Tomorrow - 157: Apple Is at Your Service

Episode Date: March 31, 2019

The Outline was acquired. Apple exploded into media and credit services. Brexit continued to not happen. Jussie Smollet walked away from his shady dealings with no consequences. A gay mayor is rocketing his way towards a legitimate presidential bid. Oh, and Robert Mueller dropped his report (sort of). Just, you know, normal stuff. The past week was bursting at the seams with news and Josh and Ryan are finally here to sort through the mess. So queue up Tomorrow episode 157 – and do your best to keep up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host Josh Wittipulski. Today on the podcast we discuss Buttigieg, Noreda Boy, and Apple News Plus. I don't waste one minute. Let's get right into it. Um, all right Ryan, we're back. It's been a very low-key week, nothing big happening. It's gonna say it's been a really packed week of nothing.

Nothing, nothing of the per-happening. No, look, look a company called Bustle, which is as shocking to you as it was to me. No, I mean, I knew about it, but is a very strange, surprising situation where Bustle, in many ways, does a lot of stuff that is like not stuff that we have been, you know, so like, wouldn't be the stuff that we were trying to do and is definitely a different plan of attack. And yet, when I talked to Brian Goldberg who's the Deutie Runsit and surprisingly, like, we had a lot of common thoughts about, like, building a not-one-size-fits-all media company.

And I think this is really key for us. His thinking is, like, how do you actually innovate the model and part of innovating the model is like Don't build a business where it's like every one of these has to be a hundred million plus or every one of these has to be 50 million plus or whatever and it actually tracks really nicely with what we're trying to do with the outline But also what we're trying to do with input which is a totally different pace a totally different sort of metabolism a totally different focus It's a really awesome thing. It's like, you know You know, we've been running the company

in a, look, a very like lean capacity. Like for lots of different reasons, one is about like, you know, as a startup, you're always kind of trying to hit break even you're always trying to hit profitability. The other is like, you know, originally we're like, okay, how do you do something that is not like structurally, you know, kind of massive. And I think like the reality is like being in an environment

where you can be a lean thing, but with the support system of a really big scale system is, you know, I ultimately is going to be the way a lot of media companies go in the near future. And I think like for us, it lets us do all the stuff we want to do and then some and accelerate it, which is very exciting to me. A lot of other industries have companies that make massive, massive market appeal products, and then more niche like specialty products. And it's an awesome idea for a media business. Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways it's like, you know, in the 90s, in the 90s a lot of like indie labels kind of ended up sort of doing deals with larger labels. I mean, I think there's, there's a, you know, maybe that's probably the best analogy,

but there's a piece of that that works really well. A lot of really interesting artists got imprints on major labels where they were able to do their own kind of like their sort of bespoke thing in the environment where you had the distribution and the sort of marketing power of like a Warner Brothers or whatever, but Donna had a label or maybe still has Maverick, which I think has actually ended up being pretty huge,

but it was kind of like- A lot of movie companies operate the same way. Exactly. Anyhow, so it's exciting. like- A lot of movie companies operate the same way. Exactly. Anyhow, so it's exciting. There's a lot more to come and to talk about like the outline is continuing input. We're gonna accelerate a lot of the stuff we're doing. We actually had to, I mean, the truth is,

we really did like, the last few months have been like, we were like, okay, we're built into this thing and then it's like, we got into conversations. You know, frankly, we talked to people besides Bessel. There was a handful of conversations that went on and like, you know, we got into this thing where it kind of like paused a bunch of things we were working on. So I'm very excited because it has a lot to do with why we've been so insanely off schedule and so many of these podcasts today is, of course, I'm still guilty of it.

But anyhow, so like, it's very exciting. It's brand new. We just like, you know, we just announced it this week. But it's good. It's exciting. It's a new chapter. And I'm very pleased to get back to, to be honest with you, I don't think I love being a CEO.

Like, doing being the final word on every single thing actually turns out to be kind of a drag. And I'm excited that. Well, Easter man enough to say that being CEO isn't a fun job for you, as opposed to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who seem to despite all the consequences and results decide that they aren't going to make any deals or decide what their strengths are. I just think like, look, I think that probably the frustration, I would say the frustration that somebody Elias Rothblatt

who's our COO at the outline felt with me is probably like, Josh really wants to be working on crazy new features of the product or he wants to be working on some weird editorial thing or some crazy design thing. And he's like, I need you to look at the spreadsheet, which is really what a lot of CEO it is. And I did not fucking enjoy it.

So anyhow, so I'm excited to like get back to focusing on making stuff, like being in the in more in the midst of making stuff, of writing stuff, of like working on input, which I'm really excited about. The outline, we've got some really awesome shit plan. And like we're going to like, you know, I think we're going to start building back up in a bunch of ways that we want to around, around that stuff. And so it's good. And like the podcast thing, I think we're going to see some

evolution. We talked about this before and again, it's like not, there's no, not a ton of details share right now, but some evolution of this podcast and some, some other stuff to come around the input launch. And, you know, I mean, it's basically like we get to start input on new game plus with all our upgrades as opposed to fighting it out. Yeah, and I'm going to get to this later, but yeah, it's been a big week for me because I also I also finally beat dead cells. And I'm going to talk about it.

Love that wait, dead cells came up before Laura that Lord June's Paulski news. Yeah, no, but I just like pod right head. Well, that is the other things we very good week for to Paulski. So, so Laura is is going to be the deputy editor of gay magazine, which is Roxanne Gays publication that she's doing for medium. When I found out there was going to be a gay magazine edited by Lord June, I was so stoked. And then I found out it wasn't all like beef cake picks. So when I found out what it actually was, it was my second

choice for what a game magazine should be. She's definitely going to get some in there. No, so so Rox and Gae, I would hope that people listening know who she is, amazing writer and an amazing Twitter presence. I have to say the most, like the most like, uh, brave Twitter user that I know, because she like will straight up engage with like the worst roles. Um, a braver than me, that's for sure. Um, but anyhow, so they're doing this thing, she's doing this thing with her and, and Laura's really excited, and I'm really excited for her.

And it's so funny because like Roxanne tweeted about it the day that the bussel stuff came out, and I was like, you know, listen, there's always like, when it comes to anything in media, you've got like people who are like, wow, this is awesome. And then people who are like, fuck you, how could you, you know, and I was really nice to, like, have something else to talk about, just not have it be all about me, but be like, hey, here's a really good thing that Laura's doing. There's a handful of writers that I own their audiobook,

a physical copy of their book, and maybe the Kindle version. Like I'm willing to repurchase. And it was funny because if Amy Sederis gets involved in Game Magazine, all the writers who I repurchased all their books several times will be working together becauseurchased all their books every time, we'll be working together because I own all of Laura's stuff.

I have downloaded versions of old Laura posts that I think are great, that I have a handful of writers. I have every Katie Weaver posts because I love her writing. And Roxanne is someone that I've like hoarded all her work. And with Nora Shredd. I have her on dead. There's only a handful of people

that I'm excited about their work. And now they're working together. And it's like, I'm so excited. Yeah, I'm having a full fan moment. I'm very excited and and I don't, you know, they're still, it's the early days of planning. I mean, I heard a few of the ideas that Laura was sort of saying, like, well, there's your things we talked about and they're very good and I'm very excited. But also, I do think, I do think that the writing talent that that Roxanne I do think that the writing talent that Roxanne can attract, I mean, just such a presence. It's exciting. I'm very excited.

