489: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Lockdown

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 the final Grumpy Old Geeks of 2020. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. It's beginning to look a lot like lockdown everywhere in the world. Except Los Angeles. Nobody seems to care there, but it's pretty crazy. The world's locking down. UK is basically an island unto itself once again.

Yeah, crazy stuff going on right now. Yeah, well. Not surprising. Yeah. Look, you got out of LA just in time, my man, because there's no leadership here whatsoever. I want Arnold back now. No shit. Governor Newsom, California's governor, who's just basically had his eye on the presidency and his lovely locks of hair the entire time he was governor of California.

I mean, I've never liked that guy. I've always thought he was a complete waste of time. He, yeah, I just, I talked to all my friends in LA and the words shit and show are often put together. Recall is what I hear a lot of. Yeah. So it's bad there, but it's bad everywhere, man.

I mean, cases are rising here in Toronto. Cases are rising everywhere in Canada. It's, it's, um, Jesus Christ. I don't know what's going on and, you know. Yes, you do, Brian. Yes, you do. People are fucking stupid. Yeah, yeah, they are. They are. So there you go.

The malls are packed. We are under lockdown. We have a stay-at-home order. We have 20% capacity in retail shopping. The malls are packed. Yeah, yeah. Nobody's enforcing anything. So if there is a rule and nobody's there to enforce it, is it a pandemic or not?

Yes, it is. Yeah, it's, it's going to be a mess and it's, it's going to get worse the next couple of days. And, you know, uh, I had initially, uh, we had planned on coming back to LA at the end of January. We had hoped to, we had hoped to get Lucas back into his school for the, for the last couple months of the year.

Um, I don't think any of that's going to happen. Uh, we're going to get another huge, uh, huge bump after Christmas because people are not going to pay attention and they're going to go see families and they're going to travel. I've seen the footage at the airports. Uh, it's already, it's already busy.

Um, and now we've got, uh, another strain. I mean, has, has nobody seen 12 monkeys? I know, but the strain, and look, all the, all the epidemiologists say the strain will be fine with the current vaccine. Sure. But they don't know that. They don't know that. Well, you sound like my fucking roommate. Okay. Here's the deal. You don't know anything.

So let's just skip it until we do. Fuck it. 70% more transmissible. It just takes one person getting on one of the, did you see the footage in the UK of the airports of people trying to get out in like the, the final minutes before the, the travel bans hit? Yeah. I don't care anymore.

I just fucking need Bruce Willis with a gun. No, no. Bruce is, Bruce at least would stay at home and wear a mask. All right. Anyways, after that rant is now over, cheers for listening to the last nine months of complete and utter shit. That was most of 2020 as this is our last show of the year. Uh, let's be honest. It's been pretty shit since 2016, but boy, did things ramp up.

Hey, it ain't over yet, man. No, 2021 ain't looking so good at the moment. Well, we got 20 more, no, actually we got, he, he, he, he's not gone yet. He's not, he ain't, he ain't leaving. Oh God. Yeah. He is going to get wheeled the fuck out. I, my initial thought was, uh, he was going to go to Mar-a-Lago and that would be the last we'd ever see of him.

Nope. Uh, Mar-a-Lago has basically said, you can't come here. And, uh, yeah, he, he, he ain't, he ain't walking out that door willingly. Yeah. It's just not going to happen. Anyways, let's move on to other stuff. Uh, I was thinking. Come on, that was so fun. I know it was, wasn't it? I was, uh, I was actually thinking about this, uh, because it's, it's obviously Christmas time and, and I've been getting a lot of email, a lot more email than I normally do.

So, uh, I wanted to say, do you think it's an upside for all these companies to send their year-end happy holiday emails in that, uh, some people are like, I totally forgot about company Z. I should go buy something from them. Or are there more people like me and they go, I totally forgot about company Z.

I should totally unsubscribe to all their mailings. This is Brian. This is your yearly rant about all the holiday emails and how you unsubscribe. And I do. It's amazing that I'm getting any emails at all anymore because, oh, that's right. Unsubscribe does nothing.

Yeah. I was going to be like, and I thought you unsubscribed. Why are you still getting emails? What's the, what is the problem here? Because I'm, I'm convinced companies keep lists. They keep their, we're going to send you one every week list. And then we're going to keep our, this is everybody that has ever subscribed ever or ever been put on our mailing list ever.

And once a year, we're going to send them a mailing. You know what happens? I think there's turnover in the IT department and in the marketing departments. And then the new marketing guy comes in and says, give me every email you got. We're putting them back on the list. They're like, but they unsubscribe. He's like, I don't care. Marketing, marketing, marketing. Let's put them back on the list. What's the worst they're going to do?

Unsubscribe? I think you're right. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the way it goes. I do a quick little bit of follow-up on Patreon because we mentioned this last week and it seemed to work. If you subscribe to Patreon at any level, you do get an ad-free version of the show as soon as it's ready to come out, which is 85% of the time, that means early access.

Yes. It all depends on whether Jason hits the beer early or not. Well, it's not the beer so much. I can do anything on beer. Whatever he's doing at this point. I can do anything on beer. Trust me on that one. It's just the client load. If I get too many client calls and sometimes things go off the rails.

But anyway. And I also wanted to mention Discord. We do have the Discord channel. We haven't talked about it in a while. But yeah, if you go to GOG.show slash Discord, you can hang out with us. I pop in every now and again. Brian, you've been on there a lot more than I have lately. Yeah. Yeah. The wife has been going to bed a bit earlier and there might be a bit of wine involved and me on the couch.

So I've been showing up every now and then. We've got like well over 500 people on that at this point, which is more than we have on Patreon. Let's even out those numbers. Yeah. Suspect there. And I have a breakfast tip that I came up with this morning because I had to go and eat like – just shove food in my face because we were up all night with a sick dog.

And I was like, I need food before we do this crap. And I'm looking around. I'm like, okay, I'm going to make some cholesterol-free scrambled eggs with that goo you get in the carton. And because, you know, I'm an old man now. And that stuff tastes like nothing. It is awful. I mean, styrofoam has more flavor.

So I have to always add something to it. And today I'm like, okay, I'm just going to slather it in sriracha. I'm like, oh, that's going to – it's a little too hot for the show. Like what can I do to cut it? Do I have sour cream? No, I can't have sour cream anymore. Damn it. But I did find a tub of labna. I don't know if you've ever had labna.

Have you? It is my son's favorite breakfast. I do – I made like a mayo of labna and sriracha and spread it on my scrambled eggs. Holy shit, that was good. It's good stuff. I have it sparingly. But, yeah, my kid loves to have that on toast in the morning.

Yeah, man, that stuff is good. Yeah, we do – it's not challah bread. It's another – like that really flat Persian bread that you get in like the giant sheets. Yeah, yeah. Toast that up and put some labna on it. It's pretty good. But the labna-sriracha combo I'd never tried. So there's Jason's holiday cooking tip.

Nothing says Christmas like Middle Eastern food and hot sauce. Exactly. In the news. And in connecting with our opening show rant, it's good to – for once in my life, I'm with Tom Cruise.

I know. Isn't it weird? So are a lot of other people. I love the title of this article. I begrudgingly admit that Tom Cruise is right. And, yeah, so I'm sure everybody has heard he lost it on the set of Mission Impossible 7 after spotting two of the crew standing less than a meter away from each other at a computer screen, according to the British tabloid The Sun, which reported the incident after receiving leaked audio of the tirade.

He basically fucking freaks out and says, you know, what the hell are you people doing? Yeah. And the reason this feels good – well, first off, as they point out, the blow-up is unsettling because it's a rich, powerful white man yelling curse words at people who work for him.

It's also unsettling because Tom Cruise has a history of doing this. It's happened a couple times without coronavirus or anything like that. And, of course, it's – the rant is not focused on the fact that somebody could get sick and die, but it's focused on the fact that my movie might get shut down, which, you know, it's not an essential activity or anything.

I take over into that. Yeah, go ahead. And as the article gets into – but he is not wrong because America has no goddamn healthcare and because America has no goddamn leadership and because all you're getting is $600 nine months into this thing.

It's pointed out that people have to fucking work. And if this thing gets shut down, that's a lot of people out of a job. Mm-hmm. No, I think that's the best part about the rant is he's just like, you know, people's homes and livelihoods are on the line and you fuckers are fucking it up.

Yep. So, you know, that's fine if a rich white guy says, hey, look, we need to make money, but we're making it for everybody here. So don't be a dumbass. Yep, yeah, and as the article points out, the situation sucks, but that's what it is, and people shouldn't be fucking standing within six feet of each other.

They just shouldn't. That's the whole deal of social distancing, which is why I have my – to admit, my first reaction to Cruise losing is cool, was a primal, even Cruise-ian, fucking finally. I am exhausted of this. I know better days are coming some point, but they're not here now, and it's validating to hear a familiar voice get upset and say exactly what we've all been thinking but haven't been able to scream at people.

You know, it would be great if we got all of the celebrities out there, and they just did a series of commercials that says, stay the fuck at home, and said, screw the FCC, and paid the fines, and just cursed at everybody on TV. Would that not be awesome? Yeah, so as it ends, it says,

You know who we need to hire to be the spokesperson for the entire movement who is not Tom Cruise?

Samuel L. Jackson, that's right. Stay the fuck at home. Yep. If anybody can do it, that's my man. And it was his birthday last week, so shout out to him for his birthday. It was. It was. And boy did – not to tease too much on Media Candy already, but boy did they tease a return for him to Star Wars, didn't they?

Okay, well, you will have to talk about that because I missed that. Yeah. Some birthday posts from the official Star Wars account. Anyways, we talked about Pornhub and how they basically kicked off everybody that wasn't verified last week. I found a really interesting article over at Slate about how this is just the latest example of a move towards a verified internet.

