Transcript
Speaker: The main downside is that, like, you can't read in the dark.
Speaker: So basically, most people can't read in the dark.
Speaker: If you're in the dark, how are you supposed to read?
Speaker: I mean, the display, the display isn't lit.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What's the smallest place you've ever lived at?
Speaker: Like besides our childhood home?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you lived in a one bedroom?
Speaker: You lived in a studio?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: You've never lived in a studio, Jeff?
Speaker: Mm-mm.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Jason?
Speaker: I had a room rental.
Speaker: Oh yeah?
Speaker: Where was that?
Speaker: In Savage, in Minnesota.
Speaker: Oh yeah?
Speaker: I lived- When was that?
Speaker: 2007, 2008.
Speaker: Maybe not the year, like give me the circumstances.
Speaker: You'd moved out of dad's house.
Speaker: I was out of, yeah, I was out of the parents' house and I was finishing school.
Speaker: But was that before you and James lived together?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Why were you out of the parents' house?
Speaker: Because some, some older brother moved in.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That's actually what happened.
Speaker: So yeah, James had moved in.
Speaker: I forgot about that.
Speaker: James had moved in and I was like, uh, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker: I was like, what?
Speaker: I was like, yeah.
Speaker: I kind of just want to have my own space.
Speaker: And that's what I did is I moved out and I was there for like almost two years actually.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I lived with them.
Speaker: So it was 2008 through 2007 through 2009.
Speaker: Was it a random person or was it somebody you knew?
Speaker: It was a, what is it?
Speaker: I think it was Craigslist.
Speaker: They did it when Craigslist wasn't creepy.
Speaker: So you didn't get murdered, obviously, because you're on.
Speaker: No, no, no, I didn't.
Speaker: And they were super nice.
Speaker: But went through the whole process.
Speaker: And you forget about these things when you can actually talk to an adult and a human like that.
Speaker: Other people are humans, too.
Speaker: And it's like it's not that hard to just kind of.
Speaker: Well, what are you doing?
Speaker: It's like, well, I'm going to school and I'm working full time.
Speaker: And they go, OK, what else are you doing?
Speaker: And they go, I'm.
Speaker: that's pretty much it.
Speaker: And they go, okay, here's how much the room is.
Speaker: Uh, what was like the age differential?
Speaker: Was it, uh, uh, uh, what was the, the, like, what were the demographics of the rest of the house?
Speaker: So they were, um, a dating couple within three years of my age.
Speaker: So it wasn't like that much big of an age gap.
Speaker: Um, and her younger sister had rented the room.
Speaker: Um, so there was two bedrooms upstairs and, um,
Speaker: We had shared a bathroom, but it was totally fine.
Speaker: She was actually like super, super genuinely nice person.
Speaker: First couple of months and then she moved out, get her own place, and then she eventually moved back in during that time.
Speaker: But it was actually really, really good experience, I think, overall, which was nice.
Speaker: It was like 400 bucks a month.
Speaker: And the bedroom was way bigger, way, way bigger.
Speaker: It's twice as large.
Speaker: I mean, this is a...
Speaker: probably a 700 square foot place.
Speaker: You did also in that room, put a oversized picture of a woman looking at you while you were sleeping, right?
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was in that place.
Speaker: It was actually an overlarge picture of Carol Burnett.
Speaker: So, you know, this,
Speaker: I was fairly certain you were going to say Roseanne Barr.
Speaker: James, I hadn't thought about some of that stuff in it.
Speaker: We, you know, we've, we lived together when we were kids and then you guys have lived together, I guess, two different times, right?
Speaker: As adults.
Speaker: I would say moving to Minnesota was definitely not a planned event.
Speaker: It really was stemmed off of Jason, our trip to Arkansas in the spring of 2006, which was a good time for us to bond.
Speaker: That was also the S10 trip, of course, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point, the infamous tailgate story, which we'll get to in a bit.
Speaker: It's just a little wet the appetite.
Speaker: But yeah, for sure.
Speaker: I came back to Silicon Valley.
Speaker: Silicon Valley.
Speaker: Silicon Valley, everybody.
Speaker: Silicon Valley.
Speaker: Silicon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To my job at Big Five.
Speaker: And as you both know, Big Five is the retail management job where they require you to dress in a dress shirt and a tie and work nine hour shifts, basically.
Speaker: The premier sporting goods experience of Big Five.
Speaker: Yeah, I want to marinate on that for a second.
Speaker: I can appreciate Big Five.
Speaker: I was a customer when we lived in California.
Speaker: But you have to wear a shirt and tie to sell jockstraps?
Speaker: That doesn't seem... And guns.
Speaker: And guns, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That just brings up, did they ever do some kind of promotion where if you buy a gun, you get a free jockstrap?
Speaker: I don't know what would be the combos.
Speaker: Actually, I know we talked about retail stuff before, but what was the strangest combination?
Speaker: And then I do want to get back to the living situation.
Speaker: What was the strangest combination of items that someone ever bought at Big Fives at once?
Speaker: We did have firearms, but there were sometimes they were referred to as like war guns, basically like old military rifles that were coated in oil and basically covered in like restorative oil.
Speaker: But, you know, for all intents and purposes, they're like,
Speaker: They're equivalent to your car that you bought at the pawn shop.
Speaker: They're like, buy this as a relic and then you can – if you know gun maintenance, you can spruce it up and make it basically fireable or a functional weapon.
