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Episode 105 - Missing Mensa AG and State of the Nation - Relentless Geekery

Overview

Alan should be going to the Mensa AG and giving his talk. Instead, he needs to fly to California about family business. We discuss what an AG is like and what we enjoy the most.

Then the discussion turns to some of the issues facing our country and how they have magnified over the last several years.

Recommendations

https://ag.us.mensa.org/

http://chicago.us.mensa.org/weem/

https://amzn.to/3ACqKzB

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: There we go. How is Alan today besides wet

[00:00:05] Alan: and actually it’s so first of all the big sad news is why should tomorrow and actually already today, BSC men annual gathering. Yeah. Anticipating being, being at that for a year, it was shaping up wonderfully. We had a really great committee this year and people were just, they gathered tons of programs from members and non-member.

So we had all that’s. My favorite part of the thing is just all these one hour immersions into something that person, someone is an expert in that they’re passionate about. You just get so much. A cornucopia of wow I didn’t know that I wanted to know more about Hercule, the other city, besides Pompe, they got buried or whatever else it might be. Great special events this year we had our gala dinner speaker was Shely, who’s the woman that wrote the book, hidden figures. I think we talked about this before. Yeah. Yep. As well as a talent show, a comedy show, a drag brunch, the cryptic crawl, just so much cool stuff going on.

And today the annual gathering actually runs Wednesday to Sunday. Today would’ve been the colloquium. And I don’t know if we talked about this that much before the colloquium is a really cool event that me men up puts on where it’s deep immersion into a single topic. And it’s it’s the stereotype of what people think we do at MEA conferences.

Who was giftedness through the, through the life, through the lifeline. And like talking about many people have questions about gifted children. How do I know, how do I, the care and feeding of them if I have them and stuff like that. But also mentions are very aware. We are our own support group.

That doesn’t turn off when you get to be a teen or a 20 something in the workforce or a a mature haha adult with kids and stuff like that. There’s still things that are different about Smarties that you have to be aware of. What kind of smarts do you have? Are you the curious type?

Are you the deep silo knowledge type? Are you, do you have, as we’ve laughed about some traces of Asperger’s or things where you’re the stereotype of the geek, the nerd is that we’re poorly socialized and that’s of course only a stereotype, but for some people they fill the stereotype quite well.

I, and it’s not only you have great speakers from outside, like the professors, the authors, the people that really know about that topic. And then you have good Q and A’s after each of their presentations. And then often there’s a big panel discussion at the end where, and anybody who was at the colloquium, like really wanna be there.

They’re interested in the topic and the you and I have laughed about this. We were just at the a ComicCon for instance, and I could start writing out what questions are gonna be asked because they’re so boringly typical gosh, favorite sandwich. And what was it like meeting Bruce Campbell and whatever else it might be.

And instead here there’s. A lot of times mesons know a lot. They know if not as much as all the experts in the room, they’re expert in that field as well. And so their questions are yeah.

[00:03:06] Stephen: Or at least there’s a lot of knowledge, a little bit of basic knowledge on lots of topics that help you form a, like you said, deeper question, a question.

That’s not just how many parents do you know? It’s something very specific with more connotations to it quite often. Yeah.

[00:03:23] Alan: Yeah. And then, and the discussions just while you’re seated in the audience, seated around tables for lunch, just standing around, it’s just at a wonderful higher level.

You know what I mean? There’s a bunch of friendship and ERY and stuff like that, but it’s also, if you’re really there to learn something, it’s very cool to hear. Not only people’s personal experiences of things, which is like witnessing, but that’s the lowest form of knowledge transfer it’s. So does everybody think and feel this way?

How do you get to statistical significance? How do you get to something that you could use to predict the future, or at least be able to say, oh, we recognize these four factors. And so probably your type X and therefore a good solution to why you’re not fitting in, might be this or what career you should pursue or what you should do with your retirement or whatever else it might be.

[00:04:09] Stephen: And I’m not to cut you off keep going, but as a. Aside to that, this isn’t the elitist like, oh, now we’re around smart people. We can talk smart. And we’re it’s none of that. It’s really want to learn things, really enjoy that. That’s how our brains are wired. I was at fireworks last night, watching some guys throw football and I’m like, damn, I can’t even throw a football half as close as that.

And my point is they had no problem showing off their skills and athleticism in front of people. And there was no big deal. But sometimes when you get your brain and you’re talking on a level that most people are like, what are you talking about? It they think it’s elitist in that. So the colloquium and the ag is in a place where everybody’s like that you can really not for us, but other people let your hair down and enjoy

[00:05:00] Alan: that true.

That’s one of the most common things about men in general, but these gatherings is specific is everybody gets your jokes. Everybody, you don’t have to slow down your conversation, use a lesser vocabulary and put it this way. That might sound a little bit complaining, but it’s real. I really take the bridles off when I am with my Mensa friends, because like I speak relatively quickly all the time.

I really, when I do a presentation, I must give two hours worth of material in an hour because I just,

[00:05:26] Stephen: oh no, 45 minutes. Cuz you gotta have 15 minutes of questions. There is a passing

[00:05:30] Alan: period and an AV setup time. That’s exactly right. But it just it’s. I love, I have friends I’ve made over the course of the years that I don’t live near them, but when you see ’em at the ag every year, you just get a wonderful so how’s life and in five minutes you really get to hear, wow, they’re not just, oh, I’m getting by.

It’s more Hey, I just decided to take on archeology in Montana because you know what I mean? There’s all kinds of dabblings, but the dabblings are not like typical. They’re interesting. They talk about where they’ve traveled and the travel is not, I went to every pub, which is cool, but it’s not instead it’s I’m studying.

Illuminated manuscripts. You know what I mean? That they fi they, they go through here’s where the biggest stores of them are in Europe. And where do we get a lot of our medieval knowledge? Because some books survived, yeah. It’s been the 14 hundreds or 16 hundreds or whatever else it might be.

It’s not

[00:06:26] Stephen: that they went and visited all the pubs in their town it’s that they read about a building historically, that was the original pub that so and so stayed at and they’re helping restore it by researching the type of wallpaper that was that’s the, exactly the difference and how the brains are wired.

This was

[00:06:43] Alan: Richard, the Lionheart’s favorite pub or

[00:06:45] Stephen: something and what we find enjoyable and fun. Cause you say stuff like that. Sometimes you get people. Why are you doing that? Cause it’s a load of fun. No it’s just how people, it’s different. It’s a

[00:06:57] Alan: slight differentiator.

Exactly. And of course a number of people are not only just flying and some people are doing cross country travel. And so you get to like here’s the cool places that they’re stopping at. They, again, they, don’t just, we found a motel, we found a motel and it happens to be near where Louis LA Moore wrote his books or whatever else it might be.

It’s I really love that stimulation. And people talk about after any kind of convention, when you’re with your tribe, there’s often that big, like Monday letdown where you’re like, oh, back to the mundane world. You know what I mean? Now? And now I get to deal with tax consequences and stuff like that.

So I’m. The reason I’m not going this year is because we got the conservatorship hearing from my mom and it’s on seven, eight, it’s right. In the heart of the gathering. And of course it’s not within drivable distance of Reno slash spars data. And so I just, after looking forward to something for a year and then having it pulled out from under and I have misgivings about this, I really want to be at the hearing.

It really might be that it’s, it could be virtual or that really what we care about is the results of the hearing. But I, this is a significant event in our lives. I really want to be there to see the process and I, I’ve not been called as a witness or anything like that, but. Don’t you want to know the rigor that goes into they’re giving a human being’s life over into somebody else’s hands financial and medical power of attorney, if you will.

And I of just, boy, do I need reinforcement that our systems work nowadays, there’s so many ways in which things are being afraid and undermined and abandoned that are importantly traditional and useful. And I don’t want to think, I one of the things that I have appreciated about the Brookdale facility, where mommy is that it really seems to be rigorous in terms of it’s not a scam and they don’t let scammers approach people there.

