0:00:00[MUSIC]
0:00:01From Relay FM, it's the Upgrade Holiday Special!
0:00:06With your host, Myke Hurley!
0:00:11Thank you for that wonderful introduction, Jason Snell.
0:00:14This episode is brought to you by Text Expander from Smile, Encapsula, App Optics, and Pingdom.
0:00:20My name is Myke Hurley as I was so wonderfully introduced,
0:00:24and I am joined on this very special holiday episode by Jason Snell.
0:00:28Happy Holidays Jason Snell.
0:00:29- Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays Myke.
0:00:32What better Monday than Christmas Monday
0:00:35to do an episode of Upgrade?
0:00:37- Mm-hmm, most definitely.
0:00:39And we couldn't leave the Upgradians out in the cold.
0:00:41And Jason, that actually leads me quite nicely
0:00:44into our Snell Talk question,
0:00:46our holiday Snell Talk question from Kevin.
0:00:48Not Kevin McAllister, a different Kevin.
0:00:50Kevin would like to know,
0:00:52have you ever had a white Christmas, Jason?
0:00:54- I have.
0:00:55I grew up in a place-- - Oh yeah?
0:00:56where we had snow once or twice a year.
0:00:59It usually wasn't very much, but sometimes it would be.
0:01:02But it was occasional and rare
0:01:05because we were at like 2,000 feet elevation,
0:01:07so it didn't happen that often in California.
0:01:09But it did happen.
0:01:11A couple times a year, we'd get snow.
0:01:13Maybe once every three or four years,
0:01:15we'd get a sizable accumulation.
0:01:18And, boy, as a kid, when there was a possibility,
0:01:22when it looked like it was going to be cold
0:01:23or it might be precipitation --
0:01:25In Northern California and California in general, you have this issue where if it's going to
0:01:29rain, the clouds trap in the heat, and so it's less likely to snow.
0:01:35And when it's really cold, it's usually because it's clear and the heat escapes, and so to
0:01:41get them both, to get it cold enough and raining, turning into snow, is a magical kind of thing
0:01:47for lower parts of California.
0:01:51So always as a kid, I would be like, "Oh, white Christmas, white Christmas, white Christmas."
0:01:57Get up the next morning, nothing, right?
0:01:58It's just rain.
0:01:59That would happen a lot, whereas the possibility we might get some snow, even if it wasn't
0:02:02Christmas, I'd get excited about it.
0:02:04Then I'd look, peer out my window in the morning, get up, you know, right when the first sign
0:02:08of light and I'd look out and there would not be snow.
0:02:11And those moments when there was snow were great, but like mostly it was disappointment.
0:02:16And the Christmas, it's actually of my freshman year in college, coming home for Christmas.
0:02:23That Christmas, it snowed on Christmas Eve, and there was snow on the ground and on the
0:02:31grass and everywhere outside on Christmas morning.
0:02:35And that was the one time I had a legitimate white Christmas.
0:02:41I went through all high school and I went off to college and I thought, "I guess it's
0:02:43just never going to happen.
0:02:44I'm never gonna be lucky enough to have those two times a year that randomly it snows land
0:02:49on Christmas.
0:02:50And it was never close.
0:02:53And then on Christmas Day 1988, it was a white Christmas.
0:02:59It was great.
0:03:00I've never had one.
0:03:02I mean, I think it snows even more rarely in London than it does where I grew up.
0:03:08Yes, I think it does.
0:03:09So, yeah.
0:03:10When I was a kid especially, it very rarely snowed.
0:03:12And it has snowed more because of #climatechange as I've grown up.
0:03:17And we have had, it was a couple of years ago, we had a very bad snowfall here.
0:03:20Yeah, I remember.
0:03:21Which shut the entire country down.
0:03:22But I don't even know if it was in December, but it may have been actually in the beginning
0:03:27of the next year.
0:03:28But I've seen snow, I've had snow, I've had lots of snow, but I've never had a white Christmas.
0:03:33So as you can imagine from the fact that this is called the Holiday Special, we have a special
0:03:38episode.
0:03:39We're gonna talk about some some thoughts on 2017 and into 2018 about technology
0:03:45We are then going to be joined later on in the episode by Stephen Hackett and Serenity Caldwell
0:03:50And we're gonna be doing we're gonna be answering some holiday questions. We have a Secret Santa
0:03:54And a mic at the movies Home Alone 2 so you have all of that to look forward to but I wanted to mention Jason
0:04:01Everyone's gonna be thinking. Oh, they're gonna talk about all the Big Apple news of the week. No, we're not
0:04:05That's not what a holiday special is all about.
0:04:07We're not going to talk about the comings and goings of the last week.
0:04:10I mean, I am reluctant to dive in, yeah, because it's Christmas.
0:04:15We'll get to it in the new year, right?
0:04:16I mean, if everybody's still freaking out about how Apple handles throttling processor
0:04:23power when old batteries are failing to provide enough power, we'll catch up to that in January.
0:04:28Or if Macintosh software is dead.
0:04:30We'll get to that in January.
0:04:31If Mac apps are going to become iOS apps, we will talk about it in January.
0:04:35It's all, it's, you know what, it's still gonna be there.
0:04:38And even though, that was like holding up a newspaper as proof of life, by the way,
0:04:43that we didn't record this episode in October.
0:04:45We are actually aware of what happened last week, but we're not gonna talk about that.
0:04:52We'll wait for January after the Upgradies.
0:04:55After, of course, the most prestigious award ceremony of the year, which is the Upgradies,
0:04:59which is next week, so get excited.
0:05:01The Upgradies coming.
0:05:02So Jason.
0:05:03Yes, Myke.
0:05:04you a little bit about the year of technology in 2017. I want to talk about a
0:05:09couple of big themes that have occurred in the year and then talk about maybe
0:05:12some some things we're looking forward to in 2018. And I think that there have
0:05:16been, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think maybe in 2017 we've seen
0:05:21two pretty big trends and one is in smartphones and one is in home technology.
0:05:28In smartphones we've had disappearing bezels and in home technology we've had
0:05:33smart speakers. I think that they have been two of the biggest trends in consumer technology
0:05:38of the year. Would you agree? I mean, I couldn't, they were kind of the biggest things to me,
0:05:43I think, of stock out.
0:05:44I feel like this is the year of the big players all aggressively pushing toward the disappearing
0:05:52bezel smartphone as close as they can get to it, that that is the goal now. And really,
0:06:00is not just, you could say it's like almost a lemming-like kind of just like everybody
0:06:05follows everybody else and everybody goes in that direction. But I think realistically
0:06:08it's also just about the technology. Like the technology is improving to reduce the
0:06:13size of the bezels and get that screen out there. And what is more natural, I mean, I
0:06:18think, I think Johnny Ive actually said this at one point, the iPhone X is the closest
0:06:23that Apple has come to like their vision of what an iPhone would be. Because the fundamental
0:06:28vision of all of these smartphones, like if you really boil down, what would they look
0:06:31like? Ideally, they would be all screen like they would be all screen. Yeah, that is the
0:06:35dream is that this is just a screen you hold in your hand and interact with. And they have
0:06:41not been able to do that because of lots of technological limitations. And those limitations
0:06:48are being solved. And so this was the year we got, you know, everybody's pushing in the
0:06:55borders around their devices to try and get there because the technology makes that more
0:07:00possible. So, you know, not just Apple, Google, Samsung, lots of different companies doing
0:07:05that. And I think it's great.
0:07:06And Staxophone did it?
0:07:07Yeah, that's right. And I wanted...
0:07:08That was a big one.
0:07:09I want it in... I want it on my iPad, honestly.
0:07:11Me too. I mean, even then though, we got it to a point, right? Like the bezel...
0:07:16On the side is a lot less. Yeah.
0:07:18Right? It's a lot less. And that has happened over time. And I hope that we see something
0:07:22like that. I hope and like, you know, we're going to talk about this. But 2018, I would
0:07:26love to see an iPad with a bigger screen in a in a same size or vice versa, right? Like
0:07:32I would love to see a very thin bezel iPad. That would be that would be very exciting.
0:07:37I think that, you know, the thing about this disappearing bezels, you know, you mentioned
0:07:42it like the technology allowed it. I think by and large, this wasn't a case of like these
0:07:46technology companies copying each other because of how long it takes for these devices to
0:07:50come together. I think it was just 2017, you know, back in 2016 and into 2017 was just
0:07:57the first time that this kind of stuff could be done. Like the technology is at a point now
0:08:02where for about around a thousand dollars you can sell a phone that is mostly screen and that
0:08:09it doesn't need a huge chin or forehead, it doesn't need a huge space around the side
0:08:14because the miniaturization and all the screen tech has gotten to where it needs to be,
0:08:18that this has become a possibility.
0:08:19And I think that for observers of consumer technology, I think the last couple of years
0:08:24have seen some, every advancement in smartphones has not really been too heavily focused on
0:08:32physical design.
0:08:33Like there have been different designs, but not like leaps and bounds forward in design.
0:08:38And I think that 2017 across the board, Android and iOS has seen huge, huge changes.
0:08:44Like Samsung, I think, have been ahead of the curve for a bit.
0:08:47you know, they have been, I think of all companies, have been edging to this,
0:08:52where other companies just went from having all bezels to no bezels,
0:08:57you know, or minimal bezels.
0:08:58And they have been kind of edging towards it over the last couple of years with
0:09:03the way that they've been like curving their screens over the edges and kind of
0:09:07pushing and pushing and pushing,
0:09:08which is unsurprising because Samsung make the displays that everybody's buying,
0:09:14right? Like,
0:09:15It is unsurprising that they are the company that's been able to get to this first.
0:09:19But this has been a great trend and as an incredibly happy iPhone X owner,
0:09:26I am very, very pleased that this has been what we've been able to see this year in smartphones.
0:09:31Yeah, I think it's a good trend. A lot of times when we talk about smartphone trends,
0:09:37we talk about things like screen size or thinness and lightness or processor power or things like
0:09:43that or transfer speed on cellular networks and I feel like not enough attention is paid
0:09:48to the physical innovations that happen and that is things like getting the bezels to
0:09:54be smaller. It's things like improving glare reduction, improving shatter resistance, which
0:10:04even though people drop their phones and they still break, trust me, the glass is getting
0:10:09better all the time and you know this is gonna keep people don't notice but like
0:10:14I will throw waterproofing in there too because now all the Apple phones are
0:10:17waterproof all the new models like there's a lot of material science going
0:10:21on and a lot of engineering going on it's not just chip design and software
0:10:26so the other trend that mentioned was smart speakers and this is one where I
0:10:31think the battle for supremacy is still is still on in a way that it maybe isn't
0:10:37in smartphones, right? There are the big players, the big players are there and they're going to be
0:10:41that way. You know, Samsung and iPhone, Google is trying, but you know, Samsung is murdering them
0:10:49still in the Android arena. The battle for supremacy I think is still on in the smart
0:10:55speaker world because there are some products still to hit the market from big companies like
0:10:59Apple. But as it stands right now, I think Amazon is kind of sitting pretty at the top,
0:11:05at least in what is considered to be the best by people in technology. I think mostly people
0:11:11are recommending Amazon's products and Amazon this year decided to release every possible Echo
0:11:19possible. We had the look and the show and then the spot has just come out and we had the second
0:11:26gen Echo and the what is the one with the home chip in it the Echo Plus? Oh yeah I mean something
0:11:33like that. I don't even know I've lost track. I've lost track. There's lots and it's a it's
0:11:37an interesting category. I think there's a real question about Amazon like Amazon is
0:11:42putting its foot to the floor here because Amazon has a lead but you're absolutely right
0:11:46in saying that Google has got them in their sites. Apple has got them in their sites and
0:11:50the challenge there is that Google and Apple bring ecosystems with them and Amazon's ecosystem
0:11:55is not really a device ecosystem. It's a shopping ecosystem and the weakest thing about Amazon
0:12:01to me and about the Echo in particular is that all my devices are Apple devices and there's just
0:12:09a failure for interaction there because there's only so much Amazon can do. Amazon's ecosystem
0:12:16is great in some areas and terrible in others and whereas Apple is tied into my devices directly
0:12:23and is interested in making that experience better and that's the advantage the HomePod will have
0:12:29have when it ships for people who have Apple devices is that it'll be
0:12:32integrated in a way that Amazon will have a very hard time doing and likewise
0:12:36if you use Android devices the Google stuff is going to integrate with all of
0:12:41your Google services and your Google Assistant stuff and they have a huge
0:12:44advantage there so Amazon's trying to get enough of a lead and use its
0:12:48leverage to get enough partners and things like that everything connected so
0:12:52that it can stay afloat but I'm not sure I'm not sure it's a good match
0:12:57I'm not sure if ultimately as all the success
0:12:59the Echo has had, if tying in with your other devices
0:13:04and platforms and things ends up being important
0:13:08to smart assistants, Amazon's gonna have a hard time,
0:13:11which is why Amazon's trying to make it not be that way.
0:13:14Trying to have as many--
0:13:15- They're trying to make an Echo for every use case
0:13:17for every person.
0:13:18- Yeah, and tied into every service.
0:13:19And when it works, it works incredibly well.
0:13:21Our shopping list is, we use AnyList,
0:13:25and I have any list on the desktop and I have it on my devices and my wife has it on her
0:13:30devices and it syncs with the Echo lists, which means the Echo is seamlessly a part
0:13:38of our shopping list on all our devices and the Echo, they all have the same list. That
0:13:42was not the case until earlier this year when they built that bridge between the two apps.
0:13:50It's like night and day. It is so much better because now we can rely on that data to pass
0:13:55across. So the more of that Amazon can do, where all the pieces of your life in your
0:14:01other silos on all these other devices are all kind of like interconnected to the Echo,
0:14:07then they've got a fighting chance. But the value, having seen that with the shopping
0:14:12list thing, it's like, oh my God, the value of being integrated versus not is enormous.
0:14:17And it's going to be tough for Amazon. They've got the lead. They've got a lot going for
0:14:21but it's gonna be tough because my gut feeling is that you're gonna want
0:14:27those assistants to be tied into everything else you're wanting. In fact,
0:14:32I have an Echo Show and I do have those moments where I think if the HomePod
0:14:36does well, I actually think an iOS-ish HomePod with a screen might actually be
0:14:44good only because the problem with the Echo Show is that it has no apps and
0:14:51you know the video screen is only occasionally useful and I well that was
0:14:56the original rumor right that the apples answer to the echo and to the Google
0:15:02Home would have a little light up thing I was yeah I remember when when they
0:15:09announced the HomePod at WWDC I was very surprised and almost a bit turned off it
0:15:13like my initial because I'm really not very excited about that product at all.
0:15:17And that began for me where I was like, no, that's not what I want.