Speaker: I thought they only sold new guns.
Speaker: They sold used firearms.
Speaker: they sold what they would call like historical relics so they would come in they would be essentially rebadged or rebranded as you know we salvaged these but you know we're going to oil them up good and i know that sounds really weird but we're going to basically make them to where you can purchase them um as as relics so next to the shotguns and rifles there were like
Speaker: two or three every, you know, quarterly, we would get two or three.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And, and so somebody came in to look at one of the guns, but because the guns had oil all over them, like they've got like this kind of coated oil or whatever.
Speaker: They were also looking at binoculars and they didn't treat their hands like with care.
Speaker: So they went over to touch the binoculars and almost like, because they got so oily, they basically had to buy the binoculars.
Speaker: They passed them the gun, but they were like,
Speaker: I was like, well, sir, you ruined these binoculars because you have oily hands.
Speaker: And so they ended up buying like, you know, rather than me say, oh, it's okay.
Speaker: I was like, no, you have to pay for them.
Speaker: They're like $40.
Speaker: You have to buy them.
Speaker: I think I give them a discount, like a sale price, like last sale price, because that person didn't realize, oh, you ruined it.
Speaker: But that's probably the weirdest, you know, here's a military rifle from the 1830s.
Speaker: you know, their hands are oily and then they're getting like a pair of modern, like birding binoculars.
Speaker: And the only reason they're getting them is because they ruined the oil as a result of it.
Speaker: You ever get any, uh, archery and bikinis, you know, that sort of thing, maybe compound bow and a basketball hoop.
Speaker: Like, well, we're going to do now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We sold Heelys though.
Speaker: Of course you did.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: That's what you use in a crossbow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Welcome to San Jose Memorial Medical Center, where I'm the first surgeon to surgically remove a broadhead from someone's thigh after their heelie went into a gutter and they detonated themselves.
Speaker: They shot themselves in the...
Speaker: All right, so you're at Big Five.
Speaker: Yeah, I came back to work after being close to the family, really visiting our family for the first time in a long time.
Speaker: Something that I think both of you are gonna have the opportunity to do here as we're on the cusp of the holidays.
Speaker: But I came back and I was like, my heart was like,
Speaker: Hey, I kind of want to, I think I might want to move to Minnesota.
Speaker: Like I miss my family.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I kind of impulsively in, in some ways I impulsively made the decision.
Speaker: Cause I think Jason, our trip was your birthday weekend, which is like in March.
Speaker: And I came back and like four days later after coming back from California, I was like, I'm moving to, I'm moving to Minnesota and in like four weeks.
Speaker: What was your living situation in California at that time?
Speaker: Also a room for rent.
Speaker: Mine was a little more unique though, because I did have a bathroom to myself.
Speaker: But I had gone basically for a little bit in just room for rent situations.
Speaker: Sometimes they were with girlfriends of mine or girlfriends.
Speaker: I had one girlfriend back in California.
Speaker: But yeah, like, you know, essentially I would get a room to myself in every place I went, the room would get a little bit smaller, but I would still feel, you know, just fine.
Speaker: So, you know, moving to Minnesota is like, hey, there's an extra room at, you know, this is me not really thinking through what it's going to do to the chemistry between, you know, my younger brother, who's already established, but also like my parents, which is like, that's another dynamic.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: You don't now they call it helicopter, but I didn't, you know, I was in my mid twenties.
Speaker: So I was like, I mean, you mean boomerang?
Speaker: Boomerang.
Speaker: What is the helicopter?
Speaker: Oh, helicopter parent.
Speaker: Wait, what's the difference?
Speaker: Yeah, kid boomerangs back into the house.
Speaker: Helicopter parents are always hovering.
Speaker: And so when the kids need something, or even in some cases when the kid doesn't need something, and the helicopter parent wants to insert themselves in it, that's the... I've been using it wrong the whole time.
Speaker: I called myself a helicopter kid or whatever.
Speaker: But yes, I was a boomerang kid.
Speaker: And I moved back in with uninvited, I would say, but also just like, at first I was like, this is going to be fun.
Speaker: And then after maybe six months of like, hey, you know, Jason, I'm stifling, you know, his ability to be, you know, have his own place or something like that.
Speaker: Because he had one bedroom and then I had the other, like basically in the basement on the other side of the house.
Speaker: And it wasn't that.
Speaker: It was just, you know, like,
Speaker: It's not easy to reestablish that when you're both adults.
Speaker: So Jason moved out, and then I stayed for a little bit longer.
Speaker: And then when did you guys move back in together?
Speaker: It was like a year and a half after that, about two years.
Speaker: So it was 2009, I think.
Speaker: You bounced, rented a room for a year, year and a half, Jason?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And you moved in together in the house or the condo first?
Speaker: Apartment.
Speaker: We had an apartment.
Speaker: Oh, even prior to the condo?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was the same building that when mom and dad moved to the city's
Speaker: It was the same building.
Speaker: It wasn't the same apartment.
Speaker: That would have been creepy, but it was the same building.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it was almost like, Jason, I don't know if you remember this, but like when I looked for it, I was like, I didn't remember that they had lived there.
Speaker: Did you remember at first?
Speaker: It wasn't the same building.
Speaker: It was the same apartment complex, but they were in the building next to ours.
