453: Ye Olde Grim Reaper McReaperface

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. How was your holiday, Brian? Holiday in my ass. You know, socially distancing, staying at home, watching the numbers get higher and higher and higher and nobody doing anything about it and nothing's happening.

And Gavin knew some stupid continuous tweets about wearing a mask when he had a chance to actually do something about this, but decided to open up too soon. So we're living in a goddamn nightmare that keeps getting worse. How about you? Do it okay. Do it okay. All my date nights have been canceled because of this and the numbers going back up.

And my lady friend texted me the other day. She's like, we're being COVID cockblocked. I don't like it. But we found a workaround. So since she's a dog trainer, we go to the park now and socially distance and I help train her dogs that she's teaching. And it was a blast. It was a blast to get out of the house and just get some fresh air because the park is huge that we have by us.

It's open, legally open. And we can walk around, stay away from everybody and get some sun and play with the dogs. So it worked out. Nice. Well, you got a bit of a break. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure Americans understand this. Do Americans understand that they cannot travel outside of America right now?

I don't think it's really hit home yet. Okay. There is a wall. It has been built. We literally cannot leave America. There's nowhere we can go. Hell, we can't even go to some states in America without there being a two-week quarantine, depending on where you are and where you want to think you're going to go to.

Let that sink in. How are them Freedom Fries tasting, everyone? Ah, yes. Ah, yes. Freedom Fries. We are so bad as a country in our response to this. We cannot leave. We're trapped. Yeah, no. The rest of the world has given us a timeout.

They're like, you guys need to stay in the corner until you figure your shit out. And you know what? I can't blame them one bit. Nope. Not at all. No. Look at the maps. It's disgusting what we've done. It's horrible. Yep. I know. I know. Anyways. Speaking of Freedom Fries, yesterday was National Fried Chicken Day.

Yeah, I saw that, actually. And randomly, the day before, my wife had been wanting to try Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for ages. So we did that. And we had leftover fried chicken. And as we were having that for lunch, I was like, oh, it's Fried Chicken Day. How convenient.

Well, it turned out to be my roommate's birthday yesterday. So one of our friends went down to Culver City to Honey's Kettle, which is an award-winning fried chicken place, which is, you know, pretty close to you. I have to say, go check them out. Oh, my God. Some of the best fried chicken I've ever had in my life.

Yeah, I've had them before. They were absolutely delicious. It was a couple years back. And then I remember going back again. And they had not cleaned the place very well. I'm hoping they've solved that problem. But it was bad enough the one time I went that I have not gone back in, like, a couple years now.

But I'm assuming it still tastes quite good. And hopefully they've got new management, as it were. I think the owners are the same, but they do clean the place religiously now. I mean, they've got nothing else to do right now, right? Exactly. But there was a line around the block because it was on the Fox morning show, Good Day, LA.

And that's why I just mentioned it to a friend. And she called me syrup tissue. She's like, I'm going to Honey's. What do you want? I'm like, everything. I do have to say, if you do get to go, we went to the one in Culver City, but they did open one in downtown LA yesterday, too. So the fried fish that they have to die for. It is some of the best fish I've had outside of England. So good.

So that's my fried chicken day story. Excellent. In the news. Well, speaking of COVID-19 and our effed up response to it, particularly in Los Angeles, because Los Angeles is, of course, the epicenter of influencers.

Yeah. Much to our dismay. But it's gotten so bad online that Barbara Ferreira, the Los Angeles Public Health Director, has felt the need to speak out specifically about influencers and asking them to F and knock it off. Because, of course, they are all just posting shots of them living their lives as if they've returned to normal and everything's completely fine.

Influencers like the, and I don't know any of these people, and I'm actually quite proud about that. Influencers like MTV star Tana Monague, music artist Jason Derulo, and TikTok creator Addison Rae Easterling have been throwing or attending parties, posting videos in groups without masks, and rarely filming themselves taking precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.

So, yes, they are all staying on brand and continuing to try to make their influencing lifestyle appear to be exceedingly awesome, which it probably is compared to us, at least until they start posting themselves on ventilators. Yeah, yeah, you know, Barbara's awesome.

She always gives the daily, you know, the daily numbers. So we watch her every day. But she has been receiving death threats. Yes, of course. You asked about why we're so effed up in this country, and it's people that are, that want to kill the people who are trying to save your life.

Yes. Drives me fucking body. Yeah, and an interesting story that came across my feed. I'm not too tapped into the whole military lifestyle, but I have some friends that are longtime military folks, and they often post things that have to do with the military. I thought this was really interesting.

Now, this was originally posted in the 6th of May, but the Defense Department has basically been trying to figure out what to do with COVID-19 survivors. And they briefly, at least for a time, basically said, if you have ever had COVID, it doesn't matter if you're better now. It doesn't matter if you've gotten past it.

That is a permanent disqualifier for joining the military because they're so concerned about the irreparable damage that this thing is causing, which, again, is something that people seem to forget about. A lot of people are just saying, well, you know, if I get it and I get it, I'm young and healthy, I'll be fine. What we're discovering is that this disease Fs you up for life.

Yeah, it destroys your lungs. Yeah, it completely destroys your lungs. So for at least a period of time until apparently pressure was exuded on them to kind of take this down, the military was like, if you've ever had it, you're never going to serve. You can't because, of course, not because it's not going to do well.

