H Texan is Michael Garfield. Michael Garfield, Michael Garfields joining the tech Texan.
Michael Garfield is here with a high tech texting items to make easier some
new technology. So Michael Garfield has something you might like. Texan. Michael
Garfield is your high tech Texan three decades hoping you make magic with your gadgets.
Heard worldwide on the iHeartRadio Act. Now your high tech Texan, Michael
Garfield. That is right. You heard that big booming voice say Michael Garfield.
By the way, I am Michael Garfield. But can we be so
sure? Since the blue check mark is gone? I could be an impersonator,
this could be an artificial intelligence voice. Is it really me? We
shall see. And that's actually one of the big topics that we're going to
talk about this week. People, if you were had a verified blue check
mark, it is pretty much OVA unless you are paying for man for some
reason that has got the world up in arms. People, it's just Twitter.
I calm down, summit down, what you're gonna do. Good Saturday
afternoon, actually good Saturday late morning if you're listening live on KPORC nine fifty.
Michael Garfield is the name Garfield. This is I believe close to nineteen.
I forgot it was this week. I believe it was my very first
show nineteen years ago. I've been here with the iHeart team for twenty two
years. But for some reason, these there's there's some dude who green led
a show for me almost two decades ago, and it started this week.
And back back then it was more of a technological show. I was telling
you about laptops and desktops and there was no high definition TV. Really it
was admitted to come out. There was a Wi Fi, which I had
to explain and oh my goodness, we have come so far. I talk
a little about technology. It really is a consumer lifestyle show. It's it's
like, hey, what's Michael b s And about this weekend? It's fun,
it's personality. I love hearing from you. I love reading all of
your emails. If you have my text, be kind while I'm on air.
But also now, there was no Instagram. Back twenty years ago,
there was no Facebook, Twitter or anything. And that's how you can reach
me. High tech text and Hi g h T E c h T e
x A and I do talk much more, but just about tech stuff.
Maybe I'll touch on gardening since I learned a little bit about gardening earlier this
year. But some of the things that I am gonna yap about are,
Yeah, the blue check mark. I think I found a way around that
thing. By the way, if you do follow me on Twitter, go
to high Tech Text and Hi g h T E c h T e x
A N. Take a look at my new my new profile photo if you
will. I got a way I got around. I never had a blue
check mark. Actually, apparently I'm not that special. I'm just riff raff.
I'm a yo all you other. It's not a big deal, but
I am me. But I think I got away around the blue check mark.
So you can see what's what's up at the high Tech Texan Go check
that out. Other things we are gonna yap about. I do cover the
car and automobile industry, and it's always fun to let you know what's Michael
driving this week. I've been doing this for fifteen years, and I've been
doing around last week or two lasts of the past fifteen years and some really
cool stuff. But this this week I got a I got the Ford Bronco
Everglades version. It's South the Ford Bronco, which you know kind of came
at the new four Bronco came out about what two years ago, several different
flavors, very neat stuff. This is the Everglades version. And I put
a photo on I put a photo on my Twitter account. It's also my
Instagram. You could take a look at this thing. By the way,
if anybody who's listening right now in and around the southeast Texas area, if
you happen to be stuck in a ditch or something like that, I've got
you covered because this thing has a winch in the front of it, so
I can tow up to ten thousand pounds. So I thought that was pretty
nat. So no, I'm gonna give you the play by play about that.
Along with what is I'll tell you what. I Am going to give
you a secret of how to make some money. If you are a Facebook
user or we're a Facebook user. Facebook or their parent company Meta they are
paying people thanks to a lawsuit about seven hundred and fifty million dollars they've got
to pay restitution for something. I will tell you how you can claim or
leak put in a claim to get some money back for the God awful things
that Meta or Facebook allegedly did back in the day. So standby because you,
my friends, probably could get a share of seven hundred and fifty million
dollars worldwide, which probably equates to maybe a cup of coffee when the check
if the check actually comes. The phone number here Callum read hello, Calum,
my friend, how are you? He's on the other side of the
glass. Seven one three two one two five nine five two one two five
nine five out That number has not changed. And the twenty or almost twenty,
as we lose count years that I have been doing this. Let's um,
I'm gonna I'm gonna start with checkopolis, checkopolis. If you're a Twitter
user, if you don't understand what I'm talking about, bear with me,
because this really is big news. Elon Musk, who, by the way,
has not had a really good week. He's getting just absolutely vilified for
a Twitter which he bought for forty four billion dollars that they removed a blue
check mark but by your name, which kind of verifies who you are if
you're an athlete or celebrity or whatever. That's gone and now you have to
pay for it. And oh, by the way, he launched a rocket
on Thursday morning from our great state of Texas. It went well for the
first four minutes until it didn't. But then again, listen, there's anybody
can see a bright side in anything. The fact is that actually lifted off
and had a four minute flight. It was a successful failure. As we
said, Elon Musk and Twitter, they began removing these blue check marks from
legacy verified accounts, and that was a long stated plan from from Twitter when
when Musk bought this thing. And historically, the aim of this verification system
really was to ensure that accounts from notable individuals and organizations who posted a lot
were actually being run by those individuals and organizations instead of you know, perpetrators
or people you know who are creating it. Somebody could have created account that's
in Michael Garfield. Well it's not me, Michael Garfield, but but who
knows, But you get verified. Elon Musk has long been vocal about his
dislike for the legacy verification system. He called it corrupt and lords and peasants
and whatever. He initially said April first of this year, they're going to
remove that blue check mark. Didn't happen. Was an April fool's joke.
But apparently he waited to four twenty Thursday, April twenty and they started to
disappear, and it was really funny. Watch a lot of the it's really
stupid. Honestly, some of the celebrities are people who have these accounts verified
and melting down. Well, they took my blue check park away. I'm
leaving. Shut up people you have there's people who have hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of followers. You just don't not do it. I don't
understand this thing. This blue checkmark system really started over a decade ago and
it was it was a good or bat who knows, but this was a
massive meltdown people. Now you can become a blue checkmark holder by paying eight
dollars a month, and even the richest of richest people said, screw it,
I don't need to do this. The point is this, if Elon
Musk is trying to monetize, and the dude, dude does need to recoup
his forty four billion dollars and try to figure out how Twitter is gonna make
some money, which it never has. If you're gonna take something away from
users and then ask them to pay for it, which is a major change.
Make sure it is i would say, a necessity or very important to
those users. And guess what, people, all this is is a blue
check mark, a little tiny graphic on the screen that says I am who.
It ain't that important in the scheme of life. So if you're ticked
out there similar listens who are blue check marked? Sorry about that? Why
don't you go actually talk to a real friend, your neighbor, your family,
your loved one instead of actually freaking out over some erroneous not a big
deal Twitter graphic and icon you see even the high tech Texan as two feet
in the ground impact of reality. By the way, keep your feet in
the ground and keep reaching for the stars. With that, we are going
to come back. I'm gonna give you some big news about Netflix. Netflix.
It may be something notable, but something again. It looks like that
passwords sharing is about to begin, which means you're gonna have to start paying
for that too. What is this world coming to? It's the high tech
text and show back at it, Michael Carr Bield hopo, both everybody,
It is the high tech text and show. Got some ideas, got some
questions, so he need some advice on something than life and love. But
I think I may be your guy. Seven one three two one two five
nine five. Oh would you guys do last night? Friday Night? Friday
Night? Netflix Prime. I'm actually excited the new season, the last season
of The Marvelous of Missus Mazel on Prime Video where it came out about a
week ago. This is the last season. And I think the reason I
actually got Amazon Prime about three or four years ago literally was to stream the
Marvelous Missus Mazel And now that's ending. I I'm not kidding you. I
actually may give it up. I don't. I'm not the biggest Amazon user.