And you know, listen, medium, I have my issues of medium, and I am skeptical as hell of anything the medium does. But like, if medium wants to give like really good smart people money to make things and those people know what they're getting into and they, and Roxanne and Laura definitely do, you know, like they know what's up. So anyhow, I'm excited, like I think it'll be good. And money is hard to find in this,

and in many media industries. And if someone wants to give somebody who makes cool stuff, a bunch of mine to do it, like fuck yeah. Yeah, it's funny. This last week was just a crazy week for stuff. I mean, for things that happened in like the world, like my little circle. I mean, also like Katie Drum, speaking of medium,

Katie Drum, and who is our executive editor for a while who I worked with at Bloomberg, who I worked with at the verge, took a huge job at Vice. Now she's like SVP of digital there. And so like, you know, it's just like a lot of stuff happening. I feel like everybody's kind of like it truly was like spring. And just all the shit started happening. It was just like the create, you know, it's just like a lot of stuff happening. I feel like everybody's kind of, like it truly was like spring. And just all the shit started happening. It was just like the create,

I mean, the Mueller thing happened, which is a whole deal. We should, I don't know, do we even talk about that last week? I looked at that Mueller thing and the Apple news when I was putting together a roundup of shit that happened this week. And I was like, I am 84 years old. Oh my God, the Apple news, was that this week?

That's this week. Oh my God, that's fucked up. That week? That's this week. Oh my God. That's fucked up. That is fucked up. That's been so long. Yeah, no, that's insane. Like I was like, by the way, interesting note. I'm just gonna say I'm gonna put it out there, you know, because I'm living life out loud as you know. I did a tweet earlier today, which is like, I would pay $10 a month for I message on my pick. So no, let me say something. I got this fucking,

I set up this thing air message, which my friend Dan Nossowicz was like, you should do it. And you basically set up a server in your house and it like reroutes your... Yeah, I have, I have a version of it for Android and it basically, it's like it will auto sync your... Yeah, I mean, it's like a, it's like basically using I message on your Android front.

And it's just like, the setup is really complex. And like, I have it set up, like I have it set up to a point where it works. If I'm on my Wi-Fi, it works perfectly. Like I basically, if I message on my phone, although it's some jankiness to it and like some weird things, like I can't message certain people.

But if I leave my Wi-Fi, it stops working. So I have to like open up on yet another port somewhere in my network that I haven't fully understood. And that's the kind of thing, it's like, listen, I'm a fucking nerd and it is not fun. It's not that hard, but it's not that fun. Anyhow, it's like Plex for texting. One of the things,

one of the things that was driving my thing, it's like this $10, I mean, it's like about Apple for a second. Apple came out this week with all of these Apple services. They're like $10 a month. Like, and I think they're separate $10 payments, right? Like Apple News Plus is this thing, it's $10 a month. You get Amazon Prime version where you can just

drop a hundred dollars. Right, there's no like one side, like one, you pay $100 a year and you get all this shit, which like honestly was what they should fucking do. Yes. They have the money. If they do iCloud where it's like you get iCloud storage and you get Apple TV and you get the news thing

and whatever, and it's $100 or $120 a year or whatever, I mean, that's like a thing that I probably would just get because it's like, well, why not have it? But they're, they haven't done that. There are Cade service, there are music service. Is the arcade service that you pay for as well? It's the news, I Cloud, and something else are all separate purchases.

On top of you have to pay the device. You have to pay obviously your cell phone service. You have to pay for your warranty, which is now monthly plans, you have to pay for individual purchases in the App Store or subscriptions in the App Store. I mean, we're at a point now where I will probably end up paying more money to Apple if I was to use all their services than I would if I had a roommate and paid rent. Yeah. So they have, I mean, I'm sorry, I have, this is such a, it's such a silly thing to me. They're like magazines, all the magazines you want to read right here.

And it's like, you know what? Like most people don't read magazines first off just because you can get them all in one place. I mean, you'll be more likely to read them. And also like, they're like, look at this beautiful design on a phone. And it's like, yeah, that's not something that is like the sole property of magazines. You're in some whack ass app that you have to literally use. They're like dumb fucking PDF slash whatever, like quick time events.

Did I do this around the iPad launch where they were like, look at my third magazine? No, yes, yes. And also, by the way, they did a thing. There was an iPad magazine called the Daily, remember it? It was a daily magazine. And guess what? Here's the reality. I like reading the long form stories,

much as anybody, but those exist at elsewhere. And I'm an InstaPaper Psycho. And most people don't read magazines. Don't need to read every magazine back-to-back. There's a story here and a story there. And that's the new reality that we live in. And it's not going to suddenly go back to the way it used to be because Apple put the stuff on a nice looking app.

And like, I'm sorry. And frankly, you don't get the Washington Post subscription in full. You don't get the full subscriptions that you pay for. So they apparently go back. I mean, Washington Post doesn't even a part of it. It's, they have the Wall Street Journal, which apparently, and there's been some weird, like, back and forth,

where it's like a select amount of the stories, and they have the LA Times. It's the ones they write that are similar to what it already gets published on, like, say, Jezebel, all the news is like, but just like, but the Wall Street Journal version of that, so it's all the light daily news that you get. You don't get the big, in-depth pieces, you don't get investigative stuff. So, like, I don't understand Wall Street Journal version of that. So it's all the light daily news that you get. You don't get the big in-depth pieces.

You don't get investigative stuff. So like, I don't understand why I would pay for that if I really wanted. Well, I think the thing is it's like, oh, you get a little bit of the stuff and then you get all this other stuff. And it's like, that's cool. You know what?

But also, but on Apple Music, I pay $10 a month and I get all the music I want. So if this is gonna be the same thing, I don't get the point. I mean, look, in my opinion of Apple News is that it is a, I find nothing compelling about it whatsoever. I find nothing compelling about it.

I think it's uniquely out of sync. I think it's uniquely out of sync with modern society. I think if you're a boomer, it's probably awesome. If you're a boomer, and you do everything. There was a part of a yearly purchase, along with Apple Arcade and the TV and all that stuff. Yeah, if it was a bundle. Yeah, I think if it was, if it was, or even if it was 20 bucks a month the TV and all that stuff. If it was a bundle, yeah. Yeah, I think if it was, if it was, or even if it was 20 bucks a month and you get all that stuff and you get like, you know, 20 gigs of

iCloud storage or something like, it would just be like, okay, yeah, I get it. Apple care. It's Apple sweet, but they can't do it because the math doesn't work. And by the way. It works for Microsoft. I pay for Office 365 every year and I get every Microsoft service except Xbox Live, but every other. It's just a different deal. It's a whole different. I mean, but the licensing deals just aren't the math doesn't work out if you do it like that. I mean, they're not. That's

like Microsoft's own personal stuff. Apple could do that for it's like I work or whatever, but but anyhow, but let me just say this. They couldn't get for I work. Well, yeah, I can't believe, remember, they're like, it's on the web now. I'm like, is it on the web? I don't even know because I literally only open I work stuff when it accidentally opens on my computer. I'm also honestly, by the way, I'm thinking seriously, I've been so annoyed with Apple, and particularly my laptop lately, that I'm definitely thinking about switching to Windows like full time.

I just don't know. My Windows gaming PC is, and I own every Apple product they sell. I wear earpods and I have other better headphones. I am a purchaser of Apple products, and I have been, I begged my parents when I was 14 to get me Apple laptop and not Windows. Like I have been a fanboy.

My gaming PC, my Windows gaming PC, which is a tower that I have to sit at a desk at, is a much better experience for doing basically anything than the laptop that I throw in my bag every day. And I have a pro, and it's a terrible experience at this point. It's evolved into like cartoon nonsense. Yeah, so it's, so anyhow, it's so, and the thing with it's getting back to the Apple thing is,

how do we get on it? Oh, well, they you know what's crazy about it is like Apple the richest company in the world or whatever Could not get any of the really major newspapers. I mean the Wall Street Journal is like partially. It's like whatever like LA times It's fine. LA times is fine, but it's like it's not people are like oh It's like the LA times and the New York times. It's like the New York times, the Washington Post are like the leading US news papers, USA Today. Most people probably go, okay, that's like one of the leading news papers. Even in a major metropolitan area, like daily news,

a lot of people in New York pick up a copy of the daily news. I mean, I'm more, I've probably read more like Chicago Sun Time stories or whatever they call it in our Chicago Tribune. I guess they merged, like I forget. But like the, whatever the largest Chicago paper is, I probably have read more of their stories or whatever they call it, an ash kogger Tribune, I guess they merged, like I forget, but like this should, whatever the largest kogger paper is, I probably have read more of their stories or scoops or whatever than I have of like the L.A. Times, for example.

