RobbieTheWagner 
Charles William Carpenter III Robbie Wagner: [00:09] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome to another Whiskey Web and Whatnot with myself, RobbieTheWagner, and my co-host, as always, Charles William Carpenter III.
Chuck Carpenter: [00:22] My friends call me Tre. Nobody calls me that, actually.
Robbie Wagner: [00:26] All right, Tre.
Chuck Carpenter: [00:29] I really liked Boys in the Hood growing up. Tre Tre.
Robbie Wagner: [00:32] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [00:33] Anyway, welcome everyone to a special edition of the potentially Lose Your Appendage episode.
Robbie Wagner: [00:41] Yeah, this whiskey, much like the economic climate right now, has tried to fuck us like I had to hit it with a hammer and a screwdriver just to get it loose and broke the crap out of it so yeah if you’re listening who is this Black Button Distilling put something on here to make it openable. What are people supposed to do?
Chuck Carpenter: [01:04] Yeah. Like either the ribbons that they kind of wrap around it and then with a little part exposed so that after it’s dipped and dried. So this is like a squatty bottle with, like, I don’t know, what would you call that? Like kind of a mushroom opening to the top and then.
Robbie Wagner: [01:20] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [01:21] It’s got the cork on and then very thick wax over it, and then no way to remove the wax unless you pull out some tools. Or, in my case, I have a very large, like, looks like a pocket knife, but then as like a joke gimmicky. It was a thing my grandfather got in the 70s, so it was like a gimmicky souvenir, but it’s very sharp and effective, and I use it for packages typically. This time it only poked me twice in the fingers and didn’t take any fingers off. So that was good.
Robbie Wagner: [01:50] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [01:51] Finally got around. I didn’t have to destroy my bottle, but I did have to take a significant amount of wax off before I finally found where. Like, where is the seam that allows me to get this off?
Robbie Wagner: [02:00] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [02:00] It’s very unreasonable.
Robbie Wagner: [02:01] Yeah. Which is part of the problem of like just tell us what the top looks like, and then we know where to dig around too. It’s like this is just an amorphous wax of like you’ll find it.
Chuck Carpenter: [02:12] Yeah. Once you get in there. Good luck. So this is, as you mentioned, Black Button Distilling Single Barrel Reserve. It’s their straight bourbon whiskey. Finished in port casks. Probably just one cask per. And let’s see here more about it. It’s -117.5 proof. So it’s got some heat to it.
Robbie Wagner: [02:33] I’m not even going to try to make this pop open because I almost just cut myself.
Chuck Carpenter: [02:37] Nice. It’s dangerous. Continues to be dangerous. You’re probably going to drink some glass, but you’ve got a tough gut.
Robbie Wagner: [02:43] I assume the glass sank.
Chuck Carpenter: [02:44] Yeah. Aged two years in new oak. New American oak, as bourbon is supposed to be. But I’m kind of surprised they can call it bourbon at all because I think it’s supposed to be four years before you’re allowed to do that, but anyway, and then another three years in port barrels. So significant amount of time because I’m used to it being more like six months or so. The mash bill is 60% corn, 20% wheat. So wheated already. 11% malted barley, and 9% to rye. I love how you’re like, I’m glad you got a clear glass this time. If you didn’t have a clear glass, it might be a little rough.
Robbie Wagner: [03:18] I’m looking for glass in there. I don’t see any. I don’t think.
Chuck Carpenter: [03:26] Well, it’s very dark, but I guess the port would do that. See what we have in terms of its smell. Got a little chocolate for me, actually. Chocolate in there? A little I don’t know, maybe like leafiness like fall leaves. Dry leaves?
Robbie Wagner: [03:45] Yeah. This tastes like or smells like the Salamander Signature Cake, which is like a devil’s food chocolate cake with cream cheese and pumpkin ribbons or something.
Chuck Carpenter: [03:59] Interesting. I’ve never had that, actually. I’m not a big sweets person, but that does sound good.
Robbie Wagner: [04:03] Yeah, we get it way too much.
Chuck Carpenter: [04:05] Oh, this is nice. This is pretty smooth. Little heat in the end, a little cinnamon in the end. But in the beginning, it almost has, like, a cherry chocolate. What is it called? Like Black forest cake. I think you influenced me, but it has that in the beginning.
Robbie Wagner: [04:22] I’m getting a little bit of I always forget the name. Is it like pirouells? The little, like, wafery long things with chocolate inside? They’re like a tube of wafer. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Chuck Carpenter: [04:35] No.
Robbie Wagner: [04:36] Let me look it up.
Chuck Carpenter: [04:37] Okay.
Robbie Wagner: [04:38] Oh, Pirouette.
Chuck Carpenter: [04:39] Pirouette. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, now that makes more sense.
Robbie Wagner: [04:42] The Pepperidge Farm thing.
Chuck Carpenter: [04:45] Yes. Okay. There’s a little tubey wafer thing.
Robbie Wagner: [04:48] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [04:48] With the chocolate in them. Okay. Yes. Because at first, I was thinking of those, like, wafer cookies that are, like, multilayer and stuff. Not at all like this. It lingers, though. That cinnamon lingers. But I am almost getting, like, and it’s funny that I know this taste, but, like, leather. Like, say if you ever had to stick your leather belt in your mouth for a second because you’re whatever with your hands, and then you grab it again and finish.
Robbie Wagner: [05:12] Because you were cutting your arm off and you needed to chew on something. Like in The Walking Dead.
Chuck Carpenter: [05:17] Well, I was thinking more or less, like, when I’m pulling it really tight before I stick the needle in, yeah. Is that inappropriate?
Robbie Wagner: [05:25] You know, like you do?
Chuck Carpenter: [05:26] Yeah, like that. It’s good. That’s kind of all I’m hitting right now with it. But Pirouettes? I don’t know if I feel Pirouette or not in this, but I definitely feel, like, a little dark chocolate cake with, like, a little jelly or something like a tinge of sweetness with that.
Robbie Wagner: [05:46] I’d say it’s bold. I don’t know if it’s just the glass that has shattered my mouth, and now it feels bold. But it’s pretty bold.
Chuck Carpenter: [05:54] Yeah. A little more bold when it’s, like, cutting the insides of your mouth and soaking in directly without having to be ingested.
Robbie Wagner: [06:00] Yeah, it’s like how cigarettes do where they put the micro-glass in there to cut your throat so that you get really addicted to it.
Chuck Carpenter: [06:06] Oh, interesting. Is that a thing?
Robbie Wagner: [06:08] Oh, yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [06:08] I never heard that. Okay, well, thanks to the FDA for approving that. So in the realm of, let’s just say, bourbons, finished bourbons, because I think we’ve had a few, and particularly a few that are finished in port. How you feeling about the Black Button?
Robbie Wagner: [06:27] Yeah, I think this is probably a six for me. Maybe a five even because this thing was really, really hard to open and really expensive. And those two things shouldn’t be said in the same sentence.
Chuck Carpenter: [06:42] Exactly. I think it’s a very young whiskey. It’s interesting, and it’s tasty, but it’s a very young whiskey with which they used port to do the rest of the work for them. So in that sense, I think I’m around a five on it. And then the other factors, like you said, it’s a bit expensive for that parlor trick. I mean, the marketing aside, not that that should affect our rating around taste or whatever else, but this whole, like, impossible to get into bottle made me bleed. Now I need to drink. But it’s not bad, given all those things. I just think it’s like a little razzle-dazzle. So the New York’s Urban Farm Distillery, which I’m not sure what that really means like.
