Triforce! Mailbag Special #42: Making Bank and Bustin' Noobs

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Let's bag.

Let's bag.

All right.

Welcome, friends, to another, yet another fabulous mailbag episode.

I am here to read the mail.

Sips and Lewis, are you guys here to hear and comment on said mail?

Yes, I am.

I am prepared.

Very well.

I can't wait.

All right, well, let's start with,

hmm, what should we start with?

How about Escaped Murderer in My Hometown?

Would you like to hear that one?

Oh, that sounds chilly.

Love to.

Yes.

That's the new Netflix show.

Escaped Murderer in My Hometown.

That's the name of the show.

They've run out of names of shows.

They just call it What It Is.

Show About an Escaped Murderer.

That's pretty much it.

In my hometown.

In my hometown.

Series 2 has been renewed already.

They didn't catch him.

So we're getting got to see.

Jake murderers still in my hometown.

This is Jake from Bucktown.

I was listening to Mailbag 14.

The story of the prison escape in Texas reminded me of when a murderer escaped prison near my hometown in Pennsylvania last year.

He was able to climb out of prison by walking up two parallel walls that were close enough together to put his feet on one and hands on the other and just climb out directly in front of a security camera, I might add.

Nice.

He was on the run for two weeks across Chester County before he was spotted in my actual town.

He broke into my friend's neighbor's garage and stole a rifle and was actually caught doing so by the homeowner who shot at him seven times and missed every shot, which I found pretty embarrassing.

After he stole the gun, the cops closed all the schools in the area and issued a shelter-in-place warning.

A shelter-in-place warning.

We had SWAT guys in our backyard looking through our shed and everything.

Two days later, they finally found him sleeping in a pile of wood by a John Deere dealership about five minutes from my house using a thermal imaging plane, and they sent their dogs dogs after him afterwards they all took turns posing with him in cuffs for pictures crazy times that's crazy his name was danino danilo cavalcante if you want to check out his wikipedia page um six sips can add shitty prison guards to his list of disses for pennsylvania there you go yeah there so he like um he like mario leveled his way out of prison he did so if you look it up there's a video on wikipedia and the walls are close together i mean they're not that close together this is pretty impressive uh he

He puts his feet on the back wall and then just sort of.

Imagine if you were walking normally and had your hands above your head, but instead of being vertical, he's horizontal.

It's very impressive.

But yeah, fair enough.

He did it.

Very cool.

He walked out.

Crab walking.

He crabbed it up.

Crab walking is what they're calling it.

But I don't know.

I'm sure.

It's good.

He walks like a crab right out of there.

Just think if you put that skill to use, you know, instead of criminal means i know it does feel like a waste when these guys are like really really really smart and clever and able to think on their feet and they just use it to be criminals and escape from prison and then get recaptured seems seems kind of a shame doesn't it seems kind of a waste but um

but he did fatally stab his ex-girlfriend so

maybe he shouldn't be oh maybe he shouldn't be anywhere uh great stuff that's a great great one thank you thank you so much.

And I'm glad that he's back in jail.

There is, like, it's funny, though, the Netflix thing.

Like, because I was, because I watched Chaos and it got cancelled immediately.

Oh, really?

Yes, because it didn't hit the millions and millions of views that Netflix want.

You know, Netflix put out tons of these things and they go on the top 10 and they sort of judge a thing by its clickbaity virality kind of thing, right?

So they're looking for another squid game or whatever all the time, right?

Like that's.

Yeah.

But not even that.

Like a a lot of stuff that does well is just murder documentaries and stuff you know it's ever since tiger king they've kind of they found that these

murdery type like really really lazy to i mean chaos you have to pay dear jeff goldbloom right and it's a huge amount of work and computer graphics and greek gods and all this crap whereas if you're doing a documentary about you know murderer in your hometown easy it's like you could just pay like two guys you just need a couple you need a researcher on air visa and you're done basically but yeah

exactly the researcher rings up all the people related, books out some little areas for them to film in.

You know, they set up these weird houses and they just set the cameras going.

You see them picking their nose, you know, and then sort of cuts to them.

They're like, So I had to, I had to kill him.

That's like the start.

That's like the cold intro.

Hello, my name is Chud Burke, and I'm a detective for the

Waimanona County Sheriff's Department.

That's just it.

Yeah.

That's it.

I had to kill him.

I had to kill him.

I had to kill him.

It was him or me.

I had to kill my hands.

All right.

This is called Spaces and Living in a Chest of Drawers.

This is a reference to

I read my friend's thesis, if you like, about spaces, void spaces, garden, shed a couple of weeks ago.

And this is Sam with a follow-up.

Very quickly on the subject of spaces, I was sitting rubbing my hands waiting for this one as soon as chest of drawers was put under the category of houses.

Lewis said, fairly, that houses should have a human element and we can't live in a chest of drawers.

You responded, how big a chest of drawers are we talking?

But that's the wrong question.

The question should be, how small of a person?

My mum was adopted by her uncle as a baby and her own mum couldn't look after her and he wanted to ensure she was raised by family.

As this was an unexpected adoption, they didn't initially have a bed for her, and she, as a baby, slept in a chest of drawers for a crib for the first few months she lived there.

Therefore, a chest of drawers, much like a hobbit hole, is a home to those small enough who dare to dwell within.

Very good point, Sam.

Children sleeping in the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers is quite an old-fashioned concept, but apparently, you know, within living memory.

So there you go.

It is, it is funny.

I like it.

I wonder how many...

Sometimes you see in pet shops, they have like chests of drawers of snakes or whatever that they're breeding, right?

And they could like look at the drawer and then pull it out and there's like a lot of snakes in there because they

i i i i like it i like what you're coming from so i guess it can be a home to something but then like hmm what are we talking like a tree hollow that's a home to like a bird you know yeah okay very difficult you've opened up my idea of home you've opened my idea of these ideas there you go what is an egg then what is an egg oh my goodness is that a home is it a shed i don't know it gets very complicated see i don't think we should have living call your Call your lads.

I'll get the lads on it.

Get them on it.

It's like the mystery squad.

They can figure it out.

They'll solve it.

All right.

This one is called Stop Lewis from Wearing Barefoot Shoes.

We've had a lot of talk about it.

I've seen a lot of talk about barefoot shoes.

Some supporting.

Some against.

I'm wearing them right now.

All right.

Well, just listen to these two emails.

Okay.

This one says a colleague of mine wore those shoes for a few months and fucked her back right up.

It's been a couple of years since she threw them out, but her back hasn't gotten unfucked.

That's from gear.

Watch out for your back, guys.

It is protected.

It's one of those things that

respect your body and don't overdo it.

Don't, don't, you're not an Olympic weightlifter.

Don't do

that.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Well, here's one from Adam to further add to the barefoot shoe debacle.

So that was just an anecdote from his.

That was just one, but this one is from a physiotherapist.

As a physiotherapist, I figured it was my time to chime in.

The whole thing of barefoot shoes Lewis was talking about is complete bullshit.

It all comes comes from a book 15 years ago that made up a bunch of things which have since been proven wrong.

One, the running style does not need to change when running barefoot.

