535: Consider Your Risk Appetite

Grumpy Old Geeks. A weekly talk show hosted by Brian Schulmeister and Jason DeFilippo discussing the finer points of what went wrong on the internet and who's to blame. Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks for 2022. I'm Jason DeFilippo.

And I'm Brian Schulmeister. So, um, anything interesting happen in your winter break? Yeah, yeah. I got the greatest gift of all time, Brian. I got a stroke. I know. And you know what? We're going to tease that because I know Dave Bittner wants to be in on this discussion.

So we're going to force people to listen to more of the show than they maybe normally would. Maybe more than they normally would. Yes. Yes. So other interesting things. Guess who's back? COVID's back. We just announced here in Toronto, we're basically back in lockdown. Yay.

Oh, really? You guys are going to do that? Virtual school for two weeks. Um, bars closed completely. No more indoor dining. No more gyms. No more events. Stores at half capacity. You see, if you'd have just stayed here, we, we have decided, fuck it.

I know. We're doing whatever we want. You want, you want to see the difference between real public health and, uh, and the American, uh, fuck it, you're on your own system. So here we are again, uh, two years on and nothing's changed. Well, this is a little bit different. You gotta, you gotta admit that. Less, less and less people are dying.

That's true. There are like 40,000 new cases over the weekend and two dead. That's true. So amongst the vaccinated, uh, it's, it's pretty, it really literally is pretty, I mean, yes, there are breakthrough cases, but they're basically just colds. Uh, if you are vaccinated, uh, it, this is very much a pandemic of the unvaccinated right now.

And of course the unfortunate people that, uh, cannot get vaccinated for various reasons. So yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Is what it is. So, uh, so in my, in my convalescence, Brian, I have something relaxing that didn't upset you.

No, I didn't. Well, I, I, there've been a lot of naps. We'll talk about that later, but, uh, I have been going down, you know, the ye olde crypto hole again. Uh huh. Yes. Because it seems like, you know, it just feels like there's something in the air this time that, uh, it, it might be a turning point.

I know we've said that before and cue John Oliver and then we got him, but we got it this time. And I found this one. I love this. This is over from 99 bitcoins.com. It's bitcoins is dead. It declared a 400 plus times. And it is a, an archive of Bitcoin obituaries, uh, which I thought was pretty funny.

But, uh, yeah, they take it. They don't take it the way I take it, but. Well, the thing is obviously Bitcoin is still here and people are still doing it. What, what I think that the, the, the sea change that has finally happened is, uh, and again, does this really matter anymore? Because what we've discovered over the past couple of years is that facts don't matter and learned people's opinions don't really matter anymore.

But what is happening is learned people are coming out and saying this stuff is bullshit. Oh yes, yes, yes. That's see, that's, that's what's in the air right now. And, uh, my new hero is this guy, Stephen Deal. He's a programmer out of London and he puts things into perspective way better than we could.

I mean, we just basically look at it and go, yeah, that's stupid. It's bullshit. It's not going to work. He actually takes the time to use words. Right. And, uh, he has a new post called the case against crypto, which I think really lays it out, uh, in, into, uh, into a couple of different, uh, items here is first. It says the technology does not solve a real problem, which, you know, kind of doesn't right now, unless, unless you're into ransomware, then it solves a very real problem.

That's true. Uh, his other point is so-called cryptocurrencies aren't actually currencies and cannot fulfill the function of money. Uh, he still thinks that they're a, uh, unregulated security, which is, uh, yes, that's true.

And, uh, also the history of private money is one of repeated disasters that destroy public trust. And he really breaks it down there, uh, which is really good. And, uh, my favorite quote from the article is every crypto coin is just on a random walk to zero by a different path. That is just some fucking poetry right there. My friend is poetry. That is poetry. He has another tweet that really kind of goes into something I was saying before about, uh, crypto as a mental illness.

He says the way crypto hacks, human psychology to make people believe absurdities is really quite clever. It's like a combination of the endowment effect combined with directed reasoning that leads people into really bizarre crackpot economics to paper over the inherent contradictions in it, which basically I just said, you're crazy. If you believe half the shit that you have to tell yourself to make it work in your head.

Yeah. You know, it's really, that's really true. Uh, somebody else that's come out very much against NFTs is Brian Eno. Now, Brian Eno is of course a genius, genius producer, uh, wrote a lot of the ambient music that we've talked about on the show in the past. That's just really, really good. I mean, amazing musician, great thinker, great producer.

And, uh, they asked him what he thought about NFTs and crypto and all of that sort of stuff. And he kind of got into the same, uh, case, uh, the same points that Steven, uh, deal was making in, in that he's like, these seem to be solutions to problems that don't even exist.

I don't see what the problem was that these things are supposed to even be solving. And the quote that I really liked about this is he basically just sees this as a money grab. I'm not sure what is being brought into the world that makes any difference to anything other than some strings of numbers moving about in some bank accounts. People I like and trust are convinced they're the best thing since life spread. So I wish I could have a more positive view, but right now I mainly see hustlers looking for suckers.

You know, and like I said before, I thought this was like kind of a mental illness, but now I just, I really do think this might be the biggest grift in history. It's looking that way. I mean, much like a lot of other things, what I'm seeing is transfer of money from poor people to rich people.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And the funny thing is I really don't think, you know, Bitcoin started out to be a grift. I think that these people really were trying to change the world. You know, the oldest story in the book, a bunch of, a bunch of bright eyed computer nerds think they can change the world for the better. And it blows up in their face again and again and again.

I actually, I honestly feel exactly the same way about NFTs. I think the idea behind NFT is how do we take a digital asset and make it worth something to an artist? It's a good idea, but that's not how it's actually being used. Funny what happens when you put something out into the world.

They don't use it the way that you thought they would. Exactly. You know, because NFTs basically are a receipt, a receipt to a link that could go away at any given time. And just the, yeah, oh my God. And I love this. Friedrich Engels, Friedrich Engels, a German philosopher and many other things.

He put it this way. The ends of the actions are intended, but the results which actually follow from these actions are not intended. Or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately have consequences quite other than those intended. Or more succinctly put, the law of unintended consequences is a motherfucker.

Well, the thing I always love about the German philosophers is they're never positive. No. No, they're not. And we've got a bunch of different articles in here that I recommend people go check out. The Future is Not Only Useless, It's Expensive from Dan Brooks over at Gawker.

I read that one. It was great. Oh, God. That was just a hilarious read. Hilarious. And this is another one that I'm really starting to see a quote-unquote sea change. This is the Washington Post. In 2021, tech talked up the metaverse.

One problem, it doesn't exist. Yeah, it doesn't exist yet. I mean, there are people out there that are buying properties in virtual worlds, none of which have been consolidated into any sort of metaverse. They're all just like these individual gardens that aren't going to be worth shit. Yep. It's insane. It's insane what's happening right now.

People, what's crazy to me is poor people apparently have too much money right now. Yeah. I don't know what's going on. Well, you know, everybody quit their jobs because they didn't want to work anymore because they got a little extra money from the government. They think they can spin it on Dogecoin and AMC and whatever other crap that they read on Reddit and make a bunch of money.

Remember when gambling was illegal anywhere except for like Las Vegas and Indian casinos? What we've done is we've basically turned the internet into a giant speculation device. Yes, yes. And it is going to come home to roost. It will. When that music stops, when that music stops, a lot of people are going to get screwed.

They're just really going to get screwed. And, you know, we've been saying it for years, but that's the thing. It's like it just takes a little longer than we predict sometimes, you know, and especially my favorite thing to do right now is is just watch all of the NFT scams that are going on.

