Just Two Good Old Boys
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Just Two Good Old Boys
097 Just Two Good Old Boys
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Howdy Ben. How are you today? I'm doing well, gene yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, you know what I am looking forward to a break. So yesterday was Friday and I don't work again until next Thursday. Damn, what a slacker. Hey, I took two additional days off. We got Christmas on Wednesday. Okay, you're taking Christmas off? Oh, my god, I know right, I always worked how dare I yeah you know, by the way, I want to. I want to talk a little bit and bitch.
Speaker 2:I really hate companies moving to this model of unlimited pto oh okay, I've been implementing it in companies that I've come in to work on, so go ahead, tell me why.
Speaker 1:Well, because you know, generally, PTO is a point of negotiation. So if I negotiated more PTO as part of my salary negotiation and now you go to this, that screws me. That's one of the reasons to do it, yes. And then, second of all, if I leave the company, I don't get any of that PTO paid out.
Speaker 2:That's the second reason to do it exactly. You just summarize the benefits of it. Yes, but not to the employee. No, of course not for the company.
Speaker 1:I get hired by companies, not employees. Right, right and fine, fair enough, but as an employee and as someone who has a worth, that I negotiate fairly well and successfully, it's really pissing me off that I negotiated a lot of PTO and now we're doing this. It's like okay, where's my pay raise?
Speaker 2:Well, did you negotiate that preemptively? No, oh well, it next to be. You look, I know what you feel like. I twice not once, but twice in the past, like many years ago, many moons uh, I negotiated stock options with companies quite a bit in excess of what other people are getting, uh, sometimes taking over a month to do this negotiation once they decide they want to hire me, yep, and in one instance, the company that I did that with this was in pre.
Speaker 2:Well, this is really during Y2K, so 25 years ago, and the company was literally set for an IPO. We had a date. Everybody was counting the amount of money they would have. I would be day one in several million dollars. And that's when Black Friday happened in 2000. Yeah, and a shocker a week later, our ipo got canceled and, uh, I left that company about three months later because it was clearly going down the toilet. Yeah, never did anything. Second company I did a similar kind of move and thinking, well, this has got to be the two's the charm, right? Um, this has got to be much better. And um, uh, did the negotiation got, the deal was in the company, and then the company is about to be acquired, and which was a good thing, because that means we get paid out yeah, in anyone who has equity in a company.
Speaker 1:The two things you want to have happen eventually is either to go public or get purchased, exactly so this was the other option.
Speaker 2:It's acquired and, uh, I don't see anything. So I talked to hr and apparently in the fine print it said that your minimal vesting period is one year. Yeah, you get nothing until you hit one year. Company got acquired 11 months after I started there.
Speaker 1:Usually there is also a clause, from what I've seen, that if a company is acquired, your vesting continues as long as you're staying on with that. The higher the acquiring company bought it. Okay, well, I'm just saying that usually that's an employee agreement.
Speaker 2:I got screwed twice, so I get the pain of losing something that was hard fought, negotiated yeah.
Speaker 1:And equity is such a crap shoot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's why usually, usually, even with a great valuation and everything the amount of equity that you get and the way it is set up, with the uh sell timers and everything else on it and the you know holdings um, you might, if you're lucky, get a few hundred grand, which you know a few hundred, yeah, which is a few hundred grand, exactly right, right, but that was a lot of people go into it thinking, oh, I'm gonna get in, it's gonna be the next facebook, I'm gonna be a millionaire off of this and that's just delusional yeah, probably more aol than facebook, but yeah, um, aol was famous for having the lowest level employees become millionaires when they went public.
Speaker 2:I mean literally like guys that did no computer related activities, that were doing cleanup work at the company, got hundreds of thousands of dollars. Guys that were low level developers became millionaires, yeah. But yeah, this was during, you know, the Y2K days. Most of my friends were getting equity and getting, if not millions, certainly hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I had set myself up for this thing pretty nicely and then to be the one that didn't get it is like mother fucker. This is just not fair. Everyone's running around buying like cars for cash and houses for cash and stuff, and I'm getting screwed well, hopefully, one of the companies that I've worked for recently and have equity in is going public next year.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, hopefully that happens. You know, if you all stop hearing the podcast and stop hearing from me that, very well, may have been, what? No, just joking. We don't do this for money. We do this because we enjoy it, and yeah, and hey we put out a little Christmas card and thank you for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so if you donate to the podcast, hopefully you listened to the last micro episode, which was about five minutes long, but that included a little customized Christmas song that actually mentioned the names of people that are recurring donators. And for everybody who's not recurring, who's donated once or, you know, occasionally, we want to thank you guys as well, but the people named specifically in the tune are the ones that are on our monthly recurring donations and you know, as if this starts to grow, we will get better about tracking, you know, and, uh, hopefully saying thank you, but you know, right now we're still pretty small.
Speaker 1:So grow us, help us grow by going out and, you know, hitting people in the mouth and getting that message out there.
Speaker 2:That's a very good point. Um, our listenership has been fairly steady and not growing, and definitely what you want to have is podcast or anything, youtube video growing, and definitely what you want to have as a podcast or anything, youtube video, whatever is to have more people listening tomorrow than you did yesterday. And we're kind of in like the exact same people are listening loop and uh. So, even if you're not donating, if you, if you want to help us, then spread the word, tell somebody else about the podcast, and I know like everybody and their cousin is doing a podcast these days. So it's hard for people to find things organically unless they're specifically looking for good old boys, and there's probably 10 podcasts that have good old boys in them. So, if you like what we do, spread the word.
Speaker 1:You could have chosen a better album art, though, for the Christmas card.
Speaker 2:You know, I spent an hour doing album art.
Speaker 1:You look like Santa Claus and I look like Hispanic. Yeah. Yeah and Neither one of us looks like that so we're even. Soy de Tejas.
Speaker 2:Feliz Navidad, my friend police there that, um.
Speaker 1:So what's? Uh, what's happening other than, well, we had some movement at midnight last night now, you're not talking about bowel movement here. I hope no, that was you okay.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, we had uh the uh spending bill passed last night at midnight, so no government shutdown for the record government shutdown was what I really wanted on my christmas list that that's true, but uh, I thought it just passed the house, not the senate uh the senate?
Speaker 1:uh, no, it looks like uh, according to the cnn, the senate passed it as well.
Speaker 2:So well, cnn's fake news, so I don't know if we can trust them. So the senate managed to get it in in the same time frame. That's amazing. Yep, because they were bitching about it more, so they did get to remove the um, the pay raise for um, congress cruders, yep.
Speaker 1:So the cnn headline is congress passes fund and cnn's the one who has this. I haven't seen anyone else reporting it this way. But congress passes funding bill. As trump sets stage first presidency and they go through, the senate passed bipartisan bills. Uh, early saturday, yeah, so early this morning. So, according to cnn, the senate passed it.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, yeah, but hey, no increase on the debt. All this again shortly. Stop gap bill to avoid shutdown on the 11 ceiling. So he gets to do all this again shortly Stopgap bill to avoid shutdown on the 11th hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we also have a debt ceiling.
Speaker 2:That did not get expanded, oh it didn't get expanded Shocker Yep.
Speaker 1:So we'll be doing this all again here shortly.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah Also, hopefully Trump just vetoes anything that increases, that's not gonna happen, um you know, because he that that just won't happen well, what I will?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, it'd be good if it did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we need to come to Jesus moment. We are a country that is addicted to that credit card and we need to really Well.
Speaker 2:there's no consequence there. We're acting like a teenage girl on our dad's credit card.
Speaker 1:Exactly. We really need to stop and start living within our means. And yeah, that means cutting programs that people have paid into and expect, like security Medicaid.
Speaker 2:That would be a great one to cut. What's that? A program called government? Yeah, exactly, I mentioned this on the other show I do. On Relenting that. What would you do if you were president? I said, well, the first thing is I would be dictator, not president. But the first thing I would do, uh, is fire every single government employee. Every single federal government employee has now been fired. Now, if you want to have a job that is similar to the one that you were just fired from, you have an opportunity to get rehired, but you're going to have to qualify for that job and you're going to have to demonstrate positive skillset, because a vast majority of people in the government do the absolute least possible work and then just sit on their ass at home. Most of them work from home now. They never came back after COVID, of course, and fuck around and on social media leaving nasty messages about conservatives. Well, I don't need to have somebody like that working for me.
Speaker 1:I think one of the best things we could do is put in term limits for civil servants yeah, well, term limits for everybody, term limits for anybody in the government should have term. If you receive a paycheck from the government federal government you can only receive that a paycheck from the federal government for a blank number of years let you know 10 years, fine, and then you have to take 10 years off before yeah, you basically consider government to be no different than the military. Yes, well, no, because you have career. People in the military.
Speaker 2:You shouldn't. You should have 10-year service in the military. Career people in the military are an impedance and a way to get more money and less things done.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm of the opinion we shouldn't have a standing military, but I would separate out the branches.
Speaker 2:Ten years is a good compromise.
Speaker 1:So I think the Navy needs to exist and the Marine Corps needs to exist as a small expeditionary force.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you've got to have a place for people with no skills but good muscle to do something.
Speaker 1:But the Army. We don't need a standing army. Armies are only for occupation. Well, until we're fighting a war where we're planning on going and occupying someone which should be basically never, we don't need an army now.
Speaker 2:Can we raise an army quickly and it's funny you say occupation, as the us occupies more territory than any other country for probably the last 50 years.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, Our hegemony is problematic in many ways.
Speaker 2:We have bases in over 100 countries. Right now I preach into the choir brother. I know I'm just stating facts here.
Speaker 1:Anyway, the spending bill passed, so we'll see. Did you see the stuff on Twitter about Kamala and Joe rushing back to DC? No, so there's a lot of stuff on Twitter going around about motorcades zipping through DC in a hurry and stuff like that. And oh, why are Joe and Kamala rushing back? Or are they going to change out the puppet? You know, is joe gonna resign? Is commonly gonna become president? I, I don't think so, dude, based based off the fact that we really haven't seen her and the one time we saw her she was drunkard and shit.
