So... Alright - Surfing the Amazon Waves

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Geoff does some Amazon spelunking, and also gets diarrhea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Clear your schedule for U-time with a handcrafted espresso beverage from Starbucks. Savor the new small and mighty Quartado. Cozy up with the familiar flavors of pistachio or shake up your mood with an iced brown sugar

oat shaken espresso. Whatever you choose, your espresso will be handcrafted with care at Starbucks. And, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken,

chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, Tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a to go to for research and I had this whole like, I don't know, I had this whole system worked out that worked really well for me and it really helped me get like in the zone as it were. And I've been kind of floundering since about May, well actually, honestly since March of last year, just because there's been a million other things going on.

And it's just been hard to find a rhythm and then, you know, I moved and so I realized this morning, I think I found my rhythm. The way I seem to naturally want to record so all right is to wake up, make a pot of coffee with my wife, and then as she's getting ready for work, amble up to my office in my pajamas still, play one game of Call of Duty to lube me up, and then sit down and sip coffee and do this.

And I think I quite like it. I wanna do it this way from here on out. Today I wanted to talk about this Amazon thing I'd done some research on a few weeks ago. But before I get to it, I have to take a quick little side trip. I went to Mexico over the weekend to a resort with some friends.

It is definitely main podcast content. So I will be talking about it more in depth at regulation as it pertains to those other people. But as it pertains to me and only me, while I was there, went from Thursday to Monday, right? Quick little sunny weekend getaway with the friends. While I was there on Saturday afternoon, I got a little tummy rumbling,

and I'm not gonna get gross in this podcast, so if you're easily upset by gross things, don't worry. I'm not getting deep into it or anything. I will say, I discovered I had a touch of diarrhea and I realized pretty quickly that it was full blown Montezuma's revenge. I don't know quite how I got Montezuma's revenge because I was drinking bottled water and yada, yada, yada.

However, at some point it hit me and it started Saturday afternoon and it didn't end until yesterday at about 6 p.m. So, oh, you don't know when yesterday was. Yesterday was Tuesday, so I had it half of Saturday, all of Sunday, all of Monday, and then most of Tuesday. It, woo, I think I'm finally fine now. But that got me thinking.

I know what monosomal revenge is, but where does it come from? Like what's the actual etymology to it? Monosomal revenge is a colloquial term for traveler's diarrhea. Yes, of course. A stomach and intestinal infection that can occur while traveling, it's caused by consuming contaminated food or water.

So I must have had contaminated food or water. I thought at first it might've been my diverticulitis because I do have issues with that when I travel. Anytime you break up the routine and you materially change what you're eating and like when you sleep, it seems to affect the diverticulitis a little bit. So I'm always wary of that.

But I realized pretty quickly it was the other thing and and I was full blown and throws of it didn't affect my vacation much. Saturday, for sure, Saturday evening, I took a little break to go spend some time in the hotel room laying down. But aside from a few extra trips to the bathroom throughout the day, Sunday, it really didn't affect the vacation as it were. The symptoms of it, if you've ever experienced it. Sudden onset of diarrhea, correct. Cramps, correct. Bloating, eh.

Nausea, absolutely not. Vomiting, no. Fever, no. Treatment. Most people recover within a few days. So, doctors recommend, yeah, see, that's part of the problem with me and taking anything that slows down diarrhea

is that it, that would then increase my diverticulosis issues so i gotta be careful about what i take i can't stop myself up too much but anyway i want to here we go the etymology the term refers to moctezuma II the aztec ruler who was overthrown by hernan cortez in the 16th century. Cortez and his soldiers carried the smallpox virus, which reduced the population of Tenochitlan by 40% in 1520. It may also refer to a 1984 Parker Brothers video game a mountain bike race in Colorado a roller coaster at Knott's Berry Farm an album by souls of mischief a novel by Harry Harrison and songs by the shadows and Rick Wake. Okay. Well, that alone makes me want to do a monazuma's revenge three ways. Kind of like we did with Jawbreaker and I'm gonna put this in the notes for a future episode. Boop

That's fucking cool. I like that Travelers there's a Wikipedia. Oh with a picture of E.coli There's a Wikipedia entry for travelers diarrhea Montezuma's revenge or deli belly. I'd never heard that before It's a stomach, yeah. Let's see if I can get anything new.

