1: How to make money on the Internet. Sorta.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly podcast where two old internet vets talk about technology, the internet, where it's going to shit and what we do to fix it. I'm Jason. And I'm Brian.

You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash Grumpy Old Geeks, on Twitter at GOG Podcast, or on the web at grumpyoldgeeks.com. Or you can email us at podcast at grumpyoldgeeks.com, and now you can also subscribe to us on iTunes. Just search for Grumpy Old Geeks.

Hey, Brian. Hey, Jason. How's your day? Kind of crazy. How about you? Grumpy. Well, that's us. We are the Grumpy Old Geeks, I guess. So we came up with the idea for this podcast after you got a Mac, and I was going to teach you how to use it. Yeah, that still hasn't happened, and I had a little beach ball a couple minutes ago, and I still don't know why that happened.

They frustrate me, Jason. They task me. I'm sorry. There's not a lot I can do about that part. No. But at some point, we'll teach you how to use your Mac, but at least we got the podcast going. We do, and we're recording it on the Mac, so that's a good thing, right? Step one. I'm learning. I'm learning.

And every now and again, we may have to take plane breaks because you're in the flight path for the Santa Monica Airport. I am, and I apologize for that in advance, but it's a lovely view. It is a nice view. I'll give you that. Okay. So, us. Why are we here? How do we know each other?

I think we've both been building websites since about 1995-ish. You were 95, 96? Yeah, around there. I actually built a gopher site before that, so I think we've both been in since basically this shit started. Yep. So, combined, probably a good 40 years of experience.

Absolutely. And we're both around our 40s. I'm a little younger. He's the baby. I'm the baby. I'm over 40. What was your first browser? My first browser? Gosh, what was that called? The first one. The original one.

Whatever. Mosaic? Mosaic, yes. All right. I had Mosaic. I used it to download porn illegally from USC. Sorry. Plane break. Oh, plane. See, Santa Monica Airport. There comes again tomorrow. That's Steven Spielberg or Leonardo DiCaprio. If it's a jet, it's somebody famous.

Okay. Larry Flynn flies out of Burbank. Oh, no. He flies out of Van Nuys. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's a great little restaurant. You can go and sit and watch the runway, and every now and again, his plane will just tool on by. Are those, like, naked ladies painted on the side of the plane? It's black. Very disappointed. I know.

Okay. So, 40 years of experience combined-ish. Yeah. Have you been working in the business the whole time? Yes. I have not taken a break. It's all been internet stuff, almost primarily in the music field. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. I was in movies for a long time, then went into the startup realm up in San Francisco.

Very brave of you. Yeah. And the one thing I did notice is after every startup, there is a two- to three-month cool-down period where you don't want to touch a computer. I don't think I've ever actually taken a real break, ever. I've never even had vacations. Well, I've had vacations, but I take the laptop with me.

Yeah. I'm working while I'm on vacation. Yeah. I've never really had a break. I mean, I met you at my second job outside of college. So, even in college, as I was working basically with internet stuff, because that stuff had just come out, and I was working for the kind of USC undergraduate program, and I built a gopher site for them.

And then I built their first kind of real website for, you know, prospective students to look at to learn about USC as, you know, my work program while I was there. I took off to Europe for the obligatory, like, two-month tour right after that.

Did you graduate? I did graduate, yes. I have degrees in psychology and music. That has absolutely nothing to do with my career for the past, you know, 20 years. So, I did that, and I came back, and I decided I needed a job, because I've always had a job. I've been working since I was 15.

And I saw in the paper that this company called Hollywood Online was hiring. I remember them. Yeah, well, I figured I know how to do that stuff. They mentioned words like FTP and AOL, and I was like, I know that stuff. And that was my first job, and it was kind of almost pre-internet. We were building AOL packages for movies.

So, I also briefly worked in the movie industry as well. And it got to the point where they started to actually build websites. I remember doing a website for the American President. The American President? Remember that movie with Annette Bening? Yes, yes.

I like that movie. It's actually a great movie, so we did the website for that. And I met kind of a music guy, got a job there too, Tony Keywell, who's now with Sub Pop, I believe, and has been with Sub Pop for years. I didn't know Sub Pop was still around. They're still around, and they've still got some good bands on there.

But I met him, he was working there as well, and we kind of convinced, because this is the Wild West back then. Anything goes, what's going on? And we didn't really like doing movie stuff, and we convinced the powers that be at our small little company to let us do a little fanzine for music, which basically let us interview bands we liked, get free tickets to concerts for bands we liked, all that sort of stuff.

And then we actually started to get a couple music clients because of that. And shortly thereafter, Hollywood Online got a lot of funding, went really, really big. I left, because my salary did not get really, really big commensurate with these things.

Right. So off I was. I freelanced for a little bit, and then I ended up at Box Top, where you and I met. Yep. Yeah. So, yeah, out of high school, or out of college, which I attended off and on, I left early because I found that I was a photography major.

And I got really sick from the chemistry, and I couldn't go in the darkroom anymore. But we had an Amiga. So I started to get into computers because we had an Amiga there, and I could digitize stuff and still do photography. And we literally digitized it by taking a camcorder, strapping it up to an overhead projector, and, like, shooting down on the whatever pictures we were trying to do.

It was crazy. But I got a job at a Kinko's doing desktop publishing, and I conned them into buying us a modem. Nice. And then had them install a phone line the whole nine yards, 14-4, you know, nice and zippy. And that was when I first found Mosaic and started building websites at Kinko's because I worked on the overnight shift.

There was nothing else to do except make copies for your friends when they would come in. And that was – Right. It was – Now, was that your first experience with computers around that point? No, I've been programming since I was 13. Okay. See, me as well. So I actually ran an old BBS when I was 13 and 14.

I convinced my parents to get me a separate phone line. And I hooked up my – you know, I started with a – not even – what was the first one after 300? Not 14-4. 24. Yeah, I had a 2400 baud modem that was connected. And I remember it would ring when people wanted to connect to the BBS that I had set up, which is called Bring on the Night because I was a huge Sting fan at that point, Sting and Police fan.

It's kind of a little ridiculous. And, you know, they had like Fido and all that kind of stuff. So these connected message boards and then you also had your private ones that were only for your own BBS and all that. Yeah. So, yeah, I've been a geek for a long, long time. Yeah, my mom had an IBM XT.

And my uncle actually got the Mac the first day it came out, so I got to play with one of those. So, yeah, I had computers off and on, so I was literate in the stuff. But getting paid at Kinko's to build websites was, or learn how to build websites. The other upside was that's when the only documentation you could find on HTML was the specification for 1.0.

And it was about an inch thick, but I worked at Kinko's so I could print it out. And I kept that bound copy of the HTML1 spec for probably five years. And that's what we had to learn from. It's actually a shame you don't still have it. I wish I had it because I did the cover in Kai's Power Tools 1.0.

Still got the floppies for that one. Yeah, all I remember printing out from that day and age were ASCII porn art. I did that on my dot matrix that my mom had. That, actually, I still have one of the first printouts in a box in my dad's house of the first naked lady I ever printed from a disc.

I remember printing out Vanna White Playboy spread out ASCII art. Oh, my God, that's sad. Which is sad and pathetic. That's so sad. And I can't believe I just admitted that. Anyways, so we're very old geeks. Yeah. But to get back to how I met you at Box Top, which is really crazy, when I'm sitting in my girlfriend's house working on her computer, trying to work on AOL, trying to figure out how the internet works, I found a site for, I can't remember if it was Megadeth or it was some metal band.

And they had postcards that you could, on a website, you go and you type it in and it would generate the actual image with your text on it. Yes. And I thought it was fascinating. Yes. And I wanted to learn how to do that. That was, like, one of the first things that got me going. When I came to work with you at Box Top, down in the basement, this little guy named Fez, and he's the guy that wrote that first program.