Speaker 2:yeah, I, I don't think she's functional right now at all and we know, neither one of us doesn't mean that they can't still do stuff with them, right?
Speaker 1:right, but I, I think, I think the simplest explanation is joe rushed back to sign this bill and to push it through and get it to go um, or at least his presence too right, his aura, his metaphorical presence the internet outlets had a picture of joe coming back to dc and says joe stumbles back into dc. Yeah, and they're not even pretending anymore, but you know a lot of the conspiracy theories are rife, but uh, all I can say and I put this out on twitter last night that if you haven't watched babylon 5, you really should, because I I sadly think it is prophetic for our time.
Speaker 2:I have to say, in some of the episodes, especially in Season 2, it sure feels like they're talking about modern politics.
Speaker 1:Oh, just wait, Just wait.
Speaker 2:Just wait, dude.
Speaker 1:Wait till you get to Season 3.
Speaker 2:Just wait, that sounds good.
Speaker 1:The graphics got better. Graphics are getting better, for sure. Yeah, they get really actually pretty passable in Season 3.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. That's good, yeah, so I've been enjoying that show. I actually have been falling asleep after watching one or two episodes instead of my usual three or four lately, but I'm still checking through it and I'm enjoying it. So that was a good recommendation by you. And then I recommended that you, at some point when you're out of your current shows, start watching Community, which is one of my favorite shows. I think it's got my style of humor in that show and uh, uh, the characters that are in it are very good. I just, in a lot of ways it is a uh date.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a dan harman show I mean that's probably all I need to say for people yeah, I, I definitely will watch it.
Speaker 1:You know, uh, community, if I remember right was on right about the same time parks and rec was. It was on nbc.
Speaker 2:I believe yeah, so I watched parks and rec, but probably about the same. Parks and rec was pretty good, but parks and rec community is very quick. Parks and rec has a much slower pace. Um, I did enjoy parks and rec um I love the libertarian character on there initially. He becomes progressively less libertarian over time. But yeah, the initial character they created with nick was, uh, very much a libertarian type, was like well, why do you work here to?
Speaker 1:destroy the government from yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:It's pretty much uh, to ensure, am I interrupting anything as possible one of my favorite lines am I interrupting anything important?
Speaker 1:I work for the government? Not possible no, it's uh, it is good.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, the. I like the little indian dude and he is physically little, so I can call him that um, don't remember his name in parks and rec, but he's acting black the entire time. Yeah, pretty funny. And then, um, april, I've always liked that character because she's just crazy.
Speaker 2:So you definitely want to be, like you know, one of her friends, not her enemies, if you don't want to get stabbed yeah this is the kind of yeah, exactly, he's the kind of person that would do shit that other people would never consider, and I appreciate that. So, yeah, I was, uh, I I like aubrey plaza in general, like because she actually is crazy. So I, uh I've enjoyed her and most things she's done, most of the shows. I even watched her volleyball Tim team that she used to be on I.
Speaker 1:I'm I. Why am I not surprised? I know Right, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, stalker, definitely not a stalker, um, but she did end up moving, so I don't know what that was all about. Uh, so I don't know what that was all about.
Speaker 1:Oh Gene, oh man, I got a bitch about a gun Go ahead. So I, for the first time in my life, posted on Twitter complaining to customer service. Oh no, so I ordered an accessory that said it was in stock and ready to ship and I ordered this on like somewhere around the 9th thinking okay, I've still got plenty of time for it to get here If they ship it and everything for Christmas.
Speaker 1:Didn't ship, didn't ship, didn't ship. Last week I ping them oh yeah, that you wanted OD green. Well, that color's out of stock, so we don't know when it'll ship. Okay, can you ship a black one then sure we can ship that within 24 hours. Here we are over 48 hours later, still nothing. Oh, like, piss me off customer service, so I won't be getting that in time for christmas was?
Speaker 2:was it for you?
Speaker 1:yes, it was my christmas present to myself oh, so you're.
Speaker 2:You're okay, hang on. So you're like a nearly 40-year-old man complaining about a Christmas present being laid for Christmas that you're buying for yourself.
Speaker 1:I really don't care. It's more the principle of the thing, all right. Okay, all right so is there an alternate place?
Speaker 2:to order it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, but the deal was from the know, the uh, the company's website.
Speaker 2:So apparently they sold a lot of them. Yeah, apparently but uh, you know I.
Speaker 1:I guess what it comes down to and this is for companies in general don't promise things you can't live up to like. I think that's just a good rule for life in general is hey, if you, if you're not sure you can do something, don't make a promise you know that's funny, so I agree with you.
Speaker 2:It's a good rule for life. But there's also this thing called marketing, whose job is to promise things that you can't deliver, and literally, literally every company has a marketing department. The sales department's more responsible for actually delivering the things that they sell no, the marketing department that's responsible for actually delivering no, the engineering is supposed to is responsible for creating, but that's not necessarily what will be sold.
Speaker 2:Whatever engineering creates is generally going to be hyped up beyond its capabilities by marketing. Okay, so it's. It's one of those uh unpleasant truths of the universe that, no matter how good of capabilities you built into a product, marketing will surely market something that that doesn't have or doesn't do, because marketing is all about overhyping and then hoping that nobody notices, or hoping that by the time the product actually ships, that engineering will have added that thing that just got invented by marketing. And I've seen that so many times. Dude, okay, just one of them. Things Okay. And here's the other sad truth to what you're saying is for every person like you that right now that's pissed off that their product hadn't shipped yet.
Speaker 1:I'm not really pissed off, but it is just frustrating.
Speaker 2:But there's probably about 10 people that just haven't noticed. Oh, easily, yeah. So statistically speaking they're okay with saying, yep, it's in stock, we'll get it out to you, and then not actually delivering for months. And they shouldn't be. But statistically they will sell more units if they do that than if they were being honest and just simply cut off sales at a certain point.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know. I'm not justifying these things I am of the opinion and the way I try and do my business is I under promise over deliver? Right that is my mo and I think it's pretty.
Speaker 2:You know, important, that that's the way we handle it that's why I always tell my clients is like I'm gonna be completely under promising and over delivering, just wait, and so as long as I got, I'm waiting for at least a couple of years I'm in good shit, all right. So I haven't been paying attention too much to politics. I got to tell you I mentioned this to you on my other show as well is that I kind of got a little bit of a politics burnout, like post-election Trump kind of not quite in office yet going through that low period, like I'm not.
Speaker 1:Surely you've seen the woke tiktokers talking about how trump hasn't done anything since being elected and joe biden has done more as uh as since trump has won the presidency.
Speaker 2:I have not, so is that my god? They're fucking, they're saying Trump hasn't done anything.
Speaker 1:Right, he got elected. Why hasn't he done anything yet?
Speaker 2:Oh, the stupidity of the youth. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes and no. There's some middle-aged women saying this. Oh, the stupidity of the youth who never grew up. I mean it is just. It's hilarious if you pay attention yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:You know, what I did see is a picture of some blue-haired 60 70 year old type woman in congress. That is yeah marianne yeah, can.
Speaker 1:Can we just start by saying if you are over the age of 30 and you have blue hair, that should be a red flag to everyone around you.
Speaker 2:And I mean like bright blue hair. I'm not using blue hair as a generic term for old people. My favorite term for people with white hair and this is something that my dad used to call people back when he wasn't old is dandelions, is you? Know, they have just white hair and like a dandelion, it's frizzy. That's frizzy Usually, yeah, cause they don't really bother keeping it up, and so yeah.
Speaker 1:You say that I'm starting to get quite a bit of gray dude. I know, right In my temples and on my beard, four year old man, and on my chest it's like uh yeah, I think gray hair is a sign of uh, you know, maturity and wisdom, especially a great pending death.
Speaker 2:Mostly, mostly, a beard says that. Yeah, uh, impending death. Well, you know, there are people that have gray hair in their 30s and don't die until their 80s.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, you're missing the joke. There's an old joe rogan skit. You know, fuck making ball hair color. We gotta focus on keeping this dude alive. I don't get it. You did. Okay, never mind You'd have to watch, I will send you the clip.
Speaker 2:Okay, send me the clip. Let's see what you know. Joe Rogan was never all that funny he you're so wrong on that he is hilarious. I've watched a lot of his comedy back when it was actually new and he still has new stuff better as an interviewer than he is as a comedian I think so too, but he's still pretty funny he's not unfunny, but there are so many comedians funnier than him.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, one of my favorites was Mitch Hedberg.
Speaker 2:Carlin was still performing when Rogan was performing yeah, carlin's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you were talking about the blue hair in Congress yeah, and the first time I've seen her.
Speaker 2:I'm sure she's been there for a while, but she seems to be a total Karen personified and just bitching about anything. What do you think about? We actually set some standards for who gets to be in Congress, such as Well. How about no women, for one?
Speaker 1:I mean, I can think of good female congresswoman though yes, I know you like the boobs no, not just that, but actually what they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tulsi was a good congress critter uh see, I don't know what she did. I mean, I like, I liked her personality, but I had no idea what, what bills she pushed through or any details about her well, that's your own fault for not paying attention, but she did pretty good.
Speaker 1:She pushed back on, uh, some of the gun control stuff. Like she, she was a very independent democrat she was very much for gun control.
Speaker 2:That I remember, because I remember the period in which she came out and said I was wrong and that we actually do want more people to have guns and that was after she was out of congress, so during congress. I do know that she was for gun control not all the bills.
Speaker 1:She was for specific measures of gun control that I disagree with her on, but there were several bills that she voted against. Like she was not you, you can't say she was ever just oh solely pro gun control, because that really wasn't her position. It was more nuanced than that.
Speaker 2:She was not a democrat that fell into lockstep, which I appreciate yeah, well, she was also a democrat that was actively serving in the military, which is rare or rare, used to be rare, I think. These days it's actually over half democrats in the military, but uh, back when she first joined.
Speaker 1:No no no.
