Alright, the last time I made a video of this game was on May 15th. It is currently June 9th. We've had a lot of turns since then. It's two and a hundred, turn a hundred and thirty-five. Pretty much everything I talked about in the last video happened. Uh, I built this academy, right? I was able to build the Great Library and the National College and my science is 55, right? My science is a lot, right? I have lots of technologies. If we look at this technology tree, I'm already working on Compass here. Look at all those sciences. I've pretty much got everything.  I got minus one money, but that's because I was able to build this East India company, which gives me four money. And now I need to defend myself against the evil rim here. Not pikeman. I'm probably going to build a composite bowman. I need more ranged weaponry, right? But I can't even afford to... I can upgrade this, but I can't afford it. It costs eighty, right? I can upgrade this to a knight. I can't. It costs a hundred, right? It's like I could research if I wanted to. Next, I could go for... What's the thing that pikeman turns into? It's around here somewhere. I just got pikeman. I guess the thing pikeman turns into... I can get crossbowman, but I can't afford to upgrade into that either, right? Musketman. I could go for musketman, but I can't afford to upgrade anything. I have to build them. My production is low and I only have one city with eight people in it. Here's some other things that happened. I built this citadel. The reason I built this citadel is to defend the south.  I built this citadel to defend from the south. Mostly barbarians coming from over here. And they were coming from over here at one point. And this scout here can help me see to make sure everything's going on in the horseman. It's fast enough to run back and forth. Rima's one swordman down here. I think he's going to go for my horses, but I got a horseman here. I think I'll actually move... I don't know. Can he move and pillage all at once? I'm going to have to move my horseman. Well, I can't move out of here. Out of there because he'll move into my citadel. So I think I have to move my horseman here to defend the horses, ironically. Good thing that horseman is strong against swordman. And this is all I've got to defend the north against. I'm probably losing this game. Okay.  There's a city-state here. There's a city-state here. Rima's borders are like right here. He expanded real fast. What am I going to build a city over here in this kind of area? That doesn't really help me very much, right? It's just a wheat and a copper. It's okay, but it's not great. I guess I could have gone more north and grabbed some of this stone, too. Oh, my border has actually expanded into this iron here. But I already... See, the other reason I built the citadel is to get this copper and this iron, which I'm not... I'm working the iron, but I'm not working the copper. It's too far away. I guess I could build a city down in this area for the copper and the cattle. But, you know, this allowed me to get this copper, which was in demand in Babylon. It was, we love the... We love the Scott Day. And I also got the happiness from having the luxury goods. He plus four copper plus four marble is my marble. Right. I eventually was able to build a second academy because getting one science, I mean, with a great scientist didn't really offer a lot of benefit at this point, but two academies, you know. If you look at the score chart here, I'm winning in science and losing by a... Oh, only a little bit in approval. I'm losing by a lot in soldiers. I'm losing by half as much land, less than half as much land, less than half as much money. I have a third the money rim has. Manufactured goods, 55 to 16, so I got less than half of his hammers. Four times less food, 25% of the food. And my population is, let's see, three, six... Way, way, way, way less. I have like no people, right? Not enough people living in Babylon. It's just a few really smart people living in Babylon, and that's it. So I couldn't build a bigger army, because I don't have a lot of hammers. It takes me five turns to build a thing, right? I don't have a lot of food, so I can't grow. I could have gotten money from these whales. If you work whales, they give you like money. But I can't get whales because he's got these... He built boats first. I actually built a trirem and a workboat at one point and put them on a whale, and he was able to kill my trirem and destroy my workboat. So I spent a whole lot of turns doing that with no results. I also spent a whole bunch of turns making two caravans to get money. I spent one caravan over here, one caravan over here, and even though I tried, I guess, the best I could, I wasn't able to defend the caravans, because if I did, I would have just lost the units that were defending the caravan and then still lost the caravan anyway. So it's like, I lose the caravan and my units, and then I'm, alright, or just lose the caravan. So I only have minus one money. Thanks to the East India Company, but yeah, I just can't afford to have an army. I can't build an army, but if I could, I could build a really fancy army that's got higher tech than RIM's army has. Also, he was able to, the city states on the other side of the world, these two look, they're at war with me, RIM allied with them, right? He was able to appease them. I didn't even get to meet them, because I didn't even have one spare unit to send exploring around the war, because I had to use these guys to defend myself from the barbarians, let alone RIM. See, my plan from the other video totally worked. I have mad science and Babylon, you're supposed to get mad science and turtle up, but that is not working. I mean, look at the score, 1052 to 438, right? I think I'm just going to give up here. He just built the statue of Zeus, and he built the temple of Artemis, so he's got the military-related wonders. These guys are strong. Enemy units fighting our territory. Oh, that one? Okay, that's fine. Right? So, basically, the thing we have learned here, right, is this strategy that I'm doing here, it could be viable in a real game, where there's a lot of people. There's more land, right? If there was more land on this map, I would have been able to expand a little bit. I would have had some city states near me. I would have had a caravan with to get more money. You know, that no one would be able to really interfere with. You know, I'd be able to work my own land without there being enemy triremes there immediately destroying everything. Right? Because they'd have a whole world to explore and do other shit, right? In a dual game, I think the dual of Civ 5 military is what matters, because the map is so small. You can pretty much control the whole map, and if you can control the map, you know, they can't caravan, right? The other strategies are just completely shut out by military, right? There's no physical, there's not an effects to work any other strategies. If someone else has military dominance, right? So, I think the real dual game happens when both people are going military, and they actually are like sort of competing with each other, and there's like a real war. It's like you can't just one person dominating, and you saw that in the previous game when I was China, which is militaristic against Rims, Memphis, or Egypt, right? As I was able to just win the game, just no matter what he was building, it didn't matter, it's like I had military might, I was China, I had great generals, I had super double crossbow guys. It basically cancels out everything the other person is doing, you know, just if you just have military might. So, I think if we start the next dual, I'm going to be going with some sort of militaristic strategy, no matter what, in every single dual, right? No other, I don't think there's any viable alternative strategy besides, you know, building up military.  I definitely, you know, if I was playing single player here and I wouldn't have this situation, you know, the next thing I would have built probably would have been, you know, look, I haven't built any of this stuff, right?  Because I don't have a lot of production, I'd like to build a granary to get my guys growing, even, you know, just get the two food, you know, I'd like to build the aqueduct, water mill, I'd love to build a lot of these things. But I can't, right? I'd also have caravans money and be able to upgrade these guys. Anyway, that's how this game ended. It's not to look so good, but you know, I did build the walls of Babylon and stuff, right? I'd be able, if I was single player, I'd sell very, very well against, you know, the threats you face in a single player game or any game with a lot more land and a lot more sieves. But in a game of just two sieves, you know, no matter how well you execute the strategy, it's the wrong one. All right, so stay tuned for game four where we're probably both going to build armies and we're going to have to play some, you know, some action. I don't know if I'll choose China or maybe Germany. All right, can I just over... Germany could be good if you get it, if you just overwhelm them with warriors right at the start of the game. But I feel like I know how to play China better. I'll see if there's other options, too. There's so many sieves, I don't even know them all. Thus ends this game. It was a valiant effort, but Scott was convinced that the game was over and he has conceded the game to me. The score is now two games rim. One game, Scott. And we're about to continue our fourth game. Scott has decided that he's going to play a heavy military game next, so he's either going to be Germany or China again. China, remember, is how we beat me with Egypt. So, you can see what I was doing here to actually end this. I'd won this a long time ago and I was sort of giving Scott a chance to bust out and I was also actually curious myself if his significant science advantage was going to be enough to beat my other advantages, which might have been true back when I only had these two cities. But, I mean, this city is already pretty huge with nothing improved yet. I had already dominated the entire map.  And I was about to finish the Terracotta Army, which would have given me another pikeman, another composite bowman, but this was not enough, because as you can see, now, the approval had dropped a little bit. I didn't forget, I think it's just because my population was growing so rapidly because of how giant my empire is. I mean, look at these populations.  