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 episode of the sit rep. And I have a brand new guest for you guys tonight. This is Shokie from Shokie reviews. I was on Facebook the other day. He just posted in one of our groups, a brand new video. I watched the video and I thought, I want to talk to this guy. I sent him a message and here he is. Shokie, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing pretty decent. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, that was that was very interesting with Bert's outro there at first. By the way, I do I do want to say I really dig your intro. I know that music, though, like from other from other things. But I like that like nice three dimensional intro you've got there. When I watched somebody, there was a channel I was watching Halloween and they make it like DIY Halloween stuff. And it was my intro and I was like, that's so cool. It's always like the rock and roll things. It's always funny to hear music that you use on someone else's stuff. I've I've heard at least 70 percent of the music I use in my and my stuff on other people's channels, except for my actual proper intro music, because I purchased that. So it's like that's what it wasn't a freebie of YouTube. So yeah, it's always funny to hear that. And it's so weird that, you know, there's thousands and thousands of songs that you could use and how many people will just pick the same ones. Yeah, because they're right there and they sound awesome. And they're at the top. So they're like the most popular. I mean, exactly. I mean, that's how it works. I said, I need something. I'm a heavy metal guy. I'm a rock and roller, which is funny when you're from West Virginia. People don't think that I know fits my channel. And it just it worked perfect. Most people I actually know from that area tend to prefer heavy metal. So I guess it's not as rare or you guys just need to find each other here. Like you've got a few too many trees in between, but you're actually a big group. I remember when I was in basic training, I told him I was from West Virginia. I was like, well, first off, I don't drive a pickup truck. I do not date my cousin. I do not like country music. I mean, that's that's basically been the same thing for anybody. I've known that's from that area. It's like you got to bump into Carolina to really get into that and get, you know, Virginia doesn't really seem to be that way. It seems to have that I think everybody just attributes it from. Um, you know, take me home country roads. They just assume that it's all that type of people. It's all John Denver fans. It was when my wife and I went on our honeymoon. Actually, we got married two weeks before I went to Iraq. Then when we got back, we went to Jamaica and when we landed in Jamaica and got to the resort, the band was out there in the first song they started playing was country roads. I was like, really neat take on it. Well, chat's filling up. I see Raziel, Kato. Hi, Kato. Wally. Hey, Wally, digital caveman. Wally's a new one. I don't think I've seen him before. Welcome everyone to the chat. Um, how the set rep works. Most of you know, as I have 10 questions for my guess, five for him regarding him as a transformer collector and five questions regarding him as a YouTuber. And we're going to try to keep this to an hour tonight. We discussed earlier. He's got things to do. He's an hour behind me. And then, of course, for me ending an hour's 11 o'clock and I got to get to work in the morning.   We got to go back for two more days. Yeah. Why would you have, why would you have an office Christmas party on a Wednesday unless Christmas was on Thursday or you're off until then? I mean, that makes no sense. Who would do that? I'm the third guy from the bottom. It works. I have no say in these things, but my rank doesn't.  My boss was like, let's do something different. We're like tacos. So there we go. Just build your own taco area. Exactly. That's awesome. And since I technically have the biggest office in our workspace, they set up everything in my room. So the rest of the day, I'm just there munching on nachos. Even that bad, bad, bad shape going on. I call that the collector shape. Yeah, there we go. There we go.  I'm sure you saw plenty of collector shaped people. Oh, yeah. No, we're all wearing our shirts that are one size too small. Always, they don't make them collector sized. No. And part of my problem is I screw up and I buy these shirts. All they fit great. And then I wash them and wash them once and wash them once. And that's all it takes. And it's done. Or you assume that a double X means a double X across the board and it doesn't. No, because I've got a double X that'll go way below my waist. It's perfect. These are double X and it's like I'm wearing my gym shirts. Yeah. Well, you got to show off the guns. Start that New Year's with that resolution. We all have a couple of pounds as I sit behind my desk with nachos in the background. Yeah, you're going to be left over nachos and tacos for the next three weeks and till New Year's. Yeah, what size do you have? Well, we have collector sized. That's for me. There we go. But then you also you have to have the deluxe deluxe size. Oh, yeah. Shout out to shout out to shout out to Matt. I have to be on here soon. He will always hop on with it. I have not talked to him in a little while. I hope he's doing well. I see his channel is definitely still doing great, though. Yeah. He was one of the guys we hooked up with the TF con, one of our con bros. He's actually one of my super chats. If somebody super chats me later, I'll pop him on there so you can see. And he does hop on. We'll say the super chat rewards. I forgot I forgot. Yes. Shonky hasn't seen many of my sit reps. I watched one in his. You were like five minutes in. He already said yeah, yeah. That first one super chats. And then the second one is like, oh, God, what this would be intriguing. And I never go on. I never get invited on other people shows. I always have people over on my channel. So this is fun for me. I just have to talk about me. Yeah. I mean, this is all about all these people know about me. You know, it's hard to look at me. Let's look at the new guy. Exactly. All right. Well, let's get started with these things. So first off, question number one. What is the appeal of transformers for you? Oh, that's a good one. Elites right out the gate. Hit us with a super chat. Elites, it's going to take a while to get used to your new avatar there. So I promised you a deluxe. I'm going to give you a deluxe. All right. What have we got? This is deluxe and my buddy Bert T.F. Con if I can find it in my stockpile of awards here. Here we go. I want a basketball and a coachman and a train set and a race car. I love you. He was sitting there and I'm like, get him, Bert. Get him. I I'm not going to lie. I would probably do the same, except I would 100 percent be all up on his lap. Like just just across that chair.  I'm playing with an epic beard going on again. He shaved it a few years ago. Like he shaved it down. She got all trimmed up, went back to school, did all that stuff. And I was like, dude, are you going to grow the beard back? And he's like, I don't know yet. And here we are a few years later and it's epic again. And this is a month on me. And my biggest problem is all my old shows up in it. You're weathered. It's fine. Yes. It's weathered. OK, so back to your question about the appeal of the Transformers for me. So as a G, a G1er, so I was born in 83. So I'm literally like right there kind of as it began. If I grew up with it and, you know, had several of the G1 toys actually ended up coincidentally with some G2 toys without knowing what the difference ever was. But like outside of the cartoon itself, the, you know, which is just dumb fun, just the engineering I enjoy, the the complexity I actually enjoy trying to go at them blind. You know, like every time I get them, like I do out the boxes where I get get it initially and then I just try to figure it out without anything like that. And so after I get past the. The fun engineering aspects of it to where I'm like, OK, cool. Now I can do this. And then it comes down to how does this look and everything else like that?  