31: Velocity Hotels
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Should we just stare into the corner? Should we all come around?
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No, no. We're going now. I feel like we've broken the ice. I'm here. We're in San Francisco.
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We're out here for the Macworld/iWorld.
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The ultimate iFan event.
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The ultimate iFan event. And I'm joined here on this episode by my friends Paul Kvassas
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from Rogue Amoeba and Scott Simpson from the internet.
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That's a way better—yeah. That's way better than my intro.
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And so I feel like the elephant in the room of this thing
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is that Macworld Expo, I still call it Macworld.
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- Yeah, it's just Macworld, that's fine.
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- It's weird and it's getting weirder.
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- I feel like you need to get into Macworld,
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to get onto the show floor,
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you need a really complicated iPad case or a limp.
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Like one of the two things.
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- You cracked that joke yesterday on like a text message.
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And then I was upstairs like on the third floor
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and then I noticed it really are a lot of limps.
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There's a lot of people at this conference
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with leg injuries of some sort.
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- Another way of saying that might be that
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it seems that the overall demographic,
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the overall average age appears to be a little higher
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than it's been in the past.
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I don't know, maybe I just always had a filter on
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because every other year I've worked for Apple
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and have been up here for something or whatever,
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but now as a person who gives zero craps,
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I'm sorry to interrupt. Also, can we swear or do we not swear?
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Yeah, you can let him fly.
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Okay. As a person who gives zero craps.
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I think it skews older. I don't know that I think it's older this year, but Macworld
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in general has always skewed. It's like the mugs and, you know, it's an older generation
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that comes to these things, just in general, I think.
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I thought you were going to say mugs and something that rhymes with mugs, like mugs and uggs.
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No, like the Mac user group, you know.
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Oh, I don't know.
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You worked at Apple.
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Yeah, but I don't know what that stuff is.
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Yeah, and the user group thing, it's so old though.
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It's too old? I'm dating myself here? I'm the youngest one in the room.
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And I don't mean it, you know what, there's probably a lot of people who listen to this show who are still members, active members of a mug.
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But, you know, I think then it's just, you know, you probably just have friends who just still get together and drink or whatever, I don't know.
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But it used to be that you had to join a Mac user group to find somebody else to talk about
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this stuff with because there were only like...
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The 10 of you in that whole town.
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Right, who had a Macintosh computer because in 1988 there was no reason for anybody to
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have a computer.
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Like before the internet, normal people had no reason to own a computer.
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And so is that, so a lot of the folks who come to a Mac world, they come probably from
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that culture.
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Are they meeting up with their pals from other mugs, do you think?
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Or they just, that's how they got into it and that's why they're still here?
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I think some of them come every year and so they probably see some of the same people.
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But I think it's something where why would young people come to this?
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I think that's really the question is what is the draw for young people?
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And they're certainly trying to get – they had Ashton Kutcher on there for his Steve
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Jobs movie, but they had him and Josh Gad as like one of the keynote speeches and they
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had Will.I.Am yesterday as well.
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So it's certainly they're trying to pull in a younger demographic.
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But younger people, you know, you can get this stuff on the web. You can find it plenty
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of places. You don't necessarily have to come to Macworld to get information the way
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that you used to.
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So, I did just to, as a, you know, maybe it's the exception that proves the rule, but I
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was on a panel this afternoon up in the conference thing, and then when it was over, some people
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who read the website or listen to the show came up and introduced themselves, including
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a young man, a high school student named Matthew, and he was very effusive, says he likes my
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I was thrilled that somebody who's younger than me actually reads my site. I'm worried
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to death that I've, you know...
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- That you skew old as well?
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- Yeah, totally.
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- I've noticed your Bieber news going up as in some sort of attempt.
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- And then I asked him, but then I thought, "Oh, hell, it's Friday." I was like, "How
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are you here?" And he goes, "Oh, my dad called me out sick and took me here."
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- And I was like, "Now, that's a great dad. You got a great dad."
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- That's a good dad there, yeah. But it's open tomorrow. He could have been here on...
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if you wanted to be at your panel.
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I don't know that that's why he came and I certainly wasn't going to ask. I don't know.
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But I don't know. It's actually cooler though if your dad is willing to call you out of
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school sick and take you to Macworld. And he was very enthusiastic about it. Really
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seemed excited about the show floor and some of the stuff he saw. So I don't know. I guess
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there's one kid who's young and seemed to really enjoy it.
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Yeah. Well, maybe some of it. I mean, I've enjoyed the couple of shows that I've got
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either the podcast tapings and things like that have been nice and interesting, and that
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seems vital and interesting still.
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So it's like two different things.
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Every year I always make this thing, but there's this conference where there's panels and presentations
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and talks and stuff, and then there's the trade show, the expo, whatever you want to
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And I feel like now it is never more separate, because now they used to have like the Macworld
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stage where Macworld Magazine and that's that whole confusion where there's Macworld
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the Magazine and Macworld the conference in there.
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There's also Macworld the Lady, Macworld the Chocolate, Macworld the Bathtub. There's
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so many Macworlds, it's so confusing.
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Right. And some of them capitalize the W. Some of them don't. And they all get very
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Which, however you screw it up.
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Yeah, I flew into Macworld International once. It was supposed to be in Nevada, New Hampshire.
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Wrong. The W was tall and not tiny.
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But I did speak to somebody today, like I was on the show floor a little bit, and I
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was talking to somebody, and I, you know, I'm not going to say who, but I knew them,
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and, you know, and I said, "Just tell me the honest truth. Do you think it's, how do you
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think it's doing?" And he was like, "Eh, so-so." But he thought that year over year that it
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really has made a difference that that Macworld stage isn't there anymore, because people
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would come through, you had to go through the expo to get to the stage.
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Right. And this is the first year they moved that stage outside of the expo hall.
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Right. And so it actually makes the actual presentations on that stage way better, because
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it used to be like this acoustic nightmare where nobody could hear anything. And you
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get up there and you're doing a panel and you're 30 seconds into it and three people
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are shouting, "I can't hear you!" And then they…
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Well, and half the audience was asleep because they were just there looking for a place to
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That was also very true. That's no exaggeration. Every time I've ever spoken at Macworld,
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there are like older gentlemen sleeping in chairs.
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Yeah, like maybe there's a nose pick going on, there's an ear hair trim.
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And it's, you know, it's never to me high pressure public speaking.
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Panels are easier than doing talks and, you know, you just have to be clever for 30 seconds
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here and there.
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But it is, no matter how relaxed you are, it is very unsettling to see somebody sleeping
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in your audience.
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So this is better because you got to climb a set of stairs to get there in the first
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But did you guys notice, did you guys walk to floor? There is, though, a lot of seating.
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It seems like they maybe didn't sell out the entire show floor, and so they put in
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Some seating?
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Some couches and stuff.
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I feel like the floor was pretty full. I think compared to last year or the year before,
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I feel it's pretty similar. I mean, I don't know what the numbers are, but I definitely
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did notice some benches in various areas, which it's probably a good thing. It makes
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cruising the floor a little easier.
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Paul, do you guys have a booth this year?
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No, we've always done the even number of years.
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So the odd number of years, 2013, I just get to come out here and screw around.
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That's great.
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I've always wondered, how do you measure the return on investment and do you feel like
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you can effectively measure that given that so much of it presumably is kind of a branding
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It seems like probably a difficult decision given some of the costs involved.
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I mean, the simplest thing we do to try and measure a little bit of the return is just
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hand out a coupon of some sort, and we can track that coupon.
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But in general, no, it's not something where you're going to—even if you're selling
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on the show floor, I guess that would be the easiest way.
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If you're selling a hardware product especially, like the Cosmonaut guys are there, the Aloclip
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guys are there.
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And if they're selling a physical product and they sell, you know, a thousand units
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and it's 50 bucks each and it costs them 40 grand to be there, then they just made
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10 grand and you can see we made money on this.
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But yeah, certainly for us, it's not—branding is—you're not wrong to use the word branding,
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but it's not something where we're like Coke just trying to get our name out there.
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But it's—you know, somebody hears about us and six months later they realize they
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And they say, "Oh, right.
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I heard about something like that when I was at Macworld.
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Let me look it up."
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And you know, we have no way of tracking that sale.
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That sale's not going to come back through our coupon or through any other system.
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It's just hopefully we'll get that sale eventually.
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But I think there's a lot of intangibles to exhibiting where just having the face-to-face
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interaction with customers is super valuable and just things that—it's not just related
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That's a good point.
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You guys have stuck to—I don't know if it's completely accurate, but every other
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Is that like your official—
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It's 2004, '06, '08, '10, and '12.
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And that's always been your strategy?
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It sort of happened organically.
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It just happened then.
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We skipped '05.
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And maybe at '08, we were like, "All right.
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Let's just maybe do the even number of years," because it's cheaper and it's a whole
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lot of work and especially for—we're a 10-person company. It's not—when—I
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don't know, HP has a huge booth, but they've got 10,000 employees around the world. 20,000
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employees, they send 20 people here. It's not a big deal to them. For us, it's pretty
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much almost the whole company is there and we're shut down for several days. So it's
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a much bigger endeavor for us to undertake.
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I saw the HP booth. It seems like they're—most places, they go t-shirt. Everybody wears like
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to come into the HP went with like a blue Oxford shirt. So they all sort of look like
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they worked at Blockbuster.
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Tim Cynova Wait, a polo or a button down?
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Tim Cynova No, like a button down Oxford, like a light
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blue. I mean, I actually, I'm not putting that shirt down. I actually have light blue
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Oxford shirts.
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Tim Cynova He's wearing one right now.
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Tim Cynova Yeah, I'm sure. It's gray, but it gave it
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like a Blockbuster. I don't know. Maybe I'm just dating myself by remembering Blockbuster.
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Tim Cynova Yeah, I was going to say, what's a Blockbuster?
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The thing, you know, you guys have nice polos that work well and you want to have some,
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you want people to be dressed the same way.
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Yeah, you need a little bit of uniform so people know these are the people I should
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Right, right. The thing that I feel like is there are certain cliches of the show floor.
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The one that gets me the most that I dislike the most is the lab coat. Like, we're in
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science right now and you should that's why you should buy our backup system or
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whatever it is you know well I think does drive savers do that I think yeah
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well they have like clean rooms where they're actually probably using like
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that's like that the show floor is not well you're I get where they're going
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you're right I get it right yeah and a variant on the scientist is the doctor
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the doc yeah and maybe that's even what they do because maybe drive saver I
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mean it's like a first aid sort of thing yeah but either way it's the same coat
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it's right. You know, right, right. You just you buy a lab coat and that's your uniform.
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Right. Whether you're a doctor or not. You ever have a doctor that didn't wear a lab
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coat? No, you don't trust it. You can't trust that. They don't have the 40 bucks to buy
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a lab coat. It's a great point. You need their uniform is a big part of the authority. It's
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the making you wait and the lab coat. That's it. It is the making you wait. Oh, God, I
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love a doctor's office. Here's I wonder about this all the time. And you guys are the perfect
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two people to ask this question of.
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So when you go to a doctor's office,
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obviously you have to wait for 10 to 45 minutes.
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How much rifling through the drawers do you do?
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'Cause I, the dam broke for me one day.
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I was like, well fuck this.
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I got, I got, you know,
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here are the two things that can happen, right?
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Either I go through the drawers
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and the doctor catches me going through the drawers,
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which means they come in early.
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Like this is sort of a Murphy's Law thing.
