Greg
Appearances
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Didn't some of them have invitations to the ceremony and others didn't?
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Well, now I'm in... Libertyville and Scottsdale. I split time between both places.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Where in AZ? Well, I was in Cave Creek for four years. Okay. Which is north of Scottsdale. Okay. And then I moved in with my girlfriend who lives in Scottsdale. And then I have four kids. in the Chicago area, and that's where I grew up and raised my family.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I had a sports bar close to Northwestern. I had that for 12 years. About 12 years. We did a lot of work with the Northwestern Athletic Department. It was a big place in Evanston, Illinois. And I had been writing books for years. I went to school originally for journalism. I wrote my first novel in 99, and actually part of it took place in Kalispell, Montana. Really?
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I came here in 98 to research the book, and the title of the book was The Flathead Saloon and Cat House. And it took place in Chicago. Cat as in meow cat? Yeah, as in... Oh, like cougar cat.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
So, and I had been, I had owned a, seven or eight bars, clubs, restaurants in Chicago over the years and writing, you know, seven or eight books. And I was working on a book in 2015, a novel about a guy that wanted to play D1 football who was older.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And so I... Developed a friendship with Pat Fitzgerald, who was the head coach at Northwestern. Great guy. We did a lot of stuff for the football team, and he had all the football events and recruiting events at my sports bar.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
So I didn't play college football, and I asked Pat if I could go to Kenosha Training Camp in 2015 in August, where the Northwestern football team went up there for about 10 days. And at University of Wisconsin, Kenosha. And he said, yeah, come on up. You can shadow me on the sideline. Super offer. And I went up there, was watching practice right next to him.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And he said, you know, you should talk to Tom Ruby. And I had known who Tom Ruby was because... Northwestern had a Navy SEAL, an active duty Navy SEAL playing football for them.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
So Pat hooked me up with Tom. And, you know, the book I was working on, eventually I went down to where Tom had a place in Indiana. And I said, you know, the book I'm working on is interesting, but your life is way more interesting. And I asked him if he wanted to do a biography of And he did not want to do a book at that time. Talk a little closer to the mic, if you will.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
He did not want to do a book at the time in 2015 and 2016. He was going through things in his life, you know, marriage issues and... sobriety. And so we stayed in touch. My wife passed away in 2019 and I moved to Cave Creek, Arizona. And, you know, a couple of years ago we met in Chicago for dinner and he said, you're still interested in doing a book. And I said,
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Absolutely, but I'd rather do a novel where the protagonist is based on your life. And he said, I'd rather do it that way. And we signed a contract. You know, we took a few months of research, and I went to his house in Crown Point, and we did hours of taped interviews. And then I go back to Arizona, and then I... I'd ask him to give me 2,000 words on this and 3,000 words on that.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And then I'd adapt it into the novel and send Tom chapters. And it was a great partnership. It worked great. This sounds great. This doesn't. This work on this. I'm sorry.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Yeah, it's a great question. And the answer to it is both. as far as me as an author is concerned, you know, there's 12 authors. There might be 12 different ways they approach it.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
So I'll outline a book and have a general idea of where I want it to go. And I like to have, a beginning and an end in the outline. So I know what the ending's going to be. And then you start writing the book and you literally get to know the characters better. And they take you places that you didn't think you'd go. And people ask me all the time, well, how is that possible? You're writing it.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
It is. It'll take turns that you weren't thinking about or you get to a certain point in the book and You know, like I'll write, you know, 2,500 words, come back the next day and erase all of it. Or I'll come back the next day and read it and the hair on my arm stands up because I think it's good. So, yeah, I mean, this book, the ending changed completely about halfway through the book.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Yeah, I had an interesting trip. The last part of this book, the main character, Declan, becomes an FBI agent. And I got in touch with the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and put in an application for me and Tom to get a tour there. Because if I'm going to write about a former SEAL that joins the FBI, you know, it's got to be legit. And normally they wouldn't do that.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And because Tom was associated with that, they granted us this tour. And it turns out that there's a section of the FBI training academy at Quantico. That's called Hogan's Alley. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Okay. And the guy that runs Hogan's Alley is a former SEAL. Oh, no kidding. John Lauer. I don't know him or that name, but that doesn't surprise me though either. Yeah.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And he knew Tom and he spent, you know, at first when he heard that an author was going to come and go through this tour, he was... Like, I'll give you 20, 30 minutes, whatever. And Tom couldn't make the trip. And when I got there and told him what the project was, he spent like six hours with me. And it was a fascinating look at, you know, they built a city there.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Hogan's Alley has a movie theater, restaurants, post office, everything.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
The origin of Hogan's Alley comes from a... An FBI massacre where they lost agents in Miami in like 1970-something. But once that trip was done and then we started work on the manuscript, the whole process was about a year. And that's fast.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I can keep going over it and over it. And, you know, you find mistakes and then you find, oh, no, I want to change this.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I actually get to a point where I can't look at it anymore. I mean, you know, it's good.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Well, when we finished it, it was about 140,000 words. Okay. Is that average for a Fitcher novel? Okay. But that's a little long for a first novel. Okay. And I had some people... advise me in this genre to shorten it, which you don't want to do because everything you've written is great.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
But I got it down to about 108,000 words. Okay. And that's where it was published. And it's a better book at 108,000 words right now. And the stuff that... Uh, one of the chapters I cut out is going to be the first chapter in book two.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
My favorite is a novel I wrote called Ghost Bandit. Yeah. And that's a great book. I'm surprised that hasn't found a screenplay deal yet. Yeah, it's a great book. What's the fastest a novel has ever come out of you? Well, this one is... It's always taken me longer, but I've had other things going on too as I was, you know, my wife and I had four kids. Yeah.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I had nightclubs and I was in the bar business. You're a busy man. You know, and writing was what I loved. People go, oh, the bar business is in your blood. No, it's not. It never was. And I've been out of it for six years, and I don't miss it a bit.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
But, you know, I've written six novels, two biographies, and two satirical books about one on men and golf, and the other is about the restaurant business. I did a biography of a world champion steer wrestler from Bastrop, Texas, that was a blast to write. And didn't you research that too? Oh, yeah.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Well, my second novel was a book that took place within the PRCA, and that was about a professional bull rider. And to research that, I went to a bull riding school of Gary LeFou, who was a former world champion bull rider, and he runs a camp, a bull riding school in Santa Maria, California.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
When I went there, and there were collegiate bull riders who were becoming... were going on the pro circuit, who looked at Gary as a guru. And there were guys on the PRCA circuit that were in slumps that would go to Gary for tutoring. And then here's me. You know, I'd been on a horse 10 times in my life, maybe. So he's putting me on these simulators.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And there's classroom stuff in, and then there's... work on mechanical bulls, and then, you know, your first day on a real bull, you know, I just wanted to go home. And, you know, he puts me in the chute, I get on a bull, he's pulling the rope tight, you know, and I'm going, it's too tight. He goes, no, it's not too tight. I go, it's too tight.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And he leans under my hat and he goes, what the fuck do you know about too tight? He goes, are you going to be a man or a mouse? Just tell us that right now. And you're like... Is there another option? It's fine.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
You know, they finish the wrap and then they, you know, just nod when you're ready to go. And I don't even think I nodded. I think they just pulled the gate. And it was, you know, it's like. taking a meat hook and grabbing a freight train as it goes by.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Yeah. But it was fun. I mean, you know, doing that. Then I went on the road with Gary and his son and went to probably 12 different rodeos and worked the shoots with them and then wrote a book. And it was... I loved every minute of it. I loved working with Tom on this book. Me too.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Well, Declan, you know, kind of follows Tom's life. It begins, you know, when he's out of high school. That's the, you know, and the book doesn't go chronologically. So the first chapter, he's at his first Northwestern training camp.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
So, you know, the book begins with Declan at this training camp and... And his 19- and 20-year-old five-star teammates have never met him before. And then he walks in. And then it goes back and forth chronologically to Tom.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
going to the MMA gym and Declan going to the MMA gym and going through his first fight and the emotions of that first fight and then back to Navy boot camp, going through that. You know, Declan has... you know, is a cocky, tough kid when he goes into the Navy. In Navy boot camp, three, four days into Navy boot camp, he's like, this is the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I was begging, can you just send me home? Yeah. Um, and you know, you follow, and hopefully the reader gets hooked from chapter one. That's as a novelist, that's the goal. You know, you just, I don't want to put this book down. I want to find out what happens to him.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And even if you're not hooked... in the beginning and you tough it out and you go, you still have that in your head that you weren't hooked. Yeah. You know, and that affects the way you read a novel. And, you know, as you go through this, you see that this character is accomplishing things that most guys dream about. You know, going through buds, most people dream
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
There's no way I could make it through one day. And they're probably right. Not with that attitude. Yeah.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And as a reader, you want the reader to feel that, that this guy is conquering things that very few can conquer. And then you're seeing him, as you go back and forth on the chapters, you're seeing glimpses of football and buds and deployments, and you're getting this... image of this protagonist as somebody superhuman almost. And then you find his frailties.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And then you find what weakens him and why he's... He doubts himself. How can you doubt yourself after you've accomplished all of these things? And it's very real in everyone. And hopefully it resonates... And then there's the back story of Declan gets very close to his defensive coordinator on his football team, who's the same age. They're both like 33.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And Declan's D coordinator is recently divorced and his six-year-old daughter is... moves with the mother back to Colorado, or Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and is in a very abusive relationship with the ex-wife and her boyfriend. And the story follows Declan's coach, and Declan go to visit the mother and the child, and things change.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
become clear that Declan's not done making life and death decisions if he wants to help this guy out and that's how he you know proceeds after the teams where he thought he was done with that yeah and and his skills come into play and and they're able to get this girl out of a bad situation. But the things that happen before that and after that dictate his life quite a bit, where he ends up.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Yeah, but there's a very good storyline with the second book that I can't wait. to outline and start on, but I can't, we can't tell.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
I think the first book is going to dictate the schedule of books two and three.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Yeah. I mean, if you look at Carr's career, that's optimum.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Tactical 16. It's a veteran-owned publishing company. Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Super turnout in Chicago for our opening book signing.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Well, I want to thank you for having us out.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
And open invite in the future anytime you guys want to come out. Thanks, Andy. We love it out here. And, you know, on our wish list, your pod was high. Top of the list. Closing thoughts. This book. grabs you from the beginning, and I think it dispels what people normally think about team guys, and it shows a depth of Declan's character that is fun to read. And working with Tom was an honor.
