April 28, 2025 • 49 mins
This is the 50th anniversary of Microsoft. They just riff on Microsoft. Talk a little IBM and Watson. They smoke the Espinosa 601 La Bomba Sake Bomb and sip the El Dorado 12 Year old rum.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh, okay, welcome to our newest episode.
(00:02):
In this episode, we will have the Espinosa 601
La Bamba Sake Bomb.
And with it, we will have the El Dorado 12-year-old rum.
Rome!
You're hanging out with Bill and Darryl,
with cigars, liquor, and more.
(00:23):
All right, well, the Espinosa 601 La Bamba Sake Bomb
is a 4 1-1-2 by 42, often called a Petite Corona.
It has a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper,
and Nicaraguan binders and fillers.
And its MSRP is 450.
450!
This is a budget stick.
(00:45):
Got to love it.
With the way of the El Dorado 12-year-old rum,
it is bottled at 80 proof,
and has an MSRP of $32.
Which is not an expensive liquor, either.
Nope. Nope.
And it's age-stated.
You don't get that from Rome.
No, not very often.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
Let's go to the rum.
(01:08):
Yep.
Good vanilla nose.
Ha-ha-ha.
Kind of what you expect.
Not, there's no, there's no heat in the nose.
You could take a big ol' sniff.
Mm-hmm.
Now this is 80 proof.
Mm-hmm.
That's a lovely rum.
(01:29):
El Dorado is a nice rum.
It is a nice rum.
It doesn't have,
there are some rums, 80 proof,
that do come off as a bit sharp.
Yeah.
This one doesn't.
Nope.
But it does have a,
There's some heat in the back end.
Up front you get that vanilla in a sweet right away.
(01:51):
It's very sweet.
And the back you get some of the heat,
but it's not very hot.
Yeah, it's arguably honeysuckle sweet.
Yeah.
I don't know that.
But it does,
this rum will coat your mouth.
Yeah, it is viscous.
(02:14):
Yeah.
That's,
it,
there are other rums that are similar,
but don't have that, that, that mouth coating,
tongue coating specifically, that it, I don't know.
It doesn't come off therapy.
No.
(02:35):
That's now it comes off.
But it is coating and it feels viscous.
Yeah.
And you don't,
it's,
unless you're a super, super sweet rum
that it comes across therapy,
you don't get that.
Right.
So this is, this is a very nice balance.
But because of that, I don't think it's quite as smooth
(02:58):
as other rums out there.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
No, one thing I do want to know is that the only band on this one
is a foot band.
It is.
That's because, because it's a Lebamba,
they do that little twirly thing at the top
and make it look like a fuse and run it down the side.
Yep.
So they don't want to put a wrapper there
because then it'll catch,
(03:19):
no, come on.
No, you don't want to put a wrapper there.
You want to see that it looks like a bomb.
Like they're, like they're logo does.
So yeah, no, I, I get that and I'll give them a pass on this one.
Ooh.
Really?
Because I'm really just,
I really just, I detest.
(03:41):
I know.
That's what it comes down to.
That's my method.
Footbands.
Now, Darryl was able to finagle his and slide it up
without taking it off.
Slide it up into a regular band type placement.
Yeah.
Not me.
I tried it.
I tried Darryl's technique on it,
but I caught ends of leaves.
(04:04):
Yeah, you don't want to do that.
Now I don't want to destroy the wrapper.
So I just pulled it,
setting off to the side over here.
Yep.
Just not doing it.
So we'll see.
Cause you know, I believe that they tend
to unravel a little bit more if you pull the band early.
So,
I'm on the watch.
(04:25):
But
this is another thing that is nice about the Lebamba.
That fuse,
they have to take that glue and glue down the tail
you think the glue helped for the fuse.
And I think the glue acts in its way
as its own band.
I like it.
(04:46):
Okay.
We will see.
You had, so we've had these
for a couple months now.
And you've had one recently.
I had one, yeah, I had one just a couple of days ago.
Me and the wife, we went and we did a competition,
shooting competition, IDPA in Arkansas.
And after we were done shooting, after we,
(05:09):
after we ate, after we had a lunch,
I sat down and I smoked one of these.
And I did pull the band.
And I did not experience any unraveling.
And you were in wind too,
cause you have been exposed, right?
No, no, it's very woody.
Oh, so you didn't have, okay.
(05:30):
So there wasn't a whole lot of wind.
It's not like being on my porch.
But we're not on the porch.
We're on the garage.
So now that I'm in here too.
Yeah.
And we were, when I spoke this one,
I was under a pavilion.
Okay, okay.
So relatively sheltered.
Okay.
And it performed fanlessly.
(05:52):
And now I was gonna be nice and offer this
to a fellow cigar smoker that I met there.
But he has a box of the, or a,
not a box, but a, cause yeah, these come in box.
I don't know.
He said a box, but my, my thought was,
These came in a box of 10.
A box of two.
Yeah, I couldn't remember if these came in bundles or boxes,
(06:15):
but they do come in boxes.
Now he said he had a box of them at his house.
Okay.
So that's like,
So you just moved it.
Yeah.
But he appreciated the offer.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and that's been those.
You, so a real cigar smoker would be like,
Oh, you're gonna offer me a token cigar.
Thank you.
And then you go, Oh, wait a minute.
This, you know,
(06:36):
although technically a budget stick,
it's still, it's nice when you get something premium, right?
High quality.
Yeah.
This may be, this may be price wise, a budget stick,
but in its heart of hearts, it's a $20 stick.
I wouldn't pay that for it, but in its heart of hearts.
I, okay.
(06:58):
I don't think I have much else to offer on the wrong view.
No, no, not really.
Cause I do want to get to the stick.
Well, let's do it.
So let me stop it.
Well, I could stop you.
Don't let it.
So these are rated touted when you go to maybe CI or whoever you
(07:20):
look at to get a rating on a cigar or, you know,
sort of an overview review.
They're full.
These are full that are strong, all that.
Right off the gate, it's not doing that.
It's not coming off to me that way.
Yeah.
I do not think of these as strong cigar, bold cigars.
I do not think of them that way.
(07:41):
They're super peppery retrohilt.
Don't get me wrong.
But the draw and all that, it's not really strong.
And it is primarily a woody type cigar.
But there's like in the, in the finish, there's a baking spice action going on that I really like.
(08:05):
Cause I'm a baking spice guy.
Yeah, you are.
And I, I picked that up right away.
That's my thing.
That and that's your superpower.
That and these and in clothes, I'm super taster for.
So, but I really like the little, little backend.
Apparently,
my superpower is tasting graphite.
(08:27):
No, that we got no, I don't get that off this cigar.
OK.
But I will get graphite.
You're like, yeah, no, not getting that.
No, yeah, I don't get that one too much.
It has to be a super graphite for me to get it, I think.
For being such a small cigar, this thing burns.
Fabulous.
(08:49):
And it you can talk this thing really fast and get it done quickly.
Yeah, but you don't have to because while it's not a bold flavor,
the flavors do hang around for a bit.
Yeah.
So you don't have to hit it.
Yeah, because you can, you can, you can continuously get these.
(09:10):
Now, I do think that the, the
honey circle vanilla that's coming out in the rum is kind of getting in the way
of some of the flavors of this cigar.
Yeah, but since it was.
So the first time I had it, it did come off stronger than right now.
And I wonder if it's because I'm not drinking the rum.
(09:31):
And that's why I paired the rum with it.
Because I wanted, you know, my, my rule of thumb is when you have a super bold cigar,
you want to tame it a little bit, you go with a rum.
Something sweet.
You could get a sweet whiskey, but I tend to go wrong.
And I, I did that because last one I had, I thought was pretty strong.
(09:52):
This one's not coming off that strong.
Could be the day.
Yeah.
So how long since you had it very recently, I probably had a couple of weeks ago.
You had it very recently.
How long did you smoke it?
Do you happen to know?
Right around a half hour, 40 minutes.
Okay.
It is a petite Corona.
Yeah, 45 would be pretty good for a petite Corona, don't you think?
(10:14):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that'd be good.
And understand that, you know, we
everybody was talking and telling stories and, yeah, you know, it was a, it was a social
the social part of the experience.
Yeah.
But I didn't, I shared, but I didn't talk overly much.
(10:39):
Okay.
Yeah.
So I spent, I got to spend some time with the cigar, even though I was in the company of others.
Yeah.
Okay.
Good.
That's always good.
So yeah, I think somewhere around half hour, 40 minutes is what it took for me to to
finish it off.
And that wasn't going fast.
Uh, I mean, I'd had something like four other
(11:03):
single five, five cigars that day.
A busy day, huh?
