It's that time once again. It is time for the programme that has
absolutely no commercials, no music, no jingles. And of
course, no agenda coming to you from the curry manor in the
United Kingdom. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak here in Northern Silicon Valley,
California.
How's the weather there, John? When I left it was pouring down
rain yesterday.
It was pouring down rain yesterday, kept kept raining all
night after you'd left. And now it's fine. It's sunny.
Oh, really? No, crap. You guys don't deserve that?
Way. Yeah, no, it's sunny right now. But there's a looks like,
let me look. Let's see here. It looks a little grim toward the
at the bay. But I you know, the seagulls were flying in earlier
this morning. And I thought they may be a storm coming in. But
I'm not seeing any evidence of it.
Now. We got terrible weather over here. We've got winds
gusting 35 miles an hour. There's snow of North, there's,
there's been all kinds of stuff. You know, people have been
trapped in vehicles for hours on end trucks have been blown over.
You don't hear much about it. But we get our fair share of
weather over here.
Well, the UK people my experience has always been that
they're kind of weather nutty.
That's actually funny. You mentioned that, Patricia and I
have a theory if you're here in the in Dead winter. And of
course, it doesn't really snow here. It does get cold, but
it'll kind of hover around one or two degrees above the
freezing point. The women particularly younger girls, they
walk around with short skirts, no jacket, you know, like Ugg
boots. And and this is rampant. And our theory is that the the
inhabitants of this island basically want to make a
statement that says, Our weather's fine. That's not true.
We got great weather over here. Just look at how I'm dressed.
That's funny, that's possible. But my experience has always
been that they seem to talk about the weather more than any
other culture. And they also have more weather reports than
anything I've ever seen. I mean, the TV is like, you could turn
one on now I'm sure of it. Yeah.
And the weather reports, I find are pretty good. They introduced
this new on BBC, BBC news on television, they introduced a
new software package. I don't know about a year or so ago, a
lot of people were very upset. Any change like that, you know,
in how you report weather people get upset about but it's really
good. I would have to say, every single pilot, I know every
aviator, uses that as like a baseline. Okay, now I know
what's going to happen. Just a normal weather report the BBC
gives and I think it's probably that's also got to be cultural.
You know, this being a nation that's been very dependent upon
the sea, both for transportation and for life. I guess it makes
sense. See,
well, I just got back from Washington State, and it was
raining and snowing up there.
And it was 28. And you strapped on your skis.
Now you put on some of those little spiky things or your
shoes, so you don't fall. But
so it was good hanging with the family?
Yeah, I was. Yeah, we had to my daughter had some, something she
had to do on stage. And. And, yeah, it was, it's a good thing.
As you know, we were getting a lot of one of the reasons I had
to go up there is to drag down some of the meat that we buy up
there we have, you know, when you're in the more rural areas,
even though it's not that rural, but they're still you can get
lot you know, you buy into animals that people raise and
they're raised without, you know, they're raised and have
just a few of them are raised where they
do buy a share of an animal or do you buy a home and buy a half
a cow or a half a pig or a whole animal ruins really but you you
get like, the quality does not mean you get a certain breeds,
you know, there's a lot of this has been lost to history in a
little in the United States. Anyway, not so much in France,
for example, but we have, you know, there's different breeds
of pigs, and they all taste different. Nobody would know
that if they shopped at Safeway. Fact is they all have extremely
different characteristics and some are like, we got some bacon
in this this last pig. That's just astonishing. I mean, it's
just like
so where do you where do you keep it? Do you have
a meat locker or yet to have a bit yet to have a big freezer
right and so you freeze
half I'm starting to wrap it I'm really intrigued you freeze half
a carcass or or do you put your
butcher Okay, no, no, it goes to a butcher beforehand and he and
you tell him what you want. You say look, I want it cut this way
or I want you know, yes for French cuts or American cuts or
you can have big pieces or big rows depends on what you want.
And you try to figure out what you're going to do. It's not you
know, you always screw it up, you end up with a bunch of stuff
stuff you don't want. Not another one nobody's
no more BLTs Dad please.
So anyway you didn't then it's all frozen. And then you pull it
out and throw it out as soon as you need it.
Interesting and you do this with pork or with beef or both or
pork beef and and lambs. Wow,
we should probably I'm sorry go ahead.
No, go ahead. I mean it's just like you could probably do that
in a British I mean, I'm sure in Britain There's people doing the
same thing. It's just you have to be in the right loop.
Yeah. patrician I've been talking about this for a while
now that you know because we usually go to either Sainsbury's
or Marks and Spencer over here at Marks and Spencer which is
you know, a little more upscale but it's still all prepackaged
food and you know just and I'm probably the past three or four
months we've been saying you know, we really should find a
real before we don't really eat that much meat anyway of any
kind so it's really chicken fish and then once in a while some
beef but you know when we get beef it's so hard here. Lamb no
problem but really good beef is I find really hard to find here
the UK. So we were thinking about finding a butcher and
that's that's an interesting idea though because you buy into
the animal from the farm before it even gets into the process of
going to the butcher etc.
Right? And I'm sure you can do that there I mean, because you
can do this everywhere you just some places it's harder to do in
some places since so much demand that you can't get a good price
generally speaking, you should be paying half of what you'd
would put pay at the store so it's at the end of quality is
100 times better because they're grass fed you can get him at you
know different I mean this beef that we have that we just got I
think the thing was nine months old so it was like you know
still taking notes real tender that piece pieces a little
smaller than the usual the stakes are about half the size,
but still done by the pound so it doesn't make any difference.
And still, by the way, I'm sorry but we do also get chickens this
way. And and also turkeys, we get heritage birds. There's a
couple of farmers in Washington state that did grow heritage
animals that are astonishing if you have a turkey a heritage
bird one of the old types of Turkeys that made Turkey
popular. You can see why Turkey became so popular in the United
States because these birds do not taste like Turkey. They
actually taste like a giant pheasant. And
for the for those of you who have tasted pheasant before
Well, most people should have if they haven't, but if not, you
know I mean pheasants it absolutely deleted it's a little
hard to cook but because you have to hit it just right but
unlike a lot of these things like duck you can be pretty
liberal.
I think that this type of purchasing of meat and poultry I
think a lot of people might have a problem with it because I
believe we've become very conditioned to not putting any
type of well obviously not a human face but putting a living
being face or being confronted with the process of because you
just said oh you know this so we've got beef that was nine
months old and of course my brains gone. Oh wow, man, you
know little little calf grew up nine months old because guess
the electrodes how are they killed? Are they are they
slaughtered in a specific way?
I think you're forced to listen to Robert Scoble.
Oh, man, I listened to that interview on tech five. I didn't
already berated you for it. And by the way Davo is this is a
big, rich person circle jerk up in and it was a new Geneva now.
It's got an A Campion Geneva and I
think it's in the northern part. Where he that's a good question.
We could look it up. But it's in the middle of nowhere
Switzerland.