But my population, Scott, had no people. He had no crops, so not only was he behind the population, but I was growing at a catastrophic rate compared to him. I could build anything I wanted at any point. I had effectively infinite money, at least for maintenance. I couldn't buy things in cities, but I didn't have money to last the entire game, even at a significant deficit. My army is not that much bigger than his, so my plan, had he not resigned to force the issue, you see how I moved this guy over here? That was to threaten this. Now, he's pulled this guy over here. He's going to be for now. Though I think this was targeted by a city state. Yes, I was about to be allies with Prague. They would have sent a few troops, but not actually done anything important. But then I probably might have just bought Alliance here and run out the rest of the game. But this line was not going to advance on Scott City. I was just going to leave this here, continue to build siege units, and then as soon as I was going to wait until the Terracotta Army was done, I was just going to keep building units for spam here, probably start building try rooms again. I was going to let this work a finish and then also build military. I was going to finish the Terracotta Army and all those new units were going to march along the bottom. And then I was just going to completely surround his empire and then just compress in all at once. And that would have been it. Well, let's see how this plays out and let's see the statistics of the game, like the graphs and everything. So I actually have to win this war. So I'm just going to push. The AI won't play Scott's army as well. It's not really good at the advance war thing. Oh, that great general is going to be way back here, isn't he? Yep. I can't embark yet. I got like no signs here. I mean, this guy needs an escort. I guess barbarians aren't likely to come in there. So see, I've drawn his units out and he doesn't have that many. So I can basically just wipe them out from this relative position of safety. Now, if I really want to push it, I could literally bail the settler here, throw him over here and just build a city. So this would all count as my territory.  Well, I'll heal and I'll damage. Let's just play the attrition game. I could march in here and finish this guy. I'm not going to let him attack me. Let that unit heal a little bit. Now remember, if Scott had continued to play, I would not have moved in for the kill right now. I actually would have just maintained this line. But I'm going to move in for the kill as quickly as possible just to end this. Being allies with them would actually be a good idea. Oh, look, I got some crappy, uh, some science. I'm so far behind on science. Now I'm going for knights. I was going to get the knights to also really push this to its end. I guess he retreated that guy. Let's shift the line. Now notice, this is his only ranged unit and the city itself. So I'm going to stay out a range of the city until I can destroy all his other units. The advance warziness of this is actually pretty straightforward. See this catapult? Go right on this hill and bombard the city when the time is right. I'll have another catapult soon. I can just bust out a military. Now we retreated with the other guy too. Let's continue to menace. And for good measure, keep playing the advance warz game back there. Move every guy all the time. I don't want to start the full assault yet. So Buenos Aires. I could give you some money, you'd be my ally, but you wouldn't be a significant factor in this war. You don't have that many units. I guess you might send a horseman over here. It's not that important. Let's swing it around. Oh, look at all this biz. Barbarian encampment. Actually, I'm able to send the horseman up to get it.  Get my general in place. Really should have left the general back there and waited for. Might as well get the other sugar. Everyone else just fortify and wait. You've got to be ready to move in here. I'll just leave those steady for now. Is there any point in building anything here at this point? Start pumping out more military units just in case. Sure, they're not that weak. Keep on menacing. Oh, you're going to come down and fight here. Nice. That just means you've got no units up here. It's time to start pillaging. I guess I can move in range of the city all at once. I think it might be time. I'm not even waiting for the terracotta army. I'm so close to finishing the terracotta army. No other wonder is really going to help me win the war. Should I just move in? Should I just rush in right now? Well, let's stage it a little further. Oh, it's a spearman up there. Or a pikeman. Oh, he retreated to the edge of the map. What's he doing? All right. I'm going to lose the swordsman. But that's fine. Because it literally doesn't matter. Watch this guy I think he's doing. I guess I have no military over here right now. That guy could be moderately dangerous. Well, no, he couldn't. Because look, there's nothing to pillage. There's literally nothing in the city to pillage. Just keep surrounding. I think next turn I might just move in. All right, you hang out here and wait for the actual giant army to come. Yeah, he's going to come pillage my biz. My one pillageable biz. Oh, he came out to attack me here. Nice. Attacking cities. You just go heal. You go replace. Let's march in. Yeah, let's stay there. You heal. All right, that distracted the city.  Now I could start banging on the city more, but I do actually want to complete the destruction of the actual army insofar as I can. Even if I'm taking losses. Sure. Let's just start that process now. That guy won't even get to the front in time. Just in case. Mobile units. Because they can get over there quickly. Trireme one a turn. Let's just start banging out triremes. I mean, look at that.  All right, barbarian, pillage away. Pillage. I can't believe that triremes survives. I guess I should start taking out that unit. Or I could just start hammering on the city. It's not a lot of damage. I'll actually let that triremes heal. Oops. That was not what I intended to do. I misclicked there. That actually will cost me. Oh well, I can salvage that easily enough. Another great general. Keep on keeping on. Really shame I can't go over the water. That's what happens when we have no science. Oh, it's an AI. The workers are fleeing. Thank you. You can see this war is just by the numbers. And you can see that I'm doing okay. I could have done a lot better if I had been willing to wait, but I wasn't willing to wait. I tend to be very conservative in warfare in these games. You can see my giant deficit does not matter. I built up that store specifically for the end of the game. Might as well protect this worker. Ooh, I would like to be friends with Hong Kong again. Sugar. All they want is sugar? They want is sugar. I got their sugar. I'll have sugar shortly. Sorry, frog. Coming through your territory. Wish I was still friends with you. Alright, so now I'm running out of significant deficit and that won't help at all. Let's just start building market. I guess I could trade. Not that it'll really matter. Hoo hoo! No, no, no, no. Oops, did I click yes? No, no, no. It's Wellington and Hong Kong and all that biz. Alright. Where's the city state wasn't in my way? It's actually really annoying. See, I'm playing fast and loose because it just really doesn't matter. God, get out of my way. I'll finish that sugar soon and then I'll be happy again. Yeah, next turn. Get up on the hill. Doesn't matter. It's gonna end. All this. Look at all this going on here.  None of the rest of this matters. I'm just gonna end it right now. Not even get into what could have been. The world has been convulsed by war. Many great and powerful civilizations have fallen. Many? Or one? And emerged victorious. The world will long remember your glorious triumph. So, final demographics. Well, I guess that's useless because I'm the only civilization. Not bad. So, let's see. Let's just play this and watch what happens. Alright, so my city is expanding. See, my city started larger than Scott's already. So, I had a pretty good advantage there. Now, look. I started my second city then. Scott never tried to make his second city. In fact, he wasted his great general. Look at this nonsense. So, I start with my extra territory and I take advantage of it by not using workers right away. And I rushed to get this guy up around here and build a city and an awesome spot there to deny Scott the map. And it totally worked. Look how early, look at that. It's a pretty early city for me the way I played this game. Meanwhile, Scott just uses a great general here. That's how desperate he was to get that luxury resource, that copper, I guess. He really should have built the city there. I don't know why he didn't. And then, see, I built that extra city for no real reason. I could have built them all over the place. It just didn't matter. Blah. So, at the graph show. So, score doesn't mean much in this game, but you can see we were close. I was always ahead, but not by that much. And then there was a huge turning point right here. City-state. Wow, look at this. Scott was never more powerful than a city-state. I guess Wellington is an example. They're all about the same. But, seriously. Scott, we were all basically similar score-wise until right there. No one ever had a city connection, I guess. I got rid of the city-state because that doesn't matter. We were actually pretty even on culture until the end when I blitzed it with a bunch of wonders. Again, the happiness thing was really only in the end when I blitzed it. Now, this is where Scott actually, his city, was doing better. Because he was focusing on it while I expanded a little bit. And again, right here is that turning point. That's when I built the second city. And then you see it was just a heavy progression of food up, which meant my population would grow. Well, Scott's, meanwhile, stayed basically static for the entire game. Yeah. You can see it was dropping here only because my population was rising. And because I lost some city-state allies that I would have had to see if I was playing this game when there were other people involved. I wouldn't have done that war right when I did. Instead, I would have done something slightly different, held out longer, and continued to bolster my domestic policy. So Scott's got really ahead of me on technology. But it took him until here. So it's interesting, just as I built my city, was right when, I guess this is around when he got the Great Library. And he just got all this tech. But you can see that while he got a boost ahead, I caught up on my rate. And we were progressing at about the same rate over that. He could never get further ahead of me than he already was. And even if he did, he did not have the economy to actually use that stuff. Never had more than one worker. But you can see this graph says it all. Right around there, that second city, I just pushed. And my population was what did it. It was just my production and my population. Map control won this game. Yeah, this was the turning point, basically. He built the Great Library right around here, and I built my second city. I don't know why they have this graph. It just seems like a silly graph. So, I guess I bought stuff.  Forget what I bought here. Right here, that's total gold. See that? My economy got weird at the end just because I built all those units, most of which never even engaged in the war. But gold per turn, Oscar wasn't making that much gold from those caravans so I got them both out. Look at that. So, let's see. All this is founded. So, I declared war on him way early to muss around. Yeah, he built the Great Library. As he was right around there, I built a second city. Scott built the Great Library.  And that was the turning point, actually, in the game. Right around here, the decisions that were made right here determine the entire rest of the course of the game. I got my pantheon, which I never really needed. I picked a very specific belief only for this sort of dual map. I had a golden age. Didn't really matter. You can see I got my city states. And then it's just a sea of me doing stuff until the game ended. Oh, my people aren't happy now. I could fix that. I could easily turn this into... because look. Oh, yeah, there. It's fine. The world is mine.