I'm really not. And remember with Amazon Prime, which is it has
a monthly fee, I don't know, it's roughly why one hundred and twenty
to one hundred and fifty or so dollars per year. Yes, it gets
you free two day shipping. But it also gets you a streaming service Amazon
Prime. It gets you a music service, gets you some you know,
streaming music, which I still think I heart radio is better company man,
Well not really. But the reason it's called content, and maybe your content
is shopping. The reason you go to Amazon dot com Maybe that's it.
Content is also my wonderful show. Why are you listening to KPORC nine fifty
right now? Why are you listening to a podcast or I Heart radio.
It's the wonderful content that I curate each week and kill two hours of your
time. It's content. Netflix started it all. Netflix is the big daddy,
big daddy kine of everything. And Netflix continues to change. Do you
remember how Netflix began though storytelling with Uncle Garfy. They started selling or not
even selling, renting DVDs. So this is after the Blockbuster VHS chains of
the world, and I know, I probably just lost easily a quarter of
my audience right there with the Blockbuster change. You have no clue what I'm
talking about. You would walk into a corner store. You would go in
Juliana Friday night, and you would rent for wet three four bucks, five
bucks, I don't know. You would rent a VHS tape Oh my god,
I'm continue to lose my audience VHS and you would have to rewind,
be kind, rewind, and then return it I think one to two days
later. And that's how you watch movies. Netflix said, no, let's
stop it. The DVDs are here, we're gonna mail these things to you.
They were red envelopes, the iconic red DVD envelope. You would go
online and you would have a queue and you would rent these DVDs and you
hit click and they would mail you one, two, three, whatever at
a time. You open your mailbox, you watch it, and then you
would put it back in the envelope and you mail it back. That's how
Netflix started. It wasn't just it wasn't a streaming service. Well guess what
I didn't know this, but the red envelope renting the DVD. It's still
been going on. Breaking news. Netflix is finally about to shut down the
DVD by mail rental service that really set the stage for trailblazing the video streaming
service. People, it's an end of an era started about a quarter century
ago. It was it was a revolutionary concept. Do you folks remember this.
They planned to mail its final discs later this year, on September twenty
ninth, and people, it will be ovah ova. Netflix ended March with
two hundred and thirty two million worldwide subscribers to its video streaming service Netflix.
But it stopped telling, it stopped disclosing how many people still pay for the
DVD by mail delivery several years ago because that part of the business shrank.
The DVD service generated about one hundred and forty five million dollars in revenue last
year, So the guess is they probably had around a million subscribers still doing
this. If anyone listening right now still subscribes to the DVD in the mail
red envelope Netflix service, I'd love to hear from you right now. Seven
one three two one two five nine five vot hey, luddite, why are
you still doing this? But the growth, as we know, and I
talked about this because I do cover the streaming industry, the growth of Netflix's
video streaming service, it's kind of been slowing down of the past year and
they need to figure out how to boost profits. And the focus could have
contributed to the decision to close that operation that was becoming a financial drain,
which is and was the DVD service, which was it was Netflix's biggest moneymaker.
Listen, I'm sure they have diehard fans who continue to subscribe to that
DVD stuff because maybe there's more movies, there's more obscure movies that aren't widely
available in video streaming. Okay, that's total legit. But I think a
lot of people and I'm gonna liken this to the newspaper industry whoever still subscribes
to newspaper And I'm sure my parents are listening right now in Dallas VI iHeartRadio.
They do. Subscribers wax nostalgic about opening their mailbox and seeing that familiar
red envelope awaiting them instead of all the junk mail and all the build just
it's just it's a it's a time going. This is another thing that goes
by the wayside. Am I am I sad about it? No, because
I'm gonna be honest with you. I've never subscribed to that Netflix DVD thing.
Of course we knew about it was very famous. But I saw some
of these stats. It's just about five months of life or manny, the
DVD services ship more than five billion discs across the US. Five billion.
It could they be the was that the sole blame of bringing down the Blockbuster
video rental stores. May not be the sole blame, but it sure was
the nail on the coffin. Netflix. By the way, they rebranded the
service a few years ago called dvd dot Com DVD dot com. But it's
still out there. I'll say this one say I'm sitting Shiva for that.
Not really, but what we got about two minutes left in the segment,
and I'm gonna throw this out here. Seven one three, two one two
five nine five. What medium do you miss the most? And I say
medium? Is it the DVD player? Is it a cassette tape? Is
it? Eight track tapes? And cars? I don't think anybody can miss
the vhs. The b kind rewind that was just too long to come to,
too large. I don't even have a DVD player. I have tons
of DVDs sitting there. But when I set up my system in the house
I moved into about five or six years ago, I've got the I got
my receiver, my AMP. I've got a number of different things sitting there.
I guess I've got a PlayStation, I don't know whatever. My kids
have PlayStation five right now. And I've got an Apple TV, the physical
thing, and I've got my Wi Fi. UM. I still have an
LP record player if you will, it's it's it's in my garage somewhere,
and I have a I still have a cast tape. I didn't put that
up. That's in the grind somewhere too, and I guess my DVD players
somewhere in my garage. We don't need it at this time. So I'll
say it again. Either tweet me high tech texting, or give me call
seven one two one two five nine five. Actually, if you call me
on your wired telephone with a little pigtail cord, you probably still subscribe to
the Netflix DVD in the mail. What is the medium that you missed the
most, and I'll throw it out here. I think the medium that most
it's it's the medium is the the delivery system. That's what it is.
Reel to real tapes, eight track tapes, DVD players, CDs, you
know, when it comes to audio entertainment. That's what the medium is to
me. I grew up in the medium where I knew it. We had
a reel to reel reel the real is a heath kit, a real the
real kit that I grew up with that I really didn't play with her,
understand. My parents had that. And then there was albums, the thirty
three and a third and then the seventy eight RPMs, and I was kind
of into albums too. I remember the eight track eight tracks where I got
my first Barry Manlow cassette back in the late nineteen seventies. Captain Tinelle I
had that too, But to me, it's the cassette. It was the
Maxel, it was the TDK, it was the cassettes. And so as
you know, I'm a I'm a kid of the I grew up in the
eighties. I'm all about eighties music. And when you were there in the
early nineteen eighties, and every single car came with a cassette tape, and
you just kind of had a case that was probably sitting underneath your front seat
or maybe the passenger seat, and you would go on road trips and you
would whip out everything from Journey to John Cougar Mill and Camp to even you
know, the Michael Jackson thriller. It's what I had back into the day.
Those To me, the cassette tape will always be very dear, dear
near, and dear to my heart. Then there were CDs and then now
looked we got MP three. Some of the things that we're gonna aap about.
That's what I do. I go back when we come back on the
other side. War net Flix more Netflix. Hey, if you share a
password with someone you know to watch Love Is Blind? WHI Joe? By
the way, did work out too well last weekend? Did it? I've
been warning you about this for six months. It's coming your better pony up?
Are you ankle baby's able to share that password? I got that in
anything? Anything else you want? Michael Garfield, it is the high Tech
Texan Show. The bottom of the hour thirty more menu is left in the
morning Central time zone. It is the High Tech Texan Show. Michael,
what is going on? You know? Big shout out to local businesses over
here and anything I can do to help the local businesses, That's what we
need to do here and around the Houston area. Actually, wherever you are,
you really should support local. And by the way, if anybody happens
to need anything in the world of plumbing supplies or toilets or PBC pipes,
water heaters, may I recommend the good folks who have been around since gosh,
nineteen seventy nine, Universe Plumbing Supply downtown just outside of Minute Made Park.
