Okay, a lot of people have asked about the phone system situation, who follow this channel, but I'll just kind of give you a quick overview here of what's going on. I have a longer video I'm going to be uploading, which is the details of hiring Chris from Crosstalk to set up my new phone system. We've moved everything over to FreePBX, but I want to talk about Ring Central. And I did not have a horrible experience while using Ring Central. There was little bumps here and there where they made some changes that were minor, but they caused things like the app to change, whatever. They were really not anything that would, they did not disrupt service. That's probably the important thing.  So if you follow me on Twitter at all, you got an idea and people were laughing. And this also got me a lot of messages as well. Some people didn't want to be known on Twitter for this, so they privately messed me, so I'll leave their names out of it, but I got a lot of messages from people saying of the same experience with them. So this kind of is a little bit of a warning of Ring Central. And I'm taking down my video where I suggest people use them. We had actually suggested them for a lot of our clients. And what's really turned me off to Ring Central is the exit from them. So what happened was we ported the number over. They didn't deny the port. And if you're not familiar with what number reporting is, that's when you move from one carrier to another. We went with a free PBX internally hosted, and we went with Vitality as the provider of the SIP service, and it connects to our free PBX, and I contracted Chris from Crosstalk to make all that happen. That being said, the port went fine. They had their usual retention, can we keep you as a customer? And I said, no, we're switching to this service. Thank you very much. We not had a bad time with you, blah, blah, blah. And it was cordial. I didn't really, they weren't too high pressure or anything like that. So that part went fine. They didn't deny the port order, and it went through fine. Went through an original amount of time, blah, blah, blah. Went and happened on the day it was us. But that day was like May 9th or May 8th. Then I realized a lot of our clients were complaining because we had suggested to them having Ring Central, and the complaint many of the small business clients were having is we can't call you anymore. It says your number's not working, and it would just ring. So I contacted Vitality who said those numbers are not hitting our service. It's a Ring Central problem. And then the nightmare started of from May 10th till May 30th, people from people using the Ring Central service couldn't call us. The only way I was able to get any response at a Ring Central was a series of tweets because if you email them, they just said, not my problem. You moved away from us. And I'm like, no, only people on Ring Central can't call us. It's clearly your problem. And this went round and round and round with them. And this has made me quite angry because it took several weeks. Now, the messages and private messages I got from people were the same thing. They can remain anonymous, but they shared that same thing with me. Like, yep, had the same problem. If you port from them, people on Ring Central can't call you. One guy told me, I think it took him two months of complaining with them to get it. He says, I should have just went to Twitter like you did. Even now, they've deleted this. And this is a screenshot from the video I started recording yesterday and got sidetracked on from this exact problem. Because they've now deleted this whole tweet stream, which is fine, whatever that's their prerogative to do. The only things that aren't there are some of the replies. So it's confusing to see. I don't know, whatever. So I will start with my exit from Ring Central, less than pleasant, which now has me really difficult in recommending them. And this was just such a pain, especially when you have a lot of your clients using Ring Central that all have to resort to using their cell phones now to give you a call. We could call them, they couldn't call us. And it was funny because even in this tweet stream, which unfortunately I can't scroll down, I sent screenshots, they're like, oh, email this person. And I did. And he replied within like seven minutes. So Kudo was on a response time because the response was easy for them, not my problem. You moved away from us. That was their answer. I'm like, really? I finally get someone apparently they called their executive response team. I guess these people are shaming us on Twitter. So I guess we have to solve the problem team. And I'm not just trying to badmouth them. Explaining my situation of what happened with them. I'm not at all someone who likes to do any type of bashing on any particular company. I very much take things we're going to assault and I realize there's trouble. But I mean, the level of not my problem it took and the three weeks it took to get my customers able to call me again means I can't really recommend Ring Central for people anymore. So I've taken that video down. And like I said, my experience having Ring Central was pleasant for three years. They're not the cheapest, but their service was good. Their customer support was good. I didn't have a horrible time with Ring Central. And we switched to PPX for a couple reasons I'll get into. So I'm going to jump into that part of the video now. And that's enough about the Ring Central part, but this is what happened. This way I can make sure it's all in the clear. And anyone who tried to find the tweet stream of what was going on or people that were retweeting and things like that. Yeah, this is all deleted now. This page no longer works. So let's get into about me switching to free PPX. I have a longer video that I will be uploading soon of that I have to finish editing, because it's a few hour video of me contracting Chris from Cross Talk Solutions, who has some of the best videos on free PPX. Definitely he's really, really smart on all that stuff. That being said, an important aspect of having free PPX in any or any VoIP system is having proper QoS setup. And I'm going to bring this up real quick because sometimes I see people complaining about different phone providers. And we have this as clients that we've picked up because they've switched phone providers twice to try to solve their problem. They went from one VoIP provider to another VoIP provider and a problem comes down to you have to have your network setup right for any VoIP provider to work. So that I will throw in as a caveat here that we use PF Sense. Yes, it works with this. And if you literally use the traffic shaper next in yes and just turn on the VoIP shaping, that's enough to really make it work quite well.  So let's get into how we have it configured besides PF Sense. So here's this quick look. We're using the latest version of free PPX. Well, as of May of 2018, it does the critical errors found because there's a module that's disabled. It's one of the commercial modules, whatever.  Yes it does and that is a factor in the decision but one of those things that you have to consider about phone systems such as free PPX is you own the phone system, you own the critical error found or whatever or you're going to pay someone else for support.  So those are factors you need to put in there. And if you want to run this either on your own physical hardware or in my case I ran it virtual, you have to maintain that piece of infrastructure in your building. That also means service failures to this building such as power internet will cause a service failure in my phone system as well. So these are a couple of considerations but one of the reasons we went to it, partly yeah, it saves us a few dollars but the other reason was I really liked the ability just to customize, move things around, create call cues and a very, very extensive system. And me and Chris did that video together that I'll be uploading. We barely scratched the surface in a two hour video of how many features you can do and how many fun things you can do with the FreePVac system. So I actually have some plans to do a lot of very custom tinkering around with it. I've got it set up so it's very functional for my business with a few features but we're going to be adding a lot more later and I really wanted to dig into and play with it. I love things like this, it's why I like open sources, why I like Linux because I can get behind the scenes into the years of it. Maybe you go, I just want a super simple managed phone system that I have to worry nothing about. Well, you know, you're probably boring of a candidate for a cloud system. You can just put in cloud, you pay a fee that what I don't pay in fees, I do pay with my time. So it's not like there's not an expense and it has to be taken in there. So besides using FreePVX and having it all set up and like I said, I have a video I'll get uploaded for that. It's been really smooth. I've been using it now, like I said, for about, we started using it from before we even poured it over because we had our lines forwarded to this. So it's been over 30, 45 days since we started using it. It's really been no problem. And of course, FreePVX has been around forever. And if you hire an expert like Chris to help get you going with it, that helps quite a bit. We're using primarily these Yealink W56P phones. We use these and we actually purchased these in April of 2017. We've been using them ever since. These are great phones. Chris has a good review of them. You know, I keep bringing up Chris, but he's kind of the YouTube expert that you'll find for a lot of these videos. But these phones are really good. The year of use of them, no problem. We used them on RingCentral, didn't have a problem with them. The only problem we ever had was back, I said the one hiccup we had with RingCentral was we have these phones set up so more than one line is on one phone and RingCentral broke that during an update but then fixed it. So that was my minor issue I had with them in three years. But it was, you know, their tech support was able to fix it. That being said, it was way easier to set these up with free PPX with a couple of the plugins like the Endpoint Manager plugin. These are actually pretty easy to configure and just an outstanding cordless phone. They, the range and everything on them is really good. Vitality is the provider we went with. They're really inexpensive. It's, it works well. I haven't really had any problems with it. The only thing we haven't gotten around setting up is any of the texting stuff that we had with RingCentral but we didn't use that a ton before. So it's, it's not been a priority to get that set up. It's not like to do this. I know it's something they actually have support for SMS. They also do all kinds of other features. We're using them just on the basic of, we buy sip from them. Now for my phone, I have this, my cell phone and I have Zuiper. I bought the paid version of Zuiper. Now this works really well. I'm really happy with this as a product. It's not that expensive if you buy it for, well the phone, I don't know how much it is for the desktop. One of my staff bought one for their desktop so they can use it. This has been really, because I don't want a desk phone. I don't like anything more in my office than I have now and I didn't want to use it on the computer. So this combined with my good old Bluetooth headset is just a great combination. So the few dollars I paid for this program is more than paid for itself because it allows me to easily answer transfer calls and things like that. And I do have the follow me turned on so I'm able to forward calls. If you call my extension, it bounces over to my cell phone when I'm not in the office. So that's worked really well. And then because we have PF Sense with OpenVPN, I'm able to, with OpenVPN on my phone, easily make phone calls from anywhere that I have internet access with my phone. So the overall experience has been pretty straightforward with all of this. And I just wanted to share with you the different tools that we're using that we went with on here. Maybe I'll do a specific video on Zuiper but really straightforward to use. Easy to set up, supports a lot of different protocols and really inexpensive. It also supports all the platforms. So as a soft phone, this is outstanding. As a desk phone, I really like these yay links. And around the office because, well, had them, they're laying around. We have a couple old Cisco phones and a couple of desks for, you may have seen them floating around. The Cisco phones are, eh, they're okay. They're fairly durable. I had them, I paid $20 for them years ago. We used to use them in Ring Central. So those ones worked perfectly fine with this as well. They're great for just being able to have a phone in a couple of different rooms in case we somehow managed to forget the yay links which does happen. But overall, it's been a great experience.  I really wanted the larger flexibility of free PBX. I don't think those other ones are necessarily bad at all. They're 3CX is a pretty neat one. I gotta admit, comparatively, when I'm looking at the menus, there's so much in free PBX and it's not as pretty as they were when I tried out the 3CX system, but I just love the flexibility of this. And it was, you know, it's all Linuxy and that made me really happy with it all being Linux and open source with a couple of commercial modules that you can buy from Sangoma. So that's why I went with free PBX. I don't have anything bad to say about the other ones. It works well, but with any of the networks, make sure your network is set up properly. And I may do a video a little bit more in depth, but the short answer is if you're using PfSense, the cues that you create with the Next and Yes wizard will help your network work well enough to get this working. You can always fine tune it later and play with things, but we haven't had any issues and calls go through fine, but that is an important set up for any of the voice up. So hopefully this was helpful and answers the question about that. And then I'll finish editing the really long video I have with me and Chris because it's a really in depth from start to finish just talking about phone theory almost and firewalls and then moving into step by step, setting up a clean and solid free PBX. We created that video. I messed up the audio a little bit, so it's taking me longer to edit and it's really long from start to finish. So I'm trying to trim it down a bit to make it a little bit more reasonable, but still leave a lot of value in there. Thanks for watching. If you liked this video, go ahead and click the thumbs up. Leave us some feedback below to let us know any details which you like and didn't like as well because we love hearing the feedback or if you just want to say thanks, leave a comment. If you wanted to be notified of new videos as they come out, go ahead and hit the subscribe and the bell icon that lets YouTube know that you're interested in notifications. Hopefully they send them as we've learned with YouTube. Anyways, if you want to contract us for consulting services, you go ahead and hit launch systems.com and you can reach out to us for all the projects that we can do and help you. We work with a lot of small businesses, IT companies, even some large companies and you can farm different workout to us or just hire us as a consultant to help design your network. Also, if you want to help the channel in other ways, we have a Patreon. We have affiliate links. You'll find them in the description. You'll also find recommendations to other affiliate links and things you can sign up for on launch systems.com. Once again, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.