There's some great Twitter accounts that I followed now that just track how many people have had their their stuff stolen. And my favorite one for the day was some guys like, yeah, I stole your apes. What are you going to go do? What are you going to do? Go draw some cops. The Internet police are now available as an NFT.

The funny thing about it is I don't think these kids think that they're stealing anything because they don't believe that the NFTs are real, even though there's real money attached to it in their, you know, in their crypto addled minds. They see this as just fun. But again, the item itself is not what you buy when you buy an NFT.

What you buy is the theoretical ability to say, I own this item. Right. But, you know, go ahead and try to sue somebody that's putting it on the T-shirt and selling it on eBay. Good luck. But that comes from the original owner. They're not transferring copyright unless that's in the smart contract itself, which it generally is not, you know.

But just the transfer of ownership side of things gets really dicey when it gets stolen, you know. How do you, how do you, do I go to the, which Internet police do I go to, you know. Seriously, who do I go complain to? Do I go to the FBI and say somebody stole my cartoon?

Yeah. Somebody stole my ape. And when it comes down to it, yes, these things are valuable, you know, they are legit valuable right now, right now. So some people could go to jail for this. And they probably should. They should be going to jail. I would like to see some NFT court cases going on that people go to jail.

I saw Jack Reciter say that he knows about people that are going to jail in some of his tweets. So that's a good thing. But, you know, I tell you what, Eminem gets his ape stolen. I guarantee somebody's going to jail because they're a celebrity and they have more power than you. And their money is more real than your fake money. That's right. So, you know, keep an eye on that one.

Well, the thing is, they've got the real money to back up the pseudo money. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, of course, Matt Damon has jumped on the bandwagon. Brian, we're going to take a pause right here while you watch the new Crypto.com commercial that I linked in the show notes. Oh, God, do I have to? You must.

You must. Matt Damon. Okay, that upset me in a lot of ways. Okay, why, Brian? Why did that upset you? First off, mere mortals just like you and me. My life is nothing like yours, Matt Damon. No shit. You and I are not comparable in any way, shape, or form.

So, you know, we're not in the same boat here. And psychologically, it was really interesting and very smart of them to completely, just complete repeat of truth. Truth. Truth. Because we know none of this is true. It's all bullshit.

So, by repeatedly using the word truth, it's trying to psychologically trick us into thinking that this stuff is real and true when it's not. F you guys. Yeah. And F you, Matt Damon. Would you need the money? Jesus Christ. Seriously, apparently, that born money has run out.

I guess so. I just love the little disclaimer at the very end. You know, it's like cryptocurrency, blah, blah, blah. And it says, consider your risk appetite. I'm like, my risk appetite? Is that appetite for destruction? You know? Should have had Axl Rose do the commercial. I know. That would have been much better.

Actually, it would have been a good commercial for the Brave browser. That would have been. You know, I'm sure that they're upset about that. Actually, I haven't opened Brave in a while. I wonder if it just plays automatically now since they're all about the crypto. I know. But, Brian, consider your risk appetite for sure.

I do. That's why I don't buy any of your silly coins. Yeah. And finally, Web3 is also getting the shit kicked out of it, which is good. It's good because it's stupid. It's nothing yet. It's vaporware. It's all these kids talking about what can be, what will be, what should be. And I'm like, well, you know, in the old days, we just went and coded some stuff and we made it.

Yeah. Yeah. The other articles I was seeing, and it's kind of the same sea change that we're seeing about all the stuff that we were just talking about. We're talking about Web3, which is they don't have any real solutions. There are problems with the internet, but all anybody says from Web3 is, well, we're just going to decentralize it.

But that doesn't necessarily solve the problems. Right. It's just what you're saying is a solution, but tell me how it solves. And nobody can do that. Yes. And there's a great article by Wesley Aptikar Kessels.

It's called Web3 is centralized. And it breaks down how, yeah, it's still centralized. Sorry, guys. Hate to break it to you. It's still centralized. Yeah. Your decentralized solution is centralized. In the news. Well, Brian, the news has been kind of spotty because it's been the holidays, but I got a couple gems here that I wanted to share with you.

San Francisco based DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food and they're furious. I would be. Not my job. I'm an executive. I'm an introvert. I'm sorry. I don't own a car. I do like this concept.

I mean, it's nice. I like the idea of the fact that, you know, you work for the company. You should, just like the CEO, should spend a day doing something or at least dipping his feet in or fingers in to see how the company actually runs. It's how small companies work. You know, all hands on deck when you need to.

So why not? Exactly. I mean, DoorDash isn't a small company, but it is good for everybody to actually know what it's like to be out in the field. What should actually happen is DoorDash should actually have half their money taken away from them, just like the restaurants they're supposedly servicing. Let's see how that feels.

Zing. Just saying. Just saying. Well, Uber wants to end around that whole thing because they said they're going to have driverless food deliveries in California starting this year. In 20 years, they'll do that. I think that we've established this many, many times. I know. I know.

It says 2022, but that's a typo. Bad math. Bad math. And they're going to be starting, though, in your old neck of the woods, Santa Monica. You got out just in time. Well, there's already a little robot that goes around and delivering, and I expect there'll be more of those. But then I've also seen kids take their skateboards and beat the crap out of them.

So good luck with that. Yeah, I saw those when we went and got ramen the last time I saw you. Long, long ago in a stage of the pandemic far, far away. Yeah. Well, I'd imagine it's going to be something like that. It's obviously not going to be a self-driving Uber. It's just going to be some little tiny box robot that's going to roll down the street and deliver your burger 35 minutes after you've ordered it.

So good times with that. Yeah, well, they said that they partnered with a company called Motional, who has self-driving vehicles, which should be renamed Notional, because maybe it'll happen someday. And sticking with the self-driving theme, autonomous car developers lobby to defang safety regulations.

And this is from the L.A. Times. And corporations are going to corporate, is all I'm going to say. They say they want transparency, but not that much transparency. Transparency that shows our stuff doesn't work. Some of the big things that they don't really want to do is they don't want to do these monthly reports because there's so much data that they say it's going to cost too much money and take too much time.

They also say that they have to file reports every time an autonomous vehicle is towed away from the scene of an accident. Now, their case in point here is that every time that there's any kind of accident, be it a small fender bender or anything, the standard operating procedure is to tow the car away so they can check it and check it out.

And the regulators are saying, and what's your point? We would kind of like to know this. We would like to know every time something happens to your car. And they're saying that, well, sometimes people rear-end us, and then we have to trigger that and write a report.

Well, and of course, the companies are saying, well, that's not relevant because we were rear-ended. Well, that's not necessarily true. Because if your car is behaving badly, you know, yes, rear-enders are the fault of the person that hits you. But if this is becoming a common occurrence, we would like to know why it's becoming a common occurrence.

Yes. Is the autonomous car in front of me all of a sudden breaking from 40 to 20 for no reason? Swerving lanes. Yes. Or swerving lanes into the wrong lane and stopping, you know, doing, what was it, swooping stops? Yep. It's possible. You know, until they ran the numbers on traffic light cameras, everybody thought they were a great idea until they found out, oh, no, we looked at the numbers and they're actually causing more accidents than they prevent.

If the numbers are bad, the numbers are bad. Yes. So, yeah. And going on with the news that I gave earlier about Toronto going back into lockdown, that's not the only place that's having issues. Companies are, of course, now delaying their returns to office.

Apple has now, for the fourth time, adjusted its return to office plans. People were supposed to start beginning hybrid schedules in February. That is gone completely. There's no date that's been announced. A bunch of other companies, Lyft, Uber, Google Parent, Alphabet have also pushed back office returns with the latter two setting no new target date at all.

