Speaker 1: Well, the city council might only give you sixty seconds
Speaker 1: to where your grievance is.
Speaker 2: Oh hi, I'd like to go to the first caller
Speaker 2: on the phone.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're lucky, now we're giving you a full
Speaker 1: sixty minutes. It's a KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 1: in our long recap of the day's top local stories
Speaker 1: on your drive home. And unlike the City Council, we're
Speaker 1: the perfect vehicle to actually get your voice heard. The
Speaker 1: KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang starts now.
Speaker 2: It is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk
Speaker 2: radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown of
Speaker 2: everything you need to know that's going on in Southern
Speaker 2: California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego,
Speaker 2: and the Central Valley. I curate a list every single
Speaker 2: day of all the stories that I found interesting that
Speaker 2: you may have missed at Randy Wang Radio, substack dot com,
Speaker 2: and make sure you check out our YouTube channel YouTube
Speaker 2: dot com, slash at Randy Wang Radio. You can also
Speaker 2: just search in YouTube for John Phillips and Randy Wang
Speaker 2: and it should pop up. That's not only where you
Speaker 2: can see clips of this show, but you can also
Speaker 2: watch the John Phillips Show every single day from noon
Speaker 2: to three. We start with the end of an era
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles. It looks like sick Lavilla may be
Speaker 2: getting cut from the Metro budget, which I don't know
Speaker 2: if you were aware, sick Lavilla was funded from the
Speaker 2: Metro budget. So what exactly is going on here? Well,
Speaker 2: if you don't know, sick Lavilla is a quarterly event
Speaker 2: where the city shuts down a major thoroughfare and opens
Speaker 2: it up to pedestrians and bicycles and skateboarders and scooters.
Speaker 2: It kind of becomes an open streets festival. And if
Speaker 2: you're a driver and you have one of these things
Speaker 2: impacting your neighborhood, it's a pain in the butt. But
Speaker 2: I understand why people would want this. I understand why
Speaker 2: people enjoy sick Lavia. So why is it going away?
Speaker 2: You ask, Well, Metro has money that's allocated towards these programs,
Speaker 2: and they're choosing to take that money and instead invest
Speaker 2: it into fan zone events. When the twenty twenty eight
Speaker 2: Olympics comes in just two years, so apparently they're going
Speaker 2: to need a lot of money to pay for these
Speaker 2: fan zones. And that's why sick Lavilla might not be
Speaker 2: around until after twenty twenty eight. And I'm torn on
Speaker 2: this because I've definitely been impacted by the increased traffic
Speaker 2: when they had one of these things near my house once.
Speaker 2: But as a former biker in Los Angeles, I understand
Speaker 2: why people enjoy it, because it gives people just a
Speaker 2: little tiny taste of what it is like to live
Speaker 2: in a real city. I firmly believe that Los Angeles
Speaker 2: is not a city. It is a loose collection of
Speaker 2: neighborhoods separated by a mountain. But to quote the great
Speaker 2: John Mulaney, nobody has any sense of community anywhere. And
Speaker 2: I used to be fine with that. I used to
Speaker 2: just accept that that's how life is in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: But I do understand why people are constantly wanting to
Speaker 2: change it, because before I was the traveler that I
Speaker 2: am now, I never really understood what was so appealing
Speaker 2: about living in a thriving, walkable city bikeable as well.
Speaker 2: But I'm I'm not a biker anymore. I think they're
Speaker 2: too dangerous, especially with all the e bikes going around.
Speaker 2: You know what happened, let me tell you so in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, which was a transformatively strange year for me.
Speaker 2: I decided to quit my radio job as the board
Speaker 2: op for Tim Conway on KFI, in an incredibly misguided
Speaker 2: attempt to get them to rehire me and get a raise,
Speaker 2: because I thought, well, if I leave, they'll realize how
Speaker 2: much they miss me and they'll be begging me to
Speaker 2: come back. That did not happen, so I ended up
Speaker 2: working for a buddy of mine in marketing, and I
Speaker 2: was not enthused at all. Turns out I am completely
Speaker 2: useless in every field of work except for radio, so
Speaker 2: I ended up kind of like only working one day
Speaker 2: a week. They let me do that. I'm not totally
Speaker 2: sure why lasted that job for way longer than I
Speaker 2: should have, because I didn't care about any of it,
Speaker 2: and I was, you know, making enough money with that
Speaker 2: once a week, plus a couple of weekend shows that
Speaker 2: I was producing, and the little bit of income that
Speaker 2: I would get from my podcast, so I had a
Speaker 2: lot of free time. That was the year I got
Speaker 2: into raves. That was the year I went to Disneyland
Speaker 2: like thirty times. And that was also the year I
Speaker 2: got in really good shape, not as good shape as
Speaker 2: I'm in now, but I got really into bicycling, and
Speaker 2: I because I had all this free time and now
Speaker 2: that I was in a situation where I could kind
Speaker 2: of just enjoy myself, started biking to work. I started
Speaker 2: biking to work from Valley Village to my office in
Speaker 2: Encino on Ventura Boulevard. And I apologize for all of
Speaker 2: the coworkers that I had that had to smell me
Speaker 2: after that seven mile ride every single day. But here's
Speaker 2: the thing. I did it because I had a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of free time and I didn't have any real responsibilities.
