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Feb. 22, 2008 - No Agenda

01:15:27

18: Volvo's Are Sexy

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Time	Text
	It's the end of the week, and once again it's time for those two single guys to hang out and talk together.
	Their relationship is completely platonic, however, they do have their own favorite restaurant that they call their place.
	It's no commercials, no music, no jingles, and absolutely no agenda overlooking the bay at the Curry Condo.
	I'm Adam Curry.
	And I'm on the other side of the bay in the cheap seats.
	I'm John C. Dvorak.
	Hey Johnny, how you doing baby?
	Yeah, there's that voice that Calacanis likes.
	I've got to watch that.
	It's getting too much of a habit.
	Hey, man.
	Good to talk to you.
	Not like we haven't been talking all week, but at least now.
	And isn't it crazy that we've seen each other at least, what is it, three times this week?
	Well, I see you every day.
	You're always roaming around.
	Yeah, but we've had dinner.
	We hang out in the stairwell together.
	Whatever that means.
	And then...
	And then we sit down to do the show and we go to our own individual homes.
	There's something really weird about that, isn't it?
	It's crazy.
	So the funniest people out there should know that if you're working at this pod show company, the way you have meetings with Adam Curry is that Adam apparently has been unable to break the habit of imbibing in cigarettes.
	Well, it's not cigarettes.
	It's roll my own tobacco.
	It's a little different.
	Yeah, he rolls his own tobacco, which is old school.
	My grandfather used to do that with Bull Durham.
	And I think my dad even did for a while.
	But whatever the case is, it's the kind of roll your own.
	But since there's no smoking environment, he goes into the stairwell...
	And so he smokes that in there.
	So if you want to have a meeting with him, you can go in there because there's, you know, nobody knows.
	You know, it's just like the stairwell.
	It's actually quite interesting.
	It's nice, though, because you get my undivided attention, don't you?
	You get undivided attention, A. And it's also actually not a bad place to have a meeting, except for the fact the stairwell's probably miked.
	I've gotten so much grief.
	A, first of all, smoking there, because we're on the second floor, so there's two more floors below us, and they don't like the smell, and they don't like the noise, and I completely ignore their complaints.
	They had some of those...
	Bubble wrap.
	Yeah, but it wasn't the little bubble.
	It was those big giant ones, like giant pillows.
	And I love those things.
	I get them all the time.
	And if you jump on one of them, it sounds like a shotgun blast.
	It wasn't a shotgun blast, but it was pretty damn loud.
	When's the last time you pulled the trigger on a shotgun, man?
	That's a lot louder than that.
	I pulled the trigger on a shotgun recently.
	Yeah, really?
	Yeah, no, but you always have the headphones on.
	Oh, right, right, right.
	Where do you go shooting?
	Last time I went shooting was down, there's a shooting place down south of Los Gatos.
	It's kind of a high-end place I went shooting with somebody, who had a great collection.
	There's these people that don't even like to talk about it, but there's a lot of these gun guys in Silicon Valley that have these, and they got the money.
	So they have these collections of some amazing firearms that are extremely expensive.
	Oh yeah, like anywhere between $20,000 and $200,000.
	Unbelievable.
	I don't remember anything quite that high, but there were some 45s that were just, I looked them up afterwards, extremely expensive.
	You got any of your own hardware?
	Also, you know, I shot a Kasul.
	I think it's a Kasul or Masul.
	There were two really powerful guns.
	One was the most powerful handgun in the world that could blow your head clean off, but it wasn't a.44 Magnum.
	It was this other thing called a Kasul.
	It's called a fireball.
	Who makes it?
	And it's extremely amazing to shoot.
	It also makes a big fireball out the front.
	That's for shooting bearers.
	Who makes it?
	Do you know?
	Sorry?
	Who makes it?
	It's a Russian product.
	I don't know who makes it.
	I'd have to look it up.
	I'm getting caught off guard here.
	It's okay.
	Anybody out there who knows about guns knows about this thing.
	And then there was...
	It seems to be on the edge of...
	It was designed to be on the edge of either firing this big bullet at high velocities or blowing up the gun and killing you at the same time.
	Oh, that's nice.
	Spread at the edge of that possibility.
	Okay.
	And then I shot an elephant gun.
	Holy shit, that must have set you back.
	It was funny, because when you shoot it, you put a big pad on, because this thing has got a huge...
	On your shoulder, absolutely, yeah.
	Yeah, you put this huge thing on, and then you shoot the thing, and if you can manage to stand up, you're a lucky camper.
	Oh shit, who's calling you now?
	Don't they know we're doing no agenda?
	Don't they know it's Friday?
	Yeah.
	If it's your wife, then pick it up.
	It's okay.
	If it's not, meanwhile, we'll just play a little bit of hold music while John is checking out who's on.
	All right.
	Maybe I'll cut that out maybe.
	I'm back.
	Oh, okay.
	I'm sorry.
	So anyway, you can cut that out if you can, but you don't have to.
	I'm not going to cut anything out.
	That's work.
	Are you crazy?
	Okay.
	So anyway, so I shot this thing, and I actually hit the target.
	And the guy says, believe me, which wasn't an easy thing to do, because to hold this thing steady, because it weighs like 100 pounds.
	You know, you're holding it, and you're just kind of hoping that as you pass across the target with the muzzle that you might get lucky and hit the target, which is like...
	When I went to Iraq, I don't know if I ever told you this story.
	We were there for a whole week, or actually 10 days, and the day before we were supposed to leave, the Dutch Marines who had been with...
	Of course, you're in the desert, so there's a brotherly thing that happens, obviously, when you're in that situation.
	And I said, alright guys, today, final day, we're going to go do something special.
	And they had two Land Rovers, and one of the Land Rovers had a little cart behind it, a little trailer.
	and they took us into, not far from the base camp actually, into the desert.
	And it turned out they took us to their practice shooting range.
	They took the tarp off of this trailer.
	John, there were like 20 AKs in there.
	There were tech nines.
	Oh, nice.
	Hand grenades.
	And I was amazed how hard it is to hit something with a machine gun.
	It's really difficult.
	So basically, what they do is they put spoiled water in water bottles.
	They line those up.
	And first you try it in single shot mode.
	I'm a pretty good shot, actually.
	Single shot mode, I'm good, and I can hit some stuff.
	And then it's like, okay, that was fun.
	Now squeeze this fucker off, empty it.
	And I'm like, and I didn't hit anything.
	It's really hard to aim with a machine gun.
	It's not easy.
	I shot a Mac.
	A friend of mine has a collection of gangster guns, and he had a Mac-10, which is that crazy little thing.
	It's got no targeting on it or anything, and it just spits bullets every which way.
	It's the worst dog of a gun.
	I mean, it's just the stupidest thing.
	It's kind of fun to shoot.
	But anyway, back to my elephant gun.
	So I shoot this elephant gun, right?
	So bang, hit the start.
	Padding and all the rest of it.
	The next day, my entire chest was one huge bruise.
	Yeah, oh yeah.
	And that was through the padding.
	I mean, it was just like I get out of bed, taking a shower, look in the mirror and go, holy crap, my old right side of my body is a big giant bruise from this thing.
	I got to tell you, I own a couple of guns, but they're mainly collector's items.
	Although I have a side-by-side 20-gauge, which has been in the family for a long time, and I have shot that, and I still have ammo for it.
	But I've been lucky enough to go out with a couple of folks in England, which of course, quintessential hunting, right?
	These guys really know.
	I mean, you've got gun clubs that are just unbelievable.
	And the way they treat these shotguns, it's like, here's my baby.
	And you don't want to put your finger on anything but exactly here's where you hold it because you could ruin some of the beautiful detailing on the side of it.
	Yeah.
	It's a great experience, but I have to admit, after only an hour of shooting, I was hurting.
	I was really, really hurting on my shoulder.
	And same thing, not as bad as the elephant gun, I'm sure, but you wake up and you definitely have a bruise.
	Yeah, it's one of those things, they have kicks, a lot of them.
	Some of them, if you hold a shotgun right, you shouldn't really get too beat up by it.
	Anyway, so what else is going on this week?
	Well, we had a...
	Let me think.
	Well, we actually had a quick chat in the stairwell today, and it was like, oh, we've got to talk about this, talk about that, and let me see, you lost the notes?
	Am I correct?
