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: and 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: GABC News Blitz with Randy Wang starts no, No, No.
Speaker 3: It is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk
Speaker 3: Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown of
Speaker 3: all the stuff that you need to know that's going
Speaker 3: on in the state of California, Southern California, the Bay Area, Sacramento,
Speaker 3: San Diego, and the Central Valley. I curate a list
Speaker 3: every single day of all the stories that you need
Speaker 3: to know that you may have missed at Randy Wang
Speaker 3: Radio dot substack dot com. You can check out our
Speaker 3: YouTube channel with all the on demand content from The
Speaker 3: John Phillips Show, the Live John Phillips Show, the Accountability Podcast,
Speaker 3: and video podcasts of this show. At Johnny don't like
Speaker 3: dot com or Randy Wang Radio dot com. I bought
Speaker 3: both domains and they go to the exact same place.
Speaker 3: Follow me on x and Instagram. At Randy Wang Radio
Speaker 3: you can call into the program at eight hundred two
Speaker 3: two two five two two two, and you can send
Speaker 3: me an email. I do try to read and respond
Speaker 3: to every single one at Randy Wang Radio at gmail
Speaker 3: dot com. We start in Teluca Lake near Universal City
Speaker 3: and Universal Studios, where the soft launch of the Big
Speaker 3: Fast and Furious Ride has begun. And while there are many, many,
Speaker 3: many fans of theme parks, and I guess fans of
Speaker 3: the Fast and the Furious movies, I can oddly say,
Speaker 3: at the ripe old age of almost forty one, I
Speaker 3: have yet to see a single one of these movies,
Speaker 3: but I know that there's a big fan base, especially
Speaker 3: whatever the franchise is. There's a lot of coaster heads
Speaker 3: out there in California. I mean, if you're born and
Speaker 3: raised in southern California like I am, you are, you're
Speaker 3: just that's what you do.
Speaker 2: You go to theme parks.
Speaker 3: I mean, not only does everyone get to go to Disneyland,
Speaker 3: You've got knots Bury Farm, Universal and then from the
Speaker 3: age of eight until twenty one, I lived in Valencia,
Speaker 3: which meant that we went to Magic Mountain a bazilion times.
Speaker 3: And you're also concradually obligated to work at Magic Mountain
Speaker 3: if you live in Valencia, and I work there for
Speaker 3: four summers. So yeah, coasters are in me blood. So
Speaker 3: what's going on here? Well, there's the new exciting thing
Speaker 3: at Universal Studios, which is like the only theme park
Speaker 3: that's actually kind of in the city of Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: but still it's still not technically the city of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: And the neighbors who live in the surrounding communities, whether
Speaker 3: that be te Luca Lake, Lake, Hollywood, they're very upset,
Speaker 3: especially people at the golf course. What is it Lakeside
Speaker 3: over there? Imagine you're getting ready for a little tea,
Speaker 3: You're getting ready for a soft, little putt, and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, as you put the driver back
Speaker 3: and you're focused and you're focused, you hear. So that's
Speaker 3: the problem. I'm doing a whole one man show here
Speaker 3: on camera. Neighbors in Teluca Lake are very upset of
Speaker 3: how much screaming they are hearing from the new fast
Speaker 3: and the Furious Ride. Now, if you've driven around Universal
Speaker 3: Studios anytime recently, you've seen that they have so completely
Speaker 3: run out of space that this roller coaster is actually
Speaker 3: occupying part of the giant escalator that gets you into
Speaker 3: Universal Studios. So of every other ride they've ever had
Speaker 3: at the theme park, this one goes as far out
Speaker 3: into the public as any ever have. I mean, for
Speaker 3: the most part, most of Universal's rides have been indoors
Speaker 3: or down at the studio lot, and nothing has ever
Speaker 3: been this crowd facing. This is the kind of ride
Speaker 3: you'd expect at Magic Mountain. And notably, Magic Mountain was
Speaker 3: built nowhere near homes. Notice I say what, because look,
Speaker 3: I know, oh from working at Magic Mountain that there's
Speaker 3: a plenty of noise pollution that comes out of there.
Speaker 3: But you know, all the way back, even when I
Speaker 3: lived in Valencia, there were no homes near Magic Mountain.
Speaker 3: There was the Wendy's across the street, the Red Lobster,
Speaker 3: the Old Toedo, but no one would build like a
Speaker 3: development right next to the theme park and have to
Speaker 3: hear Tatsu and the Superman ride and Colossus and everything else.
