The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Splish Splash

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

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Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessie Crookshank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend.

I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails, suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store. Somebody should help him. In a drowning world, full of sick and disgusting drowning people, weak and ugly and wrong, one man says, no, I will not drown. I will climb aboard a boat, safe and dry and wrong. One man says, no, I will not drown. I will climb aboard a boat, safe and dry and alive.

That man is James Donald Forbes McCann, and this is the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. I'm not convinced that theme music is getting better. I think it's maybe too violent. We just want something reassuring and positive. There's room for Nietzscheanism and social Darwinism and that sort of thing in the world, but really I'm just looking for something friendly so that when people skip the ads at the start of a podcast

and then accidentally go too far, they don't miss some of what I'm saying and then have to go backwards and listen to it again. Do you know what I mean? Yes. So maybe for next week we could just do something more in line with that, more... Non-violent. Yeah.

Wholesome? All right. Hello. Welcome to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran. I've planned so many exciting things happening this week. I've spent this week largely working my day job, running about birds and mattresses for internet websites. As opposed to all those websites that are not on the internet. However, my real joy is coming here and bringing this to you, this beautiful podcast about me aspiring

to own a boat. I have spent many hours this week finishing up the mugs for the Patreon. Everyone who had signed up to the Patreon by a certain point got a mug and um man that just took way longer than I thought it would take so first I made some of the mugs and then I sent some of them out I thought aha we'll get some feedback on the first round of mugs and the first feedback I got was um the personalized designs you've drawn on the mug they wash off like a lot and on the first wash so I went bugger like I just really I was in a despair for whoo maybe a week just going what can I do and I found this other way to make the mug work I think but it seemed toxic and like it would take 15 days and I I just I spent days I spent days going, I've, I've buggered this. People are expecting me to send them mugs and the mugs they're getting won't be drinkable. Then I came up with a solution

and this is what I've done. I've sent out two mugs to people. So not only do you get your personalized mug that I've drawn on, that's the mug for looking at, you also get a clean mug that's washable, that has no design on it, as a proxy mug. Sort of like Avatar, the movie Avatar, or like, you know what I'm saying? Like you drink out of one mug. It's been too long since I saw the movie Avatar. Well, I wouldn't say it's been too long. I never want to see it again. But if you drink out of the clean mug that I didn't draw on, and you can look at the mug that I did draw on, and you can sort of imagine what it would be like,

which is even better, because when you're drinking out of the mug, you can't actually see the mug you're drinking out of. So this is, I think, the best of all possible worlds. One ornamental mug one practical mug so you can drink and look and feel personalized one downside is this has meant paying postage on two mugs instead of one mug and boy oh boy i didn't know how expensive international shipping was i've got a listener in hong kong a mug. The mug went from China to Australia to China again. Wow, what a very

exciting journey for the mug. I've got someone in Munich getting a mug. The people of Germany thank you for sending us a mug. Hello. People in West Australia, which may as well be another country. Mate. So, uh... Mate. Yes, I feel a little

silly about that, but we'll send something lighter next time. Hmm? Mate. Okay, time to declare this meeting open. Item of business number one, monetisation. That's what this whole podcast is about, is monetisation. That's the only point to it. This is

not the James Donald Forbes McCann esoteric plan. Or the James Donald Forbes McCann esoteric plan or the James Donald Forbes McCann hide your light under a bushel plan. Those names don't rhyme. The point of this plan and podcast is very simple. It's to earn enough money for me personally to buy a boat from the podcast. Well, we go about that a number of different ways. We have a Patreon. You can sign up to the Patreon and we love it when people sign up to the Patreon. We've got over 30 patrons, almost $250 a month.

For as little as $5 a month, you can join that Patreon and you get access to many beautiful, stunning, glorious episodes of Captain's Log, the secondary, inner sanctum, James Donald Forbes, McCann, Ken Moran plan podcast. However, I must say, listen, we need... Ah! Ah! We've got to find a way to monetise all the other people. Say we're getting 500 downloads a month and 30 of those people on the Patreon. That's 470 people with a free ride.

