680: Failed Up

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

Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Well, Bittner's babe broke a bone so he bailed on the broadcast. So it's just me and you today, Brian. Oh, you worked that one up on the drive over, didn't you? No, just on the shitter. Okay. Yeah, and unlike you, she's actually taken care of it. Remember, what was it, over 10 years ago now when you slipped and broke your leg and didn't do anything about it forever?

What makes you think I wouldn't remember that? You do tend to like to forget the times that you were drastically horribly wrong, Jason. Well, I was horribly injured. That one was a different bit. But yeah, well. Yeah. So Dave is on nurse duties and unable to join us today.

And technically, I was right. I didn't break my ankle. I broke my leg. And I still walked on the leg for two weeks before going to the doctor. Yes. Your leg actually started to look like an entire ham. Yeah. It was bad. It was bad. It was a green ham. Not the green eggs, but just the green ham.

So Dave will be missed today. So we'll make up for it with something or other. I guess we can't talk about Star Trek or Star Trek, Star Wars, Skeleton Cruise finale. That'll have to wait. Yeah. Well, you guys are all on your own on that one anyway.

Yeah. But I had ham radio talk today. What are you going to do? Postponed to next week. I know. But the fires are over, Brian. So we can all get back to normal. Well, they're not over, over, but they're somewhat contained and the winds have stopped.

Well, Brian, I'm here and I can tell you they're over. The shit that anybody cares about is over. Okay. That's a big difference between over and the shit that people care about. We could discuss that about politics or tech as well. Yes. But we live in a fire zone 24, 7, 365 now. It has been – L.A. has been deemed a fire zone every single day forever. So unless there's a fire knocking at your door, fuck it.

All right. Fair enough. I'm happy to hear it. There's an interesting psychological thing going on that I've talked to a bunch of people who have it, who lived in the fire adjacent zones, the evac zones. There's this sense of getting ripped off, that your house was not burned to the ground because you spent a week in just absolute terror and just panic, ready to go, blah, blah. When's it going to happen?

When's it going to happen? And when it doesn't happen, people are like, oh, what was the big deal all about then? Jesus. Jesus. Come on. That is a horrible outlook on it. You should instead be thanking your gods. You're not going to have to try to deal with insurance for the next seven years trying to get your house rebuilt. I'm not telling you it's rational. I'm telling you that's just what I'm hearing from people on the ground who went through it. So it was just one of those interesting psychological conditions.

I figured you being an ex-psych major would find fascinating. It is fascinating. It's horribly misguided and very, very full of oneself. But yes, I do understand it. People do tend to be that way. I do know there are plenty of business owners that surely wish that their places would have burned down, though.

Yeah. Me being one of them. I'm standing in the middle of it right now. With a lighter and a can of gas. Oh, man. Yeah. I would not have shed a tear if this office building had gone up. Many businesses felt exactly that way. Yes. Yeah. Oh, well.

Oh, well. In the news.

Breaking news, Brian. The Supreme Court has upheld the law that could ban TikTok in the U.S., leaving the matter to Donald Trump. Shit. Well, yeah, that's probably not looking good at the moment. Well, it depends on your take on it. If you want TikTok to be around, it's looking great.

TikTok CEO Xiao Chu is set to actually attend the Trump inauguration, which I'd assume one wouldn't invite him unless there was some sort of a deal in play here. So we'll see. Well, we'll talk about it. Yeah, keep going. Keep going. Well, that's all I really got for that. So we'll see.

Because, you know, right now this could be, you know, there wasn't going to be the Mark Zuckerberg Elon Musk cage match. That was just a flash in the pan. There could be this cage match, the TikTok versus Medicaid match, because Mark Zuckerberg has been sniffing up Trump's ass so hard to get, you know, meta preferred state status or however you want, however you want

to put it. Propaganda social network number one. Exactly. Exactly. So who knows how that's going to play out right now? Because it could come down to who's got the bigger pockets to fuel the grift to make the Trump legacy continue. I've even heard Zuckerberg has filed to change the name yet again from meta now to Pravda. Okay. All right. Yeah. We're moving along. We're moving along. So who knows

how this is going to play out? I mean, here's the thing. There's so many. It's like, who's going to buy TikTok today? Rumors. We've got the Elon Musk thing that has kind of been shot down, but then we've got the Kevin O'Leary and the Dodgers owner and Mr. Beast Cabal all talking about it. There's so many names swirling around and people are talking about just buying it in name and then rebuild. It is ridiculous. And it's just like, I just kind of want to sit back and just watch because it all comes down

to what's Zuckerberg going to do. It really, I think, I think that's the, the, the play in play. Well, Zuckerberg's best case scenario is TikTok gets banned. Exactly. So what is he got on the table or under the table, I should say, to make that happen? So the Supreme court has already said, put the, put the kibosh on it. They're like, okay, we're good.

Go goodbye. TikTok, you know, vamonos. So now that that's in place, it's going to come down to Trump saying, okay, let's bring it back. Now, like I said, who's offering Trump the most money? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what's going to come down to.

And it, or influence or, you know, however, however you want to spend, it doesn't have to exactly be money, but it could be whose network is willing to tow the party line the most. So if TikTok is willing to put in the most Trump propaganda and, you know, swim the audience, whichever way the stream is flowing. So be it, if Meta is going to push the fish in another direction, we'll see, you know, we'll see.

We'll see. I'm just, I just think it's fun to watch. Well, the American people have come up with their own solution so far, Jason, and it's just as dumb as what the American people came up with for our last election. With the ban on TikTok looming and little indication that the Supreme Court will stop it, while we now know they're not going to stop it, users are already looking for a new place to scroll away their day. Instead of turning to the American viable alternatives, such as YouTube shorts and

Instagram reels, a ton of people driven both by desperation and pettiness are hopping onto Red Note, a social media app owned by Chinese company, Xingying Information Technology. Now they don't even bother to pretend that they're not just Chinese propaganda and being controlled by the Chinese government. They, they're proud about it. And so are the Americans going there.

Yes. Xiao Hongchu is the new platform, AKA Red Note. And, uh, I was on there this morning. Of course you were. It is, it is basically just a fun fest of Chinese people welcoming TikTok refugees. Yes.

Have you, have you had a chance to go look at it yet? I know I have not looked at it. I have read more than a few articles and I've seen a lot of the postings on there. Um, many misguided Americans, uh, crying about the way that their countries have been, the country has been treating China because China is doing such a wonderful job, not trying to destabilize our country. Uh, God, there's a bunch of dumb people out there.

