The Worst Idea Of All Time - 42: Counting in Quarter Miles
Episode Date: December 22, 2023The way you have been thinking about time and space is limited and wrong. Reject Metric and Imperial and instead adopt the Fast and Furious System, where everything is measured in terms of quarter-mil...es. And if you’re having trouble figuring out the timeline of the Fast franchise, simply apply Justin Lin’s patented Ca-Lin-Duh system. Getting into the finer details of Tokyo Drift for their final watch of the Han-led outing, the boys also wonder whether Sean is so fearless because of a devil-may-care, cowboy attitude or if he quite simply does not understand what is happening around him.All season 6 episodes available in bee-youtiful video form at TWIOAT.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Music Uno? 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Uno, dos, tres, cuatro
Yes, this is how we count in Spanish
And that's how they count at the end of
This is how you count if you're Dominic Toretto
Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift
Does Dominic Toretto count?
He understands As a what? Just does Toretto count? He understands...
Is a what?
Just does he count at all?
He understands fractions
because he's a big fan of the quarter mile.
True.
Loves miles.
Yeah, I guess he knows about miles
because he's raced the Cuban mile.
I think he doesn't understand traditional numbers.
I think he only understands abstractions he doesn't understand Traditional numbers I think he only understands
Abstractions
As they relate to street racing
I don't think he knows
What a dozen is
I think he knows
What a baker's dozen is
I don't think he knows
Where it comes from
Imperial
And Dominic Toretto's
Counting system
Yes
And he counts in
So distances
Are in quarter miles
That's his unit of measure
For distance
Right
Which means he has to
Measure himself And like What a fraction Of a quarter mile he is yeah so what's a mile a mile is like
was it 1.3 kilometers 1300 so a quarter would be uh uh 1263 what is that like 280 meters
so he he would be like i'm i'm an 11th of a quarter mile yeah tall the thing is he created
the system to make numbers more straightforward for him yeah even just as illustrated by you then
the amount of maths it requires to but it's just it's because we're used to a base 10 system this
like to him it is intuitive yeah yeah that's right is it i'd say his fingertips
all of this stuff there but there's no half or three quarter mile it goes straight from the
quarter mile to the cuban mile oh yeah but he's got metric uh fractions of quarter miles so he
is being tripped up you think of the quarter mile as a quarter of a mile it's not it's its own thing
yeah quarter mile is just one yeah the reason that he
calls it the demand i can republic and he runs all of his money through there is because he has um
reconstituted their financial system to run through his new his numbers that's he's never short of
cash no you can't be you can't be when you're printing the money yeah that's where we go to
audit the fed and that's why we're got to get Dom out of the public.
You cannot audit Dom Toretto's books
because only he understands his maths.
Yeah.
He's like Leonardo da Vinci.
Someone gets his notebook and they're like,
the maths on this doesn't make any sense.
But it actually does.
You just have to be Dom Toretto.
They cannot run those numbers because it's bulletproof.
Speaking of money.
That's what you've got to do.
You've got to develop your own language that's completely unmoored.
It's not like, you know, using symbols in the place of letters that are in English.
You've got to go wholesale.
Start from scratch.
Create your own language.
Littergeist.
Spittergeek.
Gitterking.
I don't know.
I was trying to speak gibberish. Yeah. What were you saying? Like speaking gibberish. Oh. That's what I was't know. I was trying to speak gibberish.
Yeah.
What were you saying?
Like speaking gibberish.
Oh.
That's what I was reaching for.
Nice.
But I just want to talk money because Han, obviously, in this movie,
they've just put off the heist in Brazil.
Forgive me if I've done this before.
He's got $11 million.
He's spending a lot of time hanging outside of high schools.
Yes.
Here's what Han does in this movie.
He eats.
He hangs outside of a Japanese high school.
Yeah. He polices He hangs outside of a Japanese high school. Yeah.
He polices the age of consent.
One of the only people in this movie to be telling people,
hey, there's an age of consent.
Policing's a strong word, but he's certainly keeping an eye on it.
He's aware of it.
He's aware of it.
He's commenting.
He's ribbing people.
Tone policing.
Yeah, he's tone policing.
And he's also running errands for...
He's saying he's not worried about money,
and then he's worrying about money.
He's skimming money off of DK.
He's saying he's not worried about money
because he's got money coming in from his DK operation, I think.
You don't think he's got $11 million
and he's just whiling away that pile?
It's interesting to think about how much money is $11 million really?
Well, in 2006, when the movie was filmed, quite a lot.
In 2020 when the movie is set.
Three houses?
A little bit less, yeah.
They're using old phones for 2020.
It's not 2020.
It's 2020.
It's not.
I'm not going to have this conversation with you again.
It's important to me.
The events can be set after f7 right is it seven and eight that it's yeah i think that can be set after seven but i'm
i'm not gonna say that it's 2020 in this film what do you what do you what what is it then
what is it then no no no no no but that that's the thing. It's outside of our...
In the same way that Dominic Toretto is counting using just a wholesale other system.
Justin Lin's created his own numerical system.
It's his own calendar.
Yeah.
And it doesn't work like our one.