Welcome back to our meds smarter lecture series, or we're taking a smarter approach to preparing future physician Before we get started if you'll take just a quick minute and click that like button and also Subscribe and turn the bell on so that you'll be notified when we post new videos Let's continue on with more gram-negative specifically. Let's talk about Vibrio cholera Once again, like we said it is a gram-negative organism. It is Flagellated so it has a flagella associated with it. It's going to be a polar for jet flagella It can also have some of these fembre off of the side of it, but it's just one single flagella The shape of the Vibrio cholera is going to be comma-shaped. You can see that here in this picture It is oxidase positive And it will grow in an alkaline media Typically Vibrio cholera is found in developing countries Oftentimes in a contaminated water source a lot of times you see people that have Vibrio cholera the Cholera goes through them. They have the side effects, which is a profuse rice water diarrhea That can get out into potential drinking water in these developing countries and it can spread that way through infected water So this rice water diarrhea is is due is due to an introtoxin that will permanently activate our GS pathway which will cause an increase in cyclic AMP and it does this by binding to a dental cyclase Which then will lead to an efflux of water and sodium into our intestinal tract Causing that water or rice water stools there Cholera is sensitive to stomach acid so stomach acid can decrease its infectivity It does require a large inoculum unless the hosts as a decrease in the gastric acidity So it's ID 50 we talked about that earlier is very high For it to be able to cause infections So we've already covered this but how does it transmit contaminated water? So some Cholera has been present upstream in the water coming down and somebody drinks the water that has that cholera in it Or uncooked food and we treat this with oral rehydration This is the most important thing for Patients that have cholera is just that they stay hydrated because that rice water diarrhea can easily dehydrate the patient So we want to orally rehydrate them pretty quickly so that they don't get into a dehydrated state Let's continue on and discuss helicobacter pylori H. Pylori is a curved Flagellated gram negative rod that is triple positive. So what is triple positive? It is triple positive for catalase it is positive for oxidase and it is positive for urease So all three of these are positive with H. Pylori The urease in particular is important because we can actually use that to help detect the presence of this infection So we do a urease breath test where we give a patient a small sample of urea And then we test their breath to see if it has any of that urea that has been broken down by the H. Pylori and That can help us diagnose this. So what's happening here is the urease will produce ammonia That creates an alkaline environment and helps H. Pylori survive that in acidic environment in the stomach Most commonly this will be found in the anterum of the stomach That can lead us to gastritis and peptic ulcers The biggest risk factor for H. Pylori infections is going to be peptic ulcer disease It can also lead us to a gastric adenocarcinoma or a malt lymphoma So it is important that we treat H. Pylori infections and there are two different types of treatments that we use The first initial treatment is known as a triple therapy and what we're going to do is use three different medications to help decrease the Ability of this particular bacteria to survive. So first and foremost, we're going to use amoxicillin If they do have a penicillin allergy, we can switch that amoxicillin to metronidazole Then we add chlorothromycin and a proton pump inhibitor. Okay, so you can think of the triple therapy as Antibiotics cure Pylori ACP amoxicillin chlorothromycin proton pump inhibitor. That's your triple therapy Now we can actually make a quadruple therapy We can add bismuth in if we have any concern of a macroliter resistance If you found this material helpful for your studying, please like and consider subscribing to the channel Also share this video so that more people can benefit from it like you have


Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. All the tools to improve your mood and quality of life. Today, we're going to be talking about 10 ways to prevent depression. In this holiday season especially, but even if you're listening to this and it's not a holiday season, there are things you can do to help sort of hedge your bets against getting depressed, or if you're starting to feel depressed, there are things that you can do in order to prevent yourself, hopefully, from going deeper into that depression. So we're going to look at some tips and tools. Obviously, if you are feeling depressed, like you are going to harm yourself, or if you're feeling significant depression, you need to consult with a mental health provider. This is not a replacement for working with a mental health provider. These are just some tips that you can use in order to help you better deal with your depression and prevent it when possible. So the first thing is to get enough sleep. And you might think, well, when I'm depressed, I sleep all the time. So one of the things that you're going to be looking for is to make sure that it's quality sleep. And there are other podcasts that I've done on sleep hygiene and how to get quality sleep. But if you're not getting good quality sleep, you're going to feel tired. You're going to have trouble concentrating. Life is going to seem a whole lot harder. So it's important to figure out how you can get enough quality sleep and keep your circadian rhythms in sync. So you don't want to be napping all day long. You don't want to be sleeping at weird times. You want to try to go to bed about the same time each night and get up about the same time each day. Give or take, obviously, you're not going to get up at the same time on the weekend probably as you do on the weekdays when you've got to go to work. But you want to try to keep it as steady as possible. And you'll find that when your circadian rhythms are more in sync, your body secretes a hormone called cortisol, which we normally think as our stress hormone. But it's also our energy hormone. And your body normally secretes it multiple times during the day. It goes through peaks and valleys. So if you keep your circadian rhythms straight and stable, you'll have those peaks and valleys, but you'll start feeling a little bit more energetic. And your body will get used to when it's supposed to sleep and when it's supposed to be awake. The second thing is to get regular physicals. There are a lot of physical conditions and physical things that can cause or contribute to depression. So you want to make sure that you've got enough vitamin D. You want to make sure that you're not anemic. You want to make sure that your hormones are in balance.  So it's important to get those regular physicals. The nice thing with getting regular physicals is a lot of times you can prevent problems from happening. And a lot of the things that cause symptoms of depression are really easily fixable either with small dietary changes or the addition of supplements or something like that. The next thing you can do is eat a healthy diet. And I'm not saying go crazy with it.  Your body makes the neurotransmitters that help you feel happy and energized from protein and tryptophan specifically. But that's not really all that important. Just make sure that you're getting enough quality protein per day. And the recommended guidelines for most people are generally about 0.4 grams of protein per pound of body weight. So I rounded up to 0.5 just for the sake of ease and doing my math. But if you're a 150 pound person, that means 75 grams of protein a day or a little bit less, that is really not that hard to get. Most Americans get way too much protein unless they are a vegan or vegetarian, in which case you may struggle a little bit more to get enough protein. But make sure you're getting good quality protein. The next thing you want to have in your diet is complex carbohydrates. And I know the C word scares a lot of people.  What I'm saying is it's important to have those complex carbohydrates like come from vegetables and fruits and legumes and a variety of other things. In order to help your body break down the proteins to make the neurotransmitters. There are all kinds of vitamins and minerals in the foods that have complex carbohydrates, you have to have carbohydrates to live. Now you don't need to have 400, 500, 600 grams a day. Some people can do just fine with lower levels of carbohydrates and that's going to be between you and your medical provider. But it is important to have some carbohydrates, especially if you struggle with depression, try it. If you've been on an extremely low carbohydrate diet and you feel more depressed, try adding a little bit more carbohydrate back in and see if it helps you feel better. You may not have enough of the vitamins and minerals needed to make the neurotransmitters with the low levels of carbohydrates. Think about vitamins and minerals kind of like spark plugs. They help the body initiate those chemical reactions that break down the proteins and make the neurotransmitters. If you don't have a spark plug in an engine, the engine ain't going to start. If you don't have a spark plug in your body, then the process is needed to make these neurochemicals. That's not going to work either. So protein, carbohydrates and remember carbohydrates are in just about everything except for your meats. What you're looking at is grains, vegetables, fruits, even your dairy has a fair amount of carbohydrate in it. So you can get them on a variety of different meal plans.  Well, try to figure out how to get some in. Carry a water bottle around with you. Try adding some lemon or some lime juice to it. And worst case scenario, look at things like powerade or crystal light or some of those things that can help you get at least 64 ounces of water in a day, 1% dehydration. And you don't even notice that can lead to problems in concentrating and decision making. 5% dehydration leads to sluggishness, fatigue, foggy headedness. When you're 5% dehydrated is when you start feeling, you know, I'm really thirsty, I'm parched right now. If you get to that point, you're already probably dehydrated. So it's important to make sure that you're getting water frequently. And if you drink caffeine, caffeine is a diuretic. So for every glass of caffeinated beverage you have, you have to have another glass of water on top of your 64 ounces as a general rule that we're going with. So remember that simple dehydration can cause you to feel sluggish, tired, have difficulty concentrating and may feel somewhat depressed. You may not be as enthusiastic about things. And finally, minimize sugar and caffeine. Both of these cause surges in different excitatory chemicals in our body. And they also cause drops. So if you can maintain your energy level without artificially spiking it with sugar or caffeine, you'll feel more stable. So your highs may not be quite as high, but your lows aren't going to be as low either. You'll feel more level, more even keeled. And for many of us, you know, giving up caffeine completely is a really difficult thing to do. So do it slowly, work with your healthcare provider. And when I talk about minimizing sugar, you know, there's sugar in a lot of things. I'm not saying to give up all processed foods because that's not realistic for a lot of people. But I am saying, you know, look at how much sugar you're using in your coffee. Try not to add additional sugar to things and choose lower sugar options when you've got the ability to, such as the low sugar jellies and jams and the low sugar ketchup and things like that. All right. So those are the physical ways and physical things you can do to help prevent depression. If your body is running well, if you have all the necessary nutrients to make the neurotransmitters, if your hormones are in balance, then you are not as vulnerable to depression. Okay, so, but you still may be depressed or you may be struggling with depression. What else causes it? Well, another big one for people is your internal critic.  