I know, but the, the, I'm sorry, the Chinese on, on the platform are hilarious. Uh, one guy was saying, you know, you know, for years we've heard, go back to China. Well, go back to America. No, just kidding. Welcome. Here's, I'm going to play, I'm going to play a little snippet from one that I found this morning that I think you might like Brian. Hello, TikTok refugees. Ready to swap your cowboy boots for chopsticks? Well, hold on to your hats. China's got sticks that'll make you say

cry, cry, cry if you miss out. Let me tell you folks, China's beef is absolutely tremendous. Believe me. Some things have been better than when we got back home. Many people are saying this and the flavor is unbelievable. And the best part is so affordable. You'll save so much money. You won't believe it. Trust me until you get reviews.

That is like a 20 year old Chinese kid doing a Trump impersonation to get us to go to China to buy steak. That is very funny. I'm like, I don't know, maybe they're onto something over there at Red Note. Could be. Well, I was reading the big old article over at Gizmodo. And of course, you know, if this actually does take off and if we're, if we're going with the whole TikTok ban, there's no way that this won't eventually end up on the chopping block as well for a ban because the connections to

the Chinese government are pretty explicit with this particular app. And Gizmodo, the writer of this article makes a really good point, which is if the U.S. government really wants to squash these apps so badly, what it needs to do is stop blocking or it needs to start blocking American venture capitalists from funding these apps rather than banning citizens from using them because it's no, in no small part, U.S. dollars that helps spur the massive growth of Red Note and TikTok.

So how about we just stop our American money from funding these things that we're concerned about? Except all the venture capitalists are in Chinese owned real estate right now that they're paying rent to. So the money's going in a circle anyway. So it doesn't really matter. Well, yeah, maybe we should have stopped Chinese, the Chinese from buying half of our goddamn country, literally the real estate.

Too late, too late. Well, Red Note is scrambling to hire English speaking content moderators. Well, holy shit, Jason, I think we got a part time job. Yeah, we could be in on that one. Salaries ranging from $600 to $1,100 a month. Yeah, more than the podcast makes us.

Pretty close, pretty close. Yes, they have had as many as 700,000 new U.S. users in just two days. Two days. That's, yeah, I mean, you're really pushing some blue sky numbers there. So we're not talking about half of the population running over to them right now.

No. No. So it could be what they call one of those tempest in a teapot, maybe. I think so. I think this is going to shark fin for shark fin soup for U.S. users pretty quickly. I don't know, man. It's pretty funny. I might stick around for a bit. I learned some Mandarin on the way. There is a good article over at 404 Media about how Trump does have kind of Zuckerberg by the short and curlies with this whole TikTok thing, which I highly recommend reading because, yeah, it's 404.

They do a good job, but Zuckerberg is certainly trying to prove that he's got balls right now. Some of the other Zuck news that came out this week was him boastfully saying that we need more masculine energy and not feminine energy in our countries because I'm MAGA now.

And then, of course, throwing Sheryl Sandberg totally under the bus for basically everything that's ever gone wrong at Meta. Class move, Zuck. Class move. That woman protected your ass so hard for so many years. Also, she opened all the doors to government for you, Zuck.

You couldn't do it. So don't be an ass. I mean, she was a horrible person. Don't get me wrong. I don't care for her one bit for what she did. But she served king and country for you very well. Yeah. Yeah, man. You really have no loyalty to anyone.

No shame. No nothing. No nothing. I wonder what the wife has to say about this new MAGA manly masculine move. Well, when she gets out of her money bath in Hawaii on the island they own, she'll maybe chime in. Yeah, maybe they're using – what is SpaceX's internet over there?

Starlink. Maybe they're using Starlink so he's put up kind of like a firewall and he talked to his buddy Elon saying, just show her the good news. Don't show her the bad news. Who knows? Well, getting back to just normal shitty things that Meta does. Meta knowingly used pirated materials to train its Lama AI models with the blessing of company chief Mark Zuckerberg, at least according to an ongoing copyright lawsuit against the company.

The plaintiffs of Cadre versus Meta case submitted court documents talking about the company's use of the LibGen data set for AI training. And that's the shadow library, which is – this is also – this is the lawsuit that includes Sarah Silverman and a bunch of other people that basically said that their copyrighted materials got all caught up in this library, this shadow library that was supposed to just be like academic and general interest stuff that was out of copyright, but it's full of copyrighted materials as well.

And they're basically – the lawsuit is saying, you use all that. All of it. So we shall see. And Meta has also admitted now that it has deleted links to decentralized Instagram competitor Pixel Feed, which I've never heard of, but there you go.

Pixel Fed. Pixel Fed. Don't forget it's Fed because it's federated. Get it? Get the play? Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. So, yes, a small group of posts that linked to PixelFed.Social was deleted with Facebook's community standards on spam uses justification because, yes, anything that competes with us is spam.

Unless we buy it. Unless we buy it. Then it becomes part of the family. Yes. You know, that's the playbook. That's always the playbook. Always has been. Always will be. Yep. Well, the European Commission is investigating X for compliance with EU's Digital Services Act. The EC has requested internal documentation on X's recommendation algorithms, including recent and future changes.

I wonder how they're going to get future changes. With a retention order in place until 2025. That expands the 2023 probe into X's activities, but it is unrelated to allegations of influencing Germany's upcoming federal election. And the EC also seeks access to X's commercial APIs and technical systems.

Yeah, America is just not enough. So Elon is going after Germany now and basically the new Nazi party over there and trying to pump them up. Well, he's doing it to Canada as well. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. He's meddling everywhere now.

Should we just rename him Elon up there? Yeah. Pretty much. The only thing that the EC got in response so far was a poop emoji with a beret hat on it. Saturday, September 26th, two of combat sports' most dangerous strikers collide.

Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own Darren the Gorilla Till goes to war with Cuban powerhouse Yoel Soldier of God Romero. Plus, the Bare Knuckle Middleweight Championship of the World is on the line. When the reigning champ Dave the Redneck Mundell defends against undefeated British challenger Jack the Meat Cleaver Colon.

KFC 94, Till vs. Romero. Watch it live only on DAZN. Sign up now at DAZN.com. But since we seem to all be sick of these massively billionaire-owned social networks, Mark Ruffalo is coming to the rescue.

Okay. Celeb and tech luminaries, including Mark Ruffalo, want to create a fully open social media ecosystem. They are basically trying to save social media from billionaire capture by creating something called Free Our Feeds. These folks want to build a new social media ecosystem, one of those focused on the public good instead of profit-driven incentives, as reported by Usermag.