Speaker 2: I know there are people that do bicycle to work,
Speaker 2: but it is very few and far between. We have
Speaker 2: bike paths in Los Angeles that do not get used
Speaker 2: almost ever, and part of the reason for that is
Speaker 2: they're not necessarily safe. I have talked about how on
Speaker 2: the La River bike Path, which is as unappealing as
Speaker 2: you can imagine, where there is a bike path in
Speaker 2: between the one thirty four Freeway and the La River,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of people who live in that river,
Speaker 2: which means that your tires will pop because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of broken glass everywhere. Happened to me before I
Speaker 2: had a friend that got mugged on the La River
Speaker 2: bike path in the San Fernando Valley. Now, of course
Speaker 2: there are bike paths that are much better, that are
Speaker 2: much cleaner. Chandler bike Path in Burbank, great Chandler bike path.
Speaker 2: Once you get to North Hollywood, not so great. But
Speaker 2: I would use a combination of bike paths and there
Speaker 2: weren't really any bike lanes. But I was never going
Speaker 2: to be trying to drive on a major street because
Speaker 2: that just seemed dangerous. Well, I was doing this for
Speaker 2: about a month and I ended up getting a near
Speaker 2: miss hit by a car as it was opening its
Speaker 2: door on Riverside Drive. It actually clipped my mirror. My
Speaker 2: mirror go bye bye on my little bi This wasn't
Speaker 2: even a nice bike. It was just the bike that
Speaker 2: I had. And then I am going down a side
Speaker 2: street to get to venture a boulevard and I am
Speaker 2: crossing the street on my bicycle and there is a
Speaker 2: car sitting there stopped, isn't paying attention to the fact
Speaker 2: that there's a bicyclist right in front of him, and
Speaker 2: I ended up on top of his car. Now I
Speaker 2: wasn't hurt, and for the moment I thought my bicycle
Speaker 2: was fine. I also didn't really even bother the guy about, Hey,
Speaker 2: what happened. Don't worry. I'm fine, because you guessed it.
Speaker 2: I was high. So the guy pulls away because I say,
Speaker 2: don't worry, I'm fine. And as I'm driving. As I'm
Speaker 2: riding away on my bicycle, the wheel starts to kind
Speaker 2: of make a wobbly look, kind of like you would
Speaker 2: see after a bike gets hit in a cartoon, and
Speaker 2: I quickly realized, oh, this thing is destroyed. It is inoperable.
Speaker 2: It was not a hit and run because I told
Speaker 2: him don't worry about it. Well, I told that story
Speaker 2: on my podcast and we had some very generous listeners
Speaker 2: who worked at a bicycle company that actually offered me
Speaker 2: a free road bike. And it was a beautiful bike too. Currently,
Speaker 2: my brother rides it and I fell in love with it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I actually did a sixty mile charity bike
Speaker 2: ride for breast cancer, going all the way from Camarillo
Speaker 2: to Manhattan Beach. It was one of the hardest things
Speaker 2: I've ever done. But I stopped doing all of that
Speaker 2: when I realized how unsafe it is, especially when my
Speaker 2: tires started popping on the bike paths. I had stories
Speaker 2: of people getting mugged, and also I'm a resident of
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. I know how terrible the drivers are because
Speaker 2: I'm one of them, and I feel safer in my
Speaker 2: suit of armor known as a car than I watered
Speaker 2: a motorcycle or a bicycle. And those protected bike lanes,
Speaker 2: I don't really think they do much. If you see
Speaker 2: all of the ballards on White Oak in the San
Speaker 2: Fernando Valley, they've all got dens in them because someone
Speaker 2: hit them at some point. So I come at this
Speaker 2: from understanding why people would want an idea of a
Speaker 2: city that is a little more pedestrian friendly, a little
Speaker 2: more bike friendly, that has open streets that you can traverse,
Speaker 2: that has bike lanes and bike paths, Because as someone
Speaker 2: that now has traveled to many cities where you can
Speaker 2: do these things, it's pretty fun. Again, I don't bike
Speaker 2: when I'm going anywhere. I'm just not a bicyclist anymore.
