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Stephen: Alright. Oh, I love
Alan: the background. There we go. It’s a gazebo from some wonderful location. I got the the complete lumberjacks.
The Cleveland, long ago, had a hockey team apparently before I got in town. And at one point, a friend gave it to me, and it’s perfect for this holiday season, all red and green and etcetera.
Stephen: Yeah. I kinda remember the lumberjacks. It sounds familiar.
We got the monsters. So
Alan: I think from what I understand, like many big cities, Cleveland has had soccer teams, hockey teams, of lesser leagues and stuff like that, and they survived for one, two, three seasons, and they don’t seem to put them together enough ticket money. The rent goes up, whatever it might be, that even though Cleveland is a big sports town, there sure is a lot of hunger for it, but we don’t I don’t know. The monsters have been around for a long time now.
I’ve actually been to a monster’s game and had a really nice time. I had a friend, Larry, who actually had, like a whole sheet of here’s all the various different cheers and how to respond because there really had become a whole bunch of regulars that had put together all these fun ways to slander the other team and stuff like that.
Stephen: So We went a couple times with girl scouts and cub Scouts. And, actually, the Girl Scouts got to walk on sunrise holding the flag for everybody to stand up and sing the national anthems.
See, that’s very cool. Yeah. And then my daughter got into it. She they had little stations set up because it was a whole bunch of scouts. So they had stations set up, and they went And made big poster signs, and she’s just shouting and cheering.
And I’m like, hey, Megan. What’s the score? She goes, I have no idea.
Alan: Exactly. Yeah.
This is a fun topic. Yeah. Exactly. We talked about it before. I love triple a.
You know what I mean? When we go to the rubber ducks game, it’s so different. As much as the we’ve had a reasonable we had reasonable sports teams in Cleveland over there, and I used to go to the Cubs all the time even though they Didn’t make it into the World Series for a hundred years, and yet, I don’t know, small town or minor league stuff is just so much more fun. It’s the prices of things that are ridiculous is the kids get to go out on the field. They get to go out on the ice.
They the mascot is goofy. You know what I mean? It’s not all Corporate, not just sponsored, but controlled. You know what I mean? And so I really have had fun at those games, and that’s what I seek out nowadays.
I really Go to Guardians games. I go to the Lake County, the crushers or the captains or the other ones that we have,
Stephen: the rubber ducks. Yep. That’s down here. Yep.
Alright. So So
Alan: how you doing? Honest, man. I’m so yeah. Let’s yeah.
Cat’s out of the bag. Might as well talk about it. My mom passed away earlier in the week. She had been she’s had Alzheimer’s for years. And my father passed away almost two years ago now, and we’ve had her in a memory care facility where I would regularly go visit and so forth, but she wasn’t getting any better.
You could see straight out of like any geek, how do I get out of worry and fear? You go read a lot of books and read a lot of websites and stuff, and you kinda learn what’s happening and how it’s gonna continue. And so nothing has been a surprise. It really was almost a textbook in terms of the memory going, being able to recognize me and then maybe not being able to retain even the same time that we would talk what we had talked about in conversation. So I was I don’t know.
I love her. I was, always trying to showing her some photos and knowing that she might not be retaining anything, but I think that she, I hope that she recognizes family and that if anything, she sees the delight in my voice, and so that was often enough. These last few days was a quick decline. She got last week, either Thursday or Friday, I went over and visited, and she was sleepy so sleepy that I really couldn’t get her to make eye contact with me. She was pretty much in a not a daze, but just dozing off, and even my voice and my touch and stuff wouldn’t rouse her.
And when I mentioned that, then they what we have done is we had hospice care for her, not in a hospice, but in this same place, Arden Courts, which hats off to them. They have been wonderful and sweet and professional, and just I Couldn’t have found a better place. aNd as she went then into hospice and had the hospital bed and was having difficulty breathing, and they gave her a little bit of morphine because that doesn’t just calm you. It actually helps with some of those autonomic things that Your body starts forgetting, and it starts forgetting everything. You know what I mean?
Like, how to swallow, how to breathe. And in the course of probably the last four days, she really went from being in the cool new wheelchair that we had gotten for her that really supported her well to kinda being in the bed, to kinda being no nobody was home in the eyes at a certain point. She was just roomy, and I was there every day, but when I went home on Sunday night going on Monday morning, I had I hadn’t really done vigil. I hadn’t been there solidly, but I kept, visiting it for long periods of time.
That day, I was there from eleven in the morning until ten o’clock at night. And When I went home to get some a little bit of sleep and a quick shower, she passed. And people have been very kind in terms of everybody when I mentioned it because I have been kinda sharing the saga. I really think part of the way you get through pain is to just to well, what does Spider Robinson say? Pain shared as pain halved, and joy shared as joy doubled.
And so I figured that’s kinda how I live my life. A number of people said that, Subconsciously, people kinda know that, that they’re fading and that people are around them, and they don’t want to break the heart of their loved ones. So they kinda wait until it’s really quiet and that they get to make their peace, and she just kinda went to sleep and didn’t wake back up. So She looked, fragile. I never really I’ve seen dead bodies, of course, at funerals and stuff like that.
But within the time between her passing and the we had boy, a lot of things came together where we knew about the hospice This care we had gone to was a place called the Neptune Society. That is the my parents both wanted to be cremated, and their ashes scattered in the Pacific so they could swim with the fishes, forever. And so all that was arranged and came together. And then once it really happened, It’s just a question of making the right calls, getting the right person to come over and certify yes death, so that goes on the death certificate. The Nipun Society came and picked her up, Jeremy.
Rajeev was really good when she came from the hospice about what to expect, and then after it happened, here’s what happens next. Everybody was just very calm and solicitous and with you. You know what I mean? It wasn’t at all brusque. It wasn’t just another chart to them.
It sure or at least they found people to be in these roles that were really Decent. And so got her picked up, got the wheel out with Jeremy and, the last final touch before she went, You know, the special gurney that collapses in the front, so it goes right into the medical thing. And even by the time we Got her out of her room. She had started to cool, which, like I’m not trying to be ghoulish, but it’s just everything is so real and so final that it’s just Even if you expect it, it’s still, oh, man. This is really
Stephen: But I love what you said that you got together with your siblings.
You went out to breakfast And to remember the good stuff. And my son and I talked about that. It’s Yeah. My great grandmother, I don’t have any really good memories of her Other than her being upset, crying. For twenty five years, she lived past her husband.
And as far as she was concerned, her life stopped. When he died, that was it. The, old school. She I mean, she came to America when she was, like, twenty, twenty one years old. When I say old country, they Started there.
