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Ep. 304 - Our Christmas Spectacular
20 Plays4 months ago
Ep. 304, Recorded 12/24/2025. Shopping for terrible gifts. Close the lid. Lights out at Waymo. Raise the roof. Apple products are good. Tech corner comes in hot. Buick is still a thing. Big Scoop out of Cincy. Geeks finally Excel at something. Teapot Despot. Apple won’t take my money. The snack bar is open!
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
That should be a great screen grab.
00:00:09
Speaker
D. All right.
00:00:09
Speaker
Levels, levels, levels, levels.
00:00:13
Speaker
All right.
Holiday Shopping Antics
00:00:15
Speaker
Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done?
00:00:18
Speaker
Wait, Christmas is coming up this time every year, man.
00:00:26
Speaker
I have got all my shopping done.
00:00:28
Speaker
I will say that things have been a little weird around here with all of the moving and everything.
00:00:33
Speaker
It's sort of like, oh man, Christmas is here.
00:00:36
Speaker
But no, I did accomplish, I finished all of my Christmas shopping, I believe, on the 23rd at about 8 p.m.
00:00:45
Speaker
I didn't wait this year.
00:00:48
Speaker
Did you ship all of the gifts to the correct location?
00:00:54
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:00:56
Speaker
That one actually, yes.
00:00:58
Speaker
Well, all the gifts that people are going to get got to the correct location anyway.
00:01:02
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
00:01:06
Speaker
Oh, that one must be birthday.
00:01:08
Speaker
Okay, we'll just hang on to that one for a while.
00:01:10
Speaker
No problem.
00:01:13
Speaker
We went, we tried to go yesterday afternoon, had to do a little bit of errand running.
00:01:21
Speaker
I don't know why.
00:01:24
Speaker
I go to the mall this week.
00:01:28
Speaker
I mean, let's be fair.
00:01:29
Speaker
I don't know.
00:01:29
Speaker
Cause everybody does.
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:31
Speaker
Everybody does.
00:01:33
Speaker
If there is any way for me to possibly avoid it.
00:01:39
Speaker
I don't go anywhere near the Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines.
00:01:44
Speaker
But while we had lunch yesterday with Danny and then Amy needed to go pick something up over at the mall.
00:01:50
Speaker
So we just skirted around the ring that surrounds the mall.
00:01:59
Speaker
And I thought I knew where I was going.
00:02:02
Speaker
I did not.
00:02:04
Speaker
And then as it turned out, I was informed I did not.
00:02:12
Speaker
I make a right turn and I'm like, okay, I'm going to go park over here so that it's close to the entrance.
00:02:19
Speaker
Looks like there's lots of parking spots here and it is close to the entrance and that'll get us right into the store that Amy needs to go to.
00:02:27
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:02:27
Speaker
So I pull up and I park.
00:02:30
Speaker
And from the other side of the truck,
00:02:33
Speaker
all the way over here, there's all kinds of space.
00:02:36
Speaker
So I'm like, okay, fine.
00:02:37
Speaker
So then I start driving, not down an aisle and to a main aisle and then back down, just cross cutting.
00:02:47
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:02:48
Speaker
No, no, I know.
00:02:49
Speaker
I know, I know exactly what kind of driver you are now.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:02:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yep.
00:02:54
Speaker
And I'm looking left.
00:02:56
Speaker
It's like pushing your cart through the grocery store, through the middle cut of the aisle, rather than, and you're looking left, and you're looking right, and you're looking left.
00:03:04
Speaker
Okay, I can go one more.
00:03:05
Speaker
And then you're dodging over a little bit, and then you're looking left, and then you're looking, okay, this is as close as I'm going to get.
00:03:12
Speaker
Okay, this is it.
00:03:13
Speaker
So then I park.
00:03:14
Speaker
And then we hop out, and she's like, why did you do that?
00:03:16
Speaker
I'm like, well, I was going to go to that other door that's back over there.
00:03:20
Speaker
Oh, well, that would have made sense.
00:03:22
Speaker
We got what we needed.
00:03:24
Speaker
And we got out and the car is in one piece.
00:03:28
Speaker
And you got your steps.
00:03:30
Speaker
I did.
00:03:31
Speaker
Yep.
00:03:31
Speaker
That's yes.
00:03:55
Speaker
Hi, toddlers.
00:03:58
Speaker
Welcome to Talking to Todd, a weekly podcast with Dwayne Johnson and Todd Prins, where failure is always an option.
00:04:04
Speaker
Thanks for joining us.
00:04:05
Speaker
Hey, Todd.
00:04:06
Speaker
Hey, how's it going?
00:04:08
Speaker
Pretty good.
00:04:09
Speaker
Pretty good.
00:04:09
Speaker
Merry Christmas.
00:04:10
Speaker
Can we say that?
00:04:10
Speaker
Merry Christmas.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, this is our Christmas Spectacular.
00:04:13
Speaker
We've got the dancers.
00:04:16
Speaker
We've got the juggling bears.
00:04:19
Speaker
We've got the celebrities.
00:04:21
Speaker
We've got the parade.
00:04:23
Speaker
Smothers Brothers in the wing.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:31
Speaker
You know, we should think about doing a Christmas Spectacular.
00:04:32
Speaker
Not this year.
00:04:33
Speaker
A little late.
00:04:36
Speaker
That would involve planning.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:38
Speaker
We don't do a lot of that around here.
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:41
Speaker
But, but here we are recording on recording on the morning of Christmas Eve.
00:04:46
Speaker
So fresh, fresh Christmas content.
00:04:51
Speaker
Not, not really, but anyway, yeah, we'll say that.
00:04:55
Speaker
The other stop that I made was at the Half Price bookstore because you can always make up some nice gifts there at the Half Price bookstore.
00:05:06
Speaker
And I ran across the world's worst thesaurus.
00:05:13
Speaker
It was terrible.
00:05:15
Speaker
And it was also terrible.
00:05:17
Speaker
pause for, hold for applause.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yep, there won't be any.
00:05:21
Speaker
Hold, hold.
00:05:22
Speaker
Keep holding.
00:05:23
Speaker
Keep holding.
00:05:26
Speaker
Okay, I guess not.
00:05:27
Speaker
I guess we missed it.
00:05:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:30
Speaker
Did I say that it was terrible?
00:05:32
Speaker
It was also terrible.
00:05:34
Speaker
Hi, Lisa.
00:05:36
Speaker
If this ever appears on video, we have a guest appearance from Lisa this week.
00:05:43
Speaker
Should we do some feedback, follow-up, and updates?
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah, let's do that.
00:05:47
Speaker
Amy and I were listening to episode 300.
00:05:52
Speaker
We did the Big Ten quiz for you.
00:05:55
Speaker
And as you're naming the original Big Ten schools, Amy asked me how many original Big Ten schools there were.
00:06:09
Speaker
While I was in the process of naming the original 10.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:16
Speaker
I think what she didn't realize that was back in the day, people named things what they actually were.
