There we go. Welcome to the next episode. This is the Christmas Christmas special of the cathode raid podcast Steve my good friend How are you doing? Hey, Louis? Happy holidays friend, and how Everybody out there at YouTube land We're here to brighten your December 25th with a surprise This is on your channel. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Let's talk about that just for a quick second today Today we're gonna be featuring our sixth episode of the cathode raid podcast which listen, I mean we've been kicking butt with this thing and Six episodes down. We've already got number seven ready. That's why this one's special It's during the middle of the week and then we're normally on Mondays over at Zez retro So, uh, yeah six already man. Now we're just cranking them out What it's good, man It's what you got to do you just got to get in there and keep doing them, right?  Especially when you're limited to old televisions, but somehow we're gonna do it I appreciate all the comments loads of people writing and saying they enjoy it. That's real real nice of people and yeah This one's now on your channel.  Let's have a bit of fun with this episode Yeah, and kind of just the way we're throwing it on this channel just to appeal maybe to some new people that want to come Over and check it out now. I did make a playlist for our podcasts over on my channel, too So if you're on the channel and you click on the playlist button, you'll see the cathedrae podcast and it will have Actually our first podcast we even did together where it wasn't part of that That's number one and then from there. It's in chronological order one up to now six and then number seven We'll be out Monday on your channel where it normally will be and then Occasionally we'll come back and have specials on our channel here But the main thing is most of these podcasts are going to be over there and like I said We've already got a good catalog building and if you've missed anything you can go check out the playlist and Definitely go check out Lewis's channel But again, we and we already had since we were able to do this we already had the next one number seven Ready to go. So Lewis, why don't you tell us a little bit about what we got in number seven So we were the one that will be out next week on the Zez retro channel That is the very first podcast that Steve and I have done with somebody else It's our first interview our first steps into that territory and it was with Thomas Dader who you know from the open source CRT project You may have just seen the interview that Bob from retro RGB put out in the last days and he's got this Absolutely amazing project about resourcing and and basically it seems like he's trying to replace Everything but the tube in a CRT and he was a lovely guy. I enjoyed the talk. I think he was great I think honestly Steve we We you and I we're gonna work a little bit on our interview technique. I think we learned something and Poor old Thomas. He was sitting there. You asked to a yell at each other Exactly so Thomas we thank you for being on and we thank for everyone listening And they know we're we're working on it. So it was fun though. It was a lot of fun and very interesting project What are some of your takeaways from that that I definitely think we brought a kind of a different perspective that his original interview with Bob Bob got into a lot of these technical things that Really were even over our kind of or my understanding on certain aspects of CRTs not only that but you could tell just by talking to Thomas that he had an incredible knowledge of just power Circuitry and things like that on an expert level and engineering level So, you know my takeaways were that He's working hard on a great project. It's still early on in this project and there's a lot of things that Need to be done to kind of help the project to be more universal, but it's going in that direction. I also thought that You know Thomas is obviously we were trying to dig in more and get into like what his passions were that made him interested in the project So I thought that was a cool aspect that people would probably expect us to kind of talk about So other than that, you know, I will mention that Thomas was kind enough to jump on with us and it was like a Situation where he was out of town. So once it got towards the end of our interview there were some hiccups with some audio I tried to Go in and kind of abbreviate kind of knew what I knew that he was trying to say sometimes when I could tell but That's like you said it's all growing pains. We're learning this stuff It's definitely still going to be entertaining and that's kind of like what we're doing here is we're trying to take and talk about things that are current and Also interesting to us in the technology world pop culture whatever's going on really within our little framework of the internet and So that's yeah, that's our appeal to you today is just to like check out Don't forget to check check out this interview with Thomas. We definitely appreciate any feedback. You guys have for it, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah So who would you like us to talk to and it's sort of yeah in that idea that like by now You get an idea of what Lewis and Steve do, you know I like if you like our thing and you want us to interview them in that way There's room for improvement and also Steve I think it's it's good to mention that like it's also more difficult because it's online I know that when you're in a room with someone you're a studio There's a bit of a couch There's like a million extra little subtle visual cues and non Nonverbal cues that you get that help things flow and when you've got like this laggy internet and you know And again kudos to Thomas. He was on holiday the poor guy. He's not even at his home He was on holiday. I was like, come on. Let's do the interview and he's like, okay Yes, yes, whatever you need Lewis is very nice very polite gentlemen very nice guy So we're kind of learning and one day we will get the the in-person one day I will come to you Steve something will happen. We'll see yeah Something will happen. We'll definitely will But yeah that interview was a lot of fun. I mean it was always good to get some experience. I don't really feel Yeah, I feel like it like you said if people know what they are they're getting into with us And what what the we're kind of building here, and that's great. So But other than that Let's see what else has been going on with you anything anything new or Interesting not a lot. No, like this week.  Yeah, okay doctor. I could see you so I had the the neurological check from the doctor and she thinks it's fine I'm still like a little bit like Sometimes I can be very absent-minded and I think also that's what comes over in the the interview We did with Thomas. I'm still a bit off with the the pixies at times. So well, that's completely understandable In an easy, you know, it's not yeah, I'm just taking it easy. So it's been pretty easy week Not not too much going on just getting ready for Christmas Christmas here in Estonia, and I guess that's gonna be our topic. So What we're doing for Christmas. Yeah, it's it's minus eight outside today. We've got a fresh few inches of powder outside It's it's cold as fuck. It's beautiful. It's I bet it's beautiful, but yeah, beautiful.  I had some Family come in town earlier for Christmas and they came and stayed and we did some things and It's celebrated at the same time they came from miles away My daughter had a nutcracker performance that she had to do and so that was Oh She was she's six years old. So she had rolls like a Mouse and then a late mouse. It was pretty funny. She was really into it. So she was that and then Sugar from sugar and spice that like a sugar Box that came out and danced. It was really fun and cute. So family came out for that but the weather was in insanely warm for us in Virginia and That's right on the coast of the eastern united states. I'm about two to three hours inland and It's it was 60 plus degrees the weekend, which is Fahrenheit. So that's that's pretty mild weather Normally it should be half that 30s and cold here I definitely no signs of snow yet, but I'm hopeful that something will come. I'm sure this year because I wanted to actually get into There's a snow ski lodge that I used to work at as a teenager and it's about 15 miles from my house now and I wanted to go back this year and try that out So there's some are you leaving you some? Yeah, no, I live in the mountainous area and the there's a peak of A mountain again right down 15 miles from here and there's a big resort that's been there for a long time and you have stories about even When I was a teenager and worked there that was pretty wild. My dad was actually the lift manager And I was I think I was like 17 and so that was that was a trip because yeah, it's just I had 17 You're like, whoa, this is awesome because I'm at the ski park, right? That seems cool and It the part that uh, and then my dad was like everybody's shift boss And so it was all a bunch of college kids also there's About a half a dozen campuses within 30 miles of where I live just there's a real big college And then there's five other smaller universities that are private But they also a lot of those kids stay in town and go work for a season and the holidays Up there at the mountain. So yeah, that'll be interesting to go back and hang out at this year Um, what was your what was your job when you were 17? It wasn't even I'm gonna push it It didn't do a skiing so I got on and they were like, we're gonna put you at the tubing park So do you know what tubing is like so you get all you got the inflatable inflatable donut it was an inflatable donut tube and They made these special slopes on the mountain That you could ride and get on these tubes And and ride down them and people loved it because again anybody can tube it takes some skill to stand there in those uncomfortable skis, but anybody can go put on Snow gear and go out and tube and have a great time and had these special lifts that you would Sit on the tube and then you just throw out your Hook from your thing like a lasso you give it to me. I was one of the guys that was one of the jobs Like you had somebody hand you their tube and you'd hook it on this thing and this lift would pull them up to the top of the Slope. Oh, you're at the bottom. Yeah. So well, that was one of the jobs So you'd switch around in the jobs.  So the naturally it's supposed to taper up a little bit So your tube comes down and starts slowing down as it goes up And then and then you can get out up here on top and if it keeps going like 20 feet past that's when you hit the net and the the the Hay bale inside that was in the net. So it's like a pillow in a net and then the fence and then the cliff So one day we got out there and it had just been ice cold, you know down to zero and And everything was frozen over iced and that was always the worst because if you got on a tube You got your momentum going that was when you would start hitting Close to those safety bags because you go. Yeah, well, you would go fast. There's no speed slow down nothing There's no way to slow it down.    