Exactly. But so her life kinda stopped. So there was never any good memories with her other than she made pasta In New Year’s Day, she was never really happy, never really not a whole lot of so I don’t have any great memories.
Yeah.
Alan: Yeah. By the way, I did I’ve done a huge disservice. When I mentioned, to my brothers, I always keep them up to date as to what’s going on. My younger brother, upon hearing, hey.
I think it’s really happening. He and Chris Bruce and Chris drove up Six, seven hours from Bloomington overnight to be there, and Colleen came over. So it wasn’t just me. My family really came together. My older brother was not able to come up, but he took care of as I was giving him, here, we gotta get the crematorium paper signed, DocuSign goes.
And all the hospice, all the everything with the everything, he has been a rock. As the conservator, he really has a ton of stuff to take care of, but Everything has gotten taken. There was no, I don’t know, signing a contract, in under not the best frame of mind and stuff. So everybody we shared some wonderful stories then at breakfast.
You know what I mean? We really did reminisce about, of course, with Christmas coming up, remember this Christmas and how fun this was and that we when my parents first got a reliable car, that’s when we started to take weekend trips for, at least, a Sunday long day trip. And so much of that is I got the wanderlust from them. They really showed me the world is big, and you gotta go explore it. So from Chicago, we went to White Pines and Starved Rock and up to the house on the And Mississippi Palisades just kinda you could see the spiral going outwards over to this the sand dunes.
And all these things Boy, they’re not they’re like a couple hours away, but a whole different world. You go to the sand dunes. It’s what are sand dunes doing? Oh, of course, Lake Michigan is big enough to actually have the conditions that create sand dunes instead of only the Sahara or something like that.
So I just It was we you know, when we say goodbye come spring, it really will be, I hope, a celebration of life. It isn’t, oh god, they’re gone. We’re so sad. It’s also they had a great life.
They were ninety years, sixty plus years of that together. They got out. They survived World War two, came over here, had the American dream. They lived in paradise. They had a house three miles from the ocean between San Diego and LA and would Walk on the beach and go, give food to the pelican, and, whoop.
They’re they traveled the world. They went to Morocco. They went to through the Panama Canal, all over the place. And so much, if I can be as good a man as my father, if I can be as Loving is my mom. I will have been a good person because they really were great parents.
My best friend, Stu, and I, growing up, We often talked about we hit the parental lottery. Our parents stayed together. Nobody was an alcoholic. Nobody was a philanderer. It was just such a good household, and we both have multiple siblings, and the parents treated us all very fairly.
I just I can never thank them enough. But, in the memories of them, you realize just Not everybody had it as well. Colleen came from a big family, but her parents weren’t always of quality. And sorry to have this be a recorded thing, but It’s not like only she knows. The whole family knows that they grew up under difficult circumstances, and a lot of what they do when they have these discussions is kinda like Process trauma, not celebrate.
And not only that, of course, the family had wonderful times as well. But, You know, it is. It’s a scale. And the fact that I have ninety percent good memories, that ain’t the case for somebody. So for everybody who’s coming into the holidays, for everybody who had Difficult interactions with, you name it, their parents, their grandparents, their siblings.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s and that every New Year is a chance to just, I don’t know. Reapply yourself to, I’m grown up and I can handle this. I don’t have to only be the reaction that I had when I was five, and I didn’t know what was happening in the world. People have stuff, all kinds of things from when they were young that they have little autopilot responses, and I hope Al Baltus, amateur psychologist, I hope that you’re able to just say, I’m choosing different.
In the moment of choice, You really get to say, I’m not gonna be haunted by that anymore. I’m gonna make the effort. You know what I mean? And maybe you’ll just get lucky and say, hey. That memory that’s been with me for all these years, memories fade.
Finally, I had a good Christmas. Now my Christmases can be good, that kind of thing. So Yeah.
Stephen: Enjoy The time. Don’t spend more of your life being upset that they’re gone.
Enjoy it while you have it. Enjoy it while you’re there. I think at my father’s funeral, I think, actually, a few people got upset with me because I wasn’t just walking around crying and upset. I was seeing people I hadn’t teen in years.
And we talked and had stories about my dad. In fact, I got upset. Okay. Anybody have any stories about my dad? Let me tell you one.
And I told one, and some people chuckled, but other people were you can’t a sparkle. This is if yeah. It’s a funeral. You’re supposed to be upset. And it’s I just don’t I’ve never felt that way.
Alan: I have been to funerals where it is a relatively somber, stately affair, but almost everybody has kids. They bring their kids. And when the kids like, they don’t have the awareness of what’s going on. They don’t have the attention span and the calmness, so they start running around and having a good time even in a funeral parlor or even in a church.
And, of course, they quickly get kinda calmed down because you don’t want them knocking over the casket or anything. But There’s still something to be said for, hey, circle of life. This is you know, these kids, it isn’t only sad to them. This is a chance to get together with their friends and family. This is a chance to As much as mom and dad might be sad, hey.
We get to go out to lunch. You know what I mean?
Stephen: And this year, I hit Two milestones myself. I had a buddy. We went, same age, same grade.
He had a full hip replacement. I’m like check that off. There’s my first peer with a full hip. Okay. And then I had another friend, his mother.
I grew up with him. I hadn’t seen him in a while. He stopped over. Actually brought me some of his old Star Wars toys, and we chatted for a while. And but his mother is now in a nursing home.
And I’m like there we go, my first year with parent in a nursing home. So it doesn’t stop moving, and I just think I so let me veer a little bit and tell you a story. Of course. Of course. When my grandmother died, She and I never got along great.
We butted heads quite a lot. I tried to be a little somber for the funeral for my mother and stuff like that. But My cousin’s grandson was there, and he was two or three, little kid. He had no clue. Whatever. He’s just he’s kinda walking around. So we’re at the funeral home. We are the only funeral home going on, but they have, the different rooms, but they have those elastic walls that move around so you can make the size. So we were walled off Then one area, and there was another room open, but there was nothing going on in there.
Nobody was in there. The my cousin’s grandson’s walking around, and he Turns and he looks into that room, and he smiles and waves and then and laughed and walked away. And we’re all like, Okay. What is he seeing that we are not? Wow.
Yeah. Again and we’ve had this discussion about supernatural and what you can see or believe. And I would totally be on board with, Yeah. He saw somebody that we can’t see. There have been so many stories of people that reports like this with little kids That they can see stuff we can’t around the world that it filters out as your brain changes or something.
So Okay. I totally believe Whatever he saw something, some but because, little kids don’t wave at empty rooms and laugh.
