You can bribe your kids. It's okay.

0:00 All right. Well, welcome back, everybody. Sorry for the short hiatus. I had vacation travel and then some business travel put me out for a little bit. As always, a comment, say something, give us a thumbs up, thumbs down if you want to. I don't care. We'll reply to your comments. We like that stuff. We want to hear suggestions, things you'd like to hear. A new subscriber? We got like four now? You think we do? We did get two comments. Thank you for those that posted comments. Absolutely. We enjoy that. And as said, we responded to each of them.

0:42 Oh, you did. I didn't. Well, you know. You tried to get me on there, but like my technology aversion is very strong. So I don't know if I'll ever be on there or not. But I do look. I look from afar. I think that's probably best to keep you out of the comment section anyhow. I admire the comments from afar. That's a good way to admire them. I like that. I like it a lot. I actually got my wife to watch last time. Well, I mean, I didn't get her to watch. She asked me. She was inquiring, and I said, hey, this is where it's at. It's, I don't know, a little embarrassing, I guess.

1:24 Okay. Slightly. Maybe. I don't know. I was more worried like what I said about her, but everything I said was pretty good. Yeah. I mean, hey. So it went over well, I think. Awesome. I didn't say anything negative, thankfully. Why would you? I wouldn't. I just, you know, like, I don't know. I kind of go off the cuff and then I forget what I say. And then because, you know, I don't really like podcasts. So I definitely don't really listen to it. But I listened to it from, you know, like across the room. I heard her listening to it. I'm like, I hope I didn't say anything bad. But I didn't. So it was all good. I think you did just fine.

2:05 Has Mrs. Havoc watched either of these things yet? No, she keeps telling me I've already heard them. And I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, well, I'm in the other room, so I can hear everything you're saying. Oh, she can hear me too? No. And that's what I keep saying. I'm like, all you hear is me. You don't hear, you know, LX. You don't hear, you know, other people if they're on the show or whatever. So I'll be here to watch. Well, don't force her. I mean, you know. Yeah, I'm going to strap her down, you know, clockwork orange, taper eyelids open. You can be facing charges or something, right? Yeah, okay. So that's off the table. Yeah. All right.

2:46 Maybe a briber. I don't know. Is that legal? Right. Is that illegal? Bribe your spouse. I think that's completely legit. Like, nobody cares, right? I don't know. You can bribe your kids. It's okay. Nobody cares. Sure. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have kids, so I guess, yeah. I tried bribing the cat. It didn't work too well. I mean, cats just don't care. So, you know, the fact that they don't care, they don't care about the bribe. They don't care in general. They just don't care. I mean, when I opened the snack cabinet, she comes to running from wherever she's at. Oh, yes. then as soon as they're gone so is she there's your bribe you get you know six seconds of you know cat bribery working and then the cat returns to you I really don't care about you you're just an oversized can opener to me I mean she chooses to sit on my lap once in a while and I appreciate it you know like you do all this stuff provide you a home and you know like medical care and toys and all that stuff. At least you could sit on my lap for, you know, once in a while. Well, they do like doing that. Yeah.

3:55 Probably just stealing my warmth. It has nothing to do with affection at all. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right. I just generally low opinion of cats as pets, but that's me. Yeah. Nah, I'm just... I love my cats. They're pretty good. Oh, yeah. Same. Same. I'm not saying I don't love my cats. We have multiples. I just... okay I love cats I like them outside they're great outside you don't have to clean up after them they don't puke on your floor they don't give you attitude you know they're just cool and then you go outside you pet them they sit on your lap if you're sitting outside and then they run off and do their own thing and it's all good you get the benefit of the cat without the other parts like the the hidden box of poop somewhere in your house yeah yeah it's interesting how this keeps up.

4:49 This is the second show where we've talked about cat poop in your house. Why is that? We have nothing better to talk about, I guess. I have all kinds of stuff talked about. I'm sure you do too. Probably. But anytime cats come up, we have to inquire as to why it is we have a box full of their fecal matter. Hidden as best you can, but you still know it's there. I mean, they make furniture for it. Right. Now we have like a fake potted plant thing. Yeah, we have like a, I don't know what it is, just a big wooden cabinet thing. And it's got a hole cut in one side. And you don't really know it's a cat box, but it is.

5:32 That's what it does. Nice. Really, its only purpose is to hold a cat litter box and be a bigger box to put a smaller box of fecal matter in so that nobody knows there's a small box of fecal matter inside the bigger box. I may have said this before, but, like, somebody would make a killing, like, be richer than Elon if they came up with a poopless cat. Like, you know. Yeah. It would be crushing. I can see. Yeah, that would go over really. That would. Honestly. Like, who wouldn't want one, right? Why not? Yeah. That would be, like, the best thing ever. I think it would.

6:12 That would solve some of my hesitancy towards house cats. Well, I mean, at least you don't have, like, a house goat or something. True. True. Yeah, that would not be good. I mean, they got those little ones. They're pretty cute. I could see Mrs. Havoc bringing one of them things home and being like, hey, look what I got. Well, yeah, so we need diapers on it because they don't, they really, there's no potty training a goat. But they're like, yeah, I'm just, I'm going to take a pee right now. Here I am. The pellets, I guess that's not so terrible because they're dry and they just kind of all over the place like little pellets.

6:56 And welcome to poop talk with Alex and Havoc, right? I mean, come on. Come on. Why did I go down this road? There has to be a million forks in a row and I had to choose this one with all the poop. It seems to be something interesting to you, though, because it's not the first time. Mental, I guess. Anyway, how's your garden doing? We've got everything pretty much prepped. We've got seedlings started and all that good stuff. We still have to clean out the high tunnel and get it bed ready. we actually saw a major discount on the the Vigo garden bed thing so got a few more of those to get rid of we pulled up the wood beds we had down in the lower raised bed garden and replaced all those with Vigos so my wife got text from them last week too they were threatening that the price increases.

