You gotta kittens. You got a little kitten outside me
wandering around, boom done.
Adam curry, John C. Dvorak.
Sunday, April 30 2017. This is your award winning give our
nation media assassination episode nine to five.
This is no agenda.
watching paint dry in Washington DC so you don't have to and
broadcasting live from the darkness scores here in the
capitals. Goldstar state Austin Tejas, morning, everybody. I'm
Adam curry and from Northern Silicon
Valley where there's no paint to dry. I'm John C. Dvorak.
Sullivan Buzzkill.
Yeah, I watched it.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah. But that's not my problem. And I had a I've had a rough
weekend. John rough weekend. How rough Was it very rough. You
know, we're in the middle of our move here.
Oh, that's right. You would not even hit home. You
know, I actually have I am at home. It is just like you're in
a new home. You know? No, I'm in the old home because they came
in to pack up Friday. And they packed up Tina's House on Friday
and Monday is when we move. So I've been living amongst boxes,
which has two very serious side effects or even a side effect.
No paper cuts. No, number one is the dust. Because oh my god is
so much dust and I have the HEPA filter running 24/7 I'm trying
everything. I got humidifiers. And I woke up this morning and
my glands are swollen. My ears hurt is like completely screwed.
But that's not the worst. Oh, no. No, it's been. It's been
very emotional. Now the keeper away, let's
get this straight. Why?
I'm going to tell you. So the keeper is a minimalist, which I
like
we like minimalist. We would like a minimalist. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So
we'd like that. And I said, Well, you know, we're gonna move
in together, I can certainly get to minimalism going. And so I
don't have all that much stuff. But I have this one closet,
which contains just huge crates of stuff that I've been showing.
That's
why she tweeted the pictures. Yeah.
Well, I asked her to tweet the pictures, because here's what's
going on. Even and I have I had well, I will never make a joke
about you being an archivist ever again. Because I'm an
archivist. And when I saw when I saw the stuff that I've been
schlepping around for over a decade, I mean, I'm talking just
big bundles of wires. He said, I must have 15 mixing boards,
compressor limiters, you want a USB cable, you can't name a USB
cable, I don't have. I've got 17 old laptops. I've got
hundreds of UI, you know laptops, and I have
I know and I've gotten this really good laptops, you know,
like the old the iBook, the clamshell iBook. I've got one of
them.
Oh yeah, that's a winner then one of
the first trans tranny laptops that goes from a laptop to to a
tablet. Yeah, but I really like an old one. I mean, we're
talking 10 years,
the first iteration of those things. Yeah, it was the
Microsoft. But here's the problem.
I have had real emotional issues throwing stuff out.
Oh, now I get it. So you're pointing the finger at me? Who
has it completely under control? I have thrown out more laptops.
And I've kept to just make yourself feel better?
Well, there's a couple things. One, I can't be throwing these
laptops they made? Who knows they may even contain Bitcoin, I
don't know what's on them. So I have to figure out a way to to
destroy them. Or you know, you can't even boot them all up. So
I don't know how to get the data off or how to unless I just
stick a drill into it. No, no, I
know exactly what you should do. Oh,
this is what I was hoping to hear.
Take the hard disk out of each one.
Well, you can't take a hard disk out of a Mac.
There's got to be some way to break the Mac, you can throw out
that thing. Although that's a very collectible Mac. It's one
of the worst Mac's ever made. And
you're telling me it's an actual collectible. See, now I have
even more trouble getting rid of
I think that is a collectible. So the other ones are not but if
you wanted to, I would pull the hard disks out of every one of
them. And then if you'd want to try to recover what's on the
hard disk, you can do that with some you know some equipment.
I have drives that are FireWire. I don't even own a FireWire
machine anymore.
Just drill them then and throw out the
toss them see then there's the 88
Wait, wait, take the laptops that without the hard disks and
donate them to a local museum.
You think there's a museum that'll take all this crap?
There was what got to be one around the country somewhere.
I mean, I even have Do you remember the cube the cobalt
cube? It was cobalt. Yeah, I have the original cobalt cube.
I've
got my
thank you. I'm a hoarder. I just have to say it. And I took this
all in yoga, because now you feel better. I hope because of
my therapy. I was able to take this all the way back to
childhood. You know this?
Oh, yeah. Money your favorite toys away?
