107: Grump on Grump with Tim Ferriss

It's fucking amazing. It really lights your brain up. It's really good stuff. Grumpy Old Geeks, a weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFillippo, discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Grump on Grump. Every now and again, either myself, Jason DeFillippo, or my co-host, Brian Schulmeister, get the chance to sit down with luminaries, artists, tech gurus, or just goddamn interesting people and have a nice chat. Hence the name Grump on Grump. This isn't our regular show, so if this is the first time you're experiencing Grumpy Old Geeks, I recommend you check out some of our other episodes where we cover the news of the week from general tech, to security, to books and movies, and figure out what went wrong on the

internet and discuss who's to blame. And if you're looking for episode 106, just go to the listing on your podcatcher of choice and download it from the episode list. Slowpoke. In this episode, I'm talking to the master experimenter, triple New York Times bestselling author and all around lunatic and old buddy, Tim Ferriss. We talk about some crazy ketogenic dieting tips and Tim's recipe for rocket fuel tea. I've been on this diet for days now since we recorded this episode and I'm

down four pounds and feel amazing. We also cover some cool disaster prepper stuff before rolling into what happened to his TV show and the future of Tim Ferriss on the small screen. I hope you dig it. Now onto the show. Hello, Tim. Hello, sir. How are you doing today?

I'm great. Thanks for having me back on. Oh, pleasure. It's been, uh, we had you on for, uh, Thanksgiving 2013. Back in the day, back in the day, back when I was just a wee lad. Before you were a Mr. Podcaster. That's true. That was before I was, I, uh, inaugurated my, uh, my first maiden voyage into podcasting by getting disgustingly drunk interviewing Kevin Rose because I was so, I was so nervous at the time about recording my first episode. Yes. It was, it was before I broke the ice with that.

That's funny. I think everybody starts that way. Oh, so awkward. So awkward. And I was listening, uh, it was really funny. I was listening to an audio book that I read the forward to, or I wrote a forward for vagabonding is one of my favorite books. And I was listening to it now that I've done, uh, 70 or so podcast episodes. I was, it was just excruciating to listen to me reads text off a page. So excruciating.

And that's like almost a completely different skillset from just doing a podcast. It's very, very different, uh, very different. But going back, I was like, wow, if I were to rerecord that now, it would be totally different. I'm just more comfortable in my own skin with my own voice as opposed to trying to sound like whatever my, my vision is of a podcaster or an NPR reporter. If that makes sense. Oh, it totally makes sense. Now we went through the same kind of

learning curve. And especially with the booze, I think, I think our first, uh, we did like 20 episodes before we finally said, okay, let's just have tea today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There, there comes a point with, uh, I've had this experience with say, um, dancing when I was trying to learn the tango and I was really nervous because you, it's so emasculating to have say like a female dancer that was in Argentina, just quit on you halfway through because you're so bad.

They're just like, I can't humiliate myself like this. And they walk off the dance floor. Like that kind of stuff happens to work up my courage. I'd be like, all right, I'm just going to have one or two glasses of booze to relax me. And there's definitely a, like an immediate cliff at one point where you're like, I'm feeling confident. And then suddenly you're confident in your competency, just like ricochet in opposite directions. And it's, it gets really ugly, really fast.

Yeah. I, I've had that at the bar playing darts. I found that there's a certain level, there's a certain level of booze that you can have that make you amazing at darts. And then it lasts for about a game and a half. And then you lose your shirt because you think you can beat the world. Exactly. Yeah. There's a, there's definitely something to be said for, for tea. That's, that's my, uh, that's my kind of pregame ritual these days for the podcast.

So tell me about this, this new concoction you have. Yeah. My new, my new concoction, I'm drinking it right now is a combination of a few different teas and they're very easy to find. You can get them all on Amazon. So this is nothing, uh, too exotic. I have pu-erh tea, P-U hyphen E-R-H is how it's usually spelled combined. And I'll explain what that is combined with turmeric and ginger tea, which is from a company called Rishi. I think it is

R-I-S-H-I from Oakland and you can get that on Amazon as well. So it's, it's a, it's kind of a chunk off of a disc of pu-erh tea, which is a black fermented tea from China that is very peaty. It has, it smells kind of like a barn or a wet horse's ass. Um, so yeah, it's very, uh, very aromatic.

And you add, that has some very interesting applications for fat loss, but also for mental performance. And you, uh, it's not, it's not excessively caffeinated. It's less caffeinated than a lot of the black teas out there. And then you put in just a, say a tablespoon or a teaspoon of the turmeric and ginger tea, which gives it this amazing flavor. And then when I pour that tea into a cup, cause this is all loose leaf stuff. Then when I pour it into a cup, I have a tablespoon of coconut oil in the bottom of the cup. I just mix that

up with a spoon and it is rocket fuel. It's really just astonishingly impactful for mental performance. And particularly if you are restricting carbohydrates, which I am right now. So my brain is kind of clawing and grasping for ketones, which are derived from body fat or converted very quickly from medium chain triglycerides, which is, uh, why coconut oil does such a great job.

Interesting. That's a, that's a pretty cool concoction. I'm going to have to give that a shot for sure. Oh yeah. And it's, it's tasty too. So it's a best of both worlds. That's my, that's my latest, my latest morning elixir. Cause I was trying the fermented turmeric tea for a while and that stuff is just hard to get. I had to order it from Japan. It took like a month to get here. Very hard to get. It's very, very tough to get that stuff. And it's, I think it's, it's worth drinking, but it's very expensive, very time consuming. Whereas Puerh tea, you know,

you go on Amazon, like anything will do the trick. If you have a Chinatown, it's kind of fun to go hunting for that. And you can print out Puerh, uh, with the characters and kind of go on a treasure hunt, which I find kind of fun, but not everyone will want to do that. So you can order on Amazon prime or whatever and get a disc of Puerh. And I, I enjoy and benefit from the ritual of making tea each morning. And it's not, I'm not getting super Japanese tea ceremony about it. I mean,

but just the, having a set routine in the morning, uh, is very calming and grounding for me so that I'm not immediately reactive. So I have, you know, the first 30 to 60 minutes of my day are completely scripted. I don't, I really try not to deviate. Um, so maybe I'm really turning into a grumpy old dude in that respect. Like I, I don't want my routine to vary because it empowers me for the

rest of the day, not having expended decision, uh, calories in that first 30 to 60 minutes. That's interesting. I've been doing the same thing. I've got my tea ritual in the morning. I've got my breakfast ritual, everything. I know exactly where everything's at. I know exactly how I'm going to make it. And I know exactly when I'm done, the day starts. It's, it's fantastic.

