The Harland Highway - 542: 1st show of the NEW YEAR, read horoscopes, talk about the future.

Episode Date: January 2, 2014

Welcome back to the Highway and our 1st show of 2014. Today we read your horoscope to see how your year will be. We discuss the future, robots, Google, and lastly an UNWANTED visit from Captain James T. Kirk. Phaser my tazer!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, sweet lordy, it's the first podcast of the year, 2014. Hello, everybody. Hope you had a great holiday. Hope you're recovered. Welcome back to another year of nutty podcasting. So glad you've come along for the ride. Let's try and make it the best year of podcasting ever, shall we? I'm going to be your host all year.

Once again, Harlan Williams, you are on the Harland Highway. Today we're kind of talking about getting going in the new year. We're going to be talking about your horoscope. We're going to try and read into your future, see if we can give you a little insight into how the year starts. We're going to be going through everybody's star sign and doing a little read. What else? We're going to be talking about robots and technology as we go into the future. some real interesting news about real-life, real-time, real-world robots.

And then I think somebody's dropping by the studio today. And I think he might be the captain of a specific Starfleet Enterprise spaceship. I hope not, but I've heard rumors. Either way, whether you're on another planet or you're right here, this is the podcast you want to listen to, because this, in the new year, ladies and gentlemen, is the Harland Highway. Welcome to the Harland Highway I will look for you

Does your mother know what you're doing for a living? The Harland Highway Hey-yo And there's glasses I will find you My mom always said You can't handle the truth Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Many years of therapy Many, many many Fucking years of therapy I will kill you Listen lame friends let an expert show you how to do this The Harland Highway You never know what you're going to get

It's the Harland Highway Oh boy It sure is Happy New Year everybody Happy New Year A little celebration going on here In the studio Happy 24

That's enough guys thanks Happy 2014 That was Roger in the background With his Happy New Year Raj. Here we go. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. What's going to happen this year, gang? Isn't that funny when you think of a brand new year? I want you to take a moment and think about all the things you did last year. Because a lot of people think, oh, the year just went by so quickly and nothing happened and, you know, all this and that. but, you know, a lot happened.

You forget how much time everything took and how many things you did. Let me go through a review of what I did last year. Let's see, I went to Indonesia. I went to Komoto Island. I snorkeled and dove with sharks and sea turtles and stingrays. I went on safari for Komodo dragons on Komoto Island.

I watched giant bats fly out of the sunset and fill the sky. I swam with 15-foot-wide stingrays in the open ocean. I chased a shark around a coral reef. I chased sea turtles underwater. What else did I do? I traveled around. I did stand-up comedy all. over the place

I played racquetball I shot a sitcom I shot a TV sitcom I did the Conan O'Brien show God all kinds of fun things hung out with my friends I wrote a short story

I wrote a book I have a new book that I'm going to tell you guys about soon. I shot and wrote and directed some film that I'm going to expose you guys to very soon. I built a new website. All kinds of stuff. So you just forget. You forget things that you've done and, you know, go back and take a look. And better yet, what are you going to do this year?

What have you got planned for this year? Have you written down anything yet? Anything exciting? At this point in time, I'm hoping I get to shoot another season of my sitcom. I'm planning to go to Ireland, maybe down to France this year, on a little adventure. Going to be doing some touring, some stand-up. And yes, already going to be doing. doing the Conan O'Brien show on January 7th, if you're up late.

But most important of all, I'm going to be doing the Harland Highway. Isn't that right, everybody? Isn't that the most important thing of all? Excuse me, I hiccpped. Must be still drunk on champagne. I hope you had a good New Year's. Again, I want to apologize for... Oh, my gosh, I've got the hiccups.

Wait, here it comes. No, now it's stopped. They come when you don't want them to come. You can't. There it is. You can't predict hiccops, man. There's another one. I want to apologize for our last podcast of last year where my boss, Mr. Featherstone,

made us do this horrible thing where because the timing was off and we didn't have an actual New Year's Eve show because it didn't fall on a Monday or Thursday when I do the podcast, he wanted to kind of do things on the cheap. He got wind of a guy committing suicide off of a 34-story window ledge. And my boss made me go out and cover it live. And instead of doing a ball drop for New Year's, he called it a guy drop. And I had to get out there into a countdown with my boss. Well, this guy jumped off the ledge.

