In a world where the internet is filled with podcasts of people
saying, I think this and I think that there is a sanctuary
brought to you weekly with no music, no commercials, no
talent, and certainly no agenda from the west side of Guilford
in the United Kingdom. I'm Adam curry.
And up here in northern California where it appears to
be hitting 85 degrees Fahrenheit today. I'm John C. Dvorak. Holy
moly, it's a nice day here to actually are a little bit of
rain, but I left on a beautiful day. What was that? What was it?
When did I leave John?
He left it was windy and kind of miserable. Actually.
That was Wednesday. Thursday, I left with
warming up on Thursday. Yesterday, it was about 80. I
actually in some places it hit 86. And today, it didn't cool
off last night. And it's hot already and early in the
morning. So this is going to be actually great day trouble. Oh,
a horrible day. Okay, well, no, no miserably hot. It's gonna be
hot. I may have to get in the convertible drive around
in the convertible in the Mustang. In the Corvette?
Actually, the I do have a Corvette, but this will
be the Miata. Really? You have a Corvette? I didn't know you had
a Corvette.
75 needs work.
That's a stinger, isn't it? Oh, those are beautiful. I love the
sting rays. And it's totally collectible. New York was
beautiful. I was there for for a day. You know, Maggie booked me
on American Thursday. From work yeah. Now it wasn't it wasn't an
MD ad. She checked that. But unlike Maggie, you know, they're
gonna be rebooking people on a million different flights now,
so I sat in a coach seat in the middle. Yeah, yeah, that was not
Oh, you know, there was a big benefit, actually, to sitting in
a coach seat because there lots of people with laptops around
and, you know, I really couldn't move because once I folded
myself, and I was just there, right, and I could not if I want
to get out, I'd have to ask the person on either the right or
the left of me if I could get out.
But But by the way, that the good side of that at least
American Airlines has some legroom?
Yes, absolutely. But not enough to really manoeuvre my legacy.
I'm six, four. So as kind of tough with what I love about the
767 Is it still has a three two projector for the for the in
flight movie. But anyway, so I'm sitting there, and everyone has
their laptop open. And I'm looking, you know, right in
front of me. And this is a lady who's writing up a PR proposal
in PowerPoint. And I'm like, I'm staring straight ahead. So you
know, I couldn't help but read. I got nothing better to do. I do
that all the time. Yeah, it's it is kind of entertaining. So
here's what she was writing up. She was from a PR firm,
apparently working on behalf of Skype. And so it was a whole PR
plan to go to the media to say email is becoming the snail mail
of our age, and that is being replaced by the use of Skype.
Which, by the way, I'm not saying that that's completely
invalid that I am and VoIP aren't replacing some pieces of
email, perhaps. But what what was apparent is that they had
contracted Harris Interactive, which I guess is a surveying
company. I don't know if you're familiar with them, John? Oh,
yeah. They're famous. Okay. Well, so basically, they paid
Harris Interactive to extrapolate information to
support this idea. It's not it's not like, Harris did a survey
and oh, look at this. Look, what we found out No, Skype literally
came up with a PR idea, or the this PR firm, contracted Harris
Interactive, I could see her, you know, going through the
survey and pulling out pieces and bits and putting that into
this release. So you can expect that to be really big news next
week.
You know, of course, that that technique is not is not new by
any means. No, but
it's a great technique. It works all the time, doesn't it?
Not if you're busted? Well, I'd
say they're busted right now.
If you're busted, it doesn't work at all, it makes you look
like an idiot. And Microsoft used to try to pull that crap
all the time. But but they would always get busted, mainly
because it didn't, you know, they weren't doing it within
many finesse. They were like over, you know, over promoting
their side of the issue with you know, phoney surveys. And if you
did any research, all it takes is just a little research. And
you'll find this survey with this famous survey that I guess
Harris will be rolling out, you'll find who sponsored it was
was the client. Right, exactly. And then they so they're the
ones who designed the questions, and they're the ones who
reinterpreted the data and they're the ones who came up
with this and I know exactly why. I think the more
interesting question here with what you've stumbled on to and
congratulations, by the way, thank you is why are they doing
this? Do they need customers? I mean, this is not a big
moneymaker necessarily for EA But I think just looking at the
surface of it, that the reason they'd be doing this is because
they want to dump Skype on someone. Yeah, they want to prop
up the value of it before they don't they want to make it look
like it's worth more as part of some bigger trend. It's so
important.
Well, there were there were a couple other couple other pages
to this presentation. One was
the house while you were sitting right next door. No, right
behind her.
I was looking through. Yeah. Oh, perfect angle. So the other one
was they have a Skype has a deal with Hearst. And they're going
to be a Skype will become a platform for the presidential
candidates to converse with the constituents. And Hearst media
properties, we'll be promoting that. So look, be on the lookout
for that. And the third thing was, oh, yeah, show that show to
mainstream media, particularly, television producers, how
incredibly useful Skype is in integrating into their
programming. And as Skype apparently has a deal with
Harpo, which is Oprah's production company. So I don't
watch Oprah. But if they if she's not doing it already, I
presume that people will be video because this is all about
the video conferencing not part there'll be video conferencing
into the Oprah show.
Oh god amateur hour,
you know, I mean, we can't even we're actually pretty smart, we
can't even get a reasonable audio connection that they're
gonna do video with.
The funny thing is, is that you know, this kind of thing. These
video, when I was at Tech TV, they used a they actually gave
out something like two or three or maybe 5000 of these little
little cameras that you could hook to your computer and they
did have this as a feature. So they had various shows and then
have some idiot calling in on this cam and they had the guys
who are running the company thought this was so cool. And
every time we read a review of what was going on at Tech TV,
they talked about the amateurish pneus of this of their
connections and they wouldn't really know what was going on
because some if you just watched we're watching television and
you turn on a on one of these shows and you had somebody in
the studio talking to somebody on one of these, you know,
Logitech cams with the Herky jerky and the lousy voice and
you couldn't even see him they were fuzzy or they were
pixelated you'd go What a bunch What did a what how this is the
cheapest production I've ever just look
well you know what, I've seen this done lots of times so yeah,
so yeah span the audience get them to to buy webcams and call
in but then I've seen them actually put professional
cameras in and make it look like it was a you know a webcam call
I've seen that happen lots of times because it is
why is the question on my mind why what what is the point is it
so you can be hip DAB these things you know,
that's the only reason I agree I don't think it has any or it
usually does not have any does not have any value to the to the
programming.
So anyway, that does well when I've I've uncovered a few things
in my day you'll look in between the seats and by the way it did
again congratulate you for this because I've never really gotten
that much that's good.
But it was a six to six hour flight so I had plenty of time
actually I read along with her John until her battery ran down
great rats the battery very very entertaining.
So you must have had a good shot a good angle which is really
helps a lot I was one time in a in a seat one of these things
where you had the time behind there was a couple of aeroplane
configurations where there's there's this three and three on
either side and on when you get to the emergency exit all of a
sudden there's two and then three behind it so people can
get out the door and I and your best seat in a plane light
distance Southwest has a few of these is to be in that seat
where there's actually not a seat in front of you. It's just
an empty space right because that's where the emergency door
is which is a great seat. So when I saw I nabbed that seat
and I'm sitting there and the guy seat seated in what would
have been a middle seat but it's only two seats there pops open
his laptop and the angle I had because I didn't have to look
between anything was right the guy's presentation unfortunately
was about to use in insurance industry guy and it was like
whatever. But I could read it but yeah,
well this is I thought this is really interesting. So let's see
how long it takes between this sighting of the of the email is
being killed by Skype. Yeah, until we actually until we
actually see it.
Yeah, we will infected and if anybody's listening to the show,
they should keep an eye out for it and give us a date first
sighting
that's right first it first of all encounter or whatever they
call it. Let's just talk about the airlines for a second I
think Didn't you think you sent me a note? You want to talk
about something?
Yeah, this guy's Peter I Nova sent In a man was saying that he
had this weird suspicion. And it shows he said it it rang a bell
with me because I used to be of course, you're gonna always
ridiculed all these little careers I had
when you weren't. You're an FAA inspector. Now, I
wish when I was a kid I had, this is last year oh, by the
way, when I was in both high school, and college in the
summertime, I'd always work.
This was when Truman was our president. Yeah.
Sorry, you're gonna get yours eventually. Granted, yeah,
that's common quotes coming fast. So, because you could get
summer jobs, I mean, that I went up some of a few years back, I
was in port towns in Washington. And there was a bunch of kids
sitting around and I wrote an op ed someplace about how these
kids a bunch of lazy bastards, they don't do anything during
the summertime is during the summer. And it went on and on
and on. And some one of my readers, a young, younger reader
sent me a note saying, Hey, man, don't be so harsh on these guys.
You can't get work, there isn't anything, there's no factory
around. There's none of these things that you used to have
when you were a kid to go work at. And so I've kind of laid off
of them after that, because I've looked around it is true.
There's nothing to do in the summertime, you know, maybe do
volunteer work for Obama,
that this grid still exists the newspaper when a bike man by
delivering grid
you know, I here's a funny story about grid. I,
I don't Don't, don't don't go into great, yeah, Shaggy Dog
our way out of this. Okay. I saw a thing for grit recently. And I
and it was like a free two issues. And I want to see what
it looks like. So I signed up, you know, and I only got with
the bills and never got a copy. Oh, no,
no. That's right. Yeah. So it exists still. It's still out
there. Great.
