Tomorrow - 225: The stonk market

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

Well, the stock market has gone completely haywire thanks to Redditors and a little company called GameStop so obviously Josh and Ryan spend this week's episode tying that into Game Pass recommendations and a review of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. Also Josh gets scammed live on air. America! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, welcome to Tomorrow on your host, Joshua Tablesky. Today on the podcast, we discuss stonks, games, and game stonks. I don't want this one minute. Let's get right into it. Ryan, we're back. Hello. Hello, my little investors. We're back. Yes, hello. Hello, all you Robin Hoods. Well, I mean, you're not Robin Hoods anymore. No, you're not. But okay, let me just say so open. I'll set the stage because let's get

right into it. Let's get right into this. Okay, it's Thursday, January 28th is when we're recording this. We are in the midst of the most the most outrageous, most exciting moment in Wall Street history. Now, I don't know about that, but we're in the middle of a big moment in Wall Street sort of chaos where I probably don't have to tell Tony this because he knows, but there is a huge battle being waged right now between retail investors

or individual investors, the kind of people who use apps like Robinhood or E-Trade or whatever, there's a million of them and hedge funds. And essentially, just as far as I understand it because I frankly don't understand it that much, but hedge funds will take a stock that they feel is going to do poorly and they're essentially bet against it. And they put a lot of money against that stock failing and then they make money on it when it fails. So one of those, just in broad terms,

they borrow stock from somebody, sell that stock at a high price, then rebuy the stock to return it to the person they borrowed it from at a lower price, making a profit. But it means that all of their incentives are to just tear companies apart through the press, through legal avenues, whatever strategies, other companies that they have influenced over,

whatever strategies they can exercise, they will sort of destroy or bet everything and heavily influence things against a company. And then, you know, a capital, like a capital investment firm can come in, purchase up the pieces of that company. And because the company was undervalued because it got shorted,

can then sell all those pieces off like they did to Toys Arrest. And that kind of practice adds nothing to society and takes money from poor people and gives it to rich people. So these retail investors realize that like when a retail investor invests, they're gambling when a big-time investment hedge fund invests, they're manipulating the system so that they always win.

Yeah, I mean, unsurprisingly surprised. People took it at it. People lost it over GameStop stock. Yeah, so, you know, not surprisingly, there's a group. There's a Reddit, there's a Reddit called Wall Street Bets. And it's pretty, it's a pretty horrible, I mean, it's actually like a pretty horrible place like on a regular day. Oh, yeah, I mean, it's right way.

On a regular day, it's like not people that are very cool and have very good personalities and say really offensive things and kind of suck. Because the reality is anybody who's pursuing, you know, fame and fortune through this dog market is kind of like there's something wrong with them to begin with. But in my opinion, that's one man's opinion,

who, you know, one man will be found dead soon. But the, but's but but they Decided that they were going to kind of stick it to the hedge funds who were shorting a game stop and and it worked You know insanely well and so game stop went from it shares went from like $18 a share or Maybe even lower than that. And like as of yesterday, I mean, they peaked out at something like $350 something I want to say.

They were very, it was $350 a share or higher. Let's see what they were. No, I'm sorry, $469. They were, they peaked the $469 yesterday. I think they closed at I guess today it actually hit 469. Sorry yesterday it peaked it's like 350 everyone celebrated when I hit 4269 So anyhow the long and short of it is you go okay, wow So so you basically have a group of people these these individual retail investors saying we're going to push back on this shorting

So they push back in a couple places right there's GameStop AMC, the movie theater chain Nokia. They're all very nerd like Reddit brands. They're like beloved Blackberry, but Nokia, GameStop and AMC. And they're just like, you know, the kind of stuff that Reddit people would be into buy. So they're kind of pushing back and they have turned these stocks. I mean, now they've created an enormous volatility and they have over, way, way overvalued these companies. I mean, GameStop, I mean, people are like,

well, it's not worth $350 a share. I mean, the market says for a short period of time that's what it's worth. The reality is like that's a very inflated price probably. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it.

He's for it. He's for it. But. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it.

He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. He's for it. All of what a value of a company is made up, right? Tesla isn't producing more and selling more cars than many other car companies.

So, you know, you would say, well, it shouldn't be worth more than what's the largest, you know, auto, you know, what is the largest American auto company? I don't know who it is, but they're probably selling GM or Ford or whoever, they're probably selling way more cars than Tesla is. But Tesla is has a crazy valuation right now in a crazy stock price the this is about it is perception it is also about

With you know playing the stock market, which is essentially a high-end gambling But you're kind of like gaming out what a company might be, not just what it is at this moment, right? And so I think that, so we could talk about how it's not real, but like what is real in the stock market, right? It is based on essentially a large scale manipulation. And that is what hedge funds do, and that is what institutional investors do. And the reality is that there's a whole new element here. And people are like, oh, it's trolling, it's meaming or whatever. But what it actually is, it's like, it is like a collective, right, of independent investors deciding to do something as a collective, right? It is essentially collective action. And I'm not saying this is a socialist play, but I

will say that it has more in common with some of the foundational ideas of socialism than what hedge funds do, okay? Well, it's funny because all these right-wing people have, I mean, if you go to the accidentally left, just Twitter account, you'll see some examples, are just like, together, we can demand that the rich provide us with equitable, and it's like, guys, I don't want to blow your mind, but if you want to borrow my hammer and sickle, I have them for the weekend. Yeah, it's, it's, it's truly like, okay, well, I mean, I actually was going to make this point that, that, that this type of thing makes for very strange bad fellows. And in fact, that was just tweeted up the, the guy, the bar stool sports guy who sucks,

the poor, no, who's like, seems to be an atrocious person, like just from a personality level. Yeah. Who I, I would say we probably, I could probably don't have, and there's probably nobody on the planet who I have more opposite opinions of when it comes to just about anything from what I've heard from him. He lands closer to the Dave Rubens of the world than he does the Joe Rogan's on the asshole scale. He's like, I mean, he's like, yeah, he's like a Boston guy without

a single good opinion, but in my opinion, and yet he's, and he, you know, people like AOC hate him and he hates AOC, you know, he's a union, he's a union buster. He's all this stuff. It's like just like really like, you know, it's just not cool at all. Like, but weirdly, he's like retweeting AOC, he's like, you know, that, you know, whatever conflict makes strange bedfills, whatever. And I'm like, I can't believe this situation

has forced me into a position where I agree with stool presidente. You know, like this is what's going on, because it's a very weird moment because what is essentially happening is like, we all feel like we all feel like there is a, there is a hand that manipulates the economy that we see that we have no control over. And that is true. There are, there are massive concentrations of wealth at things like hedge funds where the very rich make money for the very rich. And that is a virtuous cycle that happens only in a certain

tier of humanity, right? The rest of us are like working normal jobs, doing normal things. These people are like, I mean, the show billions is fantasy, but it's not that far. Out of fantasy. I mean, there is a, if I proposed to you, like, there is a class of people for whom, either they or their ancestors have, have essentially achieved escape velocity

from ever having to contribute anything to any society. And in fact, can be huge sucks of resources and luxury and whatever for generations and contribute literally nothing through just like a series of numbers written down. And if I proposed that to you as like a way to run a first grade classroom, you'd be like, no, that's not fair. But when it comes to like the whole entire actual world, that is the case. Like there is a small elite circle of people, Jews, no, I'm just kidding. There's a small elite circle of lizards that together, they can make the decisions that basically not only run society, but like they decide who suffers and like what industries happen.