Just I was knocked out and yeah, and then I woke up in the little shack And they were like here steve have some hot cocoa Uh You don't have to worry about working too hard the rest of the day. I was like, where am I? What just happened I've got shell shock. I don't know what happened. So yeah It was that was a nightmare. So you want you got clipped on the Yeah, I got clipped on the shins like I turned around a perfect timing got clipped in the shins And it literally made me go head over heels like I was so quick and then Uh, because you're on the ice. Oh, yeah, it was all ice. So that was that was uh, that was like my most memorable experience I think I only worked that job again for one One like month or something when I was in town Was that like the good old days though where you're like, oh you slipped and you got a concussion?  Come on.  Get out there. There's no idea of like a caution can come later Care Nothing serious that happened. I don't think but I never got checked. Maybe that's what's wrong. So that result is still there So is it still possible like today? Yeah, yeah, the tubing. I've already looked it up. You can still go tubing in the tubing park. So if When I go, yeah, I'll definitely look it back at it and see if it's if they've changed it Any I bet that I bet they you got to take some photos They've changed.   I could just it was It it must have been like I don't know.  So that's that's kind of like the feeling we had that day It was a busy day and it was icy and it was going to be Ruthless. So it would be good to know like what's changed in whatever the 20 plus.   You're in america and free.  That's what it is Free to do your own things That is a nice thing about america for all its oh, yeah, it's bad. It's like I like that that bit is So, yeah, that's that's something i'm looking forward to this winter. Um, I've got Uh A lot of things I did the that's the cool thing about where I live now is there's a lot more Outdoor stuff to kind of do Uh, so i'm gonna i'll be excited to for spring and things like that, of course once the cold cold goes away I'm thankful that it's not negative anything here. Oh, yeah That sounds awful now. I just can't imagine the heating how the heck do you I mean what tip how how warm could you even keep your place there I okay as a an australian person. I also had that question when I first arrived.  No, it turns out that these people have learned something called insulation Apparently it's a thing.  She's like nah, but the heater it's gonna cost too much and it costs too much Insulate have you heard about insulation mom?  So it's all if you're surrounded by just this freezing cold you learn We have such technologies also solar is very big here.  Yeah And uh, here it's like totally not everyone goes naked. My parents came to austonia Yeah, everyone goes like it. My parents came to austonia.  Yeah and the conversations you have Even at my local gym, there's a local gym and I go there and there are a few guys We're just sitting around Dare I I would not offend their beautiful hilarious um and and like you say it is different depending on the culture my wife when Uh when we met she was actually in her last year Of teaching so she went and did the the abroad program where you can teach english in japan And she did that for three years And then I met her on a when she came home for a wedding trip On her final year and but anyway, she uh She lived over in japan again and in a very small community and they would go to hot springs, you know outside And she said yeah, that was the culture for everybody to go Go naked right and and so this was but hey like we're talking about 20 You know something years ago Over that long probably now you had 20 25 years ago. So she was saying that So in the culture that they were there there with the uh the ladies It all admit so if you had trimmed or like a shaved Uh A pubic area that you that meant that you were in trouble or like being shamed or something Like it was a shame thing for like your family like you did something wrong And Oh, so that's how and you're free to the world there everyone could say and then like if you're not then you'd have like She said like everybody would just have huge Bushes yeah, and unless you and so great forests Yeah, but then she laughs because she talked to people in other areas and they said oh, that's not part of like, you know That's not part of this thing. So it might have just been in the small. I'm saying she was in like the small mountainous Community that they had Not very many people like less than a thousand and she would have to spend two days traveling just to get to The tokyo airport or something to you know get back to the united states So yeah, that's kind of interesting thing about cultural bathhouses It is it's uh and now now it seems fine now now it's okay because now after a while you're like I think it's maybe for all our international friends.  Look. I was I always thought it was fascinating I remember growing up and there were always rumors that you could see like naked people just on the news In other cultures like the nightly news would have certain cultures would have like topless news or something and Uh, we just were baffled by the idea of that and here. Yeah here the during the 80s and 90s It was like advisory everything. No, you can't see anything. No so now During the 90s in australia through the 80s and 90s. There was like a That was before the before cable before we even had cable We just had the free-to-wear like the five six channels of whatever local stuff and there was one and australians will know What i'm talking about it's called sbs and it was meant to be uh international material more artistic more creative stuff But it was a whole channel And they would have news from around the world and you could watch some weird movie from korea or something We never knew it and you kind of as a kid You'd knew if you watched sbs after 11 if there was a movie on there was probably boobs in it And uh, that was we were just like oh, that's what they do in other countries. They're really fine with their boobs. I I guess that's so hard I think every 90s australian kids and mervin just staying up watching sbs to see some boobs That they and it's cultural. Yeah, they got they got the ratings kick, you know, they were like What's this ratings kick coming forward 11 o'clock? It's every prepubescent Teenager wanting to see something on tv for free um, but we were we were talking about uh different areas now. I have uh spent a few Christmases in japan myself I've been four times. I think something like this over the last whatever six years because we haven't been able to travel for a While and originally I started to go to japan due to my job. So i'm an entertainer. I'm a stand-up. I'm a host And you work a lot typically we were before pandemic working a lot during november and december There's parties. There's christmas parties. There's company parties everybody needs a host everybody needs a comedian everybody needs some entertainment So we're working working and it would be a very intense period Sometimes multiple gigs a night. That's very fun to uh, you're doing a stand-up in some restaurant for one company And then an hour later you're down the other restaurant doing it and it's really exciting And so then the christmas would end and especially then when I didn't have a girlfriend Well, maybe sometimes when I did I would just be like, ah, what do I do now and So what I ended up doing was going sort of once my last gig was done Maybe around the 20th or 19th of december or something. I would fly to japan And not only was that great for a million retro gaming regions If anyone knows heart off the stores, they're just unbelievable. It's an amazing place to learn and pick up all retro stuff, but Japan does not shut down for western christmas They there is a thing and they know it is christmas and it's a christmas and kind of like how you know, but they don't stop I don't understand the culture and maybe someone in the comments can help me out I'm because i'm not very detailed with the culture But they like christ like whatever our whatever christmas day is they don't stop they keep going They may take half a day off on new year's day But I found just again from my observations that was it so after working after so keep in mind I'm performing i'm a stand-up.  I want to go to the place where there's no christmas And you would go to japan and everything's open and it's normal and there's no shut down between christmas and new year and Not only uh, they they don't celebrate uh christmas in japan the same way we do but there's a really Interesting cultural aspect that on christmas japanese people eat fried chicken Really that's their thing honestly that's their thing and you can order fried chicken They have many 7 11s and uh lawson and like these sort of convenience stores You almost can't go to blocks anywhere in tokyo without coming across some sort of convenience store now first of all each of them serves fried chicken 23 hours a day there's about an hour from 4 to 5 a.m. Where you can't where they're cleaning the thing They always have fried chicken and if on christmas you make your order to the 7 11 For whatever you want for christmas day.  She never said anything about fried chicken I'll ask her if they did anything like that in her area. She said that uh They were more they would celebrate more like you say at new years Than christmas and christmas really wasn't a thing they would give more gifts at the new years And they wouldn't give gifts. Sorry wouldn't give gifts on christmas actually Uh at all really so and she had to go back to work too like you say and so it's not yeah, right? It's a regular yes a normal day and I often talk to you about this stuff because as americans we have Different holidays that aren't celebrated obviously in other areas for example At Thanksgiving we just went through and I used to also work in construction And I used to talk to people about These other holidays that were supposedly in existence and Um One of them I always thought was funny was sinko de mayo and I don't think that is a real holiday It's just a day for like beer to be drank. I'm not positive on that like americans Yeah, yeah, it's just like all of a sudden it's been put together as a drinking beer day But I don't know if anybody can enlighten us in the comments on that I just seem to remember that one is coming up a lot as being like no, that's not really anything we celebrate um But there's also a um a reason why So the question then becomes why do japanese people love fried chicken? That's the american thing right christmas It's maybe right. Why is that it's an ode to america or something fried chicken and market it in a way So the story the story goes and again i'll i'm far reaching on cultural things If anyone knows more, please write in the comments But the I the the legend goes that there was the back in the day and I want to say 70s 80s This sort of thing there was the guy who's trying to bring kfc chicken to japan He's an entrepreneur. He's trying to do that trying to bring you know, he's like well americans love it We might be able to get going They open up the the kfc store and no one's buying this stuff right japanese people that don't understand it They don't know what this is It's maybe they've heard something american about it, but I don't really know And this japanese bloke the manager of kfc the og manager of kfc in japan He's scratching his head and he starts to think well turkey chicken He starts to kind of build this connection and so their whole marketing campaign was americans eat Fried chicken at christmas turkey fried chicken right they he took it a Thanksgiving.  