287 I'm sure they have a hiccup fetish

Drew 00:00

True, how the hell are you? Oh There's a lot of things I could bitch about. Okay, okay uh I'm gonna start with I just tried to pay my City of Columbus water bill. Okay, okay. Um So I I technically live in Delaware County, but the city of Dublin uses the Columbus Public Utilities Water System. Okay. And as far as water bills go, it hasn't been that bad because we've been getting a lot of rain. So I haven't had to run my irrigation system as much this year. Okay. La last year I ran it a lot. It was really hot. It was really dry. Haven't had to run the irrigation system so much. But you know, I love a good shower. Uh my wife takes very long showers. Uh I'm a kind of a get-it-done guy, but You know, I um wash cars and we run the dishwasher a lot and it it's just the two of us. But um You know, my water bill during the non-summer months is anywhere from like $250 to $300. We pay quarterly. Oof. Oh, okay, quarterly. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the City of Columbus has a very, very helpful website. They send you an email and they're like, hey, your balance is due. And The helpfulness starts when you get the email and it's like you can pay at this URL and the URL isn't a link. Oh. So that kind of sets the stage. So then you go and you've, you know, if your account is set up, that's fine. You know, setting up your account, it's like you just need a copy of your paper bill, and then you You know, set up your account and verify who you are. And then it comes time to pay your bill. I am not comfortable with government entities saving my payment information. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I don't know. But the only way to make a payment on their website is to first add a funding source, which can be a bank account, a credit card, or a debit card. Then you can set up either auto draft or you can actually pay your bill. So what I usually do is I go in there and when it's time to pay my bill, I add a funding source, usually a credit card. Uh they just recently started accepting Amex, which is my primary credit card. Before I was adding like my uh ACH information, which is like I I just think that's super sketchy, but whatever. So you put that in there and then you're like, okay, I'm gonna pay the bill. You type in the amount. You pick the funding source, you pay it. And then when it posts, I always log back into the website and delete the funding source. Now I'm sure that my information is part of like a SQL Server backup somewhere. Right. Because there's always that lagging period. But the the journey today was I was like, okay, I have like ten minutes before uh me and my friend Paul are gonna record our podcast. So I'm gonna pop over there, I log in, I go to do all my shit, I add my funding source, and I go to pay my bill, and it's like system is processing end-of-day payments. Try again in eight minutes. Uh that's oddly specific. Well, I mean it was like at 752. So I guess that's when they that's when they make the bagels, I guess. Like that's How are you? What's going on with you? You know, just living life. Yeah. Yeah. Living life. Closer, getting closer and closer to Zach's big day. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Uh other big things. Uh my daughter has been well, basically she's she wants to join the high school tennis team. Uh she's been participating in workouts and practices and tryouts over the next two days. So it's a very anxiety-filled uh moment. But yeah. Can I t can I tell you can I tell you a deep, deep, dark secret shame that I have? Yes. What if I told you that I lettered in high school? You lettered in high school. Okay. Uh-huh. In tennis? In tennis. Oh, wow. Wow. I was I was a tennis player. Um So here's a here's a funny story. Where I grew up, um there was like this place in the town that I grew up in called the Mounds. I there might be an actual wiki page for this. Hold on a second. Um The Mounds? The Mounds Uh hold on. I have to I have to update our show notes. This is where we're we're just we're just going up the rules here. Okay. Uh okay. Uh let me see here. Let me see the mounds. Let me see if there's actually That's gonna be hard Google search. Just just you know uh the mounds. Oh, yeah, no, okay. There's so there's totally a thing. Okay. Okay, okay. So uh what this is, oh god, where did our So Where I grew up, there was a place called the Mounds, and there's gonna be a link in the show notes to this. And what it is, is it is an Indian burial ground of all things. Oh. And where so basically uh there's like these just giant domes that are covered with grass. And what it was is back in the day, the Indians basically dug out these Um they dug out from underneath these domes of earth, buried their dead, and sealed them back up. And then over the years, grass grew over them. So then what did the city that I grew up in did? They built like baseball fields and football fields over them America. Yep. Yep. So there is a marker uh by one of the baseball fields. uh that I used to play Little League at that that signifies the location. And you can kind of see in that picture. It's not a great picture. You can kind of see in that picture at the bottom of the bottom of the page. Um what is this? Is this what is this? Mounds Park? Visit website. That doesn't do anything. Washington County, Pennsylvania, stop it. Uh fuck. Monongahela culture is the Monongahela Indians. Anyway, the city of Monongahela that I grew up was made for was named for the Monongahela Indians, and that's that's who's buried there. So Anyway, I say all that to say is that there was like a big park that was built there and there were tennis courts. So when I was growing up in the summertime, uh before we had Nintendo and before we had computers and things like in the internet We used to do all sorts of things. We would go to the baseball fields when there weren't games and we would play like pickup games of like you know, baseball, we would play hockey, we would just kind of run around and be idiots, you know, in in the park there. Uh and there were there were these really nice tennis courts. And they were they were actually nice. They were actually well kept. And my parents had tennis rackets. So just one day, me and my friends just, you know, grabbed some tennis rackets that our parents had, and we just started playing tennis. And like I really liked playing it. So I would be out there, you know, playing and I like taught myself to serve and I watched I watched other people play, like people like adults that played, and I would watch them and I sort of like picked up on like, oh, that's how you keep score and Rem remember, we didn't have the internet. Like I couldn't go I couldn't go Google this. Like I had to learn how w like like the history of tennis and and what it was. And there were kids in the neighborhood like it was a big neighborhood and all the kids that lived around it went to the same school district as me. And like there were a couple kids that were older than me that were on the tennis team and they would see me out there playing and they're like, you should join the tennis team. And I'm like I have never played organized tennis. I have no idea what I'm doing. And they're like, it doesn't matter. You'll learn. And, you know, it I didn't have to try out because there was only like six kids on the tennis team. So uh I my sophomore year I joined the tennis team and I was like an alternate and then my junior year I was part of a doubles team and then my senior year I played uh doubles and I would play a couple singles matches depending on uh who was available to play. Um I wasn't very good. I only won a couple matches. Like the doubles teams that I was on we won a fair amount because that my other teammate carried me. Got it. But but the really funny part was my senior year, or no, my sorry, my junior year, that we had a we had a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands. And this kid was like 6'4 and he like he he was basically a pro. And like he won every match that we played at. And uh yeah, anyway. So I uh that's great. You know, that's cool that your daughter is getting into that. So how did she get into it? Uh she just decided she wanted to play tennis. I don't know. She gets ideas in her heads. Okay, but like tennis doesn't work out, she wants to do ballet, so we'll see. Okay, that's huh. Yeah. Yeah. Don't think about it too much. Nothing. No, I just just that's just she's uh Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to see if I can actually find me on the tennis roster. Hold on a second. I wanna I want to note girls tennis Where's boys tennis? There it is. Boys tennis. Uh no schedule for the 2026 previous year. Oh, oh, how far does this go back? I need to go all the way back to 1994. Nope, it only goes back to 2014. I guess that's when my school finally got the internet. There's gotta be Ringwood High School tennis. Ringle tennis. Nope. That's not even my that's not even my school district. Anyway Okay, well I guarantee like if I would pull out my yearbook, there would be pictures of me in there. But I actually had a letterman jacket with a little tennis pin, and uh everybody made fun of me for that. So does she so okay, uh I I g I g I'm sorry, I have to know more. So did she like buy a tennis racket and everything? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. Now where does she where does she play? There's tennis courts at the high school. So she just goes there and plays with her friends or Well well so they've so okay, so there there's some other tennis courts in Grove City that she'll go in her brother to practice, but What they've been doing is before tryouts, there's uh it's been going on for like, geez, like a month now. Uh, they have they essentially they just call them workouts. And they are optional, but she but basically they go and they like learn tennis. So it's basically practice for the people that want to make sure they try to make the team. Right. So there's been organized stuff and she's been going to all of those. So yeah. There's one tonight. She went she yeah, her the last uh uh the the last uh quote unquote practice before tryouts tomorrow and Saturday. So yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. And uh how does she feel about it? I don't know. I don't know. She's optimistic, but not 100% positive she'll get in. So we'll see. Okay. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. She definitely knows she knows she knows she is not among the the elite. So like we're ba we're aiming for junior junior varsity, not the varsity team. Right. So yeah. Yeah. We do I mean our team wasn't big enough to have it was only varsity. So like junior varsity kids like me were able to walk on. So Um huh. Well, uh, you know, I I'm God, it's been I tried I tried to teach Mandy to play tennis a few years ago, um, and we bought rackets and stuff. Um it was good to get back out there. Uh if she ever wants to like practice and like just have somebody like return serve or just volley with her, let me know. I mean I would I would love to get out there and play tennis again. I used to love to play tennis. Cool, good for her. Why you know good luck. Tell RSX luck. That's awesome. Well well done. Yep. Uh I want to go back to complaining. Okay, I'm I'm ready for this. Okay. Uh I'm about done with one password. Uh on the Mac. Oh really? On the Mac, yes. Uh why? What's wrong with it? So I have so let me say that I've been an avid one password enjoyer and recommender for years now. I still recommend it. I love it on my phone. It works wonderful on my phone. But on my uh but on my Mac Mini. In Safari, it just doesn't fucking work anymore. Or it's very, very spotty. Like it won't auto-complete. It won't unlock with touch ID. It like when I'm using when I'm using my when I'm using the Internet Explorer browser, everything works the way I want it to work. Like it's it pops up, it fills, the extension's fine, everything's good. I did some reading into it. Apparently there's just situations where it sucks. And apparently You can go onto the app store and you can download the previous version of OnePassword. So OnePassword 7, which was like the one before they redid it or whatever. And apparently that fixes everything. Now I haven't taken that step yet. I'm still trying to understand why it's not working. But you are you still using it or are you using Apple Password? No, I use one password. I have it running on three different Macs. We even use it at work. So I have like a work account and a personal account. And it is flawless every time. And on the rare occasion the extension doesn't work, I just hit command Boards backslash? Backslash command backslash and it opens it up and I can search and it does the autofill and it's great. Touch ID works is flawless. Flawless. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with my Mac Mini. Now, here's the thing, and I haven't been able to correlate this to say that this is the problem. But when I first bought my Mac Mini, I did not have Touch ID. So I had a Ray or keyboard and I would type in my password like an animal. Like an animal. And then I got a keyboard with touch ID and I had to like sync it to the Mac and everything. Yeah. And there are still times on my Mac where I go to sign in where it doesn't even give me the option for touch ID. And I don't know if it's because like I'm using a Bluetooth keyboard and like maybe it's laggy or something. So maybe it's tied to a larger issue with just the way my computer's configured right now. I have no idea. But I I've been having so many problems to the point where it's like I'll open a I'll open a website in Safari. The little icon is at the top of my browser. So clearly it c clearly the extension is loaded. And I'll go to sign in and it just it won't autofill or anything. And it works on my PC fine. It works on my phone fine. It works in Internet Explorer on my Mac fine. But for whatever reason, Safari just fucking sucks. I mean, are you still using Safari as your primary browser or no? No. No, no, no. We all know. That I use Arc. So maybe so okay, so we're not really apples to apples then. So I'd be curious I'd be curious to see if your Safari extension works. I don't know. Do I even have to do that? And I know that's I'm asking you to like ditch your hipster browser, but Okay. Okay, I do have the extension installed. So let me just go to someplace where I have to sign in. Let's just let's just go to Google. Log into Gmail. I'm gonna sign in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it plopped right up. Okay. Well, fuck me, I guess. Fuck you. Yep. Yep. Fuck me. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Huh. What so if you you you're gonna try going back to the the w one one password classic? That might be that might be that that might be what I do. I I I continue to get frustrated because like again My Mac is what I I use it at least once a day. I I love my Mac Mini. That's what I do like my email on. That's what I pay all my bills on. Um most of my internet shopping I do on that. I love it. I use it. I also use it for my blogging. I also use it for work kind of like when I need to do uh development that I can't do like on my work computer because of like corporate firewalls and enterprise software. So I I use it a fair amount. And I keep it up to date. And it's just really frustrating when I'm trying to like, okay, I'm gonna log into the City of Columbus website to pay my water bill. And it's just like, oh, I'm not gonna not gonna pop up your password. Open open up the Open up the app and copy and paste it yourself your fucking animal. Yeah, that's no good. And it's just like, come on, man. But you have some good news. I I do have some interesting news. So I'm done complaining for a little bit. Okay. So the other big news this week for me is I am now the proud subscriber to fiber internet service. Welcome to the club. Okay, so let's talk about it. So so here's the thing. The city of Columbus, uh I'm sorry, the city of Dublin, Ohio Way, way back in 2023, announced that they had selected this company called Ultifiber, which is a Cincinnati-based company. That was basically going to be responsible for wiring the entire city of Dublin with a fiber network. It was going to be fiber to every home, was the plan. And uh basically what they did is uh they they gave like a um like a relative time frame to say that this is going to be a three-year project and they're going to um you know do it in phases So if you go to that link and you go to the website, you can there's here, I'll just put this in here. This is probably the best way to do it. Um On the press release, there's also a link that talks about like the schedule about when they're going to bring the different fiber service. And if you look at that map, it's basically like, you know, they're they were doing it in phases, so like phase one, then phase two, and then phase three. And I think technically I live in phase three. So phase three was targeted for 2025. Now You know, every occasionally I would see an Ultafiber truck in Dublin when I was driving around, and I would be like, oh, I should probably check and see like if they're gonna be coming to my neighborhood and I would go to the website and I would check availability and it would say, you know, hey, you don't you don't have availability. So then a couple weeks ago, uh some so I saw some men walking around in my yard. And men. Men. Yeah, men. Men in high visibility vests. And I was like, huh. And they had like the little ground sensing radars out. So I thought maybe it was the city of Dublin was gonna do something because, you know, they're supposed to replace uh the the asphalt on our road in the next year. So they were marking utility lines because there's like a big gas line that runs out the edge of my property. There's some drains and some sewer lines and some water lines and power lines and all this other stuff. And they're out there and they're marking it, whatever. And I didn't think anything of it. So a couple days later, all this heavy machinery shows up in my neighborhood Oh. Yeah. And I I was down in my office and Vito was asleep upstairs. And I I heard this like thud, thud, thud noise from outside. And I'm like, okay, so I go upstairs and I I didn't I don't know how it happened, but there was just a pile of dirt in my yard. Oh. There were like two or three holes dug in my yard. So what they were doing is they were fishing the conduit up and down my entire street. So in my front yard right now, there are two holes dug in my front yard, one at the corner and one at the middle of the yard. In between my house and the neighbors to my left. They dug a much bigger hole and there is like an access panel there. And then all the way down the street on my side of the road, there are holes dug. Occasionally across the street, the houses across the street, there were also holes dug. And they were out there for like a week and they had their machines and they were pulling the conduit through the through everything and then they were backfilling the holes. And I was like, okay, cool. Fiber's coming. And I thought, okay, they're gonna be, you know, they're they're gonna do this and then they have to like terminate all the stuff and install all the hardware. I was like It's nice to see progress, but the they're probably a a little way away from getting me installed. Yeah. So Monday, I walk out to check the mail outside And there's a man in a polo shirt that says Ultafiber walking up and down the street. Oh, he's starting to sell. Yeah, so he he sees me and he walks over and he goes, Hey, you know, I don't know If you've noticed, but we've been installing fiber in your neighborhood. And I'm like, the devil, you say. You don't you don't say, right? So he's like, uh He was like, well, you know, we're starting to sign people up and we're we can have appointments for you here in the, you know, very near future. And I'm like, fuck, let's go. Let's do it. He's like, I was like, well, how soon? He's like, well They just finished pulling the the wires and everything here, you know, uh last week and they can start