Tomorrow - 206: Topolsky's Dune

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

This week on the show Josh and Ryan discuss Microsoft's Surface Duo, the crazy affordability of the Xbox Series S, Section 230, and Blue Apron (not sponsored). There's also a surprise discussion of the Dune trailer, so stay sharp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow, I'm your host Josh Wittobulski. Today on the podcast we discuss Game Pass, Sand Worms, Section 230. I don't always want to minute. Let's get ready to do it. Well Ryan, we're back. We're really better than ever. I have to say. A lot of people are saying actually a great number of people are saying Many people are saying a great number of people. I can't talk about it yet But a lot of people are saying this is the best podcast that we've ever done I Like what the fuck to try like I don't get political right off the bat

But the way he speaks is so weird. It's like very he's very family surprisingly Tham it's it's but also it yes, I agree but also It's like he doesn't use the English language in the way that most people do it's very unusual I mean you could say it could be a sign of something cognitively wrong with him But also and it's like you know what it's it's like a sign of something cognitively wrong with him, but also and it's like, you know what it's like a person who's so used to lying that they don't remember what they lied about. And so they're always trying to let your head, everything they say.

Yeah, it's people who, who, which are lying, they just keep talking because if you add more and more, like you just, you keep distracting and you can also feel out how the audience is responding to your lies. So you can be like, and then she said she hated it, but she was joking. And what she really meant was that she loved it. You know what I mean? You can just keep moving her out.

It's depending on the right the audience's reaction. It has very strange, very unusual, very cool though, I think, for president to be just constantly speaking like that in line. For 18 hours to Bob Woodward by the Yeah big big story this week. This should be the I mean I think it is Excuse me. This should be the story. I mean it should be the story of his presidency because it really is but This week Trump Would Bob Woodward is right publishing a book called Rage, and in the book he has

an exchange with Trump, or Trump basically says, oh yeah, this virus is really deadly, and it's going to kill a lot of people, and it's way more dangerous than the flu, and I have to keep it quiet, because I don't want to send anybody into a panic. Which means, I think it's actually like, honestly, I don't buy for a second, it's about him wanting to reduce panic. He literally tweeted today, the guy literally tweeted this today. I'm gonna read it to you, okay? Here's Mr. I don't wanna panic anyone.

The Democrats never, never even mentioned the words law in order at their national convention. That's where they are coming from. If I don't win, America's suburbs will be overrun with low income projects and arcass agitators, looters, and of course, friendly protesters. It's like, oh, wow, Mr. No panic, you definitely are not trying to turn like the, you don't get the population into a complete panic over the invasion of

the suburbs, which is like the most hilarious weird narrative that like such a baby narrative that I've, it's hard to believe that he's again, it's like the way he talks, it such a baby narrative that it's hard to believe that he's, again, it's like the way he talks. It's like a really hard to believe that this is like, he's, you know, this is his version of how he's gonna get people to vote. Anyhow, I don't want anyone to panic, but all Mexicans are rapists.

China has eight hoes. Oh, this guy is like, I mean, he's like president, he's president panic. Everything he says is like absolute panic. Wait, what was the, what was the caravan? What was the caravan? Is the caravan, the caravan. Anyhow, but,

so wait, right, so anyhow in this book, he says, yeah, oh yeah, I know the virus is really deadly. It's gonna kill a bunch of people. It's airborne, you know, basically it's transmitted. A few people coughing and sneezing. So, you know, I mean, we're talking about the president of the United States of America. What do you mean one thing if he had been like,

I don't want to tell people, because I don't want to create a panic, but we're going to, we're going to double, you know, our efforts, you know, based on the scientific evidence and make sure that we have a plan in place to start and getting this, you know, nipped in the bud right now. But he was like, he not only didn't communicate how deadly the virus was, but also he formed policy around the virus as if it wasn't actually that thing. But it's not even that. It's not even that he said it's not that dangerous. He literally said, I've heard it's going to go away.

It's just a miracle. It's just an advantage. And what's one thing to say, stuff like that, but then also have a plan that actually combats that because normally when people don't panic, they're like, you know, the president gets a message, right? We hear Russia shooting a nuclear missile at, you know, New York tonight. You don't go on TV and go like, Russia shooting nuclear missile in New York you go like you know we're handling the situation there's nothing to worry about and then you like have a

plan to deal with the missile but the problem is like fired all the people had a plan. This is the plan into a comically evil fire cackled about how the world would be overrun in the deadly virus. This is like this is like they're like Mr. President, this virus is very deadly. It's gonna kill a lot of people. It spreads way faster and way, it's way more, you know, dangerous than the flu.

He goes, okay, we don't want to panic anybody. Don't say that out loud, okay, but, you know, let's get a plan together. And the next day they're like, all right, what's our plan? He's like, haven't you heard? It's not that bad. It's really like, you know, not even as bad as the flu.

So it's like, we need to get a plan together. My idea is we all cough in each other's mouths and spit on be yeah It's like he took it's like he took his own talking point as a way to set the policy for He's what this one type but you know going back to the way he speaks I mean maybe he did probably not trying to get him let him not try to let him off the hook But he definitely was like what didn't like create a policy? It was like, oh, even though I'm trying to like limit panic, we have a really good policy in place to like deal with this. It was like, the policy was based on your message about not panicking, which was like, it's not a big deal.

Which was, so it's like, either you're very fucking stupid, which I'm not ruling out, or stupid, which I'm not ruling out, or you know evil, or you have dementia, and so does everybody who works around you. But wait, did you see this Kim Jong Un? No, I don't know. He said he's in good health. He tweeted about him being a... Kim Jong Un's letter to Trump. Here's a quote.

Even now, I cannot forget the moment of history when I firmly held your ex-luncies hand at that beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope. Wow. You guys just want to fuck, go fuck. Wow. I mean, wow, that's very beautiful, honestly. And so I just turns out, and what we don't realize about Trump is that he actually loves too much.

That's what's biggest. If he had one thing that really is his failing is that he's too filled with love for him. Wait, I have to ask Tony, if he knows, of any instance where Trump has ever laughed. And I don't mean like scoff or like chuckle. No, he never heard him like, he laughed, ever. He loves, he No, he never heard of like BellyLab, ever.

He loves that movie, stepbrothers, and he can gaffaws wildly throughout the entire thing from what I understand. He loves that. All right, let's get into this. Let's talk about technology. Let's talk about the future. Let's talk about a post Trump world,

which will just be whatever we've been seeing from West Coast for the last week. Well, just scorched earth, red skies. We put up our review of both the surface. And Tifa running wild. Go ahead. We put up our review of both the surface duo and the Galaxy Z Fold 2, quite a name.

Yes. What do you, I, because we've talked about this on the show board. I was getting to the point where I was like I'm gonna buy one of these I'm pulling the trigger. It's gonna be no more iPhone It's gonna be a foldable future baby. I'm gonna be on the bleeding edge and Ray seems to really like to do out but having like really looked at both of them. I'm like Maybe I don't it's just you feel like you make a lot of trade-offs for a big screen. Right.

We knew we should mention that Motorola announced a sequel to the Razer, these highly successful Razer folding phone flip-flip. That'll save the company. The Razer 2, which, and I don't want to get off topic here, but just maddeningly features one of my favorite actors, Julia Garner of Ozark and the Americans fame. In this kind of cool 80s-ish photo shoot, but it's really annoying because I don't want people to think the phone is cool when I have a pretty strong feeling that it is not. I haven't reviewed the first Razer and found that it makes no sense to even exist. I don't want to just found out in my heart and raise hands.

Oh my god. It just like this screen just spontaneously combust it. No, the full, okay, one thing I'll say about both the Galaxy Z Fold 2 or the fuck it's called. And the Surface Duo is that I understand better now today. What is cool and potentially useful about the folding concepts? Like these particular types of folding phones, phones that go from this like single screen sort of phone like experience to more of a tablet or even like miniature laptop kind of experience.

