Do you dread small talk? If you died alone, how long would it take before someone discovered your body? Are you stuck in an outdated fashion? Also, why you should watch what you wear on the subway, and why you should never, ever forget your password. These are the super-serious topics we cover in this week’s episode.
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5. Credits
Do you dread small talk? If you died alone, how long would it take before someone discovered your body? Are you stuck in an outdated fashion? Also, why you should watch what you wear on the subway, and why you should never, ever forget your password. These are the super-serious topics we cover in this week’s episode.
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every Tuesday!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
[00:00:00] Jeff: This week saying goodbye, dying alone, cargo shorts, what not to wear on the subway, and why you should always remember your password. Welcome to Subpar Talks.
Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
[00:00:35] Chris: And I'm Chris.
[00:00:37] Jeff: Thank you so much for joining us again for another episode here. And as always, before we get into our topics this week, we do have our standard disclaimer, listener discretion advised. We tend to have some profane language on this podcast. And from time to time we will touch on some hot button issues and we inject humor into all of this stuff. And as if that does not sound like your cup of tea, then maybe this is not for you. But for the rest of you, here we go with our topics.
This week, we've got several different topics that we plan on touching on. And, and honestly, who knows where these are gonna go? We've got, I, I would call 'em news items, but they are, uh, both scary in their own particular way. And then we've got some, I'd call 'em Seinfeldian scenarios. Chris and I love Seinfeld, and so whenever particular topics, ridiculous scenarios pop up that in the grand scheme of things might not seem like that big of a deal, they actually are in their own special way. And so, we tend to fixate on that. Chris, you brought this up to me a while back, and it deals with people saying their goodbyes so uh, expound on that one.
[00:01:59] Chris: So the question was, you're in a group situation. The majority, or all of the group except for one person, is going to a second location. It's like you've been at some event, now you're all going to dinner, whatever. This one person isn't gonna go. Who should say goodbye? So what happened is this one person is leaving and somebody else in the group feels the need to go chase that person down and tell 'em goodbye. And I was like, why? They're the one leaving, not you.
[00:02:33] Jeff: Yeah, it's on them. It's on, it's not on the majority or everybody else to go track that one person down and say goodbye. If you are leaving a group, that's on you to say goodbye to the rest of the group. You don't have to say goodbye, but it's on you.
[00:02:51] Chris: You do the Irish goodbye, just disappear.
[00:02:55] Jeff: Just leave. Uh, yeah, it's, it's not on that, not on the, the, the majority of people.
[00:03:01] Chris: But yeah, cuz I think I would just make the assumption the group's doing this, so isn't everyone in the group going? If somebody's gonna be the exception, then you gotta say goodbye. How do I know you're not going?
[00:03:14] Jeff: Right.
[00:03:15] Chris: And if I find out later that you weren't going, I'm like, why didn't you tell me goodbye then?
[00:03:21] Jeff: Yeah. See? Yeah, it was on you to say something.
[00:03:25] Chris: Right?
[00:03:25] Jeff: Wasn't on me. I just more generally, um, I hate, I hate the awkwardness of saying goodbyes. Do you?
[00:03:35] Chris: Yeah.
[00:03:35] Jeff: Just in any kind of group setting.
[00:03:37] Chris: Especially when it gets too drawn out, like...
[00:03:39] Jeff: Yeah, that's the worst. That is the worst.
[00:03:43] Chris: Just take one bite and end it.
[00:03:46] Jeff: Right. Uh, when it gets drawn out and, and it's the awkward thing of, all right, well, and then somebody keeps talking and, and whatever. But just the awkwardness. I just want everybody to agree that we could just say, OK, bye. And then leave. And just, whatever. I don't know. I, I'm not good with small talk anyway, and goodbyes are usually small talk. They're just...
[00:04:13] Chris: That's true.
[00:04:14] Jeff: Nature of the beast.
[00:04:15] Chris: That's true. It also depends on your relationship with those people, because I think the, the less close you are with those people, it's can be more awkward to say goodbye. Because then it's like, what? I'll see you soon. I'll talk to you. Um, hey, I don't know when I'll see you. Like, what do you, you know, you think of like some kind of a sign off besides just goodbye and if it's like, I barely know you, I especially don't really care about you. Then...
[00:04:51] Jeff: Right.
[00:04:52] Chris: What am I gonna say?
[00:04:53] Jeff: Yeah. What is there to say? Maybe I need to develop a, yeah, a catchphrase or a sign off, as you said. Like, when I say this, it's over. I'm done.
[00:05:04] Chris: Yes.
[00:05:04] Jeff: There's no more talking.
[00:05:05] Chris: Go out on a high note.
[00:05:09] Jeff: Leave them wanting more?
[00:05:10] Chris: Yep.
[00:05:11] Jeff: Of course, alcohol helps those situations.
[00:05:14] Chris: It does. Because then you either don't care or you don't remember, or both.
[00:05:22] Jeff: So I, I find small talk awkward. I can do it, but it, I'm not comfortable in it. And I remember Jerry Seinfeld, speaking of Seinfeld stuff, I remember him saying this once, how he's uncomfortable talking to just one person. And I think he was being interviewed like on The Tonight Show or whatever, and he was looking out at the audience and, and he was saying, I, I don't like talking to, to just one person, but I can talk to a room full of people, no problem at all. And he said, I don't mind talking to all of you. I just don't want to talk to any of you. It's like, I totally get it. I totally get it.
