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Feb. 1, 2009 - No Agenda

01:31:48

68: Crackpot & The Buzz-Kill

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	It's time once again for the weekly adventures of Crackpot and Buzzkill.
	Live from Gitmo Nation West in Southwest...
	Wait, I'm in East.
	From Southwest London, I'm Adam Curry.
	And I'm John C. Dvorak here in Silicon Valley North.
	Did I say that was John C. Dvorak?
	I believe so.
	Yes, you did.
	And that is Gitmo Nation West.
	I'm in Gitmo Nation East.
	Fresh back in Gitmo Nation East, where things are falling apart, and the Brits have finally started to grab for the pitchforks and torches.
	There were riots in Geneva yesterday.
	You missed them.
	Well, you were on the plane back.
	I missed the Geneva, but yesterday, the British also...
	Well, not riots, but the...
	They're calling Gordon Brown on his bullshit, the workers at, what is it, Total and a few other outfits, and we had a wildcat strike.
	Total is a gas station.
	Well, yeah, the oil firm.
	Gordon Brown apparently, well not apparently, I saw it myself, in 2006 and 2007 he kept talking about, hey, British jobs for British people.
	And so now there's a contract that was awarded to an Italian firm, and they just float these barges, which are like floating hotels, and they bring in a whole bunch of Italian guys to do the work.
	The Italian guys must be working cheaper.
	That's my guess.
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no.
	They're making minimum wage.
	Well, that's cheap.
	Would the Brits work for minimum wage in the same job?
	Would they do it?
	Yeah, I think they would.
	I think a lot of Brits are ready to work right now.
	Well, maybe Gordon Brown's thinking that, well, if we use all these foreign laborers, they won't give us any tax money, and then that'll help bankrupt the company or the country.
	Well, yeah, that's probably something in that.
	Yeah.
	Maybe he's a communist.
	You think?
	So I was watching last night as you were traveling on the big giant silver bird.
	And I made a copy of this for you, by the way, because it turned out to be quite interesting.
	Jack Welch.
	He's everywhere, by the way.
	He's on every single talk show.
	He's on CNBC, he's on Fox, he's doing the rounds.
	But he doesn't seem to be selling anything.
	Yeah, I find that peculiar.
	He's not selling anything.
	Maybe he's selling himself.
	But whatever the case was, he did a whole hour with Donna Shalala, who turns out to be the president of the University of Miami, where he went to school, I guess.
	And...
	I guess that he's teaching.
	He's been teaching for the last four years at MIT, some business course.
	And he kind of called out all the other business professors as boneheads, which is kind of interesting in itself.
	But he made this interesting point, which I've heard made over and over again by people in business.
	Andrew Horowitz made it the last time we did our little podcast.
	And then earlier this morning, CNBC was doing a World Roundup of Opinion of Business Leaders.
	Which is about how Obama is screwing up by saying it's going to get worse before it gets better.
	Which is a thing you don't do, ever.
	And Welch says that Roosevelt never did it.
	I wasn't even alive during Roosevelt's election.
	I've never heard all those early speeches of his because they kept him around for a long time.
	And he never did that.
	He said the only thing to fear is fear itself.
	Obama's, you know, telling us...
	He's saying fear.
	Head for the hills.
	Head for the hills.
	Well, on that side, there's a lot we can talk about because, of course, you know, I've been watching all my little C-SPAN stuff.
	I'm not paying close attention, but what really got me is we just went through this whole song and dance about transparency and there's an executive, actually it's not an executive order, it's a memorandum regarding lobbyists and you can't be a lobbyist two years after you leave the administration or you can't be in the administration.
	So Timothy Geithner is approved or what do we call that?
	Confirmed.
	Confirmed, thank you.
	Confirmed as the Treasury Secretary.
	The first thing he does is he announces his assistant, who was a lobbyist two months ago.
	And he says, well, but that's okay, because he'll recuse himself when appropriate.
	Come on.
	Which should be all the time.
	Well, of course.
	It was a different field.
	It wasn't finance.
	Of course, the guy did work at Goldman Sachs before then.
	But that just blows me away.
	Go through this whole thing, big song and dance, and the first guy...
	That Geithner brings in.
	You think they could have put this off?
	Why would they have to do it right away?
	Just violate your own, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and then right away you just, you know.
	I think Obama should have called him on it and said, look, I got these rules.
	I mean, can't you find anybody else who's the only guy in the world?
	Yeah, really.
	There are some other employees at Goldman Sachs.
	I'm sure he could pick another one.
	Because that's all that it's about.
	Well, I'm not seeing any change here.
	No.
	Well, I'm getting the hate, though.
	That is starting to happen.
	Oh, well, tell us about it.
	No, just on Twitter, even.
	By the way, it would be cool if you followed me, Adam Curry, all written together on Twitter.
	I'm not following you?
	You're kidding.
	Yeah, I don't have that many followers.
	Oh, well, let me go follow you.
	Okay, thank you.
	I'll do that as soon as the show's over.
	Well, I do it now, but it'll screw up the stream.
	It's like, uh...
	Adam, don't you have anything...
	Can't you be positive?
	You rarely, maybe, never have said anything positive about Obama.
	No one is 100% wrong, which...
	You said lots of good things about Obama.
	I certainly have.
	I said he's very cute.
	He's a very good looking man.
	Here, this is good.
	I love listening to you on John C. on No Agenda, but we'll tune you out if you don't lighten up bashing my president.
	My president.
	The hell is that?
	He's my president too.
	Well, I've got a fair crash.
	Well, you know, I'm much more positive about Obama than you are.
	I mean, I have to admit to that.
	Really?
	Mm-hmm.
	And what are you positive...
	Well, actually, you did mention something at one of our many dinners, and we should talk about a few of them, if not all briefly.
	You did say something which kind of...
	which stuck in the back of my head...
	I'll tell you what it is.
	I was going to deny it, but I won't.
	My wife thought the idea of hiring Geithner was a good one because he had had his run-ins with the IRS and we need some guy who's had a bad experience or two, but you countered with it.
	He wasn't that bad of an experience.
	He wasn't even fined any penalties like everybody, the rest of us.
	Exactly.
	Like they came into the office with their hands on their weapons when they came looking for me.
	And now we have Tom Daschle, who also hadn't paid his...
	His income tax until, of course, he goes through confirmation hearings.
	Oh, yeah, no, I just took care of that last week.
	Like $100,000, $150,000.
	Right, where's the penalties?
	No, it did say that he paid $15,000 in penalties.
	That doesn't sound right.
	It sounds low.
	I was going to say, it sounds very low to me.
	And I wonder if he then also got all that frickin' mail.
	So...
	They couldn't find forms from something from me from 2001 through 2005, whatever.
	And so that triggered a whole bunch of stuff.
	But what that also triggers is your mailbox gets completely stuffed with lawyers.
	Hey, you know, we can help you with the IRS. And it's unbelievable how that works.
	I guess there's some public record or something that must pop up.
	And here's something else I discovered, if you'll indulge me for a moment.
	I have not had a lot of experience with creditors, just because I pay my bills, and I usually pay them on time.
	Sometimes, depending on what it is, I'll wait for that warning note just because it gives me satisfaction of paying later.
	But I've never really had a creditor situation.
	Christina signed up for a gym membership.
	And of course, you know, typical lazy teenager didn't really comprehend what she was doing.
	And she can have as many gym memberships as she wants, but she put it on her debit card with a standing order.
	So basically you sign stuff.
	And so, you know, and she gets an allowance from me.
	But, you know, it's not enough to cut.
	And, you know, we pay.
	We would support her.
	We'd pay for the gym membership.
	So of course she ran into trouble somewhere, got ahead of her.
	She wasn't paying attention, forgot to ask me.
	And so then there's like a 349 pound bill that's outstanding.
	And this was in Guilford.
	So we left and she went to cancel it and they said, hey man, you owe us money.
	So in the move, that had laid around for another four weeks or whatever.
	And then I got a letter from an attorney.
	And it's one of these typical collection letters.
	I should actually read it verbatim, but this has been handed over to us and whatever.
	And so I figured I'll do that when I get back.
	And then Christina sent me, because they really started harassing her, she sent me a text while I was in San Francisco.
	And so I called the company up, the gym company.
	And they said, 349 pounds, and so I gave my debit card number and it was paid for.
	But the lawyer letter, which came in two weeks earlier, what I thought was a lawyer letter as if the account had been handed over to a lawyer, it seems like they were asking for 500 pounds.
	So I think what's happening here is a lot of these companies turn over their debts to a collection agency, but the collection agency acts like they're a lawyer and the lawsuit is ready and they're going to bring you before court, etc., etc.
	And it really seems like a tremendous scam because the difference is, you know, of 150 pounds, Yeah, that's terrible.
	Well, actually, it's even better than that, because when you turn over your debt to the collection agency, it depends on the deal, but generally speaking, they get like half of that, and then whatever else they can tack on.
	So they're making more money.
	Yeah, well, this is a crooked business, and the fact of the matter is it's rampant in this country.
	I didn't even know what was going on over there.
	Well, so this is my point.
	I didn't know about this just because I've never been in that situation.
	And let that be a warning.
	It's real easy to fall for this, and it can cost you hundreds more than necessary.
