Stories about Choking on Food – EP13

Show Transcript

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Sam [00:00:22]:
Hey, Chris. How’s it going?

Chris [00:00:23]:
Hey, Sam. How are you today?

Sam [00:00:25]:
Good. Good. This is our, Almost end of year. Well, it is the end of year podcast. I think this will be the last one for

Chris [00:00:32]:
24 years. Lucky 13th, isn’t it?

Sam [00:00:33]:
It is too. Yeah. Yes.

Chris [00:00:37]:
So yeah. So how is everything going?

Sam [00:00:40]:
Everything’s been going good. The other day, I went to the jazz company’s Christmas show that my daughter’s involved in, which is The jazz company. What is that? Sorry. Dance company. Show. She does jazz ballet, but, Got you.

Chris [00:00:54]:
Got you.

Sam [00:00:55]:
Yeah. Next year she wants to do hip hop, she told me. So that’s pretty cool.

Chris [00:00:58]:
Cool. How old is she again?

Sam [00:01:00]:
Almost 7. That’d be cool. And and now the show goes on forever. It’s a very long show, and they have a lot of people, a lot of dancers.

Chris [00:01:08]:
So so is it for all the kids?

Sam [00:01:11]:
No dancing. For everyone.

Chris [00:01:13]:
Everybody. So all ages dancing.

Sam [00:01:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Most of them are young people. Yeah. Yeah. And and some of the dancers, I have no idea what type of dance it is. Like, if you ask me, I don’t know if it’s contemporary or what it’s supposed to be. They’re just fluffing around on the stage, to be honest.

Sam [00:01:27]:
It was pretty good. And they

Chris [00:01:29]:
So you’re a proud daddy, though?

Sam [00:01:31]:
Oh, yeah. Always. That’s good. They had a, Have a memorial certificate trophy thing that they have handed out this year. And last year, they had a tribute for this girl. And I think probably maybe it must have been about a year and a half ago. And this story just sticks with me. It sticks with me a lot and it’s really sad.

Sam [00:01:56]:
It’s a sad story. She was a dance student and she was, I’m just gonna guess here. Maybe 12, 13?

Chris [00:02:05]:
Right.

Sam [00:02:05]:
10? I don’t know. Something. Something like that. And, she was at home and her older sister was babysitting her And was giving her dinner and she choked to death on a sausage. Crap. Yeah. Not good. And and the sister couldn’t couldn’t help her and couldn’t yeah.

Sam [00:02:22]:
And they couldn’t save her. So

Chris [00:02:23]:
That’s why you don’t leave kids, the doctor, you know? No. That’s right. And I

Sam [00:02:29]:
I don’t think she I don’t think she was, Like, but and she was it’s like I said

Chris [00:02:33]:
I nearly choked to death, as a as a child.

Sam [00:02:36]:
I

Chris [00:02:36]:
think it was about 11 or 12. And it was a long string of bacon.

Sam [00:02:50]:
Oh. And

Chris [00:02:51]:
it went down my throat, but it was still, in my in my mouth, if you know what I mean. Like and it got stuck.

Sam [00:02:57]:
I’ve got a story about almost choked at

Chris [00:02:58]:
the death bed. And, and, you know, and I’m like, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe because, of course, your, esophagus is is open, and your your air pipe’s closed. Right? Yeah. That’s how it works, I think. Yeah. And I I was totally choking. Somebody somebody was smacking me on the back.

Chris [00:03:15]:
I don’t know, mom or whatever. I don’t know. But I couldn’t cough it up, and I ended up putting my own fingers down my throat and get the end of it and pull it out, but

Sam [00:03:23]:
My story is very very similar. Chinese restaurant Yeah. Eating, Used to have my tongue pierced. And the squid ring wrapped around my tongue stud and got stuck to it and I swallowed. So I’ve got this thing halfway down my throat, And I did exactly what you did and I ended up putting my fingers down my throat, grabbing it, pulling it back up, and then I had to undo the tongue stud and And pull it out and it was and try and remove it from there. It was pretty scary. It was a bit weird.

Chris [00:04:02]:
Yeah. It it’s it’s scary as hell. And I and I I can’t remember how old I was, but I was quite young. I would have been between 7 and 10, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, it’s a scary thing, and it stays with you.

Sam [00:04:33]:
So that’s basically what’s happened recently. Been looking forward to Christmas and got everything organized for that. And if you haven’t listened to it, check out episode 12, the one before this. And that’s when we talk about New Zealand Twitter Secret Santa and what we got And what the worst presents were for 2014.

Chris [00:04:50]:
Yeah. And if you look at our, Twitter account, You’ll be able to see the crap photo that that Yeah. Sam took a picture of the night.

Sam [00:05:00]:
Check out the photos on the website This is the world’s most popular podcast.

Chris [00:05:13]:
Is that right? I I actually had heard that it was it was, I I read an article. It said it was, head of the revival of podcast.

Sam [00:05:20]:
Yeah. It’s had over 5,000,000 downloads.

