Hey, everyone. It is ZacCast. I'm Chad Janacsek. I'm here with Patrick Lawler. Hey, Pat.

Hey, what's up?

Hey. So we just recorded our sales tax game day, and you had this bright idea that we should just talk because I'm a little bit loopy, uh, dealing with the, uh, second Moderna shot, and for some reason you find this funny. So it also has been a little while. Uh, you know, we didn't, we didn't get a chance to record last month, uh, anything. So-

So last month was, last month was crazy. Let's give a little background on, like, what's, what's been going on in life, right? So-

Yes

... like, why have... why did we not record last month? That's question one.

Okay. So, so, so we did record the sales tax game day for January. We actually recorded it three times. Every single time when we got done, there was no audio. So, uh, it... What would be really interesting is to actually, like, listen to the third version versus the first version, because we got really efficient at going through all those cities.

Sure. Yes.

I think the last one was, like, 15 minutes.

Yeah.

It was just super quick. Um, also, we were kind of irritated. But, uh, but since then, we've actually... I don't know about you, but basically my entire days have been just consumed with getting s- uh, property tax-

Correct

... rolled out for, uh, for ZachTax. So towards the end of last year, we, uh, we announced a new property tax module. Obviously, sales tax has kind of been our bailiwick, uh, but, uh, we're getting into property tax. And the problem with property tax is it's county by county, and every county has different data formats and different information that they provide. So, you know, you have to get all of that cleaned up and massaged before you can, uh, put it into some kind of standardized format that, that we will use. So, so basically my life for the past six weeks has been run through an entire county, get it all prepped and ready for the standardized format we've created, get everything imported into ZachTax, and then start over. Uh, I t- I told Patrick about two weeks into it, I was like, "I, I'm gonna have to find some other things that I can do just here and there."

Mm-hmm.

Because it's, uh, it's not menial work, but it is repetitive work.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, just taking data in X format and converting it to Y format is... it's just tedious. Um, but that's consumed most of my time. Uh, and then the second thing, which is I know what you wanna talk about, is that, uh, Patrick can see I am no longer in my office.

You got the, uh

We-

You got the boot.

I got the boot. So my wife is pregnant. She is due in about three months. And, uh, my office has been repurposed for the playroom, and our old playroom has been repurposed to my daughter's room. So temporarily, I am in the room that we kept the dogs when we would leave. So it's, uh, it's a bit smaller. It is cramped 'cause it has all of my stuff in boxes j- just, like, all around me. You can't actually see it because I have, uh, I have a blanket over them for acoustical treatments.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah, it's, it's just been crazy. So, uh, in addition to just being swamped with property tax stuff, 'cause, I mean, we've got, like, 30 or so cities that are, that are, uh, in our queue. Um-

Yes, so, so that's the big question. Let's, let's talk about that. So take a little while... Are you still there?

Oh, I'm still here.

Oh, sorry. I lost you there for a minute. So we go and we build property tax, which, a little bit of background about that. We always thought we would eventually build property tax, but would you say we weren't necessarily always enthused about building property tax? Mainly 'cause the data, right? 'Cause the data's different for every county. There's 254 counties in the state. Some of them all-

Yeah

... have different systems.

And, and the difference with property tax and sales tax is that property tax changes basically once a year.

Mm-hmm.

Right? You... Well, twice, I guess, technically. You get your preliminary values, and then you get your certified values. And of course, as arbitrations, uh, close out, you know, you'll have some adjustments here and there. You'll get, like, a f- a quote final certified in October, and then those things continue to work through the arbitration process, and, and you'll get weekly updates. But for all intents and purposes, you have your preliminary values in May and your certified values in July. So the question is: what can we do to make this system something that would be useful throughout the year as opposed to just... I mean, if all you need it for is two times a year, then theoretically you could just build some kind of reporting mechanism where you can just pull some information out. But that's not really what we do, so we wanted to actually create an analytical tool for you, uh, for property tax. And so, uh, that was always the big, uh, mental hurdle. Um, obviously there's the, the, there's the logistical hurdle of the different data sets, but our biggest challenge was how do we actually... like, what do we actually build if we wanna do this?

