Feeling Fat?

00:01 In a world where the internet is filled with podcasts of people saying, I think this and i think that. There is a sanctuary brought to you weekly with no music no commercials no talent and certainly no agenda from the west side of Guilford in the United Kingdom I'm Adam Curry And up here in Northern California where it appears to be hitting 85 degrees Fahrenheit today I am John C Dvorak Holy moly! It's a nice day here too actually A little bit of rain but uh I left on a beautiful day. What was that? When did i leave, John? You left it was windy and kind of miserable actually No no no! That was Wednesday... Thursday! I left Thursday It was beautiful Yeah it was warming up on thursday Yesterday it was about 80

00:45 Actually, in some places it hit 86 and today it didn't cool off last night. And its hot already and early in the morning so this is going to be actually pretty miserable. Oh a horrible day? Well no not miserably hot! It's gonna be hot I may have to get into the convertible and drive around In the convertible...in the Mustang..In the Corvette Actually I do have a corvette but this will be the Miata Really you have a corvette?! I didn't know you had a corvette 75 it needs work. What is that? A stingray? That's a stingray isn't it? Oh those are beautiful I love the stingrays! Yeah, It's totally collectible New York was beautiful I was there for uh for a day you know Maggie booked me on American Thursday

01:32 From work. Yeah Now it wasn't it wasn't an MD 80 she checked that but I'm like Maggie, you know They're gonna be rebooking people on a million different flights. You know so I sat in a Coach seat in the middle. Yeah. Yeah that was not oh, you know there was a big benefit actually to sitting in the coach seat because there are lots of people with laptops around and I really couldn't move because once I had folded myself in, I was just there. If I wanted to get out, I'd have to ask the person on either right or left if I could get out. By the way, the good side is that at least American Airlines has some leg room? Yes absolutely!

02:12 Absolutely, but not enough to really maneuver my legs. I'm 6'4", so it's kind of tough What what I love about the 767 is it still has a 3-2 projector for the in flight movie But anyway So I'm sitting there and everyone has their laptop open and I'm looking you know right in front of me And there's this lady who is writing up a PR proposal in PowerPoint. I'm staring straight ahead, so you know...I couldn't help but read and I got nothing better to do. I do that all the time! Yeah it is kind of entertaining So here's what she was writing up She was from a PR firm apparently working on behalf of Skype It was a whole PR plan To go to the media to say email

01:32 From work. Yeah Now it wasn't it wasn't an MD 80 she checked that but I'm like Maggie, you know They're gonna be rebooking people on a million different flights. You know so I sat in a Coach seat in the middle. Yeah. Yeah that was not oh, you know there was a big benefit actually to sitting in the coach seat because there are lots of people with laptops around and I really couldn't move because once I had folded myself in, I was just there. If I wanted to get out, I'd have to ask the person on either right or left if I could get out. By the way, the good side is that at least American Airlines has some leg room? Yes absolutely!

02:12 Absolutely, but not enough to really maneuver my legs. I'm 6'4", so it's kind of tough What what I love about the 767 is it still has a 3-2 projector for the in flight movie But anyway So I'm sitting there and everyone has their laptop open and I'm looking you know right in front of me And there's this lady who is writing up a PR proposal in PowerPoint. I'm staring straight ahead, so you know...I couldn't help but read and I got nothing better to do. I do that all the time! Yeah it is kind of entertaining So here's what she was writing up She was from a PR firm apparently working on behalf of Skype It was a whole PR plan To go to the media to say email

03:01 is becoming the snail mail of our age and that is being replaced by the use of Skype. Which, and by the way I'm not saying that's completely invalid that IM and VoIP aren't replacing some pieces of email perhaps. But what was apparent is that they had contracted Harris Interactive which i guess it is a surveying company? I don't know if you're familiar with them John? Oh yeah they're famous! Okay well so basically they paid Harris Interactive to extrapolate information to support this idea It's not like Harris did a survey and oh look at this. Look what we found out no Skype literally came up with the PR idea or that this PR firm Contracted Harris interactive I could see her you know Going through the survey and pulling out pieces and bits and putting that into this release So you can expect that to be really big news next week Yeah, you know of course that technique is not it's not new by any means No But if it's right It's a great technique it works all the time doesn't it?

04:04 Not if you're busted. Yeah, well I'd say they're busted right now If you're busted it doesn't work at all and makes you look like an idiot. And Microsoft used to try to pull that crap all the time, but they would always get busted mainly because they weren't doing it with any finesse. They were over-promoting their side of the issue with phony surveys. All it takes is just a little research and you'll find this famous survey that I guess Harris will be rolling out you'll find who sponsored it was the client. And so they're the ones who designed the questions and they're the ones that reinterpreted the data, and they're the ones that came up with this and that. Now exactly why... I think the more interesting question here with what you've stumbled onto, and congratulations by the way is why are they doing this? Do they need customers? This isn't a big money maker necessarily for eBay. I think just looking at the surface of

05:03 that the reason they'd be doing this is because they want to dump Skype on someone. Yeah, they want to prop up the value of it before they dump it. And they want to make it look like its worth more as part some bigger trend thats so important Well there were a couple other pages to this presentation one was... How did you get? You were sitting right next her? No! Right behind her I was looking through seats Oh thats perfect angle So the other one was Skype has a deal with Hearst And they're going to be a Skype will become a platform for the presidential candidates to converse with the constituents and Hearst Media properties will be promoting that. So look, we'll be on the lookout for that.

05:48 Oh, yeah show that show to mainstream media particularly television producers How incredibly useful Skype is in integrating into their programming and the Skype apparently has a deal with Harpo Which is Oprah's production company so I don't watch Oprah But if she's not doing it already. I presume that people will be video because this is all about the videoconferencing that part They'll be video conferencing into The Oprah Show God amateur hour. Hey, you know I mean we can't even and we're actually pretty smart We can't even get a reasonable audio connection that they do video with The funny thing is is that you know this kind of thing these video when I was at tech TV They used to they actually gave out something like you know two or three or maybe up to 5,000 of these little like

06:37 little cams that you can hook to your computer and they'd have this as a feature so they had various shows and then have some idiot calling in on this cam. The guys who were running the company thought this was so cool, and every time we read a review of what was going on at Tech TV they talk about the amateurish of their connections, and they wouldn't really know what was going on. If you just were watching television and you turned on one of these shows and you had somebody in the studio talking to somebody on one of these Logitech cams with the herky jerk and the lousy voice and that you couldn't even see him, or they were fuzzy or pixelated

07:16 you'd go what a bunch of... this is the cheapest production I've ever seen. It just looked cheap and crummy. Well, you know what? Uh..I've seen this done lots of times so yeah spam the audience get them to buy webcams and call in but then i've seen them actually put professional cameras in uh... make it look like it was a webcam call. I have seen that happen lots of times because it is. Why is the question on my mind? Why what what is the point as it so you can be hip to have these things and you know That's the only reason I agree. It. I don't think it has any or it usually does not have any but does not Have any value to the to the programming So anyway that this would well when I've uncovered a few things in my day, you're looking between the seats and by the way

08:07 So it did I again congratulate you for this because yeah, I've never really gotten that much. That's good Yeah But it was a 60 or six hour flight so I had plenty of time actually III read along with her John until her battery ran down That was great. Drat the battery! Very, very entertaining So you must have had a good shot at good angle which is really helps a lot I was one time in a seat where you had the... I'm behind There's a couple of airplane configurations where there's this 3 and 3 on either side When you get to the emergency exit all of sudden there's 2 and then three behind it so people can get out the door

08:50 And your best seat in a plane like this, and Southwest has a few of these. Is to be in that seat where there's actually not a seat in front of you It's just an empty space. Because that is where the emergency door is, which is a great seat. So I nabbed that seat and I'm sitting there and the guy seated in what would have been a middle seat but it was only two seats there pops open his laptop and the angle I had because I didn't have to look between anything of this presentation unfortunately he was about to use insurance industry guy and it was like whatever But I could read it. Yeah, well this is-I thought this was really interesting so let's see how long it takes between uh...this sighting of the email being killed by Skype until we actually see it

09:41 Yeah, we will. In fact if anybody's listening to the show they should keep an eye out for it and give us a date first sighting. That's right first sighting. First encounter or whatever they call it. Let's just talk about airlines for second I think didn't you um...I think you sent me uh...a note You want to talk about something? Yeah this guy Peter Inova sent in a memo saying that he had this weird suspicion And as soon as he said it, it rang a bell with me because I used to be... and of course you always ridicule all these little careers that I had. Wait a minute! You were an FAA inspector? Yeah, I wish. When I was kid, this is in the lost era by the way when I was both high school and college in the summertime, I'd always work This was when Truman was our president yeah