It was unbelievable. If you want to go back and hear it, go to the last podcast before this one. And it's just, it's an aberration. And I don't want it to become a regular thing. So let's put that behind us. Let's forge forward and happy new year to all you guys. Let's have a great, great year. Let's try and do good things.

Try to be good to people, decent to people, show some acts of kindness, try and do something good for yourself as well as for others. But seriously, try and do something that has a lot of meaning to you. And I think it'll be a really, really good year. I mean, we got the number 13 out of our system. Okay? Last year was 2013. And actually, it was a pretty good year for me and a lot of people.

And if you want to look at it through the eyes of the economy, if you're invested in the stock market, it was a really good year. But that's all money. I'm talking about feed your spirit, feed your soul, and try and do good things that help make you have a more rounded life

and maybe contribute to others having a more rounded life. And it's going to be dandy. We're going to have a lot of fun this year, folks. I'm looking forward to doing the podcast for yet another year with you guys. Hopefully some fun. new characters and new situations and stories and madness. And I just want to start it off by saying,

Happy, Happy New Year. And while you're thinking about that, I'm going to run down the hallway to the staff cafeteria, grab myself a nice can of cold Pepsi or Coke, and I will be right back. Roger, throw to a commercial, and I'll be right back in the studio after this little commercial break. I love white flowers.

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The final frontier These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise A five-year mission to seek out new life to boldly gone where no man has ever gone before to fuck kirk to boldly seek out kirk seek out new luck kirk uh excuse me i'm trying to fly my starship for the usss enterprise no you're not flying a starship right you're at my console and first of all turn the music off it off. Now, what in the name of hell are you doing in here, Kirk?

I go down the hall to get a can of a Coke, and I come back, and you're at my damn terminal. I'm here for a specific reason. I must begin the new Starfleet year and make all kinds of preparations for the USS Enterprise to seek out bold new places to go and find new... No, no, no, no, no. Do you hear me? You're not finding new places to go. You're not seeking out new life.

This is a podcast control center, okay? Microphones, some dials, some switches. I know it might look like the bridge of the USS Enterprise, but it's not. Mr. Spock, Scotty, I must have this man arrested. Take him to the bridge immediately. See, where are they? Huh? You called for Scotty and Spock, but you're not.

Guess what? They're not here, are they? Kirk. I'm sure they'll be here in a minute. They're downstairs in the doctor... No, they're not down in the doctor's quarters. They're not down in... They're in the engine room. Scotty is making sure the dilithium crystals. There's no engine room.

You go into the basement of this building. There's a parking garage. Ha, ha, ha. Very, very funny. Now, I must ask that you surrender... I'm not surrender. anything. I'm asking you surrender my seat to me. And stop pretending that this room, my console, is the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

You've been doing this to me for years. I'm in the middle of a show. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to remove yourself from the bridge. I am Captain James D. Kirk. The captain of the USS Enterprise, our five-year mission to... reach out to strange new life forms to boldly go where no stop the music stop it there's no new life forms there's no reaching out i'm not going to put up with another year of you thinking that that this is your starship i'm afraid you're delusional whoever you are i'm harland williams likely story.

Oh, God. Get out of here right now. I must finish the captain's log. The first day of the Starfleet year, 25, 14, 7, 9, 212, 15, 24, 17, 12, 51, 98. But stop counting. There's no. What do you mean? It's a star date, star log.

since when the days have 98 digits in them Get out You're just sitting there looking at me with puppy eyes Stop it Stop staring at me like that Don't start your eyes watering Kirk Stop the trembling lip Oh God, he's about to cry

I've got to report The Starship Command The hostile force is taking over my ship. I'm not a hostile force. I'm a podcaster. Now, get up. That's it. Get up.

Get up out of my chair. That's it. That's it, Captain Kirk. Now walk towards the door. Wait a minute. What is that in my chair? I'm not sure what you're talking about. What is that little mark on my chair there?

I don't see it. I see it. What the hell is that? I believe back on planet Earth we called a shit stain. Are you telling me you left a shit stain on my chair? I don't know what you're talking about. You just told me it was a shit stain. I better be going.

