Volvo's Are Sexy

00:01 It's the end of the week and once again it's time for those two single guys to hang out and talk together. Their relationship is completely platonic, however, they do have their own favorite restaurant that they call their place. It's no commercials, no music, no jingles, absolutely no agenda. Overlooking the bay at the Curry Condo, I'm Adam Curry. And I'm on the other side of the bay in the cheap seats, I'm John C. Dvorak. Hey Johnny, how you doing baby? Yeah, there's that voice that Calacanis likes. I gotta watch that. It's getting too much of a habit. Hey man, good to talk to you. Not like we haven't been talking all week, but at least now. And isn't it crazy that we've seen each other at least, what is it, three times this week? Well, I see you every day. You're always roaming around. Yeah, but we've had dinner, we hang out in the stairwell together. Whatever that means.

00:57 And then we sit down to do the show and and we go to our own individual homes It's crazy so the funniest people out there should know that If you're working at this pod show company the way you have meetings with Adam Curry is that Adam apparently has been unable to break the habit of Imbibing in cigarettes. Yeah. Well, it's not cigarettes. It's a roll my own tobacco. It's a little different. Yeah, he rolls his own tobacco, which is old school. My grandfather used to do that with Bull Durham.

01:33 And I think my dad even did for a while. Whatever the case is, it's a, you know, the kind of roll your own. But since there's no smoking environment, he goes into the stairwell. And so he smokes down in there. So if you want to have a meeting with him, you can go in there because there's, you know, nobody knows, you know, it's just like the stairwell. It's actually quite interesting. It's nice though because you get my undivided attention, don't you? You get undivided attention, A, and it's also actually not a bad place to have a meeting, except for the fact that the place, the stairwell is probably miked. You know, I've gotten so much grief. A, first of all, smoking there because, you know, we're on the second floor, so there's two more floors below us.

02:14 They don't like the smell and they don't like the noise and I completely ignore their complaints. I was pop they had some some of those Bubble wrap. Yeah, but it was not the but it was there wasn't a little bubble rush those big giant ones It's like giant pillows And so and I love those things I get them all the time and if you if you jump on one of them It sounds like a like a shotgun blast. It was no it wasn't a shotgun blast, but it was pretty damn loud When's the last time you you pulled the trigger on a shotgun man? That's a lot louder than that. I I pulled the trigger on a shotgun recently. Yeah, really? Yeah, no, but you always have the headphones on. Oh, right, right. Where do you go shooting? Last time I went shooting was down, there's a shooting place down south of Los Gatos. It's kind of a high-end place I went shooting with somebody who had a great collection. There's these people that they don't even like to talk about it, but there's a lot of these gun guys in Silicon Valley that have these, and they got the money.

03:13 So they have these collections of some amazing firearms that are extremely expensive. Oh yeah, like anywhere between $20,000 and $200,000. Unbelievable. I don't remember anything quite that high. Sure. Some 45s that were just, I looked them up afterwards, extremely expensive. You got any of your own hardware? Also, you know I shot a casual. What's the is that I think it's a casual or muscle one of these things There's two there were two really powerful guns One was the most powerful handgun in the world that could blow your head clean off, but it wasn't a 44 Magnum It was this other thing called a casual or but it's called a fireball who makes it and and it's extremely Amazing to shoot it also makes a big fireball out the front. That's for shooting bears. Huh who makes it I shot, you know

03:59 Sorry? Who makes it? It's a Russian. Russian? I don't know who makes it. I'd have to look it up. I'm getting caught off guard here. But anybody out there knows about guns and knows about this thing. And then there was, it seems to be on the edge of, it was designed to be on the edge of like either firing this big bullet at high velocities or blowing up the gun and killing you at the same time. Oh, that's nice. Spread at the edge of that possibility. And then I shot an elephant gun. Holy shit that that must have set you back It was funny because you when you shoot it you have a That you get all you put a big pad on because this thing is going your shoulder. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, you put this huge thing on and then you shoot the thing and if you can manage to stand up You're a lucky lucky camper, but shit who's calling you now? Don't they know we're doing no agenda. Don't they know it's Friday. I

04:54 I'm gonna hang up. Yeah, well no, if it's your wife then pick it up. It's okay if it's not meanwhile we'll just We'll just play a little bit of hold music while John is checking out who's on all right? Maybe I'll cut that out I'm back. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I was so anyway, well, you can cut that out if you can, but if you don't have to, I'm not going to cut anything out. That's work. Are you crazy? Okay. Well, anyway, so, so anyway, so, so I shot this thing and I actually hit the target and the guy says it was a good, believe me, which wasn't an easy thing to do because the whole, this thing's steady because it weighs like a hundred pounds, you know, you're holding it. You just kind of hoping that as you, as, as you pass across the target with the muzzle that you, you might get lucky and hit this, the target, which is like,

05:39 When I went to Iraq, I don't know if I ever told you this story, we were there for a whole week, actually 10 days, and the day before we were supposed to leave, the Dutch Marines who had been with us, of course you're in the desert, so there's a There's a brotherly thing that happens obviously when you're in that situation. And I said, all right guys, today, final day, we're gonna go do something special. And they had two Land Rovers and one of the Land Rovers had a little cart behind it. little little trailer and they took us into you know, not far from the from the base camp actually into the desert and Turned out they took us to their practice shooting range. They took the tarp off of this trailer John there were like 20 a caves in there. There were tech nines. Oh nice Hand grenades and I was amazed how hard it is to hit something with a machine gun. It's really difficult and

04:54 I'm gonna hang up. Yeah, well no, if it's your wife then pick it up. It's okay if it's not meanwhile we'll just We'll just play a little bit of hold music while John is checking out who's on all right? Maybe I'll cut that out I'm back. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I was so anyway, well, you can cut that out if you can, but if you don't have to, I'm not going to cut anything out. That's work. Are you crazy? Okay. Well, anyway, so, so anyway, so, so I shot this thing and I actually hit the target and the guy says it was a good, believe me, which wasn't an easy thing to do because the whole, this thing's steady because it weighs like a hundred pounds, you know, you're holding it. You just kind of hoping that as you, as, as you pass across the target with the muzzle that you, you might get lucky and hit this, the target, which is like,

05:39 When I went to Iraq, I don't know if I ever told you this story, we were there for a whole week, actually 10 days, and the day before we were supposed to leave, the Dutch Marines who had been with us, of course you're in the desert, so there's a There's a brotherly thing that happens obviously when you're in that situation. And I said, all right guys, today, final day, we're gonna go do something special. And they had two Land Rovers and one of the Land Rovers had a little cart behind it. little little trailer and they took us into you know, not far from the from the base camp actually into the desert and Turned out they took us to their practice shooting range. They took the tarp off of this trailer John there were like 20 a caves in there. There were tech nines. Oh nice Hand grenades and I was amazed how hard it is to hit something with a machine gun. It's really difficult and

06:40 So basically what they do is they put spoiled water in water bottles, they line those up and first you try it in single shot mode. I'm a pretty good shot actually. Single shot mode I'm good and I can hit some stuff. And then it's like, okay that was fun. Now squeeze this fucker off, empty it. And okay, and like. and i didn't get anything it's really hard to hit the game with a machine gun it's not easy i shot a mac as a friend of mine has had a clear has a collection of gangster guns and i a m m act and uh... little crazy little thing has got no targeting iraqi and just spits bullets every which way just a with the worst dog of a gun and this is the stupidest thing is kind of fun to shoot but anyway back to my elephant and so should this elephant got a right so bang it is our

07:26 Padding and all the rest of it. The next day my entire chest was one huge bruise. Yeah, oh yeah. And that was through the padding. I mean it was just like I look, I wake up, I get out of bed, taking a shower, look in the mirror, go holy crap, my whole right side of my... My body's a big giant bruise from this thing. I gotta tell you, I own a couple of guns but they're mainly collector's items and although the... I have a side-by-side 20 gauge which has been in the family for a long time and I have shot that and I still have ammo for it. But I've been lucky enough to go out with a couple of folks in England, which of course, quintessential hunting, right? These guys really know, I mean, you got gun clubs that are just unbelievable. And the way they treat these shotguns, it's like, here's my baby, and you don't want to put your finger on anything but exactly here's where you hold it because you could ruin some of the beautiful detailing on the side of it.

