Ep. 1,324: Where we get a case of the McMondays

-All right. Hey, everyone. It's Monday, August 19, 2013. Thank you very much for tuning in to the special week of only CNET misfits episodes of The 404. This is the first one of the week. I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Richard Peterson. -And I'm Bridget Carey. -Yes you are. -Hey. -Hey, you guys. -Hi. -Hey, Bridget. Hey, Richard. -What's up, Justin? -What's going on? Thanks for joining-- -What's up? -Thanks for joining us, you guys. -Yes. -I feel like we got our own secondary podcast right now because usually it's just me and Jeff and Ariel. But Jeff's gone in Aruba. He's vacationing. Ariel is gone doing something, I don't remember what. What's he doing again? -He's getting married. -Oh, that's right. Yes. He's getting married. He's doing that. So he's back in San Francisco and then he's going off to Jamaica for his honeymoon after that so he won't be back until September. -Aruba, Jamaica? -Yes. -Oh, I wanna take you. -Exactly. -Well, while they're all gone they just left me here with you, Richard, to carry down the fort. So that's what we're doing all week and, Bridget, thanks for joining us for the first Monday episode. You're our guest host today. -I got lucky. -Yes. -I'm gonna be here. -Yes, you did. And it's great because CNET also does CNET Update every single day and Bridget hosts that show. It's kind of like a very short news byte episode of the day, right? -Exactly. Get what you need to know about the day's news in under 3 minutes and it's always ready right before you leave for the day for work so you can listen to it on your drive home. -Yes. You know what's it really good for? I was watching right before I go out. In that way I have talking points with people to stay up on current events. It's great for that kind of thing. -Always keeping it a little smarter. -That's right. Keeping it smart. For Friday though it was kind of a special episode because it featured me. So today you're the guest host on my show. On Friday I was the guest on your show-- -Exactly. -For like 2 seconds. -Yes. That's true. That's all they could bear. -we like doing cameos when we can. Yes. So Update features an app usually at the end of the show, a little prize so to speak on something new that you can download and with Disney Infinity the game coming out, it came out Sunday. We checked out one of the new Disney Infinity related apps which is one of these fun free things where you can create a video with your friends but insert a cartoon of a Disney character in it. -Right. -So we wanted to put it to the test by CNET, it worked if we put ourselves in a video. -Yes. The way you described it to me when you're trying to give me the act in it was really cool. You were saying it's just like one of those missile firing apps, you know, when you film it first and then overlay graphics afterwards. -Exactly. Yes. -This one that we filmed actually featured-- was it Mike Wazowski or it was-- -No, Sully. -It was-- yes. That's right. -Sully. -Or Sully from Monsters-- -James P. Sullivan. -Yes. -Otherwise known as Sully. -Right. -From Monsters, Incorporated. -So before we talk about it why don't we just watch a few seconds of this clip that features yours truly. So check this out. Here it is Friday CNET Updates. -Lovely. -It's a screenshot by the way. Here we go. -Disney is also launching mobile apps with Disney Infinity action. Players can make movies that feature the game characters and props. The app is available for Windows and iOS and soon Android. That's your Tech News Update. To see more details-- -A non-speaking role of course. -Well, you know, only a master thespian could master a role like that. It's like I gave you a taste of what it's like when green screen actors have to perform you know and they can't see the monster, yes. So you were pretending to be scared for the scene intensity of the video. -You guys were pretty good at that. We should show some of the outtakes. -Oh, those are bad. -People in the office were like what just happened like not knowing why we're really like screaming. -People were coming through. -Yes. So the background on that I guess I'll have to describe it for our audio listeners. It's me and Bridget walking down a hallway and all of a sudden Sully comes out and scares both of us with his big roar and then I have a stack of papers in my hands because I'm always carrying papers for some reason. And I just throw them into the air. -And I had some boxes and he grabs me like oh. -I would've loved to see that conversation before you're like who's the goofiest MR ever in the office that we can get to flail his arms and-- -Actually. -You did say that. He came to me and asked me. -I did. I said Richard. -Damn it. -Richard is gonna be wild and dandy. -And then Richard was like. -Because I needed someone to sell it. -Yes. Yes. -And you're a believer. -Well, it worked out well because as anyone knows from listening to the show where your guest hosts, we always talk about Disney and Disney is one of our favorite subjects. Obviously we've watched all the movies when we were growing up and this just gave us an opportunity to act out one of those scenes with some of our favorite characters. -Yes. It seems like a pretty silly app. It's not bad for free. -Yes. -It's pretty fun. I was playing with it all weekend. I was at dinner with friends and I was just shooting then they were getting annoyed with me. -Yes. It's a free app, right? -Yes. It's one of those apps too that you're probably play with for a while and then forget you have it on your phone. -So the Disney Infinity app is pretty cool too. I did some research after you posted a link in your show blog. -The game, you mean? -Yes, the game and it's really cool. It's kind of like that one game Skylanders. Yes. So Skylanders is a game that came out I guess a couple of years ago, but it lets people buy toys and then insert those characters of the toys into the game just by scanning it which is really cool. It's kind of like a virtual reality thing. -I have one of the toys here. -And they do the same thing with Disney Infinity. -When I went to Toy Fair in New York this is a little Mike Wazowski so you can kind of see the size. It's just a small little action figurine and the quality and the paintjob and everything is pretty good. You would want to put this on your desk. -Yes. So it looks like a normal figurine but it's sitting atop this little disk, and when you put that disk onto a what like a scanner or is it a portal of some kind? -Yes. It has a sensor where it can tell what character you've just put on the little pad. -Right. -It