of felt like it was cooling off last night. Yeah, that is cooling. I'll give you that. It was 84 days ago. A lot of people when they're down in places like Florida or Texas knowing, yeah, it's really getting cold. Like, well, what is it? It's like 65.

No, it's it's 30 here in Iraq and it's getting down next week. Towards the end of the week, the highs are supposed to be in the single digits. So it'll be fun. It'll be the winter wonderland that we deserve for the holidays. Yeah, you sure deserve it for living up there. Yeah. Have you lived in Minnesota? That's what I'm done. I'm done with it. Never again. When the kids can go outside, there's people in a lot of places the world is like.

So if you have, like, a little lake behind your house, you can ice skate on it in the winter. That's really cool. What does that cost? Just your dignity and your sanity when you're like, well, I mean, if you're if you're up from where I'm from, if you have a little lake behind your house, you're going to play hockey and. Yeah, Yeah. Hey, the NHL, baby. Uh huh. I used to enjoy watching hockey. Yeah, I enjoy playing. Hardly. Well, that was, what, 50 years and £100 ago? A very long time ago.

Hockey is a very physically demanding sport, which is why you don't want all the other shape guys doing it either million calories and not gain any weight playing hockey. Yeah, you are exerting a lot of effort, I mean, in the cold weather. Well, that also when it's cold outside and just breathing in the air burns a lot more calories. Go outside, take a nice long walk when it's ten degrees out. Yeah, ten degrees. It's a warm day in the sun. It'll get your blood pumping somewhere like 40 below.

But I found out. Breaking news. Why? Why Ellen and company don't want me to learn a blue checkmark. I mean, I thought for sure is because Adam Curry was following me, and I thought that was enough to sully my chances of getting the blue checkmark. But no, they finally updated their system to give a reason rather than your account does not qualify at this. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And what was your reason? They don't like my cell phone carrier, which I understand because it's Google voice. Oh, yeah.

They don't accept those. Yeah, that's true. Because you know, you can't use is it. This is I'm sure. No. In the in the hopes that they could block spam which is still Good luck with that. No it's just the phone number you give for free and you can change or maybe they don't like it, but I've had the Google voice number longer than most or something recently here. I can't remember which company it might have been, either Twitch or YouTube or something. And they they don't like.

Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah. They don't accept Google voice like I don't think Google except for Google Voice as a form of verification. Yeah. And you're like, you think you would know who I am because you verified me to get the Google voice number. Google home they really don't like. Anybody can just sign up that has a Google account and anybody can get a Google account with no verification. This is not the case anymore.

With Google Voice, the most recent that I tried to get a new Google Voice number. Yeah. What did they say? You still have to verify it with a real phone number, which means I've got a dozen Google Voice numbers I do to from back of the day. But before that, this was a thing I do too, which is why you don't want to let those things expire because it's really hard to get new ones. Uh huh. Unless you have a number.

And I'm curious because the number I'm going to switch after the show today, I'm going to switch my number on Twitter to my iPhone that I never use, which has an ex Google voice number that was moved to infinity. Yeah. Okay. So if they accept that, then all I have to do is that just change that number to and then send it back to Google Voice to be like, Huh, I beat you, Ellen. Uh huh, I beat you. But I get it, I guess.

Yeah, I'm trying to do that until all of a sudden, six months later, you get a please revalidate your phone by replying to the text message we just sent. Yes. I have no name of the troll room. Suggest buying a $20 track phone which would problem curious and we're not going to accept. That's it. That's the thing. It's like will they even accept any of the pay per go? They may not know. And I thought it was hilarious. Just while we're speaking of Ellen, we're going to speak of him.

Well, that he banned well, I don't know if it was banned or so I think the suspended is the better word here. Six journalists from The Washington Post. Yeah, Good for him. From MSNBC. It was all the big liberal outlets. Yup. And they're all freaking out now. It's like, how does it feel for this to be on the other side? Right? And yeah, they're they have no consistency filter, right?

Because they were the ones that were like ha ha true serves Twitter and yeah Twitter is literally full now of people gloating and getting some schadenfreude about these reporters getting kicked off by by showing images of two tweets from them next to each other, one talking about how he hates private company. They can do whatever they want. Right. When they were kicking off conservatives. Right. And now government needs to investigate this company,

which is clearly influenced by foreign agents. Yes. As they're getting kicked off. It's hilarious. You can't have it both way, people. Yeah, I'm all for freedom of speech and nobody getting banned or kicked off, but it's not my company. And in this case, Ellen, I think, is making a good point, which is I don't know how public this data is to show where private planes are. Obviously, it's out there. It's public, it's public data.

But I think the point he's making is that the I'm I'm not going to be the flashy light that shines on this normally hard to get public data. Right. And it's not just Ellen. I mean everybody knows I'm a big Swifty. Taylor Swift has been having the same kind of issue. I mean, her plane. Yeah. So anybody had a private plane, This is a security concern for people that don't want to be on the radar, because unfortunately, when you have a private plane, you have to be on the radar.

Yeah, Yeah. Unless you're the merchant of death, then you can just paint the tail over while you're in flight and then become a different plane. Give me the president of the United States or or are you talking. Oh, wait, are you. Are you the merchant of death talking about Victor? Oh, Victor, the boot. Yeah, Victor, the boot. That's a good nickname, though. The boot. Well, at least you pronounce his name correctly. Unlike 99% of the media, though. What are they calling him? Bout bout?

Well, yeah, because both t is the American spelling, but it's not spelled that way in Russian. It's spelled boot. Well, we're glad to be on the accurate side of things here. Yeah, we tried, but that kind of data, it's like one of the rules. Doxing is a serious thing and there's a lot of people who are just stupid, so totally legal. I mean, this is the thing. It's so stupid as this concept was invented by hippies that you're not allowed to like, repeat where somebody lives.

We grew up in an age literally of the White Pages. Yes. Where were you having to be listed? Everybody lived. It was not optional. Everybody can get a nobody is concerned about it. Well, unless you had any amount of money at all. Because what ends up happening is usually that the property is purchased not under your name, right?

It's purchased under the name of a trust or something like that that people don't know if somebody is going to do their homework, which was a lot harder to do before the Internet. It might be harder to figure out what that person would use or how they're connected to whatever entity purchased the house. But it is getting keep talking for a second. Want to use a gesture, microphone stand of T and move it around a little bit.

I mean, at least we are getting audio from GM today, which was questionable just a few hours ago when his MOTU decided to turn against of the AI in the MOTU. I think maybe CSB has something to do with the firmware in the MOTU that if I had to adjust the the Chase lounge a little bit here, it sounds like you're moving the microphone stand and get a little bit. Yeah. I'm just kind of, you know what's the word. I'm you're being handsy. Yeah. A little bit.

A professional podcaster would not be doing that during the show. Dude, let me tell you about the the bullshit they had to deal with yesterday. Wait, there was something went wrong yesterday as well. USB B, was it was it a bad cable? What was this? I think it was about cable. That's what happened to me too. Out of nowhere. That was the weirdest thing. What had happened to me. Because nothing had been changed recently. Nothing had moved.

I was doing a rock and roll pre-show with Fletcher one morning, as one does, as one would, and it started getting staticky. And I'm like, they rebooted. It went back and it like, stuck it like everything crashed. And then I realized, well, I changed USB ports and it worked for like 3 seconds and then it went bad again. Mm hmm. Change the cable and everything's been fine. You always assume if a cable is going to go bad, it would be one.

Like, if you're constantly with an external drive, moving it from place to place and unplugging and plugging. No, a cable that's just been sitting there not being touched for months and working fine can somehow go bad. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a weird thing. Although, I mean, I guess I'd backtrack it down to a plugging in one more device that caused this whole thing, though. Oh, so maybe something sent a surge or something through the as those surges? I think it was just a lot of devices on there.

It overloaded your system. But either way it's a it got resolved. Just cost me 2 hours of my life. And I was trying to interrupt your other show when I found out about this. That was karma right there. Shit, This is not working. We gave you a clean feed link, and then you came in and there was silence and everybody was like, Gee, that's not like Jane. What? She was never silent. He's a lot of things, never silent. That's true. So it was it was a little unusual.

And then I got online with some, like, I don't know, 4 hours later with some friends playing video games. And two of them were talking about the exact same thing happening to them, where all of a sudden their audio device stopped working and they're trying to figure out how to get it working. It's like, what the hell? It was like the day of audio crashes yesterday. Well, that would lead you to believe that there's something there's a reason why

there's no coincidence, Jean. No. And and they were certainly not using motives, though. So their systems may have may have all been hacked. My podcast, fake podcast, got they found this. It's great. I love it. Who are you? Fake but death, huh? Fake podcast. So did you get your limited edition autographed trump cards yet? Are they? It's hard. How do you autograph an NFT? Well, I mean, that's why they're $99, because they're NFT is they're high quality, eye quality autographed trump cards.

I am I will say for last Christmas, I am upset because my dad Trump fan so Trump put have it upset me as well that would be I. I mean I don't mind Trump. I understand he's an entertainer and a business person and I have no hatred for Donald Trump. And I do love me a quick profit. Donald Trump put out a picture book of his time in the White House and he autographed them and they were like 250 bucks or something like that with 250 to 300 bucks. So I ordered one for my dad.

And you see, as I've learned with Taylor Swift, you really should order as many as possible, Right? Because they'll go up and they went up immediately. They were selling for like a thousand bucks within like two weeks because they sold out so fast and like, damn, I wish I would have bought a second one, but no, I'm not going to buy an NFT because one I don't believe an NFT is for the artistic value.

Now, Trump's doing something interesting because it seems like it's more like a raffle of some sort because there are ways there are people that are going to be chosen. Then you get like a trip to meet Trump or something like that that's technically referred to as a pyramid scheme, but maybe go ahead. It may well be, but it's not necessarily a pyramid scheme. If you're giving away a prize. I don't know how that works with the NFL. Nothing has been given the way, right?

Well, now it depends if it's actually going to be given away from us. Yeah, the NFT is the only use they have, and I've said this over and over again is when you tie them to a physical asset. And I believe this is where they may actually take off because there is still a market for people that like to collect things, whether it be ticket stubs or baseball cards or autographed baseballs or autographed Donald Trump books.

If it's at some point, isn't the number of idiots out there just going to become separated from their money? Probably. Now the NFT is a don't have anything attached to them that's nothing but vaporware. If you have a legitimate source that is tying things like an autographed Taylor Swift record, if they added that to an NFT and that NFT was valid until somebody turned it in for the vinyl, well then you could you could resell the concept that you owned the vinyl over and over again.

