With the world tipping point, just 10 days away time for your
weekly interlude from two guys who know nothing about anything
call it a match made in heaven call it no agenda, from Gitmo
nation West in the condo overlooking the bay. I'm Adam
curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak up here in Silicon Valley north, a non
existent to location, but somehow I feel substance,
something like substance no less.
Standard, I guess, not sure.
Hey, John, how you doing? It says it's Saturday afternoon
live and 25 here on the West Coast. And I think I've solved
the disconnect problems from last week. It's a weird one,
though.
Oh, yeah. What was it?
For some reason my router gets confused. When I have three
machines here, I have an iMac. That's one of those desktop
things. And then I've got the MacBook Pro, which I record the
show on and then my phone. And what was happening was it was
getting conflicting IP addresses, you know, where two
machines tried to grab the same IP address? I think it has to do
with the phone, actually, because that's, that's the new
piece that was introduced. Most recently.
You turn the phone off? Yeah, I've
turned it off completely. So I think you know, maybe once in a
while, maybe the router looks to, you know, to check or if
something was going on, which I'm sure is also a part of the
router. But for whatever reason. I get kind of conflicts between
the MacBook Pro and then the other machine. So I'll just turn
it off. Hopefully it should be okay. Yeah, one of those deals.
So I went to dinner on Thursday, a 10 anniversary little party
they had for a company called NetSuite. Yeah, what do they do?
They make a kind of an all in all purpose. They essentially
are sap in the clouds is what it really amounts to, oh, my God,
did
you stand there and say, You guys are doomed, the cloud will
never work. I don't believe in it. It's BS.
Well, they you know, they're the type of cloud computing they do
is something that is doable in the cloud, because it's very,
it's very targeted. It's not like mass market stuff. And
so it's like, it's like enterprise enterprise stuff. Is
that what it is?
Yeah, it's all enterprise. Okay. All right. But just small
companies can utilise this. It's actually an interesting product.
People should check it out. If they're hit that they have a
small company. They want to computerise everything. The
Oakland A's are on it.
You know, John, your bandwidth is crap, man. Once again, you're
you're warbling all over the place. But anyway, we're
connected. So
it's weird, since we're both on Comcast and we have better
connections when you're in England.
Yeah, no kidding. And it's it's messed up.
I was going to unfortunately didn't do it. But this week, I
was going to talk to the Comcast folks and have a monitor this
conversation and tell me what's wrong with it? Because I have
ice. They might die of boredom. Don't have them actually monitor
the conversation. Well, I mean, you know, monitor this stream.
It's weird. It's like It's like your upload speed. I mean,
you've got like mega mega mega mega bits, right? Don't you have
the massive Comcast connection?
Yes, I have a five up and the thing is with everybody else. I
don't have a problem with Shepherd you at that location.
I hate it. All right. Anyway, so NetSuite you had the dinner?
Yeah. Is that is that the pictures you sent? That's what
that was of.
The one the one picture was the dining room. That's it. Larry
Ellison says we have
the dinner. Oh, that was his that's his ship then. No, no,
that's
Tom Perkins ship.
Oh, excuse me. I get them confused.
Yeah, one is Blofeld. And the other one is I can't remember
the other evil character but Perkins is definitely Blofeld
with that ship
that that thing is amazing. I mean, that it's a world famous
ship right it's the only one of its kind a sailing ship that is
completely automated. I think it was actually wasn't built in the
Netherlands in the Dutch build that sharks Turks same thing.
I'm sure the Dutch taught the Turks. But anyway, so you get I
tried to get on it. But they won't let John. You know, since
he's at, you know, he is one of the founders of Kleiner Perkins,
you should be able to get on seems to me
Yeah, but I have absolutely no desire. I'm you know, and by the
way, I'm against parties on boats.
This party was not at a boat to party was at Larry Ellison's
house just on the way to the house. I went past this vote,
and I stopped and took a picture of it. Oh, wow.
There's a lot to wish for still, I guess.
Holy moly. Well, I don't think Allison even stays at that
house. By the way if take your shoes off when you go in there.
Good luck looks like it looks like more of a crash pad in the
let's say the model of the log Be of the four seasons.
Right? Right, right. If keynotes Is this the Japanese plays? No,
no, that's his place
in Woodside. Okay, so how many people were invited? There are
22
Oh man, you're on the list you're in the inner circle over
that
party. Well, anyway, since one of the guys that were the CEO of
the company is a wine collector, he gave me access to his his
database and then so I picked the wines for the dinner. And
they were all I'm gonna have to blog this because it's another
example of you know, how people get caught up in essentially
overpriced California wine. And for anyone out there who follows
this who's gonna buy like two guys, you're not gonna know what
I'm talking about. But what we had essentially a six bottle
horizontal tasting of the 2002 Vintage which included two cold
cold gins an embryo and Arapaho Bryant family and I overall
these ones are 500 600 bucks a pop, you know, or more if you
bought them today. And you know that you know, some I get next
day a couple days later, I had just a second wine from Bordeaux
for like, you know, 20 bucks was better
somehow it's a lot less interesting when I wasn't there
to taste it. How come I wasn't your bitch I come home I wasn't
your date. What's up? Nobody
had dates. It was just a people were invited. Nobody could bring
anybody. Okay.
And was it like really nerdy a whole bunch of guys and cocky
sitting around drinking $500? bottle wine?
No, not really. Because most of the entrepreneurial class guy.
Yes. Although Dan Farber was there from ZDNet ZDNet.
Right. Okay, so that was nice. So you had table conversation?
Alright, I
know half the guys there.
I'm glad we didn't go out last night. We were we were planning
our dinner last night. We were still on for tonight or not?
Yeah, but I was thinking, here's an interesting idea. And I think
you will get a kick out of this. About a month or two ago, I was
floating around San Francisco and to meet somebody and I was
over in the part of Chinatown where there's there's a classic
San Francisco restaurant that I don't know how old this place
is. But for years and years and years, it always won the most
beautiful restaurant in San Francisco Ward. I'm more thought
about it. I've only lived here forever. And I don't know that
I've ever eaten at this place. And it's a classic old, really
pretty Chinese restaurant that is probably as faded as anything
could be just semi decadent. Called the Empress of China.
Oh, okay. I've I think I've walked by it once when I was
a big thing. It's up in the air. It's like on the 10th floor of a
building. It overlooks you know, Chinatown or something. And so
anyway, so I'm walking around, and I go and I had some time to
go. So I went in the elevator to go out and visit the restaurant
to see what it was like and, uh, roamed around. And it's
actually, you know, still in, you know, it's still a still
looks like it's still in pretty good shape. You
know, I'm wondering about, about choosing that as our destination
for this thing. It'd
be kind of interesting as a because I've never been there.
What's a landmark? I
think our audience who once in a while frequent San Francisco
would enjoy the review.
Yeah, I think so. To me, is it worth going into is the
question.
Well, you know, I lay my trust completely in your hands.
Well, anyways, it's a change of pace, especially after you
having this high end meal I had, which is like, you know,
drinking these wines. I mean, I was so worried about the wines.
Not that they weren't good. I mean, they're all decent, except
that didn't like the cogens at all. And I never have liked that
winery. And I was looking at the bottles, and I realised why they
alcohol in those wines is ridiculous. It's like 1% 15 515.
Seven. That makes you hammered real quick. Yeah, and it gives
you a headache and you have all kinds of issues with and I don't
even know why they're pushing them up that high with that kind
of alcohol. And and when you smell the wine, try and look for
a bouquet or anything. All you smell is ethanol. I mean, this
wine is $500. I mean,
are you kidding me for that in my tank?
I mean, I can go get some Everclear
Excuse me. Can I just dab my napkin in that to clean the
glass table for a second? Yeah, there we go. Nice.
Anyway, but I'll blog it. Yeah.
Oh, man, this is so weird. You know, I don't like doing our
shows when we're both on the same Coast or in the same
country. Actually. Besides the the connectivity. I just feel so
disconnected from the rest of the world when I'm in San
Francisco.
Well, you've been reading the Financial Times. You were very
disappointed this week, because you ran into the Financial Times
article on sequoias complaining about something or other.
Oh, that was actually just before I left. That was last was
it? No, no, you're right. It was Monday or Tuesday. When did I
arrive Tuesday? When did I get in? I don't know. Now what I see
I don't know, either came in Monday night, right? Okay, so
yeah, it was Monday's Financial Times on the plane, the front
page. Above the fold, it said, I wish I knew exactly what the
headline was, but it was like Silicon Valley in dire straits
or something like that. And it referred to what is now really
old news, which broke on of all places, Valleywag that one of
our investors actually Sequoia Capital, they'd had an all hands
meeting to know almost three weeks ago, and they had all of
their companies come in, they had three guys speak. And then
you know, they had a common PowerPoint deck. And the deck
started off with a, with a tombstone, a picture of a
tombstone that said, rest in peace, good times. And
essentially, the message from that, which was, which was
insulting to start off with, honestly, you know, what do you
mean good times, I'm working my ass off here. And the message
was, we're all going to die, your companies will die, you
have to cut 60% You have to plan to have the amount of cash you
have, right now you have to plan to have the exact same amount of
cash in one year from now, if you're not making money, you're
going to be dead. And that was that was their message. Now we
have other investors who had very different messages, I'll
say, but this was really, you know, they brought everyone
together. And they did a really stupid thing. They sent out a
video of the event and the PowerPoint through email, the
video was not password protected. And it said, you
know, confidential account, like, like, of all those people
who are at the meeting, like they're going to keep it
confidential. So of course, that showed up everywhere within an
hour, including Valleywag. And, you know, to add insult to
injury, then the Financial Times picks up on it two weeks after
the fact that makes it a headline story. And then
quoting, you know, with a quoting, like, like glimmer of
Seesmic, who had just, you know, let seven people go and you
know, it was just like, man, if this is their reporting, if this
is their, their the great in depth award winning reporting,
crikey, I got to start thinking about the value of other shit I
read in their paper. It's disappointing. That happens all
the time. When you read something in the newspaper, you
absolutely know something about and it's never right. You have
to question the rest of it.