Yeah, well, at least at least as of a couple years ago. Anyway, I
don't think kids are going door to door with it. They never did
when I was
for retail. I mean, my daughter works. weekends and summer and
vacation days in retail. Isn't that plenty of retail stuff for
kids to do?
compared that to a factory job at full union pay and benefits?
Yeah, that's true. I mean, I was walking out of every summer with
just a tonne of money. You know, the,
you know, what's great about my, my daughter has this job at Jack
wills, which is kind of like an Abercrombie and Fitch type
clothing store really expensive, you know, like, you know,
sweaters for 300 pounds, it's nuts. And what they do is I love
the system they set up, they hire all these beautiful kids
who love this brand. Anyway, they give them a 90% discount on
anything they buy in the store. So and of course they pay them,
you know, just barely minimum wage with absolutely no
benefits. And so what winds up happening is these kids spend 60
to 70% of their salary on the clothing because they can get it
at a 90% discount. So that that's like this perpetual
marketing ecosystem they built up and all these kids have to do
is just, yeah, they restock the shells. But they walk around
help people say, Oh, this looks nice. Don't you think that would
be good look good on you. And they're basically Uber
salespeople who are super incentivized.
Yeah, but are they as good as the old timers that used to work
in those stores? And you know, when you when you see shows
like, Are You Being Served?
Mr. Humphries, are you free? No, absolutely not. Certainly not as
colourful as Are You Being Served?
No. Anyway, the point is, is that there's not none of these.
When I was like, again, I used I met and worked in the sheetmetal
shop. So anyway, I, I got the clue early on that the job you
wanted to have was Inspector.
And by the way, John, I've had a lot of jobs like that, because
it was still possible when I was young. So let me just show my
age. Okay, Inspector.
One year, I was working as a receiving clerk at the
International Harvester, which was a pretty good gig. And then
the, but I noticed that that was my main job there because I was
working graveyard, which was kind of the drawback to some of
the summer jobs, but it was okay. I was working to get
jetlag. Anyway, this graveyard shift and my main job actually
turned out to be guarding the entire factory against some big
boss coming in at night for some unknown reason, and warning the
inspectors who are all upstairs playing poker. And they would
play poker until like six in the morning unless a try unless a
train came in. This was the days when a train would come in, and
they still do it. I think in the bigger factories, big train load
is parts would come in and then you'd have to get these guys
rousted, and they'd come down and inspections,
inspect the individual components or whatever was
coming in.
What are they inspected the shipments to make sure that they
were legit, and then you know,
where the governmental inspectors or inspectors the
factory employed inspectors
factory employed factors. Anyway, so I figured out that
this is the job you want and so I knew over the years I got I
went during the summer I get various jobs as an inspector
here and there at full Union Pay Because I came up I stumbled on
to an interesting, I wouldn't call it a scam but a technique.
Because early on when you were a kid, you went to summer, get a
summer job, they give you a summer job, you go to Ford, and
you'd get a summer job for these, you know, for college
because yeah, you got paid well, but there was a crap job you had
to you know, was just horrible. Some, you know, picking up some
spare bolts, you know, and putting them in a bin or
something. Just that's it all you did all day. Even assembly
line jobs weren't that much fun. So I went took this, just as a
lark one year, I wanted to get this one specific job. And they
asked me about my, I think I was a sophomore at Cal or something.
And they said, so why are you taking this job? So Well, I'm
just college is too hard for me. I'm, I'm quitting. So I told
them, I'm quitting school, and I'm going to work for them. So I
got this really nice inspectors job. And then the thing I
stumbled onto that which was the was the note of genius, was at
the end of the summer, and I actually probably stretch it a
little further, because so much good money. I told her I had to
go back to Europe really had to get back to school full time. So
I told him that, you know, I've worked here for these many
months. And it was a great experience for me, I've learned
a lot. But you know, I've decided to go back to school.
Oops. And they fell all over themselves with congratulations.
You are the hope for the American dream, son, go back to
school, get your education become president.
So instead of getting mad at me for just working the summer, you
know, it was, Oh, that's great. It's great. You're going back to
school? Do you need anything from us, let us know. So you
know, 1000 bucks. So anyway, so but there was an era when I was
an inspector at trail mobiel where I had been in the
spectrum, you just were working on cargo containers when they
were still made in this country. And, and, and this is where the
story about the FAA comes in. So I'm, there's one guy that's on
one of the lines that I'm inspecting, who I just love
talking to because the guy was essentially a stand up comic.
And he was doing his job all the time. But he would be talking to
me a lot and telling me jokes. In fact, there's still jokes
that he's still a couple of years ago, but he and he would
be had, he had little magic tricks and the guy was
hilarious. And so one day, the foreman of that line comes over
and choose me out. I mean, he's not my boss, because I'm working
I'm an inspector, their independence, but choosing me
out for wasting this guy's time and being a jerk for being
there. And then he just went on and on and on and on just given
me crap for this thing. So I pulled out the way it was done,
we'd have these little red pieces of tape and then you'd
have these little little pieces of slips that you'd write on for
errors. I started papering his products because if you've never
worked in a factory and if you don't know how things actually
work which is one of the I think a drawback to the American
public today they don't get it nothing meets spec right very
few things ever manufactured actually meet spec they're all
within you know range tolerance levels Yeah. And it's sometimes
you know, it's way off spec but it's still acceptable at some
point and inspectors have to have enough sense to let certain
things go you know, it's like a cop when he pulled somebody over
is it like making a decision where you're gonna write up a
ticket or not and you know, if you want to turn up the you
know, if you want to go buy the book, you can plaster anything
with with rejection stickers, right so I covered disguise
aligned because there was a lot of little things little nicks in
a piece of paint that's not 1.2 inches away from the spot you
know, it's supposed to be where it's supposed to be and
so what you're saying is that if you actually played by the book
then not a single product would come out of that factory.
Exactly, yeah. It may be one you know that got lucky but it would
you could probably still find something wrong with it. So I
plaster this stuff just just so my any any Yes. It will all
these little problems and some of them are almost impossible to
fix. The guy comes back to me begging, apologising, I'm sorry,
I was there was a bad day for me beg, literally begging for
mercy. Because I could have kept this up forever.
Okay, I get it.
Now that guy, the guy who wrote in the email mentions that the
FAA was taken to the called on the carpet by Congress just
before they started doing what they're doing, which is exactly
the same thing. You want us to follow the rules this you know
exactly to the to the letter, okay, we're gonna start shutting
down the entire system until you tell us to stop and that's what
they're doing. It's just a bunch of inspectors doing what they
do, hey, if you want to go by the book we can shut down. And
let's start with American Airlines AMR one of the biggest
corporations in the country. Hey, by the way, and if you
don't knuckle under, after we screw with them, we're moving to
United. And then we're gonna, you know, it's gonna be one
airline after another, they can bring the whole thing to a
standstill if the Congress, idiots in Congress don't figure
out what's going on.
So you can imagine, with my aviation background, I have an
opinion on this. Yeah, I'm sure. So first of all, I think you're
absolutely right about the inspectors. I mean, that's like
TPS report time, you know, we can we can we can bring your
your company or your country to a grinding halt. Absolutely. But
it's a little different in this case, because FAA, the FAA does
not actually go out and inspect every single piece of
maintenance that is done on any aircraft that's registered under
unregister. The way and and this is, so this is two issues. One,
it's about the FAA and the government and then saying
screw, you will bring everything to a grinding halt. And the
other part is about maintenance in aviation in general. So the
way maintenance works, and you know, maintenance is everything,
it's like 99% of all accidents is maintenance, you know, just
because shitty maintenance, makes the aeroplane break, or
things malfunction, you can get into bad situations. But every
so these planes are basically, they're not composite, they're
all sheet metal, and rivets, right. So it's the same type of
stuff that you've been dealing with. And they don't all have to
fit within a millimetre and you know, because they basically, if
your wing is the right design, and your engines stay on, then
you know, the rest will be pretty much okay. But every
piece of the plane, every every element, every every bolt, every
wire, even the airframe, everything has a time to live.
And it hasn't, it has an expiration date, which is set up
by the manufacturer who obviously, you know, is liable
for number of reasons, if they if they're lying about the life
expectancy of all these different parts and pieces. And
even if these pieces aren't worn or aren't showing wear and tear,
you have regular intervals of maintenance inspections that are
done by the maintenance company. And these peat, these parts have
to be replaced, or certain checks have to be done as an
example. Every two years, every year, I have an annual
inspection on on my aircraft every two years, all of the
avionics have to be removed and tested, even if they're working
fine, they have to go out, you know, it's it. And of course,
it's an extra expense, the propeller has an X number of
hours, and you have to send that away, and even my plane, you
know, it'll cost me like $8,000 to have the prop. maintained.