08:23 It's a great experience, but I have to admit after only an hour of shooting, I was hurting. I was really, really hurting on my shoulder. And same thing, you wake up, not as bad as the elephant gun, I'm sure, but you wake up and you definitely have a bruise. Yeah, it's one of those things, they have kicks, a lot of them. Some of them, if you hold a shotgun right, you shouldn't really get too beat up by it. Anyway, so what else is going on this week? Well, we had a let me think well We actually had a quick chat in the stairwell today and it was like oh we got to talk about this talk about that And let me see you lost the notes is oh yeah, yeah, no I and I'll come up with them and of course I'll be meaningless in about two or three more days. I remember what we were talking about we were talking about CBI wait stop stop. Let's stop to stop everything I I know exactly what we should talk about your last entry into the United States

09:18 Oh, yes. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah. Well, it was it was new this time and I did talk about it briefly on the Daily Source Code, but I didn't get into into everything. So here I am I go, you know deep lane I line up and It's funny because I was you know, I avoided the woman as you suggested there was a woman a female Customs Border Patrol agent Avoided her and unfortunately the one that opened up looked like a really cranky guy So I walked up to him and said hey, how you doing? Good afternoon. Oh good. Yeah. Good afternoon top of the morning gov top of the morning. How you doing? And they always say how long you gonna be here? So and then I put then I put down my passport he sees that I'm American and He goes to the computer

10:08 And once again that bewildered look and the tap tap tap tap that this guy did something different he picked up the phone and he called someone and This other guy came over and now two of them are in this little cubicle looking at looking at the screen and gosh It's so it's so annoying that you can't see what's happening on the screen because they have those anti-glare filters and and then the other agent says Baggage check So the guy writes down BG on my customs form and then he crosses it out by his own accord. The other guy left and he puts an M on it. I know what that is by the way, I'll get to that in a second. So of course go get my bag and then I walk up to the officer and I said, I think I'm good for a secondary. I got another W, another upside W actually, seeing if I could get a reaction if it was supposed to be a W or an M.

11:00 And I said, shall I just go over to the C area? Because I know the whole drill now. He's like, hey, does this happen often? This is before I get to the secondary screening. I said, yeah, this is like the eighth time. He says, you know, maybe your passport number is similar to something else. That's what it could be. You should ask the officer. So Officer Okada, I think he might have been Hawaiian maybe. He looked like he might have been from Hawaii. He was kind of slow and you know was asking me questions and and he was going hmm And he started asking an array of really interesting questions and he on email. I'm really friendly I'm telling him about you know how this has happened before and And he said oh, wait a minute. I can't log in on this machine. We can't actually log in ourselves. Please come over to this side Where the other guy was still logged in or something really unprofessional stuff

11:52 And he says, hmm, okay, do you have any other ID on you? And I go through the whole thing again, and say, well, you're gonna ask for a business card, here's my business card. Do you have another picture ID? I said, no, all I got is my Dutch driver's license, which works all over the world. And he said, hmm, yeah, do you have a California driver's license? No, I don't. Any other picture ID? No. No, but here's my pilot's license. I love pulling that one out. I love doing that. I wonder if a Costco card would count. Does it have a picture on it? Yeah. Oh really? I gotta get one. I gotta get a Costco card. And he says, have you ever been to Nebraska? Now this is the first time I've got a question like this, right? I'm like Nebraska? That's wild. Yeah, I'm like, no. Do you know Laura Rand who has

12:40 who has a private aircraft. I'm like, I don't think so. Actually I was a little stupider than that. I said, well you know I fly myself so maybe I've met her. Maybe I met her in the bar. Yeah in jail. And he was actually quite friendly and it's funny because as he's tapping around in this thing he's like He started telling his own life story to me, which I found pretty incredible. He says, you know I'm actually I got into this a couple years ago because there was this big I used to work for Honda USA and I found out that the management was skimping on security measures to save money and I was a whistleblower and I always wanted to be in law enforcement. I'm like all he needs now is a big bunch of keys, you know, it's like this is the perfect guy for this job and

13:26 And I said, you know, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me a little bit about what's going on because not knowing what's happening is pretty much the worst thing. He said, well, you got to match. And of course now that now I know that's what the M stands for and I said, well, what do you mean? He says well We are looking for someone who had and it goes in this order. He says it goes last name first name birthdate He says we get three matches. We get curry Adam and then your birthdate or something very close to it and I said well, you know, I don't know what to tell you man, but every single time I'm let through and he says well Let me go check with the TL

14:04 And I'm like, oh, you must mean the team leader. He says, yeah, yeah. So the team leader is the only one apparently who can log in deeper into the system. And he says, oh yeah, there's all kinds of notes about you and all kinds of entries. I said, yeah, well clearly, you're just matching very close to someone that we're looking for. So let me stop you here. So in other words what you're saying is that because you never mentioned this part TL is a code word that you could probably throw at people it like for anyone trying to get you know getting hassled like say can I took can can I talk to the TL exactly in fact he suggested he said next time this happens when you walk up to the first agent just ask for a TL and the TL can can can go right into the screen and we'll see all of this information so that that's actually a really good thing and

14:52 But what but what is disconcerting is that there's apparently an Adam Curry out there who they're looking for and and actually a number of listeners to the Daily Source Code have done some searches and they've come up with with a there's one guy who's at Adam curry net And no one really thinks he's the right guy, but there's another one that there's a closed off myspace page and Meaning you have to befriend the guy first and he has to befriend you and it's a scary goatee wearing crazy looking guy and he's from Nebraska. Yes Is he your age though? Is he older? No, he's 23 now. That's what's kind of freaky now 23 43 Remember there could be you know, it's still both ends with a three Of course, I look 23 so you can only imagine that that's a

15:43 There's some confusion there, but we now this whole ordeal John took an hour and a half the longest I've ever been there this guy was also just really really slow so I guess the next time I come in I'll just try the The TL thing if I can talk to the team leader, but in the meantime, I'm going on a quest I got to find out who this Adam Curry guy is in Nebraska. It's bugging me. Yeah, I would think oh interesting and Yeah Sorry? At least they didn't shoot you. No, they're not gonna shoot me. But I did, I did have, I was glad that they didn't open up my bag because I know that, you know, Patricia, my wife, I love her so much.

16:27 She had done something I always tell her not to do. She'd put a whole bunch of food in my bag like cheese and stuff. All the stuff you're not allowed to take into the country. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, they didn't open it up though. So I've been enjoying some nice Gouda cheese here during my stay. Yeah, we do have Gouda cheese here in the Bay Area. We can get. You know what, John? The way you are with wine, I am with cheese. I am, I have to say, a cheese expert. Well, I could be. Where do you get your cheese in England? Well, sometimes we're lucky and we can find it at Sainsbury's. They might have a good... We've done a lot of experimentation because we're really into the aged Dutch Gouda. So not the really, really old age stuff, but you have to have like medium matured. And sometimes you can find a cheddar that comes kind of close.

15:43 There's some confusion there, but we now this whole ordeal John took an hour and a half the longest I've ever been there this guy was also just really really slow so I guess the next time I come in I'll just try the The TL thing if I can talk to the team leader, but in the meantime, I'm going on a quest I got to find out who this Adam Curry guy is in Nebraska. It's bugging me. Yeah, I would think oh interesting and Yeah Sorry? At least they didn't shoot you. No, they're not gonna shoot me. But I did, I did have, I was glad that they didn't open up my bag because I know that, you know, Patricia, my wife, I love her so much.