terminating connections here and you know your house is right next to one of the access panels, so you can be like one of the first ones in the neighborhood. And I like I am right at the entrance of the neighborhood, so I guess that kind of makes sense. So I so he was like, well, here's the options. You can do the 500 meg, you can do the one gig, or the three gig. I'm like, give me the three gig. And he goes, You sure? He goes, like, I appreciate that, but You know, one gig's usually enough for everybody. And I'm like, no, no, I want the three gig. Because it was only like an extra twenty-five bucks a month. So it's it's less than a hundred dollars a month for me for three games. Oh wow, okay. Yeah. It's uh an incredible deal. Incredible deal. So he so he takes all my information and he goes, all right, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go back to my truck and I'm gonna get you scheduled and you're gonna get like an email and a phone call when they're ready to come out. So I'm like, great. And I'm thinking, man, they're probably weeks out of getting people connected and everything, right? Not two hours later I get an email. Hey, your installation date is tomorrow. Oh, wow. Yeah. So the guy the guy showed up at my house. He basically came out. He went into that little access panel between the two houses. Uh he c connected up the wire. He had to drill a hole in the side of my house and fish uh the the wire in And he'd like, you know, he's he came into the house and he's like, Well, where do you want the drop? And I was like, Well, I've got all my networking gear right here. Can you do it here? And he's like, Yeah, no problem So he fished all the wire into the house. He installed the little he like he put the modem on the stud of the wall, because it's gonna stay in the house when we sell it, if we ever sell it. Makes sense. Yeah. And uh there's just basically an Ethernet cable that goes there. And my my particular my particular ubiquity stuff Uh my my port that goes like for the WAN port is a two point five gig Ethernet port. So when I do the speed test on my on my gear, like from from the router, I'm getting roughly two gig down and like 2. 5 gig up right now, which is not free. Not three. But I don't know if you ever really get the max, but Yeah. Yeah, it's all it's all hypothetical, I believe. And like it and it's funny because like when I do when I was doing a speed test when I was on regular broadband I would do a speed test like from my desktop and I would get like five or six hundred down and I would get like twenty-five up. When I when I do a speed test from my desktop now They basically both peg at a at a thousand. Because because here's the thing. I only have I only have one gigabit I have gigabit Ethernet from here to the uh to the router, right? So it's just it's just really funny. Uh but it but it's been seamless. Like I was really surprised at how quickly they were able to get me scheduled. Um You know, like I said, the the speed is really nice. Um I am noticing a difference. I'm glad to be done with Breeze Line I can imagine. Yep. Uh I mean back when they were wide open West, they were great. Uh I was not a fan of the breeze line change, but it is what it is. Uh yeah, no, it's it's great. I'm so glad to finally have uh fiber internet. So how long have you had it? Oh geez, I've had it for about four four years, I think. Who's your umger? Uh so it is a company called Point Broadband. Okay. They acquired the company that originally laid the fiber. They were called they were uh IntelliWave. They got bought out entirely. But when they were, you know, building all the houses out here, uh IntelliWave, what they used to do is they did uh like point-to-point uh wireless for people out in the suburbs who can't get or like people out on a farm in the middle of the nowhere that can't get like you know, like uh Spectrum's never gonna pull a cable to them, right? So they get shitty wa wa uh wireless internet. But they were smart when all these houses were being built and all the infrastructure was coming in, they basically said like, hey Uh we'll if you let us, we'll pull K we'll pull fiber when you pull all the power lines through. And then we just have to go, you know, and they basically just have to do the you know house-to-house installation. And it did take them about like a year after our house was built for them to get everything. Like they had ru they had run the the fiber, but nothing was hooked up. Took him about a year to get all that done. And then I switched over as soon as as soon as I got something in the mail saying, hey, it's finally time you have fiber. I call I called right away. It was like, yep, let's do this. No more spectrum for me. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And I ha I just they only offer uh like a gigabit out here. So I have the the gigabit symmetrical. Yeah. A static IP address, but yeah. Oh, I don't even know if they offer that for me. But I do I do dynamic DNS for everything. Yeah. Um I had to do that. The only way so basically, like their private IP address is also shorthand for Uh we don't have our firewall blocking incoming traffic. So like at the time at the time I was really big into uh like Plex remote sharing. And that wouldn't work unless I get a private A pub uh static IP address. So I even though I really don't do that anymore, I still pay for it 'cause At this point, like I you I I I can I could I could pick my IP address out of a lineup, you know? Like I know, oh that's me. Yep, yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well that's cool. Yeah, so this is this is three gig symmetrical. Um you know I have not come close to pushing it yet. Um I'm gonna try to do maybe some streaming tomorrow where I adjust some of my outbound streaming. settings to see if I can upload quality now that I have the extra bandwidth. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be that'll be interesting to see because I think that's where I'll see the biggest difference. Um, but yeah, it's great. I'm so glad that the city invested in this and you know, it's just it's really good to live in Dublin. I I mean the price the price is unbelievable. I mean A hundred bucks, you know, I I mean, if if I don't end up ever touching three gigs, I'll just downgrade to the one gig and save an extra twenty five bucks a month. But still They don't you know it's I'm doing the what they call the bringing your own gateway options. So I have like the modem they installed is it's their equipment and I don't pay for it. It's part of the house now. Right. It's kind of like a water meter or a gas meter. It's just it's just infrastructure that is owned by them that lives in my house. And they they don't charge me a monthly fee for it. Like, you know, when you get a router or a modem from like your cable company, you have to pay like a monthly fee for that. Right. Um there there's no charge on my bill for that. So I have to bring your own gateway option, which is like, you know, it's it's literally just an Ethernet port. There's no router. Right. It's just literally just an Ethernet port. Yeah, all I have is like the fiber comes into the house, goes into a box, and then Ethernet's on the other side. Like that's all I have. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you need to now they they have that. Like if you need that, like you can you can get that and they charge you. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah, no, it's it's it's been great. And like I said, the the guy the guy was super nice that did it and he put the he put the drop exactly where I wanted it and everything is everything's super great. So yeah, it's it's good to finally be part of the fiber club. Uh and it's it's just funny because all of my friends that live in POW or Hilliard have had fiber for a while now. Like I know Frontier is over in POW, and then there's AT<unk>T, I think, is down in Hilliard. So uh people have been using that for a while now. So it's finally good to join the club. And it's funny too because I was talking to the guys he was installing it. So like Alta Fiber is the Cincinnati company. Literally every worker is from like Cincinnati. And like they they basically have been living out of hotels up here for this entire project. So I feel kind of bad for the guy. But I mean Cincinnati's not that far away. It's like you go home for the weekend or whatever. But still being up here all week in Dublin. All right. Let's let's talk about something you want to talk about. Yeah. Uh I pre-ordered something, Drew. Let's take a look at it. I didn't click on it yet. Okay, okay, okay. This is like I'm I can't wait for this. I cannot wait for this. Okay. Oh boy. I'm looking at the Onyx sugar. It no, it's well that technically it's the 1x sugar. It's okay. It's 1x sugar by a company called 1x Player. Yeah, yep. First dual screen transformable what is this kerning on this font? Yeah, I don't I don't know. What is that? Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's it's pretty bad. Sorry. Uh what can you use your data for? No, don't I don't want I don't want any of my data. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. I already have email aids. Um Okay. Onyx Sugar first dual screen transformable handheld. Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 versatile transforming modes. Mm-hmm. Uh grip it and game on. Mm-hmm. Game on. Okay. Grip it and game on. Okay. So Help help. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So the the the latest kind of trend and handheld gaming devices targeted to emulation is dual screen devices. They're just now starting to kind of come out. And obviously with the dual screen devices, the target platforms that they are Nintendo DS or you know two or th their 3DS and the three, you know, the the DS. The DS and the three DS, right? That that that style, the their Nintendo's dual screen Game Boy, you know, things Uh what the One X Sugar tr is trying to do is it's trying to give you all of the options. Okay, so it is it is an Android handheld. Uh it is packing uh the Snapdragon G3 Gen 3, which is the Snapdragon chip that's basically optimized for gaming. So it's but by f this is gonna be by far the most powerful non-PC handheld I own. Okay. Most powerful arm-based one. And uh they they they just went absolutely bonkers with it. So it's got uh it's got these these these modes, but basically I'm gonna I'm going to ignore one of them and I'm gonna talk about just three modes. So The first mode, it looks like just a regular handheld. You've got a screen in the middle, you've got uh uh a D-pad on the left of a thumbstick and a other thumbstick on the right with other buttons. And it's uh uh I don't know how big the the screen is, but it's a normal, I think it's actually thick it's 16 by 10. So, you know, it's a typical widescreen interface. It's OLED, it's all it's all real nice. But then on the back, it's got another screen that you could fold up. So you can hold it in the same way and have a screen above. So you're gonna have two screens. And the second screen is a little bit smaller. It's more four by three. It's still OLED. It's still the high quality screen. Uh but when this thing gets really crazy is uh The where the controllers are, they're on a hinge. So you can take them and flip them and make it so the big screen is on top and the little screen is on the bottom, and the controls are then by the little screen, and that's your like 3DS, 2DS mode. It is coming out in September. They have set, they're not the final devices, but they sent kind of like a like You know, proof of con like, you know, or they're prototypes, they're prototypes, they're prototypes to a bunch of uh different reviewers. And uh While there is some question about there's there's a couple things that that hold people a little bit up. One, it's heavy, obvious. Got two screens, it's got hinges, it's crazy, it's an aluminum frame, it's it's nuts, it's it's heavy. Uh And sometimes the erg not some some people were like, this is really comfortable to hold, and some people were like the ergonomics suck, which I get it. It's weird. Uh the other thing that's kind of weird about it is uh so Since the controllers kind of like rotate and flip, so sometimes like the thumbsticks are on the top and sometimes they're on the bottom. Uh so that the the the buttons, the the face buttons, which also uh uh act as a d pad. They don't have any sym they don't have like A, B, X, Y on them. They just have generic symbols because things can flip. Uh what they also have is this little magnetic D-pad that you can kind of like slap on the face buttons to turn it into a like a real d-pad. quote unquote real d-pad. And apparently that's a little uh not great if you're like really like trying to play like really kind of twitchy games, maybe like Contra or something like that, where you really need pre precise D-pad control Uh but this it's this it's and it's okay, right if you back it right now on Indiegogo, it's $600. They keep threatening to raise the price to $800 So obviously get in now, save 200 bucks. Uh and I have I had heard about this vaguely from, you know, because I'm plugged into the handheld community. I listen to podcasts. I read, you know, I watch YouTube videos. I read shit. I had heard this was coming. And I was aware of 1X Sugar because they make other What I le heard about them for is they make kind of like uh all-in-one self-enclosed EGPUs. They also make like some gaming laptops and some gaming hand handhelds and stuff like that. So they've been producing real equipment for quite a long time. So they're not like a new company. They know how to make stuff. Uh and then when it finally hit Indiegogo, I watched my first video. It was uh Russ on Retro Game Corp. He kind of showed it out and I'm like I'm gonna order that. Uh so I did. I I I I I backed that thing almost uh almost immediately. So uh Yeah, I'm kind of excited for this stupid, ugly, transforming handheld. I'm gonna play all sorts of 3DS games on this thing Okay. Mm-hmm. All right. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep. Uh look. I s I I assume that you've also just immediately saw this and have backed. Because who wouldn't? Mm-hmm There'll there'll be a picture of this thing in your podcast player right now too, so you can just look at that thing and see how uh Barkers and there's there there's a couple things here. Um So it's $600. Yes. Yes. Early bird pricing six hundred dollars. Yes. I'm assuming it will be eight hundred dollars. Mm-hmm. What'd you get? White or black? White. We don't learn our lesson, do we? No, we don't. I just I just I I saw the white and I don't something about it just struck me as like, yeah, I want the white one. I want the white one. Did you Okay. So apparently And this is gonna kind of let me like kind of wade into the pool of all the things I'm gonna talk about about this. Okay. Did you get the grips? So w when I ordered it, the grips were not available. Now the the the so the the the thing that I actually picked is no longer available on Indiegogo The one I picked also comes with like a silicone like case for it, which I'll probably never use. But no, I have I have not ordered the grips. I don't know whether I'm going to add them to my my Uh in fact I just got the email about the grips like today or yesterday, so I think they're relatively new. Uh probably in some feedback to people saying that it's maybe not the eas like the best thing to hold. So they're like, we'll just print some plastic things you can snap onto them and get the grips, but as of now, no grips. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Buddy, this thing looks interesting. It sure does. That's a that's a strong word for it. Interesting. I think I I say stupid. But okay, so mode one horizontal game horizontal gaming. For those of you listening at home, if you've ever seen a Steam Deck Yeah. It's not that far off. There's a big, big, nice wide screen in the middle. It's about the size of a switch in that mode. Yes. Okay. And then you got mode two, and this is where things start to fall apart for me a little bit. So it looks like you take the controllers and there's apparently Some sort of hinge. Yes. It's almost like you rotate the device 180 degrees, you flip those controllers up, and now you're holding onto two little paddles with a screen on the other end. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I think the real thing that we need to be careful about there is where's the center of gravity on that bit? Yeah, I don't sure I'd use that particular mode, but that's okay. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And then you got mode three, which is, like you said, kind of the the three D S type thing where you've got Now, here's the interesting thing. It's got the wider screen on top, it's got the smaller screen underneath, and the controls are right side by side. Yes. I that kind of fucks. Like I like the way that looks. I think this is that mode is primarily what I am buying it for. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm I'm on board. And then you got mode four. Yeah. And mode four is a lot like mode one, except now you got a little screen sticking out of the top. Mm-hmm. Yep. Top bottom display. Mode three is dual screen A folding standing. Folded standing. And mode four is dual screen B top bottom display. Yes, yes. Yep. So like the the the the examples I have seen there is uh well primarily is people watching YouTube on that top screen where they're playing a game on the regular screen. Or they have a guide open or something. Yeah. Oh, so that's a possibility with this? Yes, absolutely. Because Android fully supports dual-screen devices or multiple screen devices. So you can have different apps running. You can have like a browser open O top. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Or you could be playing like a classic four by three game on the top screen and have your browser open on the bottom screen. Or watch porn on the bottom screen while you you play Metroid. I don't know. Whatever you want to do. Universal emulation, stream seamlessly, instantly switch between PC and handheld. So you can stream from your computer to this? You gotta install some shitty software? Yeah, you can install something like Moonlight or something, whatever. Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh no, okay. Now I see now I see towards further down what you're talking about there. Yeah. Man, that thing is Thick. It's big. It's big. Yep. Yep. Yep. And it's got and it's got magnets so everything snaps in the place. Yeah, it's thick. It's she she thick. She thick. Reliable hinge design. And the and the reason why they kind of say that it it's thick is like the the core of it is an aluminum frame and and all the hinges and stuff attached to that. So There's there's that you know And it's touchscreen. It's yeah both are touchscreen. Uh there's been so I think one of the reasons why it's she that she be so thick There's been a lot of flip style handhelds, right? So like it closed with like a clamshell. And there's always YouTube videos of people like on the first day saying like My hinge is broke. Right? That's a very big thing, is people making these cheap devices. You spend eighty dollars and your hinge breaks in in two weeks. So I think they went they went the total opposite and they're And we're like, yeah, we tried to make this as is because it's got a lot of moving parts, they'll be honest. Like there's a lot of hinges, there's a lot of shit moving around. Uh Yeah, so they tried to make it uh as as uh solid as they could. So yeah. Okay, so uh now if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you love You love, love, love rainbow LEDs. I sure do. Love them so much. RGB joystick ring, style meets power, power ring indicator, feel the battle vibes It's inspired by mecha dashboards, this glowing ring breeze life into your console. Light up light up to instantly show battery status and charging progress. Signature tin box. Oh, okay. It comes in a little tin box. Oh, very nice, very nice. Yes. Okay. Okay, front, back. Up, down, left, right. So I gotta be honest I kind of dig it.

