In a world where two guys who wear comfortable shoes meet to
speak, Armageddon must be near tie once again for no agenda
from the manner in southwest London. I'm Adam curry.
And I'll be up here in rainy Northern California as our
weather turns weird, hum. John C. Dvorak.
You've been bitching about it all week, you know, wind and
rain, and we've had nothing but beautiful weather over here,
more or less.
There was a low pressure that kind of apparently floated
through and we've got somewhere near Denver and turned around
and came back and dumped a bunch of snow on California snowed
last night
in it's almost June.
In Tahoe, I guess done it. Great. Find out in LA.
It's been good here today actually isn't so nice. The
first day that isn't fantastic, because a lot of wind, gusty
wind, which is some kind of pressure system coming in. But
otherwise, it's been a beautiful week.
So you've been working on upgrading your cell phone,
mobile phone, what's that?
No, yeah, I have this Vodafone, it's a dongle that you can plug
into your Mac and I bought it when we moved into this house
before I had Internet access. And it does about 700 kilobits
where I live right now but you know, anywhere, like half a mile
further up the road, it can actually do it's hdsp a whatever
that is, so it can do like 1.5 megabits, and it's from
Vodafone. And you have some kind of so called unlimited fair use.
limit that you has wireless, right? It's wireless. Yeah,
it's, it's 3g, basically. And so you have some kind of limit for
the UK, which I was just reading online. Of course, this is from
a year ago, that fair use limit was one gigabyte per month,
which of course is nothing.
And like, one day, yeah, really well, I've
looked at it, it is just about one day for someone who serves,
you know, has lots of media files, it's 30 is more like it.
But I really only need to use it for certain occasions, then. So
now they have a new, a new version, which is now just kind
of like a memory stick. It's not it's no longer a dongle. And
it's USB, you plug it in, and that gives you in the right
areas, seven and a half megabits down, I'm not quite sure what
the upstream is. I'll have to look at it again. But it's
cheaper they give you I think you can get up to like 20
gigabytes per month. If you're roaming in another country,
which is where you really got screwed before. I mean, I'm
talking like four pounds per megabyte transferred in into our
country. Oh, yeah, you check your email, and you're like, Oh,
that was 50 bucks. So now that's that's become like 495 for a 24
hour period up to 200. Meg's you know, it's so it's better, but
it's still highway robbery. But they didn't give me any any
notification that you know, is he I pay 45 pounds a month now
cost like, they can actually get me to pay them more 60 per month
to get this new, this new bundle. But they didn't offer it
to me. And I'm looking at the commercials. I'm like, wait a
minute. I've got an old plan here. So. So I'm trying to
figure that out. We'll see how helpful Vodafone is my wife and
sister us would just about talk about that before we started the
show. They use Joshua, get you familiar with Joshua, never
heard of it. Juliet, Alfa Juliet, Alpha hotel.com. And so
they give you a little address book, you prepay, I think, you
know, it's like automatically they deduct 25 bucks from my Pay
Pal or something. And and if you make a phone call, you enter the
phone number. And you hit call. And then it will call a
designated phone that you specify. So it can call your
mobile phone, your home phone or your office phone. And then
it'll say one moment that actually says one moment Josh
has connecting you. And then you hear the phone ring. And then
your caller ID shows up at that other on the other end. And they
answer and it's a very, very cheap phone call like a penny a
minute or something. Or 10th I mean a 10th of a penny a minute.
And if you if both phone numbers that are calling each other are
registered with Josh out then it's absolutely free. So they
both have had an account and they talk for hours for free,
which with British Telecom, the amount of money they talk, it
could easily be eight, eight or 900 pounds a month if they would
just to get a you know, like a basic rate plan.
Well, that sounds like a winner. Yes. Good.
And the quality is good because you know, basically they just
connect different networks. So they'll look at whatever you
know, whatever is available in London, whatever deal they have
what I guess whatever interconnect, exchange etc.
Sometimes I think it must be void because one out of every 20
calls is has a little bit of an echo or an echo has a little bit
of a delay. But everything else it's almost like a pure regular
regular phone call that they bought Django didn't buy Django
they bought the remnants the team or whatever. You know
Django right. Yeah, yeah. So they went On a business worth
something like they have that
service in the US Jaja jaja? Yeah,
it's a it's a US company. I think ja, ja. Now j aj h.com.
J aJ H Yeah,
I think Sequoia is an investor.
Yeah, it's cool.
Well, you know, because I use disposable phones, I use a track
phone as a matter of fact, for your mobile phones, me? Yeah.
Isn't that Jaja for mobile phones? Is that what it's for?
It's for any phone. But you have to initiate the call on the web.
So you can do that in a mobile browser? Or you can do do a
bookmark.
How's that better than Skype?
Well, you know, the, first of all, I think the quality
is better. The quality is better than Skype. Yeah. Yeah. It's
better
than Skype. It's real phone call. You can hear that the you
know, you you're connected through wires not through IP.
It's not that makes a difference. But look, we're
gonna say the customers wrong. Yeah. I'll tell her honey,
you're wrong. Go back to using Skype. She hated it. She's like,
I get that because I tried it. I tried to get her on Skype first.
He's like, now the headset sucks. And I can't walk too far,
you know, then I gotta, you know, I tried the Skype formula.
And
you have a descriptive phone thing. I call you all the time
on Skype to phone and it works great.
But it's not as cheap as you think. Joshua is much, much
cheaper, maybe a 10th of the price. Now Skype is not all that
cheap.
Do you think it's a SIP thing? Yes. IP?
No, no, no, it's they had they have they have termination at
the exchanges or whatever. You know, that's a big business. I
don't know a lot about it. But it's a huge, huge business. And
so they just buy it, you know, they just buy up millions of
minutes. And and with preferred exchanges. And some of these
exchanges are interconnected with backhaul, you know, that's
basically their business is just making the connections as cheap
as possible. But it's I think most of it is, is P OTS.
Interesting. Okay, well,
I'll check it out. Marginally Interesting.
Well, I mean, you know, I never die. You guys probably have seen
if I saw the logoi price. Oh, yeah, those guys or something.
But it's like, I You can't try everything. They've been around
for a while. Yeah, that's
what I'm thinking. Yeah.
That's pretty. I mean, yeah, for my wife. It works perfectly. I
never use it. I always you know, I'm just a sucker. I use a TNT
on myself
all the time. Geez, yeah. Well,
what do you mean what are the things we've done at the Vortech
Ranch is that we've all gone to using besides the nobody else
put me uses the prepaid burners No, the cell phones,
disposables, but for regular long distance we've all gone to
calling cards.
Well, here's the problem. Here's my here's my specific problem
because I know I live and work in two separate countries. So
obviously, it would be much cheaper to use the EU and of
course, I have a UK number over here. And lots of people
actually have the UK number but here's what happens when someone
needs to get a hold of me because that's let's face it the
only reason you have to call me on my cell phone is because you
actually need to speak to me and I want to talk to you because no
one else calls me and I don't get like business pitches or
anything it's you know, it's real.
What are you soliciting the public just call you at random
No,
please do not. So, you know, you can do you can get these
centralised numbers like Grand Central or whatever it is a
Google bot and I looked into that and so you can route your
phone calls around no problems that you get the most till you
give people one number and then if you don't answer this phone,
it'll it'll try automatically transfer to the other phone.
That's fantastic.
I was in Grand Central to be highly annoying.
I'm just talking about the basic concept but I can have one
number and the problem is text messaging because you know text
what are people going to use? There's no routing facility for
text messaging it there just
isn't there's a there's a business let's start with a huge
business that you have individual pieces of software
that can do it you know that there is a way to actually if
you if you it was Prince I would take my US mobile connected
through Bluetooth to my Mac I've looked at all this and if a text
message comes in, then the Mac will actually reroute it and
send it out to the other phone but it's a pain in the ass you
know it's just it's not it's not handy and let's face it the text
messaging I probably use the phone for that more than for
voice calls.
Notice that in meetings
Thanks buddy. highly appreciated comment.
So okay, well you're not sitting there doing your email like most
people wait until
the new iPhone comes out the meetings will be much more fun.