[00:06:05] Chris: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Jeff: Because in, in my profession, I mean, I've taught classrooms full of, of a whole lot of people and I've made speeches where there's a room full of people and I don't mind that stuff. It's when I get to those close one-on-one situations with people I don't know that is really, I don't know if stressful is the right word, but maybe it is stressful. I don't know.
[00:06:27] Chris: That, no, it is. It's, it's pressure. You, it's like if they're not carrying it, you've gotta carry it, and vice versa. It's, when it's one on one, it's like, well, there's only two of you, so somebody's gotta be doing something.
[00:06:42] Jeff: And what am I gonna talk about?
[00:06:44] Chris: Right. It, but that's true. It's, there, there's that kind of pressure. There's more pressure the less familiar you are with those people.
[00:06:54] Jeff: That's true.
[00:06:54] Chris: Because you gotta come up with these things. It's like, where do I start? If you're comfortable with somebody, it can also be comfortable just to be silent or you make a comment, somebody makes a comment, and then that's it. You don't feel like you have to be talking all the time.
[00:07:10] Jeff: Yeah, that's true. So if you, yeah, if you know the person, like you kind of know what they're interested in or whatever, and you're going, I mean, you can talk about movies or, or books or sports or, or whatever, but if you don't know this person, like, I don't, I don't know you. What do you like? Are you like normal? Are you weird, or...?
[00:07:27] Chris: Right.
[00:07:28] Jeff: I don't know.
[00:07:30] Chris: That usually comes out pretty quickly.
[00:07:32] Jeff: Yeah, it does. Well, and then I get worried about what they're thinking about me. Oh, OK. He's a weird one.
[00:07:41] Chris: Yeah, I thought that too. Especially, well, you can see how they look back at you. Like, I should probably make that Irish exit now.
[00:07:50] Jeff: Yeah. And uh, I've seen this all over social media, but it resonates with me. If I go to a party, and when am I ever at parties? I mean, that's a rare thing. But if I go and there's a dog, I'm probably gonna spend some time with the dog. Shun a lot of the humans. Yeah.
[00:08:11] Chris: Unconditional love coming your way.
[00:08:13] Jeff: Right. See, they don't care. You don't have to make small talk with them. They don't care. Nope. OK, so it's settled. The person leaving the bigger group, the onus is on them to say goodbye.
[00:08:26] Chris: Yeah, cuz then you're talking about, could be putting that responsibility off on 10 other people when you're the one that chose to leave. That's not right.
[00:08:38] Jeff: All right. This happened back in June. Did you hear about the guy, did you hear about the guy who caught his pants in a subway train in New York City and got dragged onto the track and died?
[00:08:56] Chris: No, I did not. Wait, did he die hitting the third rail or just the dragging?
[00:09:02] Jeff: Just the dragging.
[00:09:04] Chris: Whoa.
[00:09:04] Jeff: Uh, I read the news story and, uh, the train going the opposite direction saw it and was able to stop on time. I don't, I guess they weren't going very fast. They were able to stop on time and, and not hit him, or not run him over. But they said by the time they got him to the hospital he was already dead.
[00:09:24] Chris: That's horrible.
[00:09:26] Jeff: What is wild is when this happened, um, I think I saw it, I think I saw it on Facebook, but it was a New York Times post and all these people were commenting, New Yorkers were commenting, and they were all saying, oh yeah, that's why I don't wear loose clothing on the train.
[00:09:47] Chris: Really?
[00:09:47] Jeff: And I'm like, how is that even a thing? How did you even know that was a thing? Like, that's unbelievable. That's something I never even considered. But all these people who ride the train on a daily basis were like, yeah, that's why you don't wear loose clothing. I'm like, how did you learn about this? There's no sign or anything. Like what, what is that?
[00:10:09] Chris: Right. So you even saying that just made me think about like getting on an escalator. I've seen signs there.
[00:10:17] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:10:17] Chris: About not getting clothing caught in an escalator. But I've been on and off the subway. I don't remember ever seeing a sign talking about watching your clothing.
[00:10:26] Jeff: No.
[00:10:27] Chris: That's the last thing I would think of. And what's it getting caught in? I mean, the door? Cause...
[00:10:33] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:10:33] Chris: It seems like you could just yank it out of the door.
[00:10:36] Jeff: I would think so. It reminds me of George, don't start the train!
[00:10:40] Chris: Don't start the train!
[00:10:42] Jeff: So the guy was getting off, well, trying to get off the subway. I don't guess he really succeeded, did he? He was trying to get off, but his, I mean, he was late or it was crowded or whatever, and the doors closed on his pants. And so he's trying to get onto the platform and the train says, no, you're not. And, uh, just drags them off the platform and onto the track and killed them.
[00:11:07] Chris: That's crazy.
[00:11:08] Jeff: I know. And so all these New Yorkers are, are commenting about, you know, yeah, that's why I don't wear loose clothing. And then people were saying they need to go back to the days when the conductors would look out the windows. And I'm like, what is that? And I read more about that and conductors used to, before they start the train, when they're stopped in a station, before they start the train, they look out to their left, they look out to their right, to make sure nobody's next to the train, caught in the door, whatever, and then they go. But, this cracks me up. It's not good, but it's funny. Um, they had to stop that because people would throw stuff at the conductor when, when he stuck his head out the window.
[00:11:53] Chris: Well, obviously. I mean, wouldn't you have to?
[00:11:59] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. I just found that funny because they're pissed off, their train's late or whatever. So, obviously it's the conductor's fault, right? So...
[00:12:09] Chris: Right.