I, um, I don't do, well, I do loose leaf, but I just bought one of the, uh, Breville tea makers. Yeah, those are great. I love that. That's so much. Yeah. They're amazing. I don't have one, but I'm, uh, I'm hoping you get one soon. Yeah. Those are fantastic. Yeah. AJ and Jordan from the art of charm both have them. And they both, they both like when I'd go to their house, they'd make me tea.

And I'm like, how is this exactly the same every time in both of your houses? And they're like, and they pulled it up and showed it to me like magic. It's like, yeah, yeah, exactly. You can't screw it up. So every morning I know that my breakfast is going to be the same. It's going to taste the same. My tea is going to be the same. And then as soon as that's done, then it's like, you know, time to time for boots on the ground. But it is, it really is just calming to start the day. It's very calming. And I think it's, you know, when I, so when I wake up

generally my phone is on airplane mode, first of all, so I don't get hit by just a machine gun fire of, you know, 12 rounds of messages in the morning, which is a great way to start off with cortisol and anxiety. So I have my phone on airplane mode. I get up, then I will brush my teeth, sit down and meditate for 15 to 20 minutes, get up, turn on my Sonos. Typically right now, that's a Brazilian music station for kind of chill, loungy Brazilian music, not crazy carnival music.

And then I will set the kettle when I have just a cheap Cuisinart kettle, like a metal electric kettle. So you can, you can set the temperature much like you would on the Breville device, but it doesn't do the brewing for you. And then I will prepare my tea, right? Like kind of make the concoction. And by the time that's all ramped up, I'll usually test my blood and do a sort of ketone

glucose measurement right now because I'm in ketosis, which takes a couple of minutes. And then the water is ready to go at 185 degrees. And then I make my tea and I sit down and I journal or do whatever I'm going to do. And then I'm ready to, ready to rock and roll. So on the ketosis thing, I remember doing the whole P-stick and Atkins deal like a long time ago.

What are you using to track that now? So the P-sticks, the keto sticks, S-T-I-X, I think is how they spell it, are a very blunt instrument. I always use keto sticks, but they are, they really are lacking in precision. And it's sometimes hard to get granular and figure out where you are. So I'm using a device from Abbott Labs that is not that expensive. It's about 40 bucks or so called the Precision Extra, X-T-R-A, which looks like a blood

glucometer. It is a blood glucometer, but they have separate strips that you can insert for ketones. And so you prick your finger and you just take a drop of blood, you put it on this strip, the reagents then interact with the electronics and you get a millimolar concentration of ketones. So instead of, I think it's nanograms per deciliter for glucose. So you'd be like, oh, 89 or 120 or whatever the hell your glucose is. For the ketones, you get a millimolar concentration. And you don't need to

really know what that means. You can just look at the number and the number, for instance, could be 0.3 or 0.7 or 1.5 or 2 point whatever. And for me, it's been so fascinating to finally have a device where I can figure out, okay, even though Dr. X, who's an expert in ketosis, really feels he's in the zone at, say, 2.5 millimolars, I've realized I get kind of fucking pissy and grumpy and generally

just cunty around like the 2.3 to 3 range. I just get really grumpy, which is unusual, but my mental performance zone is around, I'd say 1.3 to 2. That's my sweet spot. And it's just been so enlightening or empowering to have that level of precision where I'm like, awesome. Like, okay, so I'm at 0.7. For

instance, before this interview, I measured my blood. I was like, all right, I'm at 0.7, 0.8, which is pretty low, but I'm kicking off a decent number of ketones. And it's probably because I had a way too big dinner last night and it was fat and protein, but I had too much protein. And I was like, all right, so I'm at 0.7. If I have two tablespoons of coconut oil instead of one, I bet I can knock myself up to like 1.5 and I'll be in the zone. So that's exactly what I did. Interesting. I'm going to have to get one of these things for sure. Oh, they're cool. I mean, the measurement isn't the

pain in the ass part. The pain in the ass part is following the goddamn diet because it's so boring. It's just incredibly boring. I mean, it's like, oh, steak, eggs, cream, coconut oil, fat, fat, fat. And you really cannot consume. The only carbs you can consume safely really are leafy greens and a handful of vegetables in small quantities like broccoli. And otherwise you have to be really

careful because for instance, most people don't realize that balsamic vinegar, 99.9% of the balsamic vinegar out there is crap. It's not actually what a good chef would consider balsamic vinegar, which is kind of aged like brandy and very expensive. The stuff that you buy at the grocery store is usually full of sugar actually compared to say a sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar or an apple

cider vinegar. Um, you get balsamic and you think you're, you're doing a great job as a dieter and you're like, okay, cool. I'll just have olive oil and balsamic instead of the, you know, whatever vinaigrette that's going to have sugar. And you think you're behaving and then you get four grams of sugar per tablespoon or something. And you're just, you're out of ketosis immediately and you don't know what you did wrong. So there are all these little hacks like that where it's like, all right, if you go to a restaurant, you're going to get a salad. You have to be super specific. You have to say, you know, I want olive oil and red wine vinegar. And a lot of restaurants have red wine vinegar,

but they use it for cooking and not for the salads. Um, so little things like that that make a big difference. But if you want to get to say two to three millimolar concentration, you really have a fucking boring diet. It's like being an Inuit or something. It's really just not interesting at all.

