Hello, fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praised their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pierce and this is The Authority. Hello, I'm Joseph Pierce and welcome to this episode of The Authority. We're now well into the 20th century as we were the last couple with Beloch and Chesterton. We continue actually with the contemporary of Beloch and Chesterton's Robert Hugh Benson. His conversion to Catholicism in 1903 was probably the most controversial and publicized conversion to Catholicism of the whole Catholic literary revival with the obvious exception of John Henry Newman. So John Henry Newman was received in the church in 1845 and that was really, we say the definitive beginning of the Catholic literary revival with his conversion. And that sent shock waves through the British establishment because he was such a well-known writer and preacher and historian and intellectual and man of God. So his conversion was widely publicized and sent shock waves through the establishment. Well, the same was true of Benson's conversion. Now, that was because not so much because of who Benson was in himself, but because he was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury, of course, is, shall we say for want of better terminology, the Anglican Pope. So when the head of the Anglican Church's son becomes a Catholic, he was already an Anglican priest and as soon as he became a Catholic, in 1903 he went on to study for the Catholic priesthood and was ordained a year later in 1904. So Robert H. Benson's in this series on the authority because of his role as a writer and specifically mainly as a novelist, but he was also a Catholic priest. Apart from his famous father, he came from a very, a family of, shall we say, high achievers and those who were successful actually in writing because he had two brothers. A. C. Benson wrote biographies of Dante Gabriel Rosetti, one of the leaders of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of the ruby out of Armite Omar Cayam amongst other things, Walter Pater, one of the leaders of the aesthetic movement of the 19th century, Alfred Lord Tennyson, the great poet and John Ruskin, great champion of the Gothic revival amongst other things. So A. C. Benson was very much part of the documenting through the lives of these great men, the cultural movement of late Victorian England. E. F. Benson, Robert H. Benson's other brother was also known as being a novelist, a novelist of, shall we say, light fiction, humorous fiction and he is best known today for his map and Lucia novels which have been adapted for television. But it's obviously, it's Robert H. Benson is the brother we're going to be focusing on today. Following his conversion, he wrote a book called Confessions of a Convert and as a convert myself, I'm a great devotee and reader of other people's conversion stories. Obviously, the most famous is probably St. Augustine's Confessions. Then after that, probably Newman's own Apologia Provita Sua. But really, Robert H. Benson's Confessions of a Convert, which give his reasons for his conversion is one of the great works of conversion literature. So I thoroughly recommend that. He only wrote one novel prior to his conversion, all of his other novels were written after his conversion and that was a novel called The Light Invisible, which was actually very, very successful. But following his conversion, Benson was not as keen on that as he had been trying to read some passages here from my book Literary Converts about this. So he's speaking about The Light Invisible, he says, the Catholic atmosphere is on the other hand something quite apart from all this. For Catholics, there's almost a matter of indifference as to whether or no the soul realizes in such a manner as to be able to visualize the facts of revelation and the principles of the spiritual world. The point is that the will should adhere and the reason assent. But for Anglicans, whose theology is fundamentally unreasonable and amongst whom authority is really non-existent, it becomes natural to place the center of gravity rather in the emotions and to mistake the imagination for the soul. The reason for them must be continually suppressed even in its own legitimate sphere. The will must be largely self-centered. So here we see how as a Catholic, Benson has now matured, if that's the right word, into an understanding of the indissoluble union or marriage between fetus at Ratio, between faith and reason, and that faith has to pass the test of reason, has to be rational, as well as merely faithful. There's this union which is insisting upon, the danger of the absence of that is that we are ruled by our emotions and that our will becomes self-centered, becomes a servant of our emotions, which is a dangerous position to be in. Also, Benson confessed his indebtedness to John Henry Newman as one of the major influences upon his conversion, especially Newman's development of Christian doctrine, which shows how the church, the image I give about this often, and we'll do it again, the understanding of Newman's doctrine as regards the development of doctrine, his work on that subject, which is influential upon Benson and many others, can be liken metaphorically to a tree. So, we understand the Catholic Church is a tree that has grown through the 20th centuries. Now, as it grows through each century, new things happen in some centuries that never happened in previous centuries, and the church has to respond to those. So, for instance, the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the French Revolution in the 18th century, the rise of communism and fascism and Nazism in the 20th century. So, the church needs to respond to these new developments, which are really normally old sins dressed in new language. But in doing so, the tree grows, but it's still the same tree in essence, so that the church does not change in essentials, even as it grows and develops in doctrine. The doctrines don't contradict earlier doctrines. There are many developments from earlier doctrines to address what's happening now. So, Newman's book on the developed doctrine was hugely influential on Benson. Benson says, Newman's book had, quote, like a magician, waved away the last floating mists and let me see the city of God in her strength and beauty. And I want to just move on to a few more pages to talk about the influence on what was Benson's conversion. So, this is one of his own converts or later converts addressing the shock that many people felt when Benson was received into the church. Father Benson was going to become a Roman Catholic. Then, if he was not a Catholic now in the Church of England, what was he? What was I? It is no exaggeration to say that the very foundations of faith and all the realities of the spiritual life rocked and trembled from the violence of this utterly unexpected shock. It was extraordinarily difficult to know where one whom we looked upon as a pillar of English Catholicism should have found it necessary for his salvation to submit to the Church of Rome. That's the end of the quote, and this is my concluding paragraph to this section on Benson in my book, Literary Converts. After the initial shock had subsided, the above writer and many others sought to discover why their mentor had felt compelled to take this tremendous step. The result was that so many of us were led to study the question under his direction after he entered the Church and finally become Catholics ourselves. So, we've looked at Newman's influence on Benson's conversion and then Benson's influence upon the conversion of many others. We mentioned that he was ordained only a year after his reception into the Church in 1904, and that's when his first Catholic novel, his first novel as a Catholic was published. We won't have time in this podcast to go through all of the novels that Benson wrote. It's astonishing. He died young, as we shall see, so in a period of only 10 years he wrote a huge number of novels. I must confess I forgot to count them, but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the region of approaching 20 in the space of 10 years. So he was prolific until his untimely death. So the first of these was a book called By What Authority, by What Authority, a question mark, and this is an historical novel set during the 16th century and specifically the bulk of the novel