719: Uniquely Devoid of Feeling

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. The real Brian Schulmeister. Please stand up. Please stand up. Not the southern one. Nope. Not your southern cousin. So thanks, Donovan, for taking over last week. That was awesome. So appreciate it. Yeah, much appreciated. I think it was a good show. You did a great job. I was listening somewhere over the Atlantic.

So, yeah. Okay. It was my – I listened on the flight home. So you published it like right before I got to the airport, which was nice. Yeah. All right. So how was – I guess we'll talk about late Disney after – Yeah, we'll save that for the Dave thing.

But, yeah, the trip was good. No complaints. You know, London is London. I love London. And Paris, probably not so appealing to a nine-year-old boy. How are those jewels, though? Yeah, well, you know, we came back a little richer, which is nice. No, I have to say I'll be riding the mic mute today because I came back with a Parisian cough.

You know, people smoke. Not so much. Not in L.A. That ended a long time ago and so did my smoking. But people smoke in London a bit, not as much. But, oh, my God, Paris. Really? Oh, my God. It was like stepping back into 1980.

I mean, restaurants have ashtrays. People are smoking left, right, and center. We all came – you know, we all just started hacking because we're just not used to it and still got a bit of what I'm dubbed the Parisian cough. So I'll be riding the mute. Oh, I appreciate that so much.

I appreciate that. So I just have one little bit of follow-up here from last episode. Donovan talked about nobody wants A.I. Toast. Well, we got multiple, multiple people writing in that we apparently don't watch Red Dwarf because there's a whole bit about A.I. Toast.

There'll be a link in the show notes. So thank you, SMY and Mason Bueller, for pointing out the A.I. Toast. Were you a Red Dwarf guy? I really tried to be. I could not get into it. I just – I like the books. The books I thought were good, but the TV show just did not – did not land.

It just felt so low budget and I just couldn't. Yeah, that was the problem. That was the problem. Yeah. I tried. I really tried. Yeah, I did too. I did too. And saying it's low budget, I mean, that's low budget for back then.

I know. Try watching it now. Now it looks like, you know, it looks – it almost looks like a farce at this point when you try to watch it now. I was like, that's not even cable access level of quality. Is this Spaceballs the series? Yeah, really, really. I do want to throw out a belated thanks to Joseph Levy.

He also sent me some Trader's Love and I forgot to write him back. He was second in line, but thanks, Joseph, for sending that in. Apologies for the belated hat tip. That's cool. I know that you've been throwing yourself into the Trader's World kind of as a bomb against the actual world these days.

We all need something. I've got my sports ball. So that was actually quite difficult. Well, some of it was easy to follow while I was in Europe, the soccer, because it was on at a normal time, 7 p.m., all that sort of stuff. So I got to go watch a couple soccer games. But I could not follow baseball because those games started at 2 or 3 in the morning for me.

So I would wake up every morning going, all right, are the Dodgers going to make it to the World Series? Let's see what's going to happen. And while I was there, I discovered that the Dodgers did indeed make it into the World Series. And I know you don't care. I know. I know. This is for me. No, it's not that I don't care.

I actively dislike it when any of the L.A. teams make it to their respective top of the mountains because it's just annoying as shit to live in L.A. Well, you should enjoy my world right now because it's not just L.A. that made it to the World Series. And a pretty rare occurrence, the two cities that have meant the most to me in my life, my hometown of Los Angeles and my wife's hometown of Toronto and my current residence, both made it to the World Series.

So it's L.A. versus Toronto, which is pretty cool, except I can't wear my Los Angeles Dodgers hat for a while around here. Yeah. I get jumped. Yeah. I just wear it inside the house with all the windows closed. Well, I don't think you should be wearing that anyway with the anti-American sentiment going out of there.

They're OK with Los Angeles. They know L.A. is fine. Oh, they know that we're different. We're a different country. California's cool. It's all good. All right. So that's fine. And then as a bit of foreshadowing because we're going to talk about Ticketmaster a little bit later, I have a fond memory of my father taking me to an L.A. Dodgers World Series game back when I was a kid.

And I was like, oh, it'd be pretty cool to take Lucas to a game. I mean, it's right here in Toronto now and it's Los Angeles and Toronto. Let's let's fire up the ticket bot and see what we're looking at here. I could buy a fucking car. Yeah. Lucas could probably go to, I don't know, college.

Yeah. I don't like we we've been talking about this off and on over the past the lifespan of the show ticketing prices for everything are outrageous. I mean, the band that I used to work for Rush have have reunited, except for the fact that it's not really reuniting because the Neil Peart, the drummer and driving force and heart and soul of that band died.

But they got a new drummer and they get on tour. So good for them and all that. Their ticket prices are fucking ridiculous. Like the Internet is outraged at this. Everybody's ticket prices are fucking ridiculous. I'm looking at World Cup tickets next year because that also would be cool thing to take my son to.

Fuck FIFA. That's fucking ridiculous. Like, I don't know who these people are that are going to these events. I don't understand this anymore. And I did see somebody had posted, like, adjusted for inflation, 1991 World Series tickets, adjusted for inflation.

So in today's dollars, how much do you think a World Series game cost in 1991? A little bit higher, around 200 bucks. Affordable. Affordable for a World Series game. World Series, yeah. That makes 200 bucks, adjusted price.

Yeah. Starting prices are over $1,000. And that's for shit seats. Oh, you've got to be kidding me. No. Resale, particularly here in Toronto. Now, granted, they haven't been in the World Series in 30 years. The resale ticket prices, some of them are $30,000. Oh, you've got to be kidding me.

For one game. What the fuck? Pardon my Kirk. That's ridiculous. I just, we'll get into that later with Ticketmaster. Moving on. Moving on. We've got a hat tip to Vinny on this one. Cards Against Humanity has finally forced SpaceX off their land.

I've talked about. Yeah, exactly. I talked about this when it happened, because I'm actually one of the stakeholders in that piece of land. Because I actually paid for the Cards Against Humanity thing that they did to buy the thing back in the day.

I think there's a certificate they sent me somewhere that has been lost to one of the 17 moves I've had since 2017. But, yeah, I wish I still had that. But, yeah, SpaceX rolled up and just dumped all their space garbage on the land. And Cards Against Humanity was like, oh, slow your roll, Elon.

And took them to court. And then they ended up settling out of court, which is probably good, because I don't think Cards Against Humanity could probably afford to go up against SpaceX lawyers. Yeah, Elon can bankroll that for a bit longer than a Cards can. Yeah, exactly. But they said that they have cleared out and that they are going to have the land restored.

So that's good. This is a consolation prize. Cards Against Humanity says it'll send its fans a free Elon Musk mini pack. So that'll be pretty interesting. I don't know if I'll ever get it, because I don't think they have my current email address or current address. But I'm happy that they stood up against the man.

Yeah, good for them. Good for them. Yeah, yeah. You don't hear much about them anymore. No, no. They've rolled out a bunch of different versions of the game, which are interesting. So I might have to buy one again. I think they even have a kid-friendly one now, which is kind of not the point. But, you know, it's definitely not the point.

Might pick that up to play with the kid. I have one more article here, just because as the world goes, so goes our show. And as the world is going right now, it is just crushed underneath AI. Everything is AI. Toasters have AI. Everything has AI.

You can't get away from AI. I saw that you added an AI channel to our Discord. So it's one more place for me to block slop. But have at it, listeners. I will not be joining you. There was a... Please, please, do not go on our Discord and post AI slop.

It's an area for discussion, not posting. Sure. That's how it's going to stay, because that's what users do. Well, our people are smarter. Hey, don't shit on our listeners, dude. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Anyways, there's an article, a long-form article, that I urge everybody to read.

It's very well done. I've talked about this guy before. It's Charlie Warzel. He writes for The Atlantic about tech stuff, and most of his articles are spot on. This is a great one. It's called A Tool That Crushes Creativity. AI slop is winning. I know you read this, but I just have one particular choice bit here that I particularly love, because he's talking about why...

He talks about how everything's been overtaken by this first, and how crushing it is, actually, and just soul-stripping, bearing, horrible, and it's all crap. And then he talks about kind of the creation aspect of it and why it's not good for us. And he says, This is tragic.