Anyhow, the point is just like, it's kind of crazy. I feel like it's a very half-ass thing. It's like, oh, you repackaged this bad magazine app that basically no one really cared about. Nobody cared about texture. It was like, and you would use your free trial and change your email if you really needed to read a one piece.

Right, and you've got, and it's totally disconnected from the internet. It's totally disconnected from like any kind of like social. They're like, we don't share this with, you know, so we don't, you know, share what you're reading with anybody. It's like, that's cool. There are benefits like, if you could find, I mean, actually, where Apple should be thinking about innovating is like, how do you find a way to create like a trusted group of people? Like the way that like you've got your group chats and everybody's in your group chat and it's like your closest friends. And that's like a really good thing because it's like you can talk in a way

that you can't talk out in public. Is there like a way to do that with news or with stories or whatever that makes it a better experience for you, right? That maybe there's two versions of news, which is like you pay for serious news subscriptions and you have RSS feeds and you take your new seriously. I do. I don't like only getting my news through tweets. I like to see every story from all the publications I like and I pay for a couple of them.

Or there's what most people do and the reason that RSS is now a forgotten thing, which is most people just look at the stories they're friends like with the context of their friends tweet before they even open the link. Then they open the link, they read it, then they go back and they do their tweet, and then they Google the piece if they want more info, or they Twitter search the piece for more info. That's basically how the two ways people absorb news, and Apple news is neither of those good. Yeah.

Neither of those done well. I just think, and I think, like, listen, I'm not, I'll be the first to say, like, there are a lot of problems with, like, social news, but they're also, they're also, it is a fact that like, I follow some people on Twitter who on a regular basis share a story that I hadn't seen. I follow people on pocket who on a regular basis share a story that I haven't seen. You know, there's all this support. I mean, even on medium, I follow a handful of people that, whenever I occasionally happen to open the media map, I know there will be stories that I, I follow a handful of people that whenever I occasionally happen to open the medium app, I know there will be stories that they reposted

or that they like that. I'm like, oh, that's actually a weird little opinion piece I hadn't seen. Yeah. That doesn't exist in Apple News. Yeah, so it's like, so it's like, they couldn't get its work for music. After copying Spotify.

That's right. So it's this interesting thing where, yeah, I mean, it just is, I just feel like it's just such a weird misstep. And then they have this arcade thing, which I'm like, I do not give a fuck. I do not think of my, I know a lot of people play mobile games, but the people who play mobile games aren't like, man, I need to be a member of a subscription network service

where I can like, see, here's what I don't, I know this is probably like my galaxy brain take on this, but here's what I don't understand about the Apple or Kate thing And I'm excited if it kills free Meam games or if it creates opportunities for indie game developers to get a payment that they wouldn't otherwise get from like PS4 but here's the thing that I really don't understand is They created market incentives, which was you either purchase an experience and it's high quality and sometimes it's short or sometimes It's long or sometimes it's a port,

but if you say you buy this iOS game for $10, it's high quality, you get to look at all the reviews, it's one payment and it's, it is the creator's vision of what it should be or freemium games they created. And at purchases was a whole model that they accidentally made and it is a nightmare hellhole where you do lots of clicking and the point is to get people to be addicted to these things.

So now they have a new incentive which is the most time you can spend in a game. That's how developers get paid. That's their incentive is time spent. So I pay $10 a month for developers to create games that should be the biggest time suck, which means that the games that are meaningful in short and division and have an emotional resonance, there's a lot of like visual novels that are gorgeous that I would pay $10 for a short high quality experience. Now they're not part of that.

The only games that are part of that are like, and I love Dead Cells, but the only thing that they're really pushed to create is a version of Dead Cells, which means it absorbs as much of my time as possible, highest replayability, highest like time spent. And that incentive to me doesn't make a quality game product.

Well, I don't know. I don't know. The wrong example, so I'm concerned because I feel like it's an extreme. But yes, dead cells is a great game, and there are great freemium games, and there are great individual experiences. But the problem for me is that every dead cell's copy that is a piece of shit, do you know what I mean? It's not perfectly executed if it's just to make to be addictive and time suck or animal crossing.

Like animal crossing screen. A ton of the farming simulators that copy animal crossing suck. And so for every star do valley and dead cells that sucks a ton of my time, Apple's encouraging developers to create games that I'm gonna sink a hundred hours into that aren't the highest quality. And there are just tons of re-skins

of time spending machines. Yeah. And I don't fucking want that. I agree. I agree. And listen, I think, um, I mean, Netflix had that problem when they made TV shows and they now places are encouraged for you to spend 13 episodes to got a story they could have told in six because they get paid based on views. Yeah, but I think, but I think, um, the bigger problem is that it's just like there's a weird, there's a weird, a weird dissonance between what Apple provides and what the games are and who you who really wants the subscription service and like what it really like what it really is like I just don't take it seriously at all It just doesn't feel like a real I

Just don't look at the I don't look at like my phone as a real gaming platform. It is it does amazing games It's just like I am not busted out to play games I don't look at my phone as a real gaming platform. It does amazing games. It's just like, I am not busted in out to play games. I think the Switch is, I gotta say, I've done a total 180 on the Switch from when I first saw it, till now. When I first saw it, I was like, that's kind of cool, I sort of want it,

but I think it's stupid and don't really need it. I last night was playing Dead Cells on my TV. I was like, Laura's like, let's go to bed, it's late or whatever. I'm like, Laura's like, let's go to bed, it's late or whatever. I'm like, okay, cool, I'm gonna take the switch. And then I was sitting in bed playing what I considered to be a console quality game in bed. And it's just like fucking great.

It's been a dream of mine. I wish I could play Fallout 3. I wish I didn't have to sit in front of my Xbox to play Fallout. It's like, well, now you don't. I have LA Noir and it's not perfect. I wish it was't have to sit in front of my Xbox to play fallout. You know, it's like, well, now you don't. Like, I have LA Noir, it's not perfect. I wish it was like better at certain things, but like, you can't play fallout three on an iPhone, even if it can handle the actual game itself.

There's like, there's really no like, you need a controller and like- It's not better than the Switch at mobile gaming. It's not better than the PS4 at any like high quality experiences that run like, you know what I mean? Like, PS4 remote play, it's not better than that. It can't do anything related to VR or like high quality graphics. It can't.

So what is it's niche? Because the switch is already doing what it does way better. Yeah. So it's niche is what? Like puzzle games because we already have those and they work fine in the app store. Yeah, it's, it's, um, like solitary runs fine. I mean, look, okay. And then that brings us to the TV the app store. Yeah, it's like, the solitary runs fine. I mean, look, okay, and then that brings us to the TV thing,

which I think is equally as like whatever to me. It's like, first off, they're like, well, look at all the channels we have. It's like, okay, you've got like, shutter and like, flex or flex or something. Yeah, but somebody should like, CBS, CBS all access, it's like, okay,

like, but I can get CBS all access. Like, you're not saying like, you're including, are they including those? They're not including those. They're just built in with it. I think they're just saying like, I think it's like, you still have to subscribe to CBS all access. Yeah. But like it like now works inside of your TV environment. So it's like, they already do that with their TV off that had basically been. It's, but it sucks. And it's bad. And I simply do not trust them to make it better. And also, if you're telling me that I'm paying to one of my paying $10 for like their extra TV stuff and then I'm still paying for HBO and all that other shit, I don't, I just don't understand. And

there are originals. We saw no actual trailers. No, it's crazy. It's crazy that they would be like, we're doing a TV network or whatever. And then it shows no trailers. Yeah. And then they're like, I really want to say I'm looking here. I want to learn more about TV plus, okay? I'm looking as we speak. Okay, yeah, okay, get it. You guys have Jennifer Aniston, I'm excited. I love Jennifer Aniston.

I love Sophie Coppola. I love Oprah. I'm very excited. Cool, you have a big celebrities. What's the thing though? What is it? Like, come on, non-Giani. We all like, come on.