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- And they didn't knock?
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- Yeah, they just come in.
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Yeah, no, they got a knock.
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Yeah, they got a knock. They got a knock. So that will give me time and that will hopefully,
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you know, hasten their arrival. But if not, you know, I got lifetime of tongue depressors.
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Yeah, absolutely. You walk out of there with a backpack with cotton swabs.
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Yeah, I got swabs up the, you know, where swabs go.
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I rifle. I'll admit it. I rifle. I'm with you.
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You're a rifler.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Oh, I would have guessed both of you to be cold back and play, you know, that dumb word
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Yeah, that's exactly. I just sit there like that.
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You're on the phone?
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Although the last couple of doctors I've had to go to…
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I've got no reception, I feel like.
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They got lead-lined walls or something.
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Oh, I've had that problem where the doctors I've gone to have…
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They're in like Faraday cages.
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I get that mysterious circle next to the word Verizon.
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It's a circle.
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You know what it means, but your phone doesn't work.
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It means you're fucked.
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It's like, "We're not even going to try."
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It's like the phone is giving up trying to get an internet connection.
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No, but when I had the thing with the finger last year and I had to go to a specialist
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to have some surgery to repair a ligament that I severed. But with this doctor, and
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he's a great doctor.
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Tim Cynova John just entered a four-second fugue state.
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Well, just thinking about it makes me very sad about the terrible injury.
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But you're all right now.
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I'm all right.
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And the guy was a great surgeon and you guys can vouch that my finger, which I could move
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at all—a year ago at Macworld, couldn't move at all and now it's great.
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Whenever I met him though, it was a very nice waiting room, sort of almost like a—
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Like a spa kind of thing?
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Yeah, like an old hotel.
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In fact, I think it maybe used to be an old hotel.
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But then they would call me and I'd go into a little room and—
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Was this a doctor?
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Was this an actual doctor?
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- That's a hand and arm specialist.
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- Okay, alright.
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- Hands, shoulders, and elbows or something.
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- That is not a type of doctor.
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- Head, shoulders, knees, and toes doctor, come on.
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- A very nice waiting room.
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It was a very nice waiting room.
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It's just like I said, like an old hotel lobby.
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And then when they would call me,
00:13:56
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►
I'd go into a very small room, totally white, very small,
00:14:00
◼
►
and there'd be a table, and I would come in.
00:14:02
◼
►
There are two doors to get in the room.
00:14:04
◼
►
One from this waiting room.
00:14:06
◼
►
You just go right in, there's no hallway.
00:14:08
◼
►
You go right from the waiting room into a room, and they were all—these rooms were
00:14:12
◼
►
all around the perimeter.
00:14:13
◼
►
So the waiting room is central, and there's eight doors.
00:14:18
◼
►
And they would say, "You go to door six."
00:14:20
◼
►
And I would go into door six, and there was nothing to rifle through.
00:14:23
◼
►
It was just a white room with a table.
00:14:25
◼
►
Did they lead you somewhere else after this?
00:14:27
◼
►
Did you just put your hand on the table?
00:14:28
◼
►
Then the doctor would come in through the other door.
00:14:32
◼
►
He had a central chamber that could get to all of them?
00:14:34
◼
►
Like a hallway that went around through them.
00:14:37
◼
►
And I almost now I'm thinking maybe it's like an anti-rifling.
00:14:41
◼
►
It's possible.
00:14:42
◼
►
Maybe that's a problem.
00:14:43
◼
►
I mean, I always felt a real implicit social pressure, obviously, not to go through.
00:14:48
◼
►
And I don't steal things.
00:14:49
◼
►
So you give it a little bit of time.
00:14:50
◼
►
And, you know, if they take more than about 30, 45 seconds, then you're allowed to do
00:14:54
◼
►
Right, then it's their fault.
00:14:55
◼
►
And then last week, and just last week is when you bring it up, I was at the eye doctor.
00:15:00
◼
►
And I have a family history of glaucoma and stuff.
00:15:05
◼
►
So I go to a real, what do you call them?
00:15:07
◼
►
Ophthalmologist. - Ophthalmologist.
00:15:09
◼
►
- And they do these tests on the pressure
00:15:12
◼
►
of my eyeballs and stuff.
00:15:13
◼
►
So I don't get to just go in and read the eye chart
00:15:16
◼
►
and get a new prescription and go out.
00:15:18
◼
►
But there were like three or four different tests
00:15:19
◼
►
I had to have.
00:15:20
◼
►
And in between each test, they'd make me wait 15 minutes.
00:15:24
◼
►
But every time, they would take me back out
00:15:26
◼
►
to the waiting room.
00:15:27
◼
►
They wouldn't let me sit in the room,
00:15:29
◼
►
even though they were doing the tests in the same room.
00:15:31
◼
►
And now, in hindsight, I'm convinced it's anti-rifling.
00:15:34
◼
►
Interesting, yeah. That makes sense.
00:15:37
◼
►
It sounds like something in your chart indicates you were a past rifler.
00:15:40
◼
►
You've got a red star in the operating corner.
00:15:43
◼
►
No, because the hand place, everybody had to do it. Everybody went into these little,
00:15:48
◼
►
like, I don't know what you want to call them. They're almost like, they weren't even like
00:15:52
◼
►
Sounds like an interrogation room, really.
00:15:53
◼
►
Yeah, it sounds like a stall. Sounds like veal.
00:15:55
◼
►
No, and it is, an interrogation room is what I thought. It seemed like something like the
00:16:00
◼
►
cops come in and talk to you across the table.
00:16:02
◼
►
Right, and they come in through a different door.
00:16:06
◼
►
Was there a very large mirror along one wall?
00:16:08
◼
►
No, but it really – it seemed like it would have been appropriate.
00:16:14
◼
►
Interesting.
00:16:15
◼
►
And that's where the chief is in there.
00:16:18
◼
►
Tell me how guilty I am.
00:16:19
◼
►
Do you guys ever eat at Backworld Expo?
00:16:22
◼
►
Like, when you're – like, now, a normal person like us who just walks in and sees
00:16:27
◼
►
what's new, then we leave to go.
00:16:28
◼
►
But, like, when – Paul, like, when you're –
00:16:30
◼
►
Oh, when we're exhibiting?
00:16:31
◼
►
Do you get the food?
00:16:33
◼
►
Well, there's like something in the back of the expo hall that's atrocious and exorbitantly
00:16:43
◼
►
expensive because you're trapped there. So, I'm sure I've eaten something there.
00:16:48
◼
►
I don't remember it. I probably blacked it out, but I wouldn't recommend it. There's
00:16:52
◼
►
plenty of good places right outside the expo hall if you can get there.
00:16:55
◼
►
Boy, I tell you… May I? May I? I'm not a political person and I don't have strong
00:17:02
◼
►
feelings about unions. I feel like they're really good about certain things and not so
00:17:05
◼
►
great about others. But as a person who's been involved with conferences more on the
00:17:10
◼
►
book side, like in publishing, oh boy, just the nonsense of conferences and how, you know,
00:17:17
◼
►
for the carpentry stuff, you have to talk to Bob.
00:17:19
◼
►
Oh, you're talking to half a dozen different people.
00:17:21
◼
►
And you absolutely can't talk to Randy, who doesn't talk to Susan, and the concessions
00:17:25
◼
►
are all a part of it. And it's a nightmare. It's expensive. Yuck.
00:17:30
◼
►
- Yeah, and I feel like, you know,
00:17:32
◼
►
and it's, you gotta talk to Joe, the internet guy,
00:17:35
◼
►
to have an internet connection at your booth,
00:17:36
◼
►
but he doesn't do wifi.
00:17:38
◼
►
- Yeah, and also, you can't bring your own trash can.
00:17:40
◼
►
If you don't want a trash can,
00:17:41
◼
►
you have to get the trash can guy,
00:17:42
◼
►
and then if you want a trash can liner,
00:17:44
◼
►
you gotta talk to a totally separate guy
00:17:46
◼
►
who's in Delaware right now.
00:17:48
◼
►
- All of that is a hassle, though, for the exhibitors,
00:17:51
◼
►
right, where, you know, you can't have a trash can,
00:17:54
◼
►
you can't set up your own internet,
00:17:55
◼
►
you can't get the cable underneath the carpet,
00:17:59
◼
►
you've got to have the carpet guy come and put the cable in.
00:18:01
◼
►
- There's two separate guys, yeah.
00:18:03
◼
►
- The food thing, though, is where the unionized
00:18:07
◼
►
restrictions and this is all we can offer,
00:18:09
◼
►
it really affects everybody.
00:18:11
◼
►
Because-- - If you're at the show
00:18:12
◼
►
and you don't want to leave the show, yeah.
00:18:13
◼
►
- Right, and somehow, as the decades go on,
00:18:16
◼
►
it spiraled out of control, and now it's like prison food.
00:18:22
◼
►
'Cause I noticed today when I was going through,
00:18:24
◼
►
I did notice, and I was going through what I believe
00:18:27
◼
►
would be prime lunchtime.
00:18:28
◼
►
know, it was like sometime around one, and there was nobody getting food. I mean, and
00:18:34
◼
►
you know, and there was a lot of people in this expo, you know, it seemed pretty busy,
00:18:38
◼
►
I think that's our, you know, the consensus, and there was nobody back there. It's just
00:18:41
◼
►
like these lunch ladies, you know, ready to serve people and nobody in line. And it really
00:18:46
◼
►
kind of smelled bad.
00:18:49
◼
►
Nobody pays for prison food.
00:18:51
◼
►
And here they're trying to get you to do just that.
00:18:52
◼
►
Yeah, it's really, I mean, it's the – convention food is on the same trajectory as food that
00:19:01
◼
►
was available in the Soviet Union in the 80s. Like, it's centrally planned. They have
00:19:05
◼
►
no incentive to make good stuff.
00:19:07
◼
►
It's part newspaper.
00:19:08
◼
►
It's part newspaper. There are, you know, ladies with rugged waistlines and no, you
00:19:17
◼
►
know, no smiles. You have a rugged waistline?
00:19:19
◼
►
No, see, I don't—I think you're unfairly criticizing the lunch ladies. I think they're
00:19:24
◼
►
fine. I think it's just the food.
00:19:25
◼
►
Oh, yeah? All right, fair enough. I mean—
00:19:26
◼
►
I think they're just working.
00:19:28
◼
►
I think it's really the food.
00:19:29
◼
►
Yeah, all right.
00:19:30
◼
►
But they definitely have no incentive to make it any good because—
00:19:32
◼
►
Yeah, and I feel like in a hypothetical world where you could do this and you could reset
00:19:37
◼
►
the food contracts at Moscone back to zero and just say, "Look, all of these rules,
00:19:44
◼
►
whatever—whoever's already got these concessions, get rid of them. We're going to start all
00:19:47
◼
►
all over from scratch. It's probably not gonna be great food.
00:19:50
◼
►
- It'll be like a ballpark, right?
00:19:52
◼
►
- It'll probably be like a ballpark.
00:19:53
◼
►
Like you'll get some garlic fries
00:19:54
◼
►
and some clam baker dips and stuff.
00:19:58
◼
►
- But yeah, I think that's a good analogy.
00:20:00
◼
►
You know, the hot dog you get at the ballpark is not great.
00:20:04
◼
►
But it's a hot dog and it's good and it's at least hot.
00:20:08
◼
►
- Yeah, you have options. You have options.
00:20:10
◼
►
What would you?