And that's once maybe it depends on how much you fly, but it's
all based on hours, etc. So the person doing the maintenance has
to sign off. On the end, you have to be new, you have to be
an FAA approved maintenance company or maintenance engineer,
you have to sign off and you signing off says I did this
work, I performed it, I did the check. And you are liable as an
engineer if you're lying about that. So what happened here is
the F is an i we had that we have to go back and find out how
the story broke. But somehow someone figured out that the FAA
knew that there was all kinds of shit going on with the
maintenance records. So pieces were missing, and stuff that was
submitted but not signed off on. And what it came down to is
basically wire ties, John, you know, wire ties, for these big
copper bundles that go through these through the MDF in these
mid 80s, which is what they chose to to inspect. It's not
that the FAA has to inspect every single one of those but
the maintenance companies have to do it at regular intervals,
and then, you know, sign off and send it in, this was not
happening. And so as a pilot, you know, I'd be really angry, I
would quit, I would rather go work at Jack wills than then fly
an aircraft where any piece of maintenance was not done only to
save costs because that's what it's about. And it's not a big
deal. These wire ties it really isn't. Although, because of this
issue, I think there's been 20 or 25 instances on mdadm where
the nose gear would not retract and you do not want that as a
pilot you don't want anything going wrong with your with your
undercarriage. So it's actually quite exemplary that the FAA and
this is this really adds proof to your to the point you're
making, that the FAA would say we're doing the spot check on
every single one of these aircraft. That's a really big
deal because they don't do that typically. But now they've taken
you know they've taken their authority Hurry and made Uber
authority and said look we don't just need to have all your
records in and everything to be signed off on we're doing spot
checks on everybody. So it's kind of a double whammy the air
the airlines need to be fucking taken out back and shot because
they've been skimping on maintenance which is very very
serious offence any
I'm an I'm an agreement on that because I know a lot of the
maintenance is now almost not quite but borderline out sourced
shops in Mexico for example.
Oh, and let me tell you, I have my I will not get an aircraft
any aircraft that I can help it obviously. But certainly in a
private aircraft if I don't know who's been doing the
maintenance, because you know, you get all these particularly,
they talk about more than one pair of hands. So if you have
more than one pair of hands working on on your aircraft, it
could very easily be that one guy thought he had tightened the
bolt and the other guy didn't and you know, it's a confusion
and then it gets signed off on and you think you're good to go
and it's a really it's a life threatening situation. And I
think all airlines need to be severely penalised for any type
of of lack of maintenance so so they're kind of the the golden
boys and girls and all of this. I think they're getting their
game. Really easy. Really easy. Well,
there's something screwy about the whole thing the way I see
it, but
but I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right.
They're gonna do it to the you know, they're gonna figure out
another issue. They'll they'll bring down another airline and
maybe they'll just keep going at American now who knows, but it's
a it's screwed up my my flying time in the past couple days.
Yeah, but it gave you a scoop.
Yeah, that's true. Because if I had not been unable to upgrade
had I not been stuck in coach in that middle seat. I wouldn't
have known that. Email is dead.
It's actually sometimes you have to you know, when you have
lemons, you make lemonade baby.
coming into the country, one year one an update. Yeah. You
came into the country for a couple of days. Yep. And you hit
you tell me you didn't wouldn't want to tell me while you were
here, because we wanted to do it on the show. What was your
latest experience?
Okay, so we had decided that I would ask for the TL for the
team leader, which I had learned was a way to get into the depth
of the database quicker in order for it because only the team
leader has access to all of the notes that are plugged in put
next to my record, saying the guys okay, so I No, I was not
going to do it at the first initial customs booth. I was
going to do it when you are ready to leave the airport. Now
I walk up to the I got off the plane real quick. I walk up to
the to the customs. Boredom border customs was a border
patrol agent in the glider kit in the glass case. And he's real
Swift. You know, he takes my He takes my landing card, he puts
the the one on it with a circle, which they all do if they'd like
no one guy we can pass. He says bringing any fruits and
vegetables in the country. I said no. Tears. Okay. And then,
you know, he just swipes my passport. And then he gets that
look right. The look that I'm now all too familiar with. And
then I and then I, I don't know, I broke my own rule. I said,
Yeah, I know. You're seeing all kinds of stuff there. And I've
been advised to ask for a TL a team leader. He said, Sure. So
he didn't stamp my card I had to go to and I didn't know they had
this. They have a room. It's at SFO for secondary screening. And
it's a little back office. So I've never been in here before.
I don't know if it's new or not. It was kind of hard to tell. But
it's it's kind of off to the side, you know, and there's all
kinds of ethnic looking folks who are being semi detained in
there. And sort of hand off my passport and card and I and I go
through the wrap, you know, it's like, Well, this has happened
about 10 times and it happens every single time. And, you
know, the team leader should be able to get into the database.
You said Okay, Mr. Curry, he was really nice. By the way, no one
was mean. Have a seat, Mr. Curry. And it took probably
about 25 minutes and he said, Okay, you're good to go. And
then you know, he hands me my passport and my and my landing
card. And I know that I have to go through to the next to get
out of the airport. I have to show all that stuff again. And
John, there's like, there's an M on it. There's an eye on it.
There's a one on it. There's an L on it. There's like a B on
there's like war and peace on earth. I'm telling us so I get
my bag and wheel it out. And the guy sees me come and he sees
this ticket, which is like filled with a yellow marker and
he hands me the little blue clear plastic envelope, which is
the protocol. And I walk up and I see the team leader who has
dealt with me before he's like, Adam, how you doing? Yeah, he
says, Man, this should not be happening to you. This should
not be happening. Come on over here. And so he's there with so
this is Agent Lund, I think his name is. And Agent Phillips,
lovely young lady, she's already tapping away in the database.
And, and she's so. And what I realised pretty quickly is that
she doesn't know, I've never seen her before. She doesn't
know about my issues. She knows me from MTV. So now I'm like,
this is going to be fun. And we're chatting away, and we're
having, you know, lots of talks and like, so you know, we're
really, really, really sorry about this, you know, and
they're going back and forth, and they're discussing put the
fling out yet, check that box, he said, we should be able to
get you out. But we just can't seem to get you out of this
database. And so I started saying, Well, tell me about this
database, you know, how is it? Where's all the information
coming from? And I just really want confirmation, which is,
well, it's really, it sits on top of all this other
information from Department of Motor Vehicles. And the IRS was
telling me about this. I think illegal practice. He says, and
it's really hard to to, it's really hard to get names out, he
says, But you know, it's not a no fly list. It's a different
type of list. I said, Yeah, I'm quite aware. I says, there's now
about a million people who shouldn't be in this database
and are being stopped. And we're having a real hard time getting
people off the list. And he will be giving you the documentation
about submitting your information for removal and
said, what one of those Freedom of Information Act things he's
no, no. And he has a booklet kind of like, a rectangle memo
pad, you know, where you can rip off sheets, and it says kind of
near one end is Gumede. Yeah, and it's an instruction in
English and in Spanish. About how to, and I've heard of this
before, but I guess now it's, I thought it was only for no fly
list. But now it's also for this type of secondary screening to
go to the trip system on the Department of Homeland Security
website. So it's www dot d h s.or.gov/trip. Tr IP. And it is
the homeowner should look at what that stands for. It's like
the travel restriction. Hold on. I find that when I say
dhs.gov/trip It's kind of a kind of scary is what it is here.
traveller redress inquiry programme. Great. someone's
like, Hey, cool. The acronym is trip. This is really awesome. So
you should look at that webpage. And they know I have to submit
all kinds of information and then they'll contact me for more
information and oh, don't worry, here's our privacy policy.
Yeah, right. So it's not going to work anyway.
Do you think I should try it? Should I
yeah, you will you have to for the purposes of this show. Yeah.
But the fact of the matter is, your name is Adam curry. And the
problem is there's another Adam curry out there you're not in
that you're not even in the database. Right, I know
I know I am. I am now in the database. I'm definitely the
database
so it's on you to proving that you're not the other Adam curry.
Yeah, you can go through this trip process and I would
encourage you to do it, but it's not going to get you off this
list. But if you're not on the list, but
for my for here's my question for all this money that's going
to the Department of Homeland Security. I think as a citizen I
have the right for them to go track this guy down. He sounds
pretty scary. They clearly they want him
maybe you should sue the guy because it's you're the one
that's suffering and you're the one that has to be detained for
half an hour at a crack over and over you know what my
time is worth, John, I mean half hour of my time that's just
millions of dollars.
You should suit find the guy and sue him and him to make the
government part of the lawsuit, get a lawyer that can figure
something out some crazy lawsuit out here that sounds like one to
me, and and take some action, then get him off the list by
getting him whatever have him resolved. You know, that sounds
get more whatever they do to
him. It sounds like that's gonna cost me money. A lot of effort.
And I don't really think I mean, I'm not a very litigious guy,
or the show, think of the show. This show the show.
Here's one for the show. So I left from JFK last night on
Virgin, and at JFK. You can actually check your bags in at
the check in desk gift and take your bag to the TSA screening
machine, which is a little bit further up. So I'm rolling my
bag down and I knew I had a huge delay. So I'm taking my time and
I'm feeling pretty good. And so I roll my bag over and there's
this TSA agent. She's about six to she's got She's extremely
MILFy I think she's pushing 30 late 30s 40 and John stunning, a
stunningly sexy, tall woman in uniform and And so, you know,
she looks at me and I look at her and we're, you know, we're
eye to eye, right? And you have to understand when you're tall
like I am, you just don't get that a lot and like, Oh, hi. And
she's like, oh, hi and hand off my bag. And I said, Don't you
just miss hugging people your height? She says, she says, Oh,
it's been such a long time. I said, Come here, baby. Give me
one. So I hugged her and we're like, we're doing this big
embrace. And also when she realises she's like, fired. But
it was a nice hug. It was good. You have to understand, yeah,
the only time that I had the best hug I ever I think I told
you that the best hug I ever had was the Shaquille O'Neal.
No, really? Yeah,
I was interviewing big dude. Yeah, he's seven foot, whatever.