But they've walked that back a bit, basically saying we're not going to have a carte blanche policy like that. Instead, we're going to do – and this is, of course, in air quotes – case-by-case basis, which basically is a way of saying, OK, we won't make it look so extreme, but basically we're going to do the same thing. Yeah, yeah.

So – and of course, as it stands now from the news that we've been seeing this week, it looks like you can indeed be reinfected. You know, it's not – if it's not – you get this once and you're good for good and that's it and you don't need to worry about it again. And it's also seeming that there is no such thing as herd immunity as it stands right now, which, of course, our kind of policy in this country seems to be help me herd immunity, you're our only hope at this point.

So it seems to be that that's not going to be anything good for us. It's not going to happen, even though that is basically our federal policy. Fun. Fun, fun, fun. Yeah. It's a different world. A little bit.

I'm getting pretty damn tired of winning. Tired of being number one, eh? Mm-hmm. Well, speaking of being number one, TikTok. Yes. We've talked about TikTok and the security implications of running it on your phone and it turns out it's basically just snarfing everything up.

Well, Mike Pompeo, our Secretary of State. Yes. He's looking at banning TikTok. Okay. And other Chinese social media sites. Right. Well, you know, not that I don't think that they have valid reason, but man, talk about taking the one thing away from people that they have to do right now.

I know. And, you know, honestly, I think it's dumb. You know, I understand. Okay. You're in the military. Don't have TikTok on your phone. Yes. Yes. You work for the Department of Defense. You work for the government. I would even say, fine.

Make it a car. You even work for the post office. No TikTok for you. Fine. Great. Take it away from an average American. Why? Why? Yeah, exactly. Why? I mean, okay. I mean, I know what... We've read all the things that it's stealing and passing back.

Not that different than what Facebook is taking. Again, this is the... Yeah. This is the argument that I always make on this show is that, you know, the only difference between China and America is in China, the government runs the app. In America, it's private businesses.

Yeah. And I mean, TikTok comes out and says, you know, look, all of the US user data is stored locally in the US, but we do have backups in Singapore. But, you know, I read a story this last week where the NSA was paying Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, 10 million euros a year to not encrypt their traffic so they could steal it.

So they could scarf it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, so what's the difference here, guys? It's like, come on. You know, caveat emptor. Let your buyer beware. And if you want to use it and you know the risks, well, there you have it. I think the problem with...

Responsible and building. Yeah, responsible adulting. The caveat emperor part is there is no buying, right? Like, I think if people actually had to purchase these programs... Well, Angry Birds you paid for. Well, Angry Birds you did pay for. But, you know, okay. I'm talking like TikTok and stuff like that. Like, if you actually had to pay to get on social media...

Yeah, well, why are we going to get in this argument again? If you had to pay to get on social media, all these problems would be solved. That's how they would make their money. And then we wouldn't have to worry about any of this sort of stuff. But nobody wants to do that, so... Yeah, then we could retire and not have a show anymore. Oh, that'd be nice. Oh, my God.

And because people have asked us to do a little bit of hot stock talk again, I did find this particular article. And these are the sorts of articles that I see all the time and I pay attention to. And I just haven't been throwing in the show notes because I thought nobody cared. But here we are. Putnam Global Technology Fund has outperformed nearly all of its peers over the last five years, Dai Yao, which is the fund's co-manager, did an interview with Business Insider where he talked about three of his big bets right now that he thinks are going really well.

And I just thought this was interesting because they are tech-related. And I actually invest in two of these threes. So I was really interested to see what he had to say about it. So he picked three stocks he particularly likes in his portfolio right now that he thinks are either undervalued or be big performers. And they are Microsoft, C-limited, and Applied Materials.

Now, I've been big on Microsoft since day one. I'm a huge investor in Microsoft in terms of the meager sum of money I have. I was going to say, it's all relative. Everybody else. Relatively speaking, I'm a big investor in Microsoft. And he talks about what we've been talking about on and off on the show for quite some time, even though we're far more familiar on this show with Amazon and their buckets that are always left open so all your data can be ass out to the wind.

He does talk about that the most undervalued thing in tech right now could be Microsoft's cloud offerings. And I agree, Azure and all that are very, very good products. And he's very, very up on them. And he's saying that Microsoft is totally undervalued right now because of that, which is interesting. So if you've thought about getting Microsoft stock, you might want to think about that again.

The company that I'm unfamiliar with, and I'm hesitant to invest in companies I don't know anything about, is C, which is online retail stores and internet-based video game services targeting Southeast Asia and Taiwan in markets dominated in China by 10%, set in Alibaba.

He seems to think that C has the potential to be as big as both of them combined, which makes me want to go look into them. I do invest in Alibaba a little bit because I'm trying to diversify my portfolio since we're number one in this country. Yeah. And it's C Limited is the full name of the company. So they seem pretty interesting.

I'm definitely going to look into them. And the third company that he has is Applied Materials, which manufactures equipment used in the production of semiconductors. So it's a big market. There's lots of people in it. But he seems to think that there's a good thing going on with this company. And I've actually had investment in them for a number of years now.

So it's always nice to see the experts pick the same things that I sort of liked. Cool. Yep. And then I saw a really interesting article over on the Wall Street Journal. Who is this mystery shopper leaving behind thousands of online shopping carts? So the name is always John Smith.

