Hot Horse Meat and Hidden Salami

00:01 It's that time once again. It is time for the program that has absolutely no commercials, no music, no jingles, and of course no agenda. Coming to you from the Curry Manor in the United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry. And I'm John C. Dvorak here in Northern Silicon Valley, California. How's the weather there, John? When I left it was pouring down rain yesterday. It was pouring down rain yesterday, kept raining all night after you'd left. And now it's fine, it's sunny. Oh really? Oh crap, you guys don't deserve that. Well yeah, no, it's sunny right now, but there's a, looks like a, let me look, let's see here.

00:40 It looks a little grim toward the, out the bay, but I, you know, the seagulls were flying in earlier this morning and I thought there may be a storm coming in, but I'm not seeing any evidence of it. We've got terrible weather over here. We've got winds gusting 35 miles an hour. There's snow up north. There's been all kinds of stuff. You know, people have been trapped in vehicles for hours on end. Trucks have been blown over. You don't hear much about it, but we get our fair share of weather over here. Well, the UK people, my experience has always been that they're kind of weather nutty. That's actually funny you mention that. Patricia and I have a theory. If you're here in dead winter, and of course it doesn't really snow here, it does get cold but it'll kind of hover around one or two degrees above the freezing point.

01:28 the women, particularly younger girls, they walk around with short skirts, no jacket, you know, like Ugg boots, and this is rampant. And our theory is that the inhabitants of this island basically want to make a statement that says, our weather's fine. That's not true. We've got great weather over here. Just look at how I'm dressed. That's funny. It's possible. But my experience has always been that They seem to talk about the weather more than any other culture and they also have more weather reports.

02:03 than anything I've ever seen. I mean the TV is just, it's like you could turn one on now, I'm sure of it. Yeah and the weather reports I find are pretty good. They introduced this new, on BBC, BBC News on television, they introduced a new software package, I don't know, about a year or so ago. A lot of people were very upset. Any change like that, you know, in how you report weather people get upset about, but it's really good. I would have to say Every single pilot I know every aviator Uses that as like a baseline. Okay now I know what's gonna happen Just the normal weather report the BBC gives and I think it's probably that's also got to be cultural You know this being a nation that's been very dependent upon the sea both for transportation and for life I guess it makes sense see well I just got back from Washington State and it was raining and snowing up there and it was 28 and you strapped on your skis and

03:01 You put on some of those little spike things over your shoes so you don't fall on your butt. So it was good hanging with the family? Yeah, we had to, my daughter had something she had to do on stage and And yeah, the thing is we were getting a lot of, one of the reasons I have to go up there is to drag down some of the meat that we buy up there. We have, when you're in the more rural areas, even though it's not that rural, but there's still, you can get, you buy into animals that people raise and they're raised without,

03:42 They're raising, just a few of them are raised. Do you buy a share of an animal or do you buy a whole animal? You buy half a cow or half a pig or a whole animal. Really? It depends. Really? But you get like the quality. There's not, I mean you can get a certain breeds. A lot of this has been lost to history in the United States anyway, not so much in France for example. We have, you know, there's different breeds of pigs and they all taste different. Nobody would know that if they shopped at Safeway. But the fact is, they all have extremely different characteristics and some are like,

04:20 We got some bacon in this last pig that's just astonishing. I mean, it's just like... So where do you keep it? Do you have a meat locker or a... Well, you have to have a big freezer. Right. And so you freeze half a... I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm really intrigued. You freeze half a carcass or... I mean, or do you have the butcher cut it up? It goes to a butcher. OK. No, no. It goes to a butcher beforehand. And you tell him what you want. You say, look, I want it cut this way. Or you can ask for French cuts or American cuts. Or you can have big pieces or big rows. It depends on what you want. And you try to figure out what you're going to do. You always screw it up. You end up with a bunch of stuff you don't want. Stuff you don't want, yeah. Not another one of these. No more BLTs, dad, please.

05:04 So anyway, and then it's all frozen. And then you pull it out and thaw it out as you need it. Interesting. And you do this with pork or with beef or both? We do it with pork, beef, and lambs. Oh wow. We should probably... I'm sorry, go ahead. No, but you... Go ahead. I mean, it's just like... You could probably do that in the British... I mean, I'm sure in Britain there's people doing the same thing. It's just that you have to be in the right loop. Yeah. Patrician, I've been talking about this for a while now, because we usually go to either Sainsbury's or Marks and Spencer over here. Marks and Spencer, which is a little more upscale, but it's still all prepackaged food. Probably the past three or four months we've been saying we really should find a real ... We don't really eat that much meat anyway of any kind.

06:01 So it's really chicken, fish and then once in a while some beef. But when we get beef it's so hard here. Lamb, no problem, but really good beef is, I find, really hard to find here in the UK. So we were thinking about finding a butcher. That's an interesting idea though because you buy into the animal from the farm before it even gets into the process of going to the butcher etc. Right. And I'm sure you can do that there. I mean, because you can do this everywhere. It's just some places it's harder to do and some places it's in so much demand that you can't get a good price. Generally speaking, you should be paying half of what you would pay at the store. And the quality is 100 times better because they're grass fed, you can get them at different

06:46 I mean this beef that we have that we just got, I think the thing was nine months old, so it was like, you know, still, you know, it's real tender. The piece is a little smaller than the usual. The steaks are about half the size. but still done by the pound, so it doesn't make any difference. And still, by the way, I'm sorry, but we do also get chickens this way and also turkeys. We get heritage birds. There's a couple of farmers in Washington state that grow heritage animals that are astonishing. If you have a turkey, a heritage bird, one of the oldest types of turkeys that made turkey popular. You can see why turkey became so popular in the United States because these birds do not taste like turkey. They actually taste like a giant pheasant. And for those of you who have tasted pheasant before.

07:37 Well, most people should have if they haven't. But not that, you know, I mean, pheasant's absolutely delicious. It's a little hard to cook, but, because you have to hit it just right. But unlike a lot of these things, like duck, you can be pretty liberal. I think though, this type of purchasing of meat and poultry, I think a lot of people might have a problem with it, because I believe we've become very conditioned To not putting any type of well obviously not a human face But putting a living being face or being confronted with the process of because you just said oh, you know this So we've got beef that was nine months old and of course my brains going. Oh wow man You know little little calf grew up nine months old because it gets the electrodes how they killed are there are they slaughtered in a specific way I think they're forced to listen to Robert Scobie

08:28 Oh Man I'd listen to that interview on tech 5 and it already berated you for it and by the way Davo Is this is a big? rich person circle jerk up in and It was it near Geneva now. It's got in that can't be in Geneva. I think it's in the northern part. I'm sure worried That's a good question. We could look it up, but it's in the middle of nowhere Switzerland and and it's you know You never hear any, or I haven't seen any substantial news or any reports, any substantial reports about the keynotes or about what basically people were talking about. All you read about in the newspaper

09:10 Was you know princess so-and-so King so-and-so Prime Minister this dude was there they were caught hobnobbing and of course in San Francisco in the Silicon Valley trade and basically online It's all about Michael Erickson the Google boys who gets on the Google jet the Scoble I mean what kind of economic forum is this it to me? I believe and I do have some economic forum. Yeah, it's a it's a conference scam. I heard that I know a group, I won't say who, but I know a group who was presenting this year and it was a venture capital firm and they were presenting, you know, I think it's almost like pay to play it feels like. I think they had to pay 200 grand for like, you know, four hotel rooms and a spot on the stage. It's a conference scam. I don't see what else it is. I never see anything come out of it. No, it's a drinking club. Come on. There you go. Drinking club. That's it. That's it.