It works differently.
The calendar.
Spelled L-I-N.
Oh, Lin. Got it. Justin Lin. The calendar. Jesuslled L-I-N. Oh, Lin.
Got it, yeah.
Justin Lin.
The calendar.
Jesus.
Duh.
So it's C-A-L-I-N hyphen D-U-H.
And if anyone like us wades in and we go,
hey, this doesn't make sense,
he goes, well, it does in the calendar,
you dumb bitch.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
I like a calendar that's got some real sass on it.
Yeah, yeah. It's got a toad. It's like, you you know those talking cards you open up a card and it sings happy birthday to
you for sure yeah when you open up this calendar this bitch it's now fuck face if you if you uh
what day is it today today and if you turn it to go to the next month that says um it's the future you shit yeah that's good and um they're like
they're self-combustible so when you can't go back you can't look back it's the only thing
that matters that's great i love yeah yeah which is so crucial to the calendar and fast and furious
is that all that exists is the quarter mile you're currently in the present yeah that's the other thing about this is that like distance
and time have a relationship inside fast and furious unlike how we sort of understand them
to be two completely separate things so that yeah we've got the talking about being in the quarter
mile is like the version of talking about being in the present yeah just extrapolating this across
the entire all of the movies we've seen so far it does
sort of change how you think about things doesn't it because we can't we do get upset you know like
um whether or not dominic's baby is his baby or if it's the rocks you know just based on the
pregnancy timeline like yeah if you yeah if you stretch all of this across it sort of makes a bit
more it makes a bit more sense that you know you've got the the quarter mile clock yeah and the calendar yes
and you think well do you know what you're thinking we've made mistakes it's like oh a plot
hole you're thinking in old world terms yes and you need to start thinking in calendar terms yeah
idiot bitch yeah you fuck face i would like to to know what you think about this idea because towards the end of the movie
you did a Helen Mirren impression
you did a
you know
Helen Mirren
doing a
Cogni
Cogni impression
impression
I like the idea of say
let's get Helen Mirren
give me
Charlize Theron
give me
Jason Statham
and give me Dwayne Johnson the four of them leaving a Freemasons meeting Give me Charlize Theron. Give me Jason Statham.
And give me Dwayne Johnson.
The four of them leaving a Freemasons meeting being like,
do you guys want to go to the cinema?
And heading down to Tokyo Drift, watching it in the movies and being like, damn, I'd love one day for this franchise
to make space for me.
You know, like the idea of Helen Mirren sitting down
in a cineplex and watching
fast fury fast and furious tokyo drift and being like one day one day that is that's a great i mean
stath i could fully imagine that that makes sense for stay dame helen even though and the rocket
makes sense for if dame helen has watched any fast and furious movie that isn't the one she's in
i'll eat my hat i don't think she's watched the one she's in i don't think she has either i'm not as confident with that because she might have had to go to
the premiere but i'm still like pretty but you know i um you know that the the stars often skip
out the screening at the premiere even if they're going to do the q a i went to a screening once for
a movie in a film festival with some of the stars you're basing this on one time you went to a movie
yeah okay and the stars didn't watch the movie what was the movie what i'm not gonna say okay
good on you yeah and then they came back afterwards and did a q a about the movie but they've already
seen it oh i see oh so they did a q a but they didn't watch it yeah okay but those those people
had you know presumably those people had seen it well it's interesting actors don't often see it
that much.
If you're the director, mate,
you're like sick to the back teeth of it.
Can you imagine our mate,
what's his name?
Tom, who directed Cats.
Hooper.
Tom Hooper.
Like, do you reckon he watched the first premiere?
Did they have a premiere event?
They would have.
Because by that stage,
he would have like just,
you know, he's still changing some of the visual effects and cutting scenes and doing work.
Do you know what?
He would have been so close to that for so long.
He would have really lost sight.
He couldn't see the forest for the trees.
He would have been like, you know what?
I'm going to go.
And this could go one of two ways.
I could have created something absolutely brilliant.
But would you want to i i don't think
he went and i guess maybe i'm based maybe we're basing this on our two different approaches to
like how we would do this maybe it's coloring it a bit because i would go i totally hear what
you're saying yeah but to do that in front of an audience when you kind of get a sense that this
movie might be a cataclysmic failure and it's cost a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of energy over the last three years of your life.
I don't want to have that experience in a room filled with people.
I would be outside smoking cigarettes,
and I say that as someone who has never been a smoker,
but I would take it up.
I mean, I would fill me with anxiety.
Actually, that dovetails quite nicely into an observation we both made
because we've been speculating what does Han see in Sean?
Why does he take this young American who's just smashed up a car?
Young American.
Young American.
He is a young – well, he's not that young.
He is an American, and I think what it is is in his first race with DK
when he doesn't have any idea about drifting,
and he smashes up Hans' car really hard,
and he arrives at the top of the car parking building.
What is that?
Is that a mall?
It's like a multi-level car park.
I think there's this car, you know.
Sure.
Car parks are their own thing.
A car park building doesn't actually need to be attached to anything.
It needs to be approximate to something.
You're right about that, man.
It can just be a structure.
I've seen them.