has a pad for 2 characters and we're it really gets addicting for kids and parents, they're gonna have to cluck them like Pokemon. Instead there are these mystery disks that give you a power-up in the game but you don't know their mysteries. You don't know what it's gonna be and you put the disk underneath your character and it can give you a Buzz Lightyear rocket pack or you know-- everyone has an accessory and you can take 2 different characters from 2 different franchises and mash them together and that's what they're really selling here. The first time you can, you know, play with Jack Sparrow and Mike Wazowski and have them in this toy box world that you create. -That sounds really cool and also a great genius marketing scheme for Disney to get people to buy the toys first and then play the game after. -Yes, that's true. -$13 a pop for each character. -Oh. -Wow. -And there's no limit. Imagine if they put Marvel characters in this or Star Wars not that they own the rights. It's just a matter of how well can they make the game experience itself. -Right. -I haven't spent a lot of time with it, but the little bit of demo I saw it seems for a younger group than me because it's just about creating your own world and playing, you know, with your friends. They had to be a little more of a challenging game for me to wanna spend a lot of time on that. -Right, right. Yes. It does seem like Disney is sort of struggling right now. Right? -Well, their interactive side. -Right. -I mean they haven't had a lot of great success financially when it comes to the video game side. -Yes. -At least that's what, you know, you see a lot of reports on and this is their big investment. -Right. This is sort of like their Hail Mary, right? If they don't make it on this, I don't know what's gonna happen to the interactive team. -Well, they're probably gonna yes. License their stuff up for other people to make instead of having it in-house. -Right. It does surprise me though because in the past few years they've lost 1.41 billion dollars, right, and that's after they consolidated their interactive team which is like video games and movies and things like that. -Like I loved Epic Mickey but-- -How is it that they're not making money off of all these franchises? -It just didn't take off I guess. -Right. -Who knows what the factors were? I love that game though and I love the sequel and I have an Oswald hat like well then again I'm a bit of a Disney nerd, so-- -Right. -And the-- -Yes, this is cool. -I may be a little biased. -So with Disney Infinity do you get a set of stock characters that you can play with because it wouldn't be fun if you had to pay for every character? -You get a startup pack with 3. -Okay. -And so it gives you Sully and Jack Sparrow and Mr. Incredible. -Yes. -And you just keep buying after that and they've announced that more are coming out, but right now I think there's like 16 or so. -Very cool. Okay. Awesome. We'll check out Disney Infinity then and then also check out CNET Update on Friday if you wanna check out that-- -Thank you. -Our tiny little video so thank you to Richard for filming that as well. -You're welcome. -So enthusiastic. Let's get to our first story of the day, and again if you remember the last time you were here, Bridget, I always like talking to you about fast food because I get so much shit from Jeff and Ariel-- -All you guys ever talk about. -Yes. And-- -I have no judgment. -They always make fun of me for going to McDonald's and I love it when you come on because I can speak freely-- -It's our private support system here. -It really is. -There's no judgment. It's only love. -Yes. It really is. -Love for the questionable need. -And you guys are also the skinniest people in the office. -Right, yes. I call us future fatties because we eat like we're super fat right now, but it's only because there's no consequences. Let's be honest. That's gonna catch up with us-- -Oh yes. -Really quickly. -Oh yes. And in fact it really isn't like I'm really not skinny, just conveniently placed fat, you know. -Oh, it's all-- -Conveniently shaped you know. -Yes. Right. -I really have no bones. I'm just a gelatinous blob that walks around. -Speaking of food too, what the hell is that smell in this podcast studio right now? I mean I know this is inside baseball, but the studio usually smells just by nature of having 3 dudes in it every morning for an hour, but this morning when we walked in, it's really bad. -It's a little gym sweaty. -I think something has finally died in the rafters above us, and honestly that's kind of what it smells like. You know it smells a petri dish full of like deer meat or something you know like-- I don't know. It just smells like rotting meat. -It's-- yes. -Well, no. You gotta find out is what this air duct is connected to because they're connected to other offices. Maybe someone-- -Yes. -Has something ranked going on in another office nearby. -I don't know what-- I mean we do have a lot of food coming in and out of the podcast studio like we had chocolates and different kinds of like-- -Can't do that in New York. -Sandwiches and things like that. -Can't do that in New York. -No. I don't know what that smell is. -So it's very risky here and all the rodents. -There are a lot of rodents in this office. -Are there really? -Yes. -They live in walls. -Wait. What the hell? How come I didn't know about this? -There's traps everywhere. -There's traps everywhere. I've never seen-- -There's a trap under my desk that someone put there. -What? -Yes. -I've never seen one, but they say that they live among us. -Oh. Well, okay. That's what we have this secret weapon for here. -Agreed. -Febreze can. I know this is great radio right now. You know when you-- -Get it right by the mic so he can hear it spray. -You know whatever you use stuff like this, it ends up just smelling like a public restroom, right, because these always exist in those public restrooms. It only smells gross. Sorry about that. -What if Jeff left something to sabotage us? -You know I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know what it is. I'm afraid to pick up papers and things. Bridget, don't do that before you have rubber gloves on. Oh. Anyway, so I don't know how we're gonna transition to food talk from here but hopefully-- -Oh now it smells very fresh. -Yes. You'll be hungry. And we do have the story that goes along with fast food but first I wanted to get a story that you were previewing for us in the pre-show today-- -Oh yes. -About your fast food experience over the weekend. -Well, you never know what kind of magic can happen when you walk