8:04 Yeah, that... The tariffs scare us into buying more, I guess. And I'm like, yeah, I don't like those tactics particularly, so... Well, you've got, you know, tariffs coming, and we all know that that's... It has a high likelihood of raising consumer prices at least for a period of time. Yeah. Maybe we just consume too much as a country, then. I don't know. It's possible. It is highly possible. In fact, I would say, yeah, for sure, without question. But, you know, anyway, they offered discount and yeah, I saw that, hey, our price is going to, you know, rise, you know, whatever percentage. I bought before that because they had like a 40, 41, why 41? But they had like a 41% discount. And I was like, all right, well, I'll buy. I knew we had a few more beds we needed to replace with this.

9:01 So we've got one that's an eight by eight bed with cattle panels kind of arched over it. Okay. And we use that for trellising plants. Like, you know, cucumbers is a big one, beans, things of that nature. But the problem with it is, well, it's not how I want it to be, right? So one of the things we want to do is use the Vigos in the long but not super wide format. I don't remember. It's like two by eight or something like that. Put the cattle panels in between those. So we go in the bed and then it would trellis over. It goes over like jumps to the next one.

9:42 Yeah. And also give us a little bit more height because as is, you kind of have to hunch down to get in there, which is kind of a bummer. Right. So that was one of them. and then what we've been using as a watermelon bed decided to go ahead and throw that one in there as well. Unfortunately, I completely brain farted, and instead of the white ones, which I want because it's hot, I got Sky Blue. So whatever. Or maybe those were what was on sale and nobody cares about Sky Blue and likes it. I don't know. I don't know. She asked me about it. I know she wants to get a couple more to round out what we have, and I just kind of blew her off, I think.

10:26 Maybe I should reinvestigate it and let her get them before they get unaffordable. It doesn't hurt to have more garden space. I mean, we got that freezer. We did. I had to do a smaller repair to it already. Oh, really? The joys of buying used appliances. Yeah. What happened? So we have a temperature probe in there so we can keep an eye on things. I got one in the other one, too. And I noticed that it was slightly warmer than it had been, like not drastically, but it was originally around minus 10. And then it jumped up to around zero.

11:10 And it was constantly running. So I pulled the stuff up and the coils were all frozen up. And it ended up that it was the defrost timer, which I found a, I don't know. It had good reviews, but not OEM quality for less than $20 on the Amazon site. But it seems to be working fine. And it'll run through a defrost cycle, and it won't ice up the coils and not work as well. And actually, the compressor will kick off once in a while. Well, hey, I mean, for less than 20 bucks, if you have to replace it more than once, it's not like it's breaking the bank or anything.

11:50 No, YouTube comes in handy when researching these things. I mean, if you called somebody out, probably paying you for two, three hundred bucks, I'm sure. I'm positive they probably have like one hundred and fifty dollar service call. Oh, at least. Right off the bat. And then I'm sure they, you know, give you a surcharge on the part itself. Oh, yeah. But I mean, you know, people are entitled to make a living. Well, of course. It just gets expensive. It does. It does. I mean, you know, hey, you become an expert in that stuff, and that's what you do, and you can figure it out and fix it in 10 minutes. That's what you're paying for. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, there's Chilton's manuals everywhere, but you don't see people tearing their engines, well, with some exceptions.

12:34 I've seen some pretty questionable videos on YouTube. Well, there is that. Yeah. There's a reason there are professionals for a lot of things. Yeah. Some people just should not even attempt their own automotive repairs. It's very cringeworthy. No doubt. But if you have a spare vehicle and you don really need to depend on it or care much about your safety or the safety of your loved ones that are going to drive it And I like Hey go for it I mean you got to learn someplace I guess. Yeah. I'd agree with that. I guess for the most part, maybe sometimes. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try the, you know, like if you're depending on the vehicle for, you know, transporting people like Uber or something, I'd let a professional maybe handle that.

13:24 It also depends on what it is, right? If it's a hose or a belt or something, okay, great. I don't know if you're rebuilding an automatic transmission. Yeah, call someone. Yeah, yeah. Now, transmissions, even within automotive technicians, transmissions are like their whole separate thing. That's, you know, like their own specialty. Most mechanics really don't even get into that. They let somebody else handle that stuff. If you're ever getting the compunction to do something that involves springs, don't fire a professional. They turn into very damaging projectiles.

14:06 They can. They can. I've seen way too many people with those things stuck in ceilings and walls. You're talking like coil springs, like suspension springs? Suspension springs, yeah. They're not that bad. if you don't know what you're doing, they're very bad. Oh, let me just unscrew this. It'll come right off. Yeah, no, if you don't have the right coil compressors, and then, yeah, no, you just don't go like, you know, stick an impact on the end of your strut assembly and decide you want to take the spring off. That's a bad idea. Yeah, exactly. And it happens. I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does.

14:46 Yeah, I've seen some pretty bad, I'm going to replace my own brake pads jobs, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you kind of depend on brakes to stop. I've seen some pretty bad. Those are four. Cut a hole in the floorboards and put your feet down like Fred Flintstone. Right. You know, I don't know. People think they, I don't know. I mean, that's the paradox of YouTube, I guess. Everybody thinks they're an expert on everything after watching a video about it. Experience is a, I don't know. Yeah, it certainly can give a full sense of confidence at times.

15:27 It can, yeah. But other times you get someone on there that really knows what they're doing and they'll tell you, like, watch out for this. You need to be careful here. You know, they're very, very thorough about it. But there are a lot of people that are like, oh, there's no problem. Just do this and flip this over and you're done. And people are like, oh, I could do that. That's easy. Right. Yeah. So I watch a guy that does a guitar repair. He's a luthier. He's in Canada. Name is Ted Woodford. And like, I think it's amazing that they can take this guitar that's like totally unplayable. It's like, you know, got a big crack in it or even a hole in it. You know, then the guy can fix it.

16:08 So it's actually a playable instrument again. Like, there's no way, even though I've watched, you know, a bunch of videos from this guy, there's no way I would ever attempt that. Because, like, just wood is not my thing to start with. But it's just, you know, amazing. And he can explain how to do it, but I'm sure that, you know, a lot of that comes with experience and screwing up along the way. Oh, yeah, for sure. But, I mean, you know, if you've got an older one and it's all damaged and you're not going to pay to fix it, why not? Give it a shot. I mean, you're probably not going to break it any worse if it's already broken. That's, you know, the other thing. You might, but you might also learn something, right? So what's the worst is broken already.