	We have a bunch of consumer protection laws in this country that are not enforced, that prevent all kinds of bad practices that these guys execute constantly.
	And you have to almost hound the Attorney General or the Consumer Protection Department or the state government or whoever it is to get action.
	Because these guys will call you in midnight.
	There's just a million little tricks that they pull, most of which are illegal and then again not enforced.
	I mean, it seems as though in the United States ever since the...
	I guess it began with the first Bush administration, maybe even the Reagan or maybe even the Carter.
	I don't know.
	It just keeps going further back.
	But it's just the consumer protection laws have been weakened.
	A lot of them have been taken off the books.
	They've been usually through some sort of a rider on some other bill to save the children.
	And let's stick some stuff in there.
	Yeah, let's stick some stuff in here.
	What are you going to do about it?
	But it's a predatory...
	It's a predatory practice, though.
	This is really very, very wrong.
	It's a total predatory practice, and nobody does anything about it.
	There's no agency that cares.
	Obama, I doubt he's going to do crap.
	When I see some consumer protection action from him, then I'm totally on board.
	I've never even heard that during all his campaigning.
	You know, these, like, these payday loans.
	Well, there's a whole bunch of stuff on 60 Minutes.
	Or, you know, a guy goes in, some poor guy who's a veteran, in fact, the Army's very concerned about this.
	You know, the guys will go in and they'll take one of these payday loans out where, you know, you give them your, you get a loan for what your next check's going to be and you have to pay them some ridiculous amount of fee.
	And if you don't pay it, all of a sudden you owe, like, thousands and thousands of dollars.
	Well...
	Excuse me.
	There's a couple things about the administration which kind of runs along these lines because it comes down to legalese, you know, and the small disclaimers, etc., and really the fine print.
	And so there's two things.
	I'm going to turn off the Skype chat if you guys try to call me.
	Don't be idiots.
	I hate that.
	Idiots!
	Can't you hear?
	Oh, that's fun.
	It goes bloop, bloop.
	I'm like turning off all the sounds here.
	Idiots.
	I can't hear it.
	Yeah, I figured I'd toss them a bone, give them a Skype chat.
	What do they do?
	So the first thing that's really starting to irk me is the stimulus package, according to John, your president and my president, And here's the quote.
	Everyone says it exactly the same.
	Create or save 3 million jobs.
	Now, there's a big difference between saving and creating.
	I mean, there's like a 6 million job difference between the two.
	That's funny.
	You could say, yeah, we saved 3 million jobs.
	How do you know you didn't?
	Yeah, I mean, that's legalese.
	Actually, you might as well go back and say, whatever the employment is, say we've got 40 million people working.
	You can come back and say, we saved more than 3 million jobs.
	40 million jobs.
	Every person working today, we saved their job.
	And that is exactly what's going on.
	There's a C-SPAN clip, which I'll send you the link, of...
	I think he's a representative.
	I think he's a...
	I don't know if he's a senator or if he's in the House of Representatives.
	Either way.
	And he literally says, you know, Hank Paulson...
	It must have been the senator.
	Hank Paulson came to the House and said, you know, this was the one day where over half a trillion dollars in money markets started to flow away and we need this money within six hours and people will be dying on the streets.
	And he goes through this whole rap, man.
	It's just like...
	Oh, I saw this.
	I think we blogged it.
	You might have, yeah.
	It's been circling around.
	And it's just like, wow, you know.
	And he's literally saying, we don't know.
	Which, of course, is true.
	He's being honest there.
	We don't know how this works.
	But then to just hand the keys over to that bald fuck.
	Ugh.
	Well, you get away with what you can get away with.
	So, here's the big news, though, in my mind, which is kind of being glossed over.
	Joe Biden, he's got his marching orders.
	He's off.
	He's out.
	He's on the road.
	They've successfully gotten him out on doing something incredibly useless.
	What?
	Which is...
	Well, of course, because who was promised...
	Yeah, who was promised the most?
	We got the poor people in the middle class, right?
	So middle class, of course, we're waiting for, you know, mortgages to be paid and health care to be fixed and everything.
	No, no, no.
	We now have an executive, by executive order, Joe Biden will be leading the middle class task force.
	And he's going out on a listening tour.
	Joe Biden coming to a town near you soon to listen.
	What the hell were they doing on the campaign trail?
	Isn't that what they always say?
	Well, we heard you.
	We listened to everything you had to say.
	I guess they didn't listen very well.
	So, yeah, so I guess he's just out?
	That's it?
	Yeah, he'll be out on the road.
	But it's a life of O'Reilly for him now.
	You know, traveling around with the family, seeing America.
	C-America.
	I love these...
	This whole past week, President Obama was doing a show every morning around somewhere between 10 and 10.30.
	The first one was signing the Ledbetter Bill and all these different appearances.
	But when you watch C-SPAN, you get the complete unedited experience.
	And they turn it on with room noise before...
	Sometimes 15 minutes before the president arrives.
	And it's just like a show.
	They've got the little music going.
	And then, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.
	We will be starting in five minutes.
	Five more minutes.
	And it's uncanny.
	It's really, really spooky.
	It's a show.
	It's a complete show.
	This is the biggest reality show ever.
	And it's unfolding before our very eyes.
	Fascinating to watch.
	Absolutely fascinating.
	I can just see the West Wing in the morning.
	Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!
	West Wing in the morning!
	Mommy, Mommy, what's the matter, Malia?
	Where's Daddy's scripts?
	He needed scripts for today.
	So we went out to a couple of restaurants we should tell anyone coming to San Francisco about?
	Yeah, I have to say I had a great week.
	It was only the first night that I had room service, and every other evening I had a good meal.
	Maybe the first thing we should say is if you're looking for oysters in San Francisco, be prepared to pay.
	Yeah, the oysters on the West Coast have skyrocketed in price because of some shortage or God knows what.
	But the thing is, we went to this Cocoa 500 or whatever it was at the last day, and they had oysters on there.
	I don't know if you noticed.
	But they were the same price, $2.50 for an oyster.
	Per oyster.
	So the first dinner we had was Zuni.
	Yeah, the Zuni Cafe, a very famous old restaurant that's part of the foodie revolution.
	I don't know, the place is kind of on par with Chez Panisse, except that, you know, I don't think it was a leader by any means in terms of new cuisine.
	But they're always known for having a good oyster selection, and we had...
	Boy, did we have a selection or what?
	A lot of oysters.
	We had $90 worth of oysters.
	Yeah.
	That was pretty outlandish.
	But they were good.
	And January, according to the French, January is the month you want to eat oysters, at least in the northern hemisphere, of course.
	And I've never had oysters down in South America.
	That'd be kind of interesting.
	So what we did specifically for the show is we tried seven different varieties, A couple of them were not available.
	The one from Rhode Island was not available, which I really wanted to try.
	So we started off with a dozen, then we had another dozen, and then we narrowed it down to the final three, of which we had three each.
	Actually, we started with...
	Here's how sad it is.
	We lost count.
	We started off with a dozen, two dozen, right off the bat.
	And then we had another dozen, and then we had the final nine.
	Something like that.
	Yeah, okay.
	I remember the names.
	Yeah, you do.
	I don't remember them.
	So my favorite was the Pickering, and yours was the Pearl Point.
	Yeah, right.
	Right.
	They were both good.
	I think the pro point was better.
	And then the other one that was the runner-up was the Neetka, which I never heard of.
	That was more like Nuka.
	Wasn't that Nuka?
	That was Neetka.
	N-E-E-T-K-A, something like that?
	I don't know.
	It's like, you know, these oysters are just a bed of oysters someplace, and I give them a name.
	And so, for those of you wondering, it's very possible to eat all those oysters.
	You don't feel sick.
	You can just keep eating them.
	It's just basically like 99% water.
	I whitewashed the ceiling in the hotel room, boy.
	Just kidding.
	So, anyway.
	Yeah, that was good.
	But, you know, I've been eating some oysters now and again this season, but I was very disappointed in the prices.
	Those oysters typically, you know, in a place like that, usually run $1.25 to $1.50.
	And then in a really expensive restaurant, they run to $2.50.
	But $2.50 and then a couple of those ones from the East Coast, which I wouldn't want to have any.
	$2.75.
	It was $2.75 I saw one.
	No, $3.50 was one.
	No.
	Rhode Island was $3.50, yeah.
	Outrageous.
	I was pointing it out to you.
	And then we had a grouper.
	Right.
	We split the grouper.
	You wanted a grouper.
	Yeah.
	It was okay.
	Yeah, it was alright.
	And, oh, that was, of course, John's doing his whole wine list thing.
	And he looks at our server, and he says, Hey, is the wine guy here?
	Yeah.
	I warned you I was going to do that, though.
	She didn't know a lot about the wine, did she?
	She didn't know anything.
	No.
	She was looking for the screw top.
	Well, whatever.
	But that was kind of good, because we had a...
	Was that a champagne we started off with?
	No.
	We had a little champagne, but then we had a Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
	Yes.
	That you liked a lot.
	Yeah, I did like it.
	You're right.
	Okay, then...
	So what do we rate that place?
	Is that a place we would recommend?
	Yes, I would.
	Well, the price, the total bill, you know, for now, yeah, we had a lot of oysters, but it's not cheap.