Universal Plumbing Supply. You ever been there? They don't listen. I'm
gonna tell you right now, they're not gonna fix things for you. They're
not gonna perform the projects for you. See, I'm gonna do it yourself
for guy. You maybe too, but they're one of the top suppliers in
the entire city and it's my choice too again nineteen seventy nine. Go see
for yourself. But anything that you need for from sync faucets to ream water
heaters, sloan flush valves, they have it all. Toilets. I mean,
who doesn't need a new toilet Toto American standard. So yeah, go
check that out. Twenty three oz one South Congress. They are open right
now. Actually as I talk Saturday. They close at two pm on Saturdays.
Oh, by the way, they have free delivery within fifty miles.
These guys are just they're just awesome. Plumbing Supplies Galore, Universal Plumbing Supply,
Euston dot Com, Universal Plumbing Supply Houston dot Com. Nothing goes into
the toilet here because I give you great information. Don't flush this thing away.
We've been doing this for like two decades, so keep on rolling.
I was talking about Netflix. Um sorry, it's time it's time to talk
about thing. Netflix is finally about the crackdown on the password account sharing here
in the United States. Apparently they have a broad rollout of its paid sharing
plan coming in a few months. This has already happened in other countries.
And I've been telling you this about for six months, and so it seems
by the end of spring early summer this year, you are not gonna be
able to share the account password of your ex wife, which is bad news
for may. In the past, Netflix is estimated that more than a one
hundred million non paying households have access to its service through free account sharing,
and they say the practice limits it's availability to invest new content. Listen,
you're paying nine, ten eleven, up to twenty bucks a month. You
multiply that times one hundred million households. If that's what true. Yeah,
they're losing there, They're losing a lot of money. I totally get it.
They say that a Netflix account is meant to be shared in one household.
In one household only, people who are not in your household will need
to sign up for their own account to watch Netflix. It's common man.
It was a one year ago that Netflix dropped the bombshell that it had lost
subscribers for the first time in ten years. It in one day, like,
they lost about thirty five percent stock value, and now fast forward to
right now and it's it's still pretty shaky. Now. They launched a new
seven dollars advertising supported tier to attract more users. Seven bucks a month,
you're gonna see ads, and they did add about one point seven five million
net subscribers, but that was short, probably about half a million of their
expectations. And soon they're going to roll out it's highly anticipated, according to
them, program to limit password sharing. Netflix is still the dominant streaming service,
but there's so many out there, but they're having hiccups and issues.
I don't watch this show and I've never even heard of this show, Love
is Blind. Apparently there was a live reunion about a week ago or so,
and it was going to be stream live across the country and everything,
but apparently it didn't work. And it's funny because as I was on Twitter
it, Twitter seemed to melt down with what is happening? Look, I
don't even know what this show is, but the fact that so many people
were ticked a Netflix for not figuring out how to do live streams, it
didn't make sense. I mean, Amazon knows how to live streaming I mean
Amazon broadcasted last year NFL football on Thursday nights, which they will continue to
do so for many years and soon. As I told you a last segment,
it's not even gonna have its own DVD rental service to fall back on.
But I think the passwords sharing crackdown. When it happens, it's gonna
give Netflix that much needed boost in new subscribers. As I said, company
believes that one hundred million plus people are households, are watching on an account
they don't pay for it. So I'll throw this out there. This is
amnesty hour. Do you borrow disguise your voice? Seven one two one two
five nine five? Do you borrow somebody's account? Make up a name park
like Kermit d Frog. I ain't gonna bust you. And are you gonna
pay for it? How many streaming services do you have already? Because right
now you may not realize this, but you may be paying more than you
did when you just had cable. Everybody wants to cut the chord, right,
Oh well, well, you certainly need internet account unless you're barring that
from your friend with their Wi Fi. Passwords sharing. Good for you if
you are more power to you but you are going to need Internet, and
that's gonna cost you anywhere between thirty forty fifty sixty dollars depending on the speed
or whatever. Then you're gonna have Netflix for ten bucks. ESPN Plus,
Disney Plus, gotta have that. You gotta have Amazon Prime. You gotta
start this starts adding up Man, HBO, Max Max. At some point
you're you're at the point where you're gonna start over again. You know what,
why don't you just fall back on absolutely free advertising supported radio. This
message brought to you by KPRC nine and fifty, where you have been listening
to advertising free supported radio, at least my show for two decades. Right
now, I see what I did there. That's it seven one three two
one two five nine five out. I told you I have Prime Video that
I actually I don't know why. I think I pay about nine bucks for
it. I don't know if I have a student accounts. I don't even
know how. I maybe's relatively cheap. I don't know. And I did
it solely I think years ago to watch Marvelous Missus Masel, which, by
the way, the first three episodes of the final season just dropped last week.
I don't want to see that, go I may give up my Amazon
Prime after that, Which if you had to drop one or two of your
streaming services, what would you drop? Listen? It's a personal preference.
It's kind of like back in the day where I listened when e readers electronic
readers were a big thing. There was the obviously there was the Amazon Fire
tablet, you know that. That's that was a way which exclusively you got
to download books or purchase books or rent books from Amazon. And then there
was there was another competitor, Barnes and Noble had and still have one.
It's called the Nook. And oh okay, well, at that point you
we download books from Barnes and Noble, and both of the e readers were
convenient. There were you know, electronic ink. They were kind of a
black and white, you know ink things, so you can read them out
in the sun. They were light, you can recharge them, and that's
about which in there relatively inexpensive. And people ask me which is better?
Should I get the Noo or should you get the Amazon And the quite simple
answer was, what's the content that you want? If you wanted a massive
catalog of books and magazines, and you already had an Amazon account. Yes,
get the Amazon Fire. You don't need to change everything. But if
you were old school, you used to go to Barnes and Noble, and
you just you just want some books in fiction and nonfiction, books that are
relatively new or whatever. You Yeah, get get the nook. It's about
the content. So what's the content? I don't know. It's kind of
tough to figure it out. Now there's listen. I have Peacock Netflix from
an account that I'm sharing I got, I pay Amazon. I think they'll
have somebody's HBO Max account at Disney Plus account, and I really don't watch
those too much. But it's tough to find out who makes better content.
It's it's up to you who's got the better the catalog. Shockingly enough,
I'm actually pretty surprised at at at Peacock, I have about a minute minute
a half. Togo might about guess what I watched. I had nothing to
said in my life. I don't know. I had about an hour and
a half to our scale for I go to bed late at night. About
two or three days ago I saw I saw streaming only on Peacock. It
was a movie that was released earlier this year that had the absolute one of
the most the most stupid, worst titles ever. But a buddy of mine,
I think it was text me months ago. He goes, I cannot
believe I saw this movie, and he and then we started laughing about the
whole thing. Folks. I watched and here's my quick review on Peacock streaming
only right now. Cocaine Bear. I'm leaving at that. Cocaine Bear is
the name of this movie. It was in theaters I don't know, a
month or two or three ago. It is now streaming. You can only
get the damn thing on Peacock. I'm sorry. I wasted an hour and
forty minutes of my life. It was directed by Elizabeth Banks, who is
a really cool actress, hot actress, and I just I just did not
like anything about this. It was It's about a bear. It's based on
true facts. It was about a bear who ingested cocaine that was dropped from
a plane somewhere in the in the in the mountains of Tennessee. And in
the real true story that I don't think anybody was actually killed romuld. But
this was one of the goryest, campiest movies I have ever seen. It
was actually stupid, It was disgusting, but damn it, I continued to
watch it, folks. It's called content. I don't pay specifically for Peacock
because I have Expenity, which is owned. It's the NBC Universal and they
have the whole Peacock. It comes with it. But damn I watched Cocaine
Free Bear. People. Don't waste ninety one hundred minutes of your life.
Don't do it. Anybody want to tell me a better something to watch,
or if you disagree and you love Cocaine Bear, I am here for you.