And they're probably one of the most well known big robot franchises in existence at this point, right? And it is amazing that here we are 36 years later and they're still going strong. Well, I don't know about still more like came back to strong. Well, there you go. There was there was that little dip there. We were kind of worried in like 20, 20, 2010 to like 2013, where it's getting a little weird there. Oh, another Super Chat. Yes, it's my buddy, Jason Wade Cox. He went to a horror convention not too long ago. And he drank and seen his avatar. I see the Ash cost in those things. That's very nice. He sent me this TikTok video that he took of the convention. I was like, oh, my God, that's so cool. Jason, let's see what's a good one that everybody enjoys. Oh, this one, this one's a brand new one. Oh, dear Jesus. And like I said, if y'all think that's bad, we were there live. We were there in the room. I don't know, Bert. But I knew Bert was going to take his shirt off at some point. I knew it because I just because of the only other bird I know of, which is Bert Kreischer and he's the machine, therefore he takes off his shirt. So I assumed that this Bert would do it eventually and I was not let down. Yeah, he's a good guy. Bert, for life of me, I can't remember how we met on YouTube. Yeah. And we first bonded because we're both military vets. I was artillery. He jumped out of airplanes. So I was the smart one. And he was already at like 13,000 subs. And he's just kind of under his wing. He shared my stuff on his channel, gave me a hell of a sub boost like my first right after I got monetized. He gave me a sub boost, probably about 200 subs, just sharing my info out. And we've just got great friends that that was like three years ago. So that's pretty awesome. Yeah, good, dude. And he's one of those ones you always like, we're at the store. Hey, do you have this figure? I see him right here. Quick PayPal transaction. Bam, where we're always helping each other out. Yep. That's I do dig those aspects of the community. Now, yeah, definitely a good group of people. Because the only store I have, I have one Walmart, one Ollie's and seventy nine dollar generals. So I just I mean, I mean, I've got exposure to all the normal stores and then occasional malls and sometimes some collector type stores and stuff like that. But I'm in a more metropolitan type area, you know, near Houston. But I have to drive everywhere. But I also get around for work. So I just kind of roll that into, oh, hey, I'm just going to swing in the target real quick, see what's on the shelf today. My nearest targets two two hours away. Slow DK with a two dollar super chat. Thank you so much. He wants one of the deep fakes. Dude, the last deep fake you showed that was hilarious. Which one was that? I, you know, I don't remember. But it was in it was in the video you sent you sent to me to watch. But that was good. It was just good. I was like, I need I need some deep fakes in my life. We'll do that. This one's always fun. Hey, oh, man, that's so bad. I've been smoking since I was born, man. I could smoke anything, man. You better light it in here, man. Right. That's gas moves, man. Now, what's funny when I make that the first time I reversed Bert and I tell the difference between us. That's funny. That's really funny. Good old Cheech and Chong. Kids will never know. I was talking like Cheech or our taco bar today. Hey, man, pass the Doritos, man. Kids will never know. Stoner movies are not the same. Well, it depends. My nearest I got one in Roanoke and one in Charleston. They're both about the same distance from me. Yeah. All right. Where the hell were we? Second question. Hell, yeah. Thirteen minutes in. I told you that the train derails on this thing. I should have warned you initially. You were planning on an hour. I will I will help you try to stay there, but it might not happen any time on something that usually goes incredibly long. Oh, it's the same way. I mean, of course, as soon as I saw your video and I watched you talk, I was like, I think we have the same personality. That's why it helps to get these on here. Well, we'll do in the future when we have more time. I'll have you come on to my channel and we'll talk forever. But it's not when it's not 11 o'clock at night for you. Yeah. Well, and beers could be happened. Normally, that if it was a weekend super chat, I'd be here promoting Mike's hard lemonade. Yeah. If I wasn't on medication to clear out of weird infection, I would also be drinking. There you go. We won't go into weird infections right now. All right, sir. Question number two, aside from G1, which is always the number one answer. Yes. What's your favorite Transformers fiction? That's pretty sad. It's probably the same answer that almost everybody gets torn between either Transformers Prime or Beast Wars. So both are really good, but for different reasons, you know, I enjoyed Prime's storyline outside of when the kids were like the main focus, but like the actual Transformers lore and everything they built there. I really enjoy that along with the animation and the inclusion of original voice acting and stuff like that. But Beast Wars is basically just G1 continuity. But also I was a kid when that came out. So I got to watch that brand new and all that glorious CG that used to be, you know, it doesn't it doesn't hold up by any stretch of the imagination. But the story does, you know, and that's that's what gets it for me. So it would be somewhere in there. I think robots in disguise. I enjoyed the first the first one that was at the car robots, you know, the import over here. I enjoyed that one, but then like it just got grading after a while, you know, but yeah, for the most part, it's going to be those one that I watched that surprised me and I watched it just out of boredom. Netflix got the robots in disguise, that weird CG animation where the Autobots were cars and all the Decepticons were beasts, beast form. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was that was yeah, exactly. And I despised that show at first, but I just kept watching it because and it got better. Yeah. You know, I was really impressed, especially the last season, where Starscream comes in and Megatron and Optimus Prime was like, OK, yeah, I noticed through all my different years, all this. I've seen all the series and it wasn't until probably early 2000s when these new cartoon series come out. They're always geared toward the kids first. Yes. And about five or six episodes in the writers realize kids aren't watching this. It's their parents and it just gets really adult theme quick. I love it. Yeah. I would I would argue that the only one, like the more modern ones, like what was it called, the sequel to Prime? They when they went more animated with it, less CG. And then now even cyberverse. I mean, cyberverse is kind of just everything, but it's still super kiddie, but not, I guess, theme wise. It's not kiddie, but yeah, I know what you mean, though. You know, it's like they try to hook the kids early to sell the toys and then they sell the series to the parents and who will eventually buy all the toys for themselves.  There are no cyberverse toys really kingdom. I've got the Beast Wars reissues. Mm hmm. And a studio series. There's no cyberverse. If there's any cyberverse, it's over there at the Ollie's. We used to have cyberverse, of course. I don't know how my Walmart decides on what they stock or not because they never stock leader class or the legends figures, which really surprises me because they've got the Beast Wars reissues, Prime and Megatron. Yeah. And they're both leader considered leader, leader class of the $50 price tag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The last time I saw a leader class figure was Titans return. And that was the Rodimus Prime. Evil Rodimus look like motor. Yeah.  