	I thought it was an expensive place, which of course included the 4% health tax, which is now included on every bill.
	It was expensive.
	It was expensive, considering it's a funky place.
	It's not like a romantic, great restaurant that you take somebody to propose to them.
	But at those prices, you'd think it would be.
	You better get laid if you're taking someone out for that money.
	That's for sure.
	But we did have champagne and the red wine.
	We've never really done a rating system, but I'd go there again.
	If you said, hey, you want to go to that place with the oysters, I'd definitely go again.
	Yeah, well, I've been there before.
	I just don't.
	I'm really disappointed in the prices of those oysters.
	It's...
	It just keeps you from having oysters.
	I mean, you normally go in there in a January, and the whole bar, you know, they have a big copper bar.
	It's beautiful.
	And there would be people at the bar with about half of them would have that oyster thing up in the air, you know, that levitated oyster plate holder.
	And they'd all be eating oysters.
	I mean, you just go in there and just...
	You sit near the bar and have a bunch of oysters.
	I didn't see anybody eating oysters.
	Well, no, because it's a pretty expensive finger food.
	People on the chat are asking about this health tax.
	Turn the speaker down just a bit, John.
	Sure.
	And I think we talked about this.
	Actually, we argued that we talked about this on an earlier no agenda.
	This is proving I was right.
	We never talked about it.
	Yeah, okay.
	So in California now, I believe there's a certain amount of health care tax that employers are obliged to pay, and whatever it is, it's like they're getting screwed, they can't afford it, and their solution was to pass it on directly to their customers, and so they actually put a line item, 4% health tax, and sometimes they even say sorry or thank the governor or something like that.
	They'll have a little cute message.
	Yeah, someone's posted a link now in the chat, so there you go.
	Huh.
	So the...
	That wasn't only on that.
	It wasn't on the other bills.
	Well, you never saw the other bills.
	I saw the one.
	It was on all of them.
	I think it was.
	You have the copies in your wallet you should check.
	No, I throw those out.
	I destroy the evidence.
	I'm so used to it.
	Never take anything from a hotel or a restaurant back, man.
	You might have to explain yourself later.
	To who?
	Who cares?
	There we go.
	Now we're getting the real Adam.
	I didn't fill out my 105, by the way.
	I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
	So you just walked it through?
	Yep.
	Of course.
	Go look that one.
	Go Google that one.
	105.
	Yeah, you know what?
	I figured you were going to do that.
	I figured the scenario, if anybody said anything, was, oh, shit, I got the 105 right here.
	You're right.
	It's exactly right.
	And I had it filled out, too.
	Oh, crap, man.
	I can't believe I forgot to do that.
	So hectic.
	I figured that would be your scheme, being a crackpot.
	Yeah, sure, a buzzkill.
	Yeah, so one of our listeners, by the way, came up with that we should retitle ourselves Crackpot and Buzzkill, and we thought it was very amusing.
	And we're keeping that in there.
	Well, we should actually give our second piece of news, because we can do restaurant reviews all day, but we've decided that for a number of reasons, we need to do an additional show in the week.
	So we're not quite sure how that's going to play out yet, but it might be Tuesday, it might be Thursday.
	And that's pretty damn good news, isn't it?
	You need the applause sound effect right there.
	That's right, not once, but now it's twice a week.
	- Oh, oh! - Oh, oh! - United in our country.
	That's right!
	Crackpot and Buzzkill!
	So, um...
	Okay, so that was the Zuni Cafe.
	I'd give it a B. You want to go to the second review, or you want to do it somewhere mid-stream so we don't kill people with food?
	Yeah, we'll put it off later.
	That'll make it be more agonizing.
	Alright.
	We gotta come back to it, though.
	I got stuff on the list.
	How about you?
	Okay, go.
	I'm ready to rock.
	I gave you my stuff.
	It was Jack Welch.
	Yeah.
	Well, Jack Welch, it is interesting, though, that I've seen him on every...
	He's co-hosting CNBC in the morning.
	It must be like a...
	You're right.
	It must be about Jack Welch and not about anything else, or maybe...
	I don't know what it is.
	Hey, babe.
	Well, even with this thing at the University of Miami, the problem with Welch, I don't know how old he is.
	Somebody could Twitter it to us.
	Jack Welch?
	He's got to be near 70.
	Yeah, 70.
	Sure.
	But he obviously, you know, he's still irked about the fact that they took his jet away.
	I mean, I think they screwed him at General Electric because he made a deal with him.
	Yeah, and then they took it away.
	Wasn't that under similar circumstances to, like, corporate greed or something?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it was something like that.
	Some DS. All he wanted to use was a damn jet.
	So anyway, so he retires and they screw him, of course, which I'm sure has got to be something he discusses once a while.
	But the problem is he sounds like he's drunk.
	He does a little bit.
	He does.
	Or like he's just kind of crazy.
	He starts talking about stuff, and when you see this thing, you'll see what I'm talking about.
	And there's guys that are like Kelly.
	His name's Kelly.
	He's at Federal.
	Anyway, he's just like this.
	Jack, complete a sentence, will you already?
	He can't complete a sentence, and he can't remember anybody's name.
	You know what it is?
	It's all these guys who are like my age and your age, they're all falling over themselves because Jack Welch was legendary as a business leader.
	He was like the kind of guy that you wanted to have as president.
	And there's just such a fawning over him that they're overlooking the obvious, which is, yeah, the guy's no longer TV-appropriate.
	You know, he's just...
	Right.
	He's just a mess.
	He is.
	He's a mess.
	But the funny thing, and he slurs, and he's got a mush mouth.
	He doesn't enunciate.
	But I've always thought he was overrated.
	Because, I mean, it was a pig in a hurricane, you know, when General Electric's money went way up.
	I mean, that was during an era where everybody was just growing like crazy, no matter how incompetent you were.
	That said, when you listen to him give his basics on this and that...
	He's great.
	I mean, maybe I'm wrong, because he spent most of his time writing books about himself instead of actually managing anything, which may have been a good thing.
	Him and his wife.
	I don't know.
	He's not Al Sloan, let's put it that way.
	But you're right, that is rather interesting.
	And his wife does all his writing.
	Why is she by-lined with him on the calls that they do?
	Because she's instrumental.
	She is the woman behind his success.
	I don't think that's the reason.
	Jack, if you're going to make me do all this work, I want my name.
	I want credit.
	I want my credit, damn it.
	At a certain point, you know, you get these women, and I think she's, I believe she is somewhat younger than he is.
	I would hope.
	Yeah, but you get to a point where, you know, if the guy is just kind of out of a job, you know, Welsh has money, but, you know, he doesn't have a jet.
	You know, women care more about jets than money.
	You know, and then she's kind of still young and she's still kind of milfy looking.
	That's got to be hard, man, when you make that bed and then you've got to lie in it until the guy kicks it.
	Right, and you never know, this guy could go for another 20.
	Jeez.
	She's like, hey, yeah, get up earlier.
	Yeah.
	Wake up, wake up.
	Jack, Jack, Jack!
	It is.
	It's time for CNBC! H.R. 645.
	This is House Resolution Bill proposed for the introduction of FEMA camps in the United States.
	Yeah, well, just in case there's a natural disaster, you need to put some people someplace.
	Yeah, but the reason why this is so big in the circles that I travel in, John, is that the so-called FEMA camps and the stacks of plastic coffins and the barbed wire and so many different videos are on YouTube of these FEMA camps, FEMA camps, FEMA camps.
	And now here it is, a legitimatization of FEMA camps.
	So basically the legalese to support these camps that have already been built.
	And yeah, sure it's for, in fact it's to provide temporary housing, medical, humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster.
	Are they showing that there's barbed wire around these things?
	Yeah, with the barbs pointing inwards.
	Why would they do that?
	To keep people in.
	But why?
	I mean, what would they want to keep them in there for?
	If they're from some natural disaster, it doesn't make any sense.
	So who wrote this bill?
	Let me tell you.
	Mr.
	Hastings of Florida.
	Okay, that's a good excuse, Katrina.
	Yeah, which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, because, of course, it'll be run by the military.
	Okay.
	And we want the other three uses?
	To provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of federal, state, and local first responders.
	Mm-hmm.
	So they're going to be training camps.
	And to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations, and to meet other appropriate needs as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
	Well, that's the only one that counts.
	Yeah, no less than six FEMA camps to be built.
	And what they'll do, John, is they'll take the feeble and the weak first, the elderly, and like, hey, come here, we'll take care of you, come on into the camp.
	Take a shower.
	You laugh, but I hope it never comes true, man, but to me, this is frightening shit.
	Sounds like Nazi Germany.
	Yes, correct.
	But when you look at it, when you look at the, you know, seeing the headlines in the UK upon return was just amazing.
	Governments around the world shaking in their boots about uprising.
	You know, because now it's, you know, there's rioting and violent protesting going on everywhere.
	Yeah, well, even in Geneva, of all places.
	Yeah, tell me about this, because you mentioned that.
	Oh, it's because there's a whole bunch of people around, somehow managed to go into Switzerland, and then they're in Geneva to protest the Davos thing, which has become laughable.
	You know, the World Economic Summit Forum, or whatever they call it.
	Yeah, the World Economic Forum.
