Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| Hello?
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Sam:
[0:01]
| Hello. Starting up.
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Ivan:
[0:03]
| The volume is very low. It's my, it's me. Here we go. Oh, Jesus! You did that at the same time as I was turning up the volume.
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Sam:
[0:17]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[0:19]
| Okay.
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Sam:
[0:22]
| I think we're gonna just let that do what it does. Okay. Ready to go. yes no yeah okay beep here it goes there's two now by the way two beeps one upstairs and one downstairs i think maybe here we go, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, April 4th, 2026. It's just after 17. UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Mentor and Yvonne Boes here. Hello, Yvonne.
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Ivan:
[1:22]
| Hi.
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Sam:
[1:24]
| You sound tired. I'm tired. Everyone's tired. Are you tired? Or am I imagining it?
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Ivan:
[1:31]
| No, I am very tired. I do feel very tired. And it's not tired because I'm tired. I am mentally drained. right this has been a very this has been a very stressful week two weeks, I you know I can look I have been through corporate restructurings okay I've been through really bad ones, nothing like what has happened recently at my work It is the only equivalent—well, okay, the last time something really like this happened was over 20 years ago after the dot-com crash, where it was happening all over the place. Mm-hmm. And we had a combination of not just the dot-com crash, but we also had this merger that in order to, as our CEO, or the consultants, you've mystically put this, they created these value capture reports, Sam. You know what the value capture was?
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Sam:
[2:54]
| Firing people.
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Ivan:
[2:55]
| That's right.
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Sam:
[2:56]
| Yes.
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Ivan:
[2:58]
| Value capture You know People give shit to McKinsey For euphemism This is a Boston Consulting Group Terminology Fucking value capture You fucking assholes, I The Look During that time Even though we were firing a lot of people I will admit this was very political At that time And what does that mean? Well, look, we were really at war between anybody that was from HP and Compaq back then. So what that meant is that if your team won, you were firing the other people's people.
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Sam:
[3:47]
| Okay?
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Ivan:
[3:48]
| So where I was...
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Sam:
[3:57]
| Duplicated almost everything.
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Ivan:
[3:59]
| In many areas, yes.
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Sam:
[4:01]
| And so basically, for each group that was duplicated, you had a little battle, and then one of them survived and one of them did not.
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Ivan:
[4:09]
| Basically, yes. And so, you know, so let's say, for example, our sales force, you know, we were the guys that took over, the HP guys, great, beautiful. Look, make it a riff list. Who's going on the riff list?
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Sam:
[4:22]
| The other guys.
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Ivan:
[4:23]
| All the compact people, fuck them all.
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Sam:
[4:26]
| Lovely.
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Ivan:
[4:26]
| So that was, you know, that was like more like, at that point, because we were so pissed off, that was more satisfying than anything, to be honest with you. Oh, yeah, fuck all these assholes.
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Sam:
[4:37]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[4:38]
| Who's getting fired? Oh, all these cop-back people. All of them. Sam, it wasn't even like, there was no question. Okay? Oh, we need 40 people to fire. Oh, who are all they? Hey, all these people. Oh, God.
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Sam:
[4:53]
| Done.
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Ivan:
[4:54]
| Done. So that was, so that felt very different than this, okay? Because it was very stressful during the time of the merger, whatever, and there's more uncertainty more than anything else. You were all, I mean, we sat around for what was, it wasn't, it felt like it was, months of just absolute uncertainty and people just not working. I mean, they weren't working because at some point they dissolved the previous like management structure without naming a new one.
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Sam:
[5:31]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[5:33]
| So functions like marketing, planning, whatever. How could you create a plan if the structure that was there was gone? What are you planning for? There's nobody to turn a plan to. it was just it was bizarre it was utterly bizarre i mean at that moment for for for a brief time i was in this strategic planning group and i'm like well what the fuck am i planning for i don't even know what what am i what am i planning who you know what are we doing so this is very different this is you know they they went and they just it's just so many people i'd you know that i know and know well are gone. I will tell you this. Most of them have taken it. They've taken it better than the people who have been terminated. Taking it better than I am.
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Sam:
[6:31]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[6:33]
| Which is weird to say, but I will say that in most cases of the people I talked to, they got pretty decent settlements.
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Sam:
[6:44]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[6:44]
| And a number of them, now, actually, even the people here in the U.S., a number of them have already had interest in people hiring them quite quickly outside the company. So I think that that's made it for them feel like a lot better. But that's not everybody, okay, that is in that boat. I'm sure some people are struggling more than not. I will say that. But the majority of people that I spoke to directly actually were, like, they weren't being, this wasn't like toxic positivity or something. They were truly, hey, you know, look, spent a long time there. It was good. Now I'm on to something else. You know, I'm calm and good. And they weren't faking it, okay? I think that there's something, and I think you mentioned this from your experience.
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Sam:
[7:47]
| Yes, which is still ongoing, but yes.
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Ivan:
[7:49]
| Which is still ongoing, but there was a certain sense of relief.
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Sam:
[7:53]
| Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It was absolutely like, and my case may be different than some of those folks that you were talking about, because, you know, I've said this on the show and elsewhere before. I was burnt out. I was disillusioned. I was not happy with how things were going there anymore. I hadn't felt for years that what I was doing matched my skills or interests at all. and and so yeah i wasn't i wasn't feeling good about being there anyway i didn't like the place anymore and so yeah there was an immediate like good this i mean it's a mix of course like you're worried about finances and how things are going to work out and blah blah blah and i you know and it's been long enough now i should be even more worried about that now but but at the same time I was, you know, yeah, I need this break. I need to be doing something else. I probably should have left a long time ago.
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Ivan:
[8:56]
| But so, so, but I don't know, I, I have felt really, I, um, I don't know. It's just, uh, it's just very stressful, the whole fucking thing. You know, and, and I keep finding out about the one thing is that because I keep finding out about people that were let go, you know what I'm saying?
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Sam:
[9:17]
| All of a sudden, like, because the news takes a while to percolate.
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Ivan:
[9:20]
| Yeah. It's not like they sent out a list. i mean like yet just yesterday it was like somebody said somebody that is not it at the company went like said hey so and so forth reached out to me looking for work i'm like oh shit they got let go too so it's like one of those things and they're not done right gotta go some countries are not done yet but i i but i i will say that you know like i my boss my direct manager was impacted. I did take him to lunch. He actually was feeling pretty good. And he wasn't faking it. So it was kind of like you. There was a sense of relief to a certain extent. 21 years, similar amount of time. And he was just like, you know, yeah. So... A number of us have discussed this, and also, it's just, it's kind of weird because people have all these different takes on this. You know, especially all the people outside, obviously, that aren't really, that I love having all their fucking opinions about how others feel. I always love how people like to tell other people how others feel, which is just fantastic.
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Sam:
[10:38]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[10:38]
| Like, why don't you ask me how I feel? Oh, you're lying! No! Dude! there is also a sense of people. I don't, I don't, I don't hear a lot of people like arguing that this was in a certain sense wrong. It's kind of funny, even from the people that were let go.
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Sam:
[11:02]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[11:03]
| So, so there, there isn't that either. It's not like people don't understand what's going on. And it's not like it's illogical. You, you may, like I said, you may not like the, the result. But it's not, it's not, it isn't illogical in a certain way for many reasons that I go into, but there were for many reasons. Most people actually understood, yep, this, this was probably overdue for some certain things.
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Sam:
[11:38]
| Yeah, that's a weird type scenario that I've definitely been in before. I guess maybe I was in it this time, but multiple times in my career, where it is like a reorg or whatever. And you're like, you know, I recognize this is actually not going to be great for me personally. But I actually like if I was the boss, I would do this too. I recognize why it makes sense. you know and and so you end up sort of you're like well i can't really say it's a bad idea, i'm gonna get screwed but i can't say it's a bad idea i can't say i wouldn't do it hell in some cases i've even you know before something has happened been like you know, this this is what makes sense it's gonna fuck me but it's still looking.
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Ivan:
[12:27]
| At the structure and i'm You're looking at how many people are doing something or whatever, and you're like, we've got way too many people doing this shit. You know?
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Sam:
[12:36]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[12:36]
| We don't really need as many people to do this. You know?
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Sam:
[12:40]
| Or even when it's not like layoffs, just like organizational or deduplication or moving things around or whatever. And you're like, hey, it's nice that it's been this way for me, but it doesn't make any sense.
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Ivan:
[12:53]
| No. It doesn't make any fucking sense. We were talking about certain specific groups that, you know, we were like saying, well, they got let go. And we're like, well, well, that's not surprising. We've been wondering why the hell that structure existed for the last four years. You know, like how the hell did they justify that existing? That was like one of our conferences. Yeah, I was like, yeah, nobody could fucking justify that. What the hell?
|
Sam:
[13:18]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[13:19]
| So, but I don't know. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Some people I know are suffering because of all of this, and that doesn't feel good. And I feel bad for the people that are struggling with it. And I think that's a lot of what hits me. Also, it's just still a lot of uncertainty just exactly of how we're going to be organized.
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Sam:
[13:55]
| And you didn't you didn't say it explicitly on here. You did on Nick Runge's Corner, but you feel at this point you're safe. Like it's passed by where if you.
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Ivan:
[14:05]
| Yeah, I mean, the yes, I mean, at least like unless something later happens. But in this round of what is being done right now, yes, everybody that I that I that that that was to be impacted geographically or were notified. they were doing this like the you know in an orderly like region by region you know you know, certain countries were notified on this day people are notified and so forth yeah um so so yeah, but some of it is just funny the other day there there's a guy i know that works that lives near me that works at a different group and some of us it's just funny it's like he went and he ping me late on the day after everybody got notified. It's like, hey, you made it? Yeah. Did you? Yes. We're here.
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Sam:
[15:03]
| Right.
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Ivan:
[15:04]
| You know, we were... So, yeah. So, stuff like that. But I... this this all it's just the whole the whole fucking thing sam just everything you know this fucking country we're at war we're this whole goddamn thing this going on at the same time it's just everything feels like a colossal mess everything yeah i mean you know every day you You wake up and, you know, there's some fucking psychopathic thing going on.
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Sam:
[15:43]
| And to be absolutely clear, it still feels like we're on the way down.
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Ivan:
[15:49]
| Right.
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Sam:
[15:49]
| It's not like we've reached the bottom and it's going to head back up. Exactly.
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Ivan:
[15:53]
| That's the other part. We're not at the bottom. We're not at the fucking bottom. We're not even close. No.
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Sam:
[16:00]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[16:02]
| So anyway.
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Sam:
[16:03]
| Awesome. Yay.
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Ivan:
[16:05]
| Yay. Yay. Ready? anything fun happened this week no artemis well artemis now okay all right fair you corrected me look well i don't know if we're gonna talk about it in any more detail let's let's.
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Sam:
[16:23]
| Try to like make it go go from the downs get some up.
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Ivan:
[16:27]
| Well i i mentioned this on the slack i was able to see the launch okay yeah one thing about like.
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Sam:
[16:35]
| You walk out your house.
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Ivan:
[16:37]
| And just see i was like you didn't make a trip working out okay and so and i know what direction to look it you know uh, geographically when the launch is going so what i did is that i kept the while i was in this workout the weird it was a exercise class i kept the feed on so i could see when the launch happened And when that happened, I went and I ran outside to go out and see, and I could see the little, you know, the red little dot from the back of the rocket and the plume going up into space. Yes, that was cool. Just very cool. Man, moving, moving quite fast.
|
Sam:
[17:16]
| Was it noticeably different than other rocket launches you can see? Because you're like, you're on the east coast of Florida, but you're not like right up by Canaveral, like where I used to live 25 years ago or whatever.