And if, if for, and because they were so deregulated, if anyone for one second steps in and tries to do anything like they're doing, they cry foul and want to regulate it out of existence. And it's kind of, it's funny and ironic. And I think what it is, is it's, it's funny and ironic and I think what it is is it's, it's revealing to the people who have the strange bedfellows who have a similar sense that the game is rigged and that there is a lot of exploitation happening and that things are unfair and that the system is really badly broken and then agree on nothing else about the world or how it should be fixed or like solutions or human psychology

But can agree that like things are really bad because they are and like wealth inequality is really bad And if it takes fucking right wing reddit to get banking regulations past I'm not gonna like mourn banking regulations because I don't like right wingers on reddit You know what do you mean like right? It this is like a watershed moment I'm not gonna tell anyone to put their money into this especially if you don't have money to play around with but It's certainly it's certainly better use of your money than like the lotto or a bunch of other shit that they want is to tell you're telling You're telling that to a man who spent a hundred dollars on mega-billion tickets the other day You know when the mega-billion is a billion, you gotta go for it, you never know.

But the thing is, they want us to spend $30 to watch fucking a rental of Mulan. They want to pay us $15 an hour in 2025, but we're supposed to be okay with the fact that they got pissed, so now we're not allowed to own a stock. Like, well, this is the big story of the day, right? Is that these apps, these apps, like Robin Hood

and TD Ameritrade's app, and there's a handful of others have stopped. They've stopped letting people trade the stocks. They've just said, we're not gonna let you trade. We're not, if you're an individual retail investor, you're not allowed to trade it. Which is insane. It's insane. It is so clearly somebody putting their finger on the scale. Well, the way that it works is that hedge funds, when Robinhood makes a purchase for you, it puts all, everyone's purchases

in bulk so it can get a slight discount. Then it sells it to you at the normal price and that cut is how Robinhood makes its money. But that means that it is invested in being able to bundle those things together and keep other financial institutions happy. And so, like you'll never beat. Like Robin Hood is a fine way to get a tiny slice of other people's winnings, like a super small slice, a tiny version for yourself, but you'll never beat Robin Hood is part of the casino. Like, you're never gonna be the house. They are the house. No, what's crazy is, what's crazy, but you know, what's really offensive is that Robin Hood has sold itself. And I mean, I literally tweeted this today, but they're like, our time

is now we're all investors. They're used to be this system and we've got to smash it and we've got to, you know, break the cycle and let individuals have the power. And it's like, okay, well, here it is. These people on on Reddit, whether you agree or disagree with them, are not a secret cabal operating behind closed doors doing whatever the fuck they want. If they've made it very clear what they're doing, and people have the free will in a free market to buy or sell what they want, right? Like, people talk about, you know, it's crazy.

These fucking Republicans out here talking about being muzzled. But the real shit that's going down is that, like, Robinhood, this app, propped up by billionaire investors, backed by hedge funds, purports to be a tool of the proletariat to enter the free market and make some money for themselves. And it actually is just another way for the ruling class to control the conversation. And it's like, this is, you want to talk about muscling? Here they are, they're like, oh, you guys are doing too well. We're just gonna stop you and the stocks have plummeted. I mean, they did it.

They basically did it. They got what they wanted, right? They said, the hedge funds said, you need to make this stop because we're losing our asses. And it stopped. And now the people who invested money in it, you can say they were being unrealistic, but what's so unrealistic about it? If the investment is there and the hype is there, and it's sustainable because people continue to put money or hold their investments then it is what it is.

As my man Trump was fond of saying, remember him funny, funny how he just disappeared and I never think about him anymore. I tweeted today actually, don't you think he's probably so jealous of this whole situation? Because it's not about him. Oh my God, no, I mean, yes, jealous that he, that he like, it's something else is getting press.

Yeah, I think it's um, I think, uh, anyhow, the, so it's an outrage and it is and, and, I'll be honest with you, Robin Hood, I don't see how Robin Hood recovers from this as a business. If I were, if I were an individual, I mean, they literally took a shit on the probably the most active user base in existence for their app. I mean, this, I would imagine the percentage of Robin Hood users that crosses over with the people who are making these games stop plays is very high. I bet it's plus 50%. And there's no analogy. There's no fucking analogy. It's like,

you know, when you get in a car, I was talking about this on Twitter, it's like, you know, you can say, I mean, you could make the argument, we're trying to protect investors and where we want to, you know, reduce risk for inexperienced investors who may be caught up. And this is like, totally forget it. You can tell them, you can lay it out for them. You can have a roadblock message when they open the app. It's like, here's what's going on and here's the risk. As long as you tell them the risk and they're willing to put their money in, like you've done your work, you know?

It's like you get in a car and you've got to wear a seatbelt. There's a lot, like you got to wear a seatbelt, okay? You can't just drive around that a seatbelt, but you can drive and you might drive into a wall because like maybe you're not a great driver or maybe you're trying to kill yourself and like the reality is we accept the risk, we know the people are gonna drive and we say, well, some people are gonna die when they drive, but like we've done as much as we can to warn them and tell them and give them like some some regulations about how to do it.

Supposedly the stock market is filled with regulations. We were, it's regulated all over the place, right? It seems to be regulated more for independent, individual investors that it is for the fucking hedge funds and for the institutional investors. And like, it's, you know, this is an imbalance that, that frankly just cracks open this myth of capitalism that like anyone can win. If you have the, you know, if you've got the guts,

if you've got what it takes, if you've got, if you're willing to risk it all, it's like, well, these people are risking it all. And the free market, the free market of capitalism is telling them, we won't let you. The quote unquote free market is saying, no, sorry. Sorry, when we said anyone can win, we didn't mean anyone, you know, like we didn't mean you,

we met people like us. So this is, it's like, I think more than anything at the fundamental, at the basis of this, at the foundational level of this. This is a, this should be a wake up call for a lot of people that even if you do it the way they want you to even if you play in their system and you give them your money to play their games to be to invest in their in their lottery and you end up winning. They will shut it down. They

will stop you from rob you. There is no wealth at the level of a billionaire. At a level, honestly, of a hundred million air. There is no wealth creation without utter exploitation. And at the end of the day, any financial system that promises you, it can make money out of nothing or that, you know, through obfuscation and and and and and confusing Quarant-quote systems and names that they can make your money triple or quadruple They're not you're not the audience to whom that that's true That's true to the people at the top of the pyramid scheme You are the people who are the Ponzi scheme you are the people who fall for the Ponzi scheme like and In no world will they allow you anything but that position.

You can have Robinhood app in a totally normal time. You will never get the same rate of return as the wealthy get. Retail investors and regular people have to pay capital gains tax. The rich do not have to pay capital gains tax. The rich do not have to pay capital gains tax. We're not allowed to just decide to call up our buddies who run the app and tell them what stocks are and aren't allowed to be sold. Like if things tomorrow go back to quote unquote normal for that like what the Trump administration considered normal,

we're still in a financial situation where the stock market has been completely decoupled from like day to day life. It has been completely decoupled from like day-to-day life. It has been completely decoupled from like actual prosperity or life expectancy or any of the goals we've purported to have as like a society. And I don't think my whole point to say, I don't think people unknow that. I think people have been sitting around pissed off. The government can't get it together to print them some $2,000 checks so that they don't get evicted and now a bunch of people who are right-wing, who have supported all of this, who were thrilled with market deregulation and all this shit, tried to do their own version of what they're

like fucking the boots that they lick do every single day and they got stomped down and I don't think people are gonna forget that they just got stomped down. I mean, this is a result of rage from the 2008 financial crisis. What, you know, what's gonna happen when you piss these people off even more? Like, yes, this is the end of Robinhood,

but what happens when there's like an anonymous or like a Reddit forum that just decides every day to just cause chaos. I mean, there are people who are perfectly fine putting $20 a day towards a financial war on the rich and they should be. And unless we get back to a world where investing literally matches what our priorities are as a society or even what is working to make money. Yeah, I mean, the reality is that, you know, this is going to become, I mean,

what are they going to do? Like, is it going to be regulation? The change is it. I mean, this is going to be, I mean, how do you regulate this? How do you regulate, you know, what, you can't have people gather in open public forums and talk about stocks they want to trade? Like, you know, it's like, at some point you just cross, you cross a threshold where it doesn't, it kind of doesn't make sense anymore, you know?