Speaker 3: That would be so annoying. Well, the housing crisis is
Speaker 3: going to housing crisis, and they put up a big
Speaker 3: old development near the one twenty six, right next to
Speaker 3: Magic Mountain of a bunch of townhouses that go for
Speaker 3: around six hundred thousand dollars. But you know what, if
Speaker 3: you enjoy that, if you're cool with it, great, but
Speaker 3: you know what you're getting into that being said, well,
Speaker 3: you can definitely make the argument that, you know, like
Speaker 3: for people that complain about the noise pollution outside of
Speaker 3: Burbank Airport, or I live near the Van Eyes Airport
Speaker 3: and people complain about that, you kind of know what
Speaker 3: you're getting into when you move next to an airport,
Speaker 3: So you can complain about it all you want, But
Speaker 3: nobody said you had to live right next to the airport.
Speaker 3: You could have lived somewhere where there isn't an airport,
Speaker 3: but you chose to, So you know, that's part of
Speaker 3: what you're getting I know that if I actually sit
Speaker 3: on the patio in the afternoon on a weekend, sipping
Speaker 3: and slamming back rose all day, at some point the
Speaker 3: conversation is going to get drowned out by either a
Speaker 3: Southwest plane on the flight path to Burbank or a
Speaker 3: private jet on approach at Van Ey's Airport. I know that,
Speaker 3: and so I don't really complain about it. What I
Speaker 3: will complain about is the NonStop police helicopters that might
Speaker 3: say more about the crime that's going on in the
Speaker 3: San Fernando Valley. And I happen to think police helicopters
Speaker 3: are completely inefficient at this point and we should invest
Speaker 3: in drones.
Speaker 2: But that's another story for another day.
Speaker 3: When it comes to the noise pollution that the residents
Speaker 3: of Teluca Lake are complaining about, you could definitely argue
Speaker 3: they did not sign up for this because Universal Studios
Speaker 3: has been around for a very very very long time
Speaker 3: and there's never been anything that has created this kind
Speaker 3: of noise problem. You think about some of their most
Speaker 3: popular rides. Harry Potter ride that's indoors also doesn't go
Speaker 3: that fast, super fun though, Although I guess I gotta
Speaker 3: tell this story now, right as soon as I start
Speaker 3: talking about Universal Studios, there's a big memory that sticks
Speaker 3: out of my head. Oh boy, I think it was
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen or it was twenty sixteen, and they had
Speaker 3: just opened ariy Ba'a Land and I wanted to go
Speaker 3: ride the airy pa'all ride, even though I had not
Speaker 3: read any Harry Potter books at that point. It was
Speaker 3: the hot new thing and I was working the morning
Speaker 3: show at that point, so I had a lot of
Speaker 3: free time in the afternoons.
Speaker 2: I had a Universal season pass.
Speaker 3: I remember showing up with my roommate at the time,
Speaker 3: and I was wearing my gigantic Homer Simpson shirt because
Speaker 3: this is the kind of fashion sense that I had
Speaker 3: when I was thirty. Oh boy, this is getting more
Speaker 3: embarrassing the more the further I go into the story,
Speaker 3: the more I'm already regretting telling you this story. So
Speaker 3: I'm in Universal Studios standing in a very long line
Speaker 3: to try the Harry Potter Ride, wearing a big yellow
Speaker 3: Home Simpson face T shirt. And that is when I
Speaker 3: get called out by one of the people work in
Speaker 3: the line and they say, hey, you can you come
Speaker 3: with us for a second, Like what is this? Did
Speaker 3: they realize that I was chewing a gummy different time?
Speaker 3: They wanted me to go sit in the test seat. See,
Speaker 3: in order to prevent severe embarrassment. One of the things
Speaker 3: that theme parks have done over the years is when
Speaker 3: they realize they're having to deal with very, very very
Speaker 3: large people that want to ride their very very very
Speaker 3: tiny cars.
Speaker 2: Is in order to.
Speaker 3: Save everyone the filmable moment of somebody breaking down in
Speaker 3: tears and stopping the queue from going forward. They usually
Speaker 3: have a model of what the seat looks like right
Speaker 3: outside the main entrance of the ride, and so they
Speaker 3: bring me and my gigantic Homer Simpson shirt over to
Speaker 3: sit in the Harry Potter seat and see if I
Speaker 3: could buckle in the seat belt and put down the harness.
Speaker 3: And well it did not fit, so they had to acquit,
Speaker 3: they told me. And yes, this was at one of
Speaker 3: my heavier points in life that I could not ride.
Speaker 2: The ride couldn't happen.