Alan: Exactly.
Nothing spooky happened. There was in fact, this is kinda weird. I’m kinda glad that I wasn’t here, the death rattle. People have said that really is that last breath can be Difficult.
Because then it
Stephen: sticks with you, and that’s all you
Alan: remember. That’s right. I actually did take a picture of mom in repose, and that this I think I’ve mentioned before. She had a tuxedo cat, a plush toy, that she just had with her all the time. And we sent it along to be cremated with her because it really was.
Her in Rapose holding her little kitty cat was just The way to remember my mom. You know what I mean? That she the real Monty and Monty too, she spoiled them rotten. She loved these cats. So the first one was really wonderful and guddly.
The second one, not so much, but she kept treating him like a good kitty cat. And, eventually, I think she broke him down. He did climb in the lap and purr and stuff like that. But it that’s like I said, how I wanna think of my mom is Cuddly. And I think I mentioned this maybe one or two episodes ago.
The last thing as she became less verbal the last thing she said to me that was Very clear was I took her hand, and she said, nice and warm. And if that’s what she if that’s what I think my mom thought of me, Nice and warm. I’ll take that. That’s it. Perfect.
Perfect. Exactly that. So Because we had too many things planned and everything just proceeded, and because there’s so many things to get done with the holidays, sometimes that’s And you get through tough stuff. It is work on something else. Don’t just sit there staring into the darkness.
And so I’ve been working on the last of the gifts and the Christmas cards and that kind of stuff. And, in fact, just Got the Christmas cards out yesterday, today. The PDF goes out for those who are digital. You know what I mean? I got a whole we got a big old database slash spreadsheet of The hundreds of people that we send things out because it’s the one opportunity a year.
Something should be winging its way to your house. Cool. I don’t know if it’s gonna get there before Christmas. It’s one of those things where they gave a date range, and it was before and after. So here’s hoping that you get out something under your tree.
But I just Sometimes when you and I buy each other particular things, it’s not like they stocked up on the latest Taylor Swift album, and they could just shuffle One out of a million out we have particular things, and they’re like back in the warehouse. Yeah.
Stephen: I do have something for you coming, and it’s been coming actually For weeks. And it was it’s very only out. You’re like the only person I know that this is for and you’ll understand. I think you’ll appreciate it immensely. And that’s what’s really that’s you know I spent so long with my kids, and this was Very difficult with Gina and her kids.
They did not, but I spent so long with my kids that you want to give people something, but it doesn’t have to be like, oh, look. I spent a hundred dollars. It could be something you made or pennies or whatever, but it’s Something very custom and personal. My son has been nailing it for the last couple years. He got me I think I mentioned, My very first Star Wars figure was a Han Solo on Haunt, and Colin found the gun, the little gun.
So he got that. And for this year oh, I didn’t get it. I did I’ll have to get it for the next episode. For my birthday this year, he got me a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, but it was I’ll I’ll have to show you. I should have brought it.
It’s a little square about two by two, And it’s the complete story, but it was from nineteen twenty. It was a series of books they started to print In this little format because it was now printing became cheaper, and people before never had these books, So they printed it in a way that people could afford to get the books. It’s leather bound, and it comes with a little card because they couldn’t print on the cover. So it comes with a card describing what it is, and it’s in a slip case. And it actually has stamps on it from nineteen twenty three.
Somebody mailed it To somebody. And it’s the coolest gift.
Alan: Yeah. It’s that so good for him for just that The fact that those artifacts are out there I know the world is going digital, but, there’s some pretty cool atoms out there too. And to see the generations of different books and of, I don’t know.
If any number it’s like we still have a VCR player. You know what I mean? It’s something that never got issued on DVD. Somebody found the VCR. Be like that’s pretty cool.
That really is like the original cover, the original what do they call the movie? The placard or there’s a particular name for it, Last thing that you see up at the theater, I love finding those kind especially when you find it in good condition. This thing survived Sixty years. It was in somebody’s closet. It was, a cap not just, oh, no.
The rain got it. That’s what I’m doing. So
Stephen: I may have to employ your services. We do have a VHS of this really rare teenage mutant turtle thing, and Colin wants to transfer it, But our VCR is the head doesn’t display anymore.
So Okay. I may employ you sometime. It’s thirty minutes long.
Alan: I When I left Topeka, my dot com this is now twenty plus years ago.
We had, the ability to pick a gift off of a list, if you will. And what I got was a dual DVD maybe only a CD ROM, a dual player where it’s VHS on one, and so that’s exactly for that kind of transferring from one media to the other. Haven’t Run it for thirty years. So for all I know, the heads are trashed, demagnetized, gum, got in there, whatever. But if there’s anything that I can do to try to I have I think I mentioned long ago.
I was once, on when I was Lokesec, local secretary for Maguirea Mensa, we had an opportunity to be on Fox thing in the morning to review movies that It’s a refund for him Benson to do. And it was like the Einstein movie. It was Spice Girls. That Spice World, that kind of stuff. But reason for saying that is the well, lost my train of thought.
The I have tapes of those things that somebody captured off of TV. And I know that those things aren’t gonna last forever. That’s not archive quality media. That’s A VHS was often just the lowest common denominator. So the fact that I’ve let it sit for this long and haven’t moved it over, I hope that now it’s not impossible to do yeah. I once went to a very cool lecture in California. Hewlett and Packard created, obviously, that company. And if I remember David Packard, But when he semi retired and had money to do things, he either started or was a principal in the California Film Archives, and they were the guys that specialized in when they found old films like on nitrate or where it really was.
It hadn’t been kept in domestic condition. So if they’re gonna be able to capture this original print, they gotta take it into clean room conditions, temperature, humidity controlled, and frame by frame, make sure that you peel it off so that it’s not lost to history. And While I was out doing my dot com things, I went and saw they had recovered a print of Rafifi. It’s a caper movie that was made in Europe, and it’s very famous for there’s a twenty minutes of the film is quiet because they’re next to the bank, and they have to be moving totally quietly so that nobody suspects they’re there. And so it gets just tenser and tenser.
And then a guy, spoiler alert, drops like a wrench, and it sounds like a cannon, a volcano going off because you just been leaning in and leaning in, and, oh my god, this is so tense. Or and the reason I mentioned that is because that was the first movie my parents went to see together. Nice. They went to see her fee. And there’s a famous theme song or a song within the movie that’s Very Italian stereotype.
Maybe the French stereotype. I’m sorry. And so when they mentioned that was the first movie, then I saw that they were ho hosting the going. It was like, I gotta be there.
It’s like the film they saw. It’s that print oh, that year. It’s not a remake.