And it's, you know, if you never hear any or I haven't seen any
substantial news or any reports, any substantial reports about
the keynotes or about what basically people were talking
about all you read about in the newspaper was, you know,
princess, so and so crying so and so Prime Minister this dude
was there. They were called hobnobbing and of course in San
Francisco in the Silicon Valley trade and basically online. It's
all about Michael Arrington the Google boys who gets on the
Google jet. The Scoble. I mean, what kind of economic forum is
this it to me, I believe, and I do have science dynamic forum.
Yeah, it's a it's a conference scammed I heard that. I know a
group I won't say who but I know a group who was presenting this
year and they was a venture capital firm. And they were
presenting it I think it's almost like pay to play it feels
like I think they had to pay 200 grand for like you know for
hotel rooms and a spot on the stage. It's a it's a conference
scam. I don't see what else it is. I never seen anything come
out of it.
Oh, no, it's a drinking club. Come on.
There you go drinking club. That's it. That's it.
Yeah, it's like, and everybody, you know, there's a lot of
journalists that go to it too. And they all, you know, scurry
over there, and I didn't ever get anything out of it. It's
just like, I can't imagine that. I know, the New York Times sends
a couple of people and I can't imagine how they get cost
effectively, you know, you want to buy newspapers are going out
of business. Why are they covering this event?
They probably get an interview or two out of it. I'm sure that,
you know, I've seen exclusive interviews that that'll come
out, but it's rarely about the state of the world. economic
health seems
an interview with these people without going to Davos.
Yeah, well, but it's, I mean, it is handy. It's easy, right? It's
like CES, if you're in the technology press, isn't it
easier to you know, you went there, you know, make sense? So
economic writers, they'll go there. And it's basically just
for the interviews, but what is the actual conference about?
What is this forum? You know, what do what do they do there?
What, who decides something, anything?
They have a bunch of give a bunch of speeches, and people
sit in the audience and listen, and then they all, you know,
shoot the breeze in the hallways. And I don't like any
of these events. I mean, whether it's ces or, you know, this
thing, I've never been to Davos and but I wouldn't, you know, I
wouldn't want to go. I mean, it's like, like, talk to Scoble
after that, that and he says it took them 27 hours to get there.
Well, he wasn't on the on the Google. He was a little annoyed.
He wasn't on the Google jet. He should have been on the Google
jet. And the thing is, is that Jim O'Reilly was on the Google
jet. Apparently, he went to
talk to Google jet man. I'd never want to be on the Google
jet. I really would not unless they bought me. And I'm talking
about my company. I'm talking about me, then I'll go into I
was I was flying back on oh, by the way, I bumped into Jan and
John who run Have you ever heard of magnitude? It's a record that
a very successful it's not actually really it's kind of
like a record label. They've been around for five years. And
these guys must be doing something right, because I've
bumped into him a couple times. And they're always flying upper
class. I can't remember why I was gonna tell you this story.
Lee bumped into him. Yeah, it'll come back
to me anyway. So in the lounge, I picked up my favourite
newspaper The Financial Times. And right there on page two. So
the inside page, rich non Dom's preparing to leave UK. And this
goes back to the conversation we had about the tax changes here
in the UK.
Oh, yeah. What's going on? Again?
we recap it. Yeah. So they're, they're changing the way
particularly capital gains taxes is handled in the United
Kingdom. First of all, I believe that capital gains tax is going
up for every one anyway, from 10 to 18%, which is almost double,
and is obviously less attractive to a number of people for a
number of reasons. But what they want to do now is they wanted
tax tax size, people who live in the UK, yet have offshore
assets, they want to tax them for all capital gains, which
currently is not the case. So as long as you don't bring it into
the UK, or under certain, if you remit it under certain
circumstances, you don't have to pay the capital gains. And the
biggest problem, of course, is for US citizens, who are obliged
worldwide, regardless where they live or what they do, or where
they pay taxes to pay capital gains tax effectively for me,
resulting if it passes in April, in double taxation, so if I made
a capital gains, then I would effectively be paying something
like 40% In total, so the the opening of the story, more than
half of the wealthiest people in Britain are planning to leave or
scale back their UK investments in response to the tax crackdown
on the non domiciled foreigners according to a survey. And
Switzerland, interestingly, has emerged as by far the most
popular destination for the wealthy individuals leaving
Britain.
Gee, go figure. But how about that dot ladies and gentlemen,
shots?
Yeah, but they're really doing this. And so the Treasury who
collects or who sets these rules up for the Inland Revenue to
collect the UK version of the IRS, they believe that this will
bring in more money
into sounds like the opposite effect is going to happen. Well,
yeah, that's
what so that's what who's fighting this? Oh, the, of
course, tax consultants are fighting this or, you know,
trying to convince them differently. They think it's
going to get them 800. So the revenue believes it will bring
in 800 million more on an annual basis. And the tax advisers are
saying that probably 44 billion will leave the country If this
is actually implemented
well, that's a typical kind of bonehead thing that happens when
you get people who just want to text a crap body. The you know,
this is how the American Revolution began, of course.
Was it around taxation? Oh, yeah. King George wanted to tax
is everyone right?
If there's a word such as tax size, yeah, it's
a new Adam curry invented word. Let me look up on Wikipedia that
I invented that Hold on. I'll be right back.
So the the irony of it, if people who studied American
history, the irony is not so much that they raise the taxes,
or they're actually in fact lowered them, but they decided
to enforce the law. That was the problem. And which baffled
George King George, because he was see, well, you know, I'm
giving these guys a break. And now they're all up in arms about
it doesn't make any sense. He's Americans are crazy. But what
happened was they actually decided to collect the taxes as
opposed to previously they weren't, you know, the taxes
were just a bunch of scofflaws. Nobody was paying the tax. And
once they started collecting it, then everyone got up in arms.
And I think that's what we're looking at here. I mean, I you
know, the probably can only put up with so much taxation and if
they're not getting anything for their money.
Did you read the follow up on Wesley Snipes? If you recall, he
was they were looking for him a couple months back back for like
$7 million in back taxes they were trying to nail him for. And
I read the there was I guess there was a hearing. And and it
turns out that he Wesley Snipes is one of these non tax people
who, of course, I'm one of them as well, except I pay the taxes.
You know, there's there's a large, I would say a substantial
group of people, including Ron Paul, who believed that the IRS
that the tax they levy is illegal and unconstitutional and
Wesley Snipes had essentially filed, filed into or not filed
for several years and said I don't have to pay this is
unconstitutional. So he's he might.
Now he was able to understand I'm sorry, I understand was just
reading this yesterday. I understand that he they think
finally went to did some trial he got found that he you know,
he's he's not liable,
because he got bad advice from his best.
But he has to pay $21 million in fees and the rest of it.
I don't I don't see the 21 million. I thought I saw
something like three, maybe three?
Maybe it was 17. I thought it was a higher number than three.
I thought it was like in the millions in the in the two digit
millions. Yeah.