You know, take Auckland's ports, for example.
One of the probably most iconic
and valuable pieces of land in the city.
All car park, all the time.
I love that.
That's incredible.
It just speaks to what the city's all about.
You've got a big road.
Dumb ideas and cars.
Then you've just got cars.
So he arrives at the top of the building.
He's lost by a significant margin.
He's humiliated himself.
He smashed up the car.
But he finishes the race.
The flush of humiliation that I imagine is coursing through him,
that would be coursing through me,
would basically prevent me from,
like, you know,
I know everyone's on the rooftop waiting for this.
Yeah.
And I've just moved to Tokyo.
You've wasted a $100,000 car.
I've been talking shit to everyone.
I don't think I would,
I would just park on the second level up
and I'd just get out.
I'd get in the lift and I'd leave.
100%.
Sean fucking owns it.
He rocks it.
He goes up to the top.
Everyone's sort of laughing at him.
The car's smoking.
It's been smashed up.
He sits in there.
Everyone sort of looks.
They're peering at him.
You know, he's in a new country.
He would feel so hot with shame.
But he doesn't wear it.
Maybe he doesn't understand the concept of shame this is what guy
and i were talking about during the screening of the film sean is one of two things in this movie
he's either too dumb to recognize the situation he's often in or a courageous hero figure and it
is impossible to tell which one of those two things is the case lucas black's performance
as he's kind of playing it both ways.
It's quite subtle.
It's quite nuanced.
And it's something that a lot of actors aren't capable of.
You know?
Yeah.
Most actors make a decision for you.
They'll give you one thing.
So that when you're watching it,
you think, I know how this character feels.
Yeah.
Only the truly upper echelon,
the top percent of the quarter mile of actors.
Okay.
The top percent of the top quarter mile of actors.
How many actors fit into a quarter mile?
You've got to ask yourself.
Just writing some numbers very quickly.
I think it's 87.
87 to a quarter mile it's so good 87 feels like it's a prime number is it
no what goes into it some something to visit with three yeah because eight plus seven is 15
oh yeah maybe you're right five plus nine nines are 81 is that right i think and then
that's not a chuck some threes in and some numbers some numbers they just they you look at them you
think that's a prime number there's no planet that that's not a prime number and then you find out
it's divisible by something yeah and it knocks your fucking socks off so it's three two threes
one three's working hard yeah people talk a lot about two. And to be fair, two is... But two is sort of obviously working hard.
Like two is the only even prime number.
And then every other even number is like, no, because two goes in.
Two feels like it shouldn't be a prime number as well.
It's getting in on a technicality.
No, no, no, no, no.
That's not fair.
That's not fair.
That's not fair.
It's too small to be counted.
No, but you're counting one.
You're counting three.
You're counting five.
You're counting seven.
Yeah.
They're all small.
One's tiny.
It feels different.
Get this.
I think it's because two's even.
It feels like it shouldn't be there.
But two's sort of obviously working.
It's kind of, I don't want to say showboating,
but it's like, yeah, yeah.
Three, there are numbers that you're like,
nothing goes into this.
And then three's like, I'm so sorry.
And no, three's like, actually.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hi.
Did somebody ask for me?
Hi, everybody.
Three's here.
And I've brought a quarter mile of, what are they called?
Factors with me that you wouldn't even believe.
I'm going to throw my shining light because I'm so scared
I'm going to forget it. And you
actually brought it up in the screening so this is sort
of bad. Okay. But I
stand by it. Okay. And I hope it
also isn't your shining light. Okay.
Although I think you... Just tell me what it is.
You said something was your shining light. Do you remember what it was?
Yeah, I do. Cool.
Mine is the point of
view shot from the engine's perspective when
they bust the hood open after hannah's died and they need to frankenstein two cars together it's
an iconic shot they open the hood and suddenly we're not looking down into the car we are now
the car looking up at the gang yeah there's about nine people all fanned out um over the bonnet
looking at the camera it's great it's a
great shot a lot of people saying that's where they got the idea for disney's cars that shot
well they're like whoa what if we look at the world whoa from the car's point of view totally
different angle i love that shot in virtually any film i think i'd just like to give a huge
shout out to the pioneers of cinema who realized that if we put a camera down low yeah have everyone peering over it like it's a hole or an engine or anything it's a beautiful
way of getting everyone in frame it's it feels quite renaissance paintery to me you know there's
something about the layout it's also like um people take photos like that actually you know
on their smartphones that's true and i get everyone in on the selfie and they'll look photos like that actually, you know, on their smartphones.
That's true.
Like get everyone in on the selfie.
And they'll look around like that.
That's a cool photo.
I like that.
I've seen Rose in a bunch of those.
Rose Matafeo takes a bunch of those.
She's got her finger on the pops too.
Yeah, she does.
She's cool.
She knows how to take a photo.
I've got to start taking some more photos like that.
I've been having a really bad time
Not bad time as in
Like struggling
I just forget
I haven't taken photos
You know and like
There've been
Things
Events at which I wish we'd taken photos
Actually after
We had people over on Saturday
You came over
Yeah
And didn't take any photos
And I thought
You know what we need
We need to have A disposable camera in the house at all times.
