719: Uniquely Devoid of Feeling

27:00The glasses overlay navigation routes, package locations, and proof of delivery prompts right in the driver's field of view. There's even a dog on property alert because apparently the future involves arguing with Alexa while dodging a chihuahua. Amazon swears the system only activates after parking, not while driving, to avoid regulatory headaches. It includes a chest-mounted controller, swappable battery, and an emergency button, which probably doubles as the I quit button. The glasses can even handle prescription lenses and might one day warn drivers they're about to drop a package at the wrong address.

27:36The company's testing them with hundreds of drivers in North America, gathering feedback before a wider rollout. You know what would be better than smart glasses? Water, air conditioning, and bathroom breaks. That would be nice. But again, we're just trying to get rid of the pesky humans as soon as possible. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Now, Tesla is in the news this week again. Again. Tesla reported a 12 % jump in revenue to$28.1 billion after two straight slumps. But earnings still missed expectations. 50 cents a share versus the predicted 54 cents a share, sending the stock down roughly by 5%.

28:17Automotive sales climbed 6%, but profits cratered 37%, thanks to Musk's habit of cutting EV prices and blowing cash on AI and other, quote, R &D. So the federal EV tax credits have expired now. They expired at the end of September, which is why I am still seeing, Brian, it boggles my fucking mind every day I see a new cyber truck with new dealer plates on it. Can you fucking believe it? You got it. You have to remember. Okay, Jason, you're forgetting something key about Los Angeles. Los Angeles is mainly a city of people that have moved there from other places in the US to chase their dreams, meaning we get the biggest asshole from every fucking small town in the country.

29:02Right. But these things are not cheap. So we have lots of rich dumb fucks is what you're trying to say. Okay. Making sure. I don't know if you saw, but the 64 ,000 Cybertrucks were recalled yesterday. Oh, great. Along with many, I think maybe 100 ,000 Teslas for battery issues and things like that. Nice. So now here we go. So Musk got on his high horse again and was talking about, oh, you know, the future of Tesla and all this shit. And he gets back to this robot shit. Which has nothing to do with the car. Yeah. Nothing to do with the car. Nothing at all to do with the car. Now, here's the thing.

29:40Billionaires don't want to make robots to make more money. You know, Musk is saying, oh, this is going to be for, you know, home automation, factory automation. What they want is their own robotic security armies because the humans won't be able to be trusted not to put a bullet in their head soon. this is what in the future there will be roving bands of massad level hit squads hunting the rich at the behest of other rich is what i'm predicting at this point like you know musk's army is going to go after ellison's army and it's going to be kind of well you didn't see the new alien series but it's kind of like that is what i'm what i'm predicting but at some point someone will luigi the shit out of elon so what he wants to do is make sure that he's got a like a robot army so his back is covered in iron instead of meat who wants to kill him.

30:26So that's why he's pushing ahead with his robot army. This is just a long-term plan so he can have his own personal Terminator army is where I'm going with it. Well, conveniently, it's Elon, so they're not going to work and they'll get recalled. That's true. It's true. Okay. In more fun dystopian news, President Trump has issued a pardon for ChengPen Xiao, also known as CZ, the founder of Binance, clearing the way for the convicted crypto boss to walk free and maybe walk back into the business that he started. Guess that check cleared? Must have, because I'm just saying, you know what? So, Ross Ulbricht.

31:03Jesus Christ, this is so freaking obvious and painful and bullshit. It's such bullshit. It's such bullshit. So, yeah, so now he's done CZ. He's pardoned Ross Ulbricht, you know, the world's biggest crypto drug dealer that we've ever seen. why what's going on with sam bankman freed has have they not been able to raise enough money to check bounced the check must have bounced that's it that's it that is the only reason sam bankman freed is in jail right now it's because he just can't pay him no he has not been able to pay the cheeto um coffee zilla did a great 10 minute video about why this is just fucking insane i recommend it he's just he's apoplectic about it as everybody on the fucking plan it should be yes it's it's so right in your face grift it's such bullshit

32:06media candy uh did you see tron aries hell no no me either but uh apparently it's a huge bomb Now, movie math is incredibly confusing. Many factors go into what a movie costs beyond just its production. How much money it makes goes well beyond just box office. That's why, while a film like Tron Aries may have reportedly cost about$175 million to make, and it just crossed$100 million at the worldwide box office, losses are probably much, much more. Deadline has a fascinating article about those numbers in regard to Disney's latest release, and news is not good. While the film's initial budget was in the$170 to$180 million range, the number was actually closer to$220 million all in.

32:45And while box office is just past 100 million, the film is still likely to lose about 132.7 million dollars. Yeah. Marketing alone is, you know, almost the double of what a movie costs nowadays. So, yeah. So it's very unlikely to turn a profit for the studio and is very likely to put an end to the franchise, at least for now. As the Deadline article points out, while this film had many, many things going against it. Jared Leto. Bad nine-inch nails soundtrack. Yeah. including an over-reliance on the Tron IP. It's still a known IP. It's got theme park rides, merchandise, and films that people will watch as they find life beyond the theater.

33:23Do they, though? Do they? That's exactly what I was going to say, Jason. Do they really? Does anybody that's under 45 give a fuck about Tron? Here's the thing with Tron. We had two somewhat decent but still kind of shit movies. We have a third that's apparently really shitty. There isn't... this doesn't come from anything. It's not like Lord of the Rings or Superman or any of the other big IP, Harry Potter, where there are books and there's a lore and it's all written and controlled by one person. Yeah. This is just kind of a thing that different people have taken a stab at making stories about that are all really disjointed.