Let me must motor hit a Cronus. That thing sucked. You know, somebody mentioned in the chat, though, how did you feel about the War for Cybertron Netflix series? Like the whole thing is all right. Yeah, I watched it. I probably never watched it again. Yeah, I think my take on it was like it's a very interesting retake on G1. Like if G1 diverted, you know, but then I did a whole video. I did a whole live stream trying to fix Kingdom, like going with their original storyline. And trying to fix what they probably wanted to do and how Unicron was supposed to fit in and all this other stuff that they really make made make no sense narratively. And I think everybody in the chat that was listening was like, yeah, they should have done this. I was like, OK, well, let me go write an extended letter to Netflix on how to fix this and come back next series with a retcon. I liked the second series of the Earthrise, the Earth. Yeah, I like the horror aspect of it. I mean, I'm a horror. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Quenissan's cutting its own face off. And the other dude that got like that's pretty cool. That got dark, man.  Spiritual Skylinx was kind of off putting.   You know, after he's been stuck there for however long, you know. But it was like, I mean, it's like they had something great. And then they just went, eh. And then the voices. Oh, my God, the voices. In Kingdom at best, the Kingdom was terrible about the voice acting. Absolutely terrible. But everything else I was OK with for the most part. I like Megatron animation. A lot of people complain, well, transformers didn't transform enough. So they transformed a lot. I mean, like, I mean, especially in Siege, they transformed a lot because they were constantly going to vehicle mode and running into each other and then going back to they were doing what you do in the video games. It's like, yeah, back in the day, they didn't fight in their alt modes. They would just attack or then they shoot at each other in bot mode. It was like the integration. I mean, Prime did it. A lot of other series did it where they were using their alt modes to bash each other and then transform to shoot or something instead of just having every weapon imaginable slap to their outside. You know, yeah. G1, the Autobots just transformed in no matter where the Decepticons were. They could always drive there. Yes. Fifteen minutes. Yeah. I love how was it animate? And it wasn't which series introduced the ground bridge? Was that prime? That was our ID. The original ground bridge where the where the bridge was coming out of the literally coming up out of the ground. And they could drive anywhere. Yeah, that was our ID. So you think about that. It's like, OK, that exists in G1. They just forgot to draw it. Yeah. Well, that's why they could never attack the Decepticon base because it was in the middle of the ocean. They had no way to get there. They technically couldn't fly until they thought they could. And then they did, which was always the silliest part about that is like, why does one side have the ability to fly in robot mode? And the other one doesn't. They're the same. The Autobots could fly in the very first episode. I know that's why I get at it is like they could fly, but then they couldn't. And then they could, but then they couldn't.  You sell them toys, sell them toys. Exactly. All right. Here we are on question number three at 20 Minutes M. Do you have a favorite figure or Grail, a toy you will never let go of? Say you got to sell everything. This one's not going anywhere. See, here's the problem, though, because we're sticking with in just transformer because I collect so much other things. Well, you can go with anything else. Well, no, I'm going to I'm going to keep it transformers related because it's half my room, literally, as I showed you before the camera rolled. So what nobody can see behind me is anything good. This is my Gundam collection packed up. If I'm not getting rid of. If it's something I'm definitely not parting with out of everything, it's going to be my Toy World Devastator, you know, the the MP Devastator, because that's just amazing. Though right behind that would be the not Zeta Unicron, because it's pretty good.  Is that the cell one? Yeah, the studio one cell. Yeah, it's it's really I want to buy another one so I can have one in bot mode, one in planet mode for display. So, you know, as I mentioned before, you know, I've got a lot of the new age and the legend scale, so I want to build a legend scale movie poster display. So I want to have Unicron in the back as a planet mode and then have the bot mode coming down and then the movie bots with them. No, that's the plan. We'll see what happens. But that would be the thing. I can't get rid of Devastator, man. Like, you know, I think I mean, I've got some good planted X figures, too, but I think I could probably part with most of those. But pretty much the quintessential Devastator. That's always been in my brain. Like I had I had one VHS tape of Transformers as a kid, and it was SOS Dino bots and heavy metal war. So, you know, the introduction of the Constructocons and then the actually the original invention of the Dino bots. So that's where like I started. So Dino bots and Constructocons are stuck in my brain more than any other transformer in in history, as it were. Nice. Well, in this same area, you're discussing with question number four, what is your white whale, your most wanted toy? That's always the heart. That's the hard one, because I tend to just get them like and that's not to sound arrogant and by no means do I have money.  So DX9's Gabriel, which is their Omega Supreme was one of them because it was out of print. And then it was the price just kept skyrocketing.  So I think they were selling it for like one sixty nine, when it was normally two sixty nine. So I managed to get that one. And then Studio One Cell was also on that list. And then I ended up getting that one. It was like the hard part is like, what is a grail for me now? Or a white whale, as you put it, I don't know. It might not even technically be a transformer. It I might currently, because I'm also a Power Rangers fan, it might be the Soul of Chagokin Dragon's Orde or Dragon Caesar because I had the Soul of Chagokin Megazord, which is fantastic. But I missed out on the Dragon's Orde and I need them to be together. And that thing is pretty pricey now and kind of hard to come out. But like all the other stuff is like it's hard to really qualify it as out of reach, because most things are kind of in reach and some mostly affordable, you know, it just depends on if you're willing to go G1 collect unless you're a proper G1 collector. But then again, look at all the G1 rereleases we're getting. I mean, we got so deep in G1 rereleases that we're releasing Beast Wars molds. I know. I mean, this was just asked to me real quick. What is my holy grail of transformers? I would love to have a Generation One complete overlord. Oh, yeah. Fortunately, one of my subscribers lent me his for review just out of the blue, totally took me by surprise. It was so awesome to fool with that figure. And I never had any entry, never knew who he was until last stand of the record. Yeah. And then when I saw, you know, what he was going for an eBay third party market, I'm like, I'm never going to get one. And then Titans Returns came out with theirs, which was a TFCON in 2019. I got the double evil, that giant fan. Yes. Yeah, that fans hobby. One is a really nice favorite toy of 2019. So I'd love to have a G1 overlord.  And he's just, I don't know, I just don't like that figure. Did we get that proper, though? Or is that just a Takara one? Because that was because he's from the Japanese series. He's not from any American series, right? No American series. He was released in Japan. He was released in Europe. He never made it over here. Oh, OK, yeah, because he would have been related to. Yeah, yeah, OK, that makes sense. Yeah, because I was going to say it's like, I know they never made that over here. I watch a whole lot of Chris McFeely on Saturday morning. So I learned a lot about Transformers history. We got here coming for someone to say G1 Optimus. Is there Holy Grail? I've got to G1 Optimus.  I mean, like if you really need an absolute original mint and box or whatever, fine.  