into a fast food restaurant, and it was a decision on Saturday night. We were like all right, you know, me and my fiancée like let's just go to Burger King. -Sober, just completely sober. -Just hungry. Hungry. -Everyone also there is just reluctant and scared about what they're gonna eat and drink. -Wait. We just had nice sushi for lunch and we're like oh, let's just lower our class and just get it done with. Let's get a Whopper and get it done with. -No shame in the game, man. -It's about efficiency. Just get the hunger gone. -Yes. -So we eat but I can't resist the little soft serve ice cream. It's only like 56 cents. Come on. -Treat yourself. -Yes. I walk up to the counter and I just go hey, just wanna get one of those soft serve cones and the guy who works there says, "Of course. Anything is possible." -Yes, Bridget. Of course we knew when the moment you walk in the door you get one every day. -No, no, no. But I'm quoting him. He said anything is possible. And this woman who also works there next to him goes, "Anything is possible? This ain't no NeverEnding Story. What do you think this is?" And the other girl goes, "Yes, this ain't no Disney World." And I'm like just like this is the most amazing instant ice cream I ever got. -That's awesome. -That's great. -NeverEnding story reference. -Yes. Wow. Interesting. -Thank you, Queens, New York Burger King. -They must know who you are because-- -No. -I don't know. They would typically make a Disney reference. They must listen to the show. -Maybe just a vibe. I just carry myself in a Disney princess vibe around wherever I go. -Perhaps, yes. -Why did he say anything is possible? That's weird. -Yes. -He was just like anything is possible. He's just being weird, you know. You get bored and crazy when you're working there-- -Yes. -8 hours. -Well, you're supposed to be able to customize anything you want at Burger King, right? -Yes, exactly. Anything is possible. -That's the point. Yes. No surprise here but I also went to a fast food restaurant over the weekend. I went into McDonald's on Sunday not only because I hate myself but also because I was just hungry and like I wanted something to eat, but this is the saddest part about the story is I didn't even eat a burger while I was there because I had already eaten a Vietnamese sandwich down the street. And so I picked up a Vietnamese sandwich from this place to go and then on my walk home I passed by McDonald's and I was like you know what, I want a side dish to go with this sandwich. So I bought a side of large fries to eat with my separate sandwich, my Vietnamese sandwich and it was delicious. -And you went home to eat it or you ate someone else's food inside the McDonald's? -No. I went-- I brought it home and ate it, yes, in shame. No, it was actually really good. It was like the ultimate meeting of east and west you know. It's like-- -I always. -Perfect Asian American relations. -I always had the dream of like hitting up you know when people talk about this, you know. Where would you get the burger? Where would you get the drink? Where would you get the side dish? -Yes. Make it a la carte. -Yes and I've never done the little venture to get like 4 different things from 4 different places and make the perfect fast food meal. -Yes. It's great. You could also do it really easily with Subways and McDonald's because those are two of the most popular fast food chains in the city. -That's true. -So there's always one like you know 3 or 4 blocks. -Cookies from Subway. -Yes. Oh. -Fries from McDonald's, no argument there. -Yes. Yes. -Burger from Burger King. -A frosty from Wendy's. -Frosty from Wendy's. -Oh. -You beat me to it. -Burger King fries are better than McDonald's fries. -That's an interesting argument. -Spiting words. -I say. -Yes. -What do you think, Bridget? -They double do it. They're like double batter or whatever. -Yes. -No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. -They're nice and crispy. -I will do onion rings. -Oh. -With the sauce but no, no, no, no, no. McDonald's fries. -Onion rings from where? -The onion ring sauce from Burger King with the, you know, replace the fries. -Yes. -You know what's weird is when I was in that McDonald's though someone else came in and they were demanding to get a lobster burger from McDonald's. Have you guys ever heard about that before? -Big spender at McD's. -I guess so. -That ain't no dollar menu. -Someone's paycheck came in early I guess, but I never heard of a lobster burger before and apparently neither had the attendants because no one knew what she was talking about. -Someone tried to prank him. -Yes. I think that's what happened because I looked it up afterward online. I was curious myself and apparently they only sell it off the southern coast of Canada for some reason because they love their seafood up in Canada. -Oh wow. Well, yes. I've been to-- I mean actually I know different McDonald's have different menu items. -Yes. Yes. It's all localized. -Yes. If you go to Orlando you'll get like different types of things in your McDonald's sometimes-- -Yes, yes. Even if you go further than that you can go far east you can go to China and they have a specific menu with a Chinese-- -I've never been to a foreign one though. -Yes, yes. But anyway if you wanna get that McLobster, I don't know if that's what it's called, you can go up to Canada and get that yourself, but I think someone pranked her and they probably showed her like a fake commercial on tape or something. -There's always that Dane Cook sketch that comes to mind where like if you're going to a fast food restaurant and you say something that's not on the menu but you point up as if there is. -Yes. -So you're like I'm gonna get the spaghetti and then the person knows there's no spaghetti but yet they have to turn around just to make sure like where are you pointing. -Right. -It's a great prank. -Oh, man. That's awesome. -That one. No. The spaghetti. -No. It'll confuse them because I bet those people don't even know half the menu themselves. -No. -The McDonald's menu is pretty big. Okay. So while we're on the topic of fast food, you know, I always love talking about it while you're here, I always sort of look for like fast food or food-related topics when you're on the show. And I found one over the weekend that's perfect. -All right. What do you got? -It's this new art project that caught my eye. It's a photo series by a photographer named Jon Feinstein, right, and it's just plainly called Fast Food. So check this out. Here it is. This photographer has a photo series of some of his favorite fast foods that he actually scans using