34:05They're not connected in any way, shape or form. There's nothing. There's nothing there. There's nobody's made a compelling Tron overall story. No, yeah. The first movie was good. The thing about it is they're banking on nostalgia. That's it. There is no meat on that bone besides the nostalgia of the people who saw the original Tron and loved it. That's it. And they milked it as far as they could. And they just over milked and they just bled that cow dry. There's no way to bring back Tron because it was of its time. you know it makes no sense to make a tron movie nowadays with the technology that we have and what what kids have grown up with yeah it makes zero sense so on testing that theory i noticed that tron legacy was available on my flight back back home and i was like i i think i watched it but i'm not sure so i just watched it again anyways and it's fine it looked pretty the story was kind of okay it completely wasted olivia wilde who looked smoking hot but gave nothing to do yep and it kind of was a nothing burger when the movie was over i was just like okay well i hope tron aries kind of continues the story a little bit and then i read a little bit more about tron aries and it does not so oh so there you go so there you go yeah anyways I continued on with my human series, which is available on PBS for free.

35:34And I finished the last two episodes into the Americas and building empires. What a great series. This was, I highly recommend it to everybody. It was a lot of fun. Okay. Tells a good story about people, which, you know, if she continued it any further would have to get really depressing because, you know, look around. and while i was in london i was reacquainted with one of my favorite uh reality tv shows come dine with me which is a the conceit basically being like four strain four or five strangers uh all get together they cook each other dinner at their own home one night throughout the week and then they vote on each other's dinners and who was best and it's a lot of fun and i was enjoying watching it again and then i came home and discovered they have a robust youtube channel with lots and lots and lots and lots of episodes so i'll be watching lots of that all right and then i came home to even horrible news uh for me personally food networks the kitchen is to end after 40 seasons now 40 seasons it's been like 10 years and they smack like 25 yeah food network seasons are about six episodes each exactly so there's tons of backlog to this but i really this was my favorite show it's kind of like it became kind of our sunday family ritual this that's we would throw this on when it aired and i just i love it lots of meals that we as a family like create on a regular basis came from the show so i'm very sad about this because i thought the personalities meshed really well it's one of their old school like here we are we're actually going to make food that you can make at home uh shows and they're getting rid of all those so thanks a lot zas love fucking asshole i was watching knife's edge chasing michelin stars on apple tv plus maybe whatever it's called now i went to the website and the plus is still on the website i know i was watching my apple tv on my apple tv on my apple tv yeah i know and i don't know which what i'm doing here and it dawned on me this morning it's like you know how miserable life is because i was going back to this idiocracy meets wally my life the high point of my life is watching other people cook food that i'm never going to eat that is the high fucking point of my day.

37:43That's how fucking sad it is. I mean, Owl My Balls was even more entertaining on the Idiocracy movie. But yeah, I just watch people cook food that I'm never going to eat and just tell me how good it is or bad it is. That's it. That is my fucking life now. You know, you're supposed to then try making it yourself, right?

38:03I did make some good suya chicken this week that was, I have to say, was pretty good that I learned on one of the shows. Okay, see, there you go. Yeah, yeah. And I did learn the tip on Bobby's triple threat that when you're using suya, you have to marinate it with some fat. Otherwise, it just burns on the grill. That's what took Brooke Williamson down. That's right. All right. This is my life and I hate it. Well, here's something that may help or may not. It's really hard to tell. We've been hearing about this new Vince Gilligan show that's going to star Rhea Seaborn for Seahorn for quite some while, Pluribus, which will be on your Apple TV, on your Apple TV, on your Apple TV.

38:42Yeah. And the official trailer is now out. And I don't fucking understand a goddamn thing. I have no idea. I don't know what this show is going to be. I don't know what it's about. And I'm kind of excited about that. That's what makes me excited about it, too. I'm like, that looks interesting. I'm intrigued. We'll see if it can, you know, if it can land the plane. but i'm intrigued i like vince gilligan i love her and we'll see what we'll see come what may we'll find out november 7th not in may that's right uh i did watch bullet train from 2022 this week because i had it on the plex and it was late and i'm like i should i watched the first half of it like two years ago i'm like i've been thinking about i should go back to it And I did.

39:26It is a delightful movie. I have to say. Brad Pitt is awesome in it. He's very good. Very funny. It is a humorous, humorous action movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like Brad Pitt when he goes funny. Yeah. Yeah. You'll love it then. He's nothing but funny in this movie. All right. And for some reason, I watched Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog from the archives. Okay. from way back. I think it was 2007 or something from the writer's side. Cause I also was on my Plex and it just popped up and I'm like, I don't want to watch a movie, but I would, you know, I, I just had a little nostalgia feel. So I watched it.