Seven one three two one two five nine five. Oh yes, this
is what we talk about on a High Tech tex In show. The final
second of this first hour or the High Tech tex In Show is Michael Garfield.
Is the name Garf if we are tights high tech tex in Twitter,
which is not blue checkmark very five. But then again, if you never
had in the first place, it doesn't matter that everybody's blue checkmark was wiped
out. My other account, Garf g a r f where you can find
out all the late breaking sports news, which is pretty much the major thing
that I care about in life right now. The phone number is seven one
three, two, one, two, five nine five. Hello Calum,
read here. He's on the other side. He will answer your phone calls.
Calum, are you a McDonald's fan? I saw this news. This
is not a commercial. Believe me, this is zero commercial from McDonald's.
I'm gonna have to give him about two and a half minutes of on air
publicity right over here. Do you you ever eating McDonald's. No. I
have three boys there in their twenties right now. I can't when they were
really, really young. I remember taking him to McDonald's. I think,
I'm not getting you solely to go play in that little gym inside. This
is before my local Chick fil a had a gym. You know. They
did get in the little ball pit, and I remember my oldest son,
so he's now twenty eight. I remember he was really little and he actually
got caught. He got stuck way up where maybe he was scared. He
crawled all the way up to the top of these mcdonald' ballpit things and the
little slides, and he started crying. He was really young, and he
couldn't come down and couldn't get out. So Dad, being the hero that
I am, had to go on a reconnaissance mission, literally climbing through a
ball pit, up and down, over the grimace and through hoops to go
all the way to the top of this McDonald's ball pit and them down.
I do not remember buying a quarter pounder with cheese or even fries. I
just we just had about I just I don't do fast food other than maybe
chick or Chaco's or something that I actually care about that can be relatively healthy.
And I bring this up. It's because I saw a story about McDonald's
is trying to reinvent itself these new big macs. McDonald's is improving it's hamburger,
It's cheeseburger, the double cheeseburger, the mcdoubleburger in Big Mac. The
company announced earlier this week the improved how do you are? They are they
admitting that their food was not that good because the improvements include softer buns.
Nice to meet you. My name is Michael, which boby there? I
think they have sesameseeds right? According to the jingle, they perfectly melted cheese
in a juicier caramelized flavor from adding white onions to the patties. While they're
still on the real McDonald's has been rounding for generations, and now they're just
perfecting that in realizing the white onions while they're on the grill is a good
thing. You listen go the small changes in the twigs, maybe they're gonna
be hotier, hotter, meltier cheese and men their grill settings. Good,
good for you. But the bigger news is something that actually did excite me
because it took them all these years. McDonald's. I am actually very excited
to say this. They are bringing back the Hamburglar. I am stoked.
The freaking Hamburglar and parents who are over forty years old, certainly certainly over
fifty, you know, the Hamburglar. There were these characters that McDonald's had,
and I'm gonna data back to obviously the seventies or something. I remember
why he was young. I was watching early Saturday morning cartoons and they had
these characters. The Hamburglar, who was this cartoonish thug who apparently escaped from
jail because he and I'm assuming it's a he is wearing black and white jail
uniforms with a mask on it. And the Hamburglar apparently even though he was
paid by McDonald's as a spokes character was not allowed to eat hamburgers, so
the fool had to steal freaking hamburgers from Mary mccheese. This is HR puff
and stuff. It's so appropriate. This happened on the week that April twentieth
twenty actually came out. Point is the Hambururgler. They dropped the hamburglar even
I think they even dropped Ron McDonald and some of this stuff Hamburgers coming back.
There's a new commercial. I'm a Mary mccheese guy. By the way,
have you ever seen Mary mc go Google right now when you're not driving?
Mayor mccheese. Dude? Literally, whoever created the hr puffin stuff?
Nineteen seventies live action weird drug addicted comedy created this McDonald, This maryor mccheese
character. Dude is dressed up in I guess a suit like a mayor,
but his entire freaking head is a big mac. I mean, there's no
way this guy could walk through a door. And then there's the Grimace.
What the hell is Grimace? Who it McDonald's or was it McCann Erickson or
who was the advertising the agency out of Chicago? I actually I'm not kidding
you. When I studied advertising and when I was in college, and it
was a very when advertising agencies were advertising agencies. There was either New York
Chicago rail lay, but it was a Chicago based because McDonald's is based right
outside of Chicago. It was it was it was it J Walter Thompson or
they created these characters that that the happy Meal and all this other stuff.
Who who thought a purple blob of nothing called Grimace would be a good character.
I don't. I don't know. I don't know where I'm going this
thing real quickly, by the way, to see, this is what we
talk about. This is hard hitting stuff that I'm trying to entertain. You
give me right now and callum you could you could, you could chime in
seven one three two one two five nine. What are some of the greatest
food mascots? Give me the food brand mascot. Let's rank the food brand
mascots right now. Seven one three, two one two five nine five up.
We have to start an end with Tony the Tiger. Am I wrong?
Because they're great? I mean, this dude, he was the king
of encouragement when it came to young sports players. I mean, I don't
eat Cereal really anymore? But if I'm walking down the aisle of HB and
there's freaking tone to the Tiger, and I can hear the voice, who,
by the way, the same voice as the Grinch from When the Green
Shiel Christmas Throw Ravenscroft. Great voice there, boy, I wish I had
a voice like that. Do They're more than good? They're great? Why
is it with Cereal? It's really there's these mascots really who just appealed to
kids the Lucky Charms leprechn what's up? Kids? Kids would chase this dude?
Why are they chasing this dude? Kids? Tell your parents to just
go to the damn store and buy you some Lucky Charms? How about that
owl? Remember mister Alan the Tutsie Pop commercial? How many looks does it
take to get to the center of a Tutsie Pop freaking woodsye? Ow is
it? The one or two or three? Crunch? Love me some Pillsbury
dough boy? The that dude was the cutest brand mask out of all time.
Poke is a little tummy. We got Ron McDonald freaking tricks Rabbit Silly
Rabbit tricks for kids. There's another thing that takes me off. This is
called the tricks. This was his cereal. And they wouldn't let tricks rabbit
have tricks because he's a silly rabbited tricks for kids. The rabbit had to
go steal the freaking cereal from kids. I still remember the step Keebler Elves.
Thank you. I'm getting tweets right now. Love the keeper up Ernie,
the freaking alf Man burger king. Yep, he's in there too.
Mister Peanutt and his monocle. Yep, he looked good. Oh love the
kool at Man. Oh yeah, dude came busting through the wall again.
Everything is marketing to kids to can freaking Sam, to can Sam. He
was fruit loops. Who else are we missing? Twitter? Come in and
jolly green giant dude. Who wouldn't want to buy freaking package vegetables from a
big old dude wearing freaking leaves all over his chest? Love that guy,
Captain Crunch. Was he really a captain? Was he kind of like a
first mate? I'm not sure. Maybe kind of a commander instead. People,
I just nine minutes with you, giving you some some iconic brand memories.
Welcome back, Hamburglar. I'm a Mary mccheese guy. But you know
what, I'm sorry, man, I don't care what character you bring back.
I'm just not going to McDonald's. It's non brand loyalty to me.
By the way, if any of our sales people here at the I Heart
Radio is pitching McDonald's for an endorsement, I'm gonna pass it at But I'm
your Chick fil a guy. It is lunch time, by the way,
and I'm getting hungry. We have one more hour to go. Don't go
anywhere. The phone number here is seven one three two one two five nine
five. Oh. When we come back, it's Earth Today's Earth Day.
By the way. I'm gonna tell you about some sustainability programs and maybe some
products or ways that you actually can help save our earth and make it more
green. And that does include electric vehicle cars. And I am going to
talk a lot about cars. There's there's a new car that was just released
and it's coming out that has no rear window. Are we are we taking
one step forward but two steps backs in life? I don't know so much
more to talk to one hour ago here on the High Tech Texting Show.