	Yeah, and I'll come up with them, and of course, they'll be meaningless in about two or three more days.
	No, I remember what we were talking about.
	We were talking about...
	Wait, stop, stop.
	Let's stop everything.
	I know exactly what we should talk about.
	Your last entry into the United States through customs.
	Oh, yes.
	Oh, okay.
	Good.
	Yeah.
	Well, it was new this time.
	And I did talk about it briefly on the Daily Source Code, but I didn't get into everything.
	So, here I am.
	I go, you know, deplane.
	I line up.
	And it's funny because I avoided the woman, as you suggested.
	There was a woman, a female Customs Border Patrol agent.
	I avoided her.
	And unfortunately, the one that opened up looked like a really cranky guy.
	So, I walked up to him and said, Hey, how are you doing?
	Good afternoon.
	Yeah, good afternoon.
	Top of the morning, Gov.
	Top of the morning.
	How you doing?
	They always say, how long are you going to be here?
	Then I put down my passport.
	He sees that I'm American.
	He goes to the computer.
	Once again, that bewildered look and the tap, tap, tap, tap.
	This guy did something different.
	He picked up the phone.
	And he called someone.
	And this other guy came over.
	And now two of them are in this little cubicle looking at the screen.
	And gosh, it's so annoying that you can't see what's happening on the screen because they have those anti-glare filters.
	And then the other agent says, baggage check.
	And so the guy writes down BG on my customs form.
	And then he crosses it out by his own accord.
	The other guy left and he puts an M on it.
	And I know what that is, by the way.
	I'll get to that in a second.
	So, of course, go get my bag, and then I walk up to the officer, and I said, I think I'm good for a secondary.
	I got another upside W, I actually said, seeing if I could get a reaction if it was supposed to be a W or an M. And I said, shall I just go over to the C area?
	Because I know the whole drill now.
	He's like, hey, does this happen often?
	This is before I get to the secondary screening.
	I said, yeah, this is like the eighth time.
	He says, you know, maybe your passport number is similar to something else.
	That's what it could be.
	You should ask the officer.
	So, Officer Okada.
	I think he might have been Hawaiian, maybe.
	He looked like he might have been from Hawaii.
	Yeah.
	And he was kind of slow and was asking me questions.
	And he was going, hmm, hmm.
	And he started asking an array of really interesting questions.
	And he said, well, I'm really friendly.
	I'm telling him about how this has happened before.
	And he said, oh, wait a minute.
	I can't log in on this machine.
	We can't actually log in ourselves.
	Please come over to this side where the other guy was still logged in or something.
	Really unprofessional stuff.
	And he says, hmm, okay, do you have any other ID on you?
	And I go through the whole thing again and say, well, you're going to ask for a business card.
	Here's my business card.
	Do you have another picture ID? I said, no, all I got is my Dutch driver's license, which works all over the world.
	And he said, hmm, yeah, do you have a California driver's license?
	No, I don't.
	Any other picture ID? No.
	No, but here's my pilot's license.
	I love pulling that one out.
	I love doing that.
	I wonder if a Costco card would count.
	Hmm.
	Does it have a picture on it?
	Yeah.
	Oh, really?
	I gotta get one.
	I gotta get a Costco card.
	And he says, have you ever been to Nebraska?
	Now, this is the first time I've got a question like this, right?
	That's wild.
	Yeah, I'm like, no.
	Do you know Laura Rand, who has a private aircraft?
	I'm like, I don't think so.
	Actually, I was a little stupider than that.
	I said, well, you know, I fly myself, so maybe I've met her.
	Maybe I met her in the bar.
	Yeah, in jail.
	And he was actually quite friendly.
	And it's funny because as he's tapping around on this thing, he started telling his own life story to me, which I found pretty incredible.
	He says, you know, I got into this a couple of years ago because I used to work for Honda USA and I found out that the management was skimping on security measures to save money and I was I was a whistleblower, and I always wanted to be in law enforcement.
	I'm like, all he needs now is a big bunch of keys.
	It's like, this is the perfect guy for this job.
	And I said, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me a little bit about what's going on, because not knowing what's happening is pretty much the worst thing.
	He said, well, you've got to match.
	And of course, now I know that's what the M stands for.
	And I said, well, what do you mean?
	He says, well, we are looking for someone who has, and it goes in this order.
	He says it goes last name, first name, birth date.
	He says we get three matches.
	We get Curry, Adam, and then your birth date or something very close to it.
	And I said, well, I don't know what to tell you, man, but every single time I'm let through, and he says, well, let me go check with the TL. And I'm like, oh, you must meet the team leader.
	He says, yeah, yeah.
	So the team leader is the only one, apparently, who can log in deeper into the system.
	And he says, oh, yeah, there's all kinds of notes about you and all kinds of entries.
	I said, yeah, well, clearly, you're just matching very close to someone that we're looking for.
	Let me stop you here.
	So in other words, what you're saying is that, because you never mentioned this part, TL is a code word that you could probably throw at people, like for anyone trying to get hassled, can I talk to the TL? Exactly.
	In fact, he suggested, he said next time this happens, when you walk up to the first agent, just ask for a TL. And the TL can go right into the screen and we'll see all of this information.
	So that's actually a really good thing.
	But what is disconcerting is that there's apparently an Adam Curry out there who they're looking for.
	And actually, a number of listeners to the Daily Source Code have done some searches and they've come up with...
	There's one guy who's at adamcurry.net and no one really thinks he's the right guy.
	But there's another one that's a closed off MySpace page.
	Meaning you have to befriend the guy first and he has to befriend you.
	And it's a scary, goatee-wearing, crazy-looking guy.
	And he's from Nebraska.
	Yes, he's from Nebraska.
	Is he your age, though?
	Is he older?
	No, he's 23.
	Now, that's what's kind of freaky.
	Now, 23, 43, remember, it still both ends with a 3.
	Of course, I look 23, so you can only imagine that that's...
	There's some confusion there.
	Now, this whole ordeal, John, took an hour and a half, the longest I've ever been there.
	This guy was also just really, really slow.
	So, I guess the next time I come in, I'll just try the TL thing, if I can talk to the team leader.
	But in the meantime, I'm going on a quest.
	I've got to find out who this Adam Curry guy is in Nebraska.
	It's bugging me.
	Yeah, I would think.
	Interesting.
	Well, is it...
	At least they didn't shoot you.
	No, they're not going to shoot me.
	But I did have...
	I was glad that they didn't open up my bag.
	Because I know that Patricia, my wife, I love her so much.
	She had done something I always tell her not to do.
	She had put a whole bunch of food in my bag, like cheese and stuff.
	All the stuff you're not allowed to take into the country.
	Oh, that's funny.
	Yeah, they didn't open it up, though.
	So I've been enjoying some nice Gouda cheese here during my stay.
	You know, we do have Gouda cheese here in the Bay Area we can get.
	You know what, John?
	The way you are with wine, I am with cheese.
	I am, I have to say, a cheese expert.
	Well, it could be.
	Where do you get your cheese in England?
	Well, sometimes we're lucky and we can find it at Sainsbury's.
	We've done a lot of experimentation because we're really into the aged Dutch Gouda.
	So not the really, really old age stuff, but you have to have like medium matured.
	And sometimes you can find a cheddar that comes kind of close.
	But by and large, there it is.
	By and large.
	Hold on a second.
	Let me leave the date.
	Okay.
	Go on.
	Of when I said it?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	By and large, Marks and Sparks, Marks and Spencer, will have something pretty good.
	What about Harrods?
	Don't they?
	Last time I was there, they had this huge.
	They do.
	They have like a room of cheese.
	Yeah, they do.
	And we've done some cheese tastings there, because they'll do that for you.
	Let me have a little bit of that.
	Let me try some of that.
	We've gotten some fantastic Gouda from Harrods.
	But Harrods is in the city, and we're...
	We just live in Guilford.
	And we are big consumers of cheese.
	We still have, from Christmas, my sister Willow in Italy gave us this huge chunk of Parmesan cheese, which is, oh man.
	Great Parmesan from Italy, bought in Italy, where you can't have that stuff.
	People don't realize when you go to a deli in Italy, the whole place will be filled with giant things of Parmesan.
	And there will be like a hundred different versions of it.
	I mean, it's different vendors.
	And what you do is it's so good, you just wind up like, what can we make tonight that we can put Parmesan on?