Well, he I think he made a lot of money. He might have spent a
lot too.
I don't think he's got my understanding is he hasn't got
this money.
I don't I don't think a lot of people have a $21 million cash
laying around to pay or the IRS I think a
bunch of these celebrities who got in a hole like that. And
they essentially I forget one of them. i There's a story about
one of them on the television recently. Will
Smith Will Smith. The
Smith Exactly. Apparently went and did a whole bunch of work,
you know, did a bunch of movies and everything else and
essentially every penny except some, you know, the portion for
his expenses, went to the IRS until he paid them off. It took
him like five years or something like Yeah,
I saw the report. And I remember the numbers exactly he made. He
made $5 million on the parents just don't understand. That was
his that was his big hit before the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And
he said he just blew it all he said he just spent that everyone
everything anything he wanted. And then the IRS showed up. And
of course he didn't have any, any money left. Barely. And
you're right, it was 70 cents of every dollar he made after that
for five years, went to the IRS until he had paid off his his
debt. So anyway, so Wesley Snipes didn't pay because he
felt he didn't have to.
You know, I love this, the idea that, you know, there's no you
see, this area's crops up every year, you know, a bunch of
people saying, you know, there's no, show me the law that says I
have to pay my taxes. There is no John, there is no law. Yeah,
and the other one is, you know, I don't It's not constitution.
There's a whole bunch of these things. And it's like, okay,
this is like, guys. Somebody explained to me once how, you
know, the RICO act, came into play, and it was never really
fully tested, because there's some constitutionalist think
that that Rico law, which is used to crack down on organised
crime, and then was extended to all kinds of other things. It
was really not really constitutional, but there's so
much case law behind it, backing it up that now it's too late to
do anything to stop it. And that's essentially the
situation. Yeah, maybe there is no law, you can point your
finger out. But there's a there's an organisation that
collects the money, they can take your money out, they can
take all the money out of all your bank accounts. What
difference does it make if there's a law or not if they
have these powers? Yeah, you can protest it. So what what's the
point? I always thought it was crazy to like, you know, these
kinds of protests. I mean, there's the better things to do
with your time than complain about the fact that the IRS
doesn't there's no law For the IRS?
Well, you know, I'm kind of on the fence about this. First of
all, I agree with you that the jurisprudence is there and you
know, it's senseless to not pay and then things are not going to
catch up with you. And they do have a tremendous amount of
power. I think the IRS is more powerful than most departments
in the United States. You know, what, what really irks me about
most Inland Revenue, whether it's the IRS or what haven't had
any problems here in the UK, I'm sure it will come is exactly
that. You know, that just always picking out you and trying to
get stuff and Oh, man. It's just annoying, you know, like, it's
not enough that you take something out that you take
money away from me before I've ever even seen it. So never hits
my bank account, and you take it away. But then the continuing
argument, it's I think they're one of the most feared
departments in the government.
Well, I'm Mike, actually, I like the idea of a of a consumption
tax. Personally, I love it. I think that the IRS is just, it's
not even the IRS is fault, necessarily. I think it's just
the system. I mean, I remember some years ago, I think it was
during the was maybe the pre maybe during Reagan's
administration, or even before that, there was, you know, this
tax simplification they were going to go through, they're
going to simplify the tax laws was a big deal. And there's a
whole bunch editorial cartoons about it. And they just made it
more complicated. I happen to be somebody who took the courses
necessary to get as certified.
Oh, of course you did. Of course, of course, you're an
expert in accounting.
I took the courses to do the IRS stuff. There's like a resume
I really need to become an IRS agent John
No, no to to be able to do taxes. I see like CPA like a
certified public accountant, I would know that's way beyond
with this as this is just a sort of since like a notary public.
Only then like that, whatever the case is, you have to take
these you know, you gotta go to a bunch of courses and so you
can do taxes. I forgot this was something I was going to do I
needed to do I wanted to do I don't know what the deal was to
be honest about it, cuz it was so long ago. But I know now that
I can't do taxes. I mean, I could do them at one time. I
can't do them now. It's just like ridiculous. I mean, you
have to have the expert figuring out where this goes and what
this is for. And if this is deductible, if that's the it's
unbelievable.
It was one of those was one of those pro Ron Paul YouTube
movies. I can't remember what it was I'll have to look for it.
Where the person said look, this is the United States
Constitution held up this little thin booklet and then held up
this big like Yellow Pages phonebook and this is the US tax
code for 2007 outstripped it by 1000 times maybe more.
Yeah, no, that's the problem. And this is too complicated.
There's you know, there's too many institutions that are
needed just to get the taxes done. I mean, there's overhead
there it just would be much simpler if it was a consumption
tax where you just whatever you spent and would also encourage
savings was always say you want they want you to do even though
they really don't want they want you to spend money so on and I'm
against it.
Well, is that on that John McCain's roster there? Is that
something he's planning on doing? Because
I doubt it if not. McCain's is going to be a company man when
he gets in.
He's I have to agree with you. Patricia does not like him. He's
like this guy. Nah, no way. She thinks his wife's pretty hot. I
have to admit his wife is pretty high. It's amazing. He's she's
kind of MILFy And now everyone's popping up on the internet
talking about McCain and you know, posting videos of him
saying, you know, I hope we stay in Iraq for 100 years. Now, it's
really it's just gonna be Bush light if he gets in.
Well, you don't know. I mean, he might be the type of guy that
thinks he's he might be the type of guy that says one thing I in
fact, I get the feeling he has this type of guy says all these
things and he walks in the office the first within three
days, he pulls the troops out of Iraq. I mean, it wouldn't
surprise me if he did something like that. You know, I got all
the reports or this is bogus we're out for moves them all.
There's Afghanistan or nukes of scan Astana monism. That you who
knows? I mean, the guy's a loose cannon,
you know, it would be a great ticket. Here's a ticket. I would
love. John McCain president, Dr. Ron Paul, vice president. That
would be now that would kick ass, wouldn't it? Yeah, I would
go if I'd vote for that. What do you think the party would never
do that, would they? Of course not.
Crowd away they see Ron Paul is a complete crackpot.
And he's, you know, he's only one of four guys left. And he
doesn't show up anywhere in any of the press in any event, but
nonetheless, the press rundowns lineups, it's completely
ignored.
The press, you know, and now that he's probably the best
story because he has the most interesting things to say. I
mean, outside of Huckabees tax, a consumption tax idea.
It's almost as if his stuff is so Crazy so kooky so off the
wall. But well, if you just listen to the guy and let it
process in your brain for three seconds, then it kind of hits
you how beautifully simplistic it all is.
Yeah, that's why he's never. That's why it's
never gonna be president. Okay. Well, I don't know, man, I still
have I'm sorry. You know, I still had my hopes for for this
Tuesday, Super Tuesday. You know, we could still see an
incredible grassroots movement groundswell that could make it
happen, you know, it's not like I've given up hope. Yet, thanks.