Yeah, no, that happens all the time. In fact, you run into that
I ran into that, by the way a lot with Alex Jones. From
Infowars. Yeah. And I mean, he brings up certain things that I
happen to have personal knowledge of, and it's like,
what are you talking about? Well, we
all do it, obviously. And you know, it's all in. Yeah, there
is no truth, I guess, is the message.
No, that's all entertainment. Yes. Talking about
entertainment, I've come to some horrible conclusion about the
election.
It's no longer fun.
Well, I know it's getting a little old. But this, but it's
getting to be kind of fun as watching the smugness of the
Democrats kind of creep into the picture. I mean, if you watch
this week's a Bill Maher show, I mean, these guys are sitting
there as this is actually kind of interesting. It's gonna be so
offensive to people after a couple of years of this. But so
I realised that I made a huge mistake. Oh, yeah. Huge mistake.
Wait
a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a
minute, wait a minute. Here it comes. A huge mistake,
I made a huge mistake. And the thing was, is I violated my own
basic tenet. And when I made this mistake, and that is about
two years ago, when I started to pick up on the on the way this
election was gonna go, which was I believed it was going to be if
you believed was going to be Hillary as the Democratic
candidate, then you then you said it would be a Clinton Obama
ticket, but McCain would win regardless. So so far, you're
batting zero.
I also predicted McCain was going to be the nominee. And I
also said that but I said the Vice President was going to be
Giuliani, but that was kind of the way but these guys got shook
out at the during the primaries, and who knew that Obama was
going to push out Hillary, because that wasn't really in
the cards. Anyway, so when I still think they're trying to
summary in his campaign, but they can't do it. But the thing
I overlooked was I wrote a column which I'm going to reblog
everyone is just basically wrote the column for the blog a few
years ago about how the media is going to force the issue on on
the way the Electoral College works and make a popular vote be
the vote for the president because when they target states,
which they're not which Obama is not necessarily doing because
he's got a 50 state strategy, got it and he's got a huge lead
Chattahoochee, but when they target states, they take money
out of the coffee have media companies who get all this
election campaign money. But meanwhile, I've been arguing
vociferously every time it comes up in the conversation, and I'll
make this and people who know me know have probably heard this,
from me numerous times over the last decades, is that there's
never going to be campaign finance reform, ever, because it
would limit the amount of money that goes to these campaigns
that then goes to the true beneficiaries of the campaign,
the media companies, which are the media companies, so they're
not going to put up with it. They're essentially going to
screw over anybody who tries to do campaign finance reform,
because it's money out of their pockets. Right. So what am I
doing putting my money on McCain? When he's chased public
funds? He did, even though Obama agreed to it. And Obama just
said, yeah,
yeah, yeah, right. Gotcha. Yeah. Psych. Psych.
And so Obama's got to 200 300 million. God knows how much
money he's got. And he's spending it and he's still
collecting it. He charges for bumper stickers for he got
he can't even he's, they're desperate. They're so desperate
to spend their money. And we should probably delve into this
just lightly John, and to explain to our non American
listeners how it works. In fact, many of our American listeners
don't know how it works. He because you can't spend that
money after the campaign. Right.
I think you can put it into the next campaign. I think you can
carry it forward like a credit.
Right? Okay. So obviously, he's trying to spend everything which
explains what he's doing is, I think Wednesday, when he's going
to he's spending a million dollars per network for a
Primetime half hour special for which baseball was even being
delayed by 15 minutes.
And which is the kicker to the story, because Fox of all the
networks is actually delaying the World Series so they could
take Obama's money.
And by the way, a million bucks for an for half hour. That seems
cheap.
Yeah, it does seem cheap. I think it's pre primetime or
something like that. It's not primetime.
Where is it? Well, before the baseball game this time, or
Gartley dollar figure
may not be accurate. It may have been negotiated. I don't know.
Okay. Yeah, that's true.
I'm just going by what I hear that's true. Yeah,
it could be something else.
So let's, let's just understand this. Firstly, let me just delve
into the to the campaign finance, let me just play it to
you the way I understand it. If you go with public money, then
there's a set amount that you can use, and you get that
basically, for free. If you take other forms of money, and I'm
very fuzzy on what other forms of money is, then you can't take
the public money, but then the amount you can get in and spend
is essentially unlimited. And I'm not quite sure how it works.
I mean, how do you Where does this money come from? Can you
raise it any way you want? I mean, as we know, and we can get
into that later, Obama is literally selling his bumper
stickers. You know, how does that work?
Well, it's pretty, it's pretty, you know, this is a, nobody
knows, this is like
a nice and transparent in the banana republic.
It's like, you know, there's a bunch of little money come
pouring in that they don't track. So it could be from
Africa, you're not supposed to be take, which is illegal,
right? You're not supposed to take you can't, you can't take
for money. And but you can't track it, because all going on
through the internet. And so and then there's these big
donations, and there's $1,000 minimum, but yet there's people
that give more somehow. I mean, the whole thing is really is
really gotten weird. And there used to be this problem with so
called soft money and hard money. And I don't even know
what they did to fix that. And then you got to public money
that goes to, you know, one or both candidates and different
ratios. John, it's alright to say you just don't know.
I don't know. I mean, I just know that there's an awful lot
of money on one side of the campaign, and then the do gooder
who wants to do campaign finance reform because the reason for
campaign finance reform is just what we're describing. We don't
know how it works. We don't know where this money is coming from.
It could be coming from Saudi Arabia for all we know. And it's
been, it's being funnelled in in all kinds of different ways. And
they would like to fix that so because it's there's a
corrupting factor to it, but it's never going to be fixed and
we have to get over it because the media is not going to let
that happen so they got these two candidates and you wonder
why this is the most because I was still baffled by Why would
General Electric a big contracting company put all its
really put it all its weight behind Obama in such a way that
they've actually created a network MSNBC that is
essentially the Obama network Yeah, the Obama channel Sure.
And they just give you know they're far as they're concerned
is all Obama all the time well,
What the Why do you question it? I don't understand why you're if
that makes total sense to me.
Well, it makes total sense when you think of the fact that they
don't want a campaign finance reform guy winning because
obviously that's money out of their bottom line every four
years and or every two years with the congressional
elections. Yep.
Oh, dude, but come on. General Electric. Think about the power
they're going to have when they come knocking and say Yo, Barak,
baby, remember, we hooked you up with the with that Baroque
channel.
Yeah, that's what's gonna happen. It's fine and dandy, but
I don't think that's the basic reason to do it. Because it was
always risky. And because they were going to be rocks. I went
to the When the election was even and what would happen if
McCain won the reason there, everybody, if you look at all
these newspapers that are including the Chicago Tribune,
that's never advocated for a Democrat, even though they said,
Yeah, we wanted a bomb, every newspaper editor, which is
usually always saying I'm Republican, well, the staff is
Democrat. They're all saying vote for Obama. Nobody's saying
vote for McCain. And the reason is, as far as I'm concerned, is
just like, they look at the bottom line and they say, Look,
this Obama guy's got he's given he's throwing 300 million into
the system, our money, and in this cheapskate McCain, he's got
some public funds. Do we want a future with the President's
running under those circumstances?
Who's going to pay us who's not going to pay the man?
So well, I made this bet. And we're not thinking because I
have always said for years that that campaign finance reform is
never going to happen because the media is the beneficiary.
The media controls public opinion and the media would be
would be shooting themselves in the foot to be promoting
so am I missing something? Is there is there campaign finance
reform on the horizon? What am I missing here?
No, McCain is always he's had a couple of bills go in trying to
do it he's trying to you know, he's a big shot here by taking
public funds Yeah, it's always on the horizon it gets talked up
every once in a while but when it comes to this close and you
got a guy who's gonna be president who's really big time
campaign finance reform guy McCain, they have to kill him
you know, with ya get making sure he doesn't get in. So they
say don't vote from the you know, the all the editorials are
against him. He's an idiot, you know, he's old. You know, one
thing or another? I don't know somebody. Oh, wow, Obama is
better. Yeah.
Bullshit bullshit.
Gonna put anybody
and I really hope people understand the significance of
this. And by the way, there was a Dutch report. I think I sent
that to you a couple of weeks ago, a Dutch reporter who
donated money to Obama's campaign. And then she wrote an
article about it saying, hey, you know, that's actually
illegal for you to take my money. Of course, that went
nowhere. In fact, when I donated to, I'm just realising now, when
I donated to Dr. Ron Paul's campaign, I did it on a Dutch
credit card. So technically, that would also be an illegal
illegal donation. But this is what I've been saying for a long
time, that in the United States, we choose our presidents the
same way we buy our soap and our washing powder. It's all through
advertisements. It's all through manipulation and paid
manipulation of the media. And and it's the people who are
behind the candidates who are really running the show. Last
Thursday, when we had the beautiful I love C span when we
had the beautiful camp Investigative Committee about
the the financial crisis, and you had Greenspan sitting there.
You had Cox from the Securities Exchange Commission, and snow
the former Treasury, Secretary of the Treasury, and Davis the
Republican on the committee. He's he asked these three
jabroni these these thieves and liars, he said, Do you have any
idea in the past 20 years, which presidential candidate in 20
years time which presidential candidate has received the most
campaign finance donations from the subprime mortgage lenders,
which is just another word for the Wall Street thieves? And
none of them knew the answer? And of course, the answer is
Obama, because that's where his money is coming from. It's
coming from Wall Street and it's coming from Wall Street where
big companies like GE are listed and it's one big money game and
the fact that we don't see through this certainly as
Americans is sad
Well, I think the market is gonna skyrocket once he gets in
the mortgage market I'm so uninterested now in
my watch, because you you're in gold bars. No, it's
you know what, I've really calmed down a lot because I see
now that clearly, we're not going to stop the freight train
it unless something really radical happens, Obama is going
to win. And we're headed for, you know, at least two more
years until we hit the you know, your cycle, our huge depression,
and it's going to be very, very serious. And it's and when we
brought this shit on ourselves,
Well, the funny thing is, is gonna be all Democrats. You
know, running everything so that we'll see how they do. But you
know, the Barney Frank's of the world.
Oh, that guy. You know, I wouldn't buy a car from that
guy. What a dick. He looks like you're crazy as Uncle the one
that always sets up the slideshows. You know? What a
horrible horrible man and you know, you could just tell he's
full of crap. I hate that guy. Really. I with a passion and the
way he talks
please do note that the only weird talker the other one is
the was the name rankle or, you know, that black guy who's got
this.