your classic 8-1/2x11 flatbed scanner. You know it's the one that either you use at work or the one that you have at home with your all-in-one printer. He just basically unwraps it. He takes out his burger and removes the top of it then puts the scanner head down and just scans it at like perfect resolution. This is 1200x1200 resolution. -That's a classic McDonald's hamburger right there. -So what we're gonna do right now,-- -I could tell. -Bridget, is we're gonna go through the slideshow. By the way each one has titles you could see in the left corner here that show how many fat grams per each burger and fast food item, but they're not labeled. So it's a mystery about which one, which fast food restaurant each individual item came from. -Oh. He doesn't label it because I was gonna say I can totally guess him. -Well, that's what we're gonna do right now to test your fast food-- -How do you know if you're right though? -We don't know. -I'm getting an argument. -Yes. We're gonna end up in a fist fight after this. So check this out. This is the first one. It's a burger. This looks disgusting. -Yes, it does. -Right? I mean some of these items they look pretty tasty and appetizing. This is not one of them. -Well, what you have to analyze as a proper fast food detective is that clearly most of the ketchup condiment is on the bun that he has removed. -Right. -Because a classic McDonald's single hamburger comes with 2 pickles at least. -Yes, right, right. -Sometimes you might get a 3rd tiny one. -Even the one off the dollar menu comes with more pickles than this, right? -Well, this is my go-to order. -Yes. -And you could tell it's McDonald's because there's a tiny little bit of an onion chop-- -Yes, it weird. -And they have-- -It looks like there's 4 onion pieces. -They have the onion chop in their ketchup and I'm telling you most that's on the bun that he took off. So that's why it looks extra unappetizing and-- -Yes. -It's been sitting out for a while. -You could tell it's kind of been cold. -Yes. -It's sort of like-- -This is your go-to order. That's like the grossest thing they have on the menu. -Yes. The worst part about these burger patties is that you could see the spirals of fat inside of it too. You can see like around here it's kind of just coming off. That looks nasty. Let's move on. This was the 9-fat=gram burger. So I'm sure that is a McDonald's one. Next one, 8-gram looks like to be a piece of fried chicken in a shape of a heart. -Yes. It is an interestingly shaped chicken. Not a nugget though. -Definitely not a McNugget. -Nuggets have only 5 shapes. -Yes. They have like the arm kind of-- they look like they have like 1 arm coming out at the top. -You don't realize they have only 5 shapes. -Right. -But they do. -This is not one of them though. -No. -I don't know what this is. Where do you think it's from? -I don't eat enough chicken to know-- -It's not Carl's Jr. because their chicken fingers come in star shapes. So it can't be that either. It's not hearties. Let's do process of elimination. -I'm gonna say a Wendy's type of thing because-- -It could be Wendy's. -Yes. -Yes. I like that or maybe one of the chicken-specific fast food restaurants. -It's gotta be a place-- -Could be a chick fillet. -Yes. -It's gotta be a place that, you know, prides itself on the randomness because-- -Right. -No one would actually make a heart. -Right. -And who is making hearty-- star. Oh, my God. That's so unappetizing. I rather get the random blob than get a star. -Oh. -Like a kid cuisine. -Now this next one is a burger. It looks pretty appetizing. We're looking at a bacon cheeseburger with an onion loop on it. Looks pretty good. I mean the bacon looks fresh, right? It looks like it's just freshly fried. I like that. -That's a Wendy's bun. -Yes? You think so? Looks like a flatter bun that usual. What the hell are we doing right now? -I don't eat-- -The show's gone downhill. This is what we're gonna do. -I don't eat bacon once. -You don't eat bacon burgers? -Only because it's too much flavor, can't handle it. -Yes. -Too much flavor? -You know what's gross about this is so I test printers for a living if you don't listen to the show very often. I do this other job for CNET where I test printers and headphones and a lot of the printers that I test actually have flatbed scanners in there. -It's not Wendy's by the way-- -It's not Wendy's. -Because it's not a square shaped burger. -Oh, right. Genius, genius. -What am I talking about? -So anyway with these scanners you actually have to press down pretty hard in order for it to get an image this clear. So I'm assuming that both the top and the bottom of this guy's scanner is probably covered in oil and grease. -Yes. That's gross. -And he also could've you know edited to make sure it's total black around it when he Photoshopped it. I don't know. -Right. Right, right, right. Interestingly enough this is not about putting down fast food in America. From the artist word's himself he says he wants to investigate the love-hate relationship that Americans have with fast food and other aspects of popular culture, and he goes on to this sort of describe his personal relationship with fast food and how he eats it even to this day. So he's not ashamed of it at all, and he's doing this sort of just promote fast food across America. -This one looks appetizing. -Yes. This one looks good. So anyway we'll post a link to the show's blog. -One more. -You wanna do one more? -Oh, that's McDonald's fries. -That looks like McDonald's fries. -You can tell by like how soft that one on the far left is. -Yes. -It's got a good bend in it. You're like oh. -Yes. -That's the good one. -Oh, that one looks like the leftover bag fries. -Yes. -Right? You know when you finish your fry and then you look in the bag and there's one more just sitting there. -It's extra soggy. -Oh. -Oh yes. -The best. It's like getting an extra weekend day. Oh. -Okay. Calm down you guys. -It's God's little reward. -Like a couple of kids right now. This is ridiculous. -You gotta listen to-- -All right. So let's keep the food conversation going. This website sort of reminded me of another Tumblr that I found. It's scanwiches. You guys ever hear about this one? This one sort of different single-serving Tumblr just to celebrate scanned sandwiches. The other one was only fast food. This one's only sandwiches. So it's pretty much the same thing. Guy has a creative use for a scanner. Here it is. Check it out. So these are usually like artisanal sandwiches. You know you're not gonna find your Subways or Hardy's or anything in here. This is kind of cool. -So it's really about