Episode 8 – Satan Is Not Normally Depicted as Being Purple

Scott: I heard you click your button.

Peter: I click my button.

Scott: Wait, I don’t know if we should put that in the podcast.

Scott: Something’s wrong here.

Peter: What’s wrong is that we’re not drinking our beers yet.

Scott: That is very true.

Scott: Let us crack them open.

Scott: First, you must explain your beer to me.

Peter: Well, shouldn’t I like introduce myself?

Scott: Okay, you’re Peter Nikolaidis.

Peter: Okay, I guess I don’t need to introduce myself.

Scott: Well, who am I?

Scott: You have to introduce me.

Peter: Okay, you’re Cartridge Cartridge Cartridge.

Scott: But that’s not my name.

Peter: Oh, but that’s your t-shirt.

Peter: Okay.

Peter: You are Scott Wilsey.

Peter: I am Peter Nikolaidis.

Scott: Let me do my beer first, because I’m going to have a lot of questions about yours.

Peter: Okay.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: So mine is a Kona Brewing Pipeline.

Scott: And this is a beautiful…

Scott: Oh, geez, I need light here to be able to read.

Peter: A beautiful…

Peter: Oh, geez.

Scott: Yeah, it’s got real Hawaiian grown coffee.

Peter: Which is expensive.

Peter: All the food out in Hawaii is expensive.

Scott: It’s basically a porter, but nowhere on here does it say that.

Scott: Porter, brewed with Hawaiian Kona coffee.

Scott: There you go.

Peter: So it says it.

Scott: Apparently it does, yes.

Peter: Got it.

Peter: Okay, cool.

Peter: I am drinking a maple wood.

Peter: I’m assuming that’s the brewing company name.

Scott: That was mine, by the way, that sound.

Peter: Okay, thank you.

Scott: Sure.

Peter: A maple wood, son of juice, India Pale Ale.

Scott: Yeah, so about that.

Peter: 6.3%, 6.3% alcohol.

Scott: I thought you and I had a pact.

Peter: Well, we may, I’m curious.

Peter: I have this drink.

Peter: It was like one of the only 12 ounce beers that I had sitting in my refrigerator.

Peter: I looked at a couple of others that were not 12 ounce, but were 12%, and I was like, not today, Santa.

Scott: Wait, they were six ounce, but they were 12%.

Peter: And no, they were 16 ounce, actually.

Scott: Now you’re having a 12 ounce, six percent.

Peter: 12 ounce, six percent, as opposed to a 12% 16 ounce.

Peter: So anyway, here’s to an IPA, which, dear listener, you may know, I generally despise, oh God.

Scott: Not just Peter despises, I also despise.

Peter: Yes, Adam is not a despiser.

Scott: He’s not.

Peter: He can handle IPAs and-

Scott: Well, he had a Miller Lite once for reasons that are still unclear to me.

Peter: Right, the Miller Lite was clear.

Scott: Pretty much, yeah.

Scott: A little bit of yellow thrown in for good measure.

Peter: Well, let’s have a taste of this and see what I’m getting myself into.

Scott: Hey, what a nice tumbler you have there, sir.

Peter: Thank you, thank you very much.

Scott: Here we go.

Scott: You look like you entered a coma for a moment there.

Scott: Don’t tell me you think you like it.

Peter: I’m not going that far.

Peter: I was about to say I don’t despise it, and then the finish kind of came in.

Peter: And then I got that nice bitter IPA finish, and I’m like, why do people put bitter things in their mouth?

Peter: There’s a reason we have that reaction.

Peter: We’re supposed to want to spit it up.

Scott: Yeah, IPAs are weird.

Scott: I don’t understand the appeal.

Scott: I don’t.

Scott: I guess they’re cheap.

Scott: Are they relatively cheap still, or are they?

Peter: I don’t know.

Peter: I never buy these things.

Peter: So someone gave this to me.

Scott: You just walked in your house one day, and your fridge was full of IPA.

Peter: Yes, that actually happened once, and I traded them all out for a bunch of other things, including that 12% imperial stout.

Peter: Anyway, I will endeavor to finish this for the podcast.

Peter: I’m not going to pound it.

Scott: That’s very good.

Scott: So, you know what else I have here?

Scott: I have World Spice Merchants.

Scott: That sounded hilarious.

Scott: I have World Spice Merchants.

Peter: World Spice Merchants, okay.

Scott: Golden Monkey China Black Tea Blend.

Peter: Ooh.

Scott: And I gotta say, it’s pretty good.

Scott: You can’t go wrong with black tea.

Scott: Chinese black tea is good stuff.

Peter: Okay, so I did not make any tea for tonight.

Scott: No, that’s fine.

Peter: I just made a beer.

Scott: That’s fine.

Peter: I could also do that.

Peter: I could switch over and just say, I’m not drinking beer, I’m switching a tea, but then we would have to rename the podcast.

Scott: Yeah, I almost wish we had done Friends with Tea.

Scott: Oh, you know what I was going to do for our intro today?

Scott: I didn’t do our intro.

Scott: No, hold on.

Scott: It’s time for our intro.

Scott: Hold on.

Scott: Hi, Peter.

Scott: What’s happening?

Scott: We need to talk about your TPS reports.

Peter: Friends with Beer and Tea.

Scott: No?

Peter: That sounds a little slapped on to the end.

Scott: We don’t need to talk about your TPS reports?

Peter: Bolted that on there without thinking and planning.

Peter: A little late to the party.

Scott: What about this?

Scott: What about this?

Peter: Why does it say Pepper Jam when there is no Pepper Jam?

Peter: I swear to God, one of these days, I just…

Peter: That movie is still a classic.

Peter: I don’t know if it’s aged well, but I want to watch it again sometime soon.

Scott: Certain aspects of it have not aged well, as you might expect.

Peter: Yes.

Peter: So, I have now taken the extraordinary step, and I have added a tablespoon of simple syrup to my beer.