[00:12:09] Jeff: Deserves whatever you're gonna throw at 'em. Your sandwich that you're supposed to eat at lunch.
[00:12:14] Chris: Sorry. That's pretty funny.
[00:12:16] Jeff: Yeah, it is.
[00:12:17] Chris: But more seriously then, like between video cameras and sensors and all kinds of stuff that we have now, how have they not done something like that? OK, the conductor doesn't have to stick their face out, but...
[00:12:30] Jeff: Right. So that's what happened here, evidently. I don't know. I'm sure there's gonna be a lawsuit. But evidently whatever mechanism they have for checking that, some kind of sensor or whatever, I guess that failed because I, I read that they stopped doing the conductor thing when people were throwing stuff at their head, and so they had to figure out, OK, we need to have some kind of sensor or whatever to detect whether anybody's still in the, in the train. But evidently that sensor didn't work or the conductor ignored it, or who knows what. There's gonna have to be some type of, you know, investigation.
[00:13:08] Chris: You need to have a black box on the train.
[00:13:10] Jeff: There you go.
[00:13:11] Chris: See exactly what happened and when.
[00:13:13] Jeff: So, lesson learned. Don't wear loose clothing on the subway. Who knew?
[00:13:19] Chris: I don't know if your, like your jacket gets caught on a rail or something inside, like literally won't come off, that's one thing. But if you're like, if it's caught in the door or something, I'd be yanking against that door with my life.
[00:13:37] Jeff: I would too.
[00:13:38] Chris: To get it out of there. And then, I mean, who knows, maybe it happened in a split second and they didn't even have the time before the train started, but I'd be coming out of those clothes too.
[00:13:50] Jeff: No kidding. Yeah, I'm thinking about that. Like I, I don't know what time of day it was, but I mean, if you think about commuting time, like in the morning or afternoon, and as crowded as some of those trains can be and you're trying to get off and you're barely making it off in time cuz so many people are coming on and whatever, maybe he didn't even know his pants were caught, so yeah. So what? Wait, what's that pulling on me. What a, what is that?
[00:14:18] Chris: Well, here we go.
[00:14:19] Jeff: Oh, it's the train.
[00:14:22] Chris: That's a good point. That makes me think, talking about it just being that crowded and all makes me think of when Kramer was trying to get on the subway and all the people were getting off and they're just dragging him back on.
[00:14:34] Jeff: Yeah. Do you like the subway? You like riding the subway?
[00:14:38] Chris: I like it, but it's because it's more a novelty to me. I mean, we don't live with it. So...
[00:14:44] Jeff: True. Yeah.
[00:14:45] Chris: It'd probably be old, I guess, if you were doing it all the time. I don't know. I, I don't know. I mean...
[00:14:51] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:14:52] Chris: I might, you know, people could argue that it gets old having to drive everywhere too. Like, hey, wouldn't that be nice if you could just, you know, walk a couple of blocks, get on the subway, sit and listen to your music, listen to our podcast, whatever. And yeah, I mean, not that's kind of cool, but you look at the riff raff that's on the subway with you.
[00:15:16] Jeff: Well, yeah, that's another matter. I, I like it. But as you said, it's more of a novelty just because we're not doing it day in, day out. But, man, I like being able to just pay whatever, you know, and then you get your ticket and you can go anywhere in the city. And, yeah, that's a really cool thing.
[00:15:39] Chris: It's nice.
[00:15:39] Jeff: As long as you don't get dragged by your pants.
[00:15:42] Chris: Right. That's always a plus.
[00:15:46] Jeff: Uh, plus there's the added smell of urine that you get to have when you ride the subway.
[00:15:50] Chris: Right. That's, that's just a given. I mean, what would it be without it?
[00:15:58] Jeff: True.
[00:15:59] Chris: That reminds me, being in Chicago. And we took the elevator down to, and oh my gosh...
[00:16:08] Jeff: Smelled like a toilet.
[00:16:10] Chris: Reeked in there. Yeah,
[00:16:17] Jeff: All right, I think we've thought about this separately before, which says something about our brains, but we have laughed about it since. And that is, what would happen if you died and you were alone? How long would it take before somebody found your body?
[00:16:40] Chris: So, I thought about this considerably, and I decided that it all depended on the day of the week, because my schedule is different. And so, if, for example, it's early in the week, my daughter might be here one night and not the next night. Then she might be here the night after that. So you know, if I'm not showing up somewhere, answering a phone, whatever, then that would probably be discovered very quickly. But at the end of the week, it's a different story, because I may have, you know, completely different set of stuff going on on the weekend, and I may be very independent about it. I'm not working during that time, so I'm not missing any work. It's like, nobody knows, nobody cares, nobody notices. So, it's gonna have to be the stench that calls people and say, I think something is very wrong over here.
[00:17:44] Jeff: Yeah. So, I said we've thought about this separately. And, I mean, our situations would be different, but you hear about people who have been discovered like six months after they've, they've died. Like old people, just, they live alone. Nobody ever interacts with 'em or whatever. And it's always like their landlord or whoever. And they end up calling the cops. You know, they do a welfare check and, oh wow, this person's been dead for eight months.
[00:18:16] Chris: And that's just horrible because that tells you something about what their life was like.
[00:18:22] Jeff: Oh, I know.
[00:18:24] Chris: How lonely must you be. I...
[00:18:26] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:18:27] Chris: I'm pretty confident it would be within days for me, but it's a difference of one day or maybe four or five days.
