556: Leaning Out

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 I'm Brian Schulmeister. A little follow-up on the new studio, Brian. I have toured it. I have a draft lease in hand, and now it's just down to running numbers and finding people that'll help pay for it. You know, the hard part, the actual creation of the business. Yeah.

Yeah, the business part. The business part. The part that takes all the time, and it is very time-consuming. Lots of phone calls, lots of emails, lots of money.

Didn't we do a whole story, or a whole story, a whole episode a long time ago about starting up your own business and all that, and we were screaming about all the people that spent all the time worrying about getting their letters of incorporation together and placing their ads in the newspaper because you have to run three ads with the name of the company to make it legit.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we were always just like, make sure you have the actual work first. Yeah, yeah, you got that part. You definitely have to have the business first. I'm doing both at the same time because there's time constraints involved. But doing the numbers first is actually really humbling to figure out how much money it's going to cost to run that. How much money I have to make before I actually start making money. That's where the trout of truth comes slapping you in the face.

Ah, yes. Modeling and projections. Yes, yes. Little things that you forget about, like, oh, general liability insurance. Yeah. That's a must. Yeah. That's a must-have when you're going into your actual own real estate place, you know, not just one of these co-working places.

You have to have your own insurance. You have to pay for your own internet and things like that, and it all adds up. It does. It does. Even when I was working from home, you know, back when we had the Slender Fungus house, as it were, and we would have clients come over, we paid for insurance because, God forbid, a rock star trip on a rock outside of our house.

Yeah, seriously. Those guys aren't the most stable while walking most of the time anyway. No, definitely not. And then they trip, and then they have to cancel a tour, and then they sue you. Yep. That's all you need. That's all you need. And since I plan to do have quite a few celebrities in there, some of them will probably be inebriated, too, I'm guessing.

So I think insurance is good. But you have to even have that before you sign the lease, which is, you know, one of those things that I'm like, I never knew that. Yeah. I didn't know it at all. My roommate keyed me in. She's like, oh, last time we had an office, I paid for that. And I just kind of put it into the rent, and I'm like, oh, well, now I know.

So all of this is to say that things are moving along, and if you are in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, my email address is jpd.me. Reach out. I'm trying to get in touch with everybody around here that I can to kind of see what I can build out to help you.

Start a podcast. Come hang out and see the place. No, I do not want new podcasters. No, no, no. Dear God, no. Well, that'll be for the actual learn-how-to-podcast nights at the studio. There will be those. And I will actually be doing classes for people who just are interested in podcasting that live in the neighborhood, who want to come and learn about how to listen to podcasts and how to find podcasts, things like that.

So it should be fun. It should be fun. Cool. What's not fun is I got a couple of emails this week about – I don't know if it's an exchange or – I don't know what the hell it is. It's a crypto company called Uphold. Okay. Have you ever heard of them? Nope. Okay. Well, apparently somebody decided to sign me up for an account. Thanks.

I have to give Uphold's fraud department the highest marks. It took them about seven seconds from when I sent the email saying, hey, I didn't sign up for this. This is the email address. I'm getting stuff from you. Can you look into this? And they're like, within, you know, under 10 minutes – I think it was closer to seven, like I said – I got a slew of emails saying, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, cancel, cancel, cancel.

You know, everything's been taken care of. Please don't tell anybody. I am willing to bet all my Bitcoins and all my crypto holdings that they probably just bought mailing lists and did it themselves. I don't think anybody signed you up for it. There was an account. Yeah, there was. Oh, okay. Interesting.

Unless they signed up the account beforehand because I got – I basically got it on the ID verification stage. They're like, hey, you didn't finish your ID verification. Please come upload your driver's license. I'm like – Because I would say easily half my spam these days are attempts to get me to go sign up for various crypto holding companies.

You know, it's all that. Yeah. You've started the account process. Come here. There's blah, blah, blah in your account. And I've never signed up for any of these freaking things. Okay. Okay. It's a known spam technique for the cryptos. But yeah, I'm glad that Uphold took care of it.

At least they were on the ball. That's very nice of them. I got a little follow-up about the, of course, Texas, Texas HB20, that bizarre social media law that they tried to – that they passed, basically, that attempts to reframe large social platforms as common carriers similar to telecom companies and uses that logic to restrict the ability of platforms to limit the spread of, ban, or demonetization of content based on the viewpoint of the user.

This was basically put on hold by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling. It was an emergency request. So there was no need for the majority to define its reasoning. But so it's on hold. It'll continue passing through various different law parties and cases and blah, blah, blah.

It's just going to keep going on and on and on. But I found the interesting thing about this article that I was reading is, once again, it's the same myth that's been debunked time and time again. Even the lawyers were like, you are obviously attempting to appease Republicans here and conservative ideas and religious beliefs, because every single time that this has been put forward through this, and it's always saying, we're being unfairly targeted rightward.

We believe social platforms are working to silence conservative ideas and religious beliefs, and that the whole point of this law was to try to basically stop people from doing that, even though we've had study after study after study after study that says, no one is doing that. No, here's the thing, though.

What they've found is that when they bitch more, people listen to them more. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Squeaky conservative gets the shitty bill over and over again. This is just tactics. It's just tactics. I'm sure they don't expect this thing to go through.

Yeah, well, you know. At least I hope they don't. It'll keep on going. And, of course, where there's a Texas, there's a Florida. A related law in Florida, using a similar approach, is also working its way through. So, we'll see what happens. Yeah, they're going to get shot down.

I hope so. Although, this is America nowadays. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? This one is pretty good. NFT collector, one killer. He sold his ape. Okay. His board ape. All right. He bought it for $513,000.

Yeah. But because that there are no guardrails for NFT purchases, he listed it for 0.088 ETH, which works out to be about $161. Nice. And it sold.

It sold real quick. Oops. So, they're basically chalking this one up to pilot error because right before that, he was trying different ranges. He tried 250 ETH and 145 ETH. Nobody was buying. So, he was probably trying 88, 88 miles per hour.

And he went back in time to the point when he was broke because now he's got no ape and no money. Don't drink an ape, people. Yeah. Tell me how this is going. Going good. That's right. Well, if that one didn't make you smile, for more NFT news, Nate Chastain, he was the head of product at OpenSea.

And he got a nice new pair of bracelets yesterday from the federal government for insider trading of NFTs. Those are not on the blockchain, my friend. Those are on your wrists and are going to be there for quite some time. So, this is the first case where the DOJ is going after anything with digital assets and insider trading.