	You know, I'm okay with...
	If you say, hey, we're going to go have a party and score some hookers and slurp some oysters in Switzerland, that's okay, but don't pretend like this is where you're going to go fix the world.
	They're celebrating.
	Gordon Brown was on stage giving a speech in the morning saying, you know, globalism is good.
	Gordon Brown in the morning.
	Gordon Brown in the morning.
	Globalism is good.
	FM. And so while he's saying that, he's got thousands of people on a wildcat strike in the UK against the very thing he's preaching.
	Good work.
	Oh, man, oh, man.
	Well, while you were over here, there were rioting in France, and they were striking all over the place.
	Yeah, which is not abnormal for France, but it is the first time it's happening under Sarkozy's watch.
	Yeah.
	So that does say something there.
	But people are getting pissed off.
	Well, they've got a bunch of do-nothing governments.
	Well, no, they're doing something.
	They're stealing it.
	They're stealing us blind.
	And we're just sitting there laughing, watching Celebrity Big Brother.
	Well, I guess they didn't put enough reality TV shows on to keep the public happy.
	It's fascinating to watch.
	That's for sure.
	Well, now that you're back over there, you can catch us up again with what's going on off the continent, because while you were over here, you were just stuck.
	Because we don't get any of that.
	It's all about the Super Bowl, which of course is taking place later today.
	Right.
	You know, you mentioned, well you told me, and I think you mentioned on Twit that you were going to DVR the game, and you were going to just...
	Speed watch it.
	Speed watch it.
	Yeah, but I was reading something...
	Actually, I think you should watch the commercials, John, because from what I read...
	I don't care.
	I don't want to watch that one-minute or that five-second commercials that they dreamed up, which...
	That's not...
	Would you let me finish?
	You may.
	And then you can go on the rant.
	No, see...
	What they discuss on Twit is not necessarily what's true.
	It's not really what's happening in advertising.
	No, what I thought would be nice for you to watch is that all of the big brands are all going to be attempting to bring a positive and subdued tone.
	And I think that makes it extremely interesting to watch.
	And hope and change and these types of things.
	Yeah, okay.
	I'll watch a couple.
	Here's what the deal.
	When you speed watch on the...
	I'm using the Dish Network DVR, which has a 30-second button on it.
	That's nice, yeah, which TiVo doesn't have, right?
	TiVo, you can program it to have it, but you have to know what you're doing.
	So you pop, pop, and pop.
	You're always off about two or three seconds one way or the other because you have to see if you're back to scratch because the amount of time during the advertisement section varies.
	Sometimes they'll have a...
	A two-minute break.
	Sometimes I'll have a three-minute break.
	Sometimes I'll have a four-minute break.
	I mean, you never know.
	So you're popping through.
	There is a clock somewhere, but you don't have it.
	That'd be cool, actually.
	People out there should do this.
	In broadcasting, there's a thing called a clock.
	And a clock is a sheet of paper that is used heavily in radio, especially with syndicated shows.
	It's a sheet of paper.
	It's a format clock.
	It's a format clock showing you how much time they're going to be talking and then where a commercial break takes place and who owns the commercial.
	And then the next commercial break.
	And it shows you exactly when these breaks come and go.
	And what they do, even though they never usually hit them on the money except at the top of the hour, they do tell you how many commercials or how long the break's going to be.
	So they'll tell you if it's going to be two minutes of commercials or 30 seconds of commercials or whatever.
	Right.
	When you're doing CSI, there's a break here and a break here and a break here and how long the break is.
	So people like myself and half the public, I believe, that have these guns, you know, these old remote controls, you go, oh, this is the four-minute one.
	This is the big one at the bottom of the half of the hour.
	And you go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
	You just hit the button eight times and you're boom.
	You're four minutes past.
	So you don't have to go to the...
	Because you get kind of pensive.
	You go, let's see, hit it again.
	Okay, hit it again.
	Anyway, that's just a thought.
	Every time I'm back in the States after some period of time, I'm always amazed at the amount of signal-to-noise ratio on network television.
	The amount of commercials.
	It is so...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	It's one minute for every two minutes of programming.
	You just want to shoot yourself.
	And then I really tried to extract myself and said, okay, I'm really going to pay attention to the messaging that I normally just tune out, but of course you're not really tuning it out because that's how it works.
	So first there was a Cialis commercial, you know, the one that ends with, if you experience an erection for more than four hours, please consult your physician immediately.
	Actually, there's a comedian that has this gag.
	He says, if you have an erection lasting for more than four hours, call your physician.
	I said, call my physician?
	I'm calling everyone I know.
	Yeah, I've heard it differently.
	I've heard, that's not a medical problem, that's a scheduling problem.
	That's a good one, too.
	But that was followed by, I don't know if you've seen this, the Durex finger vibrator.
	I have not seen that.
	You have got this.
	And this was on network television.
	It's a scandal.
	It's a scandal.
	It's fantastic.
	And you see these women, and they're talking about it, but without saying what it is.
	And then she's like, oh, you know, you can even...
	And then she whispers to her, like, you know, gosh, now my mind is racing.
	What can you even do with this wonderful finger vibrator?
	I can't wait.
	You can't hold this from me.
	I need to go to Durex.com, to the website immediately.
	I wonder if that's on YouTube.
	I'm sure it is.
	Everything's on YouTube.
	Durex Vibrator.
	Well, anyway, so there's one minute of commercials for every two minutes of programming.
	So, you know, I think that by law, someone should pass a law.
	So you cannot have more than one minute of commercial interruption at a time.
	A law.
	Well, that should be a law.
	A law.
	No, it shouldn't be a law.
	Let those guys blow up.
	Every show would be like two minutes, one minute.
	Two minutes, one minute.
	So you only see two minutes of the show, and then a minute of the commercial.
	Then two minutes of the show, then a minute of the commercial.
	That mainstream shit is so over.
	I mean, they've really fucked it up.
	Here we go.
	This is it.
	Let me just see if this works.
	They totally screwed it up because of this.
	Hello.
	Hold on.
	This is a different one.
	This is British.
	It's a British one.
	Yes.
	Play it.
	Okay.
	We haven't got anything in.
	It's okay.
	I made sandwiches.
	I'm going to go on tea.
	Everything's going really well.
	Lovely.
	No, that's not for the finger vibrator.
	That's for some others.
	What is it for, you think?
	That's the...
	But she had such a cute voice.
	Yeah, but it was kind of weird.
	Okay, well...
	But I'll look for it.
	If anyone has it on the chat, send that to me.
	Because when you see this ad, John, it's just like, huh?
	What?
	How did they get that one through?
	And meanwhile, they're bouncing ads left and right.
	Oh, yeah.
	What if that's going to be on the Super Bowl?
	Well, again, it's all going to be spiritual and hopeful and subdued.
	Okay, so let me get back to my point then, now that you brought me back to that.
	I'm going to speed-watch the game, but when the commercials come out, I can stop and watch a few of them.
	What I'll do is I'll do it selectively.
	I'll speed-watch the game, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, because it turns out that as soon as the player hits the dirt, And you hit the button, they're hiking the ball again.
	That just happens to take about 30 seconds for them to get up, go into the huddle, set, and then hike the ball.
	It's about 30 seconds every play.
	Unless they're doing no huddle or there's a penalty, then you get all screwed up and you get back on track eventually.
	So when I go to the commercials, I'll just hit them and hit them.
	Yeah, just take a look.
	Just take a look.
	See if there's anything good there.
	At the split second, it looks like a big, you know, high production value because a lot of these are...
	Well, all you have to do, John, all you have to do is watch the first and the second commercial pods.
	After that, it doesn't matter.
	Yeah, you're right.
	I watched the first half hour of the game.
	Exactly.
	Thank you.
	The thing is that I've noticed is that back in the late 90s, the Super Bowl commercials were a big deal.
	It all began, actually, with the 1984 commercial.
	Apple's 1984 commercial.
	For Apple.
	And so the Super Bowl ads from 1984 to about 1999 were building momentum.
	And every year you'd watch the game and there would be some really cool commercials.
	And then by the end of the 90s, during the dot-com boom...
	Everybody went ballistic with crazy commercials.
	It's when you had your cat-herding commercial and you had all these weird and wild commercials.
	And then it started to go downhill after the collapse of the dot-com.
	Well, wait a minute.
	You missed the obvious.
	We had the what's up.
	Well, that too.
	Which, by the way, didn't sell any beer.
	It's a famous example.
	No, no.
	It did not work for them.
	I'm talking about the talking frogs.
	I like that better.
	Oh, yeah.
	Frogs always work.
	Right, sir.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, yeah, the WhatsApp thing was ridiculous.
	But anyway, the era, it started to deteriorate.
	And over the last, I'd say the last three or four years, these ads are nothing special.
	There may be one ad throughout the whole game that is worth watching, you know, if you wanted to.
	Yeah, it's played out.
	It used to be loaded.
	It's played out.
	It's done.
	The whole Super Bowl ad thing is over.
	You know, when we had our previous company, when it was Think New Ideas, we had Oracle as a client, and we did their Super Bowl ad.
	So we did the ad, and there was an online component.
	At the time, it was for, what was that crazy thing Allison had?
	Maybe network computers.
	I can't remember.