40:05Oh, you know why? Cause I had just reordered all of Firefly into the proper order. And I was going to, I'm going to take that over and watch that again in the, in the correct order that it was meant to be watched in. But I, the first episode is uh serenity one and two which is an hour and 20 minutes so i'm like i just need something short but still i wanted a little joss whedon fix to see if he was as good as i remember before he got canceled it was a long strange night brian i'm just saying the the melatonin had kicked in but not enough to make me go to sleep yet uh dr horrible sing-along blog is just as fun as i remember it was it's great okay uh it's it's it's it's how superhero should be all right and i did find a show called hotel costiera on amazon prime video this week it's a new show that came out six parts uh it is very popcorny it's like ray donovan meets foobar and they had a baby okay he's like a it's it's dude it takes place on the amalfi coast so it's beautiful absolutely beautiful it's kind of like a light-hearted take this guy's a hotel fixer and just fixes people's problems and there's like some overarching storylines that go with it and but it is super lighthearted nobody gets killed you know it's this is the dude from gray's anatomy okay i had no idea who he was he's really good in it whoever he is yeah um it's it's fun it it you know and it's like i said lighthearted when you don't want you know something horrible and bloody like i don't know bullet train it's very bloody and like bullet trains more kill bill this is more like foobar like i said just lighthearted fun but worth watching and uh slow horses hit its penultimate episode this week.

41:44Holy shit, are they killing it this season. All right. I got to say, best season so far. It too is very funny, but also they really dive into why these guys are kind of fuck-ups. Okay. It's great. It's great. And last night, I noticed The Diplomat season three has finally dropped, so I watched the first episode. So did I. I loved it. I loved it too. I didn't realize Josh Lyman and CJ Craig were clapping cheeks. Was that not the greatest West Wing callback? A tear almost fell about my eye to drop an R. Kelly reference. It was so good. Yeah, I'm very excited the show is back. It's a fun show. It's a smart show.

42:27It's not going to change your life or the world or anything. I still think The Americans was actually a better show. Oh, yeah. But it's a good show. Yeah, if you're just comparing her shows. Better than Felicity. Well, not as good as the Americans. Yeah. But yeah. And the nice twist at the end of the first episode, I'm just like, I'm in. I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm all in. It's I can't wait, too. We're struggling to go like, do we wait a week to watch the next episode or do we just go? Just go. There's only eight episodes, which is long, I guess, in streaming nowadays, especially since it's going to be six years till the next one.

43:05But this one, this one bucked the trend. It was only, you know, it wasn't that long. A year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. I could still remember what happened at the end of the last season, which is we had to watch the recap. I did watch the recap, too, which was good because they do do good recaps. The recaps are like, you know, seven minutes long because it has been so long. Yeah. But I have been diving into the Celebrity Traders UK. It has been phenomenal. Did you see the list of people that are on that show there? I know you recognize some of them. I see the list and I'm thinking I'm betting you barely recognize any of them.

43:37uh well celia uh jonathan ross and stephen fryer the only ones i care about right nick muhammad also obviously no yeah from ted lasso yeah yeah and and uh slow horses this latest season right um yeah most of them though yeah no no fucking clue i know almost everybody on that list but uh yeah okay i have zero interest in watching them in a reality tv show though oh they've been great They've been great. The thing about these people is they're just too smart for their own good. So just overthink everything. But here's what you can watch, Brian, that just dropped yesterday. Traders Canada Season 3 just started.

44:16Oh, I'm sorry, A. You can get in on the ground floor of Season 3. All right. Which you won't, but I'm just saying. I won't. So there's a little bit of Ticketmaster news. Ticketmaster is trying to address the lawsuit filed by the FTC with several moves intended to block scalpers from abusing the platform. in a letter to Congress obtained by Variety. Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation claimed Ticketmaster does more than anyone to fight bots and get tickets into the hands of real fans. Bullshit! That's why you cornered the secondary market, made it illegal for anybody else to use anything else, and double-dipped taking a percentage from both the seller and the buyer in the secondary market.

44:52Right, Ticketmaster? Yeah. Because you're working so hard to stop people? Yeah. You fucking liars. Anyways, I'm not even going to bother with any of this. The article's in the show notes, and it's all just full of their bullshit. So they're fucking lying bullshit. You know what the thing I don't see in this, though, is no mention of AI yet. That's next week. That's next week, I'm sure. I did get an email that HBO Max is having a price change. Everybody is. Disney's going up. HBO Max is going up. Everybody's going up. Yeah, this is going. My old price was$16.99 a month. It's going up to$18.49 a month, which I have to say is, no, it's not, because I'm going to cancel it.

45:30Sorry, Brian. That's okay. They'd put in their geo-blocking and restrictions so often that I was going to have to email you every five minutes to try to get into it anyways. No, it turns out my AT &T plan comes with a free HBO Max account. So I'm just going to use that. All right. I had to pay for it because I have family members who were, you know, remote. Yeah. Not just you, but other ones, actual family members who were watching it. So I let them know that it's coming. They're like, oh, we haven't watched it in two years. I'm like, thanks for letting me know. Appreciate it. Well, if it makes you feel better, I was watching it.

46:07Yeah, yeah. But now I'm going to have to figure out something. But I'm actually going to wait now because apparently Zaslav wants to sell everything. Yeah, we'll see. And Paramount might buy it. So maybe it'll get all wrapped up into the Paramount app. I don't know what's going on. Nobody does. Yeah, we'll see if Larry's going to loan the kid the credit card to buy it. So who knows? Who knows? Ups and doodads. Flash Jervis wrote in last week saying, Morning, brother geeks. I keep getting ads for the Comet browser from Perplexity. I can't think of how it would actually help. Have you given it a spin?