10:05 Yeah, it's like And everybody, there's a lot of journalists that go to it too and they all scurry over there. They never get anything out of it. I can't imagine that, I know the New York Times sends a couple people and I can't imagine how they get cost effectively, you wonder why newspapers are going out of business, why are they covering this event? I think they probably get an interview or two out of it. I've seen exclusive interviews that'll come out but it's rarely about, the state of the world economic health. You can get an interview with these people without going to Davos. Yeah, well, but it's I mean it is handy. It's easy, right? It's like CES. If you're in the technology press, isn't it easier to, you know, you went there, you know,

10:53 It makes sense, so economic writers, they'll go there, basically just for the interviews. But what is the actual conference about? What is this forum? What do they do there? Who decides something? Anything? They give a bunch of speeches and people sit in the audience and listen and then they all shoot the breeze in the hallways. I don't know. I don't like any of these events, whether it's CES or this thing, I've never been to Davos. But I wouldn't want to go. I talked to Scoble after that and he says it took him 27 hours to get there because he wasn't on the Google jet.

11:30 He was a little annoyed he wasn't on the Google jet. He should have been on the Google jet. And the thing is, is that Tim O'Reilly was on the Google jet. Apparently he went too. Fuck the Google jet, man. I'd never want to be on the Google jet. I really would not. Unless they bought me. And I'm talking about my company. I'm talking about me. Then I'll go on the Google jet. I was flying back on... Oh, by the way, I bumped into Jan and John who run... Have you ever heard of Magnitune? It's a record label, very successful. It's kind of like a record label. They've been around for five years and these guys must be doing something right because I've bumped into them a couple times and they're always flying upper class. Fuck, I can't remember why I was gonna tell you this story.

12:22 Well you bumped into him. Yeah. It'll come back to me. Anyway, so in the lounge I picked up my favorite newspaper, the Financial Times, and right there on page two, so the inside page, Rich Non-Doms Preparing to Leave UK. And this goes back to the conversation we had about the tax changes here in the UK. Oh yeah, what's going on again? Why don't you re-recap it? Yeah, so they're changing the way Particularly capital gains taxes is handled in the United Kingdom. First of all, I believe that capital gains tax is going up for everyone anyway from 10 to 18 percent, which is almost double and is obviously less attractive to a number of people for a number of reasons. But what they want to do now is they want to taxize people who live in the UK yet have offshore assets. They want to tax them for all capital gains.

13:19 which currently is not the case. So as long as you don't bring it into the UK or under certain, if you remit it under certain circumstances, you don't have to pay the capital gains. And the biggest problem of course is for US citizens. who are obliged worldwide regardless where they live or what they do or where they pay taxes to pay capital gains tax effectively for me resulting if it passes in April in double taxation. So if I made a capital gains then I would effectively be paying something like 40% in total. The opening of the story, more than half of the wealthiest people in Britain are planning to leave or scale back their UK investments in response to the tax crackdown on the non-domiciled foreigners, according to a survey. And Switzerland, interestingly, has emerged as by far the most popular destination for the wealthy individuals leaving Britain.

14:15 Yeah, gee go figure but how about that ladies and gentlemen? Yeah, but they're really doing this and and so the Treasury who collects Or who sets these rules up for the inland revenue to collect, you know, the UK version of the IRS They believe that this will bring in more money Into sounds like the opposite effect is going to happen. Well, yeah, that's what so that's what I Who's fighting this? Oh, of course, tax consultants are fighting this or trying to convince them differently. They think it's going to get them 800 million. So the revenue believes it will bring in 800 million more on an annual basis and the tax advisors are saying that probably 44 billion will leave the country if this is actually implemented.

15:02 Well, that's a typical kind of bonehead thing that happens when you get people who just want to tax the crap out of you. This is how the American Revolution began, of course. Was it around taxation? Oh yeah, King George wanted to taxize everyone, right? If there's a word such as taxize, the... Yeah, it's a new Adam Curry invented word. Let me go put it on Wikipedia that I invented that. Hold on, I'll be right back. So the irony of it, if people have studied American history, the irony is not so much that they raised the taxes, they actually in fact lowered them, but they decided to enforce the law. That was the problem. And which baffled George, King George, because he would say, well, you know, I'm giving these guys a break. And now they're all up in arms about it. It doesn't make any sense. These Americans are crazy. But what happened was they actually decided to collect the taxes as opposed to previously they weren't, you know, the taxes were just a bunch of scofflaws. Nobody was paying the tax.

16:00 And once they started collecting it, then everyone got up in arms. And I think that's what we're looking at here. I mean, the public can only put up with so much taxation if they're not getting anything for their money. Did you read the follow-up on Wesley Snipes? If you recall, they were looking for him a couple months back for $7 million in back taxes they were trying to nail him for. And I read, I guess there was a hearing And it turns out that Wesley Snipes is one of these non-tax people who, of course I'm one of them as well except I pay the taxes. There's a large, I would say a substantial group of people including Ron Paul who believe that the IRS

16:48 that the tax they levy is illegal and unconstitutional and Wesley Snipes had essentially filed, or not filed for several years and said I don't have to pay this, it's unconstitutional. So he's he might Now he was a bander said I'm sorry. I understand. I was just reading this yesterday I understand that he think the thing finally went to some trial he got Found that he you know he's not liable because he got bad advice from his But he has to pay 21 million dollars in fees and the rest of it. Oh I don't know. I didn't see the 21 million. I thought I saw something like three million, maybe three million. Maybe it was 17. I thought it was a higher number than three. I thought it was like in the millions, in the two digit millions. Yeah. Well, I think he made a lot of money. He might have spent a lot too.