The loss of friction deprives people of something crucial. What happens between imagination and creation is ineffable. It entails struggle, iteration, joy and frustration, disappointment, and pride. It is the process through which we enact agency. It is how we make meaning and move through the world.

To lose that, I fear, and of course, he just means by throwing your shit up into a prompt and letting AI do stuff for you, is to capitulate on our very humanity. And I'm starting to actually very much come around to that and agree completely. Yeah. There were a few other bits from this article that I thought was really good.

And one was talking about what designer Angelos Arnas has dubbed an infrastructure of meaningless, which I absolutely love. Yeah. How else to describe a technological project that produces art, music, film, and text that has not been underwritten by the human experience and is uniquely devoid of feeling?

Yep. Uniquely devoid of feeling is good. And it goes on to say, at its core, slop invites a kind of nihilism into all aspects of our lives. And I have to reiterate the fact that that is all I've felt for the past like two years now since this thing has been coming. It's just this creeping nihilism that's just like, why?

We've watched something that we've built for the past 30 years and billions of people have contributed to, which was the World Wide Web and the, you know, the compendium of all human knowledge, be raped and murdered by these people. Mangled. Mangled. Destroyed.

And twisted and destroyed. Yes. Yeah. It's out now that more, there are more articles on the internet now that have been written by this AI garbage than have been written by humans. And it's like, that just makes me sad. It makes me sad. It's sad. So with that, let's get to the news.

In the news. Well, something that shockingly, given our opinions of the internet these days, kind of seems like good news. It felt like half the internet was dealing with a hangover from the morning of October 19th to the early hours of October 20th.

The severe Amazon Web Services outage took out many, many, many, many websites, apps, games, and other services that rely on Amazon's cloud to stay up and running. This included a long list of popular software like Venmo, Snapchat, Canva, and Fortnite. Even Amazon's own assistant, Alexa, stuttered, which shouldn't be that surprising because you'd think Amazon would use their own goddamn service.

Yeah. So there you go. They identified the trigger of the event as a DNS resolution issue for the regional DynamoDB service endpoints. It ran into more problems as it tried to solve the outage. Not surprising for any of us that tried to fix things with computers. Oh, look, we fixed that problem.

Oh, shit. It broke over there. Yeah. Okay. That's not good. And it took a while. So what the TLDR on this is, holy crap, we put a lot of stuff on Amazon Web Services. Maybe we shouldn't do that. That's the sentiment every time something at AWS goes down.

Yep. And it never changes. You forget about it the next day and go, oh, I remember why I use this because it's so fucking easy. It's easy and it's cheaper than most other ones. Yeah. Instead of racking your own boxes, it's like, yeah. Yep. So one unplugged cable and half the internet went down for a good part of the day.

Yeah. I did find out how many of the podcasts I listen to rely on AWS because so many, so many CDN endpoints end at AWS somewhere along the way. But, yeah. Well, SpaceX has finally, finally, finally pulled the plug on about 2,500 Starlink terminals being used by scam syndicates across Southeast Asia.

The company confirmed it after pressure from U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, who'd been calling out Elon Musk for months, and so have we, over Starlink helping fuel some of the nastiest human trafficking linked fraud operations in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. We've mentioned this several times on the show and talked about how horrible it is.

These Chinese groups over in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand basically just kidnap people out of the airports sometimes and force them to work in these places. And they're, you know, they're running scams on us here in the U.S. and Europe and everywhere else as you can.

It's just they're basically turning them into, it's a con artist farm, you know, doing those love scams and shit like that. But, you know, Starlink finally capitulated and said, OK, we'll turn it off. The annoying, the really annoying thing is Starlink's not even legal in Myanmar and Thailand.

That's the really obnoxious part. So these people hacked the geofencing and which you'd think that, I don't know, fucking satellite. It might be a point. GeoG.show slash VPN. Yeah, there you go. Ridiculous, ridiculous. So, and SpaceX says it's committed to detecting and preventing misuse by bad actors.

Fuck you, you're not. You are not. You are liars. Yeah. You only capitulate when it finally gets to the point where, you know, the government who can't be bought finally says something.

Well, Yelp is in the news. I don't know if you still use Yelp. Very few people seem to these days. But they've decided to stop and shitifying their own product themselves and have turned to get some help from AI. Oh, great. So they will and shitify faster. Yes.

The review site has updated Yelp Assistant. It's chatbot to answer users' questions, rolling the tool out for all business categories. Responses will draw on information from business websites, as well as posts by other Yelp users. The chatbot will also remember past queries and preferences when it's used for finding services.

Saved information can be managed in the Yelp app under Yelp Assistant Memory Settings. They're also putting in Review Insights in December and announcing an announced calling features in April. The AI-powered calling is rolling out in the company's fall update as Yelp host and Yelp receptionist. So you'll be able to use AI to make reservations, change bookings, and capture special requests.

It's available to restaurants and other places starting now at $149 a month or $99 a month for customers with a Yelp guest manager plan. So yay. There's a lot more AI coming. One of the more interesting ones, as the article says, is menu vision.

With this resource, pointing your camera at a restaurant's menu will show photos of the dish and question along with reviews about that particular item. Okay. Called a menu. Yeah. Oh, stop. Just make it stop. Make it stop.

Well, some people are trying by writing a sternly worded letter, Jason. Great. Did they write it or did ChatGPT? Probably ChatGPT, but more than 800 public figures, including Steve Wozniak and Prince Harry, along with AI scientists, former military leaders and CEOs, signed a statement demanding a ban on AI work that could lead to superintelligence.

Okay. We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence not lifted before there is a broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably and strong public buy-in. It reads, signers include a mix of people across sectors and political spectrums, blah, blah, blah.

And it comes from the Future of Life Institute, which said that AI developments are occurring faster than the public can comprehend. They're also occurring faster than the businesses that are deploying them can comprehend. Also, the businesses that are creating them can comprehend. But we don't talk about that. Yeah.

Here's the part I really agree with. We've, at some level, had this path chosen for us by the AI companies and founders and the economic systems that's driving them. But no one's really asked almost anybody else, is this what we want? Well, we're all screaming, no. No. We don't. We don't.

Well, at this point, we kind of do, because if we don't get it, then the entire global economy will probably collapse in on itself. Yes. Well, despite the lack of recent breakthroughs, companies like OpenAI are still pouring billions into new AI models and the data centers needed to run them.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that superintelligence was in sight. I don't know what telescope he's using. While ex-CEO Elon Musk said superintelligence is happening in real time. That's what happens when you take ketamine, kids. Yeah. I was going to say.

And let me look at my hand for three hours. Yes. And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he expects superintelligence to happen by 2030 at the latest. I hope he signs that statement. No, he won't. Because he didn't sign the statement about being cautious about stuff.

No. Of course not. That's against his business plan, you know? I know. That's his entire business plan. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we knew this was going to happen at some point, but even I was shocked by who it actually is. Alan Hamill, the widower of Suzanne Somers, come and knock on my door, has taken the idea of being a wife guy to a new level.

Two years after her death, he's turned to AI in an extreme effort to keep her memory alive. In an interview with People, Hamill, who is also best known as a TV host in Canada, apparently, opened up about working with the company Real Botox. I thought I said Real Botox.

To recreate Summers' likeness. Obviously, Suzanne was greatly loved, not only by her family, but by millions of people, he said. One of the projects that we have coming up is a really interesting project, the Suzanne AI Twin. Now, it's not just AI in a box. This is a robotic doll modeled after Summers 3's company character, Chrissy Snow.

Whoa. Which he's described as perfect. Oh, Jesus. When you look at the finished one next to the real Suzanne, which, by the way, how do you look at the real Suzanne right now? Because that would be really creepy. You can't tell the difference. It's amazing. And I mean, I've been with Suzanne for 55 years, so I know what her face looks like.

And when I just look at the two of them side by side, how are you looking at the two of them side by side? In his mind's eye. Better he borrowed some ketamine from Elon. He's having a good old time. I really can't tell which is the real one and which one is the AI.