Paul 43:48

Yeah. I wasn't sure at first.

Drew 43:53

You're making a lot of good points here. Mm-hmm. $600 though. I know, I know. It's not it's not it's uh not cheap. Uh but uh I you know I I'm I'm I haven't done a lot of like two DS, three DS emulation one it is totally possible but usually it's like a you know like the second screen is much smaller and you have to hit a touch uh you know uh like a you know uh You know, you have to hit a series of buttons to switch the screens over and and but this is like this is this is this is being able to emulate that and this is this is throwing by the second. This is it this is it's throwing on me by the second. Yeah. Uh if you're on the fence, uh I mean there's various YouTube videos of the the one that I the one that I think is probably the most like Optimistic to see if I can find it is from The Verge. I love the I love me some Verge. I'm gonna put a hot verge link in here. Uh Oh wow, they have a silicone case. Yeah, that's what I the silicone case is came with what I ordered. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so hopefully it's gonna be shipping in September. So yeah. Yeah. Pre-applied screen protectors. What? Yeah, whatever. Who cares? When do they so if I were to back this, when do they actually charge me? Uh I don't know at time of backing or when it ships. I don't think I've been charged yet. I think it's I think it's like Kickstarter when it when like it like the when the campaign ends, but I could be wrong about that. I don't know. Let me look in my credit card. Transactions. Let's see, when did I Silicon case is only fifteen bucks and then the protective case, I guess, is the carrying case. Yeah, I I don't know. Yeah. A hard shell carrying case for nine dollars? I mean it's not to. Uh I don't think I've been charged yet. Ooh, this is dangerous, buddy. Proceed to checkout. Um Okay, let's see. Let's find my email. When did I back one X sugar? When did I order? Your total savings. It's okay. It says submit payment though. Yeah, I had to put in payment information. Yeah. I don't think it actually charged me yet. Indiegogo. Let's see. I don't kind of thanks for backing 1X Sugar. So it was on July 21st. So let me let me uh this is very exciting, everyone watching me, listening to me, look at my credit card app. Nope, they did charge me right away. Yep. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Man. I it's also one of those things when you go through the process, you're suddenly paying in Hong Kong dollars just so just so you know. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then it it all works it all works itself out. So yeah, yeah.

Paul 47:10

Mm-hmm.

Drew 47:11

Mm-hmm. I mean, that's saying also just also to say, the the G3 Gen three, horrible name. But that Snapdragon processor is extremely good. Like you're not gonna have any issues. Like I saw they were I saw people doing like GameCube at 3x resolution and it was flawless. So It's it's it is a very it is a very uh competent processor. Okay Man, you're making making all the right points here, man. Just saying, just saying. You could be a cool kid like me. I mean it it's it it okay, yeah, it does I mean I I'm gonna be honest, it does look fucking stupid. But it also looks awesome. So so it's it's it's it's it's it's that thing there. I mean if you have this out in public, you are going to get looks. That's that's just that's just how it is. Mm-hmm Think s t sleep on it Drew sleep on it sleep on it Sleep on it. Don't do it now. Sleep on it. Sleep on it. Uh I kinda wanna Okay then then do it. Do it do it White or black. White or black. Oh black. No. Okay. I'm done. I'm done with white stuff, man. I'm I'm a I'm actually I'm actually a little Same divorce You you should know better. I should know better, but I I just I I gave it. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do the white one. All the other shit I own is black. Come on. What something else with a little bit a little bit uh I mean I get it. I mean it's not like I can't like actually touch four or five different handheld devices from where I'm sitting without getting out of my chair. It's not like I need one more, but I ordered one more Because I'm sick, Drew. I'm sick Well no, if it makes you happy, you should do it.

Paul 49:14

Mm-hmm.