Wouldn't that be nice? So we'll see. They're basically saying that porn tends to lead the way, and a lot of other people have started to do this as well. Airbnb announced that it would start to verify all listings, including accuracy of photographs, addresses, and other information posted by hosts.

Tinder has rolled out blue checkmark verification systems to deter catfishing. Social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram are trying to figure this out at some point. And the point of this article is just this is where it's all heading. There's not going to be an anonymized internet anymore.

You're going to have to verify things. And, of course, it points out some of the pitfalls, which is you can't just do it based on celebrity. It has to be an across-the-board-everybody thing. Yeah, it's pie in the sky. Well, yeah, I mean, the problem is who watches the watchers?

It's the same thing with content moderation. How many people do you have to employ to be able to actually do this properly, which is going to be the downfall? Yeah, that's what I mean. This is just – it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And I saw this article because I know that you hate multilevel marketing companies.

Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yes, this is a big article over on The Atlantic about how the internet is starting to turn on MLMs. This started with TikTok, of all places. They have updated their community guidelines, and they specifically prohibit now frauds and scams and MLMs.

This should make you very happy. That does. That does. Yeah. Yeah, the pandemic has basically been a multilevel marketing gold rush because everybody's at home and just scrolling, and people are building up their fucking markets, basically, and just signing people on and getting people to do it because, you know, what else?

What else are we doing? And we're sitting around and posting, and this is all kind of moved online. Multilevel marketing exists because of social media at this point. And it's interesting that the company is trying to basically say, no more, not on our platform. Well, we'll see.

But as it's pointed out, good luck with that. You tell me the next time you hear a Beachbody ad, you know, because they're MLM. They are not MLM anymore. Do your research. Yes, they are. They're not customer-facing MLM. It's the inside people who are MLM. If you're a trainer for Beachbody or selling their supplements, trust me.

I know. I got this one. I ignore that whole aspect. I just like their yoga. See? That's how they get you. That's how they get you. Speaking of, I got to check out the Apple Fitness Plus thing. I forgot to turn on. Yeah, I was waiting for your review. Yeah, I got a... Okay, well, I got 12 days off in a row coming up.

So I will be doing downward-facing reviews while we're doing that. Now, this one had me kind of excited. Researchers have achieved sustained long-distance quantum teleportation. And I'm like, beam me the fuck up. Where can we go?

Where can we go? Where? Where are you going to go? Therein lies the rub, you know? Therein lies the rub. But anyway, yeah, this is, you know, what was it? Spooky action at a distance? Quantum entanglement and things like that. They are figuring out ways to do this at distance, which is...

I mean, distance should literally not be an issue because once you do... Didn't the Chinese already prove that they did this in space? I think so. It was something like that. And my understanding of the science is we should not actually get excited over the idea that we will be able to be beams to London so we can be in lockdown there instead of here.

It's actually for instantaneous long-distance communications that this is very exciting. Yes. Yeah. You flip a bit in one place that's quantum entangled to another bit, then that bit flips instantaneously with the other one. That's why it's the spooky action at a distance. Yes. Very cool.

And nobody knows why the fuck that happened. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, talk about, you know, technology and magic. It's like, how's that work? Who knows? Yeah. But then what do you do? You got to go like have a bucket of bits that you entangle and then you have to ship them across the world to the other end of the, you know, the pipeline so you can tie it into your router.

I can't remember what sci-fi series that was basically using that. I think it might have actually been Ender's Game, the later on ones where basically every ship, you know, basically got their, their bucket of bits and then they went out to space and there you go. Instantaneous communication. I think you're, I think you're right.

I think it was Ender's Game. Yeah. I think they called it the Ansible if I remember correctly. Yeah. Yeah. It's been so long since I read that and the movie didn't really get too deep into anything. No. The movie was just, let's blow shit up. Yes. And now the military have, have unleashed R2-D2 on us.

Oh God. But not in a cute way. Well, yeah, not really in a cute way. I bet somebody brought an R2-D2 sticker, but yes, no, AI just controlled a military plane for the first time ever. And this is the Air Force flying a U-2 spy plane over California and they have an AI co-pilot.

God, I hope they named it Bono. You're fired. You're fired. Oh yeah. I mean, I don't see a problem with this. If you have somebody, I mean, we've got, you know. I, I, I, I, I think this has been happening for a long time. I think this might be the first time that they're going ahead and saying that we did it.

Exactly. You know, turn on the automatic pilot, you know, flip the switch and the thing flies itself. Okay. Now we just have a computer that's probably a little bit smarter and dumber at the same time. We've been flying military unmanned drones for how long? All over the world. What's the big deal?

I, yeah, this is a nothing burger for me. Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the unmanned drones do have a pilot in a seat in Alabama, you know, actually looking down the scope. This is, and this is not the pilot. This is the co-pilot. So it's not even like flying the plane itself.

I just can't believe U2s are still in service. I mean, those things, they're ancient. Yeah. They're absolutely ancient, but I guess they still get the job done. So they're going to stay, uh, stay airborne. So let's just throw an R2-D2. Let's why the hell not. Yeah. And, uh, I just wanted to end the new, the, uh, the year, the new story with a new story that is in 20 years, always 20 years away in 20 years.

Reportedly, Apple will start building an EV with a breakthrough battery in 2024, which I predict at the end of 2024's final episode of the year, we will be saying 2028, 20, 2012, 20, 2012. Oh, yeah.

20, 2012. Sounds more realistic. That sounds more, yeah. I was going to say, I think you got a little closer on that one. If you were going the price is right scale, that might be the way to do it. Yeah. So a new report from Reuters is providing some details on their secretive project. Titan self-driving car, uh, which mostly is about their breakthrough battery.

It's a monocel design apparently, which will allow the company to add more active material to the power cell, thereby offering greater range. Uh, as long as that battery goes in their phones, I'm happy. Yeah. Seriously. I don't need the car. So yeah, they don't use cobalt and 60% of the world's cobalt supply comes from the Congo, which is a bit, um, problematic in terms of child labor.

And, uh, you know, we, we want to talk blood diamonds. We've all got blood phones. Uh, so, uh, so they're saying it's by the Congo. I mean, seriously, why don't you buy it? No shit. I just buy it at this point. Privatize it, buy it and privatize it. It can't be worth that much. But of course, uh, because, you know, they threw out this date of 2024 is when it's going to start happening.

They have to end with a, but of course there could be pandemic related delays that push production back to much later. And there's a chance that Apple might decide to reduce the scope of the project. IE, instead of building its own car, it could work with traditional automakers, which basically means they're just working on a battery.

Exactly. Why don't they sell the battery to Elon and just be done with it? Come on. I don't want, I don't want Apple cars. I seriously just don't want Apple cars. Not given Apple's recent products. Can you imagine the car cover that they might give you? Looked like a big pair of panties. It's two stickers you put on the headlights.

Pasties. Pasties.

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Security? Security? Ha! We are joined again this week one more time for the year with our friend Dave Bittner. Dave is the host of the Cyber Wire podcast and also the co-host of the social engineering podcast Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan, as well as the co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy as well as surveillance and privacy.

Once more with Phelan, Dave. Let's do it. And let us also not forget, he is the cover star of Furry Monthly. Yes. I'm feeling particularly foxy today, thanks to my good friends, my good co-hosting friends here who sent me a little early Christmas gift.

So thank you very much for that. You're very welcome. I was inspired. I was reading one of your tweets about tossing your iPhone before you went to bed, and all I could picture was you sitting with a nice cup of brandy by the fire in your foxy PJs, tossing your phone nonchalantly over your shoulder and saying, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Right. And then I'm like, I bet he doesn't have any foxy PJs. Let's get on that right now. Well, you are correct. I did not, in fact, have any foxy PJs. And now I do. And I wonder, how did I ever come this far in my life without them? So thank you very much. I also want to say, interesting packing from Amazon.

These things came vacuum packed in a plastic bag that there was, if you had asked me before I depressurized this plastic bag, I would not have said there was fabric inside. This thing was solid, hard as a rock, which makes sense for, I guess, being able to fit as many of them into whatever shipping thing they come from Amazon for.

But, boy, it was kind of impressive. I hadn't seen that before. Kind of like, you know, those ads where you can use a vacuum cleaner to suck all the air out of storage bags? Yeah, I used to have those. I use them. I still use them. Yeah, it's like that, but instead of having a vacuum cleaner, you're having some sort of industrial strength, you know, zero air left vacuum machine or something.

I don't think, it's from China. There's just a bunch of women with straws sucking through a hole in a sweatshop. Right. Since they were young women, they've been raised to have an incredible amount of sucking power through straws for this very purpose. Absolutely no jokes here.

Moving right along. Yeah, yeah. You look very dapper in your PJs, Dave. Well, thank you. And I have to say, they are quite warm. So, I will use them this winter. And thank you very, thank you again. It's very thoughtful of you. You're very welcome. And I hope our audience enjoys me going along with the joke.

Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. It's a joke. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, this being our last episode before Christmas, I was wondering, I can't remember, have I ever told the story about the time I was at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree with Roy Clark and Barbara Eden and President George W. Bush?

Not to my knowledge, no. All right. So, let's go back a few years. This was during George W. Bush's administration, towards the end of his reign, if you will. I was going to say Reign of Terror, but that has completely been usurped at this point.

Seems rather genteel. Yeah. We kind of recalibrated our feelings about W, haven't we? Yeah. Got a little perspective. He's kind of just a quirky guy now. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. So, every year they do the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, which is a big event.