It’s a very safe place. And every other thing, boy upon my father’s death, we started to get all kinds of stuff in the mail that are the usual kind of vultures circling. Yeah. When I go there and I. I processed the mail. They were good charitable givers to nature causes and veterans causes and whatever else it might be.

But there’s also all these other kind of scammy stuff. And it’s a stereotype in the, again, I’m trying to use overusing that word. It’s a tradition here in the United States that people think that as you get older and you’re, I don’t know, a little less mentally there, a little more trusting, then people swoop in and try to be like, Hey oh I just want to make sure there’s, I don’t know all kinds of like my mom and dad were really good to me and I wanna.

As good as them as I can be. And so it’s important. It’s important to be there. It’s important to be part of this process and just like we Colleen and I laugh him about this all the time. Wow. We got two things going on in September on the exact same, not damn night. Why is that? Why do we have to make trade offs and give ups instead of couldn’t we have coordinated this somehow.

So in the I’ve been realizing lately how much this has been wearing me down. You know what I mean? It’s difficult to be out in a in the house where I’m I’m packing things up until I’m saying goodbye to my parents’ life, if you will. And I’m handling their affairs and my brothers are also participating, but I’m doing, I think the most of it, cause I’ve done the most visits if you will.

And it’s just weird how much I’m more emotional than usual. I’m more down than usual because. Death. Ain’t any fun. My mom having Alzheimer’s ain’t any fun. It’s hard to face these things of this could go on for a while and I, I don’t know. So I was really looking forward to this little gathering as a relief, because you really can just put the world outside the doors for a while.

You know what I mean? Just play games and go to silly programs and cheer on the Mr. Mensa contestant, then whatever else it might be. And I’m not getting Colleen and I are not getting a chance to do that. Yeah. It’s and I of said I need to be at this hearing, you don’t Colleen, do you want to go?

She we’ve enjoyed these things together, so she doesn’t wanna go by herself. But then it’s what if said sacrifice for the both of us? I was gonna do a talk on comic books, comic book geography, and the multiverse. You know what I mean? Geeky personified, epitomized. He was gonna run the Carelli tournament, which is a cool, like word association game that S play.

And now even those little bits of. Things, we love things we love doing with our friends, things that are highlights of past gather. Woo rug pulled out from under, so I just . Yeah,

[00:11:38] Stephen: yeah, totally. With your parents, from what we’ve talked about you have good memories. You had a good time and you have so there’s no, no words that are go be that consoling, but there’s a lot of people that don’t have that.

And a lot of people that don’t have good memories. So you’ve got that. No not that you don’t have regrets, but there’s not, everything’s not a regret, true. And you and your brothers, aren’t fighting you’re not arguing about this, that, and the other thing. So exactly

[00:12:07] Alan: that there’s very little family drama going on in.

You could tell the people under pressure, they get a little testy and stuff like that, but there’s no wow, I’ve I’m the black sheep of the family returned to steal a family fortune. There’s none of that crap.

[00:12:20] Stephen: Oh yeah. I So I could go on about our family when my grandmother died and stuff, not even worth it, but and the ag, I haven’t been to one for a couple years.

Almost five years. I haven’t been to an ag, so I’d really love to get back to one. And I’d love to sit in on talks and do a talk or to maybe try and get our podcast live. One of it or something,

[00:12:44] Alan: honestly, that would, we end up going next year at Baltimore. It’s closer. It’s. Driving distance is supplying and it’s I would love to do that.

Us doing a good live relentless geekery we’d have a great crowd and oh God, we’d probably be in trouble at the height of our powers. You know what I mean? It would be a great time. Exactly. Yeah. One of the things that’s worth pointing out about Mesa they have this tradition over the 4th of July weekend, but instead of going up to oh, how about Canada?

About Minnesota? No, we go to Phoenix and sparks Nevada. It’s in a desert. You know what I mean? Luckily someone pointed out this is the high desert instead of the low desert, whereas Phoenix is getting like 110 degrees. And for an extended period of time, this is only gonna break into the nineties regularly and fifties at night deserts are weird like that in terms of there’s a huge temperature swing because the usual things that like absorb right and give off heat, it’s a different climb there.

And so I, I don’t know. I just, I, we the. Gathering had been in Reno 10 years ago. So we already had a chance to explore Reno and Carson city and lake Tahoe and stuff like that. And this was gonna be at a resort hotel. That for all I know, we really wouldn’t have left it. We just would’ve taken root in this hotel.

It’s 90 degrees out there. Air conditioned in here. I think I’ll go play another game but. I love doing that. I love exploring where’s the best barbecue. Where’s the cool little history museum about yes, the railroad that went through or whatever else it might be another they did a great job with tours this year.

They had everything of interest in Reno slash sparks. They had a thing let’s go to see some wild Mustangs and let’s go to the Mustang ranch. And that’s not the ranch where they keep the Mustangs. That’s a brothel. yes. I might have mentioned

[00:14:23] Stephen: that before. Yeah. We were talking about that.

Cause it’s you could tell this is the Menon group, because they’re asking all these questions about how do you get paid and what are, do you like import beds? How long do you keep the mattresses? What sheets are you using? Just like details. Yeah. It’s not the questions normally asked.

probably all. And what the funny thing is you’d probably run into somebody that’s men and level and like answers all this. And it’s like that just the other way would probably be totally

[00:14:54] Alan: shocking. Exactly. And like being a. Worker at a Broel is not the same as being like in the porn industry.

But if you remember Asia Carrera is actually a men, I think there’s a couple people in the the porn industry that are Mensa qualified. I don’t know. It’s cool that we’re everywhere.

[00:15:12] Stephen: Oh yeah. There’s truck drivers

[00:15:14] Alan: to presidents. There’s board workers to nuns.

There’s everything that you could imagine for having to have a high IQ and you just express it in different ways, so that’s kinda cool.

[00:15:23] Stephen: That’s a great way of putting it. there, there’s the, that’s the new billboard for the brothel. We express it in different ways.

[00:15:30] Alan: Exactly. Another thing I’ll mention by the way, is that mind games next year is in Columbus.

Yes. Just down the road. And so I don’t know that we’re gonna do a podcast from there, but we can absolutely do dispatches from the field in terms of what games are we trying and what do we think? Yes, that would be awesome. It, I don’t know. There’s, I don’t think there’s any confidentiality required, but I know that I don’t wanna be so involved in doing those that I’m not playing the game.

Wanna be there is to play your 30 to 60. You know what I mean?

[00:15:58] Stephen: I didn’t think about that. We could do a, like a quick two minute update where we just like in the hallway, hold the camera. So here’s what I’ve played. I love this. I did. And then it’s done recorded. And then afterwards we compile ’em into,

[00:16:11] Alan: honestly, I think that’d be really cool.

And my games usually has maybe 300 going up to now three 50 nowadays. It’s a bigger and bigger event, but that’s out of. 50,000 Bensons. And so there’s probably any number of people that can’t make it to this thing that would still be interested in what that content is. And then right. For then, which is April, but like when people start looking at per people’s birthdays and of course for Christmas, what were the big winners and what other things were I don’t know.

I have a whole philosophy about how I do this event that I really keep track of that there’s multiple factors that the games are judged by, but I care the most about, for instance, replayability, I tend to not like a game that I did it once, and then you’re done with it. I like want to get my money’s worth.

And I like where they set the game up to be like that. And not only replayable because you keep adding extensions, but just replayable in the game’s essence, that there’s enough changeability and luck in whatever else might be. So it’ll be, it will be a I’d love to do that.

There’s. Two minute blips dispatches from out in the hallway, don’t disrupt all the gamers and stuff like that. But uh, that’d be that’s, let’s look towards doing that. That’s a very cool idea for next

[00:17:15] Stephen: year. Yeah. Cause I was talking to the last age RG. I went to the one guy there down in Dayton, he’s helping run it up in Columbus.