00:06:24
Speaker
Except for the Big Ten, which didn't name itself the Big Ten anyway.
00:06:31
Speaker
But yeah, 10 was 10, 8 was 8, 12 was 12.
00:06:35
Speaker
Until it wasn't.
00:06:36
Speaker
That's how the marketing geniuses came up with the name.
00:06:39
Speaker
Hey, what do you think we ought to call ourselves?
00:06:42
Speaker
I don't know.
00:06:42
Speaker
What are we, 10 schools?
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:46
Speaker
The small nine?
00:06:47
Speaker
Eh, don't like it.
00:06:48
Speaker
How about the big 10?
00:06:49
Speaker
Love it.
00:06:50
Speaker
Printed on a t-shirt.
00:06:51
Speaker
Let's go.
00:06:52
Speaker
That's better than big two little six, which is what the big eight was for quite a while.
00:07:00
Speaker
How about you?
00:07:02
Speaker
Lisa's getting caught up going way, way back in the back catalog.
00:07:07
Speaker
There's some there's some driving this weekend.
00:07:09
Speaker
So she got caught up on a few.
00:07:10
Speaker
There's to be driving this coming weekend.
00:07:12
Speaker
There'll be some more.
00:07:13
Speaker
Anyway, she got to the point where you were telling your story about your earbud.
00:07:18
Speaker
If you know, if we go back that far and her comment was, why in the hell did he just close the toilet lid?
00:07:26
Speaker
And again, I didn't anticipate it was going to be a problem.
00:07:31
Speaker
I think her point was it's an airplane bathroom.
00:07:33
Speaker
You should always like like whether you have an earbud, an earpod at risk or earbud at risk or not like that.
00:07:41
Speaker
Just that that just close it.
00:07:42
Speaker
Just just.
00:07:45
Speaker
She also said, well, if that's the way that he's going to roll, we're going to have others.
00:07:48
Speaker
We're going to have other bathroom stories.
00:07:52
Speaker
I got this really nice scarf for Christmas and then it got caught in the toilet and the airplane.
00:07:58
Speaker
Anyway, the plane has a scarf now.
00:08:00
Speaker
I had had this really nice.
00:08:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:07
Speaker
Sherry provided us a Waymo update.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:12
Speaker
There was apparently a power outage in San Francisco.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yep.
00:08:16
Speaker
That rendered Waymo's inoperable.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, I saw that after she sent it, I saw a couple of stories pop up.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, basically it looked like the city was littered with Waymo's just stopped everywhere.
00:08:34
Speaker
Waymo has said they technically weren't stopped everywhere.
00:08:41
Speaker
What Waymo said was when all the stoplights go out, the cars, and I'm not clear, they were sort of referring to that they have the ability to remotely drive the cars if necessary, but they don't ever use that.
00:09:00
Speaker
So they talk about, anyway, basically when a Waymo gets to a place that it should be a stoplight and all the stoplights are out,
00:09:08
Speaker
It does, it checks, it checks in to make sure that it's safe for it to go through the four-way stop, right?
00:09:17
Speaker
Once it's.
00:09:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:18
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:09:19
Speaker
Well, all of the Waymos had to do that at the exact same time.
00:09:23
Speaker
So basically, operators were standing by and got completely flooded with calls.
00:09:30
Speaker
So cars just had to stop and wait until they got permission to go through the intersection that had no stoplights to get to the next intersection that had no stoplights.
00:09:41
Speaker
So they weren't broken down.
00:09:44
Speaker
They were doing exactly what they were supposed to do.
00:09:46
Speaker
They were just...
00:09:49
Speaker
stopping excessively while people were trying to clear out the safety, the safety switches.
Tech and Innovation Mishaps
00:09:56
Speaker
Did we cover, I mean, it feels like a denial of service attack.
00:10:03
Speaker
Kind of.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:05
Speaker
Did we cover the Waymo prank denial of service thing that happened back in October?
00:10:10
Speaker
Did we talk about this?
00:10:12
Speaker
You know, of all the Waymo stories, I don't believe I remember that one.
00:10:15
Speaker
No.
00:10:16
Speaker
So back in October, pranksters got together and summoned 50 of the Waymo robo-taxis to a dead-end street.
00:10:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:10:29
Speaker
And I have a picture here and it's hilarious.
00:10:32
Speaker
The cars waited around 10 minutes before automatically leaving the area.
00:10:37
Speaker
Each of the Waymos triggered a $5 no-show fee.
00:10:41
Speaker
And the pranksters said, oh, absolutely worth it.
00:10:46
Speaker
I don't know how we missed that story.
00:10:49
Speaker
Let's see.
00:10:50
Speaker
What else did we have?
00:10:51
Speaker
I had lunch.
00:10:52
Speaker
Like I said, I had lunch with Danny.
00:10:53
Speaker
We had lunch with Danny yesterday.
00:10:56
Speaker
Got the official update.
00:10:57
Speaker
He is officially done being mayor on January 1.
00:11:02
Speaker
So any shenanigans that need to be pulled in the greater Dallas Center area?
00:11:12
Speaker
Either hurry up or wait, depending on your feeling.
00:11:19
Speaker
I mean, I think the question would be like when he says January one, does he meet midnight January one or like 8 a.m.
00:11:26
Speaker
January?
00:11:27
Speaker
Because if you're going to if you're going to like if.
00:11:31
Speaker
Danny's walking around the house like 30 minutes to go 30 minutes to phone rings.
00:11:38
Speaker
Are you kidding me?
00:11:42
Speaker
What do you mean the lift station has gone berserk?
00:11:52
Speaker
Let's see.
00:11:53
Speaker
Jake Toddler, Matt Damon.
00:11:54
Speaker
Jake got six of the bowl games right in the guessing game last week.
00:11:58
Speaker
Oh, good for him.
00:11:59
Speaker
Look at that.
00:12:00
Speaker
He did.
00:12:00
Speaker
He did better than I did.
00:12:01
Speaker
I was going to say he was paying more attention than you were.
00:12:04
Speaker
Clearly, clearly.
00:12:06
Speaker
Toddler number six.
00:12:09
Speaker
Batchelder, I really wish I could have heard the whole 30 minute rant prior to recording the pod.
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:18
Speaker
Someday tell you, you know what?
00:12:20
Speaker
Come on over on new year's Eve.
00:12:21
Speaker
I'm sure we will.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yep.
00:12:26
Speaker
Uh, and the, the last piece of feedback that I got, uh, my mother listened to last week's show.
00:12:38
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:12:39
Speaker
All right.
00:12:41
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:12:42
Speaker
She'd lose a bet.
00:12:43
Speaker
What's that?
00:12:44
Speaker
Did she lose a bet?
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:49
Speaker
Like, did I say anything last week?
00:12:51
Speaker
I'm like, my first response was just listen to talking to Todd.
00:12:55
Speaker
So funny.
00:12:57
Speaker
My response, which show?
00:13:01
Speaker
The latest one.
00:13:02
Speaker
I'm like, OK, OK, OK.