They invite a few hundred VIPs. The president is there to host it and press the button to turn on the lights. This year, they lit the dumpster. Yeah, right. Exactly. And so, it's a big event, and they bring in musical guests, some celebrities.

This particular year, and I don't remember what year it was, but I'm sure somebody can Google it. The hosts for this year were Roy Clark and Barbara Eden. Both delightful people, both of them getting up there in years when we did this a few years ago.

Of course, Roy is no longer with us. So, they also broadcast the lighting of the National Christmas Tree overseas to all of the servicemen and women who are serving. And the way that they would have that happen is they would bring in a volunteer TV crew to handle the technical part of that.

And a colleague of mine asked me to come in if I would be the Steadicam operator for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree. And I said, sure, because it's something I hadn't done before. I thought it would be cool to meet Roy Clark and Barbara Eden and also be that close to the president.

It was cool. So, the day comes for the event, and it is a perfect day for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree. It's about 20 degrees outside. It is snowing. There's about four inches of snow on the ground. It is picture perfect.

The crowd starts coming in. I'm there. I have my Steadicam all set up. I have an assistant there to pull my cable. My main job is to walk in with Roy Clark, who's coming in from the back of the audience. Probably a crowd of about 300 people or so in this VIP area that's right in front of the stage.

There's an aisle way down the middle. Roy Clark is going to come in from the back, dressed as Santa Claus. Barbara Eden will introduce Santa Claus. Roy Clark comes down from the back through this aisle way. I'm running the Steadicam, so I'm backpedaling in front of him, leading him in.

He turns the corner, walks up some steps to go up on the stage. I follow him up, and then they cut to another camera. That was the main thing that I was there to do and then also get audience reaction shots. If anyone went down in the crowd, I was down there working in the crowd with my little floaty camera.

So, everything's going great. The show starts. The president has taken his seat. He's sitting behind about four inches of bulletproof glass. The first lady is there. The VIPs have come in. Everyone is dressed to the nines in their beautiful Christmas wintery gear because, again, it's about 20 degrees outside, but picture perfect.

Light snow falling from the sky. It's time for the show to start. Roy Clark begins his walk. I'm walking in front of him. Everything goes perfectly fine. He turns the corner, goes up on the stage, takes his place behind a single microphone that's there, facing the crowd, starts doing his spiel.

He's reading off a prompter, which is the back of the crowd, one of those big giant projection prompters, reading his part, doing a great job. Barbara Eden is just off stage. And as Roy Clark is doing his jokes, his Santa jokes and his Santa Claus story, his pants drop around his ankles.

Now, it gets better. Roy Clark, because it is so cold outside, he's wearing leggings underneath of his Santa pants. I was waiting for shrinkage. He's wearing wool leggings under his Santa pants.

So he doesn't know that he's dropped his pants in front of the president. He's standing there in front of the microphone, dressed as Santa, pants around his ankles, telling jokes. The audience is doubled over in laughter. He thinks his material is killing.

I'm grabbing audience reaction shots of this. And people are doubled over and it just gets funnier because he's just – he's getting into it because he thinks – and Barbara Eden is sneaking her way on stage from the side. Finally, she comes – she points at him.

She points at his ankles. He looks down, realizes that his pants are around his ankles, pulls up his pants, makes a joke about it, walks off stage. It's time for the president to say a few words before they actually light up the Christmas tree.

And I have to hand it to him without missing a beat. President Bush says, you know, it seems like this year Santa Claus could use a new belt. And that is my Christmas story of Roy Clark in front of the president of the United States dropping trowel and unfortunately not exposing himself, but a Christmas memory.

I want something – one I shall not forget soon. Is this anywhere on YouTube that we can see? You know, I haven't seen it and I look every year for it. You see, it wasn't – it wasn't broadcast on any networks. It was sent overseas. Right.

So there – I know tapes exist of it for sure. I've even gone looking for like contemporary descriptions of it because you think somebody must have reported on this. Somebody has told the story, yes. Yeah. But I don't know. It doesn't – I haven't – if any of our listeners can find it, I'd love to see it.

It's really something to see. Your description of it might become canon then with our very poor AI – With our AI translation services. ML transcription services will be. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Interesting. There you go. And by the way, Roy Clark and Barbara Eden were both delightful.

They were both absolutely a joy to work with. Very, very nice and it was a wonderful experience. That's awesome. I've always loved Roy Clark and Barbara Eden has a fond place in my heart. Or a little south. Well, you know, Barbara – at this point, Barbara Eden had – she had that wonderful look of a woman who through a combination of really good genetics and the best that money can buy, she really looked well put together.

She's a beautiful woman. Absolutely. Excellent. Well, hopefully she'll still be around after this episode because I'm not sure if you're aware, Dave, but we do have something called the Grumpy Old Geek's Curse. In which when we randomly name a celebrity that really has no business being on a tech podcast, they tend to die the next week or two.

And our curse has struck again. Just two episodes after we talked about Jeremy Bullock, the man who originally played Boba Fett, he has passed away, sadly. Yeah, that is sad. Yeah. The saddest thing at all is that, you know, basically we never saw his face or even heard him because even in the original Star Wars films that he appeared in, he was overdubbed by another actor, which is pretty crazy.

Wasn't he playing a different Imperial officer in one of the films, I believe? He did. He did. There was some mention of that where he's briefly seen, I believe, in Empire Strikes Back as one of the Imperial officers that's on deck, I think, as Darth Vader menacingly walks past. Right, right. Well, that's good.

You can look for him that way. I had no idea that he also played, well, I guess probably because they were just small parts, but he was also in Doctor Who and he was Q's assistant Smithers in early James Bond films, which is pretty cool. So, guy got around. Yeah, yeah. I think as I mentioned before, I did get the opportunity to meet him once at a Star Wars weekend at Disney World and it was nice.

Again, another pleasant gentleman. Sorry to hear that he's gone. I would like to point out now that, Dave, you have a body count. I sadly mentioned David Bowie. Yes, David Bowie died the next week. Brian, who did you kill?

I can't remember. Was it Prince? I think I might have killed Prince. I thought the David Bowie thing came up when we were talking about Prince. Maybe, perhaps. I don't know. I'm certain I have killed someone, though. I just don't recall who. Yes, yes, yes. Can somebody quickly find a reason for us to talk about Giuliani?

Well, people have been wondering why we talked so much about Donald Trump the past four years. Exactly. We kept waiting for it to happen. The curse lets us down. It's one of those. It's a reverse curse. Like the people we don't want to die are the ones that actually get the short end of the stick. I see. Right. They have to be undeserving.

Yeah. Maybe we needed to have MAGA hats this whole four years when we were mentioning it. And then we could have faked it and tried to get out the death gods. But, yeah. Never, never worked. But, yeah, since we're in Star Wars Corner, we might as well wrap up since the Mandalorian has also wrapped up.

Thoughts? Spoiler alerts. Oh, yeah. Spoiler alerts. I'm all in. I loved it. It was probably some of the best fan servicing one is going to get from Star Wars. It is. You know, there's obviously already talk about what this could mean for the next season.

Because they didn't cast an actor to be Luke Skywalker and instead went the CGI route, one is assuming they won't reverse course on that. So I don't expect we'll be seeing a lot of Luke Skywalker. And obviously, that also means probably no Grogu in the next season.

So it obviously seems to be pivoting towards the battle for Mandalore, as it were. Yeah. Yeah. I thought they handled it just as perfectly as they possibly could have. I was along for the ride. I think it went really well.

I was talking to a friend of mine over the weekend and he said, I'm just so happy to be excited about Star Wars again. Yes. Yeah. In the immortal words of R. Kelly, a tear fell up out my eye. Yeah. You know, a couple of interesting things I note.

It was interesting to me that Luke Skywalker never says his name. Nope. They don't ask. They didn't check him for ID, nothing. Do you have some paperwork before you take the kid? You know, come on. I mean, he did just kill all the robots. So I think there was the feeling that we wouldn't be able to stop this guy if we wanted to.

That's true. No, no, no, no. But I'm thinking, like, how he must be famous at this point for everything he's done. I mean, certainly the woman who... We've talked about that a couple of times on the show. The fact that they seem so removed from everything that's going on in the actual galaxy major.

Like, they don't know any of these people. And I actually thought it was weird, in my opinion, that Boba Fett left and didn't come back. And now I realize they couldn't have him there because he would recognize Luke. Right. Right. I was thinking, at the very least, the woman whose family had been on Alderaan would know of Luke Skywalker for probably being the hero who...

Oh, that's true. ...who got vengeance by destroying the Death Star. But who knows? I just thought it was interesting that they never said it. And, you know, so does that leave us, in later episodes, to say, you know who that was, right? No. Who was that? Should have got his autograph.

Yeah. It was probably cheaper on the residual side if they just left it ambiguous. Did you notice his pants fell down around his ankles as he was talking to us? Yes. Right. Right. But he was wearing leggings. He was the force to pick them back up. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. And I'm very excited about the Book of Boba Fett.

I saw breaking news that it's actually not going to be a full series. It's going to be a four-part miniseries, which is actually even better, I think, because it lets them concentrate on telling just one kind of kick-ass story rather than have to create a whole narrative around it. I keep thinking it would be fun if they actually start that story inside the Sarlacc pit.

Yeah, exactly. That would be cool. I mean, they put him back on Tatooine. They put him in Java's palace. We're going to find out something about it. We will have actual canon on as to how he got out, one assumes. Yeah. So, yes, when the Mandalorian broke for the final season, I didn't realize that, oh, wait, it is already out.