Yeah, it's gonna be Hillary and Obama is making a last ditch
effort to try to get get some traction, and it's going to be
interesting to see how he does. But I just don't see it. Well,
it's gonna be Hillary versus McCain as the final deal,
Hillary
McCain, but you're still holding by your Obama would be VP on her
ticket?
Yeah, I'm gonna stick with that into less and less, there's, I
mean, it's possible the Clinton will just pull a rabbit out of a
hat and drag some who knows some unknown into the position? Yeah,
someone who's been hovering in the wings that you kind of know,
you know, and even if
Obama doesn't get the vice presidency, or the nod for the
vice presidency slot, I still think he is going to be the most
viable candidate in 2012. And a bit of experience under his belt
and who have more experience, he'll
have more friends on K Street, you know, all the important
stuff.
Right? And he would not hit you will not have been a loser,
which means, you know, because if Hillary runs and loses, she's
not going to back in the 1800s that used to run these guys over
and over again, I think William Jennings Bryan was like, run. I
think they ran him maybe up to three times, but he just lose
every time that is so bad, apparently beats these guys up
so much that they very few of them will run a second time. I
mean, adeleye, Stephenson, I guess, was the last Democrat
that tried it. You know, he ran against Eisenhower. And then he
ran against Eisenhower, and lost both times. And I think that
those days are over. So I can't see Hillary running again, if
she loses. Right.
Let me just see how much money Ron Paul has brought in?
Yeah, I think he brings in a fair amount enough money at
least to pay the bills.
Yeah. Well, he's got $5.1 million this quarter so far. So
in what is that? Three in four weeks? Or one month? 5 million
bucks? Not bad.
What's he doing with all that money, I don't see any ads.
The money that they wanted to raise was specifically to run
five. I think national ads this weekend, and I guess up and
during Super Tuesday. So that's what the money was for. There
was a, I saw some other chart, which seemed kind of out of
whack to me, because it was showing how much the candidates
had raised and how much they spent and how much cash they had
on hand. And had Ron Paul listed as having a lot of cash on hand.
And I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that that
they're spending it, because I talked to the finance director,
director on the kind of like a regular basis, you know, once
every couple of weeks, whatever. And, and they're really they
really need more money. You know, they've had to hold back
on some advertising. But I guess it's all it's very local. Still,
there's nothing national. So maybe, maybe you flip on the TV
this weekend, or, or tomorrow?
Well, there's a big football game on today. Today, a Super
Bowl Sunday.
And the Oh, that's right. And there was talk at one point of
doing a Ron Paul commercial during the Super Bowl Sunday,
but I don't think they allow that. I don't think they allow
Oh,
that could be political advertising. That you mean, I've
never seen a political ad on the Super whammy because a Super
Bowl for the international audience out there. I think a
lot of people watch it overseas, too. But they're notorious for
doing expensive high end, sometimes humorous commercials
during the Superbowl. Usually they bang them all light, and
this year is going to be probably an interesting test for
what they're charging. Because I they're charging more than last
year, right? Yeah, they're charging a lot. And she's like,
but to be honest about it, the numbers probably on the net
somewhere. But I think that the game is going to not unless I'm
wrong, I can't see this game being very interesting after the
first quarter. And that's going to put a bunch of these
advertisers in a bind. And I think what they're gonna do
probably for the first few minutes of the game would
probably be taken TV timeouts ever after every play to jam all
these commercials at people. So they can, you know, assure that
they get the audience that they're guaranteeing because
this game could go out of control and just be a dud by the
half and that whole bunch of people are going to not get
their money's worth out of advertising in the second half.
And let unless I'm wrong. I mean, maybe it's, you know, they
could rig it. somehow so the game would be interesting.
What's possible? Well, the
game is designed for television, John. It's designed for
commercials. football and basketball, are totally media.
Sports, which is my theory, why soccer really never has caught
on or football, as we call it over here is because there's no
place to insert the ads, there's no breaks. That's why no doesn't
get the
thing about basketball. Not to mention it is that the most
exciting part of a basketball game? Curiously, unlike a
football game, generally, is the last two minutes, where teams
usually are pretty close, close. Close, and they have to keep
taking timeouts because every time you know, they fall into
one thing or another. So there's lots of opportunities for
commercials during the most exciting time of the game, which
has got to get people all pumped up, you know, when they're
watching the commercials or adrenaline's going. And so
there's like, kind of remarkable, but generally
speaking, in terms of interesting overall basketball
on television, to me is, you know, it's kind of it's like,
it's a little boring.
Yeah, I don't I don't watch sports at all.
You know, the sports coming? I'd
watch the Super Bowl if it was on at a normal time. By the way,
it's only 3 million people outside the US on pretty much an
average basis that watch the Superbowl and one ad this year.
Of course, it can't be true, but because doesn't doesn't say if
it's an early Adelaide ad, if it's a halftime ad, but I guess
the average price $2.7 million
more that would go to the Ron Paul budget.
There was a lot of talk about doing it, but I just don't think
they'll accept him. They will accept Of course, you know,
GoDaddy chicks walking around with their Hooters out.
And that's important. But that's that's well that's football
audience and
by the way, my checkout code DSC one DSC two or DSC three for a
great deal on a domain name at GoDaddy. Don't you ever go daddy
code? John.
I've used the general one the company one.
Oh, what's that PS one?
Yeah, something like that. Okay. I don't have a specific one.
Mainly because I will just show that I get nobody listens to
anything. I wish that
people are definitely listening. Oh, dude, start cosy. He did it.
He married her.
Go over this again.
Sorry, I say Sarkozy by Sarkozy, the French.
Oh, the French guy with the with the hot. Yeah, he
married her he married Carla.
Oh, well, good for him. I liked his French guys. You know,
he's he's a dog man. He's He's this is this guy's got it
together. And they had a the beautiful picture they released
of the two of them. I saw it in a couple of different
newspapers. Oh man. I got into her eyes are set a little far
apart. But she's hot. You just look at that. Look at that
mountain hers.
That's an Icelandic Look.
She's She. She has an album coming out or CD. A new one
coincidentally coming out in a couple of weeks. And Patricia
heard her sing. She says she that she liked the way she
sings. She doesn't think she's all that bad. And you know,
she's kind of rubbing out the x supermodel moniker. But I
figured out you know, because I'm trying to think, you know,
how does she meet up with all these guys because she dated
Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and of course, the oddball Donald
Trump, which that just tells you something about her personality.
Maybe she goes to Davos.
I bet you bet. She's been to Davos, Dude, we got to go to
Davos hot chicks are there.
Yeah, I think there must be. I mean, unless the thing is, you
know, kind of it could be a gay Cabal. For all we know.
That's what you should have been asking Scoble about instead of
about his streaming videos.
The streaming video thing is it was fascinating to me that he'd
actually gotten away with doing that. But with people out there,
which had listened to tech fives last Thursday,
that was really fascinating to you. I mean, these guys were
everywhere with these little streaming things from their
phones. I mean, everyone's doing that, it seems.
