728: No Face to Shoot

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Welcome to Grumpy Old Geeks. I'm Jason DeFilippo. And I'm Brian Schulmeister. Jason, what in the Sam hell is going on down there? 2025 said hold my beer. Apparently. Or 2026 said hold my beer. One of the two, because somebody needs a beer at this point.

Everybody. Except for Hegseth. He doesn't need any more. No, no more for him. No more for him. Yeah, you know, it's been a year since the L.A. fires. That was yesterday or Wednesday was the anniversary of the starting of it. Right about now was when I would look out the window and it was like fucking Mordor here.

The skies are red, like helicopters and planes are flying over the house. Go back and look at my Instagram from last year. You can see all the pictures that I took of all of the insanity. And I didn't really realize how much PTSD the entire city has over this. There was a lot.

It's insane. Yeah. L.A. is generally not a city that looks back and everybody was posting about it and talking about it. Yeah. And even when I was there, I took a drive up because I hadn't really seen any of the stuff. Right. So I took a drive up Malibu. Yeah. PCH. Holy crap.

It's just gone. Gone. You were like 10 minutes from my house and you didn't even pop in to say hi. It's still another 20 plus. Lazy fucker. That's right. Uh, no, I, I haven't even taken it yet. I haven't taken that drive. I don't want to. Yeah. It's depressing.

Super depressing. Although everybody does say it's about the first time in, you know, 50 years that you can actually see the beach from PCH. So that must've been nice. Silver lining. Yeah. Over the burned out hulks of, you know, gazillion dollar homes, but Hey, what are you going to do? But, uh, speaking of holding my beer three years sober, buddy, three years.

So made it. Congratulations, man. Yeah. Last weekend was my, it was my three years, believe it or not. So trucking on, trucking on. Hey man, if you can stay sober through the coming civil war, you're gold. I got it. I'm going to have to, I'm not going to be able to afford the beer that's going to be taken up by everybody else that's getting drunk going, what the hell's going on?

And I need to save my money for ammo. That's true. I don't even know what to say. Like at this point, like why, why bother? Like bag of magas have stopped listening to us, but I guess you need to fight back at this point. Like, I don't fucking even know what to say. The American Gestapo, the unregulated fucking proud boys that have been given uniforms and called themselves ice have shot three American citizens.

One of them in the face was dead. What the fuck? Stay in Canada, Brian, stay in Canada. I'm going to now. There's no turning back at this point. Unless, you know, the, um, the United States of California secedes from the union.

I'm not coming back. Like, no way. I don't even know what, I don't even know what tomorrow is going to look like at this point. I don't know what this afternoon is going to look like, Brian. It's insane. Oh, well, let's talk about other stupid shit. In the news.

Well, Wired did a, did a, did a, did a, they did a journalism and they wrote a post called how to protest safely in the age of surveillance. And they did remove the paywall restrictions from this post. So everyone can read it. TLDR. You can't because you'll just be driving your SUV, uh, get caught in traffic and then get shot in the face.

Yeah. Or I don't know if you saw the videos from Chicago where the ice agents were just pepper spraying people with their windows down as they were driving through the intersection. That's a new one. That's a new fun and exciting one. That's great. That's great. Just awesome. You fuckers voted for this that aren't listening to us anymore. Yeah.

I think they're long gone, Brian. They're long gone. It's just us. It's just us. Well, the article explains how protesting today carries new privacy risks and bodily harm risks because of expanded surveillance. It warns that phones, facial recognition, license plate readers, and social media can all be used to identify, oh God, identify who attends a protest.

So assuming you survive, they'll be able to identify. Right. Teeth records, otherwise. Yeah. Your body. That's about it. Yeah. It outlines steps to reduce exposure like disabling biometric phone locks, avoiding distinctive clothing, limiting online posts, and understanding personal risks before showing up, as in all of them.

Your body and phone are tracking beacons, facial recognition, biometrics, tattoos, clothing, and unlocked phones all make it easier to identify and follow you. So transportation and surroundings. Yeah. Yeah. Ice. You know, I've got one here.

Oh, wrong arm. I can even forget which arm I'm on. I got one here that says free the media. Good luck there. That's clever. It is. Oh, what a bygone time, Jason. What a bygone era. Yes, indeed. So transportation and surroundings matter.

Cars can be tracked with license plate readers and cameras can read signs, bumper stickers, and even text on clothing. Your online history can be used against you. Social media posts, photos, and even old jokes or comments can be surfaced by law enforcement to identify or scrutinize protesters. We are fucked, Brian.

If anybody goes back and listens to our history, they're going to be knocking on the door this afternoon. That's it. Well, they are going door to door now, just like the Gestapo. Yeah, Kristallnacht. By the way, we did follow up and I just said, happy holidays, Jason.

I hope you had a really good time. I figure we'll do some more holiday wrap up when Dave gets here because he lightens the mood. Let's just get the dystopian fuck future over with first. You know, the craziest thing is I think Dave actually feels this more than either of us. Like there's just this heaviness to him these days.

Yeah. I mean, we have a release valve. We get to do this. He doesn't have that. Also, I left the fucking country. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Oh, my God. Okay, let's keep going. Yeah, sure. The EFF has a lovely rundown on what hackers and activists are doing to thwart the fucking Nazis invading our streets.

More than our fucking congressmen. Oh, way more than them. So people are pushing back against ICE and expanding use of surveillance technology as federal immigration enforcement increasingly relies on license plate readers, drones, cell phone tracking and shared police databases. Communities are responding with counter surveillance tools.

Stay inside is the only thing you can do and hope they don't knock on your door. These range from open source hardware and crowdsourced maps to mobile apps and low tech warning systems, all aimed at exposing where surveillance exists and helping people protect themselves and their neighbors.

So, uh, stay inside. Stay inside. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in there. I recommend going to read it because the EFF does a really good job of putting it all together and just giving you a landscape of what people are doing. And all that said, be really fucking careful because these goons might just shoot you in the fucking face.

Okay. I'm going to take a second here. Shake it out. Okay. Yeah. Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Brian. Deep breaths. Okay. Let's transition back to just tech stupidity now. Please, please. You might be noticing that ads on Instagram and Facebook are getting more personal and that's because they probably are.

That is assuming you're alive and haven't been shot in the face. Meta updated its privacy policy last month, adding that it's the data it collects from user interactions with its AI services will now be used for targeted ads across the company's social media platforms.

Previously, the social media giant's privacy policy said it already said it collected information from interactions with its AI technology, including conversations and related metadata, but the updated policy, they clarify the statement and say that it includes prompts that can include questions, messages, media, and other information you or others share with or send to AI at Meta.

AI at Meta is the umbrella term the company uses for its AI products, including the Meta AI chatbot integrated into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as well as other AI tools like Vibes and AI features on Ray-Ban smart glasses. Now, I would normally say who gives a fuck because who's using this shit, but according to Meta, more than 1 billion people use Meta AI every month alone, which could explain why we're in this situation we're in.

Do you get the things from Instagram when you log in? Say, would you like to turn on Meta AI? Would you like to turn on Meta AI? All of your friends have turned on Meta AI. Would you like to be like your friends too? Yeah, I do. And I go, boy, that's a dumb friend. Check. Make me make a mental note of that one. Okay, go ahead.

Disney has agreed to pay $10 million in civil penalties to settle allegations that have violated federal data collection laws designed to protect children. I'm sorry. I don't give a fuck that Disney has to pay $10 million for screwing this up when fucking ICE is shooting civilians in the goddamn face.

