Just Two Good Old Boys

063 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene Naftulyev Episode 63

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Gene:

Hey, Ben, how are you today? Mmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

have been fighting something for the last few days, and I thought maybe allergies finally got me or something like that, but no. This is the sickest year I have literally ever had in my life. It's crazy.

Gene:

You should take a mental health day.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Excuse me. If I took the mental health days I need, I would never work. you know, it's, it's all good, man.

Gene:

Huh. Oh, man, it feels like it's been a while since we've chatted.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, yeah we didn't do last Sunday because it was Easter Sunday and when I tried to make it up with you on, I think I said, I'm free all day Tuesday and never got a response. You know.

Gene:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good, glad we're doing this back in the semi schedule here today, because then, of course, tomorrow's the big eclipse thing. Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, the end of the world.

Gene:

Mm hmm. Yep, yep. Do you go pick up your red heifer?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, no, I'm I'm not too worried about that just yet.

Gene:

Yeah, it's funny I guess the ones that are out there right now, they're, they were, came from Texas. No, they came from Texas.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Pure enough.

Gene:

oh, really? I didn't hear about that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, they have to be, there's several things they have to be without blemish and this, that, and the other, and they're not quite there yet.

Gene:

They wouldn't have bought them if they were blemished, would they?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

But you know, cows, like any other animal, their skin changes over time. And, you know, just you know, People gray and get different color. Their hair goes through changes. Same thing. So

Gene:

the guy made a bunch of money for for selling defective cattle. Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, it's just one of those things. It's you have to wait till they get to the right age to see if they're still without blemish.

Gene:

Somebody asked a good question, which is why are they not using Highland cattle, which are naturally all red?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

There's a something specific about it. I'm not Jewish. I wouldn't know.

Gene:

Yeah. Cause they're not Highland. I mean, they got I don't know that kind of shit. They have, you know, they look like normal cows. They don't look like the long haired Highland kind of looking cows, but that was a good point because every time I've seen Highland cows, they're all red. You

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Hmm. Yeah, yeah,

Gene:

know what I'm talking about, right? Those shaggy kind of long haired ones.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

The, the really ugly ones. Yeah.

Gene:

I don't know if I would say they're ugly I watch a YouTuber that's got some of those, but they're definitely They're more pet cows, I think, than like actual meat cows. I don't think they get as big or as meaty. But I think they're mostly meant for, you know, shitty weather cows.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

Like they've got

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

The opposite of Israel's shitty weather

Gene:

right. Non desert cows. Yeah. Not, not like camel cows. Do the longhorns have any more resistance to shitty weather like droughts or anything than other

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

oh yeah. So longhorns are anyone who's ever eaten on like a longhorn steak or something. They've got a different flavor, man. They're there. They, or a gamey or cow. And a lot of people don't like it because of that. I actually. Do but to be honest with you, the, the best cow for taxes as far as drought resistance and just overall vitality is actually a mix between Angus and Brahma. Yeah, and the Brahma mamas are really, really good mamas too. Yeah, so you generally take a, you know, just a regular old Angus bull and put it in there with a Brangus heifer and the cattle that come out of it are generally pretty damn good.

Gene:

hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know much about cows, though. I can happily admit to that. I, I actually don't mind the smell, not all that bad from cow poop, but it's so much better than pig poop.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh, pigs are nasty.

Gene:

Oh, it's the worst smell.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Pigs are just You know, if they're out in the wild and you know, you, you let them be wild, they're destructive as all hell, they'll destroy everything. You pin them up and they will eat everything in the pen. They'll root it up. They'll just, they're just destructive.

Gene:

yeah, they're definitely, and they're I think, I don't know who the hell gets pet pigs, but there was a trend for a while.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Pigs are very smart and very trainable. So that's part of it.

Gene:

yeah, but they're stinky.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, but you can literally, if you're feeding the pig enough

Gene:

Are you

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and you're keeping it

Gene:

of them?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

If you're keeping them as a pet, first of all, they, you, you can train'em to go outside like a dog. And I mean, they're pretty damn smart. So I don't know, you know, but people keep birds, birds stink,

Gene:

Yeah, I don't understand why people keep birds.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the same reason. They're a smart, interactive animal,

Gene:

Eh They're just Why would you want anything other than a snake as a pet? I don't understand.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Because a lot of people are freaked out by snakes, g.

Gene:

Yeah, I don't understand that part either, but oh but yeah, I'm, I'm, I think I'm sounding a little more raspy than usual this morning as out hanging out with a buddy of mine and some friends of his who is, it's the first time I ever met him. It's a guy I've been playing video games with for about seven years.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Aw, you met an online friend in real life.

Gene:

huh. All right. I've had a few of those that I've met. But it's always an interesting thing to. Meet somebody in person that you've been, you know, yelling at for doing something wrong

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah,

Gene:

for many years

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

But yeah, that was kind of a is a fun time I went bar hopping with him and It was That was actually interesting. Cause I, I, there's a few bars that I think are newer than COVID. So the postcode bars that I didn't know about that weren't too far away, like within a mile of my house.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Hm? Fun.

Gene:

not that I drink anymore, but you know, I can still hang out in a bar, even if I don't drink,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, yeah. Kinda defeats the point, if you ask me, but sure.

Gene:

It depends. I mean, I like, you don't have to go somewhere to drink. You could drink at home, but being in a bar, I think is a lot more than just drinking.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, yeah, there's interaction, you know,

Gene:

people watching and interacting and all kinds of other things.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

By the way, have you seen the cheers meme going around?

Gene:

No.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's a picture, you know, the front, the, the cover art that you'd normally think of for cheers and it's got all the casts ages from season 1 and people are comparing it and holy crap. People look old from previous generations millennials and younger aging much better than the previous generations.

Gene:

that is literally exactly backwards. There's a bunch of videos talking about the I guess zoomers, not millennials, but zoomers are aging like milk, like 25 year old zoomers look like they're 35.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. They're showing millennials looking very young in comparison. So I don't know.

Gene:

Hmm. So how, how old or young were these guys?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

In their thirties and forties, like if you

Gene:

That's what I would expect from looking at'em.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah. But when you compare that to what 30 and 40 year old millennials look like, they it's, that's the difference.

Gene:

Yeah, that's true. Millennials are kind of the baby generation

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I think we're the first generation that didn't spend as well. Some of us didn't spend as much time outside, stuff like that. I think that's really the, the kind of how much sun exposure you've had. Like me, I've had a shit ton over

Gene:

and didn't do any physical labor and therefore there has a bunch of baby fat.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

But it's true man. So most millennials, most millennials don't do physical labor.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah,

Gene:

I mean, you know, you, you're. You're basically a honorary Gen X er, the way your

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I, I'm kind of on that cusp to begin with and then given my parents age and everything else, I'm, I was definitely much more raised like a Gen Xer.

Gene:

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's It's interesting though. The, I'll tell you one thing, the, whether it's Millennials or Zoomers, the drinking has not changed at all. Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, in fact, I would say that the, you know, the millennial, millennials, my age group

Gene:

Drink more?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

some of them, man I've got some friends that You know, I've never been. It depends on your definition, right? Everybody's got different definitions. If you want to go by the the doctor manual of what an alcoholic is, I think then, you know, 80 percent of the people I know are alcoholics.

Gene:

Right.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

but,

Gene:

Yeah, maybe, maybe it's more of a transitioning back to normal because I know people drank like fish pre prohibition.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

know. Yeah,

Gene:

reversal of prohibition, you know, certainly up to the fifties and early sixties, people were drinking all day long every day. And not really considering it to be being drunk at all. But I know like in the eighties drinking was not, I mean, people drank, but it wasn't really there's a lot more coke to do, you know what I mean? It's drinking just was not that interesting or popular. And I'm even thinking when I was in college yeah, there were parties with kegs, but it really didn't seem like drinking was the most important thing.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I, I think that there's kind of an interesting split. So when you look at the zoomers and gen alpha and, you know, what they're

Gene:

I try not to look at the Gen Alpha, they're not old enough yet. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

in you know, step kids, friends, and everybody else is just, you've kind of got two sex, the ones that are kind of going a little Crazier, but they're in the minority. And then you've got the majority that are actually pretty damn puritan puritanical when it comes to sex, when it comes to drinking, when it comes to everything, they're, they're very purist in a way. So we'll see. I don't know

Gene:

Yeah. And the question is, does that just mean the delayed onset of all those things?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Is it going to be the Catholic school girl effect? Right? Yeah. Oh,

Gene:

So I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to say. We'll see what happens. But yeah. I, my earliest impression of zoomers from about a decade ago, I, I happened to have flown in an airplane flight where I had a couple of zoomers sitting next to me that I took advantage of

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

zoomers.

Gene:

oh, for fuck's sake, of asking them a bunch of political questions because they were flying unaccompanied. And I actually got a lot more optimistic as a result of that conversation because these were not, I can't remember what they were flying back for, but some event. And they were not even friends, they just happened to be sitting next to each other, and I was sitting next to them, and why the fuck they were in first class is beyond me, but either way, I ended up chit chatting with both of them, and, uh, I don't know, it sounded like it was pretty positive, like they were, The idea of wanting to be successful was a good thing, which is the opposite of what I, what I've heard from an awful lot of millennials over the years. Like they were all extremely I mean, it's the usual rebellion against the parents thing. I think, I think the, a lot of the millennials were just wanting to rebel against the parents by not trying to work hard and be successful.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. I don't. No, that I agree with that, but okay. Yeah,

Gene:

you're kind of inside the bubble. I'm looking from the outside the bubble and I think there was a I mean, it's not I'm sure it's not the only thing that was different from generation to generation with the Millennials but the idea that you are more important than Your job or your surroundings or other people, I think is pretty typical of the millennial generation. They were very much a, But my feelings, But I need to rest, but I can't climb a ladder. Like all these kind of things I think peaked in the millennial generation. I think the zoomers are a little Little less objectable to all those things than them, then, then the millennials were,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I don't

Gene:

everyone's getting older too. So it's like talking about millennials in their twenties is different from millennials in their forties.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Very few millennials are in their forties, right? I'm on the older side of the millennials and I'm not there yet. So

Gene:

I

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

on the definition, but yeah, the, the earliest millennials would be entering their

Gene:

81 to 96 is the cohort.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

On the definition, but yes

Gene:

that's the official definition. I don't know which ones you're reading.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

there is no such thing as an

Gene:

No, there is the, the whole term comes from a book that was written back in the eighties. I remember reading that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes. Anyway, the point is

Gene:

what those age groups were.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

fine. If you take that definition, sure. Some of them are in their forties. I obviously am not there yet being born in 86, so

Gene:

But, but it's a pretty big generation too. It's 81 to 96. So it's 15 years.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Wouldn't that be a normal generation?

Gene:

I guess, yeah, yeah, it probably is, but I don't know. Maybe it's just because there's so damn many of you. It

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

That's the thing is the only other generation that's even close to our size is the boomers were just under the boomers in size which, you know. If you believe in anything that Zhan says that Heaven help us, the millennials will save us all because they exist. And it's interesting that his opinion lines up with the four turnings, right? So if you look at the, the book, the Four Turnings, the millennials are set to be the hero generation in the four turnings, or the fourth turning rather.