10:28 You're gonna get yours eventually. Yeah, yeah it's coming quick it's coming fast so Because you could get summer jobs. I mean that I won some a few years back. I was in Port Townsend Washington and there was a bunch of kids sitting around and I wrote up ad someplace about how these kids a bunch of lazy bastards They don't do anything during the summertime is during the summer And it went on and on and one of my readers, a younger reader sent me a note saying hey man don't be so harsh on these guys. You can get work there isn't anything there's no factory around there is none of this things that you used to have when you were kid to go work at

11:08 And so I kind of laid off of him after that because it looks around and it's true. There is nothing to do in the summertime, you know maybe volunteer work for Obama. How about does grit still exist? The newspaper Grit. You could win a bike man by delivering grit! You know, here's a funny story about grit. I... Oh wait don't go into grit yet. We can shaggy dog our way out of this. Okay. Um..I saw a thing for grit recently and it was like free two issues and i wanted to see what it looked like so i signed up you know? And all i got was the bills! I never got a copy. Oh no that's outrageous So does it still exist still? It's still out there, grit Yeah well at least as of couple years ago Anyway But they don't think kids are going door-to-door with it

11:55 They never did when I was a teenager. So how about for retail? My daughter works weekends and summer and vacation days in retail, isn't there plenty of retail stuff for kids to do? Oh, compare that to a factory job at full union pay and benefits. Yeah that's true I mean i was walking out of every summer with just a ton of money You know what is great about my daughter has this job at Jack Wills which is kind of like an Abercrombie & Fitch type clothing store really expensive you know it was like sweaters for 300 pounds its nuts And what they do is...I love the system they set up They hire all these beautiful kids

12:33 Who love this brand anyway, they give them a 90% discount on anything. They buy in the store So and of course they pay them you know just barely minimum wage with absolutely no benefits And so what winds up happening is these kids spend 60 to 70 percent of their salary on on the clothing because they can get it at a 90% discount. So, there's like this perpetual marketing ecosystem they've built up and all these kids have to do is just yeah they restocked the shelves but they walk around help people say oh this looks nice don't you think that would look good on you? And their basically uber salespeople who are super incentivized Yeah but are they as good as the old timers that used to work in those stores when you see shows like Are You Being Served Mr Humphreys! Are you free?!

13:21 No, absolutely not. Certainly not as colorful as are you being served. No anyway the point is that there's none of these... When I was like again, man I worked in sheet metal shops Anyway I got the clue early on that the job he wanted to have was inspector And by the way John, uh..I've had a lot of jobs like that because it was still possible when i was young so let me just show my age Okay inspector One year I was working as a receiving clerk at International Harvester, which was pretty good gig. But then the... but I noticed that my main job there because I was working graveyard

13:59 Which was kind of the drawback to some of these summer jobs, but it was okay. I don't get jet lag. Anyway this graveyard shift and my main job actually turned out to be guarding the entire factory against some big boss coming in at night for some unknown reason and warning the inspectors who are all upstairs playing poker And they would play poker until like 6 in the morning unless it try and less a train came in this is the days when? A train would come in and they still do it I think of the bigger factors big train Lotus parts would come in, and you'd have to get these guys rousted and they'd come down and Inspect inspect the individual components or whatever was coming in well They inspected the shipments to make sure that they were legit in there. You know

14:42 Was this governmental inspectors or inspectors for the factory employed inspectors? Factory employed inspectors. Anyway, so I figured out that this is the job you wanted So anyway over the years during the summer I get various jobs as an inspector here and there at full union pay because I came up...I stumbled on to an interesting, uh, I wouldn't call it a scam but a technique Because early on, when you were a kid and you went to summer get a summer job they'd give you a summer job. You go to Ford and it was a job for college because yeah, you got paid well but it was a crap job. It's just horrible picking up spare bolts and putting them in bin or something that's all you did all day

15:30 Or even assembly line jobs weren't that much fun. So I went and took this, just as a lark one year, I wanted to get this one specific job and they asked me about my...I think I was a sophomore at Cal or something. And they said so why are you taking this job? Well college is too hard for me. I'm quitting! So I told them, I'm quitting school and I'm gonna work for them. So I got this really nice inspector's job and then the thing that I stumbled onto which was the note of genius was at the end of summer and actually probably stretched it a little further because so much good money

16:06 I told him, I had to go back to school. I really had to get back to school full time so i told them that you know I've worked here for these many months and it was a great experience for me have learned a lot but yeah I decided to go back to school Oops! And they fell over themselves with congratulations You are the hope for the American dream son Go back to school Get your education Become president So instead of getting mad at me for just working the summer, you know it was oh that's great. It's great You're going back to school do anything from us let us know so you know how about a thousand bucks? so anyway, so There was an era when I was an inspector at trail mobile where I had Being in the specter. You just we were working on cargo containers when they were still made in this country and And and this is where the story about the FAA comes in

17:01 So there's one guy that's on one of the lines that I'm inspecting who I just love talking to, because the guy was essentially a stand-up comic. And he was doing his job all the time but he would be talking to me a lot and telling me jokes in fact there are still jokes that I still use, couple of them and this is years ago but... He had little magic tricks and the guy was hilarious. One day the foreman of that line comes over And choose me out. I mean, he's not my boss because i'm working and i'm an inspector of their independence But choosing me out for wasting this guy's time and being a jerk for being there And then you just went on and on and on and on just giving me crap for this thing so

17:44 I pulled out, the way it was done you have these little red pieces of tape and then you'd have these little pieces of slips that you write on for errors. I started papering his products because if you've never worked in a factory and if you don't know how things actually work which is one of the drawbacks to the American public today they don't get it nothing meets spec Right. Very few things ever manufactured actually meet spec, they're all within you know a range. Tolerance levels yeah and it's sometimes you know it's way off spec but it's still acceptable at some point inspectors have to have enough sense to let certain things go You know its like a cop when he pulls somebody over he has to make the decision whether or not hes going to write up a ticket or not and if you want

18:33 Turn up the you know if you want to go buy the book. You can plaster anything with with rejection stickers right so I Covered this guy's line because there was a lot of little things little nicks and a piece of paint That's not 1 point 2 inches away from this spot, you know we're supposed to be where it's supposed to be but So what you're saying is that if if you actually played by the book then not a single product would come out Of that factory Exactly. Yeah, maybe one you know that got lucky but it would you could probably still find something wrong with it So I plastered his stuff just so much and he had all these little problems and some of them are almost impossible to fix The guy comes back to me begging Apologizing...I'm sorry It was a bad day for me literally begging for mercy because I could have kept this up forever

19:32 Okay, I get it. Now the guy who wrote in the email mentions that the FAA was taken to the called on the carpet by Congress just before they started doing what they're doing which is exactly the same thing you want us to follow the rules this you know exact to the letter okay we're gonna start shutting down the entire system until you tell us to stop and And that's what they're doing. It's just a bunch of inspectors doing what they do, hey if you wanna go buy the book we can shut down... Let's start with American Airlines and AMR one of the biggest corporations in the country

20:09 Hey, by the way and if you don't knuckle under after we screw with them We're moving to United and then we're gonna you know it's gonna be one airline after another they can bring that whole thing To a standstill of the Congress idiots in Congress. Don't figure out what's going on so you can imagine With my aviation background I have an opinion on this Yeah, I'm sure. So first of all, I think you're absolutely right about the inspectors. That's like TPS report time. We can bring your company or your country to a grinding halt, absolutely but it's a little different in this case because The FAA does not actually go out and inspect every single piece of maintenance that is done on any aircraft that's registered under an N register. So this is two issues, one it's about the FAA and the government and them saying screw you we'll bring everything to a grinding halt and the other part is about maintenance in aviation in general so

21:10 The way maintenance works and you know, maintenance is everything. It's like 99% of all accidents is maintenance just because shitty maintenance makes the airplane break Or things malfunction, you can get into bad situations. But every... So these planes are basically they're not composite They're all sheet metal and rivets right? So it's the same type of stuff that you've been dealing with And they don't all have to fit within a millimeter You know because Basically if your wing is the right design and your engines stay on then The rest will be pretty much okay but every piece of the plane Every

21:52 Every element, every bolt, every wire even the airframe everything has a time to live and it has an expiration date which is set up by the manufacturer who obviously you know is liable for a number of reasons if they're lying about the life expectancy of all these different parts and pieces. And even if these pieces aren't worn or aren't showing wear and tear, you have regular intervals of maintenance inspections that are done by the maintenance company