Well, I was I was unaware of this trend. I mean, I know
people were using the phones for different recording, but I never
know what streaming directly. Oh, yeah,
I know. There's lots there's tonnes of little companies that
are doing this. And some of them maybe even not so little. I
mean, I don't see it scaling. And I'm not quite sure I see. A
business model but it is fascinating. I mean, I've done
it I've downloaded to was it Qi K, I think quick, is quick.com
you can load some software onto your Nokia phone and you just
fire it up and then it's broadcasting you know, and the
quality is well like, okay, it's YouTube ish quality. And of
course, the sound being shitty is the biggest problem but you
know, there's a lot of people doing this and for one off
events or you know, it's really a ties in well with a blogger
thing. You know, because, you know, hey, I'm gonna go to the
store Jobs keynote. You know, hey, here I am. Now check out my
stream. You know, I think it's a it's a part of a tool chest of
stuff.
So I saw somebody doing something like that at the
Seattle SeaTac airport because some woman was screaming at the
top of her lungs and the TSA. And then and then. And then the
guy was yelling. I heard the guy because I was right there. I was
walking past I was just exiting the minding your own business,
of course. And I heard the guy saying, Are you threatening me?
Oh, God, and which was, I didn't hear that. But then then he
yells at the top of his lungs, I need a supervisor. And so she
gets really adamant she starts cussing the guy out. And I'm
thinking rather meanwhile, somebody's taping the whole
thing. distance away.
Excellent. Did you see the TSA blog that came out this past
week? You might someone must have sent you. No, you're
kidding
me? No, nobody sends me anything. As you know, dude,
this is the one link that I actually did get a million
times. T tsa.gov/blog. Oh, it's hilarious. And they they kind of
messed it up the
first day, which they're all They're actually doing it
themselves. You know, they
have their own blog, and people are just commenting. All kinds
of stories, you know, and Oh, that's great. Yeah, no, it's
entertainment. It is absolutely entertainment.
So what happened on your last entry? Because you came in, I
believe, since we did the show last.
That's right. Yeah, I came back in and the exact same sequence
of events
that you came in to San Francisco again. Yeah, San
Francisco. And by the way, a lot of people confuse TSA with with
the CBP. And people still believe that it's the TSA that's
hassling me, which is not true. It's the Customs and Border
Protection Agency. Significant by
the way, not to mention that I'll bet you that the Customs
Border Protection guys are irk to no end at being associated
with the TSA. You know, baggage.
You know what, you're totally right. And the what is the you
know what the one big difference is between TSA and CBP. I mean,
even if you just look at their uniforms, do you? Do you know
what the one big differences?
Yeah, one of them's got a gun.
Thank you. Exactly. So who's the fucking powerhouse there's so
the CBP, they've all got guns. And even the guy behind the
counter has a gun, you know, when you first come in, and so
the guy, it was the same story, John, hey, don't I know you? And
usually my joke that I've used for the past 20 years, when
someone says, Don't I know you all say, where we in jail
together? You know, that's always funny. And it was on the
tip of my tongue, right? And I'm like, No, I'm not gonna say
that. I said the MTV ever watch that? Yeah. And you know, he did
his stripe thing. He, and then he went into computer and he and
the faces they make when they look at my record, and I've
asked, you know, each time, what they won't tell you what's in
there, and you can't see because I've got the, the anti, you
know, look over the shoulder screen filter on the monitor,
right, but you can see him kind of look and typing and then go
hmm, I don't know what that is. And then you know, and then he
does an M on the on the customs form. And again, it What does M
stand for? And he doesn't tell me I said, Well, is it for
money. And oh, and by the way, then he puts a stamp on it. So
that's what that'll make my counterfeit effort, a little
tougher to do. And then got my bag went through. And I did my
usual smiley thing. And I said, Well, here it is. And then I
follow that up by saying, I guess you want to put this one
in the clear blue envelope. Yeah, that's right. And then he
sends me over to a special counter. And it was the same guy
from last time. And he's like, what you were here just last
week. Didn't you come through here? So yep, said oh, man, I
see you still in the computer. So yep. This is so stupid. And
they let me go. Have a nice day.
We looked in the bag for the money.
I have that in my shoe. So I
must ask for money. They must be thinking that you're running
money back and forth or something? I don't know,
man. It's like a standard question. The times that I have
been interrogated in second screening, they do ask if you
have more than $10,000 and they did go through all my stuff
looking for something but yeah, it was clear they didn't didn't
know what they're looking for. So anyway, I just want to say
that, you know, the TSA is a minor inconvenience, okay. It
really is. Being on a list with the Customs Border Protection
Agency. That's frightening. Okay, these guys have a real
fucking database and it's really tied into all kinds of shit. And
clearly it's wrong. And they've got guns. Now they may be all
nice to me, you know, because they you know, they all watch
you know, watch me intro poisoned videos. But it's it's
clearly it's fucked up. You know? That's a very scary thing
that's going on there. That's to me. You're gonna TSA
but but I would assume now that you're going to fly into San
Francisco more than you are just random airports?
Well, unfortunately, you know, I do have to go to New York once
in a while. So that means I'm going to I'm gonna get the much
longer treatment I would presume at at Newark Airport. I haven't
been through JFK yet since this change. And I don't know I the
only thing you can do is send in a Freedom of Information Act
request, which they've already said they do not honour. So you
know, out of national security. Law, I guess there's just so
she curity is involved with you.
This is one of the questions you'll read on the TSA blog.
It's really, it's really cool. Why do you have to you know,
hand search and frisk three year old children? And the answer is,
there's a guy that actually answered the questions I got a
video answer to that even the guy says, Well, you know,
terrorists are using elderly and children to carry bombs and to
detonate, like fuck you. That's nuts.
Oh, ladies, you know, and
it really protected me then do the same thing at the bus
station, that train station in the subway, not just on planes.
It's not true. Liars
look ridiculous to be scammy I remember one time there was a
when when this all began, they were just basically pulling over
they had this random thing they had a random number generator
and you'd get picked every once in a while. Yeah, and which is
fair, by the way. You'd see people in wheelchairs you know
and old men you know in Asheville, North Carolina, and I
mean, there's just cheerleaders are immersing some cheerleader
ones getting frisky and Krista may have been a volunteer thing
Excuse me, ma'am. I'm with the TSA I have to frisk you.
And I remember one time though, I was coming from from New
Orleans and I got I was one of the guys and I had my suitcase
might when I go to New Orleans, I usually go get there's a
couple of stores I go to and I load up the suitcase with local
food mostly sausages and other things that you can't get
anyplace else. Like all we can't bring this stuff anymore, but I
used to get like the big jars of xattr Ns mustard, which had
which is an outstanding product people don't realise it's
exactly what it tastes exactly like a French mustard. anyway
and so then so the guys open the suitcase up the guy with some
with apparently a sense of humour goes Oh we gotta Bonanza
calls all the other guys over and he said come on over here
check this out. We caught one and he goes in they all look in
this this pot flew this whole suitcase with nothing in it but
sausages and and dewy and whatever. And they all got a big
laugh out of it and close the thing up and said I told him I
always you know when I'm in New Orleans or New Orleans I
you get your Shut up on your meat products. Absolutely. It's
important stuff.