Scott: I don’t know what simple syrup is, but it sounds better than IPA.

Peter: It’s half sugar, half water.

Scott: It’s better than IPA.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Peter: So, what I have done is sweetened the IPA.

Peter: Unfortunately, it does not do anything for the finish.

Peter: It still has the bitter finish.

Peter: And it kind of sweetened, well, as you would expect, adding sugar to something makes it sweeter.

Peter: But it did not, it really didn’t help.

Peter: This has not made it any better, or less bitter for that matter.

Scott: You know what I say to you when you tell me that IPAs are bitter?

Peter: I have the memo.

Peter: Yes, well, there you go.

Scott: I have the memo.

Scott: So, how did you get this?

Scott: Was this from back before you realize, you woke up one day and realized IPAs are not for me?

Peter: No, that would have been like 20 years ago.

Peter: No, someone gave me this.

Peter: And so, yeah, I’m like, huh.

Peter: I was going to save it for my friend Reed, who…

Scott: Gave it to you?…

Peter: knows no difference.

Peter: He’s like, no, he’s like, I don’t know anything about beer, so it doesn’t matter.

Peter: I’ll drink this.

Peter: I can drink whatever.

Peter: It doesn’t care.

Scott: But even if you don’t know anything about beer, like, I don’t know anything.

Scott: I don’t know much about whiskey at all.

Scott: But when I go to my friend’s house and he gives me little shots of different whiskeys to try, I know which ones are good and which ones are not good.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: Well, some people don’t.

Peter: And those people are called IPA drinkers.

Scott: Yes.

Scott: There are a lot of them too.

Peter: Right.

Peter: And right now, I admit, I’m one of them.

Peter: I don’t know what is good, and I’m continuing to drink this.

Scott: Well, it’s already poured.

Peter: It is.

Peter: And it’s a beer.

Scott: Hey, if you have anything you need to pour one out for, this would be a good time.

Peter: That’s a good idea.

Peter: And the toilet is only one flight of stairs away.

Scott: You could just pour it out all the way down there and see how much is left for the toilet.

Peter: Oh, God.

Peter: So what are we talking about today besides this beer?

Scott: I don’t know.

Scott: I was going to ask you.

Scott: You seemed like there might be some topics you might want to or not want to talk about.

Scott: Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.

Scott: It’ll make you feel worse to talk about them.

Peter: Well, I am happy to report that my Apple Watch heart rate tracking issue seems to have been resolved as of today.

Peter: I finally.

Scott: So when you re-upgraded to 8.4.2.

Peter: I went for a run and it seems to do a pretty good, pretty accurate job.

Scott: And it’s connected to your heart rate monitor, your external heart rate monitor.

Peter: Correct.

Peter: Connected to the heart rate monitor.

Peter: And to compare, I put on the chest strap heart rate monitor and ran the same workout on my phone at the same time.

Peter: So I had phone paired to chest strap, watch paired to arm strap.

Peter: This is great.

Peter: So the heart rate effort among the two of them is fairly consistent.

Peter: And I started, so what I did is I ran and I used the Strava app on both.

Peter: I did not use the Apple workout app.

Peter: I used Strava on the watch and Strava on the phone.

Scott: I have some news about that.

Peter: Wait, wait, wait.

Scott: You may have discovered for yourself.

Peter: Wait till I get going.

Peter: So I started the workout, started the workout, like within a couple of seconds of each other, started the workout, enabled auto pause on both of them for running.

Peter: So when I stop, which I did a few times because I was actually on a phone call at the time.

Peter: So I had to stop every now and then and talk.

Scott: And plus, when there’s an intersection, you don’t want to dive, cars are going.

Peter: No intersections.

Peter: I avoided all those.

Peter: So I ran out and back and the phone recorded 2.25 miles and the watch recorded 1.8 miles.

Scott: Oh, my God.

Scott: Well, here’s the thing.

Scott: If you have calibrated the watch, then I would believe the watch over the phone.

Peter: So I just barely, after the upgrade this morning, restored from a backup.

Peter: I don’t know if any calibration is preserved through that or not.

Peter: But that’s a pretty significant difference.

Scott: It’s a bit of a difference.

Scott: Yeah, it matters.

Peter: It is a difference, just like this is a beer.

Scott: I mean, that much difference for that short of a distance matters, because if you go any significant distance, it makes a huge amount of difference.

Scott: It makes an amount of difference in how many calories you’re actually burning.

Scott: Although in theory, time times heart rate, blah, blah, blah.

Scott: Your watch should give you a pretty accurate indicator of that.

Peter: Yeah, it wasn’t all that accurate.

Peter: So I was really kind of disappointed in that.

Peter: So what I was really disappointed though, was that I’m using the same app, and holding the phone while carrying or holding the watch, holding, carrying the phone while wearing the watch, running the exact same time, and the results were wildly different.

Peter: So I’m still not happy.

Peter: I’m still not happy.

Scott: There’s a man called DC Rain Man.

Scott: I can’t remember his real name, but he has a really popular Among Athletes blog.

Scott: He basically, he just tests all kinds of equipment.

Scott: He’s a triathlete, I think, or at least a bio, he’s a triathlon guy.

Scott: And I saw an article from him saying that Strava flipped a switch on the back end, and when you run workouts in Strava apps, it no longer updates your Apple Health.

Scott: So those workouts are not in your Apple Health data now.

Peter: They did show up though.

Scott: Did they?

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: They showed up in the Apple Fitness app on the phone.

Scott: Did it?

Scott: Interesting.

Scott: So either they flipped that switch back or they’re rolling that out.

Scott: Maybe not everybody is affected by it yet.

Peter: I’ve had an interesting, and this was back when I was first having trouble with the watch not pairing, or not staying paired to my Bluetooth heart rate monitor.

Peter: I did notice a bunch of different things, and I tried, for instance, since I have the Wahoo hardware, I tried working out with the Wahoo app on the phone.

Peter: Yeah, I don’t like that.