Chris [00:05:23]:
Oh, wow. And, And I know a lot of people that have so Sam put me on to we’re talking about cereal, of course. Yeah. Sam put me on to it, and I mentioned that Actually, when I was helping Kim move down south, I, I’ve I I put on Facebook or something, you know, cereal is my new crack. I like to listen to 3 episodes this morning while I’m waiting for everybody to wake up. Funny thing is everybody’s in the other rooms waiting for everybody to wake up. Show. No.

Sam [00:05:50]:
Oh, very good.

Chris [00:05:51]:
But, anyway, and, yeah. And I had a couple of friends that I didn’t know would listen to it going, yeah. Yeah. No. I’m right into it as well.

Sam [00:06:05]:
A l, not cereal as in breakfast food.

Chris [00:06:19]:
Yeah. So you’ve gotta listen to them in order. You have

Sam [00:06:22]:
to start listening. Order. And if you don’t want spoilers, just stop listening to us right now. And get it, listen to it, and then come back to our podcast, of course Yeah. Where we’ll talk a bit more about it.

Chris [00:06:32]:
And and there’s more information coming out, that that’s come out since that. But you wanna give them the proceeds of what it’s about?

Sam [00:06:41]:
Yeah. A high school student of Muslim Heritage, but an American, gets convicted of murdering his ex girlfriend. Yeah. That’s the gist of it. And And he’s been in prison for the last 15 years.

Chris [00:06:55]:
A journalist slash podcaster, decides to look into it.

Sam [00:06:59]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:07:00]:
She she gets asked by his sister says, oh, there’s a there’s a chance that this guy’s been wrongfully commit, convicted. But then she goes through the facts, and it’s it’s it’s, Did he or didn’t he? And this is where the spoiler alert comes in because now we’re going to get into our own interpretations that we’re gonna get into.

Sam [00:07:18]:
And The bits and pieces.

Chris [00:07:20]:
So if you haven’t listened to it, now’s the time to stretch it off.

Sam [00:07:23]:
Because, a, we’ll spoil some of it for you, and, b, it probably won’t make much sense.

Chris [00:07:28]:
Yeah. No.

Sam [00:07:29]:
So go and listen to it. We’ll put a link in the show notes and, probably on the Facebook page and wherever else we wanna put it.

Chris [00:07:37]:
Alright. Now the losers have left, and then the smart people are still there. Alright. So what do you reckon? Did he do it? I mean, that’s it. I gotta start with that question. Right?

Sam [00:07:48]:
I know. That was the question I was gonna ask you. It it you to and fro, when you listen to the podcast, I think well, I definitely did. Yeah. I’m gonna say I don’t think he did it. That’s what I’m gonna say. I I definitely think he shouldn’t have been convicted Yeah. Because that’s the difference.

Chris [00:08:06]:
That’s the that is the big thing. And and so I was gonna say, I I don’t even wanna say one way or another, with the red

Sam [00:08:13]:
wolf or the and weird things they did share.

Chris [00:08:16]:
No way they had Beyond Reasonable Doubt. No. No. Didn’t really know. There is no way that was beyond reasonable doubt.

Sam [00:08:22]:
They they it was, like, 2 and a half hours deliberation After a 6 week trial.

Chris [00:08:26]:
Oh, they got bombarded. From the sounds of it, they got bombarded by that cell phone dude. Like, right

Sam [00:08:32]:
And and the and the prosecutor. These are something so if you’re listening to if if you really like the serial podcast, you actually wanna get on Reddit and go to the serial subreddit. Are are you gonna put a link to that subreddit Yes. In the

Chris [00:08:52]:
show notes? So a a, you’re gonna put a link to that subreddit

Sam [00:08:55]:
Yes.

Chris [00:08:56]:
In the show notes?

Sam [00:08:56]:
Yes. I’ll do it.

Chris [00:08:57]:
But, b, how do you find a subreddit? I’m like, I I

Sam [00:09:00]:
I You just do a search.

Chris [00:09:01]:
So So you gotta read it and just search for Yeah.

Sam [00:09:03]:
Yeah. And then you’ll see you’ll see the subreddit names, and then you can click on it, and then you can subscribe to that subreddit so you’ve always got it. So in the in the podcast, you know Don was the new boyfriend.

Chris [00:09:24]:
Yep.

Sam [00:09:25]:
What you may not know is his whole family are police. Oh. So when they came around and spoke to him and said she’s gone missing, He knew due to his families and, police work that the 2 most likely suspects were him and the old boyfriend. And he had to account for his time straight away. So he knew where he was and everything. So his alibi was really good. And that’s not to say he was lying. It’s just he knew how it worked.

Chris [00:09:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that was interesting because they did talk about that, the the second to last one, I think, or the last one. I can’t remember which one. But and they because she sort of said, you know, he Don can account for his time. As soon as he heard that, he went back But they didn’t mention the police connection.