16:27 She had done something I always tell her not to do. She'd put a whole bunch of food in my bag like cheese and stuff. All the stuff you're not allowed to take into the country. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, they didn't open it up though. So I've been enjoying some nice Gouda cheese here during my stay. Yeah, we do have Gouda cheese here in the Bay Area. We can get. You know what, John? The way you are with wine, I am with cheese. I am, I have to say, a cheese expert. Well, I could be. Where do you get your cheese in England? Well, sometimes we're lucky and we can find it at Sainsbury's. They might have a good... We've done a lot of experimentation because we're really into the aged Dutch Gouda. So not the really, really old age stuff, but you have to have like medium matured. And sometimes you can find a cheddar that comes kind of close.

17:19 But by and large, there it is, by and large. Hold on a second. Let me look at the date. Okay, go on. Of when I said it? Yeah. Okay. By and large, Marks and Sparks, Marks and Spencer will have something pretty good. What about Harrods? Don't they, the last time I was there, they had this huge, they had like a room of cheese. Yeah, they do. And we've done some cheese tastings there. Because they'll do that for you. No, let me have a little bit of that. Let me try that some of that We've gotten some fantastic Gouda from Harrods, but Harrods is in the city and we're you know, we're we just live in Guilford It's the sticks and we are you know big consumers of cheese. We still have from Christmas my sister willow in Italy Gave us this huge chunk of Parmesan cheese, which is oh man. I

18:05 I mean I can have a great Parmesan from Italy it bought in Italy where you can't have that stuff that you don't realize when they you go to a deli in Italy they'll have the whole place will be filled with giant things of Parmesan and there'll be like a hundred different versions of it I mean it's different vendors I mean what you do is it's so good you just wind up you know like what can we make tonight that we could put Parmesan on yeah And I find myself actually breaking off a hunk and just eating it. It's so good. Yeah, I've done the same thing. But that's, you can't, actually that type of Parmesan, that really good, excellent Parmesan, I don't think I've ever had it in this country. I just don't think they bring it in. I don't think you can get it. It has to almost grow and mature in Italy, otherwise it just doesn't work, you know? There's something about it. It's like great mozzarella is the same thing.

18:51 I find great mozzarella in Italy. Well, actually, there was a small place in New Jersey run by Italians, of course, that came pretty close. There's a Texas, of all places in Dallas, Texas, there's a place that makes cheeses outside of that little funky little area, I can't think of the name of it, Deep Ellen. It's in the deep bellen area and there's a cheese maker in there. Then they make a buffalo mozzarella, the real stuff from water buffalo milk. And it's absolutely one of the best cheeses I've ever had in the country. But yeah, it's hard to come by. But now we're talking about food, I might as well bring up this.

19:29 Have you noticed, and I don't know why this came to mind, but it did. Oh, why it came to mind, because I'd made some tea earlier, and then I was drinking it after I put the milk in, and the bags were in there, and I'm like, oh, yuck, you know, took the bags out with the... When I was at the London Book Fair, it was a number of years ago, it was the first time I saw this, and then I was hanging out with some Brits that were working for Tech TV, and I saw it again, which is the, the making of tea where the milk is in the cup, the teabag's put in and then the hot water's put on top of that with the milk already in it. Well actually the way you're supposed to do it, I've been told, is you first put the sugar in, then you put the teabag in, then you put the milk in, and then you pour on the water. That's the way I've been told.

20:22 This is not the right, there's no way that that could be an appropriate way to make tea. It never will brew right. Well it's not the way I like to make tea, but I have heard that you certainly need to put sugar first, then milk. Maybe you can pour the brewed tea over there. That's beside the point. Once that oil of the milk is inside the tea, you can't get penetration, you can't get the kind of extract that you would get. Penetration! You know what I'm saying is that you get this oily coating on top of those tea leaves has got to prevent it the proper extraction of the tea elements front with the boiling water. It just doesn't make any sense that you would do this and I was told it had something. I was told it had something to do with the acidic quality of something. I don't exactly remember what it was. Somebody's going to have to give us a lowdown on this. It's only recent that I've ever seen this. I've been going to England for 30 years.

21:15 And it's not like I've ever seen this before now. I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it, but it's like and I have to say this I'm not seeing it being done by anyone over the age of 30. I'll say one thing that really bugs the hell out of me Americans who walk around the office with a huge oversized mug of tea with a tea bag hanging out that pisses me off Why? Because it's lame. It's lame. You don't leave your teabag in and you'll see women doing it more than men actually. And it's kind of like this, it's almost like a yuppie thing but it is so incredibly lame. How can you walk around with the teabag still in it while you're drinking it? Like it's supposed to get better as you get to the bottom? It makes no sense to me why people do this.

22:03 Hmm you've never seen that no no well I mean, I'm sure I've I may have but I haven't really noticed it and I've not been as annoyed oh You are Big annoyance. I don't think it's that big. I mean any worse than the guy with the big giant oversized mug of coffee. Just yeah Yeah, how about those TL reports? By the way, I'm drinking some Yorkshire, I'm sorry Sainsbury red label that you recommended Patricia gave you a whole bag. I didn't recommend it as anything good. I just recommend it as a good. It's not bad. I'm liking it. Hmm a lot of people do like it. I've had it numerous times I was gonna mooch some from you so I could remind myself what I'm saying Monday switched over to the PG tips gold. Oh, you should have told me I have a whole bunch I'll bring something Monday for you. Okay. Well, I'll be back on Tuesday and you won't be there No, I'm gonna be in LA on Tuesday

22:55 I'll be in Wednesday Wednesday. I'll bring it in I'll bring it in whatever the but anyway the point is is that I've got really pretty much switched over to PG tips gold which is their yeah, yeah, I'm 50 cents, but I'd like you to just Now that you had a chance to see it, John, what do you think of my new setup that I've been harping on and I'm so proud of? I showed it to you today at the office. Have you talked about this on the Daily Source Code? Well, yeah, to a certain extent, but I don't want to bore people with the technicalities of it, so I thought maybe it would be fun if you could just tell people your impression. You said something pretty funny today about it. Yeah, what my Adam's done, even though we're to the eavesdroppers out there who really care, I don't know how many there are, but... Someone cares.

23:37 He's managed to put a number of software packages in a linked manner that turns his Apple Macintosh into, you can, everyone would say, well, you know, I've seen a million ways you could do that. You can get Cakewalk, you can do this, you can do that. I have never seen anything quite as spectacular as this lash up which includes a little piece of hardware that you got from some German company, which is a unique device to say the least. And you're also using software that not a lot of people are aware of, which is also German. Almost everything you've got is German. And then you've managed to hook it all together in some virtual sense and it's a phenomenal

24:16 Lash up may be the best I've ever seen for a portable lash. I mean it's beyond Anything anything commercially available? It's amazing what was what was funny what you said today when I was showing it to you because essentially what I you know the The big deal about this is I you know now I have like a tactile control over the software because I'm using the fader Fox external MIDI controller so I have real faders and they don't do anything they don't control any actual volume other than controlling the software that controls volume so I have these faders that go up and down and I have a crossfader which allows me to with my thumb kind of switch between you know views so I can go to a like a

24:56 cart deck if you will so I can fire off different different audio files and you said all you need now is like the symbols between your knees like a one-man band you know I got the drum pumping on my foot I've got the symbols between my knees and it's true but it is it's working and I've been doing these live shows which you know to some degree or it all depends on how good the content is obviously but the the ability to You know, to just bring someone live. It's exactly what I've always wanted. I have a radio Studio in one box on my computer. It has taken me years to get this far now I'm just you claim that took you three years to put this together. Well, and it's not just Understanding how to put it together, but it's really been a combination of the hardware and the software All coming together in this wonderful Nexus and it's just barely Making it you know, the the processor is really taxed and

25:51 But to do it without any latency or almost zero latency in other words when I speak I'm hearing my voice Slightly delayed in my headphones, but I am hearing the full output signal including all the processing So I know what people are gonna hear when they listen to it at home and that of course because what people don't realize is and I think in podcasting people don't realize this that There's more to it than just okay. I got a microphone. I can play something. It's that mix You know, I'm literally creating an end mix while I'm doing all of this and that and that's always been that's what I what I've done all my life, you know is I want to create this one sound of everything that all kind of flows together and you have to be able to manipulate the the levels even it's minute but still those levels are very important and

26:42 Yeah, no, I think you nailed it. I mean not only that but listening to just you, you know running through it It has a slick professional studio sound that sound indicates you get two or three engineers working on it. I mean, it's just amazing. No, I'm just saying so We're gonna patent it. Yeah, absolutely. It's a patentable thing. I think because I sent you an email I don't know if you got it. Yeah, I did was about some crackpot patent somebody sent us a note on yeah, I And as soon as I saw that I said, oh that's unbelievable. So we're gonna patent everything. We might as well. We could be rich from this show, John. All we have to do is patent the process. It's doable. Yeah. If there's something unique about it, it hasn't been done before. So you've done anything else this week outside of... you've been in the office a lot actually. Is that just to please me? Yeah, no I don't go in the office ever.

