Like it tastes just the same and it cost the same then why the hell not? Right.


Yeah.


It's just obviously flower just doesn't seem like something, I don't have a good reason to switch to it to begin with. But I definitely try it.


Yeah. Well imagine saying that your cookies are like gluten free but filled with protein.


We'll see that that's appealing to me because like, one of my biggest rules is eat half of what you eat should be protein.


Right?


That's why people are like, what's your biggest rule? And that's like saying what's the most important thing out of the entire encyclopedia, Right? It's very hard to give one thing. But I always say that I'm like, if you're going to lose weight, making half of what you eat protein and it's very difficult right now to do that with a non animal product.


It's very hard.


For half of your food to be protein. Yeah. You've been like caloric quantity.


Yeah, you can do it. So when it comes down to like grams, like I don't get into this with people because I try to make it simple.


Mhm.


But half of what you eat should be protein.


So you have carbs, fat protein, alcohol, right?


What? Right.


Half of it should be protein.


Uh huh. Yeah. But half as in like calorically half or or like ounce for ounce. Okay.


So come here. Okay, so add up your alcohol grams, your car grams, your protein grams and your fat grams.


Yeah. Yeah.


Half of those grams should be protein.


Okay. Bye. Wait. All right. I dig it. Yeah.


Yeah, The basic things. So I guess what I'm saying is like, we just need more options.


Yeah.


We just need the science to evolve, right? Because like, it's so hard.


Especially because like one of the biggest challenges of people is they're just like, oh, I'm bored of eating this.


Yeah. From Yeah.


You know what I mean? Everything to be like an adventure for them when they eat.


Okay.


And so it's really hard because like the protein options, like even if you give them the full menu, it's hard to get them to do it.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah.


Let's get take out me.


Okay. Yeah.


You know, I just feel like we need to really evolve it more to make it mainstream because these people aren't like most people, right, They're not going to be able to do it unless science evolves, especially when you tell them what it is.


Mhm. Yeah. Oh yeah.


There's some people that are just no matter what in their head, right.


Yeah. Yeah.


They're just like, it's bugs. I'm not eating fine for me. I'm just like, oh, if it tastes good and it's not going to hurt me, I'll eat it.


Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Would you try to do that's that's blowfish sushi, but it's like a super poisonous fish that if it's, if you're the sushi chef cuts it incorrectly, you could die.


Was that I have no idea. I've heard of that man to do it for me, Right?


Uh huh.


The guy that served like thousands of people and then I would try it.


Mhm. Yeah.


Not like this guy, just like, yeah, I just learned this in school last year and I'm here now we do know, give me your grandpa just like, I don't trust that.


Mhm.


But yeah, like the guy that served thousands of people, right?


Yeah.


He knows what he's doing.


I think I feel safe.


So I need to have my first from the guy, right? Just to make sure that I'm not going to die.


I don't know.


Uh, yeah, I'm a big trier. Thanks. Okay.


Oh, that's awesome.


Yeah. Hey, I got to run. I got to, I got something like five minutes.


See Hey, good news that it was really nice. Starting with you. I'm Krista.


Yes, I'm James.


Thanks to me.


But well, we need to kind of this thing, Right?


Okay.


We're allowed.


All right. Take care.


Right? You too. Bye. Bye.


Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Uh huh. Mhm. Okay. Mhm Oh, right. Mhm. Mhm, mm. Uh huh. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yes. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. All right. Yeah. Right click close together. Right. Mhm uh Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I'm Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh Oh yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Is that possible? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. One problem. Yeah.


Hello?


Yeah, I'm good.


What's up? Let me start. I'm gonna start the timer here for 25 minutes. All right. Hello. I am matt.


Right, okay.


What is your name, kevin?


And I see um kevin.


Thanks to meet you can to.


All right. Well, I don't know what we should talk about.


Mhm. All right, that was my question. I was just so it's like talk about whatever.


Yeah, like in the instructions, they said that they would like give us like a guide if we wanted to use it and then they did not do that.


I didn't see one on the survey.


No. Yeah. So, I guess I don't know. I I brought up like a list of just like common question and some of them are actually pretty entertaining.


Uh huh Oh, that's cool. Okay.


So I guess we can just do that.


And let's go.


Um You want but before we do that uh What's like your what's your deal? What do you do? Are you a student freshman in college?


I am a student called. I'm a freshman in college.


My God, what I wouldn't give. I'm in law school right now.


Right?


I just started, yeah, I just finished my first year.


Uh huh.


It is a nightmare and a big mistake.


What is your major aim?


Getting fun. Um What do you I majored in. It's called Labor and employment relations.


Mhm, mm.


Like like human resources. Um Or I started in finance and then um I joined a business frat and I met all these kids who were like, I've been investing since I was like seven years old and stuff like that. I was like, oh I haven't. So then I got out of there and I changed L.


Mhm.


E. R. And then after a while of that I was like, this isn't that cool either, but I was too deep, so I graduated with it and then I just went to law school.


Sure.


What do you what do you make? Drinking insight?


I imagine it's like um not really bad.


That's cool move. Um Okay, where do you go?


I go to Fresno state, Fresno state, it's in California.


Where? Okay. All right, cool.


I went to penn State.


Um All right. Let's see. The first one that I saw that I thought was a good question was what's like something that's like really popular, Like everybody seems to love it, but that you don't get at all.


Mhm. They're really popular. That right, drake, I don't get him.


Yeah. His name.


He's like, I just don't get his music.


I totally agree.


Yeah I don't know what to say. I just he's topping the charts. He's doing so well but I just can't find myself to listen to his music.


I know like he's had like a couple of songs that I like kind of got into. Like I remember I think what was it called?


Like Passion Fruit? I think I was like that's a cool song. I enjoy that song, but most of them like not into it at all.


Yeah.


And also like he's definitely like a pedophile. Have you seen all that stuff? Yeah.


Good life.


No, he's he's bad.


I don't what about you? There's something no, I don't drink coffee rising.


Yeah. Um I mean I agree with that for sure. Um Let's see. I don't know. Uh I probably have like a bunch I would say. I don't know. I don't drink coffee. I don't know everybody's like obsessed with coffee. Yeah. It tastes terrible. Um Also like uh Tiktok. I've tried I've tried so hard to get into it, but it's like, it's so weird.


Yeah. Right. Mhm.


Like the generational gap like you and I are probably like in the same generation.


Yeah we are.


I would, yeah.


I would assume I do but I don't post anything I just watched it's for entertainment.


But like for whatever reason, the gap between like your end of the generation and mine is so like huge in terms of like that type. Like do you use Tiktok? Yeah. Right. I I have like a few accounts that I follow and like I'm only in it for the stuff that feels like buying pretty much.


Mhm.


Um, like the things where people like do like Tiktok dances and stuff like I don't get, Yeah.


I mean I don't you're watching for the basically for the vine content that doesn't exist anymore.


No, I don't see the appeal. Right? Yeah. Like just for the memes.


Mhm wow.


Um, but yeah, I definitely don't get tick tock. I wonder if I have anything else. Good. I don't know. Honestly. Like not even just drake, but like so much of like what everyone listens to now. I like just I'm not in any mumble rap like I just can't, I can't do it.


Oh have you listened to them?


I don't know. But I'm like a big music guy. So like I listened to like, I don't know.


Yeah.


Um My favorites are like all the really obvious like old people pretty much like the Beatles Elton john billy Joel, all that stuff.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.


Like if it's like an elderly white man's favorite music, it's probably mine.


Um But also I don't know, Casey elephants great. Um Who else? And then they're like arcade fire. They've made good stuff. I don't know. Who do you listen to?


I'm a pop person.


Pop?


Yeah, that's fair. Let's go to bear listen that say so song I've never listened to it all the way through but I think it's catchy from the magnet heard heard fragments and it's it's stuck in light weight.


Oh it's fire. Yeah.


Real question. What's like, what is like your your thing like what's your big interest? What do you spend your time on running?


I mostly I love running and reading that. Yeah.


Ooh.


I used to be a runner in high school and then I kind of stopped and I'm trying to get back in it because what else am I supposed to do in quarantine?


No. Oh my god.


Uh huh I know it's torture.


Um Yeah no getting back in the running is so hard. It's uh Yeah I a few years ago for um this is hard to explain. There's like okay so I said I was in business breath. I would depend Penn state has this like giant event called thon every year.


Mhm Mhm Mhm Mhm Mhm Mental hospital ward, mm Did you train before or did you just said Okay, thank you.


That's like a dance marathon thing. You don't actually dance. But it's just like um a bunch of people stand in our basketball stadium for um 46 hours straight and it's like to raise money for pediatric cancer. Um so it's a great thing and one of the things people do to raise money for it is run a half marathon was a really long winded way of getting to that. Um but yeah so I ran like a freaking half marathon like three years ago and did not run a mile for like a year after that because it was so hard and now I'm like yeah seriously, I can't imagine doing twice that disgusting. Yeah. No, no, no, I train.


Uh Mhm mm Mhm.


Yeah, but I also like never did any sports growing up except like golf, which debatable if um So I did that for like I trained for like a year probably before I actually ran it and it was fine. But yeah after that I just dropped off so hard.


Two Mhm Okay.


I literally went, oh my God, I went running today because it was like a super nice day. Um And I like like almost like collapsed, not actually but like uh oh it was so bad and I ran for like not not far, it was not impressive, I need to I need to work on it so running.


All right.


And then what did you say the other thing was reading?


Reading Yeah, I have been reading this book college since atlantic Love affair.


Yeah. What do you like, what do you read?


It's good.


Mhm.


It's a compilation of letters back in like The 1960s, this woman, this French poet is to have a relationship with an American guy and she would write love letters to him and it's a compilation of her letters.


Mhm wow.


It's actually really good. Yeah, yeah, they're real yeah, it's not a story.


Wait, they're like they're real like it's not a story. No way.


I don't like I don't like reading stories that much.


Right. Yeah, no that's really cool.


Yeah. Mhm.


That's actually like a genuinely but that's cool.


I like reading like autobiographies, biographies, like anything's okay.


That's like what I would read if I read but I read that much.


Yeah, yeah.


Um my things are like like I said music, I'm like super super into music. I like play a bunch of instruments, try to write songs um listen to a lot of it.