We're going to throw our Glowforge Pro, our Omtech Polar 350, and our X-Tool D1 into a ring and see which desktop laser comes out on top. What is up? A welcome back. Do you like to do a build or make it? So do we. And we have a new video each week. So remember to like, subscribe, leave us a comment, and hit that bell to be notified of our new videos. This week, we are doing a triple versus desktop laser challenge. That's right. So we've had our lasers for a while now. We've had the Glowforge for about three years. After the Glowforge, we upgraded to a standalone 100 watt laser. And then about a year ago, we got our X-Tool D1 laser. And then about six months ago, we got our Omtech Polar laser. In this video, we're going to compare the features and functionality of each of these lasers. If you're looking to buy a laser, then you're not sure which one. We're hoping to help you out here and share what we think about each one and a little bit about each of the features that we find the most interesting or the most helpful or even the most fun. We're going to test them in five different categories. And then we'll come up with a winner for each round and then a final winner at the end. Yeah. So let's meet our competitors in this corner. We have our Glowforge Pro, which is a 45 watt CO2 laser coming in at 94 pounds. It's 38 inches wide, 20.75 inches deep and 8.25 inches tall. And in this corner, we have our Omtech Polar 350 laser. It is also a glass tube CO2 laser. It's 50 watts coming in at 104 pounds. Its dimensions are about the same, 38.2 by 22 by 9.2 tall. Finally, in the featherweight division, we have our X-Tool D1. This is a 10 watt diode laser. It comes in at a whopping 11 pounds. This is 23.2 inches square and 6 inches tall. Round one. Price. All right. There are some big differences in prices here. For the Glowforge Pro, it's coming in at about $7,000. For the Omtech Polar 350, you're looking at about $2,900 and then another $100 for the software to go with it. So about $3,000 for that one. And laser number three is our X-Tool D1 laser and this one's coming in at about $1,100. There is a large price gap between all three of these lasers and I'm hoping in the next few rounds we'll find out why. But the winner of this round is the X-Tool D1. Looking at $1,100, you can't beat that. That is a great price point to come in for an entry level laser. Round two. Set up. So what does it take to actually get going? Well, for the Glowforge Pro, we were up and running in about 30 minutes. We really just took it out of the box, hooked it up to the internet, connected to the webpage, vented it out the window, and then it had a little QR code on all the materials. So all of our speed and power settings were good to go. It has a camera for autofocus, so I didn't even need to know how thick the material was. And at that time we didn't know anything about autofocus, speed, power. We didn't know about any of those things. I simply loaded a graphic and hit print. It was really easy. Total plug and play. For the Omtik Polar Laser, it was pretty easy. All you had to do was take it out of the box, remove some of the packing materials. It was super easy and quick to hook up the inline fan and the exhaust. There's a little setup time in software because we're using light burn, so you had to install the software. It was very easy to connect to the Polar Laser itself. What really takes time for the Polar Laser is it doesn't have some of those hand-holding features that the Glowforge has. We had to determine the focal height for the materials that we were using. We had to run a speed and power test to determine the proper speed and power for the materials that we were using. And we had to set up our camera for light burn. So there's a little more involved with the setup of the Omtik Polar Laser. It's not difficult. It just takes a little more time and a little less hand-holding along the way. Not as plug and play. For the X-Tool D1 Laser, that also took about 60 to 90 minutes. I'm going more with 90 minutes because we had to put it all together. We had to put the rails and belts together. It was pretty simple, but it did take a little bit of time. Yeah, this one requires assembly. So you are screwing the rails together. You're putting all of those belts on. You're adding some zip ties, running some cables. Like Garrett said, it's not very hard to do. But one step at a time following the video, it just takes a little bit of time. Connecting to the machine was also a breeze. You could connect by a USB. And then with the materials that it came with, it also came with a little guide of speed and power settings. So we would just flip the arm down. That would give us our autofocus. And then use the speed and power settings on our materials card. The great thing about all three of these lasers is they do come with some test materials. Glowforge came with several different boards with QR codes on them. So again, you don't have to know the speed and power settings or anything about that. With the Omtech Polar, it also came with several different size boards, thicknesses of boards. It came with some acrylic. And it was really nice to have that materials pack. The materials pack I loved the most, though, was the X Tool D1. Yes. I mean, they had the regular boards that you would get with the Glowforger Omtech with the acrylic and everything. But they went above and beyond. They sent some little silicone rings.  And then some dowels. Yeah, some dog tags. Dowels. I mean, it was like a treasure chest of test materials. Yeah. So I love that about the X Tool. There was a variety of things. It really let you know the types of things you can engrave on or even cut. It was pretty fun. It was pretty fun to open that box. Yeah. Like dig it through an old toy box. The winner for this one is the winner. It is Glowforge. It's the Glowforge Pro. I mean, it was very plug and play. I didn't need to know a thing between the camera and the autofocus. I literally helped me running in 30 minutes. Right. We came in blind. We finished set up blind. But we were cutting. We were cutting. Round 30, machine specs. What are they made of? So the great thing about all three of these is that they all use a 110 regular household outlet. You don't need a special outlet. You don't need special power. You can plug them all right into the wall. Next is bed size. So the cut area for the Glowforge Pro is 11 by 19 and a half. And actually, you're not limited to that 11 inches. Because of the passenger slot, it's really 19 and a half by infinity. By infinity. The Omtech Polar 350, the bed size is 11.8 by 19.5. It's a little bit taller than the Glowforge. It's got a little more room. And it does have a pass-through slot. So you can go infinity. But it's a manual pass-through slot, meaning you'll have to line it up in the software each time you pass it through. Whereas the Glowforge will really assist with that. For the X-Tool D1 laser, the cut area is 16.93 by 15.75. This is more of a square cut area and gives you just a little more room both ways. But the great thing about this one is you can actually pick it up and set it on things. Especially if you're engraving and you want to engrave on top of a whiskey barrel. You can set it right up there and engrave something right on the top of it. And it will also kind of work as a pass-through. But again, you'll have to manually line that in the software. Now next is material thickness. What can these things cut through? So for the Glowforge Pro, we find that it'll cut through quarter inch. Pretty efficiently. Now the specs on the Glowforge's website says it'll cut through up to a half inch with multiple passes, potentially flipping it over. I'm doubtful. So just our personal opinion, I'm not sure I could do a half inch on the Glowforge Pro. I think you could for smaller cuts with multiple passes. I'm not really sure about that flipping over thing. That seems hard to do. I don't think that would work. For the Omtech Polar Laser, it's saying 3 eighths of an inch. So that's believable. But it would probably be at a very low speed and probably multiple passes. But it does get through quarter inch MDF just as fast. It's not faster than the Glowforge. And for the X-Tool D1 Laser, that also goes through quarter inch. If you're going to go anything thicker than that, which I think it says it can go up to half inch, you're going to need, I think I read, 10 passes to get there. At 1 millimeter per second at 100% power. And I don't know who has that kind of time or that many fire extinguishers around. That is just a fire waiting to happen. I did get through quarter inch MDF using three passes at 2 millimeters per second and 100% power. So it is possible. It will cut it. It's just not a machine you're going to use for cutting every day. It will cut when you need it to on occasion. It's kind of an on occasion cutting type of laser. Round three machine specs winner is Omtech Polar 350. Yeah, this one was pretty close. We decided to go with Omtech because it's a little more power. The bed is just slightly bigger. They both have the pass through. They're very, very similar. Yeah, very similar. But we mainly cut through things. So I like the more powerful tube and the bigger cutting area. Round four interface. How do we talk to this thing? GlowForge uses their proprietary software. It is a web-based application. It's a $50 a month subscription. You have to have an internet connection to connect to it. And then you'll also have to have Wi-Fi to connect from your laptop to the GlowForge machine itself. But the great thing about the GlowForge subscription is there's so many features and functionality out there. There's a lot of features within the software itself. They provide cut files. They provide images, clip art. There's just so many cool things about their software. The Omtech Polar 350 uses light burn software. It's a $100 licensing fee. It does have lots of features. It doesn't have all the features that come with the GlowForge proprietary software, but it does have lots of features that it even includes using the camera. You don't need to have just an internet connection. You can connect to it through Wi-Fi, USB, or even an ethernet. So you're not required to have any kind of internet connection. You can be offline, connect directly to your machine and use it. The other great thing about light burn is that they're always putting out new releases and new features and functionality. Maybe not all those bells and whistles of the GlowForge software, but still they're always updating it and bringing out new features. And they're used so widely that the X-Tool D1 laser also uses the light burn software. For this one, you can connect to your X-Tool D1 laser using USB or Wi-Fi. Round four winner actually is a tie. I chose the Omtech Polar Laser with the light burn software because of the camera functionality. Now I chose the GlowForge as you can see because all the cool features and functionality that GlowForge provides, there's just so much hand-holding with the GlowForge. But really, when you talk about light burn, training wheels are off, you're gonna do some of the same cool things and even more, there are some things that light burn can do that GlowForge doesn't have available yet as a feature. So it's really such a toss-up. Yeah, this is a hard one, this is a hard one. We really negotiated on which was the winner. I also like being able to work offline though. Well, that's huge. I know if you've seen any GlowForge forums, one of the biggest complaints is that you have to be connected to the internet. So if you live in a rural area and a storm rolls through and you don't have any internet, you're gonna have to wait to work. But that's not necessarily the case if you're using light burn or in this case, the Omtech Polar Laser or your X-Tool D1 Laser. Round of five, features. What kind of bells and whistles do these things come with? Well, our GlowForge Pro comes with autofocus. I love this autofocus. It has a second camera on the laser head itself that will tell me how thick my material is. And the camera, the camera is great. The camera is on the lid and it has a self alignment. It will do all of the aligning of that camera itself. It is great, but there's no frame feature. So you can't frame out where on the material that the image will land. You have to trust the camera. It does have air assist, but that's basically just a built-in computer fan that just kinda spits air towards your cut. It doesn't actually clear the smoke or debris and assist that laser getting through. It just kinda spits out the smoke. Which causes a little bit of char which requires you with the GlowForge to do a lot of masking of your materials. You can get around some of that char with the masking, but it is an extra step. It does have exhaust. It comes with an internal fan, but you're probably gonna need an external inline fan or even that optional GlowForge air filter, but that thing's expensive. It does not have a rotary attachment nor can you use a rotary attachment with the GlowForge Pro or any of the GlowForges. But it does have image trace. Because it's got the camera on the lid, I can put an image, like a piece of paper image, in the bed, take a snapshot of it, have the software convert that to a cut file, replace that piece of paper with some materials and cut that thing out. So real scan and cut feature? Yeah, it's kinda like a scan and cut, yeah. The old scan and cut. So for the Omtech Polar Laser, let's compare the same features. Autofocus, yes, kind of it has an autofocus feature. Not as cool as the GlowForge, but the way that Omtech Polar Laser has designed their autofocus feature is that they're telling you where your bed size sits. Then you subtract the thickness of your material, you enter that in light burn, and it automatically adjusts that Z-axis or your laser head to the correct focal length. So it doesn't do it completely hands off like the GlowForge does, but. We'll call it semi-manual. So, but it is considered, on their website, they do consider that their autofocus. So it does have autofocus. You do have to manually align the camera when we first set up light burn. We had to use a dot pattern to align the camera and get that going, but it's nice to have that camera feature. It will show you where your image is going to cut on your material. So it'll show you directly in your laser bed and you can move your image around to, you know, maybe a free section.  