Reminds me of going to the you give speeches, it just tendency
by the way is extremely good. I think negative, which is you go
give a big speech. It depends on the group. Of course, if you
have a, you know, a mature group that you know is not necessarily
so plugged into the computer, it's ridiculous when you go to,
like if he was any kind of a web 2.0 crowd and you gave a speech
to him, nobody's looking at the stage. So you can't
even even worse, they're twittering each other and they
sit in little chat rooms and make fun about the speaker.
Yeah. And so you can't get any good laughs from from any site
gags if you're a prop comic, forget about it. And so
everyone's all hunched over their laptops, and they're
typing away as you're trying to talk. And it's not even that
they're taking notes. They're just talking to everybody else
in the place. You
know what this is John, all of this shit started when when when
schools let the kids call the teachers by their first name.
That's when all this crap started. That's a good old
cranky comment.
We'll take it back one step further. Where they were the
were the kids were encouraged to call their parents by their
first name
boy that we lost a lot of ground there didn't we?
was really bad. It's still creepy. By the way. If you go to
somebody's house, some kid, some eight year old calling her
Father Frank.
Isn't that crazy? Do your kids call you dad? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I've noticed that. It is really creepy. When you hear that you'd
like you know, the first thing that goes to your mind is are
you stepfather?
Yeah, well, that's one and the you know, are calling the mother
you know, Margaret, Margaret, can I get something to eat? I'm
hungry. We're just like,
whoa, in indictment. Well, what
are the parent by the way? What are the parents thinking? By
encouraging this so they think it's cool. Is it some sort of a
liberal thing that you would you want to you want your your
children on? On this disc? Unusual first name basis?
Do you think that's still happening? Because it was a kind
of a big thing in like the 70s I think when a lot of that
happened,
I don't think I don't think it was ever happening a lot. But I
think it does, it does still happen. Yeah.
Well, in, in different languages, such as Dutch,
German, French, you have a formal way of saying you in
English is just you and Hey, you, right? But in, in French
will be two, or you could say formally will be vous. And in
Dutch, it's either yay. or, or. And German also has this
variant. And Patricia still calls or still addressed his her
parents in the formal way. Which is, of course, she's from 1918.
I
think it's gonna go or Well, yeah, so
it's an easy, easy joke. But
you know, the funny thing is about that, too, versus Vu is
that if you start talking conversational, when I was a
kid, we were taught that even with conversational French, you
never use the two, unless you really knew shacked up with him.
If you've had some kind of intimate contact,
and the but nowadays, this always just seems to be
encouraged. Have you noticed this? Yeah,
I was talking to someone else about that the other day, and I
think it is because of English culture seeping through the
entire world where in English now you've got drama, you've got
movies, you've got you know, all kinds of media. And it's just
you all of it. All of it is you, you, you, you, you and I think
it's just so much easier. And it's just it seems to be ebbing
away. What the VU. Yeah. Yeah, the formal the formal way of
addressing people, I
guess you're selling an old fart, you know, if you still use
it. So here's actually I, you know, I don't speak enough
French that I can make that transition that easy.
So I've been doing this thing in the mornings for for Dutch radio
for this arrow is the name of the radio station. And so on the
show, I get to talk to ministers of Parliament, which is pretty
cool. And I get to talk about, you know, like the fucked up
traffic. So I'm enjoying these conversations. But most of these
these men, and many of them are women actually, in the
Netherlands are younger than I am. They're like, mid 30s. And
so the first thing I say, when I get them on the phone, or if you
know if I meet them face to face is can we just, it's called to
twice a year. And can we just use the informal way of
addressing each other? And they all say yes, of course.
But that's the same as saying can I call you Bill?
Not quite the same. That's one more step. Oh, that's after I
kissed the ministers that that's when I get to call him Bill.
Okay. So it's not exactly the same, not exactly the same.
Because that that that middle element that you're describing
does not exist in English. English. No, it doesn't. It's
either we had to go from you know, Mr. President. Can I call
you a bill? Yeah. And there's nothing in between? says no, you
may not call me Bill.
Stop calling me surely. So there's there is one thing I
wanted to bring up. I'm sure you you go back to
this story. So you asked them about this. And then what do
they say? Oh, they they?
Sometimes they they don't know what to say Depending on what I
asked him it's there's a whole bunch of Holland has a whole
bunch of interesting interesting issues the main one being the
multicultural society integration of Muslim
immigrants. And then the other one is basically traffic. If I
boil it down those are the only two things that people talk
about all the time and no one ever does anything about it.
They don't talk about the weather like they do in the UK
can't constantly Yeah,
now just sucks they all know it's you live in Holland man,
your three year like six feet below that sea level. You're
gonna get fogged in a lot. You get used to it. Till now, I did
talk about other things football.
Oh, yeah. Well, everybody's got to talk about football.
Well, we had a big ass match here. Oh, actually not here. But
in Moscow. The Champ Manchester United. Chelsea thing. Yeah, it
was a great great match. They must have entered a
great match. It was the same boring old game and they had to
have a shoot off at the end. It was a
great match. What are you talking about in that after they
played the for the 90 minutes they had an extension of 30
minutes any any goal would have would have won the match for
that team and it was the English boys against each other you
kidding me? He was a great frickin match. Unfortunately.
You know, penalty kicks is is basically a lottery. You know,
anyone can win that but it was a great game. Did you watch it
like it? You didn't watch it. Come on. Don't anything like
Neil Neil tie. It wasn't a nil nil tie. It was one one. And no,
let me give you some more. So the guy on Chelsea side. What's
his name? Frank Lampard, who who scored the one Chelsea goal is
like this was a real emotional moment. His mom died like two
weeks before this of pneumonia. And no one knew if he was going
to if he was going to come to the team. When he scored. They
had that beautiful she was high drama, John, they have the
beautiful shot of him looking up at the heaven and saying this
one's for you, mom. I mean, it was beautiful. It was great
television. It was a great game. You know, the crowds didn't kill
each other. It was in Moscow, which was interesting. That's
one
of the reasons the crowds didn't kill each other. Normally, they
would have
no, I disagree. I think it was a good match. And everyone was
everyone was tired after, you know, after the 30 Minute
extension of the game. And then the teams were just strong. Now.
I thought it was good. I liked it.
Yeah, no, I'm glad that a lot of people like watching that game,
you know, and they talked about it. We I think we even blogged
it because I have one of my Edie Campbell is a huge soccer fan.
soccer fan, which you know, makes me wonder about him but
except for that one pillow. But it does most of the work. But
I'll tell
you at four o'clock in the afternoon, you could hear a pin
drop in the in the middle of the high street of Guilford. You
know, everyone had already gone home. Everyone's home early into
the game didn't start until like, you know, quarter to
eight. And everyone was there. No one was on the street. It was
completely
eight in the morning. Running in the evening. It started quarter
at eight in the evening. Yeah. And then didn't when time was
the game was over at 1030. And it was quiet. By Guilford at
night as though it was like it's a jump in place normally, is
that what you're saying?
Dude, you you should come down to Guilford at night and see
what's going on. Oh yeah, the Voodoo lounge the new place dusk
Are you crazy Guilford is is quite this is quite the place to
go. Clubbing and drinking within limits miss no London but yeah,
for this for Surrey. Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of messed up kids on
Fridays and Saturdays and Sunday nights.
My recommendation for that is Iceland. But starting which
is what it was recently named something
Iceland It was named the best place in the world to live or
something like that. How
best to live. I think it was most at least stressful or
something like that.
Why this because everything's free.
No people there. No one's a quarter of
a million people. It's the size of a good size. The size of
Gilbert Yes. The size of Guilford.
It looks beautiful Vanessa from the UK offices is there this
weekend. She and her boyfriend were going to Iceland I'm like
why? She says I've never been there.
Much to do two days. You're done. i Yeah, but you eat a lot
of Puffin.
Oh, that's right. We talked about that. Didn't we puff
Puffin and then the thing I always tell people go to the to
the wool shop at the airport. And that's where you buy your
sweaters and blankets and stuff. Because he'd be cold there.
Well, no, they got this great. You know, they got these weird
sheep in Iceland. That look like they're from dilla prehistoric
to creepy looking. And they you know, they got big Rastafarian
curls hanging down they look like they look like something.
