545: Prequalified Idiots

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

And that's right. Brian's not here today. Brian is at Legoland with his kids on this St. Patrick's Day that I'm recording on. It's Thursday, May 17th, 2022, which is strange. 25 years ago, when I met Brian in the summer of 1996, I think it's 20 years, something like that.

That's what Siri tells me. If I would have told myself or his self back then that in 25 years, I would be co-hosting a radio show with him on the internet. He's got a wife, a kid, lives in Canada.

I'm the sober one and he is at Legoland with his kids. No, it's just none of this makes sense. None of it makes any sense. But that's the situation. Hopefully he's not stepping barefoot on any Lego bricks because that would be pretty bad.

Anyway, I hope he's having a great day with the fam. But between us kids, we've got Dave Bittner coming up shortly. I'm going to bring you up to speed on some of the news. And if you want to stick around to the end, Dave and I talk about my stroke recovery a little bit. It's kind of not the greatest topic in the world.

But a lot of people have asked me about it since I mentioned it on the show. So I wanted to do some follow-up and talk about what it's like a little bit more. But like I said, I put it at the very tail end of the show. So if it's not something you're interested in, skip it. By all means, just skip it.

How about a little follow-up? Jeff Bezos this week has been upset with his tailors at Blue Origin because apparently his schlong was not looking as good as it should. So instead of everybody looking at his space penis, the rocket, he wanted people to look at his real penis.

And he's very upset with his people about this. So he's having them redo his suit so his nuts look bigger. Great. Just what I wanted. Because you know that's what everybody's going to look at the next time he shows up in that damn suit. But, you know, there are some good things coming out of the Blue Origin story.

And I think this is a great story. Paul Wesley, who is an actor, is going to be playing James Kirk in Season 2 of Star Trek Strange New Worlds, which Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 1 hasn't actually aired yet.

So that's interesting. Which, by the way, that's coming May 5th for Season 1. And since Star Trek is, in fact, greater than Star Wars, they're going for Star Wars Day Plus One. So I wish them luck on that. Safe journeys. I hope the show doesn't suck. But the cool part about this whole thing was the reason this guy got the job is he was on a plane next to Shatner after Shatner had done the Jeff Bezos Amazon Blue Origin, boom, up to the Carmen Leinen back ride.

And so they got to talking about it. And not too long later, he gets to be James Kirk. So that is a pretty awesome story. Now, you did notice when they did go up in the Blue Origin, they wore seatbelts, but there was no steering wheel. Well, apparently on the new cars in the United States, the NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, I've had to read – see, I can't even say that.

I've had to read that name probably 100 times for ads on other shows, and it still ties my tongue. Okay, so what's happened is the NHTSA has decided to come up with some new rules for, like, fully autonomous vehicles, ones that have no drivers.

They're not supposed to have drivers. It is all computer-controlled. They have finally come out and said, okay, you can really get away with the actual controls. We don't need a steering wheel anymore, which is basically the big deal, because it was part of the testing.

And it's an old rule, and honestly, if you don't have any people driving it, why are you going to have a steering wheel? Have the big red button to stop the damn thing, I guess. Or a parachute in case you fall off a cliff. Who knows? But they're saying that you don't need that anymore, so that's pretty good. Now, in other EV news, Rivian, who we have talked about on the show and made fun of for their valuation at this point, they just keep going down the crapper.

They have hit a new low. I just checked. It's come up a little bit. It's like $41.67, which is way low off the IPO price. Here's the thing. If I had any money right now, I would be buying the shit out of them, but I don't. But I think the idea behind these trucks and all the vehicles that they're doing is good.

And everybody I know that's driven them has had nothing but amazing things to say about them. So I'm going to go with it's probably going to work out okay in the end, you know? And, yeah, who knows? Maybe someday I'll buy one because I like trucks now. Go figure. That's another thing that I never would have believed myself.

Okay, I like dogs now because I used to be a cat person. I used to be a car person. Now I'm a truck person. I don't know what's happened to me. I just don't know. And I also do know, though, what has happened to this stupid Dune project. Remember the NFT DAO that bought the Dune Jodorowsky manuscript and they thought that they were going to be able to make their own show out of it?

And they're like, oh, copyright, boo-hoo, bad for us. Well, they're back and they're actually trying now to take what they got from the, you know, actual buying of the book and are trying to do an animated series loosely based on. In all of this crap, they're trying to jump through all of these copyright hoops because they basically bought a book for $2 million and they're trying to figure out how to do it.

It's fun. Check out the link. You can see how those are going. And in a little NFT consolidation news, which I just, I have to unpack a little more, but Bored Apes maker Yuga Labs has acquired CryptoPunks. I don't, I don't understand it.

I don't understand it. But when it comes to NFTs, there's a lot I don't understand. In the news. And just a quick rundown of some of the fun news.

Tech CEOs are going to face faster criminal liability in the UK if this new bill passes. So this is kind of interesting. They're really going after the actual CEOs and want to send them to prison if they don't toe the line.

Now, is it going to work? I don't think so. I mean, we've done this enough to see that, you know, no matter what bills these pass or what bills get passed, people find a way around them. They have, you know, billions of dollars worth of lawyers to find loopholes if they can't afford the politicians to buy them off to spike the vote at the very end.

Either way, it's probably going to be toothless. But, you know, if any good comes of it and social media platforms or basically any big platforms that have user-generated content, if they don't get the stuff down fast enough, the CEOs can face jail time and massive fines, according to this.

So, you know, is it going to see the light of day? Probably not. But, hey, hope springs eternal. We are hopeful on this show. But also over in the UK, I thought this one was really interesting. Basically, they still have cryptocurrency ATMs over there, right?

So you can go and, I guess, buy some crypto with the ATM or swap it up. I've never used one, never kind of got the idea of it. But I guess if you're looking to get some Bitcoin for ransomware, they are perfect in a GIF. The problem in the UK is that they really don't have any of them that have been allowed by the government yet, which is fairly interesting.

So they have the Financial Conduct Authority. And the Financial Conduct Authority said that the ATMs must be registered with a watchdog to make sure that they comply with Blighty's Money Laundering Regulations. Blighty's Money Laundering Regulations.

Say that 10 times fast. Problem is, nobody's been greenlit yet. So any crypto ATM that is still wandering around the UK, illegal. So caveat emptor. But caveat emptor anyway, because who's going to stick their money into a box that just says crypto ATM on it?

I mean, it could just be a skimmer. What are you people thinking? I don't know. But Stripe is going to try and give crypto a little bit of credibility because they have just opened up their full suite of tools. So instead of, you know, selling them the gold, they're going to sell them the shovels and the whores.