Speaker 2: Because you know why, I really love walking. Something I
Speaker 2: did not realize until we started going to Santa Fe
Speaker 2: was how much I loved walking. Now. Part of the
Speaker 2: reason I used to not like walking was I was very, very,
Speaker 2: very overweight. But I also I just didn't appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I didn't, you know, what would be the point. I
Speaker 2: lived in downtown Burbank, which is a very walkable city.
Speaker 2: If you're on the downtown side, and we were within
Speaker 2: walking distance to downtown, you could walk to the Farmer's Market,
Speaker 2: you could walk to another Broken Egg cafe. And I
Speaker 2: think we did it maybe two or three times if
Speaker 2: I lived there now, which again one of my regrets
Speaker 2: is that we moved away from Burberank. We had to.
Speaker 2: We were only renting that house. It was a situation
Speaker 2: where we had to go. But I missed that. And
Speaker 2: it's one of the things that every single time I
Speaker 2: am traveling to another city, another state, or another country.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm talking to you from Toronto right now.
Speaker 2: The first that the thing that I love to do
Speaker 2: when I'm in a new city is put on my
Speaker 2: walking shoes and just walk in any direction and get
Speaker 2: a lay of the land. Eventually I'll find a way
Speaker 2: to make it back to my hotel or wherever I'm staying,
Speaker 2: which in Toronto it's real easy because we're staying pretty
Speaker 2: close to the Sea End Tower, and so you just
Speaker 2: need to look up and kind of try to get
Speaker 2: close to that, but I love walking around a thriving city. Also,
Speaker 2: this is a very clean city, although there are issues.
Speaker 2: The drivers, according to my wife, are worse than in
Speaker 2: La But you feel safe walking around. That's not true
Speaker 2: in many parts of Los Angeles. And there's ways to
Speaker 2: get around. There's public transit that is accessible, there's public
Speaker 2: transit that is clean, that is safe. These are the
Speaker 2: things that Los Angeles, while we can dream it up
Speaker 2: during a little sick Lavia event, is not going to
Speaker 2: have for a very long time. You want to talk
Speaker 2: about public transit that's convenient, it's not for two million
Speaker 2: people that live in the San Fernando Valley, half of
Speaker 2: the population of Los Angeles. Our system is a mess,
Speaker 2: and maybe it will. It's just never ever, ever going
Speaker 2: to be like that because the physical footprint of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles is too big. It is what five hundred square miles.
Speaker 2: That's the figure that Karen Bass would use when she said, hey,
Speaker 2: not all of Los Angeles is on fire during the
Speaker 2: riots last year. It's too vast, and if you live
Speaker 2: in the suburbs, getting to the places where the jobs
Speaker 2: are is a never ending nightmare. So I definitely dream
Speaker 2: when I'm traveling in places like San Francisco and Santa Fe.
Speaker 2: Even when I was in Madrid and Dublin and Amsterdam.
Speaker 2: Of wow, life could be so different. And I really
Speaker 2: think that I have realized that that's the thing that
Speaker 2: I want in my life in the future is not
Speaker 2: to live I mean, I live in the furthest thing
Speaker 2: from a walkable city, and there's not really a whole
Speaker 2: lot to walk around in my neighborhood. You know, there
Speaker 2: are some places. There are cities within the county that
Speaker 2: are very well run. There are cities in the county
Speaker 2: that actually are very walkable. I grew up in one
Speaker 2: of the most walkable cities in the county, Santa Clarita.
Speaker 2: It was a master planned community where you actually have
Speaker 2: pesos that are interwoven and interlocking, and you can walk
Speaker 2: or use your bicycle all around the city without actually
Speaker 2: having to interfere with traffic. It is pretty darn incredible.
Speaker 2: LA didn't have that. Other cities have it, Burbank, Pasadena,
Speaker 2: And maybe part of the reason is one these are
Speaker 2: much safer places. I would not feel safe on public transit.