Well, we just need to silence that internal critic. And again, there are other podcasts on how you can do that. The short version is just tell it to shut up. When your internal critic says you are never going to amount to anything, tell it to be quiet or ask yourself, who says, who says I'm not going to amount to anything?  It may have come from something somebody said to you when you were younger or it may be something that you've always had. You've just always been really hard on yourself. Another thing you can do to silence your internal critic is when you hear those words in your head, think to yourself, would I say those words to my friend or to my child? Would I ever say that to somebody I care about? And if the answer is no, then don't say it to yourself. What would you say to your best friend or your child if they failed at something or if they were getting ready to embark on a new task and they were a little bit anxious?  Or would you give them a pep talk? So treat yourself at least as kindly as you treat everybody else. Number five, practice dialectics. That means look at both and. It's possible that two things that seemingly contradict can both be true. You can be strapped for money, but still be able to pay all of your bills. It's not the ideal situation. Obviously, you don't have a lot left over for extras. You can be happy and in general, but be angry about a particular thing. So practice dialectics. The other thing you want to add to that is gratitude. During the holidays especially, but these things can come up throughout the year, finances and commercialization can become a big humbug for people. A lot of people get really frustrated around the holidays because it's all about buy me this, buy me this, buy me this, you've got to buy this. And they're looking at their finances going, I just can't afford it. And I feel like a failure because I can't afford these things. I feel like I'm letting people down because I can't buy them things. So we want to look at that and say, is there a both and? Can you be in a position where you can't afford to buy people things, but still make them feel like they are loved and appreciated? Yes. The other thing you can do during this time is use the attitude of gratitude. Your finances are strapped. Yes, maybe you can't buy the presents that you want to buy. Maybe you can't buy a new car. Whatever the case may be. If your finances are tight, but what are you able to do? Are you able to keep a house over your head? Are you able to put food on the table? Again, you may not be eating prime rib, but are you able to eat every night? So be grateful for what you do have instead of focusing on what you don't have, which I'll just jump ahead and say, when you start feeling down and negative, make a list for everything you think of that, well, I don't have this or I wish this were different. Make a list of what you do have and what's going well in your life. So you can focus on the positives because the more you focus on the positives, the less time you have to focus on the negatives. Another thing that kind of bums people out around holidays and Valentine's Day is a big one, but Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah also can come in here. Relationships, maybe you are estranged from your family or your family lives far, far away and you're alone on the holidays or you don't have people to spend the holidays with. That can be extraordinarily depressing for people. So again, focus on both and. Can it be the holidays and you can't spend time with your family or you don't have the family that you wish you had and can you still enjoy the holidays? So what can you do? Can you spend time with friends? What can you do to help yourself get through the holidays? And what do you have? What relationships do you have that are good and important to you? Another thing that comes up during the holidays is lost loved ones. This is a time when you think, I wish that so-and-so was still here or you remember holiday traditions with your parents or your grandparents who were no longer with you. So focusing on what they brought to your life and what they taught you and passing that on, you can miss them and still cherish them at the same time. And a final thing that kind of gets people depressed sometimes especially when you start looking at New Year's resolutions is you look back over the year and you look at your accomplishments and you may be like, A, I don't know where the year went and B, I didn't accomplish a 10th of the things that I wanted to or I should be further along with XYZ than I am. Well, you can focus on what you didn't do and what you don't have or you can focus on what you did do. So you can focus on the things that you did accomplish. And if you didn't accomplish everything you wanted to, what did you do instead? Was it worthwhile? Sometimes it may be. Sometimes you thought you were gonna get these six things done and you only got one of them done but three other opportunities came along that were really beneficial. Or you can look at it and go, well, this is a learning experience. I wasted a lot of time last year. So let me plan for the next year so I don't waste as much time. I don't make the same mistakes again.  So the only way to do it to change the situation is either look back and identify what you did instead and how that was meaningful and or look forward and figure out how you can avoid falling into those same traps and you can get more accomplished in the upcoming year. All right, that's a little bit of the cognitive stuff. Number six is just to add happy. It's really difficult to be angry and curmudgeonous if that's even a word and happy at the same time. So find things that make you happy. Find comedies on television. Find comedians that you can listen to in the car. Do things that make you happy. If you like going rock climbing, go rock climbing for goodness sake. If you're doing things that make you happy, you're getting those happy hormones going. So I suggest to people, regardless of whether you're depressed or think you're getting depressed, add 15 minutes of happy every day. Anybody can find 15 minutes. So if that's doing something on the internet or reading a book you like or even just enjoying a really good cup of coffee and focusing on savoring it instead of drinking it while you're doing six other things, add happy to your day. Number seven is know your triggers. What makes you depressed? We all have things that can trigger a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Know what yours are. They may be, they are different for everybody. Once you identify what your triggers are, then you can start doing your best to either prevent them or figure out how to deal with them. So we'll use Valentine's Day again as a trigger for a lot of people because there's expectations that you're supposed to have this Disney storybook hallmark relationship. And if you're not in a relationship or if your relationship's not Disney Princess worthy, it can be a trigger for depression. So what can you do about that? Valentine's Day comes around whether you like it or not. And I encourage my children and people I know who also don't like Valentine's Day. Instead of focusing on Valentine's Day, the holiday, focus on the benefits. And one of the things with Halloween and Valentine's Day, in our house, we focus on the day after because that's 50% chocolate. Everybody else can spend a buttload of money on flowers and candy leading up to Valentine's Day, but we are going to get the 50% chocolate. And then on Valentine's Day, we go out and do something enjoyable. If my kids right now, they're just now getting to the place where they're dating and maybe wanting to be in relationships. But we've always sort of done something a little bit different on Valentine's Day. Identify what's different when you're not depressed is another thing you can do. So think back to, during times when I'm not depressed, what's different? Maybe you're not working as much. I know I can get into a groove where I'm just working 16, 18 hours a day, coming home, sleeping, saying hi to my kids and then going back to the office. And I realize in a very short order that I'm not happy because I miss doing my gardening. I miss spending time on the farm. I miss hanging out with my kids. So identifying what's different when you're not depressed is a really important thing to do because you can focus on making sure you create that situation that supports your happiness. So when I notice that I'm getting in a funk, I look and I say, have I been doing the things that make me happy? Have I been doing the things that are important and meaningful to me? And if not, then I stop right there and I say, how can I change that? How can I get back to doing what it is? Because life's short. I could work 18 hour days for the rest of my life and still not have everything done that I want to accomplish because things are gonna always keep adding to that list. But my kids are only gonna be little for a while. The farm, there's only a period that's a planting season each year. So I try to get more done during the holidays and during the winter when it's too cold to be out on the farm, planting, doing all that kind of stuff. So then when it's really nice weather, I can spend more time outside. Which takes me to number nine, get sunlight. Vitamin D deficiency leads to seasonal effective disorder. People who don't get enough sunlight tend to feel more depressed, especially because they don't have enough vitamin D. But even if they're taking vitamin D supplements and theoretically they have enough vitamin D. If you're not getting enough sunlight, your circadian rhythms can get out of whack which will negatively impact your sleep. Which will leave you feeling fatigued, foggy-headed and sometimes depressed. So make sure to get sunlight and you don't have to be bathing in it. I am a sunphobe to a certain extent. My daddy had melanoma, so I try not to go out without sunscreen. But you wanna get up in the morning and get into a bright room, preferably by a window. Spend at least 15 minutes throughout the day outside so your body knows, oh hey, it's still daylight. And focus on doing that even during the summer, even during times when you could be outside, even times when it's sunny. If you're working inside in a building and you're not sitting right in front of a sunny window, you're probably going to be more at risk for seasonal effective type symptoms. Even if it's like I said, even if it's not that season, even if it's perfectly sunny outside, if your work keeps you inside too much of the day and you're not getting that sunlight, you may start to feel depressed. Work it in, it's not that difficult. All you're asking yourself to do, again, is 15 minutes. So five minutes in the morning on the way to work, spend a little bit of time outside, enjoy the sunlight, five minutes at lunchtime, five minutes on the way home. It gives your body enough. You're not having to spend hours on hours. Exercise, exercise releases serotonin. Exercise helps people reduce anxiety. Exercise gets oxygen throughout your body more efficiently. And when you're more oxygenated, you have more energy. When you are oxygen deprived, you feel foggy-headed, tired, difficulty concentrating, et cetera. I'm not saying, again, you have to go to the gym and work out in your target heart rate zone for 40 minutes or something.  