The project involved training in LLM on all 27 of Summers' books and hundreds of interviews from her career. He told people it was Suzanne's idea after computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil introduced them to the concept back in the 1980s. Fast forward to the present where the family has grown to really love the idea, calling it a great tribute to his late wife.

I bet they do. Ka-ching. They said, we're going to get to the point where it's not going to seem weird, and it'll just be another way to communicate with people we cared about. He explained, well, it's pretty fucking weird right now. Yeah. Some people have actually seen this besides him, and for all the thought behind the project, the early demo of the robot feels more like a 1950s Disney animatronic than a living memorial with all the life and warmth of a pre-recorded DMV message.

Okay. Okay. It's going to be awesome. That's, you know, the software part, I was like, okay, this has happened before. It's going to keep happening. Whatever. Yeah. The fact that it's only been trained on 27 of her books and, quote, unquote, hundreds of interviews from her career.

We know that Lionsgate is having problems, you know, trying to get one movie made after it's been trained on, you know, tens of thousands of hours of their entire library. And they said, well, that's not enough. We need to go out and, you know, train on other people's movies, not just yours.

So 27 books, I don't think is going to really, you know, cut the mustard here. But when you get to the dull part. That's where it gets super creepy. That's where it gets creepy. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. How anatomically correct is the good old Thighmaster going to be there?

That's what everybody wants to know. God. A meta is at it again with the layoffs. All right. Now, here's the funny part. They're cutting around 600 jobs from its super intelligence labs. Just around the corner. Yeah, it's just right around the corner.

Apparently, it's so around the corner they just can cut 600 people. The cuts hit its fair research arm and product AI teams. And this is, of course, just months after Zuckerberg went on a hiring binge to shore up his AI strategy. It also comes a day after meta landed a $27 billion financing deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund new data centers, outsourcing the risk while chasing bigger AI dreams.

Yeah, the analysts say that the cash should keep Zuck's supercomputers cooking, even if there's just fewer, fewer, fewer humans left to run them. Agents. We're going to put it over to the agents. Right. Well, you don't need AI to cut a bunch of jobs.

Amazon's doing it the old-fashioned way with automation. Yeehaw. Yeah. Amazon is reportedly moving towards an era of unprecedented automation that would put half a million jobs in the U.S. at risk. According to a series of interviews and internal documents referenced in an extensive report from the New York Times, Amazon executives expect to sell twice as many products by 2033.

But by scaling up its robotic operations, they believe it could avoid the 600,000 hires it would otherwise have to make to keep up with the demand. According to the report, documents show the ultimate aim of Amazon's in-house robotics department is to automate 75% of all operations.

And if it is successful in making 160,000 fewer hires by 2027, the company would reportedly save 30 cents on each item it packs and delivers to customers in the U.S. Okay. Now, Brian, I want you to cast your mind's eye back to, like, I think maybe it was episode one of the Grumpy Old Geeks.

Yep. When I said that if Amazon keeps doing shit like this, there's not going to be anybody left with any money to buy the shit that they're going to be selling. Yep. So keep on. Keep on cutting those jobs, Amazon. Nobody's going to have any money to buy the shit that you're selling.

Well, you know how the internet is now just basically AI bots talking to other AI bots and writing articles that other AI bots then read and then try to redo? Oh, yeah. They're trying to just turn the real world into that. It's going to be robots buying products that robots packed.

Yeah. No, it's – we are getting closer and closer to the intersection of WALL-E and idiocracy at a frightening rate. A frightening rate. Yeah. There's some other choice bits in here that I particularly liked. Oh, hit me. Hit me. Yeah.

Despite already pushing ahead with building warehouses that employ few humans, the New York Times report claims that Amazon is planning for the eventual impact on affected communities and its potential backlash by participating in local events to establish a reputation as a good corporate citizen. Yay.

The internal documents also discuss avoiding terms such as automation and AI in relation to robotics, suggesting instead that executives use term like advanced technology instead. They even considered using cobot instead of robot, as the former implies, a collaborative relationship with humans.

And I assume they just mean collaborative with the CEOs. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Have you heard about the dark factories in China? No. So, there are factories in China that are so automated at this point, they don't even need to turn the lights on because robots don't need them to do their work.

So, that's what we're up against right now. And so, they're pushing ahead for the same kind of automation that China has going on. So, yeah, it's a race to the human bottom. I can't wait. I can't wait.

But, you know, because, God, why would anybody ever want to think Amazon has rolled out a new tool called Help Me Decide, which is an AI tool that picks what you should buy when your brain taps out from scrolling too long. Oh, my God.

The feature lives in the corner of the screen, waiting for that moment you can't tell the difference between 10 nearly identical air fryers. It then analyzes your browsing history, spending habits, probably credit score as well, and overall vibe to suggest the right product with an upgrade and budget option to keep the illusion of choice alive.

Amazon claims it's all about convenience, saving you precious time to go do whatever people do when they're not shopping. But, really, it's just another brick in the great wall of mental laziness, automating even the micro decisions we used to make for ourselves. Oh, God.

Once AI wrote your emails. This is so depressing, Jason. I know. It's, my God. How bad is it going to get, Brian? It's going to get spectacularly bad in the U.S. in particular.

Oh, yes. Well, Amazon also just dropped a prototype straight out of Black Mirror, an AI-powered augmented reality glasses set for delivery drivers. That's right. The idea is hands-free efficiency, which sounds great until you remember this is Amazon, the company that measures bathroom breaks.

The glasses overlay navigation routes, package locations, and proof of delivery prompts right in the driver's field of view. There's even a dog-on-property alert, because apparently the future involves arguing with Alexa while dodging a Chihuahua. Amazon swears the system only activates after parking, not while driving, to avoid regulatory headaches.

Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. It includes a chest-mounted controller, swappable battery, and an emergency button, which probably doubles as the I quit button. The glasses can even handle prescription lenses and might one day warn drivers they're about to drop a package at the wrong address.

The company's testing them with hundreds of drivers in North America, gathering feedback before a wider rollout. You know what would be better than smart glasses? Hmm. Water, air conditioning, and bathroom breaks. That would be nice. But, you know, again, we're just trying to get rid of the pesky humans as soon as possible.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Now, Tesla is in the news this, you know, this week again. Yeah, again. Tesla reported a 12% jump in revenue to $28.1 billion after two straight slumps, but earnings still missed expectations.

50 cents a share versus the predicted 54 cents a share, sending the stock down roughly by 5%. Automotive sales climbed 6%, but profits cratered 37%, thanks to Musk's habit of cutting EV prices and blowing cash on AI and other, quote, R&D.

So the federal EV tax credits have expired now. They expired at the end of September, which is why I am still seeing, Brian, it boggles my fucking mind. Every day, I see a new Cybertruck with new dealer plates on it. Can you fucking believe it?

You have to remember, okay, Jason? You're forgetting something key about Los Angeles. Los Angeles is mainly a city of people that have moved there from other places in the U.S. to chase their dreams, meaning we get the biggest asshole from every fucking small town in the country.

Right. But these things are not cheap. So we have lots of rich dumb fucks is what you're trying to say. Yeah. Making sure. I don't know if you saw, but the 64,000 Cybertrucks were recalled yesterday. Oh, great. Along with many, I think, maybe 100,000 Teslas for battery issues and things like that.

Nice. So now, here we go. So Musk got on his high horse again and was talking about, oh, you know, the future of Tesla and all this shit. And he gets back to this robot shit. Which has nothing to do with the car. Yeah. Nothing to do with the car. Nothing at all to do with the car.

Now, here's the thing. Billionaires don't want to make robots to make more money. You know, Musk is saying, oh, this is going to be for, you know, home automation, factory automation. What they want is their own robotic security armies because the humans won't be able to be trusted not to put a bullet in their head soon.

This is what, in the future, there will be roving bands of Mossad-level hit squads hunting the rich at the behest of other rich is what I'm predicting at this point. Like, you know, Musk's army is going to go after Ellison's army. And it's going to be kind of, well, you didn't see the new Alien series, but it's kind of like that is what I'm predicting.

But at some point, someone will Luigi the shit out of Elon. So what he wants to do is make sure that he's got a robot army so his back is covered in iron instead of meat who wants to kill him. So that's why he's pushing ahead with his robot army. This is just a long-term plan so he can have his own personal Terminator army is where I'm going with it.