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Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
It was really an honor. When I met him 10 years ago, I wanted to write a book with him the day I met him. And it came true. It took a little while, but... It's been an honor and I hope this continues.
Cleared Hot
Episode 380 - Tom Hruby and James Pomerantz
Well, I'm going to interrupt real quick and just, I had not known Tom very long at all. And when my wife got real sick, he came to visit her in the hospital. And he came to Mary's funeral. And I had friends I've known for 50 years that didn't show up.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
The one with the Romanian accent is the real one, just to set that up front.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
Go into every single version that was released into the credit screen. And on the programmer, there's only one name ever. There's also multiple Romanian quotes from BUG Mafia. It's quite obvious that the author is fucking Romanian.
Darknet Diaries
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Because it was just me doing everything. The whole source, I was in possession of it the whole time.
Darknet Diaries
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I learned Delphi by working on Sub7. It was my very first project. It was spaghetti code. That was the main reason it wasn't shared. And every single version was dedicated to BUG Mafia. How do you explain that, Greg?
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
This was at the very end. After I left the scene, there was one version released by Reed101. That's what you're bringing up?
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
How do you explain B.U.G. Mafia in the credits? Can you answer the question? The band... Because they're... Yeah, the band, the Romanian hip-hop band that was mentioned in every single release. It's the band where the nickname Mob Man comes from. How do you explain that? Let me pull up the videos of... We used to listen to them. Videos of what?
Darknet Diaries
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In 1999, first version that does mention it, BUG Mafia didn't even have any songs online, man. I brought tapes with me from Romania. They were only on tape. You could not have heard of them on the internet in 1999 when this was put in the About credits. It just doesn't make sense, man. Like everything.
Darknet Diaries
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You mentioned that you made it for some Ultima Online things, like to steal credits or something. What was the story, Jack? Because he mentioned it on your podcast.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
It was all an Ultima Online thing. You would find traces of it looking up Ultima Online EXE or INI or something. You could open it up because the server opens up files and you can find those file names if you open the EXE in a text editor. So you'd find it had a method where it would modify win.ini to start up. So you could find that reference in the EXE there. If
Darknet Diaries
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none of the versions have any sort of reference to any Ultima Online things. Files or EXEs or program names. The stuff that you came up with doesn't make any goddamn sense, man. I'm surprised that it lasted this long, honestly. I'm surprised you were able to push it for this long.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
The master passcode has my birthday in it. That's another one. It has my birthday in it. Are you born in October 15, 1980? How do we know that that's your birthday? I'll send you a picture of my driver's license.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
I highly doubt that it says that. I doubt that you're born on October 15, 1980. Okay. You show me a picture.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
Oh, is that what started the whole thing? The whole stealing the identity because the birthdays matched?
Darknet Diaries
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Because it was mentioned. It's on the sub-7 wiki, man. It was a known fact.
Darknet Diaries
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So on the official Sub7 website, there were multiple references to Romania and Craiova, the city where I'm from.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
This is related to the birthday. I'm just going back to the Romanian thing. Like, There's multiple verses in Romanian in the about screens, in a couple of the different versions.
Darknet Diaries
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Yeah. So how, like what? It's obviously a Romanian that made it. Not some great guy from Florida.
Darknet Diaries
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And also, yeah, speaking of which... The first five or six versions, the first thing that the About credit said was from Windsor, Ontario. Were you ever in Windsor, Ontario?
Darknet Diaries
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Yeah, you can get any of the versions. Download any of the old versions. There's multiple. There's 12, 15. Do you have them all? Every single one, you can go to the About screen. Yeah. And the first five or six say from Windsor, Ontario, dedicated to BUG Mafia. And some of them have quotes in Romanian.
Darknet Diaries
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They don't let me go to Canada. I know they don't because you have a record. How do you explain that then in the credits? You can't, dude. You can't. You can't come up with bullshit fast enough. I'm missing the Euros for this. You're what? You're wasting Euros for this? I'm missing the Euro 2024 soccer game. It's a long game. You'll be all right. I'm just kidding. Romania played yesterday.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
What does a Delphi function start and end with, if you're such a good person?
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
A function. What's the first thing you do after the function? What is the beginning and the end of the block of code? How is that denoted in Delphi? No. How do you define the beginning and the end of a function? You know in C you have the curly brackets? What do you have in Delphi? Like, Jack, this is ridiculous, man. I doubt this guy even touched Delphi, you know?
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
So let's say you define a function. You type the word function and then you put the function name. Then what's on the next line? You begin, you end, you do stuff. That's what I was looking for, man. The beginning and the end. I don't know, it just sounds pretty basic. So you don't even know basic stuff, man?
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
Of course you don't. I have notes. I have multiple backup CDs that I burnt with multiple stages of the source. I have a hoodie that I used to sell back then in the store. I took pictures of it. I have the source code. I have multiple proofs.
Darknet Diaries
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At this point, you're just bullshitting. Because there's no GitHub. There's no source. Or if there is, it's definitely not a sub-7 source.
Darknet Diaries
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okay it's zero zero proof it's all talk i have multiple things that i've put out there i gave him all to ill will and he posted them on his twitter there's notes there's little handwritten notes with with ideas and because i worked on this like four years i put a lot of hard work into it this wasn't just some script to to steal ultima online credit like really dude
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
That's the only actual proof he came forward. And that was never actually owned by the real mob man. Never. It's not documented anywhere. I never owned any domains back then because I was trying to stay anonymous. Everybody else was buying them. So all he did is he bought an expired domain. So in the credits also, there's a Gmail account as well.
Darknet Diaries
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How long has it been? It's hilarious. I feel sorry for you, man. Like your biggest accomplishment is impersonating somebody else. Like, you know, I feel sorry for you.
Darknet Diaries
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Oh, is that why you go to all the conferences saying you're a mob man? You don't even tell anyone? I don't, because a lot of people don't even know what it is. It has pictures of you at DEFCONs, multiple DEFCONs, when you're going around with mob man and telling everybody you made sub-7. But now you're saying you don't tell people. Come on, dude. Just come out with it.
Darknet Diaries
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I'm saying it right now. I'm coming out and saying, you're the creator. This guy's unknown.
Darknet Diaries
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You have been coming out and saying the truth. Are you going to stop going to places and claiming you're a mob man?
Darknet Diaries
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You can say you're a mob man, just not the one that made Sub-7. Big difference.
Darknet Diaries
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Can we agree on that? Come on. You know you want to. You've been living a lie.
Darknet Diaries
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If anybody, like, for the listeners out there, right, like, If you think you can challenge me or anything like that, or if you knew me from back in the day, just send a message. We'll talk it out. I'm not hiding anything. I can show all the stuff that I talked about. The CDs. I still have the hoodie. I can put it in pictures. I can meet you up if you come over here. I'm still in Windsor.
Darknet Diaries
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To see the proof, right? To see the proof. If anybody wants to challenge me in any way or wants to actually see all this stuff that I'm talking about. I didn't think you were going to show up, honestly. Because really, what could you have said?
Darknet Diaries
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Because you're being outed. Because you're being outed for how much bullshit you've been spewing.
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For something you don't care about, you sure as hell spent a lot of time and effort. This isn't just some fad.
Darknet Diaries
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You've been going around giving interviews as the author of Sub7. How is that not effort put into it? You've been going to DEF CON conferences.
Darknet Diaries
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You're really going with this, man? Like, really? What source code? Why do you keep going back to it? I thought we agreed on you're not going to claim that no more.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
You said sub-7 source, so I'm not going to let you bullshit right now because that's not the sub-7 source. That has never left my hands until it was released by Illwill on GitHub. Never. You'll not find a copy of it anywhere in the world, on any website, on any backup, except the ones I have. So, like... As soon as you said sub-seven source, like, no, dude, stop. You got to stop.
Darknet Diaries
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I made this Sub 7. It's a remote access tool. And it was a Trojan horse virus.
Darknet Diaries
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You could open and close the CD wrong. You could flip the screen. You could hide the start button. You could move the mouse on their screen and click around. You could open up their C drive, change their wallpaper.
Darknet Diaries
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1999, I want to say. And what is the meaning of it? It's... it comes from a rap band a romanian rap band called bug mafia it's a bucharest underground mafia that's their name i'm a big fan of them and when i was thinking coming up with a new nickname it just had a nice ring to it mob man you know yeah yeah i like it yeah
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
It wasn't really a hacking thing. It was more of a programming thing. I taught myself to program when I was very little. I did a whole bunch of little games. This was back when I was still in Romania. So in 97, moved to Canada with the whole family. Then I found out about Delphi. I wanted to start learning in Delphi. So I just happened to pick a rat to work on, basically.
Darknet Diaries
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Yeah. Well, it all stemmed from Netbus, right? It preceded Sub-7. It was one of the original Trojans. It was called NetBus, so I played around with that a little bit, and that's kind of what inspired me to create something similar. What did NetBus do? It was the same thing, a remote access Trojan, a rat. It had a little UI and a server. You would send somebody and then connect to them.
Darknet Diaries
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So that's kind of what I was trying to emulate when I started. And then... After I got a couple of features going, I packaged it up and uploaded it to a hacking site. That started picking up steam. I had my contact details on there. And people started sending me emails contacting me. Oh, can you add this? Can you add this? Can you add this? So that's kind of how it grew from there.