46:40Cheers. Well, Flash, we've got a roundup of all of the AI browsers. So Brian, you take it away first and then we'll get to the rest. Well, OpenAI's long-rumored browser has a name and you can try it out today. If you're an Apple user, ChatGPT Atlas is available to download on macOS with the company promising to bring it to Windows, Android, and iOS soon, thus destroying those platforms as well. And apparently integrates directly within the browser interface, as you would expect, allowing users to engage with the chatbot while surfing the web. So there's no need to ever leave behind your fake plastic friend.

47:12Name Suzanne. I don't see any personal benefits to this whatsoever, but they're saying that you can do browser memories. So to remember what kind of shoes you looked at yesterday, something that history does already. Yeah, but your history does that. Yeah. Your history does that and doesn't tell anybody else about it, except the feds when you're subpoenaed. Yes, exactly. And apparently you can delete your history. I just did air quotes. Yeah. OpenAI says it won't use the content users browse to train future models. And my end quotes again. Atlas also includes an agent mode where chat GPT can surf the web for you and incomplete tasks inappropriately and incorrectly.

47:52So I did that yesterday. I have it installed and I was, you know, giving it the run through. And I used one of the stock agent things that it says, you know, help me get a cheaper cell phone price. So I'm like, I said, I'm on AT &T. This is how much I pay per month for two lines. Get me a better deal. The network has to work in this zip code and this zip code where I am and where my dad is. It took a half an hour. Right. But it killed so many little ecosystems around the country for a half an hour to come back and tell me, well, if you switch to T-Mobile, you can save$4. I'm like, I could have done that in about three minutes.

48:33And I had to wait 25 minutes for you to go out and do it. And then it came back with some other bullshit answers for what my packages were on AT &T, all this other shit. But I turned off that memory feature immediately. Right. But I'm still logged in on my ChatGPT account, and I'm using it to summarize things and check other things out. So it's going to remember that anyway. So who the fuck knows? I think the best write-up is Anil Dash. He wrote, ChatGPT's Atlas, the browser that's anti-web. And he does a great version of it. I recommend going to read his take on it because he's an eel and he has written a lot more words than I have and not chat GPT them.

49:16But yeah, I love this. He says Atlas turns users into data mules, hauling content over the crumbling bridge of the open web. His verdict, this thing deserves a warning label and maybe a priest. The web was built for freedom and links. Atlas seems built for surveillance and hallucinations because yeah, when you come in, the, the, the prompt that you get, the first box is just, it's tell me, tell me about what you would like to see on the web today. Not put in a URL. It defaults to chat GPT out of the gate. Yeah. No thanks. Well, Brian, if you're too burned out on going to Paris and getting smokers along, there's a new app for people that are too burned out like you.

49:55And yes, it's exactly as bleak as it sounds. Meta's super intelligence lab product designer, Laurent Del Rey, launched Endless Summer, An iPhone app that lets users AI generate fake vacation photos of you living your best life from your couch. And here's the funny part. This would be great for influencers. Oh, perfect. Absolutely perfect. The funny part is the app uses Google's Gemini Nano banana model to make the room. You work for Meta and you're using Google's AI. I don't think you're going to – maybe you're one of those 600 people that just got shit canned. That's why you did it. So you get six free images before hitting the paywall and then 30 shots for four bucks or 300 for 35 bucks if you're really committed.

50:40But there's even a room service mode that auto delivers two fake vacation pics every morning. Oh, God. Fucking Christ. Nobody's using this crap, right? I don't get it. I don't get it either. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Yes, I agree. Speaking of that, X has finally figured out a new way to monetize since nothing else seems to be working. They're planning on their long-rumored plans to sell old user handles and some of the most sought-after usernames could fetch millions of dollars, so they claim. The company shared more details about and opened a waitlist for its handle marketplace that will enable paying subscribers.

51:23And that's the kicker. You have to be a subscriber to request and buy inactive handles. Now, if you get one of these and you unsubscribe, you lose your handle. Oh, my God. So you're locked in for life. You're locked in for life. If you want to keep the handle that you purchased through their marketplace, you must be subscribed to X Premium. It will revoke priority handles if an account subscription lapses. That is such bullshit. It's exactly what you'd think that they would do. And of course, they're doing it. And fuck that site. Yep. Yep. In the old days, a Twitter handle meant something. But nowadays, who cares?

51:59It doesn't mean much of anything. And as the article gets into, you shouldn't trust them anyways, because Musk has been pretty capricious with usernames since he's taken over. He's just basically commandeered people's usernames, taken it away from them. No compensation, no explanation, no nothing. He will just take it away from you if he doesn't like you. Yeah, if I'm going to spend millions of dollars on a handle, I guarantee that I own that for life and that it's going to make me some money back. Yep. No, you get nothing. You get nothing. No guarantees for you. Just a poop emoji. Yes. Well, creeps are going to creep, Brian.

52:35Yep. Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses were supposed to make wearable cameras socially acceptable. Instead, a shirtless guy with a drill just turned them into stealth spy gear. Bong Kim, a hobby tinkerer, offers a$60 service to disable the bright white LEDs that's meant to alert people when you're being recorded. His work looks factory fresh. No, it won't, actually. They have a sensor in them to know if they're covered or not and won't record if they're covered. That's why it takes some actual work to do this. Basically, I think what he's found is a Dremel with a very fine drill bit can disable the LED.