Robbie Wagner: [07:25] Urban and farm.
Chuck Carpenter: [07:26] Yeah. Aged in American white oak, then matured and freshly harvested American port cask from Ports of New York Winery in Ithaca. Oh, it does say chocolate cherry. Hey, I did get a couple of these notes. Stone fruit and oak add a distinctive finish.
Robbie Wagner: [07:41] Hey, there you go.
Chuck Carpenter: [07:41] Yeah. I must be getting better at this.
Robbie Wagner: [07:43] What even is a stone fruit?
Chuck Carpenter: [07:47] It must be, like, have some kind of serious pit, like an avocado or a peach or something.
Robbie Wagner: [07:52] Or like the ones you put out for decoration that are just made of ceramic.
Chuck Carpenter: [07:55] Yeah, that’s it. That heavily flavored. This one?
Robbie Wagner: [07:59] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [07:59] Made from the finest locally grown grains. I guess that’s what they’re saying, is they sourced locally. I mean, that’s the most New York shit you could say, anyway.
Robbie Wagner: [08:08] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:08] A warehouse in Brooklyn. And he sourced locally.
Robbie Wagner: [08:12] Yeah. There’s a guy that has, like, a rooftop with a small little plot of grains or something.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:18] Yes, it is made with those, as well as everything else they had to get. But they get to say that it was made with those. At least they’re ethically sourced. And he was thinking good things as he watered them, like all of those important items.
Robbie Wagner: [08:33] Oh, yeah. He has to be happy. The grains have to be happy. It’s the thing.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:36] Right.
Robbie Wagner: [08:36] The water has to be from the Catskills.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:39] It does make a difference. There’s different minerals and elements in there. As long as it’s not like from the ocean?
Robbie Wagner: [08:46] Well, yes.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:47] Or something. The Hudson River. Maybe. Not the Hudson River. That’d be a bad thing.
Robbie Wagner: [08:52] Definitely not the Potomac River.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:53] Oh, my.
Robbie Wagner: [08:54] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [08:56] Anyway, so today, in terms of the web, we’re expanding our definition of that.
Robbie Wagner: [09:03] Yeah. The web is shutting down everyone.
Chuck Carpenter: [09:06] Yeah. I think we’re going to have to move on to web 4 later. And web 4 is way more basic. It’s actually just done through cans tied with a line of string next to each other.
Robbie Wagner: [09:18] It’s actually just HTML and then maybe a little CSS, but then for everything that requires complex interactions, you feed it to GPT 50, and then it does it all.
Chuck Carpenter: [09:30] Yeah, perfect. We’re all out of a job. I mean, we all might be anyway.
Robbie Wagner: [09:34] Yeah, but anyway, I don’t know if you finished your thought, but yeah, we are just kind of go into the state of the world, all of the layoffs and people being forced to go back to the office and all of that stuff, because we just want to rant about it. We feel like it’s on a lot of people’s minds and hearts right now. And it’s heavy.
Chuck Carpenter: [09:54] Yeah, it is. So we were speaking a little bit before we started recording around this and decided, hey, let’s just roll with it. And that is like I feel that even as recently as just a year or so ago, discussions in tech circles were all about like, yeah, it sucks for other unemployment areas, but we have so much job security because the needs are high, the demand is high. That’s obviously affected things like the ability to demand remote work even well before there was a pandemic. The ability to obviously press salaries well above average household incomes and feeling a lot of certainty and safety around that. And I don’t know if those discussions eventually got large and common enough to where they made their way into boardrooms and to executives in executive memo. Emergency engineers think they’re untouchable. And he’s like, Hold my beer, I got this. Fast forward to today, where all of these demands across the board are eroding, right? The work-from-home certainty seems to be eroding, regardless of a pandemic. Layoffs abound in the tech sector, and who knows how those are rolling out to other areas, right? I’m certain that the ability, whether your company is hurting or not, but to make a cash grab and cut your labor costs, I mean, that’s just happening everywhere.
Robbie Wagner: [11:28] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [11:28] So massive issues there. The banks you put in the note here, banks failing, sort of. Right. Some are allowed to fail, and some aren’t.
Robbie Wagner: [11:37] Well.
Chuck Carpenter: [11:38] Just depends who you have friends.
Robbie Wagner: [11:39] So this is all, like technically, it’s all related to the pandemic, right? Because the Fed was like, oh, my God, a pandemic. Let me just take infinite money and print it. Put it all into the stock market so we can stocks only go up. They never go down. So we have to keep them only going up. And then also let’s give out PPP loans where the requirements are weird to where people who don’t actually need them can get them. And then let’s give everyone a stimulus, and let’s just give everyone money. And then also, let’s just hope that inflation doesn’t happen, and that’s not going to work. So money was really free for the entire pandemic of just like, even if you spend it all and went, oh shit, I spent all my money, you just go like givememoney.gov and put in boop boop boop, give me money. And they do. So everyone got kind of used to that. There was a lot of weird, shady stuff, and then the Fed has no idea what they’re doing, and I hate them so much. And so they keep now that we’ve gotten back to what should have been normal because we should have crashed a long time ago, and we should be getting back to normal now with pandemic is kind of over. Let’s do some work. Whatever. Everyone’s kind of realizing, wait, we took all this extra money we had, and we kind of had to spend it because you want to spend as much as you can to spend up all of your grants per se so that you can get new ones. Like, oh, we need more of this. We have an extra 500,000 employees this year, so we need an even bigger PPP loan, and we need you to keep giving us money and all this stuff. And it was just tons of corruption, tons of lining pockets of executives and whatever. And now people went, it’s weird how we don’t need 45,000 employees to write the HTML for this one website. That’s weird, right? Like, shouldn’t we need that many employees for that? No. So there was a lot of weirdness there. And I think one of the things that makes a ton of sense to me, which is never going to happen, people are like, okay, if you’re going to lay everyone off right, then why are the VPs who approved hiring all these people not also laid off? Because they’re the ones that got us into this mess. So get rid of them too. Then there’s accountability. Then we understand you’re getting rid of everyone associated with the problem. Well, but they’re not doing that.
Chuck Carpenter: [14:07] You have covered a lot of.
Robbie Wagner: [14:10] Sorry.
Chuck Carpenter: [14:10] Bases there.
Robbie Wagner: [14:12] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [14:13] And I want to see if I can remember.
Robbie Wagner: [14:14] I just ranted.
Chuck Carpenter: [14:15] Yeah, no, and I wanted you to be able to have that emotional flush and get it out. But boy, you covered a lot of stuff there. So going all the way back initially of like, the Fed doesn’t know what it’s doing and blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think there’s a little bit of a misnomer there. I think that you don’t like what it’s doing, but they know what they’re doing, and they just don’t have the same goals that link.
Robbie Wagner: [14:40] Yeah, their goal is to screw everyone over.
Chuck Carpenter: [14:42] Right. Their goal is to chase inflation and maintain top levels. And part of their goal to stifle inflation is to raise unemployment rates. Right? You need to stop people from spending so much money, and the volume of that is happening to the common person, right? So you need to stifle spending, and you need to increase unemployment that’s admitted over and over again, which is like, crazy, right? You’re not protecting the people. You’re not protecting labor.