Gene:

Yeah, we'll see. I'll tell you. I'm also a lot more optimistic about China because I think

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

because of the invasion force coming

Gene:

been looking at an awful lot of videos of Chinese speaking English and the, the stereotypical, what you and I would think of As, what is a Chinese person's English sounds is really starting to fade. There's an awful lot of Chinese people that are still teenagers that have very, very good English. They're, they're starting them training in English literally in first grade. And they're learning English the entire time.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Why do you think that is

Gene:

There's lots of good reasons to do that, if I was China.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

example?

Gene:

There are commercial reasons, there are military reasons, there are psychological reasons, there are tons and tons of reasons. I mean, their population of English speaking Chinese will be greater than the population of the United States. Like fluently speaking, not barely speaking Chinese and for a country that that was literally agrarian three generations ago, they're making hella progress in that regard. But I think part of the, the thing that will change is you're going to start seeing, and I could be totally wrong on this. Obviously I'm, I'm kind of extrapolating from watching a bunch of YouTube videos, but I think we're going to start seeing more Chinese people. Traveling to other countries, not as immigrants, but as Chinese nationals that just happened to live and work somewhere else, I think they, that there's a certain type of Chinese nationalism that is becoming apparent in the young, that is different from people my age that are Chinese who for the most part, resent the Chinese. The government and don't have a whole lot of patriotism. They're more afraid of it, but I think there's a whole generation of younger Chinese coming out that just had never known any different and given the amount of technology it's available in China and video games and other things. And yes, it's all controlled compared to the U S but I think that You know, it's, it's nonetheless, it's a generation that's very different from more of the peasant classes that their parents and grandparents were.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

That does not bode well for Western civilization.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. It's I mean, the ideal scenario of this would be that somehow China decides to pull a Soviet Union, that they dump the idea, the pretext of communism and still just focus on Chinese nationalism.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. We'll, we'll see. I don't, I, I, I just reread Michael Malice's book, the white pill, and I get what he's getting

Gene:

just read that a month ago?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, I, I started rereading it like a month ago. I just finished it,

Gene:

When did you read it the first time?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

When it came out a couple of years ago,

Gene:

Really? Oh. Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

but anyway

Gene:

think he's a good writer?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

not particularly, but I think the subject matter is interesting.

Gene:

Okay. I've never read any of his stuff, so I don't know.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I read part of Dear Reader way back when, but I didn't particularly find it interesting and I didn't really like it. So I didn't finish it, which is pretty rare for

Gene:

I think my, my first impression of Michael Malice is somewhat tainted by the first time I saw him, which was on, as a contestant on a game show, that was a taxi based game show in New York,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene:

and I'm like, Jesus, could they have picked like a more gay Russian guy, and then nothing for many years, and then he pops out as this, you know, alleged anarchist.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Alleged. Okay. So

Gene:

I, I mean, it's I don't know a whole lot of legitimate little anarchists that are making very good money and writing books nonstop.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

on a on a slightly nother different subject, did you see the meme going around from the left attacking Baron Trump?

Gene:

I didn't understand it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

A

Gene:

mean, they're saying it's not Trump's kid or something,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

apparently they're saying that you know, he's Castro's grandson,

Gene:

right? Which makes no sense because Barron is probably the one that looks the most like Trump out of all his kids.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

right? Yeah. And he's fucking 6'7 dude.

Gene:

Is he really?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, he's like seriously super tall. He's a fucking giant, dude.

Gene:

Wow. It's got those good European genes.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

He's got something. Anyway, it was just funny because a fairly liberal friend of mine sent me this, ah, we learned from you. And it's, you know, the, the left saying that Baron is, you know, Castro Jr.'s love child with Melania. It's okay, yeah, sure.

Gene:

I'm not sure that Castor, Jr. can reproduce.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I, I don't know that he has balls. I've seen him sit with his legs crossed, and I know that would be very uncomfortable for me I don't

Gene:

never, I've never understood when I see men sitting that way. I'm like, how? How the fuck do you do that?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You must have the smallest testicles ever. That's the only, you know.

Gene:

It's, it, it I don't think that's particularly comfortable for women. It's a weird position for likes, but for a dude, how do you manage to do that without being in pain?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You don't,

Gene:

Mm-Hmm. Exactly.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah. But anyway, on other news, I picked up a transfer yesterday.

Gene:

Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I got my Tavor 7 in.

Gene:

Which is awesome.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I've been looking at what changes I want to do to it already. So

Gene:

of course.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm on the same waiting list for the trigger pack UR, which by the way, I called them and they said here in the next week or two, they should have one.

Gene:

Oh, really? Oh, that's nice.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So there's that. And then looking at whether or not I want to put some of the Manticore parts on there and stuff

Gene:

Mm-Hmm. Yeah. It's, it all depends how much accessorizing you want to do.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm just looking at function upgrades, right? So the trigger pack isn't really an accessory.

Gene:

no, no, not, not that. But I mean, a lot of people take off the front grip for lack of a better term, and then open up the the rails that are underneath. I left mine on just cause I don't really need to mount anything else on there. But I could see how you know, people that are used to doing AR stuff want to accessorize it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, so

Gene:

a laser on there for night vision. All that crap.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, so I'm looking at that actually, as we speak, but so I ordered some 2 vertical grips 2 different styles to see if I like that better. I don't think I'm going to need it after having handled the gun a little bit.

Gene:

I definitely agree with you on that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

But it seems like everybody and their brother has a vertical grip on there. So I want to see, okay, am I missing something? I can always send them back. And then the one thing I will definitely put on the rail, either the top rail or one of the M lock slots up front is a, another QD mount. I don't like the swing, the sling being just so far back. I want it more towards the front as well. So I run a two point sling generally. And the. You know, that that's the, that's the place. If I was running a single point, that middle QD amount is fine, but running a two point sling, it's just too close for me the way I'm built. The other

Gene:

running single point back in middle 2000s.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, I did too for a while until I was running. transition drills to my pistol and dropping my rifle and it was hitting me in the balls.

Gene:

Yeah, I could see that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

that's why I went back to the two point sling. Yeah, the two point sling kind of takes the gun away from your balls, which is a good thing, you know? Yeah.

Gene:

Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, but anyway, the only other thing I don't really, I don't like the saber grip. I really don't. I'm going to shoot it and see how it goes, but I may

Gene:

they have a factory normal grip

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yep. And that's what I'm looking at. Yeah, and then, you know, spare parts and the barrel nut magazine the barrel nut wrench that's different. So I've got to get that.

Gene:

a reason for the saber grip. The reason it's so big is gloves, but the other reason for having the hand guard on there is because of the very short what do you call that area? The the area in front of the grip. Yeah, the foregrip, because I was watching a video of a guy that had replaced his grip to a you know, one without the, the handguard on their center grip, and then he was doing drills and shooting that gun. Over obstructions

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Mm hmm.

Gene:

and he was putting, just like you would with an AR, the front of the the gun on the, you know, whatever it was, I can't remember what it was,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, barricade.

Gene:

yeah, some kind of barricade and, and in the process of trying to get into the right position There's not a whole lot of wiggle room there front to back. So he ended up kind of pushing the gun a little bit forward and then shut off around because his hands came in contact with the front of the barricade and he didn't have the the saber grip on there. And then right after doing that, cause the camera was rolling. He's Oh, I see why they put that on that gun.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And, you know, a lot of people bitch about the trigger, but

Gene:

It's not a bad trigger. It's just not super crisp.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So the best analogy I heard actually came from John Lovell, and when he said it, it just struck me as yes, that is the exact right analogy for this.

Gene:

Mm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's a pistol trigger. You have to think of it as a striker fired pistol trigger where you've got that long pre take up, you finally hit the wall, and then you know where that wall is, you pull, you reset, you pull, you reset, and if you think of it like a pistol trigger versus a rifle trigger, it's fine, it's perfect.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's just, it's a long way from a custom three pound trigger, you know, that, that

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's a, it's a

Gene:

on other guns.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Again, no gun is a, there is no such thing as a Swiss Army knife gun, right? There's no gun that's going to be a short, fast firing, super accurate da da da da da da da da. You have to kind of purpose, because everything's a trade off, you have to purpose build what you want. You know, for me, this is a I don't want an SBR. I don't want to pay a tax stamp. And did I sent you a picture of it versus my AR

Gene:

I know. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I? Yeah. And that, that AR 10 has an 18 inch barrel on it, but I mean, it's, it's over six, eight inches shorter with the.

Gene:

With the folded

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

fully collapsed, right? I mean, and it's, it's just a different purpose, but I've got two different types of optics on those guns. So they are 10s, got a actual more traditional scope,

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

With a mill dot radical on it and everything else versus the Tavor. What I've put on there is an LPVO. And you know, what I'm thinking for the Tavor is You know, for 500 yard and in gun that are 10. I can push out to 6700 yards very easily. And then I've got a series of bolt guns. I can push out further than that pretty easily. Yeah, and, you know, people complain about 1 of the other interesting complaints was the twist rate on the barrel.

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And I get it. You know, I would probably prefer if, if anyone ever came out with a aftermarket 1 in 10 twist barrel, I'd probably buy it.

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And the reason why is because I

Gene:

1 and 7?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

know 1 in 12

Gene:

Oh, 1 and 12. Oh, oh, okay. Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And so here's the thing there, but they, they designed this gun to shoot M80 ball, which is 147 grain, which will stabilize at 1 in 12 just fine. If you go to a heavier projectile, like a 1 60, 1 80. You need the faster twist rate to really stabilize that, that projectile. And you know, that's kind of the difference. But again, this isn't made to be a long range gun,

Gene:

Right.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you know, if you can hit a mans size target at 300 yards win.

Gene:

you shot it yet?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I have not gotten

Gene:

Okay. I'm curious to see what your impression is going to be. My impression when I first shot it was that, wow, this has the most smooth, Impulse of any of my guns. It does not feel like a crack. It feels like a push

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Mm-Hmm.

Gene:

and more analogous to like shooting a 45 versus a 40 caliber.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. The, the, the thump versus the snap.

Gene:

Yeah, the 45 is just feels like a push. You know, it's not a, I mean, we're still talking about really fast speeds, but it just doesn't have the same kind of whip crack effect that like shooting a 40 caliber feels like in your hands. So that was my impression of shooting this thing. I was like, wow, it's shorter. It's more compact. And, I really like the recoil, and the trigger's not bad, it's just, you know, from hunting rifles I'm used to a lot lighter triggers, but from a military rifle, I think this is perfectly adequate.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

We'll see. I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's, you know, or some sort of bull pup has always been on the on the wish list and. I originally, you know, back in the day and wanted the aug just

Gene:

hmm. Steyr

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you know, iconic it is. Yeah, but after,

Gene:

as ergonomic, dude, I've played

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And there, there's lots of problems with the aug and you know, I've gone to 308 pretty much. As my main rifle cartridge at this point and comparing the desert tech, comparing this availability, parts, availability, proven reliability, lots of reasons why I ended up going with this. Yeah,

Gene:

Yeah, and I think like the Springfield is it the Hellion? Whatever their, their bullpup is.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah. But you can't find it in 308.