James Nell. Exactly. James. Yes. Yes. And so I, he said you get something, you get a day free or something like that. If you help out for a couple hours, whatever, I’m like, I’m in I’m two hours away. I could drive down easily on a Wednesday

[00:17:38] Alan: and right. And he actually, he asked me to be one of the.

Not a co-chair or anything like that. He really is out, but like one of the day chairs that keeps track of, okay, besides playing the games, are the games getting put back where they should go is ity getting filled, just the people that smooth things out. So that 349 people can concentrate on this cool thing.

And that just step outside of that and be an administrator and a a caretaker once in a while. So I’m gonna help him out with that that’s nice. That’s nice. I think I have, we talked about this my philosophy about volunteering Menon and otherwise nowadays is pretty much not the cause.

It’s who do I want to contribute to the success of, because there’s all kinds of people that are really good at seeing a parade and getting in front of it, but they’re not the best person for that job. They just want it. Yeah. And I’ve gotten tired of that. I’ve gotten tired of all the abuses and mistakes that go with someone wants to be the decider, even if they don’t have anywhere near the temperament or.

even in Mensa the intellectual capacity to handle a multi-variable problem in a way that so most people are gonna be satisfied instead of I made a decision and I’m gonna bullet it through. Cause Mesa’s had its share of asshole, dictator tear et cetera, et cetera. It’s, I really tend to be like that, that it’s who I collaborate with that matters more than just the sheer mind games is a good idea.

You know what I mean? And I’m happy to be a participant, but it’s the next step up is to be someone who’s making the event run well, so for this, for annual gathering, I did publicity and I’m good at it. You know what I mean? I’m good at gathering a whole bunch of information and expressing it in a persuasive, Hey, come on and have a fun time with us.

That kind of thing. And mostly got good feedback. And then once in a while, it’s bear with me. I’ll toot my own horn. It’s the people who are determined to be nasty, I’m also verbally agile enough. To not let him get away with this. You know what I mean? That I’m not there to be bullied.

I’m not there to let any other volunteer be shot upon. And so it’s important to be able to say I understand your opinion and I’ll give it the appropriate attention which it might be nothing. And or wow. That’s, you were very persuasive except in your initial premise, you were wrong.

And so everything else falls apart, cetera, et cetera. You know what I mean? It’s and I’d never. That stuff to be contentious, but most of the time, if you’re witty enough, it’s not contentious between you and that person it’s that everybody watching on the sideline is going, wow, this guy’s really a jerk and handling that pretty well for how much it could have gotten even jerkier.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh oh yeah, so that, that’s our plan. We got some up Chicago, as of right now, I wanna go to Chicago. We will be in, go ask him about doing a talk, maybe two, even depending on what, what goes we’ll see,

I probably will repurpose my comic book, talk for there.

And then just add if we wanna do a live podcast from there. That would be great. Yeah. As you go, I’m hosting pretentious drinking. Have we talked about that on the podcast before?

[00:20:34] Stephen: Maybe briefly mentioned maybe

[00:20:36] Alan: it’s it’s kinda funny. This is so much Hey, let’s what do you and I have in the pipeline as if we’re sitting next what’s your next movie there, bill?

Pretentious ING is a really cool event. It’s 25 years plus old now where we sample different leurs and cordials good friend, Gary CRICO, and I long time ago up in Milwaukee. And they had like at a small, a tasting event, if you will, maybe half a dozen, 10 bottles. And we kinda looked at each other and said we could do this in Chicago, like mega bigger.

We, Chicago has a very cool institution, if you will called the gobs trust, there’s a guy named Burton, Spain that left money to Mensa in a trust. So the good old Burton, Spain trust gobs, and it was particularly like, don’t do it for the boring things in VE there’s enough other ways in which those important things are being handled scholarships and testing and stuff like that.

We want this to be the way that makes, have fun that they socialize. And so it helps to sponsor new events. And so we jumped into that and said, Hey we will charge a dollar a shop, but we need the money up front to be able to buy it. And then as we. Did it better and better over the years, it stopped being that we had to go to the gob trust, cuz it really is for new events anyway, and it just started to be part of Halloween.

In a big room Halloween has 500 to 600 people, half of them show up and honestly I already went into too much the administration. What matters is it’s really cool to be able to. Something expensive. Often these bottles are 20, 30, 40, $60. And in a bar you’ll cost you six or $8 a shot and you might hate it.

So instead, everybody gets four little shot cups. And so it’s not like everybody just bellies up to the bar and drinks themselves into oblivion. That’s not what meant it

[00:22:19] Stephen: is about. Yeah. They, everyone socializes and they dress up and that’s right.

[00:22:23] Alan: It’s a big mingling event. And that’s exactly right.

Pinky’s out exactly that pinky and the brain Uhhuh. And actually, I think I initiated the Mensa toast, which is brain cells, despair. Boom. So I Gary, has he moved to St. Louis and stopped being as involved as much. So Colleen stepped up to do it with me. So we have two dozen lived, 16 to 24 poor mics, depending on how much room we have.

And so they have they man, the tables and they have sections. And Colleen and I go shopping and we have all the leftovers from the previous year because laurs, don’t. Go bad in a year, certain things do like cream LaCores you can have a bottle and you can turn it over and now it’s changed.

And so you can’t really save that bad boy off. It’s not very

[00:23:06] Stephen: prestigious. It’s

[00:23:07] Alan: not very birth percent. Exactly. And, but otherwise, Everybody gets to try all kinds of things. Some people they come in and they’ve tried things before and they’re like, it’s been a long time since I had a shadow of amaretto, a shadow Benedictine and Brandy, my particular favorite, but we go searching every year for what’s the cool new thing.

Anything that you can distills, not the right word, anything you can ferment can be made into a Laur. So we’ve. Caraway seed Laure. And I’m gonna name some of the worst the Kumo, the caraway seed Laure. Oh my God. It was terrible. artichoke It’s called Cinar. That’s close enough to cyanide to be like what it’s like.

And we had snake wine one year that somebody brought from either Thailand or Laos that they actually kinda brought out a plane and they weren’t sure that it’d be allowed and stuff like that. But like you have in various different me collar things that there was like a little worm or a little beetle in the bottom.

This had a snake in the jar. in the bottle, I should say. And it, it tasted nasty, but it wasn’t horrible until enough of the liquid went was drunk down that the snake was out in the air and then it was, but it’s a rotten snake. It’s a snake that got . And every year there are people that like belly up to the tables and say, yo, so give me some of your best and some of your worst.

And it’s best might be a matter of your personal taste. But I know what this year’s worst day. not over here. yeah. Where

[00:24:30] Stephen: the that right there is what we were just talking about earlier. My cousin will say, I don’t want that. That looks horrible. I don’t want that. But typical trait of a medicine, high IQ is let’s try, what’s bad.

Let’s try. And you want the experience. You wanna see, you wanna compare it? Why is it bad? Exactly all the time with food, everything I’m like that. Yeah, I’ll give it a try. It looks horrible, but yeah, I’ll give it a

[00:24:54] Alan: try. yeah. And also my pal tends to be towards the sweets. You know what I mean?

I really like all the different of fruit and Berry Brandis and stuff like that, where people really like the bitter. Yeah. And so you’re gonna get UN unicorn from, and another thing we try to do is it’s not only the United States, there’s things from all over the world that are almost. The traditional Leco from that country.

So you want to get what’s the Hungarian one, what’s the Irish one. What’s the, all over the place. You know what I mean? And there’s a enough good liquor stores in the Chicagoland area that we’ve been able to find all different kinds of things like that. One place we go to called bin’s, which who shout out to bin’s beverage Depot has just UN amazingly good selection instead of a little section, like other places have they have a whole aisle and we work our way down and say, what haven’t we tried before?

What things have poured through in previous years. So we should get a replacement cuz more people will want to try it. I have a, you know how this works. I have a master spreadsheet. That’s now 25 years old that we I’ve got really good data on what worked and what didn’t and what things I want. I sometimes lately I’ve actually bought two of certain things.