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Ivan:
[17:26]
| No, it was about, it was very similar to a certain extent. You know, so, well, I did have a clearer view because the first time I had, well, the last couple of times that I saw these were like with space shuttle launches. Okay. And so it's been a while. I knew that I needed to get to a place where I didn't have any trees or obstruction there. Otherwise, so I knew to where to go to make sure that I had a good view. Okay. Otherwise it was going to be partially blocked. So I did go and like make it to a proper location so I could see it clearly when it happened. And thankfully there wasn't a lot of cloud cover because I can't remember which one launched. like not a lot ago, not a long time ago. I think it was a SpaceX launch. I think it was when they did Falcon Heavy, I think. One of those that you couldn't see it because it's too much cloud cover. But no, but even though there were some clouds, there wasn't a lot. So you could get a clear view. And they're on the way. They're on a hundred. I got my tracker over here, 170,000 miles away from Earth like right now. So I guess they got less than 100,000 miles to go. The astronauts just woke up a little bit ago from some sleep.
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Sam:
[18:51]
| So far so good they've sent down some pictures kill.
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Ivan:
[18:54]
| The astronauts so that's good.
|
Sam:
[18:55]
| Not yet there have been videos yeah um you know because on you know 50 years is a long time in terms of technology you know we've got like good live back and forth video they're doing like interviews with the press they're doing they're they're they're taking pictures out the window with you know a commercial camera and sending them down right away and they were battling.
|
Ivan:
[19:24]
| Issues with microsoft outlook sam.
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Sam:
[19:26]
| They were battling microsoft out like it recreated an entire scene from a movie.
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Ivan:
[19:33]
| I can't remember what the hell the name of the movie was uh basically work all all that was needed was john malkovich just yelling fuck microsoft that's all we needed really.
|
Sam:
[19:43]
| Like... Yeah. Now, of course, there are the usual folks who are like, that picture of the earth can't be real. Why can't, you know, like, there's supposed to be thousands of satellites. Why can't I see them? Oh, they're supposed to be like, why can't I, I see the cities. Why can't I, where are the stars? There are no stars, you know? So, yeah, all kinds of stuff, you know, and it's, you know, I saw one one TikTok where some guy like he listed a bunch of comments that people had made on these pictures that were like the kinds I just talked about and was like, the one thing we've proved is that we were wrong. There is no intelligent life on Earth. We're cooked. There's just like idiots like. It's really sad. Don't know anything. it's it's it's really sad.
|
Ivan:
[20:37]
| How i mean just just the utter level of stupidity.
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Sam:
[20:43]
| But but yeah and and people i saw one person talking about how the the latency is actually worse than apollo apollo because it's because it's not analog because.
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Ivan:
[20:56]
| You did yeah.
|
Sam:
[20:57]
| It's not analog basically basically everything was the speed of light right you know analog low resolution whatever and for the high resolution stuff you had to wait for them to bring back cans of film that got processed and then were released later but for the lower and now we've got like 4k video going down a laser link with all kinds of processing on it and so we've got a little bit higher latency now than we did during opala but i keep saying opalo opalo it's up Apollo?
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Ivan:
[21:30]
| Not O-P-A-L-O?
|
Sam:
[21:32]
| Apollo?
|
Ivan:
[21:32]
| What the fuck is Apollo?
|
Sam:
[21:36]
| Or Opal? Opal-O? I don't know. Yeah, anyway, so they launched. I admit, I was having a few feelings before they launched of like, okay, are they going to pull this off? Are they premature? I think we were all nervous.
|
Ivan:
[21:54]
| And there's a lot of reasons to be nervous. First of all, you got Mr. Musk, who loves to blow up rockets, and you keep watching all these rockets blow up, right? it doesn't exactly give you a warm and fuzzy feeling now the reality is that this rocket it does use a lot more proven technology okay so therefore and that's part of it so it makes it, less likely that that happens but still the reality is that this countdown went quite smoothly most of these countdowns don't go that smoothly.
|
Sam:
[22:26]
| Well there's a.
|
Ivan:
[22:27]
| Pause there's a thing there's a.
|
Sam:
[22:29]
| Problem that's absolutely true now it was like this was originally supposed to go in february so you know a couple months of delays but you know well and before that it was supposed to go even earlier wasn't it but anyway it was you know as of our prediction show it was due in february, But yeah, you're right. The actual day of, it went perfectly smoothly. I think part of the reason I was like, I don't know. First of all, I'm just always concerned. I always assume all of these things are going to end disastrously. And that's because when we were younger, we had two space shuttles not make it, you know?
|
Ivan:
[23:04]
| You're right.
|
Sam:
[23:04]
| And before that, of course, before our time, we had the Apollo 1 disaster and we had Apollo 13 barely make it home. You know, so there have been a number of instances. And, you know, spaceflight is still dangerous. You know, people act like it's all normalized, whatever. But, you know, even last year, you know, when NASA did a further analysis of that Boeing capsule, they're like, actually, what went wrong was very bad. You know, and it could have ended up as a disaster. It didn't. We were lucky. But it was a close call. It was closer than it seemed as it was going on, right? So, you know, this stuff is dangerous. But, like, one of the things that I was thinking about repeatedly is, Hey, you know, when we did Apollo, there were a whole bunch of these. Each one sort of checked out a new technology and added only a little bit. Whereas it seems like, okay, we had the unmanned loop around thing when it was last year, last year, the year before.
|
Ivan:
[24:16]
| I was like two years ago.
|
Sam:
[24:18]
| Two years ago. And so this is the first one with humans, but we're, we're not, we're going straight to going around the moon. We're not, like, testing out a bunch of stuff in Earth orbit and making sure it's all okay.
|
Ivan:
[24:29]
| No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[24:29]
| We went straight. And then next time, you know. So it kind of felt to me like, okay, are we skipping steps here? Are we jumping too much, you know, in one go? They have added additional, like, the plan was that the very next one after this was going to land on the moon. They've changed that plan now and pushed it out a little bit further.
|
Ivan:
[24:50]
| Well, in part because we don't have.
|
Sam:
[24:51]
| We don't have a lander.
|
Ivan:
[24:52]
| We don't have a lander. Yes. I mean, there's some guy that's supposed to fucking build a lander and all his rockets keep blowing up to do this.
|
Sam:
[25:02]
| Yes, yes. That is Elon's part.
|
Ivan:
[25:05]
| Because apparently the way that this is going is that, and I'm, you know, people are complaining about cost overruns for this and whatever. I'm like, all these fucking projects go over budget. Okay. I mean, you know, don't give me this shit. Listen, it doesn't matter who's running it. Private or public, all these fucking projects go over budget, okay? This is like you're charting, you're trying new shit that nobody else has done. So that's going to be the case. But, okay, you're going to launch the people on a rocket that has more proven technology that I'm feeling more comfortable about using, okay, to put people on. And then all the other stuff is supposed to be launched on Starship to make it there so they will dock and... land, right? That's the whole logic that I understand, like, right now. But let's face it, Starship is well behind.
|
Sam:
[26:02]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[26:03]
| You know, I mean, they've done 11 tests, half of them have failed. That's not really giving me the warm and fuzzies.
|
Sam:
[26:12]
| But again, we have, like, the SpaceX philosophy is do lots of failures fast and iterate, and eventually you get it right. As opposed to slowly thinking through something very, very carefully and getting it right on the first try.
|
Ivan:
[26:30]
| I just don't like that other philosophy.
|
Sam:
[26:35]
| But, yeah, just to be clear, though, it's very intentional.
|
Ivan:
[26:38]
| But it's also dangerous, is the problem.
|
Sam:
[26:42]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[26:43]
| It's very dangerous. Maybe the other approach is too cautious, but their approach is too cavalier. We've almost, listen, we've almost brought down commercial airliners because of the stupid approach. Okay. Literally with their bullshit.
|
Sam:
[27:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[27:02]
| So I, I just, no, I, yeah, they're, yeah. I mean, you, you can't be, you know, this isn't there. They're okay. I get it. You want to move faster, but, but their approach is no, I don't agree with that approach. And I, and I look, I'll go with the other approaches to conservative.
|
Sam:
[27:23]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[27:23]
| I get it.
|
Sam:
[27:24]
| Just to be clear, it's been successful in other areas. After they go through their phase of having all kinds of disasters, they end up with a product that's pretty good and pretty reliable at the end.
|
Ivan:
[27:34]
| Yeah, but... Again, I just think that you don't have to be as cavalier about it as they are.
|
Sam:
[27:42]
| I can see wanting somewhere in the middle, for sure.
|
Ivan:
[27:45]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[27:46]
| You know, and honestly, for some of these things, slow and careful is not bad. You know, we're doing something that, I mean, obviously you want to do it.
|
Ivan:
[27:56]
| I mean, what's the rush?
|
Sam:
[27:58]
| It's been 50 years. Right. You know, if it's a few years longer, oh, well. I mean, but like for the slow approach, I mean, like some of these things, like let's not, I mean, obviously you have certain issues with crude space flight, but like some of these probes that we do to the outer solar system and stuff, you know, we're, we're, we're spending a whole lot of money and we're going to do it once, you know, you want to make sure that once is right. I mean, I suppose the counter argument to that is, well, if we could make it a lot cheaper, we can afford to do it 10 times, you know, and as opposed to putting it as a one shot, like if this fails, we're done and we're not going to look at this thing again for generations, you know, but I don't know. so far so good and it looks good they seem to be having fun you know i no no no noticeable problems of course you know now that i say that there'll be a problem like the second after we finish recording but you know uh so far i have.
|
Ivan:
[29:06]
| The live stream over on another screen over here and everything looks good okay yeah i mean i mean the next point that something could could happen But that's really, that's a problem. It's more like, I think they have to, at some point, fire this rocket, right, in order to, you know, get them back right.
|
Sam:
[29:27]
| Well actually that's one of the things or.
|
Ivan:
[29:31]
| Is it just a swing around.
|
Sam:
[29:32]
| Well it's a swing around gravity and this is one of the difference from what apollo did apollo went into actual orbit around the moon yeah they're not going into orbit they're not going into orbit around the moon it's what they call a free return trajectory which essentially means that if, everything went wrong and they couldn't do any burns at all they'd still have a chance get home Right. They'd still be able to get home. Now, I imagine that's not the scenario they want to be in because they're going to expect to do all kinds of corrections and be able to like more carefully select exactly where they're coming down, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but i think the the idea is that this puts them pretty much on course to return where they want to return with only minor adjustments later so you know and that's one of the things you look at the like path and you're like they're not actually going to the moon they're just they're they're not orbiting it or anything they're they're just like swinging by but still you know it's like it's it's it's it's the closest we've been in you know since what 72 72 was it or yeah.
|
Ivan:
[30:46]
| I think 72.
|
Sam:
[30:47]
| 72 73 i know i have.
|
Ivan:
[30:50]
| That new york times headline from from like when i was born from my birth it's from my birthday and it talks about apollo okay apollo cleared to make moon landing on Friday. So that was like a mission, like around 1971. Let me see which one is us. That was Apollo 14.
|
Sam:
[31:12]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[31:13]
| So, on that one.
|
Sam:
[31:16]
| So, I'm checking just to make sure. The list of Apollo missions. Here we go. So, the last one. Yeah, 17 was the last one to the moon. There was an 18?
|
Ivan:
[31:35]
| Oops, no, there was no 18.
|
Sam:
[31:37]
| Now they they did have those like apollo soyas and all of that kind of stuff yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:41]
| Yeah yeah but yeah whatever yeah but that's not right.
|
Sam:
[31:44]
| Yeah apollo 17 was was uh launched december 7th 1972, 72 and lasted 12 days so that's the last one and then there was supposed to be an 18 19 and 20 but They were canceled.
|
Ivan:
[32:02]
| No, that was... Okay, yeah. 18, 19, 20 was canceled. Okay. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[32:08]
| So, yeah. So far, so good. Yay.
|
Ivan:
[32:11]
| Movies?
|
Sam:
[32:13]
| Movies! Movies! You want movies? I got two movies for you.
|
Ivan:
[32:17]
| All right. Okay.
|
Sam:
[32:18]
| Because I previewed them last week. First up, Lawrence of Arabia from 1962. You ever seen this thing?
|
Ivan:
[32:26]
| Wow. You know what? I'm not sure. If I did, it was like in the 80s. I think I may have seen it in the 80s.
|
Sam:
[32:38]
| Okay. I had not seen it before. I'd, of course, heard of it. It's got a running time of 222 minutes.