And then if somebody actually claims that physical thing, then the NFT is useless. Yeah, as long as that physical thing is still tied to the NFT, I think that's where the market is going, which is why all of these companies, Goldin auctions, eBay also, they want to vault all of your stuff. When it comes to collectibles, they're like, Hey, we'll hold out of that. Taylor Swift autographed lithograph you have, and you can buy and sell it, but it never has to leave our vault. Mm hmm.

Which is interesting because it's like, how do you really know it? It's don't they? They did this for software, and now they want to do it with physical items. You will own nothing and you will be happy. Are your spaceships nfts? That's what a Billy Bones wants to know.

They're not. No. And but I was going to mention, when you mention our fees, there is another game out there called Star Atlas, I believe, and it is a younger game, so they're not like as far as long as Star Citizen is, which is still an Alpha, which is still an alpha, but these guys are like basically a concept drawing stage. But they decided to use NFT to sell their ships. So their ship prices, they were going for as much as 30,000 per ship weight dollars dollars.

Yeah, for branding, if you want to talk about fools in their money, do you dream? Well, they're part of it. But no, it gets better. It gets better. So this company is Remmers software development Company. Using NFT is to fund themselves to build a spaceship. Right. They were investing their money at NFT X? Yes. The money they're getting by selling these NFT is we're going into FDX, which they lost, obviously.

So now there's a problem because now they need to sell a bunch more ships to get more money in to make up for the losses they suffered as a result of being stupid and putting money into a scam instead of a bank. Yeah. Now that definitely is a pyramid scheme and the prices and the ships and the secondary market. Remember these are NFT. So there, you know, you own it, you could trade it. They're down by about 90% nine zero now game assets.

I do find this to be interesting that you can have an asset that is your own in a game, right, that you own. But you can I mean here's the thing. Up until now, you could have assets in a game that you allegedly owned and some of them even allowed you to sell them. But this all happened in their ecosystem. So this right by being an NFT, that means you can go to eBay, Facebook or whatever you want to sell this NFT. And then it is, well, I don't know if you can. I assume you can. I don't.

I never bought these spaceships, so I don't know. But that's an interesting concept. The thing that's interesting is the way it worked, I believe, and I could be wrong, but I believe that's the way it worked, is they would say, okay, we've got a brand new ship design. We're only going to sell a thousand copies of this. We're going to price it at $2,000 each. And so the first thousand people willing to pony up two grand got the space ship now. And they're telling me there are heroes in the game.

Thousands of people that are willing to spend this kind of money. Well, I mean, we're in the wrong business. You can do the math. Well, I don't know. I know it's I mean, yes, I do know we're in the wrong business that much I do know, right? I'm not sure this is the right business. That's. Yeah, the I'm sure remember how much they've raised so far? I think they've raised like 50 million, 60 million, something like that. That's fairly impressive. Here's the thing.

You never even have to put out a real product. Huge steam that way. You just have to sell people out. The idea that there's going to be a product. Yeah, they fund you and you go, Yeah, it didn't work out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's really the model of Star Citizen two. They're, you know, in Alpha for ten years. Can you log in and do some stuff in the game?

Absolutely. And it's kind of. Yeah, it could be fun, but a lot of the fun you can have is dependent on you because they've got spaceships, they've got a world and they got nothing for you to do. So you have to come up with your own things to do. It's if you get together with a group of people like this weekend is going to be the two year anniversary of a group that I'm in. We're going to have a lot of fun doing Spaceship B stuff, but we're also kind of inventing our own fun pastimes.

Like we're we're doing things that we're not intended in the game. You could Yeah, you're basically figuring out what the game is. Yeah, well, figure out what can we do in the game. That could be fun. That has nothing to do with what's built into the game. Like we're going to load up tanks on top of spaceships and then fly around with tanks and only shoot the tanks at each other.

So it's going to have to be a combination of skill of both the pilot and the tank operator to shoot another spaceship in space from a tank. Obviously, tanks were not intended to be sitting on spaceships. They were intended to be on the ground. The SEABROOK one in the troll room says, I'm going to hunt you, Jean, in Star Cities and go for it. So people make sure you friend me first. So you know where I'm at, right? Friend him so that way you don't have to dox him or anything first.

He'll just exactly he'll be. He's like, Come on over. You think you can beat me? I'm ready. I got 4000 spaceships, 53 million tanks, storm troopers, whatever else you got in this now. So you're like the Darth Vader of this. I wish there was stormtroopers you like. That would be. At least it would be cooler. Yeah, We need some stormtroopers. Exactly. We do have skins, you know, clothes that look like stormtrooper clothes in there. I mean, not close enough to infringe upon any copyrights.

Of course, the whole game has that statement about it, because there's also we also have X-Wing fighters that are not called X-Wing fighters. They're totally not ex They're totally not. They're they're like square wing fighter or they're like St George dislike fighters or whatever. Right. Just find another good name and change them just enough. But that's the beauty of these games too.

If you let your fan base, if you let the people playing the game add certain things to it, then it becomes really hard to go out and a number of events that were purely fan created became official in the game. Like there was a a group of people that took military. They're basically Humvees, you know, but not to infringe on that brand, of course, but they took those and they said, hey, let's do like a rally. So there was an eight hour long ground race that they organized.

And every year there's more and more people coming to the point where it became an official event. And now actual ground race tracks are coming to the video game. So they're they they will do stuff like this. There's also a group of people that found the bug in the game that sold drugs at a very cheap price in the game at a certain location. I get you a little Cialis or Viagra or something like that. Yeah, a little, little minor drug than that. But but basically they were sold super cheap.

So if you bought them there and then sold them in space stations that that buy drugs, you can be a space station drug dealer. This sounds like a gateway station drug dealer. This was not really by intent, but because they were so cheap, people started like bribing each other over the control of that territory. And so consequently, it's a place called jumped down to great name for it.

And so consequently, there were, you know, the the the cheap drug buying turned into military actions with groups coming super armed to fight other groups or the ability to buy drugs really cheap and then resell them. So it's kind of like the cartel wars really.

And even though this was a bug in the game, eventually the game company decided to formalize this and now it has multiple events called jumped down running on different planets where they're you can buy drugs for cheap but at the risk of other people coming in to do that as well. And, you know, they publicize that. They tell you when they're going to start, when they're going to, and then try and promote these things. So the game company is good in this regard.

They're taking player created content, essentially people coming up with things to do because there's not much to do and then saying, hey, that could be a part of the official game. Well, that's how it grows. Yeah, I like that aspect of it for sure. In your character, the game is dressed like Sonny Crockett. I take it. Well, it's funny you mention that because I typically do wear an all white outfit. See? There you go. What did you do yesterday to celebrate Don Johnson, 73rd birthday?

He's 73. I didn't know we were getting old. As old as I am. Wow. So they're rebooting. Something was it was it Miami Vice, the reboot of that? I hope to God they're not rebooting Miami. Yeah, I think they are. And I don't know how he's involved. I mean, obviously you're not going to let me back that up because I heard in the latest Indiana Jones movie they de-aged using A.I. Harrison Ford could you just imagine Don Johnson? And what's the other guy's name?

Ricardo Crockett. No, that's his character. But is his partner Tubbs? Oh, yeah. The black. Yeah, the black guy who I've stolen is totally dope. I don't know. It'd be much harder for him to then be de-aged if he was dead. I hope he's alive or easier. That was one of my favorite. Well, true. They could just use his imagery. Like he said, it was fine. No, really, the original contract, they signed off their likenesses to the studio, which is used to have that in their contract. Yes.

My favorite is still one of my favorite scenes out of Miami Vice is when Tubs was sitting in the really whatever sports car it was. The guy came up to try to carjack him and Tubbs just raises up a soft shotgun like you got to get out of. He's a cop, right? He's a badass cop in a Ferrari driving cap with the set off shot. That sounds like Miami, baby. That's why Miami in the eighties was a whole lot of fun. There was a whole lot of fun. There's a whole lot of money coming in, that's for sure.

The whole city got built on coke. Yeah, it's a nice city, not rock and roll party city. Oh, them's was they? South Beach was a fun place to be. Tubbs is 73 to net and Ed says the trouble Michael Thomas. So yeah there no. Wow. They could still do it. They could come back as the crotchety old captains or something like that. Well, I loved the fact that the that the. But his face lived on the boat with the alligator. Yeah. George, your client or some kind of body.

Yeah. Because that's, you know, normal that's something you would do. You like reptiles. Wholly something I would do. Yeah. I mean I think in a place where alligators were like people. You only live there. Do you think that snakes are dangerous as the gator? That's fine. That's where the snakes eat the gators in Florida. Oh, well, that's even the difference. The circle of life, I suppose. Something like that. Yeah, it's. They're. They're. This is why I can't move to Florida.

I, I've mentioned this is because my snake is illegal in Florida because they have a problem with these snakes eating the native gators. So you have to stay in that freedom loving state of Texas, although that there's only two states to live. As far as I'm concerned, Florida and Texas, Florida and Texas. Yeah, that's kind of what you're down to.

Yeah, Indiana is not bad, but the weather's not quite as nice as Florida or Texas, but India, it's freedom loving compared to Illinois, which compared to Illinois. I think every state around Illinois is freedom like Wisconsin, which, you know, has the worst cops there. This freedom loving compared to Illinois. I mean, some places in Russia way more freedom loving Cuba. Yeah, probably way more freedom loving China, Way more freedom loving. The more freedom loving and all knowing for sure, huh?

Well, at least they don't abuse their people there the way Illinois does. I like the Don Johnson reboot. They did was just a movie, I think of Nash Bridges. I know there was something with Nash Bridges that was that was a really good series, too. It was not very well-received, I don't think, but I thought it was pretty good. I like Don Johnson's character in South by Island Down would you like Don Johnson in Everything?

Well, he did a good job of playing a crotchety kind of a, you know, which he is now. Right. But it was he was kind of he was the father of the main character of Danny McBride. And he was like this old ladies man type. Yes. Now, that was a funny movie as well. I mean, if you like baseball and that was a TV show, not a movie. Oh, it was a series. Yes. Not a movie. But Don Johnson, there's been a lot of good stuff. I yeah, I pulled I had no idea. I mean, maybe I just blocked all of this out.