It's sweet turkey. It's the way the turkey. Thanks. Fried chicken got established through Through that that that bounds. It was his sort of hail mary marketing campaign. Yes american people This is what american people eat fried chicken at christmas. So you should too And now it's a thing now and i'm sure there's much more to it someone else That's awesome, but i i'm happy. I ate my fried chicken at christmas. I'll do the cultural thing Yeah, I bet it was really really good too if they were just trying to sell it on that day, especially I bet it was really good.   That's all this dude was trying to do He wasn't necessarily trying to change the country, but he inadvertently did that In his quest to sell fried chicken. I love those little kind of weird stories. That's really interesting I had I had uh heard that there's a similar kind of story for the potato in like france where The original potato was was viewed as like poisonous and trash food Originally and somebody was trying to get people to eat the potato and he was running into the same problem Nobody would want the potato no matter how he cooked it No matter how I proved that it wasn't it was safe to eat and plentiful Um The only way he eventually got people interested in the potato is he would grow fields of the potatoes And then he he he stopped selling the potatoes and he put guards around the potato farm And he hired the guards and he said look I want people to steal these potatoes So if you see them see them stealing the potatoes, don't do anything to them Just you just guard the potatoes like there's something valuable And that's eventually how he got the potato to be interested by the french public as a food source as opposed to Just it being trash is literally by Putting guards around it And that small town eventually uh came around to the potato. So that's and that's another little myth There's a lot more to that story Uh because like you said it was all psychological and like a marketing idea really for him to try to sell potatoes in the end But yeah, that's cool. I have a question for you as an american then Okay, while we're on this food topic and where foods come from and so forth I watched this I watched this documentary the other day. What do I know on the history channel, right? Here I am on the edge of europe watching american history and the history channel And they said that the hot dog was basically invented and Popularized by a bloke called nathan down at coney island in new york Have you heard of this story? What do you think? I don't know that's probably It's either one of those Legends to try to sell nathan's famous hot dogs and maybe that's why they're called nathan's famous I've never really heard this story because I know they address that in the documentary that he just said In a very american the most american move ever which is i've created something new I'll say i'll just write famous on it and then you know a lot of these things too If we went back and looked it could be that it's that or it could be that you know He saw somebody else's idea and just marketed it to the next level like the Like the zuckerberg the zuckerberg facebook thing where he took it from those twins In uh in college so you know it could be either one of those honestly I've never heard that but that's uh that sounds that sounds like it would be Yeah, a history channel thing sure And I love this that that's also like as from the outside like that's the american way Like it's like oh some some guys saw something and then he took it and marketed it better It's not viewed as I again i'm reaching out here in american culture as a bad thing like no he was just smarter Oh, no no no like yeah, he was just better at it. He was just he's the one who generally the idea not not The idea that you can market something it depends how you market it right if you're uh If you're trying to scare people into stuff and things like that that's viewed differently than Trying to say ah, you know, I brought this hot dog But there are things and there are tales of food that are true So for instance The lobster the lobster and main lobster is famous now like probably worldwide main lobster northeast But that loaded that show but so originally Main lobster and lobster in general was considered garbage food And it was what it was done is it was collected because they were there was so much of it They would collect it and feed it to prisoners And uh with the the thing was is they would cook it and then just let it sit, you know, and then serve it and it wasn't until They started the train there was a train line that went up and down through the northeast that Into main to like new york and philadelphia that had uh Use that train started picking up fresh live lobsters and they started cooking them live from live Right then fresh and serving them on the train And then that's what turned that in from literally something that nobody wanted to eat At one point and was considered like trash for prisoners to A decadent luxurious food and it was all because they figured out not to cook it and let it just sit out like You know like some other meat and then it was just the fact they could cook it fresh and they turned it into a whole Delicacy and now it's an entire industry around it Dang that's a good one. I haven't had a lobster for years. I grew up in a small coastal village of australia It's called nelson bay. It's about an hour north in new castle If anyone if anyone's watching if you've ever watched that Australian tv show home in a way It's just like that without the bad actors. It's just this idea like blue golden sands and blue sky and uh, yeah, we we could go down to the local Fish co-op or whatever where they had fish market and they the fish would come in And then you would go down in the afternoon and get the latest stuff and I don't think I absolutely That's one of the things I didn't understand as a kid Like I just grew up where there's amazing seafood and some forest I can go through and I'm going to climb this mountain And then I'm going to literally go spear fishing And I had no concept that that wasn't a childhood for almost anyone else in the world Uh and and that it's almost reason. Well, why does lewis live on the cold edge of europe here in astonia? Because I decided that the dolphins in the golden sand wasn't good enough for me I had to go traveling the world and it turns out nowhere is quite like that. Yeah, here. I am never the less That's cool. Yeah, that's what uh Even yeah, there's I think people underestimate a lot of things you could still do in some areas. I'll let the people forget Um So if you're more into nature and things that's kind of one of the reasons I came back here too Is to try to get back into some things that I had not done in a long time I there's a lake like where I lived, but I didn't it wasn't really um I never really went on it to do anything like fishing however here I like to go on the river and do fishing like I know on a smaller boat and just Drift and things. Did you take that boat? Oh, yeah, I've got actually I got a new boat too My dad went out and got somebody you know, it's winter so then he's like, oh, it's winter We're going to find the best deal on a canoe. So now I've got two of these things in the backyard So that one's gigantic, but at least it won't sink because it's plastic So next time I hit is it big enough to put a outboard? Yes, yes a little motor on it and um, that'll be that'll be helpful because yeah last time we went way too far Too long it turned dark and almost sank. It was a nightmare At the end. Oh, I think I broke a bone or two in my foot too I was in pain for like six or eight weeks afterwards just in my foot. It was funny Did you have brutus in the way or the boat? I don't know why I mean to see I always have this feeling of disaster when I do these things with my dad And uh, and so I was like I'm putting my cell phone I'm leaving it in the car because I know I'm like I'm like we're gonna get soaked this boat's gonna sink And unfortunately, yeah most of that kind of happened and we got back after dark and yeah I was like wow at least I didn't bring my phone so I didn't have to worry about losing it or getting it wet, but it was uh Did you oh yeah caught tons of fish that was the good thing is we caught so many fish that at least it wasn't um You go out there and nothing happens caught tons of fish What is it like uh fish that you would cook or smoke you could but I just release them they're they're mostly small fish and You know like the big ones would be Foot foot and a half So not I mean you could eat some of them because they're like trout and things like that but most of them you just throw back and and Just keep going. It's really cool though because you can see Um, you catch them there mostly. Well, here's what I did I was trying to fish with this lure and I wouldn't catch anything for like the first hour and I We stopped over on the rocks I think to take a leak or something and I looked down and there's a huge crawfish, you know, looks like a little lobster And they're all over in the river So I just was like screw this I grabbed the crawfish and I put him on the hook And then I was like I'm just fishing with this and I threw it out and in like Three minutes later I caught my first fish with that so I was like awesome And then I switched back over the lure and started going and caught a ton of fish And the cool really interesting thing is it's so clear the water in the river that you can see even the deep parts You can see all the way down to say 12 feet or something So you can watch the fish move and you can cast towards them and you can see when they see your bait and they're chasing it And then you watch them go up and hit it and it's that's really that's a lot of fun to sit there and watch them You know, like you see sometimes you can see them so you aim over there and then watch them chase it The jig and it's it's a lot of fun Doing it that way to get that's great to get on your jig. Do you need to pull it so you can? Yeah, I like well can I it's it's like a little flashy thing It looks literally like a Christmas ornament funny enough and it just spins and they run up and just swallow it and Then they'll start to move and then yeah, you can just reel you're reeling slowly to keep the Lure moving and spinning and being flashy because if you stop the lure will stop And then the fish will just stop and turn around and go away But if you keep it moving it doesn't look right So it doesn't look like enticing to them if it just stops So it's only if it's keeping moving so you got to get them Sometimes you'll move too fast and run out of line, you know So it's but it's it's a lot of fun fishing like that and then yeah, it's just more for the aspect of doing it Than to keep it and eat them you could but It's a it's a funny thing in the river path is something that was traveled Like for hundreds of years through north america for trade, you know before they were cars. This was the path people took They would the river goes one direction. So they would walk with uh I think what they would do is they would get all their goods together and they would build a wooden raft And they'd literally go down this low lying raft either kind of Riding it or if they had to get in lower waters pushing it and walking next to it And they would do this all the way up to a trade point they'd get to the trade point And since the river is only one way you're not going to go so that's when they would literally get out after a couple months and uh Take the raft apart sell that wood And everything they brought with them and then walk back along the riverbed back to You know two or three states away by foot and that was a trade route And that so you could still go down there because it's not owned by anyone So you can still get in these entry points and actually go down this this waterway and um There's a few of them that are like that still around here. So that's really fun and cool to think about historically That yeah, that's great. That's that's what people are used to do like because Exactly my question was going to be steve the river goes one way.  