Speaker: So they were across the way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I didn't even, I blanked that they had even lived there in the first place.
Speaker: I totally remember the whole time.
Speaker: So, yeah, I just let you kind of live like that.
Speaker: Well, by the way, it wasn't like dad, it wasn't like going there was uncomfortable because dad was like cousin Eddie wearing, you know, like, like dress shoes at the pool or anything like that.
Speaker: Like, like, you know, that's okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was part of the way through 2010 that we had moved in together.
Speaker: And then we had lived there for a year and I think we extended the lease for a couple months, if not mistaken.
Speaker: And then did you get the house first or the condo?
Speaker: Condo.
Speaker: So then you guys took over one of dad's condos, right?
Speaker: Well, we were the first tenants of his condo.
Speaker: Oh yeah?
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: And we, well, James and dad hastily crafted a bedroom in the basement.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: For whom?
Speaker: Now I had the basement to myself.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And, and true to form, like, you know, in the, in the apartment, it was also like, we each had a room, we each had our own bathroom, but true to form, like, um, in the basement, I had the same setup, but my bedroom space was like this really tiny, it was literally a 10 by 10.
Speaker: It was tinier than that, but it was, um, and then I, what I envisioned was that this open space was going to be for like, Oh, I can have like a music studio or like podcast recording sort of thing.
Speaker: So much room for activities.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it was like all sorts of activities.
Speaker: And yeah, and that worked for a year and a year and a half about, I think.
Speaker: And then an opportunity came up to buy a house of my own.
Speaker: I bought it and Jason and I moved in over there.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, I would even say like,
Speaker: moving from the apartment to the condo to the house, there's never any question that like, hey, at that point, like we know each other well enough or we've been around each other for long enough that it's like not a big deal.
Speaker: But that first, you know, that first sort of impulse of James is moving to Minnesota.
Speaker: It didn't normally like it would be kind of like if you said, Jeff, oh, I'm going to move to Minnesota.
Speaker: You know, I would be like, oh, I'm
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Is it the right time to tell you that I'm moving to Minnesota?
Speaker: I would be excited, but then I would also be like, Oh, like, you know, in my head, maybe Jason, you felt this too, but like, I'd be like, how much time does he actually want to spend with me?
Speaker: Like, does he want to be closer to me?
Speaker: And that sort of thing.
Speaker: It's now time to tell him that you're moving into his apartment.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: On an unrelated note, Karen is moving back to California.
Speaker: No, no, I'm saying because this apartment is not really set up for three people.
Speaker: Okay, so James, you've done room for rent, own apartment, apartment with a girlfriend, a partner with a brother, condo with a brother, house with a brother, and now you're back solo apartment.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You never did a studio.
Speaker: Your smallest was a room for rent.
Speaker: I did do a studio.
Speaker: I actually did a really tiny studio in San Jose.
Speaker: Is that in Silicon Valley?
Speaker: $7,000 a month.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was expensive.
Speaker: I think now it's $7,000.
Speaker: Silicon Valley.
Speaker: It was actually in San Jose.
Speaker: It was on the edge of San Jose.
Speaker: Right there on the edge.
Speaker: It's still part of the valley.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it was basically divided.
Speaker: I would say it's like maybe just call it 40 by 20.
Speaker: That's too big.
Speaker: Anyway, it was like divided into six pack.
Speaker: So it was a six pack.
Speaker: So one can is the bathroom.
Speaker: One can is like a walk-in closet very generously, but it's literally like that's the only storage space.
Speaker: Then one can is the kitchen.
Speaker: So it's a very tiny kitchen.
Speaker: And then the whole other half was like, oh, you can do whatever you want with it.
Speaker: And I was like, I was in hog heaven because I was like, oh, I have all this, not like I have all this furniture, but I have all this space to do everything and run around and stuff.
Speaker: And it was really, really tiny.
Speaker: But I do remember my...
Speaker: most favorite, like, I didn't have a car at that time.
Speaker: So my most favorite, like piece of furniture was a screen like vintage, basically crappy lazy boy that I found at the Salvation Army, which was within walking distance to my apartment.
Speaker: And it was like maybe 10 bucks or something.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, man, 10 bucks.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, wait, I don't have a car.
Speaker: So sure, what do you think I'm going to do?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So of course, I'm like, I'm going to buy it.
Speaker: And they were like, do you want to pull your car around?
Speaker: I was like, no, thanks.
Speaker: And so you can just imagine me like, like, hold on, how are you walking a lazy boy?
Speaker: Because is it one that reclines and everything?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So when people, people move like reclining sofas or sectionals, like they always come in.
Speaker: How did you, how did you walk with a lazy boy?
Speaker: I kind of bear grabbed it and lifted it as best I could and just tried to like waddle my way back.
Speaker: I mean, I was I think I was in like better upper body shape at that point.
Speaker: But the truth, truth be told, I was young.
Speaker: So, of course, I'm going to have like the adrenaline and energy to be like, I can carry this.
Speaker: I look like a freaking idiot.
Speaker: Basically, I'm just like, what?
Speaker: Can you imagine the people driving by are going like, what the hell?
Speaker: I think that guy's got a lazy boy on his back.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And thankfully it didn't like, it had one of those firm recliner sticks.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, you know, like nowadays it's like, if you like breathe on it, it's going to like recline back or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This one was like spring loaded.