And you just got it out so that you can see it.
Or one of those Polaroids.
Yeah.
That's the other option.
They're always fun at a wedding.
They do go, I mean, they do go well.
It's sort of a done thing at a wedding.
You had a disposable, what was it, last summer?
Yeah. Were you rocking around with that? And the photos were awesome. Yeah. From memory. You get some great photos. It's sort of a done thing You had a disposable Was it last summer? Yeah
Were you rocking around with that?
And the photos were awesome
Yeah
From memory
You get some great photos
You're going to get some great photos
It's expensive is the thing
How much does it cost to get a roll of film developed?
These days from a disposable camera
I think it would probably be
Two elevenths of a quarter mile.
I can't even pass that.
Well, I don't know what that is in NZD.
You'd need to get a currency converter.
Okay.
What was the other example of Sean Lucas Black
where he's either an idiot or a hero?
Straight afterwards.
So he's smashed up Han's car.
Yeah.
And then Han, after school the next day,
Han, $11 million in his pocket.
Oh, yeah.
He says, get in.
And they go for a drive
and he's sort of explaining to him
that he's in his, Sean's in Han's pocket now.
He's saying, I don't care if you're sick as a dog
or in bed with Beyonce.
When I call, you show.
I mean, it's like,
I think it's a tough line to sell
and I don't know that he totally does. i mean it's like it's i think it's a tough line to sell and i don't know
that he totally does but i think it's poetry that the verdict yeah that one fucking works for me
sick as a dog or in bed with bionce weird economy's good it's kind of cool yeah i like that but anyway
sorry yes and uh so they go and he's he's basically han's sort of putting him to the test
he's got to go and collect some money that is owed to Han
and they go to like a
I don't know what the name of it is
but it seems like a
Japanese bath
style place
yeah
and he says go in there
you'll get the money from the guy
he's got a poor tattoo on his shoulder
and he goes and there's like
no he just sees a man with a poor
yeah
because Sean goes
man with a poor
yeah
and Han's just like yeah
and it's a sumo wrestler
or someone who has the stature,
the physical presence of a sumo wrestler.
And Sean is like, has to tap him on the shoulder and be like, hey,
I got your money.
And then we see him getting thrown out of the baths.
And, you know, but he gets back up like a Looney Tunes character.
And you see his, like, legs spinning.
And then he runs back in.
And then he gets thrown back out again.
Yeah. He sees legs spinning, and then he runs back in, and then he gets thrown back out again.
This fucking guy is like, he's proving to have some value here.
He's tenacious, but it's impossible to tell whether the tenacity comes from a lack of intelligence
or a sort of internal courage that he's drawing from.
And I like that ambiguity.
He plays it perfectly.
Who directed this,in scorsese
you'd think so but no it's justin lynn this movie is really beautiful like i really noticed it this
watch there was a shot that i said out loud where um we're just on lucas black when he's in hans
garage i think and there's just there's a particular lighting thing
where they put like there's i can't remember the name for it but it's when you get a shadow cast
right and there's a triangle on your cheek oh really and it's like in reference to oh yeah it's
one of the renaissance painters really rim brand rim brand lighting is what it's called really and
i like i just saw i you know it came up on the tv i was, that shot looks good. And then I really started paying attention.
And then that's what they're doing.
What are you doing?
When you're walking around in the world and you've got sort of information inside of you,
where does it come from?
Is it nice when you get to let it out?
It was nice to see it on screen and it's and it's kind of like it's surprising how how many times in
this movie you can really appreciate the cinematography it was just nice to be in tokyo
isn't it's beautiful the shots are really impressive there's one i still can't for the
life of me figure out how they did it unless they did like a pretty bloody good job on the cgi so i just assume
everything in this movie is real because it was oh seven six seven there's a cat there's like two
shots result okay that's a computer slash 20 yeah true that quarter mile the quarter mile that
occupies 2006 and 20 but there's one weird wicked crane shot with it on what did they call the mountain
the mountain yeah he's got a race one mountain there's one mountain in tokyo one mountain
mount dk and they have to race downhill on that and there's a this big sweeping shot where it
goes from sean down to the valley no sorry the cars are racing maybe it shows you
up the top with the cars and then it swoops down the valley to give you a sense of how far they
could fall down and then it swoops around and then it follows the cars as they've turned a corner down
below downhill it's i don't know there's a lot of crazy there's a there's a sort of uh scorsese
style shot as well when han and sean are getting along and they arrive at like a nightclub
and they get out of the car
and they walk in through this door
and it's sort of the main public entrance
to the nightclub
and you know Sean's sort of blown away
it's his first time out in Tokyo
and the camera's sort of following
both of the movements
there's no cuts that I could see
and then they go through like a back channel
into another private room
it's probably like 30 seconds to a minute long
and it's kind of like you watch that and you think that's it that's nice deeply impressive
it's nice what you've done this is there is something about the if you went and got the
average shot length from f9 like in between cuts yeah it you know across the entire movie it's
probably about six seconds this movie it's probably like 20.
And there is something about that to just,
when we're racing fast cars, I want to watch them.