No, I think I think I was lonely. And I'm like,
oh, yeah, Jewish sisters.
Believe me, when you're the eldest and you got two younger
sisters is lonely at the top. Yeah. And I think that you know,
just like I had a lot of stuffed animals on my, on my bed like,
these are my buddies, my wires and everything. John, it's, I
was I was ill. I actually kind of got ill just thinking of,
what am I doing with I must be 1000 pounds in weight that I
have separated to be either given away, donated or thrown
out.
Yeah, my wife would routinely because she likes to clean up.
She actually she doesn't like to clean up but she gets on a Jag
and she likes to clean up. Yeah, so she'll start cleaning and my
daughter's worse. I have to be careful with her
with the cleaning because you'll throw good stuff. Oh, no,
she just she she I can see her. She's looks left she looks
right. She doesn't see me looking at her. boom in the good
stuff goes into the garbage bag.
What is she doing in your office? Man? What does she do?
She can
clean this. My daughter in particular can make this office
spotless.
I mean, I actually had the conversation you know, I have a
big Yamaha keyboard. And Tina's like, what are you gonna do with
that? I said, Well, I can't this can't throw this out. What have
you got? You'd give that away? Give it to Salvation Army or put
it on the show. But wait,
well, that's an idea. Just like what if what if Elton John drops
by and then he says all Tina, I'd like to play song for you.
But you got keyboard. Oh, you threw the keyboard out? Oh,
sorry. No song for you. Wow. Yeah, that's projecting the
future. Yeah. Or Bruce Hornsby could have Oh, sure.
Any one of those guys. How often have they showed up in the last
five years? Oh, you know what? I'm in Austin and give me Oh,
yeah, place where nobody knows anything about music.
So it's been, but seriously, it was really surprising to me.
One, how just how much junk I have collected and have been
schlepping. For 10 years. This agenda is stuff that is 10 years
older than 10 years Creative Labs. mp3 players. Are you
kidding me?
Yeah, that's that's a goner.
I have experimental stuff in here. It's just now
here's what I do is I'll give you some more advices another
way you can go. All right. There's some stuff you've got
that is probably worth something to someone. Yeah, not much. But
I'm sure there's some
what's not much what's?
Well, I think the cobalt cube might be interesting for someone
to collect. I mean, who is serious collector that has a
collection that's neat. And organized. So you can put a list
of stuff you have, this will make you feel a lot better. You
put a list of stuff you have that you didn't need to get rid
of, and it'll go to a good home if somebody claims that
otherwise you're just gonna throw it out. Yeah. And but
there's you do have artifacts that are actually art,
such as what is actually art, this is a great way to explain,
Hey, baby, this is actually art, we should display this. And
so I've got three display cases, I got an Ikea cancer, that kind
of a box with a glass thing in front of it. All three of them
filled with weird looking mice.
Oh, yeah, I have that for Morse code keys. That Okay, that is
okay. I think because I think Morse code keys are indeed art.
These handmade keys are beautiful. I really enjoy them
here. But that's about the only thing I'm not going to display
computer stuff that's plain,
no a pipe, but a bunch of mice all tangled up together in a box
like that is actually quite interesting as art per se.
And this coming from you is even more interesting that this is
your ODE you have a collection of mice.
Oh to the mouse. Well, I started noticing like an accumulation of
mice that I'd ever used. You know, the ball mouse isn't one
of those anymore. The the I still have the Microsoft mouse
with the metal ball. Which is an extreme collectible as far as
I'm concerned. But who's gonna buy these things? So I stuffed
them in these boxes and present and we hung them on the wall. It
looks it looks like it looks like some sort of art does. It
does it
another reason why it's two separate homes really works.
Well, that those that actually that would work at either house.
It's a very attractive piece. You'd be surprised No, I'm
just, I believe Yeah, I believe you.
And so there's that you could I'm sure that they'd like their
little mp3 player from Creative law. Here's a cool idea. Take
that mp3 player. Go to one of those tap plastic places. By
joining get this a pocket that is but there's Lucite stuff that
you can you can make a mold a cube mold pour this plastic in
there then push the thing down into the into the plastic before
it dries yeah and then let it solid solidify into a giant
plastic cube with with the mp3 player embedded.