Well, I know that's the thing.
It wasn't a busy day.
Uh, we.
So me and the wife are safety officers and generally we're running a timer.
We're running a pad, which is how we score.
Uh, we're generally doing stuff, but we had two safety officers that ran the timer in the pad.
(11:32):
And none of us that were shooting touched the timer of the pad.
So in between, you know, somebody shoots you go out, you paste, you know, after the
scores tally, you got you paste the holes.
And then we've got nothing to do until the next time we go on the pay store.
Yeah.
So I, I went through a whole lot more cigars than I otherwise would have.
(11:57):
Yeah.
Just because I feel like I should be doing something.
I'm not doing something.
I'll light up another cigar for work, but.
Busy day for cigars, busy day for cigars.
That's a good day.
Um, oh, I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it tremendously.
Um, but yeah, so, but I don't, I don't think my palate was wrecked by the time I got it.
(12:22):
Yeah.
I did was five cigars, but it was over six hours, seven hours, pretty close to seven hours.
I still packing it in there.
So now we're in half cigars there.
I, well, well, what?
(12:43):
There was a breeze.
It was windy.
I did light up.
I did re-light quite a bit.
Um, okay.
So it was a little breezy.
It was a little breezy, not like, you know, if you step outside my house right now, it's not that kind of breezy.
Yeah, but there still was a breeze.
It was a little bit.
It was a.
(13:04):
Um, and, you know, when I go and paste, I'll take it, but I won't, I won't smoke on it while I paste.
I'm just pasting.
Why you do all the activities.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's then, you know, if I get caught up in a conversation, you know, it may go out.
So I spent, I spent a fair amount of time re-lighting.
Hmm.
(13:25):
So I, I don't know.
You think the wind knocked it down a little bit?
That's probably true.
Well, that, you know, I may have, I may have, you know, averaged an hour and a half a stick, but I didn't smoke them the entire time.
So it's what I'm trying to get at.
Okay.
So, um, I, I do want to quickly add before we move on.
(13:50):
That, uh, as I, as I hit more water than rum, I'm also getting a, a finish of paper.
There's a little bit of paper in there.
I think the rum was knocking out, but I'm getting it now that I'm drinking a little bit more water.
And that's really nice.
You know, I like paper.
Yeah.
I'm not getting so much of a paper as a dryness.
(14:12):
Yeah.
It does actually come off as kind of a dry cigar.
The mouth coating is not one that's creamy.
Right.
It is dry.
Yeah.
I'm liking it so far though.
Absolutely.
All right.
Um, what?
So this is the 50th anniversary of Microsoft, isn't it?
It is.
And years ago, it's founded in 1975.
(14:35):
How weird is that?
Right?
It doesn't feel like it.
Doesn't seem like that much worth 50.
Yeah.
Everybody else.
It just feels like Microsoft been around forever, right?
Yep.
But, uh, OK, in all fairness, I was five when it was founded.
So it wasn't really in the computers then.
No, as no one was.
Yeah.
Um, I think my first computer until I was 13.
(14:59):
So.
Yeah.
But I did work with them like youth centers and stuff like that.
I I worked with the Tandy.
If you remember the Tandy, I do the trash 80 as people called it.
Yeah.
Uh, our first, uh, the first computer we had at the house was a trash 80.
Yeah.
Um, we were living in Fort Worth at the time, which was where Tandy's headquarters.
(15:23):
Yeah, I know that.
Um, and I don't, I don't think dad bought it new.
I think dad bought it a year or two old.
Mm hmm.
Uh, and from some guy at work, if I believe it worked.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
And one of one of the things I love the most was when we, um, so I saved up money
(15:44):
and I bought a modem.
Ooh, yeah.
Oh, 300, one 50.
Um, the first one was 150.
Okay.
Uh, and then I've saved up more and bought a 300.
Double your speed.
I did.
So back then it was you had the handsets, right?
And you put those down on it.
(16:05):
That's how it communicated.
And, uh, you had bulletin board systems where you would you would dial a local
number.
And yet I could once I was on the board with a local number, because back then
long distance meant money.
Yeah.
So with the local number, I could dial up, get on a bulletin board system and I
(16:30):
could chat with people from Australia.
Right.
So I did the same thing.
That was really cool.
That morphed into IRC, which I then did later on.
But it was, it was a different age.
Yeah, much area.
Yeah.
Lot of things changed since then.
Uh, and it was the trash.
(16:51):
80 was a two disc system.
So you had a disc.
With you loaded the M s.
Also, and then you loaded another game by swapping out the disc.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they, they founded the Microsoft 50 years ago.
Now it's a multi trillion dollar company, depending on, you know, when
(17:12):
you look at it up, but it's still over a trillion.
It hit three at its peak, but it has done a lot.
Right.
I mean, it windows 95 was arguably one of the biggest breakthroughs.
Yes, for Microsoft, because it went from being a command based DOS system to being
(17:34):
that window based system like they were had to compete with with with Apple.
Apple.
Yeah.
And if you aren't old enough to remember, they actually did do their own OS.
But one of the big, I think landmark things they did was word and Excel were made for the apple.
(18:04):
Yes.
And that Microsoft made those for Apple.
That opened up a huge chasm between your IBM PC compatible users and your, you know, your Mac users.
But now you had a system that was basically, you know, the DOS Windows 3 1 1, right?
(18:33):
Basically command based system.
But then they, I think they got their feet wet and understood your menu system so much better.
And then brought it back, brought that knowledge back to make windows 95.
And that was huge.
Absolutely.
And so they go, they detail a lot of things in here that they did.
(18:57):
And it is amazing.
The first.
So MS DOS was not their own creation.
No, they bought it.
They bought it for some, some like $300.
I thought it was even less.
But yeah, they bought it from a guy.
They make it.
And before he bought it from a guy, he had he went to go get a contract.
(19:23):
Yeah.
To be the it was sold before he bought it.
Yeah, to be the software supplier for IBM.
With the caveat that he retains the rights to the operating system.
Right.
And I am famously said, well, the money's in the hardware, not the software.
(19:45):
So they agreed to it.
It turned out bad decision.
Yeah.
But I mean, IBM's still huge, but yeah, that's.
And then he immediately went out and purchased the software.
Right.
Which is hilarious.
Yeah, it just it's just amazing how things happen.
(20:10):
Yeah, that's actually a pretty famous story.
And if you haven't heard it, it's definitely out there and it's a good one to watch.
It's amazing.
And these.
So the beginnings of the personal computer era.
All happened in the United States.
Yes.
So no matter where you go throughout the world, almost.
(20:35):
Where's in English?
Almost everybody calls a computer a computer.
They have the English word computer is what this is.
Yeah.
And even though it's not in their language, they still use it for that.
Right.
There's no translation.
Yeah.
And there's several other parts of the personal computing world that are like that
(20:59):
from the from the beginning.
Yeah.
Since then, things have changed.
Yeah.
But it's it's telling.
It is.
And you know, they've made several other major pivots like when they made the Xbox
and they, you know, so they continued.
(21:20):
I felt like I think they even mentioned it in the article.
So the article that we had picked up was from digital trends.
So you can look this up in digital trends.
But I'm sure this discussion is probably everywhere.
Yeah.
I I thought that they're the first sign of weakness.
And I think actually this is often a sign of weakness for a lot of companies
(21:41):
is when you start buying other people instead of making your own shit.
Ah, I don't necessarily agree with that.
Yeah, I know a lot of people would disagree.
I was one to see what you thought.
Because I think it is.
I don't like it when I see that.
If you have enough free cash that you can and you want to be in a market
(22:02):
and you can get a good deal on a company that's already in that market.
Sure.
I have I have absolutely no problems with the company.
I don't have problems with it, but it makes me feel like
your development is lagging now because somebody else's development is ahead of you.
And you went and bought them because you went, Oh, shit, we really need that.
And we didn't make it.
(22:24):
Right.
Well, yeah, but you may not you get that space may not have been on your radar.
And then then you start seeing the growth in that area.
You're like, well, I want to be a part of that growth.
Right.
And and I feel like that's a miss for your leaders.
Right.
I don't think so as long as your company continues to climb.
(22:46):
Well, they did.
Well, they did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm not even so I think they bought Skype, right?
I guess they made teams from Skype, but something like that.
Yeah.
But like, you know, Minecraft, they bought Minecraft that I understand.
But when you buy Skype, I go, Oh, you missed out on a man.
(23:10):
You know, you're a major thing that you should have had yourself.
If I can give two examples, you know what I mean?
No, they they had.
I don't remember what it was called now.
But they had a version of software that did that.
Right.
And we used it in our work for a long time.
(23:32):
Right.
