316 I'm sure they'll get another strike

Paul 00:00

Good evening, Drew. How are you doing?

Drew 00:04

So there's construction at my house.

Paul 00:07

Okay.

Drew 00:07

There's a lot there's a lot of things happening here, and you you haven't been here in a while, but Um, I found a very, very nice man who has been replacing the baseboards in our bedroom. He has been fixing my window trim. He has been painting my doors. Um and also painting a few places that I just don't want to paint. He is doing a phenomenal job. I also have people working at my house that are redoing my insulation. Cause you know me, I love I love I love I love worrying about temperatures and stuff.

Paul 00:43

You do. You do.

Drew 00:44

Computers, houses. Yep. Love it. Uh so the same company that did the spray foam in my basement. Um they gave me a quote to come and suck up all the old insulation in my attic. Okay. Um air seal my attic and then put down new blown-in insulation. Today was day two. Okay. I was working in my basement when the other gentleman Called down to me and said, the insulation guys need to talk to you in your garage.

Paul 01:19

Oops.

Drew 01:21

Um I walk in my garage and um a man is laying on my floor of the my garage. And another man is on a ladder assessing the damage. So what happened was he was in the attic above my garage and I guess lost his footing. And now I have Is he okay? Is he okay? He's not okay. Oh no. He's not okay. He had to go to the hospital. He Oh no. Yeah. Uh because like I guess like he like when he 'Cause like there's the the the the rafters, right? Like or the joists or whatever. He kind of lost his footing and like he kind of fell sideways. Right. So like he like bumped his like groin and crotch and everything on the joist and then kind of fell down through Thankfully, Mandy's car was not in the garage. Um, he hit my garage door on the way down. I think he like hit his head on the garage door. The garage door's okay, it still opens and closes. Um my car's okay. Mandy wasn't home. And then um yeah, um he had to go to the hospital. Um he wasn't bloody. Um thankfully like he hit his head on the garage, which is closer to where he fell through the the ceiling. Um but then he kinda landed funny. So um I think that guy's gonna have a few days off.

Paul 02:41

Yeah.

Drew 02:42

Wow. So that was that was my big excitement. today. And then like I had to like come back to a conference call and be like, hey, somebody fell through my ceiling. I'm sorry. I'm back. Well, okay.

Paul 02:54

So I move I move some things around because I think it would flow a little better. Okay. I'm gonna tell you a story, Drew. Okay. Okay. So last week I'm sitting in in my office doing work stuff, chatting on Teams, helping somebody out. And uh I hear a large bang and the sound of glass shattering. Oh So I'm like, huh, excuse me one minute. I need to go check something. So it was very loud. It was So loud that I really did not like it sounded close, but I did not get a good sense of direction from where what what what it happened. So I walk outside and I start looking around And it takes me a while to find it. The the one of my windows into my office, the upper pane of glass is just just just destroyed. Just destroyed. And uh I'm looking at I'm looking I'm looking at the damage and I'm like, what the hell happened? Like something must have hit it. So I started looking around the grass to try to figure out what had hit it. And uh I mean I must have looked like a complete idiot because I must out there like, why window broke? Uh And then unbeknownst to me, the guilty party had begun a walk of shame from their house to the back of my house and scared the living crap out of me. When they basically said, oh, we're so sorry. So what had happened was uh that particular homeowner, their nephew, was hitting golf balls in the backyard. Now, it takes a special I believe it spakes a special kind of intelligence to look around where I live, where from his backyard he could probably see 20 houses You know, like just there is no we don't have yards. We have little yard lets. But he just let a ball rip. And it hit my window and it broke it real darn good.

Drew 05:05

Uh so you have you have I'm assuming you have double pane windows.

Paul 05:09

Yes. It did not it only broke the outer pane somehow. So I do not have a hole in my house. Except for the fact that obviously like Insulation, like I'm just bleeding cold air. Welcome to my world. Through that window. Uh, it is still broken, but uh I've got somebody there ordering the replacement glass. And we'll come out and replace it as soon as it is done. But yeah, my Well, I didn't have someone fall through my window. I also have a broken house, Drew.

Drew 05:36

So Wow, man. Man, it's crazy.

Paul 05:39

Yeah.

Drew 05:39

Cra crazy crazy stuff. Okay, so other than our broken houses, uh how have you been? It's been a it's been a minute And again, this is my fault. It's okay. You've been traveling. It's all right. I have been traveling a lot. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. Yeah, it's sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Um I I just I need a break. I I I didn't take like a vacation at all this summer. And uh I should have won. Yeah, you should. Anyone should.

Paul 06:11

Well, speaking of awful things, Drew, we have acquired our first YouTube strike.

Drew 06:19

When I saw this in the show notes, I put it, I put a thing in there that said, was it the gun?