This guy had access to the platform. He knew what was going to drop and he used that information to make money. Yeah. That's illegal. So. Move fast and break things. In the news. In fantastic news for the universe, Sheryl Sandberg has finally decided to go retire to her volcanic island somewhere, probably on the south side of New Zealand, if anything is to be believed.

She has decided to lean out to the metaverse. Yeah. Yeah. Now, here's the thing. Did she really decide to leave or was that decision made for her? The world may never know. I've got to say that an awful lot of chatter on Twitter is saying she's getting ready to run for office.

Hmm. So, we'll see. That's interesting. I've got to say, not a fan. Really? I thought you and her were tight. Nah. Besties. Nope. Not into the Sandberg. I think she talked a good talk, but she didn't walk it. So. So, perfect for a politician.

Yeah. She's perfect for a politician. And we've been talking a lot about the coming recession and, you know, the great, I can't remember what you termed it. Everybody was telling, you know, the great whatever. I was calling it the great reset, but. Right. The great reset. I believe.

Oh, well, some PayPal workers have been reset. They've laid off workers in risk management and operations this week. It's the latest in a series of layoffs within the company, and it won't be the last. They've also reduced employee numbers in Chicago, Omaha, Nebraska, and Chandler, Arizona, and it has revealed that they're going to permanently off another 80 people working at its headquarters in San Jose, California.

Spending on the platform increased by 15% to $323 billion. It's the smallest growth it's seen in five years. But it's growth. It's growth, but it's not enough growth for the bottom line. And what is the first thing that you need to do when you need to make your bottom line better and you need to increase your stock price?

You lay off staff and you reduce and you do more with less. And that is what they are doing, which we've said is going to happen with tech companies. Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA will limit their hiring due to tumbling stock prices and slowing sales and revenue growth. Growth, Uber, and Lyft are cutting back on hiring as part of their cost-cutting measures.

And more recently, Instacart announced it's doing the same thing in order to focus on profitability ahead of its planned IPO. So if your company is asking you to go back to the office, I'd shut the F up. Apples and oranges on that one. Come on. We knew this was coming. We knew it was coming.

You know? Yep. Those jobs weren't going to last forever. Yeah. Still, there's a ton of jobs open out there. These are not the jobs you're looking for. Exactly. So it's, I mean, you know, don't, the market, the job market seemed great for an awful long time.

It is tightening up in tech. So, you know, be happy with what you've got because you've got it still. Yeah. And, or you could be as smart as me and take all your money that you have and put it into capital investment in a business that has real estate right before a recession.

Yeah. Hmm. I'm either going to be a complete idiot or a genius. One or the other. I'm siding on genius on this one. Okay. I'm with you. I'm supporting. I'm going on genius. I'm going with genius. Some changes over at Apple or at Amazon. Sorry. I was, I said Apple because this is how it's always been on Apple, but now it is also on Android.

Amazon is no longer offering in-app Kindle or music purchases on Androids. They've announced the change last month and more recently began notifying customers of the move via email, which puts Amazon in compliance with the policy Google will begin enforcing on June 1st.

They will, well, they've started enforcing it now. Uh, the company will require all developers to process payments, including, uh, involving digital goods and services through the play store billing system, just like Apple does it. And Apple takes a bigger cut, I think still, but, uh, you used to be able to just, uh, pay directly to the different companies.

And now, uh, Google is saying no more. You go through our payment system. So there you go. Yeah. I think they were basically watching what happened with the Apple case to find out if they were going to be good enough to do this. And it turns out, yeah, they can. So they will. So they will. The interesting thing about the switch here is when you look at Amazon and Audible on the apps, I can buy book, I can buy audio books with Audible because they use a token system.

Right. So you can just actually, you know, I buy credits and I can use those credits on the app. I can't buy credits on the app, but if I have credits in my account, I can buy books from the app right there and they can download directly. Otherwise you still have to go to the, you know, go to the website and through Safari or whatever.

Right. This is definitely a distinct advantage that actual Kindle devices have over phones and iPads and tablets and things like that is, you know, they own the device so they can do whatever they want. So it's kind of, that is one advantage definitely of having a physical Kindle if you're out on the road.

100%. The most frustrating thing about the Kindle app for me is that I can't buy a new book in it when I'm done reading. It's, it's just so lame. I know we have to go all the way to Safari to buy a new book. I've got to open up a different window. It's so hard. It's such a pain. I know. Let me tell you on a device that allows me to do it easily.

To read books from the sky. Yes. The Jonas Brothers are here to help us creators, Jason, because the creator economy is burning up and the Jonas Brothers are cashing in. They have launched a new, uh, a new company called Scriber. It's a creator subscription company geared towards more established figures in entertainment, such as the Jonas Brothers.

So Joe, Kevin, and Nick aren't Scriber's first creators. They also have equity in the company. Now this is not an app or anything or not, not like, uh, our wonderful Patreon, patreon.com slash GOG. Uh, this is basically all SMS based. So you sign up, uh, creators post a phone number on their social media platforms for fans to text.

And after messaging that number, they can pay a subscription fee via Apple Pay or Stripe and get exclusive content sent to them via text messages. Yeah. For the Joe bros, $4.99 a month will get you really weird, stupid videos that they send to you.

It's not an app on the app store. So much like the story we just discussed, the platform doesn't have to pay any fees to Apple or Google Play. Instead, uh, creators play Scriber one bucks a month for each subscriber. So if they have 10,000 subscribers, they pay 10,000 bucks. The creator also covers Stripe's 2.9% processing fee.

So smart business set up, but, uh, is anybody really interested in a fan club via text these days? I don't know. We'll see. No, I don't know. I don't know. Um, although everything is retro again. I mean, look, newsletters are big. People like putting little icons next to their menu items.

Now I've noticed, uh, which just reminds me of the old days. Kids are, kids are coming back to the way things used to be, which is fun. So who knows? Maybe this will be retro enough to do that. I would prefer, you know, physical mail if they're going to do that. Oh, old school. Yeah. Send it in an envelope.

Self-addressed stamped envelope. Sassy. Oh yeah. And, uh, Netflix password sharing test in Peru is confusing subscribers, apparently, uh, because they don't really seem to have a plan for it. So I suggest they get that together before they roll it out elsewhere. Uh, subscribers in Peru who were opted into new password sharing restrictions.