	And I find myself actually breaking off a hunk and just eating it.
	It's so good.
	Yeah, I've done the same thing.
	Actually, that type of Parmesan, that really good, excellent Parmesan, I don't...
	I don't think I've ever had it in this country.
	I just don't think they bring it in.
	I don't think you can get it.
	It has to almost grow and mature in Italy, otherwise it just doesn't work.
	There's something about it.
	It's like great mozzarella is the same thing.
	I find great mozzarella in Italy.
	Well, actually, there was a small place in New Jersey run by Italians, of course, that came pretty close.
	There's a Texas, of all places, in Dallas, Texas, there's a place that makes cheeses outside of that little, that funky little area.
	I can't think of the name of it.
	Deep Ellen.
	It's in the Deep Ellen area, and there's a cheesemaker in there.
	Then they make a buffalo mozzarella, the real stuff from water buffalo milk.
	And it's absolutely one of the best cheeses I've ever had in the country.
	But, yeah, it's hard to come by.
	But now we're talking about food.
	I might as well bring up this.
	Have you noticed, and I was just, I don't know why this came to mind, but it did.
	Oh, why it came to mind, because I'd made some tea earlier, and then I was drinking it after I put the milk, and then the bags were in there, and I'm like, oh, yuck, you know, I took the bags out with the...
	When I was at the London Book Fair, it was a number of years ago, it was the first time I saw this, and then I was hanging out with some Brits that were working for Tech TV, and I saw it again, which is the...
	The making of tea, where the milk is in the cup, the tea bag's put in, and then the hot water's put on top of that with the milk already in it.
	Well, actually, the way you're supposed to do it, I've been told, is you first put the sugar in, then you put the teabag in, then you put the milk in, and then you pour on the water.
	That's the way I've been told.
	This is not the right...
	There's no way that that could be an appropriate way to make tea.
	It never will brew right.
	Well, it's not the way I like to make tea, but I have heard that you certainly need to put sugar first, then milk.
	Maybe you can pour the brewed tea over there.
	That's beside the point.
	Once that oil of the milk is inside the tea, you can't get penetration.
	You can't get the kind of extract that you would get.
	What I'm saying is that oily coating on top of those tea leaves has got to prevent the proper extraction of the tea elements with the boiling water.
	It just doesn't make any sense that you would do this.
	I've never seen it before until recently.
	I was told it had something to do with the acidic quality of something.
	I don't exactly remember what it was.
	Somebody's going to have to give us a lowdown on this.
	A real lowdown, yeah.
	It's only recent that I've ever seen this.
	I've been going to England for 30 years, and it's not like I've ever seen this before.
	Now I'm seeing it, and I have to say this.
	I'm not seeing it being done by anyone over the age of 30.
	I'll say one thing that really bugs the hell out of me.
	Americans who walk around the office with a huge oversized mug of tea with a tea bag hanging out, that pisses me off.
	Because it's lame.
	It's lame.
	You don't leave your teabag in.
	And you'll see women doing it more than men, actually.
	And it's kind of like this.
	It's almost like a yuppie thing.
	But it is so incredibly lame.
	How can you walk around with a teabag still in it while you're drinking it?
	Like it's supposed to get better as you get to the bottom?
	It makes no sense to me why people do this.
	You've never seen that?
	No, well, I mean, I'm sure I may have, but I haven't really noticed it, and I've not been as annoyed as you are.
	Big annoyance.
	I don't think it's any worse than the guy with the big giant oversized mug of coffee just standing around going, yeah, yeah.
	How about those TL reports?
	By the way, I'm drinking some Yorkshire, I'm sorry, Sainsbury's Red Label that you recommended.
	Patricia gave me a whole bag.
	I didn't recommend it as anything good, I just recommended it as a good.
	It's not bad.
	It's not bad.
	I'm liking it.
	A lot of people do like it.
	I've had it numerous times.
	I was going to mooch some from you so I could remind myself.
	I'll bring some in Monday.
	I switched over to the PG Tips gold.
	You should have told me.
	I have a whole bunch.
	I'll bring some in Monday for you.
	Okay, well I'll be back on Tuesday and you won't be there.
	No, I'm going to be in LA on Tuesday.
	I'll be in Wednesday.
	Wednesday I'll bring it in.
	But anyway, the point is that I've really pretty much switched over to PG Tips Gold, which is their extra 50 cents.
	Now that you had a chance to see it, John, what do you think of my new setup that I've been harping on and I'm so proud of?
	I showed it to you today at the office.
	Have you talked about this on the Daily Source Code?
	Well, yeah, to a certain extent, but I don't want to bore people with the technicalities of it, so I thought maybe it would be fun if you could just tell people your impression.
	You said something pretty funny today about it.
	Yeah, with what Adam's done, even though we're to the eavesdroppers out there who really care, I don't know how many there are.
	Someone cares.
	He's managed to put a number of software packages in a linked manner that turns his Apple Macintosh.
	Everyone would say, well, I've seen a million ways you can do that.
	You can get Cakewalk, you can do this, you can do that.
	I have never seen anything quite as spectacular as this lash-up, which includes a little piece of hardware that you got from some German company.
	Which is a unique device, to say the least.
	And you're also using software that not a lot of people are aware of, which is also German.
	Almost everything you've got is German.
	And then you've managed to hook it all together in some virtual sense.
	And it's a phenomenal...
	Flash-up may be the best I've ever seen for a portable lash-up.
	I mean, it's beyond anything commercially available.
	It's amazing.
	What was funny, what you said today when I was showing it to you, because essentially the big deal about this is now I have a tactile control over the software because I'm using the FaderFox external MIDI controller.
	So I have real faders, and they don't do anything.
	They don't control any actual volume other than controlling the software that controls volume.
	So I have these faders that go up and down.
	And I have a crossfader, which allows me to, with my thumb, kind of switch between views so I can go to a cart deck, if you will, so I can fire off different audio files.
	And you said all you need now is the cymbals between your knees, like a one-man band.
	I've got the drum pumping on my foot.
	I've got the cymbals between my knees.
	And it's true.
	It is.
	But it's working.
	And I've been doing these live shows, which to some degree, it all depends on how good the content is.
	obviously, but the ability to just bring someone live it is exactly what I've always wanted.
	I have a radio studio in one box on my computer.
	It has taken me years to get this far.
	Yeah, you claim that it took you three years to put this together.
	Well, and it's not just understanding how to put it together, but it's really been a combination of the hardware and the software all coming together in this wonderful Nexus.
	And it's just barely making it.
	You know, the processor is really taxed.
	I don't know.
	when I speak, I'm hearing my voice slightly delayed in my headphones, but I am hearing the full output signal, including all the processing, so I know what people are going to hear when they listen to it at home.
	And that, of course, because what people don't realize is, and I think in podcasting people don't realize this, that there's more to it than just, "Okay, I got a microphone, I can play something." It's that mix.
	I'm literally creating an end mix while I'm doing all of this.
	And that's what I've done all my life.
	I want to create this one sound of everything that all kind of flows together.
	And you have to be able to manipulate the levels.
	Even it's minute, but still those levels are very important.
	Yeah, no, I think you nailed it.
	I mean, not only that, but listening to just you, you know, running through it.
	It has a slick, professional studio sound that indicates you've got two or three engineers working on it.
	I mean, it's just amazing, I have to say.
	So, we're going to patent it.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	It's a patentable thing, I think, because I sent you an email.
	I don't know if you got it.
	Yeah, I did.
	What was it about something else?
	About some crackpot patent somebody sent us a note on.
	Yeah.
	And as soon as I saw that, I said, oh, that's unbelievable.
	We're going to patent everything.
	We might as well.
	We could be rich from this show, John.
	All we have to do is patent the process.
	It's doable.
	Yeah.
	If there's something unique about it, it hasn't been done before.
	So have you done anything else this week outside of...
	You've been in the office a lot, actually.
	Is that just to please me?
	Yeah.
	No, I don't go in the office ever.
	Only when I'm in town?
	I go in the office.
	I go in the office because we're trying to get some stuff done.
	Yeah.
	And...
	I can actually sometimes get more work done in the office, but the problem with that office is it's noisy.
	And when the programmers in the afternoon, for some reason, about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, they start getting boisterous.
	It's really weird.
	Good word, boisterous.