Yeah, Hi Tech Texan is Michael Garfiel Michael Garfield. Michael Garfields joining the
high tech texting. Michael Garfield is here with a high tech texted items make
easier some new technology. So Michael Garfield has something you might like. Hi,
Texan, Michael Garfield is your high tech Texan three decades helping you make
magic with your gadgets. Heard worldwide on the iHeartRadio Act. Now your high
tech texting Michael Garfield. Who's hungry? Man? I just got through giving
a ten minute spiel on McDonald's and the favorite fast food characters. People.
This is the compelling information that you miss by missing our number one, which
will be podcasted thanks to my man Callum read here in just about an hour.
Because we are only halfway through this show. Say it with me.
We're a halfway at a happy hour people on a nice Saturday here in and
around Southeast Texas. Michael Garfield, that's right. Last night, check guy,
I did need to take a peek up my driver's license to prove I
actually am Michael Garfield since everybody's blue check mark went away. To verify who
we actually are again, another topic that you can go back on the podcast
and figure out. Listen to there was a Twitter reference. I'll give you
the phone number here, mister callum. Read's over here answering calls. Maybe
I'm an answer them. Depends what kind of mood I am, callum Am,
I had a good mood maybe yeah, yeah, okay, now generally
in a good mood. Seven one three two one two five nine five ozho.
By the way, Happy earth Day? Earth Day? What is Earth
Day? Shouldn't every day be Earth Day? It's kind of like Mother's Day
and Father's Day. Shouldn't every day be Mother's Day and Father's Day? To
love one another and get gifts? What do you give somebody on Earth Day?
An electric vehicle? I will be talking about that later this hour too.
Are you are we supposed to be more aware of everything sustainable? A
lot of companies are. It's funny they're they're rolling around Earth Day. But
then again, two days ago they were rallying around four twenty also, which
I didn't you know what side note I didn't even know it for twenty was.
I don't until a few years ago. And I think it's just absolutely
stupid, and I don't even know the origin of it. I don't want
to hear it. But it's funny how there's some companies who marketed the hell
of that whole thing. But now it's Earth Day, right now, sustainable
stuff. I will tell you about some sustainable things. By the way,
got some information from my buddies at Samsung. Again, sadly not a paid
endorsement, but I do like Samsung. It's just one of many companies who
actually are coming out with eco conscience initiatives. TV recycling, by the way,
you got about two more days, a few more days, Samsung is
offering to haul away your old TV and recycle it responsibly. When you buy
a few select TVs on Samsung dot com or from best Buy, you're gonna
get a one hundred dollars instant rebate to use towards the purchase of a new
Samsung TV. I've said this for twenty plus years that I've been on the
radio. I remember doing this for computers and desktops when you when you do
not ever throw a monitor away, do not ever throw away a desktop or
a laptop because some of those parts are not recyclable. And it's number one.
It's in terms of secure personal security data stupid. I mean, you
better wipe that hard drive claim and to do that. So sometimes I physically
recommend to people you better take a power drill and drill through that hard disk
to make sure nothing is stilling, have the thing recycled, wipe your drive,
and maybe donate it to some nonprofit or some family who you know who
who can't afford it. That's one, But I also want televisions too,
just to just if your television blows, man, just don't put it in
the freaking trash, find someplace to recycle it. And I know a lot
of the places charge you for recycling, which I mean, I guess I
kind of understand these recycling business models, but still it's sometimes it doesn't make
sense. Hey, I'm trying to save the world. Can I just recycle
this without paying for it? In some places let you do and don't so
anyway, so I see if Samsung is trying to do. They're nice little
upsell there there. They'll come and haul away your old TV recycling and install
the new TV. They also have some refurbished phones for less uh sam sig
Samsung certified renewed devices, and they're a lot most all of these when when
is when it is certified renewed Advice or maybe the certified renew car. It's
kind of like a light new experience, Like I know, the Samsung stuff,
they have a guaranteed warranty and it saves your money, reduces waste and
what have you. So they have some refurbished phones out there, and there's
some of these newer devices that they're coming out with UM that have recycled ocean
bound plastics from discarded fishing nets and what that doesn't help to minimize UM,
you know, economic footprints. So you know, again that's one of many
things that so many companies are out there doing, and so you know,
it's good for them. And I'm more than happy to point this stuff out.
If I'm missing anything, feel free to let me know at seven one
three two one two five nine five if you heard of something that's actually the
certified renewed phone. Starting today, it's on Earth Day. The They have
a Galaxy S twenty two series, which I think I haven't I haven't asked
twenty two. I think I haven't asked twenty two. They have a Certified
Renewed S twenty two. It's available starting today six hundred nineteen dollars. I
believe it starts with and also comes with a new green color option. Oh,
I'm looking at you, Samsung. I'm seeing what you're doing. A
green color option for the S twenty two, and they actually even have a
S twenty one. It's coming for a new low price and that starts May
first, and that really lowers the cost of all the models, including that
S twenty one Ultra, by at least one hundred dollars. And listen,
Sam Sung, Listen, there's a lot of companies who refurbished their phone.
They certify them, and they're gonna make them like new. It's gonna be
a like new experience. In this case, maybe it's a phone. They're
gonna come up with warranty companies this big. They're not in the business of
selling you something that's gonna fall apart. Again, I absolutely trust something like
this, So anyway, in that case, check it out at Samsung dot
com. There are so many other guys. I saw Southwest Airline is letting
you purchase some carbon flight credit. So Happy Earth Day to all those who
are celebrating. And tell me how you are celebrating Earth Day. Are you
eating leftover food in those plastic containers? Don't do that. That was a
famous Murphy Brown episode. I remember that phone number here on the Michael Garfield
program is seven one three two one two five nine five oz again real quickly.
Last hour, we talked about the checkopolis where Twitter has removed most I
say most, all the blue check mark legacy and but feel free to go
pay eight dollars a month if you want your check mark, which kind of
makes you kind of a laughing stock. It's like, why why are you
doing that? Talked a lot about Netflix. Netflix has been in the news
big time. They are getting They've announced that they're gonna stop selling the DVD
in the mail service, which to many surprises of people's like I had no
clue they're still doing it, but yes, by the end of September this
year, it's all streaming all the time for Netflix. They're a big business
model that they used to rely on. How they started no more DVDs and
those red envelopes. That'll be uh. You can hear that on the podcasting
about an hour from right now. That was the hour number one, And
very soon they will be announcing of how they're going to stop password and show
sharing. So if you share a password of Netflix, you are screwed.
My friends, you better start saving up your money to pay for it because
you are not going to be able to share that password. And so about
one hundred million people allegedly around the world share a passwords one hundred and Netflix
is gonna recue some of their money. So there you go, more sustainable.
So go get a new TV from Samsung. See you can watch your
Netflix all right. Coming back, Who's hungry? Brand new? Another one
of these hot food halls, these food markets is opening up today. It's
downtown. I'll tell you more about that coming back here on the High Tech
text and showy Welcome back. It is Michael Garfield. Of course, it
is the long running high Tech dex and show kprcam or radio here across Southeast
Texas. If you're listening here somewhere online, thank you so much. You
may not be in Houston, but you should get here just as soon as
you can. And then again, watch out, it's gonna get nice and
toasty and hot. But there's a lot of air conditioning here in this city.
And there's a lot of great food and great things to do. Speaking
of which, there is something. There's a big grand opening happening today downtown
that you should be really excited. It's it's another opportunity to really number one,
get some air conditioning. But also there's an outdoor part of it too,
and there's a lot of great food. A few months ago, there's
a place downtown called Lyric Market. It was a it's a neat food hall.
