So long, fair well, 2010

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This week, to close out 2010, we have a couple of repeat guests on. Nick and Ashok join us to end the year. Since no one bothered to send us requests for what to recap......we initially were going to talk about some serious political nonsense, but since it was the last show of the year and we were all in festive moods, it ended up as a jovial and laugh a minute show.


We recap our Christmases, and what fun we had. (Nick's has included lots of "Some Assembly Required.")


We ask the important question...."At what age would you feel comfortable letting your kids go on Facebook?" The conclusion.....21?!?!?!?!?!


We discuss our new years revolutions.


We discuss various travel plans......"It's Tuesday, it must be Paris."


Nick is the smartest....."I don't do resolutions!"


For the last time this year, we head outside to freeze our collective butts off....just for shits and giggles.


We discuss the dumb shit that young'uns put on YouTube......to our collective amusement.


Why is Taiwanese pop music more sensible than American....much more beneficial lyrics.


The Great Prophet Zarquon.


The Dark Lord, Dick Cheney.


The internet......"It's a series of tubes!"


The "War on Christmas." Nick says he hates to say it, but we all know he doesn't.....Fox News.....Mwahaahaahaahaa. "Jesus Christ, God Damn it, it's Merry Christmas. Jesus H tap dancing Christ".


Weknow that at some point during the evening we talked about the "Buffalax" concept. This guy takes awful indian music videos (usually from movies) and adds subtitles to them, according to what it sounds like in English. This is the one that got it all going.


We end the show with a big of Iron Maiden......"Alexander the Great."

That was the week that was

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This week, just for a change, we discuss the week's activities.

Gregamundo spent a lot of time in his own seat at the cigar store and Simon tells us about yet another flying story...but this time it's high powered. Saweet!

We reminisce about a previous Yosemite drive, and beyond it to Highway 395 up to lake Tahoe and the silly bar rules in the US.

The most irritating word in the world…it's official, and we use it.

The benefits of backing up.

The joys of drunk young ladies coming into the cigar shop and falling into greg's lap...again.....saweet.

Michael Vick and dog ownership.

James Bond car chases and the classic Bond bad guy "Jaws" played by Richard Kiel.

The more irritating aspects of noisy neighbors.

Simon went to see the movie Black Swan, and it was bloody intense and stressful. Still, it has Natalie Portman in it, so it was worth it.

Merry F*@#ing Chtistmas….by Mr. Garrison.

So Merry Christmas to you all.

The ending music today was  a little bit of "Bumper Ball Dub" by Massive Attack.

BMSMA.

G&S

Birthdays and other fun stuff

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So this week we talk about the fun things in life, like birthdays. Yipee.

We recap our fun filled previous weeks. 

Greg has installed himself into the cigar shop, almost semi permanently and he recounts some of is fun times from the previous week.

Simon had a fun birthday, that lasted for 3 days and involved a lot of great company and some wonderful food, (Kaygetsu, The Plumed Horse, Lisa's tea Treasures, The House of Prime Rib, Bella Saratoga ...thanks to all those who joined him for the duration (Greg of course, Lindy and Don, Ashok, David, Macy and Karen).

Simon was talking about the new aircraft he's training in, the Cessna T182T.

We discuss the issue where a lot of middle aged guys from Taiwan are being seduced by young gorgeous women in Beijing, and the social issues it's causing.

BMSMA.

G&S

Up, Up & Away!

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This week we head own down to our favorite place for a good Shanghai dumpling, called (ironically enough) Shanghai Dumpling!

We were joined by our good friend Chuck, who is Simon's flight instructor. A while back, Chuck & Simon were having a conversation about the state of private pilot training ... which led into qute the passionate discourse. But, since Greg wasn't there when it happened, he was able to happily relive it. :-)

Join us as we delve into (among other things):

• the reasons why student pilot numbers (or "starts") are dropping
• our food :-)
• getting started in flying
• the financial reality of flight training
• the reason behind the rigors of flight training & certification
• why flying cars is a baaaad idea
• figuring out flight costs
• balking at ancient aviation technology still used today
• airplane costs & accidents (hint: it's the reason why aviation is pricey)
• a training story or two
• the impending pilot shortage & paltry salaries

We'll definitely have Chuck on again, but preferably in a quieter place!

Greg & Simon

An afternoon in the pub

Don't click here to listen. It won't work. Seriously. We're crazy like that. But you can read what we tried to do, so it ain't all that bad.

This week, we retire to the Duke of Edinburgh pub to record the podcast. It results in a slightly more mellow tone than usual, but with a few fun interruptions by Beth, our favorite barmaid, who loves a good chuckle.


We are joined by Ashok, who asks a few good and pertinent questions during the discussion.


We quickly review Thanksgiving and what we all got up to, and very briefly Simon gets a plug in for a book he's just finished reading, "I Shall Wear Midnight" by Terry Pratchett. Very funny indeed if you're into fantasy fiction merged with satire.