That you've gotta just let it be what it is. And if the market is headed in this direction, if the market is headed to a place where, you know, individual investors will be able to join together and Make stock moves like significant stock moves like then maybe that's what the markets like now and maybe hedge funds need to Adjust to it or understand it or maybe they need, maybe headstones need to die in some way, because maybe they're not healthy. I mean, maybe this whole thing isn't healthy.

You know, I think it's like, I don't know. I think this is just again, I think it foundationally exposes like some real something really broken about our financial system. And it is broken in the sense that frankly, it's broken that this can happen, that a group of people can drive a stock

that has been $18 a share, or $20 a share historically, to $300 a share, that's something that's broken about the system. And the fact that these hedge funds can manipulate the share prices and then stop or halt through their networks, halt the other part of it happening,

this independent investors part happening, is also a broken part of it. The hedge fund part of it is broken. It's like, what do you do with it? I mean, what do you do with this system that's built on the creation of wealth for a very small amount of people in the world? You know, you'll hear people say, well, you know, this is 401Ks and this is, you know, this money is,

they manage other people's money and it's like, well, you know, maybe this is not, maybe this is not the way to do it then. If it's this susceptible to disruption, then maybe this is not the right place to put your investment. Or maybe we just need to lay down some fucking basic ground rules.

I mean, like look at the major financial collapses that have happened throughout time, but it's specifically look at 2008. I mean, it's when you create a system where it's more and more risk and more and more bets, and it's at house of cards that could fall down at any point if anyone blinks. Like, I get you made a lot of money in the short term,

but for all of us, that is bad. And we shouldn't let you do it. Like, you're not, you should not be allowed to dismantle companies and sell them for parts. This needs to result in some kind of actionable change. Like we have to all of these pissed off people. Please don't turn your attention to seers or whatever next. Turn your attention to your representatives and turn your attention to organizations that have been trying to fight for financial reform for a long time and put your effort into your voice and your money behind them. Because if that, if we were to change the rules and make it so that like long term investments actually were safe and actually couldn't be exploited and actually weren't like a huge trick on small investors like We would have a society where like I'm not saying that

Capitalism works or that the American dream is is gonna work out for everybody We would have a society where you were more likely to be able to put money in the stock market long term like your 401k And not have it disappear overnight because Some guy thought he would do a bet based on a mortgage that was sold to a 22 year old methad who had nothing to put down and know like identification. Like, you know, like we wouldn't have live in a world where that where we're might, where, like, you know, my brother who makes X amount of money not a lot a year as a college student, maybe he makes like $25,000 at his part time, can get a mortgage. Like, that was the world we were living in for.

Like, they were handing out credit cards on college campuses. And like, if we can get, if we remove that and we create some sort of like basic regulations around these things, basic like guard rails in place to say like, hey, you can't like purposefully manipulate and screw people in a Ponzi scheme dressed up as something else. It would be better if we lived in a world where everybody

was invested in the success of American businesses, rather than a small group of people are highly invested in the failure of America. And those are also the most powerful people in the world. I don't know. I want to find a reality or a path forward in which we aren't completely screwed. I don't mean that from a nationalist standpoint. I mean, democracy and the idea of regular people, the middle class, regular people having

healthy, normal, satisfying lives. I don't know what the path forward is at the moment But I hope that this side of like level of outrage at least doesn't Disappear and doesn't like get I worry is that it all gets focused on some scapegoat That would be the best thing right like we all got pissed at one hedge fund or if we all like bought one No, that's the easy. that's the easy thing, right? Yeah, it's so easy to hate Martin Screly and not take on like big pharma companies that are doing exactly what he did.

Okay, we got to hate all the Screly's. Not just Martin, you know, Tony Screly, Bobby Screly, Vince Screly, Atina, Tina Screly, I don't know who they are, but anyhow, they're out there and we gonna stop them. But anyway, okay, so listen, all right, that's what's going on in the world of high finance. It was a lot of time. I was thinking about it a lot of times.

Two people who didn't think about it one week ago. Yeah, for people who were not, I was not actively thinking about talking about or interested in what was going on with the GameStop stock. I mean, I was like, yeah, GameStop. I mean, I get it, right? Like it's not doing well. And I do think to be clear, there's real reasons why GameStop is not doing well. Okay, the pandemic obviously has hurt so many millions of businesses.

I mean, there's not a lot of fend trap and hundreds of millions, billions of people are affected by the pandemic. Okay. The foot traffic is one thing. GameStop had other problems too. Totally fine. I mean 50% of all consoles sold do not have drives for the disks that game stuff sell. Right.

So GameStop's model has problems, but it doesn't necessarily mean GameStop. She go out of business, but it also doesn't necessarily mean game stops shouldn't go out of business and so Yeah, the market is speaking and we're all listening and nobody knows what's going on And I think that's why I say dump all your money every last sent you haven't to Kmart. I say well, you know I've heard worse ideas honestly, and frankly I've heard worse ideas in the last 20 hours 20 minutes Okay, so anyhow then there's other stuff going on.

Can I talk about my new Galaxy S21? Yes, please tell us. Ultra 5G. So I gotta say, I love this phone. I gotta say Samsung has, I think basically, well, they're still like Samsung's like, Samsung is very Windows, and they're phones are very Windows in the sense

that they have so much going on. You're kind of like, wow, there's a lot going on here, you know. I do think it's a really elegant phone. The camera seem fucking amazing. The zoom is crazy, like really, really good. I do think like photo quality is if not as good, maybe better in some cases than the new iPhone. And I gotta tell you, I got the buds,

they sound incredible, they sound fantastic, they sound so good, they sound so good and they fit better than Apple's earbuds and they have so many more options for like controlling their sound than the compared to the AirPods Pro and they're like $70 cheaper or something. This is good stuff. And I'm like, if I can get one of these apps that does like, that properly does like,

I have air message working, but the, sorry, I'm gonna say I get distracted by something. What was I saying? What did I just say? Oh, right. Sorry. So, I'm trying to figure out the messaging situation because I've been using error message, which is an app that uses your essentially

an always on Mac as a server to route your message, your iMessages to a phone. And it works pretty well, except the setup is very complicated. And like, you have to do all this stuff with a router and you have to open a port. They have a cloud version now, which I haven't tried yet because it's still in beta.

But the cloud version basically lets you use it in a browser. It lets you use it on any other computer and it lets you route it to your phone without having to do this complicated setup. And it's all encrypted and then encrypted, which is really interesting. And then there's this new app from the guy who made the Pebble watch called Beeper, which does the same thing. And in fact, he's like, I'm gonna talk about this on the last podcast, I can't remember, but he's selling, I mean, I was part of the service,

they're basically giving people if they don't have a server they can use, they're giving people like refurbished iPhone 4Ss with that are jailbroken to be able to act as like these intermediary devices between an Android or a Windows system and I message. That's really like, you know, that's the big one, right? Like the big one is the I message stuff.

And if somebody can get that right, and honestly, it seems like we're on the precipice of things that Apple would have trouble, I think really trouble preventing, which is essentially you using a part of your I message chain as a kind of sender to another device. I mean, I do think it's like, I feel like this is, I mean, honestly using Android for a couple of days instead of iOS for things is just like, you know, it's like a breath of fresh air. It just, it worked so much better to do so many basic things. Like really simple things that iOS makes complicated to Android has solved.