I gotta bring some stuff back so and that was okay, well
you're allowed to travel with it.
Oh yeah, you can travel with meat. Not interested not to the
internationally
of course but no internationally. They
they're they're a little touchy about it. If I
if I took a big long salami and put it in my bag, I wonder if
they let me on with that. I bet you they've got some reason I
didn't know about that.
Yeah, confiscate the salami. I've had it salami confiscated
at JFK once.
I've hidden a salami once or twice. Well, that's another
story.
So there's a there's a type of salami out of France called
Beaujolais salami. It's absolutely fantastic product and
it kind of it's got boats in the ocean lay salami. Yeah, the
Beaujolais Salami is quite good. And so I have one, I brought a
couple of them in and they declared on the salami but I had
two of them. And I declared he said Dr. We got to confiscate
it. I have no other confiscating it for lunch. It was like a
level five. And I said why he says why there's no there's bad
meat in Europe is what he says.
really mad cow disease and your salami.
Bad meat in your ads. So he scrounged around he grabbed the
one salami didn't get to second one. So I had one at least for
later on. I was pissed off about it. And we
had a we had a great dinner the other night which we should just
touch on briefly because it was quite I find it to be well
having dinner with you as a culinary event regardless. And
it was at Shea was the name of it.
Che Spencer in San Francisco. Little places. Yeah, fantastic
restaurant if you if you live in San Francisco, I would highly
recommend going there just for the ambiance alone. You know,
it's kind of like in the slums. And even the front door looks
like you're entering a slummy warehouse and then you go
through the door and it's like paired eyes.
So beautiful reminds me a little bit of the places he used to be
in Russia in the Soviet Union.
Kind of cavernous on the inside.
There would there would be these. I remember that. I went
there once and those were taken to what was supposedly the best
restaurant in Moscow. And it was like, you go it was in a crappy
neighbourhood and it was some looks like it all beat up all
the house.
I think I've been in that restaurant and did they have a
singer in the in the restaurant as well?
You know, I don't remember there being a singer, but I could see
where that could be.
It was kind of like a, like a cavernous vibe in a way.
Yeah. And you go in and all of a sudden, you're like, you're
transformed from this what looks like there's gonna be a hellhole
into this really nice place. And it's che Spencer has elements of
that where you look at the outside and you go, this place
can't be any good. And then you go inside the inside of this, of
this restaurant house. Nice. But I think what you wanted to talk
about is the fact that we ate venison. Yes, we do. They always
have gaming there, which is a good thing.
For people who don't. In other countries that would mean deer
meat.
Right deer meat, and you are really lating the fact that you
had just come back from Helsinki where you were pigging out on
reindeer? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. By the way for people out
there that travel if you go to the Scandinavian cars bu or the
Nordic countries. There is a difference. The they eat
reindeer and they eat lots of it. And Finland is that it's
from what I can tell they don't eat anything. But reindeer. They
have reindeer Salamis. They've got reindeer pizza. They got
reindeer steaks. And the reindeer is quite tasty. It's
one of their It's really delicious meat. And the curious
thing that we were talking about this over dinner? Was that
reindeer is almost a 100% perfect match for a California
Cabernet Sauvignon of the have a private reserved style like the
Behringer, for example. You know where it's over oaked. And is it
just a monster
which we did not have? What did we have?
We had a Bordeaux.
Just a plain Jane Bordeaux, Bordeaux. But anyway, we took
enough time selecting it. We had to bring out all these bottles
and we had we tasted every single one. And then what did we
get? Like a $20? bottle of wine. John what we wind up ordering?
No, actually, I think it was 70 was it was a second round of
Chateau leoville Discuss. What
went? Well, it went very well with the venison. It really
there was a good taste for sure.
Yeah. It wasn't cheap, too. I mean, it wasn't expensive by any
means. But it wasn't you know, there was cheaper ones on there.
But they didn't see that she had all these wines of which the
cool thing about Chase Munster they have a lot of wines by the
glass. And the wine list is pretty much the same wines. And
so they'll give you a little samples of the ones that you're
wondering about. And I was not impressed with these other
wines. And so we kind of moved over to where the Bordeaux which
is always reliable. Anyway, so the reindeer, so I'm in. I'm in
Sweden, and I found out that I didn't realise this, but the
Swedes were unlike the Finns are a little more I guess. Careful
about what they tell people they eat. Because they seem to I
guess Americans have gone over there and they're just disgusted
with the fact that people are munching on reindeer.
That Rudy? Oh, they're munching on Rudolph the Red Nosed
Reindeer. I
think we had Donner and Blitzen. I'm not quite sure. But it
wasn't Rudolph.
And so they're aghast. And so the Swedes never mentioned that,
you know, they don't want to talk about it. And my and I
talked about before, which is another one of these countries
up there. Iceland, where I think their main staple. They also eat
a lot of lamb. But their main staples is Puffin. Oh, Puffin,
right? There's a cute bird. Cute little bird and you all might
like I told my daughter that, you know, when you're in Iceland
eat Puffin. You'd roast Puffin eat Puffin burgers. You just eat
a lot of Puffin because they're like pigeons over there. There's
like millions of them. But it's like I mentioned this to
somebody and they all puffins are so pretty. How can you eat
one?
Well this this brings me back to my original point about packaged
foods and that we've completely removed the consumption from the
entire process which really is one of the most natural
processes in the in the natural world of hunting or raising, you
know, killing consuming, you know, breeding continuing
through that cycle of life and, and the minute you know, you put
a cute little birdie face on it's like, Oh no, I don't want
to do that and just give me a fucking Big Mac. Okay? I don't
want you don't Puffin which of course is ludicrous. You know,
we're killing ourselves with crap food instead of eating
really healthy fresh stuff. And so you know, it's it's we're
carnivores is what we do, you know, get over it.
The Puffin by the weighs quite tasty. It's like all dark meat
is really a it's a it's really a flavorful bird I have to say.
And reindeer is delicious.
It is it's kind of it's a little sweet yet it's hard to describe.
You had your raw I had my medium raw I just can't take it too raw
can't take anything too raw but
you're talking about the venison.
I'm sorry senesin Yeah,
but the reindeer actually when I had reindeer I had a rare to I
mean, I didn't see any you know, I mean, I would eating a lot of
weird stuff. I mean, I was in South Africa once and I went to
the Blue Train restaurant which is known for having everything
and so you get to sample elephant zebra and just discuss
like my daughter I am gonna Elephant. Elephant. I was I was
elephant. antelope. Elephants. Not that good. Zebras. Z zebras
a little it's like horse very similar. Horse meat. No, it's a
little tough. Horses talking about by the way, cultures that
are embarrassed about what they eat the Slovenians nice sound
like a non named drop I'm getting for the people out there
I this is one of those conversations where I get
carried away with my anecdotes but I like
it I'm you know I'm really interested in food so carry on
it's not about listening it's about me
good it anyway in Slovenia, there are huge horse eaters. And
but they don't want to tell anybody outside the country.