This is a free area on that piece of wood. You can line it up and know exactly where you're going to cut at. Well, I did use that camera on the Polar Laser to align some images on coat hangers. And they landed exactly where I wanted them to. Yeah, the camera feature is really nice. It does have the frame feature. So you're not necessarily tied to having to use the camera every time. If you're going to do something really quick, you can just hit frame and you can see, oh, yeah, if it's going to fit in my space right there and you don't need that perfect placement. But if you want that perfect placement like those hangers we did, yes, you have that option. Because it has great air assist, it really does have true air assist. There's very little to no masking with the Omtech Polar Laser. Those cuts are clean. It comes standard with an inline fan and this fan has some serious power. It has, what is my specs here? 282 to 303 cubic feet per minute. It really moves that air. You really don't see a whole lot of dust or smoke. You really don't see a lot of smoke buildup in that laser bed. And it comes with the rotary attachment. And not only does it come with one rotary attachment, it comes with two rotary attachments for different types of or different sizes of tumblers or there's just so many other things. Jewelry. There's lots of things that are round and you want that rotary feature. That was one of the big reasons why we got our X Tool D1 Laser was for that rotary feature. So we love that about the Omtech Polar. And when we talk to Image Trace, the Omtech Polar will do that as well. You can put an image right in your bed. Let's say you have a picture of a butterfly. You can lay it down in there. It'll scan that butterfly, turn it into a cut file, put your wood in and it cuts it right out. The last but not least is the featherweight, the X Tool D1. Does it have auto focus? Kind of. Kind of.  I mean that is the fastest of any of these focusings. I wouldn't say it's an auto focus, but it sure is an easy focus and it is the fastest. It's faster than what the Glowforge will set its cameras and do its measurements. It's faster than me doing the math out of my material thickness and entering it into light burn. I don't need to know how thick it is. I just drop it till it hits.  It does not have a camera. I don't think you need a camera with this because it does have that light dot framing. So it may not be precise, but it'll be good enough. It'll show you where it's going to put its image and you'll be able to make sure that your cut image is in the right area on your material, whether it's your tumbler or it's your bed. This one also comes with some really good air assist. I was surprised, but with this air assist, I mean it's not beefy, but it does keep your cuts clean. It comes with this cute little motor that sits off to the side. It does a great job of blowing the air in and the other great thing about that little motor which might be surprising is it has these four little suction feet on the bottom. It keeps it super quiet. Yes, it's very quiet. It does not come with any exhaust.  You really do have to be in a well-ventilated area. This thing isn't gonna be up in your bedroom unless you step out, close the door and then you can't see what's going on.  True, true. It's gotta be outside in your garage with the door open or I don't know. They do make cases that you can set over top of it that you can then hook up into an inline fan but I don't have one. Yeah, we don't have that. So I can't really speak to that. I do know that when we use our XLD one, we take it out to the warehouse. It doesn't let off a ton of smoke or a ton of fumes but we don't use it in this room. We do really need it out there in the warehouse. It does get smoky. It's not as cool as the Polar Laser coming with two rotary attachments but it does come with one adjustable rotary attachment so you can put different circumference items in the same attachment. That was one of the big selling features for us for that XLD one laser is we really wanted to engrave tumblers and that's the whole reason, I would say that was 90% of the reason why I got it. Yeah, me too. I really wanted to be able to do tumblers. So we love that and that's one of the strengths of the XLD one laser is that engraving so it's perfect for that. It does not have image trace capabilities. There's no camera on it so it can't scan anything. It does not need a water chiller. What we didn't mention was that both the Glowforge Pro and the Omtech Polar 350 both come with built in water chillers. There's no maintenance for those. It does use like in our big 100 watt lasers we need a whole separate water chiller. The great thing about these desktop lasers is they require a water chiller but it's built in no maintenance. Did you know you could get all of our files behind the scene content and even a Kim and Garrett After Dark podcast? As well as monthly Zoom calls, access to a secret Facebook group and we'll even send you one of these fancy t-shirts all for $20 a month. It's the best way to support this channel. So join us over at patreon.com. Wrap up. What did we learn? Who won? Well, in our opinion, we're gonna have to say that the Omtech Polar 350 is the winner and it's not to say we don't love our Glowforge. I think it was a tight race. Yes. I love all of my children the same. $3,000. You get all the features and functionality that you're gonna wanna use with a desktop laser and you're getting that rotary attachment, the exhaust, all of the features and functionality for $3,000. And I feel like that's in the middle. You have 7,000 on one end, 1100 on the other and this is just a happy medium with all of the bells and whistles of both. Well, maybe not all the hand holding, but it does have that rotary attachment. And again, the reason why we're talking about these as desktop lasers is because these things can all be used in your craft room. So this isn't a requirement of having to fill your garage with a full standalone desktop laser like we've done. The great thing about these desktop lasers is that it can be used on a tabletop out of the way. The D1 is light and portable, where the Glowforge or the Omtechs can be put right in your craft room, vented out a window and you can use it as one of your crafting tools.  Are you still in the market? What laser are you planning on getting? Did this help at all? Leave me a comment down below to let us know. Otherwise, we are about out of time, so if you're not gonna join us for our patron after show, we will see you next week where we'll do it, build it and make it again. And don't forget to join us on Tuesdays for our lives, where we'll paint a new door sign, chat with you live for about an hour. All right, we'll catch you later.


Right, you've attracted the attention of the city's creature. Dracking down is cover what he knows of you. It's sort of road and hides in the shadows I want. Something of great power has left its mark on him. I sense it. And you feel he has answers. For both of us. We should find him then. It shouldn't be too difficult. The voice acting is amazing. Free the slaves. These tracks are not quite human. Not quite beast. Even more reason to investigate. The pseudodon. Both survival challenges. I'm not going to leave this pure, poor human being. All by him to suffer at the hands of these disgusting ostracites. Don't even outcast deserve this fight. The chain of man seems to always end in shackles. Hey. I won't take any of that elfish, superior bulk coming from you buddy. Peer the creature is an apt climber. The slaves finally escaped. Their first attempt would have been that way. Blood cut that light into the veins. They could dig on stuff. Not now, not now, later. Don't get me wrong I'm sure. I sense it's not more of me than I know of myself. But a rodent possibly know of a wreath. It is somehow connected to me. I feel it. Spooky. Free the slaves. How do I approach those fellas? This will work I'm sure. It works perfectly well. Although I do think I'm a good human. Why are you not dead yet? Fine. Now you're dead. You're free humans. Okay maybe...  Now you're free. Excellent. And back to the quest at hand. Well you're still in the vicinity of Mordor. So freedom is more... It's an opportunity to be free let's just say. Lots and lots of danger in the face of... Well perfectly harmless orcs to tell the truth. Oh, talk about his gusting. I kind of want to kill them all. I probably should. Let's pick them off one by one. They're so clueless. They're still so clueless. Oh that's delicious. Come here. I love this game. I absolutely love it. The run's tracks lead us right into that Karagor cave. I don't actually need to rest on my health so... There! It's on the run! Hello! Come here! Come! Come! If you'll excuse my sudden outburst of fandom. And the circus really killed us all in here. Gollum! Where are you little buddy? He's confusing me isn't he? He must be somewhere. What do I have here? An elephant artifact. The elf's family. I was about to say that. Come here little fellow. Countess, they must have tracked the Karagors here. Oh my. So the Karagor is not to work. Press spacebar while running towards his. I'm not going to hit him today. Solid buddy.  Yes, I got it. Arch. Right, charged shots. That's why I haven't been killing the orcs. Because I've totally... Right, collect elf shot. Control. I'm so near that it's not even funny. The creature looks around here somewhere. Well, that became surprisingly unpleasant. Surprisingly fast. We must have it back. We must have it. Did Andy Serkis come back for that again? Oh, he did. Didn't he? Oh, he sounds amazing. I think you could sneak up on me so easily, right? No. Nor should you. Do not wish to know. And he is kind of protected by a pot armor. So the beast arm hunting is nearby. Here he is. I just suppose a bit of an upgrade is in order. So let's try and get us a few more elf shots. Shots. Really? Now I've got two ability points, which means I will take this ability to execute people. And of course... Now this seems quite useful, so I'm going to pick it up as well. And all of this is unlocked by a power barrier, which means that I really, really should concentrate on killing my current nemesis. Oh my. It just went away? Okay. Simply killed him. Something just moved over there. Got him. Okay. Time to take them all out. My first execution was a memorable one, dear daddy. Yeah. Take the hunters out first. Then take everyone else. As of my combo, because why not? Block and murder. Stop and execute. The moment my blade turns into a hot red mess. These are the reasons I wake up early in the morning. My heart should probably defeat Mac Blood Hunter to earn special rewards. Let's see. Can I do that without any prior information? It might cost me, but it seems like a nice way to end things for the day. Do you think we'll have anything to eat later? Right. So it's a mission which I need to activate. Very open world like that. And I do suppose the entire game is open world. So I should hardly... Oh, he's an elite captain. I feel that this might very well be my first death. But hey, I should at least try. He looks scary. Hey there.  I'll chase you all over Mordor. Okay. I'm happy with that. Ouch. Okay, those are very nasty. Let's see. Oh, so far so good. Okay, maybe not so too good. I've been stabbed twice already. Last chance struggling to move the cursor into the circle then press the displayed button to counter attack. Chance. Wonder how much I can get. No, thank you. I really rather continue living. I miss that. I might have been able to finish him. There is hope yet, however. Let's keep shanking him. Whoa, I actually did it. I'm kind of proud of myself. Now I could really use a plant. Yes, thank you very much. Well that was... I'm impressed by that. I feel pretty good about myself right now.