I'm talking to you, 470 people. And you know what? I think that's actually fabulous. Beautiful, stunning, glorious. I don't subscribe to anyone's patreon i'm not a hypocrite i don't ask you to subscribe i do ask you to subscribe to my i'm not but i don't resent anyone for not doing it i understand if i i honestly i wouldn't do it i wouldn't do it that doesn't mean it's not great and it's not for you but i'm poor you know and i don't even listen to

anyone's podcast oh but my patreon is very good you get special gifts and presents and all these all the mugs have now been sent out anyway the question is how do you monetize to those extra 470 people listening who are giving me instead of their money their time but how do I turn their time into money? Well, it's with more ads. Well, it's not even necessary with more ads. It's just with ads that pay me some money. We're playing ads on this podcast.

You may have heard ads at the start. You may hear them at the end. I'm on a podcast hosting service called Acast. And they automatically put ads into the podcast. I'm not picking or editing those ads and those ads will change for different person, you know, depending on who you are. Some sort of algorithm gets involved. Ostensibly, I'm getting paid for those ads,

but maybe because we have not yet earned the minimum amount of money that would be required. Minimum amount of money. You know, I think there's a threshold of like 50 before they send you the first check whatever that amount of money is we they are not giving it to us at this point so i still think ads are a good idea 500 a week is nothing to sneeze at you know at a cost per a thousand you know which would be normal in the business of, say, $20, that should still be $10 a week coming in on the pod per ad.

Five ads that I'm reading out, if I was to read out five ads on the pod to this number of people, that would be $50 a week, and that would significantly improve the amount of money going towards the podcast. So I'm trying to find someone, some business who will take us on. However, I don't have contacts. I don't know anybody. This is not, you know, I'm trying.

Then I think, do I know anybody? Do I know anybody? And I think, anyone who owns a business and who would pay me? I don't think so. And then, I'll try. I'll ask. I'll hunt around. We'll give it a go.

But so far, nothing. Nothing except willpower. For if you have willpower, there's nothing you can't achieve. So I've been calling businesses. I've been cold calling businesses. This is through and ask if they would like to advertise on our podcast. But I'm just running into brick walls. It's very hard to get through to some of these businesses. I'll give you an example.

I'm not going to bore you. I've got 20 minutes of me on the phone to Kmart, bouncing around different phone menus. You know, I've made about, I don't know, I made about 10 calls today. I don't think any of them were successful. Some of them were just too hard. Like here, for example, I won't make you listen to all of them. Here's me trying to call Big W. you listen to all of them. Here's me trying to call Big W. Children screaming downstairs. Hi there. Let me know why you're calling and I'll put you through to the right team.

Marketing advertising. Sorry, what was your call about? Advertising. Sorry, what were you after? For instance, you could say online order or refund I have a boat podcast and I'd wish to sell ads to Big W Yep, sure, and was this in store or online? Either, really Sorry, was this in store or online? Either is applicable So I can put you through to the right team

Let me know if your call was an in-store or online inquiry. Online, I guess. No problems. I'll connect you to one of my human friends to help with your product question. Thank you. To continually improve our service, your call will be recorded. Also, we might ask you to participate in a short survey about your experience today. That's okay.

Thank you for your patience. You're welcome. You're still experiencing higher than expected call volumes. Please continue to hold, or alternatively, please visit our website at bigw.com.au. Thank you for calling. Current hold time is between 17 and 22 minutes. What? From now.

Please wait for your call is transferred. 22 minutes? Can't wait 22 minutes. I've got things to do. All our team members are currently taking calls. We will be with you as soon as possible. I'm not putting up with that. I'm not putting up with that. I'm not putting up with that. Now it's time for a little Ocean News.