Sam [00:10:12]:
No. No. This is a Reddit

Chris [00:10:14]:
And then they sort of said, you know, with Edna and the like, so why didn’t he think like that? Well, I was a paranoid little kid. So at 17, I probably would have been quite, anal about that sort of thing. I would have done it, but I’d I’d most of the people I know wouldn’t.

Sam [00:10:33]:
You have to realize he’s 17. He’s pretty much a stoner.

Chris [00:10:37]:
Yeah. Well, that that he had

Sam [00:10:39]:
he had the full confidence that he hadn’t done anything wrong, It’ll just work itself out. Yeah. That that’s one point of view. So it’s a bit crazy in that respect. What was The other

Chris [00:10:51]:
What happens in the States when they do release somebody?

Sam [00:10:55]:
After after they’ve served their time.

Chris [00:10:57]:
How a New Zealander is like, oh, we wrongfully connected video. Here’s, convicted you rather. Here’s, $1,000,000, for the time you served.

Sam [00:11:05]:
I think they have to Sue the corrections facility people, possibly.

Chris [00:11:11]:
They gotta sue somebody. But

Sam [00:11:13]:
Yeah. That’s not like an automatic thing. Yeah. I don’t I

Chris [00:11:15]:
don’t I don’t even know if they can really get the money, to be honest, because, you know,

Sam [00:11:19]:
who No. So I can’t remember it was in the podcast or if I read it on Reddit. Did you know that Don, for some reason, didn’t know Obviously, it said in the podcast, he didn’t know any of that stuff had happened, in the trial. Like, it was the first he he didn’t know that He didn’t know about Jay until he heard the podcast.

Chris [00:11:41]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think And and

Sam [00:11:42]:
and some people said that was really strange because he was involved in this court case quite a bit. And and even though he obviously wouldn’t have been in on certain sections in there, at Time 15 years ago, you think he would have known about it?

Chris [00:11:56]:
I I no. I don’t know. I don’t know that you would. So My very limited stuff I know about court, and it’s extremely limited to being a juror, like, 3 times or something. Everything does seem to be quite isolated, So I would imagine that you could have day 1, they dealt with somebody. Day 2, they dealt with Jay. Day 3, they dealt with Son. And so their paths might not have crossed.

Chris [00:12:21]:
So And There’s a media blackout. Usually, you don’t.

Sam [00:12:24]:
So when they brought him in, the prosecutor who’s that semi nasty sort of guy, He said to Don, I want you to basically say he’s a creep.

Chris [00:12:35]:
That’s right. That he said that in the podcast there.

Sam [00:12:37]:
Yeah. And they did that twice. Yeah.

Chris [00:12:39]:
And he went

Sam [00:12:39]:
And he said, no. He’s not. In my dealings with him, he was a nice guy.

Chris [00:12:43]:
So it sounds like Don’s straight up and honest.

Sam [00:12:46]:
I think Don’s sweet. Jay is definitely involved. Oh, Jay’s well,

Chris [00:12:50]:
he he by his own admission, he’s involved, but how much is he involved? I mean, early on, I was like, Jay’s gotta be

Sam [00:12:58]:
The the

Chris [00:12:59]:
the good for this. He must have done it. But then later on, I’m like

Sam [00:13:02]:
The problem is is because he didn’t get convicted of anything, There’s no records of what they asked him in court and things like that, in recordings. And Nowadays, when they do a police investigation and they interview everyone, they record everything. But for him, when they were doing the The recorded interviews, there’s a whole like, the the investigator said, there’s a whole extra hour or 3 before they press record Where they were possibly coaching him to say what they want him to say. Yeah. So the the, did he actually know where the car was or did the police tell him? Was a question. Yeah. That him him and his

Chris [00:13:44]:
son. Really? I I never thought of that.

Sam [00:13:47]:
That’s a question that came up. Him and his friend, Jen, have got differing stories and she didn’t go into the police until he went and said, hey. This is happening. And she lawyered up and she went in and she was telling story. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Sam [00:14:00]:
And they don’t know potentially if she was making up half the story and she got it wrong compared to Jay’s version? Because there’s really big discrepancies in that. Yeah. So I think another person involved in this whole thing.

Chris [00:14:16]:
I I would agree with that.

Sam [00:14:18]:
There’s a person mentioned in 1 podcast And I can’t remember that for the life of me what his name was, but he’s some sort of drug dealer. Because remember, Jay is selling dope, So he must be getting the drugs from something. He’s getting the marijuana from somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. So somewhere along there, I think there’s a shady third person Because Jay is absolutely afraid of someone. And and and people were saying, why is he afraid of someone that’s already in jail? Even now when she tracked them down, They said, when someone that has been in trouble with the law a lot, and him and Jen have both been in trouble since 15 years ago, and he’s been done for domestic violence and all sorts of things. He said, well, who did it then? Who did it? I think is what he said on the on the podcast.

Sam [00:15:06]:
Yeah. That’s And someone said, when you’ve dealt with the law, they’re very very good at setting up a set of questions so the other person will ask them. So he wasn’t saying who’s doing it. As easy as it was, this person theorized that he was actually waiting for her, the reporter Sarah, Sarah, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. He was waiting for her to To

Chris [00:15:31]:
to feed something back.