Get up off the couch, move around. Bonus, if you do it outside, but get some exercise.  If you can get some exercise, whatever you and your doctor determine is safe for you, 30 minutes a day, it will greatly help reduce your stress levels. And you can walk around the neighborhood at a leisurely pace or you can run a 5K. It depends on your fitness level and what you're willing to do. If you're able to run a 5K, but you're not willing to do it, then it does no good. So I would rather you go out and walk for half an hour than do nothing, even if you're able to do more than that. And two little bonuses here, essential oils. You don't have to put them on you, matter of fact, it's probably better if you don't in most cases. You can inhale them. The essential oils work by targeting some of the sensors in the nose and they can set off feelings of relaxation, they can help with depression. Particular essential oils that can be really helpful include Clarice sage, chamomile, lavender, catnip, believe it or not, and valerian. Now catnip and valerian have very unique smells. So you wanna kind of test those out before you order them because they're also a little more on the expensive side than something like lavender. But those essential oils, among others, you can go online and Google essential oils for depression and you'll get a whole list, can be helpful if you just keep them in, keep a little bottle with you and you can take the lid off and sniff it every once in a while or I sprinkle it on my pillow at night. When I have foster cats that come in, when they first come in, I sprinkle it around their room. That helps them feel more calm. It's not going on them. Essential oils are highly toxic to cats but it's going in their room so they can smell it and they can feel more relaxed. The other bonus, and this kind of goes without saying, minimize anxiety and stress. When you are revved up, when you are stressed, when you are anxious for a long time, eventually your body's gonna run out of gas and it's gonna go, I gotta have a break and you will start feeling energy-less. You will start feeling flat. You will start feeling fatigued. You will start feeling depressed.  So it's important to make a list of the things that are causing you stress. Mark off the things that are irrelevant. It's like, this isn't worth my energy. This isn't worth my stress. This isn't worth worrying about. Whatever's left, figure out how to deal with it. When it comes to anxiety, use some anxiety control techniques because anxiety is generally worry or energy tied up in the future. Things that could happen but haven't happened yet. You don't know what to expect. So when you're dealing with your anxiety, figure out what can I do in order to help myself feel okay with this situation. Avoid things that trigger your anxiety. Avoid high stress situations when you are thinking that it might be, you might be getting ready to get depressed. If the holidays are really big triggers for depression for you, then try to minimize your anxiety and stress during the holidays. That way you can focus on having more happy feelings and doing more happy stuff to avoid or to counterbalance those feelings of grief or loss or depression that you may be experiencing. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app or you can join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or join our community and access additional resources including a weekly live chat with Doc Snipes at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into happiness and brain surgery with Doc Snipes. Our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life, affordable and accessible to everyone. We record the podcast during a Facebook live broadcast each week. Join us free at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast player. And remember docsnipes.com has even more resources, members only videos, handouts and workbooks to help you apply what you learn. If you like this podcast and wanna support the work we are doing for as little as 3.99 per month you can become a supporter at docsnipes.com slash join. Again, thank you for joining us and let us know how we can help you.


Streaming, I'm all cold though. Yeah, I can turn that off. I think for now It's on dehumidify mode, so it stays on a little longer I can let you some I get extra All right, let's see All right, I think the stream is working camera stuff looks good I'm starting to record a bunch of videos for work because I have a studio at home.  I'll just leave early and do it at home Like I'm working the same amount of time It's just way easier to do stuff with my rig here than to use like to work from home freely I've worked from home yesterday just when basically my what I'm gonna do it seems like other people are working from home a lot Right. Yep, but the engineers like that I can't get away with it because I like I need to go talk as much as I you know wouldn't mind doing that Right. It's like you know, I've actually basically they had the same problem where they didn't give me enough work to do Yeah, I've managed to give myself more work to do.  And that's what I'm doing. I've done that a couple times I gotta get a spike open like hey, we're gonna investigate Like check the validation for all these fields. I'm like, I'm just gonna import all the data right now Yeah, I don't need to wait for that. I'll just do it and see what happens. I'll figure it out I'm doing it But the so I'm doing work, right? I was like other people are working from like every fucking day I'm just working from home like once every other week to do laundry and now on the weekend I never had to do laundry or clean or anything my apartment is 100% clean right now because I didn't go work yesterday Yeah, I mean I still worked a little bit lot of my engineers work from home a lot Like every day in the chat They're working. Yeah, they actually are they're gonna start working eight hours worth a day the same as if they had come to the office Yeah, cuz they're stopping to play a video game at one o'clock and they they seem to be just working Oh, we're streaming just remember if you could you come in and talk no one can hear you Put a in your room Mike You have my room Mike The boundary Mike is in your apartment. I'll take it back if you're not you can have that back Because then I can mount it on the wall there and then when we get the Emily under lured. She can be in the stream All right Well, we got someone watching too Go away. It's Thursday, June 21st 2018. I'm rim. I'm Scott and this is Geeknights tonight How we've changed in 20 years All right, whatever We bought that a long time ago those things have like lifetime warranties though right because there's like the bad That's the badass microphone. I'd say moderately badass microphone. It's the newer one, too I should check but it's the last forever, right? They're supposed to be invincible. Yeah, but I don't know what the actual warranty is All right, anyway, I'm just gonna play this back steams We'll be everything of G wasn't on sale enough That's good enough Okay, dude, dude. Oh, there's there. There's still only one person watching you don't have to work too much Sad for now go away person. I haven't said anything yet, but they're still watching if they're wise They will go do something else with their time They pub G and that's would be better. That was one example of a thing you could do All right They could go and sesame shit on fire and that would be a better use of their time So this is Thursday, obviously not Tuesday, but it's worth mentioning that both Scott and I because it's on sale But pub G well, I mean it was originally I was like, oh man That game looks like the kind of thing I want to play but I don't got time and then I was like, you know Especially when he gave you the guy who made it gave a talk at PAX East that talk actually really made me want to play Well, I mean I already knew that I wanted it was my kind of game But I was like, you know that basically was like well It is my kind of game confirmed like I thought the thing is overwatch is also your kind of game And you won't play that but I missed the boat. I was like, oh, I'm too late for the pub G boat I can't get into it now But suddenly the game is on sale and it's like, well, you know what for 20 bucks Even if I play it and then only for a short time like maybe a month or so, you know and then stop playing it It'll be it's worth 20 bucks steam sale started today Whatever so I played it last night for the first time I played like between 10 and 20 matches and I killed One person I have so far killed zero people, but I almost killed one, dude This game is hard. Yeah, dude.  Well, I feel like people have told me that since I waited so long to play it It used to be worse. So I actually feel like maybe if I started earlier I would have been pissed off at it for sucking a hole for having a lot of issues And it has been polished much in the time I was it not playing it and now I'm less angry at it now as a result, which I guess could be a good thing So I guess for me as far from dead despite, you know, not no longer being number one Well, it's above this line that happens in games where it is Popular enough to where it might end up like Counterstrike where it'll just always be kind of going in the background for ever It's gonna last longer than the tribes of two. Yeah The thing is tribes to is still probably the most fun. I've had per unit time I played, you know, it's really online multiplayer.  It's basically quake plus loot boxes.  They don't there's not a single loot box thing I could find in the game that was any in any way Material to gameplay. So it's not pay-to-win. It's it's a legit quake It was way faster than quake three or quake arena or any or any quake that I've played recently I don't like a quake one. It was a full speed quake It was I was like wow this I do not want this to be any faster because that will be beyond my abilities to control Obviously, I was a deathmatch. It was like a team deathmatch where it's like just get as many kills as you can of people I'm that are not the same color as you and Despite the fact that I was not like the best or anything My team won every time I played and I got a respectable number of frags every time So I still have some amount of FPS skill yet pub G is way way way way Like molasses compared to that but I killed one person Because we happened to spawn in the same place We were having a fist fight Then they went to pick up a gun and they punched them to death while they're picking up the gun the big difference is that pub G is Not about FPS skills so much as about situational awareness skills I have no situational awareness pretty much almost every time I got shot. It was like, oh my god where are these bullets coming from?  