What is he making? Because I'm not still clear on what that show is or how it's consumed or how many episodes it is or what's gonna cost me to watch that show. Or like, they're like, yes, what? You can download all your shows. I'm like, yeah, that's 90% of the Netflix catalog. All your TV, all in one app.

I'm like, okay, so available in May, all right? And so explain it to me. So yeah, okay, here's Showtime, try it free. It's like, you can try it free. But then when you're done trying for free, it's pay for Showtime. HBO, you've got to pay for. Stars, you have to pay for it.

It's like the CBS, yes, CBS, all access. You get a fucking pay for it. Oh, you can rent movies, you can buy movies. Well, that's already happening. You've made it a little bit easier to do that. That's nice. So Hulu, you still have to pay for if you don't want commercials on it.

I mean, they're like, they want to walk into one of these media markets and actually create a service, a streaming service or a, like any kind of service, new service, any of these services. They need to do what they did with Apple Music, which was, and I don't even think they executed that perfectly,

which was we will make a all in one product that has parody of her else, but it's slightly cheaper and it's highly, much more integrated with your OS and your services and your devices and We're gonna break even or take a loss because we have the money to do that in order to gain market share and then we can go from there But they're not doing that. So Apple sucks at services. They suck at social. They suck at making original stuff So I a content wise. So I don't understand It was just such a weird presentation and then to couple that with their credit card,

which is basically just a shitty rewards card that ties you to your phone, I don't, like, okay, so now I have to make credit card. I thought Apple, I thought Apple as a company had more dignity and innovation than Coles. And it's a Coles card that they're selling you. So I don't understand why you were talking about that. My brother who is not like,

he's not like a nerd or anything. I mean, far from it. He was like this credit card thing is so gross and lame. He's like, this is so uncooled. It's dystopian. Your discover card gets you better benefits. It's easier to get like you'll I'm sure you that the credit score limit will be much lower with your discover card.

And you get to switch phones whenever you want. Why the fuck would you sign up for a credit card? So this brings me to my tweet. It's like, I said, I would pay $10 a month for I message on my pixel. We talked about this at the beginning of this conversation. So this is the thing, like what are the things that I would pay Apple $10 for?

Here's the thing that's an actual, I think, is an actual service that they made that is good. I don't like what they, how they did it. I don't like they hijacked people's phone numbers without basically telling them. I think it's an actual service that they made that is good. I don't like what they did it. I don't like the hijack people's phone numbers without basically telling them. I think it's really fucking shady and has caused a lot of problems. But they created an encrypted messaging app

that can handle group conversations. There's all kinds of fun stuff and makes it really easy to talk to people. It has got a great video chat app and a ton of people I know use it. Now, it has an app store that works. I think you can, I think just on the argument that it is a private encrypted,

like totally like you are protected from like all of this scary shit, you're the Facebook shit and the Twitter shit and the, you know, all that other stuff, like who knows who makes it, where you know signals like sure it's fine, but you never really know. And it's like here's Apple, they're very trusted.

They've made privacy to their thing. It's like, guys, I totally, I'm in. I will pay $10 bucks on that. It's a service that you have that I will pay $10 a month for. You don't have to throw anything else in. You know why? Because the one of the most important things I do on my phone, maybe the top thing I do on my phone

is communicate with other people on it. And like, right now I'm like bouncing between text messages and WhatsApp and signal and fucking people hit me on Facebook messenger, people DM me on Twitter. And it's like, now I've got some weird I message hack on my phone. It's like, you know what? I message which simplify a lot of that stuff

and I'm happy to do it. And like, I mean, even on Android, you've got SMS and now RcN. And so it's just like if I would drop, I mean hang out, I'm sorry, I forgot about G-Chat, I forgot about Hangouts, like, I mean, even on Android, you've got SMS and now RcN. And so it's just like if I would drop, I mean, hang out, I'm sorry, I forgot about G chat, I forgot about hangouts, like which I'm on all the time with people, plus Slack, whatever. So a group, group me, which I have up my parents on and stuff. Yeah, it's Instagram. Yeah, it's not. So listen, so like you guys could actually provide a service that people really need, that people would pay

for. You're clearly, it's like, you're not. And the funny thing is people are like, well, they want to sell phones. It's like, that's true. And it is a hook, but iPhone sales are flattening all over the place. The reality is that they're gonna be... They wanted to sell iPods, but they put a great iPod on their phone because they understood that if you're gonna get cannibalized,

or if you're gonna get eaten, cannibalize yourself. And that's really the fun thing. There's a reason why they're doing the TV app for fucking Roku's. Yeah, you know, it's like they go like, well, we have this part of the market, but we can't get all the market here, you know, with the messaging. Now it may be the greatest carrot ever for you to go over to an iPhone. I find it hard to believe that that's the carrot.

I mean, once you get out of it, you're like, well, I maybe I'm not on some group chats or I maybe it's like chatting is a little bit more a pain in the ass, but like you switched to WhatsApp or whatever and then you're kind of done. It's like not that, I mean, what's happened many ways is like better than what I mess it up. People outside the US do not use IMS. That's right. And so anyhow, so you know it would be amazing

is if like suddenly people had as other, it's like apples like the, they're all about privacy. It's like awesome, you guys are all about privacy. Now you're offering me this amazing private chat app that connects with everybody who has an iPhone. I mean, to me, that's like, I would imagine that there is a fairly high percentage of Android users, maybe $10 isn't the right number.

Maybe it's $5 a month. $5 a month, and you get it for free if you buy an Apple device, and if you don't own an Apple device, it's $5 a month, and it's the best messaging service. Honestly, so they're not gonna get everybody. They're not gonna get everybody by an iPhone. It's never gonna happen. So if you now can accept that like,

Android actually has like larger market share globally, and that's probably not gonna change. It doesn't mean that it's gonna push Apple out of business. People are gonna always see Apple as like this, like you know, crown jewel of the smartphones or whatever for all of the reasons that Apple is Apple. But like, I don't know, to me I'm just saying, like I'm not gonna be $10, they're fucking TV service.

I'm not gonna be $10. What are fucking TV service. I'm not gonna be $10. I turn on Windows, it's the same shit. I'm not gonna pay $10 for their arcade thing. I'm not gonna pay $10 for their news thing. And I'm certainly not gonna get their credit card. I mean, maybe, I mean, if I had an iPhone, I might consider it, but I don't need another credit card. No. And I don't want to, I want,

I don't have any credit cards, and I'm highly suspicious of them. And I wouldn't get one that ties me to my phone. Yeah, I want, I don't have any credit cards, and I'm highly suspicious of them. And I wouldn't get one that ties me to my phone. Yeah, I mean, you know what they could have done that would have been really cool. If they wanted to actually show themselves as like thinking about their users, the fucking credit card has interest rates as high

as like 24%, okay, which is insane. What they should have done is said, we're making an interest free credit card because we want everybody to be able to use this and it's really convenient. We know that we've got a trustworthy, whatever. But if you, obviously, if you misappearment, if whatever, then you get hit with interest.

But if you are paying on time and your credit isn't good standing or whatever, there won't be any interest whatsoever. Or the interest will never be above 5% or something like that. And like they could have been like, we wanna make this easy, we wanna make it not user aggressive, we wanna make it fair to people. Or they said we're not working with Goldman Sachs,

we're expiring on or any of those credit reporting services will report good news. And if you don't have, if you have bad credit situations, well cancel your card and we'll handle that. I don't think they can't, I don't think they can't not work. They cannot work with some bank because it has to be like backed. Like it can't be. But it's just weird for them to be like, Apple developed this credit card and it is Apple's

creation. And you know, we want a quote unquote, financially healthy credit card, which is an amazing statement. If you're going to say all of that and then you put the Goldman Sachs experience on logo behind you, like, how am I supposed to fucking trust this or care about this? It's not different. I mean, the, you know, it's, it's, um, I'm not going to pretend to understand how financial services work. Yeah. They have not around to local banks and work. I just, yeah, I don't think with, well, but I think like everything,

like everything they just announced, it's so like, feels so like half-assed to me. It just feels like, I don't know, man. I don't know. I mean, I listen, this is Apple now. I mean, this is this weird incremental stuff. I don't know. Their service is like, I just do not. I've never been a fan. I've never seen their services feel like they really fit into my life. Does anybody use iCloud regularly instead of? I mean, I use iCloud. I do have some iCloud storage, but only because it's like built in at such a fundamental level to iOS now. Right. I paid for the backline. Sorry to Mac OS and to iOS that it's kind of like, yeah, you kind of like, and it's like, I will say there's some weaknesses like editing.