So I think that we have gotten to a place now where there's a better explanation and frankly some better execution on why they are useful devices. But I think to your point, you know, when I say this as a, I'm an iPhone user now, I usually have, you know, an Android phone as a secondary phone that I mess around with when I have an iPhone. I was, I'm, this is me coming from being a long time Android user and a, you know, denier of the iPhone, you know, to switch, let's say, as my primary device to one of these, there are features that I would, there are features that are deal breakers for anything, right? One, a great camera, right? Now, I think the galaxy has more going for it in that department. I think that the surface duo obviously is not there.

Being waterproof, that's a big deal, especially if you have kids. This is something that I use now more than ever, especially because we're in the middle of a pandemic, and I don't want to touch things. I use my phone for payments almost everywhere now, if I have to go into a store. And I think that like, you know, with the Surface Duo not having NFC and not being able to do that, is pretty crazy.

You know, it's a pretty crazy trade-off at this moment, you know, and they talk a lot about, you know, we did this great, Ray had this great conversation with Peno's Penay from Microsoft about the kind of philosophy behind the surface deal. And I actually believe, I think he's right. I do think there's a lot of like, we do have to evolve the phone. I think there needs to be a different ways of thinking about these devices that sit in our pocket and try to be everything. But there aren't, I think this is exactly it.

It's like, this is so close to something that could be awesome. And yet, the trade-offs you need to make to use this as your daily driver, make it very difficult to see how you might do that. Now, look, to some people, stuff like NFC or waterproof may not be the big of a deal. There may be people who are like, I use this for, largely for work. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. Or like on my smartphone. whether it's a normal Galaxy device or an iPhone or whatever, you know, there's a question of, I think the adoption is going to be low. And I think both these companies are aware of that.

I think the reason why the Galaxy is $2,000 is an acknowledgement that this is for a very special subset of early adopters. And I think the reason why the Surface Duo is expensive and also lacks some features is there. Microsoft is basically saying, we want to start to experiment here. We think we have some ideas. We think we have some ideas,

we think we have some good ideas, and this is the way that we start experimenting with those ideas. And I think they're right for doing that. Yes, but this is Microsoft's hit or six times, being like, we're going to wait into mobile and have some ideas. Yeah, yes, the true,

but what's different here is they are, it's a very different strategy. One is they are, and I've spoken to people of Microsoft and who have said, you know, look, we're not trying to sell the most phones here. And also, this is a, in the same way, the surface, the original surface, which was a total dud and I hated,

was like provocative design, interesting ideas. The execution just isn't there. I mean, you're talking to a guy who's personally purchased several surface laptops over the last few years because I like the design and the execution so much. Because they have done so much work on the OS and on the pen and on the devices themselves that they're now like really, really good, really refined. I mean, I don't even use, to be clear, I don't even use a Mac anymore. Like I literally don't use a Mac for my day to day computing at all. I have a Surface Pro and I have a desktop PC.

And like at this point, I'm like, I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy how much has changed in the last few years. I'm like not even playing my PS4 or my Xbox. I game on a gaming PC that I built. I use another PC that I built from like my day to day work. And then I have a Surface Pro for as my laptop. I have a iPad that I use sort of Pinterest, and if I need to do something that's very light work, I basically don't use a Mac at all anymore. I think that's a testament to what Microsoft has done. Obviously, on the software side,

obviously on cohesion and openness with their products, it's also a testament to them massaging the surface concept into something that's much more desirable and much more interesting, a testament to them sort of massaging the surface concept into something that's much more desirable and much more interesting and much more makes a lot more sense than anything that they had previously done. And so I think this, I'm looking at the service do

and I think Ray has a similar perspective and I even think they have a similar perspective, which is like, this is V1 and like if you look at V1 of the surface, it was not for everybody and it got pretty paned by most people. I mean, the first surface I believe I reviewed was like, it was a Windows RT surface, so it wasn't even compatible. And then like the next, I mean maybe they have the companion surface with it, that was a kind of sluggish, chunky, not great experience for Windows.

And nobody really could see the strategy there. I do think, given their history, given what they've done in the past, the strategy is a bit more clear now. And I think that next year, there's gonna be a version of this device that's gonna be significantly improved in a lot of different ways. And I think they're almost taking some of their R&D.

I mean, for better or worse, they're taking some of their R&D out of the lab and they're putting it into the hands of consumers. I think that they are interested in seeing what happens when these devices are in the wild and how people use them. And so whether you agree with it or disagree with it, I think it's an approach that has worked for Microsoft.

You could say it's sloppy, but they may say, well, we want to see what people do with these. We want to actually get some data. I think they are not as good at predicting or at least selling the public on what the future looks like as Apple is, but they are pretty good at taking information from the consumer and turning that

into actionable stuff. I think that if you read the interview that Ray did with Panos, the one of the things that he talks about up top before he gets into the Q&A is that Microsoft has transformed itself in a lot of ways. A lot of that has been through just completely changing its relationship with consumers and it's been much more open, it's much more open source friendly, it's much more developer friendly, it's much more about like you know what, we make a great office suite and we make we have a pretty great email experience and we have some ideas that we think are really good but they

don't have to be like on a Microsoft OS like Like they've really done a good job of moving some of their products across platforms. And so I think like, I do think that, and that's been, I think the experience has been like, as they've been in market, they've realized that they're not gonna dominate in, they're not gonna be the third OS for phones. They're not gonna dominate selling,

you know, an iPad competitor or an iPhone competitor, they're going to find a niche or an audience competitor or an iPhone competitor, they're going to find a niche or an audience for something that is like that does something different and does other things better than those products do and is an alternative. And so like the surface, I think the surface line has been very good for them. And I think this phone is a continuation of that. So would I buy it today? I mean, I'm definitely considering buying it.

I can see myself using it as a secondary device. I could almost see myself using this more than I use my iPad as a secondary device in the sense that it's a bit more of what I actually want with the fact that it's Android actually makes it. I mean, here's something that I can't do. There's no terminal, there's really no terminal software for the iPad.

And there are things that I do remotely that I would use things I do from a command line that I do on my Windows computer. I would do it on a Mac, if I, when I have terminal open, I mean, it would be very easy. You can do it on Android. You can install lots of terminal apps to let you, you know, get a command line and actually do things with it. It's a big pain in the ass and you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it on the iPad and I've never found a solution that's quite satisfying. Little things like that, most people are not dealing with that shit, you know. Most people don't like break a cash something via a command line, so they're not really worried about it. But those are things that I think would, that something like the service

duo would make easier. And so it's, it is, I do think there are use cases, even for somebody at this moment, like me or for other people who may have just weird, I think weird workflows. And I don't think that the service duo is, and we basically say it, and they basically say, it's an iPhone competitor. It may not even be a Galaxy Fold competitor in some ways. Yeah, I understand all of that. My thing with it is, every time these foldables come around, I get excited in the way that I used to get excited

when I saw the iPad has video, we're like, the Game Boy Fold, it's clamshell, we're like, the Game Boy Folds, it's clamshell, we're like, oh, you know, the PSP plays back movies and music and games, like I used to get this like geeky, nerdy feeling, and I do still do sometimes. Like I certainly have it, the Xbox Series S, where we're gonna get to,

had me freaking out this thing. But when I look at the duo and I look at the fold, I get that feeling a little bit. But the trade-offs for what you're getting and like novelty and like the dynamic is different. And like you get to experience all these ideas that Microsoft has about how we could live differently. And like what it would be like if when you closed your phone, it was closed. And you didn't get like pop-up notifications. Like what psychologically, I mean, Ray mentioned to us, like, you know, his visual well-being

or whatever you want to call it, was much better when using the duo. But when the iPhone came out, it had a bunch of trade-offs. But what you got was so worth what you were losing that I was like, who cares about 3G? Like, I just want this iPhone. When I look at the duo or the, that I was like, who cares about 3G? Like, I just want this iPhone. When I look at the duo or the fold,