Paul 06:25

Okay. So here's here's here's what happened, Drew. Okay, so yes, uh, we did get a strike violating YouTube's firearm policy, which I have linked. Okay, now Mm now I hope YouTube's not listening to this or they're gonna be very mad at me. Okay. We post two versions since we've been doing Riverside, we post post Two versions of each episode up to YouTube. One is an audio-only podcast that gets automatically generated from our RSV RSS feed. The other one is the video that we are recording right now. The audio version of the podcast is the one that got the strike, not the video. Interesting. I have read the policy. I refer to the transcript of what our recording was. I even asked Claude, I believe looking at the rules, I believe. YouTube is a hundred percent wrong in this strike. I cannot look at anything in there in that policy. You didn't do any of those things. Now, maybe they do have rules about holding firearms during live streams, which we did not do. But I could squint and see, okay, maybe the video version Like if it would have been the video version, it would have been like, oh yeah. Okay, got it. I was literally holding a gun, right? Yeah, yeah. But it was the audio. Now I have taken the uh video version offline just in the not too irate YouTube more, because I have read that if you get two firearm strikes in 90 days, it's bad. It's bad. So as of now, episode 314 Uh just does not exist on YouTube, and I'm not allowed to post videos for a week. So the next version is going to be delayed getting to YouTube. I firmly believe I even appealed. And then like 15 minutes later they're like, no, fucker, it's it's sticking. I believe I mean they're all about like, okay, you can't You can't sell firearms.

Drew 08:38

You can't sell firearms.

Paul 08:39

Right. And you can't basically instruct anyone how to do anything illegal. That's basically the rules.

Drew 08:46

Certain firearm accessories, accessories that enable a firearm to simulate automatic fire, accessories to convert a firearm to automatic fire, such as bump stocks, gatling triggers, drop in auto sears, and conversion kits. High capacity magazines are belts carrying more than 30 rounds. Okay, so thinking back to that episode, I talked about two guns. Mm-hmm. Never once did we talk about any of those things. Provide instructions on manufacturing any of the following. No. Firearms, ammunition, which we have talked about reloading on this show before, high capacity magazines, homemade silencer suppressors, enable uh accessories that enable firearm automatic fire. uh accessories that can convert a firearm to automatic fire. And instructions on how to install. on how to remove certain sidearm safety features, such as device that limits reduced magazine, does not include remove device type or disable like a gun lock. Hmm. Age restricted content. Sometimes content doesn't violate our policies.

Paul 09:56

So there's that because That's not for kid it's not for you. It's not for you. It's not for anybody. It's for us. But I I reviewed it. I looked at the transcript. I even threw the transcript and everything at Claude, and they're like Nah, I didn't see anything. One thing it did uh one thing that like it did say is YouTube does not like be people say YouTube's gonna give me a strike for this. Did I say that? You did So don't why didn't our video get struck? I d That's exactly it. I I can look at some of that stuff and go, it would have made sense that the video version would have gotten the strike. I if that would have happened, I would have been like Yep, fine. Like it's absolutely fine, but it was the audio version. You could not see and there was no firearms in the video because it's just a picture of our stupid logo the whole time. But in the errors of like for safety, I have taken the the video version of 314 down. Uh I'm not allowed to put it anywhere else because apparently that's circumventing their their policies, so nah, so forget as long as we don't get three strikes in 90 days, we'll be okay. That means no more YouTube for us. Uh but it has happened. We are we've been for us. I believe that this is a rite of passage for all YouTube creators is getting their first strike. So really it's a it's a celebration. We're finally getting noticed. We're finally getting noticed by the algorithm. And we got our first strike. So Okay.

Drew 11:29

Uh well speaking of that, let's let's let's change up let's change let's change this up a little more.

Paul 11:36

I just like let's talk about my own more and just go let's lean into it. But okay.

Drew 11:40

Well no no no no no so Um speaking of online content. Okay. Um, I have decided that streaming on Twitch isn't working out for me. Okay. Why is that? Um all the streamers are? Yeah, but I uh either just the way that my stream is advertised or whatever, I'll all I get are bots. I don't get any human interaction at all. So what I decided to drew is I decided to try streaming on TikTok. Now TikTok's interesting because I don't know if you have TikTok on your phone.

Paul 12:17

I d I do. I scroll occasionally. Yeah.

Drew 12:20

Yeah. So here's the interesting thing. Have you ever been scrolling through your feed on TikTok and you come across a live stream? I have. Yes. So it's interesting. The TikTok algorithm just mixes in people's content and their live streams. So in a given hour and a half, two hour session, I might have hundreds of unique viewers. Some stick around, some don't. Now, again, TikTok's algorithm is really interesting because like it knows what game you're playing. Mm-hmm. It knows what hashtags you put on your feed. It knows who your followers are. It is really good at getting people who like I've been streaming Escape from Tarkov on there and It's really good at getting people who like Escape from Tarkov to come to your feed. Um one thing that I have learned is that people are really fascinated by my baldness.

Paul 13:16

Okay.

Drew 13:17

Okay. Yeah. Okay. People were willing people were willing to pay me money to put a plunger to see if it would stick to my head. First of all, I don't hate it.

Paul 13:29

Okay. I mean I alright. If I see one of these, I'm definitely gonna join.