But it was it was just so lacking.
Exactly.
They didn't they focused their money elsewhere.
They didn't focus their money on that.
I guess.
Yeah.
But when you have a worldwide organization, you need products like this.
And so we wound up going with Webex.
(23:54):
Other people went with Microsoft teams when the end teams is worlds in a way
better than what what Microsoft was.
Better than Skype.
So they I feel like they bought a company and then they made it better and they
made teams.
They made it instead of being more.
Because I I always think what my usage of Skype was very much.
(24:21):
It seemed like it was very much, you know, small teams or, you know, just
individuals.
It didn't seem corporate.
Right.
And it's in its usage and concept.
Teams.
So they they took what they had or what they bought and then made it more of a
(24:43):
corporate friendly environment.
I think so too.
Yeah.
But I think they bought Skype because they had no clue.
And then they took Skype's IP and turned it into teams.
And I mean, Cisco did fabulous with Webex.
Yeah.
And you had Skype and you had some others and Skype was really faltering.
(25:05):
It was.
And they just couldn't they Skype had a hard time breaking into the corporate model,
which is well, they couldn't finish right.
Microsoft finished.
Yes.
For big time, a door teams.
Yeah.
That is such a great product.
But I'm just that's my example.
(25:26):
Oh, yeah.
You want to take a break and get back with a midpoint?
Yeah, let's take a little break.
We'll be right back to that.
Check out our website cigars, liquor and more.com for more of our podcasts,
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(25:49):
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Darryl and at bill underscore CLN.
(26:10):
All right.
What's what's think midpoint?
What do we what do we think in here?
The scar itself hasn't transitioned.
No.
And it won't.
It's not going to transition on you.
And I mean, it's a nice, smooth, easy smoke.
It's it's like one of these cigars and I mentioned this from time to time.
(26:32):
Did you just really don't have to think about?
Mm hmm.
I I get that.
Online shops are labeling this as a bold.
To me, this is not a bold.
Maybe medium bold.
Yeah, maybe a medium bold.
But have you heard a medium?
It's it has a distinct lack of overall mouth coding that I consider a bold.
(27:02):
I would agree.
And that's why.
But some of the flavors they are it does have some strong flavors to it.
I think that's why they read it a bold because it doesn't do the mouth
coding that normal balls do.
Yeah.
But to me, the quintessential aspect of a bold is the mouth.
Coding right and that's what makes it so.
(27:24):
Not liked by people that don't like bold cigar because there are some mediums out
there that have some pretty strong flavors to them.
Yet you don't hear these things from from those you hear it from the ones that give you mouth
coding.
So I know it's a bill metric not an industry metric, but I think there's a psychological aspect to he named it a bomb.
(27:48):
And it made I think it put the thought in people's heads and I.
Just I'm saying maybe there's a psychological aspect to this being pushed to be old too.
Sure.
But you know we thought that of the psychotic or whatever with a psycho.
Yeah, the psycho is so and it was not psycho at all.
(28:09):
Couldn't lead us down that path.
No.
Yeah.
Proofs in the pudding, baby.
I agree.
So and and the rum.
I got to tell you, I'm really not having as much rum with this because I don't like what it's doing to the cigar.
Well, I like the paper that I don't get when I don't have the rum or I said that wrong.
(28:35):
I like the paper that gets drowned out by the rum.
There you go.
So I could see that too or washed out.
But I'm enjoying the rum.
So I'm still drinking the rum.
But yeah, I'll have some water and then I'll get the paper.
I go, yeah.
So it comes right right away.
Right.
It's not something that is stomped out for a long period of time.
So that doesn't bother me as much because if I just have a swish of water, I get my paper bag.
(29:00):
Now I do like the I do like the combination of the vanilla and the honeysuckle that the elder rotto.
It does have a honey slash honey suckle flavor.
Yeah, I do like that a lot.
I like when I get honeysuckle out of her room.
Yes.
But to me, this isn't.
This isn't a pre-moped pairing because I don't like how things are going with it.
(29:23):
I would definitely not say that.
Yeah.
IBM.
So I'm going to I'm going to compare and contrast then.
So way back when you know I be a Microsoft is like, you know, hey, let's supply.
Let us supply your operating system.
But we want to control the operating system.
And you know, it's money's in the hardware, not software.
(29:46):
Well, it's your term.
IBM was still right.
They just didn't see the long term.
The
AI
evolution of things.
And I'm going to say evolution, not revolution.
The AI evolution of things.
IBM came out with a product called Watson.
(30:07):
Oh, yeah.
I remember Watson.
First one to be a.
No, I meant they may not in the first one to be a chess master.
I don't think Watson was that was that OK.
But Watson was the first commercially viable, yeah, commercially usable.
(30:29):
Artificial intelligence.
I remember Watson doing Jeopardy.
Remember that?
Yep.
And it did a good job.
Like it was fast enough to click in.
With people.
So, but I think Microsoft's co pilot.
Is going to.
(30:50):
Take over the space that isn't that just chat GPT, though?
Aren't they licensing chat GPT to do co-pilot?
Oh, are they?
I was not aware of that.
Doesn't say in here.
Yeah, I thought it did.
Because I didn't know that.
So that could have sworn I had seen that.
Somewhere.
OK, then the AI boom began and the world has been riding that wave ever since after being blindsided by chat GPT's capabilities and subsequent success.
(31:21):
Microsoft managed to win the bidding war to secure its use in creating co-pilot, which is now shoved into everything.
So OK, so it is using.
I think it is using or licensing the chat GPT engine or whatever you want to call it now.
But still.
(31:43):
It's not licensing IBM's product.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And it's going to I think it's going to mop Watson under the under the table.
Yeah, IBM has its perks, but it's it doesn't seem to excel.
Anywhere right now, like it's not the go to it.
(32:04):
It does a lot of things well, but doesn't do anything the best.
Right.
It's also in how pervasive windows is in our life and how not pervasive IBM is.
Right.
You're you co-pilot.
If you have a windows machine at your house, you bring up you open up windows.
(32:29):
You have co-pilot instantly available.
Yeah, co-pilot showed up on my teams and showed up.
It's I have a copilot button on several things.
And it's in search.
You can get it as its own app.
You can get it on the web page.
When you if you use Microsoft's window browser to do a search, the first little top part is
(32:50):
co-pilot trying to answer your question for you.
Right.
And you can select that and go to copilot.
So the user base that copilot has is so much larger than the user base that Watson has
because you're not going to go.
Oh, let me go to Watson.
Let me go get a second when you have something integrated right there.
(33:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's I marketing.
Yeah.
Now, I think that they have turned Watson into a general use and to be turned from a general
use to be much more specific on task and more broad based task.
(33:37):
You know, more more machine learning than right than anything else.
So, you know, they're they're still going to have a market share and they will probably
still have a pretty good market share.
But not having.
But it'll be in the industrial not in right.
So, right.
(33:59):
And arguably, it's your consumer ones that are going to have the potential to morph into more
industrial because I can play with all day long.
But you can't just play with Watson all day long.
So I don't know.
I don't know that that's going to happen.
But things like that have happened before.
(34:21):
Happened all the time.
Yeah, I would agree.
And I see it.
I do it.
I'm doing it.
But it's it's kind of cool.
Kind of makes you feel old.
Kind of a bunch of things.
We are old when you when you when we're talking about retirement.
True.
But, you know, a company that, you know, started after you were born and is still around in a
(34:46):
still one of the top companies in the world.
Yeah.
I don't know that.
But it's it is cool.
It is cool.
It is cool.
They turn 50.
Yeah.
And there is still a powerhouse a lot and fall by the way side like IBM was a powerhouse who is waiting.
But, you know, also arguably, you know, IBM started
(35:10):
30 years before Microsoft.
So in the waning aspect of aging companies, that shouldn't be such a big surprise.
Do you remember word perfect?
Of course.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Where's that?
Got stopped by the word.
Everybody used word.
Lotus 123 got stopped by Excel.
(35:32):
So, I mean, Lotus 123 was the first one I used as well because our because at the time, IBM
compatibles were much cheaper than Apple products by a factor of three.
If not more.
If not more.
And so everybody's high school, everybody's college had IBM
compatibles as they were called.
And so you started with word perfect and 123.
(35:56):
Yep.
That's why when Microsoft made the jump.
Both two and then from Apple to bring the Xerox.
Because Xerox was the one actually invented the pull down menus that Apple used.
Yeah.
And the mouse and the mouse.
Then when that was brought back to the compatible, that's when the IBM
(36:23):
compatible, the your your your DOS, your 46 architecture over Apple started to
gain back some of the capability.