Gene:

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a good point, yeah, they have them through here. But it, it's very similar, it's probably the most similar one to this, to the Tavor, but I like the ergonomics in the Tavor a little more. It's just, it, there's, there's less kind of extraneous crap. There's less variance. It feels more like a. Overall, similar package. I don't know. I like it. I first saw it a long time ago. And kind of said, Okay, I want this someday. Back there used to be a TV show. I don't know if you remember this or not. Maybe you weren't watching gun shows back then, but it was a show called future weapons.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh, yeah, I watched it like crazy. In fact, that's part of the reason why I got into 6. 8 SPC. Yeah. And which, you know, it, I won't say it ended up being a mistake, but you know, it was in 6. 8 still makes a lot of sense to me over 300 blackout. And the reason why is because I was looking for something different than 5, 5, 6. And the 6A, what I liked about it is I could go down to a 90 grain and be shooting as fast as 556, or I could go up to 180 grain and be subsonic in the same. Cartridge, right? And it suppressed well, it did, it did everything that you would want from the 300 blackout and from the 506. Why that didn't take off, I don't know, but it didn't. And it got up to a dollar a round for the cheap ammo and I'm,

Gene:

And that may have been part of the reason. Cause every time I remember. Looking at a six, eight gun, I, the difference in price between the ammo, even three or eight ammo was like, Jesus, why would I get this? But, but yeah, so it's kind of a sad story of the host of that show. Cause I thought it was a great shows that bald dude that used to be a Navy SEAL and,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Lot of people make fun of him.

Gene:

yeah, yeah. But he got cancer like in the fourth season

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh shit.

Gene:

and, and it died from it. So

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you people who are making fun of that guy online, you're horrible. Yeah. Oh

Gene:

As Ben quickly starts deleting his tweets, you were wrong, man. I can't believe he didn't know this, but I love the concept of that show, which is the host basically flying to different. Either military facilities or production facilities.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the way.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and basically having them talk about their newest guns and some of them were already in production and some of them were not, and that was my first introduction to the war and I was like, wow, this is so cool. And back then I think I either already had, or I was planning on buying, cause it was available The FS 2000,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh god, what an ugly gun.

Gene:

it's not an ugly gun. It's another cool looking gun. It's a little more bulky, a little fatter, a little chubbier. But I, there's a lot of things that I really liked about the FN, and there's the finickiness, the finick Is that a word finicky? It was finicky with ammunition and magazines.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Remember ladies, Gene doesn't mind. I'm a little more bulky and fatter.

Gene:

Well for, for guns. Yes. And it was a great gun. And I, when I first got it, I liked it so much after shooting it. I bought a second one immediately to keep in its you know, shrink wrap just to have a backup if I ever wore out the first one

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Huh. Do you still have that gun?

Gene:

now, I sold both of them. But and I made money on both of them. Which is the best, the best way to buy things, right? Is when you can sell them later for more money.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So what you're telling the ATF

Gene:

definitely not a gun dealer. Definitely not a gun dealer.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah,

Gene:

these guns for 12 years. This is not a gun dealer thing. I'd be the worst gun dealer imaginable because I would never sell anything until the thing's already not no longer the best example of what it is. But I think there's still people that collect them, obviously they haven't produced these guns, they've been in the 2000s for probably about six years now. So there is a market for guns that are out of production for sure, and I happen to have one that was literally still shrink wrapped in the box. But that even the one that wasn't even the one I had shot still sold for good money, so yeah It's I've always liked the the bullpup concept, and I I think it's more Relaxing it's like less Because of the way the weight is distributed the the same exact weight bullpup

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and, you know, I know a lot of people are going to cringe and be like, you redneck defied something, but there was in the early 2000s, there was a bull pup kit to, you know, S. K. S.

Gene:

Oh, okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And I, I had one and it required some fitting and some finicky stuff. And you had to screw the trigger and do a whole bunch of stuff. But I tell you what, you take an old heavy ass SKS with a, you know, 18, 20 inch barrel, whatever it is, and you put it in that bullpup configuration and it's a lot more comfortable to

Gene:

mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. I don't know. And by the way, you're wrong about the drum magazine.

Gene:

What, what am I wrong about?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You can totally use a drum magazine with the tabor.

Gene:

I'm sure it depends on the brand. The, when I first checked into it, the, the ones that were available had a, I, I, I checked before buying and I was told both times that no, I won't tip the fork.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

The one I have, at least, seats, and I can get around it and shoot you know,

Gene:

It's your head position that's the issue.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

no, it doesn't affect your head position. You mean your arm, maybe, but even that's not a big deal.

Gene:

hmm. Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Anyway,

Gene:

I, I, in

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'll let you know when I go to the range.

Gene:

yeah, take some photos of that. The long, if, if there's a longer one, I think it would work. The one I was looking at was like a double drum. And that double drum, while it technically would click in and fit, It would make holding the gun and shooting it very

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, the one I'm talking about's a single drum, it's the P bag version,

Gene:

how much does that hold?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Fifty.

Gene:

Oh, that's probably why, because I already had 32 round straight magazines. I was like, it's not a big

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

308?

Gene:

I think so. I think they're 32 round?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, 25 maybe.

Gene:

I'll double check.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Are you going to double check

Gene:

No, no, not right now. I mean, I'll double check when I go downstairs.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

it was funny because you sounded like you came off the mic like you were leaving to go do

Gene:

No, no, no, no.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh, man. Anyway it's been, it's been fun. Definitely nerding out on it. I tell you what, I am very tempted to spend some money on Aliexpress, man.

Gene:

Oh yeah? What now? Hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

One, I'm looking at some replica malls. that might work. And then the other thing I'm looking at is they have these armor plates that they claim are for a, you know, are level four plates

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

for 30.

Gene:

you really trust something like

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Fuck no, it'll be a target. Are you kidding

Gene:

oh, okay, okay, okay. I

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, it'd be a fun range target.

Gene:

Got it, got it, got it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And, you know, hey, even if it's a heavy ass steel plate and it, you know, holds up ish, it'd be cheaper than a, you know, AR 500 steel target whatever.

Gene:

Yeah, I was wrong, though. I just looked it up. There are 40 round, 40 round magazines.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Where did you find these?

Gene:

I'll send you a link.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. Now they have to be made in the U S gene. If they're not us magazines, you're, you're in violation of the import, man.

Gene:

You know, I've replaced some of the parts in that gun with US made parts. Huh.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's crazy to me that to the IWI actually pushed the limit on that to the point where in the manual it says only use us magazines,

Gene:

Yeah, don't, don't use anything that's not made in the U. S. on that gun.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, because it will put you over. Yeah.

Gene:

Which is such an absurd fucking thing, too. Like this whole idea that we have to jump through hoops that everyone jumps through to have guns that have a certain percentage of U. S. manufactured parts. It's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and it also gets you to an interesting question because if I put a sling on the Chinese made,

Gene:

Oh yeah, yeah, scope,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I put a QD mount,

Gene:

German scope, but if I put my Zeiss scope on there, I

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

technically, it's not a function of the gun. So I think you're okay. But again, it's one of those interpretation questions. If someone wants to be a dick.

Gene:

Yeah, exactly.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I just, I don't know.

Gene:

a, it's an absurd rule, much like a lot of the NFA rules. In general, like that whole fucking department needs to not exist. Hey, but speaking of, did you see that our our senator here, Senator Ted sponsored a bill to abolish the ATF.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Good for him. Yeah,

Gene:

We're getting closer to election season.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

exactly. It will go nowhere. But sure.

Gene:

yeah, everybody knows that, but I wish it would, you know, honestly, sometimes I think the even bills that. They assume aren't gonna go anywhere. It would be so cool if they just get enough people to say. Yeah, you know what fuck it I'm gonna vote for

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I would love to see Massey or someone sneak it into a continuing resolution or something over a period of time that, you know, it happens.

Gene:

Which the whole continuing resolution thing is such a bullshit way to the government It's yeah, we're not we're not gonna actually have a debate We'll just vote to keep doing what we've voted for doing in the past.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, good on Marjorie Taylor Greene, though Holden, Holden, you know, McCarthy, not McCarthy whatever his name is, the Speaker of the House right now, I'm blanking. Yeah, yeah, I'm sitting here thinking about McCarthy, but same, same shit, different day. Yeah, holding him to the fire and saying, hey no, you said you weren't going to do this and we have the ability to bring a no competence vote. So that's what we're doing.

Gene:

Which is good, because that, I think more of that type of thing should happen. The speakership should not be a long term health position.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, and I'm like, this is one of the best congresses in history, and one of the people I know is

Gene:

Yeah,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

they haven't done anything, what do you mean?

Gene:

that makes him the best. Exactly right.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

has been the least productive congress in the last hundred years? Great. You know, at least they're not doing anything that will fuck with me.

Gene:

Yeah. Exactly. No, that's perfect. It's a The government that does the least is the government that is the best.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, the Thomas Jefferson man, that government that governs least governs best.

Gene:

Yep. That's a true story.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So I've been doing a lot of research on IR illuminators and

Gene:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and indicators or designators or other, and man, the civilian and military market is in such a sad state

Gene:

No, really?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

available.

Gene:

What's so talk about the difference? Cause my understanding is the only real difference was the power rating.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's the power rating and it's just what's available. So you can get gray market items, but if anything breaks on that, you can't ship it back because they're not going to give it back to you. Cause it probably fell off a truck somewhere. And

Gene:

Then all the Chinese stuff's just labeled for airsoft.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. And some of it's holding zero. So it's not, some of the real stuff doesn't really hold zero very well

Gene:

really? Hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

some people have even gone so far as to getting like a sum of gear tech 15 and figured out springs to replace in it, to get it to hold zero

Gene:

Wow.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You know, if you want to spend 3, 500 on a mall on a real mall, that seems to be the best right now from a civilian standpoint,

Gene:

That is so insane, man.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, and the, the other thing is a lot of the civilian power lasers, you've got these guys that are 3d printing shit in their garage and that's what you get and yeah.

Gene:

What, what is the issue here? Because lasers first came out, I got my first laser foregun in the, in the 90s, like the mid 90s. And granted it was for handguns, so is the issue just that it's hard to make a laser that doesn't wiggle around and takes the abuse of a rifle cartridge? Why is it so fucking hard to do? And then incidentally, that was like a chrism trace internal glock laser. And it was about 300 bucks when I bought it and it was on the higher end of lasers available back then. But a lot of people just thought it was cool to have a laser on your pistol. And yes, pistols don't have the same recoil, but dude, still, I was shooting 40 caliber and the laser stayed right where it should be and 40 caliber kicks.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Part of it is the recoil and part of it is there's just not that big of a market, right? So the, the military is going to be the biggest market and of course you can charge them whatever the hell you want to charge them.

Gene:

But like laser pointers, you can get really high power green laser pointers for a hundred bucks.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yes. And you can get the same Chinese stuff. It's just, is it going to hold up to the recoil?

Gene:

Yeah. I guess that that's all it. Somebody should just have a business that does nothing but test this shit and then figure out a way to make money off of it. Be like selling a certain like UL, right? What's UL do? They just sell certifications.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, the, the problem is if you admit to having a full power laser in the U. S. market, you're, you're banned because of health restrictions. It's actually the,

Gene:

right. It should be wearing glasses.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, yeah. There's that.