So, so I think because of that mental hurdle, I kinda took that mental hurdle and also maybe placed that onto our clients a little bit, right? Like, we have this mental hurdle with property tax, like we just, we just don't know how we're gonna make it useful. A- and to be clear, the... what we've built has become basically like a management tool. It's extremely useful. You get to see the health of your neighborhoods and different areas of your community and, and, you know, how property values are, are impacted by things you may be doing in those areas. I mean, there's a lot of real- a lot of cool stuff that we did build in there. And the, the analytics engine that we've built for property tax is incredible, uh, really, really good. But I think I took maybe that little bit of boredom when it comes to property tax and extended that or placed that on our clientele. And so we sent out an email where we announced, "Hey, we are really close to finishing property tax."And it's, you know, we're a little bit more excited than I thought we would be, and if you have an interest in this and you want us to add you to the waiting list to become a demo client, uh, and, and get on that list, let us know. What, 32 or 33 cities later, I think we are spinning the hamster wheel. Uh, you know, I call it the hamster wheel 'cause I, I tell Chad and, and pretty much everybody at Zac that when, when we go through phases like this, I feel like Chad is in a hamster wheel, and we are spinning him as fast as we possibly can. Um, and, and that's where we are right now with property tax. We, we've kinda hit the you can start to see the hole in the dam, right? Uh, we've, we've gotten a couple clients onboarded. We've standardized like three, two or three of the standard formats, and so things are happening faster. Like I'm, I'm about to reach out to, uh, to a client this week who we just got their data like two weeks ago, and things are happening quicker because we already had a standardized format for their data. Um, so things are, are looking up there, but I, I was pleasantly surprised that so many people were interested in property tax, and not only that, I was probably won over by the platform from a management perspective because you could actually see what was going on from a, from a 10,000-foot level with property values. You know, I think cities just get a top-line number, right? "Hey, we, we've got $5 billion in property value, and that's 2.4% growth from last year." We don't ever have a platform that tells us where that growth is occurring in the city, right? And, and now you, now we do, and so that's, that's been interesting.

Some appraisal districts are better than others in terms of giving you breakdowns, but for the most part, you're getting a high-level number. Values, exemptions, things like that, uh, and maybe it'll be broken down by property classification, you know, uh, residential, commercial, mineral, et cetera. Um, but yeah, it's ... What you get from the appraisal districts is very, very high level. So by pulling in the actual property-level data, you can get a much more robust view. But all that to say, uh, because this is not a sales platform for our stuff-

Correct. Yeah

... all that to say, uh, that's, that's been occupying my time. So how you been, Patrick?

I'm pretty good, man. Uh, you know, it's, it's been a, a little different, a little wild. Um, you know, most of my time has been occupied ... You, most folks don't ... So I'm no longer a practitioner in city government, but we do have a consulting agreement, uh, where we do some economic development consulting here in Parker County. Um, y- Parker County's a very fast-growing county in the state, and so I've been real busy with the EDC side stuff working over there, and that's been a lot of fun. Uh, it kinda keeps me in what I love to do there. And then on the software side, you know, really just data requests. So as, as much as Chad has been working on his end to do things with that data, I've been working directly with the appraisal districts to get the data itself, um, most of which want to charge us for that data even though we're working on behalf of a city that pays for their service. And so I've had to kinda negotiate out of those charges, which has always been successful pretty much of doing. Um, and, uh, and then, you know, obviously working with our sales tax. Sales tax is still growing for us. We're still signing clients every month. Um, and, and that's been real interesting. Uh, so yeah, I mean, just kinda talking the platform, I feel like we're getting out of a COVID funk a little bit. Um, you know, people are starting to take meetings again and have conversations, and, uh, managers are really starting to look at, okay, non-COVID-related issues, what's gonna happen in the future. I feel like I've talked to a lot of our economic development folks, EDC folks about, "Hey, we're negotiating a 380 or a 381 agreement. Um, you know, what does that, you know, what does this user generate in revenue?" Those type of questions, we're having a lot more of those over the past couple of weeks. So yeah, I, I would say things are very positive right now.