	Today it wasn't the case.
	I don't know where they were.
	But these programmers are extremely noisy, and they start yucking it up, and they make a lot of racket.
	Yeah, but they're having a good time.
	They seem to be, yeah.
	Maybe they should be programming more and having less of a good time.
	Yeah.
	What am I saying?
	Oh, you know what?
	Luckily only one programmer in that place listens to this show.
	It's too bad that you weren't in the office this afternoon because there was an amazing guy.
	His name is Steve Spinner.
	his name.
	He's been around the Valley for a long time.
	I think his wife is a partner at one of the big law firms here in the Valley.
	And Ron knows him.
	He's had dinner with him a couple of times.
	He's affiliated with Kleiner Perkins, et cetera.
	But he's been working in the Obama camp.
	In fact, I think that he...
	I don't know the exact number, but I think he's responsible for raising several million dollars worth for this campaign.
	And I said, oh, you're a bundler.
	He said, oh, God, you know the word.
	I hate that word so much.
	What does he mean?
	A bundler...
	The maximum amount you can donate to a campaign, in fact, is $2,300.
	You can do it if someone's running...
	I'm not quite sure what the rules are, but the maximum, I guess, is $4,600 in Obama's case because you can donate to the primary and whatever.
	So there's a limit to it.
	So when you hear someone say, you know, the fundraiser raised a million dollars, what that means is someone stood at the door...
	And took $2,300 checks from each individual that came in.
	Because legally, you just can't give out any more money.
	And so that's called bundling.
	And then you hand off this bundle of checks.
	So if you get 1,000 of them, then you have $2.3 million.
	And that's how this money is raised.
	It's not like some person can write a million-dollar check.
	Which I think, by the way, a lot of people don't know.
	That works that way here in the United States.
	And he had some fascinating, absolutely fascinating stories to tell.
	And I asked him point blank, I said, you know, so are you guys worried about the superdelegates who of course have the opportunity to vote for whichever candidate they want regardless of what took place in the primary?
	He said absolutely not.
	Obama is in.
	It's done.
	He even expects that Hillary will drop out in a week and a half.
	After the Texas-Ohio.
	He says Ohio, he's pretty sure they'll win.
	He says Texas still could be a close call, but he has the feeling that she'll drop out either right before or right after.
	And he was giving me all these quotes from, I don't know if you saw the debate last night.
	Yeah, well I heard, I saw the transcript, I didn't see the debate.
	You really miss a lot of context.
	You know, I agree with that, but I don't have time to watch this crap.
	I mean, my money's on McCain anyway, so why should I care?
	No, hold on a second, because you still wrote down and you predicted that it would be Hillary and she would ask Obama to be VP. Yeah, I'm sticking with that.
	Even though now it's a long shot.
	I think it's a real long shot.
	And I said, so who's going to be Veep?
	And he said, I don't know, we'll probably get some older white guy from the South.
	And I said, how about Ron Paul?
	Well, you never let up.
	I like that.
	Consistency.
	He did not think that was funny, by the way.
	He said, you know Ron Paul's anti-Israel.
	I said, I don't know about that, man.
	I don't think that's true.
	I think that's just that Ron Paul has been besmirched.
	Yeah, well, it was that whole newsletter thing that's been popping up for 10 years, so I didn't get into it with him, but it was pretty awesome.
	He had some really, really good stories, and he said, you know, Clintons, they really...
	Yeah, I wouldn't have been invited to the meeting anyway.
	I didn't miss anything.
	I would have totally introduced you to this guy.
	He's awesome, and he's clearly well-connected.
	Everybody at Kleiner Perkins, a lot of people don't realize these are some of the richest people in the world over there, and for the most part, not all of them, but the most politically active people over there are all Democrats.
	Yeah, except for Ray Lane, who's our major guy at Kleiner Perkins.
	He is a gun-toting, card-carrying Republican for sure.
	Well, he's one of the few.
	I think he's the only one.
	Yeah, no, the rest of them are all big-time Denver.
	You know, a lot of people don't realize they'll say, well, you know, the Republicans represent the rich.
	Most of the super hyper rich people I know are all Democrats.
	And you go to the DuPonts, the Hursts, all these people that have like tons of money are all Democrats.
	And I have my own kind of basic theory about it.
	Let's hear it.
	Well, I don't want to annoy the Democrats, but it's because they want to keep every, because the Democrats are really a status quo company.
	They don't want to bring anybody up and make them rich.
	The Republicans want to make everybody rich.
	The Democrats don't, because the Democrats' real voting base are people with no money.
	That's where they get all their votes from, and they want to keep them there, because if they got money, they're going to switch parties.
	So it's just like a no-win situation.
	That's why I think the party has to be dissolved.
	The Democratic Party?
	Yeah, I think it's over.
	I don't think the party works anymore.
	Well, you know, if Hillary is...
	So, what was he saying?
	I'm trying to think.
	Wait a minute.
	There was...
	Oh, man, I'm trying to think now.
	He said there was something that had never been done before, and if she pulled that trick, it would break up the party.
	It was something about some other type of delegate, not the superdelegate...
	I should have paid more attention.
	He had some other angle that the Clintons could potentially pull to still get the nomination.
	Oh, shoot, man.
	I'm sorry.
	I forget what you're saying.
	Well, you'll find out later.
	We'll talk about it some other time.
	I still think that she has a shot at sneaking out of this thing as a winner.
	Well, if I were her, though...
	Well, I don't know.
	She doesn't have a choice.
	I mean, she's either going to make it this time or she's never going to make it.
	No, but she could just save face and then go back and make New York a great place, you know?
	Stop.
	That was never the idea.
	No, it's not the idea, but I think...
	And they spent like $130 million.
	It's obscene.
	Well, she can't stop now.
	Obscene the amount.
	Well, of course she can stop.
	No.
	No, she's going to have to stick this out.
	You think she's going all the way?
	Wow.
	Well, according to Steve, it was a no-go.
	He said a week and a half and she's out.
	I thought that was very interesting.
	Well, I'm glad that they have hyper-confidence in the whole deal.
	I mean, I'm not taking bets on this, that's for sure.
	I'm taking bets on the overall election, but not about who's going to win this part of it.
	But it would actually surprise me.
	I mean, let's say it this way, I wouldn't be surprised that she somehow, you know, won anyway.
	Well, there is a way for her to do it, apparently.
	So there was still...
	I think the Republicans would rather have Obama running, because I think they can get more goods on him.
	So you don't have to deal with...
	So you think that...
	Well, I was going to say, so if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, and let's say Hillary is not the VP, he gets some old white guy from the South, you still think McCain will win?
	Oh, yeah.
	Really?
	Really?
	I don't think there's even a snowball's chance in hell that he can win.
	He has the personality of a dishrag, man.
	He's bumming me out.
	Who, McCain?
	Yeah.
	There's somebody who's doing an imitation of him.
	Rush Limbaugh's got some guy who ridicules him.
	And the voice is perfect.
	I think it's a voice I could do.
	I'm going to work on it.
	Okay, good, good, good.
	Ooh, that's nice.
	You know, it's better than the other voice that nobody seems to like, at least your fans.
	I will say that, you know, obviously, you know, I'm a constitutionalist and I would love nothing more than someone who would at least attempt...
	To bring back a lot of the concepts of the Constitution.
	But if I had to choose between McCain and Obama, I would much rather go with Obama who has, at least he brings a positive vibe.
	Yeah, right now.
	But six months from now, when they go after him and they start bringing stuff out and the guy starts getting tired, we're going to see a different Obama.
	Yeah.
	But he's a young guy, man, compared to McCain, 73, you know?
	I think he's going to be a better president in 2012 than he's going to be this round.
	If the Democrats get in because of the natural economic cycle, if the Democrats get in this year and then the economy tanks, which it's going to do no matter who's president, they're going to be blamed and there's never going to be another Democratic president in our lifetime.
	The Democrats have to hope to God that they don't win this time.
	So what are we going to do for these four years when the economy tanks?
	We're just going to have to live with it?
	Well, there's going to be a 10-year down cycle, so there's not going to be a four-year thing to worry about.
	Because this is the big one.
	This is the 80-year cycle.
	There's an 80-year massive depression cycle that's worldwide, actually.
	And this is the one coming up, and it results in a 10-year period of stagnation that is unbelievable.