It’s not an it’s really just that can might have been in the theater in Europe and then whatever. It was very cool. That’s
Stephen: very cool. And you talk about the restoration of this old stuff. I’ve heard some rumblings.
Doctor who has been on forever. Everybody listening should probably know that. And at the time, the earliest ones that they recorded, they got done. They tossed them. Got rid of them.
So actually recorded
Alan: over them. Yes. Notes, so they really are lost. There’s not like you can find that that tape or something like that.
Anyway
Stephen: yeah. So so There was back twenty ish years ago fifteen, twenty, whatever. A group of people was doing reconstructions of those episodes Where they because they still had photos from the set, and they had the audio, which is a little weird at times. Whatever. So they reconstructed it kinda like a slideshow with subtitles and audio.
But I’ve heard rumblings now that they’re like, You Yeah. We could take those photos. And with AI, we can recreate the video. And The tweening as they
Alan: call it. Yeah. Go from one thing to the other and looked like it was originally filmed. That’s cool.
Stephen: And with all the technology, I talked about this.
You could re you could do the fourth Season of Star Trek. And AI create the actors, have their lips move with their voices, and create all new dialogue. All this AI stuff, that’s Something you could do.
Alan: Take all the books that Blish and, others did as continuations of the theory and use those as the scripts, the installation, and you really could do. And I you know, there’s a lot of morality involved there.
I really don’t want it to be that someone’s like this gets used without their permission, if you will, Even no matter how much the rabid fans would love to see that, but there’s gotta be a way to find the happy middle path. You know what I mean? That they can they, shatter and whoever else and de age them. That looks like the original cast bones should be there,
Stephen: I mean, it and the contracts now obviously are changing.
But back then, it was like, yeah. You’re an actor. You paid. You did your job. We own it all, and they could do whatever.
So from the actor and producer and creative team standpoint great. Now they redid the But, arguably, they’re redoing the episode. They’re not using what you didn’t film, though that some of the voice. That’s a whole morale like you said, morality discussion.
But, and I know this isn’t gonna happen. The corporate big leagues could say, hey. Your estate still exists. Here’s some money or whatever because we put this out, and people loved it. I know that won’t happen, but
Alan: It’s a good thing to be able to talk about the comic book field in that they really have, in a lot of cases, made right by people. Frank Miller and, Maybe I think Neil Gaiman, Matt Wagner, a couple people that did early on their own work and licensed it to the company instead of it being work for hire. Then they also went and said, there’s no way that Jack Kirby’s widow should be living difficulty when he created the Marvel Universe. There should be something. And so with a kind of moral pressure more than legal things, it really was done as work for hire.
They managed to get it so that the estates of so Bob Kane and Bill Finger created Batman. Each of the various different things. Moulton created Wonder Woman. I think they’ve made it that even though the companies were not obligated to do they’ve made sure that The people, who in some cases, the people were still around, but they were, like, living in a retirement home.
And they said here, how’s about twenty thousand dollars a life? How about a hundred thousand dollars? Whatever it might be that They’ve made, as you well know, billions off of cinematic universe, and so maybe that’s also what helps to make them A little bit generous is there’s money to go around. Back when it was still only comic books, it wasn’t a Great way to make money. Only certain things that really had to be ahead, but most comic books were, what, two hundred thousand copies, repeat.
It wasn’t so Just hats off to not only the people that pushed for it, but the good guys at Marvel and DC, Jeanette Kahn. I’m trying to think of who are some of their the names I remember. When all that stuff was still coming out, The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was involved, but not as a protagonist. They were, like, saying, the way to do this legally is like this.
It’s given as West or whatever the appropriate legal term is so that it doesn’t create further obligation on the part of the companies, but they really do get to share the wealth.
Stephen: And it was, like, not till the, what, third or fourth Superman movie that they recognized the creators. And because I read something about they went and saw it in the theater with everybody. It was the first time they saw
Alan: that. See.
Siegel and Schuster. Exactly. Get up on this. Yes. That’s gotta be amazingly satisfying to be like, If you’re Arthur Conan Doyle and you finally get to see that Sherlock Holmes has become one of the most recognizable figures ever.
He lived long enough to really do that, but Siegel and Twister did. Did you read this? By silhouette, Some of the most recognizable characters is Superman with the akimbo pose, Mickey Mouse because the ears, and Sherlock Holmes with this beard deerstalker cap. And that to create something for the ages like that, the contribution you’ve
Stephen: made to the world, fantastic. Yeah. And so on prime, you may not have seen this.
There is a many young, whatever, Batman special Christmas special, but it’s the might I forget which it is. It’s not the movies or anything, but it’s young well, it’s Batman, But it’s Damien that it focuses on when he’s eight.
Alan: Okay. Oh, it’s his son that he didn’t know he had by Ra’s al Ghul’s dog.
Stephen: Hollywood it re it reminded me a little bit of Mad magazine, a little bit of Ren and Stimpy. So it’s it’s funny. Because it’s
Alan: got that the style of the artwork is campy, goofy, cartoony instead of being, it’s meant to be, like, dark like a the comic book store.
Stephen: This is May
Alan: first. Yet. I did see it. I just it’s lined up so many things now.
I’m I’m suffering from Back when we actually used a a DVD recorder to capture things, oftentimes, I filled up my hundred hours, my two hundred hours, and I’d be like, Alright. Watch a whole bunch of comedy half hour specials just so I can delete it. Make some work. You know what I mean? And exactly this period between Christmas and New Year’s, I’d use that’s that way if there’s any way in which I have binged, it was kinda driven by that of the this is gonna go away Where I don’t have any room to save anything else, I have to make
Stephen: room.
Yes. In you mentioned in The recognition. So in the cartoon, there’s like a cane and finger boulevard or something like that they go past. And then one of the original artists, they Put into the cartoon just as a cameo or something. They didn’t name them.
They didn’t he had one line that Damien went Past and whatever. And Kong goes, hey. That’s so and if that
Alan: I stand as Stan Lee Took kinda took on that Hitchcockian aspect of I think that he was in every single Marvel movie un until he passed, and I think they even Had one come out after he passed that he had done some work on it, but kept him in. You know what I mean? So what a that’s a very he really was the goodwill ambassador for Marvel for the last Three decades of his life, maybe even four. He really was no longer producing the comic books, but still had that the patter when you could have him at a Comic Con.
And putting him in the movie and having he had the great ability to make fun of himself.
Stephen: He became like the fictional mascot Almost.
Alan: And in fact, at one point, there’s all kinds of fan theories about this.