Speaking of things that are very positive, we're, uh, approaching the legislative session here in Texas.

Always a positive time.

What, what have you been hearing about the, uh, the Tex Leg, #TexLeg?

Yeah. So I mean, uh, there are a couple big-ticket items, uh, for cities that, you know, are discussion points. Um, I do stay in, in pretty constant contact with a lot of legislators in Austin, also some friends of mine that work in those offices. Uh, and, and I'll tell you, uh, you know, the, the biggest, I think the biggest city issues right now, um, there's a building materials bill that's, that's looking to go back to kinda give the authority of building materials back to cities. Um, I think we may have talked about that on a previous podcast or somewhere else, but, um, you know, we had kinda always figured that that wasn't gonna stay the way it was, like there would be some type of, uh, of legislation to fix that bill because it was so far reaching. Um, but the bill that's there now is, is only, it's been filed, and it only would give that authority back to cities of less than 25,000. Um, I think there's a big fight to give it to basically all the counties that are less than, like, a million and a half or a million. I mean, it's just, there's egg on everybody's face on that deal, and everybody's trying to figure out how do we roll that back. Um, and, and that's not just cities. That's also the same group of people who got it passed, like the builders associations, are also looking at that and saying, "Oh, I didn't realize that meant that some developer was gonna be able to put, you know, houses that are, you know, worth $50,000 or $60,000 less right next door to me with subpar materials." Uh, so yeah, there's been some-

So, so talk about the actual nuts and bolts of this for those of our listeners who aren't as familiar

Yeah. So last legislative session, last leg- legislative session, I, I wouldn't say it slipped through 'cause, uh, most of the organizations like TML and such had it in their legislative updates, but I would say everybody thought it was unlikely to pass. Uh, but kind of out of the Houston Builders Association group, there was legislation that was passed that came into cities and said, you know, cities are not allowed to prevent a material from being used in construction if it is approved in the codeWell, that's really far-reaching. Like, in, in, in the code it was defined as a lot of different codes. And so a- and the argument for this was a, was a valid argument. The argument was there are some cities out there that say, "I can only use a specific type of brick." Like, "I can only use the Acme Old Town brick." Well, Acme would sell that brick, and it was really expensive, right? Um, there were cities out there that said you could only use this plumbing manufacturer's, uh, piece in your sinks, right? And, you know, I've heard a s- a, a, a state senator use an example of a city council member's brother who manufactured that piece. Like, you know... But those were, uh, those were anomalies. Like, they didn't happen everywhere. Uh, and then you have some areas like you have beautiful cities like Fredericksburg and Granbury, Texas, who they have historic downtowns, and so they have historic preservation requirements for the use of, like, Granbury sto- chalk stone, right, on Granbury Square, and they don't necessarily have a historical overlay that gave them protections to that. So when it passed, I mean, I distinctly remember sitting down and having breakfast with a couple legislators after it passed, and I just said, "You're gonna go back and fix this." Like, they're like, "No, this is, this'll be fine. It'll be no big deal." And I said, "Y- you have no idea. At, at some point, some state senator is gonna have somebody build a barndominium next to him that's an all-metal building in a $1.5 million neighborhood, and it's gonna become a conservative issue." And that's what's happened. Uh, we, we've already seen that happen. Um, and, and you, you have conservative legislators that have already signed on as co-sponsors to, to try to roll this back. But they're trying to roll it back in the suburbs, uh, and so they've kind of divided and conquered on that one. The other big legislation piece that everybody's talking to, talking about was-

Interesting that they would choose those places.