I mean, they did what 20th anniversary, I believe. Was it 20th anniversary? They did a 25th anniversary 25th came with a voice box and everything. And then they did the the Walmart edition with no trailer because they still for 50 bucks for 50 bucks. Well, I mean, how much and what rod or hot rod was what, 30 something like that? It was still they overstocked. Remember, he dropped down to like seven bucks, dude. I got him. I got him for 12 bucks. I even got the Devastator because they overstocked the Devastator, which that OK. So you asked about grails a couple of years ago. That would have been my grail was a G1 Devastator because I never got to have it. I got five of the six. I never got hook. So when they did the re-release, I actually got to have it. There he is. You were talking about it. What up, Matt? Long time no see, buddy. So I actually did a video when I picked it up, you know, a couple of years ago, right before Christmas. And like I'm almost in tears opening it because it's like that's one of the few times where I have that massive nostalgia factor because it was something I was denied as a kid because my my I remember my mom actually going out and getting me the remaining construct icons for Christmas. And I was so excited Christmas morning. I'm opening them up and they're all in like a thing. And I'm like, yes, I'm going to build Devastator and then literally missing hook. I mean, like if you're missing an arm, OK, you're missing a leg. OK, you've got nothing. You have nothing to do. Denied for 20 something years and then finally got one. And then I ended up selling it to a buddy of mine, you know, to buy the actual big one. So it's like it's like the money for the money I sold it to my friend actually turned around and bought me a masterpiece version. Nice. Yeah. All right. Well, question number five. This is our final I got tongue tied. Final Transformers question. Yes, what is your favorite transformer character, any fiction, any media? I want to say tracks just because you just put up that tracks video. And I just want to, you know, push people to go watch it. But no, I don't I don't know anything about tracks other than he's a cool Corvette Stingray. He's a track tracks Funko Pop. Yeah. Yeah, go watch the Funko Pop video that that he just put up right before this, because that's how scheduling works. I did not realize because I got him from a place called Toy Tokyo that I've never heard of before. And the only reason I got him, I just happened to be on a Facebook group and they say, hey, here's the links to get Funko tracks. And I started collecting the transformer Funko's because well, they're transporters. And so I got on the link and I ordered him. He was like five dollars more than what you normally pay for a pop and plus shipping. And so he gets here and after I put my review up, somebody said, that's awesome that you got something from Toy Tokyo. I was apparently once they sell out, you are never. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're never going to get that again, especially for pops. OK, so all joking aside and promotion aside, I would say my favorite transformer would is probably a tie between Rat Trap and Dinobot because they are a pair and I and I I identify hard with Rat Trap. But I love Dinobot. So it's all the best lines in that show. Together, they they had some of the best lines. Or I guess he because it's still Scott McNeil, right?  He could have six of his characters in one scene and he's just talking to himself in the booth, you know, he's like he's having these really deep philosophical conversations and insulting himself at the same time. It's like and I guess that's part of the appeal is it is Scott McNeil as well. But yeah, I definitely I hardcore like Rat Trap is like my spirit animal. And then I would definitely be exactly the same way towards Dinobot. But I was, of course, that's out of respect, I think, you know. Yeah. And like you said, that that show, the character building and the stories were so great. And I think what helped it out so much, it wasn't tied down so much by Hasbro to force those new characters every week. Like the toys would allude you would have happened. Imagine if we actually got the lineup that the toys provided. You know, just an infinite number of crazy different animals, especially in the fusors and the trans metals. And it was like, do we really need this polar bear guy? Yes. Like, what does he do? He turns into a polar bear. What's his personality? Polar bear and he's got a Russian accent. Well, the ones that would they were like fused robots. They can only turn into two animals. Yeah, you know, the robot head will be stuck in some weird position. Yeah, of course. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, all Mel Blanc ever did was talk to himself. That's entirely true, Kato. You really did. You just sat in the booth screaming and did nothingness in like 17 different voices. Oh, G2 Devastator, yellow Easter basket. Nice. Actually, mind white, mine was actually the G2. So I never had a proper G1 green one until I got that Walmart re-release. But the point was, I never got to have it at all. But I always thought the Devastator was meant to be green and it never occurred to me that yellow was not the proper color in the toy. I just assumed I never knew G2 was a thing. I had a G2 side swipe, one of my first once we've kind of moved. So we started in the city, moved out to the country. My first modern transformer was a G2 side swipe. And I didn't think anything of it.  It's just, yay, cool.  But I always regretted not getting jazz. Like the funny story, I got jazz from my sister for Christmas of 84 and broke him right out of the package. His door popped off, popped right off. And of course, I'm just like devastated, talking about Devastator again. So my mom's like, well, we got him from the local shop in town, some store that doesn't even exist anymore.  Still have the receipt. So I went back. They were sold all out of jazzes. So I ended up getting Sunstreaker. And I didn't get a jazz again until 2013. I got a wonder, why did they not re-release jazz or side swipe? And I guess the molds, maybe were gone. Like they just couldn't remake them in the re-releases. They remade jazz for not in the new ones. What was I talking about? I'm talking about in the Walmart re-releases, more recent ones. But no, I, you know, at some point, maybe that would be considered the one that got away would be the G2 jazz. Of course, I didn't know it was G2. It just, it was at one in one hand, one in the other. And I went, I like Lamborghini's better, but I actually really dug the way that he looked in the G2 design, you know, jazz. So, but like even to the point that I almost bought the new age version just so I could have that, maybe I still should just buy the G2 jazz on the new age version just because I was thinking about picking up another studio series jazz because Toyhacks has a decal set to turn him into G2 jazz really. And my buddy Larkin is making the green and blue blaster for him. Oh, nice, nice. Larkin's layer. Yeah, I haven't shot at the Larkin. I haven't bought him yet. I've got to wait till after Christmas. I've bought a lot of stuff for me. Dude, there's so many jazzes. They're on the shelves. They're going to be discounted later. They're just everywhere. Especially when Amazon hits, there are a few deals. All right. Well, that wraps up our transformer questions. Now we're going to go into talking about you as a YouTuber. And question number six.  First of all, how dare you ever accuse me of being grown? I'm just I'm just big. Well, you are 10 years younger than me.   