Robbie Wagner: [15:17] You people get no jobs.
Chuck Carpenter: [15:18] They’re like, no, we want to do that. And so there is those things. There is, like, yeah, sure, there was overhiring for a long time because it was free money being passed out at low rates for a pretty long time, right? And then that starts to slow. So again, people feel like, okay, now I have to finally reduce spending within my company because I need to continue to keep the shareholders happy. So, hey, let me just get rid of 10% of workforce, and my labor costs have gone way down the middle managers or VPs or whatever. They’re not my major labor cost. I don’t need to get rid of them. I still want them for strategy, right? Because they’re a difficult and expensive hire. And if I feel like I still need their strategy, then I’m going to keep them around, and I’m going to get rid of the three layers below them. Like, oh, just get rid of 30 of your skip-level down reports. Who cares? So there’s those parts of things, too, that people don’t care because there’s no morality across the board. They don’t care if they are affecting families because as long as they’re getting happy shareholders who are making money. Otherwise, obviously, executives don’t get bonuses, and they don’t get all their stuff. Like, you can go through economic crisis and still cash out 2 million in bonuses as an executive in this climate.
Robbie Wagner: [16:42] Why so little?
Chuck Carpenter: [16:43] Right. Exactly. Why stop there? I mean, just look at, like, what was it, the American Airlines CEO, after getting a government bailout to write things, then they did a stock buyback or something and splashed all the cash, a good chunk of the bailout cash that they got, they used to make shareholders, including the CEO, a boatload of cash. Right. That’s allowed to happen.
**Robbie Wagner: **[17:10] Yeah, we allow a lot of weird, dumb stuff. I am a fan of capitalism in general, but there’s got to be more regulation around it. We allow so much corruption and just let the 1% do what they want because we’re terrified of the government might have to spend money on lawyers to fight them. And they’re powerful, and we don’t like that.
Chuck Carpenter: [17:34] Yeah. And they won’t even bother to be honest because of Citizens United. Politics are fueled by all of that money. And so the people’s word doesn’t mean too much. Really. The end of the day, your candidates you get that actually can afford to go through elections are powered by corporations or wealthy individuals and their will because if you don’t follow their will, cash dries up, they call in your bluff, and you go away for someone else who will.
Robbie Wagner: [18:06] Yeah, that’s fair.
Chuck Carpenter: [18:09] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [18:09] I don’t know where I where you’re going to get ended on my rant. I was trying to think of the next thing I want to say, but.
Chuck Carpenter: [18:16] I don’t know. We talk about bailouts, and that’s like on a smaller level from 2008. That’s another place we’ve been recently.
**Robbie Wagner: **[18:25] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [18:26] Stabilizing banks.
Robbie Wagner: [18:27] Yeah, the banks. Really? It’s still the Fed’s fault. You’ve raised interest rates so much that the banks cannot operate. And then people start to realize that they cannot operate and go, wait, but you have my money. Give it to me now. And then they’re like, but we can’t give everyone their money now because we’ve loaned it out to people. That’s how banks work. They’re like, no, we all want our money right now. And then they collapse. You can’t do that. You can’t do a bank run. That should be illegal. Honestly, if you have 50% of your money gone, you should just shut down for, like, until you get enough to give more people money or something. You shouldn’t be allowed to just literally give all of your money to people and then go. We’re out of money.
**Chuck Carpenter: **[19:12] Yeah, there’s got to be a certain amount that you’re allowed, like a maximum of all of your I don’t know, what would you say? Like borrowed assets. You can’t re-loan it out, right?
Robbie Wagner: [19:22] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [19:22] I don’t know. It’s a weird system all the time. Maybe I’m dumb, but I just don’t understand the financial system that much. And anytime you think you have a grasp of something, you’re like, oh, no, they’re allowed to do 40 layers of puts, holds, loan, treasury bills, I don’t know, indexes. Crazy stuff that I just don’t totally get.
Robbie Wagner: [19:46] Yeah. Wasn’t the Silicon Valley’s problem that they bought like a ton of bonds?
Chuck Carpenter: [19:52] Yeah. With a long maturation. Yeah, that’s the problem. So the cash was tied up because they’d been basically moving VC money around for a long time. So it was just like an unlimited run until it wasn’t.
Robbie Wagner: [20:07] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [20:07] Everybody loves capitalism until it doesn’t work for them.
Robbie Wagner: [20:10] Yeah, that’s true.
Chuck Carpenter: [20:12] When you feel like it’s making you money or it gives you an opportunity that you think is realistic and then everybody loves it, and then when it falls apart, I’m trying to remember there was like, some tweet I saw in the last couple of years because it’s becoming such commonplace to have fucked up financial outcomes. But something about, like, you want capitalism when you’re doing well and socialism when you’re failing or something like that. So the whole basically bailouts from the government, run by the government, kept alive by the government, these baselines. Sure. And I think when I saw it, it had to do with the airlines faltering, and then they pulled this crap with the stock buybacks and all this stuff. So it’s like, yeah, they love capitalism until they were failing, and then they’re like, please save us.
Robbie Wagner: [21:00] Yeah, I am betting hard that First Republic is going to get massively bailed out and going to turn around their stock because it was like $140 a share two weeks ago, and it’s $14 a share right now. So I just bought a shitload of it because I was like, hey, any extra money I got, I’m putting in this. So you heard it here first that they are bankrupt right now.
Chuck Carpenter: [21:27] I was going to say you are not a financial advisor, and you don’t even play one on the internet. And I want to set this caveat to anyone listening who is mildly considering.
Robbie Wagner: [21:38] Yeah, don’t do what I do.
Chuck Carpenter: [21:39] Listening to Robbie’s financial advice. I’ve done it a couple of times before, like, yeah, sure, I’ll get on that too. Everything has tanked to shit. If you want to light money on fire, just go camping and light it on fire. Because that’s the same as taking this advice.
Robbie Wagner: [21:55] To be fair, the one thing that I’ve been right about so far, and it all ebbs and flows, is Microsoft. Because Microsoft was really undervalued, and I’m like, they make everything, everything that I touch and use is Microsoft. Why is everyone like putting them in a different category than Google and Facebook and whatever? Facebook doesn’t make shit. They sell ads, which are like all outlawed everywhere now, so they got fucked, and otherwise, they don’t do anything.
Chuck Carpenter: [22:23] Doesn’t everybody pretty much hate Facebook these days?
Robbie Wagner: [22:25] Yes. When did we not? Facebook killed MySpace, and ever since, I’ve hated them.
Chuck Carpenter: [22:30] Right. It’s mostly junk too. Mostly it’s like my older relatives complaining about stupid things that they don’t understand or posting things that I don’t care about. Oh, yeah, remember when we used to get jelly rolls down at that old bakery that’s not there anymore? Here’s a picture I found in a shoebox. You can barely tell what it is.
Robbie Wagner: [22:58] Oh, gosh.
Chuck Carpenter: [22:59] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [23:01] So, like layoffs and everything?
Chuck Carpenter: [23:04] Yes.
Robbie Wagner: [23:04] It’s gotten really out of hand with, like, no one knows what’s going to happen. Why don’t we communicate better, right? If you know, as an executive team, we need to lay off 200,000 people, and you lay off 10,000, you know there’s more coming. So plan your strategy a little better. I’m not going to call out specific companies for the sake of political correctness, but let’s say you want everyone to come back to the office, right?