DOD is another one. It just did you look so completely
untrustworthy. And even Nancy Pelosi, man had to what planet
is she from?
I don't know. I think she had way too much Botox the last time
around, she can't even move her face
Botox and that helmet that she calls hair is frightening me.
She's like, looks like she's perpetually scared.
Well enough about the personal attacks. But yeah, I mean, it's
it totally sucks. Personally. I mean, yeah, that's not right to
talk about people's physical appearance, but
when they're all Botox stuff.
You know, there are people in my family who, who use Botox and
people in my, in my friends, I know. So what am I going to say
about it? Right? But it's, it's it for me, it's just It's
winding down. I'm just like, I'm exhaling already. I'm like,
okay. Yeah, well, we'll see it happen. And then we're gonna get
we're gonna see all that smugness. And when everyone's
gonna be haha, and aren't we great. And we rule, we're going
to change the world. And then we're going to wake up one day,
and we're going to be, I'm trying not to swear, but we're
going to be screwed. We're going to be so screwed. And that's
what I'm waiting for. When I can say, Okay, I told you. So now,
can we please get together and change this and make it right?
Now? I'm angry, John, I'm angry. I'm disappointed and dismayed
when I when I hear what Obama is going to do. You look at you
look, this is the old I've tried running companies and in
countries that are socialist, which is the direction the
United States is headed. And what you get is, it's impossible
at least for me, I've it is not possible to run a small to
medium sized business, we are the ones that are going we are
absolutely our company is the one that's going to get screwed,
because we're going to get all of the tax crap, all that shit
is going to come down on us. We're the ones that are actually
working. And, and people who are lazy bitches are going to be
sitting around taking handouts and not want to do anything. You
know, it's like this is this is not what America is about. And
it's it's upsetting to me really, really upsetting. And
I've had small bits, small, medium businesses, and I've run
them successfully and I love doing it. But when your
government is there, jabbing a poker up your ass, it's like,
why bother? You know, I'll just take my gold and go sit
somewhere else, go and pay, go to Paraguay and screw all of
you. You know, seriously, if you're a go A? Well, that's
where all the bushes go. And that's where they all have their
compounds for when the riots break out. And it's, it's, it's
really, honestly, seriously upsetting because I am a Patriot
Act upsets me. I mean, do you disagree with with that
happening?
Well, you know, the thing is, is that it happens, you know, so
it's still a slow boat.
I mean, it doesn't happen overnight. Yeah, I've learned
that too. It takes a while.
And you know, there's a lot of resistance and the only damage
you here's what the Democrats have to do, they got to pretty
much not do anything, oh, except, you know, fix a few
leaks. And maybe, you know, look at the regulatory landscape a
little bit and make some adjustments for two years. So
things are kind of on an even keel. And then they can keep
their their plurality, because if they start screwing around
right away, and things start to fall apart, the Republicans will
be right back in office in the congress and senate overnight.
Because the public is fickle. And they're not going to put up
with you know, you get here we're gonna give you a congress,
we're gonna give you the president we're gonna give you
whatever you want, you can pick any Supreme Court Justice you
want but you're gonna have the Senate, the house, everything is
yours. Now do some do what you're supposed to do, which is
fix things. They don't do it. They're done. Because they you
know, this is I'm surprised that they're going to pick up more
seats because it's been the Democrat do nothing Congress
that got in two years ago, and they were going to, you know,
get us out of the war, and they're gonna do this, and
they're gonna do that. And they're gonna, they did nothing
except, you know, be partially responsible for this financial
crisis by you know, not doing anything. When I hear President,
when I hear our cultural leaders of the elite mind, you want to
hear Jon Stewart, on his show talking about well, isn't a time
we spread the wealth around a little bit. In other words, it's
okay for people to receive checks from the government from
for not working. That really angers me, that's not the way
it's supposed to work the way it's supposed to work. And you
know, 75% of American business is small business. It's only 25%
that huge conglomerates and mega corporations. You know, this is
the guy with the with the, with the corner store, this is the
guy with a little shop. This is a couple of guys with 5060
employees, and we're supposed to be able to create jobs, which
creates wealth and creates an economy that actually runs on
real product and people doing real work. And that's how you
spread the wealth around, not by not by giving handouts because
it breeds contempt. I've seen it happen. We've talked about this.
Yes. But what also breeds contempt, for example, is the
guy who took over that bank for two weeks and walked away with
$300 million.
Oh, well, yeah, of course. But don't this bailout is not about
actually fixing anything.
I'm not gonna lie, but I'm just saying that, you know, we have a
bunch of interesting executive packages that are out there that
these guys are, you know, look what I look at, you know, and
there's people doing one I'm making more as a CEO than you
are, I'm making 200 million a year, and you're only making 150
Man, that kind of thing. This, which is basically shoving it in
the public's face, because these guys can't either shut up about
it, or they can't find some other way to get in paid me some
even like Jack Welch wasn't paid that kind of money. And so you
get this, you get a blowback on it, and this is what's going to
happen. So they're going to literally do what they Democrats
can do when they take over. And it's just simple old phrase, it
goes around, soak the rich,
eat the rich. Well, well, but it's the Democrats who set all
this up. It's the Democrats who, who forced this bailout. You
know, it's they're doing it. It's not like, I'm just I'm at a
loss for words, and I'm disappointed.
Yeah, well, elixir is not over yet. Do you not over till it's
over.
That is absolutely true. But I would hate I would hate to think
of what happened if Obama lost
that. Well, that would be bad, too. But if it turns out that he
was born in Kenya,
yeah, this is this is getting weirder. I was reading
yesterday. That because the Obama because Obama did not
respond to this lawsuit that was filed. And where's it?
Pennsylvania? I think that that actually creates a legal problem
for him that he you know, because essentially, all he has
to do is produce his his vault version of his birth
certificate. And he's good to go. Right. And he's not doing
that. Right. And the rule is, if you're not a natural born
American, you cannot be president whether it's fair or
not. That's the rule. And this trip to Hawaii, I've read
somewhere else in amongst my many fellow conspiracist. You
know that that his grandmother is? is apparently ill very ill.
And so he stopped his campaign for two days to go to Hawaii.
The the the the general conspiracy thought out there is
that he's there with his lawyers trying to finagle and fix his
birth certificate issue, because that's where his, his so called
Birth Certificate is from his from Hawaii, which I kind of
would buy into almost.
Yeah, I thought it was kind of weird that he would have this
issue with his grandmother out of the blue like this, just, you
know, two weeks before. And although I think right now that
both Obama and Biden would be better off staying off the
campaign trail and coasting home, on an empty tank. Yeah.
Because there's less chance of getting into a wreck, as it
were.
Yeah. Well, this, of course, this Biden thing, where he at a
fundraiser was recorded saying, oh, you know, this guy is going
to get going really going to be tested. There's going to be a
something bad's going to happen. Well, he's but he said it was
going to be an orchestrated event. Yeah. Hello. And he knows
the people who are going to do it. That's live. That was
literally what he was saying.
That's what he kind of hinted at. But you know, the thing is,
you got to remember there's an eight year cycle of, of attacks
by al Qaeda on the United States. I mean, the 93 attack on
the World Trade Centre,
you better get your book out quick, John. This is the eighth
year cycle books. So that means we're doing 2009 for another al
Qaeda attack. This is also in a cycle. You're serious, right?
You're really telling me this now?
Absolutely. Oh, please, as well. And when it happens, and you're
gonna go Oh, my God, I got this the VARK is unbelievable.
No, I don't think is I think it's I think it's a financial, I
think it's structural, I think it's it's going to be the reset
of the reserve currency, screwing the dollar. That's what
I believe it's going to be it's not going to be a physical
attack. It'll be a financial virtual attack,
I think gonna blow up Los Angeles. And why do I say that?
Yes, please. I wouldn't mind knowing I'm going there
tomorrow. It will, it will be okay. Can I leave on Tuesday? Am
I safe?
Well, the reason I say is because they seem to be the
whoever's behind all these crazy things, which I would assume has
been laden but you know, you don't know. There is a they
always keep coming back to this things that they blow they they
didn't get done the first time. And so the World Trade Centre,
they tried it 93 I tried to blow it up from the bottom up with a
bunch of explosives in the basement, and it shook the whole
place, but nothing happened. And well, it's couple people died.
Yeah, so people died, but I'm just saying it wasn't didn't
bring the building down. And then they were you know, so then
they re you know, thought the process and then two, eight
years later over after a lot of planning. These guys aren't, you
know, kind of just scatterbrained about it. After a
lot of planning. They do the thing on 911. Now, in that
during that same period, there was An attempt and to go to this
Los Angeles airport and blow up debt that horrible looking here,
the spaceship looking dome. Yeah, that dome restaurant.
Yeah.
And they brought these guys in through Port Angeles, my
Washington home. As a matter of fact, these guys are coming in
from Canada and the guy who screwed up and panicked and we
were started running around if you know if anybody knows
anything about that area when you're in the Olympic Peninsula,
does one road out. And it was like being on an island in that
regard. You can't get out and you can get on a plane and get
out but you're driving out or running. This guy was doing,
you're not getting anywhere you're gonna get eaten by bears.
Anyway, so well,
they also They also tried to wasn't the wasn't the talk of
them trying to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago as well.
There was talk about it, but there was no I mean, it wasn't
anything where there was an actual effort there where the
guys were caught. And I mean, there's and there was also
talking about this space needle in Seattle during the fireworks,
you know, why bother with that? That is not symbolic. You know,
if you gotta get something that has, you know, because No, I
agree
with that. I know, I think the Space Needle is not symbolic. I
it's just a Space Needle and nobody cares about it. That
build I think, tear it Yeah, blowing up lax.
Well, that would cause some actual economic,
cause all kinds of problems. Yeah, it'd be a disaster, as
opposed to the Space Needle, which I think was stupid. And
once that rumour came out about the space, though, they
cancelled the fireworks display and the you know, the
Seattleites all panic, because the Northwest and most of
Canada, everything. Everybody in those areas thinks everything's
about them.
And that's just like San Francisco dude, believe me.
