Okay. We are live. We are live. We're a few minutes late and we could blame Amen. Well, I can blame. Amen. Blame. Amen. I'm sure he's going to watch this. I'm just going to say, Oh my God, what am I doing? Good, good impersonation. Thank you. Thank you. First time on the show, Alex Skolnick from, of course, metal allegiance and of course, Testament guitar's extraordinaire guru, I shall say. Alex, thanks for being on the show. Thanks. You're good to be here. All right. So many questions. I mean, I'll read it out. Actually, what's going on on January 25, 2024. The band of metal allegiance will reassemble at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California for their 10th anniversary celebration and they will be sponsored by Dean guitars, DD drums and heavy headphones. And the opening act will be death held hostage and core. Is that correct? Core? Yes. Core, not for core. Yeah. And it almost sounded like you said 10 year salivation. Yes, I did say 10 year salivation, by the way, which kind of works. We're going to be all amped up and excited. The saliva will be going out. Yes. Exactly. Also a VIP upgrade package. If you're interested, you can check out all the details there. A lot of pre-show meet and greet with the band, posters, VIP merch and all that stuff. And this is interesting enough. We said 10 year anniversary of the core band, Alex, David Elfson, Mike Portnoy and Mike Mengie. Mark Mengie. Mengie. Mark Mengie. I'm pronouncing his last name properly. Mengie. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. I said Italian. Mengie. I guess first things first, I've never had you on the show. I never had, I think I had Mike. Mark, sorry. I'm confusing Mark with Mike. I think I had Mark in the past long time ago. But tell me about when you first joined the band. Like when you first were saying, you know what, I'm into this. I like this Metal Allegiance concept. Oh, it's funny because right when it became what it is now, what it's been the last 10 years, that was really my first experience with the group and with these guys. They had worked together previously, but it was called Metal Masters. And I remember seeing ads for this. I remember thinking, oh, it's really well promoted. I know a lot of the players involved. Why don't they call me? So careful what you wish for. So it finally happened on one of these music cruises. And this was the motorboat cruise. The last cruise that Motorhead would do with Lemmy, which is very fitting. And also, these types of music cruises were relatively new at the time. It had only been a few years since cruise companies started bringing rock and metal bands onto cruises. So it was kind of a new thing. And I don't remember the details behind it, but I know Megadeth was supposed to be one of the bands and it had backed out for some reason. And the other guys have had the idea to do the Metal Masters type thing, but under a different name, call it Metal Allegiance and basically make it an all star jam. So a lot of folks were invited to this thing, but for some reason we just had a good chemistry. And again, I had met everybody individually, but we had never played together. Yeah, I don't think I've ever done any kind of jam or event with any of them. And yeah, I think we figured it out backstage that we just had a really good chemistry. And in a way, in tribute to the now late Eddie Van Halen, he had something to do with it because they wanted to do a Van Halen song. And all of us are a little intimidated by Van Halen, but I had recently done a seminar on Van Halen, and specifically talking about eruption. And I think Mike Portnoy had played the drum fills for eruption while we were rehearsing, just as a joke. Because we, yeah, our song was running with the devil. And then he just kind of jokingly went into the next part, eruption. And then I was already dialed in with the song. So I started playing that. And nobody could vote. And then we went into the next song, and then we ended up doing it on stage that night. And it just worked out really well. And then all the other tunes we did sounded great. I think we did a rush tune at the time.  And I think, yeah, within 24 hours of like coming to shore, phone calls were going back and forth. Like, yeah, we want to keep that going. And we want to do an album and do an album, not of covers, but original material. So what did that give you? Okay, you're in test mid Dave was in Megadeth. I think you was in Megadeth at the time. He was. Yes. Yeah, Mike was not in Dream Theater at the time. But he was 2014. Was he he was playing? He was he had winery dogs. Oh, okay. Okay. I don't think Sons of Apollo had no, I don't know, either. They might have started work together. But it certainly wasn't announced.  What was it? Well, it was for one thing. Well, there's a couple different things. So live in, it was a chance to work with other musicians that you wouldn't normally play with. Some of them were, you know, even in bands where you know, there was a slight competition or rivalry. You know, so yeah.  So it was just a great way to kind of get to know these these people that you know, instead of feeling like you're on opposing teams, you're suddenly on the same team and having fun working together. But in the studio, well, it made a lot of sense. So they had between Mark and Dave, they had two bass players, and they had, you know, Mike on drums. But for the sense of for the sake of songwriting, they really needed a guitarist. And it wouldn't really make sense to have anybody from the same band. So I wasn't in any band with any of those guys. So it actually, it was a really good fit just to get together as a four piece and write songs and then plot it out and decide who we were going to work with. And we got support from nuclear blast records, which is wonderful. And they gave us the green light to just, yeah, go ahead, plan to do a record, get, you know, get as many top players and singers as you can. And you know, that first record, it was really epic. You know, just, I don't know how many, I got to count again, how many players we have on that. But we just, you know, we have so many, just great guest solos, great guest vocalists. And it was a lot of fun to do. And it was a very different situation from working with Testament, which is a band I didn't form initially.  But still, when you, and I'm, you know, I'm involved in, I've been involved in the composition of some of the best known music. But in the studio, the rhythm guitar you hear is me. So for the most part, it is on some of the earlier records and there's sections here and there. But mainly Eric plays the role of like James Hetfield on the guitar in Metallica, or Dave Mustaine and Megadeth. And, or Scott Ian, for that example. Although Charlie plays a lot of guitar for anthrax, I didn't know this before. But anyway, most, you know, it's hard to find examples where you hear my tone. You know, here's my riff tone. Yes, with solos, but not as much with rhythm guitar. But with metal legions, you know, I got to be the foundation of it. So that's, you know, that's all my, that's my tone. That's, those are my riffs. Those are my, I mean, some of the riffs that we co-wrote or maybe somebody else in the group wrote. But, you know, it's, that was on, on both the metal legions records, I got to lay down the foundation as well as adding the frosting to the cake. Yeah, very cool. I mean, you've got two and a half albums of material, right? The show's coming up at the 25th, we said, right? The 24th or 25th? It's the 25th. Yeah. So now you hit the stage. Are people expecting the songs that you wrote that you love? The compositions? Are they expecting cover tunes? Or are they expecting, or what are you going to do? Are you going to do a mix of that? That's always a mix. Okay. Yeah. And it's, no two shows are the same. There are some common boxes that we check. Yeah, there's almost always a tune by Iron Maiden. We've got to have it. It's a must, right? It's mandatory. Banditory Maiden. And a few other examples. But, you know, there's enough original material for a full set of just originals. So what we tend to do is we pick the best of the originals. And it also is dependent on who is available. Yeah, yeah, because there's so many different artists who have sung on the recordings. It's rare we can get everybody. But some songs that, you know, may have been sung by one person on the recording can sound good, sung by somebody else. You know, one example of that would be the song called The Accuser. And sadly, Trevor from Black and Tallulah Murder is no longer with us. Yes, I remember. Yeah. Well, we've given that song to my singer from Testament, Chuck Billy, and he does a great job with it. And then most recently we did it with John Bush. And it's a completely different type of song than I associate with his voice. But he really like brought his own thing to it. He didn't try to sound too much like Trevor. He didn't try to sound too much like Chuck. And it just ended up being this whole new thing. So we do a lot of experiments with that. But anybody who's been to one of the shows knows there are certain originals that you can expect that you're always going to hear no matter who's singing.  