We're going to see a lot more of that, I think, as basically we're just going to get bitch slapped in the next two months. So we'll see what happens. I think, yeah, and they need to just stop this. This whole return to work thing. And just stop requiring people to come back to the office. It's over, guys. It's over forever.

You need to work on a hybrid solution that is going to last forever. Well, they're not even doing hybrid. That's the thing. But yeah, back to work full time, unless you absolutely have to be, unless you're working on, you know, basically manual labor or doctors or, you know, people that actually have to physically see and do things is done.

If you're an information worker, it's hybrid from here on out. That's just the new world. I mean, yeah, get used to it. Seriously, just get used to it. Sorry you built the spaceship, but, you know, dems to breaks, dude. But, you know, there's always going to be people that do want to go back to work, people with kids and people that don't have a good setup for a home office because, you know, they live in San Francisco and live in a box.

There's always going to be situations where people will want to go back to work. But the idea that the entire workforce is going to go back, that's just over and done, people. Stick a fork in it. And I put this in the news because I do like to point out when I'm wrong. And I was wrong about something for many, many years on this podcast.

I kept screaming that data caps were coming, that they're pushing us all into streaming, and then they're going to fuck us because they'll hit data caps and they'll put in, you know, plans where you can only do so much and you're just going to have to pay a bunch. That seems to have not really ever happened. And even Comcast, which was going to announce it in the U.S. Northeast, basically just said, eh, we're not going to do it.

No data caps for you. You get your thing. Now, of course, there's all the things that are happening where they cap us to some degree by slowing us down and all that sort of stuff. But the big charges that I was convinced were going to come into play are just not going to come into play.

And the reason being is that you've kind of figured out it's not that expensive to just let people use as much bandwidth as they want. Yeah. I mean, we've had the test for the past two years. So they've seen how it works. And if it doesn't cost them too much and they can get some amount of goodwill because they need as much as they can get.

Oh, yes, they do. Because let's face it, they're all still running monopolies. Yep. Yep. In Spectrum here in L.A., you know, we still don't have data caps. But that is mandated by the FCC because of the merger that they did. Oh, they don't want it. They say they don't want it. They're trying to get them broken.

But, you know, maybe by the time that rolls around, they'll actually come to their senses and say, yeah, we're okay. Yeah, I think so. That seems to be the case. So we'll find other ways to screw you out of your money. AT&T and Verizon have settled their FCC 9-11 outage investigations.

I guess they just kind of went down. Not good for 9-11. And they're being charged an awful lot for it and basically getting the finger wag of shame saying, can you please make sure that 9-1-1 calls work? Yeah. Okay. Sure. Okay, I guess. Here's some money.

I guess we won't have donuts today. Yeah. And this is a new one. Verizon and AT&T declined regulators requested delay new 5G services. So this just came out. So, you know, the FAA asked them, say, hey, can you guys just knock this off for just two more weeks?

And, you know, we're still just kind of figuring this out. And AT&T and Verizon said, no, absolutely not. You know, we gave you guys two years to upgrade your shit and we're just not going to do it. And I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't either.

As I fly a lot, or at least I certainly used to. Not great feeling. I would like the FAA to sign off on this. Having said that, however, the FAA has also known that our old cell phones did absolutely nothing to planes for the last 15 years and still force us to go into airplane mode.

I know. Yeah. So this is kind of like, you know, maybe they just know that it doesn't do shit and they're just tired of dealing with it and they want to roll their new stuff out. But yeah. And this just in the CDC says you only have to take off one shoe when getting on a plane. The single best thing about all of this has been the CDC meme that's been going on recently.

I know. The CDC says you can now wipe from front to back. No, wait. Back to front. Whichever way you're supposed to do it. Whichever. I do got to say, though, I had to unfortunately upgrade my AT&T plan. So I got the swanky new 5G for my phone.

It is faster than my broadband at my house now. Yeah, that's what people are saying. So it's really shaming the broadband people. It's just like, why even have it anymore? Yeah. I know. I'll just tether my phone to my laptop from now on. Yeah, but you go over those caps, you're screwed.

That's true. Yeah. Even though I bought the quote unquote unlimited plan, I would like it to work at more than 28.8 after I download a couple, you know, a couple games. It should play the old modem sound when the switch is over. That would be great. It should.

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Media candy. So we've had a big break and watched a lot of stuff. The Witcher is out. I have not watched it yet, but everybody I know is saying it's great and they're really enjoying it. And there's a surprise teaser for a prequel that's coming, The Witcher Blood Origin, which will be out in 2022 as well.

So that ended up being, I guess the trailer was attached to the final episode of the season of this season as a post-credits scene. So we got that to look forward to. I'm looking forward to watching it. But like I said, I just haven't yet. I did finish The Wheel of Time, at least the first season. A couple thoughts on that one.

I've come around to the conclusion that it's basically Lord of the Rings done by the Lifetime Network. Okay. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I liked the show. I was a little disappointed. And again, I haven't read the books. So of course it was going to be this way because it's based on books.

But you had such a multiracial, multinational cast. And of course you make the main character, the guy of intrigue, the white guy. Really? Of course. It's 2022, people. We're sick of us.

Sick of us white guys. Why does it have to be the white guy when you had all these other interesting characters? Anyways, that is what it is. I'm looking forward to season two. It's good. It's good enough. Well, I watched The Grand Tour Presents Carnage à Trois. I watched it as well. What'd you think? It was fine.

I get the feeling their hearts aren't even in it anymore, much less ours as viewers. It was better than the last few. I thought it was too. Yeah. I didn't hate it. Yeah. Like the one with the island that they blew up, I actively hated that one. Yeah. It was okay.

If they keep this kind of focused journey kind of thing together, okay. I'll continue to watch them. But I do get the feeling that they're running out of steam doing these. I think they're running out of steam, and I also think that Amazon is kind of running out of steam with them, too.

Yeah. Because, hang on. Fucking dogs everywhere. There we go. I think they're running out of steam with them because, I don't know if you noticed, but there was like no promotion. Yeah. Hardly. I saw zero promotion. I found it by accident. So, I don't know.

There's a lot of things on Amazon I found by accident, though. I found Hannah season three on accident. Right. Even though it's been out for a while, it wrapped up the arc of that show nicely, I thought. I don't think there's going to be a season four. I did a little digging on it. Because Hannah the movie is like her origin story, and the TV show on Amazon is kind of a middle-of-the-road retelling.

And then there's another chapter of her life that we don't get, and I don't think they're going to make it with Amazon. But I got to say, season one through three, I thoroughly enjoyed. So, people say good things about that show. I should watch it. Yeah. It's definitely worth it. I watched Red Notice with The Rock and Wonder Woman, and what's that annoying guy that's in everything now?

Ryan Reynolds. There you go. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really sick of Ryan Reynolds. Kind of getting sick of The Rock, too. But it was fun. I'll get to that in a minute. Okay. It was stupid fun. People who were like complaining about it, saying that it was, you know, pointless and whatever, I'm like, yeah, that's that style of movie.

Right. If The Rock's in it, it's a pointless, dumb movie. Yes. So, you should know what you're getting when you go into it. And I was in the mood for that, and it turned out to be decent, I thought. Cool. Did you watch The Matrix Resurrections yet? I have not, because I want to be able to sit down and watch it in one full go.

And I have not had that big of a chunk of time to sit and watch an entire movie. I'm very much looking forward to it. I see reactions are very split. Oh, very, very split. Yes. I did watch it in two goes.