17:36 I don't think he's got my understanding is he hasn't got this money to I don't think a lot of people have 21 million dollars cash laying around to pay are they IRS I think you're a bunch of these celebrities who got in a hole like that and they essentially African one of them are there's a story about one of them on the television recently will Smith will Smith Oh yeah, Will Smith, exactly. Apparently he went and did a whole bunch of work, you know, did a bunch of movies and everything else and essentially every penny except some, you know, portion for his expenses went to the IRS until they paid him off. It took him like five years or something like that. Yeah, I saw the report and I remember the numbers exactly. He made, I think he made five million dollars on Parents Just Don't Understand.

18:18 That was his big hit before the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And he said he just blew it all. He said he just spent it on everything, anything he wanted. And then the IRS showed up and of course he didn't have any money left, barely. And you're right, it was 70 cents of every dollar he made after that for five years went to the IRS until he had paid off his debt. So anyway, so Wesley Snipes Didn't pay because he felt he didn't have to You know I love this the idea that you know there's and you see this area is crops up every year You know a bunch of people saying you know there's no show me the law that says I have to pay my taxes right one of the there is none John there is no law

19:02 Yeah, and the other one is, you know, I don't, it's not constitutional. There's a whole bunch of these things and it's like, okay, um, this is like guys, somebody explained to me once how, you know, the Rico act came into play and it was never really fully tested cause there's some constitutionalists think that that RICO law, which is used to crack down on organized crime and then was extended to all kinds of other things, was really not really constitutional. But there's so much case law behind it, backing it up, that now it's too late to do anything to stop it. And that's essentially the situation. Yeah, maybe there is no law you can point your finger at, but there's an organization that collects the money. They can take all the money out of all your bank accounts. What difference does it make if there's a law or not if they have these powers? Yeah, you can protest it. So what's the point? I always thought it was crazy to like, you know, these kinds of protests. I mean, there's other better things to do with your time than complain about the fact that the IRS doesn't, there's no law for the IRS.

20:02 I'm kind of on the fence about this. First of all, I agree with you that the jurisprudence is there and it's senseless to not pay and then think they're not going to catch up with you. And they do have a tremendous amount of power. I think the IRS is more powerful than most departments in the United States. You know what what really irks me about most inland revenue whether it's the IRS or Well, I haven't had any problems here in the UK. I'm sure it will come it's exactly that You know that there's always picking at you and trying to get stuff and oh man It's just annoying, you know Like it's not enough that you take something out that you take money away from me before I've ever even seen it So it never hits my bank account and you take it away, but then the continuing argument. It's a

20:50 I think they're one of the most feared departments in the government. during the, it was maybe the pre, maybe during Reagan's administration or even before that, there was this tax simplification they were gonna go through. They're gonna simplify the tax laws. It was a big deal. And there's a whole bunch of editorial cartoons about it. And they just made it more complicated. I happened to be somebody who took the courses necessary to get certified. This is. Oh, of course you did. Of course. Years ago. Of course you're an expert in accounting.

21:39 I took the courses to do the IRS stuff. There's like a receipt to become an IRS agent John No, no to be able to do taxes. I see like CPA like a certified public accountant. No, that's way beyond what this is This is just a sort of it's like a notary public only then it's something like that Whatever the case is you have to take these, you know, you got to go to a bunch of courses so you can do taxes. And I forgot, this was something I was going to do or I needed to do or wanted to do. I don't know what the deal was to be honest about it because it was so long ago. But I know now that I can't do taxes. I mean, I could do them at one time. I can't do them now. It's just like ridiculous. I mean, you have to have an expert figuring out where this goes and what this is for and if this is deductible, if that's deductible. It's unbelievable. It was one of those pro-Ron Paul YouTube movies. I can't remember what it was. I'll have to look for it. Where the person said, look, this is the United States Constitution, held up this little thin booklet, and then held up this big like yellow pages phone book, and this is the US tax code for 2007.

22:40 It outstrips it by a thousand times, maybe even more. Yeah, no, and that's the problem. It's too complicated. There's too many institutions that are needed just to get the taxes done. I mean, there's overhead there. It just would be much simpler if it was a consumption tax where you just, whatever you spent, it would also encourage savings, which they always say they want you to do, even though they really don't. They want you to spend money. So I'm against it. Well, is that on John McCain's roster there? Is that something he's planning on doing? I doubt it. If not. I think McCain's just going to be a company man when he gets in. I have to agree with you. Patricia does not like him. She's like, this guy, nah, no way. She thinks his wife's pretty hot. I have to admit. His wife is pretty hot. It's amazing. She's kind of milfy.

23:31 And now everyone's popping up on the internet talking about McCain and you know posting videos of him Saying you know, I hope we stay in Iraq for a hundred years. You know, it's really it's just gonna be bush light if he gets in Well, you don't know. I mean, he might be the type of guy, the thing is he's, he might be the type of guy that says one thing. In fact, I get the feeling he is this type of guy. Says all these things and he walks into office the first, within three days he pulls the troops out of Iraq. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if he did something like that. You know, I got all the reports here, this is bogus, we're out. Hmm or moves them all those Afghanistan or or nukes of Afghanistan. I mean there's a you knows I mean they said the guy's a Loose cannon, you know, it would be a great ticket. Here's a ticket. I would love John McCain president dr. Ron Paul vice president That would be now that would kick ass wouldn't it? Yeah, I would go if I'd vote for that Would do you think the party would never do that? Would they?

24:28 Of course not. There's no way. They see Ron Paul as a complete crackpot. And he's only one of four guys left and he doesn't show up anywhere in any of the press, in any of the lists, rundowns, lineups. It's completely ignored. The press, you know, and now that he's probably the best story because he has the most interesting things to say. I mean outside of Huckabee's consumption tax idea. It's almost as if his stuff is so crazy, so kooky, so off the wall, but if you just listen to the guy and let it process in your brain for three seconds, then it kind of hits you how beautifully simplistic it all is. Yeah, that's why he's never going to be president.

25:15 Well, I don't know man. I still have my I'm sorry, you know, I still have my hopes for for this Tuesday Super Tuesday, you know, we could still see an incredible grassroots movement groundswell that could make it happen. You know, it's not like I've given up hope Yeah, thanks man, yeah, it's gonna be Hillary and You know Obama's making a last-ditch effort to try to get get some traction and it's gonna be interesting to see how he does But I just don't see it. I Well, it's gonna be Hillary versus McCain. That's the final deal. Hillary McCain, but you're still holding by your Obama would be VP on her ticket.

25:55 Yeah, I'm going to stick with that. Unless there's a... I mean, it's possible the Clintons will just pull a rabbit out of a hat and drag some, who knows, some unknown into the position. Yeah, someone who's been hovering in the wings that you kind of know. And even if Obama doesn't get the vice presidency, or the nod for the vice presidency slot, I still think he's going to be the most viable candidate in 2012. When he has a little bit of experience under his belt. He'll have more experience. More friends on K Street. All the important stuff. Right, and he would not have been a loser. Because if Hillary runs and loses, she's not going to... Back in the 1800s, they used to run these guys over and over again. I think Williams, Jennings, Bryant was like... I think they ran him maybe up to three times. And he'd just lose every time.