But it's got fans. It's got some pretty loyal fans. And when we play, the energy is incredible. I remember, sorry to cut you off before I remember when I remember the big highlight in cheese. I don't know if it was 2020 or 2019, when John Bush hits the stage. And I think he did only, of course, his anthrax song, I think was only, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, we are when he's there was a big deal back then, right? That was a really big deal. Yeah, when he's there, that song is going to happen. Yeah. And it's a great thing because in a way, we're sort of revitalizing that music, right? Because it wasn't being performed at all. Right. You had Joey return to anthrax. And they were doing mostly, or almost entirely Joey songs as far to my knowledge, which is understandable. You have that guy, why would you do anything else? But that era is is really cool. And people really like that music. And with, you know, when John's performing with armored saint, of course, he's going to do armor and saint songs, why would he do anthrax songs? But when he's with us, we can do slip it right in there. Yeah. And it works out really well. And since then, we this has actually happened a couple of times in my legions where people have played together for the first time in years. And that was the case with only John Bush with Charlie on drums, and they hadn't talked in a long time. And, you know, they, they both agreed to show up. And they So it truly is a metal allegiance. Yeah, they had they talked, they worked some things out. Yeah, it was just great. It went so well that it's happened since then. And if I'm not mistaken, even anthrax started doing the song again with Joey singing it. So Yeah, no, it's tell me about the the guests this year. There's some pretty great guests.  We got some new ones. Yes, this time around. Well, so Doc Coil is one of the guests. And he's been a friend for a long time. But we've never done anything musical together. I knew him from the days of God forbid. But since then, he's, you know, just blown up as a member of bad wolves. And bad wolves, you know, it's a different genre. So, you know, it's kind of a genre that I guess maybe I've aged out of it's like, not really my style. But you're born in 68, you're born in 68. Yeah, I was born in 68, too. So we both aged out of that, but it's okay. Yeah, there's still iron maiden, there's still iron maiden. And I respect it. And just because I don't necessarily get it, that doesn't mean there's anything. I agree. I agree. Yeah. And it's I think it'll be great to have him and to, you know, bring in some of you know, some of his that audience that he has now, which is very different. Yep. We're actually going to have half of mastodon, which I think is really exciting. Great band, great. I love mastodon. I know all the guys, the great guys. Braun is one of my favorite drummers. Period. So just, you know, anything he plays on, I'm looking forward to. Chris Poland has never played with us before. Oh, Chris Poland. Now I've toured with Chris with our instrumental projects. Even though my trio is more of a jazz guitar project, we played with his project called Ohm, which is more of like rock fusion. But it worked really well. And I really like what he does. But still, we've never played together. We might have jammed at some point during that tour, but this will be the first time that we're like officially. The way he holds the pick, the way he holds the pick because his his hand issues, right? I've seen Chris Poland live. He's incredible. He's incredible. Yeah, he has a really unique style of playing. And Troy Sanders, of course, who I'm super excited about. And he now he's performed with us before. And he's on on our work, our records. So he's he's a regular at this point. But we've never had him and Braun has performed with us before. We've never had both of them together. Oh, there goes there's a first right there. Yeah. So having both of those guys together is going to be real exciting. Andreas Kisser, who's yes, he's been part of it for a long time. He did some great guest solo work on the first album. And actually, he's on both and he's appeared with us before. The last time we performed as metal legions, he was playing with Sepultura and an orchestra was the Rock and Rio show, which was massive. And they are massive down in Brazil. And unfortunately, we were playing like back to back. So there was no way he could play with us and then be ready for his show. But yeah, but he has performed with us a number of times. But this will be the first time in a long time. Hell pire. Nervosa is from Nervosa. Yeah. This will be her first time with us, which is exciting to have somebody new. And then you know, folks Bobby Blitz, Bobby Blitz, right. So the regulars include Chuck Billy, Bobby Blitz and John Bush. And of course, the core for of myself, Mark, Mike and Dave. Tell me about if I give you all the people who've sort of not all the people, but all the artist who've appeared on the albums performed with you and as people, just give me like one sentence on each one of them. How's that? All the art. Okay, so you name them. I'm going to name them. I don't want you to name them. I can't be a long list. I got him in front of me right here. I don't know if I could count on myself to name them. Just give me their personality and as artists, how you feel about them. Okay, we'll start off with an easy one, John Bush. Okay, John. Just a gentleman on stage. Yeah, whole light.  It looks like you know, he exudes rock and roll, but, you know, could be an everyday guy. So some folks might be surprised to find that he's just this powerhouse vocalist, but also just, you know, consummate professional and just believes in getting it right. And he's, he is not going to leave the rehearsal or his spot, his time slot during the rehearsal until it's, it's gotten right. And it's, it's inspiration.  He's always practicing. That's what he says. Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that. Yeah, Mike. Mike Bornoi. You better say something nice about him. Yeah, just a lovely guy. Larger than life on the drums and in personality as well. But also an encyclopedia. I mean, you can call out songs by Frank Zappa or King Crimson or Stevie Wonder and he'll know it and he'll at least be able to play a recognizable part of the song. And also, huh? As a drummer and as a drummer as a drummer, but you know, he also, you know, he can do riffs on guitar and bass. He's really all around, you know, kind of multi-instrumentalist and he can do vocals. He does, does vocals well. He can, he's great to work on songwriting because he's, he's really a take charge on a person and has a blackboard and just cute. Yeah. I mean, I can understand it can be overwhelming for some, but I like it. Here's the chart. This is how I see us. He does. We'll call it a visionary. Guys with blackboards are visionaries. He does that. He'll do, it's not really a chart, but he'll do a roadmap and I'll think of a name of, it's a very rock and roll way of doing it, but in some ways it is like orchestration because he comes up with some nickname for a part.  Come up with some name, write it down, write the order. Okay. How long, and then we'll try it, then we'll make the change. Okay. That's, this part's going to go here now. This part's going to go here. Let's try that. Okay. Let's get rid of that part. Let's add this from the others. You know what I mean? So it's fun to work with somebody like that. All right. Mark Mengie. Mark Mengie. Well, he's another sort of go get him, take charge kind of guy. Very good with leadership and motivation. Like he's, we get calls or messages from him. First thing in the morning. Yeah. Get out of bed, Alex. Get out of bed. Yeah. Yeah. He's kind of a contradiction in a way because, yeah, he has a blast at the shows. We have so much fun. And he loves fun, but he's also just, just got an iron work ethic. And, you know, he put the whole thing together and you got to give him credit because he was sort of more known as behind the scenes guy that we all knew. And, you know, we went, in fact, when this whole thing came together, we didn't know exactly what was going to happen. We thought, okay, maybe, yeah, he'll be behind the scenes, maybe jump out with the band once in a while. But he like very quickly kind of proved himself. No, he can be part of the band too. And today I had really good musical ideas and he's very focused on the type of bass playing he does too. I mean, he's very inspired by 70s players. And I'm not, I don't think it's, I'm embarrassing him by saying it, but he, you know, he likes a lot of yacht rock. Eagles. Yeah, it's okay. All the notes, nothing wrong with all the notes. And also a lot of that stuff had very, you know, live, just very tight bass playing. Bleatwood Mac, but on the metal side, Yeezer Butler, Cliff Burton, and just, you know, he's kind of combined all of that into like his own thing. And it just works great with the band.  Well, he needed, so needed a bass player for some touring and he called Mark. And I think that's really liked the way he played. And, and he still worked with them. So, yeah, so he really like, you know, surprised us all. And so combines that with this, this very motivating work ethic. The glue, he's the glue, right? David Elson. Yeah, David's one of the nicest guys in, in music. Just real genuine guy.   We'll leave that for the yellow press. Yes. Oh, it feels so bad, but just sweetheart.  