But there was a clip I pulled for the rock and roll pre-show of him singing on a German television show promising to come tour there. It's like, Oh, my God, I know. It's like, What is that? I think this is the Hasselhoff thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, well, we could just we have a very popular American television slash movie guy. Let Germans not know the difference between singers and actors.

He thought that maybe that that's the only thing all actors or singers write that kind of explains it because I don't know how else that happens because it was, you know, he did it. That cover of the song, you know, tell it like it is. And again, I can sing anything with no range to it. You can sing anything. There are certain songs that are just made to be for people. You know, when you're doing your karaoke, that's what you want to sing.

You don't want to go for the hits of Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey that have the high. You want to go, you want to stick to the male singers. And that would be cool, too. I just you know, I can do tequila really well. You know, tequila, that's just the one word songs. Even better. The one songs are good. Yeah, the one where that's all you need. But I'm not saying it When you go to to a bar and they have karaoke nights, I will. Enough. Yeah, I will leave as well. But.

But then what makes it even worse is they have that you're trying to, you know, think about it and just talk to your friends and them and all of a sudden somebody starts belting who's an actual singer is like, Motherfucker, what are you doing if karaoke, if you know how to sing, having fun, hanging out with their. No, that's showing off one that's called showing off. Yeah, exactly. That's not about fun. It's about showing everybody how crappy they are and how good I am. They did just hate it.

There was a little diner kind of breakfast restaurant there, still there near where my parents live. And for a while they were open for dinner. COVID killed that, but for the time that they were open for dinner, obviously they were looking for some way to bring more business in. And we stopped in there. One night at like 8:00 after doing something and all of a sudden the karaoke starts and it was just obnoxiously loud. There was like nobody in there. And it's like, What are you doing?

This ain't a bar. This is not what people just coming in for. A BLT. Want to talk to everybody? Yeah, with really bad singers. That's horrible. Uh huh. I don't like it, but I'm not. Buy me no Trump NFT is, I'll tell you that. No, no, he got he got a few, uh, a few comments about trying to peddle that stuff. Do you think he understands what an NFT is? Because he's all the. I don't think he's really all he, all he understands is that he's going to have the best NFT anyone's ever had.

Yeah, it's going to be unbelievably good ads. It's going to be a killer. Mm hmm. Got to be the best bass. If you've seen an NFT, you've never seen anything like this, right? This is the most powerful NFT. Yeah, this is the strongest. And it's strong. There's a lot of folks that mean, Hey, that's the strongest synthetic baby it's ever been done. You cannot break this NFT. I mean, to the point where Snowden had to do a shoulder strike emoji and say, Where have we gone to wait?

I have no name of the troll room. Troll room, Daddy-O, when we do these shows live is reporting that it sounds like all 45,000 of the nfts have sold out. If that's true, if that is true that Gene and I are really in the right mess, well, yeah, we should be in the business of trying to pitch your product to Trump to to sell a Trump. Yes. He's linking to an article out the Hill dot com raised four and a half million dollars selling nfts mm hmm.

Well, like I said, I guess there are still enough bulls out there waiting to be printed with their money. That is crazy. So why that Or there's no fools and it's just wrong. What do you call those guys? The guys that buy should just resell. You have the flippers that there's a a worse word for them than that. Than flippers, scalpers, discount scalpers. That's mainly tickets. Flippers are from now. That's overall. Scalpers are for everything because they're just out. So a new video card.

Ever heard anybody say a scalper at a video card? Do scalpers That's what they're called. The video card just came out two days ago and I missed my goddamn chance to buy it because I got up a half hour too late. Oh, well, that's a surprise. Yeah. So they they sold 260,000 units in the first 30 minutes. Wow. And I was hoping to be one of those. And I'm is. And these are thousand dollar cards, by the way. Now, Gene, you're a man of means.

You don't you don't have some intern or something that you could have. I'm ordering this stuff for you. Do do they? I just don't. I have nobody right now. It's just me. I'm a do everything myself kind of guy. Well, as long as you take care of yourself. Mm. It's this way. But you didn't get up early enough to get yourself a video card. I got up at nine. I should have got up at eight. And they were all down by 830 and I was like that, dammit. And the next batch won't be ready till January.

Now, are these some of the cards that are intentionally triple old for the crypto mining? Yeah. So this shows that there is a still very strong U.S. gaming market. Well, that's because they're cheap. They people want to get them because the price points are good. But yeah I thought just $1,000. That is such a cheap video. I mean, I have like five of those at my machine right now. Yeah, the competitive cards are 1600 bucks and the scalpers are selling these now on Amazon for two grand.

Because the interesting thing now in the Biden economy is there was an article that was pointing out there's never been a better time to buy an air fryer. Hmm. Because electronics, I guess I'm right on the bleeding edge now that you are. But because of the Biden inflation, it turns out that although food is up like 30 to 60%, depending on 60 more like the electronic market to $65 and pound, though.

Damn. Yeah. But the electronic market, because people have to spend all their money on food, the people making all the gadgets like phones and air fryers and stuff like that, nobody's buying. So those prices are going down. Yeah. So if you have a little extra cash hidden away now, now's the time to buy the electronics. TVs were down like 20%. You know, it's crazy, but all of the electronics that normally go off the shelves in there in this time of the year are giving trees away. It's amazing.

I've got like I bought four No. Two, too, because I to the old one about two 4K TV sets and they're super cheap right now. Yeah. I mean I've thought of doing that. I have in the office here now. I mean you can never really do it because it would be a pain to mount then it would probably heat the room up like a mofo. But I've got five different posters in this room up around. Oh, you could totally do it. Right.

There's a video I just saw recently of a guy who got 75 inch TVs or maybe even the Alien DVDs. And he basically did a fake window for that room. That is awesome. Watch the video. No, but I love the concept. It's very impressive. So he did it. You know, they're all like long way up. There's three TV sets that look like a three pane window.

And so they're, you know, instead of left to right there, top to bottom and then they're all hooked up to a single computer that's generating the image that's going in there. And he can have a winter chalet in Switzerland view from his basement, or you can have a Bora Bora sitting in the beach view from the basement, right? I mean, it looks super realistic. It's like I'm sure if you get right up to it, obviously you can tell.

But if you're sitting on a sofa, you're just, you know, doing whatever in the basement. I think your brain's just going to act just like you're actually in a normal, you know, room in that place. So, hell, yeah, you could even have a nice 4K camera mounted outside the house that just looks like you're looking outside your front door, stupid.

If you get the opportunity to have a window that can literally be anywhere, you're really going to mount a camera outside of your house and have a shitty view. Like the night mounted outside of Adriana Lima's house. Inside Adriana Lima is outside or inside. Exactly. That's the 4K view. I was her mirror. Right. There you go. Happens to come out of my house. That's now. That is a technology I would invest in. Uh huh uh, let's get some nfts done for that.

Yeah. How do we make some how do we make it? Reminds me of a great movie, which is the the something something John Malkovich. What was it called? Being Being John Malkovich? Yeah, that was an awesome movie. It was quirky. There's no question about it. It was so twisted, man. Not like, disgusting, but just twisted in the way that reality bending. It's like weird. Well, reality bending. And then Cusack was in there, wasn't he? Dusek was in there. What's your face was in there?

You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. What's been out? My coffee too? Because it's like, Oh, yeah, what's her face? Well, there wasn't Scarlett Johansson again, was it? None of that. That's usually who you are. You say what you're saying. Yeah, I know. I like Scarlett. No, it was the something about Mary. Check the health. Your name, right? Cameron Diaz. The Mexican one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One. Yeah, She was in it, and she was not playing a hot chick.

It was playing the ex wife who became a lesbian. That was great. Such a hilarious. I mean, if you were married to John Cusack, you'd probably become a lesbian, too. Well, that's probably like the that's two point lead. It was a very. And John Cusack, that too. We already said that. Oh, sorry. I know Malkovich's in. Well, of course.

I mean it's the show. Yeah. The movie is becoming or Being John Malkovich, then I would hope I mean, it would be, I guess, funny or maybe if he wasn't dead, wasn't that right? But now he's actually in it. It is definitely a cult classic. There's that's the best way to describe it. See, Brooklyn says Scarlett Johansson's only five foot tall. That ruined it for. Him round it, huh? She's not five foot tall, man. Things like get her high heels. That's all you need to do. No motion star analysis.

You know her well. You dated her for a while, right? I did not. Have not said if I'd be talking about that all day long enough. I dated Scarlett fucking Johanson. If you went out. If you accidentally ran into her for 30 seconds one night, you would be talking about that every day. Non stop. There's a few actresses out there that I wouldn't mind spending a day with it. Really? That's all you need? I mean, one day. Yeah. What? What more do you need? She is five foot three or 160 centimeters tall.

Yeah. Yeah. 36, 25, 36 and five foot three. That to me is a perfect body. Right? They're jeans like when I'm done with her. I mean, really, if you're on a flight, you could just put her in the overhead carry on compartment and it's the appropriate size for a woman dream surg incom. Uh huh. If you want to send them a message. Hundred pounds Scarlett's in the news though, because she's complaining that she was being groomed to be a bombshell in her early acting career. That's true.

Or how she suffered. I know. And it's like, wait, so you were an attractive actress and you're surprised that they put you into roles that calls for an attractive woman? I don't understand. More or more importantly, she was told to be more attractive. It's like, See, now that could be a little rude. Like, you know, here's the thing. She really is very average looking. If you take Scarlett Johansson with no makeup on. Well, that's a part of it. Yes. Yeah. Then she kind of looks like Taylor Swift.

There's a lot of people that are like that. Adriana Lima not. Uh huh. Yeah. That's a rarity. There are women out there and, you know, consider yourself lucky if you've ran across one in real life who look absolutely gorgeous with no makeup on. And quite often they don't realize it. And because the vast majority of women by statistical percentages, absolutely need makeup on in order to look good, Otherwise they look like, you know, somebody you wouldn't want to sit next to in Starbucks.

Wow. What's true? Damn g getting real. But for I always do. But there is definitely a percentage of women there. And I've had the good fortune of being around the few that look that good when they roll out of bed. It is a rarity. It is definitely a rarity. So odds are you won't meet many of them. They'll get married and then they'll become actresses and they'll complain that they're being that they're being groomed.