I want to stay with them, you know?
But I mean, the race scenes still involve.
But it's not as frenetic as it is in the later ones.
If you can even cast your mind back to that quarter mile
when we started this off.
I just want to circle back to you
having all this information in your head.
How does it get in?
Internet.
And how often do you get to use it?
I don't know.
Like, the percentage of stuff you know,
how often does it... You're a man in the world.
What percentage of the information in your head do you actually use?
I have no idea.
It's a really hard question to try and answer.
Well, get your head around it.
Is it half?
Six percent.
Well, what do you mean use?
Like either there's utility or Or it comes out of conversation
What percentage of what you have in your brain
Is actually use as a function
Oh very little
Yeah
Very little
What number do you have
What about you
If you had to put a percent on it
I'm going to stick with six
It's got to be more than that
I think
You got a lot of sports in there buddy
Oh yeah Like a lot of sports in there, buddy. Oh, yeah.
Like a lot of cabinets full of sports.
But I guess in the sense that I'm watching sports,
I'm using that information.
Interesting.
To contextualize the experience of watching the sports.
Well, then I'd probably have to rethink how I'm assessing utility.
Yeah.
For my number.
I'm going to say it's 25.
Wow.
Yeah. That's good good that's efficient thank you
75 of it's not doing anything do you remember what your shining light is yeah it's um it's one of a few things that i guess it's like it's a it's a it's a cultural difference beat it's kind
of a comedy beat not a lot comes of it but it's after Sean's arrived in Tokyo.
He moves in with his dad,
who's not in the Navy.
And his dad's living in this,
it's quite small.
He's like on the ground floor.
I don't know if it's a traditional apartment or if it's like a sort of makeshift,
because he appears to be next to a garage,
which we see later on,
he keeps his car.
Yes.
So anyway,
it's quite small living
quarters and there's a curtain in this little sort of um wardrobe style place where he's got
a bed set up and he goes in there it's his first night and he pulls the curtain back to see what's
outside and it's just a glass pane directly into the house next door and there's an elderly or
older japanese woman who's eating noodles
who just sort of looks at him and smiles.
And I just think it's important it's acknowledged.
You know, like I've enjoyed it every time.
I think, wow, yeah, this is different from America.
And, you know, we don't know what she's watching
and we don't know what she's up to.
Because she's watching telly, isn't she?
Yeah, and we don't know what she thinks about her neighbor or anything that is um that follows
but we know she's there it's just reminding me i guess we've got phones now so it's not as
important but there was this really cool moment in like the late 90s or maybe even earlier where
japan started producing portable televisions oh did you ever see those
yeah like i wanted one so badly same it's like a handheld battery operated tv with an aerial that
you could just walk around and watch i remember seeing those that was that was one of the things
i wanted the most in the world i thought it was so cool totally understandable i there was something
about i don't think i don't think the current generation understands that they were like oh maybe they do they would they would so for me
kind of go off roughly my version of that right was that my eldest brother had a game an original
game boy like black and white yeah grayscale iconic square game boy and it was a beautiful
item but you couldn't play it that much because batteries.
It would run through batteries
because it took four double A's, I think.
It did, yeah.
And it would just run through them.
Pretty toot sweet.
Yeah.
And I feel like rechargeables existed,
but they were like prohibitively expensive.
Yeah.
At least, you know, you had bank.
And it was like, I don't know,
there's something about
this thing exists it's so fun it's so awesome but i can't really use it i feel like kids now they
just all right you've ever discounted with anti-shock yeah of course had a few didn't
really make a difference the anti-shock oh i think it did it just for a little bit it worked
for like 12 seconds because i could be wrong but i
imagine the way that worked is that had a little like it was saving ford into a little chip oh wow
like shifting it into a buffer so that if it stopped being able to read the cd it could
default to the buffer wow i'm guessing yeah because i don't know how else it would work
using a bit of information to make that guess.
Fuck, I miss my mini disc.
I know I bring it up a lot, but those things were so good.
It was the last tactile media storage thing.
Yeah.
And the size was delightful.
That is Japan to me.
Mini disc is just like, that is Japanese culture.
Like a beautiful physical object that fucking works,
will last forever, and it's just good.
Yeah.
Quality.
Was the Minidisc kicking in 2006?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.od. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, Minidisc never really popped.
Kicked off, didn't it?
Not properly.
It had a chance, but then here's what went wrong with Minidisc, everyone.
Because I don't think I've gone into this depth before about it.
So Sony, there was a bunch of companies who were able to,
they all came together to license the technology.
Even as you're talking now, the percentage of information you use is going up.
Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic, and a few other companies were able to produce the devices.
Can you tell me about Sanyo?
Nah.
Is Sanyo respected or is it kind of a cheaper alternative?
It's a cheaper alternative is my understanding of it.
Sorry, Sanyo.