So you can get APIs to run crypto and NFT collections and exchanges and all this crap with the Stripe back end. Good for them, Stripe. If somebody's got to do it, Stripe should be doing it. They did it originally in 2014 and then they pulled out in 2018. So it's interesting to see them come back in at this point, trying to jump back in on the game.

So we'll see how that works. I don't know if anybody can do it, Stripe can, because I like those guys better. What is God? What did Jack rename his company now? Block. Yes, I think he named it Block. So Stripe versus Block. We'll see who wins on that one. My money is on Stripe.

Now, Amazon is temporarily relocating employees from its downtown Seattle office following a rise in violent crime. Now, if their staff is part of a crime wave so much that they have to be removed from the area, seriously, Amazon, it is time to give them a raise.

If they're going around, whenever they come to work robbing the locals because they can't pay the bills and feed the babies, give them a couple more bucks. It is cheaper than shoveling them off to an undisclosed location somewhere where they can, you know, rob each other, I guess. But I know you guys have, you know, made huge strives in your minimum wage compliance and actually paying more.

I think it's time to give them a little more because this, you know, robbing the locals is a bad look for everybody. So please, Amazon, just fix this one. It's your, you know, it's your main Seattle location. Please, you're embarrassing everybody. And also embarrassing everybody is Vimeo.

Vimeo has decided to take the quote unquote 1%, the highest 1% of their bandwidth users and make them pay what Vimeo is paying. Because since it is a, you know, a straight exchange of money for service, unlike being sold on YouTube, that's why you get to host for free on YouTube.

They put ads against it. Vimeo is basically a video hosting platform with a player. Thank you, Vimeo. Problem is, yeah, Vimeo didn't really think that far down the line, I guess. And now they're having problems and are saying, hey, where's the sprinklers? We're going to turn the sprinklers on now because there have been too many people living on our lawn for free.

And we say it time and time again. And it's what happens. So it looks like they're being fairly aggressive about the terms of kicking people off. They're like, yeah, you got 20 minutes. Pay up or get out. And some people are not paying up.

Some people are paying up because they have to. But they're definitely going to be moving off. Patreon is stepping up right now, too, trying to come up with a new video hosting package for Patreon users. I'm sure that'll be cheap. But, you know, they've probably got a lot more money than Vimeo does right now. So we'll see how that plays out.

I just think Vimeo has handled this horribly by just, you know, going out and kicking off people who obviously have platforms that they are talking to. I mean, who did they think that they were going to be, you know, poking on this one? Anyway, there it is.

At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty. Fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead.

With brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com.

Security? Ha! Joining us today is Dave Disco Shit Pitner. Dave is the host of the Cyber Wire podcast, host of the social engineering podcast, Hacking Humans, with Joe Kerrigan.

And finally, he's the co-host of Caveat with Ben Yellen, where they discuss law and policy and surveillance and privacy. And I'm pretty much guaranteeing disco shit will never come out of Ben Yellen's mouth. You guys started that last week. You guys started that.

How about disco tinkle? Disco tinkle. Because really, that's when I get up in the middle of the night, which I would say 99 times out of 100, getting up in the middle of the night means I'm going to pee and not poop.

Oh, that's what it's for. TMI. Welcome to this edition of TMI with Dave. Well, here's the thing. The reason I bring it back up is I bought one of these things. I got some follow-up on your recommendations last week. So I picked one back up, and it was the same one that I used to have that I reviewed previously on the show.

And, yeah, it really doesn't matter much if you're taking a dump. I'm like, you know, middle of the night, sit down. I'm like, well, this isn't much of a disco, is it? You know? No, no. Because you're covering the lights. No, no, exactly. It turns out, yeah, your body has a lot of absorption when it comes to light.

So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Better wall than window we are. Yes, exactly. But it's nice to have it back. So I'm glad you talked about it last week. You've got a couple other things you've talked about, too. So, Pillow, tell us, how's this Magic Pillow?

Are you a better rested Dave now? I am. I have to say, I am. It's been about a week now, and I really like this pillow. It is a combination of soft, fluffy cloud when you put your head down on it.

But there's a firmer core in the middle of it that has some kind of memory foam that gives it a little – the bulk and the structure that you want out of a good pillow. So it seems to fit the size of my body and the way that I sleep.

And I don't know to what degree that was all the questions that they had me answer when I ordered the thing. But I have to say, so far, so good. It's the best pillow I've had in ages. Awesome. Okay. Well, that's a good sign then because I always like to follow up on the pillow thing.

You've got to give it at least a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Pluto Pillow is who it is. And no sponsorship or anything. I just – somehow I saw it come by, and I thought, well, what do I have to lose? Well, $100 is what I have to lose.

Well, yeah, there's a quantifiable amount of money that we can pin on this. Yes, that could – but so far, so good. So money well spent. I'm, again, at that age where sleep is really valuable, good quality sleep, I'll take it.

With everything going on in the world, if you can help me sleep, shut up and take my money. Well, let me introduce you to our lord and savior, THC. Yes, yes. Well, there is that, and it is legal here in Maryland, and it's a good thing. I recommend My Sleep by the fruit company, F-R-O-O-T.

That also is a game changer. And I tell you what, if you ever do try them, you will ask yourself the very same question I did is, why are these guys even bothering putting THC in their gummies? Because these are the most delicious gummies I've ever had in my entire lifetime. Really? Which makes it difficult when you're trying to, you know, not have too many of them because it can be dangerous.

Right. I would think so. But they are the hands-down most delicious gummies I've ever had in my life, which I said is problematic. So I want to take you down a little story here that's going to lead us to a couple of things. So I have some travel coming up next week for work.

I'm going down to a conference. It's the Hack the Port Conference in Fort Lauderdale. So this is my first trip since, in two years, RSA 2020 was the last time we traveled for work. I remember. And, yeah, so, you know, mostly excited about that.

I think it's going to be nice to get out. And certainly Fort Lauderdale during spring break, not a bad place to be. And looking forward to a good event. One of the things that I've been working on with my audio editing team, Elliot and Trey, is we've been testing out some mics to – we're trying to find a better mic to send out to kind of, you know, VIP guests who we send mics out to.

And also I've been looking for a better travel mic for me. Yes. And so we bought this Rode VideoMic 2. Yes. I guess it's a new-ish mic from Rode. It's a very new-ish mic. It's a little baby – is it?

Yeah, yeah. I covered it on the show about three weeks ago. Yes. Okay. It is a little baby shotgun mic. It is adorable. And I have to say, so far, so good. It's a $100 mic. I've been very impressed with the sound quality from it.

It's very directional as a little shotgun mic should be, which is helpful when you're trying to record voiceover in a hotel room or even a noisy – even like sending it out to guests. It's much more forgiving than all of those like the Yeti mic or the Audio-Technica mic that pick up every echo in the room.