Well, conveniently, it's Elon, so they're not going to work and they'll get recalled. That's true. It's true. Okay. In more fun dystopian news, President Trump has issued a pardon for Changpen Shao, also known as CZ, the founder of Binance, clearing the way for the convicted crypto boss to walk free and maybe walk back into the business that he started.

Guess that check cleared? Must have because I'm just saying, you know what? So, Ross Ulbricht, Ross Ulbricht. This is so freaking obvious and painful and bullshit. It's such bullshit. It's such bullshit.

So, yeah. So now he's done CZ. He's pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the world's biggest crypto drug dealer that we've ever seen. What's going on with Sam Bankman-Fried? Have they not been able to raise enough money? Check bounced.

Yeah, check must have bounced. That's it. That's it. That is the only reason Sam Bankman-Fried is in jail right now. He can't pay him. No. He has not been able to pay the Cheeto. CoffeeZilla did a great 10-minute video about why this is just fucking insane.

I recommend it. He's apoplectic about it, as everybody on the fucking planet should be. Yes, it's so right-in-your-face grift. It's such bullshit.

Media candy. Did you see Tron Ares? Hell no. Nah, me either. But apparently it's a huge bomb. Now, movie math is incredibly confusing. Many factors go into what a movie costs beyond just its production. How much money it makes goes well beyond just box office.

That's why, while a film like Tron Ares may have reportedly cost about $175 million to make, and it just crossed $100 million at the worldwide box office, losses are probably much, much more. Deadline has a fascinating article about those numbers in regard to Disney's latest release, and news is not good. While the film's initial budget was in the $170 to $180 million range, the number was actually closer to $220 million all in, and while box office is just past $100 million, the film is still likely to lose about $132.7 million.

Yeah, marketing alone is, you know, almost the double of what a movie costs nowadays, so. Yeah. So, it's very unlikely to turn a profit for the studio, and is very likely to put an end to the franchise, at least for now, as the Deadline article points out, while this film had many, many things going against it.

Jared Leto. And bad Nine Inch Nails Tron track. Yeah. Including an over-reliance on the Tron IP. It's still a known IP. It's got theme park rides, merchandise, and films that will people watch as they find life beyond the theater. Now, that's my, that's exactly what I was going to say, Jason.

Do they really? Does anybody that's under 45 give a fuck about Tron? Here's the thing with Tron. We had two somewhat decent, but still kind of shit movies. We have a third that's apparently really shitty. There isn't, this doesn't come from anything.

It's not like Lord of the Rings, or Superman, or any of the other big IP, Harry Potter, where there are books, and there's a lore, and it's all written and controlled by one person. Yeah. This is just kind of a thing that different people have taken a stab at making stories about that are all really disjointed.

They're not connected in any way, shape, or form. There's nothing. There's nothing there. Nobody's made a compelling Tron overall story. No. Yeah. The first movie was good. The thing about it is they're banking on nostalgia.

That's it. There is no meat on that bone besides the nostalgia of the people who saw the original Tron and loved it. That's it. And they milked it as far as they could, and they just over-milked, and they just bled that cow dry. Yeah. There's no way to bring back Tron, because it was of its time, you know?

It makes no sense to make a Tron movie nowadays with the technology that we have, and what kids have grown up with. Yeah. It makes zero sense. So, testing that theory, I noticed that Tron Legacy was available on my flight back home. And I was like, I think I watched it, but I'm not sure.

So, I just watched it again anyways. And it's fine. It looked pretty. The story was kind of okay. It completely wasted Olivia Wilde, who looked smoking hot and gave her nothing to do. Yep. And it kind of was a nothing burger.

When the movie was over, I was just like, eh, okay. Well, I hope Tron Aries kind of continues the story a little bit, and then I read a little bit more about Tron Aries, and it does not. So, there you go. So, there you go. Yeah. Anyways. I continued on with my Human series, which is available on PBS for free, and I finished the last two episodes, Into the Americas and Building Empires.

What a great series this was. I highly recommend it to everybody. It was a lot of fun. Okay. Tells a good story about people, which, you know, if she continued it any further, would have to get really depressing because, you know, look around. And while I was in London, I was reacquainted with one of my favorite reality TV shows, Come Dine With Me, which is the conceit basically being like four or five strangers all get together.

They cook each other dinner at their own home one night throughout the week, and then they vote on each other's dinners and who was best. And it's a lot of fun, and I was enjoying watching it again. And then I came home and discovered they have a robust YouTube channel with lots and lots and lots and lots of episodes. So I'll be watching lots of that.

All right. And then I came home to even horrible news. For me personally, Food Network's The Kitchen is to end after 40 seasons. Now, 40 seasons. It's been like 10 years, and they smack like 25 seasons. Yeah. Food Network seasons are about six episodes each.

Exactly. So there's tons of backlog to this, but I really, this was my favorite show. It's kind of like, it became kind of our Sunday family ritual. This, this, we would throw this on when it aired. And I just, I love it. Lots of meals that we as a family, like create on a regular basis came from the show.

So I'm very sad about this because I thought the personalities meshed really well. It's one of their old school, like here we are, we're actually going to make food that you can make at home shows, and they're getting rid of all those. So thanks a lot, Zaslav. Fucking asshole. I was watching Knife's Edge, Chasing Michelin Stars on Apple TV.

Plus, maybe? Is it Apple TV? Whatever it's called now. I went to the website, and the plus is still on the website. I know. I was watching my Apple TV on my Apple TV on my Apple TV. Yeah, I know. And I don't know what I'm doing here. And it dawned on me this morning. It's like, you know how miserable life is?

Because I was going back to this idiocracy meets WALL-E. My life, the high point of my life is watching other people cook food that I'm never going to eat. That is the high fucking point of my day. That's how fucking sad it is. I mean, Owl My Balls was even more entertaining on the idiocracy movie.

But yeah, I just watch people cook food that I'm never going to eat, and just tell me how good it is, or bad it is. That's it. That is my fucking life now. You know, you're supposed to then try making it yourself, right? I did make some good suya chicken this week that was, I have to say, was pretty good that I learned on one of the shows.

Okay, see, there you go. Yeah, yeah. And I did learn the tip on Bobby's triple threat, that when you're using suya, you have to marinate it with some fat. Otherwise, it just burns on the grill. That's what took Brooke Williamson down.

That's right. All right. This is my life and I hate it. Well, here's something that may help or may not. It's really hard to tell. We've been hearing about this new Vince Gilligan show that's going to star Rhea Seaborn for Seahorn for quite some while, Pluribus, which will be on your Apple TV, on your Apple TV, on your Apple TV.

Yeah. And the official trailer is now out, and I don't fucking understand a goddamn thing. I have no idea. I don't know what this show is going to be. I don't know what it's about, and I'm kind of excited about that. That's what makes me excited about it too. I'm like, that looks interesting. I'm intrigued.

We'll see if it can, you know, if it can land the plane, but I'm intrigued. I like Vince Gilligan. I love her. And we'll see what, we'll see, come what may. We'll find out November 7th, not in May. That's right. I did watch Bullet Train from 2022 this week, because I had it on the Plex, and it was late, and I'm like, I watched the first half of it like two years ago, and I'm like, I've been thinking about it.

I should go back to it. And I did. It is a delightful movie. I have to say. Brad Pitt is awesome in it. He's very good, very funny. It is a humorous, humorous action movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like Brad Pitt when he goes funny.

Yeah, you'll love it then. He's nothing but funny in this movie. All right. And for some reason, I watched Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog from the archives. Okay. From way back. I think it was 2007 or something. From the writer's side, because I also was on my Plex, and it just popped up, and I'm like, I don't want to watch a movie, but I would, you know, I just had a little nostalgia feel, so I watched it.

Oh, you know why? Because I had just reordered all of Firefly into the proper order, and I was going to, I'm going to take that over and watch that again in the correct order that it was meant to be watched in. But I, the first episode is Serenity 1 and 2, which is an hour and 20 minutes.