I got opted into a password sharing restriction program have reported confusion over Netflix loose definition of household and noted the lack of clarity around the differing charges imposed on customers, on consumers. Now, this is something, uh, I believe we discussed on this show about how do we define a household in this case?

You know, if my mom is using my Netflix account, but my mom lives in a different house, we're, I guess, how are we going to define this? And that is the exact problem they're running into. Uh, some subscribers experienced the price increase and then canceled their accounts as a result. Others ignored the message as most people do and, uh, were able to share their accounts across households without an extra charge.

They claimed an anonymous Netflix customer service representative reportedly told, uh, people that if, if a customer called in to argue that a member of their immediate household was using the account from a different location, the rep was instructed to tell them that person could continue to use the account via verification code without experiencing an extra charge.

So basically if you call into customer service and complain, it won't apply to you anymore. That seems great. Can I tweet that? Can I tweet that complaint? Yeah. Just to save time? I know. Let me just tweet you. I think Netflix product people were watching too much BSG before they came up with their plan.

Yes, they have none. I wait, I can't wait for the new episode called The Plan. Should be great. Uh, it's funny, I actually pay extra for an extra device on my account for, uh, my friend who's in Chicago and he pays me. So it's, it's, it's cheaper for him to just be an add-on device for my account than it is to get a full account.

And I'm really curious. I, I believe that is still within the letter of the Netflix law. So, because I'm paying for an extra device, it is outside of my residence, but you know, I'm paying, I'm paying for that actual thing. I don't know what their quote unquote plan, you can't even see me doing, my fingers are getting a workout when I say The Plan, because I'm air quoting like a fiend over here.

So yeah, I don't know how that's going to play out. They should stop with this stupid household thing because it's too hard to define. And if you're allowed to carry your device around to any location and still watch Netflix, you can't really lock a household down to a specific location. Just do it by a number, number of devices.

Simple. It's really simple enough with your Netflix subscription, you get five devices. You want devices beyond that. You have to pay more. Yeah. I think the, I think the basic plan, you get two devices. Uh, I pay for three and I think that's the max that you can do with the, with their upgraded plan is to add like one extra device.

And this is at, this is concurrent devices. That's the thing. So, you know, if nobody's watching and somebody logs in from one place, then logs in from another place. Doesn't, shouldn't matter. It should not matter until they hit that device limit. Yeah. You got 10 people logging in with the same, you know, same account.

That's a problem. Yeah. But, you know, as long as you're, you know, within the concurrent limits, this should not be a problem. Agreed. Now, BuzzFeed. Remember the BuzzFeed union drive a while back? I do. Yeah. We were watching with great interest and, uh, we, we missed this.

I guess it's just coming out now, but, uh, their negotiations took a strange turn when they kept trying to do, uh, like add different things in for workplace hazards that they may not be able to work for, you know, like earthquakes, hurricanes, uh, terrorism, things like that.

And apparently they, they kept hitting a wall with the language and somebody got really fed up with the other side, not even thinking they were reading it. So they threw in the word ghosts as a workplace hazard, which is very funny. It's very cute. And it got through. It actually got through.

Then they noticed the other team noticed and they thought it was funny and they left it in. Uh, but there's an article that was a pretty good called here's why BuzzFeed news unions contract includes protections from ghosts. This is over at pointer. It's a really good recap of the entire process, which I thought was, I, that's the part that I thought was fascinating.

The ghost thing was cute, but just hearing how they had to go back and forth, it's worth the read on the article just for that. And, um, the long and short of it is unions are good for employees. I even heard another one, uh, somebody else on Twitter last week talking about it.

They're like, yeah, we unionized. And when we were done, we all got more money. It was great. So unions are good. The union is, I guess I'm with you. Yeah. Just not at my place. It'll be the first thing I try to institute when I come, when I come in as COO of your company, Jason, we'll start the union process.

Yeah. So my question here is if you're emailing with your boss about a raise over at Buzzfeed and he ghosts you, are you protected against that?

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So when we first talked about Bosch Legacy returning to the big screen or the little screen, I said that there were only four episodes, so I was going to take my time watching them. Turns out it was a slow drip release. There are 10 up there now. So not four. If you want to go dig in, dig in.

So I'm going to have to unleash the remote on that one. Because I was really trying to like, you know, drip it out because I love that show so much. And I'm like, oh, man. And speaking of shows that they should have dripped, Legendary Season 3 is out on HBO Max now. And they're dropping it. They did the three drop, you know, which everybody does nowadays, it seems.

But next week, they dropped three more. Okay. And I guess today, they're dropping three more. I don't want that kind of drop. When it comes to that show and the people that I watch it with, we have watching parties for that show. People come over and we watch it.

And we just burn through and we're like, yeah, let's just do another show. Why not? You know, you can't, you can't, you can't stop. You just can't stop. Great show. I'm very happy that it's back. It's very fun. Very different. If you've never seen that kind of thing before, it's very different. But expand your horizons.

Check out an episode. Brian, Stranger Things is back for season four. You said you were not going to watch it again. What's the verdict? Are you going to try it? I haven't yet. I've heard what I've seen is it's actually pretty good. But it's, it's also like this better be the last season because the whole shtick is getting tiresome, but it's good.

I will wait until it's all done and see a verdict. I don't want, I'm, I'm assuming they'll wrap it up well because they've generally done a very good job. But basically at this point, I want to know that there's a satisfying ending. And if not, I'm not going to watch it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll let you know.

Okay. Because I started watching it. I watched the first episode. I, because it was hard to get into. I'm like, do I really want to go down this road? I kind of like the last one. Yeah, me too. And the real thing with this episode is there's so much of it, right? Like every episode is almost like a feature film length.

They're all fucking long. So it's a massive investment in time if I'm actually going to do it. So I want to know I'm going to be happy coming out of this. Otherwise I'm okay where it ended. Okay. Well, you know, I'm not going to, I, I'm probably not going to be the best arbiter on that because we obviously have differences.

See discovery last season ending for what, what prior art on that one. So I don't know. I'll let you know what I think of it, but I guess the first episode I liked, I did like it. It took me a second to get into it because everybody's so fucking old now. I mean, it's been three years since the last episode.

Yeah. They're not precocious little kids anymore. No, they're horny teenagers. Pretty much. So we'll see how it goes. But yeah, I, I actually watched the first, I, the reason I brought it up, I was going to wait to the end, but when it came down to watching the first episode of the new Obi-Wan or Stranger Things, I actually picked Stranger Things first because I was scared about Obi-Wan.