00:20:11
◼
►
Oh guys, I think about this so much.
00:20:13
◼
►
You know, you're too smart, guys.
00:20:16
◼
►
I would, it would be so exciting to go into business with you too. You know, just in like
00:20:23
◼
►
to build a restaurant with both of you would I think be delightful. So if you're ever
00:20:28
◼
►
in the market to do a food concession, maybe a food truck, we could do a truck. Wouldn't
00:20:32
◼
►
take too much time. I have all the time in the world. I have no job.
00:20:36
◼
►
Do you have the truck?
00:20:37
◼
►
I have no truck.
00:20:40
◼
►
Yeah. What about food truck minus the truck, just the food? Call it a food. It's a food.
00:20:46
◼
►
you just bring it places? I guess so. Food bike? Food trucks, it seems like that's
00:20:51
◼
►
a new hipster thing. I noticed that there's a food truck now in the Mint Plaza where Blue
00:21:01
◼
►
Bottle is. There's a food truck there. They used to be super low-end. It was hard-working
00:21:09
◼
►
immigrants. I often think about the people who work in a food truck or a cart even. Some
00:21:17
◼
►
of them don't even have a truck in Philadelphia. It's just a cart. You're standing in a
00:21:22
◼
►
little—you've got maybe two square feet of space, no seat. You're standing all day.
00:21:27
◼
►
David Buehler Yep. Cooking food, greasing.
00:21:30
◼
►
Dave: Right. Often, they have a remarkable variety of food available for something that
00:21:35
◼
►
making in a little cart. But now I feel like it's jumped and now it's gone to like…
00:21:40
◼
►
It's gourmet. It's…
00:21:42
◼
►
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think they started out… Probably the most popular food trucks
00:21:45
◼
►
were, you know, construction sites, things like that, where they're just driving there,
00:21:48
◼
►
they're going to grill you up some burgers and that's it. And the first place I saw
00:21:52
◼
►
one though was using Twitter. That was their big deal was they were some like sort of little
00:21:56
◼
►
upscale burger thing, but it was like, "We're going to be at this street…"
00:21:59
◼
►
Right. Twitter made it easy.
00:22:01
◼
►
Right. It was a way to find where the truck was going to be.
00:22:04
◼
►
Right, right.
00:22:05
◼
►
And then, I don't know if that helped exploded or what, but that's where I first saw them
00:22:09
◼
►
was using Twitter, using the internet to move around town and not need to get a standalone
00:22:16
◼
►
restaurant and the permits that that requires.
00:22:18
◼
►
Gee whiz, I can't remember the name of it now, but there's a cluster of food trucks
00:22:22
◼
►
in San Francisco.
00:22:23
◼
►
What are they called?
00:22:24
◼
►
They're named, I'll think of it later, but it's a bunch and they all kind of rove
00:22:27
◼
►
to one place and then they all set up there.
00:22:32
◼
►
a festival of fun and they're coming down
00:22:34
◼
►
out of San Francisco and yeah, it's great for food options.
00:22:39
◼
►
As long as you're on board with funny puns.
00:22:44
◼
►
- Oh yeah, gotta have a pun.
00:22:45
◼
►
- One of the most popular food trucks here,
00:22:47
◼
►
I think still is Chairman Bao.
00:22:48
◼
►
You have to have definitely some sort of surprising fusion.
00:22:55
◼
►
Like fish meets sand.
00:22:58
◼
►
Like sand fish.
00:23:00
◼
►
or, you know, banh mi, like creme brulee in a banh mi.
00:23:04
◼
►
- When I was at Drexel University,
00:23:08
◼
►
Drexel had a, I don't know if they still do or not.
00:23:10
◼
►
- Oh, did they have the Chinese food truck?
00:23:12
◼
►
- No, they had, we had a whole street
00:23:15
◼
►
right in the middle of campus, like a little side street,
00:23:17
◼
►
where it was every day, all day, you know,
00:23:20
◼
►
it was just from one end of the corner to the other,
00:23:23
◼
►
all food cart, or trucks, trucks and carts.
00:23:25
◼
►
And it was almost like a food court you could go to,
00:23:28
◼
►
you could get anything, you know, there was one,
00:23:29
◼
►
It was like an Italian family and they made good meatball sandwiches.
00:23:33
◼
►
Was it near Penn though?
00:23:34
◼
►
Was it near like…
00:23:37
◼
►
No, it wasn't that close.
00:23:38
◼
►
Well, I remember one.
00:23:39
◼
►
I was at Penn for a summer and they had a Chinese food truck and it was Y-U-K space
00:23:45
◼
►
K-E-E apostrophe S. It was Yucky's Chinese Food, which was the worst possible name I
00:23:52
◼
►
could think of.
00:23:53
◼
►
So, you had complete variety though?
00:23:57
◼
►
it was like, "Do you want a meatball sandwich or do you want a cheesesteak?" And everybody
00:24:01
◼
►
had soft pretzels.
00:24:02
◼
►
But you got to know the people though. And that was part of the thing. And I wish—I
00:24:07
◼
►
was always curious about such things but never—I don't know. I wouldn't ask. Whereas now,
00:24:12
◼
►
I would ask. And I'm curious like—because they always had the exact same spot. Like
00:24:18
◼
►
Tim Cynova—Oh, they lined up the same way?
00:24:19
◼
►
Justin Perdue—There might have been—I would say there were eight or nine trucks
00:24:21
◼
►
and they were always in the same spots. Never, never, never ever changed. And I always—you
00:24:25
◼
►
There's no—surely there's no legal right to have that.
00:24:29
◼
►
Well, now that the cities are licensing where they can park and I know Boston has like—this
00:24:35
◼
►
is food truck parking and I think maybe they agree within each other amongst themselves,
00:24:41
◼
►
"You'll park here, I'll park here."
00:24:43
◼
►
Also the local chambers of commerce tend to be against them because they compete directly
00:24:48
◼
►
with existing businesses that pay things like rent and taxes to the neighborhood and I'm
00:24:53
◼
►
that food trucks don't have to pay tax to the place in which they're parked. I really
00:24:57
◼
►
don't know how that works.
00:24:59
◼
►
I don't think so.
00:25:00
◼
►
They must have permits or something though. So...
00:25:01
◼
►
Yeah, they must have... Yeah, that's true.
00:25:02
◼
►
That's where you get your money from, I would think.
00:25:03
◼
►
That's true. But I don't... I think those chambers of commerce tend to dislike the existence
00:25:08
◼
►
of those food trucks because they'll be gone tomorrow and they'll just have stolen your,
00:25:13
◼
►
Like gypsies.
00:25:14
◼
►
...25 lunches. Like gypsies.
00:25:15
◼
►
Well, it does... Part of it, the fact that it's a business on wheels. If you think about
00:25:21
◼
►
It's very fly-by-night.
00:25:22
◼
►
to it. But I remember when I first got to Drexel and first encountered them, and I just
00:25:25
◼
►
thought, "Well, this is really weird having food that's made in a moving vehicle."
00:25:31
◼
►
That they could, like, if something goes bad, if, you know…
00:25:34
◼
►
If they kill some people with some food poisoning or something, they could just drive right
00:25:37
◼
►
out of town.
00:25:38
◼
►
Right. They're gone.
00:25:39
◼
►
Here's the problem. Here's the problem. The problem is then it becomes a thing that
00:25:41
◼
►
everybody gets super excited about. Like, I can only eat out of a truck because that's
00:25:45
◼
►
just what we do now. Wait. Where did you get the steak? From a regular kitchen. That's
00:25:50
◼
►
It's a terrible idea.
00:25:51
◼
►
The place in San Francisco that I do recommend that it's on Facebook and Twitter, it's
00:25:56
◼
►
called Off the Grid and it's just that roving band of food trucks that's delicious and
00:26:01
◼
►
And they're on Facebook and Twitter?
00:26:03
◼
►
You tell me.
00:26:04
◼
►
Well, no, but it's called Off the Grid?
00:26:06
◼
►
I think it's called Off the Grid.
00:26:08
◼
►
I have to go to SF for something.
00:26:10
◼
►
And the other thing, it's like random reminiscing, but there was a genius guy when I was at Drexel.
00:26:19
◼
►
His name was, it's what we called him,
00:26:22
◼
►
and it was the name of his truck, Taco Lou.
00:26:27
◼
►
- Now do you think he got the nickname before the truck?
00:26:29
◼
►
- Well, I don't know, but it just,
00:26:31
◼
►
the truck said Taco Lou's.
00:26:34
◼
►
And like all the other trucks, he served lunch,
00:26:37
◼
►
breakfast to lunch, daytime hours.
00:26:40
◼
►
And then you could eat at three or four in the afternoon,
00:26:43
◼
►
but they were starting to put stuff away.
00:26:44
◼
►
Taco Lou's genius idea was,
00:26:47
◼
►
He started parking his truck up by the fraternities on Friday and Saturday night.
00:26:54
◼
►
All of a sudden, at midnight, he'd open back up.
00:27:00
◼
►
And again, hardworking guy.
00:27:02
◼
►
There's a guy who spent all day Friday serving people lunch tacos.
00:27:05
◼
►
I guess maybe he went somewhere and took a nap and then started.
00:27:10
◼
►
And the drunk taco line was just unbelievable.
00:27:14
◼
►
I don't think I ever even got one because it was like nobody goes there. It's too
00:27:19
◼
►
busy. It was crazy. We all thought like, "Well, Taco Lou is a genius." We thought
00:27:27
◼
►
that he should jack the prices up.
00:27:31
◼
►
At 2 a.m. or midnight.
00:27:32
◼
►
Yeah. It's still like $20 tacos. But he didn't. He had the same prices he had during
00:27:37
◼
►
He's a good man, Taco Lou.
00:27:39
◼
►
Let's find him. Surely he's living in a palatial mansion today. Let's go find him and ask him.
00:27:47
◼
►
Maybe we'll get an audience.
00:27:49
◼
►
I'm just pouring myself some more bourbon. You guys didn't comment on how I elegantly took my sweater off.
00:27:54
◼
►
Well I didn't know if we wanted to talk about your... I don't know what to call that.
00:27:58
◼
►
I just call it Hootie and the Blowfish rhythm guitar player.
00:28:01
◼
►
It looks like you could be at a ranch.
00:28:04
◼
►
Super gay ranch.
00:28:06
◼
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- Scott, I like to roll my sleeves up.
00:28:09
◼
►
Do you like the button on the elbow where you can--
00:28:13
◼
►
- That's a great question, Jon.
00:28:14
◼
►
That's a great question.
00:28:15
◼
►
I do like an elbow button, but I often feel like
00:28:18
◼
►
that mandates how far I'm supposed to take it up.
00:28:20
◼
►
And you know what?
00:28:21
◼
►
- Maybe you wanna show off the biceps.
00:28:22
◼
►
- Yeah, you know what?
00:28:23
◼
►
That's true, although to be fair, I have two arms,
00:28:27
◼
►
but just they share a bicep.
00:28:29
◼
►
- Maybe you wanna show off the bicep.
00:28:30
◼
►
- Thank you.
00:28:31
◼
►
They're innies.
00:28:33
◼
►
Yeah, so there's three types of button-down shirts that you can roll up. There's the one
00:28:37
◼
►
that doesn't have any sort of aid. There's ones that have a button.
00:28:41
◼
►
Oh, a little bit above the cuff.
00:28:43
◼
►
A little bit above the cuff. And then there's the ones that have a strap. You ever see that?
