Tanner, what's good?
I'll take that as you're doing pretty good. I'm okay. Yeah. Yeah, just okay
It's it's the middle of the week and I'm making videos. We need more videos. It's always more videos
Well, I'm happy. We finally got to sit down. I mean, I know you've been busy over the past couple of weeks
What types of videos have you been working on? Oh, I've been doing I
I've been doing some more hacking tools. I've been doing it's a lot of garbage
Honestly, not not the videos themselves are garbage, but the things in the videos are garbage. It's to the point now
I think where logistics
Just doesn't bother to track any of the stuff I bring in I'd say about 60% of the stuff that's brought in just doesn't
Get an asset tag doesn't get put into the inventory system because as they say it's more Tanner garbage
But yeah, I also got a new computer from Japan that I'm really looking forward to
Okay, and we're doing a video on that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and you know, I don't I
Don't know if it's going to be it just on that one. I'm not sure yet
But I do want to switch over to this laptop as like my full-time laptop
At least for a little bit to see what it's like because it's got some real neat features to it
I'm also working on Another thing that's
Taking the idea of a mining rig, but then just applying it elsewhere
So I'm I'm really looking forward to that and of course I've got my wall of printers
Wall of printers wall printers Well, it's a wall
There are printers It's a series of shelves really because you can't just put printers directly on the wall
They don't have that mounting capability But there is their shelves in front of the wall that and on the shelves are a lot of printers
And I'm still trying to find time to go through the 5000 pages of blank paper
We have to make it not blank paper to find out. What's the deal with printers?
But yeah, I'm really excited for that one. It should be really good
There's always a new printer model out. That's just a slight variation on another printer model
It's the point where Jamie used to work
for Geek Squad and he came along and said, oh, I know that printer and it was
the exact same printer that he had sold people ten years ago
but The model number was off by two so it sounds like you've got a lot of different types of videos going on
Yeah, here. I feel like the writers they have kind of a specialty focus, you know Alex has cooling and laptops ploof has
Displays and keyboards. Where do you feel your specialty is? Oh, I've I've fallen into a couple different categories. So
Garbage consumer electronics that we buy a lot of
if we're buying if we're buying 12 of something and
Each item costs less than a hundred dollars. There's probably 90% chance it's coming to my desk. I
get a lot of the used stuff if
There's older things that we're looking at that aren't
Extremely technically detailed Then that's
That's my area. So good example would be the Mac server
There's a lot that you can say about a Mac server, but at the end of the day, you don't need
Super fine detailed information on exactly what was happening with the processor or anything like that. So that's that's
My area of specialty there
What else do we have? Oh, yeah
Console dev kits. I do most of those. We're starting to run out of console dev kits to look at
I've got One on my shelf for sure
I've also been the guy who's been ordering a lot of stuff from Japan lately
so That's one area of tech that we haven't really looked at a whole lot. So I'm starting to
Chisel out that mine, right? Like you're you're starting to learn katakana and stuff. Just oh, I mean
Katakana is not really something you have to learn just keep an alphabet beside your desk and then sound out the words and hope they're English
Actual Japanese don't that I don't speak it
The only things I really know how to say or what Tashi was the kind of this
What did that mean? I am a fish
What yeah, I took one Japanese class in a high school
And the people I was taking it with we were also rewatching we were watching Red Dwarf as well and
I think at one point about a quarter of the class just filled in an entire test with
What Tashi was the kind of desk over and over again. There's just a really weird Red Dwarf reference, I guess the teacher did not understand it
And that is the only thing that stuck because they guess writing something over and over again
You know 200 times it just cements it into your brain. So now I have a core memory based around a
Couple words of Japanese that are never useful speaking about writing
What types of videos get you the most excited to write about? Oh
The videos I'm most excited to write about are the ones where I get to just deep dive into something
It doesn't really matter what it is if there's a lot more to a story that I can I can really dig into then
That's where my mind just starts racing. You know if I can find a
Circuit board nobody's really looked at very closely and I can see the screen printing and I can use the screen printing to track down some more
Information and use that to find you know a guy's LinkedIn I follow the LinkedIn to another company and the other company has another thing going on and all kind of works back and maybe maybe a group of
Employees left one company to go form another company and that group of employees worked on this thing and you can see the
Influence of this item on this item and then I can just kind of make that flow
