and welcome to this edition of, what is this? Oh yeah, it's the Daily Grateful With. Zach. Yeah, Zach is my guest today, Zach is my son, but we're gonna talk about today, Zach.
Tell me. Nine reasons to stop taking technology so darn seriously. Okay, let's hear him. There's a guy on YouTube, by the way, who does the shopping things, and he always starts his YouTube videos like, these are the nine, that's what he does, just like that, but we're not gonna do that.
I thank you for that, and I'm sure our listeners do too. I don't know. Anyway, we'll begin here in just a sec. These are the nine reasons to stop taking technology so darn seriously.
I did it, I'm sorry. I wasn't gonna do it. I did it. I did it anyway.
Anyway, I'm a board member of the Tampa Bay Technology Center, as you well know. Of course. And I hang out there a lot, which is better than hanging out at Sleezy Bars. Okay, but I take technology relatively seriously.
I know you take technology relatively seriously, or do you? Well, yeah, I know we do. But you know what technology is? Number one, the number one reason, not taking it so seriously, what do you think it is?
It's still, I'm gonna tell you, and I want your comment on it. It's still just a tool. Okay? Yeah.
No matter how sophisticated things get, you and I both have in our pockets generally a very sophisticated piece of technology. Yeah. It's called an iPhone. But technology is just a means to an end.
It's not, you know, it's not the end. You agree? I agree. I hear you.
Okay. You know, our iPhones are pretty, you know, they're pretty impressive, but are they sacred? I think if we ask your sister that question. Yeah, she would disagree.
She would disagree. Yes, my iPhone is sacred. Not me. Yeah.
I just, you know, it's a tool. I use it. Most emergencies, this is number two. Most emergencies aren't emergencies at all.
You know that. Well, tell me more. All right, years ago, you know your grandma, who you love so dearly. Yeah.
The late grandma grows. I bought her a cell phone. Yeah. Because, you know, I bought her a cell phone.
She should have a cell phone. She should have a cell phone. And cause she drove, you know, she drove. And I gave her the cell phone.
She handed it right back and he says, no. Yeah. You're uncle Alder when I tried to buy you this phone. No, I don't want a cell phone.
I said, but what if you're driving down the road if you're on your way to church? Cause she went to Mass everyday. And the car breaks down. What are you going to do?
What are you going to do? You know what she said? What's that? She said, at that time she was 79 years old.
She said, I've lived 79 years without one. And we've had a bunch of emergencies. Yeah. You know what I do?
I go knock on somebody's door and I ask them to call, you know, a service company, a record, somebody. It's a good point because, you know, these technology companies, they try to sell us a solution to problems we don't have. And then once we have these solutions, like another example is Bluetooth headphones. I can't imagine living my life without Bluetooth headphones in my life.
I can't, like wires are annoying. Yeah. Exactly. I have these audio, technical, really cool over the ear headphones and your turtle dove, your honey pumpkin lover poo, your heart's delight.
She has over the ear headphones. That's true. It's true. But they are unwired to be there.
Mine has a wire to it. But anyway, we all survived these, you know, so-called emergencies. Cause you know, my mom, your grandma, I had a point. But you know, when the server goes down or glitches happen or the Wi-Fi crawls, we all survive it.
We get through it. Number three, number three. We need to, I need to drop this. Number three.
You want for all the numbers. All the numbers. How often are you doing numbered lists? No.
Okay. Technology changes every six months. At least. Okay.
There's always this new winning gadget. I remember with you with video gaming equipment. Okay. I got you the latest and the greatest.
What do you have now? Oh, I have the PS5. Yeah. Which is the latest and greatest.
And remember when I got there for you? We went to, I'm not gonna mention the name of the store GameStop. Yeah. And you couldn't get the things, right?
You had to enter lottery. Yeah. You gotta join our club. And then you pay, you know, the club is a hundred bucks.
Yeah, of course. And then you go into our lottery and you might get picked. And I said, no, we walked out that door. There's a mafia shakedown in that GameStop.
I don't know what it was. Allegedly. Thank you for that. I walked out of that thing.
And I told you and you were disappointed you had the saddle look on your face. Heart broke anywhere. And what did I say to you? You said by the end of the week, there will be that.
You said I will get you a PS5 by the end of the week. I will find one. And I said that I don't think you're gonna find one. These things are pretty hard to find.
And this was on a Monday. When was the PS5 sitting in the house? I think it was by Wednesday. Yeah.
It may have been Tuesday. It was a 24 hour turnaround. Yeah. So but you know, the technology changes.
Right now everybody's using Windows 11. This computer right here sitting in my studio is a Windows 10. It's a nifty computer. And it cannot upgrade to Windows 11 because, but you know, this thing's got 36 gigs of RAM and it's got a terabyte hard drive and an up-to-date sun, Windows 10.