Speaker 3: They were happy to get me a front of the
Speaker 3: line passed to anything else, but I at I must
Speaker 3: have been busting two ninety at that point, was too
Speaker 3: large for the Harry Potter ride. I guess they didn't
Speaker 3: design it for Hagrid. So, in probably one of my
Speaker 3: most shame filled moments of my entire life, I immediately
Speaker 3: told the person I was with, I gotta go.
Speaker 2: You sit here, you go do the ride.
Speaker 3: I need to leave, and I got in my car
Speaker 3: and drove immediately across the street on Ventura Boulevard to
Speaker 3: the fat Burger down there, and I ate my feelings.
Speaker 2: I ate them real good. Then I sent a.
Speaker 3: Strongly worded letter to Universe. Actually I don't know if
Speaker 3: I remember if I sent a letter or I talked
Speaker 3: about it on the radio. I must have talked about
Speaker 3: it on the radio and the podcast. I may have
Speaker 3: even posted something on Twitter, because that's the kind of
Speaker 3: thing I would do. In twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 3: someone from Universal reached out and they apologized for fat
Speaker 3: shaming me, which again they were in the right. They
Speaker 3: don't want somebody riding the ride and it has to
Speaker 3: stop halfway through because the belt bursts.
Speaker 2: But you know, you get very sensitive about these kind
Speaker 2: of things.
Speaker 3: They said, hey, how about you come back on us
Speaker 3: and we'll try again. Well, that was actually the catalyst
Speaker 3: to me to go on another diet plan. It's when
Speaker 3: I joined class Past, started going to pilates a couple
Speaker 3: of times a week, started juicing again and making protein shakes,
Speaker 3: and I actually lost I think.
Speaker 2: Twenty or thirty pounds that year.
Speaker 3: Put it all back a year or two later, but
Speaker 3: a month later I did go to Universal Studios and
Speaker 3: I did get on the ride, and it was pretty good.
Speaker 3: I hadn't read any of the Harry Potter books at
Speaker 3: that point, so I really didn't understand any of the references.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 3: So that's the kind of ride you think about when
Speaker 3: you think about Universal Studios. You think about the Simpsons
Speaker 3: ride or the former Back to the Future ride. You think, okay, well,
Speaker 3: the Jurassic Park ride. Well, you can kind of hear
Speaker 3: people screaming when they go down the waterfall, but that's
Speaker 3: not facing the city. That's facing the studios and facing
Speaker 3: the hillside. This is the first time Universal has built
Speaker 3: anything where the crowds are facing the Greater Los Angeles
Speaker 3: area and the San Fernando Valley and the very pricey
Speaker 3: neighborhood of Teluka Lake, which now has a Gelson. It's
Speaker 3: good for you. And here's the funniest thing about this
Speaker 3: story is when you ask the people that designed this ride,
Speaker 3: they wouldn't call them imagineers. That's a Disney thing. So
Speaker 3: the people who designed every aspect of this ride at
Speaker 3: Universal Studios, they said that they used cutting edge technology
Speaker 3: to make sure that the cars weren't loud, that the
Speaker 3: grinding on the track wouldn't be loud. They had all
Speaker 3: kinds of sound dampening for how this thing was built,
Speaker 3: how the cars were built, how the track was built.
Speaker 3: They thought about everything, except they did not think about
Speaker 3: one of the biggest sources of noise from a roller coaster.
Speaker 3: It's not necessarily the car or the track or what
Speaker 3: kind of material you use to build it. It's the
Speaker 3: people you put inside the car that, because of the
Speaker 3: thrills and chills, start screaming at the top of their lungs.
Speaker 3: So even though they designed this thing to be as
Speaker 3: futuristic and you know, not noise pollutiony as much as
Speaker 3: possible to the neighborhood, none of that matters because according
Speaker 3: to some people that live in the neighboring areas, it
Speaker 3: constantly sounds like somebody is getting murdered. I don't know
Speaker 3: necessarily what the fix is for that, because there's gonna
Speaker 3: be a lot of demand for.
Speaker 2: This ride for a very very very long time.
Speaker 3: And I guess that means they got because they built this,
Speaker 3: they got rid of the fast of the furious part
Speaker 3: that was on the tram, which is a very strange
Speaker 3: thing because they put you into this screen room where
Speaker 3: they make you feel like the tram is going like
Speaker 3: fifty miles an hour. It is kind of cool. Again,
Speaker 3: I didn't get any of the references. I actually it's
Speaker 3: such a weird thing.
Speaker 2: To think about.