I'm like, who cares about it being waterproof? Like, I do. I'm like, who cares about Apple Pay? I definitely do. And who cares about like, you know, durability or like, any of the things that like, like the, even just the processor in the duo being older, like I get why that is because

they wanted to spend a year in development and really tell her the device and really get it to be polished and like what they wanted it to be and I understand that and I I don't think it's an excuse but I do think like I don't know I don't want an old Snapdragon processor in a $1,400 phone. Like, and it's definitely that you can tell the software looks a little jittery and a little, like, it's lagging a little. And like, that kind of stuff, I get that they can patch and stuff. But it feels, this just doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like what I'm getting in return

for all of those trade-offs, the two screens, is worth all the, like like frustrations that would come with it. And I mean that in the way that like I bought other gadgets that I thought like, oh, this will be worth it. And I maybe I'm just getting two olds to be like tricked into like my imagination being better than like real world views. But I just can't, I can't see myself buying one and it makes me sad because I really wanted to see myself Fine, well, you know I think on that point about how you know how we're spending money

It's a different time in the world right now and we're prioritizing things differently I mean, I definitely have stopped myself from like there every year when the new galaxy node came out I would be like oh, you know all upgrade like you know I might as well. I have the last year's one. I can get a pretty good trade-in value for it I might as well get the new one and I'm kind kind of like, why? To what end? And I think that we are definitely thinking about how we spend money and where we spend money differently at this point. And there is a, you know, do you need this thing?

Is it gonna do something that's so wildly different than any other device you have? Like, I'm not sure that that's illustrated yet here, though I'm not saying that it can't. And I do think you're right, about the Snapdragon processor and about the performance. It's like, well, if this is supposed to be super productive

and it's like this really expensive, you know, new kind of device, you wanted to feel like it is up to speed literally and figuratively, you want to feel like it is competitive with the best of the best. It's certainly if a $1,400 phone is the best of the best, you know, price range.

I get that it's got two screens and it's got a cool hinge, but you really wanted to perform. And so the question is like, you know, can it perform the way you wanted to and is it worth that money? And I would just say at this moment in time, when we don't know what the future is going to look like in America or anywhere else, it's like, yeah, it's a tough time to be blowing it on a phone

you may throw in a drawer in like two months. So in other affordable Microsoft news, this week we got a look at the Xbox Series S, which is the lower end cheaper model of Microsoft's new next-gen consoles. And we also got the price and the release date for the Xbox Series X and a bunch of new details, including and a bunch of new details, including that Microsoft's subscription video game service game pass has added a bunch of titles from EA play, which will come like bundled in with it. So now, Game Pass has like almost 200 games you get, like high quality games, you get for $15 a month, or if you buy the series S, which is $300 retail on a financing plan, it's $25 a month for, I believe, two years, but you get Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass baked into it. So it's like an insane deal.

That's like Hulu and Disney Plus every month, but you get an Xbox and next gen Xbox and all the games that Microsoft comes out with for it and EA's games. That's like a crazy value. So explain to me. So the is the is the is the Xbox past or game password or they're calling it. Is it all streaming? Do you download the games? What is the is it a combination? You get the games on your PC downloaded. You can get them on your Xbox downloaded. Or you can stream them from a browser or a mobile device, Android phones or tablets, currently Apple blocks it on iOS. But you can play them through the cloud.

You can download them. They're basically like, I play it anywhere. Microsoft's entire strategy for this console generation is not to sell you the box. Like the actual entire strategy for this console generation is not to sell you the box. Like the actual box itself is very nice. It has like really strong features. The graphics are gorgeous. The controllers great. But what they're really selling you is on Game Pass, which is thinking of games as more of an ongoing subscription service, like Netflix thinks of video and TV.

And to that end, Microsoft doesn't care how you play them. You can download them. You can play them on older Xboxes. Like Game Pass games are available on Xbox One devices. You can stream them in high quality, like through X Cloud, which is their program that like it basically plays it on a server somewhere on real Xbox hardware, and it just serves it up to you.

And it's surprisingly robust and responsive. I think their biggest battle is getting people to understand this, I think, to be honest with you. I think it's like very, the messaging has to be really, really clear around this. I think the biggest, the thing that makes the most sense, right, is that they're saying like, get the console and the service for X amount of dollars a month. Because that's basically what they're doing, right? 25 bucks.

And I think the way that I think they bridge that education gap isn't just like doing ads and explaining it to people in YouTube videos and articles, which is like all the normal methods. But I do think they're helped by the fact that it's the holiday season. Parents are cash strapped. Their kids want a new console. And either at the point of purchase, someone explains to them like this one's $300 and it's an ex-generation console. And the PlayStation is X amount where we're guessing it's gonna be $500 or $600.

But this one's $300, or you can get it and it's $25 a month and you don't have to buy any games. And I think that that point of sale is great, but I also think kids are really savvy and online now. And I think a whole generation of like teenagers is gonna get their hands on the Xbox because it's gonna be something super affordable for their parents in like a format that they're used to paying,

which is like a monthly subscription. Yeah, I mean, I think this is an interesting angle. It's really unique. I think the idea that they're combining this all until like a single price is really, like, you know, it really makes sense to me. I mean, it's an interesting, it also helps to clarify what the game passes,

which is like, you get all these like free games, right? That you can play like right off the bat. And that's like included in the price of like, you're essentially paying for the console. I mean, it's like installments of paying for the console less about like, you're subscribing to this thing and it's gonna cost you $35 a month, right? It's basically like, yeah.

Essentially, they're giving you two years of the game pass baked into the price of, you know, this, this, you know, console purchase or whatever. I mean, so what does it work out to me? 35 bucks a month over two years is what? So that's, it's $35 for the series. Sorry for the series X. Well, I'm looking at the one that I would get, obviously, which is the series X. Because I love the game. Big time. Both of them, either that you, if you pay the series X, $35 a month or the series X. I love the game. I love the game. Big time. Both of them, if you pay the series X, $35 a month, or the series S for $25 a month, they both end up being less than if you paid

for the console outright and game pass for two years. But you're locking yourself into paying for game pass for two years. Now, game pass is great, and the games are really high quality, and Microsoft has committed that all their new games will come to it. EA has committed that you'll get at least 10 hours of each new game that they come out with.

What does that mean? 10 hours. So EA play is a little bit more, is a little bit more difficult. That sounds like a nightmare that they're like, our cap in it, that sounds horrible. So they have a bunch of games that are fully unlimited, but with their new titles that have just come out

in the last six months or whatever, they hour cap you to 10 hours. But that's just EA stuff. That's just EA stuff. I'm trying to think of a single EA game that I've played recently. Who do a ZA? What are they just, they have like me for speed, they do fall in order. They have like me for speed, they do fall in order. That's the only game I've played in the last year that is an EA game, I think.

But people like them for their sports games. That's like an ad on. That's like an ad on to basically. It's like, oh, a nice ad. Yeah, that's just a free bonus. Yeah. But so essentially, you get all of that with Game Pass and it ends up working out to be cheaper. And if you think about it, like, you'd be spending $60 on one game, whereas it's $15 a month. I mean, I think we're 25 with the console, and you get all the game. I mean, I think this is smart right now,

given how many people are out of work, or only working part-time, or only who have had salary reductions. Like, I think this is a thing around the holidays. There's going to be a question of like, you know, the PS5 is going to released and it's gonna be 500 bucks. Plus games, plus, you know, whatever other accessories. This is like, hey, you know what, you can have a brand new high end Xbox

under the Christmas tree for 25 bucks a month. It's like, all you're really saying is like, it's like one, like, you know, expense of lunch a month, you know? I mean, it's pretty wild when you start getting into the math because PlayStation, you still have to buy PlayStation's online service. You still have to pay for each individual game or like you have to start paying

for their PlayStation now subscription, which they do offer, but PlayStation now is a way worse games, and their streaming service doesn't really work, and very few of the games, I think now some of the games are installable on the console. It's just like a mess. And with part of the Xbox strategy is all the games that were on Xbox One now come to the next the next generation Xbox the series S and the series X

But a bunch of those games are also getting upgrades So they're getting graphical improvements and they're getting load times bumped Um, and that's free. That's that's their smart delivery service. That's free does the Xbox Game pass that is included in that price for the console, include the PC stuff as well. Yes. So it's the full thing. It's the full, like, enchilada. See, that to me is very interesting.