	But here's what happened.
	But we were one of the first companies to have a URL in an ad on the Super Bowl.
	And so we expected a lot of people to show up and hit our servers when that ad hit.
	So the ad rolls, you know, real dramatic...
	We are the world type piece.
	It wasn't funny, but it was beautifully made.
	And so people start hammering the website.
	And so as was kind of expected, we couldn't handle the traffic.
	That wasn't so bad, were it not that the error message that showed up showed about a broken ODBC connection to Microsoft SQL Server.
	No!
	No!
	That's a good one.
	That was not so good.
	That was like, I mean, you know that one line that you get?
	Like three lines on a blank page, you know, Microsoft's SQL Server, whereas Oracle, the company that's supposed to be able to handle everything, who, by the way, they were restarting their own server every five minutes because of a memory leak in their own web server.
	Those are the crazy days, man.
	Nothing worked.
	So anyway, so I can't get behind.
	This game is not that interesting.
	I mean, it's going to be a good, maybe an interesting defensive game if the Pittsburgh team plays like they've been playing.
	And, you know, you get the...
	Kurt Warner, who's I think one of the finest quarterbacks ever to play ever, who has an ups and down career because he has a slight injury.
	He's terrible.
	But he's just fun to watch when he's playing well.
	He's over the hill.
	He shouldn't even be playing anymore.
	He should have been retired.
	But whether he wins or loses this game, he's got the Hall of Fame in front of him now.
	There's no question about it.
	So that's kind of interesting.
	But that's it.
	Yeah.
	And the other thing is that Werner's also a Jesus freak, like to an extreme.
	A Jesus freak?
	He's a Jesus freak, yeah.
	I mean, it's ridiculous.
	I mean, I don't mind people being pious or having religious beliefs.
	None of this bothers me, but it's when he constantly harps on it to an extreme.
	I think there's actually some, and I always forget what those passages are, but there's some biblical passages that kind of forbids this.
	And I don't care.
	You've got to show it off.
	So I just want to go back to Davos.
	Davos.
	I sent you a YouTube video to take a look at just because I thought it was such an outstanding performance as it comes to acts on the world stage.
	You have to understand that this World Economic Forum in Davos That it is just like Macworld or CES. It's a trade show.
	And it's run by this guy, pompous ass guy.
	And I know all this because Ray Lane, one of our investors, told me basically how it all works.
	It's a trade show scam.
	You pay $50,000 a night for a suite so you can entertain.
	It's a big trade show schmooze fest run by this one guy.
	Yeah, it's just well done.
	It's well done, yeah, but this is not like some government, you know, world leader, we solve problems.
	Yeah, no, it's like CES, right?
	Yeah, and Robert Scoble covers it.
	I mean, enough said.
	And so they have a panel.
	Who are you?
	Who are you?
	I'm Robert Scoble!
	Who are you?
	You're referring to the puppets.
	Yeah, anyway.
	That's good shit.
	We love Robert.
	Yeah.
	I don't love him.
	I do.
	I think he's a great guy.
	I've only met him once.
	He's a very nice guy.
	I don't love him.
	You I love, John.
	I don't dish out the love that easily.
	Yeah, well, let's go on.
	So there's a panel with Ban Ki-moon.
	He just put MC in front of that name.
	Yo, MC Ban Ki-moon, baby!
	On the cheap tip!
	Who, of course, is the Secretary General of the UN. Then there was the Turkish Prime Minister, whose name I cannot remember.
	And then there was some other dude.
	It didn't matter.
	And then there was Shimon Peres, who is...
	Is he now the President of Israel?
	He's the President now, right?
	I don't know what he's doing.
	The guy's in and out.
	He's in and out.
	Every time I see him, I see Andy Grove.
	He looks exactly like Andy Grove.
	He's got a little Warren Buffet in him, too, though.
	A little bit.
	Well, he's gaining weight.
	But Andy Grove, yeah, absolutely.
	And Shimon Peres just goes off for like 25 minutes.
	And, you know, from an Israeli standpoint, I mean, he just laid it down so beautifully about this whole conflict in Gaza and how good Israel is and how incredibly peaceful they are.
	And just, I mean, it was a...
	I was stunned.
	But then what happened right after that is the Turkish Prime Minister wants to rebut him, and the moderator says, well, no, no, we really can't.
	No, no, one minute.
	You can have one minute.
	And the moderator was an idiot from the Washington Post.
	Oh, my God.
	And then this guy's like, are you kidding me?
	And he just starts talking, and the moderator starts cutting him off, cutting him off, and he's pushing his hand and pushing shoulders, and it's just...
	And of course, if you haven't read it in the papers.
	This is a bad moderator.
	I mean, if you have a...
	You're running a panel.
	I've done these, obviously.
	You're running a panel, and all of a sudden, two guys get into it?
	That's what everyone wants to see!
	Yeah, hell yeah.
	You're going over.
	I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen.
	We're going to have lunch right now, but we'll let him speak.
	Because you know fireworks are going to just...
	Of course.
	What a great panel that was.
	But this idiot decides, no, no, I think we should stop here when this thing's going to get heated up.
	I was stunned by that.
	Which is exactly what we wanted!
	Let fireworks commence!
	Come on!
	Rock it!
	But, you know, yeah, I was stunned by that decision to kill the panel.
	It was unbelievable.
	What is he thinking?
	Oh, no, I know what it was.
	You go to do these things and events like this, and they come up to you beforehand.
	It's usually some woman, you know, a Lindsay Nagel type.
	Yeah.
	Hi, I'm moderating the panel.
	So now you're going to be moderating the panel.
	Here's the rules.
	You have to have a hard stop at the half-hour party.
	Hard stop.
	Can we just put hard stop amongst the, certainly, Silicon Valley speak that we hate?
	Can we just put that right up there with, look, look.
	And by the way, man, listen to how many politicians are using this and what a trick it is because it does jar you.
	Look.
	I mean, look.
	I mean, look.
	So there's look, and then...
	I'm sorry, I've got a hard stop at 1.30.
	I've got a hard cock right here, baby!
	I dislike that.
	Okay, so they come up to you with these rules.
	We have a hard stop, and you have to stop because we've got to go to this and we don't have time to run anything over.
	The way it would work if you're a reasonably good moderator, you always say to yourself, they're probably not going to invite me back anyway if this thing is any good.
	In other words, it gets out of control and fists start flying.
	You're not getting invited back, but you don't expect to ever get invited back anyway, so you just go for it.
	So you screw the rules and you say, you guys go, and you let them talk, and then you don't worry about getting chewed out afterwards.
	You let that go past the hard stop, and you're not going to come back anymore.
	You probably don't want to go back anymore anyway.
	No, absolutely not.
	In a situation like that, why would you want to?
	It's stupid.
	I don't get invited back to a lot of things, by the way.
	No, no kidding.
	But there's so many things to do.
	Who cares?
	There's plenty of things to go to.
	So to make it even worse, by the way, the Turkish Prime Minister's name is Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
	Guy needs a makeover, too.
	MC Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
	It doesn't quite work.
	So he just keeps going on and on and on.
	Then the moderator absolutely just kills the session while the guy is still going.
	He's furious.
	He's like, I'm never coming back to this stinking rat hole.
	He gets up and walks out and says, I'm never coming back to Dallas again.
	Right.
	And then the conference organizer, the CES head guy, He gets on the podium.
	It's like, well, you know, we're working towards solving world peace and blah, blah, blah.
	And meanwhile, everyone's like, can you believe this shit?
	What's going on?
	No one's listening to him.
	And then on stage, I don't know if this was on the YouTube clip, because I saw it either live or at least unedited.
	Then, you know, Perez is walking around and, you know, shaking everyone's hand.
	And you can almost hear them say, wow, that guy was a tool.
	You know, they're sucking up to him.
	It was just an incredible performance.
	You owe it to your general development to see this and to listen to how eloquently this man told his story.
	True or not, doesn't matter.
	True or not, doesn't matter.
	But you have to realize that the Turks have been under a lot of...
	I mean, they're essentially being run by...
	By Europe!
	By the European Union!
	No, no, no.
	Well, yeah, there's that element.
	But the other thing is, there's radical Muslims that have basically taken over.
	They're going to really make that country ruin it.
	Well, this was a step.
	There's no reason for the Turks to even care about Israel or Gaza or anything else.
	So what is the point of that?
	Your analysis is spot on with what I'm reading.
	That this really makes a whole bunch of shit happen in Turkey that just isn't necessary.
	And if you see it in every single paper, he was heralded a hero's welcome upon his return to Turkey.
	Yeah.
	And people are laying flowers outside his house and outside the Prime Minister's residence, whatever it is.
	You know, this is scary shit.
	Well, you know, these radical groups, they sneak in all kinds of different ways.
	I mean, that's what's going to happen in Iraq eventually.
	They're going to just vote themselves in and then vote out everybody else, and that'll be the end, and then they'll close it down.
	I mean, that's the flaw of democracy.
	I mean, this is what happened in, was it Algeria, you know, where you vote in enough extremists because, you know, they sell a good populist message, and then once they get in, they get the majority.
	They say, okay, we're shutting down democracy by popular vote, and we're becoming a Sharia government.
	You know, and then so they said, well, wait a minute.