It's always sniper across the map like picks me off I'm thinking it was a sniper. I spin around. I don't see anyone. I hide I get my scope out I don't see anyone. I'm looking all over the place. My favorite moments are where you they're still shooting at me The bullets are landing real close I'll be like in the woods and then I hear like And I'm not sure how if the gunfire was directed at me or not so I freeze and I'm gonna have to switch I'm gonna have to switch to using headphones to figure out. We have a hundred percent headphones when I play but yeah, I mentioned it because The good news is we're gonna play pub G and hang and like if you want to play with us I think we'll be able to get some groups together because a lot of there's much of forum It's already playing pub G who are way better than us, but also still really bad. Yeah, they're bad But they're better than us way better than us shows how bad we are but to awful They're bad. We're the worst. This is definitely the kind of game where if this had come out Well, they're poop. We're diarrhea much like Counter-Strike and tribes to if this had come out while we were at our IT This would have been our lives.  Arma is funny your thing to say Arma is You have like 50 things to bind to your keyboard and I just left all I just left all defaults and learned them I Chained I change. I don't like that all the defaults. I like some of them But I just decided it's what I do in life as I just learned defaults. Ah, but the good news is my new policy They all assume you inverted your y-axis. Of course. I did I did not but I didn't change all the bindings Willy-nilly what I did is I played the game and as soon as there was a thing I wanted to do and the default wasn't good only at the moment where I had a reason to do the thing in the course of The game that I bind rebind it but I followed my ancient philosophy and a lot of the things you can do in this game our Analog is to things I used to bind to standard positions in old games that I used to play so like I haven't actually played a lot of FPS is where you can go prone And this is I think the only one I ever played that where you can go prone was soldier of fortune I'm not even remember if that's 100% correct. Yeah, so that was new to me Yeah, go and prone I ended up binding to crouching and I use it instead of crouching and crouching I bound somewhere else Yeah, well crouching I like how you could run while crouching and also walk while crouching. Yep, or you can like Whatever I spent like five minutes just prone crawling through the only thing I was gonna complain about like I couldn't Figure out how to use the scope like the right mouse button brings the gun up to aim But it doesn't to give you I had a big scope on the thing a scope I found was an item on the ground I attach it to the gun and I couldn't figure out how to get the scope and then I googled and it said double click the Right mouse button and that wasn't because it wasn't a binding like activate scope in the settings And then I was like I was annoyed that the game didn't teach me that and it was It wasn't setting but actually that's a good default. I liked it so also you notice you can bind Well, anyway, we'll talk about this in a Tuesday show, but we're playing PUBG and It's taking it into my overwatch time, which is a problem playing PUBG and Hearthstone and that runner died and I finished I went back and beat Skyrim and Mario Tennis comes out like today or tomorrow I actually started playing Fallout 4. Okay, cuz I never actually played it not playing that You know why it's on Steam cell for 30 which is too much because I got it in VR and it's just if you have VR and You have that game. It's real fun to play in VR But it wouldn't be worth getting VR just to have that experience is the way I'd put it So I'm I'm interested in the 76 one though. Yeah, it's I'm actually really into the online aspect of it because I As a 36 year old, I don't have time for single-player games that are long. Nope The way I played Skyrim just now in easy mode and I blitzed through it and ignored all the garbage I feel I have this feel like I want to play Final Fantasy 4 again. No, you can't cheat and blitz. Yeah I think I'm just gonna cheat I'm actually considering playing Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono trigger and cheating to just make like turn off all random encounters and Make my characters like level 999999999 and just win every combat without doing anything But then you know what I did instead Walk around and talk to everyone in town and then explore the dungeons for Final Fantasy 1 because I was feeling a weird craving to Play that again like a really weird craving like oh, I could cheat at that too. No don't even need to cheat I just watch an AGDQ speedrun. That's glitchless They don't talk to everyone in town. That's what I want to do is the talking We need to you got a while yet as GDQ starts in like a week I know my god So where does it start this Sunday? It starts soon speaking of things that are long that I don't have time for the world Cups happening. Yeah, and because I work in a very very international company. It's very interesting to see the stark line Most of the people who care about the World Cup We're not born in the United States and most of the people who do not care about the World Cup We're born in the United States. That is what I have noticed Well, I mean the thing is the World Cup like as much as we rag on the sportive soccer, right? It's like the World Cup.  It's on even in my newer small work. It's on this in the kitchen They got a projector aimed at everyone who cares and all the games are on on their second monitor Anytime you go to any restaurant in the city right now The game if there's a game on it's on yep every now and then I hear a little commotion because something big happened in a game Everyone I'd walk around the office. I'd say 25% of the screens have a little stream in the corner. Yeah but In terms of the World Cup I don't know. There's a big bracket and people are like really excited about the group stage and I just don't Oh, they're betting. Yeah, no people are really invested in this like company-wide bracket Maybe this big payout if you get it right you get big money Well, apparently anyone who has a Bloomberg terminal not just employees This is like anyone has the terminal can be involved in this really really elaborate bracket That's like right there like type magic word. That's the official bracket like go for it Why don't you go and just figure out like, you know, these go to the odds makers You know and they'll say these are the best odds just bet on the most likely outcome I don't know though Meanwhile, at least for the Stanley Cup Emily's bracket was was scarily open the envelope Lisa accurate So, yeah, World Cup's happening and Yeah, I'm not really gonna watch it cuz yeah, but I mean I watch it when I'm sitting in the room or a restaurant And it's on yeah, but I never intentionally I haven't I've yet to Purposely go to Google and like look for the stream and open it. Yeah, right? It's just if it's on I'm watching it But I don't turn it on so in some sad news If you didn't see this Coco the very famous awesome gorilla who could speak sign language Pretty well and was smarter than a lot of humans like legit smarter than a lot of humans especially very young humans Yeah, I mean they're reading this article also stronger than every human ever they estimate her equivalent IQ was between was around 75 to 95 that's that's for his gump level. Hmm. That's but Coco was an amazing gorilla And it's kind of sad that Coco was dead and if you do not know about Coco You should watch some of these videos and learn about Coco because I mean I think people have like heard of Coco But like you don't like what it's like they know. Oh, yeah There's a there's a gorilla that knows sign language But like a gorilla who got bored one day and ripped the sink out of her enclosure And when the handlers asked her what happened to the sink She literally lied to them in sign language in English and said her pet cat did it That is a level of deception that many humans are incapable of Straight-facely lying and blaming your cat. What would be even better is if somehow we could tell that Coco was actually, you know Not not lying thinking it would work But you know making a funny joke Coco made jokes from what I've read like Coco understood our concept of humor So you should learn about Coco if you don't know because if you don't if you haven't really watched videos of Coco interacting with humans It There's a difference between knowing Coco existed and crocking the ramifications of a gorilla who is that Intelligent in a way that humans can comprehend and you know This is one of the reasons why despite eating meats I don't eat monkey brain and I won't eat octopus and I won't eat Dolphin I really try to avoid eating octopus, but occasionally I bump into it I mean eat the it helps that octopus is way chewy and I don't like it anyway Yeah, it's only chewy if it's not the best octopus I also usually avoid eating squid because even though squids are way dumber than octopuses there They're also chewy. You're also chewy and kind of eh. Yeah, I Just I just really like the image the anime manga image of like a yakuza chewing on a dried octopus So in some other news that's actually pretty interesting because stuffs moving rapidly so if you didn't notice Canada legit fully legalized cannabis Like fully so you can just go to Canada get high. There's no you're not breaking any law at all whatsoever Yep, and you can just open up a weed store in Canada and just sell weed to any Canadian No, it's funny isn't a bunch of part like in Toronto. Is that what I said? I'm just confirming. That's true Yes, but it doesn't fully take effect until I think October so in October I can if I was Canadian citizen I could go to Canada.  I can start a business in Canada. That's a weed farm. Yep Legitimately openly you can go to it.  Hey, I would like a Bordeaux from 1988 or you can go to the weed store and the canabista and be like I would like your finest lemon drop. I can sell it to anyone Anyone over the age of 18 anyone just sell it over the age of a much in any quantity or Some it looks like some provinces have the right to set the age 21 instead, which I'm fine with and people who buy it Just can walk up with no With just age proof. Yeah, I as much as they want There's a limit on how much you can buy, but it's a really high limit.   It's Canada right and just start eating. Yeah, I mean people do that anyway.  