You? Yeah. I always liked Scarlett Johansson's look ever since Lost in Translation, where she was in her early twenties, and she might have been like 18. I think she played 18, but she was in her early twenties because that was one of the movies she mentioned. Like, Well, then I was going to be the object of desire. The the person they lost, the I mean, definitely that after her, combined with a 50 something year old Bill Murray was definitely a little bit of wish Well, no two ways about it.

You know there's Bill Murray as well which he's looked way older. That's obvious to me. I mean he's always looked like older than yeah he looks like an alcoholic. That's what he usually look like. That may be accurate This she's born in 1984. What year did 2003. It came out so she was probably filming at 18. There probably was 18 and I think it was three. Yeah. Hey, legal. But yeah, that was Bill Murray at that point. Definitely legal. Yeah. So this is Ingrid Johansson.

This is how Hollywood just corrupts the minds of Americans. What highest-paid actors of 2018 and 2019. Yes, I know she's had a really hard time. Her time is making all that, but it is not easy making all that money. That is why we choose to be podcasters. Definitely not. I mean, with that kind of money, we don't want to be making any money. We don't want to ruin our lives with cash. Well, we do not want to ruin our lives with cash. There was a Republican. Was it a senator or a House member?

Who was that? Lee Maybe that wants to ban porn. What? Yes. This. I'm like, Wait, how much? Good luck. Do you not understand how the Internet works? Utah Republican Senator Oh, yeah, Utah. Okay, well, that makes sense. Mike Lee. Yes. Introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act, a bill that normally nominally I'm sorry, aims to establish a national definition of obscenity, but which would, in effect, outlaw all online content nationwide.

Okay. You know, I don't know what that's going to do because I watch Mormon porn occasionally. What it what is Mormon porn? Well, Mormon porn is mainland Utah and it has people engaging in pornographic activities that are wearing the traditional garb of the Mormons. That seems a little twisted, but whatever gets you off, it's a thing. You know, It's not everyday porn.

It's like a specialty porn day porn only for those special occasions like Christmas and Festivus, like when you want your porn to have people still wearing clothes while having sex, which makes it way, way more complicated. It makes it a little weird. But the concept of outlawing. But it does have like a whole bunch of wives. Well, see, that's, I don't know, young wives. Well, that's fine. Scarlett Johansson style wife. Well, see, that's okay.

But they're still wives, which means everybody knows what happens when they become the wife, as opposed to the object of your desire that you are dating. So that's the difference. This is where I think that the solution of having a whole bunch of wives kind of comes into play, that you can let them compete with each other. This is a ranking. So see, this is why why women hard when they're single, because they're competing for a man. They're trying.

And when they get married, they say, got one, don't need to do shit anymore, don't need to wear makeup, don't need to exercise, don't need to do anything. Now, I got me a man and he's not going anywhere, right? I married Adriana Lima. I woke up with Kathy Griffin. That's usually how it works. Yeah. And you know the story about the blowjob? The story? Oh, it's about the story. Everybody knows the story about love job. I'm not sure I know the story. It proposes to a girl if she accepts.

Oh, of course. Yeah, Because that's their only goal in life is to get married. Pretty much that that is the only goal. And that's genetic programing right there. And then, you know, she just super happy, gives them an incredible blowjob You're going to have to mark this show is not for kids, by the way. I think we always do. Okay, good. That wasn't true. Out of an abundance of caution, a guy's super happy, goes out, is buddies like man, I can't wait for married life with this girl.

She's incredible. I've never been with anybody like her. She's. I'm not going to let her slip away. So she just gave me the best blowjob I've ever had. Meanwhile, the girls off with her female friends. Thank them phone and or wherever, and it's like, Man, I finally, finally got him to propose. This is awesome. Not only that, I gave the last blowjob I'm ever going to give. Also accurate, but this is why I call it the blowjob story. Because it is the story experienced by all married men.

And the main reason telling that story, of course, was to discuss whether or not this episode of this podcast would now be outlawed in the United States. If Mike Lee's law because of the outlawed UTA anyway well outlaw all online sexual content, it's like, wait, wait, wait, make good luck. Right? Like the porn lobby is like the biggest lobby out there. There's a big difference between what would be considered sexual content and what's porn as well.

Yeah, the furry lobby alone would prevent this from happening. Better than the Furby lobby. Yeah, I don't know about that. Sounds a little too kinky for me, but the furry lobby is substantial, and they just had a massive event in Chicago. You know that? I did not. Yeah, but I don't go into Chicago. It is a horrible city. You know, I actually live in Chicago. Just pretend you do. But yeah, just look outside of Chirac, I always see Chicago something event. I'm sure you could find it.

But yeah, there's a there are way too many people that like to wear like, you know, fluffy animal costumes while having sex, which I don't understand. But this whatever everyone teaches on, right? This law that's being proposed would define obscene content, is, quote, taken as a material that taken as a whole appeals to the prurient PR You are e anti what is prurient? That's a word I'm not really familiar. Probably an offshoot of Puritan could be interest in nudity, sex or excretion.

Deep excretion. Yeah. What huh? Depicts describes a represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate or gratify the sexual desires of a person. Now, isn't that any movie or television show that has any romantic scenes? Yeah. So that was like taken as a whole. Lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific values. I mean, our show screwed. We totally lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

There's zero value here, I know, telling people that. And yet they don't make money. They know today they didn't. Nobody. So I say net net came in, I think with a booster grab. Okay. During the show. And we appreciate that. That's the only thing keeping the show going. He says. I love On hearing with daring, though, and so muted. So I mean there the hearing that he changes the name. It's like the band drew bit the band, Drew says podcast band.

Drew has been giving a different name at the beginning of the show, the change his band drew to a different B word for a forever. And it's hilarious. I looked up prurience while you were talking and what is it? Lascivious, lecherous, lewd, lustful and sex mad. And it comes us to us from the French. Oh, is there a picture of you and me sitting right next to that? Now there's a picture of Scarlett Johansson there. Oh, yeah? Well, see, that would be illegal, according to this.

According to this party. Well, no good. I mean, the Scarlett Johansson lobby's got to be pretty substantial, too. But this, again, comes down to the fact that people don't understand how the Internet works. So this to me, sounds like a bad path. Yes. Because the last time the conservatives decided to go down the morality route, the Democrats got Bill Clinton in for eight years. And then we know what he was doing in the White House.

Exactly. That's my point. So that that's a sure way to end up losing, because the difference is the Democrats don't mind talking about it. The Republicans just do it and sit quietly. But nobody wants to actually ban this shit. Well, it's all come down to personal responsibility. You don't have to consume it. Yeah, sex in any form is none of the government's purview for pedophilia, which is illegal. But and I would argue pedophilia has nothing to do with sex.

I think that has to do with a psychological disorder. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I would agree. And it's something it's more about control. And yeah, this concept, though, it comes down to you don't have to as you're an adult, you don't have to consume anything on the Internet that you don't want to. I've never, you know, randomly found porn sites on the Internet. It's not only when looking into room.

I know right now when it used to be in the case, if you went to the wrong website, all of a sudden you get a tornado, which was fun. I miss the days of tornadoes where pop ups can't exist anymore. Yes. No, but they had a scheme for a while that they were they were going to pass a law that all porn sites had to be in the triple X domain. Right? Right. I thought it was actually a great idea. I mean, I could see why they they wouldn't want to do it.

But I also thought this like, well, this is this makes sense because if you're looking for it, then you just limit your search to triplex. Yes. And you could easily filter it out if you're a parent and like, I don't want this online machine super easy to filter. And you could literally just type a random word that triple X and you'd find something and everybody wins because. Right. It's a total win win for the people that are looking for it. The tornadoes.

If you're too young to remember this back in the day when you'd go to a bad website and all of a sudden it would start popping up windows so fast, there were no loads the blockers back then. Yes. And it just the thing is, they're right. There were no pop up blockers and these things would spawn windows so fast that basically you were reaching for the power button on your machine. Like I would shut this bitch down.

No chance of clicking on a close, but and then every button on there just popped out two or three more windows for God forbid you try to hit close. That's not a good idea. Now, now to where it would pop up a model dialog that you can't get past saying, Are you sure you want to close this while it's popping up 20 more windows? Right? Then it's like, Yeah, hit the power button. Mm hmm. Kids today, they have it way too easy. But I know, right you don't have to consume this stuff.

And if you're a parent, be more responsible and know what your kids are looking at. I'm tired of the concept that I've got a ten year old and he should be able to be out of the Internet without me watching him. No, he shouldn't. Yeah, Yeah, he shouldn't. But also the kids these days have zero interest in sex because they're they're full of estrogen gene at search income. I'm just, like, throwing facts out, that's all. There is something to be said for that.

There is. That The kids are do it's funny. Kids are smoking a lot less, but they're doing a lot more. We'd know and they aren't as interested in sex. I'm thinking I mean, what I've never done weed, so I can't really tell you, but I'll see whether it works on your net, whether it. Well, I know you've said it doesn't. You know, you're like, no, I need a mega those super, which is great if you're trying to take advantage of stoners because you're like, Yeah, sure,

let's let's get high. And then you just take all the money. I was in the car with Brian Brushwood and a couple other dudes. Well, see, there was your first mistake when they were smoking nonstop to the point where, like, you couldn't see inside this car. Right? That is just like a Cheech and Chong is a total Cheech and Chong bit. We're in Vegas and yeah, Brushwood was in the mood for getting high and it was like it was one of these situations where I thought, Well, this will be fun.

And then I realized very quickly that I was the only guy in the car and I'm having fun. You're like, Why? I've got the car? Like, I go, Okay, guys, we can't see anything in front of our faces. It's a foot away. What was the point of doing this again? Because I'm missing this whole point. And then after this, finally we get out of the car and go to the which, incidentally, if you're going to do illegal drugs, why the fuck would you do them in the car? That makes no sense to me.

But we get out to a restaurant, all three of these yahoos, they got the bleep during dinner. They wait till they literally fall asleep. And I'm the one buying dinner for everybody. So it's like, What was your second mistake right there? I would have just left the table and three of them could wake up and pay the bill. I wish I remembered the other guy's names, but these are all magicians. And there was there was there was. It was the time that Brushwood was on Penn and Teller.

Gotcha. Yeah. The foolish show. Yeah. Yeah. We knew he wasn't going to fool him with his voodoo surgery and to fool anybody that was he just did it for fun. It was a good performance, though. Yeah. No, he seems good. It's good. He's, you know, a good guy who never seems to call me back. Fucker. Yeah, we got to get him out of the show. He was going to get you on his show. Yeah. Yeah, like, multiple times. His friends do that. Usually.