during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. There's some wonderful scenes in the novel of Queen Elizabeth the First as a character in the novel which brings, if you like, this historical period to life. And that's what Benson's trying to do, that basically the English had been deprived of a balanced view of history, the tragedy of court always is the history is written by the victors, which means you get a somewhat warped view of history. Whereas, you know, Catholics were put to death for a period of 150 years from the 1530s to the 1680s and continued to be second-class citizens in their own country with all sorts of legal restrictions against them for further 150 years after that until Catholic Emancipation in 1829. So one of Benson's concerns as a novelist was to bring the history to life and to show the reality of the persecution of Catholics. So by What Authority, it's a wonderful novel because it shows that he's very balanced, he's not preachy, he's not pushing an agenda in some sort of didactic way. So you have characters in it that are good, honorable, honest, Protestants who are trying to do the best according to their lives. You have Catholics who are courageous and standing by their faith. You have other Catholics who are worldly and abandon their faith or others that compromise their faith in pursuit of love and other things. So it's a marvelous novel by What Authority is a new edition published recently by Seneca Press, which I thoroughly recommend. And then the following year, there's another volume was published called The King's Achievement and this takes the story back a little bit further to Queen Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII. And the backdrop of that novel is the dissolution of the monasteries, so King Henry VIII's destruction of all the monasteries and converts in England during the 1530s. Probably the best known of Benson's historical fiction is the novel Come Rack, Come Rope, the title of which was plucked from the famous words of the Jesuit martyrs and Edmund Campion in his famous brag, Campion's brag where he promised that they would stay true to the faith, true to the faith, come what may, come rack, come rope. So it's inspired by that. We see the story there of a young man and it's a love story. Actually, one of the things I love about this particular novel is it is a love story between a young man and a young lady, but the young man feels drawn to the priesthood. And of course, at this particular time in history, 16th century, and by the way that the novel was inspired by real life English martyrs, the Padley martyrs who were martyred in Derbyshire. So this is based upon a true story that the character Robin is drawn to the priesthood and therefore, of course, needs to abandon his relationship with martyrs at least in terms of its natural ending in marriage. But what's one of the beautiful things about the novel is they remain in love, but they remain in love now in a really holy way where both of them are serving each other by serving God. So a chaste but nonetheless deep loving relationship between these two people throughout the novel. So that was published in 1912. Benson published other historical novels, but I say we don't have time to talk about all of them. I would say that when when Hilaire Belock first read Benson's historical novels, he thought that Benson might be the person one day to write the definitive non fictional history of what happened in the 16th and 17th centuries in England as regards the persecution of Catholics and Catholic resistance, etc. In actual fact, Benson as someone who certainly preferred fiction in writing of history than the nonfiction never did do that prior to his death. And in the envelope, took up the cudgels himself, shall we say, and wrote and published a whole string of novels on some of the leading characters of that period of history. Again, I'm not going to list them, but it's what Belock called the need to correct that tom full Protestant history, the biased view of history. But I want to mention one other historical novel because it's different from the ones we've mentioned. Most of Benson's historical fiction is set during the time of the English Reformation and the persecution of the 16th and 17th centuries. But he wrote one novel, which is actually my favorite of his novels and also was his favorite. So I feel vindicated there. And it's actually a book called The History of Richard Reinal Solitary. It was published in 1912, the same year as Comewrat, Comewrope. Solitary is a hermit, basically. So the history of Richard Reinal Solitary, Richard Reinal hermit. And this is set earlier than the Reformation, actually in the early 15th century. So the early 1400s, if you like, at the height of what has become known as Mary England of Catholic England. And it's such it's much, it's a much more joyful book, not that there's not evil going on in it. But it's much more joyful book because the backdrop to the culture is this Mary vivid, vibrant, living Catholic culture of pre-Reformation England. And also something which is very difficult to do, and Benson does it better than most, is to depict sanctity. It's much easier to write about evil in a work of fiction than it is to write about holiness without sounding preachy or saccharine or hagiographic, you know, just you're writing about someone who's basically perfect and immaculate. And the point is even the saints were sinners. So how do you depict sanctity while still depicting the humanity of the subject? Benson's superb at that. And Richard Reinal Solitary, the character of Richard Reinal is, to me, one of the one of the holiest characters in all of literature and I thoroughly recommend it. Benson, however, was an adventurer in terms of being a writer and did not allow himself to be constrained or restrained by one genre. So he did, although he wrote historical fiction and probably that's what he wrote most of, he wrote also fiction about set in contemporary times, set in his own time of Edward in England, early 20th century England. And perhaps the most notable of those is a novel called The Necromancers, which is published in 1909. And this is about spiritualism. And spiritualism was all the rage in the late 19th, early 20th century. So for instance, Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes Mysteries was a great advocate of spiritualism, of basically being in touch with the spiritual world. And it even infected good Christian souls, such as Chesterton's own wife. The Necromancer was published in 1909. And two years prior to that, Chesterton's wife's brother, so Chesterton's brother-in-law, Nolly's blog, committed suicide. And Francis, Chesterton's wife, was so distraught by this development that she consulted a spiritualist and a seance with a crystal ball and the rest of it. Even though she was a good believer in Christian, that she was so distraught and disturbed and desirous of being in touch with her brother, her deceased brother, who having committed suicide, of course, the eternal destiny of his soul was in doubt. And obviously, she was seeking reassurance. Nonetheless, Chesterton was not very happy about his wife's dabbling in, basically, ultimately, diabolism. So he wrote this wonderful poem, and so we off track a bit, but it does connect to the culture that Benson was addressing in the Necromancers. And this is one of my favorite poems by Chesterton. It's called The Crystal, as in the crystal ball. And it's addressed to his wife I saw it, low she lay as one in dreams, and round that holy hair, round and beyond, my Francis, my inviolable, screamed the scandal of the dead men's demimonde.  