The book used a specific area slash tribe in Africa as an example of how barefoot running changes your technique and is more, quote, natural, but it was just that specific hand-picked area that ran that way.

In other regions, the majority of people run with the same technique

barefoot as we do with shoes.

The people who grew up mostly barefoot have differently shaped feet than us.

Switching to barefoot later in life will not change your feet to look like theirs.

It's too late to adapt, will not cause any improvements to your feet.

It might actually be harmful as your feet aren't shaped for it.

Right.

What if I go barefoot, but I gallop like a horse?

You can try that or go or run like a gorilla with your hands on the ground, maybe.

People who run barefoot or with barefoot shoes have as many injuries as people who run with shoes, only they get theirs in a slightly different location as the load is different.

I don't want to scuff up my hands because then I won't be comfortable using my mouse and and keyboard.

There you go.

Uh, no health benefit has been observed from using that type of shoe at all.

And finally, the company, Vibram, who started the whole barefoot running trend and who also sponsored the book, claimed health benefits from using their shoes.

Earlier this year, they settled a class action lawsuit due to their false claims of said health benefits.

They are now barred from making any health claims at all regarding their shoes.

Wow.

Now, it's also worth mentioning there's nothing inherently bad about these shoes apart from them making you look like a twat.

So if you find them comfy, by all means, keep using them.

Yeah.

Your response.

From my point of view,

I always used to wear skate shoes anyway, right?

Like

flat vans and stuff like this.

And for my whole life, so I've kind of switching over to like barefoot shoes is basically the same.

It's not like I was wearing like very cushioned or very weirdly shaped trainers for a long time.

So for me, I think I've been wearing them for like four months now every day.

And it's I'm often in the office anyway, right?

It's not like I'm wearing wearing them maybe it's time for

some reebok pumps or some i'm wearing them

some big nike airs yes i need some like some ones with the the glowing the lights on yes um yes oh my god they were they i never got those my parents never got me those no um i wanted them so bad the flashing light um trainers but no uh I don't know.

I'm getting on fine with them.

I haven't had any problems.

But again, I think just, again, just be careful with yourself.

Like, don't, your body is, is, you only get one.

You know, look after it.

Respect what your limits are and listen to it, you know.

Um, and don't try and like push through if it's something's hurting.

I think that's like one of the worst bits of advice ever.

It's like, oh, it's hurting, just keep going.

It's like, that's not, that's not good advice.

Or another bit of advice, take it or leave it, it's up to you.

But eventually, no matter how well you treat your body, it will betray you.

So get in there first and strike, strike first.

So right now,

get all fucked up and then you know before it betrays

you betray it yeah you fuck it before it fucks you yeah start swallowing those hot dogs that's right just just get them down it's waiting it's biding its time to fuck you over it wants to fuck you over so bad you do if you actually you fuck them first

okay that's great advice yeah all right this is uh this is from dylan this is hello from california this is this is there's two emails about the same subject here and i'm doing this one first and then the follow-up okay so dylan says i would like to preface this email or is it preface by saying that I do not intend to glamorize or promote gambling.

Right.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, contact your local gambling hotline.

If you gamble, you will lose.

That's the setting that Dylan is saying.

Yes.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, this is going in, anyone, and most people know this already.

The house always wins.

It's on purpose, it's mathematically impossible to beat the odds over time.

However, unless you're some sort of Harvard MIT graduate.

Now, I am a third-year electrical engineering student and pay 100% of my tuition and living expenses as a professional gambler.

The amount of gambling I actually do is near zero.

Everything I do is carefully calculated so that I will statistically come out profitable in the long run.

While I can't guarantee a win every time, I can rely on the law of large numbers to ensure profitability over time.

I don't believe in luck, but some people still attribute my success to being a lucky player.

While this may sound thrilling, it isn't exactly like a crazy night in Vegas, as some might imagine.

In reality, it quickly becomes incredibly monotonous and repetitive.

Because of the relatively low profit margins I work with, I have to rely on volume of play to make any significant money.

This year alone, I'll have played through well over a million dollars in total bets spread over various casinos.

In doing so, I end up recycling through the same money hundreds or even thousands of times.

Please note, even though I've played through this much, only a small percentage is actual profit.

Whenever people ask me what I do for work, I have two options.

One, I can sound like an absolute degenerate, as most people won't be able to understand what I do without a great deal of explanation.

Or two, I can lie and say that I'm a risk analyst at a small company.

If they probe further, which is rare.

So wanky.

If they probe further, which is rare, I tell them it's more like a low-level internship until I finish school.

Since casinos really don't enjoy a player consistently making money, I have been banned from several casinos and expect to be banned from more as time goes on.

My goal is to keep this going until I finish my degree and I can enter my actual field of work.

Anyway, thought you might find this interesting.

What are some strange or unconventional ways that you or someone you know made money while at university?

Well, I did exactly that.

You played Pokemon.

What he did.

I know.

Back in the day when I was at uni, there was this way where Gon Legacy was quite new.

You signed up, you put in £100 and they gave you like a £100

joining bonus, right?

So you suddenly had £200.

Now, what you could do is you couldn't withdraw immediately the £200,

but what you could do is gamble that extra free £100 over and over again.

And you had to basically make a thousand pounds of bets with it.

So basically, if you bet one pound a thousand times,

and then you would be able to withdraw it.

And usually, mathematically, you would lose three percent of gains.

Right.

And so that 100 pounds, after 100 bets, you'd lose three pounds.

After a thousand bets, you'd lose 30 pounds, whatever.

Right.

So you'd lose 300 pounds.

Anyway, you'd end up losing.

On average, you'd end up losing that 100 pounds away again, right?

But what, but they would let you withdraw your 100 £100.

So you basically had an opportunity to get lucky or roll it over and over and over with some very safe bets and take out £150.

So you'd be able to make £50, right?

And what I would do is I would what exactly what this guy is doing, look for deals, look for bonuses, look for emails, look for promotions and put a bit of money in that I knew I could get back out and then play with the free money

until I was able to win.

And I ended up, you know, again making about five or six grand over the course of six months doing it it wasn't a lot and I had to like sign up to new credit cards to make you know I had to use my parents address because you know you can only make you know you can only make account new accounts on your own credit card once

I ended up using a few of my friends accounts you know to do it and gave them a cut and it and it also like the guy said was a huge amount of work because I had to play a thousand hands of poker to make 50 quid right and it's a pain in the ass And so I was just doing it like three of them on the go at once, like while I was watching Telly, while I was in lessons, while I was doing other stuff.

And it was, it was a grind, but it was, it, it was a shitty little loophole that you could use to make money.

Um,

and yeah, I think that if you, if you work it out and you, there is a no, what, no way to lose in gambling and you found a little hole, go for it.

But very rarely do these things come along.

And certainly after people found out about it it largely got shut down and it's hard it's it was becoming harder and harder to do they got wise to it didn't they because because everyone will share this stuff as well they'll be like i'm doing this um and they'll post on forums about it post on reddit about it and these things spread like wildfire you know um little little little hacks and before you know it you know the company figures out what's going on and shuts it down very few people stay quiet about their um money making scheme isn't it i don't know why but yeah it's yeah it's it's i don't know i i haven't really done many other.