I have multiple computers. So if I add it like a text document and I see it, you know mean is anyone load the iCloud web portal and open a, what is their pages thing, and then edit it and then send that link to something. Nobody's fucking doing that. No one's doing that. Any other, let's, it's enough, we've heard enough about Apple, I think. And my point is I'm very underwhelmed by the stuff they announce and, you know, I, you know, whatever.

I mean, it was better than PlayStation State of Play announcement, which was fucking... Yeah, what is, I miss this. I honestly, this is at whatever. I mean, it was better than PlayStation State of Play announcement, which was fucking, yeah, what is it? I don't, I missed this. I honestly just said, oh, what is it? They wanted to do what Nintendo does with Directs, where they don't have to do these announcements at like conventions and then- Oh, right, they wanna be on the ground.

They wanna be on the ground. They just wanted to put a YouTube video up. And that's a great idea, but they had no announcements in there and they had a couple of PSVR announcements, which are cool and I'm still excited about PSVR. I think it's, I still, like, if you're gonna buy VR, I think that's the one to buy. I use my PSVR all the time.

It's a nice experience. I don't know what the point of doing that, like PlayStation Direct, which they call the state of play, was if they don't have any games or exciting services to show on the back of Nintendo's been blown it out from a content perspective, the Switch is beloved. Then you've got Google Stadia,

which nobody knows what it is, but at least it was splashy and exciting and different. Microsoft has a ton of announcements about to come up about X Cloud and their future of Xbox brand. PlayStation did this like weird whimper where they were like, we're making an Ironman VR experience. You're like, okay. What the fuck is all of this?

I don't know. What's going on with PlayStation? Like I just don't understand what the future of that brand is gonna be outside of like, okay, what the fuck is all of this? I don't know. What's going on with PlayStation? Like I just don't understand what the future of that brand is gonna be outside of like a better, faster console. It's for hardcore gamers, man. It's just, I don't know, it's just weird. So that whole thing, we don't have to talk a ton about it. It was just lame and weird.

Yeah, I didn't see it. I saw a little bit of the Iron Man VR thing and I just was like, I mean, Iron Man, I hear any movie tie-in, any basically, I mean, I know whatever, I'm sure it's like movie related. Anything that's like a movie tie-in, and also VR, I'm kind of like, whatever. I mean, this is not gonna be the game. Yeah.

You know, this is just not gonna be the game for me. If they believed in that game, they would have been a Spider-Man VR experience and they would have made it really easy. Yeah, why not that? Although I feel like you get very confusing. No, I shouldn't do that. Don't you think?

Sure. But if they but I don't know I trust them to they've done some great VR stuff like astro bot They've done a great spider-man game It just seems like if it was a real product that I was supposed to be excited about they would use their properties and Really do something cool, but I don't know Yeah, I don't know either but anyways. Yeah, what else is going on out there? Sorry, I was reading a lot of the needless to say, I wasn't reading a lot of other news this week,

although a lot of shit happened in crazy. I mean, there's lots of weird stories to go through and we're not gonna hit all of them. Oh, yeah, Facebook banned White Nationalists, that's a thing. Yeah, I mean, that's a, I like that a lot. They're like, we're banning White supremacy. We hate that, we don't like that. That's very bad.

We've decided. Now, on the other hand, if you're a White Nationalist,. We hate that. We don't like that. That's very bad. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided.

We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided.

We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. We've decided. a cursory glance at the fucking ideology would tell you that. Any person with even a remote part of their brain functioning would be able to tell you that that is the case. The idea that they had to have like a revisit to the topic

seems very disturbing to me. They haven't allowed anyone to post a nipple since the early 2000s on Facebook, but white nationalists were banned in 2019. No, it's insane. I was thinking about this about the Instagram thing. Like, I saw somebody, an artist that I follow who was like, is this okay Instagram? You know, it was like, there was like some nipples, but then they were like crossed out

or whatever. And it's like, this is so crazy. We're all like Instagram is the social network now. And it's like, is it, it's a social network that makes it impossible to like even, like you can put like a piece of like, really like put a piece of like art on there because if somebody sees like a dick or a butt

or nipples or whatever, they get like, they freak out and it gets banned. People, I know people who've had like, like have their kids on there, like their kids are like, you know, their butts are out or whatever, they're like two-year-olds, and it gets banned.

It's like, what is going on? This is one of my big problems with Apple. There's such a weirdly pure tanical, and I get they want to protect people, but there are ways to say, listen, there's an easy way to be like, I am okay with adult content on my feed, and you can verify your age somehow or whatever like

They could even do like a really like some kind of hardcore age verification I don't know how they do it if they're really worried about people like gaming it they could come up with it I'm like everybody's like well, we just what do we do? You know, it's like well, I don't know you're a technology company You've literally hundreds of billions or however much money you fucking have maybe just like put some I don't know put some engineers on it, put some ethicists on it, think about how you might do it.

How you might allow a nipple to be seen. So the media continues to be one of the, it's a ubiquitous thing. We all engage with for hours every day. It is still one of the most exciting areas of technology and it is, it's universally used and constantly discussed and highly influential. And yet there are two social networks

that people sort of enjoyed using, which was Tumblr and Twitch. Then they killed Tumblr. Apple decided Tumblr shouldn't have boobs on it. So then Tumblr is dead now. And every other social network is a hellscape of nonsense and screaming and constantly putting out fires. And yet we're still all using social networks

and they all still suck. It's astonishing. Think of anything else that we all ubiquitously use and sucks? I've definitely rolled off of, I've definitely rolled off of many, many social networks at this point, you know, I feel like I'm not using most of them most of the time. I don't know about you. I mean, I said the other day on Twitter, Twitter's great if you spend several years muting everything you don't like and the people you don't like and curating the people that you decide you want to interact with

and you don't take it seriously and you don't post anything personal or important and you realize that at any moment someone could decide to cancel you or ruin your life and Dox you on that platform or in like in and date you with harassment and Other than that Twitter's a little bit more fun when you've done all that work like I don't otherwise like Instagram at this point I follow the people who follow me who I only know personally my post occasional pictures of art and like an Insta story of something funny occasionally, but like I I'm so fatigued with social media and yet I would if there was a good social media platform

I would throw myself into it. Tell me about it. I mean It's my my dream to have a good social network, but can they exist? No one really knows No one really knows and we may not find out we have to talk about the Mueller report coming in. Oh, yeah. The Mueller report. I think you just knew a story that the Mueller report. Remember that. I forgot all about it.

Yes, the Mueller report is William Barr released some bullshit cover letter where he's like, yeah, it's fine. There's no big deal. No collusion. We're all good. We can move on. And then everybody's like, no, hang on a second. That's not true at all. We haven't seen the actual report and we haven't seen the report. And we need to see the report. And I think we're all getting pretty been out of shape about the situation.

It's also one of 17 ongoing major scandals and lawsuits being done by the federal government, and it's NCNY and the White House. It's very hard to, it's very hard to keep track of it because, and we're acting like this four-page summary makes all of Echo away, and suddenly Trump is a great guy, and we were tricked into thinking he was a con man criminal, which like, none of this is true. Why are we all acting like this is, what?

Right, no, it's very, I mean, look, I'm sort of like, okay, here's a couple of thoughts on the whole Mueller report situation. One is, you know, I think the Mueller reports gotta have some pretty bad shit, and I don't believe for a second. I mean, there have been so many people who've actually been indicted.