|
Ivan:
[32:48]
| Nice.
|
Sam:
[32:49]
| So this is a long movie.
|
Ivan:
[32:50]
| This is where I think I have seen it. Yeah, and it was like once because I remember that it was a very long movie. Yes.
|
Sam:
[32:57]
| So that's 3.7 hours. Nice. So I just did the division.
|
Ivan:
[33:03]
| I like it.
|
Sam:
[33:04]
| It is, of course.
|
Ivan:
[33:05]
| About... I like long movies. People complain about, oh, my God, three hours, four hours, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm good with a four movie.
|
Sam:
[33:15]
| So here's the thing. I don't mind when I'm watching at home. I can pause. I can take breaks. I'm not... Like, I think if I was stuck in a theater... They have intermissions.
|
Ivan:
[33:28]
| Okay, but if you remember. Yeah, exactly.
|
Sam:
[33:31]
| They had intermissions. It has an intermission and all that kind of stuff, which I suppose helps.
|
Ivan:
[33:37]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[33:38]
| You know, but if you go out to use the bathroom or get new popcorn or something, you miss part of the music during the intermission.
|
Ivan:
[33:45]
| That could happen. Yeah. You could miss the music, yeah. Could maybe fix that for you.
|
Sam:
[33:52]
| No, that reminds me. I was, which movie was it? You know, every year, because last year we went to the Citizen Kane one in the theaters, because every year I think it's Fathom Entertainment, maybe, in conjunction with AMC, maybe. I could be remembering that wrong. But they do, like, classic movies in their theaters, like, basically one a day during, I think this month, during March. and so you can get tickets to all these like old movies and go see them and blah blah blah with the full theater experience one of the old movies and I saw somebody complaining about this on social media within the last week and I wish I could remember which movie but it doesn't matter it was one of the ones that like we were talking about has an overture at the beginning of it before the movie starts okay, and like some movies with an overture, have a title card that says Overture. And so you can see that it's got some still from the movie or some, like, artwork or whatever, and it says Overture, and they play music behind it, and it lasts several minutes.
|
Ivan:
[35:05]
| And it starts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[35:06]
| Whatever movie this was just had music and a black screen. And the projectionist kept thinking there was something wrong.
|
Ivan:
[35:17]
| Wrong with the movie.
|
Sam:
[35:18]
| And kept stopping it and starting it over and going, what the hell is going on? And one of the person who was posting complaining about this online was like a movie buff who came to see this movie and, of course, knew there's an overture. So he actually got up out of his seat and went to find the projectionist and was like, dude, there's an overture. It's OK. Let it play. Because like the young kid, like probably like an 18 year old or whatever, he had no idea. He's like, there's sound, but no picture. Something's got to be wrong. What's going on? And he kept stopping it. Anyway, Lawrence of Arabia. It's obviously about the actual historical T.E. Lawrence, who was a British guy, ended up in Saudi Arabia, or what would become Saudi Arabia, during World War I, and was involved in organizing or helping to organize, helping to whatever, you know, how you, how exactly you interpret like what happened is like historians can debate. But anyway, the, the, He got the locals to be organized and to participate in some of the events of the war and trying to make a deal for independence as part of it, and that went in various ways. But anyway, the guy, interesting life, interesting stuff going on.
|
Sam:
[36:48]
| I'm going to give it a thumbs up. I'd say it was a good movie overall. all, I'm not sure it needed to be four hours. Like it would have been fine to cut this down to three, you know, maybe even two and a half. Would you have missed stuff? Yes, you would have missed stuff. Let me, I always give the beginning of the plot. Let me give the beginning of the plot from Wikipedia.
|
Sam:
[37:15]
| It starts with T.E. Lawrence dies in a motorcycle accident in 1935. At a memorial service at St. Paul's Cathedral, it becomes clear that several influential Britons disliked him. And then it flashes back. During the First World War, Lawrence is a misfit lieutenant in the British Army, notable for his effrontery and education. Mr. Dryden of the Arab Bureau sends him to meet Colonel Harry Brighton, who advises Prince Faisal in his revolt against the Turks. Lawrence is outraged when his guide is killed by Sharif Ali ibn al-Kharish for drinking from the latter's well. Lawrence accuses Ali of being a barbarian and is dismayed to learn that the latter is Faisal's advisor. Relations between the United Kingdom and the Arabs are tense. While Britain will supply guns to the Arabs, it will not provide artillery, which would make Faisal an independent force. Brighton asks Faisal to fall back and help the British defend the Suez Canal. Lawrence violates Brighton's orders by encouraging Faisal to attack. Faisal is impressed by Lawrence's familiarity with the Quran and his honesty about British interests in Arabia. And it continues, and obviously we're talking like, Faisal, like, you know, this is the Saudi Arabian royal family that ends up, you know, ruling the country to the present time.
|
Ivan:
[38:38]
| Essentially.
|
Sam:
[38:40]
| And so there's a lot of, like, historical interest stuff here. And, of course, you know, this is a fictionalization. It's a fictional—it's based on a book that T.E. Lawrence wrote himself, which undoubtedly was self-serving to some degree. You know, so, you know, who knows? I'm sure historians have done all sorts of analysis of what was different between this movie and reality. But, you know, you expect that from, you know, historical fiction of various sorts.
|
Sam:
[39:09]
| You know, so overall, thumbs up, worth seeing. I would say, you know, like I said, movies this long, I prefer to do it at home. I don't remember specifically because this was almost a year ago, like a couple weeks short of a year ago when Alex and I watched this. But I imagine we watched it over like three or four different sessions. Like we broke it up into chunks and watched it over the course of a few days. We did not watch it straight through from beginning to end. And I'd say it's fine to do that. You don't have to like find a time where you can do four hours straight. and you know it's a 1962 movie it feels like a 1962 movie another part of being a 1962 movie and Alex and I were just finishing up another you know movie of that era like within the last couple days is you really feel the sort of epicness of it because of course when they have large crowd scenes or large battle scenes or whatever it's not just a bunch of CGI people in the background fighting. They actually got like hundreds of people to come together somewhere and had a director yell, now fight, you know, or whatever. And so there's a, there's a actual, there is, you know, the way we do that with special effects and CGI and stuff right now is very impressive.
|
Sam:
[40:38]
| But there is a level of realism for when you actually brought actors in to do it that you just do not see in modern movies you just don't because the amount the cost of doing that is astronomical you know if you wanted to do that in person like okay we want a crowd of a thousand people and they're going to have a battle and they're all going to be in costume and we're going to go to location and so we're going to film this in like the deserts of jordan or something you know it would be prohibitively expensive for almost anything but it's cool now every once in a while you see somebody you see the fight and like oh okay they they had a wooden sword didn't really do it they clearly missed that guy those two guys aren't really like there was no impact when these two guys were fighting. They're acting, clearly. But it's okay. It's fine. It's good. Anyway, that's Lawrence of Arabia. And it is from the AFI list. It was number five in the 1998 list. Let's see, where are we? On the 2007 list, we're already up to number 81. So we're making our way up that one pretty fast.
|
Ivan:
[41:58]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[41:58]
| Anyway, the other movie. The Martian from 2015. Have you seen this one?
|
Ivan:
[42:04]
| Oh, yes, I have.
|
Sam:
[42:06]
| Okay, well, why don't you tell me what you think of it first? Well, actually, let me give the plot summary first. And then you can talk first. Okay, first couple paragraphs from Wikipedia. In 2035, the crew of the Ares III mission to Mars is exploring Acidalia Planitia on Martian solar day, Sol 18, of their 31 Sol expedition. A severe dust storm threatens their Mars ascent vehicle, MAV, and in the ensuing evacuation, astronaut Mark Watney is struck by flying debris and presumed dead. Facing imminent peril, the remaining crew takes off for their orbiting vessel, the Hermes, which will then return them to Earth. Watney awakens after the storm, having narrowly survived his injuries.
|
Sam:
[42:51]
| As he recovers within the crew's surface habitat, HAB, he begins a video diary to document his thoughts on survival. Unable to communicate with Earth, his only chance of rescue is the next Mars mission in four years, when Ares IV will land at the Schiaparelli crater. The Ares IV MAV has already arrived on the site in preparation for the mission. With this time frame in mind, Watney's main survival concerns are food and travel. Being a botanist, he cultivates a potato garden inside the Hab using the crew's bio-waste with Martian soil and creates water from leftover rocket fuel. He also modifies a crewed rover for the journey to Sharapelli.
|
Sam:
[43:30]
| On Earth, NASA satellite planner Mindy Park notices Watney's activity from recorded satellite images and suspects he must be alive. NASA Director Teddy Sanders releases the news to the public but decides not to inform the Ares 3 crew en route to Earth overflight director Mitch Henderson's strong objection. Watney explores the surrounding terrain and studies his maps, but he quickly journeys out to retrieve the Pathfinder probe, hoping to restore its communications. Mars mission director Vincent Kapoor realizes this strategy and quickly visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL director Bruce Ning, to use their replica of the probe. The agency makes contact with Watney and instructs him to link Pathfinder to the rover, where he can now communicate by text. With this breakthrough, Henderson is finally allowed to inform Watney's crewmates. Dot, dot, dot. They continue. This is based on an Andy Weir novel of the same name. So, okay, Yvonne, first, did you like the movie?
|
Ivan:
[44:25]
| I love the movie It's a great movie I really like this movie I've watched it I've watched it more than once Okay Okay It came out And I absolutely I, Love this movie.
|
Sam:
[44:40]
| I like this movie, too. This is great. Big thumbs up for me, too.
|
Ivan:
[44:44]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[44:45]
| You know, they do have the other characters on Earth, but it is very much centered around the main character, who's Matt Damon, by the way, played by Matt Damon.
|
Ivan:
[44:53]
| Did a great job.
|
Sam:
[44:55]
| So, like, I don't know the actual percentage, but it feels like 90% of the movie is just him, right? Right.
|
Ivan:
[45:01]
| And it's got great drama and it's funny and everything. And it's also got a whole bunch of, you know, aspects of science fiction stuff, which, I mean, some stuff I'm sure is based on things that are actually possible in reality to a certain extent.
|
Sam:
[45:19]
| One of the things, Andy Weir, the author of the book, who is very involved with this movie, and by the way, in the theaters right now, and I'm going to see it tomorrow, is Project Hail Mary, which is another Andy Weir book.
|
Ivan:
[45:31]
| Yes, which I hear is very good.
|
Sam:
[45:34]
| Yes, I've heard that as well. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I was going to see it last weekend, but the theaters were all pretty crowded still, so we bought tickets for this week instead. But anyway... He is well known for trying to get the science as close to right as humanly possible and still allow for things. So, like, apparently all of the stuff in The Martian in terms of, like, hey, could we make water from the rocket fuel? Hey, could we grow stuff from a potato? Hey, would he have enough supplies to last this amount of time? All of that very carefully calculated out, figured out. The one thing I've heard them say is that the actual dust storms on Mars probably wouldn't be strong enough to cause the disaster at the beginning of the movie. You know?
|
Ivan:
[46:28]
| Hey, it's maybe not possible. It's possible. We don't know. We haven't lived on Mars.
|
Sam:
[46:34]
| Well, but we've had probes on Mars for decades now. Yeah, but you know. We know how big the windstorms are.
|
Ivan:
[46:39]
| Well, yeah, but sometimes, anyway, it's a little bit of, you know, anyway.
|
Sam:
[46:43]
| Yeah, so there's a little dramatization, and a few things that have gotten wrong here and there, and, you know, I've heard him on interviews about this new movie talking about some of the stuff, both old movie and new movie. One of the things that happens, of course, is between when he wrote the book and now they've learned more stuff, you know? So he's like, I did the best I could based on what was known at the time, but we've subsequently learned additional stuff that okay with what we know now thing xyz was wrong and if i was to rewrite it again i'd have to change stuff today but it was the best we knew at the time that's what happens with science fiction you know if you look at star trek i believe like this year is like when world war three is supposed to happen.