Ocean News. This is from a new website. Well, it's possibly a very old website, but it's new to me. It's called The Load Star, making sense of the supply chain. And it's just all these news stories about the global supply chain and how prices work there. And some of them are about the sky and some of them are about the road. But overwhelmingly, they're about the ocean. And I've stumbled across, there are like 20 stories

and I don't understand what they mean at all. I have no idea how the supply chain functions. But here's one that was a little insight that I found to be interesting. Barge users face major surcharges as water levels drop across North Europe. Written by Alexander Whiteman. Barge users in Northern Europe are facing substantial surcharges as water levels drop amid increasing temperatures, while delays remain a major issue.

So from what I can understand on this story, there are these barges that boats carry goods on. I was about to say goods and services, but I don't suspect there are too many services on the barge. They have these big, they they move them through the water but because it's so hot i guess evaporation or people drinking more water taking them out of the canals i don't know if they're canals or rivers or whatever but um because they're so the water is less so the barge can carry less stuff. Sometimes the water levels in the Rhine, I'm reading here, are down to 41 centimeters.

And so they charge an extra surcharge to carry less and still make money. I just thought, isn't that interesting? This is perhaps the least interesting thing I have ever heard. Isn't that the sort of thing that must be happening all the time? You know, these little niche industry things. Because I found this by just searching ocean news. Like there's no, if I'm reading, if I'm watching Nine News or even the ABC, no one's talking about how the level, the water depth in the Rhine results in a different cost for shipping,

resulting in everything else having different prices. I mean, they just don't talk about it. It's too, I mean, I am an intelligent man with a university degree focused on the ocean. And I just sat on this lodestar website looking at it for, I don't know, seven, eight minutes going, what does that mean? There was all this CBA, CGM, all these things that I don't understand. Having to search every second, third word. But then you go, aha.

But the end result of this is big changes in markets and prices and so if one can understand this better you know which is probably the most people very boring i mean i'm sure it's very boring to you yes and i thank you for staying with me while i talk about the boring thing but i just thought that's probably how you can crack wealth in some way, is to understand the primordial forces. Is that the term I'm looking for? These subterranean cogs that are turning all the time. And if you can understand them and predict what's going to happen, maybe you can make money.

It's about knowledge. It's about acquiring more knowledge. Good Lord. You know, in this's about acquiring more knowledge. Good Lord. You know, in this case, acquiring more knowledge about boats and freight so that I can make more money to buy a boat. But like hot, you know, say you predict that there are going to be hot temperatures next year in Germany, and you know from reading this that higher temperatures mean lower water levels, mean you can charge more for your barge and carry less.

Well, then you might go, well, you probably need less fuel on that barge. When does this stop? Right. So maybe their overhead is, I don't know. I don't know how you'd make money out of that. But you'd go, well, I'll buy, you know, I'll maybe the fuel company that sells to the barges is going to make less money. Right. Or sell less.

Ah, but even if they charge more of the fuel, so you'd get something that didn't charge more, like the containers that they sell the fuel in. Maybe that doesn't happen. It's like watching a pig try to do calculus. Bet against that, right? You'd buy a, I think it's called a short, in the German barge petrol delivering.

I'd like to apologise on James' behalf for this wildly boring and inaccurate segment. A system. And you'd say, well, they're going to have a hard year next year because they don't necessarily know what the heat is going to mean for the barge. You see what I'm saying? It's, I think, people think with investing,

it's all about, ha ha, you know, I'm going to buy a copper mine and then they'll maybe find copper and then i'll be rich this is a philistine's way to look at the market what you have to do i think is my idea you go deep you go deep into esoteric knowledge to predict the future and that's how you make the money anyway it's just a thought hey alexa what are the warning signs for early onset dementia i don't really understand anything else on the lodestar website at the moment and there wasn't too much else in ocean news i mean that was a secondary there was a sensationalized story on news.com.au about this pool in the ocean

at the bottom of the ocean's floor that kills anything that touches it. But I just found that to be too spooky. And so I thought instead we would talk about freight. Ocean news. Ocean news. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you.

We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning.