Yeah, it's true. But anyway, the point is, is that they got
really freaky about it, which is like ridiculous. And yes, the
the, the thing that they these guys would like to do is
something that really has an economic impact, which the World
Trade Centre definitely did. And that whole idea of the
aeroplanes so they blowing up an airport, which is what they
tried to do once, eight years ago, or seven years ago, coming
on the eight years. Seems like a logical target. And if I was
down in Los Angeles, I'd be very, I'd be, you know, I don't
know what to do about it. But I think I'd be
so so let me ask you a question. If, if Obama is going to save
us, which, of course, is what everyone that believes, and he's
going to bring our troops home and end this war? I can hear Joe
Biden saying it, what incentive do they have? You know, if I
mean, of course, you know, I don't believe that there even is
such a thing as Al Qaeda beyond a brand name and bin Laden, if
he's still alive, it's irrelevant. And I don't believe
that 911 was done by al Qaeda or terrorists with box cutters.
Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead and call me a kook and a nut job.
Whatever.
I didn't call you a nut job. I'd call you a nutter. But yeah,
you call you call me another. But you know, what's the what's
the incentive? You know, why? Why? Why do they want to get us
again? Is this just to keep on going forever? I mean, aren't we
showing our good side here? Oh, come on. It's bullshit. This is
being done by the same people who are electing or trying to
get Obama and McCain into government. They just they just
want to kill us all. I'm sorry. It's, it's ridiculous. It's
absolutely ridiculous. Because geopolitics
is nothing new. Anyway, so no, it's not.
But it is. No, I'm sorry. It is, it is absolutely nothing new.
We're going through this. You're right, John, we're going through
the same cycle, the exact same things have happened throughout
history, and we're so stupid. And so under educated and and
our governments keep us so dumb, that we don't even recognise
that what is happening is just a cycle, it goes through it the
same thing all over again. And it's probably done by the same
people or by their descendants. And it's not guys with with
sheets on their head, climbing on monkey bars in the desert,
which is our vision of al Qaeda.
I didn't know about the monkey bars, you've never seen that. So
anyway, the point is back to what I was saying, there's an
eight there is a cycle involved with it with their planning and
the execution in his eight years. And there's been a couple
of there was a really good article written The London Times
and I wish I could find it, you know, I had a link to it on this
little site that I had put up during the 911 period, I had all
these links to all these stories. There's actually quite
a good call the jihad site, which was quite interesting to
read all this stuff. So people you get to an understanding of
what's going on with the fundamentalist Islamist. And I
had a link to this article in The London Times which was which
disappeared, unfortunately, I'd have to go get the paper, I
guess, was written by one of the professors of one of the one of
the big universities Oxford or Cambridge is a professor of war
studies. And he claimed that the, that this, that the Arab
methodology for Were a war from back from the 1400s. And
whenever or before, was always a hit and run style. It was like
you come in and you do as much damage as you could and then you
run away as fast as you can. And then you'd stay away. And then
you come in again, when you're when it's least expected. And
his thinking was what we did when we pounded Afghanistan
immediately thereafter was the exact right thing to do. You
have to be like, you know, just start making them miserable.
Are you are you, John, question of conscience? Are you proud to
be an American? When you talk about all these things, when you
hear what we're doing? And basically what the government's
are doing? I don't I don't hate anyone in Afghanistan. I don't
hate anyone in Iraq. I don't hate anyone in Russia. Do you?
Are you proud to be an American? And have these people represent
you with death?
Well, I don't like to representation with death by any
means. But the fact of the matter is, I don't think I think
that the what we'll do the way we've structured this society
that we are, we have been actually given this role. And we
have to, you know, there's nothing we can do about it. I
mean, you I don't think there's a choice role. What role have we
been given? We have been given the role the the, you know, the
world's big country with the number one economy and it's a
policeman, we've been given the police state roll,
we've been given that by whom? Who gave that to us? We got it
in World War Two, who gave it to us?
sensually I think all of everybody else. I mean, you went
to like, somebody there wasn't like, here's a piece of paper
with as you were signing off, you guys go do all this stuff.
It's just a role that we ended up with. I didn't know who gave
it to us, like any one person, because there's no a person that
gives you anything like that you
don't think it's possible that we as in our government took it
took that role, instead of just staying back and saying, Hey,
guys, you know, this I, you
know, I think it's a possibility that we could have stayed back
and went back to our isolation as ways before World War One.
And I don't think that would have been necessarily a bad
thing.
But I salute you know, it's not it's not bad to have commerce
with other people, but to go set up camps and have military
represented we have we have camps in 200 places in the
world. I think it's too many. Well, of course, it's too many.
And they've been there since the Second World War Germany, we
still have bases. Why? To protect us from the evil
Russians? I mean, come on. This
is this is just a way of money around, but okay. Oh, thank
you. All right. So as long as we all recognise that it boils down
to money at the end of the day, I'm just sick of it, John, I'm
really really sick of it.
You getting weirder?
No, I'm not. I there's nothing to be positive about. And I see
this Obama guy coming. And, and I and I, and I know what it's
like reading. Like, we need a dictionary, you know, as I know,
we're gonna wind up at Z eventually. And I know that
Zebra is gonna be there or, you know, it's just like, it's so
obvious what's going to happen. And we and you're right, we go
through the same cycles over and over again. And, and I don't am
frustrated because I wish I could change it. And I wish we
weren't such moronic idiots, is that we
reset the whole country when this next cycle comes around by
my thesis, so I'm not worried
about it. Was that the is that the 12 o'clock train I hear
passing by are
funny, isn't it? That's a guy. This is his one guy.
That he always he always uh,
I'll hit you up. But he, yeah, he just makes noise. There's no,
there's no crossings. Seriously, there's no crossings. But he
just makes noise the whole time. I don't know what he's making it
about. Maybe this shape takes the chase birds off the off the
track. I have no idea. It's just a maniac. Once in a while,
there's there was a period of time that I don't know what
caused this. There was a period of time when these trains are
going by at two in the morning. And the guys would be honking
the whole time right through the residential areas in Berkeley.
And so they got a bunch of complaints. They stopped doing
it. But I think it's just something to do when you're an
engineer.
Well, that's that's the whole reason to become an engineer,
isn't it? Yeah.
Look at me, I'm an engineer.
So well, and then now it turns out by the way that engineer
that caused that big train wreck is supposedly texting someone on
his phone.
You believe that you actually believe that?
No, I believe the later report that he that he saw green and he
went and yeah, some screw up at the base. Yeah, cuz he had three
witnesses, of course. But
you know, it's another great way to take away some freedom. Let's
turn off texting. That's next.
Well, they got busted. They got busted on that. So that's not
going to happen. Although, you know, the thing is, is almost
like everything else, well, it could have been from text
messaging, so we better be safe than sorry, turn off texting.
You can't do it or you get fired.
Exactly. Well, we'll see how
that we had that with my favourite thing was the during
the era, and this actually started in the 80s. The era when
laptops and people were bringing electronic devices onto
aeroplanes in the early days when they first started showing
up on the scene, early IBM laptops, and there was this big
thing about before the cell phone revolution about you got
to turn off all your electronic stuff. And then all of a sudden
it became like, you know, we're doing that because it's better
to be safe than sorry, because some plane veered off course
they think, you know, because some guy had his laptop on. So
the well let me
tell you as as an airman it's horseshit. It is horse shit, it
makes no difference, it cannot influence these instruments, it
does not influence these instruments. The main reason for
turning off your cell phone. And that and that is true, is that
when your cell phone is searching for for tower, and you
hear this on television all the time you hear the interference
you hear, right? With the BlackBerry doesn't a lot. And
that will interfere with audio. And you will hear that in the
cockpit. And that's annoying, without a doubt. But that's the
only reason there is nothing else that affects these
instruments that just isn't
it so anyway, at some point, they relented and let people use
their laptops in the air get did the beginning, by the way, that
was there was controversial. They weren't gonna let you even
play on your laptop when you're flying around,
right? But not but now you've got Wi Fi and you can do video
conference from the air, it just proves the point that it's
horseshit. It's not true.
So here's my story. So I'm in Brazil. And I'm Shanna tan, I
think Tam and I'm sitting in the Fanta laser someplace in
northern Brazil into the airport, on this plane, and it's
gonna kind of take off for half an hour. So I'll open the laptop
up and start doing some work. And this then the stewardess
comes over, and she said, tells me that I have to close my
laptop. And I said, why she says you can only use the laptop
after we get to 10,000 feet.
But that by the way is the altitude which on 911 Cell
phones worked. Yeah.
Yeah, right. So anyway, so I said but I'm we're still right.
We're just sitting here. We're just here landed, you know? And
then she says, no, no, that's what the rules are. Let me go
kill this phone call. Yeah, sure. Go ahead.
You're gonna answer it. Yeah, there he goes. Especially inside
see out here how terse he is when he talks to people and
yeah. I'm busy. Oh, can't talk now. Gotta go bigger name on the
other line. Oh, geez.
Getting away getting a reservation at dinner.
Okay, cool. Excellent. I'm so happy we didn't have dinner last
night. We'd have absolutely nothing to talk about. Much
better this way. Now tonight. I can just enjoy the dinner
because we have nothing to talk about. That's great. Okay.
Now you can cut that out or leave it in but what it is I'm
gonna leave it in. Okay, well, she died because we didn't go
last night out and I wanted to go to chapeau ah, and so they
have a seat seating somebody cancelled and give us six
o'clock after we take that we go the Empress to China next time.
Okay, so we're going to ship out tonight. Is that what you're
saying? Yeah. Okay, cool. Where's that?
Because out in the middle of nowhere, San Francisco someplace
other avenues, mountains, 14th and and Klamath or something
like that.
There was one time. I'll take that back. Do you remember
before the BlackBerry rim actually had a mobile messaging
network? And this Donald talk in 1990. I want to say 95. And you
could buy a little member, the little HP kind of like, like a
flip open plastic thing. And it had a keyboard and an LCD
screen. And you could shove a PC card into the side of it. Yeah.
So you could join up to the rim network, which was country over
there with that. And you could send messages, right email
messages till they got their start? That's right. And these
things were one watt, which is an amazing amount of power,
which is probably what three to four times the power of your
typical cell phone these days.