Darknet Diaries
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I was like, hmm, I wonder if I can do this in Delphi. So I would look into it, do some research, see if I can find it out. And if it was possible, I would just do it.
Darknet Diaries
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It was all fun at the beginning and for the first many versions, it was all just fun. Having fun with people, you know, playing tricks on them, pranks and things like that. That was the whole motivation behind it and everything else. But then started hearing all these stories about people using it for malicious purposes.
Darknet Diaries
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Always in the back of my mind was sort of like, well, there's many of these tools available. They just happened to pick the one I made. They would have just picked a different one if it wasn't for Sub-7. So, I mean, it's part of why I left, I guess, in the end. I wanted to get into something else, some sort of different.
Darknet Diaries
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Throughout the whole thing, I've always tagged as a hacker, you know, but I was just a programmer. I was trying to learn to program.
Darknet Diaries
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Some of the most popular features in it were the ones just for fun, like the Matrix one. You just turn your whole screen black and you type letters one by one. It was basically a chat, but you couldn't get out of it. You couldn't do anything. You would just chat back and forth with whoever was on the other end.
Darknet Diaries
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The very first time I heard about somebody impersonating my name and taking credit for all this stuff was stemmed from your podcast. I had a local friend, Sebastian, we call him Septa, that is a big fan of your podcast and heard that you had an interview with Mob Man. Obviously, he knew what that was, you know, and was looking forward to listening to it and listen to it.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
And he's like, what is this? Who's this guy? He sent me a message. He's like, yo, I listened to the podcast expecting you. And there's this other guy talking about some random stuff. I don't know what's going on. That's how I found out first. And then a couple of months later, Illwill contacted me. He's the one that started the whole process.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
He sent me a little zip file with a couple of details about me. He had a picture of my car. And he was like, the password for the zip file is your full name. So if it's really you, then you should be able to open it. He's like, I'm 99% sure that it's you, that I've traced you there. And I replied, I said, well, you're right. You can be 100% sure now. And he was the one that kind of
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
not convinced me because i was a little bit indifferent right like i this was a long time ago i don't know if i really want to get back into any of that but he made a good point like a lot of people have made their start with this you know and it's not right to have somebody else take the credit like History should be set straight.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
Because the whole thing was I didn't want to publicly say who I was. You know, I didn't want to publicly admit all this stuff. Why was that? I don't know. I don't know. After a really, really long time, it didn't really make any sense to still stay hidden.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
People started getting in trouble for making tools like that at that point. Like you said, you know, like just for making them, not for actually using them. So that contributed to like, I need to get out of here.
Darknet Diaries
150: mobman 2
Yeah. No, no. I never got into any actual trouble or heard of anything, but I kept everything private, like everything. Nobody knew my name, even the people that are closest to me, closest to me in the scene, like part of the crew and things like that. Nobody actually knew. They knew the city I was in. The very first version said the city I was in said from Windsor, Ontario.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Well, I'm all funny. I don't have a boring moment. Our first date was us going hiking, okay? Like, I'm not boring, and I'm not going to sit there and just make half-attempted jokes. I'm a funny guy. I like to make jokes. I like to laugh. We get one life, and we should be laughing the entire time through it, not connecting with what. I don't even understand what that is.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Like, laughing is the best way to connect with people. So I don't know what you're even – find your accountant or your tax guy, then, and have fun.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Well, you know what? That's fine by me. After hearing why you're ghosting me, which, by the way, like, ghosting somebody and not being honest with them, that's pretty kind of messed up on your end, and I find that pretty boring myself. Like, talk to people, all right? So, yeah, that's fine that you don't want another date.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
I don't have time to talk about tax codes or about accounting numbers or any of that nonsense. Hey, can I do an impression real quick? Sure, Greg. hey i'm taylor i went on a date and i didn't laugh once but you know what i saved a bunch of money on my car insurance hey what's up y'all this is eric andre well i made a podcast called bombing about absolutely tanking on stage
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Yeah, I sent her a couple text messages. I even reached out this morning and I sent her a good morning text message with a picture of a sunrise and got nothing in return.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Yeah, so we went hiking, right? She picked out this really beautiful killer spot that had this really incredible view. It was really beautiful. It was a nice hike. We reached the top, and, you know, we had been talking throughout the hike, and I thought, hey, this is the perfect moment for, you know, a little nomad, right? So, you know, we get to the top.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
We're looking at this beautiful view, and... I made a joke that, hey, if we fell off this mountain right now, at least we go out with a view. I thought that was pretty funny. And she laughed, but then things got kind of quiet after that. We did kiss after that, though, when we were on top of the mountain. So in my mind, I was like, all right, well, at least it's still a win.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
It was kind of a dark humor joke, but I thought, hey, it's still a win. We kissed. The thing about her is that she's got this very, like, don't mess with me vibe. And I dig that. I love a strong woman. It's really great for me. Again, the hiking was awesome. But then she cracked a joke about how she doesn't kiss on first dates. And I thought she was kidding. But we did kiss.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
She kind of laughed at my joke. And I thought, hey, we went on a really great hike. I thought it was a really good time. So I don't know. She just hasn't talked to me since then. I don't know what's going on.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
I don't want to, like, make assumptions, but, you know, I can assume, you know, it's a situation where it's like, hey, it's the first date. It's kind of a dark humor joke. Maybe she's not super in a dark humor or maybe she thought something differently, you know. For me, I was just like, look, this is a beautiful view.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Like, if we fell off right now, you know, at least we'd go out seeing a beautiful view. For me, it was just a silly, dumb, dark joke. Right.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Yeah, like, she kissed me, so, you know, I thought, all right, it was a dark joke. She got kind of quiet, but we did kiss. So, like, in my book, that's a win. Okay. Girls will kiss a guy out of just pure survival to get it over with. Yeah. I'm hoping it wasn't out of fear and survival. I was hoping she was, I mean, again, I thought we were digging each other.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
I thought it was something, I don't know. We were flirting. It was a great hike in my mind. I thought it was something good, but she hasn't talked to me since then. And so I'm now I'm wondering like, Was my joke too far? Did she take it too seriously? Did she kiss me at a survival, as you said?
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
I would, I guess, I mean, I'm thinking about it. I mean, I might have overshared a little bit too much, you know, for a first date. I talked about this meme page that I run on the internet. It's a niche page. So I sent her one after the date. And in my opinion, my humble opinion, it was one of my best memes. But she didn't react. She didn't say anything back. She didn't nothing.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
No, not even like a like on the Apple. You know what I mean? Like how I messaged you can like like it or hard. It didn't do any of that either. Was it about death again? It was just a meme about like cat.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
no no no no it's a bunch of different memes and a bunch of different things uh but that was just the the joke that i happened to send her because again we made a couple cat jokes as we were walking up i'm a dog person personally myself so you know she said that she likes dogs and she likes cats so i figured hey this would be kind of a funny meme to keep the jokes going all right well we'll see if we can figure it out for you then we'll play a song come back and then call her and see if she'll tell us why she's ghosting you and maybe get you another date if you still want one okay
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Yeah, we went hiking last week. It was a really great time. I made a... a joke about if we fell to our death, at least we'd have a great view. And so I thought it was really great. I send her a meme of a cat, a cat meme after our hike. She didn't react to it. I sent her a couple more messages, including one this morning, and she still has not said anything back to me or responded or anything.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Okay. Well, that's just me. I'm a funny guy, all right? And I thought we were having a good time, right? And also, just for the record for everyone listening, my meme page is hilarious.
First Date Follow Up - The Jubal Show
Greg Said What On Their Hike?
Oh, so you like boring, dude. I make a lot of jokes. People love my jokes. You just want to be with some boring guy that doesn't make comments about anything? Come on. I'm hilarious. Hey, I'm Steven. I do taxes. I wear a tweed jacket when I go to work, and I don't make jokes about anything. Who can do it?
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct Predictions! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 04.16.25
150, 200.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct Predictions! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 04.16.25
I wasn't thinking about letters for the first 15 hours of this video.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct Predictions! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 04.16.25
I've seen the audience ask for a Blueprint spoiler cast. Should I do this? Should I get this on the calendar at some point? How far are you? I know you have a big week next week and stuff.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct Predictions! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 04.16.25
Maybe the week after next week. Okay. I can see. Yeah.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Mario Kart World Nintendo Direct Predictions! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 04.16.25
2014?
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
I would hope so.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
i'm over here i'm building the dock in the room so gary is not alone by the time you're done with it i'm gonna be off the show i'm gonna be your little well i'm not and on my way home because i thought i was here for the whole fucking day because that's what you told me stupid motherfucker all right a lot of things have been changing no they said a lot of things have been changing so when they change fucking tell me well because we still want you to come in for pokemon i'm not doing pokemon you want to come back with nick what come in and fuck around with nick
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
You love Nick. Anyways, I'm being your stat boy over here. I grabbed a mic so I could keep you honest. Yes, they have confirmed any USB-C webcam. Okay, so that's nice.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
Yeah, maybe someone can help us out. I'm opening it up right now.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
I'm on Amazon. A MicroSD Express 256 gig is $60. Okay.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
In the last Nintendo Direct, right, about Switch 1, they did that, Gary, where they're like, oh, you can loan out your copy of Mario Bros., Today they announced Game Share. With Game Share, a new Nintendo Switch...
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
The difference is obvious. A new Nintendo Switch 2 feature. Players can share and play the same game with others who do not have the game. If one person has a Nintendo Switch 2 system compatible with game share, that person can invite others to temporarily play the same game via local play with their Nintendo Switch 2 or Nintendo Switch system.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
So they're talking about like if you all play Mario Kart together. So it's like the it takes two thing, but for every game? Well, supported games that have multiplayer.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
Local. This is local only.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
32? It seems like it was a lot. 24 can be on there. I'm not sure how many people can play.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
Local play is always like that, where you can do a local player for like four or eight or whatever, but then online.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
I mean, we barely know anything about this system right now, Gary. I doubt it, but who knows?