Travelers often recover with three to four days, little to no treatment, that's me. 12% may have symptoms for up to a week. It's responsible, bacteria is responsible for more than half the illnesses. Now I'm trying to think of what I ate. You know, we're at an all-inclusive resort where the food's all prepared there.

I will say I over-indexed on Neapolitan ice cream. I had a shitload. This hotel had the best fucking vanilla ice cream. And the Neapolitan hit another level of good, because purely because of the vanilla ice cream. And I know that I have on record as saying that I think that vanilla ice cream is kind of like a base, but this vanilla ice cream was elevated.

I don't know how else to describe it. It was so goddamn creamy. And the Neapolitan was like, if you didn't know Neapolitan ice cream could taste like this. So I definitely had a lot of that. And I may have brushed my teeth with sink water once. I can't remember if I did or not.

I couldn't, I know there was one time when I wasn't actively thinking about it. But even then that would have mostly just been rinsing my toothbrush off. I don't know that I, I don't think I would have consumed any. And I had bottled water and I had Virgin Miami Vices, which is like a half margarita, half pina colada, but you can get them without alcohol obviously, and they're just yummy.

It's just like having a little smoothie. And then I had a lot of Diet Cokes. And I don't, I didn't really eat that much while I was there. I don't know, I don't know where it would have come from. But anyway, I think the thing that I had the most of that I didn't intend to in Mexico was salt water. We got into the ocean this time.

We spent some pretty heavy time in the ocean because the water was fucking beautiful. I don't know if you've been to Mexico at any point, at least on the Cancun side, but the water is supposed to be just absolutely pristine. It looks like we were joking around about it in the water because we were standing about waist high looking out towards the horizon and the sky and the water

and it's very pale, very crystal clear, and then it gets this beautiful deep blue as it extends out to the horizon. And it looks like Sea of Thieves Like we were joking that it looked fake like we were in like a self shaded video game It was so gorgeous, but the last couple times we've been I would say like Probably the last five times I've been to Mexico. It has been covered in Sargassum is that what it's called? Let's take a sidetrack onto that sarcasm

If you're not sure what that is, it's seaweed, right? Yeah, sarcasm alright, so there's two sarcasm which is a noun American slang When the urge to make a sarcastic reply is so overwhelming you can roll your eyes and grunt incoherent. Oh my god It's that urban dictionary type thing, I guess. Sargassum, which is spelled S-A-R-G-A-S-S-U-M, is a type of brown seaweed that floats in the ocean in large masses. It's a genus of algae that's found in tropical

and temperate oceans around the world. Yeah, it does. So it's a good thing, I think, because it's food and a lot of small fish live amongst it. But they've, for the last last couple years, they've just had these at least every time I've been there, they've had these like waves of sargassum, just like hammering into the beach. And every morning, you would get up, if you got up early, you'd see these tractors just come in and just raking it all into these dumpsters all day long,

back and forth. And the water was thick with it. and so you spent a lot of time in the pool because it was a pretty gross and slimy However, it's all gone. Whatever that wave of sargassum is. I guess it's it's gone. Oh Sargassum may also refer to a rock band from New York. Okay, so maybe I can do sargassum two ways The Sargasso Sea in the Western Atlantic Ocean is the origin of sargassum. I guess that would make sense. So all that sargassum I've seen in Mexico

over the last few years came all the way from the Western Atlantic Sea. I mean, where else would it come from? That would make the most sense, right? The Atlantic Ocean Sargasso Sea is named after the algae because it contains a large amount of it. So the algae didn't get named after the sea, the sea got named after the algae.