It was like 6 in the morning, and I went to Twitter, and, of course, they – ruinous bastards they are. In the hashtags for the trending topics was Luke Skywalker, and I'm like, oh, shit. So I got to stay off the internet all day. So I just – I redid my whole schedule so I could just sit here in my studio, and I cranked up my studio monitors, had my big 5K iMac, and I just watched it like that way, which I have to say, $1,000 studio monitors are better than the $79 soundbar in my house.

Oh, you think? Yeah. I'm just going to watch everything. Yeah, I'm going to watch everything in my studio now. So when I was done, I went back to Twitter because I'd made a post that I'm leaving Twitter for – the internet for a while to go watch this. And when I came back, there were some great, like, funny spoilers. It's like, oh, man, I didn't see that Darth Maul twist coming and stuff like that.

So I made a joke about Jar Jar. I'm like, that was a weird crossover with Jar Jar, something like that. So I get a tweet – or actually a text later on that night from my friend Jason Bryant who does the wrestling podcast. He's like, you asshole.

I re-watched to make sure I didn't miss the Jar Jar reference. Then I realized what you were doing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. So he actually went back and watched it. So sorry, Jason. Gotcha. I think, again, I think we touched on this in one of our previous episodes.

But I think one of the – for me, one of the most gratifying things they're doing is reaching back into that old sound effects library. And every time I hear one, I think just how those – that library of sound effects, those old Ben Burt sound effects are hardwired into my brain as being Star Wars.

That TIE Fighter sound, yeah. The TIE Fighter sound, there was one with some speeder bikes where they – the acceleration of the speeder bikes. Yeah. There's so many of them. There's those background noises that I've heard thousands of times, and it makes the world seem more real.

I think they've used the Willem scream like in every episode so far too. I know they've used it in at least two. I'm okay with that. What was the deal with the soundtrack changing at the end? I didn't catch it, but everybody was like, that threw me off the way they did the music at the end.

I didn't get it. Did you guys catch that? No. I don't know what they're talking about. No. No idea. Okay. I'll have to go back and re-listen to it. I think I was too busy, like, jumping up and down for joy at Luke Skywalker's appearance. Okay. Well, and I had been tipped off that there was something post-credits.

Yeah, me too. And I did notice that they didn't do the auto-shrinking of the credits that they normally do. And Disney has impossibly small credits anyway. So – but it was sort of a tip-off that there was more to come that they didn't automatically squish them down.

I just find it interesting that Disney Plus obviously has that as an option built into their streaming platform that they can turn on or turn off the shrinking of the credits because they certainly don't do it for anything else. And sometimes I like watching the credits. To squish or not to squish. That is the button.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, but looking forward, more to come. Now we're all in that dark place where we know we have to wait for months. Yep. We call that the dark place of the only thing we have left to watch is Star Trek Discovery. Yes. Yes.

Sad. But there is the expanse. Anyway, let's talk for just a short, brief moment here about some security stuff. Do we have to? Just for a second. You know, there's one bit that I want to actually talk to. That's all we're going to have to talk about for the next year until we get some more Star Wars.

Yeah. You did an interview, and I think it was with the CEO of Dragos? Yeah, Robert M. Lee. Yep. Yeah. I like that guy so much. Yeah. I know. Because he was, I mean, he just laid it out. He's like, company's got to step up.

The government is not coming to save you. It is your responsibility to make sure your shit don't break. And he didn't mince words about it. It was great. No, Rob, I always love interviewing Rob. He's a regular over on the Cyber Wire. As you say, he's the CEO of Dragos, which is a company that does industrial control system security.

So they're the ones out there protecting power plants and water plants and, you know, all of that, all the stuff that he says, you know, we protect civilization. All that stuff. And that's what they do. And it's been a very successful company.

Full disclosure, they are also a data tribe company. So they came out of the same incubator that we came out of. They're, you know, a good couple of years ahead of us. They're into their, either their, I think they're in their B round. They just raised a lot of money. You're their little brother. Well, Rob is, what I like about Rob is that he will tell you what he thinks.

And he does not allow the PR and marketing people to get in his ear and say, you shouldn't have said that, you know. And he knows his stuff, too. You know, he's a former NSA guy, former Air Force guy.

So it's always a pleasure to get to talk to him. But, yeah, interesting conversation. That was one I really enjoyed, a real, one I recommend to people to check out. If you're looking for sort of the straight skinny on what this whole government hack is, it's a good one.

It was, what, last Friday. Yeah, it was fantastic. It was, I was just like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thanks. No one's coming to save you. Well, yeah. And, you know, what's funny is, I'm sitting here patting myself on the back. But one of the tweets that we got about it, someone complimenting it, said that one of the best parts was that Bittner hung back and kept his mouth shut.

So we could just hear what Rob had to say. And I was like, well, I guess that's a backhanded compliment, but I'll take it. Damn it with fake praise. Yeah. So, all right. Duly noted. Duly noted. Well, we do have a bit more security news, actually, as these Israelis are at it again, everyone.

So Ben wrote us, one of our listeners, looks like the researchers at Ben-Gurion have been busy. They have found yet another way to exfiltrate data from air gap systems. This time they figured out how to turn RAM chips into Wi-Fi cards. Jesus Christ. They're calling it AirFi. This is all mostly theoretical, certainly for all of us that don't have air gap systems.

So that would be everybody but Jason, because he's got to keep that stuff somewhere. But yeah, I guess they could apparently just turn your RAM into Wi-Fi and beam your data right out. Yeah. I first saw this story and Ben-Gurion was not named in the headline.

But when I saw the story, my first thought was, those guys at Ben-Gurion are up to their old tricks again. Yep. And sure enough, they are. The other thing this reminds me of is, I don't know if you guys remember, back in the early days of computing, there was a program called Dancing Demon.

It was a little, this is like TRS-80, you know, Apple II days. And it was this little graphic demon, you know, chunky little 8-bit graphics. And this little demon would come out and you could tell him what you wanted him to do. And he'd do a little tap dance routine. And at the time, computers didn't have sound cards.

The TRS-80s didn't, but they were super leaky when it came to RF energy. So the programmers of Dancing Demon figured out that if you held an AM radio near the computer, they could manipulate the RF coming out of the computer, basically a spark gap generator, and make it sound like the demon was tap dancing.

So it was an early way of making sound with a computer that didn't have any just because the internals were so leaky from an RF point of view. This reminded me of that. Entertainment and cancer. Well, yeah. And eventually, Tandy had to stop making the Model 1 because it was so leaky.

That's why they made the Model 3. The FCC eventually said, you guys, you've got to stop making this thing. It's interfering with, you know, it's interfering with everything. Yeah. Those old wireless phones, we had the antenna and all that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Ugh. Good times.

The old days. So this is just a quickie because this is under, yeah, we know. Police in Pasadena and Long Beach have pledged not to send license plate data to ICE. Yeah, but they did anyway. So. Hold on a second.

Wait. Are you saying that they did something that they said they weren't going to do? Correctamundo. The police? Shocking. Ooh, two in one episode. Oh, man. Wow.

Yeah, this is not surprising to me at all. Long Beach police, you know, knock on wood, I don't live in Long Beach anyways because I'm about to say something on a public podcast. They're horrid. They're absolutely horrid. Yeah, I used to live in Long Beach. They are. I can attest from first-hand experience.

The Long Beach Police Department sucks. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Not very friendly folks. Nope. Isn't that where the Spruce Goose and the Queen Mary were for a while? Indeed. Queen Mary is still there. The Spruce Goose is gone. And that is now a launching terminal for cruise ships.

So I got on a cruise ship and took it to Mexico from where the Spruce Goose used to be. I spent New Year's Eve there on the Spruce Goose and the Queen Mary one year. Nice. Back in the day. It was quite nice. Yeah. I was very bummed to find out the Spruce Goose wasn't there when I moved to Long Beach. But hanging out on the Queen Mary, the crazy thing to do on the Queen Mary is Halloween.

Oh, I've been there for Halloween. It's awesome. It is so cool. The haunted engine room is like an industrial dance club. And the way they light it, it looks like it's endless. It is just so cool. Yes. It is. Yeah. Halloween on the Queen Mary is awesome.

Highly recommended. I agree. All right. And Nathan also wrote in and said, maybe an update, although it seems the guy just managed to convince authorities now. So not really an update. And this is still following on the Dutch hacker, Victor Gevers, who claims to have logged into President Trump's Twitter account, not once, but twice, by guessing passwords, the first being you're fired and the second being MAGA 2020 exclamation point.

So obviously he learned. Don't just use letters. They're basically saying, yeah, we think he did it, but we're not going to charge him with anything because he has met the bar for responsible disclosure. And he is an ethical hacker because he didn't actually do anything with it.

Pussy. What do you guys think? Do you think he made it in? I mean, I know we talked about it the first time around, but they seem pretty convinced, the Dutch prosecutors. I don't think so. I find it so hard to believe. Yeah. I do, but I don't.

He's such an idiot. Well, there are people around. There are people that have to fix things like that. Obviously not. A lot of the time. Well, you know, they log him in with a real password, turn on two-factor. I mean, once he's logged in with two-factor on his whatever phone he's using, he's going to be logged in for a long time.

He doesn't have to have a password that could be anything. You know? So that's what I think it's plausible that this guy triggered the two-factor. Right. He got to that point. So he didn't actually get in, but he at least triggered it.

Yeah. Right. That's what I think probably happened. He guessed right, triggered the two-factor, and Bob's your uncle. But I don't. And it sounds like he wouldn't have gone any farther anyway. Who knows? Right. But I just can't believe that with the – because of how important the president's Twitter account is, and I can't believe I'm saying that out loud.

I was going to say, are you sure important is the word that you're looking for? Well, that's the – I mean, isn't that part of – that's the depressing part about it is that it is for national security? He will be remembered as the Twitter president. I mean, that's – that was his – when's the last time he had a fucking press conference that wasn't all rigged and I won the election, you know, or took questions from reporters?