Drew 13:35

So uh yeah, I think do I think you follow me on TikTok. Yeah Yeah, so you might you might end up there. I only stream for a couple hours a day at night, so I'm not on there all the time. It's not my job. But regardless, I like I immediately have gotten much better satisfaction, much better engagement uh for for streaming on there. Now what's interesting is Um, because Escape from Tarkov is firearms heavy, um sometimes we talk about guns. And one day I showed, I held up my Glock on stream to be like, hey, I just bought this Glock. And within 10 minutes of me doing that, I got a message pop up on the TikTok studio. It's like your stream has been restricted Like yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Paul 14:15

So so yeah you're getting you're getting you're getting damned multiples of the biggest.

Drew 14:19

I'm getting kicked off every platform. I'm getting kicked off every platform. Decontent. Now now TikTok is really weird about guns. Like They're really worried about a lot of things. Yeah, like they do not like like like YouTube, like it's really interesting that YouTube give us a strike for that because GunTube, right? GunTubers as they're known. Mm-hmm. 100% a thing. Like people go on there, they're shooting and handling firearms, they're talking about they're even talking about things like FRTs that make guns like automatic. Like I I mean TikTok, first of all, I'm sorry, YouTube never likes to be wrong. Like I don't think anybody's ever gotten an appeal overturned. So it's just like they don't want to deal with it. That's their automatic AI rejection, whatever.

Paul 15:01

Yeah.

Drew 15:01

But TikTok's really funny. Like you can't even put a picture of a gun. And like if you were doing transcription of like your voice in TikTok TikTok and you say the word gun, you you have to censor it, like or else like they'll just like take your video down. Yes.

Paul 15:18

As long as you pretend there's not guns in it.

Drew 15:20

Yeah, because because it's it's it's gaming, right? Okay. But like I've I have made videos of myself shooting. I've made videos of my like me working on a gun. Those like almost immediately get taken down. Like they are just like on top of it with their algorithm. Like they just immediately see it and take it down. So uh yeah, so um You can find me on TikTok. Um I'll put up we'll put a link in the show notes to my um TikTok profile if you want to go watch me stream it. But buddy, I'm sorry for the undue stress.

Paul 15:50

I did not mean to get any stress involved there. No, that's all right. It didn't I mean It was fine. It happened yesterday after work. I just was like, I remember that show, and I don't think we did any of this. And like, and and even like Claude's like Claude was like, like, you Like they used to be able you could write something in the appeal that maybe a human would read. They have now gotten rid of this. You can just whap the button. And they're like, there is no harm. inappealing. Maybe you'll get a human, maybe you won't, but like if they deny it, then you're you're done. Yeah, that's true and they're like, it's no harm. So I just I just hit it and 15 minutes later I got an email saying no. So Episode 314 is just lost to to YouTube. So Yeah.

Drew 16:37

Exactly.

Paul 16:39

Yes, yes. Just yeah. Heck, even Spotify these days. I mean, just do it. Just do it. Oh

Drew 16:46

Alright, talk to me about games.

Paul 16:49

Okay, so last episode you asked for some game recommendations. It was primarily like PlayStation 5 related. Uh by the way, I'm also getting really freaking excited for Control Resident next month. Mmm, it's gonna be so good. Anywho, uh one of the games I brought up that I had just started playing on the Switch 2 was Splatoon Raiders. Splatoon Raiders is kind of a twist on the normal. Splatoon is usually a competitive player versus player team-based shooter. That is that is the it's bread and butter. Splatoon Raiders is the same kind of mechanics, but it's a looter shooter. I had played it for a little bit before I set it, and now I have played quite a bit of it. It is an amazing freaking game. It is so good. It is so good. Uh there's really like there is a little bit of a story to it. You can just ignore it. Uh the The variety of builds you can make, the different strategies you can approach, the way that it changes up the levels that You will you will hit levels where you really need to think about your loadout and try something different because your loadout just may not be good for the the type of enemies you are facing. Uh, it gives you like these little puzzle dungeons where you have to use your gadgets in an interesting way to kind of teach you the mechanics of all of the gadgets. Uh the the raids themselves are usually no longer than like ten minutes. Usually they're a lot shorter than that. I think it'd be a couple minutes. So it's really just get in, kill a bunch of salmonids, get some new gear, unlock something else. You know, maybe do a couple of upgrades. It's got just a really good loop. I'm actually I think I'm on the final boss or I I tried it once and I got my butt kicked, so I really need to step back and go, okay, what do I need? Like, okay, there's some there's some platforming puzzles in here, so maybe I need to pick a gadget that helps me get past those a little better and you know and and be able to survive, have a little bit more survivability. Uh It's like not even a it's like a thinking it's a fifty dollar game, which in these days and age is not a full price for a game. I don't know if it's worth buying a Switch 2, but if you have one, you could do a lot worse in this game. It is a lot of fun. It's It's bright, it's colorful, it's fast, it does not hesitate to throw just an absolute bonkers numbers of enemies on the screen at once. And yet the Switch 2 just handles it flawlessly at rate of locked 60 frames a second all the time. Uh I don't know what resolution it runs at, whatever, but I I've and played it for you know little quite a bit for the last couple of weeks. Almost beat it, I think. I will probably continue to play it after I beat it. Apparently there's some decent endgame stuff. Uh it's really it's really good. It's really fun. It's fun and it's not a commitment. You can come in, do a couple levels and fifth a couple raids in 15 minutes, get out, and do something else. Uh it's it's good. I I Two thumbs up from Paul. Highly recommended.