|
Ivan:
[47:32]
| Hopefully it won't oh fuck yeah we still got time left we still have time left we're not doing great on that front, but anyway I will tell you the couple of the cool scenes that I thought of this movie there's a couple I like the one where, Matt Damon has to they tell him I think I can't remember exactly what was the instruction that they gave him that he was like are you fucking kidding me and he's the director sitting down you know is he saying are you fucking kidding me or is he saying it like, are you fucking kidding me i think it's more the second time but anyway i was like so what they're what the guy is trying to explain oh well you know in order to get him to space yeah he has to completely tear apart the the capsule what what do you mean and the director's going oh no we haven't gotten really in a bad part yet. You see, we have to take everything off. Oh yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, he's basically, you know, so they have, you know, so they wove in like a certain science humor. It was, it was great. I loved it. And drama all at the same time.
|
Sam:
[48:51]
| Yeah, no.
|
Ivan:
[48:52]
| Two thumbs up.
|
Sam:
[48:54]
| Two thumbs up. Yeah. Great movie. How long is this one?
|
Ivan:
[48:57]
| It's over two hours.
|
Sam:
[49:00]
| You know, Wikipedia is not a short movie. This is not a short movie. A hundred and forty-two minutes.
|
Ivan:
[49:04]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[49:05]
| And Project Hail Mary is also long, apparently. Let's see.
|
Ivan:
[49:10]
| Good movies are long.
|
Sam:
[49:12]
| And I will see it in theater.
|
Ivan:
[49:13]
| If you look at a lot of good movies, they're long.
|
Sam:
[49:16]
| Let's see. A hundred and fifty-six for Project Hail Mary.
|
Ivan:
[49:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[49:21]
| So make sure you go to the bathroom before you go in. Don't drink your drinks too fast while you're there, you know.
|
Ivan:
[49:30]
| You don't want to use a bottle in the theater?
|
Sam:
[49:34]
| No. I think other people in the theater might object. I think I might object. I don't want to do that. You know, there's a possibility of missing. You don't want to do that.
|
Ivan:
[49:46]
| That could be a problem, yes.
|
Sam:
[49:48]
| You know? Yeah, you know. No, but yeah, it should be fun. It should be fun. And, you know, thumbs up for Marshall. Okay. So, with that, let's take a break. And then we'll talk about the news of the day that is not Artemis and space related and all that kind of stuff. But is, you know, we got we got let's see. Trump did executive order on election stuff. We got Iran stuff. Kristi Noem is out. Bondi is out. No, no. Kristi Noem was out a while ago. We got her husband doing some stuff.
|
Ivan:
[50:22]
| Well, he's out.
|
Sam:
[50:23]
| Yes, apparently so. and apparently that was actually it's another one of these things that was well known in Washington circles and anyway what do you.
|
Ivan:
[50:34]
| Mean it was well.
|
Sam:
[50:35]
| Apparently most of the people in the administration and even in the press corps, had kind of heard that this was going on we can talk more when we come back let's take a break we will be back right after this, if it works Come on, come on, come on! I hit the button! I hit the button again! AHHHHH!
|
Sam:
[51:00]
| Okay, let me turn this off and on and try again.
|
Sam:
[52:05]
| Okay we are back yvonne where do you want to start did you want to talk about christy no more or yeah there's not much there her husband i guess no.
|
Ivan:
[52:18]
| Let's talk about bondi.
|
Sam:
[52:19]
| Okay so.
|
Ivan:
[52:21]
| She's out huh.
|
Sam:
[52:22]
| She's out.
|
Ivan:
[52:24]
| I mean trump you know i think i think we had talked about how So this time around, like, people had hung on longer than in the first Trump administration.
|
Sam:
[52:38]
| In Trump's first term within the first year, there was already lots of turnover. Right, right. You know, whereas we got through Trump's first year with no turnover this time around. But now it seems to have just been delayed because now we're starting to get some and there's rumors of even more coming soon.
|
Ivan:
[52:58]
| I mean, it's just, bottom line is that, and this is going to be an issue for anybody taking this job, is that there is no way that that person can fulfill what he wants done. It's just not going to happen. But it's just, his biggest, so one of his biggest grievances that I understood was her inability to prosecute his enemies. He had tried and failed.
|
Sam:
[53:32]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[53:33]
| And he was very frustrated with that.
|
Sam:
[53:36]
| And the Epstein stuff.
|
Ivan:
[53:39]
| And the Epstein stuff. But it doesn't matter who the fuck comes in. They're going to be stuck in the same in the same problem because, you know, trying to bring up flimsy charges to to the court, you know, for shit that you've got nothing that you could put together, that the only prosecute, the only people willing to do the work are incompetent. OK, kind of like Lindsay Halligan, because you start with the fact that you've got no no basis for the prosecutions. The only willing to do it are incompetent. And so they show up in court and they're just like, you know, you try to get a grand jury. The grand juries keep no billing in them. Or when they get to court. They get tossed out, like, in two seconds. So there isn't anything that can happen right now between now and the end of his term that would change that dynamic drastically. Okay? All right?
|
Sam:
[54:43]
| Yes. I mean, fundamentally, like this, like I said, there's also the Epstein stuff, but on this side of things, the fundamental problem is Donald Trump expects to be able to say, I want this person in jail and get them in jail, you know, basically.
|
Ivan:
[55:02]
| It's not happening.
|
Sam:
[55:03]
| Or at the very least, I mean, they have been successful in causing all kinds of inconveniences for these people. They've had to come.
|
Ivan:
[55:11]
| Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, they've made him miserable. Yes. But they've had to hire lawyers.
|
Sam:
[55:16]
| They've had to do depositions, they've had to produce documents.
|
Ivan:
[55:20]
| Right, right, right. All of that.
|
Sam:
[55:21]
| And so some of the expectation is that that will continue. Like, they will be able to continue doing that, maybe even more aggressively. But like you said, look, I've heard, I was listening to some damn conservative commentator the other day, Glenn Becker somebody. I was doing my due diligence and listening to, like, fuck, listening to the other side.
|
Ivan:
[55:47]
| I mean, Jesus, I mean, I might consider some kind of, like, procedure, okay, you know, over having to listen to this asshole again.
|
Sam:
[55:57]
| But, look, the thing was, you know, they were going on about, like, you know, you don't want us doing this, you shouldn't have done it to us, blah, blah, blah, comparing, like, people going after Donald Trump. And he was like.
|
Ivan:
[56:10]
| We had cases, you asshole.
|
Sam:
[56:13]
| Well, and he was saying.
|
Ivan:
[56:14]
| Well, guys did criminal shit. There were actual cases. This is the fucking fundamental problem with this thing. OK. Oh, you should do it to us. Hey, motherfucker. Obama and Kobe weren't breaking the law.
|
Sam:
[56:33]
| And so he was saying, for instance, like, they raided Mar-a-Lago and planted evidence and blah, blah, blah, you know, because, of course, like, all those.
|
Ivan:
[56:40]
| Oh, fuck you, Glenn.
|
Sam:
[56:42]
| Oh, planted.
|
Ivan:
[56:43]
| Yes, yes, yes. Those pictures from the fucking bathroom were, that was all planted there, of course.
|
Sam:
[56:50]
| Right. Right. Anyway. Yes, this is the key difference. Like, what Donald Trump wants—look, and this is going to go back to a theme we've talked about before. This relates to empathy, the lack thereof, and projection as well. Donald Trump and a lot of these other folks can't imagine the notion that some of these people weren't doing this stuff.
|
Ivan:
[57:23]
| Criminals! Right!
|
Sam:
[57:24]
| Because they know they would do that stuff if they were in that position. They are doing that stuff. And they can't imagine the idea that, oh, why did you investigate? Why did you bring charges? Oh, well, because someone was actually guilty. It wasn't we have a political vendetta. It was because we had evidence of a crime. There was something there to actually investigate. Whereas Donald Trump is like, on the one hand, he's like, go after them. I don't care what you go after them for. But apparently, when people have come back to him and said explicitly things like, we've investigated, there's nothing there. He just does not believe it.
|
Ivan:
[58:10]
| He just doesn't believe it.
|
Sam:
[58:12]
| It's not just, well, then go make up something. No, he doesn't believe it. He thinks if you come back and say these people are actually clean, that's impossible. There's no way anybody in that position of power would not abuse it.
|
Ivan:
[58:32]
| You know, look, I had this discussion this week because I keep having some people, including yourself sometimes, say, well, you know, you you go and like you kind of, you know, you you go to the edge on things or whatever. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Listen, I read the fucking rules. I read what the fuck is allowed. And I I go to where the fuck I may even go up to the limit of what the fuck is allowed. But I will do that because I read what the fuck is allowed. I read how it's supposed to be executed. I read exactly. Oh, but that, but that's unfair. I'm sorry, that's what you laid down the regulations? I followed them to the T. Fuck you. I don't want to listen to shit, okay? The problem is that these guys don't give a fuck about the regulations. Don't give a fuck about the law. Don't give a fuck about anything. And by the way, they're trying to steal. I'm just trying to figure out sometimes just, hey, I want to do this with the least, you know, issues. Get it done fast or whatever. something. I want it to be the most favorable deal for me possible. No, no, no, no. These guys just want to, number one, they just want to steal. Number two, they don't give a fuck about even reading what the law or the regulations allow that you can do or not, okay?
|
Sam:
[59:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[59:54]
| So they don't understand somebody, say, like myself, who will get like a projects done, shit, whatever, and it's authorized or whatever well how come look there it is read the manual there it is we got everything done this is how it happened bop bop bop bop bop this is what was authorized this is what we could do they never take the time you know like the other day pam bondy said that uh when she was in the room that she being with trump because he was the most well he was always the most well red person in the fucking room, okay? And I'm like, holy fuck, what the hell? So you guys don't even read the warning labels on a sugar packet or something? We know this son of a bitch doesn't read anything!
|
Sam:
[1:00:43]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:45]
| Look, they don't get it.
|
Sam:
[1:00:47]
| They don't get it. They don't read. There's no curiosity. There's no empathy. And this ties to the Iran stuff as well, by the way. I am more coming to think that the absolute critical thing for understanding this entire movement is the whole inability to experience empathy or to put yourself in the shoes of others at all. And I feel like that explains domestic policy, that explains foreign policy, that explains so much across everything, because they're always just assuming that everybody thinks in the same, like, transactional, how to get them.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:31]
| And they're lazy and lazy because here's the thing, right? We went to, during our adult time, we went to war twice in the Middle East, right? OK, you know, whatever you can say about George Bush II in terms of the military, OK, attack on Iraq on the second Iraq war. It was carefully. That part was carefully planned.
|
Sam:
[1:01:59]
| They didn't carefully plan the aftermath, but yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:02]
| The aftermath. That was the problem. You know, but the actual attack itself was carefully planned. They had built up for it. They even got some allies.
|
Sam:
[1:02:13]
| The even better example is the first Gulf War with George H.W.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:17]
| Bush. Well, but I'm lowering the bar is what I'm saying. Okay? All right? I mean, you read the book by Norm Schwartz about the buildup and the planning and the strategizing leading up to that war and how long it took and why it took so long to do and so forth and so on. And it was a very, you know, carefully explained. orchestrated, choreographed attack. Whereas, because these people think they have the same weapons and they have all this technology, we could just walk around like swinging our dicks and we could just get anything done. But as I've said before, it's the same thing with AI, the same thing with advanced weapons, the same thing with anything, okay? If you've got a whole bunch of cavalier idiots running it, you're going to have bad results. It doesn't matter how good the tools are.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:10]
| They're going to fuck it up. It doesn't matter how good and mighty and technological our weapons are. When you've got a whole bunch of idiots using them, there's going to be bad results. Okay? And aside from the whole, I'm just talking about their lack of space. I don't even know how to success. Their lack of ability to obliterate what they say they want to obliterate. You know, because I don't agree with any of this. OK, with with attacking them, with, you know, the whole fucking thing. Predator started based on the fact that he hated the Obama era nuclear deal.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:55]
| OK, simply because it was signed by the black dude that he hated. That's it. There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing. Not one damn thing with that deal. But he decided that he hated it. And now I don't know. You know what? Epstein files, distraction, Netanyahu talking to his ear. Hey, let's just go fucking bomb him. Fuck him.