Yeah, right.

Where they tend to live.

Where they tend to live and, and may love where they live. Um, the, probably the biggest conversation in the legislature right now when it comes to, um, bills that impact cities are what, what the state Republican Party calls taxpayer-funded lobbying and what, uh, the cities, school districts-

Talking about... You talking about police unions?

No. Yeah, right. Yeah, those too. Um, but what, uh, the, the public sector is now calling, uh, local censorship. That's the, that's the term that they're using, uh, for that. So, so we're seeing this bill. It was filed, uh, by Middleton. It was filed in the Senate by Senator Hall. Um, no offense to Senator Hall, but I'm just gonna be honest with you. Um, it's very rare that Senator Hall actually passes legislation. Um, it, it just... I mean, just looking at historical context here, I'm not saying anything's wrong with Senator Hall. I'm just saying it's really rare that he passes legislation. So it was, it was interesting that he was the person who filed it in the Senate. Um, I, I think most legislators are running away from this bill as quickly as they can because it, it has, it has really... could have some dire consequences. It could restrict chambers of commerce. It could restrict big, like Houston, uh, the Greater Houston Partnership and North Texas Commission and some of these organizations that are, are large business-backed lobbying groups that also have governmental partners. They're basically like PPPs. Um, and so it didn't pass in the last legislative session. Uh, in fact, it was, it was kinda killed through technicality. Uh, I don't know if it's gonna pass in this legislative session. I just don't think it is going to. If it does, it's gonna be in a really watered-down form. Just like the building materials bill, it's pro- probably its only chance of passing is if they try to, um, if they try to geographically cut it up, right? Like, this bill doesn't apply to any county of less than a million or a million and a half people. Uh, and they basically go after just the urbanized counties. Uh, but the, the reality is, is that legislators get annoyed with lobbying, and it's not n- it's not that they get annoyed with city council members and school board members. Uh, they get annoyed with the lobbyists that are, uh, that are hired by the larger communities, by the larger cities, right? Uh, they don't like the tactics. And, and I'm, I'm not saying this because I, I think it's untrue. I'm saying this because friends of mine that are in the legislature have said this. Um, and I trust them. I trust that, you know, sometimes those tactics are, that are used by the lobbyists are, are not friendly. Um, and so that's the kind of the undercurrent that's there. But at the same time, I think everybody realizes that they can't, um... You know, chambers are supported by public dollars. People don't realize that, but usually your upper level, like platinum, gold members of all chambers are cities, right, and large businesses, and then all your small businesses get the benefit of that. So cities would no longer be able to give their chamber of commerce under some of these stat, you know, some of this, uh, what's been proposed. Um, the North Texas Commission would have a hard time, you know, lobbying state issues, which is basically all they do. Um, so, so that's a big issue as well. Uh, the budget has miraculously become, like, a non-issue. Um, and on, on, on the budget itself, when the comptroller came out with his revised revenue projections, the, the Senate budget and the House budget are almost identical. The governor's proposal is pretty much gonna be identical as well. So I don't think we're gonna have a lot of argument on the budget, um, which leaves basically nothing for us to do in Austin. You're gonna have some local and consent bills, but if you, if you read what everybody's talking about, I think we're probably gonna have a legislative session of very little is, is the conversation. Um, I don't wanna go into too much and just, you know, take the whole conversation here, Chad, but the reality of it is, is that if you just look at the chairmanships that were given to the House, and you look at who was appointed to that, it just doesn't seem like they appointed people who would be able to get things done in the state legislature. No offense to those individuals, but there's a lot of junior representatives that have not had time to understand Texas politics that are now leading these committees. Um, and there's a lot of seasoned reps that got-... taken off of the commi- I wouldn't call it the shaft, I would just say they got taken off of these committees and are no longer there. And those are the individuals who actually know how the wheels turn in Austin. And so, and there's no reason for them to do anything because they're not on a committee that they have to show that they did anything. So it's, it's just gonna be a r- I, I think it's gonna be a very odd year, uh, in Austin. I think COVID has something to do with that. I think deep down inside, people just don't wanna be inside of the Capitol building during COVID.