Gene:

Mhm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And then you have the Chinese manufacturing side their government doesn't allow them to make arms and arms manufacturing, so that's why it has to be labeled for airsoft only, even if it can hold up. So you end up with this gray area of you know, the, the manufacturer could always say we never intended it for that use. And, you know, it's just a

Gene:

again, if you're buying something for a thousand bucks, yeah, that's a problem. If it only costs a hundred, I don't care if it breaks.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, and you know, right now the two that are in my cart on Aliexpress that I'm looking at trying because I, I, my options are I can spend a so I can spend a couple hundred dollars on an IR illuminator and then I can get a 700 ish dollar. Holosun IR laser and run two different devices on my gun and be around a thousand dollar investment for a quote unquote, real IR setup. Or I can look at like the SOTAC gear. It's all aluminum CNC'd green laser, IR laser mall replica for 195, I think it might be worth the risk just to see.

Gene:

Mm hmm. Yeah. It's not what I would call cheap by any stretch, but it's not crazy expensive either.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, but it's in that price bracket that leads you to believe that, hey, maybe it'll work.

Gene:

you've taken physical classes before.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Yeah. A few of them.

Gene:

you remember what a laser is, right?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes

Gene:

why can you not diffuse laser right and have a flashlight that is powered by a laser?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you can.

Gene:

So why doesn't anybody do this?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

They do

Gene:

How come I haven't seen them for sale?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

because you haven't looked.

Gene:

Oh, what are they called?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

like the mall, I believe is a laser diffused light. Several

Gene:

But I'm not talking about a 4, 000 fucking laser. I'm not, I want something that's cheap and powered by a laser.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the problem. It's not a, it's not a physics problem. It's a regulation problem. For the laser to be, if you diffuse the light and for it to be bright enough, it has to be a high enough power laser that it's over the civilian legal laser.

Gene:

So they're not measuring the light at a certain distance that it's emitting.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

literally the, the amount of energy that is going into the laser that is

Gene:

stupid. That's a dumb way to measure it. You got to be measuring the output, not the input.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. But the problem is with a laser, the input determines the output. And if you remove, remove that diffuser, now you have a very powerful laser that's

Gene:

know, I know back in the day, some people were taking laser projectors apart and using the lasers from the projectors as pointers. Let's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. I mean, there's lots of things that you can do when

Gene:

those are way brighter than the civilian crap you can buy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And you can buy lasers as a part and build your own stuff. But again, that's how much DIY do you want?

Gene:

right, right. Yeah, and then you're your next thing, you know, you own multiple 3d printers It's usually I don't know anybody that has one. They all have multiple ones And it's always one of the first projects. It's what are you printing now? Oh, I'm printing my next 3d printer. It's oh my god

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, I just, I, I, it's a hobby that seems expensive that I haven't gotten into.

Gene:

Yeah, I'm very thankful that I have not I've been talking to it, although several people have tried after them getting into it pretty heavily, but I did find the 3D printer that I thought would be the one to buy about a year ago, if I was going to go down that route, and it was the most it was, it was the most finished, is the way I would describe it, it had, it looked like a normal, you know, tool for your garage rather than something that's a hobbyist thing. Like it had a cover, it was fully self contained. You didn't need a computer to run it. You could just use an SD card with the 3d model in there. It had three or four spools up top. And an automated mechanism for changing from one spool to another. So you could do multicolor printing or multi type of material printing. Cause you know, the different materials have different properties depending on what you're trying to go for. Like all the 3d printed guns, obviously those guys use a different type of material than the, the people that are. Printing figurines or whatever. So it was pretty cool. And honestly, the, I think what helped me not buy it is the fact that it was out of stock. But I think they were going for about 1, 100 bucks. And it's, it's significantly cheaper than what a comparable unit would have cost five years ago, which would be like five grand. I was closest at that point to getting one, but luckily I decided not to do it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. So while we're doing reviews. I picked up a new radio

Gene:

Hmm. Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and it's going back.

Gene:

Oh, really? Why is that?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So I got the Quonseg,

Gene:

Feng. Oh, it's not a Bao Feng.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

UVK5, which has some modifiable firmware. And part of the reason why I picked it up is it's in that Baofeng price range, it's 27. It's supposed to be I don't want to lie here and give the wrong IPS rating, but according to the Amazon listing, it's supposed to be let's see. I, I P 65. there's no way. It's 65.

Gene:

No.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

no seal on the battery

Gene:

make those numbers up.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, it, it, there's several things about it. I thought, okay, maybe I can upgrade, you know, the UV five R's that I have running around and this will be cool. Right. But there, I don't see really any advantage to it. There's less accessories that are available. You don't have aftermarket battery packs, unless you go on Allie express. And then you don't know the quality of the battery. You're getting a whole bunch of stuff. You know, yeah, I could keep it and it's 27, but it's Amazon. Swap it back out,

Gene:

Yeah. Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

but the, there are some interesting things on the firmware that you can do to get it to be able to transmit on am and everything else. But the problem is the, the actual. Inertia of the radio are not broad enough. Yes, you can get it to transmit on that, but you don't have the physical equipment inside to support that. So there's no point had they taken the radio and. Basically made a ultra, you know, wide frequency radio where you could reach a bunch of different frequencies and then neutered it and then you could unlock it. That'd be great. But that that's not the case here.

Gene:

I find it fascinating that there's a whole market for people that are too lazy to go get their ham radio license and just buy a real radio.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

This is a real ham radio.

Gene:

Okay, then, what are you trying to do that it's not doing, other than the water resistance?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm just listening. Gene. I'm not

Gene:

I'm sure you are. I'm sure you are. But my point is.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I, I don't, I don't press

Gene:

that would be illegal. In fact, you probably take off that button as the first step. And when you're buying the radio, that's why I would expect you to do. But I just, I mean,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

use only.

Gene:

there's, there's a It's funny because you, you realize the only people that will still be running radios and talk at them in an emergency use are ham radio operators who are notorious for telling you to get off the frequency.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Huh. Yeah.

Gene:

mean, it's, it's, I, I think I'm imagining a very funny skit about the you know, some kind of major catastrophe emergency and everything shuts down and, and what you hear on every frequency and every channel is. Is complaints by the ham radio operators of all these, yeah, all these people that are breaking the rules. That's all you hear. That's the entirety of communication going on. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

edgars. Or whatever they're called. Yeah.

Gene:

What are they called?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

there's a derogatory term for an old ham radio operator and I'm trying to,

Gene:

Mm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

But anyway, yeah anyway, it's just to me, yeah, it's interesting and listening on those frequencies is a little bit different. You know, you can probably listen a lot better than you can, uh,

Gene:

There used to be shortwave radios that were for sale that were not transmitters. They were just radios and they were reasonably priced. I don't know if they're still available, but I remember like

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

waves gone out of fashion a lot. I remember growing up listening to short wave there, there, there was a lot of Patriot content on short wave, a lot of dissident stuff on short wave.

Gene:

In every country.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and, and you would all of a sudden, if you were scanning around, I remember doing this as a kid and this is like in the early nineties. I remember scanning around and finding Morse code being transmitted

Gene:

Yep.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and you're like, what the hell is this? And it's a fucking number station. Like it was a legit number station transmitting is

Gene:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and they're still around. There's still number stations around.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's a, it's a great way to communicate because as long as they're transmitting, yeah, you can know where the transmitter is, but you don't know where the receiver is. And if you're using a 1 time pad, good luck.

Gene:

Yeah. Exactly.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

thing is a lot of people 1 things I've kind of done with some friends and family, and I've encouraged some other people to do this as well. Is set up one time pads with your close friends

Gene:

we don't have a wine time pad?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I mean, what's that say about our friendship? I

Gene:

I know, right? I'm like, hold up. Hold up. Oh, yeah. For all my friends and family, we've been doing this for years. What am I, chopped liver?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

it's something we need to do, but you set up a one time pad. You keep it, you keep it safe. If you ever need it. You have an authentication method to say, okay, this is the pad we're using. This is, this is me transmit the

Gene:

to the folks that don't know what a one time pad is.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So a one time pad is you basically take letters, numbers, symbols, put them together, randomize them, and then once they're randomized, you assign them a actual letter of the alphabet, for example. So a becomes D, D becomes dollar sign, et cetera, and it's totally randomized. And as long as you have a sufficiently good random number generator to generate that one time pad. And you, the, the key to a one time pad is only using it once. So you should have a series of these, but as long as it's only used once, it is encryption that cannot be broken. So yeah,

Gene:

Yeah, and there's a, it's a doesn't have to be, I think, a direct mapping of the letter to letter kind of thing either. Because

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

can do multiple mappings. You can do all

Gene:

yeah, if, if you do a mapping, for example, to, for skipping, so you've got a one time pad that tells you how many letters or words to skip, then the message coming in that can be

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

a lot weaker, but yes,

Gene:

Then the message that's coming in with on a open frequency because they don't know what you're using for the one time pad there it's gonna be virtually impossible to decrypt.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

skipping is a lot less impossible to break than you would think. And that's partially, especially in English, like the first thing you look for is, okay, what's E? And then you look, okay, has this gone north, south,

Gene:

I don't think you understand what skipping is, if you think that's actually a

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

really do.

Gene:

The whole point is if you're doing a letter to letter, then you're, you can do analysis based on repetition on that text. But if you're doing skipping, you, like an E could either be a 5 or 12 or 27 or 34. Those are all E's. And you don't know because they're constantly changing. So there is no more opportunity for frequency analysis on, on going, looking at the

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Then you're going to have to vary your skipping interval. It would be my

Gene:

That's what you use the one time pad for. That's my point.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. So anyway, the point is 1 time pad, setting up communications before it's needed a way to authenticate that it's you having, you know, phrases for authentication that the person is not likely to give up. And the other thing is taking a cell mentality. For instance, communication with my parents. Communication with my mom would be different than communication with my dad, and the two should never cross and their communication should be different than the communication to me. So that way, if I am captured and tortured, I can only give up my communication to them. I can't intercept or degrade their communication ability between each other.

Gene:

hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, just the thought. You know, in this, in this time of end of times that we're heading to, you know, tomorrow,

Gene:

huh. Yeah, yeah, literally tomorrow. Yeah, hey, it could be potentially our last show, Ben.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Hey, yeah. What, what number is this going to be?

Gene:

666.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

we haven't been doing it that long.

Gene:

True. Hey, by the way, before I forget I wanted to wish Darren a happy birthday. It's his birthday today.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Happy birthday, Darren.

Gene:

It also means I have to, I have to post this show immediately after we're done. He is 50 something. I can't remember.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

God, y'all are fucking old.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, I'm just teasing.

Gene:

We all

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

will be 63. This will be episode 63.

Gene:

Okay. There we go.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Happy birthday, man.

Gene:

yeah, yeah. And I think I think he was not even gonna be doing a show with whoever he normally does a show, that point is. I mean, the guy that does

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the rock and roll pre show? Come on.

Gene:

days a week, he does

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Come on. No, there's no way he's going to skip out on the rock and roll pre show today. He has to do that.