00:28:47
◼
►
Sure, sure. Yeah, I own a couple of those.
00:28:50
◼
►
I don't care for the ones with the strap.
00:28:51
◼
►
You know, honestly, we should just say that no conversation about clothes should take
00:28:56
◼
►
place in the presence of Paul Kefauzis.
00:28:59
◼
►
Well, and I say this with love, you're the master of the functional wardrobe.
00:29:08
◼
►
We've had conversations about those crazy toe shoes.
00:29:12
◼
►
I run in those.
00:29:13
◼
►
I don't wear those.
00:29:14
◼
►
Let's be clear.
00:29:15
◼
►
I saw some people at the show wearing those.
00:29:16
◼
►
I'm not wearing those on a day-to-day basis.
00:29:18
◼
►
Have you seen the formal ones?
00:29:20
◼
►
Have you seen the leather ones that they make?
00:29:21
◼
►
They make leather ones.
00:29:22
◼
►
Do they really?
00:29:23
◼
►
Yeah, that's not a joke.
00:29:24
◼
►
Like to wear to prom?
00:29:25
◼
►
Like to wear to dinner, you know, with your…
00:29:27
◼
►
I don't know, you don't have a wife obviously if you're wearing those shoes.
00:29:31
◼
►
By yourself, I don't know, on a date, I don't know.
00:29:33
◼
►
But yeah, they have fancy leather ones.
00:29:36
◼
►
But we've had conversation about the zip-off pants.
00:29:40
◼
►
Super functional.
00:29:41
◼
►
So yeah, I say, you know, I think...
00:29:42
◼
►
I've got button-down shirts.
00:29:44
◼
►
I can rock a button-down shirt.
00:29:46
◼
►
I've seen you dress up and you're very handsome when you dress up.
00:29:49
◼
►
I just choose not to.
00:29:51
◼
►
Fair enough.
00:29:53
◼
►
I feel those, the shoes with the toes.
00:29:57
◼
►
It was a clever idea. They must be very comfortable, I guess, for some people. Some people must
00:30:04
◼
►
find them very comfortable. But it's one of those things that seemingly has very quickly
00:30:09
◼
►
become a religion. And I think that's why they might be—I was not aware that they're
00:30:14
◼
►
making dresser leather ones, but I believe that it's because the people who get into
00:30:18
◼
►
it self-identify now as—
00:30:20
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:21
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:22
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:23
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:24
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:25
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:26
◼
►
Tim Cynova, Jr. "Toeshoe people?"
00:30:27
◼
►
sporting equipment.
00:30:29
◼
►
The same way you have bowling shoes.
00:30:31
◼
►
And I'm wearing bowling shoes right now.
00:30:33
◼
►
But, you know, if I see you in a gym with the five-finger shoes or whatever they're
00:30:36
◼
►
called, okay, fine.
00:30:37
◼
►
I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to punch you in the nose.
00:30:41
◼
►
But you know, if we're out at the steakhouse and you've got the patent leather five-finger
00:30:47
◼
►
Is it just my experience or do you guys find that the toe shoe people want to tell you
00:30:53
◼
►
about their toe shoes?
00:30:54
◼
►
- A lot of excitement in the TSC,
00:30:57
◼
►
or the TOSU community, it's true.
00:30:59
◼
►
- They want you to try them,
00:31:01
◼
►
and they're not gonna take no for an answer.
00:31:03
◼
►
- Well actually, I think about this a lot.
00:31:06
◼
►
You know, I have certain things in my life
00:31:07
◼
►
that I will proselytize, right?
00:31:10
◼
►
A lot of people feel this way about Apple, of course.
00:31:14
◼
►
I have, I think, well certainly the one thing
00:31:17
◼
►
that I will talk up and down all day
00:31:20
◼
►
is the Tempur-Pedic mattress.
00:31:22
◼
►
love a Tempur-Pedic mattress.
00:31:24
◼
►
Scott Benner 0 The talk show this week is sponsored by Tempur-Pedic.
00:31:37
◼
►
the mattress, or I'll let you sleep in my bed for a night. And yes, I will have sex
00:31:41
◼
►
with you. But that's basically—let's call that like a tip, right? Like, I'm changing
00:31:48
◼
►
I have to admit, you've got me here, Scott, because I'm not—you really are a—
00:31:54
◼
►
Yeah, that's true. I really am.
00:31:55
◼
►
This is actually true. It's not just a bit.
00:31:56
◼
►
It's looking at us like we're idiots for not having them.
00:32:01
◼
►
I want to know—this, to me, now we've finally found what this episode is about. Tell
00:32:06
◼
►
- Right, no, tell me about it.
00:32:07
◼
►
Is Tempur-Pedic a brand or?
00:32:09
◼
►
- It's a brand and I think it's also the sort of the parent,
00:32:13
◼
►
like the generic version is memory foam, right?
00:32:16
◼
►
So it's instead of a spring,
00:32:18
◼
►
you just sleep on a giant slab of memory foam.
00:32:21
◼
►
And I would never have switched over
00:32:24
◼
►
to this kind of mattress if I hadn't been,
00:32:26
◼
►
my wife and I were house sitting for friends of ours.
00:32:30
◼
►
- And you slept in their bed?
00:32:31
◼
►
- And we slept in their bed.
00:32:32
◼
►
- Oh, like you do.
00:32:33
◼
►
We slept all over the, up and down the bed.
00:32:36
◼
►
I don't know what that means.
00:32:38
◼
►
We, so you lay down in it, and it's this very strange
00:32:43
◼
►
sort of like--
00:32:45
◼
►
- You sink a little bit.
00:32:46
◼
►
- You sink a little, you make sort of an impression.
00:32:47
◼
►
It doesn't push back, you push into it.
00:32:50
◼
►
And I leaned back and I thought,
00:32:52
◼
►
well this is a really strange.
00:32:55
◼
►
And then I woke up 10 hours later feeling wonderful.
00:33:00
◼
►
And let me tell you another thing about it that's amazing.
00:33:03
◼
►
As a person who, now my job involves going out at night
00:33:06
◼
►
and then robbing people of their money
00:33:08
◼
►
and then coming home late.
00:33:10
◼
►
And so I will come home at 1 a.m.
00:33:13
◼
►
and my wife will be long asleep.
00:33:14
◼
►
The beauty of the Tempur-Pedic,
00:33:16
◼
►
you've presumably seen that commercial
00:33:17
◼
►
with the bowling ball and the glass of wine.
00:33:19
◼
►
Do you know how handy that comes in?
00:33:22
◼
►
when your spouse is already asleep and you're just trying to pass out bed next to you.
00:33:29
◼
►
Now are you a Tempur-Pedic specific? Because I have a memory foam mattress, but it's not Tempur-Pedic.
00:33:34
◼
►
Well, I don't know. I think is it 100% or is it…
00:33:37
◼
►
No, it's not the pillow top. It's the whole thing.
00:33:40
◼
►
I don't know. I don't know what the difference is or if there's…
00:33:43
◼
►
I've certainly become a brand…
00:33:45
◼
►
Okay, you're a loyalist.
00:33:46
◼
►
- You're a loyalist.
00:33:47
◼
►
- Loyalist only because the weird thing about beds
00:33:50
◼
►
is how often do you sleep in other beds
00:33:52
◼
►
except in a hotel and then you don't know what it is.
00:33:55
◼
►
- And it's a big investment.
00:33:57
◼
►
I mean, they're like--
00:33:58
◼
►
- Yeah, it's like $1,200 or something.
00:34:01
◼
►
- $1,200, $2,000, yeah.
00:34:02
◼
►
- Yeah, and then I see that this is one of those things
00:34:04
◼
►
where I, you know, I love to sleep.
00:34:07
◼
►
God, I love to sleep.
00:34:08
◼
►
- You gotta give it a shot, and I think there are even like,
00:34:10
◼
►
I think there's even a way to like--
00:34:12
◼
►
- I think they've got like a 30-day--
00:34:13
◼
►
- Take it for a test drive kind of thing.
00:34:14
◼
►
- Yeah, which is weird.
00:34:15
◼
►
Oh, it's gross. I hope I didn't get a…
00:34:16
◼
►
I think you'd get the used one.
00:34:18
◼
►
I hope I didn't get… Or maybe like a thrice used one.
00:34:21
◼
►
Right. Right. Like when your 30-day thing is over and you're like, "Well, it's
00:34:26
◼
►
great. I'm in. I'm going to just buy it. I'm sold." And they're like, "Well,
00:34:29
◼
►
we'll send you a new one."
00:34:30
◼
►
Yeah. You got to send that one back for sterilizing.
00:34:32
◼
►
Oh, yeah. You don't want to keep that one. That one is not the one you want to sleep
00:34:35
◼
►
in for more than 30… We're actually legally not allowed to let you sleep in that for more
00:34:38
◼
►
than 29 nights.
00:34:39
◼
►
That's right. FDA mandated, right.
00:34:41
◼
►
We have to show up. It's not a cost thing. We're not being cheap. It's just ringworm.
00:34:45
◼
►
Now the problem I found with the mattress though is I lost some weight and the mattress
00:34:51
◼
►
shapes itself to your body.
00:34:53
◼
►
Interesting.
00:34:54
◼
►
And so, if you lose a good amount of weight, you're just going to sink into that bed.
00:34:58
◼
►
Interesting.
00:34:59
◼
►
Yeah, I haven't had that problem.
00:35:00
◼
►
I've been consistently gaining weight for 14 years.
00:35:03
◼
►
So that's working for you then.
00:35:04
◼
►
That's good.
00:35:05
◼
►
That's good.
00:35:06
◼
►
So it doesn't—see, now, you see, I assumed that once I woke up—
00:35:09
◼
►
No, it springs back.
00:35:11
◼
►
But it has some—
00:35:13
◼
►
Well, that may actually be the difference between the Tempur-Pedic and other versions.
00:35:17
◼
►
I have a lesser mattress.
00:35:18
◼
►
I don't know. In all honesty, I don't know if they don't last as long. We flip ours
00:35:24
◼
►
every six months or something. I really do. Like, again, that was the first thing I thought
00:35:31
◼
►
You're an evangelist.
00:35:32
◼
►
People get excited about things. I get excited about the Tempur-Pedic mattress experience.
00:35:35
◼
►
God, I wish I loved anything as much as you love the Tempur-Pedic mattress.
00:35:38
◼
►
Right. No, no. If I knock on your door wearing a white button-down short-sleeve shirt and
00:35:42
◼
►
a tie with my name tag on my –
00:35:44
◼
►
And a lab coat.
00:35:45
◼
►
Yeah, and a lab coat.
00:35:46
◼
►
You're a sleep scientist.
00:35:47
◼
►
I'm a sleep scientist. Then let me in and let me show you the glory of a mattress.
00:35:55
◼
►
Do you like sleeping in a guest bedroom at somebody's house?
00:35:58
◼
►
I'd rather pay for the hotel.
00:36:00
◼
►
I'm a hotel guy.
00:36:02
◼
►
Well, why? What's the problem?
00:36:04
◼
►
Noises, odors.
00:36:07
◼
►
Your noises, your odors, your odors are theirs.
00:36:09
◼
►
Everybody's. I mean –
00:36:12
◼
►
I think there's nothing nicer than coming to a friend's house for, let's say, a dinner
00:36:17
◼
►
or just for a few hours and to have somebody open their home to you. It is a sign of friendship
00:36:24
◼
►
and generosity. It's a way to get to know people and I think it's just great.