It's lightweight. It is USB-powered if it needs to be. It's USB-C. You can plug headphones into it, so you get zero delay audio through that. No adjustments, no buttons, no knobs.

It all works through your computer's interface. So, so far, so good. I'm going to try it out on my trip this coming week. All the test files, we seem to be very pleased with it. So, I will keep you posted on that as it goes.

But it led me down – Here's the other shoe. Yeah, that led me down a little path. So, one of the things that I like about this mic is that you can plug it directly into your mobile device. And in my case, that means an iPhone. So, I got this mic and one of the things I don't like is that in terms of cabling, the only thing it comes with is an eighth-inch stereo cable.

A little, you know, foot-long eighth-inch stereo cable. So, it's designed to plug this mic into your camera, your DSLR. I mean, this is primarily a video camera microphone. Correct, which is what I use it for. And I would say that that cable – save that cable. It's not a normal 3.5-millimeter cable.

It actually does power, too. So, make sure you hang on to that, puppy. It is important. Well, that's where I'm going, Jason. That's where I'm going. All righty. Because I was thinking to myself, I'm looking at this mic and I'm looking at the lovely little USB-C connector on the side of it. And I'm looking at my iPhone and I'm looking at the lovely little lightning connector on the bottom of it.

And I'm going through my drawer full of cables and I pull out a USB-C to lightning cable and I plug in the mic and I plug in the iPhone. Nothing. Yes, sir. I'm like, all right. Well, it's fine. Let me see. Maybe I have a bad cable here.

Maybe this is a cable that only passes power. And surely a cable that passes power and syncs with the computer, that should work because we're passing power and data. So, I went and I found another cable. Plugged it in. Nothing. Found another cable. Nothing. Started, you know, stringing together adapters, regular USB-A to USB-C adapters, right?

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Finally, frustrated with all of this, I did some digging and I found out there is a special cable. There is a special lightning to USB-C cable and the magic word, the magic word is accessory cable.

Yep, that's it. That's it. It's not the cable that I was just talking about. But yes, that accessory cable is important. Yeah. I found that out myself. Yes. Okay. So, this is not news to you, but this was all news to me. Right. So, I now have an accessory cable on the way.

So, I now have an accessory cable on the way. Let me just highlight my annoyance here that – so, now I'm going to have another cable in my life that looks exactly like all the other cables. The only difference is it has a little, tiny, little, little, tiny logo that looks like a camera on it.

And that's how I'll know it's different. I'm going to put some kind of label on this thing or, I don't know, hit it with some silver Sharpie or something that lets me know that it is the magical, blessed cable that allows the microphone to plug directly into my iPhone. Dave, see, it's like you almost listened to this show.

Yeah, we covered basically everything you just went through on a previous episode because I had the same issue when I discovered – I'm like, what the hell is an accessory cable? I was like, what? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, this gets me to another thing I wanted to talk about, which is cable management and how do you decide when to throw things away?

Okay. Because when I was going – so, I'm going through this whole thing and I'm getting more and more wound up because I'm trying all these different cables. And I'm thinking to myself – in my ignorance, I'm thinking to myself, what am I doing wrong here? What's going wrong here? Not knowing that there was a super secret, barely labeled cable that existed in the world.

Yes. So, imagine my desk just covered with cables. Just every – like, there is – I mean, I got a Firewire 800 cable sitting here on the desk, right? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's time for an intervention. Right.

So, what I'm trying to contend with is how long do you keep obsolete cables around? How do you decide when it's time to throw away a cable or send it out for recycling or – or do you just have a box full of all your obsolete cables that you keep somewhere just in case on the off chance that you need one?

What's your strategy for this? What's your strategy for this? Well, I've put a lot of thought and time and effort into this, which – I figured you had. Yes.

Which, in my new life as a stroke survivor, I would not be doing that, the same things that I've done in the past, which is take a weekend, take out every cable I owned, lay them out on the floor, put them in their own bins, look at cables that are somewhat obsolete now, like that weird-shaped USB plug that went into, like, printers back in the day, kind of square, kind of rectangle.

Got a couple of those, and then the question comes down to, well, okay, I've got eight of them. Now, I know I don't need eight of them. I know a variation of size would be good, but if I need this thing, I can probably get away with going for a long one. So, let's keep a long one, a really, really long one, because that will be the easiest one to use.

Okay, keep one of those. Now, what if that one dies, and I don't know it, and it's an emergency, and I really need this really obscure cable to find the Ark of the Covenant at 3 a.m. on a Sunday? What am I going to do? Well, I can't run to the store, so I have to have a backup.

So – Of course you do. You're not a monster. Yes, absolutely. So, you have to keep a backup, of course, yes, and I – then once I have the backup, the other part of my brain says, but what if the backup goes bad? You know, two is one and one is none, so does that mean three is two?

Well, in my books, yes, it does. So, for every cable I've ever owned, I have a legacy stash of three of that type of cable in a box in my storage locker that honestly has come in handy more times than I can remember, which is why I stick with my scheme, my three scheme.

Every now and again, it is going to come to pass that you are going to need a MIDI cable for something. Maybe not you, but somebody you know is going to be in desperate need of a MIDI cable after Guitar Center is closed. Well, guess what? You are now a fucking hero, my friend, because you have three sets of MIDI cables.

From horror to hero. Yep. Rolled up and ready to go at a moment's notice. Right. So, yep, you just saved the jam session, my friend, and that is why I still keep all those cables around. And nowadays, I just, I don't even care that much anymore.

I have them, I have Tupperware containers, like medium-sized ones that all have, buy a label maker, the best thing in the world. And what I did, by the way, with my accessory cable is I printed a label and wrapped it around and like pinched it with the thing that just said road on it at both ends.

So, I know where it goes. But yeah, that is my cable management thing now. Because right now it's like, I'll talk about it in the stroke bit a little bit more. But when it comes to stupid things like that, like taking a day of your life to organize your cables, that's really dumb.

Throw them in a box, put them away. They don't take up that much space. You can find them later if you need it. Now, if it's a Firewire 800 cable, Dave, and the technology has been sunsetted, send it to us. Send it to your friend who has a museum of old cables because you've got a friend who's like that.

We've all got one somewhere. So, send it to them or, you know, throw it in recycling. But you don't need to keep, you know, once it has been sunsetted, like I don't have SCSI cables. I don't have Apple-type cables. Yeah, see, SCSI cables is a good example, right?

I do not have any SCSI cables anymore. I kept those for 10 years after the spec was dead. That was enough. I feel like they're taxes, you know? So, you keep cables like taxes, 10 years. That's it. Right. So, keep active.