All we ever wanted was just a straightforward, non-algorithmic timeline of our friends' updates. But now we have to have a social warrior version instead of an evil billionaire version. Those are our two options, Jason. Oh, man. Bring back LO, please. So this includes Mark Ruffalo, actor-director Alex Winter, and sci-fi writer and journalist Cory Doctorow.

Brian Eno is involved, as is Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. So, so far, this is basically just they're putting their money into a public relations campaign to say we should try to – we should do this, people. Well, Blue Sky is getting its own photo-sharing app called Flashes. I would have personally rethought that name.

I would have gone with a different name. They might as well just called it Dickies. I know. Exactly. Come on. Oh, yes. Offering an alternative to Meta's ecosystem built by Berlin developer Sebastian Vogelsang. Flashes is based on his earlier app, Skeets.

Skeets. You keep sending me your dick pics. I'm going to flash that, Skeet. Oh, yes. This is going to use Blue Sky's AT protocol. And the app focuses on photo and video content, supporting posts with up to four images or one-minute videos. Welcome to 1999.

That's all they can handle on the network right now, I think. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. This move aligns with growing demand for open-source, decentralized platforms like Mastodon and PixelFed. Vogelsang sees Flashes as a gateway for users who don't identify as Twitter people to explore Blue Sky.

It aims to attract new users without replicating Instagram, emphasizing unique features and accessibility. Unique features like only one-minute videos. You know, as much as we're making fun of all these different things, though, Jason, let's cast our minds back a little bit. We were screaming that there is a marketplace.

There is a definite marketplace for social media that isn't controlled by an asshole, and we're getting it. So I guess we should be happy. We'll see what – it's going to be a cage match, and they'll probably lose to the billionaires, but at least people are trying. The problem is that they're trying in plain sight.

I really wish they wouldn't try in plain sight. They really need to, you know, kind of do the shit under the table, get an underground following so there's something there before it hits the mainstream media so there's something that's wrong. He's not even out of beta – or not even in beta yet.

Yeah. You know, it's like, dude, I can sit around all day and say that I'm going to make this thing. Make it. Then bring it. Come on. Well, that's not how it works anymore, Jason. We released things like full self-driving to let you test it out. That's right. Move fast and break things.

How about you just move fast and make things instead of breaking things? Just make some things. I know. You should write a book. That should be the title. That would be the title, yes. Actually, my autobiography is going to be called Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda. Okay.

So back to the same news. Mastodon has announced a transition to non-profit ownership and is seeking $5 million in donations for its 2025 operating budget. The move signals a major expansion from its 2023 expenses of just $152,000.

All right. The platform also emphasizes a commitment to trust, safety, and inclusivity, aiming to create digital spaces free from ads and corporate control. For now. Mastodon plans to base its operations in Europe while maintaining a U.S.-based non-profit for fundraising.

This comes as big tech giants like Meta and X face off against the EU's stringent digital laws. And unlike Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and ex-owner Elon Musk, Mastodon founder Eugene Rochko says the platform is focused on building a resilient, community-centered alternative to ad-driven social networks.

And for Mastodon, the shift represents a step towards sustainable governance while fostering safe, open online communities. Well, for all 12 people on Mastodon. Fortunately, Blue Sky won that battle. Yeah, it seems to be. I mean, that all sounds great. But I think the thing that I discovered, and I even posted this on Blue Sky, or I skied it or whatever the fuck we're supposed to say.

You skied it. I skied it. I skied it. Moving off of X and then trying out threads, which I ended up not liking because, you know, what's the point in having a network like that when you get updates from people five days after they posted them? They couldn't sort that out.

So I left threads, and then I went to Blue Sky, and Blue Sky seems nice, but what I really discovered is I don't need any of them. Any of them? That is the problem. I'm just not interested anymore. I'm burned out on all of this stuff. I just don't care. I have Blue Sky.

I open it up every now and again. I open up threads because it cross posts my Instagram posts to threads, which is really annoying. So I have to check comments in two places because as of the first of the year, I started my A Photo A Day project again, and I just use Instagram to post that because it's easy, and I have people there, and I've just been there forever.

So, you know, yeah, it's still owned by the shithead, but still it's easy for me to do and whatnot. But anything else, I'm like, I just don't care. After the explosion and everybody, you know, went from X to Blue Sky or to Mastodon or whatever, you know, it's exhausting.

It's exhausting. You can find me on Red Note, comrade. That's where I'm going to be. Keep that in mind. Speaking of exhausting, we've touched on this a couple times, and now there's actually a study that proves that what people were feeling is indeed correct. Confusing job portals, dense competition, and time-consuming application processes all conspire to make job hunting online one of the most annoying experiences on the planet.

After all the work that goes into an application, 99.9% of the time, you don't even hear anything back. It's enough to make you feel like you're firing applications into the abyss, as if the jobs you've applied to never existed in the first place. Well, according to a recent study, that's actually the case.

Okay. The Wall Street Journal cites internal data from the hiring platform Greenhouse that showed one in five online job postings, or between 18 and 22% of all jobs advertised, are either fake or never filled. That data was called from Greenhouse's proprietary information, which the company can access because it sells automated software that helps employers fill out job postings.

People have speculated that the practice of posting such advertisements is actually a corporate strategy designed to make the businesses posting them seem like they're growing to get investments when, in fact, they are not. Oh, I have another theory, too.

Okay. What's yours? DEI. People with fucking DEI requirements in place are posting job, like putting up job listings for jobs that don't exist so they can say that they are in the process of hiring and meeting their DEI quota. Well, I can tell you something right now, Jason.

We'll be able to test that because DEI is out the fucking window now that Trump's in, so that'll be going away. It was out the window a year ago, so that's – which is fine, so let that one go. But, yeah, that is – there's a lot of speculation about that, too.

But, yeah, the investment side of things, that's an interesting way to put it, too. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Because I can guarantee you I've put out – in the past year I've put out 40 job applications, zero replies, zero.

And I was so much – I was so overqualified for every single one I posted for. Like, come on, guys. I've looked a couple times and I'm like, I'm overqualified for all of these. Yeah. It's insane. And just anecdotally, I was actually speaking with an old friend of mine that I hadn't talked to in a while because I got like a – I got a request on Instagram, which I occasionally do for a friend.

And I was just like, I don't know the name. It's private. I can't go look at it. So I write like I usually do. Who are you? Because I really only – except for Blue Sky, that's the only social that I'll like let anybody onto. Anything else, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera.