Peter: I also tried running Strava on the phone, tried Strava on the watch, et cetera, et cetera.

Peter: But I did notice that Strava only carries, it only measures heart rate for cycling and running, and no other types of workouts.

Peter: So the whole point of tracking this exercise to get the right calorie count for dinner and stuff, that doesn’t happen anymore if you use that app for anything other than running or biking.

Peter: Strava also, it was like everything did one thing wrong and nothing great.

Peter: And the best results that I was getting was in essentially using the Apple workout app on the phone, on the watch, on the watch.

Peter: But like Wahoo didn’t record distance or anything.

Peter: It’s like it wasn’t using GPS at all.

Peter: And Strava wasn’t doing something else right.

Peter: I went in and had to reset all my permissions.

Peter: And then the Wahoo app was not doing a good job of transferring the data into different things.

Peter: Like some of the stuff I would have to manually export and some stuff it would do automatically.

Peter: And then it gets better.

Peter: Some things were being double recorded because I had Wahoo set to export to Strava and Apple health.

Peter: And Strava also was setting out to Apple health.

Peter: So everything would come in twice.

Peter: And it’s been an experience.

Peter: Part of me wants to say like, hey, you know what, just screw it.

Peter: I’m just gonna like just leave all the electronics behind and go for a run.

Peter: And I’m really kind of curious, but I’m so, I love counting things.

Peter: I love metrics.

Peter: I love, I don’t know.

Scott: Yeah, no, you should love metrics.

Scott: It’s not something like people who obsess about the metrics too much and focus on those more than the actual workouts, that’s not good.

Scott: But the metrics are handy for just keeping track of yourself and just being able to go back and look in time and see how your workouts have changed or.

Scott: Yes.

Scott: It is good information to have when you need it.

Peter: Yep, agreed.

Peter: And that’s the thing is like, some people say like, well, like me, I ran 1,100 miles last year.

Peter: How would I know that any other way?

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: Obviously I would have to estimate, but guess what?

Peter: Based on these most current readings that I just got, it sounds like I’m estimating anyway.

Scott: This is the article about the Strava thing.

Scott: Just rambling.

Peter: Hey, look.

Peter: Abruptly ends third-party data sync to Apple Health.

Peter: Great.

Peter: DC Rainmaker.

Peter: I might have to check out this blog, see what he’s talking about.

Peter: All right.

Peter: March 14th.

Peter: That’s like, that’s now.

Scott: Yeah, that’s now.

Scott: But you did this today, right?

Peter: Correct.

Scott: Hmm.

Peter: Yeah, this sounds like a good show notes thing.

Peter: I want to read this, but I don’t want to bore the listener.

Scott: No, I don’t.

Peter: While I do that.

Scott: No, because they for sure won’t be bored by us talking.

Scott: That never happens.

Peter: It’s been a few years since Strava has managed to irk the internet, but over the last few days.

Scott: See, I got to admit, a long time ago when I was doing centuries and stuff, I looked into using Strava and I started using it a little bit, and I became annoyed by it right away.

Scott: To me, it’s like the LinkedIn of exercise.

Scott: It’s kind of trashy, and I don’t like it.

Scott: Like it just basically encourages people to race as fast as they can.

Scott: And it’s not, I don’t know, it’s weird.

Scott: To me, it seemed more like people getting bragging rights than actually enhancing their workouts in any meaningful way.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: And like, I have one, count them, one friends on Strava.

Peter: And it’s my running buddy.

Peter: So it’s not just another social media platform for me.

Scott: Right.

Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter: I will have to read that article.

Peter: Looks good.

Peter: Oh, he’s got an app too.

Scott: He does?

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Scott: What, what, what, what, what?

Peter: It’s called The Fit with DC Rainmaker and GPLAMA.

Peter: GPLAMA.

Peter: GPLAMA.

Peter: GPLAMA.

Scott: Where do you see this?

Peter: When I opened up the web page, you sent me in Safari on my iPad.

Scott: Oh, I see it.

Peter: Which one of us has been drinking beer?

Peter: Both of us.

Scott: GPLAMA is somebody named Shane Miller.

Peter: Then why is he called GPLAMA?

Scott: Apparently, he is a general practitioner of llamas.

Peter: That makes sense.

Peter: That’s what we’re going with.

Scott: All right.

Peter: What other topics are we done?

Peter: I am done complaining about technology for a little while.

Scott: Yeah, that’s good.

Peter: But I did just find the chunk chart that you sent me a couple weeks ago.

Peter: The chunk chart for cats.

Peter: I have to share that because…

Peter: So here’s a funny thing.

Peter: I did tell you this story.

Peter: The listeners may get a kick out of this.

Peter: Last weekend, as we were recording this, I ran the Hampton Half Marathon up in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.

Peter: And my running buddy and I stayed at his brother’s house.

Peter: And his brother has a cat who is…

Peter: I don’t know if schizophrenic or multiple personality is the right term.

Peter: But half the time, like…

Peter: So I asked my buddy, what sort of treats does this cat like?

Peter: Because I want to try to get on the cat’s good side.

Peter: Now, the reason is, last year, we stayed there also, same place, on the eve of our marathon.

Peter: And I woke up a few times during the course of the night feeling like I was being watched.

Peter: And sure enough, I look over and the cat was like 15 feet away from me, staring at me in the darkness.

Peter: So I said, maybe I can appease this kitty.

Peter: I’ll bring it a peace offering.

Peter: And he says, yeah, she loves those broth treats or something, broth packets.

Peter: So apparently like Fancy Feast makes this like pouch of brothy, nasty kind of stuff.

Peter: So I bought a bunch of those, and we showed up there, and I fed them to the cat, and she kind of hissed at me.

Peter: And I was like, well, that did not have the desired effect.

Peter: I was getting hissed at beforehand.

Peter: So later on, I went up to the bedroom, into my guest room, and I forget what I was supposed to be doing, what I was like, I was changing or I didn’t remember, I didn’t want to get my phone, something.