0:15:20Like I want it to have a screen on it like that is a worthwhile upgrade for me.
0:15:26I mean, I am not interested in the Echo show because all of the things
0:15:31that I would want a device like that for, I don't.
0:15:34Amazon doesn't provide that for me.
0:15:35Like I don't want Amazon's version of FaceTime.
0:15:38I just want FaceTime.
0:15:40Right. Like stuff like that.
0:15:41where it's like, oh, I'm not interested. Right? Like, I don't want to get into Amazon's calling
0:15:47ecosystem to provide this for me because I think that that's, for me, nonsense. Like,
0:15:51I don't want to do that. Like, I'm not going to go through the pain of trying to get my
0:15:55nan to use Amazon face calling time. Like, I'm just not interested in that.
0:16:02It's never going to happen.
0:16:03That's not a thing. But I'm hoping that version two, version three of the HomePod becomes
0:16:08something more compelling for me. Like I really don't envision a world in which I
0:16:11buy the HomePod as we have currently seen it. It is a music device with
0:16:16limited smart speaker functionality and that is the reverse to which I use my
0:16:22Echo products, right? Like I use them as smart speakers with different tools and
0:16:27services and then maybe sometimes use it for music. Like you're saying about any
0:16:33list, I mean I think I can go one better. The actual company that we have
0:16:38our shopping delivered via which is a
0:16:39card. Oh, they have a skill now
0:16:41so we can add things directly to
0:16:43our shopping cart, right?
0:16:44Like with the grocery provider that
0:16:46we use and
0:16:49unless Apple is able
0:16:51to convince companies to do this kind
0:16:53of stuff, then it won't work.
0:16:54But that requires
0:16:56Apple to make the
0:16:58Siri APIs better because currently
0:17:00they're incredibly limited and they
0:17:01don't look like they're going to
0:17:02change.
0:17:03And for all intents and purposes,
0:17:05it looks like that
0:17:07If you didn't like the way the Apple watch used to work
0:17:10you're probably not gonna like the way the humble works because everything is being processed on phones and
0:17:14I'm just I think except the music stuff and I'm just not that this just doesn't feel like a compelling product for me
0:17:22I'm very interested to see people like you have to say about the home pod
0:17:26from a usage perspective once it launches to see if it can turn me around but
0:17:30This is just one Apple product that I'm not interested in. That's fine because I don't have to be interested in all true
0:17:37But this is the one which is, it hasn't been that way for a while.
0:17:41I mean, like even something like the iMac Pro, I don't want to buy it, but I'm still interested in it.
0:17:46I would still like one.
0:17:47I just don't feel the need for one.
0:17:49But currently, like Apple have, I've been in the distortion field, right?
0:17:54I've seen this product.
0:17:55I've been sitting in rooms of other nerds who are excited about it at WWDC and I just couldn't care about it.
0:18:00Like, it's just not something that I care for.
0:18:02- I gotta be honest, it is an interesting choice Apple made
0:18:06to make this a kind of higher-end audio product
0:18:08is how they're selling it.
0:18:09It's big, it's meant to sound better
0:18:13than things like the Echo, which is fine,
0:18:17but I'll point out, the Echo was successful
0:18:19because it was small and you could stick it
0:18:22on a countertop in your kitchen.
0:18:24And although it doesn't play music very well,
0:18:28although it's okay, it's not great, but it's okay,
0:18:32it still succeeded. And I think it succeeded because it was relatively
0:18:36small and filled a niche for utility reasons. And, you know, the HomePod
0:18:45isn't filling that niche. It's in this like Sonos-like place. And I'm not
0:18:51convinced. I think that is a place for you to make a lot of money if you're
0:18:56Apple. I think it's gonna have good margins. It allows them to charge a lot
0:19:00money for that product but I don't think people looking for a place to put a
0:19:06device where they're going to sit and listen to music and all it does is
0:19:10basically play music. I don't know. I have a hard time thinking that
0:19:15that's a huge market compared to something like the Echo which,
0:19:19because it is lighter and not as high quality in terms of the audio, but it's
0:19:26very utilitarian. You stick it somewhere and it listens to you and you have a
0:19:30do stuff for you, including play music. I feel like that's just a more kind of broad
0:19:37audience for a product like that versus the HomePod, which feels just very focused on
0:19:43music. Focus is good, but I don't see the broad appeal there. I feel like if Apple—Apple's
0:19:49going to do this and that's great, but Apple needs to be working on a line of these things
0:19:53that are smaller and larger and have video and don't that can go in different places
0:19:58because I'm not sure like and again I'm just coming from my own experience here
0:20:03I don't know where I would put the home pod in my house quite honestly I don't
0:20:08think I have a place for it and some people will but I don't know I I share
0:20:14your skepticism about it'll be interesting to see how it plays out all
0:20:17right gather round the fire ladies and gentlemen as I tell you about our first
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0:22:32continued support of this show and really have them so as i look forward to my 2018 jason a
0:22:40big project that i have on the horizon which i've mentioned in the show is i want to build a gaming
0:22:45PC and I started looking into it a little bit. I've been looking at some guides and
0:22:50stuff. It seems like a hugely daunting project. My friend John Voorhees is currently building
0:22:55one for his son and he's had some problems with some components. But just even the case
0:23:00of like wondering where to start, like what stuff do I actually need to buy? I've been
0:23:04looking at that. It's a big project. I'm excited about it, but it is a big and daunting project
0:23:09that I've got in my 2018. And I wondered if you have anything in 2018 that you're looking
0:23:14forward to like that in general technology. Is there a project that you want to tackle
0:23:18this year? Is there anything that you've been kind of mulling around that is a thing on
0:23:23your horizon?
0:23:24I don't have anything particular. I mean, these things do emerge, but I don't have anything,
0:23:28I think, floating out there right now. I do, like, I wasn't planning last year to replace
0:23:35my Mac Mini and build a Hackintosh server with an Intel NUC box, right? I had no plans
0:23:43to do that, but some instability in my existing Mac Mini and Apple's lack of updates for the
0:23:48Mac Mini and our friend Russell talking about how he created a hacked Intel NUC as a Mac
0:23:57kind of led me down that path where I have ended up doing that. So that was a project
0:24:02that I did this year. I hope to, I'll say, to be fair, I hope to replace it with a real
0:24:07Mac Mini someday, but they would need to release one. So we'll see. I keep toying
0:24:14with the idea of going to 4K HDR and getting a much larger TV than I have
0:24:20right now, which has a lot of ramifications in terms of like taking
0:24:24down pieces of furniture and running cables through the walls and things and
0:24:28mounting a large TV in the living room. I'm not quite sure when I want to do
0:24:34that and whether I want to wait a few years for OLED stuff to come down in
0:24:37price or whether that I want to just kind of bite the bullet because I would
0:24:39literally like my TV's 50 inches diagonal I'd like to I'd like to go up
0:24:43to something that isn't just 55 I'd like to go up to like 65 or something like
0:24:46that and have it be nice and big and I'm still toying with that idea so we'll
0:24:52see but that's one like kind of home thing but stuff just happens I didn't
0:24:56expect to buy an electric car this year and that happened and I got to learn
0:25:00about like electric car charging networks and things like that which was
0:25:03interesting and different and I got to do that and so I'm sure something will
0:25:08come up but I don't have anything right now on my on my to-do list I I'm just
0:25:16gonna lie and wait and see what happens so I also wanted to take a look at some
0:25:20stuff that we're hoping for in 2018 and I want to go across the Apple line
0:25:25across the suite of products that exist sure I don't want to start with iOS
0:25:28because I think iOS 11 gave me a lot of what I've been very happy about this year.
0:25:34You know, stuff like the Files app and improved multitasking and just the
0:25:39overall attention that was given to the iPad in iOS 11 was a big thing for me
0:25:47this year and I all I care about personally in iOS 12 is just signs that
0:25:52they're keeping that going in a way that they didn't in iOS 10 right where it was
0:25:57like iPad or iPad. I don't necessarily want tons more other than making the stuff better,
0:26:06but I want to see, you know, in June, iPad getting some stage time, showing off some
0:26:12stuff, whatever it is, and actually then also seeing some of the results of that in the
0:26:17software than just the way that it had been in the past. I really want to just get signs
0:26:22of continued life, you know?
0:26:24Yeah, I don't want the iPad to be an every other year proposition for Apple.
0:26:29Like, if it seems serious about the iPad Pro, it seems to have turned the corner in terms
0:26:36of like iPad sales and having rationalized their product line by making the cheaper iPad
0:26:44and the more expensive and full-featured iPad Pro models.
0:26:47So I want them to keep pushing there, and that means more stuff.
0:26:52plenty of places for iOS 12 to improve on that side and I hope they do. That's my number
0:26:59one thing. Honestly, I don't have a long iOS wish list in terms of the software because
0:27:04on the iPhone side, I think they've done a great job and my iPhone is great. We talked
0:27:13about the old upgrade experience and they've improved that dramatically. So things are
0:27:19getting a lot better on that front but the iPad could still use more love I
0:27:24think in terms of of making more you know kind of pro feature stuff and the
0:27:28you know the ones that I always come back to are you know I'd like the files
0:27:32app to support more stuff I'd like to be able to connect to an SMB you know file
0:27:38server with the files app I'd like to be able to attach a USB stick to an iPad
0:27:43and see the you know and pull files off of it I'd like to do stuff like that
0:27:47that is sort of like just work features of a computer that the iPad just is incapable of doing.
0:27:52And I'm sure they'll surprise us with some some incredibly clever stuff too. Do you care the same
0:27:58way about iPad hardware for next year? Well again they've kind of resolved the biggest issue right
0:28:05which is that the iPad Pro is you know we got the 10.5 and the 12.9 and it's clear I'd imagine I
0:28:10mean, I would like I would love a reduced bezel face ID iPad Pro. I think that
0:28:17would be awesome. I'm so I'm happy with where the iPad is, though, so I don't
0:28:22have one of these things where it's like, "Oh my God, they really have to do this."
0:28:25My wish list would be jumping off of the iPad, and I'm not sure this is realistic,
0:28:30but you know, my wish list would be new iOS hardware, whether it's that iOS
0:28:34laptop that I wrote about or a bigger iPad or a desktop, you know, iOS device.
0:28:40I would love to see something like that.
0:28:42I doubt 2018 is the year when we'll see something like that,
0:28:44but I would love to see something like that.
0:28:46- I honestly, I'm cool with the hardware.
0:28:49Like I'm fine mostly with that right now.
0:28:51I would like to see some more accessories.
0:28:54- Yeah.
0:28:54- I would really like to see some smart connector stuff.
0:28:56I would like to see a new pencil.
0:28:59Like I would really, I mean,
0:29:01it'd be great if some of this stuff came from Apple,
0:29:03but it doesn't all need to,
0:29:05but I would really like to see some new accessories.
0:29:08- The smart connector has been a disappointment
0:29:10and the keyboard cases for the 10.5 iPad Pro are like the fact that there's nothing much
0:29:19out there that's built for it. And that partially is a function of the iPad Pro and the iPad
0:29:25in general having low enough sales that I think that accessory makers have been reluctant
0:29:32to make a product that only works on an iPad Pro. Although I would think the 10.5 is a
0:29:39popular enough product that it's worth having more accessories than are out there now. So
0:29:43I'm with you there. Yeah. And like maybe a revised version of the pencil is a part of that too.
0:29:49So the iPhone, I mean, I just want to keep it going. I don't need the same jump.
0:29:57You want a 10 plus?
0:29:58They can give me, I mean, I would love a 10 plus, but I don't need that. If they did that,
0:30:04I would love it and I would buy that you know an OLED one though. I wouldn't if they had a
0:30:10if they had a
0:30:13Plus phone in all looks exactly the same big screen. I would I would struggle
0:30:19I don't know if it would be an insta buy for me because I really do love the OLED but
0:30:23But I do love the the bigger screen
0:30:26So I would love to see an iPhone 10 plus the one that we currently have
0:30:32But I don't need that this year personally I could take an S version of this phone and I'll be more than happy
0:30:38You know some small changes better camera faster. I would happily do that like I did with any of the other S years, right?
0:30:45I just want them to keep it going
0:30:47That's that's kind of all I care about. Yep
0:30:50Do you do you think that do you have much of a desire for Apple to release an SE? I think it's time
0:30:56I think they need to I think that's an existing market
0:30:58I'm a big fan of the SE even though I don't use it
0:31:00know people who do and like it and I like the idea of spreading the product
0:31:05line out more and it'll have been two years so I think it's time just to have
0:31:08that phone get a get a bump to you know maybe it's like iPhone 7 specs or
0:31:13something but I think it's time. What would you like to see on the Mac?
0:31:17Oh boy, the Mac you know I want to see the Mac Pro I want that to exist I want
0:31:24Apple to update the hardware on all the existing models to use the latest Intel
0:31:28stuff and the latest graphics processors available. You know, I just want them to--
0:31:32I want Apple to show a commitment to its users that there's gonna be a new MacBook
0:31:36Pro, you know, basically every year with the latest and greatest in it and
0:31:39there's gonna be new iMacs with the latest and greatest in it, which given, I
0:31:43think it's Coffee Lake that's coming out, like that may be like six core iMacs,
0:31:47which could be cool, and just keep updating the Mac with the latest
0:31:54stuff and they can do more innovations like bringing the stuff that's in like
0:31:59the t2 that's in the iMac Pro the the the Apple built processor that's an ARM
0:32:07processor if they want to innovate in that area and kind of like build their
0:32:11own stuff in and make the Mac a little more of a hybrid I'm okay with that but
0:32:14the the the key to me is just you know show your commitment to the Mac by
0:32:18leaving not leaving these products with old parts sitting the whole reason to
0:32:23use Intel stuff is that Intel keeps making newer faster versions of it and
0:32:27you need to pick it up and that's like part of the the almost like the social
0:32:32contract between computer users and the manufacturer is that they will keep up
0:32:36to date with the latest parts and we know what the parts are and then Apple
0:32:40doesn't keep up to date and it's frustrating so I just kind of put in a
0:32:43pitch for that more than anything else I want to see the Mac mini finally get a
0:32:47revision speaking of the Mac Pro the Mac mini you know it doesn't need to get
0:32:51updated every year but every three years or so with the latest and greatest and I would
0:32:55really like to see a design that gets us out of the spinning hard drive as an option entirely
0:33:00just an SSD based Mac mini that would be pretty great so that's that's kind of what I'm looking
0:33:07for on the on the Mac hardware side and then in terms of Mac OS I honestly don't know whether
0:33:14I want sort of steady state fix bugs or whether I want them to take great leaps there are
0:33:18those stories that you know about Apple considering finding ways to bring to
0:33:23take advantage of all the people who build iOS software to let them bring
0:33:27that stuff over to the Mac more easily I think that's kind of a no-brainer if
0:33:31they can get it to work well I'm a little skeptical about how well it could
0:33:35work and you know in the background I keep thinking you know do you want to do
0:33:40this or do you want to just kind of focus on on whatever your next generation
0:33:44operating system is that is kind of neither and both the Mac or iOS.