[00:18:39] Jeff: Yeah. Uh, you know what one of my biggest fears is? And I don't know how rational this fear is, but it is a fear nonetheless. When I'm home by myself and eating and I start choking.
[00:18:54] Chris: Oh yeah. Thought about that too.
[00:18:57] Jeff: And I know I've told this to people before, I should probably be talking to a therapist about it, but I've told people this before and they're like, oh, you just gotta throw yourself on the back of a chair. That's what you do. That's like the self Heimlich thing. And I'm like, how does that work? And I figure I'm gonna panic and I'll lose all ability to, to do anything rational like I'm supposed to do. And I'll just, I don't know what I'd do, run around until I just pass out and then that's it. It's over.
[00:19:31] Chris: I don't know. I think if you are really in that situation, I think you could make yourself do what you needed to do. Obviously hoping it succeeds.
[00:19:42] Jeff: I had to get a deep breath.
[00:19:43] Chris: Yeah. But no, I thought about that. Like, oh, what, what would be a good chair? Where's, and how quickly can I get to it?
[00:19:54] Jeff: And it's gonna hurt, right? Sounds painful to throw yourself on the back of a chair. I mean, I guess it beats dying.
[00:20:01] Chris: Yeah. I think choking would be really bad, but I mean, it could hurt, but I don't know. It might not take a whole lot of force. I'm testing it. It might not take a whole lot of force to, to like get something up if you were choking. Like if you really like threw yourself on the chair. But I had to have the Heimlich done on me one time.
[00:20:25] Jeff: Really?
[00:20:26] Chris: And, yeah. I was...
[00:20:28] Jeff: Do tell.
[00:20:29] Chris: Well I was really choking. It was a little bit different. It wasn't, so alright, we'll just go into it. So, I've had reflux issues and as part of that, uh, and I don't really know exactly what this is, it's, it's not exactly a hiatal hernia, but, but kind of. And so there's like inflammation, swelling, around my esophagus, whatever, and I take reflux medicine that takes care of that. But there was a time the doctor had switched me to a different medicine and it was really taking care of the reflux, but it didn't take care of that inflammation and swelling. And when I would eat something that was, I'm gonna say bulkier, like bread, rice, tortilla, something like that. And it was really weird. It was when I first started eating. It's almost like it had to stretch my esophagus out to be like, OK, we can handle this. Like, we know what to do with it. And well, I had a time it didn't go well. And this was something I was familiar with, of the feeling. Like you, so you swallow it, but it literally gets stuck kind of at the, the bottom of your throat, top of your chest, and just doesn't want to go down. The difference is it wasn't in my trachea. So it's not like choking where you've sucked it down your windpipe, you know, your trachea, and you can't get air. But what was happening is that the food being stuck there, it was putting pressure on my trachea, so I couldn't get air that way. I couldn't swallow it.
[00:22:18] Jeff: Oh my God.
[00:22:18] Chris: And I tried drinking because that was usually my method, like, OK, you drink it and it goes down. Well, it didn't. What I was drinking started coming back out.
[00:22:31] Jeff: Oh my God.
[00:22:32] Chris: Yeah. Like nothing was going anywhere. And I panicked.
[00:22:36] Jeff: I'd panic too. I would freak the fuck out.
[00:22:40] Chris: I was freaking out. And I was in a restaurant, so that was no good. . Like, you've got witnesses and everything. I mean, then people coming over like, are you OK? You just want to like, dismiss it. Yeah, nothing to see here.
[00:22:55] Jeff: Yep.
[00:22:55] Chris: Move along.
[00:22:56] Jeff: Right. Move along.
[00:22:58] Chris: That's a crazy scary feeling.
[00:23:00] Jeff: So now I'm scared for you. Because what if that had happened when you're alone?
[00:23:06] Chris: That's what my daughter said. Cause she was there too, so she didn't like seeing that at all. She's like, what if you were by yourself? I think that might have been one of the first things that brought up the question, how long would it take somebody to find me if I died. Like, you know, they just kinda all rolled into one. Like, OK, what happens if I'm choking? How do I take care of that? And then what if I'm not successful? How long is it gonna take for somebody to know that?
[00:23:35] Jeff: Yeah. Man. So somebody obviously saved you.
[00:23:40] Chris: Yeah. That's when I started having to look for chairs around here. Make sure you know, I got a ledge or a counter or a chair or something.
[00:23:49] Jeff: So this will be our PSA for this episode. What part of the chair do I fling myself onto?
[00:23:58] Chris: Oh, I think the back of it. Cuz that's gonna be, well, like if you got a chair with a, a, you know, a back that comes up to maybe your chest area.
[00:24:07] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:24:08] Chris: Then you can just, like ram yourself into it.
[00:24:13] Jeff: Oh man. See, now I'm scared. I thought maybe talking about this would make me feel better, but it really hasn't.
[00:24:21] Chris: Not so much. Well...
[00:24:22] Jeff: I'm just gonna put all my food in a blender.
[00:24:25] Chris: Well, yeah. I guess that could work. I don't know. I've sucked liquid down before too. You ever swallow a piece of ice whole?
[00:24:35] Jeff: Yeah, I've done that.
[00:24:36] Chris: That scares the shit out of me.
[00:24:38] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Chris: And it's like, not really for any reason. I mean, it's not, it might hurt a little, but it's not really gonna do anything to you. It's the idea that you're not supposed to swallow something that big.
[00:24:55] Jeff: That's what she said. So I had a student one time, she was a, um, she was in the nursing program. And she was telling me she was, uh, interning at a hospital and they had a guy in there who had sucked a pee down his windpipe and it lodged in his lung.