Speaker 2:I think what you're saying is the military has gone, woke more than yeah, absolutely, the military got rid of a lot of the old leadership during COVID Mm-hmm and the people that were always more liberal, that were in the military, are the ones that are running it right now, unfortunately. Yeah, so it is. It is, and I had a nice chat with my buddy who's a uh, a colonel out there and uh, or maybe he's a lieutenant colonel. I know he like tell me I'm a moron for not knowing his exact rank, but either way, he's a career military guy and he was talking about retirement for the last couple years and now that trump's been elected he's like, well, maybe, uh, maybe, one more rank. So I mean, yeah, I, I don't want him to do anything he doesn't want to do, but at the same time, like we need more people that refuse to jab and are still actively in to stay in.
Speaker 1:Agreed, because that's pretty rare at this point. Because an awful lot of people got dishonorably discharged and then, even if they were offered to come back, they were like eh.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:dishonorably discharged and then, even if they were offered to come back, they were like, yeah, yeah, he, he managed to have figured out some, some reason that they accepted for not doing the job. Speaking of uh, stuff around military stuff and everything else, I'll be in norfolk in january. Okay, so that'll be fun it'll be. January. Okay, so that'll be fun. It'll be cold. It'll be cold and what the fuck is up with Virginia not having constitutional carry. Come on guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well remember, Virginia is right next to DC.
Speaker 1:Oh, trust me, I'm well aware.
Speaker 2:Now, generally the conservative politicians live in Virginiaia, the liberal ones live in maryland, but there's. I think virginia would be a lot more conservative if dc metro was bigger and people didn't actually live in virginia that worked in DC.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? That would be a great constitutional amendment. Expand DC to encompass the liberal counties.
Speaker 2:That surround it.
Speaker 1:Fairfax Yep, just take it in, take territory away from Maryland and Virginia.
Speaker 2:And then make Virginia a totally red state. Yep, I'm good with that. Yeah. Like.
Speaker 1:Northern Virginia just becomes DC. Yeah. And it would require an amendment because you know of how DC is defined and all that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm totally on board with that. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, as two Texans. Let's just make that happen, shall we also? I think the reunification of virginia should be a very, very big priority for us as well um yeah, I'm not sure the west virginian people would want to do that? Yeah, I don't care. They should have never broken away well I mean at point.
Speaker 2:They're the more conservative of the two.
Speaker 1:But what I would say is, if you live in West Virginia and consider yourself a southerner, fuck you.
Speaker 2:I understand what you're saying, but I will say from a practical manner that the West Virginian votes a lot more in line with you and me than does a virginian right now okay well, history still matters.
Speaker 1:We have not forgotten, yeah yeah, um and for those who don't know, during the civil war that's what was created? Yeah, because half of virginia. Yeah, we're not seceding. And the union more or less illegally recognized West Virginia's rights and there was even a lawsuit after the Civil War for Virginia to reclaim the territory of. West Virginia. And the rather stacked Supreme Court at the time denied it rather stacked Supreme Court at the time denied it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's literally the same thing that happened with Ukraine after the fake revolution there, where the US was like, oh, yes, yes, ukraine changed its form of government. No, they had a terrorist attempted takeover that shouldn't have been recognized. And then this whole military special. It wouldn't have happened there, but instead the us has been in full support and recognition of that government. That's what led us to where we are today.
Speaker 1:So yeah, anyway, you, you do realize csb is going to be telling us how we lie. I don't care okay, how does? That affect me? Hey, it's just. I get messages on Mastodon which you know Well.
Speaker 2:That's your fault for being on Mastodon first and foremost, and secondly for caring.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing. What it comes down to is there's a difference between a lie, a difference of opinion, and just being wrong. Right, sometimes people are unintentionally wrong. I'm not saying that I am. I'm just saying to sit there and say someone is saying he is yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is to accuse someone of lying when there is no malice of intent. There's no like. Even if I am proved out to be wrong okay, I was wrong that doesn't make it a lie. That means I was ill-informed and didn't know any better. Talking like a liberal politician, aren't you? No, no, no. What I'm saying is that this is a human relations thing, where you don't just say someone's lying unless you have pretty good evidence that they're lying. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:No, what he ought to be saying, and I'm sure he actually is uh deep down under his breath saying you irish liar, well, I'm not irish, okay, you scottish liar, whatever. Whatever, the he's got to get your dna first. See, he's got to understand what your uh dna says you actually are, because that's the most important thing about you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would make a racialist comment, but then I'd get notes on that.
Speaker 2:So what you?
Speaker 1:racialist no saying not me, no, no, you know look, just stick with anti-semite, that's good enough for you I am totally not an anti-semite, all right, so moving on, one of my best friends in college was jewish and one of my best friends the other best friend in college was turkish.
Speaker 2:That's the kind of thing that anti-summit would say sure, yeah, I have a black friend too.
Speaker 3:Okay, look I have a t-shirt you know, you just inferred yourself to be a white supremacist, right I'm just saying that's the likely thing that somebody would say by the way, you've just inferred yourself to be a white supremacist, right?
Speaker 2:I'm just saying that's the likely thing that somebody would say.
Speaker 1:By the way, you've seen that Chappelle episode right About the black white supremacist.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was great. That was one of the first episodes of that show which was a an amazing episode to lead in and get people to start watching.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it mean you being jewish and everything else and then alluding to being a white supremacist. I find in the same vein. It's hilarious.
Speaker 2:I'm not always supremacist. You missed the joke, but I, I mean, I don't know what you're saying, man, I I ain't blind and I I'm not. I'm not oblivious to being jewish either, although I do enjoy some good pork.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, true oh man, it's almost christmas.
Speaker 2:I'm looking it is almost christmas, hence the freaking christmas card that we sent out I know, but you know it's nice, it's.
Speaker 1:It was 37 degrees here, though, so damn, it is getting chilly.
Speaker 2:You're right. Yeah, I know it got up to about yesterday, so it wasn't that cold during the day, but I'm kind of hoping for a warm winter. I don't like this cold winter bullshit.
Speaker 1:That's the way it goes in Texas, though you get cold and you get warm, you get cold and you get warm. You get cold and you get warm.
Speaker 2:Oh really, I didn't realize that, I didn't realize that's how it went in texas.
Speaker 1:Well, when I lived in idaho, for example, it got once it started getting cold. It never really warmed up a whole bunch, unless you had something weird. Then they called an indian summer or an indian spring, you know where it was kind of like oh, we've warmed back up.
Speaker 2:This is odd, you know yeah, I, I kind of see that term in russian. It doesn't degrade a ethnic group of people. Uh, it's called mother-in-law summer because the insinuation is somebody stupid that thinks summer is back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when are you moving back to Russia?
Speaker 2:I'm not moving back to Russia. Why would I do?
Speaker 1:that I don't know. You just seem infatuated.
Speaker 2:Infatuated. Yeah, oh no, okay. No, I'm not head over heels for Russia here. It's cold there, dude, I like warm weather. If I was going to move anywhere, it'd be Cyprus.
Speaker 1:You know, I've said for a long time that's my bug out location. Mm-hmm. And the main reason why is they don't extradite to the US, exactly.
Speaker 2:So you know why is they don't extradite to the us exactly? So yeah, um, and it's a good place to get flights to literally anywhere else in the world yeah but um, yeah, I don't know it's um. Oh, did you hear the uh of Putin at his press briefing? No, I posted an X yesterday. I think it was actually from the day before that. But two things about it I found interesting. One was guess how long he took questions for.
Speaker 1:An hour.
Speaker 2:Four hours, I don't know Okay cool Four hours of press questions, which I don't recall the last president's done that in the us uh, the trump would be the closest and I don't know that he's done that, but he's definitely done four hours.
Speaker 1:No, he's done four hours I mean he sat there with Joe Rogan for two and a half three, yeah, yeah. So, that's pretty close Close.
Speaker 2:Yep, uh, but one of the comments in there was he. He kind of offered a little bit of a tongue in cheek challenge to the U? S. He said you know us is talking about using Ukraine for testing and proving ground for weapons. So, um, I've got a suggestion for them. You know, they, they keep thinking that the these latest hypersonic missiles are not really that big a deal. Not a problem, okay, all you gotta do is pick a building in Kiev, any building you want, it doesn't matter which one it is and we'll tell you the time that the missile is going to get launched, and then you use all your anti-missile technology to shoot it down. Let's, let's find out, let's do a contest, let's see if it gets there or if you can shoot it down now that sounds reasonable, right.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing I mean. It's us keeps saying that we can shoot those down. Okay, let's, let's actually do a real test where you know it's coming and you're ready for it. Can you shoot it down? You know we're never going to do that because uh well, because we can't shoot it down, it completely deflates the hype well, and here's the thing, there is no guarantee of shooting down any missile, exactly.
Speaker 2:So you know, there's that whole thing, that you have to consider there but I don't recall at any time in the past in history where one side of an active war said hey, uh, let's do a test of our, our military prowess here, we'll tell you, or you tell us the time and location and we'll show up. Why would you do that I? Because you're so confident in your ability. No one, no one is exactly that's what I'm saying. This is that this is a very unique kind of a challenge that he laid out. That's just.
Speaker 1:I don't recall ever being in place before okay I, I just don't think it's real though well it.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? It's not real. You don't think. Russia would actually launch a missile.
Speaker 1:I don't think they would let people know what was coming and doing it in that prescribed manner now.
Speaker 2:So I don't think there would be a challenge and a test given and then accepted by either side, then the US should absolutely accept that challenge and pick a building and evacuate people out of it and then say, yep, shoot this building.
Speaker 1:You know what we should do. We should say okay, we'll do that. You shoot your hypersonic and we'll shoot one of our stealth missiles and see which one gets through. That would be a fun test.
Speaker 2:Well, why would we be shooting at a building in ukraine?
Speaker 1:we wouldn't, we'd be shooting at a building in moscow well, that would start nuclear war.
Speaker 2:Why? Well, because you're shooting a missile into a nuclear power and that's very dangerous.
Speaker 1:The whole point of having nuclear weapons is to deter right so your, uh, your entire point here is ah fuck ukraine, they're, they're, they're just targets.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the us's whole point I don't disagree, I don't I don't agree that that is my point that our politicians have taken.