0:33:48Because if the Mac ends up being kind of a place for legacy Mac software and iOS
0:33:53apps, I worry that it does become a like a toaster fridge at that point. So I'm
0:33:58not, you know, it'll be a big topic in 2018 for sure about what Apple's
0:34:02doing for the future of the Mac. But I just say like keep it alive, keep it
0:34:06rolling and fixing bugs and having some parity with iOS. That's kind of what I want.
0:34:12The only hardware that I feel personally that I really would be very disappointed if Apple did not
0:34:19ship next year would be a significant design change to the Apple Watch. I think that now 2018,
0:34:29if we even see a watch in 2018, I assume we will, I would like it to be thinner. I would like to
0:34:36to see and always on display. You know, I would like a visual change to the Apple
0:34:40Watch. The product has gotten very, very good because I believe they have not had
0:34:46to or felt pressure to change the overall design, right? The battery has
0:34:50gotten fantastic. The speed is brilliant. They've put LTE chips in it. All of that
0:34:55stuff has gotten great and I think it's because they've been able to just make
0:34:58everything smaller and stuff more in but I my feeling would be if they had an
0:35:03Apple Watch Series 4 and it looked just like this one I would be pretty
0:35:07disappointed about it because I can't think of anything else you know if they
0:35:11gave me the always-on display I may be willing to stomach it for one more year
0:35:15like but that's the only thing left but even then I still don't want it to get
0:35:21thicker again I would want it to get thinner but that that's that is some
0:35:25hardware yeah I would really want to see some big changes to and would really
0:35:28really like to see some design changes too.
0:35:31Yeah, the always on display is the missing feature.
0:35:34Yeah, new watch faces, boy, I mean, just, there need to be more watch faces.
0:35:39That's just, it's amazing.
0:35:41That's a watchOS 5 thing.
0:35:42Yeah, we've had almost nothing in terms of new watch faces other than, you know, some
0:35:46cartoon characters.
0:35:47There are a couple of them, but there should be way more.
0:35:50If past me from when the watch was announced came and looked at the watch today, that would
0:35:54be the number one shocker for me is the lack of diversity of watch faces.
0:35:58There's just a still only a handful of them and I'm with you on the always on display.
0:36:03They need to get to the point where they've got enough confidence in the battery that
0:36:06you can opt at least to have my watch never gets close to running out right. I would really
0:36:13like it if there was some sort of low power face that they could put on it so that I don't
0:36:17I you know I don't have to kind of flip my wrist in exactly the right way in order to
0:36:21see the time. And for the Apple TV hardware I kind of whatever is fine. I'm happy with
0:36:27They did 4K.
0:36:28I think we're good in terms of the hardware for a while with the 4K one.
0:36:32It's about what's inside.
0:36:33And I have all the services that I want now.
0:36:37My only feeling for this is if Apple release any original content in 2018, which they may
0:36:44not, but if they do, I desperately want it to be good because none of it has been so
0:36:49far.
0:36:50And I know that we're looking at a different strategy than what Apple has currently had,
0:36:56which is fine, but when Apple make their big content effort,
0:37:01like the really serious one,
0:37:03they've got to be very good immediately
0:37:06for it to work in my opinion,
0:37:07like for it to really capture people,
0:37:09they have to have something that people want to watch.
0:37:11They have to have the watercolor TV show
0:37:14for a period of time.
0:37:15Would you agree with that?
0:37:16- Yeah, I mean, this is why they hired the guys they hired
0:37:21as the producers or whatever presidents
0:37:25Apple's TV efforts is those are TV executives who have good relationships and they are making
0:37:29deals with people who are who are well known and respected because in the end people are
0:37:38going to want the whole point is to make stuff that people like and want to see and that
0:37:43means it needs to be good and the point of what Apple was making before was kind of not
0:37:48that which is why I pointed out on this show you got to draw a line you know check your
0:37:54Carpool Karaoke and Planet of the Apps jokes at the door because that was a bunch of kind
0:37:59of music execs inside Apple making some side deals to try some stuff out on Apple Music.
0:38:08And once Ehrlich and von Amberg got to Apple, those days were over. And now is the days
0:38:16where they're making deals with Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon, and Jennifer Aniston run
0:38:21more to do to do prestige scripted programming and there's going to be more of that and that's
0:38:30you know it's got to fit Apple's brand which means it needs to be good and respected and
0:38:36it's going to need to make people want to whatever they need to do to see it which is
0:38:41buy Apple hardware or subscribe to an Apple video service or something whatever it is
0:38:45we don't know.
0:38:46So that is what we're looking for in 2018 with Apple.
0:38:51And in case we hadn't made it clear to our audience,
0:38:54me and Jason are sitting in a log cabin right now
0:38:57and the fire is crackling.
0:38:58And we have some guests that have been very quiet
0:39:02up until now, but it's about time that we brought them in
0:39:05and let them speak.
0:39:06But before we do, let me thank our second sponsor
0:39:09for this show and that is AppOptics.
0:39:11Application monitoring shouldn't break the bank.
0:39:13AppOptics is a next-gen application performance management system built specifically to help
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0:39:35Their plans start at just $7.50 a month, and you can learn more today at appoptics.com/upgrade.
0:39:43That's just $7.50 a month is where their plans start.
0:39:46And learn more at appoptics.com/upgrade.
0:39:50Our thanks to AppOptics for their support of this show
0:39:53and Real AFM.
0:39:55So Jason, I think it's time that we welcome our guests,
0:39:57our holiday special guests.
0:39:59And there couldn't be any guests more special
0:40:02than Serenity Caldwell and Steven Hackett
0:40:04of Querrey on Real AFM.
0:40:06Hello.
0:40:07- Hello. - Hey.
0:40:08- Now the party has started.
0:40:09Now it's happening, all right.
0:40:11- Now it's the real holiday party.
0:40:12We can get away from all that serious stuff, and we're going to get into just pure holiday
0:40:16spirit mode.
0:40:17Sweet, can I pour in some bourbon to this apple cider?
0:40:19Is it?
0:40:20Yes, don't tell HR.
0:40:21Just don't tell HR.
0:40:22Fortunately, the people who run this company are not here right now, so it'll be fine.
0:40:26It's true.
0:40:27Oh, interesting.
0:40:28Oh, definitely not.
0:40:29Interesting.
0:40:30I've been relieved of power.
0:40:31The real people in control.
0:40:32So I mentioned that Steven and Wren host Querrey on Relay FM, which is a show based all around
0:40:37answering technological questions.
0:40:40So I figured that considering we have people that are so good at answering questions, that
0:40:45we could combine our question answering abilities to tackle some holiday themed #askupgrade,
0:40:51#askqueryquestions.
0:40:52What do you think?
0:40:54Yeah, that was good, man.
0:40:55So I had said on the last episode, Jason, that we were not going to do any Ask Upgrade,
0:40:59but what I really meant was traditional Ask Upgrade, because these questions, they are
0:41:03not traditional.
0:41:04And the first one comes from a different Steven, and a different Steven wants to know what
0:41:09What our favorite gifts are or have been will this holiday season?
0:41:14Steven, what about you?
0:41:16You know, I think I'm like a lot of nerds where I'm really hard to buy for just because
0:41:22tech stuff comes out and I tend to something that I'm interested in, I tend to pick it
0:41:26up.
0:41:27So this will be a gift that I bought myself, which is a terribly selfish answer.
0:41:29I don't know.
0:41:30What am I supposed to answer this?
0:41:32Aren't the best gifts always the one you buy yourself?
0:41:34Yeah.
0:41:35When you think about it.
0:41:36You truly know yourself.
0:41:37Yeah.
0:41:38This was a, to further destroy the premise of the question, I'm not really doing a good
0:41:43job promoting query at this, but uh, is this what the show is like?
0:41:47We basically just answer what we want to answer.
0:41:50No.
0:41:51Yeah.
0:41:52Steven's being contrary.
0:41:53I'm, I'm a big fan of the Kindle as a gift.
0:41:56I've got the new Asus, but the, the sort of Kindle, what is it, Jason?
0:42:02Paperwhite?
0:42:03The Paperwhite is sort of the go-to.
0:42:05Yeah.
0:42:06For people who like to read but don't have the space for books like many of us do, it's
0:42:12a real winner.
0:42:13And it's often on sale, it was on sale all throughout the buying season, and it's a great
0:42:18way to see if ebooks are for you or for someone you care about.
0:42:23So it's always, if someone is looking for a tech-related gift, the paperweight's always
0:42:29towards the top of my list.
0:42:31Yeah, alright.
0:42:32So in my favorite thing that I found in my stocking this year, I got a Spider-Man fidget cube.
0:42:40Whoa.
0:42:42Oh yeah!
0:42:44Which is like, you know, I do, I mean I got the brain ball here, I have various other objects that I kind of pick up while I'm sitting at my desk.
0:42:52And then I saw that the makers of the fidget cube have signed a licensing deal with Marvel Comics and are making licensed fidget cubes.
0:42:58Oh my gosh!
0:43:00is just like a totally fake thing. This sounds incredible. No, it's legitimately, I mean,
0:43:05it's just a fidget cube but it's like with Spider-Man on it and it's cool. So that's
0:43:11my favorite stocking stuffer item. And then to jump off of something that Steven said,
0:43:19if you like Kindles or Amazon Echoes, they keep coming out with new ones. So one nice
0:43:25thing to do is if sometime this year you bought yourself a new Echo or a new Kindle, I will
0:43:32often pass on my old one. In fact, my mom got my Amazon Echo this year, because the
0:43:38original, because she was expressing when she visited us, she was expressing interest
0:43:41in them and was like, "Oh, I don't know. I can't, whatever." And I thought, "I could
0:43:45just give her my old one because I don't need it anymore." So she's got that now and will
0:43:49probably be calling me soon to ask me what the heck I did to her house. But that's just
0:43:57a little tip because you don't need to save all those Kindles or Echoes if you upgrade.
0:44:02You can find somebody and maybe make it a little present.
0:44:04Oh my god, this goes way deeper. They have DC and Marvel and they also make fidget spinners
0:44:11as well as fidget cubes in those characters too. This is serious.
0:44:15Oh yeah.
0:44:16Myke, you've just gone down the deep end. You're like, "I forget the podcast. I'm just
0:44:18gonna pay attention to fidget spinners.
0:44:20200 dollars later. What about you, Ren?
0:44:23Okay, well, to answer that question I have to bring back on a pre-podcast visitor.
0:44:28Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a real R2D2.
0:44:33Did you steal R2D2? What happened?
0:44:35Yes. I talked Lucasfilm into giving me- no, I wish. No, instead, my father actually,
0:44:44for my 30th birthday, decided that the best thing to get his daughter who was turning 30 was a
0:44:50Sphero R2D2, which I surprisingly did not have. And I have to say, despite the fact that the
0:44:57Sphero droids are still kind of limited to the app being open while you play with them, I love
0:45:03this present. I love how realistic this like it's tiny version of the droid, but they really,
0:45:10really went all out on this to an extent like they the BB-8 was cute, but it didn't have an inboard
0:45:16an inbound speaker, whereas the R2 unit is fully self sustaining, so it will make its beeps itself.
0:45:22And then in addition to that, if you just leave the app open and you don't play with it, you just
0:45:27you know, keep it keep it open, R2 will just start chattering randomly. His his onboard sensors flash
0:45:34certain colors and change, his head moves.
0:45:37There are tiny little treads in his feet, unlike any other R2 I've ever played with.
0:45:43They usually have two double sets of wheels.
0:45:46But this model literally has treads, which allowed Spiro to actually push the treads
0:45:52into the ground to give him kind of the walking, bouncing maneuver that he does in the
0:45:57films. And he's basically one set of rocket packs short of being a perfect
0:46:03miniaturization of the droid and I love him and he makes me happy even if he
0:46:07terrorized my dogs.
0:46:09I have the BB-8 like everybody else got the BB-8 a couple years ago.
0:46:15And I have been eyeing the R2-T2 which is significantly bigger than I expected.
0:46:20I somehow it feels like I don't know why in my mind it would have been smaller
0:46:25but I saw it in an Apple store and he's a real little guy.
0:46:29He's atomically sized for the BB-8 because, here's the fun part, the Sphero and the R2
0:46:36and the BB-8 will talk to each other.
0:46:38Oh my god.
0:46:39It's really cute.
0:46:40It's really cute.
0:46:41I can see BB-8 sitting up there with my LEGO sets.
0:46:47For me, I went for a gift that I have been wanting for a very long time and it's a real
0:46:54good coffee grinder and I got the Baratza Virtuoso because it's what Mark O'Walment
0:47:01recommended. That was the gift that I got this holiday season which I was the most
0:47:06excited about because now I get to grind my own beans every morning which I know
0:47:11Jason loves. Mmm, yes. Oh, the smell of coffee in the morning. That's the best.
0:47:15That fresh smell of coffee to wake Jason up. I know that he loves it.
0:47:20Alright, so thank you very much Ava Steven for that question.
0:47:24Our second question comes from Chris.
0:47:26And Chris wants to know how we deal with bad presents.
0:47:30So Wren, I want to ask you first,
0:47:31how do you deal with the embarrassment
0:47:35of receiving a bad present?
0:47:37- You smile and you say thank you,
0:47:39and you rack your brain about who would actually benefit
0:47:42from said present and you give it to them.
0:47:45- Interesting.
0:47:46- Usually you try, at least in my opinion,
0:47:50I feel like there's a good line, right?
0:47:53Where if the present has a gift certificate
0:47:55or a gift receipt component to it,
0:47:57I don't think there's any harm in returning said present
0:48:00and getting something that you yourself
0:48:02would benefit more from.
0:48:04But if it's something where it's like,
0:48:06clearly the person spent a lot of time and effort
0:48:09and did not include a gift receipt,
0:48:11whether it's a homemade item, whether it's something else,
0:48:15generally I try and find it a good home
0:48:17because I think the worst thing honestly
0:48:20is saying, "Thank you, oh my God, I love it,"
0:48:23and then leaving it in a closet in a corner for 20 years
0:48:27before you eventually have to throw it out.
0:48:30It's really depressing.
0:48:30Obviously, it depends.
0:48:33You know, it might be,
0:48:34if it's your mother giving you a present,
0:48:37like a really, I don't know, a gaudy hat or something
0:48:39that she expects you to wear all the time,
0:48:41you know, you can gauge accordingly.