So I think Sony invented it and then maybe the others
i don't know helped and they licensed whatever they had a cross licensing agreement but with
the players to put like music tracks on the mini disc you had to use this bit of software from sony
from memory it was called soundstage and it would use a file format called a track which they invented and i broke
three of my family's computers loading the software on it was so terribly written that
it would just break computers it was completely like unfunctional holy shit and it wasn't until
the very last gasp of minidisc where they were
like okay you can just throw an mp3 on it and it'll work and if they had it came out the gate
with that i don't think ipod would have had quite the straight line i miss like i miss
organizing my library on my itunes and get putting onto my ipod and like i would download if i
downloaded a single track say from from LimeWire,
I would then find the album cover to like load onto.
Legend.
So that was all very orderly and neat.
And I miss like the relationship
that gave me to the music was,
and also I was young,
so I was discovering a lot more.
But the relationship I had,
I knew the artists
and I knew the song
and I knew the album
and I knew the album.
Now, streaming, there are songs I I love I couldn't even tell you who sings them what's incredible is this
exact conversation is what would have been happening when we were you know 12 13 14
our parents talking about vinyl yeah yeah yeah these kids aren't connected to the music
well vinyl just downloading it and putting it on a device they don't touch the open gate record
vinyl vinyl might stick around forever that is unexpected was unexpected to me and i think it's
cool that vinyl is still cassettes cool bands are putting out cassettes bring them back oh i'm
wearing a pop od's got cassettes out this is my brother-in-law's band do putting out cassettes. Bring them back. Oh, I'm wearing a... Pop-O-D's got cassettes out.
This is my brother-in-law's band.
Do they produce cassettes?
Because they're cool.
Why is a cassette cool?
Analog?
That's rare.
I mean, vinyl's analog.
CD's digital.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How is it digital?
Digital literally just means it's written in binary
so when you break everything down you get to ones and zeros
which is a bit and what about how does this okay here's one for you how does the song get from my
phone where the song isn't even because it's on song isn't even a song isn't even on the phone.
It's just in the air.
It's not in the air.
How does my phone put it from where it is not on the phone?
How does it put it into the speaker?
What do you mean?
Like Bluetooth or something?
It's just Bluetooth.
I don't know.
I don't know and I don't think anyone cares.
People should know that.
Someone knows.
Someone made it.
We're using it.
We've got people on it.
People should know it.
How does it get...
What do you mean it's not in the air?
Where is it then?
It's somewhere...
It's on someone's hard drive.
Most of the song.
Yeah, this is the thing
that people kind of like,
I think...
It doesn't happen as much now
but people would say back in the day
they'd be like,
it's in the cloud, it's in the cloud cloud it just means it's on someone else's computer so it's just someone
else's computer so there's someone else's computer it's got all the songs i don't mean that literally
but like a server somewhere but it is just sitting on a drive somewhere there's not a person using it
the computer could be there's someone who's just like using their computer and i'm storing all my music
on there that's what limewire was yeah that's what tyranting is sick it's back baby as i said
last episode the age of torrenting and piracy is back who watched this on youtube movies they've
got um ipod full price ipods in this movie which is In fact, it's the subject of a plot crucial fight.
It's not plot crucial.
Oh, hey, fuck all of this.
Have you got your phone with you?
Oh, I can get it.
We need to get into the Home Improvement cast.
Oh, yeah.
So at the start of this movie, as we mentioned in the last,
maybe one before last episode,
it is Tim Allen's son from Home Improvement, the eldest of the boys.
Don't ask me to name the character because I couldn't tell you.
And I'm pretty sure I've already forgotten.
Tyler Bryan?
Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
Is Tyler Bryan the one who's the actor who's in this movie?
Zachary Ty Bryan.
Zachary Ty Bryan. Yeah, so Zachary Ty Bryan, who's best known who's in this Zachary Ty Bryan Zachary Ty Bryan yeah so Zachary Ty Bryan who's
best known uh from Home Improvement he played Brad Taylor the oldest Taylor boy so then Guy
started getting into it yeah this watch well I wanted to know because I thought it's interesting
this came out long after Home Improvement and he was like finishing high school in Home Improvement,
which finished in 99, as you figured out,
because it couldn't have possibly existed in this century or millennia.
And this came out in 2006.
And so I wanted to know how old he was at the time of release.
So he was born in 1981, which means that he was 25. So he was 25 when he worked on the movie and i thought that's
pretty you know like 25 playing 18 is i guess it's american but it's not crazy i was like then i was
like well you know like what became of so i went into his um wiki also i mean this is for the
sports and his cousin is um a failed was not, not failed. He was a college superstar quarterback for Notre Dame.
Then he got drafted by the Cleveland Browns.
It's called Brady Quinn.
It's all by the by.
Anyway, I want to know about-
It's funny that you, as an athlete,
considered to have a failed career if you were pretty good,
but not good enough.
Whereas if you were just never any good.
It's just, it's the weight of expectation
is what defines whether or not you're a success or a failure.
So he was really good in college and he got drafted to the NFL.
And he was like, maybe he's going to be really good in the NFL.
And he wasn't.
And so he is considered a failure.
It's a brutal assessment scheme.
It's like, you know, some people like this.
It's a big thing in American sports and specifically American football is like busts.
You know, like someone could have been the best in college for four years, but it's like it's all natural ability. American sports and specifically American football is like busts.
Someone could have been the best in college for four years,
but it's all natural ability.