22:28 And these parts have to be replaced or certain checks have to be done. As an example, every two years... Every year I have an annual inspection on my aircraft every two years All of the avionics have to be removed and tested even if they're working fine They have to go out you know it's in course. It's an extra expense The propeller has an X number of hours, and you know if you have to send that away And even my plane you know it will cost me like eight thousand dollars to have the prop Maintained and that's once maybe a depends on how much you fly but it's all based on hours etc so

23:05 The person doing the maintenance has to sign off on the and you have to be an FAA approved Maintenance company or a maintenance engineer. You have to sign off, and you signing off says I did this work. I performed it. I did the check And you are liable as an engineer if you're lying about that So what happened here is the FAA, and we have to go back and find out how the story broke. But somehow someone figured out that the FAA knew that there was all kinds of shit going on with the maintenance records so pieces were missing you know stuff that was submitted but not signed off on

23:42 And what it came down to is basically wire ties, John. Wire ties for these big copper bundles that go through these MD80s which is what they chose to inspect It's not that the FAA has to inspect every single one of those but the maintenance companies have to do it at regular intervals and then sign off and send it in This was not happening And so as a pilot, you know I'd be really angry. I would quit and I would rather go work at Jack Wills than fly an aircraft where any piece of maintenance was not done only to save costs because that's what it is about. It is not a big deal these wire ties, it really isn't although because of this issue there have been 20 or 25

24:30 instances on MD-80s where the nose gear would not retract and you do not want that as a pilot. You don't want anything going wrong with your undercarriage So, it's actually quite exemplary that the FAA and this really adds proof to your point you're making. That the FAA would say we are doing the spot check on every single one of these aircrafts that is a really big deal because they don't do that typically but now they've taken their authority and made Uber authority and said look we just need not have all your records in everything to be signed off on were doing spot checks on everybody So it's kind of a double whammy. The airlines need to be fucking taken out back and shot

25:13 Because they've been skimping on maintenance, which is a very serious offense. Any- I'm in agreement with that because I know a lot of the maintenance is almost not quite but borderline outsourced to shops and Mexico for example. And let me tell you, I will not get an aircraft any aircraft if I can help it obviously But certainly in private aircraft If I don't know who's been doing the maintenance Because you know you get all is particularly they talk about more than one pair of hands So if you have more than one pair of hands working on On your aircraft it could very easily be that one guy thought he had tightened the bolt and the other guy didn't and yeah It's a confusion, and then it gets signed off on and you know You think you're good to go? And it's it's a really. It's a life-threatening situation, and I think

26:03 All airlines need to be severely penalized for any type of lack of maintenance. So they're kind of the golden boys and girls in all of this, I think. They're getting off real easy. Well there's something screwy about the whole thing the way i see it But I think you are absolutely right They are going to figure out another issue or bring down another airline Or maybe they'll just keep going at American Who knows? Hey! It screwed up my flying time in the past couple days

26:40 Yeah, but it gave you a scoop. Yeah that's true because if I had not been unable to upgrade had I not been stuck in coach in that middle seat I wouldn't have known that email is dead. That's actually sometimes you know when you have lemons... Um, coming into the country? Want an update? Yeah. You came into the country for a couple days and you tell me...you didn't want to tell me while you were here because we wanted do it on the show what was your latest experience Okay so um We had decided that I would ask for the TL for the team leader which i'd learned uh was a way to get into the depth of the database quicker

27:25 In order for it because only the team leader has access to all of the notes that have been put next to my record Saying the guy's okay, so I and I was not gonna do it at the first initial customs booth I was going to do it when you are ready to leave the airport now. I walk up to the I got off the plane real quick. I walk up to the to the customs boardroom border customs with a Border Patrol agent and In the glass case in the glass case and he's real swift, you know He takes my he takes my landing card. He puts the one on it with a circle which they all do if they'd like You know one guy we can pass he says Bring any fruits and vegetables in the country I said no says okay And then you know, he just swipes my passport and then he gets that look right?

28:09 The look that I'm now all too familiar with. And then, and then I...I don't know, I broke my own rule. I said yeah, you're seeing all kinds of stuff there and I've been advised to ask for a TL, a team leader He said sure! So he didn't stamp my card. I had to go to-and I didn't know they had this They have a room at SFO for secondary screening And it's a little back office, so I'd never been in here before. Um...I don't know if it's new or not It was kind of hard to tell but its kind of off the side and there are all kinds of ethnic looking folks who are being semi-detained in there

28:51 And so I hand off my passport and card, and I go through the rap. It's like well this has happened about ten times and it happens every single time... ...and you know the team leader should be able to get into the database." He said okay Mr. Curry have a seat. Everyone was really nice by the way no one was mean. Have a seat Mr. Curry. And it took probably about 25 minutes and he said okay you're good to go! Then he hands me in my passport And my landing card and I know that. I have to go through the next, uh... To get out of the airport. I have to show all that stuff again and this John there's like There's an M on it, there's an I on it. There's a one on it, there's L on it. There is like B on it... All these codes! I'm telling you so I get my bag and wheeled out And the guy sees me coming he sees this ticket which is like filled with yellow marker He hands in the little blue clear plastic envelope Which is the protocol? And I walk up and see the team leader who has dealt with me before he's like Adam how are you doing

29:51 I'm like, yeah. He says man this should not be happening to you! This should not be happening come on over here and so he's there with... So this is agent Lund i think his name is and Agent Phillips lovely young lady she's already tapping away in the database And what I realized pretty quickly Is that she doesn't know..I've never seen her before She doesn't know about my issues She knows me from MTV so You know I'm like this is gonna be fun And we're chatting away and having lots of talks. And so, you know we're really really really sorry about this. You know and they're going back and forth and they're discussing put the fling out yeah check that box he said We should be able to get you out but we just can't seem to get you out of this database and so I start saying well Tell me about this database, you know How is it where's all the information coming from? And I just really want confirmation But she says well It's really it sits on top of all this other information from Department of Motor Vehicles in the IRS who was telling me about this

30:50 I think illegal practice. And it's really hard to, It's really hard to get names out. He says, but you know it's not a no-fly list It's a different type of list I said yeah, I'm quite aware I Says there's now about a million people who shouldn't be in this database and are being stopped and we're having a real hard time Getting people off the list and he have will be giving you the documentation About submitting your information for removal. And so what one of those freedom of Information Act things is no no no and he has a booklet kind of like a Rectangle memo pad you know where you can uh, rip off sheets and it's that kind of one end is gummied. Yeah. And it's an instruction in English and Spanish

31:36 Um, about how to... and I've heard of this before but now it's-I thought it was only for no fly lists. But now its also for this type of secondary screening To go the TRIP system on the Department of Homeland Security website So it's www dot d h s dot or uh dot gov slash trip trip And it is the hold on I should look at what that stands for It's like the travel restriction... hold on, let me find it. What did I say? DHS dot gov slash trip. Kind of scary is what it is here. Traveler Redress Inquiry Program. Great! Someone was like hey cool the acronym is TRIP this is really awesome

32:28 So you should look at that web page and then I have to submit all kinds of information, and then they'll contact me for more information. And oh don't worry here's our privacy policy. Yeah right... Well it's not gonna work anyway! Do you think I should try it? Should I just...? Because there is not... yeah well you have too for the purposes of this show but the fact of the matter is your name is Adam Curry and the problem Is there another Adam Curry out there? You're not even in the database Well, I know. No, no, no, I am now in the database. I'm definitely in the database. Yeah but it's just notes on you proving that you're not the other Adam Curry. You can go through this trip process and I would encourage you to do it but it's not going to get you off this list because you're not on the list! But for my... here is my question for all of this money that's going into the Department of Homeland Security? I think as a citizen I have the right for them to track this guy down he sounds pretty scary

33:25 Clearly they want him. Maybe you should sue the guy because it's just, you're the one that suffering and you're the one that has to be detained a half an hour at a crack over and over again Do you know what my time is worth John? I mean half hour of my time That's just millions of dollars You should sue, find the guy and sue him. And then to make the government part of the lawsuit get a lawyer that can figure some crazy lawsuit out here this sounds like one to me and take some action then get him off the list by getting whatever have him resolved either you know taking the Gitmo or whatever they do to him It sounds like thats gonna cost me money

34:06 A lot of effort, and I don't really think I'm into that. I'm not a very litigious guy. Pray for the show! Think of the show! Oh that's right, the show... Here is one for the show so I left from JFK last night on Virgin and at JFK you can actually check your bags in at the check-in desk if then take your bag to the TSA screening machine Which is a little bit further up so I'm rolling my bag down, and I knew I had a huge delay So I'm taking my time and I'm feeling pretty good And so I roll my bag over and there's this TSA agent. She's about six two