0:48:43You might be able to have the conversation with your mother
0:48:45that you might not with your aunt or your grandmother
0:48:47or your significant other,
0:48:49But generally I feel like truth and regifting
0:48:52is the best medicine.
0:48:54- I guess if somebody gives you a gift receipt,
0:48:56they're not 100% confident in their gift anyway.
0:48:59That's kind of my thinking, or at least that it will fit.
0:49:02I would say that for me, I just smile
0:49:07the best that I can smile,
0:49:08and hide the gift somewhere in my home forever.
0:49:12I'm not very good.
0:49:13The finding somebody to give it to is probably good,
0:49:16but I've never thought of doing that.
0:49:18Stephen, what do you do?
0:49:19I mean, I'm in line with y'all, you know,
0:49:21you always want to be thankful and be kind.
0:49:24And then when no one knows, you know, either re-gift
0:49:28or I definitely have done the thing
0:49:31where you just hide it as well.
0:49:33Sometimes it's the best choice.
0:49:34- Guys are being taken gift hostage.
0:49:36- It's true. - That is true.
0:49:38Jason.
0:49:39- Yeah, no, you try to be as grateful as possible
0:49:43while also out of the corner of your eye,
0:49:45trying to see if there's a gift receipt in there
0:49:47so you can return it.
0:49:49And otherwise, yeah, you either find somebody,
0:49:52like Ren said, who might appreciate it,
0:49:55or you donate it, maybe, to, like, if it's a book
0:49:58or something like, or a movie or something,
0:49:59to the, like, the library or something like that,
0:50:03and find a nice home for it
0:50:05where it can do somebody some good.
0:50:07- Or throw it out the window of the car
0:50:08on your driveway. - No, no.
0:50:10- Only for fruitcake.
0:50:11- The birds will eat it.
0:50:13- Aaron wanted to know if we put up decorations or lights,
0:50:17and if they are powered by smart devices.
0:50:19Now, Jason, I know that me and you have discussed this
0:50:21on the show before.
0:50:22Do you have any additional lights or treats
0:50:27that you've been able to automate in the Snell household?
0:50:29- No, our front lights and the Christmas lights
0:50:31around the edge of our house are both on a timer
0:50:34driven by smart devices.
0:50:36There are smart bulbs in the front lights
0:50:39and a smart switch and that's plugged in to the,
0:50:44the lights are plugged into it
0:50:46and then they are on a schedule using a home kit.
0:50:49And it's triggered by, you know, like sunset
0:50:52and then goes off at a certain time
0:50:54and it has worked like a charm.
0:50:56- Steven, I know that you have many Hue bulbs in your home,
0:50:59mostly in your office.
0:51:00Did any of those make it into the house
0:51:02to turn red and green this holiday season?
0:51:04- They did not.
0:51:05The Hue bulbs all stayed in place in the studio,
0:51:07but we put the Christmas tree and the outside lights
0:51:10on the iHome little switch.
0:51:13You know, it's a plug thing that goes in the wall
0:51:15when you plug your lights into it.
0:51:16And so those are controllable via HomeKit
0:51:18and the Amazon Echo.
0:51:21And I did change, those devices I already had in the house,
0:51:23but I did rename them Christmas tree and outdoor lights
0:51:28so the kids could ask the Echo,
0:51:30friend in the cylinder, please turn on the Christmas tree
0:51:33and the Christmas tree would come on,
0:51:34which they find hilarious.
0:51:36- Yeah, we got to do that this year.
0:51:38This is the first year that we've had a Christmas tree
0:51:41and I had a Wemo that I've not used
0:51:43and I got to hook it up to the tree.
0:51:45but it did result in a funny exchange.
0:51:48There was just something about the way
0:51:50that Adina says three in her Romanian accent
0:51:54and tree that they sound the same.
0:51:56So every time she would ask the Echo to turn on the tree,
0:52:01it would say, "I cannot find anything called three."
0:52:04And it just kept doing that over and over and over again
0:52:06to the point that I had to rename it to Christmas.
0:52:09Just turn on Christmas and then Christmas gets turned on.
0:52:12- That's better almost.
0:52:14I'm surprised you didn't name it Christmas 3.
0:52:16Well, I considered that, but then I would have to ask it to turn on the 3 and then I
0:52:21would get it wrong.
0:52:22Because you can't say that word hardly.
0:52:24Forever.
0:52:25No, exactly.
0:52:26That's "turn on the 3."
0:52:27Then do you have any additional home automation-based holiday lights?
0:52:33I do.
0:52:34I, like a number of you, use an iDevices switch to…
0:52:39I have all of our front lights hooked up via that and a very long extension cord that's
0:52:44multi-pronged, probably not the most electrically efficient/safe way to do it, but that's how
0:52:50I did it this year.
0:52:51Maybe I'll come up with a better way next year.
0:52:54And then...
0:52:55I feel like all holiday lights come with an element of danger.
0:52:58Oh yeah.
0:53:00We have on our package, it's like, you can string no more than three of these together,
0:53:04and I'm pretty sure we have more like six, so we'll see.
0:53:09regardless, we have we have that in the front yard. And then in the front window, we usually have a set of of hue. Oh, gosh, blooms. That's right there. They have a funny name, the hue blooms that are basically the the angled room lights that usually put behind like, you put behind books or something like that we have them in our bay windows just to hiding behind curtains to add atmosphere to the room. And now they are adding
0:53:39atmosphere to my holiday Hoth snow scene. So we've got some some red oranges and greens over flying X
0:53:47wings having battles in midair with with string that that is my real holiday contribution. Let's be
0:53:52fair. And then we also have a couple of hue bulbs, we have a hue light strip behind the television
0:53:58that's now holiday themed. And the light that usually backsplashes off of the ceiling because we
0:54:03don't have a light in the living room is now also a holiday green. So it's a it's
0:54:07very very holiday themed in the front in the front room very. Michael wanted to
0:54:13know do any of you have holiday themed wallpapers on any of your devices? No
0:54:18it's not it's not really for me I tend to leave my wallpapers alone for months
0:54:23and months at a time yeah and with the iPhone 10 just there's no correct
0:54:27wallpaper except just black and so that's I guess that's a holiday you know
0:54:32holiday wallpaper if you've depending on how you feel about the holiday. I've got
0:54:34the cortex grid on mine which is great. Twitterific offered this year a holiday
0:54:41icon which I think is fun more apps could do that now with now that apps can
0:54:46redefine their icon and so I am using the holiday Twitterific icon that is the
0:54:52one little bit of a festiveness in my in my devices yeah. It's a holy in a Santa
0:54:58hat. Ollie and a Santa hat, right? I guess you should be called Holly during the period.
0:55:03Sure, that's right. It's a green background, red Santa hat, and a blue Twitter-ific bird. Yep.
0:55:08I don't have anything on my iPhone or my Mac, but because I had to write an article about holiday
0:55:14watch faces for iMore, I do have quite a number of photo faces for my Apple Watch that are
0:55:20various holiday-themed fun. I like that. That's a good idea, actually.
0:55:26It's good, especially now that the photo face has a complication.
0:55:29It's not it's not completely useless and it's kind of like a custom watch face,
0:55:34but not quite.
0:55:34I would like to see the Siri watch face get backgrounds to it.
0:55:39I feel like that's one you could work with because there isn't always stuff on it.
0:55:42Hmm. Hmm. Someone should take care of that.
0:55:45AJ wants to know, Jason, I'm going to ask you this first.
0:55:49Do you ever update electronics before wrapping them and putting them under the tree?
0:55:56I have done that in the past. I don't feel like I need to keep the box intact if I can
0:56:04extract something from the box if I know there's an update. Sometimes it's unrealistic with
0:56:09something like a game console, although like when I got my son the Nintendo Switch for his birthday,
0:56:13I did open it up, run all the updaters like the day before we left on the trip where,
0:56:19because I gave it to him while we were on our trip. And so like if I had an iPad or something
0:56:24like that and I knew that there was going to be an OS update that was required, I would
0:56:27probably do that. So if it's convenient to sort of secretly surreptitiously update the
0:56:33software I would do it. Sure.
0:56:34Do Kindles still come when like signed in? Is that still a thing that happens?
0:56:39It's your option. You can actually say, it's by default it will come auto logged into your
0:56:45account but you can also tell it it's a gift and not to do that.
0:56:47I like that it does that though.
0:56:49It's a really nice touch, right? Imagine if you ordered an iPhone and it came signed into
0:56:53your your Apple ID. With all of your apps ready. Now that would be a whole big thing. I would be
0:56:58very excited about that not having to go through the upgrade process. And Stephen, you also have
0:57:03young children. Is this a thing that you do? I've not done it because as a nerd one of the best parts
0:57:08of new electronics is that like plastic cling wrap deal. I don't want to undo that. I want people to
0:57:15have that joy. Do you really think that your children care about that? They don't get a lot
0:57:20- They love electronics.
0:57:21I mean, they get like a hand-me-down iPad mini
0:57:23every three years, so.
0:57:24- Okay.
0:57:25- They've never had the cling wrap, is what you're saying.
0:57:27- Yeah, they don't know what they're missing.
0:57:28- They've never gotten used to it.
0:57:30- But you know, if I do give electronics to my spouse
0:57:33or a sibling or something, what I always kind of include
0:57:36of I can help if you want or if you need,
0:57:39I can help you get this set up.
0:57:40So I think that's kind of part of the gift.
0:57:42As a nerd, it's part of your gift to the world
0:57:45is your expertise.
0:57:47- I agree with that.
0:57:48And usually my MO is, if I'm going to give an electronics gift to a member of my family,
0:57:56I will be there the day that they open that electronics gift.
0:58:01Because yeah, even honestly, I have pre set up electronics now and again, I set up my
0:58:06mother's iPad before I gave her an iPad a few years back.
0:58:11And while that is in some ways useful, you still get a bunch of questions.
0:58:16sometimes they're even more annoying questions because you haven't quite figured out what
0:58:20they want from their settings where you like you think you know, and then you've discovered
0:58:24that something majorly you know is majorly missing and then you don't find out until
0:58:29you're gone. So I've found it's it's generally better unless, as Jason said, unless you know
0:58:35that there's going to be a big update, like for the ps4, for instance, when I got rekka
0:58:39ps4 last year, I ran all of the updates for both the ps4 and its software, because I knew
0:58:45otherwise we were going to be sitting around for four hours waiting for updates before
0:58:48we got to play on Christmas Day.
0:58:50You are a good partner. That is a good thing to do, especially for a PlayStation because
0:58:55they just do not work on Christmas. Because PSN goes down and so everybody's sad. And
0:59:03our final question comes from Graham and Graham wants to know what are the best games or distractions
0:59:08for a family over the holiday season? Wren, do you have any hot tips here?
0:59:12Oh man, I have to go with Heads Up always because Heads Up always works, right?
0:59:18Always works.
0:59:19Heads Up is delightful.
0:59:21And then here's something I also discovered, and I'm sad that it was not in stock because
0:59:25it would have been a Secret Santa gift for one of you.
0:59:29Space Team has a card game version.
0:59:31Oh, I have that.
0:59:33I backed their Kickstarter.
0:59:35Is it fun?
0:59:36Is it as fun as the...
0:59:37It's really good.
0:59:38Yeah, it's really, really good.
0:59:39Yeah.
0:59:40I could get my non tech friends into that as a game far more easily than I
0:59:46could trying to get them to download it on their devices and have all the
0:59:49Bluetooth sync and everything else so I yeah that's my runner-up. I would say
0:59:53Exploding Kittens is another fantastic card game which is just a really fun
0:59:59game and it's very simple to learn but the good thing about it is even though
1:00:04it is a simple game you can after a few rounds the strategy can get deep it's a
1:00:09really fun game that I love to play so that's that's a very good option. Jason
1:00:15what do you have? Telestrations is an amazingly great game for family
1:00:22gatherings especially at the holidays. It is our go-to we will box it up and take
1:00:27it with us if we're traveling. It is basically the game of telephone where
1:00:31everybody gets a slate. Telestrations comes with a bunch of these little like
1:00:34they're not quite they're the kind of thing where you can write on it and then
1:00:38you lift the thing and, or no, actually it's dry erase markers what they do now. So everybody
1:00:42gets a little slate and a dry erase marker and a secret word that is given to them. And
1:00:47the way it works is you draw the secret word and then you pass it to the next person who
1:00:53has to write down what they think the drawing is. And then the next person takes what they
1:00:58wrote down and draws that. And so on. And the goal, I mean, the goal is to laugh at
1:01:05all the ridiculous things that happen when people draw things badly and misunderstand what things
1:01:09are, but ultimately the goal is to try and get your drawing and concept all the way back around
1:01:14to you in this game of telephone. And that rarely happens, but the laughs are aplenty. So I really
1:01:21recommend that and a thing similar to that actually on the digital side that I'll recommend.
1:01:25I've had great success lately playing Jackbox Party Pack, which is available on iOS, on all
1:01:30the consoles, it's on Apple TV, and the brilliance of it is you pop that on the
1:01:34television or on a big iPad and everybody just uses their phones to log
1:01:40into a website and they play on the website and it's got great sound effects
1:01:43and music and there are a bunch of different mini games and there are four
1:01:46different jackbox packs now and that's fun for everybody and you don't
1:01:51have to be super technical to be into it because almost everybody has a phone
1:01:54with a web browser and that's all you really need and there are drawing games and
1:01:57and word games and various levels of complexity
1:02:00and that's a lot of fun too.
1:02:01- Turns out they brought one of their games,
1:02:03Lice Water, to the Amazon Echo.
1:02:05- Oh, interesting, I didn't know that, that's fun.
1:02:08- Just found that out by going to their website
1:02:10for the show notes.
1:02:11Stephen, what do you have?
1:02:13Any good tips for party games?
1:02:15- You know, my family's not a big, huge game family.
1:02:19If it's all the siblings and in-laws,
1:02:21it'll do, we'll kind of revert back to a classic risk
1:02:25That's a big fun one in our family.
1:02:28And there are a couple of different iOS versions of that
1:02:31that allow multiplayer.
1:02:32None of them are super great,
1:02:35so we kind of go old school there.
1:02:37But with the kids, I mean, my kids are still
1:02:41like young kids' games ages,
1:02:43so I'm really good at Hungry Hungry Hippo.
1:02:46I'm really good at it, guys.
1:02:47I can crush my three-year-old.
1:02:49(laughing)
1:02:50- I'm very pleased for you.
1:02:52I'm very, very pleased for you.
1:02:53- I'll take it where I can get it some days, honestly.
1:02:55Uh-huh.
1:02:56This is what I'm good at.
1:02:57Hungry, hungry hippos.