You know, I'm not saying you're gonna find this like smoking gun where it's like, uh, Putin calls Trump up and he's like, hey, do some crimes from me or whatever. But I do think you can't find anything. You might not find anything more damning than the things Trump did in public, like telling Russia that he wants them to hack Hillary Clinton and give him the information or like setting up meetings that we already know happened. It may be, we don't find anything more secretive than that,

but there's going to be a ton of dark fucked up shit in there. And it's just fine. And the public deserves to know. it maybe we don't find anything more secretive than that, but there's gonna be a ton of dark fucked up shit in there and it's just fine- Yeah, I find and the public deserves to know. I think we need to see the whole thing. We need to let people who with brains read it and decipher it, and then we need to see what happens

with all these other court cases that are going on, because, you know, like this is not the end of the Trump story. This is definitely very much the beginning of the Trump story. And, you know, I just don't buy for a second that I mean, I'm fine with it. It's like, if there's really no evidence, like fine, there's no evidence, you know. But like, this is like one report coming out of from one very specific angle. And I think we need to be really thorough with this. This is not the kind of thing we can be like,

yeah, we're good. We got the bar letter. Well, it's weird that I just feel like from every political side, we are acting like the whole world turns on this Mueller report, even if the full thing comes out. And frankly, there's a lot more criminal activity and corruption going on around Trump that we should focus on if that's going to be our focus.

And also, even if even if, even if all of the Mueller report comes out and it's glowing and this was a giant, which it wasn't, this is a giant conspiracy by the deep state, even if that is true, which it isn't, we cannot act like, well, now, well, you know, maybe we should reelect Trump. Like, let's not act like this is now. I don't think, yeah, I mean, I just feel like we're acting like this whole thing is like the whole world turns on this report. And really what the whole world should be turning on right now is like, Democrats have better

ideas and we are failing the poorest people in this country and our empire is in collapse and we have abticated our moral duty and our democracy is crumbling and we need to get him out of office and rebuild our institutions. And the focus should be on 2020 candidates, on holding him accountable, local governments accountable, and trying to install like systems where we know that the integrity of our vote is protected. The crushing things to discuss are honestly,

relitigating 2016 is should not be the top news story for an entire week with every single person deciding how this affects the world. Also, I think, listen, realistically, I think that when it comes to the vote, I'm sorry, like, if we don't see what we saw with the midterms in the general election, I will be very surprised. If you are a Democrat who sat it out or is indifferent, was indifferent, last election, you're going to want to do something

about Trump this time around. And I don't think that we've got, I think there are a handful of candidates, I mean, we've talked about this before, there are a handful of candidates that are just fucking fine, as far as I'm concerned. They're fine Democrats, they have problems, they all have problems. Biden sounds like may have some new problems

where he's like kissing people who don't want to be kissed, which is like, I don't know. Maybe we just avoid the whole Biden situation. I mean, the crazy thing about Biden is like people are like, Biden's the guy who's pulling highest. And it's like, well, I don't know. Who was pulling these? I don't know which Republican was pulling highest

when there were like 15 Republicans running? Like even after Trump entered the race, I'd like to know because I have my guess is I know but that's what I'm saying my guess is it wasn't My guess is that it wasn't Trump that was pulling the highest. Yeah, right? It was my jet bush or something like that because people like fucking heard of him. New is name I mean people have obviously heard of Trump, but they were like oh, that's some kind of weird side show. Yeah. Boy, did we, little did we know? Any else? So, so my feeling on the, my feeling on the, on the, on the stuff with like the, the Mueller report is like, if that was going to be your deciding factorist, who you're going to vote for, if you're like, I'm good enough, if you were like, I'm gonna vote for Trump, unless it turns out he's like,

oh, it's a Russian spy or whatever. If that was like your thinking, then you were really gonna vote for Trump anyhow. I don't think we can really count on you. But I would imagine that there are, listen, there are plenty of problems with Trump that have nothing to do with Russia. So many problems, right? Like that have nothing to do with the rights.

I mean, it's all problems. I can't think of, I honestly can't think of an area with him where I'm like, well, you know, he actually did this. And I didn't mind, like, it's all fucking problems. It's problems all the way down. And we need to pick out the ones that matter most to people, like his proposed health care cuts. Yes.

And it's crazy. They're going at your health care again. I mean, I think everybody should be very concerned. Yeah. I mean, the fact that the US has literally like just authorized a billion dollars, the Pentagon just authorized a billion dollars to start wall construction stuff like health care shit. It's so it's so wack. I'm sorry, it's so wack.

We can't pay for people's health care in this country, but we're literally giving it billion dollars to. Millions of dollars in tax cuts, and we want to cut the special Olympics. Like, that's the stuff that I think resonates with people. To a fucking wall. I mean, it's so insane. I mean, a fake wall that doesn't matter,

that'll never exist because like some big baby promised a bunch of other babies that they'd have a wall to keep out brown people. It's, I mean, we're living in such a, it's, there's such ridiculous times. I mean, such absurd, absurd times. I mean, the wall is basically just a giant billboard that says we're racist.

And if we decided to tackle any other issue like from that angle, if a Democrat came up and said, we should put up billboards that say mental health care is important and I want to spend billions of dollars on it. We'd be like, this is complete fucking insanity and the whole world would melt down about how stupid and what a waste this is. And instead, I just feel like we keep talking

about the Mueller report and that's the stuff that filters down to normies who don't have time all day to read the news. And what we need to get really loud about is the horrifying things that really matter. The kitchen table issues that really matter to people. May or P, for example, one of the 2020 candidates people to judge keeps getting a little bit of criticism

because he isn't engaging in a lot of the side show stuff and is trying to approach on the fence Trump voters or a variety of Americans who aren't concerned with that kind of like, who honestly who don't care about like alt-right being published, stuff being published on Facebook, they just doesn't a thing that they really like, they're affected by it, but it's not something they think about or that they really want to hear a 2020 candidate talk about. He keeps talking about healthcare and doubling down on like infrastructure stuff and kitchen table issues, real life stuff that real people care about,

and trying to approach it in like a, we can all be rational about this way. And I just feel like that is the stuff that gets us forward. And he's having a moment, and people are really circling around him in a way. First off, told you so, go listen to the old episodes. But he's having a moment now because that is what people want to hear.

They don't care about like fiery tweets of gotchas and memes about like the resistance. They just want to hear like, what are you going to do for me that Trump isn't doing for me? Because I haven't gotten anything out of this and I thought I would. That's really what this is. I will say this. Okay. So I haven't heard much from Mayor Pete.

There's some, I mean, I know there's some like, you know, I don't know, guy was in the military, he had some dumb tweet about like, know there's some like, you know, I don't know, guy was in the military hits and dumb tweet about like Or said something about like he was like boy, I can't believe these guns are being used on Americans and it's like dude You should be upset they're being used on anybody. I mean, I understand you got to shoot somebody on the battlefield But like I mean, they all have weirdly poorly worded tweets like this. Yeah, sure. We all do but um, definitely I mean, it's definitely true, but like but okay, but I, I mean, only because Laura was like, I heard that Mayor Pete, which is the name is actually pronounced

Buddha Judge, is that right? Buddha Judge. Buddha Judge. That's gonna be his teacher. That's a Buddha Judge. It's Buddha Judge, which doesn't make it easier to be honest with you. It's like Buddha Judge, it should be Buddha Judge.

Chaston, his husband was trying to push Buddha Judge or whatever. Or like just Buddha Jej. Buddha Jej is here. A bunch of times, whatever. Everything knows how to say it. Okay, the point is, he was on Bill Mars. That was a weird name.

No, but it's, yeah, it's Obama, Osama, people were like, I get it, I've heard a lot of this. Yeah. Barack is like the rocket, it's very simple. Like, it's not hard. Um, Buddha Jej is a little more challenging. Butoque is like the rock. It's very simple. It's not hard. Buttigieg is a little more challenging. But anyhow, my point is, I heard him,

we watched a clip from Bill Mar, real time with Bill Mar, which is a show that I can't watch as Bill Mar as a fucking idiot. God, he's, he's, he's, he used to be not an idiot. He's been progressively worse and worse. He used to be kind of good, and now he's just very bad.