Like, Oh, more cheese. Great. And you think that's awesome in the beginning. You're like, Oh my God, I can do all that I want. Then you're like, I feel like a human cheesecloth. Like I feel like I just have fat oozing out of my pores and I'm being squeezed like a stress doll, which is not a fantastic feeling, but you're a weirdo like me. Uh, and I'm like, you know, I have a bunch of things coming up that I need to be mentally sharp for. I'm okay with feeling like a human cheesecloth

for, uh, a week and a half or two weeks. Uh, if I get that like a 20% mental advantage. And, uh, the other thing that's very interesting about ketosis is, um, it appears to, and this I've, I've done some searching on this. It appears to reduce your need for sleep. Uh, so I'm typically very groggy in the morning. And even if I get eight or nine hours, I'm just really, excuse me, groggy and unpleasant and dull in the morning. And I can get six or seven hours now.

Uh, let's say six, which is typically very low for me and wake up and immediately be ready to go. I don't have that grogginess. So just for that, for the next week or 10 days, I'm happy to, to, to, to, to suffer through the monotony of the diet.

How long have you been doing this now? Like how long have you been on it? I've been on now for about, uh, let's see, 10 to 14 days, I would say. Okay. So you're going to do it, uh, basically about four weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll do it. Uh, or maybe even less. I'll do it for probably, probably the next seven to 10, yeah, three to three and a half weeks. But, uh, I might, I might cave in honestly, like I'm craving crunchy stuff because you are just eating squishy, savory stuff the whole time. And it's a texture issue for me. It's not even that I'm like, Oh my God, I'm really jonesing for something sweet. I'm like, no, I just want

something crunchy and don't tell me to eat fucking pork rinds. Cause I know that's what everyone's going to say. They're like, Oh, just eat pork rinds. Like, no, I'm so sick of pork. I can't even begin to tell you because you think, Oh, protein, that's great. I'm a, you know, low, low carb.

I'm just going to eat fish. And it's like, well, actually, you know, glycine and lean protein is going to knock you out of ketosis really easily. So if you eat fish, you're going to have to balance out that meal since you're aiming for like 80% calories from fat by eating like a stick of butter or, you know, four tablespoons of coconut oil with your lean fish, or it's going to screw you all up.

And then you're like, what really? Oh God. And you're like, Oh, it's a bacon. Well, you know, almost always has sugar added to it. So you're like, ah, Jesus, it's really tremendously powerful and tremendously boring. So if you, if you're, if you're one of those people who's like, I can do monotonous stuff as long as it's really effective. Like I can go to the gym and lift weights and find that meditative. This might work for you. But if you, if you are kind of a variety addict, this is not diet for you.

Yeah. I found that, uh, basically distraction helped. I did it for about a month, uh, maybe like a year and a half ago. It was fantastic. I loved it. But I, I, my entire day was spent outside cutting down trees, moving, painting, you know, physical labor that just blasted me out for the day. So I didn't even really have time to think about food. So it was just like, okay, get in, you know, it's like, you know, the crabbers on the crab boats for deadliest catch. It's like, all they want to do is stuff their face. Cause they're busy the rest of the time. And it's like,

whatever comes in, comes in. So I just found that that kind of distraction really got me through it. Yeah, for sure. And the, the other thing that, uh, I think you might've experienced as well is the good news is you are not hungry. And in fact, you can skip two or even three meals and be fine, uh, because you're utilizing body fat and you do lose a lot of body fat. That's, that's for sure.

Uh, and that means that I'm typically only having one real meal per day for a lot of reasons, but chief among which is I'm not hungry, just not hungry. So I'm generally having, um, my only kind of real sizable meal is dinner. And, um, that appears to work pretty well for maintaining a decent millibolar concentration. Cool. Cool. I'm definitely going to have to jump back on that bandwagon

because it was, it was work, but, uh, the physical side effects were fantastic. I loved not needing that much sleep and not being hungry as much. That was, that was like totally liberating. It's like, okay, I can just don't like, don't even have to worry about it. But yes, it does get mind bendingly boring. Yeah. What, what is also good about it? If, if people listening are looking for a mental practice, what it forces you to do is become more conscious of your automatic behaviors. And I think

that's a really good thing. So even if it were arbitrary, kind of like as a writing exercise, if you decide, okay, I'm going to write a page without using the word I, or without using the word, you know, fill in the blank is or are right. I can't use that verb. Uh, similarly forces you to become very conscious and hyper aware of your behavior and what you use and so on. And when you're on a

diet like this, you realize, wow, I eat by the clock for instance, right? Like I'm a cause many people, most people eat by the clock, whether they're hungry or not. They're like, well, it's time to eat, uh, very Pavlovian. And, uh, then you realize like, wow, like I haven't truly been hungry in years, maybe. You know what I mean? Because people satiate themselves before they even have that natural

sensation. And, uh, so as a, as a, as a meditative practice, uh, I find that that that's also one of the psychological benefits of the diet is it just makes you very present state aware. And you have to examine a lot of those, uh, subconscious or automatic behaviors, not all of which are super enabling. No, definitely. That's great. And I think the best tip that I've gotten so far out of this, I had no idea that basalmic was full of sugar. No idea. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, and, and most people

don't. And honestly, I probably knew that 10 years ago when I was following a ketogenic diet and doing something called the cyclical ketogenic diet, where you carbo, you carb load once per week in combination with weight training, there's even more meticulous. Uh, you have to be even more OCD about things, but the, uh, I had forgotten that as well. So I was, and the only reason I was able to figure it out is because I have a better device now. And, uh, so I was, I was really behaving and

I was like, what the fuck? Like, why am I getting knocked out of deep ketosis? This is absurd. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. And then I looked at the back when I was, uh, shopping for, uh, some new oils and vinegars. I looked at the back and I was like, Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding. I see what's happening here. And you have to be, you really have to be meticulous about reading labels. And a lot of people drink almond milk, for instance. And I took a photograph. So I'm just going to pull

it up right now. So I get this right. Um, I took photographs of a brand of almond milk because I was thinking, well, you know what? Like almonds actually provide some useful, uh, minerals for the ketogenic diet. I was like, well, maybe I'll get some almond milk since coconut milk is sometimes fair game. If you can play it right. And I was shopping at a very expensive Fufu, uh, San Francisco grocery

store. That's absurdly expensive. And there was a brand, literally it says pure almond milk on the front. That is that it says original creamy, original soy free, gluten free, dairy fee, pure almond milk. That is the centerpiece is pure. And the first ingredient on the back is, is cane sugar.