1:02:59All right, so I want to thank everybody for sending
1:03:02in their questions.
1:03:03You can send in questions to us with the hashtag #askupgrade.
1:03:06But if you have preferred Ren and Steven's question answers
1:03:10more, then you may like the way that they
1:03:11answer your questions.
1:03:12So send them in with the hashtag #askquery.
1:03:15And listen to a query on Relay FM every couple of weeks.
1:03:17So that's at relay.fm/query.
1:03:19All right, let me take a break.
1:03:21And then when we come back, we're
1:03:23going to talk about our Secret Santa gifts that we bought for everybody.
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1:04:33OK, so we had an independent upgrade gift robot
1:04:37called Merlin assigned to each of us
1:04:41and a secret Santa upgrade secret Santa.
1:04:44So we have all bought gifts for each other.
1:04:46The value was around $20.
1:04:50There was originally a $20 limit
1:04:52that I think maybe we all broke.
1:04:53- In the great tradition of company Secret Santas
1:04:56where they give you a dollar amount and nobody follows it,
1:05:00we also didn't do that.
1:05:01And thanks by the way to the Merlin bot,
1:05:04who we needed somebody who could pass messages along
1:05:08without, and also assign who got who for Secret Santa
1:05:12without us knowing.
1:05:14And so our friend Merlin did it.
1:05:16and thank you Merlin. I sent him something. I sent him a Secret Santa present as a thank
1:05:22you so hopefully he'll get that. Oh and somebody did, right? Ah no it was me. Reveal! Merlin
1:05:29that box is for me! Spoilers! Thank you Merlinbot. Okay, Jason, you're gonna tell us about the
1:05:36present that you received. Yes. And give us a little review of it. Yeah. So I got something
1:05:42called the space adventure which is a card it's a card game but it's one of these um card story
1:05:50telling collaborative creative kind of like jumping off point games so like um my son and
1:05:57his friend like to play a game called super fight where you basically kind of dole out superheroes
1:06:02with powers and uh you you kind of tell a story about who that superhero is and how the fight goes
1:06:08between them and the other person's superhero. So this is like that, where you're creating
1:06:15a story about an adventure in space, and everybody is supposed to get a series of cards, and
1:06:23then they're supposed to draw, actually, like a representation of what their adventure in
1:06:29space would look like. So, for example, I could say, "Serenity, you are a Bionaut. You
1:06:36you need to create something to eat and drink and research the resources you need to use
1:06:40on the planet that you're landing on, you are landing on Winter World, which is a world
1:06:46populated by hungry pandas, and the city that you build needs to be round. And from that
1:06:53you would then sketch up the hungry panda winter world with round things as seen by
1:07:01the captain of the bionaut captain of the explorer ship that landed on that
1:07:05planet whereas Myke you are a diplomat so you need to create a social space for
1:07:11the citizens of your colony and wonder what the needs of the new species are
1:07:15you will be living in underground world sad unfortunately you have to live
1:07:20underground it's very hot on the planet surface it is populated by a race of shy
1:07:24giants and the city that you build needs to be tiny and it goes on Stephen you
1:07:30are the chief and not you're a very you you need to create a special form of transportation
1:07:34and think about how your design is powered you are going to volcano world hey that might be how
1:07:41you power it use the volcanoes it's populated by a race of polite vampires and you need to make your
1:07:48design very futuristic so it's stuff like that and it's a lot of fun and then is the idea that
1:07:54somebody has to guess them like to guess what's going on i think everybody draws them and then
1:07:58then they explain them and then the group sort of decides which one they like the best
1:08:01and that's it. It's just meant to be kind of a fun conversation thing which is there
1:08:06are a lot of games like this that are like sort of storytelling or creative jumping off
1:08:09point games and it's a lot of fun. I mean is it a game? Is it an activity? I don't even
1:08:13know what it is and obviously really great with kids so Lupo. Yeah because there's no
1:08:17like strictly defined by luck winner or loser right which is that's kind of fun so everyone
1:08:24can kind of just decide. Like if little Johnny has worked really hard and you can see that
1:08:28little Johnny has worked really hard, you can just let little Johnny win. Right. And
1:08:32it's the appeal of having like a random thing that makes you be creative because suddenly
1:08:36you're like, "Whoa, I'm in the underground or I'm in the volcano world with the shy vampires.
1:08:42What does that mean? How does that world look like?" And you have to kind of engage your
1:08:45creativity to figure out how that would work. Well, the shy vampires, you know, they're
1:08:49going to stay out of the light because they're vampires and you just kind of keep doing it
1:08:52like that with a space theme. So, Lupo, the space adventure. Thanks, Secret Santa.
1:08:59Jason, do you want to guess, Jason?
1:09:01Well, yeah, I'll give you my guess and I will reveal everything at the end, I suppose.
1:09:06My guess, although I do a space podcast with Steven, my guess, having attended her wedding,
1:09:12which was space themed, and having revealed earlier that she would have gotten something
1:09:19similar for the Secret Santa the space team game but it was not available I'm
1:09:23gonna guess this is from Serenity but I don't know mmm interesting good guess
1:09:27good guess well Ren why don't we go to you next actually what uh what did you
1:09:33receive all right well I received something that went back to the 1960s
1:09:381970s in a very strange way okay which is to say I I have a cardboard based
1:09:46smartphone magnifier that is built to resemble an old
1:09:51television. And it essentially you put your your iPhone or
1:09:57other smartphone up to 5.4 up to up to iPhone seven plus size
1:10:03into a tray that is shaped like a VHS tape, you slide it in and
1:10:08press play on whatever video that you would like to watch,
1:10:13and then slide it in and there is an old school magnifier on the front of this that in addition
1:10:20to being textured like an old CRT television, blows up your screen.
1:10:25So instead of having a five-ish inches screen, you're going to have something that looks
1:10:30more like seven or eight.
1:10:32It is wickedly clever, I have to say, first and foremost, for something that is entirely
1:10:38cardboard.
1:10:40And yeah, it just – it looks much more high quality than I think it actually is, which
1:10:47is always nice when you're going for a sub 20 gift that actually has some functionality.
1:10:52It has some very smart modifications.
1:10:56It has little speaker holes in the bottom right corner so that you can actually properly
1:11:01project your sound while your iPhone is trapped within this faux television.
1:11:06It even has a little space for "ejecting your videotape" on the opposite side of the tape,
1:11:11where you just tap it and the cardboard videotape holder slides out.
1:11:19It also has a little slot where you can plug in some power if you're watching something
1:11:23especially long.
1:11:24So on an overall competency thing, this is a pretty cool little gift.
1:11:31The only downside is because it is essentially using a plastic magnifier, unless you're looking
1:11:36at it straight on, you're going to get some strange artifacting and moving of the image.
1:11:42So for instance, it's sitting to the right of me here.
1:11:46And with a video playing, I just actually picked Home Alone because why not?
1:11:51With the video playing and me sitting at the iMac, I can see the bottom right corner of
1:11:57it in the top left corner of the screen.
1:12:00Oh, how interesting.
1:12:02Yeah.
1:12:03But if I move my head from in front of my iMac to in front of the magnifier, then it
1:12:11shows up in complete 100 degree, 100% vision.
1:12:17So yeah, it has some issues if you're looking at it off-center, if you're looking at it
1:12:23from above or from a blow or on either side.
1:12:26So initially I thought it would be really cool to put it in the bedroom.
1:12:29I was like, "Oh, we'll put it on our dresser and just pop our smartphone in if we want
1:12:38to watch a movie."
1:12:40And no, not so much because it doesn't look like there's any image there.
1:12:45But again, if you have a desk where you get to look straight on at it, it's actually
1:12:49– it's quite cool.
1:12:50Or if you have an arbitrary – I don't know if you get a – what are the things
1:12:54from 12 South called not a backpack but the high rises high rise $70 accessory for your
1:13:02for your $15 smartphone magnifier be great be great overall this is a very cute gift
1:13:09though around would you like to guess who bought it for you oh okay uh I don't know
1:13:16Actually, I am going to lean either you, Myke or Jason.
1:13:22So I'm like, I can't decide whom I think I would slightly pick one.
1:13:27I'm going to slightly lean towards you, Myke.
1:13:30Okay.
1:13:30Steven, you go next.
1:13:32So my gift is a set of gifts.
1:13:35There are two items that are related.
1:13:37The first is a little snowman.
1:13:40He's maybe five inches tall, four inches tall.
1:13:44and you can hear the cable at my desk.
1:13:46He's powered by USB, type A, mercifully.
1:13:50And you plug him in. - So to what?
1:13:52- You plug him in, and he has a light inside.
1:13:54And he lights up.
1:13:56I did not plug this into my computer,
1:13:58because that seems like a great way for--
1:14:00- To be hacked by the film man.
1:14:02- Someone bad to have all my data.
1:14:04But I plugged it in with an iPhone charger,
1:14:06and he lights up, and he has a little hat and a scarf,
1:14:10and he's adorable.
1:14:12I've named, I need to name him, I think.
1:14:14I feel like he needs a name, but he doesn't have one yet.
1:14:17But he comes with a friend.
1:14:18The friend, I'm gonna read the name of this.
1:14:20I'm just gonna read you some of the text in the box
1:14:22because it just speaks for itself.
1:14:25It is the rotating moon star projection lamp, colon,
1:14:30twinkle twinkle little stars.
1:14:34It's a night light.
1:14:36It's got some LEDs in it, it has four LEDs in it,
1:14:38and you can basically hit a series of buttons
1:14:40to change the color.
1:14:41and it projects stars and moons up on the wall
1:14:45and the ceiling and that sort of thing.
1:14:47But it's one of those products, again,
1:14:50it's powered by USB.
1:14:51I'm not plugging this into a computer,
1:14:53I plugged it into an iPhone wall charger.
1:14:56It comes with steady light with different changing color.
1:15:02Some bullet points in the box.
1:15:06Romantic projection show.
1:15:09project the moon and stars onto the walls and ceiling.
1:15:13It has two usage--
1:15:16singular-- as a stationary light and a rotatable moon star
1:15:20projection lamp.
1:15:22And you can turn on in three ways.
1:15:25Use four AAA batteries powered by the USB cable with charger.
1:15:30There's not a charger in the box, just a USB cable.
1:15:33Or connected with computer.
1:15:36I'm not going to put this into any computer.
1:15:38owned that seems like a terrible idea. So basically two lights, one Christmas
1:15:43themed with my little snowman friend and then a not very bright, definitely shady
1:15:49star moon projection light. Do you want to guess who bought that for you? I think I'm
1:15:54gonna go with Jason. The snowman for some reason kind of reminds me
1:15:58of Jason. Interesting. Okay well you know I do live where we make
1:16:04snowmen all the time out here. He's smiling at me and it looks like he has
1:16:08thoughts about the iMac Pro and then Jason and I of course do a space show
1:16:11together and this is space themed so I'm gonna guess Jason. All right it is my
1:16:17turn. I have a 1960s Batman themed Stretch
1:16:22Armstrong. Wow. Now I have no idea if Stretch Armstrong reached the United
1:16:31States of America. I'm assuming. Absolutely. Great. I was assuming so because I have one and
1:16:37and I didn't buy this for myself.
1:16:39However, I have a few stories to tell.
1:16:43So first, I'll describe, in case you don't know, Stretch Armstrong
1:16:47and especially the Batman Stretch Armstrong is a wonder to behold.
1:16:51It is a human shaped thing or Batman shaped thing.
1:16:56In this case, you can also get them in Scooby Doo and other
1:16:59related properties
1:17:02where it is a human made of rubber,
1:17:06which is filled with I think corn syrup and something. So basically it is stretchable to
1:17:13quite a length. So you can basically just pull on the appendages of the human or the Batman
1:17:21and stretch Batman into many different ways. So you can pull him around, you can twist him up,
1:17:27you can tie him up into knots if you want to. Stretch Armstrong is a retro toy
1:17:33and they've brought it back for this holiday season and with it came a few additional characters like that man.
1:17:39So I have a few stories to tell.
1:17:42One is a story in which I need to go back about 20 years.
1:17:46So, about 20 years ago,
1:17:50a little Myke loved Stretch Armstrong
1:17:53and
1:17:55had one.
1:17:56But that Stretch Armstrong, the original Stretch Armstrong, just the dude Stretch Armstrong,
1:18:02Um, he got his leg ripped off by a younger brother who tied the leg, tied,
1:18:10yeah, tied the leg around the bedpost, tied the arm to the back of a car,
1:18:15like a human sized car, a baby size car, you know, as when she sit in and then
1:18:19pedaled until, uh, the leg ripped off.
1:18:22So that's what happened to young Myke stretch Armstrong.
1:18:27Then young Myke got a stretch Armstrong dog.
1:18:30There was a dog like it was a stretch dog, I think it was called or stretch.
1:18:35I don't know.
1:18:36It's many.
1:18:37I mean, Fetch Armstrong actually was the name Fetch Armstrong.
1:18:40Myke loved Fetch Armstrong and on the last day of school took him to school with him.
1:18:45Fetch Armstrong got stolen by another by another school pupil.
1:18:50So you would you would think that receiving another stretch Armstrong related property
1:18:57would bring back many peculiar memories.
1:19:00But it was actually quite a surprise for me
1:19:03because I was expecting to receive Batman,
1:19:06Church Armstrong on the day that Batman, Church Armstrong arrived for me
1:19:10because I had ordered Batman, Church Armstrong for my nephew for Christmas.
1:19:14And he was arriving that day by Amazon.
1:19:17So I opened my Amazon packages like, OK, so great.
1:19:21There's the Batman, Church Armstrong that I was expecting.
1:19:24I opened the second box expecting to find more presents for Christmas and found yet
1:19:29another Batman shazam strong that came with a note with Myke attention upgrade. So this
1:19:36was a this was a big surprise for me. So I then was at my huge surprise in that one of
1:19:42my co hosts had just the random happenstance to decide to buy this gift for me. I shared
1:19:49this story with my fiance to which she did not react in any way, which was a big surprise
1:19:58for me because this was one of the biggest coincidences to occur in my entire life. So
1:20:03I suspect that Steven bought me this because he would be the person who I guess would be
1:20:09most likely to ask Adina about this gift. And she didn't give it away, but her face
1:20:16sure did. But I will say I am very happy with my gift because this will finally be a stretch
1:20:24armstrong that will not even get ripped in half or stolen. So third time, third time's a charm.
1:20:29So let's go down the list. Ren, did you buy Jason his secret center?
1:20:34I did in fact.
1:20:35Thank you.
1:20:36And Myke, did you buy Ren her secret center? Yes, in fact I did. Jason, did you buy Steven
1:20:44his secret center?
1:20:45Yes, I did.
1:20:46And then, uh, Steven, I was right. You bought mine, didn't you?