We'll talk about that insecurity, but I'm glad I dug my toes in. All right. Yvonne Orji. I've never heard of her, but her HBO special is hilarious. I recommend it. Okay. She does flashbacks to Nigeria with her family, which is really interesting. It's fun to watch.

It's a, it's a good comedy special. I've never heard of her. I don't watch her show. So it was, uh, she's pretty good and her outfit was amazing. My God. You'd love it. Trust me. Okay. Uh, lots of, lots of black leather. Sweet. Uh, and corsetry type of stuff. Mm-hmm. Uh, Eddie Izzard Wonderbar. You talked about that one.

I told you not to watch it. For five minutes. Five minutes. I told you not to watch it. He barely made it out of the dressing room. Yeah. Well, it was free, so I had to. Right. Him and Cat Williams never, should never do stand up again. Cat's new special is God awful too. We, we're, we're huge fans of Cat and we lasted five minutes on that.

Right, right. He's sober. You can't have Cat Williams sober. Yeah, and Eddie Izzard is just, uh, he's done with comedy. He's taken his art form. He's taken his comedy as far as he can take it. He's perfected it. And now he's just repeating himself, which is, you know, just go act. He likes to act and he wants to be political and he wants to run marathons.

Go do all those stuff. You, you did enough, Eddie. You, you're okay. Yeah. And honestly, skip the acting. Just go, stick with the marathons. And if you want to be in politics, go for that. But I've seen his last couple movies and they were, he was terrible in them. I'm not going to, I'm not going to front. He was terrible. Okay. Uh, I watched Ricky Gervais's Supernature, uh, as on your recommendation, and I thought it was fine.

I, I feel like the uproar online is fake uproar done from clicks. I mean, he, he was poking the bear on purpose, but he's also telling you he's poking the bear and it's irony. And he's poking, I'm here. Look, I'm about to poke the bear and it's going to upset people. Poke, poke, poke. People get upset.

Apparently. Um, not as funny as some of his previous specials have been. This one was obviously done on purpose for a specific purpose, which is poking the bear and, uh, well done for that. So it was funny. Just not as funny as he can be. I thought.

Yeah. I thought it, I thought it was passable. Yeah. Uh, I've been watching Grace and Frankie, uh, as we talked about, I actually really love that show. This is the final season. The final season has been split in two because of COVID. We got, uh, the first like four episodes or something like that a while back.

Those were really great. Then they dumped the rest of them and they're increasingly awful. I don't know what happened during COVID. Um, my wife and I look at each other going, how many more of these do we have to get through? Because we have to finish the series now and hopefully there'll be a satisfying ending. Maybe the writers changed.

I don't know, but it is awful since it came back. Like awful. Yeah. I don't, I don't quite get what's going on, but we've got like three episodes. And we kind of look at each other and force ourselves to watch one a week. So we'll finish it out, but it's bad.

Uh, Norm McDonald's final special, uh, nothing special is out on Netflix. Now he, uh, recorded this because he had all his material the night before he went in for the surgery that he never came out from. Um, so it was weird watching it. Uh, if you like Norm, it's Norm.

Uh, the really fun part was the last, uh, hours, um, a whole bunch of comedians, David Letterman, uh, Molly Shannon, David Spade, trying to, uh, remember who else was there. A bunch of people that knew him really well, sat around and just talked about him. And that part was awesome.

The special itself. It was what it was. That part sounds kind of cool. I would definitely check it out for that. I'm a, I like Norm, but I like Norm. I don't love Norm. Yeah. I love Norm as a person, you know, but not as a comedian. Yeah. I would skip the, uh, you dip your toe in, watch five, you know, five minutes at the beginning.

And if it's not floating your boat, just skip ahead to the bit of them talking about him because they were telling some great stories and it was pretty cool. Uh, I was having a lot of VPN streaming issues. I think we had talked about in particular, John Oliver on HBO and things like that. So anytime I had to switch over to my VPN to watch my U S based, uh, TV, it was crapping out constantly.

And I figured out that my VPN router and a connection had switched over to TCP and you want UDP for streaming, not TCP. And as soon as I switched it, all my problems magically went away. So if you're having problems streaming from your VPN, make sure you check those settings because I forgot.

I was not a big fan of Willow, but many people in our age group were, and I'm thinking that probably includes you. And if you were a fan, there's a new TV series coming to Disney plus, which will, uh, show an older Willow and, uh, trying to returning to save a future Empress from the clutches of evil.

So probably much the same thing as the 1988 movie. I remember seeing Willow later. Like I saw it once when it came out, eh, whatever. Then I saw it later, like maybe 10 or 15 years later. And I thought it was very funny. I didn't get the humor. The first time I saw the second time I saw it, I thought it was very funny, but not enough for me to go back and watch a series.

I think. Okay. Very cool. There you go. I will not be watching it either. And in just kind of media news in general, Lionsgate CEO, John Feltheimer has revealed details during an investor call that they plan to spin off the stars streaming unit by the end of summer.

So they expect to retain some ownership, but, uh, they're looking for a buyer. Direct TV is, uh, apparently one of the ones looking to maybe purchase a stake along with Roku or Apollo global management. Uh, I don't know who they are. Canal plus a division of French conglomerate Vivendi.

It's also looking. So they've, they've done relatively well for themselves. The stars, uh, they've steadily grown a customer base. It grew by 4.8 million for the quarter, reaching a total of 35.8 million, which is nothing to sneeze at. Uh, they boasted during their call that they predicted it'll hit 50 to 60 million global subscribers.

We'll see about that because you know, you have to actually have programming, but because they have healthy numbers right now, they're looking to dump it. So yeah, let's see it. Let's get out. Let's get out. There's two shows on stars that I, that I know about that are any, any good. Was it the Godfather of Harlem? Fantastic show.

Highly recommended. P town, something like that. That's, that's a good show too. I think that name's wrong, but, uh, those are the only two shows that stars has. And when they come on, I get it for a month. Then I get rid of it. I mean, I have a history of stars that there's nothing else on stars.

I don't know why they, this, this is the case for, what was it? Uh, 38 million or 35.8 million people who have forgotten to hit unsubscribe. Pretty much. Yeah. That's what that is. Now, I don't know how we missed this. We, this wasn't in the, in the list. The Downton Abbey movie is out in theaters.