They want to, like, shoot you with a crossbow or something like that just to see sex. He really enjoys when the other guy gets, you know, takes the dance. Who wouldn't? Yeah, well, this is. This is true. And AC Brooklyn wanted to know how to sing. Joe. How does Jean know the kids don't want to have sex? That's a valid question. Yeah. No, they don't believe me. It's like I keep asking. They keep saying, Oh, I don't know. There's a comedy. Comedy?

We're doing a comedy show now, and you can put this under R-rated comedy, an apple pie death race comedy show, fake comedy show. So what is the show? Nobody knows. So I bought the new stream deck.

Oh, was is this one larger or any different features that rotary knobs just like I'm just picturing like an old phone now like the stream deck has come to the point where, you know, you have to dial in like a Bakelite make make that text size bigger on your computer and go ahead and check out stream deck. You'll see what I'm talking about. But this thing's pretty awesome. I'm that. Now I need one that's in question Control. Of course you do. You can control all kinds of things.

I have the big stream deck over the small stream deck. Yeah, I got those. Both those do now they've got, like, fancy color ones the Stream Danube came to. Yeah. Those are not then the crappy. No, this, this thing is pretty wild. Having knobs definitely is good. Hey hey now they're programable knobs. You can do all kinds of things, including controlling other devices that have many. I'm looking here. Mm hmm. I see all the ones with the buttons trigger automations.

Yeah. And I have really never even taken full advantage having a large one and a small really. I mainly use it to watch, you know, prices. Oh, really? Yeah. I must see. Is large one. The small one. I, you know, it just still plugged in because I'm too lazy to get rid of it but I don't wanna use much. The large one, I've got my audio settings for the desktop because I don't have using the keyboard that I'm using doesn't have audio controls. So I added that on the stream deck.

It shows me the crypto pricing of bitcoin COIN, Etherium and Shib. It shows me my current paying rate to the note the stream by your cheap. You just push the button. Now that would that would be interesting to you. Finally, though, I'm down to $49.30 of sheaves, so I bought it at $50. Finally, I'm underwater on the oh, on the ship like every other crypto that I've ever gotten. Mm hmm.

But what is I see they've got a light, they've got a camera, which I've looked at before, Elgato, which didn't have great reviews. They have a microphone now too, which I don't. They do right. The but it's this just I ordered it and you just go to Elgato as website. It's literally the first thing on their website that what I jacked it up but here it looks like there's a stream backpedal. So there's I know there's a foot pedal now there is there is this a stream deck branded because I see.

Oh my God did Yes a stream. Lots of many of them. Q And the extra, which is the one we can stream there, it's literally right there. It's a stream deck. Okay. The stream. That plus we go. That's the one that's got the knobs on it. Now, what are the knobs? Do anything you want. Okay, So. Okay, Here, Adriana Lima, show up at my door. Yep. Twisting the knob. Boom. She's there. Exactly. But now that would be now really for, like, the volume interface that I can understand that kind of.

Cool. So it's got eight buttons, which are the same as having the other devices, I'm guessing. Yep. And then there's like a is that just a screen? They're kind of like the Apple laptop concept that went horribly wrong and it is exactly like a touchscreen. So it's got that touch screen and then you have the knobs to adjust. Interesting. Yep. I don't know what I would use the knobs for though, although it's they're saying it's like it's your audio station. They control all of your audio sources.

You know I guess if you can get the microphone and all that kind of stuff. I know I have a thing on Amazon, if you can use it. If you have, here's a little tip for if I want to save a little bit of money. Yeah. If you have an American Express account that does points. Mm hmm. Amazon right now and I saw this the other day, but it wasn't offered to me it finally popped up on my Amazon account.

If you use even just one point from your Amazon or your American Express points, which are worth like a penny for one point, they will give you 40% off in order as long as it's shipped and sold by Amazon up to 60 bucks. So if you're spending like 170 bucks, you'll get 40% off the whole thing just by using one American Express point. And you can pay for the rest of it however you want. But 40% off is pretty good. And Amazon, that's a significant chunk of change.

You know, I've noticed Amazon quite often has coupons that just kind of pop up for should I'm buying, which are unexpected. Like I didn't click on a product because I saw a coupon. I clicked on the product because it looked interesting. And then it shows that here's the price and then, oh, and you can also get $30 off. Yes. Like what? What the hell is that all about? Like, I'm already here.

Yeah, it seems like it's a stupid thing because they're trying to convince me to buy something I want to buy anyway. Hey, nobody said they were good at what they're doing. I think everybody said they're good at what they're doing. They're making money, kind of. So I ordered a new microphone test. Oh, well, I thought you love the electric voice. I read 320. I do. This is this kind of came about from a friend wanting to know what's a good portable make USB or Excel or a USB Gotcha.

And I said there aren't any. Well, there are some. They're decent, they're not great. I said like the the closest you can come to a good portable mike is get it get a high end level of or make those quality wiser excellent looking people just know how to use those well Well, you can watch a video to learn how to use it. Your buddy Brand burger or whatever his name is, might have. He's been just doing some stuff on Cavaliers. I've got one. I've never even taken it out of the box.

When rode like two or three years ago Started out there Hey said that's a 92nd podcast and they did their little thing where, you know, they'd have the experts write them all that other bullshit. If you were like one of the first 500 or something, they sent out a a pack with one of their level mikes in it, and I haven't even tried it yet. So really should do that at some point. Wow. I've got like five or six different brands of my layers there.

Honestly, even the cheaper ones for like a hundred bucks are pretty good. But like the $500 ones are excellent. They do they have more of an issue with room noise. If you're if you have like a reverb issue in the room? No, because they're very directional and they point at your throat. Okay. And so you got pretty much the best soft tissue absorbing material there. And that's where the noise that you want to pick up comes out of.

So the levelers tend to give you a fairly isolated sound with good of the cheaper. What's the biggest difference? The cheaper ones, they're not quite as directional and those are going to pick up everything and anything. Don't pick a lot more stuff for sure. But what did you order?

Was it a lav or a No, it wasn't a lab because in the process of looking, one of my recommendations was a case that I bought a gaming headset that has a DSP in it that has the most useful feature for doing a podcast, which is a noise game. And you remember I used that when I was traveling. Yes. And while it doesn't have quite the smooth sound of the Mode two processing the 320, it's still way better than just a generic. Mike Well, as it turns out that you can now get a what the hell is the brand?

The iceberg. What the hell am I thinking? Iceberg? That's lettuce. That's lettuce. Did you have lunch on your mind? If I do have lunch on my mind? But not. It's not lettuce. What am I thinking of? It's a microphone brand that makes you think of the Titanic and sounds like an iceberg. Sounds like an iceberg. The sounded iceberg it makes. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't like iceberg at all. So yeah, these live on iceberg consultants. In your mind perhaps. Where do you think they live?

The yetis in Disney World. But it never works at that. Right. Anyway So the blue Yeti has the blue Yeti Nano premium USB mike, which has the built in voice software from Mike the same allegedly like I'm waiting to get it so I can test but, but if, if it has the same DSP in it that my gaming headset has which is also a yeti, then this be a good solution for a portable mike because it's, it's small, it's a concerned condenser.

Mike. I mean it's way smaller than the NARI 320, but so is every other Mike I guess. Well, not everyone. The most of the broadcast microphones, the dynamic broadcast with that's the category there's there's everybody always ask like what makes it a broadcast? Well, it looks like broadcast is mainly it's nothing to do with the audio because people point out there are a lot of dynamic handheld microphones that have been around for 50 years that work just fine for podcasting.

I don't know about that. They should say podcasts or work for podcasts, right? That you'd have to say podcast or broadcast, but they're all fairly large. I mean, I've got to get the three, 20 and 20. Those are the same body. Those are pretty big the PR 40, which is almost as big as the smaller. The high piece is definitely smaller, the shorter some seven be a little bit smaller, many smaller. Yeah, but they're not small. They're not. No, they're not.

But this thing, this thing is definitely smaller about. But you know, I'll tell you more when I get it. But, but the point is it's supposed to have a built in DSP that has a noise scale and a few other effects. But the inkling compressor, but the most important one being noise gate is a just be my with the noise gate for under 100 bucks if it works is that's going to be the main thing I start recommending to people that want to get into podcasting.

Yes if the software works and people understand how to use the microphone, the biggest problem is not usually the microphone that people are using. It is the misunderstanding of how close you have to be. What happens. You really move around. Yeah, and a lot of people don't realize what a noise gate is as opposed to what a compressor is. And all of these things that are done to process the sound. And that's that's the education that you need. If you want to do a lot of audio recording.

Now throw in this stuff into a microphone as a one stop shop. Probably not going to be perfect, but if it works decently enough, it's better than not having it's better than spending three or 400 bucks before they realize whether they're going to keep doing it podcast long term or just do three episodes and stop. Well, there are people that buy really expensive microphones and again, the don't understand why it sounds like crap because they don't know how to process the audio.

And most people are in a very non treated room as I am here. Yeah. And you can either go through the process of putting up foam all over the room or you find a microphone Boxes I find work really well. Yeah. Well there are people that put for voiceover people, especially when they get started. Yeah. You hear the stories of more than. Well, it seems like almost everybody would put it that way. That gets into voiceover.

The first way they do this is like getting underneath five blankets with a microphone and recording the audio, which is effective. I'll give you that. Well, I've got a a white box that I bought decades ago. Those things don't work that you mean like the microphone goes in that you talk into the box. Yeah. And it works great I know it's talking about did you got this that works that well it works awesome. Don't buy the cheap knockoffs on Amazon though. Well, that would be that would be true.

Buy them with microphone pillow and yeah exactly all of your Chris got like the pillow. Uh huh and the problem the the main problem with it and the reason I haven't used it for 15 years is that it's about two feet by two feet by two. And if you think about where the microphone needs to be, yes, you're pretty much blocking everything in front of you with this box.

So forget about having a computer around or doing anything where you can look at a screen because the only thing you're going to be looking at is into the box. Inside of the box. Yeah. Which is very claustrophobic. Do you think you're headed to the box? Yeah. That was how you you put the box on your head and then you insert the microphone and then you've got a super quiet environment. That's why a lot of people use closets as well, filled with clothes. I mean, don't use a closet with.