	And when the last time it happened in the 20s, or the 30s actually, unemployment was around 40%.
	There were bread lines everywhere, riots and all kinds of things.
	It was grim, and I don't see that being any different.
	And it usually ends, by the way...
	American history is interesting because the 80-year cycle is always marked with a war at the end of the Depression.
	If you take the 80 years, you go to 1780, we had the American Revolution, and you had 1860, which is the Civil War.
	You add another 80 years, you got World War II. And you got another 80 years, which is 2020.
	something that is just like clockwork the cycles and the one ended it's always a bad situation and this is what we're going we're headed toward and if the democrats are in office this is they're just going to get blamed for everything the only difference is i believe and certainly the data seems to support it that this is not just the u.s uh tanking of the economy the entire world is about to just go into major shifts insular here in the u.s that we're not gonna we don't care about the rest of the world anyway Yeah, everything is going to go into the tank.
	Everything's got all kinds of issues.
	China's going to be really screwed.
	But we're going to still blame whoever our president is.
	And if it's Obama, you're never going to see another Democrat ever.
	Well, I don't know, man.
	I don't know what to say.
	All I know is that...
	Hey, it's only a theory.
	Yeah, I'm just really worried because I'm seeing all of these issues with the credit crisis, which I think, didn't we talk about this earlier, maybe over dinner, about the auction-based credit?
	Did I tell you about that?
	Yeah, you were talking a little bit about it.
	I wasn't paying much attention.
	So there's a $300 billion credit marketplace, which is called the auction credit market.
	And the way it works is...
	Actually, the example that I read about...
	Someone sent it to me.
	I should look his email up.
	The Port Authority in New York...
	By the way, borrowing money to finance...
	Debt is important in running a company.
	It's important to grow.
	You almost can't live without debt.
	There's very few companies that can do it.
	It's just the way it works.
	And there's an auction-based market.
	We can go say, all right, I want to go buy some debt or I need some money.
	And it's an auction-based system.
	All right, yeah.
	No, I remember all this.
	It's a funny story.
	So just imagine like an eBay-type system.
	Now, what has never happened before, never, ever, ever in this auction-based system is that someone said, okay, I've got some debt or I need to finance or I want to get rid of this.
	An auction has never failed.
	Unfortunately, in the fine print of all of these auction-based credit vehicles, it's stated that if the auction fails, then all of a sudden the interest rate goes up to 20%.
	And this just happened with the New York Port Authority.
	And then auction failed and now they're screwed because they're sitting with this debt that is costing them 20% in interest and it's going to bring the entire $300 billion auction-based credit market down to its knees because no one trusts debt anymore.
	They don't know who to trust.
	It's all about the trust.
	No one's got good credit in the banking world.
	They're all afraid to borrow from each other.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, well, the banks are always behind these problems.
	Well, of course they are.
	They get greedy, the next thing you know, they all think, you know, they're...
	My son goes to this school, Evergreen, which is a, I don't know from what I can tell, it's a socialist institution.
	Damn commies!
	But I think kids, especially in college, should get as much of this out of their system as they can.
	But I guess he's taking an economics course from some guy who I guess doesn't follow the litany of all this.
	He's like, I've got to find out the details because his whole theory of everything is how Clinton is actually the guy responsible for all this economic turmoil we're in.
	And based on the fact that Clinton cut loose all those old rules from the 30s that would keep us from going into a depression and all that kind of stuff and let the banks do whatever they want.
	I mean, why is the bank of a – I remember when I was a kid and it was forever, you couldn't have any national banks.
	You had – the Bank of America was in California and the Citibank was in New York and there was banks in all these different states.
	Now you go anywhere.
	You can find a Bank of America or a Citibank branch anywhere in the whole country.
	And so they became consolidated.
	Now they're all like – the Bank of America is bought by some other bank, which has bought another bank, and they're all consolidating this – It's unbelievable.
	So Northern Rock in the UK was nationalized after all, which is surprising to me because I really thought Richard Branson had it locked down with some Chinese money.
	I was wrong on that.
	Interesting report, though.
	Our friends from the Register in the UK, register.co.uk, had a post that there's two things.
	One is there's a paragraph in the documentation of the nationalization...
	You know, documents, whatever it is, that says that the bank shall be exempt from any freedom of information requests, which I find highly suspicious.
	That's weird.
	And the other thing that was kind of funny is the guy they've parachuted in to run the bank is a non-domiciled president.
	It wasn't Wolfowitz, was it?
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	I forget the name of the guy.
	I should look it up.
	So he's going to be dealing with all that tax crap that I'm going to go through in a couple of months when it happens.
	I just thought that was kind of ironic.
	But the fact that you can't do a Freedom of Information request on him is interesting, to say the least.
	I don't know.
	I'm reminded of the...
	I just did this on Tech 5, the guys who did WikiLeak.
	Yeah, that's the Wiki site that had a whistleblower site, right?
	It's a whistleblower site.
	And so some judge, because of some whistleblowing they did about a Cayman Island bank, it wasn't even an American property, some American judge essentially shuts down the site, which is like, why?
	And then, you know, unless he had money there, or he was part of this scheme.
	So he shuts down the site, so they end up having to reposition the site and open it up again in Sweden.
	Yep.
	By the guys who did Pirates Bay, you know, and I'm thinking, I think I mentioned this, is it's kind of pathetic when, you know, the land of the free and the home of the brave, and we brag about freedom of information.
	We have to do our work in Sweden?
	Yeah.
	Sweden, by the way, one of the few countries that did not participate in a lot of the EU stuff, including the Euro.
	Yeah, they didn't, but they did join.
	Oh yeah, they're members, yeah.
	Norway, which was the real smart money, just stayed out.
	And Switzerland.
	Hey, we got some feedback.
	People are getting much better at it, John.
	They're in and out.
	You want to hear one or two of these?
	Yeah, sure.
	Run them.
	Okay.
	I'll just run them.
	We'll see what we got here.
	Hi, Adam.
	Hi, John.
	Mike Pico here.
	Love to get your take on this story because I really love listening to No Agenda and the directions that you guys take a conversation.
	You can make the inane interesting, so I hope to take care as a compliment.
	Anyway, looking at a couple of recent news stories, and I'm seeing that five cables under C cables were cut, and I'm also seeing as many as nine when I Googled it.
	Some articles are saying as many as nine have been cut somewhere.
	And then the more recent spy satellite in space was having a little bit of trouble staying in orbit, and it effectively died.
	It was no longer under control.
	And they, once they had a window, shot it out of the sky.
	Quite effectively, I might add.
	And there's been speculation, and I think I even heard Adam mention it, that that was kind of a big, here you go.
	We can do it.
	Kiss our ass.
	Which I would tend to agree with, but when you factor in the cables cut, I believe in one of the stories that I read about those cables being cut is some of the traffic was redirected to satellites.
	Is it me or does it seem like this is just the United States saying, okay, if there's cables that don't work for your internet and you want to reroute it to space, we'll just blow your birds out of the sky.
	Just a thought.
	I'd like to hear you guys take on it.
	Once again, I really enjoy the show.
	Thank you much.
	Bye-bye now.
	So you have a theory about the cables.
	I thought it was interesting.
	I wrote a column in MarketWatch.
	Anyone out there can read it.
	It ran a couple weeks ago.
	Go to MarketWatch.com and look my columns up and you'll find it.
	It was kind of sketchy.
	I mean, it wasn't a sketchy column from my perspective.
	It was kind of, you know...
	Glad they ran it, because it was definitely coming from the perspective of a reader of the Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
	Uh-huh.
	You know, kind of a wacky idea.
	And what it was, and it was one of the readers that sent us, or one of my listeners that, or readers, I don't know, sent me this note.
	I credited him.
	Uh-huh.
	In the column, which was that there was going to be the opening of an Iranian bourse to buy and sell oil in euros.
	Let me just explain.
	A bourse is basically an exchange, like a stock exchange.
	Like a stock market.
	Yeah, commodities exchange, yeah.
	Right, it's a commodities exchange, European style.
	And they were putting it up on this really cool island, which they're turning into a free trade zone.
	The Iranians are just under water somewhere.
	And it looked like it only had access to, unlike all the rest of these guys that were cut off from this cable, this mysterious cable cutting.
	Everybody else could reroute.
	At least they had some internet access.