And, and I was interviewing him for something. And I said to
Shaq, can I just ask you one last question? And he said,
Yeah, I said, No. You know, I know you can feel my pain here.
Would you mind if I just hugged you? It would be so nice to be
hugged by someone bigger than me. And he says Absolutely.
Just. Yeah, it's nice. Man. Hugs are good. You should hug someone
this week. John.
Hug enough. I'm in California, you have to hug all the time.
That's true. I go, here's something to tie. Here's
something that ties into what we're talking about, about
accuracy of parts. Remember, we had the conversation about the
crystals. Right?
Hey, John and Adam, this is Scott from Virginia I was
listening to last Friday has no agenda where you were talking
about the inaccuracy of system clocks. And John was saying how
he couldn't believe that crystals was all our technology.
They couldn't keep more accurate time. While I'm a computer
engineer, so maybe I can give you an idea of why these
crystals are so inaccurate.
Can you hear this? Because it's kind of scratchy this audio?
Yeah, no, I can hear it. Okay.
As with any component that you manufacture resistors
capacitors, there are certain tolerances associated with both
the manufacturing process and with other environmental
variables like temperature. So if you buy a crystal rated for
one megahertz, that's one megahertz, maybe plus or minus
50 hertz, that's a pretty standard number, you can get
lower tolerances than that, or tighter tolerances, and then
your only effect is on my end cost of the device. Now,
whenever you put a crystal into a system, you hang off things
like capacitors, resistors. And these things can affect the
overall accuracy of your timing along with the temperature of
the environment. So you can easily see why you would need to
rethink the clock every so often with a at the time server like
the atomic clock, or the National Institute of Science
and Technology here in the United States. So I hope to shed
some light on that for you on the show and hope to hear this
on the air.
So one of my summer jobs was selling components, like
electronic components in, in a shop that literally sold
capacitors, resistors, etc. And I was listening to that comment,
I realised memory could I think you can still buy resistors
probably only over the internet these days. And the resistor
would have a colour code and would tell you how many or what
the own value was of, of that resistor and it also had either
a, a no banned a silver band or a gold band, which would also
tell you the quality of the resistor, and the DV deviation
percentage, which I think was like 5% for gold and 10% for
silver or something.
I don't remember but I do remember that that that was
there was this cool little code? And then there was something
beyond that called mil spec.
Well, oh, I don't know about that. What's mil spec? Oh, mil
spec is an old military spec specification.
Yeah, it was always the tightest supposedly
an orange book mil spec so so there's your answer. It's
cheaper cheaper
is that it's actually the there's no question about it.
That's exactly what the problem is. But did was remind none that
gives me two anecdotes nice to top
okay that now we know how the show works.
Triggers old landline, I was a kid. So I got I have this couple
of Kodak cameras ones A 603 is a dual lens camera that has this
unbelievable mic and you can go to divorce uncensored, look up
the Dvorak uncensored videos on YouTube and you'll find one on
there that says and the title of it is producer questions quality
of microphone I don't like that is where I had Annalisa Savage
in the cranky geek set and I was shooting her with this little
camera, which has what sounds like a studio mic in it. And
there's actually I have a 700 series camera that has a similar
mic but not quite as good as this one. If I want to go out
and shoot somebody and I want to get the sound perfect. I'll
bring this black six megapixel cameras make a movie with it.
Anyway, so you can listen to this for yourself. And here you
go. Oh my god. It's unbelievable. So I figured that
they have the cameras kind of where it has all kinds of little
etching Using things I figured they had some special trick that
they'd done to make the sound so good. And so I called Kodak up
to ask him about this microphone. And the company was
literally baffled by my by my queries as a boy. And now
excited. So I did some more research and an audio engineer
friend of mine told me that essentially what's going on with
these digital little cameras, these pocket cameras, these
cheap cameras, is that these mics are like a buck 50
uncalibrated Mikey says it would probably cost $100 At $100 to
the cost of the camera to calibrate these mics. So they
would really be sounding good because there are good mics out
there. But the Quit he what he told me was essentially I got
lucky. And so I'm that cameras never gonna leave my site. And
because it's like, it's astonishing what the sound
sounds like.
I will add, I will add one thing to that. Did you record her in
the cranking geek studio?
Yes, I've done it. I will swear to the cranky geek studio is
nice and sound. It was a studio. Um, so I'm trying I'm showing
that the mic sounds like a studio mic in a studio. I don't
think it was completely out of order.
But why don't you use that mic for this show, man because you
sound like crap.
I can't get a compressor on it. So now that which brings me to
the other story. And there's another example when I was
talking about how these inspectors you know, you know,
how there's no such thing as anything coming to spec.
Everything is a little fluctuates just a little bit,
which is part of I guess, is our theme today. So I'm working at
Union oil during the era. I was a chemist at during the era was
Better Living Through Chemistry, John, I'm a believer. And
so anyway, they had they, there was a period in American
gasoline history where we'd had where they've decided that lead
had to get out of the gasoline, because it turned out that you
know, to make a gallon of ethanol, which was the high
octane gasoline, typically running almost close to 100
octane. They had to put about four grammes of Tetra ethyl led
into the gasoline so that wouldn't have knock. And three
grammes of lead came out the pipe as elemental lead. So most
of the road anyway, anyone who lives near a road or anything
was, I mean, the country was being basically poisoned by
lead, elemental lead that would form salts and it would it
reacted with the environment when were shipped before getting
to the food supply and everything else. But also
prep for your engine didn't make your engine run well.
Well, what it did is it lubricated the rings. And as a
side the real reason for it was for the octane to get a smoother
a better performing gasoline because octane, higher octane
means a gas that explodes with a more controlled explosion. And
the rings though, but as an as a side effect, the the lead in
because it would melt as it as it blew off. He would lubricate
the rings, so the car wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't wear out.
So they determined that union oil that day that it all you
really needed was point was a half a gramme of lead, as
opposed to three or four grammes to keep the rings lubricated,
until they can change the way engines were designed. And so
there was a spec that was put out because the oil industry
didn't want to have to deal with all these people moaning or
they, you know, the public moaning about their cars falling
apart, because there's gonna widen the guys Gostiny break
down. So they had they had this tolerance, they did decide to
put into play a law that says gasoline can have no more than
point five grammes of lead in a gallon now, which was fine and
said they were making this gasoline, but because of the
point five is point five. And then about two or three years
later, some idiot, change the spec 2.500. No. So anybody who
knows anything, and apparently you know that, again, we're
dealing with a public that hasn't got a clue. And current
State Senate and whatever, point five or for anyone out there and
it doesn't get the glut of importance of the three what's
the desert 1.5 and point five? Oh, I can just see the argument.
Well, the difference was is 1.5 We could make the gasoline at
Union oil. Point five, four, and it's in spec, technically. And
most of the gasoline came in at point five oh point five one
point for any it could be point four nine that's inspect two,
but it was mostly a little bit over because the determination
was that uh, you needed at least a half a gramme. But if you
change the spec to point five oh, you're off spec at point
five one right and point five, two, so everything had to be
under two Make spec because you're not going to hit point
five. Oh, rarely. So all the gasoline started going out of
point four 7.46 which was started just effects the valves.
Yeah. And so the next thing, you know, you know, people are
having these issues with engines and the rest of it and then of
course, eventually the, the carmakers put in better, you
know,
and also they came up with synthetic lubricants right that
are added, added to the fuel.
Well, no, it's it really isn't the insurance themselves,
really? I mean, there's stuff in the gas, that's for sure. That's
pretty so is
there no, no lead in the gas or they still had some some?
No lead? There's zero lead and gas for the last, I don't know,
20 years or 15 years or however long it's been. But no, there's
no lead in the gas at all. And then there's, the engines are
just better. I mean, they they've just changed the way you
know that. There was a thing back in the day, I've never
heard the term stands, but they said well, the the real problem
was valve seating by the way more so than the rings, the
valve seats, what would happen if you didn't have lead? The
valve would go and hit the head? And then because there was no
lubrication? It would where they would wear down? Well, it was it
would weld itself to the head, because it's hot, right? So it
would pull off a little piece of metal and it's conventionally
drive itself right into the engine. So they had these things
called so they had they had put into it would change as they put
in these new expensive valve seats into the engines that were
not susceptible to this problem. And then they use more developed
formulation of that metal in the valve was, you know, it was such
that you didn't it wasn't going to do this was really what
changed. What is your
what is your vet run on? That's unleaded, was that unleaded
days?
275 So I believe it's still a lead it still was like,
Hey, man, can I drive it? Does it work? Does it work? Does it
start does it drive? You drive it someday? For you please.
John, can I drive you a bit? I want to drive your baby.
I gotta get back party. You know, the problem with this bed
is listen, dude, a bunch of stuff is falling off of it.
Kind of like your Lexus. You mean?
My Lexus is fine. So the anyway the vet has a there was a back
in 75. This is back then is made out of some sort of weird
plastic. And it just essentially degrades in the air starts
falling off in chunks. What?
What colour is it? Is it because they only made it Ryan's gonna
say they only made solid colours or one with a stripe. I think he
had white, you had yellow. Remember that? That one in
yellow, which was extremely ugly? Yeah, red
thread thread. Around 70 I think at the 79 vet, which had a real
interesting roofline, I believe had they came out with one and
baby blue, which is if you ever see one, they're just absolutely
the prettiest thing you've ever seen on the road.