27:34 only when I'm in town. I go in the office. I go in the office because we're trying to get some stuff done and I can actually sometimes get more work done in the office but I can't do a lot. The problem with that office is it's noisy. And when the programmers in the afternoon about for some reason about two or three o'clock in the afternoon, they start getting boisterous. It's really weird. Good word. Boisterous. Once in a while. Today it wasn't the case. They were all, I don't know where they were, but Sunday's programmers are extremely noisy and they start yucking it up and they make a lot of racket. Yeah, but they're having a good time because. They seem to be, yeah. Maybe they should be programming more and having less of a good time.

28:11 That's what am I saying? Oh, you know what you miss only one programmer in that place listens to this show It's too bad that that you were in the office this afternoon because there was an amazing guy His name is Steve Spinner I don't know if you know his name. He's been around the valley for a long time I think is his wife is a partner at one of the big law firms here in the valley and Ron knows him he's had dinner with him a couple of times. You know, he's affiliated with Kleiner Perkins, etc. But he is he's been working in the Obama camp in fact, I think that he I don't know the exact number but I'm I think he's

28:53 Responsible for raising several million dollars worth for this campaign Which is you know, and I said, oh you're you're a bundler. He said oh god, you know the word I hate that word so much because that's a bundler Is so so the maximum amount you can donate to a campaign in fact, it's $2,300 You can do it if someone's running I'm not quite sure what the rules are but the maximum I guess is 4,600 in Obama's case because you can donate to the Primary and whatever so there's a limit to it. So when you hear someone say, you know the fundraiser, you know raised a million dollars what that means is someone stood at the door and

29:35 Took twenty three hundred dollar checks from each individual that came in because you know legally you just can't give out any more money And you know and so that's called bundling and then you hand off this bundle of checks and you know that amount so if you if you get a thousand of them, then you have you know, two point three million dollars and And that's how this money is raised It's not like you know Some some person can write a million dollar check which I think by the way, a lot of people don't know That that works that way here in the in the United States And he had some fascinating, absolutely fascinating stories to tell. And I asked him point blank, I said, you know, so are you guys worried about the superdelegates who of course have the opportunity to vote for whichever candidate they want regardless of what took place in the primary? He said, absolutely not. Obama is in. It's done. He even expects that Hillary will drop out in a week and a half.

30:32 After the Texas Ohio. He says Ohio he's pretty sure they'll win. He says Texas still could be a close call but he has the feeling that she'll drop out either right before or right after and he was giving me all these quotes from I don't know if you saw the debate last night. Yeah, well I heard I saw the transcript I didn't see the debate. You really miss a lot of context. I agree with that but I don't have time to watch this crap. So I mean if I'm my money's on McCain anyway, so why should I care? No, hold on a second because you still wrote down and you predicted that it would be Hillary and she would Ask Obama to be VP. Yeah, I'm sticking with that. That's not how it's a long shot It's a it's a real long shot and I said so who's gonna be veep. I

31:24 He said, I don't know, we'll probably get some older white guy from the South. And I said, how about Ron Paul? You never let up. I like that. Consistency. He did not think that was funny, by the way. He said, you know, Ron Paul's anti-Israel. I said, I don't know about that, man. I don't think that's true. I think that's just a day. Ron Paul has been besmirched. Yeah. Yeah, well it was that whole newsletter thing that has been popping up for 10 years. So I didn't get into it with him, but I did, you know, it was pretty awesome. He had some really, really good stories and he said, you know, Clintons, they really... I wouldn't have been invited to the meeting anyway. I didn't miss anything. I would have totally introduced you to this guy. He's awesome. And he's clearly well connected.

32:10 Yeah, no, but everybody at Kleiner Perkins, there's a bunch of, a lot of people don't realize, these are some of the richest people in the world over there and they're, for the most part, not all of them, but there's enough, the most active, politically active people over there are all Democrats. Yeah, except for Ray Lane, who's our major guy at Kleiner Perkins. He is a gun, tote, and card carrying Republican for sure. Well, he's one of the few. I think he's the only one. Yeah, I know the rest of them are all big time Democrats. A lot of people don't realize this. They say, well, you know, the Republicans represent the rich. Not true. Most of the super hyper rich people I know are all Democrats. And you go to the DuPonts, the Hearsts, all these people that have like tons of money are all Democrats. And I have my own kind of basic theory about it. Let's hear it. Well, I don't want to annoy the Democrats, but it's because

33:02 They want to keep every because the Democrats are really a status quo company don't want to bring anybody up and make them rich The Republicans want to make everybody rich, the Democrats don't because the Democrats' real voting base are people with no money. That's where they get all their votes from and they want to keep them there because if they got money, they're going to switch parties. And so it's just like, you know, it's a no-win situation. That's why I think the party has to be dissolved. The Democratic Party? Yeah, I think it's over. I don't think the party works anymore. Well, you know, if Hillary is... What was he saying? I'm trying to think. Wait a minute. There was... Oh man, I'm trying to think now. He said there was something that had never been done before and if she pulled that trick it would break up the party. It was something about some other type of delegate, not the superdelegates. I should have paid more attention. He had some other angle that the Clintons could potentially pull to make

34:00 Still get the nomination. I'm sorry. I think you can find out later talk about some other time but I think I still think that she has a shot at this you know sneaking out of this thing as a winner. Well, yeah, she doesn't have a choice. I mean she's either gonna make it this time or she's never gonna make it No, but she could just save face and then go back and make New York a great place, you know Stop that was never the idea. No, it's not the idea But I think and they spent like a hundred thirty million dollars. It's it's obscene

34:37 Well, she can't stop now. Obscene the amount. Well, of course she can stop. No, she's going to have to stick this out. You think she's going all the way. Wow. Well, according to Steve, it was a no-go. He said a week and a half and she's out. I thought that was very interesting. Well, I'm glad that they have hyper-confidence in the whole deal. I mean, I'm not taking bets on this, that's for sure. I'm taking bets on the overall election, but not about who's going to win this part of it. But it would actually surprise me I mean, let's say it this way, I wouldn't be surprised if she somehow, you know, won anyway. Well, there is a way for her to do it apparently. So there was still... I think the Republicans would rather have Obama running because I think they can get more goods on him. So you think that... Well, I was going to say, so if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and let's say Hillary is not the VP, he gets some old white guy from the South, you still think McCain will win? Oh yeah. Really?