Speaker: So thankfully I didn't have to work.
Speaker: See, you didn't walk across the street and it deploys and smashes.
Speaker: I mean, I guess to your credit, Uber didn't exist.
Speaker: Lyft didn't exist.
Speaker: You can't really call a cab.
Speaker: I mean, you could have, but it wasn't easy.
Speaker: I guess you paid the $20 to deliver it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, thanks.
Speaker: Do they do that?
Speaker: No, not at the Salvation Army.
Speaker: I mean, the closest thing would have been...
Speaker: The Lucky.
Speaker: Did you have gotten like a shopping cart or something?
Speaker: Yeah, like Lucky.
Speaker: There's a grocery store just kind of across the street.
Speaker: So I could have been like, can I borrow this for like 30 minutes?
Speaker: And they probably would have said like, no.
Speaker: Could you imagine that your neighbor is the person that brings this old ass recliner down the stairs, nearly dies, to throw it in the bed of a truck, to take it down to the Salvation Army.
Speaker: Only to see you walking down the street, going back up the same set of stairs.
Speaker: It'd be crazy.
Speaker: What in the hell was wrong with this guy?
Speaker: I had the ad on here for $4 and nobody wanted my $4 recliner.
Speaker: It was a, it was a good experience to have.
Speaker: And I'm glad I didn't do more furniture that way.
Speaker: Like most of the other stuff that I had, I think it was not long after that I got, I got a car or I got a girlfriend with a car, which was great.
Speaker: I probably could have waited for grandma and just been like, Hey grandma, you want to like help me get this furniture in my house?
Speaker: But, and she would have been just all too happy to be like, Oh sure, honey, that sort of thing.
Speaker: But even grandma's tempo would have not easily probably moved.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: I mean, nothing really moves a lazy boy besides a pickup.
Speaker: Yeah, you can.
Speaker: Yeah, you could.
Speaker: I was thinking like maybe you could wedge it because it was like it was I think it was pretty cool, but it was like puke green.
Speaker: It was it was itchy wool.
Speaker: It was it was not what people would say is like, oh, I want that.
Speaker: That's going to be super.
Speaker: I was like, hey, I'm on a budget here.
Speaker: And like, I don't have a place to sit and eat while I watch my, you know, 18 inch.
Speaker: bubble television or whatever, you know, before streaming or whatever.
Speaker: But I did want something to game on.
Speaker: I did want something to like recline in.
Speaker: So it was really good experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that apartment, but I don't think I would ever live in an apartment that small again.
Speaker: And it was for that price in 2000, 2003 money or something.
Speaker: It was like,
Speaker: 825 and now i think it's like in the 2000s just for that same sort of you know they had a pool there which was good but technically when i moved out i should have thrown that recliner in the pool just been like hey you know now somebody can fit and then somebody the next person fishes it out and starts carrying it on their back it had a pool but you had to be really careful of carl the raccoon he got really feisty swim on the deep end
Speaker: So Jason, you effectively have the same living situation as James, just minus your own studio with a cumbersome, heavy, itchy, lazy boy, correct?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: I was excited because I had a small desk in my room on the end of my basically futon bed.
Speaker: So I was kind of like sleeping on the floor, essentially, the majority of the time.
Speaker: And then I got a real bed.
Speaker: And then I realized, oh, this is not good because I didn't have any room in that room.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Just when I kind of moved back into or moved in with James.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I've done I've done apartments.
Speaker: I've never lived in a studio.
Speaker: I've done three different rooms for rent.
Speaker: There's one that's fairly memorable.
Speaker: And then otherwise, it's been either homes or apartments or whatever.
Speaker: But the rooms for rent are memorable for a few reasons.
Speaker: So when I moved from
Speaker: Texas to California the first time, I remember I was like, you know, getting ready for my house hunting trip.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, well, you know, I have a two bedroom, two bath apartment here with a roommate in Dallas.
Speaker: And I paid at the time, like $8.89 a month.
Speaker: I was like, so, you know, it's only a few years old.
Speaker: It's got a full size washer and dryer inside the apartment.
Speaker: You know, it's, it's normal, comfortable, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And normal at that time.
Speaker: And so I'm like, yeah, I guess I'm going to have to pay a little bit more if I'm just living by myself in
Speaker: in Southern California.
Speaker: And so I'm like, all right, well, let me see what what I can find for $800 at the time in Orange County.
Speaker: Or maybe I started at 700 and it said nothing.
Speaker: That's kind of weird.
Speaker: So then I push it to 800, nothing.
Speaker: Then I push it to 900 and it said 55 and up community.
Speaker: So age verification.
Speaker: Then I push it up another hundred and it was income verification required.
Speaker: So you have to be below a certain income level to qualify for the departments.
Speaker: And so I'm like, man, this is ridiculous.
Speaker: So I ended up renting a room from some college kids and the girl and her boyfriend, the girl's parents bought them a house to live in while they were going to college, which was awesome.
Speaker: And so I rented a room there.
Speaker: But I remember what was funny was same thing, Jason, you talked about Craigslist.
Speaker: You know, I think I found him on Craigslist or somewhere else.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: I went to interview them or interview with them and I felt nervous.
Speaker: Like this is kind of like a job interview, right?
Speaker: Cause at that point I'd only lived with like either friends from school.
Speaker: I'd never lived with a random person.