And I'm fine with it. I missed my Vista. Your Vista? Windows Vista?
That was the stuff. Everyone hated it. I loved it. You see that computer sitting up there?
Yeah. That is your old computer. It's a Windows Vista computer. If you like, I'll drag it down and I will set up the table where it used to be out in the living room.
And we'll plug that in for you. We're going to have to get like a tube to monitor. You can't have a flat room monitor, but we'll have to find a tube to monitor and we'll set that up for you. Great, great.
Windows Vista. Oh my God, I forgot about that, right? All right. Real life, number four.
Real life still runs offline. Okay. This is true. You sunsets, they don't need charging.
They don't. My grandkids do not require firmware updates and cold diet coke which I have right here. I need to take a Sippy Sippy talk twice. He's going to make a point that I will argue with because I would say technology keeps your cold diet coke cold.
It's not new technology. Oh, so is this anti-new technology? No, it's just cold diet coke tastes exactly whether or not you posted it online. Okay.
I haven't put it on Facebook. Cold diet coke. I would argue that you are putting it on a podcast right now. I'm all to listen to.
I'm just saying, where's your integrity, Mr. Kross? As you used to call it, you remember how you used to say it? I'd say, what are you doing this?
You should look that up on the way you'd say it. Exactly. Internet, just like that. Internet, on the internet.
Does somebody argue that your diet coke is now being posted to social media? It actually is. So. It's going out for, you know, dozens of others.
I'm just saying I hope the Tampa Bay Technology Center investigates this deplorable act of dishonesty. Okay. Technology, not every trend is a mandate. Okay.
This is number five. This is number five. Oh, wow. And not every end, not every trend is a mandate.
I like this one. I can get behind this one. AI is a cool tool. But known as requiring you to adopt it.
Yeah. Although it creeps in everywhere. You can't Google something without AI pop it up. When you Google AI pops up on my damn phone, but I don't have to.
I don't, I don't subscribe. I don't pay money for any of the services. What's next AI in my own darn toaster? Wow.
It could happen. It could happen. You know the toaster that we have out in the kitchen? Yeah.
It's a great toaster. I bought it in 2000 2007. Yeah. I bought that toaster at Target.
And we're going to have that toaster long after we're both dead. Yes. That toaster is going to keep working. I made toaster with it this morning.
I'm about to make toaster with it a little bit. Okay. So we're not mandated to this. Okay.
Creativity beats software. Every time. Yeah. You know, I've got yellow pads that I write all the time.
I see several of them right here. Yes. There's one right there. There's some up there.
I yellow pads. Yeah. I write my best stuff on yellow pads. And it is that's what I do.
And that's not technology. Well, well, that is a ink pen. That's technology. Yeah, I guess.
You know what I miss? I miss you you've never experienced this. But when I went to Catholic school, we were mandated to use fountain pens. I've never experienced a fountain pen.
Is that what you just said? Well, do you think you are and how old do you think I am? Do you have a phone one? No, but I've had one in the past.
I'll get you with a little cartridges of the ink that you put in it. I guess, yeah. Yeah. I don't really.
That's what they required us to use at St. Rose of Lima Catholic school. And when you put the little cartridge in, there was like a little gap at the end. And it was like what?
You could just see it and we used to cut. I'm not I'm not believing I'm saying this. Oh, oh, do tell. We would catch a fly.
Oh my God. And we would pull out the cartridge and we put the fly in there and we put the cartridge back in and the fly would buzz around. That's what I mean, that's Catholic for you. You know, that's just what Catholics do.
Finally, Sister Board Jan says, if I inspect any fountain pens where they did fly in it from now on, you're going to have to do the tap tap. She had this thing that she liked to do. You would take your knuckles and you go to the blackboard and go on the blackboard. And she said, that's a five tap thing hurt like I needed you.
And don't give me these wussy little taps. You go, bah, bah, bah, bah. And if you and she said, you'll have to do it until you draw blood. The Catholic's so good.
What a wild time. I live the life, man. I'm telling you, but I didn't have a PS five. It's true.
Number seven, check anxiety is mostly manufactured. I would. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, you know, like this computer, it's a Windows 10 and not a Windows 11.
And they want you to upgrade. They'll tell you, you know, hey, if they don't, you're not a good person, you know, who gave me this computer? Dave Thomas, no, no, you had me there. No, we're going to tell people about that sometime.
If you're ever in a room where Zach and I have a conversation and he gets me to say who or I get him to say who you say, Dave Thomas, and you went a point, who's ahead this year? Me, yeah. You are significantly last year. I beat you.
Well, it's a one year game. But anyway, this computer will not run Windows 11. I'm fine with it. There's everything I needed to do.