53:11But yeah, for$60, he'll take care of it. And when you get it, it looks like they're brand new. You can either send him your glasses or buy a fresh pair straight from him. Quite the service he's offering. Yeah, yeah. And apparently you get some video of him actually disabling it while he's doing it. So that's why they say he's shirtless, because, you know, he's a hunk-a-hunk-a-hunk-a-hunk-a-hunk-a-hunk-a-burning creep.

53:38The Dark Side. Ha! With Dave.

53:46Welcome to The Dark Side with Dave, with podcast super host Dave Bittner, who has been on a world tour of Disney Parks, along with Brian, which they're going to talk about ad nauseum very shortly here. So I'm going to cut the intro and just bring up one thing before you guys go down the Disney hole. Gen V, Dave, we talked about it. You gave up on it. So had I? Yeah. I got a note from our guest host last week, Donovan, who said, you really need to watch it because it is completely a setup for the boys season five. You can't get to the boys season five really without watching Gen V. Here's the thing.

54:22I went back and I watched all of Gen V. It was fucking brilliant. It is a great season. What? Absolutely great season. Yep. The first episode is the weakest of the bunch. And then it just goes uphill from there. Sorry. That's what I want to do is go uphill.

54:46Okay. Well, just letting you know. It just ended this week and the finale was fucking awesome. I will let my partner in viewing, my son Jack, know, and maybe we'll give episode two a try. But we were both pretty resolute on that being the end of it. Well, you know, there is the just read the Wikipedia recap option. Yeah, you could do that and just wait for the recap on when the boys starts. But you're going to be missing out. It was actually a really good, good twisty season. I enjoyed it. Do you agree that the first episode was lacking? Oh, hell yeah. It was terrible compared to the rest of them.

55:25Even Donovan was the same way. That's why he had to convince me to go back to it. Okay. Yeah, that first episode, not great. Not great at all. But it does get much better from there. All right. Well, I'll let you know. Okay. I feel like I've been given homework. This is just a friendly announcement just letting you know. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Because I know you're a fan of the boys. So am I. Yes. And it really does. It completely sets up the entire end game for the next season. Those bastards. But they did it in a way that's enjoyable. I'm just saying. All right. All right. Okay. Okay.

56:05Well, while Jason was watching all of Gen V, Dave and I both had travel and respective Disney trips. I went to Disney Paris and you went to Disney World. A couple quick thoughts about Disney Paris, and then I'll let you take it away, Dave. But smaller parks, there's the Walt Disney Studios, which is the second park. And then there's Disneyland itself, Disneyland Paris, the main park. Both much smaller. They're working on building out a bunch of stuff, which was all under construction when we were there, which is probably why it was relatively not as crowded as I'm used to Disney parks being. but there also weren't that many rides.

56:44They're heavy on shows there and sit-down restaurants and all that sort of stuff. But we had a really good time. They did Halloween decorations, which was great. They had Hyperspace Mountain going on, which has been on my to-do list. And I went on that with my son, which I was very proud of him because he's a bit of a wuss when it comes to roller coasters, but he loved it. We went on it twice and he had a great time on it. It's considerably different from Space Mountain in Anaheim. It is a more intense ride. It is faster. It's got some half inversions, all a bunch of which surprised the shit out of me.

57:19And I couldn't believe my kid liked it. Right. Right. Yeah. And then they also have an exclusive ride there called Crush's Coaster, which is based on the turtle from Finding Nemo and all that sort of stuff, which had a huge line. So we used the magic hour, which is if you stay in a Disney hotel, you can go in an hour early. Woke up bright and early to take him because he wanted to try it out. Holy crap. This is the most intense coaster Disney has ever done. Really? Yes. And even Lucas was like, I liked it, but I don't want to go on it again. Ever. So I had a blast on it. It was a lot of fun, but it was very surprising.

58:02And so many parents were there with small kids in line for this thinking it wasn't going to be what it was. Wow, that was a ride. So it was a good time. The other main thing that they have that's different, they have a different take on the Haunted Mansion. It's called the Phantom Manor. It's kind of a, they went with an Old Westy kind of thing because I guess that appeals to Europeans because they didn't, you know, they don't have the Old West in Europe. Right. So they kind of went with that. It was kind of a disappointing ride. It was very good with the decor and the manner itself looks great, but it's basically the same track, but they took out the humor and they went dark.

58:42And part of the appeal of the Haunted Mansion is the mixture of the humor and the darkness. And there was no humor in this one, so it was a bit of a bummer. Yeah. I did watch the documentary, the Imagineers documentary on the Haunted Mansion. Have you seen that one? Yeah. Yeah. And they touch on that, the mix of light and dark. Yeah. And that was lacking in the Phantom Manor. And then the only other thing that I had to point out, and I talked to Jason about this at the beginning of the show. It's why I'm kind of riding the mic mute right now. Everybody smokes in France. Everybody. And, you know, I used to smoke, but that was quite a long time ago.

59:21And we all have like this Parisian smoker's cough. And even in Disneyland parks themselves, this is something I've not seen since I probably the early 90s. There are smoking areas throughout Disneyland Paris. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Huh. Yeah. And basically everybody flaunts them and just smokes wherever they want anyways. So there's a lot of cigarette smoke everywhere. Yeah, I would not enjoy that. No, I'm still like, I've been back for a week now. Yeah. As a former smoker, are you one of the folks who now annoys you being on the other side of it? I mean, I don't enjoy the smell, but I think I'm more tolerant of it because I used to do it.