Oh yeah, our instruments.


Um I don't know um I play guitar mostly and if you play guitar you can play bass and also like yuk pretty much, I mean I have a yuk um piano except self taught, so not not well though um drums and um mandolin kind of because like it's like a tiny guitar messed with harmonica.


Do you play? Nice? Yeah. Mhm Mhm Yeah, I thank you for sharing this conversation because I just walked in extracting.


So yeah music is music is my thing. Um I don't know I like I got into fitness over the last year. Um And like I love me a good conspiracy or like paranormal stuff. That stuff's fun. I don't know those are my things. There is another good question on here. I saw if you have any questions feel free. Yeah. Yeah I'm just trying to make $15, right, Yep.


Yeah, me.


Same. Um Oh I kind of asked that already actually.


Mhm.


Um.


So currently you're in pennsylvania.


Yeah no no no no um I live in Maryland.


I Mhm Okay.


I yeah my like sister went to Penn State and then my brother followed her there and then for whatever reason I like put no effort into college applications, I think I legitimately applied to like four schools. Like I was just not feeling the college search, I was not interested. I did Maryland penn state and then like U penn and uh you be a I think or something like that did not get into those two. So then it was just mail under penn state. So yeah, I went to Penn State but now I live in living memory. Um Oh no, I do have another question. Um What have you like been using your quarantine time for? Sounds like running is one of the things maybe.


Mostly online classes.


Oh wait what are you still in school?


I'm still in school. It's finals week. I'm I just finished the final.


Oh that is brutal. Um yeah, I just I had my finals week a couple weeks ago I guess.


I guess that makes sense. It's May 15.


Are you on a quarter system or I don't, it's law school like?


Yeah.


Ah right.


No it's um it's semesters it's just two semesters. Yeah. Oh my God. Are finals were crazy?


No.


Don't go to law school.


Mhm.


If you ever think about it, don't okay if you're actually gonna look into it then I'm kidding totally beginning.


I thought about it. I actually genuinely thought about it because my friend who also made use in psych, she says she wanted to go to law school. I was like, let me look into that.


But if you're not never go along with our finals because we got to do them like take home obviously.


Uh huh uh Uh huh.


So Instead of having like the normal three hours we had 24 hours to do them.


Mm.


And let me tell you how a law school exam usually goes, usually there's like maybe four essay questions or like three or something like that and you have your three hours for my torts exam last semester.


Okay. Yeah.


Um I think I did like two full questions and like barely started the third and I got like a B plus from that because that's how terrible everybody does. So then we all do better.


Oh yeah.


But when you have 24 hours you don't have an excuse to not do an entire question and you have no excuse to do a bad job.


So you pretty much spend an insane amount of time. I literally would start my exams at two and finish at 10 a.m. The next day, Horrible horrible two weeks don't do it.


Oh my God.


Um But yeah, so you've just been doing like classes? That's right.


Mm. Almost ending. Thank God.


Yeah. Yeah. How much do you have left?


Just five more finals, hey.


5, 5. What? five More finals?


Yeah.


Was this was this your first today and um stick.


Mhm. Yeah, it's a, I had a lab final that I have, I'm taking five classes and one of them has a lab, so I took the lab final today and then the um all the rest of the actual finals are next week.


But God, wow.


Mhm.


Easy. That is way too many.


Uh huh.


Um What did you like? You're pretty lucky that like, I mean no one's lucky that coronavirus happened. But um like I feel so bad.


I have so many like friends who are still seniors or I mean now they just graduated, but that would be so bad your senior year, like you did last time with your friends and then it's like just shut down.


Mhm. Out to have gradually the people I see people having like virtual graduations.


That sucks. But oh my God, It's those dad that doesn't even compare.


That's that sucks. Uh huh. Yeah.


Uh What kind of stuff did you like do this year? Like your freshman year? Did you like join anything?


I didn't get a chance to be honest.


Oh yeah.


Right. Uh So great, right?


Okay.


Yeah. Now that I think about it, the only thing I did my business, I joined in the spring.


Yes.


So yeah. Mm That's wild, wow.


I guess to answer my own question. Um I've been doing like a lot with quarantine. Honestly, Quarantine has been amazing for me, which is a very unpopular opinion.


Uh I mean I liked it, I love it you're honest.


But I'm having, yeah, I'm having the time of my life. Like I'm I'm a total like home body most of the time I have like my moments where I'm like super extroverted than trying to go everywhere. But yeah, I've like had so many goals like watch classic movies that it's like crazy that I've never seen and I've watched so many now and like um like trying to sell my childhood lego sets and like finally got around to doing that. Um and I don't know, like running again and stuff like quarantine good news for me, but you know, still bad, bad thing. Mm hmm. No, we already talked about that. Okay, interesting. Um What do you do when you hang out with your friends? I can't tell if that's a good question on that.


I just hanged out hung out with my friend last weekend which we probably shouldn't have.


Oh yeah, probably.


But it was yeah but um will you play baton? And it was 100 degrees that day and we're like should we cancel or no?


Yeah. Oh my God. Mm.


But it was like we set the date like two weeks prior so which is like we can't cancel now. So we were You played that for like five minutes and almost passed out because it was so hot.


Uh huh. Yeah, I bet.


Yeah that's just and that's what we normally we love playing back and we love going to like shopping malls and going into stores and coming back out just window shopping, wow.


Yeah. Well, I totally get that. That's fair. Um All right. That's super cool though. That's cool. I haven't seen anybody in so long.


Yeah.


Um Although Maryland is like kind of, we've had declining cases for two weeks, so like, I guess that means you're doing well.


Right. Mhm Oh fine, I'm so jealous.


So like we're allowed to reopen a little bit starting today actually, like now you can get a haircut and stuff like that, which I desperately need. Mhm. As you should be. Um My friends and I when we hang out, we're literally hanging out for the first time tomorrow. Actually, we're going to like sit on lawn chairs six ft apart at one of our um but let's see when we hang out, you know what we do actually?


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm.


Okay, this is kind of an okay question. Um My one friend is super obsessed with tea, which is a green tea.


With what?


The drink.


Oh I'm obsessively.


I know, yeah, Really random. No, but he's like, you just wait, he um he curls, you know like curling um and they went to Seattle to curl his team once.


Mhm.


Um and he was just looking into like good tea houses in the area while they were there and him and his brother found this guy named mm Jason, maybe his name was also Kevin. I don't know. We're gonna for clarity.


We're going to call him Jason. Um And He was this guy, he was like, he was a white man who was like super into drugs like 20 years ago or something. Um like he was super addicted bad time and he was like I got to get away from stuff and he packed up everything and moved to China didn't speak a word of chinese or anything.


You just moved to china and um I got a job on like a tea farm or something and spent like a whole decade there and like you know never spoke english.


So now he has like broken english like chinese accent which is just very unexpected.


I mean mhm.


Um And he like came back here and started this crazy tea company called T book where he like, he sources all the t from like the mountains of Vietnam and stuff like that.


Like he has to see the farms. Um It's like it's hard core stuff.


Oh God.


It's not like it's not like uh something you get a Starbucks, you know?


Yeah.


Um And my friend is like really weird. So he has like this little here. He's not weird, but he's super into his tea. So he has like a whole tea set and like a little T uh cicada statue that we have to pour our before we drink it.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah mm That's cool.


Her name is sharp. Um So yeah, we all like when we're all home because now we're out of college. So like people are in different places, but if we're ever all here um we always like go to his house to have to. That's my parents thought for a long time that that was a lie because it doesn't sound true but that is what I was going to do is going to drink tea.


Mhm. Uh huh. Sounds like a cover, a cover story.


It really does. But it's stranger than that.


Um Uh huh. Uh huh. Some weird questions. Yeah. Okay.


What?


Mhm.


Okay. This is not the question I just read but it made me think of a question, have you ever seen a dead body away?


Have you ever seen a dead body? Yes. Actually.


Where?


Uh huh. In the hospital I was with my grandma and someone and the uh room next door like passed away like and I was like I was walking and then I just started like people just like crying and screaming like from the room and I like high peak and they are I and then I just moments later I see someone like the body being pushed out of the so yeah.


Oh come on. Thank god. Oh yeah. Dude. Oh God.


Before that, no and that happened like last year, have you?


Don't despair. Right. Mhm. That is disturbing. Yeah I have. Um Yeah no there's something so weird about seeing the lifeless body.


Oh. Oh, mm.


Um Although when I asked this I didn't even think about it but I guess when like one of my grandparents passed away, we like visited his body before we like cremated. So I guess I never thought about that but that happened but then at the beach a couple years ago um we're all just you know swimming around having a good time and then we see like a ruckus happening a few like you know down the down the shore. So we go over there and we see that a man has washed up on the beach the body of a man and he was like it was so disturbing, it was like first of all he was a black man and parts of his body were just white like just everything like I don't even know how that happens but like it was just like pure whiteness and his clothes had been ripped away and the people I I stood next to the people who like discovered him.


Mhm. Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah.


The woman was like yeah we were just swimming there and then like my son felt something touch him and he thought it was the fish and it was a man and he was dead.


Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh. Oh my God, yeah, that's, that's disturbing.


Yeah really nasty. Um And we found out later like what happened? It was a guy who had just gone swimming like really late at night and that was like three days before he washed up. So he was just floating around in the sea For like three days. So yeah good good conversations.


Uh huh wow. Uh huh Uh huh I wanted to, I would have this being with my friend and I, we wanted to open like a, like a shop for hand made soap.


Um That's kind of a fun question. Um Although we've only got like three minutes left but okay now it's fine. Um If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be? Uh huh.


It just sounds like such a fun and cozy idea and like a small town or something, but neither of us know how to make soap so that's well mm hmm.


Oh yeah. Uh huh. What? I assumed that that was the background. No, just the your workplace would smell me every day.


Is that we're just going to learn and say whatever, but yeah, that's mhm No, no.


Um I also have like a thing with my friend where we agreed that someday we will move to Belgium.


Mhm.


I don't know why we chose Belgium um And have like a dual shop where it's like one half is I think he wants to, he for some reason wants to be like a florist I think.


Um So he would have his flower shop and he's very intent on having like a shrine to buddha hidden in it somewhere, He's not buddhist.