And by that time, I'd done Spew, which was my first zine, which was huge at that point. Which I remember seeing, and I had no idea that you were the one that did it. I was, like, a devotee. I was always checked out that site. And, yeah, when we met each other and he told me you did it, I was like, oh, my God, this man is a god.

It was my first foray into internet stardom. But it was great because Fez had seen my site and I'd seen his site and it was just this mutual, you know, geek love fest. It was really kind of creepy. It was definitely a Wild Wild West thing because, again, like, all of us were doing these things and we would meet each other and go, oh, I've seen that.

Can you imagine that now? Like, because everybody has a site. Can you imagine running into somebody and finding out they had done something and go, oh, yeah, I've seen that. That doesn't happen anymore. But, like, all of us had done stuff that we'd all seen. Yeah. And, look, there was an app from Pier 1 that just came out that is, like, basically the map of the internet.

But it's got this cool feature where you can scrub backwards in time and see how many people were on the internet at any given year. And back then it was, like, 18 million people worldwide. And now it's in the billions. So back then it was a much smaller pool. So if you were in the community, you kind of got to know some of the players.

Because, you know, as you get near the top and figure out who's making the stuff, it's fewer and fewer as you get to the top of the pyramid, you know. So if you're doing good stuff on the net, you're going to run into each other. So you just don't get that anymore. And that box stop period, when I first joined, you guys had already been there for a little while.

So it took me a while to get there. But that was a hotbed. Like, we were groundbreaking. Yeah. We were really pushing the envelope. Everybody there was doing crazy stuff. We were pretty much way ahead of our time. And those guys had no idea what to do with us. But it was a good time. It was a great time.

I was only there for three months. Yeah, you weren't there very long. But it was fun. Three months to the day. And that is where we met. Yeah, that was my third internet company. Right. That's my history for bouncing. That was my second and my last. Yeah. Except for my own.

Yeah. Yeah. That was a long time. So now, basically since box stop, I've been running a company called Slender Fungus. And all we really do, well, our- It's just you and your- It's just me and my one partner, Wendy Marble, the designer.

So, and all we really do is music stuff. And we've kind of evolved with the times. At first, it was just websites. And then it became social networking. And then it became tour books and print books and merchandise design and album artwork and all that sort of stuff. And that's what we're still doing, even through the chaos of the music industry and destruction and things, Napster, and all that sort of stuff.

And so that's what I'm doing now. How about you, Jason? Right now, I'm kind of bouncing around the internet looking for my next project. I, like I said, I did the startup thing for a while up in San Francisco, went through three or four of those, came back to L.A., got back into the movie biz for a while, doing motion picture marketing and Facebook apps for TV and stuff.

And right now, I'm on to the next thing, which is unknown. So, I'm a podcaster now. You're a podcaster now. Yes, because that's the future, right? Yep.

So, over general conversations that you and I have had as we're trying to figure out how to get you up to speed on the Mac, it's come up in conversation that you don't quite understand how some of these big companies make money on the internet.

No, I don't. I do not, for the life of me, understand Google's valuing on the public market. I don't understand how they make any money. I don't understand how Yahoo's made money. I don't understand how any of these companies make any money whatsoever.

Okay. And to that end, I want to just talk about making money on the internet in general. Okay. Because this is our first podcast. Yes. And we need a really catchy headline or a title for the podcast. And I think how to make money on the internet, the good, the bad, and the butt fucking ugly is going to be a pretty good show title.

That's a good title. And considering that we've both worked in the internet for 20 years, we're still trying to figure out how to make money off the internet. Please tell me. So, when it comes to – this is – I have made money off the internet. I've just spent it all. I've made a living off the internet.

Yes. But I am not – You've made money from the internet, not on the internet. I've made money from the internet. Yes. Because you're a service-based company and you put people's websites on the internet and you do promotion and all the stuff that vendors basically do to put people on the internet.

Yes. But I do things that don't have any real monetary connection. I do promotional things, which is meant to sell other items, tickets for shows. Used to be CDs or downloads, but nobody does that anymore. Thanks again, Napster.

Sorry. I'm just going to crap on Napster a lot. It's okay. I've met Sean Fanning. He's kind of a twat. Well, yeah. He's a dick. Yeah. And his car is filthy. I got a ride from him.

We went out to sushi and I got a ride from him one night and he drove this beautiful Mercedes. I swear to God there were more like soda cans and popcorn wrapper potato chip bags in the backseat than you'd see in like a 74 Pinot down in El Segunda.

You know what you should have done at the end of the dinner after he dropped you off? You should have got him a taxi and said, I'm just going to take your car. I'm going to take your car now. Yeah. Because, you know, why not? It would have been fitting. Fuck you, Sean Fanning. I don't think he would have liked it too much.

Yeah. It's surprising. He wouldn't like when people's take from him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's kind of a buff guy, though, so I didn't want to fuck with him too much. Kind of a pussy. I know some pretty buff musicians that would be happy to take him out. Maybe we could do a celebrity boxing event. That's a good idea. Oh, yeah.

Making money on the internet. See? Okay. Let's get back to it here. So, when you talk about those big companies, it's all advertising. It's eyeballs. They put advertisers in front of people.

Yes. That's it. It's a straightforward formula. Okay. They've got millions and millions and millions of people looking at something. They're going to put ads on it, and then profit. That's it. I have never, ever once in my entire life clicked on an ad.

Ever. In fact, I don't even see ads. Ad blocking software is ubiquitous. What was that? Ubicitous. Shit. It's all over the place. Damn it. You're a musician. You're not an English major. Well, you know.

We do drink well. We're recording this broadcast. This episode is brought to you by Stone Levitation Ale. Not Leviathan, like I thought it were the first time. No, it's Levitation Ale. It's not Leviathan. Although, you know, call us. Maybe we can do our own beer. Yeah.

So, it's all over the place. It's really easy to install. I put it on my parents' computers. I don't see ads. I don't see ads either. So, are we just relying on the stupidity of the masses? Do people actually click on these things? Yes, they do. Give me click-through rates. No.

Well, I can tell you right now, when I first started doing advertising, it was about a 2% click-through rate on ads back in the early 90s when ads first came out. Now, it is around 0.02%. So, it's not working as a model.

It kind of is because they're making money. And with Google, especially in most of these places, it's self-service. People come in. They create their own ad. They pay for it based on ranking where they want it on the page. It's an auction model. I've done ads for my clients before.

But I can tell you right now, I know a guy out in the Valley who does real estate stuff. And he actually brings in about $10,000 a month in business from spending about $3,000 a month on Google. So, people are clicking on it. And with the geo-targeting now, where you can do a keyword in a geo area.

So, he's literally doing like a 20-mile radius in the Valley for people who are trying to either refi their home or short sale their home. And he's making good money on it. Do you think it's enough to make Google possibly the most – is Google the most profitable company in the world right now?

Or the most valued company in the world? Or is it still Apple? Well, no. It's probably one of the – I think it's Exxon. I think Exxon went back to the top. Well, okay. But just staying in the computer field. Yeah. It's the tech field. Yeah, tech field. Because Apple and Google are apples and oranges. We know oil.

Oil is always going to be oil. But Google's stock price boggles me. Well, the stock market boggles me. I know nothing about stocks. But it's all perceived value. So, I think a lot of Google's money is perceived value. It's not this advertising thing.

They're not making as much money as they should be. Mostly, they're making their money through perceived value in the stock market. I just don't see how it's any other way. I think it's smoke and mirrors. It could be, but they also have their hands in other projects.

I mean, the mapping stuff. How do they make money off that? Well, the mapping stuff ties into reviews. Like, they're trying to do what Yelp did. They got in trouble a while ago for stealing all of Yelp's data and putting it in. They had to take it back out.

You know, geolocating to – like, when I search on Maps and I just go to Google Maps, type food, sponsored links come up there. Right. So, they've got different avenues of advertising. And also, don't discount Google Glass because that's going to be a game changer, my friend.