It looks like they washed in and always look wet. And the wool is
waterproof and it's a very innocent comes in three colours
natural Really there's a black sheep, a white sheep and a brown
sheep. And so they can make colourful sweaters without even
dying. doilies hardly colourful, but you know, brown, but but
that shop at the airport, at least when I was there was the
best shop and
they're really they're like long haired sheep with. I'm looking
into some google images now. I don't want that crazy.
To see him I don't know, maybe it was just maybe I'm scared a
sheep. And it tastes good. They didn't Yeah, I didn't have any
she did all he does Puffin, it seems to me. You know, all these
countries that we talked about before have these will just one
or two thing, the one where I was talking to my wife the other
day about some countries that E AK. Yeah. And I realised that of
all the meats I've had, I've never had Yak.
Where does GAC typically grow?
Well, it's in parts of India. There's one of the Indian
cuisines. We're doing a book on spices because you know, we have
this spice shop. So I've said we got to break down the way she's
doing all the writing. I said, we've got to break down the
cuisines of India, because a lot of people don't realise when
they go to especially Americans, to a lesser extent the English
but Americans in particular, don't realise that there is no
Indian, you know, when you go to an Indian restaurant, you're
getting a eclectic mishmash of who knows what, that has no
connection to it, you know, these dishes have no connection,
because they're from the various cuisines. And it turns out that
there's about depending on how you break it down either for
major cuisines or something like 18 in India, and they're all
very different. They use different spices, they different
meat if they eat meat, and it's it's radically different than
every way
so this is interesting. So I did I went to Wikipedia of course,
the authority, no mention of India. The Yak is from the to
from Tibet, Mongolia, Central Asia. Himalayan region, no
mention of India whatsoever.
I think it's the North Eastern cuisine that my wife isolated as
eating Yak, although I'm sure in Indian listening. That's not
true. here but they may or they don't eat yak but the resources
so far but we're gonna run the display some some natives of
course we like to say they look pretty prehistoric these Yak.
Yeah, yeah, I wonder what they tastes like.
Prehistoric. That's a really old meat. You can milk them too.
Hey, go. Tea is made with yak milk. Awesome.
I wonder what that tastes like it it probably like a goat. They
probably have a distinctive taste. Although it just could
taste like beef. It could be just, you know, progenitor who
knows what kind of
or they close flavour to the bison family they look like a
little more like by slice
since you know or you know you could pass off of bison meat for
for cattle. You know if you did it right. Hey, something new
bison has a distinctive flavour. But if you if you did it right,
you could convince somebody it was just a deep piece of beef.
I just saw something new the Google Image labeler
Oh, really? What's that
welcome. Just showed up on the on the search. Welcome to Google
Image labeler, a feature of Google search that allows you to
label images and help improve the quality of Google's image
search results. Cool. How does it work? You'll be randomly
paired with a partner who's online and using the feature.
over a two minute period you and your partner will view the same
set of images. provide as many labels as possible to describe
each image you see. receive points when your label matches
your partner's label. Cool. It's like a game. The number of
points will depend on how specific your label is and
you'll see more images until times run out with like a game.
We'll look I'm looking at the today's top pairs Zippy and Jana
chin have got 2500 or 26 points. But the all time contributors
which includes Zippy is number two and go speed go What is this
number? Here's one it's 24,000,266 100 points. What is
this guy doing? He's just hanging on? This is
unbelievable. So people are doing free work for Google.
Yeah.
Oh, do it John. Do Start labelling Oh man that's cool. So
I've been matched up with someone we have already yeah we
don't have the partners just the two of us I got like a Chinese
girl I put girl Alma I want to I want to label Oh matched on girl
50 points. Bing Bing Bing. Okay, now I see. Like royalty. This
it's crazy. They've turned working for Google into a game.
How crazy is that? This guy is believable.
They really are. And this looks more Indian. I don't know what
that is.
This is you know what this is you know where they got this
idea battleships? No they got the idea from those guys doing
the porn doing the capture Oh hot or not like that you know
where you you join up and they say here tell us what this
capture is and you you're basically working and you get
the show your porn and then the capture is actually used by
spammers to crack all these you know captures that keep cropping
Oh,
that's right. Yeah, remember that? Yeah, remember that? Oh,
that's crazy. Well, I'm not going to help them anymore. Go
away I'm done helping you Google.
So
I want to know who my partner is how come I don't get to meet
this person? That's kind of cool. What a great way to meet
someone.
It could be allies. Maybe there is no partner. They're just
trying to make it seem more social than it is for these poor
lonely guys out there that would sit around doing this to the
point where they'd have 24 million points.
Go Speed go.
It's just the whole thing's a scam. Because my partner here
wants to pass. I just passed. Maybe I was your partner? I
don't think so. I just went away. All right. So maybe, maybe
it's possible. Maybe you are. I think you should be able to
choose your partner. Did you get to Cypress? No. Okay.
So anyway, Financial Times two days ago.
By the way, my partner's obviously a dud partner can come
up, come up with anything good. No good labels getting
going anyway. Go ahead Financial Times.
I'm sure you heard about this about Moody's, the ratings
agency. This is the funniest thing in the world, John. Okay.
So of course, the premise here is that Moody's rates, funds and
bonds and gives them a status you are all of our listeners,
I'm sure at one point have heard the triple A status. And so they
rated all these CDOs which were these, these investment vehicles
or debt vehicles that were backed by these bogus mortgages
by the subprime mortgages and they basically rated we talked
about this, they rated them triple A status. Right?
Yes, it was a scandal.
Okay. They have come out now, a year after their investigation.
And they know how it happened. That the that they gave out a
triple A rating to to these bogus investment vehicles. And
guess what it was John?
interns, a software
coding error. Oh, bullshit.
Don't you just love it? I actually get it. Can they
actually get away with that bullshit
software code? What coding error? Was it? Oh, an
unfortunate one. Apparently, an unfortunate one.
And they knew about the so called software coding error for
a year before this news came out a year.
What kind of a software coding error? Is there here possible?
Well,
they were supposed to receive four notches lower, which would
mean that they should have been a triple B instead of a triple
A? Which of course would make sense because that's probably
the we're probably closer to a C minus, or maybe a double D.
But there's another problem that's neither here nor there.
But he's not here.
I got some downstairs. But can't believe that front page. And you
know, it's like, you don't hear about it anywhere. No one's
talking about it. This is one of the actual reasons of this shit
happening is this fucking rating a ratings agency and now they're
going to investigate standards and pours I guess or whatever. I
wonder with that? Definitely. They have to, they'll probably
be you know, they'll have the same what the same database
guy, we hired that same coder. He came over here screwed us to
that crazy
coding error.
And it's coming apart, man, all of the shit that I would that
we've been talking about is happening in the UK. Now they
remember that they made that $100 billion commitment all the
banks of the government would would swap the bonds for their
bad debt. That has now been inflated to 200 billion and
doubled overnight.
Wow, that's a lot of money.
That's a humongous amount of money.
Is 200 billion pounds, right?
No, no, I'm doing I'm doing the conversion now. So total is like
90 billion pounds. So it's almost it's 200 million
essentially. And Gordon Brown is about to get kicked out. Like
they I guess they can't really kick him out. He's, you know,
people are calling for his resignation. You know, very
important principle municipality. Now what is it?
Area crew?
Is it you know, they had a local election and the conservatives
landslide win. And, you know, everyone's like, Brown has to go
they're already talking about his successor.
It's bad news.
Well, you know, that country screwed up.
Yeah, luckily, America's all on the straight and narrow Well, we
have more space. Yeah, it's cool to follow the news about the
Hillary Obama stuff over here.
Yeah, you have people that don't know this, essentially,
Hillary's called for the assassination of Obama.
That's not exactly what she did.
Well, that's the way it was played by the media, you know,
and I'll explain it. Yeah, please do. Who haven't heard
what happened when she was in a meeting with some, some
journalists editorial board, it was some small little paper and
had really small little town. But they had it, they were
filming it, or somebody was, and they got the audio and the video
of her saying the following. After she was asked, why don't
why don't you quit and give up because you're not going to win.
And she says, I but I haven't been mathematically eliminated.
And she goes on. And she says, Look, my husband was what didn't
win his nomination until June 22. So why should I quit? And
besides, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June. And so so
I don't see why I should quit. She has this like,
she has gone on to repeat this several other times without
using the assassination word.