Actually, I did stop it and catch it the next night. I stopped it before the big fight scene. And I thought it was... Here's the thing. I went into this movie with the same expectations I went into Bill and Ted 3. Right. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm like, I have seen The Matrix 2 and 3, you know?

So, there wasn't really a whole lot of stuff to go on. Right. So, I thought it was, for what it was, perfect. Okay. Good. Absolutely perfect. Good. But if you're expecting a lot, well... Right.

Drink more before you watch it. I'm not expecting much. I'm just hoping that they wipe the memory of Matrix 2 and 3 from my mind. There's some cameos. Oh, great. I did watch Don't Look Up on Netflix. I tried to watch this last night because I saw that you put it in the show notes.

And it is the viral movie of the moment that everybody's talking about. Yeah. It's terrible, though. It's horrible. It's fucking terrible. I don't know. I get why they did it. I understand why everybody involved did it. I understand why the director did it.

We have tried, going back to our earlier discussion in the show, we have tried science. We have tried facts. We have tried everything possible to get dumb people to believe that we need to change our perspective on the world. Why not try a stupid, dumb movie to try to get them to do it?

Yeah. I mean, this is just like, who is this movie made for? I have no idea. That's what I want to know. I have no idea who it's made for. I think it's made for the MAGA crowd. Like, maybe we can get them with this. See, but that's not it. They're not going to get that. They're not going to understand it.

This isn't going to change anybody's mind. I guess not. You know, idiocracy was what this is like, kind of like. This was an attempt at idiocracy and a modernized version of it. But they forgot the funny parts. Yes, they did. And it was way too long. This movie was not funny. It was way too, it's just, I thought it was garbage. Yeah. I thought it was absolute garbage.

But the funny thing is, right before the Christmas break, I started watching a new series. Well, not a new series, an old series on Netflix called Salvation. It's a two-season series. It came out in 2018. It's the exact same plot, except not dumb. Okay. And not played for laughs.

Like, it's got the kind of Elon Musk-esque, you know, entrepreneur. It's got the government that's not buying anything. It's got intrigue, but it's not dumb. It's like, kind of well done. I actually recommend the show. I tried to, but it's only available in Canada right now.

Oh, is it really? Oh, interesting. Fire up that VPN, Jason. I know. All of your Netflix links now have Canada in them. I know. I'm too lazy to switch back. I can't see them. I did finish Hawkeye. What did you think of the end of Hawkeye?

I enjoyed it. I thought it was good. You know my feeling about the Marvel Universe. I don't care about a lot of it, and I don't care about how interconnected it was. As a standalone show, I enjoyed it. I thought the casting was great. The two female leads, awesome together.

They should have their own show. I just want to see them have dinner and bicker. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty good. Pretty good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I thought it ended rather abruptly. Yeah, I did. I didn't know it was only a six-parter. I was expecting more, and then it was over, and I'm like, oh, that was quick. Oh, man. Okay. Had to get to Christmas Day.

They got to Christmas Day. That's true. That's true. Speaking of some of the things that you were just mentioning earlier, Ryan Reynolds, on the plane, there were very limited choices this time around on my trips. So I ended up watching Free Guy, which is the movie about he's a non-speaking character or whatever in a game but doesn't know it.

Non-player character. Yeah, that. Yeah. Would have been a good movie if it didn't have Ryan Reynolds, because I am so sick of Ryan Reynolds. You know, there's a lot of movies like that. Yeah. Yeah. If it wouldn't have been Ryan Reynolds as the main character, I probably would have actually quite enjoyed it. It had clever moments. I just can't stand his smarmy face anymore.

Okie doke. And then I watched Jungle Cruise, speaking of The Rock. Now, of course, I did not expect anything, and it delivered. It gave nothing. It delivered nothing? Okay. The only good thing about the whole movie, and this is only because I'm an old Disney local and I grew up going to Disneyland, is they actually worked in some of the cheesiest lines that the operators on the Jungle Cruise used to do.

And I thought that was funny. But The Rock is horrible. I mean, he's not horrible. He's The Rock. He's The Rock being The Rock. And it's a Disney action movie, and it sucked. Okay. It's funny. I actually, speaking of Disney action movies, we actually, on New Year's Day, I wanted to do a Nicolas Cage-a-thon, I was going to do Con Air, The Rock, speaking of, not starring The Rock, and National Treasure, because I'd never seen National Treasure.

So since it takes us about seven hours to get through a two-hour movie, we just went with National Treasure, which I'd never seen. It was a fun movie. I actually enjoyed that movie. Yeah. I remember when it came out. Yeah. It was stupid and fun, and I like Nicolas Cage.

It was, it's kind of, you know, it's the same movie as The Da Vinci Code, obviously. Yes. The same fucking movie, but better. Yeah. Because I hated The Da Vinci Code, and I read the book, and that, if I was 13, that would have probably been the most amazing thing I'd ever read, but I was like 40 when I read it, so it didn't really work.

Right. But National Treasure worked. Okay. That's good. I watched one other movie, a sci-fi movie called Voyagers, that also, as far as I know, got zero publicity. I'd never heard of it at all. It's relatively new, and it was not bad.

Okay. I can't really talk about it, because if anybody wants to watch it, and if I talk about it, it'll completely spoil it for you. So, if you see it floating around somewhere, and you've got some time to kill, go for it. Yeah, I watched the trailer, which basically spoils it, so. Oh, that's true, I suppose. Well, I didn't see the trailer, because I just went straight into the movie on the plane, so.

Okay. Yeah, I tried to find it, because there's another TV show from, like, the 80s called Voyagers, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure he's not talking about that one. No. No. I remember that show, too. Yeah. And I watched South Park post-COVID. Mm-hmm. That was interesting.

I tried. I think I really enjoyed South Park 20 years ago. I think my dalliance with South Park is long gone. Yeah. Yeah, mine, too. I mean, I made it through it, and then, you know, it ends on a cliffhanger, which I'm like, okay, that was unnecessary. Yeah.

But you could have wrapped that up. Yeah, I won't be sticking around for the rest of them, but everybody was like, oh, it's so good, it's so good. I'm like, eh. Yeah. So, speaking of not sticking around, I don't know if you watched the last Star Trek Discovery episode before they take their hiatus, so Paramount can keep stringing us along with Star Trek so we don't cancel our subscriptions, because now they're just going to run the kids' one for a while and then bring Discovery back later.

Yeah. So, you didn't watch it? I told you. I was done. Well, I stuck to it. Well, let me tell you something, Jason. Okay. Is there going to be spoilers? There will be a big spoiler here. So, skip ahead if you haven't seen it yet and you're still somewhat intrigued by the show. I will not be coming back.

Do you know how our biggest complaint, everybody's biggest complaint about Star Trek Discovery so far, it's all just about their feelings and they have no ability to actually be adults and all they do is talk about their feelings and how they feel about stuff? Yes, it's all about the feels. Well, now the Star Trek Discovery itself is an AI that has feelings.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. And the ship was almost incapable of doing something because we had to work through the ship's fucking feelings. The ship, Jason. Not just the crew anymore. Now the ship is incapable of being a ship until we talk about its fucking feelings.

Oh, my God. That's great. I almost died laughing. I was going to call you. I was like, now the ship needs a therapist. Oh, my God. Somebody called BetterHelp. Like, they fucking ignored everything that everybody's saying online about the show and they doubled down.

They said, fuck it. Fuck it. You think it's all about the feelings and that's too much and these people need to get on with actually doing their job? We're going to let the ship melt down now. I have no words. No. It was so bad. Ups and doodads.

Brian, as I was diving into the Web 3, I found a new website called Twitch. It is called Twitch. It is the decentralized social network where you own your data and earn money for your content.