At one point, we’re like, I think he’s the watcher. That’s why he’s in all these scenes because Stan’s name is not Stan. It’s really like Uatu, like all the watchers have those multiple names. And I just you know, that tickles me. I’m gonna go with that.
I think, Stan, it
Stephen: Wasn’t it at the end of the Guardians movie that he was sitting there talking to the watchers and telling them?
Alan: Get giving him the the status report, with that kinda thing. So I love that.
We’re we the Aquaman movie opens tonight. Oh, is that tonight? Probably gonna go see it. I don’t I’ve maybe I made a mistake. I didn’t get tickets yet because we really weren’t sure how everything was gonna play out timing wise, with all of this.
But that would be you know, if you’re looking for to get lost in a fantasy for a while, how about undersea kingdoms, warring mermen. I and, as much as I like this stuff Colleen mentioned, Jason Momoa would be okay to see. That would be
Stephen: Just saying.
Alan: I’d be if you wanna drag me along to another comic book movie, It would be okay.
Stephen: That’s hilarious. Says Yeah. The upcoming Shows and movies is a little bit of a dry spell. Not in a whole lot coming out for a while on this
Alan: round. I’ve I’ve been Watching I don’t know, less comic book stuff, but I I oh, we just watched The Last Rookie just last night.
And as you mentioned, It’s wow. There’s a lot going on. And at first, I wasn’t sure if it was the cliffhanger or if there was one still to go, But just whatever happened to have you know, again, spoiler alert, but it’s to have them be targeted and to still have a mystery villain, and then it wasn’t The female serial killer wasn’t the other mastermind. Just okay. What’s really going on?
And, really, maybe, Death, probably another main character maybe, and it’s intense as hell. It was really
Stephen: So what’d you think of the whole Roslyn thing when she got killed and all that and what she was doing. That was crazy.
Alan: So the It’s kinda funny. They really instead of being, like for an evil genius, a mad genius to be driven by, I have to take over the world.
I have to make a ton of money. She just was like a sadist and liked getting into people’s heads and seeing how much she could screw up their lives, which is Dangerous as hell if you’re gonna be, like, in public and can’t necessarily shield yourself from her. She had that evil charisma that some people can have where people that, I won’t commit crimes just as their own thing. They’ll be happy to be a minion. If you ever wonder where the henchmen come from, it’s because some people really want The permission of doing bad things because, hey, someone told me.
They forced me to do it. So as we see in real life, all of it nowadays. Whoops. Did I say that? Anyway, so And,
Stephen: unfortunately, the actress passed away before that even came out.
So Oh, man. You didn’t know that? Anna Gersching? Yeah. Don’t
Alan: they sometimes they have maybe oh, I didn’t know her actor’s name.
If they had a little in memoriam, I’m up They did. That really was wrong. Oh my god. Okay.
Stephen: So she actually had cancer and was and filmed those While battling cancer, and Oh, my god.
She passed away before that episode came out. Okay. So as I think the last thing she did, And I always liked her. She was in twenty four. She was in the runaways.
Okay. Couple other things that I’ve watched through the Yeah. That’s where I know
Alan: her from the runaways. I’ve never I never watched twenty four, but I it’s you know, she has the perfect bone structure, and so it’s I know I’ve seen that face before. And, actually, I think we mentioned this. They had one guy that was on the show, and he kinda said, I’m not gonna do the show anymore because of Disagreements with how they were portraying not his character necessarily, but the Black lives matter stuff about how they really weren’t getting equal treatment, equal time, etcetera. And I can understand what he was saying. Even though it’s a big ensemble cast, Some people are more the main characters and some are the secondary. From what I understand, he’d like I said, I’m not coming back, but they already had Figured him into a plot.
So he’s the guy that gets shot and put in the trunk and not in a disrespectful Pull away. It wasn’t like just rid of this character then. They really it was agonizing to see him go away, but it really wasn’t him in the film. It wasn’t him getting filmed.
They found another A body double.
Stephen: It was very abrupt and shocking. I could see that. Now that actor was in an episode of Castle. So we talk about Philly and bringing people over.
It’s actually one of the
Alan: Christmas We’ve seen everybody has made an appearance at some time or another. Not that long. But, his other, the mom that he has in the new one was it’s similar. First, the redhead was like, no. She’s not sweet but ditzy.
She’s actually Pretty evil. Yeah.
Stephen: Yeah. Man, what else? Underwater kingdom tonight.
My poor mother here it is, week before Christmas, and her car died. So she’s out looking for a new car, and Oh, boy. Horrible with looking for new vehicles and all that. And it’s one of those things that’s like
Alan: family defense. You wanna go with her and not better yet.
So let
Stephen: me do, but I know we would just probably end up at each other’s throats a little bit because her first thing she’s talking to the guy, he tells her, yeah, Her whole subframe rusted out. And they said we might be able to fix it. And I’m like, how the hell are you gonna fix the frame of the car? She goes, oh, okay.
I wanna come and look for something. And she said I have this much to put down and that my top that I can afford is this much Per month. But I’ll come and look. And then I’m like, just tell them that. You Exactly.
Alan: You have to guess your negotiation strategy is Surrender.
Stephen: Yes. Exactly. I like you know? And in, plus, she’s I’m trying to, It drives me crazy because I’m like, you’re seventy five.
Do you really want a new car with payments? I’m like, maybe Get something used for yourself because and I’ve got something. And you could even use my car. She’s oh, I don’t wanna use your car. It scares me.
I’m like, oh God. I’ve got insurance. It’s a car. It’s fine. And I’m just like, okay. Maybe we get something and kinda go together, and then I’ll just get a second Used car. Because you don’t need a payment.
You don’t need a new car. You drive barely ever. I So I’ll tell you,
Alan: I wish that people did this. Consumer reports for a long time, any number of other finance books will say The best thing you can do is not put a lot of money into an immediately depreciating asset.
You drive that car off a lot, and it’s five thousand dollars less than what it was. So what they say is, find a car that’s gonna last a hundred, hundred fifty thousand miles, buy it with thirty. You don’t get a new car, but you get all the value of that car for A third of the price that you would have paid if you insisted on, I want the new car smell. And so Yep. We have not done that because Colleen worked for a place that they actually had a program where your car gets taken care of because you’re using it for business all the time.
You would depreciate the car, and they kinda paid for that depreciation. So both of our Priuses were bought new, but now we don’t have any car payments. They’ve lasted to four years and stuff. If ever we don’t get if one of these guys runs out and we don’t need the second car, if we do need a second car, we’re gonna be like, am I really gonna finally do the right thing and look in the ads and go to Carvana and say, Give me another Prius with fifteen, thirty thousand miles on it as long as it doesn’t stink of cigarette smoke, as long as it isn’t oh, it was in a flood, but don’t worry.