Trisha had a Patricia had a C five in in Belgium, which and
she looked good in that Corvette man. But you know, by then, of
course, the Corvette was completely made of what is it?
fibreglass? fibreglass? Yep, and she was in the garage and she
was going to and she pulled into the garage. So you pull in the
garage, she had the top down, and the garage door opener
caught fire above her head, you know, just some sort of short
circuit. So she freaked out and she had already she had already,
you know, stopped the car and already had the door open. And
she sees this fire. She's like craps about my head, the roof is
down. So she starts the car, she slams it in reverse to get out
of the garage with the doors still open. Which ploughs into
the boiler. So the door of course like snaps off in the 18
million pieces because it's fibreglass. The boiler ruptures
were complete flood everything destroyed. And it was just
amazing to see how that car just you know just disintegrated
before your very eyes that door.
Geez. Yeah. Anyway.
A little sideline, little sideline that it was, it was
funny, man, it was a funny occurrence.
I am sure Patricia, appreciate you telling that story in
public. Yeah,
she does not.
Anyway, so that's the kind of the thing about so so the point
is, is that, you know, some knowledge I mean, changing
things, you know, minor, because somebody's a nitpicker or
whatever, well, why are those make it point five, all this
kind of thing is again, part of the kind of a problem we have
with with, you know, as we as we're divorcing ourselves as a
society from manufacturing, and actually, you know, people,
kids, you know, working in on the assembly line or just
anything where you're actually having to do more than just sit
and ring up sales at a retail store, you know, Chinese goods,
with no really no experience and of any sort. It starts to sneak
in this kind of naivete, and stupidity starts to sneak into
the legislatures and the next thing you know, we have a lot of
stupidity that It will just permeate all levels of society.
And we have to deal with this, essentially a bunch of we're
gonna have a bunch of people that don't understand what going
by the book means and why it's not necessarily a good thing.
In some instances, it is good to go by the book though. Yeah, no,
you didn't have to. You have to.
The book is written to be flexible. Yeah.
But still, when it comes to aviation, I ain't that flexible.
Yeah, I know, you keep harping on it, but I'm sure there's
some. There's a I'm sure your plane is off spec. Together with
some really, I'll bet you could find all kinds of things to tag
on. Oh,
I'll bet you that my, the Wing Commander would be severely
pissed off. Have you heard you say that?
Betcha that he knows that there's, there's got to be
something off spec, whether it's the distance from one door to
the other, or the story the seat
is. But that's but that's not a regulatory issue.
Yeah, there's probably everywhere you look, there's
going to be something wrong. If you're gonna go by really go by
the spec. So the thing is, like, you know, blueprinted, exactly
the way but none of
it, it doesn't have to be blueprinted. But the checks the
the regular inspections have to be done. That's different.
That's
no, they have to be done. But I'll bet you there's a little
tolerance in there, you're claiming zero tolerance for
anything?
No, because the tolerance, the tolerance level. So if you have
a bolt that is known to last, you know, 1000 hours, it will
have to be replaced at 500 hours. So the taller it's, you
know, the the the time between overhaul of components is a much
shorter time than then the expected the lifetime of these
components. I mean, that's not 5%. You know, you just can't cut
it that close in aviation because of deviation like that.
So that's what I'm trying to tell you. So the 1000 hour thing
is bogus. Essentially, if you have to pull the bolt at 500
know that it's two separate issues. One is, here's how long
this bolt will last. And the other one is, here's how you're
guaranteed not to die, because you'll put a new bolt in,
that'll be fine for another 500 hours. As different Yeah, I'm
understanding what you're saying. I'm just saying and
obviously there's some fear. Because if the bolt is really
good for 1000 hours, really good, guaranteed if they let's
say, of course, there's
fear. John has fear of death. That's obvious.
Exactly. But the point I'm making here is if that bolt,
supposedly to spec is good to 1000 hours, you shouldn't have
to worry at all until it gets to 1000 hours. Why are you worried?
Because you know, these things aren't to spec.
Exactly. So that's the more egregious to not even perform
checks, which are probably well within limits well within time
limits, but to not do them. That's just
telling you not to do them. I'm just telling you that your
planes not up to spec.
You know, when you come over here, I'm putting your ass in
the Delta shower. We're flying in that non up to spec aircraft.
Okay. Wow.
The weather is clear.
We don't need no stinking weather. We got instruments,
which are also up to spec.
Well, let's hope so anyway, we went out to dinner while you
were out here.
Yeah, and I realised in hindsight, I don't think it's a
good idea for us to do a proper dinner on the day that I come
in.
Now, you crapped out right in the middle of it. It was
unbelievable. You can see it right. You can see my happy go
lucky guy. Just hit the wall. I did. Unbelievable.
I apologise. I was not a great table, mate. For half of the
half of the dinner was
just my calculation. It was four o'clock in the morning, London
time when that happened to you.
Yeah. And we were eating caviar.
While we're eating caviar early, you had to hit the wall after
that. Yeah. So I was a little disappointed with the
restaurant. really been there a million times. I liked the
place. Ficks law footless Lee, we have to tell people what was
one of my favourite restaurants as a good restaurant, San
Francisco. But you know, they got a Michelin star received a
Michelin star. And I think that they're trying a little too. I
mean, it seemed to me because I've been I've been there
forever, that they're trying a little too hard to be fancy.
That's a good point.
That's a good point. I agree with you there.
And which is again, you know, like I don't need, I want to eat
some good food. I want to have good well prepared food. I don't
want some weird experimentation and there was one. There were
two or three things in there that were very disappointing One
was this. The one the dish I had, which was the crab,
whatever the heck it was. It was a crab appetiser that was with
grapefruit with grapefruit right? It had grapefruit as the
base so the grapefruit puree which does not by the way, go
with crab. And there was these little pineapple things or you
essentially had a deep fat fried in some funny way with a bunch
of other crap on there that was unnecessary. The whole thing
didn't work at all
can I just be kind respectfully disagree that I've had several
dishes that combined crab and grapefruit
Well, that's a possibility that it could work if the grapefruit
was sweet. But this was done a bitter and sour. But it didn't
work. And I even thinking about it was sweet. I wouldn't
recommend it as a combination.
But let's back up because we started with an ounce of caviar,
which I thought was spectacular.
The caviar was good. But again, they had some, you know, botched
presentation. Essentially what we had was a caviar was on a
really interesting contenders your Tayto Okay, Tayto blini.
Yeah. And there was a it has spinach and potatoes, but it
didn't they had a sour cream on top of that, and then the caviar
doused on top of that. And and that was all fine. But what was
what was underneath the blini was like baffling, what was the
point of putting a combination of small chunks of asparagus,
asparagus, little cubes of some fish or other? Well, the
problem with that presentation was because they gave us Mother
of Pearl spoons to eat it with, you couldn't really get the
asparagus onto the spoon because you know, the thickness of the
spoon was really it's really meant for scooping caviar. So
you couldn't actually get anything off your plate without
involving your fingers, which I felt was kind of wrong.
Well, you could use a real fork but the point is, is that what
was the are the what was the point of this additions to what
should be a kind of a simple dish. I mean, they already had
the, the swirls of some chive green thing around to get you
know, make it it was a very pretty
dish. And it tasted good. I liked that swirly stuff. That
was good. It tasted good.
Yeah, no, it was good. I wasn't complaining about that. But
while I was complaining about was the unnecessary weird crap
that was put underneath the blini
it's just to be able to say to put on the menu. Oh, we have
nice little pieces of asparagus we have hidden for you under the
potato blini
so anyway, it's always disappointing that the I'm
always just went in that part of it. I did like the caviar and
then the crab thing was just completely out of control. It
was what do
I have for my entree?
Yeah, what did you have? I had the crusted tenderloin you had
like a lamb or a no or B for some damn thing.
I didn't I didn't buy that. Well you had an order before that. I
had something else
by then you were going by the time that entree came out it was
some what was the order wrapped in your shot by then?
What What was the order
the order of in my case was the was the was
the crab right what I had something look it up this is not
good. This is not good that I already forgot what I had to
eat.
Yeah, no, that's actually a bad sign. Here let me go look it up
because the menus actually online.
I also felt a little bit in the in the service and the way the
chef was kind of walking around in and out pontificating I also
felt that was a little unnecessary. It felt like you
know, just get the food on the table and just move it along.
I didn't mind that this shift coming in and out and I didn't
know it was nice to be
came over to our table and said hi. And you know that was I
thought that
service was stunning. It was right on the money. They never
they never missed a beat. I was not
it was timely but it felt it felt a little I don't know I was
not in my right mind. I was not I was not saying
no I think the service was was fantastic actually atmosphere
fantastic. Like that a lot atmosphere was really good. And
the wine I couldn't appreciate the wine as much as I usually
do. It was good.
Well, that's uh Well that brings up another problem which was the
wine Yeah, so I order a bottle of wine and I've never had this
happen before normally you know I like to cherry pick you find
some good wine and then the guys can't find it or they're out of
it you know which is like inexcusable for a start
restaurant be out of wine
with a Michelin star Excuse me.
So so we go there in the
report, John they should they should be stripped of their star
for that dammit. I don't
know I think all these ones these starred restaurants that
that they're giving it to us. Places or should be stripped. I
think there's only maybe I was looking at the list. There's a
tonne. Like in Look at this. There's like so many restaurants
with stars. In California alone. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's
ludicrous. These are not restaurants that compare to
anything in France. I mean, lawfully is a good restaurant,
but it's the I don't think it would have a star if it was in
France. And I don't think that the French Laundry should have
three stars. I think maybe two men Right, cuz I think there's a
root operation. They won't take reservations except once a month
for a couple hours a day. They won't answer the phone. I mean,
there's all kinds of issues that is not doesn't warrant. It keeps
it from getting three stars
right arrogance.