All of this has happened before and all of this will fail again. On Twitch, interactions are micropayments. All of your content on Twitch is signed by you and stored on the blockchain so it's always accessible to you. What if you could message someone without ever having to give the information you write to a third party like Twitter or Facebook?

Now you can just put it in a blockchain. If your messages were completely private and only accessible to those you give permission, your data would truly be yours. Introducing Twitch chat. Fully encrypted messaging using Bitcoin. AES and ECIES featuring in-app peer-to-peer payments and group chat support.

No thanks. And they have friend-to-friend is their trademark payment system. So you can have a friend or a frenemy. Could be either. Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. This is the future of Web 3. Just, I'm done. I'm just going to go back to books.

I'm going back to books. Forget it. Oh, man. But since I did get that swanky new iPhone 13 Pro a while back, I've been digging into some of the apps that are not the stock apps. Halide is basically a photo app.

Right. That gives you a lot more control over the camera in the phone and it can save raw files, which is really nice if you want to do any real editing and things like that. So eventually this is the next app that will be completely out of business as soon as Apple builds it into their own product. It's been around for a while.

I don't think they're going to build it in because, you know, Apple likes to idiot. I was going to say idiot-proof things, but I think, yeah, they do idiot-proof them. So it's nice. It's actually a nice little app. I prefer using that over the regular app. There's a bunch of features in it.

It's not that expensive. Definitely worth checking out. And I went back to using Filmic Pro to do videos because it's really good. Yeah, I've used that before. It's good. Yeah, it's really good. And now they've got a creator bundle because they've got a bunch of different apps. They've got four separate apps that let you do a bunch of different things.

One is, the one that I really think is cool is the dual cameras. So you can film both views. You can film at the front of the phone and the back of the phone at the same time. Right. So if you're doing kind of like a how-to video, you can see you and the thing that you're describing at the same time.

It's pretty cool. They've got a photo app, which I don't care that much about, but they've also got a remote control app. So if you want to put Filmic on a tripod and not have to sit there and press the buttons, you can actually be remote. And I think you can run up multiple cameras on it or multiple phones on it over Bluetooth, which is pretty cool.

I mean, that's a really nice feature. The whole thing, if you buy them all together, it can be a little expensive, but they've got a creator bundle, which you can save a bunch of money on. So I just... Also, the nice thing on Apple now is if you've got a couple of things in the bundle, they'll let you just top off the bundle and get the rest of them.

Cool. Which is cool. Yeah. And I've been digging into my DJI Osmo Pocket 2 as well lately because I need things to... Trust me, the stroke thing is weird. It's really weird. And just learning how to use it because I've had it for a while and playing around with that.

The video is actually better, I think, than my iPhone. So, and it's cool because it just fits in your pocket. It's one of those one-use things, you pop it out, but the gimbal's really cool. I can't really go anywhere or do anything right now. So it's just... I'm getting the hang of the tools again, like playing with my cameras and getting the feel.

It's also good to do things with my hands. Right. To kind of teach my brain how to work again. Get that hand-eye coordination going. Yep. Well, my hand... By eye, you mean single eyes. I've only got one eye. So, yeah, it's fun checking these things out. But the Osmo Pocket 2, it's a really cool little device.

I really like that for video. And it does, I think, 4K 60 frames per second. The built-in mic's okay, but you can put on an external mic if you want. It's got another accessory kit where you can actually have a remote mic that you can wear, which is pretty cool.

So it's a neat little device for the money. It's only a couple hundred bucks. Pretty neat. But in the world of apps and smart homes, these next two just really, really made me chuckle. This one comes from the Washington Post. Your cat could burn your house down, Korean officials warned after 107 fires sparked by felines.

That's crazy. That's right. 107 fires that cats turned on basically because of the touch controls on people's stoves and ovens that they have in their homes. So unfortunately, out of all these incidents, only four people were injured, but most of the time the pets did not survive.

So, so basically, catatouille? Wow. Well, if you're going to have catatouille, you need something to serve it in. So I would recommend you serve your catatouille in a catatouille dish. You've been working hard this break. Oh, well, catatouille is mine, but catatouille dish comes from futurism because Elon Musk's Starlink internet dishes are attracting cats.

I saw the pictures of this. It's so cute. Yeah, it is so cute. It is so cute. You know, I'm thinking about this. I'm like, okay, so we could probably figure this out for the stoves. And I'm curious why, you know, Starlink hasn't figured this out because I don't see a lot of cats hanging around in my DirecTV satellites in the neighborhood.

Well, you are in Southern California. That's true. That's true. But I had DirecTV up north when I was in Chicago. It still wasn't a problem. But, you know, I got to say, let's face it, programmers really have never been very good at pussy detection. So I can see why they haven't figured this problem out.

Very good. You earned your money this week. At the library. Brian, I finished a fan fiction, a meme noir, inspired by true events by Brett Spiner. Brent Spiner, I should say.

How was it? It was good. It was good. Cool. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was going to be much more enjoyable because there's a lot of next-gen cast members and he got them all to actually do their voices for the audiobook. Turns out they don't play a huge part in the story.

Okay. So I think Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton spend the most time in the story and they're very funny. They are very funny. So that part was worth it. But the story itself wasn't bad. I got to say, it was a good little book. It was good. And we've talked many times about the Laundry Files, all 10 of them so far.

Yep. I think we have reviewed all 10 of them on the show and we have been like, oh, why is he still going with this? It's like, where's Bob? Bring back Bob. Well, we've got two more books coming. So no Bob in sight. I got the notification about Quantum of Nightmares, which is January 11th.

Yep. So we'll see. Yep. I still have the Neil Stevenson book that I'm working through right now. So I got to finish that first. Yeah, me too. But, uh... Yeah. I'm working through it. Slow going. Slow going. And we've got, uh, Laundry Files Book 12 coming, uh, March 1st. So he's just cranking those things out.

Yeah. Yeah. Didn't like the last one. We'll see. No, didn't like the last few. Yeah. I mean, well, I guess the last one that had, like, Bob as kind of a main character was good. But, yeah. It's been a while. They're okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while. And, uh, John Scalzi has a new book out called The Kaiju Preservation Society.

Well, it drops on March 15th. Okay. So I'll check that one out. I got to start reading then. I got to catch up before these new books come out. Yeah, definitely. That, uh, that Neil Stevenson one is a long one. And, uh, since, uh, it is, uh, January, we're now into January of 2022, uh, Public Domain Day was on the first.

Oh. We got a good one this year. It's pretty good. So a bunch of works from 1926 are now open and, uh, some, uh, sound recordings from before 1923, about 400,000 of them, which is kind of cool. I don't know where to find them. I got to dig into that.

But, uh, some of the books that, uh, dropped into Public Domain are pretty interesting. The Sun Also Rises from Ernest Hemingway. The big one, though, is Winnie the Pooh. Yes. That is pretty crazy. Yep. And Bambi. The original Bambi in the original German, which is not a very fun book.

I don't know if you know much about the life and times of the original Bambi. Not a very happy story. Everybody dies and it all means nothing. Pretty much. Yep. It is a very nihilistic, very nihilistic German story. Yes. And, uh, also the murder of Roger Ackroyd from Agatha Christie.

So those are going to be popping out. So there's a lot of good stuff there. There's a link to, uh, a big list over at, uh, Duke. So check that out. If you want to go, uh, make your own versions of the book. Yeah, exactly. You can, you can now do your own audio book of Winnie the Pooh or make it an NFT if you want.

Yeah. Why not? Security? Ha! Dave Bittner is back. Dave is the host of the Cyberware podcast, co-host of the social engineering podcast, Hacking Humans with Joe Kerrigan, co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy and surveillance and privacy.