Ah, ah, ah! Don't turn that dial. This is the right station if you wish to hear about Jonathan Thomas and his Christmas on the moon. If there should be some folks about who scoff and laugh and seem to doubt this story of Jonathan Thomas, of how he went upstairs one night and went to sleep with his eyes closed tight until a light from the moon came into his room and two little people named Ezra and Jeeple slid down and started to frown at Gus. That's his teddy bear. Why don't you care if they laugh and sneer? Because it happened. And that's a promise. It happened as true as things happened to you. And this truly happened to Jonathan Thomas. Gus growled at those elves till they were beside themselves and chased them up to the moon. And Jonathan Thomas, he chased after Gus and he shouted to Gus to come back because he was afraid he might get lost. And pretty soon he reached the moon. He knew because it was covered with frost. But Jonathan Thomas didn't mind the cold, for he was sick and very brave and bold. But he did get scared at a man with a beard, with the funniest face he'd seen any place. And he wished he could find Gus pretty soon, but he couldn't. So he asked the man in the moon. But then in a hurry with a terrible flurry, there was the awfulest noise which would scare most boys, but didn't scare him because he got as mad as he ever had when the Scribubbles kidnapped Santa Claus. Then what do you think? As quick as a wink some policeman came and put the blame on Jonathan Thomas and he went to a court of the very worst sort. It was the court of all King Cole who said, Oh, now you must go or you have broken the laws.  So Jonathan Thomas, he gave his promise and he left the court in a terrible bloom, for he didn't know where he ought to go. And then he met the man in the moon who said that of course he'd get his horse. That is if he didn't mind, or it isn't much fun when there's only one who's got Santa Claus to find. So Jonathan Thomas, he said, Oh yes, and what happened next you won't have to guess. For quicker than you can count up to ten, here's where the story begins again. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Scrimm dum dee, scrimm dum doe, there are some things that I must know. Be it happy or be it sad, be it good or be it bad. So speak, oh magic mirror, great and wise.  Unless you wicked-looking glass, unless your sass very quickly says, I'll break you into a million pieces. So speak the truth, and tell to me what strangers doth appear to thee. O evil witch of Rumpelstich, this is what I see. Beyond the road where lives the toad, there is not one but one. For sooth you speak the truth, O magic miligrate, and I wouldn't know as to where they go. So tell it to me straight. They approach the river, with him shiver so. For the I see... You shan't acknowledge, but I shan't let them, because I'll call them suffer so. They'll be so afraid, and never set out to... We'll never come back till we've taken them back to the terrible land. Vigorous and chimney crickets. What a beautiful song that is. I think it's the best song I ever heard. Oh, it's stupendous, it's colossal, it's gigantic, mama. How it nearly drives me frantic.  How much further do we have to go, Mr. Man and the Moon, if you please, sir? Oh, just about as far as from here to there. But if you please, sir, how long is that? About as long as a piece of string without any knots in it. Ah, and we must be careful now, because we're in the canyon of the Three Dwarves. Ah, it's moida, that's what it is, not but plain moida. Oh, dear. Oh, my gracious, the goodness to Agnes, we. It's the Three Dwarves, I think. Ask them who they are, Jonathan Thomas. Yes, sir. Uh, who, if you please. I'm Sneezel. I'm Weezel. I'm Beelzebub. Who? I'm Jonathan Thomas. And I'm Coginthola the horse. And we're going to the land of the sweet bubble to rescue Santa Claus. He's been kidnapped.  You'll have to pay. To go this way. And if you don't, you'll have to stay. Well, of course we'll pay. How much do you want? Each will have to pay a song. And if the song is much too long, or if you've learned it wrong, you can't go through. Not one of you. That's what you'll have to do. Oh, but I don't know any songs. Well, that's very good one. Then you'd better make one up or down. Or we'll never get through the canyon. You'd better hurry. Oh, don't you worry. We'll even escurry. I'll never let you. Or you'll. Or you'll. Go through our canyon. Well, very well then. I'll sing mine first, yeah. Oh, I'm the man in the moon. Who's singing this redful tune? It's up to you when I get through, which I hope will be very soon. Yeah. Now it's your turn, Jonathan Thomas. Well, but I only know one song. Then sing it, and ring it, and swing it. Yes, sir, if you'd please.  That's a wonderful song But a trifle too long But there wasn't a word that was wrong You pleased us so But you may go We cannot tell you no And we'll give to you This magic shoe All the evil which can trouble you And this magic hat Which goes with that Will make them wonder where you're at Whenever you'd say Scat You shouldn't say wonder where you're at You should say wonder where I am I'm doesn't rhyme with hat And that's that, you bat. Hey, wait, gracious to goodness Run with your lives There comes the witch Oh, oh, Mr. Mann is home Oh, it's terrifying, that's what it is Nothing but terrifying Yeah, come on, quick, Jonathan Thomas Put on your hat and say scat Or the witch will have you And that will be last Do you suppose Jonathan Thomas Said scat quickly enough Or do you suppose the evil witch got him Well, I guess we'll just have to wait And find out Oh, but I hope not Don't you?


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You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you are notified for when my next podcast goes live. This is a kind of stuff that I love to talk about and get on because there is motivation at the end of the pain and that's what it's about but first and foremost how are we brother? We are good, we are good man. Appreciate you for getting me out here and yeah definitely a lot of pain, a lot of chaos that I left behind but very thankful as we are looking past everything now it's just all positivity so amen amen. Before we get into everything though I always like to go back to the start with my guests get about understanding about you, where you grew up and how it all began. Sure. So I grew up in LA, east side of LA which is Los Angeles we call it the San Gabriel Valley. It's a really really predominantly Asian now when I was growing up it was about 50-50 now it's like 80-20, the other half was Hispanic so we grew up right alongside the Mexicans, Salvadorians, Hispanic people and yeah it was very poverty stricken at that time I grew up in some project housing I don't know if you guys have that out there in Scotland but they call them the flats out there or whatever right so yeah same thing, government funded housing, gangs, drugs, violence everywhere and we were living me, my brother, my mom and my father typical traditional Chinese household father was dictator, ran everything but at the same time mother was very submissive, very peaceful first one to get out of the bed, first one to get inside of the bed as well before he came back so just very submissive and my father was a drunk, he was an alcoholic beat on me, beat on my brother, beat on my mom so he had a lot of inner demons as well at that time we didn't recognize but yeah so we grew up in that type of environment pushed me to kind of join gangs at a very early age so I was 12 years old when I joined my first gang what were you like at school? bad, I was a knucklehead and I was fighting with people stealing, you know, ditching, just doing a lot of bad stuff even at the age of 12 years old who forced you into the gang, your dad? my dad was yeah, I would say he was a gang member he actually wasn't a gang member but he was very like a street guy because we're Chinese but he's born in Korea due to my grandparents fleeing the war in China at that time it was a communist regime everybody was just running everywhere to get out and they were erasing their history before their eyes but my father was in Korea was a fighter he had always been fighting on the streets and they kind of faced a little bit of oppression over there too being that they're Chinese but living in Korea so yeah he fought a lot too, he fought a lot how many, is it Chinese gangs? or was that a mixed deal with early gangs? how many gangs? because you said it was 50-50 then so how mixed was that? it was pretty mixed we had a lot of different gangs we had Chinese gangs, we had Vietnamese gangs in general we had a lot of different Asian gangs and then we had predominantly Hispanic they dominated, they've been there since some of them since the 30s and 40s in that area so we just started pushing in there I would say mid to late 80s and then in my era it was about late 90s, early 2000s at that time there was already some gangs that had been established like my gang when did you start getting into trouble? at the age of 10 I started getting into trouble I was fighting and stuff I did stuff like when I was 7, 8 years old still in here and there, nothing too violent the violence started coming around 10, 11, 12 years old I was extremely violent I had already stabbed somebody I beat somebody up, I mean I've done a lot of stuff and at 12 I was already kind of like shooting at people how many men was there in that scouting? a lot, at that time we had different, so it's an umbrella and then there's different clicks as we call them or different sides so easily, easily in that time like anywhere from like 800 to 1000 members for sure who was the top boy? the top guy there was different factions with different what we call heads so yeah, there was a lot of people it's usually named by their so the sides are named by the heads so I'm from ocean side so there's like ocean, a guy named ocean there's sunny, there's stuff like that so it just depends on which side you're at which area you're at that was the head at that time how old were these people running these gangs? it depended I mean some of them were 30's some of them were late 20's I mean it was around mid 20's so I would say late to mid 30's what does it take to get in? one of these gangs? for that you had to do like a put on we call it an initiation so they would beat you up like similar to a lot of LA gangs if you say put on, they understand that they beat you up for a set amount of time just to test your grit to see if you could fight and if you could handle your own and then the second part of that would be putting in work, which means going out and proving to yourself maybe it would be shooting a rival gang member robbing somebody just doing dirt for the gang elevating the gang to a different status what's the gang called? watching yeah why? it's W-A-H-C-H-I-N-G it means actually in Mandarin Chinese youth or like young Chinese if you translate it literally what sort of age group? what's the youngest person who can join these gangs? it ranges I mean we've had people who were like 11, we've had 12 years old I would say around 12 to 15 would be like the average rate average age I'm sorry that would join the gang it's sad as well though that people in their 30s and 40s are telling young kids to shoot and stab to get into gangs like but again that's all you know you tend to see a lot of those kids that come from broken homes or their fathers beating them that's only probably family they felt they had was that your sort of behind it because you were scared of your dad or scared of the beatings all the time where you never really had a family yeah it was more like a pseudo family that I was looking for you see it on the streets you see them driving the nice cars you see the prestige of that the lore of that lifestyle was a big thing when I saw gang members just a little bit older than me you know wads of