Speaker: And, and I was also a couple of years older than them, but, but like two or three, it wasn't radically different.
Speaker: But I remember I interviewed with them.
Speaker: I know I made some dumb jokes, I'm sure that's just my style.
Speaker: And so then I'm like, all right, well, cool, we'll just let me know.
Speaker: And, you know, I was leaving back to go to Texas like a couple of days later.
Speaker: And so, you know, I wanted to close the deal to make sure like, hey, can I move in or not?
Speaker: But I didn't want to push.
Speaker: And so I was just like, all right, cool, we'll just let me know.
Speaker: Well, then, you know, I walk out the door, get my car and my rental car and drive back to the hotel.
Speaker: Well, later, you know, they called me and they said, Hey, we'd like you to move in everything.
Speaker: Well, what they told me, though, is they go, Hey, we were so impressed by you, that like, when you got up to walk out, we were going to stop you like, like, we're like, Oh, well, maybe we'll just tell them we wanted to move in.
Speaker: But they were worried about looking too eager to have me move in.
Speaker: And so they said they went and like, within, you know, 30 seconds of me walking out the door,
Speaker: You know, they go out to see if I had and I had already driven away.
Speaker: So so that was that was my first time renting a room.
Speaker: So I don't know that I've ever been a bad roommate and I don't know that I've really had bad roommates.
Speaker: But yeah, the only other thing that I remember about over the years was.
Speaker: when I would interview roommates, because there was a time where I had a two bedroom apartment.
Speaker: And so and I, you know, to in order to kind of save some money, and also having another person around was okay, I liked it.
Speaker: I remember, there was one time where I had moved and
Speaker: I didn't have any furniture.
Speaker: And so, and so I thought, man, you know, if I don't have any furniture in the living room or the kitchen, like they're going to think I'm a psychopath.
Speaker: Like what, what, why is this guy interviewing me to rent the other room?
Speaker: And like, where is, where is all the furniture?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because, because on one hand it's like, well, Hey, my bedroom has stuff.
Speaker: And obviously I'm sure they would have their stuff.
Speaker: But I was thinking in my head, like, okay, well, like, do I do I say like, hey, I'm leaving it open for like interpretive dance or like, how would I how would I how would I navigate this?
Speaker: And so I remember I had another coworker who had gone to like a furniture and antiques auction.
Speaker: And there when we lived in in Southern California in Orange County, he
Speaker: So by the way, Orange County sounds snobby, but it's definitely not.
Speaker: Silicon Valley.
Speaker: Silicon Valley.
Speaker: So when I lived in the OC, I remember.
Speaker: It's not helping.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I bought furniture at this auction just so like before I was interviewing prospective roommates, I had furniture so I didn't look like an absolute psychopath.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it was inflatable though.
Speaker: So like when you would like interview and hear like the ruffled vinyl underneath your butt, you're like, no, I mean, I actually did that.
Speaker: That furniture auction was pretty cool, you know, because it's just like a regular like car auction, which I, what I was used to professionally.
Speaker: And so, you know, it's the habit of it, habit of it, you know, and so all that, all that stuff.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Speaking of auctions, like I've obviously been in the sports card side of things, so auctions are familiar to me as well.
Speaker: Also video game auctions.
Speaker: And I would even say like we talked about, or I mentioned Salvation Army and now Goodwill is cool.
Speaker: I did recently get some old tech restored.
Speaker: I bought like an old Kindle keyboard.
Speaker: Hold on a second.
Speaker: An old Kindle keyboard.
Speaker: So Kindle, yeah.
Speaker: So Amazon, you know, now they've got fire titles.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: There's some levels of obscurity, okay?
Speaker: James is the person who had a Sony Xperia phone.
Speaker: In fact, he has had two.
Speaker: I still have it.
Speaker: It's right behind me.
Speaker: I have my X10 Xperia.
Speaker: And when he threatened to cut them off, the Sony executives called me personally and said, we're going to break your brother's minds if you don't.
Speaker: Make sure he keeps using that.
Speaker: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That escalated quickly.
Speaker: It totally did.
Speaker: I was like, let's be reasonable here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: what if we get him some level of Android?
Speaker: And they said, look, if he buys a Kindle, make sure he buys a Kindle keyboard to read.
Speaker: Our brother is literally, James, I love you, but you are the physical and human embodiment of WALL-E.
Speaker: I don't understand how you find stuff and you make it your treasure.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Yeah, but the camera's 15 megapixel.
Speaker: I mean, come on.
Speaker: Okay, what was the benefit before you get back to your Kindle keyboard?
Speaker: And so when you're saying Kindle keyboard, for those at home that, again, have not given up multiple episodes ago, for anyone that maybe they can't reach their phone or their computer or whatever device they're listening to, they can't turn us off.
Speaker: So if you haven't turned us off yet,
Speaker: James, when you say Kindle keyboard, you're talking about the first generation of Kindle e-readers that had a physical keyboard, correct?
Speaker: Third generation.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that's the Kindle keyboard.
Speaker: The Back to the Future 3 version of the Kindle.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: But back to your Sony.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So back to your Sony phone.
Speaker: Okay, so why did you insist on buying Sony phones?
Speaker: What was the unique selling proposition for the Sony phone?
Speaker: What caught your attention?
Speaker: It was the camera.
Speaker: It was Google, I think.
Speaker: They had a good camera.