Because I don't want to say market share because at the time, market share and even
today, the market share for the compatible or the IBM system, the 486, they're still
(36:45):
the biggest.
They're no longer IBM compatibles.
They're just you just call it sixes now.
Yeah.
They're just windows machines.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because they're IBM.
There's nobody cares who makes them anymore.
Yeah.
ABM doesn't really make them.
Yep.
But that was that was so important for the.
(37:06):
X 486 platform over the risk.
Processor of the Apple and the risk is arguably the most important thing that's
ever happened to computing.
The risk architecture is critical.
It shaped all computing going forward.
And what's funny was Apple went with it because it was better, but it was way more
(37:30):
expensive and they just couldn't, you know, it's hard to overcome that.
Yeah, they couldn't overcome that.
They're overcoming it now in phones and pads, but they still don't own the laptop
desktop market.
Right.
And I don't think they ever will.
It's in the computing world, Apple has had.
(37:52):
It well, in the personal computing space, Apple has not been a market leader.
No.
Uh, they have had so much influence.
They've had tons of influence on the market, but they found so much more
profitability in the phones and pads.
They didn't even try to continue with laptops and desktops.
(38:13):
But they did the same thing with the, well, the iPod is really what.
Got them into that.
It was one of their starters.
Yeah.
Uh, but.
Their whole, their whole outlook has been user experience first.
Yes.
And design and work backwards from there.
(38:36):
What can we, what, what does it take to get this user experience?
And that's what leads you when you, when you have that mindset and you did,
that's how you build things.
You're going to have better hardware because you need it.
Right.
And then it's up to everybody else to catch up, but people catch up.
(38:58):
Using cheaper hardware.
Right.
They just figure out what figure out a way to do it.
Have you heard of a hackintosh?
Yes.
Okay.
I didn't make one.
I've not tried to make one, but I know a lot of people love them and they say they
can make them for about half the price of an Apple product.
But you have to put very specific pieces of hardware together.
(39:19):
Yeah.
Because it has to work seamlessly or just crashes.
Yes.
And, but that's why they're faster and better because they work together seamlessly.
Yeah.
But it's also why you can't swap out a lot of parts.
Yes.
And being able to build your own, being able to.
(39:40):
That's becoming less important.
Make just about anything work on it.
Mm hmm.
Is how and being open to other people being able to make things.
Yeah.
Is why Matt, why windows just launched ahead and continue to potentially saved
Apple, the app atmosphere and Apple developers hate because they are aggressive
(40:07):
with how much they take from you.
Apple is.
Yeah.
They take so much and I get it.
I wouldn't develop anything for Apple.
They want to be ridiculous.
I'm not a company I want to work for.
Or be an app developer that you then want to put on the Apple store because
they're going to take 30% really.
(40:28):
Yeah.
That's just mean.
Yeah.
It's it's excessive.
So I mean, I get it completely.
So.
But kudos to Microsoft for being around for 50 years.
Still being something that we talk about.
Use windows and that.
Rolling didn't didn't miss.
So here's one thing that generally happened with with windows that didn't
(40:52):
happen this last time, first time, in my opinion, it used to be every other OS
was good and you didn't want to switch until they made the next one.
But 10 to 11.
Not an issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You would normally skip the 11 before.
Yeah.
Really not.
And the architecture of 11 is different than the architecture.
(41:16):
Very.
So it takes a bit of getting used to it.
I didn't like it in the first couple.
But now.
And the first time they made it change that big.
Was going from windows 97 to Vista.
Yes.
This is the flop and Vista tanked tank bad.
I knew people like Vista.
(41:37):
And I even liked those people.
But I'm like, I don't see it.
I waited for seven.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And really all seven was was windows Vista.
Fixed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That one of the biggest problems with Vista was it was so memory intensive.
(42:01):
It used up all your memory.
That was one of the biggest problems with Vista.
It slowed down really bad.
Yeah.
And seven, seven, they fixed that problem.
Well, you know, there is there's already talked though that 11 is slowing down some
systems really badly.
Now, I don't my system isn't doing that.
And my work system isn't doing that because I've gone to 11 at work as well.
(42:22):
And they're not doing that.
But these are newer systems.
My laptop is is still windows 10.
My desktop is windows 11.
And I don't have any problems with windows 11 at all.
But your desktop probably a pretty powerful desktop.
It is.
So that's why probably you're not seeing it.
(42:44):
Because I have I've read articles that 11 is crushing some some processes like the
I seven.
It's killing them.
So I mean, that kind of sucks because now you're like, I got to have a nine or
better, whatever, whatever, you know, whatever the equivalent is.
I'm not.
I know I kind of went into there, but, you know, Andy, whatever, you're not.
(43:08):
You're not.
You can't run effectively windows 10 on a 386.
OK, I get your I get your analogy, but
but the sevens not that old.
Is it?
How's the seven?
(43:30):
Maybe I'm out of touch.
Maybe I lost track of how much time is I seven.
I can't remember if it was the I five or the I seven that was their first one with
the Sandy Bridge Gates.
But I think that happens.
Twenty fourteen time frame.
Really?
OK, so 10.
(43:52):
You're saying this is probably I think the I series has been around for at
least 10 years.
Yeah, the seven.
I don't remember it exactly.
I guess it's not critical.
I'm just saying that people are seeing some slowdowns.
I'm not and I'm happy about that.
But yeah, I'm not noticing any problems.
No, I kind of like 11.
(44:13):
I do feel like it took away some of the control I had in 10.
But the only thing that bothers me is renaming because I could right click,
click, rename and rename.
But now I got to right click more options, rename.
Oh, I just do that one.
I just do the left click pause for a second left click again, and then I can
(44:37):
rename.
Yeah, I never got into a habit of doing it.
Oh, OK.
But but I'm happy.
I'm I'm happy that Excel is still easy to use.
Although they changed that when they they tried to make it more friendly to
marketing people and then you're like, where is my editing for my axes and
(45:00):
stuff like that?
Yeah, it became a mess.
Yeah, so in fairness, I really don't use Excel for graphing anymore.
Just don't I just don't know.
I've now they do one.
All right.
So here's what we should do.
We should rate these things.
Well, let's do it.
All right.
So I have an easy decision because I only have two rooms to talk about.
(45:25):
So I rated mine already.
Oh, I know.
You suck it more difficult.
Second.
I have to admit, I'm kind of basking in your difficulty this year because I had to
do it last year and I'm like, baton handoff enjoy, son.
It is it's tough.
It's difficult to do.
(45:48):
And, you know, not just because of, you know, psychological biases, whether you
have a recency bias or, you know, origination bias or all these other things.
But remembering them and, you know, you felt different than you do now is so hard.
Because we're not picking any bad cigars.
(46:09):
They're all good cigars.
And now you got to put them in order.
It's it's mean.
I don't think you are going to be overly surprised.
OK.
OK.
All right.
Well, do you want to go first?
Yeah, I go first.
This one's simple.
Yeah.
So so in the in the liquor rating, we have segregated rums from whiskey's
(46:32):
but it's not fair to put the two together.
Right.
So there this is, as Daryl said, this is only the second room we've had on the show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This year and Daryl put the elder router 12 and the number two slot right below
Diflamadico, Batauano, which remains one of my favorite rums.
So not a surprise.
(46:53):
Yeah.
So and just for completeness, here's the top five.
We don't have a five or four or three to his Elle Rado one is between the month
to one.
You're just being funny.
All right.
So what what did Bill do?
Bill put the Espinosa six or one Lebamba sake bomb in the number 11 position right
(47:16):
in between the number 12 Lebaba purple and the number 10.
Dovidov Winston Churchill.
So nice.
And then the top five.
Well, wait, before you get to the top five, what what is your thoughts on what that
placement?
Oh, interesting.
(47:37):
But I got to be honest.
It makes sense.
I I get that's that's the spot for it.
Yeah.
I I can't see it being better than the Churchill or the Midnight Express or the
Hemingway.
Right.
It runs into a wall with the.
Absolutely.
There's a huge wall in front of it.
Yep.
That are just some great cigars in front of it.
(48:00):
Now the Lebaba purple, I really liked, but it was also kind of a unit
tasker.
The sifuentes I I don't know.
I still think the Parode King is kind of funny.
I would have put it higher.
I want more of those, by the way.
We totally get those.
So no, this makes sense.
(48:21):
I think the Parode Kings would be a fabulous cigar while while doing a club
shoot.
Absolutely.
Because these are, you know, buck a piece retail.
Buck a piece, but still not cigars.
And there's still great cigars there, especially if you like the Tucky
(48:43):
Firecane tobacco, which I've turned out I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you went through the top five.
Yep.
OK.
Cool.
I think we're done.