You whom the pine woods robed in sun and shade, you who were septored with thistle's bloom, God's thunder, what have you to do with these, the lying crystal and the darkened room? Leave the weird queens that find the sun too strong to mope and cower beneath druidic trees. The still sweet gardens of the Daston's dream, God's thunder, what have you to do with these? Low fields and shining lying crystal land, peace and strange pleasure, wonder lands untrod, but not plain words, nor love of open things, truth, nor strong laughter, nor the fear of God. I will not look, I am a child of earth, I see the sun and wood, the sea and grass, I only saw one spirit, she is there, staring for spirits in a lump of glass. This is a powerful poem by Chesterton against the dangers of spiritualism, and again this was the subject of Benson's novel published two years later, so Chesterton's poem was presumably published around 1907 and the necromancers were published in 1909. And again, Benson is nothing if not versatile because he also wrote three science fiction novels, novels set in the future, the best known of which is Lord of the World, which is usually always in print, it's so popular, and that was published in 1907. And what's astonishing about it, it's in the vein of what we might call dystopian literature, and was a pioneer in that sort of literature. So the two most famous works of dystopian literature in the 20th century are probably Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which was published in the 1920s, and 1984 by George Orwell which was published right just in 1949, I believe, 48 or 49, in the 1940s. But this is published in 1907, so almost 40 years earlier than that, and certainly 15 or so years earlier than Huxleys, and what's amazing is if anything it's more relevant than Huxleys and Orwell's dystopian fiction. So Huxleys, and anyway, there's a lot of truth to it, and Huxleys dystopian future, that humanity has some nambulated, has sleepwalked towards slavery because it's kept happy through drugs and easy pleasures, so it's the comfort being the path of least resistance, which leads to hell basically. So that's all absolutely true, and of course, George Orwell's book was written just after World War II with the defeat of the Nazis in very recent memory, and with the Soviet Union still very much a powerhouse of totalitarianism, and fascism in Italy, what have you. So 1984 is about the dangers of big brother, of having a big government that becomes so big that it crushes the citizens underfoot in jackboots, and what I think the key thing about Orwell's vision is that it doesn't really matter whether the jackboot that crushes the civilian is on the left foot or the right foot. In other words, whether it's communist or fascist, that the tyranny is the same. So again, all of this is true, but in order the world, what Benson shows is the rise of a very popular politician who, in a globalized culture, who becomes accepted by the various sort of globalist institutions such as the European Union doesn't exist there in those League of Nations or the United Nations, but basically there's this idea that the countries have come together in alliances and they hand over power to this man, who's the Lord of the World, and he's very popular because he promises peace and he seems to be affable, but his real agenda is poisonous, pernicious, anti-Christian, and ultimately, it's not just anti-Christian, he is effectively anti-Christ. So the rise of, should we say, secular fundamentalism, wearing a smile and looking for votes, that is something which we can perhaps all relate to in our own day and age. So, best known for his fiction, historical, contemporary, and science fiction, but he was not a verse to write in children's books. In 1905, he wrote a book with the alphabet of saints, and he worked with others, another couple of children's books, and he was a significant apologist, so a defender of the Catholic Church, wrote several books of apologetics, arguing for the Catholic Church's perspective, probably the best known of which is a book published in 1913 called Paradoxes of Catholicism. Now, he died tragically young of pneumonia in 1914, when he was only 42 years old, and what a marvelous and astonishing legacy he's left behind us in his corpus of works, fiction and non-fiction. He was also, by the way, an extremely popular preacher when he was giving us a sermon, that the attendants would be would be would be enormous. So posthumously, his spiritual letters to one of his converts was published, showing the spiritual depth of Benson's Christianity, his Catholic faith. But I haven't mentioned, and it would be a sin of omission if I didn't, that he was also a poet there was a running with his poetry published, and in the book Poems Every Catholic Should Know, published by Tan Borks, I select a few of his poems, and I thought I'd conclude this episode on Robert Hugh Benson with one of these poems, and it's called After a Retreat. What hast thou learnt today? Hast thou sounded awful mysteries? Hast pierced the veiled skies, climbed to the feet of God, trodden where saints have trod, fathomed the heights above? Nay, this only have I learnt, that God is love. What hast thou heard today? Hast heard the angel trumpets cry, and rippling harps reply? Heard from the throne of flame whence God incarnate came? Sound thunderous message roll? Nay, this have I heard, his voice within my soul. What hast thou felt today? Opinions of the angel guide, that standeth at thy side, in rapturous ardour's beat, glowing from head to feet, in ecstasy divine? Nay, this only have felt Christ's hand in mine. Thanks so much for joining me in the authority. Please do join me next time, and until next time, goodbye and good reading. This has been an episode of The Authority with Joseph Pierce, brought to you by Tan. For updates on new episodes and to support The Authority and other great free content, visit theauthoritypodcast.com to subscribe and use coupon code authority25 to get 25% off your next order, including books, audiobooks, and video courses by Joseph Pierce, on literary giants such as Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis, Shakespeare, and Bellach. As well as Tan's extensive catalog of content from the saints and great spiritual masters, to strengthen your faith and interior life. To follow Joseph and support his work, check out his blog and sign up for email updates and exclusive content at jpearse.co, and thanks for listening.


What's up everybody, Jason here for JaspysCaseBrace.com 21-22, Panini Hoops Basketball just sold out This is a five box break two random teams each number two and again This is a 15 spot break everybody gets two random teams in the NBA all-cards ship So here you go here's the dice really here's the customer names doubled up from Brian down to Derek And then we have Hawks down to the Wizards. Let's roll the dice and we got ourselves a Two to two four times. Good luck one two three and four James down to James four times four times one two three four Thunder down to the Brooklyn Nets James with thunder EA with the Wizards France with the Rock is Brian with the Grizzlies EA with the Heat Derek with the Spurs Stephen with the Hornets Brian with the Jazz Zachary with the 76ers Derek with the Clippers Thomas with the Bulls Brian with the Kings Derek with the Blazers Brian with the Mavericks Stephen with the Cavs Zachary with the Raptors Julian with the Pistons Stephen Kendrick with the Bucks Julian with the Warriors Brian with the Celtics as well as the Magic Thomas with the Nuggets EA with the Sun Stephen Kendrick with the Pelicans Brian with the T-Wills Pacers EA with the Lakers Derek with the Knicks Francis with the Hawks and James with the Brooklyn Nets So if anybody of course wants to trade I'll give you guys a quick minute. If not stick to what you got All right, let's say bowman's best sold out. So we'll be doing some best after this John gets to in impeccable R&B and Daniel actually just sold out impeccable. All right, so impeccable football is coming up after this so we'll go in impeccable R&B's I don't know Oliver. I'll double check once I Once I get to the case in the back. I know yeah, Randallson's gonna be tough, buddy Definitely can be tough. All right. Does anybody want to trade guys? I was just quickly doing some of the stuff in the background So I think by then we'll probably have like that filler sold out. I assume we'll sell out that filler, right? We'll sell out that top chrome filler I'll probably put it to the schedule just because I think it'll sell out by then You can add this to the schedule We'll do that really quick All right, and then hopefully something else by then maybe Sell some flaws. I mean, we can always do some more best Maybe sell some of that immaculate four seven and three left. Maybe some more hoops Three left and that breaks by to put on the schedule there spectra. Maybe we could sell some spectra That's on the three left. I know they're the big teams guys, but you're also have a chance of going back some money So not bad and then helmets is down to 10. Let's