Overview

We jump around topics more than usual today. This could mean there are just so many things to talk about or it could mean lots of things are happening. It could also mean that our regular jumbled ADD brains are in high gear.

How about talking sports? We don’t do that much, but this is different. Ohio high school has just accepted eSports as an official lettered sport.

Did you letter in a sport or would you have liked to be a part of an eSports team and get a varsity letter?

Oh, and today’s job market uses tech – especially online job boards, with Indeed being one of the biggest. Recently, more and more jobs are appearing that don’t require college degrees.

Do you have a degree and does your job require one?

We talk about making decisions and how facts and science should win out. Too often, people make a decision based on emotion or limited knowledge.

Are you diabetic and looking for a good snack? Popcorn is a great choice and Kernel Seasons can make it better.

Recommendations

High School (esportsohio.org)

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/jobs-without-a-degree

42 up-and-coming careers without college (and 10 to avoid) (greatschools.org)

No degree? No problem. Tech firms move away from college requirement for new hires | Computerworld

College Degrees: The Job Requirement Companies Seek, but Don’t Really Need – HBS Working Knowledge

KernelSeasons – Sauer Brands (sauers.com)

YouTube

Transcript

Alan: All right. Good morning. I had to swap out my U USB cable for my little camera. Lemme see if I can get a better background. Not sure why this seems to happen. Every time that I update Zoom, even like a tiny little, there we go. Let’s give you a London so that it’s Dr. Who, I don’t have a Star Wars image, but there we go.

Okay. Nice. All. Yeah, sorry that we had that little bit of blank screen there for a moment. I only have so many ports. It’s funny. One of the reasons that I still have to do anything physically is because I have on the back of my Mac mini certain ports that you like. When I use the camera, I need to have a no lag as fast as possible.

And also when I use my D V D cd, et cetera, drive it, I’ve noticed that even though I have a dongle, it has eight extended ports. Some things work well with it and some things don’t, right? And everything should work. Be powered device and it should pass right through. And yet, What, whatever they’ve got the chats in there and stuff like that.

It has expectations and I got, you get spoiled by having so many devices nowadays be auto registering, auto, like declaring themselves and doing the hands shaking and making sure that ...

Overview

Two of our favorite topics – gaming and music – are once again talked about.

Stephen had a couple fun game day experiences and Alan tells what he loves about attending Mensa mind games. If you enjoy gaming, you’ll understand the fun stories.

Does gaming affect your life choices? We talk about what gaming can teach us and how we evaluate taking chances in life. Maybe you play games differently than life?

We don’t just talk about music today, we discuss what it may be to be considered a sellout and do we think that way. Many groups are examples of this, and we have similar feelings on it. Do you have a group you think sold out?

And lastly, what would you rather have – a nice long talk with a creator you admire or their signature?

Recommendations

FAN EXPO Cleveland (fanexpohq.com)

Marvel Fluxx | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

American Mensa’s Mind Games | April 20 – 23 (mensamindgames.com)

YouTube

Transcript

Alan: There we go. That should give us some good space sand mount contrast. Look how cool we

Stephen: are. Yeah. I’m avoiding tie fighters, .

Alan: It’s Star Wars month. I hadn’t thought of embracing that theme. I’m sorry about that. Thought of cold. It was old enough here. I, our house is well insulated and warm and so forth, and yet last night I got cold in, so I went and got like another comforter and threw it on top of us and we’ve been sleeping with a comforter and a bedspread on us.

Cause it was kinda like a weighted blanket. It really is. It like swaddles you and makes you sleep. I guess because we had switched to just, anyway, it was, it’s very weird. I’m usually pretty temperature, self-regulating. I’m hardly like, stinky cold blooded or anything like that. And yet waking up when everything is usually nice and like cuddly warm and it’s not, it’s like I must correct this and so I’m I think around in the dark.

Stephen: I think it really does feel more cold when it’s damp and it’s been raining for days off and on.

Alan: It may have, you it, it’s funny. We, it has been the overcast I talk about this, I’m sure every year I have a touch of sad, seasonal effective disorder where every morning when it, when you wake up and it’s not sun, but it’s just that kind of overcast gloom and stuff like that.