Like copying things, you know, just basically like copying stuff and pasting it into other things. You know, telling Twitter you want to open in a browser instead of in their internal browser, like little things that actually do affect your day to day workflow. I know this is old news for most people, and I've talked about this a billion times. And I probably, you know, it's like every six months,

I'm like, oh yeah, Android, I'm back on Android. It's been a while actually. I mean, I will say it continues to be the fact that the differences between Android and the most recent versions of iOS are increasingly non-existent. And real differentiator stuff like iMessage or integration with Apple TV which at this point I can take or leave. But I will say Samsung did a really nice job with these devices. The build quality is

tremendous and you know I think I mean phones. And, you know, I think, I mean, phones at this point, you know, everybody has a phone, they're all basically the same. It's really not that big of a deal. But I will say that I think that, you know, they're, they've become a very viable alternative. This phone is a very viable alternative to an iPhone. And honestly, if I had a non-i-message family situation, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't even give the iPhone a second glance. And honestly, if I had a non-I-message family situation,

like I wouldn't even give the iPhone a second glance. I mean, but we live in a society. I have a family. So anyway, that's my short review of the shit. I mean, the reality is there's a lot more to say, but it's a phone at the end of the day. Does it really matter? Every six months you switch platforms and guess what they're always they they're the inherent limitations of these Platforms are becoming like clear

phones especially are more and more of an appliance in my life at least yeah And I have at the more I switch between Android and iPhone, the more I'm like, yeah, there's little things I prefer. And I definitely have uses for my Android phone that my iPhone doesn't have. And I definitely like certain things about my iPhone that my Android phone does in the worst way possible. But at the end of the day, we're reaching a parody

of macOS and Windows where it's like, yeah, you have to readjust a few things, but it's the same fucking thing. And yeah. And it's hard to imagine how Samsung like, or anybody breaks through essentially what is like your product is ubiquitous and doesn't need to be improved.

Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it is like you can start selling cars. Yeah, no, exactly. It is very much, I mean, it's it's it's it's it's uh It is you can start selling cars. Yeah, no exactly It is very it is very much. I mean it's interesting. It's very much like Everything a move type is a lot but like everything wants you to be part of their ecosystem and Samsung has all this stuff It's kind of like oh god Samsung is relentless It's like please join our app and use our theme

and get these reward points and watch our ads and let us have your location today. Like they just, they don't want, they want you to be in the Samsung world, not in Google's world. It's very inconvenient to them that they have to even have any like Google features at all. No, for sure, but to that point,

it also is like kind of push to the background a lot more in the new phone. Oh, is it? To some degree, it's easier to just be like, nope. You know, like it's easier to just say, yeah, I'm not going to do any of this big speed stuff. You can turn a lot of it off. And you can turn a lot of it off. And also, you can, you know, it's like their apps are also like they have a calendar app and like, you know, it's very similar to the, to the Google calendar app at this point, there's really no difference. It doesn't matter. It's basically a slightly re-skinned Google calendar app. So little things like that that

used to be annoying because the Google calendar app was actually better and faster is now, they're now kind of, it doesn't matter. And I think, so it's, yeah, I mean, the setup for me, it was very fast and also it just was not, the Samsung stuff really doesn't weird as much. I mean, they don't, they don't really try to for, at least in my experience, it wasn't like, you know, go into our app store and download all of our apps and use all of our, you know, weird services and you've got to sign up for this and, you know, I have a Samsung account at this point because I've owned like 25 Samsung phones.

And, you know, I think they definitely have gotten the message. I think that people aren't really using that Samsung, at least in the US, their stuff is not really ecosystem. People aren't clamoring to Samsung. Yeah, exactly. The other thing I should say that is notable that I kind of was like struck by is the phone is very narrow. I mean, I think the screen is actually,

in terms of the, and I haven't done like a huge, you know, breakdown of this, you know, the iPhone is wide. It's really wide, like wider than I remember that, like, I guess I kind of, I haven't compared it to another phone in a while. Yeah, it's a thick, chunky boy. And I have the Galaxy Note 10 Plus or whatever, which is, which is like, it is the same size as the S21 Ultra, but it's a little bit wider. It's like iPhone with, but the height of the S21 plus, but like it's probably it's a little bit wider than the iPhone. But so this compared to the iPhone 12 Pro Max, these names, by the way, are absolutely garbage. I it's so bad. But it's it's by comparison

it is a much skinnier phone which I find interesting. It feels weird in my hand to hold which is crazy to say because it's massive. But it's almost like it's too skinny. But I can like reach to the other side of the screen much more easily than I can on my iPhone, which is just an interesting sort of ergonomic question that they seem to be answering in a way that, you know, in some ways they've got a better answer than what Apple's doing. I mean, it's like they've given themselves over to the possibility that the shape of the screen is not going to be so uniform, and it like has made for a very, you know, different feeling form factor. But anyhow, the long a short of it is like, yeah, I mean, it's also just,

it is exactly what you mentioned before. It is a gateway to stuff. An appliance is a good way to put it. And in fact, there's some new, there's some new studies out that people aren't upgrading their phones as much as they use to because the reality is like they've all reached parity and like the last version of the iPhone is not them is really not that different than the new version of the iPhone and the same goes for the Samsung devices. Um, anyhow, it's nice to change it up once in a while. I have so many, I am now like balancing between so many things partially because I'm working from home partially because I'm bored and so I have a lot of like,

I'm like always like on a different computer just to like mix it up. I have, but I have like two PCs that I use, no sorry, three PCs that I use on a regular basis. My MacBook, now I have, I'm using two phones on a regular basis and iPad and I just got a PS5 and the other day I bought an Xbox Series X for reasons that I still don't fully understand to be honest with you

Like I was like I should get one. I think it was maybe because you were doing the medium review Which we can talk about a little bit. Yeah, I want to talk about I want to and I want to hear about it But you were doing the medium review and it was like you were like it's an exclusive an Xbox exclusive I'm like, oh shit. I better get an Xbox to play this game anyhow the game doesn't sound like it's that great, but But yeah, I've got too many just too many platforms. I get too much stuff That's why I was seeing before we started rolling we need to go back to an agrarian society where which is like everything's the barter system there's no devices and also

I don't know there used to be be a time when a video game meant a cartridge for the NES. And now it's like, are you streaming it? And which streaming platform are you using? Oh, you're not? Oh, then is it on your computer? Or is that computer a PC, Linux, or a Mac? Oh, it's none of those?

Oh, then it's a console. Is it the PlayStation? The Xbox? Well, which version of the Xbox the Xbox one? Yeah, it's crazy and yet you're just like it's so complicated at this point and there's so many different Ways to like like if you want to play the Witcher 3 right now you can play it on Your Tesla because apparently the new Tesla. Yeah, I was a ten Terro flop gaming computer.

This one I don't fully understand. I'll be honest with you. I'm somewhat perplexed. The Tesla now can play Witcher 3. I mean, the Witcher 3 is a complicated game. Like, are you supposed to have a controller for that? I think you're supposed to like park and then play the Witcher through your card chart.

On a touch screen? And I get that, you can't play it, you can't play it like, you can't play it while you're driving, right? No, I'm saying, you can't, but. No, but even in passenger, I don't think they allow you to. No, no, that's right, but I'm saying, but like what are you supposed to play it with?

Like the Witcher's a complicated game, there's no mobile version of it. It's just a touchscreen. Do you play it with the steering wheel? Oh, I would think that you would pair a controller. Is that the idea? And then that stays in the glove box? Do you have a glove box?