Be the first to know what's going on and what that means to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. Yes, yes. Yes, oh. Hello and welcome to this final section

of this episode of the James Donald Forbes and Ken Cadden plan, coming to you live from one of my very favourite places in the whole wide world, the bath. I was, it's been a funny sort of Sunday. I was up until very late at night writing about mattresses. And I did not quite finish my work. I wasn't writing about mattresses for the sake did not quite finish my work. I wasn't writing about mattresses for the sake of it, by the way. I was writing a series of mattress essays

for a mattress website to help them in their quest to sell mattresses. And I just couldn't get it all done. I'd started to become foggy and groggy and I'd been drinking a lot of abalower whiskey. Then I had to get up for mass. Then it was a very big full day of socialising and now, oh, it's turned toward the evening

and I've got about, I would say, eight, at the very least, eight more hours of work to do. i just expect that i'll be up till three in the morning let alone finishing this podcast and so i was complaining to my wife and i said i don't know how long i can go on like this you know i'm doing things and driving people around during the day and then all night I stay up just drinking and writing. And if I'm not drinking, then the writing is hard to endure. It's not a good situation, but there we have it.

And my wife said, why don't you have a bath? And I said, I don't have time for a bath. And I said, I don't have time for a bath. She said, well, why don't you do your podcast in the bath? I think your listeners would like that. And I gave her a big kiss. And I said, well, I forget what I said, but what I hope I said was something like, you understand me. You have such wonderful ideas. with something like, you understand me.

You have such wonderful ideas. So here is the end of this podcast taking place in the bath. As I think of being like a big human boat floating in the water. I had a conversation today about baths and people drowning in the bath and that woman from the Cranberries. Oh, and I just, I think we all said one must have showers if one wants to live. And yet it's worth risking it with the bath sometimes,

isn't it? Perhaps more dangerous, but more beautiful. I think of like a log fire. I'm sure that having some sort of electrical gas thing in the house is quote-unquote more safe, but it's just a little splashing, so you know I am in the bath. But when you're burning wood, well, that's really what life is all about. I keep seeing articles of people going, we've got to ban these wood fires. They're bad for asthma.

They're bad for the environment. They're bad for this and that. But really, having a wood fire like that is what life is all about. It's one of the only things that life is all about, you know? An actual piece of wood that is on fire in your home. What else is there, man? And so too it is with baths, even though this bath is too small. Oh, perhaps I am too fat.

Yes, I really felt before this bath and even now a little bit like I was drowning. Like I was being pulled under. I can never quite get free. But it's raining now outside. And I am in the bath. Yes, I think it's all going to be alright. Well, not tonight. Tonight's going to be brutal.

I'm going to pour myself a... Not a whiskey tonight. I think a big, big, big water. I'm going to write about mattresses. I'm going to write about birds. And I'm going to finish editing this podcast and I'm going to let you know oh I forgot to do the affirmations oh gosh it's going to be very echoey in here too isn't it

well I affirm that I will get all my work done that I will finish sending out those mugs that I will find a way to monetize this podcast and here's an affirmation I think we can all relate to. Splishity splash. I'm going to finish enjoying my bath all alone. Splish, splosh, splash.

Here's a song. I'm so worried, I feel so bright I didn't get much sleep last night Freight train ride up through my head Whistle blowing and love is dead Is dead Heart attacked by fear and doubt Won't belong till the truth comes out First impressions never last

Lovers follow, they hold so fast Mercy's future's burning bright Class is holding on so tight Never heard no one in bed I just wanted to wish you well I never had no one to blame. I just wanted to make sure you were. You were. You were.

Welcome, swallows, dip and and swing Take that cue from the slightest thing Rolling far into my room Why'd you give up on me so soon Bestest future's burning bright

Max is hoping on a sunset night Never had no one to blame I just wanted to make sure you were You were You were You and me Why'd you give up on me so soon? Why'd you give up on me so soon? I just wanted to wish you well

I just wanted to wish you well I just wanted to wish you well I just wanted to wish you well Why'd you give up on me so soon? I just wanted to wish you well I just wanted to wish you well