We call this episode over.
Heck yeah.
Oh, okay, welcome to our newest episode.
(00:02):
In this episode, we will have the Espinosa 601
La Bamba Sake Bomb.
And with it, we will have the El Dorado 12-year-old rum.
Rome!
You're hanging out with Bill and Darryl,
with cigars, liquor, and more.
(00:23):
All right, well, the Espinosa 601 La Bamba Sake Bomb
is a 4 1-1-2 by 42, often called a Petite Corona.
It has a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper,
and Nicaraguan binders and fillers.
And its MSRP is 450.
450!
This is a budget stick.
(00:45):
Got to love it.
With the way of the El Dorado 12-year-old rum,
it is bottled at 80 proof,
and has an MSRP of $32.
Which is not an expensive liquor, either.
Nope. Nope.
And it's age-stated.
You don't get that from Rome.
No, not very often.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
Let's go to the rum.
(01:08):
Yep.
Good vanilla nose.
Ha-ha-ha.
Kind of what you expect.
Not, there's no, there's no heat in the nose.
You could take a big ol' sniff.
Mm-hmm.
Now this is 80 proof.
Mm-hmm.
That's a lovely rum.
(01:29):
El Dorado is a nice rum.
It is a nice rum.
It doesn't have,
there are some rums, 80 proof,
that do come off as a bit sharp.
Yeah.
This one doesn't.
Nope.
But it does have a,
There's some heat in the back end.
Up front you get that vanilla in a sweet right away.
(01:51):
It's very sweet.
And the back you get some of the heat,
but it's not very hot.
Yeah, it's arguably honeysuckle sweet.
Yeah.
I don't know that.
But it does,
this rum will coat your mouth.
Yeah, it is viscous.
(02:14):
Yeah.
That's,
it,
there are other rums that are similar,
but don't have that, that, that mouth coating,
tongue coating specifically, that it, I don't know.
It doesn't come off therapy.
No.
(02:35):
That's now it comes off.
But it is coating and it feels viscous.
Yeah.
And you don't,
it's,
unless you're a super, super sweet rum
that it comes across therapy,
you don't get that.
Right.
So this is, this is a very nice balance.
But because of that, I don't think it's quite as smooth
(02:58):
as other rums out there.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
No, one thing I do want to know is that the only band on this one
is a foot band.
It is.
That's because, because it's a Lebamba,
they do that little twirly thing at the top
and make it look like a fuse and run it down the side.
Yep.
So they don't want to put a wrapper there
because then it'll catch,
(03:19):
no, come on.
No, you don't want to put a wrapper there.
You want to see that it looks like a bomb.
Like they're, like they're logo does.
So yeah, no, I, I get that and I'll give them a pass on this one.
Ooh.
Really?
Because I'm really just,
I really just, I detest.
(03:41):
I know.
That's what it comes down to.
That's my method.
Footbands.
Now, Darryl was able to finagle his and slide it up
without taking it off.
Slide it up into a regular band type placement.
Yeah.
Not me.
I tried it.
I tried Darryl's technique on it,
but I caught ends of leaves.
(04:04):
Yeah, you don't want to do that.
Now I don't want to destroy the wrapper.
So I just pulled it,
setting off to the side over here.
Yep.
Just not doing it.
So we'll see.
Cause you know, I believe that they tend
to unravel a little bit more if you pull the band early.
So,
I'm on the watch.
(04:25):
But
this is another thing that is nice about the Lebamba.
That fuse,
they have to take that glue and glue down the tail
you think the glue helped for the fuse.
And I think the glue acts in its way
as its own band.
I like it.
(04:46):
Okay.
We will see.
You had, so we've had these
for a couple months now.
And you've had one recently.
I had one, yeah, I had one just a couple of days ago.
Me and the wife, we went and we did a competition,
shooting competition, IDPA in Arkansas.
And after we were done shooting, after we,
(05:09):
after we ate, after we had a lunch,
I sat down and I smoked one of these.
And I did pull the band.
And I did not experience any unraveling.
And you were in wind too,
cause you have been exposed, right?
No, no, it's very woody.
Oh, so you didn't have, okay.
(05:30):
So there wasn't a whole lot of wind.
It's not like being on my porch.
But we're not on the porch.
We're on the garage.
So now that I'm in here too.
Yeah.
And we were, when I spoke this one,
I was under a pavilion.
Okay, okay.
So relatively sheltered.
Okay.
And it performed fanlessly.
(05:52):
And now I was gonna be nice and offer this
to a fellow cigar smoker that I met there.
But he has a box of the, or a,
not a box, but a, cause yeah, these come in box.
I don't know.
He said a box, but my, my thought was,
These came in a box of 10.
A box of two.
Yeah, I couldn't remember if these came in bundles or boxes,
(06:15):
but they do come in boxes.
Now he said he had a box of them at his house.
Okay.
So that's like,
So you just moved it.
Yeah.
But he appreciated the offer.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and that's been those.
You, so a real cigar smoker would be like,
Oh, you're gonna offer me a token cigar.
Thank you.
And then you go, Oh, wait a minute.
This, you know,
(06:36):
although technically a budget stick,
it's still, it's nice when you get something premium, right?
High quality.
Yeah.
This may be, this may be price wise, a budget stick,
but in its heart of hearts, it's a $20 stick.
I wouldn't pay that for it, but in its heart of hearts.
I, okay.
(06:58):
I don't think I have much else to offer on the wrong view.
No, no, not really.
Cause I do want to get to the stick.
Well, let's do it.
So let me stop it.
Well, I could stop you.
Don't let it.
So these are rated touted when you go to maybe CI or whoever you
(07:20):
look at to get a rating on a cigar or, you know,
sort of an overview review.
They're full.
These are full that are strong, all that.
Right off the gate, it's not doing that.
It's not coming off to me that way.
Yeah.
I do not think of these as strong cigar, bold cigars.
I do not think of them that way.
(07:41):
They're super peppery retrohilt.
Don't get me wrong.
But the draw and all that, it's not really strong.
And it is primarily a woody type cigar.
But there's like in the, in the finish, there's a baking spice action going on that I really like.
(08:05):
Cause I'm a baking spice guy.
Yeah, you are.
And I, I picked that up right away.
That's my thing.
That and that's your superpower.
That and these and in clothes, I'm super taster for.
So, but I really like the little, little backend.
Apparently,
my superpower is tasting graphite.
(08:27):
No, that we got no, I don't get that off this cigar.
OK.
But I will get graphite.
You're like, yeah, no, not getting that.
No, yeah, I don't get that one too much.
It has to be a super graphite for me to get it, I think.
For being such a small cigar, this thing burns.
Fabulous.
(08:49):
And it you can talk this thing really fast and get it done quickly.
Yeah, but you don't have to because while it's not a bold flavor,
the flavors do hang around for a bit.
Yeah.
So you don't have to hit it.
Yeah, because you can, you can, you can continuously get these.
(09:10):
Now, I do think that the, the
honey circle vanilla that's coming out in the rum is kind of getting in the way
of some of the flavors of this cigar.
Yeah, but since it was.
So the first time I had it, it did come off stronger than right now.
And I wonder if it's because I'm not drinking the rum.
(09:31):
And that's why I paired the rum with it.
Because I wanted, you know, my, my rule of thumb is when you have a super bold cigar,
you want to tame it a little bit, you go with a rum.
Something sweet.
You could get a sweet whiskey, but I tend to go wrong.
And I, I did that because last one I had, I thought was pretty strong.
(09:52):
This one's not coming off that strong.
Could be the day.
Yeah.
So how long since you had it very recently, I probably had a couple of weeks ago.
You had it very recently.
How long did you smoke it?
Do you happen to know?
Right around a half hour, 40 minutes.
Okay.
It is a petite Corona.
Yeah, 45 would be pretty good for a petite Corona, don't you think?
(10:14):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that'd be good.
And understand that, you know, we
everybody was talking and telling stories and, yeah, you know, it was a, it was a social
the social part of the experience.
Yeah.
But I didn't, I shared, but I didn't talk overly much.
(10:39):
Okay.
Yeah.
So I spent, I got to spend some time with the cigar, even though I was in the company of others.
Yeah.
Okay.
Good.
That's always good.
So yeah, I think somewhere around half hour, 40 minutes is what it took for me to to
finish it off.
And that wasn't going fast.
Uh, I mean, I'd had something like four other
(11:03):
single five, five cigars that day.
A busy day, huh?
Well, I know that's the thing.
It wasn't a busy day.
Uh, we.
So me and the wife are safety officers and generally we're running a timer.
We're running a pad, which is how we score.
Uh, we're generally doing stuff, but we had two safety officers that ran the timer in the pad.