1:20:50I did.
1:20:51And did you cheat by asking Adina?
1:20:53So I can tell you the story.
1:20:55Okay, tell me the story.
1:20:56My initial idea, so what I've discovered is that toys from the 90s on eBay are super cheap.
1:21:03I've been down a Dubai Friday inspired Lego hole, and I just have way too many 90s Lego now in my
1:21:08in my office.
1:21:09But I thought, I knowed, Myke likes Nintendo,
1:21:14and Myke grew up in the 90s.
1:21:16I was gonna pick you up like an old Game Boy Color
1:21:19or something.
1:21:20But I was, so I texted Federico, and I said,
1:21:22"Hey, has Myke ever mentioned to you,
1:21:25"does he have one of these?"
1:21:26Because Myke, you have a lot of nerdy stuff,
1:21:29and I figured maybe you've bought one
1:21:30or kept one from a child.
1:21:32I didn't want to get you something that you already had.
1:21:35And Federico wasn't sure.
1:21:37So this was when you were in Seattle, so I knew I could text Adina and not be suspicious,
1:21:42right?
1:21:43She doesn't have to be weird who she's texting.
1:21:47And she could ramsack your office when you're not there.
1:21:50So I had her go through your desk, and I think you have a Game Boy Advance, I think is what
1:21:56she found.
1:21:57So I said, "You know, that's kind of close.
1:21:59I don't want to get in the way."
1:22:03And so I said, "Okay, well, I'll keep thinking."
1:22:06And she texted me back a little while later and told me the exact story you just told
1:22:11in the show about Stretch Armstrong being murdered.
1:22:14So clearly this weighs on your psyche in a way that you probably need to see somebody
1:22:19about.
1:22:20Well, it had recently come up at a family gathering because I was buying a Stretch Armstrong
1:22:25for my nephew.
1:22:26That's how this whole thing came about.
1:22:27That did not make it into our conversation, although that is hysterical that you opened
1:22:32to on the same day.
1:22:34It was wonderful.
1:22:36And so she brought that story up and I went on Amazon and my first thought was, "Oh, I'll
1:22:42get him a Spider-Man one because you like Spider-Man."
1:22:45But I, and we've argued about this, believe that Batman is a superior superhero because
1:22:50Spider-Man's powers are dumb and got you the Batman version.
1:22:55So that's my story.
1:22:56Is there a Spider-Man one?
1:22:57That's my story.
1:22:58I didn't even know there was a Spider-Man one.
1:22:59If there is, then Batman.
1:23:00I don't know if there is or not.
1:23:01I saw the Batman one and knew that's what you needed.
1:23:02Because if there is, Batman's going to get framed.
1:23:04That's what's going to happen.
1:23:05But no, it looks like it's just Batman and Scooby-Doo is what I can find.
1:23:12I would say that this has been a success all around.
1:23:15I think everybody got great and/or slightly dubious gifts, and we all were able to guess
1:23:23each other, which I think means that we know each other very well, I guess in all manner
1:23:27of respect.
1:23:28So I would say that the inaugural upgrade Secret Santa has been a roaring success, wouldn't
1:23:33you, Jason?
1:23:34I think so.
1:23:35are all about is exactly this, which is moderate to low-priced gifts and that
1:23:42you wouldn't buy yourself but that you get from somebody else and and then yes
1:23:46maybe you maybe after this is all over you'll give them away or maybe Steven
1:23:50you'll be looking at that snowman for years to come. That is called guilting
1:23:56presents. Little snow snow. Yeah sure. I look forward to hopefully seeing
1:24:03snow snail appear in the background of a YouTube video.
1:24:06Oh yeah, without a doubt.
1:24:08That's what I hope for.
1:24:09Perhaps a review of snow snail.
1:24:11[laughter]
1:24:13That's not going too far.
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1:25:57Checkout our thanks to Pingdom for their support of this show and relay FM. So we are gonna continue and upgrade Myke at the movies
1:26:05Tradition and watch a home alone movie and also in tradition
1:26:10I have seen this movie but Jason has not so last year Jason watched home alone for the first time and I would say on the
1:26:17Hole you enjoyed home alone. Is that right to say Jason? Yeah, I get why people
1:26:21watch it and like it and why it was a hit it was it was fun. And anybody that
1:26:26seemed Home Alone 2 can understand that if you enjoyed Home Alone 1 there's a
1:26:31strong chance you like Home Alone 2 because it is by and large the same movie
1:26:34which is one of the things that I like about Home Alone 2. I'm interested to
1:26:41know Jason did you like the fact that Home Alone 2 was the same movie
1:26:45basically as Home Alone. I understand why they did this but I did have that thought
1:26:52of this is I think what I said when we finished watching it was this is like a
1:26:58perfect example of having a movie be a hit and just deciding to make it again
1:27:05because that's what it is it is it is it is just like let's just do it all again
1:27:10we'll play all the same notes in all the same ways it doesn't even need to really
1:27:14make sense why it's all happening again. It just is because everybody liked that movie,
1:27:19so let's do it again.
1:27:20Now, in a moment, I'll come back to some of the interesting ramifications of this when
1:27:25you look at the movie from the movie's world. But Wren, I'm assuming you've probably seen
1:27:31this movie before, and do you like Home Alone 2?
1:27:34I actually like Home Alone 2 the best of all of the Home Alone movies. It was actually
1:27:38– so most – I feel like a large number of people have a Christmas story as their
1:27:42yearly play this on the television. Home Alone 2 was ours. And I think I have seen this movie more,
1:27:48definitely more times than I can count. It was a childhood staple. And rewatching it again,
1:27:54I remember why it was. It's definitely there are some things in this movie that do not age well.
1:28:01But at the same time, what I actually find kind of charming about Home Alone and just all of the Home
1:28:09Alone movies in general, is it is basically it is the James Bond formula applied to failed capers.
1:28:16And it's basically like, "Hey, does this work? Let's try a caper in a different location with
1:28:22some of the same or all of the same people. And let's add in a fun friend, or in this case,
1:28:27a homeless woman who feeds birds. And yeah, you know, have some fun with it." Bottom line,
1:28:35this movie has flaws, but I like it.
1:28:38Steven was home alone to a staple in the Hackett holiday household
1:28:42It was not as much as the first one. I don't think and I haven't seen the first one
1:28:48and I don't know how long but
1:28:51My wife watched him alone one with a friend like three or four nights ago
1:28:56And then we watched him alone to last night. She was like terrible idea
1:29:00Yeah, she said too much too much in the McAllister family
1:29:03remarked like how
1:29:06Obviously, okay, this movie worked.
1:29:08Maybe we don't know why it worked,
1:29:09so let's make everything the same, but way more deadly.
1:29:13And, you know, hey.
1:29:13- Oh, the deadliness, yes.
1:29:15So, for me, mine and Wren's situation are very similar.
1:29:19I love this movie, always have loved this movie.
1:29:23I love it more than the original and have seen it more.
1:29:26And having watched this movie,
1:29:28I've realized why I have had the feeling in me
1:29:32for my entire life that I wanna spend Christmas in New York.
1:29:35It's because of this movie like I all of those things
1:29:39I wanted to spend Christmas in New York and we did get to spend some Christmas in you a couple of years ago
1:29:44And it was everything that I wanted it to be because everything looked like it did in the movie by and large except I couldn't find
1:29:49Duncan's toy chest or as I like to think of it in my head and have since I was a kid toy Duncan's chest
1:29:55Left to right so it is a toy Duncan's chest
1:30:01which I
1:30:04Enjoy a lot and I'm I would assume many children probably think that's the case because it's not very clearly written
1:30:09Toy Duncan's chest Myke I think you and I had the same
1:30:15So one of the things about this movie which I find
1:30:24Even funnier as I am an adult is the fact that this eat this in this world in the McAllister world
1:30:30it could happen that a second time maybe one or two years apart Kevin gets lost
1:30:38and they even to the point well one year months yeah next Christmas yeah to the
1:30:45point that they even make jokes about it as a family it still happens and like I
1:30:51know that like airport security was very different then but I just I really like
1:30:57just struggle to understand. My favorite moment in this is so they're
1:31:00running to the gate right to get there to go catch the plane and they get there
1:31:07and the mom what is her name? Catherine O'Hara yeah.
1:31:12Okay that she stands there and starts counting the kids and then like the
1:31:17the check-in agent's like no no no just get on and she's like okay she
1:31:22understands that this could be a problem but it's just like that whatever they
1:31:26told me to get on. This is one of the big problems I have with this movie is that like
1:31:30the first one tries very hard to set works really hard to set up the premise of how you
1:31:35would leave a kid home alone like how many things had to go wrong. This one I don't think
1:31:40you can have it both ways like there's the reality part of it which is that there is
1:31:45no way she would not let Kevin be like he would be holding her hand the entire way through
1:31:52they would always be checking for Kevin. It would never happen again.
1:31:56But this movie goes through all the steps of like, "Oh, look at all these crazy
1:31:59things that had to happen for this to get to the point where he was left home
1:32:01alone again."
1:32:02And I thought to myself, "At this point, if you're just gonna do this, just don't
1:32:07even bother. Like, don't waste half an hour other than because they want to
1:32:10replay everything that happened in the first movie for nostalgia reasons. Like,
1:32:14why are you trying to create mechanics? Because it just...
1:32:17you've left reality so far behind, I would just get over it. I would have liked...
1:32:21I would have liked Kevin to just, like, spite them is what I was thinking. It's like he was the last
1:32:27one on and they took and his mom turns away to hand her boarding pass and he just takes off.
1:32:33And by the time, and maybe they don't even get on the plane, but by the time that they get off and
1:32:39realize he's not there, he's used the cash to buy a ticket to New York and he's gone, right?
1:32:44Something like that. I would have rather had it been like Kevin is aggressively getting away,
1:32:49because for a moment you think that's what he's gonna do because he's really grumpy about his
1:32:53stupid family because they're awful and I expected that that would have been I would have liked that
1:32:58better if they they had gone that way because the accidental losing a second time it's like why
1:33:03I don't know I didn't need to see that again because the first time I kind of went with it
1:33:08and the second time I'm like nope no just make it more ridiculous. I can buy the fact that they were
1:33:13late because you've had 364 days where your alarm clock has woke you up right so you're like you're
1:33:18you're good but yeah that like even like it does seem like it the start of movie
1:33:23it's time to go that way because like Kevin's like I don't want to be with you
1:33:25guys like he's like yeah totally like away kid but then they seem to just let
1:33:31that go and it's still just a mix-up she's funny I was awful by the way buzz
1:33:37is awful and I do feel so what all the parents why do they love so much I
1:33:42noticed buzz my notice that buzz is a jerk and the rest of the people in this
1:33:45family are idiots and I do appreciate like it does get me on Kevin's side
1:33:49immediately that when they're like oh you better apologize to Buzz and I'm
1:33:53sitting there going do not apologize to Buzz and he's like no I'm not gonna
1:33:56apologize I'm like alright kid good job stick the talk boy I had a talk boy that
1:34:04was my favorite toy for a very long time I absolutely loved that thing I mean
1:34:11there are again there are many interesting things that happen with that
1:34:14in this movie which may be the speaker on that thing or actually I know the speaker on that thing wasn't that good
1:34:19But the the talk boy tape recorder
1:34:22Was an incredible thing and the talk boy
1:34:26There was a total talk by line of products that existed for a long time of which I think I owned all of them
1:34:31Including the talk boy watch and a talk by pen like that was a great toy line for me as a kid
1:34:37And I remember once that as a I will say that this is in retaliation for stretch Armstrong
1:34:44I was able to record my younger brother admitting to something that he'd done
1:34:48He spilled something or broken something via the use of a concealed talkboy tape recorder and played it to my parents
1:34:55My mom didn't appreciate the fact that I'd done that so much but I did it
1:34:59So as you can tell like me and my younger brother we get on very well now
1:35:03We didn't get on so well as kids so
1:35:06But I did do that
1:35:08It my favorite part about the talkboy is according to Wikipedia, which is never wrong
1:35:13it was conceived for this movie,
1:35:17and then Hasbro made a bunch of them
1:35:19and just took a giant swimming pool full of money
1:35:22from all these people.
1:35:23It's so great that it started life as a movie prop
1:35:28and then became a toy.
1:35:29- Yeah, I mean, well everybody wanted it
1:35:30because the movie, right?
1:35:31- Oh yeah.
1:35:32- And then it just became its own thing after that
1:35:35because the original Talk Boy was so expensive
1:35:37that they made the Talk Boy pen,
1:35:38which seemed like wizardry.
1:35:40It was like a digital recorder at that point.
1:35:42Yeah, it was very cool.
1:35:43the original talk boy. I don't remember if the one that you bought had cassettes. I think
1:35:47it did though. I think that was still a cassette based toy.
1:35:50Yeah, it was cassette based. There you go. And also-
1:35:53At least the female one was. Oh, do you mean the talk girl? Which is ridiculous.
1:35:57Oh yeah, which was so dumb. And it was pink. Yeah, it was pink.
1:36:01I could not convince my parents to buy me a talk boy. They insisted on a talk girl and
1:36:06I was just, I was furious. I was like, "Oh, what the-? Blue one! Blue one's cooler!"
1:36:11There is, for many years I have believed that there was a Game Girl, like a girl version
1:36:17of the Game Boy, but I think I'm thinking of this.
1:36:19Like there were pink Game Boys, but I think it is the Talk Girl that I'm thinking of when
1:36:25I think that there is a Game Girl.
1:36:26Yeah, there was the Game Gear, but not the Game Girl.
1:36:28But there was pink versions of the Game Boy, but they just called it Game Boy because it
1:36:32doesn't mean it's for boys.
1:36:34Like it's just a toy.
1:36:35But anyway, the Talk Boy was amazing and is used to great effect throughout this entire
1:36:40film. But yes, I think the big difference in this movie is that instead of being alone
1:36:46at home, Kevin is in another city. He's lost in New York. He's lost in New York, which
1:36:53is a thing that he wanted because for every unknown reason records an ad about the Plaza
1:36:58Hotel whilst he's still at home. But that was very helpful for him later on when he
1:37:03needed to book a reservation. I don't know why any adult would take a reservation from
1:37:10the slowed down voice that was given to them.
1:37:14- That's perfectly timed for conversation.
1:37:16- Yeah, it's very well, oh no,
1:37:17because you just press play and pause.
1:37:19- Credit cards, I have them.
1:37:23My favorite part is, it's Peter McAllister, the father.
1:37:27(laughing)
1:37:29The father, just so you know, it's not a child.
1:37:34This is a father that's talking.
1:37:35- I like this part, and the reason I like this part
1:37:37is it's not in the other movie, right?