No, it's a lot more NAD. There's those things are like 50
milliwatts, right.
Yeah, so incredibly powerful. And Ron and I both had one they
were incredibly handy. And and we had a president
block the obstruction on a big bald spot next to your head.
Well,
indeed. So we're flying coach and a cross country and Ron was
like, 15 seats up ahead of me and I was behind and what was
cool about these things is they actually would work up to like,
you know, 567 1000 feet with these ground stations going, you
know, one watt can go a long way if it's unrestricted. And so
we're Beep, beep, beep and messages back and forth between
each other. And the captain actually came on and said, we're
having an issue with one of our navigation systems right now. We
just like everyone Dec closed, closed down all CD players, all
electronics equipment, and like heads were whipping around
because of course, we were really cool at the time, right?
I was like, wow, that's, that's awesome, man, you're sending you
sending these messages wirelessly. And everyone's had
like whipped around us and gave us the evil eye, like, you're
gonna make us crash. Now, I'm still not sure if that actually
influenced it that could have the one why,
but you know, it's a well known fact that CD players in
particular, of course, nobody carries those around anymore,
thank God have a huge amount of RF coming off of them, like
massive amounts, and it's all over the place. It's just a
noise machine. But what frequencies Do you know, they
are all over the place? It's a mess. Really? Yeah. So may not
have been you, but it probably was a watch a lot.
Well, you see, in the old days, really, really, I mean, there's
three basic navigation systems to them based on on radio, or
radio frequencies. That's the NDB, which is essentially on the
am band. If you ever listen to if you ever scan through the am
band, you'll hear these signals going purple, or sometimes it's
a Morse code. So that's actually an identifier. And then we have
the FM version, which is a vor. These are so it's a beacon and
you can you can it's a directional finder beacon. But
on today's modern aircraft is all GPS based. At the very end,
when you're landing on an instrument landing system, once
again, you do get these radio frequencies into play. So
honestly, it doesn't make sense to not have any risk of any
other, you know, weird harmonics floating around that could
potentially throw something off course, but this stuff is, you
know, these, these receivers and these transmitters. Now they're
pretty good. You know, this isn't just like a radio shack, a
101 project kit we're talking about here.
Maybe on a Russian plane.
Not even those, not even those.
Well, you've never flown Aeroflot Oh, yes, I
have. Absolutely yeah, I
still had to buy Amplitube transceiver transceivers him and
everything had big bolts Yeah, so I'm on the arrow for the
first time I took Aeroflot I did a I would never fly unless I had
to by the way, although they're using American built planes now
I was on an alias 62 which I think has like four engines that
own the backhoe to the tail or something right
crazy looking machine.
Yeah and cramped these the only difference between business
first there was a first class of business class and a coach. And
the only difference between they're exactly the same seats
no difference there's just a they add to cart inch of leg
room for the business class and then two inches of legroom for
the first class but there's no with the seats are identical.
That's the same when you fly either KLM or British Airways
when you go from London to Amsterdam. The they don't have a
first class they have a business class it is exactly the same
seats but there's a curtain separating you from the week
people in the back and you get and you get like a sandwich.
So they have what they deserved a pretty big meal I was in I was
in I think I was in coach on the way and business on the way back
or something like that. I can't remember. But it was really
cramped. I mean talking about cramped It was unbelievable.
Anyway, so they had they so they serve like they were there for
dinner. They actually cook a meal and then they divvy it up
on it's not like all this prepackaged stuff at least back
then. And this is just before the fall of communism like the
year before. And so they had so they were cooking fish. Oh gosh.
Not like that smells.
The plane is wreaking it obviously. They come out with
these platters, these aluminium tin you know, it's like a tea.
It's like being in a prison. Not that I've been imprisoned by
guessing you'd have a tin plate. And you could bang against the
seat back. Hey comrade ski, I want some food. And so they have
these tin plates. And then they also somebody warned me about
this when they said all the sodas and everything or in the
big bottles had no individual servings of anything. It's just
giant bottles of everything. And it was all served in plastic
containers that were reused. So they're all washed a million
times. So it's like a plastic cup that you'd normally get. And
as an American we throw it out but it was reused. So it was
washed and washed washed it was all scratched. That's not what
was interesting. Was it the the women because this was a flight
out of London. Were all the gear there's there's apparently a
number of outstandingly beautiful crews on a number of
these flights and this was one of them. And all the girls I
guess had gone when they went to London they first thing they did
was they got out I guess the first thing place they went was
to the all the makeup stores they could find because there
were like so much makeup. It looked like the whole place it
looks like you were being served served service by a hookers yeah
well in
those days you couldn't get makeup in Russia in fact I
remember when I was there and in 88 I actually took some who
you're supposed to take some trinkets with you to get shit
done and I remember taking what was it they advised me it was
makeup lipstick I mean anything you could you could you could
slip along in your suitcase would get you stuff
would you like a phone call amount because you have to bring
a lot because on my when I was staying the woman on the floor,
there's a woman on every floor who does the phone right out
there after the outside the elevator is asleep and most of
the time, but every day it had to give her a little bit you
know like a little Kate when it was little. You got to give her
treated our little Halloween candy bars always a winner
chocolate. Yeah, also little. Another good thing you can bring
over there which are because you again you have to pack for
lightness. You can't bring any big things like a lamp. You
bring little those little cars, the matchbook cars that you have
to slide along or pick for kids. huge, big deal,
just going back to cooking in the air. It's been a while since
I've flown British Airways I'm pretty sure they don't do it
anymore. But in 2000 I flew British Airways First Class and
they would cook your breakfast and they would make you a boiled
egg. It takes nine minutes to boil a soft boiled egg at
altitude. Because you know that?
Yeah, but the cabin is pressurised well, so that you
can make up for that. Yeah.
pressurised to 8000 feet.
Oh, right. And it would take a while. Yeah, yeah.
I remember saying make mine three minutes. No more. She
said, Okay, that'll be nine minutes. I'm like, no, no, we
talked about making three minutes to note takes nine
minutes to make a soft boiled egg at eight that word at
altitude pressure.
Hmm. I don't remember I've flown on British First Class A couple
times. And I don't remember them ever cooking me breakfast.
Canadian wants and I may have done it there. Because I
remember, I took a Canadian Air flight to England, it was out of
Toronto. And we woke up in the morning. It was a good landing.
And they cooked a breakfast for us. But it was an English
Breakfast with a with a heart you know, just like yeah, with a
gruesome term, tremendous high quality bangers which are almost
impossible to find the United States. You know, with that sage
flavour and a lot of rusk, I
was I was not commenting I was savouring the recall of the
taste. Yes.
So anyway, where were we have forgot, or bitching about some
about Russia? Russia seems to be in trouble.
Yeah, you know, I got a copy of this video that there was a
thing on the Russian you know that this new generation of
Russian kids, you know, that are the sons and daughters of the of
the criminal group that came in and Neo took over the oil
companies and everything and made themselves billionaires and
now they have a bunch of children who are just, you know,
entrepreneurial style, but they're the ones who, you know,
they're buying up DOM pairing yawn, and they are just big
spenders. And there's, you know, the,
they're out of control morons.
They're out of controllers. They're the worst and the 29
Somethings with the with the Maseratis that we have.
Well, I What I've noticed is, you know, we've been looking for
houses and I think we've actually closed I don't know,
yet, I haven't been home for a while, I think we actually
closed on the new place. But the there was all kinds of weird
checks they were doing on on background, which has nothing to
do with the financing just purely about character checks.
And in Patricia is great, you know, I get immediately I get
all like, offended and what the fuck do you want and what's
wrong with you people? And she's much more calm about it. She
she's talking to these guys. And they said, Well, we've had a lot
of problem with Russians. And we really don't, you know, it has
to do with who we bring into the neighbourhood, you know, who
you're going to be dealing with? It's an I presume it's it's the
same level, same age group of people. And they they're really
they just don't want them anymore.
They're trouble.
Yeah. Big time.
You know, and then they, you know, they're pushy. They're
pushy, they're trouble they, you know, they say is this terrible
group. So anyway, guy sends me a note. And he says, I think you
and Adam should discuss currency investment during this economic
downturn. I think it's particularly relevant do not and
not just because I've been asking you about this he wants
to buy in.
Okay. Let me let me make a minor statement. Something very
interesting has happened to me personally. So I you know, it's
our own company and we take a salary it's not a huge salary.
It's not shit, but it's not a huge salary. There are many
people in our company making more than Ron and I. But right
now, because of the way the dollar has, stands against the
pound and actually the euro, but the pound in particular. I got
like 20% more pounds in a month than a than I had two months
ago. Yeah. Which is nice. But of course that is bound to swing
the other way.
Right? Well, I'm not a big fan I think currency investment is a
well the only way you can do it is if you're into swaps because
that's what that's that's what that's part of this problem. So,
what you do is you take a position in foreign exchange and
then you insure that with a swap and that of course is these
really unstructured on non transparent not officially
traded not regulated derivatives that have caused a lot of the
problems that we will not we that have caused the financial
sector a lot of problems so I you know, and look, I'm not
really I'm an investor in real companies. I don't invest in in
publicly I used to, but I stopped a long time ago I don't
invest in in publicly traded companies because I've run one
and it's full of shit they lie to you. Their numbers are
bullshit. It's trickery. Everyone's in on the plot. Why
do you think Arthur Andersen went down the tubes they were
all a part of the system it's a big lie you know and and most
people if you're not somehow on the inside like you are perhaps
with with Andrew Horowitz you're gonna get screwed you will get
screwed if you buy into stocks if you buy into currencies same
thing because you're not a part of the big game you're not a
part of the system you cannot win as a small guy just trying
to make an investment my I
would agree with that. I would agree with that. Pretty much
yeah. I sands and currency stuff in particular really takes a
skilled professional. Yeah. I'm I'm thinking you just slop
around because you think the dollar is gonna go up and the
dollar is gonna go down. And if you feel that way, you know,
find some exchange traded fund that is
just quit and become a day trader. I'm doing something very
crazy. John, I'm doing something called what is it called again?
Oh, saving. That's what it was. Yes, I'm saving my money. Isn't
that crazy?