I know. Have you gone? I haven't been to a theater. Oh man. My dad went and saw it. So I have a, I have a third party review and he is a huge mark for Downton Abbey. And, uh, he went for his birthday, which was this weekend. Happy birthday, dad. Or this week. I got him right as he was coming out of the theater and he said he had a fantastic time and it was an awesome movie and he loved it.

I personally cannot wait. And what the reviews I've seen have said, you know, you're not, don't expect like anything of substance here, but it's, it's great. So, okay. It's Downton Abbey. There is nothing of substance. Yeah. I just can't wait. I can't wait. I'm what it, as soon as it's available for purchase on any streaming medium, I will be watching it.

Apps and doodads. Ryan, we talked on the show previously about that damn tracking number switcheroo that people do. They give you the tracking number, say that it's shipped and then you go check the tracking number a couple of days later and it is still sitting in the warehouse. Yes.

DJI has done that to me. They print it, but it hasn't gone anywhere. Yep. For days now, they say that it's shipped May 28th. UPS has seen hide nor hair of it. Damn it. All I keep seeing are, I keep getting spam everywhere I go online that I should buy the new DJI, you know, whatever it is, Mavic Air 3 Pro shenanigan thing.

I did. So stop giving me ads. Give me the goddamn drone, please. Bob keeps forgetting to take your package off and drop it off at the local post office, Jason. I did get one new thing that I just have to put in here. It is not really an app or a doodad.

It's kind of a doodad, I guess. It's the groove belt. Now, it's got a metallic clasp on it. It doesn't have holes on it. You can kind of slide it, get it to where it needs to be, set it and forget it kind of thing. Because all my belts have basically with losing all the weight, kind of useless now.

So I had to get a new belt with my new wardrobe. It's got like a neodymium buckle on it where it kind of clicks into place. The material on the actual belt itself is very utilitarian, but a little stretchy, which is nice. It's one of the best belts I've ever owned in my life.

I have to tell you, I have one of these. I've had one of these. Yes. It was great for about a year, and then all of a sudden, it just slips all the time. Oh, no. Okay. Yeah. So be prepared to buy one a year or move on to something else, like an old belt without all the fancy technology.

I mean, maybe yours won't. Maybe I'm in an outside case. But yeah, definitely, it was a great belt for a long time. And then all of a sudden, I was like, you're not staying in place. Oh, well. Brian, I found a really cool new, basically, browser extension over on Product Hunt.

It's called Jiffy Reader. What it does is it takes what they call, quote unquote, bionic reading and applies it to the web pages as you browse the internet. Okay. Now, bionic reading, what it does is it basically bolds the beginnings of most words.

So as you're reading, your saccades, where your eye moves from point to point to point to actually scan, gives it a place to land, which makes reading actually faster and you can kind of comprehend more. I've been using this forever in Reader, R-E-E-D-E-R, the RSS app that I use.

And it's fantastic with all the reading that I do. Between that and the open dyslexia font, between the two of those, I can actually read really good. But this brings bionic reading to everybody, everywhere. So it works 70, 80% of the time, but it's free.

So hey, 70, 80% on free. I'll take it. Okay. And if you're still using TweetDeck for Mac, you won't be for much longer. They're shutting it down on July 1st. I don't entirely know why. They're saying, we're saying goodbye to TweetDeck for the Mac app to focus on making TweetDeck even better and testing our new preview, a tweet from the TweetDeck team reads, the scuttlebot here and the theory is they're going to make this part of your paid Twitter blue.

So you actually get something from blue, but we'll see what happens. I don't know. I stopped using it ages ago. I still use TweetBot. Works pretty well. Security? Ha! Well, apparently we have found the co-host we're looking for.

We are joined by Dave Bittner. Dave is the host of the CyberWire podcast, co-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. Welcome, Dave. Thank you.

And I have a new podcast alert. Uh-oh. I am the host of yet another podcast. Oh, Jesus. I know. This one's called Control Loop, and we just launched it this week. It's focused on ICS security. That's industrial control systems, things like the electrical system and the gas and water and all that stuff that keeps civilization running.

We partnered with the folks over at Dragos, who are kind of the leaders in this space. And we're doing a bi-weekly podcast that's news and interviews on that. So kind of slotting in the place in my life where the Recorded Future podcast used to be.

Oh, you mean free time. I could be spending with my family. Yeah. Is this the one that says it's an OT podcast instead of an IT podcast? Yes, yes. I saw something come through today. Yeah, okay, because I'm wondering, what the hell is OT versus IT?

OT is Operational Technology. So OT are the valves and switches and- Got it. You know, all the mechanical stuff. Okay, there's acronym overload because you said ICS and then that was OT. Yeah. And I was like, is this the same? Okay, cool.

Congratulations. They also like, thank you. They also like to use the word SCADA, which is, SCADA is something control and I forget, but it's the same sort of thing. It's the industrial control stuff. Stuff that if it's like, if a valve is turned at the wrong time in the wrong place, bad things can happen and people can lose lives.

So it's real high stakes stuff sometimes. The things that get hacked that actually matter, like, oh no, I can't access my Instagram versus, oh no, I have no water. Correct. That's right. Yeah. Or New York City has no water. Right.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's actually pretty interesting stuff. If you're a gadget person, it's sort of the ultimate playground of gadgets. And so I like it. Yeah. I think we're off to something good. So if you're interested in that sort of thing, I hope you'll check it out.

We'll have a link in the show notes. Excellent. All right, guys. Take it away. Well, we're three episodes in. Yes. I think we're halfway. Before we start, there will be spoilers to Obi-Wan Kenobi. I'm not going to put in a sound effect or anything funny.

I'm going to say it. He survives the show, obviously. Yes, there's your spoiler. So I guess we're about halfway through. I found the first episode good. I found the second episode okay.

I found the third episode excellent. I have to say they did a very good job of keeping the fact that a 10-year-old Princess Leia would be involved under wraps. That game is a surprise. That was a shocker. Although I do. That was a shocker. And I have to say that the girl is exquisitely casted and exquisitely dressed.

I've seen the side-by-sides of how the outfits related to Leia's outfits in the original movies. And very good. I love the show so far. What do you think, Dave? Yeah, I agree. I'm enjoying it very much for all the same reasons that you are saying.

I was surprised. I didn't expect that we'd see Princess Leia in this. So that's a delight. What I'm really hoping for is – and I think we're heading in that direction – is Princess Leia getting to meet Darth Vader. And why I am hoping for that is it will help provide some more context to the first scene where we see them together in A New Hope where she says, Darth Vader, only you could be so bold.