He's basically like an intellectual dark web, like anti-vaxxer at any rate. So, then, okay, so we watch a clip with him and I gotta say, he sounds super fucking smart, like super smart and like he really actually gets it. And yeah, I just gotta say, like SuperSmart and like he really actually gets it. And yeah, I just gotta say like I think that I would love somebody like that to be president. And it is kind of amazing.

He made a joke and he kind of was like, I'm like the anti-Donald Trump or whatever. Maybe I don't know, maybe Bill Maher said it. And it is true. He's like a young gay intellectual. Daddy hand, like, calm, talks about even extreme issues in a reasonable way, like, he's not, he's not someone with like gimmicks.

But I'll just be honest with you, I mean, I would be happy to have that guy be president. Like, he just seems like a very smart dude. He's perfect. Like, yeah, this one I'm saying, AOC is gonna have shit come out eventually. Like, yeah, what's gonna come out is because what's gonna come out is that she's even cooler

than we thought she was. There's gonna be a bombshell where she says I'm gonna even more awesome. She's gonna be a real mo, I was gonna say there's gonna be a real moment where she's like, I fucking missed the dream cast and we're all gonna be like, whoa, then I realized she didn't interview when she talked about how cool N64 was.

So, you know what? Yeah, you're already half a bitch. Maybe she's just cool. She'd be like, actually, my hair consoles the TG16. I'm like, all right, fuck this. This is bullshit. AOC for president. She can't run unfortunate.

She's too young. Yeah. It's a real shame, because she definitely would win. She's like, she is like to the right wing media. She is like Trump to the rest of the media where they're like, they cannot stop talking about her. In the way they react to her, yeah, totally. It's like, oh, by the way, I will say this

on the homemuller thing, you can kind of palpably feel the pain that cable news is experiencing right this second, right? Rachel Maddo just seems to be going. You can kind of palpably feel that, the people are like, oh, that's it, buy CNN, buy MSNBC. I mean, I'm sure the Fox News people are still full-moner,

but anyhow, whatever, I'm just saying. It just feels very much like the wind has been taken out of the sales of bullshit. I mean, the Mueller thing was sort of like the email thing where it was like everybody gets can do three hours of screaming about this and that was great for cable news, but at the end of the day, it's not going to be the thing that like saves democracy. So yeah. Well, all right, well, what else? Because we got I get a wrap up here. I don't have a lot of time. I've got a I've got it. I've got a big day ahead of me.

What are the, any other important items on our list? I mean, my God, there's so many items on our list. I'm just, I mean, if we're gonna talk about, I mean, I can't look, I can't take part in politics. I mean, I don't know what's happening, but Patrice, I mean, apparently, resigning, which sounds pretty good to me. Um, you have a, Jussie, small, I don't know,

Jussie, small it. I don't know if you know jussie small it. I really don't. He got completely all his charges were like dropped. It would drop, but this is not something weird's going on. Yeah. Certainly. Certainly weird things are going on. Nobody knows why they were all dropped, but it's still a little weird to me that there's like a ton of outcry over him getting away, quote unquote, getting away with this thing, which is funny because when charges get dropped against rich white guys who clearly did the crime, Wall Street stuff, nobody cares, but because this black guy in Chicago

is getting away with something, everyone's like, this is justice has not been served! It's like, guys, this is such a nothing story that even if we did punish him or don't, it's not gonna have a time to stop. Well, I mean, the little weird that we're mad about this and not about a lot of people's thoughts on the crime. Well, listen, I think, man, I just say,

I do think he did something really fucked up. Sure, total. I mean, really fucked up, like really, really, really like Damage Ain't. And I don't know why a person would do it. Sure, I mean really fucked up like really really really like damaging and And I don't know why a person would do it. I Don't I don't know why a person in his I mean, it's desperation He thought it would get a career move at any like for at any cost. He wanted good press. That's psychotic Yeah, I mean, I just feel like

He just did something that's just so damaging to the conversation that people are having right now, like where like real people who are actually getting fucking attacked and killed over, like there are real hate crimes where people are being killed, like transgender people are being killed at ridiculous rates. Like, I mean, you know, gay people and people of color are being attacked all over the place for real by actual racist. And he's like, this thing happened. I me and it's the thing that you fear most happening because of all the shit that Trump is doing.

And it was a fucking line. And it just created an insane, I don't know, man, it just is fucked up. It's like now, now real people who are actually in danger when they say it, it's like going to be like, who are you? It's another jussie smalllet and it's like, no, like it's not. Like this is an actual thing. Can the worst people stop helping? What?

Can the worst people stop helping? Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's crazy. And I'm just mad about it, because I just think it's like, why would a person, what in your brain would make you think? It's like, dude, you could be,

you could have staged an attack, and it could have just been like, I don't know, you got attacked. That would have been thrilling. That would have been thrilling too. I mean, he definitely got a lot of attention for it. I'll give him that. Like I guess to his credit. We all know his name.

He got a lot of attention, just exactly 100% the wrong kind of attention. Okay, all right, what else is nice? Let's go to the nice stuff. Nice stuff, let's do it. Go ahead? Let's go to the nice stuff. Nice stuff. Let's do it. Go ahead. Let's do it.

Hit it. This isn't nice, but I definitely enjoyed the experience, I guess. I watched the Madeline McCann dock on Netflix. Yeah, I've been, I've been not seeing that. What's the, should I see that? I, it's going to be tough as a parent with a young man. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, I'll watch it. No, no.

But I never super followed the case. I knew about it, obviously, because it's very famous. But I didn't really know the ton of the details. It's kind of like Elizabeth Smart meets John Bade Ramsey with a lot less evidence and a lot less like conclusive. Like there's no, you can't walk away from it knowing anything. But it is a huge, it's a huge jumping off for a discussion that the doc has around human trafficking and the

market, the worldwide market for children and the way that systematically that has been set up, especially in countries that aren't the UK or the US or Japan, like countries that have less resources and the levels at which those operations can organize and can basically even with millions and pounds spent years and the world's attention focused on it, they can basically do what they want with children, and it's horrifying, but it was a necessary thing. I think it's a little too long, but I really liked the job that they did. It was really thorough and I'm interested in it. Well, it sounds interesting.

I don't know how much I can do it. I don't know how much pain I can handle when it comes to kids. This is very tough. I'm not trying to ignore it. I know this should exist, but I just don't know if... No, it's too much. Yeah. We talk about the Sega Genesis every single week on this podcast for some reason.

I don't know. It's a great console. But Sega finally announced their Genesis mini, and I got to say it looks dope as hell. Yeah, I'm sorry, though. Do you want that or do you want, don't you really want the analog SG? Well, some of us only have $70 to spend. Is that how much it is? Yeah. How much is the analog one? It's $189. And it doesn't come with the games.

Whereas this comes with games and you'll be able to hack on more games, which is... Can you, does it have, does it take cartridges? No. Oh, well, that's this point in. You can put ROMs. Mega SG. Are they still doing pre-reson?

These were available now. Oh, you're available in. You can put Ron. Mega SG. Are they still doing pre-rear? I think these were available now. I think they're available now. They're shipping. Yeah, I mean, I want one, but it's like, I definitely like, listen, I got the super Nintendo wanted City in the drawer somewhere because it's like the reality is I can't, it's like, I'm not playing it every day. Yeah.

You know? That, and then my last nice thing is that I'm leaving for Paris on Tuesday and I've organized my Disneyland Paris trip and I feel like I'm kind of edging with this trip, and this is going to be the best part of the trip, is all the anticipation and excitement for everything I can do. Well, it's going to be an edging trip. It's going to be an edging trip. It's a sexual way, right?

Yes, I am now at Boudre Judging. I'm now at the point where I am, like, so hype and thrilled about this trip, and I know that the rest of the trip, the trip's going to be great. I'm going to come on here with a bunch of nice things that happen in Paris. Listen, you're going to Paris, right? But this feeling of excitement is the best part of it. You never been to Paris, right?