I really, I used to spring out a bed , and nowadays it’s just so tempting to be like, I could just kinda roll over, fluff the pillow and go back down. And. Oh and I’m heading out at the end of the week for my next California trip and I usually that’s a tonic cuz hey California. But as you probably know, they’ve been having torrential rainfall, atmospheric rivers as they call them, parking on top of the state.

And they really haven’t reached down to San Diego as much as Sacramento and more like center and upwards. And yet I’m scheduled to have four days of rain when I get there, like Saturday through Monday or something like that. I whate whatever Nick,

Overview

And we are into a new year. While we enjoyed some things about last year and we had a good holiday season, it’s time to look ahead and see what’s coming up.

To kick it off, it’s Star Wars month for Stephen. Time for movies, comics, books, card games, video games, and soundtracks.

Since we listened to a ton of Christmas music and Alan attended a playing of James Bond music for New Year, we have a great discussion about live music.

Have you seen the Avatar movie? Alan has.

Recommendations

StarWars.com | The Official Star Wars Website

Kansas (band) – Wikipedia

Hive (game) – Wikipedia

YouTube

Transcript

rg 127

Stephen: Record. All right. Good morning, Alan. Good morning.

Alan: Lemme get my volume up a little bit cause I can’t hear you as How about that? Better? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes,

Stephen: exactly. Okay. So we got through Halloween, we got through, and I don’t wanna say got through. We enjoyed Halloween, we enjoyed Thanksgiving, we enjoyed Christmas and New Year’s, and now it is the best time of the year.

Alan: Why do you think that? Because a lot of people think this is the doldrums, they’re waiting for it to be like warm again and stuff like that. But okay, so

Stephen: Here’s my issue. I love the holidays. That’s all we’ve talked about for four months, watching horror movies, watching Christmas horror, Thanksgiving and eating and Chris and buying presents and New Year’s.

We’ll talk about New Year’s. I love the holidays and when my kids were little. I loved it and had a great time. It was just such a great part of the year. I always look forward to school starting cuz it was, the next four months were just fantastic. And then I always got depressed in January and it just, I could barely face the new year.

So I created Star Wars month. January is Star Wars Month . I listen to Star Wars music. I watch the movies. I play video games. I play board games. I read books. I read comics. I engross myself in Star Wars. Totally look forward to it and it helps.

Alan: That’s very funny. It’s funny. I guess that’s a kind of, I like introverted things.

I love going out, as I love going to concerts and comedy shows and parties and stuff. But one of the things that I really like about having seasons,

Overview

It is post Christmas and we discuss the swag we gave and received.

We had a wonderful time with family and discuss the holiday festivities.

Recommendations

New Year’s Eve Celebration with the Music of James Bond – The Cleveland Pops Orchestra

Dickens of a Christmas – Ohio History Connection

Welcome to Ohio Tea Company – Ohio Tea Co

PocketDrum 2 Plus | Portable Virtual Electric Air Drum Set

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension – Wikipedia

Pogo (comic strip) – Wikipedia

YouTube

Transcript

Alan: but, okay. So here, first of all, here’s the the Christmas shirt,

Stephen: the, oh, that’s awesome.

Alan: Spiderman swinging from the the web with lights on it, so I’m, anyway that’s really

Stephen: great.

Love that. I got a peanuts, at the end of the Charlie Brown special when they’re all singing in a group. My mother got me that as a sweatshirt, but you can turn it on. And the some of the snowflake sparkle,

Alan: that’s, oh, that’s really good. .

Stephen: Yeah, I like that a lot. Then it’s launched

Alan: the I love that special.

It’s funny. I don’t, is that the thing I’ve rewatched the most times in my life? That plus the Grinch, it just is, it’s perfect. It’s got the little peanuts dancing, where they’re all , Pigpen able to create, a dust storm in the snowfall

Stephen: and stuff, right? . And I love the little meme that’s been going around saying, ah, Christmas time, that time of year when you get to watch Snoopy eating human femur bones,

Alan: That’s really good.

Cause they’re large, they’re brought to serious law, that’s funny.

Stephen: Cheaper. So how was your Christmas man? Good. Good Christmas.