And finally, he's the co-host of Recorded Future, where he takes you inside the world of cyber threat intelligence. Welcome back, Dave. Thank you. Thank you. Mm-hmm. So, yes. Bring me up today. We, we teased it at the beginning of the show. So this is, this is now, uh, we kept people waiting this long.

I want to hear everything. Well, you're not going to hear everything because, uh, still got a little PTSD around the whole thing. So. Gotcha. Okay. Uh, yeah, yeah. Two weeks ago, mopping the floor, felt like I got shot in the head and, uh, had to sit down for like 45 minutes, drank like a gallon of water, thought I'm dehydrated, no biggie.

And, um, went about my day, kind of, kind of got back to normal, but I was feeling off most of the day. And, you know, my roommate's like, eh, you kind of look like shit today. I'm like, yeah, well, it's, it's a Sunday. What do you want? Exactly. I tend to, tend to look this way. And then in, uh, about 11 o'clock at night, it happened again.

And at that point, uh, everything went numb. I couldn't swallow right. Um, my face kind of went numb. My arms went numb. It was just, it was really bizarre. But what I didn't really notice, and then I just like kind of passed it off. I was like, oh, this must be one fun new type of migraine I'm having.

And, uh, kind of went through the night. It was, it was a little disconcerting, uh, the, the inability to swallow half the time and things like that. And I was just, you know, kind of like, oh, what the fuck? But I fell asleep. Um, then I, when I got up in the morning, cause my room was, I was in my room and it was dark already, but I, so I, when I got up in the morning and I walked up or turned the lights on, yeah, the room was not the way it should be.

So basically I, I developed what they call diplopia, where my eyes point in different directions now, thanks to the stroke that I had in my medulla oblongata. Wow. And, uh, I love basically, yeah, fuck that band. That band sucks.

Uh, so I, I, I kind of hobbled to the door cause my roommate was getting up and it was time to feed the dogs. I'm like, can you feed the dogs? And, uh, I'm going to get some stuff together. And then you're taking me to the hospital. Cause I think I had a stroke and turns out I was correct.

Took them a day in change to figure it out. Um, cause they did all the tests on me. Did the CT scan, came back negative. Had to wait all day because there was, uh, one of the, uh, I guess MRI operators, uh, got the Rona. So there was only one guy running the shop that day.

So it was backed up. They got me in about eight that night and, uh, by 10 o'clock, the results came back and they were negative. I'm like, okay, then what the hell's going on? So in the morning I got, I got visited by the, the ghosts of neurologists past, um, multiple doctors came in and the first doctor that saw me was just like, okay, look at me, look here, look there.

Okay. Call radiology. He had a stroke, have him go find it. And, uh, they went back and they did find it. So they missed it on the first pass, but he's just like, yeah, you had a stroke. And then the neurologist came and told me you had a stroke, you know, here's the picture and here's the funny part.

So they, they, they roll in this, this, you know, old Israeli guy, super cool, super nice. Um, comes in to show me, uh, the, the, uh, the MRI and he's got his little assistant with him and he's, you know, trying to chat me up and be all friendly. He's like, so what do you do?

I'm like, I'm a podcaster. He's like, uh, huh? Oh, who's a, what's it? And he turned to his assistant and she's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what it is. She rolls her eyes. Um, but they showed it to me. Yeah, exactly. You and half this hospital.

Um, so yeah, they showed it to me. And then I tried to take a picture of it. Like I grabbed my, can I take a picture of that? He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's like, I almost slapped the phone out of my hand. He's like, HIPAA. I'm like, but it's my head. Like, that's my brain. Can I take a picture of my brain?

He's like, no, sorry. Dems to rules. Uh, you can get a copy of it when you leave, but you can't have this one. So I have no, I have no photo yet and getting the, uh, actually getting the scan is a bit of a process. So I have to, I have to mail things.

Fortunately, I don't have to fax them, but at some point I'll get a copy of it and send it to you guys. But, um, once they've, once they figured it out, they're like, okay, GTFO, we're done. Pack me up and sent me on my merry way because there's nothing to be done.

I did meet with a couple of physical therapists, uh, uh, vertigo specialist, uh, occupational therapist while I was there. The occupational therapist was the coolest guy in the place. He was the smartest one out of, uh, all of the therapists that I met. And, uh, he's, and he kind of took me aside.

He's like, Hey, the stuff that I'm telling you is the real deal. Uh, these physical therapy guys, if they tell you to do stuff and you don't want to do it, just don't do it. I'm like, okay. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And, uh, little therapy rivalry there. Totally. Completely. I was like, well, this is new.

Odd inner office, uh, you know, little thing going, you got going on here. And, uh, so yeah, they sent me home and I was home by Wednesday night and, uh, just been recovering since a lot. Right. There's been, there's been a lot of napping involved.

I will say that. And, uh, eye patches. I am a pirate. And, uh, I was going to say, I've been noticing your, uh, your, you've been posting pictures with your sexy eye patches. So do you switch, switch eye from time to time or how does that work? Yeah.

Yeah. I try to, I try to as much as possible. Um, cause my left eye is the, the janky one. Uh, the right one's my, it's the right one's my normal dominant eye. So it's not too, too bad. So, you know, with glasses I can see sorta, but, uh, go back and forth to try and keep it, keep it up.

Uh, basically nobody has any answers on if or when it's going to come back. There's some very basic exercises I can do, but at this point, uh, everybody's saying between three and nine months, your vision might come back. So I have a friend who had something like this happen to him.

And of course the thing you want when you're in a situation like this is an anecdotal story. Um, but, uh, he had a similar thing to this and he ended up getting, um, a special set of glasses. Prism glasses. Yeah. Like, because his eyes, you know, like they, and they just helped, I guess, get his eyes close enough together that then the brain could go, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, got it.

Got it. Got it. You know? And that's, yeah. Yeah. I can twist my regular glasses to the point where it gets close, but I can't wear them like that. And I'd rather not do anything like that. Actually, when I can, I wear contacts, um, and, and take, take both of them off because that way there's less distortion because my glasses have distortion inherently built into it.

And I'm trying to get my brain to relearn how to see and put those images back together. They're too far apart right now. So in their vert, it's completely vertical. Like if you look at my eyes, my left eye is down, like maybe, uh, you know, less than an eighth of an inch, I think, but that's enough to completely screw your vision and your brain up.

Cause I got 50 years in my brain going, ah, that eye is supposed to be over here. It's not anymore. But yeah, prism glasses are a thing. So hopefully I won't need them and hopefully it'll come back. But I got to say, as far as strokes go, I won the stroke lottery. You know, I did.

Um, well, I'm not dead, which is a plus. Right. Um, and I've talked to, speaking of anecdotal stories, I've talked to a lot of people who have anecdotal stories where it's taken them, you know, years of rehabilitation and therapy to get back. And, you know, I got, I got lucky.

So now is this, do they consider this a stroke warning shot? Does this put you on a, no, but I mean, but I mean like, you know, like, like, like, like California with your little tremors. Like is, does this mean that you have to be on the, you have to be mindful that there are circumstances that could lead to the big one?

Like, do you have to keep an eye on your blood pressure or things like, you know, 110%. Yes. Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah. No, because, um, I had an ischemic stroke, which is our ischemic stroke, which is basically a clot that, that, you know, um, uh, made the blood vessels expand.