Come back to us, Brian. Come back to us. And a complaint filed in the California District Court, the DOJ, which has better things to do, alleged that Disney failed to properly label some of its videos on YouTube as being targeted towards children. By not doing so, Disney and its partners were allegedly able to target ads towards children on YouTube and unlawfully collect children's personal information without notifying parents or obtaining their consent, obviously screwing up the COPA Act.

After a $170 million settlement with the FTC in 2019 over similar COPA violations, YouTube began requiring creators to designate whether videos they upload are made for kids or not made for kids. Videos labeled as made for kids have certain features disabled to comply with COPA, including personalized advertising, collection of personal information, and comments.

This case is amongst the first in which a content creator has settled with the DOJ since YouTube's own settlement. Disney did not immediately respond to a comment, but a spokesperson said, supporting the well-being and safety of kids and families is at the heart of what we do.

This settlement does not involve Disney-owned and operated digital platforms, but rather is limited to the distribution of some of our content on YouTube's platform. Beyond the financial penalty, the court orders prohibits Disney from violating COPA on YouTube again, don't do it again, and requires the company to set up an ongoing content review program to ensure its videos on the site comply with the law.

Okay, fine. Great. Okay, I'm going to break this down for anybody who doesn't know. When you upload a video to YouTube, there's literally a checkbox that says, is this made for kids? Yes or no? Now, I don't know about you, Brian, but I'm pretty sure that when you go into your channel setup, you can set defaults.

So it just automatically would say, yes, this is going to be made for kids. But they should just have that turned on. So basically, they got fined $10 million because some intern that was uploading the videos to YouTube didn't figure out how to check the right box. That's literally what this is about. It is about a checkbox that somebody forgot to check.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. You and I have both been there early in our career when we were doing batch processing and stuff like that and went, oh, crap, we forgot the checkbox for the thing. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the interns are getting paid like eight bucks an hour. So do they give a shit? No. They should have spent that $10 million on the salaries for the people who upload their videos to the platforms where kids are going to watch it instead of, I don't know, anything else.

Yeah. Well, you know, Grok has their is an AI that is Elon's AI. And boy, oh boy, was it in the news over the holidays. And rather than just kind of reading some of the stories like I usually do about AI because I just don't want to engage.

I decided, OK, I'm going to go check this out. I'm not going to do the things that have been in the news, but I'm going to upload some photos of myself and some friends and family and see what it is that Grok can do with limits.

Just how realistic does this look? How do you look in a bikini, Brian? Holy fuck, man. This should be so illegal. I can't even stress how illegal this should be. Screw what we're going to talk about just with kids.

This should be illegal for everyone. There are no fucking guidelines on this. No railways, no nothing. And it's really, really good. Scary. Yeah. Yeah. Scary fucking good.

Yeah. Yeah. I had to back away because I creeped myself out and I didn't even do anything weird. Like I was just OK, like have them take a drink, have them sit down on the bed, have them do this, have a holy shit. This stuff is good and not in a good way.

I don't know how we ended up here, Jason. I don't know how people decided that this was a good idea and we should pursue this. And this is what we should be doing with our time and collective money and energies and brains and smarts and technology. Why this? Because nerds can't get laid.

That's why. Yeah. Bunch of these fucking red pill kids out there and they're like, oh, let's just make some AI so I can have a girlfriend. Yay. Yeah. This is just Elon's side, you know, side loaded brain that's taken all this over. I, if you want to actually see some of the other stuff that people are doing, just literally go to Twitter.

I'm sorry, X and search for Grok. That's just search for the word Grok. And it will be an ever going list of just how fucked up people are and what they're doing with the technology. And it's, it's, it's a mess. It is absolutely a mess. And other countries are coming for him now.

Big time. They are pissed off. Not like it matters because there's nothing that's going to happen. We'll see. I mean, hopefully next week we'll talk about this. There's a push in England to actually ban X and Grok completely. We'll see. But I don't know if you're wondering if you've somehow managed to avoid all this.

I'll just do one story here. This is from Gizmodo. Did you spend the holidays engaging in quality time with your loved ones and catching up with friends or family? Or like a disturbing number of X users, did you spend it asking Grok to manipulate images of children and depict them in bikinis? Yeah.

And, and less by the way, because people figured out ways around a lot of the limited guardrails that were kind of not there to begin with. Yep. The transparent tape one is the one that I saw that people are using. Yeah. Turn this outfit into transparent tape.

So, you know, the deepfake, the deepfake stuff has been out there for a while. Just the thing is, it wasn't this available. You, you had to like, you had to like deep web the shit before. Yeah. You had to have skills and, and, and, you know, processing power and things like that.

This is just for everybody. Anybody can do it. This is the AOL of fucking AI porn. Like, you got a CD in the mail. And you're fucking on, you're on the information super bikini highway, baby. Uh, Jesus Christ.

I can't tell you how wrong this is. The article is in there. And basically they haven't said anything about it. Uh, Grok doesn't care. X doesn't care. Fucking Trump reposted some of the things or Trump. I mean, sorry, I get these two confused. Elon reposted a bunch of these things that were happening.

Uh, yeah, people are pissed. This is insane. What people are doing on Grok. There's no guardrails at all. It is. And it's non-consensual adults, which is bad enough. It's children. People are all over the place with kids, putting kids, making videos.

I, uh, it's so fucking creepy. It's about, that about sums it up. Uh, if, if this would have happened 20 years ago, ice agents would have been breaking down Elon Musk's door. They would have been shutting server. They would have been carting servers out of the server farm.

This whole thing would have been shut down, but no, now we just shoot civilians and we let this run amok. This is the world we've created now.

Well, see, Elon doesn't have to do anything right now because there's no, there is no regulation that, that has anything to do with anything. Uh, there's a bipartisan takedown. It's called the, the take it down act, which criminalizes non-consensual sexually explicit material and requires platforms to remove it within 48 hours at a victim's request.

Unfortunately, Brian, it doesn't take effect until May 19th of this year. So until then. Okay. You, you report one image. They take it down. It takes what? 10 seconds to make another one. Uh, and they're supposed to ban the accounts of people that do that. But you know, until, until then X has no legal obligation to act at all.

And, uh, there's another case that involves Ashley St. Claire. Do you know who Ashley St. Claire is, Brian? I'm going to guess a porn star. Nope. One of Musk's children's mamas, baby's mamas. Oh, okay. Well, you say tomato. Yeah. People on, uh, X were taking pictures of her and sexualizing them when she was even a kid.

And, uh, she couldn't get it taken down. She, she fucked Elon and she can't even get those pictures taken down. And then when they finally, when there was media coverage, they'd finally, you know, put enough pressure on X to take it down. Guess what they did, Brian? What?

They kicked her off of X and, uh, took away her premium account. Yeah. That's exactly, that's exactly what we're dealing with nowadays. So what the fuck are you going to do? Instagram's top exec, Adam Massari, has an idea of what we're going to do about all is Jason.

He's made it clear that he expects AI content to overtake non AI imagery and the significant implications that shift has for its creators and photographers. He shared his thoughts in a lengthy post about the broader trends he expects to shape Instagram in 2026. Everything that made creators matter, the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn't be fate is now suddenly accessible to anyone with the right tools.

The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything. There's a lot of amazing AI content. Is there? Let's define amazing. Let's start with that. And our platform may need to rethink its approach to labeling such imagery by fingerprinting real media, not just chasing fakes.

So basically his big idea now is we can't stop any of this. There's a torrent of it. We've told you that we were doing moderation. We hired moderators. We told you that we'd have machine learning moderation. Now we have AI. We can use AI to moderate the AI. None of that fucking works. So what we should do is basically let's put it on the cameras and cameras need to put some sort of stamp on everything that says this is real.