35:35 I don't think there's even a snowball's chance in hell that he can win. He has the personality of a dishrag, man. It is just... he's bumming me out. Who? McCain? Yeah! There's somebody was doing an imitation of him Rush Limbaugh's got some guy who's ridicules him in this and the voice is perfect. I think it's a voice I could do I'm gonna work on it. Okay, good. Good. That's nice You know, it's better than the other voice that nobody seems to like at least your fans I will say that you know, obviously, you know I'm a constitutionalist and and I would love nothing more than someone who would at least attempt to bring back a lot of the concepts of the Constitution, but if I had to choose between McCain and Obama, I would much rather go with Obama who has, at least he brings a positive vibe. Yeah, right now, but you know, six months from now when they go after him and they start bringing stuff out and the guy starts getting tired,

36:27 You know, we're gonna see a different Obama. But he's a young guy man compared to McCain 73, you know I think he's gonna be a better president in 2012 than he's gonna be this running if the Democrats get in because of the natural economic cycle If the Democrats get in this year and then the economy tanks, which it's going to do no matter who's president, they're going to be blamed and they're never going to be another Democratic president in our lifetime. The Democrats have to hope to God that they don't win this time. So what are we going to do for these four years when the economy tanks? We're just going to have to live with it? Oh, it's going to be a ten year down cycle, so there's not going to be a four year thing to worry about. Because this is the big one. This is the 80 year cycle. There's an 80 year massive depression cycle. And it's worldwide actually. And this is the one coming up. And it results in a ten year period of stagnation that is unbelievable.

37:22 And when the last time it happened in the 20s, or the 30s actually, unemployment was around 40%. There were red lines everywhere, riots and all kinds of things. It was grim, and I don't see that being any different. And it usually ends by the way. American history is interesting because the 80-year cycle is always marked with a war at the end of the depression. And that we have, if you look at our, if you take the 80 years, you go to 1780, we had the American Revolution and you had 1860, then you have, which is the Civil War, you add another 80 years, you got World War II. And you got another 80 years, which is 2020, you're gonna have something, I mean, it's just like clockwork, these cycles. And the one, and it's always a bad situation. And this is what we're going, we're headed toward. And if the Democrats are in office,

38:10 They're just going to get blamed for everything. uh... tanking of the economy the entire world is about to just going to meet a resource in certain insular here in the u s that we're not that we don't care about the rest of world anyway yeah everything's gonna go into the tank everything's like you know i got all kinds of issues china's gonna be really screwed and then uh... but we're gonna still blame whoever our president is and it's obama that's gonna be you're never gonna see another democrat ever Well, I don't know man. I don't know what to say. All I know is that it's all you know, hey, it's only a theory Yeah, I'm just really worried because I'm seeing all of these all of these issues with the the credit crisis which I think that we talked about this early maybe over dinner about the The auction based credit that I tell you about that. Yeah, you were talking a little bit about I wasn't paying much attention I

39:08 So there's a 300 billion dollar credit marketplace, which is called the auction credit market and the way it works is Actually the example that I read about someone sent it to me. I should look his email up The Port Authority in New York, you know, it's very by the way, you know borrowing money to finance You know debt debt is important in running a company, you know, it's absolutely grow I mean you can almost can't live without debt. It's very few companies that can do it. It's just the way it works and There's a an auction based market we can go say all right I want to go buy some debt or I need or I need some money and it's an auction based system. So right? Yeah No, I remember all this funny story. So just imagine like an eBay type system now What has never happened before? Never ever ever in this auction based system is that someone said okay? I've got some debt or I need to finance or I need to or I want to get rid of this and

40:01 An auction has never failed. Unfortunately, in the fine print of all of these auction-based credit vehicles, it's stated that if the auction fails, then all of a sudden the interest rate goes up to 20%. And this just happened with the New York Port Authority. Then auction failed and now they're screwed because they're sitting with this debt that is costing them 20% in interest and it's gonna bring the entire 300 billion dollar auction based Credit market down to its knees because you know, no one no one trusts debt anymore. They don't know who to trust It's all about the trust everyone's no one's got good credit in the banking world. They're all afraid to borrow from from each other. Hmm

40:49 Yeah, well the banks are always behind these problems. Well of course they are. And they get greedy, the next thing you know they're all thinking, you know, they're... My son goes to this school, Evergreen, which is a, I don't know from what I can tell, it's a socialist institution. Damn commies. But you know, I kind of like think it's, you know, I think kids, especially in college should, you know, get as much of this out of their system as they can. But I guess he's taking an economics course from some guy who I guess doesn't follow the litany of all this. And he's like got this whole thing. I gotta find out the details because his whole theory of everything is how Clinton is actually the guy responsible for all this economic turmoil we're in.

41:35 and based on the fact that clinton's cut loose all those old rules from the thirties you know that which skew this from going into depression and all that kind of stuff and let the banks do whatever they want yeah i mean why is a bank of a you know i remember from when i was a kid news forever you couldn't have uh... any national banks. You had, you know, the Bank of America was in California and the Citibank was in New York and there was banks in all these different states. Now you go anywhere you can find a Bank of America or Citibank branch anywhere in the whole country. And so they became consolidated now they're all like, you know, the Bank of America is, you know, bought by some other bank which has bought another bank and they're all like consolidating this. All it is is just information databases. It's unbelievable.

42:17 So Northern Rock in the UK was nationalized after all, which is surprising to me because I really thought Richard Branson had it locked down with some Chinese money. I was wrong on that. Interesting report though, our friends from the register in the UK, register.co.uk, Had a post that there's a two things one is there's a paragraph in in the in the documentation of the nationalization You know Documents or whatever it is that says that the bank shall be exempt from any freedom of information requests Which I find highly suspicious That's weird. And the other thing that was kind of funny is the guy they've parachuted in to run the bank and

43:02 is a non-domiciled resident. It wasn't Wolfowitz, was it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Forget the name of the guy. I should look it up. But he's going to be dealing with all that tax crap that I'm going to go through in a couple of months when it happens. I just thought that was kind of ironic. But the fact that you can't do a freedom of information request on him is interesting, to say the least. I don't know. I'm reminded of the... I just did this on Tech 5. The guys who did WikiLeak. Yeah, that's the wiki site that had... whistleblower site, right? It's a whistleblower site. And so some judge, because of some whistleblowing they did about a Cayman Island bank, it wasn't even an American property, some American judge essentially shuts down the site

43:57 which is like why and then you know unless he had money there are really was part of this scheme as he shuts down the site so they can have happened to reposition the site and open it up again in sweden By the guys who did Pirates Bay, you know, and I'm thinking I think I mentioned this is it's kind of pathetic when you know the land of the free in the home of the brave and we brag about free freedom of information We have to do our our work in Sweden Yeah, Sweden by the way one of the few countries that did not participate in a lot of the EU stuff including the euro

44:35 Yeah, they didn't but they did join. Oh yeah, they're members. Norway, which was the real smart money, just stayed out. And Switzerland. Hey, we got some feedback. People are getting much better at it, John. They're in and out. You want to hear one or two of these? Yeah, sure. Run them. Okay. This is, well, I'll just run them. We'll see what we got here. Hi, Adam. Hi, John. Mike Pico here. Love to get your take on this story because I really love listening to No Agenda and the directions that you guys take a conversation. You can make the inane interesting. So I hope you take that as a compliment.