It's been a long time. Like, he tweets, that's it. That's how he communicates. Right. Right. Imagine a tweet from the president that says, missiles incoming. But that's – you know, that's – Wow. Yeah.

That would not be good. That's why the Twitter – that's why – but that's why the president's Twitter account matters. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. All right. On that happy note – Well, happy holidays, gents. Merry Christmas. We're only going to have to deal with them. I'm going to be cozy and warm.

For two weeks. After we come back. That's true. We will raise a glass. Yes, we will. We will raise a bottle. We will raise a case. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be working out for the next two weeks just so I can lift that keg over my head.

Jason, you – keg stands are when you get on top of the keg instead of the other way. I am doing a reverse cowgirl keg stand. It's going right on my head. Boy, that'll – that's going to be a heck of an obituary. Yes, it will be. I'm going out with style. He crushed to death under the weight.

His dogs tried to pry the keg off of him but got distracted by licking up all the beer that was all over the place. Bam Bam does like Guinness. What can I say? All right, gents. Everybody have a good holiday. Well, a thank you to everyone on the internet who sent me the news that HBO Max and Roku finally made up.

They sealed the deal. They have. And here's the funny part. I haven't even installed it yet because I'm so used to using my Apple TV now to get to HBO Max. I just forgot. I'm just like muscle memory has kicked in. Yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll be launching it for the Wonder Woman premiere on Christmas Day.

Here's the thing. I don't really care about that movie. I'm pretty excited about it. I really liked the first one. It was a little too long as we discussed at the time. That's the problem. It was very well done. The thing that I remember the most about the first movie is the interminable fight scene at the end, which has me not jazzed to watch the second one because all of the video I've seen of the second one is just fight scenes.

I'm like, OK, we'll see. We'll see. And this is kind of breaking news. So this new COVID stimulus bill where we get nothing and everybody else gets everything. Yep. These assholes. This is why I hate politicians.

This is a COVID stimulus bill that's supposed to make people better off than they were before. So this asshole, Tom Tillis, he's an asshole on many levels, not just for this one. You don't you can look him up. This is this is just the tip of the doucheberg on this guy.

So he snuck in a proposal to increase the penalties for people who would like to stream unlicensed works, a.k.a. piracy, video streaming. Right. So he wants to make it a felony. OK. Could carry up to a jail term of 10 years if you're doing music and movies and selling access to that.

Well, there's a lot of people that do that. Sweden. And and yeah, it's I'm not a fan of people using one bill for another. And it really pisses me off. It really pisses me off. I mean, good luck.

Good. You know, good luck policing people. We don't have Internet police. So I don't necessarily have a problem with going after the people that are charging money to provide the access to the service. As long as you don't go after the people that are just like me, who just wanted to see Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas special and could not find anywhere to pay for it.

So I stole it. Yeah. Well, here's the problem. You won't be able to steal it anymore if all these people go to jail. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes, theoretically, fine. It should be this should be a prosecutable offense because it is copyright theft.

And as far as I know, all of us on the Internet are guilty of it at some point or another. If you think you're not, you're you're deluding yourself. Well, look, if you've ever launched Pinterest, that's exactly my point. It's like, how can you even have a bill like this without having some sort of like Pinterest has to go away then?

But this is music and movies. There are no music and movies on Pinterest. Just photos. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Yep. Yep. No. So this is just this is ridiculous. It angers me. It angers me greatly, Brian. I'm sorry that it angers you. Let's move on to stuff that we watched that we have actually paid for.

First up, The Expanse season five, which dropped three episodes. That seems to be the new standard. Yep. And I, of course, watched all three. And I am so happy it's back and so sad that now I only have seven more. I know. That's the downside of getting the three up front. Yes. Because, you know, it's one of those things where it's a double edged sword.

It makes me happy that there are three and not ten. But I know that I have no willpower whatsoever. So if there were ten, I would be, you know, dragging ass and calling you this morning going, I was up all night. That's the problem, right?

Can we push the show for a little bit? Like, I actually had enough willpower to be able to split it out over three nights instead of just staying up. But that's mostly because I have a kid who will not let me sleep in. So, you know, I'd left to my own devices pre-kid life. I would have just stayed up and watched all three in a row.

I did it over two nights. I did the first two. And then the second night is when I found out that there were only three. I was like, oh, shit. So, yeah, I'm loving it. It's fantastic. It's really, really fun. Yep. And another Amazon show, The Grand Tour, A Massive Hunt.

I have not watched this yet. I'm saving this for the in-between Christmas and New Year time. Yeah. Okay. Not good? I think I'm done. I just think I'm done. And the biggest problem I have with it is, you know, on Amazon now they list, like, the categories and everything.

And it says unscripted. Bullshit. This is unscripted. This is the most scripted show you've ever seen. It's the most fucking scripted thing. And it's not funny anymore. That's the problem. That's the problem. Like, after Seamen, you know, there were some parts in Seamen that I thought were cute and funny, but it is not the way it used to be.

Well, that's exactly what A Massive Hunt is. It's an hour and a half of which maybe five to ten minutes tops are actually worthwhile. See, that's what I was worried about. That's why I was putting it into the doldrum section where I know that I'm going to be out of everything to watch. So I'm like, okay, if I got to watch it, I need to manage expectations and say, look, I've got nothing really good right now.

So let's see if this is going to entertain me at that point, because I have a feeling this is going to be my last one, too. Yeah, I just, I don't see myself watching it much anymore. It was painful. I spent half the time. You know a show is bad when you're just sitting on the couch and you're on your phone doing other things.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I was on my Discord. I was on our Discord channel instead of watching it. Well, you should have done a live review. Bored now. Bored now. Not funny. Bored now. Same old joke they always make. Bored.

Bored. All right. So that happened. Star Trek Discovery. Mm-hmm. What do you think? It's great seeing Rika Sharma from BSG over on Star Trek. It always makes me happy when she's on anything, particularly when she's in really tight black spandex.

So I was happy for that, but then they killed her again. Again. I mean, it's the second time they've killed her on the show, so I guess she could come back again. I don't give a crap about the Mirror Universe. We do now know how they've solved the whole Michelle Yao getting her show thing because, you know, Guardian of Forever and all that.

Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, don't care. I'm happy that that storyline is done so we can get back to the show, which is exciting. I am sad. It is. Well, here's the problem. Well, we like Booker, but the problem is they got rid of my favorite character.

They've sent her back for her own show in the other timeline, and now we have to deal with the main character who I can't stand. Nope. And here's the thing. She was just as annoying in the Mirror Universe, too. Yeah, yeah. Ever since you told me that she reads every single line like it's the end of the earth, I can't unhear it or unsee it anymore.

Yep. So it's totally ruined for me at this point. When I saw you put this in here, I was really, really, really hoping that this was the finale. No, there are two more episodes. And here's why I love this. 2020's almost over. Everything horrible happened in 2020.

So at least the timing for the final two episodes of Discovery fall inside of 2020. So they're going to ruin Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with the last two episodes, and then I think I am done with this show. It is not – you know, after – well, you know, we've already talked about The Mandalorian at this point.

So I'm just going to say after watching something like that and then going to Discovery, which is just a hate watch. It's like I just want my time back. I just do. It's not good. I'm curious to see how they're going to end it. I have a feeling we're going to get another big reboot.

I can't imagine that they're going to stay in the 32nd whatever century for a whole other season. I think we're going to have a big crazy thing happen, but we'll see. That would be too bad because I think now that, you know, they figured out how to get Michelle back to her own series.

Yeah. Back to her own series. They can move on and actually dig into the 32nd whatever century. Yeah, I would like them to do that, but Star Trek recently has a long history of doing exactly what I don't want them to do. No shit. You know, unlike the fan servicing that we're getting from the Star Wars universe on TV.

They are not doing that in Star Trek at all. Yeah. We'll see. But the one reason that I'm happy that it's not over yet is because I want a reason to keep that CBS subscription and not cancel it right away. Because The Stand, their remake of The Stand has now dropped and they're dripping that out one episode per week.

The Stand is one of my absolute favorite Stephen King books of all time. One of probably my favorite books of all time. It really is. And it is one of those rare Stephen King properties that, as far as I'm concerned, they have not screwed up. I liked that 1990s miniseries.

I thought it was great with Molly Ringwald and all that stuff. And so far, one episode, I really enjoyed it. That's all I've heard so far. I've heard nothing but good things about this remake. So I am looking forward to it. The key to The Stand is how they portray the good and the light main characters.

And we've got Whoopi Goldberg and a guy I don't know. I can't remember his name. Okay. Playing the main baddie. And I got to, you know, nobody's going to beat Trash Can Man from the 90s. Okay. Well, you almost lost me at Whoopi. I'm not a Whoopi fan. Well, me either. But she's got big dreadlocks and looks like Guinan on acid.

So we'll see. Now, what was that show that Anthony Michael Hall was in? Wasn't that a spinoff of The Stand? Oh, see, that's one of the ones I didn't watch. Oh, I love that show. It was terrible. It was cheesy as hell. And I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I can't remember it off the top of my head.

But I thought that was a spinoff from The Stand. Yeah. But anyway, I'm reserving judgment. I'm going to go into it because, you know, you know my history with Stephen King. Yes. I don't care for the man. But as far as I know that this is, you know, the best thing he's ever done from everybody that says that.

It's pretty solid. It is pretty solid so far. So I'm looking forward to it. Yes, I'm looking forward to it. So a reason to keep, CBS has found a way to keep my money for another month until Picard comes, which is probably a good year away at this point. Maybe. We shall see.