just close the tree window Yeah, I think we're good now So Kyrie Won't be playing in tonight's nets game right because it's in New York and by the laws He's unvaccinated so you can't play But you can only play for their way games, right? Do you think that? You know, maybe him wanting to play basketball game Let's just say what changes perspective on it and just get vaccinated so you can play every game Or do you still think he's gonna stick to what he says? because this isn't a suck like You know, let's say this goes on for the whole rest of the year and like They're in the finals and then he can only play in the way games All right, I just grabbed five boxes from the stacks there. They were all lined right there All stuck together from last time All right, here we go guys. How long did Siege in a column? There's a Jalen Green. I feel like I haven't seen much of him in the first box first five boxes Puku to 75 the okats to 2021 Jones Sharif Cooper Evan Mowley Onyeka Trayman and we have a Moises moody now playing Derek Rose And a Jambtastic James Weiss Campbell Walker tonight around All right, next one Davion Mitchell Yannis under the combo purple Livers and Not Yannis onto the combo, but how about the honest whoa got two autographs back-to-back I think they were stuck to each other You're guys a lucky day the honest onto the combo for the Bucks and Milwaukee Bucks is going to Steven Kendrick and then we have an Avery Bradley for the Houston Rockets going to Francis whoa The three autographs in this box. What is going on here hoops ink Clint Capella? Francis with the Hawks. Good Lord. This is definitely a hot box They have hot boxes in a hoops Three autographs right there Bode, what's going on man? Giddy, Hakim Scotty Barnes Malik Beasley. All right, no redbacks in these stacks here Could be a redback in one of these ones though, so I'll double check these right now All right, no redbacks in this box, but this box did have three autographs, which is Not normal Jordan. What's going on man? I'd like to shop in Sorry, I wasn't here. It was my day off that day poor a buggy list All right, that's box Jamtastic Yamas on the decumpo Kauai Leonard Kauai Can't wait to see him playing it Who? Kauai He's been injured this whole time? Yeah, he hasn't been in the year and a half Wow, I didn't know that Oh That's right. He had his a did he end up having a tourney sale? Yeah, that's what it was, huh? Jaylen Johnson, Yandere A, Lulu, and we got a rookie Jonathan Kaminga very nice. That's a green Dave Young Mitchell Katie Honeyham NBA hoops magazine Scotty Barnes John Morant High Voltage Joellen B All right, this doesn't have an autograph well it makes up for the last Harold Minor Miami heat that's going to EA. They go EA.  They were like first place They were first place and they lost like COVID maybe? No fans in the arena It's crazy. I was thinking like man when his playoffs started but it's like they're not even halfway through the year They lost five in a row and then lost ten, two, six, and two They're still They're still 18, 14, and two, so They were like 18 and eight before that Yeah I know it's really crazy over there right now I guess All right, next box I'm thinking my folks are Kate Cunningham Jaylen Suggs, Dave Young Mitchell Jason Preston Lulu to 2021 Jaylen Green And the Edward City Edition We have Oscar Robertson A little tribute Brandon Boston Jr. So this one doesn't have Any redbacks And this last stack did actually Redback there of Josh Christopher That's a rookie redback that's cool Scotty Barnes rookie Giddy now playing And Charles Bassey that is a rookie ink For the 76ers going to Zachary I think we will Tyler I'm not too worried about that I think he definitely will Clint Capella Ben Simmons road to the finals Julius Randall to 199 Jaylen Green And Josh Giddy All right so besides that redback that I just pulled Josh Christopher No other redbacks so far I think in the last one we only had 3-2 as well Figure that's pretty much what's going to be the average All right fourth box guys Also two guys He's got a message from Nick that he took out two spots In each of the Immaculate Breaks Immaculate basketball breaks So we're giving away two free spots In the Thunder R&B And two free spots In the Lakers R&B So Now down to three Six and three So If anybody's interested in that let's see if we can get Some Immaculate done tonight too Let's get that rolling Luca Garza Keon Johnson Trayman And a Luca Garza number to 199 Detroit And Julian Donovan Mitchell That one is to 999 Road to the finals Cade Cunningham Suggs High Voltage there And we have a redback To Cam Johnson redback Moises Moody Evan Mobley And Livers Our Rugby Signatures for the Detroit Pistons Detroit And Julian Mobley again right there Josh Christopher It's funny you say that we just got a couple Mobley Rugbies Jam Tastic Zion Williamson Kominga Jaylin Green Rookie Tray Young to 2021 And we had another redback And it's a rookie redback of Quentin Grimes I think our third redback now Alright last box guys Good luck So this has been a pretty good 5 boxer In the sense that we got 3 autographs In one box Besides the Mobley we hit In the last break No big rookie autograph Either besides Mobley Alright so once I get done with this here guys We're going to print out labels Upload the video And then we'll get ready to do That Bowman's Best And after that we have Impeccable Inline Impeccable Then we have that filler that just sold out And then after that Hopefully we had a Mac Of the basketball styles out so we could do some more Mac of it We could do the mini helmets Sell some more fillers I mean I think we're still going to have a pretty busy night Do more hoops probably I think we can get another 2 more hoops in Honestly Depending on what we pull here I think we definitely get number 3 going And hopefully that 4 They need him To get back Quinn Grimes Cameron Thomas Rookie Jalen Johnson Zyra Williams Moises Moody Melo City Edition Isaiah Todd Redback Dorian Finney Smith Scotty Lewis Josh Giddy Davion Mitchell Scotty Barnes Jaden Springer Hot Rookie Signatures 76ers going to Zachary Kaminga Jamal Murray Tamancha Sabonis No. 299 Pacers Kiddies Cunningham 299 and Champion Jamonis Theonis And Greg Brown Alright sweet guys Just in holiday redback Alright we ended up getting like 5 redbacks Alright so like I said guys I just pen and see with a lot of the big rookies And the like the foil inserts Most of them will be top loaded So we'll just stay in pen and sleaze But we did get 3 autographs in one box So Jaden Springer Isaiah Rookie Jaden Springer Jaden Springer Jaden Springer Isaiah Ivers Charles Bassie Harold Miner Kaminga 75 Clint Gopel Autograph Avery Bradley And Fianna So we ended up getting more than we should have got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Extra 2 autographs there So I appreciate it guys This was break number 2, number 3 is on the website JaspysCaseBricks.com Thank you guys


In our previous videos, we used principal component analysis primarily to reduce and display our data in two dimensions. This time, we'll take a closer look at the relation between the data's features and their principal components. Let's start off by painting some two-dimensional data, like this. Next, just to use standard notation, I'll rename the two features to x1 and x2 using edit domain. Also, don't forget to press apply for the changes to take effect. Now, visualizing our data in scatterplot, notice that the first principal component should probably be along this line, and a line is just a set of points that satisfy a linear equation. In our case, I have two features, x1 and x2, and the points on the line would need to satisfy the equation theta0 plus theta1 times x1 plus theta2 times x2 equals 0. The Thetas are the parameters of the equation that defines the line. A vector that defines the projection line should have a theta1 and theta2 of opposite signs, pointing either up and left or down and right. Theta1 and theta2 are also called components of the principal axis, and report on the weight or influence each feature has on the principal component's values. Since I drew my data diagonally, I expect both features, x1 and x2, to have more or less equal weights. Also, as a side note, the Thetas of the line that defines the second component should have the same sign. Okay, now it's time I check this in orange and stop doing the