Oh, geez. And I was just like, Oh, you rats, you dirty rats. Got to read the back. Don't believe the labels and don't believe the labels on the front. At least. Yep. Got to read the fine print. And, and just another bonus for folks, you have to look at the serving size because what will happen is, um, these companies get very cute and they will, for instance, for cottage cheese, they will tell you, Oh, it's less than two grams per serving or something like that. And then you look

at the serving size and it's one tablespoon. The serving is two grams, literally one tablespoon of cottage cheese. Like who on earth sits down with a tub of cottage cheese and needs one tablespoon? Nobody, nobody. So you have to, you have to take that into account. Um, when you're choosing foods, if you're trying to find, follow something that's low carb, high carb, low fat, whatever the hell your current regime is or regimen rather, um, pretty closely related, but you have to, you have to look

at the serving size because there are certain foods, for instance, people want to follow the slow carb diet from the four hour body. And they'll be like, okay, almonds are fair. And I'm like, well, almonds are fair. If big, if you can only eat like eight at a time and maybe, you know, fewer than 15 per day in, in separate doses. And how, what percentage of humans can do that? If you're sitting at a computer

with like a big jug of almonds next to you, nobody is nobody. So it's a domino food and you don't want to have a, you don't want to tick that domino by having your first handful. So don't eat it. Um, in any case, these are, these are the types of things I think way too much about. Okay. Well, speaking of almonds, I actually want to change gears here. California is having their water crisis now. And, uh, you know, everybody's, the sky's falling, the sky's falling. Don't eat

almonds. Don't eat walnuts, all this stuff. So I know that you and I both have kind of gone down the survivalist rabbit hole from time to time. For sure. And in, in prepper land. So, uh, what's your current state of prep being that a year in San Francisco, which, you know, can fall into the sea any moment, be running out of water and, uh, see in a place where like fire and police can't get there in an emergency. Like, what does your state of prep look like? Because I just helped a

friend down in LA and I'm just, I'll tell you about that in a second, but I'm curious as to how you're kind of coping with all that stuff. For sure. My, my general state, it's, it's fairly minimalist. I mean, and some people listening will be like, that's minimal. What? I mean, they might think it's funny, but I know now having done some experiments with say fasting and whatnot, that water is infinitely more important than food. You can go weeks without food. That's not a problem.

Totally agree. Totally agree. So I don't have, uh, so I'm always surprised when people have like a hundred years worth of grains and next to no water. I'm just like, how on earth is that going to work? Um, you're going to be, you know, panic stricken and dead in three days. Um, like that's not going to work. So in my case, I have many, many, many, many, and I don't know how many exactly,

but many, many, many gallons of distilled water in my garage. I have a, uh, I have gasoline and a generator for powering, say home appliances, refrigerators, et cetera, if need be, uh, don't have as much gasoline as I would probably like, but enough to keep me going for a while. And I want to say it's like the E 2000 I or something like that. It's a generator. I looked at a ton of

generators. The Honda generator is very popular with people who go to burning them. And, uh, I have then, uh, plenty of canned food that can be eaten out of the can. That's another mistake that I think a lot of people make is they, they have a bunch of canned food or dried food that requires electricity or at least fire and lots of water. And I'm like, okay, you're consuming a lot of resources there,

uh, with each of these meals. So in my case, I have just canned lentils, beans, et cetera, um, including those with a good amount of fat. So I'll have, um, say doll, like a kind of a soup basically that's been prepared in cans that you could, you can eat straight out of the can that has a lot of ghee in it. So that, that, that would keep me going for a long period of time if need be.

Uh, and I normally eat that stuff anyway. So that there's that I have firearms. Uh, I, the more I think about it, the less, uh, how should I phrase this? Um, the less realistic, I think being a one man army is honestly, when I think about all of the potential scenarios that could cause a complete shutdown of the city. But, uh, since it's cheap insurance, just like

having, uh, a fire extinguisher in the kitchen that you hope you never have to use. And I enjoy my marksmanship anyway, I have a, um, let's see, uh, M and P 45. That's a handgun. I have a customized Glock 34, uh, which I want to use for comp competition. Uh, otherwise I'd probably have a smaller Glock 17 or a compact Glock 19. Then I have a, uh, Remington mag seven millimeter

hunting rifle that can go out to about, uh, I've, I've shot it comfortably at 400 meters. It could probably go way out further. Although the optics are a little limited that as a Schmitt and Bender scope, this is probably freaking people to fuck out. But, um, and then now people that listen to this show know that, you know, I literally next to my desk is a, you know, a tactical shotgun. So yeah, got it. Okay. So then I have a, yeah, so I have a tactical, uh, just basic Winchester

12 gauge. I I'm not, I've decided I'm just not a shotgun guy. Um, I, um, uh, shotguns are very useful for a lot of things, but it's just not, I think you have to kind of find the firearm that you are comfortable with just like a pair of shoes. And that's going to be different for a lot of people, you know, size style. It's just, you need to find something that you're very comfortable with. And, uh, for me, that is, uh, nine millimeter hand bins specifically.