	You know, you can't do that.
	No, we can.
	We did.
	Yeah.
	Well, that could happen almost anywhere.
	According to all the reports I've read, Kuwait is like about two votes away from pulling that stunt any minute.
	Really?
	Hmm.
	Yeah, nobody knows quite what to do about it.
	Well, do we need to do anything about it at all?
	Well, I mean, if you have a democracy that can vote itself, you know, it's like, imagine that all of a sudden you, especially in parts of Europe where you have this huge Muslim population that will eventually just vote party line, you know, like you see here with the black vote, for example.
	They vote party-line.
	There's five black Republicans, even though it was the Republicans who freed the slaves.
	Nobody wants to pay much attention to that.
	You just vote party-line, and then once you get a majority, you say, well, okay, let's just change everything.
	This democracy thing is stupid.
	Because look how easy it was for us to take it over, and let's just vote it out and vote in a cleric-run theocracy, and boom, we're done.
	We've got it made now.
	It's kind of doable.
	I mean, every time they try to make an effort to do it just the opposite direction, in Iran, for example, where they do have elections, they vote some guy in, you know, who's kind of a Democrat, and they just either throw him in jail or whatever.
	I mean, it's just horrible.
	Well, this is kind of what's taking place in the Netherlands with Geert Wilders, a member of parliament, who created that movie Fitna.
	Do you remember there was kind of a mini uproar about that?
	No.
	No, tell me about it.
	If you Google Fitna the movie, you'll probably get bored by it because it's just like a bad YouTube video.
	It wasn't really spectacularly well produced.
	And essentially what it does is it takes quotes from the Quran and then shows you newspaper clippings that would relate to that quote.
	And, of course, all the newspaper clippings are terrorism, death, destruction, and it's all the Muslims' fault.
	That's kind of what it is.
	Well, not even that.
	It's more like, here's what's happening to our society, to the Dutch society, and people complain about this all the time.
	This is no secret, although it's rarely ever properly written about in aggregate.
	So he created this movie, and now he is...
	I think the high court, I believe, has approved that he can be prosecuted for insulting Islam.
	And so they're going to take him to court for insulting Islam.
	That's a good trick.
	It's the beginning of the end.
	Yes, it is.
	And it has nothing to do with Islam.
	Any group that can do that...
	Can sue someone for insulting them?
	Man, give me a break.
	Michael Arrington would be rich.
	The spitting thing, by the way, did he get spit in the face at Davos?
	He'd be covered with spit.
	Was that at Davos?
	No, no, he was in Munich.
	He was in Germany someplace or someplace like Munich.
	He's always at something.
	I mean, I'm surprised he hasn't gotten spit on before.
	I read somewhere that in Davos, spitting was the big thing.
	A lot of people were spitting at people who were showing up.
	Oh really?
	Yeah.
	Spitting must be becoming the great equalizer in Europe.
	I guess they feel so helpless.
	Yes.
	In the United States we'd be shooting at them.
	Come on.
	I believe it's a final desperate act.
	Whereas maybe in some cultures throwing a shoe, spitting, it's a very violent act.
	If you actually spit on someone, does that constitute his battery?
	I don't know.
	Probably local laws.
	I don't think it would around here.
	Yeah.
	But you guys aren't getting your tax refund checks either, so you don't count anymore, California.
	No.
	You know, spitting is against the law in South Africa.
	And there's a lot of countries where it's against the law because there's one way that tuberculosis is spread.
	It's also just nasty.
	Yeah, especially when people are spitting all the time.
	You know, when you go to Taiwan...
	Not so much anymore, but back in the early 90s or late 80s or whenever, before the Taiwan island was populated by millions of Mercedes-Benz cars and the freeways are now jammed with traffic, there used to be very few cars because there was a very high tax on automobiles, so everybody drove around a motor scooter.
	And so then there was thousands of these.
	I mean, there was tens of thousands of motor scooters everywhere you went.
	And there would be, like, people would talk about the record for how many people could be on a motor scooter.
	Oh, yeah.
	I remember these days.
	Sure.
	Told me about seven.
	You know, and he described it.
	There was two little kids on the handlebars, a kid in front of the driver.
	That's one, two...
	Three, four.
	Somebody behind him that's five, and it was the mom behind him, five, and she was holding two babies.
	And that was the seven.
	And he claims to have seen this.
	It's been a nice photograph.
	But anyway, so one of the things that you'd run into, because it was so hectic, you'd watch these motor scooters in the main squares of Taipei, for example.
	It would frighten you just to watch it, because of the fact that there wasn't blood on the streets.
	But there never was.
	And one of the things, the reason for this was because everybody was wired on beetle nut juice.
	Yeah, I know the effects of it.
	I don't.
	But anyway, one of the things you'd see around, there'd be these miles of scooters parked everywhere, because people drove around and they'd park them somewhere.
	And around the scooters, there'd be just pools of spit.
	Red spit.
	Red spit.
	Red bloody-looking spit.
	And I said, what is this?
	Are people bleeding from the mouth?
	And somebody said, no, it's a beetle nut.
	He says, to survive on these roads with all these scooters doing it at full speed, you have to be juiced on this stuff.
	You've got to be hammered.
	Well, the betel nut stuff, which I tried, was offered to me and I accepted at a hill tribe where I stayed overnight during one of my many travels, my documentaries.
	It's like an elevator high.
	So they wrap it in a cocoa leaf and I think there's some tobacco leaf in there and then some white paste.
	God knows what that is.
	And then the betel nut.
	And then you're supposed to kind of chew it like a cud and have that in your...
	Cheek there.
	And within like 25 seconds, it's like, whoop!
	Oh my god, I'm hot!
	And it lasts about 20 minutes.
	And then it's gone.
	And then your whole mouth is just...
	Yeah, it's like...
	Remember those plaque tablets you used to get at the dentist?
	Right, it turned your teeth red.
	Yeah, everywhere there's plaque.
	Which I'm convinced was just...
	It didn't actually detect plaque.
	It just made your teeth red.
	It turned everything red.
	Yeah.
	So does it heighten your awareness?
	I mean, would you think you could ride a motor scooter better?
	Yeah.
	That's a very interesting question.
	It was not like marijuana, where you're actually the opposite of high.
	It might have.
	I mean, I've never done coke or anything like that, so I can't compare it to that.
	So maybe the cocoa leaf had something to do with it.
	Those guys, they're basically making opium, so maybe that paste was opium.
	God knows, right?
	Yeah, it could be anything.
	The women chew it all day long, so I guess they're using it as an upper to keep them going.
	Well, there's a lot of obscure uppers out there, like Kat is one of them.
	What's that?
	Kat.
	Kat.
	Or K-H-A-T, one of the two.
	I think it's K-H-A-T. Kat.
	Kat is just some weed that grows in some parts of Africa, I guess, and it's used by Africans to stay awake all day.
	And I'm always surprised, and there's all these, you know, like Betel nut and cat, and there's a, you know, there's a laundry list of these things that are used here and there, and they've never, you know, they've never brought over here to become popular.
	I'm always wondering what the mechanism is for something to arrive, and the next thing, you know, everybody's all, you know, using it.
	I think probably supply and demand.
	You know, that's how crystal meth became popular.
	You know, it's a...
	There wasn't enough of whatever people wanted to smoke or take, and the cheap alternative was buying NyQuil and creating crystal meth out of it.
	Yeah.
	Which crystal meth, by the way, is bad.
	I mean, you have no idea how many people are hooked on this shit.
	You can usually tell by looking at them.
	Actually, when I first went to the University of California, when students were hooked on various forms of methadrine or dexadrine or benzadrine or one thing or another, they always had, and you talk about this with anybody, they had no buts.
	This looks like, you know, if you want to have a zero, I mean, no but.
	I mean, there was nothing.
	Really?
	They had no but.
	It was just like, they would wear the regular pants and there'd be no but there.
	And crystal meth is, you can spot these people a mile away, they got absolutely no but.
	There's no but in existence.
	You heard it here first.
	Look around.
	Okay, hey, you're really highly qualified for this job, but I'm sorry, you got no but, so you must be on crystal meth.
	I can't hire you.
	Here's a question for you, John.
	Who controls or would you say is in charge of the sea?
	The sea?
	Yes.
	Any sea.
	The United Nations, we'll say.
	We'll say the United Nations.
	Just a guess.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, good guess.
	Oh, wait, wait, wait.
	I know who it is.
	Neptune.
	Neptune.
	Yes, now you're talking.
	Now there's this United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which is now being driven very hard by one person in particular, Hillary Clinton.
	It's called the Law of the Sea Treaty, which I love because the acronym is LOST. And it covers all ocean space, all its uses, including navigation and overflight.
	Overflight.
	All its uses of all its resources, living and non-living, on the high seas, on the ocean floor, and beneath the continental shelf, and in the territorial seas, including the overflight and space.
	And that now belongs to the United Nations?
	Doesn't that just belong to no one?
	So they're in total control of it, or they will be when this is ratified.
	Huh.
	I wonder what the purpose of doing that is, is to collect commissions on people who mine for magnesium in the middle of nowhere, or to charge a nickel on each piece of tuna that's caught 12 miles offshore.
	Or anything.
	How about gambling, ocean, under-oceanic cables, piracy, but even transatlantic flight?