No, that will be. And I agree with that 100%. I can't believe Apple dropped the ball on that and all they're offering up is a watch. I was being utterly facetious. No, I actually think it's going to be amazing. I think it's going to be – well, it's going to be one of those things where the initial price is going to be so far out of reach for anybody.

You and I won't even be able to afford – $1,500 or $1,800 right now. Yeah, which is crazy. Crazy money. But eventually. Yeah. I guarantee you in 20 years we're all going to be wearing these things. I hope so. Yeah. I've been wanted – I've been – I used to try and hack web cameras with cell phones to just be able to take a picture from my shoulder wherever I went.

You know, when T-Mobile came out – not T-Mobile. Yeah, it was T-Mobile, the sidekick. It had a camera on it. Yes, I remember the sidekick. I used to write Perl scripts to, like, do moblogging is what we called it back then. You know, like, do a thing that emailed it to an address, do a Perl script, put it up on my blog. Yeah.

I love computers everywhere. That's why I love cell phones. I love everything they got to. Which became Instagram and, damn it, we didn't invent that. Oh, I don't want to talk about Instagram. That's another way of the grumpy old geek stuff, which is, like, you and I did this shit. Yeah.

And didn't make the money off of it. Nope. Oh, God. And so that's another way to make money on the internet is to build something that's completely stupid and sell it to somebody who's stupider. Yeah.

Basically. I mean, that's the game plan for almost every startup now, right? Sell it to Google or Facebook. Well, it's not as much as it used to be, I think, because I don't think there – I think acquisitions have slowed down. But, like, four or five years ago, absolutely, that's your business model. You flip.

Yeah. You build it and flip. But the other business model, the advertising revenue, people are seeing that drop. It's dropping, but it's still steady. I mean, it's not going away. It's going to change. Like, take a look at what they do on, say, IMDb now. They do what's called takeovers.

So when a movie comes out, they basically take over the whole page, the background, the header, everything, and then that's all you see. Like, there's no other ads on the page. It's literally called a takeover. MySpace does that. YouTube does it. Yeah. And the YouTube ones are actually pretty crafty.

We did one for Once Upon a Time, and it was, like, right before the premiere. The video starts to play, and it looks like a normal video, and then the whole page just erupts and, like, goes bonkers. And we worked with YouTube on that. Minimum to even get in the door to do one of those is $100,000.

Right. You know, that ain't chump change at all. Okay. Well, so incredibly massively profitable companies that make shit tons of money pay these tech companies a ton of money to take over them. Yeah.

And also little guys who are selling real estate pay them to, you know, sell houses. It's profitable. That's how they make their money. It's – but you have to be Google or Facebook. It's a big corporation strategy. It's a big corporation strategy. Right. It's not – you're not going to – There's no trickle down.

No. Let's just say you're not going to be able to make money like that unless you're buying ads on them to sell something else. Listen to that, Republicans. No trickle down in the internet. Ronald Reagan – Reaganomics does not work on the internet. This is purely if you've got the money, you make the money, which you guys love anyways, right, Republicans?

So – but I still recommend everybody get an ad blocker. I do too as well. I mean it's made my life a lot better on the internet. It's a lot better. The pre-rolls that you can't start – well, it's like hacking, right? It's always going to be one step, two steps.

So we'll be able to block the pre-rolls on YouTube and Vivo soon enough anyways. Yeah. I was listening to something the other day and they said every YouTube video, just skip ahead 30 seconds. This is just about the content, not about the advertising because there's nothing good in the first 30 seconds of any YouTube video.

So you can save yourself days of your life if you spend a lot of time on YouTube by just skipping the first 30 seconds. Well, you also listen to podcasts at double speed, right? Yes, I do. And it's funny. I listen to a lot of podcasts on the 5x5 network and they do not like it when people listen at double speed.

I guess they think it cheapens the value or something, but I can't do it. I listen to so many podcasts. I listen to quite a few, but I actually don't want to hear my voice at double speed. It's at the point now when – and I talk faster sometimes, but that's because I'm listening to chipmunks in my ear all day long.

Right. So when I listen to a podcast at single speed, it feels like I'm like walking in molasses. It's crazy. And podcasting is a way to make money. These guys, they sell advertising on their podcasts. Again, I listen to a ton of podcasts as well. Not going to go to Adam and Eve.

Not interested in the man great. You might possibly buy Adam Carolla's Mangria, but I'm an alcoholic, so. What, are you going to buy his higher testosterone stuff too? No. See? Yeah. No. But when I'm listening to podcasts that are relevant to my interest, like the tech podcast, I have bought Squarespace subscriptions using their codes.

We are hosted on Squarespace using a code from the Back to Work podcast. Well, the interesting thing that you just said to me was relevant to my interests. Yes. And this is where I start to understand advertising. Not so much the spamming and not so much the – and we can get into this too.

I'm skipping a little ahead. No, just the social media aspect of what these companies do where they just like, you know, Pepsi has a Twitter. Oh, great. Whoop-dee-doo. I don't care about any of that. What actually grabs my eye and makes me pay attention is one of my friends posts something on Facebook.

Not so much Twitter because I ignore Twitter to all hell. But, again, when my friends repost something or talk about a product, that's when I pay attention. I don't care about the ads. I don't care about the spam. I don't care about the sponsored ads and all the sort of things that post up.

But when I see on my feed that you've posted something, say, about the 10-year or 15-year or whatever it is hoodie, I paid attention to that. I looked at it, and I want one. That's when it works. But it also doesn't work because on my 10-year hoodie post, I said, who wants to wear the same fucking hoodie for 10 years?

I would. I have clothes in my closet right now that I'm bummed out about, and I'm still holding on to because I like them, but they've started to fall apart. Okay. So, for me, something, if it's quality, great. And it'll last that long, great. But that's a completely different topic. My point being that when my friends post something about a product, that's when I pay attention.

It's not one that's interjected into my fucking face. It's when it comes from somebody I trust and know and like. You've got a degree in psychology. Yes, I do. Have you heard the – it's social proof. Yes. That's all it is. Yes.

So you are apt to listen to something that somebody else recommends. Now, what if I got paid to do that and I never told you? That brings up an interesting topic. When celebrities get paid. Which is where I think the next round – well, we have laws about that, supposedly.

If you are – if you're repping a product… That's right. …you are supposed to say that you are being paid to endorse said product. However, there are things like Linkshare. Yes. Which I use. If I'm posting something about an album I really like and I'm going to post a link, I'm on Linkshare.

And I will sign in and go ahead and get my 10 cents or whatever. So Linkshare is an affiliate program. Linkshare is an affiliate program. You can sign up with them. And then I use it purely for music and so you can sign up and you go in and you copy your iTunes link and you paste it into their thing and you get a little nice link from them and you use that to post.

And if somebody goes and clicks on that link and buys something, you get 10 cents. Do you do the same thing with Amazon? I used to. Then they got all that crazy weird stuff happened with California and they shut it down for a long time. And realistically, I'm getting 50 cents a month.

It's not really worth it. But if I were a big company and if I were a celebrity and if I were doing all that sort of stuff, I would – Adam Carolla, again, going back to his podcast, Everything's Click-Through is on Amazon. If you're going to buy something, come click through AdamCarolla.com. Yeah, I hear that everywhere now.

And he gets his 15% or 10% or whatever he gets. Here's the other crazy thing is I've used the Amazon stuff in the past. I've made a lot of money. Have you really? Amazon stuff in the past because the way it works is if someone comes, anything they buy, I think it's 30 days.

Within that session? Yeah. I think it's within – No, it's 30 days. Really? But if they click on somebody else's link, then yours gets cut off. But anything they put in their cart, they can come back – that's what it is. You can put something in your cart while you're still in the session before you get hijacked by somebody else's buy link session.