With all that. Well, absolutely. And also just doesn't, you're gonna worry about him does not, you know, just, yeah, he's got so much going on. And he's just always working on something, whether it's the, you know, record label, the coffee, you know, and yeah, he's just always, he's got a lot of talents. And I think he was, I don't know if he was is trained in marketing. I think he might be, I think even before he was doing music professionally, he was doing marketing. And he brings that to it, but with a very distinct bass sound. And it's, yeah, it's just a pleasure to work with. David Elson, his motto is always say yes. Yeah, that's okay. That's all right. Could get you in trouble sometimes, but always say yes. Yeah. All right. We'll leave it at that. We'll leave it at that. I'll throw out some names. I don't want to go through the whole list. I'll throw out some cool names that you've played and participated on the albums. If you still want to do this. Marco Sigüeda. Oh, God, how could we forget? Well, yeah, I mean, honestly, he's one of the first names that should be mentioned when we talk about the project because he's one of the few that could sing almost every song that we do. Yeah, he's just got that type of range and just so much energy. And it's almost surreal to me that he's not going to be there. I'm like still. Oh, he's not going to be there. I haven't seen his name on the list. We could call him up. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's some I know he would if he could. Yeah, maybe he's very dedicated to the I mean, his enthusiasm, some of the best live moments have happened with him. But also, I think the project has been great for him because he's been able to really show different sides beyond death angel. And it's great as death angel is and what he does in death angel, he you know, he's just got a lot more range and he can cover a lot of different styles and you really hear that with metal legions. And I think it's helped him in a way because, you know, he's since gone on to some other projects that of, you know, what one is the wedding band with that coil and the guys and couple of the guys from Metallica is this fun cover band, but that's done in a really cool way. And yeah, some other things as well, some things that I think can't be announced yet. But he's got yeah, he's he's just amazing. And he's just always fun to be around. He just lights up the room when he walks. Yeah, real not me. I'm not that way.  I'll loosen up. I'll have a good time. But I'm genuine not by nature.  But he Mark Mark is that he he's he's that guy. Yeah, I've met Mark a few times in an interview with a person and he is a ball of energy. Exactly. He is a bundle of energy works. Amazing about him. I'll say what's amazing about him. Like you think he's going to sing. You think he's boxed in the way that he sings. And then he'll do a song. You'll completely surprise you. He'll just completely surprise you. I remember you did that you two song during COVID. Right. I didn't what? Yeah, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't do that with him. But yeah, I remember. Yeah, I mean, that's right up his alley. It's or one of the shows we they did a mother love bone song. Yeah, that he sang beautifully. I also remember he did Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath. But I love playing that with him. It's like, whoa, I mean, he's pulling off deal now. It's he's just oh, yeah, you don't expect it. That's what I'm trying to say. You don't expect it from me. He just blows everybody away. Yeah. And a lot of things who are associated with, say, thrash metal, or speed metal or whatever, you know, you don't think that they're guys that could sing deal. And exactly. And that that's a great way to say it. All right, Bobby Blitz. Bobby Blitz. Yeah. Like like a Sopranos character, but not Italian. He could be like a wise guy, just the guy he could be the guy hanging out at the bottom being just cracking jokes, hilarious, just hilarious, like as funny as his voice is intense. And yeah. And he's somebody who I mentioned earlier, like with metal legions, you know, we would go from being competitors to colleagues. I remember one of the very early tours that testament that was with overkill. And just everybody eyeing each other with suspicion, you know what I mean?  That's such a good point, Alex. I mean, in the 80s, and I guess a bit of the 90s, there was this turf, you know, like they're not only this turf, but this band, the competitiveness of bands and especially the 80s, like, but it's changed so much today, hasn't it?   And it's, they should be a comedy act they should take it on the road. Is it because contracts, there's no more of those sort of if you're on one label, and you're you're with a label, and I have a contract with a label, another band has a contract with another label, then you just can't, you can't just mix and mingle because it was more of a label thing to keeping you sort of a bay is innocent. I don't think that had so much to do with it back in the day, because a lot of us toured together, because we were on the same label. So, you know, anthrax was not on Megaforce, but they were managed by the head of Megaforce, Johnny C. Overkill was on Megaforce. And so was Testament Testament was distributed by Atlantic. So it was sort of this new mashup label, Megaforce slash Atlantic. But still, we should have been like the same family. And that's why we toured together. But there was that didn't lessen the sense of competition.  But then, you know, years later, you realize how silly that is. And it's just great to know everybody as individuals.  And it's not tribal anymore. It's not you just see the team. Yeah, you don't even see each other as people.  And we have camaraderie. And it's it's a yeah, it's much more fun to know each other on on that level. And then you have somebody like, you know, Chuck Billy, the chief, right? He comes in the band. And now it's suddenly it's Testament all over again, right? When so tell me about Bill. Well, kind of that it's actually really fun for us because we're we can work together, but in a completely different dynamic. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, every yeah, every band has its own dynamic. But yeah, when he comes to battle allegiance, really, like, you know, I have this role that's that's very different. I'm not just, you know, the soloist, the soloist, I'm really like directing and and it's it's a lot of fun.  Yeah, because and he's so intense on stage. But off stage, he's the opposite of say a Mark Osso White. You know, he's not going to burst into the room and start hugging people. You know, maybe once he knows somebody, but you know, he tends to be very chill and relaxed and but on stage, that's that's where it all comes out. Yeah, interview last time interview Chuck was in Montreal. You know, and it's exactly the way you stated it. He's chill. He's nice. He's polite. He's kind. He's intelligent. And he's not a big fireball. Right, right. You know, that everybody's different. And you can't you know, there's certain types of artists who are like their stage personas. I'll give you another example, Steve Sousa of Exodus, who's our original singer. You know, he's the same. He's the same persona. There's no there's no different. You know, he sees you in the hallway. He talks to you like, like he's on stage talking to the audience. But then there's others. Are you the same person? Are you the same person? Like that's on stage? No, definitely not. Definitely not. Because I'm now when I'm on on stage, I am I'm you know, I'm pretty you know, I know I'm giving a performance, but I go into this Zen mode.  And I do not do that offstage. I don't. You don't do that. I don't come up the subway and do that. No, I don't. Yeah, exactly. When I'm on the subway, I don't come up to people and give the look like I do in the middle of a guitar solo. It probably wouldn't be received too well if I didn't. What about I'll give you a few more and I'll leave you with that. Charlie Benanti. Charlie Benanti. Oh, yeah. I mean, just I think one of the for a long time anyway, very underappreciated, because his greatest he is in anthrax. It's very, it's very limited. I mean, he's so mega talented. Multi instrumentalists, you know, plays guitar well, plays keyboards well. There's art. I mean, just like a real Renaissance guy. But if you only know him as the drummer for anthrax, you'd have no idea. So I think, you know, this, this project has been great. You know, to work with him and see that side. But I've also done other outside projects with Charlie, you know, we started doing tributes to Rush after Neil Peart passed away. And that was during the pandemic. So our lockdown video has got a lot of attention, you know, YYZ, La Via, Strangiatto. I remember, I remember. Yeah, we did several and he actually put those out on a disc. Yeah, my interview for that. Yeah, when he put out, yeah, it was great. Yeah.  