They don't have any work ethic or anything.
They get drafted and the step-up's too great for them and the pressure and all that.
It's kind of crazy.
There's a guy called Johnny Manziel who's a fascinating case study.
I think he's got a documentary on Netflix,
which is about exactly this phenomena.
Anyway.
Getting into the information that we don't use every day.
Zachary Ty Bryan.
Best known for playing Brad Taylor on Home Improvement.
Also for playing whoever the fuck his name is
at the start of Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift.
They do not name him.
I'm confident.
Fuck.
He looks like a clay.
In 2007, so the year after this he married carly
matros who he met while attending la canada high school they have twin girls born in 2014 that's
french for the canada oh wow thanks it's actually got like a a spanish style thing over the end so
it might be spanish uh they had four canada they had four kids and then they got divorced in 2020.
And then in 2020, he started getting into misdemeanors
and he was brought on these trumped up charges, several charges.
You're not his lawyer.
You told me.
You read what's in the wiki.
Don't give it the old.
Felony strangulation, misdemeanor charges of fourth degree assault and interfering with making a police report.
That's terrible.
Yeah.
Those aren't misdemeanors.
So in 2021, he pleaded guilty to two of the charges while six others were dismissed.
Then after that, so in 2021 that happened.
Then in November 2021, he was engaged to model Johnny Faye.
They had a daughter in 2021.
And then in November 2022, they had twins.
So that's seven kids.
Seven kids.
Seven kids.
And then in June 2023, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Brian was accused of running a fraudulent agriculture technology startup scheme.
This feels very much in Timbats wheelhouse.
It sounds amazing.
So this is, I don't understand the particulars.
Four sources told the publication the scheme involved them giving Brian individual payment amounts
ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 in exchange for fake contracts which actually had no value.
The amount of money Brian earned from the scheme is said to have totaled close to $50,000.
This is a low-rent scheme.
Yeah, that's what gets me.
If you're going to be a crook, do it for more money.
But that's only the wiki.
So if I click on the link,
which is the 14th sort of in the bibliography,
the headline in the Hollywood Reporter
from a story published
June 2022
2023
That's recent
Home Improvement star Zachary Ty Bryan
Amassed a Bitcoin fortune
Whoa
Then spiraled amid domestic violence
Arrest
Allegations of fraud
Pretty much everyone involved with
Like publicly having a Bitcoin holding
Wow Huge red flag This is a big article Everyone involved with publicly having a Bitcoin holding. Wow.
Huge red flag.
This is a big article.
The 41-year-old seemed to have avoided the pitfalls of child stardom.
Then he torched all aspects of his life.
How did it all go so wrong?
Friends, family, TV dad Tim Allen and Brian himself
talked to the Hollywood Reporter to detail his fall.
What? Why?
I was just thinking about that.
Tim Allen, anyone involved in home improvement you're
together for a project for about 10 years a long time ago they're your colleagues and then what
happened is it was so public you're in people's homes presenting yourself as the picture of a
family for so long everyone gets this warped idea in the heads that you're all intimately connected
and then you just go about your lives
after that work ends but there's this expectation from the hollywood reporter that tim allen needs
to be giving a comment on what zachary well i mean you would feel a sense of responsibility
it was tim allen's sitcom he created it created the work environment that's true that is a pretty
unique yeah situation a paternal sense of responsibility. And these guys were playing as kids.
They were kids playing as kids, I guess.
200 episodes.
There is a certain, not necessarily duty of care,
but you would be interested to know what his perspective is.
I mean, if you want to hear a success story, though,
the youngest kid on the show, Marcus.
Do you reckon Tim Allen was like,
seriously, if you want to be making some real money,
don't have a fraudulent scheme involving an agriculture company
that doesn't exist.
Get into cocaine.
Get into cocaine.
And you've got to shift it at the airport
because no one ever thinks to do the deal there.
Well, what about this?
The youngest kid from the show, Mark.
So he played Mark Taylor.
The actor's called Tara Noah Smith.
Now, here's a guy who finished...
So, when he was 18, because he was a child star,
he gained control of his $1.5 million trust fund,
which he accused his parents of squandering
by purchasing themselves a mansion.
And then, years later, in 2015, his mother said,
of course we didn't touch his money.
It was in a trust fund.
We couldn't have touched it if we wanted to. Yeah, how the fuck do you touch his money. It was in a trust fund. We couldn't have touched it if we wanted to.
Yeah, how the fuck do you rip someone off when it's in a trust fund?
They were trying to get it when he was 17 and we were trying to protect it.
Who's they?
I guess his management.
Oh, shit.
Or the son.
Anyway, they couldn't get it.
And then later on, our guy Taron said,
I'd gotten out of the teenage phase and realised my parents weren't doing anything wrong
they were trying to protect me
in 2001
he was quoted as saying
I started home improvement
when I was 7
and the show knew when I was 16
I never had the chance
to decide what I wanted
to do with my life
when I was 16
I knew that I didn't want
to act anymore
then when he was 17
yeah
the year after he finished
he married
Heidi Van Pelt
on the 27th of April, 2001.
Great name.