I didn't know they want to stay in the closet. That's fine. Yeah. You want to be. I'm not going. That's what size closet you have and push them out. That's personal preference, I guess. I always enjoy seeing somebody on the YouTubes with a front address microphone that they are talking to the side of it. Know it's great. Like breathing the directions. Yeah, well, even them without reading directions. Can you not just hear through the headphones. You're the mic is louder when it's quiet.

Yeah, I can. I think you should. That's part of it. Understanding how everything works and then literally moving around and listening for the difference. And if you can't hear it live, then listening to audio back on a recording and the good microphone ultimately notice with the right process here, let me demonstrate this for people. Let me just. Okay, right now I'm talking into the side of the microphone. You can hear me just as well, right? You? Oh, yeah, you're right.

The volume's there because the way our system works. But you muffled. Yeah, Yeah, of course. Now I'm back to the front of the mic. It's the microphone is made to be directional. There are omnidirectional mikes out there, which you can use them for podcast. Yes, there are other things like singing. Right. Or if you're having like eight people over and you really want to record a group conversation, it's still not going to be great. But help. Yeah, exactly.

So anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed because like, I don't need this thing but another. How about something that I can start recommending to people? I would love to do that. I I'm not a big fan of the the Yeti brand. The Blue Yeti. Yeah I'm not they do have some really nice mikes I'm sure your your buddy Bumrah's there or whatever his name is. He's starting to whatever he's about your show more than he's on mine. Come on.

Farida is the head of brand that I recommended, and that was the one that our buddy Sir Matt you used over on maps with Matt. That was like a Chinese knockoff. That was a great directional USB microphone that was like 40 bucks. And they stopped making them. Of course they did. Yeah, because it was. And the here's the funny part. Like, I've had this happen before. You buy some technical gizmo from a company, right? And it's a name you've never heard of on Amazon, but it works fine.

And you go back like six months later and then you're going through your past purchases. You click on it and it says not available and takes you to the companies page because their default is if if the product isn't the place that you bought it from the vendor, Right. Is what it's going to show you. And you look at this products that are currently available and it's like clothes. Yes. How did this company go from selling electronics to selling clothes?

Because they're out of China, because that they don't care what they sell they're just getting good deals. Yeah. You're basically the equivalent of a what was that store brand chain that we used to have back in the seventies that that only sold clothes out ship. You remember I'm talking about only clothes out now. God, what was it?

It was I keep thinking of the word re max of something like re something, but it was a a store chain like they were multiple stores but they, they effectively bought out either stores that were closing or just places that had low inventory or something. And they didn't want to deal with like if Target only had a thousand of some TV set, right, all closed, they have 10,000 stores. They're not going to just sell their TVs.

You know, they're going to get get rid of, though, all thousand of those TV sets to a wholesaler and then not take up the space in the stores. And this place used to just in that kind of shit. I bought Casio watches there. I bought some kitchen appliances. Oh, my God. I'm totally I cannot think of the brand of store. It was, but it was it was a store that was always fun to go into because you never knew what they would be selling.

It is not re Kmart net net I mean that's that's close but not re Kmart now I was doing reviews for the guys that back when this was still a thing the reviews this is going back like 678 years ago now but it was the company that bought a bunch of these brand names including like Polaroid. Yeah. When they went bankrupt and they were making all this stuff like the little printers and all of that. Right. I think they owned Kodak, too. I think they owned like a bunch of that stuff. Yeah.

And they had an audio brand that, again, was very short lived but was stuff. So it's like if you are looking for a bargain, there are some out there, but it's hard to find, which is why I never understood the concept of Amazon. Like, Nope, we're not going to allow you to do this anymore because it's unfair. And people are like, Why should I listen to that asshole? Because he's getting everything free. And I would again make the case, Well, I'm getting everything free.

But I was focusing on microphones and headphones, which means I actually knew what I was talking about, about microphones and headphones. So that's why because there were some really good products that were cheap. And if you found those, I was like, That's what I would recommend. Not the Yeti stuff. It's average at best in overpriced. And the Yeti stuff to me is all just the look of it. It's all just know it looks very nice as opposed to how it sounds.

I'd rather have a microphone that looks like crap, but sounds really good. Yeah, that might change. Again, if you start doing YouTube videos where people can see the microphone. But overall, is it Filene's Basement? No service merchandise? No, that is it. But but it's like filing basement was for clothes. It's just this was for not clothes. So any any kind of electronics, any kind of like kitchen gadgets, anything.

There's like TJ Max is another example of a clothing store like that that also carries a few clothing items, but it's like a closeout store, like a store that only sells crap that's, you know, clothes out by other stores. And I think for clothes, it's usually just seasonal. But for non clothes, it's it's also products that are low supply and the Internet has changed all of that.

Yeah, I, I think honestly, I think mostly eBay changed that through where people just decided they could have a little business of buying clothes and crap and then selling it on eBay. Well that's also it. That's the that's the flipping at its core as well, which is, oh, I can buy this cheap and then go resell it to make money now, which is harder to do on eBay as their fees continue to go up. All right. That's what I've heard. Yeah.

It's like, well, if you're paying eBay 10 to 12%, it's very hard to make a profit. I don't think people understand the profit would love ten, 12% like an Amazon is like 40. Really? That's horrible. Yeah. And I just did a shipment the other day and I was like, Oh, your show, did it come in? Is it getting listed? How is this going? Yeah, yeah.

I'll when it's fully up online and everything and I've done a test purchase, I'll, I'll talk about it but it's there's been a lot of you know this is the first one we did there's been a lot of bullshit happening so I've it's taken longer than that's supposed to. How do you even make money? I have no idea. But the point is probably not. Probably not. But like, last minute, like everything's ready going through the form to ship all these boxes to Amazon and then have a little note in there.

It's like, verify that the boxes are packed in a sealed plastic bag. The boxes. Why are why do I need the external box of my product that contains a product that is plastic and not damaged by water? Why do I need to put that in the plastic bag and there's no way to get out of it. Every individual has to be in a bag.

Yes. Yes. And I've gotten some shipments of stuff I bought from Amazon that comes in the plastic bag, which I always just wondered what the fact why and then but plenty of things don't like. I'd say 80% of the stuff I've got I've bought from Amazon, including computer gear. Is it all stuff though that they're selling for third parties rather than stuff they're buying and selling themselves? I have no fucking clue.

But the point is they have this requirement and your options are to either do it and then take a photo or bugger off and demonstrate or to pay Amazon $0.53 a box to do it for you. So they'll bag your box for 55 bucks for $0.53 a box like motherfuckers. So yeah, okay, I had to click that button. So I'm like, okay, I guess, they're going to have to bag these themselves fuckers. It's just money grab. That's alright. As far as I'm concerned, that's all it is. And between like there's this.

I should probably write a little, if not a book, certainly a chapter four book. And this whole process of other people don't know shit. Just do a video YouTube. You'll probably make more money, probably make it in. It's true than a book ever does. Yes, definitely attest to that. Now, I've sold thousands of books. I've dozens of dollars. Tens of dollars? Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty much like too much.

But yeah, I mean, it is kind of a case study in how not to do things, but there's really if you're somebody that's an entrepreneur that wants to sell a product online, you almost have to be Amazon, eBay or Walmart. I don't really know if there's anything else that could even come close to what those three are doing, and they all allow third party sellers to come in. Obviously eBay's third party.

MM But Amazon and Walmart allow you to list your stuff through their website, but they'll just take a small percentage because they know that's where the eyeballs are. Yeah. Now it's different. If you had a huge following, I mean if you were somebody that was on, you know, YouTube or wherever and had millions of people following you, then you could just have angry Russian prepper dot carbon sell direct you have That's true do pay those percentages which is the that's the catch 22 here.

Yeah that's true. The only thing that people tend to not sell through Amazon though, are if they have like their own t shirts, drawings and spaceships. Well, yeah, spaceships actually sell on eBay. I've got some mugs coming in for the rock and roll preshow. People are excited about the do I'll yeah you'll make like I've been there those I ordered for just to make sure that it looks good before I place a nice a large order and I'm giving them away to anybody who's over 100 bucks.

I'm happy for, for donating since your cost is like four bucks a mug and you wish for 29 bucks to buy. I'm not selling that. I'm giving them away to anybody who hits the tarmac that's selling the mugs for a hundred bucks a mug. I'm giving them as a gift. TRUMP If you hit it, it's just like. Trump. This is like PBS. If if you'd like to be a donor to PBS, we'll give you a Sir Jean tote bag. If you get to the 1500 dollar level of support here, you know, I might even do that.

That would be awesome. That would be awesome. That would be absolutely dollars for tote bag. I mean, a tote bag prize for your kind donation. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm like, oh, my God. I'm hoping again, this is a way I had so much crap generate public radio back in the day. You always said you were one of the guys. That was cool. Yeah. Oh, hell, yeah. Yeah, I want that.

I want some of that as I wait for the two for one deals they had every time, like the last couple of days of the the driver fan, when they're really desperate, they're like really desperate. They're like, okay, we'll give you a twofer, you know? Please. Yes, I would like that Doctor Who tote bag. Yeah. And then I would also like the cardboard tote bag, please, please donate today. I like what's done. Some show the canine pillow and the tie maker on your photo.

Cool dog. Yeah. I mean, way before its time where we like. It's the first TV show with the actual robot. That was a robot every other robot at the time was a dude in a suit. This was an RC car with a glorified covering on it. But still, huh? Yeah, but it, you know, it moved around batteries which was amazing for the other. Yeah. CGI that they weren't doing at the time.

The only CGI they did was you know whenever it shot lasers out of its nose, the laser went in whatever direction the bad guy was standing in, regardless of direction the nose was pointing out. That's that was magic. Pretty cool for laser. Yeah. Of canine. It was a magical little puppy. Yeah, exactly. I really should watch the old doctor who would get and I. It's so much better than you and I know. Now, have you watched the Whitaker episodes,

which he's been around now for a few years? I have not seen one. I kind of went on the doctor who ended. What are you talking about? That's see, that was kind of with Peter. It's not Peter Davidson. I'm sorry. The other old guy you got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once he ended, I was like, Yeah, it's done. But now the other guy's back. David Tennant is back for a short run, I guess. But yeah, I mean, I haven't heard. Yeah, she regenerated and it's going to be David Tennant first, you know.

What are they doing? I don't know. Taking up with the whole franchise that they're now the concept has a 50 year history and they're fucking with it. Let's just now. Oh, my God, it's horrible. They're. Whoa. And again. I didn't mind. Yeah, didn't say that. Doctor who was like a black woman initially or something. Something like that. I mean you never know.