And the article starts with, John Smith started shopping early on a recent Wednesday and didn't stop for days. He visited an auto supply site where he loaded his cart with replacement turn signal lever, an emergency strobe light, and two dozen other items. Then he left the cart behind. He opt over to a home goods merchant for another 10 items, including wood picture frames, plaques, a towel rack, and a mailbox.

He ordered one of every kind of baby bundle, ranging from about 80 to nearly 500 bucks from a site that sells infant sleeping boxes popular in places such as Finland. When the roughly 48-hour spree was over, John Smith does what he always does. He walked away without buying anything. Now, apparently, this has been perplexing online merchants who have noticed by going through all their statistics and analytics and all that for over a year now.

And they've gotten together on online message boards to chat about this John Smith. They've noticed and found some clues that they always use a Gmail address. They've tried tracking him down. They've tried reaching out to Google, all these shoppers saying, do you know what's going on with this person?

Can we track him? Do we know what's up? There's always a bogus email address, et cetera, et cetera. And they had no idea what was going on until the Wall Street Journal contacted Google in June. And a spokesman at the internet giant, after a few days of digging, provided an update. It's just a bot made by Google.

And the reason they made this bot is to make sure that the all-in price for the product, including tax and shipping, matches the listings on its own Google shopping platform or in advertisements. Oh, my God. That's hilarious. Isn't that awesome? That is so awesome. Like if people were tearing their hair out trying to figure out who this guy is that's always just abandoning stuff, it was totally screwing up their statistics and bounce rates and all that sort of stuff.

And it was Google messing with them unintentionally. That's so funny. Yeah, because it screws up their inventory system, too, if they're not smart enough to re-release the stuff in the cart. Like if you put it in the cart and then the inventory system flags it as, you know, unsellable and it's stuck in the cart because some people do that.

Once you add it to the cart, then it's like it's like Ticketmaster. You know, you have five minutes to buy this item or we're going to re-release it back into the public. Yeah. And you may not have a good system that does it automatically or purges every couple of weeks or whatever. So you've got your inventory just stuck in purgatory unless you manually go in and release it.

And, yeah, it was driving people nuts. Purg inventory. That's where it's stuck at. Yeah, because, I mean, I go try and find a turn signal lever and they're all gone. I'm like, what's going on here, man? It's like, oh, John Smith. That John Smith. You rapscallion, you. That is awesome.

So it was a great story. It really made me chuckle. But my absolute favorite story, possibly of all time, and if I happen to live in Bristol, I would definitely have a brand new local pub. The Colton Arms in Bristol is asking for suggestions for its new name in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, because the pub's namesake had a statue toppled by anti-racism protesters.

Yes, unfortunately, Edward Colston was a 17th century slave trader, and that's what the pub was named after. So they're looking for a new name. I hope that they decide to keep their temporary name, because they did put up a banner with a temporary name. Mr. Frost, the owner, said, the name we went for is a nod to Boaty McBoatface.

I wanted to go simply with Pubby McPubface, but my manager, Josh, suggested Ye Olde Pubby McDrunkface, which is much better. I love it. I love it. I love it. Yes, me too.

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Media Candy. Now, Jason, for years now, as long as we've been doing this podcast, I have been screaming about how if we de-chain ourselves from our cable, if we decouple, as everybody's doing, if we cut the cord.

We have a conscious uncoupling. Yes. If we consciously cut the cord with our cable providers, it's never, ever going to work out in our favor. Mm-hmm. I've been saying that since day one. I think it goes back to episode one or two. Yes. Yes, it does. And now, I guess the – I just – you know, I'm trying to get Joe Rogan numbers here.

I guess the mainstream media has caught up to what we're talking about, Jason. Okay. So, I've got two stories about what's going on here and how insane it is. The first is from The Verge. NBC and CBS's new Peacock deal highlights how complicated Keeping Up With Streaming will become because your shows will be all over every single streaming network known to man.

And you could think that you're buying something like CBS All Access and you're going to get all of CBS. But the reality is everybody makes deals. So, this one in particular is just talking about how NBC and CBS's libraries will be all over the place. Half of CBS's stuff is going to be on NBC Universal.

CBS is getting some of NBC's stuff. It is crazy and they're not exclusive deals. They're talking about some specific shows like Everybody Hates Chris, Real Husbands of Hollywood, The Affair, Ray Donovan, etc. So, those are all NBC, all CBS's properties.

They're going to be on NBC. It's horse trading. It's just horse trading, you know? Yes. It's like, I got some of this. You got some of that. Yeah. It's weird that Ray Donovan's in there because that's a Showtime show. Well, here we go. So, the aforementioned shows along with other Viacom CBS series that land on Peacock will also stream on their respective Viacom CBS streaming services including Showtime and CBS All Access.

Viacom CBS, a direct competitor to NBC Universal, will keep its best IP for its streaming services. Netflix, Amazon Video Prime, Apple TV Plus, blah, blah, blah. This stuff is going to be everywhere. It's all going to be for short periods of time. They're going to keep you guessing. And don't think for a second this isn't being done intentionally.

They want to make it as complicated as possible so you feel like you have to buy absolutely everything at all times. Yep. I was actually joking with my roommate last night because we have to have two devices now to get all of the channels that we want. So, I've got a Roku TV but Roku hasn't struck a deal yet with HBO Max so I had to plug in my Apple TV so we can go watch another show that I'll talk about in a second.