If you've ever been and in food halls or neat man you can just
go in and just you know, sample this, sample this, and there's
a bar. It's just a it's a really fresh venue. And today is
the official grand opening festivities with a few more restaurants they just opened up.
And I want to go live down there to kind of get the vibe.
I'm gonna bring in Andy Charlton. Andy is the manager down at Lyric Market.
Andy, how are you? How crazy is it right now? If
all the fun and food and drinks? Hey, I'm great. How's it
going, sir? I am fine. I am fine. So you've been
there since October. Everything's been open since October. But today you finally wait,
you waited five months to really just tell the world, right. There
was a little bit of baseball going on, and then we rolled into the
holiday, so we wasted just a little bit to get to get everything up
and ready for the ground opening. First of all, help people exactly where
it is. What's the as dress, what's the address? So the address
is four left in Smith Street. We're right in the very heart of the
theater district. We're across from the Worthen Theater. We're right behind the Alley
and right next source to Houston Ballet as well, just off Smith Streets as
you fall off its head into downtown. For those who've never been into a
food hall, and I don't know when the term of food hall. I
grew up going to a shopping mall that had a food court. There's no
shopping mall per se. But food halls are fun because you know, you
go with a group of people. Somebody feels like barbecue, somebody feels like
just a coffee drink, and it's all right there. But it's just a
neat one of the it's it's a new vibe that this that the generation of
my kids like going to and they like dragging dad down there. And you've
got a gorgeous place. And so when for those explain what the food hall
concept, specifically what Lyric market is too. So we've got nine different vendors
UM. They're all under operated. We've got everything from barbecue to Cajun to
sushi, to Indian to Mexican cuisines. We've even got a great vegan vegan
food stall. And if you're if you're out on the days, or if
you say as you say, if you if you want some friends, a
group of friends that everyone wants to eat the same thing. It's a great
way to kind of mix, mix and match cuisines with a group of friends.
We've got a fantastic bar in the center of the food hall with some
some great drinks and some great spirits as well, and it's just a really
nice kind of vibe to meet up with with groups and and head our homes
to sound the space itself. Obviously when you open in October, you know
it's it was pretty much self contained in you know, in right over there.
But you also kind of debuting something today with kind of a patio,
so that's one of the reasons you're celebrating. Yeah, we've got a beautiful
patio upstairs looking straight down Smith Streets. We're gonna have some vendors up there.
We're gonna have UM nineteen twenty nine, our Cajun Spot is doing some
fantastic crawlfish. We're also gonna have some kids crossed up there. We've got
a three entred sixty green photo booth, kick pops for the adults, some
kids crossed to keep the little ones happy. I think you had me a
crawfish right there. This is crawfish season, so it's perfect. And I
know you've also got as I'm looking at some of the list over here,
you've got that big Rhapsody Bar, and you've got a sushi place, you've
got a caddy Rollwalla, you've got Maxology, a little Mexican going on there.
But you also I think there's there's there's three or four new ones that
are opening, one of which is a little barbecue action going on. What's
it called, Yeah, it's called Mama's Mama's Texas Smokehouse. It's really really,
really good barbecue. I love I love the raps. It sounds weird
thing to go for, but they do a great brisket and sausage wrap,
which is just fantastic. Talking with Andy Charlton, he is the manager at
Lyric Market Downtown. They're celebrating the grand opening today and it's it's I think
it goes on to is it three o'clock today, it goes onto the big
grand opening, Yeah, twelve, so three the Lyric Market. It's also
opened seven days a week, which obviously makes sense because you're in the heart
of downtown and you've got so many workers. You've got people who live downtown.
So what are the general hours you open for breakfast, lunch, dinner.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner through the week. We're opening at eleven o'clock
on Saturday and Sunday. Obviously, open a little bit later Friday, Saturday,
Thursday, Friday, Sunday nights till eleven the rest of the week through
two, nine o'clock and ten o'clock. So one of the other ones open
here is I see Cafe Juju. We've got a little cold pressed juices so
we can eat healthy. We don't need to come down and step our pie
holes with all of this barbecue or anything. We've there's there's there's really nice
options, including you said a vegan option down there. Yeah. Absolutely,
cafe they're just launching the brand new, completely based menu, so if you're
looking to take care of your body a little bit more, they have some
great juices, and they can also give you some really really good m salads
and sandwiches that are just absolutely fantastic. You really can't tell the difference.
I know you spent a lot of your time down there at that bar.
It's a beautiful bar. Give me one or two of your favorite concoctions to
mix and make. In drink, I certainly believe we've got one of the
best martinis in town. We have that on draft. We've got a great
blueberry Mojo. It's a kind of a more of a tropical rum basil on
blueberry drink. And all the all of the all the drinks are contributed to
buy by the bartenders, and we have a lot of drink pairings as well.
For the for the grand opening again, grand opening is today, goes
on from right now as we're talking here live here on this Saturday, April
twenty second, all the way to three pm. Don't forget it is open
seven days this week. The obviously. I actually I just got an email
every heere from one of the listeners. Hey, Michael, this sounds good
downtown though. What's the parking situation. Let's actually where should people park?
And how does that work? Park right above us. We've got eight stories
of parking lot. It's free for two hours. We've validates. We also
have special event parking rates, particularly if you go into one of the inn
theater or the ballet of the opera. UM it's it's towel hovels for it's
a park for longer term during the events. Free two hour parking a camp
because I can do some damage within two hours with a lot of dot.
If not, we're definitely taking it uber. Last question before you get algy,
and we appreciate your time. Andy. People want more information. What's
the website? Website is lyricmarket dot com. Lyric Market it's l y R
I c lyricmarket dot com. It is and one more time, be I
addressed my friend for eleven Smith Streets, four eleven Sis Smith Streets on the
other end of downtown. It sounds good. Let's see. I'm hanging up
the headphones here. In about an hour an hour and a half, I
may be able to pop down there if I see you. How about that
martini? You're gonna have a co one for me? Oh? Absolutely?
Game is on. Andy Charlton, by the way, I love your acts.
And he's from East Texas. My friends way East Texas. Listen,
Andy, congrats to you and best of lucked. Everybody seems like it's gonna
be a winner. It's a great new food hall. It's called Lyric Market.
Didn't we wish you the best of success? Thank you so much.
I love to see this is the whole thing. If you know, I
do this radio show down around lunchtime. Then I get hungry that I'm gonna
pop down there, so he's just to check out out. Always need to
see things like pop pop up like this in our great city of Htown.
Michael Garfield is my name. Open phone lines right now. You don't go
anywhere, people, because we still got at least an hour or more of
fun right here on the high tech text and show kp RC Radio nine fifty
am and iHeart Radio. Thank you so much to folks done in Lyriing Market.
I may actually pop down there after the show sounds good. I like
these food halls if you just tune in. Michael Garfield. We just talked
to uh, some of the folks down at the new Lyric Market downtown Houston.
All these food halls so funny. I mean I remember going to the
food court. I mean they're food courts and all these malls and hanging out
fast times. Ridgemont High grew up in doubt for all you people grew up
in dallas Man Valley View Mall. That was my jam North dallas Man.
They had a donut shop, a Taco tex Mex shop. They had a
pizza place. It was not Sabarrow. This is like crap. It was
a It was a I guess the difference between a food court and a food
halls where in a food court it's surrounded by a mall or something, and
I guess a food hall there's no mall around there. I guess they build
these things and in office buildings or whatever. So yeah, I mean I
made just to go see some of that stuff. Phone number here for about
next thirty minute seven one three, two, one two five nine five.