I have a question for you.

Yeah.

I know that you love commas, but how do you feel about the Oxford comma?

So the Oxford comma, is that the one that you-

So what's your p- what is your take

... use every time you pause?

No. So the Oxford comma is, say you have a list, like I'm going to the store to get milk, comma, eggs, comma, and butter. That last comma before the and is the Oxford comma.

I utilize the Oxford comma.

So I'm a big fan of the Oxford comma because it helps with clarity.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but there was actually a lawsuit that recently got settled and, uh, so the headline here is, "Oxford comma dispute is settled as Maine drivers get $5 million." So basically, uh, the state of Maine had a provision in its, in its law that said, it had defined how certain types of industries can get overtime, what they get overtime for, and because there was a lack of an Oxford comma, the clause was ambiguous. So these truck drivers sued for overtime that they thought that they should get, where their employers obviously didn't. The, the language says, "The canning," comma, "processing," comma, "preserving," comma, "freezing," comma, "drying," comma... This is gonna be terrible, uh, radio, but that's okay. "Marketing," comma, "storing," comma, "packaging for shipment or distribution of," and then it lists out a couple things, right? So the fact that there's no comma after packaging for shipment, the statute could be interpreted as packaging, uh, for shipment or distribution of these things. Um, so because there was no comma, it left open the interpretation of whether distribution was separate from the packaging for distribution.

So clearly that judge was a fan of the Oxford comma.

Uh, well, I mean, one would... The, the problem is not that you have to be a fan of the Oxford comma, it's just acknowledging that it does make things more clear. Um, my favorite example of this is... Okay, so this is... I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna throw it out there. Here's a sentence, and the meaning is totally changed based on the placement of the Oxford comma, okay?

Nerd alert.

We invited, we invited the strippers, comma, JFK, comma, and Stalin. What do you think of when you hear that? We invited JFK, Stalin, and the strippers, right?

Okay.

Now, we invited the strippers, comma, JFK and Stalin, implies that JFK and Stalin are the strippers. Right? So, like, the meaning is totally changed by the lack of that Oxford comma. A- any- anyway...

The, the, the most nerdy thing you've ever talked about.

Oh, no way.

Come on.

Not at all.

So-

Anyway, I, I had that, I had that in my list of things that, to, uh, that I thought was interesting, so I thought I'd throw that out there since we're just kind of off the cuff right now.

Correct. A- and let's, let's get back to the, the thing that is real important for this call. Why did you get the boot from your office? So you built a beautiful office at your house when you, when you moved out of, of our office, right?

Mm-hmm.

And you moved home. Built a beautiful office, and you've now officially gotten the boot, and you're basically in the dog room.

Yes. Yeah, so, uh, so last April we adopted a, a newborn.

Mm-hmm.

And about, what, three months later, we found out we were pregnant. So, uh, we had everything kind of lined up for the three kids.

Mm-hmm.

And the addition of a fourth child kind of threw everything out of whack. So, uh, my... I used to have an office upstairs. It was next to, um, a, a playroom for the kids. And so rather than just go, you know, do away with the playroom and convert that into another bedroom, uh, we decided to convert my office to a playroom. So now I am without an office.

So now you are officially without an office. So me looking at your screen right now, you have your standard nerd board for soundproofing, and then you have blankets covering boxes at the back corner.

Right.

Are you gonna put these boxes in a storage facility at some point? What, what's the plan with these?

No. Um, we're gonna have to build something. Uh, so I live on, uh, I live in a neighborhood where, uh, you can build metal buildings.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so we're probably gonna build a garage/office-

Mm-hmm

... building. Um, I, I'll brick it to make it look, you know, like the house, but I, I'm going through the process right now of getting quotes and trying to get that s- set up so I can actually have a, a real office space once again.