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
I believe that's just Zelda unless I'm wrong. Again, I'm also coming in hot trying to sort through a million different things. I think Yeah.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
No, now somebody else is saying it's a whole list.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
It's just the two Zeldas.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
That you have to buy.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
Yeah, that's insane.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
Nobody had any time for we news. There's no time for me.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
You guys killed a great episode.
Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
Switch 2 Games Cost HOW MUCH?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily LIVE 04.02.25
I'm not. Come hang out with Nick, Gary.
ReLiving Single
No Lie featuring Robert Horn
It's urgent. What's up, yo? Greg called. Tell me this is not the Greg I'm thinking of. Tell me this is Greg the mailman. Tell me it's Greg the bald-headed barber. You better tell me it's Greg Brady.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
I will definitely do that. So your background in employment law is super fascinating. What got you on that path? And then talk to me about how through the years this has worked your way into inspiration for the book.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
So what do you recommend to business owners, leaders, etc., when they're in this pressure cooker? How do you get them to start thinking differently? It is exhausting. It takes a lot more energy. How do you get them to start thinking differently?
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
People are just burning out. They're stepping out instead of working through that. So we've talked kind of high level on some things. I want to get into a little bit more boots on the ground. Let's say I am a small business owner. Five things that I should have to protect my business, my assets. I come to you, hey, I'm starting this business where I've got it up and running.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
We're a couple million in revenue. What do I absolutely got to do?
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
Super helpful. So that opened up a whole nother can of worms for me. I have like 10 more questions. Again, I think the book itself is going to be critical, both quite frankly, for employers and employees. I'm a big believer that, you know, knowledge is power.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
Well, I love that. Super, super fascinating. Like I said, I've got so many other questions I'd love to ask, but I want to be respectful. And if I've learned anything about attorneys over the years, it is how important time is to them. So I sincerely appreciate your time. You obviously have a passion for what you do. I thank you very much for giving your valuable time with us today.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
Very neat. I'd be curious, with that 30 years plus of experience, how have you seen the environment between employee and employer change?
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
I'm going to go on the flip side of this coin. What have you seen stay the same? What issues are you still dealing with today that you got introduced to 30 years ago?
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
That is definitely one of my favorite topics. What else would you say are some of the common workplace challenges, especially if you're a small business owner or if you're in a leadership role where you have responsibility and authority? What are some of the other common challenges, workplace issues that we're facing today?
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
I hear you talk about communication. And one of my favorite sayings is good communication is as much about the communicating as it is the comprehension. You know, you've talked about the quality of recruiting. You've talked about retention.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
So you're in Memphis.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
How does the laws, the employment laws that we have and that we're working towards, how does that weave in to help with communication and comprehension and retention and recruitment? Pull those together for me.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
I don't know if you are familiar with this place, but there's a house there that's kind of well-known. There was a singer back in the 60s, I think.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
Oh, yeah, that's the one. Yeah, neat town you got there.
The Action Catalyst
The Law at Work, with Alan Crone (Legal, Employment, Management, Business)
No, I think there's an opportunity for a mental shift as well is, hey, what if you never get to fire anyone ever? How would that change your behavior in terms of how you dealt with folks? But if we could take a step back and say, hey, let's take a different vision. It sounds like we could solve a lot of these problems. But that's really hard to do.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
You remember how we just talked about how we want to be filthy?
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Probably not. Probably peeing. Probably peeing in the bathroom. We took baths together.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
But, like, what do you mean? It's too big for the crochet blanket.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
If you don't know the difference, there might be something going on over there.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Yeah, yeah. 650 dimes. I could definitely put that in my pocket.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
If I'm going for a longer run, I have this little thing that has two water bottles, and usually I'll put a liquid IV in one of those, and I'll take it with me
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
But they also have sugar-free ones, which is awesome, too. But it's got the electrolytes in it. It's important.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Do you remember there was a guy who came to one of our shows and it said... Uh, like Frank Alvarez, Joe Santagato or opposite. I don't even know.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Greg's newborn and our friend Eleni, both beautiful newborns. I texted Greg that exact thing. I was like, this is a good-looking baby.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Well, I feel like mine's so thick. Maybe you should have a small head.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
You see it? First of all, that's gross. Ew. Okay. Do you have back dimples?
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
And he just goes. And then you open it and it's a beautiful sandwich.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
If I get, like, an upstate house one day and there's an outdoor fireplace,
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Yeah, I think it might be too, which sucks because they seem fine.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
I can't give a compliment without you needing compliments? What is this?
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Because we went to the same high school, but obviously different years. You're 11. I'm 33. But did you guys have superlatives by the time you left? Because we didn't have that.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
They gave the cores a list and you voted on like a predetermined. Oh, so everyone got one.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
It was tough. Were you a good student? I was a great student. What's great? Fantastic. Numbers. Numbers, numbers.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
I'm saying like you had like a 99 average or something. Oh, yeah, 97.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
It's a big one. But listen, it's a big one. But listen, we're going to run over these dates one more time. But guys, again, tomorrow at noon.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Yes. You get it. Yeah. I'm echoing what you're saying now. You have beautiful daughters and a son who's also beautiful. Can I say that?
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Zach's been to like 20 countries. Wow. They dragged me into that at dinner. Yeah.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Keep her warm for us because we're going to be there on July 24th. And then Milwaukee on July 25th.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
The rubber match. September 27th, Philadelphia. We're coming back. We're coming back to Philly.
The Basement Yard
#502 - THE NEW TOUR DATES
Also, I mean, things get added along the way. Things get added along the way. We don't know what's going to happen. We have no idea. So whatever. But these are the shows that we have right here. I'll be honest with you. I don't know about things being added along the way.
The Basement Yard
#491 - Joe's Birthday Episode
But again, we don't know. Maybe this dude Montoya deserves it.
The Best One Yet
😼 “New car, who dis?” — Jaguar’s rebrand controversy. The Manly Nurse Surge. Bravo’s real estate app.
Like, if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy. Tuesday, March 11th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three stories at the intersection of business and pop culture. How's your portfolio looking over there, Greg? Not well, Nick. I just checked and I think one of my stocks is down a million percent. But we still whipped up the best one yet.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
So the freemium model gave you an extra reason to sign up. Unlimited long-distance calls for free.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Audio jingle, or as we call it, an audio logo, right, Jack? Because this was the whole brand. Here's the sound you would hear if somebody Skypes you. Incoming. Now, you know that jingle, that audio logo. But what you don't know is that it's highly strategic. Skype actually worked with a composer to invent that jingle.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
But it's actually a mix of sounds that's supposed to sound like breathing waterfalls and voices. Now, here was the strategy behind it. Skype wanted a sound that would get your attention but not annoy you. A sound that you could recognize as Skype but would not stay stuck in your brain and never leave. It worked.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Add it all up, and it led to Skype hitting 600 million users when they sold to Microsoft in 2011. Jack, could you sprinkle on some context to that number, please? Those 2011 user numbers are 10 times bigger than what Slack has today. Oh, and Slack's jingle? Kind of annoying. Hate that jingle. Don't, don't, stop it. No more, no more. Sorry, Trey, cut it off.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
So Jack, can you Skype me the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone in tech? Skype is survived by its family of innovation hacks. Yetis, Skype users have fallen 95% from their high to just 40 million today. Microsoft is shutting down Skype in just two months. They're going to fold all of Skype's accounts and communication features into Microsoft Teams.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Now, in this eulogy of ours to Skype, we think there are a few reasons to make clear for its demise. First, they missed the jump to mobile. Skype was built for laptops. not really for apps. Man, Skype got iPhone'd and Gmail'd. FaceTime and Google Meet, they basically made Skype obsolete. And you can also tie Skype's fall specifically to the date when Microsoft acquired it.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Get this, if Kirkland were its own company, it would be bigger than all of Coca-Cola in sales. But the story of Kirkland, which we're going to tell on this episode, starts with the story of Costco. The first store to let you get in on wholesale prices. By joining a club. And Costco's retail revolution began with a man so brilliant that Walmart copied him.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Because after that deal, Skype just stopped innovating. And like we said before, two out of three acquisitions, they simply fail.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
A moment of silence for Skype.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? Stocks had their worst day in years as Trump's moves could trigger a recession. Econ 101 says this is bad, and then there's the crazy recession theory. For our second story, Touchland is the accessory that every middle and high school girl has in her backpack right now.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
It's the hand sanny that's gone viral. You come for the look, but you stay for the user experience. And our third and final story is Skype. It's being shut down by Microsoft in May. It was the first tech product to be a verb. Skype, wonderful Skype, is survived by its family of innovation hacks. But yetis, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
First, a few more details on that stock market route. We got some numbers. Tesla had its worst day on the market in five years.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Also, besties, there's actually a new term you're going to be hearing a lot this week, and that term is stagflation. It's what happens if Trump's plans go wrong. Stagflation is when we get high unemployment and high inflation. Not a good combo. Hit us up if you think we should do a story on it, because Jack and I have been studying it for a while.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Second, Canada has a new prime minister, and he was elected specifically to fight in the trade war. This guy is a total finance guy, by the way. Harvard educated, worked at Goldman, led the Bank of England. His name is Mark Carney, and he says that Canada will never be part of the USA. ever. He also said that he'll fight a trade war until the USA shows them some respect.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Okay, we're talking about a human being who got $250 million in guaranteed money. But honestly, every year we get a new biggest deal. Yeah, yeah. The National Inflation League. That's what it is.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Yeah, we'll put that in the CPI. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Savannah Westwood from lovely Orlando, Florida. Yesterday, we talked about the woolly mouse, which is a mouse that had woolly mammoth DNA somehow mixed in there. Jack, you said that so casually like, yeah. A woolly mouse. Of course, a woolly mouse.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Well, did you know the earliest known hybrid animal is actually the mule? Ah, the mule, which is a male donkey with a female horse mixed together. They've actually been bred as a hybrid since the ancient Middle East.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
But yetis, did you know that the mule is not a mule if it's a female donkey and a male horse? That animal is called a hinny. Same species involved, but different genders involved. Female donkey, male horse is a hinny. And you got to say it like Jack just said. Yetis, you look fantastic today. And for everyone in the cult of Costco, we know exactly where you got to go right now.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Click the link in the episode description to learn all about the Kirkland brand. The best idea yet. In the meantime, Jack and I will just play a little bit of elevator music while you head over there.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Yeah.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti Chandra and Gavin Griffin down in Orlando, a couple who shares the same birthday. 25 years they've been together, by the way. Happy birthday to Amber Adams in Magnolia, Texas, the mother to three beautiful poodles. And Solana Larson's turning five years old down in Safford, Arizona, celebrating with gymnastics and pandas. Doesn't get any better than that.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Nobody somersaults like Solana somersaults. And congratulations and good luck to the Ford of Women in Business over at the 26th Annual Conference in New York City. These Rams mean business. And happy Metaversary to Denise and Cesar in Pacifica, California. They're now married.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Oh, it's a stage five zucking. So yetis, to hear more, check out The Best Idea Yet. The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. The episode is wild. We even tell you how Kirkland wouldn't have happened without a wild airplane flight struck by lightning. New episodes of The Best Idea Yet drop weekly every Tuesday.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And a shout out to Jeremy Fernandez down in Santo Domingo, who noticed that on Friday's pod, we said Domino's just launched stuffed crust, but actually he's been enjoying stuffed crust at Domino's in the Dominican Republic for years. Dominican stuffed crust. And finally, what is good luck? To our buddy, Nick Marino, who's down in Los Angeles at Sony Studios filming Jeopardy.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Nick, I'm going to be playing Jeopardy while I watch the TV, and I'm going to be keeping score for myself. Nick, you got this.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
But if you need to phone a friend, call Jack.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And you can tap the link in this episode description because Costco's Kirkland is simply the best idea yet. And if you don't DM us on how well we represented your favorite brand, I'm talking to you, cult of Costco. Oh. we're going to be disappointed. The phone lines are open. But Jack, in the meantime, we've got three fantastic stories for today's T-Boy. Should we hit the pod, man? Mm-hmm.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Jack, three stories for today's show. What do we got on the pod, man? For our first story, the stock market fell by the most on Monday since 2022. True. The NASDAQ fell 4% as recession fears are high. So Jack and I think it's time to share the crazy recession theory. For our second story, you won't believe what the must-have product is of 12-year-old girls right now. Hand sanitizer. Hand Sani.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
For our first story, stocks fell on Monday for their worst day in three years, as it smells like recession in the air. We'll share the conventional econ 101 reason that stocks tanked again, and we'll also share the crazy recession theory. But yetis, last week, we told you the whole world was confused by Trump's flip-flop and tariff announcement. Jack, what do we call it exactly?