And we just have to assume that absolutely everything else isn't. That's the world. That's about it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, when this whole AI bullshittery started, I cast your mind back, Brian, you know, like two, three years ago, I said I said that if you want to make the next trillion dollar company, you need to figure out how to become human verified, human verifiable information is going to be a thing.

And this this twat fucking comes out and says, you know what? It's on you now to prove that you're you instead of the other way around, that it's, you know, it's just it's mind boggling. And this guy, this this guy needs a I've had about had it with him about had it with him.

And he thinks it's a good thing. He thinks that this is amazing. Everybody can make shit now. And let's just let's just make make the world just full of this crap. No. Well, of course it is. Their their product is you. Their product is content. Their product is eyeballs.

And now we don't even need people to make content anymore. This is fantastic for them. Well, it's going to be bots making the content and bots watching the content and then selling ads to the actual people that aren't aren't even there. And, you know, then they're going to say, oh, well, you know, we have we have tools in place to make sure that your ad dollars are being spent wisely when nobody is watching any of the ads.

That's it. They've been so much. Yeah. The house of cards has to fall eventually because of that, because at some point, who's going to keep paying for ads? You're not getting any engagement. Yeah. Nobody's coming into your silo. So ridiculous.

But let's just keep going. Right, Jason? OpenAI is launching a new facet for its AI chatbot called ChatGPT Health. That sounds like a smart thing to use. Because it's been going so good. Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. You can connect your personal private medical records and wellness apps to ChatGPT in order to get more tailored responses to queries about your health, Jason.

There will be privacy safeguards. Sure, there will. For an extra 20 bucks a month, you get a rectal exam, too. Elon comes around and sticks a finger up your ass. It's important. Sorry. The announcement from OpenAI acknowledges that this new development is not intended for diagnosis or treatment, yet that's what they want you to use it for.

But it's not intended for it. It's exactly what they want you to use it for. It's not intended for it, Jason. We're telling you, so you can't sue us. Yeah. Terms of service says, so if you use it for something that's not in the terms of service, then it's your fault. Just like all the kids that killed themselves because they didn't read the terms of service before they used ChatGPT to figure out how to make a noose or try and go kill their parents.

It's all in the terms of service, Brian. Speaking of that, character AI and Google have reportedly agreed to settle multiple lawsuits regarding teen suicide and self-harm. The families of several teens sued the companies in Florida, Colorado, Texas, and New York. The Orlando lawsuit was filed by the mother of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III, who used a character AI chatbot tailored after Game of Thrones scenarios.

A teen reportedly exchanged sexualized messages with the chatbot, probably with a grok side window, creating her in a bikini, jumping up and down and spreading her butt cheeks, and occasionally referred to it as his baby sister. He eventually talked about joining Daenerys in a deeper way before taking his own life. The Texas suit accused a character AI model of encouraging a teen to cut his arms.

It also allegedly suggested that murdering his parents was a reasonable option. After the lawsuits were filed, the startup changed its policies and banned users under 18. With a little scroll down, what year were you born in Clicker, that's about it.

Yeah, that's how they do it. Yeah. Yes. Character AI is a role-playing chatbot platform that allows you to create custom characters and share them with other users. They were founded in 2021 by two Google engineers. In 2024, Google rehired the co-founders and struck a $2.7 billion deal to license the startup's technology.

So, yes. 2026 is just shaping up to be a great year, Brian. It's January 9th, Jason. Just saying. I know, I know. We are nine days in. Nine times. We didn't even talk about Venezuela.

Oh, here we go. Over on Polymarket, the decentralized casino for degenerates, we have a situation that perfectly sums up the crypto ecosystem. First, a mystery trader turned $30,000 into $400,000 by betting Maduro would be ousted. Wonder how that happened.

I wonder who knew. Well, it placed the bet just hours before the Navy SEALs landed, and I'm sure that's just a lucky guess, and not someone with a cousin at the Pentagon or the White House or any of the oil companies that were briefed beforehand, but certainly not someone in Congress because they were kept in the dark.

But the real comedy is the bet on whether the U.S. would invade Venezuela. Polymarket ruled it a no, and the people who bet yes lost everything to the tune of about $10 million. This was decided by something they called the U.M.A., or Universal Market Access.

Think of the U.M.A. as the Supreme Court for these bets, but instead of judges, it's just a bunch of random token holders voting on what reality is. The U.M.A. voters ruled that flying into a sovereign nation to kidnap its leader is technically a raid, not an invasion, because we didn't hold the territory.

So the probable insider trader gets paid, and everyone else gets fisted by a jury of anonymous crypto bros arguing over dictionary definitions. Welcome to the future, Brian. Welcome to the fucking future. It's a day. It's a day.

It's a day that ends in Y. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why did you fucking people vote for Trump? Moving on. What do we got now? Well, Waymo's getting a good look at the competition as Uber has revealed the design of its robo-taxi that's due to launch in San Francisco later this year, the culmination of Uber's evil plans and dreams for the past 20 years of putting everybody else out of business and basically never hiring anybody and ensuring through government kickbacks and pay forwards

that they would never have to pay taxes or anybody's health insurance or anything like that, because eventually they knew they would get rid of the drivers and just have their stupid fucking app and all the monies. Travis Kalanick's evil vision is finally coming to fruition, Brian. That's it. That's true. The upcoming robo-taxi is a result of a partnership announced in July between Uber, Lucid, and Nuro.

The plan is to deploy at least 20,000 Lucid EVs that will use the Nuro driver autonomous driving tech and be available through the Uber platform. They've started on-road testing last month in San Francisco Bay Area, with Nuro using more than 100 robo-taxi prototypes supervised by autonomous vehicle operators.

The robo-taxi, which is a modified Lucid Gravity, will feature a multi-pronged sensor system, including high-res cameras, LiDAR, and radar. Elon. Yeah, take note, Elon. The design also incorporates a halo mounted on the EV's roof, which will increase sensor visibility and double as a display that uses LED to display helpful info to passengers until they decide that they can stick ads on that fucker, too.

Yeah, exactly. It's funny. So they announced this at CES. Have you noticed or have you heard anything about CES this year? Because from everything I've heard, it's pretty much a ghost town. Like, a lot of big players are not even showing up. Because, mm, I wonder why.

I wonder. I wonder why nobody wants to come to the United States to talk about products that they can't sell here because of all the tariffs. Maybe that's it? I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. It's a fucking mystery, Jason. It's a fucking mystery. It really is. It's a fucking mystery. That's right. Yeah. But as we talk about all these autonomous vehicles and robo-taxis and things like that, Gizmodo points out maybe we should pump the brakes on the idea that robo-taxis are safer.

The TLDR on this one is most of the studies came from, guess who, Jason? The companies themselves? The companies that make the fucking robo-taxis. Yeah. Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise. This is a bit like Marlboro. Marlboro says that smoking is safe.

That's right. I can't fucking believe this because we have been pushing back on this and then it's just study after study and we've reported on them on the shows saying that, OK, well, in these cases, it does appear that autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers.

Actually, fucking no. Well, shit. It's pretty limited, the data, as a recent report from Bloomberg points out. There is certain data to suggest that autonomous vehicles can cut back on the number of accidents on the road. Waymo, in particular, has made this information central to its pitch, claiming to have achieved 84% fewer crashes that result in airbag deployment, 73% fewer crash-related injuries,

and 48% fewer police-reported crashes compared to human drivers during its first 22 million miles on the road. That sounds pretty impressive. The data that provides the foundation of these claims, however, comes from the company itself. And as Bloomberg notes, much of the research that Waymo highlights on its website has been co-authored by Waymo employees.