analysis by hand. So, here's my PCA, and just for this demonstration, I'll switch off the normalization. The screen diagram tells me that x1 and x2 are well correlated, and that the first PCA component covers most of the variance. I'd like to double check if my predictions are correct, so I'll take a quick look at the Thetas, that is, the weights of the features for each component. For this, I'll use a data table widget and rewire the link to pass information about PCA components instead of the modified data. Each row contains information about each principal component, the variance it explains, and the feature weights. Just like I expected, for the first PCA component, x1 and x2 are approximately equally important, and have opposite signs. And the signs of the weights for the second component are also unsurprisingly the same. Now, I'll change the data slightly, so it spans along a single axis. And again, the first component explains almost all the variance in this data. But, looking at the weights, I see that the first feature, x1, with the highest weight for PC1, is the one that defines the first component. The remaining variance spans along the x2 axis. This may have been a little abstract, but we learned that the weights of the principal component axis tell us which features are relevant to each component, and to what degree. I'll now use the zoo dataset from my previous video. The data I loaded in the dataset widget contains 100 animals, described by features like having hair, or feathers, or whether they lay eggs or produce milk. One thing to note, though, is that all the features are categorical. This means that they are not numbers. For PCA, we need numbers. So the PCA widget automatically transforms each categorical feature into a numerical one. Here, I'll do this explicitly, using the Continuize widget. Just leave the settings as default and see what we get on the output. All the categorical features have now turned into numeric ones. The antelope, for example, has a 1 in the Hair Equals Yes column, meaning it does have hair, and bass, the fish, has no hair, hence the 0 in this column. I send this Continuize version of our data to PCA and find the first two dimensions explain over 50% of the variance. Again, I can observe the individual feature weights in a data table, changing the link to pass the weights of the features. There, I see a bunch of numbers in rows with no obvious patterns. Instead, I'll first transpose the data with weights using transpose and rewire the connections. I also like to order my features according to the magnitude of the weight. As I don't care if the weight is positive or negative, I'll add in another widget, the Feature Constructor. This way, I can add the feature Wait for PC1 as an absolute value of PC1, and similarly, Wait for PC2 as the absolute value of PC2. Now, let's take a look at the coefficients. I can rank the features by weights of the first principle component. As it turns out, milk is the feature that most defines this component. It's followed by eggs, but notice here that the PC1 value is negative, so it actually is the absence of laying eggs. Then, the next most important feature would be hair. Accordingly, some animals give milk, don't lay eggs, and have hair. This component could thus distinguish mammals from everything else. The second component, for example, has large weights for aquatic animals, animals that breathe, and airborne animals. This component should then nicely distinguish between fish and birds. Okay, that's it for principle component analysis. We learned that this technique is useful if we want to visualize the data in two dimensions. I also showed that we might gain additional insight if we observe what dimensions comprise a given principle component, and in this way rank the features. And we've found PCA to be generally useful for dimensionality reduction and noise removal. But I won't push in this direction just yet. Next time, I'll instead present two other techniques of obtaining two-dimensional data visualizations.


Jimmy zong spent billions of dollars worth of crypto in order to feel validated by frats and sororities and now He's completely broke. I guess David. What can we learn from all this? Yeah, we got to talk about it because a minute documentary just dropped on Jimmy zong Andrew the rise in the fall long story short Andrew He was a self-described fat ugly weird kid growing up in Cobb County, Georgia very very very non-Asian area mostly white Right, so he wants to be cool. He's good at computer science Andrew. He gets on Bitcoin early He kind of semi steals a bunch of it from the Silk Road, which was a dark web thing Andrew basically he becomes worth three billion dollars at one point and he's spent about 30 million dollars Impressing all his friends or quote-unquote friends in the white frats and white sororities the FBI Seizes all of his crypto and now he's got nothing right and we don't even know if he has a lot of the same friends anymore So essentially his life is ruined Potentially he's still a Uber or a Lyft driver around town. We don't know but anyways guys This is a true story and it also relates to a lot of people a lot of other stories that we've heard of and even people in our Own lives, so if you guys are ready to hear our commentary on this Please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the hot-pot boys right after this Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised Andrew, you know listen to this story I think you feel a lot of different emotions, especially if you're Asian guy and you've seen this before I feel like it could make you sad it could make you mad or you could just be like yo that reminds me of that God that I grew up with yeah I mean here's some even other names that who have a similar story Joe low who's actually a wanted criminal right now by the Government my by Interpol. Yeah, actually took five billion dollars from the Malaysian government Yeah, but he was spending it on Hollywood people and running those circles trying to be feel validated Also sadly it kind of reminds people of the story of Tony share Rest in peace, but you know like if you guys read about that story It kind of seems like he was trying to impress a lot of people and validate himself in a certain way Which may have led him down a certain path and yeah, it's just even people from our own upbringing, so I guess David One thing that's a common thread and I don't want to blame it on everything, but it seems like being a nerdy Chinese guy Even with a billion dollars it doesn't change everything and maybe that's what these guys were hoping to do They were hoping to feel accepted Maybe some of these guys were not put in a great position to impress a lot of people But regardless they have a lot of money, but it still doesn't work out the way they want Yeah, I mean we're gonna get into the comments section in our own takeaways and the first comment was Basically people in the crypto community Defending him and these are these are not Asian people I'm gonna get into the Asian comments later But some of the crypto people feel like the FBI did him wrong because some of the coins were stolen from the Silk Road Which is dark web is a lot of drug money But some of them were legitimately his that he just mined when he was like being a early adopter Yeah, no And I'm not trying to like villainize Jimmy's on because actually if you read the details it He didn't really like steal and commit a real crime of of anything, especially Because also the dark web is already like a criminal thing that they got in trouble for their own thing Anyways, basically, he's not really a criminal So but I that's why I think people feel bad for him and you can empathize because listen It was like you could almost sum it up like That nerd gets a lot of money wants to impress people FBI ends up knocking him for it kind of unfairly takes everything now. He's broke and has no friends I feel bad would you say though two years ago Andrew you saw a lot of Jimmy's songs because crypto was pumping You know Bitcoin was at 60k. Is it true that a lot of people who are deep deep deep in a crypto possibly are in a similar situation Would you you get so rich beyond your wildest dreams and you want to live like a rock star or a celebrity? Yeah, for sure And you want to spend it on the flashiest people and the people that you kind of always