That's a great example. When people always talk about who can replace Neil, my mind always goes to Charlie. I don't know why I just think he would be like the perfect fit. Again, they're not doing that. They're not doing that. I'm just saying hypothetically, I always thought everybody throws out, they throw Mike Pornight because it's kind of obvious, but I always thought Charlie would be the best fit. I don't know. Yeah. I think he's and he's being more appreciated now because he's part of the Pantera reunion. Yes. And that's reaching, you know, whole other level of audience that that is hearing him and appreciating. Yeah. Let's see, one last one. Who's played with you guys for, I mean, we could throw in a girl here. What about Christina Scapa? Oh, just you can't say enough great things. Yeah, just the voice is operatic, like on level of somebody that does opera, but works for heavy music. And just incredibly unpretentious, funny, down to earth, no airs, even though she'd have every right to just be a complete diva. Because, you know, she's just a powerful presence on stage, both with the voice and her stage presence, but offstage, yeah, just incredibly unassuming, puts everyone at ease. And it's fun to hang out with fun to work with just really pleasure to throw ideas back and forth. And this yeah, this was a great opportunity to work with her. We're overdue to have her on stage live. It's been a while. Are there any surprise guests? I believe so. Yes. Really? Oh, yeah. I believe there are. I can't confirm that there are, but I know there's always some last minute guests that, yeah, we don't know if they're going to show up or not. And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And I know there are a few names that have been tossed around as folks who may show up and may not, but we shall see. Bruce Dickinson. Bruce Dickinson. That would be a dream. I don't even know if he's going to be in the area. He's in New York. He's going to be in New York. Is that right? He's doing a book signing and on the 17th and the 18th, I think. Oh, is he really? At St. Vitus? Is that St. Vitus? Yeah. St. Vitus. Yeah. Yeah. Comic book release. Oh, that is awesome. That is awesome. Gotta love Bruce. Yeah. Obviously, he'd be welcome anytime. He could walk in in the middle of the gig and just let him off. Right. The floodgates would open. Stop what you're doing. Yeah. And the mic over to Bruce. Yeah. And let's go. Yeah. Is there anything you want to tell everybody about metal legions that we haven't actually spoken about right now? Just that, you know, it's a show. If you have a chance to see it, you should see it. Every show is different. Yes, you can say you've seen it before, but you're never going to see the exact same show. So it's going to be a fresh experience every time. And everybody has a great time at the shows. Everybody wishes it would happen more often. So don't miss. So just everybody knows and the people are watching maybe they're from around the world, but this is during NAMM week, which is, you know, I think last year was in April or May, but this year it's back to winter NAMM. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons we're able to pull it off, especially at this level with this many artists because so many are visiting and in one place at one time in addition to those who are based in Southern California. Plus you get the walk-ins, right? Because people, there's artists at NAMM and they're walking in, right?  Just come on right in. Oh, sure. Well, yeah. Usually we do know in advance because there's a lot of preparing and we know what songs are going to have. That's the other thing, too, because there are many events that week of shows and all-star lineups that aren't that prepared. This is very prepared. It's very professionally done.  Everybody knows what part they're going to play. So I think even though there are a lot of all-star acts that happen that week, this one stands out. Well, you're getting me excited. I'm going to be there in a week and a half. The House of Blues in Ataheim. A week and a half already. Unbelievable. Yeah. Can you believe it? It's January 11th. I have to practice. No joke. That is what I'm going to be doing. I've got to book my airline tickets. I've got to book my airline tickets still. Luckily I have mine. 25th of January, that's a Thursday. House of Blues Ataheim. The 10-year perspiration. Yes. Salvation. I've got to use that. Celebration. Anniversary celebration, not perspiration. Dean Guitars, D-Drums, Heavy Headphones, and the Opening Act as Death, Health, Hostage, and Core. You know what? You're getting me excited. This sounds like a great night. The Opening Act, I'm not sure how it's pronounced. I have to ask David. I don't think it's death. I think it's dyeth. Dyeth. Yeah, like Shakespearean. You dyeth upon this sort. Dieth. Okay, it's dyeth. Yeah. Mega dyeth. Let's see if there's anything else you want to plug. I don't know. Is there any cool stuff that you're doing in the future? Yeah, very different stuff. Did I mention... If you want to talk about it, it's up to you. Yeah. Well, two days before that, I'm doing a tribute to Leslie West. Yeah, cool. You know about this? Yeah. And that's going to have a lot of exciting players. Steve Lukather, Orianti, Mateo Manusco, Tracy Guns, and Leslie West. You know, it's just one of my all-time favorite guitar players. And a big influence on a lot of my favorite guitar players that I was listening to growing up. Guys like Michael Shanker, for example. And Van Halen, too, was the previously West fan. Yeah, everybody loved Leslie West. What would you rate Randy Rhodes? Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rose? Yeah, they were both tremendous influences. And they both had a lot to do with me ending up in heavy metal, even though I do a lot of music outside of heavy metal. So in addition, on my instrumental side, I'm going to be playing on Friday, the 26th with Stuart Ham, great bass player. And we're going to be at the baked potato, which is a legendary jazz club in Studio City. Very cool. With the great Chad Wackerman on drums, one of my all-time favorite drummers, played for Alan Holdworth, played for Frank Zappa. And Stu and I have an album together. I played on his record that came out a few months ago called Hold Fast. And I recorded music last year with my trio, my instrumental trio. It's kind of the jazz guitar. It's called the Alps School in La Tria. And the whole album is recorded. It is in the process of being mixed and mastered. I think I'm going to drop singles this year. And probably towards the end of the year or next year, the whole record because of touring. You have to book further and further in advance nowadays to tour. I think you played Montreal. I think you played Montreal several times. And I'm also in a project called PACT PAKT, which is with the great Percy Jones, legendary fretless bass player known for his work with Brand X, which once had the great Phil Collins on drums. And also at Brian Eno, and it's an incredible group of musicians. We have a new album that just came out. And we're going to be touring down the West Coast right after all this. So I'll be starting in Seattle, working our way down. And I'll end up back in at the Baked Potato in Los Angeles, February 8th, I believe that is, and for two shows, and ending up in Phoenix and then flying back to the East Coast. So yeah, things are going to start get really busy starting the week of NAMM. Very cool. I appreciate all your time. I hope I didn't take too much of your time. No, not at all. It's fairly interesting. There's a lot of people in the chat saying hi. And I know there's Jay, there's Randy. I just didn't want to throw you off. There's Jim Harrison. There's a lot of people there just saying hi. There's Alexander from all the way from Peru. Maybe I'll come to the show. We've got British people online. We've got everybody from all around. All over the map. Yep. Anyways, thank you very much, everybody once again, during NAMM week on the 25th of January, Metal Allegiance. Like I said, I'm getting excited. This sounds like a fun time. You know what it is? It's the enthusiasm that you have for it. It sort of comes across and it sort of leaks into the world and the air. And then I feel that that enthusiasm. That's what it's all about. All right, looking forward to the show. See you there. And have yourself a wonderful, wonderful night. Thank you everybody.


What's going on everybody got Kyle and Shawn here with late in sports cards, and we are ripping sports cards almanac collectors edition volume 1 This is number 3 did a randomized for the break for the case We got case 1 and we did a randomizer for the teams or for the order show you guys here again We had ill up top with one Brandon a with 2 Chad with 3 Brandon a with 4 Wu Huck with 5 We've got brine with 6 Thomas J 7 Andrew M with 8 Benjamin with 9 and Shane with 10 All righty guys, we do have two rules here guys No influencing the draft during the draft and no talking about card values during the draft If it does happen, we will time you out the first time and if you guys come back and do it again We'll have to ban you guys So good luck to everybody. We'll get all 10 cards out here. Then we will start our draft See what we got in case one Let's see what lane concocted here Friday case number one So we got 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 left for the next ones Appreciate you guys Alrighty guys, let's see what we got. Let's see what we got box one PSA slab PSA 10 it is Kurt Schilling from 2003 finest on the gold x-fractor I have a debacks Kurt Schilling there numbered 196 of 199 Nice little throwback there. I like the x-fractors the tops finest baseball is great I love that Old school finest nice one there. Oh three finest is Kurt Schilling x-fractor PSA 10 to 199 box two Box two. Yeah, I've got a similar looking finest card. It's uh, Maurice