As you might imagine mens have like the public, you’re gonna love something that tastes like me with a kick it’s honey wine. It’s just so perfect. Anything involving chocolate, anything and I pretentious the reason that it’s that is it isn’t any of the flavored rums flavored vodkas FLA, all that kind of stuff.

I don’t want something to taste like cotton candy. It really is a Laur or a cordial where it’s something that’s been distilled down to its essence. And so when it tastes of elder flour, it really is. Wow. I didn’t know what elder flour’s gonna taste like. How interesting and complex this is and we have sections like people who man, the various different tables, here’s the cream, laurs, here’s the chocolates, here’s the things that are best served on ice. Here’s the nuts, here’s the vegetables, vegetables can be distilled out. You know what I mean? So the

[00:26:51] Stephen: broccoli and cauliflower.

[00:26:53] Alan: Exactly. And there really are people that are like, and I’ll have you drink your veggies. You I’ll have little sides up that extol the virtues of what you’re getting into there. And for two hours, it’s just such. Bon Homi. It’s such conviviality of everybody’s having a good time, but we’re watching our friends.

If anything, another reason that I love sponsoring this event is I’m not a big drinker. I drink at this event and on new year’s Eve, I really don’t like that. People get drunk and then get in their 2000 pound weapon, drive it home. It’s terrible. How much that’s still a

[00:27:25] Stephen: part of our society, E even with Uber and Lyft and all that.

That’s

[00:27:30] Alan: right. So this is everybody’s in the hotel together. If you’re, even if you get a little goofy because you over, it’s not only that pretentious drinking hands, alcohol, there’s free flowing beer and wine throughout the entire gathering. So sometimes people have been nipping away at their beers and then they show up at our event.

And so sometimes people have had to be like, okay, let’s take you back to your room and make sure that you’re not gonna bond Scott yourself. You know what I mean? Drown in your vomit, we haven’t had any. Yeah, sit in. So someone really got stupid, really got nine sheets to the wind, et cetera, et cetera.

We have had people that were put to bed, come back to visit again in their bathroom. But how do you know? Because sometimes people walk around their bathrobe and slippers all weekend anyway, and there

is some of that too. That’s true. We do have people that have the big puppy slippers and stuff like that.

I, so far as I know, there hasn’t yet been a pretentious drinking baby

[00:28:21] Stephen: oh for nine months later, 10

[00:28:23] Alan: months. See, that’s I’m saying if it really was July, you know what I mean, October plus nine months, but I haven’t heard anybody that directly attributed to that though. Some couples. Become couples because they discovered that they both liked the same things or liked the same that they just they did lower their inhibitions enough to talk at a better level than, Hey baby,

[00:28:43] Stephen: how you doing?

And that’s that’s a whole topic right there because one of the traits you see quite often is there is some shyness and reticence with other groups, you get the people that know each other a lot, not so much. A lot of times like the game room, anyone will, Hey, we need someone else for game.

You wanna play. And you bond over the game, then you’re friends and em and stuff, it does get difficult for this way of thinking or whatever to find somebody in that romantic era. And exactly. And it’s, this

is

[00:29:17] Alan: the so same social lubricant as it is in every other bar or

[00:29:20] Stephen: exactly with people of like mine.

[00:29:23] Alan: yeah. I’ll tell you. Every year after the event, I feel questions from people that are like, man, you had a banana Laure that I absolutely love, but I didn’t get the name of it. And because work comes a master spreadsheet, most of the time I ever call because I’m that guy that remembers everything.

But a lot of times I’ll have to be like, okay, was it this or this? Cuz we actually had three banana LaCores this year. And then I was like I’ll even have a little picture, I’ll say, does this need any of these names ring a bell? So I’ve been able then to do that cool thing that really was also designed to do try a bottle for instead of buying the $30 and making a terrible mistake, you find the one that you like, and then you’re gonna have that in your house so that when you want to have a sip of that perfection, that distilled elderberry, that perfect maple, Brandy, we’ve had All the different chocolates, the dark and the light and it has, or caramel creme Desh, Dolche Dee. It’s kind, I’m sure I butcher every foreign language. I really, I tried, I butcher English though. Exactly. But and people during the course of the year, they’ll actually say, Hey, I was just in this interesting place in Wisconsin.

And I saw this thing that I haven’t seen a pretentious drinking. It’s if you buy me that bottle, I will reimburse you and we will put it out there on the tables. So I’ve had half a dozen different agents over the years that have I found, and actually, if anybody in great Britain is coming to Halloween, but once you get me a bottle of unicorn tears, from what I understand, this thing exists, and I’ve not been able to order it.

There’s some, there’s many places that have restrictions either into the United States or out of that country or whatever. So I’m always looking for certain like holy grail type things. Once it’s in my mind, I wanna be able to say, I’ve tried everything I’ve ever heard of. I probably try. This is gonna make me sound terrible, 10 or a dozen new things that.

10 shots in a night. I’m also 290 pounds. and so dispersed. I’ve never been anywhere near, so drunk that I couldn’t. Okay. Everybody event is over. Let’s get all the caps back on all the bottles. Let’s make sure their, the bottles going into the cases and put like with likes so that we can do an inventory later on.

You know what I mean? It hasn’t been okay. Now’s gone somebody else clean up after him. So I’m happy about that. I’m sure that I really am. Sure. Unfortunately, that binge drinking ain’t good for me. And now that I’m especially aware that I am prediabetic that’s especially. Yeah. And yet it hasn’t gotten me yet.

So I’m probably going to be less trying to try everything new, but I am going to have my favorite and three others or, you know what I mean? I kinda would be able to say when somebody asks me, what, if you tried this year that you like, I’m almost happy to say I didn’t realize that I would like the watermelon decor as much as I would, but boy, it’s great.

And walk over here, you mentioned the imports. This isn’t a LACO, but I found out that rush, the rock band has made their own craft beer. Like they’re on their third type of craft beer. And I have an author friend in Canada that has some, so we were going to have a conference in Colorado, but it got canceled cuz lack of participation.

[00:32:22] Stephen: And he is oh yeah, I’ll bring down some, we’ll go to the pub, we’ll drink some. But he was going to bring a friend of his Michael J. Anderson, who is an author and has written star wars in many other books. Read his stuff. Exactly. Yeah. He’s oh yeah, I’ll bring, he’ll come along.

We’ll have some drinks at the pu. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, please. I’m like guys but that got canceled and just

[00:32:44] Alan: like mind games. One of the reasons you do it is so you get an idea of what you want to have yourself. You know what I mean? And my games choices are not all was on the MEA select list.

Sometimes there things that are particular to Colleen and I like word games. And but from, we have our liquor cabinet. Our piano. We have a whole bunch of different bottles on the piano. ,

[00:33:05] Stephen: that’s better than my cousin. He has steps in his house that come down and then they split to go into the kitchen and into the living room.

The steps going into the kitchen used to be filled when we were all younger and it was a common thing and it was just everything you couldn’t walk that way. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:33:22] Alan: But it’s that’s outta 25 years, what’s the greatest hits. I always have my Edine and Brandy cuz Benedictine and Brandy.

Cuz I love that one. I really like Soro, which is an Indian Laur that, you know, that, that boy Koran E trace 43 that has I love 42, not 42. It’s actually it’s one better than life universe than everything wow. I like things that have a certain particular taste and I also like things that are very complex and that while you’re tasting, it’s like.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on here Benin and Brandy is like one of those things where it’s got 17 herbs and spices done by the monks to it I don’t even know beforehand. It’s not always predictable, what things I’ll really like, but like rum shotta the first year that we had it.

And it’s funny. It’s rum, Laur, not just rum, but it like, boy, this takes an oatmeal cookie with a kick. Yeah. I like oatmeal cookies and the ones that we’ve, we not only have gotten them. We’ve also brought it to Christmas that year for the family. And most people have never heard of any of the things that I bring, cuz they’re not room Chatta is now in the public consciousness.