People I talk to these guys, I was overnight talk to these guys
into because I've had horse before I had it in Mexico. And
so I told these guys now I want to do you know, I want to see
what you guys do with a horse. And so they said okay, they
reluctantly they said, We'll take you to the best horse
restaurant in, in Louisiana. And so Okay, so I go with these
guys. And, and, and this, these guys were like so reluctant. I
never seen such Chow hounds. In my life, when I've worked with
the horse state comes out, these guys are ploughing through it.
Like there's no tomorrow. And but anyway, so I we all ordered
the same thing, the best horse steak they had or whatever and
it was like so it comes out and I'm not really expecting to see
a steak. You know, this the size of this semi This thing's the
size of a Xerox machine on this plates. Not even I can't even
stay on the plate is hanging over the sides. And I'm going oh
my god, I can't eat this whole thing. But I'm going to try. And
I never realised I mean, I had a horse taco once. And so I
thought I was an expert. And I didn't really realise what horse
wanted to serve like this is actually like, and it's in this
the texture is a little. It's a little it's a little like liver
in a really funny kind of a way and I like liver. But it's I
don't like a big piece of liver this big. And it was it was I
had a hard time eating more than half of it like these guys,
meanwhile are shut, you know, you're going to eat that and
boom. And, you know, although they were reluctant to go there.
It was. But anyway, that's another culture that is not you
know, they're not proud of this because of Americans who are
judgmental. Just the opposite. Well, looking for
one of my one of my anecdotes, I think I told you this one I went
to, I did a documentary in Thailand, where I ate a number
of interesting things. But the one that came close to a weird
cultural difference in in in eating was at a hill tribe, of
course, you'd expect it to be different up there that was
right near the Burmese border and what they call this, they'll
call it the Golden Triangle, I guess.
Maybe and
and so we, we awoke at like six in the morning. And we then
subsequently helped to go kill a pig. So the pig was dead and
gutted by 7am. And by eight o'clock, we were eating it for
breakfast. And it was it was ground up but with a lot of the
bones in it. So you know, so we're like Kokino crowns popping
off and shit. And as people who live up there, you know,
they're, they're just, you know, they're used to this and that
just crunching through everything. But that was that
was a very weird sensation at the time, you know, because I
just saw this animal. You know, you heard him squealing when he
got slaughtered. And you know, then before you know what you're
eating him, and it was, yeah, it was kind of weird, but it was a
really natural cycle of life. And there was beauty to that as
well. But that was that whatever. That's probably the
only time I've Yeah, that's the only time I've kind of been
freaked out. I don't think I've been freaked out by eating
anything. Have you ever done the monkey brains?
Now and I don't like the idea of eating brains. There's too many
prions in there. And it's like it just doesn't I mean, I've had
I've only had brains once and it was by accident. I was in Texas
and I was at a taco stand there and it was I didn't know that
Let's say suppose was brain exactly
they have a weird name for it what does it say ASOs says says
so see and says like sweetbread stay away from the sweetbread.
Well, I have had sweetbreads event they've developed a recipe
for sweet breads because they've always believed I always
believed everything has a if people are eating something,
there's a reason for it. I must be good in some way, shape or
form if it's done right. And I've been had this this quote, I
had a quest for years, for example, to find tripe that was
edible. And I would go from place to place, you know, trying
tripe soup from the Italian restaurants at this. And now the
other thing, there was always terrible, I hated it. And but I
kept I was convinced that there must be somebody that can make
this decent. And so there's a one star restaurant in Paris
that had, and we yets, which is essentially a tripe stuffed with
tripe, and it's like a hot dog, and it tastes like a hot dog. In
fact, it was better with mustard even though it was kind of
now what is tripe? Exactly? It's the intestines of a cow.
Okay, generally, and the French, I don't know what they do, but
it's it when you add meat to the end. We it's it's like, wow,
this is not only delicious, but it has a slight resemblance to
the flavour of a hot dog, American hot dog. And I realised
that American hot dogs must be just filled with this stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure synthetically created tripe.
So but I've been so I've always had this, this, you know, I saw
what sweetbreads, I didn't know I always felt the same way. And
sweetbreads actually are quite good if they're done correctly.
Like even sweetbreads,
the well the brains and actually sweetbreads to a lesser extent
the problem with these organ meats is that there's the
cholesterol Niskayuna Yeah, it's true. The ceiling I mean, it
takes you months to recover from this stuff.
You measure your cholesterol regularly, I'm sure John you
take cholesterol and you take like Lipitor or something?
No, no, I know. Okay. Those things don't I mean, did lowers
your cholesterol number, but it doesn't really do anything about
plaque or anything else. It's just it just it just makes it
feel better. Yeah, for me, it makes you Trisha has the number
oh, I got my numbers. My cholesterol is too, you know,
and it's like, Oh, I must, you know, be healthier.
Did you know just switching gears ever since we had a
conversation. A couple of weeks back about the economist of
course, I've started reading The Economist and I pick it up every
single time I travel or it's it's around. It's great plein
air. Oh, it's fantastic for reading on the plane. Did you
know that there are still a couple 1000 People left
primarily in the financial world who use a telex Lau isn't that
amazing? They use it for settlers amazing. Yeah, euro
euro clear the world's largest settlement system for
international financial markets maintains 184 telex accounts for
50 out of its 13 175 clients and sends up to 800 800 telexes a
day,
huh. That's amazing. Be some must be particularly secure or
part of a system. That's, you know, yeah.
I know. That's its own closed loop system, right? It's its
own? Yes, I
know, there was a, that this was on one of these PBS or a
discovery channel or something like that special about selling
a Boeing jet is an interesting transaction point where they
have the what's called the keys to the jet. And they
know a lot about this. So I'm interested to hear how you play
it back.
Well, they have these, you know, they sell the jet to some of
this contract signed, and then the guy transfers the money. And
the money has to show up at the Boeing account to make sure that
nobody's gets scammed. And I think it's done over a telex
system. And once the guy gets the phone call that says, Okay,
we've got the money, you can give him the key, and it gives
him the keys to the jet, they own the jet. Now, in other
words, these are not done on credit, apparently, there's a
lot of,
well, you know, the term, I'm going to wire you the money.