It's people I know in real life, actual real friends and family, and that's it. And it turns out this was somebody I actually knew from my past and it was great to reconnect. But moved to Oklahoma from California because could not find a job. Yeah. Yeah. Just the same thing.

She said she applied like to 8 million places, like got three interviews and just could not find a job. And eventually it was just like it's too expensive to be here. Got to go. Yep. Yep. Kind of half the reason we were hoping the homes would burn down to get the insurance check and go to Oklahoma. Yeah.

Go east, young man. Go east. But not too far east because then it gets really expensive again. It gets expensive again. Yeah. Stop somewhere in the middle. So Mark Zuckerberg has revealed plans to automate his coding jobs to AI.

Good. The whole place is going to burn down soon then. I know. Speaking on the Joe Rogan experience, because he has gone full douche. Full bag. Zuckerberg explained that the AI could write code for meta apps and AI systems, a role traditionally filled by engineers earning mid-six-figure salaries.

Yes. While claiming the technology would augment workers by fostering creativity, Zuckerberg avoided directly addressing job replacement concerns. Which leads me to the next article, meta to cut roughly 5% of staff targeting lowest performers. That's right.

The issue has dropped. They're going to be cutting around 5% of its workforce or roughly 3,600 jobs through performance-based terminations, according to an internal memo from Zuckerberg. Yep. So they say they plan to hire new talent to fill these roles later in the year.

Sure they are. Uh-huh. Yeah. They're aiming to reduce headcount again by 10% by the end of the current performance cycle. They have just been cutting and cutting away. So, yeah. All that. First the metaverse. Now the AI-verse. Now the MAGA-verse.

If you just read those couple sentences and have even a basic knowledge of math, you understand that the meta plans to hire new talent to fill these roles later this year is bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's right there in the words.

Like, they are not going to hire people. They are firing people. That is it. Yeah. And they're replacing them with AI that they're writing themselves. Yes. I don't know how this is all good. I can't wait to get to your story. But I got one more here about AI.

The race to power AI is driving a surge in natural gas usage since nuclear energy remains years away from readiness. According to the Financial Times, the U.S. is set to add 80 new gas-powered plants by 2030, a 20% increase over the last five years.

That's right. Because nuclear power plants take a long time to make and gas-powered ones. Don't. So. And President Biden's January executive order accelerated AI and energy infrastructure growth, directing federal land leases for gigawatt-scale data centers.

That's right. We're going to put them on the military bases right next to the drone helipad so the Chinese can just watch us. I don't know if you also heard this week DJI is taking away the no-fly zones, the mandatory no-fly zones.

So you can just fly your drone anywhere now. Can't wait. It's going to be awesome. Yeah. I don't know if you've been following the fire news down here, but one of your Canadian planes was taken out of service for several days because some douchebag with a drone was flying over the fire zone. And it got hit. So as the optics are saying, you know, drones over fire zones are bad.

Yeah. Let's just take away all of the safeguards to prevent people from flying drones, which actually caught me one time because I was at a friend's house and I was doing a drone demo. And I'm like, why won't this thing let me go above seven feet? Turns out I was in a no-fly zone because of a fire that was like 10 miles away that I wasn't aware of, which would have been a good thing.

And it was a good thing. So, yeah. Yes, but we have an incoming administration that does not believe in regulations. Well, this is – I mean this is the Chinese making this one too. So it's like who knows what the fuck? They don't care if our infrastructure burns to the ground. That's what I'm saying.

So I don't know how the – Yep. The twists and the turns of the Ouroboros are driving me mad, Brian. They're driving me mad. Well – But yes, just anyway, no more nuclear for quite some time. So say hello to the gas-generated power plants.

I don't know what happened to wind and water, but – Well, Jason, the reason that we have all these thoughts and start to get so angry is because we still have high critical thinking abilities. Do we? Really? We do. Sadly, unfortunately, I kind of wish I was dumb at this point and didn't care, but here we are.

But one thing that we know that our billionaire Ogliar class loves is AI. We've just finished talking about it. Elon Musk loves AI. Let's fire everybody. Let's get AI in here. Zuck loves AI. Let's fire everybody. Let's get AI in here. Our incoming administration loves AI.

Let's burn the planet to the ground to fund AI. Well, it's starting to make a lot more sense to me now, Jason, because a new study has come out that has investigated artificial intelligence and cognitive offloading by humans and found a negative correlation between frequent AI use and critical thinking abilities.

Yep. Which we said from day fucking one. The more you use your AI, the dumber you get. Thank you very much, Brian. We knew it. We just knew it. It's now been confirmed, Jason. Although, I think there's a conspiracy theory coming out about this as we speak.

Uh-oh. Because, in the study by Michael Gerlick at SPS Swiss Business School in Zurich, Switzerland, do you know the number of participants that they used? Uh, 42. 666, which is the number of the beast. Oh, damn. And Joe Rogan is on fire right now and is something about gay frogs.

The satanic frogs are turning gay. That's right. Man, I got to have a word with Michael Gerlick. If you just would have added one more person, they wouldn't have had the fuel for this. 667, the neighbor of the beast. The neighbor of the beast. It's a real nice guy.

Yeah, he is. Borrowed a cup of sugar from him the other day. Uh, no, I mean, look, this is just digital technology from the get-go. You can't remember phone numbers anymore. You can't read a map. You know, come on. Exactly. It's the same, like, nobody knows a phone number anymore because we've offloaded that. But this is more serious because this is, like, literally, you're using these things to think about everything now.

What is the answer? Instead of thinking about it, you type it into your chat GPT and you destroy a river. Yeah, that's right. You know what's funny? I actually forgot my roommate's phone number the other day and I needed it to write it down, to give it to somebody. So I told them, go to her URL and it's at the bottom of the page.

That we have a space for URLs in our brain where the phone numbers used to be, I think. That's true. You know, it's just, we only have one bucket. What are we going to put in the bucket? You know? For most people, though, Jason, there's a hole in the bucket. Dear Liza, dear Liza.

Oh, man. So Walgreens, remember Walgreens? Ah, yes, I do. Walgreens is rethinking its decision to replace the refrigerator doors with smart screens. I wonder why. I wonder why. Yes, a move that's turned shopping into a frustrating techno-dystopian experience.

The pharmacy chain partnered with Cooler Screens, Inc. in 2020 to install digital doors that displayed ads and tracked shoppers' habits. However, the screens have been plagued with issues. Flickering, crashes, and even, wait for it, catching fire. Which prompted Walgreens to try and exit its 10-year contract early.