Speaker 2:I disagree with it morally and I don't think that's the position we should be in but that's my point is that, given that that's what is actually happening right now, putin's point is like okay, well, if ukraine is the military proving ground for weapons, fine, let's, let's do a direct uh weapons test. Like he's agreeing to something that they're they are trying to do covertly, which is gauge Russia's capabilities with its latest weapons. So he's saying I'm willing to do it within test bounds. Let's make it so that you have all your test equipment there and you're monitoring this and you're watching it and you're shooting missiles at it. Let's do it. Let's do a test. If you don't think these missiles work, if you think they're shit which is what you hear from all the interviews on cnn it's like, oh, it's all bullshit, technology, it's all. None of it really works. Let's actually do a test. So I think it's a. It's a very uh, appropriately ballsy move on his part. I think it's a very appropriately ballsy move on his part.
Speaker 1:I think it's a ballsy move. I think it's a brazen move that he knows would never be accepted.
Speaker 2:And even if it was, we'd probably never go through with it. Yeah, and he absolutely knows it would never be accepted. You're absolutely right, because the US would have way too much to lose if the missile doesn't get shut down for any reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Russia would have some potential things to lose as well.
Speaker 2:If it does get shut down, I think the loss to Russia is less than if it doesn't get shut down as the loss to the US. Why? Because the US has perceived by most of the rest of the world as having the superior technology. And if you're perceived as having superior technology and you fail against somebody that you've told everybody is inferior technology, that's a much bigger loss for the superior technology guys than it would be for a loss for the other side If the guys that already claim to have superior technology actually do so you think russia has superior technology?
Speaker 2:well, I think that russia is willing to to uh test it, and we're clearly not. They may, I know, man, it's hard to say. The thing that Russia historically has been problematic with is quality of product. There's always been a lot of inconsistency, and we see that in the K-47s, we see it in products that used to be at least available here in the US that came from Russia. I definitely have heard it plenty of times from people in Russia. I was really too young to really know about quality of product when I was a kid. But there certainly, I think, is very realistically a concern about shoddy workmanship about shoddy workmanship. But I will also say that in terms of science-related things, things that don't have to do with manufacture but have to do with mathematics and physics, russia's absolutely been on the leading edge of that. So if they can fix their manufacturing issues, then they could have superior technology. Do they right now?
Speaker 1:I don't know, probably not, but we're not gonna really know unless we test right uh, sure, I guess, I, I, I think that anyway I know they make very pretty airplanes yes, pretty airplanes that uh can dance, but can they really um handle what on the f-35 or uh f-22 can? We'll see, we might find out in syria. I, oh dude, that is sadly not a joke and something that is very disturbing. What do you, what are your take? What's your take on Assad fleeing and things going the way they have? I think? I think there's a good chance that, once Trump is in office, assad goes back, because you know, the CIA will no longer be funding the rebels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I my biggest concern you know, uh, the CIA will no longer be funding the rebels. Yeah, I, my biggest concern, look, I think that my default policy is, like other countries can go fuck around, do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't affect us, I don't really care. So if there's people in Syria that want to overthrow their government, I'm okay with it. However, what I don't like is the Us, or the west more generically, or the east, or china, or anybody, overthrowing other countries governments. I'm opposed to that. And so, when it comes to syria, okay, well, who exactly in syria has been overthrowing the syrian government? Oh, it's isis okay. Weren't they the bad guys? Weren't they the guys that uh were also kicked out of egypt? Ever? If they're overthrowing egypt, weren't they the guys that have uh been connected to and maybe rightly, maybe wronglyly to Osama bin Laden? You know how is ISIS now the good guys? How is the Islamic Brotherhood the good guys? Well, what do you mean, gene? Of course they are, and literally, bush waged the war against those same entities.
Speaker 2:Bush, clinton, obama, trump, bush waged the war against those same entities bush, clinton, obama, trump oh yeah, yeah, exactly and now before he, and now there's the the liberators of syria what I think? Syria was always a proxy war between the us and russia, because it is a warm water port for russia yeah, agreed, just like ukraine was no argument for me on that.
Speaker 2:No, I'm clarifying the point. I'm not arguing, I'm clarifying it for people listening and so okay. So now we're just we've got a pattern of the us trying to remove warm water ports from russia.
Speaker 2:That that seems like acts of aggression or smart, you know strategy well, I mean, it's smart strategy if you can do it and not have any blowback right it. It all of a sudden becomes less smart when there's blowback right. It all of a sudden becomes less smart when there's blowback, and arguably it's one of the reasons the Democrats lost this time. It's a pretty big blowback to the people in charge.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see what it ends up being man. I'm very hopeful that Putin and Xi don't take advantage of our current weakened state here in the US to just take us out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and China has been very good at moving a lot more long-term infrastructure, including training of military, into mexico and nobody knowing to say anything because there's oh, look over there, there's ukraine like we've got more and more china just sitting across the border from us right now and that has expanded greatly in the last four years. But it is it's like a 20th place issue that's not making up on anybody's top 10 lists and so it's not being talked about, it's not being investigated, it's not being looked at it like nothing is happening. It's probably two analysts at the pentagon working on this and okay that's concerning to me why?
Speaker 2:because our southern border is not protected yeah, which is a problem? And the country that actually possesses the greatest threat to america is actively moving just south of a southern border. That's a problem. I'm less concerned about trudeau's troops than I am about chinese troops in mexico, yeah, and we've seen an awful lot of single army aged men with asian appearance crossing over the southern border with zero information about them. I don't know who they are, even even dude, even when I was down.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's chinese towns at the darien gap and I. I get you, but are you really worried about this being an invasion from China?
Speaker 2:I think somebody could write a great book about it.
Speaker 1:I'm sure someone has.
Speaker 2:And call it the quiet invasion or the peaceful war or something you know, because it's not going to be a bunch of bombs bursting in there. It's going to be a collapse in the United States due to infrastructure failure for unknown reasons. That will lead to, all of a sudden, there being an organized military units coming in from the entirety of the southern US, units coming in from the entirety of the southern us through mexico, to start setting up their own uh, I don't know what you want to call them their centers of control. You don't attack the us with conventional military. You attack the uS with conventional military. You attack the US by removing its infrastructure.
Speaker 1:I agree. You attack the US to degrade its willingness to fight here at home. I think that is the strategy that would be used. I'm a little distracted, though, because I just got a message from Weenie Waha, apparently castomatic and what's the other one he was using. You need to look into this. Um, is there something that changed in the podcast where it isn't being able to be downloaded? I use castomatic currently and this is the error that it shows. If I try podcast guru, it just doesn't play. There's been going on for a couple of weeks. Is this just? And it's just this podcast? I guess I procrastinate a little bit, but thanks for letting us know.
Speaker 2:We'll have to look into that yeah, have you tried tearing it off and on?
Speaker 1:are, yeah, redoing it. I'm using fountain and I typically don't listen to our episodes, but let's see, they get downloaded. Yeah, I well, I, I, I have it, uh, on here. I don't have it set to automatically download, I just have it for spot checks like this, quite frankly, and making sure that stuff is showing up in the rss feed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's see well, nothing, it's playing for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing's changed on our end same host same, everything, same parameters and it's working in fountain, which is also a podcasting 2.0 app, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:And then what's the one I use here? Let me check real quick. I use Overcast and let me download the last episode.
Speaker 1:You're on an iPhone so you can try Cast-O-Matic. You should do that Cast-O-Matic, yeah, Anyway.
Speaker 1:I don't know if China is trying to quietly invade or what they're doing. But here's the deal. This regardless of any theory or anything else. All you're doing is making an argument of why we should control our borders. Yeah, end of story. We should control our borders. We should know of story. We should control our borders. We should know who's coming in here and we should know why. If it is nefarious, hopefully we can suss it out. But if we control our borders, this is no longer a problem, so done.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, it's much less of a problem if we control our borders, but we still have to clean up the mess from the last four years.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's longer than the last four years, but yes, yeah, what I hear about.
Speaker 2:people are panicking that Trump has threatened to shut down the app on the phones of the illegals. Yep, yep, yep, yeah, why would we do that? Don't we want to track these people using that app and actually use the app to bring them in?
Speaker 1:He wants to shut down the utility of the app where they're getting money and other things. He doesn't necessarily mean just totally shutting down the app.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it seems like the fact that they have phones and that they have an app installed, controlled by the government, would be very useful in apprehending and exporting them out of the country. And, incidentally, you know, the first thing we need to do is remove them from the US, but that may take a while. So my plan is we need to do is remove them from the US, but that may take a while. So my plan is we need to ship them to Alaska first.
Speaker 1:We need to get them out of the continental US.
Speaker 2:Why Alaska? Because Alaska has the space for it and shitty climate, and so there'll be no. They will all want to leave as quickly as possible out of Alaska, but I think we could probably set up some temporary living camps up there or something and then just start shipping the people up there until you process them from actually being, because here's the problem there's no way that we can actually expel as many people as showed up, because most of these people have no country to go back to. They're not Mexicans. Mexicans already came into the US many years ago. Most of the people yeah, this is from.
Speaker 1:Latin America, Guatemala, etc.
Speaker 2:Africa, asia, europe, middle East. They're from all over the place, and a lot of these people, first of all, they're not going to tell you where they're from, because they don't want to go back there. So what do you do with them? Somebody looks Middle Eastern, but they won't tell you what country they're from. What do you do with them? Like somebody looks Middle Eastern but they won't tell you what country they're from, what do you do with them?
Speaker 1:you kick them out of the country back into the country they just entered, from Mexico to just be the staging here, sure well.
Speaker 2:I think that would be a problem for Mexico, and you care why? I think a destabilized Mexico is exactly what leads to chinese invasion yeah, I think mexico has been destabilized for a long time, though I think mexico has been undemocratic for a long time, but it is stable as much it is not stable.
Speaker 1:when you look at the cartels and the wars that they've fought inside Mexico, when you look at what has gone on, the amount of murder.