	But this island was cut off completely.
	And so I started looking into it.
	I thought it was a good theory.
	I liked it.
	I liked the idea.
	And so then I started looking into it.
	And there's a couple of really dynamite hotels they're building there.
	And so I call these places up.
	Or first I try to email them and all the email bounce.
	So I figured, well, I guess there is no internet there.
	Do you still have a copy of those bounces?
	Could you forward it to me?
	Because sometimes there's information in there that is pretty interesting.
	Yeah, I think so.
	With the headers.
	I need all the headers.
	Yeah, I think I did still have them.
	I probably didn't erase them.
	But anyway, but then I tried calling them on the phone and there was no telecommunications at all and the phones were blanked out too.
	So I just gave up on it after I tried three different hotels and I figured, well, I guess they're just opening.
	And by the way, can I just commend you for doing something actually journalistic as opposed to every other fucking pundit out there who was just like boo-boo.
	You actually did like some work.
	Most of the time, when you're a pundit like myself, you don't really have to do that kind of thing.
	But I don't like following leads that are just blue sky.
	I mean, if there's something that's, you know, I don't want to be embarrassed.
	So I do some, occasionally do some reporting, and so I'll, you know, when I have to, to prove something, most of the time I'm just making, you know, I'm going to say, well, the way I see it, Because it's just some thought.
	I don't need to report on that because it's just the way I'm thinking.
	But when it's something that supposedly happened, I have to report on it, which is meaning I have to research it a little bit to make sure that I don't get somebody saying, why didn't you just call us?
	We could have told you anything you wanted to know, you idiot.
	And so I did call, and that's what I got.
	Nothing.
	I couldn't get through to anybody.
	So I figured, well, I guess this thing is cut, and these guys are cut off.
	So the Boers didn't get to open on time, and everyone thinks it's just a...
	You know, there's actually the New York oil guys and then there's a big exchange in London.
	So the theory is that not only was it a new place to trade oil, but the big news, I thought, was that they were going to trade it in euros, which of course is a big deal because oil has always been traded in dollars or pretty much always been traded in dollars.
	Right.
	Although I have this thought that maybe they should start trading in euros and then bring the dollar back up.
	But I think, I guess the dollar's going to sink more.
	They don't want to do that yet.
	Yeah.
	So do you think that there's something to this satellite business that maybe that had to be shot out?
	I think it's just a coincidence.
	I mean, maybe there's something to it.
	But I thought that, I mean, everybody in the right-wing community all believes that the only reason for shooting that satellite out of the air was...
	I mean, look, there's a number of possibilities.
	One, the satellite needed to be shot out of the air because it was, you know, going to fall and land somewhere and they needed to do this.
	Does anybody think that's a possibility?
	It doesn't seem so.
	I think that may be the real reason.
	But there is also the thought amongst the right-wingers that, you know, that China blew up a satellite so we had to show them that we could do it too.
	I'm kind of there.
	I'm into the cable thing because it makes a lot of sense and it's a weird coincidence and there's no good reason for it.
	The satellite thing, there was good reasons for it.
	Yeah, we blew it up and maybe we were testing some stuff, but I think the satellite probably needed to be blown up.
	The thing was supposedly the size of a school bus and I guess it crapped out.
	And you can't just have this thing floating around up there.
	And just to take it one step further, this happened on the night of the full lunar eclipse.
	I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but just another data point.
	I thought it was the day before.
	Oh, I could be wrong.
	I think you're wrong on that, but I'm not absolutely sure.
	They did send out NOTAMs, notice to airmen, because I know because Captain Chris called in to the Daily Source Code.
	Oh, dailysourcecode.com.
	I'm learning, John.
	Um, uh, There was a notice to airmen that you couldn't fly somewhere in the Pacific near Hawaii.
	The FAA basically set up a temporary danger zone and you weren't allowed to fly there.
	So that was interesting.
	Well, my wife says that there was a...
	At the time that the thing was supposedly shot down up in Washington State, there was a...
	A meteor.
	A meteor that impacted...
	Or something.
	Yeah.
	Is that what you heard?
	A meteor?
	Yeah, in fact, another pilot reported that he actually saw it impact.
	He saw it hit the ground.
	Now, I presume it's a meteor.
	And actually, I'm amazed.
	Where are the pictures?
	Are there no people out there looking for this stuff?
	You know, these things, I mean, I've seen things flat.
	You can't get the camera out fast enough.
	These things are going at, like, you know, 100,000 miles an hour or 50,000 at least.
	They just shoot by and blow up.
	I mean, you don't have time to take a picture.
	And they can be pretty small.
	They can be like the size of a baseball.
	It could still look pretty spectacular in the sky, I'm told.
	Right.
	And, you know, where the meteor hit.
	I mean, you know, meteors are worth a lot of money if you can find one.
	Hey, now...
	Hey, what are you doing this weekend, John?
	Aren't you up in the area?
	I'm going to go up there looking for that meteor.
	Make me some cash, baby!
	Here's a follow-up on the discussion we had about cotton t-shirts.
	Wool, yeah, and wool.
	Wool, yeah, listen to this.
	You'll probably like this one.
	Hey, Adam, Chris Cochran here from Seattle calling about your discussion on No Agenda about t-shirts and fabric and cotton and them wearing out and...
	I just wanted to know that it's not a seemingly different thing.
	Cotton has changed in the last 25 years.
	I actually work in the apparel industry and we create custom t-shirts, my company does, and we had a hard time finding quality t-shirt material That meets the same standards that you could get, say, 25 years ago.
	Not too long ago, you could buy a nice, soft cotton t-shirt from all West Texas cotton, and it was just amazing.
	That same quality today sucks.
	And it's the material itself.
	It's actually the fiber in the cotton itself that has changed, and nobody can tell us why.
	You just have a hard time finding that same quality cotton these days.
	Just touch in on that.
	Laws are no agenda.
	I thought that was pretty interesting.
	That's really interesting.
	You can't find good quality cotton.
	He's talking about Texas American cotton.
	I think you can still get good quality Egyptian cotton.
	I bought a t-shirt in Hong Kong years and years and years ago.
	And I still every once in a while it comes up in the cycle of wearing a T-shirt.
	And here it is.
	And then you put it on.
	It's like, oh, this thing is like cashmere.
	So it just wears like forever.
	And it's a beautiful piece of cotton.
	That's a T-shirt.
	And so I'm sure that there's – and some of the cotton that I've seen that says Egyptian.
	You can still buy towels made from Egyptian cotton.
	And it's like some of the best cotton.
	And he's talking about Texas cotton, which never – I don't think has ever been that good.
	But what I thought was interesting about his comments was the fact that no one can explain why the quality has deteriorated.
	Yeah.
	Monsanto can't explain it.
	Maybe it's just a crappy...
	Genetically, they've changed the thing.
	I don't know.
	Really?
	I think somebody should look into this.
	Genetically changed the cotton?
	They're always screwing around with the seeds to make this thing so bull weevils don't eat it so much or they poison some sort of something or give it more production, more productivity.
	I mean, they're always dicking around with these non-food stuff plants.
	While we're on the topic of clothes, there was an article in the Financial Times a week ago, I think, where retailers in the United States and Europe are now putting together almost like open letters to makers of apparel saying, please do not forget us here in the United States.
	Do not Forget about our fashion trends and our needs, because apparently all these apparel makers, certainly the higher, mid to higher end, are no longer making clothes for the Americans and Europeans for their sizes and styles and tastes.
	They're all focusing on China and other eastern countries, which, by the way, is the reason why I can't get any clothes in my size anymore.
	Yeah, you're tall.
	Tall and skinny.
	But you're not that tall and not that skinny.
	I mean, it seems to me that you're tall and skinny, but you're not like 6'8".
	No, but there aren't a lot of people like me, or just not enough, and they've given up.
	They're just not making it anymore.
	I think I'm going to have to resort to having stuff tailored.
	Well, you can afford it.
	That's not the point.
	It's discrimination.
	It has to stop.
	No, it is discrimination.
	Hey, which reminds me of something since we're talking about on this subject.
	So remember last week or the week before talking about gold toe and I had these cashmere socks that didn't work.
	Yeah, I have a comment on that too.
	Yeah, okay.
	North Carolina.
	So I said, this is the best we can do in the United States.
	We just make socks.
	That's pretty much our business.