But I went through. I've got Hulu. I've got Starz. I've got HBO Max. I've got CBS All Access. And now I've got Disney Plus. Yeah. And Prime Video. And Prime Video. Right. It's like, can I just go back to cable? It'd be easier.

I have never left cable and I've actually done the price comparison in terms of what I would be paying for all the stuff, particularly with my kid. The only thing that I'm paying for out of pocket that isn't as part of my package is Disney Plus. And that is kind of mostly working out for me in terms of price.

It's about the same for now. What about Netflix? Netflix too. What about Netflix? Oh, that's a family share. So, I'm technically not paying for it. So, I've given my sister-in-law the Disney Plus login and we get her the Netflix login. Yeah. That's what I traded an HBO Max for a Disney Plus this weekend.

Well, that's, you know, we're not supposed to do it, but it's the only way to even break even at this game at this point. And God knows how much longer because the next article I've got from The Verge is there are more streaming choices than ever. Why are prices going up? And that's the other thing.

All of these services are starting to charge more, not less, as more people are signing up. And that's because, of course, what has happened is we didn't get to cut the cord. You can maybe cut the cord on your end, but at the back end, it is not cut. All of these streaming services are having to pay the traditional and expensive prices, the same prices that traditional cable have to pay to basically license the content to be able to stream it.

So, for a while, they were able to basically go, ah, we're just a streaming service. Cut us a deal. Cut us some slack. We'll pay a little bit less to get your content. But now they're going, well, are you kidding me? People are going and using your service. You're making money hand over fist.

Pay up, buddy. And that's what they're having to do now. So, of course, rather than take the losses, they want to keep making money. They're passing those non-savings on to you. It is a shit show. It is the shit show that we predicted seven and a half years ago. Exactly. It has come to pass. See, we're always right, people.

We are always right. I'd rather be wrong. God, I want to be wrong. I am tired of all of our winning, Jason. I'm getting really tired of all this fucking winning. I seriously am. Oh, Jesus Christ. Breaking news. We have our first world leader testing positive for COVID-19, Brazil.

Well, no. What about Boris Johnson? I think he was the first. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You can't really call him a leader, I guess. Yes. The first bumbler in chief. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, we've got our first trailer for the Muppet show that is coming to Disney Plus, Muppets Now.

I quite enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the meta-ness that is the Muppets. So I've got the link in the show notes if you're interested in that. I don't know if my kid will be into it or not, but I will be because my kid is more into the Muppet babies. We'll see. He's not big on adult Muppets. Big Muppets. I'll check it out.

I'll give it a gander for sure. I did enjoy the Muppets back in the day. And I tell you what, man, there was that one episode with the Phantom of the Theater guy. Oh, I vaguely remember that one. Oh, that scared the crap out of me because I was watching it alone because I'm a latchkey kid and I didn't have any parents to raise me.

I was watching it alone one night and I saw that and I was just shaking. I couldn't sleep for like a week. Oh, God, man. Scary stuff. Scary stuff. So I watched Hamilton. All right. Have you seen it yet? Nope, not yet. Haven't had the chance.

Okay. It's two hours and 40 minutes, so. I know. It's going to be like an all week affair. I did it in one go just because I was so excited to see it. And yeah, it pretty much delivered on, delivered.

It's Hamilton. Well, it's the only Hamilton I'm ever going to see. I had tickets to go right before COVID hit. So we do plan on watching it, just haven't had the time yet because it's long and we can only watch it at night when the kid's gone to bed. So we'll get there. Yeah, you're going to love it.

I mean, there's no way. And just imagine, they did this thing like every night, sometimes two nights a week. And what I want you to watch is the background players. They work three times as hard as anybody else in the show. They are dancing and singing constantly for like, you know, over two and a half hours.

And I'm like, my God, just the memory that you have to have to do that is insane. But yeah, no, it's a beautiful, it's beautifully shot. It's it makes you feel like you've got the best seat in the house for sure. So very cool. I loved it.

And the breaking news about Hamilton today is not going to get an Oscar because they're not eligible for the Oscars. So. Well, I don't think they care. Yeah, probably not. Probably not. They can get an Emmy. That'll be you can get one of those. But yeah, for the most part, the rules just say that they're ineligible for an Oscar, which is fine.

I think that's fine because it's literally a filmed Broadway play to be eligible for an Oscar. You have to actually play in X amount of theaters, right? No, they changed it. They changed it because it's C-19. Yeah, they changed that rule. But it's just the timing of everything because it was supposed to be in the theaters in 2021.

Right. And they, you know, they pushed it up because they're smart and are basically breaking the Internet with everybody watching it. So, yeah, it's just a whole different set of rules. And like, because it was filmed, you know, in 2016.

So it's like it's filmed in 2016, released in 2020, but it was supposed to be in the theaters in 2021, blah, blah, blah. It's a whole big thing. But it's also just a filmed Broadway show. I don't. I personally, I would be annoyed if it was up for best musical because it's not really it's not like a retelling of the musical.

Like, you know, they did with Les Mis, which was just a giant shit show. Right. But yeah, that's my two cents on that. Okay. Speaking of the myriad of choices we have to watch. Now, I've been watching Perry Mason on HBO Max with our guy from the Americans.