Um And then I would have my hat which would be a record store. Um But also like a super old fashioned like 1950s like Soda fountain type place with like, you know the little counter?


Uh And it would make like, I don't know, old fashioned foods and sodas and the wall between our places would be all like open squares.


Have, mm hmm.


It's like square panels where you can see like into the other shop and that's what that would be where the records are. Would be like in the panels. And he wants there to be a cat that roams between our abs super allergic to cats, but it's fine. So yeah, the I think it would work really well and could make millie.


Something great combinations. So you have some very spiritual friends.


Yeah, I guess so. Um mm hmm.


Yeah.


Okay. No. All right.


Mhm, mm.


Yeah. Okay. What? Oh, that's who. It's kind of like I'm going to change it. What in your life brings you the most joy?


Uh I don't know, honestly, it's being here.


So mhm. What?


Existing?


Being alive.


Being alive?


That's great.


Thank you.


You must be so full of joy all the time.


Mhm. I just appreciate me being here, you know.


What? Oh yeah. Um yeah, I have a super hard question. I should have asked it. I guess.


Right.


Like what brings me the most joy?


Mhm.


Maybe like, no, that's not true. Mm I like like really beautiful nature spot. I don't know. I just like when you're in like a crazy, beautiful place with like an insane view and like probably a sunset that always like ads, you know something um and maybe like, you know, friends are like someone special.


Yeah.


Uh That's like that.


Those are always like really good moments. Or like add that friend with the t at his house.


His house is like really short. So we would sometimes like put a ladder up there and climb onto his roof and still like super late at night.


Mhm. Oh, that's nice and chill.


And it was really cool because he has like a view of like wide open sky and stuff. So I don't know. That's always a Mhm. It's really true. All right. Well, Kevin are 25 minutes up.


Yeah, it's yeah.


Our $15 are made, so I guess. I don't know. I guess we just close out of this bag, right?


Yeah. It was great talking to you.


All right. Uh Great talking to you, kevin.


Thank you for bringing up the questions you two back.


Absolutely. All right. Have a good have a good life. I mean. All right. Bye.


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. And here Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. There was a lot of people Mhm. Mhm. Remember with me actually. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. In the kitchen, mm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Uh huh.


Uh huh Yeah.


Hello?


Hello. Uh huh. Can you hear me?


Yes, can you hear me?


Oh, there you are. Hi. I apologize. There has been a, I was having difficulty understanding the instructions.


Yeah. Mhm.


Apparently the link did not work the first two or three times I tried it.


Yes. Yeah, mm hmm.


Finally, I copied everything down to the word email and that seems to have worked.


Mhm.


So Hello.


It was Mhm.


I apologize for being late. There's something I almost never am but specifically said do not even try to link up here until the appointed hour.


Yeah. Exactly yeah, mm, mm.


So instead of what I usually do is start 10 minutes early to make sure I'm there. That is the story of my life. That's what I do anyway.


Yeah, I am Riley.


Hi, who are you?


Who are you?


I'm Steve. I'm in uh I'm in a town 20 miles north of Cincinnati.


Yeah. Yeah, I'm in Chicago.


Ohio. Where you at? So far out what part of?


I'm in Chicago.


Check out what part of Chicago?


Um South side, so like your your Chicago.


Mm I've only been to Chicago a couple of times and always inside the loop.


Yeah. Yeah. What drinks?


So I'm not that familiar with the rest.


Mhm.


But I was there just in time. True, oddly enough. See the cubs beat their 100 year dry spell or whatever that was whatever year that was.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Everything feels so long ago. Pre pandemic, definitely.


I know all the comics and so on are commenting about how 2020 has been one entire century of a year.


I don't think there would be a year where you could tell me the sky is orange and I would believe you, but here we are.


Yeah, just about So are we supposed to talk about anything in specific?


Mhm, mm I don't think so. I don't think it says too. I think I'm looking at the instruction.


Mm Well I get mixed up on the instructions. Um, a few days ago I had another meeting that turned out to be a guy who was conducting a product testing survey and I, so I got them mixed up.


Mhm. Mhm. Yeah phillips, mm.


I didn't know if there was supposed to be a random conversation or if he was going to be asking these specific questions about a new type of um, um, health monitoring phone app, something that well, I'm diabetic and this was specifically about diabetes, but I just had to tell him that when it comes to a phone app, that is something that is for a while.


Mhm. Mhm. Oh okay. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. There, yeah, Yeah.


I can see how for someone who is newly diagnosed with an illness that requires them to take well About 15 different types of medicine three times a day.


Mhm. Mhm.


I can see where at first that would be a major problem because I would like so many other people would carry one of those pill boxes at every swing for this hour.


Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.


And that our oh lost you. We try to put you back up.


Oh no, can you hear me again?


I tried I can still hear you but all I see is a blank face.


Okay.


Um I'm going to put you up on the main screen see if that helps any.


Yeah. No I see me and not you. That's not that important.


Die.


Well um we'll survive it.


Mhm, mm.


What do you do for a living?


Mhm. Um Me enough. I'm in public health.


Uh huh.


Yeah. So I've been busy.


Right. I am one of those people who you uh serve.


Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Although I don't do covid stuff. Do like disability health stuff, so like making sure that people have resources.


Okay. Then they matched us up. Exactly because that is my thing.


All right.


I am after having spent, let's see From 2012 2 2013 when I was about a year and a half total in the hospital uh came out uh with absolutely nothing but the hospital gown on my back or front as it were as we know the hospital gallons don't have backs.


Yeah. Yeah. Mhm, mm. Yeah.


So that was an embarrassing, very embarrassing thing to be standing out on a street corner wearing.


Yeah. Yeah.


I'm kidding but that's not too far off the one that got out of the hospital.


Mhm.


Obviously everything I had ever owned was gone.


Yeah.


So from 2013 until now that's been rebuilding process and As a rebuilding a life of any kind.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yes.


So as of 2014 um I finally managed to well got on total total permanent disability.


Is that what it is?


Mhm. Something like that. Yeah.


So I'm on Social Security Social Security disability.


So while my lawyer described that as I would be so there your mind while my dear lawyer described that as I would be set for life, what he means is that I will be able to survive barely.


Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


Because as we all know, Social Security is about half of the way Below, you know, if the poverty level is $24,000 a year or less, then people on Social Security make half of that.


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. When you can't keep a savings depending on what you're like, what kind of money that you're getting and it keeps you forever in poverty, even though you'll be able to sustain a level of income?


Mhm. Okay. Yeah. Well of course, the thing I discovered very quickly, you know after Really I kind of retired and went into a sort of a stasis mode in 2007 and coming back out and back into the world in 2013 or 2014, go, Okay, good story, we got 25 minutes.


Mm hmm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


I finally got my social security disability.


And that made me eligible for something called S. E. Supplemental security income which is supposed to be your something you're getting to survive on while you are filing for disability.


Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


But in actuality you don't get it until you get the disability.


Mhm.


So a classic oxen more oxymoron. But when you do get that big check, first of all, the federal government says they can't give it to you all at one time because they don't have it. That was hilarious.


But when you go to a bank to try, when I went to a bank to try to deposit some $20,000 into a savings account to start a savings account first the teller at the bank told me I had to go and withdraw it from an ATM and bring it to them Had what $300 at a time.


Yeah. Mhm. Break.


So that was nuts. But when I finally got days later, when I finally got in touch with some sort of management person who did manage to take my government check.


Yeah.


Maybe they don't trust the government either. But when I finally did manage to get a savings account open, um and then a year later I get an email from them telling me that because I have not access that account, they're going to start charging me $50 a month to have it.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm, mm.


I'm like, wait, this is a savings account.


The whole point is it's supposed to sit there accruing interest until you know, 10 minutes before I die so that I can pass it on to my descendants.


Right.


Um This is the same music count. What's the deal here? Well, of course, now we know what I had suspected for years is that since 1998 and a change in the way banking is ruled that banks are not savings and loans, corporations, they are financial institutions selling financial instruments.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


In other words, they are they're basically um what they're doing is they're selling you, they are charging you for their service because they have tried their very best to make themselves absolutely necessary.


Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Mhm.


Mhm. However, they have totally failed because none of them. The one thing I said to the lady when I went there to close my account out of disgust, I said if you think that you are absolutely, I forgot the word, I can't think the word.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


All I can think of is inevitable. If you think you are absolutely necessary, then have you ever tried to get a taxi in Mumbai?


Mhm.


Because guess what?


You cannot get a taxi and Mumbai with Visa card.


Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.


You cannot use a Visa card or Mastercard or any kind of a bank card, american express or anything like that. Or a debit card or a phone payment system.


You know whatever that is. You cannot use that to get a cab in Mumbai. You know what you can use to get a cab in Mumbai with american dollars.


Mhm. Yeah.


You know you can get a jack in the Himalayas to go up Mount Everest in, can't use a Visa.


You have to use american dollars.


So these banks that have convinced you they are an absolute necessity are wrong.


Yeah. Yeah. Where I live now in fact is so out of touch with the modern age that I literally could not use paypal to go to my local store and buy something if I wanted to. They don't have that technology.


That's frustrating.


No. Yeah.


Mhm. Right. Mhm. I mean, how did you deal with that?


Yeah. And how did I deal with it?


Yeah, Fair enough.


I carry american dollars. Yeah.


Yeah. I think that people are so used to having everything on a card that no one has their money out physically, so they're seeing physically how much they're spending too.


Yeah. Yeah. You were obviously much younger than I am. So you might be the type of person such as my ex.


Uh I'm a musician and I was most recently over five years working with music partner.


Mhm. Yeah, mm.


Uh you know uh we had a singing duo and she was only like 20, she's I think 27 now.


Mhm, mm.


But she was while younger. When I first met her, I was that I was running a open mic at a coffee house and she walked in and got up there and some Turn the page by Bob Seger Perfectly.


Mhm. Mhm.


And I went to her father and her parents who were there is how old is this chick?


Mhm.


She looks 16. Why does she know who Bob Seger is?


So I was highly impressed by that. So we started a musical relationship and her being that young and also having been home schooled and rather sheltered.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.


She has a whole bunch of social developmental mental issues. But one thing she had no concept of was cash.


All right, mm. Uh huh.