[00:25:21] Chris: Oh no.
[00:25:21] Jeff: And he got pneumonia and he had to have surgery. They had to remove the pea.
[00:25:27] Chris: Really?
[00:25:28] Jeff: Because, yeah, because it's got, I mean, it's food, so it's gonna have bacteria on it, and that gets lodged in your lung and does, who knows what. I mean, it caused them to have pneumonia, so they had to, what would that be called? A pea-ectomy. Just rip the pee out.
[00:25:45] Chris: Yeah.
[00:25:45] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:25:46] Chris: Well, that's scary. I had thought about that before. Like, people vomit and aspirate that, and well obviously you can die from that. But I mean, even not dying. Things like that have happened in surgery.
[00:26:01] Jeff: Yep.
[00:26:02] Chris: That scares the shit out of me, is to think of something like that happening when you're even unconscious. You're depending on all these other people to take care of you.
[00:26:12] Jeff: Uh, I've done that before where you're eating and you just, like, I don't know, you forget how to chew or swallow or something and you start coughing. And I've thought ever since that, that student told me about the pea I get worried. Like, how do I know that I just didn't suck down some crumbs, and how long will it take before I know that something's wrong? Like how do I know this? And then you cough and you're like, oh, that doesn't feel right. Like, what is that? Like, do I have a crumb in my lung? Man.
[00:26:46] Chris: Wait, so the person that sucked the pea down didn't even know it?
[00:26:50] Jeff: Uh, I don't know. I don't know if they knew it or not.
[00:26:53] Chris: Well that's even worse. I would wanna know it. Cause at least then I'd be like, OK, something just went wrong. I'm going to the doctor.
[00:27:00] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, well, I don't think, I mean, I don't think he knew until he got pneumonia. I don't think he knew that he had sucked the pea down. I mean, I knew he, I think he knew that he had an episode like he was coughing, but I don't think he knew he had a pee in his lung.
[00:27:18] Chris: Man, that sounds like, you know when people go to the doctor for an ear ache, or their eye is swelling up, something.
[00:27:27] Jeff: Oh God. Yeah.
[00:27:27] Chris: And they find out something is in there. Something's laid in egg, and they're, you know, they pulled moths out of people's eyes and stuff.
[00:27:38] Jeff: I can't watch those videos when they're digging in somebody's ear, whatever, and who knows what shit's gonna come. I'm not watching. I, I can't, I can't. Imagine having to be the person to pull that out.
[00:27:51] Chris: No, that's, that's bad. But I just, I mean, it makes you, I would say it makes you want to not go outside, but it could happen to you inside too. Just, how about sleeping and what's crawling into your nose or ear or mouth when you're asleep?
[00:28:09] Jeff: Do you worry about stuff crawling in your ears at night when you're asleep?
[00:28:13] Chris: Well, I mean, it doesn't keep me awake. But, I've thought about it. I just have to put it out my mind. I'd never go to sleep.
[00:28:22] Jeff: Imagine somebody listening to this right now as they're about to drift off to sleep. Sorry.
[00:28:29] Chris: Well, I bet they're not going to now.
[00:28:32] Jeff: Put in some earplugs that'll solve the problem.
[00:28:34] Chris: Yeah, that's a good idea. But you know, then there's your nose, and your eyes, and your mouth. I mean...
[00:28:40] Jeff: Oh my God.
[00:28:41] Chris: It's gonna get you one way or another.
[00:28:48] Jeff: OK, this next one is another news item. Our last news item was the guy getting dragged by the train. This one is scary in its own way. Have you heard about the guy who has a ton of money in Bitcoin, but he can't remember his password? Have you heard about this?
[00:29:11] Chris: I heard something about it. I didn't know the detail, but I'm gonna tell you what right now. I would have that password in a place that is absolute, not even a question.
[00:29:24] Jeff: Yeah, I would too. OK, so the man's name is Stefan Thomas. He is German. He's a software developer. He currently owns, this is as of January, 2021. I could not find any updates since. But as of January, 2021, he owns $321 million in Bitcoin.
[00:29:53] Chris: Holy shit.
[00:29:55] Jeff: But he can't access it. So, um, this is from, uh, cbc.ca, so our good friends at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. All right. The San Francisco software developer and CEO was an early adopter of Bitcoin. Back in 2011, he produced an animated video explaining how the digital currency works. For his efforts, a Bitcoin enthusiast awarded him 7,002 Bitcoins. Later that year, he lost the password to his IronKey, the USB hard drive that contains the digital wallet that holds his Bitcoins. Since then, the currency's value has skyrocketed, and Thomas's holdings are worth $220 million. Oh, that $321 million is Canadian, so that doesn't count. $220 million.
[00:30:45] Chris: Doesn't count!
[00:30:45] Jeff: In US money. So the IronKey gives users 10 password guesses before it encrypts its contents permanently and Thomas's Bitcoin is lost forever. He has two guesses left. Can you imagine?
[00:31:03] Chris: Oh my God. Well, you can't guess. I mean...
[00:31:06] Jeff: No, it's not gonna do you any good.
[00:31:09] Chris: No.
[00:31:10] Jeff: So I can kind of understand. Well, I take that back. It's easier maybe to understand what happened here because in 2011, like, uh, Bitcoin was so new and ...but still he got 7,000 of 'em from somebody. You would think you would remember it. It's not like somebody, it's not like he came into $200 million last year and forgot his password. I mean, it was not worth near that much, but still.