After that, but it was just we walk home. That's it.  It's hard when you're not trying to Burn your jacket to keep warm one night or something. It's like so Interesting stuff there a little bit of interesting As a kid I used to um because I grew up sort of where I grew up There's on one side there's surf beaches and it faces the I want to say Atlantic Ocean. I think it is or is that the pacific? It's the pacific it faces the pacific ocean so great surf beaches, but there was also a big harbour essentially And inside then you could do some fishing and right near the headland right near where the harbour would exit into the ocean I would go down there and catch squid or calamari As people might know it and it sort of looks like an octopus. It's a little bit different to an octopus more or less the same thing And something people might know about squid is well squids ink That's the the thing that the squid is known for that it it has a sort of an inky substance in it And when it is threatened it will spray that That ink out to try to disorient the enemy or whatever that is So I would use these these lures and they would look like a a shrimp and they would be weighed So they would look like a shrimp is a prawn we say in Australia going through the water And then you pull one in but the the thing is that when you'd pull him in Because he's a squid with the ink when you get him close what you've got to do Is then knock him against the rocks a few times and then each one of those would he would Like a teenager a teenager on four challenges Just get it out of his system and then you could pull him in and then you've got Calamari squid which you could make calamari from Yeah, I'm just making calamari. That's crazy. Yeah, I never thought about that getting fresh calamari like that That's awesome Yeah, man, I it's it's only frozen stuff up. Yeah, well, that's I've had it in restaurants that I that's about it I've never even seen it in really stores or anything here very much. Wow because it comes it's a chew Yeah, yeah, it's mostly basically is a tube chopped up and fried battered and fried and then they make the ring That's how they they do and then some of them will have the little tentacles on them still, you know Yeah, sometimes you can also cook the tentacles on the end So I had no concept that that was an idealic upbringing. Yeah, right?  Just take it for granted, right? Yeah Quarterfucking squid now. I want to leave this is boring Yeah, now now uh, zuckerberg's gonna have everybody putting on Oculus and going oh, I want to go squidfishing now. Oh, let's experience the experience of experience. It's like come on, man All right, but yeah, so let's uh, let's jump over here I wanted to talk about some stuff here just real quickly with you it being, you know, the end of the year now Um pretty much and I have some interesting Statistics, I thought I'd go through If that's all right with you from youtube, yeah produce production stuff This isn't going to be like, you know money made or anything like that. That's not really, uh Any That's not really if any significance. I would say if it was I would even add it in here, but um, yeah So if it's all right with you, I could talk about some of the things that let's go through it I actually accomplished. Yeah, like the things that have happened What's been done? Let's do it. Let's hear about it. For example, we've gotten um 85 total And I actually produced another one. So it's probably 86 total videos for the year 2021 which is 86 I mean that's about Six almost it's almost right at my goal of six a month and um Um, I mean it's about one and a half a week or so and then so but out of those 14 of them were exclusively For patreon. So that's not something anybody else, you know, if you're not on the patreon, you wouldn't have seen those But those were just behind the scene there's an exclusive shop tour That I've been doing for almost a year now and then outside of that So it leaves over 72 productions and then of those I only did four shorts Which I thought was interesting youtube's always trying to tell me to do more shorts. I do want to One one every one of recorder and I don't I don't know. I mean to me. It's kind of like silly I guess if I wanted to do that I could go start a tick tock account So that left uh 60. Oh, yeah, I want to see steve doing a little yeah, right That's sure people care about that 68 videos like that were production level Uh nine total podcasts with 10 hours of content there Went to one convention this year We saw the yeah one yeah, so that was good. I did not get to do that last year I didn't do any live streams this year, which was kind of interesting But maybe we can do something about that in 2022 And then um, I think we got so yeah, that was just an interesting amount of information. I did have some stuff too that for 2022 to look forward to obviously podcasts are here for Hey, I've really enjoyed it so far. So I think that we can probably say If we're both around creating content in 2022 we'll be sticking with our Our podcast here because I've been enjoying it. I don't know. I know that I think you have to Oh, look steve there's something I want to tell you. I'm not ready to get into this night. Sorry So that's it. Yeah, that's it. This is this is the farewell forever too. So it's either that or that So maybe we could do and I you know, we've talked about Hopefully doing this show a couple times live also. So that'll be something over 2022 to look for I love that. So, um, yeah, I'd love that. I'd love to do it live. I'd love, um We'll discuss which channel should well. Yeah, I think it's fine to switch it up some people to be there some questions Switch it up the questions from people are really their input and I've thought so much about questions and how to Help people ask better questions. How can we help people more considering? We're talking about a friggin television like how to it's very hard If you've got a problem with your television It's very hard to express that in text how to get that information across and we want to help people But it's you know, it's hard to just do it when you're writing a comment and to find all those little things So we're improving. Yeah, it is. It's much easier to have a conversation Because sometimes I even got messages today from a patreon member who is asking about um Some things not working right on his comment or monitor and sends a picture, but at the same time It's like I need a lot of context too where he said it was working fine When a minute and it's not working the next minute and it's like something happened in between there So unfortunately you kind of have to go back and be like storyteller And try to backtrack and then figure out, you know, like what went wrong in this Things that happens. I do know that we've been I've been getting a lot of questions on some of the Playbacks and like where I am located again I told you earlier that I'm in a place called Harrisonburg, Virginia And it's in again the united states. So if you have any questions You can look that up. It's a pretty big city and Uh, so also all my repairs at this point if you're not like somebody local Or a contractual business like an actual business a museum or something all my other stuff is done Pretty much through the patreon page at this point Uh for that So actually that's a good question. Someone asked me this week like how do I talk to steve? What's his process? How does he evaluate the the situation and provide context? So what is so straight up straight up? First of all, what is the best way for someone? I've got a monitor. I think steve might want to repair it. What's the best way to contact? Yeah, so the first thing is is there's a lot of people already in the patreon system So that's I can't just stop they keep me busy where I've got Six plus weeks of work usually backed up. So that's generally a line and The way but but if you have like something that you need just questions on then I get constantly messages DM to me And I respond back of course as quick as possible for patreon members And that's a lot of interaction And the thing is is beyond that it's um It's it's like this show that's that's the biggest thing if you if you don't want to go down those routes of doing that And that's fine. Then this show would be the best chance because um At the same time like it's this is this is you know, this is my job now And we'll talk a little bit more about that's actually funny way to segment into why this is what I do for a living from now on But yeah, it's literally So I that's that's like when I'm actually troubleshooting and stuff. That's the work I'm doing. So I I'm trying to Support my business at one point one portion doing it that way, but it's also like I'm so busy That's how you get into really the line or again There's always the option of this you can send me messages if you're uh, you know on some social media And I do sometimes respond to those when I have time and I have extra time and I'm just thinking Hey, I want to answer some questions I do that sometimes from time to time but As things keep growing and going I don't really know that I'll have that a lot of time to be dedicated even to that anymore So unfortunately, I think the two best ways are obviously to go through the patreon page or Send us questions and we will address them as best we can here And of course during those live shows it will be even easier to interact.  