Oh. Michael gar is the name. We do talk a lot about cars
because that's what I do. Cars are really built on technology. And about
fifteen years ago I realized, man, I mean all these obviously, I'm
a high tech tex and I talk about things that beep and buzz and built
on technology. And then I joined the Texas Auto Writers Association, and where
we get to you know, meet the manufacturers, the engineers and the marketers
for so many brands of cars, and you know, I covered on a
weekly basis, and I'm honored, really I am to be able to get
to test drive a brand new vehicle every single week of the year. I've
been doing this for about fifteen years. It is not a dealership. None
of this is paid. Sadly, I do not endorse a dealership, sadly,
which I should be endorsing a dealership. But this is pure content of
this stuff. I do get to drive and play with and I've done it
everything from you know, sports cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, family cars,
cuvs, just many of hands, you name it. And now EV's
electric vehicles and kind of on the tails of its Earth Day, Happy Earth
Day people electric vehicles. Raise your hand. If you're driving an electric vehicle
right now, I put your hand back in the wheel you're driving. I
want two hands in the wheel. Are you happy with your electric vehicle?
I get this at one of the bigger questions that I've been asked over the
past. I would say two years, certainly, you know, going back
four years, but the past two years one year ago, Hey, Michael,
is that your real hair? Yes, it is my real hair.
I do not color it, and I'm very proud of that. Debt.
Well, the other question I get is should I get an EV? Michael
now is now all the time man Garth? Should I get an EV?
And if you're a long time listen you know my response. I like electric
vehicles. I am then pressed with almost every single EV that I test drive,
from the Ford Mocke Mustang one of the first ones I tested a few
years ago, to the Kia EV six, I am incredibly pressed with the
the Genesis GV sixty. Oh some of the technology built in that thing,
it's amazing. They are super fast, the sound system, the touchscreens,
the automatic driving, you can go on and on and on. They're great.
But for me, in my lifestyle, my demographic of what I do,
I probably would not buy an electric vehicle right now. And that is
solely based on my driving habits and my lack of patience. Okay, because
you know here it comes to your listeners. You know me. My hesitation
is the sad current infrastructure of our electric car charging system right now here in
the United States. It's horrible, it's laughable. In the state of Texas.
I think there's probably only twenty five twenty six hundred public charging dations in
the state of Texas. People. California is probably fifteen sixteen thousand, which
is still not even enough. So the times that I have at an electric
vehicle to test maybe the range on those things of that battery, remember these
are not gasoline power. You cannot roll up into an ex hon or a
mobile and you sit there and just put gas in it. You better find
a charging station. Now. I do not have a charging outlet or system
in my house because I don't own an electric vehicle. Yes, I live
half a mile from the Whole Foods. It's got one charging bay. Sometimes
it works, sometimes it doesn't work. I don't want to roll up and
this happened. I remember, I'm in the four at F one fifty lightning.
Oh unbelievable, great pickup truck, it really is. And I needed
to charge this thing. And it's got a range I think it's what range
had about two hundred fifty miles and number one I being the ADHD person I
am, which I'm not shocked anybody can figure that out. I have what's
called range anxiety in my mind. If the range and I'm looking at the
range, not the gas milengs, but how much range is left? Do
I have fifty miles till empty? Sixty miles until the battery runs? If
I'm under fifty sixty seventy miles, I start freaking out and I start getting
the anxiety. Oh my goodness, I need to find a charger, because
God forbid that I run out of battery. All right, I remember doing
it specifically, and about three miles from my house there's this Walmart, And
in the parking art of Walmart, there's this really high end I think it's
called Electrify America. There's several of them across the Euston area and across the
country too. That's level three, the high end quote unquote rapid chargers.
And I think they have four bays, four chargers. All right, Walk
drive up to any BUCkies in the world. How many different gas pump stations
they have, minimum of seventy some of them probably have one hundred and fifty.
Okay, there's four freaking stations. So one time I roll up and
I'm listen, I'm not ragging on an ivy. I'm not ragging on Walmart.
I'm ragging on the infrastructure of a system. Here. I roll up
and there's all the four. Three of the bays are taken up. Somebody
sitting in their tesla with the air conditioning on, playing on the phone,
just waiting to be charged up. Three or four are working. One of
is out of commission. The three that are working, they're not fully at
capacity of the level three charging system. There may be about fifty percent capacity,
which makes even slower. So now I'm sitting here waiting, waiting,
waiting, waiting for one of the bays to open up. Twenty minutes late,
twenty freaking minutes later, somebody pulls out. Yeah, I back up
my f one fifty truck. Ooo. I backed it in the wrong way
because the charging doesn't work that far. I backed in the other way.
I finally get in there, I finally connected. I figure out how to
become a member of the Electrify America and swipe my credit card. By the
way, electricity is not free. You gotta pay for that too, just
like gas. I plug the truck in and I'm like, this is going
to take forty five minutes. This is what it said to top it up
to about eighty percent. Geez, what am I going to do for forty
five minutes? Of course, I walk into Walmart. I don't need anything.
Of Walmart. Thirty minutes later, and fifty dollars later of crap I
didn't need. I'll walk out to the truck. It stopped charging. Turns
in either I didn't turn the damn thing on right or all of a sudden
it shut off five minutes after I plugged it in. And I'm living at
this point. I got some frozen food, is milt in the car.
I gotta plug it in again. People just doesn't work this way. I
just it just just very tough. I sometime I'm listening. I'm based in
Houston. I drive to Austin quite frequently. No my son lives there.
I go to the Ute football games. That's a good two hundred and both
two hundred miles away, two hundred ten miles away. Maybe on an absolutely
full battery charge, I'm gonna make it between my house in Austin. But
as soon as I get to Austin, man, I better find a charger,
which is gonna kill me another hour, hour and a half, tick
tick tick tic tect. If I'm lucky, if i go to Dallas.
Now, I'm talking two hundred and fifty almost three hundred miles between here,
getting out of the city, going to my parents' house, I'm gonna have
to stop somewhere. I'm gonna have to stop at Madisonville. I'm gonna have
to stop in Centerfeld. Is there a charging system? Are there going to
be open and free? Do I want to wait in this little city for
thirty or forty five minutes or an hour? No? I want to gas
up my car like I generally do, like we do in six to seven
to eight and nine to ten minutes, and get my hell on the way.
Yes, I'm bitching about this. That's the problem that we have right
now, and until we can get that fixed, I'm just it's not for
me now. Conversely, if you live in a home and you work somewhere
in your office, and you commute to the grocery store and back, and
you have less than a fifty sixty mile round trip thing, and you have
a charging system at home and maybe one at work, two, you're set
to go. Absolutely, you can go from A to B, A to
BT, A to B. But when you want to take your car on
the road for a road trip people. I hope you have a second gas
powered car. And I say this because I gotta be. I have to
go. When we come back, I'm gonna tell you about some of these
new restrictions on tax credits. Hey, you think it's gonna be cool,
I'm gonna get a tax credit because I'm gonna buy some of the cars.
Well, guess what, there are new rules out here to incentivize carmakers,
you know, to source their raw materials and batteries from North America or maybe
a US trade partner. But there are very few cars out there, actually
just ten where you're gonna get the full seventy five one hundred tax credit.
I'm gonna give you the whole list of this stuff on the other side of
this stuff, and I will tell you about another new one that is coming
up. It's a great brand. I love this electric vehicle. You may
not have heard of it. This is probably one of the more quiet d
companies, but it does exist, and it's coming out with its fourth version.
And guess what, it doesn't have a rear window. What's going on
here? Man? That's safe? Right? What's the world coming to.