Speaker: And it was also like, I didn't want to go mainstream with iPhone.
Speaker: I wasn't into the iPhone.
Speaker: I think I had had an iPhone at that point, but I was like, I know what it's like.
Speaker: And then rather than go full Android, I was like, well, I'll try the Sony one because it's better.
Speaker: What's the worst operating system and GUI and icon palette?
Speaker: How about Sony?
Speaker: Let's do that one.
Speaker: When Blackberry is just too damn fashionable, let's go Sony.
Speaker: You looked at that at the soda aisle at the grocery store and said, Coke, nope.
Speaker: Pepsi, uh-uh.
Speaker: It's got to be diet RC Cola for me.
Speaker: A Sony phone is the diet RC Cola of phones.
Speaker: I wouldn't even give it that much credit.
Speaker: I'd say it's the green Zevia cans where you're like, who the hell buys this?
Speaker: I have a Zevia can in my fridge right now.
Speaker: Of course you do.
Speaker: Because you're waiting for James to come and visit.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: And to be fair, they were out of Big K that day.
Speaker: So I couldn't.
Speaker: What about Dr. Thunder?
Speaker: There's another one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, James, so you're buying, you're buying not not obsolete.
Speaker: You're buying vintage tech to restore or restored.
Speaker: So Amazon did end support for this device, basically.
Speaker: So they essentially they say all the old Kindles.
Speaker: The reason why I got it, the two main reasons are that... Well, hold on.
Speaker: Finish your thought.
Speaker: When you say they say all the old Kindles, you can't just trail off.
Speaker: Like James, Jason and I are like holding on for the rest of that sentence.
Speaker: All the old Kindles and...
Speaker: All the old Kindles.
Speaker: All the old Kindles that they supported in the past, like prior to like 2013 or something like that.
Speaker: So meaning you can't download new books.
Speaker: You can.
Speaker: You can, but you have to do it very manually.
Speaker: Or do you have to go to some sketchy dark web to like some BitTorrent?
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: You have to.
Speaker: So you can still, this still gets on Wi-Fi and you can still send stuff to it, but you have to connect your, um,
Speaker: I can't go to the Amazon store and buy digital books here from the device anymore.
Speaker: Anyway, but I can still read it.
Speaker: Jason, Jason, this is, by the way, this is our wonderful brother that we love.
Speaker: hooking up like a 1980s dot matrix, a serial port to his, to his Kindle.
Speaker: So he can download, he can download books.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you can, you can put new books on it, but what's the downside?
Speaker: The main downsides is that like you can't read in the dark.
Speaker: So if you're on a phone, you can use the Kindle app.
Speaker: Most people can't read in the dark.
Speaker: If you're in the dark.
Speaker: How are you supposed to read?
Speaker: I mean, the display isn't lit.
Speaker: Newer Kindles, they have backlit, basically.
Speaker: So it's not a backlit display, I see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: In...
Speaker: In 2011, this was a cool thing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: But when I bought it, I think in 2013, I bought it new and I was like, oh, this is really cool.
Speaker: And the two features that it offered that didn't come with any other, even cell phones I wasn't really into.
Speaker: Like, I don't even think there was a Kindle app at that time.
Speaker: But the two things they offered were...
Speaker: music playback so you could put music on the kindle but then they also do text to speech um which is cool right like essentially you can spell kind of thing like yeah like very early you know like now it's like siri read this to me or something like that or have something all right so you wanted text to speech you wanted mp3 capability and you wanted an unbacklit screen
Speaker: I wanted a way to disconnect from reading on my phone, which is easy and I still do it, but it's like, if at the end of the night I don't want to have any distractions, I wanted something that was not distracting, if that makes sense.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I like physical books too.
Speaker: There's something tactile and tangible.
Speaker: So I get it.
Speaker: And reading on a screen, a small screen is hard.
Speaker: So you're making sense.
Speaker: But text to speech, I mean, it's not great.
Speaker: Just a heads up.
Speaker: Tense soul and spirit where true treasure lies.
Speaker: There is something about HSPs that is more soulful and spiritual.
Speaker: By soul, I mean that which is more subtle than the physical body, but still embodied like dreams and imagination.
Speaker: I mean, it's not engaging.
Speaker: No, but it's cheaper than Audible.
Speaker: So you said you bought it new in 2013, even though it was a 2011 model.
Speaker: And then did you lose it or get rid of it at some point?
Speaker: I feel like it ended up in a box in some ex-girlfriend's place.
Speaker: So I probably just didn't retrieve it.
Speaker: But I did buy a new one in 2022, 2021 or something like that.
Speaker: I bought a new to me.
Speaker: So I actually bought it at auction, I think for 30 bucks, basically.
Speaker: Okay, how much did it cost you to fix it?
Speaker: $3.
Speaker: But that's because I bought a second one.
Speaker: So hold on.
Speaker: You know, you can't gloss over the fact that you bought a parts, you bought a spare Kindle keyboard.
Speaker: Jason, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I'm looking at your expression across the way.
Speaker: I mean, shock, awe, dismay.
Speaker: Disappointment, actually, is what this is.
Speaker: This is like...
Speaker: It would have been cheaper to have bought a printing press at this point and probably more efficient to make your own books.
Speaker: It's not a 57 Chevy that you go, yeah, this one's pretty good, but it doesn't hurt to have a second one for parts.