And she's like, oh, this asshole again. Right? Yep. Yeah. So I would love to – if this is where she first crosses paths with Darth Vader and he turns out – he's a big old jerk to her, I think that would be gratifying and kind of a fun way to fill in some backstory.

But I think they're doing a good job with it. They're doing a good job. It's interesting. I think that they did an excellent job – the actor who was playing Owen, Luke's adopted father or whatever that particular genealogy is, has done an excellent job of showing his disdain for the Jedi but willingness to play ball with Obi-Wan.

I think that was a particularly good bit of acting from the show, from a show that you don't typically expect a lot of great acting from. My main curiosity is still, how are they even going to attempt or to deal with how old Obi-Wan looks in just a scant ten more years compared to Ewan McGregor right now?

Yeah. Yeah. I thought maybe we'd get some of that – I mean, I know Tatooine is harsh living, but – Well, last episode they did set him on fire, so – That was a plus. That's true. That could have something to do with it. I don't know. Before we continue on with that, can I just say something about the fire real quick?

This will be a spoiler, so you can fast forward. So, just let me get this straight in my head here. Darth Vader spills some sterno, sets it on fire, drags Obi-Wan through it, and then with the power of the force, turns the fire off. Right? Then – Yes.

The fire's gone. Now, our sniper sets the fire back on fire, and now, for some reason, they can't turn off the fire, but he could turn it off a second ago. What happened? I believe somebody should have called continuity.

Well, yes, and also why is Darth Vader not – You've got to let go of it a little bit. Yeah. Why is Darth Vader not using the force to stop the lifting robot that hauls Obi-Wan away? Any of it, yes. Yes. That was a little bit of a problem for me.

Otherwise – Why would you build a Death Star with a little shaft that lets you blow it up if you just put one torpedo down it? Seriously. One of the ones that bugged me in this one was – it seems to me like the middle of a desert is a terrible place to have an outdoor meat processing plant.

True. True. Yeah. Right? Not a lot of options on that planet, to be fair. No, but you could at least have it indoors. You're going to – all the meat is going to have sand in it. I mean – Yep. Yeah. So there is that. But overall, I'm enjoying it very much. I really like the fact that when Obi-Wan first encounters Darth Vader, that Obi-Wan is pretty much getting his ass kicked.

Yeah. And it's, I think, primarily emotional. He's out of practice. He's out of shape. He's overwhelmed. And that – I didn't expect that either. But I like it. And I like – it works. Yeah. And I think they did a good job of setting up the Force, like how he was having – he's rusty with the whole Leia falling from the building scene.

You know, how they – how it was so painful for him to actually be able to, like, you know, get the dust off and actually use the Force. So that was – I thought that that was a cool setup to show that how weak he was in that case. Yeah, the whole use it or lose it. Yeah, yeah. And I got to say that the writing on the show – now, no shade to Jon Favreau, but he needs to stay over there in Mando Land and let the adults take on the main story arcs because there's definitely a difference in tone, in feel.

This feels to me as Star Wars as Star Wars can get. The other shows I like. I think they're great shows, but they do not feel Star Wars-y to me for some reason. But this one is level 11, and I love it. I mean, I think it's good.

What I particularly like about the show is they're kind of bridging the gap between the original series and the prequels in that, you know, you've got the broken down universe, but then you've also got – you know, they've done the scenes in the big cities with the big infrastructure and all that. You know, it's a very – they're jumping back and forth, and you're getting both feels, which is really nice.

I can't wait to see where it goes. I mean, I guess we're halfway done, which is kind of sad. Yeah, we'll see. There's only six, but I was also thinking that I think – I'm happy that this is not a movie, right? Yeah. Like, I think six episodes of this is a really nice way to tell this story.

And I think all future Star Wars should be done this way. By the way, was that – I saw in the credits of the last one that Zach Braff was in it. Was he the mole man? Must have been, because the voice was so familiar. And now that you're saying that, I'm connecting them.

I was like, I know that voice. Right. Yeah. I did, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that was him. Oh. So – Speaking of casting, there is one thing that drastically pulled me out of the show immediately.

Flea. I need Flea from the Red Hot Turn. Oh, Flea, no. Never fucking act again. Yeah. I'm like, is Anthony Kiedis going to show up next? It just – it was almost as bad as when the Mythbusters guy was in The Expanse.

It just pulled me out of the show. I couldn't take it seriously, but luckily we moved on from that very quickly, and he died. When I saw Flea, I thought of his scene in Back to the Future. Because he's in that as well. Yeah.

The only good thing he ever did was the Big Lebowski. He was funny in that. I did see some folks have cut together the scene where they were chasing after Lea in the forest. They added the Benny Hill show music to that because it was – it was not the best chase scene in the world where the bad guys were kind of the keystone cops running into tree branches and things.

But we'll allow it. We'll allow it. That was a bit of Jon Favreau writing right there. Yeah. Does he have anything to do with this show? I thought those guys were out of this one. They are. They're not in this. No, he has nothing to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. That was going to Jason's point that he's not as good of a writer as the guys doing this one.

I see. Zach Braff is a freck. Yes. Just to clarify that. Okay. Mystery solved. Yep. And of course it can't be a Star Wars launch without a little bit of controversy. And I didn't know there was controversy until I got my latest episode of the Garbage Day Substack newsletter by Ryan Broderick, which is actually a pretty good newsletter so far.

And he wrote a piece called At What Point Do We Give Up on Star Wars Fans, which then got me down the rabbit hole of the Ewan McGregor apology. Or not apology, just the, hey, stop it. Knock it off, kids, who are pissed off about the black woman playing the Inquisitor. And I don't know her name off the top of my head, but there's a big problem with it that turns out every time that Star Wars tries to get diverse, out come the trolls.

Trolls are part of modern fandom. It is what it is. I particularly enjoyed the fact that, you know, Ewan came out and made the statement, Anson Mount from our new favorite Star Trek series ever came out and said all of Star Trek's community stands with her and all this sort of stuff.

And basically, stop being racist dicks, fans. It's the comment section commodification of fandom. It just is the lowest common denominator is what it always goes down to. Don't read comments. Now, what I loved about this article was just the snark.

One line, now, do I think that everyone who loves Star Wars is a racist? Absolutely not. In fact, I think Star Wars is a pretty good fantasy story for children about how selfishness, greed, and fear can make good people do evil things. Which, okay, he calls it a children's story, so that kind of, you know, that points his gun in a certain direction right there.