I've got to get down to the engine room. Yeah, you better get going. You better get to the men's room as where you better go. Get an adult diaper, old creep. I don't need to take that from an insubordinate like you. I'm Captain James. D. Kirk, I boldly go. Yeah, you boldly went all over my chair.

You freak? Get out of here. Out. Out. Get out the door. I'm giving you the middle finger because I'm authorized to say, up yours, you son of a fuck. Stop swearing. Out.

Thank God. Roger. Can we not have... Captain James T. Kirk in here ever again. How many times do I have to do? I'm trying to do a show. I just wasted four minutes of my listeners' time.

They don't need the aggravation, and I certainly don't. Again, my apologies, ladies. This year is starting off weird. We had the guy drop, suicide guy. Now we have Kirk. I thought I heard you call my name. I'm Captain James T. Kirk. That's my full name.

Get out! Roger! Let's move on, please. Let's just forge forward here and, you know, stop the madness. Hey, everybody, who wants to have better sex? No, yes, yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have better sex.

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This is an exclusive offer specific to this podcast. So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping. Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. I'm going to try and do something here that resembles talking about the new year. Good night, Nellie Frittato. And here's what I want to do, gang. You know, with the new year here upon us, right at the beginning of it, what I want to do is I want to read everyone's horoscope, okay?

I want to read everyone's star sign. There's only 12 of them. They're short, but I want you to listen for yours and see if you hear something good and see if something like this rings true by the time you get to the end of the year. Now, these are not my predictions. These come from an astrology site, but I'm going to read them all the same. So let's start with ARIES. Year 2014

Horoscope is Ares will have an eventful year. Pressures will be high and positions might be threatened until the middle of the year. The year might start off with some challenges, but improvement will start after March 2014.

Hello. Let's jump to Taurus. Taurus will have a good year. There will be a continuation of business and professional success, as you saw last year, financial gains would continue to be very good till the middle of the year. Some amount of pressure and loss.

Gemini could have a challenging year. There will be negativity as experienced in last year, but the overall outlook will turn positive after the 14th of July. Finances will finally turn around after the 19th of June, and substantial gains will occur. Geez, maybe I want to be a Gemini. Cancer will have a challenging year. Domestic matters will continue to be difficult.

There'll be high pressures till the 3rd of March. Some improvement due to your own efforts, positive thinking and hard work will change your life. Okay. Leo, this is once again a bumper year from you. you will make excellent progress growth new areas will open up to you travel will bring in a lot of progress and growth your income will be very high and there will be substantial gains from various areas wow leo's sounding the best one so far let's go to vergo vergo has a better year than before your mind would be at ease comparatively although pressures will be very high till march negativity will give way to hard work

and a determination to fix the problems that you're facing in your life. So Virgo sounds a little rocky. Let's go to Libra. Libra might find the year slightly difficult compared to the last year. Well, hard work will be present and you will be persistent and focused in all you do. Still, the level of success might slow down a little bit. There will be an expansion in the things that you do.

Okay. And here we go. Here's mind gang. Uh-oh. Horoscope for Scorpio. Scorpio will make a very positive turnaround in luck and fortune this year. Yes! Well, the year will start with challenges and some amount of difficulties.

After March, your financial problems and liquidity should give in to a better period. Wow. Okay. So it looks like kind of split down the middle for me, gang. Sagittarius, here we go. Sagittarius would have an excellent year amongst all signs. Sagittarius would have the best 2014. There would be gains and growth from various corners this year. Progress will come in due to support of friends as well as family.

That's nice. You're going to have the best year, Saj. Capricorn? Capricorn would have an interesting year as the high activity and career will continue. Pressures will be very high. Hard work would have to be exceptional too. But all this will give you a very good growth and returns eventually. That one's kind of, I don't know, that one's kind of middle of the road. Two more here. Aquarius will continue with a difficult streak,

but improvements will surely come about now. You will find that creative work and hard work will give you returns. There will be success from foreign lands. Your temperament and your thinking might play into this. Ooh, that's kind of cool. Foreign lands, Aquarius. And last one, let's go to Pisces. Pisces will have a slightly better year,

although hurdles and hassles will remain. Health could become a cause of concern. Well, hurdles also could be high until March. There would be a rise in your creative outlook and your creative way of thinking. Uh-oh. That's the only one that had a real negative in there. I don't like the health thing. So, Pisces, watch your health.