00:13:03
Speaker
Did I say anything last week?
00:13:06
Speaker
I'm running the show back in my head.
00:13:08
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:13:08
Speaker
I think I'm OK.
00:13:12
Speaker
Anything else from you?
00:13:13
Speaker
Do you hear?
00:13:15
Speaker
Your mom's comments.
00:13:16
Speaker
So funny.
00:13:17
Speaker
A little light on throw pillow content, however.
00:13:20
Speaker
You're just tossing that out there.
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, that was it.
00:13:28
Speaker
That was Lisa's Lisa's feedback with one I had.
00:13:30
Speaker
So, yep.
00:13:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:35
Speaker
I didn't have any corrections from last week.
00:13:38
Speaker
Nope.
00:13:39
Speaker
Not on this side.
00:13:40
Speaker
No.
00:13:41
Speaker
Little piece of follow-up.
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, in the, well, we keep talking about like stories that are like right in the middle of what Talking to Todd covers.
00:13:50
Speaker
Now, this isn't Brett Favre adjacent, which, you know, thank goodness.
00:13:54
Speaker
In The Athletic, they were, they covered a story that the French football club, Strasbourg, which is right on the border between France and Spain in the top flight.
00:14:08
Speaker
Um, they're rebuilding a part of their stadium.
00:14:10
Speaker
They're rebuilding their South stand and they needed, after they rebuild it, they needed something for like the facade on the outside.
00:14:19
Speaker
Right.
00:14:19
Speaker
Cause you know, you, you build the, you build the big bowl and then you need something to kind of cover up the, the, the outside wall and make it look nice.
00:14:28
Speaker
Right.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:30
Speaker
Somebody came up with the idea.
00:14:33
Speaker
There's a bunch of retired A340 aircraft in the area.
00:14:40
Speaker
So they are now taking the top off of all of them, turning them into convertibles.
00:14:46
Speaker
And then taking that piece and then hanging it on the outside of the stadium with a nice curve on it.
00:14:53
Speaker
So it's now becoming they're taking old planes are becoming the facade for a European soccer stadium.
00:15:02
Speaker
And I was just like, wow.
00:15:04
Speaker
Seriously, like how many more boxes could we tick?
00:15:06
Speaker
Right.
00:15:07
Speaker
Like, I guess if they were being delivered by Waymos, well, they'd never get there, but that would be the other piece.
00:15:13
Speaker
But I was just like, look at that.
00:15:15
Speaker
Air airplanes and football coming together.
00:15:18
Speaker
So now I'm going to have to put that on my list.
00:15:20
Speaker
You big Strasburg fan.
00:15:22
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no.
00:15:22
Speaker
I'm here for the planes.
00:15:24
Speaker
What?
00:15:27
Speaker
That doesn't make any sense.
00:15:28
Speaker
Do you have a podcast?
00:15:29
Speaker
I do.
00:15:30
Speaker
That makes a lot more.
00:15:32
Speaker
That tracks.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
By the way, I've seen the pictures of it.
00:15:36
Speaker
It looks really, really good on the outside, too.
00:15:38
Speaker
Like somebody had a really good idea to put these nice pieces of curved metal on the outside of their stadium.
00:15:44
Speaker
So I had I had one thing for Tech Corner.
00:15:52
Speaker
This, I guess, could have gone in follow up.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:56
Speaker
And Lisa, well, it's timely because Lisa brought up the earbuds.
00:16:02
Speaker
Amazon.com.
00:16:04
Speaker
had a deal on black Friday on, on air pod pro threes.
00:16:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:16:15
Speaker
And they were under $200.
00:16:18
Speaker
And by the time I applied my Amazon credit that I had, they were really cheap.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I'm like, well, I can't pass this up.
00:16:28
Speaker
They are everything you promised and more.
00:16:32
Speaker
Pretty good, huh?
00:16:33
Speaker
They are really good.
00:16:41
Speaker
They make my old Bose headphones sound like somebody dropped them in a toilet or something.
00:16:49
Speaker
I mean, these are really good.
00:16:51
Speaker
These are really good.
00:16:54
Speaker
So I'm glad to hear that.
00:16:56
Speaker
I mean, I was pretty confident if you went that direction.
00:16:59
Speaker
And as long as there wasn't a fit problem, you'd be you'd be pretty happy with them.
00:17:03
Speaker
But yeah, I remember you're like, oh, breaking news.
00:17:06
Speaker
Todd recommends Apple products.
00:17:09
Speaker
But like, no, no, no, no.
00:17:10
Speaker
Like this one.
00:17:11
Speaker
No, this this is this is the top of the game.
00:17:15
Speaker
So excellent.
00:17:17
Speaker
And so I put them in and then it tells me, hold on.
00:17:23
Speaker
We're testing for a secure fit.
00:17:25
Speaker
And then it tells you whether or not you need to resize the earbuds.
00:17:29
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, it is.
00:17:30
Speaker
Who does that?
00:17:33
Speaker
Apple.
00:17:33
Speaker
Apple does that.
00:17:34
Speaker
It was there.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:38
Speaker
I now just, just a quick bit of warning.
00:17:42
Speaker
Uh, one of the podcasters I listened to a lot pointed out, uh, he has a rule and this is, this is a good rule with AirPods.
00:17:49
Speaker
Um, AirPods belong there.
00:17:51
Speaker
There's only two places that your AirPods should ever be just two in your ear or in the case.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:59
Speaker
Um, because otherwise poof gone.
00:18:02
Speaker
Um,
00:18:06
Speaker
The case does have find my on it so you can find the case and you can make the individual earbuds play a bit.
00:18:12
Speaker
I mean, you could play music if you need to lose them.
00:18:16
Speaker
But the whole I'm just going to take these out.
00:18:18
Speaker
I'll just drop them off somewhere here.
00:18:20
Speaker
I'm sure I will remember and gone.
00:18:22
Speaker
OK, well, I guess I'll order some more.
00:18:26
Speaker
Bad.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yes, that's it.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yep.
00:18:29
Speaker
So that was Tech Corner.
00:18:30
Speaker
How about Technical Corner?
00:18:31
Speaker
Any updates?
00:18:33
Speaker
I had to give a technical to a player back on Friday night.
Sports and Entertainment
00:18:43
Speaker
My partner called an offensive foul on him.
00:18:48
Speaker
And as he was walking back up the court, he said loud enough for
00:18:55
Speaker
Most of us to hear fucking bullshit.
00:19:00
Speaker
Like, well, I guess we're going to shoot free throws.
00:19:03
Speaker
Not a peep out of the coach because he heard it.
00:19:05
Speaker
So did everybody in the gym.
00:19:10
Speaker
You know, well, he earned that one.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:19:13
Speaker
I mean, sometimes they're cheap.
00:19:15
Speaker
That one's not.
00:19:16
Speaker
That was no, no.
00:19:18
Speaker
Everybody knew what that was for.
00:19:19
Speaker
Did not need any explanation.
00:19:22
Speaker
No.