00:36:27
◼
►
And the nicest thing you can do is to leave after a house.
00:36:30
◼
►
Right. And to me, sleeping in their house is just way too intimate. There is nobody
00:36:34
◼
►
-- I'm lucky that I like to sleep in my own house.
00:36:37
◼
►
Well, I think we make a mistake when we measure sort of age or, what's the right word, phases
00:36:45
◼
►
of our life with our ages, right? Because one of the big life changes is when you do
00:36:50
◼
►
have both the financial means but also the impatience to switch over to not staying at
00:37:00
◼
►
people's houses. Because what people do when they're 24 and they're traveling around is
00:37:03
◼
►
they sleep on their friend's couch because they have to. And at a certain point you're
00:37:07
◼
►
like, "I will just pay." Or it's like the same thing happens when you switch your luggage
00:37:13
◼
►
from a backpack to a suitcase. You're like, "This is a life change and we should have
00:37:18
◼
►
better linguistic indicators of our ages that make use of those transitions rather than
00:37:23
◼
►
just a number." Because that is a specific one that if the three of us were like super
00:37:30
◼
►
brand is staying at friends' houses, it would be strange because we're out of that phase
00:37:35
◼
►
We're too old for that.
00:37:36
◼
►
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being younger and doing that, of course, because that's
00:37:40
◼
►
how you do stupid things when you're younger.
00:37:42
◼
►
You know, I think about it.
00:37:43
◼
►
What I want is my own toilet.
00:37:45
◼
►
That's really what it is.
00:37:47
◼
►
I want a home toilet.
00:37:48
◼
►
If I'm at your house, that's your toilet.
00:37:49
◼
►
Yeah, although I would love to show you my toilet.
00:37:53
◼
►
You've got some evangelizing to do by your toilet as well.
00:37:55
◼
►
It's a Tempur-Pedic memory foam toilet.
00:37:58
◼
►
It's waterless.
00:37:59
◼
►
just the bed. That's how you make a Tempur-Peed waterbed. Now we are getting somewhere with
00:38:06
◼
►
the show. It's usually so boring. When you're in a hotel, you could do anything
00:38:11
◼
►
to the toilet. I mean, you could destroy the toilet. I mean, really. And the bed too, really.
00:38:19
◼
►
And they are equipped to deal with it. You can take a two-hour shower. No consequences.
00:38:26
◼
►
Exactly. And worst case scenario is you just leave a little bit more of a tip.
00:38:32
◼
►
And you're out of it.
00:38:34
◼
►
Guilt for conscious free.
00:38:35
◼
►
Maybe a note.
00:38:36
◼
►
Maybe a note.
00:38:37
◼
►
Maybe a note.
00:38:39
◼
►
Those are not shards of glass. You should use gloves either way.
00:38:43
◼
►
I actually have in my – the bag that I travel with a pad, a notepad.
00:38:47
◼
►
Of apology – pre-written apologies?
00:38:49
◼
►
And it starts with so sorry. I don't have to write that. It's just – I just rip
00:38:53
◼
►
it off and I don't even have to begin it. And then it's...
00:38:56
◼
►
It's in sort of a fun 60s cursive font.
00:38:59
◼
►
So sorry, I...
00:39:00
◼
►
With your floor and your sheets.
00:39:01
◼
►
Yeah, the carpet or whatever. Whatever the case is.
00:39:04
◼
►
Oh! Okay, tell you, I got a good story.
00:39:06
◼
►
Do you have checkboxes?
00:39:07
◼
►
I got a good story.
00:39:08
◼
►
Do you have checkboxes? You say, "So sorry, checkboxes about the carpet."
00:39:09
◼
►
No, I should know. I think checkboxes...
00:39:11
◼
►
Checkboxes. I should make them up with checkboxes.
00:39:12
◼
►
Right. Get it printed up.
00:39:14
◼
►
And you can just check off whatever happened.
00:39:15
◼
►
That's a great idea. And I love, like, you know, the possibilities. Like, you could put
00:39:19
◼
►
things on there that may never happen. Genocide. I don't know.
00:39:22
◼
►
so sorry about the genocide.
00:39:23
◼
►
Yeah, you never check it. Good to have.
00:39:25
◼
►
It's good to have.
00:39:26
◼
►
It's good to have in your back pocket.
00:39:27
◼
►
All right, so you have a story?
00:39:28
◼
►
I'm quoting Miss Leany.
00:39:30
◼
►
Well, let's do, let me do the sponsor break, and then I'll know, we could jump right back
00:39:33
◼
►
into it with your story. I want to thank our sponsor. We've got one big sponsor for the
00:39:37
◼
►
show this week, and it's Squarespace. So our friends at Squarespace, they have a great
00:39:42
◼
►
new product. It's the new version of Squarespace, and here's what it is. Everybody knows. To
00:39:47
◼
►
To do it yourself, you make your own website with Squarespace.
00:39:50
◼
►
You just sign up, you make your website.
00:39:53
◼
►
Marco was on last week.
00:39:54
◼
►
Marco Arment, 15 minutes, the guy wanted to have a new podcast.
00:39:59
◼
►
Fifteen minutes later, he had a website for it at Squarespace.
00:40:02
◼
►
So I, you know, to me, you guys are no Marco.
00:40:06
◼
►
Well, I'm just saying.
00:40:09
◼
►
It was just like the greatest coincidence in the world.
00:40:12
◼
►
I asked Marco to be on the show.
00:40:13
◼
►
Oh, that he loved Squarespace.
00:40:14
◼
►
The guy who built, engineered Tumblr goes to Squarespace to start a new website.
00:40:20
◼
►
Also, when Marco does a thing, I trust Marco's decision and opinions about things.
00:40:26
◼
►
So that's a big vote.
00:40:27
◼
►
I proposed to his wife because I assumed that was the optimal wife you could get.
00:40:33
◼
►
Right, exactly.
00:40:34
◼
►
So what do they have?
00:40:35
◼
►
Everything on their platform is drag and drop.
00:40:37
◼
►
You're not coding a website.
00:40:38
◼
►
You're not programming it or something like that.
00:40:41
◼
►
You sign up, you drag things, you just start -- it's all drag and drop.
00:40:46
◼
►
You want to put a picture in, you drag it in from your desktop into the browser window.
00:40:49
◼
►
That's it. You don't have to upload it. You don't have to learn SFTP, that sort of stuff.
00:40:55
◼
►
Do they have templates? They've got an amazing number of templates.
00:40:57
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Their templates are beautiful. You can customize everything in them.
00:41:01
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If you like it -- everything about this template, but you want to change one thing, you can
00:41:03
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change that one thing. If you're a designer, you want to design
00:41:07
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the whole thing from scratch, you can do that, too.
00:41:09
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They support, you know, use a template, design your own template, either way.
00:41:15
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Everything they have, all of their stuff is responsive.
00:41:19
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That's a fancy way of saying that when you load it on your iPhone, it's formatted for
00:41:24
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When you load it on your iPad, it's perfectly formatted for the iPad.
00:41:27
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And when you load it on -- what are those things called?
00:41:30
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>> I don't know.
00:41:31
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A Nexus tablet.
00:41:32
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A Surface table.
00:41:33
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>> No, computers.
00:41:34
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>> Ah, okay.
00:41:35
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>> They're things we used to use before we had iPads.
00:41:37
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looks great on any browser. So what do they have? They've got an unlimited plan. That's
00:41:42
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the best value. You get unlimited pages, unlimited galleries. You can create a blog. You can
00:41:48
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create multiple blogs.
00:41:49
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What's that going to run me? Do we know? It's a good price, whatever it is.
00:41:53
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Yeah. You know what? I don't know what it is. But I'll tell you what. I do know. I don't
00:41:56
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know what the price is. But I do know though that if you go there and you use the offer
00:42:02
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code "THETALKSHOW2." T-H-E-T-A-L-K-S-H-O-W and then the digit 2.
00:42:11
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Steve McLaughlin Numeral 2.
00:42:25
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supporting the show. But don't use that one anymore. Use the talk show too. That way they
00:42:29
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know that you…
00:42:30
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That one's been canceled actually. I think that one's out.
00:42:33
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Can't even use it.
00:42:34
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Maybe that one they charge you more.
00:42:35
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Yeah, right. They've upped the price if you do that.
00:42:36
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They charge you more. But you get 10% off. You get a 10% discount. And that's, you know,
00:42:41
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you just, you're coming out ahead of all the suckers who just sign up for regular Squarespace
00:42:46
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The non-listeners.
00:42:47
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Without the talk show code. Proof that they at Squarespace listen to the show is the fact
00:42:52
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that they included the "the" in the talk show, that it's not just talk show.
00:42:57
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Scott Foundas (00;01;00) Talk show one.
00:43:18
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Scott, you have a story.
00:43:19
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- Yeah, I was also just thinking about--
00:43:21
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- About apologizing to maids, I believe.
00:43:22
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It's where we were going.
00:43:24
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- I'll tell you.
00:43:25
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I'll tell you what happened.
00:43:27
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This happened when we were in,
00:43:29
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staying in a hotel in Seattle.
00:43:33
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Woke up one morning, my wife was just staring at me like,
00:43:35
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"So, what are we gonna do?"
00:43:37
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I was like, "What are you talking about?"
00:43:39
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And she said, "You don't remember anything."
00:43:40
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- Was there a body?
00:43:42
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Well, she said, "Last night, you got up out of bed,
00:43:46
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And then about three minutes later, I heard you knocking on the door.
00:43:50
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And I opened the door and I said, "What are you doing?"
00:43:58
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And you said to me, she said, you know, you said to me, "What are you doing?"
00:44:01
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And I walked in.
00:44:02
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You were real surly.
00:44:03
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Yeah. She said, evidently, what happened was you got up, presumably, to use the restroom.
00:44:08
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And then you went out the wrong door in your sleep, peed everywhere in the hallway.
00:44:16
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and then knocked on the door to get back into the room
00:44:21
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and came back and went right back to sleep.
00:44:23
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And as she was telling that story,
00:44:26
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- You said, "This sounds like me."
00:44:28
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- I was, you know, sleepwalking is a thing,
00:44:30
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but the thing that bummed me out,
00:44:31
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I just listened to that story and it's like,
00:44:33
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the character in that story is awesome.
00:44:38
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And it's sad because I can't remember it
00:44:40
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and I'm bugged about that.
00:44:41
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I don't know why, oh, I just,
00:44:42
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pee pee jokes, pee pee stories.
00:44:43
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But yeah, no, that was a thing.
00:44:47
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And so that actually was, I went on app.net.
00:44:50
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Maybe I had done that before,
00:44:51
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like so how much should you tip for weird stuff?
00:44:55
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- For mandating all over the hallway.
00:44:57
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- That's right, that's right.
00:44:58
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- Right, and that is a little outside the normal bounds
00:45:00
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of hotel tipping, where you're tipping within your room,
00:45:03
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you tip the person who's gonna come in and clean your room.
00:45:07
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Whereas if you've done some--
00:45:09
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- If you've done some--
00:45:10
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- Some hall stuff.
00:45:11
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- Put a $100 bill on the wall and just stick a knife into it
00:45:14
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and just in the hallway.
00:45:16
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And they'll know what it's for.
00:45:17
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- Yeah, you definitely, I guess the moral of the story
00:45:20
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is in your notepad with the check marks
00:45:23
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according to the reasons, you definitely want an other.