|
Sam:
[1:04:19]
| So let's return.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:20]
| With no strategic planning or what's the mission? What are the outcomes? What do we expect to do? Hey, just go bomb the fuckers. I'm sure that anybody that was smart that went and said, hey, guys, we need to plan this more carefully. We need to figure out what we're going to do. I don't know. We got that A.I. shit that Alex talks about. Yeah, we'll just, you know, that'll take care of everything. We don't need it. We don't need any smart people over here. The A.I. will take care of it.
|
Sam:
[1:04:50]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:50]
| Now we've got by the way you know I kept saying how this has so many parallels to the 1970s between the stagflation the oil shock and all this other shit Sam, this idiot also bought himself a fucking hostage crisis.
|
Sam:
[1:05:10]
| Well, maybe.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:12]
| Well, according to reports today, it seems like it.
|
Sam:
[1:05:15]
| Well, here's the thing, though. The Iranians have specifically said, this is a prisoner of war. We're going to follow the Geneva Conventions, blah, blah, blah. And at the same time, Hegseth and others, and Trump himself, are repeatedly making truth social posts and ex-posts and things like that, that are explicitly saying, we're going to plan war crimes. we're going to target civilian infrastructure, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. And the Iranians are like, hey, if we get a prisoner of war, we will 100%, like you were saying, we will, by the book, treat them according to the Geneva Conventions. You know? And so I think it's in the Iranians' interest, by the way, to not do anything untoward to any prisoners they catch.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:09]
| You know it is look at the hostage crisis not like they were executing the hostages no i know i know i know right absolutely.
|
Sam:
[1:06:17]
| But you know if you're in a war situation you expect in the end prisoners of war on both sides you know it it's it's.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:30]
| Listen for all i know listen mr war criminals over here probably will order any any captured iranians to be executed anyway listen we've been kill it. Listen, we have been committing.
|
Sam:
[1:06:41]
| Well, Hagsath specifically said, and I wouldn't put it beyond that he just doesn't know what the words mean, but he said no quarter. And that's exactly what no quarter means. That's what that means. We kill the prisoners.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:51]
| Which is a war crime. Again, listen, we have been executing people like without any process or anything, whatever, in the Caribbean right now on boats for I don't know how fucking long like right now. Okay. Where we just went and we just shot up boats. Okay? With no... I mean... What do you put past these guys committing any other fucking war crimes right now at this point? They don't give a fuck.
|
Sam:
[1:07:18]
| Back to Bondi real quick. We concentrated on the not prosecuting his enemies. But I think the handling of the Epstein files was also on his agenda. And also...
|
Ivan:
[1:07:34]
| Here's the problem that you've got, right? You know, again, he was unhappy with how she handled the Epstein files. Okay? Great. Okay. Here's the thing. This is one of those things, again, which is whoever the hell gets charged is fucked because there is no way to handle those files that will be satisfactory to him.
|
Sam:
[1:07:57]
| Because fundamentally the problem is he's all over the damn files.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:01]
| Exactly. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:08:05]
| And they lost the battle in Congress about the release. And, you know, the whole thing apparently shifted because she did have people scouring the Epstein files to dig into them. And then apparently sometime late last year, in the fall sometime, she came to him with a report that says, okay, here's the deal. You actually are all over these things. And that's when all of a sudden, everything changed. It went from, we're going to release everything, we'll go after Bill Clinton and all the Democrats and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, what?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:45]
| You're all over him.
|
Sam:
[1:08:47]
| You know, and so then it became, okay, we need to bury these things. And that's when the memo, not menu, where the memo came out saying, we've looked through it. There's nothing here. Goodbye. You know, and everything exploded from there. And so I think you're right, though. You can't bring in somebody new. Now, the person they are bringing in, I've already heard, was asked about this. And basically, his spin one, it was, that stuff's all done. That's all in the past. I'm not dealing, I don't have to deal with that anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:23]
| Now it's in the past somehow.
|
Sam:
[1:09:25]
| We've released everything we're going to release that's done. Now, of course, you know, we know that they've released at most like about half of what's there. All the redactions were wrong. There were all kinds of issues with them, blah, blah, blah. And so I don't think they're actually done. But they're going to try. They're going to try to put it in the past as much as they can. The other thing with Bondi, besides all that, though, and this is the thing that's always important to Donald Trump, She was getting ridiculed on TV. She, you know, she made some appearances.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:04]
| $1,000, $50,000, Sam!
|
Sam:
[1:10:06]
| $50,000, I believe, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:09]
| $50,000! That's right, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:10:11]
| People were making fun of her little opposition books where she was going after all the congresspeople. There were several congresspeople who got the better of her in exchanges. And, you know, she was being mocked. She was being mocked for the way that she did those appearances, the fact that she was not effectual, et cetera.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:32]
| And Donald Trump doesn't like that. And she's a woman, by the way. I don't know if you've noticed it. And she's a woman. By the way, it's another woman that gets fucking crushed, just basically just used up and thrown into the garbage by Donald. Because if you're going to do it on ridicule, I mean, I'm sorry. There's nobody who's been more ridiculed than, you know, Mr. like, you know, Hegseth and fucking Cash Patel. I mean, fucking Cash Patel. How the hell does this son of a bitch still have his... How does this guy have any self-respect and fucking resign after they hacked his fucking email? You're the FBI director, you stupid piece of shit.
|
Sam:
[1:11:13]
| Now, of course, there are rumors that both of them may be out soon, too, as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:17]
| Yes, I have heard that, but they're not out yet. But you first got rid of the women.
|
Sam:
[1:11:22]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:23]
| Oh, and by the way, the other person that's apparently getting ridiculed relentlessly who looks on her way out, because, of course, she can't spin any of this positively, because who the fuck is, you know, here's a problem, right? It's another problem that you're being handed that's impossible. Who are you talking about now? What's her name? The idiot press secretary, whatever her name is.
|
Sam:
[1:11:43]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:44]
| You know, yeah, you know, her. I, you know, I try to block these names of these people, honestly. Hold on. I don't even want their stench, like, stuck to my brain.
|
Sam:
[1:11:59]
| I'll tell you in a second. I'm looking it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:03]
| I keep remembering the name of the one in the previous administration dressed like a cheerleader. I mean, literally dressed like a cheerleader.
|
Sam:
[1:12:12]
| Caroline Leavitt.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:13]
| Yeah, whatever. Yeah, exactly. Leavitt. She also looks like she's toast. He literally went out on a thing and was asking, I don't think she's doing a good job. Should we get rid of her? Said it out loud somewhere. while sitting at the Oval Office. That always gives you the warm... You know, somebody was like feeling bad for like these people like Christy and, you know, Bondi, and I'm like, no! No! How awful has to be working there? Look, these fuckers chose to degrade themselves to work for this monster, okay? Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:12:56]
| Yeah, I mean, I heard some people like talking about like, it's a shame that that that Bondi degraded herself in this way. And it's like, the fact that she chose this in the first place already indicated she was already not worth a lot of respect when she started, you know? No.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:17]
| And she and honestly, look, she was this shameless when she was Florida attorney general and she she was with the Santas. She was no different. She's no different. OK. She was a monster here in Florida. She was the equal monster. She's been at the at the White House before.
|
Sam:
[1:13:36]
| We move on from the cabinet stuff. I just want to I did look up the the cabinet turnover in the first term versus the second term. You know, somehow memory, like, has us, oh, there was lots of turnovers. There were two. There were only two in the first year.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:53]
| Yeah, but we had zero in the first year is what I'm saying.
|
Sam:
[1:13:56]
| No, I know, I know, I know. We had zero in the first year here. But just to refer, in the first Trump cabinet in the first year, there were only two turnovers. It was Tom Price left HHS and John Kelly left Homeland Security. That was it. And Kelly, I believe, went to somewhere else in the administration. I guess technically Noam did too, and Noam was a cabinet. But whereas in the second—sorry, Noam was cabinet. What's her name? But Noam has been replaced by Mullen, and Noam, I believe, was assigned to some other job, whereas Bondi has not. The announcement on Bondi was she'll be going to the private sector somewhere to be announced. you know anyway.
|
Siri:
[1:14:48]
| I'm learning how to choose the right audio apps for you which one you want to use to listen to this which.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:54]
| One do you want to use to listen to this Sam I.
|
Sam:
[1:14:56]
| Don't know Siri had something to say Siri wanted.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:59]
| To jump in.
|
Sam:
[1:15:02]
| Okay, well, oh no, and now some actual music is playing somewhere. Okay, I decided to play on my phone some random song. I think it was the Black Eyed Peas, some song. I don't know where that came from.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:18]
| Where is the love?
|
Sam:
[1:15:21]
| Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know what it was. I could barely hear it. I turned it off. Anyway, so, okay, anything else? Well, you started to talk about Iran. We should get back to Iran a little bit more, maybe. Should we take a break first?
|
Ivan:
[1:15:36]
| Yeah, let's take a break, and then we can—that could be our coup de grace.
|
Sam:
[1:15:42]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:43]
| Or coup de grace, as I heard somebody once pronounce.
|
Sam:
[1:15:47]
| Okay, here we go. Here's a break.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:07]
| That break was the perfect segue to talk about this fucking disaster, honestly.
|
Sam:
[1:16:17]
| So, Iran, we've completely destroyed their air defenses, their Air Force, their Navy, all that kind of stuff. Right, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:16:28]
| Yeah, it's obliterated. There's nothing left.
|
Sam:
[1:16:31]
| There's nothing left.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:32]
| Nothing. Nothing. They have no military capability whatsoever. aware. Also, all the nuclear weapons are gone.
|
Sam:
[1:16:41]
| It must have been the Martians that got the planes that were shot down in the last couple days.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:47]
| Right. That's not the Iranians. No, no, no. Except the one thing is that we've gotten rid of the nuclear weapons already several times, okay, according to reports.
|
Sam:
[1:16:59]
| Several, yes, of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:59]
| Several times. Several times. But then there was something where they were trying to say that they're going to send in troops to get the nuclear weapons, and that somehow part of this mission included them building some kind of runway in order to get there and get the nukes. So there was a French general that went and looked at the plan and said to build a runway inside Iran to fly out uranium under active bombing. The French general responded, American officials should stop snorting cocaine between meetings.
|
Sam:
[1:17:44]
| So, to be specific, the sequence of events was apparently Donald Trump tasked the military with coming up with a plan to get the uranium. He has not pulled the trigger to decide to do it. But, you know, and this is another one of the things where the initial reaction from the military was probably, are you out of your fucking mind?
|
Ivan:
[1:18:09]
| Or as I did to Cena to Martian, are you fucking kidding me?
|
Sam:
[1:18:13]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:13]
| And this is the bad, are you fucking kidding me?
|
Sam:
[1:18:16]
| Of course, they were probably professional and did not say, no, are you out of your fucking mind? They were probably, okay, we'll put together a plan. And so they put together a plan.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:30]
| No, I'm sure, no, no, no, wait. Sam, the way that things are going and with all these generals being demoted and shifted, I'm sure that this was a lot worse than that. The first couple of people just said, okay, you're asking the impossible. There's no way to do this. And they're gone. Yes. And they're gone. So we're going to get people that are going to say that this can be done. Of course, those people are going to be incompetent. And so everything is going to fail. And so, you know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:18:57]
| Right. But, you know, apparently even the plans as they came out of this emphasized how big it would be, how risky it would be, etc. And Donald has not pulled the trigger. And, you know, oh, but he had that big speech, though. He did have that big speech.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:16]
| Apparently, we declared victory.
|
Sam:
[1:19:18]
| Apparently, like, the bottom line summary is he said nothing on that speech that he had not put on Truth Social over and over and over again over the previous week. There was just nothing new.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:33]
| And people took the speech so well that the next day, Brent Crude reached a record.
|
Sam:
[1:19:43]
| Record low, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:45]
| Yeah. Oh, yeah. Record low. Right. You know, one of the problems that we've got right now is that there is a disconnect between the price of the Brent crude contract, which is the one that we most track. Because when you look at oil market prices, it's not for oil for immediate delivery. This is a contract for delivery upon a specific day and time and location, by the way. All right. The contracts actually specify where the oil is to be delivered on what date and what time. And that's the one that fluctuates in the market and the price.