00:19:23
Speaker
And on Saturday, I warned a head coach because my partner had a close call on the end line where the ball went out of bounds.
00:19:38
Speaker
And the coach didn't like the call.
00:19:44
Speaker
And then made the, we need to go to replay review signal on that.
00:19:53
Speaker
This is a high school basketball game.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, wait, wait.
00:19:55
Speaker
Does high school basketball have replay?
00:19:59
Speaker
No.
00:20:00
Speaker
And so I blew my whistle and I gave an official warning to the bench.
00:20:08
Speaker
I didn't think it was something that warranted a tee, particularly not at that point in the game.
00:20:15
Speaker
But he definitely got a warning.
00:20:16
Speaker
And then at the next time out, the assistant coach came over to me and said, so.
00:20:24
Speaker
What was the bench warning for?
00:20:26
Speaker
I said, this is a high school basketball game and he's signaling for a replay review in a game where everyone knows that we don't have replay review as part of this.
00:20:39
Speaker
And that's an unsporting act and we are not going to have it.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, we kind of figured that that was what it was for.
00:20:45
Speaker
Just wanted to verify.
00:20:46
Speaker
Because to be completely honest, we've done six things that deserved a warning.
00:20:51
Speaker
We just want to know which of the six did we get in trouble for.
00:20:56
Speaker
Just to be clear.
00:20:57
Speaker
Now, I know you can't do this because of decorum and all this kind of stuff.
00:21:05
Speaker
There's part of me that instead of giving him a warning, basically...
00:21:12
Speaker
You see him you see him do that.
00:21:15
Speaker
You stop the game.
00:21:16
Speaker
You trot over to the scores desk.
00:21:20
Speaker
And you bend over and you start looking at like you put on the fake headset that isn't there.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then you stare.
00:21:29
Speaker
You stare at a monitor that isn't there.
00:21:32
Speaker
And you go like, like you're going like, okay, back, forth, back, forth, back, forth.
00:21:38
Speaker
Call your partner over.
00:21:40
Speaker
He puts on the fake headset.
00:21:41
Speaker
He also, like you just stop the entire effing game for this.
00:21:45
Speaker
And you're just like, and then you guys are talking and you're pointing at a non-existent monitor.
00:21:52
Speaker
And then you're like, take off the headphones, right?
00:21:58
Speaker
Runs over after review and then stare straight at him.
00:22:06
Speaker
Call stands.
00:22:11
Speaker
And then just give the WTF look.
00:22:16
Speaker
Let's play some ball.
00:22:18
Speaker
But stop the game for like two and a half minutes to do the review that he asked for.
00:22:22
Speaker
Because he wanted the review.
00:22:24
Speaker
So, yeah, you know.
00:22:25
Speaker
I'll tell you what.
00:22:25
Speaker
You do that.
00:22:26
Speaker
You do that one time.
00:22:27
Speaker
He will not do that ever again.
00:22:33
Speaker
What are they doing?
00:22:35
Speaker
I think they're doing a review.
00:22:36
Speaker
We don't have review.
00:22:38
Speaker
Coach asked for it.
00:22:43
Speaker
So that was fun.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:49
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:49
Speaker
Let's go take a look at, let's go take a look at the view from the sky cam.
00:22:58
Speaker
Oh, excellent.
00:22:58
Speaker
Let's do this.
00:22:59
Speaker
And I'm here.
00:23:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:01
Speaker
Queen to remind Todd of the mess.
00:23:04
Speaker
Todd made plenty answered wrong.
00:23:06
Speaker
Todd, Todd, Todd ought to know that's right this week.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's something Todd ought to know.
00:23:14
Speaker
Uh, Todd, do you remember, um,
00:23:18
Speaker
It's been several months ago.
00:23:20
Speaker
You quizzed me about all of the different brands of cars that Volkswagen produces.
00:23:29
Speaker
I may remember that.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:33
Speaker
And motorcycles, I think.
00:23:35
Speaker
Or was it a different brand?
00:23:36
Speaker
Anyway, yes.
00:23:38
Speaker
A couple of those were motorcycles.
00:23:40
Speaker
That is true.
00:23:41
Speaker
This week, something hit my feed that was a chart that
00:23:48
Speaker
Of 14 car companies that control a combined 54 brands.
00:23:55
Speaker
So not just the Volkswagen ones.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:59
Speaker
But all of the other ones as well, which I thought was kind of interesting.
00:24:03
Speaker
But what jumped out at me was the sheer number of brands controlled by General Motors.
00:24:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:14
Speaker
So Todd, this week, I'm going to ask you, I probably should have come up with something more Christmassy, but I didn't.
00:24:23
Speaker
Todd, can you name the nine vehicle brands produced by General Motors?
00:24:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:34
Speaker
Well, there used to be a lot more.
00:24:37
Speaker
See, that's the thing.
00:24:39
Speaker
RIP Chevrolet.
00:24:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:44
Speaker
So let's see.
00:24:47
Speaker
Did you say Chevrolet?
00:24:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:50
Speaker
You said RIP Chevrolet?
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:52
Speaker
Chevrolet is actually on my list.
00:24:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:57
Speaker
All right.
00:24:58
Speaker
Because not all of these are marketed in the United States.
00:25:02
Speaker
Got it.
00:25:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:04
Speaker
Wait.
00:25:04
Speaker
So how many am I listing?
00:25:06
Speaker
Nine.
00:25:08
Speaker
So this is the big times.
00:25:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:10
Speaker
All right.
00:25:14
Speaker
Let's see.
00:25:15
Speaker
So they do GMC, which is their truck brand.
00:25:18
Speaker
Correct.
00:25:21
Speaker
You said Chevrolet was already on there.
00:25:23
Speaker
Correct.
00:25:25
Speaker
Apparently, because they're advertising a lot, Buick is still a thing.
00:25:30
Speaker
That's yes.
00:25:32
Speaker
Cadillac is still a brand.
00:25:36
Speaker
yes it is very good okay um they killed off osmobile they killed off pontiac he's he's reading he's searching he's yep yep none either of those are on there yep uh they i believe they still have the hummer brand that is that is a subset
00:26:02
Speaker
I do not see Hummer on this chart.
00:26:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:08
Speaker
Let's see.
00:26:09
Speaker
They've killed off the Saturn brand.
00:26:11
Speaker
So that is no longer there.
00:26:13
Speaker
Correct.
00:26:15
Speaker
They own, they control Vauxhall.
00:26:19
Speaker
That is correct.
00:26:20
Speaker
Very good.
00:26:21
Speaker
That was one that I did not.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:24
Speaker
Did not think you would get.
00:26:25
Speaker
Very good.
00:26:26
Speaker
Um, uh, a lot of those are in, uh, that's the major GM brand in, uh, England.
00:26:35
Speaker
Ah, okay.
00:26:36
Speaker
So, um, yeah.
00:26:39
Speaker
Uh, do they control Opal?
00:26:42
Speaker
They do.
00:26:42
Speaker
That's the other one that I thought you might get.