Speaker 2: In Los Angeles. We have seen covered way way way
Speaker 2: too many stories. Even though there have been minor improvements,
Speaker 2: it's still not nearly enough. So goodbye, Sick Lavilla. Maybe
Speaker 2: you'll come back. But I understand why people enjoy it.
Speaker 2: It's just a little tiny taste of what a real
Speaker 2: city is. And I'll say it again, Los Angeles is
Speaker 2: not a city. It is a loose collection of neighborhoods
Speaker 2: separated by a mountain. But after being in real cities,
Speaker 2: LA isn't even close. It's the News Blitz with Randy
Speaker 2: Wang on KABC. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 2: on talk radio seven ninety KABC. Here's some very exciting news.
Speaker 2: The Cinerama Dome in Hollywood is making a comeback. How
Speaker 2: exciting is this. It's been closed for six years as
Speaker 2: one of the early casualties in COVID, when the lockdowns
Speaker 2: made us all think that movie theaters were incredibly unsafe
Speaker 2: because everyone remembers that scene in Outbreak where the germs
Speaker 2: are moving from person to person inside a movie theater.
Speaker 2: But you know, there are a lot of play you know,
Speaker 2: companies that just could not survive COVID and CID Ramadome
Speaker 2: one of them. Arc Light, remember, ArcLight not even a
Speaker 2: thing anymore. I mean there's a different company that operates
Speaker 2: the Sherman Oaks one, But ArcLight was like an experience.
Speaker 2: And I remember when ArcLight first started, the whole thing was, Oh,
Speaker 2: we're not going to waste your time with twenty minutes
Speaker 2: of previews. You have when the movie says it starts
Speaker 2: at eight, it starts at eight. They changed that eventually,
Speaker 2: but oh gosh, those were like the first theaters that
Speaker 2: would actually have bars and let you bring a drink in.
Speaker 2: Now I think everybody does that. But Sony, who owns
Speaker 2: Alamo Draft House, has bought the Cinerama Dome and they're
Speaker 2: going to have Alamo Drafthouse, the chain obviously in Texas
Speaker 2: that has movie theaters that are very popular. Revitalize the thing,
Speaker 2: reopen it, and it's an iconic piece of Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: and for the town that's supposed to all be about
Speaker 2: the movies, the fact that one of the most iconic
Speaker 2: movie theaters has sat empty and abandoned for six years
Speaker 2: tells you everything you need to know. But this is
Speaker 2: very exciting, and I'm all for it, and you know,
Speaker 2: very excited to maybe go see a movie there. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm I don't personally go to that many
Speaker 2: movies because I have fallen into the trap of I
Speaker 2: really really really like the pause button and I have
Speaker 2: a seventy five inch television. But there will be occasions where, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a big event. I got to go to a movie.
Speaker 2: Considering going to the Spider Man movie because I know
Speaker 2: my wife won't want to see it and I'm going
Speaker 2: to be home alone, so maybe I'll do that. That
Speaker 2: could be fun. Hey, if you ever miss an episode
Speaker 2: of this show, because we talk about all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: and I also, I'm sure you're aware, I try to
Speaker 2: make sure I don't do any repeat stories of the
Speaker 2: stuff that we talk about on The John Philip Show.
Speaker 2: And you might be asking, Randy, how do you do that? Well,
Speaker 2: when I put my show prep together every single day,
Speaker 2: I pick a bunch of stories that I know Johnny
Speaker 2: would like, but I also add a bunch of stories
Speaker 2: I know that I like that he will never touch,
Speaker 2: including that one about sick Lavilla. It's the News Blitz
Speaker 2: with Randy Wang on Talk Radio seven ninety KABC.
Speaker 1: It's the News Blitz.
Speaker 2: With Randy Wang on Talk radio seven ninety KABC. There
Speaker 2: is a showdown going on in Sacramento over the concept
Speaker 2: of surveillance pricing. Do you know what surveillance pricing is.
Speaker 2: It is an idea where retailers think grocery stores, think Walmart.
Speaker 2: You know all these places that are putting in digital
Speaker 2: price tags. They can use algorithms and data about you
Speaker 2: to realize that you might pay a little more for
Speaker 2: something and charge you accordingly, which sounds so wrong on
Speaker 2: so many levels. And we know about all kinds of
Speaker 2: different price fixing. Look at the scam that has been
Speaker 2: unveiled that Amazon's been pulling for years and years and
Speaker 2: years that now they're getting sued over where they would
Speaker 2: threaten a manufacturer or a vendor if they got something
Speaker 2: sold at Target for a lower price than Amazon, literally
Speaker 2: price fixing and raising the price of goods for everything.
