Segments - 48: iPhone Debacle

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

In this episode we discuss the future of technology, media, and pizza.Advertise on Segments via Gumball.fm.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a Hedgum Original. Hey, I'm Jake Johnson, host of the podcast, We're Here to Help. But this episode right now that you are listening to is sponsored by Brooklinen. Brooklinen provides luxury bedsheets, pillows, comforters and blankets delivered straight to your door. How do I know this? Because Brooklinen delivered me a quilt, sheets, pillowcases, and I love them. Plus Brooklinen has been tested and awarded by experts including Good Housekeeping, GQ, Wirecutter, and the hosts of We're Here to Help. So listeners can save a ton by purchasing a hardcore bundle which includes a core sheet set, which is the thing I got, extra pillowcases and a duvet cover.

You can also mix and match. They do this stripe thing that's cool, but that's a dealer's choice. So are you ready to build your dream fall bed? Visit in-store online at brooklinen.com. That's brooklinen.com. B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N dot com. Get 15% off your first Brooklynen order and save extra when you bundle. Jake and Amir are two Jews that you can't forget.

In 2010 they were big on the internet and all things considered, Their success is more than fair Are you awake? Now here's one more effort For only positive motive Hello? Since they swear! Second Another podcast

Second Each app different from the last Second It's the Swiss Army knife of shows Malice Eat your two empathic hoes Sadness You're in a real coma. You can't fucking vamp while I catch a little shut eye for two seconds. You're so needy that I need to be here doing like a back and forth ping

ponging dialogue around all the time. Cause you can't hold your own for just a few minutes. Like a soliloquy or something. I can't just talk by myself for minutes at a time. Try just to vamp for a second while I rest. Is it a second or do you need like an hour? Cause we might as well not start yet. I don't know how long I'm gonna be out for.

Cause I can't even fall asleep with you squawking in my ear this way. You need white noise. That's what you are providing. That's what I call you. That's my nickname. If you guys are watching at home, the reason the video looks so crystal clear right now is because I did get the new iPhone.

It is the 16 Pro, and I am down-sourcing recording in HD so it will look exactly the same as my three-year-old phone. So they won't notice. You said that they would notice. They won't notice a thing. They won't.

And the entire transfer from one phone to the other was a debacle. Do you enjoy the new iPhone? It's imperceptibly different. And once again, getting it was a small deal that became a giant headache. What happened? What happened was everything all in one day, last Friday.

I'm gonna open up this protein shake so I can really enjoy this story. ASMR for the fans at home. That's me shaking up this O-W-Y-N double shot, caramel rock macchiato. I think it rocks, iado. I've actually never had this before, but it has 20 grams of protein.

Oh no. It's carbonated. Oh no, why? Carbonated milk. Okay, we'll see if this is any good. They're not a sponsor, everybody, I'm just thirsty. Okay, so yeah. You want the new iPhone?

You're gonna get the new iPhone? I pre-ordered the iPhone because I have a three-year-old phone. I'm ready to get it day one. It's actually terrible, by the way. September 20th, it's available at the Apple store and I'm fucking first in line. Mm-hmm.

Wow, you got it. For my time slot, which is 12.30 PM. But you got it basically the day that it came out? Yes, which was ultimately not a great idea because when I arrived, there was a line out the door. When I got inside, there were 400 people all doing what I was doing, which was trying to transfer their old phone to their new.

Why were you so desperate to get it on this day? Your phone was fine. Like it's gonna come, it comes in the mail. It was perfect. It comes in the mail a few days later. Why didn't you just wait? Yes, I could have actually had it delivered to my house. And I said, you know what?

I wanna do it all in store in case anything goes awry. You guys handle the trade-in, you guys handle the transfer. I just wanna leave with a phone that looks like my old phone but it has all the new bells and whistles and the charger actually works because the charger was dying for the last one. Right, that was the thing. So I get there at 12.30 and they give me my phone

and then they said, all right, let's set up a phone to phone transfer. And the timing said 11 hours, 11 hours to transfer the old phone to the new. Why do you have a lot of stuff? Because I had so much data on the phone. Because you had- These podcasts, pictures for the last 10 years, apps, WhatsApps, family threads, 500 gigs worth of crap.

Right, you have the Max. Is that the Max that is allowed stored on the phone? The Max is one terabyte and I was climbing rapidly towards it. Right, wow, okay. So to go from the old to the new would have required a 12 hour transfer from phone to phone. Otherwise you can upload to the iCloud,

which I guess takes a little faster, but I had to have done it beforehand. Right, okay. I didn't do that because my iCloud is only 200 gigabytes. I don't wanna pay for the additional storage because I can just keep it all on my phone. Joke's on you, Apple. I'm not giving you that 9.99 a month.

I wanna give you 2.99, barely use the iCloud because it was filled up four years ago and I can do it all myself. Turns out I can't. Why not? Because the transfer takes too long. I said, when do you guys close? They said nine.

I said, okay, it's gonna take 12 hours. I can't be here for that long. What do you recommend? And they said, I guess you can try to put it on your computer. I said, no, my computer is smaller than my phone. I don't have enough space on my computer. Yeah.