Right. So it was like, so that was picked up immediately by the
media. Now the thing that I was thinking now, of course, you
know, she says, Oh, she's so sorry. And she didn't mean
anything by it. And she was she was sincerely apologetic. I
don't think she meant anything by it. I think it's just dumb,
you know? Well, no, but here's what I'm thinking. Even taking
it beyond dumb. She had to be thinking about it. She had to
have in her mind it to make this assertion or to even bring it
up. It had to be in the back of her mind thinking, you know,
Obama could get killed. He could get hit by a bus. I mean, it can
happen. I don't.
I don't think she was thinking that was she was
thinking about it, or she wouldn't have said it. That's
the way I'm looking at it.
But isn't that always the case? I mean, I've said myself, you
know, Ron Paul is still only one heartbeat away from the
nomination.
I think it's more than one. I don't know, man. He's like about
40 heartbeats away.
There's no one else left. He's the only guy left if McCain
kills. Okay. When
they Yeah, well, that's probably applies more to McCain. You
know, just having, you know, dying of old age. Yeah, exactly.
But anyway, so that's the story. And so now it's become a big
scandal and had bids put her in a situation where she's now
completely screwed herself. She can't she won't get the vice
presidency. She's gonna have trouble running in 2012. I mean,
these little things, you know, it's like that. That Dean,
Howard Dean guy, you know, scream, bang, you know, yeah.
sticks to you.
So now you're gonna revise your your prediction?
What the Hillary's gonna find you? No, no, are you gonna stick
with the possibility that there could be some something weird? I
think this didn't help. In fact, I think if I'm gonna, if I was
gonna take bets right now, who is going to be the Democratic
nominee? I would not take any bets. Or I'd probably take Obama
because it kind of depends on how they spin this right. And I
think there's two things that have to happen because I'm
really enjoying following your analysis and truly believing
that the Clintons will exert so much power over super delegates
and whatever needs to happen in Florida and all this stuff. And
then, you know, the the appeasement stuff against Obama.
So you know, clearly she slipped up she's doing all the
Republicans work for them. So it could it could kind of blow over
you know, something new could prop up could crop up. I mean,
we've already forgotten Reverend right with this thing. Right? So
there's still a
lot of time it did up the ante and anything can happen. I mean,
Obama though has been so I mean, he doesn't say anything if you
listen to him, he just and the way we should be looking at
this, you know, just a very slow kind of a monotone is admitted
that he sounds like he's eloquent but he's getting to be
boring. You know, it's like, Can this guy say anything? At all?
He says nothing. And it's and he's Oh, and he's and he's
pompous. And I think it's going to start were wearing thin after
a while. I don't think he's going to by the time the
November election goes around, there should be two or three
comedians you know, copying his cadence, which is just
horrendous has
Saturday live not done anything on him yet?
I don't know United stop watches. I'm gonna have to, I'm
sure they're doing everything on a weekly basis maybe. To watch I
haven't watched a Saturday Night Live for me either three or four
months.
I haven't watched it maybe a year or so.
And I haven't seen you know, there's gotta be some comics
that are nailing this guy because he's He never says
anything. He just, you know, talks about change. He doesn't
have anything does he doesn't have anything of any. There's
nothing specific. It's just this
who's finding RAM who's
financing you know, giant sky crap,
who's financing um, it's not it's not just all little people
making donations on the web. Who's financing? The Obama
campaign? Wall Street? No, no.
It's gotta look into it's got to be there hasn't been much on it
because the media has jumped on you know, and did all the right
wing talk show guys are talking about this in there. You know,
and actually a lot of the Democrats are talking about it,
which is the media has just out and out. Subscribe to Obama. And
they are just I guess they I think there must be some hatred
of the Clintons because the Clintons were really never media
friendly. And so they're just on Obama's side. In fact, there was
a one of the weirdest shows on television is on CNBC or MSNBC,
CNBC. It's called the interviews or conversations with Michael
Eisner. Yeah, I've seen I've seen a couple of these. He's not
a great interviewer, but it's compelling. unhearable as a
matter of fact, because he's trying to be everybody's friend.
And he's kind of creepy as an interviewer he is.
Because he has that, like Steve Ballmer kind of facial
expression. You know what I mean?
Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, it's like he's doing job
interviews or something more important. Yeah. Or it's shitty.
It's really crappy dinner conversation with your boss.
Yeah. All right. So he had, but he did have one of his old
buddies on the other day. And I decided first time I've seen the
show for a while because it's on some weird hour. And it's hard
to catch. And I'm not going to record it. Because I hate to
come back from a vacation going, Oh, I'm filled up with this, you
know. So he had a yawn, winter
Rolling Stone editor, the original founder, right?
And he was just out now it says, you know, yeah, no, we're just
backing Obama. The whole publication is just just Obama
put Obama on the cover. And we did this. And we did that. And
you know, we offered something to Hillary early on, but she
said no, and but George is behind Obama. And thinking, what
is this magazine? They're behind Obama. And I think the media in
general is behind Obama. And that's what's given him this big
boost is very
typical, though, isn't it? I mean, that the media everywhere
is basically claiming him the winner and you know, with this
latest, Clinton,
gaff gaff, that's
the word I'm looking for. So I'm just looking into
opensecrets.org actually does a pretty good job at tracking all
donations. And so I'm looking at everything over $2,300. And I
don't see any I don't really see any Wall Street companies in
there yet.
Like coming into general, that's when they give money to both
sides.
hedge. Interesting.
Well, maybe this was maybe the maybe. Well, clearly not the
whole country is behind him, you know, only a part of it just
looking at the at the primaries?
Well, no, the problem is, is that he hasn't won any the big
monster states with the exception of Illinois, which is
his state, right. And I'm beginning to I'm getting
reminded of my dad was a big Republican or jumpstart big
Democrat. He's never Republican, he hated the Republicans. And,
but he always was lamenting, I remember, for years after the
elections were over, he was always lamenting the fact that
the Democrats ran ad les Stephenson, who was a he was
described by my father, and apparently most of the people in
the Democrat party as an egghead. And they, they ran him
twice in a row. And he was extremely, he was like, Obama
insofar as that using kind of intellectualised a lot of
things. And he had a really outstanding speaking, let you
know, he was an eloquent person. But but it was also the same
kind of thing. It was kind of slow and ponderous. And it gets
on your nerves after a while. And in fact, John Kerry is in
the same camp. So the Democrats keep throwing up these, these,
you know, these throwbacks to the to the era of, you know, the
people that could do speeches, there's a term for these two
guys who do these eloquent speeches in front of a large
crowd. They keep bringing these guys in instead of some plain
talk in person. While showbusiness wishes at the
complete opposite spectrum, that's fine. So everyone makes
that comparison. But the fact of the matter is, there is a middle
ground. Today,
isn't aren't aren't the rules that you can only donate a
maximum of $2,300 to to a presidential campaign, or a
in these alliances and maximum numbers like 2500 or even less,
or 250 or so,
I'm looking here, like Susan Adelman, who is the President
CEO of Tivoli Inc, which is a software company, I think, so
she's donated three times $2,300. It's not illegal. I
don't know. And I see she's not. David Adelson, who's from the
University of Oklahoma has donated 1235 times $2,300 I see
people donating 3200 4600 I thought there were limits on
this stuff.
There is some sort of limit we're gonna have to now we're
gonna have to do our research in the next show. Which is
annoying,
because I gave Ron Paul what I thought was the Max was 2300
bucks. I thought that's all you could do.
Well, I think maybe these are gonna have to do with events
when you buy it seat at a table or something like that. Perhaps
there might be some way getting around it. Hmm.
Interesting. Well, so that's not exactly you know, tonnes of
donations from linear small people this is like rather
significant donations from multiple times from people who
can afford it
Yeah, well they can definitely afford in fact they're cheap.
See here maximum political donation he election $2,300 per
election the current maximum limits for these offices are
2300 per election it says the current maximum donation
increased desert in maximum donation Bama, blah,
all kinds of people donating multiple times.
This needs to be looked into. Wow. And here's an area where as
1100 annual maximum donations allowed per individual. Well,
maybe it's a family of people and they've they're donating for
their child and knows husband while
you have to do it by name. And you have to do it by name. So
it's the exact same name every single time over and over again.