Speaker 3: I was born and raised in southern California, a huge
Speaker 3: coaster head Magic Mountain. More times than I can count,
Speaker 3: there was a year where I was only working one
Speaker 3: day a week in between radio stations. I went to
Speaker 3: Disneyland thirty times in a year because I got every
Speaker 3: dime worth out of that season pass.
Speaker 2: Used to go to.
Speaker 3: Knats, used to go to Universal all the time because
Speaker 3: that was always the closest to us. I either lived
Speaker 3: in Studios well Valley Village, excuse me. I either lived
Speaker 3: in Valley Village very close to Universal Studios, or I
Speaker 3: lived in Burbank close to Universal Studios for many, many years,
Speaker 3: and I would go to the Halloween Horror Nights. Actually
Speaker 3: I remember I went to Halloween Horror Nights once with
Speaker 3: my old podcast partner Gina Grat who's on The Woody
Speaker 3: Show on ninety eight seven, and we went to go
Speaker 3: into the mazes to go enjoy the rides. I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure I was eating some pot chocolate at the time.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that's wild about Universal's Halloween
Speaker 3: Horror Nights is they really, really really bring all the
Speaker 3: props out to try to scare you. So it's not
Speaker 3: just about the haunted houses and the mazes, but it's
Speaker 3: about all of the deranged monsters and killers that are
Speaker 3: chasing you when you're just walking around the main concourses
Speaker 3: and you know, they have things to scrape the floor
Speaker 3: to scare you. They're walking around with chainsaws, they've got
Speaker 3: Jason masks on, and I remember a guy with a
Speaker 3: Jason mass came up to us and I thought, oh boy,
Speaker 3: he's about to scream at us. He's like, hey, are
Speaker 3: you guys Gene and Randy from the Pretty Good podcast?
Speaker 3: So we took a little selfie with him. I wonder
Speaker 3: if I have that anywhere. I bet I weigh like
Speaker 3: one hundred pounds more than I do now. So I
Speaker 3: feel for the residents of Tuluc Lake. You did not
Speaker 3: sign up for this. I don't know if there is
Speaker 3: a fix for it, but there's so much demand for
Speaker 3: this thing. It's not like they're going to take the
Speaker 3: ride away. It looks like it's going to be very, very,
Speaker 3: very popular and Unfortunately for Universal, where I think I
Speaker 3: mentioned this the other day, they have the Lax problem.
Speaker 3: Not that I would compare anything about Universal Studios to Lax,
Speaker 3: except for this one simple aspect. Universal has nowhere to expand,
Speaker 3: and they desperately need to to compete with everybody else,
Speaker 3: so they're trying to im as much stuff as they
Speaker 3: can onto this teeny tiny little footprint. Maybe one of
Speaker 3: the good things of all of the movie studios moving
Speaker 3: to Toronto, Canada is that Universal can take away some
Speaker 3: of that stages and turn it into more rides, and
Speaker 3: then they'll have plenty of more stuff for their theme park,
Speaker 3: even though everything will be shot in Canada. It's the
Speaker 3: News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. It's the News
Speaker 3: Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC. I did spend the
Speaker 3: break going through an old iPhone backup of like pictures
Speaker 3: that I had from like twenty twelve and twenty thirteen
Speaker 3: to see if I could find that picture from Universal Studios.
Speaker 2: Cannot find it.
Speaker 3: Instead, I found a whole bunch of pictures of my
Speaker 3: rave era from twenty twelve, where I was dressed up
Speaker 3: like Cookie Monster. Everywhere I would go to because people
Speaker 3: would then go like, hey, it's the cookie.
Speaker 2: Monster and want to hug me. Seriously.
Speaker 3: I feel like I need to film a public service
Speaker 3: announcement for guys in their twenties. It gets better. Life
Speaker 3: kind of sucks right now for you. You have no money,
Speaker 3: you're super unpopular, you have no confidence whatsoever. It gets better.
Speaker 3: It gets a little better in your thirties. And if
Speaker 3: you work hard and you pay attention and you work
Speaker 3: on self improvement, it gets way better in your forties too.
Speaker 3: I'm about to wrap up your forty and I can say,
Speaker 3: without a doubt, best year on the planet so far.
Speaker 3: And I look at what I used to think were
Speaker 3: the best years of my life. In my twenties, I
Speaker 3: was a wreck. And let's just say that I'm very
Speaker 3: lucky to be here. Seven ninety KABC welcomes the Gypsy
Speaker 3: Kings featuring Nicholas Reyes at the Greek Theater on August six.
Speaker 3: Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster dot com, but
Speaker 3: right now collar number nine at one eight at eight
Speaker 3: seven ninety five two to two two gets pair of
Speaker 3: tickets to the show. Tickets furnished by Nita Lander Concerts.