Well, the legal battle has escalated, with Cooler Screens retaliating by cutting feeds to over 100 stores, leaving consumers staring at blacked-out doors. Welcome to Black Mirror, Brian. But here's the funny part. Isn't that why Walgreens wanted them out of the way anyway?

Because they didn't fucking work? So, they're just proving their point. Here's the thing, and here's why I don't particularly feel bad for Walgreens. Hey, guys, there's this new technology that's unproven, and we can just immediately list about 20 negatives to using it.

Let's sign a 10-year contract. Yeah, yeah. You fucking idiots. Well, and I do not shed a tear for Walgreens or CVS or any of these, you know, pharmacy companies who decided to literally put everything behind a locked cage.

Everything. I have been to – there's a CVS up the road, and I walked in there, and my jaw hit the floor. There was almost nothing that you could buy there without having to have someone come over and unlock the case for you. They're like, well, theft is so rampant.

We just can't – we can't deal with it. I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going to buy anything. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Like, first, that's dystopian, and I hate it, and it's disgusting. But fine. You're going to do it? Okay. Do it. But you better fucking staff up because the thing is I'm not going to wait five minutes after I push the fucking button to get my toothpaste to get my toothpaste.

Yeah, but because the thing is there's like three people working because you won't hire anyone because you want to make the most profits humanly possible. You've already made us check out our own stuff because we can't have checkers anymore. But now you're going to lock everything up, you make us push a button, and some 17-year-old that's across the fucking planet as far as I'm concerned, on the other side of the goddamn store, is hitching up his jeans, working his way over, stopping to open up the Cheez-Its rack, and then the Goldfish rack, and then the Miller High Life rack before I can get my goddamn toothpaste.

I'm not waiting that long. Nope. So I will go – I will drive out of my way to find a store in a nice area. I think Cooler Screens Inc. is probably owned by Amazon. Maybe. And they're just giving shitty service to push more people to buy shit at Amazon because it's faster to order something from Amazon than it is to wait for the little pimply-faced 17-year-old who's probably sitting around on a Chinese social network on the other side of the store trying to learn Mandarin so he can get a better-paying job as a content moderator than working at fucking Walgreens.

I could get my toothpaste faster if I post it on there saying, does somebody please come open the toothpaste rack? Seriously. What a wonderful world we've made for ourselves. Do you guys have that problem up in Canada? Absolutely not. Locked up? Okay. Not a single store I've ever been to has anything locked up.

Not a one. I mean it's usually high-ticket items, you know, like razor blades and condoms. But now it is literally – you walk down and every single row is locked up. It's unbelievable. Yeah. I'm like, why do you even have a store? I figure it's just for a write-off. Okay.

Well, here's a funny one. Brian Johnson, a 46-year-old tech multimillionaire known for his extreme anti-aging experiments, has stopped taking the experimental drug rapamycin. Johnson, who spends millions on efforts to de-age himself, claims the drug may have accelerated aging instead of reversing it.

Oopsies. I just love these anti-aging guys. They spend their entire lives trying to get younger and have more life. But instead of having a life, you just go have a life, you know?

Come on. He's taking 54 supplements a day. Now, I for one can't – you know, I cannot throw stones. I take – my morning regimen is 24 pills. That just keeps – that keeps the engine going. I'm not trying to get younger.

I'm not trying to live forever. I'm trying to make it to tomorrow. So, big difference. And I'm not a multi-multi-millionaire. And I just love this. Johnson admits he now looks less like his goal of a youthful teenager and more like what he describes as a vampire. Does he sparkle?

Does he sparkle now? I actually have, I think, a different take on this than you do. I'm all for it. And because – why not? Let's let these guys destroy their lives to basically experiment on themselves. And maybe we'll find out something that works. And, in fact, your guy that you introduced me to, Dr. Karen, the TikTok doctor that had that great book that we both read, he's got a podcast.

And I was just listening to his latest one yesterday. And he was talking – he had a guest on. I can't remember who it was. But they were basically saying, we have billionaires to thank for testing out the supplements of tomorrow that will actually help us. It may kill them. But maybe they'll find some stuff that will help us.

That's true. I do have an anecdote about that guy too. So I was reading his newsletter that he has and he was talking about how he takes creatine for mental agility instead of bumping up after the workout. You know, you've got to have the creatine to make the muscle grow. And I'm like, okay, well, I need any help I can get.

And I started taking that about six months ago. And about three months into that, most of my stroke side effects started to actually – like I could feel my right side again and my brain started to work again. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty interesting. So then I reached out to my friend Mika over in Germany who's working in stroke recovery and I said, have you guys ever, you know, done any creatine therapy for your stroke recovery victims?

He's like, oh, yeah, we use that shit all the time. I'm like, it would have been nice if somebody in America had told me that. So I got to go to a British doctor on a newsletter to find anecdotally that creatine works for my stroke symptoms that my friend in Germany already knew. So I guess, yeah, let them – let those guys keep going.

And I can see your side of the coin there, Brian. I'll go with it. Creatine is actually supposed to be really good for all kinds of this stuff. I actually have been meaning to start taking it. I probably should. Yeah, I take it twice a day and it works pretty well. I can feel my leg again.

It's great. Except I don't look like a vampire. Oh, that's fine. Nobody wants to look like a vampire. Well, there are some sexy vampires out there. UK judge has ended James Howell's 11-year battle to recover a hard drive containing a reported $765 million in Bitcoin buried in a landfill.

Sorry, guy. The Newport man lost access to 8,000 Bitcoins after mistakenly discarding the drive in 2013. High court Judge Kaiser Casey dismissed the case, citing no realistic chance of success. Howell's had sought permission to excavate the landfill or receive compensation equivalent to the Bitcoin's value.

The Newport City Council opposed the excavation, citing environmental, public health, and safety risks. The court also ruled Howell's claim was barred by the six-year statute of limitations as he waited until 2024 to file a lawsuit, despite knowing the facts, in 2013.

Ownership of the drive was another sticking point. The judge upheld the council's legal rights under UK pollution laws, affirming that trash delivered to the landfill belongs to the landfill authority. That's right. So this guy was so wrong on so many fronts, and he still tried.

But... Well, who wouldn't try for $765 million, Jason? I know, but sometimes you have to give up the ghost. This is a hard drive from 2013 that's been in a landfill. You think this thing's going to be viable? It's not going to be readable, yeah. Yeah. No. He's kind of done.

He's kind of done. And the New York Times reports that the cryptocurrency industry is urging President-elect Donald Trump, by the time this comes out, by the time you hear it, he might be president. It's the final countdown, Brian. To create a national Bitcoin stockpile. Of course they are.