I'm not sure how that whole european mailing system goes So that so that we can get you guys stickers too, but literally so here's what I did over the last Five days. I or well it's been like eight days now. I opened a merch shop with uh on the youtube channel So if you look down and they're gonna have banners of you of merchandise for Retro tech and there's a lot of different things on there, but if you go there, um, there's stickers and there's also You know other things and First off if you do that in the next five days and you go through and order anything They'll give you 15 off since it's a new store It just gives you that deal So if you go there now for the next five or six days, you could still get 15 off But here's two of the stickers that i've got and i'm giving these away I've made an announcement in the video for this month's patreon exclusive video But i'm giving them away if you're in the united states I've only had About five percent of the patreon members contact me and collect the stickers So I know there's more people out there if you listen to this and you want a sticker just dm me and i'll get you one And free of charge nothing i'll post it and everything So that's the yeah, that's a good way to talk about those two things the merch shop and that, uh Free stickers let's talk about those things. They're both interesting. First of all the stickers Yeah, let's do it dude just send me a box Yeah, and i'll work out because there's a lot of people in europe that want them and for me to send them individually from A european address and i have somebody else volunteer too from uh fed from france and the patreon So, uh, we'll get something done where you know, we'll send it over and uh, because we've already uh with my My work that I do here in astonia managing this comedy group We have our merch we're a little bit different in that we typically create like we do it the the hard way Which is to get the merchandise made and then sell it Which you might say is the the idiot's way to do it these days But we have very precise comedians who exactly very precisely want to know exactly what thing has their name on it So we've learned that we our style is that we get it made locally and then we ship it out But I see your way that it's through a company and it's made on demand and that makes a lot of sense for your Your business and the way you're doing it But um, yeah, if there's a box here, I could easily distribute them around mainland europe Uh, just the letter would be extremely cheap. So I think we could do that for almost no postage as well Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so I had to put you to work, but that's kind of what No, let's do it. I love it. That's a great idea some stuff too. I send out a couple stickers.  Because we have dvds only because it's like it's something physical They only cost like seven bucks these days When we're even for the sale because I mean streaming is great everybody wants a download everybody wants their netflix everybody wants that But the sometimes some people particularly when they're at shows they want a memento They want something physical. They want to say hey, I did that So mostly our dvds were sold at shows Where the comedian could sign it for you and then that was really all this actually most of the time the comedian would sign it If we send it Um, so it's not so much like oh, I'm buying a 480p file on a weird disc No, well, I'm buying that thing that the artist made the artist signed it and it's more of an experience rather than just Buying a dvd of the off the shelf. So yeah, we've logged a few items In our time and yeah, typically we put a sticker pack in with every order So for all the different podcasts we and we'll throw in some stickers. Yeah, and everyone everybody likes stickers Well, this is a great chance. So we've gone almost an hour now We can finally jump into probably will be the thumbnail topic on this christmas special Wait, we're gonna do it. I'm gonna get myself. Yeah, go for it. Go ahead. I'm just gonna like Set this up a little bit while you go go for it. All right. I gotta be yeah, so as we've been Lewis and I've been going over past work experiences So today I have a very special Letter to open and we'll wait of course for Lewis to get back with his beer before we do this but just so you know I have transitioned to basically doing CRT work full-time and that includes the video productions the podcasts and of course maintaining and restoring CRTs that I either find and then Resell to the community or ones that are brought to me by members of the community so If you're listening and you've brought anything by or you've been considering it and Really just want to say an extremely big thank you to you for this year. It's not been an easy year There's been a lot of hard work and a lot of things have had to happen behind the scenes And that's kind of what we're going to talk about in a second But it's been a whirlwind. There's a lot of people that have helped me out And I can't say enough thank yous to them too that have helped by offering advice and working together with me So that's just kind of where We are where I'm at now So again, I told and you Lewis we were talking about my where I'm located and stuff that we've that this is yeah This is what I've been doing full-time and as a cool memento now that you're back. I've set it all up We've got here a FedEx FedEx federal express and we're talking about the time Steve was fired on Well, this is technically the day after Christmas So I'm going to try to get this all the way up here into the camera So we can see it's a document. You had a document delivered to you It says it's a December 26 2019 That's the day they sent it. That's the day they FedEx overnight. This was overnighted to me again the day after Christmas and So this was my old Job was to be an insurance agent. I know that's really exciting and stuff Not I spent 10 years of my like last life as an insurance agent and this was the company I worked for I'm not going to just say the company's name because I don't care. You'll probably show You could look at that And see who it was but I will give you the letter and it was kind of an interesting situation So again, I had been with this company independently contracted had my own agency business for Over nine years and things really started to change with the structure of the parent company, you know, like Halfway me starting with them So I was really fired up to work hard and do things the first half of that time and then the company And then the company after that started putting more roadblocks in They they were acquiring bad businesses that would then cause us trouble And and and then they would say well since we caused so much trouble. We need to pay you less And so it was constantly getting worse and worse and worse to a point where Everybody that I had worked with had either sold their agencies to another person or Had again gotten this kind of a letter at some point the So let's just open the letter and see what it says here And the reason I have this copy is because the company freaked out I was out of town I usually go out of town for Christmas And I was avoiding their phone calls because the writing was on the wall kind of again There was a there's a union and the union was putting out letters saying hey the company sent out 2 000 copies of this letter Six months like before I got it. So it was in waves. So I was like wave three of this And so what what you it's 2019. So this is right So this is like the winner right before, you know, the world went crazy. You know, COVID crazy. So And at this to put everything in perspective though, I'm trying to paint a picture of who Steve is at this time So, yeah, this would have been two years ago. Yeah, so I had been doing this would have been like I would have had half my my youtube is like half This like to almost two years ago. So Right on two year anniversary of this Uh would have been when this was going on. So, yeah, I was doing both. I was doing Kind of just some repairs and videos and then still working in the insurance business With my group my core Segment of clients that I had built up. This was a business. I built up. I didn't go in and buy it I had to like borrow money and then pay all that off through working and then started to have the business towards the end Uh, and so you're you're you're locally dealing with these companies in the visual helping insurance packages And essentially the package is coming from the bigger company and you're And I was I was providing I was the only person that could provide that's their brand of Insurance and I couldn't sell any other companies. I had an exclusive agreement with them And uh, that was really it and then So we've got the letter here and I'll read this to yeah. Yeah, I try to set this up. I guess Um, obviously I was still reliant on that business at this point now I was making some money off retro tech and and um, It was still not very significant though. It's like, yeah, it's early days It's just and it's just more of a fun passion thing that was um, you know a hobby that There was some potential with and uh, but anyway, I got this letter and again, I kind of knew this was coming Um, and it's the reason I I didn't really know when it was coming. They kept saying Before this all happened.  I said, what does that mean? What does get my act together? How do I do that? She's like, oh, there's no specific way And I was like, well, that just means I'm screwed then there is no it's like It's a sales job. So it's like here sell this much and you'll be fine. No, there was no answer to it So you knew you were screwed. They just said, oh, I couldn't give you sales So that and I was okay Okay, whatever. So I I was like, I know this isn't this isn't gonna be good So I uh, I I sat there and she was gone and then It was the December that I got in 2019 I started getting a call from a new lady who was Taking her position and she's like, I have to meet with you. I have to meet with you And I'm like, it's Christmas. It's the week before Christmas. My office is closed.  I can meet with you after the holidays And they wouldn't even wait till then. So they literally That was christmas eve. They went back and wrote me this this This lady lisa wrote me this letter Dated It's kind of funny. She put the date of 12 27 on the paperwork But as you saw from the FedEx she wrote it from the 26 so that it would be arriving on my hands On the 27th. So she wrote it probably the 25th the 24th. Who knows? It says Stephen Stephen Steven 12 27 2019 Your appointment agreement may be terminated on three months written notice Please be advised that the companies are here by terminating your appointment agreement on three months notice Accordingly effective 327 2020 you will no longer represent in any capacity any of the companies that are parties to your appointment agreement Oh, and then it just says some more legalese the company expects you to fill out your post termination agreements A representative will be contacting to retrieve all confidential property Um, and then they wanted to take my telephone number too.  