Gene:

Yeah, he's gotta do it. Yeah. Maybe it's tomorrow. Oh shit, I bet shit it's tomorrow then, cause he did say he was gonna skip the show that day. I think it's tomorrow then. It's Monday. Cause we're recording Sunday, so yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Monday. But, either way, happy birthday. Ah, man. Yes, and then I am once we're done with this recording shortly thereafter, I'm heading off to Fredericksburg. For the big the, the big end of times, uh, event that's happening here. Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Well, I mean, we're kind of joking about that. But dude, the earthquake in Taiwan and then New York.

Gene:

hmm. A

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I don't know.

Gene:

lot of stuff happening, man.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Think the funniest thing I saw in the New York earthquake was Chris Christie dancing and they found the quote unquote found the cause of New Jersey. Oh, my God. That was so funny.

Gene:

Yeah. That, that is hilarious. But you know, when, kidding aside, just scientifically, when the moon is directly in line with the earth and the sun in the opposite direction, the force of gravity is increased,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Minusculely.

Gene:

but nonetheless it's increased.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, but so 1 of the things you have to realize is gravity and tides and everything. Yes, it makes a difference, but gravity. Gravity is really weak. So if gravity was not unidirectional, we probably wouldn't even notice it as a force, but because gravity is unidirectional we notice it, but gravity falls off as the inverse square of the distance. Essentially, every time you increase, let's say you double the distance, it's the inverse square, meaning it's you know, if if you think of exponential increase, it's an exponential decrease. Yeah. My point is that that distance differentiation there and those being lined up is is a minor, minor difference.

Gene:

Okay. Thank you sir Isaac, for that explanation.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, asked me if I'd taken physics classes in the past. You know,

Gene:

Oh, I'll keep asking you. One day we'll find out.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Huh. Anyway, I'm just saying it's a lot of people, you know, talk about astro astrological alignments and things like that having an effect. It's You know, if you really understand the amount of force differentiation that you're talking about there and how minuscule it is.

Gene:

Minuscule or not, it makes the water pool towards the gravity side by a factor of about three or four feet.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes. And that's tides. But my point is, when the moon is at its Apogee versus perigee, the difference in the tides is minuscule. So you're talking a 3 or 4 foot tide, let's say, and the difference between Apogee and perigee being 1, 2 inches. It's, it's order of magnitudes less is my entire point, which I'm throwing out numbers off the top of my head sounding

Gene:

That are probably

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm sure, but it's an example.

Gene:

Speaking of, so my, my buddy that I was seven Dinner with yesterday. He said, yeah, you know, I listened to a couple of your podcasts and you know, I was listening then, and I'm sitting there going, no, that's wrong. No, you guys totally have that wrong. As he's listening, I'm like, yeah, keep listening. Maybe you'll learn something. But I think there is a, the, the asterisk, I think that is true of pretty much everything that's called a podcast is that to the best of our memories and opinions at this point in time, that's what we're saying is what we believe to be the truth. But there are certainly opportunities for people to dig in there with tweezers and find all kinds of things that are wrong.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh and I'm sure we misspeak and everything else from time to time, but I think we're, I think we're right more than we're wrong.

Gene:

That's literally what I told them. That's hilarious you said that, because that is literally the line I told them. Is that, over time, I'm more right than I'm wrong.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Aliexpress has a hundred pack of Flex Cuffs

Gene:

Mm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

four dollars.

Gene:

Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Just saying.

Gene:

I did, there's all, but, okay. How about shipping?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Free shipping!

Gene:

Really? That has free shipping?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yep, AliExpress has a shit ton of free shipping lately.

Gene:

I got a, like a 25 pack of Flex Cuffs on Amazon years ago. I'm sure they're still good. They're definitely the cop ones, because they're thick enough that you can't easily cut them with a knife. You

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah,

Gene:

They're like, they're, I mean, you could cut them with a serrated knife, but it's pretty damn hard to cut it with a regular standard blade.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Anyway just, you know, prepping for after the eclipse.

Gene:

Right, right. Or a sex dungeon, one or the other, which is

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Jesus Christ.

Gene:

kind of a more, you know, legal reason to own these things.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, it, if I ever build a house, there will be a,

Gene:

A sex

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

a gun room, you know, with, you know, Reinforced concrete walls and things like that. And

Gene:

Yeah, I think that FEMA actually has a manual out that

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

sent you the FEMA manual for the shelter. Thank you

Gene:

I know. It's not funny.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

have you, they have FEMA. You're good for something.

Gene:

They are. I told you one of the guys that's in

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

that and their gasifier plans.

Gene:

that they've got

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

to look at building a gasifier, the gasifier plans that FEMA has is actually pretty decent.

Gene:

One of our guys in the Texas clan is a FEMA guy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So you know where you're going on as far as a camp.

Gene:

I've got a guy that's got keys. Yeah,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

worry, Jean. We'll get you in one of the good camps. Dallas?

Gene:

Exactly. I think it's he's in, uh, what's the city up north in Texas right now? No, no, no, no. Further, further west.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Amarillo

Gene:

Oh yeah. I think he's over a little right now. They move them around from city to city, I guess, every year.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah. Speaking of Amarillo, this is going to be a hell of a sequitur. But the, anyone who knows the song will get why I'm making the sequitur. So George Strait's going to be doing a concert here in college station.

Gene:

Oh, cool. I didn't know he was still alive. Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. He's getting up there, but he was doing a a concert in college station here at Kyle field, which is the football stadium. Number one, it's pretty much sold out. Yeah. Number two, the cheapest tickets. We're like 350 bucks

Gene:

Wow. Holy

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the most expensive tickets were like 2000

Gene:

Oh my god. That's crazy pricing.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And you know the way they're configuring this They're putting him in the center stay in the center of the football field on a little stage They're putting seating on the field as well and the stadium without that seating on the field holds about 115, 000

Gene:

Damn.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and they're pretty much sold out so that they're gonna have 150, 000 people at this fucking concert

Gene:

Yeah. That's crazy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So the population of the city I'm living in will be there,

Gene:

Really? Is it that small? The city?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Brian College Station. Yeah, it's but you, you have to realize a lot of the population doesn't live here full time, right? 50, 000 people. Students aren't really counted as residents. A lot of them. And yeah, you've got a lot of people who live outside of city limits.

Gene:

Yeah. That makes sense. No, that's cool. Mm. Mm. I don't like concerts in large venues myself, but I didn't realize he was even alive. So that's pretty cool. Are you going?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

so the total Brian college station greater area the last estimate, which is con up quite a bit because we are a growing city is 266 K. so a little bigger. Yeah, but that's the overall area. So that includes a lot

Gene:

Metroplex.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes, exactly. That includes Navasota and other places.

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No I wanted to go, but I'm not spending that much money on concert tickets. And, you know, what happened in Russia, you know, is, you know, on my mind as well, which we haven't talked about.

Gene:

Darren, Darren, I think went to something. I mean, we know what it would have been cause there's only one musician he follows. Yeah. Taylor Swift, but I think he went to one and I think the tickets were in that same price range and I was like, Oh my God, this is nuts. No, he, he goes to concerts. He's still a music guy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, have you ever watched Rick and Morty?

Gene:

I have, I just couldn't get into it. We've had this conversation.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

All right, you need to go on YouTube and find the Rick Sanchez song, Get Schwifty, and then listen to it and then send it to

Gene:

Taylor Swift. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You'll see.

Gene:

Okay. All right. Are they still making that show? Or is that done? Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

still making it. They had to come up with a different voice actor because of a Me Too shit.

Gene:

Yeah. That's such a bull. And, and it turns out, of course, nothing there. He didn't do anything.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

there's been a little bit of that, hasn't there?

Gene:

Yeah. But I mean, it's another example of the guy is literally the show. I don't know how they can have that show without him.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It, this last season is not, it's, it's, it, it, it will be done probably after this last season.

Gene:

Mm hmm. Yeah. And that, that, that's also typical is that the last season of most American TV shows sucks. It doesn't matter what the show is.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

There are a few exceptions. There are a few exceptions.

Gene:

I'm sure, but a lot of them, that

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Most of them Star Trek.

Gene:

Ha! That was some dumb Star Trek. The last season of Star Trek doesn't suck.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Most of them? I can't speak for Discovery.

Gene:

Wesley is now an adult?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

so Voyager's last season didn't suck DS9 season last season didn't suck, even though the final episode did, you know, there's a lot of

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

which by the way, I'm marching through all the Star Trek in order of release again.

Gene:

Are you re watching him?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I'm at I'm and the last season of Voyager

Gene:

original series? Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So in original series animated

Gene:

the fuck do you work, man? Mm When the fuck do you work?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

What do you mean? I work all day,

Gene:

between all the books you read and all the TV shows you watch. I'm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh, you assume I sleep.

Gene:

don't have that much time.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You assume I sleep.

Gene:

yeah, that's 12 hours of my day. What are you talking about?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No no, just generally at night, I'm sitting outside, doing something, watching TV, listening to a book, reading a book, whatever.

Gene:

hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I don't sleep.

Gene:

Apparently have you tried it? I hear it's beneficial for your health.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Like last night, you know, I, I conked out probably around 1 a. m. and didn't have an alarm set this morning. Got the blackout curtains closed, all that. And here I am at 7 30 in the morning, up, going, done. And that was a long night sleep for me.

Gene:

Hmm. Yeah. Your watch should tell you. Oh,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

like, you did good last night. Congratulations.

Gene:

see mine usually bitches at me. It's you need to sleep longer. But yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

But, you know, it doesn't count naps, Gene.

Gene:

I texted you at 3 33 AM and you didn't respond.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes, because I was not, I was not conscious at that period of time.

Gene:

wow. And then oh yeah. So I sent you the picture of that bar I was at. I'm just scrolling through trying to remember what else we talked about. Oh, did you

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you weren't drinking last night?

Gene:

was definitely not drinking last night, but I also, Usually I'm not hanging out and talking loudly, which is why my voice sounds raspy. Cause it's kind of shot. Cause you know, there's music playing in the bar and you're talking across the table to people. And it's you know, significantly more decibels than the conversation we're having right now.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

What would you say?

Gene:

Mm hmm. So it was from that standpoint, I was probably a little more tired last night, but I'm, I'm happy to say that I think the Austin bar scene is back because it's severely got fucked during COVID. Oh,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Man, the Austin bar scene. Oh, Jesus Christ. I, I remember one girlfriend at the time who she was going to UT and I, of course, was going to A& M and my cousin lived in Austin. Went over there and went and hung out with him and that was a that was a trip. Let me tell you and this was at the time period. There was a judge in Austin at the time who literally on a Friday and Saturday night would sit in a police van at the end of 6th Street and just sit there and sign warrants for people's blood

Gene:

that's hilarious.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

as they left. No, it's fucking evil.

Gene:

It is, but it's hilarious too. I, I, I, I still think it's funny when people that do shit get. You know, karma for it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Do shit like what? And wouldn't the karma be on the judge?