I mean, that's very attractive. I have to say, like, again, I mean, I've been, I mean, I tweeted about this. I've been playing, I've been gaming, and I just talked about, I've been gaming most of my PC, and I don't feel the need necessarily right now to upgrade to next-gen, because I feel like I'm already playing next-gen in a lot of ways. But I will say I do think these consoles are going to perform better than probably the

setup I have, like the high-end one will probably perform better than the setup that I have for lots of different reasons. And the idea that all of this stuff is layered in and the idea that it is actually in it goes across platform is really interesting. I mean, just and your game save sink so you could pick it up on your PC and go to your living room. Yeah, I mean, that's really super interesting. I mean, I think that that Microsoft has gotten maybe and maybe it's just because I'm a nerd and like, you know, I'm already like gaming on a PC. I just feel like they've tapped into something that, that PlayStation is going to have a hard time emulating, you know? I mean, PlayStation famously beat the Sega Saturn, its biggest rival at the time when the

head of PlayStation went on stage and said $299, which was $100 cheaper than the Saturn, because price is a huge factor in how these consoles are expensive. Accessibility. The controls are expensive. Accessibility is everything. And the only difference between the Series S and the Series X is it has slightly less storage.

It doesn't have a disk drive, so you play the games, but if you're getting it for game pass, it doesn't matter. You don't use the disks anyway. I mean, and it is slightly lower resolution. So it's like half the resolution, but upscaled to 4K, which is what the PS4 Pro is at the moment, and nobody's really complaining about that. I don't think a lot of people have 4K TVs. Yeah. I would say less than we estimate as tech nerds. So I think I really do think, like, yes, it is all about exclusives

and these consoles live and die on their exclusive games. But this is an exclusive too. Like this price model and this unlimited service and the idea of like you buy this console and you get every game. If you say that to younger people, if you say that to people who are cash-strapped, that is an

exclusive feature that I don't know how Sony competes with that because Sony's games, they're all big tentpole games, they're all standalone story games that they have to sell, if they have to upsell you to the commemorative $120 box edition in order for the numbers to make sense, plus micro transactions, and Sony can't, Sony isn't in a position where they can lose money on each box sold. Microsoft could just give these away, feasibly if they wanted to.

So I don't really know how Sony counters this outside of saying like, we have ratchet and clank and we have like these God of War and we have Spider-Man. You know, those are great. Horizon Zero Dawn, which is the support to that, which is going to be great. And like Earth should be great. But it's true. I mean, I will say, I mean, like last of us, I mean, they, I mean, Sony does have games that are like, it's hard to deny that they're really good and they don't ever show up on, they're not gonna show up on the Xbox, you know? Like, that's the other, that's the trade off, right?

Like, that's the thing. If, you know, if I wanna play Horizon's Hero Don, the sequel to that, I'm not gonna be able to play it on the Xbox ever, you know, right? Yes, but I will say that the Xbox kind of took the Xbox One generation on the chin. They were like, okay, we're defeated here. They bifted out the gate.

They completely screwed everything up. They spent two years eating shit to try to get back where they were with the Xbox 360. People hated them and they didn't want their product. And they had to claw back from that. And I think they took it as a rebuilding generation like slowly earn people's trust back, experiment, try things out, see what works, see if game passes a good idea. If it's not, let's try this. And that and do streaming and like just meet people where they are rather than having them stand for this one gadget. And so part of that was purchasing a bunch of games studios and putting a bunch

of games into development. And that takes five to 10 years for you to see a game out of. Like whenever a game comes out and we're like, wow, you know, like death stranding, how precious for this moment. It's like that game was in development for five to 10 years. It's not like it just happened to like he just, you know, like the creators just happened to look at the circumstances and say like what would be the perfect game for this moment? They have to make really long-term bets creatively because these products have such a long turnaround time.

So I think Microsoft has invested in these projects. They're just not, they're not ready for prime time yet. So I do think in the next year or two, we're going to see some games on the Xbox that are exclusives, that you can get excited about. But the other side of that is that because they're available everywhere, they're not totally exclusives, right? Like you can play them on a PC, or you can play them on streaming on your phone. So they're, look, what's the incentive to buy the box itself?

Which is why I guess they've had to pivot to the like getting you on a subscription. I think it's really exciting. I actually do, I'm more excited about this than I have been about Stadia or Ray tracing or any of the other things about the next generation that are cool, but aren't necessarily like, they haven't necessarily sold me on being like, wow, this is really going to change the dynamic between the people who make games and the people who play games.

But I do think a subscription model does because you don't have to sell every single person a triple a grim dark remake of a known franchise in a collector's edition. Like it doesn't all have to be that one way to make money with micro transactions. It can be smaller games like Netflix did this for TV. It could be mini-series, it could be documentaries, it could be a weird interactive film. Like you can green light stuff because people have already kind of paid for it. And then if they end up breaking through, that's great. And if they don't, there's something else on the site for them. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that is that is the thing that I think eventually we're going to say, wow, I'm so glad Microsoft did this. There's so many weird games that got made that would have

never been made. The way that we felt about the Switch and it's like embrace of the indie games. But in the meantime, when you want to see, I mean, if you think about it like films, if those are all those indie, weird Netflix stuff, Sony is the people making Marvel films. Sony is the people making like blockbuster, must see, go to the theater, pay money to do it. Right. So at the end of the day, maybe both end up winning in different ways. That would be great.

But yeah, that's what we got to see this week. Hopefully next week we'll get to see more announcements from PlayStation, more firm dates around when things are gonna be released and a price. But the frustrating thing going into the fall is also Sony has people pre-registering to get the chance at waiting in line for the chance to purchase the console.

That's how few they are making. Right. So you need to on to Sony's website, type in your email address in your name, then they analyze how, what you're like as a player. Like they tied it to your ID in Sony's online service, and then they, they're using some algorithm to decide who gets the chance to wait in line to get the chance to buy one of these right and it Presumably they'll be pushing more of the digital editions because they make more money on every game sold on a digital edition So if you are going into this like all right, I'm gonna spend money I want the disk version of the ps5 you might not have the chance to purchase that until next spring or summer um and that isn't being said either and I think that's really consumer hostile

I think Sony went into this generation extremely overconfident in their own IP, extremely overconfident, coming off the huge smash success that was the PS4. And I think they're going to be surprised when they fall on their face in the next year or two. Yeah.

I mean, it's tough, you know. I'm trying to think, what are the launch title, what are like the big exclusives that Sony's going to have? It's like Spider-Man. They're having like the, there's like a big expansion or it's a separate game. It's a separate game. Right. They're not, Horizons, your adon is not going to be a launch title, right? The sequel. No, it is not. Right. I'm just trying to think of like what are the big PS5 games that I'm excited about. I mean, people want people want to buy Assassin's Creed, but that's going to be

available everywhere. I don't I don't play the Assassin's Creed games. That's an issue for me. Like I don't really care at all about Assassin's Creed. I've tried to play Assassin's Creed. I just have never gotten into it. I've purchased Assassin's Creed, okay, Ratchet and Clank, don't give a shit. Grand Fritz. I am actually excited about Ratchet and Clank. I know you would never be, but I'm actually a little bit excited because the idea of the like jumping between dimensions

is something that they can only do because there are no load times on the console. Right. Right, so that does excite. No, but the no load times thing, and that's gonna be true of both these systems, right? It's like, I mean, does the PS5 is going to be faster? I do think like, no.

They're basically tipped for TAT feature-wise. There's a couple little things like, you know, the PS5's controller has a couple gimmicks. Like the trigger buttons are adaptive, so they can be tighter or looser depending on the team. That's cool. That's kind of cool. And it's got like a built-in microphone

and a little touch pad. But multi-platform games never take advantage of those features because they're building for all of the platforms so they don't really use the gimmicks. So yeah, I mean, some of the, I mean, PlayStation does have good IP. It's that at launch, I don't really see anything that I'm like, oh my God, I have to have that.