So when you have your fifth kid, you'll get kicked out of that building.

No, this is gonna be the last one officially.

Uh-huh.

Yeah. We're taking measures to, to ensure that.

So, so I, I, I think it's really... So I, I, I talked to Chad yesterday. I'm like, "Hey, man, uh, need to chat. What are you doing?" He's like, "They're painting the door in my office. Uh, I can't talk right now."

Yeah, so you can see the door. It used to be, uh-

Yeah, it looks, it looks very cleanly painted

... it used to have, like, it used to be like a, a windowed door.

Oh, okay.

So, but because this was the dog room, the dogs, since they could see out of it-

Uh-huh

... uh, anytime anything would catch their fancy, they would start jumping and scratching the door, so that door was just trashed.

Yeah.

So we replaced it with a new door, and then finally got around to getting it painted.

Nice. It looks good. It looks real good.

Yeah.

So happy to get back to doing a podcast.Happy to get back to hanging out. Can we talk a little bit about your obsession right now with daily podcasts, daily news podcasts? You've sent me, like, five of these in the past two weeks.

I wouldn't necessarily call it an obsession, but I guess last Monday there was a coup in Mi- in Burma, uh, AKA Myanmar, and I was just thinking all of the news treatments are somewhat superficial, and it would be really cool if there was some kind of, uh, resource where, like audio, primarily a podcast, where they may just, like, take an issue that's going on that day and do, like, a really deep dive.

Mm-hmm.

Like, here's the history of, of Myanmar, and this is why the coup, you know, matters, and this is why it happened, and yada, yada, yada. Because I, I don't know anything about Myanmar, so, uh-

The only thing I know about Myanmar is, is that, uh, I believe that's where Gabe Reyon, the city manager of Saginaw, he did, like, an ICMA trip there to help them like-

Did he go to Myan- Is that where it was?

I think so, yeah. So-

Yeah. So, uh, so I found a handful. The, the New York Times daily podcast is, is actually pretty good. It's not exactly what I was looking for, but, um, they do it ... So I have several podcasts that just kinda talk about, like high level, here are the news items of the day.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but the, the daily by the New York Times is a little bit more of a deep dive onto certain issues. But w- I didn't really want political discussion. Mainly, I was just looking for something that would give, like, historical context to whatever's going on.

Okay.

For, for certain things that, you know, I just don't have that background on.

Interesting.

So I found a few. I'm listening to them. Uh, I tend to put them on after I drop the kids off at daycare, and then, uh, by the time I get home, like the first 30, 45 minutes of work, I'm, I'm through those.

What other pressing-

Do you listen-

What other-

Do you listen to anything while you work?

Uh, I do occasionally. I listen to, like, some of the SAS podcasts. You know-

You're on the phone a lot more than I am.

I am on the phone six hours out of nine hours a day probably. So-

That's just, that's my nightmare.

Yeah. I know. But, I mean, to be fair, if, if you were on the phone that long, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be successful. So, I mean, basically we do lock you up in a dungeon for, you know, eight to 12 hours a day, listening to podcasts and watching TV while you code.

Speaking of which, uh, you should watch Ted Lasso. I- We just finished it yesterday, and it's a really good show. Um-

Is that on Netflix or what?

No, it's on Apple TV+.

Okay.

So apparently this is some character that Jason Sudeikis created within, uh, NBC.

Okay.

And so they would just do, like, comedic promos and stuff, uh, several years ago, and they've revamped it into an actual show. And the premise is this is a college football coach from Kansas who gets hired to go be a soccer coach for a Premier League team in London. He doesn't know anything about soccer. Um-

Okay.

But the, uh, sort of the gist is that the owner is recently divorced. The only thing she got from the divorce was the team, and her hu- her ex-husband, like, that was his pride and joy. So it's kind of a major league thing where she's trying to run it into the ground.

Okay.