16:49 If I break it worse and I learned something, I actually gained something. And another one that I watch, like they fix consumer electronics. And like, again, another thing that I really don't have any interest in doing myself, but I find it interesting that these very expensive electronic devices can be rendered completely useless by a nearly microscopic resistor just like one of them goes bad so like you know these guys got the microscopes and the tiny tiny little you know probes and things and you know for and and the components are literally pennies and they can fix you know like a 300 you know tablet or something with you know a three cent component it's kind of crazy that they design these things to be so disposable.

17:36 I mean, most people will just throw it away because it's not, you know, end user friendly whatsoever to repair that stuff. Sometimes it's not even feasible to send it in. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's, you know, it's the way the world is now. Consume, consume, consume. Right. You know, my, for example, my wife had like a fitness watch and the battery needed replacing in it. And so we called around some places and to get the battery replaced would cost more than the new device cost, you know, brand new. So it's like, you know, if you can't do it yourself and some of that stuff, there's a lot of it manufactured with like no visible screws.

18:24 So you need like the spudger tool. it's like a flat pry bar thing to open up these things. And if you do it wrong, it's like game over anyway. Yeah. It's broken. Yeah. And it's very broken. Yeah, exactly. It's broke. It's not coming back from that. Right. Yeah. So anyway, I don't even know how we got off this tangent that we started on a appliance repair, but yeah, I mean, appliance repair is not too terrible. I think the older stuff is probably better quality than the newer stuff. It is for sure. So we went from basically solid state stuff, right?

19:08 You had kind of a turn dial knob, a clicker, if you will, right? And it would click to a certain thing and you would push a button and it would go. And now you've got a digital screen and everything. The knob isn't actually turning anything. It's just creating a little pressure on a foil plate to make contact with the circuit board behind it. The biggest part of that whole machine now is just a circuit board. And 9% of the time, you have a problem that's on that circuit board. It makes it more difficult for you to be able to repair it. And of course, that's a very expensive part to replace. Yeah, exactly.

19:50 And they're pretty sensitive, too. It costs $120 to make and $250 to replace. Right. And then if you buy it and that's not the problem, then you're stuck with it because you can't return that stuff either. Yeah, a lot of the times, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, car automotive repairs get in the same way. They used to have one computer controlling the whole car back in the 80s. when they first came out with them. Now they have, you know, seven, eight different, you know, computers controlling different things. Crazy.

20:30 My ABS module on my truck, right? The automatic braking system. That thing took out my cruise control and my, what else? My tire pressure monitors and, you know, a bunch of other stuff, right? Right. It was like, what the heck is going on here? And so, yeah, it's this little computer in your truck. And, of course, it's one of the most – I could freaking replace the engine for the cost of this little module. Yeah. That's kind of crazy. It is. It is. Yeah. It's even crazier looking at the prices of, like, these 80s pickup trucks.

21:10 Have you seen them recently? Mm-hmm. They're getting, like, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 for a 1980-something pickup truck. It's like, what? No way. Oh, yeah. go look at a uh you know go look at something that's in good shape like an old 69 camaro or something yeah it's like eighty thousand dollars for the dang things right but then again i mean a pickup truck is 80 a hundred thousand dollars which just blows my mind i'd rather have the twenty thousand dollar 1980 yeah that's that's probably why guys are are paying that for them I think so. Five, 10 years ago, you couldn't give the things away for $1,500 or a couple thousand bucks.

21:54 Yeah. But anymore, the electronics have gotten so crazy. And you're almost guaranteed if you have a problem with the vehicle, it's going to be electronic in nature. And that's where the bill comes in. I mean, it just gets crazy. And most mechanics that I've known despise working on electronic stuff. Why is that? Because they can't just plug into it and get it? diagnosis from the computer you can or you can get an idea right but if there's like a you know a cable harness that's been rubbing on some steel for a while and there's a short somewhere then they're just hunting and pecking tearing panels off the dashboard getting under you know all that stuff right and they're just like no i kind of remember when um when carburetors being phased out for fuel injection. Everybody thought, you know, like the sky was falling down back then.

22:49 And now it's kind of the other way around where nobody knows how to work on a carburetor anymore, basically. It's, you know, like they just don't want to deal with it. Yeah. I don't mind carburetors so much. I did have an old 1959 Mercedes at one time. it was a straight six with dual carves that was fun like every two to three times you drove the dang thing you had to go in there and adjust the carburetors because they'd get out of timing and it was just right yeah I mean there have been some you know improvements over time I'm not going to disagree with that but there's a lot of things that I don't know I don't feel that we need and I think it Puts a lot of complications and a lot of added cost.

23:38 A lot of the government mandates, you know, they call them safety. But, you know, the backup cameras, the braking system, you know, a lot of the. Now most cars have the radar systems in them, you know, collision avoidance, the mirrors that light up. And we don't have any of that stuff. But I don't know. When it works, it's OK. when it breaks everything you know touch touch screens I don't think the touch screens are you know how are they going to be in 10 years probably not great who knows holographic screens right I don't know I kind of miss the tactile like just buttons instead of you know navigating a touch screen I have a lot of moments where I just think you know what an Amish buggy and hook the horse up to it, and I'm good.

24:34 Right. And, you know, I just, yeah. Speaking of which, I did read more of that book. Oh, you did? I did. I did. I still have not finished it. I need to, but. Yeah, what is the name of that book? Better Off. Better Off. That's right. I've gotten around here somewhere. Let me do a plug. Yeah, because you talked me into getting the book. Actually, you bought it for me, And we were going to do like a book club kind of thing and discuss it. And I don't know. I read through it. I liked it. I enjoyed it. But it's about a college. I think he was a professor or something. And he decided to move into an Amish community.