Right, it's always like, well, the last of us three is gonna be on PlayStation. And like, Horizon Zero Dawn. But then again, I'm like, okay, well, I didn't play Horizon Zero Dawn until like a year after it came out. I was like completely, and then also it came out for, it just came out for the PC and it seems like there's a increased pressure for these titles to not be so exclusive. And it's kind of like, I don't know.

I mean, honestly, I'm looking at this and I'm sort of, I'm trying to think of like, what are the experiences that I've had recently that were my best gaming experiences? The last of us definitely sort of falls into that category though. By the time I got to the end of that game, I was like, I need this game to end. It felt like it went on for so long. My best gaming experiences have been weird one-offs that are on the Switch. Those kind of indie titles,

if they were instead of me, Nicklin' diving me for $15 every time I bought one, if they were all just rolled up in a package that Microsoft had available and I could just try them out and see, I might end up having a lot of those experiences. Yeah, I mean, I just think like the games, I mean, I certainly some of the best like long game experiences like control, which is funny because I just repurchased and played on the PC and actually finished it because I, you know, just between us, I cheated and turned on a bunch of like, and turned on a bunch of like,

and turned on a bunch of like, God mode features, which you can do on a PC, which is great. Honestly, control was like, it got you a point on when I was playing for the PlayStation where I was like, wow, this is a great game, I'm like, this is so cool. And then it was like, wow, this boss is really hard to beat and like, I am getting really frustrated.

Then it was like, I just stopped playing because it was no fun, you know? And like, I actually finished it on the PC and now I'm playing the expansions. And it's like, it's pretty entertaining, but like, it took it being played on the PC from me to enjoy it. You know? Yeah. I've been in like, you know, I don't know, like, what about, you know, the last of us two obviously was great, but like, Resident Evil, all the Resident Evil games, Resident Evil 8 is coming to Xbox Series X.

Oh, well, there we go. I mean, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for right now, Resident Evil Village. Yeah, Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox. So, you know, these are the, like, I'm trying to think of the games that I really, because that's what it comes down to, right? It's the games you really want to play

on the platform that you have. And I think it's like increasingly there are very few things. Like if you want to play the Spider-Man game, you're definitely not ever going to play that on an Xbox. Like, no, I mean, Sony owns the literal character. You can't even play a Spider-Man in Marvel's Avengers on Xbox. Oh, really? You can only play as Spider-Man in the upcoming like DLC. Oh wow. What about on PC? What about PC? Nope. Just PlayStation. Yeah. If I cared, it is very spiteful. If I if I cared it all about playing the about playing a Spider-Man or the Avengers game that would upset me greatly. But luckily, I mean, I played the Spider-Man game for a little while and I was like, yeah, this is fun. I lost interest very quickly.

It's kind of a souped-up version of what we got from the Batman Arkham games. And like, those are older games. They're not like... It's fine. There's no like nothing fresh. I just... There's a lot of fetch quests and collect the game. Yeah, it's like, right. It's all that shit. It's like, fine, you know, the smoke clouds and find the backpack. Yeah, right. I hate that shit. I fucking hate that shit. I have to say, like, I think part of control was, you know,

what that was annoying to me was it was stuff like that. It was like, yeah, you know, it's like, go on these, you have to go on this specific quest and get this thing. I mean, at least control has like some fun, like, has some fun story points to hit on those. Yeah, you know, it's like going these, you have to go on this specific quest and get this thing. And I mean, at least Control had some fun story, points to hit on those. Yeah, but anyhow. But if you're gonna make me just collection it, at least be honest like Banjo Kazooie, and be like, there's 5,000 things to collect,

and that's what all you do in the game. Don't tell me that I'm gonna like live as Spider-Man in this living breathing New York, and then like, I spend all my time collecting little trophies. Yeah, and it's not behind random buildings. It's not in any way a living breathing New York. I mean, it all my time collecting little trophies. Yeah, and it's not it's not behind random Dolby and it's not in any way living breathing New York. I mean, it's cool, but it's like you can't do anything It's like it just looks like New York a little bit. Yeah, you know, but I mean, I mean the like look I would say a lot of the games that I play and love are readily available on all systems

And so it's really, I mean, for me personally, I'm just trying to think of where I would, what would be the breaking point, you know? I don't know at this point. I mean, it's about performance. I think it's about performance performance. I will say that. I mean, I will say the place where I would be

is like performance. If somebody said the PlayStation 5 is going to have way better graphics or is going to have way better load times or whatever or is more was more backwards compatible than the Xbox is going to be, you know, I guess I would, you know, the thing that's annoying now and I have to say is actually a problem for the industry to some extent. I have games that I bought for the Xbox for the PlayStation and for my PC. I have games, I have games that I bought for the Xbox, for the PlayStation and for my PC. I have games, I have games that I've played. Oh, my Switch collection is literally half duplicates from other consoles because I wanted

to play them on the go. I mean, I've bought, I mean, I've bought, I have the Witcher 3, it's five, I, the Witcher 3 and Skyrim I have like five versions. I have the Witcher 3 for both my Xbox, one, and either the PS4 or PC, I can't remember. Whatever it is, I just can't know. I bought it for the Switch, just for the novelty of O.K. Yeah, right. Okay, right, I have LA, NOR, which I bought on the Switch, which I bought for my Xbox, like 360, I think.

And like, I have considered buying it from my PC because I never finished it. And now it's like, I wanna play Alan Wake, I bought it from my Xbox, I just bought, of course it was like $3 or something. I mean, the one nice thing is that- I'm thinking of Game Pass for free. Yeah, I know.

The one nice thing, I will say about what's going on with PCs right now is that you can get a lot of, like I bought like all the old Resident Evil's for super cheap the other day because there was a He's sale going on. So it's not that big of a deal like I don't mind spending like Ten bucks or 15 bucks on something that I spend 60 bucks on in the past. I mean if anything I'm like why didn't I just wait okay zombie you know the game zombie It was called zombie you and it's released for the Wii U. I bought it for the Wii U

It's fucking excellent on I bought it for the PS4 and I have it on my PC. Like that's a game that I'll play dying light, I have on Xbox and on my PC. Like I just think, you know, I bought State of Decay for my Xbox and I bought State of Decay 2 for my PC, but I do think State of Decay does that sinking thing because it actually taps into my Xbox stuff. Yeah, so- The play, the buy-anywhere or whatever. Yeah, I think it's one of those games.

I don't really know at any rate. The games I really love are just what it shakes down to though is like the PlayStation is going to be so expensive that at some point you can get a PC and a lot of the big hit Sony games come to the PC eventually and you'll get all of the Xbox games on the PC plus you can get all the PC games plus you can get all the PC games, plus you can get all gaming history and the best emulator experiences. And so for that price, why would you get a PlayStation instead of the PC? But at the lower end, for just 300 bucks, if you can't afford a PC, you get a box that does ray tracing, gorgeous, like 1440 PS, upscaled to 4K graphics, 4K media playback, instant load times for 300 bucks or 25 dollars a month. Like I understand the like value proposition.

Right. With the PlayStation, I'm a gamer so I'm going to buy the place. It's almost like if I was like looking for the best and I only had a thousand dollars to spend, I've just built a PC. Right, but I mean, it's almost like actually, you know, you could justify say, like, well, I'm gonna get the PS5, and I'm gonna pay our right for it, but I think I'll, you know, I'm gonna pay 25 bucks a month and get everything the Xbox has to offer as well.

I mean, it's much less. It's like a V60 thing, where you could buy a V and Xbox 360 for for the price of the PS3 so people just bought Right, I mean did people buy them? I don't know. Yeah, Xbox 360 in the Wii I don't I mean did people did a lot of people buy them and own both together Yeah, yeah, that was the that was the like pairing to sure for that generation. I guess so I guess T.S. Three people were like, we have move controller. Does the epic game store, does epic not track like your playtime and stuff on games?