So they're weaker now. So I, so I had, I take Lipitor and aspirin every day. And that Apple watch is finally useful. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm not, I'm not even kidding. Like it's actually like now all those features that you paid for just to have a fancy watch are actually kind of useful.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I know fall detection is definitely turned on. Um, you know, uh, emergency calling is right at my wrist because, um, I did when I first, when it first happened to me, the world was turning sideways because if my brain did not know what the hell was going on with the, the, with anything.

So I couldn't stand up straight. It would, I would get up and fall immediately. It felt like I had like two gravities on the left side of my body at all times pulling me that way. And the world was spinning clockwise by a quarter turn every second. It was bad. So, so is it like a, like a, you're drunk kind of room spinning kind of thing or different from that?

Except not fun. Yeah. That's the, that's the, that's the really weird part. I haven't had a drink in two weeks, but by the time I go to bed at night, I still feel drunk because I, you know, my brain doesn't work. Everything's tired. I'm tired and the world spins, but, uh, think of all the money you'll save.

Oh, so much money. So much money. It's all going to Kaiser though, because that's not going to be a cheap bill. No, no, it is not. No. So yeah, it's a, gog.show slash donate everyone. Pretty please. It's been, uh, it's been an interesting thing.

So this is the first time I've really talked about it and probably will be the last because, uh, it's still, you know, when that thing happens, it, it, it, it, I'm in the place where it happened all the time. So it feels like it's going to happen again at any moment.

So any little pain in my, in my eyes, it's just like, you know, I got to stop, calm down. CBD feels, gog.show slash feels or feels.com slash gog, please. It has been satisfied customer. Oh my God.

I, I stocked up on their new mints before this thing happened. The only thing that I would say is, uh, I wish I had taken with me to the hospital. That would have been good. Um, but ever since then, yes, they have been my go-to for sure. Uh, oh, one other note that I would, I would say to anybody when you're going to go to the hospital and I, I set this up now after I got back and I've been bumbling around my room,

I now have a hospital go bag that's ready to go at any, if I have to go back and I can just grab and go because fortunately I had enough time before I left to put a bunch of stuff in my pockets that turned out to be incredibly useful.

First off, cell phone charger. Yeah. Get a cell phone charger. Kleenex. Lots of Kleenex. They charge a lot for that. Well, they did probably, but it sucks at the hospital. It's like, you know, that's a dollar a sheet. Yeah, probably.

I hate to see what my TV bill is. Uh, yeah. Um, and, uh, anything to keep your, uh, throat clear, like, uh, cough drops. I have those, uh, halls defense things that like vitamin C things just to keep your mouth wet because it's sometimes it's really hard just to get a glass of water or anything like that because they don't want you to be drinking water, but you can have a, you can have a cough drop.

So that's the end around. So little things like that. So when it's time to go to the hospital, you just, you know, you grab that and go or just keep it in the car or, you know, it wouldn't have helped in my car. Cause my roommate had to drive me. So, but it's one of those things where it's like, it's nice to have that like prepared. I just knew that after she went to the hospital, like a year ago for vertigo, I'm like, Oh, I remembered all the things that I had to bring.

And I'm like, let me just grab those now and throw them in my pocket. Right. I've only had a hospital go bag once in my entire life. And that's when my wife was, you know, eight and a half months pregnant, but, uh, it's not, it's not a bad idea. Same. Yeah. Same. Yep. So. So have you, have you, you laid hands on keyboard?

Like, can you, can you, can you dead eye it with one eye and do things? Are you easing yourself back in? Have you been taken, what's your, what's your process been so far for trying to, you know, I don't know, normalize your life? Or are you just taking it real slow?

Well, I was saying I've been taking it real slow, but I can work for about two, three hours a day. So I'm doing, I'm doing this show. I edited the first half of the first part already, but I take breaks, take lots of breaks. Um, I can type, which is good. It's hard. Uh, I make a lot of typos, but, um, that's why we have modern computers, you know, because everything's off axis in trying to type, you know, switch eyes and things like that.

But, uh, when I switch eyes, it's like, I can't, I got to sit down for half an hour because I had, the world has to readjust, you know, it's like, Oh, I'm used to spinning this way. Hey, let's go that way. You know? So all in all, it's been, it's been, uh, interesting, you know, besides, uh, besides that, Mrs.

Lincoln, how was the play? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the only person I can think of that feels as bad as you is Boba Fett coming out of that Sarlacc pit. Yeah. How's that for a transition? Nicely done. Before, before we go there, let me add one little thing and another, uh, thing it reminds me of just, um, not directly, but, uh, back when I was a TV cameraman and I was shooting

a lot of sports, I used to sit at the baseline of a basketball, um, court, uh, let's see, you know, I'd be the person who sat under the basket and I got to the point where, you know, you had one eye in the viewfinder of a, this is a big like broadcast beta cam rig, 20 pounds on your shoulder.

Um, but you, you, then I could keep the other eye open to just keep an eye on everything around me because you got all these athletes and, you know, you don't want to get hit. Um, and I got to the point where I could switch in my head from eye to eye between the viewfinder and what was going on around me.

But the weird thing was when I take my eye out of the viewfinder, my eyes were color balanced differently. Yeah. White balanced differently. Right. So one, right. So one, because the viewfinder back then it was, they were black and white and so it was, everything was blue, you know?

And so it was, so I remember standing there and I'd be like, Blake, open one eye, open the other eye, open the eye and the colors would shift because they'd been, you know, desensitized and, um, it just reminds me of kind of what you're going through with your eye patch, you know? Yeah.

I totally noticed that when I take off my eye patch and it has to readjust, um, my left eye is, is, you know, because your eyes are usually shifted blue and red, you know, that's how the 3d glasses work and things like that. But when I take this eye patch off, my left eye is really red. Everything is very, uh, you know, hue shifted to red.

It's really strange, really strange. And even if I take, keep it off for a while, it kind of stays that way now. So I don't know if it's just damaged in some way or, well, it is. My whole head's damaged, but, oh, and I do got to say thank you, Dave, and to the crew at the Cyber Wire for the lovely basket you sent me.

Oh, you're welcome. Uh, what, hopefully, was it full of meat and cheese? It was that I can't eat, but my roommate, uh, had a great time with it. Why can't, you can't eat it? Really? Oh, uh, yeah, you got to go to stroke.org and look at the, uh, the, the diet restrictions.

I didn't think about that. You know, it was like, I sent him a nice bottle of scotch. Yeah. There you go. Like, cats out of the bag, we're both trying to kill you, Jason. Um, it's funny because I was talking with Jen, who I work with, uh, at Cyber Wire, and, and, and we were like, well, what should we send him?

I said, what should you send him? Send him something manly. Send him meat and cheese. Don't send him flowers, you know. So, anyway. Well, at least your roommate will be, uh. I did, I did try the cheese. I did try the cheese, though. It was delicious.

Well, I'm glad you got it. We were, all, all of us here were thinking about you and worried for you and happy that it wasn't worse than it was and wishing you a speedy recovery. Much appreciated. Much appreciated. Well, uh, were you able to enjoy it with one eye, Jason?

I don't think, I don't think, uh, the number of eyes that I had would, would change the enjoyment whatsoever. Not a fan. Well, you know, I'll go first. Um, I thought it was wonderful fan servicing, uh, fan servicing basically at its best, uh, perhaps 30 some odd years too late for me to truly enjoy it.

Um, it, it was fine. I'm not sure how it will be as a show per se, but, uh, it was nice to see Boba Fett. Uh, it was nice to have, you know, after spending, you know, 30 odd years wondering how he got out of the Sarlacc pit, uh, finding out how, um, a bit of a disappointment, but as anything would be when you wait 30 plus years for it.