Marriage sparked much controversy due to the couple's age difference
as Van Pelt was 16 years older.
Jesus.
33 years old.
Imagine being a 33-year-old woman marrying a 17-year-old.
Who would want to marry a 17-year-old boy?
Somebody who wants part of a $1.5 million trust fund
that's going to unlock in a year. Took her a while to a while i don't know i don't talk about the divorce but they got divorced
in 2007 so that's six years it's a long time you know when they get out of that he's 23 yeah she's
basically 40 yeah that's a more traditional age gap but i guess what they've gone through to get there it didn't wait did you say 23 and 40 yeah
like 23 is 17 23 is so much older than 17 you know yeah it is and like 39 or 40s it's
numerically older but it's not that much older than 33 do you know what i mean yeah anyway in
2005 smith and van pelt his then wife formed, formed a California-based non-dairy cheese manufacturing restaurant, Playfood, specializing in vegan and organic foods.
Legend.
And in 2014, he volunteered doing disaster relief with Communitaire in the Philippines.
And then he's also the technical manager for the Community Submersibles Project, where he teaches people how to pilot submarines.
When did he do that? In July 2022 he joined spacex as an integration technician this guy's this guy fuck
he's gone the other way completely and then that reads to me that cv reads to me like a guy who
does have some bitcoin though as well or more specifically ethereum i reckon so but then he's
got his head screwed on right these guys were guys were kind of the... They were stars.
It was a big sitcom, but Jonathan Taylor Thomas was the star.
JTT was Simba.
So while Home Improvement was running,
that's right, he was the voice of Simba in The Lion King,
and he also did Pinocchio.
He was an absolute heartthrob.
I remember this so vividly as a child.
He was Leonardo DiCaprio before Leonardo DiCaprio was Leonardo DiCaprio.
Yeah.
We just had JTT.
He was, in a way.
Floppy hair.
Shiny floppy hair.
Beautiful smile.
He shied away from the public.
I remember afterwards, he went to Harvard University.
God bless him.
What was he studying?
I don't even know.
What was the situation inside of the Home Improvement set
that led to these big lives for these child actors?
It's just, it's a, I imagine they fostered a pretty good vibe.
And, you know, it's difficult to be a child star.
Maybe it's like they achieve so much from such a young age
that it does instill that belief in you that anything is possible.
I could teach people how to pilot submarines or defraud people for tens of thousands of dollars.
Or go to Harvard University.
Yeah, anything is possible.
Anything is possible.
I just think, you know the theory, the age at which you become famous is the mental age that is enshrined in you.
Oh, is that a thing? You make that up. I don't know if it's a thing. I've thought of it for a long time. famous yeah it's the mental age that is enshrined in you oh is that a
thing you make that up i don't know if it's i've thought it for a long time i think it's a thing
so i think it's difficult you know like you look at it's just difficult you get trapped in ember
yeah amber your personality does from when you shot up and you're like why le Leo keeps dating 23-year-olds? Because he's actually 15.
So actually, they're the ones who are problematic. Everyone take it easy on Leo.
Okay, listen.
We're going to start wrapping it up.
Okay.
So here's what I want to say about this watch of Tokyo Drift.
I really enjoyed it.
Yeah.
It's a cool movie.
And it's worth watching. Time to say a cool movie and it's worth watching time to say
goodbye absolutely this is this might be historic and the worst idea of all time canon because
watch this movie tokyo drift is great it's a fun movie i'd recommend would i watch it for a year
it'd probably get annoying after the first i think 10 smoke a little pot get together with a friend just enjoy it rip
escape off a cold one and check out this beautiful justin lynn flick i'm giving four out of five
stars today right on mate it's gone down for me like last time was sort of how many quarter miles
would you give it out of oh this is hard i give it a I give it a I mean
what fraction of a quarter mile
do you give it
three quarters of a quarter mile
that's awesome
yeah
actually no
three fifths of a quarter mile
three fifths of a quarter mile
out of
ten
folks make sure you join us
for the live show
that's happening on December 15th
either in person
at the Hollywood Avondale
if you're going to be in Auckland
or if you're not to be in Auckland,
or if you're not and you have an internet connection,
join us via the sub stack because we're going to live stream it.
If you're in Auckland, obviously you get the live podcast,
but I think as significantly before that,
you get the live movie.
You get to watch the actual Fast and the Furious where it all began on the silver screen
in the company of like-minded people,
those you love.
Potentially the best cinema in New Zealand.
This is going to be a real experience.
Stunning.
Hope you can join us.
I've seen some great movies there.
You saw Heat.
I saw Heat there, that's right.
I don't remember what else.
Well, guys thinking, you go and buy a ticket
or join our sub stack.
And also, I've started a seven-day free trial thing on the sub stack.
So get in there on the ninth, start your seven-day free trial,
see the live stream, and then say hello.
Or give us some money.
Up to you.
Some will forget.
Some will forget.
That's the system.
That's what we're banking on.
I mean, that's like literally the economic model that every. Some will forget. That's what we're banking on. I mean, that's like literally the economic model
that every streamer is running.
That's what we're in now.
I'm sorry, the foulers have had to join.
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