So this has all been all my nighttime viewing. Daytime viewing has been dominated by one thing and one thing only. Disney Plus is worth its weight in gold if you have a kid or you've never grown up. I mean, it has been all Disney Plus all day long. Tangled is the kid's new favorite movie.

Beauty and the Beast got an airing the other day. And so far, he's running around singing the Gaston song. So obviously, that worked pretty well. Holds up really well, by the way, that version. Not the Emma Watson one, the recent one. But go back to the animated one with Angela Lansbury and all that. Phenomenal.

Yeah, yeah. Really, really good. The real one. Yeah, the real one. Go back to the real one. Yeah. And the fact that we're in a snow-filled wonderland right now has made Frozen and Frozen 2 favorite viewings again. And just they put out so many small little specials.

You know, it used to be like, especially for the movies that we remember, like Aladdin and all that sort of stuff. They would then just immediately create the really crappily animated straight-to-video sequels. They're doing all these shorts and all these other things now that are incredibly well done and very well animated.

I mean, they are putting, they're pouring the tons of money that they are getting back into the product, I have to say. Yeah, they have to because the parks are dead in the water. Yes, that's true. Yeah, yeah. No, the one thing I do want to watch over the break that was the big draw when it first came out was I wanted to watch Robin Hood.

Oh, I love that movie. God, I love that movie. Isn't it so good? It's so good. Yeah, I started to do it and then I just, you know, I didn't have the time. So I think on my, maybe what I'll end up doing is I'll watch the Top Gear Grand Tour, sorry, Grand Tour, not Top Gear anymore.

And as a palette cleanser, I'll watch Robin Hood afterwards. I think I might have to make that like one of my Christmas views, the Robin Hood. I'll see if I can get the kid into it. My other big Christmas view, and I'm wondering how I'm going to work it in at this point as the kid is older and up later.

I used to always watch the whole Lord of the Rings series for every Christmas. So we'll see. You know, I want to enjoy my break. I'm good. I'm good. I've got it on Blu-ray, but I think I'm good. Oh, man. Although, if you want to do it, maybe we could set up a Discord viewing party and we can just have some cocktails and do it over the course of a couple nights.

Maybe. Maybe. We'll see if any of the people on there want to do something. Yeah. So, Queen's Gambit. Yes. Yes. God damn it. As good as, right? It's fucking amazing. It's fucking good. Really fucking good. Yeah. And, you know, Anya Taylor-Joy checks all the boxes for me.

I was not going to go the immediately, my God, how sexy is she route when I did my review of the other week. But, my God, how sexy is she? Well, smart. That's the, you know, I like brains. Well, I mean, play smart. Yeah, she plays smart.

The character checked all the boxes for me. So, that was, it was really distracting for a lot of the show. She checked all the boxes for you. Smart, socially inept, and an alcoholic. Exactly. You hit it right on the head. I mean, literally, my soulmate right there in that woman.

And redhead. She is gorgeous. She's blonde in real life. Yeah, I know. I know. That's why. Sorry about that. I like the character, not the. I got really huge vibes from, what was, oh my God, what the hell is that name? It's that, Amelie, the actress from Amelie.

Exactly. That's what I thought too. Yes, yes. This is a very updated version of Amelie. And, yeah, that movie too. Woo, doggy. Anyway, moving on. I got a bunch of people tell me about the Bee Gees documentary on HBO Max. Me too.

I've heard a lot about it and all good things. We watched it the other night. We sat down and, you know, I didn't think my roommate was going to get through it because, you know, she's music business and doesn't really care for that kind of thing. We watched it all the way through, straight through. It was amazing. And those guys are talented as fuck.

Oh, yeah. There's just no way that you can say, I mean, even if you don't like the music, you cannot deny how unbelievably talented they were. Yeah, this was definitely from a time period where if you made it to that level, you actually had talent. You weren't just Justin Bieber. Yeah, yeah, yeah, God.

And fuck Steve Dahl. What an asshole. I just don't like that guy. But, yeah, I mean, these guys went through the ups and the downs and the whole nine yards, but they all always kind of kept it together. You know, it's like it's kind of like a Disney version of behind the music on VH1, you know.

But, and here's the fucked up part. Barry Gibb is still alive. Yep. I thought he died ages ago. And we were both, we were both, you know, like, wait a minute. That's, that's the hot one? That's what my roommate said. He's like, that's the hot one?

It's like, he needs to fluff his hair up a little. But we both had no idea it was him because we had to stop it about 20 minutes in and do like a, an IMDb search and some Googling and Wikipedia-ing to figure out who was who. And it's like, yeah, it was like, that's fucking Barry Gibb. He's still here. Yes. It's a fantastic, fantastic documentary.

So I highly recommend it. I'm looking forward to it. Now, I'm not a Beatles fan, but, you know, the Beatles Get Back sneak peek has come out from Peter Jackson. I watched it. I'm actually, I'm in. I want to see this. I want to see this now. You know, it's amazing to think that they're actually, well, they did a study.

And because the Rolling Stones toured a lot more, the people, the person in the world that's still alive, that has been seen in person by the most people is Mick Jagger because they've toured a lot longer than the Beatles ever did. Yeah. But for, I mean, you cannot think of more famous people than the Beatles.

And you cannot think of a band that has been more researched and studied and archived. And the fact that there can actually be something new about the Beatles is amazing to me. I'm very into this. It looks great. Yeah. 50 some hours of footage and none of it are deep fakes.

It's amazing. Crazy. And I got to go on Penn Sunday School this week, which was a highlight for me because you know how much I love Penn. I do. We've talked about it on the show. So I went on and you have no idea how giddy I was.

Well, I have an idea. I've seen you meet famous people before. No, no, no. When I found out that it was episode 666, I was just like, the stars have aligned. Everything is perfect.

Nice. So I was on for like 20 minutes near the end. I didn't talk that much because it was basically, you know, I'm a Patreon subscriber. So I got to go and ask a question on air and I got some great answers from them. There is a video of it. It will be linked in the show notes and it will jump straight to my segment.

You can go back and watch the rest if you want or preferably go subscribe to the show because Penn Sunday School is one of my favorites. Highly recommended. And it was just, it was fun. It was fun. Looking forward to watching your appearance. I did not geek out as much as you think I would. Okay.

I kind of kept it together. I was proud of myself. Well, that's depressing. Sorry.

I've been working through some books recently and I thought, ah, man, I really need, I need a comfort read. I need something that I know is going to bring me good tidings and comfort and joy. And I'm not getting it. I got Dead Lies Dreaming, which is the Laundry Files book 10 by Charlie Strauss.

The Laundry Files books one through nine have been reliable sources of giddiness for me. I think it may be one through seven. Maybe one through seven. Yeah. Eight and nine were a little, I think I'm done with this series. I don't even know if I'm going to finish this book. I'm sorry.

Without the main characters from the first seven, I don't care. So I finished the book and I have thought as well. As a standalone book, if you take the main characters out of the equation, it's fine. It is actually a pretty good book. But if you're waiting for Bob to show up, it ain't going to happen.

Nope. This is after, you know, the main characters have done their thing and moved on. And it's okay that that's the way it is. It should be a Laundry Files book. It should not be Laundry Files book 10. It should be a Laundry Files universe book.

Yes. Yes. In the Laundry Files universe type of thing. Because as a standalone book, if you go into it thinking it's going to be one of the classics, it is not. But it is a solid book, I believe. And I enjoyed it. But I was, yes, bummed that we waited this long and we have no idea what happened to the main characters.

Yeah. All right. Well, I guess I'll soldier on to finish it. Yeah, it wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't bad at all. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Sorry. Moron of the week. I saw a tweet come through from Firefox in Mozilla saying, Hey, pardon the language, guys, but we've got a new initiative called Unfuck the Internet.

Well, technically, they didn't even have enough balls to do that. It's UNFCK the Internet. Well, FCK, it's a play on units. Yes, I know. Yes. So, okay. Now, the brutal, brutal honest truth here is you only have to know about this because you have to go read the replies to the original tweet.

Because they got taken out back behind the woodshed and spanked like a five-year-old who stole the apple pie. Holy shit. Everybody agreed that the Internet needs to be unfucked, but they don't think that Mozilla and Firefox are the people to do it because their browser sucks.

They are a horrible company and they fire all the engineers when they need more money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, yes, the comments are brutal and hilarious. Well, speaking of brutal and hilarious comments, there's some other news this week that came out. Now, we already had some fun with the Space Force when it was announced and the fact that basically their logo is taken straight from Star Trek.

Yes. So, it turns out the Space Force is the gift that keeps on giving because the personnel have gotten a new name this week. The Guardians. Talk about a crossover. Not only. So, many were quick to take to Twitter.

By many, I mean the entire universe, including James Gunn, the writer and director of Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, who wrote, Can we sue this dork? And there are a lot of just genius tweets out there. My personal favorite is, And our top commander will be known as Star-Lord.

Yep. Oh, God. The Guardians. What the fuck? This is what happens when you let children run the country. Yes, pretty much. Granted, Brian, if it was me and you, Oh, we wouldn't even get that. We would do the same damn thing. We would do the same thing.

Yep. Yep. I just would have. Yeah. Except we wouldn't have called it Space Force. We just would have went straight for it and called it. This is the Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah. Or, you know, the Federation. Fuck it. Oh, yeah. Damn. Let's go straight into it. Oh, God.

And in final more under the week news, I just thought this one was pretty funny. New York Times retracts core of hit podcast series Caliphate on ISIS. Well, turns out somebody didn't do their homework. Whoopsie. I would personally like to retract almost every single one of the Grumpy Old Geeks episodes. Oh, God.