Speaker 3: Good luck dialing if you have not checked out our
Speaker 3: new podcast, episode five just dropped this week, The Accountability Podcast.
Speaker 3: You can search for it on Apple Podcasts or iHeartRadio,
Speaker 3: or watch it at Johnny Dontlike dot com. That's Johnny
Speaker 3: don't like dot com. It's the News Blitz with Randy
Speaker 3: Wang on KABC. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 3: on KABC. This is your daily rundown of everything you
Speaker 3: need to know that's going on in California, Southern California,
Speaker 3: the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego, and the Central Valley.
Speaker 3: Every single day I put together a list of all
Speaker 3: the stories that I found that you need to know.
Speaker 3: It's like my show prep but I share it with
Speaker 3: everybody at Randywang Radio dot substack dot com. You can
Speaker 3: subscribe for free, which just means you put in your
Speaker 3: email address and it gets mailed to you. When I
Speaker 3: do it every day, I posted around eight nine. It
Speaker 3: depends when my pilates class is and then I build
Speaker 3: all the silly graphics for the John Phillips Show. And uh,
Speaker 3: this has turned into like a twelve hour a day job,
Speaker 3: including commute time.
Speaker 2: But so far I'm doing all right.
Speaker 3: I haven't gone crazy yet, but we're having a lot
Speaker 3: of fun. You can watch all of our video content
Speaker 3: at Johnny don't Like dot com or Randywang Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: They go to the exact same place. Send me an
Speaker 2: email at Randy Wang Radio at gmail dot com and
Speaker 2: give us a call if you feel like it. Eight
Speaker 2: hundred two two two five two two two.
Speaker 3: The DMV is the source of frustration for so many
Speaker 3: people in the state of California. And while I feel
Speaker 3: your pain, and I've had to do some DMV hell recently,
Speaker 3: I had to go get my real ID, even though
Speaker 3: I really didn't want to because I have Global Entry
Speaker 3: and if you have Global ends, you use that at
Speaker 3: the airport, you don't need the real ID.
Speaker 2: But whatever I got it, I made it happen. The DMV.
Speaker 3: Has made some very noticeable improvements over the years. I
Speaker 3: don't think there's anybody even the harshest critic of the
Speaker 3: DMV can't deny that the DMV style ATM machines that
Speaker 3: are placed at supermarkets are fantastic. And as we're speaking,
Speaker 3: I just realized something bad. Oh no, okay, thank goodness
Speaker 3: for doing this story today. Because it's the end of July.
Speaker 3: So my car registration is a July car registration, and
Speaker 3: even though I paid my registration on time because of
Speaker 3: the at M machine at Ralph's for the DMV, I
Speaker 3: got the sticker out, got my registration card printed out,
Speaker 3: but the sticker is still sitting in my glove box
Speaker 3: because I lazy and I didn't feel like that day
Speaker 3: opening the garage, pulling out a screwdriver, having to unscrew
Speaker 3: the license plate to PLoP on another sticker and screw
Speaker 3: it back on. I was too lazy for that forty
Speaker 3: five second job. So the sticker has been sitting in
Speaker 3: my car this entire time, which is fine when you're
Speaker 3: in July, but after tomorrow, it's not gonna be July anymore.
Speaker 3: So I really got to get on that because the
Speaker 3: last thing I need is to fix a ticket. But yeah,
Speaker 3: the DMV ATM machine is fantastic. It is one of
Speaker 3: the great innovations that the state of California has done.
Speaker 3: I don't know if other states do this, but the
Speaker 3: fact that you don't have to deal with getting your
Speaker 3: registration mailed to you if you pay it online, you
Speaker 3: have to go in person. Your registration card and the
Speaker 3: sticker can be printed out. Now, the cost of this
Speaker 3: is still insane, and I don't really understand how they
Speaker 3: factor it in. But my registration is like between five
Speaker 3: and six hundred dollars. Maybe it's priced on the weight
Speaker 3: of the car because I have an EV. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: because it's a newer car. My old car was much
Speaker 3: much much cheaper and much much much smaller, So maybe
Speaker 3: that's what it has to do with.
Speaker 2: Though. Fun fact, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know if you know this, because I didn't know
Speaker 3: this until I started doing some research. For as awful
Speaker 3: as car registration fees are, did you know that you
Speaker 3: can write them off on your taxes? I learned that
Speaker 3: one and it has worked. It is something that you
Speaker 3: can do. You can write off your car registration on
Speaker 3: your federal taxes. And now that the salt CA app
Speaker 3: is increased for at least a couple of years, and
Speaker 3: then what are we supposed to do in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but all right, we have it.