That's good to know. All right, now with that out of the way, let's fuck around with Amazon. I ran across an article on the internet probably over a month ago at this point that was highlighting the 10 most expensive things on ebay right now And it wasn't because I was able to find more expensive things, but they were Hilarious items that I was surprised to find on to exist let alone find on amazon

And I thought this would be a fun. This this would be a fun thing to cover and so, all right However, that article is now no longer up and so we'll have to do some of the searching ourselves I do have a list but that I compiled a while ago, but I want to only Ignore it briefly and just do some Some searching on our own, what do you think what's an expensive item that we could buy on Amazon that they might deliver? I don't say car. I feel like that's too big. Actually. I think you can buy like certain car I think it was it I saw ad for was a Hyundai or Honda or somebody you can buy on Amazon crazy But like but something like that something construction related right that would be when I was a tool repairman, what was the most expensive tool?

Oh, we used a fucking jackhammer in my backyard. Jackhammers are crazy expensive. Let's look up a jacket. Can you buy a jackhammer on Amazon? And if so, what would it cost? Oh, these are all little handheld jackhammers. I want a big boy. Let's go price high to low There we go. This is what we're talking about. The most expensive one is some sort of a piece of a larger thing I don't understand but the most expensive

fully contained Hawk Jh70 15 amp demolition jackhammer with point and flat chisel bits and a 90-day warranty is 1,484 dollars you could buy right now. That's not nearly as expensive as I thought you could get I bet You know what we should do Visit the house of contractors store. Now. This is what i'm talking about Oh Now this is what I'm talking about. Oh, dude, I'm looking at some tools.

I don't even know what they are. Have you guys ever seen a 36 inch pro trowel powered by Honda? It looks like, I know it's a handheld thing, but it looks like one of those air foil boats that you use in the bayou. Oh, a wood chipper. Okay, all right, let's drill down on the wood chipper.

Now that's cool. You can buy a wood chipper with an auto infeed on Amazon right now for 3334 cents. Now I have, like I said, I have a list I could pull up that'll be like the most expensive items right now, but I kinda wanna see if we can get there on our own. You know what I mean? So how do we find something from here? All right, here we go. Here's a $2,500 wood chip. Why don't I get stuck on wood shippers? I want to take I want to get a

Go to a brands visit the MechMax store. Here we go. Okay reliable efficient value. I've never heard of this company before Who is Matt? Let's look up who MechMax is. It's an online platform consisting of VR and gardening and, okay, who cares? I just wanna know what's expensive. Do you think a snowblower, a sawmill, a stump grinder, oh, oof, this is all gray. I wanna see it all.

All right, now we are getting somewhere. The MechMax company sells a twin cylinder, yada, yada, yada, gas powered hydraulic feeding wood chipper, shredder, mulcher with tow bar, tail light and emergency stop bar. This is the DCH7 in red. It is $7,200.

Jesus Christ. Let's see if we can beat that. Oh my God, under air conditioner, I pulled up a alcohol still. Like a moonshine kit? Alcohol 18 gallon alcohol distiller with ceramic balls for pure wine dispensary kit for alcohol with brewing kit. This is like the real version of a hillbilly moonshine kit.

Well, that's not super expensive. That's affordable. That's ridiculously affordable. Actually, it's only 270. I didn't know about this when I was drinking. This Vivo company sells livestock hay feeders and body massage chairs and pop-up bubble tents as well as portable mahjong

tables Jesus Christ they sell everything now they sell something called a slope chiller I've never heard of that before is that laboratory chiller Vivo Vivo industrial water chiller. It looks like something out of a 1977 sci-fi movie. It looks like something Ripley would try to reboot to get off the ship. And it's only, if you guys are interested and you wanted an industrial water chiller, you can get one for, why does it have a price?

Oh, here's one for $323. That's not bad. Oh, now upgrading from Vivor, here's a chiller, slope chiller, I don't know what the, one ton industrial chiller. It's ideal for lasers, engravers, machines. It's ideal for machines, welding equipment, fermentation and process cooling.

And it comes in blue, it's a North Slope chiller and it is $7,500 which is, I don't know, 300 bucks, 200 bucks more than that other thing that we found. So we've gotten to $7,500 on our own. I still, I guess it just like, it just keeps machines cold that run hot, I assume. They have run through it to dissipate the heat output, I guess.