Chuck Carpenter: [23:35]I think you could use just use Twitter. Just use Twitter whether you agree with the policies or not. Right?
Robbie Wagner: [23:40] Well, Twitter is kind of a weird case.
Chuck Carpenter: [23:43] That’s why it’s okay to talk about.
Robbie Wagner: [23:46] But yeah, so it’s like, okay, we want everyone Elon’s. Like everyone needs to be in the San Francisco office. Right. Like, just get back here, there’s like it’s like half empty. What are you guys doing? And it’s like, well, but so this might be not a good example either because I think he already made them move back in. But, like, for companies that have let you move across the US. Right, it’s like, all right, I moved to Idaho because it’s cheap, and I can be anywhere. It doesn’t matter. And then they’re like, all right, well, you need to be back at the office, so you work on selling your house. You’re like, all right, it’s going to take me like a month or two to sell my house. I got to find another house back in a city to move to. The cost of living is way higher. Maybe my salary doesn’t meet that because maybe they downgraded me for being somewhere else. So I’m already really strapped for cash and just barely make it work. And then you get moved into your new place, and they go, oh, actually, you’re fired because we have to lay off 190,000 more people. It’s so shitty. Just tell people ahead of time. I guess you don’t know who maybe is the problem, who you’re going to lay off.
Chuck Carpenter: [24:54] Right.
Robbie Wagner: [24:54] It needs to be someone. But we’re just going to make everyone come back to the, like, stop the back to the office stuff for a while. Just pause that. Work through all your layoffs first. I know they suck, but get them all done and be in a stable place, and then you can tell people what to do. Doing both at the same time is terrible for everyone.
Chuck Carpenter: [25:15] True. I guess you just assume some level of empathy. I don’t know. It could be a people strategy. I don’t know. But I think, first of all, it just assumes a level of empathy across your workforce that probably doesn’t exist in a lot of those circumstances. Like who’s making that decision is just looking at numbers and making decisions around numbers and what they need to do for their own success metrics and.
Robbie Wagner: [25:41] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [25:41] Strategies and all of that kind of stuff. They’re not like, okay, now how is this going to affect Robbie? I know I just told him two weeks ago he’s got to move, but unfortunately, now I got to let him go. I know he probably just got there. I don’t know. I got to think about this. No idea. Clueless to most of those things because, in their mind, they’re just like, okay, the CEO decides across the board, we’re just going to bring people back to offices. And then CFO, later on, is like, yeah, we got to cut some workforce. Remember, we’ve mentioned this before. Well, that’s where we’re really at. And we don’t concern about the impact, so we’re going to do it in waves. And we don’t want to tell everybody that 100,000 more are coming because people are probably going to stop working as hard because they don’t know if it’s them or not. Well, so let’s not let them.
Robbie Wagner: [26:26] That that’s part of the problem too, is like, you announce one wave, and you’re like, oh, crap, is it me? They don’t tell everyone for like a week or two after they announce. It like getting all the notice out, and then everyone gets the notice, and you’re like, all right, I’m safe. I’m safe this time. And then you get back. It takes you another week or two after everyone’s leaving, and that sucks and whatever. And you’re like, all right, I’m back to full strength. I’m working hard, actually. Here’s another round of layoffs. So then it’s like this cycle of, like, no one’s going to get any work done for like six months because you’re doing it this way. It is so dumb. There’s no good data behind anything. It’s all like 50 white dudes in a boardroom being like, what do I think is good? What makes me money today? Like, nothing about the way we want to run the company or what it might do in the future, but I want my millions of dollars today. And it’s like, this is how I do it. Okay.
Chuck Carpenter: [27:21] So then that goes back to the early comment that you made. Around like 4500 people just update some HTML and CSS. Like the massive shift from, you know what, that sounds like really simple. I only need four people to do that. And then you cut 4000 plus jobs, and then you find out down the line, oh, there was some nuance here that I actually didn’t realize. Now I have a massive business impact, and what am I going to do? I better hurry up and hire. Oh, and lucky for me, there is a massive flush in the candidate pool.
Robbie Wagner: [27:53] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [27:54] Because every FAANG engineer, there’s a percentage of them all in this pool now. And so.
Robbie Wagner: [28:01] We call them MANGA now.
Chuck Carpenter: [28:03] Yeah, MANGA. That might possibly be true. So you’ve got this crazy pool, and now they can’t fleece me at top 10% wages and all this other stuff because people are desperate for a job, so they’re going to.
Robbie Wagner: [28:17] Right.
Chuck Carpenter: [28:18] Just take what they can get. And now I can still get my thing done.
Robbie Wagner: [28:21] So you’re saying this is all still Elon’s fault, then? Because he keeps doing things to artificially make stuff, fluctuate prices where he wants.
Chuck Carpenter: [28:31] That’s true, yeah. He does play a game with people’s lives.
Robbie Wagner: [28:34] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [28:34] No doubt about that. And intentional or not, either, he’s just so naive to it, right, because he’s had money for basically his whole life, but making his own money for quite some time, even like gosh. When was PayPal sold off? It was early 2000s, right?
Robbie Wagner: [28:49] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [28:50] Pretty long time ago. First dot com bubble.
Robbie Wagner: [28:53] Yeah, but no one else from PayPal is this big of a dick, I don’t think.
Chuck Carpenter: [28:57] I don’t know. I don’t know him outside of his political affiliations, but people shit talk Peter Thiel pretty a lot around. That aspect, but obviously, a smart businessman.
Robbie Wagner: [29:12] Well, I haven’t seen anything that he’s done, like, business-wise. I mean, I haven’t seen anything about.
Chuck Carpenter: [29:17] The political stuff either, because.
Chuck Carpenter: [29:19] No.
Robbie Wagner: [29:19] I try not to care about political stuff because if you start looking at it and caring, you’re just going to spiral and hate everyone, which I already hate a lot of people.
Chuck Carpenter: [29:28] I guess he’s basically like the tech version of the Koch brothers in that sense, but take that for what you will. So? Yeah. I don’t know. He’s not, like, pumping Dogecoins or screwing with stock prices so he can get a better deal or.
Robbie Wagner: [29:46] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [29:47] A billion other things. He’s definitely affecting people’s lives. But then again, you ask that question as like, whose life is he really messing with? Because if anybody has a substantial amount of their own savings or retirement account just in Tesla or something, for example, you’re probably doing okay otherwise anyway. You probably own a Tesla, and then you don’t have a problem eating. It’s never like, am I going to have ramen or nothing tonight? You’re not in that spot.
Robbie Wagner: [30:14] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [30:14] So whose life is he affecting in that sense?
Robbie Wagner: [30:17] It’s true. It’s true. And I get that there are levels to it, and it’s hard to be sad for us well-paid engineers of like, oh, no, you might not get a job for a couple of minutes, or your salary might go down or whatever, but everyone gets used to a certain lifestyle. And even if you trim back the lifestyle, you have bills.
Chuck Carpenter: [30:41] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [30:41] You get a house, and it still costs the same amount regardless of where you’re working. So if you can’t afford that house, yes, maybe you get lucky, and you can get another house, but not right now because there’s no houses and the interest rate is a billion.