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Wall Street whiplash. Yeah, Wall Street whiplash. Investors were more than confused.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
They threw the worst stock market tantrum we've seen in a few years. Jack and I showed up in the pod studio yesterday, and stocks just kept getting redder. The S&P 500 fell by 3% yesterday.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And it's all because of President Trump's implication that his tariffs could actually cause a recession.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
But we also have a real-time indicator from the Fed that suggests that the economy has already switched from growth to shrinking in Trump's first quarter as a president. Now, interestingly, in response to these recession concerns, President Trump described this as a transition period for the economy. And transition period means
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
could be interpreted in two totally different ways, which is what we're about to do. First, on Twitter, a lot of people think that a recession could be a genius short-term cure to long-term inflation. Here's the crazy recession theory. People are speculating that Trump wants a recession to happen early in his term because it will fix the economy quickly. You can pause the pod for a second.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
We'll explain why breaking the economy could actually fix the economy. Here's our best shot at an explanation of this conspiracy theory. For nearly four years now, we've had a big inflation problem that came with high interest rates too. Basically, you're paying more for your egg omelets and more for your mortgage.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
But if we had a quick recession, as the theory goes, people would stop buying things and inflation would finally go away. And with that economic shrinkage, the Fed would then cut interest rates, which would make it easier to borrow money, which would help restart economic growth again. Boom. A short-term economic painful recession could kill inflation and end high interest rates.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
It's almost like you flick one switch that tanks the economy, and then you flick another switch that brings it right back.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Now, Jack, I got to ask, won't some people lose their jobs if we have even a mini recession? Yeah, Nick, a recession would lose some jobs. But we just learned the last few years that inflation is the greater evil when it comes to economics. Oh, we hate inflation. So that's the crazy recession theory.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Or another way to think of the crazy recession theory, Jack, is Trump's radical recession idea concept, the acronym of which is TRIC.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And the reason we use the word crazy is because it sounds like a huge risk to just play economic god and, again, turn off the switches of the economy. Easy as that. Every president in the history of the country has tried to avoid a recession. Now he's trying to do one on purpose. So that's the crazy theory. But the other theory for all this Wall Street whiplash is actually our takeaway.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies who are watching stocks drop? Make America self-sufficient again. Yetis, a lot of Americans complain that we just don't build stuff anymore. What used to be built with metal is now built with plastic. What used to be made in Toledo is now made in Taiwan.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Yeti's Touchland has transformed a health tool into a fashion accessory.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Well, the economic interpretation of Trump's make America great again thesis is to go back to the old days when we had less trade. When we built more stuff in the USA.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
who said access to cheap goods is not the American dream.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Now, producing toys in Toledo instead of Taiwan, that's going to make things more expensive. But Trump seems to think that higher paying American jobs are worth that trade-off.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Although this would take decades to play out and dramatically reshape the whole world economy.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Still, those are the two theories for Trump's economic whiplash right now. The first is CRT, the crazy recession theory. He wants a quick recession to kill inflation and lower interest rates. The other, Trump's tariffs are to rewind the clock to when America traded less but made more. For our second story, the newest teen status symbol is actually Touchland, a $16 hand sanitizer.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Designer hand sanitizer. Yeah, it is. We're going to spell out exactly how this hand sanitizer turns the product from a tool to a fashion accessory. But first, check your calendars, yetis. Five years ago today, Tom Hanks got COVID. March 11th, 2020, the day the World Health Organization declared COVID a global pandemic.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Well, five years later, one company is still shockingly surging. A hand sanitizer startup, self-described as Skincare Forward. It's called Touchland, and Gen Alpha is obsessed with this stuff. Here's the product.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
According to the Wall Street Journal, middle and high school teens, they're collecting these hand sanitizers like Pokemon, and then they're trading them like baseball cards. It's the thing they want. It's the only hand sanitizer to ever make somebody's birthday wishlist. That's a guarantee. We didn't even have to double check that.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Basically, when it comes to the craziness of this, this hand sanitizer is like the new Beanie Baby. Nick, forget the Stanley Tumbler. The Touchland hand sanitizer is a teen status symbol. And we got the numbers to back it up. Touchland did a collab hand sanitizer with the Hello Kitty brand. And Jack, how did that thing sell?
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
I can't do it, Jack. You handle the rest. But Skype is survived by the greatest tech growth hacks that we still see today. Pass the tissues and we'll tell you the wild story. But yet is before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a fantastic mix of stories. Love the mix, Jack. Odds are, statistically speaking, you will touch something today with the word Kirkland. Kirkland.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
In fact, during the pandemic, Touchland was doing $16 million in hand sanitizer sales. The pandemic's over, and yet their sales have 6x'd to $100 million a year. Jack, this is the first hand sanitizer that's gone viral. We're five years from the anniversary of the pandemic, and teachers are confiscating a hand sanitizer because it is too cool. I see the irony. So we know what you're wondering.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
How did a hand sanitizer keep up all this momentum from the pandemic when Purell, Clorox, and all the others have slowed down? Here's how. Two fashion-inspired redesigns transformed it from a health tool to a fashion accessory. Okay, so here's the first thing they did. Touchland hired a perfume house called Jouvidien to help give their hand sanitizers a scent.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Peachy leachy, mango mojo, blue sandalwood. Those are a few of the flavors you can buy that would make Cindy Crawford's beauty mark blush. It basically turned the whole hand sanitizer lineup into a candy factory. It's like a nasal Skittles. It's kind of like a perfume. It's not just the smell, though. It's also the form.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Again, kind of like a perfume. Now their insight here is that most hand sanitizer is a gel, which is actually a bag hazard. Like that stuff's going to fall, it's going to drip, it's going to ruin that little econ textbook you got in your handbag. If you get an accidental pump, it could ruin your textbook.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
I hate the accidental pump, but a mist is actually backpack safe because it's not going to spill all over that economic textbook. You're not going to get an accidental splooge. The result, Jack, what was it? The fact that it's mist and that it smells nice connected with teens. It feels more like a perfume with a pumpkin spice scent than a hand sanitizer.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And that let them charge a premium price of 16 bucks a bottle. There you go. Two fashion-inspired redesigns are why the dance floor at your next bar mitzvah is going to be dangling with Touchland. It's going to be the cleanest bar mitzvah party ever. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Touchland? Come for the look, stay for the user experience.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Now, Yetis, there are many ways to build a product, to test a product, to find product market fit. A whole bunch of theories out there.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Or to put that in business terms, come for the brand, stay for the user experience. First, customers come for the look. The fashionable color and the smells like a dessert. And then they stayed for the experience. The mist felt premium and it didn't ruin your backpack. That's how Touchland disrupted Purell and is now the rage with tweens.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Natalia turned hand sanitizer into a $100 million a year fashion accessory.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
You might be wearing something Kirkland right now as we pod. Kirkland, the private label of Costco, has the most 90s logo font of all time. And it's also the latest episode of our weekly deep dive show, The Best. idea yet. Because honestly, of all the products we've ever covered, Costco has the most rabid fans. Absolutely. If Costco's a cult, then Kirkland Brand is their messiah.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
For our third and final story, Microsoft is shutting down Skype this May. So Jack and I wrote an obituary to Skype because we think it's the greatest, most innovative company in history.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Using the internet, Skype basically killed long distance. That was their first destruction. They destroyed the long distance phone call and basically invented video calls. And Jack, you and I were both working international jobs. Like you were calling Europe, I was calling Latin America. When I was studying abroad in Berlin, I had many a late night Skype. Ich bin ein Schkyper.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
But Skype, if you know, was actually invented in Estonia by a few entrepreneurs with zero telecom experience. They're actually the same guys who founded Kazaa, which is the Napster knockoff Nick and I used to share music. I mean, we never used because we only bought music legally. Now, these Estonian entrepreneurs actually sold Skype at first to eBay.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
That was right around the time that Skype became the first tech product to become a verb. True story. I'll Skype you. Sorry, AOL. That was the first one. But Skype isn't just vintage tech, Nick. It's arguably the most disruptive tech company pre-Uber. Case in point, when Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion, that was their biggest deal ever.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
It was acquired by eBay and then later acquired by Microsoft. And get this, Skype grew from 1 million users in 2004 to 50 million users in 2005. And they did it with so many growth hacks.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
Sit down, stand up, and Skype away again. Jack, first growth hack, what do we got? Social proof. Yeah, social proof. Before Facebook was even invented, Skype got you to sign up for Skype because all your friends were on Skype. Yeah, Skype cleverly would show you who else was on Skype with a green dot. And so you were like, yeah, this must be legit if my buddy Timmy's on it.