It’s okay. You know what I mean? I have no problems with pre owned things like that. And had a mechanic check it, and then it’s not I don’t know enough about it.
Oh my god. I did buy a pig in Polk, and it lasted
Stephen: a year. And the prices, I know we sound old, but I just looked up a flight for our conference in February down to Florida, And it’s two hundred dollars more this year than it was last year for the same type of flight. And they were you know, a friend was trying to help My mother and said, oh, Honda’s got a sale going on. You gotta have four thousand down, and then it’s three fifty a month for seven years.
And I’m like, For a Honda? I’m like, who the hell is paying that for a Honda? Jeez. Oh, man. Hondas
Alan: are great cars, but Yes.
This year, a seven year auto payment.
Stephen: Good for three fifty. And I’m like, but he was like, but you get a seventy five inch TV. Give me a two hundred dollar payment. I’ll go buy my own seventy five inch TV.
Exactly.
Alan: It’s you know? So I have a new favorite commercial because it’s so well done. They have the thing boy, did the commercial penetrate? I can’t tell you the name of the company, but it’s the one that will actually drop a car and pick up a car and have an app, and you can do it all on the app.
And so to me, that’s automatically dangerous. This isn’t hey. I went shopping in Amazon and got a book. I went shopping for a thirty, forty, fifty thousand dollar car. Beep boop.
I oh my god. But the guy is it’s got a little slidey thingy so you can compare your It’s easy. I
Stephen: bought one for my wife too. It’s
Alan: easy. Exactly.
And it’s like He’s sliding. I feel strong. It’s just like the perfect catering to yeah. They might have given you the ability to see Just how screwed you are that you’re gonna have car payment. What’s the total cost of the car?
Is that on the screen somewhere? Because Wealthy Barber, like I said, any number if you read anything about fire, financial independence retire early, they will give you that same advice. The car is like the worst thing that you can do if you’re really don’t ever think of it as an investment. It’s an expense, and keep the total expense and the expense per year down And be in self defense is don’t get sold something. So I hope that your mom doesn’t get Fleece.
Please even if it might be, like I don’t know. How long can you handle it? Do an hour. Even an hour is better than none. It’s I
Stephen: The last three cars that she got, I remember talking to her, and she’s going we’re going out and look for a car today. I’m like, are you looking or getting? No. No. We’re just looking today.
Two hours later, she drives in with a new car and says it was a really great deal. I’m like, a great deal for who? You were the salesman. It’s whatever.
Alan: I will also say this. The way we got our last two cars was Costco. They do things where it’s fifty dollars over dealer’s invoice and not the dealer showroom cost that includes all of that transportation, all that crap as well. We got a great deal on a great car, and they really do they cover, I don’t know, a hundred different kinds of cars, not three. So the fact that Whatever we pay for Costco each year to be like executive members, we not only get our two percent get discount back, but The money that we saved on our new cars is enough to pay for Costco for the rest of our lives.
We save thousands and thousands. You know what I mean? So I don’t know if either your mom or somebody in the family is a Costco person. But if you’re gonna get a new one, I don’t think Costco does used, but they make sure that out of Cleveland, it isn’t every single Toyota dealer. They have one or two dealers, maybe one east side, west side, something like that, that those are the ones that have the good ratings that you’re not gonna go in there and say, yeah.
We’re giving you a good Costco deal. But then if you want floor mats, that’s another five hundred,
Stephen: fifty dollars. Oh, no. Ways of second key. That’ll cost you two hundred fifty dollars.
Like that.
Alan: Yeah. So A bit a car around Christmas is a big old thing. You know what I mean? When we saw the all the ads that have, hey.
New car for your Graduating high school kid, a big old bow on it. It’s wow. Maybe you let him work for that a little bit. Here I am sounding all curmudgeonly, but I don’t know. I it’s important to have safety and dependability.
The car for the utility, that’s what I want. I’ve never cared about does it have the right wood panel or something like that. I care that it had the rating that said this car is gonna last and last, will not break down on me. It’s If I’m in a collision, I’m in a great, frame. She is not gonna
Stephen: crumple on me.
She is such the ideal consumer for these Car dealers. Because she’s had a Mazda. She’s liked Mazda, so she’s too afraid to get a different Type of car. So okay. I’m go look at Mazda, and I’ll get a Mazda.
And, and I keep I don’t think their Repairs have been as up to par as they used to be. I don’t know what happened. And I told her I said, you should go look somewhere else. It’s just These plea these people have not seen that trustworthy in recent years. Yeah.
But she’s so afraid. My mother is chicken little with the sky always falling, and she’s so afraid to go somewhere else. I just don’t know those are cars. I don’t know their place, and I’ve been happy here. I’m like, no.
You haven’t. You I’m like, you still don’t have a side mirror. They have been promising this for nine months. Oh. That’s
Alan: but they want to trust, and so they do. They want to believe that they’re good. It’s I have very little loyalty in all those ways. I don’t have a loyalty to an insurance agent or to a car dealer or anything like that. I have loyalty to quality.
The fact that we’ve now had two Priuses run without fail perfectly, and we’re getting fifty miles a gallon. That’s why I’m looking at a hybrid or an electric because I like all those features. But if someone outdoes them and consumer report says, hey. You wanna go with Saab because now they’re the best out there. I will relearn where the, Directional is and how to turn on my lights and stuff in a month, and then I’ll still have the best car on the road.
It just the, Man, the peace of mind matters a lot to me. Colin and I talked about so much of we’re in okay shape. We’re both retired. One of the things is that we just made we made plans, and we kept to them.
And some of the plan was don’t do big impulsive things. Do the research. Buy the best thing. It’ll be you’ll not only will you save money in the long run, you’ll save emergency money if ever has to happen, and I can’t think of anything that’s blown up in our face like that. Maybe Angie.
Angie is not as dependable for things around the house as it once was, but with various different car types. You can even see the little chart of reliability that concern reports together that kind of funny. Once a place establishes a reputation for reliability. They seem to take that almost as an opportunity to say we can slack off now because we’re gonna ten year, echo effect instead of continuing to top the list or just that other competitors say we gotta catch up. We gotta surpass.
So you know? And this is maybe nobody does this anymore, at least not amongst my direct circle of friends. When I first was looking Yeah. Buying a car. This is dude would have been, like, early eighties, got out of school and so forth.