I mean, she was literally the type of person, as many are who, you know have to have a card to buy a stick of gum, whereas I am quite the opposite and come from a heavily cash based society uh where the idea of a card is something I would go, well maybe I'll get one just for an emergency and I'm from that generation, so I'm quite familiar with cash, I know what it looks like, I know what it feels like, and I also know if somebody gives me a pay coin really.


Mhm. Yeah. Right. Mhm, mm hmm. What are your thoughts on coin shortages stuff like here in Chicago? Were having issues of people being able to get quarters? Yeah. Yeah, wow, you've been stopped.


Um I can send you some, I've got about $900 in quarters over here. Mhm. Um My local market relies on me quite a bit late at night.


You were prepared. You are ready. Mhm.


I will actually go over there, like in the late evening, I'll go over there to get a late night snack or something and they will say, you know, we're out of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, well as it happens, I've got a whole bunch of so and the last time I went over there was like, Okay, here you go.


I rolled up some and it was like $98 and that was last night.


Yeah.


So, and so they're grateful for the fact that because of my, because of covid weight gain, don't wear anything but sweats and the sweats don't stay up because I'm fat, so I don't wear change in my pockets because I just wave my pants down as a result, I'm going a whole bunch of change sitting over here in coffee gins in the morning.


Mhm. Mhm, mm. Mhm. Hey. Mhm. Yeah.


In fact, literally when my friend, my music partner friend came over one time and I told her I could use the mel growing up some days. She did not believe that I thought I had $1000 in change and coffee cans on myself until she took one look and said, I think you do, we wound up and we have $1450.


Yeah. Yeah.


The issue was taking it too.


Mhm. Mhm.


That's another thing about banks.


Uh huh.


Banks won't take it.


Come there was a time not very long ago. In fact, my mother, my father owned a gas station small business back in the days before.


Mhm.


It was cool to own a small business. If you weren't a corporate suit man that you were nobody, we were a family of gas station owners who lived in a neighborhood of lawyers who all look down on us because, well basically my father parked the boat beside the house and the front yard was full of cars in various states of repair.


Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.


So they hated us, especially the guy next door who was a general, well, the big industry down here was General Electric.


Yeah. Okay.


They, they employed about half the city of Cincinnati.


And my city is one of those suburban communities that were built out of that.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


Well, general electric and a place called Fisher Body, which makes all the bodies for general motors cars and used to make tanks and so on and so forth.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm, mm hmm.


But anyway, so uh, we used to have a slider where you pour a slide on an angle or you pour them change slowly down the thing and they would all go down there little slides and their little slots and I'll come about in little steps opinion, nickels, dimes and quarters and that has five year olds.


That was a favorite thing I wanted to do was like uh mhm. But then there is the electronic coin changers, there's also, what is that, what eventually became called coin star? You're familiar with that, the big machine at the grocery store.


Yeah. Yeah.


You take all your change and you put it in there and account you, but it doesn't give you cash, it gives you a slip of paper that just then supposed to take to the cashier and get cash.


Mhm. Yeah.


And even nowadays that confuses the cashier. She's like, what is this you want to buy something? Uh It's a very frustrating, very uh by and by this, what's the word?


Yeah.


Um or our entire culture in America is based entirely on that.


You know what I discovered in Chicago when I was there for an extended period for a week, about three or 44 or five years ago down inside the loop.


Yeah, mm. Yeah.


The first thing that I found fascinating was why is the next person in line Standing six ft back from the person at the counter.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah.


This was long before Covid.


I came to discover that was because of the vince paint of and I guess it's still happening of people being able to use their phone to read was on your car as your swiping in to get information through the IV either.


Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


And so that made sense.


And so that cracks me up when this year came about and I realized, well, wait a minute. This whole six ft thing Chicago has had been doing it for years.


And Mhm.


And me personally, living in a region that is, oh, what shall we say, low income, high crime neighborhood. Um, I have and we have always had a thing about don't get inside my personal space.


Mhm. Yeah, mm hmm.


In other words, stay at least one arm's length away. So for covid all you have to do is double that number. And I've always done that because being disabled and no longer capable of basically protecting myself or defending myself in the ways that I used to back before because my my injuries described by a my doctors and nurses in the hospital has, what were you hit by a train?


Okay. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.


No, it was repetitive stress injuries over a lifetime of doing the hard labor that no one else wanted to do because no one else wanted to do it and they would refuse.


Okay. Mhm. Yeah.


And I also got paid quite well for doing that.


Mhm. Yeah.


That was what I did during the day to find my music during the night. So I always had a day job and that day job always involved moving people's furniture up four floors because nobody has an elevator or if they do have an elevator, you certainly can't put your couch in the elevator.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, mm.


Moving corporate furniture is easy. Everybody's got a big freight elevator and you can put everything up on wheels, You're moving somebody's furniture, you basically literally have to strap the cows on your back and climb the steps.


Yeah. You're right. Mhm. Mhm.


And that is one of many things I used to do.


Yeah.


I was a six ft two guy who was, you know, used to work out and could lift up Volkswagens and was frequently called on to do exactly that because they take one look at me and go, I never mind your brain, what we need is your brawn, because we've got lots of brains over here, but nobody that can pick this up and move it over there.


Mhm, mm mm, mm hmm. Yeah, mm hmm.


So I spent a lot of lifetime doing that. We're moving furniture and working loading docks and things like that during the day because it also paid well and was a good way to stay in shape.


Mhm. Yeah, mm.


I've always had a theory about going to the gym and why would you pay to go to a gym when you know you're going to fight tooth and nail in the parking lot to get that one parking lot space, one door, one face closer to the door when I, if you just walked through the door and back, you're done and you save your gym feet.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Mhm.


So you know, get up and do some work.


And I think the old Rocky movie where Rocky would Walla drago with that Rocky free where the Russian guy came in and scientific analysis done and all these uh, scientific exercises.


Yeah. Mhm. Right. Mhm. Yeah.


Rocky goes to a farm in Russia And works for six months.


Yeah. Mhm. Okay.


I'm a firm believer and exercise through work, lost track of the conversation.


Mhm. Mhm.


I'm the type of guy I'm a performer and an entertainer.


You were talking about exercising.


So if someone gives me 25 minutes on a stage, I will use it and run out of time before I get finished.


Mhm. Yeah.


I also tend to be scattered shot when it comes to thought processes.


Mhm.


Have you ever heard of Gary mule deer?


Race. You know, I have, but I don't really know much about it. Do you mind sharing?


He's a comic from going way, way back, uh, the seventies and so on. And he's recently back in the, in the news because he's got an internet channel. But he's a guy who did.


Mm.


I followed his example. He's a guy who went to an open mic way back in the early seventies at a beach bar in L. A. To go play his music and get discovered. And what he discovered was that no one was listening until rather than play his guitar, he would start to play and then start telling jokes, then people listen. So he became something of a legendary comedian.


We're going back to the johnny Carson days, but I kind of copied his act and doing that ever since when I go on on stage out here, up until this year I would go out and I would start my act and then I would realize that I had forgotten to play one an entire song.


Mhm. Mhm. Okay. Yes, mm hmm.


Mhm. It's like, well you don't really want to hear this, especially dinner theater. But so I had to actually train myself to learn to start playing music.


I'd forgotten. I just get busy.


What do you do now because you can't perform any, can you perform very cool.


No. Um What I do is I am spending this year recording an album. Well that has been a whole set of new issues.


That also because while I was accomplished producer and uh composer and what they called a staff songwriter in L.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


A. In the eighties and nineties, my job was I was given an assignment. They needed a piece of music this long particular type of style in a particular length to go under a video or to introduce a radio program. You know what we call then incidental music.


Yes.


It's now called Sync licensing.


Mhm.


So I don't think my job didn't exist. But my job was literally to write music to go, like if you ever watched a corporate training video Or a documentary, there is 99% likely to be music under it.


Oh yeah. Mhm.


And that was my job because I was cheaper than trying to pay for the rights to anybody else's music.


Yeah. Mhm.


And also I could write music that specified whatever style or this and that they wanted.


Now this didn't have the side effect is that many years after I had stopped doing that job, I was at a bachelor party and I heard some music, some of my music coming out of a back room at this bachelor party and I went back there to look and there were five guys watching a porno.


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm.


And sure enough, my music had been sink to a porno and like, okay, sure why not?


Yeah. Great. Mhm, mm.


That never mattered to me. All I know is I got a weekly paycheck paycheck for producing this music, one piece of music or two pieces of music, whatever I was assigned every week. So that's why I was called a staff songwriter rather than have to worry about what they call spec as inspector, Get paid, try to sell it and then get points on the gross. I actually got a weekly paycheck to produce music on demand, which was a word that did not exist.


It meant something entirely different than, than it does now.


Mhm. Yeah, mm.


Yeah.


That's very interesting though. An interesting situation to find your music being used in all these different places that originally you didn't think that was where they would end up or didn't imagine that they would.


Okay. Yeah. Well just that did surprise me some because no one had actually told me that but also I don't care.


Yes. Right. Yeah, mm.


All I cared was at the time I had a family to take care of.


Mhm.


You know, I know is that I got paid on friday.


It's Yeah.


Sure you know as I said, my, my father was a blue collar, he came when I came out of the blue collar world.


Two.


So I wanted to know, you know, it was my big concern was getting a weekly paycheck on friday rather than hoping to get a big check once I just wanted to study job when you're living in L.


All right. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.


A. You definitely need money.


Mhm. Right. Mhm.


Okay.


And what was it like living?


So what else do you do?


Oh, um well, I mean, I'm doing grad school too as I'm working, so.


Gradual group.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun time.


Oh yeah, no, I actually skipped grad school, I had an opportunity to go to L.


A lot of work. Mhm. Mhm.


A. To get the big check and of course, like so many things as described by my favorite author, Douglas Adams, I got out there and I did many things that were almost entirely, almost a huge success, but in fact never quite saw the light of day.


Yes, mm. Right.


Aaron, Yeah, perhaps not, although it is something that I have recently considered getting back into, because my degrees in music theory and composition and while I was highly successful, oddly enough, in the few music education classes that I took, in fact, I got an award for a unit that I wrote on teaching, uh what should we call at risk, use music classes.