Uh, and, or very long range hunting or sniping rifles. Um, and I've taken sniping courses, which is not for the purposes of sniping people. It's just because I study all sorts of weird shit like Japanese for spec archery. That's not for practical purposes, you know? Uh, and then I have, I mean, I have from doing all the research for the four hour chef, I have all sorts of tools that I could use that I probably wouldn't. I mean, I have trapping devices.

I have all sorts of snares, most of which are, are illegal to actually use. Got Tanner, right? I mean, yeah, you know, I have a real collection of weird things, but the most important of which I think are, uh, first and foremost water. Um, secondly, probably gasoline and generator stuff. Um, third,

understanding where resources are in the city and how to get out of the city. If I need to get out of the city, people neglect a lot of that stuff. You know what I mean? They, they don't actually have, they don't have a checklist for hunkering down or for getting out of Dodge, but they have all this crap in their house. And I'm like, guys, the plan is a, is more important than just having a mishmash of random prepper kits. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Just because you go to REI

doesn't mean that you can weather the storm. You know, you might want to, you might want to have alternate routes out of town. You might want to have all sorts of plans in place depending on the type of disaster that, that hits. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, you know, can you get out of the city if you can't use Uber or the subway? Can you get out of the city? If there's gridlock, can you, you know, what is in which instances are you going to attempt to get out of the city or stay at home?

In the case of an earthquake, what is, what are your, what are your options and actions? And what does the decision tree look like? Uh, so I, you know, I think a fair bit about that stuff, but, um, there are a lot of guys who stock up on like dozens and dozens of guns. And it's like, look, if it gets to that point, yeah, forget it. Like, you know, having a nine millimeter handgun is probably if, if like the marauders are driving around, uh, and, uh, you know, picking people off

like road warrior, chances are like, there's going to be some lunatic in the freaking tree in like the trees with a hunting rifle. It's just going to pick me off when I walk out of my door and like a handgun is not going to help me, you know, or whatever. It's like, if it gets to that point, you know, the things are, which is extremely unlikely then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a total black swan edge case. Yeah. I think, I think the main, the main things that I would have a, a, at least

an outline of a plan for would be, you know, based on where you're located, what are the primary risks? And if you're in like Montana, it's not the government coming to get you in a black clock helicopter, which if that happens, by the way, you're just fucked. Like, just like shoot yourself up in the head. Like if you have the pros come after you, you're done. Like knowing some of these guys, like I know guys on SWAT teams, really high performing SWAT teams. I know guys in the seals

and so on. Like you're not going to beat these guys. 0% chance. There's, there's no pot. I mean, these are people who can clear an entire like two or three story house, house, house. They can clear every room in a house in 30 to 45 seconds. Like you are not going to beat these guys. Um, so if that happens, just shoot yourself in the head. Um, the, uh, that's a joke guys, but the, the, um, uh, so if

you're on say Long Island, right where I grew up, it's like, okay, you've all, there are a lot of hurricanes. Look at hurricane Sandy. Um, you know, some of my family went, went without power in the middle of winter for seven to 10 days. That is a realistic, uh, not an entirely low probability of an event, right? If you were in a city that is a terrorist target like San Francisco or New York, it's like, well, how close do you want to be to the Golden Gate Bridge? That is a very popular target.

Okay. That could indicate, that can determine where you live in the city. All right. Flooding, right? New York city, flooding in New York city, uh, is, is a risk. Uh, where are you, where are you living relative to the floodline in the case of a, B or C scenarios? And in one of those cases, do you own a raft? Yeah, exactly. It's just really basic stuff. And, uh, I, I don't think

you need to be paranoid. Uh, you, you do not need to be paranoid to, to get some of these supplies. It's, it's, it's, it's very stupid in my opinion. It's like driving without a seatbelt, uh, to not have extra water in your house. That's how stupid I think it is. It's just like, look, when's the last time you had a cataclysmic car crash? I mean, for most people, it's going to be never or, or long, long time ago, I had a fender, a bender, but you still wear your seatbelt, right?

Um, similar, similar idea. It's like, dude, go to Safeway and spend 20 bucks on water. Like what, what is the malfunction here? You know what I mean? It's, it's, uh, it's, it's just a smart thing to do at the end of the day. Yeah. So on the, on the water side of it, I just, I just hooked my friend up in LA. She's like an earthquake country. And I used to live with her and I would always take care of all the prep and stuff. And then I'm like, okay, the one thing that you need to have is water.

And she was always terrible about going and getting water. So what I did was I went down, actually, I just went on Amazon. I bought a 55 gallon food grade water container. Uh, the five year stabilizer had it delivered to her house, build it up with the garden hose, put in the stabilizer, sealed it, put it in her garage. And now that's, that's 30 days of water for her and another person and her pet, you know, and it takes up the same footprint as four gallon jugs of water.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I would actually love a link to that. So hopefully, hopefully you'll put that in the show notes and I'll just buy that. Cause I'm, I'm pretty sick of going to Safeway and just buying these jugs. Yeah. And this is, you just set it and forget it. They're like, don't open it until you need it because you know, then you have the, the run, the risk of getting, you know, more bacteria in there. But if you, if you get it, you fill it up, you pour in the stabilizer and then it's good for five years. So you've got 55 gallons for five years for the space

of four gallons of water. I mean, it's not cheap. It'll cost you like soup to nuts with the rollers for the bottom because you've got to put rollers on it. Cause it weighs about 450 pounds when it's full. So you want the rollers. It's about 250 bucks. That's it. Yeah. But it's like, uh, and I just, what I point out to people is like, what do you spend on car insurance? Right. And how often do you actually utilize your car insurance? What do you spend on health insurance? How often do you actually utilize your health insurance? Uh, but you pay for those

things in case of black swan events, right? It's like, I have health insurance, but I only, I have a high deductible. So pragmatically, if I get the flu and I need to go get some medicine, I'm paying out of pocket, but I have the health insurance nonetheless, in case I am in a cataclysmic accident need to be medevac or something like that. Right. I want to have that. Uh, it's similarly, it's just like spend the 250 bucks or at least to go and spend 20 bucks and getting a couple of jugs

of water. It's, uh, it's just a sensible, uh, logical thing to do. You don't need to be super paranoid. And, um, so that's, that's my current state of affairs. I mean, I, I probably have, I'm probably omitting a couple of miscellaneous weird things that I have here, but, uh, water far and away the most important.