Yeah. And, uh, but over the last 50 years, those stories have also attracted a violent reactionary and entitled fan base of white men who are terrified of growing up. And now the most massive entertainment monopoly to ever exist has taken those stories, turned them in an endless content funnel for their proprietary streaming service, and need those man-children to hype up every new project they generate.

I think he's getting a little bit, uh, uh, far afield of how many Star Wars racist fans there are, you know? Well, but earlier, you posted here, he says, uh, what's even more interesting is that Disney's Star Wars division is so keenly aware that the bulk of Star Wars fans are frothing at the mouth racist lunatics on the internet.

I'm sorry, what? Yeah, I was getting ready to come back to this. Yeah, it's like, uh, yeah, I mean, come on. There's, there's, there's bad apples and bad apples have, uh, uh, an endless, you know, megaphone these days called the internet. And then we've had the Trump years, which is basically told them that they're okay to come out and say these things in public because there's other people that agree with them.

And this is where we're at in the world right now. And it's ridiculous to think that that, uh, that that's the majority of Star Wars fans. Of course it's not. The majority of Star Wars fans aren't even man children. Although there is one person on the show that wants to dress up as a stormtrooper.

Most people aren't not man children that are actually. Now, now I want to dress up like a stormtrooper. I want to dress up like a stormtrooper when I'm not wearing my furry suit. So this is true. This is true.

So there we are. This is true. And you know what, I think there's a legitimate criticism to be made that the original Star Wars trilogy was very, very white. Right. And in fact, I mean, they made that joke on Family Guy about, uh, you know, we're going to go see Lando.

Lando, Lando's a black guy. In fact, I think he's the only black guy in the universe. And that's, that's legit. Um, but so I guess if you, if you take that reality and you try to draw a straight line between that, and is that a thing that, that attracted an, uh, a disproportionate amount of racist morons?

I don't think that that's necessarily a fair connection to make or a strong connection, but, um, I don't know. I mean, people, sure. Does Star Wars attract its, uh, its, um, its fill of, uh, people with arrested development?

Sure. But I mean, that's sci-fi, that's fantasy that I don't think Star Wars has an exclusive on that. And good on Star Wars for putting, you know, people of all sorts of colors, shapes, sizes in lead roles. Why? I mean, that's, that's the universe we're living in.

So there was, there was backlash when the rise of Skywalker for, or the last Jedi or whichever the first one was, I can't even remember anymore. Sorry, when the force awakens came out, uh, for Kelly Marie Tran, the Asian American actress, like people went crazy on her and she actually had to quit Twitter, Twitter.

Cause she was getting trolled so hard, you know, there, there are jerks out there and the internet does not help. So that's just the world now, but no, not the majority of Star Wars fans. No, no. And, uh, just, just, uh, cause I forgot right now streaming available on Hulu and Disney or sorry, Disney plus, maybe Hulu too.

The Orville is now officially back. So the best, what I would normally would be the best Star Trek on TV is back, but strange new world. I disagree. And it's, yeah, I was going to say strange new worlds has really upped the ante. The Orville is now going to be the second best Star Trek on TV. Hmm.

Yeah. I'm with you on that. Uh, I, we don't talk about it much on this segment because it's a star Wars only, of course. And we forgot to talk about it on media candy, but I crossed the strange new worlds, strange new worlds is knocking it out of the effing park. Like we've got a really good Star Wars, uh, TV show right now.

We've got a really good Star Trek TV show right now. And I almost, almost feel like the world is perfect, except then I look at Twitter or the news. So I have to check that out. I haven't watched either the Orville or strange new worlds, so I'll have to check. Oh, start with the Orville, go with that, then move into strange new worlds.

Cause that way you're going at least from number two to number one. You don't want to go backwards. Right. Cause you have a clean, yeah, I think I'm sort of ambivalent about Seth MacFarlane. So that probably kept me from diving in too deep. It's kind of what's keeping me from watching it as well.

I love the family guy. I loved it for many, many years, but anytime I actually see his face, I'm just, there's something, I just can't. Okay. Well, he makes a really good captain. Season one's a little cringy, but season two really dives in. And then I'm now season three is out.

So can't wait. Fair enough. All right. Well, speaking of star Wars, I actually do have a little bit of real news here. This is kind of interesting. China must develop capabilities to disable and maybe even destroy Starlink internet satellites. The country's military researchers said in a paper published by the Chinese journal, modern defense technology.

They highlighted the possibility of Starlink being used for military purposes that could aid other countries and threaten their national security. So they are calling for the development of anti-satellite capabilities, including both hard and soft kill methods. They are also suggesting the development of a surveillance system with the ability to track each and every Starlink satellite, to which I would just say, follow Musk on Twitter.

Cause he basically talks about it constantly. Yeah. Yeah. This is a civilian program that the Chinese military intelligence is basically saying we need to look at and maybe destroy this. Now, does the U S military have a, have any responsibility here to now take care of a civilian program for Elon Musk and make sure that they don't get blown out of the sky?

What's the deal here? How does this work? Strange new world. Indeed. That's an interesting question. I guess it depends on to what degree do they consider satellite internet to be critical infrastructure? And I don't know the answer to that. If only I were the host of a podcast that dealt with critical infrastructure.

I mean, maybe I can ask somebody and get back to you on that one. Yeah. The other thing that struck me with this was, you know, Starlink, like, like all these low earth orbit satellite systems, they're not geosynchronous.

So the satellites are zipping around faster than the earth is spinning, which means that you don't just have a satellite, you know, parked above you and just sitting there all the time. These satellites are zipping around and they're constantly kind of like a cellular network.

They're constantly handing off from one satellite to the other as they fly over you, which means that if you're China and you want to take them out, well, you shoot the ones that are above you. But then here comes some more. Here comes some more. I mean, that's a lot of space junk.

It's a lot of space junk. And I mean, I suspect that all of the all of the space faring nations probably have satellites up there that are capable of taking out other satellites. I don't know. I don't know if we have a any kind of treaties about that or not.

I don't know. But again, I'll something else. Maybe I'll ask about. But but I would also think that especially the low earth ones would be vulnerable to some kind of a like a laser shot from Earth. Frickin lasers. Yeah. Well, I shall be listening to Control Loop to learn more about this.