Speaker 3: You can write it off, and you know, depending on
Speaker 3: how many cars your family has, that could be you know,
Speaker 3: between five hundred and one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So I like that. I like how simple it is.
Speaker 3: I do like that the apps that they've made are
Speaker 3: a little easier to navigate. I think I can even
Speaker 3: log into the DMV website with a thumb print on
Speaker 3: my laptop or face ID on my phone, and I
Speaker 3: appreciate that because I have a real hard time remembering
Speaker 3: the eight billion passwords we all have to remember. Can
Speaker 3: we just as a society collectively move on from the
Speaker 3: password area from the password era? Excuse me, face ID
Speaker 3: and thumbprint great, if you don't have eyes and you
Speaker 3: don't have a thumb, we'll figure out something for you.
Speaker 2: But too many passwords now.
Speaker 3: We talked about how the DMV has the new mobile ID,
Speaker 3: which is kind of pointless because nobody takes it, including
Speaker 3: California Highway Patrol and local police departments, so it can't
Speaker 3: even be used as an ID. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: a stupid one. But maybe that will get resolved eventually.
Speaker 3: But this is a story of where the DMV is
Speaker 3: up to their old tricks.
Speaker 2: The DMV.
Speaker 3: Has been participating in a little scheme that has been
Speaker 3: screwing over Californians for years and years and years. Because
Speaker 3: you get the letter in the mail that the registration
Speaker 3: is due and if you don't pay it by August eighteenth,
Speaker 3: they're going to charge you this munchon. If you don't
Speaker 3: pay it by September eighteenth, they're going to charge you
Speaker 3: this much. And some people not being completely adapt at
Speaker 3: how the internet works, Google, I need to pay my
Speaker 3: registration and instead of the DMV website being the first
Speaker 3: thing that comes up, a website comes up called need
Speaker 3: Tags and it has a DMV logo on it, so
Speaker 3: you assume, Okay, I must be in the right place.
Speaker 3: I'm going to pay my five hundred dollars registration fee,
Speaker 3: except when you go to checkout, after all the additional
Speaker 3: fees including a credit card fee that's twenty five dollars,
Speaker 3: a processing fee, a DMV fee, now your five hundred
Speaker 3: dollars registration has been bumped up to six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: So what's going on here, Well, you're not on the
Speaker 3: DMV's website. You were on an authorized third party seller
Speaker 3: for the Department of Motor Vehicles need Tags, and I
Speaker 3: think there are a few others as well. And this
Speaker 3: seems in the day and age where the DMV has
Speaker 3: a much more accessible website than it used to and
Speaker 3: they have the ATMs like something we should do away with.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: Well, interestingly enough, because people were getting duped. People were
Speaker 3: asking for refunds because why would they go to need
Speaker 3: tags if they can just go to the DMV's website
Speaker 3: or go to the ATM. Why does this website even
Speaker 3: still exist? Why does the DMV allow this website to exist?
Speaker 3: Because people are unnecessarily paying hundreds of dollars for these fees.
Speaker 3: So an assembly member, party Boy, Matt Haney, wanted to
Speaker 3: do something about this, and the bill started working its
Speaker 3: way through the committee saying that, you know what, we
Speaker 3: should outlaw these third party license registration websites because we
Speaker 3: don't need them and people are getting charged all kinds
Speaker 3: of unnecessary fees. Well, the bill got killed, and it
Speaker 3: got killed by the bureaucracy because turns out the DMV
Speaker 3: has a vested interest in keeping need tags alive and
Speaker 3: well even though it's unnecessary because the DMV website is
Speaker 3: easy to navigate now because they also have the ATM.
Speaker 2: What have you? So, why oh why is.
Speaker 3: The DMV not champing at the bit to shut down
Speaker 3: need Tags. Well, part of all of those fees that
Speaker 3: need tags charges you to get the same tags that
Speaker 3: you would get from going to the DMV's website is
Speaker 3: a fee that amounts to between seven and eight dollars
Speaker 3: that goes to the DMV. That's right, the DMV itself
Speaker 3: profits from this third party website, and apparently they make
Speaker 3: millions of dollars every single year off of unsuspecting Californians
Speaker 3: paying extra unnecessarily on the wrong website. It is my
Speaker 3: favorite story of the day. You can check out the
Speaker 3: full piece from the Great Stephanie Sierra at ABC seven
Speaker 3: in the Bay at Randywangradio dot substack dot com. The
Speaker 3: DMV does not want you to not get ripped off
Speaker 3: because they're profiting off of you getting ripped off. So
Speaker 3: even though they've made improvements here or there, at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, to use that cliche, it's still
Speaker 3: the same all DMV. It's the News Blitz with Randy
Speaker 3: Wang on KABC. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 3: on Talk Radio seven to ninety KABC. It is going
Speaker 3: to be a hue weekend for the box office.