Yeah, I feel old all the time. I deal with much younger YouTubers and other people as well. So yeah, I feel most days. Basically, I was already making videos because YouTube live. I'm sorry, Facebook live had just become a thing back in 2015, 2016. And so I was already doing live discussions and live build days with my Gundam stuff, my Gundam community, which was the basis of my channel to begin with. And I just said, you know what? I know YouTube is a thing. I watch a lot of YouTube. I already have a camera. Which I didn't actually end up using. I ended up using my cell phone much like yourself and I said, screw it. I got a lot of opinions and I can't talk to enough people fast enough on Facebook to make these get this these thoughts out. So I just started doing it is basically how it turned into it. You know, it's like I got more opinions and more thoughts on things that I can possibly express in typing out on on Facebook groups. So I said, screw it. I'm going to start making videos. I already had video editing background and stuff like that from school. So, I mean, it was just waiting to happen. I mean, the fact that I didn't do it many years ago, along when I got into the hobby in the first place, I was like, I should have jumped in in like 2013 and I would have been like riding that wave like the same way all the other guys did. Instead, I came in a 2016 way behind everyone, you know? So it kind of sucked. Well, for me, it was kind of a dare. I mean, I've been collecting since 84 pretty much off and on.  I worked at a casino with some other law enforcement guys.    And one of my friends, he was all into online gaming and, you know, would twitch. He says, well, I need to do a twitch channel and play online.   And he says, we can tie in a YouTube channel with it if you want. And we can do it that way. I was like, what am I going to talk about on YouTube? He's like, well, you know, those robot things talk about them. There we go. Yeah, there you go. And it ended up being something I really enjoyed because it's now an extension of my hobby because there's no one around here. I'm going to talk about these things with. So now when I used to buy a figure at Transformer a couple of times, throw it on the shelf and never touch it again. Now I get to buy it, check it out, put it in front of the camera, tell my feelings on it, interact with people, which is one of the best things about YouTube. I love interacting with folks. And it's just, like I said, extension of the hobby. Yeah, literally, that's exactly right. I mean, and and having collected for so long, you already had an indefinite amount of content just waiting for you to make use of it.  So the first three years of my channel was almost entirely stuff that I had already done and then just adding to it as I went. And then when I added Transformers into the mix, Power Rangers, all my other stuff that, you know, I was interested in or collected and throw it all into the mix at that point. So and see, that's where you have a slight advantage because you review everything. I discovered when you're doing YouTube, you stick to one thing, it's always like you get tight cast in a movie. Dude, it's exactly the same, though, because the problem is, it's like, while I focus a lot more on Transformers and transforming other things right now, all my Gundam community has basically abandoned me. So, like, even though I have a huge, you know, thousand-some-odd videos of just Gundam related stuff because I'm not putting out brand new Gundam stuff every day, they're all just kind of gone. So I'm like trickling in with, you know, the views who come in when they do. I mean, I still do Gundam, not just not at the same level because I don't have it all readily available. Now it's far more work to make happen, you know? So you got to build the model, do all that kind of stuff. Then you got to review it and then you got to do the next five in a row or something like that. You know, whereas if I have a Transformer, that's fun.  Excuse me. That's like I started collecting the Masters of the Universe origins. And the funny story about that is when I saw the figures out, I thought my son, he was six at the time, he might really like these. So I bought the entire first wave, showed it to him and he's like, eh, went on to do his thing. And I was like, well, shit, I'll start collecting the man. I like clean hands. I got a nice collect and I started reviewing a couple of them and nobody watched them. No. So now these are all those things that I collect just for me. You don't see them from the camera. I go and get them. No, that's that's entirely true. The other thing is you end up with your own algorithm because you've done all Transformers content. I mean, like Bobby Skullface did the same thing where he added in his Star Wars and his DC figures and stuff like that into his Transformers channel. And then he noticed the views were just dipping when it wasn't Transformers related. So he just decided to move all that content off of the channel and over to his Patreon instead and kept everything Transformers related. And then the numbers magically blew back up. So I love NECA stuff, too. Yeah, you saw my shelves back here. I got the NECA shelves back here. I got the NECA. I got all the Terminators. I never did get Sarah Connor and John Connor, but I got the Terminators. Got a nice collection of predators and I got one alien. And I did that. I had to do the Terminator figures because I love the Terminator. And those are reviews, man. I dug into it. I made sure if I showed this head, I had the clip of the movie and all that. Oh, well, I watched the stuff and, you know, that's that's the funny part because I did the same thing even a couple of years ago when the Gundam content was coming down. I decided to bring back other content just because I was still doing it.  I was doing all that everything. And then I was like, OK, nobody's really watching this except for the specific few. So I ended up actually moving all the action figure related content unless it was customs over to a second channel. So like I have a whole other channel just for action figure related and non non big robot related stuff for the most part. So, yeah, it's like so it's not just the one Shokie channel. In fact, I have three technically speaking to isolate the different things that I do because the algorithm is like that. Because I mean, even though my channel, I should read just rename the channel Shokie's bots because it would make more sense because it's almost entirely robot related, whether it's Gundam or our transformers or even Power Rangers, because it's all just giant robots.  You've got no more Gundams. Like, come on, just watch the videos. They're cool. I mean, like even even the one I just did, the one that you saw, you know, the flame toys prime kit, which by the way, I've got them in the salute just for you. Is that a model? That's a model kit. Yes. Damn, that's sweet. Yeah. I haven't got any of those. I saw the Hobby Lobby on sale. But I'm like, hell, I have hardly time to do a review. We're going to do a model. Well, that's well, yeah, I guess you have a real job. I don't. So, you know, I have a pretend job and then I come home and I pretend to do YouTube, too. Exactly. Exactly right. It's something I had a Master of the Universe Roboto. I do. Nice. I was going to bring him down, but I have all my good guys on the very top shelf I can't reach. And with the origins line, the bad guys definitely outnumber the good guys. So they're all way up. A lot. Yeah, they do. But I mean, I see them. I like Mo2, but I'm not going to buy those figures. That's just not something I need to collect.  I would definitely, you know, I had to have a go, but I wouldn't buy them for me, you know, and I got you bought them for your kid. Didn't care that you ended up enjoying it, which is funny. Funny is that they're pissing me off now because you can never find them. And I'm not. I'm not paying their $15 figures. I think they're 18 now, thanks to now. The thing is, but I'm not going on eBay and paying $30 for a Master of the Universe figure. I actually got into the hype and bought one of the Power Con exclusive sets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all that. And it arrived and I didn't didn't pay much for it. But I got to looking on eBay, what they're going for. Get out of the box. As soon as I got it, snap pictures of it through on eBay. Yeah, just turn around and sell it because it's so insane. You're one of them flippers.  