Chuck Carpenter: [30:55] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [30:55] So it’s like you could be homeless. I mean, legitimately, you could be we’re all kind of living paycheck to paycheck. I feel like some of us have a little bit of savings. I think the average is like very little.
Chuck Carpenter: [31:07] Very little, yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [31:08]People can maybe sustain a couple of weeks.
Chuck Carpenter: [31:11] Exactly. Most people are paycheck to paycheck. Most people don’t have an emergency fund. And even people who have made had good salaries because the costs of living to improve your quality of life, that’s the other thing. It’s like, oh, I’ve worked, and there’s a certain amount that I’ve earned, I would say, and it’s not my fault if salaries are around those things, taking advantage of opportunities given like anyone else would. And so if I one day had to move my family to an apartment because the housing market is now only for the affluent, which anymore, I guess, is the financial industry because they’re almost untouchable. Even when it falls apart, it doesn’t. So I don’t know. Yeah. I wonder how much politically and sociology that our listeners care to hear about from us. I just feel like this is such a pertinent part of our industry right now that.
Robbie Wagner: [32:09] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [32:09] I don’t know, it’s worth having even I don’t know shit, and you don’t have to believe me kind of discussion.
Robbie Wagner: [32:14] Yeah, these are all our opinions. We haven’t gone too extreme in either direction. I don’t think. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see how the numbers are if people stop listening after a couple of seconds because there’s a ton of construction going on above me, and they’re tired of the noise, or if there’s, I don’t know.
Chuck Carpenter: [32:30] Any other reason?
Chuck Carpenter: [32:31] Or they see a video clip, and they’re like, Virginia Tech is stupid.
Robbie Wagner: [32:36] One guy reached out to me specifically that was like, hey, I didn’t know you were a VT Alum. That’s really cool. Like, one of my favorite podcasts has a VT Alum on there, and I’m going to go there in the summer or something like that.
Chuck Carpenter: [32:47] I thought, that’s cool.
Robbie Wagner: [32:48] That’s pretty cool.
Chuck Carpenter: [32:49] I do like hearing, like, I’ve had a few people hit me up on LinkedIn and just kind of, like, listened to this, the recent one. Love this. Like this. Hey, you were asked for feedback. Here’s a little bit about the whiskey part. Like, love that part. You should definitely keep it in. In fact, if you had ways to expand it, like putting things specifically in show notes and some reference things around, that would be really helpful. Like, oh, that’s awesome. I love.
Robbie Wagner: [33:17] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [33:17] The feedback. I’d love that people care to listen. And yeah, just a touch point away. Always open and welcome to Messages.
Robbie Wagner: [33:26] Yeah. For anyone listening right now that wants to reach out, we are available. Feel free to ping us on Twitter or LinkedIn or anything, and we will respond.
Chuck Carpenter: [33:34] I’m going to touch briefly on the whole college thing or whatever else because I do find it fascinating. I mean, I guess it’s like following a sports team or whatever else. Like the people that are just diehard dedicated to their college. And you paid money for that. I don’t know. You don’t have to continue to be like.
Robbie Wagner: [33:56] But you had to be accepted.
Chuck Carpenter: [33:58] You’re in a special club in a way.
Robbie Wagner: [34:00] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [34:01] I don’t know. It’s Virginia. How hard was it?
Robbie Wagner: [34:04] Actually, harder than you think. And it’s gotten crazy now where they let too many people in. So the problem is they require everyone as a freshman to live on campus, and then they let too many people in and had nowhere for them to stay. So they have a hotel that they own, and they shut down half the hotel rooms and house students in those.
Chuck Carpenter: [34:29] Hold on here. First of all, a state education institution has no business investing in other businesses in the area. I have a problem with that, too.
Robbie Wagner: [34:42] Well, they didn’t invest. They built their own hotel on campus.
Chuck Carpenter: [34:45] To make money.
Robbie Wagner: [34:46] Yeah, they didn’t buy a Holiday Inn off campus.
Chuck Carpenter: [34:49] Still.
Robbie Wagner: [34:50] They built the inn at Virginia Tech. They built it.
Chuck Carpenter: [34:53] Right. Do they charge money to stay in?
Robbie Wagner: [34:55] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [34:55] I don’t know. I’m still kind of calling bullshit on this. But their mission is to serve the community and provide education.
Robbie Wagner: [35:03] No, their mission is to make money. Like everyone’s mission.
Chuck Carpenter: [35:07] See, like, capitalism is, at the end of the day, we never have a mission to serve our community in any way. We have a mission to serve those who gave us some money to get bigger, to make them richer. To make us richer. To make them richer. To make us richer.
Robbie Wagner: [35:21] But don’t forget about making them richer.
Chuck Carpenter: [35:23] Exactly. Oh, gosh. What was it? There was some, like, nonprofit recently that has become, like, a not-for-profit entity, and then I don’t know.
Robbie Wagner: [35:33] Now they’re just a full profit.
Chuck Carpenter: [35:34] Slippery slope. Now they’re just a full for-profit entity like all the rest of us. I don’t know. At some point, I just wish. I mean, I want to make money. I get that I’m trying to support a family and all those other things, but my mission and my goal around that is very clear. And when it starts to become obscured, I think it’s like the morality thing there that is kind of bullshit, and it gets annoying for me.
Robbie Wagner: [35:59] Yeah, I forget exactly the context, but someone was kind of talking about that on Twitter of all these companies laying everyone off and having these terrible ideals and just caring about shareholders and whatever. Is there anywhere we can work that we don’t have to worry about this as much? People are like, basically no, but if you look into B corporations, it’s a little bit better. They’re not necessarily required to do any of that, but they’ve gone through the steps of getting certified as being doing some of the right things. So that’s, like, a good thing. There are a few of these in the tech world. I don’t know who they are, but maybe if people know, they can let us know.
Chuck Carpenter: [36:39] Or let’s not forget that many companies are not tech companies, but they just need tech. Right? They have a part of it that is tech.
Robbie Wagner: [36:47] Arby’s, McDonald’s, all of these.
Chuck Carpenter: [36:50] Yeah, those are e-commerce.
Robbie Wagner: [36:51] McDonald’s app is fire.
Chuck Carpenter: [36:53] Is it?
Robbie Wagner: [36:54] Yeah, they have a loading animation that’s like fries bouncing in a fry cup.
Chuck Carpenter: [37:00] I basically go to McDonald’s to get Happy Meals, which, by the way, are still the best bang for your buck.
Robbie Wagner: [37:06] Do you like Happy Meals?
Chuck Carpenter: [37:07] I’m fine with them. My children like toys, and they love Happy Meal food. Like, it is my son’s favorite burger. He tells me when I make burgers, he’s like, dad, this is my second favorite burger. This is kind of like my first favorite burger, but this is my second.
Robbie Wagner: [37:22] Have you tried putting more carcinogens in your meat?
Chuck Carpenter: [37:25] That’s the problem, is I’m like trying to get good quality meat and cook it well and all those things, and he’s like.
Robbie Wagner: [37:31] Just get, like, a cow spleen and grind it up. That’s where you want. Yeah, perfect.
Chuck Carpenter: [37:37] Cow meat. Yeah. And let’s not even go down the path of the chicken nuggies my daughter loves.
Robbie Wagner: [37:45] Oh, no.
Chuck Carpenter: [37:45] I want nuggies.
Robbie Wagner: [37:47] There have been so many studies on them about all the plastic in there and shit.