Oh, good. I'm glad, glad we agree on that one. I think, I think we've both gone through most of the same classes on this stuff. So yeah, definitely. One of which I chronicled, uh, in the, uh, in the, in the, uh, in the TV show, um, which was, which was awesome to actually get a lot of it on, on camera in terms of, uh, you know, a lot of the, the on point stuff and that, uh, that we've talked about before, which classes you go through. So I, uh, for the Tim Ferriss experiment, one of the

episodes was trying to develop, cause I'd never taken a class with, uh, uh, with Kevin before and Kevin, Kevin Reeve from on point tactical on point tactical. And so we, we put together a curriculum, which was a, uh, three to four day curriculum for basically surviving Armageddon and what would you need? Uh, and it was focused on urban escape and evasion. So, um, whether that was gaining entry

to cars, uh, creating homemade lock picks, getting out of common restraints, went through the entire curriculum, but, but captured a lot of it on video in a, uh, a really cool kind of cinematic, uh, gritty way that I think people will find super useful. So if, if, uh, you know, if people are not willing to, or eager to go into the, the depths of say the, the super paranoid, uh, you know, message

boards for a lot of the preppers out there, I'm guilty of going in there, but it's hardcore. It's super hardcore. It's super hardcore. And it's super political is, is half the problem. That's the, that's the other thing is like, there are a lot of issues that conflated and it's like, look, I'm in San Francisco. I guess, um, I don't know what the hell I would be considered. I guess a libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, who the fuck knows, but really

I'm just interested in the, in the mechanics and the tactics and tools of, of optimizing my chances of survival and black swan events. That's it. Right. And so it's like, all right, what's the toolkit? Like guys, I don't want to rant about like, you know, Ron Paul, like I don't want to have to read through all that stuff. I just want the goods. And so with, with Kevin, we really focused on that and demoed everything so people can kind of replicate it, which was fun. Um, but, uh, I want

to do more of that. Honestly, it's really, it's really fun to become more manually literate. And you mentioned, you know, chopping wood and stuff, uh, for, for people who live primarily in a digital age. And, uh, I'm certainly guilty of this, you know, where you use your thumbs for mostly the space bar, it's really energizing and game changing to reacquaint yourself with using your hands for

things like surviving outside, making fires, developing the fine motor skills of lock picking. It's, it, it, it affects your brain in some fundamental way that makes you happier. Uh, even if you never use the skills, uh, for any type of kind of pragmatic purpose, it's, it's just a whole lot of fun. Yeah. And if you have a set of lockpicks, you never, you never have to worry about losing your keys. You can always get in your house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

What was, uh, yeah, I kind of freaked out some of the guys, uh, on the crew because I had the, the team behind all of Anthony Bourdain stuff, the people who do no reservations or did no reservations and now parts unknown 0.0, uh, they were filming and helping to edit all this stuff. I was one of the producers. And by the end of that episode, uh, I was able to lock pick all of the cars that had been rented and get into them. I was like, wow, this

is kind of an empowering skill to have. Uh, I'll be at legal in almost every place you could possibly imagine jurisdiction wise. So obviously caveat emptor, be, don't be fucking stupid. But, um, I was like, this is really empowering. And, uh, so it's a lot of fun. It's, it's a very, very good time.

No, definitely. It was, uh, and Kevin is one of the best in the business. I, we spent three days with him and by the end of that course, I just, I just walked out of there. I felt like I was two feet taller, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really fun. And, um, just the, the, the, the degree of selective attention that you have and observational skills when you walk out is really awesome. It's kind of like if you buy a new car and the next day you see that car everywhere or you

buy a new anything and then you see it everywhere. It's because you've been attuned to noticing that and observing that. And when you spend some time with a person like Kevin, uh, or even just like watch this episode and then you walk outside, it's like you've been given a new lens through which to view all of your inputs.

Right. You can see the matrix. Yeah. It's, it's really, it's a cool experience. So speaking of the show, uh, and it's funny cause last time you were on a grumpy old geeks, you were announcing the show and I think I'd seen a few pre-release episodes that you sent me and I was just, I was all jazzed for it. And then gone, disappeared into the ether, never to be seen again.

Absolutely. So that was, that's been a hugely frustrating experience for me. Uh, the show was not canceled per se. What happened was, uh, there were, there were maybe two that came out. Uh, and then the entire division within Turner Broadcasting that had financed this, uh, was shut down and everyone was fired. It was, it was really a sad thing to watch and all

of the content. So all the TV shows, not just mine, all the online content, all the editorial pieces that people enslaved over, um, everything got yanked down and just stuck in a vault. And this is very, very common in the worlds of TV, music, film. Uh, you'll have a show that for whatever reason, and there are a million reasons this can happen, it gets yanked and then

it's never seen again. And so I spent the last year negotiating to get the digital distribution rights back. And I finally have it. So people have not seen, you know, 90 plus percent of the show. They haven't seen any of the episodes. They haven't seen, you know, professional poker in, uh, in Vegas where I'd never played a hand before. And I had to get trained by this amazing

guy named Phil Gordon, who's also a computer science guy to go head to head against pros for thousands of dollars, my own money at the end of the week, uh, or, you know, tactical shooting. There's an entire episode on three gun shooting with this kind of, uh, prodigy of the sport.