Yeah. A lot of people aware of that, but the first time they brought it out, they were like, what the hell is this? This isn’t your standard amaretto or there’s things you always see behind the bars, half a dozen 10, that bars have. And yet once they tried it, they were like, so what’s the name of that again?

And they pull out the phone and make sure that now they can go and

[00:34:46] Stephen: Ru Toronto is good in coffee. If you like little cream.

[00:34:49] Alan: Exactly. What they’ll find out sometimes is where’d you get that? got it at bits in Chicago. Oh that LaCores not available like west of the Mississippi.

So the people that flew in from California, there are pining until this thing gets a distributor that handles the entire United States or whatever else. Anyway, it’s one of those things. I, it, I don’t think it’s the longest running mens event at an RG, but it sure is up there. I think it’s 26, 27 years nowadays.

It took a break when Halloween took a break and last year, To my chagrin. I didn’t do it. We were Colleen and I were still very worried about COVID and masking and especially making sure that we were available to do other things like this with my parents. And Matt Crawford substituted in and did a fine job, but I’m happy to be coming back because I had a good street going.

And it really is you know how that is? It’s keep a street going now. Now I have a year off but I love doing it. I love the shopping. I love the hosting. There I am in my kilt, in my yes, my ruffled shirt and everything like that. And just like I said, there’s such a good feeling in the room.

People are just so happy to be there. It’s that’s another thing that really, to me, epitomizes Mensa that if you’re gonna do drinking. Do something really cool, like craft beers or laurs and cordials, or the FIS SCOs or Brandis or whatever else. It might be that a certain amount of knowledge helps you make better choices.

You know what I mean? Yep. Yep. Anyway, so I, boy, we went on too long

[00:36:16] Stephen: about, yeah, I was gonna say it’s the fifth, yesterday was the fourth fireworks everywhere. Even Akron’s got canceled cause of all the stuff going on in Akron right now. But it’s funny, you mentioned that about the fireworks and the history of that.

Cuz I was sitting there watching it last night and I’m like, man, didn’t the Chinese like invent fireworks and 1400 or something. I’m like we have technology and before math. Yeah. yeah, it was I’m like, man, how did they really pack it and get it to, so they’re not killing themselves blowing themselves up and right.

I was like, we’ve got this wonderful display and they’re they were really, I was down in Orville and they were really doing some. Trying to coordinate it not just random all over. So they had these things, they were shooting off and it’s boom. But it was just these sparkles and it went across, back and forth and then they were shooting bigger ones up above it.

So it was a combo thing. And I’m like, man, that’s all from what the Chinese did hundreds of years ago. Exactly. How did they figure all that out? And the colors and all that of course my brain starts analyzing. It’s pretty Northern pretty. see.

[00:37:22] Alan: And that’s, I guess that is that I am right there with you.

I love the fact that I, that are beautiful and that they have gotten that level of coordination and mixture and that kind of stuff. But early on, it was like what makes that wood red? And what makes that green? What makes the Flinders the little glowing parts that come down? What how do they do it so that it goes up and you can see a little spiraling tail and then it goes dark for a moment and then it blows up.

Yeah. And understands it whistle. So I was just curious as to it, isn’t only one kind of thing. So just that I don’t, I’m hardly an expert, but you learn okay. Different elements make different colors, so Tron is the red, I think copper is the green I’m trying, I hope I’m not MIS saying anything, but, and that the different combinations when you do a, when you make a rocket and you do a thing that’s gonna split, it really is you have to time it.

So that the second and third stage ignition, if you will happens at exactly the right at the right time, so that it really does split evenly and stuff like that. And there really is craft and science that goes into the design. When you see it something like, oh, it’s a, like a Saturn, it’s got a rose and then it’s got an oval.

So it looks like the rings it’s so how did they exactly place the things and time it, so that they go off at the right time? Or this is a top hat, or this one looks like a Snoopy’s face or whatever it’s very cool that they have that. Control, but we’re something that’s inherently outta control.

It’s gonna blow up it’s

[00:38:49] Stephen: chaos. You know what I mean? In our little package.

[00:38:52] Alan: Yeah. Yeah. So we had a really good, sad, sadly whatever just happened in Highland, in Akron, like now that it’s intruded on 4th of July and that kind of stuff, we’re there and there’s just throngs of people. There must have been 10,000 people.

Wow. know, Liquid is 50,000 people and 10,000 of them were at our lake park and they’re all on blankets. So standing in the street, whatever else it might be. And I don’t want to have in the back of my mind, what would I do if something terrible started to happen, but sadly you have to, if you care about your life and your wife’s life and all that kind of stuff, so it.

Wow. If I hear shots from that direction, then you run in the opposite direction. You get a big obstacle in between like a house or a car you keep moving away. Don’t think that you’re gonna be able to take shelter. I don’t know. I don’t know what the actual, I think what I think and maybe that’s not the actual rule book, but I’m not gonna stand there and wait to be picked.

And I don’t carry a gun, so I’m not gonna be the supposed hero. That’s going to a good guy with a gun, could be there. No’s got five other people. Exactly. That the, all the statistics, we don’t have to go into the whole gun control. And I don’t even know it’s not a debate. It’s obvious what it should be is that we have a radical, crazy element in our society that has blocked sense from happening for a long time.

Yeah. And they, the penalty for that blockage has become higher and higher over these last 20 years. And there will never be enough. Terrible body stacked up from children, from people at a concert, from people at a, an independence day parade that finally they’re gonna say oh, you’re right.

We, we were wrong all along. We really should have some control over this. I, my terrible dark humor Quip is always are we gonna die from like reading comprehension? It’s not just the right to own arms it’s in order to have a well regulated militia. Yes. So the word regulation is built right into it.

And the fact that it’s militia, that it’s supposed to be for the defense of the country. Not so you can overthrow the tyrant that you think the United States is gonna become, but then you are terrorizing everyone else. And you’re getting weapons into the hands of crazies and even the most reasonable things that we did put in place for a while.

They’ve all been systematically removed that it’s not a concealed carry permit. It’s not getting mental testing done. It’s not getting training done before. You know how to use it. That it’s just, we wanna go back to the wild west where the most vicious guy with a gun somehow is in charge and we can’t, I just can’t stand that.

That’s our posture as a society. So what are we gonna do? We’re gonna get all the bad guys out and put all the right guys in and finally pass these laws. And then we’re gonna do a concerted effort to get people, to trade their guns in for money, get people to get guns out of the hands of the worst of the.

Already offenders or potential offenders. What are we going to do so that it isn’t that every parade in every church, in every school and every movie theater, and you can’t name a place that hasn’t been ravaged by this now.

[00:41:58] Stephen: And you mentioned that, and I was the same way last night, cuz we were sitting there on the blanket waiting.

There’s a lot of people in the football field or soccer field and stuff. And we were looking at the dogs and stuff and it’s wow. There’s like a whole lot of German shepherds. Oh they’re all gathering in groups. I’m like, oh shit, what the is this about something to go down? But it was just people that were had German shepherds.

They started talking, Hey, I like your dog but your brain jumps anymore. And it’s, that’s not the way to

[00:42:27] Alan: live. And if I survey the crowd, I wanna Hey everybody, oh, I’m happy to be your friend. I don’t wanna be going. Is that the guy. Is he dressed with the wrong jacket that would conceal a bunch of magazines?

Is he like looking around in a way that he’s not looking up at the sky, he’s looking for a place to shoot from. I just, I can’t stand that we have that element in our society and that we haven’t done something to curb it. You know what I mean? It’s just it’s the toll that it’s taking and the weight that it’s putting on everyone to worry about that.

And the onion, as famously has a headline that they’ve repeated, unfortunately like 27 times now nothing could have

[00:43:06] Stephen: been done,

[00:43:07] Alan: right. Says the country where this is the only place that happens on a repeated basis. Yes. I wish I could quote it directly cuz they put it perfectly pissy, but like in every other place that they’ve done New Zealand, all in Europe, everywhere that you’ve read about how they had a terrible tragic incident.