00:45:25
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- Yeah, you need an other with a couple lines.
00:45:29
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- 'Cause you never would have predicted that either.
00:45:32
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- I would have seen it coming.
00:45:33
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►
- You know, I mean, during your anecdote,
00:45:34
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you pointed at me because you know
00:45:36
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that I've had several similar circumstances.
00:45:40
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Yeah, and you know, it turns out it's fairly common. Like, it happens, like, people will
00:45:44
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sleepwalk...
00:45:45
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Two out of three people in this room have micturated in a hotel room in a place that
00:45:50
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was not the toilet.
00:45:51
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That they know. That they know. It's possible.
00:45:53
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You think I'm three out of three and I just don't even know.
00:45:56
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You never know.
00:45:57
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It's possible. You're right. You're right.
00:45:58
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You have to have independent verification.
00:46:00
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►
Yeah, and for me, and I guess I always had the wrong idea about what sleepwalking was,
00:46:05
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You know, it was my understanding of sleepwalking was informed by like Popeye cartoons.
00:46:10
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- Right. - Arms out.
00:46:12
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- Arms out. - Right.
00:46:13
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- Bumping into walls. - Yeah.
00:46:15
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- Eyes closed. - Eyes closed.
00:46:18
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►
And it's really just sort of like, I guess what it really is, is you're just sort of semi-waking up.
00:46:24
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- Right. - Like, and, you know,
00:46:27
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►
I think very probably commonly because you have to pee, you have to urinate,
00:46:31
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►
and your body as an adult,
00:46:33
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►
once you reach that stage where you, you know,
00:46:36
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►
no longer talk. - It doesn't let you just go.
00:46:37
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►
- Right, like you actually can't.
00:46:39
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►
Like that's actually, like the Jackass guys had that thing,
00:46:41
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►
or maybe it was Howard Stern, I don't know.
00:46:43
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►
But one of those shows where people do crazy stunts,
00:46:45
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►
they were trying to pee their pants all together,
00:46:48
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►
and none of them could like bring themselves--
00:46:49
◼
►
- Couldn't perform?
00:46:50
◼
►
- Sorry, even consciously?
00:46:51
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►
Like just in a room? - Yeah, yeah, it was--
00:46:54
◼
►
- Interesting.
00:46:55
◼
►
- Well, I'm sure readers, or listeners of the talk show
00:46:57
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►
will point it out because I think it was,
00:46:58
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►
I forget if it was Howard Stern or Jackass.
00:47:00
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►
I think it was Howard Stern, though.
00:47:01
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►
I think it was Howard Stern, and they all put on Depends,
00:47:04
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►
and they were trying to pee their pants on air,
00:47:07
◼
►
on purpose, as a gag, which is kind of a funny gag,
00:47:10
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►
and they couldn't do it.
00:47:11
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►
Like, you actually, like, your body is hooked up
00:47:13
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►
not to do it, so you're--
00:47:14
◼
►
- It's probably a good thing.
00:47:15
◼
►
- You have to pee, your body wakes up, you start walking,
00:47:18
◼
►
but you're not really up, and then next thing you know,
00:47:21
◼
►
you're down there at the front desk of the hotel,
00:47:23
◼
►
wearing your underwear, saying, you know--
00:47:24
◼
►
- Hanging on your underwear.
00:47:25
◼
►
- I need my room key.
00:47:26
◼
►
- Yeah, I'm sure that, you know,
00:47:28
◼
►
At Cornell Hotel Management, it's a 300 or 400 level class, but it's like dealing with
00:47:33
◼
►
sleepwalkers, dealing with confused men in their underwear.
00:47:38
◼
►
Now let me get your opinion on this.
00:47:41
◼
►
Waking a sleepwalker, yes or no?
00:47:43
◼
►
Well, I think they instantly die.
00:47:46
◼
►
That is what I – Every Nancy Drew mystery I've ever read shows that they instantly
00:47:49
◼
►
See, now I think that that's one of those things where I have this misconception that
00:47:54
◼
►
you do – for God's sake, whatever you do, don't wake a sleepwalker.
00:47:57
◼
►
And you just let them piss all over the whole hallway or whatever.
00:48:00
◼
►
Right, right. Whereas what I think is the times that I've had these problems, I think
00:48:03
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►
like a good slap in my face is what I needed, you know?
00:48:06
◼
►
Right, right, right.
00:48:07
◼
►
Oh, the toilet, right. Sorry. Sorry.
00:48:09
◼
►
Right. And I'm lucky too where I've always, you know, I am a—no matter what happens,
00:48:15
◼
►
I can always get back to sleep. So it wouldn't be like, "Oh, you woke me up and now I can't
00:48:19
◼
►
get back to sleep." I get back to sleep anyway. But I think like something to make
00:48:23
◼
►
me a little bit more conscious so that I know that, yes, this is the bathroom door, not
00:48:26
◼
►
the door to go out in the hallway, it would be good.
00:48:31
◼
►
So now somebody's going to do it to you and you're just going to keel over dead and that'll
00:48:35
◼
►
be the end of it.
00:48:36
◼
►
How did John die?
00:48:37
◼
►
Somebody whooped him.
00:48:38
◼
►
This is episode 227 of Touch.
00:48:39
◼
►
Well, the other thing too is there's like the standard format for a hotel room where
00:48:44
◼
►
the bathroom is just to the right or left of the entrance.
00:48:49
◼
►
But then there's some weird hotels that are like, you know, like octagon shaped and then
00:48:54
◼
►
it stuffs at different angles.
00:48:56
◼
►
ultimate fighting in there for some reason.
00:48:57
◼
►
David: Have you heard the story? I can't remember if it was a This American Life or like some
00:49:01
◼
►
sort of, you know, it was one of those--
00:49:03
◼
►
John: White Guy Radio?
00:49:04
◼
►
David; Yes. It was a WGR story where they--it was about a guy who--blind guy, very confident
00:49:11
◼
►
in his skills, has great, you know, has been blind I think his whole life, could not find
00:49:16
◼
►
the bathroom in his hotel room. And it's because it was an unfamiliar configuration and there
00:49:21
◼
►
was some goofy thing or maybe it was the door, but it was some goofy thing that just kept
00:49:25
◼
►
tricking his ability to walk around the room and feel what was happening around the room
00:49:30
◼
►
and he would just pass right by the actual opening.
00:49:32
◼
►
And so he was just going in circles?
00:49:34
◼
►
Going in circles for a long time. It's a cool story. Yeah, we should find it because
00:49:38
◼
►
it's fascinating.
00:49:39
◼
►
See, at that point, you can just go wherever you want. It's like the doctor's waiting
00:49:42
◼
►
room. If it's been that long, just go. That's on them.
00:49:46
◼
►
Yeah, that's called blind guy prerogative too. Like you can just do—that's fine
00:49:50
◼
►
and everybody's on board with that. That's Cornell Hotel Management 324.
00:49:54
◼
►
So, restaurants sometimes are in a truck, as we talked about. This is what I'm thinking
00:50:05
◼
►
here with your story.
00:50:06
◼
►
Right, right.
00:50:07
◼
►
In a bathroom truck?
00:50:08
◼
►
Hotel truck.
00:50:09
◼
►
Oh, hotel truck. No, no, I don't trust it. I don't trust it.
00:50:12
◼
►
What about hotel van?
00:50:14
◼
►
Just a Queens' mattress.
00:50:17
◼
►
Hotel windowless van.
00:50:19
◼
►
Hotel windowless van.
00:50:20
◼
►
No, I don't trust it because the hotel could move while I'm asleep.
00:50:23
◼
►
Or maybe you want it because the hotel will move when you're asleep and it's like the
00:50:28
◼
►
moving castle.
00:50:29
◼
►
Suddenly you wake up and maybe you're in Vegas.
00:50:33
◼
►
Maybe you're in Omaha, Nebraska.
00:50:34
◼
►
It's a surprise.
00:50:35
◼
►
See, I'm thinking though much like Taco Lou's genius of go to where the hungry people are.
00:50:40
◼
►
Go to where the sleepy people are.
00:50:41
◼
►
Go to where the sleepy people are.
00:50:43
◼
►
But the sleepy people don't need anything from you.
00:50:45
◼
►
They can just go to sleep.
00:50:46
◼
►
Not necessarily.
00:50:47
◼
►
Not if they have to get home, for example, or, you know.
00:50:50
◼
►
Think about Las Vegas. I think Las Vegas, maybe that would be a place where the...
00:50:54
◼
►
That would be a good city for it because you might wind up two, three, four miles away from your hotel.
00:51:00
◼
►
Isn't this just called a cab though?
00:51:03
◼
►
Maybe you don't want to ride that cab. Slow down, Paul. There's something here. Alright, I'm sorry.
00:51:08
◼
►
I, you know, maybe that's what normal people do is you say you just get in a cab, take you back to your hotel.
00:51:13
◼
►
Tell them you're at it, fall asleep.
00:51:14
◼
►
Yeah, you're 25 minutes away from going to sleep.
00:51:17
◼
►
Whereas if it was right there, you'd just check right in.
00:51:20
◼
►
Ooh, also, oh my god.
00:51:22
◼
►
You could check into the hotel van.
00:51:23
◼
►
We're gonna be millionaires because, you know who sponsors this?
00:51:25
◼
►
Tempur-Pedic.
00:51:26
◼
►
They are never able to give people that nighttime sleep experience.
00:51:30
◼
►
There it is.
00:51:31
◼
►
So we just buy an old school bus.
00:51:34
◼
►
A VW Vanagon.
00:51:36
◼
►
Yeah, or a Vanagon.
00:51:37
◼
►
Throw a Tempur-Pedic in there.
00:51:38
◼
►
No, it's gotta be bus size because...
00:51:40
◼
►
It's gotta be a school bus?
00:51:41
◼
►
Alright, we're gonna throw 10?
00:51:42
◼
►
It's gotta scale.
00:51:43
◼
►
So we're going to throw in like 10.
00:51:44
◼
►
And you can just cruise the strip.
00:51:45
◼
►
Cruise the strip and sleepy school bus.
00:51:46
◼
►
And you're going to get everybody hooked on the Tempurpedics.
00:51:50
◼
►
Sleepy school bus.
00:51:51
◼
►
And back to Nancy Drew, my favorite Nancy Drew mystery is sleepy school bus.
00:51:53
◼
►
The sleepy school bus.
00:51:54
◼
►
The mystery, okay, the curse of.
00:51:56
◼
►
But yeah, Tempurpedics sponsors it and I presume pays for everything.
00:52:00
◼
►
I don't know how sponsorship works.
00:52:02
◼
►
But we're going to be so rich.
00:52:05
◼
►
One way or another, Tempurpedic owes us money.
00:52:08
◼
►
Just send them an invoice, right?
00:52:10
◼
►
No, the sponsors pay for everything.
00:52:11
◼
►
Squarespace bought the the mictors sour mash bourbon.
00:52:17
◼
►
Which is actually really good.
00:52:18
◼
►
We got, I feel like, I feel like you can hear in the show where, you know, we got a little looser.
00:52:30
◼
►
So there's a big conference and hotels get tight.
00:52:34
◼
►
Yeah, they fill up.
00:52:35
◼
►
And then you start, you know, if you're on a, you know, you don't want to spend too much.
00:52:39
◼
►
and then all of a sudden you're looking at hotels six, seven blocks out.
00:52:44
◼
►
South by Southwest, even better examples.