Speaker 2:Mexico without cartels would be chaos. The cartels are keeping order.
Speaker 1:That used to be true for a long time. It is no longer true.
Speaker 3:The cartels are pushing into the tourist areas for the first time.
Speaker 1:Mexico is not the safest place in the world. It used to be pretty safe.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you soon enough. I'm heading down there, so you know, I have.
Speaker 1:I have a trip that I have already paid for, that I um haven't set the dates or yet, but I have, uh, in cancun, one of the Marriott resorts, I got a deal on a thing, so I need to go.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. That was the one that I invited you to go on last time, where? I had a suite down there and you couldn't make it.
Speaker 1:I could not but you know what? Maybe we'll end up in mexico at the same time, gene, who knows? Maybe that'd be hilarious what do you do?
Speaker 2:down here what?
Speaker 1:do you do down here?
Speaker 2:well, except I here's the difference I will actually go to mexico and you will just say you went to mexico oh, whatever, I sent you photos that proves it yes, you sent me a photoshop photo of you in dubai.
Speaker 1:Is what?
Speaker 2:you sent me at one point. That was not Dubai, that was Mexico. Clearly.
Speaker 1:Dude, I've been to Dubai. I recognize exactly where that picture was taken. It's like hmm. There's no.
Speaker 2:Photoshopping going on. Check the ex of data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, all right, you're using Grok. Who knows?
Speaker 2:Using Grok. Yeah, I don't think the Groks have ex of data. I should check. I wonder if they do actually put an ex of data that it's AI generated. That would be hilarious if the AI actually includes that in ex of data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if it was narking on itself. Well, I mean it should.
Speaker 2:Frankly, that would be. The reasonable thing for it to do is to put the creation in fact. It should have the terms of the creation of the image listed in there as well. Yeah, so for any kind of forensic investigation, you can see what that a it's fake and b here's what was used to create it. I don't think it should have named the person doing the creation, but it certainly should have the terms. But, okay, anyway, good, good, yeah, so mexico we'll we'll find out how safe or not safe mexico is. I know exactly the place that you're talking about staying, because that, literally, is where I stayed last time.
Speaker 1:It's, uh, it's the standard one where all the government employees stay at, so you'll be in good company and, uh, it'll be a good trip I think for you hopefully business will be good, I mean the vacation will be good man, you know, I I wish it, I wish I had business in mexico, but me Mexico is a really hard country to do business with you end up getting screwed. Yes, you have to plan on that. Yeah, you have to. Yeah, the getting payment terms with a Mexican entity. Incidentally, let me just you can actually follow through on it. It's very difficult.
Speaker 2:Let me just warn you ahead of time as well. The cab cost to that hotel from the airport is 67 us. So, uh, make sure you have appropriate cash I might just get a rental car. Oh yeah, yeah, you could probably do that for less than the the round trip cab cost well, it's not just that, but I'm not just gonna stay at the resort, so yeah, yeah, no, you might as well drive around there.
Speaker 2:So the only thing about driving around you want to keep police cash in handy when you get pulled over and then you have to pay them directly to not give you a ticket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the appropriate amount in that area?
Speaker 2:50 bucks US. Okay, yeah, because their speed limits are significantly lower than they should be. Yeah, like you would think, this is a 50 mile an hour road, except the speed limit is 50 kilometers, which is like 30 miles an hour which, by the way, everyone should totally if, if you are traveling internationally.
Speaker 1:One, you should have local currency, yeah. Two, you should have us currency hidden somewhere else on your body, yep, and a fairly significant amount, like a few hundred dollars worth, in in small bills and in separated areas, so when you go to pull it out, you're not pulling out your entire wad at once, yep I totally agree with all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, okay, yeah, bribe money is always useful to have, yes, indeed, uh, and sometimes you have not so much bribe money as a not get beat up money, and that's that it's probably more true in eastern europe than mexico right now, but oh, fuck that.
Speaker 1:That's true in barcelona. There you go, been there, done that, like. So there there are these quite frankly, mob controlled restaurants and clubs and stuff in barcelona. Well, that you go into there's nothing on there that says it doesn't accept credit cards or anything like that. Then they'll sit there and tell you cash only. It's like well, I don't have cash for this bill well, there's an atm over here, go get it.
Speaker 1:Uh, no, no, because this sounds like a good way to get mugged. You know, and here here's the only cash I have, it's us and I'm gonna end up overpaying because conversion rates and everything else it's gonna suck, but whatever here there, done and they'll give you crap about. Oh, I don't want your us dollars, I want euros. And no, no, no, no, yeah, fuck you.
Speaker 2:You know you do yeah, uh, I, I, I have a story that's very similar to that. I, um, many, many moons ago, uh, I went to visit russia, and this is, incidentally, where I met my ex-wife, and so, a few days into being there and after meeting her, I'm starting to like her. She's 22 years old, hot as hell, and so I'm I'm like, yeah, yeah, I want to go take you out to a really nice restaurant, uh with uh, what do you like?
Speaker 2:so she picked some expensive restaurant, obviously. So we go to this restaurant. It is not cheap. So this is. This is back in like 25 years ago. This is a place that in Russia was about 30 bucks a head, which is very expensive, considering you could get a good meal for about five bucks in Russia back then. And so, you know, get a bill. It's like $80.
Speaker 2:I put down my credit card and the guy's looking at me and then I look at him and he goes, oh, we don't take credit cards. And I'm like, uh, and my and my cash is in the safe at the hotel. Yeah, it's not on me, because what the hell kind of restaurant doesn't take a credit card. Yeah, what the hell kind of restaurant doesn't take a credit card? Yep, and of course, now they couldn't. The story would be identical because, uh, swift got cut off to russia so they also wouldn't take credit cards. But back then it was before swift was in russia, or at least it wasn't popular in in russia enough to be in all the restaurants. So I'm like, okay, so what can I do? How do I send you money? And the guy says, well, there's an atm that's a couple blocks away and I'm thinking, god damn it.
Speaker 2:So I I'm leaving my girl, who I'm trying to impress as leverage, sitting in the restaurant while I go off to get money, to get cash to come back and pay for our meal, which is making me look like a doofus.
Speaker 1:So this whole thing of taking her, but that's accurate.
Speaker 2:Fuck you. So that's taking her to an expensive restaurant is completely backfiring now, and you know. But then the thought occurred to me well, this would be the right place to ditch her if I didn't think things were going to go in the right direction. How? Much more of a dick. Can you be than to leave somebody with the bill and never come back?
Speaker 2:yeah, that would definitely be a dick move yeah, but she was hot as hell, so clearly I wasn't going to do that. So I I did find the atm. It was more than two blocks, it's about four blocks away and uh, finally, by the time I came back it was like 35, 40 later and she was looking at her watch and she pretty much thought I was going to ditch her. So I think she was pleasantly surprised that I didn't.
Speaker 1:What you should have done is said have a few drinks, I'll go get this and I'll be back, and then you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so, in the end, yes, I, I did, I did come back and pay the bill and, um, you know, but after that I I ended up just dropping her off at her place. There was no coming back to my hotel room after that incident. So what kind of put a grip. So always a lesson of the story always carry cash a little more than you think you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in have multiple currencies, like have local currency. If you're in europe, have euros, like have euros, have euros, have euros, yep. And I always get enough currency that I know I'm going to spend, because I can always get a little bit more and you know. Then what I have left over is generally less than 50 bucks and that just goes in my passport wallet and I just keep it for next time, like. I don't bother converting it back because you pay so much of a penalty in conversion. Yeah, why bother with it?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's true, just save it up.
Speaker 1:Have a a variety of currency available exactly, and you know, and it's useful in other ways as well. Oh, yeah, yeah totally no.
Speaker 2:I think the most that I ever had on me where, um, I was a little nervous was, uh, I had about five thousand dollars in cash in a uh, uh, one of those wallets that's under clothes, um so it's not not easily visible at all, but nonetheless you're walking around with a good chunk of money and, um, you know, I had what I was going to spend in my normal wallet and then they had the rest hidden away. But that's mostly cause I didn't trust the hotel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my, one of my favorite things is I've got pairs of slacks that I forget the brand but they have in the front pockets. They have the regular front pocket and then inside that they have a zippered pocket in that front piece. Oh, nice yeah so that, to me, is great because it's easily accessible. It's not like a money belt that's on your body that you gotta pull up your shirt or something to get to yeah but it's.
Speaker 2:It's a good compromise between I'm not going to easily get pickpocketed- and you know which is a real thing it is totally a real thing in a lot of countries in europe and and mexico too, for that matter is you can absolutely get pickpocketed.
Speaker 1:I got pickpocketed in mexico and in tijuana by prostitutes many years ago and uh, I think it's a different kind of pickpocketing gene no, not that I didn't pay that, no, these, these were like young, like really here's here's the funny part your, your, your, your mind goes to no, I totally paid him, dude, whatever, whatever.
Speaker 2:Versus me making a joke about you hiring a prostitute and you're like, yeah, of course I did not hire these prostitutes I have no interest in these young prostitutes, um, but I definitely got pickpocketed by him and uh, and so I ended up having to cross back into the US with no documentation whatsoever, no driver's license, no cash, nothing. I had nothing. They stole my wallet, gene, crossing the border illegally. Well, how else would you cross it? I mean, I think these days, I think that's the only way to cross it.
Speaker 1:You're not allowed to show any ID when you cross the us the last time I crossed the physical land border of the us, literally all you needed was a copy of your birth certificate, and boy has that changed.
Speaker 2:Dude, I've crossed the us border with nothing, because I got pickpocketed, and I crossed it with just a driver's license plenty of times, so it's uh, it's just a question of where you cross it more than anything. But then also when you're crossing the border from, when you're flying in from europe on an expensive airline ticket, then they that's where they're gonna really like, have you prove that you're actually a us citizen? Like, really, that's the people you're gonna go after, the people that just spent thousands of their line tickets in the thousands huh, tens of thousands.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, depending on how you flew, sure I've never bought a ticket. I've never bought a ticket for over $10,000, so I don't know Really.