Jones drew from like oh 506 It's a similar looking design. I like the old finest Like the new finest as well box two It is nice. It's the bus number to 10 on the legendary swatches from encased Nice one there Jerome bettis He's got a nice big auto on this one Very nice legendary swatch signatures that is player worn slash used on the jersey little number patch The bus two out of 10 big man One want to stand across from him running atcha box three Again, guys, we do have force and lane over on fanatics live If you guys trying to get some group breaks going they got bowman chrome and flawless pyc today box three. This one's heavy Yeah, thank you, Enrico. If you guys are enjoying, please do like the stream appreciate it Oh, wow, it's john smoltz with some sick patches two of five out of sterling A little logo patch there number patch Nice one. They're all game used on the john smoltz It's just some fillers making this so thick didn't fit in a regular mag And to go a little thicker on that one two of five nice one there john smoltz out of sterling It's a really nice looking um logo patch there Little three color as well Nice smoltz two of five Yeah, guys only breaks tonight that aren't um This almanac here. We got a flawless pyc and we've got nt divisions Four to go on divisions halfway there and we're almost halfway there on flawless got 17 teams Yeah, we'll do uh, we'll have almanac for the first couple hours. Then we'll get those two going Yeah, sterling's always clean chris. I agree box number four This one is nice psa nine on the rookie auto is bobby wit jr Out of um five star that one is not numbered on the bobby wit Very nice rookie auto there kid has been on a tear the second half of the season, man Nice bobby rookie auto psa nine Bobby looks like he's gonna be good for a while, man. There is a lot of good young town the mlb right now It's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. Yeah him and corbin both man. They can they can get it going box five Yeah, I really like five star two. I like the um the five way autos from five star those are some of my favorite This one is nice. We got a daniel jones out of spectra on the rpa radiant rpa little two-color patch 25 out of 35 on the player worn patch nice daniel dimes radiant rpa at a 2019 spectra 2019 spectra there on the dimes on ready guys halfway on this case box number six Boo the Giants that's fair and riko I know you're a birds fan This one is wow. That's a throwback there. We got stan museal 10 of 10 from top sterling on the um jersey auto Nice little throwback there stan museal. That is from 2007 top sterling Nice museal there with the bat relic and jerseys little cutouts Museal 10 out of 10 Sterling's looked good for a while box seven Righty guys, I appreciate everybody keeping it easy for us so far Everybody's enjoying themselves Nice this one is kade cunningham out of 2021 prism on the rookie ps8 10. That's a purple wave not numbered Nice one there kade. I think he's gonna come back strong, man. He's been injured a little bit, but He is a baller He is a baller shot collar Nice one there kade ps8 10 not numbered on the purple wave box eight Yeah, I believe so chat. I believe tops um Tops almost always game used on the Yeah game used memorabilia on the museal Yeah tops us a really good job with that There's also a lot of games in baseball. They can get some game used jerseys pretty easily. I've probably 162 a year This one is we got it again. We got mickey mansoul ps a three Wow third mickey this time. It is 1966 tops nice mic ps a three not bad there from a 66 tops Going back to the vintage back to the vintage 66 ps a three mansoul that does have some eye appeal man. That looks clean Two more for this one box number nine Again, I'll mention again. We do have forest and lane ripping on fanatics live right now guys if you're all interested got a um Got a case of bowman chrome hobby broken down into four boxers and a flawless flawless py team Nice, we got another kade this time. It's a dominators rookie auto That one is 13 out of 25 insert auto from donriss optic Got the kade case Not bad there kade cunningham to 35 or 35 13 to 25 I think dominators out of donriss optic We'll take a kade case and box 10 Good luck. Good luck everybody Now guys three to go on our nt divisions and 17 to go on flawless py t Check it out. Yeah, kade does have a clean auto. I like it too. I like it too chris All righty guys last one then we will get our hit draft going It is wow, we've got a red zone auto out of 2019 contenders. It is daniel dimes Nice one there on the um bgs nine. That is a true gem plus two tens and two nine fives Nice one there on the red zone. Those are from first off the line exclusives That guy has a clean auto too, man Daniel dimes on the red zone Contenders auto those are not numbered out of first off the line That's sick man true gem plus on that one as well nice daniel Righty guys. Give me just a moment to get the um cards all set up and we will begin our draft Thank you. Thank you guys And again, we do have contenders optic basketball releasing tomorrow Righty guys. Thanks everybody for um hanging out with us today It's been nice and simple for me and shawn. We do appreciate that He's all set up We will begin the draft Yeah, I think I put him in the order Yeah And that's it's probably gonna happen either way even the bettis Shilling All righty guys. So first up we got illegal illegal with number one Let me do a quick uh chords So we got curt schilling over there. We got our geron bettis to ten Jersey auto we got um john smoltz to five. We got a rookie auto bobby witt from um From five star ps a nine. We got rpa dan jones um stan musial on the sterling Cade cunningham ps a 10 purple wave got a mickey mantle 1966 tops ps a three We've got the 25 dominators cade cunningham and we have our daniel dimes on the red zone first off the line exclusive Alrighty a minute on the clock for you ill Good luck my friend Yeah, like a stadium style. I kind of know what you're saying Yeah, um Don't really have anything very perfect for that Keep everything on the camera is the problem if you want to see it. He'll lift it Yeah, if you guys if you guys do have any questions about anything do let me know I can um I can show you guys anything Ill eagle is up first I knew it.  Yeah, I'll try. I'll see if I can do something jay on the next one I'll see if I can come up with something. Maybe see a little better Again guys, please let me know if you want to see anything got Jerome bettis back here to 10 John smolz Next up we've got brandon brandon a with pick number two Is the wit of rookie it is it is um 2022 five star rookie got the rookie logo down there and it's psa nine on the auto Yeah, I know illegal. I know it probably hurt picking the giant.  Can you just confirm the uh, I know you've already done it a couple times just confirm the um zip code for me bobby wit there 2022 five star auto rookie auto psa nine nice pick Bobby has been on fire. Thank you sir. Gotcha. Thank you brandon Thank you brandon. Thank you sir. Alrighty guys pick number three will be mr. Chad Mr. Chad see pick number three And we got a smolz to five back there. There's a daniel jones rpa And geron betas to 10 Right mr. Chad thousand messages already. I appreciate that guys. I appreciate everybody hanging out with us For east james. Let me know we're uh chatting today The cate auto gotcha. Chad. This is for uh 49 307 perfect gotcha. Chad. That is number two 25 nice one there 13 out 25 from um, um donner's optic Nice one there dominators insert auto Nice one chad Some more in the front row here. Alrighty next up. We got brandon again brandon back up Right. So the baccalaureate we've got a john smoltz to five Three of five there on the sterling jersey autos. We got 10 um to 10 geron betas On the um jersey auto and kurt schilling gold fracter um x fracter to 199 PSA 10k gotcha brandon gotcha, sir 2336 24. Thank you brandon nice one there on the ps8 10 purple wave kate I do like kate man kid is a baller Little floor general Alrighty, all righty, and I'll do it for pic four now. We got um wuhuk jay with pic number five Got a minute on the clock I'm again guys if you are making a pic, please just be sure to include your um your postal address the mickey gotcha 481 19 Yep, got it thank you j 66 tops mickey mantle another um mickey today ps a three Nice one there. We'll take that almost a 60 year old card ps a three Not a bad grade my man Alrighty Next up. I've got bryan r pic number six Got a minute on the clock for you bryan Kurt schilling in the back on our results tab I post the results to our website latent sports cards.com. We got a results tab at the very bottom We do the randoms before the break. Um, so I post it and you can see what order. Um, we got them all How you doing today oppo? We're already 30 seconds here Pic number six for bryan And again guys, I appreciate everybody following the rules so far. Um keeping the chat moving hanging out with us It's been fun so far. We're gonna keep it going Doing good oppo doing good man Can not complain get to rip some almanac today Hard to complain Righty guys pic number six. This is bryan r About um 15 more seconds bryan some sick stuff there man some throwback baseball Got some football Not bad picks And again guys, we do have one flawless. Um py t style case today. That's still got 17 to go Um teams are on sale there and nt. You got a full case four box division style We're down to three to go now guys on that one Three to go on the nt and again if you guys are picking um do let me know if you guys want to see any card up close If you have any questions about any of the cards What do you mean oppo? Yeah five digit card number is on the site. What are you talking about? I don't know. I'm not sure Alrighty, I think we're gonna pick here for bryan bryan our last call if you are here sir pick number six Oh, no, that's the uh, that's the zip code. Yeah, we asked for the zip code when they make a pick just to confirm Yeah, it's a zip code um For the order Alrighty bryan, we will pick the museo. We'll go a little throwback here Go throwback for you here bryan 10 of 10 on the stand museo from 2007 sterling Upside down there we go 10 of 10 museo. That's a sick one man. Some uh game use cuts there in the auto Alrighty guys pick number seven This one will be tannis tannis Yeah, yeah, so it's a zip code just to confirm. Yeah Sure bomb.  