Wow that'll be worth 50 bucks on its it won't be worth anything
but it will
look cool
anyway, so a period of growth
I'm sorry to hear this because of all grief you've given me a
but be genuine notice this stuff when you move from the last
place.
Um, did I not explain this is a psychological issue that goes
back to my childhood This is blank out? No, I've just I've
always been like, ah, you know how I can throw this out? Okay,
let me try this. So running into the minimalist. She snapped you
into realization is that what happened?
I was ready. I was ready to. I've just been ready. I've been
ready to give this up. I just died and all of a sudden that
hit me and I wasn't quite prepared for it. It was
frightening. Yeah, I mean, I live and I'm okay now but man it
was it was a big deal. And and I felt bad because I've chided
you. And let me tell you per square footage, I know I have a
denser pot, you know denser pile of crap. And
just because you don't have as much room to spread out
exactly, exactly. But has just been dragging this crap around
for decades. I can't build that's what was so frightening.
Why am I doing that? What is wrong with me and I realize it I
don't want to get I don't want to let go of the little boy.
I don't think that's it. Now, I don't think that's it at all
what I think it is. I think it's a problem with a lot of
Hoarders. Yes, are let's just call ourselves archivists, with
a lot of archivists. You see value in all of this stuff, and
you don't like throwing money away. You're cheap. You're cheap
tightwad. That's what it really amounts to, though. Wait a
minute, let me look at this old copy of Lotus jazz. You know,
I'll bet you this is worth 10 bosses
jazz Wow. Then that could never get Lotus jazz to work properly
on the Mac floss it just never did the never dialed in they're
supposed to be like a dial in thing or the you know, because
it was yeah, it was the full suite it had loads of jazz.
So So you have this that you think has value this is because
I've watched a horror show and it's it always boils down to
this is worth something i Why am I throwing money?
You're right you're right but on the other night, a little boy
anything
is bullcrap. You're trying to come up with some romantic
reason that you're a cheapskate.
Now I'm far from a cheapskate and you know better than that.
I'm not a cheap well, you're
you don't spend money wisely, but it does you don't throw
money away. Oh, but I'm gonna throw away guy.
But John, we're talking about okay, there's gear. But when you
look at the amount of wires, yeah,
every wire is worth five bucks.
You're rich. You're a millionaire.
That's right. Go podcasting. I'm quitting. It's quittin time,
everybody. All right. So that's been my weekend so far. No, no,
no, no, no, this is good. I feel good about it. I really do.
Don't be sorry. I'm sorry. And I in a roundabout way, but I'll
just say it. I apologize for making fun of you as an
archivist. But this just proves you are what you accuse others
of this is just solidify. Yes. Right. Yeah. Anyways, so between
all the boxes last night, I of course watch two things. I
watched the President's speech in Harrisburg, which was I was
led to believe it was meant as counterprogramming, I think was
much smarter. It wasn't counterprogramming was on just
before the White House Correspondents Dinner and what
seaspan did is they now just so people who who don't know every
year, how long has this been going on going for a while this
White House
correspondent started during the Roosevelt administration may be
Yeah, and he
probably didn't like it. But the idea was the White House
Correspondents Association, all the end, it's a lot of them.
There's a lot of guys and gals 1000s They have a big party,
which up until this year was you know, it got progressively more
showbusiness like, and the hashtag was nerd party. You
know, they go and it's so cool. We got all the cool journalists
and like a wolf blitzer. He looks good in a tuxedo. Oh, and
he's sitting with Kim Kardashian. It was a complete
douchebag fest, and totally douche
baggy with all those Hollywood types. Yeah.
And the idea is that it's it's really meant to give out
scholarships to journalists and some awards, some cash prizes,
to movie prizes. And then the President speaks and he's
allowed to excoriate the press a little bit with a couple of
videos and some funny jokes Obama was very good at it. And
then they typically have Reagan was good at it too. I don't
remember that would have been that he was gonna have a
comedian come up and he rose everybody. That's the basic idea
and this year,
I think the model that's most recent is the comedian rose,
everybody that didn't know then the President comes after that.