The Best One Yet
📉 “Worst Drop Since ‘22” — The crazy recession theory. Skype’s audio logo. Touchland’s viral hand sanitizer.
And that caused you to sign up. The second growth hack that got them to 50x users in one year was the freemium model. Yeah, the freemium model. It was free to use Skype with any other Skype user, but they would charge you if you tried to Skype a phone number. Again, this is back when people would pay big money for a long-distance phone call to like a landline.
The Brett Cooper Show
Can b00bs Save The Planet? | Episode 15
Armed with a pickaxe and sledgehammer, these two fellas went to town on this Tesla. We don't like what Elon Musk is doing. This man would only give me his first name. Greg. Greg. Greg. But says he actually owns the white Model S. I bought it just to destroy it. And Greg says he coordinated the stunt with his friends because he doesn't like Musk.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
You know what? Let's do that. I'll get my publisher right on that. I have a box of books, but I ain't giving any away. I'll tell you that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Yes. I have not, you know. Five years ago. Yes or no? Greg, Greg. Hold on, five years ago. No, no, no. Long story.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I'm always late on my Christmas shopping. Let's put it this way. I'm haunting Amazon right now. And the first thing I look at is not the product or the price. I'm like, is it going to be delivered before Christmas? If it says you'll deliver it, prime delivery, whatever it's called, if I can get it tomorrow, I'll buy anything. You know, I'll buy anything. It just depends on the delivery date.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I'm a little behind on my shopping, but I'm feeling good. I'm buying gifts. They're showing up on my doorstep.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I'm a little behind.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
No, that's not true. I enjoy gift giving. I really do. And I'm a champion rapper. The gift, I make a gift look better than it is by my wrapping acumen. That part is true. He's a great rapper. That is a stunner. So you enhance a bad gift by wrapping it well?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Example, in the White Elephant sale, in the White Elephant party we're about to have later today, my gift will stand out because of the wrapping. That's all I'm going to say.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Don Levitard. I heard that as a woman faking pain. I didn't think that sounded real. I really didn't. You know, it was not fake. It was in no way fake.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Stugatz. Yes, I can. Yes. Expert. I've been married 40 years. This is the Don Levitas show with the Stugatz.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Use as little tape, scotch tape, as possible. Put an appropriate bow on just about every gift except a stocking stuffer. You bow? I don't bow. I bow.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I'm a big bower, and it has to fit. It has to fit. The colors have to coordinate, the bow and the wrapping. And there's an art to it. I love wrapping more than I love giving or getting gifts. I love the wrapping process.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
That's a tough art to master. Because if it snags. If it snags and it rips, it just ruins everything. The scissor has to be, and why is it always plural? I'm only holding one pair of scissors.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
But if it's not a particularly sharp scissor, you're screwed.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Yeah, that's true. That's fair. That's a fair comment. I could give a seminar on gift wrapping. I really could.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I'm against them. Really? Yeah. It's the easy way out. You know? You're cutting corners.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
You should make the kids kick a 30-yard field goal to get a toy. Save money. Right, get all the toys.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Yeah, dream on. No, I'm just kidding. It's just a joke. It's not a joke, though. You're not joking.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I think the holiday party has a bad rap. I think at a lot of companies, big companies especially, the holiday party is sort of an obligatory thing that's dreaded. In this case, you know, it's a fairly small crowd. The only weird thing about today is that right after the show, we have like a white elephant gift exchange, and then hours later, we reconvene for the party.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I was probably like, that kind of thing. Something. Okay, no. The home run call was that kind of swing, that kind of thing. Stugatz. Oh. That's a good call. Thank you. And plus, it doesn't matter who's hitting it. Like, you're not tailoring it to a particular name. You know, all that jazz. You know, you don't got to do that. Oh, that would be a great call.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Sorry. I apologize. I can't be perfect. Who was it?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
It was my doctor. I got an appointment tomorrow. I get a robocall reminding me about an appointment. Like it's not on my calendar. Like I'm going to forget. Continue. Because you've never canceled a doctor's appointment before, huh? Well, I canceled this one. It was Tuesday, and they snuck me in Friday. Oh, got it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
You were cooking, Dan. I'm sorry.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Continue. Go back to the stove. Flip those jacks.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
So the logistics of that make it a little difficult, but I'm looking forward to it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
You don't see the crowd because they're just off camera. People were lined up for miles.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
It's always going to be a football town, and I said that 10 years ago when the Big 3 Heat were a thing. It's always going to be a football town. I do think the Panthers have the chance to be the second biggest pro team in the market. with the Panthers just being great.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Second biggest. Best already.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
No, you should do it, Dan. Instead of writing a check, anybody can write a check. You need to be hands-on in the toy store, picking out every gift.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
My book's in the way here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
Back in my day. Well done. My new book is getting in the way of my sweater. It's a Miller Lite sweater. We love Miller Lite a little too much.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I got to learn the art of that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
It has. It's a phrase from my ute. And I credit, I don't know if anybody out there old like me remembers Mad Magazine and Alfred E. Newman. That was one of their catch words, catch phrases was maniac. It was very popular in the 60s. If someone was acting crazy and you wanted to like criticize them, but in a funny way, you are a maniac. You're acting like a maniac. People don't say that anymore.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I want to bring it back. It's like groovy. Jack.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
I'm mailing it in, like you said before.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Florida Panthers The Biggest Thing In Town?
You're mailing it. Somebody give me a stamp. It's almost Christmas. What am I doing working here? I'm in a Christmas sweater. I should be Christmas partying right now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: The MVP Case For Saquon Barkley (feat. Dianna Russini)
Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Levitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: The MVP Case For Saquon Barkley (feat. Dianna Russini)
I've done it. And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
Right now, my friends over at SimpliSafe are extending their massive Black Friday deal for our Levitard Show listeners. SimpliSafe is the home security I trust to keep my home and family safe. I've been telling you that for years. This is your last chance to protect your home at SimpliSafe's lowest prices of the year.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
SimpliSafe is a new way to protect your home that stops intruders before they break into your home. Old school systems only take action once someone is already inside your home. That's too late. SimpliSafe's active guard outdoor protection changes the game by preventing crime before it even happens. SimpliSafe is extending its massive Black Friday deal for our listeners this week only.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
You can take 50% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is your last chance to claim their best offer of the year. Head to simplisafe.com slash DLB to claim your discount and make sure your home is safe this season. Don't wait. This offer won't last long. Keep your home, your family, and your peace of mind protected with SimpliSafe. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
I want to tell you a story. I'm serious here. My wife and my two daughters, they begged me to buy a Peloton. So I bought a Peloton. And then I watched that Peloton sit in my office and stare at me. So you know what I did one day? I looked at it. And so I decided to get off my ass and I jumped on the Peloton because no one else was using it and I paid for it. I mean, so why not?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
Then I realized eventually that they bought it for me. And I got to tell you, way more challenging than I could have ever imagined. Peloton coaches are walking the walk. I love the coaches. I do the Grateful Dead one. It's fantastic. They have a sub three hour marathon runner, military trained athlete, a former college basketball player, and so many other well-rounded coaches on their team.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
All this experience really shows in their classes, which are never short of challenging, especially for me. So I jumped on it that first time. It was challenging, more challenging than I thought. Then I wanted to beat the bike, and so I kept jumping on it, and I absolutely love it. I mean, I'm the only one who uses it, but again, they got it for me. I mean, I had no idea.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Hour 1: Aaron Rodgers Enigma And Tony's Nestling
That's a little passive-aggressive, don't you think? Find your push. Find your power with Peloton at OnePeloton.com.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
It's the holidays, a time for peace, for love, for presents. And do I have one for you. It's Poppy's Fifty Shades of Christmas. You're welcome.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Local Hour: Are The Titans Soft? Feat. John Amaechi
Thank you, Papi. See, Greg? That's how it's done.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I still don't even know what the connection is. Did he quit in the book or did he put out like a mushroom mud tea that you're drinking?
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Or denied it later when we say you quit and he goes, I've never quit.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Also, by the way, it's still caffeine. It doesn't make any difference. Matcha has just as much caffeine as job, doesn't it?