Gene:

Like getting drunk.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay,

Gene:

There's so many funny drunk videos on YouTube, dude. You kind of wonder how some of these people survive, you know, falling off of buildings and slipping and flipping upside down and, you know, falling down stairs and tumbling over and over and over. A lot of them are girls too. But you know, when you take poison into your system, There will be an end result for it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

everybody takes poison. It's just a matter of what and where and how.

Gene:

Yeah. And that's why there's a variety of end results that have to do with the consequences of taking that poison. I will say that something I found out something I didn't know is apparently the Travis County passed a marijuana legalization ordinance. I don't know legally how that coincides with Texas still banning marijuana, but

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

it means that the county cops won't enforce it, but it doesn't mean anything about the city or state.

Gene:

yeah, there you go. And I'm sure the city cops are probably are on the same side as the county cops. I mean, as far as laws, I'm sure that both have laws because Austin's pretty damn liberal, but it's a I apparently now that there there's sales of the merger one, I going on here

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

not that there weren't before, but yeah. And did you hear about Harris County and the UBI?

Gene:

No, what happened there?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, Harris County has done did it. They

Gene:

for people that don't

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, yeah, Harris County now has a UBI

Gene:

UBI, what's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

universal basic income.

Gene:

Oh, universal, really? No way. How do they, I thought the only California that does that shit.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Nope.

Gene:

So anybody could just go and get 500 a month?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, you have to qualify, but yeah.

Gene:

Shit man, that may be worth moving.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

How

Gene:

hey, get some extra money coming in.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh, you have to qualify, Gene. You, you, you

Gene:

can qualify, I

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

How are you going to qualify?

Gene:

I can qualify if I put my mind to it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

How are you going to do that?

Gene:

I don't know, it depends on the rules. But, you know, qualification is I've qualified for all kinds of things in my life. Yeah, it just takes creativity and perseverance, usually. Because UBI should not be tied to qualification, by the way. It's, it's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

If it's UBI, then you're correct. It should be universal.

Gene:

Yeah, it should be everybody just adds 500 bucks and then we inflate the money to make that 500 bucks disappear. Perfect. Done.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah That's what happens naturally anyway, but yeah

Gene:

Right. That's, that's what I'm getting at. It's, it's the consequences of putting more money into the financial system.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah speaking of money going into people's pockets, did you see that New York rejected the bond that Trump put up?

Gene:

No.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, so he, they lowered his bond from half a billion to 100 and something million. And so he was able to secure a bond and he posted it and New York rejected it

Gene:

How can they do that?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

because he didn't put a current financial statement on there that satisfied them.

Gene:

That's so stupid. I think at some point, I think at some point they're, they're gonna have, I mean, you talk about a revolution in Texas. I think there might be a revolution in New York, given what they're doing. Yep.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the tax bullshit that they're pulling on valuation when you look at everything that they're doing and Kevin O'Leary is sitting there going. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, it's nail on the bringing this up a Because when you look at people like Colbert and what's his face Jon Stewart having a 15, something he sold for 15, 14 million that he was paying taxes on 900, 000 valuation. He, I mean, Okay, if that's the normal thing and you're saying that's going away, one of two things has to happen. Either the market value has to collapse in New York, or the taxes have to be adjusted to meet it, and that's going to cause the property value to collapse in New York. So I think the New York real estate market is about to go kaboom.

Gene:

Could be. I mean, they're, they have

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

admit that they're not

Gene:

in

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Trump like they're going to treat everybody else, which will be its own problem.

Gene:

Yeah. It's, as much as I hate to, to see this happen, I think one of the best things that could happen to get people motivated to actually get off their asses and not just bitch about things on the Internet is is for Trump to actually be in jail.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oof.

Gene:

That, I, do you know what else could motivate people to start pushing back more than that?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, some of the gun and ammo stuff that they're trying.

Gene:

Mmm, yeah, but that's not as universal. I mean, certainly within our circles everyone's got guns, but that's not a broad enough statement, but plenty of people that even don't have guns. Are not liking the fact that we've we're now challenging banana Republics for corruption.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh, challenging? Please, it's a

Gene:

we're winning,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

it's a hold my beer and watch this moment. Are you kidding me?

Gene:

Yeah, exactly. It's like winning.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I, I, I love, you, you've seen Parks and Rec, right? Yeah, the Ron Swanson, isn't there some sort of tax I can pay to make this go away? Or does that only work for climate change?

Gene:

You know, when they developed that character in the first couple of seasons, I thought it was a great character, but eventually they just kind of got away from the whole libertarian thing and he just sort of became the standard, you know, the gruff guy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Mmm, I, I, I, Ron Swanson is my spirit animal you know, that's, that's all good.

Gene:

Even though, you know, the actor's a total lib.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It doesn't matter. The way he portrays it is fantastic.

Gene:

hmm. Yeah. No, he does a good job, but they, they definitely pivoted off politics and went into more Oh, he likes woodworking and playing saxophone and fishing and going hunting and stuff. But you know, they've made, they've turned him into the generic dad. Where

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

what a generic dad should be.

Gene:

the 1950s generic dad.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah,

Gene:

Whereas when I started, he was like, I thought the concept was great is he's a libertarian working for the government specifically to make sure the government does as little as possible. I love that. That's, that's a great concept,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's hilarious.

Gene:

but, but it's also something that should happen in real life.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

If we can only get libertarians to stop bitching about the government, they actually go work in the government. And then fuck things up from the inside, it'd be so much better.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, no. It's just, you couldn't keep your sanity is the problem. It's

Gene:

Maybe there's a pill for that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

not Viagra gene.

Gene:

I don't know, I'm sure it's not Viagra. It could be a little, a little bit of something more modern. A little MDMA.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Ugh, Jesus.

Gene:

Yeah, yeah, I hear that's legal in Austin though.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Dude, Austin, you gotta get out of Austin. Austin's gonna just crash and burn.

Gene:

I, what I need is I need to start getting another place outside of Austin. But I don't necessarily need to leave here yet. I think that the thing that Austin and yesterday really reminded me of this is just how fucking close everything is and incredibly good restaurants, tons of bars, three colleges full of women who stayed the same age. Austin is a place that, that in the state of Texas has plenty of flaws, but it also has some benefits.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You know, you sound like that creepy guy sitting out of a high school saying you know what I love about high school students.

Gene:

Yeah. I get older and they stay the same age.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Mm, exactly.

Gene:

Yeah, that creepy guy being Matthew McConaughey you mean in

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, yeah,

Gene:

Huh. Yeah, I think when he was Shooting that role. I think he was like 26.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Mm hmm.

Gene:

That's considered creepy or I just see a 26 year old I see a kid, but maybe it's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

no comment.

Gene:

Maybe it's creepy. I don't know no comment What when you you do or you don't think that's creepy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, I, I think that you know, There, there's lots of things to unpack there that I don't want to get into,

Gene:

Hey, you brought it up man

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes, making fun of you.

Gene:

Huh. Huh. Yeah, it's not like I'm sitting outside a Catholic high school in

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

are you? Mm hmm.

Gene:

No, you can check the map.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

That's true. You did accidentally send me your address. No,

Gene:

I didn't realize that was a big secret, but

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm just making fun of you, man. So seriously though, the the interesting thing with the Taiwanese earthquake, you know, we, we kind of made fun, but that was a pretty serious earthquake.

Gene:

Yeah, I mean, I watched the building shaking like crazy.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. It'll be interesting to see you know, here we are a few days out. China hasn't made any moves, which.

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

To be honest, somewhat surprised me. I would have expected them to at the very least say, oh, we're going to put military personnel there to do humanitarian aid, something like that. That's what I expected them to do, but they didn't which somewhat shocked me. But, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a pleasant surprise in this case.

Gene:

When when my buddy sent me an article that talked about that, when it was first happening, I, I replied back to it. It was like, test successful.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And then a few days later hit New York. Hmm.

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

That's quite possible.

Gene:

Yeah. I mean, I know that, that, that there have been an awful lot of satellite launches coming out of China.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, and they're they're ripping off Elon's,

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

landing methods and all

Gene:

Yeah. They're they're literally second in the world after SpaceX in terms of launches this year.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You know, China, China, like Russia, was very good at copying, not

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

at innovating on their own. You know, if you look at the Russian version of the space shuttle that never flew.

Gene:

which is actually better. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Except it never flew.

Gene:

design. It's the ones.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

no, it didn't.

Gene:

Yeah, it did.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It never made it to orbit. Thank you.

Gene:

I didn't say it was in orbit. I said it flew

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Sure. It's attached and glided down.

Gene:

Mm hmm. Yep. Mm hmm. And their Concorde was a better Concorde.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay.

Gene:

You've seen it, right?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No,

Gene:

Oh, you haven't? I'll send you a picture. It is a total knockoff of the Concorde, but with slightly different design cues. And they had I'm trying to remember where they flew it. I think it flew three times. But it was a you know, it was another example of Oh yeah, we can do it better than you guys can.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

no. Did you see speaking of supersonic aircraft that are kind of making a comeback, did you see that the air force is actually pulling several B 1 Lancers out of moth balls right now?

Gene:

No,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, so they, the B1 Lancer is a supersonic bomber and they had retired several and put the airframes and, you know, the graveyard and all that, and they are literally pulling them out and refurbishing them, putting them back in service right

Gene:

Wow.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

which does not bode well, if you ask me.

Gene:

Their rationale tied to this or not really

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I have not seen a report of an official rationale. I've just seen reports of them actually pulling the B1 Lancers out of the graveyard

Gene:

plane's been around forever, man.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. You know, clearly if you look at 50, 60 year old technology that we used to have, it's superior to what we currently have. Like we could we could actually get to the moon back then. Ha ha.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, yeah,

Gene:

yeah. Yeah

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

dust off Lancelot and get back into service was made following April 2022 incident that, that, that yeah, this is from military that com. I'll send you the link, but yeah, they're, they're pulling pulling several B1 Lancers back out. According to this, there's some incidents where they the repair cost of fixed fire damage on one of them, but they're pulling more than one out. So I don't know. Yeah, but interesting because the entire purpose of the B 1 Lancer was a first strike capability against Russia. And you know, we had Blinken in Ukraine saying that Ukraine will join NATO.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just hot air at this point. Whatever.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I don't know, man.

Gene:

It's like there won't be a Ukraine. So what's going to join NATO exactly. It's a, there, I, I still think that the right move would have been initially and very quickly for Russia to just redraw the, the, the, the, The boundary lines giving Poland that piece of Western Ukraine immediately. And because it'd be extremely tempting for Poland to grab it, given that it was Polish territory,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Hmm. I don't know. Given the way the rest of the world has reacted, you

Gene:

people that live there consider themselves Polish, you know, it's kind of like, it's kind of like the the Arabs living in the Western Israel.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay, Hitler.

Gene:

Hitler, what's Hitler got to do with it?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You know, the reason why World War II started, Poland, you know, controlling what people considered ethnically Russian, or Russian German cities, and you know.