Yes, there's a glove box. You have to use a virtual button to open it on the model through this. It's amazing. Let me actually take, I'm looking right now at the new model, the new model S. Let me check it out. It has a crazy steering wheel. Oh, God, I know.

It has a steering wheel that is in circular, which I think is really cool looking, but in day-to-day life, I'm almost certain this steering wheel will be very hard to use and people will crash because of it. I'm just worried, frankly, about giving my car to a valet at some point. Right. I mean listen, oh they do have a rear screen in the new ass. That's interesting. I'll say this, I'll never buy a sedan again, I don't think. One thing I learned as a Model 3 owner is that, it's very hard for me to get into. I'm six foot four and it's very low to the ground. And I believe I like exacerbated my knee injury I had

that from riding a bike by getting it out of the car. Or the car injured by knee in the bike like with the straw that broke the camel's back. Anyhow, this is a personal tale we don't all need to listen to, but the point is I will not be by Dave. I will not be buying a model as no matter how weird the steering wheel is. But we were talking about Xbox, the Xbox game, the medium. Can you tell us about this?

Let's talk about this. So the medium is it's not a bad game. I wouldn't say it's, you know, two buggy to be played or the story is offensive or the gameplay doesn't work. Like, it's fine. It's just, it's a very short, very pretty, very shallow game that's closer to like a walking simulator, like a gone home than it is is to even a life is strange,

or until dawn. You really, there is no player choice happening. It insinuates a lot of things happening off-screen that are huge issues, like it insinuates that there's a genocide, it insinuates that there's a pedophile. But you don't actually see anything or really ultimately any consequences further than our main character telling you she's sad. And a lot of the like, a lot of the like stealth sections of the game don't take advantage of the fact that you're in two worlds.

Like, so, okay, if you're not clear on what the game is about, it's about a woman who is a medium, which means she can see the other side, or like the other worlds, like the supernatural one underneath this one. And she can inhabit both of them at the same time. And like, she has certain powers because of that. Like, she can leave her body and go through the spirit world temporarily or you know, she can relive memories that have been left behind in the spirit world.

But all of these mechanics and these powers don't end up being like used in combination. So there's like all these stealth sections against an invisible enemy. But you don't really use the fact that you can be in both worlds or that like, like to trick it or something. You just sort of like have to learn

which direction of the room to wait in while it walks past you. And that's not like fun gameplay, right? But the reason the whole game is very interesting is, and the reason I wanna talk about it is that it is a game whose core mechanic only can exist because of the next gen consoles. Like the NVMe SSD drive that's in the Xbox Series S and X, make it so that you can pop in and out of both worlds pretty instantly.

And so that you can jump between picking up an object in opening that object in your menu over to a completely different world and picking up a different object and triggering a different cutscene all instantly without loading times or you die and it can load both those worlds simultaneously for you to come back and try again. like for you to come back and try again. And that is interesting because like that's an actual, that's an actual concept or an actual like a mechanic that's an actual like core idea that wasn't possible until now.

And that's always cool when you see something like like Super Mario 64 was sort of like this. I'm not saying this is on the level of Super Mario 64, but it was sort of like this where you were like, oh, a 3D Mario game, like you can jump on different platforms and like move in any direction. Like that wasn't possible until we had 3D technology. And so that is something of worth mentioning.

And this idea of like being able to render multiple worlds at once or like cutting down load screens both between rendering worlds, is we'll also come into play for Sony's next big exclusive, which is Ratchet and Clank. And that has a whole like next dimension gimmick. Yeah. And so I wonder if we're about to be on the edge,

on the portal, we're crossing the threshold into a bunch of games that you have this theme simply because it is an easy trick that these consoles can pull off. Yeah, they couldn't before. The thing I, the thing that I thought was, and I haven't, it's funny because in my PC, I have an NVM, and like, I have Cyberpunk on it

and it loads very fast. There's no loading in Cyberpunk, really very, very little. There's like the occasional loading, very, I mean, very, very occasionally like, I think in like major cutscenes. Maybe not even the, but even getting into the game is like, you know, under, I don't know, 30 seconds, 15 seconds from like, if I go from like under 30 seconds from like start like this game has booted up and you're in the option screen at the beginning to I'm playing the game It's probably 30 seconds or less, which is really fast. I mean I Can think of some of my most annoying experiences in gameplay and it's like Waiting for things to reload

Control is a game that I basically stop playing on my to reload. Control is a game that I basically stopped playing on my on my PS4 because it was like the load times when you died were so long to get back into a fight that would last for two minutes. Then you die again. I was like, this is just stupid. You know? And so I think, I think like, that's a huge, it is a huge deal. But the, I, I think that's a huge deal. But what I thought was interesting about the concept of this, the ability to load huge amounts of data quickly, is the idea that you can have an open world. I think Cyberpunk does this. You can have an open world that basically,

there's never a cutscene, there's never a load time. and I think Cyberpunk kind of does this. You can have an open world that basically, there's never a cutscene, there's never a load time. It's always like, you know, you're, you can have an endlessly, an endless open world essentially. Yeah, like the Spider-Man, Miles Morales approaches this on PS5, but I mean, that's all fascinating, but the other aspect of the game that I think is super notable is that like,

it doesn't need to be the best game of all time and it doesn't need to be 60 hours long and it doesn't need to execute everything perfectly because it's launching on Game Pass and people have already paid for it. So, and if you don't like it, you can go play something else. Right. And I think it's the first Game Pass and people have already paid for it. If you don't like it, you can go play something else. And I think it's the first of a series of games that I think Microsoft wants to make, which

is taking an idea that would have ended up being an indie project that couldn't get funding or would be underfunded or would never get made, make it on a small scale. It doesn't need to be a long game. It can be a eight to ten hour experience. Take a chance, throw it out there, if it does well, amazing because then you can make sequels and like it'll attract people to your subscription servers. If not, the people that you've hired to make your games now know, you now know who can do what and like how to improve and how to tell a better story next time.

And they're basically creating like a fully funded, it's like a TV network more than it is like a movie studio, which is what games were before this. Like all games basically for all of history have been released like albums or movies. And each one needed to be a hit. And you had some user buy-in because they had they get the console, but you didn't necessarily,

just because someone owned a PS3 didn't mean they were gonna buy God of War. And nowadays, with Microsoft's whole new vision, it means that they can be like television. And if this show doesn't work, they can cancel it. They don't have to make six more of the mediums and stick them all together to tell you a 60 hour game. They don't have to make six more of the mediums at all.

Or they can say this worked and this didn't, like we wanna retool and do a reboot. Like they can basically run this like a television studio. And the medium being unsuccessful is sort of more interesting than if it was wildly successful and like a great game. Because now we get to see how they'll deal with failure

in this new economic ecosystem. And like the Xbox brand is going, it has been making more and more money this year, and their game pass, like the budget that they have with Game Pass is just insanity. So I'm excited because like, sure, this one weird Polish concept game made off of the art of a surrealist Polish painter about inter-poland politics didn't end up resonating with me. I can't imagine why. But maybe the next weird one-off project that would have never gotten funded will resonate with me.

All Microsoft needs is to have something released in the next few months that resonates with me to keep that value proposition as a subscriber, which means they can make six the mediums for the price of one huge game, and all of them can be targeted at different audiences, and all of them can have experimental features, and you can get the data back on what worked and what didn't, and what priors enjoyed, and because it's downloadable and it's a subscription service, you get all the data of what parts did they fast forward, when did everybody save and go to bed? And it means you can continue to use that to like, inform your content choices.