And much of that safer driving was also done in safer driving conditions than most human drivers face. It wasn't until November 2025 that Waymo got the green light to drive on freeways around the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Up until that point, the vast majority of miles were city driving.

By comparison, about 25% of all human driving takes place on highways and freeways, according to the Federal Highway Administration, where speeds are much higher and accidents are often more deadly. There is also little information about how frequently a teleoperator takes control of a vehicle because companies don't provide information as to when interventions happen or what it means when it does.

The data that we do have shows that autonomous vehicles, in their limited capacity, have been safer than human drivers in ideal conditions. However, researchers have found that while driving at dawn and dusk, accident rates for autonomous vehicles were 5.25% higher.

Oh, no, not 5.25%, 5.25 times higher. Oh, shit. In turning scenarios, it was 1.98 times higher. There's also the fact that while autonomous vehicles can avoid some human errors like distracted driving, they also tend to make mistakes that people wouldn't make, like driving directly into a body of water or driving through an active fire scene.

At this point, it's not actually clear, as the industry would like to suggest, that autonomous vehicles will achieve either of those goals. So, you know, all that is PR bullshit. Oh, man. See, and it's funny that when the Waymo drove through the active crime scene here in L.A., that somebody didn't shoot it in the face.

Give it time. No face to shoot, Jason. There's no face to shoot. God damn it. That's how they got around it. Yeah. So, okay, they fudged the numbers. Shocking. So, I'm still not getting in one. No, I'm not either, after reading that. Yeah, especially after reading that, especially not at dawn or dusk, or when there's a turning incident involved.

Because, God forbid, if I'm going in a straight line in the middle of the day. If I'm going in a straight line at noon. Yeah, then I'm in. I'll try it then. But if we got to turn, fuck that noise, man. No way. Well, I just saw this last one, and it just sums up how I feel about it.

How much does Tim Cook and other Apple execs make per year? And some numbers came out. In total, Apple says Tim Cook's compensation totaled $74,294,811 in 2025. Now, Cook revealed back in 2015 that he plans to give away all of his wealth during his lifetime after providing for the college education of his nephew.

He plans to develop a systematic approach to philanthropy rather than simply writing checks. Tim, I got, hold the phone, Tim. I got an idea for you. I have just a small idea. So, put that little bucket of money away for your nephew. Take a smaller salary and distribute the wealth to the people who work for your fucking company.

Like, you know, I don't know, all the people with suicide nets in China because they're going crazy. Are you a fucking communist? I'm sorry, Brian. I'm sorry. Yeah. Fucking commie. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. It's an idea. It's an idea. Run it through Grok and see how it tracks.

Okay? See how it looks in a bikini. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the other greatest hits. The CFO got $22,467,309. General counsel got $27 million. The lawyer got $27 million. That's a lot of money.

COO got $27 million. The former CFO walked away with $15.5 million. Maybe that's why they quit because they weren't getting the whole 27. And the retail and people SVP got $27 million. Brian, I don't know how hard you have to work day in, day out to get $27 million a year.

But that's, you know, they must have extra hours in the day that us mortals don't have. Because, you know, you have to be working at least 400 hours a day, I'd think, to make $27 million a year. But I guess that's just tech. I guess so.

Unbelievable.

Media Candy. Well, Brian, over the break, Stranger Things wrapped up. If you haven't read every news article everywhere, people are complaining about it. People are loving it. Some people are thinking that it was all a fake out and there's going to be another secret episode that was supposed to drop yesterday.

Spoiler alert. It didn't. It's done. It was fine. I ended up fast forwarding half of it. Like most of the season, I ended up fast forwarding half of it because I didn't really care about a lot of the emotional storylines. I'm like, just get to the bad guy, kill him and let's just let's go home.

It was it was good. I liked it. You know, I didn't I didn't complain about it. So what I would I recommend you going back to watching it since you've been, you know, away since season three? No, don't don't. Yeah, don't take your time. Yeah, that was kind of my impression as well.

I kind of monitored the feedback that was going on online about about everything. And my thought was like if people say they stuck the landing and hit a home run, then I'll then I'll go back and start watching it all again. But it kind of seems to be a collective meh and for a collective meh, I'm not going to go back and watch the 19000 hours of Stranger Things that would be in front of me still having only missed two seasons.

Yeah, you can actually go watch the extended editions of all the Lord of the Rings again and still have a couple hours to spare. Yeah. So I'm glad that the people that liked it liked it. I'm not sure what anybody who hated it was expecting, but it is what it is. And it's it's over now.

Yay. Oh, man. I did have a John McTiernan holiday movie marathon, though, which was kind of fun. I watched The Hunt for Red October, classic movie in my top 10. Can't go wrong with that one. Die Hard 3, also fantastic movie. Can't go wrong with that one.

And the sleeper hit that I really, really enjoy is The 13th Warrior. I really like that movie for some reason. I think it's a fine movie. So sadly, John McTiernan has been kind of run out of Hollywood. I don't know if it was Rollerball, which I didn't know he did Rollerball, which is funny because I actually worked on Rollerball for a little bit.

Remember our good old friend Dave Riggs? Oh, yeah. Mr. Riegler. Yeah, yeah. We worked on that together for a while. And yeah, it was apparently such a bad movie that I completely forgot that he did it. But all three of those, I think they all have legs and hold water.

So just, you know, something to do. Traders UK and US are back. Yes. You know, I'm a super fan of the traders. So far, UK has got five episodes out and the US just dropped the first three yesterday. Traders UK has been amazing.

It's been so much fun. I'm enjoying every second of it. I can't wait. I'm going to watch the US one tonight, but that's on Peacock. Lots of them are on Peacock. The UK, you have to go to Sweden to get right now unless you live in the UK and then you can just watch it on TV. But yeah, as a trader super fan, I just I'm tickled pink because that's how that's how it is.

All right. Well, something else has returned. The Pit is back for season two on HBO Max and the first episode is dropped. It is a weekly drop. They do not drop them all at once, which I like, especially for this show because it's pretty intense. More of the same. Just as good as last season was.

First episode was was riveting and gross and all the things that you would expect if you watch the first season. So good times. Looking forward to that. By the way, it was it was renewed already for season three. So. Oh, yeah, I saw that as well. Yeah, I mean, it's great acting. It's it's really well done.

I recommend it if so long as you're not squeamish. OK, they go in. So I also flew to L.A. and back. So I have some not really drunk on the plane movie reviews because early morning flights. I finally got around to seeing Downton Abbey, the grand finale did not need it.

No, the previous one was fine. Didn't care. Who cares? Who gives a shit? Like, just wrap the shit up already. Everybody's married and happy and you have to give happy endings to everybody. And oh, my God, she got a divorce. How scandalous. And she survives. OK, great. OK, great.

She got a divorce. Save me two hours. Come back to do the show. Anyways. Yeah. It's don't bother. OK, I won't. Thanks. Yeah. The last one where where Maggie Smith's character dies is is that that is a perfect ending to the whole thing.

So let it go with that selection was limited. So I decided to give a movie that I normally wouldn't watch a tried Jurassic World Rebirth. This is the attempted reboot again with Scarlett Johansson to bring some heat. I don't know how you take a movie with Scarlett Johansson and dinosaurs and make it boring as fuck, but they did it.

Maybe they needed some AI could not have cared less about anything that happened in this entire movie. It was so boring. There was like three dinosaurs tops, and I did not care about a single character, a single dinosaur, the point, the plot, nothing.

The soundtrack was boring. The fucking title sequence was boring. The font they used was boring. Everything was boring. Even the font. Even the font is boring. That's bad. That's bad. They had the Desjardins Limited was available, so I decided to watch that.