Phone 600 gigs, computer 512. I don't know. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, well, this is why I didn't want to do it at home so that you genius, you literally call yourself geniuses. Tell me what to do. Do they call themselves geniuses at the Apple,

that's where it is, at the Apple bar. Oh right, right, best buys Geek Squad. Okay, continue. Yes, I didn't go to the Geeks, I went to the geniuses. They told me to wait until they closed and then another four hours. I'm like, I can't do that, I value my time. So then one of the geniuses,

and I don't use that sarcastically, they actually call themselves that, suggested I put all of the dataes, and I don't use that sarcastically, they actually call themselves that, suggested I put all of the data not on my computer, but on an external hard drive. Do you have one? They ask, I said, no, I don't have an external hard drive. They're like, great, we got ones here. That's what I use my phone for.

We got a ton of external hard drives. Just buy one, dump all this phone from one phone to the external hard drive, and then dump this stuff from the external hard drive, and then dump this stuff from the external hard drive to the new phone. It'll be faster because it's wired. It's not wireless. Uploading it to the cloud right now would take too long.

Everybody's here uploading it. The cloud is slow, the WiFi's slow, it'll take too long. All right, great, fine. I'll spend $300 on an external hard drive, then return it 10 minutes later after I transfer my phone to it. Oh, so they said you could return it? Yeah.

Interesting. I buy the hard drive, I plug it into my computer, and another genius walks by, he's like, what are you guys doing? Like, wow, everybody else is acting normal. Why is there an external hard drive that you're buying? Why are you plugging it into the wall in the Apple store? What's going on here?

Yes. It can't be here. And the other genius is like, oh, I told him because it's going too slow, he has too big of a phone. I told him just to put it on the external hard drive and then to put it on this computer. And the guy's like, you can't do that,

you have to put it on your computer. It's like all, it has like all your information, all the iCloud stuff, your names, your passwords. You can't do that on an external hard drive. And he's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Okay, let's return the external hard drive. I'm like, well.

Sorry, sorry. It's already the end of plan B, we didn't even start, and you didn't know that? You had to have this guy tell you that it didn't work like that? That was so simple. And he's like, honestly, the only thing you could do is upload it to the cloud, your old phone,

which you should have done yesterday. I'm like, okay, I tried to do it yesterday, I guess it didn could do is upload it to the cloud, your old phone, which you should have done yesterday. Like, okay, I tried to do it yesterday. I guess it didn't do it for whatever reason. Upload your entire old phone to the cloud and then download it from the cloud to your new phone. Okay? And trust me, that'll be faster than the phone-to-phone transfer.

And you have to return the external hard drive. That was a false idea. That was a bad move. We shouldn't have done that. Sorry, I'm just trusting people blindly at this point. Go get in that really long line to return the hard drive. The returns, it's a two hour long. At this point they keep pushing me closer and closer

to the actual genius bar, because I'm getting pushed and pushed for the people who have been there for like an hour and a half for no reason. I basically haven't even started after an hour and a half. Okay, click upload to iCloud, 45 minutes, two hours, six hours, 11 hours. I show up, we're back to 11 hours and now it's 4 p.m.

I've been here for three and a half hours. Obviously I can't stay this long. I'm talking to somebody else at this point, a lady. She's like, yeah, we close at nine. I'm like, right, so what do you think I should do? And she's like, I don't know what to tell you. I'm like, nobody else is in this problem. We're all here and everyone else is doing it quick

and I'm the one guy who has slow Wi-Fi. I'm the one guy who has a phone that's too large to do this before 9 p.m. Why can't they just give you the phone? Why can't they just give you the phone to take home? We get there. So then I say, what would you do if you were in my place? But she's not, the chat GPT in her brain

is not allowing me to get an answer that I want. And she says, well I wouldn't be in this situation if I were you. Oh. I laugh. At that point I laugh really loud and I think she's angry at that. Yeah.

I thought it was a good line so I actually did laugh and find it funny but she thought I was like making fun of her or something. Right. So then I said, you know what? I can picture that loud. I'll do the iCloud thing. It was that really loud, ha!

Yeah, it was loud. And at this point everyone at the table is looking at me because I'm the guy with the fucking external hard drive rappers and like talking to like seven guys at the same time. The geniuses. I'm like, okay, I'll just go home with the phone, the new phone and give me the old phone

and I'll do this 12 hours transfer. Overnight, yeah. I'll do it overnight at my house. And they're like, did you do the trade-in though? I'm like, yeah, I did the trade-in. You guys have an envelope that'll send my phone back to Verizon. And they're like, so that's not your phone anymore. You can't leave with it.

And I was like, well, it's still my phone. I like, it's all my data. It's just backing up very slowly because the wifi here is so slow. I was gonna take it back to my house. Like you can't leave with your phone. It starts reaching for it. I'm like, what do you mean you can't,

I can't leave with my phone. You should have just run. Well technically it's not your phone. I'm like, okay, I know I can't leave, but what if I just went home and I did this all overnight and I come back tomorrow and he's like, I'll say that you stole the phone and then Verizon would cut your account off.

Very combative, it's getting very combative. I wouldn't be in this situation. If you do that, I'll say you stole the phone. What about? Why, why? I didn't do anything wrong. I'm being wrongfully accused. So I'm like, so I can't leave because you'll say I stole my phone and I can't

stay because it says 11 hours and it's 530 p.m. at this point. I've been there for four hours. What should I do? Right. What do you want me to imagine? It's nine and you want to go home now. What would you want me to do? Imagine it's nine and you wanna go home now. What would you tell me to do? Cause it will get there. Can I go to the Barnes and Noble across the street and use their wifi?