Well, yeah, totally. So anyway,
John, of course, I know what we have. We both had the same
thing, dude. frog's leg.
Oh, yeah. No, we had the Fred that frog's legs were good than
what?
I had the goat cheese and for me dumb bear tahini. The goat you
that's a goat cheese salad.
Right? That was much better than mine, which was
really good. And then we had the frog's legs which we both
thought were rather tiny.
They were extremely small. And where were they
from? They were from Florida. Tampa. What do you say? Florida,
Florida, Florida frogs. All right, back to the wine because
I interrupted you on that.
Yeah, so anyway, I ordered a Here we go.
And then I had the I had the quail. That's what I had. I
didn't I wouldn't get here. I
found the menu. It's online. Looking at it.
I'm looking at it.
Oh, a second. I was having trouble. Yeah. Was a frog legs.
Tan, which was good. That was actually pretty good. That mine
was the Dungeness crab salad Napoleon on crispy pineapple
chips, grapefruit and pomegranate Jele. It was
horrible. And then anyway, like just, I like, you know, the guy
was the chef role and pissant he is a core pestle. I guess he's a
really great guy in the end. There. I liked the restaurant.
But I was just so disappointed. And it just seemed to me that
there are over trying too hard. In the old day, olden days when
Lu TAS was a was a big shot place to go to in New York City.
That was unique in the fact that they really didn't go into
anything that was complicated. It was all really well done. And
simple. And it was always considered the best restaurant
in Manhattan. So anyway, so I was like, no all the wine. So I
ordered a bottle of a of a wine was a 2003 Chateau Hallmark was
a and he said he would like the marble that would you like to
wine to Canada? He says it's not that old. I don't really I don't
like generally speaking half these ones don't need to be the
candidates pretentious, just want to breathe. They said,
Well, it's a Tuesday. He says, Well, it's a 2000. I said no,
it's three. Yeah. So he goes back he says, Oh, I got the
wrong way. I got the marble Tuesday Chateau marbles A which
is a different for winery. And then he goes off to get the
other one which was what I wanted to check out. So comes
back he says he's digging all over. He's got a bunch of so I
can't find it. So I thought was
weird is literally what he said. I can't find it. Most you
what he said. And so so we got the other one the 2000 Marbles
A, which I haven't had. So I figured it out. You know, it's
not bad. And it was actually cheaper. And so we had that it
was fine. It was good wine, but it wasn't what I wanted. Right.
So that was kind of a
problem. And of course we had a we have a white Bordeaux with
the
Oh, yeah, we actually it was surprised how good that was a
chateau Monet. That was good. I liked just everyday white
Bordeaux. Anyway, so I'm looking at so I got kind of into looking
at all these Michelin stars at the Michelin guide people are
throwing out like there's no tomorrow. I'll just
explain a Michelin star Michelin is essentially like the ultimate
Zagat guide, I guess of France. And
it's the original. It's the original restaurant. This began
almost 100 years ago, Michelin decided that they should do some
guys shall and by
the way is a is a tire manufacturer.
We think most Americans didn't have I think, Lance, I think
most Americans don't know. I think they could parolees
now I think you're wrong. Because I mean, he's got Costco
sells Michelin tires.
So let me just bridge the gap between tires and restaurants
because I don't think most people know that.
Right? That's true. Go now the reason for the guides originally
was to sell tires. It was like you brought this it was a guide
that showed you all these places you could travel on your in your
car and wear out your tires. Yep. So over the years, they
became like the experts and they started in France of course. And
in fact, the read guide, I always tell people who've never
been to France. If you don't have a read guide, Michelin read
guide in France when you're travelling around, you're crazy.
Because it's really the way to go. I mean, they list all the
little towns and they have all the little hotels and what they
charge and every restaurant in the country is unbelievable. And
so they came up with the system some years ago to star and
there's only three stars is the most you can get so people try
It is a four star Michelin place you know that you hear that one
sun was like, you know, three stars is the most you can get.
And they only have a very few. In fact, they have the list here
of the ones stars. In Paris, for example, there's only nine out
of 26 in the entire country of France, nine three star
restaurants 15 in Paris has 15, two stars and 38 one stars. Now,
when you consider the fact that we are damn near have that we
don't have as many one stars in United States, but we have
already too many, because they're supposed to be the most
strict and if you've been to these restaurants in France,
this is one of the there's it's more than just the food is of
food. There's the atmosphere, there's the service.
This is my point. Exactly. I believe with the wine snafu, and
the frickin asparagus under the caviar blini. I think we we
should write them up.
Well, I would except for the fact that the list of one star
restaurants in San Francisco, and let me just go over a couple
of them here is ridiculously long, and they're probably not
the worst offender. I mean, there's it's just a ludicrous
list of restaurants with one star that if you were in France,
these are just country places you'd find all over the place.
And some of them are literally bistro that haven't changed
their menu in years, like Bistro, jaunty and Yountville.
And the other thing that's weird is that if you look at the list,
the California Northern California San Francisco list,
it's, it's obviously the guy who's doing it or the team
that's doing it. They obviously live in Healdsburg or Yountville
or St. Halina or someplace in the Napa Valley, because there's
way too many restaurants that are in the wine country, which
is you know, I mean, how many restaurants can a population of
five support and there's hardly anything on the peninsula of San
Jose south, there's nothing you know, there's one place in Los
Gatos, but there's like, for example, I don't want to bore
people with this, but there seems to be some interest but
let me just complain really quickly.
Before it says, I'm sorry, go ahead. keep complaining.
But at the minute I'm gonna go run over these names of these
just to show you does the one three star restaurant which is
in Yountville, which is French Laundry, which to me, if it was
in France, it would maybe be three, I doubt it probably more
likely to be too many because of some of their practices. Then he
goes to the two star restaurants and then they have this all
screwed up, because these are hardly the best restaurants in
town. And they leave out for example, the top restaurant in
San Francisco is known to be the two top places actually are Gary
Danko is and the probably the dining room at the Ritz Carlton
right now. Those are the probably the best places if you
want to get a good meal in San Francisco. Go to Gary Danny goes
or go to the Ritz Carlton's dining room right now. Florida
Lee I would put up there close to those two. But those are the
two places. Neither one of those got two stars. The two star
places instead gave him aqua, which is the noisiest restaurant
in San Francisco hate Aqua. You hate Aqua?
Yes, no, no, I don't like it at all.
There's a number of people that will literally say that when you
mentioned it, they hate aqua and have and I have a guy used to
work with me. used to work there as a sous chef and he says if
the chef's not around the food just doesn't isn't worth dealing
just
shit now. Is it possible thinkable, John that much like
the International Olympic Committee, obviously there's a
great marketing benefit to having one two or three stars.
Just like it's great to have the Olympics in your country.
There's been great scandal with the with how countries are
chosen with payoffs and bribes. Is it thinkable that the team
that awards the stars maybe has just fallen prey to bribery,
corruptions corruption? I don't know. I mean, I think it's too
complicated to do that. I think that just incompetent. And I
think that's the big difference. And I think in competencies
partially to blame here. But let's go over the two star
restaurants Aqua nobody thinks is a two star restaurant. In
fact, if it was me, I wouldn't give it to me actually here.
Here's my rating. If I was gonna give stars out, I'd give two
stars to the French Laundry. And I'd give one star to Gary Danko.
One star to Florida Lee tentative star to the Ritz
Carlton because it's a hotel thing and it fluctuates a little
bit in and probably one star and maybe two just because of its
importance to shape and East that's it. Hey, I brainstorm
another star
out brainstorm branch. Don't say that. Don't say that brainstorm.
I mean, look, we're well known guys. You're very knowledgeable
in this area. I'm the voice of the common man when it comes to
the dinners. We Enjoy together why don't we just start our own
rating get some free food out of the business days is perfect is
a great idea. So don't say you won't give out any more start
we'd have well we'd have to have something different than a star
we have to have a different rating system
Yeah, well obviously but anyway the point is now that by the way
quince which is on the list is one star is actually a really
good player with you, I don't think so. No, no, no, no, no,
you don't want to do a rating system with me you're not
gonna do a reading of it because it's because it's so easy I just
named the five places that's it for now. Yeah, I'm sure there's
other places anyway, so then we go back over the two stars
awkward No, che TJ have not been there's a new place it used to
be one star now they moved it up and if you go to Yelp, all
people do is complain about it being listed at all. Cyrus which
I also haven't been to which is up in Healdsburg is probably
everybody thinks is a great place and I'm gonna give them
some slack. That's another to start place but as again, you
know up in Healdsburg Kiehl's work is a long way from here.
From San Francisco, it's like an hour or plus to get there. Man
race in Los Gatos, which is about two hours from San
Francisco. That's one of the few places it's actually rated south
of San Francisco. The meadow would insane Halina another
place up in the wine country to star restaurant, our minimum to
get there, Michael Mina, which is a restaurant that opened
recently in the St. Francis, which I've gone to three times
does not warrant a star. The first time I went there, I
thought was one of the most interesting meals I've ever had
was outstanding. The second time I went there, because I brought
some other people's show it off. It wasn't as good it was falling
off a little bit. This is the same group that were that
started the Aqua by the way. So it's a kind of an interesting
situation. The third time I went there, the meal was just so so
and I got I got baited and switched on the wine.