Speaker 2: You know, if there's one thing that I try to
Speaker 2: do every single day, I'm not perfect because it is
Speaker 2: the most convenient thing in the world. But just because
Speaker 2: it's convenient doesn't mean it's good for you or good
Speaker 2: for us. So I do not try to ever use
Speaker 2: Amazon unless it's absolutely necessary. I even turned off a
Speaker 2: bunch of the autoships that my wife was doing, including
Speaker 2: for paper towels and toilet paper for some very specific reasons.
Speaker 2: You all know how it works. At Amazon, they get
Speaker 2: you hooked in at a low subscriber price, and either
Speaker 2: the price starts going up and the quality of the
Speaker 2: product goes down, or both. I quickly realized for the
Speaker 2: Amazon Basics paper towels that we were getting, we were
Speaker 2: getting charged so much that, depending on when there's a sale,
Speaker 2: I can get the Viva cloth towels from Routes for
Speaker 2: the same price, and because they're much higher quality, I
Speaker 2: use way less of them. Also, when I buy things
Speaker 2: at the supermarket like paper towels like toilet paper for
Speaker 2: you guessed it, I get credit card points, and the
Speaker 2: best I can do when I'm shopping on Amazon is
Speaker 2: two X points on my Capital one Venture card that
Speaker 2: gives me two X points on everything. But grocery stores
Speaker 2: are actually some of the culprits when it comes to
Speaker 2: the idea of surveillance pricing, and not every grocery store
Speaker 2: obviously not Trader Joe's. They keep things real simple there,
Speaker 2: and in fact, Trader Joe's is such a fascinating concept
Speaker 2: of how a supermarket can be run because it's a
Speaker 2: completely different business model. It's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: prices seem to stay very consistent, and even through all
Speaker 2: these inflation spikes, prices didn't really go up because unlike
Speaker 2: how supermarkets work, where a lot of the products that
Speaker 2: are sold in supermarkets are actually in there on consignment,
Speaker 2: so the supermarket and the vendor make money when you
Speaker 2: buy something, and that means that the cost of the
Speaker 2: good can change depending on demand, it can change depending
Speaker 2: on supply. Trader Joe's outright just buys the product, pays
Speaker 2: the vendor, slaps that Trader Joe's silly label on it,
Speaker 2: and they have a much better way in my opinion,
Speaker 2: of keeping prices consistent. You also notice when you go
Speaker 2: to Trader Joe's, which, by the way, I will mention
Speaker 2: this again because it's so funny. My wife, who has
Speaker 2: been working in Canada for the past seven weeks, misses
Speaker 2: Trader Joe's about as much as she misses me and
Speaker 2: the dogs. And when she had a day off, she
Speaker 2: was considering doing a two hour drive to Buffalo just
Speaker 2: to go to a Trader Joe's and get some of
Speaker 2: her favorite stuff because they have the best stuff. But
Speaker 2: Trader Joe's keeps prices low, and they don't ever have sales,
Speaker 2: they don't ever have coupons. Everything is just the price
Speaker 2: that it is, and it is very consistent. Now, supermarkets
Speaker 2: and other retailers are alleging the bill that is working
Speaker 2: its way through the legislature that would ban the practice
Speaker 2: of surveillance pricing is written so broadly that would also
Speaker 2: ban the practice of issuing out coupons. This is kind
Speaker 2: of similar. Do you remember San Diego County wanted to
Speaker 2: ban the practice of issuing out digital only coupons, which
Speaker 2: means that you have to have like the ralphs app
Speaker 2: and you have to scan the QR code and hopefully
Speaker 2: there is good data, there's good cell reception inside the market.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it doesn't work properly, but when it does, you
Speaker 2: can definitely get some savings. I pretty much, you know,
Speaker 2: I've talked about how I'm becoming a Seltzer water nut,
Speaker 2: and I'm constantly stocking up on polars or water Lose
Speaker 2: or the Trader Joe's sparklings, which are that black cherry
Speaker 2: vanilla might be my favorite, but don't skip on the
Speaker 2: tangerine vanilla. I'm telling you, one of these days, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do a whole show just talking about my love
Speaker 2: of flavored seltzer water, something that I used to pooh pooh.
Speaker 2: But I kind of don't buy the ones that I
Speaker 2: get at raups. I'll buy when they're on sale or
Speaker 2: when there's some deal, because if you're choosing between the
Speaker 2: three brands, one of them inevitably will have the three
Speaker 2: for twelve or the polars the other day. If you
Speaker 2: use the digital coupon, it could get them even lower.