Remember, this is not scientific. It is just all based on fairy dust floating around in the skies. So I hope you heard something you liked in there. You know, it's just kind of a goofy thing. I don't know if anyone even believes in it or not, but who really believes in this podcast? You know what I mean? But I wanted to touch on, speaking of out thereness, crazy out there nests.

I want to touch on something that I saw on the news recently, and this is interesting. Google has done. just acquired um like five robotics companies um i don't know if you caught this in the news um but it's kind of it's it's kind of crazy and creepy um i think they bought a company called boston dynamics i think it's called and um these are this is a robotics company that has a uh really sweet deal with the U.S. military.

And, you know, there's a lot of money to be made in robotics. And if you go on YouTube and you type in robotics from Boston Dynamics, you can see some of these robots. And they're really fascinating and amazing. Some of them look like cheetahs. They run like cheetahs. Some of them look like horses. Some of them look like dogs.

and they're very advanced. And, you know, there's one video where you can see a soldier. There's this thing that's the size of a pony, and it's a robot up on four legs, and he kicks it. With full force, he kicks it sideways, and you think it would just fall over. But the thing moves sideways with its four legs, and it catches its own balance and writes itself and keeps walking.

It's like if a real, like, deer or a horse got bumped into, and it flew sideways, it would stabilize itself before hitting the ground. It's so real and kind of creepy. But what's interesting to me is that Google, to me now has become way more than just a search engine. When you think about it, you know, you probably still think, oh, I need, what is, you know, what's the definition of a quasar? Well, I don't know. I don't understand space stuff.

I'll go on Google and look up Quasar. But now Google is into the Google Glass, and Google is into the driverless car, and Google is into Google Maps, and now Google is into these robots. And when you watch the video, and I urge you to go watch the videos on YouTube, Boston Dynamics. And you will see these robots which have all kinds of potential militarily in the business world and any application. But I'll tell you what it reminds me of.

It reminds me of SkyTech. Do you remember in Terminator? There was this big robotics firm called SkyTech, and it turned out they created the hub where they had robots starting to. run everything and the robots get smarter than the people and and the sky tech corporation was into personal information and it ended up sky tech started running everything and then the robots within sky tech started running sky tech and when you think of it google google is touching all

of our lives in a very personal way you know google most of us uh do stuff with google we search engine. We have emails. We have, you know, social websites. We have YouTube. Many, many, many of us are connected to Google. And so Google has a lot of information about a lot of people in the mass population. And Google just keeps inventing stuff and probing into areas that we need that touch our lives that affect us. And now they're getting into the robotics industry. And, uh, I don't know, man. It feels like it's the beginning of a very interesting soup where a lot of interesting ingredients are coming together.

And if you look at where Google started, I think it was about nine years ago. You know, they were just, you wanted a faster way to get information on a topic on the Internet. You went to Google and type, I want to know about velociraptors. Boop, boop, boop. Okay, a velociraptor is a big crazy dinosaur, you know.

and now they've got robots and all the stuff I was talking about and all these things eventually start to come together under one roof so you've got this giant tech company with information on just about every person in the world and then you got robots and you got this and you got that and you go wow cut to 50 years from now What is Google in 50 years? Is Google like Big Brother?

Is Google watching people? Is Google got robots? Is Google remain a positive force in the world? Does Google become a scary, untrustworthy, paranoid force in the world? Does Google start to control the human race? What's the end game on Google? And you're sitting there going, Take a chill pill, Williams.

God, haven't you ever seen robots before? Hello, R2D2. C3PO. Yeah, well, that was in the movies, gangnet. This stuff's real, man. And there's always something a little creepy about a robot that starts looking really real and functioning really real. And I'm telling you, when you go watch these videos,

just go to YouTube and type in Google, Google robots or type in Boston Dynamics robots because this is the company that, this is one of the eight or nine companies that Google bought. Google buys eight robotic companies in six months. That's the headline from about three weeks ago. Hello, what's going on there? So, you know, Google's creating.

robots to do anything from warehouse work to package delivery to caring for old people. And it's another huge industry that as we get more and more technologically advanced, you're going to see way more robotics. There's already a lot of it out there. I mean, this Boston Dynamics Place created a robot cheetah. And this thing can run up to 29 miles an hour. Can you imagine a robot running as fast as a car? And it looks like a cheetah?