And does this make for perfect art? Like obviously no, but it makes for very successful business, which is something I think you can prove just with the existence of like Netflix. Like they just take all that data and then make decisions of which characters to kill off. And it doesn't mean it makes perfect art, but it does make like a lot of content,

and it's very dependable content. And it means that Microsoft can launch at least something every month that's interesting to you and that you've already paid for. And then now suddenly Sony has to compete with that. You have to give me a really compelling reason why I need to go spend $70 on a PS5 game when I paid $15 this month for Game Pass and I'm not out of things to play yet. And so I think it's really interesting.

And so the game itself, like I'm not going to say, like, we run out. If you enjoyed layers of fear or until dawn, if those are the kind of atmospheric storytelling, like, sometimes it feels more like reading a book than it does, like, playing a game. If that's something that you're into, like sometimes it feels more like reading a book than it does playing a game. If that's something that you're into, like tell-tale games, you probably will enjoy this good enough. It's a solid B plus in that genre, but it's not a great game and I wouldn't say seek it out, but it is definitely emblematic of the stuff that we're going to get. And I for one can't wait for the next few years for Microsoft, because even if people end up playing them on the PC, like Microsoft doesn't care, or in the cloud,

Microsoft doesn't care. And it just means we're going to get so much content and so many weird ideas like this. I hope that people who never got to tell stories are able to use the system, because Netflix is certainly not perfect. They have diversity issues up the Wasio and obviously all of Hollywood is run on nepotism.

But you get a lot more interesting and weird one-off stories from Netflix than you ever got from ABC television networks. And so, you know, I'm excited about this. I can't tell you to run out and get the game but I can definitely tell you to run out and get game pass because also the best feeling is that if I do tell you to play the game worst case scenario, you just wasted time downloading it. You could just delete it if you don't like it. Yeah.

I mean, I, I, two things. I mean, one is, I think this is, I think you're right on. I think I actually think the whole, yeah, the whole conception of how we get it. It's funny because Lauren and I were talking today about GameStop and she's like, do you buy, she's like, you don't buy games anymore, do you? Like physical games? And I'm like, no, like it just makes sense.

I was like, I guess like, and I have like, I'm literally like right now, I'm looking at a crate in my office that is filled, bottom to top with Xbox games. Like, I mean, I mean, the entire area under my bed is packed from edge to edge with video games. And I know it makes sense. Like, I know it made sense then. But now it's like, the reality is like, I'm not going to resell the game to GameStop. No. And like most, I mean, at some point where no one's going to be buying, it's like, it's like music It's like we're not gonna be buying CDs or fine. I mean compelling reasons to purchase your favorite things on vinyl

There are compelling reasons for it to exist, but in regular day-to-day life Apple music works fine And I thought you know what and I thought it would be really cool to buy the special edition fall out You know for or whatever with the arm thing, with the pit boy that you put on your arm. And I spent like a bunch of money on it. And you know what, it's sitting, I'm also looking at that box. No, I just put it in storage.

It's collecting dust in a storage unit somewhere, right? We listed on this site at $1,800 package to buy resident evil village. And you get like a duster with that. Cool. But it's not like, but you know the thing about vinyl is like, there's a legitimateuster with it. Cool, but it's not like, but you know the thing about vinyl is like, there's a legitimate, there's a legitimate connection between vinyl, it's like if you love music

and you're a collector and you have a favorite record and it's like, but it's a physical printing of that thing. It's like a book, it's like a hard book. It will always exist as long as it doesn't burn. Whereas disks, CDs, CDs do not have the cache that vinyl. I mean, maybe in an ironic sense. But nobody is like, it's better for this digital data instead of being on a hard drive for this digital data

to be on this tiny, shiny piece of plastic. Like, it's like, it does like, I still buy them for the stuff. Right, so it's like, it does like, I still buy them for the, for the stuff. Right, so it's not like you can buy a game. It's not like you can buy a game, like the game somehow it's like higher fidelity, you know, because you have the CD or whatever. So anyhow, not to get, but to get, but to, so yes.

So the, so we're already in this evolving moment of, I mean, think about the DLC. The DLC has become a massive part. I mean, look at Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto is a game that came out, what, Grand Theft Auto came out, five came out, what, your 2013? It's still, like I started playing it again.

I've been playing on my PS5. I bought a version, or I got a free version for Epic for my PC, I started playing it on my PC. I got a version for my PS4, I bet had been playing for a while. And then I actually think I bought a free version for Epic for my PC. I started playing it up my PC I got a version for my for my PS4 I bet had been playing for a while and then I actually think I bought a version for my Xbox as well I have a version of GTA 5 just like Skyrim It's crazy everything but 3DS it's crazy and then and then and then I started playing on my PS5 and I'm like whoa Like these graphics are like way better than they were in the version that I was just playing on my PS4 and I guess it's the PS4 pro version.

The PS3 was the original release for that game. Yeah, it's crazy. But like, but you look at what's happened with DLC and with the community aspect of it and GTA online and it's like, it's like that game in another era would have been gone and forgotten after the first year. That would have been it. And now it's like, well, that's not how the games don't have to be the way they used to be. And they don't have to be the way everything else is either. Like, I

think the idea of doing games as seasons, which we've seen people do, the idea of doing games, games as a service, games as a platform, games as a, but I think like as much as all of that is, is, is definitely like fascinating and changes the state of things. I think even more than that is that like games as the collection, as like the library of like Microsoft is now incentivized to make sure all of the games they released to Game Pass that, that can are maintained and available and upgraded occasionally when 8K becomes the thing. You know, like they have an incentive to go back and if you want to play the medium in

15 years, have it available to paying subscribers, why not? You know, it's just running on DirectX. Like it'll be fine. Um, yeah. I think it's a really cool concept. I mean, I think but it's also I mean, it just falls in line with all this other stuff, which is like, you know, I mean, we're we're also doing, you know, we're also doing these like remasters, which are completely, like remasters, which are completely, you know,

it's a completely new idea. Like the idea that you would take an old game and you remaster it suddenly, it's actually really a whole new thing. Or even like completely reimagine like what the game is. Like like, like, for example, the Resident Evil games, like the remake of two is not the same game as resident evil two like even the remaster Quotun Quotun crash bandicoot trilogy is

Sutley different. It's not like they just put new assets and textures in there like you're even new character models Like they are it is recoded from like scratch and I think Yeah, like that idea of like, I've always just been frustrated because every single kid grows up in place and watches the Wizard of Oz. And I think that every kid should probably play the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time

before they pick up Breath of the Wild. And I think that's, maybe they don't want to. They want to jump right in, that's fine. But that should be like an option to them. And I had one of our writers who is tech, who is tech and game literate, DMed me last night, was like, what's the easiest way for me to play

Ocarina of Time right now? And I was like, oh, here's a bunch of silly ways that you have to like jump through to do it. And why, Nintendo just take the money. Microsoft just realized, like, let us just give us your money and we will give you the best version of this. And that's really, it's exciting.

And I think it feels like when Netflix first launched, it's a tiny thing and they only have, like, I mean, it's not, Microsoft's a large company, but it's a small, it seems like a small change to go from having your own, to go from having other people's DVD collections of old network shows streaming to launching your own series, seems like a very subtle shift. But in fact, it is, it like changed Hollywood forever. I feel like we're about to go through that with games. And if all games start falling under some larger studio

systems, where you've got these subscription services, or cloud subscription services, that changes basically everything. It'll change the lifestyles of developers. It'll change the artists that can get into the industry. It'll change the way you and the end user experience things or the kind of stories that make it to you. And I don't know, it's just really exciting.