Drew 19:58

Okay. So it's kind of like Destiny then, because like Destiny is kind of the canonical looter shooter, right? Or is it more Borderlands?

Paul 20:05

I would say it's more uh I probably more borderlands, honestly. Okay. Uh but Yeah, but it's you know, but it still has the ink mechanics, right? So like in Splatoon, it's usually not like killing the person, it's filling all your guns shoot ink. uh uh or paint. It's like looks like paint, but they say ink. Uh and whoever has the most ink wins. Well, uh In the game, like you produce one color ink, all the bad guys produce another color, you move slower in other in the other color ink. You only reload and heal in your color ink. So like not only do you have to bite defeat the bad guys, you have to make sure that you're not getting like trapped in an enemy ink color if you need to do a quick evade. There's basically like three different tanks, which are basically like your class. So do you want to be like ranged melee or there's one that's like tactical, which is like gadgets. There are gadgets you can equip that are based off your tank. So like if you're doing like the the the close-up tank there's uh tank there's like an axe or like things that spin around you that hurt. If the tactical one you can drop down like uh basically like turrents and things like that. And there's five different gadgets per tank and you upgrade them as you use them so that you can kind of s and as you get higher and you can start mixing matching gadgets from other tanks and get running interesting builds. Uh I said it's really good progression, really good loop. It never, even if you fail on something, you're not you haven't wasted that much time. Like I said, at most a raid would be like 10 minutes long. Uh now granted it's Splatoon, so like yeah the voices are annoying and the story is just absolutely nonsensical And all of the all of the enemies are basically weird fish. That's what they are. There's little weird fish and there's big weird fish and there's big There's weird fish that ride on the top of like huge like trash can lids that fly in the air and smack down. It's weird. It's it's a a whole vibe. But It's fun. It's really fun. I I have enjoyed playing it and uh I'm looking forward to playing it some more. So yeah.

Drew 22:23

Um I think I asked you this when we were talking about the Switch 2 a couple uh last week or the week before. When you play this, are you docked or undocked? I've done both.

Paul 22:33

Uh uh I've just generally kind of preferred playing it docked with the the new pro controller, but uh I do have like a Like a little thing to put the switch in that makes it a little bit more ergonomic, and I have played with that. Uh I just like the the sticks the the sticks on the Joy-Cons are a little mm. But I have done both. It runs great in handheld and it runs great in docked. I have never had. I've I've had absolutely bonkers things where I'm just in the middle of hundreds of weird fish and it has not looked like it's dropped any frames It just it just chugs along. And it's got it does have a little bit of multiplayer where if you Oh yeah, you can you can join a lobby. Uh there's like no matchmaking, but like what they have, it's very Nintendo-like. You can put in a phrase. And you can see other people have put in that phrase and join their games and basically the community just decided Splatoon is the phrase. Just put the Splatoon, you'll see lots of different rooms to join. Uh you can join other people's raids, you can call for help and have other people join yours. Um I haven't done that too much, just enough to unlock the the outfits that are locked behind. Because you know, I gotta look good.

Drew 23:46

Uh so Nintendo's multiplayer is so

Paul 23:50

Weird.

Drew 23:51

Yeah. Um during COVID was kind of my peak switch phase. And I played a lot of Animal Crossing during COVID. Same buddy. Um and I stumbled across the subreddit where you could uh post your what was like your passport code or whatever it was for visiting for turnup trading because everybody's island had different like turnip prices.

Paul 24:13

Prices for turnip, yeah.

Drew 24:15

Yeah, that was a wild time. It was a wild time. Ugh.

Paul 24:20

Playing the stock market. The stock market. Okay. Puns are assault people. Don't do it. Puns are assault. Okay, Merlin. He doesn't like close-up magic. I don't think he feels the same way about puns that I do, but

Drew 24:40

Um, okay, so I really haven't had time to do much gaming. Um, but I did make a purchase that I would like to talk about. Okay. I had to go buy a printer. Like a printer printer. Like a printer, but printer. Ink on paper printer. A laser, a color laser printer.

Paul 24:58

Okay.

