And welcome to the Home Lab Show episode of 125, training and certifications. How you doing, Jay? I'm doing very well. How are you? I'm doing good. It's been a minute here. The schedules could not line up for me and Jay, so we kind of had to skip a couple, doing his weeklies a lot. We're gonna try to get back on cadence, but hey, things come up. There's travel plans and things like that. So that's, we didn't stop doing it. We are both very committed to continuing forward with the Home Lab Show. But this is a topic that comes up constantly, and it's kind of a headspace for Jay's at. So he said, this is a good topic, and I absolutely agree with him. This is definitely what we're talking about. And it's certifications and training, because a lot of people build their labs for this reason. It's a frequent question that comes up in the stream comments is, you know, what cert should I get and things like that? I can't exactly tell you what your career path should be, but we can certainly infer some things and talk about some training. Training is also my answer, even if you don't go for the certification part, going through a course when you go, I don't really know where to start. Well, start with one of the courses because it gives you a structured learning path to kind of go forward. And those are some of the things we're gonna talk about today. Yep, absolutely. And also, you know, it's such an overlap because of a lot of people have a Home Lab because they're literally studying for a certification. And for a lot of people, that is their gateway drug into Home Lab. So for some people, they don't really care at all. Other people that care a lot because, you know, I started my Home Lab a long time ago before Home Lab was even a term because I was going for a certification at the time. So it just has this symbiotic relationship in a way for a big part of the audience, I think. Yeah, and we'll actually start with a little bit of catching up. Is there any particular projects we should talk about that we've done lately? I know you've been deep diving on one of them. That actually will dovetail into this. This is kind of part of the reason because I was working so that we had a break. So I was on vacation because I was working really hard on this project. And every now and then, you know, working on content, you kind of need that break. So I had the break. And what I was working on in particular was, or is, I should say, because it's still not done, is my very first certification prep course, which is literally, this is the first time I've ever mentioned it in the public at all ever. So scoop. It's for the Linux Essentials exam through LPI. And it's gonna be on Udemy. It's not going to replace anything on YouTube. I wanna be clear because I know that question is gonna come up. The YouTube channel unchanged. I mean, the same content you had last month, the same style as what you're gonna get next month. My frequency kind of slowed down a bit because of producing this, but I have probably over a hundred ideas for videos. So believe me, this changes nothing on the YouTube channel. I just wanted to get that clear. This is a completely separate business endeavor. And while I was creating this, I decided that this could be a topic. And I feel like I've mentioned everything I'm gonna mention in this episode at some point in the past during the podcast, but I don't think there was like an episode that was all about this. Like you could get my opinion and know what my opinion is if you take bits and pieces of what I said, but having an episode on certifications, I think is gonna be a good fit. And also I'm thinking it'll be about two weeks when that prep course comes out. I'm guesstimating here because I'm more deviant than a boon to when it comes to releasing videos. And I think most people know what I mean by that. So I'll release it when it's ready, but it's moving really fast right now. And it's extremely fast. Like I'm already six videos into the editing process to give you an idea. So it's coming, it's coming very soon. So that being said, let's talk about certifications enough about me. I wanna talk about you guys and your certifications whether you want them or not, whether you should even get one in the first place. Do employers care about this? Are you wasting your time? Are they even worth the paper they're printed on? I mean, and then which ones do you go for? I mean, there's a lot of questions that people have here. And I have a bit of an advantage because I have been a hiring manager and involved with the hiring process for years. I was a director of operations.  That's where my calling is. So I was director of operations, but now I could teach you guys about what it's like on the inside about the hiring process, what people actually care about. And give you the truth about it because I feel like I can speak about this because I've seen, you know, other coworkers on the management level that love certifications, some that hate them and think they're garbage. But then again, what's the truth? So let's get into it. So I think the first thing I wanna touch on is whether or not you should get one in the first place. And I'm gonna put, I mean, there's a couple of different hats here, but essentially what I come down to is what does the certification mean to you? Okay, I'm not talking about to your employer. I'm not talking about for your future employer. What I'm asking is what does it mean to you personally, not as of like where you're working, but what does it mean to you? And what I mean by that is what do you want to learn? What skills do you want to achieve? I mean, you can't learn everything. It's impossible, you're never going to, right? So you have to kind of pick your favorite subcategories here. So how much time do you spend on networking? How much time do you spend on, you know, server administration, Linux and all these things. And how do you get this perfect pallet on your, you know, on your portfolio? And that could be a really hard challenge because you have to pay money for these certifications and you only have a finite amount of time to study for them. So which ones do you go for? And then when it comes to employers, they either care or they don't.  Like what makes you happy? Like don't think so much about what your employer wants you to be happy about. Think about what you are happy about. What makes you happy? If you had a free hour right now, I just gave you a free hour. You have an hour off work, whatever you're doing. But you have to spend that time learning something. What are you gonna spend that time on? What makes you the happiest? That's what you have to think about because if an employer likes certifications or if they hate them, then it doesn't really matter what they think if you're getting the certification for you and not for them. And it can be an incredible learning opportunity because you can have a situation where you have this amazing certification that took you a very, very long time to study for this. And then you go for a job and maybe that employer doesn't care because that employer already wrote off certifications before you walked in the door. The thing to understand about employers is that they care about what they care about. Everyone's different. You might get someone that's kind of in the middle, someone that thinks certifications are a requirement. You might have an employer that it goes, the resume goes to the desk, for example, the front desk and then the person is just looking to see if you have a certification and the conversation only goes as far as delete the ones that don't if they care about that kind of thing. But if they don't care about that thing, then you go to the next level. There's all this process of narrowing down the candidate list by each level. And sometimes it just doesn't get to the person you want it to get to because it couldn't even pass the receptionist. And at that point, it's like, okay, why did I waste my money on the certification because I can't even get past the receptionist? Well, no, you didn't waste your money because you learned something. The thing is for a lot of people, a certification represents a structure. It represents a package of things that you can learn to qualify for a thing. So you can, if you use it as a goal post, for example, like if you were to say, I'm getting into IT, I want my A plus certification, that's the first one I want. Then I want network plus, you could kind of map that out. And that's because you want to learn it. And regardless of whether or not your employer themselves are on board for that, it's a value to you because you used it as an opportunity to learn something. And some of the training resources for the certifications sometimes are way better than just the normal generic books you buy, like a generic networking book or a network plus book. I can almost promise you, like the network plus book will probably teach you more because it's, the author of that book even has to hold themselves accountable for whether or not they're teaching you everything on the list. So you have this package of things you can learn and a reasonable account of actually learning those things because it's literally required. So that's the first thing I wanted to get out of the way is to kind of figure out, is this something you even want in the first place? Because before you figure out what certifications you want, if it's not something you want in the first place, then why waste your time? So I just wanted to get that part out of the way first. Yeah, and I'll address a couple of things. First that you said, and then a couple of comments in there that are related. I'll also start with saying Tom has no certifications at all. So in case anyone's just wondering what search Tom has, that comes to the fact that Tom's never filled out a job application. Well, no, actually I can't think of any time in my life. Maybe when I worked at the car washer and I was 17, but I don't think Glenn recorded an application or Dale recorded an application then. Anyways, there's two kind of thought processes is validation of institution or acquisition of knowledge. Just what Jason is kind of reiterating here. And I seen someone say, and this is very true, especially if you're not sure how much you know, going through and getting that institutional validation can be very good as it kind of helps you with that imposter syndrome of, oh, I really do know these things. I can put these answers down and things like that. Acquisition of knowledge is mostly where I pursue things. I just want to know something because I've never had anyone ask me for certifications. Well, almost never. Mostly YouTube people ask me, but from a client standpoint, they're not asking. So there's not been a reason for me to actually bother with them. I just want to know a thing. So those certification books kind of can give me a structured path on how to learn it. Second is going to be the people asking about CCNA. One of the things we do at CNWR, why we like seeing CCNA on there, even though you may not be servicing Cisco equipment. Some people are like, yeah, some jobs require it and they don't seem to have any Cisco gear in their institution. And that's absolutely true because we know as the Cisco CCNA system has been around a long time, it's a mature, well thought out certification. And because of that, if you can pass that, you understand networking. Awesome. That's really what that's a checkbox for is if you can figure it out the Cisco way, you can, we can defer it, you know networking well enough. And from an HR or hiring standpoint, sometimes those are just easy checkboxes. There's the ebb and flow of the market. When the market is in demand, there's a lot of people needed and there's a lot of people available applying for jobs, especially for a highly skilled job in tech, they need a filter because I've talked to hiring managers that go, yeah, I got a thousand applications. What? And they're like, yeah, a thousand came in this week for a job. How do we sort them? What are the checkboxes? It's because they didn't put, I have lots of friends that work at tech companies is because they didn't put good filters on it. Like as soon as they start adding a couple checkboxes on there of you need to have at least these certs, it suddenly starts narrowing it down.  