He's like, no, you can't leave with a phone. I'm like, okay. And at this point it's like getting like 5.36. I'm like, I'm just gonna leave my phone here. Let it upload, I'm out. You guys look after it. And he's like, I can't, if somebody steals it or takes your phone, I can't be responsible for it.

I'm like, that's okay, I just have to go. I have to like get out of here. Basically calling their bluff. I'm like, I'm gonna leave my phone. You say, I can't leave it, so I'll leave it here. It's uploading to the cloud and let me know when it's done. And he's like, all right, let me talk to the manager and see if we can put your phone in the back

so that we won't touch it, but nobody else will see that it exists. I'm like, okay, go for it. Yeah. But my phone didn't finish uploading yet. So I just leave with my new phone that's empty, bare, nothing on it. And my old phone is in the manager's office, I guess,

uploading to the cloud still very slowly because the internet's too slow. But you're trusting that at some point in nine hours, you'll just. It'll finish. And you'll get. And then I can hit download from iCloud from my house. Right.

But I have to go back to the Apple store to delete the phone, because they won't touch the phone. Oh, all right. So then it's not their problem. They won't just send it off. You need to go back. They will not send it off.

I have to go back and hit erase, because they are not allowed to touch the phone and I'm not allowed to leave with the phone. This is so dumb. And at this point it's been five hours. I'm like, this is great. Like how is this not a, I'm the first guy that's ever had a phone

that's too big to do this all in one day. Like what if somebody had an appointment at four and it took six hours? Like there's gotta be a backup or a faster way to do this stuff. They were so perplexed they had no answers. So I left, my phone kept uploading overnight and at like some point overnight I got like the notification

that the iCloud backup has been done. You can start downloading your stuff. Okay, and you- So you also have to- And I had to go back. You upgraded your Apple iCloud storage. Yep, oh yes, that's another thing. I had to update my iCloud from 200 gigs of storage,

which costs 2.99 a month. The next level up is two terabytes of storage, 10 times that for 9.99 a month. They know what they're doing. They don't wanna give you the 500 gig, the one terabyte option. It's too little or way too much for a lot of money more. There's nothing in between.

Right, right, right, right. God, that's so fucked. So at the end of the day, took another day or two to download everything onto my new phone. And it looks and feels exactly the same. Yeah. I'm paying more for storage that I don't need.

And I had to go back to the Apple store to delete it myself because they wouldn't delete it for me. My good lord, and was it any of the same people when you went back? Yeah, they were all pretty much there the whole weekend, kinda stressed out. So I felt bad that I was like the whole gang. Yeah, hey guys, me again.

Remember when you told me to stay and then I said I couldn't and then I was like I wanna go home. I'm the guy that made your bad day even stay and then I said I couldn't and then I was like, I wanna go home. I'm the guy that made your bad day even worse. And then I went home. Did anybody else have issues? Cause I think I'm pretty like on top of my shit. So like, I can't imagine everybody else was also like

even more so than that. Another highlight during when I was there was an old Asian man who came in and bought 36 iPhones and left. Wow. And they're like, who are those four? And he's like, um, uh, my son, like he's buying 36 iPhones to resell them. He's like, I don't know. They put 36 iPhones in like four bags and he just walked out. For my son. What if it's a lie? It's such a bad lie. So it's, so it basically has to be true. I have to ship these internationally tonight.

You could say, I don't know what he's gonna do with them. I'm the manager of a sports team. They're for my classroom, but he just said my son. So I guess all this is to say, my unsolicited advice is to upload your phone to the iCloud before you transfer it or just do the whole thing at home. Or yeah, you have to just do it at home.

You don't wanna do the trade-in, that's the real issue. But that's how you get the good deal because the trade-in is worth like several hundred dollars. But you can always do a trade-in after the fact, can't you? Like I always- I don't know how it works. I did it all through Verizon, like monthly. I've done- Pay payments and all that stuff. I usually, I think I ordered the iPhone.

Sometimes if someone in my family has a very old phone, I'll give my old phone to them. And then sometimes I'll resell it. There's some, there's like a bunch of different places that will buy it from you, but maybe you get a better deal if you do it through Apple. Yeah, but also like the phone, my phone, like my crap is getting, every three years

I've accumulated more pictures, more videos, and it's only going up and up and up, and it like snowballs. I guess I could just dump it all to an external hard drive that I completely forget about. Well, the trick is to delete all of the podcast videos. That'll bring you down real fast. I have 10 years worth of photos and videos on my phone too,

but I delete all of the giant files. Yeah, I have to stop treating my phone like an external hard drive basically and get an actual external hard drive. Yeah, you know, I also remember the last time I tried to buy an iPhone in store, I had a significantly less, but you know, oddly similar bad experience

where the guy was like, I wasn't even doing a trade-in. I was just like picking up the new phone and he was like, oh, you can like do this transfer now or you know, you could do it at home. I was like, oh sure, like yeah, let's just do it now. Then I can, I was like going out that night and I was like, yeah, I'll just go out and I'll have a new phone, that sounds great. We started, instantly was like, yeah, let's just do it now. Then I was going out that night and I was like, yeah, I'll just go out and I'll have a new phone.