the art of the sandwich. -Right, right. It's genius, but New York really goes crazy for sandwiches right now. You guys hear about this ramen burger that's getting really popular? -I'm not old enough to know about those things. -Oh, man. So I have a lot of friends that are foodies in the city and there's this one thing called the ramen burger right now. Let me see if I can pull up a picture of it. New York is really going crazy over it. It's basically being sold by a Japanese ramen enthusiast at Smorgasburg which is this local food festival in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. -I've been there. I like it. -Yes. It's delicious, right? They have all kinds of food vendors and things like that, but the most popular one right now is this Japanese guy who created this ramen burger so this is a picture of it right here. -That looks pretty good. -It's insane, right? So basically it's a beef burger stuffed between 2 buns that are made out of slightly cooked instant ramen. -So it's a noodle bun. -So it's a noodle bun. Yes, exactly. And it's not crunchy at all because they cook it just to the perfect consistency so it's a little bit softer, right? And then they top that with shoyu sauce which is Japanese along with arugula and scallions. Doesn't this look good? -I'm hitting this up. Oh my gosh. This is amazingly-- -This looks amazing. This is basically like the new Cronut. -Yes. Everyone has to invent something now but what amazes me is that when the Cronut line gets to be like hours long-- -Yes. -And they only have like 7 for sale. Why can't you just make more? -Yes. -Make more. -Just add another person to that supply chain. -Just keep making it. -Yes. -I haven't tried one yet. -You haven't tried the Cronut yet? -I'm a big donut person so you could tell I'm a little upset that I just wanna not have to wait in line for 2 hours. It's not worth it. -I'm pretty happy with donuts the way they are now. Right? I don't need a croissant donut-- -I'm waiting for Dunkin. I'm waiting for Dunkin. They already did it in another country, right? You know. -Really? -Yes. -I didn't know that. They made their own croissant donut. -Yes. I can't think of the country right now but yes. -Wow. Okay. -Maybe Korea. I don't know. -Richard, have you tried the Cronut yet in the city? -I haven't but I want to. -Yes. You have to wait in line. -Yes. I don't like waiting in lines for things like that. -No. -It's just annoying. -And now they have the frozen s'more. -Oh, what? -They just can't focus on 1 thing. -About to change my whole perspective on shit. Oh man. So enough food talk now that we're all really hungry. -It's basically the opposite of fast food, the longest food ever. -Yes. Wait. What is this? -No. I mean like waiting 3 hours for a donut like the longest food ever. -Right, yes, and then you can eat it in like 2 minutes. -Yes. -Then it's over. -Yes. -But it's worth it apparently. Maybe we should do like a CNET field trip to go. -There you go. -Stop for McDonald's on the way back. -Or wear Google Glass. -Yes. Okay. Let's get off the food topic now and let's talk a little bit about Facebook. And you know we don't wanna talk about this topic too much because there's so many different social networks coming out, but of course Facebook is the big one and over the weekend you know it's funny. People complain about privacy concerns and that's the main reason why I don't go on it anymore. You know there's privacy concerns. There's ton of ads. Facebook rolled out video ads over the past few weeks and those are really annoying. -So you didn't see that I tagged you the other day? You don't go on Facebook? -I didn't get that. -You don't go but-- -No. -You just quit? -I turned all my notifications off. You know what the really annoying thing about Facebook now is all the apps that people use and connect them to Facebook. -Yes. -So now my feed is all about what songs people listen to on Spotify, right? Like what weird subscription things they've signed up for and the articles they've read. I really don't care about all that stuff and it posted automatically. Have you guys noticed that with your Facebook friends? -Yes, but you can turn it off so it doesn't post those. -I find that there's some apps that are extra pushy like Candy Crush's program-- -Yes. -Is such a backwards way that if you say cancel the connection it'll just keep looping like an error after maybe it'll fix at an update. I doubt it because they want you to connect to Facebook. -Right, right. -So I have to kind of fiddle with it to not connect. -Yes. And that's the main problem with Facebook, right, is that they want you to interact with all their apps and so they really bury those privacy settings deep, deep down. -Yes. -And I feel like Facebook is just all spam but personalized spam now which is even worse, you know, because it's kind of tempting, but you know over the weekend a champion of the people stood up to Mark Zuckerberg. -Oh yes. -And finally gave him a taste of his own medicine, let him feel exactly what everyone else feels and that guy spammed Mark Zuckerberg's wall which is really great. I love the story. So this happened over the weekend. It was the work of a Palestinian IT expert. He posted a comment on Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page which is strange because these 2 guys aren't friends and you're not supposed to be able to do that, right? But the point of that was because he wanted to expose a security vulnerability in Facebook's page, right? And so Facebook has this white hat they call it, white hat security service that sort of invites hackers to submit their own bugs, right? So if you're a hacker and you find something wrong with Facebook, you exploit the security vulnerability while you can actually make money off submitting it to Facebook, and if they find out that your complaint is legitimate they'll give you 500 bucks. So of course this encourages a lot of security professionals and hackers to submit their own bugs. -Right. -And apparently this IT professional did that but his complaint went ignored. And so after submitting it several times and getting ignored he finally decided to take a stand and just post it straight to Mark Zuckerberg's wall so this is great. -It's amazing, amazing. -Right? Finally. I love it, spamming Mark Zuckerberg. So this is a picture of Mark Zuckerberg's profile page. -What did he write on exactly? -He said first sorry for breaking your privacy and posting to your wall. I had no other choice because after all the reports I sent to the Facebook team went ignored my name is Kalb which is-- oh no. I'm sorry. Kahlil from