Active technology, I think I keep closer at hand. But then the other stuff can go into storage where, you know, I feel like we're slipping down into the prepping conversation again. It's like, well, if I can get to these cables within an hour, then I'll be good.

Then I'll be the hero. Right, right. We're kind of like Rambo meets Marie Kondo. That's how it goes. Yeah. You know. Rambo. Yeah. Yeah. And also on the road mic two things.

So, I've got, what is this thing called? Where is it? Oh, here it is. Small Rig. Have you heard of the guys at Small Rig? No. They make basically camera cages and all sorts of cable management stuff. Once I got the road video mic two or the go two, I think it's a go two is what they're called.

Yes, that's right. I wanted a mounting option for my phone so I could, you know, use it with my phone, basically. Yeah. Because I'm trying to do these different video setups. And so what I researched was Small Rig.

And I actually bought kind of a phone rig that kind of turns it into a Steadicam. It's got a handle on it, but it's big so you can hold it. I'll send you a picture of it and I'll put it in the show notes. So, it's universal so it'll fit basically up to like a pretty decent sized phablet almost.

On the front, I added another clamp that actually holds a battery. So, I can actually run a battery to it if I need to. With an adapter, I'd have to get some kind of an adapter for the phone because of just the way the microphone works. But I was just going crazy buying accessories, but it's got cold shoes on it to mount the microphone on two different sizes.

And it's basically built so you can just add accessories to it. It is kind of just a rack for accessories. That's what I've got my Nikon Z9 in where the actual video go to is on. But you should check out these little small rigs for your trip. If you're going to be using your phone and the microphone, it'll give you something to actually, you know, hang on to.

Yeah. All right. Well, put a link in the show notes if you think about it and I'll send it over. I'll check that out for sure. Are you pleased with the Rode mic so far? I am. And it's funny that you're doing those tests because I was going to do the same test. I'm like, do I really need to have, you know, this RE20 when I'm doing a Zoom call?

No, I don't. But I don't want to have, you know, a lav on that's going to scrape or anything like that. So I was going to actually hook it up to my computer and give it a shot for that because the video stuff that I've gotten is decent. It's decent. It's definitely better than the old video mics from Rode.

Because if you take those apart, I don't know if you ever did. If you take the tube off of it or the foam core thing that's at the end of it and you actually expose the tube, this tube is literally like a cardboard tube with a little mic thing at the very end of it.

It's not as fancy as these. Okay. Yeah. Well, as I said, I'm hoping that these could work to send out to people too. And one of the things I like about it is the simplicity of it. You know, unlike a Yeti mic, it's hard for someone to talk into the wrong end of it, you know?

Oh, I'm sure people will figure out a way, Dave. People will figure out a way. They will find a way, yes. Yes. You're correct. You're correct. Absolutely. The Yeti. For the higher, higher end guests, the Shure MV7 is also doable for sending out, but you're looking at a $250 hit on that one, which is, that's why I said a really good guest, really good guest.

But those things are comparable to the Shure SM7B from the internal side. They're just a little pop heavy, which is why I'm still in the market for something like that. So this might be the trick. I will check it out. All right. Cool. Before we move on to our next gripping topic, I do actually want to talk about something that is a gripping topic, which is that microfiber cloth with the rubber on it that you also mentioned on the last episode.

Yeah. Never in a million years, like you said, would you think you would need that, but that is a game changer. It's a game changer. I know. Isn't it? Isn't it? Yeah. I clean my iPad now without my fingers rubbing on the screen because the cloth stuck and then my hand just made another giant grease print across it.

Nope. You wipe it once and you're done. It's great. I love the things and they say, don't panic on it, which is even better. Yeah. It's a good reminder. And I just, the thing about it, it's a simple idea, well executed, and it elevates that thing to the next level, makes it way more usable.

So I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've been using the heck out of the ones that I have as well. Yeah. Yeah. No, Dave's gear corner turned out to be a bountiful, very bountiful. So keep it up. I will. I will. You might have a future in this history.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we talked in the past about how kids don't know how to use file systems anymore. And we both took our sides of the Maginot line there and figured out who was on where. I still think people need to use regular file systems.

You think these modern kids might be okay without it. And I saw this come across that Google now has some new search tools for Google Drive. And I thought of you. And just to see that people are making more progress, or at least Google's making more progress with how you find files in a very large file system.

And it turns out, you send the marketing department at it, and you take what we used to call parameters, and you turn them into now chips. Chip. Let's get a chip. Search chip. It's literally the same thing. It's a search parameter that they've had on Google search forever.

But now, since it is on Google Drive, they, for some reason, want to call them chips. So they're just sort of filters? Yeah, filters, parameters. It's like, okay, only search in titles. Okay. That is now a search chip. Okay.

Show me search only in titles from something that was made in the past three weeks. Okay. And on another chip or another parameter. So I'm saying, I don't know why they did this, but it's nice that they're actually, you know, putting this stuff up in front of the user now.

So it's easier to find files because, yeah, you have, you know, multiple terabyte Google Drive. It can become hard to find things. Trust me on that one. Yeah, absolutely. I know. No, I know. I know very well. No, we use Google Drive here and it giveth and it taketh away, right?

It do. It do. It's be careful what you ask for. Unlimited storage. That sounds great. Ha ha ha. That's how they get you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Gotcha, mofo. So yeah, check this article out for the folks who are curious about that. But it seems like at least Google is starting to make inroads for people who don't know how file systems work or lose their files often.

Mm-hmm. We also talked about the Berenstain Bears in the past. Yes. Berenstein, Berenstain. And I just thought it was funny because this was over at Forbes, someplace I generally don't look for articles, but I like the title. Grimes ditching Elon Musk for Chelsea Manning has the internet questioning reality.

And I'm like, yeah, that is a kind of a strange one. Let's look at that. They actually got me with a headline on that one. I'm like, does that say what I think it says? I don't know if this has reached the halls of the illustrious cyberwire, but have you guys covered this or talked about it or even saw it and scratched your head and go, what the hell?

No. This is the first I've seen of this, and I would have been okay never seeing it. But it is, yeah, lifestyles of the rich and notorious. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe that kid's name or the multiple kids now, now that they've had two kids, maybe those names are like some kind of ancient runes that are actually, you know, meant for splitting universes.

Right. They're summoning spirits from the underworld and who knows what they're unleashing on our world. Yeah, because things are just too weird. And this is right at the pinnacle, right at the pinnacle of didn't see that one coming. Mm-mm. Really didn't see that one coming.

No, that's crazy. You know, the heart wants what the heart wants, though. So. I guess. I guess. I try not to judge. But even though it's fun sometimes. It is fun. We wouldn't have a show without it. Oh, man. And speaking of reality, yes, Zelensky has been deepfaked now.