26:49 It apparently beats these guys up so much that very few of them will run a second time. I mean, Adlai Stevenson, I guess, was the last Democrat that tried it. He ran against Eisenhower, and then he ran against Eisenhower and lost both times. And I think that those days are over. So I can't see Hillary running again if she loses. Right. Let me just see how much money Ron Paul has brought in. Yeah, I think he brings in a fair amount, enough money at least to pay the bills. Yeah, well he's got $5.1 million this quarter so far. So in, what is that? In four weeks, or one month, five million bucks, not bad. What's he doing with all that money? I don't see any ads. The money that they wanted to raise was specifically to run five, I think national ads.

27:43 This weekend and you know, I guess up and during Super Tuesday So that's what the money was for. There was a I saw some other chart Which seemed kind of out of whack to me because it was showing how much the candidates had raised and how much they spent and how much cash they had on hand. And had Ron Paul listed as having a lot of cash on hand. And I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that they're spending it. Because I talk to the finance director on a regular basis. Once every couple of weeks or whatever. And they really need more money. You know, they've had to hold back on some advertising. But I guess it's all, it's very local still. There's nothing national. So maybe, maybe flip on the TV this weekend or tomorrow. Well, there's a big football game on today. Today is Super Bowl Sunday. And oh, that's right. And there was talk at one point of doing a Ron Paul commercial during Super Bowl Sunday, but I don't think they allow that.

28:41 I don't think they allow political advertising. Oh, that could be. I've never seen a political ad on the Super Bowl. I mean, because they... Super Bowl for the international audience out there, I think a lot of people watch it overseas too, but they're notorious for doing expensive high-end, sometimes humorous commercials during the Super Bowl. Usually they bang them all the lot. And this year is going to be probably an interesting test for what they're charging because I... They're charging more than last year, right? Yeah, they're charging a lot and it's like, I don't know, to be honest about it, the number's probably on the net somewhere. But I think that the game is going to not... Unless I'm wrong, I can't see this game being very interesting after the first quarter. And that's gonna put a bunch of these advertisers in a bind and I think what they're gonna do probably for the first

29:33 a few minutes of the game. They'll probably be taking TV timeouts after every play to jam all these commercials at people so they can assure that they get the audience that they're guaranteeing. Because this game could go out of control and just be a dud By the half and that the whole bunch of people are gonna not get their money's worth out of advertising in the second half Hmm unless I'm wrong. I mean maybe it's a you know they could rig it somehow so the game would be interesting Well, it's possible the game is designed for television John it's designed for commercials football and basketball are totally media

30:14 Sports which is my theory why soccer really never has caught on or football as we call it over here is because there's no place to insert the ads there's no breaks that's why I know it doesn't get the thing interesting about basketball I don't not to mention it is that the most exciting part of a basketball game curiously unlike a football game generally is the last two minutes of where the teams usually are pretty close. And they have to keep taking timeouts because every time they follow one thing or another. So there's lots of opportunities for commercials during the most exciting time of the game, which has got to get people all pumped up when they're watching the commercials. Their adrenaline's going. And so it's kind of remarkable. But generally speaking, in terms of interesting overall, basketball on television to me is a little boring.

31:06 I don't watch sports at all. I'd watch the Super Bowl if it was on at a normal time. By the way, it's only 3 million people outside the US on a daily basis. Pretty much an average basis that watch the Super Bowl and one ad this year Of course, it can't be true But because you know doesn't it doesn't say if it's an early ad a late ad if it's a halftime ad But I guess the average price 2.7 million dollars Or uh, that would be it was the Ron Paul budget No, but there was a lot of talk about doing it, but I just don't think they'll accept them They will accept of course, you know, go daddy chicks walking around with their hooters out

31:45 I mean that's important. Yeah, well that's a football audience. And by the way, use my checkout code DSC1, DSC2, or DSC3 for a great deal on a domain name at GoDaddy. Don't you have a GoDaddy code, John? I use the general one, the company one. Oh, what's that, PS1? Yeah, something like that. Oh, okay. I don't have a specific one. Mainly because I they would just show that I get nobody listens to anything I do or say no people are definitely listening Oh, dude Sarkozy he did it he married her Go over this again Start I say Sarkozy but Sarkozy the French. Oh the French guy with it with the hot. Yeah, he married her he married Carla. Oh

32:32 Well good for him. I like the French guys. You know he's a dog man. This guy's got it together. And they had a beautiful picture they released of the two of them. I saw it in a couple different newspapers. Oh man. Her eyes are set a little far apart but she's hot. Just look at that mouth. Look at that mouth of hers. That's an Icelandic look. She has an album coming out or CD, a new one coincidentally coming out in a couple weeks. Patricia heard her sing, she says she liked the way she sings, she doesn't think she's all that bad. She's kind of rubbing out the ex-supermodel moniker. But I figured out, because I'm trying to think, how does she meet up with all these guys? Because she dated Mick Jagger.

33:20 Eric Clapton and of course the oddball Donald Trump, which that just tells you something about her personality Maybe she goes to Davos. I Bet you I'll bet you she's been to Davos dude. We got to go to Davos hot chicks are there Yeah, I think there must be I mean unless the thing is, you know Kind of it could be a gay cabal for all we know. That's what you should have been asking Scoble about instead of about his streaming videos The streaming video thing, it was fascinating to me that he'd actually gotten away with doing that. People out there should listen to Tech 5's last Thursday. That was really fascinating to you? I mean these guys were everywhere with these little streaming things from their phones. I mean everyone's doing that it seems.

34:07 Well, I was unaware of this trend. I mean, I know people were using the phones for different recording, but I didn't ever know it was streaming directly. Oh yeah, I know there's lots, there's tons of little companies that are doing this and some of them maybe even not so little. I mean, I don't see it scaling and I'm not quite sure I see a business model, but it is fascinating. I mean, I've done it. I've downloaded it. Was it QIK, I think, Quick? is quick.com and you can load some software onto your Nokia phone and you just fire it up and then it's broadcasting. And the quality is, well, like okay, it's YouTube-ish quality. And of course the sound being shitty is the biggest problem. But there's a lot of people doing this. And for one-off events or, it ties in well with the blogger thing. Hey, I'm gonna go to the Steve Jobs keynote.

35:01 You know, hey here I am now check out my stream. You know, I think it's a it's a part of a tool chest of stuff so I saw somebody doing something like that at the Seattle SeaTac Airport because some woman was screaming at the top of her lungs and a that the TSA and then and then She and then the guy was yelling I heard the guy, because I was right there, I was walking past, I was just exiting the... Minding your own business, of course. And I heard the guy saying, are you threatening me? Oh, God. Which was, I didn't hear that, but then he yells at the top of his lungs, I need a supervisor!