Speaker 2: As here.
Speaker 3: It is the first major Marvel movie of the year,
Speaker 3: and it's a big one.
Speaker 2: It's Spider Man Brand New Day.
Speaker 3: Starring Tom Holland and Zendia and Mark Ruffalo, because the
Speaker 3: Hulk can't be in his own movie, so he has
Speaker 3: to be in everybody else's movie. If you want to
Speaker 3: know how stupid film rights are, this is the kind
Speaker 3: of stuff that, like my Instagram feed gets filled with.
Speaker 3: If you watch one video about like what the next
Speaker 3: Avengers movie is gonna be, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: the algorithm things all you care about is all kinds
Speaker 3: of spoilers and nonsense, and who is Sadie Sink playing
Speaker 3: in the Spider Man movie. But in case you're wondering
Speaker 3: why the Hulk is in a Spider Man movie and
Speaker 3: the Hulk is in a Thor movie and the Hulk
Speaker 3: is never in a Hulk movie, it's because the rights
Speaker 3: to the Hulk movies are Actually I think it's universal,
Speaker 3: or it might be paramount.
Speaker 2: It's one of them. I think it's universal.
Speaker 3: And they can use Marvel can use the Hulk in
Speaker 3: other movies, but he cannot be in his own movie
Speaker 3: or then they'd have to co develop, and they're already
Speaker 3: doing that.
Speaker 2: With the Spider Man.
Speaker 3: So it's one of these things where I don't need
Speaker 3: to even read you the description because you're either don't
Speaker 3: care about this stuff at all or you care so
Speaker 3: much about it, you know everything that's gonna happen before
Speaker 3: it hits the screen, except whoever the hell Sadie Sink
Speaker 3: is playing?
Speaker 2: Which is the redheaded girl from Stranger Things? I don't know.
Speaker 3: All I know is for like the good portion of
Speaker 3: like six months, every time I would be just scrolling
Speaker 3: on Instagram wasting my life away, I kept getting all
Speaker 3: these AI generated accounts of like Marvel new in spider
Speaker 3: Man news and like who do you think Sadie Sike
Speaker 3: is playing?
Speaker 2: I'm like, why is this such a thing. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 2: I am a fan of these movies. I haven't seen all.
Speaker 3: I think I've seen all the movies at this point,
Speaker 3: I have not caught up on all of the shows.
Speaker 3: I definitely fell off I get to point it just
Speaker 3: felt like there were too many. And like I've said before,
Speaker 3: I need to watch fifty hours of Love Island and
Speaker 3: fifty hours of Love Island UK. So I got a
Speaker 3: lot on my plate. But I am very interested in
Speaker 3: the Spider Man movie, and it's most likely not a
Speaker 3: movie that my wife is going to care that much about.
Speaker 3: In fact, I don't think she ever even saw the
Speaker 3: third one. With the three Spider Man's so she likes
Speaker 3: the cartoon ones. When's the sequel to that coming out?
Speaker 3: I feel like that took forever, but that was really good.
Speaker 3: Love love the Miles Morales Spider Man movies that the
Speaker 3: animation style is so interesting and it's just those are
Speaker 3: really well done. And then you know the Tom Holland
Speaker 3: Spider Man movies. I'm a big fan of those two.
Speaker 3: I also didn't mind the Andrew Garfield ones. And you
Speaker 3: know I was. I was in high school when the
Speaker 3: Toby Maguire ones came out, and yeah, they were a
Speaker 3: big deal, except for that third one. So I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I haven't really planned it, but since I'm home alone
Speaker 3: and I got nothing to do all weekend, maybe it's
Speaker 3: gonna be a heat wave.
Speaker 2: I should go watch a Spider Man movie. That could
Speaker 2: be fun.