I think you're right. Yeah. So this so this year, the President
said, No, I'm not coming screw you guys. And they and
everything that he broke the whole thing it broke the mold
broke everything they didn't have the red carpet guy was all
ready to go. I know you don't want to do it. But I was ready
to just do it for myself. Just to make Tina laugh and like, Oh,
watch this. I'll do the red carpet was everyone's wearing
and it didn't they didn't show that. No C span cut when they
were already in and getting started. And it was by far the
most boring thing I've ever seen in my life. Well, I'm
gonna start a tape.
I'm gonna be rack it up. Which a tape Do you want?
I will refer to it throughout the show. Ah, but and but I want
to let's get the first part going. He's I had this thing
running since actually, before we had to reboot. And I want to
just put on Bob Woodward. Yeah, I just wanted to put a little
bit so we can hear what the pace of the show is like, and then
throughout the rest of this show, we'll play. I'll just cut
back to it because it's playing right now as we speak, we're
just going to cut right in on him. And he hears what he has
said this is the
document destruction, a massive house cleaning at the Nixon
reelection committee, a money trail, an organized well funded
cover,
just to have these two guys, Woodward and Bernstein, you
know, who both have been CIA assets currently, or in the
recent past was laughable. Like, why don't you get your boss's up
on the stage people? Look, here's your here's your boys.
You do what they do.
Clark McGregor, then the Nixon campaign manager called Ben
Bradley, the editor of the Washington Post. I
mean, just when you hear that a dad editor of the Washington
Post, I'm like, oh, pass the weed. I can handle this. It was
so boring and so bad. And although of course, the comedian
gets rave reviews that I think he
bombed Well, except for that, too. Okay, we're done with
Woodward's. We'll come back to him later and we'll come back to
him of course. Okay. So yeah, I'll just let it play in the
background and we'll cut in and out. The comedian wasn't funny.
Let's start with that. I don't know who gave him rave reviews.
In fact, the couple of clips from the comedian,
you just don't need to look at the face bag to know about the
rave reviews.
W h CD Joe. This is one of his jokes and this is typical of his
material.
Hey, has anyone seen Rick Perry since he became energy
secretary?
I have a feeling he's sitting in a room full of plutonium waiting
to become Spider Man. That's just my hunch. Yeah,
it was is this like great material? He was nervous. He was
he did have one the funny and only funny Lanzoni open he says
Welcome to the last Washington
the last White House this season or the season finale. I think he
said
something like that. And here's another one of his fabulous I
don't think he put much effort into this either. And he should
have hired some other outside writers but it does seem that he
did or even used the Daily Show writers was maybe his what he
did, is tried to second gag.
Now a lot of people think Steve Bannon is the reason Donald
Trump dog whistles to racists was fun and that is just not
true as Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon here I do not see Steve
Bannon. I do not see steeped in not see Steve Bannon. One more
time I see Steve Bannon
that's on their level.
So saying Nazi Steve Bannon is funny too. But did you know that
I think that the room was sweetened? Because you could
look out there and there wasn't anybody laughing at all there's
a few people smiling very few well, you know
is with the sweetening business I pay a lot of attention to
this. There's when they have the room mics depending on who's
where you know, things can sound really loud even though it may
be one person just near one of the one of the ambiance
microphones. Built magazine I just point out as an aside,
says, this is all bull crap. There was no booing of Ivanka
Trump at the event and we're built to do that yeah yeah the
thing we debunked on the last episode and you know same thing
and maybe there was some some room noise that was Mike near
the press pit in this case you have nothing but the probe sure
there's all kinds of noises going on but no laughing No I
didn't hear the only the end when he went into you know you
guys are protecting the First Amendment that this isn't
important and blind. God bless America and then everyone's like
all standing ovation. Yes, we are important. We are very
important. No, we are important. douchebags.
What are they? We're important. Well, the counter program was
actually and it was at the same time with Samantha Bee show. Oh,
I
didn't realize she had that. Okay, interesting.
So she did an hour a press correspondents dinner. That was
at least five times funnier. Yeah. Even though it was just
still. Trump hate Trump hate. But it will. I mean, here's an
example of one of her jokes, which is just a Trump hate joke
that was funny to this audience. I find it to be slightly
annoying. I don't like these kinds of you ridiculing people
for their appearance. But this is Samantha V's or Ranga Tang
joke,
has convinced 88% of his fans that you're an enemy of the
people. You basically get paid to stand in a cage while a
geriatric orangutan and his pet mob scream at you. It's like a
reverse Zoo.
I don't li