35:46 And so the supervisor comes over here and she gets really adamant. She starts cussing the guy out. And I'm thinking, oh brother. Meanwhile, somebody's taping the whole thing from a little distance away. Excellent. Did you see the TSA blog that came out this past week? Someone must have sent you. No, you're kidding me. No, nobody sends me anything as you know. Dude, this is the one link that I actually did get a million times. TSA.gov slash blog. Oh, it's hilarious. And they kind of messed it up first. They're actually doing it themselves? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have their own blog. People are just commenting all kinds of stories. Oh, that's great. Yeah, no, it's entertainment. It is absolutely entertainment. So what happened on your last entry? Because you came in, I believe, since we did the show last. That's right. Yeah, I came back in.

36:37 The exact same sequence of events. You came into San Francisco again. Yeah, San Francisco. And by the way, a lot of people confuse TSA with the CBP. And people still believe that it's the TSA that's hassling me, which is not true. It's the Customs and Border Protection Agency. Significant... Oh, by the way, now that you mention that, I'll bet you that the Customs and Border Protection guys are irked to no end at being associated with the TSA baggage... You know what? You are totally right. Do you know what the one big difference is between TSA and CBP? I mean, even if you just look at their uniforms, do you know what the one big difference is?

37:17 Yeah, one of them's got a gun. Thank you. Exactly. So who's the fucking powerhouse? So the CBP, they've all got guns. And even the guy behind the counter has a gun, you know, when you first come in. And so the guy, it was the same story, John. Hey, don't I know you? And usually my joke that I've used for the past 20 years, when someone says, don't I know you? I'll say, um, did, were we in jail together? You know, that's always kind of like a funny one. And it was on the tip of my tongue. Right. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to say that. I said, MTV ever watched that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, he did his stripe thingy. And then he went into the computer and the faces they make when they look at my record and I've asked each time what's in there. They won't tell you what's in there and you can't see it because they've got the anti look over the shoulder screen filter on the monitor. Right. You can see him kind of looking, typing and then go hmm, I don't know what that is. And then he does an M on the customs form and again what does M stand for? And he doesn't tell me. I said well, is it for money?

38:21 And, oh, and by the way, then he puts a stamp on it. So that'll make my counterfeit effort a little tougher to do. And then I got my bag, went through, and I did my usual smiley thing, and I said, well, here it is. And then I followed that up by saying, I guess you want to put this one in the clear blue envelope. Yeah, that's right. And then he sends me over to a special counter and it was the same guy from last time He's like Adam what you were here just last week. Didn't you come through here? I said, yep said oh man Are you still in the computer? So yeah, ah, yeah, this is so stupid and then let me go Have a nice day. We looked in the bag now for the money No, I have that in my shoe

39:09 They must stand for money. They must be thinking that you're running money back and forth or something. I don't know. It's like a standard question. The times that I have been interrogated in second screening, they do ask if you have more than $10,000 and they did go through all my stuff looking for something, but it was clear they didn't know what they're looking for. So anyway, I just want to say that the TSA is a minor inconvenience. It really is. Being on a list with the Customs Border Protection Agency, that's frightening. These guys have a real fucking database and it's really tied into all kinds of shit and clearly it's wrong. And they've got guns. Now they may be all nice to me, because they all watch me intro Poison videos,

39:56 But it's clearly fucked up. That's a very scary thing that's going on there. That to me is way different from TSA. But I would assume now that you're going to fly into San Francisco more than you are just random airports. Well, unfortunately, I do have to go to New York once in a while, so that means I'm going to get the much longer treatment. I would presume at Newark Airport. I haven't been through JFK yet since this changed. And I don't know. The only thing you can do is send in a Freedom of Information Act request, which they've already said they do not honor. So, out of national security. I guess there's just nothing to be done. National security is involved with you. This is one of the questions you'll read on the TSA blog. It's really cool. Why do you have to hand search and frisk three-year-old children?

40:50 And the answer is there's a guy that actually answered the quite they got a video answer to that even the guy says well You know terrorists are using elderly and children to carry bombs and to detonate like fuck you. That's nuts old ladies, you know If you're really protecting me then do the same thing at the bus station the train station in this subway Not just on planes. It's not true. I Liars, that's ridiculous to be first. I mean, I remember one time there was a When it's when this all began They were just basically pulling over they had this random thing they had a random number generator and you'd get picked every once in a while yeah, and

41:35 Which is kind of fair, by the way. You'd see people in wheelchairs, you know, and old men, you know, in Asheville, North Carolina. And I mean, there's just some cheerleaders. I remember seeing some cheerleader ones getting frisked. And of course, that may have been a volunteer thing. Excuse me, ma'am, I'm with the TSA. I have to frisk you. And I remember one time though, I was coming from New Orleans and I got, I was one of the guys and I had my suitcase. But when I go to New Orleans, I usually go get, there's a couple stores I go to and I load up the suitcase with,

42:15 local food, mostly sausages and other things that you can't get any place else. You're like, oh, we can't bring this stuff anymore, but I used to get like the big jars of Zatarain's mustard, which is an outstanding product. People don't realize it's exactly, it tastes exactly like a French mustard. Anyway, and so the guys open the suitcase up and the guy with apparently a sense of humor goes, oh, we got a bonanza. And he calls all the other guys over. And he says, come on over here, check this out. We caught one. And he goes, and they all look and they see this pot, this whole suitcase with nothing in it but sausages and Dewey and whatever.

42:57 And they all got a big laugh out of it and closed the thing up and said, I told him I always, you know, when I'm in New Orleans, I, or New Orleans, I, I, I shop. You load up on your meat products. Absolutely. It's important stuff. I gotta bring some stuff back. So. And that was okay? Were you allowed to travel with it? Oh yeah. You can travel with meat. Not internationally, of course. No, internationally they're a little touchy about it. I wonder if I took a big long salami and put it in my bag, I wonder if they'd let me on with that. I bet you they've got some reason. I don't know about that. They'll confiscate the salami. I've had a salami confiscated at JFK once. I've hidden a salami once or twice.