Yeah Or countries what is the other practices? Is the other one just Denmark? No, no, it's Uruguay. Oh, okay But what what's I mean? I thought Denmark isn't famous for like having like, you know place you can go to smoke Yeah, but apparently the law is actually pretty complicated there. No, it's not just full open this yeah It's much it's much more complex than even I realized and I don't know a lot about it But always like that's the famous place that you used to be the famous place for weed smoking But I guess not now. Yeah, now everyone's gonna go to Canada and Portugal mark Denmark's tourism is gonna get hurt But it's a Canadian tourism. It's Portugal doesn't think where they basically decriminalized all drugs But they didn't legalize it like go to a store or just buy as much as a difference between decriminalization and legalization Yep So this is probably really good news for Canada's economy And it's probably good news for me because I own a bunch of Canadian weed stock Well, the problem is is that people who smoke weed tend to lean to the left and now they're all going to move to Canada for reals Not like before where they just talked about moving to Canada now They're actually gonna move to Canada. Well, there's some other news that that will maybe buttress that So new york state actually suddenly started moving Very quickly to legalize it and part of that was the no, that's just fake Cuomo Please reelect me and then yes November. I was about to get into that. They're not actually gonna do anything No, they're gonna do it this time. No, they're not. I think they are because there's a couple of things going on So this is all this is my opinion my read into this But what happened was the new york state health department issued after their multi-year study their actual guidance on Whether or not it should be legalized and what the consequences would be and the health department was like Yeah, there's no reason there's literally no reason not to legalize it not legalizing it harms people It's not a gateway drug. It's way less bad for you than alcohol. Like there's like go for it It's definitely way less bad for you than alcohol. Yep except as long the thing is alcohol only hurts other people if you drive Whereas smoking weed makes everything stink Yeah, I don't think people should smoke weed for one But anyway, so the other part of this is that Cuomo who's always been very KG on cannabis legalization mostly because he acts like a progressive when selection year, which it is because every other year He acts like a republicans Half the population of new york state lives upstate and apparently hates all that is good and right with the world And the other half of the population lives. There are there are cities upstairs. There are but generally The governor of new york state has to get has to deal with both the shitty people upstate in the rural parts of the country And the people in new york city who arguably outnumber them And he basically ignores new york city and talks a lot about upstate Even if he doesn't do anything for the upstate because the upstate people get real mad and vote for republicans If you don't constantly cater to their baby ass needs meanwhile the city He'll remember we exist During primary season because if he doesn't try he doesn't Oh, you need the city to get he needs the thing He needs the city votes for him to be elected because we have most of the people and governor is a popular vote Yep, and he loses the primary which only new york city people really know He needs all the state so that he can control who is in the legislature So he can actually control what laws there are because you're just the governor. You don't write laws I really don't like Cuomo. I'm voting against him in the primary like I do every primary Yeah, pretty much And Cynthia Nixon she checks off all the boxes of policy I want But the rally is I'm gonna vote for whatever democrat wins the primary because that's how things are right now But here's the other reason why I think he's going for it. It's not just primary season And it's not just that and it's not just canada It's because new jersey is already moving faster to legalize it And if new jersey legalizes it first new jersey is gonna get a shit ton of tax dollars That new york won't get new jerseys already got their sports gambling operation Yeah, new jerseys moving real fast on this stuff and new york realizes that's a lot of money They're leaving on the table and that I think is the reason why this is suddenly moving Well people go to canada too we touch and we're touching both canada and new jerseys He's stuck between people will be driving their weed from canada to new jersey Or vice versa I feel like if new jersey legalizes it first Path trains are gonna get shockingly full I don't think I think one person will just bring it over from the path train We don't need everyone getting on the path. Yeah, I feel like that is also gonna happen They'll just oh Why don't you buy some real estate on the other end of the path train next to the parking lot and make a weed shop there I mean we've seen that happen in the united states. There's precedent for this because if you don't live here Some states in america Allow you to have fireworks and some states do not exactly and if you Drive around the united states And you get near the border between a state that has fireworks in the state that doesn't you will notice a huge number of people selling fireworks 10 feet away from that border. You're literally you'll see a sign that says now entering Tennessee last exit where you can buy And then there's an explosive and there is a rest stop right there as soon as you enter tennessee You don't need to exit the highway.  We were deferred into tennessee and filled the trunk with fireworks and bring it back into michigan All right, I think it was a good news bit. We killed a why don't we why don't we open a weed store right on the other Side of the pass train Well, because it's not legal there yet Just buy Jim sing just rent a store there and wait Yeah, get ready the thing is actually the weed stores are zoned specially so you that's hard to I can't see They gotta make it just get a vape store anywhere you want but not a weed store Yeah, it's stupid like seattle even like most of the dispensaries even though they're really nice and like really like they're professional They're all in weird places because of the weird zoning laws around it.   Oh, I had a thing of it I have a better thing of the day now you're gonna change it You can change it You got a little bit of time So these cops just turn the lights on and they're running at us to arrest us I assume And me and my little brother because we're kids both look at my dad like what do we do and my dad says run So we ran with him and then he yells no Scatter don't stick together. They can't catch us all And we scattered into the woods and we all made it home like an hour later Having not been arrested, but the cops got the fireworks I believe this rim story only because he's told it repeatedly But I don't know if that encourages him just as long as he remembers his lie and says it over and over again Does that make it true? Both my brother and my dad would cooperate this story. So he's got a team of liars I know other people have teams of liars. He tells the same story over and over again I don't know anyone who has a team of liars. Yeah, except the republican party. Hey, oh You just lied right now saying you don't know anyone. Who do I know? You a team? I don't have a team team. Just cost her Team got to the thing is with the firework story is that pretty much happen exactly like that I uh in the agdq stream of chrono trigger when they they went back like there's a point where they have to grind gato At the same like when they go back to revive chrono more silver points Yeah, they need more silver points the audience sang the song the game goes slower That's the fastest way to grind the silver points to bring chrono back Okay, and uh the entire audience sang the gato song Literally every time they fought him. Okay, like loudly and in unison. They didn't find a skip for the dial There's no skip for that So while you look for your thing of the day the other thing I said to see already. Oh you did. Okay Why are people watching the show go away? All right, let's see Oh go get silver points. This looks fun playing chrono trigger better than watching geek night. This looks real fun This is way fun I just didn't market his like which is why I didn't find it so easily earlier All right, let me what was your other thing the day I was getting rid of it? Uh the github. Oh, yeah Which I can use later though. Yeah, you can save it on tuesday your github okay Yeah, I didn't notice your message because I put the I put my email and all the like messaging stuff on the other monitors. I don't accidentally stream it But anyway things of the day So I had a thing that I was going to use but I found this story this morning I laughed out loud so hard at work As I read this story that it fit it fits the pure definition of thing of the day. It's the best thing I've seen today Mm-hmm I'm not even going to spoil what the deal is It's a twitter story and it's one of those ones where it's basically screenshots of the text of the story Just people copy and paste the text come on the text is too big for a tweet You put the text in a paste bin and post a link anyway It's in this case and this is part of why I brought that up The fact that it is three separate sections is very important to the humor and wonder of this story Because screenshot one Begins the tale of a plumber at a hotel Who is using a industrial drain snake to try to deal with a clog that they cannot deal with like There's this preternaturally difficult clog right was it was the clog made of a living creature of some phase two is They pull something out of the drain and don't know what the fuck to do about it Yeah, it's some kind of horrible and phase three the third image Is one of the funniest goddamn things I've ever read Was it like a live raccoon or in the drain or something? I didn't drown all I'm going you've just got to read this story I am not gonna in any way spoil this for you It is real good and I thoroughly enjoyed it some sort of sea creature It is that's why it didn't drown So let's just say that the second panel It it opened like what they pull something out of the drain I'll spoil you for that did they use the snake and a snake came out now They got two snakes the filming one and a real one what they found in the drain I will spoil that here.  