[00:31:43] Chris: Right. Yeah, but I mean, it's also not like any other account that you would set up where you, I try to track all my passwords. But I'm also thinking if I forget it, oh well you select, Forgot Password.
[00:31:59] Jeff: Yeah, right.
[00:32:00] Chris: Or abandon the whole thing and create a new account as a worst case scenario. But obviously neither one of those are gonna work in this case. So that's what I mean. I think I'd be writing that down and stick it in a safe. Hope you can remember where you put the key.
[00:32:17] Jeff: So he is not the only one who has done this. I think he's the one who has the most money, or he's the only one who's been brave enough to come out and say that he forgot his password. There's a New York Times article about this, and they had an estimate, which was about $140 billion are locked up in these IronKeys, people who cannot remember their passwords. That was the estimate. I haven't read the article, but the CBC article links to it, but evidently he's not the only one.
[00:32:53] Chris: It's surprising, and I don't know anything about the IronKey. It's surprising that someone couldn't hack that. Like, here you go, do something. And how much is it worth to them? Like, shit, I'll give you 10 million. I don't know what, but...
[00:33:13] Jeff: Right.
[00:33:14] Chris: You get me access to my 300 and something or 200 and something million. Yeah. I'm gonna give you something significant.
[00:33:21] Jeff: I'll make it worth your time.
[00:33:22] Chris: Right.
[00:33:24] Jeff: So this article has a, a question. They interviewed him, so it's a question and answer thing, and he says this is his last glimmer of hope. So this is his answer, the famous USB stick with the 10 tries. There is a way to take a scanning electron microscope and take apart the physical chip and literally go into the silicon chip and take away layer by layer like a few atoms thick, and then read out the actual memory cells. And then with that technique, you should be able to bypass that limit of 10 tries. And then you can have a supercomputer try, you know, billions of passwords per second. Now, the problem with that is, first of all, that requires a specialized laboratory. It's very expensive. Only a few people in the world can do it, and even then it's kind of high risk. It could just fail, and then the chip is destroyed and you don't get a second try. Back then, it definitely wasn't worth it. He's talking about when he couldn't remember the password back in 2011. I think now it probably is worth it, but it still requires a lot of organizing and logistics and even then it's not guaranteed. So...
[00:34:32] Chris: Whoa.
[00:34:32] Jeff: Sounds like that's his best bet.
[00:34:35] Chris: Yeah. I guess. That might be something like somebody could do on a contingency is, hey, I'll do it for you.
[00:34:44] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:34:44] Chris: It may fail, but if it succeeds now I get half, whatever.
[00:34:50] Jeff: Right. And yeah, I mean, I, if I'm this guy, I'm gonna take him up on it for sure.
[00:34:55] Chris: Yeah.
[00:34:56] Jeff: I remember I had a student, this was back in 20, well this would've been 2011, and he was, uh, a nut. Um, he was into all these conspiracy theories. He was trying to convince me that the government was behind 9/11 and all that kind of shit. But he started telling me about Bitcoin, but because of all the other crazy shit that he said, I just dismissed it. I'm like, I, you know, I just smiled and nodded while he told me about it, but I was like, I don't know what the hell he is talking about. And it's probably just a bunch of nonsense anyway.
[00:35:36] Chris: Right.
[00:35:36] Jeff: But I wish now, I mean, that was back in 2011. I wish I had gotten some Bitcoin back then. Uh, but even if I knew it was, you know, a thing, an actual thing where I could make money from it, I probably wouldn't have done anything.
[00:35:53] Chris: Or like back in the 70s, if some, somebody told you about a company called Apple and you go, oh yeah, that's gonna be something.
[00:36:02] Jeff: Right. Yeah, like people are gonna have computers in their house.
[00:36:07] Chris: Right. I, I can't even remember the first time I heard about Bitcoin. I, I don't have a time or event that I can link it to. So, it was like I didn't know about it and all of a sudden I did. And I have no idea when or where I heard it from.
[00:36:25] Jeff: Do you know who Morgan Spurlock is?
[00:36:28] Chris: Yeah.
[00:36:28] Jeff: He, he did, um, well, he's had a couple of series. One was called 30 Days. Is that what it was?
[00:36:35] Chris: Yes.
[00:36:35] Jeff: And he would do, he's the one who did, he got his whole thing started by doing Supersize Me.
[00:36:40] Chris: Supersize Me. Yeah.
[00:36:41] Jeff: He ate McDonald's for 30 days and measured his health and weight and all that. Then he did 30 Days where he took that concept, but he would do different things.
[00:36:51] Chris: That was a great show.
[00:36:53] Jeff: And it was a good show. And I'm trying to remember if that was on this one or he had a show on Netflix. Um, I can't remember what that one was called. But he talked about Bitcoin, and he was in New York City when he was doing this particular episode. And he was going around to different places that actually accepted Bitcoin and um, I mean, it wasn't many. But I remember he went to a coffee shop and he got...
[00:37:24] Chris: Really.
[00:37:24] Jeff: You know, like, yeah, like cup of coffee and, and a muffin or whatever with Bitcoin and yeah.
[00:37:31] Chris: How much Bitcoin do you pay for a cup of coffee?
[00:37:35] Jeff: .000..., I don't know. Uh, but it was very strange to, to see somebody paying with that and, and I'll be the first to tell you, I don't know a lot about Bitcoin at all.