Pre story they'll get to that I'm sure a lot of crap and this concept that you have to it's like well they they I knew when they tested it when they made the master into Missy you knew where were where they were going. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like you can have that story, but the character has always it's like for the history of time. And we're supposed to believe that that original doctor didn't just live 50 years.

I know that was how long the series was, but the story was he's lived for millennia. Yeah, but he's always been a man. But somehow now. No, no, it's. No, it was just that was just random. Totally. Just like the fact that TARDIS spends 95% of its time in England. In England? Yeah. Amazing. It's hard to get it into the United States. Yeah, well, not even just any other country or any other planet or about any other planet. Yeah, it's very hard.

The part that's insane is just that it's a device that literally can go anywhere at any time. And it hangs out in England. Did you? Guru says there's no better way to attract hot babes and by carrying around a PBS tote bag, I don't though, if that's true. Did you? I'm not sure. Probably not that I'm pretty sure that's not true, because I remember during my tote bag around that did not result in you had babies you like. I thought there would be babes all over me.

Babies to the left, babes to the right. Yeah, but yeah, that the doctor who now I guess you can go back to a previous doctor incarnation and it's stupid. It was so good up until the. The good news is I can actually watch this shit now because I finally ponied up and something and started subscribing to that network that has all the old BBC shows. I just thought the internet has everything you want, but does it carries the network that has all the BBC shows. Yeah, I guess you can do that.

Shows on demand. Bruce Springsteen is doing a tour of Europe still here? Yeah. Believe it or not, he's in the seventies now too. Like Don, Jon said, he's right about the same age. Yeah, he's doing like 31 days in Europe and 31 days invite him to sing in Germany. Probably they anyone's a singer out there. If they'll buy Hasselhoff and Don Johnson, then yeah, we could. They might. We would shut up. Then maybe I'll go to Germany and be a star. The famous American singing duo. Yes, exactly.

You're a singing show every week. The famous American duo never truly, ever know. Neil. Yeah, that's so American. Exactly. You can't be more American than these two right here. That's right. Right Now you just can't. But I'm just not sure that there's enough electricity in Germany to sing these days. That's true. They need to get the Russian energy turned back on. So I talked to my sister the other day and she just came back from Europe. She was in Venice and in Austria.

And she's claiming that Europe is exactly the way it's always been. There's no changes. Tons of people. Everyone's hanging out in restaurants. There is no no mass financial downturn at all. Wait, no wait. So no mass or financial downturns now? Interesting. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to believe her, but that's what she's claiming anyway, Depends what area you're going in to now for. And I told her, okay, so the hotel obviously has electricity, the tourist area. The city has electricity.

Yeah. Tourist areas are different. And you don't know again, people are they are they heating or eating. That's the question. Yeah. But that's why I was kind of taken aback as I was starting to say with the Springsteen thing, there was just an ad that you could preorder his whole 30 stop tour. I think they were splitting them up between Europe and the United States 31 shows, but you could preorder for the audio for all of those. Yeah whether in CD form or FLAC or M.P. three.

I mean, that's probably all they want is people will buy the tickets, buy the audio, and then not go to the concert but they'll be able to resell tickets on eBay maybe. But just the audio if you wanted, like all 31 dates was like 800 bucks for the CDs or like 600 bucks for the FLAC. And I'm like, No, I'll just buy them, allegedly. I mean, Trump needs to raise this prices. It sounds like maybe it's like it's just too much $100 for a picture. Trump just doesn't seem like a whole lot these days.

31 concerts just in audio now. I mean, forget the CD that I'll give you. You're spending like a dollar a piece. They're going to send you the same songs over and over recorded at each location. To be fair, Springsteen varies the sets from show to show. But yes, you're getting them songs in different order from each location. Not always the same song. Now Metallica's doing it even better. They're doing Metallica.

I know you don't like Metallica, but this concept they like, which is they're doing a tour where they're playing two nights in every city and they will not repeat a song over the two nights. That I think is an interesting concept. Whether you like the music or not, I kind of dig that Springsteen's always been about the music because like, they were the first assholes to actually go after their listeners, right, Because Napster. MM Yep. They're like, We need our money.

Yeah, exactly. Give us our money, bitches. But now they're on Nugs, which every concert they basically do. I'm sure may be some exceptions, but most of their concerts are up to stream out of service where you pay like ten bucks a month so they can't be making millions and again, Springsteen's Hour two. And if you if you spend like 30 bucks a month, you can you can stream instead of with the compressed three, which I can hear the difference a lot of time. Right, right, right, right.

But you can stream the uncompressed for like 30 bucks a month. And when I did a month trial, I was just running my machine all day, concert after concert, ripping everything right. And it was real time. But the beauty of this was between every track. There was a very slight like 10 milliseconds when it switched of silence, which meant Adobe could recognize them as tracks and then stitch them back together. So it's like, what's So all I had to do was go press play and record at the same time.

And then you had whatever you wanted, but it's like you're trying to sell 31 shows. How were you recording this? Well, it was streamed through a browser like we're doing this show. Yeah. So I sent the output to Adobe audition to audition. Okay. And it was recording it as one long file, but in that one long file, even with the live concert, their system was not perfect. Wherever, I guess there would be just uncompressed audio.

And then yes, because it's sending the uncompressed directly from the browser into audition. And the beauty was the glitch between every song allowed Adobe to go. Oh, now that's where the next track starts. So it was very easy to. But without the the three and four it couldn't pull the names of the tracks, though it could not. That is correct. But they have the listing of the tracks on every page, so all you had to do was cut and paste that list. And I don't know. Did it all automated at all?

I don't find any difference between 320 K and B threes and raw audio. You got to go raw, baby. You got to go uncompressed. I used to. I got rid of everything, you know, I hear many years ago I got rid of about a 3000 CD collection and then just digitized everything. It took years, but I have a doing over. It took me about two months and of course I was unemployed at the time, so it was about two years to rip everything.

And I was thinking the other day I took it, we got a thing from my dad that for Christmas that needed to be framed. I, I'm like, Damn, I wish we had tickets. Garage. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Door and ticket stuff for your dad. No, no lithograph. Oh, even better. A lithograph autographed by Ted Williams. That's one of his favorites to see a baseball player back in the day. All star. But this was a lithograph. Kirby Puckett. I don't know him.

Yeah, he's older than Kirby Puckett, and he was also a pilot in the Air Force during the Korean War and World War Two. And this was the lithograph rather than all the baseball stuff. This was representing his service, which is kind of cool. You see, I know you're not a hockey guy, but a hockey player named Blake. And I was I can name, uh, Russian. Yeah. Ovechkin. Yeah, I guess. Oh, you did see. Okay, so you're on the right. Yeah.

So eventually he scored his 800th goal is the third person ever to score an 800th goal? Yeah, and he's still a young man. Now, my favorite story of him. I still love how you can just get shit when I say, Oh, what's his name? I don't know who it is. Alexander Ovechkin. Yes, of course. Pull up the right name, right? Yeah. I love it. We're on the same, same wavelength here.

Same old guy thinking, Yes, he was at one of the all star games early in his career, and people were kind of intimidated by him. And he's a big guy. The goalie of the other team, you know, that would do. And one of these you know, I think it was the skills thing, you know, where they're trying to it wasn't during the game, but it was during the thing.

And I guess the goalie clipped them and he went flying into the boards and the goal was like really nervous that he was going to get his ass kicked. And he's like, Ovechkin gets up and he skates by him and just says, Russian machine don't break. I'm like, okay, I like that. What I love is a rich kids Twitter profile is a picture of him standing next to Putin. The other buddies my mom bought a we were in spring training canceling him.

I know we were at spring training years ago and with all the baseball stuff that was up for auction, there was an autographed Ovechkin Puck for like 50 bucks, which was it was the steal of the of the auction. No question about. It. Mm hmm. And my dad keeps saying my buddy's supposed to get him. The guy that I used to work for is, like, best friends with the guy that is, I think, the GM, not the assistant GM of the Capitals.

And they keep saying they're going to get him a vegan game you stick, which is like you have and go, wow, yeah. He's I mean, I don't follow hockey that much, but I know he's he's the guy. Yeah, he's definitely the guy, but he's he's a tall dude to he's got to be like six foot two or something, which for hockey is not all that uncommon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hockey guys tend to be more like Joe Rogan. Yeah. Little by eight, £260. Like they're not Ovechkin, though. No. I mean, yeah, he's the guy.

The stories about that guy, you know, are legendary. Yeah. I don't know if they're all true, but he seems, you know, if you want to. Once he's a little older, he could be the most interesting man in the world, you know, from those commercials. Yeah, he's and that's the thing is he's still not that old Cy Young, but he's not that old right now.

A hockey year, though those add up I key hockey years do add up but if you had like ticket stubs I mean that's I was you know kind of bummed that my dad didn't have the ticket stub going back to there was 1979 that Wayne Gretzky made his NHL debut. Yeah yeah. And he made it here in Chicago. Maybe I didn't know that. I thought it was on the East Coast. No, it was here at the Chicago Stadium, and Those tickets, if you have one of those stubs in good condition. 100 grand plus.

Oh, my God, That's insane. Yeah, I just do not understand who would spend the money on that. People that are at the collectibles, I guess. Yeah, that's crazy. But yeah, that was getting back to the. To the frames that they took that for him. And I have a Taylor Swift Peter Max lithograph. Oh, well, Peter Max is this famous. Yes. And it's autographed by both of them. Holy shit. That's got to be worth something. Yeah, well, they're selling for thousands now. Yeah. How much do you buy it for?

I got it as a Christmas present for when it was selling for 200 bucks. How is it selling that cheap with not a graph. It was directly through her store. She is very fair. When they go selling that kind of merchandise. And there were four different ones. And I got flooding the market with autographs. Yes. And then the weird thing is the autograph prices are not dropping. This is something I followed closely.

Kimberly, I'm going to say this, but next time there's a new thing with an autograph coming out, let me know this. You're going to pick up some and pick up a hundred. Yeah, You know, whatever. You can put them in a box and wait. Because the concept, like in baseball nuts. I know the the late great Bob Feller. I got his autograph on his last opening day. He was here in Chicago when the White Sox opened up when he was already in his eighties. I forget he was 80 to 85 or something when he died.