Yep. And everybody else in the history of Hollywood is in that thing. It's incredible. It is absolutely incredible. The the music, the cinematography, the story, everything about it so far. I've only watched the first two episodes because it's it's a slow dripper, which I love.

You know, it only comes out on Sundays. So you can't you can't watch them all unless you wait. But my roommate and I both love it to death. It's incredibly well done. That's excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's in and it's not Perry Mason. Like you remember, it's a completely different retelling.

It's a whole different. Just just don't even think of it as Perry Mason and it'll be a much easier on you. But I highly recommend checking that one out. I'll have to I guess I'll have to send you an HBO Max log. I guess so. Jesus. Oh, my God. And I haven't seen this yet, but I'm just putting this in the list because it's on my list.

Jim Jeffries dropped his new comedy special today on Netflix. And as we all know, he's one of my favorite comedians ever. So I'm really looking forward to this. It's like a show he did about a year ago and it's been finally released. So. Right. Cool. Since we don't have a show on on Comedy Central anymore, because he's off doing another show.

It's I'm looking forward to it. His. Have you listened to his new podcast? No, no. I haven't listened to much of anything recently, to be honest. I'm actually the only thing that's getting me through covid times right now is no such thing as a fish. I've gone back and like I'm going back to I started at episode one and I'm working my way up to catch up.

It's funny. The Jim Jeffries podcast is almost the exact opposite of no such thing as a fish because he's quizzed by like they'll bring on an expert in a topic domain. Right. And he like he has to kind of figure out what the topic is at first and then they score him on it and then they go back and forth and learn about a single topic.

So you do have an expert teaching you something as you go. But it's Jim Jeffries. So it's just funny the whole way through. Right. And his whole his whole cast is on there. It's actually a really good show. I enjoy it. That's one of the few that I have left that I really listen to, because the only thing I can really do right now is comedy. Like I wanted to go back and listen to the new hardcore history.

And I'm like, no, that's I'm just going to cue that up for the like, you know, 2022 season of podcasting, because right now I need things that make me laugh. Yeah. Now, Jason, we were both web devs and we worked in the entertainment industry, but I don't believe you ever spent any time running anybody's social media accounts.

You were more focused on on web based projects, correct? Correct. Yes, I was a web developer. I was a Lampstack developer. Right. OK, well, I ended up running a lot of social media accounts for various bands and things like that. And one of the things that you have to do if you do that is you have to basically develop a voice and it should reflect the artist's voice.

Correct. Correctamundo. OK, and then sometimes if you you've been doing it long enough, they'll kind of give you carte blanche, but it's still good to check in with the artists now and then to make sure that what you're actually posting reflects how they feel about things. Yes. It's really a good idea.

Unfortunately, the people that run Monty Python's Twitter account didn't do that. At all. OK, what happened? Well, Boris Johnson obviously has given the green light for pubs and restaurants to reopen as of the 4th of July. Not a big holiday over there, just in case you're wondering, Americans.

Yeah. After four months of lockdown and it mixed results on that, I was kind of watching it. Some people were being very good. Other places were total shit shows. And despite the fact that the government has opened up, many owners of pubs are expressing concerns about being able to comply with regulations.

To mark the occasion, Monty Python's social media people there decided to share a photo of Monty Python writing, it's time to dust off your finest attire now that pubs and restaurants are open for tomorrow. However, one of the members of Monty Python, Eric Idle, was quick to denounce the post as shit advice.

Yes, correct. He immediately wrote, do not listen. I have nothing to do with this. In the wise words of my wife, what has changed? Nothing. There is no cure. There is no vaccine. Go out at your peril. Mingle at your own risk. And then he added, unless your pub is called the Grim Reaper, you should stay home.

Please be safe. Oh, man. What's funny about that is that could have been my job. At one point, I talked about it on the show, like maybe five years ago, but I actually demoed a thing that we did for Python Line when they were first launching to Eric Idle.

Yep. Yeah. And we didn't get the job. So maybe this is their payback for not hiring me. And a lot of people sent us this story. I think Strickey over on Twitter was the first. Yes, Kanye West says he is running for U.S. president and he has won the backing of Elon Musk.

Oh, great. Look, it took a big enough story to allow Kanye back into Moron of the Week. We had banned him, but here he is. And in typical Kanye style, he tweets he's doing it. But of course, as soon as any journalist has looked into it, he has filed no paperwork whatsoever anywhere to do so.

And of course, it's too late in most states to file to run for president. And in typical America style, people are now urging Taylor Swift to run against him. Where are the fucking adults? They have left the building. They have left the building.

And Elon Musk this week was also in the news saying that, what was it? SEC stands for suck Elon's cock. That's a good one. Yet somehow Tesla stock through the roof. Through the roof. Through the roof. Oh, God.

I give up. I just give up. I just stopped. Well, my whole advice with Tesla is I think it's a good product. I think it's best in class. I think he's going to beat everybody in terms of batteries and charging stations and everything else he does. I just ignore. I've got him muted on Twitter. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, SpaceX. Cool shit. Got it with it. But yeah. Let's bring back Mute Elon 2020. Feedback loop. Over on Patreon, we've got some new subscribers.

Ryan. I can't even pronounce his name. Kajatan. Kajatan. Kajatan. Okay. Dennis. And we got a message from Flavio. He said, I just moved from the dollar tier to $5 a month. I know you guys are worth way more, but that's what I can do. I am part of the Clash Royale GOG clan, and I am having a good time there.