Speaker 2: I think it was paying like two dollars and fifty
Speaker 2: cents for a case of eight that's a pretty darn
Speaker 2: good price. Nixy is objectively the best brand, but unless
Speaker 2: they're on sale, it's like seven dollars a case. And
Speaker 2: also it's one of these things where it's the same
Speaker 2: exact product, but the pricing varies so wildly and depending
Speaker 2: on what supermarkets you're in. Obviously Whole Foods is gonna
Speaker 2: have higher prices, but even a place like Lazy Acres,
Speaker 2: it's like eight dollars for an eight packs, so it's
Speaker 2: a dollar for each of those cans of saltzer water.
Speaker 2: I only buy those things when they're on sale, and
Speaker 2: then you stuck up because they last for a year.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if this is really going to
Speaker 2: ban the practice of giving out coupons and digital coupons,
Speaker 2: but even if it is, I think ultimately I like
Speaker 2: the Trader Joe's system a little better. I just do.
Speaker 2: I like the Trader Joe's system of you know what
Speaker 2: everything costs. You don't have to download any special things.
Speaker 2: It is very, very simple, and everyone's going to be
Speaker 2: friendly to you in there and do yourself a favor.
Speaker 2: If you can bag your own stuff, they really appreciate it,
Speaker 2: even though they'll do it. When you bag your own stuff,
Speaker 2: it makes them very happy, and I want to make
Speaker 2: my Trader Joe's people very happy. I will say one
Speaker 2: thing that we learn through an investigation into surveillance pricing
Speaker 2: from CBSLA investigates is the kinds of weird price differences
Speaker 2: on the delivery apps, which is another thing that it's
Speaker 2: like only last resort if you want to save a
Speaker 2: bunch of money and you want to lose weight, delete
Speaker 2: all of your delivery apps. Just do it. If you
Speaker 2: come into a situation where you really really really need delivery,
Speaker 2: like I'll give you for instance, excuse me. The only
Speaker 2: time that we use the delivery app is when we
Speaker 2: are flying home from Lax and want Jersey Mics to
Speaker 2: meet us there. But this is like the epitome of
Speaker 2: surveillance pricing, where not only are the prices and this
Speaker 2: is what the investigation found out, that the prices varied
Speaker 2: between all different kinds of people even though they were
Speaker 2: standing next to each other. And this is true with
Speaker 2: Uber and Lyft. It was also true with Uber Eats,
Speaker 2: it was true with door Dash. And if you ever
Speaker 2: start to do an actual I mean, you're obviously paying
Speaker 2: for convenience, just like with Amazon, but if you ever
Speaker 2: really pay attention to just how much more expensive menu
Speaker 2: items are on those apps as opposed to going through
Speaker 2: the retailer themselves. Which is funny because some of those
Speaker 2: places they have their own setup, they have their own app,
Speaker 2: they have their own website, or they're using toast tab
Speaker 2: and the prices are way lower. There are Sometimes I'll
Speaker 2: give you another for instance, I whenever I go see
Speaker 2: my parents up in Valencia, usually I pick up Luna Grill.
Speaker 2: It's like this meal that everyone can agree on and
Speaker 2: it's pretty healthy and it's pretty reasonably priced. I really
Speaker 2: love the chicken kebab plate with the gyro as well,
Speaker 2: and that Mediterranean salad. It's delicious, big fan. But one
Speaker 2: day my wife was craving Luna grill and we were
Speaker 2: feeling kind of lazy. So I thought, all right, well
Speaker 2: don't I pull it up on door dash. You know,
Speaker 2: I've got Dash Pass, and I get that five dollars
Speaker 2: a month benefit with my Chase card. I know every
Speaker 2: benefit of every one of my eight credit cards. I
Speaker 2: have a real problem. And I started pulling up the order.
Speaker 2: My wife and I wanted the same thing, the chicken
Speaker 2: and gyro plate. Maybe you call it giro, you do you?
Speaker 2: And it was like, wait, just for the two of these,
Speaker 2: plus the delivery fee, plus the convenience fee, what have you?
Speaker 2: Plus the tip, it was gonna be like seventy dollars.