It was a Wes Anderson movie that I had not caught. Now, my history with Wes Anderson, I loved some of his first movies. Bottle Rocket is excellent. Rushmore is one of my favorite movies. I loved the Royal Tenenbaums. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Really good.

After that, everything's been crap, and this is crap. This is so bad. He's become a parody of himself. You can't... I can't even watch him anymore. It was unwatchable, so I stopped watching it, and I instead went and watched a movie that is actually quirky, weird, funny, and brilliant.

Oh, brother, where art thou? Fantastic movie. I haven't watched it in years. Boy, does it have legs. Boy, is it awesome. And boy, did it clean, clear that fucking stanky Darjeeling taste out of my mouth. And I normally like Darjeeling. I want to watch that again.

That was a great movie. Oh, brother, where art thou? That was fantastic. It really cheered me up, and I really enjoyed watching it again. I watched Honey Don't, which is a newish movie that's got, what's her name, Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza. This is also a quirky, weird movie, kind of noir-ish, very sexy lesbian scenes, so I felt a little awkward watching it on the plane, so I had to stop watching it on the plane because

I'm not an ex-and-grok AI user, and I don't like to expose children to pornography, so I stopped watching it. Stewardess, can I have a blanket, Stewardess, please? Yeah, I had to stop. I felt really creepy, so I stopped watching it on the plane, and I finished it when I got home. It's a fun... Of course you did.

I finished one particular part 19 times. There we go. I'm just kidding. Nine times. It was actually a pretty fun movie, well-acted and interesting. I think you'd dig it, Jason. This is up your alley, regardless of the lesbian scenes. Okay, I like Aubrey Plaza.

I like her a lot. Yeah, I like her, too. She's great. I forgot that she was in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. We watched that. I totally forgot she was in that. It was great. Yeah. And I watched the documentary about John Candy. John Candy, I like me. Good.

Not great. I think they're very limited by the fact that they, believe it or not, even though he's one of the biggest stars in the world. It was like 1994 when he died. So, not a lot of footage. And so many years later, people's reminisces aren't as cutting or interesting or vibrant as they may have been.

It's all very kind of washed away with time. Like, my God, he was such a great guy. What a great actor. Blah, blah, blah. And that was kind of it. Yeah. I didn't get a lot of the feels from it. Yeah. That's because, you know, I look at it. I'm like, oh, that's probably sad. But like, at this point, it's like, it was so long ago.

You know, it's so long ago. Yeah. Yeah. It was a bit like 20 years too late on bringing this thing out. So. Yeah. Sounds like it. Still great. And it was a good reminder of all the different roles he played because there's a lot of clips from movies and things like that. So, it was enjoyable for that.

MTV has shut down its remaining 24-7 music channels in several countries, including the UK and Australia at the end of 2025. However, a developer who goes by the name of Flexasaurus Rex has paid tribute to the MTV of old with a web app that has several channels of nonstop streaming music.

MTV Rewind has 11 channels at this time of writing, including one that features videos from the original channel's first day of existence in 1981. There's a channel dedicated to MTV Unplugged performances, a rap focus stream, one for each decade from the 70s to the 20s, and 120 minutes in Headbanger Ball options.

And I'm so loading up 120 minutes tonight and watching this. So. Get it quick because somebody's going to, somebody's going to, some lawyer somewhere is going to say, take this shit off, you know. Absolutely. So, he said that he felt a wave of sadness when the announcement hit that they were all shutting down. Nothing felt like I could fill that void.

YouTube. So, I started coding. Built it in 48 hours. MTV Rewind. And they've even put in era-appropriate ads in some of the feeds, which is great. Like, I got to check this out. This is awesome. So, it's certainly going to get shut down as soon as possible.

But I'm very, got to, got to take a look at this. That's, this is a good use of technology, you fucks. And finally, Star Trek Starfleet Academy begins streaming on Paramount Plus January 15th. So, time to renew that subscription with ads.

No, it's not. No, it's not. Uh-uh. No. I will, I'm jumping on this bullet for you, Jason. Don't you worry. Okay. Well, I'm going to watch it. I'm just going to go to Sweden Academy to download this one. I'm not giving, giving the Ellison any of my cash.

No. No, thank you. Fair enough. Apps and doodads. So, Brian, I got a Christmas present this year. I got, I got the DJI Osmo Mobile 8. My roommate gave that to me and I love it because my, this is one of the new gimbals that use the camera kit in the iPhone.

So, you don't actually have to use an app if you don't want to, which is really nice because using the Osmo Mobile, I have a 6 and using the, the app that comes with, it's just a pain in the butt. It doesn't, it does half the shit, right? I don't know. But the new one has cool like face detection things.

So, you can make hand gestures to turn it on and turn it off. So, you don't have to like go around the back and try and find your face to lock on, to track you and stuff like that. So, I like that part. I like it. It was, I don't know. I don't know how much it was. It was free. It was Christmas. Yay. It was Christmas. Yeah.

I did pick up a DJI mic 2 to go with it though, so I can have a lavalier with it instead of having to use the phone mic. So, if it's farther away. And I, I put this on my Christmas list because, you know, we're going to, since we're doing this stupid fucking YouTube thing now, I want to be able to make some shorts easier and not standing here in my, in my place so I can do them when I'm out and about and stuff like that because I got some cool product reviews coming up that aren't here in my garage.

So, it's cool. I like it. I played with it for a little bit and kind of got the hang of it. It works pretty much the same as the other ones. The nice part about this new one is it'll spin 360. The old other ones wouldn't go all the way around. And yeah, as far as an upgrade goes from the Mobile 6, it's definitely a big upgrade and it's not that much money, I think.

It's like under 150 bucks. For what it is, it's like magic. And even, oh, and the handle now has a tripod built in so you don't have to carry a fucking tripod with you and a longer selfie stick. So, it's pretty cool. You'll see some videos with that fairly shortly. All right. Well, Netflix rolled out Netflix games in mid to late December.

And I did not know about this until I went over to some friends' house for New Year's Eve. And they brought it all out. And the kids grabbed their iPads. And the parents grabbed their phones. And we all started playing Boggle and Pictionary together as we were waiting for the New Year to ring in. Well, the East Coast New Year.

So, everybody could go to bed with their kids as soon as possible. These are actually a lot of fun. We're playing Boggle and Pictionary pretty regularly, even back at our house now. They've got Lego Party, Boggle, Party Crashers, Pictionary Game Night, and Tetris Time Warp.

There's also some other stuff like Red Dead Redemption. And they're rolling out more games and obviously branded games to their shows, as well as all that is coming soon. But yeah, this was kind of a blast. Like, we had a lot of fun playing it. So, is the Boggle a multiplayer?

So, everybody has to play on their phones? Yeah. Okay. I'm used to playing Boggle with the thing and you just take a piece of paper and write it down. You don't know apps required, but... No paper required now. So, yeah, it's just up on the screen. It gives you timers. You just go through it. And yeah, it's a blast. It's fun.

Okay, cool. Because Netflix games have been around for a while. I had the Mahjong version of Stranger Things that they had. And there were like 1,500 boards in it or something like that. And I finished it and they never... I finished all 1,500 Mahjong boards. Yes, I'm crazy like that. But they never updated it again.

So, and I guess they're probably not going to update it now, now that the show's over. So, but this sounds cool. I'll check it out. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We talked a little bit about CES earlier and how we didn't really see or hear about anything. I did see this in the news and I had to question. Now, technology may have moved on a bit, but Victrola, the old-timey company that put out radios and turntables back in the day is still out there doing turntables.

They put out a speaker that sits underneath the turntable and streams audio via Bluetooth. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. I only took audio engineering as a double major at college, but speakers create vibrations.