(11:32):
And none of us that were shooting touched the timer of the pad.
So in between, you know, somebody shoots you go out, you paste, you know, after the
scores tally, you got you paste the holes.
And then we've got nothing to do until the next time we go on the pay store.
Yeah.
So I, I went through a whole lot more cigars than I otherwise would have.
(11:57):
Yeah.
Just because I feel like I should be doing something.
I'm not doing something.
I'll light up another cigar for work, but.
Busy day for cigars, busy day for cigars.
That's a good day.
Um, oh, I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it tremendously.
Um, but yeah, so, but I don't, I don't think my palate was wrecked by the time I got it.
(12:22):
Yeah.
I did was five cigars, but it was over six hours, seven hours, pretty close to seven hours.
I still packing it in there.
So now we're in half cigars there.
I, well, well, what?
(12:43):
There was a breeze.
It was windy.
I did light up.
I did re-light quite a bit.
Um, okay.
So it was a little breezy.
It was a little breezy, not like, you know, if you step outside my house right now, it's not that kind of breezy.
Yeah, but there still was a breeze.
It was a little bit.
It was a.
(13:04):
Um, and, you know, when I go and paste, I'll take it, but I won't, I won't smoke on it while I paste.
I'm just pasting.
Why you do all the activities.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's then, you know, if I get caught up in a conversation, you know, it may go out.
So I spent, I spent a fair amount of time re-lighting.
Hmm.
(13:25):
So I, I don't know.
You think the wind knocked it down a little bit?
That's probably true.
Well, that, you know, I may have, I may have, you know, averaged an hour and a half a stick, but I didn't smoke them the entire time.
So it's what I'm trying to get at.
Okay.
So, um, I, I do want to quickly add before we move on.
(13:50):
That, uh, as I, as I hit more water than rum, I'm also getting a, a finish of paper.
There's a little bit of paper in there.
I think the rum was knocking out, but I'm getting it now that I'm drinking a little bit more water.
And that's really nice.
You know, I like paper.
Yeah.
I'm not getting so much of a paper as a dryness.
(14:12):
Yeah.
It does actually come off as kind of a dry cigar.
The mouth coating is not one that's creamy.
Right.
It is dry.
Yeah.
I'm liking it so far though.
Absolutely.
All right.
Um, what?
So this is the 50th anniversary of Microsoft, isn't it?
It is.
And years ago, it's founded in 1975.
(14:35):
How weird is that?
Right?
It doesn't feel like it.
Doesn't seem like that much worth 50.
Yeah.
Everybody else.
It just feels like Microsoft been around forever, right?
Yep.
But, uh, OK, in all fairness, I was five when it was founded.
So it wasn't really in the computers then.
No, as no one was.
Yeah.
Um, I think my first computer until I was 13.
(14:59):
So.
Yeah.
But I did work with them like youth centers and stuff like that.
I I worked with the Tandy.
If you remember the Tandy, I do the trash 80 as people called it.
Yeah.
Uh, our first, uh, the first computer we had at the house was a trash 80.
Yeah.
Um, we were living in Fort Worth at the time, which was where Tandy's headquarters.
(15:23):
Yeah, I know that.
Um, and I don't, I don't think dad bought it new.
I think dad bought it a year or two old.
Mm hmm.
Uh, and from some guy at work, if I believe it worked.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
And one of one of the things I love the most was when we, um, so I saved up money
(15:44):
and I bought a modem.
Ooh, yeah.
Oh, 300, one 50.
Um, the first one was 150.
Okay.
Uh, and then I've saved up more and bought a 300.
Double your speed.
I did.
So back then it was you had the handsets, right?
And you put those down on it.
(16:05):
That's how it communicated.
And, uh, you had bulletin board systems where you would you would dial a local
number.
And yet I could once I was on the board with a local number, because back then
long distance meant money.
Yeah.
So with the local number, I could dial up, get on a bulletin board system and I
(16:30):
could chat with people from Australia.
Right.
So I did the same thing.
That was really cool.
That morphed into IRC, which I then did later on.
But it was, it was a different age.
Yeah, much area.
Yeah.
Lot of things changed since then.
Uh, and it was the trash.
(16:51):
80 was a two disc system.
So you had a disc.
With you loaded the M s.
Also, and then you loaded another game by swapping out the disc.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they, they founded the Microsoft 50 years ago.
Now it's a multi trillion dollar company, depending on, you know, when
(17:12):
you look at it up, but it's still over a trillion.
It hit three at its peak, but it has done a lot.
Right.
I mean, it windows 95 was arguably one of the biggest breakthroughs.
Yes, for Microsoft, because it went from being a command based DOS system to being
(17:34):
that window based system like they were had to compete with with with Apple.
Apple.
Yeah.
And if you aren't old enough to remember, they actually did do their own OS.
But one of the big, I think landmark things they did was word and Excel were made for the apple.
(18:04):
Yes.
And that Microsoft made those for Apple.
That opened up a huge chasm between your IBM PC compatible users and your, you know, your Mac users.
But now you had a system that was basically, you know, the DOS Windows 3 1 1, right?
(18:33):
Basically command based system.
But then they, I think they got their feet wet and understood your menu system so much better.
And then brought it back, brought that knowledge back to make windows 95.
And that was huge.
Absolutely.
And so they go, they detail a lot of things in here that they did.
(18:57):
And it is amazing.
The first.
So MS DOS was not their own creation.
No, they bought it.
They bought it for some, some like $300.
I thought it was even less.
But yeah, they bought it from a guy.
They make it.
And before he bought it from a guy, he had he went to go get a contract.
(19:23):
Yeah.
To be the it was sold before he bought it.
Yeah, to be the software supplier for IBM.
With the caveat that he retains the rights to the operating system.
Right.
And I am famously said, well, the money's in the hardware, not the software.
(19:45):
So they agreed to it.
It turned out bad decision.
Yeah.
But I mean, IBM's still huge, but yeah, that's.
And then he immediately went out and purchased the software.
Right.
Which is hilarious.
Yeah, it just it's just amazing how things happen.
(20:10):
Yeah, that's actually a pretty famous story.
And if you haven't heard it, it's definitely out there and it's a good one to watch.
It's amazing.
And these.
So the beginnings of the personal computer era.
All happened in the United States.
Yes.
So no matter where you go throughout the world, almost.
(20:35):
Where's in English?
Almost everybody calls a computer a computer.
They have the English word computer is what this is.
Yeah.
And even though it's not in their language, they still use it for that.
Right.
There's no translation.
Yeah.
And there's several other parts of the personal computing world that are like that
(20:59):
from the from the beginning.
Yeah.
Since then, things have changed.
Yeah.
But it's it's telling.
It is.
And you know, they've made several other major pivots like when they made the Xbox
and they, you know, so they continued.
(21:20):
I felt like I think they even mentioned it in the article.
So the article that we had picked up was from digital trends.
So you can look this up in digital trends.
But I'm sure this discussion is probably everywhere.
Yeah.
I I thought that they're the first sign of weakness.
And I think actually this is often a sign of weakness for a lot of companies
(21:41):
is when you start buying other people instead of making your own shit.
Ah, I don't necessarily agree with that.
Yeah, I know a lot of people would disagree.
I was one to see what you thought.
Because I think it is.
I don't like it when I see that.
If you have enough free cash that you can and you want to be in a market
(22:02):
and you can get a good deal on a company that's already in that market.
Sure.
I have I have absolutely no problems with the company.
I don't have problems with it, but it makes me feel like
your development is lagging now because somebody else's development is ahead of you.
And you went and bought them because you went, Oh, shit, we really need that.
And we didn't make it.
(22:24):
Right.
Well, yeah, but you may not you get that space may not have been on your radar.
And then then you start seeing the growth in that area.
You're like, well, I want to be a part of that growth.
Right.
And and I feel like that's a miss for your leaders.
Right.
I don't think so as long as your company continues to climb.
(22:46):
Well, they did.
Well, they did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm not even so I think they bought Skype, right?
I guess they made teams from Skype, but something like that.
Yeah.
But like, you know, Minecraft, they bought Minecraft that I understand.
But when you buy Skype, I go, Oh, you missed out on a man.
(23:10):
You know, you're a major thing that you should have had yourself.
If I can give two examples, you know what I mean?
No, they they had.
I don't remember what it was called now.
But they had a version of software that did that.
Right.
And we used it in our work for a long time.
(23:32):
Right.
But it was it was just so lacking.
Exactly.
They didn't they focused their money elsewhere.
They didn't focus their money on that.
I guess.
Yeah.
But when you have a worldwide organization, you need products like this.