Keep up the good work and stay grumpy. Cheers. Oh, great. Here comes three months of what's the name of the clan. I'm going to address that right now. It is GOG.show is the name of the clan. We only have spots for 50 people. I think there's two or three open right now, but in August, they're upping the limit to 200 for the clans, so we can have everybody play.

Right. All 200 of our listeners. Exactly. That was weird. We're joking about it. I'm like, shit, we're going to have to find more listeners. Right. And over at PayPal, we have donations from Nicola, Doug, David, Bree, Daniel, William, and Michael, who wrote in, just started listening, two voices plus guests of Sanity in a world gone batshit crazy.

Find myself nodding incessantly, particularly on all takes COVID, scooters, social media shady and self-serving ethics, etc. How are you guys not getting Bill Simmons slash Joe Rogan style nine-figure deals? I'm no Spotify, but I hope this meager offering helps somewhat and can get you a case of the claw.

Yes, thank you. I don't know why we're not getting deals here. Because we're not as good as they are. There we go. And Braden writes in, been listening for a year. Love the show. Have a couple of dollar dues from down under. Hashtag Farscape is great. Hashtag, but Stargate is better.

Blasphemer. Blasphemer. I think they both suck. And Natalie writes in, I've been enjoying your show for a couple of years now, so I hope this helps keep it going. Stay safe and grump on. Thank you. Joseph writes in, a bucket show for a year. I yield my time. Fuck Trump. Well, it's a very generous donation, Joseph.

We thank you very much. And Christopher, who said, for 24 months of helping me stay sane, especially these last three, thanks from a grumpy geek even older than you. Yes, I remember punch cards, paper tape, and a rap-a-net. Arpa-net. I always say a rap-a-net. Yep, it's Arpa-net. Because I like rap music.

Five stars and stay grumpy. Yeah, you're such a homie. I was down with De La Soul. Oh, God. And over at Twitter, Jackal writes in, who'd have thought? White Claw. Yes, White Claw is the fizzy secret ingredient your cupcake batter has been missing.

And this is a recipe over at the Food Network. And I'm going to have to try and make that sometime. There you go. And Travis tweets us, changing my professional bio to entertainment enthusiast. And this is a tweet from Patrick H. Williams, who grabbed it from an interview with, let's see, who was it specifically?

Somebody over at Quibi. Let's see. And it says, people have wondered why Katzenberg and Whitman in their late and early 60s, respectively, and not very active on social media, would believe that they have a uniquely penetrating insight into the unacknowledged desires of young people. When I ask Whitman what TV shows she watches, she responds, I'm not sure I'd classify myself as an entertainment enthusiast.

But any particular show she likes, Grant, she offered on the History Channel. It's about President Grant. Yes, these are the people that masterminded Quibi. Yeah, thanks for all your extra advertising dollars to help keep the internet economy going because nobody's going to watch your shows.

And Richard writes in, gents, thanks for keeping this 40-something going through our dystopia. Hope you're all able to have a fantastic month off. See, we've got to clarify that. Obviously, well, there's a show coming out. Everybody thought we were taking the entire month of July off. No, we took one day off. That's it.

I know. So he says, here's some ideas to occupy your time. BoJack Horseman, which is hilarious. Years and years, which is terrifying. In the Expanse audiobooks. And he says, number seven is possibly the best. And Joe Abercrombie. All right.

And AJ writes in, hey, guys, I was hoping I could clarify brown bag and cakewalk. Brown bagging comes from a way to talk about poor people walking around with alcohol in public in a brown bag. Nothing to do with the color. Not sure the offensive part, but it's not to do with the color. And cakewalk is a cultural dance where the winner is awarded a cake.

It's an African thing. Again, I've never heard of it used negatively, so I'm not sure what they're doing here. But there's tons of things like Aunt Jemima that nobody asked for. Shrug. Yeah, I, I, like I, whatever, man. I don't know. I think if you hit a peak amount of people being offended by something, sure, then let's talk about it.

But I don't know anybody that is even, was even aware of, of cakewalk and brown bags, actual, where it came from. So, uh, whatever, I guess. There you go. Yeah, no, it, it, it, the tech companies, the brown bag meetings where you literally brought your lunch in a brown paper bag and you sat down and you ate your lunch with everybody and you had a meeting.

That was it. It was no, it had nothing to do with, you know, people walking around drinking alcohol in public. It was, you literally had to bring a brown paper bag with your lunch in it. Although, after those meetings, I wanted a brown bag with alcohol in it. I had one of those under my desk at all times. But, uh, thanks for clarifying that, AJ.

I did not know any of that. So, awesome. Yes, and David writes in, okay, I love Dilbert, but sure, Scott Adams says, just jumped the shark. Oh, God, I saw this tweet. Just jumped the shark? Just jumped the shark? Now, you, you have a bit of a love, love relationship with Scott Adams. Not anymore.

Okay, but I thought he was a cocksucker for a long time now. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt because I thought a lot of his stuff that he was doing was tongue in cheek and trying to be funny. But no, he's just an idiot. He's just an idiot. I can't, I cannot stand by and defend him anymore. He's just an idiot.

Oh, and the tweet that everybody's referring to is he did tweet, if Biden is elected, there's a good chance you'll be dead within the year. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, buddy. All right. I know it's dead to me within the year. You and your books and everything else.