You are correct. You are correct. I've watched people like, I know, and I know they have certs, but I've also watched them not understand how to Google a problem. Like they did not understand the right words to put into Google that is such an obvious thing. I'm like, being able to Google a problem should be part of the skills test. We almost need to cert for it. Like, can you Google things? Can you properly use search terms to land on the page that should give you the result of the answer to solve the problem? That would absolutely be a cool cert. Maybe I'll invent one for that. Yeah, I mean, the Stack Overflow cert would be a good one too. They have, you know, you can look things up on Stack Overflow. So yeah, complete agreement. I think at some point, you know, certifications have become trophies, like achievements in video games, how you're trying to get all the achievements in Final Fantasy XVI or something and win everything. It's like, you're in IT and each certification ends up becoming a trophy that you want to achieve and get this scorecard, but in the same way as a game. I know that's a weird parallel to make, but it kind of seems that way because sometimes I see people trying to get certifications like, you know, in bulk. In my opinion is, you know, if you have the money for that and you have the time for that, that's fine, okay? But also keep in mind, the more certifications you get, the more you have to renew. So the more it becomes a recurring job in and of itself to keep those certifications current. Some of them expire, some of them don't. So you really do need to look at that. If you're gonna get a certification, you probably don't want it to expire because you probably want to hold on to that. So what are the requirements? Do you have to recertify every two years, every three years? I think that's something to really keep in mind too, because are you gonna feel like, you know, renewing six certifications? I have nine. So believe me, the struggle's real. Like I have nine certifications on my end. So, and some of those took like three tests apiece. So at this point, I think I'm kind of like, yeah, I think I have enough. You know, at some point it becomes enough. So the other thing to think about too, I wanted to kind of reverse this a bit. What am I looking for as an employer? Okay, that's an interesting thing because I talk about what my other management co-workers are looking for and what businesses are looking for. But if you're curious what I'm looking for as a hiring manager, I want to see passion. Okay, if I see somebody that has like one really amazing certification that took multi years to get and then I see someone else that doesn't have that certification, but they have maybe three certifications that are lower, but they give me their GitHub profile or link to it or something. They show that they're working in the community if they're actually involved with things. That person's probably going to get the job over the, in my opinion, then the person that has that big certification. Why? Because this is a person in my mind that is passionate. They are paying attention to the industry. They're aware of different things. They're keeping up with the news. They show a drive to learn something. And then when that person has certifications, I don't see it as, you know, X, Y and Z perfectly. I see it as you're interested in X, Y and Z, meaning you have varied passions.  There's no such thing. I mean, unless you're like hyper focused on one subject, you're not going to be a master because there's more subtopics than the brain can possibly learn in one lifetime, right? So in that standpoint, we have a finite amount of time here. So what certifications do you get? And I think at the end of the day, it's important to really map this out and understand what you're getting into. But as a hiring manager myself, I see this person as, you know, really like a technologist, someone that loves their job. I don't want the person that's good at their job, but they hate their job. I want somebody who's happy to do their job and has fun with it. And those are the things that are important to me. So yeah, certifications factor and degree factors in, but for me it's the sum of all things that matters the most, not so much any one thing that is going to stand out above anything else. So just in case anyone was curious, but that's my opinion. Any other hiring manager will probably disagree with everything I just said because we have to remember every hiring manager, she or he is an individual, period. You know, they have their own opinions and that's what you're up against. And sometimes I think this is the unfortunate side effect. You could have somebody who is way more qualified, both personality, culture and skill fit or those three things and not get the job.  But again, like you were saying, the problem is to get a thousand resumes. So at that point it's kind of like just have to keep applying and make sure you don't get discouraged because if it makes you feel any better, I didn't get tons of jobs I went for. And now I have this company that teaches Linux. So anybody can do it, right? And anybody can fail and everybody will fail. Every single person will fail every now and then. But you know what, you don't get the job, you go for another one because maybe something else is a better fit anyway. But above all, I think it's the fit. And then at that point, you just start looking at two into what certifications in particular you want to go for if you do decide that that's what you want to do. Something else to counterbalance that too. One of the things that we have hired on at CNWR and I've hired on at Lawrence Systems is based on people's home labs. That is definitely where they've added it to your resume and talked about things they build when under hobbies. And you're like, well, that's an impressive setup. There is someone whose job itself was not necessarily in tech. They were one of the people we hired did not actually have a technical job. And it was through their discussion, turns out they lived in the area, Jason knew them, but their technical chops of what they built was damn impressive. And we're like, wait a minute, why don't you have a technical job? Because if you're able to build this particular setup with this particular system, that takes some pretty technical skills. So it actually won them an interview of just looking at that. I've also hired someone who they're, it was kind of funny because they worked for Jimmy John's previously. And I was at the interview, they were like, I want to work here and I worked at Jimmy John's before. I'm like, what happened at Jimmy John's? And because he kind of made a sign, he's like, well, I ran into the boss's car and then I got fired. I was like, okay, so that doesn't sound well, but on his resume, Googled a couple of things because he had talked about having a GitHub. Person's a pretty big contributor to some very large open source projects, including Wikipedia, I had wrote a lot of code for it. So I actually came in for a second interview and I said, you actually didn't expand much on this. You just kind of said, I have a GitHub. And when I seen what was in your GitHub, you didn't really talk much about the projects, turned out to be one of those things. Like those are really good bold points to put on there that you understood these, you built whatever you contributed on GitHub, you helped with an open source project. Those are all huge things that can really pique the interest of someone hiring. And by the way, that person currently landed a job within a year ago at Blizzard Entertainment Writing Games.  Like their career path is like, when the job offer came in, I said, you're my friend, I would like you to stay working here.  Like, and he was a hobby developer. He developed a bunch of open source hobby games and stuff like that prior. That's what got Blizzard's attention, I think. Why are you sitting at some computer store fixing computers? But that whole thing of getting out there and putting that together is really huge. And yeah, that's, it's one of those things that it should be almost, I mean, you gotta have the basics on your resume, but it definitely should be on there. It shouldn't be buried down on the last page. By the way, I built this or work on this project or contribute to that. It's all ways to get experience because that's a lot of what we're looking for as hiring managers. We still have some experience where hoping you understand some of these things, whether it be you took some time to get passionate about the search and get them or the other side of it of, hey, you took the time to build this thing because it was a passion project for a storage server, virtualization server that you took the time to learn. That's always interesting to people hiring because those skills can usually translate directly. One of the other guys I hired, the whole counter, we spent, most of his time talking about how he hacks phones and like modifies them. Hack as in like Roots Android does a bunch of a lot of custom stuff, turned into a fun discussion topic on there because he had put, he didn't have much to say about it on the resume, but when I asked the question, it turned into a big discussion topic and I realized how passionate he was for tech. Yep, absolutely. I wanted to, before I move on to the next thing I wanted to talk about, I wanted to just bring up something, a comment in our chat room here, asking if we could please talk about ageism and tech hiring. I would absolutely love to talk about that. It's an absolute honor to talk about it because it's something I've run into. It's a problem. Sexism and ageism are absolutely problems. I mean, it's not even debatable, okay? I've seen it. So it's kind of one of those things that's really hard to say what to do about it because these problems shouldn't even be problems in the first place. So it's kind of like anyone that hires based on age alone or any other factor is just on the wrong side, period. And my standpoint, the way I hired it was, or not hired it, the way that I went through this or went along with this is just, I make the decision, that's the best decision, not keeping in mind like age doesn't matter, gender, none of that. It's like the person's a fit, they're a fit and I hire them anyway, regardless of whether someone thinks it's, I should or shouldn't. A good example of this is I hired this woman who was hiring into an assistant job and she was just the perfect fit. There's just no question about it. Like she knows everything she needs to know. She's extremely brilliant, cloud, physical hardware, you name it. And she was older, but I don't know how old. I never looked at her birthday. Why?  