That sounds great. We started, it instantly was like, it's gonna take, I think it was like three hours or something. Oh, I have a dinner reservation. I can't do this. He's like, well, we can't stop it. I'd like, he'd like.

Once it's in motion, it's going. So that's why I can't imagine. There's so many different variables and things to throw it off. You can do this out of a Verizon store. You can do it in an Apple store. You can trade it in. You can not.

There's dealing with 10 different permutations for thousands of people transferring their phones. It just seems like a complete shit show. Yeah, well I think they don't really care about customer service because they just make a product that everybody inexplicably wants and needs. And-

Yeah, and then the geniuses sort of have to deal with it. Yeah. And then it's like, yeah. Cause you can't like, who would you possibly tell about this bad Apple experience? Like, do you think you? Right. Yeah. Do you contact customer support and they're like, oh, we're so sorry.

We'll, we'll make a note of that. We have 200,000 employees. We're worth a billion dollars, a trillion, what's their market cap? It's so much. Yeah, it's a lot. Even with me staying there past their close, they would find us a business.

You having a rotten time at Apple and you saying people should not go to the store, we're shooting this on an iPhone, we're on a video call on a Mac, there's not, they're not going anywhere. They can mistreat us as much as they want. And I did go out that night with two phones, neither of them working,

I had to just kind of wander around hoping my friends would find me. Yeah, at one point somebody was like, well you can buy your old phone back if you wanna leave. I'm like, I'm not gonna spend another $1,000 buying my old phone back and then wanna leave. I'm like, I'm not gonna spend another $1,000 buying my old phone back. And then I have to retrade it in. I'll just stay for another three hours.

Yeah, I like this actually, because I'm mad. I can be self-righteous. I guess at a certain point, the longer you're staying, the funnier it is. Yes, and it starts to become euphoric, like when you fast for three days, you start feeling high.

Right, or when somebody is late to pick you up, or then you start being like, wow, if they are much later, then they'll feel really bad. Wow, if they're an hour late, that's kind of an amazing story. Where- Apple's gonna apologize to me. You think so?

They have to apologize. Yeah, I could see that happening. Anyway, this is Segments. All right. Ever changing podcast. Let's take a break. Thanks from sponsors. Come back and talk about something

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Take this survey and we will read the results. It's gum.fm slash S-E-G-M-E-N-T-S. Cool. Sorry, I have to spell it out for some people. Yeah, you do. Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode of our program. Oh yeah, baby. Halloween is just right around the corner, Jake. It's true. But what about our fears that don't involve zombies and ghosts? Oh yes, the ones we don't get candy for confronting. Yes, exactly, we're talking about anxieties. We're talking about little bits of depression that are peppered throughout your life,

whether it be a work relationship or family relationship, a romantic relationship, they can come in all shapes and sizes. That's fair, there's a lot of life to live. And the best way to deal with life's difficulties is by talking to a professionally licensed therapist. And the best way to do that is to go to BetterHelp. Yes, exactly.

If you're thinking of starting therapy, and I highly recommend it, I've taken therapy and it's very helpful, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suitable to your schedule. Exactly.

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It's entirely online, so it's more affordable than regular therapy, and it's incredibly convenient because you can do it whenever you want. Yes, you don't have to worry about getting your parking validated. Do you validate? Do you validate?

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Yes, yes. Give them a try. Trust me. It'll be very, very helpful. Exactly. Thanks. Better help. And we're back. Yes. All right. You suggested we pitch a television show or talk about an old TV pitch. That's correct. So we've talked about and we've read our TV pilot home again. What I found, because I had the idea that we should come up with a TV show on the podcast as a segment. Easy. And I found from August 15th, 2012,

an email to our agents, here are five network TV pitches for you to peruse. Let us know if any of them tickle your brains in the same way Scoops did. So Scoops was our first TV pilot. Okay, so I'll read these five and we can choose one to break the pile. Five log lines that we sent to our agent

and being like, do you think any of these will be good enough to sell? Yeah, so I'm reading these cold. I have not read these in 12 years. Idea number one, the apartment. Pete just dropped out of law school to pursue his dream of moving to New York and writing the next great American novel.

He's given himself one year to make a name for himself. In order to save as much money as possible, Pete moves in with Erin, an eccentric 20 something who owns an amazing apartment in Soho, handed down from a recently deceased grandfather. And his cute sister, Jenny, what Pete saves on rent, he sacrifices in having to spend time with Erin. So this is, it's kind of, yeah.

So it's just two roommates and two roommates. It's just two of the girls there. Yeah, exactly. And like the, yeah, I guess the reason that I'm there is because you don't pay any rent, you need a friend and your apartment is really nice so I can live there cheaply and I have a crush on your sister.