Sam [00:15:32]:
Because he doesn’t know what she knows. Yeah. So he has to set the scene. And and then because she didn’t follow that up anymore,

Chris [00:15:40]:
Like a con man.

Sam [00:15:41]:
You know?

Chris [00:15:41]:
Like a Yeah. You know? What do they read read your get in touch with your dead relatives

Sam [00:15:47]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:15:47]:
Yeah. Stuff. Yeah.

Sam [00:15:49]:
It’s interesting. Ah.

Chris [00:15:52]:
Yeah. Now I,

Sam [00:15:54]:
another another interesting thing is, someone they they basically said the crown or the prosecution’s timing of her death. Why is it so specific? She could have been in kept held captive for 3 weeks.

Chris [00:16:10]:
Yeah. That She didn’t have

Sam [00:16:12]:
to have been killed that day. There could have been another person. They could have taken And

Chris [00:16:16]:
how long was it before a body was found again?

Sam [00:16:19]:
I forget. 6 weeks. 6 weeks. I think it was. On the morning of the day she disappeared, they did a a TV interview with her for sports.

Chris [00:16:37]:
Oh.

Sam [00:16:37]:
And they’ve just they’ve dug it up on YouTube, And you can watch her talking to her watch her talking

Chris [00:16:42]:
on the day in the close of the calendar. Last, Yeah. In that last episode, they did say she got interviewed that morning, and it was in her in the car for Don to watch, yeah, watch the thing on TV.

Sam [00:16:54]:
And that note for Don’s really weird. Yeah. It was a bit odd. It was worded a bit strange because he had no idea what it referred to. And it was something like, I’ll catch you up later. But he hadn’t seen her that day. He was gonna see her later. So it was like she’d already seen him? Yeah.

Sam [00:17:09]:
And the people have been there’s so many theories going around and

Chris [00:17:12]:
Oh, but you might say I might catch it later. I

Sam [00:17:16]:
can’t remember the exact wording.

Chris [00:17:18]:
It it’s

Sam [00:17:18]:
when you listen to it, it’s really strange. The the phone call Tunisia, that’s the biggest problem for a lot of people. Yeah. They are pretty certain it’s a butt dial. Yeah. And and and

Chris [00:17:30]:
A pocket call as we say in our Yeah. Yeah. End of the world, to be honest.

Sam [00:17:35]:
The thing I find interesting is all that whole point in time, they know where the cell phone is pretty much. It knows what cell phone tell it’s pinging.

Chris [00:17:45]:
Yeah.

Sam [00:17:50]:
Phone. Yeah. A third person could hit that phone. Yeah. Not either of them 2. I don’t know. It There’s so many questions. You if you check out this

Chris [00:17:55]:
There there are so many holes. And and that’s why I think, you know, he he’s gotta be, they gotta turn it over and say, look. He was wrongfully convicted.

Sam [00:18:03]:
They’re hoping to do that with the Innocence Project Yeah. And they’re going down the track of

Chris [00:18:07]:
Of this random guy that was supposed to be out at that time.

Sam [00:18:11]:
Serial killer slash Bad person.

Chris [00:18:13]:
That, to me, that’s like the the longest long shot that you can attempt. If it comes off, it’ll be amazing.

Sam [00:18:19]:
But someone no. No. Someone actually She put it in a question on Reddit, I think it was, and they said, you know, that’s gotta be the world’s longest shot. And they said, no. No. That’s why that woman said think of the big picture. They just need something.

Chris [00:18:32]:
So that’s the excuse to test the excuse

Sam [00:18:34]:
to test the other items.

Chris [00:18:36]:
And then when they test the DNA and it doesn’t do that, but it doesn’t link to Adnan as well, but that’s another basis to get

Sam [00:18:41]:
rid of. Believe the whole, you know, when they tested her car, they found his 1 thumbprint on a MacBook. To That Goodness. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris [00:19:11]:
I know what you’re saying. It it’s a hard act to follow, and and you’re right. But It might have to be something a little bit different.

Sam [00:19:19]:
And I I I hope it will be because I don’t want it to follow that Yeah.

Chris [00:19:23]:
Yeah. Path. Yeah.

Sam [00:19:25]:
I was actually surprised at how long it takes for manual strangulation. I that that really surprised me. 5 to 8 minutes For 3 to 8 minutes.

Chris [00:19:33]:
Where where did you hear that?

Sam [00:19:35]:
It was in I think it was on the podcast or it was on Reddit or something.

Chris [00:19:39]:
Must have been in red.

Sam [00:19:40]:
And the argument was because he was a trained EMT, which is an ambulance driver Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what we did for a job part time Yeah. That he knew how to perform it Or revive her. But what he actually did for a job was he just accompanied old people wanna transfer to the hospital. Yeah.