It makes for a much better video. It makes for a bunch better shoot. It makes for a lot harder B-roll
B-roll becomes a lot harder to get on those ones But the actual filming time is significantly less than a vlog for example
The amount of time that it takes to actually review a script goes way down because I can just when I get into a flow
I feel like my writing has
morphed into the TT manner
That is required and
So yeah, when I can kind of just dive in I get I get that flow state where it the words are just coming out the way that they
Need to you know, I can get 1,500 words out easily on I don't know the
the history of this dash cam or the history of you know, this children's toy or
Whatever, it's the hardest part about being a writer
Oh I mean the writing part is easy like I can write a script now and I don't know
It'll take me about four or five hours to write a
1,500 to 2,000 word script that I feel is pretty solid will make a decent video
that gets like 1.5 to 2 million views sometimes they go up to like 3.5, but
Sometimes that's just out of my control the algorithm does what it wants the people do what they want and
The news cycle does what it wants if a video matches up with a news cycle then
views will just trickle in quickly more flood, but
the actual difficult parts of
being a writer here is
Sort of just managing every step of the process because I need to make sure that the things that we're ordering are the exact things
I need and that I haven't made a mistake. They're not making a mistake
The seller is not making a mistake the things that we get in are exactly the right things because there have been some
Some instances where like if we're buying something off eBay
I will need an exact model of something that's 15 years old and it looks the exact same as
The model that was released three months before it
So the seller puts the title of that item on the wrong
Thing and we end up getting the wrong item and it's like you can't hold anybody
You accountable for that because these are all honest mistakes you you can get a refund
That's not going to get your time back You know so I got to make sure that the procurement part is going well
And that I've got all the information I need from from them
I got to make sure that I have all of the the items I need at any given time
I've got to make sure that once the video is filmed that the the b-roll is all
Making sense. I got to make sure that the editor understands what I meant by certain things if we're getting into really technical details of like oh
You need to zoom in on this exact chip on this
daughter board attached here
You know that can be kind of difficult to do with with words and images
Don't always make it through all of our workflows so I've got to start writing in words of open this document and look at this image and
My keyboard only has four hotkeys on it anymore
because yeah the I
Guess a great example is Yesterday I did a shoot the script review took 40 minutes the actual shoot itself took an
Hour hour and a half very quick shoot the b-roll just the guidance to tell the camera people
What to shoot that took me another five hours Wow, and
Yeah, it's especially difficult now because we're in a different building from where they're filming
So if I need to go over there, that's 10 minutes one way 10 minutes another way so 20 minutes immediately gone just a traveling
Assuming I can't just get a ride over there, but it's
Kind of difficult to coordinate that at all the time. It's a lot of the communication that becomes very difficult, especially just
being in a different place than where the action is and
Frequently having to go where the action is and be like no, okay zoom in here and then we're gonna pan this way
Do you understand? Yes, okay good
And then yeah, it's it's just communicating between all the teams because yeah, we're a company of a hundred people now and
I might have
Really good rapport with with some people but not have built up any with some other people and
They might not know What workflow I'm used to and I might not know what workflow they're used to and yeah
All the other difficult thing has just been we we don't have access to a lot of a lot of stock images anymore
Like stock images I find stock images to be really funny
And I like remixing stock images with other stock images to make funnier stock images. What's the issue with that?
Licensing I think I don't know. It's it's
Out of my pay grade out of my department But keeping within your department. What's your favorite part about being a writer?
I get to play with ridiculous stuff all the time. Oh, I want to look at I want to look at 15 different
Streaming devices that I'll run Google TV
Okay, on Monday, I'm gonna pitch that I'm gonna pitch it real good and then I'm gonna get permission to order it and then it's gonna come in and I'm gonna
Have just a box full of these different Chromecast devices that aren't Chromecast and I get to just do whatever I want with them
Provided that it makes entertaining content and doesn't destroy them too badly
I'm not the biggest fan of the idea that we don't get to destroy things more often here, but I
Understand it I get it. I respect it, but sometimes you know, you just want to have some explodies
But you know my favorite part is definitely just the things that I get to play with so on a similar note if you were given an
Unlimited amount of time and an unlimited amount of money. What type of video would you want to create? Oh?