Seems pretty banal. I mean, the premise is thin, but like so is the premise to New Girl. So like, yeah, this is a nothing show, but like so is other shows on TV at the time. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely as good as the New Girl premise. Mike Rowe Brewery, Clay and Arthur, early thirties,

are two beer delivery men from Boulder, Colorado, who were just laid off by their employer, a super national beer chain, think Coors Miller Budweiser. Okay, yeah, we know for no good reason. We know what beer is. Fueled by their rage for this mega corporation and with extra time on their hands, they set off to create their own micro brewery

specializing in a craft beer they call Justice Brew, a workplace comedy about the little company in middle America that could. The show could either begin on the day the brewery opens or the day they decide to open a brewery with the brewery opening on the first season's finale. Okay. So it's kind of like Cheers,

but instead of about a bar, it's about the people that make the alcohol four bars. Right. It's a show set. It's a workplace comedy set in a brewery. And we were beer delivery men. That was our job. Number three, home again. Five friends, Jenna, Arthur, Sarah, Roger, and Mike.

That's not what it ended up being. But anyway, that's home again. We already know that's the one they went with. Four, the dispatch. One day, Ben is going to open his own taco diner, but for now, he's a bike messenger working in San Francisco. It doesn't matter what he's gonna do later.

Yeah. So the show's about a bike messenger. Well, it's about a guy who wants to have a taco diner. What is that? I don't know. It's a taco diner. It's a diner, you know, like a greasy spoon, but it's for tacos. It's a Mexican diner. It's a diner, you know, like a greasy spoon, but it's for tacos.

It's a Mexican diner. He spends all his time, he spends all his time in the dispatch center where he and his fellow bikers wait for errands. Bike messengers by nature are a quirky bunch and Ben finds himself having to get along with a strange cast of characters. Think a modernized taxi, but set in the West Coast.

I see. So there's, yeah. I don't know if there actually is a bike messenger or dispatch anymore. Maybe there was in 2012. Number five. All of our ideas are successful shows, re-imagined to be about either a taco diner

or a beer manufacturing company. It's kind of a snapshot in time. In 2012, craft brews were very big. Exciting and of the moment zeitgeisty location. Number five, Daily Planet. This is parentheses long shot idea. Set in Metropolis. Those first four are layups,

but let's hear this long shot. Yeah, well they obviously wanted the taco diner. Set in Metropolis, the Daily Planet focuses on the employees of this infamous newspaper who aren't Clark Kent. So it's just kind of like the sports writers of the Daily Planet. Well, I actually kind of like that one the most

now that I think about it. Yeah, that one's fine. So like Superman sort of happening in the background. It's like who won the baseball game and then you see like Lex's sort of happening in the background. It's like who won the baseball game and then you see like Lex Luthor flying in the background. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That kind of works. That actually does kind of work.

It's like a show that like Disney would have or something. It's like in the Star Wars universe, but not Star Wars. Yeah, it seems like, I mean, it seems like this is what they're doing now. This, if we looked at, if we dusted all of these off, that one is clearly has the biggest chance of going. Your character is- And yet no chance at all.

Right, of course. Your character is an obituary writer for the Daily Planet. Are people still doing this? Like are comedy writers still coming up with ideas like this or like, did everyone stop? Cause I know we stopped, but I don't know if it's because we became so jaded and cynical that we've given up. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't, I mean, I think there is like still a network pitching season. I just think that it's for the most part, concentrated around the same, like five to 10 guys. So it's kind of like the Chuck Lorries of the world. So it's kind of like the Chuck Lorreys of the world. But it also feels like there's not like network TV shows and like, are there still comedies on Fox and NBC? Like what's on NBC Thursday night?

I assume it's just like the biggest loser and not like a new comedy about an office or something. No, I think there are still new comedies. I mean, our friends are on- sitcoms? Yeah, ghosts, CBS. That was I mean, our friends are on them. Sitcoms? Yeah, Ghosts, CBS, that was. Yeah, but what's on NBC? NBC, isn't Rob McElheny's wife,

I forget her name, Dee from Always Sunny, I think she's on something. A show, a comedy on Thursday night on NBC? Yeah, let me see. This is us in the pitch. Like are you guys still even doing anything? Why are we even here? All right, well now I'm on NBC's.

Okay. It looks like they're on nbc.com, looking at their comedies. Their top one is Third Rock From the Sun. So that's an 11 year old Joseph Gordon Levitt. Yeah. And Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Oh, these are in alphabetical order for some reason.

Right. Yeah. Go to this Thursday night. What's on NBC? Okay. NBC Thursday night lineup. Here's the schedule. What's on NBC?

Let's go, I'm going to Thursday, 7 p.m. Yeah. Oh, it's just, it's, okay, so the, it appears that the news starts at 4 p.m. and goes until 10 p.m. When- Which one? Jay Leno comes on. When Brilliant Mind comes on.

And talks about the news. Yeah, so is that- until 10 p.m. When which one Jay Leno comes on when Brilliant Mind comes on. Yeah. So is that- So it's just the news all night. It seems, oh, Chicago Fire. That comes on sometimes. Let's show. America's Got Talent, that's one.

Reality. Yeah. Maybe comedy's dead. Maybe comedy is dead. Maybe comedy is dead. Who's to say? Why don't we pitch the news? Yeah. Jake and Amir are news casters.

Yeah, like there's no sitcoms anymore. They're all just talking about the news. Let's just fucking come, like how hard can it be? Here's one, JD Vance gets into the wrong cab and gets kicked out. And like that's something that the news can talk about. Yeah, cool. So yeah, we're basically just covering. We're pitching news stories.