Here while husband and wife combo I understand but here at
Charles and Alexander. He's donated 4600 on the 14th of
March 2300 On the ninth of March.
Oh, these are states elections. Okay, here it goes. 15 states,
including Wyoming have limits ranging from 1000 to 5010.
states allow maximum donation of 5000 to 10,000 while four states
have contribution maximums topping 10,000 Okay. And this is
all primaries, right? So these donations are going into various
state elections.
Gotcha. Okay.
So he's, he's Maryland, one of those states or Virginia
doesn't list them on this particular story.
Okay, well, there you go. Mystery solve?
Yeah, so you could have given a lot more shit,
you know, he would have been the front runner if only I'd given
him a little bit more.
And well, it's too bad. So, yeah, no, I just thought it'd be
interesting to see who's backing these various people. But the
big corporations will be back in McCain, you can count on that.
Yeah. Well,
I'm with you, man. I'm writing on the on the on the Hillary
tip. I still think that at the end of the day, the Democratic
Party is going to say, Holy shit, man, you know, we gotta
have someone who can actually, you know, maybe maybe maybe on a
far outside chance with some luck and a little bit of
tailwind. You know, keep our keep our spot in the White House
or get our spot in the White House.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm still of the opinion that Obama
is not electable
not well, he's, like he can win just can't win yet.
Well, I just don't see anything changing. I mean, I think this
this, unless he has something to save one of these days except
change, change change, you know, doesn't mean anything is
meaningless change. What
did Larry Lessig go into that Congress congressional thing
that he was after
the United saw, he just did a piece for The New York Times on
on orphan copyright stuff. And I don't know, I haven't been a
hold had gotten to hold him because he was doing something
in Europe. I don't know I'm gonna have to track him down
because I usually try to have lunch or something with him once
in a while, because that
was kind of sizzling for a while, and then he wanted to do
like campaign finance reform or something like that, ya know,
especially interest reform. Now, it was kind of weird. But when
we say
the, you know, people don't get campaign finance reform and why
it's never gonna go anywhere. Because they don't know where
the money I mean, if you just analyse campaign finance reform
who gets the money in the at the end of the day? The media
Yes, yeah. Commercials.
It's so the media if campaign finance reform ever came to
pass, the only people that really be screwed by it would be
the media, the people taking all that money and running these
ads. And so there if it ever got close to 21, there would be all
kinds of 60 minute reports and and scandalous things about how
its how campaign finance reform is, is you know,
unconstitutional, and it's against free speech, and it's a
horrible thing and it's gonna ruin the car. entry in
everyplace else they've done it has, you know resulted in
fascism and it's never going to happen.
What always amazes me though It amazes me is for the amount of
money that is raised and spent. So let's say maybe 50% of the
money you spent on media, I'm just picking a random number
because, you know, there's a lot of expensive consultants and all
kinds of people who ride along on these on these campaigns.
Right, but so let's say it's 5050 to 100 million combined,
right between Barack and Clinton. Man they're making some
badass TV commercials for that kind of money. That's crap. The
absolute frickin crap they're making who is there someone is
stealing from them big time. This shit. I mean, that's like
Final Cut press like rev three is making these commercials.
It's it's lame. That not to say their programming is lame. I'm
just the moment you get my point. I mean, for that kind of
money, you could you could have Spielberg making commercials.
I don't get it. I know what you're saying. Because these
things are terrible. And they're, they're getting good.
The problem is, I think they're over consulted. And they're
getting too conservative. The commercials are uninteresting.
You know, when moveon.org was doing, you know, this
commercial, the I don't know if they're doing it anymore,
because haven't visited their site recently. But a good number
of years ago, they had, you know, do it yourself commercials
that were done by the public using, you know, Final Cut Pro,
but many, much of the public doing these are actually the
Hollywood directors, and they on their website, you could watch
all these crazy commercials that were really nasty. And some of
them were actually quite funny. And that, you know, if they
would rig if that was implemented and actually went
into major place where people could actually see some really
poignant observational commercials rather than these
stupid commercials that they run. I think it would be
probably a benefit to these people. But they're they're too
conservative. Nobody wants to do anything. That's, you know, the
Obama won't say anything, what he really means about anything.
He just talks in generalities to Hillary's you know, she ever
does open her mouth, she makes sticks her foot in it like this
Kennedy thing. I mean, it's just it's to people are dull.
I have a different theory about those commercials, though, I
believe that they're probably actually highly effective. And
they probably are tested to death, because they look very
much like washing powder commercials. And I think, you
know, my theory is that in general, the forget, you know,
California and New York, everything in between, you know,
people elect their presidents the same way they do choose
which which washing powder they're going to use, you know,
and those are bad commercials, you know,
often hear called detergent here in the US Virgin.
I'm sorry, you know what I'm talking about, though? I mean,
those are horrible commercials. Soap commercials. Yeah. So maybe
they just do it. Maybe that's what what the what really works
as lame as shit. Everything else is art.
So I ran into something interesting yesterday, I got a
call from I get called people say, Oh, I don't know pollsters
have never call I get called by pollsters all the time. And I
you know, I do what I am obliged to do as a normal person, which
is to give them bad information, of course. But this case, I
didn't because it was a pretty straightforward poll. But I've
never had this from Rasmussen and it seemed to have to do with
it was you have to you can deconstruct the poll afterwards
and figure out what they were trying to get at. And, you know,
they tried to always direct it a little bit, even though this
didn't have any trick questions by any means. And this seemed to
be a poll about where you get your you get your news from
newspapers or the internet, and how does it affect your
judgement based on your age. And so far as who you'd vote for,
for president, that's what I'm kind of thinking it was really
about. But the thing that was unique about it was it was the
entire thing was automated. I never had a there's no voice.
There's no person. There's nobody calling me. And
it's just a menu is just a multiple choice menu. Yeah, it
was
like a voice came on a woman's voice saying, if you were to
vote for president today, would you vote for Obama? Hillary or
McCain? Press one? Press one for Hillary press two.
And that's that's expensive, too.
Well, yeah, it has to be some, obviously some big computers
doing the whole thing, because it also had forks.
Or you could go off into a different different survey.
Yeah, you could
tell there was a fork every once in a while that would take you
in a different direction because of your one of your previous
answers. But the fact of the matter is, the whole thing was
automated. I'm thinking holy crap. They're making these
they're they're institutionalised these polls
now without worse not even anybody doing them. They're just
they just, you know, programme a computer and then they push the
button and it starts calling everybody. Yep. So it's becoming
poll mania in this country. You know,
when MTV when I was there in the late 80s, late 80s, early 90s.
They did a lot of research. And so you know, MTV played music
videos, but the research they did was traditional radio call
out research, so they'd literally Call 1000 people a day
on the phone and say, Do you recognise this song? And I
played the song over the phone. And that's how they programmed
MTV they had no way of, of or no money really to, to do research
on music videos that just had audio.
What's interesting? So, well, I am not a big fan of necessarily
overdoing the, you know, there's there's a moment where the
public doesn't know the answer. I mean, I focus groups, and I
think they're okay to do a post mortem analysis. But to do stuff
that's active, I don't think is that accurate? I think they, you
know, this is what you hear the car companies, American car
companies have fallen prey to focus groups before they can
make a decision. And many times it's a design decision. And you
can't have the public making design design decisions in
advance of a car being released. Because the fact of the matter
is it in some ways, the better cars that actually influence
other designs are art. And there should be a professional
designer who makes a decision not the public because the
public goes, I don't know, it looks like the I like the looks
of it. But that's because the look, a year or two from now
might be the hottest thing going. And if you'd asked the
same question to the same person two years later, that says the
best looking thing ever. You know, it's like a fashion thing.
I mean, you can't pull the public. If you're a fashion
designer, doing dresses for the for the fall season, you know,
six months in advance of the season. They don't know about
the colour swatches, and all the other kind of weird
infrastructure stuff that takes place.