I'm just hanging on and try to make some sense up at people. Garf
Michael Garfield about ten fifteen more minutes of the show before we get out of
here. I can let you just play on your Saturday whatever you want to
do. Last time. I'll give you the phone number seven one three two
one two five nine five O stand by. We're gonna be right back for
that final second, final ten minutes or so of this week's high tech textan
show. Thanks for people for hanging with me for nineteen or twenty years that
we've been doing it right here on KPRC nine fifty and across the world and
iHeartRadio wherever you are. Garf is my name. Good Callum read keeping us
rolling and on time. Thank you so much, my man. You can
give Calum a call, and if you want to get into the phone talk
about cars. We're gonna close it out with my car reviews of the day.
We've covered a lot of stuff including Netflix gone baby stop. Their Netflix
is going to stop selling DVDs. The DVD through the mail. Remember those
things had no clue. They're still selling them. The blue check mark checkopolis
from net from the Twitter that still goes on the sustainable Today's Happy Earthday be
celebrating Earth Day in some way, shape or form, good for you,
and other fun stuff that we were talking about. I do follow the car
industry. There is pure contents, not endorsing anything. And if you just
heard my rant on electric vehicles, I really do like electric vehicles. I
don't know if I would recommend getting eight electric vehicle really just because of the
I think inadequate charging situation of charging these vehicles that we have in the United
States. But apparently, you know, the government wants to add more charging
stations, you know, to make it more ubiquitous in Starbucks here at some
point. So I'll hold my breath of that stuff. But there's new restrictions
on which electric vehicles qualify for the full seventy five hundred dollars tax credit,
and it just went into effect this past week. And shockingly enough, get
this, there are just ten ten electric and plug in hybrid vehicles that are
eligible for that full amount, just ten. See the new rules. They're
intended to carmakers, you know, to get their materials, their batteries from
right here in North America. But in doing that, the number of eligible
vehicles has been cut by about fifty percent. Now the list of evs that
qualify for the full seventy five hundred. It's going to grow later this year
as more models hit the market. But I kind of got a list over
here because you're thinking, oh, my goodness, someone to get seventy five
hundred dollars. Ah, let me let me quickly run through some of these
that it's going to give you the full seventy five hundred dollars federal EV purchase
tax credit. There are, I believe it right. It's all six of
the General Motors electric vehicle models with prices that qualified them for the new federal
EV purchase tax credit for the full seventy five hundred dollars. The Cadillac Lyric,
which I haven't driven yet. I saw it at the Chicago Auto Show.
That looks sexy. I can't wait drive that. The Chevy Bolt Electric
Vehicle, the Chevy Equinox EV, the Chevy Blazer EV, and the Chevy
Silverado EV trims. They come in under the price caps that will get the
full amount, but some fall outside of that price ranks, like the GMC
Hummer EV pickup and SUV up. Not gonna do. You're not gonna get
the full thing. We got four D F one fifty Lightning full full credit.
Good for you. The must Afford Mustang Maki Drive I've drove, I've
driven both those are very nice. The Lincoln Navigator Grand Touring, the Chrysler
PACIFICA p HAVE, which is the plug in hybrid electric vehicle. That's a
great minivan if you do need a MIT minivan. I do love the Chrysler
Pacifica, the Tesla three Model three Performance, and all three versions of the
Tesla Model Y. I think that's about it. That's all you're gonna get
for the full seventy five hundred tax amount. If not, I think you
can get a max of thirty seven hundred and fifty dollars credit, so pretty
much about half that. It's available for your vehicles with North American made battery
packs that don't meet the mineral sourcing requirements it Rules Thumb. The new rules
set thresholds of fifty five thousand dollars for cars, eighty thousand for trucks and
SUVs. They required the batteries are assembled in North America with at least forty
of their critical and minerals sourced locally or from US free free trade partners.
There you go. So before you go out and start buying this stuff,
take my advice, go find a list. Is this eligible to get these
tax credits? Hey? Listen, seventy five seventy five hundred bucks in that.
That's gonna that's gonna work too. Speaking away, I haven't driven this
one, but I saw this, and this is you talk about how cars
changed. There is a EVUH maker ev carmaker, and I don't know if
you've heard of it, but I've seen these things and I think it's one
of the sexier designed EV companies that is called pole Star Anyone Anyone, pole
Star pole Star. It came from Volvo in terms of electra vehicles, and
I think Volvo spun it off and it's no longer Volve. It's just it's
kind of its own standalond thing. But it's called p O L E.
S. Tar. I love the design. I think the poll Star three
is out right now. It's it massively fast, bigger, obviously it's bigger.
It's a sedan type of thing. It's got about a three hundred plus
mile range, which is great. Starts about sixty thousand dollars. That's cool.
But there was an auto show. There was the Shanghai Auto Show earlier
this week and Polstar revealed its first electric suv and it was a head turner,
very bold design because there's no rear window. There's zero rear window,
so the driver's view is provided solely by a camera. That's it. Now,
if you know anything about relatively new cars and new technology in the cars,
this is the camera in the rear view mirror is nothing new for the
past few years. There are many manufacturers, especially in these long SUVs,
that you have an option. There's the typical rear view mirror and you look
at a review, you think about this. You're in a three row suv
and you've got people or kids and head rest back there, so you're looking
in your rear view mirror. You've got to actually look in the rearview mirror.
You got to pass eight feet behind you with head rest and kids popping
up to look out your rear view mirror to see what's behind you. But
newer ones they have a camera. It's in the back of the car near
the back rear license plate. You can flip a button on the rear view
mirror and the rearview mirror becomes a camera, becomes a monitor, and it's
really disoriented the first few actually a lot of the few times you use the
thing, and I've kind of gotten used to it. A lot of the
stuff that I have right now have this rear camera, and objects in the
mirror do appear closer than they actually are, so I'm used to doing that.
So at some point we may not even have rear view windows. But
the new Pole Star at four it's got a neat, sleek, sporty design.
But it seems, to best my knowledge, this is gonna be the
one of the first vehicles without a freaking rear view mirror. It's gonna have
five hundred forty four horse power, it's gonna go zero to sixty two miles
in three point eight seconds, great range, whatever, But did the rear
view mirrket Listen, I'm a marketing guy. You break me down a hundred
different way. Yeah, it's a radio personality. I'm a good dad,
blah, I'm a marketing guy. So Poster, I'm gonna give you a
quick idea how to market this thing. What you need to do in your
commercials. You need to show clips from that. I think it was like
nineteen fifty four Alfred Hitchcock movie with Jimmy Stewart the Rear Window. This time
he's not in a wheelchair like he was in the movie. There's an AI
generated version of Jimmy Sturt. He's sitting in the passenger seat of a pull
Star four. He's being driven around and he's looking to binoculars into people's garages,
making fun of their gas powered cars. Anything else I can do for
you, I mean, it's why don't I have my own advertising agency.
It's unbelievable. By the way, if you happen to do get DVDs in
the mail, you can go see if you can rent your final Netflix DVD
by renting The Rear Window. Alfred Hitchcock, nineteen fifty four. It's not
black and white's actually colorized versions. It's actually it's a really intense movie.
Alfred Hitchcock. Man, great, great director, just like the great man
that we have pushing the keys over here behind the glass. Calum Read,
thank you very much. We're winding up the show. Michael Garfield is my
name. We thank the folks from their market for calling in and all of
you twenty nineteen twenty years. We're gonna figure out exactly how long it is.
But I'd also like to thank Eddie Martini, Mark Sherman, Brian Ericson,
all the people who here are in the carpentered offices that I Heart Radio
Houston, that's kept me on the air here for a long time. Technology
has changed, consumer livestock continues to change, and I don't know. Apparently
I still have my voice, I got my hair, and I at least
i'd like to think I have my sense of humor and a little entertaining experience.
For all of us we've been a part of this. When we thank
you for tuned in, we will do it again next week. In the
meantime, the podcast will be up at a few minutes. Check it out.
High Tech tex and iHeartRadio have a great, great weekend. My friends,
stay safe. My name is Michael and my show is Oh Yeah,