We're covering the election. So yeah. We're coming up with ideas. What do you mean ideas? I don't think the news. Ideas for news, it's a pitched advance. So he can do it. So they can talk about something. I don't even think they. Ideas for news, pinched in vans, so he can do it, so that they can talk about something. I don't even think they come up with ideas for it.

I think they kind of just for the most part are getting all of it from the associated press. There's like a single news source that's like spouts all of it. And then they just have different newscasters say it and put a different spin on it, depending on what channel it's on. Right, and then like one day a week,

there's also Abbott Elementary on ABC. Well, I actually think it would be a lot easier for us to come up with Fox news stories. Like, because most of that shit is made up. Like the kids getting gender reassignment surgeries at school. Yeah, like we can pitch jokes to Gutfeld. Yeah, we we can pitch jokes to Gutfeld. Yeah, we can pitch basically jokes

like that they would be like, oh, that's good. Yeah, let's tell everyone that that's seriously happening. The eating the pets thing, that's, immigrants are eating people's cats seems like it has to just be like, that comes from the mind of a comedy writer, a really depraved one. This one's kind of a long shot,

but what are your thoughts on somebody eating a pet? Right, like you're probably gonna hate this one. The immigrants are eating the dogs. Based on a picture I think I saw on Facebook of a guy holding a goose, but we can say we fucking misheard something or something like that. I feel like, yeah, we could definitely be

news writers for Fox. Well, that's sort of the only thing. Like, I don't watch comedies anymore. I watch the news during the day, like on Twitter. And then I watch, like, John Oliver and John Stewart talk about the news and joke about the news. So I watch the news and then jokes about the news. That's comedy to me. That's really all you... and sports. Yeah, and sports. But I'm talking about in terms of like, my prime time television watching. Your prime time television watch is news. You and Amit Talden watch a show together?

Yeah, news or jokes about news or a football game. I see. I do a lot of TV viewing with Jillian, but- But you do like prestige television on like Netflix and Hulu. Yeah, yeah, we do on demand, critically acclaimed series. And when we've run out,

then sometimes we will watch old rom-coms because I've never seen any, but now I've seen a lot. That's just easy watching, you know, that's- Like Sandra Bullock movies? Julia Roberts, we just covered. Yeah, not a hill. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Not a pretty woman. Actually didn't watch Pretty Woman yet. I think we did Notting Hill and Runaway Bride were the two that I did. Yeah. Oh, wait, not Runaway Bride. It was Notting Hill and My Best Friend's Wedding. My Best Friend's Wedding is like a very kind of bizarre movie,

but it's great. It's just like the guy is such a jackass that they're like kind of fighting over her and she like really tries to break up a marriage. Young Cameron Diaz, she's incredible. Cameron Diaz, they don't make actors like this anymore. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I guess.

Cameron Diaz made America fall in love with her in this role, is what I think. Cameron Diaz made America great again. She really did, she really did. And I mean, Julie Roberts is just so charming. So yeah, those are fun. And then the other thing that we watch is every once in a while, we will watch Love is Blind.

And that reality, yeah, will like binge a reality thing. And that's a great show. Yeah, but sitcoms might not exist anymore, which is why I think it'll be funny if we reply to one of these emails after 12 years, it'd be like, hey, just checking in on this. I don't know if you wanna set up a general at NBC, but I'm still down to pitch,

or if they're only taking meetings with Peacock at this point. Interesting, that's not a bad idea. It looks like there's definitely two people that still work at the management company. Oh really? I was gonna say, odds are all the agents have also been fired.

Well the agents, I think none of the agents are here anymore. There's one agent that definitely is, was kind of pushed out of Hollywood for- Not so politely. Yeah. And then our main agent left, went to a different agency. So that email would bounce back.

But our manager, our two managers, they definitely still have those email addresses. Which is why it's the perfect time to nudge. Yeah. Hey, just nudging. Hey, just trading. Hey, let us know if closing the loop on. Checking in, re taco diner.

Did you guys like that? This isn't even a TV show idea anymore. I just really think we should open a restaurant. It could also be an Indian deli or something. Really just two ideas pushed together. Right. Would kind of make sense like a Thai food dive sports bar. Yeah, the important thing is that it's Ben's dream.

Ben is the Jake character. He's 39 now. It's funny because this one doesn't even have, like the other ones have like, all right, so I'm Pete and you're Aaron in the apartment. I'm Clay and you're Arthur in microbrewery. Yeah, why do we just keep the names the same? Well, in The Dispatch, we don't even have,

your character doesn't even have a name. It's just Ben. It can really just be Jake and Amir every time. Right, it should be. I don't know why we, why we did Clay and Arthur. That doesn't make any sense. Clay is a classic brewery name, I think that's why.

We did often make your name start with an A, I think. Like there's definitely, there's, there were a couple things where your name was Aiden. An Irish me. Yeah. All right, let's take another break. ["Handsome"] And we're back.

Okay, let's play a game. All right, I'm ready. Okay, this game is something we've played before. I've taken it from the web and I'm putting it back onto our version of the web, this podcast. It's called, I think Brainwave in which you roll a die to pick a number between one and 10. And I don't know that number,

but I ask you to rank things that I think deserve that number. And then I you to rank things that I think deserve that number. And then I try to guess what that number is. Oh, I see. All right, great. Okay, so you'll roll a die either digitally or real. You have a D10 you said? I do, always.