	Somebody sends me a note from North Carolina saying, hey, get a clue, John.
	The gold toe company and all their manufacturing is moving to Mexico.
	Oh, no.
	There you go.
	Now we make nothing.
	We make no agenda.
	We make bits and bytes.
	Here, check this out.
	Hold on a second.
	Adam, John, you don't know about the infamous sock industry.
	Try this.
	Take a metal detector and put it over your socks.
	If you're real lucky, every now and then you'll get a little blip.
	That's the transporter transponder inside the socks.
	The heat activated.
	We put them in the dryer.
	One of the socks beams out and gets sent back to the factory to be resold.
	And so every time you wash your socks, one comes up missing.
	That causes you to have to buy more socks.
	You've got to learn this stuff out of it.
	That's actually our normal listener.
	That guy.
	That guy.
	That is the listener.
	That's him.
	So I was a little distressed by that.
	It's just, geez, you know what I mean?
	They're already making money.
	They're in Costco.
	They got all the distribution they need.
	What is it about...
	What is it happening that they have to move to Mexico?
	And it can't be cheap to pick up...
	It's got to be price.
	That's the only reason to do it.
	Yeah, but it's got...
	What does it cost to take and close down a huge factory in North Carolina and haul your butt down to Mexico and rebuild down there?
	I mean, it just doesn't make a lot of economic sense to me over the long haul.
	I don't know.
	Well, I don't know anything about manufacturing.
	But it seems that...
	Unless the factory's fallen apart and they have to retool anyway.
	There must be something good we make in America.
	What do we make here?
	What do we make that's really good?
	We make jets and bombs.
	We're really good at that.
	Yeah, that's awesome.
	And we make a lot of...
	We like to blow stuff up.
	And we make...
	The high-end ships are still mostly made in this country.
	They're really pricey ones.
	I don't know.
	There's got to be some other stuff that's really big in the industry.
	I think we make brooms some places.
	We make great flashlights.
	We make maglite.
	They're still made in America.
	Maglite, that's one thing, yeah.
	I guess entertainment.
	We do a lot of entertainment, a little too much of it.
	That's got to be it.
	And of course, country and western and jazz are pretty much American inventions.
	We make cars, too.
	We do make cars and vehicles, even though a lot of them are made by Honda and Toyota, but they have factories here, so I think that counts.
	I think we're losing out.
	I think we're really losing out in the car business.
	Well, I don't think our cars have ever been really that good, although I have to say, you know, even though my main car, and a car I really think is one of the, I still think the Japanese make the best cars, and I have been driving a Lexus for a couple of them, and I think it's one of the best cars I've ever owned, even though it's kind of fallen apart after being as old as it is.
	It is a trash pit on wheels.
	I'm going to get it detailed.
	You know what's going to happen?
	Next time you see that car, it's going to have been detailed and you're going to say, did you get a new car?
	In fact, I don't even believe you actually have a home.
	I think you live in that thing.
	It looks...
	It's actually...
	You haven't been in it recently.
	I actually cleaned it out because I've got to take it to the detailer.
	What do you mean?
	I was in it just earlier this week when we went to our place to go have dinner.
	Oh, there's a couple of things in the...
	I mean, so I have a box of, you know...
	I go to Costco and I don't take the stuff out immediately.
	What's that sign you keep showing me?
	I forget what it says.
	You have a sign in your car.
	Oh, it's a no parking sign I was carrying the car.
	Oh, man.
	Anyway, let's get back to this.
	But we have a Dodge Caravan.
	We've had a couple of them, which is a minivan, which is the car that men should never be driving.
	But I have to say it's an outstanding vehicle, even though it had to go into the shop a lot.
	But in terms of being a good, functional car...
	They're actually not bad.
	I also like Volvos.
	They used to be stodgy.
	They're actually kind of sporty now, at least on a minor basis.
	But I was up at the factory in Gothenburg, Sweden, and went around the track and all the different cars, all the different versions they made.
	And they have some diesels that they don't bring over here that just go like little rocket ships.
	It's amazing.
	Well, you can't buy a new diesel in California.
	Right?
	Isn't that some kind of law that they can't sell any new diesel cars, only old ones?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I think there's a rule, something you can't buy a new...
	There's some California regulation about it.
	I'm a big fan of diesel.
	I love it, because those things were intended to...
	Basically, you can piss in the tank and it'll run.
	It's a whole different system.
	And they're built to go 300,000 miles and that kind of thing.
	But I have to say these new diesels, which are in Europe and not in the United States, are astonishing.
	You could put somebody in one of these things, and if you didn't tell them it was a diesel, they wouldn't know.
	They have the same response as any gasoline engine, and they just go faster than crap.
	And the balance of the engine is good.
	It doesn't ping around like the used to be.
	The big thing in aviation now, everyone's switching to diesel engines in their airplanes.
	That's a real big trend I'm seeing happening.
	Yeah, it's...
	I never heard that.
	Oh, no.
	Oh, man.
	All the new airplanes, you can choose.
	You can choose...
	Most of them, you can choose if you want a diesel engine or not.
	And it's mainly done, obviously, for cost.
	I'm going to have to look into the...
	I used to work at Union Oil, and I was a chemist, and we used to do a lot of testing.
	Were you a chemist in college as well?
	Chemist major?
	My favorite.
	I always hung out with those guys.
	Yeah, you would.
	Well, you should.
	But anyways, so we tested a lot of fuels and stuff, and one of the things when you have these octane ratings is based on this thing called a knock engine that you put the fuel through, and it would start knocking at a certain point, and it would be rated it.
	And there used to be actually two ratings, road and something else, that used to be on the pumps and they took them off or they'd make a combination number.
	But anyway, the diesel stuff was always, you know, there's something changed with diesels to make these new hot rod engines.
	And I'd like to know, because I've been out of it for so long, I'd like somebody to explain to me or send me an email explaining why these diesels are so...
	They're so different.
	I mean, they're amazing.
	I don't think...
	Well, the principle is the same.
	I think they've just gotten better balance.
	All the diesels that you're talking about, I'm sure, are turbocharged.
	If they have that amazing pickup, they've got to be turbocharged.
	So there's a lot of...
	I think they've done a lot of improvements in that.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	It's just the whole thing seemed peculiar to me that these engines are so nice.
	You should look it up.
	To me, diesel's always been a piece of crap.
	You know, the things take forever to warm up.
	They shake.
	Oh, you don't have to do any of that anymore.
	No pickup.
	You know, they make a bunch of noise and they belch black smoke.
	That, to me, is a diesel engine.
	You must get out more.
	Things have changed, Danny Kaye.
	Things have changed since you've been writing the history of music.
	It's really quite different.
	Well, that's for sure.
	I have to say.
	I was actually more amazed by the little diesels that they had at the Volvo place than the Volvos themselves.
	My first three cars that I ever owned were all Volvos.
	I'm a big fan.
	I mean, you don't get laid when you're driving a Volvo, but...
	Well, actually, the new ones are pretty cool.
	Since Ford took them over, at least they have some lines.
	There's some organic lines.
	They're not so boxy as they used to be.
	They're ugly.
	They're all ugly.
	I don't know.
	They're not pretty at all.
	No way.
	In fact, that big SUV one, I think, is a nice car, too.
	And by the way, you know I don't give a crap about cars anymore.
	That just went away all of a sudden.
	I just don't care.
	Yeah, apparently when your wife sold the collection.
	Yeah, but it was kind of before that.
	I mean, I didn't mind that much.
	You're probably right.
	Who gives a shit about cars?
	And now I don't even want to drive.
	Let someone else drive me.
	I'm so tired of it.
	Yeah, well, that's you and the limo.
	No, I don't have a limo.
	Which reminds me of an interesting observation.
	Okay.
	So we did Cranky Geeks last Wednesday.
	Yes, and by the way, thank you very much for having me on.
	I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I was prepared.
	Yeah, well, we had you and Leo Laporte on at the same time, and everybody was jacked up about thinking that was going to be good.
	And it was.
	It was a good conversation.
	Leo was at his best because Leo actually is very knowledgeable.
	And sometimes it's fun to listen to him.
	He's looking at stuff all the time.
	Sometimes it's fun to hear what he actually thinks.