Gene:

They were, that's not really a debatable fact.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Not disagree, still my point is,

Gene:

Yeah, no, the, the issue was, is that somehow I think whether it was the issue is, was that somehow it either Hitler or somebody. Around him just got too greedy because they totally could have kept what they took from Poland and then been done with it. And England wasn't about to do much about it. It took a lot of a consternation in the UK for them to get involved because remember they were pro Germany, not

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

now there are

Gene:

to mention the Royals were hanging out with the German Royals all the time.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

well, and, you know, related,

Gene:

Right, right. Exactly. Their family. They're not just friends.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

but 1 of the things that people have to realize there is, you know, Germany wanted a path to be able to supply these. They didn't want to have the Russian situation, which I, you'll have to fill me in because I can't remember the name of the city. That's over there. That's islanded that they don't have a land bridge to what's it called?

Gene:

Oh, yeah, yeah. The, it starts with a K.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Anyway, they so they they they Proposed many different things on creating corridors and different control that lots of different things

Gene:

hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, it you know, all I know about World War two history is that I don't know the truth So

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, it's I don't think it's to anyone's advantage to teach anyone the truth.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

ain't that the truth?

Gene:

Right? Because it's not certainly to the advantage of the victor because there's plenty of shit that they'd like to keep hidden. Mm hmm. And it's not really to the advantage of the loser either, because it's going to point out a bunch of problems with them that they were trying to pretend didn't exist. Yeah. Kalina Nagrad. That's what it is.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

That's right. That's the one I'm thinking of.

Gene:

Mm hmm. Yeah, and that's I mean, honestly, they should have just taken all of Lithuania and renamed it, frankly. I don't know why they didn't. Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

They didn't want war would be my

Gene:

No, after the Soviet union, because it Lithuania was a client state. They were like, they much in the same way that Ukraine was created out of thin air, they could have disappeared. Lithuania

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Some peop some people might have had something to say about that, but

Gene:

don't know, man, it's tiny population of people. That or just make it part of Belarus.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah.

Gene:

One or the other.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And

Gene:

I don't know, that whole region, that whole, yeah, Belarusia Belarus, I think is actually technically more accurate because the, the, the name Rus rather than Russia is what the original Viking settlers called it, you know, it wasn't Russia, it was the Rus and so Belarus just means white Russia,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay.

Gene:

kind of like Ukraine means borderland

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

by the way, I did finally get the Ammo Inn that I ordered back in January.

Gene:

which I don't remember.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Some 3 0 8

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and great apologies from the, from

Gene:

Oh, yeah, the guy that told you that they said they were running late. That's right. I remember that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

so anyway, the ammo looks great. I need to go function check it. I'll report back on that. And then I've got to talk to the guy again and say, okay, what are real shipping times? And, you know, let's, let's get this kind of settled down on few months. Is not acceptable a couple weeks a month. Okay. What's it really going to be if there was an

Gene:

if they if they tell you it's gonna be a couple months. What do you care?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

right. Anyway Us made 308. Essentially m80 ball ammo 147 grain dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, which I'll, you know, take the chronograph and everything else and see what I get out of it. But I, what do you mean? I've

Gene:

Oh Do you have one? I didn't know you had one. I know you were looking at that Garmin one

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, but that's a different style than the old, you know, rabbit ear ones.

Gene:

hmm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So anyway, the, the point is I'll be shooting it. I'll let everybody know, but it, the 500 rounds that I got after shipping taxes and everything else was like 76 cents a round. For us made new

Gene:

That's Super cheap

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yes, exactly. So if it's decent at

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. If it's decent, let, let me know, obviously, first and foremost, but let everybody else know, cause you could always use more ammo.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah,

Gene:

what is this gay Alex Jones cartoon you just sent me?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you made me drop my phone gene. Oh, no, it's hilarious is what it is. It's something that someone posted on no agenda social and it's Alex Jones on info or saying that's a cut and wrap for today. And then he goes home. Everything okay, babe? And it's a frog standing there, and the frog turns to him and says, How long do we have to hide who we are?

Gene:

Cause you know, the water turned the frogs

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, which is just

Gene:

presumably Alex Jones is

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

whoever came up with that.

Gene:

Yeah. See, we can laugh at this shit where the liberals can't laugh at themselves.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh yeah. Dude, I'm pretty sure Alex would sit there and roll on that.

Gene:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure Alex has a version of this with Blair White in it as well.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Did you see the gun bunny video I sent

Gene:

sent that to you like a month ago, dude.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You send me too much shit.

Gene:

Yeah, you don't look most of it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

But the, the last line when the girl turns to Blair White and says, Don't mansplay to

Gene:

don't mansplain. The look on Blair's face was great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they had a fun time doing that. It's that was, so that was the thing they did that really on Heather's channel. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Gun

Gene:

had the full video and it's that whole crew. The you know, the, the South Texas gun YouTuber crew,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

Brandon and demolition ranch and donut operator and the black rifle coffee dudes and chicks. It's like they, they all just go smoke pot and hang out and shoot videos.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Did you see the the demolition Ranch Range Day videos

Gene:

I did, I

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

the min mini guns

Gene:

wish that was something they sold tickets for.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, and they, right now they were just doing it for Brandon's con congressional stuff, but yeah,

Gene:

yeah, and, and I guess if the, I didn't even look into it, but I suppose maybe they had a level of donation that would get you invited, but the,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

it, it was winners. It was random, according

Gene:

it random?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm, I'm sure that there was some level of donation that could have been done to

Gene:

But, but they're It was, there's a lot of YouTube people from Austin down there that are not even necessarily gun people. I saw that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah,

Gene:

Which is good because honestly, if people that have never heard of Brandon but live in this district hear about him because of other YouTubers, that's, that's fine too.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, yeah. And, you

Gene:

I would so love for him to win, man.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I, dude, I think he might. I think he might. He's got a very good shot against Tony. Every time Tony Gonzalez posts something on Twitter, they are ratioing him so hard.

Gene:

yeah. No, I think Gonzalez did not realize what he was stepping into here

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And the fact that he's trying to use social media against someone who can just own him on social media is just insane.

Gene:

Yeah. And taking shit out of context.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Oh you know, what he did, he made fun of Trump's kid. And then you look at the whole video and it's No, no, no, and I'm pretty sure Jake and oh, he's not from here. He's from North Carolina.

Gene:

Yeah, so's Tony.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Tony, you know, we shouldn't talk about that. It's name on the, you know, words against others, eh

Gene:

and, yeah, so he's from North Carolina. The state was founded by people from Texas and North Carolina

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Kentucky.

Gene:

or Kentucky. And yeah, you know what I meant, Kentucky and North Carolina. It's come on dude. That's not, that's not something that's going to make people like versus the people voting for him that are from Mexico rather than North Carolina. Huh.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

When you saw the statistics that Tim and crew pulled up on voter registration here in Texas, right?

Gene:

I did. Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, that's some interesting numbers. I, I really want to see what the full story is on some of

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. It's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you know, like four at the time, it was like 4, 500 dead people had registered that

Gene:

Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You

Gene:

Yeah. Out of what? Several hundred thousand that registered that week

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

that week?

Gene:

that week.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And that's the, that's the key point is when you're looking at these voter registration numbers that are going through the social security administration there. There are a couple of key things to remember. 1, the social security administration is the validation of last resort, meaning

Gene:

They don't have a driver's license.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

They don't have any state record that they can be used to validate birth certificate, et

Gene:

I don't know how Texas allows anybody to vote without a driver's license. Cause the driver's license in Texas is the de facto proof of us citizenship. You, you can't get a Texas driver's license without being a US citizen or a legal legal, legal.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

resident.

Gene:

Resident. Yeah, that's the word. Yeah. So you could definitely do it with a green card and shit, but it's, you can't do it without providing a birth certificate or a letter of naturalization or a whatever. And I know this cause I remember I had to do this when I moved to Texas. I'm like, you're kidding, right? I mean, I'm, I've had a driver's license forever. I've got a social security number. But I have to provide my fucking birth certificate to Texas for a driver's license? Yep, you do.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

All I can say is that there's a big push to get a bunch of people registered and, you know, if they swing Texas, you know, blue this time around,

Gene:

sure.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Texas is not purple, not in its heart. It's

Gene:

In its population, not in its heart.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

In okay. I don't know that I agree with

Gene:

yeah you need to go spend more time in big cities like Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas, and then you'll agree. Like you already know about Austin. You don't need to spend any

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, I, I spend time in those cities and I, you know, those cities are purple, but I wouldn't call them blue. Houston is a great example. Houston is extremely diverse in its political views. If you go downtown, sure, pretty blue. But Houston's huge, and if you go out to any of the surrounding areas you go to the woodlands. The woodlands in Montgomery County is about as conservative as it gets. You know, there's just, There's differentiation in that. So I don't know that you can sit there and say, Oh Houston, Dallas, Austin are blue. Fort Worth isn't all the mid cities aren't Dallas maybe. But, you know, fuck, look at Plano. Plano is not blue. There's lots of that that you can say. Even even Austin, you know, if you look at Round Rock, Round Rock is very different than Austin.

Gene:

you while you're talking here.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

As you text me, okay,

Gene:

Yep. It's pretty purple. I, all I'm saying is right now, Texas certainly is voting majority Republican, but I don't think it would take a whole lot of new voters to flip Texas to be a blue state.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Maybe

Gene:

not happy about that. I'm just saying,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

happens, it will be good enough argument for us to finally just succeed. We'll, we'll just have

Gene:

yeah, because I think certainly if you look at the Texas legislature it is overwhelmingly Republican, but that's because it's covering a lot more than the big cities. But if you go purely by population where the big cities, the big blue circles on the map make up a huge percentage of the population of the entire state, then it's. Totally conceivable that Texas could flip.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

to wait and see, hopefully it doesn't, but, you know, I, I, I really think that we are at a turning point in history. I think we are at we have 2 paths ahead of us and it is, it is a time for choosing. That's coming up, and we, we have to see which direction we're gonna go.

Gene:

Yep. Yep. No, I agree. I mean, and, and there's one thing that one of the people at the dinner yesterday said, cause I was bitching about too many Californians here. I was included in every dinner I go to is bitching about Californians. She was saying, and she's a lawyer here and, and she was saying that, that the trend seems to be reversing where a lot of people that had moved to Texas from California are actually going back to California now.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I call bullshit on

Gene:

It's the first I've heard of it, but I don't know if she's got, if some insights that I don't have, if she's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I mean, if that's the case, great.

Gene:

Yeah. Right. I'm like, I'll be all for that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Felicia.

Gene:

It's still think 80 percent of the people that I meet here in Austin came from either California or New York. Overwhelmingly over half.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Mm-Hmm.

Gene:

very few people in Austin that are originally from Texas.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm originally from Texas.

Gene:

You're not in Austin, are you?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Nope. Nor would I choose

Gene:

exactly. Where would you want to be?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

which I think says more about Austin than me.

Gene:

it looks like that East Texas seems to be the most reddest of the state.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah. And man, I, I'm very, I am very tempted,

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I've, they've got some opportunity to potentially buy some property over in East Texas. And I mentioned it to Jean off the show and, it's, I've gotta make a financial decision here pretty quick on it.

Gene:

Mm hmm. Yep. And I've just never been there, I need to go check out that part of the state before I can even have a rational thought about buying anything there. What else we got going on

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Do you

Gene:

of these topics

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

do you have a ARD device for your weapons,

Gene:

ARD.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

anti reflective device for, for your optics

Gene:

on some, but not most of them.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I ordered for a bunch of different optics and scopes from MK machining. They've got some that are reasonable and they've got custom sizes available. So you can pretty much find

Gene:

Aluminum or plastic?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

plastic.