I mean, it happens. It sounds like you've done so much in your life that maybe grad school wouldn't have been something that you would have wanted to add anyways. Okay. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, mm boom, mm hmm.


I basically gave them all hammers and drums, but it turned out to be highly successful thing and I got an award for that. But what I don't have is an education degree. And in the past five years I have found myself um teaching kids in group situations to be a band to be musicians specifically.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, mm hmm.


Uh do you know what a praise band is?


No actually.


The kids at the church that do contemporary christian music as opposed to the traditional choir and all that stuff.


Mhm. Mhm.


And contemporary christian music or see I am contemporary, inspirational music is as big a business these days as any other genre in the music industry.


Mhm, mm hmm. Yeah.


They, they do quite well.


Yeah. Real.


So that's what a lot of what I'm recording is. Um I wound up working with.


Yeah.


Uh it turns out the reason I was sent here, if you want to say by God or by the universe.


Mhm.


I was followed by a whale kicking, dragged out of L.


A. And kicking and screaming out of L.


Right. Yeah.


A. And dropped into this weird town in southwestern Ohio, where there was this methodist church that was almost dead.


Yeah. Mhm.


That was about ready to close. It was a 200 year old methodist church with a giant cathedral style sanctuary that needed my skills, which was the ability to take a bunch of music equipment speakers, uh, stereo, you know, speakers, monitors, amplifiers and so on so forth.


Mhm. Right. Mhm, mm.


They were all from entirely different periods of time in history and cobble them all together into systems that worked together to make music.


And now I am, that is my primary job is I'm the Contemporary Music Director at First United Methodist Church in Hamilton Ohio, because that's what apparently was needed by them.


Okay. Okay.


And since then we have grown quite a bit because I happen to know that sound is important, something computer and geeks seemed to have never figured out The sound matters.


And we've now got from where we had 22, 50 Older people and maybe 30 younger people, the 30 younger people at the morning at the early contemporary service, and then maybe 30 older people at the traditional service, we now get over almost 1000 views a week for our church service.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


So the idea of streaming is something that the church has just discovered as a thing that can be done and given me a budget to do it with an incredibly limited, limited budget.


Right, mm. Mhm.


Actually, what they're doing is they're counting on the fact that I once again, I know how to kabul beat up old equipment together into something that works teaching.


Mhm, mm hmm.


I'll tell our phone a smartphone how to listen to a microphone.


Mhm. Yeah.


It's way harder than you could possibly imagine google it sometimes.


Mhm.


It's incredibly complicated.


Mhm. It sounds like it's incredibly complicated, especially if a church is willing to take you on to ask you to do those tasks.


Yeah. Well, quite frankly, they only asked me after they ran out of other ideas because of that.


Okay. Mhm.


The more senior people in the church are against the entire idea of contemporary approach to Christianity in general.


Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


They like some people like things old school, that's fine.


Yeah.


I sing in the choir too And that's great because these people are really good at what they do.


Aren't very many people and they're all older folks, but they're really good.


And singing in this gigantic sanctuary was specifically designed around one of these 200 pipe organs is cool.


You go in there and sing one time you go, wow, this is great.


Yeah, mm.


I thought singing in the shower, it was good. You ain't seen nothing yet. In fact, the sound there is so good that local, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and various other the Ohio State University Orchestra and Choir.


They come down here to report in that room because it's really cool.


Mhm. Oh, mm.


It's a great room for 1st sound, which was why many people think that they were pioneers because uh, a lot of people don't know that the Methodists did not even allow instruments inside the church Until 1928 Charles and john Wesley, especially Charles, Wesley wrote a lot of hymns, but they were not meant to be accompanied by anybody or anything.


Yeah. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Mhm.


You're supposed to stand there and sing it exactly as was written.


Oh, yes.


And unfortunately in this modern, the past 100 years, everybody has forgotten how to sing.


Oh yeah.


Thanks to a guy named ralph peer and the popularization of vinyl records. Well, hey, you know what? Mhm. I'm not going to complain about vinyl records, cracks me up the people of your age.


Yeah. Yeah, mm.


I'm not sure how you are, but my guess is you would understand if you're unsure in grad school if in the recent past, especially the past five or six or seven years, there's a recording studio.


Mhm.


I worked out down the road where the kids are lining up every night to record on tape and pressed to vinyl.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


As in we're talking about 20 year old kids are making vinyl records.


Mhm. There's definitely a lot of resurgence of that, right.


Yeah. Is that the millennials, the gen z have completely lost track of who is who and matter.


I don't even pretend to know. I think what's hard is like the millennials are that such a big age group we're talking like from night thirties, early forties to mid 20 year olds, like that's a really big group of people, yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what cracks me up is that they are now bigger than the boomers. And I don't even qualify my the people that are called baby boomers, the boomers don't even qualify me as boomer.


I was born in 61 so I'm in the very tail ed end of that period.


Mhm, mm, mm. Mhm. Yeah.


But I definitely remember the positive aspects of that period economically was that by that time, you know the average income, The average ceos income was about 24 times what his lowest paid employee was.


Yeah. Right. Mhm.


The average American had one house and believe 2.4 Children and 1.5 cars.


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm.


You know one new and one used car and everybody had one and that was normal.


Yeah.


That is you know that is completely foreign to a lot of people these days are like don't understand the concept.


Mhm. Yeah.


What do you mean having a house and a car and a family?


Mhm. Well a lot of it is income inequality like people of my age, if you want to get a degree, you end up in thousands of dollars in debt and it's so hard to do anything like build a family and buy a house because your loans kind of follow you like the ghost of christmas future.


Mhm, yep. Uh huh, yep. It all started with Ronald Reagan.


Okay, after a brief reversal of that attitude in the 90s, with Bill Clinton as men then back with the what's his name?


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


Barack Obama has been in a steady reversal really.


You can start with the idea of trickle down economics which everyone, you know, Starting in the 1980s by that time, it had been 50 years since 1930.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


And everybody forgot the reason why Hubert Herbert Hoover is one of the worst names in the history of history.


Everybody thinks he caused the depression and he only caused it while he was one of the most respected and best administrators of the time.


Mhm.


He genuinely believed that the economy can be cured by rich people donating And they failed to donate and starting in the 80s with the greatest good type period.


Yeah, mm. Please. Yeah.


He actually, resulting in a movie called Greed that everybody thought was a good thing, not, you know, not a shot at anybody or whatever the word is for that, I've forgotten the first one I'm talking to him once the English language starts to become a foreign one.


Mhm. Yeah, wow. Mhm. Right, mm.


But ever since then, and then then then that's when uh, the cost of an education, I consider myself to have been from the last period of people that could go to college to study too be intelligent and not to be trained to a specific job.


Mhm. Mhm, mm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


Nowadays people are graduating college and they only know how to do S.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


T. E. M.


Yeah.


But they don't know anything about the history of how they got there, why they're there or they also can barely speak or write in english.


Yeah. Well they can't speak or write in any other language, like in other countries, it's standard that you know another language and like that's not involved either and that's a detriment.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.


Even if you're in S. T. E. M.


I had a uh a friend of mine years ago, I had a son who was born in Germany, he was an army guy, Air Force actually, and he was born in Germany and by the age of 10 he could speak five languages without thinking about it, you know, just automatically.


Yeah, mm. All right. Mhm. Yeah.


And so the Europeans have always had that specific advantage when it comes to because there is nothing that will make you smarter and learning another language and open up your mind to new possibilities of how people perceive things.


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.


In fact, it's my knowledge is spanish, Which I oddly enough learned mostly by living in L.


Mhm, mm hmm.


A. for 10 years. That got me my uh what I do now is what I do is I teach uh the young people I teach to work together in a band format uh are are hispanic.


Yeah. Mhm. Mhm, mm hmm.


And the first thing I found out was with teaching these people is that my spanish was better than theirs. They were second generation or first generation americans and their english is better than mine.


Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no. What can you deal?


Good.


Oh hold up.


Okay.


What time is it? I'm saying that we're almost at like 9:00.


It is, Yes, I'm in 9:45. I'm in eastern time.


Okay mm.


So yeah, we've been talking for about 45, about 40 minutes like I said, I'm on 20 27 at least actually have this up here.


I'm not sure how long we're supposed to chat. I think. Maybe 20. Ah. Mhm.


I'm in a home office now. It's uh I was I had to make this because they wouldn't give me an office in the church and when they finally did give me a space to use as an office, it never occurred to them to get wifi.


Mhm mm mm.


They're still barely working on the concept of internet, Yep.


Yeah. Mhm.


Since here we've been talking for about 40 minutes and 20 seconds.


Yeah.


So that's good enough. I guess we can move on from here.


It was really nice to chat with you and to learn.


Sure. It's good talking to you tube oven.


Love me into Chicago. Uh, my name is steve. Um, I usually go by brashear, which is my name and anyone is in Kentucky knows that name.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.


Well anyone outside of Kentucky cats fell it It's a name that comes from very quickly.


Uh Yeah.


It comes from in 1632, 2 brothers named brochure came from France to boston, escaping the french Hugo, not persecution. One of them moved south into north Carolina and got, you know, they're 16 thirties and got rich on tobacco.


The cash crop of early America. The other one went even when west into Kentucky and got drunk on corn squeezes and guess which side of the family I'm from.


Right. Yeah. Yeah. I see you but Mhm.


But anyway, and if I ever get up to Chicago, I can't drink anymore because I'm diabetic. But that's how I don't care if you do. But if I ever get up to Chicago, I'll probably be under that name or fuzzy steve.


Mhm.


That's another name I've been using on stage, it spends on which town I'm in.


And yeah.


Somehow I worked out fuzzy steve because I said that into a microphone and now I'm stuck with.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm.


So if you ever see fuzzy steve somewhere playing in the Chicago area, how might that might, that's probably going to be me, stop in and say hello, what was your name again?


I'll keep my eyes open. Riley.


Yeah. Riley. Okay. That's, that's pretty remember.


I'll keep my eyes open though.


Herbal. Cool.


Yes.


Okay. I'll keep, I'll keep an ear out for you. Good talking to you.


All right. I'll see you.


I guess I move.


I have.


Have a good one.


Yeah. But have a good day.