And so we wound up going with Webex.
(23:54):
Other people went with Microsoft teams when the end teams is worlds in a way
better than what what Microsoft was.
Better than Skype.
So they I feel like they bought a company and then they made it better and they
made teams.
They made it instead of being more.
Because I I always think what my usage of Skype was very much.
(24:21):
It seemed like it was very much, you know, small teams or, you know, just
individuals.
It didn't seem corporate.
Right.
And it's in its usage and concept.
Teams.
So they they took what they had or what they bought and then made it more of a
(24:43):
corporate friendly environment.
I think so too.
Yeah.
But I think they bought Skype because they had no clue.
And then they took Skype's IP and turned it into teams.
And I mean, Cisco did fabulous with Webex.
Yeah.
And you had Skype and you had some others and Skype was really faltering.
(25:05):
It was.
And they just couldn't they Skype had a hard time breaking into the corporate model,
which is well, they couldn't finish right.
Microsoft finished.
Yes.
For big time, a door teams.
Yeah.
That is such a great product.
But I'm just that's my example.
(25:26):
Oh, yeah.
You want to take a break and get back with a midpoint?
Yeah, let's take a little break.
We'll be right back to that.
Check out our website cigars, liquor and more.com for more of our podcasts,
blogs and support the show by shopping for our online store.
Contact us through the website or Instagram and let us know what cigars and liquor you want us to review.
(25:49):
Anything else you'd like us to talk about.
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Darryl and at bill underscore CLN.
(26:10):
All right.
What's what's think midpoint?
What do we what do we think in here?
The scar itself hasn't transitioned.
No.
And it won't.
It's not going to transition on you.
And I mean, it's a nice, smooth, easy smoke.
It's it's like one of these cigars and I mentioned this from time to time.
(26:32):
Did you just really don't have to think about?
Mm hmm.
I I get that.
Online shops are labeling this as a bold.
To me, this is not a bold.
Maybe medium bold.
Yeah, maybe a medium bold.
But have you heard a medium?
It's it has a distinct lack of overall mouth coding that I consider a bold.
(27:02):
I would agree.
And that's why.
But some of the flavors they are it does have some strong flavors to it.
I think that's why they read it a bold because it doesn't do the mouth
coding that normal balls do.
Yeah.
But to me, the quintessential aspect of a bold is the mouth.
Coding right and that's what makes it so.
(27:24):
Not liked by people that don't like bold cigar because there are some mediums out
there that have some pretty strong flavors to them.
Yet you don't hear these things from from those you hear it from the ones that give you mouth
coding.
So I know it's a bill metric not an industry metric, but I think there's a psychological aspect to he named it a bomb.
(27:48):
And it made I think it put the thought in people's heads and I.
Just I'm saying maybe there's a psychological aspect to this being pushed to be old too.
Sure.
But you know we thought that of the psychotic or whatever with a psycho.
Yeah, the psycho is so and it was not psycho at all.
(28:09):
Couldn't lead us down that path.
No.
Yeah.
Proofs in the pudding, baby.
I agree.
So and and the rum.
I got to tell you, I'm really not having as much rum with this because I don't like what it's doing to the cigar.
Well, I like the paper that I don't get when I don't have the rum or I said that wrong.
(28:35):
I like the paper that gets drowned out by the rum.
There you go.
So I could see that too or washed out.
But I'm enjoying the rum.
So I'm still drinking the rum.
But yeah, I'll have some water and then I'll get the paper.
I go, yeah.
So it comes right right away.
Right.
It's not something that is stomped out for a long period of time.
So that doesn't bother me as much because if I just have a swish of water, I get my paper bag.
(29:00):
Now I do like the I do like the combination of the vanilla and the honeysuckle that the elder rotto.
It does have a honey slash honey suckle flavor.
Yeah, I do like that a lot.
I like when I get honeysuckle out of her room.
Yes.
But to me, this isn't.
This isn't a pre-moped pairing because I don't like how things are going with it.
(29:23):
I would definitely not say that.
Yeah.
IBM.
So I'm going to I'm going to compare and contrast then.
So way back when you know I be a Microsoft is like, you know, hey, let's supply.
Let us supply your operating system.
But we want to control the operating system.
And you know, it's money's in the hardware, not software.
(29:46):
Well, it's your term.
IBM was still right.
They just didn't see the long term.
The
AI
evolution of things.
And I'm going to say evolution, not revolution.
The AI evolution of things.
IBM came out with a product called Watson.
(30:07):
Oh, yeah.
I remember Watson.
First one to be a.
No, I meant they may not in the first one to be a chess master.
I don't think Watson was that was that OK.
But Watson was the first commercially viable, yeah, commercially usable.
(30:29):
Artificial intelligence.
I remember Watson doing Jeopardy.
Remember that?
Yep.
And it did a good job.
Like it was fast enough to click in.
With people.
So, but I think Microsoft's co pilot.
Is going to.
(30:50):
Take over the space that isn't that just chat GPT, though?
Aren't they licensing chat GPT to do co-pilot?
Oh, are they?
I was not aware of that.
Doesn't say in here.
Yeah, I thought it did.
Because I didn't know that.
So that could have sworn I had seen that.
Somewhere.
OK, then the AI boom began and the world has been riding that wave ever since after being blindsided by chat GPT's capabilities and subsequent success.
(31:21):
Microsoft managed to win the bidding war to secure its use in creating co-pilot, which is now shoved into everything.
So OK, so it is using.
I think it is using or licensing the chat GPT engine or whatever you want to call it now.
But still.
(31:43):
It's not licensing IBM's product.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And it's going to I think it's going to mop Watson under the under the table.
Yeah, IBM has its perks, but it's it doesn't seem to excel.
Anywhere right now, like it's not the go to it.
(32:04):
It does a lot of things well, but doesn't do anything the best.
Right.
It's also in how pervasive windows is in our life and how not pervasive IBM is.
Right.
You're you co-pilot.
If you have a windows machine at your house, you bring up you open up windows.
(32:29):
You have co-pilot instantly available.
Yeah, co-pilot showed up on my teams and showed up.
It's I have a copilot button on several things.
And it's in search.
You can get it as its own app.
You can get it on the web page.
When you if you use Microsoft's window browser to do a search, the first little top part is
(32:50):
co-pilot trying to answer your question for you.
Right.
And you can select that and go to copilot.
So the user base that copilot has is so much larger than the user base that Watson has
because you're not going to go.
Oh, let me go to Watson.
Let me go get a second when you have something integrated right there.
(33:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's I marketing.
Yeah.
Now, I think that they have turned Watson into a general use and to be turned from a general
use to be much more specific on task and more broad based task.
(33:37):
You know, more more machine learning than right than anything else.
So, you know, they're they're still going to have a market share and they will probably
still have a pretty good market share.
But not having.
But it'll be in the industrial not in right.
So, right.
(33:59):
And arguably, it's your consumer ones that are going to have the potential to morph into more
industrial because I can play with all day long.
But you can't just play with Watson all day long.
So I don't know.
I don't know that that's going to happen.
But things like that have happened before.
(34:21):
Happened all the time.
Yeah, I would agree.
And I see it.
I do it.
I'm doing it.
But it's it's kind of cool.
Kind of makes you feel old.
Kind of a bunch of things.
We are old when you when you when we're talking about retirement.
True.
But, you know, a company that, you know, started after you were born and is still around in a
(34:46):
still one of the top companies in the world.
Yeah.
I don't know that.
But it's it is cool.
It is cool.
It is cool.
They turn 50.
Yeah.
And there is still a powerhouse a lot and fall by the way side like IBM was a powerhouse who is waiting.
But, you know, also arguably, you know, IBM started
(35:10):
30 years before Microsoft.
So in the waning aspect of aging companies, that shouldn't be such a big surprise.
Do you remember word perfect?
Of course.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Where's that?
Got stopped by the word.
Everybody used word.
Lotus 123 got stopped by Excel.
(35:32):
So, I mean, Lotus 123 was the first one I used as well because our because at the time, IBM
compatibles were much cheaper than Apple products by a factor of three.
If not more.
If not more.
And so everybody's high school, everybody's college had IBM
compatibles as they were called.
And so you started with word perfect and 123.
(35:56):
Yep.
That's why when Microsoft made the jump.
Both two and then from Apple to bring the Xerox.
Because Xerox was the one actually invented the pull down menus that Apple used.
Yeah.
And the mouse and the mouse.
Then when that was brought back to the compatible, that's when the IBM
(36:23):
compatible, the your your your DOS, your 46 architecture over Apple started to
gain back some of the capability.
Because I don't want to say market share because at the time, market share and even
today, the market share for the compatible or the IBM system, the 486, they're still
(36:45):
the biggest.