Speaker 3: So during the commercial break, I got an AMC's website
Speaker 3: and the first thing I noticed is AMC maybe because
Speaker 3: of the demand of this specific movie and maybe the
Speaker 3: Odyssey was like this too, I don't know. It put
Speaker 3: me in a queue to get on the website and
Speaker 3: if I clicked away, it said are you still interested
Speaker 3: or we're gonna take you out of the queue, and
Speaker 3: so I finally, after two minutes of waiting in the queue,
Speaker 3: get into the website. The website is a little glitchy,
Speaker 3: but I found the theater that I would like to
Speaker 3: see it at, although I could probably change it because
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. Well, if I go to the AMC
Speaker 3: and Porter Ranch, you can go to Gus's beforehand. And
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you this right now. It is
Speaker 3: the curse of my life. A week before this show
Speaker 3: premiered the news blitz that you're listening to right now
Speaker 3: at the end of January or the beginning of February.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, a week before, my wife and
Speaker 3: I discovered the best happy hour ever. You go to
Speaker 3: Gus's Barbecue and Porter Ranch, and you can get the
Speaker 3: burger for ten bucks. You can get the old Fashion
Speaker 3: for ten bucks. You can get there tater tots. They
Speaker 3: got all kinds of treats and great drinks. Big fan
Speaker 3: of Gusses, and then you have a couple of cocktails.
Speaker 3: You go to the AMC next door, you watch a movie.
Speaker 3: By the time the movie's over, you're good to drive.
Speaker 3: We went to go see the musical version of Mean
Speaker 3: Girls and it was great, and I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: this was such a fun Friday night and so doable.
Speaker 3: But kids, that Happy Hour closes at five point thirty,
Speaker 3: so I haven't been able to do it since that
Speaker 3: one time, but I remember it very fondly and it
Speaker 3: was very, very very fun. But it's okay. I like
Speaker 3: being here for you, but I do miss Happy Hour.
Speaker 3: So I'm on the website and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 3: which way am I going to see it? And I
Speaker 3: don't understand how movie theaters work these days? Do you
Speaker 3: know how many different ways there are to see the
Speaker 3: Spider Man movie at one movie theater. You can see
Speaker 3: it in Dolby Cinema, in prime real D, in prime AMC,
Speaker 3: which is different real D, three D Laser AMC. So
Speaker 3: what are the differences here? Because most of these are
Speaker 3: sold out? So I think I'm just gonna have to
Speaker 3: take what I can get, but I do not want
Speaker 3: three D. In fact, I was invited by my brother
Speaker 3: to go see the Spider Man movie next week, but
Speaker 3: he wants to see it and not just three D
Speaker 3: but whatever. That four D X thing is where the
Speaker 3: movie theater starts shaking like you're at a ride at
Speaker 3: universal studios. I don't want that. I feel like that
Speaker 3: would take me out of the experience. Not interested? All right,
Speaker 3: So Dolby Cinema is powerful images and sound technologies combined
Speaker 3: with cutting edge reserve recliners. Okay, so then what is
Speaker 3: Prime three D of same thing but in three D?
Speaker 3: Then what is Prime AMC Prepare for the Ultimate movie
Speaker 3: Escape with comfortable recliner surround sound and a sharper, brighter visual.
Speaker 3: So what's the difference between Prime AMC and Dolby Cinema?
Speaker 2: I guess the sound quality?
Speaker 3: And finally, what is laser featuring brilliant brightness, unbelievable color
Speaker 3: and dynamic contrast combined with eco minded, energy efficient laser
Speaker 3: projector technology. Why are there so many different ways to
Speaker 3: watch a movie? It used to be that it was
Speaker 3: just one way. Then it was like, Okay, there's this way,
Speaker 3: and there's IMAX and I don't think this is an
Speaker 3: IMAX thing. I don't think you can do that, or
Speaker 3: this theater may not have IMAX the one that I'm
Speaker 3: looking at. And then there was three D, which not
Speaker 3: a fan. I remember going to We were at the
Speaker 3: Americana on Brand to go see The Captain America Civil
Speaker 3: War movie, which my sister in law affects calls when
Speaker 3: she saw a poster and she knows nothing about these movies.
Speaker 3: She looks at her husband after she sees a poster
Speaker 3: for Captain America Civil War and she says, why does
Speaker 3: the cap ten fight the robot? We went to go
Speaker 3: see that in three D and my wife had her
Speaker 3: glasses on instead of contexts, and she got such a
Speaker 3: raging headache. She felt like she couldn't see afterwards from
Speaker 3: the three D and I had to drive home, which
Speaker 3: is never a good thing. Maybe I'll go see this thing.
Speaker 3: I have no idea how this website works. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go work on this. Meanwhile, you have a great day.
Speaker 3: If you want more stuff to listen to or watch,
Speaker 3: check out all of her on demand content at Johnny
Speaker 3: don't Like dot Com, including the John Phillips Show, The
Speaker 3: News Splitz, and the Accountability Podcast. It's all there at
Speaker 3: Johnny Don't Like dot Com or Randy Wang Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2: CEA