Bye-bye. And over at GOG.show, Charles writes in, gents, looks like BMW is doubling up on the idea of subscription services. Monthly subscription for butt warmers, anyone? And this is a link over at CNET. Your next BMW might only have heated seats for three months. Corey Doctorow went on an epic rant slash Twitter thread about this, and it is disturbing.

I'm not a fan of this, and BMW is taking most of the heat right now because they announced it just last week. But a lot of people are heading this direction. And everything, because everything is software now, basically, you know, like a Tesla, you get all the software. It's all there.

So every single option known to man is available to your system. But they can decide to turn it on or off if they want to. So what their new plans are to squeeze every single penny out of you is the car will ship fully loaded, and you can decide to turn things on or off on a subscription basis.

Yeah, fuck that guy. Yeah, not a fan of that shit. Whoever came up with this idea, fuck that guy. Yep. He's probably gotten promoted, I'm sure. Yep. And Ryan writes, with Apple announcing Foundation and Brian saying they started his love of sci-fi, seems like a good time to start reading them.

What is the correct order to read them in, including all the other series as well? Well, personally, I would read them in the order that they were published and consider foregoing any of the non-Asimov written, but authorized by the estate novels that came after. They were fine. They just weren't as good.

Some people think chronological is the way to go, but I think those people are crazy. And I Googled it and found a link, which I've included in the show notes, which is, if you are planning on reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, dot, dot, dot, and they make the argument more eloquently than I can that you should read them in the order published and the reasons why.

So go read that and read them in the order published. Okay. There you have it then. I'm always a fan of reading things as they were meant to be. Yeah, because unconsciously or not or whatever, the later novels, even if they're set in time earlier or supposed to be preludes or prequels or whatever, will be informed by the writing that they've already made.

So that's definitely something that you want to keep in mind. Quibble writes in, hey, guys, please check this out. 16 Facebook apps caught secretly sharing data with third parties. Yeah, I read through all of this, a bunch of academics and basically used what they call canary trap or a honey token where they made up email addresses, signed it up.

The email addresses weren't connected to anything else whatsoever. And, you know, within 15 minutes, they just started getting a bunch of junk email because they used various Facebook apps. So it's funny. I when I read this, I read it as honky token. And I'm like, now that would be offensive. Not to me.

Call me a honky all you want. I always thought honky was a great word. I watched the Jeffersons, man. You honky? It was very funny. Honky and cracker. Never, never bothered me. And Matthias writes in, fantastic. And this is a link to Dark Ages of the Web. I went through this today.

And as an old web dev, it brought a smile to my heart. It was great. I miss the old days. It was great. I love the fact that they change your cursor when you get to the page. It is wonderful. It is so good. It is so good. Any grumpy old geek who's ever done web design, you've got to go check this link out.

Dark Ages of the Web. Yep. And Raph writes in, hey, Jason and Brian, I'm a grumpy old geek myself. And while I still have a good job in the tech sector, New York City financial tech startup, not sure how many more years are in the stars for me in that line. I'm curious about your thoughts on generating passive income and also about this Kevin Kelly article on 1,000 true fans.

Is it true that 1,000 of people is all you need to support yourself? Sorry for asking this again. And please ignore if you have already addressed this article as I sent in a question a while ago, but not sure I ever heard you talking about it. I feel like we have to do this once a year. Yeah, we do. We have to talk about this article at least once a year. 1,000 true fans is not enough.

It's not enough anymore. Somebody redid the math on it. It's more like 10,000 true fans. But since there are two of us, we need at least 20,000 true fans. And now that we have Dave and Seth on the payroll, we need 40,000 new fans. So come on, guys. Tell your friends about the show, please.

We're drowning over here. Yes, we are. We got a lot of bills, man. Steven writes in, Master and Slave? How about primary and secondary? Primary Flash, primary drive, and everything else can be assumed to be secondary. See you next month. No, we're here. Damn it. Stay cool.

Stay safe. Yeah. Cameron writes in, hey, guys. Just wondering if Brian and or his wife know anything about the legality of this situation. And this is a link to a YouTube video, Naughty Dog Busted Stealing Music for The Last of Us Part 2. Now, I tried to watch this YouTube video, but I hated the host so much.

I lasted about 10 seconds. So I opted to Google the story instead and find out about it. And it seems like it's been taken care of, Cameron continues. It seems like a cover doesn't have any copyright, even if it is heavily modified based on the video. Also, do you have any opinions on this?

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically, Naughty Dog's vice president has admitted that it took inspiration from a cover of Truth Faith for The Last of Us Part 2's commercial. And writing on Twitter, he said, due to an oversight on our end, bullshit. She wasn't credited as intended.

Our deep apologies. We are rectifying this as soon as possible. So, yeah, they basically just got caught and then they had to pay up and apologize. Yeah. Yeah. It's easier to beg for forgiveness and ask permission. Yes, exactly. Yes. Barrett writes in, in other news, did Zuck finally get that new pair of balls from a much-delayed Kickstarter?

And this is like over at HuffPost. Facebook cracked down on extremism. It only took a major boycott and multiple killings. I would argue that the multiple killings wouldn't have mattered without the major boycott. Yep, exactly. It really just took the boycott. People have been dying on Facebook since day one, but that didn't really matter.