Palestine. And then he just goes on to describe how his white hat system sort of made this exploit. So that's kind of cool, right? It's great. I think it's philanthropic for him because you know he really could've submitted this bug to an actual spammer, right, and done real damage, right? Maybe he even made more money. I don't know how much you could sell those exploits to companies like that. -Or maybe there's a job in a firm now. -Maybe, yes. It could be. It's funny because after he did this, they immediately shut down his entire account. They blocked him and they said he's not getting the $500. -Really? -What? -Yes. -That's absolutely ridiculous because he didn't do anything wrong. -No. -He's simply just, you know, saying hey this is possible. -Yes. -Oh my gosh. I'm angry now. -Yes. It's upsetting right? It's ironic too because yes they say that basically-- -He's very impolite. -Him posting on Mark Zuckerberg's wall violated the responsible disclosure policy which is great because I feel like Facebook feeds you things that you didn't ask for all the time and they're allowed to do it for some reason, but when someone else does it to Mark Zuckerberg it's not okay. -It sounds like a temper tantrum where they could've turned it around in a positive way. -Oh yes. -And then like oh great, you know. In fact we're gonna bring you onboard and you know it's a great thing to have on your resume I hacked Mark Zuckerberg's wall. -Yes. -You know? -Yes. They could've stood to lose a lot of users had he just sold this to a real spamming company, but he didn't. He did the right thing and now he's getting punished for it. That's not right. -Oh. Well good. I hope he invents something that's better than Facebook. -Yes. Exactly. What is gonna be the next Facebook? I have no idea. But whatever it is, I'm not gonna join it. -You be rebel. -Yes. Are you guys still using Facebook as much as the other social networks? -Yes. -Still doing it? -It's still the best one to get out to my friends. -Yes. -I mean Twitter is a different group of people. Google+ is a different group of people and Path is just annoying. -Yes. -So no. That's it. Facebook is it. -Yes. -It's on because of the mass amount of people you can reach. -Right. -And you gotta put up with it, but I find I don't really like maybe go on as much. -Yes. I feel like I'm only now in the off trends that I might have to lurk on someone's profile, you know, later on in the future. I just have it only for stalking purposes. It's not to learn anything or get any links to stories or find out what my friends are doing. It's really just to look at pictures. -Okay. You don't have to be creepy about it. It is an information tool. -That's exactly what it is. Yes. That's what it supposed to be, right? -Yes. -Well, speaking of nerd-dom, this could be the next big social network and it's cool. This is one of the biggest trends of the year is shopping startups, right? So things like Birchbox for example. -There's a BarkBox. -BarkBox. Yes that's for dogs, right? -Yes. I think I get ads for like 7 different types of them. -Yes. So these shopping subscription models the way they work is you basically sign up for a service and it's usually a set fee per month, you know, like 15, 20 dollars or so and in return this company sends you, you know, a curated box of gifts. And so they have different themes around that gift depending on what company you signed up for. -Is this random stuff? -Random stuff so like Birchbox for example they're a lifestyle product group. And so if you sign up for their account whether you're a man or a woman they'll send you things like clothes and beauty products and whatever lifestyle product there are. -I have an issue with Birchbox and that's because if you sign up as a woman all you get and I don't sign up with them. This is from what I know. All you get is lotions and other creams and the guys get little earbuds and headphones. It's like oh, what, chicks don't want-- -Yes. -Listen to music? I guess not. -Right. -Unless that headphone is pink-- -Yes. -You know. So it's a little strange sometimes when they decide what belongs to chicks and what belongs to guys-- -Right. -But they even have these boxes, these monthly boxes. Have you seen the one for girls getting their period? -What? -Yes. I gotta look it up now. -Are you serious? -I forgot about it. -Like it's a feminine hygiene subscription? -It's when you get your, you know, it's your time of the month and especially for like girls who are just getting it so they're away at camp. -Oh. -And so you get embarrassed by asking for things and it's like a care box that comes with supplies and chocolates in them-- -How many supplies do you need? As far as I'm concerned I don't know much about it. -Just a couple. It's really-- -I thought you only need one. Like there it's only thing you need of any other things. -Oh, there's a couple of days where the bleeding one or-- -Oh, okay. -Some you know. -Right. Right. -Yes. -Maybe-- -I'll take you out back and give you a lesson on how it all works. -Oh oh. Jesus. I've got a hands-on lesson. -That came out wrong. I mean-- -You don't want to attend that. You know what they should really do is make a male version of that that sends things like flowers and, you know, nice things to say on cue cards for example on how to treat your significant other if she's in that time of the month, right? That would be good. -Or you should just not be an ass. -Yes. That's what I'm saying. This would help guys do that and then-- -Would you need someone-- do you need to pay someone 20 bucks a month to get a reminder-- -Yes. -I gotta be nice today. I love you, honey. -That'd be great. They ship you some flowers to give to your wife. -You're glowing. You're beautiful. -Is that how Jose sounds? -No. No. I'm just making a general man impression. All men sound like that right? -But that is the problem with the subscription things is that it's really up to the company to sort of put together an appropriate box, and a lot of times it's really just based on stereotypes, right? And the latest ones that come out really affects maybe our listeners because it's called Nerd Block and this is the first nerd theme to mystery gift supplier that'll send you a box of curated nerdy items every month and you know just walking into your office this morning, Bridget, you're the first person that I thought of. That would be perfect for this service because-- -Wait. I'm on the website now. This looks amazing. -Yes. Yes, looks really cool, right? So the idea behind this is that every month they're gonna send you a limited edition nerdy t-shirt and then 5 or 6 nerd