That's about as high as I could get on my own. Let's look at this list now and see. Okay, I was not close. If you had to guess what the most expensive item on Amazon right now is, and there's only one left in stock, it's free delivery, how much would you guess it would cost? It's you don't have to look it up yourself. I have an answer.

It's the Queen Victoria Banco de Londres y Mexico, 1000 pesos framed 1905 dated stock certificate with dividend coupons attached that are uncancelled. I don't quite understand what that means. I guess the dividends would work. I don't know if this is a collector item or something that you would use as an investment. Let's see. I don't really know what it means, but it appears to be authentic for the low price of $249,000. Insane. Might be a good deal. I don't know. I don't I don't understand the product. The next thing there's a huge gulf between the first and second and cost. 249,000 for number one. Number two is a bargain. $55,445.99 for a magnificent PSA certified Lou Gehrig single

signed autograph Al Haraj baseball. I don't know who Al Haraj is. It's interesting that number two is a sports collectible. The gap from two to three is not nearly as significant, but it is still significant. It is the Houston Diamond District 20 karat natural real yada yada yada white gold diamond tennis Riviera necklace. It's a necklace. It's one of those all diamond silver looking, although they say white gold 14 karat tennis

necklace. It is $37,390. You can get it on Prime one day. It could be delivered tomorrow. Down from that is only $1,000. Down from that is the Trade Ink Enterprises most expensive painting on Amazon from famous Caribbean artist Ryan Williams.

That is the title of the product. I'm gonna click on this. Trade Ink Enterprises most expensive painting on Amazon from famous Caribbean artist Ryan Williams. Collectible paintings, cultural, collector's item, one of a kind available. It's a beautiful painting. It's a picture of looks like a Caribbean island and it's some ladies with probably the laundry on their heads and they're walking down a road. with probably the laundry on their heads and they're walking down a road, beaches in the background, see some fishing boats,

there's tons of palm trees and a couple of huts on the side here and a couple of cute little cows. And it could be yours for barely $37,000. And they only have one in stock because there is only one shipping, not free. If you spend $36,800 on Amazon, you would think you would get free shipping, but you don't.

You get pretty cheap shipping though if you're buying a one of a kind painting. It's only $10.99. Okay. The next few items are jewelry, not interesting at all. You could buy a $10,000 Osaki massage chair. Might be into that. Man, the dichotomy of mankind explained in two facing images.

I'm looking at the Osaki OS Pro Maestro 4D L-Track massage chair with foot rollers, zero gravity, space saving design in beige. It looks like the chair that would be in one of the first class pods on like an Emirates flight. And next to it is the Century Max Bariatric Bed long-term care bed with foam mattress and half rail package. There is a hospital bed for $7,400 next to a $9,000 massage chair.

You hope to sit in one, you're guaranteed to sit in the other at some point. That's depressing. All right. That's enough for expensive items on Amazon right now. Let's go the other route and let's see the least expensive items on Amazon. What's the least I could spend on Amazon right now? Oh, I guess this is what they mean by fast fashion. I could buy a women's the cheapest item there are well, there's only one cheapest item. It's 98 cents and it is a women's long sleeve top. It's fashionable, it's loose fit, it's got a crew neck,

it's a floral printed graphic, it looks like a cheap shirt and it is 98 cents and it comes in 29 different colors or styles, $11 delivery fee though and it's pretty slow delivery, you can't get it for a couple weeks. I guess it's like, it's all the same shit you'd be getting at T-MU, right? 98 cents for a fucking shirt.