Well, some would think, yeah, no, that's a good point. You
know, if you want to become a day trader, you know, sit there
all day as this is like becoming I always say to people, it's
like, one of the reasons I think it's the professionals do so
much better. It's like becoming a professional gambler. I've
known two of them. And the professional gambler tell you
the same thing that you know, they went all the money, the
amateurs lose all the money. And that's the way the game is
played in it typically a professional gambler, not those
guys, you see that when all this poker pots, but typically a
professional gambler will make 100 to $200,000 a year if he's
full time. And he knows what he's doing. And he has a knack
for it. I mean, it, it takes us lots of skill to do and you can
make money doing it. But that's what you have debt, that is your
job,
yeah, that you have to do it full time you got to buy in, you
got to be in the big game with everybody else. Otherwise,
there's just no way to win no way period.
So and it's all these little guys. And that's the reason I
don't think that this economic crisis that we're going through
right now is the big one, because the public is not in the
market. And it's always the public at large. That takes it
in the shorts. When you have an economic collapse. They're the
ones left holding the bag, just like the amateurs who are the
amateur gamblers, they're left holding the bag, or you have the
you know, or the addicted gambler, those poor bastards.
But there are millions of people who are who are getting shafted.
I mean, there's, you can't deny that
Yeah, but that's that's a different kind of shaft where
you're, you know, you're I mean, you're getting stitches. So
round about shaft, it's not as though you were in the market,
you know, and you're all pumped up about it, and you putting
everything in it, you go on margin, you're borrowing money,
you're taking out a mortgage on your house, because you know
that Juniper Networks is going to double and blah, blah, blah.
But
this is the crazy thing, this is such an American thing, because
of course, our quote, economy was built on this system of, of
publicly traded equities and debt, etc. In Europe, you can go
ask 100 people on the street, and maybe one of them will
actually be actively engaged in any kind of trading with their
money. People just don't do it. They're I mean, they're
unfortunately they trust the government put all their money
into pensions and, and, you know, it gets, they get diluted
that way. But it's a very American thing to invest in, in
companies and oh, yeah, I think it's a good company, or, you
know, I like the product. So I'm going to buy stock in them, you
know, that is that no longer has any relevance to what these
companies are doing. You're much better off either starting your
own business or used to be it's over now with Obama, much better
off starting your own business or helping out investing in a
small business, because that's where you can actually over the
long term, you'll probably make more money and you might even
have more fun.
That would No, I would agree with that. But people do like to
get into the stock market, especially when it's going up
like crazy and they all get in because
we're greedy, greedy ass bastards. And we can the old
lady
is down at the bottom. I get this. I'm always amazed at that.
I mean, is that the things bouncing around the bottom? Yes.
Bang, bang, bang. You can feed Do it, and you can see it and
you watch it and use and people are bailing out, wait a minute,
this is not the point where you bail out or that will mean the
old rule still applies you buy low, sell high wanted to go the
other way, you know, now we're all selling low, and then they
get to the top to all be buying in and then they'll be stuck
holding the bag. It's unbelievable. And then of
course, they'll sell again when it bounces off the bottom again
in 2013.
Well, that's just like gambling if you don't know what you're
doing the minute you lose like crap, I'm gonna go home now.
Like then you lost you cannot win people so to your to our
listener who said, you know, what should I do? Save your
money, my friend. That's what I'd say save it.
Just want to get into this weird kinds of things.
John, do you remember back in the day when you were you know,
we remember layaway? Does that still exist in America, layaway?
There's being revitalised. There's just a new story about
it the other day, there's there's some of these stores
because of the credit crunch and they can't give cards away or
whatever. People are rejecting credit cards. Thank God. There's
their layaway is now being revitalised by some of the big
department stores. Absolutely right? I don't remember it.
Great idea. So the concept is, you look at the thing in the
shop window, and you go and you say I really want that and can I
do a layaway and they say Okay, give me 10% And when you've paid
it off, and sometimes you'll get a you know, a range like you
know, become pay something every week or every month and when
it's paid off, it'll be yours, and I'll keep it safe for you.
And it was a fantastic system. And you know what, it was so
much more rewarding. me like, oh, man, I really want that new
bike, you know, I'm going to save for it. Or I'm going to do
it on layaway. And when you got it, you appreciated it and you
were careful of it and you loved it. And you were proud of
yourself. And that was a feeling that has gone it's just gone now
it's like and let me see if I pay off another 100 bucks on my
credit card. Maybe you know, it's like it's reverse saving
where it's dumb.
Well, the credit card thing is a disaster. So yeah, well of
course nowadays you know you could do the layaway you get to
see the bicycle and you go get it and you put all the money
down you finally take the thing home of course it was made in
China and the wheel falls off. A lot to do with
it true through the quality of the product. Well you get what
you pay for. And of course you didn't really pay for it. You
borrowed it. saps stop this people stop it. Stop it, please.
Oil down to $67.
Yeah, well, I've been short oil for some time now. That's my
only investment people say oh, you know, you're writing about
this. So I have one investment period. I mean, I have some some
options I hold for
some between the two of us. We're doing good. I got the
gold. You got the oil.
Yeah, like guy down the oil thing. You know, we talked about
it a million times, it's obvious that you know it was going down.
So I bought an exchange traded note. It's my entire retirement
fund is in it. D to anyone who wants to
check with me. I just want you to your entire retirement fund
is in it. My 401k
SEP IRA. Wow. So yeah, I mean, why not? And because we were so
obvious that oil was going to go down. So I just bought it and I
think goes up like every time the market goes down. 500
points. This thing goes up four points. Yes. hilarious to watch
it. And everyone's moaning and groaning I'm going Hey, looks
good to me. I'm happy with it. I just had to figure out what the
bottom is for this oil, because now it's at 60. Some
I'm hearing 50 is still looking at 40. Really? So and it is
translating somewhat to
then you know the oil was at 25 when this whole bullshit run up
came up?
Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm happy about that, although I don't think
we're quite seeing it. We're seeing some difference at the
gas pump.
It's pretty noticeable here. It's already under $3 a gallon.
In a lot of places. My wife just bought a bunch of gas for the
van for 279. And she was paying like for something just like
three, four months ago.
So then shouldn't food prices come down? Should a whole bunch
of things come down? What is now creating the inflation? If it's
not the oil prices? They can't use that as an excuse anymore?
So it's got to be the currency.
Well, you know, the dollars going up. That's another
interesting thing. Yeah, that's
not that's got to be artificial. There's just no two ways about
it just makes no sense.
Well, it's always been artificial. But the way I see
it, I still think that the dollar was was oversold to an
extreme because of the fact is, and I say people will always
say, well, the only reason you're saying that's because you
don't understand how things work. Oh, here's what I'm
saying. I don't care about the taxes, I factor the taxes in I
can buy a bottle of quality Bordeaux wine in San Francisco
at half the price I'd pay for it in Paris. And when the dollar is
the other way, it would be pretty much the same price but
now I'm paying twice as much in France for their wine than I'm
paying for it here.
I think that might have changed a little bit now with the Euro
being down to like 127
Well, I was taught that's changing When I had the best
time is when the Euro was 80 cents. And you were in France
and you could live it up. And that's when I should have bought
an apartment or something there because it was the prices were
right. But now it's just completely missed it.
Why is it? Why is it necessary for the Federal Reserve and
central banks to manipulate our money? Why is that necessary? Is
that for our benefit?
Supposedly, I saw a lesson to keep the economy from getting
into that boom bust cycle, which
please It's what creates the boom bust cycle. What are you
talking about the regular
business cycle is is has to be somehow controlled in some way
and they think with these theories, but at the interest
rate controlling things that they can commit, manage to keep
things on an even keel because they don't want the banks, for
example, do not want to have all things an inflationary
environment, because then
it's the banks. Yeah, the banks. But listen, isn't this exactly
what Greenspan just said? He said,
Oh, well, there was a flaw in the system of how the world
works. I didn't really understand that,
as his nose is like five times longer than normal. Do you see
his nose is huge.
I think he's got rosacea or something's wrong with his nose.
Yeah, it's called
lying.
Yes, kids, when you lie your nose
grows is absolutely true. No, I saw a Ron Paul video on YouTube
from the 80s. And he said something very interesting. He
said, it's not just wrong from a financial perspective for the
central banks to be controlling our money and to be effectively
diluting it by printing more. He said it's a moral issue. And
this is what I thought was interesting. He said it's the
same as if the government decided to dilute your milk to
make more of it. And I thought that was a pretty good analogy.
Yes. And some dairies do that, which is immoral. Yeah, it is.
Well, same thing as using that crazy chemical to make the cows
pump out more tasteless milk. I mean that if you've ever had
that stuff, and I've tasted as horrible as tasteless Now what
does that tasteless milk what does that is that BST? That
bovine hormone that that makes you know you shoot up these
cows? Is that what it was for? Yeah, so they produce like 20 to
30% more milk you know on a daily basis so you get cheaper
you know you get up the dairy farmers can make more money and
they were doing it with Monsanto was trying to ban anybody saying
and have it
Santo there you go that a patent on it, of course, patented cows
show anyway. So they're pumping this stuff up, and meanwhile,
the milk is crap.
Unbelievable. I get a lot of pushback from the greenies
listening to the show. You must have gotten some of that. Nope.
Oh, really? Maybe they've just given up. This was the last for
the last year.
They've given up on me a long time ago. A newbie will show up
once in a while and send me something and and I'll just
blast them. And or, you know, I don't know. I don't know what
their problem is. I mean, if people want to take their their
green thing and they want to go crazy finds that doesn't. It's
not like killing me. That's just when it impinges is when I'm
bothered, you know, I don't impinges on all kinds of, you
know, normal living. And I also don't like the idea of
everything being politicised. And the whole green thing is
vegans are the worst air they eat based on politics. I eat
based on quality and tasty food
and stuff. That's good for me.
You know,
let me ask you a question. Just to switch gears briefly, because
there's a lot of talk right now in the United States about gay
marriage. And here's what I don't understand that maybe you
can help me is it not so that there is a separation between
church and state? Why is this an issue? Why why are there even
propositions in California? We had these with elections. Yeah,
these propositions, which is the closest thing we have kind of to
a referendum, where you can vote on a, you know, some law and
enjoy the big one now is gay marriage, and I just don't
understand Wow, why is that actually, a law isn't isn't the
Turkish marriage,
it's got nothing to do with the church, especially in the United
States, but marriages is a civil contract that is really governed
by the states and and the feds, insofar as how you divide up the
money when it when when one of these it's not a corporation,
but it's like a partnership that you sign up for, and it's got
nothing to do with the churches.