You're just going to take pictures. You're going to turn around and flip them on eBay for 30. Well, to be fair, I said a set the starting bid at exactly what I paid for it. Yeah, there you go. So if anyone that's only fair, that's only fair. So it wasn't intentionally to buy it and flip because I was going to display it. Yeah, but I just it was the castle set in the way I have my castle displayed. You wouldn't see it. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't do any good. But what do you think about the Revelations toy line? I like those, but I didn't buy any because I mean, I'm already into this set. I dig it. The show it had its moments. But yeah, I don't. But I do not like the Revelations Skeletor. I don't know what it is. I love Skeletor figures. I always like Skeletor. Yeah, don't like the looks of that one. I like the Skella God figure. I got that one. That's the only one of the line I got. Yeah, just do not like the looks of that Skeletor. Just the normal Skeletor. Yeah, I guess. Scareclaw looks pretty good, though. Whether or not. Whether or not. Yeah, her redesign is nice. My four year old niece absolutely loves Mastery Universe. I bought her evil in hoard. I got her hoard. I got a combination of universe and Revelations and she loves this stuff. Yeah, I can keep an eye out for anything because I know they're generally on the shelves here. Well, I'm trying to find a stink or have not seen a stink or yet. But I know he's not. He's going to like disappear. But then at some point, it'll just be everywhere. Oh, yeah.  Yeah, because they couldn't get it canceled. Stink or in Web Store. But Bert hooked me up with Web Store. I don't know. At least I got that one. Is that a spider? Yeah, it's the blue spider guy. OK, yeah. But, you know, because I saw BBTS had stink or but I think they may have done the same thing, too. Not not in but the pre-orders, you know, like the world's a mess. You know, toys, the least important thing for most people to get. So we're the ones suffering for all the world's problems because our toys aren't coming. Dude, I just I legit just got yesterday. No, I'm sorry, two days ago, two enormous boxes from BBTS that were pre-orders that I put in for just supposed to be all year long. All came in at the end of November, beginning of December. And that's not even all of it. I still got 20 some odd things on pre-order. Oh, my God. I'll get back to them and they're not cheap either.  It's a fair point. It is a fair point, except there's no smell on the new one. And I heard people are complaining about that.  Well, maybe not ridiculous, but, you know, getting getting something. You know, a little bit of it.  Just something like a question number seven. We got 10 minutes to wrap up the rest of this speed round.  That's actually a loaded question, because I've tried to quit several times. They're actually two years ago. I actually filmed my final video about the death of my channel. And then I had it up and I'm like, do I hit publish? It's still sitting there for when I'm. So it'll be really weird for when I quit because it'll be my old, the old Shokie Cave. And nobody will understand what happened. Be like, you did this to me years ago. It's like I quit. I quit then.  You know, when I'm in front of the camera, that's when I really enjoy doing it. So I spent a lot more time on camera on my other other channel where I actually do like much like you're doing here with the podcast. I interact with people more and do things like that. But basically, it's just for a while, it was like a job. Like I just I'm doing it just robotically, by the thing, review the thing, edit the thing, put it up there. I did that for a while, where I was specifically buying figures to review. And it's like, this is expensive. Why am I doing this? And some of them I didn't even like. Yeah, I'm flipping again. And I kept chasing chasing hype figures and stuff like that. But yeah, I just basically if I do it now, it's because it's something I want to show off and I enjoy something about it because I don't review everything I could. But it's just basically look, I want to share the cool stuff that I have with like minded people. Basically, and that's the only reason and the minor paycheck review. That figure is like, well, I didn't buy it. I didn't want it and stuff just to review. Exactly. I do the same thing. All right. I'm going to hit you with a question question.  I got to do something real quick. And I'll let you talk to my people and answer why there are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. What makes you any different from the rest? Who? That's so dumb. Hey, man, I'd come up with these long time. I know, I know, guys, there's nothing that special about my channel, if I'm totally honest with you. The only thing is that I do intermix different robots stuff. And I tend to be kind of brutal when it comes to things and I tend to be fairly well attentive. Like I've noticed a lot of reviewers over the years. Basically, just get in and I'll show you the flash and but no substance. Like I've tried to go in depth on things. I try to have fun with it. And then if I screw up, I tend to poke fun at myself. You know, I try to I don't really have nuanced perspectives in the same way that other people might.   And if other people don't agree, I don't care. Someone's going to tune in. Guys, welcome to my new channel here. I'm the host of Sid Rep Shokie and the other guy. He's gone. Don't worry about him. It's my channel now. I've gotten into by tractors. Yeah, there you go. Tractors are cheaper in some cases. That's entirely true.  Dude, these lights don't get hot. Are you kidding me? Those are LED bulbs. I first blew him up. Ladd's green before that we saw that lights.  Well, here's the thing. This one is kind of superfluous. The you guys can't see it, but I had it plugged in, but then I had to plug in my phone charger. And then I forgot about it. I was like, man, it's a little dark up at this angle because it's just trying to get different lighting situations. Also for photography. And then I realized I don't have my top light. Ultimately, I want a ring light to go above it. Yeah, desk lamps.  Dude, yeah, those will get hot. These are just normal 60 watt LED bulbs in five dollar cans that you buy at Home Depot. They don't really get hot. They burn your retinas, though. Like, so if I'm sitting here doing reviews for two or three, four, seven hours, just your eyes hurt so bad when you go back to normal light, it's crazy. Oh, that's made on Toy Hacks videos. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.  I look up and I just can't see nothing. Yeah, I've done a couple of those, actually, you know, just when I got a few sets and I wanted to do upgrades, you know, the like the plan, I had some of the planted X ones, I got some of the early DX nine in New Age ones and stuff like that. Oddly enough, though, for some reason, the last time I tried to buy from them, they said they weren't shipping to me anymore. Like they said they weren't shipping to my zip code anymore. I'm like, that's weird. And it's like, I was like, did you guys just cut Texas out? Like, like, you just don't want to ship to Texas anymore. I don't know what happened. It must have been a glitch or something in their system.  