So, you know, it was fine. I liked it. Yeah. I, I'd say pretty much the same. I, I enjoyed it. Um, I liked that, uh, his, the specific shot of him getting out of the Sarlacc pit, uh, exactly matched Patton Oswald's explanation of it from, uh, and he got a writing credit, I'm told on the show, uh, for that.

So that was fun. Um, it was great. I mean, it was fine. Um, I think I'm exactly in line with, with you, Brian. Um, I don't know how this is going to pan out. There are, I have a lot of questions, uh, you know, how's, how does one waltz in and just become the new crime Lord when there's just two of you and, oh, okay, you've got some Gameree and guards.

Well, that makes a difference, you know, like, um, so. So, you know, I, I'm not sure of the, if the, you know, late middle aged kind of chunky bald Boba Fett story is the story I really wanted of Boba Fett. I wanted, you know, young dashing bounty hunter pre, pre Han Solo Boba Fett story, I guess.

You know, I think it's funny. I was talking with my son Jack about this and, and, uh, he was saying that, um, a big part of Boba Fett was always how mysterious he was. And so we're kind of losing that by how much time he spends with his helmet off.

Yeah. Um, and, uh, I was thinking that really before this, most of what we had from Boba Fett was, um, through robot chicken. That's true. More, right. More exposition through robot chicken than anywhere else. That's for sure. Yeah. If you thought about what is Boba Fett's persona, uh, he had probably the most screen time through robot chicken and, and.

I don't believe that's canon. You know, well, uh, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Good point. Um, but I, so I enjoyed it. I will watch again. Uh, is it as good as the Mandalorian? I don't think so, but, uh, again, is that also it's kind of the same as the Mandalorian just with different characters?

I mean, you know, it is. And also I think it's worth mentioning or reminding ourselves that of all the Star Wars we're getting, these are the Star Wars creators that I am enjoying. So I, I feel as though Boba Fett is in good hands with these people.

Yes. It's still much better than that last movie or the one before it. Yes. Or even the prequels. Jason, what did you think? I didn't mind it. Um, I just, I was really bummed about the whole Sarlacc thing. I was really hoping that it wasn't going to be revealed and we could get, you know, some mystery out of it.

Like we all talked about, you know, I thought it would be kind of something that was kind of hinted at, um, that would have been more fun. I thought they were going to tease it more. I thought we would see it at like the end of the season. Yeah. I'm just like, oh, they're just going there. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, no, we're just going, here we go.

We're going to rip off the bandaid. Here it is. And I'm just like, ah, that kind of sucked, but I didn't mind it. I mean, I thought it was okay. I'll watch it. Yep. There we are. So there's our review. All right. Do we think the Sarlacc got killed by the explosion of Jabba's barge?

No. No. If a Sarlacc will slowly digest you for a thousand years, I think one guy punching his way out through one intestine is- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not, not, in other words, was the Sarlacc already dead when he got out because Jabba's barge exploded above it? Nah. I don't think that hurt it.

In Return of the Jedi. Nah. Okay. Nah. Nah. Nah. It's a Sarlacc. They're made of tougher stuff than that. Fair enough. It's no rancor. Just putting it out there. Dying when just a gate hits it on the head. Yeah. Jabba's menagerie.

All right, guys. Well, I had a couple stories here, but I think we can just cut it for today. That's fine. Find a nap. Jason needs a nap. Our new shorter segments of the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast brought to you in 20-minute bite-sized chunks. Right. Brought to you by meat and cheese.

Aw. Aw. Well, you take care of yourself, Jason. Yeah. Sleep up much before we talk again. I shall. I shall. Love you, man. Love you guys too, man. Closing shout outs!

Over at Patreon, we've got Steve and Jeff, MsBGK18, Winglong, Val Letelier, Tom and Kathleen. And over at PayPal, we—hold on, I've got to take a hit of oxygen first. Thank you, everybody, for your donations. We really did appreciate it over the break.

Here we go. Dag, Nathaniel, Ramsey, John Andre, Tom, Michelle, Thomas, Lars, Joseph, Gabriel, Matt, Shaleen, Doug, Michael, Simon, Andrew, John, Humphrey, Brady, Michael, Mark, Tom, Judge, Nikolai, Melissa, Charlie, Nicola, Matthew, Jonathan, and Stuart, who says many things for the mention in the show, guys.

I hope you had a great Christmas and a happy new year. Jason, not so much. Not so much. Not so much. Over at Stripe, we've got Anne, Adam, Ashley, Daryl, Ross, Karen, Sean, Mario, Matt, and Roman with a new sub. Woo-hoo! Thank you very much. Thank you. And we've got the whales. We love the whales.

Whales, these are the big donations we got over the break. We got Simon and Vincent and Martin for 50 bucks each. Woo-hoo! Thank you very much. We got Michael for 100 bucks and 120 bucks for Mariana. So thank you all for the big donations. Woo-hoo! Yay. Trust me.

My medical bills, I appreciate it a lot. So gog.show slash donate. Please, pretty please. And speaking of that, shout out to the fucking fantastic staff at Kaiser Permanente here in Woodland Hills in Southern California. They were amazing. They were absolutely amazing for me.

And we're recording this at 9.52 a.m. on Monday, January 3rd. At this point, two weeks ago, I was being rolled into my room in the stroke unit. That's where I was two weeks ago. Yes. Freaking the fuck out. Yep. So it's been, it feels, it literally feels like it's been two months.

Happy you're still with us. Easily. Yeah, me too. Me too. Big shout out to all of my friends who have sent me the well wishes and kept me kind of perked up during this because it's kind of sucked. It really, really sucks. Special shout out to a friend of the show, Desiree, for her emails.

I appreciate that. And to you, the listeners, for sticking around. We're sorry we didn't make the end of the year show like we meant to. But yeah. Yeah. Something happened. Something happened. Wait, you buried, you buried a lead there. Desiree's around still? Good. I hadn't heard that.

Yeah. She's doing good. She's not on the Discord, but she's, when she heard I had a stroke, she reached out. So I had some good advice and stuff like that. Excellent. But yeah, I've been sober now for two weeks. I'm sorry. So that happened. Well, it's for good now, apparently. And I put in a video here that's pretty interesting called, What Happens When You Quit Alcohol?

So I am on week two, and it goes for about six weeks till all of the bad stuff is gone. Hands a little shaky? No. No. Actually, it was real. Here's the thing about having a stroke. Makes everything really easy to do to kind of stop doing everything else.

Yeah, I suppose it does. Yeah, it's kind of, we call that a forcing function. So it's not bad. It's not bad at all. Okay. So looking forward to getting the rest of my brain back. Me too. When it comes. But hey, hey, I'm down eight.

Well, trust me, dude, there will be a hell of a lot more when I get back to, you remember what I was like. Oh, God. Don't you? Oh, yeah, I remember. Boy, oh, boy. You thought you liked the show before. Just wait. Yep. Yep. And I don't recommend the stroke diet, but I am down eight pounds, too.

Looking good. Congratulations on that. Yeah, baby. All right, man. Until next time, I'm Brian Shulmester. And I'm Jason DeFillippo, still. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. If you enjoy the show, visit GOG.show slash donate to help keep the lights on, pay my bills, and we'll love you forever. You can also help us out by sharing the show with your friends and enemies.

It's easy and absolutely free. Show notes for this episode are at GOG.show slash 535. From there, you can find links to everything we talked about this episode, as well as links to our swag and Discord channel if you want to buy some stuff or chat with us and other show fans. You can also 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 snarky review and preferably five stars. Stay grumpy. Oh, yeah. I sound like shit. Everybody sounds like shit, so it's perfect. We all sound like shit today. It's a shit show. It is a shit show.

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks, shit show edition.

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