Fantasized or dreamt about or that you aspire to be accepted. Yeah, right? It's not really people who necessarily care about you It's not the community. It's not necessarily your family Hopefully you are spending some on your family But like you're really spending on it to release dopamine and just feel cool But it's so fleeting and it's so shallow because in those circles you can kind of pay your way to get in But it doesn't mean it stays with you and you know, everybody knows somebody in their life Whether they've observed them from afar or close in like middle school or high school that was kind of like this You know, they're not they're not to the same level. These are like the 15 out of 10 I mean listen, we don't know any of these crypto billionaires But you knew a guy in high school that kind of was like this like his family owned some restaurants He had a little bit of cash and you what would try to throw parties for people His name was Michael Finn and I'm just saying, you know to hide the identity But this guy was obsessed with like all the prettiest white people at school Like he wanted to be accepted by them so bad that he would like it almost felt like he was like their slave I'm just saying man I'm keeping it real a lot of people said that why is there so many parallels with the story of Tony shade the billionaire of zappos comm Andrew as well as Joe low Obviously, you know, we had mentioned them earlier. What are some of the similarities in story? Yeah, I mean, it's just these Asian guys Chinese guys trying particularly Chinese I'm not saying it only opposite Chinese But these three guys happen to be Chinese or Taiwanese okay of some sort They are growing up in very very non-Asian areas and they want to be accepted by the cool pretty white people, right? Who is that at Georgia State Bulldogs, right? Or I'm sorry University of Georgia. That's gonna be frats and sororities I'm mostly white people, right, right? And I believe that Tony shade wanted to be accepted by a lot of I don't know models probably yeah, and I don't want to like blame it on wanting to be around white people But I think it's just more speaks to their Insecurities as people and they're kind of like lack of self-love and they're possibly you know Level of self-hate maybe that drives them to want to like live this crazy life and spend all this money around people Who don't actually care about them, you know, I wish that they were more around the Asian community or maybe that doesn't solve anything Maybe there's people within the Asian community that still act like this too Of course, um, Andrew the Asian male message boards reddit and stuff like that They had a ton of things a ton of comments somebody said it's sad to think that some Asian males upon becoming wealthy Want to be seen in the cool crowd thinking they will be accepted when in reality that is often not the case They want your money not you they want what your talents and labor produce not you Yeah, I mean and I want to say I think nowadays it's changing a little bit It's not just about being Asian, but obviously these guys First example like maybe Jimmy. He's like if you look at him, he clearly stands out of the friend group He's clearly not looking like everybody. He's not like a buff Asian guy He actually looks like a giant version of the guy from the Korean cartoon. Look is him kind of yeah Before the transformation, right, I mean it is I'm not gonna lie like they probably called him like and by the way Jimmy if you see there's no disrespect to you But uh like job of the hut or something no, I'm sure that they were teasing him behind his back or nicknames And I mean I'm assuming that the women were not all attracted to him and he wasn't he's he was just trying to spend the money How he could but I don't know if he knew how to deploy the capital correctly, right? Do you think he should have just lost weight maybe move to Asia or something like that?  You can't just throw money at it.  Um, somebody said hearing about his family troubles and lack of acceptance in school It's hard not to feel bad for him.  Yeah, well, that's because that's weird That's not how you hook up with women who are especially not professionals at that job I don't understand like see this is the weird thing about a lot of people who Come from a hook who makes such a huge jump from being kind of like Outcasts right outcast and then they just get a bunch of money They think that they can literally wear money and then they're like, yeah, I got money ladies and I'm like, well guys Come on if you understand human nature, that's not exactly how things work especially in America Maybe that might work in some parts of a different country, but that's not how it's gonna work in America Somebody said almost everyone forgets about Asian males all together much less Prioritizing mental health. We even forget to take care of our own mental health It's important that we have to have the ability to live our lives fully That we make use of our talents because it's just gonna life is always gonna be way more difficult for it Us than some white Chad, you know, and this seems like such a trivial thing to say sometimes like a like a Almost like a solution, but David, I wish these guys like all these guys played more team sports I think playing team sports would have helped them Find just like just not think like this. That's what I think like I don't know doing martial arts or something would just help you not think so in a way ridiculous like yeah I have money. I'll just spin it and I'll be cool. I'm like, dude Like if you play a sport, you already know like you have all the money in the world I don't make you better at that sport everything like it still kind of teaches you about meritocracy is what I'm saying Somebody said Jimmy's on deserve better We all must learn a lesson from this and make sure that we should only be concerned about ourselves in our community This was obviously off the Asian board. Um, I agree, you know, I just think that a lot of people They don't receive the right coaching from what I read Andrew He had a very strained relationship with his Chinese mainland immigrant parents They probably did not provide a lot of good parenting outside of like study hard, right? Yeah Yeah, I mean they probably weren't great communicators I mean, I'm sure they were great parents in the sense that they provided him a life and took care of them and everything like that But as far as like teaching some kid in Georgia how to grow up and how to maneuver and how to be happy because think about it Listen immigrant parents can teach you how to survive teach you how to work hard oftentimes But some of the things that they're missing and not fully to their fault They're missing how to teach you how to maneuver around life and how to be happy Those are the things that it's very very hard for immigrant parents to teach. Yeah It's almost like they can teach you basketball skills But they can't teach you the flow of the game like five on five Schematics and like knowing well, they can teach you a passion for the game. Yeah, you can't teach that Somebody said he should have migrated and moved to an island destination and he could have lived like a king Instead believe the in the American dream and about how America is better But it did not work the way that he did He was basically also referencing that some white tech guys that come up on like a hundred million or a billion dollars Do move to the islands there have been several cases in the past documented Yeah, and I think that at the end of the day if you Introduce yourself to people by throwing money at them. You're not starting that friendship or relationship on the right foot anyways So obviously I think that the people who move to the islands like a cheap island in Bali and spending a million a year You could live literally like a king there It's like I mean, I don't know if that's like a better life too, but maybe you're just less sad I guess I don't know sounds like he was like frozen in a very high school like mean girls mindset You know trying to rise up the you know like glee or whatever sort of like Hollywood school like image that he had That was super blue pill. He was like he it's weird because he has some aspects of like understanding crypto Which is like super outside of the matrix and right into the you know thinking different But