45:12 Looking at a couple of recent news stories, and I'm seeing that five cables under sea cables were cut. And I'm also seeing as many as nine when I Googled it. Some articles are saying as many as nine have been cut somewhere. And then the more recent spy satellite in space was having a little bit of trouble staying in orbit, and it effectively died. It was no longer under control. once they had a window shot it out of the sky. Quite effectively I might add. And there's been speculation and I think I even heard Adam mention it that that was kind of a big

45:50 Here you go. We can do it. Kiss our ass. Which I would tend to agree with, but when you factor in the cables cut, I believe in one of the stories I read about those cables being cut is some of the traffic was redirected to satellites. Is it me or does it seem like this is just the United States saying okay if there's cables that don't work for your internet and you want to reroute it to space We'll just blow your birds out of the sky. Just a thought like to hear you guys take on it once again I really enjoy the show. Thank you much. Bye. Bye now. So you have a theory about the cables. I thought it was interesting Market watch you can anyone out there can read it ran a couple weeks ago Go to market watch calm and look my columns up and you'll find it

46:36 It was kind of a sketchy, I mean it wasn't a sketchy column from my perspective, it was kind of, you know, I'm glad they ran it because it was definitely coming from the perspective of a reader of the Confessions of an Economic Hitman, you know, kind of a wacky idea. And what it was, and it was one of the readers that sent us, or one of my listeners, or readers, I don't know, sent me this note, I credited him. in the column, which was that there was going to be the opening of an Iranian bourse. to spy and sell oil in euros. Let me just explain, a bourse is basically an exchange like a stock market. Yeah, commodities exchange. Yeah, right. So commodities exchange, European style. And they were putting it up on this really cool island, which they're turning into a free trade zone. The Iranians are just on the water somewhere. And it looked like it only had access to

47:32 Unlike all the rest of these guys that were cut off from this cable, this mysterious cable cutting, everybody else could reroute, at least they had some internet access, but this island was cut off completely. And so I started looking into it, I thought it was a good theory, I liked it, I liked the idea. And so then I started looking into it, and there's a couple of really dynamite hotels they're building there. So I called these places up. Well, first I tried to email them, and all the email bounced. So I figured, well, I guess there is no internet there. Do you still have a copy of those bounces? Could you forward it to me? Because sometimes there's information in there that is pretty interesting. Yeah, I think so. With the headers. I need all the headers. I usually don't, yeah I think I do still have them, I probably didn't erase them. But anyway, so then I tried calling him on the phone and there was no telecommunications at all and the phones were blanked out too so I just gave up on it after I tried three different hotels and I figured well I guess... And by the way can I just commend you for doing something actually journalistic as opposed to every other fucking pundit out there who is just like boo-boo, you actually did like some work.

48:30 Most of the time, when you're a pundit like myself, you don't really have to do that kind of thing. But I don't like following leads that are just blue sky. I mean, if there's something that's, you know, I don't want to be embarrassed. So I do some, occasionally do some reporting. And so I'll, you know, when I have to prove something, most of the time I'm just making, you know, I'm going to say, well, the way I see it, because of some thought. I don't need to report on that because it's just the way I'm thinking, but when it's something that supposedly happened, I have to report on it, which is meaning I have to research it a little bit to make sure that I don't get somebody saying, why didn't you just call us? We could have told you anything you wanted to know, you idiot. And so I did call, and that's what I got, nothing. I couldn't get through to anybody. So I figured, well, I guess this thing is cut, and these guys are cut off. So the Boers didn't get to open on time, and everyone thinks it's just a

49:23 You know that the New York there's actually the New York oil guys, and then there's a big exchange So the theory is that not only were they gonna get was it a new place to trade oil? But the big news I thought was that they were gonna trade it in euros which of course is a big deal because oil has always been traded in dollars or pretty much always been traded in dollars and Right, although I have this thought that maybe they should start trading in euros and then bring the dollar back up. But I think the dollar is going to sink more, they don't want to do that yet. So do you think that there's something to this satellite business? Maybe that had to be shot out? I think it's just a coincidence. I mean, maybe there's something to it, but I thought that everybody in the right-wing community all believes that the only reason for shooting that satellite out of the air was

50:08 I mean, look, there's a number of possibilities. One, the satellite needed to be shot out of the air because it was, you know, going to fall and land somewhere and they needed to do this. Does anybody think that's a possibility? It doesn't seem so. I think that may be the real reason. But there is also the thought amongst the right-wingers that, you know, that China blew up a satellite so we had to show them that we could do it too. I'm kind of there. I think that's you know I'm not I'm into the cable thing because it makes a lot of sense and it's a weird coincidence and there's no good reason for it the satellite thing there was good reasons for it and it makes you know yeah we blew it up and maybe we were testing some stuff but I think the satellite probably needed to be blown up the thing was supposedly the size of a school bus and I guess it crapped out and you can't just have this thing floating around up there and just to take it one step further this happened on the night of the full lunar eclipse

51:06 Don't know if it has anything to do with it, but just another day to I thought it was a day before No, I could be wrong. I think you're wrong on that, but I don't know absolutely sure They did they did send out no TAMS notice to airmen Because I know cuz captain Chris called in the daily source code. Oh, I'm daily source code calm. I'm learning John There was a notice to airmen that you couldn't fly and somewhere, you know somewhere in the Pacific near Hawaii The FAA basically set up a temporary danger zone and you weren't allowed to fly there. That's interesting. Well, my wife says that there was a there was a a At the time that thing was supposedly shot down up in Washington State. There was a a meteor a meteor that impacted a

51:57 Or something. Yeah. Well, it was, did you, is that what you heard? A meteor? Yeah, in fact, another pilot reported that he actually saw it impact. He saw it hit the ground. Now, I presume it's a meteor. And I'm actually, I'm amazed that, where are the pictures? Are there no people out there looking for this stuff? You know, these things, I mean, I've seen things fly. You can't get the camera out fast enough. These things are going at like, you know, 100,000 miles an hour or 50,000 at least or something. They just shoot by and blow up. I mean, you don't have time to take a picture. And they can be pretty small. They can be like the size of a baseball could still look pretty spectacular in the sky, I'm told. Right. And you know where the meteor hit. I mean, you know, meteors are worth a lot of money if you can find one. Hey now.

52:43 Hey, what are you doing this weekend John aren't you up in the area? I'm gonna go up there looking for that meteor Maybe some cash, baby. Here's a follow-up on the Discussion we had about cotton t-shirts. I will be and will will yeah listen to this isn't you'll probably like this one Hey Adam, Chris Cochran here from Seattle calling about your discussion on No Agenda about t-shirts and fabric and cotton and them wearing out. And I just wanted to let you know that it's not a seemingly different thing. Cotton has changed in the last 25 years. I actually worked in the apparel industry and we create custom t-shirts, my company does, and we had a hard time finding quality

53:29 t-shirt material that meets the same standards that you could get like say 25 years ago. Not too long ago you could buy a nice soft cotton t-shirt from all US, you know, West Texas cotton and it was just amazing. That same quality today sucks and it's the material itself, it's actually the fiber in the cotton itself that has changed and nobody can tell us why. You just have a hard time finding that same quality these days. Just about to touch in on that. I thought that was pretty interesting. That's really interesting. You can't find good quality cotton. I mean, well, he says that you know, he's talking about Texas, you know, American cotton, which is a little I think you can still get good quality Egyptian cotton. And I still have some, I have some, I bought a t-shirt in Hong Kong years and years and years ago, and I still every once in a while it comes up in the

54:20 cycle of wearing a t-shirt and here it is and then you put it on it's like ah this thing is like cashmere so and just wears like forever and it's a beautiful piece of cotton. That's a t-shirt and so I mean I'm sure that there's and and some of the cotton that I've seen that has you know says Egyptian you can still buy towels made from Egyptian cotton and and it's like some of the best cotton and he's talking about Texas cotton which never I don't think it's ever been that good but What I thought was interesting about his comments was the fact that no one can explain why the quality has deteriorated. Monsanto can't explain it. Maybe this is just a crappy something genetically they've changed the thing and it's I don't know really I think somebody should look into this change genetically change the cotton. I mean they're always screwing around with the seeds you know to make this thing so there's you know so bull weevils don't eat it so much or they poison you know some sort of a you know something that or give it more production more productivity I mean they're always dicking around with these

55:20 non food stuff plants while we're on the topic of clothes I was an article in the Financial Times a week ago I think where retailers in the United States and Europe are now putting together, you know, like almost like open letters to to makers of apparel Saying please do not forget us here in the United States do not Forget about our fashion trends and our needs because apparently all these apparel makers certainly the higher mid to higher end are No longer making clothes for the Americans and Europeans for their sizes and styles and tastes They're all focusing on China and other eastern countries which by the way is the reason why I can't get any clothes in my size anymore and

56:13 Yeah, you're tall. Tall and skinny. But you're not that tall and not that skinny. I mean it seems to me that if you're tall and skinny but you're not like 6'8". No, but there aren't a lot of people like me or just not enough and they've given up. They're just not making it anymore. I think I'm going to have to resort to having stuff tailored. Well, you can afford it. That's not the point! It's discrimination! It has to stop! No, well, it is discrimination. Hey, that which reminds me of something since we're talking about on this subject. So remember last week or the week before talking about gold toe and I had these cashmere socks that didn't work. Yeah, I have a comment on that too. Yeah, okay. North Carolina. So I said this is the best we can do in the United States, we just make socks, that's pretty much our business. Somebody sends me a note from North Carolina saying, hey, you get a clue, John, the gold toe company and all their manufacturing is moving to Mexico. Oh no. There you go, now we make nothing.