I think we're in a really exciting period for gaming and I think it's been accelerated by COVID-19 and obviously that's not a good thing, but it is, you know, it is. Well, listen, I think your enthusiasm is exciting. It's frankly, it's making me very horny right now. Listen, I think your enthusiasm is exciting. It's frankly, it's making me very horny right now. It's infectious. No, I think, listen, I think this is,

I mean, what's exciting is I do think we're in a moment of huge evolution for gaming. I think, I will say I think the next gen console stuff, and maybe this is my view because I'm like like now I now have this great fucking PC that like I it's funny. I bought the Xbox and I like the more I've thought about the more I'm like well I don't really need it and frankly I may not even keep it but like There's so much going on. There's so much interesting stuff going on with the actual game creation and the ideas behind it. And there's a bunch of games like stuff that I was looking at that are like there's some Xbox exclusives. They're also coming out for PC like this game Lake

which seems really interesting. This game the last stop which seems really interesting. And like there's just a lot of I think we have just scratched the surface on the gaming experience and these new, the new, you know, the, the, these, the systems are really just what they are is stepping stone to new experiences, right? It's like, yeah, ray tracing is awesome. But like someone's going to find a way to use ray tracing for a game that's gonna be Like a revelation. I actually had a moment. I was playing Cyberpunk the other day and I was like Turned around and I saw I was like in a fight with somebody and I saw a reflection of the person

I was fighting while I was turned around. I saw a reflection of them like walk across You know to the other side of the screen like behind me and it was like I was turned around, I saw a reflection of them, like walk across, you know, to the other side of the screen, like, behind me. And it was like, I was like, oh, I like know where this person went because of the reflection, which is like, it's a very cool, it's a very like real thing that happens, right? You can like watch a reflection and understand that where that person is in a room.

That's like not possible, has not really been that possible because games didn't accurately represent surfaces that were reflective. And now it's like, so that's little things like that, but even there's me bigger things that let the technology let you do. I think delivery and conception of what it when a game begins and ends is another big part of this and like that's going to be, you know, it's a hugely exciting area. I mean, I think the combination of portability, that I think the streaming portability sort of place shifting, not having games last out to huge downloads

and huge sort of multi-disc experiences and stuff like that, we're gonna start to just, people are coming up with really weird and new interesting experiences. You know, I'm thrilled. Anyhow, maybe. I will say say they ported over RPG maker MV to the Nintendo Switch with a complete new UI. Like they created an entirely switch independent version of RPG maker.

And that is the craziest should I've ever seen in my life. And if you have, I mean, RPG maker is interesting as an app, but it is crazy that a copy exists to make RPGs on the Nintendo Switch. Also, if everybody wants to go download Gb Studio, it is a very, very straightforward, super easy to use. App that like you can make Game Boy games, basically like any genre of Game Boy games, it that like you can make, uh, Game Boy games, basically like any genre of Game Boy games,

it's like drag and drop, um, and they run on real Game Boy hardware. And the more stuff like that comes to pass, the more like pico eights of the world that there are. Yeah. Like I feel like it's, it's a really exciting time for like this whole genre of art. And I think like we've been forced

to take some time to like think about what it can be and like who can do it. And it's one of those things that like it reminds me, it, video games are a little bit, I mean, they're not totally because you do need some startup cost like you need to be able to have a computer and stuff. But they remind me more of books than the moviemaking industry because anyone can do it, right? like anyone can sit down and make a thing It doesn't you know not anybody can sit down and have an eight An eight book YA release deal like JK Rowling We're not all terfs, but you know you I'm working on it

You can sit down and write a short story or a book and like the closer we get to that with games and the more Games are available everywhere to everyone for an affordable price. Like it's just it means that everything's going to get really good. It's funny. I hate to bring this full circle but I mean what we're really talking about is this direct this consumer relationship with creator and in the way that we're talking about stocks and these consumers making decisions that have you know wide-spread impact I do think you know you see the the power of Removing the middleman the power and also the danger and the fear of removing the middleman, you know

And I think like that I mean one thing about PC gaming that is so exciting like if you're not one of the things I think is so I open is that if you're not, one of the things I think is so eye-opening is that if you're not gaming on a PC and seeing the wide, just crazy varieties of things you can do and the multiple stores and multiple types of games and emulation, all this cool stuff that you can do. Like, you see a very narrow window of it when you look at consoles and that window is widening, but there still isn't a good direct, I mean,

there are good. If you're playing on console, someone had to say you're allowed to play this game. Right, that's right. And I think that, and I think that there is, there's a bigger world out there. And I guess like, I think I'm spoiled by the bigger world is exactly what I was kind of getting at, you know,

like I think that I'm spoiled by the bigger world is exactly what I was kind of getting at, you know, like I think that I'm spoiled by being a PC gamer now not to be like a gamer dude or whatever, but you know And so I'm so with the Xbox and even with the ps5 like I got a ps5 and I played the miles Morales game And I was like this is really fucking cool, but like I immediately went back to gaming on my pc You know, and I haven't really I'm playing some stuff But the funny thing is like the games I'm playing gaming on my PC. And I haven't really, I'm playing some stuff, but the funny thing is like the games I'm playing now on my PS5, I'm like, yeah, these are their PC versions of this and they're ultimately gonna look better. Like there are games that I can, frankly,

you could get from like two years ago that will take advantage of the power of a fully spec PC and like console games don't do that. Not yet, really, not natively. They don't go like, Oh, you're on a PS5. Like, let's ratchet up the graphics and stuff. Like, that doesn't happen. Some games have done it like a days gone, which is this like zombie game that was kind of like a weird kind of a mess, I think, for Sony, but they've like upgraded it now. So it's like 60 FPS and the graphics are, you know, better or improved.

And it's like, it's definitely a better game for it. Anyhow, sorry, we should wrap up. But the point is gaming, very cool, everyone should do it. Everyone should do it with their money in the stock market. Just gonna get your money in game stop and then get it into a game. Logical. All right, well, on that note, yes.

Do you want to tell me something good? So I think my nice thing is, and I tweeted about this, I, it's really dumb, but it's actually kind of, kind of fascinating to me. I, there's this company called SongX. I think they're called SongX. They were like an Indiegogo project for these earbuds. They're called SongX, TWS earbuds.

I, for whatever reason, I'm assuming I had been drinking or something. I saw them on Instagram or I saw, you know, I was advertised them somewhere or maybe some of me tweeted about them. This was like probably a year ago, trying to think of when this campaign actually started. Let me see.

I had to look through the whole thing. Anyhow, there's these weird, cool looking earbuds and they had like, you know, pretty decent features and they were cheap. They were like $60 for a pair or something. Very cheap. And I was like, you know what? These are cool looking.

They seemed to have some pretty interesting ideas. I'm gonna take a gamble. I'm gonna like roll the dice. It was literally like a year ago. And I kind of forgot that I ordered them. And they had been delayed over and over and over again. And it was like classic Indiegogo shit. Like, oh yeah, these are never, this is a scam.

Like I just blew my money on this and they're never gonna show up. And then like I got a package in the mail the other day and there they were. And not only were they like, it's like pretty beautifully packaged and they're a pretty beautiful product that has a really interesting design,

but they sound pretty great. And they fit my ears, I think probably better than any. I mean, even like the Galaxy Buds, just I haven't really used that much, but they fit my ears probably better than probably better than any, I mean, even like the Galaxy Bud, just I haven't really used that much, but they fit my ears probably better than any ear but I've ever used. And they're like, it's a really solid fit. They don't have a lot of the bells and whistles

that you would like, like, they don't have noise cancellation. They're not as waterproof as you probably want, but they're really good, and they're like very affordable, and they're really attractive, and they fit my ears great, and they was a total surprise like I was like, what? Oh yeah, these things.