Alan: It was really good, it Colleen and I really have a swag fest, because it’s just the two of us. We don’t have kids. Obviously. Kids are the real focus of Christmas in lots of ways, but, , and we don’t tend to do it, that it’s okay give me a car with a bow on it.

We tend to just have all kinds of little interests, and over the course of the years, people talk about things and then hopefully you remember. And so that turns into a nice possibility of a gift and stuff like that. So you can get a whole table full of, books that cost $15 each, or nice CDs or clothing.

We had just the wrapping of things is funny. I’m really good about the origami of wrapping, I’m really good about folding the paper perfectly and everything is nice, tight quarters and everything. And I measure it so that it.

Overview

There is a lot going on in the A.I. world, and we discuss only a portion. Starts off with weather and predicting it since Alan is watching that for his flight.

We talk about the wondrous glut of Christmas albums and music that we’ve been listening to and recommending.

Recommendations

Raspberry Pi Sensors – https://amzn.to/3HUHFRo

Chat GPT – openai.com

Midjourney

ProgJect | The Ultimate Prog Rock Experience

Christmas Groove

YouTube

Transcript

Stephen: Hey Allen. We both got snow escapes.

Alan: Exactly. It’s, and it’s funny, here in California where I currently am, there was only lots of rains that, of snow. But from what I understand, it’s sweeping across the nation.

Stephen: We had a little bit of snow yesterday, but it didn’t really last.

Alan: It’s I’m flying in and out of Denver tomorrow to get home.

And so I was really hoping that wouldn’t coincide with exactly when they were getting buried. We’ll see,

Stephen: we’ll see. , you can turn into one of those comedy Christmas travel movies.

Alan: Exactly. It stranded in. Let’s see. I’m gonna, I don’t even know how I would get outta Denver. Like you can’t really hop on a bike or a, I’m sure I get a car and then be stuck in the following the snowplow route out of the mountains, that kinda thing.

Stephen: And you mentioned about the weather, talking about it, the apps and the tracking and all that. funny and I’ve had this discussion with Colin. They are definitely better. I like AccuWeather. That app seems to be pretty good. It’s the farther out you go, the less accurate they get.

They can pretty much predict today and really close to tomorrow, but you get 2, 3, 4 days and it might as well change. It will change by the time you get there.

Alan: Exactly. I That’s traditionally been one of those. There’s so much chaos involved in the interactions of huge systems that you Exactly.

As you get further out, it becomes less and less reliable. But what I’ve noticed, and also I use AccuWeather as well, from what I understand, they tap into the national Weather services. They have weather monitors all around the United States, every airport, every city, et cetera. And what I’ve been using sometimes is It’ll come on my phone and say, the rain is going to stop at eight 11 and it’ll be stopped for 45 minutes and it’ll start up again.

And so it’s if I was going to go out and run errands where I don’t want my mail to get wet or move the trash cans outside, or whatever else it might be, it’s just amazing to me that they can have it so pinpoint accurate. And I like, they have now where you can actually watch from the weather maps, things sweeping across, here’s the frontline.

Yeah. And all that kinda stuff. And it’s,

Overview

Tech is always on top of our list (and we don’t have to check it twice.) This time its VPN (virtual private networks). If you aren’t sure if you need one, listen in and find out more.

We do have a Christmas talk – it is that time of year. Alan is finding new music to listen to and has gotten plenty of suggestions.

Recommendations

https://www.expressvpn.com/

Carl Palmer Official Web Site – Carl Palmer Official Global Web Site

ProgJect | The Ultimate Prog Rock Experience

New Year’s Eve Celebration with the Music of James Bond – The Cleveland Pops Orchestra

Sugarcreek Cuckoo Clock – Sugarcreek, Ohio – Wikipedia

YouTube

Transcript

Stephen: Good morning,

Alan: Alan. Yes. I still haven’t found Christmasy things to share, so I

Stephen: guess I’ll have to send you all the library I collected a couple years ago, .

Alan: Okay. I would appreciate that. Cause I think that they’re cross platform easy and stuff like that. And let me turn off a whole bunch of other stuff so that I have all the bandwidth to dedicate to Right.

our

Stephen: little podcast. Okay. You notice my background looks very Christmasy, but if you look real close at the Christmas tree, it’s Marvel characters. .