I haven't really found many other things like that,

like get rich quick schemes or like, I don't know, like, have you guys ever

tried to do anything weird for money?

I do.

It's a lot of money.

Yeah, crack is very profitable.

But, yeah, I used to play a lot of online poker.

When I worked in poker TV and stuff, you know, you watch poker all day and you want to go home and play.

And I found cash poker to be very boring and grindy.

So I played tournament poker, which is more my cup of tea anyway, a much simpler game than cash poker because a lot of the decisions are made for you by the bets and the chip stacks and where you are in the tournament.

But also, tournament poker is a lot slower to lose money, right?

You pay a 25

quid buying it.

It takes three hours to do a tournament.

Whereas if you're at a cash table, you can lose it.

25 quid, you could lose it in seconds.

Yeah.

And because of the whole, like you luck, luck, if you want to call it it that does tend to come in streaks so you'll have a session any any poker player will know this feeling you your your aces get cracked like five times in a row like you're all in pre-flop against like ace jack and or or a pair of tens or whatever it is and you're like you're getting your money in good and it doesn't end that way and it keeps happening and you can lose that's why bankroll management is a big thing for any professional uh gambler or poker player um because that you have these streaks of bad variance.

And when you have the streaks of good variance,

it covers it.

But in general, if you're playing good poker, you'll make money.

But again, like the previous email said,

it's not a huge margin.

Like you're not doubling your money every session.

Over the course of a year, you might be making a percent.

on your bankroll.

But if your bankroll is big enough, you're playing at big enough stakes, you can earn a living from it.

But the tournament poker is where you suddenly win a fortune and that can be a massive bonus.

But the variance in tournaments, you're very unlikely to win loads of tournaments in a year.

But the payoff when you do is so much bigger.

And like you said, you only have to pay the entrance fee.

You're not, there's no chance of losing more.

But there's also no chance of breaking, there's less chance of just breaking even if you play lots of tournaments.

Cause a lot of the time you have to make tournament plays and then you go bust and you're like, well, that was unfortunate, but you're out.

You don't get a chance to buy back and win your money back.

But anyway, I think with a lot of this stuff, you really, really, really need to,

I wouldn't even say enjoy it.

You need to be obsessed with it because it just becomes your whole life.

I guess it does.

I mean, I think it's really good.

It really will just be.

Yeah, but with a job,

you can

there's there's there's safety mechanisms in a job where you can you know, you can, you, you can go home and switch off after a time.

You know, it doesn't have to follow you home.

And for some people, it does, of course, but for most people, they can go in, do a job, and then have like a, a separate life outside of a job or whatever.

With something like this, you're doing it all the time.

And it's like you're standing in the kitchen.

eating a bowl of cereal at one o'clock in the morning and you're you're playing like four different gambling games online at the same time because you like Lewis said, you just have to grind it and grind it and grind it.

Like all of these, all of these things where there's a way to make money are very, very consuming.

And I think the people that do them have

some sort of like, you know, like beautiful mind obsession with it sort of thing.

You know, like they will just occupy every minute of their day doing it sort of thing.

And if it works for them and they get a lot of money, great, I guess.

But for the average person, I wouldn't say that that's at all sustainable.

No, no, I think you need a particular

first of all.

You need to be very driven.

You need to be able to focus for long periods of time.

Because

if you stop playing optimally because you're tired or you're not paying attention,

you're going to lose.

And that's almost like just losing income.

That's like your boss just stops paying you.

Like everyone I know that played poker professionally was playing multiple screens, multiple tables at once, cash games.

Yeah, yeah.

All day.

And they know that they're just very slightly better than the other people, the average people at the table with them so they're making better bets or they're using a better hud which is like a heads-up display that you have over everyone at the table that gives statistical probability about what they're doing and you have data mining and hand histories thousands and thousands of hands that just played and people in those hand histories sell it they sell their hand histories online like 50 000 hands at this at the one two you know on on poker stars or whatever um here's the hands and you download them and you put them into your poker HUD and all your statistical things.

And when you play against someone, it's got data on them that you wouldn't have had otherwise.

And so you look and you say, oh, this guy is a really aggressive player.

So I'm going to widen my range when I come to call his bets and so on.

So it's like that kind of thing.

But for some people, look, I don't even think that it's like a beautiful mind thing.

I think.

It's a way to make money.

You're in control completely, or you certainly feel like you are.

And some people are just massive nerds for things like this.

It's almost like mathematics more than gaming.

Yeah.

Poker, you're playing against other people and winning money off other people.

Less so these days,

you're generally playing against other people.

Yeah, Master House does take a percent.

And yeah, bots.

I mean, I think it's the same sort of thing with even things like the stock market, right?

Like, I don't know.

For example, I got into the new WoW expansion in the last couple of months and

I finished the quests and all the normal stuff and I had fun and it was fine.

And then I sort of found myself quite enjoying doing a bit of crafting and then selling stuff on the auction house.

And I ended up like going onto the Wow Economy subreddit, and there's like a couple of Discord.

I love that side of the game, but I just did not get anywhere near it with this expansion.

Like, it's well, I know, but it's kind of its own sub-game of like trying to be an auction house baron and trying to be real.

It's fun, yeah.

I used to love it.

It's kind of weird because, obviously, like, you know, if you do play it really well, the big problem with it I found was that three or four times Blizzard would make some sort of hot fix,

some sort of change.

And the people who were able to either see that, not see it coming, but like get realize the implications

and figure out a way to capitalize.

People who got like a ping on their phone when Blizzard do a hot fix, they log in and they,

you know, 25 times more.

Oh, my titanium ore, now's the time.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of frustrating because that's really how to make money in the game.

I mean, to play off Blizzard's decision.

It's true at a certain level in real life as well, right?

Like investment banks and

commodities and all that kind of stuff.

It's essential like you have to have

a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge.

You have to know a lot of people who

are similar-minded, and then you can,

you know,

at a certain level, you know, you're talking,

you know, for the average person, you know, oh yeah, I spent 500 pounds on some stocks and I'm hoping that, you know, I'm going to make a thousand.

But like, when you have millions or billions to throw around and stuff, it's, it's, it's different.

Yeah.

You just press a button and you, you buy a million pounds worth of this thing.

Yeah.

And then that is

coming.

Yeah.

And then you sell it 10 minutes later for two million.

You know, it's like, well, there's my, there's my job done for the gear.

You saw the US politician.

Well,

that's what that's what they do.

There was a thing thing about how they all massively outperform the stock market average of course because they all have insider um information they all do it like they all do it it's a disgrace well there's no way to

you know prove a lot of this stuff you know it's it's

figuring out people chatting at the pub with someone it's like it's and also like it's not it's just sort of

it's hard to prove i guess that they got i would suggest that um it's easier to prove than you think well it's it's obviously rampant, right?

And it obviously has gone on forever

in some way.

Doing insider trading, and that's the way to make money for sure.

But

what counts as insider trading, right?

I think a lot of people.

If you have prior information from a source connected with the companies and buy stocks or sell them based on that information, I think that covers it.

Yeah, I think it's like

it's like a

perfectly timed concerted effort to

make things align that.