And you would imagine they'd suck right? After something gets delayed and you're like, well, I don't know who's making this, it's not like some big company, it's some random people on Indiegogo. They actually are beautifully engineered and sound really good. And I think like, I mean, it's kind of a small and nice thing,

but because of getting these, I kind of was forced to play around more and listen to music and stuff, and I've been listening to music before I go to bed. And I've actually been using this app Headspace, which has a bunch of like, wind down meditation things that I've been using. And I have to say, it's pretty great. These are pretty great to use it.

Like, so far, the battery life seems really good. The case design is really cool. It's like a circular case that flips open. So it's like has a ring and then it has this middle part where the earbuds are stored inside and it flips open, it has a magnet that kind of like makes it magnetized close. It's very, very well thought out and sophisticated

and I was just like wow you know so you know I guess I don't know what my nice thing is it's like you see these are these ear buds or it's like the It's like either Indiegogo actually can yield some pretty great stuff sometimes or it's just like it's nice sometimes to Receive something in the mail that you forgot you purchased and you pleasantly surprised that it's not a piece of shit You didn't just throw $60 into the garbage and set it on fire. I call that guy who orders that stuff, Santa. Sometimes things will just come and I'm like, Santa!

Yeah, you're like, yeah. You're like, oh, I was drunk and high and now. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. They, they, they, they're, I guess they were like 80 bucks or something. I mean, they're cheap. Really, for as good as they are, they're, they're really affordable. I don't even know you can buy them. I don't even know if these are things you can purchase now.

It's like, it's weird. It's like, what happened? These people made these and now they've just disappeared. You know, they've sold them to the, they've sold them to the, they've sold them to the backers. And now they're out of their, they're gone forever. No, wait, they're on, they're on Allie Express. My God, they're out of it. They're gone forever. You know what? They're on AliExpress.

Oh my God, they're literally on AliExpress. You can buy this for $20. This is so weird. Oh my God. Really? Yes. What is up with this? The world is so fucked.

It's so weird. It's so weird. You probably was a pro. It probably was an AliExpress product to begin with. Hold on. Yeah, I mean, there's there's literally there's a there's already called shitty kick starters were talking about them. They're like, I think this is a scam. Like seven months ago, people were like, yeah, it's definitely a scam. And it's like, well, I received them. You know, kudos. You liked them. When you were living in when you were living in ignorance, you were having a great time. You know, I'm just mad. I just feel like, I can't believe they're just on AliExpress. How are you going to sell these?

I'm selling them for 60 bucks on AliExpress. Maybe this is the brand. We're just going to sell them. This is how we're going to sell them. They have a cool green pair. It's actually pretty tight. They need to make these with noise cancellation. Anyhow, all right, what's your nice thing? My nice thing for this week is I've been rewatching, we ran on a TV, so I've been rewatching the show

Angel, which is the spin-off of Buffy. And yeah, we're aware of what Angel is, okay? Well, you know, Tony might not be- Tony's a big buffy head. All right, buffy. Well, so we've been watching Angel, and it gets really good. The show gets good, but the first season is like, you know, they're trying to figure it out. They don't want to be too much like buffy. They're trying to experiment with some stuff.

It doesn't all work. They kill off a main character halfway through the first season. Oh, wow. But I will say what is fun is that I haven't really watched these early episodes of Angel more than a couple times when I was a teenager. And you know, I would say social justice issues have evolved since the show aired.

And it is fun that every monster of the week is either like a touching story about like when you grow up and you know, you have to, you can't have two, you can't have too many people you hold on a pedestal because people are just people and we all become our mothers and fathers. Like they would be like a touching episode gonna be immediately followed by an episode that's like you want an abortion, you're a whore

and you're like that's the metaphor. Or like one week, Angel just joined the Nazis, like a neo-Nazi proud boys group with not like a Nazi haircut. or like one week, Angel just joined the Nazis, like a neo-Nazi proud boys group with he got like a Nazi haircut, he dressed up as a Nazi as like part of the theme that week and like it was like Angel and a Nazi outfit was like teased in the commercial that week

and it's like, oh, we live in a very different world and you can do this. And Angel was experimenting, you know, he was just trying on different personalities. There's all episodes where you're like, this society has truly transformed in ways I did not remember. You know, but that's the thing.

You know, hey, listen, I feel like we've talked about this. You know, people feel like, you know, no progress has been made. But like, I was watching the Gilmore girls, and I'm like, this is inappropriate. They're like making like Gilmore girls, and I'm like, this is inappropriate. They're like making like gay jokes and stuff. I'm like, this is fucked up. The Gilmore girls, okay?

So, you know, we've made some progress, some minor amount of progress. Wow, maybe I'll have to start watching Angel. Now you're kind of making it sound interesting. The show gets really good, and it is interesting, because it's like, you know, Buffy, it had some misses culturally, right? But we all agree what the things teenagers,

like how teenagers should mostly tackle their problems, which is like, if a guy's pressuring you, get away from him, like I think liberals and conservatives pretty much agree on that. Like things I don't really know. Do the lectures. Do the lectures. Well, I think the servers are like,

you should just say yes. That's your role. At least at the time. And it was a little less controversial, an issue, I guess, that's the question. Yes, no, that's correct. There was a time when it was less controversial. To say, raise some is bad.

Be like, yeah, no, we don't want to be right. We don't want to be considered racist. We're not, we're trying to not be racist. The answers aren't Buffy or pretty obvious, right? It's like, there's an episode that, like, this demon is an allegory for racism and then of course the characters come to the conclusion that racism is bad and they beat the demon

and they all learn a lesson. And that's Buffy and that's a really fun great show and I'm glad I watched it. Angel, it's like stuff about your 20s and it's like, should you rent her by? As a metaphor for an episode? And so the answers aren't always good and sometimes you're like, oh God,

why would you give someone that advice? The world is about to do X, Y, and Z. And it's just funny and it's a time capsule. And it's a time capsule of a show that I watched when I had those opinions for the most part and was living in that world and I'm looking at it like I had such reverence for the whole Buffy verse in like every episode of angel and I look back and I'm like Wow, I've changed to I don't think neo-nazis are funny themes anymore

I think those are like things that are best-to-void depicting on screen no laughing matter And it's fun to watch it with John who never watched it at the time. And he's like, you're saying the show gets good? I'm like, it does, it does get good. But anyway, that's fun. And of course, nice things for us always have to be buying stuff for TV

because we are in a pandemic. Yes, of course. What are you gonna do? We're definitely out of TV at this point. Oh, wait. People are watching that Fran Leibowitz point. Oh, there's nothing. People are watching that friend, Leibou, it's documentary,

who would never have watched that friend. Everybody's like, everybody's like, whatever is on Netflix is the most popular thing it's ever been on Netflix. It's like, yeah, because there's nothing else on Netflix. People are acting like Bridgerton, like did it to him. It's like, no, there's nothing else on TV that time.

I haven't seen Bridgerton, so I don't want to diss it. But like, you know, it's a quadrice ripper. It's a quadrice ripper. The Queen's Gambit was like the most popular thing that's ever been on Netflix when it was out. And it's like, yeah, like I watched the Queen's Gambit. It's fine. It's a great.

It's no friends. It's like, it's like, it's not, I wasn't like, this is will live, this will live on the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the sopranos, the Queen's Gamb the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, channels? Was it cinematics that always had like the action shows? It was like guys, it was like these military guys have to break people out. And also maybe they're gonna have sex. It's called Seal Buster. Yeah, it was like, it was like smash out or it would be like this show is set in ancient

Rome and their military guys who've got a smashing crime. Yeah, and there's sex. Real full frontal nudity. Yeah, those were the days days those were the days when everybody wasn't doing full frontal Anyhow, all right, let's wrap up. I'm gonna get out of here. I got to have some lunch or something Very very hungry. I'm getting cranky Bye-bye Well, that is our show 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 been shorted by a hedge

fund. It's not looking good. you