Chris [00:20:05]:
I I mean, he certainly had the potential to know, so that that’s cool. I I mean, you know

Sam [00:20:10]:
I’ve got the potential to know because I’ve got a hand.

Chris [00:20:13]:
Yeah. I know. And I’ve done a lot of martial arts, and I’ve Yeah. Taken people out before. And so I’ve got the potential to know. But, I mean, you know, he has more of a potential to know in that role than probably other people. So And and they they

Sam [00:20:26]:
they were arguing that A lot of people were saying the strangulation is a is a personal, passionate, you have to know the person Sort of thing.

Chris [00:20:36]:
Yeah. It that’s a a really upfront you’ve gotta be either totally enraged

Sam [00:20:41]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:20:42]:
Off your face Yeah. Like like, zoned out, drug drugged out or, you know, very very emotional.

Sam [00:20:49]:
So there’s a 1000000 questions to be answered or not. There’s people that haven’t come forward to talk. They haven’t heard from that Stephanie chick. Yeah. Yeah. Beck prosecution guy Yeah. Putting the putting the hard word on them.

Chris [00:21:14]:
Yeah. But yeah. The the fact when she said, Oh, no. I’m not helping you out, like, the the 2nd trial or whatever.

Sam [00:21:21]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:21:21]:
That was pretty pretty freaking weird, be honest. But yeah. So no. It’s fascinating fascinating podcast. Have you listened to the This American Life?

Sam [00:21:33]:
No. I haven’t and they reference it every now and then on the serial podcast. And there’s, like, a couple of, like, top 5 episodes that people recommend. Yeah. And one of them is that Sarah talks to a used car dealership somewhere. Yeah. And, I think the guy tried offering her a deal because people were like, get the deal. Get deal.

Sam [00:21:53]:
It took me a while to figure out what they’re on about, so I might have to check that out.

Chris [00:21:58]:
Yeah. Because I, I listened to Alec Baldwin’s podcast. Called? One More Thing and Another Thing, something like that. And he was interviewing Ira Glass from This American Life. And and I really I was like, I know that name, Ira Glass.

Sam [00:22:16]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris [00:22:16]:
It was because, yeah, that that that was the linking with serial and with, the other one we’ve been you put me on to, which

Sam [00:22:24]:
is Startup.

Chris [00:22:25]:
So Startup for those of you totally different sort of thing. If you’re much more business minded, you’ll really enjoy start up. I’m it’s

Sam [00:22:33]:
Very good.

Chris [00:22:34]:
It’s very good. And we’re going to, sort of what we can do about emulating some of their production skills in the future, I think.

Sam [00:22:42]:
Yeah. We won’t we

Chris [00:22:44]:
won’t talk

Sam [00:22:45]:
too much more about that.

Chris [00:22:46]:
No. We’re not. But I I just I was so impressed with that and so many other podcasts there because I think that that’s a trend setting podcast there. You know? It is.

Sam [00:22:54]:
It is.

Chris [00:22:55]:
Because, Smart Passive Income. They’ve they’ve played with that Yeah.

Sam [00:22:59]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:22:59]:
Format, and, I think I think there’s gonna be a lot more people doing playing with that format.

Sam [00:23:04]:
Seems to be a lot more people taking up the podcasting sort of thing as well.

Chris [00:23:08]:
Yeah. I why is that, do

Sam [00:23:09]:
you think? I don’t know. I think it’s

Chris [00:23:13]:
I think it’s more more convenient now with the smartphones.

Sam [00:23:16]:
Yeah. It’s a lot more

Chris [00:23:16]:
accessible for people. Yeah. Exactly. Accessible is the word. If you didn’t have as many smartphones Yeah.

Sam [00:23:21]:
You tell me.

Chris [00:23:22]:
You just wouldn’t do it.

Sam [00:23:23]:
Yeah. You tell me after we’ve hooked up all this gear and got all this equipment sitting here. Yeah.

Chris [00:23:28]:
Yeah. Oh, no. No. This and that’s the other thing. You can have all this gear. Like, we’ve got we’ve got sandboard, All this really cool gear that we’ve got here, and and, you know

Sam [00:23:38]:
It makes us sound a little bit better than normal.

Chris [00:23:40]:
Yeah. And, don’t wanna toot our own horn, but we’re doing pretty this is a pretty good podcast.

Sam [00:23:46]:
We we actually got some good feedback on the audio quality, so that was pretty cool actually.

Chris [00:23:51]:
From, some of my film buddies who are quite,

Sam [00:23:54]:
pedantic with things. Yeah. Is that the word?

Chris [00:23:57]:
I was gonna say fussy, but pedantic. Yeah. Whatever you wanna say. They’re gonna be listening to this, so I’m gonna get my ass kicked. You

Sam [00:24:02]:
know that. Right?

Chris [00:24:04]:
So yeah. But no. It’s, we’ve had some good feedback on on the quality. So we’re gonna maybe have a bit of a play with format and stuff in the future. Who knows?

Sam [00:24:13]:
Yeah. It’s gonna be pretty good.