So I'm like, I just need something short, but still, I wanted a little Joss Whedon fix to see if he was as good as I remember before he got canceled. It was a long, strange night, Brian, I'm just saying. The melatonin had, kicked in, but not enough to make me go to sleep yet. Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog is just as fun as I remember it was.

It's great. It's how superhero should be. All right. And I did find a show called Hotel Costiera on Amazon Prime Video this week. It's a new show that came out, six parts. It is very popcorn-y.

It's like Ray Donovan meets Fubar and they had a baby. Okay. He's like a, it's a dude, it takes place on the Amalfi Coast, so it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. It's kind of like a lighthearted take. This guy's a hotel fixer and just fixes people's problems and there's like some overarching storylines that go with it and, but it is super lighthearted.

Nobody gets killed. You know, it's- This is the dude from Grey's Anatomy. Okay. I had no idea who he was. He was really good in it, whoever he is. Yeah. It's fun. It, you know, and it's like I said, lighthearted when you don't want, you know, something horrible and bloody, like, I don't know, Bullet Train.

It's very bloody and like, Bullet Train's more Kill Bill. This is more like Fubar, like I said, just lighthearted fun, but worth watching. And Slow Horses hit its penultimate episode this week. Holy shit are they killing it this season.

All right. I got to say, best season so far. It's, it too is very funny, but also, they really dive, like, they dive into why these guys are kind of fuck-ups. Okay. It's great. It's great. And last night, I noticed The Diplomat season three has finally dropped, so I watched the first episode.

So did I. I loved it. I loved it too. I didn't realize Josh Lyman and CJ Craig were clapping cheeks. Was that not the greatest like West Wing callback? I almost, a tear almost fell up out my eye to drop an R. Kelly reference. It was so good.

Yeah. I'm very excited the show is back. It is a, it's a fun show. It's, it's a smart show. You know, it's not, it's not going to change your life or the world or anything. I still think The Americans was actually a better show. Oh, yeah. But it's a good show. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're, if you're just, you know, comparing her shows, but I think it's a great show. Better than Felicity. Well, not as good as The Americans. Yeah. But yeah. And, and the nice twist at the end of the first episode, I'm just like, I'm in. I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm all in. It's, it's, I can't wait too. We're struggling to go like, do we wait a week to watch the next episode or do we just go?

Just go. There's only eight episodes, which is long, I guess, in streaming. Yeah. Nowadays, especially since it's going to be six years till the next one. But this one, this one bucked the trend. It was only, you know, it wasn't that long between. It's only been like a year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. I could still remember what happened at the end of the last season, which is.

we had to watch the recap. I did watch the recap too, which was good because they do do good recaps. The recaps are like, you know, seven minutes long because it has been so long. Yeah. But I have been diving into the Celebrity Traders UK. It has been phenomenal.

Did you see the list of people that are on that show there? I know you recognize some of them. I see the list and I'm thinking, I'm betting you barely recognize any of them. Well, Celia, Jonathan Ross, and Stephen Fry are the only ones I care about. Right. Nick Muhammad. Also, obviously, Noah.

Oh yeah, from Ted Lasso. Yeah. Yeah. And, and Slow Horses, this latest season. Right. Yeah. Most of them though. Yeah. No, no fucking clue. I know almost everybody on that list, but yeah. Okay. I have zero interest in watching them in a reality TV show though.

Oh, they've been great. They've been great. The thing about, the thing about these people is they're just too smart for their own good. Yeah. So, just overthink everything. But here's what you can watch, Brian, that just dropped yesterday. Traders Canada, season three, just started. Oh, I'm sorry, eh? You can get in on the ground floor of season three.

All right. Which you won't, but I'm just saying. I won't. So, there's a little bit of Ticketmaster news. Ticketmaster is trying to address the lawsuit filed by the FTC with several moves intended to block scalpers from abusing the platform in a letter to Congress obtained by Variety. Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation claim Ticketmaster does more than anyone to fight bots and get tickets into the hands of real fans.

Bullshit! That's why you cornered the secondary market, made it illegal for anybody else to use anything else, and double dip taking a percentage from both the seller and the buyer in the secondary market. Right, Ticketmaster? Because you're working so hard to stop people? Yeah. You fucking liars. Anyways, I'm not even going to bother with any of this.

The article's in the show notes and it's all just full of their bullshit. So, their fucking lying bullshit. You know what? The thing I don't see in this, though, is no mention of AI yet. That's next week. That's next week, I'm sure. I did get an email that HBO Max is having a price change.

Everybody is. Disney's going up. HBO Max is going up. Everybody's going up. Yeah, this is going. My old price was $16.99 a month. It's going up to $18.49 a month, which I have to say is, no, it's not because I'm going to cancel it. Sorry, Brian. That's okay. They'd put in their geo-blocking and restrictions so often that I was going to have to email you every five minutes to try to get into it anyways.

No, it turns out my AT&T plan comes with a free HBO Max account, so I'm just going to use that. All right. I had to pay for it because I have family members who were, you know, remote. Yeah. Not just you, but other ones, actual family members who were watching it, so I let them know that it's coming.

They're like, oh, we haven't watched it in two years. I'm like, thanks for letting me know. Appreciate it. Well, if it makes you feel better, I was watching it. Yeah, yeah. But now I'm going to have to figure out something. But I'm actually going to wait now because apparently Zaslav wants to sell everything. Yeah, we'll see.

And Paramount might buy it, so maybe it'll get all wrapped up into the Paramount app. I don't know what's going on. Nobody does. Yeah, we'll see if Larry's going to loan the kid the credit card to buy it, so who knows? Who knows? Apps and doodads. Flash Jervis wrote in last week saying, morning, brother geeks.

I keep getting ads for the Comet browser from Perplexity. I can't think of how it would actually help. Have you given it a spin? Cheers. Well, Flash, we've got a roundup of all of the AI browsers. So Brian, you take it away first and then we'll get to the rest. Well, OpenAI's long-rumored browser has a name and you can try it out today.

If you're an Apple user, ChatGPT Atlas is available to download on macOS with the company promising to bring it to Windows, Android, and iOS soon, thus destroying those platforms as well. And apparently integrates directly within the browser interface as you would expect, allowing users to engage with the chatbot while surfing the web so there's no need to ever leave behind your fake plastic friend.

Name Suzanne. I don't see any personal benefits to this whatsoever, but they're saying that you can do browser memory so it'll remember what kind of shoes you looked at yesterday. Something that history does already. Yeah, but you can manage them through settings menu just like any other. Yeah.

Your history does that and doesn't tell anybody else about it except the feds when you're subpoenaed. Yes, exactly. And apparently you can delete your history. I just did air quotes. Yeah. OpenAI says it won't use the content users browse to train future models and my end quotes again.

Atlas also includes an agent mode where chat GPT can surf the web for you and incomplete tasks inappropriately and incorrectly. So I did that yesterday. I have it installed and I was, you know, giving it the run through and I used one of the stock agent things that it says, you know, help me get a cheaper cell phone price.

So I'm like, I said, I'm on AT&T. This is how much I pay per month for two lines. Get me a better deal. It needs to, the network has to work in this zip code and this zip code where I am and where my dad is. It took a half an hour. Right. It killed so many little ecosystems around the country for a half an hour to come back and tell me, well, if you switch to T-Mobile, you can save $4.

I'm like, I could have done that in about three minutes and I had to wait 25 minutes for you to go out and do it and then it came, came back with some other bullshit answers for what my packages were on AT&T, all this other shit. It was, but I turned off that memory feature immediately.

Right. But I'm still logged in on my ChatGPT account and I'm using it to summarize things and check other things out. So it's going to remember that anyway. So who the fuck knows? I think, I think the best write-up is Anil Dash. He wrote, ChatGPT's Atlas, the browser that's anti-web.

And he does a great version of it. I recommend going to read his take on it because he's Anil and he has written a lot more words than I have and not ChatGPT'd them. But yeah, I love this. He says, Atlas turns users into data mules, hauling content over the crumbling bridge of the open web.

His verdict, this thing deserves a warning label and maybe a priest. The web was built for freedom and links. Atlas seems built for surveillance and hallucinations. Because yeah, when you come in, the prompt that you get, the first box is just, it's tell me, tell me about what you would like to see on the web today.