34:43 She's got, she's extremely milfy. I think you know she's pushing 30 and late thirties 40 and John stunning a stunningly sexy tall woman in uniform And so she looks at me and I look at her, and we're eye to eye. You have to understand when you're tall like I am that you just don't get that a lot. She's like oh hi! I hand off my bag and say Don't you miss hugging people your height? She says it has been such a long time. I said come here baby give me one So I hugged her and were doing this big embrace and all of the sudden she realizes

35:28 It's a girl fired. Oh, but it was a nice hug it was good You have to understand you know the only time that I had the best hug ever I think I told you that The best hug I ever had was his Shaquille O'Neal Oh really? Yeah, I was interviewing him. But he's a big dude! Yeah he is 7 foot whatever and uh... and i was interviewing him for something and said Shaq can just ask you one last question man He said yeah, I know you can feel my pain here would you mind if I just hugged you it would be so nice to be hugged by someone bigger than me And he says absolutely! And he just engulfed me! It's nice man hugs are good You should hug someone this week John I hug enough in California have to hug all the time That's true

36:16 I got, here's something that ties into what we're talking about. About accuracy of parts? Remember we had the conversation about the crystals? Right Hey John and Adam, this is Scott from Virginia. I was listening to last Friday's No Agenda where you were talking about the inaccuracy of system clocks and John was saying how he couldn't believe that crystals with all our technology today could keep more accurate time Well i'm a computer engineer so maybe I can give you an idea why these crystals are so inaccurate Can you hear this? Because it's kind of scratchy this audio Yeah no I can hear it go

36:54 As with any component that you manufacture, resistors and capacitors there are certain tolerances associated with both the manufacturing process and with other environmental variables like temperature. So if you buy a crystal rated for 1 MHz that's maybe plus or minus 50 Hz. That is pretty standard number. You can get lower tolerances than that or tighter tolerances then your only effect is on end cost of device Now, whenever you put a crystal into the system you hang off things like capacitors and resistors. These things can affect the overall accuracy of your timing along with the temperature of your environment so that you can easily see why you would need to re-sync the clock every so often at the time server like the Atomic Clock or National Institute for Science and Technology here in the United States. I hope this shed some light on it for you. Love the show! And hope to hear this one in the air.

37:49 So, one of my summer jobs was selling components electronic components in a shop that literally sold capacitors resistors etc and I was listening to that comment. I realized remember you could...I think you can still buy resistors probably only over the internet these days And the resistor would have a color code and it would tell you how many oh what the Ohm value was of that resistor. And it also had either a no band, silver band or gold band which would also tell you the quality of the resistor and the DV right deviation percentage which I think was like visit 5% for gold and 10 percent for silver or something well I don't remember but I do remember that that was there was this cool little code yeah and then there was something beyond that called mil spec what oh I don't know about that what's mill speck Oh mil special military specification yeah it was always to tightest supposedly orange book mill spec

38:50 So there's your answer, man. It's cheap shit. There is no question about it that that is exactly what the problem is but now that gives me two anecdotes. Nice! Now we know how the show works It's just triggers old. Well, when I was a kid so uh... i got idea have this uh... couple kodak cameras one two six oh three is a dual lens camera that has his unbelievable mike and you can go to a devore consensored look at the devore consensored videos on youtube in your find one on there that says and the title of it is Producer Questions Quality of Microphone, something like that. It's where I had Annalisa Savage in the Cranky Geek set and I was shooting her with this little camera which has what sounds like a studio mic in it! And there's actually, I have 700 series camera that has a similar mic but not quite as good as this one if I want to go out and shoot somebody and I wanna get the sound perfect I'll bring this black six megapixel camera make a movie with it

39:51 Anyway, so you can listen to this for yourself and hear it. You go oh my god it's unbelievable! So I figured that they have a... the camera is kind of weird has all kinds of little etchings and things on it. And I figured they had some special trick that they'd done to make the sound so good. And so I called Kodak up asking about this microphone And the company was literally baffled by my queries. So I did some more research and an audio engineer friend of mine told me that essentially what's going on with these digital little cameras, these pocket cameras, these cheap cameras is that These mics are like a buck 50 uncalibrated mic. He says it would probably cost $100, add $100 to the cost of the camera to calibrate these mics so they would really be sounding good because there are good mikes out there but what he told me was essentially I got lucky and that camera is never going to leave my sight cause it's astonishing what this sound sounds like now. I will add one thing to that did you record her in The Cranky Geek studio?

40:56 Yes, but I've done it. I will swear to the cranky geek studio is nice and sound dead so that exactly that way out It was a studio. I'm some trying showing at the mic sounds like a studio mic in a studio I don't think it was completely out of order well Why don't you use that mic for this show man? Did you sound like crap? I can't get a compressor on it So now that which brings me to the other story And there's another example when I was talking about how these inspectors, you know. How there is no such thing as anything coming to spec. Everything is a little fluctuation just a little bit which is part of our theme today So I'm working at Union Oil during the era...I was a chemist During the era where they... Better living through chemistry John! I am believer. Yeah well.... So anyway They had

41:46 There was a period in American gasoline history where we had, where they decided that lead had to get out of the gasoline. Because it turned out that you know to make a gallon of ethyl which was the high octane gasoline typically running almost close to 100 octane They had to put about four grams of tetraethyl lead into the gasoline so they wouldn't have knock and uh... three grams of lead came out the pipe as elemental lead so most of this road anywhere where anyone live in your rotary was i mean though country with being more than that basically poison by led elemental led that would be for salt city we did reacted with environment when were shipped for getting to the food supply everything else but also i prefer engine didn't make your engine run well

42:39 Well, what it did is that it lubricated the rings. And as a side... The real reason for it was for the octane to get a smoother better performing gasoline because higher octane means the gas explodes with more controlled explosion and the rings though but as an as a side effect the lead in because it would melt as it blew off It would lubricate the ring so the car wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't wear out. So they determined at Union Oil that all you really needed was a half-a-gram of lead as opposed to three or four grams to keep the rings lubricated until they could change the way engines were designed and

43:25 And so there was a spec that was put out because the oil industry didn't want to have to deal with all these people moaning or they, you know the public moaning about their cars falling apart because there's no lead in the gasoline. Viscosity breakdown! So they had this tolerance... They decided to put into play a law that says the gasoline can have no more than 0.5 grams of lead in a gallon Now, which was fine and said that we're making this gasoline but because of the .5 is point five. And then about two or three years later some idiot changed the spec to 0.50. Oh no! So anybody who knows anything and apparently you know again we're dealing with a public that hasn't got a clue in a state senate whatever

44:19 Point five oh for anyone out there. He doesn't get the what the importance of the dirty What's the dirty in point five and point five? Oh, I could just see the argument well The difference was is with 0.5 we can make the gasoline at Union Oil 0.54 and it's in spec technically And most of the gasoline came in at .50, .51. It could be 0.49 that's in spec two but it was mostly a little bit over because the determination was that you needed at least half a gram but if you changed the spec to .50 your off spec at .51 and .52 so everything had to be under to make spec

45:00 because you're not going to hit 0.50 rarely, so all the gas things are going out of point four seven point four six or that which started just affects the valves. Yeah yeah and so the next thing you know people are having these issues with engines and the rest of it then of course eventually that the car makers put in better you know... And also they came up with synthetic lubricants right? That are added added to the fuel well no this is really the engines themselves Mean there's stuff in the gas. That's for sure that's pretty so is there now no lead in the gas or are they still at some? No, no There's zero lead and gas for the last one on a 20 years or 15 years or however long it's been but You know there's no lead in the gas at all and then this engines are just better I mean they've just changed away you know they used

45:50 I mean, there was a thing back in the day. I've never heard the term sensed but they said well then the real problem was valve seating by the way more so than the rings The valve seats what would happen if you didn't have lead? The valve would go and hit the head and then because there was no lubrication it would wear down It would weld itself to the head Because this is hot right so it would pull off a little piece of metal and just and eventually drive itself right into the engine. So they had these things called, so what changed is they put in these new expensive valve seats into the engines that were not susceptible to this problem and then they used more, did the valve formulation of metal in the valve was such that it wasn't gonna do this. And that's really what changed. What does your VET run on? That's unleaded, was that unleaded days? It's a 75.