1:00:08So it's kind of okay. And it's definitely made me come around to vaping. Like vaping does not smell bad. Cigarettes reek. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we had a good time at Disney World. Good. Just to recap, it was just my wife and I. This was our first trip with the two of us since we had kids. And so it was fun. I kept a running list of things in my notes app as we were going, things I knew I wanted to touch on here on the show. So I'm going to go through my list. Top of the list, my bald spot is such that I now need a hat. I'm sorry. Condolences. Thoughts and prayers. I'm with you.

1:00:51I'm with you. It's just – I recommend a Tilly hat. Tilly hat. Okay. Tilly hat. I don't know what that is, but I will look it up. I'm writing it down. Tilly hat. Yeah. I mean it's just aging sucks and so what are you going to do? You can only comb it so many ways. Well, I don't know. You look to our president. He's found some novel – That's true. Some novel methods. Serious engineering. Yeah. Yeah. So we went and Disney World was much more crowded than we had anticipated it was going to be. We figured middle of October there'd be light crowds. Not so. The place was packed. Nobody's going overseas.

1:01:33Well, turns out that the place was crawling with Brazilians. Okay. This was vacation week from Brazil. And so, yeah, it was full of Brazilians, which is, you know, fine. but i'm not i ain't complaining no yeah lots of um yes very attractive people the brazilians um and uh so there were a lot of long lines and so we kind of went into our b mode for us for the parks where we just did all the things that we normally don't do like over at animal kingdom we went to see the nemo show you know we we went to see the hall of presidents you know just we did all the things that didn't have a line and we're okay with that because you know whatever um but i have to say it was kind of like i it was an experiencing a shadow of what old age is going to be like right like it's being an old couple in these parks together which we are we have one foot in that on the side of that fence already in the age we are um but kind of like golly these parks are big you know well you know that's it's i i we took my mom with us last summer when when we were visiting to to disneyland and it was that exactly it was like my mom just couldn't do the walking she needed to stop every now and then and take a seat and just relax and chill out and right you know lucas is like a fucking bouncing ball of energy going space mountains right my mom was just like, I just want to sit here and have a churro and, um, you know, come back and see me in an hour.

1:03:10Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, we had a funny thing with, uh, uh, we were driving in the car on our way to one of the universal parks and we had the radio on in the rental car and a song comes on and my wife said, Oh my God, George Michael, I had this as a 12 inch single when I was a teenager and I played the hell out of this thing. And I smiled and nodded at her excitement. and I did not tell her that the song that was playing on the radio was actually Tears for Fears. No! That's a good husband right there. I love my wife. I just smiled and let her have her moment without ruining it. I absolutely would have ruined that.

1:03:52So we went to Epic Universe, which is the new Universal Park. Oh, yeah. It is much smaller than you think it is. Okay. I'd say it's smaller than any of the Disney parks. That's not a bad thing for getting from point A to point B, but it was also packed. It was really not possible for us to do the whole park in one day. For example, Epic Universe has four roller coasters, and we rode one of them. Which one? The Celestial Racers. So you didn't go on the one with the monsters? Oh, no, we went on that. I don't categorize that as a roller coaster. Okay. So we went on the Celestial Racers, which is an amazing roller coaster.

1:04:38Really good. It's a dueling roller coaster. And what's really fun about it is the two tracks sort of twist around each other. And they're perfectly synced up. So while you're going over a hill, the other group is upside down right above you. Oh, neat. And wrapping around you. Yeah, it's really fun. And dual launches, it's a home run in terms of that kind of big, fun, thrilling type of roller coaster. We rode Mario Kart, which was fun. You know, it's fun. It's like being in Mario Kart. You have goggles. You play the game. We had a good time. The line was too long for the Donkey Kong ride, the Donkey Kong roller coaster.

1:05:23So we didn't do that. We did the Monsters Unchained. Amazing. the best haunted house kind of ride there is. I don't put it in the same category as haunted mansion because I think haunted mansion is not supposed to be scary. Really? Yeah. Monsters is, and, and there's a whole story and all the monsters are in it and it's very well done and it's thrilling. And the cue to wait is amazing. So, okay. What I got to know is because they took, my friend did a lot of the monster design. Yeah. for that ride. But I, you know, we talked, he told me about the animatronics and was just like in awe of them. I want your opinion.

1:06:05Were they as cool as they look on the video that I saw? Yes, they are. Okay. They're very well done. Okay. Very well done. And, and also very well integrated. There are times when you're moving so quickly from thing to thing and you're wondering, wait, is that a screen or is that an animatronic or, you know, it, it's a, it's, it's a fast, exciting scary in a fun way kind of ride and i don't like jump scares as you as you know it's not my thing yeah but this was uh this was great fun i think it's a new they've set a new high bar for this kind of dark ride so awesome congratulations to them um we didn't ride the harry potter ride because all day long the wait was four hours what forget that yeah right um so So the only way to do that is to either pay the additional$200, which is what a universal fast pass costs, which puts your total park at$300 per day per person.

1:07:06Yep. And we weren't doing that. Still can't go see the World Series for that. Nope. Or you can stay at one of the universal resorts. And if you do that, you get in an hour early. Yeah. But the problem with that is that ruins it for the rest of us who want to try to do a rope drop ride because the park's already been open for an hour and the lines have already built up with all the people who are staying at their places. So anyway, we skipped that. It's a lovely park. How to Train Your Dragon's Land is a lot of fun. It's all new and shiny and they spared no expense. They really, they, they set out to outdo themselves and I think they achieved what they set out to do.