Not put in a URL. It defaults to, you know, ChatGPT out of the gate. Yeah, no thanks. Well, Brian, if you're too burned out on going to Paris and getting smokers along, there's a new app for people that are too burned out like you.

And yes, it's exactly as bleak as it sounds. Meta's super intelligence lab product designer, Laurent Del Rey, launched Endless Summer, an iPhone app that lets users AI generate fake vacation photos of you living your best life from your couch.

And here's the funny part. This would be great for influencers. Oh, perfect. Absolutely perfect. The funny part is, the app uses Google's Gemini Nano banana model to make the, I mean, you work for Meta and you're using Google's AI. I don't think you're gonna, maybe you're one of those 600 people that just got shit canned.

That's why you did it. So you get six free images before hitting the paywall and then 30 shots for four bucks or 300 for 35 bucks. if you're really committed. Why? But there's even a room service mode that auto delivers two fake vacation pics every morning.

Oh, God. Fucking Christ. Nobody's using this crap, right? I don't get it. I don't get it either. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Yes, I agree. And speaking of that, X has finally figured out a new way to monetize since nothing else seems to be working. They're planning on, their long rumored plans to sell old user handles and some of the most sought after usernames could fetch millions of dollars, so they claim. Mm-hmm.

The company shared more details about and opened a wait list for its handle marketplace that will enable paying subscribers. And that's the kicker. You have to be a subscriber Yeah. to request and buy inactive handles. Now, if you get one of these and you unsubscribe, you lose your handle. Oh, my God.

So you're locked in for life. You're locked in for life if you want to keep the handle that you purchased through their marketplace. You must be subscribed to X Premium. It will revoke priority handles if an account subscription lapses. That is such bullshit. It's exactly what you'd think that they would do.

And of course, they're doing it and fuck that site. Yep. Yep. In the old days, a Twitter handle meant something. But nowadays, who cares? It doesn't mean much of anything. And as the article gets into, you shouldn't trust them anyways because Musk has been pretty capricious with usernames since he's taken over.

He's just basically commandeered people's usernames, taken it away from them. No compensation, no explanation, no nothing. He will just take it away from you if he doesn't like you. Yeah. If I'm going to spend millions of dollars on a handle, I guarantee that I own that for life and that it's going to make me some money back.

Yep. No. You get nothing. You get nothing. No guarantees for you. Just a poop emoji. Yes. Well, creeps are going to creep, Brian. Yep. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses were supposed to make wearable cameras socially acceptable. Instead, a shirtless guy with a drill just turned them into stealth spy gear.

Bong Kim, a hobby tinkerer, offers a $60 service to disable the bright white LEDs that's meant to alert people when you're being recorded. His work looks factory fresh. No, it won't, actually. They have a sensor in them to know if they're covered or not and won't record if they're covered.

That's why it takes some actual work to do this. Basically, I think what he's found is a Dremel with a very fine drill bit can disable the LED. But yeah, for $60, he'll take care of it. And when you get it, it looks like they're brand new. You can either send him your glasses or buy a fresh pair straight from him.

Quite the service he's offering. Yeah, yeah. And apparently you get some video of him actually disabling it while he's doing it. So that's why they say he's shirtless because, you know, he's a hunk of hunk of hunk of hunk of hunk of burning creep.

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The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave. Welcome to The Dark Side with Dave, with podcast super host Dave Bittner, who has been on a world tour of Disney Parks, along with Brian, which they're going to talk about ad nauseum very shortly here.

So I'm going to cut the intro and just bring up one thing before you guys go down the Disney hole. Gen V, Dave. We talked about it. You gave up on it. So had I? Yeah. I got a note from our guest host last week, Donovan, who said, you really need to watch it because it is completely a setup for The Boys Season 5.

You can't get to The Boys Season 5 really without watching Gen V. Here's the thing. I went back and I watched all of Gen V. It was fucking brilliant. It is a great season. What? Absolutely great season. Yep. The first episode is the weakest of the bunch, and then it just goes uphill from there.

Sorry. That's what I want to do is go uphill. Okay. Well, just letting you know. It just ended this week, and the finale was fucking awesome. It was really good. I will let my partner in viewing, my son Jack, know, and maybe we'll give episode two a try.

But we were both pretty resolute on that being the end of it. Well, you know, there is the just read the Wikipedia recap option. Yeah, you could do that and just wait for the recap on when The Boys starts. But you're going to be missing out. It was actually a really good, good, twisty season.

I enjoyed it. Do you agree that the first episode was lacking? Oh, hell yeah. It was terrible compared to the rest of them. Even Donovan was the same way. That's why he had to convince me to go back to it. Okay. Like, yeah, that first episode, not great. Not great at all. But it does get much better from there. All right.

Well, I'll let you know. Okay. I feel like I've been given homework. This is, look, this is just a, this is, you know, this is just a, you know, a friendly, friendly announcement, just letting you know. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Because I know you're a fan of The Boys.

Yes. So am I. Yes. And it really does. It completely sets up the entire end game for the next season. Ah, those bastards. But they did it in a way that's enjoyable. I'm just saying. All right. All right. Okay. Okay. Well, while Jason was watching all of Gen V, Dave and I both had travel and respective Disney trips.

I went to Disney Paris and you went to Disney World. A couple of quick thoughts about Disney Paris and then I'll let you take it away, Dave, but a smaller parks. There's the Walt Disney Studios, which is a second park. And then there's Disneyland itself, Disneyland Paris, the main park, both much smaller.

They're working on building out a bunch of stuff, which was all under construction when we were there, which is probably why it was relatively not as crowded as I'm used to Disney parks being. But there also weren't that many rides there. They're heavy on shows there and sit down restaurants and all that sort of stuff.

But we had a really good time. They did Halloween decorations, which was great. They had Hyperspace Mountain going on, which has been on my to-do list. And I went on that with my son, which I was very proud of him because he's a bit of a wuss when it comes to roller coasters, but he loved it. We went on it twice and he had a great time on it.

It's considerably different from Space Mountain in Anaheim. It is a more intense ride. It is faster. It's got some half inversions, all a bunch of which surprised the shit out of me. And I couldn't believe my kid liked it. Right, right.

Yeah. And then they also have an exclusive ride there called Crush's Coaster, which is based on the turtle from Finding Nemo and all that sort of stuff, which had a huge line. So we used the magic hour, which is if you stay in a Disney hotel, you can go in an hour early.

Woke up bright and early to take him because he wanted to try it out. Holy crap. This is the most intense coaster Disney has ever done. Really? Yes. And Lucas, even Lucas was like, I liked it, but I don't want to go on it again. Ever. So I had a blast on it.

It was a lot of fun, but it was very surprising. And so many parents were there with small kids in line for this thinking it wasn't going to be what it was. Wow. That was a ride. So it was a good time. The other main thing that they have that's different, they have a different take on the Haunted Mansion.

It's called the Phantom Manor. It's kind of a, they went with an Old Westy kind of thing because I guess that appeals to Europeans because they didn't, you know, they don't have the Old West in Europe. Right. So they kind of went with that. It was kind of a disappointing ride. It was very good with the decor and the manner itself looks great, but it's basically the same track.

But they took out the humor and they went dark. And part of the appeal of the Haunted Mansion is the mixture of the humor and the darkness. And there was no humor in this one. So it was a bit of a bummer. Yeah. I did watch the documentary, the Imagineers documentary on the Haunted Mansion.

Have you seen that one? Yeah. Yeah. And they touch on that, the mix of light and dark. Yeah. And that was lacking in the Phantom Manor. And then the only other thing that I had to point out, and I talked to Jason about this at the beginning of the show, it's why I'm kind of riding the mic mute right now. Everybody smokes in France.

Everybody. And, you know, I used to smoke, but that was quite a long time ago. And we all have like this Parisian smokers cough. And even in Disneyland parks themselves, this is something I've not seen since I probably the early 90s, there are smoking areas throughout Disneyland Paris.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. Huh. Yeah. And basically everybody flaunts them and just smokes wherever they want anyways. Right. So there's a lot of cigarette smoke everywhere. Yeah. I would not enjoy that. No.