And are you gonna buy American? And it’s what I’m gonna do is buy the best car. And if it turns out that Japan is making those cars because what we specialize in is fins, not quality motors I just don’t have any loyalty to the company that is screwing me but saying it’s a patriotic act to buy something of less quality. Make a better car. I’ll buy your better car.
Import it from Detroit. I’ll buy an import. And yet for years, Ten, twenty years, we fell further and further behind, Datsun, now Nissan, and Honda and, and they each had their Upgraded, the Acura versus the Infiniti and stuff. So when I got my Infiniti, it was I this is the best highest quality car for, like that’d still be initially reasonable amounts of money. I didn’t wanna spend We talk about this often, don’t we?
You spend seventy thousand dollars on a car when you could have had one for thirty. It’s what’s the opportunity value of forty thousand dollars that you could put into other things. And it’s not even for yourself. It’s that could be some a donation to a library. That could get kids some school lunches.
Every one of those things that you kinda piss away money. It breaks my heart to see people do that when it really is that there’s I don’t know. There’s so much psychology in it. We’ve talked about advertising before. When you get this, and then you’ll show you’ve made it.
Now you get the job and the girl and the you know what I mean? You are the man on the block, and I just I’ve never cared about that. I had an Infiniti, which was kinda like The reason I got it was because the people that I was dealing with then were like traders from the Chicago Board of Trade and Options Exchange, and I wanted them to not have me come puttering up in a geo. I wanted them to look like I have arrived. I am reputable, and that’s gonna be part of how I sell Gambit that I was working on at the time, but It wasn’t for me.
It kinda you know what I mean? It was for I knew that appearance matter. I couldn’t care less that I have, what, rosewood in the car. You know what I mean? It matters that I have seat warmers because likes seat warmers.
You know what I
Stephen: mean? And, really, people are misled. If you buy a Ford chances are it was built down in Mexico and imported to the US. The BMWs out there were assembled in North Carolina. So you tell me which one’s more American.
And Ford isn’t even owned. That really said. And Ford isn’t even
Alan: really for a while, and they really were like they were built in Tennessee.
They created all these
Stephen: jobs. Yeah. Ford isn’t really even owned by an American company anymore. They’re owned by foreign companies. It was sold.
And people go see movies, and sixty, seventy percent of the movies are owned by Chinese companies. They have no it’s just The whole buy American is such a falsehood, but, that’s the rah rallying cry you see on the trucks. Oh, I buy American. Okay. When did you buy American?
Because you’re driving a foreign car. I don’t care what it says. I know
Alan: I’ve seen you know, there’s a big chart of all the interlocking conglomerates that own everything. And so when you see I don’t know, P and G, for instance.
Right? Procter and Gamble, when you look at them in the store, and there’s all these different brands and stuff like that, and you figure P and G has two, and then, Unilever, and it turns out that they own eighty percent of the shelf space because they’ve done all that, inhabit every slot with, I don’t know, expensive, middle, cheap minty versus, apple flavor. I don’t know. They really have become very cunning, and so have car dealers and so have oh,
Stephen: I You know, jumping back real quick before I forget, You mentioned advertising in that.
I must say some of my favorite Christmas commercials over the last couple years have been the Apple commercials for whatever Apple product. Yeah.
Alan: Yeah. I they I don’t know. They long ago, when the Mac first came out, I think I might have told you this, They had a guy named Guy Kawasaki, who we actually had come talk to our Apple our Mac user group, and his title was evangelist.
He wasn’t a salesman, and the way he very much explained what he was doing was salesman tend to say, okay. What do you want? And I’m gonna narrow your choices until I’m the only one remaining. I’m gonna Scare you? I’m gonna, give you a free TV, whatever else it might be.
Whereas Apple has always been about look at the stuff you can do. Look at with this Mac or this phone or this watch or whatever like that, it expands your life. You would you make your world bigger and better, and I’ve always liked that. And not in a false dreams way, not in the, hey. You buy a Macintosh and you get the girl.
You know what I mean? I don’t think that they’ve ever done that, whereas they have the stereotypes of the guys. You Now who do you wanna be in the world? Do you wanna be like the, I don’t know, buttoned down kinda stage John Hodgman, or do you wanna be A little more cool. A little more I just and I’ve never bought one for that reason, but I like the fact that their advertisement Advertising speaks to aspiration instead of I don’t know. It’s never a lie. It’s you know? And Once in a while, they actually come out and say, we have the fastest computers in the world. Once in a while, they just put on lies.
If you really want the best out there and as prices have been, like, maybe we you and I have different opinions on this. I’m willing to spend if a great computer can be had for eight hundred or a thousand dollars, the two hundred dollar difference is not what’s going to make me decide. You know what I mean? Something that I use every day for hours a day, the quality of my monitor, the quality of my connectivity, all that kind of stuff. My time is absolutely worth the extra two hundred dollars.
If it was eight hundred versus eight thousand, like when the lease a long, long ago first came out, a five thousand dollar per computer, when things were a thousand dollars, a harder sell. But I can get this perfect Mac laptop for fifteen hundred bucks that really is the best rated thing out there, and I don’t it’s not easy to convince me that the Mac world is so segregated, walled off, if you will. It’s absolutely Now because of the Internet, because of phones, all the ways in which it interacts with things, it’s better and for the right money, and I’m I don’t think that I get trapped in it. It’s more wow. Another thing that they do better than anybody else.
Another thing that I’m happy to pull out my phone and have it just work all the freaking time. When Colleen and I have anything we have to troubleshoot, I’m always amazed. I’m like, wow. That’s not Apple. They usually make it so that, like three levels deep.
It’s working better than I thought it would. You know what I mean? That as I investigate, because oh, I often sound like an, A little bit of an Apple, like a commercial, but it really is I’m ready to give testimonials off the wazoo. Way back when I was regularly using Macs and maybe in the Windows environment, I’d be like, I know that I’ll be able to read every file and do all that you can, but I’m gonna do it with a thirty percent productivity boost.
That’s at least. I know that I’m more efficient than anybody that I saw. Hey. Is it virus fighting day? Is it you know I had less Problems with file compatibility between Mac and Windows than I did between versions of Windows because I always had to work in the Windows environment if you did any kind of corporate consulting, but with various different versions of Windows and of Office and how when it went from doc to doc x The dot you know what I mean?
All that kind of stuff. Regularly, I’m the guy that had to explain you wanna make sure you check this box for backwards compatibility because once you move forward, If you try to go to your home machine and it’s still on Windows seven instead of Windows, you’re gonna be very unhappy. Yep. You know what I
Stephen: mean?