That's a little crazy. Imagine the police force or the military getting their hands on that. Yeah, release the cheetahs. Mr. Burns, release the cheetahs. I mean, it's pretty wild, man. Now, these robots are obviously, they're not in their infancy stage because they're already up and running and maneuvering, but they're at an early stage of their evolution.

But you start to think, man, when you look at these robots on YouTube, again, owned by Google, look at Google's robots on Google's video platform. And you look at The Terminator, and you're probably going, oh, right, man, it's just a movie. You can't compare, like, the real world to The Terminator. Yeah, I can, man.

When you see these robots, you'll see if we've got these in 2014, what do they have 40, 50, 60, 70 years from now? You have a robot that might have, you know, human-like skin on it, articulating parts that are hard to distinguish between robot and fake. I mean, where do you see this cheetah thing run, man? They've got a video of the cheetah running, and it's scary. It's fascinating. It's scary.

It's a lot of things. It's all, it's confusing because this is stuff we see CGIed in the movies. This is stuff we see in sci-fi movies, and we know it's not real. You know, they always, they always come up with these, these CGI robots and stuff. But way do you see these ones, gang? These are real, working in real time in the real world. And you're like, it's only when you see. see it for real that you start to go,

hmm, how does this piece together? How does this fit into the global community? How does this get involved with mankind? And when you start thinking about those questions, it's a little eerie. I got to say it's exciting because it's a new frontier, but it's also eerie. And what's cool is you also know a company like Google who's got 20 billion. They've got an endless amount of money. that these guys are going to have the resources to really develop this stuff.

And they've got the scientific brains and the minds and the facilities. And it's pretty wild. So a good way to start off the new year thinking about the future beyond this new year. I think it's pretty fascinating stuff. I hope you get a chance to check out the Google Robots on YouTube. Wow. So kicking off the new year with a real futuristic bend to it. We had, you know, the commander of the USS Enterprise was here.

How much more futuristic is the enterprise flying around in outer space? We read your fortunes, your horoscopes, trying to look into the future. And now we're trying to determine the future. of modern-day robots in our real world. So a lot of interesting stuff as we move forward into a new year, it's going to be fun to see the new inventions and creations that come at us because, let's face it, folks, that technology's flying at us at such a rapid rate. I mean, every single day there's something new and inventive and crazy

that's got to do with technology or electronics and, And we really are just getting more and more advanced, at least at that level. I don't know if we're getting more advanced as human beings, but at least in the virtual and electronic and computer world, we sure are making leaps and bounds. So there you go. It's good to be back. Good to have you guys back. It's 2014.

Hi, hi, hi. We're going to have fun. Thank you for being here for another year, ladies and gurgle floggins. And let's do this thing. Let us do this thing. If you want to see me live, my first gig of the year starts tonight. I'll be in Orlando, Florida at the improv. kicking it off tonight.

I'll be in Orlando at the improv from tonight, Thursday, the 2nd until Sunday the 5th. And then the following week, you can catch me on Conan O'Brien on January 7th. Tune that in. And then we're looking at the improv in Orange County, Irvine, California, from January 9 to 12. And it's going to be fun. Now, make sure you go to harlorn Williams.com, and you can get your tickets to those shows there. or for no other reason

please click on my YouTube channel subscribe to it and I promise you there's a lot of wacky, fun, interesting and intense videos coming your way I've been spending a lot of time shooting stuff over the last year

and putting it all together and this is the year we're going to let it all out so if you subscribe to my YouTube channel you'll be the first to see the videos because once you subscribe. As soon as I post them, they'll come automatically through to you, and you can view them and share them with your friends. So some exciting stuff. The future is here. It's 2014. Oh, Charles. Oh, Nelson, 2014, Riling. Have a great one. Let's kick some ass this year, gang. Thanks for

being here, and Happy New Year. It's the Harlan Highway, and all year long, We're going to be saying it. Until next time, chicken, chal bean, baby.