Peter: I go up into the guest room, and the cat follows me, and parks herself right outside the guest room door.

Peter: And as I start walking towards the guest room door to exit the room, she hisses at me, and I’m like, okay, she does this all the time, I’m used to this.

Peter: I took another step closer, and she growled, and reared up, and had one paw raised high up, like she was running a swat at me.

Peter: And I was like, okay, this is new.

Peter: But wait, there’s more.

Peter: After she hisses at me, she started snorting.

Peter: I had never heard a cat snort before.

Peter: I’m a mega chonker.

Peter: So there you go.

Scott: Our cat makes funny, funny noises on occasion, but he’s definitely a talker.

Scott: Why is everything so bright in here?

Scott: Does it look like my face is just completely?

Peter: Yeah, you’re pretty washed out.

Scott: Yeah, I don’t understand what’s happening.

Scott: Okay, anyway, our cat does make weird noises.

Scott: He’s a talker, and he will talk, talk, talk, talk to himself, and he makes some pretty interesting noises in the course of that talking to himself, but he does not snort.

Scott: Never heard a snort.

Scott: Never heard a snort from any cat.

Scott: Hmm.

Scott: And if any cat was going to snort, this guy would probably be the one.

Peter: He would be a snorter?

Scott: Yeah, well, if any cat was going to make an unexpected noise, it would be him.

Scott: Did you ever come to any conclusions about your ill-fated relationship with this animal?

Peter: So the next morning, I came down the steps, and she’s happy and purring, and came around and like rubbed around my legs and then sat down and let me pet her.

Scott: Did you shower in between then?

Peter: I think I had.

Peter: Yeah, I think I did shower.

Scott: Had you been doing perverted things with any dogs before you saw the cat the first time?

Peter: No, no dogs.

Scott: Oh, not dogs.

Scott: Something else.

Scott: Okay, let’s see.

Scott: Were you…

Scott: What do cats hate?

Peter: Me, sometimes.

Peter: And sometimes not.

Scott: Our cat does not like meat.

Scott: He’ll eat Tillamook cheese before he’ll eat meat.

Scott: He’ll eat Doritos before he’ll eat meat.

Peter: I didn’t say meat.

Peter: I said me.

Peter: Me.

Peter: This cat hates me.

Peter: I’m a cat person.

Peter: This cat obviously did not get the memo.

Peter: It’s like Coraline.

Peter: I had my…

Peter: The cat’s name is Coraline.

Peter: It’s like Coraline.

Peter: I had my last cat for 18 years.

Peter: You have no right.

Peter: And then she was looking at me and she’s like, yeah, but you haven’t had a cat for like nine years.

Peter: So you…

Scott: How dedicated can you be, says the cat.

Peter: Apparently.

Peter: Apparently.

Scott: And then the next day she forgave you.

Scott: Something changed.

Peter: Well, yes.

Peter: Well, we think she’s kind of like bipolar.

Peter: My running buddy’s brother’s girlfriend said that, you know, yeah, she starts off the day.

Peter: New day, new me.

Scott: She’s always meeting somebody new, huh?

Peter: Apparently.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: So that was interesting.

Peter: All right.

Peter: What else we got?

Peter: We’re just kind of like, we’re not really all over the place.

Peter: We’re just kind of like listing here.

Scott: We don’t have topics because, well, I just didn’t have time.

Peter: Have you seen the price of gas lately?

Scott: So here’s the thing about the gas and the complainers about the gas.

Scott: Okay.

Scott: Yeah, it’s more expensive than we’re used to, but it’s still so much cheaper than so many parts of the world.

Peter: Fair enough.

Peter: That said, it was enough to make me reconsider ditching my Tesla.

Scott: Ditch the Tesla, get the Kia, whatever.

Peter: Can’t find it.

Peter: No one has it.

Peter: I mean, they have it, but they want like, you know, a ton more money for it.

Scott: Yeah, they do.

Scott: It is expensive.

Scott: I looked at that and it looks nice.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: Oh, it does.

Peter: It does.

Peter: So anyway, so yeah, so that’s not happening.

Peter: Brother, hey, Pipeline Porter, I see where you sent me that back in February.

Scott: Yeah, exactly.

Peter: This has been on tap for that long?

Scott: No, this is, I went through that.

Scott: This is new stuff.

Peter: Well, I mean, on tap meaning like…

Scott: Oh yeah, because they said it was, because when I thought they said it was a limited time thing, but it’s very not so limited after all.

Peter: Very not so limited.

Scott: But yeah, it’s pretty good.

Scott: By the way, one thing, well, my whole family got COVID at the end of February.

Scott: And then I felt really great for a couple weeks after that, after I recovered.

Scott: I felt horrible during it, but I felt great for a couple weeks after I recovered.

Scott: I felt strong, I was working out great.

Scott: And then all of a sudden, I just started feeling horrible in so many different ways, and it’s just now starting to subside.

Scott: It didn’t stop me from working out, but I sure didn’t enjoy some of it.

Scott: But one good benefit is, I have hardly had any beer during that entire time because I have not wanted it.

Scott: It just sounded horrible.

Scott: I have had a lot of tea, though, but not beer.

Peter: My beer consumption has gone way down.

Scott: And I think that’s probably a good thing, yeah.

Peter: It probably is.

Peter: I mean, all forms of alcohol, regardless of how you look at it, they’re always a net negative from health perspectives.

Scott: I’m going to look at it through here, look at it this way.

Peter: Yep.

Scott: Looking at it different ways.

Peter: Still, health benefits are not, right?

Peter: People say like, oh, but it lowers your blood pressure.

Peter: Oh, it calms you down.

Scott: I don’t think that’s true.

Scott: I think it’s pretty well established that drinking beer will actually raise your blood pressure.

Peter: Oh, I didn’t know about beer.

Peter: I was thinking like red wine.

Peter: Well, I don’t know.

Peter: I don’t know.