And then they did the right thing and they regulated and they made sure that it’s still in the hands of law enforcement, that it’s still useful for sports hunting and all the right, if you will purposes that it can be put towards, but all of the, not justs night specials anymore, now it really is assault rifles.

Yeah. And it’s it . And, And so how many memes are going around with that? That’s oh we can’t do anything about this, but we’re going to regulate this and control this. Wait a second. How that’s the same thing.

That’s boy, is that a perfect thing to say that when you have a discussion, when you have a debate or an argument there’s rules to how you can persuade people because you bring facts and you follow logically to the conclusions of those facts and you don’t keep throwing out soft sophistry and false arguments.

That sound good they’re wrong they’re wrong as you say them. And I can’t think. How many topics do we have nowadays where people use the same repeated hack crap argument, but they that’s their Trump card. That’s where they say, if I say this, that I win the argument. But, and

[00:44:32] Stephen: Still like

[00:44:33] Alan: with COVID magazine size, I don’t wanna debate about what’s an AR 15 or not.

I like the fact that they immediately go to all the tactics that don’t move towards shared understanding and what can we do together that it’s all contentious and meant to fragment the discussion and get no progress. I,

[00:44:52] Stephen: I, I have still heard with COVID people say, oh, you’re one of those sheep.

I don’t wear a mask. Cuz I like to breathe. Really. People have been wearing mask for two years. I haven’t heard one person dying because they have the mask on. And that’s still your argument. The

[00:45:07] Alan: doctor that’s gonna save you in case you do get it. He wears a mask every day, all day in surgery. you such a liar?

Why are you lying to

[00:45:14] Stephen: yourself? But the that’s the to lie along honestly, Al. I really think they honestly believe it because they can’t fathom that they’re what they want. Isn’t the best thing. And they will believe whatever supports that you could take a lie detector test. You could not detect that that they’re lying.

They don’t even think they’re lying. They think you are so wrong. They think you are so stupid that you don’t understand how wrong you are because they are right. And how do you argue that?

[00:45:47] Alan: You’re right. I think you’re right. But what to me, what comes with? We have all kinds of people that go to the commandments about why we should be doing various different things, go to the Bible and funny, I don’t think there’s any prohibition against slavery or abortion or various other hot button issues, but there sure is a prohibition about bearing false witness.

And that’s not only lying, that’s not trying to get to the truth. You commit as a society to like seeking the truth together. You know what I mean? That’s the enlightenment that’s civilization. And then enlightenment is a bad thing to say, because it was opposed to the church at the time, but way back then, the reason that we started to have laws and tribunals and so forth, were it wasn’t can I bribe this guy?

So I get my way, no, it’s that we’re going to test the criminal, look at the clues, find the guy that’s been taking the bris, whatever it’s the seeking of truth and someone that stops at whatever they think they believe that they don’t try to get rigorous about how you pursue the truth that they don’t try to say.

Gosh, there are experts in this. It isn’t what I happen to see in a YouTube video, I should seek out the experts. I should myself become an expert, but that requires my becoming. Less passionate about what I already believe and more open to I’m my dad

[00:47:03] Stephen: fucking wrong, but that’s the, that’s see again, that it makes total sense and it’s the truth and all that, but they that, but it, that way that again this is what I believe.

And that’s exactly, what’s true. And everybody else is wrong and nothing will change that. And you can’t tell me anything cuz your conspiracy you’re lying. You’re against this. You’re controlled. You’re you know, I have all these beliefs that are just not reality, but it’s delusional. I, for totally different situation, which I’m go do, but I used to bring up the argument I’m like, but if I was in an insane asylum and there was a guy in the corner with his hand in his jacket going, I am Napoleon Bonna part.

How do you argue with him that he’s not you can’t you? That, that that. That’s why he’s in there. But that’s what we’ve got here with all these other people, with all their beliefs. It’s the same thing. They all think they’re Napoleon. There’s no way you’ll convince ’em separately differently.

And so what do we, as a

[00:48:03] Alan: society have to do move to Canada. Exactly. No it’s Putman. You know what I mean? If we have enough separation between the loos and their ability to impact society, if we need to out vote the loos so that the right laws get passed. So that there’s enough. Even loos won’t touch the hot stove.

If you keep giving them a, an incentive or a disincentive for continuing the way that they are, by acting like Napoleon, they get put to where their freedom is restricted. They don’t get to sit on the street corner and preach that they get to go where you take your pills at nine and five every day or whatever else it might.

And the fact that we have. Elements in our society that are actively fighting, shutting down some of the worst memes, some of the worst ideas that persuade people to dig in their heels and be wrong, but unshakably wrong. Society has the need to protect itself. You know what I mean, to stop those things from being as prevalent and we’ve slid away from that because we sure have allowed all kinds of bad ideas every time that you hear about the election getting stolen, absolutely untrue.

And you know that anybody that says that. Might be unshakeable, but I have a certain, this is a variation on don’t attribute to malice. What can be explained by stupidity . I think that don’t attribute to insanity, to unshakeability. I think that sometimes there’s other forces, there’s other rewards that they get from wearing their silly red hat and saying things like our entire election system tuned as it has been by 200 years of having to prove the results that because one clown says false results, bad election, throw it all out.

We have to say no, come over to the where you can examine it. Just like we can, you can prove to yourself that this is right. . And eventually when that clown goes to jail, when he’s in prison, because he really did lying insight and do all the wrong things, it really might be that someone’s gonna say, huh, I’ve put a lot of confidence in a guy that’s been proven to be you.

I don’t like wrong, but maliciously wrong. That seems

[00:50:12] Stephen: so right. Evil. That seems so right. And logical, but what you’re actually getting is, oh, see, they’re still railroading things. They’re still controlling it. And I had people say, yeah, Obama’s paying those people to say those things about Trump, what .

[00:50:28] Alan: So the it’s the crazies will eventually run out of a forum.

You know what I mean? The fact that we have the bobbers and the greens and whoever else, Palin making a comeback, like the society has a need to stop putting a microphone in front of them. Yeah. The fact that I don’t know, after I heard some people speak twice, I knew I’m never hearing anything sensible out of their mouths.

The fact that they’re. So willing to jump to the microphone at every tragedy. It’s like, why are we still allowing that’s not news? You know what I mean? Maybe Fox news is going to have it, and they have a certain cache in society, but all the other news places should not only be spending time telling the real news, but continually pointing out as places have here’s the 20,000 lies that Fox news is told that Donald Trump has told that that we can provably.

They keep on spouting bad things. Then finding out that they’re wrong, provably, and then still continuing to say it now it’s not just, they were mistaken. Now they’re actually liars. And then and this is this is happening, all the things we’ve having going on with January 6th, those hearings.

I see continually people getting on TV and talking about what’s wrong with all that. I don’t see them stepping up and under oath saying that. And that is a huge telling thing, because then the crime is perjury. They lied knowingly willingly.

[00:51:47] Stephen: Some of them are ignoring the subpoenas and they’re not coming in.

And that’s what we had. What Thursday is, there were a couple aids that stepped forth and said some things like these are the emails, these are the conversations. And this is what I was told. I wasn’t following at all at the time. But that they like had con re they had convened taken a break for the holiday and that, and they said, oh, everybody needs to come back right now.

And it was that big of revelations. Ever since it’s funny the first time that we had those hearings. And I think Carl Rob was the first one that in memory I can remember saying I’m not coming and he got away with it. Instead of that guy being maned and monkey walked into the court and said, you’re not above the law, you will indeed answer these questions because you’re the one that has a lot of information that we need to get to the truth.

[00:52:35] Alan: And even if you’re not yourself committed to it, we are. Yeah. And so now the fact that they can just say, I don’t think I’m gonna make an appearance. I can’t believe that there aren’t half a dozen secret service guys or department of justice, wherever the appropriate the, it should be the, who is it?