Right. If they come back in a year, you don't get that. But if it's within like the 30-day window, you still get commission on that. Right. So I built a site one day, 15 minutes of work. It was called – it was when the swine flu epidemic was going on.

And I built a little site called doihavepigflu.com. Right. It took me 15 minutes to make. All it was was one page with a giant word that said no. And the link took you to go buy those masks that everybody was buying. And it was perennially sold out.

Within – and I posted one link to Facebook. Yeah. That's it. I did no marketing on it. Within two days, I had 150,000 hits on the site. And it was a spike and a drop. So it was a one-month run.

Well, it was one month of insanity. Did most of your things come through Google? Facebook. Really? All Facebook. Wow. One link to my whopping social network of 200 friends. $4,000, 15 minutes work, and one domain name.

That's how you make money on the internet. Well, that brings us – I haven't been able to replicate it. Okay. So that brings us to a very – It was a very interesting topic of making money off the internet because that was fear-driven and based on current events and, frankly, a little bit piratey.

Why was it piratey? Well, you were – you built a site based on current fears and you exploited them. Yes. Yeah. Not really, you know, not really the most altruistic way to go about things or even honest.

So let's talk about people who make money very dishonestly on the internet. Some very successful companies that present themselves as not bastards, even though they are. Have you got about four years to go through them?

Yeah. There are a lot of – it's easy to make money if you're nefarious. Yeah. And that's – Honestly, that's kind of what you did with that one. I considered mine comedy, okay? Mine was comedy.

Yeah, you did it as comedy, but it's not too different from spamming a bunch of old people with Nigerian send me money. Yeah, but mine was legal. It was 100% legal. I didn't steal anything. I actually don't think the Nigerian scam is illegal. I don't know.

All they're doing is saying, send us money and we'll send you money back at some point, maybe. Yeah. The wording says you may not get money if you read it. Interesting. I've never actually read – I've read through the entire thing. There is absolutely – it's very clear that you may never see a dime.

So I don't actually think that's illegal. I think that's just preying on stupidity. Morally bankrupt? Yes. Illegal? No. Okay. You want to talk about morally bankrupt? I want to talk about self-help. The self-help – The $5 billion self-help career?

The 15-minute abs, the learn-how-to-make-money-on-the-internet scams. There is a subculture of these marketers who basically will teach you how to make money on the internet.

You know what they teach you about how to make money on the internet? Teaching people how to make money on the internet. Teach other people. Build a site that – is it a pyramid? It's kind of a pyramid scheme, right? Do they reference themselves or do they just say do exactly what I do?

You buy a program from them for anywhere. I've seen them go for $4,000 to $5,000 for these programs and they do a bunch of videos and they give you PDFs and links and they basically teach you how to do quote-unquote knowledge products.

The master of this is this dude, Eben Pagan. He is like the top dog. He lives right up the road. You can go have coffee with him. Really? Okay. He's probably not going to advertise with us now. Go ahead. I don't think he advertises with anybody because he gets all his – he makes all his money off affiliate ads because he gets people to sell his programs for him.

Right. But the whole blueprint of it is how to create a knowledge product and most of the knowledge products that his disciples go out and create are the same damn thing that they just bought from him. So there are – I can show you – I will actually put a bunch of links in the show notes too.

There's a templated landing page that you've seen a thousand times that is designed through like years and years of testing to convert people to buy these programs. Right. And you can sign up actually – you can become an affiliate, sell other people and do it.

It's this whole round and round circle jerk. All that different from say the late night Asian guy on the yacht with the blondes. Oh my god. What was that guy's name? I can't remember his name right now. Oh, that guy was classic. I totally should have Googled that ahead of time. We'll have a link. There will be a link in the show notes.

But same thing, right? Yeah. He was buying distress – teaching people how to buy distress. Teaching people how to buy – yeah. And, you know, I mean this has been around forever, right? This is just a shilling. It's a complete shill. Because what they've done is – yeah, they've made a ton of money. Now the market's dried up for the crap that they were peddling.

So they're going to say, hey, look, I made all this money. You can too, knowing full well that that market's gone. Right. I mean they can get, you know, little trickles and hand-me-downs, the people that take it. And then they'll say – and they – oh, here's the other trick. They do a lot of psychology saying you have to have the right mindset to be in this business, giving them an out if the person just can't do it and fails.

Right. Not saying – You're not capable of this because you didn't put in – you're not right for this. Yeah. You don't have the gumption. And these guys have already sucked the market dry and there's – so it's this – I'm going to throw something at you that might piss you off because I know you're a big fan of this guy and I was too.

Tim Ferriss does the same shit. No, he doesn't. I think for our work week, for our body, for our cooking, all that stuff, same crap. I would definitely have to take – because Tim is a friend of mine.

I know. I know. That's why I threw it out there. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't piss me off because I don't know. I like his writing. I like his books. I don't think his stuff works. That's – that's – Okay. Did I go inside you a little bit?

Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Oh, fucker. No, I want to have an honest discussion about it. I do, yeah. I actually really like – some of his – like I did 4-Hour Body. I did all that. And some of his stuff works, but it's really – the human body is so complex.

There's no way that he can come out and say this is going to work for everyone, and he kind of does. And it doesn't. It really doesn't. Yeah. And I think it's a bit – he's – and he's a very good marketer. Oh, he's extraordinary. He's doing all these things that we just – we're starting to crap on to sell his stuff.

I don't think everything that he talks about is shit. There's some real principles in his stuff. But the way he markets himself is exactly the same about – the same. It's the same about the stuff that you're just talking about. There's a – I just realized this.

He's actually friends with Evan Pagan. Oh, there you go. He probably picked it up. I remember seeing him in that circuit doing that. So that's probably where he learned a lot of the marketing tactics. And there's nothing wrong with picking up something that works and using it. Yeah. And it worked. Fair enough. But I definitely saw the connection.

Yeah. Like I know you and I have talked about Tim Ferriss a lot. We both have read all the books. But immediately when we were talking about this, he popped up in my mind. Tim Ferriss does this shit. Yeah. I don't see – I see how he markets his books.

He's very proactive. He's very smart. He does a lot of data-driven testing to figure out how to sell this stuff. He's very, very smart. But I don't see the relation with what we were just talking about, about like vampires who come in, make a bunch of money, and then teach other people how to make money.

It's a different thing. It's a different thing. It's a different end result, but it's the same front end. Yeah. And I think as a person, he's a good person, and he's trying to make people better. I think his learning techniques, I think they're amazing. I can't do them. I'm not wired the same way.

So just as you were saying, there was always that out about, well, you're just not wired to be able to do this. I understand that. So you just use that same excuse. And I understand what you're saying. Some of the stuff has immensely helped me. Like I can run now because of the four-hour body. Right. I didn't – my running style was like the old, you know, hit your heels, and I would get shin splints.

From like three pages of that book, I can now run a mile with no pain. Right. And I'm a 230-pound guy. But I've – in the four-hour work week, I learned a ton about just time management out of that.

Yeah. No, like I said – There are things that he does that I've – like I said, he's a friend. But he's also a friend because I get along with the – I understand what he's trying to do and teach. I like his content and all of that. Yeah. I'm just saying that the way that he sells himself online is incredibly similar to these other people.

Yeah. It's a very hard sell and it's very thought out and methodical and meant – what upsets me about him and what upsets me about a lot of people that do something similar, Tony Robbins or people like that.

Yeah. Is there's actually some content behind what they do but their hard sell is so focused on – and you can – anybody with two fucking brain cells sees the way that it's marketed and goes, fuck that shit. Yeah. And I've been a Tony Robbins listener for years.

I bought his double tape – or his like 20-pack tape set, used to go on walks and listen to it, did me not a lick of good. What it did teach me was how to spot how these people work. Right. The Evan Pagan stuff, I studied him because I want to know how these people work so I can avoid it in the future.