1:07:47I just wish the lines were shorter. I wish we got to do more. It's also not a lot of shade in this park. So wear your hat. So that was a, that was something very similar in the Disneyland Paris parks in that, you know, Disneyland itself, there are plenty of places to go inside or get out of the sun or whatever. um Disneyland Paris cold rainy nowhere to go you're outside the whole time so I don't know we we lucked out with relatively decent weather it was chilly but not freezing and that we didn't get any rain but I can't imagine that park being much fun if it's raining because there's nowhere to go yeah yeah yeah uh other things I put on my list uh I used a lightning lane and park admission I put all that on my apple watch and that worked seamlessly so that was fun all right uh we went to the hall of presidents a couple interesting things here um the first thing i noted was they have changed the format of the hall of presidents so that the current president not so much gives a speech as they read the portion of their swearing in where they swear to uphold the constitution and that sort of thing and so what that does is it takes the current president's animatronic break while doing it right it burst into got struck by lightning and burst into flames uh it did not but um but i think this is a really good move because it takes any opportunity for whoever the current president for politics to inject politics into it and people were very polite and and dare i say reverent to the presentation which i have not always seen in past viewings of the Hall of Presidents.

1:09:35I was in there one time years ago and people were booing President Obama and hissing. And I was like, come on, guys, it's the Hall of Presidents. The other interesting thing about Hall of Presidents is we went in and there were a bunch of people who were working the ride, Disney employees, probably three women. And in that part of the um of uh whatever land it is uh it's not frontier land it's dystopian land yeah it's you know old old-timey america land i forget the name of it somebody's pounding their head against their desk right now um but uh the women there wear these big heavy long floor-length dresses that are appropriate for the period in which the hall of president's building takes place and we went And in there, there was a Disney employee that was a dude wearing one of those dresses.

1:10:26All right. And so it was one of those things where like for five seconds. Yeah. For five seconds, you go, oh, wait, that's a dude. And then you kind of go, okay. When I worked there, you couldn't have a mustache or long hair. Right. Right. Exactly. Well, and so my son Jack pointed out that – Did he go, dude looks like a lady? Yeah. My son Jack pointed out that probably what has happened is for a long time, Disney has had, you know, dual versions of all of the costumes for various places. And they've allowed the women to wear the men's version so that if a woman wants to wear pants instead of a dress, she has the right to do that.

1:11:11And I suspect, I wonder, if this person was just taking advantage of that loophole where in the rules it says employees get to choose one of these two outfits. And he went, well, I want to wear the dress. And they went, OK. And it was cool. And he made an announcement and, you know, it was like, again, it was kind of neat that everybody had an initial reaction of, huh. And then everybody was like, yeah, whatever. Moving on. Yeah. So that was kind of neat. Let's see. Moving down my list. We had lunch in Germany in Epcot, which was fun. They have an oompa band there. Of course. And they played the song In Heaven There Is No Beer.

1:11:54Do you know this song? I do. Yes. Yeah. So they played the song In Heaven There Is No Beer, which I had forgotten was a song that my dad used to sing with us in the car. So now I'm sitting there in Germany weeping. Because I'm thinking of, and it's not like sad, sort of mixed, you know, sad, happy, just emotional outlet weeping, you know. And my wife is across the table from me, you know, half smiling going, all right, David. it's a very good it's a very good schnitzel but it's not that good right exactly exactly so so that was nice uh when the day we were at epcot hansen was playing oh what a what a bonus yes they they did three shows your wife thought it was hansen it was actually the jonas brothers right uh they did three shows uh so that was another reason epcot was packed uh evidently and then i'll so two more things guardians of the galaxy may be the greatest ride ever built so far it is we wrote it again uh this time we got um our music was iran by flock of seagulls great Right.

1:13:13And here's why. Guardians of the Galaxy. I actually have a soft sell. That did that sell. Guardians of the Galaxy is a thrilling ride that in no way beats you up. Right. It's totally smooth from start to finish. It's like the opposite of Indiana Jones, which just, I mean, you could get rid of gallstones on Indiana Jones. Oh, yeah. That thing is terrible. Right. Right. No, it's just, and it's fun. Just fun. And then the last thing I'll say is we went to see the Jason Bourne show at Universal, which was an amazing technology demonstration where they have the back wall of the theater is a screen that they're projecting on.

1:13:58And there's all sorts of foreground things happening with live actors, live set pieces, cars come out up out of the floor and they do car chases. And the things in the background that are being projected move in perspective with the things that are in the foreground. And it's extraordinarily well done. Like as a technology demonstration, it is off the charts amazing. Well, that's what they used for Mandalorian, right? Like in the actual TV show. Yeah, it's exactly that kind of thing. But the show sucks. The show was done. And my wife turned to me and she said, that is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life.

1:14:37And I said, you are correct. But here's the thing. This stunt show, which is new, high tech, doesn't hold a candle to the Indiana Jones stunt show over at the studios that's 40 years old. Right. And the reason is the indie show doesn't take itself too seriously. And the Jason Bourne show takes itself way too seriously. There's no winking. There's no humor. So true to their respective IP. Yeah, exactly. You go in and they're like, you are a special agent joining us to try to track down Jason Bourne. And they never wink or acknowledge that there's anything not serious about that. And so it just comes across as being silly.