And someone has put out a, and I am kind of sloth to use the term deepfake on this, because it's really not that deep. It's kind of a really bad fake. Have you had a chance to check it out yet? Yes, I have. And you are correct.

It's not a good fake, is it? No, not particularly. It's pretty amateurish. But I think it takes advantage of, there's a whole bunch of people who want to believe what they want to believe, right?

Yeah. So you just have to be in the right ballpark, and they'll be there and say, look, look, look here. Look, here's proof. Yeah. I think this is significant just, yeah, I think this is significant just because this is, I think this is actually historic, that this is the first time in an armed conflict that we are seeing this technique used, and certainly more to come.

It sets a precedent. How do you punish someone for doing this? How do you establish if this is an acceptable norm or not? I would imagine, you know, at some point, this will become part of the rules of armed conflict and so on and so forth. Well, I mean, this goes back to, I mean, yeah, this is, you know, battle line propaganda like in the old days, you know?

Sure. In the war, in World War I and World War II, they would have, you know, loudspeakers sending out fake news across the line. So I don't see this as any different. It's just, you know, the type of tactic is all that's changed. But it's also not going after frontline soldiers as much as the peoples.

So it's interesting. It's definitely an interesting case, but it is historic for sure. I just wish it would have been historically better done. But I guess, you know, I... It's probably good that the first one is so easy to debunk, right?

That's true. That's true. Yeah. To establish that as a standard and put people on notice to be skeptical of these things, it's probably good that this is, that this one is so easy to do that with, that it's more effective. Maybe we made it to put it out there to say, hey, look, this is what these things look like and not make it too good.

I don't know. You really don't want somebody knocking on your door, Jason. You really don't want somebody knocking on your door. I know. You're busy enough as it is. It'd be a good double fake though. Come on. It would be good. Yeah. Okay. Well, just saying. I don't know why this popped into my head when I was watching the deep fake.

I'm like, Dave put more effort into someone blinking in a commercial in After Effects probably two decades ago than these people put into this deep fake to try and shake the free world. I don't know why I thought of that story you told us about the eyelids and the blinking.

Right, right. But it's a funny thing of sometimes when something gets easier, it allows you to be sloppier with it. You know, the harder, the more work it takes to do something, does that mean that you're going to sweat the craftsmanship more than you would when you can just press a button?

I wonder about that. Yeah, it's an interesting way to think about it. Well, speaking of the conflict, Russia has decided to ban Instagram of all people and Russian influencers are very, very upset. Very, very, very upset.

They're losing access to millions of their fans. So hopefully if the oligarchs ain't doing the job, maybe the influencers will. If we, you know, we've been taking, how many yachts we got now? We got 99 yachts and Putin ain't one of them on one of them.

So, we got to go after the influencers. Well, you know, I was thinking about the yachts. Like, what do you do with one of those yachts? So you take the yacht, do you stick it on eBay? Like, who, there's a limited market for those sorts of things. Who's going to, do you just sit it, do you sink it?

Do you sell it for parts? That's where you keep all your board apes. Yeah. What do you, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Turn it into a lunch and dinner cruise boat? I don't know what you do when you have one of those giant yachts taking up space. Yeah.

The Instagram thing, though, is interesting because that whole thing with Meta letting Facebook people say nasty things about the Russians within limits, it's very, very strange the way that this whole thing is unfolding with the companies.

And don't even get me started on Elon and Putin. That just, stop. Just stop right now. Please. The rumble in the gulag. In this corner. Elon Musk. In this corner. Vladimir Vladimirovich.

Two men go in. One man comes out. And a country is at stake. Yeah. Yeah. You're not helping, Elon. You're not helping. But I think, Dave, I think you just nailed the trailer. I think you nailed the trailer, so let's get on that. Right. Fine. Instagram and Kanye.

Right. Instagram boots Kanye for a little bit. That's fine. Russia boots Instagram. It makes me feel very, very much a Yakov Shmirnov, you know? Right. Right. In Soviet Russia, social media watch you.

And what, well, so another thing I've been thinking about is to what degree does Russia end up an isolated state? You know, could we, so let's use North Korea as the gold standard currently in the world. You know, total isolation, you know, stuff goes back and forth between them and China, but overall, you know, mostly isolated.

And so- We're looking at 100% cancellation rate on North Korea, give or take. Right. Right. So how far are we going to go with Russia? I think that the Russian leadership are very surprised at how uniform the response has been internationally of kicking them out of the world economy.

I don't think they expected it to be what has become of it, so- Oh, yeah. No, they were not expecting to get canceled. Not at all. Yeah. But that's what's happened. I mean, you know, we have established cancel culture for, you know, people who jerk off into plants.

Well, if you jerk off into a neighboring country with your army, we're going to do the same thing to you. That's just how it rolls nowadays. We're going to Louis C.K. your ass. You have a gift for metaphor. I do. I do. Yeah.

So it's, you know, that's what the world knows now. We have trained the entire planet to think that it's okay to cancel somebody. So when an entire country does something dumb, the rest of the world says, hold it, bro.

You know, you can't Leroy Jenkins this shit. You got to slow down and take it easy. We just don't play like that anymore, you know, and get my pronoun right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's all. That's all I got so far for that.

I did get a text this morning, and I thought you might like it. I put it in the show notes here. Dave, can you see it? Yeah. Is this the picture? That's the picture. So I did the reverse Google image search, and all I could find basically are, pictures of this woman in stories about people getting texted with pictures of her.

Oh, great. That's great. Yeah. There was one person that tried to figure out that she was an actual person on Facebook, and the profile that I went to were there two girls kissing, and I couldn't tell if it was her or not. I think Brittany, BB were her initials.

You can Google it. I'll have it somewhere. Actually, yeah. I'm going to have to dig it up because I can't put embedded images in the show notes. I'll dig it up and figure out a way that you can check the link and see the girl that we're talking about here. But yeah, like whole towns have been getting plagued by this girl.

What do you guys know about this so far over at the cyber lawyer? Yeah, this is the first I've seen of this. I have a scoop. She says, ha, you probably do not remember me, but I was hoping Yaa would be willing to help me have a little fun today like the last. All right.

So we're contradictory within that sentence. You don't remember me, but I'm hoping we can have fun like we did the last. So if you don't remember her, how fun could it have possibly been? Good point. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's an attractive young lady, but not too attractive to draw undue attention to her attractiveness, you know?

Girl next door. Yeah, girl next door. Sure. So what else? So is this a standard thing? You get this and then there's a link, click here to find out more, or is this just the first step in trying to hook you into something else where she's waiting for a reply from you?