cash and you're coming from a place where you don't make money you know your parents don't make money they're making more money than your parents you know that really had such a big pool and like it attracted me to that life and then on top of that they had respect you know everywhere they drove people were like like noticed them they stuck out and yeah in my early on I was like very quick to pick that up and realize that I don't want to be going home getting beat up by my dad you know going home to this family that's like broken you know I'd rather be outside on the streets so every time I try to stay away from home you know but of course being 12 years old you still have to come home you know every night and the gang was kind of an outlet for me to run away from the family basically and go to that family you know this new family what was it like hurting someone for the first time it was honestly at first it was kind of scary you know you feel like dang like you know subconsciously that you shouldn't be doing this but there was also honestly an excitement that came with it it was as if I could kind of release my stress as well you know because I was getting hurt so much and you know my first fight for example you know you get tense you feel that feeling of like jittery feeling but after a while you know you start to win and then you start to get notoriety you know people start to notice you man you're fighting this guy could fight good so it went from you know at first to being really scared and then you start to embrace it you really start to like it and you start to recognize like I learned early on that violence kind of is almost like a tool and a language you know like everyone it's a universal language if you're violent people kind of understand like oh this guy means business leave him alone you know so I always kind of focused on being the most violent person so that I didn't have to deal with like really speaking to people and having to communicate with them you know I would just be like if you don't listen to what I say I'm going to just communicate in this way violently you know so it was pretty bad so to join a biker gang it's like a prospect you've got to do a lot of sharing the gang so that's the same tools that you have to do to get into a gang in LA yeah there's definitely levels to it people don't just let you walk in and share all of their secrets because if you're somebody who's an informant or a snitch or a rat as they say they could be sharing the wrong information to the wrong person so they really do put you through this test you know and they teach you the rules and regulations you know my OG's my big homies my leaders taught us actually very meticulously what is allowed, what's not allowed you know it's just a whole different ecosystem almost like the mafia? I would say yeah yeah we were very organized people we're known as the Chinese triads you know in our areas people are like oh these watching guys they're different they're not just like a regular street gang it was almost like a hybrid we had the street aspect but we also had the business aspect as well in the world the triads always seem to be never let anybody else in other gangs it's all multi-cultural but the triads seem to have been their own like was there any white people black people inside this gang? it was very rare to have them and if they did they would at least have to be someone we've known from like early on like Pampers as we say growing up as kids but yeah it was very rare it was very rare it was mainly if you're Chinese I mean the gang is called Chinese youth 90% of the time you have to be a young Chinese person but I mean I've seen it I'll be honest I've seen people who were like white in the gang and I've seen like different race like Vietnamese people maybe some Japanese people but for the most part majority yes it was always Chinese very exclusive as well what was it like when you go into the gang? it was pretty pretty crazy at first you know they really took care of us and honestly they never stopped taking care of us you know but when I had gotten my first money you know making my money then showing me how to use a gun things like that at that time I was thinking that these were really good things because they're teaching you protection they're giving you financial stability they're giving you an income almost and yeah it was really really good in the beginning but then of course with the prison and things like that you start to kind of recognize that you lose yourself and the families are torn apart because of gangs you know so what age did you learn how to use the gun? 12 very very quickly at that time I think I mean America in general is known for having guns and stuff like that so yeah I started to learn like a month into into it and on my third month I caught my first case as they say and I was arrested you know and from there I did four years you know in California youth authority now youth authority is different than like regular juvenile hall you have to be admitted into the youth authority it's almost like a mental hospital it's an insane asylum if you will for like the worst of the worst worst juvenile offenders what was that feeling? crazy yeah that place you're around like man you're around like anyone from 12 all the way up to like 18 years old and some people even 25 they'll have juvenile murder and life in there but um yeah my first night there I was like threatened to be stabbed I mean I've seen people get raped I've seen these are kids doing this to other kids I've seen kids get stabbed in the neck kids get strangled big old brawls fights I mean the fights was everyday but just a lot of crazy things like YA California youth authority was worst in prison because you couldn't hide behind like a car as we say behind a race California it's kind of more racial Asians go with the Asians you know blacks with the blacks white with the whites in California youth authority it wasn't really like that yes they went with Asians but if somebody was to fight you and they were another race like you have to defend yourself otherwise they're gonna take you for everything you got and then other people all around you was gonna take you for what you got so you really had to fight every single day you know and that's why I literally learned to fight lost a couple fights won a couple fights but you start to learn you know and you learn how to like just be a monster you know honestly like take everything as disrespect if somebody says something to you two seconds you take off on them I mean if you don't then everybody looks at you like you're a punk and a bitch and stuff like that so what did you get charged with? I got charged originally with robbery and kidnapping but they dumbed it down luckily to dissuading a witness for the benefit of a gang so kind of like witness intimidation if you will and yeah they gave me four years for that our gang was already on like the FBI list you know they were already trying to have gang injunctions on us they were trying to re-co us I'm not sure if you know what re-co I'm not fair to understand can you explain the re-co though? for people who don't know? it's a federal indictment where they go after you because you're so big you're this conglomerate that's making money and you just have your hand in everything and they come specifically for you they have operations, homeland security FBI, CIA they all work together to come and like basically knock you off and really attack that one gang organization like they did the mafia you know and they it's all federal stuff a lot of it is federal also state stuff but mostly federal so you're 12 years old at that time? yeah what's your mom saying when you're that quiet? you know they were shocked because they didn't know I was gang-banging you know I was always bringing a change of clothes everywhere that I went and they asked my mom I remember you know what was your son do you remember what your son was wearing which Johnny was wearing when he went out and they're like oh yeah you know blue jeans, grey sweater this episode is sponsored by fire away pizza the fastest growing pizza company in the UK with over 150 stores with their fresh quality ingredients and unique pizzas they will have you coming back for more use code james20 for 20% off he said no he was wearing red and black flannel you know baggy black pants so red and black is our gang colors and you know courtes shoes all the LA people know that courtesies are like the gang-banging shoe back then you know LA people we like to be a little loud we like to be a little flashy you know so my mom was kind of shocked like your son is potentially no he's not potentially he's in a gang and you guys have to prepare for that you know so when I got caught that's when my mom actually found out all of the dirt that I was doing what I was being charged with I mean I remember seeing her face even in court like she was shocked she was just like you know how like he's a monster you know how I didn't raise a kid like this she didn't know anything she didn't know anything what was it like the first day walking in looking the yos back then like were you scared absolutely you know I was scared because they were kind of prepared I was on the phone with people and they were already kind of telling us people in the tank as well in the court were like explaining to us that hey this is probably going to be a serious thing kidnapping is a very big thing in the states so yeah people do a long time so when I heard that you know at 12 you're going to go to this place that's crazy and you know you might be doing a very long time I was kind of like scared you know but at the same time it was weird it was an opportunity for me to like rise like I saw that as a kid too like if I just take the rap which I did then because there was like six of us involved you know it wasn't just one person so I was like I'll take the rap because I'm the youngest now I didn't think honestly I would do a lot of time I thought maybe I would do like two years a year but they ended up giving me four so that's when I was like really shocked you know and they give you a parole date you don't have to do all four but I didn't understand unbeknownst to me when you go to YA you're going to fight so that means you're going to catch these level B's which is write ups you know and when you do these level B's the more you do them and you're going to catch them every day it literally makes you max out your time which means yeah they give you a date to go home let's say in two years but most people don't make that most people if they say four years you're doing four years probably even more just depending on how much work you put in so I had to do the full four years did you have to grow up fast then when you had to be 12 years old my son is 13 fuck me but if he swears I go crazy do you know what I'm saying like it's crazy to think just a young boy innocent to then be showing that life of willing to kill willing to die willing to do four year in prison for what so your idea was take the blame rise through the ranks not snatched did you get offered a deal at such a young age I was on no deal on the table no of course of course they offered a deal you know because they wanted me to you know rat out snatched on the big ones yeah and I was like I'm not doing that you know and um yeah it was it was crazy you know being 12 yes you had to grow up fast you know I was more afraid I'll be honest of me dying like if I was to snitch I knew I was gonna die like they're gonna let me out and then these people are known for like shooting people so I'm like I rather not die like I rather so I understood the fear that was ingrained in me which kind of brought loyalty you know based off of the fear but at the end of the day I really also didn't want to go out like that like I had finally felt like I found hope as twisted as as that sounds I found hope