Just one video, but I have to make just one video just one. I don't know what product it would be yet, but I really like the idea of
taking an Average consumer electronics something that most people have that they might not think about too much
But shopping for is difficult. I want to go I want to buy every single one
maybe four or five times over and I want to just put them all to the test and
Just see what happens then I want to start contacting all of the different manufacturers people who don't work there anymore as well find out
Why some decisions were made because there's gonna be weird decisions that were made in every product and
Then I want to contact all of the
University researchers who are working on on similar pieces of technology in areas that this thing can be improved and
Find out what's the hold up there and then I want to
Contact some manufacturers again and find out. Hey
Why hasn't this thing at this university been done here in this way?
Why are we getting handed this and why is it being charged? Why are you charging us this much for it? Why haven't you made a good thing yet? So essentially the printers video
Just buy every printer and find out why they're all liars, right, but a little more comprehensive that yeah
Yeah, yeah by every printer. What's another product category that you think you you could be able to cover in a similar vein. Oh
Well with the emergence of smart homes you can kind of just pick
Any household item that has a smart home variant?
Start going through it because the smart home variants don't solve some of the long-standing issues
so I Don't know. I'd want to look at maybe front-loading washing machines. I
Say this as I have an issue with my front-loading washing machine. Let's bring it back a bit
How did you get started at LMG? I answered a post on Facebook in a private group and
I sent a video from a YouTube channel. I was working on at the time
Then I got asked to interview
What was this Facebook group? It was Vancouver stand-up comedians. Ah, okay. I did not get the part
It's fine. I got a job instead and I didn't have to go in Colton's trunk. Oh
My god, I this was for a Channel Super Fun video, right? It was yeah, yep
Stand-up comedians. So you're a stand-up comedian then
I was doing it for a while there. Don't don't look it up on YouTube. I still haven't been able to get that guy to take that video down
If you do look it up on YouTube, it's a video of me a couple months in not a good set
Did not know I was performing that night
Please don't watch it You know people are gonna watch it now. Oh, I know I know and it's bad and what's even worse is that
Two years ago, I commented I I regret this immensely and
I know this is bad That comic got deleted by that channel
What yeah, well because the other person in that video not the person who is making it the other person in the video
Who is performing and just performing she has since
Become somewhat notable, you know has definitely appeared on some
Pretty big networks as far as stand-up goes nowadays. All I really do is roast battles. So you're still actively
I'm starting to get back into it. Nice. Yeah, and roast battles are a lot of fun
Because they get to just write some jokes throw them out there and then never do them again. That is
That's perfect. So for these roast battles. Do you get to prep and know who you're roasting beforehand?
Yeah. Yeah, you get the name probably about three weeks in advance
Sometimes the organizers will give you a
Brief summary of who they are. Otherwise, you've got to just message them and be like, hey
Tell me about your life So I can make fun of you for it, but you have to do the same, right? Oh, yeah, give them that. Yeah, I've
I've gathered a pretty pretty solid list of
Things I can just copy and paste to them Which I will not be divulging in my place of employment
How did you get into comedy? Oh the same way everybody does break up
Yeah, like 90% of people doing stand-up just started doing it after a particularly bad breakup. Yeah, the therapy is expensive
Laughs are free No, they are
There are a lot of work A lot of work a lot of silence involved you never know how quiet things can get until you're in front of a hundred people and there's
Just no noises Well, if you search my name on YouTube
Aside from that there was like the first couple times that it stand-up were awful. I went to an open mic that was
Held at it's it was supposed to start at 9 p.m. On Sundays, but the guy who ran it
So It would always start about an hour and a half two hours late
And when it's 11 p.m. On a Sunday, and you're just starting out and you're the 30th person
That's supposed to go up that night and there's a total of four people who are actually there just to watch
Yeah, I went I went a month doing that every week without getting a single laugh. Wow
And yeah, but put some hair on your chest. Yeah, that makes fun of you for having hair on your chest