Then next to over, there's a whole fleet of 99 cents shirts. And then there's, oh, here's some men's shirts. Here's a men's short sleeve classic V-neck button basic sports logo tee golf stylish top for $ for $1.11 but the shipping on that is $18. That's where they get you. Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's just all clothing and clothing. The only thing here that's not clothing on this page is Yardley London bath soap cocoa butter for two dollars Wow, it's just hundreds upon hundreds of sweatshirts and hoodies and

Bra a lot of bras. Well, man, here's a hoodie. Here's a whole hoodie with like a Thing that I have a real I think that personally annoys the shit out of me, I cannot fucking stand when people put the American flag on clothes and they modify the flag. You know, where it's like ripped and tattered and it's supposed to look like battle worn or it's the colors are all wrong to signify other shit or they take a slice out of the American flag,

and it's not what it's for, all right? Stop using the American flag as a fucking shitty graphic design trope. It's not. I hate it. I hate all this vaguely military machismo tough guy shit out there that has wrong versions of my American flag on it, of our American flag on it. I'm

sorry, I don't know why that one bothers me, but it really fucking does. Maybe it's my time in the military, maybe it's because the flag means something to me and you're not supposed to desecrate it and to change or to alter it is to desecrate it, but it just irks the shit out of me when I see people walking around with weird or fucked up or stylized American flag. Stop stylizing the American flag. It got stylized in the 1700s and it looks fucking great. Just leave it alone. How about that?

How about we do that with it and we treat it with the dignity and the sanctity that it deserves for what it is and we stop using it as a goddamn marketing tool. Sorry, rant over. Anyway, if you wanna buy cheap American flag clothes, you can get it here. You can also buy a ton of cheap Valentine's clothing.

If you wanted a $2.98 Valentine's sweatshirt, Amazon has seven or eight options for you. It's gonna cost you 15 bucks to get it shipped, but the shirt itself will be cheap and it'll probably fall apart in the wash. I love the name of that thing. The North Slope Chiller just popped up again when I was closing windows, 7,500 bucks.

I want one. I don't know what I would chill, but man, it looks like a cool device. Oh shit, that's not even the most expensive North Slope Chiller. I was way off guys. I should have dug in deeper. Here's one for $20,000.

Oh man, not to dive back in, I know we were just wrapping up, but $20,330. It is rated at an ambient temperature of 40 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the five ton industrial chiller. It pump in 41,400 BTUs an hour. 60,500 if you wanna crank it to 65 degrees. You can get it delivered by March

11th. That is a while. But I guess if you're buying a $20,000 item also free delivery, I appreciate what are the related items on this? Velcro. All the related items for this are that probably tells me something I need to know. Some more chillers. Oh, there's a North Slope Chiller store. So let's see. But all right, we gotta wrap this up. But I just want it real fast. I want to see what their most expensive item is.

It looks like it's. Now, here we go. The Tintin. The Tintin, which pushes 120,000 BTUs an hour at 65 degrees. This bad boy, there's a picture of it standing next to all the other chillers and it dwarfs them. It is, it's not available right now, but if it were, it would be, you can contact him.

It's 26 fucking grand. And the related items for it are all hex nuts and bolts. And a giant winch to lift it with. That's funny. All right, I gotta get off this. Have you ever used a North Slope chiller? Have you ever used an industrial chiller? If you have, could you email me at ericatjeffsboss.com

and tell me what your job is and what you use it for. And is it an indispensable item? Is it a godsend? Or are you constantly kicking it and calling Craig over and being like, this fucking thing is busted again, Craig. And he's like, he's the only one that knows how to fix it. calling Craig over and being like this fucking thing is busted again Craig And he's like he's the only one that knows how to fix it He does his little like chuchu chuchu chuchu and he's like I just working for another couple days Yeah, send me an email Eric adjust boss.com. Let's have a song of the episode and

Then we can all get the fuck out of here and go on with our days You know what? I'm gonna pick one of my favorite newer artists, Polo G. I've talked about him a lot throughout different things, but this song I know off the Goat album. It's a really deep song, if you listen to it. And I appreciate. I appreciate Polo G's ability to be brutally open and honest about himself.

He's very vulnerable in his music, which I think is refreshing. So check out that song, I Know, by Polo G. And after you do that, have a great rest of your week, and I hope like hell I see you here next Tuesday for another episode of So Alright. I have no idea what we're gonna talk about next week, but I'm excited to find out and I can't wait