You know? Yeah. It's – I don't – I wish I could like explain it and distill it down into just a sound bite on what these people do. But they find triggers. They're psychological masters. It's all psychology. They're masters on preying on fear and insecurity.

And how to fix your life in two seconds. Yeah. If you just give me your credit card number. Yeah. So that's another way to make money on the internet being a scum. Well, let's talk about that. Match.com. Match.com. Which purports itself to be a very legitimate online business that is just helping people hook up.

Or no, not even hook up. That's plenty of fishes or all those other fucking sites. Match.com brings itself out as not quite eHarmony, which if we can talk about eHarmony and I'll go fucking ape shit. Match.com purports itself as a way to find somebody perfect for you.

Yeah. Just give us your credit card number. No problem. You'll find somebody local. It'll be great. Now, what happens when you try to quit, Jason? Well, I'm going to tell you right now, you're not going to find anybody on there because I did it for six months. I talked to a bunch of people.

Almost all of them were... Lots? No. They were scammers. They were basically trying... They were identity thieves. Right. So, like, the girls would write you and say, hey, I want to chat. I don't like the match interface. Can we go to AIM? Then they'd get your AIM handle.

Then they would reverse engineer who you were, get your name, figure out where you lived. And at some point, they would basically try and scam you and get your credit card. So they were fun to play with because I knew the game. Right. I knew what they were trying to do. So I'd just ask them ridiculous questions, any of which cannot come to mind right now.

I used to have so much fun with them. But when you're doing that, you kind of tend to be drinking and... Well, yeah. They're praying... Well, like most... There's a reason infomercials air at 3 a.m. on TV. There's a reason... Yeah. All these things exist because we're a few too far into our cups and it's late at night and our judgment is impaired.

Yes. And perhaps we are not thinking quite so clearly. So we order the Ginsu knives that can cut through the Coke bottle or we... Sign up for Match.com. ...write back that really fucking hot blonde that just lives five miles away. Yeah. And honestly, that's pretty much how I got into Match.com because a friend of mine was like, yeah, just try it.

Just get on there. I live out in the valley. There's no nightlife. I can't go out and just meet anybody randomly on Ventura Boulevard because it's like there's nothing there. But when I finally quit, what happened was right after my membership had expired, I started getting these emails.

Well, here's another thing. When you quit, they still send you the emails up until the time that your payment runs out because I signed up for like a three-month run. I'd imagine you'd probably get emails forever because I've discovered companies like that do not really pay attention to your...

For your preferences. Remove me from your... Yeah. So, yeah, I was getting, you've got 21 new matches today. Here's your mutual matches and these are the people we picked for you. And I'm like, not even with yours for some of these. But the way it flipped when I was right after my membership expired, I started getting, hey, this chick is into you.

Come back and we'll tell you who she is. She's expressed interest in you. And they make it so when you come to the landing page, it's just like react... It kind of has a little thing with reactivate your membership. And over on the side in very small print, they've got, by clicking that button, you sign up for six more months.

It's like 200 bucks. So, with one click, not even thinking about it, because most people aren't as, you know, eagle-eyed as I am with how people do shit on the internet. There are studies about how you place things and where you put things. Because it's right outside of the peripheral vision when you're looking at the giant red button that says, meet her.

I actually Googled big red button today because I wanted to bring it up. It's gone, sadly. The big red button site is gone. Oh, man. But yeah, I mean, that's Internet Design 101. Big flashing area over here. Never mind the stuff over on this side. Pay no attention to the people behind the veil.

Exactly. So, yeah, as far as scumbags go, Match.com is at the top. Fortunately, I did not want to meet her because I knew she would be non-existent, basically. And Match.com has nothing compared to what porn companies have.

Thank God for porn because they're always on the vanguard of technology. And on both good and bad. Yeah. They push technology in wonderful ways. And there are things that you and I have both learned from what porn companies have done. Yeah. About how to build amazing stuff and do really cool stuff and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But they also push the envelope on sleaziness and making money. Oh, my God. All these people have learned from. Now, I've got a quick story about a friend who used to work at a defunct porn site. It was called Babenet. And, you know, one of those places out in the valley, they had a warehouse with cameras and people getting busy.

But they also did really skeezy websites for, honestly, really skeezy people. Basically, the big one that comes to mind is an old bestiality site. It was like girlswithanimals.com. Oh, dear Lord. On the homepage, they showed hot chicks with their arm around a goat hanging out with a horse.

But all the language was saying, sign up now, and you can see these chicks having sex with animals. Their entire business model was you sign up with your credit card. You go into the site. It's the same pictures.

Girls with animals. They weren't selling you anything that they didn't say that they were going to tell you on the homepage. It was implied. It was all implied. There's a girl with a koala. She's not naked. Yep. The koala was. So when you call to cancel, they say, so, sir, we have to put a reason for you canceling your subscription to the credit card company.

This will show up on your statement, so I'm just letting you know out of the gate. So you want to cancel your membership because the girls were actually not having sex with the animals. That's why you're canceling your account. And basically, click. They just keep paying for it.

Keep paying for it. Shame. Yeah. And, you know, I don't feel so bad about those people that have to keep paying for it. Well, for bestiality, fuck them. But, I mean, that's the model. That's the adult model. And it's moved, quickly adopted, as most, you know, adult models are, by the mainstream.

It's that way with dating sites, it's that way with dating sites, it's that way with any site that you pay for. They make it incredibly difficult for you to unsubscribe and to cancel. It's a Byzantine process. Yeah. I've indulged in that myself in some ways.

I mean, I used to run fan clubs for bands that were pay-based. And the trick is to make it as hard as possible to unsubscribe. Yeah. You know, I never went to the extremes that these people did, but I certainly didn't, like, make it easy. We never put a big button saying, please never build me again.

Yeah. And things are kind of changing with that, but there are still places that make you call to unsubscribe. I was going back to Tim Ferriss. I got into, with the four-hour work week, I'm like, I'm going to have my mailbox money coming. I'm going to sign up for a site that I can have drop shipping done.

I'm going to get the products, build a store, promote the store, and then just cash in on the overhead. And I signed up with a site called doba.com. And these people, it was almost impossible to cancel. You had to call. You had to get it at the right time.

And they would call me every day trying to get me to go through their training, all this stuff. And I ended up spending probably $500 and never made a sale. Right. So it's, I mean, it's almost vaporware. Yeah.

It's a crazy thing, and we could probably do another five hours on this, and we probably will eventually in the future. The psychology of the sale and once you get the credit card, keeping the sale and the deviousness behind it, especially on the internet and preying on people that may have drunk too much or may not be that bright to begin with or may be older and not understand it is frightening.

And it's one of my biggest problems with this whole internet thing and everything that happens. Yeah, it just, it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. But we'll get back to this again at some other point. And we should probably move on to the next segment.

And that is probably the worst transition ever. Well, I was going to transition into the Kickstarter stuff, but we've gone long on this one, and I don't think we can do it right now. So I have a lot of venom for Kickstarter, and that will be the next podcast. Okay. Because we can't hit it on this one. Yeah. I think this will be to be continued.

Yes. And this will be to, yeah. I think this is going to be a recurring topic for us because both of us deal with this on basically almost a daily basis. Yeah, because we, I mean, we talked about how big corporations make money. We talked about how really shitty people make money. Yeah. But there are really good ways to make money on the internet.

Well, it used to be a Kickstarter, and I want to crap all over that. But that's the next podcast. A Monday warrior, mean, mean stride. Today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean pride.

And we're back. We put down our cell phones because we have day jobs, and we caught up on all our emails, and here we are. Grumpy old geeks. I just wanted to point out a couple milestones that happened this week. Twitter is seven years old.

That's ridiculous. Isn't it? And YouTube hit one billion monthly visitors. That's also ridiculous because I didn't know a billion people had computers that were capable of watching video. There are a lot of cat videos out there. There are. Yes. There are.