46:45 So I believe it's still a let, it still wants to let it gas. Hey man can I drive it? Does it work does it start does it drive? Well you should drive it someday. Pretty please John can I drive your vet? I want to drive your vet baby! The back part of the problem with this is that a bunch of stuff is falling off of it. Kinda like your Lexus you mean. My Lexus is fine. So the, anyway the vet has a there's a back in 75 there's this back thing that was made out of some sort of weird plastic and it just essentially degrades in the air and starts falling off in chunks What color? Because they only made solid colors or one with a stripe I think you had white You had yellow remember they did that one in yellow which was extremely ugly

47:36 Red to red thread actually around 70. I think the 79 vet which had a real interesting roofline? I believe had they came out with one in baby blue Which is if you ever see one, they're just absolutely the prettiest thing you've ever seen on the road Patricia had a Patricia had a c5 in In Belgium which and she looked good in that Corvette man But you know by then of course the Corvette was completely made of what does it uh fiberglass yeah and so she was in the garage and she was gonna and she pulled into the garage as you pull in the garage he had the top down and the garage door opener caught fire above her head. You know just some kind of short circuit, so she freaked out but it been she'd already stopped the car

48:25 And I already had the door open. And she sees this fire, she's like crap it's above my head the roof is down so... She starts her car and slams it in reverse to get out of the garage with a door still open which plows into the boiler So the door of course snaps off into 18 million pieces because its fiberglass The boiler ruptures We have a complete flood Everything destroyed And it was just amazing to see how that car just disintegrated before your very eyes, that door. Geez! Anyway... It's a little sideline there. It was funny man, it was a funny occurrence I'm sure Patricia appreciates you telling that story in public Yeah she does not

49:11 Anyway, so that's the kind of thing about it. So the point is that some knowledge... I mean changing things minor because somebody is a nitpicker or whatever while why are you smug at .50? This kind of thing is again part of the problem we have with as we've as we're divorcing ourselves as a society from manufacturing and actually, you know people kids working on the assembly line or just anything where you're actually having to do more than just sit and ring up sales at a retail store. You know Chinese goods With no really no experience of any sort it starts to sneak in this kind of naivete and stupidity starts to sneak into the Legislatures, and the next thing you know we have a lot of stupidity that will just permeate all levels of society And we have to deal with this essentially a bunch of we're gonna. Have a bunch of people They don't understand what going by the book means and why it's not necessarily a good thing In some instances it is good to go buy them both though I

50:16 You have to. Yeah, I know you're going to be a biker. The book is written... ...to be flexible. But still when it comes aviation i ain't that flexible yeah i know you keep harping on it but i'm sure there's some there's a uh i'm sure your plane is off spec i betcha if we do it together with some really i'll bet you could find all kinds of things a red tag on that i'll i'll bet you that my uh that the wing commander would be severely pissed off if he heard you say I'll bet you that he knows there's got to be something off spec, whether it is the distance from one door to the other or where the seat is. But that's not a regulatory issue? Yeah, probably everywhere you look there will be something wrong if your going by really go by the specs so the thing is like blueprinted exactly the way its supposed to be. It doesn't have to be blueprinted but the checks and regular inspections have to

51:19 That's different. I know they have to be done, but i'll bet you there is a little tolerance in there. You're claiming there's zero tolerance for anything? No because the tolerance level... so if you have a bolt that uh is known to last 1 000 hours it will have to be replaced at 500 hours. So the The time between overhaul of components is a much shorter time than the expected lifetime of these components. I mean, that's not 5%. You just can't cut it that close in aviation because of deviation like that. That's what i'm trying to tell you

51:56 So the thousand hour thing is bogus, essentially. If you have to pull the bolt at 500... No! It's two separate issues One is here's how long this bolt will last and the other one is here's how your guaranteed not to die because you'll put a new bolt in that'l be fine for another five hundred hours That's different Yeah I'm understanding what your saying but I am just saying obviously there some fear Because if the bolt is really good for 1000 hours Really good guaranteed if let's say this fear John is fear of death and that's obvious exactly But the point I'm making here is if that bolt Supposedly to spec is good to a thousand hours. You shouldn't have to worry at all until it gets to a thousand hours Why are you worried because you know these things aren't to spec?

52:44 Exactly! So that's the more egregious to not even perform checks which are probably well within limits, well within time limits. But to not do them... That's just- It's not telling you not to do them I'm just telling you your plane is not up to spec Alright, y'know what? When you come over here I am putting your ass in the Delta Sierra We're flying in a non-up-to-spec aircraft okay? If you can imagine Yeah if the weather's clear We don't need no stinking weather. We got instruments, which are also up to spec. Well let's hope! So anyway we went out to dinner while you were out here Yeah and I realized in hindsight that it is not a good idea for us to do a proper dinner on the day that i come in

53:37 No, you crapped out right in the middle of it. It was unbelievable. You could see it right? I'm like a happy-go-lucky guy... And then you just hit the wall! It's unbelievable Yeah, I apologize that was not a great table mate for half of the dinner My calculation is 4 o'clock in the morning London time when that happened to you yeah and we were eating caviar Well, we were eating caviar early. You had to hit the wall after that Yeah So I was a little disappointed with the restaurant Really? I've eaten there a million times! I liked the place It's La Follie We have to tell people what it was Yeah, it's one of my favorite restaurants and is a good restaurant in San Francisco But you know they got a Michelin star Received a Michelin star And I think that they're trying a little too...I mean it seemed to me because I've been...I've eaten their forever That they are trying a little too hard To be fancy That's a good point That's a good point I agree with you there

54:34 And which is again, you know like I don't need...I want to eat some good food. I want to have good well-prepared food. I don't want some weird experimentation and there was one...there were two or three things in there that were very disappointing. One was this...the dish I had which was the crab whatever the heck it was a crab appetizer that was... With grapefruit right? It had grapefruit as the base so the grapefruit puree which does not by the way go with crab And there was these little pineapple things, so you essentially had a deep fat fried in some funny way with a bunch of other crap on it that was unnecessary. The whole thing didn't work at all! Can I just respectfully disagree that I've had several dishes that combined crab and grapefruit? Well that's the possibility that it could work if the grapefruit were sweet but this was bitter and sour but it didn't work and even thinking about it, sweet, I wouldn't recommend it

55:34 as a combination. Well, but let's back up because we started with an ounce of caviar which I thought was spectacular The caviar was good but again they had some botched presentation essentially what we had was a caviar that was on a really interesting spinach blini and it was okay Potato Blini yeah And there was a...it has spinach and potato but then they add sour cream on top of that and the caviar doused on top of that And that was all fine, but what was underneath the bellini was like baffling. What was the point of putting a combination of small chunks of asparagus and little cubes of some fish or other? Well, the problem with that presentation was because they gave us mother-of-pearl spoons to eat it with

56:23 You couldn't really get the asparagus onto the spoon because, you know, the thickness of the spoon was really meant for scooping caviar. So you couldn't actually get anything off your plate without involving your fingers which I felt was kind of wrong Well, you could use a real fork but... The point is that what was or what WAS the point of these additions to which should be kind of simple I mean, they already had the swirls of some chive green thing around to get you know make it was a very pretty dish. And it tasted good! Yeah, I like that swirly stuff that was good. It tasted good You know what? I wasn't complaining about that But what I was complaining about was the unnecessary weird crap That was put underneath the blini. It's just to be able to say put on the menu Oh we have nice little pieces of asparagus We have hidden for you under potato blini

57:12 So anyway, so I was disappointed in that the and it I'm always disappointing in that part of it. I did like the caviar And then the crab thing was just completely out of control. It wasn't what do I have for my entree? Yeah, what did you have I had the crusted tenderloin you had like a lamb or no pork? Beef for some damn thing. I didn't I didn't By that way before that though I had something else by then You were going by the time that entree came out it was some what was the order after your shot by then yeah But what was the hors d'oeuvre

57:49 The hors d'oeuvre in my case was the crab. I had something else, this is not good that i already forgot what i had to eat yeah no that's actually a bad sign um here let me look it up because the menu is actually online I also felt a little bit in the service and the way the chef was kind of walking around, in-and-out pontificating. I also felt that was a little unnecessary it felt like you know look just get the food on the table and just move it along... I didn't mind this chef coming in and out It's nice that he came over to our table and said hi and you know That wasn't...I thought their service was stunning! It was right on the money they never missed a beat

58:33 I was not it was timely but it felt a little, I don't know. It felt a little...I don't know. I was not in my right mind. I was not sane No, I think the service was fantastic actually Atmosphere fantastic liked that a lot atmosphere is really good And the wine, I couldn't appreciate the wine as much as I usually do. It was good Well that brings up another problem which is the wine So i order a bottle of wine and I've never had this happen before Normally you know like to cherry pick You find some good wine and then guys can't find it or they're out of it Which is inexcusable for a started restaurant be out of wine Yeah with a Michelin Star excuse me

59:14 So, so we go there and the... We should report them John. They should be stripped of their star for that dammit! No I don't think all these ones these starred restaurants that they're giving it to the US places or should be stripped. I think there's only maybe-I was looking at the list There's a ton like in see look at this. It's like so many restaurants with stars in California alone, it's ridiculous I mean, it's ludicrous these are not restaurants that compare to anything in France I mean Lafollette is a good restaurant But it's yeah, I don't think you would have a star if it was in France and I don't think the French laundry should have three stars. I think maybe two