Maybe you got lucky, right?

But if you do it every time and your average is way higher than even a good bank or whatever, probably worth investigating.

Should we follow?

There's another casino email.

This is another one.

This is, I work for the largest casino in my area as one of the behind the scenes techies.

So I wanted to put this in because obviously talking about how someone's paying for university to buy gambling, some people might think, oh, that sounds interesting.

Just listen to this, all right?

While we have no gaming table, there have been many attempts to modernize.

No gaming table.

Gaming table.

They don't think we have no gaming table.

They've been attempts to modernize as fewer young people are gambling.

There are screens everywhere and few dealers in comparison.

Digital horse races, digital card machines, anything that can be hooked up to bright lights and loud sounds to trick your brain into an addictive cycle.

A majority of the people who come in are old folks using the fruit machines to blow away the little money they get from their retirement funds.

They often arrive early in the morning and sit at a single machine for hours.

There are rooms and rooms of these fruit machines and they take up the majority of the gaming floors.

The card tables are often empty aside from Fridays and weekends and in the evening.

There are no windows in the fruit machine areas.

It is entirely walled in.

There are no clocks or any indication of time to keep people playing for longer.

The word gambling is practically a slur among staff and and not to be said.

Instead, you have to say playing or gaming.

The biggest draw for young people are shows and concerts with expensive tickets, ridiculously priced themed cocktails, and an uptick in dinner reservations before or after the event.

Drinks that cost $3 to $5 to make are often charged up to $20 plus dollars for customers.

While all this pays my income, I want to make the PSA do not go to conceit casinos.

If you do have a set amount to lose and get the fuck out after that, and never, never use the fruit machines.

I know many people who will put their entire paycheck through them and lose it all within hours.

Yeah, I mean, I think

like we've said this time and time again, but if you, if, if you go to a casino and you, you have 50 bucks and you're going with some friends and you just want to have fun and you lose your 50 bucks, you've gone out.

It's like it's basically kind of like a night out, right?

You've probably had a good time, you've socialized, you've done a couple of bits and pieces.

If you're taking your entire paycheck and losing it, and then you're crying and

living in a ditch after, that's not very good.

You should not be doing that at a casino.

Treat it like you're not using the right strategy, mate.

Treat it like you're going.

What you're going to is if you just put twice as much in.

You wouldn't spend your entire paycheck at a cinematomy.

What you would do is you want to watch other people put in money and then when they walk away, that machine's loaded.

It's ready to pay out.

Then you go up to that one, mate.

That's what you do.

That's why they sit at them all day, these old farts.

Because they're like, they know how much they put in this machine.

machine, and they'll be damned if they're going to share it with anyone else.

I mean, the amazing thing to me is, of all the things to put your money into at a casino, you have no edge at all on the fruit machine.

None.

No, but it tells you how much the payout percentage is on the side of the fucking machine.

It's like, it's like 50 or 60.

It's like, but it's, I feel like there's more to it than just going to the fruit machine, right?

Like, I think people, the people must find some comfort in the simplicity of it, the surroundings, you know, maybe you're going there and you're doing that for a couple of hours, but you might be meeting some people there, or you have your dinner there, or you just basically live there.

I've known people like that as well, but there's got to be more to it than just, I'm obsessed with playing the fruit machines, or I'm obsessed with playing the slot machines, or you know what I mean?

There's got to be, there's got to be more

of a shit if you're a lonely, older person with literally nothing better to do, and this is fun.

I, you know, I can see why they do it.

I mean, they're not doing it as an investment.

No, I think they quite like the highs of having a good day.

Yeah.

It's probably if they've got nothing better to do with their time, and apparently they don't, but sit there and pump all their money into these machines.

I mean, it's incredibly predatory, but it is.

But I mean, they are adults.

You'd think

like so many things nowadays.

I mean, you know,

there's a lot of that seeping into gaming, which is, you know,

everybody's going to shit.

It's pretty bad, too.

I guess it's kind of the same.

You've got people who don't have anything else better to do or whatever, sitting around gaming and stuff.

But then you've got this notion of whales, you know, people who spend a lot of money and companies preying on them to prop up a game, you know, with like through skins, cosmetics, or even like pay-to-win stuff.

I reckon these guys, these old folks just need to get it, like the grandma, they need need to get into Skyrim.

I think that will just do it.

They just want flashy lights and colors, and

but I also think they want community, right?

They want to be in places where other people are.

Yeah, I think so.

And I think the casinos are that.

I think the staff are always very nice, you know, because they're paid to be, you know,

it's warm, it's cozy to sit there and do nice something that you like to do for the lights are quite bright.

I think it feels exhilarating.

It feels like you're doing something as well.

Like, I think it feels like

you've got your oxygen machine and you've got your credit card attached to a lanyard and on your network.

So here's a question.

Given that you're, I mean,

the emailer has said, who is requested to remain anonymous, obviously, the emailer has said that the casino doesn't, it doesn't seem like a nice environment.

It's incredibly loud.

It's flashing lights.

There's no windows.

There's no,

it's designed to just keep you in a state.

where the only thing that you're doing is going to ching, cha-ching and pulling the lever or whatever or mashing buttons.

That doesn't say community and fun and pleasant surroundings well

the same thing as being with community doesn't mean necessarily being actively a face-to-face interaction with other people it means where people where other people are around you i mean like your your average pub is not a nice place to be in but if you're used to it and you're used to all the people there it's probably fine right i think

pubs are depends which pub i mean

of course it depends which one.

And the thing is, your pub, the one that you've gone to forever, might be a shitty pub, but you don't think it's shitty because you're used to it, right?

I wouldn't go to a shitty pub.

No, no, but you know what I mean?

Horrible.

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, because that's somebody else's shitty pub that they're used to, whatever.

But I mean, there's, there's shitty pubs everywhere, and they're still going because people obviously still go to them

for whatever reason.

I think it's just the same as a casino.

I don't think it has to be perfect.

It just has to be familiar and comfortable for you to sit there and

plug away.

I think in response to the incident and some of these other things, especially like COVID, I think people are demanding

communality or like, you know, like the idea of living with other people.

Certainly, as the cost of living rises and

cost of rent rises, more people have been living together or coming up with ways to kind of live in community things.

And I don't know if if we're going to see, I don't really know enough really about this.

I'm not an expert or anything, but I always feel like, you know, communes and hippie lifestyles were a thing that's kind of looked down upon or frowned upon as this kind of alternative way of living.

And it's certainly communism was demonized certainly for a long time during the Cold War.

And it's kind of, you know, still seen as something which is a failed experiment, right?

Like the idea of like living together in a commune with other people is almost like the idea is, I think it's destined to fail, partly because I think it breeds resentment due to eventually the idea that certain people aren't pulling their weight or other people are contributing more.

And that kind of sometimes,

you know, I think unless it's very well controlled, either with some sort of religious cult leader, which is often a terrible fucking outcome, or um everyone is on on the same mindset, which is not always the case, of course people change and everything.

These resentments can fester.

And so, unless you're either like regularly very engaged within that community, right?

I think it can fall apart very easily.

Certainly, you know, you know what it's like living with your friends.