Are there the grumpy cat videos? I love that cat so much. I'm a fan of the grumpy cat. Was his name Tard or something? He has a name? Yeah. He was at South by Southwest. You could get your picture taken with him. Of course he was at South by Southwest. I follow him on Facebook. Anyways, we're back, and this is the last segment. This is Love, Hate, Want.

Want. I just saw this the other day. I think it came out of a Kickstarter project. When we were talking before, I know. Next week. When we were talking before about the sidekick and the little camera and how I used to do moblogging and how I want ubiquitous camera capture on me all the time.

Yes. Except the bathroom, the shower, and the locker room. Plus it's the ladies' locker room, but I'm not invited. Plus editing. Because I'm sure there are things that you do not want recorded. Absolutely not. Well, it's... If you and I went on a bender tonight, and in seven hours from now we were still at Finn McCool's, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want that recorded.

But here's the thing. I want it recorded from my perspective. Oh, okay. It's about your perspective. So there's this cool little gadget called the Memto. It's basically a little clip-on camera that just takes a couple pictures a minute. Just keeps taking pictures. Excuse me.

Third beer. That's the way it goes. Yes. We do one beer per segment, people. It's exactly what I wanted. It's a little camera that you clip on. It wears a necklace, and it just takes pictures. And it's got geolocation in it, and it's cheap.

Does it have a red recording light? No. That's why I like it. Now, see, this is where it gets into a very interesting area. If I'm with you and I don't know I'm being recorded, I have a problem with that. If you're in a public space, it's legal.

If I was recording you right now, then you should kick my ass. Yeah. Well, that's my point. If I go out with you for a beer later, and you're recording everything, and you haven't told me that you're doing that, and this ends up public. Well, see, there are – this goes back to Google Glass, though.

You were like, everybody's going to have one. Well, you know, the same thing. This is exactly like Google Glass, but it looks cooler. If it says Google Glass on it, I'm going to fucking know, right? Because I know what it does. You're just going to have a nondescript little thing that I don't even notice. Well, I could already be wearing a pinhole camera from the spy shop down the street.

Which is illegal. It's illegal. It's only illegal if you're recording their voice. These are photographs. Okay. These are still photographs. Right. That's all I want. I want to be able to go back because my – now that I'm getting old, I used to have an amazing memory.

But now that I'm getting old, my memory sucks. Right. And I want to be able to go back. Do you have the time to go back and look at all these photos? Absolutely not. Well, there you go. There's my second point about it. I actually – First off, it's kind of somewhat illegal and scary and we should get a lawyer in at some point to talk about this.

Secondly, who the fuck has the time to go back and look through all these photos? So to your point, I have a two-terabyte drive on my desk that holds one thing, video from my GoPro at my front window of my car.

When I was working in Hollywood and doing a 20-mile commute every day, I would record my drives. Why? Because the crazy shit people do. Do you have them? Do you keep them? That's why I've got a two-terabyte hard drive because I kept them all. Is this your plan when you're 85?

To just watch your drives? Because I love to relive my commute in Los Angeles. Well, exactly. Why? Because I figured I'm driving that stretch of the 101 ten times a week. Okay. Crazy shit happens.

You can make an awesome time-lapse video out of that. I did. It's on YouTube. I'll send you the link. I'll put it in the show notes. I'm sure I won't ever look at it. That's all right. I have seen so much fun stuff on there, but going back to it, trying to go back after I've been at work for ten hours a day and then two hours on the freeway, when I get home, I want to download it and go to bed.

And the fun stuff that I know I captured, I never have the time to go back and find. Right. But I still want it. Which, I want it. Note for the grumpy old geeks, should be another topic soon. The recording of life versus the living of life that happens now.

And this app sounds like a nightmare to me. It doesn't to me because it's passive. Right. It's not active. I think it was Miles Davis. He was on stage one time and a woman stood up and took his picture and he stopped the show and said, by capturing the moment, you've missed it entirely, which is a great quote.

Yeah, it's an amazing quote. And as a photographer, that's one of my hobbies. Well, that is your job as a photographer is to capture the moment. Just me personally as a photographer, when I'm doing photography stuff instead of computer stuff, I do notice that when I am at an event taking pictures, completely miss the event.

Yeah. You're not engaged. Yeah. You're out of it. Yeah. You've removed yourself. You're floating above. It's a different thing. My attention is focused on getting a shot, not what's happening. Yes. And to that point, I had a friend in San Francisco. We ended up trading off because we would both end up at these events.

We'd both have our cameras and we'd be both taking pictures. We'd both put them on the net the next day, link to each other and everything. And then we came up with the idea. It's like, hey, when we're going to these events, let's trade off so one person can get drunk and enjoy the event and the other person can take the pictures.

And it's actually Scott Beal from Laughing Squid. Oh, okay. Because we were in the same scene taking all the pictures together. So we ended up coming up with the system where we just trade off. I'm like, okay, you're shooting tonight. I'm shooting tonight. But that's why I like this because I can go to an event, capture it, and still have the memories of it fairly cheaply.

I think it's under $200. Well, I think we have to all realize that the reality is within the next 10 years, everything's going to be recorded. I find it weird, but I'm old. I'm a grumpy old geek. Kids today don't give a shit about anything.

Everything goes up on Facebook. Everything goes up on Instagram, whatever. I still find this creepy. You seem to be into it, which is weird because you're my age as well. I'm older than you. You're older than me. Yeah. And you don't have the privacy issues that I still find problematic about this.

Because this isn't for my personal celebrity. I don't want to take these pictures and put them out there. I want to take them so I can look back at them for my personal celebrity. But you realize that that's you. Yeah. An 18-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old with the same technology.

Well, a 14-year-old with this technology has criminal parents. If I were 14 and had access to this technology, there were a lot of things being recorded that probably should never ever see the light of day. Oh. I'm just saying. We're talking about criminal parenting at that point because you give – although I've got friends that have – 10-year-old daughters that have cell phones and cameras and are doing FaceTime.

Yeah. And we all see the horrible shit that happens. Yeah. And this is – okay. Okay. This is definitely a topic for the future. No, but here's the – this is my want. I want this thing. I'm going to buy this thing at some point. Okay. I don't know when. How about you get it and we do a – we'll put up every single still from the next podcast that we record once you have it.

Well, it's going to be all you. Well, I know. And we'll see how happy I am about that. I'm probably going to be like, are you kidding? I'm going to wear a cup. I'm going to wear a cup that day because I'm going to get a cock punch. Right. I get why it's intriguing. I just have massive issues about it.

Mm-hmm. So. Okay. We'll see about it. Should we talk about something that I like or should – I think we should talk about something you like or love or want or hate. Let's talk about the Americans. The Americans. It's on FX, right?

The FX show, yes. Yes. Which I find – Absolutely fascinating for multiple reasons. First off, I think it's a really good show. Okay. What's it about? I like the writing. It's set in the 80s and it's two Russian spies that are living here in the U.S.

that have been embedded for ages. Have their kids here. Their kids have grown up American. But they're full-on Russian spies. So sleepers. They're full-on sleepers. Yeah, they're sleepers. They're basically sleeper agents. Okay. It's pretty – the thing I find most fascinating about it is it's the first show that has presented something – a generation that you and I grew up in.

Yeah. As retro. And that's why I love it. Oh, I didn't even think about that. See? Now you see why I like it. We are officially old geeks. This show is being presented as retro and I recognize, remember, fashion, music.

They used a fucking Cure. Not even like a big Cure song. They used an obscure track from Pornography, the third Cure album, which was released before I even knew who the Cure was. Pornography is our best album, so. Well, yeah, it is. So it's not that.

Not according to South Park. It's just an integration. But my favorite album is Pornography. They used a fucking album cut from Pornography and not just a snippet, like four minutes of the song. No way. To end the last episode. Oh.