So swapping between handguns, shotguns, and, uh, AR-15s, you know, assault rifles. Where did you do that? Cause I think, uh, Joey Ito went through something like that out in Nevada and he was raving about it. So this'll, this'll be good. I can't wait. It's amazing. This was an outlet in LA with a, uh, at the guys, he has a, an entire range in his backyard. So this was a sort of a private thing that I think, uh, it's hard to organize. There's a great, uh, company called

ITTS in LA that does all not three gun, but they do run by former SWAT guys that does some interesting training. Um, but you know, all these episodes and then all the bonus footage, that's another problem with TV is that we, we would film 50 or 60 hours for each of these episodes, each of these skills, you know, whether it's like surfing with Laird Hamilton or Brazilian jujitsu with Marcelo Garcia in New York, who's considered like the Michael Jordan of the sport, we'd get 50 hours of footage

and then we'd only be able to televise 21 or 22 minutes. And I have hours of extra footage, like extended scenes, interviews, tutorials on all of these things. So we'll be putting out, um, you know, that stuff will also, uh, be available by the time people are hearing this probably is available on, uh, you know, iTunes and elsewhere. Yeah. This will be coming out the same day as, as your launch. So awesome. Um, how much of the, the extra footage did you get access to with your digital deal? Do you have access to all of it and you are going to be like dripping it out

or do we get like bunches of it at once or what's the deal? I am combing through all the footage. There's a lot of it. And let me rephrase that. Not all the footage because, uh, there's just too much. Uh, and I don't have 50 hours per show. Uh, we, we wouldn't hear from you for another year and a half. And keep in mind that's per camera, right? So Jesus, that's right. Uh, so it's just like, forget it. And when, for some of them, like the rally car racing, we actually had armatures,

like these rigs where we would have like, I don't know, six to 10 cameras inside and outside of each car. If you can imagine the task, but, um, there will be a lot of extra stuff and I'm, I'm figuring out right now how to get that out most effectively for folks. Um, but there will be, uh, hours and hours of extra footage. I mean, probably as much extra footage, actually almost certainly as much extra footage as the entire season, uh, of footage. Uh, so it's, it's pretty cool. I mean, I think that

if, you know, if people go to, uh, search the Tim Ferriss experiment or just go to iTunes.com forward slash Tim Ferriss with two R's and two S's, uh, they should be able to get the entire season at about 40 or 50% off as a season pass. Um, and we'll have links to all of this in the show notes.

Yeah. And then the bonus stuff, uh, if people just want kind of one destination too, they can just go to four hour work week.com forward slash TV. So the four F O U R spelled out and then slash TV, just the letters. But it's, um, this, what's make, what makes this really exciting for me also, just from the standpoint of thinking about where the, the place that creators occupy in this world

right now, or whether they be podcasters, authors, uh, actors fill in the blank. It's, it's, it's so exciting to me because number one, a lot of content gets orphaned, uh, in the way that TV show did.

And say 10 years ago, there really would have been nothing to be done. It would have just been game over. And now you have, you know, you have YouTube, you have iTunes, you have, you know, Vimeo, you have VHX, you have all of these means or ACX on Amazon or whatever it might be, where you could, even if you don't have money, if you have fans, you could go to Kickstarter or something like that, raise funds, negotiate terms for your content so that you can rescue orphan content and resurrect it

completely. And I mean, create, you sort of re invigorate careers or create new careers by doing that kind of thing. It's, it's, it's really exciting to me. So I'm hoping that this, I mean, I'm, I'm super proud of the TV show and happy with it. I think it's, it's, I think it's, it turned out fucking amazing.

Oh, it's awesome. It's, it's amazing. I was really, really bummed when like it, it died right before the parkour episode was going to come out because we talked before about how you injured your arm on it. And I'm like, well, I never got to see it. So now, now I'll be able to go to iTunes and buy the whole season and rock it in a, I'll have a binge moment.

Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah. You can, you can binge your heart out. And yeah, the parkour episode is, was the most physically brutal. I actually tore both knees three out of the four muscles in each quadricep, which if you, if you do the math, that's three out of four, which you really don't want to tear. Uh, and then my shoulder infraspinatus and my arms. If you wonder why I have like weird compression gear on my arms and stuff looks like a legging on my arm for the drumming episode. That's

because the parkour episode is actually filmed before the drumming episode. Uh, and, uh, it was a, it was a hell of a thing that, so I'm, I'm excited for people to check it out and to get feedback. And if I do it again, I will do what I just described. You know, I will go to Kickstarter and fund this thing myself. And, uh, so I'm excited hopefully for this to succeed. Uh, you know, at least make my money back hopefully because I paid a pretty penny for the, uh, the digital

distribution rights. And then I'll do more stuff and I'll have complete creative freedom to do that. And just like, if I want to put out, you know, five, 60 minute shows, great. If I want to put out like a documentary for every one of these skills, great. I can do that too. It's really, I'm, I'm super stoked and it's not just because I'm drinking coconut oil.

Yeah. I would love to see super cuts on these that were just, you know, like full bore 90 minute episodes. Yeah. I think we could have, I literally think we could have made for most of these episodes, we have the footage to make the best documentary in the world for every one of these skills. I mean, it's, it's, we have that footage or at least a, you know, Turner has that footage. And, uh, I, unfortunately, you know, the, the state of things is probably that I would just need to go

and, um, and create some separate original content if I want to do more of this, but that's okay. Cause I'm not slowing down and I have a lot of other skills that I want to learn. So one step at a time, but for the time being, I'm, I'm really excited to, to release this stuff into the wild. I'm really excited to finally get to see it. So congratulations on finally going through that gauntlet and getting it back. I honestly didn't think you're going to be able to, I've just, I've worked in Hollywood. I know how difficult it is. And it's like, when I, when I heard that you

finally got it back, I was like, God damn, that's, that's some tenacity right there. Super, super tough. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, we're running out of time now. I got a few quick questions for you. I'm going to, I'm going to go Tim Ferriss rapid style at the end here. Yep. Sure. What are you reading right now?