theme toys that are sent out in the middle of every month around the 15th. And you know they partner with a lot of different people and so you get little figurines from companies like Marvel, Nintendo, DC, Adventure Time that TV show and of course Disney. -These cute little bobbleheads and-- -Yes. -Oh my gosh. And those little mystery box toys that are really small you can put on your desk. -Yes. So it's sort of like a kid robot style adult toy of box and you have a ton of these figurines already in your office. -Oh, this would be dangerous. -Yes. It'd be great. -I would have so many and then the problem is that you end up getting like the one you don't want and you're like I don't want Mr. Freeze. -Right. Right, right, right. -Yes. -This is like one of those quarter vending machines that used to beg your mom to give you-- -Yes. -Outside of the grocery store. -Yes for the little ball-- -Yes, little what plastic ball and with the toy inside of a new-- like you know you'd turn that ratchet and you get the toy. But this is sort of like that on a larger, more adult scale. So this is kind of cool. You know what it reminds me of is CSA. Have you heard about that, community-supported agriculture? -Yes. -I think that's where these companies got that business model from. So CSA you basically sign up for it and it connects like local organic farmers with health-conscious customers. -I have it in my neighborhood and I had a neighbor friend doing and I'm like what are you doing and every month he pays-- well, he like pays a subscription to pick up the local vegetables. -Yes. -And it's a random box of this week you get, you know, arugula. -Yes, yes, yes. -And it's a little bit pricey. Sometimes you gotta you know eat it all, otherwise you're wasting your money versus what you might buy in the grocery store, but you can experiment with new things because you never, you know, would normally buy arugula or whatever maybe. -Right. Yes, yes. I kind of like that because every month it's sort of like whatever is fresh and in season. -Yes. -For that time and then if you don't want it you can just cancel it midway through the month and they'll stop billing you. It's a really easy way to just never leave the house, right? And I think-- -For vegetarians. We need our fast food. -Yes. They have it for like for meat products too, so you can get steaks and-- -Well, yes. There's like bacon clubs. -Yes. Yes, it's great. I think it's really creative and it's sort of a way to get you out of that rut that you're in if you go to the grocery store a lot because I always buy the same exact thing when I go to the grocery store. -Yes. -I need a little more variety. So this is kind of like that and-- -But I don't know how many more t-shirts I need though like every week you get another t-shirt like-- -Every month so this is a monthly service. -Sorry. I meant to say month. -Yes. -But-- -But it's still a good deal though, you know. It's only 20 dollars a month and you figure if you get 4 or 5-- oh no. I'm sorry. 5 or 6 theme toys and then a t-shirt on top of that you're definitely getting a decent deal. -And how much do they want? 20 bucks a month? -Yes, yes. It's 20 bucks a month. -I can take that 20 bucks and put it to the characters I want and the shirts I want. -Oh, right. -So you know what? Maybe it's more like if you just need a little bit more of a present surprise in your life, if you want every month to be Christmas-- -Right. -With disappointment then-- -Isn't that how normally Christmas is? Always a little disappointing? -I think that's the goal here, yes, if you need a little more surprise in your life. -Yes. You know who I think would be really great for the service is ThinkGeek. -Oh yes. -I feel they should come out with their own monthly subscription service because they have a huge catalogue of stuff to choose from, right? And if they just pick whatever comes out 15, 20 bucks a month I'd be in that in a second. -Oh, yes. -Yes. We'll hit up our friends at ThinkGeek and give them that idea. So I wanna actually take a break for a second and talk about emails because we got a few great emails of the weekend and not so many voicemails, so we'll ask for those later on the show, but I wanted to read a few emails that we got about some stories we talked about last week. So, Bridget, I don't know if you heard our episode on Friday but we talked about a consumerist-- you read that website, right, the consumerist.com. -Yes. -They have a running series of articles. It's a column called Raiders of the Lost Walmart and I really love this column. So they basically they tasked their readers with taking pictures of really, really dated tech that Walmart still has on their shelves. And so we talked about last week they had an AOL sign-up disk that you could actually pay for minutes with. -Yes. -They actually had an old digital camera that used floppy disks to save the photos. -All right. -That one was really great. And my favorite one was they actually took a picture of a cellphone from 2001 that's still being offered. It's one of those Nokia candy bar telephones, you know, those like old dumb phones with Snake on them that everyone used to have in the early 2000's. They actually had that for sale on the Walmart shelves for $75. -That's awful. -Yes. -I feel like-- oh my gosh. -Isn't that great. It's crazy. So anyway after talking about that a lot of our listeners actually sent in what they found at old store shelves and this one is really great. It's from our buddy, Mark. He says hey guys, saw this over the weekend at the Dollar Store. Check out the floppy disk transport sleeves in front of the cash register. Who knew you can go antiquing at the Dollar Store? So check this out. This is the photo that he included with it. It's a photo of your classic translucent plastic floppy 2 like it's like the 2-inch floppy disk transporters. -Wow. -That is pretty awesome. -Ridiculous. -Nobody looks-- nobody seems to be buying them. -Back to school, guys. Back to school. Gotta get your supplies. -Weren't those things practically indestructible anyway? I mean you had to really stomp on those disks. -Yes. You don't need a case board. -No. Yes. You could throw this in a bag. -No. You did because if your bag was full of crumbs from all your, you know, up to the end of the year you got all this kind of nastiness in that little slot that moved. Yes. -They asked the disks. -Yes. -That's true. Or if you had like a magnet rolling around your backpack or something this would kind of protect it. -Yes. For those of us who carry magnets around our backpacks. -Yes. Magnets, floppy disks, that was the same