So this is the first show that is tapping directly into my childhood and presenting it as completely retro. And you can tell that, like, it's being done as a retro show. And I find that absolutely fascinating. That's cool.

You know, I saw the pilot. I couldn't get into it. It was too, I don't know if it was too slow, which is, for me, that's weird because I love slow-paced shows. I like Breaking Bad. I love Breaking Bad. I love slow-paced buildup. Yeah. You know, don't rush it. Don't spoon-feed me everything.

They're definitely building. You should stick with it. Okay, I might have to go back. Who's the female lead? Carrie Russell. She used to be Felicity. That's what's Felicity. Yeah, she doesn't have the curly hair anymore. She doesn't have any of that. Yeah, I knew the face.

She's... Her character is spectacularly weird. And we'll definitely put up some of the articles that I've read about that on our website about her. She's an anti-hero. She is so fucking bitchy. Yet, for some reason, you're intrigued and into her and supporting her, even though everything that she does is cunty.

That's it. Yeah, that's it. That's the problem I had with the pilot, because she was just cunty. Okay, so you've got to stick with it, and then you start to support the cunt. That's not going to play well. You should always support the cunt. Come on. You should always support the cunt.

But she's such a bitch, but you start to get behind her for it, and it gets weird, and she's an anti-hero that you're behind. Oh, and you want to support the guy from Brothers and Sisters. I can't remember the... I can't even believe I know the show Brothers and Sisters.

It's called Being Married, and you have to watch a lot of shows that you probably would never, ever watch otherwise. A total chick show, but whatever. He's great in this. He plays the husband, and you want to support him, but you're behind her, even though she's being a bitch to him. Okay.

And it's really interesting. It's really intriguing. And for me, the main thing, like I said, which I surprised you with, is it's presenting our childhood as retro. Yeah. And I remember being the kid in that show, because I'm about the age of the youngest child in that show.

At that point, that was me. It's fascinating. How old is he? Is she... Well, there's an older daughter and a younger son, and the younger son is probably five, something like that. You're five and eight? No. No, I was a little bit older than that, but I was born in 73, so...

But, yeah, it's really kind of cool for that. Because I love spy shows. I love everything... You should stick with us. Okay, I'll go back. You should go back, and it's picked up. I don't know how well the ratings are doing, because initially they just kind of did some innuendo, like there's Kerry Russell and a pair of panties.

Now there's full-on nudity. What? So... Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of nudity now. Ah, FX. So, obviously, they're not doing so great, so they've stepped up. You know, there's butts and dicks and boobs all over the place. There's dicks? Well, no dicks. Okay, thank you. Implied dick, but, you know, whatever. Because it's still...

I mean, it's FX, so it's not... It's still FX, but they've stepped up... They get away with butt. They've stepped up the nudity quite a bit, and the sex quite a bit, but it's a good plot. I'd like to see where they're going. You know, I like Homeland. I don't know if you watched that. Absolutely. Okay, this is very similar, but going back to the 80s.

The other ways, yeah. Yeah, and the other way. Yeah. And you're almost kind of going for the Russians, which is kind of weird, so... Yeah, the old Cold War stuff. I mean, it's... It's fascinating. And people now, they're just like, Russia, that's just mobsters and vodka. He's like, no, they had...

It was scary back then. It was some scary-ass shit, and they bring that fear. And I don't know, you know, I don't know if anybody younger than us will ever get into this show, but for us, it's perfectly targeted. Okay. Very cool. And I love how FX is, like, they are the anti-hero network.

You look at The Shield. You look at Sons of Anarchy. Yeah. You know, it's like, those shows, you want the bad guy to win. It's... And they're kind of running with that again. Yeah. I mean, Keri Russell is definitely who you end up kind of rooting for. Okay. And she's definitely the bitch.

She's the... First off, she's the Russian. Yeah. And secondly, she treats everybody on that show like shit. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. Well, I will definitely check it out. Yeah. And I had high hopes for it, so I'm glad that you're turning me back to checking it out.

I can't stop watching it, though. Okay. Yeah. Oh, man. Okay. So I'm going to say one more thing about what I love. I have been an Audible.com user since, like, the day they opened the doors. Right. My first job was... Or my first job.

My first book was The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. It's what they gave me for free when I signed up. And so that was, you know... I mean, I think it's 2003, I think. So it's almost 10 years now since I signed up. Right. I've got over 650 books in my library.

I listen to two books a month religiously. Lately, I've been listening to five. Right. But what they've instituted now, since Amazon owns them, is the most unbelievable policy I've seen from any digital services company to date, which is an unlimited, unrestricted return policy on audio books.

So they can tell that you've listened to the whole thing and they'll just refine it. No, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It used to be you download it, you own it. You're done. You're fucked. That's it. It's a shit book. Tough. You got it. And I've got a bunch of stuff in my library that I wish I could return.

But they've got... Now it's a one-year policy. So from one year from the time you buy the book, if it's a crappy book, you can just return it and they'll give you your credit back. I've returned four books so far that I got that were recommendations from friends who did not have the best taste.

Well, actually, they might have had good taste. But either the narrator sucked or the story sucked. But all you do is you click a checkbox and say, I didn't like the narrator. I didn't like the story. It's not what I expected. They take it right back. Here's the rug. You still have the book in your library. You keep the book.

You get your money back. Yeah. How is this going to work? We understand that people in general are assholes. And once we tell them about this, they will never pay for anything. I'm going to tell you right now. Well, they're still paying for it. They have to pay for the credits first. You have to use those credits or they expire. So you're paying no matter what.

But you can get a bunch of books. But the thing is, I don't return. I'd be very intrigued to see what happens with the publishers. Do they get their money back? That's very interesting. That's very interesting. See, I want to know about the back end. I'm sure. I didn't read the legalese on it. I'm probably just eating it to keep the credits.

Could be. Yeah, could be. That's my theory. I'm running with it. Yeah. They just don't report the returns. That's it. Exactly. It's a sold book. It's a sold book. They're going to keep the credits and wait on future sales. Or if it's before the reporting period, I buy the new three shades of purple book, whatever the fuck they are, and I return them.

If it's before the reporting period, well, then they were never bought. Huh. You know? Right. So what I use those credits on and keep, those are the books I bought. Right. So I don't see it as a – so for the publishers, I don't think they'll ever know.

Yeah. But here's the thing. Me as a upstanding, upright, moral citizen, I don't return books that I like because I like to be able to go back to them and I like to support people who write good books. Yeah, but you and I are a dying breed that way.

I don't think so. No, I do. I don't think people that listen to audio books are, in general, shit-faced scumbags. You might actually be right about that. I don't think anybody would sign up and pay in to Amazon to get it. They would just find – they'd be torrented.

They'd find a way to torrent for free to beat. Yeah. Yeah. So you might be right about that. So that might be a winning plan for them. That actually sounds fantastic. I – since podcasts have kind of taken over, my audible.com has kind of gone away. Books I read on my Kindle app, on my iPad or whatever, I've gone back to kind of reading books.

I don't really do audible so much anymore because I have so many podcasts that I listen to that that kind of takes up my time. And I don't commute. Yeah. So I'm not in my car. Yeah. I don't commute as much anymore, but I walk – I have a dog to walk. Yeah. So I'm out walking the dog a couple times a day.

So I still listen to my books and I also go to bed with them. I just put the iPhone there and play them and go to bed with them. I can't listen to them while I work because I can listen to music that I've heard a thousand times while I work, but I can't listen to somebody talking at me because I just don't have the attention span. But I still – I listen to a book or I listen to or read a book a week no matter what.

That's every year for the past ten years I've listened to or read a book a week because I think that as you get older, you have to keep doing that because it keeps your brain open to new ideas and all that stuff. So that's what I'm talking about. And we're inquisitive people. We want to learn and – yeah, I'm the same way.