I think with phones, too. Yeah, like they want you to upgrade. So bad, they'll start breaking your old phone. I had my old phone for like seven years.
It was an old iPhone 14 s or something 13 10 s. I don't even know. I don't even keep track of that kind of thing. And then we went out just recently and bought the exact same phone.
And I've been running that just fine since then. I don't need a new phone. My iPhone, see, I'm not an iPhone addict. I love having an iPhone.
Yeah, but mine is an iPhone SE. Yeah, which is a basic phone. I here's what I use my iPhone for. I check my email with it.
Oh, I make phone calls with it and I answer phone calls with it. I text with it, be grudgingly, but I can't text as fast as you can. How come you're so good with your thumbs and I'm not because I text a lot. I gave birth to you and yet you can text it more if anyone's listening to this.
And you have his phone number text him right now and just start a conversation with him that you know he doesn't care about and just make him text you back. No, no one has your phone number. Nobody that listens to this has my cell phone number. I keep talking doesn't listen to this doc doesn't listen to this doc.
If you're listening to this right now, text text him and say, I'm sorry that I that you doubted me, but I listened to every episode. Just let him know that he owes you lunch if he did that. OK, anyway, people skills are they age better. What number is this one?
This is number eight. Number eight people skills, people skills. They age better conversation, empathy, judgment, all that type of stuff. Ten thousand percent.
Yeah. You know, they don't appreciate it. If we if we locked you in a room with like a technologically like a like a vlogger or someone like a YouTube famous vlogger and we locked the two of you in a room with no technology and we interviewed both of you, it would be the drastic difference in like social appeal between you and this stranger would be so insane because you have what the kids are calling Riz or charisma. You know what I mean?
Do I have Riz Zach? I would say yeah, I would say you're very charismatic. I spoke with a woman business call today. Mm-hmm.
OK, and you know how you know me when I get, you know, I have a conversation about I'll talk to the damn woman to drive through it at McDonald's. Everything becomes a sewing circle. Everything. Everything.
Yeah. And it was with this lady, too, and we just got into this really strange and she's asking me about my life. I'm asking her about her, you know, and it goes on and I was, I was, you know, I was bitching a little bit and she pulled his act on me. Yeah.
And she said, you know, the stuff you're stressed out about is not worth being stressed out about. Yeah. You know, everything's going to be great. Just, you know, enjoy the fun things you have in life.
Her name is Celeste. Thank you, Celeste. Thank you, Celeste. She was cool.
Sounds cool. Yeah, with a name like, and by the way, oh, we have this wonderful conversation. You're going to disagree with me. Maybe you will.
I'm a boomer. She's a boomer. Yeah. OK, she's just barely a boomer.
Yeah. And then I, and then we talked about that and then we talked about Gen X and I say, Gen X screwed up everything. Yeah. And then the millennials came and she goes, and she goes, and the millennials don't do a damn thing to agree.
And I said, Gen Z, I'm hoping that they save us. Yeah. I'm sure since you are an entitled millennial, I mean, I don't necessarily care to, so it's interesting because you'll, you'll say that we don't need to get into a political debate here, but you'll often claim that the boomers did nothing wrong. No, we, we weren't perfect.
And that you guys saved America several times. Listen, we made Sam the sham and the pharaohs famous. That was totally wrong of us. I don't even know what that could possibly be.
That was a rock. Oh, that's a OK. OK, I think it was a big hit was Willie bully. We used to watch a stupid ass television show about a man named Jed poor Mountaineer and he kept his family fed to the damn television.
I love those guys. Yeah. Yeah. So we didn't do everything right.
Yeah, you know, and then one day he was shooting up some food. You know what? Up from the ground came a bubbling crude oil that is. Yeah.
Black gold. Black gold. Texas tea. Next thing, you know, did you have a dad from that?
He was a he was the scarecrow. Not scary. He was a ten man originally. Yeah, but the silver paint that they put on.
Really goofed him up. Goofed him up. So he said, no, never mind, I guess. Yes.
Anyway, but thank you for still us for, you know, basing me say number nine, number nine. Number nine. Ladies and gentlemen, before he finishes, I'd like to say this is number nine. This is Michael's top nine reasons.
Technology shouldn't be taking that seriously. And here we are. Number nine. And by the way, any further ado, everyone, give it up.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Number nine, by the way. Just so you know, number nine is one of my nine is my second favorite number.
Yes. My first favorite number is number three. But three is a multiplier up to nine. So but it's interesting that six is not I don't like six.
I don't like six because that's doubling three and two is my least favorite number. Who is your least favorite? Who is my least favorite number? I didn't know that.
I knew about the three and the nine. Yeah, I avoid twos like crazy. You avoid that. I won't drive down Drew Street because it sounds like two three.