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
That's right. The kitchen was beautiful. Like the house had the capacity. It did sell at a certain point, I think. And if somebody lived there and made it what they want to make it, it would be gorgeous. But it just had been a rental for too long.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
It would have cost so much to renovate it too, because it is so big. Yeah.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
That felt good knowing we were going into it with three things already done, I will say.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
You're just like, this is what I- That's the production design department.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Oh, no, it happened mid-thing. We saw the job go out of his eyes while he was talking.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
But we would also work till 2 AM a lot, but it was still, you're like, just the freedom to know that if the thing you're working on sucks, you'll just throw it away and no one will know.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
We would do a song where we started it and then just ran out of steam and then came back to it weeks later, months later. We'd go like, you know what? There was something to that. What if we try to fix that?
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Kmart's where we did the entire We Like Sports video. It was just a gold mine of amazing t-shirts.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
There was a day when Tim and Eric and Brett and Jermaine came by with Chrysal, who later on we got hired at SNL as a director, who then went on to co-create Portlandia with Fred and Carrie. But they came to shoot a sketch on our tennis court for a Tim and Eric show.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
So there is another way to see how we lived because there's a tennis sketch with the four of them.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Oh, we had such a good time. We did, just to jump forward, two years later, when we get to Turtleneck and Chain, we were like, could we rent the same house? And we did. We went back two years later and repeated the summer and had just as good a time. And I will say, looking through the photos last night that I texted you guys a bunch of from 2008, I realized like half my memories are from 2010.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
But also specifically to Seth, there was a nice picture of Josh, his brother. Poshy and Speedman. And there was a nice picture of Neil Brennan. Yeah. Yeah, and Speedman. And from those photos last night, I was like, yeah, this is all Seth's. These are Seth's homies.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
We think they might be right. We just want to know who it is.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I just had a memory of this song going to my head, which was the very first time we ever performed live in front of an actual real audience was Tenacious D was doing a festival down at the Santa Monica Pier. It was the first year of it. It was an all-day festival that Tenacious D would be the final act, and they asked us to come on, and I don't know what year it was.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
It was well after this, but we reenacted that live. Like, Jack Black started talking shit about us on stage, like fake stuff. Oh, yeah, that's right. And then calls us whack. Festival supreme. And then all of a sudden... What was it? Festival Supreme.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
And then we were a surprise. And it was so fun too, because they have a whole band and we went and rehearsed with them for a week beforehand and came up with a medley that they helped us. Spiker, who is their director of music, also became ours when we did finally go on tour. And he helped put together this whole little medley. And it was like 10,000 people. And it was our first thing ever.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
And we got to come out there with their whole band. And we started by coming out.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I feel like this was also one of the first songs we wrote when we got out there.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
One of the things we wanted to make sure of, I am remembering now, is that this was a real album. Meaning not just something that felt like, hey, they had some hits on the show, just put them in a compilation and send it out. That if you bought it, you felt like, because when you started to buy an album, that you felt like you had bought something new that stood on its own.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
And so, like you said, it's a declaration, but I think it also, by being about the three of us and us using our names, it like separates it from SNL in a way that lets the album be its own thing, I think.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
You know, even on this podcast, people have asked us, what video do we wish we had gotten to make for songs? And it's always semicolon in Japan. But this should be actually in that top three of wished videos.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Liz just texted when I asked her. She doesn't know if it was Powder Mike as his given name, but they all called him P.O.B. Yeah. That's a whole third thing.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Yeah, that's definitely the first thing I would have said, an amuse-bouche for the ears.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
He dedicated a tattoo. Man, this should have been his intro on the pod last week.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Is it third or is it fourth? No, third summer.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
He really just outlined it really clearly for me. 2006 was Shoot Hot Rod. 2007 was Put Hot Rod Into Theaters. And 2008 is coming off Writer's Strike and then a few episodes. And then here we are in Encino, California.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Jorm's tone sounds sarcastic, but it's actually pretty much true. After Lazy Sunday and maybe Natalie Rap, somewhere in that first year, I think we already talked about this on the pod, that a few different labels, Atlantic came to us, and then it was under UMG. It was a wing of UMG. I don't know how you describe it, but Republic Records was under UMG. It is a huge record label.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
They have everyone from The Weeknd and Post Malone and Taylor Swift. And they would wine and dine us a little bit. I believe we already told the story of one night at the Playboy Mansion, courtesy of Atlantic Records.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I think we already covered this. Okay. You should listen to the pod. I'll listen to that episode.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
The only thing I really remembered was that there was a whole room that was English tea, like little sandwiches and cookies and proper English tea set up. And I was like, now this is class.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
This might be repeating last time we talked about, but Jorm, correct me if I'm wrong, you didn't go because your wife objected because it's a very sexist place. Correct. But then your wife did enjoy all of or most of the episodes of the TV show that was the reality show set at the Playboy Mansion.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
You just need a little bit of scruff on your face. Yeah.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
The AC didn't really reach it. And then we had to keep turning off the portable AC we bought because it made noise and we were trying to be a recording studio.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I think, honestly, we chose that room because it was carpeted. I think it's kind of as simple as that. And it was far from the kitchen if somebody else was doing something.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Also saying we turned it into a recording studio is funny because it was a fold-out table with one computer monitor and then a mic standing next to that computer.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Basically, we make the record deal and they tell you what your budget is to make the record, essentially. And that's what people call an advance because they are going to take that money back. That's why it's not just like, here's your budget. Like on a movie, they give you the movie budget. You're not expected to give them back the $10 million to make the movie.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
On a record deal, your budget is called an advance because it's an advance payment that you will later repay through album sales. And when we started doing the math on the advance and doing it the way they would do it normally, which is renting real studio space, and we knew we would burn through almost all of it in a summer.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Oh, yeah. Well, Greg Chun, who makes all our little jingles, sent me a few and I was delighted. But it was like a month ago and then I was surprised to see that they weren't used yet.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
So the house, even though it looked very expensive, it was a house that had been used as a shooting location. Like it was a beautiful big place, but it wasn't like everything worked perfect. It wasn't a house someone had lived in in a while.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Yes, it is. The boss guy, not Michael Scott, but the other guy.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Yeah. First off, to explain why we did it at all, besides that it's awesome, was that we were in New York and we were like, well, there's no way to record an album here on our budget and the way we do things because we would have unless we used our office at 30 Rock, which would have been really sad. We're all in different apartments all over town, just getting to a location.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
We just knew it would never happen if we didn't all live in a house together.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't know there was a reveal about to happen. Look at these.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I think it was part of making the label deal was us thinking like, oh, if it gives us a summer in L.A. and a big house, it's worth it to make the deal. Mm hmm.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
I was going to let it lie. I was going to yes and and be like, oh, yeah, everybody's getting that.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
The headphones are making them uneven a bit.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Okay. We also, we watched, not together, but Challengers.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
Let's ditch the headphones for one second. Let's get them nice on there. Oh, there it is. So they're kind of a tortoise shell, I'd say. Yeah, you can say that. They're very attractive.
The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast
Incredibad Part 1
You've made a choice instead of Brown, like the three of us. So it does distinguish you.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
And this is happening quickly, lots of moving parts, and it's really the first major foreign policy initiative in the Trump administration. And let's listen to what Secretary of State Rubio had to say.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
Yeah, highly unusual. You would be looking or expecting it to be on some neutral ground or semi-neutral ground in Europe, especially when you're talking about the war in Ukraine. But, you know, President Trump just does things differently. And it looks like perhaps a couple issues at work here. We saw Vice President J.D. Vance
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
be sharply critical in a speech in Europe, of Europe, saying that it wasn't doing what it needed to do. So at one level, having this meeting in Saudi seems another jab at Europe, a message that European states don't need to be deeply involved. Again, a sharp contrast to the Biden administration, which built a coalition of 50 countries, mostly European, to assist Ukraine.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
They gather monthly, either in person or virtually, to talk about or coordinate efforts on Ukraine.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
And of course, Franco, what you said is very much the fear of Ukraine, saying that the initial war began in 2014. It did halt, but it just allowed Russia to rearm and prepare for a much larger invasion later, which came in 2022. So this really is a great Ukrainian fear in the past, and it continues to be now. A European fear. Oh, absolutely.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
And that was exactly the kind of phrase that the Biden administration would use, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, that they would be there. And again, we've just seen this complete flipping of the way things are done with the Biden administration, working very closely with Ukraine to put pressure on Russia.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
Now, the Trump administration is sort of working initially with Russia, and Ukraine feels very very much under pressure. We did hear Marco Rubio say no one is being sidelined. Ukraine will be included. But the Ukrainians are certainly not feeling that at the moment and are feeling very, very nervous.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
So they took place in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. And these are the most extensive, formal, diplomatic talks the U.S. and Russia have had since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost exactly three years ago in February of 2022. The U.S. was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And the most immediate issue on the agenda is trying to find a way to end the war in Ukraine.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
Well, if that happens, then Ukraine simply couldn't carry on fighting the way it's done for the past three years. Ukraine is outnumbered and outgunned. It's been losing territory over the past year. The U.S. military support has allowed Ukraine to limit those Russian gains. And there's still a bit of the U.S. assistance that's in the pipeline from a big package that was approved last year.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
But when that runs out, which will be fairly soon, Ukraine could lose its biggest single source of foreign military aid. Europe is helping both with military and humanitarian assistance, but Ukraine would be in a very tough spot. It would have to consider how long it could carry on the fight.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
And would it have to make bigger concessions and make them sooner rather than risk a rapidly weakening military position that just keeps deteriorating?
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
What Trump is doing is really looking at the world in a way that was sort of pre-World War II, early 20th century, even 19th century, big powers with a sphere of influence and would expand their power in that region and respect the power of others.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
So again, we should be looking for Trump trying to work directly with Putin in Russia, with President Xi Jinping in China, with the Saudi leader and some other leaders that he considers to be regional powers. Now, many foreign policy analysts say, you know, a lot of these institutions that the U.S.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
helped build after World War II, United Nations, NATO, World Bank, they were fraying and at minimum they needed to be revised and updated. Trump is really challenging them and in a way even more so and more aggressively than in his first term. And we're seeing this very clearly now in Europe, Ukraine in particular.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
And what happens in this specific episode is likely to set the tone and be a template for how he'll pursue U.S. interest in other parts of the world.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
But Rubio said there are even larger goals here and they include trying to normalize and stabilize the U.S.-Russia relationship. looking for ways to possibly improve economic and geopolitical ties. And Sarah, I can't emphasize enough, this is absolutely a 180-degree turn from what we've seen under the Biden administration.