But how are we going to get our Patreon money if we do that? Anyway. Yes. Apparently, it was all based on lies and hoaxes. So, you know, they still got the Pulitzer Prize in the Peabody. No, they were finalists for the Pulitzer. They did win the Peabody. Oh, sorry. And the guy who said that he was, you know, a Syrian executioner and blah, blah, blah.

They're like, hey, we did our research on Facebook. The fans did. This guy lives in Toronto. Can you guys go arrest him? And so they did. They're like, oh, you know what? It turns out he's never been to Syria. He's never done anything like this.

So we're going to arrest him on, you know, basically lying about a terrorist plot and shit like that. So the Canadians at least stepped up and said, you, sir, are under arrest. Well, you know, on one hand, this is, you know, sad and kind of funny and everything.

But on the other hand, we know podcasting has made it now that podcasting has its own Milli Vanilli. I know. I know. One of the guys is your friend. Still, it happened. That's true. It did. Sorry, Fab. Feedback loop.

Over at Patreon. Woo-hoo. Look at all these new Patreon subscribers, Brian. Thank you. That's so nice. Yes, we've got Tim IT, TL, Matthias, John, Gilbert, Nathan, and Steven. Saving us from going down in our monthly patronage.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks, guys. You leapt in. Yeah, yeah. It's been kind of like, yeah, not the hockey stick up, as they say. Well, look, you get 600 bucks to last you nine months. I understand not being able to support your friendly local podcast. Indeed, indeed. And we've got some messages over on Patreon.

Roz writes in, happy holidays to everyone. I found this somehow, and I thought someone should get it for Jason. Watch the video, too. And this is over on Amazon. Poop like a champion. Registered trademark. High fiber cereal. Low carb. Keto friendly. Clean label. Gluten free cereal. 0% gluten.

9G net carbs. 16G fiber per bowl. No wheat. Clean label product. Now non-GMO. And if you think the video is good, read the comments. It's an empty box that you just eat. There's no cereal in it. And for the record, Dave is the one that had the colonoscopy and went all poop on everybody.

I just, we'll get it for him, too. Okay. And Bill writes in, hey, for next week's shout-out, could you give me a shout-out with my Discord name? More Cowbell. If Jason is feeling it, do a bad Christopher Walken impression with my name. I think that qualified.

That was horrible. That was horrible because I forgot about the Christopher Walken thing. And I don't do a Christopher Walken. So thank you for continuing the podcast. You guys really do put a lot of work into it. And I want you all to know I appreciate your efforts. And I hope you guys have a happy holidays and stay safe.

I'll work on it for the future. More Cowbell. All right. And Steve also wrote in, okay, this is Steve Fuckett here. I didn't realize that comments were compulsory and I was using Patreon for the first time. This whole leaving a message social interaction thing took it one step too far. Figured the money would be good enough.

Anyway, first, I suppose a complaint is in order. It was Jean Le Carr, E apostrophe, not Jean Le Carr. Still a great author, though. Well, it's Jean Le Carré. I believe it's Le Carré. I just kind of went French. Yeah, yeah. Jean Le Carré. Yes, I know that.

Yes. One side note. I was about to say that The Day of the Jackal was my favorite book of his, except that Frederick Forsythe wrote it. The reason this was in my mind was this story. And he links to a story over in The Guardian. The UK police were using the same technique that the book used to get false identities to go undercover.

Finally. Love the show. I'm British, but live in Idaho, in case you wondered about the spelling. It's funny you mentioned that, because as of last night, I had to endure the yearly viewing of Love Actually that my wife likes to always do. I'm so sorry. And I'm reminded. It's actually not.

Look, there's boobs. And Keira Knightley is smoking hot in that. But with no boobs. Well, that's kind of in my wheelhouse. Anyways, I'm reminded that Colin decides to go to America to get laid and goes to Milwaukee, of all places. What is with you British people going to shitty places?

Milwaukee is a great town. Come on. Don't shit on Milwaukee. Milwaukee. They've got a safe house there. It's good stuff. I've only seen that movie. Here's the thing. I've seen that movie once, but I've seen it a hundred times in pieces, because my family would always watch it around the holidays.

So I've never seen it in order. I've always seen pieces of it, but I put it all back together. I actually have a way for you to enjoy watching the movie, Jason. I can't believe we're going off on the Love Actually tangent, but here we are. It's 2020. There is a way for you to enjoy just sitting and watching the movie, because there is an epic.

Well, that helps. But there is an epic takedown that was written of Love Actually a couple years back. I think it was on Jezebel or one of those sites where it deconstructs the movie piece by piece and shows you how awful, awful every single character and every single love story is.

How fucked up and crazy and just truly horrid every love story is. And it actually makes the movie better if you've read it. Okay. Well, yeah. Throw that in the notes if you can find it. I'll check it out. All right. We'll do. And over at PayPal, we've got Joseph, Eric, Chris, John, Andrew, Michelle, Tom, John, Stavros, Joseph, Mark, Jeffrey, and Murray.

And, of course, Martin. Two Martin trades. Oh, jackpot. Way to close out the year, Martin. Hey, and to go back to the Discord thing, if you want to see how Martin makes the magic, come to our Discord channel. We actually gave him his own channel.

He basically has his own channel where he puts up his stock trades and we know if we're going to get a donation or not. Yes. It's fascinating. I don't understand a fucking thing that's going on there because he's got graphs and charts and they say words that I don't understand, which makes me understand why my family always looked at me like I was a space alien when I was describing technology because that's how I feel when I look at his stock stuff.

But, yeah, if you want to find out how Martin makes the sausage, come over to our Discord channel. Yeah. And over on Twitter, J4CKL3, which is, I guess, Jackal. It's Jackal. Who sends us about, I'd say, roughly 50 tweets a day.

But we appreciate it. Here's one of them. If you want to laugh at the end of 2020, Happy Time Murders is on Netflix. The movie is immensely funny. I've never watched that. Happy Time Murders. It's familiar. I can't remember if I've seen that or not. I'll have to add it to the queue. Add it to the queue so you don't have to. John says, pour another one out for those loose trade war victims.

And this is Gizmodo Australia. Drone giant DJI added to the U.S. blacklist. Yes, I know. I saw that. I immediately went to the DJI store on my phone. I forget what I bought. I bought something from them because I'm like, I need to get this now because I have to have my DJI fix.

Yeah, it's just like everybody who is about to go into lockdown going out and having orgies naked before the switch goes. You had to go out there and get your drone before they get banned. Oh, I already got the drone. No. Here, I'm going to pull it up here because I have my account, my orders.

Let's look at my orders and we'll see what I got. I got the DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo because if there are going to be orgies, I will be able to film them. Fill them? Fill them. Well, look at you, big balls. All right, so JC and JC forwarded us a link or a tweet.

You cannot ring my doorbell because somebody changed it into a British hotel booking website. Hashtag internet of shit. Awesome. Yeah, so somebody used like an Android tablet for the doorbell and yeah, somebody hacked it.

Good times. Nice, nice. Over at GOG.show, Barry wrote us a novel, but I want to read this because it's very important. I'm reacting to some comments the two of you made regarding the sleazy lawyer and the ADA-related lawsuits in show 488. First off, I agree with you that suing a mom-and-pop company based on a screen scrape is reprehensible.

It's true that if you are using a template from someone like Squarespace or Wix, you have no control over how your website is built. Companies that provide these website authoring tools should be called to task. Agreed. Agreed. Completely. While I disagree with the way the Domino's suit came about, I don't think a company like Domino's should just get a pass.

A company website is really a public facility just as an office building would be. I disagree on that note. Many buildings wouldn't be built if they weren't made wheelchair accessible, for example. Domino's has the resources to make a website accessible to everyone and should do so.

As a totally blind person, I can appreciate what the ADA has brought about for people with disabilities all over the world. Today, with modern screen reading software, I have decent access to the web, and I can access a whole range of devices from computers to tablets to smartphones efficiently. As a software developer, I can use many of the tools both of you would use.

My fear is that the ADA will be watered down or even eliminated because of people like our sleazy lawyer friend. Also here, here. It isn't particularly hard to make a website accessible for all. One of the best articles I've seen in a while on web accessibility was written by a blind developer at Mozilla, who's probably been fired since then, because that's what Mozilla does.

Although it was written in 2015, it still holds up well today. And he has a link to that in the show notes. My problem, and I think Brian's problem with the Domino's kerfuffle, with going after Domino's, is the entire point of the Domino's website is to place an order. And they provide alternate access to place an order, which they did long before the web existed, which is called a telephone number.

That's why I had to take numbers to Domino's. Yeah, exactly. As long as there's inability somehow to be able to take care of it, I don't think the lawsuits have merits. Should these companies do that of their own free will? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're a billion-dollar company and you haven't done it, you're a jerk, get your pizza from Pizza Hut.

Yeah. But, I mean, it's just – it's annoying that, yes, there were – that's the one that they went after. There are so many other places that they could have gone after with this lawsuit, but it was just one guy. It wasn't like this well-thought-out thing. Yep. But this whole predatory lawsuit against going after the people who have websites on these services, I think that – well, if I had a service – Go after the service.

Well, that's the thing. There's going to be a class action – if all these people keep getting sued because the builders won't fix their website to make them ADA compliant, that's a class action lawsuit that can go against the service in a heartbeat. Yeah. You know, if that's what's happening. But then we also need to find somebody to go break the kneecaps of these fucking lawyers who are doing it.

Yep. Otherwise, it just ends up being lawsuits all the way down. And lawyers all get paid. Yep. And nobody else does. Mike writes in, Merry Christmas, gents. Just wanted to say thank you for making 2020 a little less shitty. Jason, you gave us hope that even the most stubborn of us can change habits that seem like they are going to overwhelm us on a daily basis.