The the chaplain’s office, whatever the court people are that go and get those people and say you were served as summons. That’s not a re that’s not a, maybe I’ll make it. That’s a court order. Yeah. You gotta be there. So I how we keep and it’s not only that they get away with it.

It’s that then you created that precedent of. Other people think they can get away with it too. And only oh, I, why people don’t start saying the fact that he doesn’t wanna appear in. Guilty.

[00:53:18] Stephen: That’s again, going back

[00:53:19] Alan: to the, he won’t testify under oath and that’s why he is not showing

[00:53:22] Stephen: up, but go again, going back to the loos.

That’s not their response. Their response is of course, because they’re just going to twist his words. He knows the truth. Why should he go and appear that’s their logic to it again? How do you argue with thinking like that? That

[00:53:38] Alan: they support it. I, by saying the way courts work is this, that everybody has the right to face their accusers and you have the right for cross examination.

You will get to the truth instead of the guy that just gets to stand in front of a sea of microphones and say whatever he wants. And then you hope that the correction will be in the newspaper that some other commentator in an op-ed piece, like that, that if we’re looking for a vehicle for finding out the truth, the courts with this antagonistic system is really good at getting to that.

Yeah. They whatever. They’ve made maybe some mistakes, 99% of the time. They did exactly as they should have, which was everyone had a chance to protect present their facts and in protecting that the right to face your accusers and that all the other things we put that were in direct response to bad courts in England, that you can’t be held for an unnecessarily long time that you anyway and honestly, Colleen and I, when we were in Boston and seeing a copy of the Magna Carta, What was one of the things that was in there, a man has the right to face his accusers. This isn’t a new, Hey, trumped up thing that we came up with in the United States, this is from 12, 10.

Was it with king John being block a deal by his barons about how it used to be. I can send the army in and they’ll tell you what’s true. Might makes, right.

[00:54:59] Stephen: No, you decided, but someone tried recently

[00:55:03] Alan: like that. So I, all the erosion of trusted institutions, whether it’s the courts or our monetary monitoring and regulatory things, all that is a way of saying the truth.

Doesn’t matter that I want to be able to get away with things that before we had a way of curbing you and it can’t be. Your lie is so persuasive that your money is so pervasive. It has to be that we maintain these institutions. And so I don’t know, I as a geek, like how do we keep putting that method forward?

I share often things like, so here’s the ad fonts, media chart that talks about, which are the sources for news that are the least biased and the least political, you know what I mean? And if, and if you wanna find something out, if you wanna get to the truth, go here to the top of the pyramid where the BBC Christian science monitor, I’m trying to think what’s the most, the least biased and the most authoritative they cite facts, et cetera.

And if you want to be in on the stupid bamboozle, then go to Infowars over here. You know what I mean? There’s just, there’s no places that whenever anybody cites Fox news, it’s you’ve already lost the argument. So far as I’m concerned as I do that, not only is Fox a propaganda machine that people that listen to Fox are less informed than if they didn’t read anything than if they listen to nothing.

And you can’t cite the crappiest news source available as your authoritative source. It’s not, and it’s provably not and it’s statistically not. And so I don’t know, I, whatever I used to talk about with, let’s get to the facts of this when people reject that approach and it’s then let’s talk about you because you’re the problem.

It’s oh no, it’s ad Hom. It’s not ad ho if the problem is you, yes. I’m not trying to attack you. Oh, because you are you’re bald and therefore you’re a bad guy. No, it’s that you refuse to use facts and discussion about facts. That’s the problem in this situation, you,

[00:57:07] Stephen: you turn what you believe into a fact.

[00:57:10] Alan: Like that. Yeah, exactly. And that’s, when is the first time that you heard that? What false facts or whatever, false news, fake news, like immediately, why president entire press Corps should have said you’re wrong. You don’t get to decide that we report on you because you’re so overflowing with these, that there has to be this estate that makes sure that you can’t just get up and say whatever you want and act as if this is the truth, right?

You’re the fake news. And yet we haven’t had enough crusaders because Hey, if you speak up, then you get thrown outta the press room. And all you have is the propaganda left. And yet there is no way to do that nowadays without enough documentation being available in every video. And there’s ways to judge the veracity of who said, what.

I am a fan of smokes for a long time and not because, Hey, I like urban legends it’s because the rigor that they approach things. And when they occasionally got something wrong that they printed their retraction and same with Wikipedia in some ways that it’s, there are self-correcting things in place, and almost everybody that I’ve seen attack those particular institutions, they’re full of shit that they want it to be. That there’s no fact finding that there’s no fact checkers that they could just say whatever they want and get away with it instead of being wow. What you’re talking about with such vigor never happened and provably.

And yet you’ve repeated it three times now and you’ve been told twice proably that it never happened. So it isn’t about the situation it’s about you. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you telling me what a. Liberal bastion wow. I don’t know that’s an insult. I don’t know that’s a way of disqualifying.

Like what they do is still fact based and provably much more than Alex Jones. Just babbling rush Limbaugh being so facile with the language in how he lied. You know what I mean? I’m whatever level of hell he’s currently broing at, he damages the world in a lot of ways. Yes. And I’m as mark Twain said I didn’t wish for his death, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved just

[00:59:18] Stephen: to go sum up how crazy things have gotten Howard stern wants to run for president

We get one of the most outrageous shock jocks ever. Exactly. And he wants to run for president and the thing is like, it seems normal, okay, great.

[00:59:32] Alan: He’s not the only one Dr. Oz is running in Pennsylvania, right?

[00:59:36] Stephen: Yes. And but that actually, when you think about it, that’s actually what it should be.

Not career politicians, people who now I don’t know of Howard Stern’s Mo motivations are more pure. But people. Our back in the day they were farmers the people liked them. They listened to ’em. They went into government, they became a Senator, got sent to Washington and came back after four years and resumed farming.

Now we’ve got people I’m 21. I’m gonna be president by the time I’m 50, 60. So my whole career

[01:00:05] Alan: is your plan, their entire life.

[01:00:07] Stephen: Exactly. Yeah. That’s not what it was supposed to

[01:00:08] Alan: be. Yeah. If in doing that, they learn how the system works and honor it. I have no problems with being the word. Politician means a man of the palace, a man of the city, someone who’s an expert in how those things work.

If you’ve been a mayor and a governor and like a person that had to deal with, what is it like to gather facts and make a decision? What is it like to compromise with multiple factions? What’s it like to have a budget and spend money wisely? All those things are good ideas for growing into the various different roles, but you don’t get that people that instead are like, Hey, I used to be a celebrity on TV.

Hey, I used to be a professional wrestler. You know what I mean? And even. They have a certain amount on the ball, what they’ve done with their life. Hasn’t prepared them for the rigors of the job. know, You don’t hire a guy in to be CEO. You kinda let himself work his way up through the organization, testing himself for being tested and proving that he can handle it.

And yet about pre the presidency about state Senator, we’re not gonna follow that same level of rigor. So I don’t know. This is a sad thing to say. I don’t there’s, we have doctors that are scientists that really follow climate change, follow medical, science, cetera, et cetera.

And we hear them speak. And then we have a bunch of Cton people like the Pauls and the OS of the world that still get to use the word Docker in their title. And yet they’ve not been. Practicing and rigorous and keeping current and scientific about how they’ve done their doctoring. I’m amazed that they made it through med school because I thought it was a pretty rigorous program that would weed out people that didn’t have this commitment and this amount of smarts and all that kind of stuff.

Wow. I’m, I am baffled a little bit by how you can really be a medical doctor and yet be irrational in so many other ways. I wouldn’t have thought that like anatomy, biology, all those things are not, Hey, there’s a a demon in you and I have to drive it out. It’s there’s a, a bacteria, a micro virus, and we know what drugs work against them.

And you don’t jump to wishful supernatural thinking, right? You pursue medical science. So I thought and hoped. Yeah.