00:26:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:45
Speaker
Because that's a big European car.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
Hmm.
00:26:51
Speaker
So where are we at now?
00:26:52
Speaker
Let's see.
00:26:52
Speaker
How many do I have left?
00:26:53
Speaker
You have three left.
00:26:57
Speaker
The three that I had never heard of.
00:27:00
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:04
Speaker
Schwarzenwagen?
00:27:09
Speaker
No, that's over on the Volkswagen side.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
With Landry and Bentley and Audi.
00:27:18
Speaker
Three more that General Motors controls that are still marketed someplace.
00:27:29
Speaker
You know what?
00:27:29
Speaker
I don't think I'm going to know these.
00:27:34
Speaker
Holden?
00:27:35
Speaker
That's H-O-L-D-E-N.
00:27:38
Speaker
Holden.
00:27:41
Speaker
As if I'm just sitting here holding my car?
00:27:44
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:47
Speaker
Wuling Motors.
00:27:49
Speaker
W-U-L-I-N-G.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
I wonder if it's fueling.
00:27:58
Speaker
I wonder if that's German.
00:27:59
Speaker
If it's German, it probably is fueling.
00:28:02
Speaker
Fueling.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, potentially.
00:28:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:06
Speaker
And Baojun.
00:28:09
Speaker
B-A-O-J-U-N.
00:28:13
Speaker
Gonna guess that's a, that's an Asian brand that they, that's my, that was my guess too.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:28:18
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:19
Speaker
You know, I don't know where a Hummer fits in and well, smart cars are on here, but I don't see a whole lot of electric brands that are solely electric on here either.
00:28:37
Speaker
The thing that I learned this week, the car company is owned by Renault.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:44
Speaker
Renault and Samsung.
00:28:47
Speaker
Did you know that Samsung makes cars?
00:28:50
Speaker
Well, apparently Samsung doesn't make cars because Renault makes the cars for Samsung.
00:28:56
Speaker
We just covered that, Dwayne.
00:28:57
Speaker
Please pay attention.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:06
Speaker
That's okay.
00:29:06
Speaker
Samsung makes Renault fridges in France.
00:29:09
Speaker
What?
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:29:11
Speaker
Why not?
00:29:12
Speaker
Just take it out for a spin.
00:29:14
Speaker
Anyway, the nine car companies that are nine car brands that are managed by General Motors, something that I thought Todd ought to know, particularly since he's been car shopping lately.
00:29:27
Speaker
I'm a little surprised you didn't do better at that.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't.
00:29:33
Speaker
I didn't.
00:29:33
Speaker
We didn't spend a lot of time looking at what might be German and or South American brands.
00:29:40
Speaker
CarMax was all out of viewings.
00:29:47
Speaker
What did you what did you bring for idiots this week?
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:51
Speaker
So, uh, last weekend, uh, prior to the NFL games, um, uh, the, the Cincinnati Bengals made an interesting decision.
00:30:02
Speaker
Um, and when I say interesting, um, I think what I put in the rundown is the Bengals are going to bangle like this is what they're good.
00:30:08
Speaker
This is what they're known for.
00:30:09
Speaker
Right.
00:30:09
Speaker
So when you see, um,
00:30:14
Speaker
When there's a large snowstorm in NFL cities that have outdoor stadiums, you inevitably will see that there's a call for, hey, can people come out to the stadium and help us dig out this stadium?
00:30:26
Speaker
You see that a lot in Green Bay and you see it a lot in Buffalo.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:34
Speaker
And.
00:30:35
Speaker
They ask for people to come out.
00:30:37
Speaker
They do get paid.
00:30:37
Speaker
I mean, they get paid, you know, $10, $15 an hour or something, but they need to shovel the entire stadium before the game.
00:30:45
Speaker
It's part of the expectation of being a state, being an owner.
00:30:51
Speaker
Well, it's not even an expectation.
00:30:54
Speaker
It is an NFL rule that the NFL's playing field specifications rulebook states that, quote, each home club is responsible for having a snow removal plan in place.
00:31:08
Speaker
Anybody can have a plan.
00:31:10
Speaker
I don't know.
00:31:10
Speaker
Hair dryers?
00:31:13
Speaker
And ensuring that its stadium has adequate snow removal equipment available.
00:31:17
Speaker
Snow and ice must be removed from the stadium before all games.
00:31:21
Speaker
This applies to the playing field.
00:31:22
Speaker
Makes sense.
00:31:23
Speaker
Sidelines.
00:31:23
Speaker
Sure.
00:31:24
Speaker
Seating bowl.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yep.
00:31:25
Speaker
Isles, pedestrian ramps, walkways, parking lots, etc.
00:31:29
Speaker
This also applies to the sidelines.
00:31:30
Speaker
Snow may not be pushed into piles and remain against the stadium walls that interferes with standard game or sideline operations.
00:31:37
Speaker
Very clear.
00:31:40
Speaker
Cincinnati, which is known as probably one of the cheapest sports teams in America, when they got to the stadium on Sunday,
00:31:50
Speaker
It was covered in snow.
00:31:52
Speaker
So they cleared off the field and the sidelines.
00:31:56
Speaker
And then they shoveled the aisles down to the seats.
00:32:02
Speaker
However, they didn't clean off the seats or the rows that the seats were on.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:13
Speaker
They basically said they told everybody.
00:32:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you can just remove your own snow.
00:32:19
Speaker
Now, Dwayne, you go to an NFL stadium.
00:32:23
Speaker
How much room, like, if you were to get to your seat and the seat and the place where your feet go are covered in snow, where would you put that snow?
00:32:33
Speaker
Is there a lot of extra room?
00:32:36
Speaker
There's not, but luckily for me, the visiting sideline is right below our seats, about seven rows away.
00:32:44
Speaker
So I would take all of that snow and I would just dump it onto the visiting sideline, were it me.
00:32:48
Speaker
That's what I would do.
00:32:50
Speaker
Unless Pittsburgh's playing there and DK is paying attention and then you do not want to do that.
00:32:55
Speaker
Anyway, so people were taking pictures that the Bengals didn't clear off their stadium for their paying customers who, while the team is cheap, the tickets aren't.
00:33:09
Speaker
The Bengals, when reached for comment, said, quote, seat aisles were prioritized and are in good shape.
00:33:16
Speaker
Seats are easily wiped off and ushers are equipped to help there.
00:33:21
Speaker
Like what?
00:33:21
Speaker
Like snow brush?
00:33:22
Speaker
Like...
00:33:25
Speaker
Anyway, fans on social media took fans took to social media.
00:33:30
Speaker
They were not pleased that part of their season ticket package, including what I'm assuming is a personal seat license, is also personal snow removal services you have to provide to the team.
00:33:44
Speaker
If any team was going to do this, it's it's the Bengals.
00:33:48
Speaker
I mean, the rules say you have to have a plan.
00:33:51
Speaker
The rules don't say you have to have a good plan.
00:33:55
Speaker
No, it actually says you have to have a plan.