Drew 49:15

Huh. Okay. Mm-hmm. Well, September, huh? Yep, yep. I'm be here before you know it. It will be. It's uh tomorrow's August. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Man, why do you do this to me? I'm just I'm just I'm just sharing you little little little bits of uh my life. And part of my life is collecting handheld gaming devices. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh. Okay. I gotta stop looking at this thing because I'm gonna I'm gonna fucking buy it. All right. So uh first of all, happy for you. Last thing I want to mention here is Have you been following the Asus Rog Xbox ally stuff? Yeah, yes, yes, yes. In fact, like the the first of the AMD Z2 Extreme chips but that the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, whatever the fuck it's called, is gonna have. uh the like the MS the the horribly named like MS Claw 8 AI uh is got released in China and people have like exported it and have started bench benchmarking that processor. So yes it makes me it's very excited. It looks like you know it's it's a pretty good bump over the the existing uh AMD chips. A thousand dollar handheld though. Yeah, yeah Yes, a thousand dollar handheld. Yes, yes, yes. All to run all to run windows. Yeah. I I am not going to I'm not saying I'm not going to order it because I might. I'm really going to wait and until people get their hands on because this is the device is supposed to have the quote unquote stripped down version of Windows optimized for handheld gate excuse me oh geez I got the hiccups. That's really that's awkward for a podcast. Some people were into that, I'm sure. I'm sure someone's kink like some somebody is jorking it. Oh Yeah, uh I really want to hear what that experience is like. Uh But we'll we'll s we'll see. We'll see. I'm you know I I I don't I don't need it, but I'm I'm cautiously optimistic. Uh Like I said, that the processor that comes with it is is looks like it's that is really going to be really good. So if people start talking and or you know I mean I'm sure I can put Steam on it, Steam OS on it if I wanted to as well, so Yep In fact, that's what I'm still rocking on my original ROG Ally X is. I just run I just have Bazite running on that thing and it's great. It's great. Yeah. Yep, and the the official SteamOS distribution is getting really close to being feature complete for these devices as well. So Oh really? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's already out. You the Legion Go S, I believe, is you can already order that with SteamOS on it. uh like you know from the manufacturer. Uh so you and there's there's a beta channel of Steam OS that you can already install on like the the the the regular Legion Go and the the ROG allies. stuff like that. It's just not a hundred percent feature complete yet. It's getting better all the time, but yeah. Okay. Well Uh I'm really anxious for you to get both of these because I I know you will probably order one. We'll see. Probably. You're a big you're a big handheld gaming guy these days. I am. You don't you don't feel like you're cheating on your PlayStation with that? No, I don't. I don't. I mean, I still love my PlayStation. I still go to that for for, you know, like You know, it's it's my it's my triple A gaming device, but you know, if I just want to putz around in game like Dredge or uh lam uh caught of the lamb or or heck even even some Diablo 4 in that thing. Uh I just grabbed my RJ L A X and it's great. Yeah. Mm-hmm All right. Well, can I talk about something I bought? Absolutely. Okay. So uh regular listeners to this podcast will know that I am a firearms enjoyer. And one thing that I so let me back up. So one of the areas that I've invested in over the past couple years is I've been buying suppressors for guns. And that is a that's a whole process. And you can go back and listen to previous podcasts, or you could just Google National Firearms Act and the hoops you have to jump through to buy a suppressor. I'm not here to debate whether or not the NFA is is valid or not, or if it's good or if it's bad, or if you know suppressors are like an evil thing that people shouldn't have. Uh side note, the big beautiful bill uh that apparently passed, um, one of the things that was tucked inside of there is uh somebody tucked into that bill uh what is known as the Hearing Protection Act. And essentially, as part of that, the $200 fee that you have to pay the government for the privilege of asking them if you can own one of these things is going to go away. Oh, okay So now you still have to do you still have to do the paperwork. You still have to do the paperwork but the tax stamp Which is the $200 fee for an item that falls under the National Firearms Act, is going to go away January 1st. I'm I'm ambivalent about that. Um I will say that uh, you know, look, $200 is a lot of money. Especially for people who are, you know, maybe just getting into this or people like me who have a lot of these devices that fall under the National Firearms Act. And uh if I want to transfer those into like a gun trust, I would have to pay that fee again to do it. So when January 1st rolls around, if you know, if that all comes to fruition and it looks like it will, I will probably transfer some of these things into like an actual NFA trust. Uh, so that there's like lineage and succession planning and things that happen if I were to like die. But anyway, that that was really interesting. But The one thing that I am sort of doing now is I'm starting to investigate short-barreled rifles. So we talked about this a little bit before because I've already gone through this process with one of my firearms. When I bought my HK SP5, which is like the civilian version of the Heckler and Coke MP5, it's a nine millimeter pistol pistol caliber carbine. I wanted to put a folding stock on it. That transition that That reclassifies it from a pistol to a rifle because the barrel is short and it has a stock. That is an NFA item. You have to go through the whole process. There's a different form you fill out for that versus a suppressor. Because you're technically in the letter of the law building a gun and not buying an NFA item like a suppressor. So anyway. I've been I've been on a quest to build a new short-barreled rifle that's actual rifle caliber. And, you know, I've been sort of exploring different options, different calibers, you know, what do I want to use this for? Like what's kind of the goal of it? Like How do I see this playing out? And I looked at buying a whole new gun and what that would cost, you know, for what I wanted and everything. And then I kind of took a step back and I said, why don't I just modify one of the guns that I have? So that's what I'm ending up doing. And it's it's a really straightforward process. So like if you want to do this to a gun and you want to turn it into a short short-barreled rifle. What you basically have to do is you have to, you know, you have to have the appropriate paperwork. And there are websites that can help you do this electronically now. You basically have to, you know, you basically have to tell them like, here's the gun that I want to modify, here's the serial number. Here's any other engravings on the gun that help identify it. Here is the current length of the barrel for the current length of the rifle from barrel to butt. And here will be the new dimensions after I modify it. So you have to submit all that information. You have to wait. It took it took my clearance to be about four days. Then you sort of have permission to do the change. And we talked about this before too, where like There's nothing stopping me from ordering parts or taking a uh an axle grinder to my barrel to cut it in half, right? Before I before I get permission. But technically you're breaking the law if you do that. So My thing was I was going to submit all the paperwork, get it all approved, and then and then order parts or, you know, to take it to a gunsmith and have it done. So one of the guns that I own is an FNHL SCAR-16. Now, this is a really interesting gun Also, I'm just gonna drop this in here because I I I I forgot about this last time. I love this. Uh one of one of my uh maybe Top twenty favorite bands, Ouija dude, they have a s they have a song called F and Scar sixteen. So there you go. Oh really Yeah. Okay, I have to look at it. Pro this weapon. Done. So this is so this is this is a very interesting weapon with with a lot of history. So Uh what it was is it was a rifle that was built uh and submitted to militaries around the world to basically say, hey, this is a uh a rifle that shoots the popular 556x45mm NATO cartridge. Uh it is a lot of polymer, it is, you know, the lower end of it is polymer, it's got a folding stock, it's got a short stroke gas system It's reliable, it supports caliber changes, it supports barrel changes very easily, and I'll sort of get into that in a minute. And it's you know it's just it's just a really well-constructed firearm. It ultimately didn't win any contracts with the US military, although there are certain units that use variants of the SCAR platform because Again, because this is a multicaliber weapon, you can get it in 556, which is the you know traditional military round. You can get it in 308, which is 762. Which is the you know heavier round. And then you can also get the SCAR20, which is a 20-inch barrel, like really, really nice uh semi-automatic weapon for longer distance shooting, which I you know people who know me know that I'm into that and you can get it in a caliber called 65 Creedmoor. So this is a really very really really versatile platform. But if you go to that link, I want you to look at that gun real quick. Okay. And I I want you to tell me what you notice about that gun. What do I notice about that gun? Yeah, like what really jumps out at you at that gun? It's kind of pretty. Sorry. It is. It is. It is. It is a very, very it is a very, very distinct rifle. Yeah. Yeah. What else did you say? Um I I don't I don't don't I I d I don't know. I don't know what you want me to want me to look for. So the barrel. Okay. The barrel No, it's actually kind of wrong. So the picture the picture you're looking at there when you go to that website is the factory configuration of the civilian model, which comes with a 16-inch barrel. Now there's what you need to hence F. That's the scar 16. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Uh no, no? No. No. There's the scar six. There's the scar fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and twenty. It has to do with the with the base caliber. And length of the gun. The SCAR fifteen is technically an SBR off the shelf, whereas the SCAR-16 is not. So that's a 16-inch barrel. So that's the thing about this gun. So like if you look at it What you sort of need to look at is where the magazine goes into the lower receiver of the gun and like you can sort of draw an imaginary line from right there to the end of the barrel, and that's 16 inches. Okay So when you're holding that, that barrel extends a pretty good distance away from the hand guard, which is where your you know your non-dominant hand would hold the rifle. So it's really long. Now remember too that I'm a big suppressor boy, so I'm adding seven or eight more inches on top of that. So when I so when I modified my existing scar to accept a suppressor, it was a little unwieldy Right, it it added a lot of weight to the front of the rifle. And if I want to mount an accessory like a flashlight or something on it, it it really was uncomfortably long to navigate with. So after doing the research on turning things into short-barreled rifles, I said, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna shorten the length of my scar. And because this is a multicaliber quick barrel change weapon, you can actually buy entire barrel assemblies for the gun. So if you go to that link, you'll see that FN basically sells a 10-inch barrel. And you can and you can see right now. So if you compare that picture to the picture that was there before. What you're basically looking at, even though it's pointed to the left and to the right, is you have the muzzle device, which it comes with a flash hider Then you have that silver piece, which is the gas block, which is what captures the gas to, you know, send the gas back into the gun to cycle it to get the load the next round. Then you have the rest of the barrel that goes back to the muzzle. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's a that's a lot shorter. It's a lot shorter. It's exactly six inches shorter. Yeah. So again, the nice thing is that the scar is designed to be a quick barrel change weapon. So if you look at the other picture, right, if you look at the gun, again, just above the magazine, out of the right in front of where the shells pop out of it. There's like this little nub that has two screws in it. So if you want to change the barrel on a scar, all you have to do is get a T25 hex bolt Loosen those, slide the barrel assembly out, slide the new barrel in, retorque those screws to 62 inch pounds, and you're fucking ready to go. That's it. Yeah, you can even see like on the in the the picture of the the the barrel where those would go into. Yeah. Yep. So those lugs those lugs get accepted. They all The tolerances are there. So then what you can kind of think about is so imagine that other picture now where the muzzle device is basically right up against the gas block. And that's essentially what I did. So once I got my approval, I was able to buy that barrel assembly. And I did not buy it directly from FN because they want to charge you $1,500 for that. Um I but I got it. I got it for less than that. You can find retailers online and sell it for less than that, brand new. Um, but it came in the mail, and then you know, there's a whole process that I have to go through. So like I went over to my buddy's house and he He's also big into uh, let's call it the lifestyle. So he has he has a lot of tools and things that I don't have. So we were able to take the existing muzzle device off, and I had to put a different muzzle device on that could accept my suppressor. But I wasn't done yet. So the other thing that you probably notice about that gun is that at the 3, 6, and 9 o'clock position, there are rails. And you can actually see this in the picture of the barrel, right? Like the 10-inch barrel. You kind of see how it has that like that that toothy pattern at the bottom of the barrel. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what you mount accessories to. So like if you have like a vertical foregrip or a flashlight or a bipod or something, like that's what you put that on. One of the knocks against the SCAR platform is that a lot of other weapons manufacturers have moved away from this type of rail system. The more common thing they use now is this is this uh technology called MLOck. And what MLOck is, is it's a different way to mount accessories to the gun. And again, what what what FN what FN Hurstel gets a lot, and it's it stands for Fabrique Nationale. It's a Belgian-based company. They they have uh sort of refused to adopt anything but Picatinny Rail. Now The top rail of the gun is also Picatinny rail, but that's kind of common because a lot of optics and scopes have to mount to that type of interface. But those side rails are very, very jagged, right? Because if again, if you're looking at that picture of the barrel, you can kind of see that like there's the there's the the actual rail But there's like a groove. So the way that accessories attach to that is they sort of clamp onto it. So there's like little things that go in between those little teeth, and then some sort of tightening screw that tightens it to the rail. But when you have your hand on that, it's not very comfortable. It's not it's not a it's it's not a round surface. It's it's it's very angular, it's very, very hard to hold. Now you can get the things that clip onto it that make it a little easier to grab. But again, FN hasn't really adopted this whole M-Lock mentality that the rest of the every single manufacturer of firearms seems to go to now. So, in addition to doing all that, I bought some other accessories for it. So, one of the other things that I did is I bought some some parts from this company called Parker Mountain Machine. And I want to give them a shout-out because they're great. Uh they're one of the renowned manufacturers of basically bespoke parts for FN Hurstel firearms. So What that what I linked you to there is basically a lower rail panel that replaces that Picatinny rail on the bottom of the barrel. And you can see right away that it's it's very round, it's smooth, it's aluminum, and it accepts the MLOC interface. So now all the accessories that I have for my other guns that mount MLOC can now attach to this gun. Now that requires some additional gunsmithing. Um I had to use a blowtorch. Ooh, fancy. Yeah, so basically the screws that hold in that Picatinny rail on the bottom were like red loctite in and you have to like heat them up and then loosen the screws. It's it's a whole thing. Um they also make rail elimination panels for the side of the gun. I also invested in some of those. And I can probably send you a picture that you can use for show art that shows what my gun looks like now. But I have those on there as well And again, they make they make really good stuff. I mean, they're machined really well and they're designed to to go onto the gun. And uh it's really good. It is really transformed the way the gun feels, how much it weighs. I could still mount the suppressor to it perfectly fine. So basically now with the suppressor it's still shorter than the gun without the suppressor before. So I've re I'm really happy with this. I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet. I'm gonna probably take it out Friday afternoon and just make sure that it doesn't explode. Um or Parts don't go flying everywhere, which you know that would be kind of a bad day. That would be a bad day, yeah. Yeah. Oh. Um, but yeah, so that that's been my quest for the past few weeks. This has been something I've been working on for a little bit now. Um, I'm really happy with it. It feels really good. And I'm actually taking a class this Saturday where I will really kind of not abuse it, but I'll get to really put it through its paces and um it's like a it's like a practical shooting course. Um I like to do those from time to time because I'll uh You know, unlike going to the shooting range where you just kind of shit you know sit there and shoot, um, this gives you the opportunity to move and shoot, and there's like courses of fire. It's kind of like doing a three-gun competition. In fact, we're We're sort of getting into that season now where I'll be doing more and more shooting competitions. Which uh leads me to the last topic I have for the night. And it's it's a great opportunity for you to laugh at me some more. Okay, I can't wait. Yep. Uh so a while ago I talked about it. Did you buy did you buy some more tactical clothing? I did buy some more tactical clothing. Let's not bury the lead. Okay. So uh so like for this class coming up Mm-hmm. There's requirements, right? So like in the email, it's like, hey, you're we expect to shoot this many rounds. So make sure you bring enough ammo. And it's like, you know, we're gonna be going through courses of fire where you'll need to reload in between. So make sure you bring like a mag carrier or, you know, wear cargo pants so you can tuck extra mags in your pockets or something like that. Now, when I've done shooting competitions in the past, especially pistol competitions, usually what I do is I just wear a regular belt. And I bought these, I mean, they weren't cheap, but they're not like nice, like these magazine carriers for pistol magazines that just like clip onto your belt. So like you put your belt on and then you slide these things into the belt. Okay. It dead dead simple. It works. It's fine. Um but now that I'm doing more shooting and classes and with the competitive stuff coming up over the next couple months, once we get into fall. I wanted to invest in what is known as a battle belt. Excuse me? Yeah. I I don't want to hear it from you because you have a battle, you have a battle vest, right? I don't I I don't want to hear that. A battle b a battle belt. Okay. So so click on that link. So I end up going with a company called GBRS. And versus what color? What color? I went with the coyote brown. Okay, okay. It was between that or the olive drab. I went with the coyote brown. Because I have a lot of things that are brown, like my my recently modified FN scar. So if you if you click on one of those pictures. Some of the pictures have two belts showing in them. I'll kind of explain that in a second. But click a little bit further to the right where you can see the belt without the other belt. Yep. So what this is, is this is a really well constructed uh belt that's made out of nylon and velcro and has a really, really nice uh clasp on the front that it's not it's not fucking going anywhere, right? And it's it's built on the principle of MOLLY, uh so MOLLY M-O-L-L-E, which stands for, oh God, I modular um Uh what's it what's it uh modular lightweight load carrying equipment. So the idea is that you mount accessories by basically Taking the accessory, and it's kind of hard to tell from some of the pictures. You kind of have to scroll a little bit to the right again to go through there But those but those little squares that are separated by those other panels are are basically loops. So when you want to attach something to this, what you do is you you get the pouch and this company also sells pouches that hold like magazines for assault rifles or for pistols or whatever. So you sort of thread them through the top of the loop. It goes through that windowed panel in the middle and then out the bottom and then they'll be like Clasp or some other retaining feature that basically secures it to the belt. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, well, okay, so do you put this belt through regular belt loops? And the answer is no. So if you go Yeah, so so the way it works is it has an outer belt and an inner belt. So if you go back to the very, very first picture there, you'll see that there's like this basically strip of Velcro. Right? The way it works is that's what goes through your belt loops. And then the battle belt secures to that around your waist. Okay. So when you need to get all your gear off, you don't have to take all that shit off. You literally just like kind of rip your belt off. And like your gear Your pants and your pants don't fall off. Yeah, your pants don't fall off. And and like unlike when I use my other mag carriers, if I wanna take my belt off, I gotta like take all that shit off first and then take my belt off, right? So this is an easy way to mount a lot of accessories to your belt and then still give you the flexibility to have like different pouches or different equipment that's right around your waist so that you can, you know, do what you need to do for some of these shooting competitions. So what do you mount to this thing? So there's like a whole bunch of different stuff. I think the easiest way to do it is just to show you this page. Um, so if you go there, that's all the different pouches that they make. But literally, Molly is a system where you could order this from anybody, right? So What I ended up ordering is a set of the double rifle magazine pouches. And if you look at it, it gives you a really good example of what actually goes through the belt. So yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like that's that's what goes through there. And there's on the double mag carrier, there's four. Four. Right? So it's like That has to go through four loops and your belt is circular, right? So it it kind of really keeps it in shape and in form around your belt. So that can carry two magazines, right? So I ordered one of those, and then I also got um the double pistol magazine pouch. So again, in coyote brown, that also goes on the belt. Uh again, same thing. It's just that you know I I basically the way that I have my belt set up is I put the belt on right Right near the front left, I have the pistol magazine pouch, and then a little further behind me, I have the magazines for the rifle. And then on the right hand side. I bought a really nice system. I think I got it from these guys. Um, let's see here. Oh, I thought I did. Did I not order it from them? Um, mounts? Let's see here. Let me find it real quick. I thought I ordered it from these guys. Bundles. Hmm. I thought I ordered it from these guys. Maybe I didn't. Belt Uh what's included pairs well with hm Did I not do it? Hang on. I'm actually like pissed now because I can't find the thing I wanted to show you because this part's really cool. Holsters? No Mounts, medical pouches, slings, tools, and accessories. Um Man, hmm, this is unfortunate. I thought maybe they ran out of it? Huh. Oh here, I'll find another link. So True Nor what's it called? True North uh holster Let's see, True North modular holster adapter. So I bought one of these two. Um, and this again attaches to the belt. It is called a True North uh holster adapter. And what this is, is it's like a universal holster adapter, uh, and I got this in black, that again clips to your belt and it ex it accepts basically every manufacturer's holster mounting hardware. And uh like I really like there's a company called Safari Land that makes really good holsters and they make a a system that has like a quick detach thing. So the way that I have this set up is that I have this attached to my belt. And then screwed into this, I have the quick release system for various holsters that I own. So when I want to change which gun and you know which holster I want to run on my belt, all I have to do is basically use the quick release system that's mounted to this and swap out the holster. It's it's it's a really slick system. Um and it's it's very rigid, it's made out of aluminum, it's not going anywhere, and everything just kind of fits in there. So I've got all that attached to the belt too. Um and then the final piece, the final piece. Wait, there's more. Wait, there's more. So what do we what do we really care about when we go to the range, Paul? How uh how many pockets you have? Well, technically I don't technically I don't have any pockets, but true, true. Okay, true, true, true, true, true. Uh Uh uh uh mmm. What's the number? What's what's the number one rule? Gotta look cool. Gotta go fast. I mean you do you do have to go fast in the competitions, but but slow but slow, smooth, and smooth is fast. But what else do we really care about when we're shooting guns? Especially shooting guns around other people. Uh well, safety? Safety? Safety safety's really important, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, guns, guns are no joke. Yeah. Yeah. And um, you know, uh Bullets make holes in things, and we don't want bullets to make holes in our friends. No, no, no, you don't. But but things can happen. True. Okay. I mm mm mm. I'm gonna I'm gonna wait, okay? So one thing that's important is having medical supplies. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Uh now I don't know if you're called if you're familiar with the concept of IFAC and AFAC. Have you heard those before? No, I haven't. So IFAC stands for individual first aid kit. Okay. And what they are is they're like you can technically you could buy like an empty pouch, stuff it full of ace bandages and a tourniquet and call it an IFAC, right? But you could also buy pre-assembled kits from companies that come with everything you would need that like if, God forbid, uh, you know, I accidentally shoot myself or something happens where I catch a round in my arm or something. You obviously the number one thing you need to do is control bleeding. So what an IFAC is designed to do is that. So a lot of IFAC kits come with a tourniquet, they'll come with um like gauze or bandages, they'll also come with um uh compression gauze or chest seals, which like you know, if you were to get shot in the chest, what it literally is, is like a giant chest band-aid. Like you like once once you like once you find the exit and entry wounds, like you literally slap those on there and It keeps the blood on the inside where it needs to be, right? Yeah. Um a lot of them come with tourniquets, uh, because tourniquets are like the number one life-saving device with like severe bleeding. So I've been wanting to first of all, I've been wanting a good first aid kit for a while. Because like we just don't like I don't have a first aid kit in my truck. Like I some of the cars that I bought have had little first aid kits, but it's like literally band-aids Um I I've been wanting a good first aid kit because you know look, I spend a lot of time at the range, accidents happen, time is a factor, so it's nice to have uh first aid kits. So Uh an AFAC is like a bigger version of a first aid kit, right? So instead of an individual first aid kit, an AFAC is designed to be like, hey, you could treat multiple people if there was like a mass you know casualty event or something. And uh you know, you again you could buy these from companies. So what I ended up buying is there's a company called uh My Medic You can buy directly from them. You can also buy from you can also buy them from Amazon. That's the website I'd found I was looking around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Basically, what I bought is I bought this my medic. It's called a T FAC. I don't know why they call it that. It's it's really it they call it a trauma kit, but it's really like an IFAC. And um again, the the thing is is it's a it's a it's a compact little guy that can ride on your Molly gear. Right. So again, I could I could strap this through the belt too. It doesn't weigh a lot. It doesn't have like all the supplies in the world, but it has enough to be like Oh and very importantly the felt tit pen. You know what that's for? For taking notes. Most importantly, when you put a tourniquet on it, you're supposed to write on the patient what time you put the tourniquet on. Yeah, so that's That's that's the other thing too, right? Is one of one of the things that's on my list this year is um the American Red Cross and then there's other companies that do it too. basically t can teach you how to control bleed like uh severe bleed situations. So like if I were to fall and cut myself on something, right, and I had a huge gash in my arm, or God forbid I get shot. Or There's a million different ways that we can bleed. And like for people who are hemophiliacs, like even a small cut can be catastrophic, right? One of the things that's on my list to do is take one of those classes about how what happens when somebody has a severe bleed. And like When I was an RA, you had to get first aid certified. When I went through uh training to be a hockey referee, like you had to do first aid certification. I when I worked at IGS, I was part of the the team that learned how to do the defibulators, right? Like Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I for me, it's yeah, okay, cool. This is one more thing I could throw on my belt. But I think it's one of those things that's kind of important to have Um, you know, most indoor gun ranges are gonna have this stuff. I mean, the range that I'm a member on that's an outdoor range, like they have one in the clubhouse, but guess what? That's like 800 feet away from the range that I shoot at, right? And time's a factor. So this is one of those things. It's it's colloquially known as an ouch pouch. So it uh So this again would go onto my belt. It has kind of the the necessities, right? It's got a tourniquet, it's got quick clotting stuff. It's got gobblets. Now the looks at it, it's a one-hand tourniquet too, so be gotta do it to yourself. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Yep. Very nice. It doesn't it doesn't have a cat tourniquet. That's like the gold standard. Uh but here's the nice thing. I could customize this. I could put my own shit in there. So it's got like it's got shears, it's got you know blankets. It's got a blanket for shock. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So again, this is one of those things that can just kind of ride on the belt and you know, God forbid, I'm shooting uh a course of fire and like a bullet ricochets and hit me. Like what do you do? Right. And a lot of times at shooting competitions, there's somebody there with you, right? So if I catch a ricochet and this thing is on my belt, all the all the all the range officer or the person who's scoring me has to do is basically take it You know, uh there a lot of them are designed to rip away. So like, you know, the the Molly part is uh itself velcro to the pouch. So like you rip the pouch away or it's got like a quick release thing. They can get at the supplies, they can help me, or God forbid, I need to help somebody, I can just like rip my entire belt off, get this thing off, you know, use it. So again, that's one of those things that, you know, Look, we can talk about looking cool and looking tactical and everything, but this is the kind of stuff that can go in those situations, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's uh that's the stuff that I kind of got into this week. So it's a whole rabbit hole. Like I said, I've got this thing, I got this class on Saturday. It's gonna give me a chance to really take the the scar through its paces. I'll take some pictures and You can you can use show art if you want to. Yeah. About about how about how I have it all set up. And maybe maybe I'll even show you a picture of me and my cosplay. Please, please, please, please. All right. Well we've gone for an hour and twenty-five minutes, which is longer than we normally go. We do. We're making up. We didn't talk last week, so yeah. That's true. That's true, because because of veto. So Yeah. How was the little guy doing anyway? Real quick. We had to take him to the emergency vet. We were probably over anxious parents, but he's okay. Everything's fine. Um he was just acting a little like a little weirdo and we wanted to make sure he was okay. Uh turns out he's fine. He's just a puppy. Uh and now he's uh he's very bitey. And it's hard to walk in my kitchen without a small two and a half pound dog biting your legs. Uh getting nips. Yeah. Getting getting nips, getting, you know, getting after socks. Uh potty training's going great. He's doing so good. He's starting to get into a little routine where he sleeps during the day while daddy works. Uh so you know he's he's doing okay, man. He's doing good. Thanks for asking. Good, good, good, good, good.

Paul 1:26:31

Uh yeah, I'm gonna wrap this up here. Yeah. Yeah, let's get doing doingtheirbest. com. You can find all the show notes links there. And hey, thanks for listening.