I don't care when she was born. That doesn't factor in anything. So the fact that at this job, it actually came up that she's a woman and she's older as a problem. And I got extremely angry and I said, this is my choice and this is who I'm picking, period. I'm not gonna be swayed on this, we're not one bit. And that's the only way I could go against it. And now that person is still at the job and one of the most celebrated people at that company and was promoted at least twice. So the only, so it's really hard. I know the struggle is real, especially considering, I'm a bit younger here, so I don't really have the same experience, but I have the experience from the other side and you just have to keep going. You have to bang that drum. If you feel like there's something happening and it wasn't like you didn't get the job and it wasn't because you were qualifications. In my opinion, the only thing I could say is bang the drum. But in my opinion, like that has no place in my company and it shouldn't have any place with anyone. It's a legal hearing in the United States. I'm sure there's similar laws in other countries. One solution to the problem and I don't know what their status is today, but years ago there was a book about how Google hires people. And I found it really interesting because the way they structure and hire people was with a double blind system. They get the details of the resume but there's nothing on there to identify the person. Like there's no graduation times for things. They do anything, they don't secure all of it. So when you say I'm requesting HR intakes people but then when it's handed to the people who make the hiring decision, you are obscured from that. You get a series of resumes that have assigned numbers to them. That's it, there's no name. So you can't even deploy things by the name. It's a really clever process. They covered it. There was a book I read years ago that someone wrote about that facet of it. I thought it was really interesting because I think that's a great way to do things where we just kind of take out some of these and we kind of abstract that. The only time you find out much about the person is when you've narrowed down the resume. But they also have questionnaires. These people fill out, they have an entire, it's not just like here's a resume but there's also questionnaires so they can figure out whether or not you're a fit to work in the engineering team at Google. They give you a lot of puzzles to solve. You know, my friend who went on to work for Blizzard and immediately he worked for another developer company. When he came in for the interview, they said, you don't get to actually interview today. They're like, why? They're like, here is a coding problem. Here's what we need you to solve. Here's a keyboard. And they also, he said it was weird because he was in there with, I think he said nine other people at the same time. They had nine computers. Well, they had more set up and nine people set down, take the test. He goes, some people got up within the first minute and said, I can't actually do what you're asking and left. But they had technical challenges. Like you said, you know these things. So before you actually go through the interview, solve for X, sit down and do some of these things. But Google has, I think that type of process. I know Google's not the only company doing things like that. I'm just one that came up as an example in my head. But there are things some companies are doing, but the problem is that's hard to do when you're a smaller company. So that's kind of pie in the sky if you're trying to hire in at CNWR. So we don't have enough people to do a whole, obscure the resume and hide who the person is. Cause there's just a few of us, there's only about 30 people working at CNWR. So we, because when we're hiring at CNWR, we have to go through the resumes and things like that. But we follow all the laws. We're very clear on that. All of us are very much, we'll hire the best candidate, but we're not going to discriminate. Cause, hey, look, it graduated in 1971. We're not going to judge anyone by that. We try to make sure we have the best candidate for the job. Yep, absolutely. And another similar comment that came up, that I just want to acknowledge this, that basically what Ellison is saying is that if there's a reason you're not hired, that's because of like discrimination or race, genders, you know, sexuality, whatever it is, they're not going to come out and say that, right? Because when it's illegal, it's like they're not going to say that that's why they didn't hire somebody cause they don't want to lose their job.  So I do want to acknowledge that, but one, my response to that though is, as much as it hurts to have this happen, if someone crosses you off because of something like this, that company doesn't deserve you in the first place, period. Because if that kind of thing was, yeah, if that kind of thing, right, if that kind of ageism, sexism, you know, company that's a, you know, homophobic or something or whatever it is, I mean, that you don't want to work for them anyway, because if you are not a fit for no fault of your own, then honestly, I kind of feel like they're doing you a favor. I know that's not what anyone wants to hear, but you don't want to work for a company like that. What if you did suffer ageism and you did report it, and it was found that you are correct, and they did take action and then they hire you, but do you want to work there now? I mean, do you? Like if it took all of that, just to get them to realize that ageism was happening, then honestly, I think somewhere else might just be a better place to work. This is a little key. If we keep going down this road, it'll definitely be on this topic, but it's definitely illegal. It is what it is. There's plenty of other people who dove deeper into this topic. There's movies about it and things like that, so. So the next thing I wanted to cover was, yeah, I'm so sorry about that. No, no problem. I think it absolutely should be a topic in terms of that we all agree we should be no discrimination. I just don't know how to fix the problem in the big picture. Me and Jay don't have that kind of pull in the market. The way I'll say is that we can't control karma, but karma does have a way of fixing things. Sometimes it does. Yeah, I think it does. So moving on from that, okay, if you decided to get a certification, now what? There's so many of them. I mean, have you even seen a list of certifications? I mean, I haven't this year, but I remember the last time I looked it was the same. I mean, you're not going to get all of them. And even if you did, like I mentioned, you have to renew these. I mean, you're never going to have time to actually do your job at that point that you got from the certifications.  And I'll fully admit, majority, we have a lot of people who have certifications at the office, and the majority of them have let them lapse. And we're fine. We don't push that they got hired. They had them cool. They've let them lapse. Actually, we, because we support training, I think I have a handful of people who got their certifications while they were working for CNWR as well. We definitely support people doing that. But it's one of those, once we know they know the knowledge, and we actually have a whole lot of guys who aren't going to bother renewing their VMware, but I think that might be for another reason. Yeah, I mean, that is the point because we do have to keep in mind what the overall health of the certification is, like the company that it's for, like, we can't really detect these things too, because it's not like Broadcom is going to say, oh, by the way, we're going to buy out this company in a year. We're going to screw everybody. Just to let you know ahead of time, that never happens. So it's not like we're going to say, oh gosh, I shouldn't get that certification because they're going to screw everyone over in a year. Nobody knows that. But if you kind of detect that, something isn't really quite right. Like the install numbers are dropping like really high or there's just something egregiously wrong. Just have a quick look at the health of the community at least, but again, there's nothing we could do to predict something like that because even in my position, in you and yours, I mean, at most we might know a couple of days ahead of time is something leaks and we're paying attention to our RSS feeds, but we find out pretty much exactly whenever one else does. So for the most part, I mean, that's kind of like how it goes there, but what certification do you get? So obviously if you're into Linux, I'm going to recommend Linux Professional Institute or LPI. Now, obviously I did mention that I'm coming out with the course. So again, disclaimer here, but at least have a look at it. I have been in contact with the people at LPI for probably two years now. Like we're pretty much on a first name basis because they're so cool and they're so passionate and they really care about this and it really comes out in a call with them because they really wanna get this right. And they're really proud of the fact that they're certifying as many people as they're certifying. And taking my company hat off, I went through their certifications and it was an amazing process. They're very challenging. So I'm, because they need to be, but bring your A game to those certifications, but I think I had the most fun with their certifications and any other. But before you even go that route, another one to look at is Linux Plus by CompTIA, which in the past, I don't know if this is still the case, but when I got mine, which was probably over a decade now, so I'm sure it's changed, but there's other certifications that qualified. So I had like LPIC-1, which is the first level of LPI certifications as a, I was just awarded that because Linux Plus is considered equal to that. So if you could pass one, you could pass the other because they test the same thing. In fact, I think even at one point, LPI was providing the questions for the Linux Plus exam. So there's quite a bit of overlap. So it's like, sometimes you get one certification and it'll get you another one. You just have to like send it to them or apply or something like that. So just keep that in mind that you might get a two for one deal if one certification is honored by another. So I don't know if that's still true of Linux Plus and LPIC-1, but if it is, there's no reason to take LPIC-1 if it could take Linux Plus and get LPIC-1 in addition because if you take the other, you only get the one. So you kind of look at that. When it comes to other certifications, the problem is there's just so many of them. I personally don't like CCNA. It's just a personal opinion, no offense to anyone. Like it's a good certification. It takes a lot of skill to achieve it and the people that have it are brilliant. It's just sometimes when things are so specific to like one kind of firmware on one kind of switch or something like that is that particular brand. It's, I just feel it's better to get like a network Plus, which obviously is a much lower level, but it's like you have more of a worldview than just knowing that one switch or that one router. Do you agree with that? I've actually never got a chance to ask you that before. Like I said with the Cisco one specifically, one of the things I really like about it is so much of what Cisco has done because they were so there in the early days of networking is they talk about things that other companies have just kind of echoed into their systems. So anytime you are dealing with a CLI, we always refer to many of the CLIs as Cisco-like because they'll often copy almost the same type of commands. So the interpretation from I learned Cisco, but now I'm doing it on insert other name of switch is actually not that far to pivot from. That's one of the reasons that people like it going, oh yeah, you got your Cisco certification? Great, you're not gonna find this switch that much different in practice. Here's those couple of commands.  