Okay, but so in California does does a civil union exist? No.
The reason for that, and it does exist in Massachusetts and other
places, and they don't want to use the word civil union,
because everybody wants to use the word marriage. I mean, the
people who want this to be legalised, and it is kind of at
the moment, but they're trying to de legalise it because it's
state voted
against Obama as well, by the way I might add
to what he says. But anyway, you know, eventually it's going to
it's going to have some binding the thing it was always you
know, behind it, at least according to the cynics was the
only reason that you know, gays wanted to get married was I
mean, they could always just, you know, be happy, you know,
they could go someplace.
Yeah, that's my next question is what's the benefit? What's the
what's the legal very
health and insurance benefits of the gay married couple working
at me VO and the one of the partners who's not working at
me, have you been married to the person who is they get the same
health benefits, you know, to pay for health benefits for that
person. And it's really mostly about benefits. I mean, there's
the psychological need for people that want to be married,
which is whatever it is, but there's also these other, you
know, a contract and, you know, being able to visit them in the
hospital because you're their wife or husband, which you can't
do if you're just some guy walking off the streets in many
situations where you're in intensive care for example.
Yeah, and also, you know, if there's a dissolution who owns
the you know, who owns the dog, you know how to split the kids
up I mean, you can't do that if they're never if they're never
really hooked up legally. And it's just a people shacked up
boy, what I wanted to get that out of the way, because it's
actually causes more trouble. civil unions are, I think result
in less troublesome legal crap. And because it's
a it's a set process, right, then you know, what's going to
happen? And it's just done. Yeah,
it's not a crapshoot. So I mean, I don't have a problem
personally. With the whole idea, it doesn't bother me, I don't
know, bothers a lot of people. And some then we watched it when
they had that one week of somehow there was some overturn.
And there was over the getting married left and right in San
Francisco Newsom and who's a weirdo to say the least,
but Newsom is is for for gave, Oh, absolutely.
He's trying to give run for president eventually go on that
on the back of that thing. But he, there were people getting
married these couples, you know, their dad looked like they were
happier than a clam. I was unbelievable. It was, it was
actually kind of kind of sweet. So I'm not, you know, I'm not.
I'm all for it. I mean, I want I want every every person in the
world to have the same benefits that I have of being married,
you know, I want you to have the kids, I want you to have all
the, you know, when you get a divorce, I want you to have to
go through the same shit. Please have all those benefits. But
that the Okay, that's now thank you for explaining that I
thought that I was clearly confusing the marriage part with
the church part. So that it that is completely separate? Well,
Biden said, you know, I'm against gay marriage. I won't
have it.
I mean, I think there's a lot of people that are against gay
marriage. Usually they're churchgoers, and they're
right. But that has nothing to do with it that has nothing.
But there's you know, but just like,
is it not? Is it that maybe just because we can't, we there's a
resistance towards calling it something else. Calling it a
partnership, or a union or something like that,
you know, it's one of those things. It's just a, it's just a
point of contention. To me, I don't care what they call it,
because I'm not on that side of the argument that is going to be
affected by it one way or the other. But apparently they do
care. And they don't like the idea of being I think it has to
do with it's kind of insulting to be in a different class or
category. Yeah, we're married, but you're just,
you know, you're not really married. Yeah, it's
you're not really, you know, Bs. And so and I think a lot of
these, you know, there are some liberal churches that would, you
know, like to do marriages with these people too. And I think I
think it's just, you know, they're probably the argument
for the use of the word marriage in this regard is probably it's
got to be part of it. That's gotta be it's gonna be it's
gonna be I think, you know, these things you can argue to
you're blue in the face, and maybe if you're, you know, very
fundamentalist church person, you think it's an abomination?
Because, you know, the Bible says is a bad thing. I think
they're good, that opinion is not going to change. But I think
it's a foregone conclusion, you know, because it's just, you
know, this drug dragging on too long. It's ridiculous on
conclusion, and why that is just not not ever going to happen.
No, it is going to happen to foregone conclusion that's going
to happen,
but not under Obama, because that's exactly what he said nor
under McCain. It's gonna happen under Obama.
Well, it won't happen under McCain, I can assure you, but
it's gonna happen under Obama at least is going to start
happening. Okay, so
then why does Joe Biden say I'm against what Joe Biden say he's
against it?
I think they're both full of crap. Thank you. I think they're
both full of crap on this. I think they're lying. Well,
people
who who think Obama is is the Messiah, you know, you can't
have it both ways. You can't have them lying about one thing
to get in office and then expect they're not gonna lie about
other things. Just doesn't work that way. A liar is a liar is a
liar.
Well as a politician, so I mean, it's not like a shock. But no, I
think it's gonna but yeah, these are you know, they what they're
gonna do, and I think Biden said this, too. They were the
Republicans had a really kind of a cool approach to this, which
was, leave it to the states. Why should we the forage
is exactly what the Constitution says.
Right. So and but the Democrats hate that they Rather than have
everything done at the federal level, and I'm sure they're
going to be pressured to do something about gay marriage at
the federal level, but I think they can legitimately say, you
know, it could be for or against, it doesn't make any
difference. Let the state's decide, go to your state and
have them change the law locally. And then, you know, of
course,
you can move to another state go go somewhere else.
Well, you know, there's an argument against that, which is
the following being here in the Bay Area, of course, all the
time. I hear all this stuff constantly. That's what I have I
know, these arguments. The argument is, well, you know,
okay, so we get married, and in a legal state, like
Massachusetts, which is called a union, but we got married in
Massachusetts, and then we move to Connecticut. Forest, and then
now with the laws, local laws won't protect me and you know,
well, you know, that's an interesting argument, except for
the fact that with divorce laws, there's, it's the same thing
state to state, it varies a lot. You move with your wife to a
different state, and then you she divorces you, she may not
get as much as she would like in California, some of these states
where there's no fault laws or places where they can just renew
and take everything. So I mean, so that's not that's a that's a
specious argument. Unfortunately, it's it makes it
sounds like it makes sense.
I mean, let me tell you the the Adam curry strategy to that. I
put everything in my wife's name, everything we're married.
And so whatever she has, I get half of it. So I don't have to
deal with that crap. Okay. And by the way, she's making three
times the money I am now. So she better watch it. If for some
reason, and we didn't get married, because we want to get
married, we got married for a green card. I'm not gonna lie
about it. We had no intention of getting married. Now.
Fortunately, it's worked out. It's been pretty good. I've been
married a long time. Yeah, we're working on 22 years. So not not
bad at all. But we all have a green card. Well, we literally
went down to City Hall on a Friday afternoon.
And what did she did she want a green card? Or did you need what
was the deal? We
so we had a torrid and very public affair in the
Netherlands. And, and you know, we'd been together for about a
year and then this opportunity to work for MTV came up. And
they called me said you want to come and work and I said, Well,
hold on a second. I said, Patricia, I said, Look, here's
the deal, you know, they'll give me a two year contract. Do you
want to move with me? It'd be a whole new start. be something
you know, we'll get out of all this, this craziness paparazzi
hiding out and trash cans and stupid shit like that. And I
said, if you don't want to go, I'm not gonna go. She said yet.
Let's do it. So we picked up you know, like her 12 boxes of
clothing and, and our car. And we moved to America. And you
know, so basically, she had to leave the country every three
months in order to be have a valid visa. And then at one
point, she said to me, so we were living in New York and
about three quarters of a year. She says, you know, okay, so I
gave up everything I gave what my career? You know, I love you.
We're having a good time. But what if all of a sudden, you
know, whatever, it just doesn't work out anymore. What do I
have? I have absolutely nothing. I have no standing in this
country. I have nothing at all. You know, should can we, you
know, think about putting together some kind of agreement
that would give me some protection. Fair question, by
the way. And it. I'm giving a very short, abbreviated version.
I liked the way the women work us. Yeah.
So I'm like crap, like, and then of course, I had this genius and
like, well, you know, the easiest way is just get married,
you know, that's a contract. It's split down the middle. It's
easy. And then she said, Okay, and then, you know, we had to,
we still had to do blood tests at the time in New York, I met
still, you might still have to do a blood test in New York. I
don't know. It's just like marrying your cousin or whatever
the hell that's for?
No, no, the blood test is always for syphilis. Oh, okay. Well,
let me that was my understanding, though. The
reason for those blood tests was really that was the point where
you could stop venereal disease and was syphilis. Mainly those
blood tests go back into this pre you know, penicillin era,
because of course, you only actually have sex when you're
married. Got it. So that makes total sense. So we got all the
paperwork, and then it was like a Friday afternoon, and and it
was a beautiful, sunny day. And I called her up and I said, Hey,
how about today? And she said, Yeah, sure. And so I grabbed
Steve leads the guy who was doing talent coordination, and I
said, You're my witness. And we went down to City Hall and Akina
community car, which is like a car service, had the car circle
the block, I was actually a witness for a couple that came
before us because their witness hadn't shown up. And we got
married. And, you know, we had a bottle of champagne on the way
back up to 56th street and we were married. And then of
course, 10 years later, we did a real party and a proper proper
celebration. But that gave that gave her her green card. And
that was the only reason we did it. Because we loved each other
anyway. It didn't make any difference. But of course we had
that luxury because we weren't a gay couple. So I can understand
where but by the way, they were, you know, they do check on you a
year later. We had to both come to an end Interview, and they
interviewed us separately. And then they checked if the if the
answers to the questions matched up and it was, you know, like,
besides, you know, the obvious where's your where's your
address, you know, but you know what colour eyes Does she have?
You know all over these really we I wish I had written them
down it was a whole bunch of weird, weird questions, we
actually kind of felt uncomfortable. It's like, oh
crap, man, I hope I don't fail this. They might ask me
something strange. And I had to prove that you had, you know,
had bank accounts together and all that, but they really
did check it you know that? I understand they do that. Yeah.