in this type of lifestyle and I was like you know they love me you know this is my family so I don't want to like it was like 5050 like I don't want to die I don't think they'll kill me and as long as I play my cards right which is take the blame take the fault then I just saw the positive and everything little did I know I didn't calculate the mental stress and like emotional instability that it would cause me like PTSD and all this crazy stuff that would come out of that but I just saw it as very like I only see the beginning and the end of it I didn't really think anything through and I was I mean I was 12 I don't think I could I was very impulsive you know so what's the worst thing you seen were you in that present at 12 when at 12 I'd seen the first time heard and seen people getting turned out which means getting raped and that was like crazy that was something that you won't forget you know and then I've seen people getting stabbed like like all kinds of ways like they make you know shanks they make raises all kinds of stuff so I had seen that and that's something really like traumatic obviously for a 12 year old but to see the youth doing it to other youth where I was at was Nellis why which is pretty one of the it's very well known they closed it down thank God but it was very known it was known well known for the violence honestly I've even seen correctional officers like raping the kids too and that was crazy you know the very people that they're supposed to watch over us and maintain order we're doing crazy stuff making us fight each other I mean all kinds of stuff it was crazy so the present officers were just as bad I would say probably worse what you're thinking them and you're seeing present officers rape young kids honestly that's the one thing that when I went in there you get laced up which means you know it's a slang where they come and they tell you the rules and somebody who's been in there tells you the rules and regulations and the first thing they taught me was forget about your family why would you say something like it to a 12 year old you know forget about your family you're never going home you know this type of lifestyle like if we get out on the streets we're going to come right back in this is what I was told as a kid so when I thought about that I'm like wow this is um yeah it was you just had to prepare mentally to like be a monster almost you know I felt like I cultivated that mindset at a very young age to just not care about anybody else and just like self-preservation to the fullest how did you survive that because you're the youngest there so how do you survive that what do you feel as if you had to do more damage to try and prove a point or how does it work at such a young age how was your method of thinking yeah it was just like no matter what happens like don't you can't let them you know take advantage of you in any way physically emotionally mentally so everyone was always on high like I felt like I probably had high blood pressure even at that age because everything around you like it just it like you just act so nothing you don't you don't give yourself time to think you have to react off of everything if you feel disrespected um you take off which means you just punch them it doesn't matter what it is punch them stab them do whatever you have to establish that I'm not going to take anything from you if you say anything to me um and I feel it just a little bit we're going to have a problem we're going to fight we're going to do that and really believe it or not the more you act like that the more crazy you act people start to respect that and be like okay this guy is not going to take anything from us we can't just take his food we can't just take his commas or we can't take his clothes so we just got to kind of leave him alone so you did have to have that mindset of like that trigger you know like hairpin trigger mindset how did so seeing you're doing that then going through the ranks did you have other gang members in prison with you mm-hmm how many of yous there was a few of us from my from my neighborhood as well did that make it easier it did it yeah um luckily you know all throughout the the california system people know this you know watching um ours us especially we were all throughout the area you know all the blacks know us that's I would say that's the the bell that rings the loudest is is when you go out there is is watching you know um so yeah it did make it a lot easier but still it also kind of made it harder in some some instances because um you know you also have the other enemies you have the opposition and they are also like hating on us too right so um they were gang banging on us as well as a lot of gang banging you know your side my side fighting each other um every everybody who's a rival gang member we'd have to fight them basically so if it was a new person you're getting new people every day so you'd have to fight them every single day now this was a youth party it was just fighting all day um and then when you get to prison it's different it's I had to really learn how to program as they say because when I went to prison now it's a whole shift it's a it's a culture shock almost you don't the same guy that you fought in why the same guy that shot at your friend or you shot at their friend maybe even murdered their brother whoever they now have to be like buddy buddy with you because of it's a race now so it's race against race we have different cars you know like vehicle cars so there's the black car the Asian car or the other car as they say and you have to now click up it really is a race war and there isn't one-on-one fighting in prison where it's like oh you have a problem with me and you're black and I'm Asian no we're all gonna fight all blacks against all Asians it's gonna be like that so it was very different it was more of a numbers game now as you become an adult and older and you go to these state penitentiaries that's that that was something that was really hard for me to grasp I would say the first year to like two years because my mindset was the YA mindset I had to like kind of tone it down a little bit because if you were in a rival gang we'd have to fight so I went from that environment to like okay now he's in a rival gang but wait I gotta step on the brakes we gotta watch each other's back it's like it doesn't make sense you know so did you get moved from the four-year sentence to an adult prison or did you finish the four in the same place yeah so from after I finished my four years in prison I got out and caught my second case so I got home about 60 70 so two months in a week and what was it feeling like getting out did you feel as if you're down just straight did you feel as if you were an adult right when I got out I'll be honest I felt a little bit of like a sense of accomplishment because I'm like damn I made it out and everyone knows when you go to the why like why people are like oh this guy's gangster because he went to like the top of the top it's like university for criminals almost you know so when I walked out I did have a little bit of a puffed up chest but that made me arrogant and very reckless because of that and on top of that you're crazy so like you're doing much more crazy things that normal people aren't really used to you know but you're living in that environment so it's very normal for you so you rise very quickly and people start to recognize who you actually are so that's why I couldn't even stay out for more than two months because my mom was reckless I was crazy so um yeah I did feel a sense it was a mixture of emotions but like happy but also crazy but also like very arrogant so this is like all together did you feel untouchable yes 100% I felt untouchable and um and that's why I did what I did which was my second case is the first case a felony uh first case well even at that age at that age yes of course of course but three felonies and then life so that's that's after you um after 18 right a lot of it doesn't count yeah so a lot of these um you know felt juvenile felonies unless you try try it as an adult most of it can get sealed you know I'm not necessarily expunged but sealed because you're you're a juvenile I don't know how it is out here in UK or wherever but in the states that happens but I didn't even make it to that 67 days I get locked up for a shooting a freeway shooting car to car shooting and they charge me with two counts of assault with deadly weapon because there was people in the car so at first it was attempted murder obviously I pled out so that's when I was like okay I admit give me whatever time they gave me 10 years 85% so what that means is I have to do a mandatory minimum of 85% of those 10 years depending on my behavior in prison I either do it all in prison or I get out and parole after eight years and some change which is what happened with me how many people were in the car that I remember there was two they claim there was three but I remember only two people what was that feeling when you're driving and shooting at the same time it was pretty crazy because when I that was almost an everyday thing that was happening in the San Gabriel Valley these freeway shootings because you know you're driving you look over and you see the rival gang member and it and it's on site which means you see them they had shot at your friends you had shot at their friends so nine times out of ten especially Asian gangs in my area they're all carrying guns they're all packing so yeah I was carrying two and I saw them and it was just again instinct like oh that's them I recognize who they are boom boom boom and start shooting and it was really like almost a natural thing for us you know because you see that happening you hear about this happening and you know but for me it was pretty normal actually as crazy as that sounds how did you get caught so somebody behind I guess caught my license plate number and basically reported they sent out a warrant for my arrest had to go on the run a little bit but yeah I got caught eventually shooting from a car that was registered to you yeah that's fucking crazy I know that's what I'm saying that's how exactly that's how impulsive we were as kids you know what I mean it wasn't really it wasn't registered to me but it was registered someone in my family you know which was my dad and yeah I was bad it was stupid nonetheless is that why you pleaded to it straight away and it mitted your goat yeah well did they try and charge your dad because that's what they do here whoever's the car registered to if I pick someone up and I've got 10 kilo of coke they're in the car with it but if they get pulled over it's me it gets charged because it's in my fucking property of course so he actually had a warrant for his arrest your dad and he went and it was like what the and then I was like fuck so after that we had to make like a little bit of a decision and kinda basically went in but yeah that was crazy how old were you then 17 I was 16 and some change almost 17 what you find Kim when you get 10 stretch honestly I was relieved because they were giving me like crazy numbers at first you know and I didn't now I know it was like a lot of them like bluff you know like oh I'm gonna give you you know 37 years or whatever they try to charge me first with like you know 19 years for this case and then 10 for this it was like adding up to like a crazy number so when you hear that like your heart sinks you know and you're like dang I didn't even like shoot nobody like I didn't even hit anybody technically no one got injured but doesn't matter you know they were like the attempted is what matters so I was just being told people all in my ear older homies you know I had a PD at that time a public defender and which I know now I just wanted to get the court you know case done he said if you get 15 years you should take the deal you know it's a really