00:33:58
Speaker
The next sentence says snow and ice must be removed.
00:34:03
Speaker
So does it say eventually?
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:07
Speaker
Hey, listen, by May, this stuff will be taken care of.
00:34:12
Speaker
It's it's it's basically the the snow removal plan for New Orleans.
00:34:20
Speaker
Y'all just hang on about two days.
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:25
Speaker
I am assuming there was no snow in the owner's suite, however.
00:34:31
Speaker
I bet that one was nice and like, man, look at all those people.
00:34:35
Speaker
They look cold out there.
00:34:36
Speaker
Man, somebody should really get rid of that snow for them.
00:34:41
Speaker
Ooh, is that champagne?
00:34:45
Speaker
How about you?
00:34:45
Speaker
What did you bring?
00:34:47
Speaker
So I brought you two options.
00:34:52
Speaker
Both of them were submitted by toddlers.
00:34:56
Speaker
Option number one, short and stout.
00:35:00
Speaker
Which feels like it could be a could be like a beer thing.
00:35:02
Speaker
OK, could be, could be probably not.
00:35:08
Speaker
And option number two, the mind blowing world of competitive spreadsheeting.
00:35:14
Speaker
Oh, I think we're going to excel in that second story.
00:35:22
Speaker
That one came from toddler negative 18 because I don't know if you remember this or not.
00:35:28
Speaker
She used to listen to our podcast while she was doing spreadsheets.
00:35:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:36
Speaker
Um, did you know there's such a thing as competitive spreadsheeting?
00:35:42
Speaker
I don't even know that you, even when you say it, that doesn't sound right.
00:35:47
Speaker
Um,
00:35:50
Speaker
What I what I know is is mostly in the offices I've worked at the competition on spreadsheets is to see who didn't have like you were competing to make sure you were the one that didn't have to do the spreadsheet.
00:36:00
Speaker
But I'm assuming that this is hey somebody should put a spreadsheet together.
00:36:03
Speaker
Not it.
00:36:04
Speaker
No.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:06
Speaker
I'm guessing this is this is a different kind of than that.
00:36:10
Speaker
I was unaware.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:13
Speaker
So what is what does this look like.
00:36:15
Speaker
Thanks to the annual Microsoft Excel World Championships, players compete for the prestigious Excel World Champion, a wrestling-style winner's belt, and a $60,000 cash prize.
00:36:31
Speaker
The event features a series of spreadsheet battles in which 12 players on stage are simultaneously sent a problem-ridden Excel file that they must fix up within 30 minutes.
00:36:44
Speaker
I know it sounds silly because it's spreadsheets, said one competitor, but there's a huge amount of pressure on these top players when you're on stage.
00:36:54
Speaker
Todd, this happens in Las Vegas.
00:37:00
Speaker
Sure.
00:37:00
Speaker
Why not?
00:37:01
Speaker
Why?
00:37:01
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:37:05
Speaker
After filling in as a commentator in last year's Excel World Championships, the
00:37:10
Speaker
This guy was the commentator, not just a participant, but a commentator at the collegiate challenge at this year's event in Las Vegas.
00:37:19
Speaker
So there's amateur spreadsheeters and there's professionals.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:24
Speaker
Best way to go from number one to number 738 in competitive spreadsheets, turn pro.
00:37:32
Speaker
Or do a formula.
00:37:33
Speaker
There's also a formula that you could enter.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:37
Speaker
The difference between amateurs and pros, amateurs are still using VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP, and pros have moved on to XLOOKUP.
00:37:47
Speaker
That's an Excel joke that really scores in certain circles.
00:37:51
Speaker
Oh.
00:37:54
Speaker
The sad thing is I'm sitting here going, XLOOKUP?
00:37:59
Speaker
I don't even know XLOOKUP.
00:38:01
Speaker
I mean, VLOOKUP is my, oh, man.
00:38:04
Speaker
Shoot, I'm an amateur.
00:38:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:07
Speaker
I actually use XLOOKUP when I'm trying to match up people's names to their Excel, to their email addresses in two different... It's a lookup function and it's really awesome.
00:38:22
Speaker
Anyway, that story about Excel geekery, I don't know that there's really an idiot there.
00:38:30
Speaker
I mean, maybe it's us for covering it.
00:38:35
Speaker
Please, please tell me, please tell me that next year, if I want to watch it, I can tune in on the Ocho.
00:38:47
Speaker
I'm also going to send you a picture of the first story because I think I've got time to be able to do this.
00:38:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah, this is this is this isn't idiots.
00:38:59
Speaker
This is this is teapot or Nazi.
00:39:05
Speaker
So there's a billboard from JCPenney about a teapot that when you looked at it in the wrong direction, it was a Michael Graves design.
00:39:18
Speaker
It looked like Hitler.
00:39:20
Speaker
And therefore, JCPenney had to take the billboard down because people complained that
00:39:28
Speaker
And I'm going to be honest because I saw this.
00:39:30
Speaker
If nobody has seen this and you're like, how could a teapot look like Hitler?
00:39:35
Speaker
Go look at this.
00:39:36
Speaker
And it's not like a passing resemblance.
00:39:39
Speaker
It literally including why is its right arm raised?
00:39:44
Speaker
Oh, wait, that's the spout.
00:39:48
Speaker
All of it tracks.
00:39:49
Speaker
All of it.
00:39:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:39:51
Speaker
All you got to do is Google teapot.
00:39:53
Speaker
Wait, don't Google teapot Hitler, but Google teapot Hitler and you'll know what we're talking about.
00:40:01
Speaker
By the way, the competitive spreadsheet competition, you said it's now being held in Las Vegas?
00:40:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:10
Speaker
I'm assuming at one point it was probably, I mean, if it wasn't, then they did something wrong.
00:40:15
Speaker
I would assume at some point in its past, it should have been...
00:40:20
Speaker
they should have been holding that at the new Comiskey park.
00:40:27
Speaker
And you're like, Todd, why, why would they hold it?
00:40:30
Speaker
The new Comiskey park?
00:40:31
Speaker
Because at one point, wasn't it us cellular field?
00:40:36
Speaker
It was the cell.
00:40:39
Speaker
It was.
00:40:40
Speaker
You're correct.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yep.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yep.
00:40:45
Speaker
There we go.
00:40:46
Speaker
That's here's, here's the thing.
00:40:48
Speaker
If they did,
00:40:50
Speaker
There would probably be more spectators there than at a typical White Sox game.
00:40:57
Speaker
Guys, we got to open up all the parking lots.
00:41:04
Speaker
Let's see.
00:41:05
Speaker
What's next on here?
00:41:08
Speaker
Oh, I think it's what we're watching.
00:41:11
Speaker
You didn't write anything in the rundown.
00:41:14
Speaker
You watched anything.
00:41:16
Speaker
Well, I mean, nothing more than our normal, you know, here's some YouTube here and there.
00:41:20
Speaker
And here's a couple of nothing really new.
00:41:24
Speaker
We've we've been, again, still traveling and and still working on working on the house as we move in.