59:59 And the re- yeah, because I think there's a rude operation. They won't take reservations except once a month for couple hours a day they won't answer the phone... I mean there are all kinds of issues that is not doesn't warrant it keeps it from getting three stars Right arrogance Well yeah totally so anyway I can't find John of course I know what we had We both had the same thing dude Frogs legs Nope Oh yeah, no we had the frogs legs were good. Then what did I have before that? That's why we went there! Oh I had the goat cheese and four-may d'hombert terrine. It was a goat cheese salad Right...that was much better than mine Which was really good And then we had the frog's legs which we both thought were rather tiny They were extremely small Where they from? They're from Florida? Tampa? What'd he say? Yeah, Florida. Florida Frogs

1:00:56 All right back to the wine because I interrupted you on that Yeah, so anyway. I ordered a here we go and then I had the I had the quail That's what I hadn't I didn't yeah, okay here. I found them in you it's online looking at it. I'm looking at it Oh second night is having trouble. It was a frog legs awfully dark a tan which was good That was actually pretty good. Mine was the Dungeness Crab Salad Napoleon on crispy pineapple chips, grapefruit and pomegranate jelly. It was horrible! And then... anyway I just

1:01:35 I liked, you know the guy who's the chef Roland Passant he is a or Paso I guess. He's really great guy and then I liked the restaurant but I was just so disappointed and it just seemed to me that they were over trying too hard in the old days when Lutece was a big shot place to go to in New York City It was unique in fact that they really didn't go into anything that was complicated. It was all really well done and simple It was always considered the best restaurant in Manhattan. So anyway, so here's my... The wall of wine! So I ordered a bottle of a wine that was 2003 Chateau Homme Marbousset

1:02:19 And he says, would you like the wine decanted? I said it's not that old and generally speaking half of these wines don't need to be decanted. It's pretentious. Just let her breathe. He says well it's a 2000. I said no its 2003! So he goes back and says oh I got the wrong one. I got the Marbouze, Chateau Marbouze which is a different winery. Then he goes off to get the other one which was what I wanted to check out so Comes back, he says he's digging all over. He's got a bunch of stuff I can't find it So which i thought was weird literally what? He said i can't find it most you know What he said and so we got the other one two thousand marbouset Which i haven't had so if you're down you know it's not bad and it was actually cheaper and So we had that it was fine it was good wine but It wasn't what i wanted right so that Was kind of problem and of course We had A

1:03:16 What do we have a white Bordeaux with the oh, yeah. Actually it was surprised how good that was good. That was good I like just an everyday white Bordeaux anyway so i'm looking at so I got Kind of into looking at all these Michelin stars that the Michelin guide people are throwing out like there's no tomorrow Now just explain a Michelin star Michelin is essentially like the ultimate zagat guide I guess of France and it is the original It's the original restaurant this began almost 100 years ago, Michelin decided that they should do some guys by the way is a tire manufacturer

1:03:53 We I think most Americans have a nice lunch. I think most Americans don't know I think they're all thinking Pirelli's No, I think you're wrong because of me this Costco sells Michelin tires Okay, but so let me just bridge the gap between tires and restaurants because I don't think most people know that Right, that's true. Now the reason for the guides originally was to sell tires It was like you brought this it was a guide that showed You all these places you could travel on your in your car and so you can wear out your tires yep

1:04:30 So over the years, they became like the experts and they started in France of course. And in fact the Red Guide for... I always tell people who've never been to France is if you don't have a red guide, Michelin red guide in France when your traveling around your crazy because it's really the way to go. They list all their little towns and they have all the little hotels and what they charge and every restaurant in the country its unbelievable And so they came up with the system some years ago to star and there's only three stars is the most you can get So people are wise a four-star Michelin place. You know that you hear that once I was like, no Three stars is the most you can get and they only have very few in fact They have the list here of the ones three stars

1:05:12 In Paris, for example there is only 9 out of 26 in the entire country of France. Nine 3-star restaurants and in Paris 15 2 stars and 38 1 stars Now when you consider the fact that We damn near have that. We don't have as many one stars in the United States, but we already too many because they're supposed to be the most strict and if you've been to these restaurants in France it's more than just a food there is a food, there is an atmosphere, there is service John this my point exactly I believe with the wine snafu and the fricking asparagus under the caviar blini uh...I think we should write them up

1:05:58 Well, I would except for the fact that the list of one-star restaurants in San Francisco and let me just go over a couple of them here. is ridiculously long and they're probably not the worst offender. I mean, it's just a ludicrous list of restaurants with one star that if you were in France these are just country places you'd find all over the place and some of them are literally bistros that haven't changed their menu in years like Bistro Jean T. in Yountville And the other thing that's weird is that if you look at the list, the California, Northern California San Francisco list

1:06:35 It's obviously the guy who is doing it or the team that is doing it, they obviously live in Healdsburg or Yountville or St. Helena or someplace in the Napa Valley because there are way too many restaurants that are in the wine country which is you know I mean, how many restaurants can a population of five support? And there's hardly anything on the peninsula of San Jose South. There's nothing you know there's one place in Los Gatos But there's like for example they don't want to bore people with this but there seems to be some interest But let me just complain really quick before you look before you didn't I'm sorry go ahead Yeah Keep complaining well the mission I'm gonna run over these names are these just to show ya

1:07:17 There's the one three-star restaurant, which is in Yountville. Which is the French Laundry, which to me if it was in France would maybe be three I doubt it probably more likely to be two mainly because of some other practices Then he goes for the 2 star restaurants and then they have this all screwed up Because these are hardly the best restaurants in town And they leave out for example The top restaurant in San Francisco is known to be that the two top places actually are Gary Danko's And the probably the dining room at the Ritz-Carlton right now. Those are probably the best places if you want to get a good meal in San Francisco Go to Gary Danko's or go to the Ritz Carlton's dining room right now Florida Lee I would put up there close to those two But those are the two places neither one of those got two stars The two star places instead gave Aqua which is the noisiest restaurant in San Francisco hate aqua

1:08:10 You hate aqua. Yes, oh no I don't like it at all There's a number of people that will literally say that when you mention it they hate Aqua and if... And I have a guy who used to work with me Used to work there as a sous chef and he says If the chefs not around the food just doesn't isn't worth dealing with It's just shit Is it possible is it thinkable John That much like the International Olympic Committee Obviously there's a great marketing benefit To having one two or three stars Just like it's great to have the Olympics in your country. There has been great scandal with how countries are chosen, with payoffs and bribes Is it thinkable that the team that awards these stars maybe has just fallen prey to bribery? Corruption I don't know

1:09:02 I think it's too complicated to do that. I think they're just incompetent, and I think that's a big difference and I think incompetency is partially to blame here but let's go over the two-star restaurants Aqua nobody thinks this is a two star restaurant In fact if it was me I wouldn't give it a... actually here here's my rating If I was gonna give stars out I'd give 2 stars to The French Laundry And I'd give 1 star to Gary Danko One star to Florida Lee a tentative star to the Ritz Carlton because it's a hotel thing and it fluctuates a little bit, and then probably one star. And maybe two just because of its importance to Chez Panisse that's it! I wouldn't give another star out. Brainstorm don't say that Don't say that brainstorm

1:09:51 Mean look we're well-known guys. You're very knowledgeable in this area I'm the voice of the common man when it comes to the dinners We enjoy together why don't we just start our own rating get some free food out of the business dude? This is fucking perfect It's a great idea, so don't you won't give out any more star way that what we have something different than the star we have to Have a different rating system Yeah, well obviously but anyway the point is now that by the way quince which is on the list as one star Is actually a really good place haven't we have an idea with you? I don't think so no. No You don't want to do a rating system with me and you know Do a rating because it's good this is so easy. I just named the five places That's it for now yeah, I'm sure there's other places Anyway, so let me go back over this two stars aqua of no

1:10:37 Shay TJ, I've not been there. It's a new place that used to be one-star and now they moved it up and if you go to Yelp all people do is complain about it being listed at all. Cyrus which I also haven't been too which is up in Healdsburg is probably everybody thinks it's a great place and I'm gonna give them some slack that's another two star place but again you know up in Healdsburg. Healdsburg is a long way from here from San Francisco it's like an hour plus to get there Man Race in Los Gatos, which is about two hours from San Francisco. That's one of the few places that's actually rated south of San Francisco. The Meadowwood in St Helena another place up in the wine country a 2-star restaurant hour minimum to get there Michael Mina which is a restaurant that opened recently and the Saint Francis which I've gone to three times does not warrant a star. The first time I went there I thought was one of the most interesting meals have ever had was outstanding