That's that's his thing Yeah, that's true. Shane That's true. I'm sorry again my man Thomas with the dany dimes rpa gotcha thomas 605 27 Nice one there out of spectra a 2019 spectra. That is 25 of 35 on the daniel dimes Nice little two-color player worn patch. Nice one there thomas. Hope you're having a good day today thomas Alrighty guys moving along nicely pick number eight andrew m andrew m pick number eight No, six numbers. This is order number. You either give us your order number or your zip code Yeah, yeah Yeah order number or zip code. I suppose Yeah, you're good. No, you're good oppo. No worries The schmaltz is last year. I believe 2022. Yeah, let me check Let me make sure because there's a some fillers keeping it 23 23 is current year 2023 It's 2023 on the schmaltz Hey, I appreciate you thomas appreciate you hanging out us as always my friend Thank you chris Thank you chris Let's go. That was better at um That was better at um Photoshop, I was trying to get a a dolphin wearing a shan chain, but Couldn't figure it out Not very I was gonna get I was just gonna get a picture of you with the chain I was just gonna switch the heads But uh, I couldn't figure it out. I'm not not too, uh tuned in Alrighty guys. So this one is andrew pick number eight Yeah, that's not bad js. Schwerber's a good player man It's just like everyone kind of overreacted to the to the over to the amount of strikeouts for sure the schmaltz 45242 Yep, very nice my friend two out of five a nice little um Little logo patch there got a number patch all game use Nice smoltz my friend two of five. Thank you, andrew All righty guys and just two to go got benjamin l with pick nine and then shane with the last card Get picked ten minute on the clock before you've been The bus the bus one four five six four All righty. Thank you ben. That'll be a legendary swath signatures. Nice number patch there Nice big auto two for gerome bettis to attend Two out of ten out of encase that one is from 2021 encased And that means number 10 is going to go to shane be the 2003 finest curt schilling on the gold x-fractor number to 199 2003 finest psa 10 Alrighty appreciate your shame the last pick there and that will do it guys for um Almanac volume one. This is case number three. We'll get number four going here in just a moment. Thank you. Thank you guys


You may recall from the first video that every atom is made up of subatomic particles called protons, neutrons and electrons. The protons are positively charged and they have a mass of about one atomic mass unit, an AMU. Now if you google atomic mass unit you'll find out how many kilos that is, it's a pretty small number. For now we're just going to stick with this, we can discuss the unit in more detail in class. A neutron has a neutral charge, it has no charge and it also has a mass of approximately one atomic mass unit, so protons and neutrons are roughly the same size. The electron is negatively charged and it only has a mass of about one-eighteen-hundredth of an AMU. So an electron is much much lighter than a proton and a neutron and that means that the mass of an atom is almost entirely due to its protons and neutrons. In a normal uncharged atom the number of electrons equals the number of protons and this means that the negative charges of the electrons cancel out the positive charges of the protons and overall the atom is neutral. So how are the particles arranged? Well the protons and neutrons in an atom are always located in a tiny and incredibly dense nucleus right in the center of the atom. This nucleus takes up a ridiculously small amount of the total volume of the atom, there's no way I can draw it to scale on this page and still have you be able to see the nucleus. And we're going to explore that in more detail later in the course. For now let's draw six protons and seven neutrons in this nucleus just for the sake of argument. That's six protons and the neutrons have seven of them. The rest of the volume of the atom is mostly empty space with electrons whizzing around it. Electrons are usually depicted orbiting the nucleus like planets with some orbits close into the nucleus and others further out. The first orbit or electron level can hold two electrons, a maximum of two electrons and the next can hold eight. So we put our first two in the first level and our remaining four in the next level. Now why do we have a total of six? We said that this atom had six protons and if it's a neutral atom then the number of protons equals the number of electrons. So we've got six electrons to play with, we've put two in the first level and we have a remaining four to distribute in the second level which can hold up to eight. The third level which in this atom is empty could hold up to 18 electrons. Sometimes you'll hear people talk about the third level being able to hold eight electrons and there's a good reason for this simplification but it is a simplification as are the orbits. We're going to look at this in more depth when we get onto the section on atomic structure so let's leave that controversy for now.


It's me, JP, and it is time for JP's product pick of the week. In fact, it's more than time for it, but I have a computer that's being crashy. And so crossing fingers, it doesn't just, poof, which is what it's been doing. But I got it up and running again, so I think we can do the show. And I appreciate you patiently waiting for this to begin. Let's, first of all, let you know if you are in the chat somewhere that doesn't seem to have any chat going on.  That is probably me talking to our YouTube chat. I've got an eye on that. So hello, Dave Odessa and Johnny Bergdahl. Thank you for stopping by. And then we also have our Discord, which is at adafru.it slash discord. You can look for the live broadcast chat channel. That's it right there. And we've got Starman, Love the Factory, Jim Hendricks, Simblet City, DIY. Also Johnny Bergdahl showing up there. See Grover. Hello, thanks for stopping by. Yes, Love the Factory. You can come for the electronics and stay for the dance party. I appreciate you. So what do we have going on here today? So this is a product pick show. I've got a product pick of the week. I'm going to give you a ginormous discount. Not just me, we here at Adafruit, everyone behind the scenes, especially in the new products group, Trevor Jelly helping out to get these discounted stashed so that we have some for the show and then discounted. If you want to go grab them at half off today, you're going to go to that URL right there. It's product ID 5889. You can use that QR code or this URL. Also, that's the secret to our URL shortener for product IDs is adafruit.it slash 5889. Just adafruit.it and the product number. That'll get you right to that page as well. And you can pick them up, just throw them in your cart. There's no coupon code necessary. You'll get them for half off up to 10 per person, no resellers allowed. And before I say any more, let's jump back a little bit in time here. That's actually a pretty new one, but we'll just jump back a little bit to the new, new, new segment with Lady Aida. Please take it away, Lady Aida. We also have, coming soon, two versions of our Itzy Bitsy ESP32. We've designed this many, many years ago, but during the parts shortage, we weren't able to get it out the door. But now it lives again, clearing up my long to-do list. So this is an Itzy Bitsy-sized board. So it's got 20 GPIO and power pins, micro USB, because I want it to be compatible with the other Itzy Bitsy boards. In case you have an enclosure, you can swap out whichever one you want. I don't want to have, maybe I'll make a version with USB-C later. On the bottom, it has a USB serial converter chip and some markings. And alternate battery input, if desired. We also have a version with a WFL connector, designed by Hiroshi, by the way, in case you're wondering. There's a STEMI QT port on the top, Neopixel on both of them, user button, reset button, and then auto reset circuitry. This is really great for very small IoT projects that need ESP32, which has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy. We support it in Circuit Python, has great Arduino support. There's also MicroPython support and a lot of other chips as well. The ESP32 is like a very standardized chip. What's really nice about this board is it's got very, very good low power capability. I just tested it before the show. 10 microamps in deep sleep, which is like incredibly low. It's as low as the ESP32 can get. So by kind of designing this a nice way, using a good regulator on it, you definitely use this for very low power IoT projects or any project where you just need more pins in a QT pie, but you don't need as many as a feather. And there's also one pin that's shifted up to five volts, so great for Neopixel projects. All right. Yes, indeed it is. Look, this is it right here. It is my product pick this week. It is the Itsy-Bitsy ESP32. This is the version with the onboard PCB antenna. It has eight megabytes of flash, two megabytes of PS RAM. We have 20 GPIO pins. There's a USB to serial converter on there. You can use the web workflow because it's got Wi-Fi. It's got Bluetooth classic. It's got BLE or Bluetooth low energy. You can use Arduino, circuit Python with a web workflow, circuit Python, micro Python, whippersnapper, even my gosh, what can't you do with this? So this fits the Itsy-Bitsy form factor, so it'll just drop into pretty much any project you have. Most pins, maybe all pins, should be compatible. And we've got three analog to digital converters, two DAC, digital analog outs. Those are eight bit, I think, 12 bit on the ADCs.  