	But there's a moment there that...
	and I've done this a million times because if you work in radio or broadcasting ever, this kind of thing comes up where Leo had gone into a little commentary about how your limo and entourage was blocking the street out in front of the place and this kind of thing comes up where Leo had gone into a little commentary about how your limo and entourage was blocking the street out And he was moaning about it.
	And I, of course, as soon as I...
	You threw some gas on the fire there.
	I immediately, without missing a beat, added to the malarkey by going on about the fact that it was a stretch Hummer or something.
	I don't know what I... But it was just a bunch of...
	I said, you know, I can't believe...
	As long as I've known this guy, Adam, I can't believe the crap that he's...
	He's always driving around with a bunch of girls.
	It's ridiculous.
	I wish.
	So anyway, so I go on and on like this.
	And I was thinking about that.
	Only in radio or even TV where you're actually doing a show about facts can you go off with a bunch of bull that's got nothing to do with anything.
	It's just clowning around and playing Stan Freeberg kind of ad-libbing because you can do anything you want.
	We've done this on radio before.
	You'll sit on a radio show with somebody and say, so do you always sit in the studio like this naked?
	Right.
	And if the guy picks up on where you're headed with this humor, he goes, yeah, I usually do.
	Sometimes I wear a jockstrap, but most of the time it's just kind of nice to be in here.
	And you know what?
	The studio is so warm in here that it's more comfortable to be naked because when I was wearing clothes, I'd always be sweating a lot.
	It's theater of the mind, John.
	That's what it is.
	Right, exactly.
	But you do this, and then you do it like...
	You can't do this with writing.
	There's this kind of thing.
	And what does the public think?
	You know, I'm always...
	It's like, this is not...
	None of this is factual.
	It's all just bull.
	And I'm always wondering how...
	I think they're immune to it.
	I think it's just they're known.
	Or does anybody believe it?
	I mean, how many people were listening to that thought that you did have a limo parked out there blocking traffic?
	I wonder.
	I think there's certainly a fair amount of people who would buy it.
	I think so.
	I think so, too, and it's disturbing.
	Well, guess what, folks?
	It's not true.
	Actually, you came over in the car with Ron Bloom.
	No, but I walk everywhere now.
	I don't own a car in San Francisco anymore.
	They compacted Trinity, I think.
	My biodiesel station wagon.
	Biodiesel is the way to go in California.
	Yeah.
	This thing smells like a french fry machine that goes down the street.
	It was lovely.
	I loved her so much.
	It's just a hassle.
	It was just an old car.
	That's the problem.
	Old cars, you know, it's a big hassle.
	No good.
	And now my daughter, of course, you know, she's about to take her test for her license and she wants a car.
	And this is a huge, I think, conundrum is the right word.
	I said, well, look, I don't drive at all.
	I'll give you the Jag.
	You know, I'll put it in your name.
	You can have it.
	And she's like, no, I don't want the Jag.
	I want a nice little cute girly car.
	And that's what every parent doesn't want.
	I don't want my kid driving around some fucking tin can.
	You know, I want her to have some, you know...
	In fact, I'd like you to drive a tank, honestly.
	Here's a Sherman tank.
	The way you do it is you pull this way to go right, and you pull on this other track, it goes left.
	Here, have a Hummer, baby.
	Please drive.
	Oh, by the way, in the UK, you know they had that congestion charge?
	You know about this?
	Oh, yeah.
	You have to pay money to drive into the city if you come within a certain zone.
	So now they want to change that to the CO2 emissions charge.
	And depending on the type of automobile you have, the daily rate will be 25 pounds.
	$50 to drive into the city.
	$50!
	And Porsche is now going to sue the city if they actually make this happen.
	Wow.
	They don't want all their clientele to be screwed.
	But it's just interesting to see that, you know, the CO2 emissions.
	And I put lots of question marks, you know, about the measurement of this stuff and what it really means and, you know, what does it really mean to global warming.
	And, of course, I have my own questions about global warming in general.
	You know, it's just, yeah, it's messed up.
	Yeah, well, a lot of people think it's just a scam.
	Yeah.
	I think there is a climate change happening.
	You've talked to winemakers anywhere in the world, they'll tell you those things have changed, but it's improved things for the most part.
	For wine?
	That's the good news.
	Oh yeah, especially the German wines.
	Man, these things have come on.
	Really?
	German wines, which are always like, they've always made good sweet white wines.
	Reds have never been any good.
	But now, and even the Sweet Whites are always kind of hit and miss, but in the last, I don't know, almost up to the last 10 years, they're making tremendous red wines, which is really weird.
	Nobody even believes it until it's proven to them.
	And they're making this just one great vintage after another of some of these just terrific white wines that are just...
	And they're well-priced in this kind of an overlooked area because people don't understand them.
	They keep changing their labeling laws.
	And I'm just stunned.
	Stunned.
	And I think the same thing is going to happen in Oregon, Washington, especially Oregon Pinots.
	And maybe Burgundy.
	It looks like Burgundy is having a string of really great...
	Which is an area that make Pinot Noir...
	And it's always under-ripe, and they're crappy for the most part.
	It's just the really good ones.
	Are these young vintages that you're talking about that are really good, or the older vintages?
	No, no.
	They're starting around...
	In Burgundy, it started around...
	I'm...
	Yeah, about 99...
	Something like that, maybe 95, 96.
	It's somewhere around the mid-90s.
	But by the beginning of the turn of the century, it was almost like they're hitting every year as a great year.
	2005 being the most recent super year in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and every place else.
	You just drink these wines when you get a hold of one, even though they're not ready to drink yet.
	And you go, holy crap, I haven't tasted anything like this forever.
	Well, next time I'm in town, we'll have to have one.
	You have not introduced me to a good German wine.
	Yeah, that's a good idea.
	The problem is finding a good German wine in a restaurant in San Francisco is probably a little difficult.
	Although I think there's probably a few places that know what they're doing.
	So are we going to have time to have dinner next week before I head back?
	Yeah, Wednesday would be good.
	Wednesday?
	Okay, we should shoot for Wednesday.
	Look around the area and see if there's any place that would have a German wine.
	Because, I mean, they would knock your socks off.
	A good German wine is astonishing.
	Okay.
	You know what, John?
	You know what's amazing?
	We have done 73 minutes of show and we have once again succeeded in not talking about one single thing we said we were going to talk about.
	Yeah.
	Well, maybe next week.
	Well, because I lost my notes, so that doesn't help.
	I do remember we were going to talk about CDI. Remember that?
	Oh, CDI, right.
	Let me write a note down and put it someplace where we'll lose it.
	Because our music is coming up, John.
	That means it's time to end the show, unfortunately.
	Yeah, the CD-ROM is full.
	Actually, what I have to do now is I'm going to take out some frozen pizza.
	I'm going to heat that up.
	I'm going to watch these two movies you gave me on CD-ROM. I'm going to watch those tonight.
	DVD. DVD, I'm sorry.
	Conspiracy shit, right?
	No, just actually documentaries.
	I know you're a big fan of the documentary.
	I love the documentary.
	No.
	I sure do.
	All right.
	Well, have that frozen pizza.
	I've got to go do Tech 5.
	I'm behind again.
	Oh, holy moly.
	All right, John.
	Thank you very much.
	Thank you, everybody who's been listening.
	We'll do it again next week.
	Coming to you.
	Before you sign off, which you're going to do in a second, I want to remind everyone, actually, we've got a tech5report.com website.
	It's T-E-C-H-F-I-V-E report.com, which we're experimenting with.
	You should check it out.
	Okay, and also you should look at dvorak.org slash cage match where you can get the full show notes for each individual no agenda since, of course, I'm too lazy to do it.
	Bubba loves doing it and he's our hero.
	Bubba the love sponge?
	Bubba the love sponge, yeah.
	You never heard that?
	No.
	Oh, man.
	Yeah, of course.
	Remember we were talking about morning zoos?
	Oh, right.
	It's one of those morning zoo characters.
	There's always a guy out there on Sticker Patrol.
	We got Bubba the Love Sponge.
	Bubba, come on in.
	Cool.
	Yeah.
	I'm sure Bubba will love this attention.
	I'm sure he will.
	All right, everybody.
	That's it for another week.
	Thank you very much for listening.
	From the Curry Condo overlooking the Bay, I'm Adam Curry.
	And from Northern California, I'm John C. Dvorak.
	We'll talk to you again next week on No Agenda.

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