good deal you know you shot at two people and you're only getting 15 years like that should and you're from YA so that means they're gonna pull that up and be like look at him he's mentally unstable his Rico history with the gang I mean you're gonna lose and I'm like dang so if they give you any deal take it so at first actually gave me a deal I think it was like 18 you know and I was like nah hell nah I'm not doing that you know I'm gonna get out when I'm in my 30s you know I'm not cool with that but then they dropped it down to 12 and then I was like I started contemplating around 12 and then the next day they came back with 10 and I said shoot it just give it to me you know and signed and did what I did and I was shipped off to prison what prison did you go to I first went to Lancaster State prison so there's a receptionary period where you do about 90 days three months in prison they put you in this place where it's called reception and they kind of hold you there see how you're gonna interact they're figuring out where to place you and from there I was shipped out to Ironwood State prison yeah what you're thinking then still a kid 16 years old 10 years in an adult prison yeah is that a felony charge then yes yes two counts two counts two strikes so two strikes straight away one more it's life that's it yeah 16 yeah and it was crazy you know it was I really I'll be honest I thought I was gonna die in prison just because I'm like there's a saying that they'll strike you off for spitting on the street you know something as small as spitting on the street obviously that's not true but it's basically you're living your whole life walking on eggshells type of stuff you know so I was just prepared to kind of live in there you know for the rest of my life or or even die in there you know so again that YA mentality came out of me like well you're not gonna make it out nobody gives a shit about you so just live the way that you want to live you know if you want to stab people in there you want to hurt people I mean this is what you signed up for you have nothing else to stand for you know no one's gonna pity you're gonna cry who's coming for you nobody's coming for you you know you just have to handle your own you know and I learned that at a very young age to 16 17 I was able to grasp that concept you know what's your mum saying at that point did you totally block off your feelings and emotions with family yeah so you wouldn't affect you but again it's your mother same as myself when I was doing shit it's the pain and the misery and the trauma that you caused them and for what right right you know my mom was we never really spoke believe it or not she was always siding with my dad so always had a very big heart of resentment she was terrified of him yeah and yeah so she she just we didn't really speak she would tell me things like you know I'm sorry you know that that hits you and I'm like mom like I would not allow her to like get into the core of my heart because I knew that that was a sign of weakness you can't be crying in prison you know people are gonna see that and there's a lot of predators in there so I would just like it would be points where I wouldn't even visit my mom and this is wrong but I would you know she would drive about two two and a half hours to get to where I was at and there's times where like I wouldn't want to hear her speaking about you know the past and like how wrong she did me in this because I would I would then get emotional so there's times where I would reject her visits and stuff like that you know it was very hard now that I think about it to do that to my own mom you know but she tried she tried to you know she was Buddhist so she would give me like little chants and stuff like that you know we're traditionally were raised Buddhist most Chinese households but yeah she she just really like try to lead me correctly in there spiritually you know giving me these Buddhist chants prayers and stuff like that and um yeah yeah what was it like in the adult prison how did you get through it again was it did you have gang members in with you yes yes yes every yard that I went to thankfully I think was a blessing we had homies people from my neighborhood different sides different factions but same umbrella same gang you know so uh it was it was good actually they they welcomed me in um and I started to believe it or not really meet a lot of good people in prison I met I thought it was going to be all crazy which it is but there were actually a lot of people who were mature there were people who were very disciplined believe it or not and California prisons are very respectful uh there ran almost very militant where if you step behind somebody you say excuse me you know things like that so I was actually taught to clean myself I had a lot of like physical endurance because you're doing calisthenics burpees gotta be very innovative about the way you work because they're not giving prisoners barbells and you know dumbbells will kill each other so you have to like find out ways to do burpees and you know upside down push-ups and so so you my workout routine my regimen was really good I mean but I think mentally there was nothing feeding my mental you know um everything was more physical working out you know running um reading I mean was accessible but I mean I didn't even have a GED education at that time I got my GED in prison I did anger management in prison I did counseling in prison they had these programs um but I couldn't get rid of this emptiness that I felt inside of my heart and I thought that emptiness was just something that was the result of being in prison but what really was crazy was when I got out I still had that emptiness and that void inside of my heart How many gangs are in the adult prison? Oh there's it's countless there's so many different gangs I mean there's people from different areas Bay Area, North you know Northern California car I mean there's people from like San Diego which is really southern on the border of you know Tijuana, Mexico basically I mean there's all to number them there's too many What sort of stuff have you seen in adult prison obviously the youth it's a different ball game everybody's trying to make a name for themselves but the adult prison like you say it's more regimented but there's still a lot of bad stuff because in the American Jails what sort of stuff have you seen?


Well it's just some interesting trivia I learned today. Did you know that if you butcher a rooster in the winter, their testicles are much smaller than if you butcher them in the spring when they're apparently their testicles are huge? Which obviously that makes sense because it's cold in the winter. Shrinkage.  So why cock? Why do we have that parallel?  Something's wrong with you.  See you did some Corbin. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter for more juicy content. Thanks for watching. I dislike roosters. Very much. There's several animals I have.  There's some other animals I just really don't trust, don't like. Camels, ostrich, and the rooster. Mine is humans. Today we have a new, I believe it's a Tolugu trailer, please correct me if that's wrong. You're wrong. Ah man. Teaser, sorry, I apologize. It's called... Kidakola. Kidakola. And what's with that? Darun Bhaskar, if it's mispronounced, forgive me. Read that. Kidakola. Ah, after Pelichopulu and Ini, Darun Bhaskar is coming up with a wacky tale of crime, comedy of errors and unusual collaborations of weird yet relatable characters. That was nice. Kidakola is an ultra-stylish crime comedy with a pinch of intense action and breathtaking moment. Dive into the world of Kidakola with this teaser. I'm just reading the text. I saw the text on a breakdown on backstage for a commercial ad and immediately went no. I just could not, I can't incarnate those words. Here we go. Foreign, foreign music. Oh for the maker of that, cool, cool, cool. Remember that? There's no subs. Actual, go back please. That is what we saw, right? His head exploded. Yeah, we're gonna watch this again. There's some dialogue that wasn't subbed, so I apologize. Is it made of grapes? Is that getting a theatrical lease or is that OTT? Ah, it's Telugu, so it's probably theatrical. They don't do a lot of... That visual effect on the skull explosion is absolutely spectacular. So I think it's... That's at 40 seconds. We've paused it at 40 seconds in. I've screened so they can see it. I think that is, they have this involved. I think a lot of that's VFX. It's great. No, it's a real human skull. Not what I was saying. I think a lot of that is visual effects. I'm not sure. I can't be wrong. That's an actor's dedication right there. That's method. That is method.  That is unfreaking... I don't know what you meant. You meant it versus practical effect. I mean, maybe they... But it kind of looks like a VFX. Maybe it's both. Yeah. Maybe they exploded it and then added some VFX. Whatever it is, it's spectacular. And it was... It definitely... What a shock. It's definitely a quirky trailer from what they... I think that's what they said in the... In the description there. Not going to forget that trailer when his head exploded. How... However, I do have a single thought about that. What? I just... So I'm so unaware of what they do in terms of the sensor board giving a film a particular age range for lack of a better term. For... We don't have a sensor board. We have a rating system done by the Motion Picture Association of America. It's a private business. And they determine the rating system. And it's pretty accurate, I would say. It's always been pretty accurate. When they came up with the PG-13 rating, it needed to happen because there was too big of an expanse between PG and R. So it's fantastic for us. I just don't know that how many kids might accidentally come across this thing and have a moment watching their head explode. We know full well it's fake. Little ones would not. I don't think somebody... I'm just from the trailer. I teased her. I could tell you... It's probably not a kid movie. No, it's definitely not a kid movie. But having it in the trailer makes it just easily accessible and... I don't know. It does happen quick. I think any little ones who saw it, it would happen so fast they probably wouldn't even realize what transpired. The director wrote it as well. Is there a log line? No. Comedy and crime. It's what it looks like. That's what it looks like, yeah. Tharun. He's involved in some way in Sita Raman. Oh, he's an actor. Gotcha. He's an actor, writer. Now director, I suppose. He's directed stuff in the past as well. Yeah, and written. Yeah, so he's an actor, writer, director. I don't think we've seen anything of him in terms of his directing. He was in Sita Raman. Ramam is what it's called. It looked fun, though. It looks like it's a lot of fun. Who else is in this? Nobody that I know. It almost felt Malayalam in terms of how quirky it was a little bit. Like the style in the beginning was giving me that Malayalam when we just watched of Battle of Brawls or... Oh, yeah. When it was quirky and fast cuts and all that kind of stuff. It looks interesting, man. I'm quite interested. I'm looking forward to seeing more and what else they're going to come out with because that was unexpected. Yeah. I liked it. I liked it a lot. That head explosion was unexpected. And if that's what's in the trailer, what else are they going to throw in the film? That was a teaser. Yeah, that was just a teaser. That was just a teaser. We also don't know what they said, so if they said something important, please always know what they said. So I guess it's safe to say this teaser is mind-blowing. Thank you. They're always loading. Waiting for those... Anyways, that looks really cool. That was fun. You guys let us know what you thought about it. If you're excited for which be the next Telugu film that we watch, please let us know down below.