Okay, so roll it, but don't tell me what the number is. Okay, got it. Okay, you have it? Yeah. All right, I'm gonna take my headphones off so you can tell the audience what it is, but I won't hear it, ready? Right, the number is two. All right, you did it? Yeah. All right, I'm gonna take my headphones off so you can tell the audience what it is, but I won't hear it, ready? Right, the number is two.

All right, you did it? Yeah. Okay, so now I'm gonna try to guess what that number is by asking you to rank a sandwich. Wait, so I rank, I don't understand. So if you got like a two out of 10, this will be a shitty sandwich, or a sandwich you'd give a two to. Oh, I rank, I don't understand. So if you got like a two out of 10, this will be a shitty sandwich,

or sandwich you'd give a two to. Oh, I see, I see. So, all right, so you're telling me a sandwich and I thought you were like, I thought I was gonna just like need to rank a sandwich, like sandwiches are 10, man. Now I see, okay. Yeah.

A sandwich. Oh, you know the sandwich from Fire Fest that was like a piece of cheese. Oh like a slice of cheese. Yeah or lettuce or something. With two pieces of bread. Yeah, yeah. Oh that.

Okay, so that seems pretty bad but also seems like something you would love. So like I'm sort of like in the three zone. Interesting. Yeah, kind of like slap together quick meals like that, gas station cheese sandwiches. Yeah. Okay.

Give me an athlete. An athlete. Okay, an athlete. This might be hard, because if it's really bad, you can't really think of a bad athlete. No, it's fine. I could think at the end of the day, they're all professional athletes. Right. That's what I'm that's what I was. Okay. Manny Ramirez. Well, okay. So that's it's a guy who's really

good, but you hate him. Right. I see. So it's like, he was arguably the best Red Sox, but you hate the Red Sox. Okay, so then I'm back to one to two. Okay, give me one more. I'm gonna say, movie. Movie. Hmm. Okay. Okay. I can do that. Okay.

Okay. I can do that. Okay. It's, it's, it really is kind of hard. Okay, give me two seconds. Give me two seconds. Okay. You know, like, cause most of the movies that you,

that come to mind are of a certain, you're thinking of porn, you because most of the movies that you, that come to mind are of a certain. You're thinking of porn movies only. You have to think about just like regular, like the Julia Roberts movies. Yeah. I mean, those were great. Yeah. Twisters.

You didn't like that one at all. Okay, I'm gonna say two out of 10. Correct. Yes? 10. Correct. Yes? Yes. Yeah. Two is right. It could have been one.

It could have been one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's really hard to come up with a professional athlete who sucks and a movie that sucks that much. I'm like, I guess I could have said like G. Lee, but. Famously bad movie. Right, right, right. Okay.

But yeah, no, I got there and you got there. I'll try to roll one. Okay. I'm rolling a die. All right. I've muted myself. The number is three. The number is three.

Just kind of annoyingly close to two, but what are you gonna do? All right, we're back. I thought you were talking for a long time. Yeah, I was editorializing a little bit. Yeah, okay. You're talking shit about me? No, what are you talking about?

Okay, let's go my Jake's haircuts. Hmm, interesting. So your version of hair. Right, yeah, like not about like, more like which one you thought was, I was the hottest when I had this haircut, that's 10. I'll say the really long hair with the really long beard. Oh wow, interesting.

The longest grown out version of you. Yeah, okay, so it's kind of, it's not necessarily for everybody and I don't know that you liked it, but at the same time it's kind of a Luke and it was iconic. Okay. Cookie, a style of cookie.

A style of cookie. Or flavor or yeah of cookie. A style of cookie. Or flavor, or yeah, cookie. Oatmeal chocolate chip. Oh, that's very good. That is very good. You don't hate oatmeal. We're in the seven range. We are in the seven range.

American city. American city. American city. Washington DC. That's actually taken me a little more mid. All right, I think we have to do it after three. I'll go six. It was too high. I tried to lower you down with DC,

which I consider the worst city in America. But the number was six. It was too high. I tried to lower you down with DC, which I consider the worst city in America. Wow. But the number was three. Wow. The number was three. I guess I overestimated how much you like oatmeal cookies. Yeah, because chocolate chip is the goat. So I'm like, let me give you,

but it's not oatmeal raisin. Oatmeal raisin is a joke. Right, right, right. But I guess in retrospect, I should have said that. Oatmeal raisin, yeah. Cause I mean, three would have, you know, it's not oatmeal raisin, oatmeal raisin is a joke. Right, right. But I guess in retrospect I should have said that. Oatmeal raisin, yeah, because I mean three would have, you know, it's not your fault, it's not your fault at all. I also overestimated how much you liked my long hair. Yeah, I guess I was like, yeah, I should have.

It's not the worst, but it also wasn't your best. Right, for sure. Okay, you go again. As in I roll a number or you roll a number? Oh, I'll roll one. Okay. But then you do the thing where you mute and I won't look. Okay, are you muted?

The number is nine, everybody. Nine. Oh, if I get two in a row, I get the 50K bounty. That's when you owe me $1,000 a week, every week. For a year. Well, less than a year. Yeah, a little under. Okay.