For example, this one has a Stem-A-Q-T port for I2C to plug right into it. You've got 3.3-volt logic and power on here. But there's also that one special pin D5, which has a 5-volt level shifter on it. So you can use 5-volt peripherals with it as well. So it's a really versatile board, really fantastic. What is there to say about it? First of all, let's jump over to the product page. So you can see that right there. That, there it is, there's the product page, is available right now for this deeply discounted price just during the show of $7.48. Wow. And this, if you scroll down and here you'll see, first of all, we've got this show happening right inside the product page. That's that little link right there.  It'd be wild. I won't do it. Look, there it is. And you can also scroll down a little bit to get to the primary learn guide here. There's also a case project for the antenna version, but that would work for either version if you wanted to by the Ruiz Brothers. If you check out the main guide here by Liz, you've got all the stats, all the info. You have pinouts for all the pins on there, power, GPIO, there's pretty much PWM on everything. I think we have four cap touch pins. What else do we have on there? There's no eight, sorry, eight cap touch pins. Wow. There's the onboard NeoPixels. You can use that for indicator, for testing things. We have a reset button. There's also a boot button, which can be used as a user button after you've started. There's the USB to serial converter, which I mentioned. And you can also power it from 3.5 to 6 volts battery. And there's a little solderable tab on the bottom there if you want to turn this into a battery project. Or as you can see here, we've also got our LiPo and LiPoly backpack that you can add to it. And also show you an alternative I'm using a little cool itsy bitsy breakout board from Sea Grover. When I show you my little demo there, you'll see. And here is on the version we have here today. You can see there's the little ESP32 module. It's the ESP32 V2 Pico. And it has a onboard antenna. You can see little traces there. That's the antenna. Works well for sort of nearby access point type of uses. And then if you keep going, you'll get to some setup here for Circa Python, for the Arduino IDE whipper snapper. You can also, if you check out the Circa Python setup section, go to this Setting Up the Web Workflow. And this is really cool. If you check out Web Workflow, this is a way to go basically from the CircaPython.org download page to a web. You'll need a web USB compatible browser like Chrome. But you've got a web setup that you can do where you can set your own Wi-Fi credentials on here and a password for the web API on here. And then you can start controlling this thing immediately from a web page. So if you take a look right here, this is Circa Python Web Workflow Editor that I have set up. And I'm going to go to a little down shooter version. So you can see here, I've got my itsy-bitsy ESP32. There is no USB cable plugged into it. I just have it on a little breakout there that's giving me battery power. This is from C Grover. I'll show you the link to that in a second. And it also breaks it out for compatibility with breadboards and some other nice features, like an extra Stem-a-Qt port on there. And then I have it on one of our little swirly grids here for mounting, just to keep it all in one place. There's a little lipo battery in there. This is running on battery power. And yet I'm able to code it right from a web browser. So this browser is running from a server that's on the itsy-bitsy ESP32. I'm running Circuit Python code here. You can see I've brought in Time, Board Neopixel, and then Rainbow I.O. and a Color Wheel. I'm setting up the onboard Neopixel. I've set some little variables for some colors there. If I go and just change one of these, let's just change that to red, hit Save. Again, notice no wires, right? And yet I've just changed that. I've just re-saved the code.py file. We can change that again here. Let's go to blue, hit Save, and Badouge.  And you can see we are color wheeling all around through the rainbow entirely wirelessly. So that's just a little introduction to the power of that web workflow. But you can imagine this is really helpful for embedded projects, especially because this has super low power. So you can have this in costumes and props. And if you have to make changes to the code, it is always running its little web server there. So you can use the web workflow, very, very convenient. Or you can plug in a USB cable and use the USB to serial conversion if you need to. But why? Why need to? Why not use wireless? Wireless is great. So let's see. I'll take a little diversion here off for a second into this super cool adapter board I'm using. And you can see some of the features that I really like here. We've got USB charging circuit for the battery. So you can see there's the battery plugged in. A little yellow light just went on. That's charging the battery. That is not a Nitsy Bitsy feature, but that is a feature of Seagrover's cool little break out there. We have the battery port right in there. So we're plugged in too very nice and neat. We do have an extra stomach QT cable there that can be configured to also be a UART if you want just with a jumper. And we got some mounting tabs on here with mounting holes. So I've got a couple of those screwed into this little whirligig here. So if you want to check that out, I'll drop a link in the chats. Super cool break out by Seagrover. Thanks for making that and sharing that out there. But let's see. Back to the featured item right here, which is this. Let me know what questions do you have? Have we missed anything? I'm going to check out the chats for a second. Let's see. That's right. Yeah, Jeff Hunt, it is not USB-C. And this was intentional on Lady Aida's part just to keep it fully compatible with existing itsy bitsies. She may make a redesign at some point where itsy bitsies move into USB-C territory. But right now they are USB micro-B. And that is the M4 itsy bitsy. We have an M0 itsy bitsy, I think. There's the NRF 52840. And there's this one. Am I missing one? Yeah, RP2040. So we have a nice little collection of these itsy bitsies. And for now, at least, they all are consistent for USB port, being micro-B, as well as the pinout. Other questions? Yeah, these are typically this type of form factor. I think these originally were probably inspired by both the sort of Arduino micro, pro-micro type of form factor and teensy, to some degree. And those don't have mounting holes. They try to just be as small as possible, given the enormous amount of features that are on them. And they just have solder pads for pins. So you can drop that into another board or air wires directly to your project. So no mounting holes on that keeps it super tiny. I do not know, Randall Bone, if it has support for platform I.O. Does anyone know that? Is that a thing? Let's look it up. Why not? Itsy bitsy ESP32 platform I.O. Well, there's at least documentation for it. I'm going to say a qualified yes. That probably does work with that. If anyone knows in the chat, please let us know. All right, did I miss anything? I think that is it.  I think we still have some of these in stock. It is only $7.48 US right now to pick it up. That's half price, quite a deal for a really powerful board that you can do a whole heck of a lot with. I think this may be the only one that has the StemAQT on it right now. That is one update to this board, besides this being the ESP32 module. Great for IoT projects. Great for whippersnapper stuff. Excellent for if you want to use the, what's the name, WLED. You can use ESP32 WLED projects to do cool neopixel stuff. What else? I don't know. You come up with some cool stuff and tell us about it. How about that? All right, I think that is going to do it for today. So that is my product pick of the week this week. It is the Itsy Bitsy ESP32 with the 8 megabytes of flash, 2 megabytes of PS RAM, and the built-in PCB antenna. For Adafruit Industries, I'm John Park. This has been JP's product pick of the week. Bye.