Oh, that's all but if that's all the fashion magazines, that
people who determine that are the editor of Vogue and Marie
Claire magazine, and
well, they make a judgement at the end. But they do these
presentations that are kind of, you know, here it is. Here's my
collection. What do you think? Yeah, and then you can be
destroyed after the fact but at least it's not randomised before
they roll it out. And then they end up rolling out some
milquetoast crap that is like gun interesting, and probably
five years behind the times, which is what happens when you
do too much polling. And you rely on the public to make your
decisions
in the fashion industry, it doesn't work that way. It really
doesn't. The people who are calling the shots are the other
leading magazines, and actually the manufacturers, the
manufacturers,
what I know, I'm understanding that what I'm just telling you
is that you could try to implement a public first policy,
if you are like a big design house, and do focus groups and
then determine what should be in the collection. You could do
that and it would be a big would be a huge disaster.
If KMart probably already does that, then.
Well, I suppose I mean, it's possible. They probably do not.
You mentioned it at Walmart too. But maybe I don't know, it's
hard to say those are those places are operating kind of
like warehouses and somebody else's responsibility to move
the goods.
Well, those guys have it easy mean, they just look at the
designs that you know, they just look at what's coming out and
they just copy it.
Yeah, well, that's the business that it is. So yeah, I
understand what you're saying. Beside the point that fashion is
your but I'm just saying is that there's this dependency on on
the public to to, you know, in advance of things that are
changing. I don't think the public is good at dealing with
or predicting change and direction.
As Steve Steve Jobs, I think one of his quotes, I subscribe to a
quote a day service or something like that quote, or whatever it
is. He said, You know, if we actually made what the public
asked for, you know, we'd be bankrupt. Yeah, I think there's
a lot to that.
It's like The Simpsons episode where Homer was given the
design, he was the head designer of the car company, you know, we
decided, do whatever you want. We don't even want to see it
until it's finished.
You know, we wind up with I'm not familiar with
the episode. It's a good episode, he winds up with this
huge boat of a car that's got like everything except the
barber's chair. It was just a disaster.
All the features all the features you want and then some
Yeah, awesome.
So anyway, the so I think that in politics, they've really
fallen in fallen prey to this sort of thinking, and it which
is, you know, don't do anything and might offend the public and
and so you have these, and I have note, this started years
and years ago, obviously, it's nothing new. But I always
remember it. The most memorable example to me was, I think it
was when Mondale who seemed like the dullest guy in history he
was he was vice president, wasn't he? Yeah, then he ran for
president and lost against who McGovern Oh, no, no McGovern.
No, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm recovering was never president.
So you always like to refer to President Hubert Humphrey. He
ran with that woman Ferraro, wasn't it Oh, Geraldine Ferraro.
Yeah I think so. I think was Mondale Ferrara was that the
thing is you can't recite remember Mondale for he's like
you can't remember I was thinking about this yesterday
Yeah, Mondale Ferraro is that you can't remember these
matchups and I was thinking who won last year's Super Bowl I
mean it was the Giants won the Super Bowl who did they beat?
And I was thinking about it and I and I patriots couldn't right
it's like if you say the Denver Broncos you pretty much okay to
go well yeah 20 years ago Yeah. So anyway you can't I know you
follow soccer Mordechai five,
follow football. I follow everything I can the important
games. I don't give a shit about any sport, but the important
stuff and the big matches. I'll follow that.
Do want to watch some some stuff to watch the basketball finals,
Jersey. I watch it I watch the finals. I test I don't like it
bores me. That's
the Lakers and the Celtics are gonna be fantastic. It's a
throwback. But anyway, so Mondale Ferrara, they go out and
they give all these talks and then his doll just doll is
unbelievable Walter Mondale. So he comes on after he loses, he
comes on the Johnny Carson Show or wherever it was. And the
guy's a laugh riot. I thought he had tonnes of personality. He
had one liners, he was quick on the draw. He was, you know,
sharp as a whip and his attack. And you know, he was just like,
I'm watching this guy going, Holy crap. I would have been I
would have voted for this guy.
Yeah, but so but this time around, everyone has already
been on the talk shows. And so that, you know, we've seen that
personality Huckabees killed on on Jay Leno.
Know How can be he's the funniest to the group. Yeah.
Could be doing stand up.
Yeah, he killed but still, he's out.
Yeah, no, but these other guys, you know, what we're still
seeing with with Hillary and with Obama and to a lesser
extent McCain, we're still seeing a phoney facade of a
person that if this election was over, and they came back on the
same show, they would not be acting that way, they would be
different. If either one of them just totally different person,
you know what it is the difference between we're just
having a conversation right here, we're just talking back
and forth. People can tell the difference between between that
and a stump speech or whatever it is they're doing or, you
know, being on meet the press and the way that you know, let
the guard down for once be fucking human like robots that
like both
in the the counter argument to that if you're one of the
consultants as well, that's what Hillary did in Sioux Falls or
Sioux City wherever she was, when she brought the
assassination up.
Know, it's also what she did when she you know, when everyone
thought she was going to cry. And that really turned her
campaign around at that point.
Yeah, well, she's one for two.
You know, she just said, Hey, look, Americans, dudes do debt.
Like, look, I know, this gas thing is out of control. You
know, I'm gonna go fix that. Now. I'm gonna take care of some
shit for you. And vote for me. It would work. I think people
are ready for that. They're tired of all the screaming and
that's what the media has become. It's just screaming
screaming screaming loud
was kind of how Jesse Ventura became the governor of
Minnesota, but with that kind of
approach and how and how did that work out for him?
He got bored with the job.
It does seem like a pretty crappy job, doesn't it? That's
why, you know, he
got it. He got the job. And he wasn't the worst Governor
they've ever had. I suppose.
I'll say at the end of the day, I mean, my hat's off to all of
these people who are doing this shit. I mean, that is worse than
show business. No.
Good isn't good night show business for Ugly people.
But then, you go through a lot of shit if you if you want to.
And I don't know. I think everyone's pretty jaded. We
really need to sex it out. We need to bring in you know, some,
like whoever does Boston Legal, you know, they got to start
doing the coverage of this stuff. That guy
named John bochco isn't no no bochco by No,
no, but you know, is Steven bochco. Somebody's dead now
Aaron spelling's dead.
No, I was there somebody one day whatever the case is? No, this
is what's his name? The guy who did Boston legals? The guy who
used to do you know that guy, right. And he's good. He's got a
good sense of humour. Hell, yeah. This is great episode,
guys. One of our guys from Tech TV worked for him for a while,
and then he went on to the law and order. And I haven't really
get a hold of him. I think he just married some actress. So I
guess he's screwed now.
What is that guy's name?
This has become the Google show.
And here we are on Google googling so you don't have to
That's right. You can sit in your car. It's a new service
from Google Click here to be attached to an audio buddy.
David D Kelly.
There you go. Yeah. David Kelly one and then my friend is Luke
writer who now shows up I believe is Lucas. But
he didn't he didn't he marry with Ally McBeal. I know she's
living with Harrison Ford. Kelly might have Mary, you're gonna
love it. No, no, no, no, he's with Harrison. She's with
Harrison Ford.
Oh, that's right. Right. Harrison Ford,
Lucky bastard.
She's a little thin.
Now she was I just to sort of build I don't think she was
anorexic.
I know when you're that thin on television, because television
ads? Well, in my case, it adds 100 pounds. But in most cases,
it adds a little weight to you because of the horizontal
scanlines and if you look that thin on television you must be
really thin as fast I you know, I'm gonna die. I don't care.
Nurses are make. But so yeah, Kelly. Yeah, he would be better
than but you know, he's like You said he's obviously would be
picky. He probably subscribed probably on the Obama campaign.
Right? Because he's, he's obviously if you've watched his
shows, you know, he's like a liberal Democrat, isn't you with
some, you know, conservative leanings on on specific issues,
or he wouldn't have these highly entertaining conservative
characters on the show. And so he's me know, probably a
libertarian. That's thinking Obama would be good. Yes. My
guess there was a funny episode that aired here last night where
Nantucket wants an atomic bomb. And so they asked the firm to go
sue, because they could the laws No, they won't give them rights
to buy plutonium or whatever else they need.