Speaker 1:No, I've got one on you. How about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's because your company pays for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, but no flying back from Dubai to Houston on Emirates business class was $12,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've never had that happen but that was also an 18 hour fucking flight so that was the longest flight, yes, I think was the most expensive ticket I ever had was about seven grand and that was for business class obviously, but I've never, never, had a ticket over 10 grand. Uh, back in the I had the opportunity to fly on the Concorde for about $8,000. And I thought it was ridiculously expensive. And I just bought a regular ticket on a 747 and said and I've been kicking myself ever since because I never got the opportunity to fly on the Concorde- Well, I think there's going to be new hypersonic flight that becomes available.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're all going to be riding missiles around.
Speaker 1:You know, We'll see. We'll see. I tell you what, though, I really have in the next few years? I need to figure out a Lufthansa flight that I want to take on one of the 747s before they retire. Oh yeah, I need to figure out a Lufthansa flight that I want to take on the 747s before they retire. I need to do that.
Speaker 2:There used to be a Lufthansa flight direct Austin to Munich. I don't know if that's still going or not.
Speaker 1:Well, there's several, from Houston to Munich, and then what's the? Other big airport in there, anyway, probably Berlin. No, there's another one. It's a major hub Anyway to move back to politics and not just stick on our little travel rants here. Did you see what Tom Homan did on? I think it was MSNBC?
Speaker 2:Nope.
Speaker 1:So he's sitting there and she's talking about. I know that Trump has said that deportations will start day one and all that, but we don't think that's very realistic. So when's it actually going to start? And he just looks at her deadpan and says day one, nice, it was a very gangster move the way he did that. So he's, he is good, I like him, I, I.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be interesting to see if they actually do start that well, I don't think it's that hard, because the first people you deported, the ones that literally crossed over the border yesterday right, and that's that's the day one crowd is the people that waited until the day before trump gets sworn in to cross the border yeah so I think captured that day or whatever they
Speaker 2:can totally do it. I don't think they're going to start capturing anybody for weeks, but as far as cross, I mean like if you were intercepted crossing the border illegally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, exactly Like if they're coming across, not the semi-controlled spots where we're letting people in, but the completely uncontrolled areas, yeah, so yeah, that's four years and about 12 million people that crossed over in that time. Getting them rounded up that's not an easy job, dude. I would be shocked if, if just half of those people were deported, because I think all of them, or at least the majority of them, are going to start finding ways to not be deported.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, even if you deport half, that's still 10 million people plus, of course, of course. I mean, this is not a trivial amount.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's not worth doing, I'm just saying that it's a long-ass job.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, and I think, trump's statements on birthright citizenship, everything else, it's going to be really interesting because what he's going to do and people are like, oh, I'd take a constitutional amendment and all this, no, it doesn't, because what he can do is write an executive order saying this is how you should treat this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there will be a lawsuit, it will go to the supreme court and then we will get the supreme court's decision on what was meant by subject to the jurisdiction thereof and the ramifications of that lawsuit. I think could be very, very interesting, especially with chevron deference yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I've always thought that, as somebody that had to at least wait for their citizenship, if not actually do something for it, uh, I always thought that, like citizenship ought to be there, ought to be a value place that just because somebody happened to pooped out a kid when they were on vacation in the us should not make somebody a us citizen. Like citizenship should be something that, yeah, it could inherited, but if it's not inherited, then it ought to. You have to, you should jump through some hoops. So I've always thought one of the legitimate ways to get accelerated citizenship, which is still around, is to join the US Armed Services as a foreigner. Like that's always existed, or at least for a long time, and it still exists today and it makes you eligible for citizenship within two years of service. Like that, to me, always made sense, because service brings citizenship okay, but but, the line is service guarantees guarantees, there you go.
Speaker 2:Guarantee citizenship which also, by the way, since I reread that book recently implies that there are other ways to get citizenship yeah, yeah, um, but killing bugs is a good way, but for people that are born, I still think that we need to have a serious overhaul of our education system. Because here's what I would do I would have a citizenship test at the conclusion of high school. It's essentially your transition from a child to an adult. It's essentially your transition from a child to an adult.
Speaker 1:And as an adult citizen of the country not a child citizen you have certain responsibilities that ensure other rights, and one of those would be to be in the same damn test that all the foreigners who become citizens should take or do take right now, because, uh, if you can't pass that, even if you were born here, you really shouldn't have the benefits of an adult citizen well, and you know what I would say is, if you look at what heinlein proposed in, you know, starship troopers, um, it's actually I I don't think necessarily a bad idea and it's very much in line with what you were just saying. The the idea is that there is a differentiation between a civilian and a citizen.
Speaker 1:Absolutely A civilian doesn't get the right to vote but gets to live in the society, has protections, has a lot of benefits, um, but you know you don't get to vote a citizen roman concept. Very much so. Yes, and I think there's something to that, and I think I think having the possibility of universal franchisement is a good thing, as long as it's not an actual practice. What I mean by that is you have pathways for anyone to come through and earn that vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if you don't do it, you don't do it exactly so, and I bet you that one of the positive aspects would be plenty of people that really don't give a shit about politics, wouldn Wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it and wouldn't vote.
Speaker 1:Well, and if you actually read the book, Rico's dad was against him joining? Didn't want him to do it and so on. And in the movie, you know, Rico's dad's character is gone after the first little bit In the book he ends up joining after his son and then serving under his son and on the same ship as his son which is kind of which should never happen, incidentally yeah, it's also war, but anyway still shouldn't happen anyway, it is a very good book.
Speaker 1:I highly recommend that people read it. Speaking of books, I started uh, I've started. We who wrestle with god oh, okay, I was gonna.
Speaker 2:Uh, I was. I was wondering if you still had your subscription to daily wire or not, because they've got a multi-part series of discussions about that book um I I do um mainly because of a lot of the peterson content and supporting him.
Speaker 1:Um, and he, he also is starting like Peterson's doing some. I don't have enough time to keep up with everything he's doing. Yeah, Um he, but he is doing a lot of really good things and the Peterson Academy stuff. Um, I, I haven't 150 bucks a year. I think it's more than that, but yeah, I thought it was $350. Well yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 2:Oh, maybe it's a quarter. It's probably $350 a quarter.
Speaker 1:No, it's like $500 a year or whatever right now, but he's bringing together. It's not cheap, but it's really premium content and I am very tempted by it. And if he actually ever does get a path towards um accreditation like, that'll be huge.
Speaker 2:so yeah, well, isn't he also part of the uh, the university of texas or university of austin here?
Speaker 1:uh, no, not that I'm aware of I thought he was.
Speaker 2:You know what the university of austin is right yes, I do. Okay, it's not ut just making sure just making sure you understand, okay. So they just had their first class, uh, finished the year, which was, I think, 26 people. Okay, and so do you know about this university or not? No, I thought you were referring to UT. No, I'm not. I would have called it UT if I was referring to UT.
Speaker 1:Well there's. Tu too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What it's TU Right, you can't spell stupid without TU. Sure, I mean, we can code with UT, but you can't spell slut without UT.
Speaker 2:so yes, I'm sure all your Aggie friends are laughing it up right now. Who don't listen to this podcast?
Speaker 2:I think you might be surprised. Oh yeah, I might. So the University ofin is a libertarian-ish university program, um, so they are uh, it's you, austinorg, if you want to look at the website, you, austinorg and they've got an undergraduate program right now. I think eventually they're going to have a graduate one as well, but it started a few years back and I think they just I saw a video where they were going through their first class of undergrads, which is still pretty small, small um, but it is a um I'm trying to think of who famous was on that program.
Speaker 1:Well, what I think is interesting is that musk or musk uh j Jordan is moving to the US.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I thought he already had moved to Florida, which is where his daughter lives.
Speaker 1:He's officially moving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't realize he didn't do the official move. So I'm happy for him, obviously, that he's doing that, but I kind of assumed he'd already done that in the past as well. Well, anyway, check out University of Austin. They're not quite libertarian, but they're certainly very libertarian, adjacent in terms of their, their policies, I guess, or their mindset would be the way to put it.
Speaker 1:I'm just looking for Elon to start the Texas Institute of Technology and Science.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, that would be the, although he's not huge on universities in general, but that would be the thing that would happen here. It'd be the tits. Oh my God, I didn't even connect that, oh that would be totally the kind of thing that he would do.
Speaker 1:He has posted about this. Have you not seen this Really?
Speaker 2:I haven't seen those posts. No, do?
Speaker 1:he has posted about this. Have you not seen this? Really, I haven't seen those posts.
Speaker 2:No, wow, jade, wow that's the texas institute of technology and science. That's great oh, fucking jesus, it's like doge, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they're gonna have uh a 69 credit, uh program. Oh my god, I'm dying.
Speaker 1:I'm dying over here, the fact that you just didn't get that no I didn't.
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't, I wasn't thinking yeah oh my god, seriously.
Speaker 1:I just had a coughing fit because you made me laugh so hard like I had to go on mute. Oh my god you made yourself laugh ben oh that's great like I figured you were just ignoring it. That's why it's followed up.
Speaker 2:I didn't like I know you totally didn't get it, the words in my head when you said I'm, I was just kind of like, yeah, huh, yeah, okay, that's funny tits, but I I could totally see musk doing that. That exact would be the exact same kind of thing he would do yeah oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, what would be? The mascot ben oh oh yeah, well, I I think the best one would just be an implant running around An eggplant running around, okay, an implant Implant.
Speaker 2:Oh, implant running around. Well, that's a little more nebulous, but an eggplant as the mascot on the football field would be pretty funny.
Speaker 1:That would be hilarious. Yes, or a peach. A peach could work too.
Speaker 2:That peach could work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Exactly Just think of all your dirty emoji texting but yeah, or a peach the peach could work too.
Speaker 1:That peach could work. Yeah, yeah, exactly, just think about your right angle. But yeah, yeah, which? How sad is it that this society has devolved into? Not only are we not, you know sexting, and you know, what we've devolved to is sending dirty, dirty suggestive emojis and vegetables, exactly like when the whole emoji thing came to us from japan and started catching on.