00:52:46
◼
►
South by Southwest, they literally sell out of hotels.
00:52:49
◼
►
And if you book too late, you actually, no exaggeration, no hyperbole,
00:52:53
◼
►
they recommend to you hotels that are like Dallas.
00:52:56
◼
►
Like La Quinta in Dallas.
00:52:58
◼
►
Yeah, and there will be a shuttle.
00:53:01
◼
►
You're going to have to get up at 3 a.m.
00:53:03
◼
►
You'll miss the morning sessions, but you'll get there by 1 p.m.
00:53:07
◼
►
But it doesn't make sense for the city of Austin to build up hotel capacity just for that one week.
00:53:14
◼
►
Oh, Sleepy School Bus comes in.
00:53:16
◼
►
Yeah, just like a food truck.
00:53:17
◼
►
Well, I think South by Southwest, we'd have a fleet of them.
00:53:20
◼
►
Oh, we have. Yeah, well, I mean, they're called--
00:53:22
◼
►
Don't get-- Please, don't let me just force that name upon us.
00:53:25
◼
►
That's just my working title, Sleepy School Bus.
00:53:27
◼
►
But, you know, we have-- Yeah, exactly.
00:53:30
◼
►
- Just every-- - It doesn't sound upscale.
00:53:32
◼
►
- You know what happens, though? - Can we upscale it a little?
00:53:33
◼
►
Like, when people see this-- Let's-- Okay, let's think about the title.
00:53:36
◼
►
once people see the sleepy, sleepy valet, the sleepy valet rolling into town and they
00:53:42
◼
►
see, you know, bus after bus coming in, you get, you get citizens out on the streets clapping
00:53:47
◼
►
like, "Woo-hoo! Let's do this! It's party time!"
00:53:50
◼
►
I, again, the name you're doing, that's a, that's a, it's a working title. Code name
00:53:56
◼
►
or something. Right, sure, sure, sure. No, I'm thinking that we're shooting for like
00:53:59
◼
►
four star, four and a half star. Yeah, it's upscale. I mean, let's face it, we're not
00:54:02
◼
►
going to get a fifth star.
00:54:03
◼
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No, you can't get a fifth star.
00:54:05
◼
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If you don't have a foundation, there's no fifth star available to you.
00:54:09
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But I think we could shoot for four and a half stars.
00:54:13
◼
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And settle for four.
00:54:14
◼
►
And we'll probably get four.
00:54:15
◼
►
So do we have one bus that's just the business center?
00:54:18
◼
►
One bus that's a gym?
00:54:19
◼
►
It's got a printer, right, exactly.
00:54:21
◼
►
It's a hotel on wheels, but it's like 47 wheels.
00:54:24
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►
It's like so many wheels.
00:54:26
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It's a half mile of hotel.
00:54:27
◼
►
That's another half mile hotel.
00:54:29
◼
►
Let's check these off, though.
00:54:30
◼
►
What are the hallmarks of your, you know, like a nice...
00:54:36
◼
►
You're not talking about the Four Seasons.
00:54:37
◼
►
You're looking for a Sheraton level experience, right?
00:54:38
◼
►
Yeah, exactly.
00:54:40
◼
►
So you've got to have a bar.
00:54:41
◼
►
Oh, yes you do.
00:54:45
◼
►
Isn't the Sheraton the one that doesn't have bars?
00:54:46
◼
►
No, that's Marriott.
00:54:47
◼
►
That's Marriott.
00:54:48
◼
►
Well, Marriotts have bars, but they're run by the Mormons.
00:54:50
◼
►
Yeah, they close at like 6 p.m.
00:54:51
◼
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They're open from 5.30 to 6 or something.
00:54:53
◼
►
They're only open when you don't want to drink.
00:54:56
◼
►
They're open from 5.30 to 6 a.m., right?
00:54:57
◼
►
You look thirsty, slam.
00:54:59
◼
►
So, you need to have a hotel bar.
00:55:04
◼
►
You need a bar.
00:55:05
◼
►
But I think you need a workout room.
00:55:08
◼
►
I love an elliptical treadmill.
00:55:10
◼
►
You're never going to get four stars without the health club.
00:55:13
◼
►
You need a health club.
00:55:14
◼
►
Now, how are we going to do the pool?
00:55:16
◼
►
That's really the problem.
00:55:17
◼
►
You don't need a pool.
00:55:18
◼
►
I don't think you need a pool.
00:55:19
◼
►
You mean get away without the pool.
00:55:20
◼
►
I think you can get away without a pool.
00:55:21
◼
►
Yeah, that's true.
00:55:22
◼
►
Pool is a great thing to have in a hotel, but I think you can get away without it.
00:55:24
◼
►
We can't do like a rooftop pool on these buses?
00:55:27
◼
►
That's a great idea.
00:55:28
◼
►
That's a great question.
00:55:29
◼
►
You know, you go...
00:55:30
◼
►
Can we get somebody to look at this at least?
00:55:31
◼
►
Yeah, we need an intern.
00:55:32
◼
►
The double-decker bus.
00:55:35
◼
►
The double-decker bus.
00:55:36
◼
►
You can get like a...
00:55:37
◼
►
You can get a bed and there's just nothing up there.
00:55:40
◼
►
That's like the Starlight bedroom.
00:55:44
◼
►
I'd pay extra for that.
00:55:45
◼
►
Private bathtubs on the roof.
00:55:48
◼
►
It just jumped out to me because we were in New York last week for the day and saw a tour
00:55:53
◼
►
bus going through Times Square and it's January in New York and it was...
00:55:58
◼
►
It's sort of like a cold snap, so it was colder than usual.
00:56:01
◼
►
And there were people on the second deck, and the second deck was half covered, half
00:56:08
◼
►
uncovered, and there were people in the uncovered part.
00:56:11
◼
►
And I thought, "Well, that--"
00:56:12
◼
►
Well, you really want to get those smells.
00:56:13
◼
►
You want to get the smells of New York.
00:56:15
◼
►
People love a Double D. It's true.
00:56:17
◼
►
Well, I can't believe that people would volunteer to be driven in 20-degree weather, open air,
00:56:24
◼
►
but buy those buses, but put that pool on the open part.
00:56:27
◼
►
We don't even have to retool the bus.
00:56:29
◼
►
We don't even have to refit them, yeah.
00:56:30
◼
►
This is pre-built for success, is what you're saying.
00:56:34
◼
►
And then, so maybe the elliptical trainers, they're in the covered portion upstairs.
00:56:41
◼
►
So we've got our pool and our gym right next to each other.
00:56:43
◼
►
Oh, I see. So it's the patio. Go up to the patio, get some sun and some sweat, and then come back down.
00:56:48
◼
►
Now, I do have a question, not to be too practical about this horrible idea.
00:56:54
◼
►
Let's be frank.
00:56:55
◼
►
Let's be frank.
00:56:56
◼
►
How, you know, as we all have mentioned here, one of the most important things is privacy
00:57:02
◼
►
in both the shower and bathroom context.
00:57:06
◼
►
I think this is something where you are just sleeping.
00:57:08
◼
►
I don't think you get a chance and maybe that's where we're losing our half-star.
00:57:11
◼
►
We're going from four and a half to four.
00:57:14
◼
►
If you need a restroom or your shower, tough shit.
00:57:19
◼
►
And you know, the ace, some of the aces, a lot of the rooms at the ace hotels don't have
00:57:24
◼
►
Shared bathrooms?
00:57:25
◼
►
- Our shared bathroom is with the Denny's.
00:57:27
◼
►
- Yeah, our shared bathroom is the Hilton
00:57:30
◼
►
that we park in front of.
00:57:32
◼
►
And steal their cable too.
00:57:33
◼
►
- The Ace is the model for this,
00:57:36
◼
►
because the Ace, I have stayed in an Ace,
00:57:38
◼
►
and they do some incredibly aggressive
00:57:42
◼
►
design techniques on their bathroom.
00:57:44
◼
►
- There's some austerity.
00:57:45
◼
►
- Right, it is very much an upscale hotel.
00:57:48
◼
►
It's not cheap, it's upscale,
00:57:50
◼
►
but they're doing some weird things.
00:57:52
◼
►
I stayed in the Ace in Portland a couple years ago,
00:57:56
◼
►
and my shower was just in the room.
00:58:00
◼
►
And not frosted glass.
00:58:05
◼
►
It was glass enclosed,
00:58:06
◼
►
but it was just perfectly clear glass.
00:58:10
◼
►
- They call that the sexy suite, actually.
00:58:12
◼
►
- Yeah, I was gonna say, I saw that on RedTube.
00:58:15
◼
►
- Well, I'll tell you--
00:58:16
◼
►
- But you on RedTube.
00:58:17
◼
►
- Yeah, I was gonna say-- - You specifically.
00:58:18
◼
►
- Me taking a shower is not sexy.
00:58:21
◼
►
taking a shower is gross. Now, I happened--I was there by myself. So it--
00:58:28
◼
►
So it's fine.
00:58:29
◼
►
In a sense, it shouldn't have mattered. But yet, even though--
00:58:32
◼
►
You still felt violated?
00:58:33
◼
►
I--not violated. I felt incredibly embarrassed.
00:58:36
◼
►
I totally agree with you. The standard in New York does the same thing where it's a--it's
00:58:40
◼
►
a glass--it's a--not even frosted. It's just a plain glass barrier between the bed--and
00:58:46
◼
►
it was just me. But I felt like--
00:58:48
◼
►
The dresser should not see you naked is what you're saying.
00:58:50
◼
►
you naked. Well, that is true. Yeah, as little as possible. What I thought was, well, what
00:58:55
◼
►
if I were here with Amy? What if my wife were here? She'd be out there like on her iPad
00:59:00
◼
►
sitting in bed reading or something and there's my gross... You're scrubbing your ass. Yeah,
00:59:04
◼
►
yeah. Well, how about worse? How about if you're a business traveler and, you know,
00:59:09
◼
►
you sometimes have to double up for business travel. Oh, yeah. And that's just horrible.
00:59:13
◼
►
Yeah. That's not gonna work. Then you go into like the cleaning, like, you know how you
00:59:17
◼
►
shower or I imagine people do shower when they think other people are watching. It's
00:59:23
◼
►
like a different kind of showering. Like you don't really get in there like you do when
00:59:27
◼
►
it's just you. That's all I'm saying. Hey, it's just me here. Paul and John stepped out
00:59:33
◼
►
for a second. So I'm going to just take a second to mention that this episode is sponsored
00:59:38
◼
►
-Empropetic.
00:59:39
◼
►
-And Mictors Sour Mash Original Whiskey.
00:59:42
◼
►
-U.S. One Small Batch Sour.
00:59:44
◼
►
-Are we taking it too far? It's a little loose.
00:59:47
◼
►
I don't, you know, I think this might have, let's just say it's not watertight.
00:59:54
◼
►
It's, you know, we can't...
00:59:56
◼
►
Unlike our buses, which will be.
00:59:59
◼
►
That's right.
01:00:01
◼
►
You know, it does occur to me, this is random, it's out of the blue.
01:00:05
◼
►
Scott, you're not really a sports fan, you're not really a sports guy.
01:00:08
◼
►
Paul, you know, I'm medium, I'm not an anti-sports.
01:00:11
◼
►
He said throwing his wrist out of joints.
01:00:15
◼
►
Because you see the thing this week where there's a new performance-enhancing drug scandal
01:00:19
◼
►
with baseball and some very high-profile names.