|
Sam:
[1:20:24]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:24]
| But it's in the future. Okay. These are futures contracts. Actually, it's a futures contract specifically. The thing is that the market for, like, immediate delivery oil, actually, the price is like $170 a barrel if you want immediate delivery oil.
|
Sam:
[1:20:44]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:45]
| Not the $110 that we're looking in the futures market. If you want, hey, I want 100,000 barrels of oil right now, you're paying $170 a barrel.
|
Sam:
[1:20:57]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:58]
| There's a big disconnect between these two right now.
|
Sam:
[1:21:02]
| Well, that makes sense because, you know, fundamentally, like for the later dates, you're sort of saying, OK, surely a month from now, things will be better.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:12]
| Right. Right. But but no. But but but but the current price that you're getting gas at is, you know, really at that current price. So so this is I mean, listen, there is no they have created such a disaster with this. And, by the way, Persian, you know, there has been an increase in traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
|
Sam:
[1:21:39]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:40]
| But it's not a lot still. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:21:42]
| And Ivan, no, and Iran is getting money out of it, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:21:47]
| And Iran is getting paid, like, I think I heard the toll is like $2 million per ship, something like that.
|
Sam:
[1:21:53]
| I think the base price was roughly $1 per gallon for what they were pulling through. But in Chinese currency, they're not actually accepting dollars.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:07]
| Well, that would make sense right now. Yeah. I mean, you definitely want like a currency that you're not going to be sanctioned on or something. This is, listen, there is, he got a speech. There is no, there is no negotiations. There is no end game. We keep fucking bombing them. We have no plan. We have no goal. We have no nothing. And here's the other thing. If you're the Iranians, you're totally emboldened by this, okay? Not, you know... the United States has achieved strategically absolutely nothing. Strategically. Okay. They may have killed a whole bunch of people and destroyed a whole bunch of shit. But in terms of, tell me what strategic objective the United States achieved with this. Do we have a regime that is more willing to...
|
Sam:
[1:23:00]
| They keep changing their answers. Like originally it was all about regime change and then it was about the nuclear...
|
Ivan:
[1:23:06]
| Now it's about grabbing the oil. Now you're saying about grabbing the oil.
|
Sam:
[1:23:08]
| Well, and at times he's just said, you know, at times he said, open the straight again. But now apparently he doesn't care about that. Let other people deal with that.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:18]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:23:19]
| But at this point, it seems like many, when they mention a strategic objective, at least, well, almost all of the time at this point, the strategic objective is basically undo the damage that was caused by our attack in the first place. You know, like, that's the best they can hope for. Not actually improving the situation compared to where it was before, other than the dead people and the destroyed stuff. Which, by the way, there have also been reports that Iran has been very efficient at repairing some of these things. Like, you know, obviously some things are just destroyed and gone, whatever. But there are certain places like bunkers that have been buried and stuff, and they've just dug them back out again, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:24:15]
| By the way, the price I said $170, it was $140. It was over $140, and I'll read this specifically. This is Mohamed El-Aryan, who is, oh, God, he's a hedge fund manager, he's a well-respected finance guy. He works at a university right now. Let me actually pull up. I keep forgetting his background. CEO of PIMCO. PIMCO, which is a very large bond institute. But he's been a lot of panels of experts related to finance and other stuff. He was considered to be head of the University of Cambridge, for example. So he's a very educated person. Knowledgeable guy in the markets. So he's the one that published this from Bloomberg. And it's basically the price, as I mentioned, it's not the price of a future contract of oil. It's like getting your hands on oil right now. Okay. And the price surged over $140 on Thursday. The highest since 2008. And it's higher than when Russia invaded Ukraine.
|
Sam:
[1:25:28]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:29]
| Okay. Okay, so this just shows how, look, there's jet fuel shortages coming in many places.
|
Sam:
[1:25:40]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:41]
| A lot of jet fuel came from there. There's cooking, there's gas shortages in India, curtailing them from cooking food right now in India. This is now a minor problem, okay? This is a problem right now with global repercussions well beyond just an increase in the price of fuel. This may lead, Lufthansa is planning to ground jets.
|
Sam:
[1:26:15]
| Right?
|
Ivan:
[1:26:16]
| Very soon. A lot of Asian airlines are doing the same. Korea is instituting drastic energy-saving measures.
|
Sam:
[1:26:24]
| Ivan, Ivan, Ivan. Japan also said the same. This will all be over in two weeks. Two weeks.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:33]
| Oh, God. Yeah, right.
|
Sam:
[1:26:41]
| Now, apparently, though, even though Donald Trump is currently saying two weeks, a bunch of the Gulf states, most prominent in Saudi Arabia, are actually pushing him to finish the job, whatever the hell that means.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:53]
| I mean, that's the problem. What job? What are we finishing? What are we doing? What, you know, goes back again. I mean, I know that to him, victory is whatever he decides is victory. So I get it. But I haven't seen him, you know, define what that is either.
|
Sam:
[1:27:15]
| Well, because that's going to change day by day, hour by hour.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:19]
| He keeps pushing it out. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:27:22]
| Well, you know, look, the thing is, and I'm going to go back to the empathy thing a little bit, because the reporting has continued to say more and more that these guys were all surprised. They all expected Iran to just lob a couple symbolic missiles in a couple directions and be over in 24 hours.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:47]
| You know what we demonstrated now? Our leadership has the same level of stupidity and hubris as Vladimir Putin.
|
Sam:
[1:27:55]
| Elaborate. Because he thought the same thing in Ukraine.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:59]
| Exactly. I mean, fundamentally— And how long has that been going on? He thought that it was going down in 30 days. And right now the war is now four years old. Four years!
|
Sam:
[1:28:16]
| But fundamentally they thought the Iranians would just roll over. And I think Donald Trump still thinks, to this day, all that has to happen is he has to find the right person to talk to in Iran and make a financial deal and say, you know, hey, we'll build Trump Tower Tehran and all will be forgiven. You know, and that's the end of it.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:42]
| Oh, speaking of a Trump Tower. Okay. Did you see the video depicting the library? The library, yes. Which apparently has as many books as, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:28:55]
| As he reads.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:56]
| As he has read ever read which is basically zero.
|
Sam:
[1:29:01]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:02]
| Listen, if they built that thing, and after Trump's out of office, they put that thing downtown, I promise to regularly have feces dropped off at that address on like a monthly basis.
|
Sam:
[1:29:18]
| Oh, okay. The nice delivery of fertilizer.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:22]
| Yes. There will be like a 3 a.m. fertilizer delivery happening once a month just dumped in front of the fucking entrance.
|
Sam:
[1:29:31]
| So, and the Trump library slash hotel was not actually on our agenda for today, but there has been some commentary because he has put out the plans for it. It is a slash hotel. It is a library combined with a hotel so that once again, he can have like people checking in to give him money. and everything about it is designed as a for-profit enterprise as opposed to every other presidential library is dedicated.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:04]
| It's a library!
|
Sam:
[1:30:05]
| It's dedicated to retaining the records, historical research, make everything from the administration available to historians so that they can dig in and understand what happened and blah, blah, blah. That, if it's even on the list at all for the Trump library, it's like number 30 on the list. Number one is how can we make more money off this thing?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:28]
| I mean, look, what is going to, the historically preserved records, what is it going to be? A whole bunch of coloring books? I mean, just, you know, maybe that's it, you know? All his truth social posts, all just plastered all over walls.
|
Sam:
[1:30:45]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:46]
| Yeah. That I can see.
|
Sam:
[1:30:49]
| Engraved into the walls.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:51]
| Engraved, engraved in granite, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:30:56]
| Yes. And then there'll be a special room where you can watch replays of The Apprentice.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:05]
| Yes! I'm sure that will be it there, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:31:08]
| Of course. Yeah, no. It's griffed from top to bottom, as always, with everything this guy does. You know, and again... look, the empathy slash theory of mind thing, I guess there's two parts of it. One is not being able to put yourself into the position of the other person. Like, how would Iraq, how would I react if I was the Iranians here? They can't really imagine that. But also, you know, somebody pointed out it's a thing along a bunch of, you know, right-wing influencers to basically assume the rest of the universe who doesn't agree with them are what they call NPCs from non-player characters in video games. Where they basically feel like the rest of the world is just walking around like zombies and doesn't really think about anything, doesn't really have opinions. They're just things to manipulate. and so of course you know that's what'll happen in iran too and it's come on people it's it's so frustrating i mean you always kind of knew that there were people like this out there but the fact that they're in charge god damn they're in charge of.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:33]
| Everything sam they're they're fucking in charge of everything.
|
Sam:
[1:32:36]
| And and the reason in.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:38]
| Charge of everything it's just.
|
Sam:
[1:32:40]
| And look, people say a lot of the voters are there because they sort of validate the opinion that, you know, oh, you're not all that smart. You're not all that successful. That's OK, because you don't need to be smart. You just need power. You just need to, like, bully people. It's OK. like and and and people have commented on even like in in democratic campaigns including the 2024 presidential but in others too you know when they've said things like you know well trump's a bully trump's an authoritarian trump's a whatever there's a significant part of the population that's, Yes, that's exactly what we want. You know, we want that sort of strong, powerful figure. And the whole idea of thinking about other people is considered weakness. I mean, hell, you've heard Elon Musk and others talk about, specifically talk about empathy as a mental illness that needs to be eradicated. You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:47]
| Oh, my God. Mark Andreessen. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:33:51]
| Okay. Maybe it was him.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:53]
| It was Mark. It said this thing. Oh, I never do any introspection.
|
Sam:
[1:33:57]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:58]
| I never. It was just one of the most. Oh, my God. I. I. I heard it, and I am just like, holy shit. What kind of a sociopath is this? I thought that guy 20, 30 years ago was maybe a nice guy.
|
Sam:
[1:34:18]
| Hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:20]
| Whoa! That was just... It's just utterly stunning to hear somebody say that.
|
Sam:
[1:34:27]
| Yeah. Whereas, like, if you... Just from a rational point of view, if you think about who do... If I'm going to pick somebody to be in charge, who do I want to be in charge? What qualities should they have? Let's go through a few. One, I want them to think about others, not just themselves, because I want them to do what's good for everyone, not just themselves. That's number one, before almost anything else. Number two, I want somebody who's capable of thinking through their actions and the possible consequences of their actions and reason through like, you know, not just sort of stumble through life, but actually like think, you know, think I want somebody who's curious and able to learn and think and find out about the things that might be affecting things. So like if they're dealing with like, let's say I ran, oh, hey, let's study up and learn a little bit about the history of Iran and what's important to those people. and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:33]
| Look, like earlier, I was making fun of you listening to Glenn Beck, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:35:38]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:38]
| But at the same time... Look, a skill that's important to be able to understand the world around you is not just to look at things through your prism of what you look through, but to also see how others are looking at them, just to validate what you are, what you're looking at and to sometimes see certain blind spots that you don't see. Look, I still remember when I was very young, and I must have been like 15 years old, and I still remember growing up and only hearing things about what happened in the Middle East from a very American-centric, Israeli-centric point of view. But actually meeting with Palestinians, okay, at Georgetown University to understand what the plight is, to understand what they were looking for, what is it that they're – the understanding that people were trying to do. And how that opened my eyes to understand that this conflict was far more complex than anything I had done. And this was like when I was very, very young. So I was like 14, 15 years old. I hadn't had the time yet to examine like or study this in depth at the time. But it did give me the realization quickly as a very young person of always trying to figure out, hey, you know what? When you're looking at a conflict, a situation like this, you need to always listen to all the sides of it before you come to what your what your opinion of it is and it's something that i learned quite young that.
|
Sam:
[1:37:08]
| Sounds like some sort of crazy dei bullshit.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:11]
| You know you know listening to people.
|
Sam:
[1:37:14]
| Who have diverse experiences who are different than your own you're out of your mind what are you thinking.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:21]
| In a in a in a setting at a university with a whole bunch of experts and knowledgeable people? What kind of a fucking idiot I am, huh?