I'm still like, I've been back for a week now, you know? Yeah. As a former smoker, are you one of the folks who now annoys you being on the other side of it? I mean, I don't enjoy the smell. Like, but I think I'm more tolerant of it because I used to do it.

So it's kind of okay. And it's definitely made me come around to vaping. Like, vaping does not smell bad. Cigarettes reek. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we had a good time at Disney World. Good. Just to recap, it was just my wife and I. This was our first trip with the two of us since we had kids.

And so it was fun. I kept a running list of things in my notes app as we were going, things I knew I wanted to touch on here on the show. So I'm going to go through my list. Top of the list, my bald spot is such that I now need a hat.

I'm sorry. Condolences. Thoughts and prayers. I'm with you. I'm with you. It's just. I recommend a Tilly hat. They're mighty five. Tilly hat. Okay. Tilly hat. I don't know what that is, but I will look it up. I'm writing it down. Tilly hat. Yeah.

I mean, it's just, you know, aging sucks. And so what are you going to do? You can only comb it so many ways. Well, I don't know. You look to our president. He's found some novel. That's true. Some novel methods. Serious engineering. Yeah.

So we went and Disney World was much more crowded than we had anticipated it was going to be. We figured middle of October, there'd be light crowds. Not so. The place was packed. Well, nobody's going overseas. Well, turns out that the place was crawling with Brazilians.

Okay. This was vacation week from Brazil. And so, yeah, it was full of Brazilians, which is, you know, fine. But I'm not. I ain't complaining. No. Yeah. Lots of. Yes. Very attractive people, the Brazilians.

And so there were a lot of long lines. And so we kind of went into our B mode for us for the parks where we just did all the things that we normally don't do. Like, over at Animal Kingdom, we went to see the Nemo show. You know, we went to see the Hall of Presidents.

Right. We did all the things that didn't have a line. And we're okay with that because, you know, whatever. But I have to say it was kind of like, it was an experiencing a shadow of what old age is going to be like. Right. Like, it was being an old couple in these parks together, which we are, we have one foot in that, on the side of that fence already in the age we are.

But kind of like, golly, these parks are big, you know? Well, you know, that's, it's, I, we took my mom with us last summer when, when we were visiting to Disneyland. And it was that exactly. It was like, my mom just couldn't do the walking.

She needed to stop every now and then and take a seat and just relax and chill out. And, you know, Lucas is like a fucking bouncing ball of energy going, Space Mountain, let's go. Right. My mom was just like, I just want to sit here and have a churro and, you know, come back and see me in an hour.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We had a funny thing with a, we were driving in the car on our way to one of the universal parks and we had the radio on in the rental car and a song comes on and my wife said, Oh my God, George Michael. I had this as a, as a 12 inch single when I was a teenager and I played the hell out of this thing.

And I smiled and nodded at her excitement. And, uh, I did not tell her that the song that was playing on the radio was actually tears for fears. No, because that's a good husband right there. Cause I love, I love my wife.

I just smiled and let her have her moment without ruining it. I absolutely would have ruined that. So we went to Epic universe, which is the new universal park. Um, it is much smaller than you think it is.

Uh, I'd say it's smaller than any of the Disney parks. Um, that's not a bad thing for getting from point A to point B, but, uh, it was also packed. Um, it was really not possible for us to do the whole park in one day.

Uh, for example, Epic universe has four roller coasters and we rode one of them, um, which is the, uh, the celestial racers, which was, so you didn't go on the one with the monsters and, Oh no, we went on that. I don't categorize that as a roller coaster.

Okay. Um, so we went on the celestial racers, which is an amazing roller coaster. Really good. It's a dueling roller coaster. And what's really, uh, fun about it is that the two tracks sort of twist around each other. So, and they're perfectly synced up. So while you're going over a hill, the other group is upside down right above you.

Oh, neat. Wrapping around you. Yeah. It's really fun. Dual launches. We're just, it's a home run in terms of that kind of big, fun, thrilling, uh, type of roller coaster. Uh, we rode, um, Mario cart, which was fun.

Um, yeah, you know, it's fun. It's like being in Mario cart. You have goggles, you play the game. We had a good time. Uh, the line was too long for the donkey Kong ride, uh, the donkey Kong roller coaster. So we didn't do that. Uh, we did the monsters unchained. Amazing.

Uh, the best haunted house kind of ride there is. I don't put it in the same category as haunted mansion because I think haunted mansion is not supposed to be scary. Really? Um, monsters is, and, and there's a whole story and all the monsters are in it and it's very well done and it's thrilling.

And the cue to wait is amazing. So, okay. What I got to know is cause they took, my friend did a lot of the monster design for that ride. But I, you know, we talked, he told me about the animatronics and was just like in awe of them. I want your opinion.

Were they as cool as they look on the video that I saw? Yes, they are. Okay. They're very well done. Okay. Very well done. And, and also very well integrated. There are times when you're moving so quickly from thing to thing and you're wondering, wait, is that a screen or is that an animatronic?

Or, you know, it, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a fast, exciting, scary, in a fun way kind of ride. And I don't like jump scares as you, as you know, it's not my thing, but this was, uh, this was great fun. I think it's a new, they've set a new high bar for this kind of dark ride.

So congratulations to them. Um, we didn't ride the Harry Potter ride because all day long, the wait was four hours. What? Forget that. Yeah. Right. Um, so the only way to do that is to either pay the additional $200, which is what a universal fast pass costs, which puts your total park at $300 per day per person.

Yep. And we weren't doing that. Still can't go see the world series for that. Nope. Or you can stay at one of the universal resorts. And if you do that, you get in an hour early. Yeah. The problem with that is that ruins it for the rest of us who want to try to do a rope drop ride because the park's already been open for an hour and the lines have already built up with all the people who are staying at their places.

So anyway, we skipped that. Uh, it's a lovely park. The how to train your dragon's land is, is a lot of fun. You know, it's all new and shiny and they spared no expense. They really, they, they set out to outdo themselves and I think they achieved what they set out to do.

Uh, I just wish the lines were shorter. I wish we got to do more. Um, it's also not a lot of shade in this park. So, uh, wear your hat. So that was, uh, that was something very similar in the Disneyland Paris parks in that, uh, you know, Disneyland itself, there are plenty of places to go inside or get out of the sun or whatever.

Um, Disneyland Paris, cold, rainy, nowhere to go. You're outside the whole time. So I don't know. We, we lucked out with relatively decent weather. It was chilly, but not freezing. And we didn't get any rain, but I can't imagine that park being much fun if it's raining. Cause there's nowhere to go.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, other things I put on my list, uh, I used a lightning lane and park admission. I put all that on my Apple watch and that worked seamlessly. So that was fun. All right. Uh, we went to the hall of presidents. Uh, a couple interesting things here.

Um, the first thing I noted was they have changed the format of the hall of presidents so that the current president, not so much gives a speech as they read the portion of their swearing in where they swear to uphold the constitution and that sort of thing.

And so what that does is it takes the current president's animatronic break while doing it. Right. It burst into, got struck by lightning and burst into flames. Uh, it did not, but, um, but I think this is a really good move because it takes any opportunity for whoever the current president is to inject politics into it.

And people were very polite and, and dare I say, reverent to the presentation, which I have not always seen in past viewings of the hall of presidents. I was in there one time years ago and people were booing president Obama and hissing. And I was like, come on guys, it's the hall of presidents.

Um, the other interesting thing about hall of presidents is we went in and there were a bunch of people who were working the ride, Disney employees, uh, probably three women. And in that part of the, um, of, uh, whatever land it is, uh, it's not frontier land.

It's dystopian land. Yeah. It's, you know, old, old timey America land. I forget the name of it. Somebody's pounding their head against their desk right now. Um, but, uh, the women there where these big, heavy, long floor length dresses that are appropriate for the period in which the hall of presidents building takes place.

And we went in there, there was a Disney employee that was a dude wearing one of those dresses. All right. And so it was one of those things where like for five seconds, yeah, for five seconds you go, Oh wait, that's a dude. And then you kind of go, okay.