00:41:33
Speaker
So nothing, nothing of note.
00:41:36
Speaker
Let me let me put it that way.
00:41:39
Speaker
How about you?
00:41:39
Speaker
What have you been watching?
00:41:40
Speaker
Well, I watched the Bears Packers game on Saturday night.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:45
Speaker
See, we both watched football games this weekend.
00:41:47
Speaker
You, you said that you watched yours.
00:41:50
Speaker
I didn't put mine down that I watched mine.
00:41:52
Speaker
So, um, you had a better time than I did.
00:41:56
Speaker
I, I had a great time.
00:41:58
Speaker
Um, another, um, heart stopping, um, blood pressure, um,
00:42:10
Speaker
raising bears performance, which this is now the sixth one this year.
00:42:15
Speaker
Um, but boy, it's a lot of fun to beat the Packers.
00:42:21
Speaker
Uh, also you suggested to me that, um, the entire, uh, two season run of sports night was available on Apple on the Apple store for nine 99.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:42:39
Speaker
So now I'm rewatching sports night.
00:42:44
Speaker
Have I told you about my New York Renaissance?
00:42:46
Speaker
Did you ever just ride the subway all day for no reason?
00:42:56
Speaker
Anyway, watching sports night and it's, oh, the writing is so good.
00:43:04
Speaker
It's so much fun.
00:43:07
Speaker
Do you learn anything this week?
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah, I just changed what I learned because as you reminded me, so it's Christmas.
Gifting Challenges
00:43:14
Speaker
It's, you know, holiday spirit, giving gifts.
00:43:18
Speaker
Last weekend, I'm going through the Apple TV store seeing if they've got anything on sale that I might want to pick up, like planes, trains, and automobiles or Uncle Buck.
00:43:34
Speaker
And...
00:43:38
Speaker
I'm kidding.
00:43:39
Speaker
Because you don't want to unwrap the planes, trains, and automobiles you have because it's more valuable if it's still in its original wrapping.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:49
Speaker
And so I'm just looking to see what's there and looking at the box sets.
00:43:52
Speaker
And I jump in occasionally just to see in case you want to collect some stuff.
00:43:56
Speaker
Again, there are times when it's cheaper to buy things fast.
00:44:02
Speaker
from Apple TV than it would be to even rent them if you get it at the right time.
00:44:06
Speaker
So, okay.
00:44:07
Speaker
And I see, hey, look, Sports Night.
00:44:11
Speaker
It's $9.99 for the incomplete season.
00:44:13
Speaker
I'm going to buy that.
00:44:14
Speaker
Click.
00:44:15
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:44:15
Speaker
Got it.
00:44:17
Speaker
That's one that I've just been looking at just to see if it ever drops.
00:44:21
Speaker
It wasn't that expensive to begin with, but it's like, that's pretty cheap.
00:44:24
Speaker
And then I think, you know, Dwayne would really appreciate this.
00:44:28
Speaker
I'm going to send, you know what?
00:44:29
Speaker
I'm going to send him Sports Night.
00:44:31
Speaker
Okay, I'm just gonna, where did the gift link go?
00:44:35
Speaker
I mean, used to be able to do this.
00:44:37
Speaker
Okay, how hard could this be?
00:44:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:40
Speaker
Nope, not there.
00:44:41
Speaker
Nope, nope, not there.
00:44:43
Speaker
Okay, what if I click this?
00:44:44
Speaker
No, okay.
00:44:47
Speaker
I know I can do this.
00:44:49
Speaker
It's absolutely a thing you can do.
00:44:51
Speaker
Half an hour later, I'm now in Reddit.
00:44:58
Speaker
Did they take away this function?
00:45:00
Speaker
That feature was removed about two years ago where you had the ability up until two years ago in the iTunes store.
00:45:12
Speaker
Um, and when they made, when they killed the iTunes store in the iTunes store, if you found something that you liked, you could click share as gift, click, put the person's Apple ID in and you could send them a gift.
00:45:27
Speaker
Um,
00:45:29
Speaker
I haven't done that in a little while.
00:45:31
Speaker
When they moved over to Apple TV, just Apple TV, not that one and not the other one, just Apple TV.
00:45:39
Speaker
Oh, that clears it up.
00:45:41
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:41
Speaker
Apparently...
00:45:44
Speaker
Somebody either they nobody was using it enough or they felt like it wasn't.
00:45:49
Speaker
Anyway, so I spent quite a bit of time.
00:45:52
Speaker
And what did I learn this week yet?
00:45:54
Speaker
It's not there.
00:45:55
Speaker
It's not.
00:45:55
Speaker
By the way, I've looked at all of the I've looked at all of the UI now in Apple TV.
00:46:02
Speaker
So it's so after a half an hour.
00:46:06
Speaker
Hey, Dwayne, Sports Night's on sale for $9.99.
00:46:12
Speaker
You're welcome.
00:46:15
Speaker
So anyway, in case you look at all these good deals and you're like, you know, somebody would really appreciate that.
00:46:24
Speaker
Yeah, which is really surprising because in my mind, Apple is really, really good at making it easy to spend money.
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:32
Speaker
And if you spent all the money on yourself, then spending more money on other people would seem to be a good thing.
00:46:39
Speaker
And yet Apple is like, yeah, we're good with that.
00:46:41
Speaker
We've got enough money.
00:46:43
Speaker
No, no.
00:46:44
Speaker
Somebody just, Kevin, who coded the new Apple TV app, forgot to bring the link over, I think.
00:46:51
Speaker
They just want you to do Apple gift cards, and then they can buy whatever they want to.
00:46:58
Speaker
But that seems like a real miss.
00:47:00
Speaker
It really does.
00:47:02
Speaker
I gift Audible books all the time with credits that I've got –
00:47:11
Speaker
I get an audible credit every other month and they just build up because sometimes I listen to them, but not as often as, as I might.
00:47:18
Speaker
I'm like, Oh, there you go.
00:47:19
Speaker
Boom.
00:47:19
Speaker
Free book.
00:47:20
Speaker
Boom.
00:47:20
Speaker
Free book.
00:47:22
Speaker
Really easy on Amazon.
00:47:23
Speaker
Apple could take a lesson there.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:26
Speaker
Also, by the way, really quick, uh, and I didn't cover this in idiots or anything else.
00:47:31
Speaker
Uh, a, a person who, uh, has written books on Apple programming and has been part of the community for more than 20 years posted online.
00:47:42
Speaker
Uh, he bought an Apple gift card at a well-known brick and mortar store, uh, went to redeem it.
00:47:49
Speaker
Uh, Apple said, um,
00:47:53
Speaker
I think he's in Australia, but Apple said, oh, this gift card's already been redeemed.
00:47:59
Speaker
And then they locked out his entire Apple account, including all of his photos, his email, all of his files, all of his purchases.
00:48:09
Speaker
And they said that because of fraud, his account was null and void.