They just have curtains. So, yeah, what you yeah, I you I read this story Whenever the second one i'm debating like all right. I'm trying to think of plausible scenarios Right, I guarantee you will never in a million years guess How the shower curtain came to be in the drain because it is amazing Okay, it's so specific and detailed that If this is an elaborate like if someone just made this story out. They're an excellent writer But I actually believe this is true So anyway, that's my thinking today. What do you got? So this is uh, these people are at the zoo And they're next to the tiger zone where the tigers hang That's a good place to hang out and you know, there's a glass wall and then a moat and then some land and then some tigers And uh, you know, they're standing with their back to the to the tigers chatting Some of them are facing towards the tigers, right? You know, just chatting with each other in a little group and one of the tigers starts to uh quietly sneak up on Their party member while their cameras are that is the quality. I think the word here is stock Yes, and uh, they're like they're basically like don't turn around don't turn around Don't move don't move. We want to see the tiger keep creeping up on you If you notice the tiger, it'll stop creeping. We want to see it to keep creeping Don't move don't turn around just stay still and the friends stay still and the tiger creeps And obviously I guess thankfully is blocked by the glass wall But tiger does what tigers do. Yeah, you see the tiger do what he do Uh, this is the best part of the video is uh, there's a part where the tiger gets close to the glass wall And you can because normally the tiger's in the moat, right? So you just see the top of its body moving slowly But when it gets close to the glass wall, you can see its feet moving slowly, right? Yeah that part Yeah, and you can see how the tiger how he creeped and uh, that's a good part tiger's got a plan Yep, he is foiled by one thing Ha ha ha So in the meta moment the Geek Nights Book Club book which we were going to do very soon Is Emily Wilson's translation of the odyssey by Homa if I had realized we needed to show today I could have read it faster instead of watching anime pretty sure the next the night. Yeah, I was too The I owe you the graphic designer stuff too, but I was playing pub g but anyway the uh We're probably gonna do it on the next Thursday show So not next Thursday, but the following Thursday our next Thursday Geek night show Will probably be the Geek Nights Book Club on this translation of the odyssey and it is give me a deadline great I mean probably I said probably what remember I am my day job now is I am I'm one of the people who has to make the official decisions for very important things Just make the first decision go with the gut every time it won't take long But I have learned very very carefully the arts of promising something But the actual words I say if parse logically do not actually promise shit That's your move. Yeah, but now that's on your move I've gone from being merely a dilettante in that skill to being a professional I am by the definition of the word a professional now at that move I am no longer an amateur. I am now I'm not a master of life I'm a professional of the act of promising something without actually promising anything So notice I use words like we will be likely projected. We are project. We are targeting the next Thursday show So, uh, yeah, uh, Scott didn't want to talk about anything on this Thursday show I do. I just don't have any show ideas whatsoever nor time to think of one nothing at all So well, let's indulge him and let him do whatever he wants and then I can go home I was thinking about this recently about how we've changed over the years because I was looking for Yes, people change is the thing that happens. But yet life is long. Your whole life isn't the same But some things change and some things don't what doesn't change Uh How I look apparently because I was looking for these old pictures.  Are there like Big parts of our lives that have changed. I've drawn to try a strategy of pick various random areas of our lives Geek nights or non geek nights and try to look back 10 years and 20 years and see if anything's actually changed Like what were women's got doing in pc gaming compared to today in 2008 or 1998? In 2008. So let's talk about that first pc game pc gaming video gaming the iphone.  I cared about look at geek nights episodes in 2008 Yeah, I was looking at geek nights episodes in 2005 to try to figure some of that out, but two things like 2008 rim only played console games pretty sure I was playing we and ds games and mobile games And I didn't play like pc gaming was dead to me If you look at 2018 rim 100 pc or 99 to pc one percent switch And if you go to 1998, it's all pc no console So I every 10 years I flipped to the exact opposite spectrum of video games So by projection in 2028, I'm going to be playing only console games Do you like did you play different games in 2008? Like what games did you play when you're just like sitting around? I'm trying to remember. You really don't remember. I just I remember that you mean You know blurs together with all the adjacent years No, I don't know 2008 seems pretty because 2008 was the era when We'd been doing geek nights for a while already But we were still pretty close to our college years Like we were living up in beacon We hadn't really made plans to leave or like move to the city or anything episodes 2008 like 2008 was an era when we would do geek nights watch movies and play games and not do much else Uh, let's see bionic commander re-armed us in 2008 Uh, most of the episodes we did on the show were about old games But there was you know, we games in here a lot of board games in here Uh, professor latin. Yeah ds games Yeah, I feel like that was the era of like the portable console Oh, we did that our dwarf fortress episode was in 2008 Oh, yeah, we tried to play dwarf fortress for a little while back then because that was its pc game It's interesting though because back then i had a re-armed.  Yeah, even bad ones Like because we did an episode on fond of fantasy crystal chronicles ring of fates, which is that uh that game was awful The garbage ds one, right? Yeah, that was that we didn't even fit we played like I played it for like 10 minutes, but I played 10 or 20 minutes like 30 or 40 dollars for it because it was a brand new game I gave it away. I remember giving it away because it was so bad Yeah, that was definitely ds years around then for sure, which makes sense because pc gaming was still pretty dead The ds was super new when geek night started remember Yeah, it was during beacon geek nights when like you broke your ds fat to as an excuse to get a ds light In fact, I remember now I was working at ibm on co-op And I bought the the original ds you and I both bought it as fat the day it came out Yeah, because we thought it might be a virtual boy.  Otherwise, it's great. Oh, here's something that's different So 2008 was probably the peak era of us going to a lot of conventions Nowadays we've actually caught almost all the non-packs is out of our lives Well, I mean, it's just you know to animate cons 2008 did we go to I think that was when we still went to odacon I would yeah. Well, we last coming on two was oh nine Yeah, so 2008 was when we still went to katsu con and odacon and like anime necks And kinetic I think we went to those cons back then first of all a lot of our people came with us Yeah, even if the con did not provide a lot to do Uh, we still had people there and ended up doing a lot of stuff and having a good time Yep But then what happened is our all our other people stopped going to the cons because actually remember 2000 We would go to like but we're still going to like animate We stopped going to odacon for other reasons. Otherwise we would have kept going Yep, but I mean you can't now we would have stopped though We sure but we kept going to animate boston and it's like but what happened is because no one else was going really Or very few people were going And what you know, we ended up like you walk around you go there's an artist alley Go to you'll resume to your panels and you go to maybe a couple panels and the rest of the time Is like we're just hanging around in the area eating and yeah, I'm doing board I think the big difference is that it wasn't really Because remember us to make travel and put all this effort to something where we're just most of the time We're spent we'd spend time literally like sitting around waiting for our panel to start We got nothing to do So I think 2008 was actually a pretty like by coincidence that doesn't happen in packs Nope, but 2008 by coincidence was all our people still go to packs pretty pivotal year for our lives and for geek nights because that was the first year we went to a packs And I'm looking at all this stuff that is correct and you notice something very specific because 2008 It was in september we went to that packs.  We did katsu-kan But I think that might have been the last katsu-kan we went to I only went to not too many of them We went to like three or four. I went to three before you started going to the one where I got sick Yep, we went to one before that and I think we did one more and that was it I don't remember any other one. Those are the three we staffed maybe one more But before we staffed and did like all our big panels It wasn't more than two it was two or three because I went to three katsu-kans before you started going We're I didn't even do panels.   Oh nine It was mostly just well because while we have a lot of friends through all these coasts We have the luxury of having the infinite money to go to any convention we want not appear until 2010. I believe in 2010 Our entire con crew that used to go to like katsu-kan and odakan with us They all went to that packs that packs east And then after they went to that packs east they basically all dropped All the other conventions like that year like pretty much everyone we know stopped going to anime cons after they went to one Packs, but then fast forward two years later They all stopped going to packs because packs east is really hard to go to Packs east in 2011 2012 people stopped going to pack because 2012 was the year you couldn't get hotels anymore And then people go to magfest though for now I think some of them do at least you know people on and off go to magfest But I think everyone still wants to go to magfest because our like gignite set Like we have a set of people that go to the packs is with us, but the broader front row crew Really only goes to magfest now and no other cons Like it's the only con we get our whole crew together and that's a big change in our lives because 2008 Everyone we knew In our crew went to a lot of cons and like going to cons was a big part of our lives now Most of our friends have dropped all conventions from their lives except magfest And when we go they're not doing panels or staffing like we are so as an attendee And you know the time you know they don't have a ton of money. They don't have of infinite time They're all adults. Yeah, so the number of you know Do they really want to spend a weekend at a convention unless that's you know Unless their staff some of them are staffers or people who run conventions and those people are going still true But you know the ones who would just be attendees And aren't enforcers or anything. It's like why would they I don't blame them They're doing what I would do if I was them But what I did notice it was interesting is that The main reason they all stopped going to PAX East was just that it was too hard to get a hotel And it's too much of a pain to go to it The money wasn't even a factor it was the pain in the ass that it was I mean, it's if you if any of if anyone is not go if anyone I know Is not going to PAX East simply because you're having trouble getting the hotel and the Uh the badge and you just don't want to do with the hassle But you're perfectly willing to spend the money and do the travel and stuff like that Just let me know and I'll make it happen for you and I'll take the hassle away so you can come Actually, yeah, I want you to be there because actually we are working on a strategy to make Our PAX East experience be more like we have a bunch of people who go to PAX West every year And we manage to buy a bunch of badges and get through the queue and get room somehow and it works So we can do the same thing for east to make sure you go if that's the thing you want to do If you if the time if the because we cannot do that Only thing stopping you is the hassle and stuff and you don't care about the money or the time Then and you want to go then just let us know Yeah, because uh, but I worry that magfest will suffer the same fate if it starts to sell out in earnest I feel like magfest is going to start to be a real pain in the ass to go to in the coming years Yeah for for normal people like if you have a hookup all counts are easy to go to Is the problem Yeah, you need you need that hookup these days, but look at one time we were on a vacation We were in some you know rando tiny hotel like a holiday and whatever kind of place that you stop on the highway And uh, maybe it was new hampshire.  