01:00:22
◼
►
It sounds like Chinese medicine.
01:00:26
◼
►
The story is it's a clinic.
01:00:29
◼
►
An anti-aging clinic.
01:00:31
◼
►
Anti-aging clinic.
01:00:32
◼
►
Anti-aging is in quotes.
01:00:33
◼
►
And a lot of this was all new to me.
01:00:36
◼
►
And it's the Miami New Times.
01:00:39
◼
►
And I guess that's a small newspaper.
01:00:41
◼
►
And all hats off to them.
01:00:43
◼
►
A huge scoop and the reporting, it was just incredibly well-written.
01:00:49
◼
►
This is why America has newspapers.
01:00:50
◼
►
Really just a great job.
01:00:54
◼
►
But I learned so much.
01:00:55
◼
►
It's this anti-aging clinic.
01:00:58
◼
►
And the idea is, and this is all news to me, that if you classify aging as a disease, that
01:01:06
◼
►
you are there for, and you're a medical doctor, you've got the piece of paper, you can write
01:01:10
◼
►
prescriptions, you can just write people prescriptions for human—
01:01:13
◼
►
All kinds of stuff.
01:01:14
◼
►
All sorts of stuff.
01:01:15
◼
►
Human growth hormone is what you're about to say.
01:01:17
◼
►
Human growth hormone and this stuff, because you're afflicted with this disease called
01:01:20
◼
►
aging, which—
01:01:22
◼
►
Called, yeah, going to die someday, itis.
01:01:25
◼
►
I think we've all got that.
01:01:27
◼
►
And instead—and that this whole anti-aging thing was really just a front, and that what
01:01:31
◼
►
they were really doing to make money was selling the same substances to athletes, you know.
01:01:37
◼
►
And wasn't one of them like deer antler velvet?
01:01:43
◼
►
Like without joking, like I think something that came up.
01:01:47
◼
►
That is Chinese medicine style.
01:01:48
◼
►
That was where I thought you guys were going with that.
01:01:50
◼
►
I thought part of the story was that one of the sprays or something is made of deer antler
01:01:55
◼
►
velvet or something.
01:01:57
◼
►
I don't know.
01:01:58
◼
►
It's a weird thing and I understand...
01:02:02
◼
►
I don't know.
01:02:03
◼
►
As a guy, you know, we're sitting here drinking bourbon.
01:02:04
◼
►
It's poison, technically poison.
01:02:06
◼
►
It's not like I'm Pollyanna about putting substances in my body.
01:02:11
◼
►
But I do feel though that with these athletes, that it's like, I guess I understand the motivation
01:02:15
◼
►
that you want to stay on top of your game and if you can get an edge over your opponents
01:02:18
◼
►
it even helps you.
01:02:20
◼
►
But if you had this phenomenal body that let you be a professional athlete, why in the
01:02:24
◼
►
world would you risk screwing it up with these weird, crazy substances that you're getting
01:02:30
◼
►
from a guy illegally?
01:02:32
◼
►
Who has the same lab coat as the DriveSavers guys?
01:02:36
◼
►
I'm a doctor.
01:02:38
◼
►
Take this pill.
01:02:41
◼
►
There is no equivalent in our fields for performance enhancing drugs.
01:02:45
◼
►
There's just performance de-enhancing drugs.
01:02:50
◼
►
We all start at zero and you can only be minuses.
01:02:56
◼
►
We voluntarily decide to go minus.
01:03:02
◼
►
So checklist, we're going to open up a suite or a fleet.
01:03:09
◼
►
A fleet, that is the word, yeah.
01:03:11
◼
►
Of hotel buses.
01:03:13
◼
►
Hotel buses.
01:03:14
◼
►
Hotel bus fleet.
01:03:15
◼
►
We don't have a name for it yet.
01:03:16
◼
►
We'll find that out.
01:03:17
◼
►
We'll figure that out.
01:03:20
◼
►
Pools on the top.
01:03:22
◼
►
Ellipticals.
01:03:23
◼
►
Ellipticals.
01:03:24
◼
►
We're going to invoice Tempurpedic.
01:03:26
◼
►
Tempurpedic.
01:03:27
◼
►
They owe us a lot right now.
01:03:28
◼
►
They're going to fund it.
01:03:29
◼
►
That, and a big selling point is you're gonna sleep great.
01:03:32
◼
►
- Yeah. - All right.
01:03:33
◼
►
- We're going to investigate the science of sleepwalking.
01:03:36
◼
►
- Figure out whether, in fact, people died--
01:03:38
◼
►
- Should you wake them up or not?
01:03:39
◼
►
- Yeah. - All right.
01:03:40
◼
►
- Should you wake them up?
01:03:40
◼
►
- All right.
01:03:41
◼
►
Do we guarantee that when you wake up in the morning
01:03:45
◼
►
that the hotel is still in the same spot?
01:03:48
◼
►
- No, absolutely not.
01:03:49
◼
►
That is not something we can do.
01:03:50
◼
►
- I thought the whole point was getting you
01:03:51
◼
►
to your real hotel.
01:03:52
◼
►
- No, no, no. - No?
01:03:53
◼
►
- That is so, I don't even know if that,
01:03:55
◼
►
if you've been listening this whole time.
01:03:56
◼
►
- Yeah. - That's,
01:03:58
◼
►
And my guess is that what people do when they sign up for, again, sleepy school bus, I don't
01:04:04
◼
►
know, when they sign up for sleepy bus, they're rolling the dice. Like maybe they'll luck
01:04:10
◼
►
out and wake up in front of their house. Maybe they'll wake up outside of a meth lab in
01:04:15
◼
►
Tempe, Arizona.
01:04:16
◼
►
Odds are pretty much against them, it sounds like.
01:04:17
◼
►
Odds are against them.
01:04:18
◼
►
What if we guarantee that you won't wake up in the same spot?
01:04:21
◼
►
Well, let's put it this way. It's a real monkeys and typewriters situation. It's just
01:04:25
◼
►
going to be random. So it's possible that you'll wake up in front of your house. It's
01:04:29
◼
►
possible that you'll wake up in front of the White House. Who knows? We don't know.
01:04:33
◼
►
We're going to need hotel restaurants. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:37
◼
►
I believe they're just trucks driving alongside of our buses.
01:04:40
◼
►
Right. So we just…
01:04:41
◼
►
We just lean out the window and ideally the same speed but, you know, within a couple
01:04:45
◼
►
of miles an hour.
01:04:46
◼
►
Oh, that's very smart. Oh, so this is how you'll, for example, check in. You'll
01:04:50
◼
►
just check in on the interstate. You'll get on the bus. Then that bus will pull up
01:04:54
◼
►
at speed with the bus next to you, which will be your route.
01:04:57
◼
►
Because we don't have time to slow down.
01:04:58
◼
►
Oh, we're on the run/move.
01:05:01
◼
►
So you do get a phone.
01:05:02
◼
►
You'll get a phone, and it'll have those buttons.
01:05:04
◼
►
Now you don't have to dial numbers.
01:05:06
◼
►
There's little icons.
01:05:07
◼
►
There's little concierge.
01:05:09
◼
►
And so obviously, space is at a premium.
01:05:13
◼
►
You'll press the little luggage button to get the valet desk.
01:05:17
◼
►
Then the valet bus--
01:05:19
◼
►
--pulls up next to you.
01:05:20
◼
►
--pulls up next to you.
01:05:21
◼
►
And what do you want?
01:05:23
◼
►
What color is your bag? And then he'll hand you the bag and you can get what you need out of it and then hand it back to him.
01:05:30
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:05:31
◼
►
So you're gonna have to tip and change so that you can throw it at him.
01:05:35
◼
►
I think that this would be incredibly fun.
01:05:37
◼
►
Oh, this is a moneyma- it's a moneymaker, it's a genius idea.
01:05:40
◼
►
I mean, it really takes advantage of the superior highway infrastructure that we have in this country as well.
01:05:46
◼
►
Thank God for Eisenhower. He made this all possible.
01:05:50
◼
►
Thank you, Ike.
01:05:53
◼
►
I think it's set. I mean, I think we've got this thing covered from…
01:05:56
◼
►
So this is probably the last episode because by next week, we're going to be just driving
01:06:02
◼
►
Yes, so rich. So rich.
01:06:03
◼
►
Well, we'll have the hotel. We'll sponsor the show.
01:06:06
◼
►
Yeah, at a minimum.
01:06:07
◼
►
At that point, it'll just be a labor of love, not a… It won't be commercial in
01:06:12
◼
►
Right. Anything… What else? We want to thank Squarespace, the actual sponsor of the show.
01:06:18
◼
►
there squarespace.com/thetalkshow and the code is the talk show digit two.
01:06:24
◼
►
I mean we covered pretty much everything that happened this week in technology.
01:06:30
◼
►
Yeah. So you know what the other great thing and you know this from from the you
01:06:33
◼
►
you look nice today because you guys have always been very generous on that
01:06:37
◼
►
podcast with your business ideas and convey them. Oh yeah, totally. And that your
01:06:42
◼
►
audience has always respected you by not you you share these ideas before you
01:06:47
◼
►
implement them. And they never rip you off. Not one time. And I think we can trust the
01:06:52
◼
►
talk show listeners. They're probably...
01:06:54
◼
►
They're not going to rip off hotel buses.
01:06:55
◼
►
They're all probably ready to book a couple of nights stay, but they're not going to rip
01:07:00
◼
►
us off and go and do it ahead of us. They're going to wait for us to...
01:07:03
◼
►
And they can use coupon code "THETALKSHOW2" to save at least 20% on their room.
01:07:08
◼
►
I say for the people who jump on early, you get... Book two nights, get one night free.
01:07:15
◼
►
That's cool. That's fine with me. I mean, again, three nights of driving can take you
01:07:21
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upwards of eight states from where you got on the bus. But if you're on board with that,
01:07:27
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then you're on board with that. That's our slogan. If you're on board with that.
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If you're on board, you're on board.
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When you check in, part of the paperwork might be whether or not you have any legal problems
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In specific states.
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States. Great question. Great question. You do want to know…
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Which states should we avoid?
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…who's wanted in…
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You know what? We could probably make some money with that too.
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Bounties and whatnot. If they tell us, "Don't go to Nebraska," we should probably go to Nebraska.
01:07:50
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B-line for Nebraska. That's our actual business model.
01:07:53
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Yeah, all these companies have no business model. We've got two business models.
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We're going to take your money and then we're going to sell you to the bounty hunters.
01:08:00
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You think you're checking in to a 200...
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Four, four and a half star hotel bus.
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And the next thing you know, you've got...
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You're in the clink.
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pay all of your child support for the last 30 years that you've been ditching because
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I think we get a percentage on that, too. I believe that's how that works.
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Yeah, I think you could totally...
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This is a real moneymaker.
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My standard for the success of a podcast is when you can't tell if the thing you just
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talked about for 90 minutes was brilliant or really, really stupid. And we just exceeded
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that standard/went under that standard.
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Cheers. We limboed under that bar.
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That's right.
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I could totally see too is at a trade show like at Macworld Expo next year
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we'll have one of the hotels on the show floor
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oh yeah you can just drive it in there we'll drive it in there it's there and
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then the people on the show floor can just come in and you know and they can
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try their Tempur-Pedic mattress absolutely right and they can they can
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sign some paperwork and maybe we drive them I don't know I could sign up with
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450 pages of paperwork all right thank you guys this is great thank you thank