[00:37:50] Chris: I don't know as much as I would like to, even just to know. But I don't. I know some of the concept and, and it's very limited at that too.
[00:37:59] Jeff: Right.
[00:38:00] Chris: But I, yeah, I had heard about some businesses accepting it, but I don't even know if it's still very widespread. Just talking about that in general though, I remember, you know, years and years ago, hearing the very idea that you could ever pay with some, pay for something with your phone just sounded, you know, what year is this? Like we are way in the future. And like now, that's a very real thing.
[00:38:28] Jeff: So we had the happiest countries on a previous episode and I remember hearing this, speaking of Finland, cuz they were the happiest country, I remember hearing this back in, this had to be around 2000, but I remember hearing that in Finland you could get things like out of a vending machine with your phone.
[00:38:52] Chris: Oh, yeah? In 2000?
[00:38:55] Jeff: Uh, it has, it had to be early two thousands. Yeah. And I remember Nokia, I don't know how you say it. Nokia. Nokia, that's a Finnish company. And, and that was a, you know, they were a big thing. And I just remember hearing that and I didn't know, I didn't even understand how that could work. I had no idea. But I remember thinking that was a really cool thing. Why can't we have that here?
[00:39:20] Chris: Right. Well, and having chips on credit cards was happening in other parts of the world before it happened here.
[00:39:28] Jeff: Yes. Yeah. Why are we always behind with stuff like that?
[00:39:31] Chris: I don't know. I don't know. Like seriously, what happened there? Because the US used to be leading all of these things. Now, not only is it happening in other places first, but during the times that it was happening in those places, the US was rejecting it, cause they didn't wanna have to spend the money on technology to replace machines.
[00:39:54] Jeff: How dare we invest in our own country?
[00:39:56] Chris: Right.
[00:39:57] Jeff: So, lesson learned here, boys and girls, remember your password.
[00:40:02] Chris: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:05] Jeff: Especially if you have hundreds of millions of dollars riding on it.
This is another Seinfeldian thing. And I think he mentioned this maybe in a, a standup at some point. It might have been a standup, uh, when they used to do his, his standup clips before an episode would air. But it is, uh, about how you become comfortable in a particular style of clothes, and then you just ride it out for the rest of your life.
[00:40:38] Chris: Yeah. You got the old guys walking around with the white socks pulled up to their knees, white shoes and...
[00:40:47] Jeff: Yeah. I look at that and I think, OK, no, I'm not that way. But then I think about, well, what I'm wearing, and do I look like I've just been riding out the same style for the past 20 years? And it kind of worries me that, oh, maybe I have, I don't know. I've never been fashion conscious in that way.
[00:41:09] Chris: Yeah. Within the last few years, I tried to kind of take stock of that with myself. But here's the thing. I don't care about being trendy. I do care about looking, I do care about not standing out as, oh my gosh, that's, you know, a 30-year-old-looking outfit or something. There's a big difference. There are some things that can roughly be in style for quite a while, but I don't care about what did they put out this season. So like, I literally went online and searched like, what's popular here? What's popular there? And not about the trendy, but like, this is what people have generally been doing for the last X number of years.
[00:41:56] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:41:56] Chris: And you know, in different areas. And so I put some thought into it. I would like to think that I can blend in. That, that's what I want to do. I wanna blend in.
[00:42:09] Jeff: That's what I wanna do. I wanna blend in and I don't wanna look like an idiot.
[00:42:13] Chris: Yes. Both of those, not necessarily in that order.
[00:42:18] Jeff: Right. But if I can do those two things, then I'll, I think I'll feel pretty comfortable. But there have been things that I have worn and, OK, I'll give you an example. I saw something online recently and somebody posted a picture of somebody and it was like a dad. It was like, like us, and he was wearing khaki cargo shorts. And everybody on the comments section was commenting on how ridiculous his cargo shorts were. Who wears cargo shorts? That's so stupid. What is this, 2005? And I'm like, well, that's what I got in my closet. What am I supposed to wear? So yeah, evidently cargo shorts are out. But I, I like my cargo shorts. But again, am I gonna look like an idiot? I don't know.
[00:43:15] Chris: That's the funny thing though. I mean, we get, everybody does this and, and that's, you know, this was something I noticed is, is, you know, you're, you're growing up and you get new clothes all the time because you literally outgrow your clothes. Like you have no choice but to get new clothes. And then once you're grown, the only reason to get new clothes is an actual need. A different need. You haven't outgrown it, but maybe literally worn out, holes in it, stained, who knows what like that.
[00:43:52] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:43:52] Chris: Or, you go, I'm tired of it, or, you know, I don't know what. Otherwise, it's like, if it's still in good shape and you like it, why would you get rid of it?
[00:44:05] Jeff: Why are, yeah exactly.
[00:44:07] Chris: And I, I realized that I completely lost track of time in that. Because there could be a shirt that I would wear and like, ooh, I like this shirt. Oh, I've always liked this shirt. And then I think about when I got it and go, how is it even still in one piece? Like...
[00:44:26] Jeff: I know it, yes.
[00:44:27] Chris: Like, I've had it that long, but it, but I take care of my stuff and it looked good and I still liked it. But then I also had the situation where I will still wear things, but I start to avoid wearing it. Like...
[00:44:42] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:44:42] Chris: I don't really like it, but I feel guilty for getting rid of it or not wearing it, so I might wear it anyway. And I've tried to get myself out of that too. It's like, you know what? I could ask for a couple of shirts for birthday or Christmas or go buy myself a couple of shirts, and it's worth getting rid of what I literally don't like.