generation. So that's crazy. I love that. I guess you gotta go to the Dollar Store if you really wanna find stuff like this. -I'm gonna go hunting now. You inspired me. I have like 7 of these weird eyeball 99-cent stores in my neighborhood. -Yes, yes. I bet. Please. Please find them. -I'll let you know. -Yes. Walmart apparently is a good place for that too. I don't know where the nearest Walmart is, but-- -I think they have one. -We gotta find it. -Yes. -Next email comes from Will from Atlanta. He's the comic book guy which is actually really appropriate for this email because the subject is about nerdy tattoos, and we talked about this last week and, Bridget, you don't have any tattoos at all, right? -Nope. -Pristine, but our buddy, Will, from Atlanta actually has a nerd tattoo of his own. He says hey I heard your call for nerdy tattoos. I thought I'd send mine in. I have a Jim Lee piece on my left leg with Batman on my outer calf and Superman on my inner calf. I'm about 4 hours in so it's not done yet and there's still some work to be done as you could see. With coloring and background I have about 6 or 7 hours to go and let me pull these up because he sent these photos and with it. Here it is. This is the Batman that he has on his inner calf it looks like-- -Wow. -In his right leg. So this is a Jim Lee piece. -Wow. -One of the most popular artists for the Batman series. So there's that. It is just the outline of it and a little bit of shading but it looks like it's gonna be a lot more detailed afterward. And then here's a Superman as well that he talks about on his outer calf. =And now he has to put something between his legs that they have to fight and crush. -Oh. Oh. -I don't know. They're both facing each other. I feel like there's a battle ensuing between his legs somehow. I'm not getting dirty. -I guess Batman with this thing here is-- -I'm just saying you know like-- -I guess that's what this little-- -What are they looking at? That's all. -Oh, they're battling all right. Look at these-- -It'd be great-- -It should be higher on his thigh. -Yes. It probably should be. -It'd be great if he was like one of those Dick Van Dyke one-man bands and he had like cymbals on his knees and he's like clashing the knees together. -Yes, totally. He's got like a tambourine on his head. Perfect. No, we're just kidding, man. These are great tattoos. I love them and I wanna see the finished product so be sure to send those in. -The art work is phenomenal. -Yes, looks great. -Yes, yes. Really good stuff here and here's another one. This one is extra nerdy if you thought that Batman and Superman was geeky. This one is really crazy. This is from our buddy, Rosco. He says hey. This is my name written in Aurebesh from Star Wars and actually had to Google that myself. Aurebesh is apparently a fictitious language just created for the Star Wars series, not unlike Klingon for Star Trek. -What species speaks Aurebesh? -Everybody. -Oh, okay. -Yes. Apparently it's a universal language in the Star Wars universe. -Okay. -So this is his name written in Aurebesh and he also has a Triforce tattoo. Of course anyone that plays video games would know the Triforce from Zelda. -Yes. -So he's got that but this is his Aurebesh tattoo. -This is his armpit. -Yes. It's kind of a weird photo and from the thumbnail I thought it was something perverse, but this is actually-- -Let's say I can tell it looks like Star Wars. -The underside of his arm. -I could tell yes like someone who didn't know the name of the language, I can tell that's Star Wars. -Yes. -Yes. So this is a fake language and it's sort of like right beneath his armpit just out of reach of the hair in his armpit so that's good. Probably wasn't that painful. -I wonder what it says. -It's his name. -Oh, okay. -So yes, yes. Rosco in Aurebesh. -Cool. -Yes. Richard, do you have any nerdy tattoos or do you have any aspirations to getting the nerdy tattoos? -I can't tell you or show you. -Oh. Wow. Wait. Are you serious? -No, I'm not. I don't have any. -Oh, okay. I thought you had a secret tattoo of some kind. -I don't think I'll ever get one. -No? -You have a few, right? -Yes. I have a bunch but none of them are that nerdy. I feel like it's hard to subscribe to a nerdy tattoo because that's really gonna be just like one error-- -Yes. -In your life, you know what I mean? Like that's gonna be-- -Where like if you get and this is not like in particular but if you get like a Star Wars one let's say for example the knowledge in your friends all your life would give you Star Wars gifts because they think oh, he's the guy with the Star Wars tattoo-- -Right. -So he must really like Star Wars. I'll do that for Christmas. -Yes, yes. -And then you end up like having like you better really like it. -A crazy Star Wars collection, right. -Yes. You better really like that thing you're getting tattooed because everyone is gonna just assume, oh yes, I'll give him a Star Wars gift. -Right. I guess that's why he maybe put it in a little bit of a covered space of his armpit because not everyone else is gonna see it unless he's wearing a white beater or something like that. So that's the emails for the day. Guys, we still need your voicemails so give us a call. It's 1-866-404-CNET and we're gonna be playing voicemails all week and you can send in emails as well. Recently we've also been reading out our tweets so you can also tweet us. It's @the-404 or, man, we got too many social networks that we're on right now. But you can also contact us through email the-404@CNET.com or last one you can leave the comment on our 404 sub-Reddit which has over a thousand subscribers at this point which we're really excited about, leave us a comment or a story suggestion at the404.reddit.com. -You're not on Foursquare? -Not on Foursquare. -Not on Path? -Not on Path, yes. -We are on Google+ though. -How are we supposed to stalk you? -Well, you can maybe use one of those other 8,000 networks growing. So that's gonna do it for us, you guys. Again, that's 866-404-CNET for the voicemail. Guys, thanks again for joining us on this Monday show. Usually there's such low energy but since we've got guests on today it's been great. -It's a fun Monday. -Yes. I'm hungry. I don't care what it smells like in here. I'm still hungry. Smells like formaldehyde in here now. This air freshner is disgusting. We'll try to get rid of that smell and we'll be back tomorrow for another show. I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Richard Peterson. -And I'm Bridget Carey. -It's The 404. It's high tech, it's low brow. Thanks for listening out there and we'll see you tomorrow.