Nice talking to you.


mhm It's eight pm Abraham Lincoln said most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Yeah. Mm hmm. Hey, Google set a timer for five minutes, five minutes starting now. Yeah, yeah yeah. Uh huh Hello? Right Oh, I'm sorry. I can't hear or see anything.


uh huh uh huh Yes.


Uh I can like faintly hear you're trying to speak but I can't see or hear anything from you. No, I can't hear anything. Yeah um close and try again.


Okay. Yeah. Yeah.


Yeah, can you close and try again?


Yeah. Okay.


Mm Oh boy Oh boy. Uh huh Okay. Mhm Two. No, I can see you and I can hear you now.


Okay. Can you see me now? I was sitting there for so long.


Yeah.


I was like hello and nothing was happening like oh man yeah.


Oh, could you hear me yelling and screaming? Okay. But yeah, you're, you're crystal clear your HD now.


Perfect. That was so weird. I don't know what happened.


Um It could be me. I don't know my internet is getting disconnected soon because um my, I'm just gonna say it.


Oh man.


No, I feel like they're listening. I'm a little paranoid, but frontier is like frontiers really shitty and they're up, they're charging me like through the roof so I'm canceling and then switching to the next internet provider that won't burn me.


Yeah. Yeah. God, that makes sense.


Yeah. Fun question. What's the square root of negative one?


Oh man. I mean it's a paradox kind of, isn't it?


Mm Yeah.


Because you can't because it has to be negative one and one, but that's not. Oh yeah.


Yeah. Okay. Oh, my brain is malfunctioning. Yeah, it's been a long day. I shouldn't have asked that.


Yeah, no it's fine. I was thinking like I'm like, oh I was like, well no, I don't. Yeah, I don't know.


So that question was intended to, I guess break the simulation because you're right, it doesn't compute. And I think in my mind like I'm the main character of the world, they're not, they're not real.


Yeah, no, I've had a couple of these surveys already that have been like completely like set up for tickets, not real people on there.


This isn't real. So like if I can break the computer that's running all of this by asking a complex question, then I can escape this hell.


Especially that I've been like this, I'm always a little suspicious going into like this is going to be some fake like set up saying uh on political using it.


What, where, when and where was that?


One of the at a different survey where they were talking about how they were going to set me up with a group of people after I answered all these different like accessory questions and I was going through and it's just something felt off the whole time.


Mhm Oh, that's probably why I feel that way.


I was like, these questions are really weird and at the end it was like thank you, there is no group. This whole thing was fake. It's just engage your responses to these different scenarios. That was like, I knew it. It's all fake. Yeah, there's there's a couple on here that definitely kind of like trick you into thinking is one way it's not so remember when this was first set up because I try to do this before and my partner didn't show up.


Yeah. Uh huh.


So at that point I was like, okay, this thing is going to keep doing it and no one shows up. And then it's a test of like whenever I finally say, I don't want to go again, it's like, congratulations, you did this X amount of times. You're a fool.


Yeah. Mhm No, it's it's all real. Like we're all paid actors and well no, that's what I think about the other person, but everyone, so far it seems to be stop.


Exactly. Okay.


Um that's my Google assistant telling me that it's been five minutes because yeah, I think I've been, I ghosted or stood up twice where I well, a problem from this.


Yeah. God, you know, I had it happened I think just last week, so disappointed because I was looking forward to go perfect and have done easy peasy.


Yeah. From the person not showing up.


I get there. It's just great all time. But first I had the same thing, but I feel like is it my connection? Am I doing something wrong? And I sat there for five minutes and nothing happened. It was like if it's my connection, then I'm not going to know.


Mhm, mm.


But either way, and it turns out that he's never showed up. So I was like, okay, that's kind of setting the seat of like, is it going to be this every time?


Mhm Yeah.


Is there really ever someone there? Because when it put me in it was like, oh, it's just great. I don't think this doesn't look like an actual program, but then you showed up so thanks for him.


Well, yes, this time it was your connection, but, but what's, what's with the background?


Mhm Oh yeah.


That's a, that's a flower or plant? Um Yes, I'm going to, it's a big dragon.


Up here. It's a big dragon.


I'm into it.


Yeah.


Oh, I see.


It kind of, that's like the mouth.


It was something I made.


So you made that?


Yeah, it was, it was a poster I had that. I just called it as a child like years and years and years and years ago and I just haven't hung up.


Oh, nice. It's a psychedelic.


Yeah, I've got normal posters and other stuff off to the other side.


That's Yeah. Yeah.


But that's like, I think the one thing I've got in here that was not just bought, Oh, oh, it's fine.


Mm Nice. Nice. My room is boring as hell. Mhm. But um how are you doing on this almost friday night if mhm.


Yeah, pretty pretty fine. I had a partner in a school project. Kind of not opt out, but they're having some issues, personal issues apparently. And so I'm not sure where we're standing on that everything's kind of wrapping up school wise. And it's like they just give me things like, hey, I'm having a really bad week, you know, what's up and we have stuff due tomorrow and I was like, okay, so a little anxious, but it'll be fine.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God, hearing that just triggers me, like, because I used to be in college and like, yeah, group projects are not fun because you're depending on another person.


No.


Like your grade is on the line.


Also now that like I've graduated speaking from experience, your, your G. P. A. Doesn't matter that much.


Oh yeah, no, I'm in a graduate work. I I graduated last spring for bachelors, I'm going further beyond art history and creative writing sort of too, but I'm getting my masters in our history and then probably going to get a PhD eventually we'll see.


Oh, fun. What are you going further into? Oh my goodness. That sounds like fun.


It's a lot, yeah, it's a lot of fun and a lot of work, so, you know, it's a, it's good, but it's a lot of stress and writing and just constant everything.


Um A lot. Oh no, but like a lot of fun or not fun. Mm And I guess what causes the stress? Like is it the writing deadlines?


Mhm. Yeah, a bit of both because the writing I've, I've been writing for like since, I mean high school, so it's like that.


Mhm.


I know at least I wait around stuff, It's just getting accustomed to.


Yeah.


Each teacher has a different set up where it's like, okay, this is how I want things and some have a lot of rules, some have less rules and then it's deadlines.


Mhm, mm hmm. Yeah, I don't, I don't think I could go back to that. I fully graduated and I don't want to look back. I just wanna, no, but also being an adult and like there's no, there's absolutely no structure. So I think I like, I like the idea of school like you do this.


Yeah, no, it's yeah, pros and cons.


Yeah. Structure. But also if you don't mind me asking, what will you do after the, the finish line of the agreed.


Yeah, I'm hoping to become a teacher and hopefully professor at a college eventually. Um and then I want to be working on, I like writing novels and so I'm gonna be working on my own like creative projects.


Well, like having a sustainable job.


Mhm. Mhm. And the sustainable job being a professor gotcha right, respectable.


Yeah. Like you know it a job that people look at it like, oh that's a job and not just I write sometimes. Exactly.


I feel like J. K. Rowling actually, I think from the beginning she had a really rocky start a lot of nose and then every powder happened. So don't forget about me when you write your novel, the random guy you video chatted with.


No, it's yeah, that's it. Uh huh. This is this whole thing is really going to turn it around for me.


Yeah. Yeah.


Okay.


But um, so do you enjoy writing like addiction or semi realistic Pistorius?


Mhm. I like I like fiction a lot. I've never done nonfiction because I'm like, I don't writing by myself that's not that's not interesting. It's more fun to write about like monsters and demons and whatever other stuff. I write a lot of fiction and a lot of I do try to like I like having some stuff that is more realistic where it's like realistic and then like magic fantasy stuff since it's more fun than just straight up here is this complete fiction world, everything is fake.


It's all created by me. It's like having people be able to connect to it. Makes it a lot more interesting.


Mm hmm wow. I feel like that's really, it's, you have to have like a special brain for that because like I couldn't imagine like creating a world characters in it, stories behind it and like, yeah, that's a lot of mental work.


I feel like I'm more of a consumer.


Yeah.


Yeah, I enjoy it more than, yeah, because I imagine it's a lot of work. But also it sounds fun now that I think about it. Like creating a world and making my own, wow. Yeah. But also, wow, that's a lot.


Yeah. No it's it's not it's a lot of fun. It's also a lot of work that's Yeah.


Mm But I think that's the beauty of it.


Like if you really do enjoy it then yeah.


The thing is I can't see myself do anything else. So it's like if I if I have it there is there as well do it.


Mm I can see myself doing pretty much anything. Maybe like a little bit just to try it. Like I could be a chef for a baker.


What? Yeah, I don't know about that long term.


That's the thing is that that's not like a quick, I mean it can be depending away writing but like most of time that's it's a big time. Can men over a long time unless you get lucky but that's you can never rely on that.


Mm hmm. Yeah. Um this sounds a bit silly. But I think if I could get paid to like video chat with people, I would do that full time because yeah, it's fun.


Oh absolutely. Yeah.


It's easy. Um, it's, oh, my brain is right. It's, It's 8:00 where I'm from.


Oh man I did seven here so yeah.


Oh, nice. That's a good, you still have an hour for three hours. There are plenty of time. But um what was I saying?


Uh You want to get paid to video chat?


Yes, exactly.


I agree.


Um and we're doing that now, like it's happening, it's the future. Like I don't I don't think this would be the case had the world not turned upside down.


No no definitely a lot of the stuff definitely it's a lot more popular now. It's it's we're realizing like oh we can do a lot more just from home.


Mhm. So all of your learning as a graduate student is done from home now?


Yeah. Yeah all online classes. Even last spring I had we were meeting up to a point about half of the semester. They shut everything down and we were all just at home.


Oh well that sounds so nice. Back in my days we had to go to a classroom and where I feel like it's a step in the right direction.


Yeah. Yeah mm I mean it's better in some ways I like it because I can spend a lot more time actually working on homework instead of like driving all the way to school and then driving all the way back and then being on time, it's a lot more of just class is actually from the time it starts, the time it ends and not the kind of thing, it's like okay there's like 15 to 30 minutes beforehand driving and getting to the class and getting set up and then the same thing going back and going back home and all that.


But also do you feel like you're being cheated in any way or it's better than it's online? Yeah. Mhm.


Um But it's also nice seeing people in person and like actually being in a classroom with like physical examples, like a lot of problems we've had is just like no whiteboard and so the teacher will just kind of hold him at the camera.