That is how they make sounds. Yes. It's just vibrations. So, you know, they tend to vibrate. If you put your hand on a speaker, it's moving because that's how it makes the sound. Needles on record players read vibrations, basically waveforms that are put into the record.

If you have a vibrating item underneath your record player, it will bounce that needle ever so slightly, thus killing your audio fidelity. That is the reason when you see DJs with turntables, they're in these big road cases that have all kinds of foam underneath them to isolate them from any vibrations caused by the sound from these speakers.

So, you have put a speaker underneath your turntable. Okay, Kermit the Frog. I am sure that you have worked very hard on the technology, but still, this seems very fucking stupid to me. Well, you know, Victrola's still working on 1800s technology, so who knows?

I didn't know they were still alive. Comes with optional leeches for your health. Yeah. After the bloodletting, you play the turntable. Yes. Yes. But they do say they have a vibration-isolated design, to which I say, you fucking better.

You fucking better is right. It's just silent. That's the whole point. It's just a brick. You put it under there. It doesn't make any vibrations at all. You have to use your imagination. Oh, I just saw this one. This came in. California's privacy protection agency has launched DROP, the delete, request, and opt-out platform, which is a free tool that lets residents of California submit deletion requests to more than 500 registered data brokers in a single submission.

According to the California Privacy Protection Agency, the service went live on January 1st with data brokers required to delete your information within 90 days and continue deleting it every 45 days going forward. The process is straightforward. Verify California residency through the state's identity gateway.

Create a profile with as much or as little personal information as you choose and submit it. That's it. One form, 500 plus brokers, no charge. Now, one of our advertisers is Delete Me. Do not get confused with Delete Me. Delete Me does a lot more than this. And this is only the registered brokers that California is following.

So you still maybe want a backup plan like, I don't know, Delete Me slash GOG or Grumpy Old Geeks or however the code goes. It'll be around somewhere. But this is pretty cool for Californians. I recommend giving it a shot. Yeah, might as well. You should sign up with as many as possible.

That and say Delete Me. The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave. It's a new year and it's a new Dark Side with Dave with Super Podcast host Dave Bittner.

Welcome back to the show, Dave. How you doing? I'm doing. Missed you. I missed you too. Both of you. And I just want to, at the outset, say congratulations, Jason, on three years. Oh, thank you very much, sir. Thank you very much.

I am proud of you and admire you at the same time. Three years is nothing to sneeze about. Absolutely. I mean, I look at the news and I'm happy to make it three minutes. Yeah, I can really use beer right now. But hey, what are you going to do? It's been at least three minutes since my last sip of whiskey.

I'm really white knuckling it right now. I'm, hey. Yeah. So, this is an interesting question, Jason. How, to what degree is it annoying or bothersome at all that folks like us who do not have the disease of alcoholism, when we joke about it the way we just did, is that at all bother you or are you just long for the ride?

It's just a long for the ride. It doesn't bother me at all. Okay. No. I'm not going to, what is it, yuck on your yum because I just can't have any. Right. It's, you know, you can make fun of cancer patients, too. If I had cancer, I wouldn't be yelling at you. It doesn't matter. Okay.

Fair enough. Yeah. No, it's just a thing. I was born with it. I got it. C'est la vie. Yeah. No, you guys have the chuckles at my expense. That's okay. I'm used to it. That's true. I've been on this show long enough. It's not like that's what triggered us having chuckles at your expense or anything.

I know. I know. Waking up in the morning is just a good enough reason. Who needs a reason? Right. That's right. Exactly. No, but seriously, no, it doesn't bother me at all. I don't think it bothers most people in recovery because, you know, you get used to it. So, I mean, my roommate has a bottle of wine every day.

And it's like, I think of it as training like the Olympics. Like the Olympians go up to Colorado because the air is thinner because that way they're, you know, they're stronger when they come back down. So, you know, I just hang out at bars. Jason hangs out at bars. Watch people. Exactly. That's all I do. Just to, you know, strengthen up, you know.

Yeah. Play the Rocky theme, go in there and, you know, have a Diet Coke and go, ha! And walk out. That's how it goes. Well, hats off to you. Excellent. Well, I hope everybody had a holiday break. I thought we'd get the Disneyland thing out of the way quickly because I did go.

My wife was able to get free park hopper tickets through her work because we had said we are absolutely not going to Disneyland this winter. And, of course, we got free tickets. So, we went. And it was very nice. We went on the 30th of January.

So, in between Christmas and New Year's. 30th of January hasn't happened yet. Oh, I'm sorry. 30th of December. Look. We're trying to get through this month as fast as possible. I know. I know. I don't know what day it is. I don't know what year it is.

I just know I don't like it. That's where I'm at. So, that's about it. So, yeah. We had a good time. It was very busy. But, of course, they roll out all their holiday decorations and the special treats and drinks and all that sort of stuff. So, we were able to enjoy all that and walk around.

I have to say, though, that as much as I enjoy the Christmas decorations and whatnot at Disneyland, over the past few years, it appears to me that the Imagineers much more enjoy Halloween. And as they've started to make it a much bigger deal, Halloween is – they go above and beyond compared to Christmas.

Christmas is very nice and it has been that way forever. But ever since they've really kind of adopted, we're going to do Halloween, they have gone all in. And I would much rather go during the Halloween decorating season time than Christmas at this point. Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. I have been at Disneyland at Halloween because I remember the pumpkins outside the gate where you get in. There were all these pumpkin heads and things. But, anyway, it was nice. And I've seen the Nightmare Before Christmas Halloween Haunted Mansion there, which was great.

But, yeah, that's interesting. So, the crowds weren't too overwhelming? It was busy, but we were able to get on most of the rides that we wanted to go on. We've definitely had better trips, but it's still Disneyland. It still does what it says on the tin.

It's a blast. And it was free. And it was free. I mean, yeah. It was free. So, can't complain about that. That's true. That's true. We were pretty quiet over the holidays. Just stayed close to home and had family and visited with family and just kind of vegged out over the break.

So much so that I was kind of ready to come back to work by the time it was over. I was getting a little bit of cabin fever. But, overall, nice to step away and recharge and do a lot of napping and eating and all that holiday stuff. Yeah.

Very nice. Very nice. Yeah, we did the same. I actually took Brian's advice and took time off. I started, I got all these ideas. I'm going to do all this stuff. And then, like, a day or so into it, I'm like, nap. I can take a nap right now. Holy shit.

I don't have to do anything. All my work's done for my clients. They're gone. Brian's gone. I don't have to open my RSS reader. Oh, shit. I can get used to this. So, it turned out I took two weeks, I literally took two weeks off and enjoyed every second of it.

It was amazing. Good for you. I'm glad you finally did it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I came back, I came back on July or January 2nd just, like, ready to rock. I'm like, let's go. And now, I'm like, let's go somewhere else. Anywhere.

Yeah. Yeah. I did get retro tech support requests this year. I had to set up an HP printer on a Windows 10 machine. That was challenging. That was challenging for me.

I haven't used Windows in quite some time and I haven't used an HP printer in quite some time. And most of it was trying to get around them making you set up an account on the HP site so they can send you ink notifications over and over.

The dark patterns that they use. I'm setting this printer up for a 97-year-old woman. There is no way in hell that she could ever do this. I'm trying to disable stuff and I'm like, okay, if it asks you this, don't do this. If it asks you this, don't do this. At 97, there's probably going to be little need for an ink replacement cartridge.

That's right. This is true. This is true. We don't need a subscription. We don't need a subscription. A couple of years ago, I took my father to buy a new TV at the local Best Buy. And the guy said, like, do you want the extended warranty? I said, my father is 90 years old.