[01:02:22] Stephen: Oh, Hey, before we go, cuz we’re going along. You mentioned the new doc holiday series. I haven’t watched it. So we’ll make that a recommendation this week. Tell me quickly about why I wanna watch this.

I’m

[01:02:32] Alan: sorry. It’s not a watch. It’s a read.

[01:02:34] Stephen: Oh, read. Okay. So what

[01:02:35] Alan: series read exactly it’s by crumbly who is a pseudonym for a lady author out of Colorado. And I, I don’t know that it gave her real name. I, they just said it was the pseudonym. There are, they’re a little bit, one step, maybe more than teen fiction.

Okay. They, that the overall premise is doc holiday is maybe immoral the VA hall who we all know from the okay. Corral, shootout, wide, herp, cetera, et cetera. And of course he’s a bit of a rogue, and what does he love doing gambling, womanizing, drinking whiskey as well as being a force for good, because he.

Always was on the right side of the law even while he was dissolute in those other ways. And so it’s just kinda, someone had a good idea and doc holiday is quotes in the public domain. So they have a hero kinda like Sherlock Holmes. You can do anything you want with Sherlock nowadays because they’re also not under copyright and they’re well written and they’re amusing, but they lacked enough gravity.

There were things where they just, the supporting character are interesting, but not enough backstory yet. How things, the conclusion of the first book seemed rush. And so it’s it’s a 12 book series so far I bought that and I also bought another book called the girl who could move shit with her mind.

That’ss funny, the blurb and the premise sound interesting. If you really were a telekinetic. What would you do with it? What would the government want to do with you, et cetera, et cetera. And so I, I bought the first, each of those, so I could give it a try and see if I wanted to continue right now.

I’m not sure about the holidays, especially as long if I could get ’em all at three bucks a pop. But I think if they’re one of those things, they’re new enough that there’s no good used price. And I know we’re about to conclude, but let me just say that the hazards of buying used books through Amazon are now terrible.

I have gotten so many things that were listed as like new that were instead use as a door, stop dog chew on and whatever the hell happened. And so now I’ve been, I’ve commented on that. And multiple said you should try Ava books. You should try. Abras there’s multiple other sources for yeah.

Good use material. That’s more curated, better bookstores. It’s not just someone. The library used sale and then resold it. You know what I mean? And especially my explanation for why it might have been that this reputation has been funded is because the pandemic hit people weren’t coming into those bookstores.

They had to sell something. So they just bumped the grades up a little bit, but I don’t wanna buy something for $2 off that it should be $20 off. Cause it’s such poor condition. Yeah. And

[01:05:07] Stephen: I’m a collector, which is funny. You say that because I just ordered, now these were non-fiction instead of fiction.

And that is a little different how they’re treated sometimes, but these were books on game design two different books. I found that had some great things. I checked ’em outta the library, loved them, ordered them. And I ordered JS because they were one of them was a textbook. So the price was like $185 new.

Wow. See, yeah. I ordered JS as I was good with that a little warm dog and it’s fine. It’s the info inside. Both of ’em came. They were brand new. Not cracked, no bent, Payton, nothing. They were brand spanking new. So I was like, great. I got off lucky and you mentioned that and I’m like, huh I didn’t have it, but fiction’s

[01:05:49] Alan: different.

Exactly. And honestly, I, if I, for most of the things, if I just wanted to read and copy, I’d be okay with buying something in poor, fair reasonable condition for a couple bucks, but I’m a collector. And I want, when I see it like new, I really want it to be, oh a slight Nick, but I saved a couple bucks and instead there’s just been this huge start contrast.

And I’m, it worked so well for the first 18 out of 20 years. And over the last couple years, it’s just collapsed. I can’t trust it anymore. Even when I seek out, like they, don’t only. For reasonable pricing, like new they’ve got 30,000 satisfying customers. Apparently they just said, we gotta let our reputation go to hell because we gotta sell something.

And in many cases it’s been, I said this wasn’t like new. And then they gave me a refund. I either I sent it back or they actually said, Hey, just hold on to the book. We don’t need it back. So they know that they’re scamming a little bit, but in other cases it’s been. Tough. We’re a small concern and it Amazon will resolve it. I then have to raise it to Amazon. And I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I want this to be easy. I don’t want it to be that I bought this book and I saved a couple bucks. My time is worth more than the two bucks that I saved. And now I’m having to go through three forms and four letters to get

[01:07:04] Stephen: my money back.

And that’s what they probably somewhat rely on the hassle of getting the refund. So that’s exactly what for $3, you

[01:07:12] Alan: know? Yeah. It’s funny. I don’t think that I’m cheap. It just has been such an obvious change from how I used to be able to buy with confidence. It’s buy a crossword puzzle book and find out that half of it is filled in if you don’t buy a book that you want to have, like on the shelf looking nice.

And then these two look nice, and this one is just torn. I wouldn’t have bought this. If I saw it in the bookstore, at any price, I wouldn’t have bought this cuz condition matters enough to me.

[01:07:34] Stephen: What’s even worse. If you get a crossword puzzle book, that’s half done. It’s if they’re incorrect, if the reason they’re half done is cause you put the wrong words in and it’s in Penn,

[01:07:45] Alan: I’ve occasionally done that.

I on an airplane, they used to have a magazine and they’d have a puzzle in it. And I can’t tell you how many times I got there. It’s like I’m spending all my time, correcting things in this puzzle. They are, their vocabulary sucked. They didn’t have any con oh you’re exactly right. That’s even more

[01:08:01] Stephen: irritating.

Yeah. all right. Alright. We went wild today. That’s good. That’s fine. Okay. So are you going back to California anytime soon as a matter of fact, oh, this week that’s right.

[01:08:13] Alan: Conserv thing. And so it and a shorter visit this time, but it’s a because they had a COVID outbreak in the facility, I’ve only been able to visit with my mom just last time outside and masked and everything, making sure that.

I’m safe, they’re safe. And that the people that were there sick were are indeed quarantined. I just sent an email to them saying, okay, I’m coming back Thursday. I’m hoping that we can meet besides outside because mom is more comfortable inside. She doesn’t like getting too hot or too cold cetera, et cetera.

And then we’ll see what has to happen in August, September. The big thing is that hopefully with the conservatorship here and going the right way, we will then have the responsibility for her and we can really take care of her and keep her solvent and keep, it’s yeah, right now there’s been that The law is designed to still treat people as individuals, even though they were married for 60 years.

And we had to make sure that we could act as dad since she’s the survivor instead of my father, which was not everybody’s expectation as sad as it is to say it that way. Yeah. So we now will be in a much better position to be responsible and

[01:09:15] Stephen: make sure mom is well, I wish you luck.

[01:09:18] Alan: Thank you. Rough week.

we’ll see. Every time you go into a court, it’s I have very little idea of what really goes on in here. A big part of this is I want. I wanna see what happens

[01:09:27] Stephen: and I wanna, yeah, that’s, real quick. I remember the one time, small light, little mishap but had the cops called and I had some paperwork to fill out and he just had me sit in the back and I’m in the back of the cop car of which I’ve never been in before and he wasn’t arresting me or anything.

I was just sitting there to fill out paperwork and I’m like, so are they always like this? What do they do with this? And I’m asking all these questions. He He’s what the heck? Just fill out your paperwork and go

[01:09:54] Alan: exactly. Honestly my how I think I’ve lived a good life is how I’ve spent none time in court, in jail, in a cop car, et cetera, et cetera.

You know what I mean? I haven’t been in that and even under happenstance and stuff like that the number of interactions I’ve been have. Speeding tickets. You know what I mean? Yeah. Maybe like that for virtually everyone. But you

[01:10:16] Stephen: know they say a good friend.

You can call and say, Hey, I need bailed outta jail. A best friend is sitting next to you. Going damn. That was a good time. That

[01:10:26] Alan: was a good time. Exactly. All right, man. All take care of Steven. Have a good week. Okay. Bye. Bye.

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