Okay, hold on a second. My understanding is the government is already sitting on, like, 20 million in crypto. And you know where they got it from, Jason? The Silk Road? This is all the stuff that they got from criminals that they've seized. Yes. That's actually the Department of Justice. They got the green light to sell $6.5 billion in seized Bitcoin.

So we obviously do not need to buy a stockpile. We have one. We have a stockpile. Yes. Let's just transfer it from your account to our account. You know? Just move it around. Move it around. I think the Department of Justice is trying to sell it so they get to keep the money. I think that's the key here.

But yeah, this is the BitBros trying to say that we need this to, you know, bolster Bitcoin to make it more of a thing. So, you know, and it does make sense that the U.S. government does need a stockpile of Bitcoin because, as we say, Brian, only criminals use Bitcoin. Let's see what you did there.

Media Candy Did you watch the Silo season finale last night, Jason? Yes, I did. So did I. It was great. I liked it. Now, I've got to say, there was a spoiler alert.

We should do that because it just came out last night. We are going to talk a little. Yeah, just a spoiler alert. So skip ahead a little bit if you haven't seen it yet and haven't read the books and didn't know what was coming. Anyways, I did see a lot of articles prior to it coming out from the early reviews saying, And there's a massive twist at the end.

Well, not if you've read the fucking books. I don't remember the book, so it's all new to me, which is great. I guess it has something to do with the fact that she was wearing a fire suit at the end. So I'm guessing when two go in, one comes out.

No, not that part. Oh, okay. Yeah, the twist at the end was, of course, the fact that nobody was expecting them to go back to before the silo and seeing how it's going to come about, which is, you know, the second book. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So they're basically setting that up.

So you can probably expect to see a little less of Jessica next season, but unfortunately. But we got Jessica Henwick, and she's cute. So she'll be the female lead for the before times. I'm looking forward to it. It all seems pretty good, and the casting seems pretty good for it, too.

So we'll see. Yeah, yeah. I'm in. I'm in. It's been a great show, and I really enjoyed it. Yeah. See you in two years. Try four, probably. I watched Wicked this week. You are a theater kid.

Yeah. It was delightful. I actually quite enjoyed it because I didn't think I was going to, and my friends were like, no, you really got to go watch it. And so I did. Okay. Part one of the movie was longer than the entire musical that I actually saw, which was like, how'd they manage that one?

But it was actually about the same because I fast-forwarded the songs that I don't like, which makes it even easier. I've seen the musical. I had nowhere to fast-forward. But no, it was beautiful. It was well-acted, well-sung. It was good. I started watching Jerry Springer Fights Camera Action this week, a three-part miniseries on the life and times of the Jerry Springer show.

I love it. I love Jerry Springer. I'm sorry. I thought he was great. It's fair, but I did read a review of it that said something along the lines of, you can see the very kernel of the downfall of American society start to blossom. Oh, absolutely. But it's perfect. I don't – I mean, hey, I like Jerry Springer.

He was a good guy. He fought for the right things, which is, you know, midgets and strippers. I'm fine with that. Let's go. I'm sorry. Little people and strippers. You're not allowed to say that anymore. Well, you can say whatever you want now, Jason. That's true. Welcome to America.

And I started watching Special Forces World's Toughest Test Season 3. Yeah, watching anything with Stephen Baldwin is a tough test. I'll give you that. Spoilers, spoilers. The first episode aired last week. Yeah, poor Stephen doesn't make it very far. But he douches out like a Baldwin should.

Okay. But he does do something. He's like 58 years old. And he does actually jump from a moving boat to a moving helicopter and pulls himself up and gets on the helicopter from the boat, which is something I couldn't do. So kudos for Stephen for actually doing that.

So not so many kudos for bitching out and leaving the show. But anyway, it's a fun show. I've always liked season 1 and 2 as well. They're only five weeks long. So it's like a 10-day experiment. But they're fun. I enjoy them.

I had a hankering with all the helicopters that I had to see last week. So many helicopters, Brian. So many helicopters. I went back and I watched Blue Thunder from 1983. And then I thought to myself, Jesus fucking Christ, that movie's 42 years old.

It has legs. It is a fantastic movie. If you've never seen Blue Thunder, I highly recommend it. It has some of the most amazing helicopter stunts. I almost said motorcycle stunts. I'm like, wrong movie. It has some of the most amazing helicopter stunts way before CG was a thing.

And it is just a fun movie. And then I remembered, wait, there's a TV series. I remember the TV series, yep. Yep, one pilot and 11 episodes. So I found that on the backwaters of Sweden. I downloaded that. And when I went to go put the link in the show notes, I forgot Dana Carvey is the Jaffo, just another fucking observer, in the series.

That's from 1984. And I looked at it. I'm like, holy shit, that is Dana Carvey. So that's on my two watch this week. It has got that classic 80s. I looked at it for a second. And it so has that classic 80s TV series look and feel that we all love.

I can't wait. I can't wait. Well, I was doing the thing that I normally do on most Januaries and is done by February or March, which is I tell myself I'm going to listen to more music and less podcasts this year. And something popped up on my social media feed, I think on Facebook, that helped with that.

The 30 best dream pop albums, according to Pitchfork. Now, this is from 2018. So I'm assuming it was on threads and it just bubbled up now. It just came up now. But yeah, it's a great list of bands, some of which I'm very familiar with, some of which I have never heard of.

Some of them are very old. Some of them are very new. What is dream pop? Well, it's kind of a porous border with shoegaze because even Lush is on this list, but it's their more poppy album. This is just great, like, you know, feel good, noisy, junk music in the background, lo-fi, a lot of great stuff.

So I'm kind of working through the albums, particularly the ones that I'd never heard of or never been through before. There's a lot of really good stuff on this list. So if you're looking for something new to listen to, you can just go through here, pick an album at random, and just bring it up on your player of choice and fuzz out to some good feelings because we're all going to be needing them for the next four years.

It's funny that you went to music instead of podcast, and I actually started because I needed to – I'm like one of those Olympians who like to train in Colorado in high altitude because, you know, when you actually get to the event, you're going to be well prepared. So I started listening to Coffee with Scott Adams.

Oh, God. His daily podcast. It is actually quite entertaining, but my God, did I not realize how batshit insane that guy is. Oh, I could have told you. We talked about him a few years back, and I like delved in for about 10 minutes and then went, this guy's nuts.