[00:45:06] Jeff: Yeah. So, if anybody wants to give me fashion advice on what kind of shorts I should be wearing, please do so. Cuz I'm afraid I'm looking like an idiot when I walk out of the house in my cargo shorts. And here's another thing. So growing up, like going to church, I would have, you know, slacks and they had pleats, right? You had pleats on the front. And then at some point, the world decided that pleats are out and you should have a flat front.
[00:45:41] Chris: Yeah.
[00:45:41] Jeff: So, I was sticking with the pleats. That's what I was used to. But then I was like, I found myself in an uncomfortable situation where I'm looking at every other male I encounter at work and I'm looking at their, the front of their pants.
[00:45:56] Chris: Well, that could be another show.
[00:45:58] Jeff: Flat front. Yeah. But oh, he's got a flat front. Oh, he's got a flat front. And here I am in pleats. So at some point I was like, OK, I guess we're doing flat front now. So I guess I'm just not very in tune with, with that kind of stuff.
[00:46:14] Chris: Well, I wasn't either. So I can put myself right there in that category, and I'm probably still not enough. Like as much as I might wanna be, but I'm a little bit more than I was. One of the things that I notice, and this scared the shit out of me is pleats went away and went to flat front. I didn't even know it until the pleats came back.
[00:46:40] Jeff: Wait. Pleats are back?
[00:46:43] Chris: Oh, they're gone again. I think they, I, I believe if I have my time right, that they went away and came back. But now they're, yeah, you're right. Now they're gone. They're, it's flat front. And I personally, so here's the deal. I kinda like the pleated front.
[00:47:03] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:47:04] Chris: Nevermind that, that pleats, and this is one of the things about them, you know, they can hide the, what you don't... if you gain weight, then the pleats take care of that to an extent.
[00:47:19] Jeff: I thought you were talking about if you got an erection.
[00:47:21] Chris: Well, well, I'd have to have more pleats.
[00:47:28] Jeff: There's no hiding anything with a flat front. You're just screwed.
[00:47:32] Chris: No, you're just out there.
[00:47:34] Jeff: Yeah. So I didn't even know that pleats had come and gone and come and then gone again.
[00:47:42] Chris: Oh, I remember going to buy slacks years ago when I already had pleated, and the guy asked me, do you like pleats or flat front? Like this was an option, and I was like, I want pleats. No big deal. They had plenty of pleats at the time. But then, yeah, sometime after that, I don't know. I fell asleep and they went away. I didn't know until they had been gone a while.
[00:48:11] Jeff: Why did men, like back in the 50s and before, they hiked their slacks up so high?
[00:48:18] Chris: Yes. Way up there.
[00:48:20] Jeff: Like, halfway up between their belly button and their nipples. What was that?
[00:48:24] Chris: I know. I don't know. Yeah, it was like, they say that like now we wear 'em more on our hips.
[00:48:30] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:48:31] Chris: I guess that's how you would say it is like hips now, but then it was like way up on your waist.
[00:48:37] Jeff: Yeah.
[00:48:38] Chris: I don't know. That's a horrible look.
[00:48:41] Jeff: It's weird. Yeah, it's terrible. I think of I Love Lucy, I think of, uh, Fred, like he hiked him way up.
[00:48:48] Chris: Yes, you can really see it on him.
[00:48:49] Jeff: Big gut sticking out.
[00:48:51] Chris: I know. Um, my daughter was watching The Notebook a while back and the guy in, not, not Ryan Gosling, it was whoever her fiance was, but he was wearing his really high. I don't know what year that was supposed to be. But he was wearing his really high. Well, I guess it was probably supposed to be in the 30s or 40s. I think the cars they were driving, whatever. But yeah. Yeah, it was about that time. They're, they're way up there. Thank goodness we got rid of that.
[00:49:29] Jeff: So there we go. That is our five different topics this week. Three Seinfeldian, two news stories, and yes, please pass on any fashion advice that you have for me cuz obviously I'm lacking in that regard. If you like this stuff, as I've said many times, you are our kind of people and there's more of this stuff to come. So whatever platform you're listening to this on, go ahead and follow us. And that way you'll get new episodes delivered to you automatically. You don't even have to do anything. And while you're there, go ahead and rate us. We would be ever so grateful if you would give us five stars. And while you're there, also leave us a review. Just say something. It doesn't matter what you say, but if you make a comment that makes it easier for people to discover this show. And we would appreciate it if you do that. If you wanna know more about our show, more about me, Chris, whatever, you can go to our website. That is subpartalks.com. You can email us there. You can also leave us a voicemail. And if you have any suggestions on future topics that you would like to hear us cover on this podcast, then absolutely let us know what you'd like us to discuss. You can follow us on social media. On Twitter, we are @subpartalks. On Facebook. we are Subpar Talks. You can also follow us on our personal Twitter accounts. On there, I am @independentjeff.
[00:51:00] Chris: And I am @chrisbradfordtx.
[00:51:03] Jeff: And we have other social media links on our website, so you can find those there. And finally, get the word out about Subpar Talks. Share this with your friends. Share this on social media. Talk to your colleagues about it, your family, whoever. The more listeners we have, the easier it is for us to bring you this content each and every week, which we absolutely love doing.
Chris, any final thoughts on any of this stuff?
[00:51:31] Chris: Watch your clothes. Don't worry about saying goodbye unless you're the one that's leaving.
[00:51:36] Jeff: I agree. That's another episode of Subpar Talks. Until next week, so long.