then when it came to a social life, he was just thinking like he was like 12 man Maybe he felt like that those were his friends though and he just wanted to spend money on his friends, too I mean he could have really felt like you know, not everybody has a Big group of great friends. They just have the people around them right and their whole worldview is being determined by that fishbowl That they're growing up in this is the other final comment somebody said holy hell I went to college at you at UGA as an outcast Asian guy who also just wanted to fit in with the all-exclusive White Greek life social scene just like Jimmy So I felt everything that Jimmy did and everything that he was going through in terms of social life in Athens GA as an Asian guy cast aside by all the pretty white people But instead of doing what Jimmy did I found social acceptance in run escape instead, which is a gigantic online RPG So basically saying I was living in the same town as him going to the same school And I was getting millions of not real money, but virtual currency GP from run escape. So I'm something of a Jimmy Zong myself I think dude, I you know, we know a lot of kids of Particularly nerdy families that are out in the boonies or out in areas where there's no other Asians like in the South and It can be uncomfortable, right? You're saying their parents might be like researchers at the local University or or might I Don't know any I mean they could I guess they could run a restaurant But it's a little bit doubtful or they're like professor at a community college Sometimes if you run a restaurant at least you're part of like some type of restaurant community I'm not saying that life is great either I just think life is hard out there man when you're trying to be accepted as an Asian kid Especially if you're nerdy and you're not and you know, you don't just don't get happen to be born Super good-looking. I think it's easier for the girls, but even then the looks is gonna come into play a lot Yeah, man, it's tough man. I don't I don't like I have a lot of empathy for it I've seen it like I've seen a lot of people do some lower extent of what Jimmy Zong did a lot in my life Especially if you grow up in a non-Asian area Andrew, let's just get into our takeaways I think this is gonna be kind of a long section. I mean What do you think the Asian community thinks about when they see this because everybody's seen it in their life? Obviously if you grow up in an Asian enclave if you happen to be, you know, like maybe really tall good-looking Really social off the rip, you know, you probably seen less of this, but I've seen it a lot. I just wish Nowadays in 2022 I can't like 2023 I mean like I think there's so many more resources out there in other communities that you can find Even if you're a kid growing up in like a small town in Georgia and you totally don't fit in There is some type of community that can't is positive that you can be part of You know what I mean? That doesn't mean shuck away trying to be accepted by your environment because I still think that there is something to be said about still trying to Make the best of your situation But regardless you got to use the resources at hand whether that's online whether that's through a certain group sports church Video games like whatever it is like there's something there Yeah, let us know in the comment section below what instances you guys have seen before I think the one that really strikes me is Michael Finn from middle school in high school I'm not gonna lie his Profile photo is him being the best man at this one like really good-looking white dude that we all know from high school His wedding like this guy made it his profile pic That's crazy to be shown with him. Yeah to be shown at his friend's wedding with two pretty white people Right, that's crazy to me. That's like so I can only imagine what his dating profile looks like on the dating apps It probably has him with all the white people that he hangs out with yeah Cuz he wants to have out he wants to show people like hey, you know, I'm not just like a regular Asian guy I can I got these friends Do you think it's important to raise your kids around an Asian community at least nearby if not a full-on Asian Enclave like the six to six of the OC or the Bay Area when you hear stories like this whether that's Tony Shea J. Oh low Andrew. He was isolated in the UK at boarding school I know that Tony share was from a non very non Asian area as well you know what it is man if you're gonna raise your kids in a Area that has no other Asians in it. You better raise them to be strong and confident or You expose them to the Asian community every so often if you're not gonna go out of your way to teach them to like You know be around their own people or be accept or feel like what it's like to be normal to be Asian Then you have to make them very very strong. Yeah, right? That's like your only two options You cannot not raise them strong and then also them be the only Asian kid is society changing like all these stories Are people that are like 30 35 40 for somebody who's 25 and under are these cases still gonna happen a little bit But I think it changes. Yeah, but I have seen kids like I feel like I've seen some like tiktokers Try to seek validation from like the white crowd because they're the only kid Asian kid at school So their content on tiktok is kind of like cringy or like borderline disrespect for the Asians Yeah, it feels like quasi self-hate. Yeah a little bit and I'm just like I don't want to watch this stuff And I'm like I'm sure you're you get comments from people at school and you like it Why do you think so many of these guys are Chinese? I think that it's because Andrew Chinese They have the least structured game plan. You know what I mean? Like I just feel like other groups are smaller They might keep it more tighter and they just have like different coaching I just feel like the Chinese world is so spread out and you could be like the children of So many different things that there's just no plan Yeah, I think it just comes down to like the coaching and obviously I think there's a lot of Chinese people who move To all different parts of the world. So I don't know. I mean, I think we could go on and all religion There's no like clannishness or that's a whole nother video, man I think it goes to show you America is so big and there's so many different fish bowls of different sizes You can be raised in a lot of the things that the way you perceive life are determined by the fish bowl That you spent from like zero to 17 and yeah, yeah Anyway guys, let us know what you think of the story of Jimmy zong in the comments section below Have you seen this before in your own life? Let us know what you think until next time we out. Peace


This four hour of independent study clause that the Arizona Cardinals put into Tyler Murray's contract trended all night last night for good reason. Oh yeah. Because I believe everybody's expectations of an NFL quarterback is like what Peyton and Tom and Aaron and Drew and these guys are at the top of the game who spend just countless hours trying to learn everything they can about the team they're playing and the team that they're playing for in the sport that they play professionally. It's almost like you're just expected to do so from a fan's eyes, like that just comes with the job. It's almost like just synonymous with greatness in the NFL is film study. So, so much so that when Gronk said on a Monday night manning or whatever that he never watched film, Tom just watched film for him. It became a big backlash because everybody just expects that everybody watches film, it's your job. What do you do all day, every day? You get to play football for a lot of money. It's just kind of synonymous with it.


Hey, this is Brett with Summit Auto. Today I'm at the Chicago Auto Show 2021, and they got a Ram TRX 1500 up on the ramps here. Which gives us a really good look at the undercarriage with all the skid plates and the suspension and everything. So I thought this was a great opportunity to do a video since it's all up in the air. You can see there's just a ton of skid plates. These control arms are massive. Let's get a really good idea of that suspension. An underbody. It is true dual exhaust. Very cool truck. You can see the underneath. Thanks for checking out the video.