Yes. This would be great. Great way to start off the show. Let's talk about space lasers. Hey, man. Consider this your first fan submission. That's right. That's right. All right. I'll see what I can come up with. Well, since you did mention your your furry suit before, I believe this man from Japan has you as you beat.

He has spent two million yen to make his himself look like really like a dog. Now, I've seen a lot of furries and a lot of furry conventions on the Internet. I can't believe you're forcing me to click on this link and look at this.

Yes, you have to. You have to. Now, the thing about furries is they're usually pretty sexy. That's the thing about furries. That's why it's kind of a cool subculture. This is not this guy looks like a freaking dog. It is creepy. This is really creepy. And when you see him move, it's even creepier.

Oh, that I have not seen. There's a video. There's a video on this page that I link to. It just ain't right. It just ain't right. That's messed up. So, Dave, if you feel yourself. Yes. If you feel yourself going down this path, reach out.

Let me know. We will put some. We will gather our forces and we will find you another stormtrooper suit that you can wear instead of going full calling. Or a therapist. Or a therapist. Or a therapist. Yeah. Because this is a little too much. Generally, I try to live by the standard of not shitting on other people's joy.

And I suppose this could be benign. But this would certainly, maybe an intervention is in order here. It is a damn good looking. I mean, it's the best dog suit I've ever seen. Oh, it's great. But, man. It's like those people in old Hollywood who had like, there were like three guys in Hollywood who you called if you needed a gorilla.

And they had like the really good gorilla suits and knew how to use them. That's what this reminds me of. But, I don't know. It's, you know what? It's a canine uncanny valley. That's exactly it. Totally. Totally.

It's exactly it. And, you know, I think that he is also a fan of Marie Kondo. Because if you look at the video, there's literally nothing in the place. Probably because he had to spend all his money to buy the outfit. Right. And who do you go to? To have this done?

Do I got a seamstress? You go to a company called Zepet. There's an actual company called Zepet. Or this one, I'm guessing it's called Go to Get Zepet. You become Zepet. I don't know if that's a French company or not.

But either way, there is a company that he went to to do this. Wow. I would have called the Jim Henson Creature Shop would have been my first go-to, I guess. But they always go just that slightly bit unrealistic so you don't end up in the Uncanny Valley. He went for it.

So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's all I got. That's enough. Woof, woof. Hey, Lassie. Yeah. Well, I'm off to the RSA conference next week.

So – but I will be back to record our show next week. But so wish me luck. Safe travels. I'm dropping myself into San Francisco, which at the moment is a COVID shitstorm. Yeah, be careful. Yes. Be careful. I'll be masking up and hoping for the best.

Dust off those masks. Fully vaccinated and boosted and all that stuff. But there's hope for the best and try to be careful. So – But most importantly, watch out for the man poo. Closing shout outs.

Over at Patreon, we've got Abe and Helen as well as Glenn and Clayton. Then we also have a message from Davi. I already listened to all the ad-free episodes. But is there anywhere I can get the episodes older than 426 ad-free? No. No. Sorry. We don't have that.

Yeah. No. We started doing dynamic ads like in the 300s, but we don't have them set up somewhere. So we started doing the ad-free. Going forward, everything is ad-free on Patreon and of a higher quality and earlier.

So go for it. But yeah, that's – the ad-free is – we have some historical, but for the most part, it's all going forward. And also on Patreon, I had a talk with Roman who gave us money on Stripe this week. Thank you, Roman.

You'll get another thanks in a second. He was very confused about Patreon and he signed up for Stripe because he thought we got more money out of it. I want to clarify this again to everybody. Patreon, PayPal, and Stripe, all three of those take the exact same fees from us because we're grandfathered in on Patreon.

So feel free to use the one that you like the most. But just know that Patreon is the only one where we can give you ad-free episodes or anything special. It's just the technology. Yeah, until we sign up with the Jonas Brothers and we can text it to you. Yeah, we're just going to text it to you.

The whole show will be text. You'll get 580 texts a day from us. One is just going to be – you'll get shocking like seven times a day. And every now and again, I'll throw in a – just for shits and giggles. Oh, I got a new text from Grumpy Old Geeks.

What's it say? It's neat. What's that text? Oh, Jason bought something again? Jesus. Okay, and Davi goes on to say, How about a new segment to the show called Grumpy Old Chicks? I identify myself with the opinions of you both on what is going on around the internet, but I think we would be amazed by their – in parentheses – the girls' point of view on some of them.

Maybe you could invite a friend of the show or request audio test messages to the listeners to be added to the current or past discussion. What do you think, Brian? I think Davi should start her own podcast called Grumpy Old Chicks and use your service in Woodland Hills to make it. There you go.

Because we're the Grumpy Old Geeks. That's a different show. I get it. We've had girls on the show before. A friend of the show, Tara, was on ages ago. We're certainly informed by the female opinion. I happen to live with one who's very opinionated all the time. So, you know. But, yeah, we don't do guests.

So, there you go. Yeah. We had Felicia Michaels on, too. We had another female. That's true. Yeah. Two girls. Yep. We are. We are. 556 episodes. Two girls. Welcome to Wokistan over here. Over at PayPal, we've got Charlie, Robert, Matt, Simon, Nikolai, Jonathan, Matthew, Nicole, Judge, Melissa, Chalene, Thomas, and Marcel.

Thank you all so much. And over at Stripe, we've got Adam, John, John E., Matthew, and Roman. Thank you, everybody, for your donations this week. We really, really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate it. So, the more, the merrier. Keep bringing them. And finally, I have a shout-out to the death of Howard Johnson's, which I thought was long, long dead.

There was one last Howard Johnson's restaurant that was hanging on for dear life, and they have finally closed. This was up in Lake George, New York. And, yeah, it's apparently been going downhill for quite some time, and I love one of these Yelp reviews. If you come here expecting those nostalgic memories to come back, you will be disappointed.

Perfect. That's any old movie that you go back and watch, just prepare for You Will Be Disappointed. All right. Or old episodes of this show, if you go back and listen. Yeah. I've never ate at one, ever. I was hoping they would merge with the last blockbuster, you know.

It would have been perfect. Yeah. They were terrible. That's why they're dead. Don't, you're not, you didn't miss anything. Trust me. Okay. I didn't feel like I did. So, it's okay. All right. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks.

If you enjoy the show, visit gog.show.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 556, or we can text them to you. 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 inclined, please head over to gog.show slash review and toss us a snarky review and preferably five stars. Stay grumpy.

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