Alan: I do see that. I’m, I’ve seen Grot and I’m trying to think exactly. Okay. And distorted versions of them. So they’re their elephant versions of things.

Stephen: Yes. Yes. That’s, and then I got my Santa hat on today. .

Alan: Very good. . See, boy, I. . Give me a moment. Let me see if I can, I gotta have something better than the Northern Lights. I don’t wanna ever do one where it’s, two in a row, the same thing. Yeah. How about how

Stephen: about a library?

Have we had a library? Libraries, library’s always good on a cold winter day when it’s wishing for snow.

Alan: 40 something. Exactly.

Stephen: So look what I got. I got holiday cupcakes. They’re limited addition, so that means if I keep ’em for 25 or 30 years, they’ll be worth money. Because it’s limited addition.

Alan: Yes. And the sad thing about that is I know I’ve seen scientific studies where they like took a Twinkie and did indeed leave it alone for decades and it was still standards wise, fresh enough to eat. Yeah. So whatever is Twinky, I don’t know about cupcakes, but I’m pretty sure. There’s no more real food in those.

They’re all like trisodium, cupcake eight and stuff like that. They’re made out of chemical things that simulate frosting and simulate brown cake and stuff like that with a little cream filling that, who knows what that’s been for a long

Overview

It is after Thanksgiving and we have our holiday report. Lots of family time.

Recommendations

YouTube

Transcript

rg 123

Stephen: Oh, hey, microphone .

Alan: In fact, hey, I got the actual BALs thing showing. Let me get a better backdrop than this. Let’s see. Got that. I know that package at some point. It’s kind funny. Zoom is one of the worst for I’ve downloaded multiple times and loaded multiple times, various different things and it just doesn’t seem to retain them.

You know what I mean? I’m I continually have to download their package again or things that I know I like, went and hit the net, sought out zoom backgrounds, loaded a whole bunch of stuff, especially seasonal stuff like for summer, fall, winter holidays and that kind of stuff. And yet, so here I am with my Northern Lights, cuz all my Christmas stuff, no not available apparently.

I will figure out why that is. It might be that when reinstall their package. Just what you shouldn’t do. They overwrite all of their subsidiary files, their parameter files and stuff like that, including the folder into which I put all the Zoom background. Wow. Yeah. That’s zoom, get with it, I guess so.

Okay. Maybe

Stephen: may I, not actually not picking this time. Maybe it’s a more Mac thing cuz I’ve not had that problem. It will hold my background and it hasn’t deleted

Alan: anything, so it might be that too. Let me where am I? Here? I want to go to displays and turn on my, I do a whole bunch of usual prep.

Like I turn on night shift on the Mac, which gives you here, behold how I look more lifelike now by getting the glare of the screen not be as bright as it is. So it, it’s

Stephen: amazing what radiation does for your complexion.

Alan: True enough. Exactly. I just, you given all the phosphors that I regularly sprinkle on my face so that I glow in the dark.

Right.

Stephen: So how was your

Alan: Thanksgiving, sir? It was very good. It’s funny, everything changes. When I first joined clan Fitzgerald, there was like 30 people at Thanksgiving because it was the entire, Colleen is one of nine kids and they all have their families and you mom and dad, her mom and dad were still around.

And so it was like multiple tables in multiple rooms with, who gets to sit at the adult table and who’s at the kids table, even youre a kid at or something like that. But it’s gotten smaller, but multiple siblings now have kids of their own, multiple nieces and nephews have their kids.

And so there, there’s kinda like everybody is beset. Doing the shuttle diplomacy of going to multiple Thanksgivings. And oftentimes then, depending on, you’re raking a ton of food, but not everybody is sitting down to eat both of those turkeys that you’ve made. I made, laugh about this joke before, first time I ever heard the phrase bring out the first Turkey because there was a second Turkey, that kind thing,

So it was smaller, a dozen of us instead of 30. But it was that way, everybody gets to sit at the same table and have real conversation instead of being only, the cl of silverware on plate and stuff like that, right? It was wonderfully pleasant. One of Colleen’s sisters,

Overview

Recommendations

Trivia

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Transcript

Overview

Recommendations

YouTube

Transcript