Drew 24:59

Okay. So we okay, let's get to the reason of buying the printer and just get that out of the way. I have been Asking asking my homeowners association if I can change my driveway. Um it didn't get approved. Uh, but not had nothing to do with the printer. But the printer was the reason I bought this. So let's just I want to be clear about that. Um Uh we might have talked about this before. So my driveway needs replaced. Um I want to add a third car parking spot to my driveway. So I have we have we're we're a three-car family, even though there are two of us and my dog. My dog does not drive. Um, so I have my pickup truck that makes me feel like a man. I have my Audi that makes me feel like a snob, and then my wife has a Subaru because she likes Subarus. Um, but that means that my truck is constantly in front of one of those cars. I do not like parking it on the street. I am not a person who enjoys parking on the street. Yeah. Um Primarily because you've been to my house. The my driveway is on the road into the neighborhood. Yep, lots and lots of traffic in and out. Lots and lots of traffic. And while that road is wide, it is a pain in the ass if you are turning off of the main road into my neighborhood or trying to leave. I I don't want to be that guy. So I had to basically prepare this huge write-up. I had to like go get a quote. I had to get like the construction blueprints. I had to provide pictures of what my landscaping would have looked like before and after. And I wanted to leave nothing to chance. I prepared all my documentation. I I opened Visio on purpose and drew things. I did I did it all. And to top and to top it all off, I went and I was like, I'm gonna buy a color printer because I had a black and white laser printer. I'm going to print nice color, glossy photos. I went and got nice paper and put together the packets, stapled them, you know, put them that did the multiple copies, paid my fee, heard back, I didn't get it. Um it it's okay. It's okay. Um there's reasons, the Murfield HOA. Like I I figured it was 50-50. I really listed like good reasons why I want to do this and like Home property values, keeping cars off the street, because like the street in front of my house somehow is more narrow than the street on the side of my house. And like If somebody's parked on the street, like it just it it's not good. It's not good. Like people park in your driveway, but they they don't. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. So I I had to go get a printer to do that. this. Now we had a black and white printer um that was kind of dying. The drum in it was starting to go. And it was time to go get another printer. I did my research. Um I am very, very anti-HP these days. Um what HP is doing with like ink subscriptions and all this other stuff. Um so really what it came down to is um getting a Canon or a brother. Okay. Um I've owned Canon printers before. I were they were fine. They were fine. Like I remember the first true wireless printer that I ever had was a Canon printer. They were a kind of the first companies that really jump on like the airprint bandwagon and I just remember that it worked and it was fine. Um, but I ended up getting this printer. This is a brother cower laser printer. And um You know, look, there's not a lot to say about a printer other than does it work? Does it work well? Is it easy to set up? Does it require some god-awful app to work? Right. This is this is none of those things. This is none of those things. It is a very, very standard colour laser printer that prints at a reasonable rate. So it it has a scanner, like you could hook it up as and use it as a fax machine if your house is even still wired for that.

Paul 29:00

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 29:02

Um, I mean you can use an app for it. The touchscreen is serviceable, but it's in my back cellar. I'm not looking at it all the time. I don't need a fancy high-resolution display on it. Um the default drivers for it work on all three OSs so far, like no problems. It is only wireless, which I don't love.

Paul 29:23

I would much rather have it like wired in, but like an Ethernet port or something.

Drew 29:28

Yes. Because like my other printer, the other HP that I have For whatever reason, like it would just lose Wi-Fi and then I would go up there, reset the go all the way upstairs, because it was all the way upstairs in my house. I would go all the way up there reset it then I'd come back and it's like oh this is a new printer uh no it's not it saw it a new printer like it's right right So I'm I'm glad to be I'm glad to be out of the HP ecosystem now. Um I've only had to I I've only had to join this to my Wi-Fi once and it's it's totally fine Um it does all its automatic firmware updates and everything and like scanning things isn't a huge pain in the ass. I I have not had to download any software to make this work. Excellent. It all just works with native OS shit. Doesn't matter if it's Linux, doesn't matter if it's Mac, doesn't matter if it's PC. The print quality is phenomenal. Like I like I said, I got that nice paper. Um I printed like pictures of like my house and all that stuff and it does a really, really, really good job. So Now, price-wise, it is definitely not the most expensive thing. I mean, colour laser printers are a few hundred dollars. This was very reasonably priced. I think on the brother website that I linked to, it's listed for $459. Yeah. I got it at Micro Center for about $30 cheaper. Okay. Um, by the way, quick side note, Microcenter is getting ready to reopen after their remodel. Credit where credits do, the remodel is very nice.

Paul 30:50

I've seen, uh speaking of TikTok, I have seen a couple Microcenter Columbus TikToks. And so what I've seen is like, oh, that does look It looks less depressing.

Drew 31:03

They have gotten rid of the backroom style lighting and it doesn't smell like uh BO in there anymore. For now. That will change. But it's much better lit. The shelves are nicer. I will say, though, that their grand reopening is later this month. I bought this in the middle of their remodeling and it was like a bomb had gone off in there. Nobody could find anything. Like there were pallets of printers like in all four corners of the store. And I asked the poor salesman who works on commission so I didn't feel too bad. I want this printer. You have three of them. I think he had to look on the roof. Like I don't like I don't know where he had to go to get it, but like it w like everything was out of place. But they're they're getting their shit together now and it it's fine. It's fine Okay. Um so uh do I like this printer? First of all, I don't know as a society if we need printers anymore. Um we we kinda still do for some things.