He's nuts. The problem with Scott Adams is he's got a kernel of truth, and he's got a kernel of crazy because I like his books. I still like his books, and he does have a lot of really good, interesting things to say, but he's got a lot of crazy batshit things to say too.

And if you have used AI too much and you don't have the cognitive thinking skills to separate the two, you're in trouble. You're really in trouble. So I like to think of this as my exercise every day to – if I can parse the brilliance from the batshit, then I've had a good day.

Now, if I start to go crazy on this show, Brian, just pull the ripcord and say no more for you. Okay. I will keep that in mind. Okay. Please keep that in mind. Now, there is no way we could not mention this article and just kind of briefly discuss it on our show, given the amount of time that we have talked about Neil Gaiman's various things that you really love and I'm kind of lukewarm on.

I kind of like Neil Gaiman, but not everything, not as much as you do. And, you know, Amanda Palmer, his now ex-wife, who I personally cannot stand for very many reasons and reasons I discussed ad nauseum for about five years on this podcast. But obviously, this article came out about Neil Gaiman, which, you know, he's had the allegations and we kind of knew that something was going on and a lot of projects were canceled.

Boy, oh boy, did you read this. It is a book in and of itself and boy, oh boy, Neil Gaiman does not come off well in any way, shape or form. And I would argue Amanda Palmer probably comes off even worse because she obviously enabled all this fucking shit and turned a blind eye to it.

And boy, is that against her brand, which normally would cause a lot of problems. But these days, nobody seems to give a fuck anymore. But yeah, I think Neil Gaiman is done and I think Amanda Palmer should be after reading all of this.

So, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I didn't even – I didn't give it a read because it – I saw the time to read was like 30 minutes and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to pass. I'm going to let everybody else do the reading. It's 30 minutes because there's well more than 30 minutes you could bullet point about what this guy did.

Yeah, I did do a bullet point. I had Claude give me a bullet point list for both sides and I'm like – and I did ask that ad chat GPT. I'm like, was this just a hit piece? They're like, no, this was a well-balanced article and well-researched.

I'm like, okay, well. Yep, that's all we needed to know. Thanks. Bye-bye, Sandman. Yeah, but the cops have – didn't press any charges. So, okay. I don't know. Here's the deal. I like his work. Yep. I just want – I want them to finish Sandman and they're probably not going to now, which pisses me off.

We've already gotten screwed on Good Omens, but did we really? Because Good Omens should have ended after season one anyway. That's a different thing. I just really want the end of Sandman. That's all. Please do it right. In this day and age, you can still go see Harry Potter and she is not as bad, but right on the cusp, everybody's got something.

And good old Orson Scott Card, you know. And people still play Michael Jackson. Not me, but yeah. Look, if there's one thing that came out of this whole thing is, you know, we all have our moments as parents where we feel like, boy, we didn't have a good parenting day.

You'll always feel like you've been a really fucking great dad when you read about what Neil Gaiman did. Okay. Shit. Well, I'm going to cleanse the palate a little bit there, Brian. Some TV that we're still allowed to watch. Daredevil Born Again, the official trailer finally.

Dropped. And I am. I'm in. I am so in. I'm pretty excited. Yep. Yeah. That at least cheers me up. I want, you know, death and violence and brutality. That's what I can go for today now. Thanks. Thanks. That's not just Neil Gaiman's sex life.

Apps and doodads. Well, something that should have happened quite a while ago has finally happened. And Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is stepping down from the company after eight years on the job, according to reporting from Bloomberg. This follows last year's disastrous app launch in which a redesign was missing core features and was broken in nearly every major way and has still yet to be really fixed.

I was going to say, and is still broken in nearly every major way. I use it every day. They found someone to steer the ship now, Jason. Who is it? Brian? Tom Conrad. And guess what he used to do? What did he used to do, Brian? He co-founded Pandora. He was a VP at Snap and product chief at Quibi.

Oh, my God. Fail upwards. But he has a Sonos tattoo, apparently. Oh, good for him. The funny thing is, you can actually watch a Quibi video while you wait for your actual music to load on Sonos.

Yes. Well, you know, and as for the stepping down CEO Spence, he is getting a $7,500 per month payout until June, a cash severance of $1.9 million. And his unvested shares in Sonos will vest. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Unvested for a reason. But now vested, Jason. Magic. God, it's great to fucking suck at your job. Oh, my God. I want to suck this bad. Can I? Oh, Brian. We did it wrong. Here's the problem, Jason.

Here's the problem. We have been good at what we do our whole lives. Oh, and we didn't wear a suit. Damn it. I didn't get my company's names tattooed on myself. Speak for yourself. I got Metblogs tattooed on me. Problem is, it was my company. You better hold on to that fucking domain.

No, we sold it. Oh, damn it. I hope they don't turn it into porn. Oh, who knows? Yeah, Blogging LA and Metblogs got sold to Joss, Jocelyn, Jocelyn Wang, one of our writers, long, over, God, 15 years ago now.

But I still have a Free the Media tattoo on my fucking arm with the logo. Nice. And it's a big one. It's not a tiny one. Oh, I got that at South by Southwest, the year that Twitter broke. Broke out, not broke.

It broke. Different years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the next five years of the fail whale Twitter was broken. But now it's gone. But anyway, moving on. Fuck Sonos. The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against General Motors and its OnStar Division for allegedly selling location and driving data from millions, count them millions, Brian, of vehicles without informed consent.

Of course. The FTC claims data collected as often as every three seconds was used to track behaviors like hard braking, speeding, and late night driving. But the data was anonymized, right? Cue the Padme and Anakin meme. Yeah. Right?

Right? This information was sold to consumer reporting agencies, enabling insurance companies to adjust rates or deny coverage. So no, Brian, it was not anonymized. Of course not. Under a proposed settlement, GM and OnStar face a five-year ban on selling geolocation and driving data.

They must also ensure future data sharing is fully disclosed and obtain explicit consumer consent. GM denies wrongdoing. Oh, fuck yourself. Stating customers were informed. But the FTC argues the process was misleading. So there you go.

There you go. Elon Musk is in the headlines again. This time, Brian, for faking his gaming prowess. Well, look, I'm almost glad because at some point you got to go like, OK, this guy claims to run four different companies.

Plus, he's like the world's best gamer at something. Bullshit. Yeah. Also, you're a great dad to like your 95 children. Yeah. How are you doing all of this? How? When all you're really doing is tweeting all day. Yep.

So gamers accused him of hiring someone to level up a character in the RPG Path of Exile 2. The drama escalated when Musk appeared to struggle with basic gameplay during a live stream, sparking ridicule. I think I think there's been enough ridicule. He could have gone without the live stream without getting ridiculed.