Oh my god. Another another outfit we have to report.
So what happened with the wine was I cherry picked which is I
think I hit two in a row actually where the wine that was
on the listed on the list wasn't there. They just didn't have it.
It was there sold out. Okay, fine. So at that after the guy
comes over, after the second time this happened, he said and
he says, You know what we can do for the same price, which was a
reasonable price, we can offer you this wine, which was a big
upgrade in you know, and they would have to eaten the whatever
the 30 bucks was because I think the difference was 30 or $40 for
a bottle. So I said, Okay, we can do that. So it goes back and
the next thing you know, I see him the meat guy and the maitre
d getting into some discussion, the guy comes back he says,
Well, you know, we we decided, we decided now we decided that
this wine this other wine is probably even a better choice
than the one that we've offered you for the for the you know, as
a substitute. Yeah, it was a better choice and it was saved
them 40 bucks because you know, they, so I just thought I just
thought that was the worst performance I've ever seen.
gumming. Unbelievable. Yeah, I had an excuse not to go there
off our list. They're off the list. John, I'm keeping track
now.
So there was this restaurant. This which was in the St. Regis
the worst case scenario is the following. I'm in New York in
this restaurant. I can't remember the name. It was very
famous was in the St. Regis and they closed
I stayed at the St. Regis a lot. That big fancy place downstairs
Yeah, downstairs. Yep, absolutely.
So I go in there and you know the place is really expensive.
And so I ordered a bottle of Chateau order George Joseph drew
hands Oregon Pino and it's a newer release called Lauren. And
if you've done the wine list there was like it would said,
Joseph drew Han Loran, which is a specific vineyard that they
grow as high end Pinot Noir at and there was no other Joseph
drew Han, Oregon wines on the list just this. The guy comes
out with the bottle and he shows it to me. It's not the wine it
says just a plain old Joseph drew hen Pino which isn't even
on the list. An outrage so I say no, that's not it. The one I is
says Lauren on the label and curious, I just had had the wine
like a couple of weeks before and I know exactly where the
where the Lauren designator was. The guy comes back with the same
bottle without the Loran. And he says, no, no, this is this is
the only wine they make. Put my finger on the ball and point
right to the spot where Lauren is supposed to be sets. You know
where the vineyard name is, is it right here? It says Lauren,
on the real wine.
Not this piano guy crap. They're pointing off on me.
So the guy goes back a third time and then he comes out with
the right bottle. So I'm thinking this is on and
believable, vicious so. So I ran into the guy who was the hotel
manager once at a wine tasting. And I was sitting next to him by
coincidence. And I told him the story. You know, I was so
annoyed by it. And by the way, there was other incidents in the
same dinner. And he says, oh, though, yeah, I know who that
was. And he just the the apparently was just like some
corrupt practice that was going on at this place. Oh, no. And he
also mentioned to me that that restaurant was losing something
like a million dollars a month. He was like, how's that
possible? I know those prices, but while it's possible, because
obviously they're stealing from him. I don't know. Anyway, so
that's, I could go on. We could talk about the Michelin stuff
more later. But I just found that the whole list with all
these places up in the wine country are just ridiculous. And
the whole thing is and I don't know, to be continued to be
continued. And then they have this other thing where all these
cheaper meals and just again, you know Petaluma, St. Halina
Napa Napa San Anselmo Windsor, Santa Rosa. I mean, why don't
they? Where's the San Francisco, Oakland Berkeley, I mean, the
whole peninsula to 31 Ellsworth in San Mateo is never even
mentioned. And one of the greatest restaurants in the Bay
Area is the Woodside or the or the village tavern or village
pub I'm sorry, the village pub in Woodside not mentioned in
that and there it's better than a half the places listed here as
one star but the obviously the dune Spectres live up in the
wind goes too far to drive down to Woodside which is you know, I
don't know. This annoying.
The only place I know in Woodside is bucks.
Saved probably give him a star. So when the when the when the
bliss first came out in the bay area, there's everybody's
fussing, you know, especially all the French guys because they
got screwed. And there's a couple of little places that
aren't even restaurants essentially getting a star. And
the Michelin guys came up with the argument that well, you
know, for its type. You know what your restaurant is not what
it you know, doesn't get a star because for its type. Oh, this
class sortase high. That's a crock of crap. Where's the one
star taco truck?
We could be it.
Seriously, where's the one star taco truck if it's for your type
and its type? Restaurants for the type? Alright, you
boring me now, John. Okay, good.
Good. You've taken on from here?
No, I don't know. I like solving the world. You're solving
something else?
Yeah, my need to have a decent meal.
Did you have any notes that you wrote anything down anything we
can decode decipher?
Yeah, so I watched the Miss USA thing last night. Oh, crap. I
miss that. Yeah, well,
I've never seen that. I caught it during the bikini 15 winners
of the 15 girls that would do the bikini thing. And it was
like, it was like watching. It was like, memory of Robert
Palmer and he had those women love Yep, absolutely. They all
looked exactly the same. It was like look, they all had the
exact same body. It was like
Is this a sponsored one? Or is that miss you know this? No.
Yeah,
same thing. Miss unit USA is part of Miss Universe. So they
had there was a cookie cutter group. They're all tall between,
you know, typically five, eight to 510 they all had teeth that
were bleached. To in such an extreme that it looked like if
they put any more on the teeth would just just fall apart. You
know, whatever. This crap
is hot. It's hot. I like that.
What else anyway, the so
what's your point? There's something wrong here. I don't
understand that.
And here's what's wrong. For one thing. They picked the wrong
girl. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, Miss Oklahoma should
have won the whole thing. She was the only one that had. What
was her talent? It didn't look like a cookie cutter. She
actually had kind of a she was a blonde. She's cute Danica
Patrick looks as she had a more modern look
pleasant a little tomboyish? Is that what you mean?
A little bit of a she's 510 and dynamite. But anyway.
What's her talent? What's her talent?
There was no talent. This is not one where they have talent that
you were What did she
say something saving the world high heels is their talent. She
say something about saving the world? Come on, they have to do
the interview questions.
Okay, well, let me go to that part of my little list of
complaints. So the one of the girls who was really actually
one of the better looking ones and I could have been a winner I
believe was just want to point out Sylvania you are
the man that yelled at me for liking reality television yet
you're willing to sit through the Miss USA Competition fantasy
to criticise
it, not to praise it. Okay. So here's the here's the kicker,
Miss Pennsylvania who's gorgeous. She has to come up to
due date and they pick this weird they do this weird thing.
They pick from a bin or Donnie picks from a bin Donny or they
pick from a dog Donny Osmond. Oh, Tony. Oh, it was they were
hosting it. Oh, fantastic. So anyway, so they pick from a bin
and they give the thing to Donnie. And Donnie says, Okay,
your question will come from and they have like 10 judges, and
these are the top five girls. Five people going to ask
questions, they have these canned questions. So this poor
woman from Pennsylvania gets that idiot. Heather Mills, who
was one of the judges Oh, no, as the questioner. Okay. So Heather
Mills asked her what she thinks about selling, you know that the
big makeup companies and cosmetics firms are marketing to
kids. Do you think this is right? And of course, the
probably the poor woman from Pennsylvania doesn't know what I
was, what a nut job this Heather Mills is, and how she's like a
vegan and a screwball. A vegan? What do you mean to Vegas?
Pagan? Pagan is what you mean? Yeah. So the woman says, Well,
you know, there's a lot of you know, and she kind of hemmed in
hard, but says, Yeah, it's fine, because there's some products,
you know, and we'd like facial cleaners and things like that.
She knows she didn't say that. But yesterday, she was hinting
it would be okay. And you could just see the look on Heather's
face like she's low balling this chick. Yeah. And in fact, Miss
Pennsylvania came in dead last, because Heather probably zeroed
her out what you can do in these kinds of competitions that just
lower the number. And Heather was just sitting there steaming
that this girl would not have said what she would hope she'd
say, No, all cosmetic companies are evil. They test on animals.
She's just so she was out. So I thought that was pretty bad.
Just just just one thing. I'm looking at the website from Miss
usa.com. Second follow along look at these girls. So there's
two huge banner ads on the on the entire website. Guess what
they're for?
Cosmetics, weight loss, or weight loss. Right? Drop. Drop.
The pink patch.co.uk. So it's actually a patch that you put
onto your abdomen, and it helps you lose weight. Yeah. Oh, my
God. How sick is that? That's sick. Crystal Stewart. That's
her name. The one from Pennsylvania. No, no. Miss USA.
Oh, yeah. That she's the girl from Texas. Yeah. Yeah, I don't
even know she was okay. Except for the 46. She's 26
If the tutor her face looks has the features of the Cryptkeeper
you know what I had questions. She looked a little bit too much
like Condoleezza Rice. And here's the other thing that I
saw on the show and I actually took some photos of this I was
thinking of blogging because I get carried away watching this
crap. So Donny Osmond and only one time first he gives the he
takes the question out and he opens it and shares it with
Marie. Lets her read it and with with the woman from Texas who
was a black girl, he pulls the thing out or she she gives him
the thing he says, Let me read this one, Marie and he kind of
holds it away from her and Marie has to kind of look over to see
what it is. And he says your question comes from number nine.
Sean Merryman the only black judge coincidentally,
man. Okay.