Yeah.


It's like sometimes you can see it sometimes you can't but in the long run a lot of the time it's not super important.


Right. Uh mm.


So the trade off.


Mhm, interesting, wow. And also because it's online, have they changed the structuring of like how much it costs or the classes?


Yeah. No it's just like workload has changed, I think it's a lot less like assignments. So it's like some of the classes, it's just one big final project that you're kind of developing over the whole semester instead of like three short papers and then a big final paper.


Mm Fun, fun, fun.


So.


Let's not talk about school.


Yeah. No. What do you what do you do?


Uh huh. Okay. Oh um Also not fun. I working 9-5 and I get paid to touch keyboard professionally. So yeah, I'm a software developer and a small company.


Oh nice.


Yes. But um so outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?


Uh I mean a lot of stuff, I play a lot of like tabletop, like dungeons, dragons and different games and video games. My friends.


Oh can you explain dungeon dragons to me? It sounds like so much fun but also I'm an outsider, give it to me.


Yes. Uh Have you ever played like Skyrim or any video games like that?


Mhm.


Where it's like okay it's uh other friends, it's a lot like Skyrim, it's just you're all creating it together instead of it being like a pre structure and of course this huge open world, but you have the one person which is usually going back to creating worlds.


I love Skyrim, mm.


I'm usually one running it because I like creating worlds and set everything up, I'll have everything planned out and then it's all of my friends have, they create their own character um and there's different like, classes and stats and things that go with each character, and then it's I give them different scenarios and like kind of logic puzzles are different like social situations and they have to work their way through it and depending on what they do, I react to their actions and decisions and then that has a cause and effect that leads into a whole narrative storyline.


Yeah. Mhm.


I mean there's there's millions of different ways you can play the game and everyone does it a little different because the rules are very open. And did you can be like, I just don't like I'm not going to use it or like this rule better and you make your own rules.


Yeah.


Um of course there's different, there's also different games, dungeons and Dragons Star Finder, Monster of the Week. There's a million different like, rule sets out there and each one is different and unique.


Right, mm hmm.


Eventually you'll find something that works for you and your group.


So dungeons and Dragons, is that something that's it's a board game? Is it something you can go to walmart and get or it's homemade?


Uh it depends on how you want to play it technically there, you can get like the starter kit, I think like walmart and Target, and we'll have like the normal book and there's all these different, you can buy all these expansion books will be like one for the players, one for the dungeon master who's running the game one that talks about different monsters, one that's different.


Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.


You can buy like pre made stories and then run those for your friends or you can just find them online for free or just make up your own stuff online.


All right. Right. Mhm.


There's different websites that will let you instead of because I mean obviously right now we can't do it in person. So I've been running games online for friends. There's different like websites and applications where you can like draw everything and put pictures in and make it like a virtual tabletop, which means you could use that even pandemic aside to just have a free version of it.


Yeah. Oh right, mm wow, that sounds so cool.


Instead of buying all the actual stuff.


I would love to play one day. So you said that you can play online with friends?


Yeah, you have to use like, I mean something like we have right now where you can talk to each other, but we would have a different tab open with like everything like the world I've set up and you can move around and interact with the different enemies.


Mhm mm.


Different ones work better than others. Devout finding which one fits for you.


Got it. Is there anyone that you recommend to play dungeons and dragons online?


Um I like table plop a lot. It's yeah, the name is weird.


Okay. Cable plop.


Um but it's instead of it basically is just a complete black void and you can upload images to it and just create everything you want. And it works. It works. It has the best sort of system of letting multiple people in, and then just kind of being able to control a bunch of different moving pieces, You can control what people see.


Mhm mhm Yeah.


So if you have like an enemy hiding in the bushes, you can hide it from them until they walk by. So it's not just they see it sitting there and then they can know like, okay, there's a trap ahead.


Yeah. Oh well that's really neat, wow, I I need friends to play dungeons and dragons like I don't think anyone are interested though.


Yeah, that's that's the problem. It's it's very much a thinking that you need to know people, which I mean, you can you can go online and find groups and people will like w people online who are always looking for new people. And that's a toss up. Like everything is but eventually we'll get lucky.


Yeah. Mm Where did you meet your dungeon, your engineers, your dungeon friends?


Oh I've got some of them are friends have had like from childhood and then some of them I met at school through class and they were talking about it most of them they weren't in it before and then I introduced them to it and then now they're off doing their own names.


Oh well that's so cool.


If.


The birds have learned to fly in Maryland wow I cannot.


Exactly yeah.


So can you explain the difference between, so you said you were a dungeon master and then you don't actually play as a dungeon master, you create the story or the players?


Yeah. Yeah. I'm like the narrator basically but I'm also controlling all the N. P. C. S. And all the enemies. And I'm setting up all the puzzles and I'm describing the world and writing the story as it goes along. So I'm I'm not the characters you each as you're playing a character you'll level up and you get new abilities like in Skyrim and you can upgrade your different points and all that.


Mhm Yeah. Mhm Yeah.


And then on my end I'm all the voices of all the different people. I'm setting everything up and kind of working with them to create the world.


Yeah.


So it's both are important being a dungeon master takes a lot more work usually just because you're every other character they're not playing and set everything up.


Yeah. Mhm wow it sounds like so much fun but also it sounds like a lot of work to the dungeon master.


It's fun. I like it. Yeah.


Like is that something you have to prepare beforehand when you play the game or do you do it on the fly?


Yeah. Yeah right. It depends my style, the perfect blend really is have a general idea set up and then as they're going through kind of work on the fly because if you're like, okay, I have these three rooms and there's a dragon at the end of the room, but they get to the second room and they're like oh we don't want to fight the dragon, they just leave, it's like I'm not going to make you do that.


Yeah. Mhm.


So that has a couple of something totally different. It's just it's a lot of, it takes a lot of practice of just learning how to react and how to be flexible to everyone else's taste because some people are just there to just fight a bunch and then just have like your stats go up.


Oh wow, mm hmm it sounds it sounds like so much fun.


Other people are more interested in the role play aspects like talking and interact with characters. So it's always tailoring it to what your players like and then messing around with like what they actually do and the bad decisions they make, right? It's really good. It's it's had like a bad rap before as being, you know, I mean it was back in its time, it was like nerdy and whatever, but it had a big resurgent recently where it's like kind of more mainstream and it's it's good, there's a lot of different stuff out there now that will help new players and then also people who are looking for groups kind of get together.


Mm hmm. Well I'm I'm excited for it so.


Yeah, it's a good way to spend time outside of just the normal workday.


Mhm So question for you, it sounds like there's a lot involved in the game is One game something that takes 30 minutes. How long does it take to play Dungeons and Dragons a year, wow.


I mean, it depends most, most games you'll meet like at some assigned date, you can do like one shot campaigns where you go there and you play for like an hour or two hours and then like that's the whole thing. Most games will go on for. I have one going right now. That's been going on for almost a year. We meet, yeah, we meet every two weeks when we every other week for about 2.5 to 3 hours a night and then go through. I've had some groups that have met for longer have a groups that meant for less of a group that meets uh every week twice a week. It depends. I know there's some groups that have meetings like over 30 years because it's the same group of friends, they've been playing just the same game forever and ever and ever again.


Mhm.


It's all of it is tailored to what you need if you need a group, like we can meet for an hour, that works, like we want to meet for six hours, which is a lot, but I know people who've done that, that also works just how long you can go without, like getting tired.


Mhm wow, gotcha. So I guess it's uh continuing off the same storyline and same players like you're coming back to a safe state, if that makes sense.


Usually, usually you can have like a base set up, like in, you know, you have your house, your castle or whatever, or you'll have some city that you kind of have a base of operations. Uh and you'll have different, like, you could have different story arcs or one big arc. It all depends on what the players do ultimately, if they go immediately, like, I'm like, Skyrim, if you go and kill all the one immediately, it's like okay, that's the main quest done or you can be like, I'm gonna go to every other side quest first, it's like, it's the length depends on how long they're willing to go on the same path.


Yeah. Mhm Right, wow, neato burrito, that is so cool.


Yeah, Yeah, Yeah and you people, you will use physical like little figurines and stuff.


Um I'm trying to imagine it now, like the game I would imagine you have to use your imagination because it's not like a video game where you can see things, it's kind of spoken and then you I guess acted out or decide what happens.


I've never used those because I've bought them, it's a little more old school that and it gets, you can have a whole thing where someone has like all these different pieces that set up into giant castles and cities, it's expensive but you can do it, other people are fine, just be like, I'm just going to say what happens and we just imagine it.


Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. Oh my goodness, I think I've just had a million dollar idea but tell me if also this is already done but like dungeons and dragons, but it's kind of, there's a visual element to it, like it's on the computer, it kind of set up, there's pieces that move, it's realistic.


Yeah, you could do that definitely.


Is that a thing?


I mean I don't, it may be a thing somewhere out there, a lot of this stuff out there right now isn't like super duper developed so there's nothing like just awesome, awesome right now.


Yeah.


But there's a lot of stuff that's like kind of the middle of the road like this works. This is fine but nothing like super duper realistic yet a lot of it's just very flat and like you can I mean a lot of the ones you can upload your own stuff so it depends on what you have access to.


Mm Yeah.


I think uh a program like that would be a big hit.


Oh my goodness. But yeah, someone just needs to develop it and sell it to the masses, revolutionary.


Exactly. Yeah.


Uh huh Oh my God, that's uh this question gives me anxiety, What do I do for fun?


Yeah. People what do you do for fun? Yes.


Uh because most of the time I'm just working away so I think I what try not to watch click bait.


Uh huh try not to fall down like Reddit rabbit holes I say that but I do that for fun.


Yeah. That I mean we all do.


Okay, so I'm glad I'm not alone.


Um Yeah read it is big Youtube, there's so much to watch on Youtube, Another rabbit hole that you could fall down into. Um Yeah hanging out with Friends but not as of recently watching shows and movies.


Um one that are doing more because of having more time I guess is being out in nature which is always nice.


Nice.


Yeah I need to do that more. Like I'm saying things that sound nice but I should really be doing more.


But I mean that that's how it always works.