They're no longer IBM compatibles.
They're just you just call it sixes now.
Yeah.
They're just windows machines.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because they're IBM.
There's nobody cares who makes them anymore.
Yeah.
ABM doesn't really make them.
Yep.
But that was that was so important for the.
(37:06):
X 486 platform over the risk.
Processor of the Apple and the risk is arguably the most important thing that's
ever happened to computing.
The risk architecture is critical.
It shaped all computing going forward.
And what's funny was Apple went with it because it was better, but it was way more
(37:30):
expensive and they just couldn't, you know, it's hard to overcome that.
Yeah, they couldn't overcome that.
They're overcoming it now in phones and pads, but they still don't own the laptop
desktop market.
Right.
And I don't think they ever will.
It's in the computing world, Apple has had.
(37:52):
It well, in the personal computing space, Apple has not been a market leader.
No.
Uh, they have had so much influence.
They've had tons of influence on the market, but they found so much more
profitability in the phones and pads.
They didn't even try to continue with laptops and desktops.
(38:13):
But they did the same thing with the, well, the iPod is really what.
Got them into that.
It was one of their starters.
Yeah.
Uh, but.
Their whole, their whole outlook has been user experience first.
Yes.
And design and work backwards from there.
(38:36):
What can we, what, what does it take to get this user experience?
And that's what leads you when you, when you have that mindset and you did,
that's how you build things.
You're going to have better hardware because you need it.
Right.
And then it's up to everybody else to catch up, but people catch up.
(38:58):
Using cheaper hardware.
Right.
They just figure out what figure out a way to do it.
Have you heard of a hackintosh?
Yes.
Okay.
I didn't make one.
I've not tried to make one, but I know a lot of people love them and they say they
can make them for about half the price of an Apple product.
But you have to put very specific pieces of hardware together.
(39:19):
Yeah.
Because it has to work seamlessly or just crashes.
Yes.
And, but that's why they're faster and better because they work together seamlessly.
Yeah.
But it's also why you can't swap out a lot of parts.
Yes.
And being able to build your own, being able to.
(39:40):
That's becoming less important.
Make just about anything work on it.
Mm hmm.
Is how and being open to other people being able to make things.
Yeah.
Is why Matt, why windows just launched ahead and continue to potentially saved
Apple, the app atmosphere and Apple developers hate because they are aggressive
(40:07):
with how much they take from you.
Apple is.
Yeah.
They take so much and I get it.
I wouldn't develop anything for Apple.
They want to be ridiculous.
I'm not a company I want to work for.
Or be an app developer that you then want to put on the Apple store because
they're going to take 30% really.
(40:28):
Yeah.
That's just mean.
Yeah.
It's it's excessive.
So I mean, I get it completely.
So.
But kudos to Microsoft for being around for 50 years.
Still being something that we talk about.
Use windows and that.
Rolling didn't didn't miss.
So here's one thing that generally happened with with windows that didn't
(40:52):
happen this last time, first time, in my opinion, it used to be every other OS
was good and you didn't want to switch until they made the next one.
But 10 to 11.
Not an issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You would normally skip the 11 before.
Yeah.
Really not.
And the architecture of 11 is different than the architecture.
(41:16):
Very.
So it takes a bit of getting used to it.
I didn't like it in the first couple.
But now.
And the first time they made it change that big.
Was going from windows 97 to Vista.
Yes.
This is the flop and Vista tanked tank bad.
I knew people like Vista.
(41:37):
And I even liked those people.
But I'm like, I don't see it.
I waited for seven.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And really all seven was was windows Vista.
Fixed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That one of the biggest problems with Vista was it was so memory intensive.
(42:01):
It used up all your memory.
That was one of the biggest problems with Vista.
It slowed down really bad.
Yeah.
And seven, seven, they fixed that problem.
Well, you know, there is there's already talked though that 11 is slowing down some
systems really badly.
Now, I don't my system isn't doing that.
And my work system isn't doing that because I've gone to 11 at work as well.
(42:22):
And they're not doing that.
But these are newer systems.
My laptop is is still windows 10.
My desktop is windows 11.
And I don't have any problems with windows 11 at all.
But your desktop probably a pretty powerful desktop.
It is.
So that's why probably you're not seeing it.
(42:44):
Because I have I've read articles that 11 is crushing some some processes like the
I seven.
It's killing them.
So I mean, that kind of sucks because now you're like, I got to have a nine or
better, whatever, whatever, you know, whatever the equivalent is.
I'm not.
I know I kind of went into there, but, you know, Andy, whatever, you're not.
(43:08):
You're not.
You can't run effectively windows 10 on a 386.
OK, I get your I get your analogy, but
but the sevens not that old.
Is it?
How's the seven?
(43:30):
Maybe I'm out of touch.
Maybe I lost track of how much time is I seven.
I can't remember if it was the I five or the I seven that was their first one with
the Sandy Bridge Gates.
But I think that happens.
Twenty fourteen time frame.
Really?
OK, so 10.
(43:52):
You're saying this is probably I think the I series has been around for at
least 10 years.
Yeah, the seven.
I don't remember it exactly.
I guess it's not critical.
I'm just saying that people are seeing some slowdowns.
I'm not and I'm happy about that.
But yeah, I'm not noticing any problems.
No, I kind of like 11.
(44:13):
I do feel like it took away some of the control I had in 10.
But the only thing that bothers me is renaming because I could right click,
click, rename and rename.
But now I got to right click more options, rename.
Oh, I just do that one.
I just do the left click pause for a second left click again, and then I can
(44:37):
rename.
Yeah, I never got into a habit of doing it.
Oh, OK.
But but I'm happy.
I'm I'm happy that Excel is still easy to use.
Although they changed that when they they tried to make it more friendly to
marketing people and then you're like, where is my editing for my axes and
(45:00):
stuff like that?
Yeah, it became a mess.
Yeah, so in fairness, I really don't use Excel for graphing anymore.
Just don't I just don't know.
I've now they do one.
All right.
So here's what we should do.
We should rate these things.
Well, let's do it.
All right.
So I have an easy decision because I only have two rooms to talk about.
(45:25):
So I rated mine already.
Oh, I know.
You suck it more difficult.
Second.
I have to admit, I'm kind of basking in your difficulty this year because I had to
do it last year and I'm like, baton handoff enjoy, son.
It is it's tough.
It's difficult to do.
(45:48):
And, you know, not just because of, you know, psychological biases, whether you
have a recency bias or, you know, origination bias or all these other things.
But remembering them and, you know, you felt different than you do now is so hard.
Because we're not picking any bad cigars.
(46:09):
They're all good cigars.
And now you got to put them in order.
It's it's mean.
I don't think you are going to be overly surprised.
OK.
OK.
All right.
Well, do you want to go first?
Yeah, I go first.
This one's simple.
Yeah.
So so in the in the liquor rating, we have segregated rums from whiskey's
(46:32):
but it's not fair to put the two together.
Right.
So there this is, as Daryl said, this is only the second room we've had on the show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This year and Daryl put the elder router 12 and the number two slot right below
Diflamadico, Batauano, which remains one of my favorite rums.
So not a surprise.
(46:53):
Yeah.
So and just for completeness, here's the top five.
We don't have a five or four or three to his Elle Rado one is between the month
to one.
You're just being funny.
All right.
So what what did Bill do?
Bill put the Espinosa six or one Lebamba sake bomb in the number 11 position right
(47:16):
in between the number 12 Lebaba purple and the number 10.
Dovidov Winston Churchill.
So nice.
And then the top five.
Well, wait, before you get to the top five, what what is your thoughts on what that
placement?
Oh, interesting.
(47:37):
But I got to be honest.
It makes sense.
I I get that's that's the spot for it.
Yeah.
I I can't see it being better than the Churchill or the Midnight Express or the
Hemingway.
Right.
It runs into a wall with the.
Absolutely.
There's a huge wall in front of it.
Yep.
That are just some great cigars in front of it.
(48:00):
Now the Lebaba purple, I really liked, but it was also kind of a unit
tasker.
The sifuentes I I don't know.
I still think the Parode King is kind of funny.
I would have put it higher.
I want more of those, by the way.
We totally get those.
So no, this makes sense.
(48:21):
I think the Parode Kings would be a fabulous cigar while while doing a club
shoot.
Absolutely.
Because these are, you know, buck a piece retail.
Buck a piece, but still not cigars.
And there's still great cigars there, especially if you like the Tucky
(48:43):
Firecane tobacco, which I've turned out I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you went through the top five.
Yep.
OK.
Cool.
I think we're done.
We call this episode over.
Heck yeah.
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