Speaker 2: Or I could get in my car, drive to Sherman Oaks,
Speaker 2: pick up the Luna grill, have it to the house,
Speaker 2: probably just as fast, and it cost me forty dollars
Speaker 2: instead of seventy dollars. So just think about that, and
Speaker 2: just think about all the money that we are wasting
Speaker 2: these apps in the name of convenience. You will save
Speaker 2: money and you will lose weight. Surveillance pricing. I'm not
Speaker 2: a fan, and I'm not really buying this argument from
Speaker 2: the grocery chains that it would ban coupons because they
Speaker 2: think they'll be open to lawsuits. But we'll see. It's
Speaker 2: currently working its way through the legislature. It's the News
Speaker 2: Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. It's the News Blitz
Speaker 2: with Randy Wang on KABC. Some very exciting news for
Speaker 2: people in San Diego is that Comic Con is here
Speaker 2: to stay in San Diego until at least twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there were ever any real threats
Speaker 2: to leave. I mean, so many other cities already have
Speaker 2: comic cons. You know, they have wonder Con down on Anaheim,
Speaker 2: they have the La Comic Con. Pretty much every major
Speaker 2: city now has their own comic con. But the big one,
Speaker 2: the one in July, has been at that San Diego
Speaker 2: Convention Center forever, and it is such a part of
Speaker 2: what you think about when you think about San Diego.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad to see it stay. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you've ever been to comic Con. I went once,
Speaker 2: and I would totally go again. It is so much fun.
Speaker 2: First Off, you're in the gas Lamp, which is one
Speaker 2: of the coolest walkable areas in all of California. Great restaurants,
Speaker 2: and when it's Comic Con, it is packed with people,
Speaker 2: and it's packed with people who are usually dressed up
Speaker 2: in some kind of costume. And that is where it
Speaker 2: becomes like the ultimate people watching event, because people get really, really,
Speaker 2: really really creative with their outfits. What cartoon character, what
Speaker 2: comic character, what video game character? They're trying to dress
Speaker 2: themselves up as. Some of it is very impressive. I
Speaker 2: remember seeing somebody who dressed up like a realistic cloud
Speaker 2: stripe from Final Fantasy seven with a massive buster stored,
Speaker 2: and I thought that was pretty darn cool. In fact,
Speaker 2: the year I went, which was twenty thirteen, which was
Speaker 2: a very long time ago, it was the year that
Speaker 2: one of the big hall h presentations was for the
Speaker 2: final upcoming season of Breaking Bad, and there were a
Speaker 2: lot of people in all different kinds of Breaking Bad outfits.
Speaker 2: In fact, there was a guy wandering around the halls
Speaker 2: in a very realistic looking Walter White mask, you know
Speaker 2: which you know it was the hairless Walter White and
Speaker 2: it was pretty cool to see. And then you sit
Speaker 2: down in the theater as you're about to meet the
Speaker 2: cast and get a preview clip of that final season
Speaker 2: of probably the greatest show ever made, Breaking Bad, and
Speaker 2: the guy who was wandering around Hall h and the
Speaker 2: Walter White mass comes out, sits at the desk, takes
Speaker 2: off his cap and reveals that it's Brian Cranston, who
Speaker 2: had a full head of hair at the time. The
Speaker 2: video is on YouTube. It is fantastic. I love Brian Cranston.
Speaker 2: I've been a huge fan of his forever and ever
Speaker 2: and ever. But obviously Walter White is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest characters ever to be on television, even though he's
Speaker 2: a horrible, horrible, horrible person. Another video you should look
Speaker 2: up just because this is crazy thing. You know, two
Speaker 2: parts of my life intersected in the craziest way in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen where I got I've gotten, you know, over
Speaker 2: the years, really into electronic dance music. I was invited
Speaker 2: to my first Rave in twenty twelve, and even though
Speaker 2: I will never do any of those drugs again, the
Speaker 2: music stuck with me and I love the music for
Speaker 2: working out. If I'm not listening to show prep as
Speaker 2: I walk around a city like Toronto or Santa Fe.
Speaker 2: I'll probably be listening to the sirix XM Chill channel,
Speaker 2: And if I'm not listening to that, I'll listen to
Speaker 2: one of the best DM podcasts out there, Group Therapy
Speaker 2: with Above and Beyond. Above and Beyond has been a
Speaker 2: trance group forever and ever and ever. They have one
Speaker 2: of the most popular two hours every week of new
Speaker 2: dance music. It is. It's a really, really, really fun listen. Well,
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, they came out with a
Speaker 2: track called Walter White, inspired by how much they loved
Speaker 2: Breaking Bad, and they headlined DC in Vegas that year
Speaker 2: and they played Walter White and they flew Brian Kranston
Speaker 2: himself to push the button and fire the middle of
Speaker 2: the track. That is another thing I highly recommend you watch.