I do believe this is the first step. There was, let me pull it up. Yeah, that's actually it. That is everything in the text. Okay. And then there's a phone number, so you can reply and go from there.

Is it the phone number that the text came from? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's the number. Okay. Would you like it? I can give it to you. I'm good. I'm good. Okay. I'm sure it's probably blocked by now, but. I'm not going to be your guinea pig. I thought maybe you had some special cyber wire bat phone that you could plug in things like that.

No, I mean, I certainly, you know, there are people I know who I could send it to, but I'm not going to mess with it myself. I, I, I know, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Okay. Uh, so I thought this was interesting that, you know, it was obviously somebody else's photo in a really poorly written text, but yes, it came with no link whatsoever.

And then I got to thinking, Hmm, could the, is there a way for them to deal with the image? Because I was thinking in HTTP versus MMS, I'm like, Ooh, you'd like, you know, if I sent you a link to an image and it loads that image inside of your, say email client, I get all of the info from your IP address and, you know, state and all that stuff that you get with a standard HTTP request.

But I guess you wouldn't get that with an MMS. So they're not going to get any information back from me at all. So this is basically just a one way blast phishing for somebody to write back. And I, something like we talk about a lot over on hacking humans is that I think a lot of these things are written in such a way that they are filtering for people who are more gullible.

Right. Like sometimes the, the broken English or the sort of outlandish story, um, helps them get folks who are more likely to fall for things than folks who are critical thinkers. Good point. And so if this is the first step and they're just blasting this out to everybody for every reply they get, that's someone who's very likely to fall for this.

So. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they do with the Nigerian scams. That's right. They basically, they want everybody to think they're stupid and ignored because when people do actually reply, they're like, we got a live one, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Pre-qualifies them. It's sad, but true. That's right. That's right. Oh man.

Pre-qualified idiots. That's pretty much it. There's your show title. Just making a note of that. Good news. You've been pre-qualified. Yeah. It's an idiot. See, and now I've, now I've hit a crossroads, Dave, because I would like to use this girl's image for the show art, but who owns the copyright?

I don't know. I can guarantee it's not me. And, but is she a public figure now? Because she is on the news and I have seen this photo on the news. So I'm going to roll the dice. We're going to go for it. Yeah. Live a little. Odds are they're not going to come at you.

Yeah. Hey, and maybe she'll find me if we had so much fun times, you know? That's right. That's right. This, this, this presupposes that, that you have had so many partners that you can't keep track of them. Right. That's right. So a little subtle compliment there, Jason.

All righty. I could, I could trust me. I could use it nowadays. Yeah. Couldn't we all? Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got Nick, Mark, and Mike. Welcome everyone. And over at PayPal, we've got Miles, Gary, Sherry, Derek, Natalie, Linda, Edward, Nathaniel, Dag, Ramsey, Michelle, and Tom.

Thank you so much. And over at the tip jar, we've got Sean, Theodore, and Linda. Thank you all so much. And a special thank you to Vincent for the, uh, the little extra cash for St. Patrick's Day. I appreciate that. I won't be having a drink, but it will be going to Kaiser who likes it very much.

The rye or the Kaiser. That's right. And over at reviews, Davi wrote in with a five star and about pie holes. Dear grumpies. I love the show and I can't wait every week for the next. So I started listening to the old ones from the newest to the oldest waiting for the time when the news will be outdated and irrelevant. Guess what? I don't think anything will be outdated even in the next decade.

I am now in 2020 when Brian was about to deploy a pie hole to block ads from tracking. How did it end? I believe it did not just because of the wifey. Uh, by the way, if it is still on a shelf, go and grab it because it takes only 10 minutes to set up. About your wife's desire to get some targeted ads of her choice.

I had the same issue with my wife. You can add those domains to a whitelist, but even better, if your network is segmented and your professional devices are segmented from the house and the guest network, you can add the pie hole only to the segment that you use. This is my tutorial for deploying the pie hole.

And we have a link for that in the show notes. Stay grumpy and hope to see you guys here in Toronto eventually. Yes, if Brian never makes it out of Legoland alive. So thank you very much, Davi. And sadly, we did lose William Hurt this week. He was a fine actor. He died at 71, seen basically everything he did.

Uh, lately he was in the show Condor, but not so much in season two. And I'm guessing he's not going to be in season three now. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo and hopefully Brian will find his way out of Legoland and join us next week. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks.

If you enjoyed the show, visit GOG.show slash donate to help us keep the lights on 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 545. From there, you can find links to everything we talked about in 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 and stick around if you want to hear some saucy stroke talk.

Well, I'm putting this little stroke update at the end of the show because while a lot of people have asked me how it's going, a lot of people haven't. So I don't want to throw that down anyone's throat, as it were. So Dave, it has been 89 days since I've had a drink for starters, believe it or not, which is people who know me will know that that is the most Herculean task out of everything that has happened to me.

But yeah, it's 89 days ago since I was taken to the hospital with the stroke while we're recording this. And it's crazy because it feels like it's been six years. Feels like it's been six minutes, but not three months. Right. How challenging has it been for you to not have a drink?

Do you struggle with that or are you just taking care of business when it comes to that? Turns out that was the easiest thing out of everything to get rid of. I'm like, doctor says I can't drink anymore. OK, done. OK. Yeah, there's some fallout from it just from, you know, the thing, you know, you take out something you do every day and then you don't do it anymore.

There's going to be changes and repercussions. Boredom being the main thing. It's like, I like to have a cocktail at night because I was bored. Now I get to be bored and, you know, cognizant of it. Great. Right.

You're more aware of your boredness, right? Of your boredom. Yeah. Because, you know, I used alcohol as a governor to basically slow my brain down. And now it's, you know, unleashed, as it were, which is a good thing and a bad thing. You know, when you think too much, bad things happen.

When you don't think enough, bad things happen. Trying to find that balance is always the hard part. But with a stroke, that was the funny part when it first happened. I felt like I was drunk anyway. Like, you know, I couldn't think right. I was confused all the time and I couldn't walk in a straight line. So I was like, perfect. I can save some money.

And by the way, I do save a lot of money. It's amazing how much money I spend on booze. Oh, yeah. Which is good because the hospital likes the money. They're like, OK, well, we'll trade you. You can have your past history or you can maybe live a few more years.

Still feel the same, but we'll take your cash. But it's been – yeah, it's – the drinking thing was actually the easiest part. I just like to throw it in there because people don't think that I could do it. Anybody who knew me were like, Jason, so – no, ain't going to happen. Well, it did.