Chuck Carpenter: [37:51] Right? And then I saw where Jamie Oliver tried to recreate chicken nuggets in front of these school kids. I don’t know if you remember that show from like ten years ago or whatever. He went to some West Virginia school district and tried to help them fix because they had a massive obesity issue and all this other stuff. So he’s like, let me come, and for free, I’m going to come and work with you to improve your school menu. And it went down in flames. Essentially, he had this test kitchen, and he brings all these kids in, and he shows them grinding up this weird pink whatever thing and then also makes nice chicken strips. But the other ones, he ends up shaping them or something like nuggets versus the strips, which are a random thing, and then says, now, after what you saw, which do you want to eat? And they all pick the gross.
Robbie Wagner: [38:45]The nuggets.
Chuck Carpenter: [38:46] Nuggets versus the strips. And he’s just like, yeah, I don’t know what I can do here. I don’t know. Yeah, I’ve given them the direct information. It’s very clear. And they’re like, no, I want that.
Robbie Wagner: [38:58] Yeah, I mean, just eat Chick-fil-A, everybody. It’s pretty normal.
Chuck Carpenter: [39:02] Yeah, that’s fine.
Robbie Wagner: [39:03] They use real chicken.
Chuck Carpenter: [39:04] Yeah, I guess there’s that. And their nuggets. The kids do like those too. I just think, I don’t know, the whole packaging, it feels special, I think is what it is. You go, and you get this thing, and it has all this packaging and wrapping and the Happy Meal. They give you a toy and.
Robbie Wagner: [39:20] Oh, yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [39:20] It’s just like fun playing with mine.
Robbie Wagner: [39:23] It’s an experience, not just food.
Chuck Carpenter: [39:25] Yeah, there you go. Speaking of children, your child is having his should respect, and it’s not an it his first birthday.
Robbie Wagner: [39:37] Yes, it was Tuesday. So we’re having a party for him Saturday. Going to have a few friends and family over. Did a bunch for his actual birthday.
Chuck Carpenter: [39:50] I didn’t get my invite, so I guess we know what category I’m in.
Robbie Wagner: [39:53] Well, I figured you wouldn’t want to fly out for it, but.
Chuck Carpenter: [39:56] Fly out, yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [39:58] So on Tuesday, I was actually still kind of sick, so Katelyn and my parents took Finn to Old Town. He had some spaghetti at Mia’s and then just rolled around town in his stroller. And he had a good time.
Chuck Carpenter: [40:11] Good. Yeah, excellent.
Robbie Wagner: [40:13] So Saturday, we’ll have a bunch of different cakes because we have to have one that’s not that sweet for him, and then we have to have ones for other people. And then it’s also actually my dad’s actual birthday on Saturday. He gets his own cake, and Katelyn’s going to do a bunch of cakes.
Chuck Carpenter: [40:28] Well, wait. Also, though, especially the first birthday, do you have a smash cake?
Robbie Wagner: [40:33] Yes, he will have a smash cake.
Chuck Carpenter: [40:34] Yeah. If you could do a second one for your dad to do with him, that would be amazing. I’m just putting it out there. I don’t know him, but if he’d be game for that, that would be pretty amazing. Those photos alone would just be like.
Robbie Wagner: [40:48] Yeah, I don’t know that he’d be game for it. But I’ll float the idea tonight. We’ll see.
Chuck Carpenter: [40:54] Yeah. Both do a Smash cake together on your birthday. Pretty amazing.
Robbie Wagner: [40:58] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [40:59] Cool. I’m going to bounce around here a little bit and what I think is a more natural flow. So you’ve recently upgraded your camera set up, your lighting set up, your backdrop set up. I think you’ve been inspired.
Robbie Wagner: [41:12] Yes. I don’t know if I’ll be the video. I’m half the time the video we’ll see. But if you see my video, you’ll be able to see it’s a green screen with some purple and pink lights. So basically, what I am is ThePrimeagen with Learn with Jason’s lights behind me.
Chuck Carpenter: [41:31] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [41:32] I’m working my way between do I want to actually green screen or do I want to have a room that’s nicely laid out with some lights? I’ve got a lot of stuff to hide behind me. So the green screen was easy for now.
Chuck Carpenter: [41:43] Gives you some temporary options until you get into it.
Robbie Wagner: [41:46] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [41:47] I mean, me personally, if folks have seen from Chris Coyier’s setup, he’s got the nice sound-like egg thingies. I don’t even know what they call.
Robbie Wagner: [41:56] Like those studio foam.
Chuck Carpenter: [41:58] Studio foam in there and then neon lights around all the corners and stuff. It looks really fun. If I had like a dedicated space in that way, that’s the way I’d lean, but it’s hard to say.
Robbie Wagner: [42:10] Yeah. Did I tell you my plans for when we move for my office? So I want to have a normal office with some bookshelves and books, like scholarly, fancy office. And then have the bookshelf open up into a podcast studio. So you walk through the bookshelf, and there’s just like studio foam and whiskey everywhere. And that’s the podcast room.
Chuck Carpenter: [42:36] I love it. Yeah. I love secret. I don’t know, whatever. Webster house. Kind of hidden shit in houses. It’s pretty fun.
Robbie Wagner: [42:44] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [42:45] We have a friend friends. It’s a whole family. And they have a hidden room behind some bookcases. And it goes into what is like a little entertainment room. Like they got like the couch set up and the projector, and I don’t know, they also kind of turned into like a Lego room behind there. And then you can exit through this other little wall, and you just end up in the laundry room. Pretty crazy.
Robbie Wagner: [43:08] That’s fun.
Chuck Carpenter: [43:08] They are. Folks not hurt by unemployment rates.
Robbie Wagner: [43:13] Current economic things.
Chuck Carpenter: [43:14] Yeah, current economic things. They’re like, oh, my gosh. We cannot get a third Range Rover this year. And it’s very disappointing. And that was actually for our Tahoe home. We couldn’t get another.
Robbie Wagner: [43:27] Oh, a dedicated one. So you can fly there and then have a car for you.
Chuck Carpenter: [43:31] Yeah, we just have one waiting there. Well, actually, no, we do.
Robbie Wagner: [43:35] That sounds rough.
Chuck Carpenter: [43:36] Now, we do have one for ourselves, but our nanny has to take it sometimes. And it’s like when we’re there, we’d like to have our own, and then she has hers, and it’s like.
Robbie Wagner: [43:45] She couldn’t drive some other kind of car. There’s no way.
Chuck Carpenter: [43:49] No. Maybe we could get a used one. But that feels so plebeian. Okay. Anyway, I’m not bitter. Speaking of cars right, let’s talk about cars. We love cars. I love cars. And technology. I do love cars. So after, like, two and a half years of waiting, we finally got notified that the Rivian R1S was available for our pickup and enjoyment. So did that just recently. I want to say it was earlier this week. I don’t know. And have been testing it out since then, so I’ll have to give a couple of different perspectives. But I drove it initially, so I mean, the details are amazing. It’s nice. I think it has, like, 23 speakers in it. The sound system is nice. Two big screens. And then I like how the interface is basically, like, two small sets of buttons. So it’s like depending on what section you’re in. And then you can all of a sudden use the steering wheel for everything. So that’s pretty cool. Like hidden cup holders, and there’s a lot of room and minimalism. And then it’s white with, like, a gray and then ashwood interior and then just a lot of little details where the Rivian yellow is in your stitching in the seat and something in the side of the headrest and cool stuff like that. It’s weird the way it drives because it’s, like, essentially a one-pedal driving experience because their brake regen is very serious.