Uh, and so she hires Ted Lasso, who obviously has no background in, in soccer or, or football, as it's called everywhere else in the world.

Mm-hmm.

But it was ... It's good. It's a good show. There's, uh ... It's not really about soccer so much, although it kinda takes place in the world of soccer and the Premier League. But, uh, that's, that's sort of tangential. It's mostly just about him navigating this transition, going through some stuff on his, uh, in his own personal life. But he's just a really good person.

Okay.

And he kind of makes everyone else around him better people. So it's a little bit sappy at times, but, uh, I mean, it's a comedy, but there's, there's, uh, some serious stuff in there too. But I al- I mean, I always like the, like Rudy and, you know, all those, those sports shows where, like, the underdog kinda has the opportunity to, uh, to do well.

Yeah. So continuing on randomness, do you trade in any type of, like, memorabilia, or do you collect anything?

Like sports memorabilia?

Correct. Yeah.

Not really. I mean, I have, I have some stuff like, uh, you know, some ... I have a signed baseball from Nolan Ryan. I've got some stuff from old school Rangers, like, uh, uh, Rafael Palmeiro and Julio Franco. Like, like, you know those little toy bats you can get?

Uh-huh.

I got a couple of those. Um, but not, not really. I don't do a ton of that.

So I, I, I bring this up because I ran across a story, and I'll try to find it for the show notes, the, the first story was Luka Dončić, who plays for the Mavericks-

Mm-hmm

... his rookie card, okay, this is a current player, his rookie card just sold for $750,000.

That's crazy, 'cause he's only been playing ... It's like this is his second or third year.

Correct. Correct.

I'll tell you what I did find recently, speaking of rookie cards. Uh, I was doing some cleanup, and, uh, and d- I have, from my childhood, just hordes and hordes of baseball cards, 99% of which are worthless. So I was just going through and trying to find out if I had any good ones. I found a Derek Jeter, Derek Jeter rookie card.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Uh, that's probably actually worth something. Have you checked eBay to see if it's on there or-

I have not checked it, but I d- I did keep it.

Okay. So I, I, a- as we're sitting here, I'm checking that on eBay. Uh, eBay, Derek-

Yeah, let me go, let me go find it so you can see which, which one it is

... Jeter rookie card.

Uh, it's a temporary casualty of my office relocation. It's in a box somewhere. But I did find a signed Anfernee Hardaway card.

That's not gonna get you much money.

I know. So the, the main reason why I don't dabble in sports memorabilia is because, I mean, when I got this, like, he was fresh off of losing to the Rockets in the NBA finals.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, "Oh man, he's ... I love, like, he's ... You know, I love Penny."So I found it, bought it, and now it's like 10 bucks maybe. Like, y- you know, you just never o- you don't really know if it's gonna be worth the investment in 15, 20 years.

So-

So by the time you know if it's worthwhile, it's, it's too expensive to buy.

So if you have the right Derek Jeter card, so if you have the 1993 SP PSA, sorry, SP Foil number 279 card, you're looking at upwards of $40,000 for his rookie card.

Guarantee I don't have that one.

Yeah. So I'm just, I, I'm pointing out that it is wild how much it sells for. So I can-

It is in mint condition, though.

So I, I understand. So I, I'm asking you 'cause you are my resident nerd. I can understand baseball cards, okay? But let's jump to something crazier. Pokemon cards. Okay?

Okay.

A story on Nintendo Life-

Uh, do your kids, are they ever get into Pokemon?

Oh, Sutton loves Pokemon.

Okay.

And it's, ah, I can't, I can't handle it. It's-

My oldest got into it for about six months, and-

Okay

... he, he, he has, so we actually use Pokemon as a way to help him, uh, stay behaved at school.

Uh-huh.

Like, if he got his sticker chart filled out for the week, then he could get a Pokemon, like, stuffed animal.

Okay.