Peter: But what I’m saying though is, it’s not that there are no benefits to drinking alcohol, but the negatives that come along always outweigh the pros.

Peter: That’s the thing.

Peter: That was proven in a big meta study about 10 years ago or something.

Scott: Yeah, and especially in any quantity.

Scott: Like if you just have a tiny bit here and there, you’re going to be fine.

Scott: But big time moderation is the key with alcohol.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: I mean, that’s the thing is in small quantities.

Peter: Yes, it’s doing bad, but it’s doing negligible bad.

Peter: But if you’re pounding stuff, always.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: So we know this, right?

Peter: We are consciously doing this.

Peter: Oh, incidentally, I received a warning while loading the website today.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: Yes, because I have a default content filter for Safe for Work applied to my home computer just so I can see what my clients have.

Peter: And it’s like, warning, this site is classified as alcohol and tobacco.

Peter: And I was like, you know, I can’t argue that one.

Scott: It’s true.

Scott: We can’t argue.

Scott: I guess I should have thought about the fact that the ATF is probably scrutinizing us heavily.

Peter: Probably.

Peter: Probably.

Peter: But that’s better, though, than being unclassified, don’t you think?

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: What’s worse?

Peter: It’s classified as something bad and then classified incorrectly.

Peter: That’s the worst.

Scott: Yeah, that would be worse.

Scott: Well, for example, they could have gone with the firearms part of the ATF.

Peter: Or the tobacco side, yeah.

Scott: That would have been bad.

Scott: Or the tobacco.

Peter: So.

Scott: We got a bunch of tobacco chewers here.

Scott: Tobacco.

Peter: So, what have you been up to lately, other than maybe recovering from COVID?

Scott: Well, yeah, that kind of took the wind out of my sails, and I didn’t do a whole lot besides muddle through my workouts, try to do my job, and sleep.

Scott: But I also have been digging into some different web frameworks and trying to figure out which way I want to go for different projects in the future.

Scott: I’m not going to change this site.

Scott: In fact, I still need to finish one of the things I’m still working on.

Scott: I’m almost done with is getting some getting our ratings onto our beer and and getting a search onto our beer and doing some other things to enhance the beer.

Scott: So that instead of like when when you click a link on it on the beer name, instead of going directly to the website for the beer, it’ll go to our details page with our ratings and what episodes it was in and some other stuff.

Scott: And then from there, you can go to the website of the of the brewer.

Scott: But yeah, so that kind of stuff is is stuff I’ve been working on, mostly that.

Scott: And like I said, sleeping way more than any human should, which is probably not good because I’m getting older and you know, I’m closer to death now than I was when I was born, probably, although I was born premature and they didn’t think I would live.

Scott: So I was close to death at that point.

Scott: But then I wasn’t close to death.

Scott: And now I’m close to death.

Scott: I don’t know.

Scott: It’s weird.

Peter: Dig the this optimistic.

Scott: You like the arc of my roller coaster ride?

Scott: No, no, no.

Scott: Like here I was close to death and then I shot away from death.

Scott: No, I think I planned to live for a little while.

Peter: Okay, that’s good.

Peter: A little while.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: How long?

Peter: Oh boy.

Peter: Well, there was something else I wanted to talk about.

Peter: And I’m completely spaced because I’m drinking alcohol.

Scott: You want to know if I’m getting the MacStudio?

Peter: That was…

Peter: I wanted to go into Macintoshes.

Peter: That’s exactly what I wanted to go.

Peter: But being the self-centered bastard that I am, I was going to start with me saying, well, I guess I’m not buying a laptop anytime soon because there’s no new heirs yet.

Peter: But let’s hear about your stuff.

Peter: MacStudio?

Scott: Well, I’m not getting anything yet.

Scott: I can’t afford.

Scott: So this year, I need to buy a car.

Scott: And as you know, because I’ve talked about this with you before, I can’t afford the full electric options that I would want.

Scott: So my plan is to get an Accord hybrid.

Peter: Now, question, question.

Peter: I know Toyota with their RAV4 makes a plug-in hybrid.

Peter: Are the Honda’s plug-in options or are they strictly, they only generate electricity from braking and stuff?

Scott: No, I don’t think they’re.

Peter: Gotcha, gotcha.

Scott: I think that’s the case, yeah, to the best of my knowledge.

Scott: So anyway, my point is I won’t be buying a Mac this year, for sure, but possibly next year.

Scott: And I do plan to get, I plan to get the less expensive of the Mac Studio.

Scott: In other words, instead of getting the Ultra, which is almost twice the price of the, I’m going to get the, what is it?

Scott: The Pro?

Scott: I don’t even know anymore.

Scott: It’s not the Pro.

Peter: It’s the Pro Max.

Scott: The Max, the M1 Max.

Peter: Max.

Scott: M1 Max, M1 Max Studio.

Scott: Yeah, I’m going to get that, and I’ll get…

Scott: I may just stick with 32 gigs of RAM.

Scott: See, the problem with M1s is they are a system on a chip, and so you pay dearly for the RAM.

Peter: Sucks.

Peter: Sucks.

Peter: Suck it to you.

Scott: And then a lot of people were complaining about the price of the studio monitor, and they were complaining that it wasn’t 120 hertz, but honestly, there are no 5K 120 hertz monitors that I know of, and if there are, they’re bloody expensive.

Scott: Honestly, for the price, it’s pretty good.

Scott: It’s very close to the LG UltraFine 5K, but it’s a much better enclosure and better other features.

Peter: As Casey and Marco was saying, it’s fine.

Peter: It’s fine.

Scott: So yeah, I do plan to do that at some point, to replace my aging iMac.

Peter: Well, I was looking forward to replacing a couple of my old school displays that I have here with one nice Ultra, you know, 4K, 5K, something like that, along with this new laptop that I’m not buying yet.

Peter: But at this point, you know, I really, I’m kind of wishing that I had gone with the M1 MacBook Air.