|
Sam:
[1:37:30]
| Yeah, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:32]
| Yeah. Fuck me, Sam. How the hell? What the fuck? How?
|
Sam:
[1:37:39]
| And of course, Yvonne, by the fact that I was rattling things through, basically saying, you know, I want smart people who know what they're doing in charge, I'm an elitist asshole. Clearly.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:56]
| Oh, we are. I mean, my God, we are the ultimate elitist assholes. In this whole fucking thing. I mean, totally.
|
Sam:
[1:38:05]
| You know.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:06]
| Yeah. I mean, we are. We are absolutely. Incredible elitist assholes. I mean, we. These guys. If we met up with some of these fuckers. They would just. They would try to shame us. For our. Existence. Just merely our existence, period. Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:38:37]
| Yes. Look, and this is the backlash we've been having. You know, not only, and again, so much traces back to the Obama administration. Not only was Obama black, he was also smart. He was a nerd. Yes. He could speak. He knew what the hell he was talking about. He did his research. You know, he was a policy wonk. And so much of this, everything we've had since Obama is like a reaction to people going, we can't possibly have that.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:16]
| You know, we need to tell it like it is. We need to tell it like it is. Sam, you and I don't tell it like it is. It's all this bullshit, you know, flowery vocabulary with complicated things and words and stuff, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:39:40]
| This all actually reminds me of a book that I'll just put out there that I read, oh God, late 90s, In Defense of Elitism by William Henry.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:53]
| I was actually going to mention, I have that book as well.
|
Sam:
[1:39:57]
| Now, not to be confused, there was apparently another book by the same title. Wait, no, I want to say.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:05]
| Yes, you've both got that book at the same time.
|
Sam:
[1:40:07]
| But in defense of elitism, there was another one with that same title by Joel Stein that came out in 2019. I am not talking about that one.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:18]
| It's not the 2019.
|
Sam:
[1:40:19]
| That was apparently a humorous book. It's subtitled Why I'm Better Than You and You Are Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. But no, I'm talking about the 1995 version. And it basically went through the whole argument that, I mean, it is so sad that we've gotten away from this. But it's the argument that, you know, if you want, if somebody is going to be in charge, you want, there it is. There it is. Yvonne's got the book in front of him.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:45]
| I have the book in my head.
|
Sam:
[1:40:47]
| There you go. It basically is like, hey, if somebody is going to be in charge, you want someone who knows what they're doing. I mean, people have been recently using the example of commercial airline pilots. You want somebody who knows how to fly the plane, right? You know, or just randomly pick a passenger. Randomly pick a passenger, they'll fly the plane.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:09]
| Who tells it like it is, Sam? You want the passenger to tell it like it is. Listen, recently out of Sao Paulo.
|
Sam:
[1:41:17]
| You know, I had surgery recently. You had surgery recently. Why the hell did we get surgeons who'd spent years of training?
|
Ivan:
[1:41:24]
| Hey, Elon Musk said that a robot in three years by itself with AI could do the surgery. We don't need those stinking doctors. I said, let them operate on him first, please. And hopefully it's open heart surgery.
|
Sam:
[1:41:40]
| Look, I'm a technology optimist. At some point, he may be right. But not right now. Not right now. I probably don't want to be the first one to try that. And I definitely don't want to pick my surgeon off the street from like, hey, you, you, you.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:57]
| You can operate the robot, right?
|
Sam:
[1:42:00]
| Well, can you dig into my kidney? I've got this pocket knife. Can you help? Anyway, good book. I have not read it probably since the late 90s, but it is.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:12]
| A good book. Me neither.
|
Sam:
[1:42:14]
| I'm going to put it back on my list to read again.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:16]
| Probably should read it again.
|
Sam:
[1:42:19]
| Well, and we've had a series of books as well talking about, you know, like the death of expertise recently was also, I have not read that either, but I heard good things about it. But it's the opposite of this. It's basically talking about what we've been talking about, how there's been the decline of respect for all of this. This was by Tom Nichols and subtitled The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. And it's basically this whole thing about tearing down the, you know, we had a culture not that long ago that respected experts, respected science, was willing to like say, hey, you know, we want to make sure that we're making decisions based on the best information available, analyzed by people who know what they're talking about, et cetera. And that has been completely torn down. Now, I admit part of the dynamics there are there are quite a few situations where the experts fucked up, where the supposed experts fucked up, where the people in charge did wrong things.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:26]
| But, you know, experts will fuck up. Here is the reality. It's the difference between, you know, an educated mistake, which will happen, versus just... random, you know, fucking up something randomly just because you don't know. Because we never know everything, okay? Just like a pilot, even with all the training, could fail in, you know, saving your plane, you know, from an emergency. But in many cases, what will happen is, like, what happened in Sao Paulo, like, just this week where an A330 was taking off and right on takeoff, the left engine had a catastrophic failure okay i mean a catastrophic failure you know i mean the engine really came apart completely okay and the pilots you know like this is not a usual emergency but because they have trained on this repeatedly they were able to circle the airport and bring the airplane back down safely on that single engine and be able to do it without any problem. Okay?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:44]
| And you can see that the moment that the engine fails, I love it because one of the things that you're trained on when an engine fails like that, especially at takeoff on an A330 when you're almost at maximum thrust, first thing that happens is, look, you lose one engine, that fucking plane's going to want to turn the other way. Okay? All right?
|
Sam:
[1:45:01]
| Makes sense. Makes sense.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:02]
| And you need to be, you need to correct for that immediately, okay, all right? And so, you know, they're able to do it, and... But that's the expertise that you want, Sam. Because even with all the automation, everything that these airplanes have, you want a guy that knows what the fuck they're doing up there, just in case the automation fails. Because many times, not often, but at many occasions, it does. Because whatever scenario it's facing, it's like somebody's saying, this is a scenario that 20 plus years, you never see. All of a sudden, it happens. For real. Not simulated. For real.
|
Sam:
[1:45:46]
| But, Yvonne, I think we've seen you're fundamentally wrong here. The American public decided that they want someone who's dumb as fuck.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:57]
| Yes. And now how happy are they about that, huh? How happy are they?
|
Sam:
[1:46:05]
| Oh, yes. The approval ratings are going well. They're going well.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:10]
| He is having right now, his approval rating right now is worse than W during the financial crisis.
|
Sam:
[1:46:19]
| Yep. Yes. We got to be close to his floor, though. We got to be close to where it's just the dead enders.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:27]
| I don't think so, no.
|
Sam:
[1:46:28]
| You think we can go lower? Maybe a little bit lower.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:31]
| Oh, fuck yeah. Listen, Sam, let me tell you something.
|
Sam:
[1:46:35]
| Has he hit final Nixon level yet?
|
Ivan:
[1:46:37]
| You think people are pissed off now?
|
Sam:
[1:46:38]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:39]
| What did I tell you about Spocked Food where it is? How pissed off do you think they're going to be when regular gas is at... I think it will hit $7 a gallon. How many of those that are going to, like, all of a sudden, they're going to go fill up their stupid truck, and it's $200 for a fill-up?
|
Sam:
[1:47:02]
| I haven't seen one in person yet, but I've seen anecdotal reports online that the reverse of the I-did-this stickers with Biden that were being stuck at gas prices.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:13]
| Oh, yes, they are. Oh, they are out there.
|
Sam:
[1:47:15]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:15]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:47:17]
| With basically a sticker of Donald Trump pointing at the gas price going, I did this.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:22]
| And by the way, he really did this. Unlike Biden. Biden didn't invade Ukraine.
|
Sam:
[1:47:30]
| Right. And look, we are seeing not just the approval ratings, but more and more we're seeing prominent members of the MAGA coalition openly complaining about Donald Trump and what he's doing, and especially the Iran war, but also Epstein. And also, it is fracturing in a way we have not seen so far.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:52]
| Sam, CPAC was fucking empty. CPAC was empty.
|
Sam:
[1:48:00]
| And they cheered for impeachment.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:02]
| Yes, and they cheered for impeachment. And the guy had to be...
|
Sam:
[1:48:06]
| Wrong answer.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:07]
| Wrong answer.
|
Sam:
[1:48:10]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:12]
| CPAC was empty. Thank you. That doesn't tell you something. I don't know what does.
|
Sam:
[1:48:19]
| Well, and the thing is, like, some of these people are, look, the problem is, the problem for the Republican coalition is different people are upset at Donald Trump for different things. Right. So it's a fracturing of the coalition. It's not everybody dumping him at once and all moving to, like, hey, let's have Vance or something like that. No, there are people who are upset at him because he's not racist enough. There are people who are upset at him about gas prices. There are people who are upset about him about Epstein. There are all kinds of different reasons people are pissed at him. And the people they might support instead are different. And I think he's long ago at this point lost most of the quote unquote normie Republicans.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:09]
| Oh, those, oh my God. Yeah, those are gone.
|
Sam:
[1:49:12]
| I mean, you know, obviously a bunch of them voted for him in 2024, which wasn't that long ago, but they're not liking what they saw.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:21]
| I mean, they're all gone. They're all, they're all, you know, he finally was, you know, it's something, you know, another price that I saw today that was posted that is just crazy for the first time ever. ground beef the average price is right now higher than the minimum wage uh huh, I mean, that's an insane milestone. This is ground beef. Beef prices right now are at records. I mean, you know, it's just gas. This was the guy who was going to tackle inflation on day one, Sam. And all these people were upset with Biden because of the fucking inflation that he was getting under control. And now he has managed to fucking unleash it way worse than anything that we had had recently. In large part because when inflation at that point was rising, wages were rising. That was the biggest. This is right now a different scenario. The reason we had inflation was because we had, oh, we're having to pay employees more, so we're having to raise up prices. Now people aren't getting paid more, but prices are going through the roof. Excellent.
|
Sam:
[1:50:43]
| This is going to be a rough two and a half years we have left here, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:49]
| I mean, look, let me tell you something. With all this shit happening right now, and a whole slew of Senate polls that I saw, in places that we never expected the Democrats to seriously be competing, to have a chance, where all of a sudden the Democrats are having a chance.
|
Sam:
[1:51:09]
| Right. We're not quite at the point where we're predicting a Senate majority, but it's now in play, and it was not before.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:17]
| It was not before. fuck, could we get rid of this guy? And it depends on how the House finishes. Because I'm telling you something. The Republicans have...
|
Sam:
[1:51:27]
| It's not enough. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:29]
| Listen. Well, no, you still in the Senate would have to peel off some Republicans. Yeah. But with a lame duck, with their approvals going through the roof, with them staring, a complete and utter disaster. Wouldn't they just fucking at some point decide, fuck this man. Let's put in Pence. The hell with us.
|
Sam:
[1:51:47]
| I mean, Pence. I think... Yeah, not Pence, Vance. I made that same mistake earlier this week on the Slack. No, I think.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:56]
| There is a breaking point.
|
Sam:
[1:51:59]
| I think that there is a breaking point.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:01]
| We're not there yet. We're not there yet. And I know it's tough to envision because of what's happened, but I do think that there is a breaking point.
|
Sam:
[1:52:10]
| OK, yeah, I'm just not sure. Absent a health crisis that is so obvious that he is clearly unable to perform any duties whatsoever.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:21]
| Not like I think I think it's a confluence of things. His health is deteriorating like a fucking rock. OK. All right. That's that's evident. His is is is his bride is his mental health is the client. I'm going to tell you right now, Sam, the hell that will descend under Republicans with seven dollars. I'm telling you right now, seven dollar regular gas is hell you haven't seen on a president during our lifetime as an adult. It's the kind of shit that, you know, Nixon had in the Republicans when we had gas lines.
|
Sam:
[1:52:58]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:59]
| We haven't seen that. We were too little.
|
Sam:
[1:53:03]
| So one thing that I'll throw out there, because I've been thinking about this this week as well, is if for whatever reason, whether it's an impeachment, a 25th Amendment, or something happens to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance becomes president, While the Democrats have control of the Senate and the House, should they leave the vice presidency open and ignore any nominations that Vance makes for the vice presidency? I'm thinking they should.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:35]
| 100%. You do not take anybody he nominates as vice president.