I don't know. I haven't looked because I was just looking at all my playtime on steam and it shows me like what I've been playing. And then I was like, oh, but like why is it controlling here? And then I remember that I bought control on the epic store because they had a really good deal. And I don't know. I'm a Epic Store because they had a really good deal. And I don't know, I'm a play a lot of it,

but I don't know how much I play it. I don't know if that's tracked anywhere. Very interesting. And yeah, this is not a great conversation. Then there's that whole thing. By the way, this is extra complicated by the fact that every, there's like several large companies now that have game stores for PC

that are completely disparate. You know, there's like the Epic store, there's the Steam store, there's EA, there's Ubisoft. Yeah, Ubisoft has their own store. And then there's all these other weird ones like the humble bundle people and it's crazy. It's JIO. Yeah, it's, well, it's JIO at least is like,

G-G. Yeah. What's the one, the other one, game billet or something? There there's just a lot there's so many anyhow. All right, what else? I'm prime. Oh my god. Don't wait Amazon prime does does has like a game thing? Yeah, they have their own launcher and you can get free games through twitch really? Remember ah fuck. Oh, no That's not that's my I think they have up now. They've like every SNK game is free right now. Really? Oh shit. This is a nightmare. I do not have time to play these games. Also, it's really hard to find a game that I like.

My experience with gaming is like, it's just very, very difficult to find a game that I feel like is truly enjoyable enough to spend hours playing. that I feel like is truly enjoyable enough to spend hours playing. Is that normal? Yeah, but then when you do, but then when you do, like again, like the Witcher 3, you can put a thousand hours into it and you're still enjoying yourself. I don't know, man.

I've tried to put time into the Witcher 3 and it's been completely painful every time I've tried to play it. I mean, just absolutely. Really? I love that game. Just absolutely, just I get so bored playing it and I'm so annoyed by it and I'm just like, nope. Just everything about it just feels,

I don't know, annoying in some way, you know? Yeah, I got that. By the way, great big epic store sale going on right now. So apparently we're all trapped in our homes and we can only work through telecommuting and the Republicans have decided to ruin the internet by trying to repeal parts of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act,

which protects big tech companies from being liable for the stuff that users post on their websites. Yeah. And this comes from the triple threat of Senator Lindsey Graham, Lady G, Roger Wicker and Marshall Blackburn. And so, yeah, we might be in and for like a broken, crazy life of Chinese Russian controlled internet style. I don't want to be that guy,

but I don't see them being able to cram this through in the next two months and change. And I mean, we're less than, I mean, half closer we to the presidential election. I mean, are these, do we think that the we're, we're going to, the Senate is going to stay where it's at? I know, but I do worry because they've, they've gutted net neutrality.

They passed FOSTA and SESO, which they had, they had the internet for sex workers. They had, they had, but they know that's when, when the Republicans have control of the House and the Senate and the White House, They do whatever they want, you know? And hopefully things will swing back in the other direction. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen with the election. But I'm not saying we shouldn't be worried about this. It's horrible legislation. It's absolutely...

I mean, they're saying it's about free speech. It's clearly just about trying to control these companies and be able to bring them to court if they, someone tweets something you don't like or a YouTube video says something about a Republican that they don't like. Well, it's about a Republican that they don't like. I mean, they're trying to draw this line, this parallel of saying, if this site labels a piece of content a certain way, then they're taking responsibility for it. And therefore, they should take responsibility for all of it. And then, you know, the goal is to chill, right? The chilling effect of the legislation is the goal.

It's not actual, it's not the actual legal argument or the argument about why, you know, a company would be organized in one way or another or what this, what 230 really means. It's about they want to strike fear into these companies. They want them to basically, you know, come and bend the knee to the Republicans and say, we'll let you have free reign, you know. There are, see, the Republicans, what's so amazing, not to get too political here,

although this is obviously a very political issue, very polarizing issue. The Republicans are, you know, their platform is a platform of misinformation and low information and misdirection and outright lies, right? Like the Republican platform thrives and exists. I mean, there's a reason why several, not several, like I think it may be dozens of new politicians that are going to be competing for seats in the house and elsewhere are

QAnon like conspiracy theorists, right? Because the platform is a platform of make believe. Because if you have to believe in just utter insanity to accept the Republicans version of humanity. You know, it's the, you know, Trump had this tweet today about how the suburbs will be, you know, engulfed in by anarchists and low-income housing. It's like, that's a fantasy version of reality.

It's not real. And like in order for the Republicans to thrive and exist, they have to keep lying to the constituents, to their constituents. They have to keep lying to the population. They have to tell them that if your neighbor gets something, you can't have something. Or if we let immigrants into the country, then you won't have a job. They have to create this fantasy version of reality that keeps people voting for them. And it's really like fear driven, right? They want to be able to spread that fear

and those lies on every platform. And they don't want the platforms or anybody else to ever push back, right? So this whole thing is about getting a free pass to go and spread lies. And the thing that they're reacting to, this would never even have come up if they didn't slap, if Twitter didn't slap,

a little notice on a tweet from Trump that said, hey, this is fake or this is not true, or get more information about this here, right? They see the danger of platforms taking responsibility for telling their audiences what is fake, what is actually fake and what is real. Because the reason why they're probably in some of fake news so much is because it's projection, right?

They are the generators of fake news. They are the business, they are in the business of generating fake news. It is the only thing their platform has. They don't have physical, they are in the business of generating fake news. It is the only thing their platform has. They don't have fiscal, they're not fiscally conservative. They're not, they're not even really a pro military anymore. I mean, literally the, the, I mean, if you think the Republicans are pro military, look at who they elected as the president, okay? Somebody who absolutely denigrates the military at every turn. They're financially

speaking, they're handing out massive bailouts and tax breaks to corporations, so they're being physically conservative. They're not hawkish in the sense that they're not like, let's make the military strong. They're like, let's make the military our punching bag. And what are they? Family values? I mean, these are people who the president, the Republican, separating families at the border. They're separating families at the border. They're letting, they're letting literal babies being having them handed over to strangers to be taken care of by strangers who are 10, 12, 13 years old to be taken care of at the border because they don't have their parents anymore because we've separated them from their parents two year olds. This is real, by the way.

And also, the president, their president, is a serial sexual abuser and harasser, has cheated on his wife in public. We have evidence that he not only cheated on his wife, but paid off. He married one of his mistresses. He married a mistress, but also paid off a porn star who he had sex with while he was married. And it's like, so what are they the party of? They're the party of fear uncertainty and doubt. And in order to control the message around fear uncertainty and doubt, they have to have

control of the platform. And so this is all just a desperate attempt for them to not about support free speech. They want it. What they're saying is support lies. They're saying support misinformation, support fake news, support the things that keep us in power, that keep a population in the dark, which is fear and lies and uncertainty and doubt. They are the fud fucking party. And so this legislation they want to put forth is all about maintaining that and growing that.

They can't win elections, fair and square. They know that. That's why they gerrymander. Trump knows if people can vote by mail, more people are going to vote Democrat. That's why he wants us so fear and doubt and uncertainty about it. I mean, they are the party of bullshit. They are the party of a smoke screen. And so I'm not saying Democrats are all perfect.

They're certainly not. I'm not saying the Democrats never say shit that is in true or have policies that are bad for people. But I think buying large, they certainly are not like as mired in a conspiracy version of reality as the Republicans are, at the complete and total,

and the complete and total point of that perspective on reality is to keep people controlled and beaten down and to keep stealing money from them. And that's what they do. And that's what they've been doing. And that's what we've seen for the last three and a half years. So anyhow, on this 230 legislation, I mean, it's really just a product of a very diseased political party in this country.

And they need, you know, I'm not saying that the platform shouldn't be responsible for things. I think they actually should take a lot more responsibility and they should be regulated by our government, by responsible people in the government. And I, when I say regulated, I mean, they should not be allowed to get so big that they create a monopoly. They should not be allowed to dominate,

their competition by just buying up their competition. They should not be able to be unregulated and allow any kind of speech on their platforms, I think there does need to be some like rules and some regulations and some boundaries. But that needs to be arrived at through intelligent regulation and legislation based on many, many decades of precedent for how you deal with monopolistic companies and how you deal with the transmission of information. It is not about taking away their ability to allow people to post on their platform and not be responsible for it because then you just have, you know, it's a cluster of fuck. It's a cluster of fuck. It's a nightmare. Anyhow, I'm done with my rant,

my expletively didn't rant, which would never fly in a world where this legislation was passed. So who are you voting for? Trump, Donald Trump. I mean, just like last time, you know, it's think Trump's gonna shake things up and not so I'm excited about that.