We then delve into something more serious, while we're scoffing down our Sunday lunches, and with regular interruptions by Beth too. Ashok asks why it is that all the promise of web job hunting hasn't become everything it promised to be, and why it doesn't seem to be working as advertised.


We couldn't have a podcast this week without mentioning Wikileaks, as the latest story has just exploded onto the scene, and we're all still digesting the content of those diplomatic disclosures.


Ashok asks Simon some specific about a Commercial pilot's license and why there aren't as many pilots these days as there have previously been. This expands into the territory of the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) license, which a lot of hopes have been pinned on.


Ashok, worryingly, brings up the topic of this new 'toy' he saw advertised, a remote control drone capable of taking photos, that can be controlled from your iPhone?!?!?!?!  


We end by requesting listeners to send in their favorite moments from 2010 and we can recap some of those at the end of December.


Ashok asks Greg for a food recommendation and Greg suggests his favorite pizza joint in the whole Bay Area and we discuss why Berkeley has such a high concentration of good restaurants.


Simon was coughing and spluttering all the way through.


Ending music was Aura & Armament by Maximum Indifference.


BMSMA.


G&S

Don't touch my junk!

Click here to listen.

This week we have a good old mix of topics.

We start reviewing our weekends. Greg went to a Basia concert. Simon went flying, in the clouds, and we both had Sunday lunch down at the pub. Nice!

Simon has recently finished the most recent book in one of his favorite ongoing sagas, the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The book is called Cryoburn. He's about to start on Terry Pratchett's latest, "I Shall Wear Midnight."

We stray into talking about war heros and we discuss some of them we've spoken to over the years.

We talk about  the US holiday of Thanksgiving, as that's coming up and that leads us into the topic of travel and the recent TSA debacle that has created a massive backlash by travelers within the US. We explore whether it's just good old fashioned incompetence or whether it's the ongoing march towards a 1984 type world.

We throw in some excellent quotes for good measure, which were taken from this list.

" Fascism will come to America in the guise of national security." ~ Jim Garrison in 1967, the only man to bring a suspect to court for the Kennedy assassination The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable."   ~ H.L. Mencken (American Writer 1880-1956)  "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins - all of them imaginary." ~ Henry Louis Mencken "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending to small degree of it." ~Thomas Jefferson. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" ~ Martin Luther King Jr "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." ~ Tacitus, Roman senator & historian c.55 - c.117 AD " Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to know that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." ~ John Adams "We tell the people what they need to know, not what they want to know."  ~ Frank Sesno, CNN News "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ~ Richard Salent, Former President CBS News. "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..." ~ General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 "The news and truth are not the same thing." ~ Walter Lippmann, American journalist, 1889-1974 "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." ~ Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Ludlow, 1824 "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have     done. And I am Caesar." ~ Julius Caesar "He who would give up essential liberty in order to have a little security deserves neither liberty, nor security." ~ Benjamin Franklin "The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans."  ~ Hermann Hesse - Author (1877-1962) “Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” ~ P.J. O'Rourke

BMSMA.

G&S

Don't touch my junk!

Click here to listen.

This week we have a good old mix of topics.

We start reviewing our weekends. Greg went to a Basia concert. Simon went flying, in the clouds, and we both had Sunday lunch down at the pub. Nice!

Simon has recently finished the most recent book in one of his favorite ongoing sagas, the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The book is called Cryoburn. He's about to start on Terry Pratchett's latest, "I Shall Wear Midnight."

We stray into talking about war heros and we discuss some of them we've spoken to over the years.

We talk about  the US holiday of Thanksgiving, as that's coming up and that leads us into the topic of travel and the recent TSA debacle that has created a massive backlash by travelers within the US. We explore whether it's just good old fashioned incompetence or whether it's the ongoing march towards a 1984 type world.

We throw in some excellent quotes for good measure, which were taken from this list.

" Fascism will come to America in the guise of national security." ~ Jim Garrison in 1967, the only man to bring a suspect to court for the Kennedy assassination The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable."   ~ H.L. Mencken (American Writer 1880-1956)  "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins - all of them imaginary." ~ Henry Louis Mencken "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending to small degree of it." ~Thomas Jefferson. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" ~ Martin Luther King Jr "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." ~ Tacitus, Roman senator & historian c.55 - c.117 AD " Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to know that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." ~ John Adams "We tell the people what they need to know, not what they want to know."  ~ Frank Sesno, CNN News "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ~ Richard Salent, Former President CBS News. "Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..." ~ General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 "The news and truth are not the same thing." ~ Walter Lippmann, American journalist, 1889-1974 "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." ~ Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Ludlow, 1824 "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have     done. And I am Caesar." ~ Julius Caesar "He who would give up essential liberty in order to have a little security deserves neither liberty, nor security." ~ Benjamin Franklin "The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans."  ~ Hermann Hesse - Author (1877-1962) “Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” ~ P.J. O'Rourke

BMSMA.

G&S