Yeah and yeah riding my bike wind blowing in my face sometimes an insect in my eye.


Yeah.


Yeah. Um And also I think being creative like making things I feel really good when I do that but when I'm like consuming watching things I'll feel like shit afterwards.


Yeah. That's an interesting observation.


Yeah I know because I can I'll get away for like I'll watch tv and the public well it's you light yourself like oh well it's a research for writing because like the more you intake the more like I can turn and turn my own ideas about the same time.


It's like it's also just being lazy. It's the whole thing up.


Oh right.


It's like if I could you know if I could create the time perfect but breaks are important but then it's also the whole thing of it's very easy to fall into. I've just been watching Tv for six hours.


Oh wow, got it. But I like that I'll use that for my brain like it's for research I'm expecting and sometimes I do feel like that like what I'm watching is expanding my mind.


Yeah. Mhm.


So yeah, there's there's a balance Mhm.


If you you'll find something eventually that will inspire you in some way. So it's like oh it all works out in the end but in the moment there's a kind of feeling of like I should be doing something.


Yes, that's Yeah. Yeah.


Yes.


Exactly. Um So yeah, that's what I did for fun. Yeah, that question always worries me because I feel like my response isn't going to be that good. It's going to be a mess because yeah, I don't have any like I don't have one strong hobby.


Okay.


I like to dabble in many different things. But um yeah I would say work consumed with my life most but um shouldn't be the case.


Yeah that makes sense.


I don't know. Yeah.


It depends. I mean you know if you like what you're doing and yes but it's also the whole thing if you want to balance it, but I mean everyone's different so it's like you can't say like everyone should have a perfect balance of work and free time because like, well no, it depends on what you're doing, it depends on how you feel about your work.


Yes. Right. That's true. Balance, balance, balance.


Yeah. Yeah.


Yes. But um do do do, it's been 30 minutes. You can call it if you want or we can continue with what seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.


Yeah. Mhm. Right.


Can you hear my robot speak in the background?


Yeah.


You can.


Oh yeah.


Okay so yeah my my robot assistant just said it seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. So yeah, that's life. Um Yeah wow.


It's been listening here.


I'm scared they really have been. But um Yeah, every 30 minutes to an hour I'll get like a motivational quote. Keep going through the day. And that was it.


That's funny like that.


Yeah. But no I do have this year that they're listening because like when I was talking about no I was talking about edibles, weed cookies and then I see like in the advertisements like CBD oil and all of this nonsense that like I never normally search.


Oh, for sure it Yeah. Yeah. Okay.


Yeah they're listening.


No, I I've got one, I got a friend who has won and we were it was at their house, we were talking about this game and we said something about it and it was but then later that night they were on their computer and they had an ad come up and it was an ad for the game we've been talking about. And it had the words we had said in the ad and we're still not sure if it was just like a complete coincidence or if it was like listening and then turned it into a very specific targeted ad.


Okay. What?


It was crazy.


That is really creepy. What were the words exactly like?


Oh, I think we're making, we're making fun of it cause it wasn't good. It was a bad game. I think we said like it's undeniably epic. And then later they had an ad for the game and it said this game is undeniably epic.


We just sat there were like, this is terrifying.


What? That's insane, wow.


Yeah.


That's really cool. But also at the same time. Really creepy.


No, because it's like, it's a moment where like it's fun in the moment, but also I'm like, it's listening. It knows.


Oh my God wow.


Yeah, that's, yeah, it's because I've got mine right over there.


That makes it makes me want to think about the things I want to say before I say them No.


So it's like if it's listening and hearing, but who knows later.


But yeah I feel like my overlord has been I've been good to my overlord so yeah.


Wait honestly I don't think I want to give them the benefit of the doubt but like the worst they can do is like advertise. Yeah I don't see anything who do we want to go down this rabbit hole of like what they could be doing with just listening to us.


Okay. Yeah, Yeah.


Maybe they could solve crimes. I guess if they hear like a bad thing happening so now we can't commit crimes. I guess we were joking.


Oh dang, I can't commit crying. Yeah.


It's not okay.


Yeah, I'm kidding. That's the thing is what it's like on one side, it's like okay I would be nice if like someone broke in and like killed me in my room.


It's like if it heard it it's like oh they can trace it back to we had the voice. But it's also what they admit that.


Right.


Like if they had that would they be willing to come out and be like oh we are listening on you and then here's this evidence. I don't know. It's trippy.


Oh yes it is. It's uh I feel like this is a book this could be a book or a novel.


Oh absolutely.


Yeah.


Yeah maybe it's already written. It kind of reminds me of mm 1941 a little 19 1984.


Yeah 1984.


Yeah it's been a long day.


No, there's there's a lot, there's a lot of like dystopian whatever is with technology listening in there's movies too because I mean it's you know we're all thinking it.


Okay. In, wow. Yeah. Yeah nothing but good things. It's only been helpful me.


Yeah it wasn't like as long as we have nothing to hide it's not an issue.


Uh Yeah that's true. But I feel like there's an argument for like um been like my first, there's like a really good video on explaining why it's a bad thing.


Yeah. Yeah that's true.


Like if you have nothing to hide then like what if they got your social security number or stuff like that? But also I feel like that's a bit of a stretch. Yeah. It all comes back to balance in moderation, wow, ignorance is bliss.


Yeah. I just have to believe that they're not, but they're going to be fine and use it for good and not evil.


I feel like I could have gone on with my day. Like let them listen to me all the time and just be happy.


Yeah. Yeah. You'll never look at it the same way.


Uh huh wow. Yeah the less the more you know the there was like a saying where like the more, you know, No, the more sad you are. It's a red hot chili peppers song.


Yeah, I think so.


Do you know what I'm talking about?


I can't remember it either. I know. No, I know, I know the feeling like I know what they're like saying with it.


Oh, but yeah, would I rather be a happy dumb them or an intelligent sad person that knows all of these horrible atrocities going on, wow.


That's that's that's the question.


Yeah, mm I I can I can drink, I can forget about this.


I mean, do you get to choose because like if we're ready at this point we've already we're already on one side. Yeah, that's true. Go I can I can make myself go to the other side.


Yeah, wow. And I like we're saying this jokingly, but I feel like that's a thing like people do that to like forget about something or wow, but wow, I think before in my mind like I it was like I don't get it like I don't get why people do that, but now that we're talking about it kind of makes sense, like yeah, there's a lot of I guess shitty things in the world, so if that helps then good yikes, wow, fun stuff.


Absolutely. That's a very real thing then. Yeah, it's rough out there. Yeah. What a great whoever's watching this, I hope you had a great time experiencing.


Honestly, yes, I would enjoy watching this to the person watching this back, wow sometimes.


Yeah. Uh huh, mm Oh yeah, Nicholas, nice to meet you.


Oh what's your name by the way? Nicholas, my name's tim nice to meet you too, Nicholas. Mhm.


I don't even think about that usually.


Uh huh.


What people start with, but whatever.


Yeah, I think we just do right into um I don't remember heard the simulation.


Yeah, mhm Yeah. Yes.


None of this is real, I'm the main main character.


No, we we really cut right to the chase of that one.


Yeah wow, this was really fun.


Yeah. Um Absolutely.


If you ever play dungeons and dragons and you need a new player, please invite me.


This has been great. I'm so glad it worked out this time. I was so afraid I'm gonna get back. It's like no one was here. I'm like, I can only do this so many times before I just quit.


But also I think they pay you like um you can buy like a Snickers bar with it happened.


You get you get a little something like that. That's cool. But it's just a thing of like I'm waiting a tweak to like, oh, maybe now. And it's like I just I just have it be done with it. Move on to the next.


Yeah from the quote about suffering being the blessing we'll all circle.


Uh huh. Exactly. We have now completed the loop.


Uh huh. But um yeah, I would love to play dungeons dragons with you maybe one day if you play it.


No. Absolutely.


So my Reddit handle is Nube and oh actually oh shit, I'm scared, you can see my shit post.


Yeah. All right. Can't please, we'll be fine.


Uh huh.


I don't I don't judge.


Oh actually yeah, but um so my red handle is N.


Mhm.


O. B. L. U. R. K. I. N. G. 500.


Perfect.


So it's new lurking 500.


Cool. I'll find you.


Uh huh. Yeah. This is really fun I think. Don't don't let the other people know this. But yeah this is one of the fun ones, some of them like was with people I didn't really enjoy speaking with her.


Yeah. Yes.


Yeah.


Now that's what I was afraid of that too.


Stop.


When I got when I said I was like, if I get someone it's gonna look after all these different field temps. It's gonna be like very boring, bland, whatever. And it's like that we immediately cut into everything is fake and like this is great. This is what I came here for.


Ah.


Uh.


Mm hmm.


Oh. Oh boy. Um So I think you can we can disconnect now but I'm just gonna hit the arrow button and continue on with the survey.


Perfect. Uh Yeah, I will see you around later.


Okay. That sounds good. Have a good night.


You do.


Mhm. Oh yeah it's Yeah.


Yeah. All right, okay there.


Hello, how are you?


I'm okay.


How are you?


Good.


Um Yeah so the times I've done this, I've actually only ever managed to catch a conversation with somebody once so I wasn't really expecting you to be here.


Uh Of course.


Um So I was just finishing up dinner. Do you mind if I keep eating?


Go ahead.


Mhm. Okay.


How many times have you done it?


Um I don't know like four or 5 maybe.


Oh wow, this is the first conference. So I guess you got the book 50 every time at least.


No. one time I managed to have a conversation with somebody but That was like one time out of four or 5 so. Mhm.


Okay. That's cool. What you got for dinner?


Um Well I had a pork chop and um macaroni and cheese and then this is just coleslaw.


That sounds good. Love pork chops and mac and cheese.


Mhm.


But I never had coleslaw. It comes with everything and I just never tried to taste it.


Mhm. Um I like it because it's it's still vegetables but it's also like fatty and acidity so it tastes good.


Yeah like macaroni salad, you have a lot of vegetables in it, but there's also a lot of mayo and sugar.


Yes, very much like that.


Have you been on a prolific for a while?


I have actually yeah. I don't know, maybe six months maybe.


Nice.


Yeah. Um It's just it's easy and there was a while where um I was my dad had pretty serious surgery last year.