I am reading a few things. I'm rereading the psychedelic explorers guide, which is actually right in front of me by James Fadiman, F-A-D-I-M-A-N, who's done psychedelic research and has looked at micro dosing in particular for a very long time. And obviously I'm not a doctor. Don't play one on the internet, but you got to check that out. Very, very interesting read. And then I am reading, I'm just looking around for the books. There's a book called a wrestling life by Dan

Gable, who's one of my heroes. He was considered the sportsman of the century by Sports Illustrated and is one of the best coaches of any sport to ever live in the United States. So I'm currently digging into that as well. Cool. Actually, yeah. On my, on my nightstand, I've got, uh, how Adam Smith can change your life. Uh, somebody sent me that one. I don't know. Uh, and right next to that is the magic of thinking big. Also some random donor got that my way. So yeah. Yeah. Those are both,

both, uh, super key books and the, the magic thinking big, I actually have kind of propped up on my bookshelf so that I can see it when I am writing, for instance, and doing, doing work. I can, I can see that right in my visual field. That's, that's a, that's a, that's a key book. I think most people fail with their goals because their goals are, are somewhat flaccid or impotent. They just need bigger things to inspire them. And then even if they don't make it all the way to the moon, uh, it's hard to fail completely. That's kind of how Larry Page

of Google also sees it. It's like, if you aim really high, it's hard to fail completely and you'll end up getting further and doing bigger things than if you had aimed for something quote, you know, realistic unquote. Yeah. I can't agree more. I, when I left my job at Kinko's back in 1994 to go build websites, I'm like, okay, well I'm going to Los Angeles. And my first job was to build the website for Epson. And I'm like, okay, this is cool. But it dawned on me, I'm in the place where

they make Star Trek. And I made a goal within one year, I'm going to work on Star Trek. Took me eight months. That's it. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's like, cause anybody would think I'm like, I'm making copies this week and next week I'm in a car. This is pre-cell phone, you know, just driving across the country, everything I own in the back going, I'm going to go for it and you can make it happen.

That's why I, that's why I'm really excited to dig into this book. And I think, I think that'll be a definite pick on the grumpy old geeks at the library segment coming up. Sweet. Sweet. Yeah. It's good fuel for the fire, man. It gets people all, all amped up. Last question. What's your coolest new gadget that you got?

Ooh, coolest new gadget. I would have to say the Precision Extra device, the Precision Extra with an XTRA, the glucometer slash ketone, ketone reader or ketone measuring device. I really have been using that and have been able to get a degree of detailed understanding of my own body as it responds to food in a way that was just never possible for me before. So I'd say that's my

current pick. Now, warning in advance, they do get you with kind of the razor and razor blades model because the, the, the glucose strips are very cheap. The ketone strips are very expensive. Uh, if you buy them full retail, they're about $5 a pop, but you can, but I've heard that there are sources in Australia and elsewhere where you can get them for about $2 a pop and you don't have to do it four times a day. Like I'm doing, that's kind of crazy OCD, but, uh, you know, once when you wake up in the morning fasting state, and then again, before you go to bed or perhaps before dinner,

I think those are three good points for measurement. Okay. Practical. I need a practical tip from you on this one. You said you have to prick your finger to do this and you're pricking your finger multiple times a day. Give me a practical tip on how to prick my finger and still be able to type all day long. Yeah, no problem. Um, use your not. So I put my left hand, my non-dominant hand, and I do it on the outside of the fingers, uh, as opposed to the center of the pad. Number one,

number two, even though now again, talk to your doctor, but they will tell you to use a separate land set for every prick, which means you're making two pricks for, for the, the glue, the glucose strip and the ketone strip. I will only have one, uh, one stick. I will only stick myself once and then I'll just wipe it with alcohol a second time before I kind of milk, milk it for another drop of blood for the next strip. So that also minimizes the, uh, the number of

lancings that you have to undergo. Awesome. Thanks man. I am definitely going to pick one of these up. I can't wait. Yeah, they're cool. They're, they're very cool. And if that's not, if that's too much for people, even just using the keto sticks, if you're going to attempt ketosis, it's kind of an interesting exercise. Definitely. Yeah. They, they, I mean, they work to a point, but you definitely don't get as granular as it sounds you get with the device.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right. Well, I know you got to go. So, uh, want to tell everybody where they can find you and, uh, then we'll wrap it up. Yeah, for sure, man. This was fun. So people can find me at four hour work week.com all spelled out. And if you go to four hour work week.com forward slash TV, just the letters TV, then that will bring up all sorts of TV stuff. And, uh, it's, you know,

if you, if you got, if you, it's kind of like myth busters meets jackass. I mean, it's, it's, there's something for everybody here. Uh, you will, there's at least one skill I feel that everyone has wanted to learn and you get to see me really stumble and fall and pull off occasional miracles. And if I pull off any miracles, I show you exactly how to do the same thing. So it's, uh, I think it's, I think it's fun to watch and I hope people enjoy it. Oh dude, I can't recommend it more highly. It's funny, it's entertaining and it's informative. I mean, that's like the

trifecta. So you got to get them for sure. Cool, man. Well, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Dude. Thanks for taking the time. And next time I'm in San Francisco, we'll have to do a round two with wine because we didn't even get in the weeds on half of the good stuff. For sure, man. I'm down. All right, man. Have a good one. All right. Thanks bud.

A huge thanks to Tim for taking the time out of his extremely busy schedule and for being our Guinea pig as the first guest on Grump on Grump. Let us know what you think. If this is something that you'd like to hear more of or not, just go to grumpy old geeks.com and click on the contact us button and let us know. And please feel free to thank Tim for this episode on Twitter. He is at T Ferris. Grumpy old geeks is a fan supported show. Check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash

GOG. If you'd like to help support the show and we'll love you forever. We also really appreciate your iTunes ratings and reviews. Go to grumpy old geeks.com slash iTunes and leave us a few words and five stars. It helps us spread the word to like-minded geeks all around the world. You can also find us at facebook.com slash grumpy old geeks or twitter.com slash GOG podcast. Show notes for this episode can be found at grumpy old geeks.com slash 107, where you can find links to all the stuff we talked

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