It sounds like two three. I get it. Yeah, except for when we drive down and we see in the winter, when it's 38 degrees, people playing golf and shorts, another one. It's another one.
And you don't need technology for that either. All right, so back to it. Ladies and gentlemen, number nine. Here we go.
You're allowed to have fun with technology. What? I said, you're allowed to have fun with that related to the prompt. Well, my 30 year old son, that's you.
That's me. I wrote that right here. So my 30 year old son. That's me.
I wasn't going to have you on the podcast. But I said, what the hell? Uh, we just got key lime pie supplies. What?
I was about to go in there and making a key lime pie. You're and you're talking to me. I have an inject. I'm a type one diabetic for the audiences in case you didn't know.
And I haven't yet done my insulin injection. He just called me 25. I was supposed to do a date. You literally called me in here last second.
I'm here. So it sounds like it's like go back and listen to this podcast twice and listen to me to beginning while I was so confused. Tried to catch up with what we were talking about. And that's why I didn't really engage much at the beginning.
But this is going to go down as the best podcast episode. I think it is. But you know, you have the greatest gadgets. So you have fun with it.
I do. Uh, you know, but you love it. It can be technology can be a source of joy. It can because I pull up my iPhone.
You know, you know, the fun thing I do with my iPhone. What's that? Probably the same fun thing you do with your iPhone. Do you watch your video?
I watch Tiki Talk videos. Oh, I do that too. Yeah, so it brings me joy. I have a Tiki Talk channel.
Did you know that? I did, I did. It's called Podcaster Michael. I did know that.
I have not made a regular video in a long time. But my old friend, your ex-wife, Manette. Yes. She has a Tiki Talk channel.
When I say Zach's ex-wife. He means that we were married for a time and now we have. Unfortunately. You were married.
Issues in our marriage. We went to a Halloween party at her and her husband's house. It was a murder mystery party. It was a murder mystery.
And you had to play the part of Manette's husband. Or in other words, I was once married to this woman. You were once married to Manette. I believe I was 12 or 13.
You were 12. I'm not worried about the law coming down on me for that one. Manette's going to have to switch it. Should I have to answer to that?
But that was, you know, anyway. It was one of the best parties I've ever been to. It was cool. It was in their mansion.
Remember that? Cool people. Yeah. Yeah, but anyway.
What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. Technology can be. You're allowed to have fun with it.
You're allowed to have fun. And that's why you shouldn't take it seriously. That's right. Exactly.
Technology is a tool. And it's like. But if it starts controlling you, you dial it back. Exactly.
You control the tool. You push the little button in the three and a half inch. Floppy disk comes out. Yeah.
And you set it down. I don't even know what the heck you're talking about. The save button my entire life has always been a floppy disk. And I never thought about it.
Like, I don't know what the heck's a floppy disk. Right. Like, I've seen them. I found one in the garage.
Oh, cool. It's a Kodak one that has pictures of that I took. And you would take your film and to get processed and the film. They would give you the pictures on a three and a half inch floppy disk.
I just found one in the garage. I have nothing to plug it into to look at the pictures. Hey, I don't think anyone does. Oh, yeah.
We have one up there. We have one at the Tampa big. Oh, you know what? Whatever's on there on your club computers.
I get that. Oh, no, I would take it. It's a little device I would take it into. I have a podcast studio up there too, you know.
I would take it in there. And I would use a little device and look at it. It's got to be pictures because that was the era when you were all tiny, tiny children. So it's probably.
I was so cute. Yeah. I was just running around at Universal Studios or something. Yeah.
It wasn't really a Disney kid when I was younger. You were a Universal kid. Because I was afraid of roller coasters. Yeah.
And so I would just go to, I think it was like Fival's Playland and climb up on the ropes and circling back. No technology. It wasn't, you know, a CGI rope. It was a rope swing and a rope, a castle.
And that's what I did for about four hours. And I remember being so happy. And then I remember in the future being like, darn, my parents must be mad that they spent so much money on these Universal tickets. And I am climbing a rope swing.
It's just, you know, you refuse to go on the haunted mansion ride. That's now my favorite ride at all of Disney. I know. It's the best ride.
But you refuse to go on that. You're afraid. I was a dumb kid. No.
And then I took you to meet SpongeBob. I think that was a Universal? That's Universal. You wouldn't even get any of the verify.
I should publish the picture of Zach. It's like standing next to SpongeBob Squarepants. And Zach has this terrified look. It looks like I know something you guys don't know about SpongeBob.
It's a terrifying. Zach. Sir. Go stab.
I will go stab myself. He lined pie, damn it. I would love to. Yeah, I would love to.
Goodbye, everybody. Bye-bye.