It's great for a while, but then you start to see the cracks as you realize this person's a slob and this person's doing this.

And you would get arguments, and you can't help it, right?

Like, it's inevitable that people will fall out.

And at least more people are becoming vegan and eating healthy.

More people are

trying to to do things like grow their own vegetables, grow their own food.

You know, it certainly feels like people are moving out to the to the countryside more.

I know obviously still lots of people come to cities for the jobs, but certainly some people are feel like, oh, I could I could work remotely and not live in the city.

You know, it definitely feels like there's this sort of different process going simmering away in the background that feels like maybe everyone is trying to be eco-friendly.

And even if that's not done by big business, because it's still very capitalistly driven, I think generally people are keen to

do things that are sustainable and you know, not maybe not

eat things that have come from New Zealand.

You know,

I think there is a desire for locally grown food

and communities.

Would you live on a commune?

Would you?

Would I live on a commune?

Absolutely fucking not.

What if it's got no way?

Even then, like, what if you go to be the cult leader?

Oh, okay.

Now, now we're talking.

Every man has a price.

I don't know.

Like, I'm interested in that.

And I haven't really thought about it.

But here you go.

If anyone out there has experience of living on a commune, email in.

Tell us what it was like.

What were the pitfalls?

What were the pros and cons?

Let us know.

That would be good.

Let's try this one.

This is from Danny.

This is a complete change of pace.

I compete in a sport called Strongman.

Nice.

Unlike most strength sports, Strongman is fairly non-standardized, with competitions usually consisting of five or six events ranging from deadlifting cars,

pressing a log over your head, or simply picking up the biggest rock.

They're always on TV.

The championship's always on TV between Christmas and New Year's.

You always see those guys pulling dump trucks and stuff like that.

I love it.

Be careful.

Every competition is different, and there are dozens of different events you might end up doing with organizers often using whatever crap they have laying around in their gym.

See, this guy

this guy knows what's up.

He's fucking his body before his body fucks him.

Yes.

He's getting in there early.

Next year, I'll be competing at England's strongest natural man.

This isn't as impressive as it sounds.

There's no qualifying system, so anybody can sign up.

My goal is simply to not come last.

The competition has to specify natural in the title because in Strongman, athletes are permitted to take steroids as the default.

and non-steroid users have to either compete at a disadvantage or resign themselves to the less popular natural competitions.

Personally, I think strongman is one of the best true measures of a person's strength.

It's one thing picking up a lot of weight in a strict motion you've done thousands of times, and another thing to shimmy a 120-kilo sandbag onto your shoulder and sprint with it.

With all this being said, what do you guys think is the most definitive way to measure whether someone is strong?

For me, it has to be picking up a big rock.

Picking up a big rock is

pretty tough.

Yeah, I mean, you're not really going to, you're not really going to get a better measure than that, I don't think.

If somebody can pick up a really big rock, well, they're probably strong.

I think things that aren't designed to be picked up, like when you see them picking up huge kettlebells or something with a handle, or like he said, like huge weights, that's kind of designed ergonomically for you to be able to pick it up.

When you see them with the rock having to pick up a giant boulder, they've got to, it's awkward to get their arms around it and it's like it's it's it's misshapen and it's digging digging into them.

So, I think being able to pick up a very, very heavy rock probably is

a great, great because you've got to use so much.

Your grip has to be good, you need to have a good sort of strength throughout your arms and your shoulders, then to pick it up, you need strength through your core, and then to stand up and lift, you need to have power all through your legs.

So, I think it's a total body usage for the picking up of the rock.

And I think that's so much healthier.

I think if you have trained to do one specific kind of weightlift, you're obviously going to be really good at that thing.

But yeah, I think going and picking up a rock, it does feel like it's something which you're going to have to, otherwise you're going to injure yourself.

I think like I'm scared because I guess a lot of these events are about trying to get eyes on them, right?

And trying to get viral clicks and try to do new stuff.

It's like, oh, pull a truck.

You know, I'm going to make this guy lift up an aeroplane.

I'm going to make this guy, you know, lift a rock while jumping out of an aeroplane.

There's, there's, there's all dumb, you know, they're constantly like one-upping themselves, right?

And I think that anything that leads to, like you said, P-Flax, like whole body strength, where you can take on a variety of challenges feels a lot healthier as a

thing to promote.

Counterpoint, you're fucking more parts of your body all at the same time.

This is true.

And also, I think it's just so dangerous, God, like picking up that slippery rock, dropping on your foreman.

Oh my God.

Oh, my God.

But you never see them like dancing away like a little girl, do you?

They're always just like, it always just slams down the floor, like right next to them, and they just like don't react at all.

Those lads are so big, though, that they sort of have to T-pose all the time.

They look like they've just spawned in as an NPC.

They do.

Like their arms are sort of out to the side because they literally can't put them down by their side.

They're just like,

they turn like, oh, like a big sort of Frankenstein's monster.

But But yes, I do love a bit of strongman.

Lewis, have you ever heard of a data broker?

No.

Well, they're the middlemen, collecting and selling all those digital footprints that you leave online.

They can stitch together detailed profiles, which include your browsing history, online searches, and location data.

The data broker then sells your profile off to a company who delivers you a really targeted ad.

Well, that's no big deal, right?

Maybe you want some targeted ads.

But you might be surprised to learn that these same data brokers are also selling your information to the department of homeland security and the irs if you're an american i for one don't want the tax man shown up at my door because of some search i did on my phone so to mask my digital footprints i protect myself with express vpn fantastic one of the easiest ways for data brokers to track you is through your device's unique ip address which also reveals your location information with expressvpn your ip address is hidden making it much more difficult for people to track monitor and monetize your private online activity ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your network traffic and works on all your devices.

You've been away in the last couple of weeks on hotel Wi-Fi.

I have.

In fact, I'm sure you've used ExpressVPN to stay private.

Oh, you know I have.

I don't want reception knowing what I'm up to in my room.

Thank you very much.

And I'm using a borrowed PC.

That's the other thing.

It's not my PC.

So I pop ExpressVPN to further conceal what I've been up to.

Yes, expressvpn.com/slash Triforce, and you can get an extra four months for free with the 12-month plan or six months free if you get a 24-month plan.

Expressvpn.com slash Triforce.

Check it out.

Like a lot of people, my mum is terrible when it comes to technology.

She's the opposite of tech savvy.

So it seems kind of weird for me to get her a sort of techie gift, but Aura's digital frame is actually perfect.

That's because, yes, it's tech, but it is so easy.

I gave her an Aura frame.

I can upload pictures to it automagically.

It's like, it is literally like magic.

It just appears on the screen and she messaged me and said, oh, new photos have arrived.

It's, you don't even need to let them do it.

You can do it.

You can take control yourself and give all those pictures of your holidays and your kids and even yourself straight onto your parents' frames.

And then they get the grandparent experience.

They suddenly get pictures of the kids popping up.

It's fantastic.

It's very easy to get started.

And once you do, it's much, it's very easy to use, incredibly easy to maintain.

You just upload pictures, bam, straight off your phone.

Straight from my phone, just with a click.

You just select select a bunch of them, upload, and it'll even pair photos together.

I don't know how the hell it knows, but it knows same person, same day, side by side.