Robbie Wagner: [45:25] Yes, I drove one when we were in Phoenix. And it stops you dead.
Chuck Carpenter: [45:31] Yeah. So it’s just like you basically don’t even need brakes. You’re always hitting the gas to some degree until you just are ready to kind of be done.
Robbie Wagner: [45:39] And if you turn that off, it doesn’t regenerate at all. Basically, it’s like, I’m not going to break.
Chuck Carpenter: [45:44] Yeah, so they’re supposed to be, like, really strong, regular, and then there’s normal. And that one’s not great. So yeah, I’ve been checking that out. I mean, the third-row seating for its size is incredible, too, so you get a ton of storage space. I like the whole air compressor that’s back there, too. So if you do any actual adventure stuff, I mean, it really is created to be like, this is a camping and adventure vehicle.
Robbie Wagner: [46:09] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [46:09] For you and your family and all that kind of stuff.
Robbie Wagner: [46:11] Supposed to kill Range Rovers.
Chuck Carpenter: [46:12] Right.
Robbie Wagner: [46:13] But it’s not going to.
Chuck Carpenter: [46:14] Yeah. And this is intended to be my wife’s car as a replacement. She has an Audi Q7. She has loved, and we’ll continue to love because she does not like this car at all.
Robbie Wagner: [46:25] Too big.
Chuck Carpenter: [46:26] It’s a bit big for her, even though it’s measurements. It’s only a little longer than the Q7. It’s significantly taller, and then obviously, you can adjust its ride height, but still, to a degree, that’s quite a bit more than her car. And she’s just like, it’s kind of a big box and feels like driving a truck.
Robbie Wagner: [46:47] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [46:47] And what she loves about the Audi is that it feels like driving like a sporty SUV. Right. I don’t know. It’s bigger. It holds a little more, but it still feels like, nimble and cozy and just, like, manageable. And this other thing feels like I’m driving a big rig. This is crazy. I don’t know.
Robbie Wagner: [47:06]Because it’s not that big compared to, like, big trucks.
Chuck Carpenter: [47:10] Yeah. It’s not like a Tahoe big.
Robbie Wagner: [47:12] It feels it feels huge. I don’t understand why and yeah, that’s what we got from it, too, is like, I want to turn around. All right, I got to do a ten-point turn somehow, even though this was not that complicated of a turn.
Chuck Carpenter: [47:24] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [47:25] It’s just not quite there on the execution of making it feel nicer.
Chuck Carpenter: [47:30] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [47:30] It’s got all of the stuff, the technology and the whatever, but it just doesn’t like driving experience wise.
Chuck Carpenter: [47:36] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [47:37] It’s not there yet.
Chuck Carpenter: [47:38] I think, for its intended market, to be honest. I think it’s probably going to check all the boxes. It’s going to nail it.
Robbie Wagner: [47:46] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [47:46] If you got a little camping trailer or you like to go off the grid a little bit because it’s got great range and everything else. But if you’re like, my wife is driving around town and hauling the kids around and running errands for the home and all of these other things that are just like it’s not that thing basically ever in the infrequent amount of times for us that it would be great, but it’s just not enough to sway her in that way. So, unfortunately, I don’t know, maybe by the time this comes out, you can check carsandbids.com. This is a Rivian R1S. I don’t know if you ever heard those Doug DeMuro videos where he’s like, this is a Ford GT.
Robbie Wagner: [48:30] No.
Chuck Carpenter: [48:31] He’s a little bit annoying, but that’s also kind of, like, part of his appeal. You’re like, oh, cute, this nerdy guy, again with an annoying voice. But he geeks out on cars so much you love him. So he’ll be selling my car.
Robbie Wagner: [48:44] Okay, well, that’s fun. Yeah. If people want to buy it, just reach out directly, maybe.
Chuck Carpenter: [48:50] Yeah, I’m down with that. Doesn’t have to be crazy.
Robbie Wagner: [48:53] Yeah. I didn’t get mine because I was worried in the economic climate we’re in that I would not be able to sell it, and I was like, I’m not going to be stuck with this car and the Bronco I just got and the Tesla and not be able to sell it for six months or something.
Chuck Carpenter: [49:09] With that statement, you’ve lost any potential sympathy you might have gotten about the job market.
Robbie Wagner: [49:14] Hey, we did well for a while, I’m not going to lie.
Chuck Carpenter: [49:18] Yeah, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of that, I think, too. Plus, sometimes it’s about the things you value anyway. You’ve had that Virginia Tech hat as long as I’ve known you, I think. And you’re clearly not invested in high fashion and other items.
Robbie Wagner: [49:36] Although MeUndies are expensive.
Chuck Carpenter: [49:39] Right.
Chuck Carpenter: [49:39] They have coupons all the time. I mean, they’re not like a four pack of Hanes or something.
Robbie Wagner: [49:44] Well, yes, compared to other good underwear, I guess they’re not terrible, but I guess before I got them, I was buying a four pack of Hanes.
Chuck Carpenter: [49:52] Well, since MeUndies. Yeah, right. Well, then it’s quite an upgrade since MeUndies heard us last time and added the.
Robbie Wagner: [50:01] They did.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:02] Pouch thing. Since you’re still listening, offer it in just a regular brief. I’m just not a boxer brief fellow. I want less is more, especially in the desert.
Robbie Wagner: [50:13] Just cut it off, just buy it and.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:15] I don’t want, as you said, it costs enough money.
Robbie Wagner: [50:19] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:19] Where they should offer the cuts that I would prefer.
Robbie Wagner: [50:21] Yeah, I think because they also don’t have many colors. I think it’s a test run. Like, are people interested in this? Because I think the boxer briefs of what they’ve always pushed as like their flagship.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:32] Right.
Robbie Wagner: [50:33] So they’re trying it out first, and if it’s popular, I think it will come to everything.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:37] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [50:37] So we’ll wait and see.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:38] Well, you should buy them all, and then they’ll continue to expand them.
Robbie Wagner: [50:42] Well, I bought one to try.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:44] Right.
Robbie Wagner: [50:45] So I’ll let you know how it compares to the normal.
Chuck Carpenter: [50:47] We’ll have to follow up on a future episode because I think it’s worth discussing because I think it’s a game changer. I was like, this is incredible, and then immediately bought like, five pairs and got rid. And then I kept other underwear because I hate wasting. I have this whole problem with, like until it falls apart or whatever else doesn’t, whatever the issue is, I just can’t.
Robbie Wagner: [51:09] Yeah, because you grew up in the Depression.
Chuck Carpenter: [51:11] Basically, my generation created farm subsidies. Just deal with it. But eventually I was just like, I’m wasting my time with these other underwear. I’m just not wearing them. I’m just waiting and washing these others. So let’s just go all in.
Robbie Wagner: [51:26] Yeah. I have a big dilemma right now that I was wearing pretty much exclusively my Todd Snyder sweatshirts, and now it’s warm outside. Like, I can’t be cozy, comfy anymore.
Chuck Carpenter: [51:41] Wait, the short sleeve sweatshirts? I mean, that’s.
Robbie Wagner: [51:43] It’s still a sweat. It’ll be too hot.