|
Sam:
[1:53:42]
| I agree. Because, you know, I mean, not that I would be wishing anything ill on Vance, but if something then happens to Vance, you get Jeffries. Not that I particularly like Jeffreys, but, you know, whatever. There's no reason to put somebody in that slot.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:57]
| Who knows if Jeffreys winds up being, at that point where we get to that cycle, if Jeffreys wind up still being Speaker, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:54:06]
| Yes, yes. I don't know. Like, but I agree. I mean, although I've been saying that not just, I mean, obviously, vice president is like a dramatic. Now, do I think the Democrats would actually have the guts to do that? No, probably not. They'd probably give a thumbs up to whoever nominated him.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:22]
| Also think, oh, fucking try to impeach fucking Vance. Fuck this shit. You know, fucking get rid of his ass, too.
|
Sam:
[1:54:28]
| Yes. That would be an interesting series of events if you did that. But I don't think Republican—even if you could get enough Republicans to go after Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:38]
| You wouldn't get them to go. Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah, they would. The Republicans wouldn't peel off to impeach Vance, no. No, but— They might get rid of Trump because the situation gets bad enough, okay? But no, they're not—if they got Vance in, they're not going to fucking—yeah, they're not going to torpedo Vance.
|
Sam:
[1:54:53]
| No, no, they're not. But just in general, the Democrats need to be better about this than they have been.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:02]
| Somebody said that they need to find whoever the hell the Lego people that the Iranians are using and hire them. That's got to be like a, I mean, whoever in the campaign, I'm like, I don't know, Gavin Newsom. Hey, listen, go find, listen, call them up and say, hey, look, can we hire? Look, how much are you charging?
|
Sam:
[1:55:23]
| Yeah, you work for Iranian intelligence. No problem.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:27]
| You know, that's fine.
|
Sam:
[1:55:31]
| No, but, I mean, in general, the Democrats, even when most of the Democrats have voted no, there's always been, like, some number of Democrats approving all of these crazy cabinet picks, like, that Donald Trump has. And it's like, come on, at least provide a unified front and vote no on everybody, because these are all crazy people.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:55]
| Listen, we need to replace, you know, what's his name, with somebody. We need our own Mitch McConnell. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:56:02]
| Yeah. Somebody who's willing to push the rules to their limits and be aggressive. And we don't have that in either the House or Senate right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:12]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:56:12]
| And I recognize that.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:13]
| And that's what we need.
|
Sam:
[1:56:14]
| And I recognize they're in the minority. But like when the Republicans were in the minority, it didn't stop them from using every ounce of power they could to stop things. You know, and so that that should be happening. And certainly if they have the majority, don't be shy. and and even like during trump's first term i remember month after month being so frustrated that the democrats were being so slow and so normal about everything and it's like no treat this like the fucking emergency it is and be serious about things and be aggressive and they weren't and and and to some degree well yeah nancy pelosi may have nancy pelosi may have been right that being aggressive hurt the Democrats in the polls when they finally started doing things like impeachment and stuff. But I think there's also a fundamental issue of like, you got to show some spine.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:09]
| Yeah, but I also think that like a lot of people, like during that first period of time, everybody was a little bit, it was a state of shock.
|
Sam:
[1:57:17]
| Yeah, yeah, well. We were already two years in at that point.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:23]
| No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about, you said the initial period, the initial period.
|
Sam:
[1:57:26]
| No, I was saying once the Democrats took back the House after the midterms in the first Trump administration, that's when I was frustrated with them being slow and not aggressive enough. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:38]
| Also, like you mentioned, that Nancy may have been right.
|
Sam:
[1:57:41]
| She may have been right. She was right a lot. But I don't know. Anyway, we're over time.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:49]
| No, the mistake. Listen, let's be clear. That wasn't the big mistake. The big fucking mistake was, biden and look i i'll take blame for that i thought that was the right strategy, was not pushing that as hard to prosecute these assholes oh.
|
Sam:
[1:58:08]
| Yeah well that and not pushing really hard for things like supreme court reform and.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:13]
| Yeah the election bill like lean on.
|
Sam:
[1:58:17]
| Mansion and cinema and say like i'm sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:20]
| Listen i'm gonna find the pictures with of you with whatever i I don't care. We'll fucking, you know, I'm going to destroy you. Just fucking do it or else, or we'll destroy you.
|
Sam:
[1:58:30]
| Yeah. That's it.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:31]
| It had to be scorched earth. Whatever the hell happens from now on, there is no going back to normal, you know, not anytime soon. Okay. All right. I mean, until this Republican party as it exists is destroyed, destroyed. There is no normalcy to go back to. There is no, there is nothing. There's no normalcy.
|
Sam:
[1:58:56]
| I still, like, I have visions of getting to 2029, having some Democrat elected, and them then repeating Obama's line about we're going to look forward, not back. And I will be so unhappy if that happens. No, we have to look back. We have to deal with what has happened.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:17]
| We have to look back and we have to be brutal.
|
Sam:
[1:59:20]
| Yeah. Oh, but Yvonne, we would just be doing exactly what they said we always do. We would be proving them right. Yeah. For those on audio only, Yvonne just flipped me the bird.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:33]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:59:34]
| Or flipped them the bird. Somebody. Yes. Raised his middle finger. Them. Them.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:38]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:59:40]
| I think we're done, Yvonne. We need to be done.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:42]
| We're done.
|
Sam:
[1:59:43]
| Thank you, everybody, for joining us again. It's been another happy episode of Curmudgeon's Corner. You can go to our website at curmudgeon-corner.com, see all our archives, see different ways to subscribe, see how to contact us, and, of course, a link to our Patreon, where you can give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug, all of that kind of stuff. I saw a video, the Snohomish Podcast Network set up a little booth at a bank, and apparently one of the things they're giving away is a Curmudgeons Corner mug.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:21]
| Woo! There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:00:23]
| There you go. So if you got that mug and are listening because of it, congratulations. Welcome. And, yeah, and at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, We'll invite you to the curmudgeons corner Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of our listeners are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, etc. So Yvonne, what is something from the Slack that is interesting and fun and would make people want to join the Slack that has not been discussed on the show itself?
|
Ivan:
[2:00:55]
| Something, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking. Oh, oh, oh. So I shared a couple of links about Apple's 50th anniversary, okay? That had, one of them that had, there was a really cool one, and this is in Apple News. This was, I mean, if you don't have Apple News, if you don't have like whatchamacallit, the Apple subscription monthly whatever thing it's called that I can't remember right now, that includes Apple News. They had this really cool link to the epic 50-year story of Apple told through the Wall Street Journal Archive. And it showed the headlines back all the way to the original time that Apple Computer was mentioned in their story. There was also a video in here that they showed where they were with Tim Cook and they went to Apple headquarters and for the 50th anniversary, they had pulled all this stuff that even Tim Cook admitted he had not seen of prototypes of like the iPod and iPhone and other devices where basically there was just this entire crude array of like chips and things or whatever that they were plugged in with a cable into a display. so it would show how the hell it worked or whatever. But it was just the crude prototypes of all those products and other interesting stuff like that that was there. That was pretty cool. The other thing that I shared that was funny more than this.
|
Sam:
[2:02:23]
| Just to be clear, to be explicit, they incorporated on April 1st, 50 years ago. So we just passed their anniversary a few days ago. We just passed their anniversary. It was a great April Fool's joke that has lasted 50 years now.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:36]
| Yes. And some MAGA guy, genius guy, apparently thought that this t-shirt was owning other people. It said, he posted a picture of himself with a t-shirt that says, I lubricate my AR-15 with liberal cum. And the question was, I have questions. How exactly do you plan on acquiring this lubricant? And somebody going and replying to some of these like MAGA people, guys, I'm begging them to accept that they're gay already.
|
Sam:
[2:03:12]
| Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:13]
| And let's say Graham was at Disney World.
|
Sam:
[2:03:16]
| I did hear that. I heard people upset that he was at Disney for some reason.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:20]
| I thought it was more weird. I don't know why they were upset, but it was just kind of like...
|
Sam:
[2:03:25]
| You go to Disney all the time. What's the problem?
|
Ivan:
[2:03:28]
| I take my kid. I don't think he has kids. Does Lindsey Graham have kids? No, he does not have kids.
|
Sam:
[2:03:33]
| He was solo, so I understand it. Is that weird? I've heard there are a whole culture of Disney adults that just go to Disney.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:42]
| Yes and they are all weird oh.
|
Sam:
[2:03:44]
| Okay i was not aware they were weird i thought it was just like.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:48]
| Yeah they're they're kind of weird.
|
Sam:
[2:03:54]
| Do they usually go and come in groups at least or is like.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:57]
| Okay there is this culture of adults that do go groups and by the way there is this also this group of adults that go to like say epcot where for example they have this stuff like drinking around the world and stuff of whatever versus some adult stuff, and there are some adult rights, but usually they're going in like a group of like friends, okay, at least, even if that, for example, but, but. Lindsey Graham was at Disney by himself. And it's just, it was just weird.
|
Sam:
[2:04:23]
| Wasn't he holding a stuffed animal or something?
|
Ivan:
[2:04:24]
| Yeah, he was holding something that he had. Yeah, it's all very odd.
|
Sam:
[2:04:29]
| It's okay. You know, I have many problems with Lindsey Graham. This is not one of them.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:35]
| No, no, no, no, it's not a problem. This is more on the, yeah, you know, some people were upset. I was like, I just thought it was kind of odd. But, you know, hey, you know.
|
Sam:
[2:04:46]
| Got a fun time.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:48]
| I guess.
|
Sam:
[2:04:50]
| Okay, well, I'll give my 30-second Robin letter update, too.
|
Sam:
[2:04:55]
| We kind of felt flat on growth last week because I've stopped inviting new people myself, and every existing Robin, as far as I can tell right now, is waiting for somebody who either has timed out in the past or is on their very first time and doesn't necessarily know what it is. And so we're waiting for a whole bunch of timeouts before like people get back to the ones who are actually active participants, which is annoying.
|
Sam:
[2:05:26]
| I am this weekend. I hope to finish the next thing I wanted to do before another marketing push. Like I was going to make some social media posts and stuff, but the based on some people being confused, Robin letter is my social media thing. or not quite social media alternative thing that I've built robinletter.com for anybody who hasn't already looked, and make a little tour. So when you log in for the first time, you get a little tour, screenshots, pointing at things, explaining what they are, because even of the people who are already in there, it feels like 80 to 90% of people figure it out right away, but there's like 10 to 20% who don't. So I'm going to do a little slideshow to explain it the very first time you log in. And then after that, I'll figure out, I'll consult with you a little bit, Yvonne, on like where to post next and what to say. Because I want to start getting some additional people in here who aren't just the folks I invited and such. But we'll see.
|
Sam:
[2:06:25]
| Need to get it going. Need to get the numbers going up and to the right again. I don't like it when it pauses. It's not like.
|
Sam:
[2:06:33]
| A precipitous decline or anything, but it's, it's leveling off and I want it to go up. Anyway, that's it for my update. And that's it for this episode of Curmudgeon's Corner. Everybody have a nice week. You know, your kid had their spring break earlier. My kid's spring break is this coming week. So we've got a spring. We're not doing anything special except not having to slog back and forth to school every day, which is in itself a good thing. So yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:00]
| Yeah. That It feels like a vacation in and of itself, just not having to take him to school. I know.
|
Sam:
[2:07:05]
| Exactly. And, you know, it occupies a significant chunk of my day. So, like, you know, I was out of commission because of my health issues. And then even when I'm done that, I've been having trouble kickstarting my productivity again. And, like, having to spend several hours a day going back and forth to school doesn't help with that. So maybe this coming week I can sort of kickstart things and be productive again. I hope. Anyway. that's it thanks everybody have a great week have a good time blah blah blah stay safe blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah goodbye bye here comes the music Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I'm hitting stop. Have a good rest of your weekend, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:14]
| Okay. Bye.
|
Sam:
[2:08:16]
| Bye.
| |
|