It's amazing.

No memory cards, no USB.

There's a reason that Wirecutter named it the number one best digital photo frame.

And for a limited time, if you go to auraframes.com, you get $45 off their best-selling Carver map frames using the promo code Triforce at checkout.

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Terms and conditions, of course, do apply.

Now, this is one for you, Sipsy boy.

I'm ready.

Hit me.

Okay.

There have been several times now that Sips has talked about the show, How Clean Is Your House?

Yeah.

With Kim and Aggie.

And he always brings up that Aggie does another show where she looks at people's shit.

This drives me crazy because I used to watch both of these shows all the time.

Okay.

The other show he is talking about is called You Are What You Eat, and it's hosted by Jillian McKeith, not Aggie.

Aggie is the one,

is the blonde lady who's always got the gloves, and Jillian is the one with the glasses, who also gets the gloves, but is obsessed with the poop.

Right, but again, she's the poop inspector.

She is from How Clean Island.

Jillian McKeith.

Jillian McKeith is a different person from Kim and Aggie.

I know this is a show.

Oh, sorry, Michael.

She looks vaguely similar.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

That's not.

You're right.

Yeah, that's the poop lady.

Yeah.

That is a poop lady.

Jillian.

Okay, good.

Jillian.

So Haley says, yeah, she does make people shit in a little Tupperware container, which she then opens and smells in front of them and their family.

Yes.

That's Haley from California.

Thank you, Haley.

Holy crap.

Sorry.

I got my wires crossed there.

There's another way it's like, oh, God, he's getting confused.

Kim and Aggie and Julian McKeith again.

And they email in.

I know.

I'm sorry.

But it's similar because the one on Kim and Aggie used to do the poop in the container stuff as well, right?

But Jillian also doesn't.

I don't think they did.

I don't think Kim and Aggie ever did the poop.

I'm sorry.

I think you're mistaking the fact that they would often clean a toilet and complain about how disgusting the toilet was.

I'm sure.

I'm sure there was a segment where they were like, let's see how healthy you are.

Shit in this container.

No, you need to do that.

That's Jillian McKeith.

Oh, man.

Haley, don't email in again.

And we tried.

All right.

We tried.

Sorry.

It's been so long.

I mean,

it's not like I watched these shows yesterday.

I mean, I watched them like 20 years ago.

Plus.

This one's called Helly Bacon.

That's the name of the email.

This is a website.

You can look this up if you guys want.

Helibacon.com.

And it's like helicopter, but instead of copter, it says bacon.

This company offers the opportunity to fly above Texas in a helicopter.

and fire machine guns down at hordes of wild pigs.

Oh my god.

They even have a minigun.

It's the most American thing I've ever heard of and thought you'd find their concept entertaining.

Personally, I just imagine that this is that poor pig's Vietnam.

They're being blasted with Fortunate Sun as a Huey flies overhead and they're being peppered with machine gun fire.

Sort of funny in a macabre way.

Thank you, Dan.

That's horrifying.

I don't know why.

Apparently,

these pigs are invasive.

They're not just pigs that are chilling.

They need to be culled.

These are like invasive pigs.

Yeah.

I mean, I I would hope that helicopter hog hunting trips in Texas.

Yeah, look at the cost.

It's about five to six grand per person.

Do you want to eradicate herds of hogs from the air?

Never

thought I'd.

Never asked that one.

Can you read the Texas accent, Peep?

Do you want to buzz droves of hogs 15 feet off the ground at highway speeds?

Texas is a place to be.

God.

We'll supply the machine guns.

You bring the trigger finger.

The experience begins before dawn with a thorough safety course covering techniques and methods for safely operating firearms in and around an aircraft.

The hunt starts bright and early.

We'll lift off at sunrise.

Every hunter is outfitted with a semi-automatic AR-15 equipped with a holographic red dot sight and ammunition.

For those looking to kick it up a notch, upgrade to a fully automatic machine gun and get the full Texas experience.

One day breaks.

It's game on.

God Almighty.

Good God.

Count me out.

Helly Beacon.

Helly Beacon, Ducker.

Oh, my God.

No Texas hunting license required to shoot Feral Hogs.

Feral hogs.

You can go at nighttime, and there's a night vision version where you're shooting them in the dark.

God.

Oh, that's insane.

I mean, they say...

I wonder if they eat pork.

That's what I'm saying.

I mean, do they go out and collect them?

Is wild hog just like pork?

I mean, can you just cook it up?

Because if you end the day with a hog roast, I'm just just saying, this is a fucking banger of a day out if you don't mind shooting wild, wild hogs.

Wild hogs.

Yeah, dear.

Fucking unbelievable.

I wonder what the

most in American pigs are making it, it really is.

Like when they hear the chopper, they're like, incoming, and they're like, scatter.

I think pigs generally stick in groups.

So it's pretty easy.

You kind of just hosing down a group of pigs.

Oh, those poor things.

All right.

This is about cruise ship micro apartments.

We talked about this in episode 298.

This was during, this is after T.I.

and Sips' semi-annual Hajj to Centaur Boss.

Yes.

The Hajj, of course, is the pilgrimage.

Yes.

In which you discussed old people selling their belongings to purchase a condo on a cruise ship.

Yeah.

For the last year and a half, I have been living in a 200-square-foot micro apartment, which also happens to be the cheapest possible location I could have chosen to live in my city.

This is this.

We talked about a 200-square-foot cruise ship

is really small.

It is.

I think for one person, though, you can make small work, but if you have a partner and of course, if you have other people that you've created, 200 square feet feels very, very, very, very small.

I don't think you would live there with a family for sure.

So contrary to your guesses, there's a surprising amount of space that can be used for storage without it feeling too cramped.

I have two full bookshelves, a dresser, a closet, as well as a good number of cabinets for food and cooking stuff.

Most of the kitchen storage is unused because of other issues with the building, but I digress.

Any extra clothes from the dresser live in big storage bins in the closet.

The main issue with an apartment this small is obviously the bed.

There's only room for a twin bed, and the layout of my apartment means there's less than a meter of space between the open side of the bed and the bathroom wall.

It felt a bit tight at first, but one gets used to these things.

The bathroom is big enough for a good-sized shower.

Unlike the Yog Towers one, you can bend down in it.

What's that a reference to?

It's got like a slanted roof or something.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Oh, maybe that's a reference to me having a shower in the Yog Towers shower.

You did that?

Have you ever talked about that?

Man, you live like five minutes away or you would just go home, no?

I would if I lived as close to the office as you did, I would go home.

Oh, my water was everything.

Oh, your water was there.

But the shower is so small you can't bend down it.

Yeah, well, it's obviously like a, you know, it's a really, really tight shower.

You can't really bend down it.

And then

the actual like um changing area outside is again the same small so small you can't really bend down I see and so it's kind of like you're just like you go in there vertically take your clothes off like vertically get in the shower have a have a wash vertically

like try and dry off vertically it's very strange but it's fun fun I guess if it wouldn't be great if you were claustrophobic this this is like a i've just found a youtube video with a 200 square feet

it's basically it's basically one room yeah the fact that he's got a twin bed in there is impressive because i think think most people would have like a sofa bed.