Matter of fact, the whole Cisco concept of the running versus the save config, that's propagated on for most of the command line switches where we have the running config, but then we have to commit it to the save config so it's available on boot. Those same structural concepts because they've been transferred over, it makes it easier for people to pursue that. One of the things I'm gonna throw into the show notes is they, I know because I'm on the board with Camtia, if anyone didn't know, but I'm not on the certification side. I'm on the thought, what do they call that? I'm part, well, I was part of an ISAO, now I'm moving over to you. I know what you're talking about too. Yeah, yeah, I'm on the other side where we do certifications for companies, which is different than doing certifications for individuals. I'm doing the trust mark plus, I'm part of that team now, but back to the topic here, actually for anyone watching it, I did get an award from Camtia that I'm holding up in the video here. Yeah, it didn't focus though. No, it didn't focus. This is- It didn't focus on the text. If you pull it away from- Yeah, well, no, it'll actually focus if you have it on the camera. There we go. Really, there it goes. Yep. For the people that are watching live or on video. Yeah, anyways, this is because I was on the ISAO Committee for Cybersecurity, other side of Camtia. But what I'm gonna throw in the show notes here is there's a really good career path certification path. We get to know about all the other Camtia things going on on the other side of the house, which does include a really nice chart they made for all the different certs and how it can flow through your career, like where you start and where it shifts over. It's actually a really cool graphic they put together that has all the different certifications listed on there because there are, and I'm gonna read a few of these off here. You have your certification roadmaps. You've got your basic Camtia A plus ITF project plus. Project plus is more important than you think. Understanding how to manage tech projects is definitely not a thing you should take lightly. That is a good certification to get for sure. They also have project plus. They also, I'm saying these project ones because any one of these for software development, IT service management, infrastructure and cloud cybersecurity, each one actually has a recommendation that you get some of the basic project management skills on there. From there, they have all the career paths that you can go into for your security plus, server plus, if you're a server admin, they also have cloud plus and then they start mentioning the non in here as well, the non Camtia ones. So you have your RHCE, your LPIC2, CCNP, those are all in here as well. So I'll just drop this in the show notes right now because I think this is something to really look at. So you can kind of go, okay, what if I want to be at the end? They have all the different certification or different landings for what your career might be, whether it's IT management, developer, network engineer, but then they have all the different paths in between and they also have the forks of where you can start at one path and fork over to the other because there's a common level of beginner search that kind of our base level like that project one. Yeah, that Camtia is really good. I love them. I have, see which ones do I have? A plus, network plus, server plus, security plus, Linux plus, those are the ones I have off the top of my head of theirs. And I think there's a few more I wanted, but then I just decided to go to a different vendor after a while because I just taken their tests one after another. But I love the process of learning because I feel like network plus and Linux plus are probably the two that I learned the most from during the process when I was, because this was a very long time ago. Well, they're in a century long time ago, they learned a lot from those. Yeah, and having that foundational knowledge helps you a lot. Matter of fact, if you don't know what to do in tech, starting with the foundational knowledge helps because you're gonna get this broad stroke of things and you're gonna go, you know what, networking turns out, I hated it. Programming turns out I loved it or some other concept that you find out of there. Not that you're gonna learn how to program from a network plus, but you'll figure out what you do or don't like or maybe you hate touching hardware. I found people that go, man, I don't wanna deal with any of the hardware side of what you learn in A plus. That's just not interesting to them. You know what's interesting to me that you brought that up because when I took network plus had a very good effect on me. So before I took it, I thought network administration was the driest, most boring looking job I've ever seen in my life. Like I would see someone, like going through the switch config, I'm like, oh my God, how does that person even stay awake while they're doing this? That's boring. But when I study for the network plus exam and I got my hands on, I'm like, I love this. I adore this. I love everything about this. I'm obsessed with this. And it awakened something in me where I was judging a job based on seeing other people do it. I haven't actually done it. But when I get my hands on it and I look at the logic behind the routing and some of the things and cool stuff that they're doing. And then I learned to do that stuff. Now I probably spend more, almost as much time on network stuff, as Linux stuff at this point. Like it's that much of a value of interest to me. So sometimes you could have a certification that might actually awaken something in you. And I think that's so cool when someone discovers something that they love that they didn't or might not have discovered otherwise. Yeah. And it's always interesting to me is I meet a lot of people that have never touched hardware and they've worked in tech for a long time. I friend to our high level, well-paid reverse engineers and they can take a part of binary. They can really do the CISSP. They have all the different cybersecurity search. They do a great job. They've never touched hardware and they've never even racked a server. And when I saw at home lab, they're like, they seem, one of them was a local friend and just like, it's so different to him. He's just never touched physical. He's never plugged in network cables but has a hell of a career as a cybersecurity professional. He's really talented at his job. He just never has to think about like the physical layer. It's just not, it's not something he, he didn't skip over that. There's, it always surprised me as you can completely have that gap of knowledge. You're like, I don't know. A lot of cables, I'm sure they do something important. Yeah, sometimes I feel like it's, it's doing it that can make the difference because sometimes I wonder if it's like, you're watching someone do it as one thing, but actually doing it as another, like the, like, like, kind of like how some people like emulating classic games, but for other people, they like the physical cartridge that goes into the system and they, they, they need that. But looking at 2J is the first thing. Some people want like a physical network connection. They want to plug into a jack and they want to connect physical switches that they can see and actually plug in computers on either side of it and then try to transfer data from one to the other and try to make it faster than the previous file transfer. Maybe you find you can eliminate a route and maybe that could help a little bit. But you start getting into this and getting your hands on it. I feel like that's the only way sometimes for some people to really know if they like it or not. Yeah. And I was kind of joking because if anyone doesn't know J's into not just simulators, but actual hardware, J has quit the collection. We've mentioned a couple of times before. Should we do a couple? Yeah, if you have an Atari Jaguar, raise your hand. Yeah, should we do a, I love the technology. I especially love failed technology. I have no idea why. It's like sometimes what could have been so having an Atari Jaguar, I have almost the entire library. It's like this system could have been successful but it wasn't. Sometimes it's like my virtual boy. Anyway, that's all other conversation. I feel like there's a, there's probably a homelab, like overlap of retro gaming. I should find it for an episode. Yeah, well, we'll read it around because we can both talk passionately about it. Why you need to build your retro gaming lab? Is that our next episode? I don't know, it could be. It could be. Let us know in the comments. Yeah, that could be it. Send us an email. The homelab show, it's feedback at the homelab show. I said that wrong. Yeah, that. I didn't put that up there. Feedback at the homelab.show. If you would like to have us do a retro emulation talk. Yeah. That would be fun. I would be honored to do that. But the homelab angle, of course, we'll make it right. Oh yeah, we'll make sure. We'll find a way to tie it back because I think there's the Venn diagram of people who are watching this show and listen to us and that probably have some emulators for some reason in their lab. It's a circle. We're close to it. Close to it. Yeah, so yeah. All right. Well, I left anything else. I think we covered this topic pretty well here. Is there anything else we have to add to it or? I would say just one last thing. You know, someone says they have 20 years in tech and no certs. What value is that in 2024? I would say that's extremely valuable because 20 years experience, there's not a universe in which I wouldn't consider that like huge and needs to be considered. So yeah. So people misunderstood my merger video when I did that and why I'm bringing that up because as I mentioned at the beginning, I have no certifications. What I do have is a merger video I did in July of 2023 and job offers that came in in July of 23. People didn't understand merger. They said, oh, Tom, so you sold your business? Would you like to come work for us? Oh, I should have known that would happen. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's other companies I've engaged with. I won't name any names here, but it's some big companies. I said, you need a job, Tom. You seem to be unemployed. Did you sell your company? Congratulations on your sale. And it was like, I would open emails because they congratulate you selling your sale. Hey, we have a job offer for you. So yes, trust me, 20 years experience in the market will definitely, when people know that you have the experience and I guess I would say they probably knew me from my YouTube channel or I've used their products. But yeah, the job offers came in, which I thought was kind of an amusement. I said, no, no, no, I'm not retiring. I'm just gonna make more content. They're like, would you like to work for us and make content? I'm like, oh, no, I'm gonna make just content for myself. So. I think it was between eight or 10 years of experience that, and being on LinkedIn with eight or 10 years experience back when that's all I had, that was like, that alone was enough to make the headhunters pretty much contact me like three to four a day at that point. So the more your years stack up, if people can find you, they'll find you. Yeah. My first tech job was in 1996, 95 or 90s, 95 I think. So yeah. So I've been doing this, I've been doing this for a minute. I've had my business for, this is 21 years now. I've had my company. So that's, that experience, especially experience and people know you've been doing something in the market. If I were to put a resume together, it'd be a lot to put on there for projects that I worked on over the years. And that's what employers are looking for. Oh, cool. This person, especially because I've managed a lot of projects. In fact, what I mentioned at CompTIA, this is something we've actually have people who got their project plus certification because we know how much it helped them at their job of being able to manage it. It's not just you fixing a technical problem. A lot of times you have to work with others. And if you are someone who can actually call others to action, to organize and divide up and slice it up to a project that's manageable by a team, that has great value to companies. That's how you land your seat in management of these technical people. If you know the tech that needs to be done, actually in most people, most technical people enjoy working for a manager with a technical background. Because the manager isn't possible. They understand the technology. Technical leaders that can pivot that to actually be good at managing people. By the way, that's not me. That's the reason I sell my company. I don't, managing people, turns out I could do the project plus all day. It doesn't make me any better at managing people. So yes, that is a definite thing to put on your resume. Have it as your career path and note that on there. Yep, absolutely. Ah, fun stuff. Tom has a very particular set of skills. Skills he's acquired over a long career. Yes, I like that in the comments. Jada's too. It doesn't even feel that long to me. Doesn't even feel that long. I can't believe my hair is long, I get this old. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I have the years of experience I have because things always feel new to me because there's always something new to learn. So at no point do I ever feel like I'm not new, even though I'm not. That's just a weird side effect. It's like, yeah, it's a cool thing though. I mean, you've known each other since I think 2016, I think is when we met. I know it was at PenguinCon. No, it was before that because it would have had to have been 2014 or 15. Okay. It was at PenguinCon. That's all I remember. Yeah. I know where I'm gonna tell the story because it's so funny. The first thing, Tom, the first thing you ever said to me, did I ask some guy at PenguinCon? I'm like, who knows cameras? I have a question because I was so fumbling with my stuff. And then someone introduced me to you and you had a tip and you said, well, when you mess up, just say the F word like really, really loud because on the wave form. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The spike's on the top and you know, right where to go to take out your air because there's no mistaking that spike when you say something loud. I'd settled for a loud clap but it still would have worked all the same. And I think it was some trivia because the other, the thing I most remember about meeting Jay wasn't the camera thing. You showed up to our, I was doing the Sunday morning Linux review back then, this is actually, and Jay later joined us. Oh yes, that was the second or third time, I think. Yeah, and what you had done, you were the only one to have like all the answers. Not everyone knows this. There are code names for Linux kernels and this is not something a lot of people know. They're great if you look them up. I mean, in fact, I recommend everyone go Google Linux kernel code names. By the way, first you didn't know they existed. We thought it'd be a hard trivia question. Turns out Jay knows them. If I remember correctly, I answered every question and I kind of, no, there's one question I didn't get right. I don't know why I remembered this. Like for some reason I've never heard of the yes command in my entire life and until that day, until that quiz. That was one I got wrong, but everything else, like the code names, it was hilarious because I felt bad because the other person I was against, he's like, you asked him like, if you have an answer, he's like, well, what's the point? I'm like, oh man, I feel so bad. It was so funny in retrospect. We'll leave you with that with this. Thank you for joining us on this show. We'll leave you with some Linux code names. They're fun. Just look them up. Trivia memories, yeah. Yeah, trivia memories. Memories of the Sunday morning, that was a fun thing we did for a number of years. It just didn't work out anymore. So we stopped doing it, but it was fun. We all had a great time doing that, talking to Linux. So that's what we brought in. Matter of fact, our desire to do something more homelab and broadly related is what led us to doing the homelab show. So I'll see you as soon as we get the next episode. We'll see if we got time to do one about retro gaming. Me and G will noodle that around. So thanks everyone for joining and take care. Yep.


Hello, this is Waylon Chow. Welcome to this series on forming contracts. This video is part B, which focuses on the requirement of an agreement. An agreement is formed by an offer and an acceptance. We will focus mostly on the offer part of an agreement. There are three essential elements to form a contract. The first element is the one that we'll focus on in this video, which is an agreement between the parties. An agreement is made up of two things. The first is one person making an offer. The second is an acceptance of that offer by the other person. And having those two things together gives us an agreement. Let's now focus on an offer. Let's set up a simple scenario here. We have two friends and classmates named Sonia and Ahmed. They've gotten together to study after class. And Sonia says to Ahmed, hey Ahmed, I need some money for a new laptop. Do you want to buy my Apple laptop for $700? And Ahmed replies, yeah Sonia, sure, I'll take it for $700. So what's happened here is that Sonia has made an offer to Ahmed. Ahmed has provided an acceptance of that offer and that has formed an agreement. An offer is considered to be an indication of a willingness to enter into a contract on certain terms. So we have an offeror making an offer, communicating an offer to an offeree. And an offer has to be communicated in any form, including a written document, a verbal statement, or even by conduct. And the general legal test to determine whether an offer was made or not in any particular situation is that would a reasonable person think the communication was intended to be an offer? Let's now change our scenario between Sonia and Ahmed a little bit. Sonia is still making an offer. She asks Ahmed, somebody do you want to buy my Apple laptop for $700? This time Ahmed says, hey Sonia, I like your laptop, but can you let me think about it? And Sonia replies, that's fine, but let me know by noon tomorrow. So she's setting a deadline for her offer. And so by next day at 12.01 p.m., one minute after noon, Ahmed says to Sonia, about that laptop of yours, I'll take it for $700. And Sonia says, sorry Ahmed, but someone else has offered me more money for it. So the issue here, legal issue, is there an agreement between Sonia and Ahmed? To determine that legal issue between Sonia and Ahmed, we need to determine if Sonia's offer was still valid at the time that Ahmed provided his acceptance at 12.01 p.m. So we need to examine the rules regarding the life and death of an offer. Once an offer is communicated, the offer is valid until that offer dies due to some reason. So one reason could be the lapse of time. Another reason could be revocation. A third reason could be death or insanity. A fourth reason is a rejection of the offer. And the last reason for the death of an offer is the making of a counter offer. An offer can die due to the lapse of time. An offer lapses or dies at the deadline set by the offeror. If there is no specific deadline specified by the offeror, an offer remains open for a reasonable length of time. So then, what exactly is considered to be reasonable? Well, that depends on the circumstances of each situation. So those circumstances can include looking at the subject matter of the transaction, the nature of the agreement, the volatility of the market, the existence of other potential offerings, and the usual practice in the industry. But just generally, we look at the relevant circumstances of each situation to determine what is a reasonable period of time for an offer to remain open. Let's now resolve that situation between Sonia and Ahmed. Since Sonia had set a deadline of noon for her offer, her offer lapsed at noon. So at one second past noon, that offer no longer existed. So therefore, Ahmed's statement at 12.01 pm is not an acceptance but is a new offer by him to Sonia. And Sonia has rejected Ahmed's offer and therefore no agreement has been formed between Sonia and Ahmed. So let's play around with that scenario again between Sonia and Ahmed. So Sonia is still making an offer to sell her laptop for 700. And Ahmed has said that he does like the laptop but he wants to think about it. So this time, Sonia says that she needs to know soon. She needs the money to get her new laptop in time for the start of school next week. So she does not set a specific deadline or expiry for her offer. A week later, on the first day of school, Ahmed comes up to Sonia and says, about that laptop, I will take it for $700. So he's trying to accept that offer that Sonia had made. But Sonia says, sorry, I already sold it to someone else. So the legal issue again is there an agreement between Sonia and Ahmed. So now, since Sonia did not specify a specific deadline or expiry for her offer, that offer is open for a period of time that is reasonable based on the circumstances. Given what Sonia said about needing money to buy a new laptop by the start of school, it is not reasonable for the offer to be open until school has started. Presumably, she wanted to get that laptop before the start of school. So therefore, Sonia's offer had lapsed by that time, which is the start of school. And therefore, no agreement has been formed. So Ahmed waited a bit too long to respond to Sonia's offer. Let's change up that scenario once again. We still have Sonia making an offer to sell her laptop for $700. And Ahmed is still saying he likes it, but he wants to think about it. And Sonia is actually setting a deadline saying, that's fine, think about it, but let me know by noon tomorrow. And what's different this time is that we have a third person named Pablo who overheard this conversation between Sonia and Ahmed. And without Ahmed's knowledge, Pablo offers Daria $800 for the laptop. So the question is, what can Sonia do? Can she sell her laptop to Pablo for more money? And another question is, what if Ahmed had paid not $500, but $5 to keep the offer open until noon tomorrow? Does that make any difference to this situation? Let's now have a look at the legal rules for revoking an offer or revocation. The general rules and offer can be revoked anytime before acceptance on communication of that revocation by the offer or to the offeree. So there are two requirements built into that rule. One has to do with the timing of the revocation. It has to be done before an offer has been accepted. And it has to be communicated by the offer or to the offeree. So even if there is a specified time, a specified expiry time for an offer, in other words, it's called a firm offer, an offer can still be revoked under this rule. An offer can be made irrevocable, which means it cannot be revoked. You can only do that. You can only make it irrevocable if the offeree has paid some amount, some value to have the offer remain open for a period of time. That's what we call an option. Let's now resolve that situation between Sonya Ahmed and Pablo. Based on the rule that we just looked at, Sonya can revoke her offer anytime before noon tomorrow, as long as Ahmed has not yet accepted her offer. Sonya can contact Ahmed to tell him that she is revoking her offer, then she can contact Pablo to accept his offer. Now, if Ahmed had paid Sonya any amount, such as $5 or even $1, or any amount really, to keep the offer open until noon tomorrow, the offer would be irrevocable, which means that Sonya would not be able to revoke it before noon tomorrow. And therefore, Ahmed could have accepted her offer as long as his acceptance was given by noon tomorrow. And that would have formed an agreement. Let's change up our scenario a bit once again between Sonya and Ahmed. There's still the offer by Sonya to sell her laptop for $700. And Ahmed still wants to think about it. And Sonya has set an expiry of her offer to be noon tomorrow. Now, our story gets a little dark here. So that evening, Sonya is killed in a car accident. Ahmed is sad about Sonya, but he still wants to buy her computer. Can Ahmed still accept Sonya's offer before noon tomorrow in order to form an agreement? Let's have a look at the rule regarding death or insanity. The rule is that an offer is automatically revoked if either the offer or the offer E dies or becomes insane before the offer has been accepted. There is one important exception to that