I never saw that one. I've actually stopped watching the
show. I watched it religiously for its first two or three
episodes, or two or three seasons. And then I found it
becoming they lost some of their better characters and, and they
start with they move their emphasis around a little bit and
the dynamics change just enough to that it's like, you know,
Danny is too much of us. You know, she's corny er than he
ever was. They did get him off the Mad Cow thing and move them
over to various other ailments, which was a plus. And
now you should pick it up again, because it's gotten good with
John Larroquette. And yes,
yeah, I said find Lera kit not to beat he's, you know, I just
found Larroquette to be a slightly annoyed that I think
he's as a comic actor is kind of funny, but he's in this role. I
find it annoying. I find them to be annoying. And I can't say
specifically why.
Man, I hope these shows stay around. They're so expensive to
make these shows like two 3 million bucks an episode.
But they make their money on the DVDs and the promise in the DVD
business, stay around and keep on
going. Well, syndication is really where all the money comes
from the big money syndication.
That's why they have to do the show for five years. People as
it were five years, what's five years is five years means we
just show his show in one day, every every day of the week,
every day a week for one year as same as five years. You know,
once a week.
And then the other thing always the other thing.
After five years, they just quit the show.
Yeah, like Jerry Seinfeld, that what he did more than five years
didn't
I think James Caan and on that Vegas show, which is actually
that's pretty good show. I've
seen that. Yeah, yeah, it's
a good show. I like it. It's got the nice. You know Carol's is
Yeah, but he quit the show up just five seasons and just left
as far as I can tell his five seasons.
Dirty Sexy Money With Donald Sutherland.
You know, I can't watch that show. Really? I just that to me,
it's just unwatchable. It's a it's an exaggeration that you
know, just a bunch of jokes is once you gags and it doesn't do
anything for me.
I like Donald Sutherland. I like him no matter what he does. And
then to be honest about I do too, but in this role, I don't
like him. I think he's too creepy.
And of course, I as a pilot, I actually want to know what
happened to the to Dutch. I wonder what went wrong with his
flight in his Cessna. 172 Are they keep showing at the
beginning of the show?
CIA? Yeah, of course.
Bar John, you got anything else?
Well, let's see. Well, we will. Yeah, I do. As a matter of fact.
I'm trying you know, there's a lot of interesting things going
on in the wine world.
Besides one Yeah. Besides the the new sensational straw.
Oh, that's right. We gotta go. We haven't gotten those straws
yet.
They can't Well, so it came out. Thursday. I haven't seen it yet
in the stores. I did go and look for it for the for the wine in
the carton, which came with a straw. Haven't seen me keep my
eyes
open once we get the straws in our hands that we can use it
with other liquids,
yes, whoo. Once we get our hands on a couple of those straws,
sensory straws, that's what they're called.
They're using a lot of die in wine nowadays. Really? Yeah,
there's just one particular one called mega purple, you can look
it up. But mega purple is used all over the world now. And it's
kind of a proprietary formulation, they claim it's
made from boiled down wine or something like that. But nobody
will tell how exactly. It's some big chemical company, or
additive company or something like that. And so you use this
mega purple into cars, you know, ever since Robert Parker became
this, the American who became the number one wine reviewer in
the world and puts a huge influence. One of the things is
that they have this thing called parkerized wines, which are
wines that have to do with you know, that appeal to his
specific taste, which are for big, dark black inky wines. And
so now they're just adding this crap to these wines, which
apparently also affects the flavour in a kind of a positive
way during a blind tasting.
But do they do they're doing that in the barrel? Not after
it's in the bottle? Right?
Well, no, you wouldn't do it after it's in the bottle. It's
it would be impractical. But it's it's somewhere in the
process. Maybe during the I don't know where it's used in
the process. I did probably just before it's been put in the
barrel. That would be my guess, I don't know.
And this is with premium wines with like stuff.
Controversies, they says with under $20 wines and make them
better.
I'd call that premium. That's not Yeah, you would
20. Man, screw top.
But generally speaking, it's believed that the under $20
winds have it and of course, the cheaper ones would too. And the
but you don't know that the over 20 bucks guys aren't using it on
a bad year or whatever. Because there's been an awful lot of
winds over the last five years or longer, that are just way too
dark for their further. They're standing in society as it were.
Theirs are not wines that should be dark. There's just not not,
but that's determined by the colour of the grape. No.
Yeah, it was it. The colours are extracted from the skins in the
fermentation process. The, you know, alcohol for one thing's a
solvent, and it helps extract some of these colours. But
what's the point if you can just dump this stuff in? And anyway,
it's a big scandal. Nobody knows what to do about I run into
these wines. every once awhile. I'm thinking if I could come up
with a test, but unfortunately, the product if it's made from
grape skins to begin with, there's nothing to test for.
Yeah, so there's no extra chemical or additive that you
can do that just basically taking dark grape juice fanatic,
you know, they're doing what Patricia is doing. They're just
adding grape juice.
She should get into business. I'm telling
you, she's got an idea there. She really does wait and wait
until I lay those cartons on her man. She's gonna love that. I'm
telling you. She's gonna. And she's gonna love the sensory
straw.
Well, you know, that could be she could do some ads for him.
Yeah, right. Right. Move a lot of product in Holland. Wow,
that's a market for you. Well, you know, its market.
You know, a lot of the I've been reading about the talking about
the chemicals that pharmaceuticals now all these
patents are running out all these drugs and trying to figure
out how they're gonna make money. We've been following
that. Yeah.
You know how the United does not they're trying to figure out how
not to how they make money. They're trying to figure out how
to continue to gouge the public. Yeah, that's
what that was. That's what
you're worried about. Right?
Exactly how to go to the but Well, the same thing with with
copyrights. That whole discussion is cranking up in the
UK, again, where the copyrights are 50 years still, what is it
in the States 100 and 190 years now? What is Disney push
it up to actually if you it's 500 years after you die? 500
years now you're kidding. It's like 95 years, isn't it?
Something like that? Yeah, it's
like 100 or 150 There's some ridiculous thing they stinkers I
think it's like 75 years after you die, but you could die when
you're 75. So the thing you'd be in copyright for 150 years, I
think is about what it runs. And the
I and the irony of this is all of this copyright stuff in the
states that was pushed forward by Sonny Bono shares ex husband
and he was mayor of Palm
Springs. He was a congressman for a while
he's also a congressman and the irony of course is he hit a tree
while skiing and died. You know, because he was out there getting
copyrights lengthened to pass. No,
there is a joke that I mean, that's not it, but that's not
me. There's a joke from the tree, which was just gonna be
used to make paper. You know, I don't know. But anyway, so I Get
from skiing
to Cliff. Richard is pitching about it again, because you
know, he's actually old enough that his first big hits are now
going into public domain. And he's, he's unhappy about it.
He's saying, you know, he makes no money. And
it's interesting. It makes no money. Hmm.
Well, not well off of the royalties now.
For the owner, what? What difference does it make if it
goes in the public domain if you're not making any money off
of it anyway? Well,
I mean, not any money, not any significant money. But you know,
I'm sure it's some.
Well, I'm a big fan of the public domain, because it's one
way for example, if you're taking art history, you know,
you have to you can't even do an art history book nowadays, and
use any of the Picasso images because they're all copyrighted.
And so this was a teach. I teach art history that's showing
Picasso.
Well, that wasn't allowed. Sorry, I thought that wasn't
allowed. I thought that way that Picasso, of course, isn't a
grand master, oh, wow, really, you can't do that anymore.
The grandmasters are all way past 150 year point. I mean, no,
you can't win. I mean, you. I mean, people do it. But the
point is, is that it's actually sketchy to be like, if I re I
couldn't do a book on Picasso, that's for sure, without getting
permission from the estate. And I'd have to get permission for
each and every individual image. In an art history book, you
could probably get away with a few using a few images as fair
use. And they're not going to do too much about it. But if you
did a whole chapter on him, and you were just pounding these
Picasso images on, especially if they were, you know, good sized,
you could get you in trouble. And it's ridiculous. I mean,
Picasso has been dead for god knows what difference does it
make to him,
even I'll take it even further, I have a book called The History
of Modern Art, and I'm sure you can get it somewhere online. And
it's a book that shows I was turned on to a by an art dealer,
a book that shows Picasso's paintings, and then shows
pictures, photographs of his workshop. And you'll see African
artefacts like vases and statues. And you'll see that he
literally copied the African art. And, you know, we've got he
abstracted it into his Picasso style. But he literally copied
the designs of African art. And those were his paintings. And
you can see them one for one next to each other. You see his
workshop, you see the statue, you see the picture of the crazy
looking lady with a long neck, you know? So it's so there's all
I mean, that's, and by the way, I'm totally okay with that.