But so a lot of pressure on this one. Can I pay it, all right, can I pay it over, can I do like interest only payments for a period of time? It really has to be $1,000 a week for 50 weeks in a row. If I get this one right. But if you give it to me over 10 years, I'll end up giving. But you have to give it to me straight, give it to me honest.

I'll give you $118,000 over 15 years. Okay. Will you let me do that? That's fine. Yeah, I'll let you do that. Okay. As long as it's $118,000. With interest, yeah. For my birthday. Yeah. Okay.

We'll do one balloon payment. We'll do interest only payments for 15 years and then we'll do a balloon payment. Pizza. Pizza. Pizza, pizza. pizza, pizza. Give me pizza. Pepperoni.

Oh wow, kind of goaded. We're in the eight, nine, 10 spot, okay. Give me a television show. The Wire. These are your favorites. I can't imagine it not being 10. Give me one last one. Sport.

Like for spectating or participating? It's just general sport. Fine. No clarification. Okay. Sport. Surfing. I mean, like last one could have been one, I said two.

This one could be 10. I could have been one, I said two. This one could be 10, I could say nine, but I really think it's just the best of the best for you. Pepperoni, surfing, and the wire, I'll go 10. Fortunately it is nine. I think soccer slash football is the best sport. The money, I really, really could have used that cash. I actually wanted you to get it. I wanted to give you the money. I wanted you to get that.

So just give it to me anyway. No, because it's not right. It ain't fair to do it that way. Pepperoni. I know that's your favorite. But I didn't say Sicilian style pepperoni, did I? No, no I did not. And the wire dragged in season five. It kind of jumped the shark and everybody knows. And I've talked about that before.

Have you seen the Sopranos? I know, I can't get into it. I mean, I've tried. I've tried, I don't know why. I don't like mafia shit I know, I can't get into it. I mean, I've tried. Interesting. I've tried, I don't know why, I don't like mafia shit. Well, I haven't seen it either, but everyone says it's the greatest, so. Yeah. I'm inclined to believe them.

All right, should I roll one more? Yeah, yeah, I believe them too, but I think, like even, it would be hard for me to recommend The Wire now. Like, it moves so slow, and I think that's what I find with Sopranos. All right. Okay, I've rolled. I'm muting myself. This is unbelievable. Nine. It was fucking 10. I guarantee it was 10 and

he fucking lied to you guys. This is such bullshit. Anyway, my number is seven, although maybe I should lie too. Set him up to fail. All right. Headgum employee. Oh, Marty, easily. Ooh. You should honestly get it at this point. That's very interesting. That's very interesting.

Sports franchise. Let's go the New York Mets. All right, so that's pretty bad. That is pretty bad. It's gotta be the Middly Mets. Could it be five? Middly Marty, that's kind of interesting. Maybe you're doing five for mid.

Last one. Mexican food. A burrito. A burrito? You could say what's in it. Is that Mexican food. A burrito. A burrito? You could say what's in it. Is that Mexican food or what do you consider that? Say a chicken or a steak, you have to describe the burrito.

It's a bean and cheese burrito but I have a different answer. I mean, come on. It's a chicken burrito. That's it, there's nothing else in it. Why did you say that? Because you're all over the place. You're all over the place.

You love chicken burritos, but you hate Marty and you don't care about the Mets. You don't give a shit about the Mets. But maybe you're saying like, they're the second best team in New York. So that's kind of, best team in New York so that's kind of... can I ask you one other question? Yes, what was your number? Okay one other question, country. Country, let's go Canada. Canada, so pretty good, not great, just like the Matts.

Pretty good, not eight. Close, seven. Damn, I wanted to feel like what it would feel like to win, to get that number. Yeah. Seven, more of a Cohen than a Marty, but I can respect it. Yeah, and the Mets are like, you know,

fun to root for, but not like. Anything. Elite level, and they're not like, you know, like the Kansas City Royals or something boring. Yeah, and a chicken burrito is good, but it's the standard. Standard's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I'd rather get something else. I'd rather get a horacha. Horzada, or empelada, or a sabepifila. You're allergic to the thing, your tongue is swollen. All right, well, I guess I won that. So just Venmo me what? $25,000. I don't know if you won it.

I feel bad taking the full bounty at this point. I guess you got one, you did get one. Yeah, I got one. But I feel like that. And I actually got the hardest one, two. Two is the hardest one. I think it's more about me nailing the descriptors, me like getting the right answers, right?

You don't have to do anything. I have to do everything. I thought of the game. I invented it. You didn't think of the game. You pulled it from the fucking TikTok. Yeah, but I watched the TikTok from scratch. I watched it from scratch.

And I am recording this on a $1,700 phone that I waited an upgrade days And it did take three days to transfer the soul of my old phone onto it Now it especially feels like an old phone. At least this video can live on there for another ten years I'm not deleting this source footage just in case we need it one day Okay, thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. If you are more of us on our Patreon,

patreon.com slash J.A. Jah, we're talking Tottenham guys. We are talking Tottenham. So we're talking soccer on there, football for those. If you want to know. We're recording this before the Spurs United match this weekend. So you can only imagine what we're going to be discussing. Yeah, we'll be we'll be talking about it today or tomorrow on Patreon.

And we will see you next week. Ciao for now. Bye. That was a Hidgum Original.