25:15 And that's it. Better Off by Eric Brend. So, yeah, he moved into an Amish community with his wife and kind of, you know, just lived. He didn't become Amish, but he lived within the community and followed their protocols and such. And he learned quite a bit. Yeah. I think he enjoyed it. So far, I'm—oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, I was just saying he stayed there for, you know, quite a while. I don't want to give the whole book away, but he stayed there, you know, quite a long time. Yeah, I've been enjoying it so far. Every time I pick it up, I really enjoy reading it. And then I have to do something else, and I put it down, and it's like I want to get back to it and stuff. I should probably reread it so I remember. a little better. I sure you will You be fine The whole Amish community it kind of alluring to me I don necessarily want to be part of the Amish community as far as the strict religious doctrines and things like that But I appreciate the rooted nature of it without the technology and the helping your neighbor and such like that.

26:24 Yeah, no, the community aspect of it as well as the family, right, is just insane. There's something amazing about that, right? They don't, you know, in our lives, you know, you have children, they grow up, they want to move away. They want to go do their own thing. And they have children and their children move away. And, you know, it's just this kind of splintered family cell. whereas with the Amish they you know they all stick together and oh you know kids are you know growing up so let's build them a house and a barn and the whole community comes together. Have you ever watched one of those barn raising videos? No I haven't. It's absolutely insane. We sit here with all these people with all this technology and all these tools and watch people build houses and it takes them months and months and months these guys will come in and build barn with a house above it and, you know, the works.

27:22 And they're done in, you know, two, three days. With no power tools. Yeah, yeah. And with fitted joinery and, you know, they're not just screwing stuff together with a, you know, a Milwaukee nail gun. They're making, you know, nice wood joints on these, you know, buildings. Oh, yeah. That's going to last for, you know, a long time. Yeah, hundreds of years. And, you know, the one thing they do have that, you know, obviously a lot of people don't have is, you know, they'll bring in the whole community. So you'll have 150 or so people there doing that. But, you know, even still, it's just, I would strongly urge anyone that hasn't seen one to just go out there and search Amish barn raising.

28:11 It's fantastic. They've got some time lapse ones that'll show it to you in about, you know, three, five minutes or something. You just watch the thing go up. And if you pay attention to the sun, it goes up, it sets, you know, and then it starts again. And second day or so, the thing's done. It's mind boggling. I mean, they had a barn raising in that book. And they seem very good at delegating responsibilities to certain people. You know, even the children have duties and, you know, they add to it. They don't, you know, they don't take anything away from the process.

28:52 Everybody has their part that they do. And I think it's great how a community can come together like that and help each other. But you got to be there for when other people need help too. So, you know, it's not just a taking. You have to give as well. So it's unfortunately a rarity to see that outside of natural disasters in, you know, our world. Right. But you do see it. Even with the disaster thing, it just kind of seems to me that once the news feed shuts off on a certain event in a few weeks, then everybody kind of drops off on it and kind of out of sight, out of mind.

29:33 And, you know, meanwhile, the people going through that are still going through that for much, much longer than it was being talked about. You know, in Western NC, I know that, you know, a lot of that did happen, but it died down. But the local communities were still, you know, they're busting their behinds trying to get things built back up, roads made, you know, whatever they need to do, you know. Right. No, that's great. It would be nice if the local news kind of kept up with that, but it doesn't get any views, so I guess they don't do it anymore.

30:13 There's no clicks in it, man. Yeah. All about the clicks. Oh, everything's about the clicks. And if you disagree with what I'm saying, leave a comment down below. Tell me how you disagree. Yeah. Like and subscribe. Or don't like. I don't care. But be interactive. We would like that. That's pretty awesome. I noticed that might be a little trick that people use on these videos. I think they intentionally have a controversial something or other. If you disagree, go ahead and comment down below and tell me. It does help the algorithm when people comment to push it out to other places so they can be viewed by a larger audience.

30:59 You think? Yeah, no, that's how that works. Okay. Yeah. I'm not super well versed. I just, I like the interaction. I enjoy it. I don't do it for anything other than I get to talk to my friend on the, on the camera. Right. Yeah. All right. And that's, that's the best part. Yeah. Cause I don't, I don't really, I don't do the phone thing. We, you know, like we chat and text, you know, but I enjoy doing the video chat, which is something I don't normally do. But by don't do the phone thing just to let everyone else know, he doesn't have a phone. He just doesn't have one. So there is no phone to do the phone thing with.

31:41 I mean, my wife has a phone if I needed to use a phone. But it's her phone. It's not my phone. You know, so I did see something pretty interesting. I guess they're looking to change like flying kind of rules and things where they're like making it a digital boarding pass where you have to show it on your phone when you go in there. I know they do that already, but I had to fly. I've only flown twice in my life. When I went, I printed the actual boarding pass at home and I brought a piece of paper and it was quite obvious that nobody does that because when I got there, like every literally every person except me had their phone out.

32:25 And what happens when they make it 100 percent digital and somebody does not have a phone or, you know, a device like that? How do they work that? No, they're going to keep my understanding is that they push the digital thing. I've used it in the last couple of travels that I've had. It just makes it easier for me. It's just a paper porting pass on your phone. Right. So that's all cool. The airports did go to facial recognition. Yeah. So that's what they're doing. They're turning it into the AI facial recognition, something or other. Yeah. Coming into coming out of Nashville when I went into the security line. Mind you, I've done this three times already.

33:09 Coming out of the coming into the security line there, they're like, you know, insert your ID here and then stare at this. And I'm like, yeah, I prefer not to. what i'm like yeah i'd prefer not to he goes but uh it i understand i i would prefer not to oh okay and then they just proceeded to take my id and look at it for i don't know an inordinate amount of time put it light to see the holograms and re-look at it to look at me and spend some extra time trying to make it.

33:51 It's not yet mandatory then. No, and that'll probably be the day I'd just say no. Did you get the extra probing? I did not. I was ready for it. When we went to California, they did that at the airport on the way out. Then coming back, same thing. Then going to Nashville, same thing. Then coming back, same thing. And it's just like every time I'm like, no, I don't want to. Nope. When I flew, they pulled me into that little booth thing that, I don't know, like takes a picture of your room. I guess. And no, he's like, you got any jewelry on?

34:31 I see something like around you. And I'm like, no, I don't even, I have nothing. Yeah. So like, you know, he's all padding me down. I'm like, dude, I don't know. They seem a little aggressive for some reason. they always are the silliest thing is they've never actually stopped anything from happening so they're just wasting our time and I don't want to get into all that but it's it's annoying to say the least and I'm not saying that there's not maybe some additional security that's needed for airports and flying and stuff like that but I think it's a bit ridiculous Yeah.