Speaker: It's a 12-year-old piece of technology that you bought a spare for parts.
Speaker: By the way, did you know what was broken on the $30 one?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So I had recently, maybe like a month ago, started to use the one that I bought in 2022.
Speaker: I was like, oh man, this is really cool.
Speaker: And then one day, maybe on a bike ride, I noticed that the e-ink, like the cover was messed up or whatever, and it wouldn't refresh.
Speaker: Like it looked like it had, what I thought was maybe I had damaged it just somewhere in transit.
Speaker: Like I thought that, because these are not touchscreens.
Speaker: These are, that's the other thing.
Speaker: So it's just pure e-ink.
Speaker: So I thought I damaged it at some point, but I was like, oh man, I'm bummed.
Speaker: Should I look for another one for $30 or should I take a chance of getting something that's like used for parts that isn't guaranteed to work and go from there?
Speaker: So that was when I made the switch like three weeks ago, I bought it.
Speaker: I won it at auction basically.
Speaker: And so I won it for three bucks, but shipping was $11.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay, so you continue to buy obsolete technology.
Speaker: In some cases, while it's new, as mentioned with the Sony phone, two Sony phones, a Zune, any other strange technology that you buy because you just dare to be different?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: No, no, I'm asking.
Speaker: That's not a... Oh, he's reaching for something, Jason.
Speaker: What kind of headphones are those, James?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those are actually Apple Beats Max that he found at a thrift store.
Speaker: Sealed up.
Speaker: Not knowing they were... AirPod Pro or AirPod Max.
Speaker: AirPod Pro.
Speaker: AirPod Max or whatever.
Speaker: Not knowing whether they were legit or not.
Speaker: See if he can get some childhood going.
Speaker: He is grabbing.
Speaker: He's in some kind of... You could just say AirPoo Max.
Speaker: Terrible.
Speaker: Terrible.
Speaker: This is a Wheel of Fortune Tiger cartridge.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Wait, Tiger cartridge?
Speaker: What do you mean?
Speaker: It has cartridges for different games?
Speaker: Yeah, you can play different Wheel of Fortune stuff.
Speaker: Just what everybody needs in their life.
Speaker: Wait a minute.
Speaker: You had different Wheel of Fortune games, like different puzzles to solve?
Speaker: Yeah, you can put in new cartridges and you can solve different puzzles.
Speaker: Where does one...
Speaker: I don't want to pay the royalties to the Wheel of Fortune company, so we'll be bleeping that out.
Speaker: James, where does one buy Wheel of Fortune Tiger cartridges?
Speaker: Looks like it was $2.99 from Goodwill.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Where are the cartridges?
Speaker: What if it didn't come with a cartridge?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: No, this is actually, what's weird is the demo unit.
Speaker: What's weird is you looked at it and you're like, you know what?
Speaker: Yeah, this feels right.
Speaker: I'm looking at it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right, no, I don't mind that.
Speaker: You know, because our dad... Speak and math.
Speaker: Our dad worked for TI, so text instruments.
Speaker: We did the speak and spell, the speak and math.
Speaker: Can we go back to the Wheel of Fortune real quick?
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: I would lose my mind if I was sitting on an airplane and you pulled that thing out.
Speaker: James, does it at least have a headphone jack?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: But I can... Oh, no.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: But I can... Oh, no.
Speaker: I can mute the volume or don't I?
Speaker: Four AA batteries.
Speaker: This is more than a Game Boy.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: It's so inefficient.
Speaker: It's so inefficient.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Imagine being the director of the toy company that made that, and they're like, we're going to sell 6 million of these things, and everyone's going to be playing Wheel of Fortune.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Brought to you by Bandai or some random.
Speaker: Is it Hasbro or who's the tiger?
Speaker: Tiger was big.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tiger did the football and all this stuff.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What other, what other vintage obsolete tech do you have?
Speaker: I have a run of Texas Instruments, so I showed you the speak and math already.
Speaker: I love speak and spell and they rebranded it.
Speaker: But when we didn't have when we were kids, and maybe Jeff, you remember this, but do you remember Mr. B or Mr. B, Mr. Challenger and spelling B?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I don't think.
Speaker: That was a TI product, right?
Speaker: Yeah, both were TI actually.
Speaker: And they use the same like display.
Speaker: But I think this one has their nine volt batteries.
Speaker: But I have the, you know, like this was something when we were kids, like we would see this at school.
Speaker: And this was cool because it's like- We had one of those, by the way.
Speaker: I think we had both.
Speaker: Okay, well now we have both again, apparently, because everything old is new again.
Speaker: Do you want to let your nieces play with those, or are you considering them obscure collectibles?
Speaker: Hey, get your hands off my Mr. Challenger!
Speaker: They don't talk, though.
Speaker: That's the one thing.
Speaker: That's what children do, your nieces do.
Speaker: They do, that's true.
Speaker: Oh, you're talking about the toys.
Speaker: I don't know if these batteries work, but this is the other one.
Speaker: It's the Mattel World Championship Baseball.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: It's six C batteries.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like you could power three mag lights or one baseball electronic game.
Speaker: But it's just a – you just push the buttons.
Speaker: But it's as an old like Mattel baseball.
Speaker: But how does it work?
Speaker: Well, the battle of the batteries.
Speaker: Basically, one person is the batter and one person is the pitcher.
Speaker: And then they basically swing.