Peter: But now it’s like, well, I could do it, but in six months, the new ones are going to come out and blah, blah, blah.

Peter: So but my old desktop Intel has been, it’s I don’t even know how many years old it is now.

Peter: It’s definitely starting to show the fact that it’s a little underpowered for my needs, though.

Scott: Desktop?

Scott: That’s a PC you’re talking about, right?

Peter: Correct.

Peter: Yeah.

Scott: Does it run Windows 10?

Scott: Whatever you’re on.

Peter: 10.

Peter: Yeah.

Peter: It’s not on its last legs, but like if I have lots of windows open and I’m on a Zoom call, sometimes the audio or the video gets a little choppy.

Peter: And so it’s like, all right, it’s time.

Peter: It’s time to look at something else.

Peter: And I was really hoping because I would have ordered, I might have even had a new M1 or M2 or whatever laptop now if I had ordered it last week, but it doesn’t exist.

Scott: By the way, that was not the sound of me peeing.

Scott: That was the sound of me pouring more gold.

Peter: I wasn’t going to say anything about that.

Peter: I wasn’t judging what you do during a podcast.

Peter: What you do on your podcast stays on your podcast.

Scott: No, I can’t do that right here right now because as I said, I’m buying a car this year and I can’t afford to replace all these carpets right now.

Peter: Yeah, that’s not a good place to do that.

Scott: So, you absolutely refuse to get a MacBook Pro, yeah?

Peter: See, that’s the thing.

Peter: So, I’m dealing with these, you know, with these what could be logical fallacies.

Peter: You know, there’s the sunk cost fallacy.

Peter: But in this case, it’s like I’ve waited this long and I like to get the newest because I want to have a computer that’s going to last the longest.

Peter: But by the same token, I’m cheating myself by not having a new computer right now.

Scott: You are.

Scott: And the MacBook Pros came out after the MacBook Air, and they have better performance, way better performance.

Peter: They do.

Peter: They also have like way more performance than I need and a way higher price tag than what I was hoping to pay for a MacBook Air.

Peter: You’re not, you’re shaking your head.

Peter: The Airs are a thousand.

Scott: You work on computers for a living.

Peter: I do, but what I do, literally, 90% of what I do is I open web browsers and I send emails.

Peter: That’s most of what I do.

Peter: Right?

Peter: So, yeah, there you go.

Peter: But now, you know, when I’m doing like all kinds of video conferencing and silly things like online gaming, right?

Peter: I used to think that online gaming, you needed like a gamer PC if you did like first person shooters and all these really super advanced graphics and stuff.

Scott: Well, I think if you don’t want to get killed, you do need something that can handle decent framerate.

Peter: Sure, but I’m playing turn-based tabletop games in a browser.

Peter: And even those now, just like rendering those with like simple 2D lighting effects, causes this, you know, old i7 of mine to fall to its knees.

Peter: So, yeah, so I mean, I suppose I should just look at the slider bar, you know, like where I get it.

Peter: So I’m either going to like I lose some of that time frame of benefiting from, you know, getting the maximum out of my computer now versus later.

Peter: And, you know, I don’t know.

Peter: And then, of course, if I buy it now, though, then I’ll be like, well, why didn’t I do this a year ago?

Peter: Because the MacBook Air M1 has been out for a year.

Peter: Like, why didn’t I buy it then?

Scott: How old is your MacBook Air?

Peter: No, I got rid of that years ago.

Peter: I’m running an Intel.

Scott: You’re just using a PC?

Peter: Just a PC.

Scott: Well, you keep saying you bring Intel, but…

Peter: It’s an Intel PC.

Peter: Right.

Scott: Intel doesn’t mean anything.

Peter: It’s running Windows.

Scott: Yes.

Scott: Yeah.

Peter: So, yeah, so that’s where I’m at.

Peter: You know, and even now, like, you know, I keep hearing about, like, the guys on ATP talking about how everything is instant and, you know, yada, yada, yada with their M1s still.

Peter: So…

Scott: I wouldn’t get…

Scott: Yeah, but very well, I don’t know what Casey’s using, but Marco’s not using a MacBook Air, as far as I know.

Scott: He’s using a MacBook Pro.

Peter: Okay, but he was with the Air for the longest, for what, a year or so, and he loved it.

Scott: Yeah, I think so, but I think as soon as the MacBook Pro came out, I think he got one.

Peter: Yeah, but that’s Marco.

Peter: He buys a new Tesla every freaking year.

Scott: Well, does he buy a new Tesla every year?

Peter: Well, he bought something else this time.

Peter: He said, yes, he’s not buying a Tesla anymore.

Peter: So, anyway…

Scott: He bought something he could run on the beach.

Peter: Exactly, yes.

Scott: Stupid Toyota thingy.

Peter: So, hey, yeah, but the point is, he can afford to buy a new Tesla every year.

Peter: One of the biggest things that I actually disliked about the Tesla is I drove around in a couple of cars with CarPlay, and I’m like, why the heck can my car not do this?

Scott: Because Elon Musk is a jerk.

Peter: Yes, but it doesn’t do Android Auto either.

Scott: Right, I think he has a not invented here syndrome attitude going on.

Peter: Yep, exactly.

Scott: He’s like, I’m gonna send people to Mars.

Scott: There’s no way I need to use someone else’s audio system.

Peter: I’m just gonna try not to bitch about Tesla this episode.

Peter: It’s so hard.

Scott: How are your windows these days?

Scott: They fixed it.

Peter: I had to pay for that repair.

Peter: But yes, so that angers me.

Peter: But hey, there you go.

Peter: What else did we want to talk about?

Peter: We wanted to talk about other things.

Peter: And I wanted to talk about something lighter.

Peter: How I dare…

Peter: This might be the third rail.

Peter: How are the COVID infection rates in your area?

Scott: I don’t know.

Scott: I think they’ve gone down.

Scott: Because I know that the mask mandates are ending here.

Scott: In fact, they have ended.