That's how art is supposed to work. But you build on other
stuff, and you copy and you steal, and you emulate and you
aspire,
yeah, it's our perspective became, you know, a big deal. I
mean, it's, it's, it's like anything else, it's fashionable.
And artists, you know, see what other artists do and they study
and then they do try to do it better.
Now, you can even reproduce pictures of Picasso, that's
pretty amazing.
Well, exactly, in fact, all the artists from about from 1924 on,
because that's where I think the number is right now for most
copyright stuff, even though there's this, you know, you have
to be dead 75 years thing. But the, for the most part, most of
the art that you can copy put on, you know, use for calendars,
and just grab and use or use for decoration has to be pretty 1924
Minimally, which means that everything is Impressionism. So
the only kind of art that anybody knows in the United
States, because we don't get confronted with too much of the
other stuff, because it was just so sketchy, and how can we can
reproduce it without, you know, going through permissions
places, and there's a couple, luckily, there's at least at
least, that's consolidated into one or two groups. But the fact
is, is not cheap, they're not going to give you the licence
for nothing. And so it's like, Well, should I do that it's
gonna cost me an extra 250 bucks, if I do it this way. Or
if I do this with free, I'll go with the free thing and say, 50
bucks, and you end up you know, just promoting continuing to
continuing to promote Van Gogh and Monet, you know, we're the
safest guide you can promote. And so,
there's a story, there's a story over here that hit my radar a
couple of times, mainly because the woman in the painting is
British. And it's, this was a fascinating story a couple of
weeks ago, Lucien Freud is, is a painter, and has this most
recent painting. He's 85 years old, sold for $33 million. The
guy still alive, is basically a really it's not even Rubenesque
it's like a fat lady naked, lying on a couch $33.6 million
dollars. And the guy's allies. This
was the artist Lucien Freud. Hmm, sounds like a Butano style.
So Skype is pretty good money if you can get it
but but isn't that amazing? Here's a guy who's actually
alive.
Yeah, well, it's good for him. That 85 I don't know what he's
gonna do with the money but whatever. What
is that about though? Why all of a sudden does a painting like
that, you know, go into the stratosphere in you know, which
is close to Picasso prices.
Why does that leave you? There's
that's baffling to me. I mean, it doesn't sound right. That's
an awful lot of money to spend for a contemporary piece of art.
Well, that's
why it was in the news, obviously,
ya know, send me a link you just gave to one. Yeah. Well, I'll
just check that out and see what's what
it's just gobsmacked is what I am. gobsmacked. But that's
aspirational man,
that that picture is terrible that I wouldn't you couldn't put
that in the wall, it would be you'd be so grossed out by it.
That's what I'm trying to figure out one breast.
And this is a British British woman. It's a British woman. And
she's been done a couple interviews because obviously
this painting sells for 33 million. That's pretty
interesting that it's of her
33 million. The name
of the name of this piece is benefit supervisor sleeping.
I think she wasn't benefit supervisor.
It's like, people have to check this I'm gonna have to blog and
dip you're gonna have to go look it up. Always look, here's my
opportunity to say of course, you will find a link in our
extended show notes which are maintained by the expert. Hand
of Bubba Martin.
Yeah, Bubba, we'll put a link in there to this thing. Yeah.
That's just shows up on both Adams site in the cage match
Devora site.
But isn't that extraordinary that that's happening. I mean,
that that's inspirational. That means any kid who actually you
know, hears about this story, of course, it's highly
underreported. It's like, hey, wait a minute, you know, I could
be a lot of things. I could actually be a painter who makes
good money on painting fat chicks?
Well, you know, the thing was, is that the the Lucian Freud is
a good example of an artist who you don't get to see his stuff
much because it's all covered by copyrights. And so you just
won't get in a lot of books and won't get in too many classes. I
mean, you have to go if you're teaching art history, you have
to go sneak a camera in or buy some slides from the museum.
It's the whole thing is ridiculous. But you know, I
understand it. It's important in the early going of work when it
becomes popular, but I don't know. I have mixed feelings
about the whole thing. I'm on Larry Lessig site we're gonna
get Larry Lessig on cranky geeks and we're going to talk about
this issue about the art issue. Now about the about the orphan
no copyright works, and about copyright in general, because I
don't think people really understand what a screw to how
screwed up it got. And of course, they blame the internet
for everything but yeah,
it's not it's Disney, Disney Disney Disney greed. It's that
frickin mouse. That's exactly what it is. But I'm sure other
people would have would have wanted to go this route. It's
not just Disney. You know, everyone sees that. Okay. Hey,
wait a minute. Like Cliff Richard. You know, because
frickin Cliff Richard and the guys up in arms, you know, I can
understand where he's coming from. But at a certain point,
you know, when are you going to do something that's good for the
rest of the world good for society. I think it's important
good for culture.
That illusia
knob as I'm reading this piece, this is in the 1980s This guy's
paintings very frequently sold. They couldn't even sell them at
auction. No, of course
not. I just don't understand what's the trigger? What
happened? What happened at this guy all of a sudden, there was a
big story in Holland the other day
to do a deal with a way let's stop for a second because people
would they're gonna have to definitely check this out.
Because it's like, what is even remotely appealing about this
picture is not like a modern piece. It's a it's just a
very old lady.
It's horrible. It's a big fat lady. Naked. Can I
just say one thing? Can I just say John, please? Beauty is in
the eye of the beholder. Okay,
so there are a lot of fat besides beside the point that's
not but fat does
not equal horrible. She you know, look at yourself, man. But
a lot of people hate this fat as she is. Well, I don't know. I
haven't seen any naked on the couch. You'll get lucky next
time. You never will. By the way I get some of that grape juice.
Wine and sucking through a straw and I'll have you out of your
clothes.
If you were this woman. I mean, it's not an attractive picture.
Let's put it that way. It's not flattering.
Just because you're not into it. But a lot of people are into
this now. Seriously, a lot of clearly a lot of people with a
lot of money are into this. Brother. Okay. Can I just being
fair? I mean, I'm not I'm not grossed out by it. I'm just
like, Okay, well I'm not grossed
out by it's a painting for God's sake. But the point is is just
like 33 point 6 million? I don't think so. But what do I know
obviously?
I don't know. Patricia might know.
Come over here for what this painting you saw this painting
of the the fat the fat lady. This one here. You see you saw
that rats paper? Not Dutch. Paper? No, no, I
think you don't know the story, okay?
To ask her what she thinks of it,
what do you think of that? How much would you pay for that
painting? You know, I've seen, come over here, come over to the
microphone, and I know how much would you pay for the talk in
the microphone? How much would you pay for that painting? And
maybe 5000 5000 5000. But I know they paid a lot of money. $33
million. Do you know why?
Because nobody knows why. Nobody knows. 5000 seems a little high.
Anyway, okay, well, we won't go into it. I'm gonna get a bunch
of nasty notes from everyone who's fat put on five pounds.
But
just saying I'm just saying there could be people who
actually adore that.
Yeah, whatever. So I don't know. I guess we can leaves in the
show on this baffling note.
Like, the world has gone crazy. We're going to hell in a
handbasket. I tell you.
So I'll just send that link to Baba and people can talk about
it amongst themselves.
They'll have to do something.
Anyway, okay, so I
totally felt the show had absolutely no direction.
No, it was classic.
This was the most no agenda we've ever had.
It just went and wondered. But he got it. He had his moments it
had its highs and lows. But you're right we were completely
it wasn't there's no theme so it's gonna be vital this one.
Well, let's do the title now.
Let's see
what we do at fast. fat ladies. Not until something that's fat
lady sings that would be right.
The I don't know. Why don't we just call it named after this
painting, which was the sleeping what was it benefit supervisor.
That's great to see is that what it's called?
And it fits supervisors sleeping. Yeah.
Okay. That's it. Benefits supervisors sleeping. That is
the now the title of the show. Excellent. All right, everybody.
Coming to you from the curry men are in Guilford in the United
Kingdom. My name is Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak here in Blustery and slightly wet,
Northern California.
And we'll talk again next week right here on no agenda.