Patriot Prime Reviews is a channel for adult collectors and may not be suitable for children under 13 years of age viewer discretion is advised Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another Transformers review, but before I get started I need you guys to do me a favor if you're watching this video right here and are not a subscriber of Patriot Prime Reviews Please hit that subscribe button right now. It won't cost you a thing Will help me and my channel out tremendously. Also, make sure and visit my sponsor toyhacks.com Toyhacks provides reproduction and upgrade decal sets for transformer toys from generation one to the latest modern figures Make sure and stop by the toyhacks armory where they can equip your figures with new weaponry in multiple colors and toy stages provides backdrops for figure displays and photography Each purchase with toyhacks earns you RoboSense that can be used for future purchases. You can check your balance anytime in your cart Toyhacks is a company run by collectors for collectors So check out toyhacks.com and make your collection stand out from the rest and tell them Patriot Prime sent you now onto the review The featured button this video is Transformers War for Cybertron Kingdom Megatron I have been looking forward to this figure for months The original purple Megatron was my introduction back to the wonderful world of Collecting I remember I was working at a Kmart as a lost prevention specialist And you had to go through the Transformers Isle the action figure Isle to get to my office And I remember seeing that original Megatron on the shelf and I thought it was so Cool, and I walked past that thing day after day finally broke down and bought him He's back there on the shelf and if you want to check out my video review of him click the link above But be warned that was one of my first videos, so I finally bought the guy And I remember walking up to the counter saying yeah, this is for my little brother So long story short of that Megatron led to all of this So now let's take a quick look at the Kingdom Megatron here in the packaging you've got Megatron Something flew off right there. You got Megatron right there in that plastic window and some more of that Fantastic Kingdom artwork. You've got Megatron in beast mode Megatron in robot mode opening fire with the T-Rex head That looks so cool. I love it. I love the artwork has bro. Give us an art book We need an art book Transformers Kingdom artwork here on the side back of the package you got Megatron in robot mode and beast mode and That's about it. So now without further ado Let's get this guy open out of this packaging and check him out and Welcome to Patriot Prime reviews Yes Now once you get Megatron all opened up and out of his packaging You'll see he does come with a sheet of instructions and as usual these are very well illustrated and very easy to follow He also comes with this trading card. I finally got a different one I've got Optimus Prime on that really cool foil holographic paper. It's like he's got some Barbed wire or something right there. Huh? Hey, let's see what it is. We'll peel this back and it's Optimus Prime Floating in space or I guess that's the dead universe so Live Prime dead Prime. So That's interesting and of course I can never get these back in place nice and smooth And of course now we have the main man himself the mighty Megatron Now the first thing I noticed when I took Megatron out of the packaging is this is a heavy Solid figure. I was really impressed. I mean he's pretty much solid all the way around except Right there under the forearm that he's got a very nasty hollow spot right there But other than that the rest of the figure is just thick and he's got this really cool textured skin Over the figure kind of like very scaly lizard like which is really cool He's smooth plastic here, but everywhere you see dinosaur sculpting. That is kind of a soft plastic Rubbery feeling stuff and I dig it now I think it's layered on top of these other pieces of plastic as you can see right there I've seen other reviewers complain that they're worried that may peel off in the future But if you're not rough with the guy It shouldn't be an issue if he's just on display and if it starts peeling hell throw some super glue on it Now taking a closer look at Megatron Great sculpting. I mean this figure looks like he stepped right out of the cartoon. Look at that face That is awesome great detail Got a little tiny Predacon logo right there on the forehead just like the show got some painted red eyes Which I'm really surprised they didn't give this figure light piping instead of the paint But still it doesn't look bad at all now I wish with the paint applications that gave him a little color variation for the pupils if you remember from the television show It kind of looked like he had slits like reptile eyes Great paint applications right here along the spikes on the chest the vents here Molded details carry all the way down on the legs. He's even got the hip cannons and down here on the Lower leg with the dinosaur feet. I mean this thing Looks awesome. I can't get over it now The one big difference now is the t-rex head is more based on Actual t-rex opposed to what we're used to seeing from Beast Wars and what we grew up with This is a more Jurassic Park looking t-rex and I can live with it. It doesn't look too bad Now articulation for the figure the head is on a ball joint It can look up and down slightly do a complete 360 the arms can do a complete 360 as well They're going to hit this backpack now speaking of backpack. It's really not that bad looking I mean, it's got a lot of t-rex stuff shoved up there, but it could be worse So that's not bad at all. So arms can do a complete 360 the dinosaur head arm The jaw can open and close it can do like regular mouth and go really really wide Which I don't like that gap right there, but what are you gonna do you line it up like that doesn't look too bad now inside the mouse Mouth excuse me. He has I'm thinking about feeding him rat trap. He's got a blast effects port. So grab a blast effect right here plugs in So now he's opening fire.  There is a swivel elbow bend and What's odd is he's got a fist right here and there is a hinge That lets the fist flip up and I don't really understand why because that doesn't affect Anything now he has the tail weapon spike and it is attached permanently to his arm I tried multiple times to see if there's a way to get that off and there is not Articulation for the tail weapon the claw the claw can pinch Moving on down to the waist. There's a waist rotation the legs up and back in and out there is a knee bend there is a knee rotation and slight ankle tilt and Ankles or the feet can go back and forth. So the guy's got lots and lots of articulation And man, I just can't get over how cartoon accurate this figure looks I am really impressed with this guy. So now let's get on to transformation transformation It's fairly Complex not overly, but what I like about it. It's like you're transforming the old B stores Megatron, but this time it's backwards And I'll get more that into that here in a bit. So first thing we're gonna do is let's take the dinosaur head And we're gonna flip all these around the yellow section right here This is gonna be the underside of the dinosaur mode. So we're gonna bring this up Take the tail Flip this around Now we'll rotate this over bring the pincher section back and there is a Slot right there. That's gonna match up to that tab Lock that in then you're gonna bring these sections up and Over Just like so now there is little Tabs right there. That's supposed to go in To the side of the pincher weapon and I can't really get those to tab in there we go It's that soft plastic. So it's really really difficult to get in so I might work with that here more in a bit so now we have This look going on now on the back of the figure you're gonna take the back section and unpeg it Like so it's actually a clip not a peg these two clips go over this black bar So you're gonna bring that down bring the t-rex arms up Now right here. This is scary. You need to bring the or snap this section a Part the torso off of the waist getting all tongue tied here and it is scary tight I actually messaged a couple of my fellow youtubers asking if their figure was just as tight because I was worried I was gonna break mine so actually the easiest way to do it is slide forward slightly and Snap back.  That's scary every time and this back piece pops off another Complaint I have with this figure this little section pops off way too easy But pops right back on just as easy Except when I'm on camera. Maybe I've got it backwards There we go. I think that was it. So now we've got him apart from the waist.  I have only transformed this figure once so now we got this going on We're gonna bring these flaps right here. They're spring loaded bring those up and Just kind of wrap these around the figure like so now with the legs You don't take the Groin section if you can get your thumbnails in and just pull Those apart like so there's double hinges here on the inside and what you want to do is try to get those hinges out There we go. Very tight right there And bring these up Rotate the legs down Spin the leg around and pop that right off. I swear only on camera Rotate that around on the other side try not to pop it off Take these little hip cannons.  This t-rex looks awesome unfortunately, he's got tons and tons of gaps and Panels, but what are you going to do? I mean it just that's the price you pay for the transformation Now a lot of this beast is really hard to Tabbed together and keeping tabbed together because a lot of this is that soft plastic and it just doesn't hook in great But that being said those complaints aside this t-rex mode Looks awesome. It's got the little t-rex arms that can move up and down The t-rex head can look side to side Of course the jaw could open up and down the legs can move back and forth There is a knee bend and of course the same ankle rotation There is a little bit of a tail wag as well now of course you can pose the t-rex like that Which is now the new scientific way or if you want to make him look more like the t-rex as we grew up with Just kind of angle him up and down Like so he is a little top-heavy. So you've got that look going on, but he is designed To look like that and moving him around right there those panels pop right off and Now for a quick beast comparison here is Kingdom Megatron With his Beast Wars counterpart now what I was talking about earlier with the transformations being reversed is Megatron's head and robot mode on the original figure was all here on top of the t-rex Where the new version Megatron's robot mode mainly is down here in the stomach So you just kind of flip everything around. I thought that was kind of a neat Reversal from the old toy now. It's too bad. They couldn't have incorporated the water squirt gimmick from the original generation one Generation one the Beast Wars figure because you open his mouth He actually squirted water which was a really cool feature that would have been cool added in this one So there you go guys one final look at Megatron in beast mode and Now for some quick size comparisons here is Transformers War for Cybertron Kingdom Megatron With the original ultra-class Beast Wars Megatron Transmetal Beast Wars Megatron Transmetal to Beast Wars Megatron and the lesser known see you later alligator Beast Wars Megatron Transformers War for Cybertron Kingdom Megatron is a great figure. I love this toy He's got a great robot mode great Beast mode and he looks just like he stepped out of the cartoon I've got a few minor nitpicks with the toy, but it's nothing that can't be overlooked. This guy's big He's beefy. He's solid and comes highly recommended. So there you go guys transformers war for Cybertron Kingdom Megatron So does the Transformers War for Cybertron Kingdom Megatron belong in your collection? Absolutely, especially if you're a Beast Wars fan You are going to love this guy as I said He looks like he stepped right off the screen and he's a nice Solid heavy figure and that's something Hasbro hasn't given us no mainline for a long time and I really appreciate that I feel like I'm getting my money's worth with this guy. I couldn't be happier. I love this figure and He comes highly recommended. So you see this guy on the shelf Pick him up. You are not going to be disappointed now guys if you enjoyed the video Don't forget to like don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to click that bell icon to get notified when I upload new reviews And if you're in any position to help out the channel I offer channel memberships here on YouTube and I also have a patreon page And I got to give a big shout out to my newest members Curtis Schultz Kid Toby and Demon of Cybertron Demon of Cybertron you're that guy who ate runabout in Marvel G1 Guys, thanks for watching. Once again, this is Patriot Prime signing out