Chris [00:24:15]:
So yeah. So anyway, just before we wrap up, how was your year? Let’s do a quick year end review.

Sam [00:24:22]:
Just a quick think about what’s happened. Actually, this year was pretty awesome, to be honest. At the start of the year, we, me and a guy named Tim Harris, We we made some boats out of pumpkins. Yeah.

Chris [00:24:35]:
And you’re all over TV.

Sam [00:24:37]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:24:37]:
And you’re on 7 Days, and you’re, even Mentioned in a advert for

Sam [00:24:42]:
for the Amazing Race Australia. Oh, really?

Chris [00:24:44]:
I I missed that. Yeah. And we and you were also, John O’Neill

Sam [00:24:49]:
and Ten mentions us.

Chris [00:24:50]:
Yeah. And there was a cartoon in

Sam [00:24:52]:
It was a cartoon in the Herald. Yeah. It was That’s a big time, Sam. That that feels like so long ago.

Chris [00:24:58]:
Yeah. I know.

Sam [00:24:59]:
It was only the start of this year, and that was that was really epic. And it everything just Fell into place really, really well, at very short notice. And so a big thanks to everyone that helped out with that. Oh, I, I I quit my job. Right. The job that was sucking the soul out of me, and I started to hate it with a passion, and I can say that because I just don’t care.

Chris [00:25:24]:
So you quit that, so that’s a good thing.

Sam [00:25:26]:
It was great. I see people at that same place. I was actually talking to someone today about it. And they sort of just, you know, wear people down. And it just got to the point where I said, no. So I took a pretty Semi decent pay cut. I do something completely different now, and, I quite like that. What else happened this year? Stuffed my back again.

Sam [00:25:59]:
So that’s a yearly occurrence at the moment. So I’m gonna try and sort that out. And, Wow. Started the podcast with Chris, which is pretty which

Chris [00:26:06]:
is which is obviously a big big thing for you.

Sam [00:26:09]:
Oh, no. It is. It’s it’s very cool because

Chris [00:26:11]:
No. No. It’s it’s great. I love this. I love List podcast.

Sam [00:26:15]:
Oh, it’s great. Yeah. Love it. So I think that was me real briefly.

Chris [00:26:18]:
Yeah.

Sam [00:26:18]:
What about you?

Chris [00:26:20]:
So my big big thing oh, how how long were you at your previous job then?

Sam [00:26:23]:
8 years. Yes. Yeah.

Chris [00:26:25]:
So that that was my big thing, obviously. Got made redundant at the beginning of the year or March, actually.

Sam [00:26:30]:
So that does I I keep thinking it’s, like, 2 years ago.

Chris [00:26:33]:
I know. I know. It feels like so long. And so, yeah, that was because I was still working pumpkin thing because I couldn’t come along because I was in Auckland for work. Yeah. No. I was in Auckland for work. Yeah.

Chris [00:26:47]:
That day. So anyway, which bugged me no end. But, yeah. So I’ve I’ve finished up work, and I’ve been there for 12 years. Wow. Well paid there. Got a decent redundancy, which put me out of eligibility for the for any sort of doll for months months months. Must say I’ve learned a lot about myself in the in that intervening time.

Chris [00:27:18]:
I realized that I like going to work for the social aspect.

Sam [00:27:23]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris [00:27:23]:
You know, it’s the people there? So that that was cool, but the job was meh. You know? I was making projects for me to do while I was there.

Sam [00:27:33]:
Yeah. That’s never good.

Chris [00:27:34]:
And, yeah. And so there’s been a lot of redundancies.

Sam [00:27:38]:
I’ve lost I’ve lost some amazing people.

Chris [00:27:41]:
I know.

Sam [00:27:41]:
Like, I’ve I I don’t know them, like, as well as you do, but I know them. Yeah. And I know some of the stuff they’ve done, and it’s just, like, woah.

Chris [00:27:49]:
Yeah. They’ve they’ve just got rid of some, really high Techie People.

Sam [00:27:53]:
Yeah. Like a brain drain.

Chris [00:27:55]:
Yeah. And, one of the guys, Martin Harris, I I don’t I don’t think I’ve even met him. I’ve worked with him on projects, On audio and all that sort of thing. And it always made me laugh because his his his sign off on his email was Your humble savant.

Sam [00:28:14]:
Very good.

Chris [00:28:14]:
I thought it was pretty funny. Yeah.

Sam [00:28:15]:
It’s pretty funny.

Chris [00:28:15]:
But yeah. I and he just knew everything about everything, and he’s just been made redundant. So yeah. Anyway, So this is, my old company was Telecom. It’s now Spark, of course. And, it’s gonna have to do the bounce back and start Getting to growth because we’ve been in cost cutting for quite a while. So Yeah. That’ll be an interesting thing.

Chris [00:28:33]:
They’ll need to get a new leader in to do that. But you just wonder if they cut too close to the bone, Well, they have the platform to launch forward. You know?

Sam [00:28:41]:
Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how they go.