So he has hoards of those. And I got him some Pokemon cards for Christmas, but by the time I actually... like, Christmas rolled around, he was already kinda out of that phase.

Okay. So my, my kids like it because they get, like, you know, characters, and they play, like, Pokemon with the cards. And it reminds me a lot of, uh, what did we play when we were kids? Like Pong, where we had like a-

POG?

POG. Yeah.

Oh, man. I loved POG.

Yeah. I didn't. But I had nerdy friends like you that did. So anyways, this student who's going to law school, I believe it's law school, he sold $80,000 worth of his Pokemon card collection to pay for university. Come on.

It's a pretty good deal.

But what i- what, what's cool about Pokemon cards?

Well-

You get a super Charizard and a Pikachu, and you're like, "Those are-"

A mega Charizard.

But yeah.

So the, the thing about... I mean, there, it's the rarity, I assume, is what causes the price to increase for those cards. Now, if you think about it, there's no functional difference between a, a, you know, a Derek Jeter rookie card, which is just a little piece of st- cardstock with some dude's picture on it, and that happened to come from a specific year, and maybe an ultra-rare Pokemon card that there's only, like, 10 of, right? I mean, what is the... Other than s- maybe some sentimental value if you're a, a Yankees fan.

I mean, like, yeah.

It's literally, it's just a piece of cardstock.

Can, can we just say, though, like, it's a child's game. I don't understand it. We're gonna have-

I'm not, I'm not justifying it. I'm just saying that-

We're gonna have so many nerd clients who are gonna send me emails on this, and, like, I don't understand why you don't like Pokemon, man.

I, I guarantee you will not get a single comment about- ... criticizing you for not liking Pokemon.

Nobody's gonna come out and say, like, "I'm a Pokemon fan"?

Uh, so over the holidays, we had, uh, we had, uh, some family come in, and so, you know, after we had all of our COVID tests and everything, uh, so they came to visit us for a couple days. And one thing that we always like to do with them is play, uh, board games.

Mm-hmm.

It's, like, the only time that we ever play board games, which is unfortunate, 'cause I kinda like them, and I have several that I really wanna play. Uh, but I can just never play them. So anyway, we had this game called Bye Felicia, which was actually pretty fun. Uh, and basically you get, uh, you get, like, a topic, and then everyone has to write down everything they can think of about that topic that they think other people will write down.

Okay.

And the first time that you say something that no one else has, everyone has to say, "Bye, Felicia" to you, and g- you're gone for that round.

Interesting.

Right.

Okay.

There, there's a lightning round where you'll just have a topic, like boy bands, right? And you just go around the list.

NSYNC.

As soon as you can't come up with a response, you're out, right?

Right.

So we got a lightning round with Pokemon, and Jessica and I lasted, like, four or five Pokemons in. Like, I had a couple of, uh, s- more obscure ones, because we used to have to listen to the PokeRap on the way to school every day, right?

The Poke ...

So I got, I can kinda sing some of them. But my, uh, Jessica's cousin and her husband, they went on for, like, like, 10 minutes, just rapid fire back and forth with all these Pokemon. I was like, "You guys are the biggest nerds I have ever seen." And that's coming... Like, uh, that means a lot coming from me.

That's correct, yes, 100%. So I, I don't mean to offend all the Pokemon fans out there, but I just don't see why a Pikachu card is worth that much money.

Yeah.

Just-

I, I, I don't. You'll get no disagreement.

Yep. So interestingly enough. Uh, man, I think we probably ought to wrap it there. As random as that-

On Pokemon

... uh, yeah, on Pokemon, as random as that was.

Yeah, anytime this podcast veers towards Pokemon, you know it's time to call it quits.

It, it's, it's time to call it, call it for a day. So, um, but hey, I'm happy just to kinda get back, talk about kinda current events, things that are g- going on, some crazy things about Pokemon cards, uh, and, and catch up.

All right, man. Well, uh, until next time.

Till next time. Thanks, Chad.

See ya.