43:39 Well, that's another story. So there's a type of salami out of France called a Beaujolais salami. It's an absolutely fantastic product. The Beaujolais salami? Yeah, the Beaujolais salami is quite good. And so I have one of, I brought a couple of them in and I declared the salami, I had two of them and I declared it and he said, oh we gotta confiscate it. I didn't know they were confiscating it for lunch. It was like 11.45. And I said, why? He says, well, there's no, there's bad meat in Europe, is what he says. Really? Mad cow disease in your salami. There's bad meat in Europe. Bad meat. So he scrounged around and grabbed the one salami. He didn't get the second one. So I had one at least for later. I was pissed off about it. We had a great dinner the other night, which we should just touch on briefly because it was quite, I found it to be

44:33 Well, having dinner with you was a culinary event regardless. And it was at Shea, what was the name of it? Shea Spencer in San Francisco, one of my favorite little places. Yeah, fantastic restaurant. If you live in San Francisco, I would highly recommend going there just for the ambiance alone. It's kind of like in the slums and even the front door looks like you're entering a slummy warehouse and then you go through the door and it's like paradise. It's so beautiful. It reminds me a little bit of the places he used to be in Russia in the Soviet Union. Right. Kind of cavernous on the inside.

45:09 There would be these, I remember, I went there once and we were taken to what was supposedly the best restaurant in Moscow. And it was like, you go, it was in a crappy neighborhood and it looked like an old, beat up old house. I think I've been to that restaurant. Did they have a singer in the restaurant as well? You know, I don't remember there being a singer, but I could see where that could happen. It was kind of like a cavernous vibe in a way. Yeah, and you go in and all of a sudden you're like, you transform from this what looked like it was going to be a hellhole into this really nice place. And, uh, Shea Spencer has elements of that where you look at the outside and you go, this place can't be any good. And then you go inside and the inside of this, of this restaurant is nice. But I think what you wanted to talk about is the fact that we ate venison. Yes, we did. They always have game there, which is a good thing. And for people who don't, uh, in other countries that would mean deer meat.

46:04 Right, deer meat. And you were relating the fact that you had just come back from Helsinki where you were pigging out on reindeer. Reindeer, yeah. Which is, by the way, for people out there that travel, if you go to the Scandinavian countries, or the Nordic countries, and there is a difference, they eat reindeer, and they eat lots of it. In Finland, from what I can tell, they don't eat anything but reindeer. They have reindeer salamis, they got reindeer pizza, they got reindeer steaks, and the reindeer is quite tasty. It's really a delicious meat. And the curious thing, and we were talking about this over dinner,

46:45 was that reindeer is almost a 100% perfect match for a California Cabernet Sauvignon of a private reserve style like the Beringer, for example. You know, where it's over-oaked and it's just a monster. Which we did not have. What did we have? We had a Bordeaux. Just a plain Jane Bordeaux. Bordeaux. But anyway, we took enough time selecting it. We had to bring out all these bottles and we tasted every single one. And then what do we get, like a $20 bottle of wine, John? What did we wind up ordering? No, actually I think it was $70. It was the second wine of Chateau L'Hiver Villescasse. It went well. It went very well with the venison. It was a good taste for sure.

47:33 Yeah, it wasn't cheap though. I mean it wasn't expensive by any means but it wasn't, you know, there was cheaper wines on there. But they didn't, she had all these wines, which is the cool thing about Chase Messer, they have a lot of wines by the glass and the wine list is pretty much the same wines and so they'll give you little samples of the ones that you're wondering about. And I was not impressed with these, the other wines. And so we kind of moved over to the Bordeaux, which is always reliable. Anyway, so the reindeer, so I'm in Sweden and I found out then, I didn't realize this, but the Swedes were, unlike the Finns, are a little more, I guess,

48:13 Careful about what they tell people they eat because they seem to I guess Americans have gone over there, and they're just Disgusted with the fact that people are munching on reindeer Rudy oh, they're munching on Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. I think we had Donner and Blitzen I'm not quite sure but it wasn't Rudolph And so they're aghast. And so the Swedes never mention that, you know, they don't want to talk about it. And what I've talked about before, which is another one of these countries up there, Iceland, where I think their main staple, they also eat a lot of lamb, but their main, one of their main staples is puffin. Oh, puffin, right. It's a cute bird.

48:55 And I was like, oh, I'm gonna go get some. I mentioned this to somebody and they're like, oh, puffins are so pretty, how can you eat one? This brings me back to my original point about packaged foods and that we've completely removed the consumption from the entire process which really is one of the most natural processes in the natural world of hunting or raising, killing, consuming, breeding, continuing through that cycle of life.

49:37 The minute you put a cute little birdie face on it's like, oh no, I don't want to do that. Just give me a fucking Big Mac. I don't want to eat old puffin. Which of course is ludicrous. We're killing ourselves with crap food instead of eating really healthy, fresh stuff. We're carnivores. It's what we do. Get over it. The puffin by the way is quite tasty. It's like all the dark meat. It's really a it's a it's a it's really a flavorful bird I have to say and reindeer is delicious. Oh, it is. It's kind of it's a little sweet yet It's hard to describe You had yours raw. I had my medium raw. I just can't take it too raw. I can't take anything too raw, but man You're talking about the venison I'm sorry venison. Yeah, but the reindeer actually when I had a reindeer I had a rare too. I mean I didn't see any

50:28 You know, I mean, eating a lot of weird stuff. I mean, I was in South Africa once and I went to the Blue Train restaurant, which is known for having everything. And so you get the sample elephant, zebra, just disgusted like my daughter, ah, you ate an elephant. Elephant, zebra. How is elephant? Antelope, elephant's not that good. And zebra? I bet your zebra's good. Zebra's a little, it's like horse, it's very similar. Horse meat, you know, it's a little tough. Horse is, talking about by the way, cultures that are embarrassed about what they eat. The Slovenians, now I sound like I'm name dropping, I'm getting, for the people out there, this is one of those conversations where I get carried away with my anecdotes. But I like it, you know, I'm really interested in food, so carry on. It's not about who's listening, it's about me.

51:23 Anyway, in Slovenia, there are huge horse eaters. But they don't want to tell anybody outside the country. But I finally talked to these guys, I was over there, I talked to these guys into, because I've had horse before, I had it in Mexico. And so I told these guys, no, I want to see what you guys do with a horse. And so, They said, okay, reluctantly they said, we'll take you to the best horse restaurant in Ljubljana. And so, okay, I go with these guys and these guys were like so reluctant. I never seen such chow hounds in my life when the horse steak comes out. These guys are plowing through it like there's no tomorrow.

52:09 But anyway, so we all ordered the same thing, the best horse steak they had or whatever. So it comes out and I'm not really expecting to see a steak that's the size of this thing. This thing's the size of a Xerox machine on this plate. I can't even stay on the plate, it's hanging over the sides. And I'm going, oh my God, I can't eat this whole thing, but I'm gonna try. And I never realized, I mean, I had a horse taco once and so I thought I was an expert and I didn't realize what a horse, when it's served like this, is actually like. And it's the texture is a little, it's a little, It's a little like liver in a really funny kind of a way. And I like liver, but I don't like a big piece of liver this big. And it was, I had a hard time eating more than half of it. These guys meanwhile are, you're gonna eat that and boom.