And then he keeps the thing close to his vest. And I think
Murray got a glimpse of it because you had if you have to
you can do you can pull this off because said anything on there,
but you know, whatever. And she had a weird look on her face.
Like this is like, something's weird here. It's going on. So
Shawn Merriman, the only black Judge asked the only black
contestant some softball question about something or
other. She answered it rather poorly, to be honest about it. I
didn't think it was pull it off. But that was that and Donnie
says Good answer. And he gets queued on any he ditches this
thing into the into the drawer. The next one he pulls out, you
know, he the tool, look at it together. And it was like
everything was kosher after that. So I think that the whole
thing is rigged.
Well, dude, here's the rest of the here's the the judging
panel. Okay, Heather Mills. Oh, this is cool. I'm reading from
the from the website. Actually, it actually gives their
credentials. Okay. These are the people who have the credentials
to choose Miss USA representing the proud United States of
America. Ladies and gentlemen, Heather Mills, a Brit who was a
contestant on Season Four of Dancing with the Stars and not
not mentioning that. She's She divorced Paul McCartney. Rob
Schneider. Star of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Joey's tone host of the singing be formerly of a boy band blue I
think Christian Alfonso entrepreneur and starve NBCs
Days of Our Lives a soap star, a Olympic gold medal. Winner
Amanda beard. Christian sera, sera. How's it Christian Cyrano.
The seasons winner of Bravo's hit show Project Runway. San
Diego Chargers linebacker Sean lights out Merryman. Silver
celebrity hairstylist Ken paves, Kelli Carlson star of Nip Tuck
founder and CEO
a sheet by the way, Kelly Carlson look better than all
those girls that are bet generally.
And then founder and CEO of Planet Hollywood International
Inc, Robert Earl and Vanity Fair celebrity journalist George
wine, they should have put like Perez Hilton in there that would
have completed the lineup. Well, they
had that one guy that little weird gay character who is this
kind of who ended up asking Miss Oklahoma who was I was rooting
for who was
a little weird gay character. John is a little weird just gave
me all the names.
I know he's one of those guys is he's just a weird funny little
he's a little skinny little gay character and he plays you know,
he I don't even know if he's really gay. But he sure plays
one. And he's you know, but it's like that exaggerated phoney
baloney almost, almost insulting gay. And he asked the Miss
Oklahoma question about do you know who some idiotic questions?
Were Britney Spears came into the conversation. Oh, thank
goodness, we
worked her sunken Miss Oklahoma, actually. So it was in to her?
Can you just let me my point is being made here, John, that the
interviews is the most important part of these of these pageants,
because you can totally get, you know, lose it on your answer.
Right. And that brings me to the only point I was actually trying
to make, okay, which is that there's been numerous studies
done by universities all over the place about the order of
appearance, and the resultant scores from judges. And so
everything that happens last, he becomes more important than what
happens early makes and it's particularly true with people
who come rolling out on like, you know, here we go with the
bathing suit contest. Let's judge number one, number two,
number three number, the number one person 99% of the time, no
matter how they look, we'll get one of the lowest if not the
lowest scores. And the last person tends to get higher
scores. And so it builds because the judges as they get warmed
up, they start getting looser. And then pretty soon they're
given bigger numbers. And that's what happened in this. So I
watched the, the, the gown thing after the bathing suit thing.
They had the girls come out and gowns and it was like some of
these gowns are just horrible. But the girl who came out with a
really nice black dress and she was really pretty she didn't she
was supposed to go for elegance and all this other stuff comes
out as Miss Massachusetts. So I took my pen out and started
writing down the scores as they came up because they put them up
so you can see this trend. So she comes out first. 8.4 Okay,
fine. Then the next person comes out. It's kind of pretty, but
she's no better than Miss Massachusetts and probably not
as elegant because if she was Massachusetts, girls wearing
black and she could walk in heels. 8.6 then New Jersey comes
out who I thought was good looking anywhere. She should
have gotten a really high score because she was gorgeous. 8.9 So
it's just almost like they're just adding you know, it's not
even looking at
me. Now do their scores determine the ultimate winner or
was there like an ad? It's
our SMS texted scores and then I think they do a final I don't
know. Did they do
SMS texting the public TOS or was it just the judges?
No. Just the judges. I slowly go out. Go 8.4 8.6 8.9 Next one
Pennsylvania girl comes out. She is stiff. She's only got screwed
by Heather. She's stiff. She doesn't look like she really
likes to walk around and gowns at all. 9.0 or 9.1 Almost. It
just gets worse. The Danica Patrick girl from Oklahoma who
had the one of the worst gowns imagine it was just a horrible
looking thing. She comes out and actually trips she stumbled. She
gets nine point she gets 9.3
I love it when that happens. That's life. I live over there.
It was it was it was subtle. It was just a little bit he
stumbled was it like
you should not be getting a 9.6 If you stumble I'm sorry three
points. The point is is it builds and builds and builds.
And then next Mississippi comes out who's had another horrible
outfit I mean this she made her you because you just saw her in
a bikini. She's beautiful shape. She's wearing this I don't know
how you can even find a dress that makes what's probably a
perfect body look like it's got a big square but huge because
it's the same girl gluteus maximus. It's amazing what
dresses can do. She got an 8.9 which is way too high. And it
went and then Texas when she comes to get it all the scores
are bigger at the end except that I have to say they backed
off which is unusual, Indiana guy slammed 8.5 in Florida with
8.5 who look like a horse in this thing. Now, the point is
though the first girl got the lowest score and it was on the
order she wouldn't have Yeah,
that's why it should be an SMS vote this makes no sense these
idiots I mean, who I mean people listening to us will say who are
you guys to judge but Who are those guys to judge
so the whole thing is just a ridiculous exercise. I'm
surprised I wasn't even going to watch the whole thing and I just
getting madder and madder watching whatever. And then when
Heather Mills pulled that stunt with the makeup cosmetics
question, she should have just shot.
Yeah. So this was the banner just rotated. Feeling fat. Lose
the tummy fast and easy with pink is the drug dealers. Dude,
this whole thing is pushers.
This was like
produced by NBC entertainment. I thought I was wondering if it
was like a Burnett it probably sucked How was the production
just sucked right?
No, actually the production was quite good. Usually. I was most
surprised by the studio they had they were doing it in this new
casino that I didn't even know existed the what do you call it
the hall plan at Highland Hollywood hotel?
For a while hasn't it opened? Yeah, we had a promotion on our
network we we opened it up with the black peas and and a band
could perform on stage I forget who won but yeah, that was late
last year.
Whatever the case, the they have a stage and a facility for doing
productions like this. That is absolutely fantastic. Nice. So
no, I thought the production was good. It wasn't bad. It didn't
have any you know, is that there's a lot of promotion going
on during the thing Donnie Murray kept plugging each other
you know, yeah, we got to show over here. By the way between
now after this, you can come by and see us you will be doing our
10 o'clock you know or whatever.
That's kind of that that's kind of the deal with those shows.
You know that the always wants someone who has a new show
coming out or something to promote because you can get them
to host it on the cheap. That's like a circus of the stars. And
if you remember that show, I was on that one. I remember why I
was on it. But
that's one of the guys that was stuffed in a small car. No, I
told you I was in the rocket car of death. Rock. I told you that,
didn't I? Yeah, I think so. It's pretty funny. So anyway, so this
was my
footage of that. Someone has footage of me in the rocket car
of death circus of the stars. I think it was 1992 Maybe
someone will have it.
I've been looking for it on Hulu. They do have they have
swamp thing on there. I did a full a whole episode of swamp
thing but that season two they only have season one up. You
were on Swamp Thing. Yeah, I was the lead role. In the episode
smoke and mirrors.
What did you play a bad guy?
Nathan? Rock star out of control Rockstar quite a stretch. Quite
a stretch typecasting. Hey, John. It's about an hour and a
half now and the dog is freaking out here.
All right. Well, let me just say got one more thing to say and
I'm done. Okay. William Shatner was on Jay Leno last night.
Oh, yeah, I missed that too. I heard I saw the plug. How was
he?
Well, he's je was William Shatner. But anyway, I would
tell people that if you ever see William Shatner, there's a short
thing to note. He only been admitted to this once by the way
it was on Letterman years and years ago, when he comes on the
show and starts telling these stories. The stories are all
crap. They're bullshit. And he had the story by sliding and
just on the way over kind of you know, he crashed his motorcycle
and he was wearing a skimpy shirt holy head on and it just a
bogus phoney story. He does these. Nothing law says
it's all it's all a lie. It's all a pack of lies. But it's
funny. It's entertaining.
That's why he does it, obviously. But just note that
when you see him don't go wow, what a fascinating life he
leads.
Hey, dude, he he played opposite Heather Locklear. So he's my
hero.
Yeah, it would be
like, I love Boston Legal to the writing is spectacular.
Yeah, I've stopped watching it. I think this season is getting
kind of I think is getting slow.
While I'm behind here, because we get it later, obviously, but
I'm still enjoying it very much.
Well, that's probably the last the next season when you start
to see it. You probably think less of it. Okay.
All right, John, my friend. My wife is coming home soon my wife
and daughter from Amsterdam, so I got to prepare the house for
them to get to work. This was fun. We have a lot more to talk
about. Should we do it again next week? I think so. You got
yourself a date in the curry manner in Guilford. I'm Adam
curry.
And as the temperature goes up, and up and up, I'm John C.
Dvorak in northern Calif. on you
and we'll talk again next week on no agenda