rule, however. An offer is still valid and can be accepted if the deceased or insane party is not required under the proposed contract to perform personally. Let's now resolve that unfortunate situation. So the answer is yes. Ahmed can accept the offer after Sonya's death. Since the sale of the laptop did not involve any personal service by Sonya, the agreement can still proceed after her death. Ahmed would pay Sonya's estate and the executor of the estate would give Ahmed the laptop. There is a proviso or a note there that Ahmed may have difficulty proving that Sonya had made the offer if there was nothing in writing. There would be difficulty in proving to the executor that there was an offer made if everything was just done verbally. So this would have been a good situation where having something in writing would be a good idea. Although it's not required, it would be a good idea. Let's change up our scenario once again. Sonya is no longer dead. So she's alive and healthy once more. So she's still making that offer again to Ahmed to sell her laptop for $700. But this time Ahmed says to Sonya, no, I'm not interested. But then a day later Ahmed changes his mind. He says to Sonya, I do want to buy your laptop for $700. So the legal issue is there an agreement between Sonya and Ahmed. The legal rule regarding the rejection of an offer is that a rejection of an offer causes the termination or death of the offer. An offer cannot be accepted after a rejection. So in this scenario, Ahmed's rejection of Sonya's offer terminates Sonya's offer. So at that point in time, Sonya's offer is dead. There is no offer for Ahmed to accept after that time. Ahmed's last statement where he says he does want to buy the laptop for $700 cannot be an acceptance but could be considered to be a new offer which Sonya may either accept or reject. As it stands, there is no agreement between Sonya and Ahmed. Let's change up that scenario once again. Sonya is still making that offer to sell her laptop for $700. This time, Ahmed says I like your laptop but I can afford to pay only $500. Sonya says no way, that's not enough money for me. I'll try to sell it on Kijiji instead. And Ahmed says it is a nice laptop. Okay, I'll take it for $700. So is there an agreement between Sonya and Ahmed? Let's look at the legal rules regarding counter offers. A counter offer is where the offeree responds to an offer by indicating a willingness to enter into a contract but on terms that are different from the terms of the original offer. To have an agreement, an offer must be entirely and unconditionally accepted. Any attempt to accept on different terms is considered to be a counter offer. The effect of a counter offer is that it is considered to be a rejection of the offer and the creation of a new offer. So therefore that original offer is terminated. Sometimes instead of a counter offer, the reply of an offeree may be considered to be an inquiry. So an example would be would you consider throwing in your earpods without the laptop and an inquiry does not terminate the original offer. Let's now examine in detail the legal status or effect of each of the statements in this conversation. The first statement by Sonya is of course an offer by Sonya to sell her laptop for $700. Ahmed's reply is considered to be a counter offer. It is not an acceptance of Sonya's offer since it is not a full and unconditional acceptance of the terms of Sonya's offer. This counter offer has the effect of terminating Sonya's offer. Sonya's reply to Ahmed is considered to be a rejection of Ahmed's counter offer. It has the effect of terminating that counter offer. And the last statement by Ahmed is considered to be a new offer by Ahmed to Sonya to buy her laptop for $700. It is not an acceptance of based on Sonya's original offer because that original offer was terminated at the time that Ahmed made his counter offer. So therefore no agreement has been formed between Sonya and Ahmed. Sonya is still looking to sell that laptop of hers this time. She decides to place an ad on Kijiji. The ad says, used Apple laptop for sale $700 excellent condition. Ahmed sees that ad and responds to Sonya by email. The email says, I saw your ad for the Apple laptop. I'll buy it for $700. The issue is again, is there an agreement between Sonya and Ahmed? To help us answer that question, we need to be familiar with the concept of an invitation to treat. An invitation to treat is not considered to be an offer. It is only an indication of a willingness to receive offers. It invites others to make offers. A person who responds to an invitation to treat is considered to be the offer or. What is considered to be an invitation to treat? There are certain things that are presumed to be an invitation to treat. If something is on sale in a retail store, there's a display with a price that's an invitation to treat. Or there's an advertisement, whether it be an online advertisement or a newspaper advertisement. That's also presumed to be an invitation to treat. A price tag or an item, whether it be in a physical store or even on an online e-commerce website. That is also presumed to be an invitation to treat. And also generally, things that are up for sale on a website or a catalog are presumed to be invitations to treat. A simple example is if you happen to be on amazon.ca, you see a pair of shoes that you like. That listing of the shoes along with the price would be presumed to be an invitation to treat. And as you would on amazon, you can click on buy now to submit in order to purchase those shoes. So that action by you by clicking buy now is considered an offer made by you to amazon. You are the offer or and amazon is the offer e. And once you place that order, you will receive by email, usually an order confirmation from amazon. So when you receive that order confirmation email, that is considered to be an acceptance of your offer by amazon. And then and only then is there an agreement between you and amazon. In this situation, there is no agreement that has been formed between Sonya and Ahmed. Sonya's Kijiji ad is presumed to be only an invitation to treat and not an offer. That ad was not directed to specific persons and nothing in the ad indicates an intention by Sonya to make a binding offer. So you should compare the facts of this scenario to the facts from a case called the Karbala smokeball case, which will examine a little later on. So Ahmed responded to that invitation to treat by Sonya by making an offer to Sonya. So that's that's the email that he sent that's considered to be an offer. It is now up to Sonya to decide whether or not to accept Ahmed's offer.


Hanging upside down Watch the broken ground He's singing it now That's all we've been saying for the last half an hour while this has been getting set up Episode number 34 of the Money, Michael, fully actual podcast Holy shit! I don't know if there are any tickets left available to our live show in a few weeks But if there are, the link will be in the description, okay?  And they borrowed our property last week So we'd work, like, nine to five, and then they'd rock up And they'd film from, like, six to, like, three a.m.   Alright, now Matt, you have... I get to, you have to be with... Can you do that?  Okay, so this scenario is Would you for... $1,000 hang upside down for 10 days Would you for $30 This is pointless Collect a bunch of cans And take them to a recycling centre Yes, yes I will It takes about 3 months I don't know, I'm going to say like what? $1,000 $30 Wait, are they already here? And this scenario, I have to go find them And do I have a time limit? It takes 6 months I'll do that in 6 months, I'll do that in 2 weeks I've got a better scenario You have to, you get 3 months On a yacht going through the Greek islands This sounds good But you have to be the cleaner of the yacht That sounds good, but then what do I miss out on? Are you just going to send me away for 3 months? I don't know, I'm just thinking Yeah, these are just what my scenario is Who's on the yacht with him? Who am I cleaning up after? That's the thing You've got Jeffrey Epstein He's dead You've got He's missing, sorry That's quite a clean up then you'd have, wouldn't you?   How are you going to do that? I'll put a chemical on there Can you do that? I'll find a way But you get three Kcash right now No, I like my eyelashes Okay, I'll give you fifty grand But you never grow your eyelashes again You don't even know how you're going to get rid of them yet You haven't thought of the three Listen, I'm taking this seriously You haven't even thought through your scenarios properly I don't know, I'll get a chemical I reckon you would I reckon you'd give up your eyelashes for fifty K You're making it silly now Anyway, look, let's move on We can scatter the scenario in throughout That's what me and Brown's days like That's when we're playing worms Just about sitting in silence While Michael spits scenarios at him Anyway, the cracker milk sketch It's going to be out So we're all in it It's going to be out, I believe, on Halloween So this month Very excited to see It was very amazing to see them all work They're proper fucking It was like a proper set It was very professional And I think it's going to be fucking hilarious There's lots of laughing on set Michael got in trouble a few times Because he couldn't be quiet Yeah, Michael was obsessed with playing worms The whole time During, in between every take Amazingly, brought everyone together I brought everyone together I created a worm's cult We had an audience at one point I didn't lose a match I also did 2v1 So it was eight worms Versus four worms Now I don't know if you guys know this But I was world number nine At worms, this game And I versed two players Versus four, eight, verse four Bang, gone, dead I had one worm against seven at one point And I took them down with one worm I was world number nine At this game So I've got a story from the cracker milk night One of the ladies there had her young son At the shoot And he was just sitting there Michael was talking to him And he goes, oh, do you play video games?   Okay, wait, I've just come up With the best scenario ever Brown is ruining this podcast Okay You have a homeless woman approach you Where are you going to get them from?   This is not real It's exciting This is a good one It reveals a kernel of truth about yourself So homeless woman comes up to you, right?  But she says I know where some gold is And that gold is worth $500,000 Would you do it?   No, yeah, no What if she had the gold?    Yeah, I wish you were there too Marty was ripping farts The night I wasn't here In front of random people Yeah, yeah Complete strangers All the crew and cast Was just fighting as loudly as I could It was fucking hilarious, man Not on my night here alone though I didn't do it then Yeah, it would be too scary I got shy I got shy and went outside I've got to say some of the performing I saw of your acting Was so funny I think it was very good Very good, Mart I didn't get to see you The one you saw You said it was really good But your little sniffing scenario You did I think everyone did quite well Everyone, we all kind of And we're on film And I don't know how Mike was But I was trying so hard I was biting my cheeks Trying not to move Trying not to do anything With the sniff? With the sniff It was so difficult He's like full channeled Like an actor Yeah, I just got lucky That few things And few weird skills I have were all in that role What was your character? Were you just a No, I was just An extra there Yeah That if there was a skill For playing worms I would have I definitely won that one Mike died He interrupted a conversation This morning to be like A guy came up to me And like when he left And he was like You're really good at worms, man Tom, Tom did He came up And he's like, dude You are unbelievable I warned them not to say that To him And yeah It just strokes his I am His worm head Very good at it Anyway Let's get into some sponsors, eh?   