Speaker 2:I said well, I totally understand how hieroglyphics ended up being the predominant means of communication, because that's literally what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1:We are we're going back to. We are communicating in hieroglyphics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what you know. Chinese is pictograms. It's stylized, obviously at this point, but they all have an origin with pictograms and obviously hieroglyphics did so.
Speaker 1:That is literally where we're at now is we've devolved from reading and writing words to now just sending pictures of things to each other which, by the way, part of the reason why english and the romantic and european languages are so profound, and arabic for that matter, is because it is a phonetic alphabet, and when you look at the asian languages, it is not that way no it like when you talk about mandarin or anything else, even modern mandarin, simplified mandarin, it is characters, it is not letters, it is words representing characters and like how do you create a keyboard for that?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's very difficult but it's really based off of english, I think you use, don't?
Speaker 2:I thought the keyboard just uses parts of the letters, so you assemble a character by using multiple keystrokes, right?
Speaker 1:which is inefficient and everything else. Yeah, the point, the entire point, is there are language. So here here's an interesting philosophical question how much does language drive thought in your capacity to think? Because if the language does not have concepts, how can you think of that? Because you think in said language. So language and culture have a massive influence on technology and the ability to develop it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do. I think it's an interesting concept. It's a good philosophical discussion as to whether a phonetic alphabet or a pictogram alphabet is actually better, because a phonetic alphabet essentially says that writing came long after verbal communication, yes, where pictograms may have actually appeared much older at the same time as communication developed. So you can have a word that you pronounce for something, but the tribe living 30 miles away has a different word for that same thing. But you can share a pictogram and you both know what that pictogram means because of the way it looks. So there are benefits to both. Um, but uh, I think, um, I would definitely want to give it some more thought and research to really get into that topic, but I think it'd be a fun, fun conversation to have. We should do it.
Speaker 1:Maybe jump on reddit for a bit then jesus christ but anyway, by the way, we who wrestle with god, I'm I'm into it a little bit now and um, it's very maps of meaning-esque okay and it's pretty dense in a lot of ways. Um, it took him, I think, five years to write it, but this is so. All of peterson's writings up until now have not been what I would call apologetic. Right, he has not been an apologist. Yeah, so far this is an apologetic work so I find that somewhat interesting so far this is an apologetic work.
Speaker 2:So I find that somewhat interesting. Well, I think he's also had more of a grip with his own faith, having gone down the drug abuse route.
Speaker 1:Um, and do you think people know what I mean by apologetic and apologist? I know what you mean, but maybe some people don't. Yeah, so uh, an apologetic work or an apologist is someone who is, um, you know, evangelical would be another way of saying it, not as accurately but evangelical is someone who proclaims and makes the case for Christ. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm yeah, there, uh, there's a couple apologists that I watch fairly regularly. Um, david wood is one of my all-time favorite guys. Uh, he is a not just an expert on christianity but actually on islam, and uh, he does a uh youtube channel. It's called the apologetics roadshow. Um, okay, which, uh, which is, uh, I think, uh, well, I enjoy it. It's very good. He's a very intelligent dude, but he has a a very interesting past. He actually served prison time and um, um, but he's got a great sense of humor. He's, uh, very knowledgeable about a lot of topics and is very good at debating islamists and showing them where they're wrong. And then there's another guy out of new mexico that I used to watch. That is a. He had a thing where a lot of his videos were him talking to like mormons that would want to talk to him. You know, the, the missionaries and uh stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Um, and again, I think, in my view, the interesting and successful apologists out there. They're very unaggressive, really knowledgeable, and can use the style of debate that the other person brings and then shine their light on the information that they've got in a way that is understandable by that person, rather than just trying to, you know, repeat a phrase that might mean 20 different things to 20 different people and then, uh, assume that that's, that's like the one, the one route to go. So it depends. There's all kinds of apologists out there, but, um, even as somebody who is not a believer in Christ, I I enjoy people that are intelligent, um, including on a variety of religious and philosophical arguments Well, obviously, arguments, but I mean, I don't know how to better put it. It's like I still enjoy watching these dudes, even if I don't necessarily think that I would be in agreement with them about what they're saying. I enjoy watching the process what they're saying. I enjoy watching the process that they're going through because it's a intellectual process.
Speaker 1:It is, and you know if you're, if you're going to make a cogent argument, not just a philosophical and religious one. It's. It's a. It's a difficult mental challenge, like if you read the case for Christ or any of those books. There are different levels of the mental capacity of the various apologists throughout the history. I would argue that CS Lewis is one of the most successful apologists in history.
Speaker 2:I should have mentioned him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cs Lewis did great stuff, phenomenal Cool.
Speaker 2:He just doesn't have that many videos on YouTube. That's the problem he's got.
Speaker 1:Right, well, yeah, yeah, you actually have to read his works. Yeah, which, by the way? Have you ever read the screw tape letters? No, well, it's a short, short book and it is one of my favorite books of all time.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll add it to my list of audibles it's real short.
Speaker 1:I I bet you it's just a few hours on audible I'm gonna buy it right now, while we're talking yeah, it's totally. And there's also screw tape.
Speaker 2:Proposes a toast I didn't fuck god damn it. Fuck God damn it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I didn't use all my credits. Oh, they didn't want to expire.
Speaker 2:They just reset. I had two credits left and I was going to use them in December because my Audible is at some point. I probably got it Black Friday at some point, yep. So it flips every year in December and I just see 12 credits now, which means it flipped. They charged me for another year and I didn't use the last two of the credits.
Speaker 1:God damn it they don't roll over they don't know.
Speaker 2:That's the one thing. If you do yearly credits, if you do monthly, they don't care. But if you do yearly credits, where you can use all of them day one, they they actually expire. They don't roll over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, With the monthly there's different levels that how much you can roll over and keep at any given time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um, unfortunately I've.
Speaker 1:I've never done the yearly but the yearly is cheaper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly, and, and I it's cheaper. Yeah, yeah, exactly and and I I don't know if you buy I always end up using more credits. Yeah, exactly, and I. I have a few years as well, but I knew this year I had two left that I was going to use on something and just god damn it. Okay, what's the name of the book? I'll get it right now. The screw tape letters okay, there it is. There's a couple different versions of it so screw tape is a demon.
Speaker 1:Who's writing to his nephew? Who is trying to tempt his first human?
Speaker 2:that sounds fascinating. I, I love it is, and it's.
Speaker 1:You're getting one side of the letters in conversation which is also interesting.
Speaker 2:I don't understand why there's multiple versions of this thing.
Speaker 1:So some of them will probably include Screwtape Proposes a Toast, which was a short story that CS Lewis wrote after.
Speaker 2:Also. They're probably out of copyright and there's also probably different versions of Voiceover and stuff like that? Yeah, that's my guess so I should probably also if a book is under 12. I never use a credit yeah, I was gonna say I should probably buy the most expensive version of that here's one you should, just since your credits rolled over.
Speaker 1:You should find the one that you know, they didn't roll over well, but like, rolled over as in changed. Yeah, it changed. Yep. What I'm saying is don't use a credit on it if it's like a five dollar book I know.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm saying I'm looking for the most expensive version. And here's what I found cs Essential Audio Library, 38 hours. $30 to purchase or one credit. Obviously, I'm going to use the one credit.
Speaker 1:That is a. I would have to see what's in there.
Speaker 2:Who cares 38 hours for one credit. That's a bargain.
Speaker 1:Right, but that can't be very many books. I'm wondering which books.
Speaker 2:it is Well, it's more books than one book, obviously.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, like the for anyone who's interested in CS Lewis, to me, the quintessential CS Lewis books that you really have to read if you are into him as an author or so here's what's in there Screwtape, letters, mere Christianity, the Great Divorce, miracles, problems of Pain, grief, observed, abolition of man, weight of Glory, george McDonald.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's a lot of his apologetic work, but a lot of his fiction, to me, is also apologetic. So that doesn't include things like Out of the Silent Planet, perilandra, that Hideous Strength, the Space Trilogy, narnia, till we All have Faces, and a lot of the rest. The only fiction work that's listed in there is the Screwtape Letters. Everything else, is pretty much apologetic. Like. Mere Christianity, the Problem with Pain, Abolition of man, stuff like that. Fantastic books, but those are more philosophical.
Speaker 2:I'll listen to it, that's fine.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, if anyone is like on CS Lewis cause they don't like fantasy stuff, so they don't like Narnia, which Narnia, for the longest time, was the only fantasy I ever read. But what I would say is his space trilogy is really, really good and it really all culminates in the last book, that hideous strength. And you can technically read that hideous strength alone, but you'll be missing some of the backstory. And out of the silent planet. And then perry landros set up a great backstory for that hideous strength and anyone who likes freedom and liberty will like that Nah overrated.
Speaker 2:I just really wish you'd hurry up with Babylon 5, because there's a couple episodes I really want you to get to that is like I want to know what he says about this one In season 3 or what, or still in 2 well, there's a couple in season 2 and then there's definitely a couple in season 3 that it's like, alright, he needs to get there okay. Well, let me know which one's in season 2, and as soon as I watch them I'll let you know.
Speaker 1:I'll have to go back and look which titles they are, but yeah, it's such a good series yeah, they did a good job, that's.
Speaker 2:You know, I still kind of feel like there's a little too much indoor stuff happening, but alright, alright you want more spaceships and battles mhm trust me, that is coming.
Speaker 1:Okay. You're going to get more than you're filled battles. Trust me that is coming, you're going to get more than you're filled. You've got to realize, dude, this is a really well thought out five-act play that you're in Act 2 on, you're still setting the stage. Act 3 will be where all the action happens. Act 4 will wrap up the details. And then Act 5 is kind, where all the action happens. Yeah, you know, act four will wrap up the details and then act five is kind of just the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and I I kind of feel like the um as of where I'm at right now, the the good guy versus bad guy is becoming more clearly defined on who's on which side of what.