Speaker 2: It is on YouTube. I'm gonna tell you right now,
Speaker 2: when I sign off, I'm gonna go watch it because
Speaker 2: it is the coolest thing ever. Anyway, So I had
Speaker 2: a really great time at that comic con. I would
Speaker 2: love to go back. I don't think I would dress up,
Speaker 2: maybe I would. I should see the AI photo I
Speaker 2: made today of John and I dressed up as Batman
Speaker 2: and Robin as the Sacramento Parking Space Vigilantes. Maybe I
Speaker 2: would dress up. You know, I used to be a
Speaker 2: lot more fun like that, especially every Halloween when I
Speaker 2: dress up as Bob's Big Boy. But yeah, I think
Speaker 2: I could dress up. I love the event, and I
Speaker 2: love that it's staying in San Diego. It is so
Speaker 2: much fun, and you know, it's you know, it's becoming
Speaker 2: more relevant again. I think there's gonna be some big
Speaker 2: presentation regarding the Avengers movies to get more interest in them,
Speaker 2: because you know, Marvel kind of has gone to the
Speaker 2: wayside recently. Maybe this year it's all going to come back.
Speaker 2: I did watch that trailer for Doomsday and it was
Speaker 2: pretty darn epic. So but what happened was, for the
Speaker 2: longest time, like Comic cod was the launching pad where
Speaker 2: you had all these huge announcements. It's where, you know,
Speaker 2: they did the big cast reveal for the original Avengers
Speaker 2: movie in twenty twelve, and it's where when I was
Speaker 2: there in twenty thirteen, they had the big surprise unveiling
Speaker 2: presentation of a movie that was going to change cinema forever.
Speaker 2: Batman versus Superman. Oh, what a time to be alive.
Speaker 2: So apparently there is going to be a big presentation
Speaker 2: because for a while, and I understand why they do this.
Speaker 2: Disney reed, Wait, why are we doing all these big,
Speaker 2: massive reveals at this event that we don't own when
Speaker 2: we could be doing them at D twenty three, which
Speaker 2: is the Disney convention that they have every year, And
Speaker 2: I think they have some of them all around the world,
Speaker 2: and they'll even make announcements at like D twenty three Brazil.
Speaker 2: But there is something special about being in the comic
Speaker 2: con presentation getting all of the news. It is such
Speaker 2: an important event to San Diego's economy and it's such
Speaker 2: a fun event to be a part of. So I
Speaker 2: like that they're going to hopefully make some stuff there
Speaker 2: because I kind of think of it too. You know,
Speaker 2: when the video game studios decide instead of putting their
Speaker 2: big game reveal in a Nintendo direct, the most watched
Speaker 2: most anticipated quarterly update on all the new video games
Speaker 2: coming out for Nintendo platforms, and they decide, you know what, instead,
Speaker 2: We're just going to do our own reveal on our
Speaker 2: own platform form, in our own channel. Sure you own it,
Speaker 2: and you'll get the lights and you'll get the clicks,
Speaker 2: but you won't get nearly the amount of attention. So
Speaker 2: glad to see comic Con is staying in San Diego.
Speaker 2: I am a big fan. Before I get out of here,
Speaker 2: I do get to mention I have been having the
Speaker 2: most fun in Toronto. I walked along the Great Lakes
Speaker 2: Walking Path this morning, where you can walk along Lake Ontario,
Speaker 2: and it's so vast and it is so massive you
Speaker 2: actually cannot see the land masses on the other side.
Speaker 2: That's how huge these Great Lakes are. I've been having
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. Yes, I've been eating a lot
Speaker 2: of poutine. I found this place called Beer Garden and
Speaker 2: they had what I was looking for, planks of little
Speaker 2: tasters of beers, and I tried the Logger plank, and
Speaker 2: then I tried the Hot Apocalypse plank with a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of IPAs and they were fantastic. And yes, I
Speaker 2: had poutine and it was a real good time. Thank
Speaker 2: you all so much for being a part of this show.
Speaker 2: You can only send me an email at randywangradioant gmail
Speaker 2: dot com, and every episode of this show you can
Speaker 2: watch I post them. It comes up today probably around
Speaker 2: six pm at YouTube dot com. Slash at Randy Wang Radio.
Speaker 2: It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang KABC