Speaker: They're like head to head?
Speaker: Basically.
Speaker: And then it simulates what the bass runs.
Speaker: It's horrible.
Speaker: And also another one where you can't turn off the sound.
Speaker: I don't know if I should try this last one.
Speaker: Jason, that one.
Speaker: That, if you really want to make sure that no one sits next to you in the middle seat on the Southwest flight.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: Take out that baseball one and go, would you like to play a game?
Speaker: And they go, no.
Speaker: No, we don't want to play a game.
Speaker: The battery is more expensive than the game.
Speaker: This is the last one.
Speaker: I don't know if I should share it, but I'll share it with you and we'll see what we think.
Speaker: It's not an adult toy.
Speaker: I'm okay with you.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: It's not one that we want to see.
Speaker: James, don't buy a personal massager.
Speaker: It's not appropriate.
Speaker: That's the Donda thing, right?
Speaker: That you bought.
Speaker: Yeah, this is the stem player.
Speaker: I guess it's still charged.
Speaker: I'm not going to play it because it's also copyrighted.
Speaker: But yeah, it does cool stuff.
Speaker: I mean, you can kind of see.
Speaker: I won't play the audio, but you can kind of see it does cool stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, you showed me this before.
Speaker: Jason, you saw it too, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Donda.
Speaker: I think it was the Donda, right?
Speaker: You're all in on weird and obsolete tech.
Speaker: I love, I mean, maybe it's also the retro gamer in me, but I love, I just love having them.
Speaker: Like sometimes it's cool to have it around, but it's just neat to just give people an opportunity to talk about my Kindle keyboard or like my Wheel of Fortune game.
Speaker: And I used to have them on display, but.
Speaker: I ran out of room basically.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, plus inviting people over to a studio apartment to look at.
Speaker: Come play with me.
Speaker: Would you like to play with my game?
Speaker: No, no, I would not.
Speaker: I found a rabbit hole for James.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause I know what will happen.
Speaker: how he can find different, it's a Wikipedia page on a list of battery sizes.
Speaker: And so the next time we get to his house, it's going to be, did you know that this battery is the same in South Africa as it is in Brazil?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As it is in only the Pacific region of Macau.
Speaker: And you're like, okay, sure, James.
Speaker: There's a 4A?
Speaker: Oh, 4AAA?
Speaker: It's a 4AA battery?
Speaker: 4AAA.
Speaker: Quadruple A. All right.
Speaker: I mean, James, you have your own e-waste recycling business in your apartment, which is fantastic.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: So what's going to happen is we're going to see a turf war outside of your apartment between the Sony executives and the EPA figuring out who's causing more damage to the environment.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If it's you or if you're doing good for the environment by buying Sony obscure products and different obscure products.
Speaker: So how close are you or how close have you been to buying a Newton tablet?
Speaker: Or is it because a Newton PDA?
Speaker: Because you went down the obscure tech, do you own a Newton?
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: Have you bought a new one before?
Speaker: I haven't.
Speaker: But that's only because I think the main reason why is because I'm not a big Apple person.
Speaker: But I've got a lot of dead tech that is kind of in the periphery.
Speaker: Like I've got, yeah, there's just way too many.
Speaker: I have been thinking about like trying to get rid of it because I also bought a mandolin.
Speaker: This week.
Speaker: I don't have it on camera.
Speaker: It's not arrived yet, but yeah, I bought a mandolin just like Bruce Swornsby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Meaning that the guitar ish instrument, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I have a mandolin as well.
Speaker: The slicer.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm working my way through the dictionary.
Speaker: I'm at M now.
Speaker: So finish mandolin, then I'll get on to like, then I'll get to Newton.
Speaker: One day you'll own a Palm Pilot.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: One day.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I had a Palm Pilot or I guess, you know what I had?
Speaker: I had a Palm Trio.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And I had a very.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I had a Palm Trio.
Speaker: I had a Blackberry.
Speaker: I had a Nokia 2600.
Speaker: I had an Nokia 88 something.
Speaker: Razor never had.
Speaker: Yeah, I never had a razor.
Speaker: I did have a, I had a few different Motorola's and then, and then I did do Samsung for a little while.
Speaker: And then we've just been stuck in an iPhone just because once you get in that ecosystem, it's hard to leave it, you know?
Speaker: And so, and you don't want to be the, you don't want to be the person in the text thread that like, Hey, why isn't your bubble green or whatever?
Speaker: And they changed it this week though.
Speaker: This week though, they changed it actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You don't have to.
Speaker: Yeah, they're going to allow RCS messaging in 2024.
Speaker: So hopefully that ends and there's less of a stigma around, you know, not to say like people, if you want an Apple phone, go for it.
Speaker: Obviously, I want a Sony Ericsson.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Sony, if you're out there and you want me to beta test some phones for you, feel free to send them on.
Speaker: You need something.
Speaker: I'm totally in on that.
Speaker: I am like, I'm so wiped to hear obscure technology yet again.
Speaker: I'm going to wrap this up with a bow, Jason.
Speaker: James needs something to offset the unhit.
Speaker: uncool Magna Fox netbook that he has that also, by the way, Jason, takes D batteries.
Speaker: And so, or maybe it wasn't Magna Fox, maybe it was Pioneer, but whenever a car stereo maker makes a netbook, you know, that's quality.
Speaker: Definitely.