Chuck Carpenter: [51:45] It is, yeah. I mean, the humidity. Yeah, that’s not going to really work.
Robbie Wagner: [51:48] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [51:49] What is your summer staple?
Robbie Wagner: [51:50] I don’t know.
Chuck Carpenter: [51:51] I thought, like, given your skin tone, that you just stay in all summer. That’s what I thought, but I could be wrong.
Robbie Wagner: [51:58] No, I mean, we have a lake house. I go out there. I put on my 50 SPF so I don’t get burned. It’s fine. But yeah, I mean, we have enough Ship Shaped T-shirts that I’ve just pretty much worn those, I guess Vuori would be my go-to, but I don’t know. They’ve been really hard to get the ones I want because they’re, like, always out of stuff.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:19] Yeah, well, apparently in Middleburg, you don’t have a store. I could just go to the store. They have some stuff.
Robbie Wagner: [52:25] It is so funny that there’s not a Vuori in downtown Middleburg.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:29] It’s strange. What about DC? Though? That feels like a ripe.
Robbie Wagner: [52:33] Maybe.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:34] Athleisure.
Robbie Wagner: [52:35] Maybe Georgetown feels like a place that would be.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:37] Oh, yeah, definitely food for thought there. Summer.
Robbie Wagner: [52:42] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:42] So I got to solve that problem. What’s your summer shirt?
Robbie Wagner: [52:46] Yeah, I mean, the Vuori shorts are, for sure, the bottoms of the summer.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:51] Right.
Robbie Wagner: [52:51] But the Vuori shirts are hit or miss. Like, the ones I love are the yellow ones that we have with the autumn design.
Chuck Carpenter: [52:59] Right, but that’s going to be summer. You can’t wear the autumn.
Robbie Wagner: [53:02] I know.
Chuck Carpenter: [53:03] Yeah, we don’t have, like, a summer. We were not able to.
Robbie Wagner: [53:06] We do, but it’s not Vuori.
Chuck Carpenter: [53:07] Right, exactly. The summer run. Although I love that we went with, like, 80s sleeveless, kind of like oh, yeah. With, like, the deep cut-down sleeveless. Like, I don’t know if you ever saw the movie Rad or with Josh Hartnett plays, like, the main character of this, and it’s 80s skateboarding movie. It’s pretty rad. Anyway, that would have been about the time that was a style.
Robbie Wagner: [53:32] Inspired by Skate or Die.
Chuck Carpenter: [53:33] Or Skate or Die was inspired by that. I love that game, that NES game. Skate or Die.
Robbie Wagner: [53:38] Oh, yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [53:39] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [53:39] I played it a lot. I mean, it wouldn’t work for more than, like, 20 minutes before it broke because I had a really janky used copy that I got from somebody and I totally broke it eventually because I cleaned it with alcohol and it says not to do that. But it worked really well for, like, a day and then just broke.
Chuck Carpenter: [53:57] It deteriorated. At that point. You just pulled it out, and you blow on the cartridge.
Robbie Wagner: [54:02] I did that. I think our actual system was what was kind of messed up. I had one game that was brand new and would work all the time, but otherwise, it was very hit-or-miss.
Chuck Carpenter: [54:15] Interesting. I just ended on that. It’s just interesting.
Robbie Wagner: [54:21] I was trying to see if you were frozen or if you were to stare.
Chuck Carpenter: [54:26] I was just trying to mess with you.
Robbie Wagner: [54:28] Okay.
Chuck Carpenter: [54:28] As if it was. On that note, folks looks like we’ve come to the end of another episode.
Robbie Wagner: [54:34] Well, no, we haven’t quite.
Chuck Carpenter: [54:37] We haven’t?
Robbie Wagner: [54:37] Well, we spent some time. I mean, people won’t know because it’ll get edited out, but we were working on getting your pops fixed and stuff, so we had a couple of minutes. But, yeah, I was going to go through what we’re watching. I started watching season four of Servant.
Chuck Carpenter: [54:53] I don’t want to hear about that. I don’t want to hear anything about your shows. I don’t think you have good taste there.
Robbie Wagner: [54:58] It’s number three on Apple.
Chuck Carpenter: [55:01] Okay.
Robbie Wagner: [55:01] Number one is Ted Lasso. We could talk Ted Lasso. Did you watch the first episode of the new season?
Chuck Carpenter: [55:06] I watched the first episode. I didn’t watch last night.
Robbie Wagner: [55:09] Yeah, I didn’t either, but I watched the first one. Pretty good.
Chuck Carpenter: [55:12] Yeah, I enjoyed it. Looking forward to it. I think the rivalry with West Ham should be interesting. I also love it because I play FIFA, as some people may know. And in FIFA 23, they offered AFC Richmond as a team that you could pick, and Ted Lasso is in it as a coach. Do a manager season.
Robbie Wagner: [55:36] I wonder if he played himself when he played in the show.
Chuck Carpenter: [55:40] I don’t know.
Robbie Wagner: [55:41] I guess not. That would break the concept, because he was like, yeah, my son was over here and played a bunch of FIFA, so I learned a lot about soccer.
Chuck Carpenter: [55:50] Right. And he played as himself. That’d be pretty good, I guess. Technically. Yes. I’m trying to remember what I mean. They’re in the Premier League now, too, so they would be in FIFA. So that is kind of like a nod and a shout-out, too.
Robbie Wagner: [56:03] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:03] So, technically, yes, he would be in it. And because they get the real managers and everything, too. That’s cool. Yeah, that’s real Meta.
Robbie Wagner: [56:13] Yeah.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:13] But not the company. We hate them. Fuck them.
Robbie Wagner: [56:15] Yeah. I think even they hate them. They’re like, guys, the Metaverse was a bad idea. We’re working on AI now, probably. I don’t know if they’ve said that publicly, but I’m sure I feel like that’s the Metaverse is dead. And honestly, Web3 is almost dead, and everyone’s just on AI now.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:32] I mean, wasn’t Web3 just Web2 with a smart contract anyway? Had all.
Robbie Wagner: [56:40] Yes.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:40] The same infrastructure. It just had more complexity.
Robbie Wagner: [56:44] Yeah, nothing was different.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:45] Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: [56:45] Just had NFTs.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:47] Oh, gosh. Unfortunately, I have some of those.
Robbie Wagner: [56:50] If anyone remembers NFTs, we still have some for sale. If you want at bitsky.com/shipshapecode.
Chuck Carpenter: [56:58] Get them while they’re hot. I mean, whatever’s left, every single one is left. And if we run out, just ask nicely because apparently, you could just make another one.
Robbie Wagner: [57:05] Yeah, that’s how JPEG images work. You can just create as many of them as you want.
Chuck Carpenter: [57:10] Let me know, and I will copy paste.
Robbie Wagner: [57:14] Okay, well, that’s enough, I guess. Thanks, everybody, for listening. If you liked it, please subscribe. Leave us some ratings and reviews, hit that five stars, and we will catch you next time.
Chuck Carpenter: [57:30] Thanks. For listening to Whiskey web and Whatnot. This podcast is brought to you by Ship Shape and produced by Podcast Royale. If you like this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or two and leave us a rating, maybe a review, as long as it’s good.
Robbie Wagner: [57:45] You can subscribe to future episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more info about Ship Shape and this show, check out our website at shipshape.io.