I just need, like, for the most part, I buy the universal legends emblems and stuff like that because I've got a sticker of them all up, but I don't need the full decos, although like the studio series decos are really nice. So like, I've got a few of those and I kind of want to do the upgrades, but not so much. I just ordered the Rodimus set. I can't wait to see that. Yeah. So when you guys were talking about it in the comments of when I posted that I was going to be on, it was like, that looks absurd. Is that Rodimus good? Do you have it? Yeah, he is pretty good. OK. He's you are spending a lot of money on a figure that, well, in my opinion, I've got Rodimus on the shelf back there. His trailers behind my transformer Funko pops. Yeah, it's almost like I got nowhere to put that. Yeah, it's like the trailer becomes the part that when you only need it for Space One, a big O mode. And then once you pass that point, nobody cares. So I was like, just give us a actual proper Rodimus Prime by himself and we'll be OK, probably. Yeah, you know. All right, let's see. Question number nine for near the end. OK. What's your thoughts on the transformer socials community like YouTube, Facebook? And do you have any special shout outs yourself? Oh, within within the community? No, no, no. Basically, for a while there, I was in several transformers groups, some of the bigger, older ones that have been around for a long time. And, dude, at some time around the MP Dinobot KO era. That's when I was like, I got to get out of this. This is this is getting a little too toxic. And then you get into smaller groups and stuff like that. Where people still actually know each other. It's not just 28,000 dudes showing off their collections repeatedly. When it when you actually get that real aspect of a community, that's when it matters, when it's just the the showy offy. You know, talk about your opinion types. That's why I'm out on it. You know, like I'm part of the realm of collectors. You know, shout out to the ROC. You know, that's how I met Matt and guys like that. And they're really good.   He bailed on his MP collection. It was just always the fun joke there.  Go ahead. I say in the same way when I first hopped on here, I mean, I was joining every transformer group.  And so I said, well, you got that. Look at what I have. Yes, you know, they're always trying to outdo each other and how dare you have an opinion. I had one guy give me a death threat one time because I thought the last night sucked. I took a picture. Who took that defensive stance? Like give me his name. I want to hunt this person down and have a discussion with his mom, because even if he was in a bin for five dollars, a Blu-ray, I was like, man, that thing. They'd have to pay me five dollars to take just some smartass comment that I put on Facebook. And this guy just got pissed. Good God, like who is such a stand that they thought that was a good movie? Like that was a bad movie in and on its face. Forget the actual anything to do with it. But no, you give me his name. No, no, I'm not going hunting like that. Not like that elites. But no, I think the other thing is they basically just turn into share farms where you're just sharing your reviews over and over and over and over and mind you, like you saw my one, you know, that I posted, but you can scroll back. It's probably been a long time since I shared a previous one because it's just like, look, I've got my own fans. YouTube has its own algorithm. I don't gain much from Facebook. It's just like every now and then when I have something different to show off, especially in a group that, you know, doesn't necessarily do that. Like if it's a collector group versus a transformers group, it's like, hey, check this thing out. You guys probably don't know that much about it. That's when I'll do it. So, you know, I share a flame toys prime model kit in whichever toy group that was, I think I was trying to blank here. Too many of them. This is the problem. There's too many. It was like, so I whittled them down to the people that matter and the groups that really function properly and then you just stick with those. I mean, that's. Yeah, I think I'm down to about six. And it, but be in lots of buying and selling ones. Oh yeah. It's a fan of just the regular ones. Except for the ones that say, oh, I have this PM for price. Exactly the PM for price. Exactly. All right. You want to meet one of you? Actually, I'm currently selling my chug collection. If anybody's interested. Actually, I am. There is a link on my Facebook. But yeah, this is because I'm the siege in the earth rise stuff is like, I don't really have a use for it anymore. So, you know, still good. Just don't want to keep in the studios or shells. I'm so running out of room. Yeah. Though I am. I was really excited about the studio series. Dinobots, people, people shit on them, but I'm actually pretty happy with them. I like slag. I like Slag Baron Grimlock. Grimlock for me. They didn't give him front teeth. OK, that was dumb. And I don't know why they quit doing that. It seems like no new version of Grimlock has front teeth. And yet the by the I'm going to get the DNA kit to fix them up anyways. Me, Grimlock, you'll love myself. Yeah, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the front teeth. But no, Slag just has the really crazy wide shoulders. That's my biggest critique for him or the hollow horns. So they got to try that hollowness. See, I don't mind the hollowness in the back of the figure. A lot of people complain of the waffles as they call it. Yeah, when they're on the shelf and you can't see it, it doesn't bug me. Yeah, that I don't care about the horns. Terrible. Yeah, that's just blatantly obvious. All right. All right. Well, question number 10, sir. And we're 58 minute mark. Do you have any channel goals and where can our viewers find you? This is your chance to plug yourself. All right, guys. And you can take it anymore. Come come come to the Shokie nation. Or just whatever. No, Shokie reviews being my main channel. My only goal for that is really to hit 10,000. I thought I would do that two years ago when things were really on a high. And then, like I said, algorithm change.  But if you're remotely interested, you know, big robots. Every now and then I do a nerdcast where I have another guest, like maybe this guy over here, sometimes soon. Other nerds. And then I have discussion videos. I started putting up movie reviews. I've just I just reviewed. Soobed, fire talk, soobed two bees. Thanks for thanks for soothing. And I appreciate the soobies. He's a great guy. Hey, don't just sub, watch and comment, because that's where people are like anyways. So I started doing more movie reviews lately, especially with how terrible the Eternals was, how good Ghostbusters Afterlife was, how good Dune was and how good Spider-Man's going to be when I watch it tomorrow. Cannot wait. Yeah, it's funny. The gift I got at our party today was a gift certificate to our local theater. Nice, that would be good. And then and then, guys, also, Shoky Reviews 2, that's TOO, is my action figure and other stuff thing.  So I borrowed that concept and I put the reverse transformation videos up on the Shoky Reviews 2 channel under my tarot, that's Transform and Rollout videos.  So I just like, hey, go pop over there, watch that video, too.  And then, of course, my NECA figures, Power Rangers, all that kind of stuff and vlogs, because I've vlogged in a few months. But, you know, I do have a vlog on that channel, too. That's that's the backup for everything. And it's been fun ever since. I bet for those longtime subscribers of mine is me watching my growth, because I'll go I'll go back and watch my older videos. I'm like, yeah, Grinch. And then the third channel is called It Doesn't Have to Make Sense. And that's where I basically am doing reactions and reviews of music videos and whatever people send to me because it didn't fit anywhere into the other concepts of what I was doing.  And I'm like, no, I'm doing live streams now, screw it. Basically how people do on Twitch. I love doing these. I mean, you and I have never talked ever before and look how we're carrying on. And I just I love doing the live stream. Of course, I wasn't able to do this last year because my or we had sucky internet. You know, here in West Virginia, you had a gerbil power and a wheel work. They had to the other one died. But no, no, same thing. We actually moved to this new apartment this year and we actually got proper gigabit internet speed. And I was like, I'm streaming as much as I can because like we had very limited speed and limited data on at our old place because the infrastructure sucked. We changed companies. We moved out of the quote unquote inner city, like in the literal sense of the inner part of our city. And so we got out of where the internet is real. I was like, I'm going to stream way more. So I have a bare minimum two live streams a week over there. I'll stretch it out to three or four, depending on the week. Like I probably would have done one tonight if we weren't doing this. That's not blaming you. It's just an excuse for me to not have to work. It's like it's not blame. That's an excuse. And then I'll do every now and then I'll do a live stream interview like this, but I prefer to do these in more of a edited context because sometimes people say things of probably should you know, just kind of drop down. Let's just let's just take that one back and on because YouTube might not like that one. Plus it's it's it's fun to cut out an entire hour of a conversation because you dog-legged so hard on one topic. But yeah, Emgo, yeah, they're asked to talk about Emgo because I brought it up. But no, somebody said, has anyone ever met Emgo? No, Emgo is reclusive. He only stays in his basement. I would like to meet Emgo, except he's probably he's, you know, giant Puerto Rican guy. I don't know if I could really get down with that. Benjamin was asking with my most disappointing Transformers figure. I know you want to go, but I can answer that question. Yeah, answer your question.  