Right. So suck it. Right. And they do say that, you know, was it three days, two weeks, and three months? Those are the hardest milestones when giving up any kind of substance addiction. So coming up on three months, we'll see how it goes. It really doesn't help – it doesn't help, though, that the doctors say that, you know, after three months after you have the – like the type of stroke that I had, the ischemic stroke, they're like, you can start drinking three months after the stroke.

I'm like, that's not the point. I'm trying to not. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You go, well, you can drink again. Well, I'm trying not to. Well, actually, I'm not even trying not to. It's not even in the cards, which is good. Lost almost 20 pounds so far. Wow. Yeah.

To what do you attribute the weight loss? Trying really hard. Yeah. That's basically been it. So to get – you know, to get your numbers where they need to be – I wasn't too far out of bounds with some of my numbers. Some of my numbers were way out of bounds. So I took the road where let's try and find the levers that can move the needle the fastest.

And what I found was salt was one of the things that I had to cut out of my diet, like extensively, like really cut it down. So I'm like, okay, well, let's look at how to get rid of salt. And when I started to research all the foods that I can eat to get me within a certain range of sodium per day, well, it turns out it excludes so many other foods, it is really hard to get fat if you keep your sodium intake to under 1,000 milligrams a day.

That was my genius moment was I'm like, well, crap. If I just keep my sodium to under 1,000 milligrams, if I find food that fit in there, I can eat like a pig and still lose weight. It is – that's what happened, you know?

So can you give me an example? Like what sort of thing – what do you enjoy eating now that is within bounds? Just my love of vegetables has definitely – I mean I've always loved vegetables. I'm not – they've never been a problem for me.

I love all kinds of vegetables, but it takes a while to cook them and it's a pain in the butt and you don't get as creative. I found that I've gotten extremely creative with vegetables and it is awesome. But even just regular, like sitting around the house instead of having a handful of chips, I'll grab celery or carrots and it's the same thing.

Your brain just picks it up. It's just, okay, have a snack. Boom, done. And when you take away the option of anything else, it's like, okay, you just do it. You know, it's an easier habit change when you don't have a choice. It's hard to say that, but when people have a choice, that's why, you know, fad diets exist and every other diet is like because you have a choice of going back to it.

But if you tell yourself you don't have a choice because you will die if you don't, it makes that choice easy. Right, your life is on the line. Yeah, it makes that choice extremely easy, but it, you know, in two ways. It's like, it frees you up from feeling guilty about telling people, no, I don't want to go to that place to eat or I don't want to go out to dinner because it's not going to be any fun.

I can't do anything. That guilt goes away. You just don't really care. That comes with other things with the stroke as well. The, the almost dying part turns off your give a fuck nozzle. You don't anymore. Trust me. Um, but it's, it just lets you eat a healthier lifestyle without thinking about it.

That's the whole point. You just take the thinking out of it. It's like, oh, you know, oh, I'll take, you know, I'll have a salad tomorrow if I eat this plate of in and out today. No, you can't do that anymore. There's no, there's no cheating like that. It doesn't, it, the only person you're cheating is you and you get to figure that out sitting in a hospital bed really, you know, easy.

And that comes, comes home to roost as well. It's like, oh, that's right. Most of this is my fault. Shit. Um, so it's easy to change the habit. So yeah, the sodium thing is easy. Vegetables have definitely taken a front row seat. Um, smelling meat now, raw meat is, makes me nauseous, which sucks because I still like to cook.

Yeah. Um, I, I, I still eat chicken. I still eat pork. I still eat, I eat a lot of fish and stuff like that. But the smell of, um, uncooked, uh, pork or chicken or beef kind of makes you nauseous.

And I think that happens to a lot of vegetarians too. And especially vegans, you just stop processing it and it just smells bad. That was an interesting one. But, uh, yeah, just getting through a lot of the physical stuff too has been, that's the hardest because I look like I'm a hundred percent from the outside and no, no, it's, it's very much like, uh, I think I said it on the show before, like Vincent D'Onofrio is the bug

guy and men in black, basically a bag of bugs trying to move a, a meat suit. A lot of days it's like that. And, uh, and it's funny, they have these, these different, uh, things that can happen to you as far as your sensations go. Like the way your body interprets things.

I still can barely feel, uh, temperature anywhere except my left hand. And it's where they, so they have, they have a couple of different things. I love this one. This one's called, uh, was it hypoesthesia, hypoesthesia, feeling less sensitive to touch. Then they've got, got hyperesthesia, which is feeling more sensitive to stimuli.

You can have both of these things at the exact same time. It turns out you can have hypo and hyper at the same time. Just depends on where in your body they kind of like to move around and, and express themselves. Feeling less sensitive to temperature is definitely a thing because I can walk outside in my shorts and t-shirt and my roommate will be like, what the hell are you doing?

It's like, you know, 40 degrees outside. I'm like, I can't tell the difference between outside and inside, which can be dangerous. Same thing with not feeling temperature. I've burned my hand a couple of times, not even known it. You know, I cut myself once, didn't even know it. So has it thrown off your body's temperature regulation?

In other words, do you still perspire? I haven't done enough exercise to perspire that much. I do get, I can feel that I get warmer. And, uh, if I do get too warm and I can get nauseous and I don't notice, I just, I just end up getting nauseous and I don't realize, oh, it's like almost 80 degrees in the house because I didn't have the, the AC on because I didn't feel it.

You know, dogs are sitting there panting, looking at me like, what are you doing to us? Right, right. You know, and I'm just going about my business wearing a, wearing my hoodie and my parka and you know, oh, whatever. Yo dude. And, uh, the, the sensitivity goes to the inside too.

Like, you know, when to go to the bathroom and things like that. And you don't go to the bathroom as much. I actually, well, yeah, pee twice as much. You almost never do the other one. Like every third day I'm lucky if I can, uh, take me a disco shit. Yeah. Too much information, but I had to, I had to slide in one more disco shit.

But do you think that's largely the result of the changes in diet that you're just not, you know, generating as much waste as you did before? Absolutely not. Cause I'm eating just as much, just as much actual material. And when I was vegetarian before actually made you get like five times, I was in the bathroom nonstop when I was a vegetarian before.

Huh? So it's had, it's had the opposite effect. And, um, I mean, my metabolism still works because I'm losing weight and I'm not exercising all that much. My, my physical therapy is a 30 minute walk every day. Cause that's all I can handle. After that, like I get very, um, confused and dizzy and I have to, I have to take a, like a very long break.

Um, cause they, they definitely say with, uh, with stroke recovery, you have half as energy, half as much energy as you used to have and everything takes twice as much. So I'm basically running on quarter impulse all the time. But you know, everything still seems to be going.

I'm, I'm sleeping better. I got my Casper pillow, which gets the job done. So I will try the, the Pluto pillow at some point just to try it. But how's your vision? You're having issues with that. Vision is very interesting. Um, I think this comes back to the fatigue as well.