So I got my buddy that stopped The other night, we were chatting. He’s a Linux guy, and he’s been a Linux guy since mid nineties, late nineties. Yeah. And, Man, I’m just like I’ve tried Linux several times, and I end up spending more time getting things working than actually working. It I still don’t feel like I could move to Linux and totally use that.
And I’ve been using Windows for so long, and everything I have is In windows and working, and, people are like, oh, this problem, that problem. I’m like, I don’t have problems. Part of that’s what you do. So
Alan: Yeah. Yeah.
It’s Colleen is having a little bit of, by moving to almost all Macintosh now that she doesn’t have the Windows laptop as her main box. It’s just I have to explain things to her. And most of the time, it’s not quotes. It’s just that way. It’s more I think that the reason they made it this way is because, and most of the things seem to have human factors behind it, compatibility behind it, not just we decided to be ornery and do it our Wrong way.
Stephen: I mean, I’ve got a Mac sitting right here that I use for publishing, and I’m now using it. I’m doing a project with Flutter. And Flutter is cross platform hybrid for iOS, Android, and the web. So I’m working on a project that I can put in all three places. That’s our goal.
But I still have that by Nothing about Flutter.
Alan: How yeah. Honestly, I stay up this kind of stuff all the time. Oh my god. You’re ahead.
And now I have to go
Stephen: learn about it and catch up. It’s a it’s a Google thing, actually it’s from Google. But you gotta still have the Mac to have the right key chain to publish to the Apple Store. So I have to have, my Windows with Android setup and everything for the web and then the Mac for All of that. So I can develop on my Windows, and it has a virtual machine thing that it connects to the Mac.
So Yeah.
Alan: In fact, that’s boy, I was I developed tons of stuff for Macintosh and Windows both, and the development environment that people don’t ever get to see. I another thing that I loved about Apple was that they really had you can set up things so that it’s every single browser, every single version, and the compatibility of being able to test for the top thirty things that you’re gonna see out there in the world and fix it before it goes out, not just put it out there to break and then people will never use it again. I always love that the rigor and the fact that besides I use Parallels instead of VMware Fusion for running an entire Windows environment.
But the MAC had that ability to recreate all those environments right in their development environment. And the level of detail that sometimes they had to deal with for You name it. The difference in foundation libraries and how they and even long ago, it was little Indian versus big Indian, how they handled memory handling and floating point numbers and stuff like that. And a lot of that stuff, the first ones that did. I don’t have to worry about memory management was Apple.
Both Apple’s developed environment and MetroWorks, which I think is kinda gone now. But Being able to take care of all the garbage collection and not, having a being able to guarantee a safe kernel environment, and not know that it can be I just Apple’s got some really smart people working for it. And the fact that they figured all that out for me so that I don’t have to do it. I love the leverage of that. You know what I mean?
Maybe the latest Windows development environment has all that as well. I just as familiar with it because I have started to do most of my stuff with Swift and all the and also not just, multiple platforms, multiple languages. You really can do c or c plus or all that kind of stuff, and it has gotten better over the course of time. So I just
Stephen: Flutter, obviously, you can develop it on either. And the language the Dart language, Which is the major part of it.
Flutter is like the framework over top of Dart. That was all Google developed, so it works with both. And, obviously, it has to Do cross platform development. But the other one I’ve been working on a lot is Python because that is the AI stuff.
And I’ve been doing AI stuff for work, And you want and, man, let me tell you, my brain has been hurting with that. AWS has so many Freaking cool stuff that it does, and I’ve been working with them. You have
to
Alan: couple things together, he
Stephen: said. Yeah. Okay.
And figure out their terminology. And then
Alan: I what’s I wonder if is it Python or nothing? I’m sorry. She’s going No. No.
No. Go ahead. That’s Way back when I was first working on Convergence, they were really trying to get not just apps, but get things onto the web and being able to have do whatever is running behind your website and stuff like that. And Python was one of the languages you had to learn.
What was the duct tape of the Internet that if you didn’t know Each of the languages on other platforms, you could write middleware, kinda stuff that would take care of your data, take care of your user interface, that kind of thing. So I know everything I’ve learned about Python was unwillingly, but I see how handy it has been. You know what I
Stephen: mean? And I The more I’ve been using Python, the more I’ve used Python, the more I’ve enjoyed it. I like the language.
But now that I’m learning Dart with Flutter, I’m like, wow. Dart is a very elegant language. It makes a lot of sense and Yeah. So that’s pretty cool.
Alan: Alright. I miss it. Yep. That’s one of those things that maybe that’s another thing I’ll pick up in the new year is I just wanna develop something. I just I miss that cool thing of, hey.
Look what I wrote, and it works. I haven’t been active in that way anywhere near what I once was, honestly, since coming to Cleveland. You know what I mean? When I was doing
Stephen: It’s Cleveland’s fault.
Alan: It just was.
I did the big mainframe and database insurance company environment, and it made me fall behind. And so the act of starting over again or catching up, it was a lot of work for a hobby, and that’s kinda why I haven’t done it, I have lots of time now and lots of I like my I like how my mind is when it works on that. It My mind has a mind that solves those things well.
I’m aware that I have this gift, and my not using it is kinda Criminal. You know what I mean? I really should be. I was never the best coder that I knew, but I was really good at coming into environments that have created before and being able to quickly understand what they were doing and quickly see what the problems were. And is this worth fixing, or is this worth you really should rewrite it.
This isn’t refactoring. This is It was written in a different time, and we’re in event oriented instead of procedural now. So you might wanna take this as an opportunity. Keep this thing shuttering along as a zombie for the next three months and give yourself a spiffy new version. That kind of So Yep.
Anyway
Stephen: Alright. Hey. I gotta get running. So Got it.
Alan: Have a great holiday.
You too. That we’ll I’m sure we’ll compare oh, who got the cool stuff, when we talk again. And I really merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas. I think we’re doing this.
I Love our conversations. I look forward to this. It’s we have a hundred and seventy plus in the campus.
Stephen: Yeah.
That’s Crazy. That’s way more than a lot of people. Let me tell you. It really is.
Alan: So whatever our stubbornness or affability or whatever we got going for, so far so Good.
Stephen: So real quick, I heard they are putting Godzilla minus one a black and white version out in Japan, so we’re really hoping that Comes to the states.
Alan: That’s because it’ll really look like the first Raymond Burry type thing. Yeah. That would be cool. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. So very good. Looking for it. Okay.
Merry Christmas, sir. Very good. If we get all snowed in, I’m fine. I got a lot of TV I gotta Yes.
Stephen: Yeah.
Alan: Me too. Me too. Lot of books I gotta read. Yeah. Take care, Steve.
Later.