35:14 I don't know. Take your shoes off. I'm just thankful. I did take my shoes off. I think actually the second time I wore flip-flops so I didn't have to deal with all that nonsense. I was wearing my Western boots because I can. Right? You just want to be more difficult. You just want to be... No, I would never do such a thing. You're just contrary. That's your problem. maybe maybe a little bit so like i mean i watch these videos of these guys that like give really hard times when they get pulled over like you know i i get that they're asserting their rights and stuff like i don't know i don't know if i have enough patience to do that and not get beat up you know like dragged out the window because i mean exactly i don't want to deal with that nonsense there's a limit to mine right but you know when they're rolling out new stuff new technology and they're like oh this is going to make things easier it's it's not the reason you're doing this it's not um and uh you know i i am a technologist so i have limited extremely limited trust and in technology in general and depending on who is wielding and holding wielding the technology and housing the data also determines my level of trust.

36:42 And in this case, let's just say that there is no one, I think, that is much below public entities on my trust level. You're just thinking negatively. This is all for your safety and convenience. I'm very well aware. I know. I know. So I probably need to go to the re-education camp, you know. I mean, to make it even easier, you don't even have to carry your phone anymore. We're going to put something in your right hand, and maybe you can have it in your forehead if you want to, and then you don't have to worry about any of this stuff.

37:23 Sure, yeah. Sounds like a story I've heard before. A little story you've heard before. Yeah, no, when that comes, I'm out, man. Nah, I'm just, I'll have to disagree. I'm trying to basically, I guess at the end of the day, you know, if these things come in and they either garner acceptance or they don't. And if there are enough that say, no, I don't think so, or I'd prefer not to, then it becomes very difficult to make that a mandated thing, right? I don't know. I think we're probably going to be in the minority because I think most people, they just want to comply because they don't want to face confrontation. Most people don't like confrontation.

38:11 This is true. So they would, I think they would rather comply with things and just, you know, go with the flow, which I mean, I get it. I get it. You know, but I don't know. I guess I'm kind of contrary as well. Sometimes. time. Right. Maybe a little bit. Believe it or not, though, each time I was doing this, I was seeing more than just one or something like that. It wasn't just me saying no thanks. Right. I mean, who knows? I mean, sometimes you just, I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes it's difficult to say no to things. It's always easy to say no to things. It's just difficult to deal with the somewhat uncomfortable situation you might be in when you say no.

38:58 The repercussions And my wife always tells me everything has a consequence And I like you right I mean good or bad It does Every choice you make has a consequence one way or the other No, it does. It 100% does. You know, it's, it's, uh, it's one of those things I, I just don't look. I don't see a need for another enhanced level or layer of security at this point. I think it's enough. I think it's enough. It's been enough.

39:39 Arguably, it was too much when they implemented it. So now everyone's kind of gotten used to it. And it is what it is. But, you know, if they had come out in the beginning when they, you know, was it 05 when the TSA, you know, came into effect, if they had come out and said, OK, you're going to go through a body scanner or a facial recognition and everything's going to be scanned, you're going to have to take off everything. but the primary clothing you're wearing, et cetera, people would have just lost their minds. And so it's the frog in the pot of water, right? And you just start that burner off low, and froggy never mind.

40:23 Yeah. I mean, it's also difficult once you go down that road to kind of back up that road. I think once that ship sails, you're kind of done. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any real instances where the road rewound, you know? Yeah. So. Like, I mean, weren't income taxes supposed to be a temporary measure back in the day? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It seemed pretty untemporary at this point. Yep. Yeah. Did you get your taxes done? We just did ours. What a pain in the neck, man. tomorrow you yeah it's it's one of the yeah it's one of those areas that i um my my my wife doesn't mind it so much except having to do them together right she's like i don't you are not this is not a good thing for you you know and i don't understand the whole process of it, right? I mean, it's like, why?

41:31 Why? If you want to steal my money, steal my money. Stop making me go through hoops so you can steal more of it. Just take it. You know what's even more infuriating than income taxes? I know, like I want to watch your face on this one when I say this word. Property taxes. Yeah. Right? Let me pay rent on the house that I bought. Right? Yeah. That's something you can pay on for 30 years and then you can like lose it all for, you know, a few thousand bucks that, you know, for some unforeseen circumstance, you couldn't pay it. Yep. That's kind of crazy.

42:12 No, it is. It's beyond insane. It's beyond insane. It really is. I mean, the entire notion of this is insane to me. Right. I mean, granted, okay, look, I'm not going to argue the validity of programs or the need for this or that. I'm not even going to do that. All I'm going to say is this one simple thing. There is no way that anyone can convince me that it needs to be this convoluted, complex, or require any of my time. Any of my time. That's just a reality of the situation. And the fact of the matter is the only reason it hasn't gone away is because it's the largest and most feared enforcement arm in this country.

43:00 Period. That's true. It's the only reason. It's for that purpose. So anyway, a little tangential there. Hopefully we don't get like a strike on the account. Yeah, the channel. And, you know, I mean, YouTube does that too. They use AI to read the whole transcript, everything you say, so they know exactly what you're saying. Oh, yeah. That's why when you upload, it sits there and says, well, it's going to take us two hours. I'm like, dang, things upload. And they're like, well, you know, we have to make sure. I don't know the code. I'm sure there's a list somewhere of the trigger words for YouTube. I don't know what they are, but we'll find out.

43:43 I know one of them. It starts with a V, and it's not vermin. Oh, that, you know, still? Maybe not. Maybe. I don't know. I don't want to test it, though. You know how you'll know if we hit on something, you'll get that little blue warning box, or, you know, like a descriptor box underneath the title of the video, and you'll be like, what the? Like, we're not even talking about that. Why is that there? Right. Yeah. It is what it is. I don't want to say it. I don't even want to give any examples because then it'll probably put it there. Yeah. Please don't. That's awesome. If you didn't do that, if you were able to manage just a wee bit of restraint for right now, I, I, I have to try very hard to do that.