57:15 We make no agenda We make bits and bytes here check this out a second Adam John you don't know about the infamous sock industry Try this take a metal detector and put it over your socks if you're real lucky every now and then you'll get a little blip That's the transporter transponder inside the socks or he activated Let me put him in the dryer one of the socks beams out and gets sent back to the factory to the factory to be resold. And so every time you wash your socks, one comes up missing. That causes you to have to buy more socks. You gotta learn this stuff, Adam. Yeah, well that's our, that's our actually our normal listener. Yeah. That guy. He's a true. That guy. Yeah, that is the listener. Yeah, that's him.

58:01 So I was a little distressed by that. It's just, geez, you know what I mean? They're already making money. They're in Costco. They got all the distribution they need. What is it about, what is it happening that they have to move to Mexico? And it can't be cheap to pick up. It's gotta be price. That's the only reason to do it. Yeah, but it's got, what does it cost to take and close down a huge factory in North Carolina and haul your butt down to Mexico and rebuild down there? I mean, it just doesn't make a lot of economic sense to me. over the long haul. I don't know, well, I don't know anything about manufacturing, but it seems that... Unless the factory's falling apart and they have to retool anyway. There must be something good we make in America. What do we make here? What do we make that's really... We make jets and bombs. We're really good at that. Yeah, that's awesome. And we make a lot of, we like to blow stuff up. And we make, the high-end chips are still mostly made in this country. They're really pricey ones.

58:58 And I don't know. There's got to be some other stuff that's really big in this industry. I think we make brooms some places. We make great flashlights. We make maglite. They're still made in America. Maglite, that's one thing, yeah. I guess entertainment. We do a lot of entertainment, a little too much of it. That's got to be it. And of course, country and western and jazz are pretty much American inventions. We make cars too. We do make cars and vehicles. I mean, even though a lot of them are made by Honda and like Toyota, but they have factories here. So I think that counts. I think we're losing out. I think we're really losing out in the car business.

59:37 Well, I don't think our cars are that have ever been really that good although I have to say you know even though I my main car and a car I really think is one of the I still think the Japanese make the best cars and I have a Been driving a Lexus for a couple of them And I think is one of the best cars I've ever owned even though it's kind of falling apart after being as old as it is but it is a trash pit on wheels I'm gonna get it detailed. You know what's gonna happen next time you see that car? It's gonna have been detailed and you're gonna say, did you get a new car? In fact, I don't even believe you actually have a home. I think you live in that thing. It looks... It's actually... but you haven't been in it recently. I actually cleaned it out because I got to take it to the detailer. What do you mean? I was in it just earlier this week when we went to our place to go have dinner. There's a couple of things in the car. I mean, so I have a box of, you know, I go to Costco and I don't take the stuff out immediately. What's that sign you keep showing me? I forget what it says. You have a sign in your car. Oh, it's a no parking sign I always carry in the car.

1:00:30 Anyway, let's get back to the anyway, so but we have a Dodge Caravan We've had a couple of them which is a minivan which is you know the car that men should never be driving But I have to say it's you know a very out You know it's an outstanding vehicle even though it had to go into the shop a lot but in terms of like being a good functional car and They're actually not bad. I also like Volvos. I think it's, you know, even though they used to be stodgy, they're actually kind of sporty now with at least minor basis. But I was up at the factory in Gothenburg, Sweden and went around the track in all the different cars, all the different versions they made. And they have some diesels that they don't bring over here that just go like little rocket ships. It's amazing. Well, you know, you can't buy a new diesel in California.

1:01:18 Right? Isn't that some kind of law that they can't sell any new diesel cars, only old ones? I don't know. Yeah, I think there's a rule, something you can't buy a new... There's some California regulation about it. I'm a big fan of diesel. I love it because those things were intended to... Basically, you could piss in the tank and it'll run. It's a whole different system. And they're built to go 300,000 miles and that kind of thing. But I have to say, these new diesels, which are in Europe and not in the United States, Astonishing you could put somebody in one of these things and if you didn't tell him it was a diesel wouldn't know They wouldn't know now have the same response as any gasoline engine And they just go faster than crap and the balance of the engine is good It doesn't you know ping around like the you see you know the big thing in aviation now everyone switching to diesel engines in their airplanes That's that's a real big a real big trend. I'm seeing happening Hmm. Yeah, it's

1:02:11 And of course, oh no, man, all the new airplanes you can choose. You can choose, most of them you can choose if you want a diesel engine or not and it's mainly done obviously for cost. I'm going to have to look into the I used to work at Union Oil and we used to do, I was a chemist. And we used to do a lot of testing. Were you a chemist in college as well? Chemist major, my favorite. I always hung out with those guys. Yeah, well that's, yeah, you would. And well, you should. But anyways, so we tested a lot of fuels and stuff and there was always, one of the things that when you have these octane ratings is based on this thing called a knock engine that you put the fuel through and it would start knocking at a certain point and it would be rated.

1:02:54 at whatever, and there used to be actually two ratings, road and something else that used to be on the pumps and they took them off or they make a combination number. But anyway, the diesel stuff was always, you know, there's something changed with diesels to make these new hot rod engines, and I'd like to know, because I've been out of it for so long, I'd like somebody to explain to me or send me an email explaining why these diesels are so, They're so different. I mean, they're amazing. I don't think the principle is the same. I think they've just gotten better balance. All the diesels that you're talking about, I'm sure are turbocharged. If they have that amazing pickup, they've got to be turbocharged. So there's a lot of, I think they've done a lot of improvements in that.

1:03:41 I don't know, it's just the whole thing seemed peculiar to me that these engines are so nice. You should look it up. To me, diesel's always been a piece of crap. You know, the things take forever to warm up, they shake... Oh, you don't have to do any of that anymore. No pickup, you know, they make a bunch of noise and they belch black smoke. That, to me, is a diesel engine. You must get out more. Things have changed, Danny K. Things have changed since you've been writing the history of music. It's really quite different. Well, that's for sure. I have to say. I was actually more amazed by the little diesels that they had at the Volvo place than the Volvos themselves. My first three cars that I ever owned were all Volvos. I'm a big fan. I mean, you don't get laid when you're driving a Volvo, but... Well, actually, the new ones are pretty cool. Oh, no. Ford took them over. At least they have some lines. They're some organic. They're not so boxy as they used to be. They're ugly. They're all ugly. I don't know. They're not pretty at all. No way.

1:04:41 Yeah, I'm not not I didn't in fact that big SUV one I think is a nice car too and by the way You know, I don't give a crap about cars anymore. That just went away all of a sudden I just yeah, apparently when your wife sold the collection. Yeah, I But it was kind of before that, I mean I didn't mind that much, you're probably right, who gives a shit about cars? And now I don't even want to drive, let someone else drive me, I'm so tired of it. Yeah, well that's you in the limo. No, I don't have a limo, I don't have... Which reminds me of an interesting observation. Okay. So we did Cranky Geeks last Wednesday. Yes, which and by the way, thank you very much for having me on. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I was prepared. Yeah, well we had you and Leo Laporte on at the same time and everybody was jacked up about thinking that was gonna be good. And it was, it was a good conversation. Leo was at one of his, he was at his best because Leo actually is very knowledgeable. Oh, hell yeah. And sometimes it's fun to listen to him. You know, he's looking at stuff all the time. Sometimes it's fun to hear what he actually thinks.