I took my kiss the telephone. So I had my cell phone number that I had Oh on the ads and everything and stuff and then uh, which I had always paid for and it was linked to like my family account and So they were like well, we're taking that phone number and I said no you're not you can't like not take it Or you can't take it because that really wasn't in the it said if I used the number as like my personal Use before I started farmers then I could fight them on it According to my contract. It said they couldn't they couldn't demand it So I just told him I wasn't giving it to him and I didn't demand it now The funny thing was is there's a lot of legalese in there. So what basically happened is the reason um And one of the reasons you get stuck in these agreements with these big companies is they do have Like ways of enticing you into it, right? So you could see there it said you the company can Give you three months written notice to terminate you, right? So they had to so I mean it's not like the worst situation And that's kind of what it was as you get uh, they say they're going to terminate you That means you got to work three more months, but they're paying you the whole time Okay, and then so that's 90 days notice and then on top of that they had to do that They have to buy out your contract. So my contract was worth a certain amount of money Up to this point and they would have had to have paid that out after the 90 days in payments So you do it's kind of interesting, you know, you which basically that amounted to six months pay for me So you were getting almost nine months Uh of severance kind of for getting knocked off this job by them just basically cutting you and that's for Only way they could not do that is if they had some kind of cause like legal cause or Ethical cause to get rid of you. Otherwise they had to do that. So that's why I was never really that You know eager to just always be worried about being fired or something.  Well, and I used that I used a lot of the money And a lot of that to set myself up here where I am now And the only reason I could do all this is because of the growth of things But also because I've completely eliminated I've taken that time to pay out and everything to eliminate all my debts And have no No high obligation on anything and it's you know, that that really has allowed me the freedom to not have to worry about Not being able to or to be able to Take care of things with less money coming in if you're not spending as much Of course, I live a very modest lifestyle and things like that What are you talking about? I see the wood panel back there. That's fancy This is the real wood paneling from like 1965 It's it's warped and beveled in places. So yeah, it's it's high of the it's high of the oh wait I can actually Probably flick the camera up here so you can see my awesome ceiling. I've never fixed a little water hole up there where Something There is a hole in this In this wooden wooden basement shelter and that's it. So, um, but yeah, I thought that I don't know I don't know if that sounds interesting. Oh my gosh, like when you got that How did you work because like oh, yeah, even even though I knew it was coming?  Well, you knew it was kind of and you knew that you could look after Did you have an idea that it was like well, even if they fire me, I'm still going to get nine months. Did you know that? Oh, well, I always knew that was there because my contract I was like as long as I don't do something That they would have for cause But I did know that they didn't really see when they did during this whole restructuring thing and then when they fire That other lady left the company They actually did try to use something where I changed offices So I had an office for a period of time that I split with another agent Who was there 10 years before me. So he was a really senior agent and So I split an office with him in town and it was both our agencies in one office for the same company And uh, we had a secretary. Well one day he took a buyout He took somebody came to him and offered to buy his business out along with 10 other agents And he said I'm just selling And so he sold and I lost my office space because it was least in his name And I wasn't going to pay the same office lease space for two people, you know, take over the lease And so I was like, well, I'll just find a new spot to lease from And so I got Rid of that office and then farmers was like, well, we won't we're not approving they kept not approving offices I would submit like I have to take an office find an office a lease and then they would say well, you have to submit the lease and the Pictures of the office and then we'll have a board look over it and tell you if it's an acceptable place So they kept saying that well, well, there's other agents in your town now And we don't we don't want you to have an office in that town and I was like, well, you can't do that And they said yes, we can and the funny thing was is, you know throughout a period a company will revise their contracts They had newer contracts and in the newer contracts. I wouldn't have been able to fight them But I had an older contract that was phased out and I was able to fight them with it And they basically conceded and let me put the office where I wanted And that I knew then that that I wasn't going to be there forever because the way they treated You're the target right the way they treated me.  They don't like it So after a year and a half, they just figured they'd bite the bullet finally pay me off instead of waiting six more months Because then they would have just had to pay me twice as much So you were an independent you were running your own independent business But then they were still the company was still obliged to cover things like the office and some No, no, no, I was obliged to cover all that expense And why then why do we need their approval for exactly? That's that's what they started doing saying it's saying that they had authority over us and It was And it was funny because it was before even this it was a time nobody wants to come to an insurance office Nobody wants to go meet with the insurance agent 1973 this is internet times man. Everybody was doing that's all my business was internet or phone. It was never On the office that I've moved to Well, that was the good thing about sharing the office with the other guy My expenses were low and I never had to be there because he would always have it open But I would never be there and I would just go work from the house Answer the phone work from the computer there and then do retro tech stuff too when I wasn't doing anything So that was a really good time to be able to grow and learn things and so now Yeah, now I've kicked all that to the curb I actually did try to get with another guy for insurance for a little while right after this period and uh start again And it was just so uninspiring and uh, the guy I work the guy I worked was no the guy I worked with was a total Like android of a human.  I would be in arguments with him and I was like I just told you this And I hold and then and he would just like be robotically spitting off stuff and I'm like hello earth to I was like so I knew the right of way and it's kind of funny. I ran I you know, I left town and I told him I was doing this. He's like one day. He calls me. He's like so, um You know, you're not selling as many new policies as I thought you would and I was like, yeah Look, I'm doing this other thing now with the crt's and I just don't need it I don't need the headache and then he's like, oh, well, I mean come on meet with me I want you to stay on board and do and I was like, yeah, okay I went and met with him And I was like, look, I'm really doing this. I'm leaving. I got my debts paid off and I'm going to do this and he He was like, well, you always have a home with us and And I was like, well, you know You never trained me on how to like get get myself paid for like certain things It was like a really long drawn-out process of like telling I sold this policy I need to get paid for it There's a pain and never trained properly to do it and with insurance you get paid every time something Renews so like the policy goes into Yeah, so I had stuff that come up for renewal and I was like, so he never paid me for those like It's like a thousand bucks.  I'll send you a list of everything you have and I'll pay and continue to pay for the next two years And then like I moved up here and he's totally ghosted me And I'm like, thankfully I told him my family members. I'm like, don't go do business with this guy I was like That's only people I'd switched over. I was like just go find. I'm sorry. I'm out Go find somebody else.  So Whatever, it's like it's funny. I it's not it's not surprising from our interactions. So I tried it I'm done. Hopefully forever with the white collar crap, but the insurance is not much and I didn't know disrespect That's a hard brand hard Business to do if anybody does it Uh Is there still Steve so so fill me in on insurance because Uh, okay, so I'm living here in a country called Estonia on the edge of Europe and they pride themselves that everything is online We don't need to go to a bank. We don't need to do anything. We've got I've got an ID card I can log into every system in the country and do all the things that I need to do remotely And I almost cannot imagine Buying insurance from an actual person Rather than a website anymore fill me in and I get it. It's just my perspective Fill me in on why I would need an actual person to help me with my insurance to Keep in mind. Oh, I will from the insurance company's perspective.  You don't need Hey, you got to have the legal minimum to drive or whatever the Law states and then some people who have a lot of money a lot of assets. Sure. They should protect themselves But that's what it is to upsell you on the fear campaign and like have you but also do people do a good job where they they'll There's nothing wrong with somebody coming in and like if you want protection for your stuff or yourself Them align like that's where it is. It's like a professional consultation of me trying to align the right Policy to match what you actually need to have covered not to have too much not to have too little If something were to happen I want to make sure that you're protected and you don't lose anything And then you come up with like a company that can provide that and then Price the company will submit a pricing point for the customer So that's the reason that's like the good reason why you may want to do that and it's uh, but it's What it really is like is it's awful. You got to go and schedule You got a cold call people schedule appointments either at their business or schedule at houses Could you imagine the nightmares I've seen going into people's strangers houses? and And trying to like sell them on stuff and at the same time you're like this place shouldn't even be insured It's like a horror. It's like a hoarders.  