44:31 Same, same. Yeah. Every fiber in my being just wants to say whatever it is, but I, yeah, same, same. Maybe as we go, and we did have some comments and suggestions. One of them, someone had asked us to start up Spotify. I've not done that yet. I'll have to work on figuring that one out. And someone else had asked for Apple, and I'm completely, and I know nothing about the Apple ecosphere, really. Yeah, my wife's all about the Apple stuff. She likes it. all right well maybe she can she can help me it's probably not that difficult to figure out i just don't have an apple account is the thing and i'm uh okay so we'll we'll figure something out either way people will deal with it i you know like there's more than more than one uh option there they're all bringing kind of the same thing i wouldn't worry too much about it then maybe we'll We'll start up one of those alternative sites as well.

45:38 And, you know, that way we can talk about whatever we want to and not have to worry about it. There you go. I didn't even think about that. Do like a long format and cut out the stuff that, you know, we can't. I several, a lot of people do that, I guess. Or a lot of people. How can I say this? Post 2020. Like in that area where you had those certain words that you couldn't talk about? They moved over to other... Somewhere around early 2020 that, yeah. They had to move to other platforms to discuss certain subjects. Indeed. I don't really want...

46:21 You know, that's not the desire. No, I don't have any desire to talk about that nonstop. But, you know, like sometimes things come up. Exactly. And that's where it's like, yeah, okay. it would be nice to be able to release, you know, that uncut piece that has stuff that might make the powers that should not be upset. You're getting pretty good at this stuff already. Man, I'm trying, you know. It's difficult. My head goes, how do I say this? How do I say this? Right? It's like a brain exercise that keeps you sharp.

47:05 It does, yeah. That was awful loud. I guess if I have the air hole, I wonder if it's going to be able to figure that one out. It's going to go, no, that was natural. It's enough dB. Don't cut that out. Maybe I'll just leave it in to annoy people. Oh, I'm sure. For those of you who think it's a terrible hazard of your health there, Just go ahead and comment down below and let us know how horrible it is for you. Yeah. If you think vaping would bad for your health, please comment. We'd love to hear what you have to say. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely better than cigarettes for sure. I don't think there's any doubt to that, right? So that's the big piece, right?

47:48 My personal perspective on it is if you're not a smoker, why would you? Don't do that. Right. It's idiotic. right uh but if you are please please please go do that or something else but get those things out of your life you know like drinking water water is a good habit for you you think better than cigarettes right okay yeah probably yeah it's personally my favorite beverage yeah i used to never drink water. I was addicted to the sugary beverage for a long time. The one in the red can. I don't even want to say their name because it's horrible for you.

48:31 Yeah, the one that rhymes with smoke. Yeah, that one. Dude, I think that was just as addicting as cigarettes. Without question. Yeah. It's purposefully addicting. Yeah. And it used to be cheap. It's kind of expensive now, I noticed. He used to be able to get a 12 pack for like 3 bucks or actually $2.50. It was like 4 for $10. Now it's like $9 for one. I remember sometimes you'd walk into the store and be like yeah 3 for 9 or something like that. Right. Yeah. 4 for 10. I remember 4 for 10 for sure. Yeah. But I guess cigarettes were that way too because dude they're like almost $10 a pack now. I remember going to buy my father packs of cigarettes at Woolworths for 25 cents.

49:24 Wow. And he would give me 50 cents and I would go buy the pack of cigarettes, but I had 25 cents and I would go to the penny candy section and pull out, you know, just gobs of candy, you know? I mean, it wasn't like, you know, you know, the, the big name candy bars. It was wrapped candies, but it was, it was good stuff for as a kid, you know, candy cigarettes, you know, back in the day, teach your kids to smoke. Come on now. The ones that are like chalk or like the bubble gum ones? They were kind of both. You know, the first time you, if you blew on it, it would blow out like chalk smoke. Oh, okay. Right. Oh, so those are the bubble gum. They had the hard ones that I remember.

50:08 They were like little hard sticks, like kind of minty or something. I'm sure they're helpful for you too. Don't remember those, but yeah. Hey, what are you going to do? East Coast versus West Coast, I think is different. Yeah, probably. Probably. You know what I learned the other day is butter. Butter is different shapes, East Coast to West Coast. That's not. That's what I said. I heard that somewhere. Like the sticks are a different size. I don't think so. No? Same sticks I grew up with. When I was lied to. Like a pound of butter came in four sticks. Right. Yeah, but the shape of the sticks, like they're long.

50:48 I heard they're like more square. I don't know. Maybe I misheard. I don't know. They all seem to have been the same to me, but I don't know. There are definitely some differences, you know, like out here you've got Hellman's mayonnaise. The exact same mayonnaise on the West Coast is called Best Foods. Okay. And out here you've got Hardee's. You know, Hardee's the fast food chain on the West Coast. That's just Carl's Jr. Carl's Jr., right. Yeah. What is the ice cream, like Dryers and Edie's or something?

51:28 It's basically the same. You've got Dryers, you've got Breyers. Yeah, I know there's one that's like it's just the same thing but different names for some reason. Yeah, I'm trying to think of what that would be. Not a big ice cream fan. I mean, I like it, but my favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla. These do. My go-to. Like, if I want ice cream, I would like some vanilla ice cream. I haven't had it. Actually, the last time I had it was when we went to dinner. And it was with that banana Foster's. Oh, yeah. That's probably the first time I've had ice cream. in three years at least. That's a heck of a dish right there.