Paul 32:00

Yeah. Especially, you know, but as having spouse or educator, sometimes they just want to print stuff.

Drew 32:07

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Right. Yeah. So yes, uh um you could do a lot worse than you could do a lot worse than this printer. I think this is a perfectly serviceable printer. I think Brother makes totally fine printers. Yeah, yeah. They're very easy to service. Their toner is not crazy expensive. I mean The the color toner drums are pricey. Like you will spend money if what if you need a specific color. And the ones that it come with, like I think I can print A couple hundred pages of color, but I think I've printed I think I've printed 30 pages since I bought this thing a month ago, and I haven't printed since. So it could last you longer than you think.

Paul 32:49

Yeah. Right.

Drew 32:50

Now, are you going to put this in an office and print invoices and print mailing labels every day or form letters or whatever? Different story, but for just general home use, I think this is this is totally fine. I I think it was a good choice. I'm I'm pretty happy with it. Yeah. Excellent. Yep. So speaking of YouTube streams, um, I do want to talk about some news that might interest some of our listeners. So you have heard me talk on this podcast a lot about Buying certain firearms and things that require extra permission from the federal government. Okay. So today, as of today, there has been an injunction in federal court that has ruled certain portions of the National Firearms Act unconstitutional. Okay. So let's talk about that because this is a really interesting time that if you've ever thought about buying a suppressor, making a short-barreled rifle. This is a very, very interesting time. Now I'm gonna preface this by saying I am not a lawyer. Not a lawyer. Right. So let's talk about what happened. So Last year, when the big beautiful bill passed, there was a provision in there, or whatever they call it, like a Ryder amendment, whatever. Yeah. That eliminated the federal tax on NFA items. Okay. So once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a suppressor, not only did you have to do paperwork and send it to the government Not only did you have to pay money for said item, you had to buy a tax stamp per item. And it was $200. Okay? Now, why was that? So the reason for that was is that the tax represented Congress's authority to limit the Second Amendment in this case is essentially what it came down to. The fact that there was a congressionally approved tax associated to it. meant that it could enforce this rule federally. Okay. So when or Big Orange Man did Big Beautiful Bill, there was a thing in there that eliminated the tax. That opened the door to some really interesting lawsuits, basically arguing that without the tax, there's no way to enforce this anymore.

Paul 35:32

Okay.