Chris [00:28:43]:
Yeah. Anyway But not

Sam [00:28:44]:
but not to worry because you don’t work for them anymore.

Chris [00:28:46]:
Work for them anymore. I sometimes act like I do. But yeah. So some things, you know, run deep. But yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So I spend a lot of time doing not a lot, and I’ve got a couple of part time jobs at the moment.

Chris [00:29:01]:
Some money is pretty tight, I really struggle with the idea of getting into another corporate role because it’d have to be something I really wanna do, and Yeah. I just haven’t seen anything like that. Yeah. So, wanna go down the more entrepreneurial path with, with these, you know, part time jobs Backing up. Just paying the rent. Just paying the rent and, see what else I can do. And, yeah. So that’s been good.

Chris [00:29:29]:
But, this podcast’s been really So I’m I’m enjoying that.

Sam [00:29:32]:
Yeah. It’s we’ve learned a lot doing this, which is good.

Chris [00:29:35]:
And the other thing is filming. I’ve done quite a lot stuff and film this year. We we, of course, made it into the finals of Tropfest at the beginning of the year for for last year’s one, and that gave me a real taste for it. We did, a little bit of work on the Star Wars thing, and we’ve done some stuff there. I even did my first little bit of acting. At least it’s supposed to be acting. I don’t know if it really was, but,

Sam [00:30:00]:
that grunt, don’t you?

Chris [00:30:01]:
Yeah. You know, you’ll see when you see it whether you can judge whether it’s acting or not. I I I don’t wanna judge. I don’t even wanna watch myself. But so I’m not an actor. But, you know, things have been going quite well with the film side of things. And, of course, we’ve just, entered with the Tropfest again. And I can tell you now that we are Shortlisted for finals for next year or, you know, this year’s competition?

Sam [00:30:24]:
Yes.

Chris [00:30:25]:
We’re shortlisted, so it’s 25 people being in the shortlist. The final is 16 people. Was that ringing? That was ringing.

Sam [00:30:34]:
Oh, do you wanna answer it?

Chris [00:30:35]:
No. I just turned it off. So you’re 16 finalists, and we will find out about that on the between 9th 12th June January whether we, in the finals. And Tropfest is Valentine’s Day down

Sam [00:30:50]:
February 14th.

Chris [00:30:51]:
February 14th down in, New Plymouth. Bowl

Sam [00:30:53]:
of Bronx.

Chris [00:30:54]:
Did I ask if you wanted to come along?

Sam [00:30:57]:
You you didn’t specifically ask that. You just vaguely said you’re going down there, I think.

Chris [00:31:01]:
Alright. If you wanna come down, it’ll be it’ll be quite good.

Sam [00:31:03]:
I am working, but I I’m gonna try and work out what I can do.

Chris [00:31:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. It it’ll be it’s quite a good night. We’ve we’re gonna see if we’re gonna go down with and crew, and and we’ll probably have a a stay overnight so we can do all the after parties and then yeah.

Sam [00:31:17]:
Sounds good.

Chris [00:31:17]:
Particularly if we win. Woo hoo.

Sam [00:31:20]:
Yes. So looking forward to 2015. What’s on the cards for you, you think?

Chris [00:31:26]:
I’ve got I’ve got some projects on. So film projects. I’ve got a film that I’m producer for. We’ve got a lot of funding to do, and it’s a short film. And so that’s quite a serious deal. That’s quite a big one we’re getting, professionals in. It’s not an amateur

Sam [00:31:44]:
Oh, cool.

Chris [00:31:45]:
Thing, so that should be quite cool. It’s, you know, it’s stretching me beyond my comfort zone, definitely.

Sam [00:31:51]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris [00:31:52]:
I we’re working on the crowdfunding book, which I’ve mentioned before. Yes. I I don’t expect that we will have anything necessarily finished, in 2015. We’d hopefully, we’ll get it to the point where we can get to the editor.

Sam [00:32:05]:
Yeah. But I

Chris [00:32:05]:
don’t know that we’d launch it, next year. We haven’t really talked about the timing, but we’re still in that whole collection and research phase at the moment. So it’s just early days yet. We have I’ve got another podcast thing that we wanna do we’re going to do.

Sam [00:32:28]:
Yep. Yep. And about

Chris [00:32:31]:
that now, but that’s one of the things I’m really looking forward to.

Sam [00:32:33]:
And That’ll be a bit different. Yes. Yes. It’s for

Chris [00:32:36]:
a specific market and niche market.

Sam [00:32:38]:
So You probably only hear Talk, Really? Yeah. After more of the producing slash editing on the behind

Chris [00:32:43]:
the scenes. And and there’s it’s gonna be an interview thing. So it’s an interview style thing, so it won’t be just me what

Sam [00:32:48]:
what’s going on.

Chris [00:32:50]:
That’s good. Thank god for that.

Sam [00:32:52]:
I’m thinking of doing a podcast related to pumpkins. Woo hoo. And, That may sound a bit weird, but it’s gonna be an interview thing. So, hopefully, that’ll work out well.