52:09 That was pretty good. I've never had that before, and that was pretty darn good. Yeah. No, that's a really good dessert. I quite enjoy it. I was actually really, really hoping to see it coming out like flaming and everything because I saw it once like that, but I guess they don't do that anymore. Probably liability stuff. Yeah, I think somebody got caught on fire once or something, so they quit doing that. yeah they still do it it's part of how it's made right they do if you go to like some places i've been to a brunch they'll make it for you but it's behind the glass and they do the flambe i don't know if it's still called flambe because it's not good well i guess yeah i don't know but and then they'll you know slide it under once it's it's done you know so what is it some kind of alcohol they put on it and then it burns off yeah yeah i'm not certain what the alcohol is to be honest in fact if you happen to know comment see you're getting good at this i have to man you're getting really good at this you're an expert yeah i'm not i'm really not certain what they what the alcohol is so but yeah they put some alcohol in there and they light it off just to burn the alcohol right the flavor of it yeah i don't know if it's like a rum or a bourbon or a cognac kind of would think it would be a cognac but i i don't know but it's good i have no way i'll have to see now i have to look it up because

53:41 it's going to drive me crazy you know i just need to know along with the water thing i'm going to confirm the butter thing too and then you can comment i maybe i will i'll even comment so you want to try to do this once a week or something absolutely that's what i was saying once a week and we'll release shorts throughout the week you know so we you know tease up to what the next one's going to be maybe get people excited about it people seem to like the shorts for some reason i saw there's quite a number of views on that short attention span maybe maybe maybe they distribute that to a larger audience that's how that happens i think it just churns faster right it's a lot quicker to make it short and create content that's you know quick and easy uh than it is to do a full-blown session so i think and i do think the attention span you know has a bit to do with that you know tiktok is another one of those things where it's you know very very short videos short short form seems to be kind of the way people want things never been on there I mean, I've watched them because other people have posted clips or whatever, but yeah, it wouldn't bother me at all if it disappeared. It wouldn't bother me at all if it stayed either. And if you have a different idea.

55:04 some of them are entertaining I guess it seems like a major time waster we had a friend staying here and you stay here for a little while and he'd sit on the back patio he'd be there for hours just swiping them videos he'd have to go somewhere and it'd be like dude it's noon and he's like what I just sat down here you know like three hours ago and it just you know the time just went kind of crazy pretty amazing to me and that also came like became a big thing right around the 2020 time frame didn't it kind of weird that's interesting do a deep dive people making big big money off those things well sure yeah yeah there there are definitely some people that you know have meteoric rise and and, you know, a lot of fame on that kind of stuff.

56:04 If, you know. I think they produce the, a lot of people do controversial content just for views. And actually, I think they do it for the comments as well. You know, the haters are getting just as many clicks as the people that enjoy what they're doing. It's kind of weird to me. It's an interesting thing. I've never been a huge fan of short format, right? I'd rather kind of dig in and really, you know, enjoy a conversation or enjoy a topic or, you know, wherever the case is. Then just those quick hits, you know, on to the next one, totally different, on to another one, totally different, on to another one.

56:48 And you know I think it came out around the same time or at least became very popular here around the same time because that around the time where I would like you know post a video that was 10 12 minutes long and, you know, next thing you know, everyone's like, I'm not watching that. That's forever. I can't remember. You know, and it's gotten to the point now where, you know, like some really good joke material, right? And it's, you know, maybe a paragraph to tell the joke, and it's good. I mean, really good. And people go, I'm not reading all of that. It's like, what?

57:28 Yeah. So. I mean, even this format here, you know, I think all of the videos so far have been over an hour long. So, I mean, I'm sure that puts off a lot of people that just, you know, either, you know, they don't. I don't want to say they don't have an hour. Most people could find an hour if they wanted to. It's just, you know, investing that time. It's just, or, you know, the attention span. I think, you know, to the credit of the folks that had requested this, putting it on a more podcast style, you know, the delivery service like Spotify or something will be. I think we'll get more uptake from that sort of a thing because the fact that you can turn your phone off, put in your pocket and listen while you're doing other things.

58:16 Yeah. Yeah. And you close out the app, come back to it five days later, and it's in the same spot. Which brings up the subject. If you want to do that with YouTube, they charge you like 30 bucks a month or something. Oh, do they? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know. Oh, that's right. If you want to close the app and just listen to it, like the music section, yeah. I forget exactly what it is, but it's something like that. Maybe 19 bucks. I don't remember. but they keep trying to push that. What's that? Every month? Yeah, every month. Wow. Yeah, no thanks. Yeah. It just seemed like a lot of money just for a feature that ostensibly should just be there.

59:02 You would think so, right? I would think so. I mean, you want people to consume the content, right? That's your purpose. but they you know if they have to get up and go they have to cease consuming content or pay you extra money and let's be honest i can't imagine there are that many people that are doing that maybe there are maybe it is an attractive thing to a lot of people i really don't know and like i i do that quite frequently with podcast apps right or just podcasts in general you know stop and start or, you know, I'll put my phone in my pocket and get on the tractor and start doing stuff.

59:44 And I'm listening to a podcast. But I certainly wouldn't pay someone, you know, even $10 a month to do that. Yeah, that's I'm not going to pay it either. So good. Good. I'm making a change, man. So you heard about the War Dragons 10 year anniversary? Oh, War Dragons. Yeah, I did hear about that. I blew my mind. Like, I just can't believe, I mean, I remember six, seven years ago, everyone going, yeah, this thing's going down. It's gone. Done then. Yeah. Maybe another year. And here we are. It's 10 years. And they're going to have an art contest.

1:00:26 My suggestion was an artistic rendition of the flaming dumpster floating down the river. You know? Right. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have good memories of, you know, playing with my friends and making friends and all those things. And I enjoyed it while I did it. I'm just, you know, that was a certain season of my life and I'm kind of just past it now. Yeah, I mean, I honestly I did. I really enjoyed it. But I think, you know, I enjoyed just the base game, just learning the dragons and the placement and getting better at a specific dragon and doing things like that. and the camaraderie.

1:01:07 Right. But, you know, I mean, there's a good amount going on in there. It's always the same great amount of things going on in there. But, you know, the camaraderie is still there. It's a team game, so it makes sense. I thought it was kind of ironic. I saw the poster for the most recent, the season theme or the new tower that they have out is called Soul Drain. Yeah. And I thought that was rather ironic. Like that feature was in the game for, you know, a long time. Isn that like the main purpose of the game Exactly I mean at least time drain Oh my goodness I wouldn even care to venture how many hours I wasted. I don't want to say wasted. I'm not going to say invested either, but spent, consumed, spent, you know, playing that game. I mean, it had, dude, I don't even want to know.