He doesn't buy green bananas. And the guy shook his head. He said, understood. Understood. Yeah. So, that's funny. So, yeah, it was a good tech support experience. And, you know, it's not like the old days.

The old days, I'd be like, I'd walk into a room and everybody would be like, can you help me fix this? Can you help me fix this? Can you help me fix this? And this and this and this. But this time, it was just like, yeah, oh, you got that. Okay. That's what I had over the break. My nephew got a PS5 that I had to set up. And, you know, nothing is just plugging it in and figuring out cables anymore.

Now, it's where do you have to set up accounts? How are the accounts connected? How do you do the parental account? How do you? So, no. What's your email? Who's email? Which email do you want me to use for that? And then, of course, you know, somebody else is streaming. The streaming stopped working on the TV in there.

Go fix that. Oh, the Wi-Fi is down again. Which part of the Wi-Fi is down? There's two different Wi-Fis here. Which one's? Okay. I'll do that. Oh, my mom got a new computer, so I had to set that up. Not only do I have to set up the new computer, I have to figure out it's Dell. Dell used to have a software package that would be transferred from one Dell to the other Dell.

That software package has been depreciated. You can't use that one anymore, so you have to buy this software package. But go through Dell to buy it so we can get our beacon. No, well, it's not taking my credit card. Screw this. I'm going to their site directly. I'm just going to buy the software package from them. Okay, fine. Let's start that process.

Let's transfer everything from one Dell to the other Dell. Let's do it over Wi-Fi because I don't want to buy the goddamn cable. Thirty-five hours later, after having it crapped out five times, oh, it's finally all over there now. Great. Awesome. That's done. What's next? Okay, I'm getting PTSD just listening to that. I think, well, we've all lived it, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I think that happens so much these days is the excitement of a new gadget is tempered by the fact that the first time you power it up, it has to do two hours worth of downloads.

And software updates. Yeah. Before it'll do anything. Or charging, even if it doesn't need that. It's got to charge up. Right. As soon as I got my Osmo Mobile, the first thing it did was, it's like, okay, got to charge it a bit. And then you had to do the firmware updates and all that crap just so you could even turn it on.

I'm like, can I just play with my new toy, please? Dare I ask, did you put the 360 camera on the Osmo Mobile? Kind of defeats the purpose. You don't really need to put a 360 camera on a gimbal. I'm just giving you crap about the 360 camera.

Yeah. It's sitting right next to the DJ Osmo Mobile right now. Yeah. Okay. It's got a 360 degree view of the Osmo Mobile. Right. It does. I can tell it from any angle. I can see that. All right. Fair enough. We had a surprisingly tech-free Christmas this year, especially for me.

There really wasn't much. My oldest son got a Flipper Zero. So he was playing with that all day, copying remotes and everything. So he's looking to use that for doing lighting control, like for special events and things.

He's a lighting technician or programs the lighting boards. And evidently, a lot of the lights have like IR receivers on them. So he can use the Flipper Zero to program lights and things like that. My Flipper Zero is sitting right next to the 360 camera on my shelf.

Yeah. I think, I mean, he's going to use it for that, but he's also going to find ways to get in trouble with it. I know. Damn right. He was already talking. He was like, I hear people can get out of free for parking garages. I'm going, God. Yeah, you can. That's the one time I've actually used it is for that.

Is that right? It works great. Yeah. Yeah. You just walk by somebody that has a pass and you can clone the pass and then just use that to get in and out of the park. Oh. Yeah. I was, I was going through the airport and I don't know if you guys have flown recently, but if you go through the airport and especially in the U.S., obviously, you will get a lovely Christy Noem video.

Oh. And that was playing on one of the TVs. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure somebody in the area had a flipper because all of a sudden that TV went off. Yeah. And it did not come back on, so. What was the, what was the remote, the gadget that you could have that would turn off all the TVs?

What the hell is the name of that thing? I have one of those. Yeah. Yeah. I have one of those here that I purchased for a very specific purpose. Namely, when the monitor in the lobby of our office building was stuck on Fox News all the time.

I would just walk by and click my keys and off it would go. Okay. Yeah. Well, since it is the new year now, I get a little question for both of you guys. Well, actually, more for Dave than Brian because Brian's in Canada and you have free health care.

But are you getting gouged on your health insurance now? Because everybody's has gone up. Mine went up. I got hit fairly lightly compared to most of my friends. Mine only went up to $740 a month, which is a $120 increase. So how are you doing, Dave?

How did you get? Well, I had a mixed. No, my. So my experience this year is a little odd because my oldest son turned 26. So he rolled off of the family insurance. So I saved some money from that.

So because of that savings, my bill was pretty flat this year. I got hit hard last year. Mine doubled for my family. It went from about $600 a month to about $1,200 a month for the family.

So now I, and I have, I admit, I have very good insurance for $1,200 a month. There's not a hard one. Yeah. And, and, you know, that's even, I mean, that's a company policy. So that's, you know, the company's pitching in on it probably that much themselves.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's so madding, madding, maddingly frustrating. Maddening. Maddening. Thank you. Maddening is the word I was looking for. No problem. Yeah. Um, wouldn't know anything about it anymore. Yeah. Says the fucking Canadian.

Well, I know, but, but, but Brian, I mean, you can't get any services, right? You can't go to the doctor. You have to wait forever for everything. That's what everyone here tells me. I mean, last week, I got a doctor appointment two weeks from now. Um, yeah, yeah.

When, uh, when I had my cancer issues, not a problem scheduled, everything was scheduled, taken care of. I think I got charged $35 once. And it's 35 Canadian, right? So it was like a quarter. Right. What's that in real money? Right. It's not that hard.

People, all the rest of the countries in the world have it. Just saying. That's right. Yeah. And I bet if you get shot in the face in Canada, they'll patch you right up. They don't shoot you in the face here conveniently. Oh, saves on the insurance costs, I guess. Sure does. That's how we keep the costs down.

Okay. We don't have government thugs shooting people in the face. Yeah. Excellent. It's all rolled together. Um, just real quick, uh, back to Christmas stuff. Uh, I resigned that I am not getting my Home Depot R2D2 this year. Oh, they are down.

It saddens me too. They're down to $75 on clearance. So if you can find one, you can get them super cheap. Okay. Listeners, you have your assignment. That's right. Dave will give you the $75 and cover the shipping. That is true.

I will absolutely do that. If you, if you have a Home Depot with a R2D2 nearby, uh, hit me up and I will send you a- We're going to tune in next week and this is going to be a wall of R2D2s. There's like 20 of them. Okay. I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with that. I'll find places to put them. Just to clarify, reach out to Dave first on Mastodon. Yeah. Yeah. I'll find places. Oh yeah. Believe me. I'll find places to put them. Don't worry about it. Yeah. At 75 bucks a pop. No problem. You know what the resale value on this mountain is?

Yeah. So I don't know if they're going to come. There's a lot of scuttlebutt over whether or not they'll be back next year because they had a high number of returns because they weren't packaged very well. So they came, they got delivered cracked and broken and all that stuff. So hopefully, I don't know, they'll be back next year or I may just end up buying a more robust one somewhere else.

I don't know. Speaking of R2D2, one of the, uh, my favorite gifts that I got for Christmas, which actually was just delivered yesterday was this book. Oh, look at that.

Yeah. And so this is the newest coffee table book about ILM and it's called Industrial Light and Magic 50 Years of Innovation. Uh, we've talked about the ILM coffee table books here before. The first one is still the best one, uh, because it has the big gate folds of matte paintings and things like that.