Never been. Paris is fucking great. I can't wait. Paris is an awesome, there are like, there are only a couple of places I can imagine living. And you know, for me of course, they're all like major cities. But it's like Paris is probably like,

if it's like, it's probably L.A. Paris, Tokyo, or the only three other places that I could really see myself. Tokyo is a little insane, but I mean. I'm just stoked as hell. Paris is so great. At dinner area is tight. My all the restaurants I'm eating at in Paris,

tight museums I'm gonna see, tight, all the experiences, like I have this thing planned to the teeth and I am so pumped and This feeling of anticipation is probably the best part. It's like when you're going up a roller coaster the rest of rollercoaster It's great, but that awesome stomach dropping feeling so I'm just stoked about this and I can't wait. I can't wait So that's those are my nice things happening at the moment. Well, I'm very excited for you and I can't wait to hear the stories.

And you know what, Laura probably has some good, she remembers stuff much better than I do and she also writes things down. So she may have some suggestions. You should definitely ping her and be like, where should I go? What should we do? Is that if you're nice things?

Those are my nice things. I'm like, this week has just killed me. I'm so tired, I just wanna like, I wanna go to go to sleep and sleep for a billion years. I think I'm gonna just, I'm just like a broken record, I beat Dead Cells. And can I just tell you that Jeremy Gordon,

our culture editor at the outline has been playing Dead Cells. And so he was like, should I get it? Like literally like a week ago, he was like, should I get it? I'm like, dude, this game's awesome. You should totally get it. Cause I wrote a little thing for we do every week. He does stuff we liked and it's just like things that we were into. He's kind of like, dude, this game's awesome. You should totally get it. Cause I wrote a little thing for we do every week.

He does stuff we liked and it's just like things that we were into. He's kind of like nice things, but it's like for the whole outline team. And I was like, oh, I'll do dead cells cause I've been playing it like crazy and it's so good. And then he's like, should I get it? I'm like, dude, it's so fucking good.

And then he started telling me about and he's like, I can't fucking beat the boss. I can't, and then he was like, I beat him. And I was like, what the fuck? I've been playing the game for like six months and I haven't been able to beat the fucking final boss. And then he's like, now he's like, I can't fucking beat the boss. I can't, and then he was like, I beat him. And I was like, what the fuck? I've been playing the game for like six months and I haven't been able to beat the fucking final boss. And then he's like, now he's like, I beat it, it took me an hour and 20 minutes.

And he's like, I just beat it an hour. And then he's like, I just beat it in 40 minutes. And I'm like, what the fuck, man? And I was getting like feeling really bad actually, not because I'm happy for him, you know? But just I feel like I just didn't apply myself somehow. And he had beat the final boss last night. And it was really great.

And then insanely, I still want to play. Now, I'm like, how can I play and I want to get better? Yeah, it's insane. And so my nice thing is probably for the billionth time at this point, dead cells. I got to get a new game to play, though. I need a new game. I don't know, I can't seem to get anything to stick.

Every once in a while, I'll return to Far Cry 5 because I'm like, it's just fun to shoot people. I mean, I know that sounds horrible, but within the realm of the video game, it's just fun to blow shit up and blow away the bad guys and feel like, I mean, it's a ridiculous game. It's totally stupid. I don't know. You know I'm an American.

But sometimes just that tactile like playing experience, even if the story's done and you've kind of like played it through. Yeah. The tactile feel of the game is so good that you just end up back in it. Yeah, I mean, yes, I mean, it's fun, it's fine. I've been I'm trying to play this game pre which I played a lot of for a while

but then I kind of fell off of it. Yeah, I don't know, I need a new game. The Spider-Man game I kind of I couldn't sink my teeth into that much like I liked it, but. I needed a new game. The Spider-Man game, I couldn't sink my teeth into that much. I got liked it, but then I was whatever. Kind of a shallow experience for me. It was fun, but it was just very surface level. Yeah, I don't know.

My gaming attitudes have changed a lot lately where I'm much less interested in a really interesting conversation. Well, I saw this game. It's called The Last Night and it's this awesome looking retro-y cyberpunk game. And I was like, what is this? I was like, when is this coming out?

I tweeted about it. And then somebody was like, oh, like the developers, that's some really horrible pro-gamer-gate things. And there was this whole thing about, he said some bad stuff about women. And I'm like, they're like, it's basically canceled. And I was like, oh, God, that sucks.

Because the game looks really cool. And then I started looking into it. And it's like, he did say some really dumb things. And he was like, yeah, gamer gate. But then he was like, that was stupid. I was wrong. He apologized. And was like, I didn't, you know, didn't,

it was like, I don't know. Like his apology seems somewhat sincere. But then it was like unclear if it was like sincere or not. And if he had actually learned anything. And then he's like, it's like the game isn't canceled and then he just started tweeting at me because I was like, oh, I guess it's canceled and he's canceled or whatever.

And then the guy started, and I didn't name him or whatever and he started tweeting at me because I'd mentioned the game. And then, and he was like, you should read, you know, don't read this thing, read this and I'm like, I don't know what to make of it anymore. I'm just gonna play your fucking game. Like, dude, why don't you just shut the fuck up? How about that? Like, I have an know what to make of it anymore. I just want to play your fucking game. Why don't you just shut the fuck up? How about that?

I have an idea. Maybe you're a bad person. I bet there's almost zero chance that Justin Bieber is not a Republican who voted for Trump. Oh, he's Canadian, right? Listen, at the end of the day, everything that you consume is going to have bad people. No, he's got to be an American citizen now, right?

US citizen at this point? I don't know. I don't know either. But let's just say for a second, like do you think Justin Bieber is a pro-Trump or anti-Trump person? I think he's probably pro-Trump. Yeah, I also think he probably truly does not vote. He definitely does vote because he's super dumb.

But we used to have huge conversations about which real housewife voted where and come up with a spoke out about whatever, but it was like guess what? None of these bitches vote. You know it, but anyhow, but like Justin Bieber's music is pretty catchy. You know, I don't need to hear his thoughts on politics.

I'm not saying people shouldn't voice their mind on politics. You should. And someone really fucks up and you're uncomfortable with it. You don't have to consume their thing. But I think like people everywhere. If you're a game developer, if you're a game developer, I'd say the fuck out of like the gamer gate debate.

I would be like, I mean, unless you're like gamer gate sucks, I wouldn't be like, if you're like, you have to have a point, I wouldn't be like, yeah, I think they have a point. Just shut up, actually. Just don't say anything. I mean, they don't have a point to be clear.

And if you think they have a point, you're stupid. Yeah. They're bad. They're bad. And if you think they're good, you're bad. So I'm sorry for the bad news, but every single person associated with that shit who really believed it is bad and dumb.

Now I'm gonna get destroyed. with that shit who really believed it is bad and dumb. Now I'm gonna get destroyed. I'm just gonna kill my family, some gamer gator. I joke, but definitely the guy needs it. The guy in New Zealand is definitely a fucking gamer gator. I mean, they're all like, Journalism, gaming journalism. Yeah, yeah, they're really new copies. The fucking learn to code crew or whatever.

Any heart, we gotta wrap this up. But on a happier note, I wish that game would come out and maybe that guy actually is repentant and I don't know. There's this game that I put money in the Kickstarter form. Trying to think of what it was called. Do you remember I wrote about it on the search for it? Because I don't remember the name now. Oh, Nareda Boy.

Oh, there's this game that I, and funded the Kickstarter for, I gave them some money, it's called Nareda Boy, which looks like a very similar kind of retro-y cyberpunky thing, whatever. And I don't know when it's coming out, I don't know what's going on with it. It looks super awesome, but that's it. So I'm just looking for a game to play, I guess,

what I'm saying. It's not a really nice thing. All right, let's wrap it. Let's kill it. Let's do it. Let's move on. I gotta go have a drink or something. It's Saturday. We had a long week and now it's time to know that I'm about to chill. All right. Well, that is our show for this week. We will not be back next week because we're going to take a break because Ryan is as you

know traveling to Paris. But we will be back the week after that. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best. Though I've just been informed that a very damaging family secret has been revealed, although I don't know much about it because all I have to reference is a four-page William Bar letter. you