Chris [00:33:02]:
Yeah. So, basically, we’re both gonna do our own niche Interview podcast.

Sam [00:33:06]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:33:06]:
And and the the the areas that that, you know, we are interested in. So that that’ll be cool.

Sam [00:33:11]:
So that’ll be interesting. I want to put a put together a product for the pumpkin growers.

Chris [00:33:18]:
That’s right.

Sam [00:33:19]:
Yes. Been working on that vaguely last year, and I’ve got the bare bones of it laid out. So that’s good. And I’ve got a reasonably popular, very niche website that does reasonably well for visitors, that I struggle with updating every month. I really need to get that sorted next year, so I’m gonna work on that.

Chris [00:33:42]:
Yeah. We we should, we what we need to do is is Figure out how to do these things as a project that we can, I don’t know, put another layer on to it publishing As we’re doing it or podcasting over it about it as we’re doing it or something? Possibly. Well

Sam [00:33:59]:
You know, the the trick is try not to take too much on.

Chris [00:34:11]:
I know what you mean. Alright. So, yes. So that’s my outlook for for next year. Maybe do a little bit more socializing because I realized I’ve got into my shell a little bit this year too

Sam [00:34:23]:
Alright. Yeah.

Chris [00:34:24]:
Work I I think.

Sam [00:34:25]:
But in saying that if you’re if you you’ll definitely get the socializing within all the projects, hopefully. Yeah.

Chris [00:34:30]:
Yeah. The plan. Yeah. That is that is the plan. And, of course oh, yes. So I’m back at karate too, which is a big deal. That was my formative growing up thing that I did for 20 years, and then I had Yeah. Yeah.

Chris [00:34:40]:
5, 10 year break type thing. And now I’m back into it, and I’m feeling it after a grading. I I didn’t grade, but I was at a grading on Thursday, and my body is sore. Bit of fighting, few bruises. Yeah. So I’m looking forward to getting back into that a little bit more, in the new year. You got any fitness stuff this year, Conan.

Sam [00:35:02]:
You know, maybe just I I need to work on it. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Chris [00:35:08]:
Get the the back right. When the back’s right.

Sam [00:35:10]:
No. No. The back’s never right. I’m hoping I do a bit more mountain biking. Actually, I have to get a service something the break back brakes decided not to work.

Chris [00:35:20]:
I hear that can be a problem.

Sam [00:35:21]:
Well, it’s got disc brakes as well. So it when it stops, it stops. But, I I can’t work out if it’s the pads or the disc

Chris [00:35:39]:
Any any questions you’ve got, any ideas you’ve got of things for us to discuss, anything that you go, wow, that’s amazing, Just tweet that out to us. Take some tweet.

Sam [00:35:49]:
I think that’s what I’ll be working on as well is just, getting the podcast out there a little bit more. Yeah. It’s, it’s We love doing the podcast, and it’s not a very specific type of podcast. We do talk about all sorts of random things, And that’s fine. That’s that’s how we want it, and that’s how it’s gonna be. But, hopefully, we get some more interaction, more likes on the Facebook page, and more, Twitter action for everyone.

Chris [00:36:12]:
We’re not doing it totally for you. We’re not doing it totally for ourselves. We’re doing it because it’s fun, and, hopefully, it’s fun for for the people that are listening. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be listening. Right?

Sam [00:36:24]:
Yeah.

Chris [00:36:24]:
So, so that’s all good. But but my point is, you know, It is what it is, and and we’re just gonna keep enjoying it.

Sam [00:36:32]:
Yeah. It’s great.

Chris [00:36:33]:
But, yeah, your feedback, your ability you know, give us some ideas and stuff like that. We’d be more than happy to, delve into topics of your interest.

Sam [00:36:42]:
Yeah. And we’re hopefully gonna get a few more guests on board. We’re gonna try and get the elusive Carl to turn up one day.

Chris [00:36:48]:
Yeah. Old Lush Monster who booked books in, like, 2 months ago.

Sam [00:36:52]:
I I did I only found out today he doesn’t drive, that’s always helpful. Yeah.

Chris [00:36:57]:
I said I’d pick him up.

Sam [00:36:59]:
I know. But anyway, we’re gonna try and track him down and get him in here. And, actually, because he’s so hard tied down, we might have to record, like, 5 random episodes with him and then space it out over a year. We’ll see.

Chris [00:37:12]:
Yeah. We we might do something like that. Maybe we should have some alcohol on hand because I I think Nothing gets the lush monster out like a a few babies.

Sam [00:37:22]:
You you do.

Chris [00:37:23]:
Maybe some purple iguanas. If we have some purple iguanas, that’ll attract him.

Sam [00:37:26]:
Oh, sweetie. Okay. Very

Chris [00:37:30]:
good. Alright. So have a good New Years, everybody.

Sam [00:37:32]:
Yeah. Stay safe out there, and, have a great time. Alright. And we’ll catch you in 2015.

Chris [00:37:37]:
Bye. See you.