Uh, this book is excellent. Uh, if you love movies and special effects and all that stuff, it's, you're going to want it for your bookshelf. Uh, it's lovely. I haven't had time to read it yet, but I've just flipped through it and it's everything you want a book like this to be lots of old pictures, lots of new pictures.

This book covers up through the modern era, including things like the Mandalorian and the, the newer technology that they're using. And so, uh, that was a lovely Christmas gift. Um, very much enjoyed that. Uh, I also, uh, put a link in here.

The rumors are flying that Dave Filoni is going to be the next one to run Lucasfilm, I guess. Yeah, I heard that. There have been multiple rumors about Kathleen Kennedy stepping down over the years. So I'll, I'll, I'll believe it when they've removed her name from the sliding door over a Millennium Falcon.

But, uh, right now, um, right now nothing's confirmed. I, I would love to see it. I, I don't think there's anybody better to, to do it. So, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. He seems like the perfect fit of, of, that would, the person who would most make, who would make the most people happy.

Yeah, he's obviously a fan boy, but he has his own ideas and I've liked the majority of what he's done. Book of Boba Fett accepted. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey man, there were two of the greatest Mandalorian episodes in the Book of Boba Fett. So.

That's true. You know. Yeah. Uh, I have a link in here to a story from the Financial Times, uh, where the Financial Times is not holding back. Uh, I know you, you guys talked about the stuff going on at, uh, ex Twitter with all the deep fakes and undressing young girls and all that kind of stuff.

Um, the Financial Times did a rundown of the people who work at, uh, uh, at X, uh, but used AI, used Grok to put clown costumes on all of them. Should have put them all in bikinis. Right.

Interestingly, uh, did not, uh, put a costume on Elon. Uh, I wonder if Grok is somehow prohibited from, uh, making adjustments to him. And we all know he's a clown. No costume needed. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

I love the title of this article though. Who's who at X, the deep fake porn site formerly known as Twitter. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's his moto level writing right there. Yeah. Uh, I mean, I hope the EU really comes at them.

They're, they're, they're saying they're going to. Um, so. Yeah. We'll see. Hopefully there'll be something to report next week. Right. Right. Uh, I wanted to ask you guys, uh, coming into the new year, if you had any iOS games recommendations, I'm, I'm, I'm itching for a new game.

I am so boring. Go for it, Brian, because you're the gamer. I am so boring, Dave. I, I do not, I have solitaire and I enjoy that. That's it. That is the one game on my phone. Oh, wow. That is boring. Jason. Did you ever play tiny wings?

No. Tiny wings. I think you can get it. Are you, do you belong to Apple arcade? I do. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a version on Apple arcade that they put out. Okay. Look, Dave is writing a note by hand. I am. Ooh. Old school.

Wow. Old man. How do you spell tiny again? Tiny wings. There you go. Tiny wings. Okay. Yeah. It's really fun. It's a, it's an older game. It's like, you know, 10 years old at least, but it's one of those ones that has legs. Yeah. Yeah. It has legs.

I, I, I beat it. That was one of those games. It took me like three months to beat because the last level will drive you mad. But it was, uh, I tell you what, it is one of my, my most proud accomplishments. Definitely. Uh, if you have, if you have, I know I don't have much to live for, Brian.

It's okay. Um, dude's been sober three years and his private is his biggest. This accomplishment is he beat tiny wings. Yeah. Funnily enough. I beat that when I was drunk. Uh, no. Beyond his tombstone, beat tiny wings.

Yeah. You know, I've, I've had this John Mellencamp song stuck in my head for a while and there's a refrain in there. Um, life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone. That's pretty much what sums up my life right now. So, um, yeah. Super monster ate my condo is a fun one.

Check that one out. That's on Apple arcade too. I got to write quickly. Hold on. Super monster ate my, super monster ate my condo. Okay. Fantastic game. It's very fun. They just revamped it with new graphics and it's on Apple arcade. So check those two out. That's good.

All right. They come back to me next week. Can't go wrong with any of the angry birds variants. There was a star Wars one for a while. That was long. So I was re you can pay for all those now. Oh, do you? It sucks. Yeah. I, you know, when I was free, angry birds, I was thinking about, um, revisiting, remember where's my water with the little alligator that it was, it was an iPad game and water would flow and you had to create different ways for the water to flow and things.

Yep. That's the kind of thing, you know, I, I'm, I guess what I'm looking for most in games these days is occupation, like occupying my time, not, I don't want it to be too hard. I don't want it to be too easy.

I want it to be pleasurable. I want it to be distracting. Uh, so that's what I'm looking for. Yeah. You can go back to the old, the old standbys plants versus zombies. That was a fantastic one. Play that again and cut the rope, cut the ropes. Another classic. That's fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's what I'll do. Just revisit all the classics. Angry birds is a great one too. Yeah. I, I, I think the, the golden age of iOS games is, you know, long gone. And the ones that, the, when they were really making, you know, a big deal about apps and games, you know, back then, seven, eight, 10 years ago, that, those are some great games that still have legs if they still work.

Cause some of them don't get updated, you know, like a flight controller or whatever, that one where you land the planes and I'm desperate for Apple arcade to buy and revamp. Cause I love that game so much. Yeah. I would, that one was great, but yeah, the old stuff, the old stuff totally has legs.

Totally has legs. Yeah. It's a good idea. All right. Well, before we wind up today, uh, I wanted to, as we're recording here today, I just want to point out it is David Bowie's birthday. Uh, also Elvis's birthday. Uh, but, uh, David Bowie, where he alive today would be 79, which I don't want to think about, but, uh, I, I, there's a, who was it?

Uh, there was an actor who posted a thing about how nothing's been right since Bowie died. That's been a longstanding theory that, uh, David Bowie dying has, uh, sent our planet off on the wrong axis and everything is wrong. Yep. Yeah. It's harder and harder to deny that that may indeed be the case.

So yeah. Happy birthday. Does not sound incorrect. Yeah. Happy birthday, Mr. Bowie. And thanks for all the, all the good music and entertainment over the years. So agreed wherever you are to be, be well over at Patreon.

We've got some new subscribers, Jason, Phil, and Jeff and Peter upped their donation. So thank you very much. And from the legacy files of people who are still supporting the show that we love, Brent, Don, Corey, Steven, Dave, Paul, Mark, Jesse, Kira, and rude or rud rude.

I think rude. I'm going to go with rude. It's our show. It's rude. Thank you all over at PayPal. We've got Joseph, Tom, Jens, Charlie, Levy, Florian, Nicola, Ralph, Judge, Cedric with a $10 donation, Jonathan with a $20 donation, Thomas with a $25 donation, going up another five bucks is Marcel at 30, leaping 20 ahead, Leslie with 50 bucks and Robert matches at 50.

Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much for those year end donations. It really helps. It brings a smile to my heart and keeps the show on the air because you guys are what's keeping us on the air. And over at the tip jar, we've also got Adam, Jennifer, Sarah, and Matthew and Michael M with the big $160 tip.

Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you. And we've even got some merch, Brian, Leonid, and Dror both bought some merch. So thank you guys very much. You actually kept the store going with your purchases this year. So yeah, that's it.

No reviews, though, sadly. Yeah. Well, that's okay. It's 2026. We've got a long way to go, obviously. We've got 10 more years to go before 2027. What are you talking about? Until February. That too. Until next time, I'm Brian Schulmeister.

And I'm Jason DeFellippo. Thanks for listening to Grumpy Old Geeks. Get all the links and goodies from today's episode at GOG.show slash 728. That's a lot of episodes. Want to keep the grumpiness alive? Toss a few bucks our way at GOG.show slash donate. Every penny helps keep the show on the air. And that is not an exaggeration.

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Where's the fucking off button?