You know, originally a minnesota team, you know, and. Well, and Bob Feller, man, he is he's from Iowa. So, I mean you got another right there by Minnesota, one of the greatest. But he was a guy that literally signed for everybody, which means even though he was one of the greatest players all time, his autographs are almost worth nothing because he signed literally for everybody that wanted them. Yeah, yeah. Where the guys are dicks and don't want to sign.

Those are the ones that go for a lot of money. Yeah, and you're right. Taylor Swift is flooding the market with autographs. Flooding, But she's got a lot of a lot of people that like her stuff. Millions. Well, see, I have never understood the whole concept of autographs. I really it I've done it maybe five times I've ever gotten out. I got an autograph from Dick Marchenko. I did this Well demo Dick get the book signed. Yep. Yep. Did that. I got an autograph.

I have a towel, autographed by Douglas Adams. Oh, now, that is pretty cool. Yeah, I'm sure that's worth something, but I didn't do it for money. I did it because I just thought it'd be a funny idea. He said it was the first dollar he'd ever signed. That's impossible. Yep. This would have been 1989. Well, okay, so that was right about the time the Hitchhiker's stuff was really exploding, wasn't it? Yeah. Mm hmm.

So I'm guessing you weren't the first, but if you could verify that was the first towel he ever signed, that could be worth millions of that. So I don't. I don't know if it's. I mean, if you have a record of that. He is now, of course, that unfortunately dang long long gone. He was a man who died way too early. I would have loved to read more books by him. His Books are philosophy pretending to be science fiction.

The only author that I can remember just off hand where I willingly have reread books over and over again because they're that good and they're that. You want to talk about the Malkovich movie? Yeah, that's exactly. That's the same genre you did. You read Douglas Adams and you could read the same sentence like five times ago. Yeah. What? Yeah, the, the holistic Detective series. Also a very good one. Dirk de Time of the soul. So long. Thanks for all the fish. Yeah. Yeah. These.

He was a huge macintosh fan. He had the first Macintosh in Europe. You know, I think I still have a copy, although I'm sure it's open. Maybe it's not of the Game Starship Titanic. That was based on his work. Yeah. That could be worth big bucks. Maybe if you have some physical. Yeah. I mean, he, he did that. He did the Hitchhiker Hitchhikers game. He was very early into that whole genre of sex games. Yes, it was. Yeah. That was like a Zork game. The Hitchhiker's one, wasn't it. Yep.

I thought they were pretty cheesy myself, but. Yeah, but that was the point of those kind of games. Yeah, it's kind of like this podcast that you are listening to a podcast to the north. You have a box of Cheerios to the west, some milk, you know, that's what would you like to do, right? Get the milk poured into the cereal, have breakfast. Exactly. Love what you swore at those games and they got very mad at you. Oh, yeah. They would have filters for stuff.

They would track that kind of language of things. But autographs are a weird thing. It's a weird thing, but I've never sold any. I've never really boring. I've only gotten less than five in my entire life, and it's it just seems like. I mean, I, I bought a book that was autographed for somebody as a gift. I bought a the biography of Teddy Roosevelt that was written by his son and published in 1920, something that it's an autographed. So it's like $1,000 book.

But it was, you know, I think it was like $0.50 when it came out. Well, it was a different time. Yeah. But I'm sure the autograph had a a part to do with the cost of the thing. But, you know, I, I just, I don't get anything out of autographs really. I don't get that concept. That's why it's so hard for me to imagine people happy, crazy money to get something like that. And if, if I wasn't buying it as a gift that I wanted the guy to realize how like expensive of a gift I get right.

I would that I would have bought the book without that autograph. Well, I have a autographed ticket stub from Tom Seaver's three win at Yankee Stadium back from 1984. Was it 85? 85? Mm hmm. That I was at the game. And it was the hardest autographed ever. Man, I had to hunt this guy down. He was Tom Terrific. Was not a friendly autograph signer. Mm. But I did finally get it signed. It's. It's worth more. That would be true.

That would be true. And I think the only reason he signed it was I we were in Milwaukee for the series staying at the same hotel that the White Sox were staying at and he was leaving the hotel. I think it was after breakfast a little bit and staked out camping there for 6 hours. Exactly. And I ran out while we were having breakfast as well. But I had my ticket stub along with a copy of his book, The Art of Pitching.

And I think the fact that I had a copy of the book got him to stop because I think I mean, you're an author. Yeah, I think that is the ultimate. It's like if somebody bought your book that's more than just here's a baseball card or here. Yeah. Like, Oh, you bought my book. Okay. It's kind of cool. Meaning people have bought your book. Yeah, well, you're, like, the whitest. Why was this an actual. I don't say that, but I mean, gift.

It's kind of neat. It's. I'll tell you what surprised me was when the wrong people bought my book, which is. Which is, you know, my book. So actually, I think just about all my books are written for CEOs. And then one time I remember this back maybe six years ago, I had as company with some stuff like the Fire, a lot of people and I had somebody come up to me says, Oh, hey I've really been enjoying your book. I'm like, What? You're like, Well, this was a big surprise for somebody.

Like not a you know, not a not an executive, not a CEO, not an owner. It's like that even the managers knowledge in their gene and what. But do you read books written for lawyers? No. Okay. Right. As you wouldn't expect that. So that that was my thought. It was like I mean, I didn't say this out loud, but my thought was like when I was reading a book about CEOs, when it was a five foot 11 blond lingerie model, too. That also surprised you?

What? No. Then I would I would have definitely come up with something better to say. That point. No, it was it was just kind of like, Huh, Interesting. So at that point then I was kind of curious, what were you getting out of it? What did you learn? You know, what do you what was the take away that you thought was interesting in the book? Right?

You start quizzing like, well, what was the because I'm genuinely interested because when somebody is so rare for it, imagine writing like a kid's book and then having somebody in their fifties tell you they really enjoyed their the book. You're like, What? What? What part of it did you enjoy? What what what about that book? Did you really like it? The dichotomy between this and this and the obvious implication exactly like what did you pick up in there that I wasn't putting in there?

So it's an interesting thing. But I don't know. I mean, look, in the end, I think all humans, or at least a lot of humans, derive some of a emotional pleasure response from doing creative work. Yes. And this is why painters paint authors, right? YouTubers get in front of a camera and play video games. These are all things that generate endorphins. And if people enjoy that, it's even a extra bonus. Well, it is.

And to a lot of extent I think people doing a lot of this stuff would be doing it even if nobody is consuming it, including all the big YouTubers that I've talked to. They certainly now are happy to basically be making a living just by getting paid from YouTube. But everybody has to start with zero subscribers and getting from 0 to 100 is painful. Yeah, I've been there and getting from 100 to 1000 is painful. Easier than going from 0 to 100 though. Yeah, but not by much.

No. And and really, like, I feel like in my experience or more like experience of people I've interviewed because I interviewed people on this topic, it's really when you get to about 20,000 subscribers that things change. So getting to 20,000 is really hard. Most people are under that, but when you cross over that threshold, you kind of know statistically based on other people. As long as you don't change what you do, you keep doing what you're doing. Same formula.

You're very, very highly likely to not quite double to add about 80% for that first year after hitting 20. Okay, So you'll go from 20 to like 37 K and then the following year you're very likely to repeat that over again and add almost double again. And then once you hit 100,000, typically will more than double every year until they have millions of subs. Well, it's the algo. The more people they figure more people will enjoy it.

Exactly, because the algorithm isn't going to recommend you something that has 100. The video made by somebody with 100 people subscribed, unless it's super esoteric, like if you're digging through videos of something that there's literally only 100 of them on the entire internet, then it will do that. But it's super rare. Like if you're want to specifically watch videos about video games that have spaceships and the spaceships are nfts, right?

Okay. That reduces the number of sources, the number of people making videos on that topic significantly. So you're going to start getting recommendations for people that might have under a thousand subscribers. And this is what makes or breaks the channel, because you see a lot of people on YouTube go into the instant I don't know if paranoia is the right word, but all of a sudden they're getting a little success and they think they have to keep evolving or doing it.

And it's like they're they start putting out content that you're like, What the hell were you thinking? Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And I understand why, because as you pointed out, the more you put out, the more Yeah. The more they boost you, if you will. Right. And as we're doing this podcast, I just premiered my next video on YouTube. I recorded it two days ago, but Yeah, I'm I'm definitely getting in the swing of like recording every day now and getting getting videos out there.

Welcome to My world. I record every day. Two them. Well, I do podcasts three days a week and I do videos every day. What video channel you on? So it's, it's a gaming channel, no politics. So it's completely different from this audience. You won't get a very slight crossover. There's maybe five people. So bet you a comic strip blogger watches you, though. I doubt it, man. I don't think he's a gamer. He just boosted though. He said, My God, bring victory to Ukraine over invading evil Russia.

Yes, you could tell him that that money is completely wasted on me, man. Uh huh, not on me. CSB. Mm. Between him and they are wasting it. There are big donors for today with two booster grams because people are finally listening to Gene. But it's okay. You can boost us. Yeah. Go to Unrelenting Dot show and subscribe. That's the most important thing you can do at subscribing and leaving positive reviews on Apple.

That's the other thing, because that's still the biggest single contributing factor to growth is random people that I've ever heard of you that don't go to no agenda. All of a sudden they see a show that that has good reviews and it could all be lies. That's fine. Well, a show like Unrelenting could literally be about anything. It is. Yeah. And by the way, I have to mention this on the air. I sent you a picture and text message of what people think of when they're listening to our show.

What I think about Jack Black and the other guy from and I think is the exact Yeah the other guy yeah that's about right I think that's pretty close. And so I'm curious to see what people think. You have an opinion on this topic or, you know, comment on this particular show. I'm not so sure or you just email Darren directly. What's your email to Darren at Grumpy Old Ben's Dot.com? Yeah, that's a very good email for somebody that's doing a show. Not going to old ones. I do. I do that show too.

I also have Darren at random thoughts dot com, but I don't know if over I don't think you've ever set up Darren never sitting up there in a Yeah because that show is never going to last Why would why would you set up an email address for a show that's never going to last. It's unrelenting. That's why it is why. And another boost from C Brooklyn says Great episode. We appreciate that. Yeah, we do. And you know what? Let's just wrap things up on that perfect comment.

Just wanted to be brief, Bret. Let's see. It actually says, great episode from the best damn podcast in the universe. If that's not already taken now it's it's available like I can vouch for that. Yeah. If you were married to John Cusack, you'd probably become a lesbian too.