The NPR Politics Podcast
How Trump Changed U.S. Policy Toward Ukraine
And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
This is Greg, and I am in beautiful Snoqualmie, Washington at a health care conference. And I just finished listening to a keynote address given by one. That's me. It's not a recording. And it was great. This podcast was recorded at 1137 a.m.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
Things may have changed by the time you hear this.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Yeah, yeah. I think this will be better than an Applebee's commercial that
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
So, yeah, I'm a youth pastor in Wichita, Kansas, and about seven years ago, eight years ago, I was meeting with a guy and discipling him, and just we were getting into a place where we were starting to share personal prayer requests, and one of ours for my family was we had a daughter that was a few years off from going to college, and we started saving, but we had a desire to see them
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Both of our kids graduate debt-free, and the plan was we would pay 50% after a scholarship, and they would pay 50% after a scholarship, and beginning to go, hey, how are they going to do this? And so just praying about our kids taking their mowing business to the next level. My son was mowing three yards. He could basically put a mower in the back of a minivan and go a few doors down or a
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
We're praying about buying a truck and a trailer and a mower at some point, but the truck was definitely felt outside of her reach. Well, three, four months after we began to pray, I got contacted by my friend, and he said, hey, my wife and I would love to stop by the church today. We just have a brief meeting with you. I was like, hey, I'd love to do that, but I can't today.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
We have a meeting at the church called Perspectives, and They were like, hey, we'd love to come. It literally will take like two minutes. And so it was like 9.30, 10 o'clock at night. They took me to the back of the church, and they said, hey, check that out. And it was a 2013 black Ford F-150 with a trailer and a brand-new John Deere 48-inch engine. zero-turn mower on the back.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Blew us away, and man, God's generosity through them, but then just the way the moving business took off. We actually had somebody give us 10 yards. They were moving, and Normally they might sell it, and they said, hey, we want to give these to you and your kids.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
And so they started with about 15 yards, and during the next six or seven years made over $100,000 and were able to graduate college debt-free, both of them.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Very cool. They loved college and are, you know, still growing. But, yeah, they've turned out well. And not only did they graduate college that free, but they just worked hard. And I just saw their generosity through this.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
just mowing free for people and mowing for a pregnancy crisis center.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Yeah, and just it's cool to see what God has done in their life as they look back and just can't help but notice this generosity.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Hey, how you guys doing? Thanks for taking my call.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Me and my wife were kind of looking for a plan, and we're kind of going back and forth on whether we should sell our house or not. Okay.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
So the house payment is like $240,000, $240,000. She has a credit card balance of $232 and a car payment with $18,000. And then the debt I have is, I have a car loan, which is 8K. And then credit cards, about 20K in credit card debt.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
$2,000, but with utilities, it comes out to about $2,500.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Like I would say like roughly like $2,000, $2,500 a month.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Yes, combined. Combined. I make about $2,000 a month and she makes about $2,000 a month.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
We work at this little small warehouse just operating a machine.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Yes, we are picking up overtime. We also have a side business where we detail cars and we plan on Ubering and stuff like that.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Yeah, I would say a couple hundred.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Yeah, that's how much she has left on her car.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Hey, Jade and Rachel. It's so good to be talking to y'all. I'm fangirling a little bit right now.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
So I have been listening for a little over a year, but the month before I started listening, I co-signed on a truck for my now- for my now ex-fiance oh greg i'm sorry yeah rough situation um so we had agreed uh once things ended that uh hey you know we can keep the loan as it is for a year uh because we needed to wait for the um maturity date okay And so it's coming up on that.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
And just in talking to her on occasion, she most likely is not in a position to refinance it on her own. And she has said that her parents or anyone else won't help her.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Yeah. Yeah. Just from my from my perspective, I'm not quite sure how I can get myself out of this.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
I have. She is not completely opposed to the idea, but I don't think I can really rely on her actually following that through.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
No, there's an alarm going off somewhere.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
There's about 27 left on it.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
Uh, I actually did look up the Kelly blue book a couple of weeks ago and it said that private party sale was, uh, tops like 23, uh,
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
My family agrees. Um, My family agrees that this is the dumbest decision I've made. Oh, Greg.
The Ramsey Show
To Change Your Results You Have To Change Your Behavior
The truck, technically, and then... I have about $22,000 in student loans I'm working on. I've already gotten rid of the credit card debt.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
Hey, Dave, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've gotten myself into a situation where I have a couple hundred thousand in credit card debt and loans that I've let go delinquent. And my question is, do I let it? sit there and fall off my credit report. My research showed maybe it falls off in seven years or do I attack it?
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
And the reason I ask that is we're kind of attacking my wife's debt and my truck payment. And those debts are about a hundred thousand and we're using a snowball method starting that now to, to attack those debts. And I just cannot afford to pay these other debts. And part of my question may have been answered Saturday. What the flip did you buy for $200,000 on credit cards?
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
And my wife is 52. It's our second marriage.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
She is a nurse. She brings home, takes home $7,500. And right now, unfortunately, I'm in between jobs laid off. And so I'm driving Uber and probably make four grand a month doing that.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
On average, it fluctuated since we've been together the past five years. On average, it's $85,000. We bought a house in January of 2021. How the heck did you get a house? Well, I had great credit before all this. So I had outstanding credit my whole life. I had an 800 credit score and wasn't delinquent on anything. So I bought the house. When we got into the house, it was a new build.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
The payment was around 3K. And then we got hit with the fact that the first year it was assessed on land value, so it shot up. And then we got... The county appraisal went up the first year before we were protected by Homestead, 60%. We appealed it, and like all our neighbors and in-laws, so the house payment shot up from $3,000 to about $4,200.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
Since then, it's appreciated quite a bit, so we removed the PMI and got it down where it's about $3,500 right now. Now, what's it worth? Um... That's the only good decision we made. We owe $432,000, and it's worth on the low end probably $625,000 or $650,000. Cool.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
No, that's like my wife's card. Some of my wife's credit cards and loans before we got married. How much is your wife's car debt? No car debt for her. Oh, how much is your car debt? That's the first stupid decision I made.
The Ramsey Show
If You're Intentional With Money, You Can Win With Money
No, we have discussed that.
The Ramsey Show
Your Future Self Deserves Better Choices Today
Hi. How are you guys? Can you hear me?
The Ramsey Show
Your Future Self Deserves Better Choices Today
Hi. Good afternoon. And my name is Greg. I'm 26 years young. And I have... A lot of credit card debt and on top of that, collections as well. So in total, I have $13,105 in credit card debt. Okay. Split between four different cards and $1,760 with collections. Okay. My question is, should I pay the collections first or should I try and attack the credit card with Discover?
The Ramsey Show
Your Future Self Deserves Better Choices Today
because they are giving me a lawsuit for attorney, so I don't know which one I should be paying first.
The Ramsey Show
Your Future Self Deserves Better Choices Today
I have two in collections. One has been in collections for about a year and a half, and then the other one is in collections for around four months.
The Ramsey Show
Your Future Self Deserves Better Choices Today
Right now I'm making $21 per hour, but it's more so part-time.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
And then you, for a little bit and fly back to their home. And my wife had the call with her family and immediately said, we really don't feel comfortable, but I'll talk to Greg and see. And ultimately, we were very aligned, but it put her in that awkward position. We're not going to see family for the holidays with the new baby.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
My wife is literally due a week from today, so she was hoping that we'd see family during the holiday, and so it made her stressed out, and we were aligned, but now we're like, well, we made the decision, and they said, well, we're not going to be able to come. We just wanted to double check, and we felt like
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
the answer you gave us was right, but you know, there's still that gut feeling of like, man, we really wish we could have done something different.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
Yeah. And we're actually plugging along with our baby steps and our both of our cars are paid off and they have mine has over 200,000. My wife has over 100,000. So they're due for like maintenance. And we're like, we don't even really drive our cars like that.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
So we just were worried like if there is a maintenance issue and now we're working on our emergency savings build up, now we're going to have to
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
No, she has not done that. I'd recommend that. Additional conversation. Okay.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
Hello, thanks for having me. Absolutely.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
So my wife and I ran into a situation with family and we wanted to know if we are wrong or selfish for not allowing our family members to come and use our vehicle for two weeks in conjunction with their holiday visit plan.
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
Well, we live far away. They haven't seen us in a while. We have a new baby due. And all of those are kind of some of the circumstances that led us to go back because we do want to see them. But it was contingent on how did they approach it?
The Ramsey Show
Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula
Yes, it was a little bit of like their financial planning. And they said, hey, we want to come see you. And we're going to fly in, we'll spend a couple of days for you, but, um, if it's okay, no worries if it's not, but we would like to use your vehicle for a couple of weeks to go around the state of Texas, see other family, and then we'll bring it back.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 6: “Denials” with Patrick Schwarzenegger and Leslie Bibb
I liked him. He seemed
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 6: “Denials” with Patrick Schwarzenegger and Leslie Bibb
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The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 6: “Denials” with Patrick Schwarzenegger and Leslie Bibb
I want to have people over tonight.
The White Lotus Official Podcast
Ep. 6: “Denials” with Patrick Schwarzenegger and Leslie Bibb
I need to deal with something, and I need your help.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Josh Gad
Last one I think is sound the most believable and I don't hear any audience. I guess the audiences don't only help They decided collectively 600 people he gets nothing I
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Josh Gad
Sleep. Sorry, sorry. What's the answer? It's so obvious to everyone else. Watching movies. Yes, watching movies, Rachel.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Josh Gad
Hi, my name is Greg, and I'm calling from Daytona Beach, home of Embry-Biddle Aeronautical University, where I work.