And I gotta say, I'm liking for next year, I'm liking that Donald Trump Jr., I think he's got what it takes. You know what I mean? 400 more years. Yeah, I just, the internet is the one thing we have left. The one area that has, it's horrible,

but it is pretty much untouched by the horrors of Trump. The armies of Nazis on Twitter are one thing, but we still have YouTube. We still have ways to have freedom of speech and express ourselves. By freedom of speech, I mean, the government isn't censoring political ideas from being spoken about, like, they, they, currently they're breaking up people protesting, right? So like, that is already like a violation of our,

like a right to assemble. The internet exists as one last place for like, information to run rampant. And sometimes it's for better and sometimes it's for worse. But I don't want to live in a world where we don't have YouTube or we don't have Twitter or we don't have Wikipedia. Like I think we need to rain those things in. I don't think that they need to exist how they exist right now.

But like this is not the way to do that. This will be so much worse. So yeah, I just please vote. Everyone. I agree vote for Trump. Please yeah, just please vote, everyone. I agree. Vote for Trump. Vote for Donald Trump as your president. And also, also get into the streets and yell.

Voting is not the ABL end all. No, but it's a lot. We put your money. Yes, but put your money where your mouth is. It's a lot. Do vote for other actions on other days than the day you have your ballot in your hand. Vote for Joe Biden. I know you don't like him.

I know you don't like Joe. I know you don't like Kamala, but you know what? The alternative is so much worse. And I know you say no, it's not. And if you're saying that then you're a fucking idiot, I'm sorry. You're a little bit. Look outside. San Francisco is orange.

Well, that's not a can't. We can't. We actually can't blame Trump for the fires, but we definitely can blame him for not having... We can blame him for how they're being dealt with. Definitely blame him for not having... He's doing nothing about climate change. I mean, the guy hasn't even talked about the fires. I mean, he doesn't even care.

He loves it. He loves that. He loves the destruction. He would love to see both the coast just fall off into the ocean. I mean, but yeah, I mean, obviously we've said this, we've been saying this for years. If people don't know now, if you can't see it now, I don't know what to say. You're living in, you're not living in the same world as I'm living in. You've got to vote. We have to get these

scumbags out of office. And I really mean it. I mean, I really, I don't know what America is going to look like if Trump is president again. And I don't think I mean dramatic. I mean, I think it's very clear now we're really moving towards a country that is no longer a democracy. And again, I think four years ago, people were like, you're being dramatic. Let's give him a shot.

And it's like, we've given the guy a shot. 200,000 Americans are dead of virus that he couldn't have prevented the virus, but he could have prevented a lot of people from getting it. He could have, it's a fact. It's a fucking fact. We did it in New York, it was bad here. We got it down and we kept it down

because we had a plan and everybody stuck to the plan because we repercussions if you didn't stick to the plan. And like, it's just running rampant. He has so disinformation, misinformation and lies about it. He has been directly fucking responsible for tens of thousands of people dying directly responsible. I mean, it's a worse than a war crime. He should be in jail.

Just for that, just for that alone. If you knew you could prevent it and you didn't, if you were the president of this country, the leader of this country, you should go to jail for that, you know. And so anyhow, so please just go vote and also check out the new surface duo review and the Galaxy Z2 fold review that's up on the website. I think they're great and you're really going to enjoy them. And a lot of people are saying there are best reviews ever. And some people are saying they may be the best reviews that will ever up on the website. I think they're great and you're really gonna enjoy them. And a lot of people are saying there are best reviews ever. And some people are saying they may be the best reviews

that will ever be on the internet or anywhere else. All right, well, on that note. And you get nice things, we gotta do some nice things. Give me something nice, tell. You want me to do, you want me to start nice things? Yeah. Oh, I'm starting. All right, well listen, my nice thing is gonna be a continuation of my last week's nice things. Yeah. Oh, I'm starting. All right. Well, listen, my nice thing is going to be

a continuation of my last week's nice thing because I'm now a bike guy. Capital B, capital G, bike guy. And I got to tell you, I mean, I live in a place that's very hilly and I kind of, I'm like, I really, I'm really mad about having, I mean, I love where I live, but I'm very mad about living in a place that where the hills are like brutal to me, a man whose legs are like toothpicks. I basically have such toothpicks shooting out from my new biking shorts. And so, you know, it's exciting and interesting.

I will say one thing that I'm discovering is that there's actually a lot of really interesting technology in the world of bikes. And I think there's some really interesting, new things that are being built and designed for people as we have suddenly a huge population of people that are really into biking and are biking all over the place because we've got fewer cars on the road. We've got more people working from home and having more time on their hands and more time where they're not actually commuting to go and do things. And so it's really interesting to see how that, it's a whole world.

I mean, I know I sound like a ridiculous person, but it really is a whole world of accessories and design and style and all this stuff. And I'm kind of getting a mercy. I'm not going crazy, but I do think it is, it's interesting to imagine a world where, more places are designed. I live in a place where there are no bike lanes and the roads are narrow.

And the people drive really fast on the roads, but also there are a ton of bikers on these roads. In fact, I live in an area north of New York where it's very common for people to take bike trails that go from the city up to where I live because there's a lot of really interesting paths and roads and stuff. I see huge mobs of people on bikes here, but it's also, I went for a ride last night. Now of course, going in the dark is always a weird proposition. But I went for a ride last night and it's like I'm like oh I can easily

die. Very easily die just riding my bike. And so as a person who also loves cars, you know I will say it is an interesting perspective to be now on the other side of it and to see really how poorly designed almost everything is for a road with a diverse with diverse sets of vehicles on it, especially, but not limited to bikes. And anyhow, so it's so it's I'm just immersing myself in it. I have discovered two hobbies since the pandemic started. One is woodworking, which I'm getting deeper and deeper into. And I love. And the other is is is now bike riding, which I've just started. But like the one thing I'll say

that I am appreciative of this time for, I mean, number one is I've spent way more time as Delta. But just I have not had a lot of time to explore other things that I might have wanted to get into when I was like, you know, commuting every day, spending like at least two hours out of my day in a car, usually still doing work calls and stuff. And I think it's easier now to kind of like, at the end of the day, disengage and go directly to do, you know, that hour is now like, oh, I could have an hour to do something that I want to do. And so it's, you know, anyhow, my nice thing is that hobbies, but more specifically like, obviously, like the bike thing is I feel like I'm I feel like I'm discovering a whole new world and I'm gonna tell you I'm loving

Oh, wait wait, I have one other nice thing. Sorry control Control with cheat on the PC Has made the game it totally I know I already talked about this totally transformed it for me's, I have to say, if you're a casual gamer like I am, it is like, yeah, just cheat. Just cheat, it's no, it doesn't, you're not trying to prove anything to anybody. If you just can't beat a boss and you're like,

well, I'm gonna quit, because this isn't fun. Like, just cheat. It makes the game so much more enjoyable. The other thing is, have we talked about Fall Guys at all? It's like when we talked about it a little bit last time. We talked about it last week. Fall Guys also excellent, fantastic. I mean, I have like just five things that I do

and that's it, so I'm very boring. All right, go ahead. My nice thing is this is gonna sound like an ad because this is a podcast and I'm about to talk about Blue Apron, but it is actually Blue Apron. Nobody's paying me to say this. I felt like my husband and I were eating the exact same thing every

single day. If not, it's really good. We were having three different meals a week because we're vegetarians and we have only a couple supermarkets that are within walking distance and we were used to going out to dinner a lot because of work and we would have, we would at least go out to lunch and we would bring home stuff that are leftovers from lunch and we would bring home ex stuff that our leftovers from lunch and have it for dinner sometimes and like we were just out a lot. We were in New Yorkers.