Yeah, there's that little like there's like all those little There's also there's the little pamphlets by the entrance to the motel Right, so there was uh, there was one of those magazines in the hotel room There's all kinds of advertisements for local stuff and one of them was for an rv lot where you could park your rv and it was like We got hookups And I was like, you know, I guess I sort of knew that what they meant by We got hookups for you know, your electricity and your toilet and your water and stuff, right? But I was like, oh man, we got to go there and get hooked up Oh man, I'm looking at these little geekiness episodes.  Well katsu kan actually back then Nowadays katsu kan still exists. It's still like cosplay city there. It's basically a different kan though Yeah, like it's called katsu kan But it had a complete refresh of the staff It's in a different place with different staff with different stuff like it's a different kan because the old katsu kan Was more like magfest than like an anime kan. Well, it was much less gaming than magfest It had a free-to-play arcade though.  Yeah, just small. Yeah But not even 10 percent of magfest arcade. Yeah, but it was a drunken 24 seven debauchers kan with a free-to-play arcade That sounds like magfest to me It had those things. Yeah So how about 1998 did you go to cons in 98? I didn't even understand that a kan existed in 1998 So I didn't know that when I went in 2000 when the anime club started talking about cons I didn't really understand what they were talking about. I didn't know what an anime kan was till 2002 when we went to one I like oh, no, I understood before then but I didn't like I didn't fully grasp like What are they talking about going to this thing? And I felt like whatever they were talking about I didn't understand it, but it was definitely not something that involved me It was something for someone else. Yep, and I ignored it mostly and whatever It's like nine. I had you know a con was the thing the only thing I had been to ever at that point was Imagine the gathering tournament in a hotel in New Jersey. I used to actually go to a lot of gaming Like I was going to gaming cons in middle school So I was going to gaming cons and land parties in 98 I went to land parties all over the place Like I'd bring my computer and play quick two or something or quick one something in the earliest ones Or like we'd wire up our null modems knew like the doom thing in a hotel And I went to a lot of like Grognar and ass old gaming cons where I'd sign up for a four-hour d&d session Like that was what I did in 98 and in the 90s Uh, yeah, so I was playing pokemon in 1998. I was not playing pokemon in 1998 Red I had red one actually 98. I was still playing magic A little bit. I was not playing magic in 98. I was playing magic. I actually looked it up recently I was only playing magic for like two to three years in middle school. So in 1998 I was playing magic with all the people I knew who played magic when I originally played magic And we can't play with the same cards. This is a Tuesday episode. Do you somehow? All right politics No, what were your 1998 politics?  Really?   I don't like in 1998. I was taking like polyps high classes in high school Hmm like serious ones. I was I was actually getting I was reading a lot of like marks and marks's literature And being mad about it because I mean I knew what communism was But it's like and what capitalism was but like, you know Actually, I didn't care too much in 1998. But that was what 10th grade. I want to say 10th or 11th grade I had a teacher I won't say his name because I mean looking back now I see the difference between The literature teacher who had us read vonnegut and the social studies teacher who had a picture of strong thurmond on the wall Right now nowadays looking back. I see the difference But in the day, I was just it was just like, oh, this teacher really likes that, you know Congress person who's the longest person who's been in congress a long time So when I was a when I was it was either 1997 or 1998 But I was in 10th grade I had a teacher for social studies who took me and two other kids aside from the class one day like early in the year And he was like, listen you three are the smart ones So I think you're ready for this and he gave us all a copy of the communist manifesto And a copy of the play marks in soho and said I want you to read these and let's talk about them in a few weeks and That was a real interesting experience In 1998, so I guess you just didn't you weren't you didn't think about politics in the 90s No, I was playing games I was kind of really invested in politics, but I didn't know a lot about like Party strategy or at that time. I believe you should eliminate political parties, which I still sort of believe I was very caught up in libertarian ideas, but I got to put a big asterisk there because I learned about that until college because the way libertarianism was sold to me in the in the early to mid 90s was You shouldn't regulate things unless you have a good reason to and people should be free to do what they want Unless they hurt people and I was like, yeah, I'm all for that But that is not what the libertarian party is all about. They're basically just republicans. Yes At least now they are So how about 2008 politics Scott? By then you already had the opportunity to vote in multiple elections. I mean did you vote? Yes, did you vote? I voted every time I've been allowed to vote. Did you vote for al gore? Yes, yeah, I was in the year 2000. That was not in the year 2008. All right, so 2008 I guess you were active You cared about politics. Was there any issue you particularly cared about in 2008 copyright?   I was also mad about I started to care about some new york state level stuff because we were voting to give more money to the mta on the referendum And we lost yeah Yeah, I remember that even though I voted yes And if we had voted yes, then maybe we wouldn't be yelling about the subway being shit eaten now Yep, the problem is Well, we were upstate and voting on you know what that's that was a that was an awakening I had because 2008 was when I was aging toward moving into the city like that I don't know if it was exactly 2008 that vote but that era it was around then plus or minus two years into the direction That was right before we moved to the city. It was no it must have been too early It was either earlier or it was 2008 at the latest But I guess that was an error when I was using metro north and that was when I had an awakening in state level politics in the sense that I recognized the problems that upstate new york was causing for new york city And I started to be real mad about it as I started to learn how new york state was structured because up to that point I still knew more about michigan politics than I did about new york politics because I moped by the 2008 era I mostly cared about federal politics that was the era when I started to actually care about the details of state and county Legislation in the place. I lived well. It's all like they'd never really taught me in school or anything before I was like Oh, I have to vote for a state legislators. That's who this person is. Oh, I get it is another No, I didn't go I didn't fully grasp that Until I had to vote for it but 2018 and I didn't vote for it when I was you know When I technically was getting like absentee connecticut ballots. I wasn't voting for that shit It wasn't until you know went to new york that I was voting for that but I guess the difference is I cared a lot about all these technology issues in like 2008 and Frankly in 2018 like while I still care about all those things There are way more important things to deal with right now Like I did not I cared a lot about open source stuff because nazis were not an imminent threat And now that nazis are an imminent threat. That is the thing I mostly care about politically.  Yeah, nazis are there. So I have to go climb back down the pyramid and start fighting with them again So how about like tv and movies and stuff because 98 like the night or late 90s I watched tv I didn't watch tv after that 1998 is actually the end of the era 1998. I was mostly watching DVDs from netflix. Yep, and I was downloading illegal I was pirating fan subs still because there wasn't really streaming. You were not downloading fan subs in 1998 Oh, no, not 19. Oh 98. Oh, it's going back first. Oh, I did watch tv in 98 I watched the simpsons on tv in 1998 1998 that my tv watching consisted of Simpsons inside felt which are on before slash after dinner. Yep. I watched those tsunami still on I think Yeah, vtas reruns. You know, I was watching a lot of in 1998 fan subs I was but I was watching on vhs Uh, new york rangers hockey on msg network. Yep. I was watching a lot of red wings But I just watched that on broadcast tv footballs. Yep. I was watching footballs I guess uh an anime and vhs that was not a fan.  We watched lupin at midnight for a little while. I think we watched like simpsons two times Yep, but then that was when the simpsons got bad. Yeah And nowadays actually I thought you're talking about 2008. That's why I started talking about 2008 Yeah, 2008 I was talking about netflix dvds 2008. I was only watching two things netflix dvds and anime fan subs. I was also Uh Occasionally streaming some sports, but it was very hard to watch sports in 2008. Yeah, I pretty 2000. It was weird 98 I got some formula one races in 98. I really watched and cared about hockey a lot 2008 I wasn't paying that much attention because it was hard to watch 2018 I'm really watching hockey a lot sports. I was watching most actually were football because it was easy to get watch Formula one because people had a good way of bit torrenting it. Yeah, and actually baseball because the Mets were less bad Uh, that's that's around the time where the Mets made the playoffs and I bought playoff tickets And then in the final game of the season they missed the playoffs And then I had to got refund on the tickets But I guess I just went to this interesting transformation where I forget if that was 07 or 08 that happened I didn't really watch a lot of Serial quote-unquote television in the in that middle era around 2008 But now with netflix i'm actually watching a lot of shows again Like a lot of shows between netflix and hulu and crunchy roll and all these things I rotate through and I think the main reason i'm watching a lot of stuff Is that I don't have to go through the hassle of pirating it And I can watch it legally without ads All right, I think we killed enough time. Okay. Good. I go home boop