Speaker 1:Oh, those lines will blur again.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, for instance, my favorite, my one of my favorite characters in the entire series Londo. We've already talked about him. Yeah, his story arc is a very, very human story arc. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course, make the alien human Makes sense.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, you'll see what I mean.
Speaker 2:Although really the only thing that makes those guys aliens seems to be their hair.
Speaker 1:Oh no, there's more than that. I mean, you've gotten to the point of the sexual organs, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a hair and a long penis. Yes, more than that, I mean you?
Speaker 2:you've gotten to the point of the sexual organs, right? Yeah, yeah, it's a hair and a long penis.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, like arms that they can reach out and do. Anyway, um, remember there's six and you'll you'll understand that there are six when you get to a certain spot in season three. But anyway, um, londo and jakar, their story arcs are really, they're tied together. I don't think that's a secret at this point yeah yeah, and watching their evolutions as characters and they're both very well acted is yeah, they're well done very interesting older guys doing both of them yep yeah, I, I think they're good.
Speaker 2:The um, the, the whole um, what do they call them? The psyop guys are interesting. Psycore, yeah, the, the psycore and the psycops and all that jazz, um, and that what was interesting in in setting up their background was saying that essentially psycore was set up because humans were kind of wanting to quarantine these people with special abilities and kind of separate them out. But at this point it sure seems like they're actually the ones running a bunch of shit.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you a spoiler from hell here.
Speaker 3:Uh-oh, not really in the story, but an analogy for the way you should think of the Psycorps.
Speaker 1:Think of the Psycorps as the CIA or any intelligence branch. Just think of them that way.
Speaker 2:Well, I do. That's what I was saying, I think to me they're the main protagonist here I'm sorry, they're the main protagonist, uh no, no, they are not.
Speaker 1:But they they are a very strong care. Like the psycore as a entity and group, definitely is a one of the larger human uh factions that have to be watched and paid attention to. Yeah. And everything that they do should be viewed with suspicion.
Speaker 2:Sure, as should everything be viewed with suspicion, but I like the concept.
Speaker 1:They've're, they're truly invested in lifetime, more than jobs, really more like if you're in psych core, you're, you're there for life well, you and so in in the series, the a teep, a telepath, has two choices eithersycorps or you take drugs to suppress your ability that have horrible side effects, and that's it Like. These are your two choices. You do not have a choice. And at one point in time you know Bester, who's a Psycop in the series, sits there and says Kor is mother, Kor is father. Right, these are kids taken away from their parents.
Speaker 2:Like it, korra's father right. These are kids taken away from their parents. It's very Soviet-esque. Oh, and in one of the episodes you have a commercial for Psycor where a little kid and his mom are talking and he's got these abilities and he's getting teased at school for being able to read other kids' minds.
Speaker 1:And then the Psycops shows up and he's so much happier when he goes in Of course he is Naturally and then the psychos shows up and he's so much happier when he goes in?
Speaker 2:Of course he is. Naturally, you know, kids want to belong. This is a natural phenomenon.
Speaker 1:I really like the use of media in Babylon 5.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is good, and that just gets even better and better. Yeah, it is a little bit kind of like Starship Troopers. Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah, that's a good show. Um, it's uh, you know, the only thing that's really going against it is that it's 30 years old and that kind of shows well in terms of they're talking about doing a reboot yeah, but reboots always turn out like shit, like the only reboot to me that seemed to have worked was the office.
Speaker 2:Uh, battle star galactica okay, two reboots that worked were the office and battle star galactica star trek tng okay, three reboots that, but, but they're a decade apart.
Speaker 2:Each of them is like a decade apart, man. So it doesn't happen often when you can do a reboot successfully. Most reboots suck because they they tie way too much current trends, current fashions, current politics into the reboot and that greatly takes away from what the original was. And I like the original battle star galactica. I watched that when I was first on. Do you know that that show was the most expensive show when it was first at the time? Yeah, at the time, a million an episode, which was crazy money back then. That's like 10 million episodes right now. And uh, and you could tell, because it had a lot of outdoorsy uh shots as well, not just indoor but um just wait.
Speaker 1:I think you're like I. I will bet money that this will not be the only time you watch b5 okay, because it's one of those that it's. It's. It's just one of those series that is good enough and has enough detail in it. Yeah, that you're gonna want to go back and go. Okay, what did I miss here?
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what I'm liking about it, which is indicative of shows of that era, is that no one is a wunderkind like. There's no character that is perfect, that is flawless. I like that because that's a lot more realistic and in today's Hollywood it almost is non-existent because there are always perfect characters.
Speaker 1:You've got to have some flaws, some imperfections, right.
Speaker 2:So you gotta, you gotta have some flaws, some imperfections, not just to look realistic, but to create a sense of sympathy, because a perfect being is not somebody that people are going to be sympathetic to.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I it's hard for me to give you my like. I am holding back right now because I do not want to spoil shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please don't, I'll watch the damn thing.
Speaker 1:It's just, you know it's not going to be all in one week yeah, and you got to remember that there are some movies and things associated as well that you'll have to watch and I really highly recommend that you watch them in order.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's fine. You know, I watched all of uh, all of um uh, stargate and all the spinoffs of stargate, but I didn't watch any of it live. I watched them all in already when they were in reruns. Yep, yep, yep, and I don't know why. I think after watching the movie, when I watched the first episode of Stargate, the TV show, I was like, yeah, this is going to suck Because the budgets are greatly different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Stargate TV show started out very low budget. Yeah, yeah, it picked up along the way. Yeah, the Stargate TV show started out very low budget.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it picked up along the way and certainly the computer graphics got better and the CRTs disappeared. But the first season and certainly the first episode of Stargate was very like. Okay, they're trying to milk this whole movie for everything it's got with an inferior cast of players.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was an inferior cast.
Speaker 2:I mean you know, uh, having they were all. Yeah, they were all movie actors.
Speaker 1:The movie had movie actors, that these were tv actors right, but having a guy ever come in and you know it was great. He was a great casting for that I think he was ultimately that.
Speaker 2:That's definitely the case. My point is just simply that you used to have a distinction back then between tv actors and movie actors. Like, if you were a good actor, if you could act, you were a movie actor, and if you were an okay actor you, you wouldn't move out of tv, like you'd never get a movie, you would just be permanently cast as a tv actor, and that's kind of where the macgyver guy was. But it was um. It actually uh was a very good show. I enjoyed it immensely. I even liked the last spinoff, um, that a lot of people poo-pooed uh, what was it universe? It was um stargate universe uh, what was it universe?
Speaker 1:it was um stargate universe. Oh yeah, well, and that, that's a show that just ended before its time. Shouldn't have happened the way it did.
Speaker 2:And just incidentally, wasn't the captain on that show the same actor as is on battle star galactica or uh on uh uh? Now, what are you talking about? Who's the captain? Actor in in um, not battle circle. Actor in the show on five yeah, which are you are? You talking?
Speaker 1:about yeah, of the john sheridan. Yeah, who's the actor? Uh, I will have to.
Speaker 2:I can't remember his name right now I want to see what else he's been on. He has a similar voice to a guy that was in the universe. Um right, john sheridan played by bruce box liner. Yeah, something like that yeah, um what else was he? Oh, holy shit what he's almost my age he's just a tad younger than me what bruce?
Speaker 1:yeah, he is way older than you. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2:oh, no, in the okay, okay, okay. I see what it is yeah he's 74.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's 70, you're right okay jesus, I know you're old dude, but come on not that old.
Speaker 2:Uh, let's see, he was in the gambler.
Speaker 1:He was in babel on five um, he did a lot of westerns uh, this is great from the crypt outer limits. This is great, great, great. He the.
Speaker 2:Crypt.
Speaker 1:Outer Limits. This is great, great, great he was on Tron Podcast when I'm looking stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:And so was Londo's character, by the way, and CIS. Was he? The guy who played Londo was on Tron, the original Tron as well, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's very cool Well sounds. His voice is extremely similar to the guy that plays the captain in Stargate Universe. It's that kind of raspy male voice.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm talking about, right? You saw that show.
Speaker 2:I do, and who was that actor, don't know. I guess I I don't need to look this up during the podcast, I guess now and you know what gene. We've done a few hours here I think are we done, we're good, are we good, we're done, yeah so the next time we talk will be just before new year's yeah, yeah, exactly so. Merry christmas to everybody, and uh, we'll be back, uh, just before new year's merry christmas.
Speaker 1:None of that happy holidays nonsense, even if you don't celebrate christmas.
Speaker 2:Merry fucking christmas uh, yeah, I mean people can have good holidays too. But yeah, I mean you can, you can christmas cheer, you know?
Speaker 1:if you enjoy kwanzaa, go enjoy kwanzaa. That's fine, but I don't, so I'm saying merry christmas right.
Speaker 2:But now when you say merry christmas somebody that doesn't celebrate christmas, do you think that would you be offended if they wished you a happy kwanzaa?
Speaker 1:I would go, okay, thanks yeah, I yeah. Or happy Hanukkah or any other made up shit. Sorry, I had to throw that in there, yes, yes and.
Speaker 2:Christmas wasn't made up by Hallmark, okay.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, Actually it was Coca-Cola.
Speaker 2:Coca-Cola invented. Santa Claus, not Christmas.
Speaker 1:Yes, and changed what Christmas is, because Christmas isn't really supposed to be the important Christian holiday, that's supposed to be the important christian holiday.
Speaker 2:That's supposed to be easter yeah which it is. Christmas is not an important christian holiday, it's a. It's a holiday for spending money, at this point exactly yeah, easter.
Speaker 1:If for those who don't know, easter in christianity is the holiday because everybody's born, but only you know christ was resurrected. Those say the same way.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and I think the catholics tend to like christmas more because they worship the, the mother goddess christ mass, yeah, yeah, well, and that's the other thing is this is why I'm not catholic.
Speaker 1:Why the fuck would I pray? Pray to Mary or any of the saints? They're not God. Why am I? Why do I need the? The? The big problem I have with Catholicism. Now you see, you triggered something here.
Speaker 3:The big fucking problem I have with Catholicism is I don't need an intercessor between me and God, yeah, sorry.