53:02 And, you know, although they were reluctant to go there. It was, but anyway, that's another culture that is not, you know, they're not proud of this because of Americans who are judgmental, I guess. I mean, I'm just the opposite. I'm looking for... One of my anecdotes. I think I told you this one. I went to, I did a documentary in Thailand where I ate a number of interesting things, but the one that came close to a weird cultural difference in eating was the hill tribe. Of course, you'd expect it to be different up there. That was right near the Burmese border in what they call, they still call it the golden triangle, I guess. Maybe. Probably.

53:45 And so we awoke at like six in the morning and we then subsequently helped to go kill a pig. So the pig was dead and gutted by 7 a.m. And by 8 o'clock we were eating it for breakfast. And it was ground up but with a lot of the bones in it. So we're like, you know, crowns popping off and shit. And these people who live up there, they're used to this and they're just crunching through everything. But that was a very...

54:20 weird sensation at the time, you know, cuz I just saw this animal, you know, you heard him squealing when he got slaughtered and You know then before you know what you're eating him and and it it was yeah It was kind of weird, but it was a really natural cycle of life and there was beauty to that as well That was that was probably the only time I've yeah, that's the only time I've kind of been freaked out I don't think I've been freaked out by eating anything. Have you ever done the monkey brains? I No, and I don't like the idea of eating brains. There's too many prions in there and it's like it just doesn't I mean I've had I've only had brains once and it was by accident I was in Texas and I was at a taco stand there and it was I didn't know that say so's was brain exactly They have a weird name for it. What is it? SIS? Oh, it says so so so see it's like sweet bread stay away from the sweet bread and

55:09 Well, I've had sweetbreads. In fact, I've developed a recipe for sweetbreads because I've always believed, I always believed everything has a, if people are eating something, there's a reason for it. It must be good in some way, shape, or form if it's done right. And I've had this, I had a quest for years, for example, to find tripe that was edible. And I would go from place to place, you know, trying tripe soup from the Italian restaurants, and this and that, and the other thing. There was always terrible, I hated it. But I was convinced that there must be somebody that can make this decent. And so there's a one-star restaurant in Paris that had andouillettes, which is essentially tripe stuffed with tripe. And it's like a hot dog, and it tastes like a hot dog. In fact, it was better with mustard, even though it was kind of a... Now what is tripe exactly? It's the intestines. Of? Of a cow. Okay. Generally.

56:06 And the French, I don't know what they do, but when you eat the endouillettes, it's like, wow, this is not only delicious, but it has a slight resemblance to the flavor of a hot dog, American hot dog. And I realize that American hot dogs must be just filled with this stuff. Yeah, I'm sure. Synthetically created tripe. So, uh, anyway, but I've always had this, this, you know, so with sweetbreads, I, I've always felt the same way. And sweetbreads actually are quite good if they're done correctly. The brain, they just don't like eating sweetbreads. Well, the brains and actually sweetbreads to a lesser extent. The problem with these organ meats is that there's the cholesterol. It's sky high. It's through the ceiling. I mean it takes you months to recover from eating this stuff. You measure your cholesterol regularly, I'm sure, John. You take cholesterol and you take like Lipitor or something?

56:59 No, no, I, no, I, those things don't, I mean, it lowers your cholesterol number, but it doesn't really do anything about plaque or anything else. It's just, it just makes you feel better. I mean, it makes you, because you see the number, oh, I got my numbers, my cholesterol's two, you know, and it's like, oh, I must be healthier. Did you know, just switching gears, ever since we had a conversation a couple weeks back about the economist, of course, I've started reading The Economist and I pick it up every single time I travel or it's around. It's a great plane. Oh, it's fantastic for reading on the plane. Did you know that there are still a couple thousand people left primarily in the financial world who use a Telex?

56:06 And the French, I don't know what they do, but when you eat the endouillettes, it's like, wow, this is not only delicious, but it has a slight resemblance to the flavor of a hot dog, American hot dog. And I realize that American hot dogs must be just filled with this stuff. Yeah, I'm sure. Synthetically created tripe. So, uh, anyway, but I've always had this, this, you know, so with sweetbreads, I, I've always felt the same way. And sweetbreads actually are quite good if they're done correctly. The brain, they just don't like eating sweetbreads. Well, the brains and actually sweetbreads to a lesser extent. The problem with these organ meats is that there's the cholesterol. It's sky high. It's through the ceiling. I mean it takes you months to recover from eating this stuff. You measure your cholesterol regularly, I'm sure, John. You take cholesterol and you take like Lipitor or something?

56:59 No, no, I, no, I, those things don't, I mean, it lowers your cholesterol number, but it doesn't really do anything about plaque or anything else. It's just, it just makes you feel better. I mean, it makes you, because you see the number, oh, I got my numbers, my cholesterol's two, you know, and it's like, oh, I must be healthier. Did you know, just switching gears, ever since we had a conversation a couple weeks back about the economist, of course, I've started reading The Economist and I pick it up every single time I travel or it's around. It's a great plane. Oh, it's fantastic for reading on the plane. Did you know that there are still a couple thousand people left primarily in the financial world who use a Telex?

57:43 Wow, isn't that amazing they use it for settlement is amazing. Yeah euro euro clear the world's largest settlement system for international financial markets maintains 184 telex accounts for 50 out of its 1375 clients and sends up to 800 800 telex is a day Huh. That's amazing. It must be particularly secure or part of a system that's, you know. Yeah, it's its own closed loop system, right? It's its own network, I think. Yes, I know there was a, this was on one of these PBS or a Discovery Channel or something like that special about selling a Boeing jet.

58:20 There's an interesting transaction point where they have what's called the keys to the jet. I know a lot about this so I'm interested to hear how you play it back. Well, they sell the jet to somebody, there's a contract signed and then the guy transfers the money And the money has to show up at the Boeing account to make sure that nobody gets scammed. And I think it's done over a telex system. And once the guy gets the phone call that says, okay, we've got the money, you can give them the key. And he gives them the keys to the jet, they own the jet now. In other words, these are not done on credit apparently. I mean, there's a lot of... Well, do you know the term, I'm going to wire you the money? That's where it comes from.

59:04 Because it literally is here. I'll just read that it's a settlement they use it for financial settlements so when they send that message Immediately, everything's changed on both sides of those banking accounts. That's what the wire is, and that's a certified transaction. These days, if you want to transfer money internationally, you can rarely do it through a regular retail account at least. You can rarely do it immediately. It'll take three to five days. Of course, they hold your money overnight because they make money on it overnight. And you do that with this SWIFT code.