Drew 35:33

Okay. So there were several lawsuits. Like people have been challenging the National Firearms Act for decades and not getting anywhere. However, there was a suit that was brought by a company called Silencer Shop. Now, Silencer Shop is really interesting, and I I actually like Silencer Shop. Because the federal government has these requirements, there's like been a cottage industry that has spun up. in the internet age to make this process simple. In the old days, you would have to print out all these forms, fill them out, mail them in, mail in your check. Go get your fingerprints like on an official like fingerprint card attach that to it Send a separate letter to your local law enforcement officer because you have like a duty to notify in certain circumstances. Like it was just a lot of work. So companies like Silencer Shop basically automated this where they now have a way to sell you a suppressor. Automatically generate online PDFs of your application that you then review with them in sign electronically. They then submit that paperwork to the ATF electronically. You get an email saying it's been submitted. And then when the process finishes, you get an email saying it's done. Then you're allowed to go pick up your suppressor from a local dealer. Okay? Okay. And and it and that's that's a perfectly perfectly good way to do it. And they have evolved their platform Now like you don't even have like before you had to like coordinate with the local dealer. So like if I buy a suppressor online they ship it to one of their local dealers. Like there's a gun sh there's a gun store up in Delaware, Ohio that I go to. They're like a platinum silencer shop partner or whatever. So like they have a kiosk. So like if you're just getting sp and you want to like get your fingerprints done for free like they have all that stuff there. So before you'd have to like coordinate with the store about like okay we need to review this. We're gonna like go to the website together and like they would do this like really interesting online screen sharing session where like the dealer was driving and you were there and they okay enter your pin in this field. And then like they enter their pin, which like unlocks the submission process, right? You don't even have to do that anymore. Like they've completely like streamlined it. I mean APIs, like how do they even work, right? Right, right. So now with this federal injunction with this federal injunction, they basically gave the federal government so many days to appeal. They didn't. So now there's an interesting scenario where there are certain parties That are no longer subject to the NFA. Now, this is where it gets a little bit confusing. So, like, for example, Silencer Shop was one of the plaintiffs in this suit. So theoretically, if you are or will be in the future a silencer shop customer, you can go online buy a suppressor and they can just fucking mail it to me. Good. Unless You live in certain states where there is a state requirement for NFA paperwork, which ta-da, Ohio is. Ohio is. Okay. Yep. There are, I think Let's see. I had this up the other day. Let's see if I still have it open. I think I do. Let's see. Yeah, there are 27 states that if you if you buy a suppressor in the store, you can basically walk out the same day. So basically it's it's all the states you would think. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Mostly mostly southern states, although there's also states on there like Maine, um, which is interesting. Uh Virginia, which is really wild to me that they would let that happen. But everything else is like south and west. Maryland is also an interesting one that you can now do it. Ohio is not. So basically there are 15 states that you still require a form for on file. So like I still have to do this. And I actually have a suppressor that I purchased not too long ago that I'm still waiting on. But you no longer have to pay the $200. I haven't had to pay that forever. I haven't had to pay that since the start of the year. Okay. And the same goes for like creating short barreled rifles and all that other stuff. So like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin, and some southern states too, which is really interesting. Like Mississippi, Nevada, like those all still require. And then there are still states to this day. Like there's eight states in the union that like suppressors are illegal. Like it's a state law, like you can't own a suppressor. And they're the ones you think, right? So like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, like This is interesting So now the door is open to now challenging state authority on this stuff. And that's where it's gonna get really interesting. Um Look, I I'm a gun enthusiast. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm a gun nut. Um but I I I do think that owning suppressors makes shooting a way better experience. Like it's just a way better experience to where like I don't like to shoot without it anymore. And I think it should be easier to own suppressors. They're already kind of expensive. Like you're going to spend anywhere from six to twelve to maybe even more, hundreds of dollars. To own one. There's a lot of engineering behind those things. Plus, like, plus the time and energy of modifying your firearm to accept a suppressor, like you can't discount that. So Uh you know, the fact that that that s like I can understand the desire to put like short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, because they're concealable. You're you're actually physically modifying a firearm at that case, where a suppressor is literally just a tube. With some baffles in it. So it's just like I I have mixed feelings about it. Now, you have some people out there that want to go after the whole hog NFA, right? Like they they think the whole NFA should be gone like form ones, form fours, like machine guns. Bring it all back. Like fucking go crazy, right? I don't know how I feel about all that, but I do know that. If you're if you're interested in getting a suppressor and now you live in a state where this is now unconstitutional and there's no state law, like we're gonna see a huge run on suppressors, which is cool, cool, cool, cool. Uh, you should go get one. Like if you if you enjoy shooting at all and you live in a state where you can make this happen easily, you should go do it. I I'm I'm fully endorsing you to go do that. Now I did I did make like I I say all this because like I'm in the process of of you know building another firearm for myself. Um I'm not gonna show it on camera, although that didn't seem to get us in trouble. Uh who knows. It's tiny tiny baby gun. Tiny baby gun. This big. Like this big. Tiny baby gun. Yeah, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. I'll talk more about it when it's ready. Okay, okay. So yeah. Um No, I know. I I think it's cool. I think I I thought for sure they were going to appeal. Now what's interesting, I think they still could appeal. Mm-hmm Uh uh I think that like the door is still open for them to like come over top of this. Um there's also people saying that like, hey If the Democrats come back into power, they could impose a dollar tax and we're right back where we were. Right. So like you almost have to make it so If you really want this to be done, like we really need to get more lawsuits and more stuff rolling before congressional changes, administrative changes, like all that stuff takes place, or it's just never gonna go away. So Anyway, that's my big news. That's my big news. Yeah. So uh what else is going on? Uh Zach back to college or

Paul 43:17

Uh next weekend he goes uh back. So yeah. Not this Saturday, but the following. My daughter is she had her first day of school today. My wife goes back to school starts back to work next week. So does Bob. So yeah. So in a couple weeks I'm gonna be back to not having anybody in the house when I work, which means loud, angry music, except for the fact that I have to like take all the stuff that's in the corner of my office. out of my office so that people can get to the window and that includes some serious like my speakers right there and my turntables right there so all that stuff's gotta go.

Drew 43:54

Uh but So I think since the last time we talked, I just want to get caught up here. So Zach's going back. Arabelle's going back. Did Arabelle get her license?

Paul 44:06

She did. Yes. She had her driver driver license. So Uh her and her best friend are basically she her best friend also got her license. They are going to alternate weeks or or day days or we I think weeks. during to during the school. The weird thing is right now is logistically, uh with my daughter's schedule, she technically has early release. So she doesn't have to be there for the last period because she doesn't have anything going on. Her friend does not have early release, which is just generally makes things uncomfortable because when you have early release, they want you the fuck out of the school. They want you gone. Capital G gone. I do not know. I do not know. But that is policy. If you're early released, you're not allowed to be on school grounds. My wife my daughter is just Firmly going to ignore.

Drew 44:54

Well, I mean, I think I understand why, right? They just don't want kids roaming the halls while they're trying to do shit. Yeah.

Paul 45:00

It's probably one of those things where they don't enforce it, but if they catch you doing something, this is the role they get you with. You know, it's like loitering, like you know, like no one really cares unless you're being a jackass and then get you for loitering. So y you're probably yeah, they just want yeah, they don't want you to be disruptive, but you know, my daughter may go to the art room or something and wait or just hang out in the car. We'll see what happens. We'll see how that works out. But yeah.

Drew 45:23

Now does she does your daughter have a car?