Hello, hello, happy Tuesday. Laila, you can't lay out there. We gotta go inside, come on. All the pets, come on Moe. I'm just getting ready to head to the airport to go to San Diego, I'm so excited. I'm just heading out now, I'm gonna call my Uber. It is 10.34 and my flight leaves at noon, so I should probably get going. Okay, just requested them. They will be here in one minute. Okay, gotta go. Bye-bye. Yes, San Diego, absolutely yes. I have officially made it to San Diego. I'm just sitting here waiting. I'm actually doing a little bit of editing, waiting for Sarah to get here because we landed a little bit early, but she is like five minutes away, so I'm gonna go see her soon, I'm so excited. And we are gonna start our fun day together.  I can't wait to meet Skylar, her assistant, her best friend, and I'm just very, very thrilled. Okay, guys, so I have some cauliflower wings, but most importantly, I have a Sierra, I've acquired her. She's coming, got me from the airport and we're at this place called Trilogy Cafe, is that what it's called? Yes, Trilogy. And it is a yoga studio, that's what they do out there. There's little hammocks and stuff, it's really cute. We've got some cauliflower wings, like I said, and then we've got some smoothies coming and we're having a nice little girls' day and then we're going on our photo shoot. We just finished our first location. We've just been so busy talking and chatting all things YouTube that we haven't even been vlogging or paying attention to that, but we're on, I think I mentioned this earlier, but we're on like a little bit of a, oh, hello. Hello.  Instagram adventure. So we decided while we're together, because I know so many of you guys are like so excited about us meeting, trust me, we're like, we're even more excited. We're even more excited. I've been looking forward to this for so long. So. How cute is that? Oh! Wait, I'll send it to you. Thank you. So yeah, we just finished location number one. I met Skylar. She's everything. She's exactly how she appears in videos. So sweet, so kind. And I told her she smelled good and she was like, thank you so much. And then we walked away and I was like, sorry, Sierra, that was weird. I was like, I just say things when I think about it. Sometimes things just come into my head. I had met her 90 seconds prior and then I was like, you smell really good, but that's okay. That's just me, that's who I am. I'm owning it. I was like, I think women need to know when they smell good. So yeah. Now we're going to the next location, which is called Holy Matcha. Yes, Holy Matcha. And it's like the cutest, most like aesthetically pleasing. They have like botanical wallpaper and like pastel pink. So we'll do like an outfit change, I think, right? Did you bring it? Yeah, I brought another outfit. And then we'll, you know, take some pictures in there, so long. Go. Okay, it's so cute. What she said. Hi, Skylar. You guys, look at how sweet she is.  So. That's one of the nicest. Oh my God. Thanks. So cute. And it's empty. That's why you come on a weekday, folks. Oh my God, precious. Look at this bathroom in here. You look holy. Thanks, girl. I want this wallpaper so bad. On this pink tile. Freaking cute. I'm so happy. Okay, now I'm gonna change into my outfit. I was gonna do the peace sign, but I can't. Okay, I'm awkward. I've changed. Here's my second look. I'm wearing this overall dress that I just got from Target from the clearance section. This mock neck that I got at Forever 21 and my favorite glasses. I'm really gonna get my roots done, but I'm trying not to think about that right now. Let's go take some photos. Wow, we're such YouTubers. Look at us go. This is the cutest little corner. Look at all of this stuff too. So cute.  I've got another outfit to change into for that, but we've just been sitting and chatting about bodies and confidence and all the things that we talk about on our channel. So really exciting. And also, I feel like this street right here is lined with the palm trees. Okay, this camera's not that great with depth, but it's just so pretty. It's so San Diego. We're in the cutest little arts district. Have a great day. We are at our last location, which is called S3 Coffee. Yeah, S3 Coffee. And I'm so excited because Sierra just told her vlog that when we're done here, we get to go home and meet her dogs. But we are on the last outfit. I'm wearing these leopard pants from H&M. I got these on Black Friday. And my sweater is from the Wild Babel line at Target. I'm doing my little bam, bam look right now. It's what I feel like. I feel like very flimsy. It's like nice. So yeah, we're going to take some photos with this cute little phone here.  I feel a little awkward about it. It's okay, we're working it. The last place had zero people. This place is for you. Look how cute Carrie is. That's so weird. Hi, girl. I'm like Regina's mom. Yes, girl. Work it. Yes, get those angles. Oh yeah. If you're going to have alcohol, I'd rather you do it in the house. We have finished with our photo shoot and we made a quick stop for dinner. Okay, you can't see it. Just kidding. Oh, there it is. We're at Veggie Roast. I'm so excited. I got a Santa Peg. This is a chicken sandwich. My favorite. Drew, don't watch this video. You're going to be very jealous. He's going to be so upset I came here. You should literally bring him Veggie Girl home on the plane. I should. I honestly should. Thank you so much. We've had so much fun just chatting in the car. Me and Buds. And now we're going to get some dinner and then I get to go meet the dogs. I'm hooked all over the floor. Beautiful. I definitely plan on just being back sooner. That's okay. Oh, and here's my food. Perfect. Oh yes. Perfect. Enjoy your day. Yum. We just got our food. Sierra got up beyond burger. They're actually so good here. So hungry. I didn't realize how hungry I was when we got here and now I'm like ready to get out of this burger. Cheers, mate. Oh, she's wagging her tail. Here you go. I sweat pants where I belong. We have wine. I was going to say, she just poured us a glass of wine. I said, someone wipe this woman. And Stephen said done and done. Cheers. Cheers. To our first night together. And a collab tomorrow. Delicious. Oh, here's my friend. There you go, pretty girl. Can I sit? Will she be weird about it? Oh, no, no, go ahead. Hi, Bruce here. Got another friend coming. Are you a Gemini vegetarian? Oh. Hello Bella. Oh, look at that face. Oh my God. I literally love her so much. She's very aggressive with her love. Yes, same. Definitely doesn't have much of a soft touch. She's not going to play hard to get with you. She likes you. She's so picky with people. Okay, bye. Thank you mom. You're very good. This is the current situation. We're watching Jenna and James's video. It's amazing. So good. He's so talented. And I just love her so much. Oh my God.  And she's climbed on me. She's licked me. She likes me from the start. I'm so happy. Look at her face.  Look at her face. Oh my gosh. And Bella likes me a lot unless she has that twig. Sierra just went in the bathroom to pee and both of her dogs are so confused. They're like, mom, mom, where'd you go?  Because I do. We are now on our second glass of wine. And yes, I did just pick my zit. Don't mind that. It's chilled. I wasn't expecting that. Oh, don't mind me. It's fogging. I just took a sip and I go, whoo, it was chilled. I wasn't expecting that. I know why I put it in the fridge. I wasn't quite, so I was like. I'm fine with it. Well, that's us tonight. That's us. Cheers. I have a little editing friend. Sometimes it's like, is that my sprucer? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. She's perfect. She's a perfect angel. I can't believe this. It literally takes her like two years to get to this point with people. Seriously? Yeah. You must know you're safe with me. Oh, thank you. You're my tiniest friend, you know. I don't think I have any friends smaller than you. My gosh, she's licking my hand. Besties picture of me, my bestie. All right, so I'm in bed after a long but really fun day. I figured I would check in with you guys and kind of chat before I fell asleep. I was also just trying my best to like stay present this year it was my first time hanging out with her even though she's a YouTuber and she gets it. Just not like shove a camera in her face 24 seven but tomorrow we are doing a full day of filming so I'm really excited about that. And we're gonna be filming, we were originally just gonna film one video each for our channels but now we're filming two videos each. We got like a cool idea when we were in the car today. So we have a full day of filming tomorrow. That'll be really fun and I can't give you any more details yet but like you're gonna be excited about them. Hopefully, if you like us.  I don't know if I mentioned that either. I talked a lot this morning but like, not at all but I also filmed another clip for another vlog. Anyway, long story. Alexa is going to be in the area on Thursday. So instead of me flying home Thursday which was what I was originally going to do I actually, I just inhaled my hair.  So that'll be really fun. I have to get up and turn off that light and that is a huge bummer. But yeah, super happy to be here in San Diego and to be here with Sierra and her dogs and her husband and her cute best friend slash assistant. Hope you guys enjoyed today's vlog. Love you guys and I will see you tomorrow. Good night. I need sleep.