1:05:42 so uh... but but there was a there's a moment in their and that and i've done this a million times because if you work in radio or broadcasting ever this this kind of thing comes up where leo had gone into a little uh... commentary about how your limo and entourage was blocking the street yeah out in front of the place and it was a pain in in the but for him to find a parking park and he was moaning about and i of course says i you through some of the system gas on the fire there i'd immediately without missing a beat added to the malarkey by going on about the fact that it was a stretch, Hummer or something, I don't know what, but it was just a bunch of guys saying, you know, I can't believe, as long as I've known this guy, Adam, I can't believe the crap that he's, he's always driving around with a bunch of girls, it's ridiculous. So anyway, so I go on and on like this, and I was thinking about that, only in radio or even TV where you're actually doing a show about facts,

1:06:45 Can you go off with a bunch of bull that's got nothing to do with anything it's just clowning around and you know playing you know it's dan free bird can i add living cuz you can do anything you want to have a good done is already before like you sit on a radio show with some music. So do you always sit in the studio like this naked? And if the guy picks up on where you're headed with this humor, he goes, yeah, I usually do. Sometimes I wear a jockstrap, but most of the time, it's just kind of nice to be in here. And you know what? The studio's so warm in here that I really, it's more comfortable to be naked, because when I was wearing clothes, I'd always be sweating a lot. It's theater of the mind, John. That's what it is. Right, exactly. But you do this, and then you do it like,

1:07:29 You can't do this with writing. There's this kind of thing. And what does the public think? You know, I'm always, it's like, this is, this is not, none of this is factual. It's all just bull. And is it, I'm always wondering how... I think they're, I think they're immune to it. I think it's, it's just their knowledge. Or does anybody believe it? I mean, how many people were listening to that thought that you did have a limo parked out there blocking traffic? I wonder. I think there's certainly a fair amount of people who would buy it. I think so. I think so too and it's disturbing. Well guess what folks, it's not true.

1:08:14 No, you walk. Oh, actually you came over in the car with Ron. Yeah. No, but I walk everywhere now I don't own a car in San Francisco anymore. They they compacted Trinity I think my my my diesel my biodiesel station wagon. Yeah, biodiesel is the way to go in California. Yeah, I It smells like a french fry machine. It was lovely. I loved her so much. It was just a hassle. It was just an old car, that's the problem. Old cars, you know, it's just a big hassle. No good. And now my daughter, of course. She's about to take her test for her license and she wants a car. This is a huge conundrum, I think is the right word. I said, well look, I don't drive at all, I'll give you the Jag. I'll put it in your name, you can have it. And she's like, no, I don't want the Jag, I want a nice little cute girly car.

1:09:05 And I and that's what every parent doesn't want. I don't want my kid driving around some fucking tin can, you know I wanted to have some you know, in fact, I'd like her to drive a tank honestly, you know Here's a Sherman tank You pull the way you do it is you pull this way to go right and you pull on this other track It goes left here have a Hummer baby Please drive. Oh, by the way in the UK, you know, they had that congestion charge, you know You know about this? Well, yeah. You have to pay money to drive into the city if you come within a certain zone. So now they want to change that to the CO2 emissions charge. And depending on the type of automobile you have, the daily rate will be 25 pounds. $50 to drive into the city. $50! And Porsche is now going to sue the city if they actually make this happen.

1:10:00 They don't want all their clientele to be screwed. But it's just interesting to see that, you know, the CO2 emissions and I put lots of question marks, you know, about the measurement of this stuff and what it really means and, you know, what does it really mean to global warming? And of course, I have my own questions about global warming in general. It's, you know, it's just, yeah, it's messed up. Yeah, well, a lot of people think it's just a scam. I mean, it's like, I think there is a climate change happening. You can tell it. I mean, you've talked to winemakers anywhere in the world, they'll tell you this, those things have changed, but it's improved things for the most part. For wine. That's the good news. Oh yeah, especially the German wines, man. These things have come on. Really? German wines, which was always like, you know, they've always made good, sweet white wines. The reds have never been any good.

1:10:52 But now, and even the sweet whites are always kind of hit and miss, but in the last, I don't know, almost up to the last 10 years, they're making tremendous red wines, which is really weird. Nobody even believes it until it's proven to them. And they're making this just one great vintage after another of some of these just terrific white wines that are just, and they're well priced and it's kind of an overlooked area because people don't understand them. They keep changing their labeling laws. And I just stunned, stunned. And I think this is the same thing's gonna happen in Oregon, Washington, especially Oregon, Pinot's, and maybe Burgundy. It looks like Burgundy's having a string of really great, which is an area that make Pinot Noir.

1:11:38 And it's always under ripe and they're crappy for the most part except the really good ones. Are these young vintages that you're talking about that are really good or the older vintages? No, no, they're starting around in Burgundy it started around, yeah, about 99, you know, something like that, maybe 96. 95, 96, it's somewhere around the mid 90s, but by the beginning of the turn of the century, it was almost like they're hitting every year as a great year. 2005 being the most recent super year in Burgundy, Bordeaux and every place else. It's just, you know, you just drink these wines when you get a hold of one, even though they're not ready to drink yet.

1:12:21 And you go, holy crap, I haven't tasted anything like this for ever. Well, next time I'm in town we'll have to have one. You have not introduced me to a good German wine. Yeah, that's a good idea. Dude, the problem is finding a good German wine in a restaurant in San Francisco is probably a little difficult. Although I think there's probably a few places that know what they're doing. So are we gonna have time to have dinner next week before I head back? Yeah, Wednesday would be good. Wednesday? Okay, we should try one, shoot for Wednesday. You know what's it... Look around the area and see if there's any place that would have a German wine. Because I mean, you'd knock your socks off. Right. A good German wine is astonishing. Okay, we have to... You know what, John? You know what's amazing?

1:13:06 We have done 73 minutes of show and we have once again succeeded in not talking about one single thing we said we were going to talk about. Yeah, well maybe next week. Well, because I lost my notes, so that doesn't help. I do remember we were going to talk about CDI, remember that? Oh, CDI, right. Let me write a note down and put it someplace where I won't lose it. Where you'll lose it. Because our music is coming up, John. That means it's time to end the show, unfortunately. Yeah, the CD-ROM is full. Actually, what I have to do now is I'm going to take out some frozen pizza. I'm going to heat that up and I'm going to watch these two movies you gave me on CD-ROM.

1:13:51 I'm gonna watch those tonight. A DVD, I'm sorry. And uh, the conspiracy shit, right? No, just actually documentaries. I know you're a big fan of the documentary. I love the documentary. I sure do. Alright, well have that frozen pizza. I gotta go do Tech 5. I'm behind again. Oh, holy moly. Alright, John, thank you very much. Thank you everybody who's been listening. We'll do again next week. Coming to you... Oh, by the way, before you sign off, which you're going to do in a second, I want to remind everyone, we've got a tech5report.com website. It's T-E-C-H-F-I-V-E report.com, which we're experimenting with. You should check it out.

1:14:33 Okay, and also you should look at Dvorak.org slash cage match where you can get the full show notes for each individual Noah agenda since of course I'm too lazy to do it. But Bubba loves doing it and he's our hero. Bubba the love sponge? Bubba the love sponge. You never heard that? No. Oh man, in every, yeah of course. Remember we were talking about morning zoos? Oh right, it's one of those morning zoo characters? There's always a guy, ah, they're on sticker patrol, we got Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba, come on in. Cool. Yeah. I'm sure Bubba will love this attention. I'm sure he will. Alright everybody, that's it for another week. Thank you very much for listening. From the Curry condo overlooking the bay, I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern California, I'm John C. Dvorak. We'll talk to you again next week on No Agenda.

1:15:45 Oh