1:02:09 I don't even want to know. But you know what? We're going to get some guest speaker or guests on the show. Okay. From that old crew. Nice. Might have an analyst, your help. Really? Yeah, a conversation came up in my old team's chat. All right. And we were trying to figure out, there was a specific member that got forum banned, but they didn't get forum. They got forum banned for a period of time, as opposed to permaband. but the period of time was until 3,018 nice can you guess who it was no it was on your team on my team no idea think about someone that everyone talked about like this person probably has 50 devices and they're playing 50 they are dread who was that Panda yes really panda got forum banned until the year 3018 thousand year ban wow yeah maybe I know maybe I just forgot I don't know I don't recall that though but I mean it sounds appropriate I mean like for what was going on at the time like I mean it just sounds like something that would happen yeah but it's like someone literally took time instead of just

1:03:41 banning them outright to go on and say, I'm going to ban you and then enter a number of days that was beyond ridiculous. Right. Just, you know, it's pretty, pretty petty. I liked it. We didn't always agree on everything, but, you know, he. He always had a logical, you know, reasoning for for what he did and had a way to say it. I never had any issue. It was cool. you know i mean blunt direct and maybe that's that's what it is yeah some people don't like that yeah blunt direct and strongly opinionated but there's nothing wrong with that in my eyes no i i i dude i i still don't know how i didn't get that band treatment i i probably should have by neither do i i i did i got banned for a stupid meme i remember that that's yeah it's just It's just PG.

1:04:42 It's just PG. There you are, right? It's just the way things were handled. In that one chat that we are both in, wasn't there some employees or former employees of Pocket Gems? Maybe we can get one of them on. That would be cool. That would be really cool. Maybe their NDA has expired or by now. But we could certainly make sure that, you know, we don't cross any of those lines. Right. I think that's that's an important thing to do. If you if you've signed an NDA, then you should stick to it. Right. Right. No, I'm 100 percent not not endorsing anybody break their NDA at all.

1:05:24 But what if it's expired? That's something else. Yeah, absolutely. If it's expired and maybe it expired with their, you know, with I don't know. Right. I have absolutely no idea. I would very much like to peek behind the curtains a little bit. Same here. Or just hear their experiences or, you know. Hey, there's a lot to talk about, I think. A whole lot. You know? It would be cool to get some of the other folks from the summit. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah, you got a little peek when you went there, I'm sure. Oh, I did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What is that? There's a website that people, Glassdoor, where they write about their experiences working.

1:06:08 I wonder if Pocket Gems has one on there. There used to be another one. I won't do it because of language reasons. I don't know if it's even still around. But there used to be one called Eft Company. But it was, you know, the whole spelling. Nice. Yeah. So, yeah. Nice. I mean, you never know whether it's just somebody that, you know, got fired because they were incompetent not doing their job or whether you know somebody with a legitimate beef But I be curious to hear what you know some of the stories are Yeah I mean anytime you hear one side of a story you have to take out the grain of salt right there there typically typically three sides to every story there's your side there's their side and then there's the truth and that's usually somewhere in the middle so but it would be interesting that would be good but i think our next pull in should be mr croft yeah see what he's been up to and he'd probably be amenable to it, I would think.

1:07:10 He's already said he would. Oh, okay. He's got the equipment. So he's good. And you would know this better than anyone else, but I would imagine nailing down time is probably going to be the more challenging aspect. More than likely, yes. So maybe we'll load up a few other people and just push him around until he can make it. There you go. Excuse me. I think that'd be a lot of fun. I'm almost always available. Leave it open to him. Whenever he's ready, I'm ready. All right. I'm good with that. Sounds good? It does. All right. It's time for me to put the chicken to the bed.

1:07:51 All right. Before we wrap up, anything cool, exciting, fun going on in your world over there? Besides the broken freezer? No. It's almost time to put up the sunshade. Oh, yeah. In the garden. Yeah, everything's getting a little crispy. You in the 90-degree days already? I'm getting there. Tomatoes are crying a little bit. It's April. You guys wanted me to come in May again. I'm like, no. You can come back in May, too. Come in June or July. May there is like August for us, and I don't like August for us at all. It's not pleasant.

1:08:32 It's a great time for in the pool or inside in the air conditioning. But if, you know, you go on vacation, you don't want to just be like, I can't be outside. Like, go skateboarding? Yeah, no. I will melt into the asphalt. The wheel. Getting stuck. You see the plastic material starting to, like, you know, spread like paint. Yeah, no, I've tried to get all the outdoor chores done, you know, that I possibly can. And then, you know, the oil change on the car I just did. We had a nice day today. It was beautiful today.

1:09:13 That's awesome. Like 71. Nice. Low humidity. But it's all going to go up. Yeah. It was like 62 to here today or something like that. And it's going to be like one tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Things to come. This might be our last nice day. I don't know. At least we have a pool. Jump in the pool. There you go. When it's 87, 88 degrees outside and it's hot, humid, you jump in the pool, it feels great. It feels absolutely wonderful. We need to come visit when we can use your pool because normally we come in November when it's like an ice skating rink. Well, you know you're always welcome.

1:09:53 Always. And I mean that. And you know that. You should know that by now. So anytime, just plan it out. Let us know what works for you. There you go. it's almost a guarantee we will be here because i i mean i'd prefer to be honest with you quite quite very literally honest if i could never ever leave my property i wouldn't i just would not oh i i completely understand yeah i completely understand i have literally gone months without stepping off my property and and i like those months they're great we could have a whole other episode on this because we've discussed this at length that you and I just seem to be magnets for just jerks and idiots out in public for some reason. I don't understand why, but they're like a heat-seeking missile towards both of us.

1:10:50 The beeline, it's like, oh my God, yes, we will do this. The next one, we're going to do a segment on just that. I'm going to take a note. We can just talk about our past experiences and all that stuff. Yeah, anyway. Been there, done that. I'm more than happy to stay home. Awesome. I got that noted now. We're going to do that. As always, if you guys have any suggestions, anything you'd like to see, anything you'd like us to talk about, heck, if you'd like to come on the show and talk with us, put something in the comments. We'll see what we can work out. There you go. No promises, but we'll do what we can. And keep at it.

1:11:34 Have a great day. Thanks for listening. See you.