Musk responded by leaking private messages with YouTuber Zach Hoyt, known as Asmongold. After Hoyt criticized him in the video, this move violated platform rules, according to community notes. Musk also revoked Hoyt's verified status on X.

If you look up man-child in the dictionary, there's just a picture of this dumb fuck. I know. Critics pointed out Musk's actions highlight double standards, with many noting he relies on teams for his ventures, just as Hoyt uses editors for his content. Yeah, this is the same thing when he, you know, speed ran Diablo 4 or whatever.

Right. And then he did the Kessel Run in under 22 parsecs. Exactly. Fucking asshole. Yeah. So sick of this guy. We're stuck with him for well until Trump gets sick of him. Yep. Well, speaking of gaming though, Brian, I saw this come through my Instagram feed and I thought of, well, first I thought of me because I wanted it.

Then I thought of you because now you have a Switch. It's called the Gaming Pillow, which is literally just a little pillow with an articulated arm on it that you clip your, for you, your Nintendo Switch to. For me, it would be my iPad. Does it come with a can of Brawn-o? No, it doesn't.

It should. But here's the thing, Brian. After you play for a while, your hands go numb or your arms go numb. Or you stop playing and get off your ass for a few fucking minutes. Fuck no, man. Fuck no. I am never buying this because my child would just, I already, thank God for the app.

Let me, let me talk about that Switch app for a second. They have a parental control app where you can set daily limits. It is the best thing in the world. Well, here's the problem with me, Brian. I'm, I'm the adult of the house. So, I got hooked on this game called Mob Control.

My son plays that. That, you need to take that game away from him fucking immediately. Immediately. We did. We did. He could, he could not handle stopping. I can't handle stopping. There were times when I had something, I needed to kill 20 minutes.

And if you want to make 20 minutes go by in about three seconds, open that app. It is worse than TikTok. It is worse than TikTok. There's something about the gameplay mechanics on that game that make time disappear and make your arm go numb, which is why I wanted a gaming pillow.

Well, again, it's also one of the reasons that we ended up agreeing to get Lucas the Switch is because we wanted him off the iPad because of games like Mob Control. So, so we've got him off of that. And, and you know what? Everything that you said was right. Of course, my son has now had the Switch for a little bit over three weeks.

And of course, Nintendo announced the Switch too. Yeah. But we don't know when it's coming. It's going to be way later this year. And I, there's no way we could have held off that long because I can't have him turn into a Mob Control zombie. Yeah, no, no, Mob Control bad. And now it's with Transformers.

And, oh my God, I've got stars. I had Starscream like leveled up to 62. Yeah, no, Brian, it was bad. It was really, really bad. I mean, I, you know. The iOS games are so built to be addictive, just straight up.

It was the same. We had the same issue with Angry Birds. He turned into Angry Lucas if we tried to take it away from him and cut him off. He seems much better with the Nintendo Switch. Like he's okay when, when the timer hits. So, yeah, I just, there was just no way for me to turn it off. I would delete the app at night and then the next night I would just reinstall it and go through, go through the, like the five minutes of prep just so I could sync my account and get back to where I was so I could play it again.

This has gone on for two months. It's bad. It's really fucking bad. I'm like a really top level mob control player. I'm not like Elon. I'm really tipped up. I put in the fucking hours, man. You need to give me the admin password control for your iOS from now on. I do.

I do. I need an adult. I need an adult to fucking put the, oh. I'll set you with the 30 limit timer that can't be broken. You'll just buy another iPad. I know you. I'm just going to go buy another iPad. That's the problem. I still have a fucking credit card. Come on. Do you know how many computers and iPads I have that nobody knows about?

Come on. It's like when I was an alcoholic, I'd stash vodka. Now I've got iPad minis around the house. Oh, Jesus. But I am going to try a new game that came out in Apple Arcade this week, which I'm kind of looking forward to.

Final Fantasy, the OG RPG. They released it on Apple Arcade. So it's free and there's no ads or anything in it because it's Final Fantasy Plus, which is what they do. No, they still haven't released flight control. I want flight control.

God damn it. Bring that back. But at least there's a timer on that one because the planes get too crazy. So I can stop that one. I promise. I promise, Brian. Please give me flight control. No. Closing shout outs.

Over at Patreon this week. Nobody signed up. Boo. But Spazes up their pledge. Thank you very much. And we'd like to thank legacy Patreon subscribers. William, Roger, Kevin, Rachel, Dan, Derek, Doug, Laura Vox, Simon, and Jason.

Not me. The other Jason. So thank you all. And just a reminder, for as little as $3 a month, you can sign up and get the show early and ad-free and in high definition. And if you want to sign up for the whole year, you get 5% off. So thank you very much. Sign up. Patreon.com slash GOG.

All right. And over at PayPal, we've got Miles, Shari, Natalie, Linda, Ocadio, Nathaniel, and Andrew. Woo-hoo. Over at the tip jar, we've got Theodore and Sean. And no merch this week. Oh, man. All we needed was an Alvin. And we would have had Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.

Oh, my God. Still thinking about Christmas music, apparently. At least I am. Now I'm going to have it the rest of the day. Damn it. Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun. Christmas. Christmas.

Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. Fuck off. No reviews this week, either. All right. And some sad news. We've lost two people in one day. And what an odd pairing it was, Jason.

Yes, it is an odd pairing. We lost a beloved Brewers broadcaster and Mr. Baseball, Bob Uecker, who passed away at the age of 90. And, of course, David Lynch, Blue Velvet director, Twin Peaks director, et cetera, dead at 78. Yeah. The one a bigger loss than the other, but let's be honest.

Not to put a finer point on it, but. But, you know, Bob Uecker made it to 90 and had a great run. So I could have used a little bit more of David Lynch. But, you know, like it was a year or two ago that I heard he was basically housebound because of emphysema and all this other stuff. And, I mean, that's particularly for a creative person, but just anybody in general.

Once you hear about that, it's just a matter of time, unfortunately. Yeah, it sucks. Sucks. Yep. Now I have to go back and rewatch Twin Peaks. Oh, God. It's so good. So good. Does it have legs, though? It does. I rewatched it. I rewatched it like once every five years. Okay.

Maybe I'll do that. No, I won't. What am I kidding? I've seen it. I don't have that much time left on this planet to go watch Twin Peaks again. Jesus. All right. I got to go listen to the fucking Chipmunks album is what I got to do. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFillippo. And I'm Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.

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