I can run 100 meters In under 12 seconds Bullshit I've seen it I've seen it After you drink AG1 You could too, I reckon You're pretty fast these days After you drink AG1 It's true What about what's it do for you, Matt?     I played with my puppets I'm practicing for my show My weekend has been good Shame about the Broncos losing And puppet show eh lol At least you're good with your hands right?  I'm thriving right now So many opportunities Sitting in my lab it's awesome How's your day off and shit? Yeah I've been really good I was so excited to have a full night's sleep I work odd hours Oh true What hours do you work? Do you have many cool opportunities coming your way? I started 10pm tonight And usually do 12 plus hour shifts I love what I do I kinda made it to where I want to be Oh that's so sick So you're literally living your dream What do you do? And what if like a super good opportunity Present itself I feel like you should always be on the lookout For opportunities I've like 3 or 4 opportunities I'm kind of looking at at the moment Oh what are they? What do you do? Oh I've got an email from this crypto guy And he wants to start a website with me So that's one opportunity There are second opportunities That I can start a podcast About making the most of opportunities So I'm thinking about doing that Then I got an opportunity at work Where they're offering me less hours So I can concentrate on my other opportunities Then like a little half opportunity Is I've nearly finished signing up as an Uber driver Oh no I'm a fork left driver Oh sick Did you always drive for So did you always want to drive forklifts So you like have to drive crates And cheer around That's pretty decent opportunity Because you can meet people in network And you can also earn money So good work in taking that opportunity There's so much opportunity And that's an ongoing Oh that's a tough one Alright another one Who starts a conversation with you So you know Very keen Hello there Matt You're a very attractive man With a beautiful smile How's your public holiday treating you That's so friendly of you My pet falcon literally made a sound When I read your message So she must approve of you already Public holiday so nice I'm just sitting in air con with my pet falcon What are you doing What no way you have a falcon I need to see this beautiful lady I'm chilling in my room with a fan And my mini me attached to my hip lol Yeah I do Technically I need a permit to have one in Australia That's why I don't have any pics of her But she's my best friend I've had her for nearly 7 years now Oh cool how long have you had your child I have 2 My son is 9 And my daughter is 5 Do you have any kids My best friend is my cat lol Oh that's so cool I bet they love their mommy Don't they I bet they do Oh no not a cat Hopefully my falcon doesn't mind your cat My falcon can kill and carry Fully grown sheep I've trained it to attack intruders too Her talons could crush the neck of a burglar easily My falcon is so beautiful and strong I love her so much My falcon is my child And I've hand raised her from when she was an egg My cat is 11 and a half years old As healthy as she looks I don't know if she has long left Do you have snapchat Oh true Yeah because if we moved in together I don't know if I could guarantee that my falcon Won't go for your cat And feast upon its body My falcon comes first in my life She's been through so much with me And I know it's weird but we have a very tight close bond If you earn and respect If you earn the respect of my falcon Then she will protect you just like she protects me My ex didn't earn her respect And it ended up costing the relationship No sorry I don't use snapchat I can download it if you want Oh well my kids And then my cat come first Once my falcon and your kids know each other My falcon will protect them too If they could just walk to school And my falcon would follow them And glide around above them And if anyone came near them My falcon would attack their faces It's like having a dog that can fly Except way cooler and prettier People automatically respect you if you have a falcon It's weird Kinda like a little Being a little famous it's crazy How are your kids with falcons Are you having lunch or something I don't know We have only seen them in the sky Yeah I was having lunch Yeah they're super super rare And really hard to tame My falcon always gets so much attention It's like walking around with a lion Same reactions from people My falcon changed my life What did you have my lunch I just fed my falcon She had an organic raw chicken breast And toky mints And she hasn't replied to that She must be so fucking bored Of that conversation Just talking nonstop About your falcon Please keep going until she asks you About your falcon And then I get really offended Oh very good Constantly Can you get it start getting offended already And to be like you haven't asked me one question About my falcon So gaslighting I would be Oh man Oh man anyway Create friction and get burnt That's how it is Geez how do I respond to that Lo?  I guess it's just a spot where it doesn't matter if it scars I didn't really ask Blades of hot steel Slice through my environment My soul is butter Blades of hot steel?  Used descriptive wording Excruciating I think that's pretty descriptive Yeah I bet Trying to describe how it made you feel And really concentrate on the moments here Remember I want to be there with you I know it's not the same as actually being there But at least if you really take me there I can tell the kids that I know what it was like When you were born If we get to that stage Where you're ready for me to meet them of course In the months of labour I yearned for the end Both because I was exhausted But also because my child would be the result The prize to my hard work Oh the exhaustion I can feel it in your words Did you feel the vibrations when they tore you open Or was that memory suppressed Oh I did not tear open I laid it as long as I could Before the doctors and midwives decided C-section wouldn't be the best option Imagine having to go through labour Only to have it ending in a C-section It's disappointing That's hectic, hectic as shit I can't even imagine being awake As they slice you open and rip a human out From inside of your uterus Crazy what the human body can take With my feet really wide apart And bobbing up and down to a song I've got a mouthguard in You're awake But you don't feel anything Or you shouldn't after having anesthesia Injected into your spine Are you doing that right now Or do you mean that's why you would have done in that situation Surely we feel your body getting Joke from side to side And then you rip a baby out of your guts Oh yeah I'm doing it right now I'm smoking a cigarette too And bobbing up and down to a song To the sound of the song That song green green grass Blue blue sky song I can feel my testicles bouncing off my inner thigh I might need to put some underwear on Oh no Yes I felt it but there was no pain Just like a slight push-pull Kind of feeling It's too hot for underwear I'm picturing a farmer ripping a calf Out of one of his cows Is that how it was How it's hard at first But then it just kind of gives way And the baby slides out with ease Covered in placenta and blood and shit Yeah I'm really getting into it This song just makes my body And takes my body and moves it I'm looking from side to side really fast It hurts my neck and it's kind of making me dizzy Can't say I've seen a farmer Rip a calf from one of his cows I'm on the couch with Netflix I'm stretching my mouth open as far as I can The neighbors know not to look at me Is this normal for you Or have you had a few drinks On my days off I like to party So yeah I've had half a bottle of rum Or like a third or some shit I can feel my throat burning It's the limited edition Darren Lockyer rum And that's an ongoing conversation No outstanding That was fucking class Holy shit dude Did you like that Matt What are you for climbing He's distracted by movement out in the distance It poses a threat to his safety There's two men at the top of the driveway But they're crossing the road to the other side You can discard that situation now Matt You can relax The safety is maintained Breathe out, you're holding in anxiety into your lungs Breathe out fully Imagine if they just got wiped out by a semi-trailer right now Man that was fucking, that was a good time Tinder thing That was so good Matt Bobbing with a mouth guard She didn't even address the mouth guard She let that one go It would be so insane to do that on your own Were you just messaging on Tinder It's incredible what these girls will Tolerate Read and then continue a conversation Dude it's sad It's like they like the attention Even though they can see how Clearly damaged this person is I think they just forget There's so much to read and take in That they kind of forget some things She did say Maybe they think like You're just actually mucking about and having a laugh Some of them just like the The entertainment value Or they could just think that you've got like Something wrong with you Alright so she starts this conversation What's up baby What did you have for breakfast Random but coffee and a bacon Egg, English muffins That's so good Did you put butter on the muffin Did you have any sauce or anything I'd like five pancakes, a large glass of milk Three sausages, two hash browns and some cereal Fruit loops What are you doing today, have you got a pool A little bit Barbecue sauce of course No pool, did all day yesterday The beach yesterday, so chill day today Doing mum life stuff How about you The sausages I had are like 30cm long And they're from this butcher I go to He fully knows my name He's become one of my best friends Today I'm styling my house I need to re-style it I'm not feeling a good vibe anymore Oh yeah, very nice What style are you going for That's a very large sausage Great question Oh yeah, I feel like the long ones have so much more flavour Because I have to make them by hand The quality of flesh in them is second to none The cowboys in tender And the little pieces of garlic in them And the hint of chilli I'll cook them on a high heat and they just go off at parties I'm going for a cowboy slash space theme style So like wooden pieces of furniture With steel trimmings And like robot pieces and shit Must be lunchtime now What are you going to have for lunch I have no idea I'm just putting my phone in to be fixed Oh damn, so we won't be able to chat I was going to say I'm having some french toast I made a liter of coke Four roasted butternut pumpkin balls Some ham off the bone in a french baguette And a bowl of homemade fries I made mayonnaise as well And put that shit on everything It's so much better than homemade Than the stuff from the store Oh that's a lot of food I have it back now My lens on my camera smashed Being ugly does that Do not speak about yourself like that Everyone is beautiful in their own way And you are no different You need to love yourself Promise me you will work on that It means a lot to me if you could do that But yeah I might have a little snack There's some fruit roll-ups in my pantry Do you remember them?    If somebody wanted to Stretch their neck so they could have a long neck What would you suggest?    