	They own it.
	Space!
	How about space?
	That's pretty vast.
	Every time a satellite goes over your omen...
	Yeah.
	I don't know if it's going to be for...
	if it's going to be that blatant, but I just found that very interesting and that Hillary Clinton is really making a big push for this thing to get ratified.
	Well, can you find a rationale?
	Not yet.
	Why?
	Not yet.
	That's why I'm just bringing it up.
	I don't know why.
	But I can understand the power of being the boss of seven-tenths of the globe.
	I can see there might be some rationale.
	I'm the boss of the fish.
	I'm the boss of everything.
	Everything.
	Well, she's wanted to be the boss for a while, so maybe she gets a job here.
	She'll quit her State Department job and become head of the oceans.
	Oh, I have testimony from her on this.
	Hold on.
	See if this works.
	Senator Murkowski.
	Thank you, Mr. Chair.
	Chairman, and welcome to you, Senator Clinton.
	Thank you for your leadership, for your willingness to step forward and assume this very, very important I truly appreciate all that you are poised to do and what you have done in the past.
	We had an opportunity in my office last week to discuss the issue.
	There's so much pontificating going on in our government.
	She sounds like Lindsay Nagel.
	She's not.
	She's Ms.
	Murawski.
	And I know oftentimes...
	And she's got a bad suit on.
	Oftentimes.
	Oftentimes.
	But we are by virtue of Alaska.
	Oh, she's from Alaska.
	Come on, get to Clinton.
	So I'm watching this thing with Jack Welch.
	No, not with Jack Welch.
	What was the thing I was watching?
	It was...
	Oh, yeah.
	Larry McMurtry is a novelist who did this speech at Rice.
	I didn't record this one.
	No, I don't think so.
	Anyway, it's actually interesting.
	It's about the death of reading and the fact that he owns a bookstore with 350,000 rare books in it, which I think is...
	But this guy, the president of the University of Rice in Texas, he gave an introduction that was a good 20 minutes long because he liked to hear himself talk and he sounded like this and then Mr. McMurtry just said that.
	And this is one of those C-SPAN things, by the way.
	And I just found it annoying.
	Why can't people just get, we know who Hillary Clinton is.
	We know who McMurtry is.
	Why don't you just get that?
	We want to hear them, not you.
	Nobody wants to hear this bonehead.
	They wanted to hear McMurtry.
	That's their moment to shine.
	Their moment to make themselves look like idiots.
	Anyway, back to you.
	Right.
	So, on the rare book front, you sent me a YouTube video to watch about a book that is apparently being sent around the world.
	Yeah, yeah.
	What's the name of it?
	What does it say?
	The Age of...
	Something about...
	Do you have the title?
	I have to open up the YouTube video.
	It wasn't the almanac.
	It was...
	Kind of like in his...
	It's a big, thick book about creationism, but from the Muslim perspective.
	It's this guy who happens to be another Turk, by the way.
	Yeah, here we go.
	Holland.
	Here it is.
	The minister of education does not believe in evolution in the Netherlands, it says here.
	Copies of the Atlas of Creation.
	Atlas of Creation.
	Which apparently is a beautiful book that is being sent...
	Is it being sent anonymously, John, or is it being sent from some...
	I don't know who's sending it.
	I mean, it's obviously somebody's behind all the money because this thing's not a cheap book.
	No, it's with beautiful pictures.
	Anyway, it's a book that debunks evolution.
	Yeah, supposedly.
	And does it through fantastic, beautiful imagery and holograms and beautiful pictures that explain that the world was created.
	So, yeah, we have to get copies of it.
	It sounds like a...
	The Atlas of Creation.
	Hell yeah.
	Someone's probably run across it somewhere.
	So did you get this link, which I have on the blog now, which is the Tornado steam train to carry first passengers from New York in Newcastle in Maiden Voyage?
	They built a steam locomotive in England, brand new, and they're going to put it in service.
	Yep.
	And you sent me a note and said, let's go on this ride.
	And I'm like, do you even know where Newcastle is?
	It's up in the middle of nowhere, but it's such a small country.
	You know, England is smaller than California, so it's never that far away.
	But if you had to drive up, that's a pretty long drive, man.
	Take a train up, and then get on this train, and then, you know, chug, chug, chug, and then come back.
	I think this is historic.
	We're going back in time.
	Steam engines.
	Let me just see.
	Where's it actually running from?
	From York in Newcastle to where?
	What does York in Newcastle mean?
	I don't know.
	It's what it says.
	From York to Newcastle.
	Thank you.
	So your headline is, you can't even copy properly.
	I know, that was done automatically.
	I don't know how it got messed up.
	York to Newcastle.
	Cool, I'll buy you a ticket.
	And a Slurpee.
	So how far is York to Newcastle?
	Is that a long way?
	I don't know, I could look it up, but I can't be bothered.
	You should know you live there.
	I know it's 400 miles to Los Angeles.
	I know it's like 90 miles to Sacramento.
	I know all these distances in California.
	Yeah, because you've actually been there.
	I've been told quite specifically never to go that far north.
	I'm reliably informed it's not a good idea.
	What did someone say to me?
	A flight instructor, Captain Dan, said to me one time, he said, even if your aircraft is on fire and flames are coming through the cockpit, you never ever want to land in Wales.
	I'm like, okay.
	I'll take your word for it, dude.
	Ah, okay.
	Oh, so our second meal that we had was the winner, by far.
	And then we can just do a quick wrap-up of cocoa, because that was a real dog.
	We went to Limon, is that the name of the restaurant?
	Yeah, L-I-M-O-N. Yeah, Limon, which is a Peruvian restaurant.
	Right, yeah.
	This is the second time I've been to a Peruvian restaurant.
	I took Callie Lewis to the other one that's in San Francisco.
	There's actually three or four.
	But anyway, this place was astonishing because of the fact that we got out so cheap.
	I mean, we just had a lot of wine, we had, you know, desserts, and lots of food, and it was delicious.
	And it was under $100 when we were set and done.
	It was amazing.
	And we had the Hooch wine?
	We had some Vinho Verde, which is a cheap white Portuguese wine.
	When I was in Lisbon recently, I went to a little hole-in-the-wall bar for something to eat with these guys I was taking pictures with.
	And they had the classic Vino Verde, which is like a Coca-Cola spigot.
	And it goes into your glass and it's all foamy.
	It's like really carbonated.
	And it's got very little alcohol.
	It's probably around 7%, maybe typically, maybe less.
	And it's absolutely delicious, especially on a hot day, because it's just a very refreshing wine.
	It was very refreshing.
	It went down well.
	Cold, icy cold.
	That was really nice.
	Yeah.
	But you don't see it much in this country because it's just not...
	I mean, we could...
	California wine...
	Many wineries could make this wine by the ton, especially in the Central Valley where you get a huge production.
	And if it ever caught on, it would be very popular.
	I think it's...
	The problem is it's like if you make one false move, it becomes Boone's Farm.
	It's like you have to be careful.
	And I think there were spritzy wines that have been brought into the market now and again, Ripple, and some things like that, which unfortunately ruined the market for something that would be more healthy.
	So anyway, so we had that, and then we also had some red wine, and then it was just...
	It was very, very good.
	Two things of note.
	The corn with enormous kernels, which is...
	Yeah, they're huge.
	Yeah, Peruvian corn.
	You know, I was thinking about that corn because you were wondering what about, but this has got to be the same kind of corn that's used to make corn nuts.
	Which is a bar snack and a snack food, which has got huge...
	Yeah, big kernels.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Very tasty.
	And if you do eat at Limon, Limon, or any other peruvian restaurant, have the Tuka Tuka as an appetizer.
	No, wait, that wasn't an appetizer.
	You just like saying it.
	Yeah, I do.
	Tuka Tuka, which was kind of a rice ball with some peas and stuff in there with a...
	With a crust.
	Kind of like a dirty cricket ball.
	Yeah, it was good.
	It was very good.
	It was definitely good.
	But everything there was good.
	I was very impressed.
	The place was packed.
	The reviews that I saw on Yelps, they called it, you know, the people that didn't like it too much, they thought it was a yuppie place.
	I didn't notice any yuppies in there.
	There was a lot of families, a lot of kids.
	Bloom's been there.
	What?
	Bloom's been there.
	Bloom's been there?
	Yeah, he told me he did.
	Well, there's definitely not a yuppie place.
	There you go.
	It was good.
	It was loud, but not so you couldn't have a conversation.
	Acoustics are pretty good.
	Even though we had a two-person table kind of in the middle of everything, it felt good.
	Oh, and love the waiter who kept saying, right away, sir.
	Right away, sir.
	Yeah, it was very funny.
	You'd ask him for some, could we get some water?
	Right away.
	And he'd shoot off.
	And he would bring it right away.
	Yeah.
	I like that right away thing.
	Yeah.
	I did have dinner with Ron on Thursday.
	Yeah, after our board meeting at Flytrap.
	You ever been there?
	It's right near the hotel.
	I've been past it.
	I've never eaten there.
	No.
	Don't.
	Well, with a name like Flytrap, why would you?
	It is a yuppie place.
	But it is a place, if you want to take a date to just talk intimately, it's a good place for it.