By the way, I weighed in this morning. I'm under 215, which actually takes me out of the obese category and into just fat ass. Congratulations, man. Yep. And Brian, you reminded us that life goes on and even massive events like a move between countries during a pandemic can happen with enough good determination and focus.

And I would add, liberal breaking of laws. Well, you left that part out. Are you sure you want me to leave that in the show? No, I'm kidding. Everything was done above the board here, which is why it took so goddamn long. From the library, yes, Ready Player Two wasn't great.

But what it did was take me back to reading Ready Player One. And as you've said, what the original did was take us back to incredible memories from our younger days. Ready Player Two, at least during the second third of the book, did that as well. And anything that can take me somewhere happier in 2020 is okay with me. My argument there would be just go back and reread Ready Player One.

And forget Ready Player Two ever existed. Which is, you know, what I do with all the shitty Dune novels that are being written by Frank Herbert's son these days. I just go back and reread Dune. Or Ender's Game. Or Ender's Game, yes. Just finished Attack Service. And yes, while the beginning is all Neil Stevenson, look how smart I am-esque.

It settles down into a nice sequel to LB and HL not too far in. Thanks for getting me into Doctor Who's stuff. Happy New Year. All the best. LB would be Little Brother. HL is Homeland. See, I've never read any of them. Little Brother was fantastic. Homeland, I did not care for. And Attack Surface.

I could not get past the first part because it is all Neil Stevenson-y, look how smart I am shit. And it just, I could not get through it at all. And Ken sends this in, a song that sums up 2020 perfectly. And it is very funny. And be warned if you're planning on launching this around anybody from work, it is very not safe for work.

But it is funny as shit. It's really funny. It's from, what was it, Flo and Joan. Yep. We've talked about them on the show before. Yeah, we have. And Raf writes in, you might want to view the top comment and that user's bio. And this is from the whole Google is bad kerfuffle.

I think something odd could be going on with multiple programs on Mac. In my case, it was a virtual studio code. After expunging global settings, reinstall didn't do anything. My Mac went back to working like new. And this is somebody basically saying, no, this whole Google Chrome kerfuffle is not a thing.

There's no way it could be a thing. And he's quite a well-known debugger type guy. So, but a bunch of the comments after that are debunking his debunking. So, who the hell knows? Debunking all the way down. Here's what I can tell you. I uninstalled Chrome on three of my machines. All three of those machines are like new.

The one that I still have it on is dogshit slow. So, there you go. Mm-hmm. There you go. Wolfgang. Greetings from Austria. Regarding Christmas classics, there's a movie I can recommend. Would you like to take the name, Brian? Das Weegee Lied. Silent Night.

Der Film, der Fisch ist ein Trailer. We have the YouTube link. Das Weegee Lied. It basically translates to The Eternal Song. I don't know what I watched in the trailer. I don't either. But it does make me curious to see the full spectacle. It made about as much sense as Tenet.

That's what I got out of it. Yeah. Interesting. Vincent writes in, Hey, Grumps, less than two weeks to Christmas. Well, at this point, less than four days. Yeah. I wish you a happy one and look forward to many more podcasts and rants in 2021 from you. I'm trying to convince my wife to leave this awful company since there have been no pay raises this year and they treat her and all workers like shit anyways.

Yes, even the contractors. Oops, I said it out loud. Ex-nay on the Uwahe. Hey. Oh, God. Has anybody gotten a pay raise this year? Come on. It's not the year to pitch about that. Hey, man. Be happy if you got paid.

Oh, yeah. No. You know who got paid more? Oh, wait. Billionaires. Yes. Billionaires. And the president illegally. And, yeah. Good times. So, he sends a link from the BBC. Huawei Weiger Surveillance Fears lead PR exec to quit.

And this is one of the European communication managers who has resigned from the firm over its concerns about the role of the surveillance of the Muslim Weigers. And, of course, Huawei basically then just said, ah, he wasn't anybody big in the company. And then everybody else went, ah, he kind of was.

Kind of a big deal. All right. Barrett writes in, well, that became the expected shit show sooner than expected. Fake GOP leaders are selling CBD oil on Parler. I guess they're not doing the TikTok MLM banning over there.

I don't think, I think, I think Parler is whatever you want to do. Yeah. It's a shit show. And are we surprised Grif, hey, Grifter's going to grift. Yep. They are. Yes, they are. Patrick writes in, howdy, guys. I wanted to weigh in regarding the SolarWinds Orion hack in episode 488.

I work for a company that uses their software. And in the industry, it's regarded as the best all-in-one network monitoring performance suites. Or at least it used to be, right? Used to be. Unfortunately, due to the level of access the software needs in order to monitor all your assets, it makes it the perfect attack vector.

P.S. Watch Ted Lasso based on your high recommendations. Loved it. Stay grumpy. Take it away, Jason. Deliveroo! One more for the end of the year. And Highlander writes in, another tech company getting sued. This time, Microsoft gets it.

No receipts required for some Canadians filing under Microsoft's class action lawsuit. So, apparently, you can get a pretty nice chunk of change up to $250 without any receipts. And if you bought Office, Word, Excel, WorkSuites.

I don't even know what WorkSuites is. Home Essentials. MS-DOS? MS-DOS! Who the fuck still buys MS-DOS? They should pay you to install MS-DOS. What the hell? Yep. So, yeah, it's a class action lawsuit saying that Microsoft and Microsoft Canada were involved in a conspiracy to legally increase prices for certain Microsoft products in anti-competitive behavior.

Well, there you have it. So, also known as business as usual. Business as usual! Woo-hoo! Yep. Neil writes in, saw this over at Medium and thought you guys might be fascinated by this. Did you know masks only work if they cover your nose, too? Shocking.

Haven't done that one in a while. Yeah, hey, man, we're getting all the best hits in here at the end of the year. And this is a pretty funny article over on Medium. Study confirms nose holes connect to lungs. Key takeaways. All three face holes suck air to your lungs and poof, air out to the atmosphere. And the joke goes on a little bit too long, but quite funny.

That's all you need to know. Yeah. Yes. And Lamine writes in, hey, GOG, I found this on LinkedIn and thought I could strike your interest. Lyft has opened their first driver's center in Los Angeles. GOG is my last bastion of hope during these fuck it times. Thank you for your diligent grumpiness.

Why the fuck is Lyft opening anything? Super spreaders. Who's taking Lyfts? Where are you going? The airport. Why are you going in somebody else's car? To go see family and friends in the mall. Come on, Brian.

You have no idea what it's like. You left. You have not seen it firsthand. Silly me. Oh, crap. We just got an email from Dave. Oh, is he not coming? Oh, no, he's coming, but... Oh, hang on.

I've got to open this up. This is all out of order because you've already heard this by now, but we just got the photo right now. Oh, let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. It's Merry Christmas to the grumpy old geeks. Oh, come on. Come on.

Come on. It's not loading. Damn you. Oh, all right. Well, we're no longer doing this in real time because you went so goddamn slow with your email. It's not loading. It must be that computer running Google Chrome. Okay. Oh, damn. All right. Moving on to me.

Oh, my God. Oh, we have show art. I think we've got our show art. We've got show art. Oh, God. All right. You'll know. Yes. This is what happens when we're temporarily challenged.

We've now documented the moments where we actually first saw it. We have been temporarily challenged. Continue, Brian. Okay. And over at iTunes, we have a two-star rating from Steena Mosfina. Just okay. It's an opinions podcast, so I try to keep that in mind. But more and more, I find myself disagreeing with the host's opinions.

As with most people these days, if you disagree, you're an idiot. Because they are right and you are wrong. End of story. I appreciate their years of experience in this industry, which has made them jaded and therefore completely qualified to host a podcast called Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm looking for something informative about tech with a little less grumpy, condescending ranting.

Good luck, guys. All the best. And that seems like an appropriate note to end 2020 on for the show. A two-star rating for being exactly what we say on the tin. There you have it. And they even admit it, that we are doing exactly what we say we do. Sorry there.

Jesus Christ. Thank you, 2020. If you want your question or comment right on the show, fuck off. Oh, just 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 review and toss us a five-star and snarky review because apparently what it says on the tin doesn't mean it anymore.

Fuck Jesus Christ. I bought the spam and it tasted of spam. Fuck spam. One star. Closing shout outs. I would like to thank all of you who are still listening and not giving us two-star ratings for doing exactly what you know we're going to do.

And everybody on the Discord channel and the Clash Royale clan for sticking with us for another year, even though it has been a shit show. Thank you. Have a happy holiday, a good new year, and we will see you on the other side where it will still be complete and utter shit, but at least with a slight sprinkling of hope on top.

Is that what that smell is? Hope? Hmm. I think it was that brand cereal we all ate. Yeah. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister. And I'm Jason DeFillippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Your support keeps the show going, so if you want to see us stick around for another year, then go to gog.show slash donate and pick the level of awesome that you are prepared to give.

And remember, Patreon subscribers at any level get early access and add free shows. gog.show slash shop is where the GOG swag is that we will be revving over the break. I promise. I swear to Jeebus. If you want to hang out with us from time to time, head over to the Discord channel at gog.show slash discord.

Please tell any and all friends, enemies, and random people you meet on the street about the show. But if you meet them on the street, you should be back inside anyway. Never mind. What the hell are you doing? If you meet them on Tinder, oh wait, that means you're meeting up. Okay. If you meet them somewhere that is safe, tell them about this show.

Show notes for this episode, as well as all the links we just talked about, are at gog.show slash 489. Stay grumpy, stay alive, stay safe, and we'll see you next year.

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