That's where it comes from. Because it literally is here,
I'll just read that it's a settlement, they use it for
financial settlements. So when they send that message,
immediately, everything's changed on both sides of those
banking accounts. That's what wire is, and that's a that's a
certified transaction these days. If you want to transfer
money internationally, you can rarely do it through a regular
retail account, at least you can rarely do it immediately. It'll
take three to five days. Of course, they hold your money
overnight, because they make money on it overnight. And you
do that with this Swift code, which is I forget what it stands
for. But Swift is literally you have to add that code so that
the US government can track your transfers. Right? That's the
only reason for it. But back in the day, it was you were you
know, so I guess that that's a you know, maybe three abstracted
layers on top of this old fashioned stuff. Roman system. I
was just amazed by that because like, Wow, man talexes That must
have been 1981 When I when I last used 181 82 I think
I think there's some software you can use to do telex
emulation is to jump onto the system through a PC.
Well, I remember back in the day I was at I was showing off. I
can't remember exact Oh, I remember what it was. I had the
remember the trs 100. member that that portable.
Yeah, I was one of the I think I may have been the first person
to write about that particularly machine,
but I still have mine. And I really Yeah, it's got
to be, that's probably worth like, a grand bucks by now.
50 bucks. I'll take it to Antiques Roadshow. And so it's
basically if you can look it up on the on the web, it's a it's a
full size keyboard. And it has a LCD display with I think, eight
or 10 lines. And you could programme it and basic and you
could load up programmes. But the real beauty of this thing,
it was basically an electronic word processor. The real beauty
was it had a built in modem. And if I'm not mistaking was a 300
baud modem. And sounds right. And it was real big amongst
journalists. Because these were the hip guys, you must have been
one of them. John, you had to go to some kind of event on site
and they type and then they'd plug it in and then upload it
either directly to the newsroom to their editorial desk or I
believe at the time I had an account on what was it it might
have been easy street remember Easy Street.
Now? Maybe easy.
Now you wouldn't Easy Street was a system for primarily used for
the music industry for a concert promoter so that they could you
know, do certain accounting functions, et cetera online. And
it was really it was really one of the first email closed, of
course, but it closed the email systems. And later you had the
source. I think it was CompuServe and the source and
you could get on both right? Those are the two big ones.
Right. And the source later became what the source become.
They got bought out by CompuServe I think
that's right, they got bought out by CompuServe I think it was
probably on source the source first and then on CompuServe.
And at the time you had a gateway and you could send an
email through CompuServe which by the way back in the day said
on my knee kids CompuServe email was closed, it was it was a
closed system, you could only send email to people on
CompuServe. But you could use a gateway and it would actually
send a telex or like, you know, five bucks a word or whatever.
From the terminal, and I remember showing off and showing
someone in their office at watch, I'm going to type a telex
message. And then a secretary came up like 15 minutes later
and literally had a telex that had come off with a teletype
machine. And I was and that was 80 I think 8181 or 82
Well, that machine came out I can tell you at the end if you
want to, I think was 82 because I had the original version of
the TRS model 100 was a thing that NEC did and I had they'd
sent me one it was and it was red and I wrote a column about
the red neck get it and I taken this thing to to the rollout of
the IBM PC X t when they first came out with the PC X he was
the first machine they had with a hard disk and I had this
little this this little laptop crazy little machine that you
described with me and I got more attention
yeah then then the whole presentation right?
Yeah everybody every writer there was looking at it going
wow, that's cool.
And the nice thing about it was it took standard double A
batteries though triple A batteries. I think he could you
just load it up and it would go for hours on Oh yeah, here it
is. No four double A batteries runs for 16 hours on four double
A batteries. How nice. Three point 3.8 pounds 2.4 megahertz
processor, excellent. 8k of RAM 32k Max. It had the parallel
port or barcode reader built in 300 baud modem. I was right. And
of course, the audio cassette for reading and writing data and
programmes Oh, do you know the OS was?
It was no what was it Microsoft
BASIC version? 1.10 don't think
that was the OS. I think it was just running that just ran
basic. Well, it
says here it was the OS. I
think that's I don't believe that's true. I think it was some
some proprietary proprietary machine.
I do remember writing little basic programmes and it though.
Gosh, I shouldn't pull that thing out again and play with it
because I remember the keyboard was excellent. It was a great
keyboard.
Yeah, it was a very popular machine. I think they sold quite
a few in fact. RadioShack for years was The leader in the
desktop computing business,
they had the colour computer they weren't they selling the
pet for a while.
No other pet was calm, or the CPM wasn't what was it? No, no,
they were selling. There was always trs dos. They had the
model one and Model Two, the model three, I think there was a
model form now I'm not absolutely sure on that, but
they ran trs. dossena was a bunch of clone Dawson's that
would run on the things that were extremely popular,
especially the trs 80.
AD, I remember the ad Sure.
And they're extremely popular in the IBM club machines came out
of the clones came out and then we're over time, somehow or
another RadioShack I don't know if they lost somebody that was
spearheading this. They just became non competitors, and fell
off the face of the earth. Well, wasn't it
when Apple came out with a with first with the Apple two.
Now the apple two came out in 70. So I was
thinking really? Remember, my dad had an Osborne,
the RadioShack would know, they were out at the same time in the
RadioShack was killing the I mean, it was really a extremely
popular, it was the IBM PC and the clone PCs that killed it.
Right. I mean, the Macintosh came out in 84. And it didn't
really have much impact on it. It was pretty much the PC
compatibles
Yes, I was I was way into the ZX ad. That's That's what I was
playing with.
And I think you can hold the size of a mouse that thing
No, no, no, it was. Didn't Sinclair live Sinclair make it
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a thing was dinky.
Yeah, of course, it was dinky, and you press the key, and the
screen would actually flicker with each with each character,
which I remember John, I was like 14, or something like that.
I didn't have didn't have a lot of dough around. And then of
course, the Vic 20, the Commodore VIC 20, the
predecessor to the Commodore 64. That was really my, my first
real computer that I hacked around with I built a I built my
own acoustic modem to use with it. And we figured out they had
these ROM cartridges that you could plug in with games. And we
figured out how to copy the games from rom onto cassettes,
and we would sell those it was it was a lot of fun.
Yeah, that was extremely popular machine to the big 20. And then
the Commodore 64 as it were, they sold millions of them.
Of course, they had to change the name of the Vic 20 in
Germany to the VC 20. Oh, really? Yeah. Because it's too
much like fiction, which means fuck.
Oh, really? Yeah. I never heard that story. Yeah, that's funny.
Yeah.
ticking. That's what an F but they figured the Vic, which is
the same thing they say about pod show. It sounds like toilet
show. Is that they've never heard that. Yeah, if pod was if
you if you wrote pod with a tea pot show. And by the way, the
German is pronounced pod show Potato. Potato. How's it going?
My touch your atom, pod show? It sounds like toilet bowl show.
Which by the way, a lot of our content is exactly that.
Well, yeah. Well, I tried to restrain
the whole show. How are we doing on time? Oh, man, we got to
stop. We've been talking way too long. We need to stop. All
right.
Okay. All right. Well, I think we got enough information out
there for people who want to go to Shay Spencer or reindeer.
If you haven't if you like horse. This is the show for you.
Like eating the horses. All right from the curry manor in a
dark and wet United Kingdom. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak in Northern California. And we will
talk to you next week
on no agenda.