1:11:34 The second time I went there, because I brought some other people to show it off. It wasn't as good. It was falling off a little bit and this is the same group that started Aqua by the way so it's kind of an interesting situation. The third time I went there, the meal was just so-so... And I got baited and switched on the wine! Oh my god another outfit we have to report So what happened with the wine was I cherry picked, which is...I think I hit two in a row actually where the wine that was listed on the list wasn't there. They just didn't have it. It was they're sold out. Okay fine so then after guy comes over after the second time this happened he said and says you know what we can do for the same price which was a reasonable price? We can offer you this wine which was a big upgrade

1:12:23 And they would have eaten whatever the 30 bucks was. Because I think the difference was $30 or 40 for a bottle, and so I said okay we can do that. So he goes back and the next thing you know I see him, the guy and the maitre d' getting into some discussion, the guy comes back and says well you know what? We decided... They've decided now. We decided that this wine, this other wine is probably even a better choice than the one that we offered you as a substitute Yeah, it was a better choice and it saved them 40 bucks because you know they so I just thought there was the worst performance I've ever seen. Unbelievable yeah, I had an exp... not to go off our list They're off the list John. I'm keeping track now So there was this restaurant like this which was in the St Regis The worst case scenario is the following I'm in New York And there's a restaurant camera that never was very famous was in the st. Regis

1:13:19 and they closed. Oh, I've stayed at the St. Reed just a lot. You know that big fancy place downstairs? Downstairs yeah, downstairs yep absolutely So i go in there and you know the place is really expensive And so I order a bottle of Chateau or Joseph Druhan's Oregon Pinot And it's a newer release called Lorraine If you looked on the wine list It was like...it would said Joseph Drew Han Loren, which is a specific vineyard that they grow high-end Pinot Noir at. And there was no other Joseph Drew Han Oregon wines on the list just this. The guy comes out with the bottle and he shows it to me

1:14:05 It's not the wine. It's just a plain old Joseph Drew Hen Pino, which isn't even on the list." And so I say no that's not it The one I...it says Loren on the label and curiously I just had had the wine like a couple weeks before and I know exactly where the Loren designator was The guy comes back with the same bottle without the Loren and he says No this is it! This is the only wine they make Put my finger on the bottle and point right to the spot where Loren is supposed to be set, you know Where the vineyard name is I said right here It says Loren on the real wine Not this piece of crap. You're pointing off on me And so the guy goes back a third time and then he comes out with the right bottle So I'm thinking this is unbelievable vicious

1:15:01 So I ran into the guy who was the hotel manager once at a wine tasting and I was sitting next to him by coincidence. And, um...I told him this story you know? I was so annoyed by it and by the way there were other incidents in that same dinner And he says, oh yeah I know who that was. Apparently it was just some corrupt practice that was going on at this place and he also mentioned to me that restaurant was losing something like a million dollars a month. It was a loss of equal don't ya? How's that possible? Not those prices but well its possible because obviously they're stealing from them. Yeah. Anyway so thats...I could go on we can talk about the Michelin stuff more later but I just found out the whole list

1:15:45 with all these places up in the Bawang country are just ridiculous. And the whole thing is, I don't know... To be continued? Yeah to be continued and then they have this other thing where all these cheaper meals and again you know Petaluma St Helena Napa Napa San Anselmo Windsor Santa Rosa, I mean where's the San Francisco? Oakland. Berkeley! The whole peninsula 231 Ellsworth and San Mateo is never even mentioned And one of the greatest restaurants in the Bay Area is the Woodside or the Village Pub The Village pub in Woodside not mentioned and it's better than half the places listed here as one star but obviously the inspectors live up in the Wynkoe It goes too far to drive down to Woodside

1:16:34 You know I don't know this annoying the only place. I know in Woodside is bucks. They probably give them a star so when that when there were when the List first came out in the Bay Area's everybody's fussing you know especially all the French guys because they got screwed and there's a couple of little places that aren't even restaurants essentially getting a star And the Michelin guys came up with an argument that, well you know for its type. You know what your restaurant is not what it doesn't get a star because for its type... Oh this classification now? That's a crock of crap where's the one-star taco truck?! We could be it! Seriously where's the one star taco truck if it's good for your type and it's type in its class? Yeah we'll have restaurants for the type Alright you're boring me now John

1:17:22 Okay, you take it on from here. No I don't know I like solving the world you're solving something else Yeah my need to have a decent meal Did you have any notes? Did you write anything down anything we can decode decipher yeah so i watched the miss USA thing last night oh crap I missed that Yeah, well I've never seen it. I caught it during the bikini 15 winners of the 15 girls that would do the bikini thing and it was like watching... It was like remember Robert Palmer and he had those women that all looked exactly the same? They all had the exact same body Is this a Trump sponsored one or is that Miss Universe? No, same thing. Miss USA is part of Miss Universe

1:18:12 So they had, there was a cookie cutter group. They're all tall between typically 5'8 to 5'10". They all had teeth that were bleached to in such an extreme that it looked like if they put any more on the teeth would just fall apart from whatever this crap is. It's hot yeah it's hot I like that What else? Anyway, the... So what's your point was something wrong here I don't understand. Yeah there are a couple of things and here is what is wrong for one thing they picked the wrong girl as far as I'm concerned Miss Oklahoma should have won the whole thing she was the only one that had... What was her talent? She didn't look like a cookie cutter she actually had kind of a blonde cute Danica Patrick look so she has more modern looking she was very pleasant A little tomboyish is that we mean

1:19:01 Little bit, but she's 510 Hmm and dynamite but anyway What's her talent? There was no talent. This is not at one where they have talent Did you what didn't she say something about saving the world high heels as their talent did he say something about saving the world come on They have to do the interview questions Okay well let me go to that part of my little list of complaints So the one of the girls who was really actually one of the better-looking ones, and I could have been a winner. I believe was And I just want to point out that you are the man that yelled at me for liking reality television yet You're willing to sit through the Miss USA competition fantastic criticize it not to praise it okay? so here's the keer's the kicker miss Pennsylvania who's gorgeous and

1:19:47 She has to come up to do, uh... And they pick this weird thing. They pick from a bin or Donnie picks from a bin. Donnie? Or they pick from it- Donnie Osmond and Marty. Oh, Donnie Osmond was still hosting it? Oh fantastic! So anyway, so they pick from a bin and they give the thing to Donnie. And then Donnie says okay your question will come from it and they have like 10 judges and these are the top five girls. This is five people gonna ask questions that have these canned questions. So this poor woman from Pennsylvania gets that idiot Heather Mills who's one of the judges as the questioner

1:20:28 Okay. So Heather Mills asks you what she thinks about selling, you know that the big makeup companies and cosmetics firms are marketing to kids? Do you think this is right? And of course probably the poor woman from Pennsylvania doesn't know what a nut job this Heather Mills is and how she's like a vagan in a screwball I'm so the girl. What do you mean a vegan? Pagan, pagan is what you mean So the woman says, well you know there's a lot of... she kind of hemmed and hawed but says yeah it's fine because there are some products like facial cleaners and things like that. She didn't say that but that was what she was hinting at would be okay And you could just see the look on Heather's face like she is lowballing this chick Yeah! And in fact Miss Pennsylvania came in dead last because Heather probably zeroed her out which you can do in these kinds of competitions to just lower the number

1:21:25 And Heather was just sitting there steaming that this girl would not have said what she hoped. She'd say, no all cosmetic companies are evil! Evil! They test on animals. Oh man... She's an activist So she was out so I thought that was pretty bad Just one thing i'm looking at the website for MissUSA.com so I can follow along and look at these girls There is two huge banner ads on the entire website guess what they're for? Cosmetics. Weight loss. Oh, weight loss! Right! Drop a stone in two weeks to the pinkpatch.co.uk So it's actually uh...a patch that you put onto your abdomen and it helps you lose weight. My god how sick is that? That's sick. Crystal Stewart, that her name? The one from Pennsylvania? No no um Miss USA. Oh yeah she's the girl from Texas

1:22:27 Yeah, I don't even you know she was okay except for the fact that she's 26. Why do you think she's 20? But dude her face looks has the features of The Cryptkeeper You know what, I had questions. She looked a little bit too much like Condoleezza Rice and here's the other thing that I saw on the show and actually took some photos of this. I was thinking of blogging it because I get carried away watching this crap so Donny Osmond in only one time first he gives the he takes the question out any opens in shares it with Marie let's sure read it then with with the woman from Texas who is a black girl

1:23:04 He pulls the thing out, or she gives him the thing and he says let me read this one Marie. And he kind of holds it away from her and Marie has to look over to see what it is. And he says your question comes from number 9 Sean Merriman The only black judge coincidentally. Oh man... Okay And then he keeps the thing close to his vest, and I think Marie got a glimpse of it because you had... if you have t- You know, you can pull this off because it said anything on there but whatever. And she had a weird look on her face like something's weird here is going on So Sean Merriman, the only black judge asked the only black contestant some softball question about something or other