And and all the things that I've got that bit makes sense and I'm get it like cool cool cool cool But then yeah the next bit of like you've got to go around and do I mean then that's different to active sales And I've got to actively Prospecting and I've got to find those cold calls as you even said that's I was I'm not a good I'm a good talker, but I'm not a good cold call sales. Yeah. No that takes a specific and it's not It takes a different set of skills to be able to call somebody out of the blue and get To commit to meeting and then have them actually show up. We have to show we had to pay a lot of people A lot of money to get them to be able to do that And it's something that a lot of people don't even want to do which I don't blame them And then there's a lot of laws to protect people From it. So it's not even a big It's not even a big fishing pot you're looking at but it's a it's a fine idea But the thing is they tried to take that idea of Personalized insurance stuff to the masses and that's not something the masses cares about or will be messing with The masses is not I mean if we talk about the mass of america like the the massive amount of people in america are not Don't have a portfolio to protect So you're trying to sell them on a value system where the basically the most important thing to them is going to be the price For what they what they're getting and So most people as your observation as I'm understanding most people these days can be like yeah I can look at a website select from a couple packages and I'm probably because yeah, because that's what you're going to be I mean the only time You're pretty safe with a lot of that stuff, but then I don't know it can be a cutthroat You know business where they a lot of the companies will screw people over because they'll have Exclusion clauses so you could get a normal insurance policy on your home It's going to be 30 40 pages of what it covers and what it doesn't and so it's like The it's not got any less Complicated over the years no one's really cut out the complications They're just was it difficult for you? So you're selling insurance there's a company they they offer the insurance and you're selling that to individuals Was it hard for you sometimes when? you sold a package and Someone says but I thought it covered this and the company's like oh it doesn't but they they don't think the company's bad They think you're bad because you sold. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was one lady She would I felt bad because she was from like She was from like Chicago and so she'd always uh have these Chicago like sayings that she would say that would just sound too funny to me being a southern boy And she would always call And talk about these coverage things and not being covered or some exclusion and she would always say yeah, steve This is horse hockey horse hockey and I was like what the hell this horse hockey mean Which I guess is just a funny way of saying horse yet, but that's horse hockey horse. This is horse hockey steve I when I came down there You said it would cover this and it's not wanting to cover this now that this has happened Oh, yeah, that was always awful and Right because you're trying to be a reasonable person. Yeah, it's your credibility It's your your word and so you're trying to do it But on the other end the company well, they're a company. They're conniving they're they're doing this and that They're moving around the the gray areas and so you have to sort of justify well Oh And I've run into the other situation too where your clients are trying to be shady And And it's like the client will talk to you and you do and you're like you do realize that I have to tell the company If you say sometimes I'd be like I have to tell I have to tell the company whatever you say So don't tell me anything That you don't want the company to know And then I've seen like litigation situations be determined by the most simplest minute stuff People You know people lose everything and house fires Different stuff get covered other things you can tell people that's why they have like an insurance record for people they they File stuff Normally then they file there's a history of people that will have like a filed claims And a lot of companies will just not accept you unless you've not filed a claim in a certain amount of time but Yeah, okay, but yeah, it's uh and then see I've had I've had the interesting thing too. This is another christmas thing um Where I had my house in college burned down right before christmas When I was a sophomore in college and it was crazy was finals week and it was so I was living in like Might as well have been a fraternity house with six other guys Who did nothing but drink beer and got stoned all day long? And I was the only one out of any of them Who managed to keep his grades up through all that and go to class and by the end of the semester You know everybody else was leaving the house and I remember because I packed up my stuff And I was like well, I still got finals. So I'm going to go bed and just sleep on the couch the community couch at the house and uh Watch tv and just do my finals and then come back home. So I moved all my stuff back from that house uh to my house and then I went to the first day of finals And it was a monday and my roommate was like hey, I need to talk to you and I was like, okay And he's like I didn't have a cell phone at this time. This was 2002 And he's like, yeah My uh, I just got a call from my parents that said it's your house burnt down and I was like, what?  This is your family. Yes. So this is my family I'm like my my siblings all younger than me still live there and my mom and so we uh The house burnt up all my stuff burnt up and I just remember because now I think about Uh, what I was doing when all that was happening And it was I was at that house watching charlie brown christmas on a 20 like five inch woodgrain console television that was left there on a raggedy old thrift store couch Watching that because that's all I could pick up with the rabbit ears Um and uh watching that while the house burnt down, but it was Yeah, that was a surreal experience because you find out kind of what really happens in a full loss And like the companies come out and give you money and tell you to go buy all stuff because I lost everything Everything I had burnt up from my childhood the family. Yeah all my clothes all my uh all my Video game stuff from when I was a kid prior to that Uh this would have been 2002 so anything before that that I had from growing up was burnt up in that fire And so I had to go and get basically a couple thousand dollar check for myself to buy my old toys and whatever I wanted to with it So at that point you're like I don't care about that stuff. I'm not going to spend it replacing it But I saw how that really happened and how that really went down and here's like I went to uh I would go to my professors, you know that week and I was like look I don't know how good I'm going to do on this final. I just found out my house burned down and they were all like I was like, yeah, I'm not lying and they and every single one of them was like look don't worry about what you get on this final Uh, I've I had already gotten like good grades to that point. I said if you do worse on this final Uh, we're not going to hold it against you every single one of them said it will give you the grade If you do better and it helps you we'll we'll let it help your final grade But we're not going to hold you and and so I did all that and like I was like, wow man, that would that's a pretty damn good scam So, um, but no that was honest truth and I haven't started enough Yeah, right. Yeah Burned my house down to get out of finals. No that didn't happen, but it did conveniently help me because again, I was two hours away in a different state But it was right. So you got something so you got a little yeah. Yeah, so yeah I did and then I would and this is before you'd work for insurance. So this is when I was in experiences with insurance and I had another experience later on before I got into insurance and I was still working in construction and concrete um That and that was with my original degree and he I got into an auto accident where I ran into the back of somebody and they sued me and it went like all the way to almost a lawsuit in court And I they maxed like they didn't even get really hurt But they maxed out the benefits of my policy of a hundred thousand dollars And then they wanted like 300 grand and I wound up settling where I had to pay the guy like $3,000 outside of my own pocket So that was another experience I had where um You know it made me think about insurance because that's something where I didn't have any idea I thought a hundred thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money But when you get into an auto accident and somebody says they have pains or they get hurt A hundred thousand dollars does not go a long ways at least in the united states medical bills In the american and yeah, and if you have where you're going to say you lose wages because of the time That's your hurt. So if you have somebody who makes a lot of money if you ran into somebody who's a doctor Makes five million a year.  So that was at pot is very interesting about the Litigious nature of the american system and like I mean certainly if someone if you hit me here And I had lost wages or I lost income. There's certainly recourse to do that.  You're not gonna sue it can certainly happen But it does seem like it's the norm a little bit more the norm in america like okay, I've got a lawyer He's gonna be on it. He's gonna do it Uh, why are we not like that more? No, you're lucky. You're not like that more in europe That's a terrible part. Maybe we're like that in australia. That's a terrible part of western society Is the litigious nature of everything and trying to uh make people pay for liability on things that Sometimes they're rightfully so but a lot of times it's just attorneys, you know turning basically choice. Law is arguing Law is just to make their cuts and that happens that happens more than a lot Like I used to know the statistics for this but uh because it was part of my job, but the average The average so not every instance of liability would go all the way to trial, you know, you'd have this Such this it sets up where somebody gets hurt or something happens and they feel wronged They go speak to an attorney and then that attorney contacts the other person involved And if you have insurance coverage for what happened the insurance company that you have provides an attorney for you Okay to protect basically their end because then all of a sudden they're liable for whatever the amount of money is So that's kind of like how that works and then you go through this thing ahead of time where there's Send and let huge packets back and forth Between you and the other attorney and it's all these claims where someone's like oh, I couldn't I couldn't get my pecker heart anymore because of this accident And my wife calls me a piece of trash now and that's worth 30 grand This is literally spelled out in these documents. And so I had to go to depositions on this one where that's the next step you go through beckering back and forth And then the company's like, yeah, you know, this guy's still asking for more money than we're allowed to cover So you'll have to go and continue down this road till they accept your maximum amount or They go and sue you get your maximum amount plus try to take extra from you personally like my house my cars My family my whatever not my family My but my money so We got to the depositions and again, this is small town, Tennessee So, you know the guy I hit was buddy buddies was so and so the guy was like and then you get this sleazy small town old man attorney and he's in there Representing them and it was just hours of me sitting there Going back and forth with my Attorney asking them questions them asking me questions And this real eccentric southern lawyer, you know the whole time and so i'm just sitting there I mean this is hours this is going on back and forth questioning and there's a court stenographer there So the guy who's the other attorney is on the cross from me On a table just a regular business table and he's just Taking notes taking notes the whole time and then he's like sits the notes down on the table And then as my attorney is deposing and questioning the other person He just looks like he's falling asleep sitting up this attorney And so i'm just sitting there bored out of my mind and i'm just sitting there and i'm like looking around so i'm looking like Looking at his page of notes, you know from the other type all of a sudden My attorney's just crossings are talking to this person his client and all of a sudden this guy He catches me with my eyes on his notes. He like wakes up and looks at me and he jumps up and he slams The notepad real loud in the middle of all this on the table in front of me and he says Well, why don't you just read it there then damn it? And then i'm like what and it eats in my attorney's like, whoa Settle down here. What's going on? And then he's like i need to speak with him outside one on one and my attorney's like that's not gonna happen You know like you don't get to just say i want to call time out and go talk with him And this this attorney was so fired up this old man and that's probably what cost me the extra three grand Was because he sent like right after that meeting they sent one final offer It was like $1,000 or the whole payout and i would pay him Three grand and he thought i wouldn't take it right because i had no money to at the time i was pretty broke And uh So they sent an offer with it and i said and my attorney was like look i'm not trying to tell you what to do But you might just want to take this pay the $3,000.   