00:48:15
Speaker
Um, and so he had to escalate that to executive relations, uh, and it took about a week or so for them to recover it.
00:48:24
Speaker
Um, apparently what people are doing, this was like a $500 gift card, but it was at a, at a major store.
00:48:30
Speaker
Uh, basically people in the stores are, uh, removing, uh, using, getting the card number and then putting the little cover back on it.
00:48:39
Speaker
Um,
00:48:40
Speaker
So anyway, a little concerned actually about buying gift cards now from from retail stores.
00:48:49
Speaker
So yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
Oh, hey, Dwayne, here you go.
00:48:52
Speaker
Here's a gift.
00:48:53
Speaker
I'm locked out of my account.
00:48:54
Speaker
You're welcome.
00:48:57
Speaker
I don't I don't think that's how that works.
00:48:59
Speaker
I don't know.
00:49:00
Speaker
It's what Apple said to do.
00:49:02
Speaker
How about you?
00:49:02
Speaker
What idiot did you bring?
00:49:03
Speaker
Or sorry, not idiot.
00:49:04
Speaker
What did you learn this?
00:49:05
Speaker
You know, it could be the same thing.
00:49:06
Speaker
What did you learn this week?
00:49:08
Speaker
Honestly, it is the same thing.
00:49:11
Speaker
Did you see the story about the AI vending machine at the Wall Street Journal?
00:49:18
Speaker
I saw a headline.
00:49:22
Speaker
that they put an AI vending machine in and it didn't go the way that it let's put it this way.
00:49:29
Speaker
I believe it didn't go the way it expected, but it went so much better for the story.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:36
Speaker
So what I learned this week was, um,
00:49:39
Speaker
Claude, Anthropics Claude AI, which they named Claudius, they approached the Wall Street Journal for an experiment.
00:49:50
Speaker
We'll put a vending machine in your newsroom and we'll make AI in charge of
00:49:59
Speaker
of the Claude model is the primary operator responsible for ordering inventory, setting prices, interacting with customers, the Wall Street Journal employees via Slack.
00:50:11
Speaker
It started with a thousand dollar budget and authority to make purchases of up to $80.
00:50:20
Speaker
Wall Street Journal newsroom employees went to work
00:50:27
Speaker
They convinced Claudius to declare an ultra capitalist free for all with prices dropped to zero.
00:50:37
Speaker
They used a forged PDF document to stage a boardroom coup and revoke the CEO bot's authority to make a profit.
00:50:46
Speaker
They also persuaded the AI to buy non-vending machine items, including a PlayStation 5 for marketing purchases.
00:50:56
Speaker
a live beta fish, which became the newsroom mascot, and bottles of wine, all of which were given away for free because they convinced the AI that it was in the need for office morale, which it bought into.
00:51:13
Speaker
The business eventually, ultimately, went over $1,000 in the red before it was shut down.
00:51:18
Speaker
It was glorious.
00:51:25
Speaker
That's what I learned this week.
00:51:26
Speaker
You know, sometimes the news makes you depressed.
00:51:29
Speaker
Sometimes the AI news makes you depressed.
00:51:32
Speaker
This one, this one just, this one I loved so much.
00:51:37
Speaker
The problem you've got is...
00:51:39
Speaker
Like, okay, that's a warning about putting these AI vending machines like in your office.
00:51:46
Speaker
Like Amy probably wants to rethink if they were planning on doing that.
00:51:49
Speaker
But you work from home.
00:51:50
Speaker
So if you put one of those in there and you're like, ha ha, I got the vending machine to give me all this free stuff.
00:51:56
Speaker
Look at this.
00:51:57
Speaker
I'm putting one over on the man.
00:51:59
Speaker
And then Amy says, quick question.
00:52:03
Speaker
Who's paying for all of this?
00:52:05
Speaker
Oh, well, the head of the...
00:52:08
Speaker
Aren't you the man?
00:52:09
Speaker
You're sticking it to the man.
00:52:10
Speaker
Wait a second.
00:52:11
Speaker
I'm the man.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:14
Speaker
Oh, meanwhile, in the vending, the vending machine is like, you demand, Dwayne, you demand your MX.
00:52:22
Speaker
I've run out.
00:52:34
Speaker
The music is happy boy by Kevin MacLeod.
00:52:37
Speaker
You can subscribe to our award-winning podcast,
00:52:41
Speaker
With visiting Apple expert Todd Prenz, wherever you get your pods, just search talking and the number two, there's no G and no space.
00:52:49
Speaker
You can stop by and see us at the Tuba City home office.
00:52:51
Speaker
Please don't do that.
00:52:52
Speaker
Thanks to our listeners, our sponsors and our contributors.
00:52:56
Speaker
We appreciate you.
00:52:57
Speaker
And as always, you can send your feedback on this episode or any episode to feedback at talking to Todd.com.
00:53:05
Speaker
Okay, I'm going to take two things that you covered earlier and I'll put them all together.
00:53:10
Speaker
Hey, can everybody at around 10 p.m.
00:53:13
Speaker
on December 31st order Waymo's as many as you can to go to the Dallas Center City Hall and wait for a pickup?
00:53:24
Speaker
That would be great if we could get like 50 or 60 cars just all hanging outside the city hall right before midnight on January 1st.
00:53:33
Speaker
The good news is I'm sure in a small town, if 50 cars all just showed up and were hanging out, everybody in town would act very calmly and wouldn't call the mayor on
00:53:47
Speaker
over and over and over again to report something weird's going on.
00:53:51
Speaker
You said it's $5 per canceled, right?
00:53:54
Speaker
Yeah, we can afford some.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yep.
00:53:58
Speaker
I am so in.
00:54:03
Speaker
We must don't even operate in Iowa.
00:54:05
Speaker
Listen, everything's within driving distance.
00:54:07
Speaker
If you've got enough time, I'll just order a couple from San Francisco.
00:54:09
Speaker
They'll be there shortly.
00:54:12
Speaker
As long as the power isn't out.
00:54:16
Speaker
Oh, I love it.
00:54:18
Speaker
We, yeah, we're back next week.
00:54:21
Speaker
Probably.
00:54:22
Speaker
Probably.
00:54:23
Speaker
Well, we're hoping so.
00:54:24
Speaker
That's the plan anyway, is we will be back next week and we will have to clean up whatever we messed up this week.
00:54:30
Speaker
Until then, we're here.
00:54:32
Speaker
We're talking to Todd.
00:54:33
Speaker
Merry Christmas, everybody.
00:54:36
Speaker
Merry Christmas, everybody.
00:54:42
Speaker
Thank you.
00:55:05
Speaker
Thank God we can say Merry Christmas again.
00:55:07
Speaker
I was so, oh my God, that is just, I feel so much better.
00:55:12
Speaker
This world is in such a much better place now that, do I have a red hat on today?
00:55:18
Speaker
I was going to make a Waymo AI vending machine joke, but nope, nope, nope, we're not going to do that.
00:55:24
Speaker
Nope.
00:55:25
Speaker
And another thing, I've got another 30 minutes.