I have three books going at any time. Yeah. Always. And – but this is – I think it's great because it actually opens me up to new authors because I'm not scared now to try something new. And I found a couple series now that I picked up because I am not scared to go download a book and, oh, I just lost $12.50 because I have a premium plan, $25 a month.

You get two credits, two books. That's actually really intriguing. I might actually have to check it out just for that because there are a lot of books that I've been scared to – like I don't want to pay the $15 or whatever to get it on my Kindle and find out that it just sucks. Yeah. Well, the Kindle is great because you can get the first chapter free.

Yeah, you do get the first chapter free. Yeah. You can never really tell if it's the first chapter. I found a couple books where I could pretty much tell in the first chapter. Writing styles. Definitely. A hundred percent. Yeah. So – well, that's really cool. I'm going to definitely have to check that out. That's – yeah, I mean – It's been a while since I've – this might get me back to audible.com.

They haven't gotten any money from me in a while. Oh, yeah. They've been getting money from me every month. Oh, my God. $25 a month for 10 years. So that's – oh, jeez. I can't do that. That's quite a lot of money. Speaking of a company that's actually getting quite a lot of money out of me recently, there's my – I'm not an app guy.

I've had the iPhone for ages. I'm not big on apps. I'm just not. But there is an app I love and it's called TouchTunes. And that sounds very filthy. Unfortunately, it's not.

Is it like a Kama Sutra? Like, you know, touching your lady? It's purely an app that ties into wired jukeboxes in a lot of your local pubs. So if you're lucky enough to have your local that has a jukebox that is connected to this, as I do, my local that I've been going to for 15 years now, Finn McCool's in Santa Monica.

Give him a plug. Don't be creepy. Don't be creepy. Don't follow Brian. It has a jukebox connected and it works with this app. So I basically have this app on my phone. I put in my credit card and I can connect to that jukebox and play any song from the comfort of my own barstool.

That is awesome in one sense, but the other – it's mind-boggling now that you don't even have to get up from your bar seat to play a song. But it's mind-boggling. Let me tell you the wonders of this app.

Okay. You see – Now, these are the – I've seen these crazy jukeboxes. Yeah, they're super crazy connected jukeboxes. Yeah. Okay. You know, even if you walk up over there, you know, they have the popular hits in there, but they're connected online anyway. Okay. So if you want a deep cut, you can download it and pay extra for it straight from the touch screen that they have on the jukebox and everything.

Okay, because I've seen these jukeboxes. I didn't know they were connected to the internet. Yes, they are connected. It looks like, okay, this is like a giant iPod. So somebody comes in with a hard drive every week and does it. No, they're connected. They're actually connected. They're connected. That's really cool. Yeah, which is kind of cool anyway. Yeah. It's like I even liked that aspect of it before I even knew about this app existing because I would want to, you know, listen to, you know, Be'en from the Dandy Warhols, Dandy Warhols from 1991, whatever.

So, you know, so it was never a hit. It's a fucking, you know, deep cut album track. And you could find it and the machine would download it. You'd have to pay a premium for it. Uh-huh. Good enough. I'm three beers in and I really want to hear this song. That's awesome.

So that was existing anyways. But now, now, now I don't even have to go over there. I can be sitting with my friends and be like, oh, you've got to hear this song. You've never heard this song. I can't believe you've never heard this song. And just bring it up on my phone. That is awesome.

When you press the button, boom, it starts to play. And the more important aspect is when you see Douchebaggy McDouchebag walk over to the jukebox with his backward cap and his baggy shorts and you can tell he's about to put on a bunch of Limp Biscuit or Rihanna or whatever the fuck he wants to listen to.

She's an ex-client and she's never coming back, so I can say her. Whatever. Who cares? Anyways, when you see that happen or you hear the first, like, Elton John song coming on and you really don't want to listen to Elton John at that time, you whip out your phone, you bring up the app, you pick the song you want to hear, and you pay one quarter extra.

Play next. Stops whatever their playlist is. So. Plays your song next no matter what. Does their song come back on even if it's already started? Their song will finish. Oh, okay. Their song will finish, but you will stop the onslaught.

Okay. And you will pay to get in front of all the next ones. I would pay an extra quarter if it would just turn their song off. Well, you can't do that through the app, but you can do that through getting to know the bartenders. Yes. Because they have a button. Yes, they do. And we'll skip to the next one. So, you know, especially at my local, I just do a little nod and the little button gets pressed over on the side by the bar.

And all of a sudden, my song's on. In the old school days when you had to play CDs, one of my best friends, Mr. Bob, who you know. Yes. Well, Bob is a very social guy. And he got to know the bartender at the Coaching Horses, this lovely girl, April.

And she had the button. On the jukebox themselves, there was also the button. Yes. She told us the secret location of the button. So, we had manual control. We didn't even have to do a nod. Unfortunately, the button at my local is behind the bar and it's not exactly allowed for us to go run back there.

I know. So, we do have to reach out to them. But the even better aspect of this app is you don't have to physically be in the bar at all. That is awesome. And you can see what's being played. No way. I can be sitting here in the comfort of my own home knowing some of my friends are out at the bar.

Uh-huh. I can log into the app, connect to my local, look through what's being played, play songs, supersede other people's songs, delude. Like, there's been a night where a bunch of my friends were there and there's a special hatred for the captain and to kneel through one of my particular friends.

And I saw that he was there and playing songs and I just started, Captain and to kneel, Captain and to kneel, Captain and to kneel. Oh, my God. That is such a troll move. It's such a troll move. I was a couple beers in that night at home. So, that was a good time.

In his underwear. But the cool aspect of that is the fact that we've actually, it's metamorphosized into we have theme songs when we're arriving now. That is cool. Which, you know, as I'm walking down to the local and as my other friends are walking down, we play songs to announce our arrival.

So, we time it when we're about two minutes away and make sure that we play it next. Yep. And, you know, when Rush's Tom Sawyer comes on, I know my friend Mike's about to walk into the bar. It's pretty awesome. That is pretty awesome. Now, do you guys have, like, popular songs?

So, like, it could just be a normal song or do you have, like, specific not – I mean, because – Everybody kind of has their thing. Sometimes Tom Sawyer could be just somebody going to play in Tom Sawyer, but it's like – Not at this bar. You know what? You're right because I've been to this bar and Tom Sawyer – Yeah, Rush doesn't really come on.

Yeah. So, basically, you know, Mike will change it up. It's different Rush songs. Usually, it's Tom Sawyer, but anytime a Rush song comes on, I'll look around the bar and about a minute later, he walks through the door. That is the coolest thing I've ever heard. It's pretty nice. Yeah. So, I've been doing that as well recently and, yeah, I've been doing the replacements.

I mean, I was going to pick something more funny, you know, ABBA, what have you, but I've been in the replacements recently. And so, my theme song, when I'm about to enter Finn McCool's, you know, if you hear a replacements song come on about two minutes before, I'm about to walk through the door.

All right. I was going to go with Here Comes a Regular, but it's a bit sad and low-key, so I didn't use that one. So, I've been doing Bastards of Young. Okay. So, that's my theme song. If you hear that in any bar that has one of these things, look for me. All right.

All right. I think I'm going to have to pick this app up, and I think I'm going to have to go with some House Martins for my theme song. Oh. Good choice. I like the House Martins. I've listened to them in ages. I listen to them all the time now. I don't know why. They're happy. They're happy. But if you listen to the words, they're not.

No, they're not happy at all. That's the great thing. It's a happy, disguised, miserable, and mean. So, yeah, I think that's it for this week. All right. So. It's a bit of an unexpected ending, but it's all good.

So, next podcast, we are definitely going to be talking about the air quote, democratization, end air quote, of media. Meaning, we're going to talk Kickstarter, because we were going to touch on that today. We did a little bit, and I want to delve into that stuff.

I'll tell you how it's gone to the dark side. Also, the grumpy old geeks will take on the rise and fall of social networking. See you then, true believers.

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