1:23:47 She answered it rather poorly to be honest about it I didn't think he was even pulled it off, but that was that and Donnie says good answer He gives her a big kudos. He ditches this thing into the thought into the drawer The next one he pulls out you know he'd the two of them look at it together And it was like everything was kosher after that so I think that the whole thing is rigged well dude Here's the rest of here's the judging panel okay Heather Mills Oh, this is cool. I'm reading from the website actually it gives their credentials Okay These are the people who have the credentials to choose Miss USA representing The proud United States of America ladies and gentlemen Heather Mills a Brit Who was a contestant on season 4 of Dancing with the Stars not that's not mentioning that? She's she divorced Paul McCartney Rob Schneider

1:24:41 Star of I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry Joey Fatone host of the singing be formerly of boy band blue. I think Christian Alfonso entrepreneur and star of NBC's days of our lives a soap star Olympic gold medal winner Amanda beard Christian sir, sir, sir. Was it Christian Cyrano? The seasons winner of Bravo's hit show project runway San Diego Chargers linebacker Sean lights out merriman Celebrity hairstylist Ken paves Kelly Carlson star of nip tuck

1:25:25 Founder and she by the way Kelly Carlson looked better than all those girls. I bet you know he's a catcher And then founder and CEO of Planet Hollywood International Inc Robert Earl and Vanity Fair celebrity journalist George Wayne They should put like Perez Hilton in there that would have completed the lineup well they had that one guy that little weird gay character who is this kind of who ended up asking Miss Oklahoma, who I was rooting for... Who's the little weird gay character John? He is a little weird gay character. I just gave you all the names! He's just a weird little Johnny. I was here people said him It's a little skinny little gay character, and he plays you know he but I don't even know if he's really gay But he sure plays one and that he's you know but it's like that exaggerated phony baloney almost almost insulting gay and he asked the Miss Oklahoma question about do you know who did some idiotic question where Brittany Spears came into the conversation? Oh thank goodness we worked her in

1:26:27 John can miss Oklahoma actually, so it was the end of her. I mean my point is being made here John that the interviews are the most important part of these pageants because you can totally lose it on your answer Right and that brings me to the only point I was actually trying to make Which is that there's been numerous studies done by universities all over the place about the order of appearance and the resultant scores from judges. And so everything that happens last It becomes more important than what happens early. And it's particularly true with people who come rolling out on like, you know here we go at the bathing suit contest and let's judge number one number two number three or four... The number one person 99% of the time no matter how they look will get one of the lowest if not THE lowest scores

1:27:21 And the last person tends to get higher scores. So it builds because the judges, as they get warmed up they start getting looser and then pretty soon they're giving bigger numbers and that's what happened in this. I watched the gown thing after the bathing suit thing. They had the girls come out in gowns and some of these gowns are just horrible but the girl who came out with a really nice black dress and she was really pretty and she was supposed for elegance and all this other stuff Comes out as Miss Massachusetts So I took my pen and started writing down the scores as they came up because they put them up so you could see this trend, so she comes out first 8.4 Okay fine then the next person comes out It's kind of pretty but she's no better than miss Massachusetts And probably not as elegant because if she was doing massachusetts girls wearing black and she could walk in heels eight point six

1:28:15 Then New Jersey comes out who I thought was good-looking anyway. She should have gotten a really high score because she was gorgeous 8.9 so that's just almost like they're just adding you know it's not even looking at anybody but now do their scores determine the ultimate winner or was there like an SMS text vote? It's part of the competition, and then I think they do a final...I don't know Did they do SMS texting did the public choose or was it just the judges now just the judges all So we go 8.4, 8.6, 8.9 next one Pennsylvania girl comes out she is stiff She's the one that got screwed by Heather She's stiff she doesn't look like she really likes to walk around in gowns at all 9.0 or 9.1 almost It just gets worse The Danica Patrick girl from Oklahoma who had One of the worst gowns imaginable it was a horrible looking thing She comes out and actually trips she stumbled

1:29:05 She gets 9.3 I love it when that happens, or they fall down the steps It was subtle, just a little bitty stumble You should not be getting a 9.6 if you stumble, i'm sorry But the point is this builds and builds and builds And then next Mississippi comes out who had another horrible outfit on. I mean, this made her... because you just saw her in a bikini she's beautiful shape she's wearing this i don't know how you could even find a dress that makes what's probably a perfect body look like it's got a big square butt that huge! Is this the same girl? Gluteus Maximus It's amazing what dresses can do

1:29:49 She got an 8.9 which is way too high and it went in Texas when she comes to get all the scores are bigger at the end except that I have to say they backed off, which was unusual Indiana got slammed in eight point five in Florida with eight point five who look like a horse in this thing Now the point is though the first girl got the lowest score and it was on She wouldn't have yeah, that's why it should be an SMS vote this makes no sense these idiots I mean who I mean people listening to also say who are you guys to judge but who were those guys to judge The whole thing is just a ridiculous exercise. I'm surprised, you know? I wasn't even gonna watch the whole thing and i was just getting madder and madder watching whatever... And then when Heather Mills pulled that stunt with the makeup cosmetics question they should have just shot her! So the banner just rotated feeling fat? Lose the tummy fast and easy with pink They're drug dealers dude this whole thing is pushers

1:30:54 What sounds like yeah, that's not Produced by NBC Entertainment. I thought mine was wondering if it was like a Burnett it probably sucked How is the production just sucked right? No actually the production was quite good usually I was most surprised by the studio they had they were doing in this new casino They didn't even know existed the what do you call it the whole plan Hollywood hotel It's been around for a while, hasn't it? Yeah we had a promotion on our network. We opened it up with the Black Peas and a band could perform on stage I forget who won but yeah that was late last year Whatever the case they have a stage and facility for doing productions like this that is absolutely fantastic Nice So no I thought the production was good it wasn't bad didn't have any you know

1:31:44 Is that there's a lot of promotion going on during the thing Donnie Marie kept plugging each other you know yeah? We got to show over here By the way between after this you can come by and see us who will be doing our ten o'clock You know or whatever That's kind of that's kind of deal with those shows. You know that the always want someone who has a new show coming out Or something to promote because you can get them to host it On The Cheap, that's like Circus Of The Stars if you remember that show I was on that one I don't remember why I was on it but That's that you one of the guys that was stuffed in a small car. No I told you uh, I was in the rocket car of death I Told ya didn't yeah? Yeah, I think so hmm It's pretty funny So anyway, so that was my footage of them if someone has footage of me and the rocket car of death circus of the stars I think it was 1992 maybe Someone will have it. I've been looking for it on Hulu oh

1:32:41 They do have Swamp Thing on there. I did a whole episode of Swamp Thing, but that's season two they only have season one up You were on Swamp Thing? Yeah! I was the lead role in the episode Smoke and Mirrors What did you play a bad guy? Nathan Rockstar out of control rock star quite a stretch. Yeah Quite a stretch typecasting hey John it's about an hour and a half now, and the dog is freaking out here All right well Let me just say I got one more thing to saying I'm done okay William Shatner was on Jay Leno last night Oh yeah, I missed that too. I heard I saw the plug how was he oh

1:33:21 Well, he was William Shatner. But I want to tell people if you ever see William Shatner this is a short thing to note He only admitted it once by the way It was on Letterman years and years ago When he comes onto show and starts telling these stories The stories are all crap They're bullshit And he had this story about sliding on the way over, kind of. He crashed his motorcycle and was wearing a skivvy shirt is all he had on... It's just a bogus phony story! Nothing he says... He lies? It's all a lie? It's all a pack of lies But it's funny, it's entertaining That's why he does that obviously Just note that when you see him Don't go wow what a fascinating life he leads

1:34:04 Hey dude, he played opposite Heather Locklear so he's my hero. Yeah... He would be I like him though. I love Boston Legal too The writing is spectacular Yeah i've stopped watching it. I think this season is getting kind of slow Um, well I'm behind here because we get it later obviously. But uh...I am still enjoying it very much! Well that's probably the last...the next season when you start to see it you'll probably think less of it Oh okay Alright John my friend My wife is coming home soon My wife and daughter from Amsterdam so uh.. I gotta prepare the house for them Yes get to work This was fun We got a lot more to talk about Should we do it again next week? I think so You got yourself a date

1:34:52 In the Curry Manor in Guilford, I'm Adam Curry. And as the temperature goes up and up and up, I'm John C. Dvorak in Northern California. And we'll talk to you again next week on No Agenda