Paul 45:26

Uh she is we we are also a three-car house. Uh we have my car, my wife's SUV, uh, and then we kept her previous SUV, which is uh like 2019, Hyundai Santa Fe, and that's what the kids Oh that's right.

Drew 45:42

That's what Zach was driving.

Paul 45:43

That's what Zach was driving. Okay. So the kid didn't take a car. Yeah. Luckily this summer there hasn't been a lot of contention for the car, so it's all worked out pretty well. They've been able to do stuff when they need to, so yeah. Okay. So that's yeah, that's so yeah, next Saturday. But then again, it's one of those things where moving Zach back to college, I probably won't go again. The car's gonna be full, parking's gonna be absolutely bonkers. They really just want to get the get you in and out, so my it's much more important for my wife to go than than me, so I'll let her go. And uh Yeah.

Drew 46:19

Now is he gonna is he in a dorm again or is he off campus?

Paul 46:22

He's in a dorm. Uh Ohio University wants you to either be with your parents, your parents are guardians, or in a dorm for your first two years. After that, they you have to get special permission to stay on a dorm. They want you to be in an apartment. So I think Zach's already actually toured a couple of apartments with some people. So that's something we're gonna have to figure out this year as well to get him situated and stuff. But he's actually in A brand new who'll be the first class, the first group of kids to actually stay in it dorm. So yeah.

Drew 46:53

We had some of those when I was at Pitt. They built like some townhouse apartment style dorms. Yeah. And um some kids that were on my floor freshman year all got together and had a four had a four bedroom suite in those. They were they were nice when they were new, but by the time I was a senior, they were Yeah. Destroyed.

Paul 47:11

I'm sure they're gonna be very nice and they're just more modern. I did kind of warn him like, hey, like new building. They don't know what's gonna break. So like that first like six weeks is probably gonna be a little rough as they get all the kinks worked out and replace all the things that were broken water randomly. Yeah, like it's just gonna be a little rough because like there you can test so much, but you're not gonna really stress test a building like that until you have, you know, a thousand kids in it. So or young excuse me, young adults. He is twenty. Young adults Oh so yeah.

Drew 47:43

Okay. Now uh other current events, how did the storms impact you guys down there at all? Uh we lost a tree.

Paul 47:50

Okay. Uh wasn't a very big tree. It was like a one of those little apple trees. Uh it grew shit ton of apples, but it just it just tore right out. It's actually just kind of laying over in our yard now. It's with all the rain and stuff. We haven't been able to get out to really deal with it yet. Uh it was scary for a while because the pond outside of our house was at a level that I have never seen it at before. A lot of rain. It was at the low level. Yeah, how about you?

Drew 48:17

Uh, you know what's interesting? We had really, really heavy rain, but we didn't get a lot of the wind here. Yeah. Okay. Uh I mean it was windy, but Watching videos online of cars getting blown off a 571. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.

Paul 48:31

Yeah, they efficiently have ruled that like a tornado hit. Yeah.

Drew 48:35

Oh yeah, I was I was trying to figure out. I didn't know if it was one of those Doratios or Dura however you say that word or an actual tornado.

Paul 48:46

I just saw that they surveyed all the damage and stuff and they said, yeah, it definitely was a tornado. Which is scary the fact that it could come up that quick.

Drew 48:54

It was in Columbus.

Paul 48:55

Yeah, like essentially from what I understand, like it landed kind of like uh southeast of Dublin and went like right towards campus. Yeah.

Drew 49:03

Yeah. Yeah, so one of the one of the women I work with, her parents live in Upper Arlington and she we were all kind of sharing pictures and the their backyard was destroyed. Just absolutely destroyed. They have a really nice her house is fine, but all the landscaping, their pool Yeah, it's just absolutely destroyed. Mm-hmm. And it was interesting because it it almost seemed like watching the radar that it the storm came in and they just just kind of got more powerful like as soon as it hit Columbus.

Paul 49:30

Like it was just like crazy. It was scary. It was real scary. It was not yeah.

Drew 49:34

Did you lose power or anything or we did not.

Paul 49:38

We had it like dip once and then it just stayed which I was really surprised that that was the case. We did have a little bit of hail overnight. Uh but all in all, all things considered I think it did break some more broken glass loose in my from my window I need to go off the water.

Drew 49:56

That was before that. Oh it was. Oh shit. Okay. So did you have to put anything over it?

Paul 50:03

Uh I d the the they said I really didn't need to. It really just be to like keep like some visible moisture up because basically they're th they said like end of the day that whole piece is just gonna go and get replaced. So they're like, you don't nearly like if it was in the winter and it was losing heat, they may say, like, you may want to do just for put up some plastic on for insulation, but This I d I don't think I really I mean it's it looks like shit. Uh but Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 50:32

Oh well, buddy, that's uh that's a podcast.

Paul 50:35

I think we did it. Yeah.

Drew 50:38

We'll be back to a regular schedule here soon, I promise.

Paul 50:40

Okay, excellent, excellent. Yeah, doing their best. com. You can find all the show notes there, except well, don't go to YouTube for episode 314. And uh hey, thanks for listening.