59:40 Which is, I forget what it stands for, but SWIFT is literally, you have to add that code so that the US government can track your transfers. That's the only reason for it. But back in the day, it was, you were, so I guess that's maybe three abstracted layers on top of this old-fashioned settlement system. I was just amazed by that because like wow man, Telexes, that must have been 1981 when I last used one. 81, 82, I think? I think there's some software you can use to do Telex emulation and still jump onto the system through a PC. Well I remember back in the day, I was at, I was showing off, I can't remember exactly, oh I remember what it was. I had the, do you remember the TRS-100? Remember that portable?

1:00:30 Yeah, I was one of the, I think I may have been the first person to write about that particular machine. Well, I still have mine and I... Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. That's gotta be, that's probably worth like a grand bucks by now. Fifty bucks. I'll take it to Antiques Roadshow. And so it's basically, you can look it up on the web, it's a full-size keyboard and it has an LCD display with I think 8 or 10 lines. And you could program it in BASIC and you could load up programs, but the real beauty of this thing, it's basically an electronic word processor, the real beauty was it had a built-in modem.

1:01:09 And if I'm not mistaking, it was a 300 baud modem. Yeah, that sounds right. And it was real big amongst journalists because these were the hip guys. You must have been one of them, John. They'd go to some kind of event on site and they'd type and then they'd plug it in and they'd upload it either directly to the newsroom, to their editorial desk, or I believe at the time I had an account on, what was it? It might have been Easy Street. Do you remember Easy Street? Nah, maybe. Easy, no you wouldn't. Easy Street was a system for, primarily used for the music industry.

1:01:47 for concert promoters so that they could do a certain accounting functions, etc. online and it was really one of the first email closed of course, but it closed email systems and later you had the source I think it was CompuServe and the source and you could get on both. Right, those are the two big ones. Right, and the source later became... where did the source become? They got bought out by CompuServe. That's right, they got bought out by CompuServe. I think it was probably on the source first and then on CompuServe. And at the time you had a gateway and you could send an email

1:02:25 through CompuServe, which by the way back in the day, sit on my knee kids, CompuServe email was closed. It was a closed system. You could only send email to people on CompuServe. But you could use a gateway and it would actually send a telex for like five bucks a word or whatever from the terminal. And I remember showing off and showing someone in their office, I said, watch, I'm gonna type a telex message. And then a secretary came up like 15 minutes later and literally had a telex that had come off of the teletype machine. And that was 80, I think 81, 81 or 82. Well that machine came out, I can tell you, I think it was 82 because I had the original version of the TRS model 100 was a thing that NEC did and they'd sent me one and it was red and I wrote a column about the red neck, get it? And I had taken this thing to,

1:03:17 to the rollout of the IBM PC XT. When they first came out with the PC XT, it was the first machine they had with a hard disk. And I had this little, this, This little laptop crazy little machine that you described with me and I got more attention Yeah, then then then the whole presentation, right? Yeah, everybody every writer there was looking at it going Wow, that's cool You know nice thing about it was it took standard double-a batteries to triple-a batteries I think he could you just loaded it up and it would go for hours on those Oh, yeah here it is. No for double-a batteries runs for 16 hours on for double-a batteries. How nice and

1:03:57 3.8 pounds, 2.4 megahertz processor, excellent. 8K of RAM, 32K max. It had the parallel port for a barcode reader, built-in 300 baud modem, I was right. And of course, the audio cassette for reading and writing data and programs. Do you know what the OS was? It was, no, what was it? Microsoft Basic version 1.1. I don't think that was the OS. I think it was just running, it just ran Basic. Well, it says here it was the OS. I think it, no, that's, I don't believe that's true. I think it was some proprietary thing specific to that machine. Yeah, I do remember writing little Basic programs in it though. Gosh, I should pull that thing out again and play with it. Because I remember the keyboard was excellent. It was a great keyboard.

1:04:55 Yeah, it was a very popular machine. I think they sold quite a few. In fact, Radio Shack for years was a leader in the desktop computing business. Right, they had the color computer. Weren't they selling the PET for a while? No, the pep was coming or the CPM. It wasn't what was it? No, no, they were selling there was always TRS DOS They had the model one the model to the model three and I think there was a model for I'm not absolutely sure on that but they ran TRS DOS and there was a bunch of clone doses that would run on the things they were extremely Popular especially the TRS 80 model. Yeah 80. I remember the 80 sure and

1:05:32 And they were extremely popular. And the IBM machines came out, the clones came out. And then over time, somehow or another, Radio Shack, I don't know if they lost somebody that was spearheading this, they just became non-competitors and fell off the face of the earth. Well, wasn't it when Apple came out first with the Apple II? No, the Apple II came out in 1976. Oh, it was before that. I remember my dad had an Osborne. They were on at the same time and the Radio Shack was killing the, I mean it was really extremely popular. It was the IBM PC and the clone PCs that killed it.

1:06:20 I mean the Macintosh came out in 84 and it didn't really have much impact on it. It was pretty much the PC Compatibles. Yes, he did it. I was I was way into the zx80 that's that's what I was playing with and The thing you can hold the size of a mouse that thing no no no it was Didn't think Claire Clive Sinclair make it yeah Yeah, the thing was dinky. Yeah, of course it was dinky and you press the key and the screen would actually flicker with each character. Remember John, I was like 14 or something like that. I didn't have a lot of dough around. And then of course the VIC-20, the Commodore VIC-20, the predecessor to the Commodore 64, that was really my first real computer that I hacked around with. I built my own acoustic modem.

1:07:08 to use with it and we figured out they had these ROM cartridges that you could plug in with games and We figured out how to copy the games from ROM onto cassettes, and we would sell those it was a lot of fun Yeah, that was extremely popular machine, too And if 20 and then the Commodore 64 is a word they sold millions of them of course They had to change the name of the VIC-20 in Germany to the VC-20. Oh really yeah, because I never heard much like Ficken which means fuck Oh really? Yeah. I never heard that story. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. Ficken. Ficken. That's with an F but they figured the Vic which is the same thing they say about pod show it sounds like toilet show. I never heard that. Yeah if pod was if you if you wrote pod with a T, pod show and by the way the Germans pronounce pod show, pod show, pod show.

1:08:01 How is it going with Pudshow Atom? Pudshow. It sounds like a toilet bowl show. Which by the way, a lot of our content is exactly that. Well, yeah. Well, I try to refrain personally. Toilet bowl show. How are we doing on time? Oh man, we got to stop. We've been talking way too long. We need to stop this. All right. Okay. All right. Well, I think we got enough information out there for people who want to go to Shea Spencer or eat reindeer. If you like horse, this is the show for you. You like eating the horsies. All right. From the Curry Manor in a dark and wet United Kingdom, I'm Adam Curry. And I'm John C. DeVorek in Northern California. And we'll talk to you next week on No Agenda.