Well, you're past that point now, hopefully yeah, yeah now I have a
solid five minutes and No, not much more. I can I can sometimes get ten minutes out there
But yeah, I mean I kind of transitioned away from trying to be a storyteller comedian into a one-liner and
Ten minutes that can eat up 50 60 jokes Wow. Yeah, so if you're trying to do an hour with that
You you better have a lot of one-liners memorized. I also just don't memorize anything. I just put them all on cue cards
You can make it work. Who are your inspirations in comedy? Oh
Wendy Liebowitz Steven Wright emo Phillips
Bob get gold weight to a certain degree I'd say
Yeah, just a lot of the one-liner folks because I think Wendy Liebowitz especially
if you're looking at Her act from a very technical standpoint if you just count the amount of laughs her laughs per minute
Exceed anybody else's like in a five-minute set. I think I counted her getting
76 laughs Wow. Yeah, it was every every couple of words and
to just be able to shorten a joke down that much and then
Take another joke and just attach it on to it and attach it on to it and then attach it on to it
So that you can just keep getting that rolling laughter
It's it really is an art form and it's
Also, just I mean, it's very technical. It's a very technical art form. It's it
But it's it's very impressive to see you've done really well
Right and I feel like one one-liner stuff really lends itself to that well
But you know you watch a one-hour special from any one-liner comedian, you know, you watch
Nate Bargat see you or
Why can't I remember his name?
There's gonna be a lot of comments being like, oh, yeah, like this guy and that's what I'm talking about here
But you'll notice that a lot of one-liner comedians. They'll bring out a guitar sometimes. It doesn't necessarily need to be
Used like that the jokes would have landed just as well without the guitar but the guitar having
Light musical accompaniment underneath that lets you actually slow down and let's the punches hit harder
so That musical accompaniment it also it fills in any silence gaps, so
You can take a 10-minute, you know 50 60 joke
Bundle stretch it out to 15 and then also transition between
Different styles of what you're doing because you can't just do one liners for an hour
Interesting. There's a lot more that goes into comedy than I think a lot of people
Yeah, there's the there's a lot of a lot of rules to it and a lot of a
Lot of rules of just interacting with other comedians
There there is a serious ongoing debate about whether or not it's okay to wear shorts
Really? Wow shorts on stage is a very divisive topic interesting people see it as unprofessional
you notice that the standard dress for your average middle-aged white male comedian is
likely to be a leather jacket, but if not probably a suit and
Anybody who doesn't fit into that mold is looked down on a little bit more and then by the time you're at shorts
It's a matter of I don't want to stare at your ugly legs
They're eye level with me Look up. Yeah, like
It's not stare at shorts
But any words of advice for anybody that wants to get into comedy
If you're really happy don't
That was that
Comedy does not come from a place of happiness
It's there to fill a void That's that's why there's not many comedy festivals and tropical destinations
But you'll still find a lot of people touring the the Arctic
That's next up in Caliwet, none of it. Yeah, Iqalit is actually like a place where
There's there's like a pro wrestling tour that happens
Usually it's like five or six wrestlers and something that all of the pros do at some point in the wrestling career
Really where they will do the north of Canada. Wow just the territories and I think
Parts the northern provinces, but yeah, I think Iqalit is actually one of the places they do it
That's crazy, and they usually have to I think the stories They usually have to sleep in a school gymnasium or something when they do it. Yeah, the same school gymnasium
They just performed in right that's the only only place they really can unless they want to stay with the people in town there if they have room
But yeah, no entertainment in very remote areas is a
Right of passage I feel like for live performers Wow
You can visit Ploof's hometown Yeah, where's he from young knife, I think young knife. Yeah, they're
I Think I actually just roasted a guy from yellow knife
Was it Ploof?
Wasn't Ploof maybe it was white horse. I can never remember the difference between the two
They're in the north. They've got a color and then a noun
Let's try to be thought about that. Yeah, I guess to wrap this all up. What's your most memorable moment at LMG you've had so far?
God damn it is that one It's that one I can't say because it'll incriminate me
What yeah, okay, oh
Maybe wouldn't incriminate me but I can cramate some other people involved who aren't at the company. I never were just
Yeah, yeah
Anything else you want to say to the float playing peeps Hey, don't be reddit