Peter: So here, like in my immediate vicinity, the mask mandates have been lifted almost everywhere that I frequent.

Peter: And we just got the announcement from the yoga studio where I teach that our capacity is going up to 75% from 50%.

Peter: So that’s a first since 2020 when we locked everything down.

Peter: That’ll be interesting.

Peter: So I’ll be able to teach like 13 people in class instead of nine.

Peter: So that’s good.

Peter: I’m happy about that.

Scott: It looks like they spiked in January and February, and then they came way back down.

Scott: Oh my god, they really spiked.

Scott: I mean, they went way up in January.

Peter: That was Omicron.

Scott: Yeah, right.

Peter: Yep, yep, yep.

Peter: So that was fun.

Scott: I don’t know if it was.

Scott: I had it and I didn’t think it was that great.

Peter: Yeah, I have not…

Peter: Knock on wood, I managed to avoid it, and I’m hoping to keep that record.

Peter: I’m blemished.

Scott: You’re like one of my few friends I know that didn’t get it.

Scott: Yeah, so, yep.

Scott: Must be that crisp Boston air.

Peter: It must, because we didn’t have any infections here.

Peter: Oh, brother.

Scott: So, I have a question for you before we end this.

Scott: You and I on a different podcast, I purchased a tiny, tiny amount of Bitcoin, just to see, just for fun, on a podcast that we did together.

Scott: And I know that you have some Bitcoin, or you had some Bitcoin, and I believe you might have even paid for your Tesla using Bitcoin.

Peter: I paid for a large chunk of my Tesla using Bitcoin, yes.

Scott: So, where do you stand now on the whole crypto thing?

Scott: Because, man, I gotta tell you, there are so much of a religious aspect to it, and there’s so much of a disregarding the fact that the planet is burning aspect to it.

Scott: There really is so many people buying into things about it.

Scott: So, the reason I’m asking is because Vice apparently has a documentary available on YouTube with several episodes, and it’s about different viewpoints on cryptocurrency and what it’s good for, whether it’s actually doing anything, whether or not it’s actually damaging the planet.

Scott: And I plan to watch that.

Scott: I haven’t watched it yet.

Scott: But I listened to the Motherboard podcast episode describing why they made it.

Scott: I would like to hear from you if you believe that it’s all a bunch of hogwash, or if there are actually some redeeming things to cryptocurrency.

Scott: Because as far as I can tell right now, it’s a libertarian dream, and libertarians always forget two things.

Scott: One, that everybody’s actions actually do affect each other, so you can’t just have ultimate personal freedom without cost.

Scott: And two, governments are never, ever, ever, ever gonna let you have a separate financial world that the government doesn’t know about and isn’t able to tax and isn’t able to control.

Scott: It just is not going to happen.

Peter: I can’t argue against that, against either of those points.

Peter: I think there are cool redeeming qualities, and you know, taking out the middleman in transactions, I think is pretty cool.

Peter: I like that.

Peter: We effectively almost get there with services like Venmo, you know, and Zelle, but they hold on to your money for a few days and, you know, make it that way, et cetera, et cetera, and they are a middleman.

Peter: So I do like, you know, from a libertarian standpoint, yes, I do like that distributed, decentralized nature of things, but the system can still be gamed.

Peter: And when you look at how much, you know, energy is being used for mining these things, then, yeah, it does kind of like hurt my soul a little bit.

Peter: But I don’t know.

Peter: The thing is, it seems like no matter what you come up with, no matter how good an idea is, that people will find out a way to screw it up.

Peter: And-

Scott: Right.

Scott: Somebody, people make a bunch of money in the beginning, and other people lose money, and eventually-

Peter: Yeah, crypto.

Scott: And the other thing, too, is a lot of these people who think that their money is so secure and that you can never lose the money, well, that’s just not true, because a lot of people are losing tons of money in crypto.

Scott: Because, you know, saying that your money can never be reclaimed, that’s not true.

Scott: Because exchange after exchange has proven that they can-

Scott: Lose money.

Scott: They can, yeah, and take money back.

Scott: If there’s fishy stuff going on.

Scott: So the whole dream about it’s completely protected, and you can never lose your money, and no one can ever take it back, and it’s 100% secure.

Scott: And not to mention that a lot of these so-called safe systems are backed up by other systems that people claim to be trying to get away from with cryptocurrency.

Scott: And so there’s just so many things about it that don’t make sense.

Scott: They don’t really have the complete separation from the financial system that they claim to have.

Peter: Correct.

Peter: Yeah, because there’s an interface.

Peter: There’s always a gateway into, you know, to-

Peter: Because yeah, I mean, that’s until you completely separate everything and everyone is all on, you know, that platform, that’s-

Peter: you have to have a way to transfer your assets in in the first place to buy in.

Scott: I know how to get total separation.

Peter: How do you do that?

Scott: Let’s say you’re an evil billionaire with a plan to shoot everybody to Mars.

Scott: Not everybody, but just people you like.

Peter: Indeed.

Scott: You shoot them to Mars and you create a Mars currency.

Scott: And only people on Mars can have and spend the Mars currency.

Scott: Indeed.

Peter: Yes.

Scott: Excellent.

Peter: Well, I think…

Scott: You do?

Peter: Therefore, I am.

Peter: Yes.

Scott: Yes, you are.

Scott: I know that you are, because I see you in my FaceTime window.

Peter: Well, you don’t know.

Peter: I could just be an NFT.

Peter: That’s one thing, though.

Peter: So, moving on from cryptocurrency on to NFTs…

Scott: Yeah, well, NFT is just a total hoax.

Peter: That is a complete scam.

Scott: Because people aren’t even getting what they think they’re getting.

Scott: They’re not even getting the single sole copy of what they think they’re getting.

Scott: They’re just getting a receipt that says that the sole copy of what they think they’re getting exists.

Peter: So, there we go.

Peter: This podcast, I was going to file this one as mediocre of questionable benefit.

Scott: Oh, really?

Peter: Yeah, yeah, this one.