And, um, now you can see why we put this at the end of the show. Um, my physically, my, my eyes are still jacked. Uh, I can look in the mirror or, and see that the pupil on one eye does not line up with the pupil on the other eye.

This is what I had. This is what I had when it first started and it's called diplopia. And basically it felt like the entire world was getting like, like, you know, I'm watching a TV and it does one of those spin moves where you just, everything's to start spinning. But everything was spinning 90 degrees to the left, but constantly.

It's like one of those notes that, you know, always is ascending like that, that, um, illusion, audio illusion. It was a visual illusion where everything kept spinning 90 degrees constantly. And I, I put a lot of work in at the beginning and forced like just through brute will forced my brain to, to line those images back up.

And it worked, it worked, uh, when I get super tired, if I like, you know, overexert myself or like I went out to my friend's barbecue on Sunday and I was there for an hour, like 90 minutes, which turned out to be 30 minutes too long. And it was, when I'm walking home, it started to happen again, like crossing the street, things started to turn.

So I have to be very careful about vision and energy, which is why I can't drive very far. Um, like I put a, I put a cap of 30 minutes on any amount of time in the car, like back to back just because I can't be driving and have the whole world start to fucking turn on me, you know?

Right. That would be very dangerous, especially in that big old Jeep I got. Yeah. Um, so that's the vision part, you know, it's just, it's really weird having your brain explode. It's, it's really, really weird.

And mine was minor. Mine was so minor. Most people who have strokes do not recover this fast, you know, and I can tell that there are a lot of things that aren't going to come back. So it's going to be, you know, just, I'm getting used to the parts that aren't going to come back and getting used to the parts that have shown up out of nowhere, you know?

Like what, like what's, do you have superpowers now? Okay. Well, here's where it comes down to the really like, you know, surreal parts. Um, I feel like I'm not the person that was here in December. I feel like I'm a completely different person that is watching somebody else's house, waiting for them to come home.

And I'm kind of going through the motions that that person went through because that's what I kind of know, but I want to do a whole bunch of other stuff that that other guy didn't do. I want to be, I feel like that guy. Yeah. I kind of hope he doesn't come back, but just in case he does, I'm still kind of keeping the lights on for now, but I don't know how long that's going to last.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's like, uh. So like you're a visitor in your own body in a way? Yeah, very much so. Very, very much so. And, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't help things when you do go from being like a 20 year alcoholic and drinking every day to not drinking.

Your brain is going to do weird things as it recovers. Recovering from a stroke at the same time, weird things are going to happen. And the physical weirdness with not being able to feel so much of your body all the time and not knowing where you are in space. All of these things contribute to just being really fucking trippy, man.

The whole thing is really, really trippy. So, yeah, that's kind of where it's at. So I don't know where things are going to go from here. Like, it's only been three months, but they say by three months, you can really start to tell where things are going to, you know, where things are going to be for quite some time.

But it is, it is encouraging seeing people say that, you know, doctors are doing people a disservice by saying to recovery, stroke recovery victims that, see, I can never remember if it's stroke recovery victims or stroke victims.

They change the nomenclature more than, you know, he, her, she, it. Right. You're a victim. Are you a survivor? Are you a, what the hell is it? Um, but they, they tell you that if it's not back by the end of a year, it's not coming back.

But in a lot of the groups, people are like, no, that's so not true. Took me three years, but this came back. Took me, you know, one person was like seven years and I can walk down to the drive or I can go get the mail by myself now. You know, if you stick with it, these things can come back, but it just takes a long time and a lot of work.

But you have to, you have to, do have to steel yourself for the fact that you are not going to do things that you used to be able to do. Period. End of story. You know, and at least I'm 50. It's not like it happened when I was 20 and I could be really bummed about it. I'm 50. I'm like, yeah, kind of been around the block.

Didn't really do much anyway. So, okay. Yeah. I'm not going to, I'm not going to run to the store anymore. Right. Right. It's a heck of a way for your body to tell you to slow down. But, you know, I have to say I've been very impressed with your attitude with all of this, that, that you are doing the work, you know, you're, you're taking it, you're taking it seriously.

You're doing the work, but you're also, it seems to me like you're approaching it philosophically of, isn't this an interesting experience that I'm living? And, you know, one day at a time, because I think, I think you're someone who is, is very much, very much enjoys intellectual stimulation and enjoys new, new things and learning new things.

You're always curious. And so, this is like, like you say, you're a guest in your own body now and what an interesting experience. And I'm sure, you know, there must be times when you're frustrated and tired and mad and sad and all those kinds of things. But what I've seen when we've been together is that you're also very curious about what's going on and you're engaged with this process, which I think, I don't know everyone would be that way.

Yeah. I don't think a lot of them are. I don't think a lot of people are. When I was in bed in the hospital waiting for, you know, somebody to come get me or do something, I would just kept reading up on all of what, basically what's happening, what's going to happen. And this was before they even told me it was a stroke. I just assumed it was.

And one of the things that kept standing out was that depression was the number one side effect of people who had one. And I'm like, well, that's good to know. How do we not have that? Let's not do that. Because it's like, you know, I have enough problems keeping that at bay already. Like, I don't need that now. This at least gives me something to do.

And, you know, I hate to say it's been a blessing, but it has definitely gave me a hell of a lot more perspective. And I think whatever time I do have left is going to be a lot, enriched a lot more than maybe the last 15 was, you know?

Yeah. It's, uh, it really, it really does give you a focus. Yeah. When, when you know that, oh, wait, yeah, no, it's going to end. It's going to end and it's going to be sooner than you want it to be. So how do you, how do you handle that?

And there's been a lot of introspection with that because I got a lot of time, you know, that's the one thing I do have right now is uninterrupted time to think and read and take things in.

Cause he's like, you said, I do like to learn a lot. So I've just been reading an insane amount. Well, my eyes can handle it. Then I got to go take another nap and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, it's, it's a process. It's, um, it's a process and working through triggers too. Like I mopped or I vacuumed the floor where it happened, where I was mopping the floor. So I got the vacuuming part down. I'll move up to mop in one day, but, um, things like that are really hard to get past.

And just, you know, anytime a little bit of a headache comes on, you just think there's like, okay, okay, shit, this is it. You know, it's, it is a, uh, to put it, uh, bluntly, it's a mind. It really is. Yeah. Yeah. So take care of yourself, Dave. Seriously. Keep an eye on those numbers. Don't get too stressed because it ain't worth it.

Oh, you know, it's a good reminder. It's a good reminder. Every day is a blessing, right? At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments,

QVC has what you need for the season ahead. With brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at qvc.com.