I'm actually my top 10 list. I decided this year I'm going to do it live. So we'll have everything set up. I like to do my bottom five, my top 10 and my one could have been better. Oh, that's interesting way. So you actually have a top 16 where you have a you have a 16 video. I did the same thing a couple years ago. I was disappointing. I will say Planet X Megatron was actually pretty bad because it broke on me.  That's twice it broke on me. But then again, there was a I think it's transform element is doing is a transform element there on my floor. Hold on, they're they're literally down here on the floor below my feet. Yeah, transform element is doing a Beast Wars line of legends. Their black arachnia is terrible. It is it is horrendous. Like the colors are wrong. The transformation is garbage. And I was like, this isn't worth the 30 bucks I paid for this. This is this is the name that name sounds for mayor. And I just got there six shot the other day. Yeah. Yeah. So some of their stuff is great. That is not now. Their Scorponok is fantastic. Their rat trap is OK. But black arachnia, the first figure, horrible, absolutely horrible. Like they go back to everything on that one. That was that was garbage, man. And if you're paying that much money for something, even something that small, it better be better than that. You know, we say that with Hasbro all the time, but that's Hasbro. They're making a million of those things. You know, if 85 percent of them are fine, they they're good. They don't care about the other 15 percent.  You know, yeah. But when you're a small company and you're only making 10,000 of something, you should do better, especially if it's going to cost more than I mean. That's not an assembly line. You got a few dudes down here.  You have 12 kids who have been in that factory for seven months straight with no sleep assembling that stuff. I apparently got the last one when they were really, really tired because it was terrible. IDW points. Oh, they're just talking about all kinds of other stuff on the side there. Yeah. All right. And also, a letter by note in the description of this video, if you're too lazy to look up, Shokie, I have a link to his channel in the description of this video. Yeah. Well, oh, I'm also on all social as Shokie reviews, too. There you go. Easy to find. Easy to find. Well, normally that we'll kick into the chat and things like that. But I know you got to go. I'm fine. I'm fine unless you got to go. I do. I know it's late for you, buddy. I got to go back to 1107 now. So once again, I appreciate you coming on, spend some time with me, us getting to know each other. And we bonded. It's good. And I can foresee us definitely doing this again. Might get you on one of the big group chats. Oh, no, no, no, I can't have that. I've seen Bert. Oh, no, I guess I can. I've seen Bert shirtless. I'm integrated now. Yeah, you're good. You're you're part of the crowd now. Well, just do that while we have one of those nights where everyone is just sitting there shirtless on the stream. Well, let's let those New Year's resolutions kick in for a while first. All right, everybody in the chat. Thank you so much for coming in the spell. And you got to make sure you, Soob, to Shokie reviews, everybody, Soob, everybody, Soob, Soob is important. And I guess we'll see you next time. Once again, this is Patriot Prime signing out. Hula.


Commence our major Sims here on day three of the Forrest-Con Best Warrior competition. Yesterday soldiers conducted warrior tasks and battle drills, which included multiple events. They showed how fast they could assemble and disassemble a weapon, perform individual movement techniques, a medical evacuation, rendered medical treatment, and survived a chemical contamination. They also completed day and night land navigation. Today we're midway through the competition and our competitors right now are doing recovery operations and later on this afternoon they'll get to take a tour of Fort Riley and they're still not done. So tomorrow's mystery event is going to be great right before the board. So stay tuned for tomorrow's update as we'll let you know how everything went. Freedom's Guardian.


So, statues, I mean you all saw the horror of the statue of Jefferson being pulled down in New York, but one of the things that, this is the left out of control, this is the insanity, this is the inability of people to think, this is the inability of people to conceptualize, to understand what's important and what's unimportant, what is, you know, what is essential and what is not essential, but it was not surprising because we know this of the left, we know that the left at the end of the day hates Thomas Jefferson, but what shocked me was some of the comments to my horror at the fact that Thomas Jefferson's statue was torn down. People said, but you're on, you support the taking down of Confederate statues, what's the difference? This is people on our side, supposedly, and that just infuriates me, that people cannot tell the difference between people who are defending slavery, fighting for slavery, leading an army to defend slavery, leaving the Union for slavery, going to war for slavery, writing extensively about the virtues of slavery, advocating for expanding slavery to new cities, to new places, to new states, those people should not be honored with statues. Those statues should be put in museums surrounded by history lessons. The idea behind the statue of General Lee is there's something noble about General Lee, no, there isn't anything noble about General Lee, any more that there's something noble about a general who fought for the Nazis, but was a good general. I don't want to see a statue of him, he fought for the Nazis, it doesn't matter if he might have been a nice guy, like what's his name, Romel. Every indication is that Romel was a nice guy and ultimately towards the end of the war try to kill Hitler, but he fought for the Nazis for years, sorry, no statues for Romel, no statues for Lee, no statues for Confederate leaders, but Thomas Jefferson is the guy who made the Civil War an historical necessity. Thomas Jefferson who coined the idea that we're all created equal, put it in the Declaration of Independence of this country by doing that, set in motion, inevitably, a civil war. A man flawed as he was, he should have not had slaves, flawed as he was, a man who intellectually to logistent was responsible or contributed immensely to the creation of this country to the building of it with all its virtues. A man who was responsible for the Constitution or he wasn't at the convention but intellectually supported it. An important third president of the United States and an intellectual leader of the spirit of the United States. And to reject the US and everything the US stood for and everything the US mentioned, everything the founding documents meant because of slavery is historical ignorance, immorality, stupidity. Thomas Jefferson is a hero, flawed as he is. He is a hero and absolutely there should be statues to Thomas Jefferson. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Brook show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com.  Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.