Peter: Well, dude, did you see the beer I started with?

Peter: I drank a freaking IPA, okay?

Scott: Yeah, the IPA was of questionable benefit, for sure.

Peter: Right, and it is the Friends, no question, right?

Peter: The Friends are great, no question about that.

Peter: But when it comes to the beer, and beer is about half the episode, the beer was terrible.

Peter: But I think we managed to pull it out on a high note.

Scott: So, let’s see, I have to find out for sure now, which way do you want me to rate that one, Peter?

Peter: It is a beer.

Peter: So, but what I’m saying is that we managed to wrap this up on a high note by giving the listener some really good advice, which was, don’t spend money on NFTs.

Scott: In case it wasn’t already self-evident enough.

Peter: Indeed.

Peter: No freaking taking an NFT.

Peter: I don’t know how to do it.

Peter: Just don’t do it.

Peter: Just don’t do it.

Scott: Maybe next time we need to delve into the topic of why everything is becoming a religion.

Scott: Like, people can’t just be interested in something.

Scott: It has to be gung-ho, full force, this will save the universe and change my life.

Scott: Everything is becoming that way, whether it’s our leaders, our heroes.

Peter: Isn’t that all just marketing?

Peter: I think it’s all just marketing.

Scott: I don’t think so.

Scott: I think it’s people losing the ability to have any amount of nuance in their thinking.

Peter: Yeah, you’re on that.

Peter: Makes me want to take more psychology classes.

Scott: Oh, I thought you were going to take, say, why don’t you take more, I thought you were going to talk about drugs, pharmacy.

Peter: Melatonin.

Peter: Last night, I went to bed, and for the first time in a while, I did melatonin, GABA, and niacinamide.

Peter: And that cocktail, that puts me out nicely.

Scott: I don’t even know what half those things are.

Peter: They’re amino acids, niacinamide is just vitamin B.

Peter: Melatonin is just a naturally occurring chemical thing.

Scott: Is that a sleeping thing though?

Scott: I thought melatonin made you feel better.

Peter: I think there’s some hormonal balancing kind of things going on, but for me, it just knocks me out.

Peter: And I feel better when I sleep well, so there you go.

Scott: Peter drugs himself, you heard it here first.

Peter: Indeed, not just with an IPA.

Peter: So on that note, Scott, if people want to find us, how can they do that?

Scott: Well, there’s a Twitter account that we have, and it’s amazing, it’s called Friends W Beer Pod.

Peter: Friends W Beer Pod.

Scott: Friends W Beer Pod, and it cracks Peter up every single time.

Scott: It will never get old for him.

Peter: Every single time.

Scott: And of course, our website is friendswithbeer.com, and there is a The Friends link at the top of that, and there are links to how you can accost us on the social medias.

Peter: Hey, we’re actually accumulating some followers.

Scott: Are we?

Peter: Yeah, we got a few.

Peter: That’s pretty cool.

Scott: Are you sure those aren’t things that I edit?

Scott: Let me look here.

Peter: No, and I actually know a few of these people, so this is pretty cool.

Scott: Are any of them conspiracy theorists, Peter?

Peter: I’m sure all of them are.

Scott: Oh my god.

Scott: I wish we could talk about that on the podcast.

Peter: But I am a little…

Peter: Whoever is running Friends Wabir Pods Twitter account…

Scott: Very lame.

Peter: Would you have him ping at Sublime Comp and tell him to follow us?

Peter: Because I think he owes us a follow.

Scott: Yeah, okay.

Peter: That’d be great.

Peter: All right.

Peter: That’d be great.

Scott: Thank you.

Scott: I’m guessing that’s our erstwhile friend, Adam.

Peter: That is our…

Peter: Wait, Friends Wabir Pod is following Tim Cook?

Scott: Sure, why not?

Peter: Why are they following Tim Cook?

Peter: What has he ever done for us?

Scott: Is it really Tim Cook or is it a fake Tim Cook?

Peter: It’s at Tim underscore Cook, and he’s got a blue check mark.

Scott: Hey, at Nikolaitis, thanks you owe us a follow.

Scott: But he also thinks NFTs are great value.

Peter: Oh, that’s it.

Peter: I should have quit while we were ahead.

Peter: Oh, brother.

Peter: All right.

Peter: Hey, I see Jesta.

Peter: We’re following Jesta, Brian Page.

Scott: I know, and I don’t think it.

Scott: You know what?

Peter: Oh, that reminds me.

Scott: I sent him an email through his website.

Scott: I wanted him to write a theme song for this podcast.

Scott: Because he has done some stellar work for us in the past for other podcasts.

Peter: He had, indeed.

Scott: And I don’t think he ever got the message.

Scott: I’m not sure.

Scott: So now I got to figure out how to actually get his attention.

Peter: I was going to say, you could send him a message on Twitter.

Scott: Yeah, maybe he just, maybe he got it, and his first thought was, oh, not those guys again.

Peter: Oh, those guys?

Peter: Oh, man, I did such a garbage job on that, that not speeding in reverse theme.

Peter: I don’t want to ever do anything like that again.

Scott: No, no, I think that what he realizes is that every podcast he’s made a theme for us for, his theme was the best thing about the podcast by far.

Peter: Why is that a bad thing?

Scott: I think that he just is like, I don’t want to attach my valuable name to these.

Peter: I mean, that sounds like something that you would put onto a, you know, onto a resume or something.

Scott: That’s true.

Scott: My songs were the best part of any podcast.

Peter: We don’t have a big red button on this show, but I think it’s time to push it, whatever that is.

Scott: I think it’s time to push your big red IPA.

Peter: I’m going to go sit on the couch and watch some YouTube videos while I let this IPA make its way through my system.

Scott: That sounds good.

Scott: Watch some YouTube videos on cryptocurrency from Vice.

Peter: Maybe I will.

Scott: All right.

Peter: On that note, I say we push that big red button wherever it is.

Scott: Pushing it now.