1:37:39This is, I mean, there's sort of like it when he goes shopping and all that, but this is
1:37:43like this whole comedy bit with the hotel and with Tim Curry and Rob Schneider and they,
1:37:49and I like that.
1:37:50I also like that, well, Tim Curry is a little too villainous, but like Rob Schneider, you
1:37:54end up being like they're hapless.
1:37:56And so instead of being burglars, they're just kind of clueless adults that he's putting
1:38:02the moves on and kind of getting them all confused by his devious child genius or whatever
1:38:09he has. So I like this part about it, I like the hotel part, except for the part where
1:38:12Donald Trump walks by. I like to imagine that he was insufferable on the set and he wanted
1:38:17to be in the shot and Chris Columbus agreed that he would be in the shot. It's, uh, yeah.
1:38:23That's like a, I like to believe that. I love that Tim Curry is so immediately mistrusting
1:38:28of him. Like, for a completely unknown reason. He just sees the boy in the lobby and he's
1:38:32like, "Find out everything you can about that boy." Like, why? What did he do? Because he's
1:38:37He's not dressed to the standards of the Plaza Hotel, clearly.
1:38:42He's judging him!
1:38:43He's judging him hard.
1:38:44I like that Kevin has got, like, lots of grifter moves, though, that he gets them convinced
1:38:48of.
1:38:49Like, "Oh, my dad just dropped me off and you've got a reservation," and all this stuff.
1:38:52I like that he talks.
1:38:54He's a smart kid and he can talk his way.
1:38:56Because how do you get—like, that's the whole premise here, is how do you get a kid
1:39:00into this hotel and he does it.
1:39:04Like, I like that.
1:39:05It's almost like a heist.
1:39:06It's like, how do we get this kid into the hotel with their parents?
1:39:08It is like a heist.
1:39:09Yeah.
1:39:10It is.
1:39:11And I like the line where he's like, "I'll get up to a bit of mischief."
1:39:14I like that.
1:39:15He's playing the little cheeky boy card pretty well.
1:39:19He does a good job.
1:39:22When he's trying to get the...
1:39:23He's like, "What is he like, lady?
1:39:24I don't know how to use credit cards or something like that."
1:39:26He's like, "I'm just a kid."
1:39:30And then when he sees her do that thing...
1:39:32What is that thing called with the card?
1:39:34the kachunk machine. That's what it's called.
1:39:37- What is it?
1:39:38- That's the kachunk machine.
1:39:39- Yeah, it's swiping it.
1:39:39- It's a credit authorization.
1:39:41- Yeah, it's running a credit card back in the day
1:39:43where you did that that way.
1:39:45You make carbon copies of the numbers
1:39:47that are raised on the credit card.
1:39:50That was how we did it back in the day.
1:39:52By the way, I've looked it up on Wikipedia,
1:39:53which is never wrong.
1:39:55Donald Trump bought the Plaza Hotel in 1988.
1:39:571992, when the movie was released,
1:40:03Ownership was transferred in one of Donald Trump's many real estate bankruptcies.
1:40:08So there you go.
1:40:09I was very impressed at Kevin's master puppeteering during the shower scene
1:40:18with the big inflatable clown.
1:40:20He's gotten even better at puppeteering.
1:40:23He's very, very talented.
1:40:24I guess he honed his skills just in case this ever happened to him again.
1:40:29This cracks me up because I didn't actually remember this until I saw it.
1:40:33watching this again last year or last year, yesterday night.
1:40:37And I was just like, what?
1:40:38Who thought this would be a funny gag to put in a film?
1:40:43And why does it work?
1:40:45Because I still don't understand why it works.
1:40:47It's funny, but I don't know why.
1:40:48This part reminds me because it's music themed.
1:40:52I love the music in this movie, like the soundtrack and just the music in Jam Rule.
1:40:57But the theme, like the John Williams score is wonderful.
1:41:00Like one of my favorite things about Home Alone is the music anyway,
1:41:04like the themes, the two big themes from Home Alone.
1:41:07Like I absolutely love them.
1:41:09And they're still in this movie and along with all the other music is just so good.
1:41:12Like that moment when Tim Curry's is like
1:41:15sneaking through the like all of the music is just so fantastic.
1:41:20And then, of course, our villains are back.
1:41:23The Wet Bandits, they were put in prison.
1:41:27I like that them escaping from prison made front page news.
1:41:30on the newspapers. The Wet Bandits have escaped. You remember those people that robbed one
1:41:36house?
1:41:37One house, not in New York.
1:41:41Yep. They're out, so watch out. But they're kind of working on it. And they bump into
1:41:46each other after Kevin's visit to Duncan's toy chest, which is one of my other favorite
1:41:51parts of this movie. Again, just because I was a kid and just imagining that a toy store
1:41:54like that would exist was quite a wonderful thing.
1:41:57Yeah, it's like the off-brand FAO shorts or something.
1:42:01I don't think you mean Toy Duncan's Chest.
1:42:05Okay, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.
1:42:09This is where I really draw the line with this movie, which is
1:42:13they don't just want it to have the exact same plot as the first movie,
1:42:17they literally don't want to change the characters in the movie.
1:42:21So they bring them back, which is totally ridiculous that they would
1:42:25be there and that they would see him and all of that and I had a moment where I
1:42:28thought wouldn't it be more fun if there were new robbers who didn't know Kevin's
1:42:32moves who had to you know who had to he had to fight that were like New York
1:42:37criminals but instead it's just Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern and I have to I
1:42:42have to applaud Joe Pesci this movie literally just has him do cartoon
1:42:47dialogue at various points where all he's saying is rocker fucking rocker
1:42:50"Rock him, rock him, rock him, rock him, rock him, rock him."
1:42:53Or he's just laughing to himself a lot.
1:42:56It's like they didn't give him dialogue like,
1:42:58"Oh, stupid Kevin," or whatever.
1:42:59Or if they did, he didn't use it,
1:43:00and he's literally just saying,
1:43:02"Rock him, rock him, rock him, rock him, rock him, rock him."
1:43:04The whole movie. It's amazing.
1:43:06So, full credit, but maybe nobody else
1:43:10wanted to play these characters
1:43:11because they are murdered repeatedly
1:43:14and somehow stay alive.
1:43:16I don't know how that's possible.
1:43:18Honestly, though, I understand why you're saying that,
1:43:20but I can't imagine this movie any other way.
1:43:22Like, for me, it's either the three of them or it doesn't work
1:43:26because when they change it for three and four, it kind of sucks.
1:43:29-That's why they did it this way is because people like you
1:43:32want to see that other movie again, and that's fine.
1:43:35That's fine.
1:43:37I would have maybe suggested they make a different movie,
1:43:40but they didn't, so that's okay.
1:43:43They just play this one again.
1:43:44-My favorite callback to the original movie
1:43:47is when they bump into each other for the first time
1:43:49And Harry has an M imprint on his hand,
1:43:54which is from the doorknob in the original movie,
1:43:57which I love.
1:43:58- Yep.
1:43:59- It must have been one of the burning ones.
1:44:00- Yeah, and he's very cautious about doorknobs
1:44:03all throughout this movie.
1:44:04He like taps them real lightly to make sure they're not hot.
1:44:06Like that made a real, I mean, I guess a literal
1:44:09and a psychological impression on him.
1:44:12Oh no.
1:44:13- Oh boy.
1:44:14Well, you know, they've learned a little bit.
1:44:17There's some character progression in this film, albeit minor.
1:44:20That's as far as they've all have doorknobs.
1:44:23Now, of course, all I want to talk about is the scene with the many injuries.
1:44:28But there is a part that I wanted to just touch on before that, which gets us to that,
1:44:32which is Kevin's, well, of course, I'm not even thinking about the return of the movie,
1:44:38where he was the sequel is like even Filthier Angels or something is called.
1:44:42He's got some name like that with the, again, the same scene.
1:44:47He's just playing and stopping at the video, uh,
1:44:51which works perfectly and everybody very, uh,
1:44:56conveniently falls into the trap to have all of the words used perfectly whenever
1:45:01it's needed. Um, but the Kevin lost in New York at night part,
1:45:06I didn't like it as a kid and I don't like it now. Um, it scared me as a kid.
1:45:11Now I just think that it is a mostly pointless scene,
1:45:15with him bumping in to various ne'er-do-wells in the evening,
1:45:18including the taxi driver, who,
1:45:20I don't know why the taxi driver wants to scare him away
1:45:23and then drive away, but he does, and he does,
1:45:26and it's very peculiar to me.
1:45:28- This is scary New York.
1:45:29This is before New York became less scary.
1:45:32This is sort of like at the end, tail end of that period
1:45:35where New York was always portrayed and was, you know,
1:45:39dirty and full of crime, and there's that line
1:45:41where it's like, "You can't go out there on the street, lady.
1:45:43There's criminals everywhere roaming around the streets of New York."
1:45:46And it's like, that was what it was like.
1:45:48In fact, I went to New York for the first time by myself about two months.
1:45:54- Did you escape from your family?
1:45:55- I did, well, sort of, I suppose.
1:45:58About two months after this movie came out, I was in New York, February '93.
1:46:02And I remember it being, you know, kind of shabby and crappy.
1:46:06And the next time I went back to New York City, like, eight years later or whatever,
1:46:10completely different, like way, definitely this was right at the end of that period where
1:46:15it was kind of dark and drab and dirty and Times Square was full of like porno places
1:46:19and stuff like that and it's not like that anymore. So this is a bygone era of super
1:46:24scary New York.
1:46:25Jason, did you foil any toy store robberies?
1:46:30I, unfortunately I did not, but it does say something about the vast, I never feel older
1:46:36than when talking to people younger than me about things that hit them in their childhood,
1:46:44because it's that moment where I'm like, "Oh, this was your childhood. I was in my first
1:46:48year of grad school when this movie came out, so I was not paying attention to movies about
1:46:54kids, and I hadn't seen Home Alone, right? I totally missed that, so why would I see
1:46:58the sequel?" Turns out, I would have been fine. But yeah, anyway, so yeah, it's scary
1:47:03New York.
1:47:04One of the reasons that you may have seen it was for the increase in severity of the injuries sustained to the wet bandits.
1:47:12It's amazing.
1:47:12And like last year,
1:47:14Sticky bandits, Myke. We're the sticky bandits.
1:47:16The other sticky bandits now.
1:47:17Like last year, I have listed and will now list to you every injury that is sustained in the scene at the renovating house.
1:47:29Which, by the way, that house needs serious renovations because there is a lot wrong with that house.
1:47:33I can't believe anybody lived in it.
1:47:35Well, I mean, they've obviously gutted it and they're doing huge work.
1:47:38Although I like how they say like, "Oh, your uncle's doing some work on his house," or whatever.
1:47:42"They're renovating his house." It's like they've literally gutted the entire house.
1:47:45There is nothing left in that house.
1:47:47I hope the uncle is staying in Europe for a year because it will be a long time before anyone,
1:47:54and then especially now that his nephew has...
1:47:57Further gutted the house.
1:47:58Yes, even more so, yeah.
1:47:59So the first injury is actually sustained outside of the toy store where a human seesaw mechanism
1:48:06has ensured that Harry will land on a car back first to the point where the roof
1:48:13caves in and the windows smash. So he's dead at this point. His spine is shattered into a
1:48:18million pieces unless that car roof is made of aluminum foil. There are four bricks dropped
1:48:26on to Marv's head from the roof of the house and this is like a four-story brick redstone,
1:48:33what I call red brick houses. So there are four in succession dropped onto his head.
1:48:39Can I admit that I laughed a lot at that part?
1:48:41Yes, good, you should.
1:48:43This is the moment where I kind of nodded at the movie and I said, "Okay movie, you're
1:48:48a cartoon, it's fine. Here we go. Because, again, there is some real art in the "you
1:48:57just saw something happen and it's going to keep happening" and that the characters are
1:49:01going to keep making exactly the wrong decisions so that it continues to happen, even though
1:49:06by all accounts one of those bricks would have killed Daniel Stern. And the second one
1:49:11certainly would have killed him. It wouldn't have just killed him. His skull would have
1:49:14been politically obliterated. You ever wonder how many people accidentally
1:49:21went to jail for murder because they thought they could just knock somebody out by dropping
1:49:25a brick on them? It is a scary thought to think of how many
1:49:29injuries were sustained due to these movies. I think the true brutality of these movies
1:49:37could never be accurately calculated. A staple gun is shot through a hole in a door into
1:49:43Marv's butt, groin and face. Yes. Over three separate instances. Yeah, he rotates very nicely,
1:49:50kindly. Yeah, keeps rotating. Harry slips from a ladder covered in soap onto his back.
1:49:57It's probably about a 10 foot fall as he lands because he has to climb up a bunch of stuff
1:50:03to jump onto it. Marv falls through a hole in the floor down to a basement. This is maybe
1:50:09one or two stories down into the basement. A bag of spanners is opened above a doorway
1:50:16and they all drop onto Harry's head and it's probably about 30 spanners that hit him. Marv
1:50:23slips on more soap, he hits the shelving unit which falls onto him. The shelving unit is
1:50:29stacked with paint tins which then cover him in paint. Marv is then electrocuted via some
1:50:36very large battery, maybe a generator.
1:50:38- Yeah, it's a welder.
1:50:39It's a welding machine.
1:50:41- The battery from a welding machine,
1:50:43which has been rigged to some taps.
1:50:46Marv is electrocuted to the point
1:50:47that we see his skeleton.
1:50:49I'm not 100% sure how and why, but that is what happens.
1:50:52- I mean, this is the cartoon part.
1:50:54Like, rather than it being like an electrified skeleton,
1:50:57like you're seeing through his skin,
1:50:58it's literally just, he becomes a skeleton briefly,
1:51:01and then is not a skeleton anymore.
1:51:04This movie caused a lot of children to question what physics and, you know, chemistry and
1:51:09just science in general is.
1:51:11All sciences.
1:51:12Okay, so, Myke, before you go on, I want to point out something here.
1:51:15It occurred to everybody the next time you watch this movie to think of this movie this
1:51:19way.
1:51:20I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this thought, but I'm going to share it now
1:51:22because it occurred to me somewhere where Daniel Stern falls two stories and then is
1:51:27electrocuted and turns into a skeleton.
1:51:28I thought, "You know what I'm watching here?"
1:51:32And this is maybe the genius of Home Alone.
1:51:34This is a horror movie, except the music is quirky instead of terrifying.
1:51:41Oh my gosh, yeah.
1:51:43It's so.
1:51:44And Kevin is a serial killer.
1:51:45He is basically Saw.
1:51:48And that is what this movie is, except that you're like, "Yeah, but they kind of deserve
1:51:52it."
1:51:53But that's what it is.