I'll tell you the truth It's so interesting that theater of court. It's a theater. Yeah, he found a moment to To to make it theatrical. Oh, yeah, I had to make it big like oh you did Yeah, it was and then it's all of a thing and you got to be careful Like I didn't do nothing.  What do you want? Jesus? I'm not doing anything here So yeah, so that was it. I know this happened. I know this happens all over the world Don't get me wrong But somehow is stories about american legal system are far more interesting and the way the things go round and around That's why judge judy's the number one show in america I suspect this because you american people are just much better at telling stories about Oh, yeah, and it's like And you're like, oh, what is it? Oh my god. Oh, yeah, and it's much more complicated because there's matters of law And if you actually do get into the courtroom, there's things that you think might Impress the judge and it's like that has no bearing and it's just like shut up You're gonna get contempt if you don't stop talking so It's all yeah, it's all interesting, but um But that's it man. That's the that's our uh, what do you think louis? That's our christmas special man an hour and a half here. That's a christmas special I like that story.  I love these stories. There's more I feel like there's so many more of these stories inside of you There still are but and and we're gonna start bugging you for something.  I have been Uh, but I have done the I've worked tons of jobs in my life. I um There's a there's a mcdonald's down the street from here. It's still here And I can remember I was telling my kids this to tell them a lesson I remember going into that mcdonald's and Like saying I want a job. I need a job and I want to work here. You guys are hiring And they got and then finally the hiring manager came over there and asked me to fill out an application and sat down with me And he had the strangest look on his face right at the beginning of the interview and he said Son, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we are not legally allowed to hire 14 year olds mcdonald's So please come back in two years When you're of hiring age, but I was like so eager to make some money and get out that I tried to get a job I found a couple jobs at 15, but my experiences have ranged from being fired to resigning to You know getting let go like this to Oh politics all kinds of crap Office politics not like real But yeah, so I love it. So we're almost at an hour 35 hour 40. So um, yeah, this is our christmas I like you know what I like about this steve is we came back to us just talking about stuff about us And I hope people are into that. I hope people if you you're still here. Yes, you're still here We love talking about crt's don't get me wrong I love talking about a mold I long but I love the the other stories that go around all the things that we Yeah, I think that's a great point. Yeah that that We're you know, we're that's the whole point of this show is we're gonna mix more different things Then I think the more regular structure of this is we're obviously we didn't get to him today But we will be getting to questions a lot more in upcoming episodes Um, we're building up some questions too for future things. So definitely keep sending those and your feedback. We appreciate it that's Pretty much. Yeah, we're all good. So pretty chilled here. It's uh, what have we got about 6 30 in the evening here? So I think I'll go get some some dinner soon. I got a little steak fired up for me and then and then chill out tomorrow I think I'm gonna go into our Oh, what happened to me this week was I ordered some new light bulbs for our soft boxes in the studio I ordered from amazon. I ordered them from amazon.de Which means I should pay the vat to amazon and it's done But they still ship them into estonia estonian customs said hey, this is coming from outside european union We want vat So I wrote to amazon. I said hey i'm being double charged for vat and they said oh, okay And then I got an email that said you have been refunded for your vat 10 bucks And you've been refunded for the light bulbs for 50 bucks So I've been refunded more than what I paid For the thing and then I got the email from customer support from amazon that said oh um she and the lady said I pressed the wrong button and I and I refunded you the whole thing Can you send the money back? No No, I can't send the money back.  I'm like, no, I don't care So, uh, I've got I've got the these fancy new bulbs I think I'll go into the studio tomorrow record a record a little some on camera stuff with them Uh, and then it's almost christmas. Yeah, then it's christmas time We're going to go to my girlfriend. I are going to go to uh Tartel, which is the second city of estonia. It's where her parents come from Uh, where I was staying after the accident So we're going to go back there and I'll be with the parents for a few days and come back to talon and Pretty pretty easy going and then I know that we have a big uh In between christmas and new year is a great time to do live shows in talon estonia It's a time when everyone's at home. They got nothing to do No one's thought to put on an event either like a disco or a nightclub or anything And people so we always have shows as many shows as we can between christmas and new year Because people just want to come out and do it. So we've got a really big show. It's in a theater It's a roast of one of our comedians. He's up and coming and you know, he's pretty popular So, um, yeah, I'll be doing that in between christmas and new year running that show With my colleagues and having this nice roast in a big theater and uh, thankful that we're allowed to run shows Always thankful that you know the the government and the gods the bee that let us do these things. So um Little bit of home time and a few shows and I'm happy with that right now. That's great. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun That's cool Yeah, something to do something to do roasts are always fun It is at roasts are so such an interesting thing because Um, I think also because roasts are something that are regular like I have to say regular people not comedy people, you know, I mean you've heard about, you know, roasts, you know the idea most people know what it is and um The the thing with roasts though is that you have to choose the Uh, the guest or the roast roasty whoever it is the roaster roasty roasted. Uh, very carefully the person being roasted This to me roasted because they need to um often those comedy central ones are often about like, uh, Just whoever's hot right now or whoever's that but to do a proper roast You need someone who's had a body of work And they have many years of work and you can go back to that work and you can pull that out and make fun about that and We've never done we have only done roasts For our own comedians in our group Because the comedians know one another and so they know what to roast and it's come up. It's like well, he's Someone who's popular there on the radio and they're super popular and that chick and she's the new hit chick Why don't you roast her? I mean like no, it doesn't kind of because we don't know that much Even though they're really famous. Yeah watch you're like, oh, then I got to do like 10 hours research To find that person and then and that person isn't and that we also don't know so you don't know how they're gonna React and you got to write their material because typically let's say it's the roast of I don't know Some actor person. They're not writing the script someone's writing the script for them You know, so we are like here in Estonia We don't have enough money to pay a writer to write their script So we need someone who can also write the script and it it's sort of in the reality A roast often doesn't work as well as the hollywood would make you think it does But we can make it work when it's just our comedians because we know each other.  Um, this one guy Daniel who is the subject of the roast. I essentially It sounds wrong, but I found him More than seven or eight years ago.  And i'm like, well, all right, sure, you know come and so I came and there was probably about 40 45 students there and I gave a talk about comedy and what it takes to do comedy and how it means And yeah in that class one day was this little 16 year old kid Daniel And he was 16 or 17 and he was still at school and he's like this is interesting So then he writes me and he says can you come to can I what do I do? How do I do this? And I said come to an open mic. We have open mic anyone can come and perform And he was performing with us before he could drink alcohol like we were giving him the free drinks He could get free drinks in the backstage because you don't get asked if you're a comedian. You're like, okay, you get the free drink Yeah, uh, so we were serving him free drinks in the backstage before he was even legal So that's why he thought it was cool probably right?   So you're like, oh, yeah, right, of course college age girls and you're like 17 So this was seven years ago now and this guy he's had a couple specials and he's worked on it And now it's his roast. So i'll be there and i'm very happy. It's like a nice coming of age that that so we'll do that I think the 20s. I want to say 28. I'm not sure Um here at astonia. So I'll have something to do. That's good. Yeah, awesome at least Yeah, man. Well, cool. So Thanks for listening on the main channel. Yeah, go go uh last thing go over and Subscribe to ses retro for the rest of them for from now on appreciate that go over there And uh, we'll have that, you know, the show will be on there regularly So make sure you're checked out and luis's channel Nice. All right. Well, I'll hit the I'll hit the end now. We'll stand the line. Thanks everybody. So thank you very much for watching