Gene:

Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

So yeah, just something to consider.

Gene:

I need to start putting some frickin sco I've got Five red dots and three scopes that are not mounted right now. I need to start mounting shit on weapons.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't do you any good if it's not mounted

Gene:

I know.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

you know, sighted in.

Gene:

Exactly. The first step is getting the damn thing mounted and then after that getting that side done. And I need to go to the range anyway because I have a new lower that came in for that little project gun I was telling you about. Yeah,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Let me know when. Let's go.

Gene:

yeah, yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

do that.

Gene:

Probably after the eclipse, I would say.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

All right. Let's go. That or if you want to go to East Texas, we can make a trip out to my parents place and go

Gene:

yeah we, we can do that as well. But I, I need to pick up my lower gun range. I might as well

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

long has it been sitting there?

Gene:

Few days,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

How many days is a few days?

Gene:

less than a week.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

All right. All right. All

Gene:

say it's been sitting there where I've had one phone call.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. They're not like,

Gene:

I'll have, I'll probably get another,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

up or

Gene:

phone call on Monday or Tuesday saying, Hey, did you get our call? Your, your thing's here.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, I'm usually the one calling them. Has it come in yet? Did you process it yet? Can I come and do the paperwork? Yeah,

Gene:

and I, I, historically have done more of that, but I, this, you know, it's just a lower, it's not a fully complete gun I can go shoot it's not been quite as And I do have, I think, the parts for a few of the tweaks that I want to do but I still need to get the upper,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and you're looking for a side charging handle,

Gene:

yeah, side charging handle on the, mm hmm,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, CNC first. The side charging handle is the problem there. Everything else is pretty easy.

Gene:

yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a lot less common and there's the, there's the right part. Charging handle, kind of like the, the AKs have that those are fairly readily

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

on the bolt carrier and

Gene:

And that's not what I want. I like left hand

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah,

Gene:

and there's a few companies that do make left hand,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

do you mind a reciprocating charging handle?

Gene:

I would prefer not to ruin my fingers. So yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay, that, that's the other problem because there are some piston kits that you can put on that have a side charging handle that you can do but they're inherently reciprocating. Yeah,

Gene:

Yeah, I think we

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

one of my complaints about the Tavor is I wish the charging handle folded.

Gene:

oh, okay. I was gonna say it doesn't reciprocate. So what are you talking

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, but they, they make a folding charging handle for the X 95, but not the 7, and that's annoying.

Gene:

Have you been snagging on things? What do you care?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You know, I'm just, you know,

Gene:

It doesn't stick out that far. It's maybe like it's under an inch long

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

okay.

Gene:

I don't know. I just Unless you're gonna snag it on something. I just wouldn't worry about it Because it's not moving. It's just stationary

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

The problem is, is if you bump it and take it out of battery at all, the gun will malfunction. That to me is one of those things where if it, if I can fold it and not catch it on anything or risk catching it on

Gene:

yeah,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

a that's a thing for me. So

Gene:

of the folding handles, er, folding side charging handles, guns that I found I don't know if it was an upper, it might have been a complete gun, was it actually has a disconnect from the charging handle. So that when it's in its kind of like off position, it's totally disconnected from the bolt. So even if you bump it, nothing happens. And then you have to flip it down and over in order to actually charge the gun.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, one thing I will say about the Tavor that I really really do like in just holding and playing with the weapon familiarizing myself with the you know the manual of arms as it

Gene:

Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

is The charging handle being able to come back and up to lock it in place. I like the bolt release where it is when reloading. I will say over the older generation divorce, having the magazine eject where it is on an AR is very beneficial.

Gene:

Yeah. Without that, I'd be fumbling all over the place.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

right? But it is. Really, it's not that big of a change to get used to reloads from this to an AR 15 and back and forth are similar enough that it's

Gene:

hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You know, there's a lot of really cool things there. Yeah, the, the only real bitches I have right now are the 1 and 1 and 10 1 and 1 and 12 twist versus 1 and 10. And then You know, that's really pretty much it that and the butt pad. I don't like the

Gene:

Yeah, you can get that replaced. There's a more comfortable one available.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, the manticore one.

Gene:

Yeah, I think it's

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

anyway, I I'm looking at it. I don't really care about the curve or whatever. I just want something. It's too slick. I don't even really care about having padding. It's just very slick on my shirt. So that's the only

Gene:

Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

don't need a, like a padded butt pad. I just need something that has more texture. So we'll, we'll see what I can do there, but already disassembled, reassembled, gone through that. I think I am going to buy I've got a shopping cart full of some spare parts. I'm probably gonna get a handful of spare parts. Do you have a barrel wrench by the way for yours?

Gene:

No.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. I may have to get you something then.

Gene:

Is it not use the AR 15 one?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No,

Gene:

Oh, I didn't even know that. Okay.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

It's totally different barrel

Gene:

hmm. Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Anyway so getting some stuff in, but I, I think one of the things I'm going to do is I'm going to buy an extra barrel and I think I'm going to get the 20 inch barrel kit for it

Gene:

That makes sense. If, if you're going to get a second barrel, you might as well get the long one.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah, exactly. And there you go. Yeah,

Gene:

Yeah. It does look stupid as hell, though, with the long barrel.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah if I'm ever actually replacing the barrel and putting that in for a shit hit the fan reason, I'm not going to really give a shit.

Gene:

Right. That's true. Okay, last thing. Did you watch the the Dr. Phil with Mossab Youssef?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm blanking on

Gene:

Oh, you didn't? He's the son of the founder of Hamas. Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I've watched part of it. It was annoying.

Gene:

Oh, I thought it was great. I love this guy. This guy is frickin awesome. I put all his videos links on on X. He has got an intensity which I haven't seen for years in people. It is, it is an amazing intensity. He doesn't blink. You know, he has this stare that just laser cuts right through you. And you know, he's saying shit will not rest until Hamas does not exist. I was like,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah. Okay. There, there's, there's some again, how do you get rid of an idea? You don't. Ideas are bulletproof. Hamas is an idea.

Gene:

there's a way,

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, there isn't.

Gene:

there's a way

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

What's that?

Gene:

we just don't like to talk about it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Okay. So genocide. Even,

Gene:

require somebody to have them.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah, but you can't just okay I think that's going down a very dark and bad path that has not been well replicated in history.

Gene:

It's yeah, I think it's likely to happen though. The, the particular instance of him being on Dr. Phil was hilarious because there was a couple of these. Very American, from a Muslim family, girls that are college students that were on as well. Which is amazing that they actually agreed to do this. And he just shreds them completely. Oh my god, it was so pleasurable to watch. He he essentially says that you know, you're, you're fully supporting Hamas. In your actions, you pointed out that the scarf the girl's wearing, it basically is LARPing. He's yeah, you, you wear that because you don't actually have the what was his phrase? You don't have the moral authority to actually speak on behalf of Palestinians. And so you drape this, uh, scarf over yourself instead. I mean, and it's hard to argue with the guy because he literally grew up there and was in Hamas

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

yeah.

Gene:

and his dad started it.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

One of the things that strikes me is when people like, for instance Mia Khalifa comes out in supporting some of this

Gene:

Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and you know, it's you realize what they would do to you, right?

Gene:

Yeah.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

You, you do have enough self awareness to understand that you would be dead. Right. Right.

Gene:

They really don't. No. And, and it's, I was watching this thing with the I think it was a video from the UK. They had a march of Jews for Hamas or whatever. And these people are so fucking stupid. Sitting in a whole different country, which is basically running on Judeo Christian laws and principles, and then saying that a country which is not, never has been, and has in its charter the the complete obliteration of Israel and Jews, incidentally, which is also in the Quran. It's not talking about a piece of land, it's talking about the A whole people and how it is a a horrible event that, that what's going out there. It's like you're looking at the end result without looking whatsoever at the cause.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Yeah.

Gene:

could, you could just as easily say, Oh, it was such a horrible thing for the German people to lose World War II. It was so horrible that the Americans dropped nuclear bombs on Japan. But that, if you look at them in a vacuum, without looking at the reasons why these things actually happened of course they're horrible. No one's gonna deny that. And I don't, you don't even have to look at Dresden. I just, in general, the second half of World War II where Germany was losing territory rather than gaining territory. If you're looking at it in a pure vacuum, you're not with any historical context of why. Yeah, it's bad for Germany. We can agree on that. This is bad for the Arabs living in Western Israel too. Okay, we can agree on that.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

have you ever heard the saying, you know, if you smell shit everywhere you go, you should check your shoes. Okay.

Gene:

What's that have to do with anything?

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Nothing.

Gene:

Okay. Mm hmm.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

I'm just, it's actually double sided there. It's a commentary on the Jews always getting oppressed, screwed over, you know, the joke in fiddler on the roof, right? God, I know we are your chosen people, but for once, could you choose someone else?

Gene:

Mm

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

And then, you know, the Palestinians always being oppressed and everything else. There, there's, there's kind of a double meaning there in my joke. Yeah.

Gene:

And that's the point. I don't think that oppression should matter one bit for anybody. I think it's actions that you have to take into context. And, I'm sorry, but having a, a wall that separates you from people that are sending hateful messages Suicide bombers to you is not oppression.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

No, and let's not forget there is exits towards the

Gene:

Egypt has them shut down. Yeah, yeah, Egypt. And that's the thing is, and he talks about this is how for the majority of the Muslim and Arab world, and he, you know, he's not speaking doesn't presume to speak for the Persians, but certainly for the Arabs, That they don't want those people leaving the West Bank because they like having a thorn in the side of Israel and they will do nothing to remove that thorn, even if they have full capabilities, like Saudi Arabia clearly has sufficient enough land and resources and money to take the entirety of that population out of And have them living in an Arab country, but they will never do that because it doesn't serve their purpose, which is their purpose is to have something that's constantly fucking with Israel. It's, it's a fucking Chihuahua. It's an ankle biter. It's, it's a constant nonstop barrage, but, but the Chihuahua is so little. How can you hurt it? Oh, don't step on that poor doggie. You know, it's God damn it. If that fucking Chihuahua wasn't biting my ink. Okay. This point, I'm actually talking about a real Chihuahua that bit me. Because those fucking dogs, I have only been bitten by one dog in my entire life and it's a fucking Chihuahua. It's the worst piece of shit dogs ever made. It, it's, it's a, looks horrible, got bulging eyes, yeps non stop, and has no concept of getting into a fight with something that literally can squish it. Stupid as dogs, it took all the mental effort that I could muster to not step on this stupid thing, because I fully could have after it bit me. Stupid as fucking dog.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

Tell us how you really feel, Gene.

Gene:

If there's one species that should be exterminated, it's probably chihuahuas.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

That's not a species, it's a breed, but sure! Ha ha ha!

Gene:

I'm not going to discriminate. It's just, it's the failed experiment as far as I'm concerned. I don't understand how people can actually want a pet chihuahua.

GMT20240407-150339_Recording_separate2:

and on that note, I think I think we're good. End on a good Gene rant.

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