1:15:25Okay. Yeah. Not on my list then. No, no, no, no. It should be on your list just to see the technology. Oh, okay. Because the technology is amazing. I'd like to see it again just to be able to look around at the things that aren't what they want you to be looking at. Right. So it's very impressive but soulless. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So that's my Disney World list. I like it. I'm happy. You guys sound like you had a great time. We did. Yeah. I mean, not as good as watching Gen V, but, you know. Yeah. Or listening to George Michael. I put a couple other things in here before we run. Jason, I didn't know if you'd seen this Kickstarter for this little Firefly microphone.

1:16:10I'd gotten ads about it probably about a thousand times on Instagram, but have not checked it out. It looks okay. Basically, it allows you to clip on a little directional microphone onto your portable device. So rather than having the omni-directional mic that's built into, say, your iPhone, this gives you a microphone that you just plug into the USB and you have a directional mic. And it seems to be high quality. The thing about it now is I have AirPods Pro 3s, which have studio-quality sound. So I don't need those anymore. are. Yeah. I was thinking more along the lines, if you were out somewhere doing an interview with somebody.

1:16:54Oh, I use, uh, for that, I use, uh, road goes with, uh, lavaliers and, uh, then you can tie, you can put that right back into your iPhone and that way that works wirelessly. So you have everybody's wirelessly mic'd and it just goes straight back to straight back to the phone. It works really well. Costs a hell of a lot more than$69, but right. Right. Well, yeah. Like it It seemed to me the use case of this is that you always have it in your backpack just in case. Right. Well, if you get one, let me know how it is. Yeah, we'll see. All right. Don't know. And then I put two quick little YouTube videos in here.

1:17:28One is kind of an appreciation of the old Ditto machines that we all had back in school, specifically how they smelled. The mimeographs. Yes. Yes. I'm only a few years younger than you guys, but this makes me feel like I feel like I'm 12 right now. Yeah. And then a little bit of fan fiction, a trailer for a fan fiction movie that's coming out that is Star Wars related. It looks like a fun setup where it looks like a couple of soldiers, one on the rebel side and one on the imperial side, are left behind after the Battle of Hoth. And what happens next? I would like to say that it does say it's coming soon, but not if the Disney lawyers find out about it.

1:18:15Yeah. Yeah. It will not be coming anytime soon. Just release it on BitTorrent and then everybody can see it. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Very cool. All right. All right. I'm glad you guys are all back from your respective vacations. Yeah. You know, we spent a lot of time on this show, Jason, talking about how everybody should have a right to have a life. And we get angry at the companies that take people's personal time away from them. And we coach people to take every little bit of vacation they can get. So I will not be shamed into taking off a week from the podcast to have a goddamn vacation.

1:18:50Okay. Me neither.

1:18:55Okay. I'm just going to go back to work. Daddy needs to recharge. Yeah. With some churros. That's right. That's right. Okay. See you guys next time. Closing shout outs. Over at Patreon, we've got nobody new. And from the current Patreons, we've got Peter, Chris Manchu, David, Steve, Shao, Pavel, Seth, Anthony, Casey, and Lucas. Thank you all so much for your continued support. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And over at PayPal, we've got Sloan, Tom, Joseph, and Jens. Over the tip jar, we've got Ross. No merch, because we still can't figure that out. But the store's up, but nobody's buying, Brian.

1:19:39No reviews. Well, you know. Yeah, but I do want to say that if you do want to support the show, pretty pleased with sugar on top, just head over to GOG.show slash donate. Links to every way that you can give us some cash. Or you can go to patreon.com slash GOG and sign up there. You get the show a little bit early, ad-free, and in high definition. All right. If you buy the whole year, you get a discount. Yeah. So do we. We get a shave. But we'll take it. Doesn't matter. We'll take it. We love it. Yeah, and when Dave was talking about his wife's musical mix-ups, I mentioned Soft Cell because they were top of mind.

1:20:12Dave Ball, one half of the pioneering 1980s synth pop band Soft Cell, has died at the age of 66. He's had long-standing health problems, so it's sad to hear. alongside singer Mark Allman. The duo scored a worldwide hit with their cover of Gloria Jones Tainted Love back in 1984 and their debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is considered a classic of electronic music. I believe Tainted Love is probably the first alternative song I ever heard. It was a great song. I would have been like 11. I was in the back of my parents car driving back from like my grandma's or something like that and I'm sure it was like Casey Kasem's Top 20 or something like that and they were playing it so I remember hearing that.

1:20:49He also later formed the pioneering techno group the grid and jason and i have both shaked our booties to the grid at uh some of the clubs that we used to frequent back in west hollywood back in the day yep uh 1994 swamp thing uh he died peacefully to sleep at home in london on wednesday so sad to hear and thanks for all the tunes man that's a sad time 66 too young yep too young until next time i'm jason de philippo and i'm brian schulmeister thanks for listening to grumpy old geeks get all the links and goodies from today's episode at gog.show slash 719 want to keep the grumpiness alive toss a few bucks our way at gog.show slash donate every penny helps keep the show on the air love the show share it there's a share button in your podcast player use it to spread the grumpiness to friends foes and everyone in between we'll love you for it swing by gog.show to join our discord and chat with us and other show fans about thoughts feedback cool links hit us up at gog.show slash contact and don't forget to leave a five-star review at gog.show slash review we'll read it on the air and we've got gog merch ish snag your grumpy gear now at shop.gog.show and try not to get hit by those tariffs stay grumpy