We don't, our kitchen is literally, literally the size, it's maybe smaller than my childhood closet. Or like we're not, we don't cook. So we were in a rut, we were eating like parochies and then spaghetti and then like, you know, uh, ravioli. It was the same shit over and over. And it was so bad for us. And I was just losing it. I was like, John, I can't eat it again. I can't have pizza again. I can't, like, I can't take it. Yeah. And so what ordered Blue Apron, I haven't cooked any of it. So what I'm basically recommending is you get a private chef and the ingredients delivered, delivered, because John has taken to cooking like a fish to water,

and he has been making some of the most delicious meals I've ever had in my life. It's super affordable, it's just great, it's great. I can't, they just show up in a box all the ingredients and the instructions. I gotta say, I think in half hour to make. I gotta say, we have been getting blue apron for years. This is not an ad, but we've been getting blue apron for years. This is not now, but we've been getting blue apron for years.

And it's great. I mean, some of their meals are really, there's some of their meals are really super good. They're, I mean, I have prepared one, one time, okay? But I'm like, I can't cook for shit. And they're really actually pretty easy to do. But also, like, I mean, Lauren really knows how to cook. And so, not only can she make these meals really fast, but they're fucking good. And they have stuff that's just like,

they are, I would never have. I would never have. I would never have. Exactly. And I will say, their vegetarian options are excellent. I mean, really excellent vegetarian options. And a lot of variety. And I think it really excellent vegetarian options. And very, like, a lot of variety. And I think it's like, yeah, I mean, I think it's,

and Blue Apron had a moment where people are like, oh man, they're not doing so great. I think obviously right now, I would imagine that they are surging because people are all having the same experience where it's like. And there was the backlash of people who were like, it's expensive and like like kind of wasteful. And like all these like, and you know what?

Like, no, it actually isn't. It actually isn't that expensive. And it's really not that wasteful because I'm not buying excess ingredients. Yeah, I mean, I think that there, I can understand that argument, but I mean, right now, listen, you know what, don't use a car. I don't use a car.

I don't use a car. If someone wants to mail me a block of ice and some fucking groceries, you're gonna let me, because I'm not emitting CO2 when I go to work or whatever. That's right. That's right, I got a bike now, so I'm saving the planet as well, which means I can get a tiny blue apron and want, but I agree. I agree, it's very good. So good.

I look forward to these meals in a way that I used to look forward to going out with friends. I love them. We had a chutney grilled cheese on non the other day, which I was never a thing I would have ever thought of. It was so delicious. So yeah, I'm loving that. Absolutely digging it. And also my other nice thing is don't

really rise even though I can't see you. There's a new real housewives coming out called the Real House Ice of Salt Lake City. I think it's going to be a lot of Mormons and stuff which I was down for. I was down for like, yeah, I would watch that. It's some of them are Mormons and some of them are former Mormons. There's like a mix, but one of them married her grandmother's ex-husband, who also probably murdered her in order to inherit the family business, which wait for it, is a Pentecostal church. So it's all about to happen. If you've never watched a real house, I've never seen any footage. I've seen a short trailer of this, but I have to recommend that we all,

all the Tony's Josh, everybody get on board for whatever this ride is gonna be. I don't know. It's gonna be bonkers. I am looking, I am looking for a new show to watch. Oh, oh, oh, and telling sunset. That's another good news. Yeah, every time I sign, I get to tell you,

you know what's really good is raised by wolves. Have you watched it? No, what is that? It's a new science fiction series on HBO Max. It is real sci-fi, like hardcore, like old school pulp sci-fi stuff. And I don't mean like Battlestar Galactica, although it is like in the vein of that, it is like, it is really, really interesting.

It is unlike anything that is on television or has been on television for a long time, it is hardcore sci-fi, and I don't mean space battles. I mean, it's something very different, but it's like the kind of science fiction that was being produced in the 60s. That's like kind of trippy, definitely all kind of like philosophical, but also like weird like sciencey stuff going on.

It's very, very cool. We've watched the first three episodes of it and I think it's been, it's extremely compelling. If you're a fan of Balsar Galactica, you will enjoy it. If you're a fan of Westworld, I think you, you will enjoy it. If you're a fan of West World, I think you will enjoy it, though it is, it only has shades of those types of things in it. I would say it has more in common with like, it's produced by Ridley Scott, he directed the first two episodes. It has more in common with the newer alien movies, though, like, that's kind of, like, you go, oh, that's not good. But I would say it's not so much the,

it's the under, this sort of like backstory to something really significant. It's like building a really interesting narrative around a very, just a very different society and a very different group of people. It's about religion and it's about beliefs and it's about, it's got some really cool, like, just scary weird shit in it. It's super weird. I highly recommend it. Everybody should go Tony, you should go watch, raised by wolves and I think you will feel compelled

to. It sounds so good. It's really interesting. I mean, it's really, really super duper interesting. And I think like I was the first episode, I was like, okay, this is something else. Like this is something else. Speaking of hard sci-fi, we haven't talked about the Dune trailer. Oh my God. Should we squeeze in here? How did that, how did we not talk about that?

Okay, this is for the people who stick around for nice things. I don't know if that's every Tony, but yeah, it's not every Tony, but it's on Tony. The Dune trailer. Oh my God. Are you excited. I'm so excited I know I get it. I get it. It's not not gonna be David Lynch version. I think it actually I think it has a lot in I mean it feels to me like

Okay, so you get Timmy Chalamet and Oscar Isaac up in some sci-fi gear You gives in Diablo eyes and you tell me that I get to talk about Dune with people on Twitter for the next three weeks? I'm fucking stoked. Yeah. I think it looks like it'll be very entertaining. The casting seems great. I'm not a huge Timothy Chalamet fan.

Chalamet. But, you know, I think I'd get why he would be in the role. I feel like I watch the teaser for the trailer and the trailer, and more than anything, my takeaway is it looks like a really big budget version of the David Lynch movie, which to me says, like David Lynch got a lot of things right. I mean, I think he got some things wrong, but I think he got a lot of things right. I mean, I think he got some things wrong, but I think he got a lot of things right about the mood and the

vibe and the tone and the characters of Dune. And so like, I'm sort of interested in the sense of it being a bigger budget version of David Lynch's movie. I think I will absolutely want to watch it, but I don't feel, I'm not like, you know, and it wasn't one of those things where I'm like, I can't wait, I know the story, and it's really good, but like, you know, is it going to be more enjoyable than the book? I mean, I don't want to be that guy,

but like, I've seen a version of the movie that I love, which is David Linstein. I know it's like, devise things. I can enjoy things as a femur to the thing that I actually love, like the accessories, cultural accessories. They don't need to be as good as all the time. I do get mad if something isn't as good as the book,

but it's the main way mainstream public people know it. And that might piss me off, but I can enjoy something that's like, you know, I can enjoy like a Hobbit video game without being like, well, it's not as good as the book that Hobbit was when I was in middle school. I know.

I'm sure it'll be very entertaining. I'm just like, I don't know. It's hard to explain how I feel about it. The trailer looks good, but it also doesn't look like much to me. I mean, it's like a lot, but not that much. It feels like it's very incomplete at this point. I feel like I need to see, you know, the worms look good. That's cool. You know, I'm sure it's very incomplete at this point. I feel like I need to see you know the worms look good That's cool. You know, I'm I'm

Sure, it's good. I'm sure it's gonna be good. I guess I think it's gonna be good I don't know why I just don't feel like sure if I'm motivated about it One of our writers met tweeted something and I don't it's not the exact phrasing but he said something like Dune is a movie about a boy named Dune who eats worms and I said yes I mean it's not wildly off yeah I like it I love it all right let's wrap this thing up man I got to get going I got to get some worms gonna eat some worms there. All right, bye. Bye. Well that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow, and as always I wish you and your family the

very best, though I've just been told that your family has ordered food from something called red apron, and now they all believe in QAnne and Conspiracy theories.