Yes. And Matt B. UK writes in, Jason, you may want to tell your housemate to keep the fur baby safe. I'm not entirely sure I can parse that sentence. But this is a link about the whole TikTok thing, about how it's all bullshit underneath. Yeah, and they basically take everything.

Eric writes in, Brian and Jason, I love your show, and it's been my staple podcast during COVID. I completely agree with your stance on Spotify and podcasts, so I thought it would be interesting to get your feedback on this article, Stay Grumpy. And it's how Spotify beat Apple to the podcasting boom. I would like to know where this boom is.

Where's the boom? I look at our stats. There ain't no boom. The boom is our numbers hitting the floor. We've talked about this a couple times since COVID started, and it's interesting that this article gets into it. It starts with, the COVID-19 economy has given rise to a new pastime, streaming entertainment.

People are just staying at home and listening to podcasts when everybody we know that does podcasts knows their numbers are down right now. Everyone. All everybody. Across the board. Yep, everybody's down 10% to 30%. Some are down 50%. So I have to immediately question this entire article because its premise is false.

Exactly. Exactly. So I think it's just click-baity, headline-y shit because, yeah, and like, you know, four people listen to us on Spotify. We see the numbers. Nobody's listening to us on Spotify. It doesn't matter. You want to know how Spotify is beating Apple at the game?

They're actually paying a bunch of people and putting them behind a paywall. That's it. That's it. Getting a lot of press for it. So, and Apple still just stays hands off. Yeah, they put a billion dollars behind podcasting. Apple puts around a dollar behind podcasting. If that.

Yeah. And Trevor writes in, hi, guys. I'm a big fan of the show. And I'm planning on joining the Patreon once my paycheck starts coming in July. But for now, I have a couple of suggestions and a couple of questions. Sorry for the wall of text. First, for Brian, hear me out on this one. As for Shitter Sci-Fi, I would actually recommend maybe giving the first three Halo books, The Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike, a try.

I know they are books for a game franchise, but I do remember the first three books actually being pretty good for what they are. One of my hard and fast rules is I don't read adaptations of games or watch movies that are adapted from games. Or play games. Or play games. So, I think I'm out on that one.

Let's see. And here's another one here. After driving through a bunch of national parks on my way from Connecticut to Seattle, I've become very aware of the shortcomings of a phone camera. Where should I look to get a real camera? I don't want to break the bank, but I could probably swing around $500 for one. I wouldn't mind something with a learning curve so I can turn this into an actual hobby.

Okay. I've got a suggestion for you here. I'm using – I bought a couple of Lumix G7s. They're going to set you back about $600 with a kit lens, but it's got a nice little zoom kit lens on it. It's small. It's compact. It's easy to carry. You can do 4K video on it, but it also works as a DSLR.

But it also has manual mode so you can actually learn what, you know, ISO apertures are and focal lengths and all that kind of fun stuff for about $600. I will put a link in the show notes to the Lumix G7s. They're great little cameras. And over at iTunes, Martin J. Cole writes, five stars, grumpy old geeks awesome.

This is quite simply the best podcast, period. Any detractors can go jump in a lake. A perfect blend of topical, political, financial – well, once you bring back the stock stuff – and good old grumpiness. My week is sad in between the shows and euphoric when a new one is dropped. Well, welcome to your new euphoria, sir.

My company recently gave all employees new iPhone SEs to have their own contact tracing for C19. Not for spying on them, of course, and there's a bunch of emojis that are laughing. This is my first Apple device, so I'm taking the opportunity to mash stars in Overcast and write this review.

Chin up, chaps, and grump on. Martz. Thanks, Martz. If you want your question or comment right on the show, head over to gog.show slash contact and send us your feedback or questions that we can read on the air. And if you're so inclined, please head over to gog.show slash iTunes and toss us a five-star and snarky review.

And, you know, be one of the five people that listen to us on Spotify. I don't know. And go mash those stars on Overcast. A lot. Closing shout-outs! My closing shout-out is for Ennio Morricone, the prolific Italian composer on 91, so a good long run.

But he composed all the early Spaghetti Western stuff, the good, the bad, and the ugly, etc. I think his last one was the Hateful Eight, his last score. So, amazing composer. Do yourself a favor. Go listen to some of his soundtracks. Amazing stuff. So, well done. Yep, he will be missed.

They were fantastic, for sure. And speaking of music, Charlie Daniels has died at the age of 83, and everybody knows him from The Devil Went Down to Georgia, and also being a crazy, crazy redneck Republican. That song, though, man, I loved that song when I was a kid.

I thought it was the best thing ever. Dude, I grew up in North Carolina, and we all had it on 45. Everybody knew the words, and when it would come on the radio, everybody would sing along. It is, I still know all the words. I couldn't tell you a single other song by him, but I love that song. That's the same thing.

I don't know any of his other music, but The Devil Went Down to Georgia was one hell, hell of a swan song for him. So, until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schellmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. To support the show and keep us on the air, go to gog.show slash donate.

Toss us a few bucks, and we'll love you forever. Your support really keeps us going, and we'd really appreciate it. Show notes for this episode are at gog.show slash 453. From there, you can find links to old episodes, leave feedback, ask questions, donate to the show, and get links to stuff we like. Stay grumpy, and we'll see you at the Grim Reaper Pub.

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