So because there's a lot of scammers out there. They're just
coming in here, you know that. There's people that just do the
marriage just for the green card that they're never there don't
even live together. They're just a whole phoney deal.
Well, meanwhile, if you actually want to bring in some talent
from overseas, it's impossible. And particularly in Silicon
Valley, it's impossible to do you cannot bring in talent from
overseas. We've tried, it can't be done.
What technology are you looking for?
Well, it's arguably, it's talent that you could also find here.
But when we were looking for Google, up until their stock,
dropped down in half, was had everybody it was impossible to
get anyone in Silicon Valley, because they all wanted Google
stock to be in the free Google food. Meanwhile, Little do they
know that they are the serfs and the slaves of the master over
there. Believe me, that's no, no picnic work in a Google.
But there's free food. Everybody I know that was went to work for
Google. So with one exception has gotten fat.
Exactly. From that healthy, free food no less.
Well, I mean, it's it's weird, because it's almost I mean,
yeah, did you all gotten fat? Because it's free food, and they
just eat and eat and eat?
And How hard must it be? And this is what we're seeing
changing. If you're at Google, right, and you and they don't
pay tremendous amounts, you know, they're pretty much on
scale. And you know, they, they, of course, they went through
some craziness there, but their main currency was their stock.
So you came in when it was six or $700. And you got all these
options, thinking, Well, I'm gonna be a gazillionaire in a
couple of years, and then I'll punch out and I'll go do my own
startup. And forget about it. What's the stock at now, three,
three and a half, something like that. 325.
It keeps punching, if I'm not mistaken, it kind of bumps up
into 14, but
everyone's stock a stock.
word, the word that we use is underwater.
Now, if they were real, real men, I mean, real men. This is
something that Ron and I did when we took our company public
at
339 29. As we speak, we we went public,
at $7, a huge public offering for an $11 million raise was
nothing by today's standards. Of course, this was 1996. And we
immediately got, you know, it was the whole we weren't in the
game at that time. So we got, I'll just say we got fucked. So
we went to 725 on opening day, and then it went down to six to
five to four, you know, everyone just was dumping the shit. It
was all retail, no institutional investors, we didn't know what
we were doing. And everyone was freaking out, because you know,
their options were underwater, we restrict the option pool, we
took it out of our own stock and gave it to the employees. And
that's, I believe one of the main reasons that we actually
could come together as a company and become successful. And you
believe me, you won't see Eric Schmidt or Sergey or Larry doing
that they won't take anything out of their pocket to do it,
for their employees
usually observes. So they apparently bought a new jet.
Another one, a jet fighter. Of course.
I'm sure he's in a flight up and shoot down Microsoft jet
fighter.
Now. How about Larry Ellison's jet fighter?
He's got he's had a jet fighter for a long time. He doesn't make
right I thought he had to make me or Sabre jet one of the two.
Yeah. Hey, that's the way to that's green boys. Way to go.
Drive your Prius and fly your MiG.
But actually bought an Italian jet of some sort? Really? Yeah.
This is a picture. I think we blogged it. You can check it
out.
I'm so disconnected. I haven't been it's
no big deal. I mean, they so they got a jet. You know, I just
you know, think of the
look, I'd love. I'd love a jet believe me, but you know, how
can you be so holier than thou and then then then do that?
That's crap.
Yeah, it is the it's not good working for
the CIA. Don't Don't be evil, to make me laugh.
So anyway, yeah, the Google stock is way down. It's
interesting. Well, of course, it
was it was inflated and, you know, look at their business
that, you know, their business is, is AdWords. And they've been
that business is down. It's just down. There's, you know, that's
part of what happens in this economy. You know,
interestingly, our advertising business is definitely under
pressure but our transactional business, you know, the budget,
rent a car and, you know, with the coupon codes, that's It's
off the charts. It's off the frickin charts. It is such a
beautiful system.
Yeah, yeah, I gotta do some with the budget rent a car thing on
my tech five thing I keep forgetting to mention them
now. Well, I'm setting it up. You want to do eHarmony on this
show? Because that's going to be the next one is eHarmony. We
could do some fun with
we could if you want. I mean, I'd rather do budget personally
but because it's actually coming at us.
Well, why don't why don't we ask the audience what they what they
would like a deal on?
Well, you get 10% off on a budget rent a car.
What are you talking about? 30%
I thought was 10? No, really? 30 is a new one is the new deals.
30%.
Now, I think it's Let me check. I think it's 10% off a weekly
rental. I could be wrong. I'm bringing it up now.
I think it's 10%.
We will give you a carbon credits.
Hold on. We got to set up on carbon trading.
Oh no, I'm sorry. It's $30 off the weekly budget rental. Or 10%
off any amount. That's right. Right. And then Brookstone. 10%
off Brookstone. But I don't know. And we still have the E
Music. Pet meds that was out of control. Pet meds? Yeah.
Medicine for your pet. You don't have you have a dog? Right?
Yeah. Do you ever take your dog to the vet? Once in a while?
Yeah, ever look at the bill
is too high. There's this new veterinarian system. There's
this group. And in fact, we have one of them in Berkeley. I can't
remember the name is like a chain. Extremely. And
unfortunately, all the good surgeons are in these chains.
Extremely slick operation. Oh, yeah.
Oh, and their computer. We got them in the UK as well. They're
called pet doctors is what they're called.
Yeah, there's something else called maybe it's the same
operation and the base, but whatever the case is, is like
wow, it's way too slick. It's extremely expensive.
And I love it when they say and please you have to give your dog
this special food that we sell. Right?
In fact, my they had to have an operation on my dog and they
gave us all these you know, drugs, a whole shitload of them
and I'm thinking this is just a dog you know, dogs gonna be was
woozy enough and screwed up enough from the damned operation
that I should be like now doping her. It didn't seem like a good
idea if she finds fine. She wasn't whining or crying or
anything else. She was fine. She healed up that was the end of
it.
It's a total
dog now though. You
can I get sold all the time on pet insurance if you got that.
Oh god, what's the point of that? Yeah, well, anyway, so
the pet meds. One of our most successful guys does a show or
produces I should say does a show about equestrian horses.
Yeah. And making a killing on on horse medicine. Really? Yeah,
because it's really expanding what you think dogs are
expensive. You want to go visit in one of these? These posh
equestrian doctors that do horse Are you kidding me? That's
outrageously expensive. They buy it in huge bulk and you know the
producer gets gets a cut of that and it's you can't get a better
price estimate. I immediately went online to see if they were
spayed if they were selling Special K, but unfortunately,
they didn't have it. I was a drug drug reference, John, you
wouldn't get it. As you can guess okay is a is a horse
tranquilliser that humans take? And it's quite popular.
So that is drink Bordeaux. That's all I do.
Yeah, five, that's 500 bucks a bottle.
I wish you don't have to spend that kind of money to get good
wine. That's the point. Hell, you just have to know what
you're doing. But you know, or ask somebody. Anyway, those were
California wines. We had that tasting. All right. All right.
What time is our dinner tonight? Six. Cow you like the early
dinner, don't you?
Well, it gets me I did. Yeah, I do. Not to the point where I'm
going to the four O'clock dinner. But it was just a
reference to of course, Seinfeld in Florida. But I don't know
that. Because you get in you get out the places fresh in the
dish. This helps not you know, killing them. And they're not
like slammed because you get you start going later. But the
optimum time is. I mean, if you're if I'm in Brasilia, I eat
dinner at midnight. But the optimum time typically where it
replaces really packs up is between 730 and 830. And the
places slam the service goes downhill. You know, they're out
of stuff. You know, I hate going into a place you got into you.
So wow, this is the one thing I've always wanted to eat. I'm
sorry, we don't have that anymore because it's sold out.
And anyway.
Alright, so let me let me just tee this up. So we are doing
another show. That'll be November 1. So we'll talk about
the elections, which will be on Tuesday, November 4. We probably
should do a show on November. fifth, wouldn't it make sense?
Do you think?
Instead of November 1, no, no,
no, no, instead of the eighth, then we're not going to wait
until the solid Yeah,
yeah, we Yeah, the fifth would be okay. I should be available
to NLB
in the UK. So I'll have a European perspective on all of
it.
All right. I'm sure people will be very interested in with. With
me, I'm sure that Europeans are going to be thrilled. They just
love that guy.
They don't care. I told you this last, they don't care. The
people who stopped the Do you have any idea how, how horrible
the situation is in Europe? Do you think it's bad here?
That you know, but maybe going to Portugal in in next month?
Oh,
interesting. By the way, that Election Day is exactly six
months or half the count a year away from tax day. Wouldn't it
be better to have tax day and then election day right out
right after it?
Which Yeah, wouldn't be more Yeah. But then these guys would
be booted out.
Well, that's the whole point is like I have election day right
after tax day. And then they'll really determine if people want
to keep you in office or vote you in or vote you out. And you
know, it can't be by accident that it's exactly six months.
separated those two events. Think about it. Night. God,
it's funny. No, it's
not funny. It's
alright. I think we're done. Yeah,
I What was this? Oh, man. We're talking this long about nothing.
It's amazing.
It's even funnier then. How
long do we go?
97 minutes?
Yeah, that's about right. That's what we do. We do about 90
minutes every time. And I had about a break in the middle
where I had to talk to the restaurant. So
we'll subtract that from your quota, sir. Don't worry. We'll
give you some carbon credits in return. All right. Good. So I
don't know what's coming up this week other than the Obama
special, which of course I won't be able to watch. Because I'll
be back. It's Wednesday, right? I think so. Yeah. Well, maybe
it'll be on Sky or something and be able to record it for you put
it on a DVD. Yeah. And then I can have it by December.
Fantastic.
If you get if you're lucky.
You want to wait tomorrow?
You don't on man? No, maybe. Okay. I'm going to LA
tomorrow. I got this digital Hollywood panel. I'm on.
I got it was that on Monday. That's Monday. Yeah. And we were
on a panel at Digital Hollywood. Everybody who's listening to the
show, go down and say hi to Adam.
Hey, John. Thanks. Bring money. I'm doing sales calls Monday and
Tuesday as well. Should be fun. All right. That'll wrap it up
for this week from the curry condo. My name is Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak in northern Silicon Valley. I will
talk
again next week right here. I know agenda