	Kind of off to the side.
	But the food isn't anything spectacular.
	And then we had...
	So anyway, Limon, we give an A to that.
	Oh yeah.
	Oh, fantastic.
	And...
	But again, it's not romantic there either, so don't take somebody to ask them to marry you.
	No, not romantic.
	You can always put the ring in the tuka-tuka.
	You swallowed it!
	It was so good, I didn't feel like chewing.
	And then we had dinner last night at Coco.
	I did want to mention that you booked that through OpenTable.
	They filed for an IPO. OpenTable did?
	Yeah.
	How about them apples, huh?
	Yeah, they filed for an IPO, and apparently they get a dollar per diner who books through their system.
	A dollar per diner?
	Yeah, so they got two bucks off of us.
	From the restaurant.
	The restaurant pays that fee.
	Well, you know, you get a little rebate from OpenTable after you book.
	You get points, yeah.
	We know all about the points.
	Points.
	Maybe we get some stock with the points.
	That would be a thought.
	So we walk into Coco, which I don't think I've eaten there before.
	It used to be called Bisou, and it was much more of a French bistro style.
	Now it's kind of New York bistro style, but it doesn't work.
	No, and we walked in.
	And it stank.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It was like cheese.
	Some sort of bad-smelling cheese.
	You identified it.
	I just thought it was a horrible aroma of some sort.
	That's why you handed me a Tic Tac.
	Now I get it.
	But anyway, so it stunk, and then the floor was loose, and I had to change tables, because every time someone walked by, I bounced out of my chair.
	It felt like I was on a cheap airplane.
	Yeah, you even said, come on, let's go to Frangal.
	Let's go to Frangal.
	I said, no, man, come on, we're committed.
	We're here.
	We're eating here.
	We're staying here.
	What we should have done was gone over to Florida Lee and just ate at the bar.
	Yeah, that's true.
	But anyway...
	What did we have?
	The salads were good.
	I remember that.
	Actually, all the food was fine.
	Just the stinky thing was not so nice.
	And also, you fell in love with the maitre d' and she gave you the finger.
	No, she did not.
	No, she did not give me the finger.
	I love the maitre d'.
	She was so beautiful.
	Maria.
	Maria.
	Until I saw her feet.
	And it was all over.
	It was downhill.
	Yeah, she's walking around barefoot or something.
	What was it?
	No, she had sandal things on.
	It just didn't have very attractive feet.
	And that combined with that cheese smell, it just, I don't know.
	It didn't work.
	It was not working.
	But we did have the one good bottle of wine for the whole trip.
	Whoa!
	Oh, man, that was spectacular wine.
	What was that?
	It was Pavilion Rouge du Chateau Margaux, 2003.
	Oh, man, it was good.
	And your line was really funny.
	This wine tastes like one of those expensive wines.
	We usually have.
	We usually have.
	And I realized, yeah, expensive wine generally tastes like expensive wine.
	It does.
	It does.
	This is expensive.
	Speaking of which, I got a bottle of that Golden Star tea.
	Oh, yeah.
	You know, don't you mention it?
	I forgot.
	Mine's still in the trunk.
	Oh, you dick.
	I asked you to try it.
	I wanted to compare experiences.
	Well, I have tried it.
	I had it at the food fair.
	They had it there.
	I had a bunch of it because the guy said, wow, this is great.
	And he gave me some more.
	So I had a lot of it.
	And my objection to the stuff from the beginning was it was expensive and it's kind of pricey, but it is delicious.
	So it's...
	Actually, I know a little bit more about the process.
	Naturally fermented.
	So it's a sparkling tea.
	And I believe I had the jasmine.
	Yeah.
	Naturally fermented, small batch, craft brewed.
	Takes about six weeks from water filter to...
	What's FOB? Free on board.
	I don't know.
	FOB. The brewing happens in the Bay Area in Belmont, and they've only had one run so far.
	And I've got to tell you, I shared it with Andrew Grummet, and is it Kari?
	Who sits behind you?
	What, Kapuro?
	The tall girl?
	Yeah, Regina.
	Regina.
	I'm sorry.
	I always get...
	Kari and Regina.
	Kari's on the other side behind Andrew.
	Got it.
	Right.
	And so Regina was there.
	I said, would you mind trying this and tell me what you think?
	And we all agreed that it was, as an alternative to drinking wine, it would be fantastic.
	If you really were not into wine and you just wanted something that feels a little special, has a little special...
	Taste to it.
	And then Regina comes out and says, yeah, a picnic.
	I'm like, okay, Regina, when I come back, baby, we're going on a picnic.
	I'm taking my golden star with me.
	A picnic.
	A picnic.
	Hey, hey, hey, boo-boo.
	You should try it, man.
	I've had it.
	I'll try it.
	I'll put it in the refrigerator and I'll drink it up.
	They're talking about sponsoring the show, but you and I have kind of gotten over that, I think.
	Well, you know, they could sponsor something.
	I mean, it's obviously we like the product.
	Well, I like the product.
	You can't really remember.
	I do remember.
	I remember one distinct thing.
	It had a really delicious aftertaste that was very memorable.
	It probably would have been just as good as the Vino Verde that we had at the Limon.
	Jeffrey says, Adam, you're most welcome.
	Dvorak was such a buzzkill.
	I offered to give him some and he declined.
	He never did.
	He says he did.
	No.
	Dvorak is such a buzzkill.
	Hey, way to go on the sponsorship work there, John.
	Good one.
	Good one.
	Dude.
	Crazy.
	Is that the guy from White Star?
	Golden Star.
	It's not White Star.
	I thought it was White Star.
	It's Golden Star.
	Which sounds more like an adult film label to me.
	Now, I'm Golden Star.
	It's funny you should say that.
	Oh?
	Yeah, I have some...
	Oh, John!
	And now, here it comes, folks.
	You thought, when is the show going to end?
	This is it.
	So I had some years and years and years ago, I found in my portfolio, I think somebody bought it for me or whatever, some stock, I think the name is Golden Star or Gold Star Entertainment.
	Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
	Golden Star.
	And Berlin on Golden Star.
	Really, you own shares in it?
	Oh, that's great!
	There's shares in it.
	So, I don't know, I figured it was some, I don't know what it is.
	But I have the stock.
	And this is for the audience out there, because it was available in the United States.
	I have a copy on VHS. It's called Hot Pursuit.
	And it's a porn movie, X-rated at least.
	And the voice of the lead guy character, who's a detective, is me.
	And it received a fully erect penis award from Hustler Magazine.
	Was it a dubbed thing you were doing?
	Yep.
	They'd hired this guy.
	I was 17 at the time.
	So you were dubbing porn when you were 17?
	It's actually how I met my wife.
	Does that qualify as kiddie porn then?
	In England it does.
	That's how I met Patricia.
	You were a kiddie porn star before you got your...
	Hey, John, let's not say that, okay?
	It's like not a very good idea.
	All right, I won't say it.
	But get your hands on that.
	Bada-boom!
	All right.
	So when do you want to do the show?
	I don't know.
	We can do it Tuesday.
	We can do it Thursday.
	Well, let's just see what happens, what's going on, and we'll check in with each other.
	Wednesday is not good for you, though, right?
	Wednesday is definitely not going to be the day, because you've got cranky geeks, you've got all that stuff.
	No, I've got to go to the city, and they have the all-hands-on-deck meeting.
	I think that's changing.
	I think that we've probably pissed on that enough that it's no longer going to be called all-hands.
	I'll go back to FUBAR or WUBAR. Well, I don't care what it's called.
	It's going to be on Wednesday morning.
	And so that ruins the chances of doing this show unless, you know, I just bag that.
	No, no, no.
	I can't bag it.
	I've got to be a part of it.
	You have to be on the conference call, so that's not going to work.
	Although we could just do the show.
	Wow.
	The meeting.
	Yeah.
	Here's the meeting.
	Okay.
	Now, we've always really wanted to talk open and honestly with y'all.
	Here we go.
	First of all, at least three of you in this office are smoking meth.
	We know it, and it's a fact of life.
	Because you have no buts.
	Because you have no buts.
	All right.
	All right, so I guess that's that.
	I'm going to go get geared up for the Super Bowl and those fantastic ads.
	Are you doing Twit?
	Is a Twit scheduled before the Bowl?
	No, he's doing it right during the game.
	He doesn't like football.
	During the game?
	Pretty much, yes.
	So, regular time, then?
	Yeah.
	That's pregame.
	Well, they actually, they're going to start, I don't know when they're going to kick off.
	But doesn't Twitch start around 3?
	I love listening to that thing and watching the chat.
	It's so funny.
	Yeah, it is funny.
	The chat people are hilarious.
	They're just kibitzers.
	Hey, and tell Leo, it wouldn't kill him to give our show a plug.
	I mean, I talk about Twitch all the time.
	He actually plugged you last time.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, he did.
	I couldn't listen all the way to the end last time.
	It was too late.
	He does it at the end.
	Okay.
	Bye, dude!
	Until Tuesday or Thursday, coming to you from the Curry Terrace in Gitmo Nation East, I'm Adam Curry.
	And from Gitmo Nation West, actually Northern Silicon Valley, and perhaps even the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, and somewhere in the Berkeley region, I'm John C. Dvorak.

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