So yeah, so I mean, you can see that that is

if you look on YouTube and you just, the title is, is a 200 square foot tiny home livable?

There is a shot of the room.

It's got one window.

The door opens straight into the, what I guess is the main room.

He's got room here for a single bed.

A TV is on the wall above the bed.

Then there's a gap, a little coffee table, a little sofa, and a little bookshelf,

and he's got a bedside table.

So if you imagine that I think the floor plan for this emailer's mail, Peter, is obviously slightly different because he has the separate bathroom.

The bed's lined up in such a way that when you get out of the bed, you're facing the bathroom wall.

I see.

Although, so Peter says, my experience definitely isn't typical.

My apartment is on the property of the landlord, maybe four meters from her house, built on the detached garage.

I think it was originally meant as a guest apartment for the homeowner, but I have no idea.

That being said, for a bachelor like me who doesn't have any friends in the area, it's a pretty sweet deal.

Yeah, that's not bad.

Yeah, some old person on a perpetual cruise who doesn't have to worry about food or laundry would probably love the downsides a bit anyway.

I mean, that's the thing.

If you're living in the 200-square-foot cruise ship room, you only don't need a kitchen.

So that's a huge amount of space taken out.

I guess it's like living in a residentiality.

It's probably cheaper than living in a residential home as well.

Honestly,

i i don't think it's worse than living in like a

retirement community or something or like a boat you know

by a lot of people like uh downsize into um you know they'll sell their house and everything after they've retired and they'll just buy a big rv and just go go around it's much cheaper to uh to to hire a spot in an RV park and like in North America when you've had enough oh my god there's so many of them drive straight off the cliff there are a lot there's so many RV parks.

And the nice thing is, is you're mobile.

So if you get sick of one, you just go to another one.

You know, you might want to be in like a more wooded area.

Maybe you want to be in the desert or whatever.

You know, like there's, you got options.

You can drive.

My parents did that for a bit.

They, well, they didn't sell their house, but they got really big into

the RV life.

And they had a trailer, like for their RV, they could pull their car behind so that when they would get somewhere and stay somewhere for months at a time, instead instead of having to just drive the RV everywhere they went, you know, they'd have their little car with them and stuff.

It's fucking crazy, actually.

But like the inside of the place was like, it was just like a really nice apartment, you know, like when they parked it up, the whole thing would like open up and expand.

And they had, you know, like a little living room and a kitchen.

And

I don't know.

I think they just went to places where they could just sit outside a lot and stuff.

Yeah.

You know, I always find it funny when they show like all this cool stuff in their van.

And it's like, oh, if you lift up the chair, it's a toilet.

And if you lift up the toilet, it's a washing machine.

And if you, and then they're like, and the shower, you have to go around here and put a plastic bag on the back of the van.

It's like, okay, cool.

I love those.

I love those old videos from the 90s where, you know, it'll be like.

Coolio's tour van or whatever.

And he's like showing it up.

He's like, yeah, come back here.

It's like a little bunk bed with like a Sega Genesis.

But at the time, that was just like, oh my God, this guy's got a bunk bed in his Sega Genesis.

I bet he completed Sega Genesis all the fucking time in that thing.

Oh, man.

So funny.

Very specific memory there.

Classic

Sega Genesis.

Coolio's tour bus.

I'm sure that was like

before MTV Cribs, it was like, you know,

the kind of like behind the scenes sort of, you know, this is how the stars live and this is how they tour and stuff.

I mean, you look at it now now and you think, geez, he lives in a van, essentially.

Yeah.

Like sleeps on a bunk bed.

It's not very glamorous.

Being on tour is every band that goes on tour talks about like how fucking it's just.

Yeah.

It is like a grind.

Yeah.

Some bands love it, but some bands really hate it.

I guess the ones that do loads of drugs and get loads of groupies, it's quite fun for a while.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is worst Airbnb experience.

This is, this is, uh, I have an Airbnb experience from hell that I was reminded about when listening to one of the last Triforces.

Back in 2021, just after COVID, me and some friends decided to book a little weekend away in Ontario.

We found a good-looking Airbnb and booked it.

It was a farm-style house, and when we got there, it was a little odd, slightly dirty, and stuff everywhere.

But we are on a picky group, so we thought it was okay.

A couple of drinks, and many hours later, we started to get all set for bed.

In one of my rooms, my friend and his partner pulled back the sheets to find either a puke or piss-soaked bed.

Then minutes later, a mouse runs past.

At that point, we started to realize just how off this place was.

Feathers and old food left everywhere, weird locks on the outside of doors, just not the place we wanted to be.

We tried calling Airbnb, but they were useless.

And then we called the host, and oh boy, it was a disaster.

She started to threaten us, told us she was calling the cops, gave us a story that we did it all.

When we said we just wanted another bed or something for the night, she said there was an air mattress under the sofa.

We got to, we go to get it, and there was a mound of old trash, and the air mattress was full of holes.

Needless to say, we all got the fuck out of there.

Airbnb refused to give us our money back and my buddy now has a negative Airbnb rating.

Sorry to hear that, Craig.

That's a terrible, terrible fucking Airbnb.

Yeah, who would have thought that staying at somebody's random house would come with problems and issues?

There's a bunch of fucking insane people out there, by the way.

I don't think Airbnb is vetting them either.

You know,

any old weirdo can just put their house up.

Oh, by the way,

I live here in the closet while you're you're staying here.

Sorry.

You know what I mean?

Like, fucking hell.

I mean, generally, I go for places that have got a decent number of ratings.

Yeah.

Because the way I see it, if you've got a highly rated Airbnb, you probably haven't fucked up.

If a place is brand new,

sometimes you think, well, I'll chance it.

And I have done it.

And a couple of times I've been really sort of pleasantly surprised, but you are rolling the dice.

A hotel is definitely

you know exactly what you're going to get.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know it's not

economical for everybody to just stay at a hotel, but I mean, there's, there's, it's cheaper.

There's scales as well, right?

Like, I like, like, I, Premier Inn's pretty, pretty cheap.

And no, dude, it's much cheaper staying at a hotel.

Yeah.

A lot of Airbnbs are way out of the hotel.

The Premier Inn that we stayed at in

Stains.

Stains.

It was fine.

It was totally fine.

Like, there was, it was just, you know, it was, it, it was basic, but it was clean.

It was like, you know, fairly new.

It felt fairly new.

It didn't feel like dated or old or anything.

It was honestly fine and cheap as well compared to some of the places, you know?

I don't know.

All right, we're going to finish with two quick emails, okay?

This is from this is from Joe.

I was just listening to episode 299, and Lewis brought up a spammy approach that Yoggs had received from a Joe Barron at Amstrad Digital.

I absolutely cannot vouch to that being a real email from the real Joe Barron, but I immediately recognized the name.

Joe Barron is my second cousin once removed.

Thanks, Google.

And a quick search shows that he is indeed something to do with Amstrad Digital.

What makes this more interesting is that his dad is one Mark Barron, who's married to Alan Sugar's daughter and was in fact the frontman for the late 90s band Another Level, responsible for such hits as Freak Me.

Unlike Joe, I've actually met Mark Barron, and he's a nice chap.