I don't know Alright Two more questions The next one is from Gissards Gissards Depending where they're from Who would Brown rather be stuck on a desert island With Marty or Michael This I really read this earlier And I've been thinking about it a long time And I would have to be Michael It'd be way more Better off surviving with you I just think I could Control you Maybe I'd make you my slave worker Marty would be tough And Marty would play with me a lot in the diet I just couldn't deal with it I wouldn't use you sexually I'd probably I'd throw out a few scenarios at ya And if there was a worm set up We'd probably be playing worms Alright final question This probably leads into the next thing It's from A.J. Spence Can you guys make tales of Bethlehem A more recurring segment? Love hearing the stories Yes Yes we can And that is the end of the questions Which, funnily enough, leads into Tales of Bethlehem Hanging upside down Should we record that? That was very beautiful No it wasn't It needs to be a jingle though for tales of Bethlehem Yeah It needs to sound really like Christmasy I'm imagining like a lad in three Oh yeah no I can see that Oh I come from a land in a faraway place I'm picturing Jesus on the cross Yeah we could get Bible Ikegi Thank you Alright so tales of Bethlehem is an old story And today we're speak of What story, what was it?  I don't know the full story of this So this is me hearing this first I know what it's pretty intense What are we up to? We're going to talk about the Ailey Beach No Ailey Beach, true Us three were at Michael wasn't there But he does know the story very well The third one sorry? I'm glad I wasn't there for the Ailey Beach I can do the Ailey Beach first We speak of when you wake up After a big night and you go What the f*** happened So me, James, Matt and Luke Went on a f*** road trip On like New Year's Day one year And we just had no For like three weeks Yeah there was no like plan We were just like let's just drive For an undisclosed amount of time We didn't know we were sleeping We just f***ing drove It was like one of the best holidays We went along the way But ended up staying in most hells most of the night And oh man anyway We get to f***ing Ailey And we're f***ing keen for a f***ing big night Some of James's f***ing teacher mates are there And we just f***ing keen to get f***ing on it So we f***ing started We literally beer-bonged An entire carton Before we went out Remember? We were pouring Shots of vodka and beer Through a funnel, through like a cup Through that, it was fast So literally before we went out It's the fastest I've ever had drinks in my entire life Let me explain this beer-bong So the boys, I don't know who came out of the look Came out with this beer-bong Contraption where he just It was a bottle I've never seen it before Basically he just cuts a bottle in half And that's it, you just pour it straight in You block the hole with your mouth And you pour the drink in And then you just open your mouth You cut the arse off it That's where you pour the drink in And then you just let it flow You can drink as you pour, but I like to pour it in Let the foam settle a bit and then just smash it Cause then there's that weight to it This f***ing weight to it as it rushes down your throat But anyway, we're absolutely f***ed By the time we were out of control Before we even went anywhere I barely remember even just before we went there To the bar Which was like, the bar was at the place We were staying It was apparent as soon as we got there That we were about 80 times drunker Than anyone in the entire place Maybe like 7 or 8pm or something And like, there was like this guy Singing and I have vague memories of just f***ing There's no one on the dance floor Just vague memories of like Like being the only one up dancing Just so disgusting and turning around There's just a sea of iPhones filming And then like starting back to the table Throwing drinks at the The guy before that though You know that song that's like That song And it's like a call and response Like the audience were like singing along Once we caught on to that song Every time it was the response section We would all just scream It was loud The singer actually loved it He was like having a good laugh And that's when Marty started dancing And yeah, I feel like I think you were dancing With a drink and you dropped your drink And then I think that just sort of Got out the little devil within us all And we just wanted to just like Throwing our glasses around the place But before that actually because that's when we got Wasn't it at the musician?      Get it back?  Hello, my son has just come home and I've just noticed that he's carrying an entire bag full of lollies and chocolates and all sorts of things. And he I didn't give him any money to go out and buy these things. So he's come home with a whole bag and I'm just wondering and I'm thinking he goes to your drakes a lot. Have you guys recently had in a little 15 year old boy who's may have walked out with with some lollies? I don't know. I will have asked one of the other guys up here. Yeah, I'd like to pinpoint exactly where it's gotten them from because I'm going to be making him return them. Yeah. Alright, just give me two seconds. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. How are you still with me? Yeah, what's going on darling? So none of the people up here have seen anything suspicious, but we also have been really busy today. Yeah, okay. So he could have snuck in around the back where no one was watching and filled a bag up and left. And to be honest, I suspect that that's exactly what's happened.  And I just on behalf of our family, I just like to apologize, first of all. So I'm deeply sorry. And I will be making him return the item. So if he comes in, just at the back, will he be able to return the lollies to your store without any issue? Hello. Hello. Will he be able to return the lollies to your store? Yeah. If I come in with him, will you guys be pressing any kind of charges or anything? Or is there a kind of protocol for that? I will talk to one of the managers that are here at the moment. I'll see what would happen. Okay, look, I'm okay with if you guys have to report this to the police. But I would like there to not be a mark on his name, if that makes sense. Yeah, so maybe if you could... I want him to be punished and to make sure that he's learned that you do not steal from grocery stores, bronze. But I'd really like to make sure that it's not a kind of permanent blemish on his record. Yeah, if you want, I can write down your name and phone number. Yeah, that'd be great. So when you come in, I can give it to one of the other workers here. That would be great. In fact, I might come in with him just to make sure this all goes smoothly. But I'll jot down my name and I'll give you my number as well. Yeah. All right, I've got a piece of paper here. Okay, so Margaret, M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T-T. M-A-R. M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T-T. E-T-T. E-T-T. Yep. Thombus. T-H. Tundus. Thombus. T-H-O-M-B-U-S. Margaret Thombus. And my son's name is Bront. B-R-O-N-T. Thombus. Yep. And just by the looks of it, so he's probably got maybe 30 to 40 dollars worth of chocolate and lollies that his little hands have taken from your store. So it's about 30 to 40 dollars worth of product that he will be returning. Yeah, is that okay with you guys? So just to be clear, there will be no charges being pressed. I'll talk to my manager about it. Would it be possible to have you do that beforehand? Just, I don't want to take my son in and be confronted with police, okay? I'm all for punishing him, but I will not be having a prominent mark on his name from one stupid mistake. All right, just give me a few seconds. I'll talk to you on hold and I'll talk to my manager. No worries. Thank you so much, mate. I appreciate that. Family owned Australian business established in 1974. Hi, this is Louis from Drake's McDowell. Thank you for holding. That's okay. No worries at all. Yeah. Sorry, mate, I couldn't quite pick out what you were saying there. I said, yeah, that's okay. So did your employees speak to you about what's happened here?   And I'm not standing for it today. So I'm forcing him to return everything. And yeah, I'm deeply apologetic. On behalf of my entire Fombas family, I'd just like to say we're really, I'm really am super apologetic. Yeah, no, thank you very much for calling us and letting us know. And they're like, I'll let you know, I'm having a hard time just hearing over the phone. It's just coming through to be my fault. Right. But mate, thank you very much for catching that one out and ringing it up. Yeah, no, I really want to learn his lesson and making sure that he never does this again. So if you guys want to take a picture of him and hang it up to really discourage his dirty little fingers from catching from you guys in the future, I would be OK with that as well. Yeah, thank you very much for letting us know.  No, it's great to see that. If you're able to drop those back down with his tools, we won't take any court of legal action. Yeah, if it is able to just be a good learning lesson for him. Yeah, no, I don't think so. Yeah, that's fine. If everything is returned, that's no harm, no foul there and in the end of the day. OK, that's great. Look, I am definitely a learning lesson for him. OK, great. No, that's great to hear. I am actually his mother. I am a lady. But yeah, just to be clear, so there will be no police involved if I come with him because I want him to learn his lesson. And I know I'm all for embarrassing him publicly for what he's done. But I don't want there to be any kind of permanent record. So, you know, which might ruin his future. Do you know what I mean there? Yeah, no, at this point, if you're able to bring those down, if you want to bring them down as well, I'll have a quick word with him. And then, yeah, I'm confident you're able to have this with your teaching lesson for him or a learning moment for him. But yeah, if everything is able to come back to the shopmate, there's no need to get the cops involved this time. If it happens again, obviously going to have to get that sort of that ball rolling there. No, I completely understand. At this point, mate, if it's, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so I completely understand. And yes, if he does it again, he will not be leaving the house for months and months. You have my word. You have my word on my sword. So I will bring him in. And yeah, OK, so we should be in short. Absolutely, mate. So once you get here, just let the people know at the front, just to call Lewis down the front and I'll be up to have a quick word. OK, no worries. All right, we should be in within about 20 to 15 minutes.  Don't get changed. So we should be in shortly. I'll see you soon. And again, so, so sorry for what's happened today. No worries, mate. I really do appreciate you calling up with that information. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Sorry, what was your name? So my name is Margaret. I'm actually his mother. That was Michael, sorry. Margaret. M-A-R. Margaret. Yes, I'm actually. Thomas. Marty, Margaret Thombus. Yes, that's correct. Thomas, no worries. I'll see you in shortly. That's no worries at all. Thank you so much for calling up and letting us know. No, no, I really appreciate you taking the time and hearing my complaint. We'll see you guys shortly. No worries, mate. Thank you very much. We'll see you soon. No worries. Thank you, bud darling. Bye-bye. Oh, my God. Dude, we listed the Marty and Michael slip. He said Michael and then you said Marty. I think that's why. It subconsciously fires me. It's crazy that he said Michael. It's unbelievable how they just grow to understand, OK, that's how this is. The first time I do it, the first time I do it, there's always like a really long pause. Yeah, because like he was like a teenager. You could hear in his voice and his brain was just going, I don't know how to deal with this. Is this real? I wish that you got really, really angry at Lewis, him at the end for misgendering you. Yeah, I'm yelling at him. Oh, but very, very good. He does a laugh and a half. That's very good. All right, guys, there's the end of episode number 34.  Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, because a five-star review on Spotify. It's the only thing that keeps us alive. And if you want to see the uncut version of this, remember we post the original audio on Spotify for YouTube. We have to clean it up a bit. Yeah, clean it up a little bit.