1:51:54It is a horror movie.
1:51:55We are watching people tormented and killed in the worst possible way.
1:51:58So Home Alone.
1:52:00Think about that.
1:52:01think about. You thought you'd got him taken care of. Merry Christmas everybody!
1:52:05That is wonderful. Alright Harry's head is set on fire by a blowtorch. He then dips his head into a toilet filled with gasoline which explodes.
1:52:15I think it's kerosene. But it's still, yeah, it's okay so the imaginations to get him to go like straight down into the toilet like he's really making an effort to get to that point where it explodes and then again
1:52:30cartoon there's a massive explosion because he has put his on fire head in a
1:52:37huge bowl of kerosene and the end result is that his hat the top of his hat is
1:52:43blown off but the the ring is still around his head and everything is
1:52:46blackened which again is right out of a cartoon it is literally there is no
1:52:50physics happening here it is things we see in cartoons except in live-action
1:52:55it's like there was an explosion right and it's just everything remained like
1:52:59- Yeah, I mean, he's Wile E. Coyote at this point.
1:53:02They are both Wile E. Coyote.
1:53:04That is what we're watching.
1:53:05- And I am okay with it.
1:53:06- It's fine, it's fine.
1:53:07Now once you just embrace that you are watching a cartoon
1:53:10or a horror movie or both.
1:53:12- Marv pulls on a rope, which he tries to use
1:53:14to get out of the basement where he still is,
1:53:17which is tied to a 100 pound bag of cement.
1:53:21When he pulls on it hard enough to make his first jump,
1:53:23the 100 pound bag of cement falls three stories down
1:53:27and hits him on the head.
1:53:29slowly falls and he watches it coming to him and doesn't try to move probably because he's a skeleton.
1:53:34He then blows cement out of his mouth. Whilst in pursuit of Kevin, a ladder breaks in half sending
1:53:43Harry to fall face down onto the ground. After thwarting attempts at having paint cans thrown
1:53:52into their heads because they are smart enough to remember not to just run up the stairs.
1:53:56I love that. It's the one time in this film they show any actual intelligence.
1:54:00They are both then hit in the face by like a metal pillar, like a post from the street somehow,
1:54:08which sends them down the stairs, through a hole in the floor, down to the basement.
1:54:16The pillar then rolls down the stairs and lands on them by my trajectory. I'm guessing via
1:54:22the trajectory of that pillar on the head is where it would land. You don't see this because
1:54:28this is one you cannot see happen and not know what happens. Everything else, I don't know,
1:54:36there's something in this movie, even the bricks, it's like "oh the bricks are small"
1:54:39so they would just leave a mark. But this metal pillar landing on them both, they don't show
1:54:45because their heads would have had to have just popped like grapefruit but that's not what happens.
1:54:51Both are crushed between a wall and a door by a tool chest that rolled down a staircase,
1:54:57which they are both listening. What is that sound? I like that even at this point they're
1:55:01listening, "What is that sound? Surely it can't be something bad. Like, what is that sound?"
1:55:05Luckily this time this staircase did not feature any tarantulas, which I was very happy about.
1:55:11They both fall from the top of the building because the rope that they are climbing down is
1:55:17set on fire. When they land to the ground, they have gone through some planks of wood
1:55:23which were holding tins of grease, which then come up into the air and land on them. At
1:55:29this point, Kevin has run away and he sustains his first and only injury in which he slips
1:55:35on ice and is knocked unconscious briefly. He lands on his back. They pick him up and
1:55:41take him to Central Park to shoot him, which is a thing. And I guess it's fine to take
1:55:48him to the park because...
1:55:49Oh, nobody's in the park. It's a lawless wilderness where there's just crime.
1:55:55I have to input for a sec. So around the time of this, maybe like two years after the time
1:56:01of this movie was set, my mother and I were in New York City and staying with a friend
1:56:06who lived right off Central Park. And he, just so you know, this friend lived in a building that
1:56:13was previously owned by the mob, and he had to deal with mob. So it's like painting a picture
1:56:18of New York. We ended up in the park at one in the morning, and due to probably unwise decisions.
1:56:26And he offhandedly joked, he's like, "Yeah, you know, two years ago, you wouldn't have been able
1:56:32to do this because someone would have tried to shoot you, cut your throat, and then bury you in
1:56:36the pond. Just like this is a totally normal thing to say to a 12 year old girl. And then like,
1:56:42let's go, let's go home. So, uh, so yeah, I buy this in other words. That's my TLDR about that.
1:56:47- It's where he would have been if you're going to shoot the kid anywhere, take him to a bridge in
1:56:51Central Park. They are both then attacked by a huge flock of pigeons, to which at one point,
1:56:57We can only assume the pigeons are attempting to peck through the body of Marv given the the level at which he is screaming
1:57:04And that that is the end of the injuries except for just a few times in which
1:57:10Harry kicks Marv in the shins because he's giving away all of their secrets to the police
1:57:15That is the full extent of the injuries sustained in home alone - they are vastly more severe than the injuries sustained in home alone
1:57:22It's all true
1:57:23Can we talk about the family a little more just to say that they're terrible again and they go they go to Florida and
1:57:29Find of course the Kevin isn't there and are pretty are like okay with it
1:57:34That's the thing that I got I mean Catherine O'Hara sort of tries to seem concerned
1:57:38But she's not that concerned and they're like
1:57:40Driving around and the idea is that it's raining and it's miserable in Florida, and they actually don't want to be there
1:57:45But you know they're just like hanging out
1:57:48She makes a big, they're making big jokes to the police officer in the airport too, right?
1:57:54They're like, "Oh, we haven't lost our luggage," and they both knock on wood and just like both burst out in laughing.
1:57:59Yeah.
1:58:00Which is like, I thought that what she would transition from the laughing into crying, but that just doesn't happen.
1:58:06They're just embarrassed because the police officer doesn't think it's that funny.
1:58:10Yeah, because they lost their son for a second straight year.
1:58:12straight year and this time when they I mean I appreciate back then they they
1:58:16would have had to wait for the credit card to come up and then they would know
1:58:19that where he was which is New York at the Plaza Hotel and then that also leads
1:58:25me to a moment where they're like cuz there's like 14 of them or whatever
1:58:27there's this huge family they're like oh he's in New York everybody let's go and
1:58:33I thought really you you again trying to be practical here you're not gonna take
1:58:37the whole family with you to New York you're gonna take like the parents are
1:58:40going to go to New York and the rest of these losers are just going to stay behind in Florida
1:58:44for their previously reserved crappy vacation. But they don't do that. The whole family goes,
1:58:51all the McAllisters are coming to New York.
1:58:53As I posited last year, the McAllister family are very wealthy is my expectation.
1:58:58Well, they clearly are.
1:58:59Because they live in a mansion in the suburbs in Chicago and every year they all go somewhere
1:59:04luxurious for their Christmas.
1:59:05It wouldn't be as nice if that thousand dollars of room service that Kevin ordered, including
1:59:09he personally served ice cream bowl was like what bankrupted them. So instead they just
1:59:15made it. Yeah, he is I think more mad than he deserves to be in that scenario because
1:59:20they did leave their kid again for the second year. Yeah and he didn't die and he should
1:59:25take care of himself. Yeah he looked after himself right like you know he was in a hotel
1:59:29like what do you want the kid to do like maybe he shouldn't have got the ice cream sundae
1:59:32bar which I really wished existed. Maybe it does in some hotels that a gentleman will
1:59:37come to your room and serve ice cream for you. There is a line, a throwaway line that
1:59:42I love where Kevin says to the ice cream sundae man, uh, like he's like, would you like another
1:59:47scoop sir? And he says, yeah, I'm not driving, which I just, I love, I love that. I love
1:59:52that line. It's so good. It's like Kevin the adult. He just says what adults say. So one,
1:59:58uh, character and plot mechanic we have not really talked about is the bird lady. So we
2:00:03We see her when Kevin's in the park.
2:00:06- Don't like the bird lady.
2:00:07The bird lady scared me as a kid.
2:00:09- She's very scary looking and he gets his foot caught
2:00:11in a rock and she lets him out or like saves him
2:00:16somehow from the rock and he befriends her
2:00:21and they go sneak above like a big hall
2:00:25and they hear some music and they talk
2:00:27and it seems that she is homeless by choice
2:00:30or at least part of her current situation was by choice
2:00:35where she was in love and it fell apart
2:00:37and she didn't want to be hurt again and they connect.
2:00:41And as a kid, I thought it was sort of weird,
2:00:45but watching it as an adult, like she's there,
2:00:47I mean obviously at the end she's the one who saves Kevin
2:00:50because she puts her bird army all over the sticky bandits.
2:00:54But I think she's there to help balance Kevin out
2:00:57If all we see is, yes, he's trying to save Duncan Toy Store,
2:01:01but then he basically goes on a murderous rampage
2:01:04for 30 minutes, we need something to remind us
2:01:08that he is kind of like an innocent kid in a way,
2:01:11or he has good in him.
2:01:12'Cause I particularly don't like Kevin the character.
2:01:15I find him sort of annoying.
2:01:16- Well, but he does try to donate,
2:01:18well, he does give 20 of his own dollars, right?
2:01:20Like in theory, to the Children's Hospital.
2:01:23But the thing that I find peculiar
2:01:26about the bird lady is that she doesn't get a happy ending like the shovel man does in
2:01:32the original, where like he meets up with his family and like everything's good. Like
2:01:37she's just like she gets the turtle dove and then that's that. Like that's her happy ending.
2:01:42I think she's not she's not unhappy. She just this is her life and she sort of rules over
2:01:47the park with her army of birds.
2:01:50There's also something to be said about both both Mr. Duncan and the bird lady as kind
2:01:55of balances to Kevin's character, right?
2:01:57Where it's like the chaotic, Kevin is kind of chaotic neutral and the bird lady has some
2:02:03of that chaos, but also some of the centering and like the bird, in some ways she is a foster,
2:02:09like not quite a foster mother, but a surrogate mother for Kevin, which is super weird.
2:02:14Again, watching it now, I'm just thinking like stranger danger, stranger danger.
2:02:19But all of that said, I actually really love her narrative arc in this film because the
2:02:25at least what I what I always took as a kid was, oh, she doesn't have any friends anymore.
2:02:31So all she has to, you know, all the only friends she has are the birds and the birds
2:02:35keep her company.
2:02:36And then Kevin, given to her turtle dove was telling her that, that they could be friends
2:02:40and that that she still has friends in the in the real world.
2:02:43And as an adult, I take that one step further based on her actual storyline of the like,
2:02:48being you know getting her heart broken it's like here is a thing that's
2:02:52normally signifies you know love and renewal and maybe it's okay for you to
2:02:57step out of the park and love again and you helped a little kid so so go you
2:03:02know go be merry. We have not yet though touched upon the most ridiculous thing
2:03:07that happens in this entire movie which is the fact that on Christmas morning
2:03:11Kevin escapes again and nobody notices. They're all open in their presence and it just sneaks out
2:03:18again like it's nobody ever watched this kid like it's but 12 hours not even
2:03:24maybe not even 12 hours since you got him back and yet you're all so
2:03:28preoccupied with the the army of toys that has been delivered to you by Toy
2:03:34Duncan's chest that you just as well it's like it's all toys the parents what
2:03:40are they what are they opening it's just all toys and he runs out again and they
2:03:45don't even notice like I I could I was I couldn't believe it when I saw it out
2:03:50today because I'd forgotten that he does that and yet he escapes he escapes once
2:03:54more that kid can never stop escaping and yet even him he's like he didn't
2:03:58want to leave he was sad he missed his mom but he still ran away again he
2:04:02didn't know she was gonna be there like the the bird lady she could have been
2:04:04anywhere and she's always there she's she is there because the plot dictated
2:04:10her to be there at that time yes Kevin McAllister the original wizard the
2:04:14original creator of the Invisibility cloak and apparently can track humans.
2:04:18Also serial killer. Just throw that in there. Is it serial killer if you kill
2:04:22the same guys over and over? Even more so. He is serial killer of just Marvin Harry.
2:04:29Yep. Yeah. I love this movie. It is ridiculous, but I love this movie. It is.
2:04:35It makes me think of Christmas. It is a Christmas movie for me and I have many
2:04:41many happy memories of this movie. I love it very much. Jason, we will not be watching
2:04:45Home Alone 3 next year if I have my say.
2:04:48Myke, I've already seen Home Alone 3 multiple times because it was the only Home Alone movie
2:04:54on Netflix and my kids watched it when they were little. So I've seen young Scarlett Johansson
2:04:59and her brother, whoever, Alex, whatever, navigate the criminals in their little suburban
2:05:07house, which I actually think it's not that bad, although I haven't seen it in years,
2:05:11I saw it several times and I thought it was clever having never seen the originals. I
2:05:14was like, "Oh yeah, okay, I get the idea. I get the premise here." I will say this
2:05:18about Home Alone 2, which is I can see myself revisiting Home Alone. I can't see myself
2:05:22watching this movie again because I think Home Alone is better. And so I would watch
2:05:28that one again instead of this. Sorry.
2:05:30Home Alone is probably a better movie. I prefer Home Alone 2 though.
2:05:35It's New York. It's New York City at Christmas.
2:05:37Ran or Steven, do you have any closing statements on Home Alone 2 lost in New York?
2:05:41Just, you know, if you are in an abandoned building, just always, always be on the lookout for electrified sinks.
2:05:49Hmm. That's good life advice.
2:05:51Be nice to homeless people and feed the birds.
2:05:55Tuppence a bag.
2:05:58I always thought she was saying tuppence for many years. Didn't know what that was, but that was that was what I thought she was saying.
2:06:06Steven, Serenity, thank you so much for joining us for our holiday special.
2:06:10And to all of you out there choosing to
2:06:14enjoy Upgrade over your holidays, we greatly appreciate it,
2:06:18as we have for every other episode that you have consumed this year.
2:06:22I would like to give thanks to Pingdom, Encapsula, AppOptics and Smile
2:06:27for their support of this week's show.
2:06:29And you should go and check out query at relay.fm/query
2:06:33and you can listen to Steven and Wren's escapades.
2:06:36I don't think that they talk about 90s murder movies that often on query.
2:06:42Very rarely.
2:06:43Many other, many other, sometimes not that often.
2:06:46Very, very many other enjoyable technical topics can be found there.
2:06:51Thank you so much for listening to the Upgrade Holiday Special.
2:06:54Until next time, which is the Upgradies, which I'm very excited about, as always,
2:07:00the most glitzy award show of the year. The upgrade is you can find on New Year's Day. So
2:07:06happy holidays, happy New Year to you and we'll be back on New Year's Day. Until then,
2:07:11say goodbye everybody. Bye! Merry Christmas! Adios!