This is a source of enormous pride in my family, although the band broke up in 2000 and Alan Sugar has since beaten the art out of Mark, who as I understand it was folded into the company shortly afterwards.

Amstrad ceased to exist in 2007 after it was gobbled up by Sky, but it sounds like the zombie Amstrad name has been revived explicitly as a gift for the young Joe Baron, like an ancient pharaoh raising a legion of terrifying skeletal soldiers to protect their dynasty, only massively shitter.

So, Joe Barron is Lord Sugar's grandson?

I believe so.

And he's been given the fucking, he's 21

and he's heading up the cool hip new arm of Amstrad.

Which does make it a good thing.

It's going to go for a new generation.

So Alan Sugar laid on

a new job for him.

Laid on a new job.

Let's pick a new hip title for 2024.

How about Amstrad did you?

I wonder if he's allowed to do any remote working because Alan Sugar very, very vocally against remote working.

Yeah, he's an old fucking boomer boss, isn't he?

I mean, of course he's going to be against it.

Yeah, but do you think

he makes allowances for his

man like that?

He's incredibly egotistical and thinks that if you don't do it the way he did it, you're a fucking idiot.

And I didn't get no days off selling CDs and electrical crap down the market, so why should you?

Like, I think that's his attitude.

I don't think he's a cool boss at all.

I think he's probably an absolute cunt to work for.

But hey, what do I know?

I'm going purely off what I've seen on Twitter and The Apprentice.

All right, let's finish with a little bit of Greg Wallace.

That's what we like to round out the mailbag with.

Zoe has tried to characterize Greg Wallace.

Let me know if you agree with this sentence.

Greg Wallace is the type of man to steal a pie cooling on a windowsill and eat it whilst licking his lips with glee, while the old lady who was baking the pie for her grandson, who just got back from the war, cries.

Yes.

And then

it pans over to Greg Wallace's and his shit-eating grinny says, Sorry, love.

Lovely bit of pie.

And Zoe has also attached a screenshot of a tweet, quite a famous tweet.

A guy called Nick Holder tweeted at Greg A.

Wallace, hi, Greg.

I'm cycling just over 180 miles in two days for Macmillan cancer support.

Any chance of a retweet?

And Greg Wallace responded,

correcting his spelling of Greg, because Nick Holder's original tweet.

says, hi, Greg, with one G.

And Greg Wallace just replies with Greg with two Gs and a question mark.

And Nick then replies, Greg, no worries, mate.

It's only people with cancer.

You worry about your extra G, master twat.

Which

is pretty good.

The turnaround on that.

Well, I mean, fucking,

how are you complaining about someone spelling your name wrong?

That's the only reply that Greg Wallace has to it.

Fucking dick.

Anyway.

Yeah.

That's funny.

I mean, have a normally spelt name, Greg, you cunt.

Greg as a name anymore.

It's really falling.

I know Greg.

Yeah, I know.

You probably know Greg.

The Greg you know is probably

in between the age of 40 and 50 years old, right?

Incorrect, sir.

Right.

He's in his early 20s.

You know a Greg in his early 20s?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did he step out of some sort of time capsule from the 1970s?

Or

this is not a popular name anymore.

That not that I know of, anyway.

No, it's not up there with like Khalisi and

Siza and

also

cool names that people use now.

So I'm surprised.

Yeah, he's a Greg.

Young girl.

That was like six years ago that happened.

What?

Maybe he was having a bad day.

Maybe he lost the campaign against the Mesopotamians or something, you know.

Just having a really bad

bad talk.

I don't know whether this is Mark Zuckerberg's attempt to become human.

Some sort of marketing guy has got this going, but he's said, Mark Zuckerberg has said that he reckons he's like a grandmaster of Civ.

Now, he didn't say which one.

He didn't say Civ 5 or Civ 6.

He just said civilization.

He said he's played a thousand hours of it or something like that.

He looks like an android,

but he looks like an android from like a 1960s movie, you know, without all the...

Well, they just painted them slightly silvery-faced.

Yeah.

And he looks like Data.

He's kind of like data.

He's very dangerous.

He does look like Data.

And obviously,

he's defeated the AI in a few Civ games, and now he thinks he can crush everyone on the internet.

You know, we've dealt with these people before in our Civ games.

Do you know what I mean?

We've had someone come in and say,

I've played $1,000 of Civ, and they come into a multiplayer game.

They know a lot of fuck they're doing.

And they just lose in terrible.

You should challenge him to a 1v1.

Well, exactly.

No, well,

I'd crush them in the knee.

But I mean,

the fact that he didn't specify which Civ game is concerning.

I assume he's playing some of the game.

What if he did like a whole bunch of like forbidden training under the radar that you didn't know about?

What if he got like,

who's really good at Civ in the AUGS other than you?

Potato Meg Whiskey.

What if he got, yeah, he got like secret training, you know, from

that guy and

you weren't ready for it?

you know you thought it was going to be a walkover but then he turned around and he turns around and owes you and then you he owns you and then you've got egg on your face what what then

yeah that's true i i you got maybe maybe i got i know what i'd i'd i'd i'd be happy with that if that did happen i i feel like um suck on it it's it is it is weird that he but but of course what his other anecdote was that he got accepted when he found out that he was accepted for harvard he was playing oh right that was his other i would have been like sif three then i guess yeah maybe sif 4, actually.

It's weird that he's not specifying the numbers.

So he is 40.

So Civ 4

came out in

2005.

So I think it must have been Civ 3 if he was at Scotland.

So Civ 3 came out, which is a classic, by the way.

That came out in 2001.

So I suspect it was Civ 3 that he was playing, which is the one that my dad still plays.

Wow.

Maybe he should 1v1.

I think it's either 3 or it might even be 2.

It might even be Civ 2 that my dad still plays.

He's like, there's a lot of good mods for it on the internet, actually.

He just rushes catapults and owns everybody.

He never gets to the space age.

He just always goes domination victory.

So I might be Civ.

He does still play Civ 1, I know.

um yeah he's fucking obsessed with civ but like the old civ doesn't doesn't have any no truck with the newer ones

anyway.

I would watch that game.

Lewis wants to watch this game.

All right, well, there you go.

Let's see if we can set up.

If someone here works for Facebook, preferably at a level where you are on first-name terms with Mark Zuckerberg.

Yeah, let's set it up.

Let's do a 1v1, Lewis versus the Zuck.

Yeah.

And we'll see who comes up on top.

Yeah, let's.

I think it's Zuck.

If you can make it happen, it'd be a pretty hot vid.

Yeah.

Reviper.

I think it would be a close-run thing.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, let's do it.

Although, as Lewis has said, I would own that noob.

Yeah.

That's right now the golden money.

It would be an interesting

clash, wouldn't it?

I would watch it.

It would be huge.

I would watch it.

I would definitely watch that.

All right.

Well, that's this week's mailbag.

Thank you so much for all the mails.

Thank you.

Keep them coming.

Some really good ones this week.

And I look forward to reading more of them over the coming weeks.

Oh, yeah.

And we shall do another mailbag next week.

Yes.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much.

One and all.

Goodbye.

Bye now.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.