When I worked there, you couldn't have a mustache or long hair. Right, right. Exactly. Well, and so, um, my, my son Jack pointed out that, dude looked like a lady. Yeah. My son Jack pointed out that, um, probably what has happened is for a long time, Disney has had, you know, dual versions of all of the costumes for various places and they've allowed

the women to wear the men's version so that if a woman wants to wear pants instead of a dress, she has the right to do that. And I suspect, I wonder if this person was just taking advantage of that loophole where in the rules, it says employees get to choose one of these two outfits.

And he went, well, I want to wear the dress. And they went, okay. And it was cool. And he'd made an announcement and, you know, it was like, again, it was, it was kind of neat that everybody had an initial reaction of, huh. And then everybody was like, yeah, yeah, whatever.

Moving on. You, you know, yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of neat. Uh, let's see, moving down my list. Uh, we went to, we had lunch in Germany at, uh, the, in Epcot, which was fun. Uh, they have an oompa band there. Of course. And, uh, they played the song in heaven.

There is no beer. Do you want to know this song? I do. Yes. Yeah. So they played the song in heaven. There is no beer, uh, which I had forgotten was a song that my dad used to sing with us in the car. So now I'm sitting there in Germany weeping. Because I'm thinking of, and it's not like sad, sort of mixed, you know, sad, happy, just emotional outlet weeping, you know?

And my wife is across the table from me. You know, half smiling going, all right, Dave. It's a very good, it's a very good schnitzel, but it's not that good, Dave. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, so that was nice. Uh, when the day we were at Epcot, Hanson was playing.

Oh, what a, what a bonus. Yes. They, they did three shows. Actually, your wife thought it was Hanson. It was actually the Jonas Brothers. Right. Uh, they did three shows. Uh, so that was another reason Epcot was packed.

Uh, evidently. Um, and then, uh, I'll, so two more things. Guardians of the Galaxy may be the greatest ride ever built so far. Okay. It is, we rode it again.

Uh, this time we got, um, our music was Iran by Flock of Seagulls. Great. Uh, and here's why. Guardians of the Galaxy. Actually, I have a soft sell. That did that sell. Guardians of the Galaxy. The Galaxy is a thrilling ride that in no way beats you up.

Right. It's totally smooth from start to finish. It's like the opposite of Indiana Jones, which is just, I mean, you could get, you could get rid of gallstones on it. Right. Oh yeah. That thing is terrible. Right. Right. No, it's just, and it's fun. Just fun. Um, and then the last thing I'll say is, uh, we went to see the Jason Bourne show at Universal,

which was an amazing technology demonstration where they have the, the back wall of the theater is a screen that they're projecting on. And there's all sorts of foreground things happening with live actors, live set pieces, cars come out up out of the floor and they do car chases.

And the things in the background that are being projected move in perspective with the things that are in the foreground. Uh, and it's extraordinarily well done. Like as a technology demonstration, it is off the charts. Amazing. Well, that's what they use for Mandalorian, right?

Like in the actual TV show. Yeah. It's exactly that kind of thing, but the show sucks. The show was done and my wife turned to me and she said, that is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. And I said, you are correct.

But here's the thing. This stunt show, which is new high tech is, doesn't hold a candle to the Indiana Jones stunt show over at the studios. That's 40 years old. Right. And the reason is the indie show doesn't take itself too seriously.

And the Jason Bourne show takes itself way too seriously. There's no winking. There's no humor. You know, true to their respective IP. Yeah, exactly. You go in and they're like, you are a special agent joining us to try to track down Jason Bourne.

And they never wink or acknowledge that there's anything not serious about that. Right. And so it just comes across as being silly. Okay. Yeah. Not on my list then. No, no, no, no. It should be on your list just to see the technology.

Oh, okay. Fair. Because the technology is amazing. I'd like to see it again just to be able to look around at the things that aren't what they want you to be looking at. Right. So it's very impressive, but soulless. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay.

So that's my Disney World list. I like it. I'm happy. Yeah. You guys sound like you had a great time. We did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not as good as watching Gen V, but you know. Yeah. Or listening to George Michael. I put a couple other things in here before we run.

Jason, I didn't know if you'd seen this Kickstarter for this little Firefly microphone. I'd gotten ads about it probably about a thousand times on Instagram, but have not checked it out. It looks okay.

Basically, it allows you to clip on a little directional microphone onto your portable device. So rather than having the omni-directional mic that's built into, say, your iPhone, this gives you a microphone that you just plug into the USB and you have a directional mic.

And it seems to be high quality. The thing about it now is I have AirPods Pro 3s, which have studio-quality sound. So I don't need those anymore. Yeah. I was thinking more along the lines if you were out somewhere doing an interview with somebody. For that, I use Road Goes with lavaliers.

And then you can put that right back into your iPhone. And that works wirelessly. So you have everybody's wirelessly mic'd and it just goes straight back to the phone. It works really well. It costs a hell of a lot more than $69. Right, right. Yeah. It seemed to me the use case of this is that you always have it in your backpack just in case.

Right. Well, if you get one, let me know how it is. Yeah. We'll see. All right. I don't know. And then I put two quick little YouTube videos in here. One is kind of an appreciation of the old Ditto machines that we all had back in school, specifically how they smelled.

The mimeographs. Yes. Yes. I'm only a few years younger than you guys, but this makes me feel like I feel like I'm 12 right now. Yeah. And then a little bit of fan fiction, a trailer for a fan fiction movie that's coming out that is Star Wars related.

It looks like a fun setup where it looks like a couple of soldiers, one on the rebel side and one on the imperial side, are left behind after the Battle of Hoth. And what happens next? I would like to say that it does say it's coming soon, but not if the Disney lawyers find out about it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's true. It will not be coming anytime soon, anywhere. Just release it on BitTorrent and then everybody can see it. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Very cool. All right. All right. I'm glad you guys are all back from your respective vacations. You know, we spent a lot of time on this show, Jason, talking about how everybody should have a right to have a life and we get angry at the companies that take people's personal time away from them and we coach people to take every little bit of vacation they can get.

So I will not be shamed into taking off a week from the podcast to have a goddamn vacation. Okay. Me neither. Okay. I'm just going to go back to work. Daddy needs to recharge. Yeah. With some churros.

That's right. That's right. Okay. See you guys next time. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got nobody new. And from the current Patreons, we've got Peter, Chris Menchu, David, Steve, Xiao, Pavel, Seth, Anthony, Casey, and Lucas.

Thank you all so much for your continued support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And over at PayPal, we've got Sloan, Tom, Joseph, and Jens. Over the tip jar, we've got Ross. No merch because we still can't figure that out. But the store's up, but nobody's buying, Brian. No reviews.

Well, you know. Yeah. But I do want to say that if you do want to support the show, pretty pleased with sugar on top, just head over to GOG.show slash donate. Links to every way that you can give us some cash. Or you can go to patreon.com slash GOG and sign up there. You get the show a little bit early, ad-free, and in high definition.

All right. If you buy the whole year, you get a discount. Yeah. So do we. We get a shave. But we'll take it. It doesn't matter. We'll take it. We love it. Yeah. And when Dave was talking about his wife's musical mix-ups, I mentioned Soft Cell because they were top of mind.

Dave Ball, one half of the pioneering 1980 synth pop band Soft Cell, has died at the age of 66. He's had longstanding health problems, so it's sad to hear. Alongside singer Mark Allman, the duo scored a worldwide hit with their cover of Gloria Jones' Tainted Love back in 1984.

And their debut album, Nonstop Erotic Cabaret, is considered a classic of electronic music. I believe Tainted Love is probably the first alternative song I ever heard. It was a great song. I would have been like 11. I was in the back of my parents' car driving back from my grandma's or something like that. And I'm sure it was like Casey Kasem's Top 20 or something like that.

And they were playing it, so I remember hearing that. He also later formed the pioneering techno group The Grid. And Jason and I have both shaked our booties to The Grid at some of the clubs that we used to frequent back in West Hollywood back in the day. Yep. 1994's Swamp Thing. He died peacefully at his sleep at home in London on Wednesday.

So, sad to hear. And thanks for all the tunes, man. That's a sad time. 66. Too young. Yep. Too young. Until next time, I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at gog.show slash 719.

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